STAYING CRISP

Part I: Changing Delightly

Snip. There goes my potential heart disease. Snip, snip. Goodbye acne and dry frizzy hair. Stitch. Hello, hint of eumelanin. Hello, Jared Leto eyes. Stitch, stitch. Hello, glorious member, envy of all men.

When I was little, there were a lot of things I didn't quite understand about aging.

Why are there so many ads on television for pimple cream? I'd ask my brother.

Why don't you have any hair in the middle part of your head? I'd ask my father.

Why don't you race me up the stairs anymore? I'd ask my mother.

Age, they'd respond. Getting old, they'd say. Life, they'd mutter.

It wasn't a good enough answer for me, because before "age" was the reason behind all their ailments, it seemed to be the very source of their power.

"But you're not old enough to ride the roller coaster, baby."

"Sorry, hun, this movie's for grownups."

"Dominic, no! That drink's not for you!"

Worst of all was when my grandma would visit. Sweet lady, but she was old and obese.

Listen, I ain't gonna mince words; She was fat. So fat and so old that she couldn't walk up the stairs to our apartment. It was a small building with no elevator, but we only lived on the second floor. Not a big deal, but too much for grandma to handle. Poor old lady would have to get down on her hands and knees to climb up the stairs, and even then it was a struggle for her. And every time without fail, my mother would look down at her from the apartment doorway with tears in her eyes. Her face overtaken by silent sorrow and evident disgust. She’d ask if she could lend a hand, but grandma was a stubborn woman who resisted help from everyone. She’d tell my mother to shut up and tilt awkwardly to try to look up at her, but she’d only manage to raise her gaze high enough to catch mom’s feet.

I never liked being around grandma. Absolutely adorable woman, but she made me afraid of the future. Of living a bedridden life with too few teeth. Of not being able to visit my future daughter without first humiliating myself on her stairwell.

She probably sensed it, the old hag. Because whenever she visited, she would slip me a little pocket money. I shit you not, she'd always do it, hoping I'd warm up to her and like her a little more each time. Little did she realize that I had no clue what good money was for.

Back then anyway.

Dahlia Delightly was the prettiest girl in school. Everyone knew it, except Dahlia herself. She was so sweet and nice and loved to talk to everyone. Not so much about herself as much as she liked to find out about people. To hear their stories, and understand their feelings. She wore the nicest clothes and the coolest specs. Until one day, she showed up without them.

It took me off guard. I knew people wore glasses because they couldn't see without them, so how on Earth was she coming to school without glasses all of a sudden? Wasn't that dangerous?

I asked her about it and she told me her parents had her undergo laser surgery. An operation that fixed her eyes up, and made it possible for her to see without her iconic specs. She didn't seem awfully thrilled about it. I mean, she definitely wasn't upset about it, but she did mention that it felt weird. That she couldn't recognize herself in the mirror anymore. I always thought she was just as beautiful even with her glasses on, but I couldn't help but be fascinated by this magical laser beam that, when aimed at her eyes, transformed them into the best version they could ever be. And I found myself daydreaming of a wicked raygun that could, at the pull of a trigger, fix anything for everyone.

Oh hey, you've got the sniffles? ZAP! All healthy now.

Tripped and smashed your face? ZAP! Unharmed.

Stung by a bee? Zap! You're saved.

Fat grandma can't walk up stairs? Zap! Now she's Wonder-Woman.

Obsession has a way of creeping up on you in unpredictable ways. You never know what singular observation will re-calibrate your world view for the rest of your life. For me it was Dahlia Delightly; a girl in glasses who, overnight, no longer needed them. I guess the minute Dahlia started seeing better, I started seeing better too.

I brought up Dahlia's laser surgery to my old man, who also wore glasses, telling him with exaggerated enthusiasm that he ought to get his eyes lasered as well.

"Too expensive", he said, "and a real man should never have to care too much about appearances."

And I'm quoting verbatim because I remember it like it was yesterday. His voice stern and distant, spoken without thought. A natural reflex. Natural, how I grew to hate that word. Really nothing but an excuse to be okay with flaws. But I took my old man's words to heart, and finally understood what good grandma's money was for. If a single laser beam for eye surgery was too much for my dad to afford, then a raygun for every human ailment possible would be grossly expensive.

It was then that I decided I was going to become a rich man.

A very, very rich man.

