How to Avoid Sex (16 page)

As the group were taking their seats, I tried to find a spot next to Linda, but she insisted on avoiding me. Thankfully, by the time I had started writing, any feelings of rejection had dissolved into nothingness.

While writing, I could feel myself sinking deeper into strange bliss. Memories of the life I’d lived up to this point were beginning to dissipate like smoke from a quenched fire. None of this scared me. It empowered me. The only fear I now possessed was the inevitable end to the current writing session.

When the end arrived, I felt like crying. Looking around the room, it was clear I wasn’t the only one. Some members from the group were openly weeping. Each clutched their paper close. I looked for Linda, eager to share the moment with her. She was gone.

…

I found her perched awkwardly in a tree, caressing a dishevelled robin. I traversed the tree to join her, falling several times in the process. She steadfastly avoided eye contact and although this annoyed me, I admired the stubbornness involved. We sat silently for a while, adjusting to the presence of the other. The itch to write ‘shoes’ kept threatening to steal my focus, but I managed to keep it at bay.

Linda eventually broke the silence by asking why I didn’t listen to her. I didn’t have an answer. She didn’t push for one. Instead she tightened her grip on the robin and started scratching the word ‘shoes’ into the tree truck with its beak. I envied her makeshift writing implement and cursed myself for not having one of my own. I fumbled for a cigarette, manoeuvred it to my mouth and managed to light it without falling from the tree. I inhaled hard, watching the glowing, orange tip as I did. An idea occurred. Rather than wrestle with the appropriateness of the idea I simply acted.

I removed the cigarette from my mouth and began burning the word ‘shoes’ into my arm in painful, ash-ridden circles. My weak body gave birth to pathetic wails. Linda snapped her head, saw what I was doing and leapt at me. I instinctively flinched and watched as she fell from the tree. The cracking sound her body made as it hit the ground inspired a mouthful of vomit, which I swallowed uncomfortably. I flicked the cigarette away and slid down the tree. The rough, barky surface tore the skin from my palms.

I scrambled toward Linda’s body, which considering the brevity of her fall, was badly broken up. She coughed up a rope of blood and stared at me. The word ‘shoes’ danced across her bulging eyeballs. It looked beautiful and I wanted to dive in. My reverie was cut short by Linda’s hand, which clenched my collar and pulled me close. Through floating bubbles of blood she thanked me for releasing her. With the gravest tones I’ve ever heard, she then warned that there was no escaping for me – that I was already trapped. The gurgled words concluded with the explosion of Linda’s unremarkable head. Thousands of tiny, bloody shoes rained down upon me, coating my body and blinding my sight.

I didn’t notice the fire that my flicked cigarette butt had started until it was much too late. It was disposed of without thought and I wasn’t to know it had flown through an open window. My eyes were still coated in Linda’s mini-shoe goo, which meant that I smelt and felt the fire before I saw it. Screams from within the house upset my ears. I stumbled blindly toward the chaos, feeling the heat intensify. I didn’t feel capable of helping, but felt the need to at least be nearby as a show of support.

Sirens began to fill the air, eventually drowning out the screams of the burning group members. I tried swallowing my vomit several more times before capitulating and allowing it exit. I was approached by a man with the accent of a paramedic who wrestled me to the ground. He screamed at me to remain calm, again and again, and assured me he was going to help. I felt something warm and sticky mash into my eye sockets. When enough shoe goo had been removed I learned that it was the paramedic’s tongue.

With a workable level of vision back, I pushed the paramedic away and crawled toward the burning house. I pressed my skinned hands against a scorching window and peered inside. The crispy, blackened corpses of the group members sat in the living room like macabre statues. Each of them still adopted writing poses. It struck me that each of them had resumed writing the word ‘shoes’, even as their bodies were burning. They were all too obsessed with their hobby to save themselves. It was at this point that I decided to give up smoking. The havoc my cigarette butt had wrought was too much for my conscious to bear. I decided to focus solely on writing the word ‘shoes’. At the very least, it was cheaper than smoking.

