Part Three

The whiskey bottle, no more than five feet away, dry heaving a terrible laugh, smoking, fucking my happiness, a long black haired Indian woman who may never know I exist, fixed its filthy eyes on mine. I felt the dirty grey hair on the back of my neck shiver then stand straight up. I need control.

Part two

In a strenuous act of kindness, I smiled. A bi-polar mind riddled with confusion and doubt, the hatred, like static, clinging to the bones of a fool, I sat there. The reminder of a cyclical existence, plagued by repetition, I sat there and I couldn’t move.

Granted

Last night a Korean woman named Toyota granted me happiness for the rest of my life. This happened after she tilted her head sideways like a dog and said, "Fuck you", because I asked for success first. The boyfriend told me Toyota had a straight path to the angels and after she fell into a strange hypnotic state, twisted her hands around like a fortune teller reading a crystal ball, chanted something unintelligible and blew the remainder of her breath in my direction I thought, crap, could this be for real or is it the scotch they're feeding me? After this soulful woman of the earth, sun and holy moon casually tossed her lit cigarette in the ocean I thought, shit, for a second I was going to be happy forever.

Get it.

Off with religion's head and stifle the celebration of celebrities.

Part one

The light casting off my candle shimmered the faint idea of a devil staring back at me. My breath was cold and audible. A shot of whiskey sounded good.

b l a h

Remember the child riding the dull colored bike around in circles, the occupant in the back of an aging mind. Trying to shut the door on this person will leave life a spiraling mess of resentment tinged with aggression bordering depression. The good fight is living out this time free to express and with the energy to go out and play. Life's repetitions will shine its horrid face one night after drinking and from there the situation needs to be dealt with, otherwise precious character traits will be lost and replaced with ones that just get you by.

Drawings

Some illustrations by Brad Holland for Shel Silverstein's The Devil & Billy Markham

Yar

Sometimes, you just have to whack someone with a stick.

-Synco

First Day

My first day back to school proceeded along smoothly. Biology will be interesting, especially with a young balding teacher, who sported a Hawaiian button up and cracked laughable jokes most of the period. My college algebra teacher says, "anywho" and refers to free items as, "free ninety nine". I was also pleased to hear that I won't have to memorize any math formulas this time around. My biology lab hours cruised by, but started off sketchy. I realized going in that this class would be mostly group participation, so I forced a smile and readied myself to deal with kids ten years younger than I. A few minutes in, a feller of 40 or so casually strolled on in and interrupted the class by forcing his name on the teacher in a tone folks could hear down the hall. She politely responded that roll hasn't been taken yet, but he continued with the spelling anyways. Of course he had to stumble into the chair next to me and without any hesitation invaded the personal bubble so many people have talked about, his fisherman hat was cool, but I moved over anyway. As he sat down he looked at me and the girl across the table and in the same decibel as before, informed us that he's waiting for his mom to give him money so that he could purchase his books. The only thing that came to mind in that moment was, "COOL", so I said it and turned around. Ah...beginnings.

-Synco

Whiskey

The first time I tried whiskey I was six and living in Corona. My father told me to fetch his glass, which was just out of his reach. In doing so I stole a sip. I guess the face I made was punishment enough. Acquired tastes are more pure anyways.

-Synco

Schooled

There's anticipation, but also a sense of fear and guilt the day before I start a new semester of school. I'm anticipating the chance to learn something new, something to share, but I'm fearing failure and feeling guilty because I should have succeeded a long time ago.

-Synco

Testing one, two.

This one is a test.