Clearly, the part about real men not needing to look good wasn't something I agreed with. I could see how Dahlia looked at the other boys. At Randy. Especially when he smiled his perfect smile with his perfect teeth.

I figured it was just my dad's excuse for not having to bother too much. When things seem out of our hands, we tend to come up with reasons as to why its okay. No one wants to come face to face with their own helplessness. Which is exactly why I vowed never to be helpless about anything no matter what. And if I ever found myself in that position, I would do everything in my power to not be.

If you stop to think about it, getting rich isn't too hard. There are maybe 3 ways to go about it:

You buy something for cheap, and sell it for more than it cost you. That's just the basics of commerce. Want to get rich off of this scheme? Make sure whatever you buy is something that pretty much everyone needs. And buy a lot of it.
Buy something that isn't worth much now, but will likely be worth a lot in the future. You speculate, essentially, but for accurate speculation you must ignore everything anyone says about speculation because all that is, is hot air from special interest groups. A way to create the illusion that something might be worth a lot in the future, even if there is little to no factual information to support their claims. Something will only be crazy valuable in the future if it has the potential of being highly sought after while maintaining a very rare status. Perhaps, a book that only saw a very low print run yet also managed to get a lot of people to talk about it. Something that became culturally influential in some way. Or if it was authored by someone acknowledged as a historical figure later in life or long after they were dead. Almost anything belonging to historical figures is bound to be valuable. The only way to maneuver the potentiality of rare objects belonging to historical figures is, really, to be friendly with most people you meet. And if they are makers of things, become a hoarder of said things.
Invent something awesome that everyone will need.

The raygun.

Everyone would want the raygun. Everyone would want to be perfect. Void of illness. Live forever.

I had a goal then. I started to pay extra attention in science class and knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. But I knew not to put all my eggs in one basket. I started using grandma's money to buy things. Things I could sell to the other kids. Cool pens and notebooks from the stationary store. Snacks that the school canteen never carried. And when I got old enough, cigarettes and condoms. And uh, well other things as well.

But I think it was around then that I first started hearing about gene-editing technology. What the media referred to as CRISPR.

I'm not sure when Dahlia became distant but it might've been around the same time. No worries, I told myself, she won't be so distant when I'm rich, famous, and immortal. I just had to keep at it. Not lose focus.

When in college, I decided to take a typography class. That was my segue into the art crowd. I bought at least one piece from every art punk I met, because you can never really tell who the hell is going to be famous. For real! I mean, do you think anyone suspected Andy Warhol would amount to anything when he was taking free art classes at the Carnegie Institute? Or that Haring would ever matter when he was at SVA? Or even Dali when he was still at Madrid's Real Academia de Bellas Artes?

Get them while they're cheap, I figured. Wouldn't hurt. And you better believe it was a good enough strategy, because one of the pieces I scored... was a Kalak.

Part II: Sebastian Kalak

Before becoming Sebastian Kalak he was Seva Kalanenko. A girl.

When she was little, she insisted on wearing her older brother's track pants and t-shirts, much to her mother's dismay. Her dad wasn't around a whole lot, but when he was, Seva's mother would scold him for not playing a more active role in the girl's life.

"I never had any sisters, and I wouldn't know the first thing about telling a girl how to behave", Seva overheard her dad tell her mother once. "The girl is your responsibility, Adele."

It's not that Seva knew she wanted to be a boy, not back then. In fact, she hated it when anyone called her a boy. Especially the other boys, who she would find no trouble beating up if and when they did. Teachers, however, and other grownups were somewhat of a problem. They didn't think she was a boy, nor did they actively refer to her as one, but they'd question her choice of clothes, and ask her if she wanted to be a boy. This frustrated her, because she didn't think that boys or girls ought to be designated by clothes or hairstyle. That was silly. If track pants were comfortable for boys, why on Earth would they not be comfortable for girls too? Why couldn't a girl's favorite color be blue, or heck, black even? Which was in fact Seva's favorite color, something that freaked the hell out of grownups for some reason.

"Not only is she a tomboy, but she's also a goth", one teacher told Seva's mother once. "You might want to nip this one in the bud, before she starts giving you real trouble later on. Hanging out with boys might not be much of a problem now, but later... you know how boys get. Drugs, sex, foul language."

Certain ideas, once planted in your head are almost impossible to shake away. Especially, especially, if they're ideas about your kids.

Adele, Seva's mom, became increasingly worried. She was having nightmares that involved a teenage Seva shooting up with boys in heroin dens before pegging them with a big black strap-on in front of live industrial neo-fasch bands.

