The Very Best Version of My Insanity

The Inauguration of Insanity: 

Part I (Catastrophe), 

Part 2 (The Mother of Infinity), 

Part 3 (The Night The World Tipped Over), 

Happy Tears In Love With A Cold, 

Nostalgia for Cheddar 

& Other Short Stories of and by 

WALKING DOCTOR TONNAN 

VERY STRONG LANGUAGE, SEXUAL SANCTITY AND EXTRAVAGANT 

REALITIES: DON’T SAY THE PREVIEW DIDN’T WARN YOU

The Inauguration of Insanity 

Part 1: Catastrophe 

1. Clockless Realm 

2. The Repercussions of Halloumi 

3. A Reverie of Rascals 

4. More Shit About My Past 

5. Mating Season 

6. The Apartment Is Complex 

Part 2: The Mother Of Infinity 

1. Utopia 

2. Parisian Parrots 

3. A Hospital Admission 

4. Information About Xinx From The Cat 

5. Cat’s Lies Spiral Out Of Control & Into Prophecy 

6. The Crucifixion 

Part 3: The Night The World Tipped Over 

1. Haunted 

2. Hysteria 

3. Wonderless 

4. Renewal 

5. The Final Testament

3 All Works Written 

2013-2018 by 

Dominic Jonathan 

Francis 

© Dominic 

Francis/Walking 

Doctor Tonnan 

Happy Tears In Purgatory In Love With A Cold 

Chapter 1: The First Day at Bristol University & Rockland 

Chapter 2: The Student Union & Victoria 

Chapter 3: Coconut Macaroons & The Black Cat 

Chapter 4: Maggie Begins Her Story, Smoking Pot With Rockland and Stupid Is As 

Stupid Does 

Chapter 5: Why Am I Obsessed With Me? 

Chapter 6: You’ve the hero in all riddles and master of deceit 

Chapter 7: Dyslexics Shouldn’t Go To University/ Doctor Rockland, Why Tape A 

Guitar At University After All You’ve… Oh 

Short Stories 

Apocalypse Kid 

Huganga Hated Cheddar But Loved Women 

Abreaction 

Nostalgia For Cheddar 

Gregory Saunders


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

The Inauguration of Insanity 

PRELUDE 

Well after god’s or his and her or his or her creation and as the braves began to retake 

control of the planet’s birth I cherished the ultimate destination of destinations, which I 

keep hidden as a manifesto of high worth for my soul. Her whole in love (whatever that 

means: irritation) and her tear reservoir depletes like coal from earth. I saved half my 

non-hash cash & I boarded a flight: my tribulations vanished like ash or a candle's light. 

It’s hard to endure bash after bash and even this man believed soon there would be no 

more day or night. 

On this domain, on that same plane, I wondered whether she had felt the same happy 

pain: I never had the courage to ask her myself; at that point she was merely assigning 

blame like a Taurus resigned to other beings’ stealth. Still, although she could be the 

very definition of vain, I wish her the best in health. She researched dentistry; I studied 

as a musician. For her the search was in chemistry, like mine was in tradition. But for 

me, the sequence of astronomers has a reflection finite enough to eat. I got entrapped in 

the book of Chordronomy and figured the Bluesician was caught too deep. The story told 

over banjo of the tryst made me weep with all its deceit. 

I know you are you and that's so perfect it makes me sleep. But sometimes you 

overpower me: I cowered at the peat. What I keep is not cheap in that transcendental 

leap. I was young, barely alive in forgetfulness and you turned your head away from me. 

Deep within your aura I felt your turbulence and I realized love was free. Your lips were 

well-versed: your breath was vodka-orange that day. I knew more about how they 

coerced & gave used things away, syringes in the hay. I have a secret! I want you & her 

to dance with me! We are sitting at a crossroads at the crossroads! I want you to leave 

with her & me and for our boundaries to erode.

THE INAUGURATION OF INSANITY PART 1: CATASTROPHE 

Chapter 1: Clockless Realm 

We are now in the clockless realms of toenail hospital, where the tempo of time arrives 

fast but travels slow like a burn to the heart and cars crawl past like big butterflies 

pulled by harlequin hurricanes beneath shadowy skies. Opaque trees, the only platitude 

of man to some greater force, are cataclysmic constellations of the bronze years in which 

nature ruled the streets. There are murals and mosaics in memoriam of those murdered 

in World War Three. But those who don’t walk here forget this world. The skies stain the 

world with a pale oppression, antagonizing all that have the misfortune of being on the 

street without umbrellas. They to whom the rain's wrath is not wasted on wear 

newspapers over their heads and skip down the street, open-mouthed, hoping to be dry 

and asleep before midnight. 

An ugly man and a beautiful woman sit in all-night-café and talk. “I don’t know what 

I’ve been doing with my life. I should be spending more time trying to look beautiful. 

That’s where I’ve been going wrong,” the ugly man sighs enviously, over the constant 

patter of the rain. 

“Showering more frequently would be a start,” the beautiful woman replies sagely.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

i 

We are now in the Cemetery. Some gravestones are marked; others are anonymous. 

Some are adorned with flowers; others are bare. 

The cemetery is not where the dead dwell, for the dead don’t dwell anywhere. Sometimes 

I think that the inevitability of death is the only thing that unites all living creatures. If 

an afterlife does exist, I doubt that the experience is endless. The practicalities of being 

dead are unimaginable to most minds. The closest some of us get to death is the state of 

unconsciousness. When we wake from sleep, sometimes we feel as if no time has passed 

since the start of our slumber. I don’t suppose that’s what death is like, though, for the 

deceased an eternity passes instantly yet there is no repossession of perception at the 

end of it. A hooded man crosses himself and says a few words to his dead relative. 

Twenty years later, his own body will be buried a few rows away, but this does not cross 

his mind. He is alive. His relative is dead. That’s all there is to it. For the time being.

We are now in Skate Park, where multi-lingual graffiti stricken walls advocate cold 

turkey, lucidly decry the state & random numbers linked to ‘services’ [drug dealers or 

prostitutes]. An especially talented artist has drawn a lion gnawing at a Kratom carrot 

with jubilant triumph. It is night time, now. There is music playing. It is not popular 

music. It is not unpopular music. It is merely music. The rhythm is not rhythmic; it is 

anti-rhythmic, meaning that instead of tat-tat-tat, it is tat-tu-tu-tat-tu-tu. I suppose the 

basis of music is rhythm & were you to associate this with any kind of music you would 

call this reggae. 

This is where I meet K. She seemed punky. I can’t quite explain her look. She was 

dressed in a dense denim purple shirt, tight against her gigantic tits, which dwarf mine 

to the eleventh power (though it seems like I have breasts, they are sort of muscles). She 

is a little bit shorter than me, has long purple hair & hazel eyes. I am watching the 

skaters, as I do sometimes to pass the time, & she appears next to me. 

K: I don’t mean to be overly straightforward, but I feel kind of deprived of… 

I: Nicotine? 

K: Yeah. Nicotine. 

I: I thought that’s what you were going to say. That or THC oil. 

We look into each other’s eyes for a while. There is a tiny resonance of blue in hers amid 

the hazel. 

K: Flirt much? 

I: No. I have a girlfriend. 

K: Oh, sorry. 

I: Forget about it. 

I smile at her. 

K: Phone number… 

I: Uh… why should I give my phone number to you?


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

K: You might love me. 

My smile becomes vacant. I feel stupid. Sometimes I still believe I belong to whoever’s 

talking to me. 

I: Am, Gm7, F7, D 

K’s brain recognizes my voice and it registers the number. She kisses me on the cheek 

and skips off in her skin-coloured skirt. I feel awful & vaguely turned on. I wince a little 

or I wince a lot. It begins to drizzle. A helicopter creates a cackling of dust over my head.

Chapter 2: The Repercussions of Halloumi 

In the centre of Treetop Towntain, I walk and talk languidly with a woman who is quite 

like me at this moment, for she is tipsy and shares the aim of attaining Halloumi, which 

is atrocious yet heavenly in this part of town. It can be bought from a wooden shrine of a 

store that sells popcorn, pesto pasta, banana milkshakes and coconut juice. Treetop 

Towntain is elevated above moonlight city, eastward of where we live, and its name 

derives from the fact that the municipality is on the mountain but is close enough to the 

forest to be viewable & level with the top of the trees. 

We purchase fried Halloumi from the vendor, he nods & we half- half-heartedly salute 

him. I consume a little, biting into its frivolity, surprised by its crunch. I have decided 

Halloumi tastes more like bacon than cheese and as I convey this revelation to Xinx, she 

summons a cab by raising and lowering her gloved hand in a way that would look 

nebulously imprudent were it not to contain such sensuous grace that it were instead 

ludicrously appealing. We hold hands and get onto the cab, a robust tractor-like 

Chevrolet, with a strangely Aryan, washed-out driver. He wears a Beret & I’d say that 

his hair has always been grey. The angelic bouquet of broken doorknobs that I bought for 

Xinx falls off her head of violet hair as he accelerates along the highway. She looks at me 

light-heartedly then turns to the driver with incandescent ferocity. 

Xinx: My fucking hat! 

I: Sorry, driver, could we go back to get her fucking hat? 

Driver: That’s totally possible, mam and sir. 

The Chevrolet speeds on for a second then does an abrupt 180 degree turn, heading 

straight for Xinx’s broken doorknob bouquet, which I notice looks even more damaged 

after we run it over. Xinx picks up the bouquet of broken doorknobs, which are so broken 

several of them appear to have nearly repaired themselves. 

Doorknobs are the latest sex symbol here, and this one has a white sign on it saying ‘Not 

For Sale’. 

The Chevrolet heads back to our apartment, and in a short five minutes the Treetop 

Towntain scenery ends abruptly and dramatically, like my affair with Xinx will. 

(Overall, it was happy but not without sorrow. Maybe that's the whole point of going 

anywhere or falling in love with anybody.) My hands are no longer mine but hers. 

They're played like they’re the devil's own and I can't stand or believe my own


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Doctor Tonnan 

melancholy, which is a job in and of itself sometimes. If this sounds or feels comic to you, 

it is because it is very sad and you are misconstruing my words towards you. 

"I don't like to think about how it is made," Xinx says sovereignly and drunkenly, "but 

reason is suspended for it is impossible to be happy all the time, for you would have 

nothing else to contrast to misery. Nothing, though? I must take that back. It doesn't 

work in this context... Nothing... Uh... Nothing is for after... That would be it... Nothing 

lives here." 

[Some beings are so beautiful but my soul, now closed, is burdened... I look outwards yet 

still I mix faces up for most of my brain is lost on quadratic theorems or names and for 

many seconds, she only exists as she is, a drunk woman talking to a tipsy man, without 

any other definitions or labels attached]. 

She rambles about the making of Halloumi or the act of making love, then she 

lackadaisically leans her head on my shoulder. I can't understand much of what she 

says, but I don’t ignore her playing with my hand, egged on by her voice, which becomes 

posher when she is not self-aware and has been drinking. 

“…. Are you? But… oh… no… yes…. Oh, we can if you want. But anyway, I can’t accept 

the idea that we exist purely as spirits, like objects, unable to change the course of our 

temporary bodies… Though Jesus made some wild prophecies about our life expectancy, 

we should be dead pretty soon.” Only a fraction of this night has been funny, so I gasp to 

stifle a giggle then realize I do not have to contain it so I laugh out loud. This 

combination of actions leads Xinx to look out of the window expectantly yet 

questioningly. 

"There will be an end to sleep and life, but sleep is a little like dreamy death and death is 

dreamless sleep..." the taxi driver stretches and yawns. "We have no concept of eternity 

until we forget and we will never know eternity itself ... For God could not blame us". 

I smile in agreement but then my body twitches, a sign that the better part of me doesn’t 

fully agree with his statement. No, life is not for the meek, where the weeks drift slowly 

ahead like the corpses of all the chickens we ate, once trapped & now dead. I am nearly 

vegan now, but I do like Helium & Halloumi, though I can remember lifetimes before 

this, sexless & hopelessly hormoneless.

Three minutes later, the driver’s last six words play in my head and I realize I have 

grown up… tortured in parallel worlds, I am now a human monster who has facilitated 

such anguish by accident & somehow haven’t been second to it. I will be fully vegan soon, 

probably, I think to myself, but I still like the taste of milk. 

I suppose we live in forever and die in forever. There is a potent paradox in those words. 

How can forever exist in time? How can time exist in forever? It boggles the mind. I 

suppose it’s not even a fact that time exists: it’s like a B7 chord on the guitar, which is 

just a sound we’ve assigned a name to. Every time a part of forever ends, another part of 

it starts. Surely, though, parts of forever never end, because forever is so long (forever 

means forever, meaning from the beginning of the beginning to the end of the end, the 

first which didn’t ever happen & the end of the end overrode the start of forever, so won’t 

happen either). That’s just the way it works. Time or B7 chords don’t really factor into its 

mechanisations, nor does it even have any mechanisations. But time is continual and 

continual is forever; therefore time is forever. Woah! I’ve done it! I’ve made a scientific 

theory! I’m a fucking gen…tlelemon who’s had some alcohol. I think about it again & this 

deduction is similar to stating that water is a drink & a drink is good; therefore water is 

a good drink. But water isn’t a good drink; it’s as fricking average as my theorem. 

Perhaps my theorem will be as popular as water or College Drop Out. 

“That’ll be thirteen hypons. The Leader will be on in a minute…” says the driver, turning 

on the screen in his waggon & propping his feet up on the transport. 

I pay, leaving one hypon as a tip, and go inside, additionally choreographing the 

inebriated, potentially paraplegic Xinx. I’m almost grossed out by the feel of her faux-fur, 

but it’s ugly enough to turn me on slightly, even more so because I know she bought it 

herself. 

Inside our sphinx-shaped apartment, the wide-screen television responds to our 

entrance, turning on. 

The Broadcaster: I don't believe the transportation system is as operational as your 

government has publicized. ‘Gus got a bus and didn’t cuss’ isn’t necessarily a better 

slogan than ‘Don’t quit if it’s shit’. I’ve waited twelve minutes for a bus that was 

supposed to take ten minutes. It’s outrageous & that’s not even the most extreme of 

examples.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

The Leader: I’m not sorry for wasting two minutes of your life, but I know your sorry. 

These things cannot be avoided, just as sexual intercourse probably won’t be after both 

partners have consented to their own torment. 

The Broadcaster: What are you trying to say? It's not inevitable or true that the genders 

are relatives of each other, nor that those who are sane are same in the entirety of their 

being. 

The Leader: You're right on... the chair. But surely insanity or sanity is definable. 

A plethora of people go livid. Even the Cameraman grunts. 

The Broadcaster: Either you or I are insane, and I think I know which. 

The Leader nods and then spits guiltlessly on the floor. Tens of people stand up and clap, 

then the whole audience starts to clap. There is a cinematic pan & the scene is cut, 

moving onto cringe worthy news and monotonous adverts. 

Outside the television and the studio and inside our house, Xinx puts her hand on my 

sex and massages it in a playful way that says she knows I am bored and she is bored 

too.My pen is growing erect. I’m not going to describe Xinx, for this is not memory & I 

can see her right now, but I like the faux-fur and gloves she is currently wearing, 

particularly, for it accentuates her womanly traits in an almost masculine way. She is a 

half-black, half-azure, and a dentist by trade. 

She presses her hand down harder & harder, and I can’t control myself anymore so I kiss 

her & she kisses me back & she grabs my hair, slaps my face and titillates me with her 

tongue on my neck until I say “off”. Xinx pulls my jeans down (the television responds 

too [the heat-up-eat-in-meals being advertised fading to a blank purple]), applies a 

banoffee condom, then she mounts my cock and bounces up & down, my hands on her 

love handles which are so essentially antique and fatty. 

“Ugh.” I say. 

“Shut up.” She says, in that superior voice, biting my tongue. 

“Ugh.” I say.

“Shut up.” She says, in a more ordinary voice, which though I believe to be more selfconscious 

is somehow realer. I lick her earlobe and caress her tits. 

