done with that

done

i'm done
with the bitter aftertaste
of love
i'm done with the fake notion
of love
im done with people who are incapable
of accepting their faults
i'm done with sarcasm
and condescension
and that ugly patronising tone
you think is an argument
it isn't
i'm done with being looked down upon
i know my faults
i don't need you to point them out
in such a condescending way
point them out
attack me
savage me
challenge me
but do it with intellect
and integrity
and with the respect
that i show you.

Fake Alpha

Fake Alpha

Fiction

by Lee Bemrose


When the plane finally crashes, after all that drama and hysteria, when it finally hits the ground and bounces and skids and bounces and turns sideways and crumbles and burns and all the death starts to happen ... when all of that is done and he is flung from the whole catastrophe, he thinks wow. Just me. No one else. Just me. No one has ever done this before... I'm like Jesus or something, rising from the ashes of that bird or whatever it is. This is the best thing ever. No one has ever done this before. This is a good thing.

He turns his back on the wreckage even though there are lives to be saved, and walks across the sand, amazed at his good fortune. How great am I, he thinks, how magnificent am I? Hugely magnificent, that's how magnificent.

It's a jungle. He sheds the ashes of his suit because it's the jungle. How good is this? How primal is this? Just me and my nakedness. Better enjoy it while I can, before they come and get me.

He stumbles through the trees into a clearing and stops, taking in the heavy fug in the air. Monkeys, he thinks, great big monkeys.

They turn and look at him. One. Then another. And another. A whole peaceful, wary tribe look at this naked, orange intruder. They take in his repugnant scent. They will let him pass through if that is his intention. Such ugliness has no place in their lives.

A baby gorilla recognises a kindred spirit and runs towards his new play-friend.

The bloated orange one smacks this insolent infant in the side of the head. How dare you touch me you disgusting thing! The child falls and his skull cracks as it hits a half-buried stone.

Nostrils flare. Postures straighten.

He thinks about running away, but those heel spurs, my long-forgotten heel spurs. Also, don't you know who I am?

They run at him, and it's not those fake heel spurs that prevent him from running, it's just fear. It's the fear of reality. Not fake or alternative reality; just real reality.

An actual alpha male tears the throat out of this fake alpha male and spits the flesh out in disgust.

Some chest-beating happens, and that's okay, because suddenly the world is a better place.

The More I know, The Less I Understand

I don't understand anything. I devour so much information, but I don't understand anything. I just don't get anything at all.

I don't get religion. I'm just not religious. When I'm thinking logically, I just don't believe in a God, a creator. The stories in the books made up by men thousands of years ago, the division those stories have created... the fact that people let these stories rule their lives sometimes with violent consequences, I just don't get any of it.

And yet from time to time, walking through a quiet cemetery, looking at the names in Poets Corner in Westminster, thinking of Gaudi sleeping in his Sagrada Familia, I feel something. I don't know what it is, this feeling. It's emotion. I was holding back tears in Westminster and each time I've wandered awestruck in Gaudi's church, and I just don't understand what it is. What is this feeling?

I get the same feeling watching a documentary about life, the universe and everything. Invariably I find myself shaking my head thinking, I just don't get it – what is it? The universe is so vast and life is so mysterious that, you know, is it so strange to blame it all on a great creator? What is it all? What is existence and where did it come from?

In Indonesia a few years ago a guide told us, if anyone asks you about your faith, just say you are a Christian because they simply won't like it if you say you are atheist. I agreed that this is what I would do, in this largely Islamic country, but I wondered why I should have to lie. Why does it matter to someone else that I have a different way of thinking to them?

On the island of Lombok, I remember the palm trees and the cowbells and the call to prayer. I felt peace. I felt their peace. They were praying and, I presume, also feeling peace. It was pure and beautiful and although I don't get religion, what harm was it doing to me? If anything, their faith was giving them peace and on a superficial level, it was giving me peace. I didn't understand the words being sung in the call to prayer, but I respected the sound and the sentiment and I guess yeah, I was touched by it.

Our fruit and veg suppliers were Muslim. They used to call me brother. We got to know each other, told each other our stories, had many laughs and treated each other with kindness. I thought of my guide in Lombok and wondered if I would have to lie to these guys about my beliefs. I didn't think so. They called me brother every time and I thought I don't care about your beliefs and my beliefs, if you call me brother, that's good enough for me, we are brothers.

If someone wants to pray, if they need their rituals, we don't have to understand it to accept it. We're all the same, we just have different ideas, and that's totally fine.

What I really don't understand is why an extremist, fanatic coward unleashes on a peaceful group peacefully going about their own business. I don't get it. I don't understand anything at all.

Thespian

Recently at my Responsible Service Of Alcohol course... I hate these things. I hate any form of structured learning. I'm just shit at it. Always have been. I was shit at skool which is why I left at age 16. The skool thing was a joke, by the way. I know how to spel.

So anyway. Came to a point where we were told we had to role play. Confrontation situation where a drunk customer wanted another drink and the bar person had to refuse in the right way. I turned around to my team of two travelers, banged my palm down on the table and said, Giz a farking drink ya bastard.

The very polite Indian guy who was, in my mind, playing the bar tender, looked confused and asked my what I was doing.

Role playing. Like we were told to do. You're the responsible bar tender, I'm a drunk customer, and this French guy is the best man at my buck's night, so you know, Give us some fucking drinks ya prick. Another palm slapped down on the table. I was really getting into this. The Indian guy and the French guy, not so much. They just looked a bit confused.

I made the Indian guy play his role. The French guy was just silent, but that was okay because he was my best man and I was the belligerent one who had to be dealt with. There was conversational noise going on all around us. I looked around at the conclusion of our role playing bit and realised that absolutely no one else had done the role playing thing. They were just chatting. Even the instructor - who I had been expecting to be wandering through the room and taking notes, was just talking to a group about their travels.

I turned back to my Indian bartender and my French best man. Shit, I said sheepishly, sorry about that.