This, when Seva was only six.

No mother should have to dream that kind of shit about their six year daughter. And so Adele decided she would set her daughter straight. She would spare no expense. Her daughter's future depended on it, dammit! It was time to get rid of the guest room. Have Adele move out of her brother's room and into a room of her own. But the room needed some renovation. First came the bubblegum pink for the walls, then came the Marie Antoinette bed. Seva discovered that taking a sharpie to the bed's frame actually made it look badass. Although, it did take a great deal of sharpies for it to get there. Drawing with black crayons on the pink walls made the room feel more her own, the drawings being childish imitations of the art from her older brother's comic books. So cool were the drawings that even her brother preferred to hang out in her room more than his own.

Adele, however, was steadfast. She filled her daughter's wardrobe with skirts and dresses, Disney princess shirts, and the most delicate of shoes. Bow-ties and glitter galore.

Seva tried real hard not to be a punk-ass rebel, but it was only a week before she found herself taking a pair of scissors to those bow-ties, and wearing her Disney shirts inside out. And there was nothing awfully girly that a simple sharpie couldn't remedy.

Adele was hysteric. She slapped her daughter's soft, tiny face hard, real hard. Seva was stunned. She'd only ever seen love and compassion from her mother, but here she was plowing her daughter with deep hateful rage. Tears flowed down Seva's face, not because of the pain, but because of the fear.

"You little--"

Slap!

"ungrateful--"

Slap!

"bitch!"

Slap!

"Do you have any idea how hard I had to work to buy you those clothes?"

Slap!

"Do you?"

Slap!

Seva said sorry. She said sorry over and over and over, but she honestly didn't get it. She just wanted to be herself, she told her mother, but she promised she would never do that ever again.

That's when Adele realized the horror of what she was doing. Beating her daughter... for wanting to wear pants? And why? Because other people thought it was weird? Fuck them!

Adele hugged her daughter and covered her in kisses, saying she was sorry, so so sorry. That of course she should be herself and never anything else. And from then on, Adele vowed to champion her daughter and whatever she wanted to be no matter what.

It was only in college that Seva really started to come into her own though. College, a chance for new beginnings, where no one yet knows you and has no preconceptions about you. Seva adopted a more dapper look: well-fitted trousers, fine Italian shoes, clean shirts and complimentary vests. A far cry from her track pants days, and a very far cry from her mother's goth-infested nightmares.

When people asked her about her name, she'd say "Seva, but my friends call me Sebastian." Which was a way of asking people to call her Sebastian if they wanted to be her friend, which most people felt rather intimidated to attempt. Most people except Dominic.

What Dominic loved most about Seva was her fearlessness. Her complete dedication to becoming the person she felt she was meant to be. Oh if only more people were like her, Dominic told himself, so much human potential would be unleashed. His fascination with Seva wasn't at all lost on her. She could read his dark eyes like a kid's book. This was even before she underwent hormone therapy. Before she officially took on the name Sebastian Kalak. Before she became a he. Before they made love.

Part III: Hail America!

Most people say they didn't see it coming. Some blame it entirely on Yellowstone. They're all full of shit.

Between 1909 and 1933 the Weimar Republic is known to have granted transvestite passes to trans people to protect them from public and police harassment. A way of saying: hey, the state recognizes that I like to dress like this and is very much okay with it. Simultaneously, Berlin was considered to be the homosexual capital of Europe. That is not to say that this was the reason behind the rise of Nazism, but it is not to be overlooked. Because it was one of the many things the Nazis pointed to as a sign of German decay. That's the thing about progress; while a breath of fresh air for some, it can also be seen as a departure from basic foundational values by everyone else. The other thing about progress is that it's often hard to be seen as true progress when overshadowed by the shame of national catastrophe.

Military defeat.

3 million dead.

132 billion gold marks in reparations.

Terrible, terrible disgrace. And pride was never a concept foreign to the German.

Nor has it ever been foreign to the American, albeit for reasons far less founded.

The problem is Americans had been feeding on their own propaganda for far too long. The idea of American exceptionalism was something far too few Americans ever dared question. Even those who claimed ideological opposition to early "Alt-Right" groups still believed in the myth of "the greatest nation on Earth". And practically every single stamp issued by the United States Postal Service had "USA FOREVER" printed on it, which c'mon, isn't really a huge leap from "Hail America!". No society can ever prosper without a constant reevaluation of the myths it perpetuates. Something Sebastian learned from his readings of the great James Baldwin, which he often read out loud to Dominic in bed.