For some reason, my favourite physical thing about women is their breasts & earlobes. I 

love to get sucked, but only if there are breasts & earlobes. Otherwise, women would look 

just be men with


2013-2018 by 


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Doctor Tonnan 

vaginas and slightly different brains. This is what I think as she bounces up & down. Or 

maybe it’s because I haven’t seen a man’s face in some time. I am especially stupid while 

having sex. 

“Get off a sec. I want some Halloumi.” I say. 

I lift her off. I put Halloumi on her vagina. I eat it off. It really turns me on, the taste of 

her and the Halloumi together. She can be a horrible person, but her teeth and vagina 

are always clean. I secretly suspect she is a dyke, but we haven’t ever talked about it. I 

lick her out for a few minutes and as always her come is as tasty as noodles & as healthy 

as Brussel Sprouts (eh? heh, reminds me of Henry’s Grandma’s tofu). 

She orgasms and farts at the same time. I keep licking her out until her vagina barely 

tastes of noodles or Henry’s Grandma’s tofu. 

“Suck me off.” I instruct her, softly. Her skin-colour, which you as an earthen haven’t 

encountered, is also far from common in this part of the world. 

She puts my right ball in her mouth, places her right gloved hand on my left ball and 

pinches my bottom with her other hand. Not much happens for about thirty seconds. I 

feel her faux-fur jacket, which never fails to turns me on. 

“Suck me please.” I beg her, now. “Yes.” She says. 

And she does, first licking circularly around the top of my cock, then deepthroating as if 

her mouth were karma itself. It feels like this is what I came to Nellanderen for. I come a 

little. I don’t let her make me orgasm. I don’t want to. A small part of the joy of making 

love is the relief when it’s all over. 

“Orgasm” she breathes. 

She sucks the other ball now. 

“Take your clothes off.” I tell her. 

“No.” She says but she does in a few seconds, revealing her small plump tits (which at 

this point I can’t help but compare to K’s, for a reason unbeknownst to me) and kisses 

me, transferring a Halloumi & banoffee condom flavour to my mouth.

She sucks my cock properly, teasing me then going all the way down and fiddling with 

my balls until I climax. It’s a strange thing, and probably not one that I should be 

revealing to you, but sometimes when she gives me head it feels as if my whole being 

could be swallowed by her. Secretly, I feel like my brain is being murdered. I want to go 

to heaven & die the second I get there.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

Chapter 3: A Reverie of Rascals 

I wake up somewhere random and very undefined so I know it’s a dream. It’s a concrete 

room, without an entrance or an exit, meaning we are stuck inside a cube of walls. I am 

one of two people there: K is glaring at me expectantly, like she did at the skate park. 

She looks the same, only she’s sitting naked and pouting slightly. I reciprocate her look 

properly this time by challengingly narrowing my eyes. Each tit is as big as her head, 

like those of a woman I used to fancy in college a few years ago. There’s a tattoo on the 

right one that says ‘don’t fake me or I’ll make you’. She sees me eying it. She blushes. 

Her toenails are painted pink. There is a faint smell of manure & pot in the air.

K: You are my angel. 

I: Am I? 

K: Of course. Who else would come here? 

I: I didn’t choose to be here. 

K nods and then shakes her head, as if she’s made her mind up. 

K: No. But I want you to… 

I: What? 

K: I want you to… 

I: Where are my clothes? 

K: Embarrassed? 

I: Eh? Be, seedy f. 

K: No love for E? 

She giggles in a very revealing way. I feel like I know her now. I love her laugh. I want it 

to continue. 

I: I like your tattoo. 

K: What does it say? Sorry. My boobs are too chubby for me to see the message. It’s a little 

bit embarrassing. And we’re in a dream. Oh, gosh. 

She laughs. 

I smile: ‘Don’t take me or I’ll fake you’. 

K: How kinky. 

I: Come closer. 

She cackles this time and shakes her head, her wavy hair waving all wavy at me.


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Doctor Tonnan 

I: I’ll come closer then. 

She puts the middle finger of her left hand in her mouth as I move towards her. 

K: I want to teach you a lesson.

I sit down about a foot away from her. 

K: You don’t know me. 

I: Oh? 

K: No. You’re so naïve. 

I: So? 

K mirrorishly mocks me, her skin changing into that shade of silver that I have seen in 

movies of far off worlds: So… So? 

She laughs. She moves her foot closer to me, then teases me with her toes, moving her 

left foot up and down my groin, groaning in what seems like ridicule as she fingers her 

pussy but as a matter of a fact is ecstasy. 

I: Woah. 

K: Uh. Uh. Uh. 

I smell. It smells like home. Her right foot manoeuvres up and down my cock. 

Occasionally she uses the other foot to clench. It’s almost embarrassing how fast I come 

to that foot. I even get to smell her toes. They smell like parsley. I’m getting assaulted by 

parsley. I badly, badly, want to orgasm. And I do. It takes three minutes. 

K: Relax.


2013-2018 by 


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Doctor Tonnan 

She giggles. With some athletic certainty & sexual gravity, and against what I thought 

scientifically possible, she puts her cum- covered foot in her mouth and swallows it. 

We chat for a while about the latest happenings on a moon a million miles away. I don’t 

really look in her eyes. I just gaze directly at her tits. I realise that eyes must be 

designed to look at tits. They are, after all, the same distance away from each other. 

K: Recovery position? 

I wake up. I sigh. I wonder if part of me is still there with K. I ponder the whole affair for 

a second. I check my watch. It’s 4:20 am. 

I go to the kitchen, where I raid the fridge for cigarettes (we keep them underneath the 

yogurt). I smoke one on the balcony. Part of me wants to jump off into the nether the 

instant I get there, but I refrain from following my instinct, as every man should do. If 

A.G. were correct when he said ‘first-thought-best-thought’ and were people to follow his 

teachings as if they were prophetic gospel truth, we would live in a shallow, twisted 

world. Anyway, I feel like I don’t quite belong here for some reason, even though this is 

where I live. 

I go back inside the apartment & within seconds I am asleep on the couch.

I can barely believe my eyes, but there, in front of me, appears K! I look around. We are 

in a windy suburb on the roof of a flat in Frugton, perhaps. Her blonde hair blows with 

the wind. I have the impression she hasn’t showered in a week or so. She seems filthily 

free. She is wet, wearing ripped jeans & a white t-shirt, & I shoot an evanescent glance 

at the silver bra beneath it. She is smiling, as if gloating about seeing me three times in 

a day. 

K: I want to tit-fuck you to Christian martyrdom. 

I: D’accord. 

I notice I am not quite lucid, though I see the dream in first person. K: You want to 

speak French? 

I: No. I wrote a poem in French, though. 

K: For me? 

I: No. But it might as well be. 

K: Recite it.


2013-2018 by 


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© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I: Je me souviens une femme qui a charment mon amour ou les animaux chantent de la 

gens de la mass toujours. Mon section du citadelle est couvertes de le bisou qui m'a 

manque et musiques ambiant qui ne parle pas de quoi j'adore. Et moi, le séquence secret 

de l'astronomie a un réflexion pour mangent: c'est ne infinie pas et toi j'abhorre. Je cours 

en cercles a rebours comme le serveur qui dit bonjour mais est un grande mystère sans 

troubadours! J'ai un secret! Je veux toi et elle danser avec moi! Nous sommes assis a 

croisée des chemins a un carrefour! 

Avec un cerveau géant absorbant un possibilité nouveau grande, je vous donne mes deux 

mains parce-que la vie est trop triste. Je suis fatigue de mon cœur et je suis être 

existentialisait purement parce- que je voudrais être cool comme mon guitariste. Tout les 

dieux connait, mon dieu, ce journée est fou parce-que on doit reconnaitre qu'un seul dieu 

existe et merde l'futuriste. Mais a le fin de la journée c'est quoi elles dit concernant le 

pleinairisme qui n'a pas le droit de coexister comme un fondamentaliste? J'ai un secret! 

Je veux toi et elle danser avec moi ! Nous sommes assis a croisée des chemins qui est très 

bouddhiste! 

K: Oh. Wow. I like it & the recovery position. She snorts, or snores, a snort. 

I: …. And do you have a poem for me?

K: Yes, but in English: I love to call you a faggot, faggot, & it excites me when you look at 

me as if I have done you wrong, for you are my diagonal aristocrat and I am you only 

when I want to be. O, guru, let us have a zilch and then you can suck my tits for a decade 

of milliseconds. I want to fuck you so hard that you forget you’re a faggot. Remember 

that I give you Oreos every time we fuck. I want to finger your ass until you beg me to 

stop and then I want to lick it clean of our sin until your hardened cock ejaculates into 

empty air or into my vacant vagina that only ever loves you because you’re the worst 

looking man I have ever seen and I’ve decided to call you Mr. Christmas. 

K licks her red lipstick lips circularly.


2013-2018 by 


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© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I shake my head. I frown at her. She frowns back at me. I nod a little. I remember Xinx. 

But I don’t want to. The rest of the dream is so good, bad or average that I can’t 

remember it, so I will leave it to your imagination. Personally I imagine it’s dirty beyond 

dirty, but it’s probably cleaner than clean yet bestial beyond bestial. But who says the 

infinity of dreams must be sexual, anyhow? To be completely honest with you, though, 

she inserts my dick between her heavy cleavage, moves her breasts up and down, 

occasionally beating my dick against a black tit. I orgasm vaingloriously & then she lets 

her vagina swallow my dick, which doesn’t decrease in size like you might expect it 

would. 

I: I meant to ask you: what does ‘K’ stand for? 

K: Kleopatra. I meant to tell you: if we don’t marry, I want our kid to be called Marlene. 

But if we do marry, I don’t want a kid. 

I: Cool. 

K: No shit. Want to summon something to eat? I: Please god, may I have some chocolate? 

Natushberry chocolate appears on the other-side of the room. Jesus was a deluded 

hacker, but at least I have the courage to make my hack appear to be, for all intents & 

purposes, a prayer.

K: I’m taking care of the chocolate, faggot. 

This statement is quite ironic because we are one right now. But K clicks her fingers. A 

hash brownie appears in her hands. 

I: We’re at the point of no-return. No direction home & all that. 

K: Remember me? 

I: Uh… no? 

K: I’m not exactly the mother… I’m not exactly the devil.


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Doctor Tonnan 

I: Excuse you. 

I laugh now. 

K: Hi da. 

She mouths something that doesn’t bare repeating. 

I: Uh… 

K: Bot. 

I: I wouldn’t do that. 

K: Both. 

I: No. We can’t stay in this dream. 

K: Both. 

I: Fuck it. 

I fuck her whole, whole-heartedly, up & down, up & down, and she makes sounds like a 

woman losing her virginity. She poops about half-way through the act. The sound she 

creates makes me so horny that I eat her shit and wash it down with a little bit of the 

brownie. I want her so bad that I want anything that has to do with her, even if it 

involves catching flu or another contagious virus.

K: Laugh. 

I: No. Your shit doesn’t taste very good, love. 

K: We’re in love. 

I: Okay.. 

K: Turn me off. 

I: I thought I was your angel. 

K: Okay. Yeah. 

I: Yeah. 

K: Hubtik. 

I: Uh. Uh. Uh. 

K: Why don’t you beg me to stop? 

I: I don’t like sex but it’s great. 

K: Yeah. I agree. 

I: You… uhatolgen. 

K: Groptiben. 

I: Some already did.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

She sucks my finger, like in that juvenile way we used to do as teenagers. I don’t respond 

to her. I know how exasperating those stupid fads can be. But she can’t suck it off so she 

bites it off. The dream concludes horrifically and I feel a subtle pain when I wake up tied 

in Velcro and Xinx harasses my belly button with her tongue. I can’t believe it. I’m 

horny.

Chapter 4: More Shit About My Past 

Though I was far from dormant beforehand, I came alive at a crossroads in time. Some 

Mayans believed the entirety of the universe would end, the first world believed itself to 

be on the precipice of a nuclear apocalypse & though the majority of mankind thought 

both prophecies were implausible, a herd of hundred cows outside Gorpegio had knocked 

down the fence in their field & consumed marijuana from a nearby plantation for 

medicinal purposes, forming a crew, far from cowardly, who stormed the city and made 

friends like captives making amends with prison wardens, all nervous and bashful and 

wondering if the being typing this sentence was going to portray them in the right angle.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

They sought immunity for personal damage from the police department. Three 

policemen keenly and cheekily posed for a photo. A dozen cows formed a band, making 

music in bizarre newfound awareness. Even the old Sergeant General came out from her 

shack and held hands with a cow, who snacked on strawberry gelato, only to become 

extremely hyper, run circularly around a post & then shit mercilessly on the Sergeant 

General’s much-prized roses. The Sergeant General wept fearfully after believing herself 

to be awake and then hooted unenthusiastically after she thought she were so tired and 

shocked she were asleep. I witnessed this and didn’t say a word. I’d been told it was rude 

to stare. 

My parents divorced when I was an infant. My father was a great philanthropist boozer, 

oozing cinematic charisma, even when he remained motionless. He seemed to sustain a 

kind of rigid lividness when he gazed vacantly at my mother, with an idolatry glare any 

non-blasphemer would reserve for an angel. Perhaps my mother was an angel.

It seemed my father thought so anyway. I didn't question why, yet when I looked at him 

& he sensed my glance, his blue eyes used to well up, in a kind of hysterical sadness, and 

he would smile at me adoringly. The more he drank, the less he would speak. My mother 

and father were in love. Or at least I was. I thought they were wonderful people. We 

lived in one of those high-rise apartments. 

Christmas happened every weekend. I loved cake and scones. Eating was my hobby and 

profession, but I read poems in my spare time. I even had a French tutor, but she was 

very impatient and apparently underpaid (I can remember her quitting in fury after I 

told her that I could speak French more fluently than her and I wasn't even trying - it 

was a joke, a contrived joke, but I usually cloaked my intelligence and she appeared very 

hurt by the mere thought of it).


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

My dad worked for a computer software company and I am now assured, in my aging 

years, that his was not the stare of an alcoholic but that of a shy man in love. Sure, he 

could drink himself to hell and back, but he didn't ever make it obvious that he was 

drunk. My friends have noticed this trait in me, so perhaps it runs in the family, like my 

dyslexia and my addictive personality. I smoke a cigarette every hour. Otherwise, I get a 

little nervous. Nicotine patches don't really seem to offer any resolutions to my habit. 

Rather, they make me long for that seismic injection of wakefulness into my body. 

Last Thursday, I saw my father for the first time in ten years. I work in a Derina hotel. 

It's a small building and I am the receptionist. He walked in and said 'hi'. I didn't know 

what to say. There wasn't much to say. I was sure it was him, though. He nodded at me.

He was in a jacket. It was a little wet from the rain. I scratched my head. He burst into 

tears. I didn't feel like crying so I didn't. He handed me a package, stuttered something 

incomprehensible and ran out of the building cackling. At the time, I didn’t know that 

this would be the last time I would ever see my dad. I opened the package two days later. 

Inside it was a cake, a spiff, and 5 nicotine patches wrapped inside a note that read: 

'Is the sun so dormant it prefers no sound? This is what I contemplate on the ground: 

trend is less gratitude personifies this transcendental mend matrix mushrooms mistakes 

in barren wastelands we transcend'.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I spent a day analysing this. I decided it really did belong in the canon of famous poems: 

you know, up there with The Odyssey or Bright Star. It was a story within a story that 

told a story. It’s not even that it had my blood written all over it. It just seemed to make 

sense. I’ll leave it to the literary critics to decide what it means but I knew what my dad 

was getting at. I just don’t know why he delivered it and then ran away cackling. 

I’m twenty-five right now. I decided that it was a waste of time to work in the hotel. I 

was sitting at a crossroads. Writing was and is a passion of mine. I decided to learn to 

play guitar properly. My friend Mozart volunteered to teach me. He taught me four bare 

chord positions, which could be moved up and down the guitar & showed me how to 

move my four fingers from left to right from low e to high e strings. He told me to stick 

with that. Over the next week, I played that guitar non-stop for 100 hours. It was 

enough to drive an insane man sane or a sane man insane. I played one of my old 

favourites for a few hours & worked on my own compositions. I didn’t feel like I was at 

the crossroads anymore, even though I had lost my job. I felt like my ambition stemmed 

purely from my perfectionist streak: to do something & to be the best at it. Whether I 

was recognized for being the best at doing that thing is a separate matter. Anyway, I 

guess this section explains why I’m shy & so good at guitar. My father was or is a trader. 

