Monks

"poking around inside my mind, making my psychosis come of age..."

This story was the first one I ever got published. It was in God’s Cruel Joke Literary Magazine (check out the zine if you get a chance), and the editor, Lee Pearson, saw something in it that he liked. Lee Pearson is a great supporter of subversive, alternative, ‘weird’ lit, and an all ‘round good human being.

Monks also features in my short story collection, which if you get a chance check out here.

In the mean time, I hope you enjoy the narrative delirium!

Monks

Worm moon… the wriggling creatures pushing through the soil, out of hibernation at the last throes of winter. We drain the whiskey. Me, Chucky, Steady, blasted… bored. Looking for somewhere to tie off the noose of the night. The moon is lighting everything up, every nook of the darkness, a spotlight on a cop car - a UFO maybe. Chucky waves the joint around and up at the moon, like an offering, and Steady can’t stop laughing – hee-hawing – like its compulsive. Chucky’s lighting it up, dragging on it ‘til he bursts, coughing and spluttering, and he passes it round ‘cause it’s the best shit he’s ever tasted. Nodding and grinning, smoke pouring, wrapping up the moon, straight from his brain through all the holes in his face. The smell is ancient, tribal. I take a drag… a mallet to the back of the head, eyes pinched together, full of tears, watching the joint paper burn as I pull on it like a limp dick on fire. Steady finishes it, and he’s laughing and laughing. He doesn’t speak much for anyone, but he can laugh. And the sounds of nature are amplified, crystal clear, you can almost taste them on the tip of your tongue. I can hear the buzzing of the cicadas, electric bulbs misfiring, spluttering out of life, and the wind is blowing across the park, catching in the trees around the edge, pushing against my face. We sing a song that has never existed before, maybe never should have. It’s catchy as fuck, and we’ll be singing it for days. Gets under the folds in the brain like the moon worms.

I’m feeling it now - my vision’s changing, shape shifting. The moon has hung itself in one of the trees – astral suicide. Chucky’s a mystic man, dancing and bobbing his head. He pulls a porno mag from the back of his jeans he stole from his dad. Flicking through it. Showing Steady the leather flesh muffs and the rock-hard fake titties, suspended like floating boulders from the model bent over a shag rug. What a perm! The magazine showing its age. But it’s serviced a lot of people I bet, and you can’t argue about that. Covered in Chucky’s dad’s jizz stains – from his sticky fingers – passed down to a new pervert generation. Chucky sets it on fire with his lighter, just casually from the edge. A slow burn at first. His eyes are wide, watching the perm burn, the rock tits with the scar at the bottom, the pussy lips. The fire eating her whole. And Steady is guffawing like a hyena in a hellscape. His face is long now, teeth all the way from the bleeding gums to the snout tip. Those purple, bruised gums, a fuck awful toothache.

So, Steady’s a fucking moon wolf now, no… a moon hyena, wearing one of those big head masks at Mardi-gras. Chucky’s a dancing clown, and he likes to watch women burn, even if they are just cum stained pictures in a magazine. And me? I’m a totem. Dead still. Hit hard by the weed, the anxie-tea building in my chest, my head full of moon worms. I can’t taste anything – maybe burnt ash, and I’m out of cigarettes, so I can’t calm down. But on the outside, I’m a totem pole. The wind doesn’t move me.

Now the monks climb like opossums. From a distance, I see them crawling up and around the moonlit tree, slowly, stoically, in meditation. The ones on the ground have their hands pressed together in prayer, and they’re all covered in thick fur. I can’t see their faces, just black holes in empty hoods. And I’m worried, the totem is swaying. They’re praying for me – maybe Chucky too. Not Steady. He’s too far gone. I start walking at first, then I’m jogging. These fuckers are drawing me in. And I can hear the silence as Steady stops laughing and I know Chucky is scratching his head, ‘cause these monks are mine, no one else’s. It’s just a moon in a tree after all. Or maybe it’s something else for them and it just doesn’t mean anything - a bow of hanging dildos or a gaping wood knot cunt. Doesn’t mean shit to anyone. Just fucking weird. But the monks… they are calling me in. So, I hear the call and now I’m running, and I don’t look back, but I know Chucky and Steady are following. The monks are close. I have their attention. Stupefied monk men. I reach out to touch one of them and the balance of the universe shifts, my eyes clunk down, an old wooden door latching shut. The moon is gone for a fragment of time I can’t explain, maybe instantaneous and infinite all at once. I feel Chucky’s hand on my arm and my eyes snap open. Nothing. Just a tree with the corpse of the worm moon dangling off its bow. The monks are gone.

“Did you see that, Chucky?”

“See what?”

“The monks… in the tree. They were calling for me.”

“Monks? What kind of monks?”

“Like, Franciscan or some shit.”

“Well… if they were San-Franciscan, I hear those boys really know how to party.”

Grinning motherfucker. I can’t help but grin too. Chucky puts his arm around me, and we all head back to his Mum’s place. Three bugs crawling back to their hole, the creatures of the worm moon. The three of us sleep in the lean-to – nobody would bother us there. I can see the worm moon through the opaque slits on the wall. That’s where they went – I bet – those fuckers. Moon monks crawling down to the park at the end of winter, poking around inside my mind, making my psychosis come of age. I look up at the worm moon, the little monk men crawling across its surface. “Pray for me,” I whisper. But all I hear is the inner workings of my monastic silence.