"A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under the heavens."
– James Baldwin

If anyone practiced what they preached, it was definitely Sebastian. Even when still in college, he had a knack for creating art that was the most scathing of social commentary. His gaze going past the elephant in the room, and instead fixated on the little elephants lurking in the shadows. The elephants that would eventually grow to become the big elephants in the room. The elephants that most people would avoid speaking of.

Controversial? Sure, but not for the heck of it. Sebastian was a much needed societal warning station. But one that, inevitably, came at a cost.

"The most dangerous of all moods is that of a great power which sees itself declining to second rank."
– Michael Howard

The fear of declining to second rank was something America had touted for far too long. Which is actually rather mind-blowing because it was happening together with this bolstering of exceptionalism. Two notions that you would think were completely at odds with one another.

In any case, a quick look at actual data would've completely nullified American fears. When the American GDP was at 20 trillion dollars, China was only at 13 trillion. When America were spending 554 billion on military expenditures, China was spending 215. China had only 1 aircraft carrier compared to America's 20. And China's 260 nuclear warheads were completely dwarfed by America's 7000!

What was everyone panicking about?

That fear, perpetuated by the Reds and Blues for so long, is precisely what led to their downfall, and the inevitable rise of the Upward Party and subsequent establishment of what became colloquially known as the American Reich. Or what some liked to refer to as the “American Renaissance”.

Not to create a mono-causal argument for the Reich's foundation or anything. The first Dominic ever heard about the rise of proto-Reich movements was at around age 15. Protests dominated by white males, publicly defended by so-called intellectuals who attacked social justice defenders using pseudo-scientific arguments. SJWs, they called them, short for Social Justice Warriors. It takes someone particularly evil to be able to villainize those who fight for justice and put a label on them.

SJW. A tactic borrowed directly from corporate America. SJW. No longer implying social or justice, just as KFC removed connotations of "fried" or "Kentucky". Or heck, "chicken" for that matter.

SJWs weren't their only targets obviously. There were also the "sick trannies", "criminal niggers", "Jewish commies", and "filthy Arabs". And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Even if the so-called “intellectuals” among them refrained from using that specific language.

It was certainly absent from their manifesto.

Part IV: Fast Forward Upward - A Manifesto

Man is the creator of God, and thus it is only appropriate to declare man the one true God in this here Universe. Let us then embrace our godly status and hurl ourselves towards the stars of eternity that call out to us in the night. We must pierce forward like the red hot swords of the life giving Sun and decapitate the tyranny of ignorant darkness upon sight.

We may be dreamers, but dreamers of night we are not. We are dreamers of day, willing our dreams visibly into reality for all to soak up and bathe in. Not just here on Earth, but across the cosmos. Other bodies reflect our glow and come into being solely because we exist, and our existence burns bright.

The fuel to our fire is the habit of energy, courage, and revolt! Our revolt is against the totality of nature, the revolt of survival, of evolution against all odds. It is the beautiful revolt of perpetual struggle, because there is no glory in idle surrender.

Let us discard the dystopic perspectives of the Anthropocene and instead embrace it as an inevitable stepping stone in our righteous evolution. No longer shall we sheepishly look over our shoulders at carbon footprints. Let us instead look forward towards the trajectories of future footprints, their impressions deeper and more pronounced with every step we take.

Humanity's poetry is in the violent assault on our surrounding environment, forcing the universe to bow before us.

More awaits us. We must be faster, stronger, higher!

It is time to transcend and break down the gates of Life. It is time to bolt Death deep beneath our feet. We must cast aside the false wisdom of decay, and instead embrace the fervor of youth as the one true ideal of forever.

Beauty is not an offense against inequality, but as legitimate a pursuit as happiness. It must be upheld and protected by the culture at large, never to be villainized.

Our sensibilities must be saved from the rot of old funeral urns. Our reservoirs must be fed by the man-made machines of prosperous intellect.

Ignore the wisdom of yesteryear, for we are the gods of tomorrow. Walk not among the soulless golems animated by the dark seething power of establishment media. They are bound to be crushed by the wheels of progress, but only after spending a lifetime getting tossed between a thousand meaningless distractions.