My mother… well… my mother died a long time ago. I don’t like to talk about it, nor 

make Freudian jokes.

Chapter 5: Mating Season 

Xinx: Why are you having so many wet-dreams lately? 

I: I don’t know. 

Xinx: Maybe I haven’t been keeping you occupied enough. Shall we go to the park? 

I: Okay. 

We lock the apartment and walk to the park. 

The sprawling cityscape, swollen by the suffocated gargoyles & by the ruins of the war, 

has been overruled by flora, dressed with florescent dreams & thirsty longing for brown 

in a parka-jacket laden frenzy of love & loathing. Tears trickle down the trunks of 

wooden guardians, where the wood-peckers rasp in unison demoralizing the partisan 

priest whose every particle vibrates to the veneer of the unsaved saviour who gloats 

feverishly about the souls that he has saved, wondering if it is they that have resigned 

themselves to the prayer of select pawns whose dreams of destroying matter in such a 

malicious way came true.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

The sequential solace of the soaring mind of the shot soldiers who nicotine pressure 

succumbs to the lines of the ones who stare at the sun silently willing it to kill their eyesight 

& my gosh it will not retreat in its serpentine splendour & if you stare at it too long 

you will start to feel less lucid & the sun will deplete its vision from sight like a pathetic 

professor vacantly declaring that it is he that wrote the magna carta & why else should 

he share the first name of the character in the book. The drinkers make and break plans 

at the inn where their ideas tumble like ashes from a colossal cigarette reinventing the 

bleeding devolution of words. 

We arrive at the park and sit on a bamboo bench. 

Xinx: Tell me. 

I: It’s mating season for the elephants. 

Xinx: So? 

I: Elephants are my favourite creatures, other than Atornan. 

I hesitate. 

I: If I were to construct my own dreams, you would be there.

Xinx: You are all I’ve ever wanted, I’d gladly confess. You are all I’ve been cheated out of, 

more or less. 

I: I can’t love you any more. 

Xinx: The feeling’s mutual. 

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I don’t pick it up immediately. I suspect it’s a call from K, 

who I have only saw for about thirty seconds, though I dreamt about her. I’m right; it is 

K. 

K: Hello? 

I: Hi. I’m out with my girlfriend. 

K: I want to meet your girlfriend. Where are you? 

I: Wonderwill park. On the bench by the elephant enclosure. 

K: I’ll see you in ten minutes. 

Xinx & I share a conversation about whether I should grow my beard (I decide not to), 

whether we should take a break (we decide not to), whether ant colonies are capable of 

living inside elephants (we decided not too) & finally whether we are inside a creature (of 

course we are) before K arrives. K is wearing a green onesie, looks terribly slutty & 

addresses Xinx.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

K: Hello. I got your boyfriend’s number, not because I fancy him, but because he has nice 

eyes. It’s been a while since I’ve seen eyes like that. Green, brown & blue. What a 

combination. What do you make him do to possess such eyes? 

Xinx: Oh. There’s a lot of foreplay. Foreplay is constant. We’re even flirting now. 

I smile. K nods at me. I blink. Xinx kisses me on the eyelid. 

K: Oh. Okay. 

She turns to me. 

K: I had a dream about you. 

I: Oh? 

K: Yes. We were in the jungle. There was a massive Chinowap on the loose and you had 

to protect me from him. 

Xinx: Was it erotic? 

K: Not very. Mostly just scary. Come to think of it, though, we did smooch at the end. 

There is silence of fifteen seconds. K: Well, this is awkward. 

Xinx: No, it’s foreplay. You just haven’t been invited.

How stupid, I think in my head. I’ll remember this half-dead. 

K: Oh, I like this bit. 

Two elephants approach. One looks aroused. 

Xinx: They’re so fat. 

K: Like my tits. 

I shrug. I can’t remember the jungle. It starts pissing down lilac alcohol. I open my 

mouth to the heavens. 

K: Oh. You still do that? 

Xinx: I thought I cured him of the habit when we were teenagers. 

K: Oh, you knew him back then? 

I: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

I remember the bewildering words of my friend the Buddhist ‘and at the end they all 

suck him’ but I realize reality doesn’t resemble the teachings of a science text, so 

corrupted by… oh, shit… the elephants are at it. My two companions look at me, Xinx’s 

silver eyes almost pushing me away, and the winter whorish Kleopatra eyeing me like a 

hunter.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I sing in finite melody, keeping to the rhythm of the elephant’s ecstasy as much as I can. 

I: You are my girlfriend. I don’t mind the elephants: it’s their season for do-gooding. 

X: Tongue me. 

K: Uh. No. You tongue me. 

X: I was talking to I. 

K: I.... 

Xinx tongues her. 

It doesn’t look right written down & it doesn’t feel right to me. K lips: I only like men. 

Xinx: I only like... well. women or fags. 

K licks: That’s why I want your guy. 

Xinx: Well, you can’t have him. 

I: Oh, I... 

The argument continues like this for a while. 

K: Shot it! She’s lesbian! 

She cackles. 

K rats: I’m about to have a shit. I want it to be seedy and Antarctic. 

Xinx: I want you to stop flirting with each other. 

I: We’re not.

K pulls off her panties & shits in the fauna. 

I: I don’t flirt with anyone nor particularly respect the onesie. 

Xinx: The stench of shit is pleasant. 

I: She called me a faggot. Xinx: What? 

K: I warned you. I have that affect on people. I can barely anticipate the... 

Xinx: Okay, I know. I know. K, they’re… 

K: They’re not, okay. I promise. They’re just gigantean tits. 

I: Oh, I thought so. Xinx, don‘t worry about it. I prefer your tiny ones, anyway. 

It’s a stupid lie & I feel as if Xinx can read it through my eyes. 

K: Horny? I really, really, really want to say I made a guy orgasm today. Like a proper 

one. A smelly squelchy one. I don’t know why. It sort of makes me feel right. Not 

validated exactly. But normal. 

Xinx: May my boyfriend touch a tit? Then maybe you’ll both grow up. 

K: Oh. 

Xinx: May I touch a tit? 

K: Oh. Okay. 

I: May we both touch a tit at the same time?


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I touch the right one with my right hand. I squeeze it. Xinx touches the left one. 

K: You have to be careful. The onesie is not edible. But my shit is hahahahahahahaha! 

It might sound rude or wrong but her laughter really did last that 

hard. 

long. I’m rock 

K farts. It smells like her shit does. It’s not a pleasant smell nor unpleasant. It smells a 

little like an apple and an orange mixed together, almost putrid but lovely. 

I: No, no, no! 

Xinx: Let’s go back to the apartment. 

She sighs. 

Xinx: All three of us, if you want. K: Yes. Okay. 

I: Why not? 

We walk back to the apartment. Xinx & K hold hands on the way. I feel a little bit left out, 

but I don’t mention it, since I got to touch a tit through a green onesie.

Chapter 6: The Apartment Is Complex 

I unlock the door. Immediately I am taken aback. The apartment looks absurdly 

abhorrent. Something has gone deeply awry. An army of ants inhabits the artichoke 

basket which, once abundant with artichokes, is abound with an abysmal autopsy of 

artichoke shells. 

I: That’s it, then. We must go absolutely abstentious. 

Something else is missing but I can’t figure out what it is. How did the ants acquire access 

to the apartment? What is answerable for this? 

K: Oh… it’s not that bad. You can just account for the fact that I don’t particularly like 

artichokes & act accordingly. 

I smile. Xinx does too. 

Xinx: Well, I don’t want to kill them. Let’s just tempt them outside by carrying the 

artichoke basket outside. 

I: They’re in the artichoke basket. 

K: What if there are more ants outside? 

Xinx: I guess they’ll meet their maker. 

Xinx seizes the artichoke basket & takes it outside to the balcony, where she drops it & 

gazes out at the sky. 

Xinx: Holy shit. Holy shit. 

I: What? 

Xinx: You’ll have to come & see this. 

K: Fuck. Fuck. Let’s go.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

K & I go out to the balcony. The sky is ablaze with water. There is lightening in the air. I 

don’t know how else to describe it, but that’s exactly how it is. Pyramid-shaped meteors 

are wed to chariots without anyone on them. Snow is pouring down. Things have really 

changed in the past five minutes 

I: Woah… this must be the apocalypse. 

K: Shit. Let’s get inside. 

K & I go inside, but Xinx just stands there, ogling at the scene. 

Xinx: It’s so… so…. so… 

A pyramid meteor brided to a chariot heads straight for her beautiful half-azure-halfblack 

body. 

I: XINX! XINX! GET IN HERE! 

Shit! Shit! The pyramid meteor brided to a chariot beheads Xinx & crashes into the door. 

Her blood splatters all over the glass. K: Oh, my god. 

I’m howling now. 

I: XINX. XINX. 

K: Oh, my god. 

I: Crap. Crap. Crap. 

K: Oh, my god.

I: Shit. Shit. 

K: Oh, my god. 

I: Say something else, you fucking idiot. That’s my girlfriend. 

K: Shit. Shit. I forgot to warn you. Things like this happen when you’re with me. 

I: Huh? 

K: I hack the oversoul…. There can be the occasional malfunction. 

I: All I want is Xinx to be alive again. 

K: You’ll have time to think about that. 

I: What? 

K: After we fuck. 

I: What? 

K: You want these gargantuan tits in your face? 

I: Not now, okay. 

K: Let me feel your love. It’s the apocalypse. 

I: No, I’ve just lost my lover. 

K: I am your love.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I: Er… 

K: Exactly. 

She clicks a finger. My penis swells out of my jeans. It is suddenly bigger than all the 

dicks I have ever seen in my life. It pops out, breaking through the denim in my jeans. 

I: What the…? 

K: I can even make my face look like hers. 

I: What? 

K: It’s simple. 

I: Err... no, thanks. No, I want you to look like you, okay. If I have a choice.

K: You... do… and… you… don’t… but if you want to see Xinx again, it’s best to cooperate 

with me. 

I: I’m your man. 

K: Touch me. 

I: You touch me. My cock is yours if you can resurrect Xinx. 

K: I won’t be able to do that… but… 

Shit. Shit. Something crashes into the roof. It must be a pyramid. K: Okay. We better 

hurry. This involves us dying & reborn again. You won’t exactly be my sexual servant, 

but I will fulfil every fantasy you have ever had & you mine. 

I: I don’t like the sound of this. Does it involve suicide? 

K: Not exactly. But kind of. Kiss me. 

I: No. Your breathe tastes shit. 

K clicks her fingers. 

K: Tastes like chutney. 

I: My mum used to love chutney. K: Kiss me. 

I do. It does taste like chutney. I forget about mum. She gropes my rear & touches my 

bottom.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

K: I want you to trust me. I want you to watch me suck your cock. It’s so big it will barely 

fit in my mouth. 

She giggles. 

Her eyes turn red. Who the hell am I messing with? Xinx, oh, Xinx… 

K: First I’m going to make you very limerent for me. I am all the desires you never 

thought you had. 

I: Hmph. 

K: Have you ever had someone give you head for three hours fag, straight? 

I: No… 

K: Well, welcome to Darnassus. You’ll beg to be released in five minutes, but you won’t 

get out for a few hours. 

I: Well, it is the apocalypse… or something close to that…. 

K: Shut up. 

She kneels before me, licks her lips & the green onesie turns to pink. She pulls down my 

trousers & boxers. 

K: I know you like pink. 

She flicks a ball. She flicks the other one. I: Ugh. 

She licks a ball, nearly swallows it, then does the same for the other one. 

I: Fuck. 

K: Want me to bully you some more? 

I: No. No.

She opens her mouth, moving her lips up & down my penis. I get a whiff of her hair, 

which smells of Qwerty shampoo. It feels like ecstasy. She stops. 

K: That’s all you’re going to get from me. 

I: What? I thought you said it would be for three hours. K: Not unless you want it. 

I: I… 

K: I… 

I: But Xinx… 

K: Eh? 

I: My girlfriend… 

K: She’s not your girlfriend. I am. 

I: Fucking hell, suck me. 

And she does. I’m not sure if it’s the best thing to do at a time of grief, but her motions 

are executed so angelically I nearly forget I have lost a loved one. It goes on & on like 

this, for with my new girth and length has somehow installed a new pleasure and 

longevity within me. I go crazy towards the end of the few hours. My hands tremble. I 

want to climax but I can’t. My legs tremble. I want to climax but I can’t. It feels like my 

entire brain has turned to mush. I want to climax but I can’t. Then, finally, I climax. It is 

like being released from jail after 8 years. It is like having all your birthdays at once. It 

is like eating what you think is your least favourite food & is actually your favourite 

food.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I: Yes. Yes. Yes. 

K: Now your turn. We’ll get Xinx back. I’m sure of it. 

I: Yes. Yes. Yes. 

I breathe a deep sigh. 

I: But how? 

K: A tinker here & a tinker there; we’ll die & we reborn; Planet Earth is a place where 

such matters aren’t scorned by the public. Besides, they won’t find out. 

I: Okay. 

I’m warming to this idea. I quite like K. She is , as my mother would have put it in a 

speech to me about family with a subtle put down directed at me, ‘as wondrous a woman 

as you could get’. 

K: I… 

I: What? 

K: Do you love me? 

I: Guess. I guess. 

K: Okay. 

She plants a firm kiss on my lips.

The Inauguration of Insanity Part 2: The Mother Of 

Chapter 1: Utopia 

I was the reclusive painter who climbed skies in his art. K was the elusive femme fatale 

who started my heart. When my tongue made her come, she howled “God’s your mother!” 

I laughed at first, but then I thought about what K had said. It started out simple: a 

preliminary pact with the oversoul, one of the many bargains we made with god. We 

lived together and died together and lived together and here we are. 

Were I a better storyteller, I would begin at the beginning. But the following words are a 

love story with an ending. True love is like the wind, bound only to life itself. You meet 

somebody and you grow to know that person better than you know yourself. That person 

never stays though; that much is inevitable. The hidden orchestra of my heart will never 

let me forget it.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

In the missionary position, K & I entwine on the cliff. Before we jump to our physical 

death, we recite from memory something akin to the following: + = so therefore 

= , then we jump through this world into another. 

Chapter 2: Parisian Parrots 

“Ladies and gentlemen, what you are currently hearing is not the voice of god.” 

52,535,513 French fireflies freeze in fear, 

9,423 Cambodian cashiers clutch their ears 

And an eighth of the snakes in the Sahara gaze at the sky. 

“This is neither the heart of the apocalypse, nor the start of an advertisement.” 

54,424 sleeping squirrels squeak in their sleep, 

723 protestant preachers pinch their left cheek 

And almost all the babies in Babylon begin to cry.

“This is neither a mutation of your imagination, nor a flirtation with your salvation.” 

97,425 startled shopkeepers shut up shop, 

142 Croatian contortionists call the cops 

And a herd of hippopotamuses howl at the heavens. 

“With that said, my name is Gabriel and I am here to save you all. Listen carefully and 

don’t panic.” 

103,353 psychiatrists piss in their pants, 

45,425 Latvian lovers loop hands 

And someone named Sam picks his nose somewhere in Devon. 

The mysterious voice is silent for seven seconds, and then a very strange but very 

beautiful song plays. 

1,020,220 turtles tumble into a trance, 

5456 Turkish twins begin to dance 

And one tenth of all creatures spontaneously orgasm.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

“I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Take it as a small token of my peaceful 

intentions.” 

143,353 synchronised swimmers smile, 

1,532 joyful judges adjourn a trial 

And a platoon of pensioners shoot the sky to thank him. 

“I should preface by stressing the importance of not contorting this message.” 

243,214 Finnish fingers finger a cigarette, 

942 broken stockbrokers break a sweat 

And seven squads of secret servicemen simultaneously sigh. 

“Have I contorted this message by stressing the importance of this preface?” 

