The day starts badly enough, then gets worse. Jake turns up for work at the normal time, gets invited to a meeting, turns out the meeting is with the dreaded HR dragon-person, proceeds in the normal way, first the little speech, then the inevitable "Give me your access card. You've got fifteen minutes to leave the building."
Jake packs up his things, his personal stuff. slinks out of office, succeeds in not meeting anyone he knows on the way out. Calls partner's cellphone --- get voicemail. Does not leave message. Upset and flustered. Buys pack of cigarettes. Hasn't smoked in ten years but lights one up now. Walking at random through the city. Comes to Park, sits down on Park Bench.
Starts thinking about himself, his life. His failures. Blames himself bitterly. For everything that has gone wrong in his life. Dwells upon the mistakes, bad choices, unsound judgement, inadequacies, etc.
Homeless person approaches the bench. Shaggy. Shabby. Dirty. Smelly. Unusual eyes. Man aged somewhere between 20 and 50.
"Don't be too hard on yourself," the Homeless Person says to Jake, "Most of it was my doing, the screw ups in your life, I mean."
NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously illustrated by over 20 grotesque images you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.
AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Vot could be Verse?) We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.
MANIC MEMES & OTHER MINDSPACE INVADERS A disturbing repository of quotably quirky quotes, sayings, proverbs, maxims, ponderances, adages and aphorisms. This menagerie holds no fewer than 184 memes from eight meme-species perfectly adapted to their respective environments.
MASTRESS & OTHER TWISTED TAILS, ILLUSTRATED: an unholy corpus of oddities, strangelings, bizarritudes and peculiaritisms
FIENDS & FREAKS Adults-only Tales of Serpents, Dragons, Devils, Lobsters, Anguished Spirits, Gods, Anti-gods and Other Horse-thieves You Wouldn't Want to Meet in a Dark Kosmos: 4th Edition
HAGS TO HAGGIS Whiskey-soaked Tails of War-nags, Witches, Manticores and Escapegoats, Debottlenecking and Desilofication, Illustrated
Interesting....I do hope you'll continuethe story. Don't leave me hanging in limbo!
Peace, Light and Love,
C.
HI Cordie, great to hear from you. Thanks for your comment --- I've actually mapped out the main storyline and characters. All I gotta do now is find time to write it! Which doesn't sound too hard given that I'm unemployed. Except of course finding work is the most time consuming thing of the lot!
Who can this smelly stranger be?
Losing your job sure can throw you for a loop.
COMMENTS? Come on... gimme your best shot!