We must insist on our dreams and push for the conquest of space and time. That is what we do: We explore, we build, we conquer. We must continue to develop the revolutionary technology worthy of a species racing towards an upward path. Let the nay-sayers and apocalypse-screamers abstain and get left behind in the bush where they belong.

Education must be reformed. We can no longer allow universities to take our money just to tell us how despicable our accomplishments are. Let us honor the enlightening legacy of our culture and push forth for more. Because our best days are ahead of us. If nostalgia must be part of our consciousness then let it be a nostalgia for the future.

Let us strip honor from unworthy politicians and celebrities, and instead honor those who catalyze humanity's advancements. It is no longer enough to resolve age-old socio-economic political problems. The time has come to do away with them altogether. The spectrum of Right-Wing/Left-Wing thought is too narrow for the human of the future. It is time we stopped looking left and right and started looking up and beyond.

No new heights we reach will be satisfactory. No new height will be idealized. The greatest ideal must always remain the forthcoming heights of the future!

It is in America that we are issuing this manifesto of eternal tomorrow, because only America can hurl the world upward and forth into the future. America is uniquely situated at the center of modern history. It is America that first showed the world the meaning of freedom. It is America that first put a man on the moon. It is America that connected the world into a singular telesphere. It is America's armies that keep the world safe and secure. It is thus America's duty to stop limping in rusty shackles. It is thus America’s responsibility to caste aside all that is unAmerican. It is thus America's birthright to grab the world by its reins and charge forth into the hailstorm of big dreams and mad ideas.

Fast forward upward!

America must lead the way, because that is what America does.

Part V: Nostalgia for the Future

Sebastian loved that manifesto. And so did Dominic, but it was Sebastian who really flew with it. It wasn't yet known who had authored the manifesto, and Sebastian didn't really care to know, but when the pamphlet first landed in his lap, he almost immediately incorporated it into his art. He must have risographed thousands of copies in red, white, and blue and even purple, which he would draw directly on top of. His drawings mainly comprised of pop-cultural mashups and real world failings. Drawings of decrepit bus stops, congested freeways, and the crappy pretzels served on airplanes juxtaposed against the manifesto were made to highlight that we were far from living in the America we deserved. It's hard to tell whether the manifesto elevated Sebastian's line-art or vise versa, but in any case the pieces–strategically placed in public space–were getting nation-wide attention, and Sebastian's star grew high and bright.

Until they killed him.

The killers were not, as one might've suspected, a group of trans-hating white men, but in fact the militant antifa group known as FemFatale-2030 who –not at all knowing that Sebastian was once a she– saw his guerrilla actions as a sinister plot to popularize toxic masculinity. This was naturally something proto-Reich groups took advantage of, which not only galvanized their cause but also made whatever remained of Sebastian's work highly sought after.

Which did Dominic very well.

Sebastian’s death did crush him, but rather than hold on to the artwork for person sentimentalities, he felt he had to do good by Sebastian’s legacy. To serve the greater good in a way.

He was making headway with his research and had devised, not a raygun, but a kind of gene-editing phone-booth. He called it the CRISPod, and saw it as a formidable step towards the democratization of gene-editing technology. Of making it well within the reach of every American.

All he had to do was build a proper prototype. And now he had the means to do just that.

Even with staunch resistance and defamation campaigns from “Big Pharma”, Dominic's CRISPod was getting worldwide attention. He was a sly marketeer, and had a way of capturing the public's imagination. He wore big glassless specs in his televised appearances, which sure, painted him as an eccentric, but also cunningly made a point: That glasses, as a sight-enabling apparatus for the contemporary man, were ridiculous. And if they were ridiculous, then perhaps they weren't the only ridiculous thing about the way people lived.

There was one video Dominic put together with his artist-friends that went especially viral. It took on the air of a vintage advertisement, showing Clark Kent rush into a phone-booth before emerging as Superman. Except, immediately after his exit, someone else rushes into the phone-booth who also reemerges as Superman. The camera slowly zooms out revealing people queuing up in front of more phone-booths, supermen emerging out of them one after the other. We finally get a big panoramic view of the city, which is not something of the past, but a great sleek metropolis of the future.

And then the logo fades in against the cityscape.

And this was all before Yellowstone erupted.

Part VI: Yellowstone

It was January, and the volcanic ash that descended like a heavy blanket on the country spread from coast to coast. The most devastating effects stretched from Seattle in the West to Kansas City in the East. From Calgary up North all the way to Albuquerque down South. The shower of splintered rock and glass lasted months, shutting down most roads, railways, and air travel.