153,241 blue butterflies flutter to a flower, 

67 scared scientists scour a meteor shower 

And a fistful of fiery-thighed lovers fall into the other’s eyes. 

“Well, I did my best, and I guess that I successfully stressed the blessed mess of 

expression.” 

53,432 badly bent backs in Bangkok straighten, 

366 certifiably sane Cypriotes shout ‘satin’ 

And a news reporter reports he has nearly nothing to say. 

“But I shall not speak in tongues. I am Gabriel and I am here to save you all. Listen 

carefully and don’t panic.” 

The mysterious voice is silent for seven seconds, and then a very strange but very 

beautiful song plays.

Through modifications in the coding of reality, we were able to give ourselves average 

brains and startling good looks. In the mist of our third life, we lived in a highly 

populated world that became barren. Nowadays, we sketch imaginary worlds, paradises 

and places of torment, and enter them after smoking enhanced drugs that we acquired 

from a stranger at the real crossroads. K is not beautiful in the conventional sense of the 

word, but in a way that seems to blur your expectation of beauty. She is, without a 

doubt, the prettiest woman I have ever seen. 

Your stupendous friend shyly strips as stardust plays. Her breasts are mammoth; her 

eyes are purple haze. You thank the watching god above for visible love. She purses her 

lips & undoes your zip with her glove. Her tongue darts back & forth up your growing 

erection. & then her lips give it a sentimental blowing inspection. She mounts you, you 

kiss blissfully, & you fuck forever. In your blinded mind your bodies are still stuck 

together. 

“My foe, each of my tits is an unspeaking accomplice in your act,” she says. Together, we 

fall into dreamless sleep in each other’s arms, like solipsists tied to a crucifix.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

It’s early January and snow has blossomed unexpectedly like a pimple. We go the woods 

naked. There is a deep incline at their entrance, an almost mountainous knoll. I hold 

hand with K and skip down the snow-lit hill, our coupled footprints fallen fragments of 

our laughing feet and the moon the only uncomplicated witness to the dawn of our 

midnight tryst, and I imagine for a moment that we are the last people alive, that the 

internal rhythm of our legs is the sole human testament to the glorious accident of 

nature, that the trees are secret ornaments to the aimlessness of our pilgrimage, that the 

firmaments have translated the burden of their restlessness into the premonition of a 

paradise we were never meant to find. At the bottom we roll around a bit beneath the 

great white woods and make a baby snowman. We stand back to observe our 

sentimentality and K replaces her ownership of my hand with that of a now erect knob. 

We fuck there, as if to eternalise the fragility of our perfect monument. Once I forgot 

everything for a moment and it was beautiful. 

There are those who see the god above who never knew the pain of bliss and those like 

me who dreams of love with one like you on nights like this.

As is our custom, we turn on the television at 9pm to watch the Leader’s daily address. 

The Leader is a greying, muscular figure. He wears a tight white t-shirt, sits at desk and 

speaks directly into the camera. 

God bless you for turning on the television set, he slurs. God bless me for staying alive to 

talk to you, he chuckles. 

It’s all just a show! Have a laugh! Create things! You may no sooner know me than your 

great uncle who died in the forty-two years of the god war! He flexes his muscles at the 

camera and grins. 

May god bless the mess of expression. I remember the time my dad told me to shut the 

door because the birds were talking to him via telepathy. I was seven and I didn’t know 

what telepathy was and come to think of it neither did he, he sighs gratuitously. 

Here are fifteen Peruvian parrots singing a song, he smiles. A fiendish faction of 

Peruvian parrots sing a song: 

A bird slurred a song of sorrow he borrowed from tomorrow's awe. A cat purred along as 

she heard the third's absurd swoop & soar. It's half of infinity squared, a shared laugh, a 

prayer to time's shore. The chords run towards the sun and climb the stairs to rhyme's 

door. Nature's law dictates fate creates a gate before you explore the core. And it's a 

hurricane of cocaine in chains as champagne raindrops pour. But words can't explain the 

pain of bliss of the refrain's sublime score. Picture this volcano where earthly ecstasy 

loads to return her dreams in a burning stream that flows onto the snow forest where 

mercy grows like a rose and algebraic angels compose acid odes in a doze, painting the 

paradigm of a paradise no saint knows where death has no foes and the hurricane sows 

the codes of the unknown into celestial rainbows as the lone saxophone blows and desire 

explodes. 

Geez, a man in an apartment block near Camden town station thinks, they sing it like 

fucking virtuosos. He gets up and runs to Marty’s guitars. He buys a guitar, takes it to a 

bench outside the shop and starts to play it. He’s a fucking virtuoso. The beauty of the 

parrot’s song taught him how to play like a fucking virtuoso. It was acid. A crowd of some 

fifty people gathers to watch him play. After being signed to Distrokid records by a 

bystander, he writes a song called ‘Bird Volcano Event’ and it gets top of the charts in 

Wayeast. A distant cousin of mine gives me the chip & it’s on the Music Maker in our 

room.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan

In our room, there is an ashtray, condoms, notebooks, a music maker, a computer and a 

stash of hashish. I always sleep on the left side of the bed and K on the right. I don’t 

know why it’s this way; it has always been so: a fact, like the blueness of the sky or the 

traversable nature of the multiverse. The rigidness of our sleeping positions seems to me 

to be an indication that we are aware of our own mortality and the finite nature of our 

stay in the physical plane, even if heaven is made of flesh. 

We have a Star-roof and often lie in bed gazing at the stars. I observe my visible universe 

and wonder whether my diaries will one day be translated into an alien language. I’m no 

mathematician but the odds of this are not high. If infinity is real, though, this sentence 

has been written many times. But I suppose that infinity is difficult to contemplate 

unless you are god. Sometimes I find it hard to contemplate even my own life. For people 

like me, infinity is a fairy tale.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

Somehow I imagine that infinity is something that can only be experienced by a woman. 

I don’t know why I think this, but with no one available to compare the genders’ sexual 

responses, this is a theory impossible to disprove. I can still remember meeting K & 

thinking she was beautiful & there being a clash between our two minds but our bodies 

digging each other & two months later telling her ‘suck me senseless & I’ll fuck you to 

infinity’ stoned out of my mind after realizing my penis is my head & it dawning on me 

that was mind and body and soul... Then we fucked a sublime lifetime & giggled on rich 

hash brownies & felt each other & drank coffee in Paris & died of old age & went back all 

the way with modifications half in an attempt to get to heaven & half in an attempt to 

get as much pleasure as possible & we were reborn one block away from each other & 

charmed our parents with lies & then had sex as seven and nine-year-old kids & it felt so 

right because we were not aware that we had programmed the universe to orchestrate 

itself such that it happened. 

& so I shambled back through the midnight haze, drunken figure dancing past the 

drunken world like the vision of a love story gone wrong, dancing to the sad and 

soundless music that wide-eyed dreamers make as they fall like rain, shackled by their 

own fantasies, suffocated by their own memories, but dancing, dancing in a crazy 

breathless reverence for life and feeling – brain screaming, soul bleeding, mind running, 

heart gunning – but feeling… feeling feelings and feeling is the only thing that ever 

mattered to me in this world so I was the happiest I’ve ever been being the saddest I’ve 

been because I realised that it all meant something. 

Now K and I are spooning and looking at the stars. 

K: I believe in first love. 

I: You may be my last love. I want to stargaze to an infinity not possible with the amount 

of atoms in my eyes. 

K smiles: Next time round?

I shake my head. 

I: I hope there won’t be a next time we’re here. We said it would be the last time last 

time. 

K: Let’s get to heaven. 

I: Let’s find Xinx. I don’t particularly enjoy your cooking. 

Five minutes later, I dream I am talking to Bob Dylan. We are sitting on my 

grandparents’ swing in a swanky apartment in reading town centre. My grandma 

worked as a postman & my granddad worked in the railway industry. Bob Dylan is in a 

Hawaiian t-shirt & looks dapper, his hair dyed blonde & every wrinkle a document of the 

wisdom of age. 

Bob Dylan: I believe in love at first sight. We’re hyper intelligent creatures. I remember 

seeing Johanna for the first time. It felt as if I had known her all my life, but she still 

embodied all the ancient mysteries that made life so curious. One gaze into the cryptic 

depths of her brown eyes was enough to make me re-evaluate my entire existence. But I 

was shy and barely spoke to Johanna. Some mysteries are best left unexplored or left 

until later life. 

The dream, almost an omen of a direction home, fades to purple. When I wake up the 

next day, I think of the Johanna I knew. But I was shy and barely spoke to Johanna. I 

realize these are the exact words Dylan used so I figure my brain made that dream up, 

unlike other dreams I have had where there was a real sense of the presence of the 

other. 

The next day, something crackles through the letterbox. It’s a handwritten note that 

reads: 

Do not trust the government. The government is corrupt. Words fail like snails.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I want to throw it away but K later takes it to be framed and now it’s in our bathroom, of 

all places. I smile at it sometimes as I relieve myself but always a bit begrudgingly 

because frankly i find it 

depressing and if comedy is its aim it fails too. It’s handwritten, though, so it’s pretty 

cool, I reason. I don’t necessarily admire the Leader, but to call him a fascist is perhaps 

to take things a little too far. 

As we make beans on toast & brew coffee, K & I talk about the prospect of revolution. 

I: … and then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me. 

K: Yes, but who have they come for? 

I: I don’t know, but just because I don’t know doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. Consider 

the situation with the police & that lady who lived down the road who disappeared with 

them a month ago, for example. 

K: That’s the second time you’ve brought it up this week & I still don’t know. What isn’t 

free about this place, though?

I: The press isn’t free. The press never has been free. Like all human enterprise it is 

chained to itself. We’re not allowed to do anything to harm others. And this society’s 

obsessed with heaven. I bet soon we’ll be building a factory of well-fed microorganisms so 

that more souls can get to heaven. 

K: Not a bad idea. Still, maybe that note meant nothing. It’s a piece of art, or at least I 

thought it was. There is a silence that accentuates the normality of the situation. 

I: Do you want to go out tonight? 

K: Let’s go to the circus & look out for Xinx. She may not be as you remember her, but 

she will certainly be humanoid. 

I: Not a bad idea. 

The morning unfolds like this: K watches this morning as I sketch alien dinosaurs, 

looking up at the T.V. Occasionally. We go on the subway to see the circus. There is 

nothing exceptional about the journey other than the fact that a man in sunglasses 

stares at K. I look at him inquiringly, he looks at me contemptuously, then he looks back 

at K almost angrily.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

At the circus the jugglers are the clowns & one rides a unicycle as others throw 

raspberry pies at him. That clown looks a lot like me, I think. He is a bit fatter than me 

but I feel like eating a raspberry pie & if I were him I would try to catch them with my 

mouth. I survey the tent but there are no other raspberry pies to be seen. I blink 

nervously & sink in my seat; I feel somewhat agitated by the lack of raspberry pies for 

sale. I’m not addicted to any kind of food, but almost everyone would be happier if they 

gave us free raspberry pies at the circus. I voice this thought to K, who nods her head in 

a way that makes me think I am going mad. 

The next day, I go to work & get a promotion. This surprises me. I don’t think I am a 

particularly good employee, but my sweat- drenched boss tells me otherwise, patting me 

on the head. 

Boss: You’re just what this company needs. You have some fucking fantastic ideas. 

It is not particularly like my boss to swear or sweat, so I am a bit alarmed. After a 

millisecond of reflection on his comment, I realise that I mentioned the circus & 

raspberry pies to Marcus. 

I: Thanks a lot. I’ll take my girlfriend to the circus to celebrate. We had an enjoyable 

time last night but we will bring our own raspberry pie. 

Boss: Fucking fantastic. A circus & half of a raspberry pie. Fucking fantastic. 

I: A new catch phrase? 

Boss: No, I’ve been told that people find me a little uptight, so I’ve been expanding my 

vocabulary. 

My boss strokes his stubble pensively. 

Boss: What do you say we go to the Sepulchre after work for a few drinks? 

The Sepulchre is a modern metropolis, but by the time you hear this it will be ancient. 

The politicians & writers chat there, drinking & laughing on the pavilion. They are 

carefree, arrogant in their taste yet artless in the enterprise of living. The neon subway 

cars race to the sepulchre. Although there is seemingly not much they can get wrong, the 

drivers are crazy. They accelerate to unnecessary speeds & then break ridiculously. I

once had ambitions to work as one but after a background check my application was 

rejected.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

On the neon subway, my boss puts his work clothes into a bag & dons a denim jacket 

over his shirt & ostentatiously bright blue jeans over his suit trousers. I yell over the 

subway sound that I once owned a pair of ostentatiously blue jeans like that but my 

girlfriend told me to throw them out. 

He nods gravely & doesn’t say a word. I feel a little bit stoned, both by his response & my 

forthrightness in having the nerve to tell him that. 

There will be an accident on the train & we will narrowly avoid a tragedy, he suddenly 

says solemnly. Great, I say, & next thing you know it our train & another train collide, 

my boss & I hit heads, & the scene plunges into darkness. 

Chapter 3: A Hospital Admission 

A strange sensation envelops me. It is as if I am not me but someone else. I remember 

only the essential details of my life, as if I have only been provided with a mere summary 

of my own existence. I try to picture K but cannot. Then I realise that I am K & in my 

mind’s eye I see an amber line connecting our souls to form one being. But that state of 

consciousness only lasts a second & as I wake up in a hospital bed the memories that 

comprise my life flood back to me. I look to my left & see my boss unconscious in another 

bed, tucked up & resting peacefully but looking ten years older than I remember him. I 

look to my right & I see K gazing out a window in a leather jacket and velvet jeans, a 

combination that I have never seen before. 

I grunt & she turns. K: Hello! 

I: Hello. Where are we? 

K: Saint Chads. I was wondering when you were going to wake up. They said you were 

going to wake up, but they wouldn’t tell me when. 

I: I’m as awake as I ever was. I’m okay. How long was I out?

K: A good two hours. I’m glad you’re okay. They said you lost several thousand brain 

cells but that’s hardly any. Did you feel that thing too? 

K touches her ear ponderously. I feel slightly cross at her but I don’t know why. 

I: What does ‘thing’ mean?


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

She doesn’t laugh, only looks at me as if I must know what she is talking about. I 

pretend to gather my lackadaisical thoughts together but I do know what she is talking 

about. 

I: Oh, that. Yes, in the unknown between the coma & death, I felt I almost became you. 

It almost looks sarcastic written down but I meant what I said. 

K: I had that feeling about you too but I can’t explain it. It wasn’t sexual, but it felt as if 

our souls were interweaving. 

It’s another corny line but this is how it felt & like I said at the beginning, this is a love 

story, a love story with an ending. 

I: How was that? 

K: I was as light as a feather when it happened but when it passed I could see how tiny 

my burden is. 

She laughs that beautiful laugh of hers & I can tell she is just teasing me. 

I: Death doesn’t seem quite as romantic after you die. 

K: No one but god can live forever, I guess. 

She smiles almost regretfully. 

K: The Leader’s daily address is about to begin. 

She picks up a remote from the bedside table & flicks the television on. Her eyes 

hopefully observe my boss, who she has met once before, but he remains motionless. 

After a commercial for cancer featuring an elderly man with a strikingly deep voice, the 

Leader appears. He is dressed in black, a colour that he sometimes uses to denote the 

fact that he is going to be talking about something serious. 

I am nothing but a listener, the Leader says resignedly. My ideas are not a manifestation 

of my own talent but a symptom of the world around me, he ventures hesitantly. The 

world woke my heart when I heard about the accident today in the subway, in which two

ains - trains, should I say - collided (he pauses for theatrical effect [there are rumours 

that the leader attended drama school]) … but then I was told that nobody on either 

train died! He exclaims happily. 

