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A crinkle beneath the eye of someone who passes you by on the street, crinkles we have come to recognise as the effect of a genuine smile. Pleasantries, albeit phatic, all around. Niceties are nice, and niceness is nice… And nice, nice, nice… I am nice. But fuck me, I’ll never be one of them. They’re the same as every other fucker on the planet. They get mad, they get rude, they’re mostly passive-aggressive, but as long as they can smile and ask “how’s it goin’?” when they catch you off-guard in the morning trying to fumble a couple of coins to get your coffee, they’re nice.
I wish I could be them, the guy walking down the street with his headphones on, nodding his head along to the music conspicuously and singing too, although I don’t know how audible he was, as I was sitting in a bus, on the other side of the road… I want to be him. I like the airily ignorant ramblings of the people. The lack of self-awareness, the peppiness. But if I became them, I couldn’t point out The Great Canadian Lie: They’re not nice, they just smile and ask “how’s it goin’?” a lot.
Canadian utilitarianism was at its finest when Frank couldn’t believe I wanted to buy him a coffee. We’d not seen each other this semester because of class schedules. I’m from a culture of overtly self-aware, and painfully voyeuristic people, a cynic who cultivated a sense of meta-awareness of my own predisposed cynicism, which is ingrained in most Indian youth. But Frank here was giving me some stiff competition. He only really believed I was serious about buying him that coffee when he was almost done with it, and got comfortable around me. “There’s this Egyptian girl I…” That’s my cue to cut this conversation short and leave. I don’t know if I’m nice. I lied earlier. Maybe I bought him coffee to prove to someone, you or I, I don’t know, that I am nice. But it would’ve been nicer to listen to him talk… About things. Canadians aren’t very bright. Pussy, shoes; rinse, repeat. Cutting-edge, my words, I know what I sound like. Aspiring Camus, more like Tao Lin. But this goes somewhere, I promise. Just give me some time and don’t leave me to myself. We’ll be elsewhere in twenty minutes, and I will grow on you.
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Through reeded bars of a cell too cold, a smile. It is a glowing, warm smile. Familiar, like the face of a mother, and distant, like the errant patriarch. Down a downspout: blood, metallic, dark blood. But blue. Like the tears of a horsehoe crab and its dew leaked from its mouth on a shore, a desolate shore, on a beach. On the raping surf. Every drop waters a wire. Through the stamen of a signal, a butterfly’s spur draws the wind in tempt of birth. Down the stamen of red cords, the pollen is sifted and stored. It is made through the sun and produces monoxide.
There are no gables to the rooms. There are equilateral axioms made remotely by manless men and automated wagons. How the droshskies have fallen. Every corner screams for some sort of freedom. One corner is hung over a skyline. It faces the impasse of a constraining sky. It defies a God mad. It weeps at the sight of birds. Alas, there are no gutters for weeping corners, only IV’s of plastic that pump white or the petrichor of the mocking rain.
>>9660064
Crinkle is certainly not the word you want there. Vulgar language kills the relatedness for me personally. Ending was nice though
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>>9660220
Aesthetic AF
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>>9660220
this is the worst prose ever written
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>>9660064
They, them, Canadians, and Frank
I don't like it and had to stop reading it. I'm sorry
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>>9660241
Not writing Moby Dick. Writing an experimental work that is rigid on the paper but taut in meaning. Harsh to the eyes but soft to the tongue
I don't know, maybe someone here reads experimental stuff.
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>>9660220
.
The port of Algiers bustled with activity. Each of its corners, from the ceilinged bazaars to the rooftop gardens, were peopled with all walks of life. Tradesmen in turbans hawked wares from their storefronts, mothers in hijabs watched children from their doorways, and carpenters in almost nothing at all worked on half-hulled pirate ships.
Masses on masses of people. So many of them that hardly a soul noticed the Venetian merchantman drop anchor in port. Just as well, thought Domingo. He cared little whether or not they saw him. All of his mind was bent on one and only one valiant aim - until some sailor spoiled the moment.
“You’ve got me and my crewmates talking,” came a sidelong voice. There stood a sailor who had to tilt his head up to meet Domingo’s eyes. Being a head taller than most men, Domingo did his usual decline of the chin to regard the sailor. “Settle a bet for us,” said the windburnt seaman. “We figured it either takes a stupid man with money or an even stupider man with loyalty to conscript a voyage this far from home. So which one is it?”
With nary a glance, Domingo sloped his voice robustly, “Neither hit the mark, not at all. Moreover, loyalty does not make one… stupid.”
“Oh no? Then what brings you to these waters? Captain’s been sealing his lips tight as a clam.”
“As he should,” deflected Domingo. “Now if you don’t mind-“
“Might I have some of that?” He pointed a crooked finger at the canteen hooked to Domingo’s belt.Domingo pawed it protectively. “Can’t you just get some of your own off port?”
The sailor shook his head. “It’ll be a dry run all the way homeward. We’re heading out as soon as the wind permits. No sense lingering in these corsair-infested waters any longer than we must.”
Corsairs were the least of the Domingo’s concerns. Still, some part of him gloried in the idea of braving those dangers feared by lesser men. The rest of him wished the sailor would go away. So he unhooked his canteen and handed it over.
The sailor halted mid-sip to remark, “Gads, man! This thing is nearly empty! I thought you filled it just this morning.”
“That I did,” growled the Domingo. He then yanked the canteen from the sailor’s fingers and added, “Perhaps I should provision it better.” Without another word, he debarked from the barge and set foot into a separate world from his own. A world of adventure, he fancied. A proving grounds.
The first of his trials was to find temporary lodgings. This seemed simple from the start, especially since the captain was kind enough to recommend one such establishment. However, Domingo discovered that navigating the district was no easy feat.
Twice he found himself at the same whitewashed street-corner. By the third time, he used it as a landmark for guidance. One sunburnt scalp later, he happened upon his destination.
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>>9660254
The idea behind critique threads isn't to talk about our literary tastes. There isn't a single piece of writing in the world that is revered by all. Everyone likes and dislikes. However, that isn't the point of threads like these.
You don't get what's written? Fine. Don't bitch about it. "I don't like it" isn't what I'm asking for.
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>>9660254
Canadian detected
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>>9660342
On the contrary I'm not bitching, you are. It's not good. Period. It must suck to be so sensitive. Don't put it out there if you can't handle opinions of your own work.
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>>9660276
Not a professional but I enjoyed it.
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I would like to wake up different. In my short years I've already grown tired and bored of my own thought. I would not be expected to endure any other person's presence for this long, but I am trapped with me for good. Truth be told, I would love to wake up as a different animal altogether, to live a short and simple life that ends quickly and violently.
Maybe a rat. I could live in the market, eat food remnants and fuck until the day I am caught in a cat's mouth or under the wheels of an apathetic trolley.
Perhaps a sparrow. I will fly and pirouette in the air and scream with delight as long as the sun shines, only for a raven to hear my joy as a call for supper. It will pierce my tender body with its' claws and burst open my skull with its' shiny black beak that would get stained with my brains and viscera.
Or even a deer. I will frolic in the vast woods of North America and fight others for mates every spring, just to end up in the front windshield of a truck, or to be surprised to find a .308 lodged deep behind my eye.
But I will wake up as myself, and I will stumble my way through the ceaseless burst of humanity and my last breath will be a sigh of relief.
>>9660064
I don't like it. It feels a bit like i'm being spoon-fed observations and having social norms explained to in an unoriginal way.
Not that I'm any better.
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