Vive-Le-Roi

You have days like these, where life just decides to embrace its sadistic side and give you all it's got, only to reveal it's got another surprise up it's sleeve when you're thinking that it's physically impossible for your day to get worse. How work has turned my life into one giant cliche. I remember when I started this whole affair upon graduating seven years ago; I'd noticed, and pitied, the monotony of the routine by which the rest of the working population appeared to go about their morning commute. Arrive at the train station everyday at the same time, with the same drained expression on their face; walk to the same spot on the platfo

In my time here, wherever I am, it seems that place never sleeps. Being unfortunate enough not to possess that luxury myself, the deliverance from nocturnal isolation is one of the few things keeping me sane. If anything, given what I've seen, you could argue that the place is not even awake as the sanguine streaks go about their disappearance from the evening sky. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six I count those numbers, ritualistically, in tune with my breath as I traverse these limits that my life has been consigned to by the elegant forces of chaos extending beyond my control. A habit, it's beginnings I can't particularly recall; though i

"Stop." Said the man in front of me with the elephant face, careening like a metronome in time with each percussive explosion. Behind him, they twirled and spun around, dancing and falling into each others arms, the satin sashes trailing from their hands fluttering in the afternoon breeze, as if moving of their own accord to the waltzes of the accordion and trumpet players beyond. "Where am I?" Said I, whilst shielding my eyes from the autumnal sunshine, taking stock to examine the leathery creature standing in front of me. Yet I was instantly enraptured by the hypnotic gaze of his wonderful glinting elephantine eyes, distorting my reflectio

I was an angel, once, though that was a long time ago before my descent into decadence. Though I was a victim of circumstance, a certain rendezvous with a late acquaintance initiated this transition of mine into this newfound lifestyle. Though that's all he, and in fact anyone is to me now, nothing but an acquaintance at best if they're unlucky. Religious principles are no longer a protocol I follow, with my fulfilment of the Buddhist Anatta a distinct exception; a multitude of lives many have lost attachment to as a consequence of my doings. Yet time is now short with my own soon to be an untimely addition to that list; my actions having rea

Disjointed little shards of text had rained into the notebook he'd originally procured in order to write his novel. Like a shattered stained-glass window, there was originally a coherent message, a plan, a feasible outcome, but the current fragments gave no indication of it. Each incident of writing, an outburst, a frenzied slash of pencil through the pages covered different unrelated characters, settings and plot devices, each episode a reaction to the overflowing of his emotional capacity. Love, hate, lust, the death of his sister and his adulterous wife; each of these etched into the book. He despised the book, he hated it and wanted nothi

I stub my cigarette in the ashtray as I hear her name announced. Women -- despite how we complain when in their grasp, we cannot deny that they possess over us a hypnotic hold even at times when we are free of them. Hence I find myself here for the fourth consecutive Thursday at 11pm. Despite our small number, she blushes upon seeing the crowd as she enters from behind the stage. Smiling, the tail of her sleek, black dress slides behind her as she makes her way to the piano. Seated now, she closes her eyes. And lets her hands sink. A chord resonates throughout the dimly lit bar as yet again, my breath is taken away from me. This number is

The awkward silence landed after that final sentence; it's impact like a large rock penetrating the surface of a pond; loud and clear, asserting itself on more than just one of our five senses. I shyly looked down at my feet and commanded them with effort to move, overcoming the strange heaviness that seemed to have accumulated in my thighs---as I moved up the staircase and she descended past me. I didn't need to look behind me to know she'd stopped. The silence having heightened my sentences, I only needed to hear the ceasing of the metronomical click of her heels against the stone stairwell after only three crotchety steps. As if we were bo