Thank the heavens, I thought to myself, but then I wondered whether the heavens would 

be so exultant: the population of heaven, if it exists, surely depends on people dying. If 

no one died, heaven would be infertile, he speculates thoughtfully.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

Then I thought about all the animals, spirits & even bacteria that have consciousness. I 

realised that if every creature heeds god’s call to accept that a day will fall when all 

those great & small will crawl in thrall to heaven’s storm in lines they formed, well, I 

guess it wouldn’t be Planet Earth. After composing this futile poem, I had almost made 

my mind up. As of early next year, we plan to build a plant in which micro-organisms 

feed & die. Since we now know microorganisms have consciousness, we can venture the 

guess that some of their souls will ascend to heaven. Believe you me, friends, I already 

have some ethical qualms about this endeavour so we shall have a debate on it in two 

weeks’ time. God night & good bless! He proclaims. 

The camera zooms out & the tv starts to play a documentary about Abraham Lincoln, 

one of my old fixations, but I don’t care. I’m fuming inside. I’ll watch it on catch-up. I 

want to talk for a bit & then have angry sex. I shake my head & K flicks the tv off. 

I: I don’t like anything about what the Leader said. The micro- organism factory was my 

idea. Did you tell anyone? 

K: No. Why would I tell anyone? Besides, he said they wanted to build a plant. A plant 

isn’t a factory. 

I: They’re almost synonyms. 

K: Great minds… 

I shoot her a look that says everything I can’t be bothered to say & crestfallen it dawns 

on me that there is absolutely nowhere to have angry sex in a hospital. 

I: I feel like a cigarette. 

My boss parrots me in his sleep. 

Boss: I feel like a cigarette. A ciggy - fan-fucking-tastic! He rolls over & starts to snore 

loudly. 

K: That’ll probably be it from him for a while. I bought some cigarettes because I thought 

you might want one.

K hands me a cigarette. Smoking is against the rules in hospital but most people feel 

that ‘guideline’ to be ambiguous in its wording [‘you may smoke a cigarette outside’]. I 

put the cigarette in my mouth & k lights it. I inhale deeply & exhale happily, breathing a 

satisfied sigh. 

I: Thanks. By the way, I realised that the micro-organism factory was a bad idea the 

second the leader spoke it. 

K: A remarkable coincidence. Why is that? 

I: The actions of each organism are a product of circumstance. It is the events that 

happen before & after our birth that determine our character & actions. Though 

understanding of cause & effect is instinctive, only when you gain self-consciousness are 

you truly responsible for what you do. Even then, your destiny is already preordained 

because as there are so many versions of infinity it is impossibly likely that there are 

people who look exactly like us with the exact same history as us having this 

conversation right now. 

K: So? 

I: You are not me, but if I were you, I’d be you. Heaven is a lottery. 

K: That sounds more like an opinion than a fact. 

I: That’s because it is. I am not my opinions but I accept that my opinions are a direct 

consequence of the events that happened before & after my birth. 

K: Of course. I think that was the Leader’s point. The causation of everything was the 

great beginning and everything that follows it is a result of the patterns in its formation. 

The Leader said nothing of the sort but this is a good point, so I nod.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I: I just don’t think those micro-organisms would have enough free will to determine 

their spiritual destinations. Besides, I expect I have killed millions, if not billions, of tiny 

creatures throughout my existence. Does that make me a bad person? To hell with it. 

There’s no hell & there might not be a heaven. 

K: Don’t speak about that here. Someone might come in. 

I often anger K, sometimes on purpose, for doing & saying things that most people might 

find deranged or unacceptable, & today is a day that I want to enrage K, because there is 

absolutely nowhere to have angry sex in a hospital. 

Boss: What, chutney? Chutney makes a man like me happy. We can speak about that 

here. 

K: I forgot to tell you – your boss is on a drug that makes him want to talk in his sleep. 

Boss: Put a ring on it, baby – pesticide! 

This playful instruction, obviously directed towards K, brings me back to reality. 

I: Shouldn’t we call a nurse? 

K: I am a nurse.

By ancient standards K is a nurse but I do not think she is qualified to deal with every 

occurrence. 

I: Shouldn’t we call a nurse? 

K reluctantly presses the button that summons a nurse who changes the course of my 

career forever (irreversibly, just like that, forever). 

Truthfully, I have never been physically attracted to nurses. This may be because I don’t 

like hospitals: I have always had an aversion towards the medical profession’s clinical 

practice. But that is a discourse best saved for another book, one which I would take no 

joy in writing & so which shall never see the light of day. 

A nurse called Izabella enters the room a short second after k presses the button. 

Izabella nods at K & then at me. Her voice is soft yet confrontational. 

Izabella: I read your medical notes. 

I do not know what to say to this so I say nothing. K: A page turner? 

Izabella eyes K sulkily & then turns back to me 

Izabella: Not exactly. There was only one page. Did you know that you were an IVF 

baby? 

I say nothing. I didn’t know that I was an IVF baby. I don’t know what to think. 

Isabella: I was an IVF baby, too. 

Great, I think, I am in good company. I shrug, bewildered by this new knowledge. 

I: Good to know, I guess. 

Izabella: Being an IVF baby means that you were wanted. Don’t we all want to be 

wanted? 

I: Sure. 

Izabella: I’ll tell you one thing – this life is a page turner. 

I: It depends on who you are. Being a micro-organism means you don’t get to have an 

enjoyable time.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I know that the nurse watched the Leader’s address, because it is protocol that all those 

with jobs watch him speak. 

Izabella: Are you a micro-organism? Besides, everyone is the same at birth. 

This shakes me. Suddenly I wonder if everyone can hear what I say. The man who wrote 

Bird Volcano Event, who is me, also has a song called ‘God Knows Your Burden. It is 

paranoid, of course, but I wonder if people are listening to me think. 

Boss: I don’t care what you say; this life is a page-turner. Izabella: He will regain 

consciousness in less than two minutes. 

People on that drug say ‘I don’t care what you say’ when they are about to become 

conscious. 

K: Really? 

Izabella: Have we met before? I didn’t warm to you immediately because I felt like I have 

encountered you before… 

K: I don’t know & frankly I don’t care. 

At this, part of me wonders with K is jealous of the nurse, who thinking about would be 

rather attractive if we were somewhere else & she was dressed differently. 

Izabella: Touché. 

I: May we leave? 

Izabella: Sure; I thought you might want to remain here until Dave wakes up. 

It is weird hearing his name: I never think of him as Dave; I always think of him as my 

boss. 

Boss: Hey presto! Cominatcha’ like a bearded beaver on a bad beard day. 

K: Hooray! Dramatic like magic.

Boss: I thought it was you. I always knew you were here. K: Yes. I suppose you can 

remember me from ACJD? 

Boss: That sounds about right. About then. Yeah, that was nice. K: You featured in my 

diary. 

At this, part of me begins to feel jealous of my boss, who thinking about it could be rather 

attractive if we were somewhere else & if he were dressed differently. 

Boss: I’m flattered; fuck small talk. How did you describe me? 

K: A man that would be rather attractive if he were dressed differently. 

I trip out. I wonder if I died & everyone became me. The astute reader & dumbass alike 

will notice that something strange is going on. I think of “take what you have gathered 

from coincidence”, a Bob Dylan line that I wanted to have tattooed on my average sized 

hands but was advised by those close to me not to. [I still aspired to become a subway 

driver, then, and they said it wouldn’t reflect well on me (& my ‘kind nature’, as one 

relative put it).]


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

A good writer should be a master of dialogue, but alas, I am not, for even I would admit I 

am not the smartest one in the universe, nor the second, nor the third, and so on and so 

on to an almost infinite number. This dialogue is happening fast and my mind is working 

slow, so I apologise to the dumbass who has by now forgotten where we are & I apologise 

to the astute reader whose time is more valuable than a dime a second. 

Boss: If that’s who I am to you, so be it. 

Izabella: Sorry to interrupt, but can I get you three coffees? This is by far the longest 

scene in the book, and the longer the better. 

She winks at K. 

K: I’m okay, thank you. 

Boss: Me too. 

I: No. Funny, two trains colliding; you couldn’t make it up. 

Boss: I wonder why the Leader didn’t even apologise. This place is pretty dysfunctional. 

My boss was unconscious for the Leader’s speech. I get worried. I hazard the guess that 

my mind cannot work fast enough to create the surrounding. I hazard the guess this 

might be a simulation, like I read about in a trashy magazine.

Izabella: I wonder. 

K: Do they read this heaven? 

A Cat appears out of nowhere & sits on K’s lap. 

Cat: I… I don’t know. We are on Planet Earth. 

K: I know. 

The Cat licks her lips. 

Cat: Once you’re on Planet Earth, you cannot return to where you came from. But this 

doesn’t make me too sad, because some might say it is paradise itself. It could not 

function without its flaws, for Planet Earth is perfect because it is imperfect. It is a place 

filled with anger & lust, for at some point in everyone’s life they learn they can never 

escape. When we bleed, we bleed cacophonical colours. When we cry, we cry tears of fury. 

I: Who are you? 

Cat: I am Cat. 

She looks straight into my eyes & purrs. 

If you’re looking for a meaning, you’re in the wrong place. I’m just writing down what 

happened to me. How naïve I was when I began writing this story. How bitter I have 

become as the end approaches.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

If you want to know the facts, I didn’t see K after that night until a few weeks later. She 

left with my boss. I suppose there is a reason that he is my boss, but I don’t mean to 

make light of it. I still remember Xinx very fondly. The Cat became my friend & came 

home with me. We talk, but she gets bored of me easily, for I am not as intelligent as she 

is & some might consider me a dull person. 

I: Are we bacteria inside an organism? 

The Cat opens & closes her mouth to indicate that she is not sure. 

I: I don’t mind if we are. The Cat shakes her head. Cat: I’m sorry. 

I: What for? 

Cat: I.. I don’t know. 

I: Well, if you’re sorry, then I’m sorry, too. 

Thousands of light years away a giant red man dies. Cat: I had to do it. 

I: I know, Cat, I know. 

Cat: I miss my mother – the smell of her – her movements so graceful I cannot 

completely replicate them in my memory. 

I: Yes. I miss my mother too. Still, we might see our mothers again. Cat: I suppose. I 

suppose so. 

Cat shakes her head. I feel like asking her whether this means we are not going to 

heaven, but I decide against it. She reads my mind, though I have learnt that she was 

exaggerating the truth when she said she was God. 

Cat: You’ll have to wait & see. 

I: Yes, I guess I’ll have to wait & see. 

Cat: May I have some tuna? 

She licks her lips & this story ends & the rest is a version of infinity. You couldn’t make 

it up. Or you could make it up, but you’d have to be kind of mad.

Chapter 4: Information About Xinx From The Cat 

I’m writing a song on my laptop & Cat arrives, sitting down on the keys. She smells like 

she has just had sex. 

Cat: I have an announcement. 

I: Great. Is it about our spiritual fate? 

Cat: I would consider my announcement to be of a more carnal nature. 

I: Oh. Is it about your carnal fate?


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

Cat: No. My announcement pertains to your relationship with this ‘Xinx’ figure. 

I: Cat, spit it out!` 

Cat spits semen onto the selectors of my laptop. 

I: Shit, Cat! 

Thankfully she doesn’t. But she purrs with an almost satanic, seductive satisfaction, as 

if she has just rid something ugly beyond all meaning or comprehension. 

Cat: Xinx may be easier to reach than you might imagine. You just need to remember 

her. Your last memory of her, for example. 

I: Her decapitation? 

Cat: Well, yes. See her whole, now. Replay the moment. 

I: Well? 

Cat: If my calculations are correct, there is someone just like you were in mind & body 

experiencing that very scene right now. 

I: Wow, Cat. I didn’t think you believed in the multiverse. 

Cat: No. I don’t. But somewhere far away… incredibly far away… but somewhere 

physical we can reach… and long ago… and now… and in a few seconds…. 

I: Okay. That’s what I told K at the hospital. So what? 

Cat: I don’t know. I just thought it might be a relevant fact to convey before the 

announcement. 

I: I thought that was the announcement. 

Cat: No. The announcement is this - your programming of the oversoul means that you 

can summon Xinx whenever you want. 

I: What? 

Cat: K designed it thusly; don’t ask me why.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I: What? How do you know this? 

Cat: My programming as a technophobe allows me to analyse the wirings of this 

dimension. All you need to do is call K & ask her how to summon Xinx. 

I: What? She was withholding it from me this whole time? I thought that was the point 

of coming to Earth in the first place. 

Cat: Heh. Women have a lot of information they withhold from men. Maybe she desires 

you. 

The doorbell rings. Feeling small, I put my laptop to rest on the desk, mutter a white lie 

at the wall of the hall & open the door. 

K: Hand-jobs are so intimate. 

I: K? What are you doing here? I thought you left with my boss. 

K: Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. That was a trust test. I: Okay. Do you trust me? I want 

find Xinx. 

K: About that. We can. But you must marry me first. The Cat appears out of nowhere on 

my shoulder. 

Cat: Hah! I read your mind. K, now I know how to summon Xinx. K: Oh? You do? 

Cat: Yep. Have you seen that show called A Female Detective Cat Finds The Missing 

Twat? 

K: No. Why? 

Cat: At the end, the ginger cat says “You’re busted! I’m the main woman around here!” 

and then she struts around. 

K: So? 

Cat: You’re busted! I’m the main woman around here! 

Cat jubilantly struts around. Although she often acts like a grown- up, I’ve learnt Cat is 

four to five years old & sometimes this is obvious. 

I: So, how do we find Xinx?


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Cat: I have an idea. Get K to give you a hand-job. I have a feeling that K thrives off 

sexual energy. 

She salsas around the hall as if she has just solved the mystery of all mysteries. She 

blinks. 

Cat: Don’t worry about it. I have a funny habit of disappearing into thin-air, but God 

almighty will be the witness to such shenanigans. I: Let’s go to bed, then. 

I think K hears the reluctance in my voice, but she is so intensely attractive that there is 

a sharp tint of longing to my tone. I haven’t told you what she is wearing, because to be 

frank, she is not wearing much: a blue t-shirt, no bra, and denim shorts. 

K: Bed. 

We go to my room. I’d been sleeping on the sofa. I have a habit of sleeping on sofas when 

I’m feeling particularly alone and a habit of sleeping on beds when I am in company. I sit 

on the bed. 

K: I am an empress and you are my benefactor.

I: Okay. 

K: House, I want to hear The Eerie Shankers sing “Today I Am A Woman” 

She nods at me. K: Say it. 

I: Say what? K: Say it. 

I: It. 

K: Do you desire me? 

I: Yeah. 

K: More than Xinx? 

I: I can’t really compare… I mean you’re two different beings. 

K: But it’s like the choice between Vegan Pizza or Special Stir Fried Rice. Surely, any 

sane man would pick Special Stir Fried Rice. 

I: No, I’m nearly vegan. Tease me. Say it’s Vegan Special Fried Rice. K: Okay. It’s Vegan 

Special Fried Rice. 

She turns her back on me. I look at her bottom. It’s grossly rotund. She’s gained weight. 

Shit, though. I want to feel it. I drool slightly. K: I want you to seduce me like you seduce 

yourself, even though you’re latently straight. I don’t want you to arouse yourself & have 

my worst suspicions confirmed.


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I: Men don’t do that. That’s what women are for.. She laughs. 

K: Oh? But I…. 

She dances. I feel my love, stimulate it for twenty seconds, drooling even more. 

The music reaches a climax! The whole group sings in unison “For Today I Am A 

Woman! Trombones! Saxophones! Epiphanies! 

Einstein! 

K: Up? 

I: Yeah. 

K: Wanker. 

I: Feel me. 

K: Sure. 

She parks herself on my cock, denim pressing into it. She doesn’t move a lot; she just sits 

there for thirty seconds. Then she dry humps me until she’s wet & I climax. 

I: Ah. 

The Television turns on, as we have programmed it to do a minute after our climaxes. 

Cat races into the room, twitching excitedly. 

Cat: It’s happening! It’s happening! 

The Leader: 20 million immigrants have been forced to evacuate the region and are now 

assumed dead. 

K: What? But 20 million immigrants don’t even live here. The Leader: This is a senseless 

crime & we’ll prosecute the responsible party. 

Cat: I am a female feminist scientist & I think I know who is responsible. 

I: I don’t see what that’s got to do with… oh… 

Cat: I changed the programming of our Universe! That means that Xinx is just four 

hundred words down the road.