…

Several weeks had passed since the fire. I remained bound to the confines of my home, feverishly indulging my hobby. I sent a letter of resignation to my workplace, but I’m pretty sure it consisted of nothing other than ‘shoes’ written repeatedly. It didn’t matter. I was free now. All of my time now belonged to writing that beautiful word. I had grown quite good at it too. I could now write ‘shoes’ an average of twenty times per hour. If I maintained this level of improvement, in a few years I’d crack a word a minute.

My first interruption came courtesy of a sharp knock at my door. This shook me. I had reached a point wherein the existence of others had slipped my mind. All of a sudden, this forgotten world beyond my hobby was intruding. I only answered the door with the intention of giving the intruder a vitriolic piece of my mind. The words never had a chance to leave my mouth. The man standing at the door looked familiar somehow. He held a penny whistle and embraced me in a way that definitely suggested he knew who I was. As if on autopilot, I returned the embrace and watched as he recoiled in disgust and pinched his nostrils shut. It was this nose pinch that kicked my memory into gear – I’d remember that thumb anywhere. It was my brother, Chris.

It turned out that Chris had been kicked out of Thailand for accidentally breaking it. He was now on my doorstep begging for a place to stay until he could get his affairs in order. No matter how much I craved solitude, I couldn’t bring myself to turn away my own brother. I allowed him inside.

A few steps later, Chris froze in shock. He dropped his penny whistle and surveyed my lounge room. It was the first time I’d seen it from a distance. Paper, crowded with the word ‘shoes’, was strewn about the room like a new carpet. Where I had been sitting was smeared in excrement. This explained my brother’s nose pinch and filled me with a flush of shame. No hobby was worth forgoing basic hygienic necessity and yet, this is what I’d resorted to. As this thought simmered in my brain, I spotted a scrap of paper that hadn’t been written on yet. I dove for it, like I was trying to save a child from the path of a careening truck. With my jutted concentration tongue, I began to write.

My brother marched toward me and snatched the paper from my hand. I swiped at him like a cat but lost my balance and fell. I was writhing in my own waste while my brother read the paper. I convinced myself that, upon reading that intoxicating word, Chris would suddenly understand. This flawed conviction was a great condolence. But the condolence turned to horror as I watched him scrunch the paper into a ball and swallow it. I was livid. I scrambled toward his legs and bit at his calves, but he simply kicked me away.

I was powerless to stop Chris as he forcibly bound and bathed me. It’s not a nice sensation to have a family member scrub away the faecal encrustations from your arse with a toilet brush. When he deemed me sufficiently clean, I was left to soak in the tub in order to ‘calm down’. It was easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one tied up and needlessly kept away from his hobby. My brain screamed until little jets of blood blew from my earholes. It formed a puddle beside the bathtub and staring it, all I could think was ‘inkwell’. As I looked at my fingers, all I could think was ‘pen’, but with my arms bound, I couldn’t dip them into my makeshift inkwell. I manoeuvred myself painfully, until I was able to bob my nose in the puddle. My nose was now the perfect writing implement and the tiled bathroom wall was the perfect writing surface. I began writing ‘shoes’ triumphantly, only to be cut short by my brother’s fist.

…

I was tied to my bed. Chris sat at my side with a handful of paper adorned with my handiwork. He then asked a question that was impossible to adequately answer. He wanted to know why I was so
obsessed with the word ‘shoes’. I tried to explain the attraction using overblown, poetic language, but I couldn’t convey it. Eventually I just implored him to try writing the word himself.

I shivered with envy as I watched him take up the pen and paper. My hands wanted to leap from their enslavement. Instead I bit a bulbous chunk from my bottom lip and winced as the beautiful pain engulfed me. My brother’s hand was moving easily across the paper. Too easily. There was no way on earth he was writing the word ‘shoes’ that fast. He was cheating and what’s more, he looked completely unimpressed. I begged him to show me the paper. I refused to believe he could be so mindlessly efficient on his first attempt. He looked disgusted as he waved the paper about my face. I cried without restraint. Sure enough, Chris had written ‘shoes’ about 50 times, quite legibly too. I accused him of being a closet hobbyist. He must have learned some superior method from a yogi in Thailand. I called him a hypocrite and spat bloody spit in his face. He stormed out of my house, leaving me tied to the bed.