97 Million dead.

195 Million terminally ill.

75% of livestock killed.

116 Million hectares of Arable land devastated.

Shame, havoc, ruin.

The perfect storm had arrived for the Upward Party to take command. Their manifesto spoke to a nation keen on rising from the ashes. No one wanted to vote for the age-old proven incompetence of Democrat or Republican. The time had come for the Great New Party, as some people referred to it. America was ready to board the techno-theological spaceship of the future, and the Upward Men were there to steer it. Their speeches breathtaking, their rallies inspiring, and their plan concrete.

And at the center of their plan was Dominic's CRISPod.

Circumstances called for new measures and everyone knew it. Old drugs and pharmaceuticals were cast aside as archaic poisons, and the CRISPod quickly became the infrastructural cornerstone of a New America. Embraced by all out of a nostalgic longing for the future.

Dominic soon rose to become a key player in the America of tomorrow, and just as he envisioned as a young child, he found himself becoming exceedingly very rich.

He was happy. Content. Until he discovered that the CRISPods weren't working for everyone. That some people were being killed by the CRISPods.

And the killing... was deliberate.

Part VII: Seeing Delightly

She probably won't remember me. Heck, she probably won't recognize me, not with my new eyes and nicer hair. But I have to see her. The images of her on her deathbed all over the news are haunting me, and I cannot for the life of me think of anything else.

Her caretaker opens the door and shows me in. The place is sad. Curtains mostly drawn, keeping the light away from the old grandeur of a previous lifestyle. Up along the staircase there is photo after photo of Dahlia's Hollywood days. The days before Yellowstone. Red carpet glamour, life-loving sheen, and beautiful perfection. I'm reminded of a quote Sebastian read out loud to me once.

"I love Los Angeles. I Love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."
– Andy Warhol

Now the nerdy scientist gets to be plastic, preserved for all eternity while the Hollywood beauty of old withers away.

There she is on the bed. Dahlia Delightly, little more than a crumpled up napkin. She sees me and reaches for her glasses on the nightstand. It takes a few seconds of her staring at me before she speaks in croaky squeaks.

"Dominic Cunningham. Look... at you."

Didn't think you would recognize me, I tell her.

"Oh, I've been keeping up with your news. And everything you've been doing for the country."

Not everyone... in the country. I regret saying it just as the words come out.

"Oh, Dominic. You cannot possibly blame yourself, dear. Not all of us have the genes that can handle eternal youth. Be proud of your accomplishments. You've saved more lives than any one person ever has."

I sit on the edge of the bed and hold her hand.

I see you've got your old glasses back, I tell her.

"Ha! Yes, at least I have that", she laughs. "You should've come sooner, Dominic. A lot sooner. I would've liked to show you the pool in the back and make you one of my signature cocktails."

I was a nobody, I tell her. You were a big bright movie star when all I had going for me was a crummy makeshift lab.

"Silly boy", she says touching my face with elderly tenderness."I've met a lot of not-nobodies in my time, and absolutely no one could fill the special place I have in my heart for you."

Her toothless smile is sweet and her eyes sincere. I lean in for the kiss, but I'm too late. Her heart is stopped and her breathing no more.

Dahlia Delightly is dead.

I watch her. The once Hollywood face of long lasting youth reduced to a piece of broken china.

  

Back at the penthouse, I do not recognize the man looking back at me in the mirror. The man who claims he didn't know any better, that had no idea.

Fuck you, you're full of shit! Don't look at me like that you lousy self-serving prick.

Smash!

Broken glass.

Smash!

Glass everywhere.

Sharp shard. Jared Leto eyes. Jagged pain. Blood. Warm blood. Lots of warm blood.

Cold floor.

I wake up to the sound of the automatic vacuum cleaner and robotic breakfast maker. The smell of morning coffee brings me to my feet, vision fuzzy like a newborn baby.

I make it to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face, flakes of dry crusted blood swirl down the drain. I look up and crisp new Jared Leto eyes stare back me.

I think... they’re starting to grow on me.

Onward and upward.

Authored April 2018
between Houston (TX)
and Denver (CO)
Words & Pictures: Ganzeer
Editor: Dan Hill Copyright © 2018 by Ganzeer, Inc.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License

 Times New Human

$$. Tip Jar: Paypal 
Cashapp 