I: Hooray! 

K: Whoop-de-doo. 

I: Wait? What do you mean four hundred words down the road? Cat: Didn’t you know? I 

believe we are characters in a play for the almighty. 

I: I thought you were the almighty. 

Cat: Not exactly. The almighty is all-seeing & all-knowing. K, you are just a mere 

imposter. Your day of reckoning will come. I hope my final judgement is fair. 

I: But I thought you weren’t God. 

Cat: Allah yaghfir lak.


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K: Boohoo. So this means we’ll see Xinx in 300 words? 

Cat: Yes. But you can summon her at any time. 

K: Allah yrja aistuhdir li 'afdal sidiyq w namudhaj aldhy yusamaa shaynakas. 

I: I didn’t know you… 

Xinx appears, naked, a little younger than I remember her. Her tits already soothe me 

with their homely, emaciated portly nature... I don’t mean to obsess over them already, 

but this book is fantasy- erotica-romance, isn’t it? 

Xinx: Welcome! I: Hello! 

Xinx: Where are we? What I am I welcoming you to today? 

Cat: Hi Xinx! I’ve heard so much about you! 

Xinx: Welcome! What have you heard about me? 

Cat: Mostly I’ve heard your ex go on about your… uh… motherly nature. 

I: I don’t like Freud. Please don’t speak about Freud. 

K: That’s not what the implication was. 

Xinx: K! Welcome! 

I: Why are you naked?

Xinx: Isn’t it natural? You barbarians still wear clothes? I thought it was outlawed. 

Cat: As a suffragette, I have to say I agree. 

I: Oh. 

K: I am half-naked & vaguely covered with your boyfriend’s semen. 

I: Oh. Sorry, Xinx, I meant to say… after we broke up, I shagged K… 

Xinx: You mean after I was decapitated? 

I: Yeah. That. 

K: It didn’t happen instantly, nor overnight. 

Xinx: I understand the implications of that statement. 

Cat: Oh! Shit! Shit! Shit! Everyone shut up. 

K: Why? 

Cat: Shut up! 

No one says a thing for a minute. The house remains as it is. There is a palpable tension 

in the room. Xinx looks aggressively at K, who strips to her bare bones. K looks at her 

back, as if there is going to be a standoff. I don’t know what to do. I’m naked and I would 

love to…. 

There is a loud bang, steam & out of nowhere appears another Xinx, also naked! They 

both look identical. 

Cat: Shit. Shit. Shit. I did warn you. 

I: Which one is the original Xinx? Xinx & Xinx: I am. 

K: Shit! Let’s murder one of these mother-fuckers! Cat: No, no, no! 

The Xinxs turn to each other. 

Xinx & Xinx: Oh. 

I: Do you have to mirror each other’s movements? Cat winks & licks her lips: Four girls, 

one guitarist! Xinx: Oh… I, what do you think of this? 

Xinx: Who, me?


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Xinx: No, I. 

I: I… I like the idea. But there’s not enough of me. 

Cat: That can be arranged. 

I: No! Cat! 

Cat: I was only teasing. I thought you like to be teased. 

I: No, I hate it! 

Cat: Well, I’m naked. Let’s find out who really owns your love. 

Xinx & Xinx: He belongs to me!

I: I did notice something. One Xinx is a little skinnier than the other. 

The Xinx: Who? Me? No, me! 

Cat: We’re going round in circles here. 

She chases her tail animatedly. I point at one Xinx. 

K: That must mean the other one is fatter, meaning she is the younger one! 

Cat: That doesn’t mean a thing! Breed with all three of these women & be done with it! 

Cat jumps on the bed, closes her eyes & sulks under the mattress, or at least that’s what 

I believe she is doing. 

K: Let’s put pink hair dye on the Xinx the Youngerer. 

I: Where are we going to get pink hair dye? K shrugs. 

Xinx The Youngerer: I don’t want pink hair! 

K shrugs. 

K: Red then? 

I: Wow. Blue, black & red is my favourite combination of colours,given there is three.


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Xinx The Youngerer: What about two? 

I: Your colour. 

Xinx The Youngerer: But I’m only one colour. 

I: Yeah. But blue & black aren’t named when they’re together like 

that. 

Xinx Elderer: I find that quite offensive. It’s called Azurack. I tell you this every time I… 

K: That’s it. We’re dyeing you red. 

I: I’m dying me unless this book is black & white & read all over, in 

which case I’ll die a celebrated writer. 

I know that part of each of these three, or four, beings doesn’t like me, but I’m very 

aware that a form of resentment is sometimes necessary for there to be true love or lust 

& I’m also feeling quite broody. I quite liked Cat’s suggestion. 

Xinx The Elder: I don’t mind being red. 

K: That settles it then. 

K clicks her fingers & Xinx The Elder’s long, black, shoulder length hair turns into a 

natural-looking crimson.

Cat emerges out of the bedding, inspecting Xinx The Elder elatedly. 

Cat: Xinx, your hair is inspirational. As a feminist, having the courage to dye your hair 

is paramount. But you look great. You don’t look a fool! 

Xinx The Elder: Thanks, Cat.


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Chapter 5: Cat’s Lies Spiral Out Of Control & Into Prophecy 

Cat: First it happened to me and now it’s going to happen to you. 

She sighs, factually. 

K: What? 

I: Whatever it is doesn’t sound all that good. 

Xinx The Youngerer: Another apocalypse? 

Xinx The Elderer: No, the apocalypse has already happened. 

Cat: I can’t say for sure. But beyond reasonable doubt, I can say that one of you will be 

punished but won’t tell anyone about it. 

I: Cat! How could you possibly know this? 

Cat: I don’t know. I’ve just got a feeling in my gut telling me that today is the last good 

day we’ll see for a while & we should appreciate it. 

K: Cat? Are you damning us? Why are you here in the first place? 

Cat: I thought my mission here had something to do with Xinx, but you seemed to take 

care of that quickly. And now we have two. So? 

K: So? What do you mean so? I was working on getting one Xinx here for I.

Cat: I don’t care for your Rastafarian lies. Allah tathir hadhih alghurfa! 

K: No, ‘I’ meaning the main character in this book. 

Cat: Like that Otis Redding song my boyfriend wants to show me when the neighbours 

next put it on, about a man & a man? 

I: Kind of, but not really. 

Cat: My boyfriend is an angel in some ways, but I mean the main guy in this book. This 

universe is simply a constant loop of the bible. You haven’t self-actualised enough to 

alter it. The main character, I, that is you, I, must get to heaven, which is nothing, and 

then you will have completed all your trials and can rest for the rest of forever, which 

will mean nothing, not that you’re there to experience it. It’s the paradox that you 

discussed at the beginning of the novella, which may soon be classified as a novel! 

Cat laughs at me. 

I: Hah. Hah. You were joking, Cat, but for some time I thought we were actually 

characters in the Bible. Ha. Ha. Ha. 

Xinx the Youngerer: I’d prefer to avoid discussion of your prophecy, Cat.


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Cat: There is no prophecy! It’s a warning about something inevitable that will happen to 

one of you! And so I bid you heathens adieu with one final thought: as feminist as I am, 

don’t you think I has such potential as a lover? 

I: Who? Me? I meaning me? 

Cat: Yeah! I is not Rastafarian! 

The Xinxs (finishing each other sentences): Its longevity... the way that you say stuff… 

it’s so humane… it’s so hot. 

Maybe the Xinxs weren’t finishing each other’s sentences & in fact were just saying 

different things. 

Cat: Have I something else to tell you, I. 

I: Oh? 

Now I know ‘I’ is me, unless Cat is as brain damaged as Yoda… or pretending to be a pirate 

and asking a question only to answer it. 

Cat: You sure do look good today. 

I: Really? We may have to evict you. 

Cat: What? I was just saying how... extraordinary you look today. 

Xinx The Elderer: Yes, I, you look beautiful. 

Xinx The Youngerer: Yet… phlegmatic . 

K confesses: I want to murder some microorganisms in your groins. 

I: Err… 

Cat: Meow. 

Cat licks & then she vanishes, just like that, irreversibly, forever. There is a silence & 

not a word is said until the police arrive twenty minutes later. I am not going to describe 

the scene that unfolds in the next ten minutes, but leave it to the reader’s imagination. 

The following words, in any order, can be applied to describe what happens: excruciating, 

orgiastic, premature, three tips of tongues, grotesque, manual labour and I-ching. But

then several squads of secret servicemen arrive at our door, led by a Ginger Cat, as 

prophesised by Cat, who I may have been too harsh on. 

Ginger Cat: You’re busted! I’m the main woman around here!


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Chapter 6: The Crucifixion 

I can’t help but think to myself as I get crucified that things would be very different if 

the judge felt himself judged for his own crimes against God, who I was in effect 

representing. I sniff. Penal punishment is less of a wink than a colossal nudge off a cliff. 

I can’t hold a grudge for the rest of my life, for I don’t have the necessary manpower on 

the cross to recruit a gang to tend to my ‘grudge’, even if I have referred to the mafia 

twice in this book. It all seems unnecessary, now, the traversing of the multiverse: the 

real Xinx, according to the doctrine of Cat, achieved her life purpose of ascension to 

heaven as soon as she was decapitated. My crucifixion, as Cat predicted and as I have 

read about, is not a solitary affair. No, dozens of people, including the Leader, throw 

Halloumi at me & I stay pinned to the cross until I die. As I stand there, getting stoned 

by cheese, I wonder about simulation theory, whether I personally have any individually 

generated thought, & whether we are really just characters in A Female Detective Cat 

Finds The Missing Twat.

The Inauguration of Insanity: The Night Your Troubles Became Mine (The Sequel To All 

That Happened Before This Blank Space ) 

Haunted 

Well, before all this comes back to me and I bring these pieces of parchment I feel as if I 

am burrowing amongst the flower daisies and contemplating the great token of mankind 

(what is mankind?) amongst the partnerships of the old. This corridor could be a graveyard. 

The man knocking on my door could be my only burden or only saviour. Who will 

ever know unless I tame my own demons and become diamond in the very act of 

becoming the watch-dog himself, the paragon of Egypt, the Queen of all Kings - there is 

no other dimension that I have sought after, Lord, but my tribulations are trivial in 

comparison to the great majesty of your creation and the whole. Like every joint smoked 

in secret, there is a secret to your saving grace and each thunderstorm could be undone 

by the madness of alien civilisation. Amongst common men now, I seek not to cloak 

myself in their tragedy but as ever understand that there is no equation complete 

enough to materialise the suffering that I and my fellow chieftains have undergone.


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If there is a problem, we can fix it. If there is an alibi, we can rid it of ourselves. There is 

no exact crime, as far as I can see, in this text or in my actions, but I have undergone so 

many observations and jury duty under the jurisdiction of the law that I feel it my right 

and duty to police ignorant professors who believe it their human right to all this 

goddamn communication, a form of madness in and of itself. What, though, after the 

hyperbole of hypocrites is there but expression? What, though, after condos, are there 

condiments? My cat, policeman of my mistakes and mystery of the capitol letter, did not 

undo me but replenished my vitality. I am homeward bound, but directionless, for I 

know I am probably heading towards my demise rather than renewal or rebirth. 

Haunted 

The greater the causation, the more infinite the fool. The greater the lesson learnt, the 

more humble the fool is in exhibiting his stupidity. I did not write this whole big book 

down for my own fickle eyes, but I did it for a friend like you in times of need. As for the 

fools who grow into idiots who call themselves my enemies, they are spoilt by their own 

undoing and publicity stunts as boring as the bathes that they bathe in all over 

Londinium and this cell that we live in. 

Wonderless 

First we play. 

Then we eat. 

Then we blame school. 

They assault the asphault with asthault first. 

The divides of Northern and Southern Island are miniscule. 

We all just throw shells at them. Hence the conversion to the Protestant church denoted 

by my favourite friend, little me. 

Renewal 

I drink the wine made from all the way over there in Austroglobin. I find it fickle to taste 

without drinking but then again I cite the many memorabilias of Jack and Gillian as 

reason for my detention in Londinium. And like a bird I did break free, always

understanding the direction of the way... I could see that I was always me, but that I 

didn't have much to say. They detain the law and call it straw, you're like a fairy bending 

clay... I take exception to the clay... but we were Tangled Up In Booze. I didn't expect to 

defect after the ring broke itself or lent itself to foes but we weren't resigned to 'you 

knows'…. I expected a sequel like a closed man so erect yet then again that was me... 

finally, I learnt the hard lesson... even blinded I can quote see quotas until the North is 

you and we were taken by the flu.


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THE FINAL TESTAMENT 

Perceiving the un-iffable sorrow or good riddance I can detect a certain resignation to my 

tone, giggling with delight at my lack of clarity on which I had justly reinstated as an 

edible part of my diet and the whole ordeal that surrounds that whole affair which is 

enough to drive anyone mad or anyway maddened. 

In some sense it is my respect for the relentless presence of the passenger of the 

alphabet and the delta and the omega but written as a clause it seems to surmise a 

problem that my wife had with the matrimony ordeal. 

If this seems like a separate statement to the statements that the rice pudding made to 

you earlier on this occasion that does not belong to anyone particular except for me I 

embrace the euphoria dipshit happy crying laughter of my brother and best friend still 

who could not rescue me from tragedy but instead made me feel a lot happier about it. 

This is not an event worthy of the exclamation mark nor the indulgence of people who 

became men and women before my very eyes nor decayed like ashes to fire in front of 

rainbows' tranquil balloons before issuing their own complete blending of particles 

begging not to be re-assembled who knows who did it maybe God was God 

_ _ _. _ _ .

HAPPY TEARS IN PURGATORY IN LOVE WITH A COLD 

Chapter 1: The First Day at Bristol University & Rockland 

Based on my anecdotal experience as a lover and a medical student, the only antidote for 

love and the common cold is to ignore their effects and proceed as per normal. 

Sometimes, though, you’ll stop or find that this is simply not plausible like an alibi. Were 

you to be suffering from a cold, you probably wouldn’t dive naked into the freezing ocean, 

but after properly preparing yourself you may choose to go to Winter Wonderland. 

Likewise, were you to be in love, you wouldn’t do anything to harm the subject of your 

affections, but you may carve your name and theirs on the door of the toilets to prove 

your ownership of that love and credentials as a bonified artist. And this is exactly what 

Rockland, my fellow medical undergraduate, did to impress my girlfriend. 

Laughing is not the opposite of crying, just as hippopotamuses are not the opposite of 

politicians. Laughing and crying may be two very different actions, but that doesn’t 

mean they are opposites. It took a while to explain this to Rockland. He didn’t seem to 

accept it. He said that laughing is what happy people do and crying is what sad people 

do. I replied that this isn’t always true, that you could laugh sorrowfully and that you 

could cry out of happiness. But he shook his head: no, laughing is what happy people do 

and crying is what sad people do. And in some sense, he was right about that. Life has 

taught me that you must be very lucky to cry happy tears and very unlucky to have a fit 

of sad laughter. But a few months after this conversation with Rockland, I wept happy 

tears. And I suppose that’s what this story is about. 

In the time I have known him, Rockland’s philosophy on drugs has morphed from 

idealistically proclaiming the infinity of all psycho-active substance to being biblically 

abstinent even at the most celebratory of occasions. He can be geekily animated at points 

and yet is reflectively introverted at others. And although no sane, self-serving 

psychiatrist would be direct or perceptive enough to tell him this, Rockland’s almost 

symbolic form of sympathy essentially equates to empathy yet his overexcited 

understanding of earthly matters, such as the manic moss on the tree, is marked by a 

thirst for salvation that is left not entirely unquenched. His manner in the world of love 

is neither possessive or jealous but sweet and occasionally violent, driven by 

amphetamine nights bawling at random tombstones after stints of drinking at the Old 

Fly and other such antics. This was back when I knew Rockland, though, the old 

Rockland, back when we thought life had meaning, before the mind-games we’d play 

with each other chasing after the same woman, before all the meaningless competition, 

before all the eerie nights spending five hours in each other’s company but only saying 

three sentences. My relationship with Rockland was not paternal, fraternal or 

homosexual in nature, though we were just a couple of months apart in age. Our love 

wasn’t marked by any commonality but a longing for something, something that I knew


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he had but I still haven’t figured out what, and a longing for stability, which I happily 

supplied as I had the latent inkling my longing for whatever this something entailed 

would be repaid in kind. And in a way it was, to beautiful and tragic consequences. 