The hours my brother was gone were the worst of my life. My whole body was screaming and there was nothing I could do to loosen my restraints. The pen he had been using sat so close, yet painfully out of reach. I spat blood down my front, hoping to miraculously form my beloved word, but it was no use. The blood itself became hundreds of small, red shoes. They marched off my body, leaving me more alone than ever. I started trying to hold my breath in the hope I’d suffocate to death. It just wouldn’t work.

…

Chris eventually returned with a package under his arm. He didn’t say a word to me, just sat with his back turned and played with whatever the package held. I wanted to know what he was doing. I pleaded with him to tell me. I was completely ignored. I tried to close my eyes. Tried to sleep. It was no use. He stood up quickly and jammed a needle into my neck. I screamed in pain.

He sat five more syringes filled with murky liquid by my bedside. He told me they were for later. He told me the needles were full of heroin. I deduced that this meant my neck had most likely been injected with heroin. I could feel myself getting drowsy, which wasn’t exactly unpleasant. The
pain I was feeling began to fade into warm shapes. Before my eyelids fell shut, Chris explained that if he was going to have an addict for a brother, he wanted me addicted to something sensible.

In my mind, I saw myself sitting at an antiquated bureau. I was dressed so well and I looked so happy. I was writing the word ‘shoes’ in a mesmerising cursive that filled me with satisfaction. My lips sandwiched the most glorious concentration tongue. I felt so alive. My brother had given me a gift, an addiction that allowed me to further explore my hobby. I’d never have to stop writing that beautiful word again.

Goodbye, Captain Nowhere

The foam squid had started absorbing the ocean…

The men were despondent now. Their lice-infested beards, which they were forbidden to trim, tickled their naked bellies. The aimlessness of the voyage had stolen their spirits. The ocean they had been relegated to was small and ceased offering adventure many years ago. Their eyes had sunk – unfortunately the ship had not. Their ship was called POINTLESS JOURNEY. It was purportedly constructed in the fabled city of Cervix out of petrified beef. From all accounts, this ship had once been at the centre of high adventure and infamy. Now it was a mere holding cell for intensifying ennui.

The sun scorched the grey sky, but the heat didn’t reach the men on the ship. Most days were spent huddling together for warmth in between duties that redefined monotony. On a diet consisting primarily of brine, the men were forever at the mercy of their hunger. Many had lost teeth to the petrified beef hull in fruitless attempts to find sustenance. The men were always infused with illness yet somehow, none had died. A dinghy carrying curse-happy mailmen were believed to be responsible. The men were destined to a never-ending life of growing decrepitude.

Within the bowels of POINTLESS JOURNEY, inside a wardrobe, sat Captain Nowhere. With a candle wedged between his knees, he scrawled in a journal. He squinted at what he’d written. Each day his script looked less and less like writing. It had reached a point where nothing could be deciphered. He sighed deeply and slumped at the resulting light-headedness.

The mood on his ship had grown progressively worse as the years droned on. His men were devoid of passion – devoid of humour – devoid of life. All efforts made to invigorate the crew had failed. It was becoming hard to stay positive. Although he didn’t know what it was, there was a mission they needed to complete - a mission that quite possibly hadn’t even started yet. He needed his crew to kick into gear. He needed to motivate them. Captain Nowhere reflected on the rules he had imposed in the interest of unity. Were they all necessary? He toyed with the notion of allowing the
men to shave their beards. Was this a rule he could relax? He viewed the ubiquity of his crew’s appearance as an important factor in the maintenance of the team. Maybe he could let them start wearing shirts? The emaciated stomachs on display surely affected morale. He moved his palm in a slow circle around his own naked belly. The candlelight caught the golden metal of his crotch hook. His hand moved toward it, clasping it tightly. His penis had been torn off in a violent game of Ludo back when he was a cabin boy. The chubby boatswain had attached the hook in its absence. Captain Nowhere felt no sexuality and was only aware of it in theory. The alien concept of masturbation had led to him forbidding his men from indulging in the act. To him it seemed disgusting and unnecessary. He did concede however, that to his men, it did not. With morale as it was, was it worth allowing his men to indulge in their own depravity?