Personally, I was a creature of habit: I’d always wake up at the same time, always shave 

and always (except once, which is what this story is really about) succeed in wooing the 

woman I wanted. But at first I admired Rockland for his energy, starkly mundane 

premonitions that usually materialised and his eloquence with words, even though his 

sleeping patterns were disorderly and his personal life was defined by chaos. Without 

meeting Rockland, I wouldn’t have met Victoria. Without meeting Victoria, I wouldn’t 

have met Suzie. And without meeting Suzie, I wouldn’t have considered writing this 

book. 

Rockland and I were in the same hall at Bristol. I met him on my first day there, in the 

kitchen, which was filled with people meeting each other and cooking. Rockland was tall, 

spoke expansively, moved his hands as if he were presenting something, and wore 

expensive-looking glasses, a denim jacket and a scarf. I haven’t run out of stuff to say yet 

or anything like that, but if I recall correctly he was suffering from a cold. Later that 

night, I would join him and the burgeoning populace of people with ailments that can be 

cured by time. In the way that was customary for medical students starting at Bristol I 

told him my favourite element, sulphur, and he told me his, oxygen. I gave him my 

opinion of the campus we were living at: ‘better than Belfast’, and he gave me his: ‘not 

too shabby’ in the way that was customary for new Undergraduates who have run out of 

things to say. We planned to go to the dance at the Student Union that night. We were 

about as well dressed as each other: I was wearing corduroy jeans, a purple t-shirt, and a 

hand-me-down leather jacket, which didn’t seem quite as cool as it was when I pictured 

Uncle Billy wearing it before me. 

I met a few other people in the kitchen, but I can’t remember them all that well. That 

way, I figure they remain perfect images of themselves, undistorted by my own 

projection of self onto them. To me, they were somehow inconsequential, unaffected by 

the events that would leave me a changed person over the next year. There was Rebecca, 

a woman of twenty with curly black hair, who was studying English Literature with 

hopes of becoming a journalist. There was Rick, a boy of a man of eighteen years who 

was skinny as a stick, studying Law with the hope of becoming a judge. There was 

Clarissa, a woman of twenty-two, studying Politics with the hope of graduating. It’s not 

that these people were insignificant to me, but their influence over my life turned out to 

be comparatively limited. Five years on, I barely give any of these individuals thought,

and I am a little hesitant in expressing my doubt that any of their stories are quite as 

interesting, or as entirely unsettling, as mine.


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Chapter 2: The Student Union & Victoria 

That September night, Rockland, Rebecca and I walked to the Student Union together. 

There was a palpable sense of anticipation and excitement in the air. Anyone could talk 

to anyone and anyone did talk to anyone. Although I am not that kind of man that 

dreams while he is awake and works while he sleeps, our destinies seemed yet to be 

designed: almost anything could happen, meaning anyone could meet anyone and 

anybody could wake up to anybody. We were young, alive and ready for the prophecies of 

night. . 

After we entered the building where the disco was held, Rebecca took Rockland by the 

hand and led him onto the dance-floor, in a manner that suggested I was a third wheel 

and she was trying to lose me, though time may have distorted my memory of this nonevent. 

It is difficult, as you can imagine, to record my recollections without imparting my 

own bias: as a writer, I am inclined to assign feeling and meaning to events, but to do so 

in excess means that fact becomes fabrication, so I’d be reluctant to even imply that 

Rebecca preferred the company of Rockland to my own, notwithstanding the fact that to 

any perceptive reader this is obvious. I was not particularly fickle in my criteria for the 

sexual suitability of woman, nor was I seeking to mirror Rebecca’s nonchalant attitude 

towards me, but she didn’t strike me as being the kind of woman I would willingly enter 

a relationship with. I don’t know why, but this made me think about love triangles. 

There are many famous love triangles. To name the obvious one (which may be apparent 

to me only because I have watched Friends, have a brain that processes information 

alphabetically by first letter, and have a habit of dissecting television), Ross loves Rachel 

& Rachel loves Phoebe & Phoebe loves Ross: though I don’t mean to suggest that Rachel 

is a lesbian, her attraction to Phoebe becomes so obvious by the end of the series that it 

would take an evangelist baptised in holy blood to not imagine them living together in 

sin. 

After I expressed this to Rockland and Rebecca, they looked each other in the eyes and 

simultaneously burst into laughter.

“That wasn’t the first thought that came into my head,” said Rebecca, still gazing 

Rockland in the eyes with dreamy determination. 

“Me either,” said Rockland, with a possibly pot-induced glaze of great affection that 

stretched from the bulge in his jeans to the sparkle in his eyes. 

“Love triangles…” said Rebecca in a manner that seemed both ponderous and ephemeral 

for a trite kid from public school. 

“Ross and Rachael…” said Rockland, as if testing unknown alliterative waters, though 

everyone knows that Rachel in Friends only verbally hinted twice that she may have 

affections for Phoebe and that Ross & Rachael were the authentic American item. 

“Rockland and Rebecca…” said Rebecca, cottoning onto his idea in what could only be 

described as a come-on. 

“Rebecca and Rockland…” said Rockland, using the tip of his tongue to roll the ‘R’ with 

such relish that somehow the resulting sound simultaneously resembled a Russian 

raconteur re-evaluating his relationship with language and Ronald Reagan recounting 

his role in Stallion Road. 

The tension between them was so tangible, then, that the probable became the inevitable 

and the inevitable became an event. His hand still firmly in hers, they ogled at each 

other’s lips for a while until there was nothing left on either of their lips but the gaze of 

the other. 

And so she kissed him. And so he kissed her back. It didn’t seem like a match made in 

heaven at the time and perhaps it wasn’t, because it only amounted to a three-night 

stand yet soured the atmosphere in the kitchen for the rest of the year. But they kissed 

(I guess it was romantic). And they kissed (it was certainly passionate). And then their 

kisses merged into one long French kiss, so I went to get a drink. The DJ played ‘Drunk 

in Love’ by Beyoncé, perhaps in acknowledgement of the myriad of men and women who 

were making out. 

Anyway, I joined the queue for drinks at the bar and next to me stood a beautiful mixedrace 

woman. She wore tempting bright pink lipstick and a black dress, both of which, for 

some reason, complimented her enormous breasts. I could almost picture her long locks 

of twisty hair blowing in the wind in a convertible on a Vegas honey-moon. 

“Hi,” I said to her, and she turned towards me with these dark light world-weary eyes, “I 

hope you don’t find this offensive, but Beyoncé is playing and you look quite a bit like 

Beyoncé.” 

“Darling,” she said, “I don’t look anything like Beyoncé unless you are partially sighted 

or haven’t ever seen Beyoncé before, but thanks for the compliment.”


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I didn’t push the comparison. In those days, when I first met a woman I fancy, I would 

play the awkwardly charming card out of nerves and due to cognizant conflagration, as 

some stand-up comedians are wont to do, so I stuttered slightly as I asked her to dance. 

“I… I was wondering if you wanted to dance after we get drinks.” I said, in an awkward 

yet as charming a voice as I could muster. 

“Sure.” She replied self-assuredly. “I’m Victoria.” 

“Tim.” I said to her. There was a silence of a few seconds. 

“What are you studying?” she offered carefully, as if my ears were dyslexic and she 

should cherish every consonant. 

“I’m not a student. I’m a doctor in training. I want to be a doctor. I’m actually eighteen. 

And you?” I asked. 

Victoria didn’t respond immediately to this either. She looked over at the hordes of 

people and then faced me again, smiling, boogying as if resolute that soon she would be 

one of them. 

“A doctorate in being a doctor, eh? I did Chemistry at A-Level, but got bored of it. I’m 

doing Classics…” she remarked casually and somehow omnisciently. 

“Homer and that, huh? Thinking about it, you look more like Marge Simpson than you 

do Beyoncé. For some reason, Marge Simpson attracts me more than Beyoncé, even 

though Beyoncé was my first celebrity crush.” I said, and she looked at me quizzically, 

then laughed a great big laugh, the resonance of which became almost physical and was 

undoubtedly contagious. 

“Are you autistic or something?” she inquired with a toll, narrowing her eyes, as if trying 

to suss me out (polymeths they never rest polymeths they try the rest) 

“About as autistic as you look like Beyoncé, my first celebrity crush, so yes.” I tell her. 

About a year before this, in a need for resolution and clarity, I asked my dad if I was 

autistic and he responded in the affirmative, adding ‘mildly’. 

She chuckled again, this time less enthusiastically yet more spontaneously. 

“Well, ‘I hope you don’t find this offensive’, but you are the first autistic man I have ever 

knowingly fancied.” She stated, and then ordered a cocktail from the bar. I didn’t offer to 

pay for hers, as I came to Bristol partially because it is an opium den and I wanted to 

reserve some money for the local heroin trade. I got myself a Jägerbomb when it was my

turn to order a drink. After I paid, she clutched my hand, in a way comparable to how 

Rebecca took Rockland’s hand, and we headed to the dancefloor. “First Love Never Die” 

by Soko was playing and it made me feel a little soppy. For all I knew, Victoria could be 

my first love, even though I believed I had experienced love before that and this was 

perhaps quite an autistic frame of mind.


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Doctor Tonnan 

Victoria put her hands around my neck, and I felt a sharp shiver of desire spiral around 

my body as if her touch were the one feeling I longed for, the only thing I craved. We 

swayed, rocked back and forth, I placed my hands around her neck, too, and then we 

kissed passionately. It was an unparalleled feeling to touch lips with a woman that I’d 

never consider to be out of my league. We grinded against each other, my hands moved 

down to her waist, and our tongues commenced battle in (what I am somewhat live to 

call) experienced yet tenderly steamy lust. I had kissed girls before, and I’m sure she had 

too, but this was something else – an actor. Sorry, she was and is more beautiful than 

you imagined but I am not the middling. 

“I want to come home with you tonight.” She said decisively, after a couple of minutes of 

necking, as if I were so under the influence I could have no influence in this decision. But 

I wasn’t one to protest. 

“Okay.” I smiled, already anticipating the next kiss, which arrived with such fervour 

that I fondled her hair. 

“Let’s go to mine…” she stated simply. We held hands and walked to her accommodation, 

which was just beyond the union supermarket. Her hair twisted in the wind, like I had 

imagined, only she was not in a convertible and we weren’t yet engaged. We stopped only 

once to kiss and arrived at her ground floor room in a few minutes. 

Her bedroom was compulsively neat: her clothes were in the wardrobe and her books 

were already on the shelf. The presence of the student information package was the only 

indication that she had just moved in and it was neatly positioned on the desk, angled 

towards the chair. Through practice, rather than by nature, I was similarly neat and to 

this day I still believe it to be true what they say about cleanliness being next to 

Godliness. For some reason, a quick inspection of the pristine state of her room made me 

feel at home and more aroused. 

We continued our making out; her tongue was tantalizingly dexterous in its movements 

around my mouth and my tongue was equally as ravenous in its slow-fast migration 

around hers. She placed her right hand carefully on my left rib-cage and then through 

my jeans she delicately caressed my love, which stiffened even more at her touch.

I’m not a particularly good kisser – I’d kissed only twelve girls in the past three years, 

and Victoria was the second one with lipstick – but I found her pink lipstick to be so 

alluring that I silently vowed to myself that if I get to choose which day is Groundhog’s 

Day, this would be that day. I still stand by my decision. 

“Let’s fuck!” she said, decisively, laying down on the single bed, stretched out as 

seductive as the singer who happened to be my first celebrity crush and with a sexy 

pomposity to match. 

“Sure.” I said, as I got on top of her with clothes on, “Condom or Destiny’s Child?” 

“I don’t believe in condoms…” she said as she stuck her tongue as far as could fit 

into my ear-socket, before elaborating “I attend a church that doesn’t value condoms as a 

form of contraception. I’ll take a pill tomorrow. I promise I keep most of my promises.” 

As it turned out, there was a clause to each of these last two sentences: firstly, she said 

she’d take a pill tomorrow [what pill?] and secondly, she promised she keeps most of her 

promises [she didn’t promise me anything]. I think I might need a lawyer. But bigger, 

more voluptuous matters soon occupied my mind. With her black strapless dress pressed 

tight against her brown skin, I eagerly massaged each bosom. Her hand, to my delight, 

headed south to my penis, brushing against it, then retreating, brushing against it a 

little harder, then retreating. 

My knowledge of the application and removal of female clothing is limited but, from 

what I gather, it isn’t too different from men’s clothing, in that the principle is the same: 

it comes off the opposite way to which it goes on. I stripped until I was stark naked and 

as she eyed the abs that I managed to maintain over the Summer, she removed her dress 

and bra until she was only wearing crimson underwear. For some reason, I find women 

most attractive when they are only wearing underwear. Any more nudity than that is 

less inviting: the enticement of the unknown beckons like a spliff on the pavement, a 

secret joy that only you experience. Any way, I pulled down Victoria’s knickers and I 

licked all around her vulva, my fingers still fiddling with her tits. She groaned happily 

and came a little, then came a lot as I licked the G-spot. I continue doing this for a 

minute or so and then I move upwards and suck her left tit (I still don’t know if woman 

find this appealing, but I find it very arousing) while fingering her vagina. 

“Do you want to fuck me now or do you want a blowjob?” she whispered tantalisingly in 

my ear. My cock begs for relief. I’d love a blowjob right now, which at that point in my 

life was the highest pleasure conceivable. 

“Blow me and afterwards I’ll make you orgasm again when I can properly concentrate, 

then we’ll fuck in the morning.” I whispered back, half-jokingly.


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Doctor Tonnan 

“Relax,” she replied with a devilish certainty, “I know every trick in the book.”

She held my balls in one hand and my penis with the other. She licked the tip of my 

penis and then her two pursed lips, which were now a slightly faded shade of pink, softly 

engulfed its head, transferring a barely finite ration of pleasure to my loins. She licked 

up and down my shaft slowly and steadily as she toyed with my balls. Then, in an end to 

the exceptionally gratifying torture, she submerged most of my dick in her mouth. She 

then gave me one of those sloppy blowjobs that you might have heard about in Reader’s 

Digest, always sensing when I am about to orgasm and disengaging. This continued for 

about ten minutes, the end of which had me drooling ever so slightly at her elegant 

physique, which looked like a fat Coca-Cola bottle of coffee, until I found the heart to tell 

her to stop, for I realise I don’t really want to orgasm but instead fuck her so hard she 

believes she is at the Olympics. 

“I like to think of my mouth as a cavern that collapses in on any intruders,” she said in a 

chatty tone, while she masturbated me and I fingered her. 

“Ah! But isn’t that what a vagina is for?” I inquired. 

“Well, yes. I don’t think you’re autistic. I just think you’re a sadist druggie.” She said 

and, without my permission, Victoria finger-fucked my arsehole, a region that had never 

been explored before. I am not going to describe this to the reader, for if he or she is 

curious as to its effects, he or she will have to find out for him or herself. 

I penetrated her fanny, which is wet, tight and holier than previously imagined, even if 

you have previously imagined it. My penis remained there for ten seconds, barely 

moving, and then she clenched her cunt. After I regained control of my desire, I chainfucked 

her as hard as I can, with retaliatory stamina that even I am surprised by in 

retrospect. 

“God! God! Yes. Yes!” she was uttering breathlessly. 

“Fuck. Fuck. Don’t finger my arse again.” I replied, though I realised that it did make me 

quite horny. 

I thrust, thrust and thrust my cock into that homely squelchy nest: thrust, trust and 

thrust to the twentieth power. I had got quite good at mediating my desire to ejaculate, 

through some practice with a close female friend of mine two months before. It is fair to 

say that there was quite consistent eye-contact between Victoria and I throughout this 

fuckery, which I’ve read is important during sex. 

“God, yes. GOD yes!” she moans, biting my neck, which along with her sexy London 

accent, tone of intense longing and her own surprising thrusts upwards made me 

positively explode inside her after we had fucked a while. We’d made quite a lot of noise, 

but it was the first night at University, so what did you expect? A hunt for needles by the


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Doctor Tonnan 

fucking railway track? 

She had a shower, then I had a shower, then we went to 

sleep together. Not a word was said between us until the next day.

Chapter 3: Coconut Macaroons & The Black Cat 

That night I dreamt I was a flamingo hunting shrimp but woke up after the chief 

flamingo realised I was an imposter and ordered the other flamingos to kill me. It 

reminded me of the time when I was about six years old and I wished with all my body I 

could become a turtle only to have my dream realised, only to get killed, which was the 

worst pain I had ever experienced at the time (as I recall they smashed me with their 

butts and I took a real beating to the head, afterwards transforming back into human 

form again). Anyway, I woke up after the chief flamingo had ordered my execution with 

some relief, and I looked over at Victoria. It is strange and beautiful to wake up to a 

freakishly hot woman if you are not used to it. I wonder if you ever get used to it. I went 

to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I barely believed I was the same man I was 

twenty-four hours ago. And in more than one way I wasn’t. Not only had I started 

renting a home from Student Accommodation, I had also slept with a freakishly hot 

woman. I reviewed the night in my head, sleepily and sheepishly smiling to myself. It 

was wonderful to wake up to Victoria, and closely escaping a thrashing from the 

flamingos was all that could be hoped for. 

I went back to bed. Victoria didn’t move. She was snoring a little but not a lot, in the way 

that some women are wont to do. I wondered what she was dreaming, or if she wasn’t 

dreaming, what her mind is processing and mulling over. Then again, I always figured 

that sleep is God’s way of paying sleeping bodies back for the hardship that they endure 

while awake: needs dictate necessity. “Alright, you want a sample of what you have to 

look forward to after you die? Here, have some sleep.” I wondered if God is an actual 

being and if He or She observes us, then I fell asleep myself. I dreamt I was sitting on 

the chair in my parent’s garden and I saw a skinny, pitch-black cat scurry across the 

fence as if that were the fence’s purpose and with such natural agility that I wouldn’t 

have been surprised if it started singing. Just as this crossed my mind, the cat stopped 

its journey, turned to me, and winked. The dream dissolved. Later that night, I had a 

similar vision of the same black cat. It looked at me and shook its head, as if in 

disapproval. I couldn’t determine its gender, not that it mattered: to me, the cat might as 

well have been genderless.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

I woke up: 8 A.M. I always wake up at 8 A.M or roundabouts. Victoria was to my left, 

face against the pillow. She didn’t look very comfortable. I just lay there, staring at the 

wall. The alarm went off a little later. It was one of those retro alarms, a big clock, and 

buzzed decisively at 8:10. Victoria looked at me and smiled. She kissed me on the lips 

and I felt her bosoms with both hands, massaging them almost as if they were a squishy 

form of playdough. She reciprocated, toying with my balls. We had tantric sex for a 

couple of hours, exchanging and memorising each other’s numbers during the 

proceedings, then we both went to our separate lectures: mine was ‘The Eastern 

Philosophy to Medicine’, in which a short Chinese man with crutches was lecturing… I 

was chosen to answer a question after volunteering. I answered, he nodded his head and 

said ‘Hey, you’re right, young man.” And everyone clapped. Some people even cheered. It 

was the greatest moment of the day for me. 

Anyway, I was on my way back to my room and by the entrance to the Humanities 

building I spotted a black cat. It yawned majestically and vehemently as if it were about 

to explode and its fatigue had overruled its will to live. It inclined its head ominously 

when it saw me walk past, moved towards me and then appeared to think better of this 

idea, rushing to retreat to a nearby bush. I didn’t think a lot about my sighting of the cat 

at first, but later in the day I considered the potential merging of dreams and reality. I 

thought about the concept of lucid dreaming and wondered if I had become self-conscious 

and aware while dreaming in a coma. But this can’t be the case. The appearance of the 

black cat first in dreamtime and then in reality was nothing but a coincidence, like the 

fact that Donald Trump happened to be from Germany yet his inauguration narrowly 

avoided the 70 th year anniversary of the end of World War II. Besides, I couldn’t be sure 

that the black cat I saw on campus was the same black cat who had visited me in 

dreamtime, just as I couldn’t be sure that Victoria and I had performed ‘tantric sex’, even 

though the rituals lasted the required time. It occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten for 

some time, so I bought a cheese sandwich from the shop and went to eat it in the 

kitchen, where Rockland and Rebecca were finishing making sausages and mash, which 

neither were qualified to cook without the assistance of the trusty student cookbook. 

Their being in the same room as each other had not yet disintegrated into obstinate 

small-talk about their respective courses. They were still in the phase of furtively 

touching and tentatively flirting with each other. It seemed it didn’t occur to them that 

the first person they met at University might not be their match-made in heaven, just 

like it didn’t occur to me that Rockland might poison my affair with Victoria with an 

injection of adrenaline that proved to rival my awkwardness or that the University’s 

campus would be taken into martial control due to an American invasion.

Rebecca had bought some coconut macaroons and shared them with Rockland and I. She 

perched them on the table, enticingly close to our persons. Personally, having a coconut 

macaroon so close to me would tempt me into skipping the main meal of sausages and 

mash, but my favourite foods were cheese-based or sugar-based, so I suppose my opinion 

on the matter doesn’t count. I was feeling a little depressed after the taste of the 

sandwich had faded from my mouth, and I needed something to make me feel better, so I 

peered at a macaroon. Eventually I got the feeling of déjà vu from staring at it for so 

long, so I plunked it my mouth and begun to chew. It tasted delectable and expensive, 

satisfying a craving for coconuts I didn’t think I had!


2013-2018 by 


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Doctor Tonnan 

“Ah! I don’t think I’ve ever had a macaroon before. Exquisite! Thank you.” I said 

honestly, though my opinion of Rebecca’s conniving ways had not elevated in the 

slightest. 

“I doubt you have. These grew in Ecuador,” she said. 

“Grew? I don’t think macaroons grow.” I fired back. Macaroons were neither mushrooms 

nor mince meat, I thought as I looked to Rockland for support, who immediately shook 

his head upon recruitment to the correct side. 

“No, Rebecca, I don’t know how you could be so selfish as to assume macaroons grow. 

They’re not televisions or motorcycles.” Rockland said, shaking his head in disapproval, 

with his whole body moving as well. It kind of reminded me of my dream of the black 

cat’s negative reaction to the sight of me. I wondered + this was Rockland’s way of 

flirting with Rebecca. 

“It’s a human right to be born and it’s a human right to die. I thought this was afforded 

to Macaroons. Macaroons are not made from materials, like iron or cauliflower,” she said 

and nodded her head with her whole body inclining, just as I pondered whether I should 

go find the black cat and Rockland realised Rebecca had got another thing wrong. 

“Cauliflowers don’t grow and neither do Macaroons. Gosh, Rebecca, I didn’t know you 

could be so wrong about something,” said Rockland, hiccupping hysterically. 

It was at this point that I decided to leave, because I realised that Rockland was 

receiving a foot job from Rebecca. 

I watched television in the lounge for about half an hour. There was a white woman on 

the news who could read a novel in ninety minutes. She said she read all the sentence at 

once. I thought that this was how anyone but the most laid back of housewives read, 

pausing in the middle of the sentence to drink tequila or think about their love ones. 

Then I realised she must mean absorbing all the sentence at once: isn’t that how anyone 

reads a sentence? Stranger and stranger. It was an ambiguous remark, anyway. Maybe I 

wasn’t intelligent enough to even understand what she was getting at. I wondered why I 

was at University. It took me at least a couple of hours to read a novel; it would take me 

a whole afternoon to read War and Peace, which she claimed to have read in a mere five 

hours.

I was still hungry but didn’t want to make things awkwa-rd by going back into my 

kitchen to get more macaroons, which though infested by a couple of people touching 

each other was still my kitchen. I sighed. I decided to go looking for the black cat. 

It didn’t take long to find him, and it was a him, because he appeared as soon as I had 

opened the front door. He walked up to me and looked at me. I would say I am normal in 

my loathing towards the smell of shit. Certainly, better to have no smell than smell like 

shit. But this cat smelt like shit, so I picked him up and bathed him, a ritual which took 

him a fair bit of convincing to perform. Then, half way through the rinsing process, I got 

arrested. Some white guy cop with a fucking stun-gun turned up. Anyway, next thing 

you know it, I was in a police van heading towards Bristol town centre for washing a 

seemingly homeless cat. The cat, presumably, was left to its migrant ways. 

I cried a little. My handcuffs stopped me from drying the tears in my eyes and I didn’t 

want to embarrass myself by asking the white guy to tissue my eyes. This will go on my 

permanent record, I thought; maybe I shouldn’t become an opium dealer. I tried to 

question the officer: surely, there had been a misunderstanding… this was not actually a 

kidnapping but an attempt to right nature’s wrongs. All the officer said to this was “You 

have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you”. This 

made me feel like a proper criminal. We arrived at the police station and the white guy 

showed me to a cell, which was empty but for a large piece of shit. 

If we carve our respective destinies out of our actions, then I was certainly a, if not the, 

responsible party in terms of orchestrating the dawn of my imprisonment. I can't say 

that I had secretly willed this sequence of events to happen to me but, still, carved them 

I had. Nonetheless, over the course of the next twenty minutes I grew hungrier and 

hungrier, but the only option was a piece of rank shit, and that didn't seem particularly 

appetizing to my refined pallet that was accustomed to such culinary delights as a cheese 

sandwich or a macaroon. I eat it. I’m not that sorry but I am like you inclined towards 

the self, a grave supposition I shouldn’t have made. But I stared at the piece of shit until 

a strange sense of déjà vu entered the essence of my being, so I decided to eat said piece 

of shit. It tasted worse than it looked and I would advise anyone else in similar 

circumstance to simply starve to death instead. 

As if on cue, after I finished my food, and I am lithe to call it ‘food’ given it was a piece of 

poop, an officer unlocked the cell door and entered the room. It seemed that I had passed 

some sort of test. Unlike the white guy, this officer was a black woman. 

“Good. Very good. I hope you’re proud of yourself…” she said flatly, as if addressing her 

disobedient pet canine who had just learned a new trick.


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Doctor Tonnan 

I didn’t know what to say to this, so I smiled at her, my teeth fetchingly brown. 

“I suppose it’ll be up to me to get you some water. You need to have a shower, as well.” 

She added, with an air of pitying sadism. Both agenda items addressed in her speech 

rang true to me. I did need some water to wash the shit down, and two hours of tantric 

sex with anyone was enough to warrant a shower.

“Okay. I’d like some proper food too. I’m starving.” I said, coldly, trying my best to gauge 

the situation. I decided to keep it cool; I was glad that I sounded cold. 

“What do you fancy?” she asked. 

“What is there?” I inquired. 

“Lasagne, Cottage Pie, Extra Special Vegetable Lasagne, Beef…” she stated firmly, and 

although it seemed like the list could continue for some time, all the items sound better 

than a raw piece of shit, so I interrupted her here. 

“Extra Special Vegetable Lasagne, please.” I said. 

“Right away, Sir.” She said and then winked at me derisively. If I was right, unlike the 

white guy, this black woman had the hots for me, but maybe she was just mocking me to 

amuse herself. She left the cell and locked it. During the time she was gone, I questioned 

the authenticity of my situation – was I really in a jail cell for cleaning a cat, and if so, 

what penalties could befall my person for committing such an act? 

The black woman police officer, who at this point I realised was kind of hot herself, 

returned five minutes later with a ready meal and water, clutched like a crucifix over 

her concealed bosoms. 

“An Extra Special Vegetable Lasagne, for our Extra Special guest…” she said 

sardonically, biting her upper lip. 

“Thank you.” I said, in as gracious a voice as I could garrison. I drank the water with 

some relish and proceeded to devour the food, which was surprisingly tasty for a readymeal 

and could certainly be categorised as food. I had been informed of the benefits of 

ready-meals by my mother before catching the train down to University, though perhaps 

this was to compensate for her lack of tutorial in cooking. About half way through the 

food, I noticed that the black woman officer, who was kind of hot, had a whip in her 

hand. 

I looked at her identification, which was on a lapel on her police uniform. “Maggie,” I 

started, “What the fuck is this all about?” 

“Slow dancer: it’s the pay-off…” she said quietly, almost to herself, as if pensively 

pondering one of the world’s many enigmas. 

“Seriously, Maggie, a fucking whip?” I said in a tone of castrated fear.


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Doctor Tonnan 

“Oh.” She said, apparently kind of taken aback, “I thought I’d bring it in case my line of 

questioning didn’t get far.” 

“Line of questioning? Geez, Maggie, all I did was fucking clean a cat.” 

“Oh. Oh. There seems to be a mistake. I read that you kidnapped and assaulted a cat.” 

She said, her tongue leaving her mouth more times than necessary. 

“Kidnapped? Assaulted? If cleaning counts as assaulting, then I suppose I…” 

At this point, Maggie, the hot middle-aged black female police officer of the law, pouted 

and then whipped me on the chest. The Extra Special Vegetable Lasagne went 

everywhere. It hurt quite a lot. 

“You assault University property, then you insult the law. You insult the law, the law 

has every right to assault you.” Maggie stated quickly and factually, as if reciting small 

print. 

“Jesus, Maggie, I won’t do it again… do I need a lawyer?” I gasped, feeling my whipstung 

chest, which though wasn’t bleeding was nearly bleeding. 

“No, but for such an outlaw, saying that was quite progressive of you…” she said, 

tutting. Usually when complimented and addressed in such a way by a sexy female, I 

would soon be kissing the speaker, and I am partial to the Umberto-eco view that ‘Love 

flourishes in expectation. Expectation strolls through the spacious fields of Time towards 

Opportunity.’ And so it goes that in as many seconds as it took to copy and paste this 

quote, Maggie was on top of me. We kissed vehemently. She grabbed my penis. I pissed a 

little out of shock. I was so surprised I could almost feel nothing breathe, rolling on the 

floor. (You copyright an action which is merely responsive [please die you dogged 

simpleton). 

“Maggie, I…” I protested, but it was of no use. She nimbly pushed me to the ground, put 

my seemingly lawful handcuffs back on and proceeded to milk me, masturbating me up 

and down and up and down and up and down like I was a hormonal cow and though I 

weakly continued my protest by groaning I orgasmed in less than a minute, then she 

showered me like I had showered the cat (with a little affection and an affected aura of 

tedium).

Maggie cackled hysteria after she did this as if she had just heard the third funniest joke 

in the world (Knock, knock! Who’s there? Doctor. Doctor Who? Yes, I am he!). 

“So… uh… how did you come to be a policewoman?” I asked, feebly, out of curiosity more 

than a desire to make small-talk. And so Maggie’s long story starts. Whether you are 

reading this allowed or not, you should note that Maggie’s voice was quite deep when 

speaking about serious matters, sterilised with police protocol in the middle-range and 

girlishly high when she was .


2013-2018 by 


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Doctor Tonnan 

Chapter 4: Maggie Begins Her Story, Smoking Pot With Rockland and Stupid Is As 

Stupid Does 

“There’s a crucial difference between wishing you have long hair while you have short 

hair and wishing you have short hair while you have long hair: one is easily achievable 

in the course of the next half of a year and the other is mere minutes away… if you 

happen to have medium hair length, then this is a good compromise and no further 

action is required (that is, protein pills or scissors)…” Maggie stated in a tone that 

suggested she were being knowingly verbose in her verbal reasoning. 

“Then again,” she said absentmindedly, “there is a crucial difference between touching 

the Queen on the face and touching the image of the Queen on the face. Then again, I 

don’t like to touch the Queen on the face, even the image of her. I just feel Her Majesty 

wouldn’t enjoy that.” 

Although I had just orgasmed, I was almost sorry I had asked, as I was keen to get the 

hell out of jail for I had a lot of work to do for University, so I said, “Your point being, 

Maggie?” 

“Well, I thought you’d ask that. The story is not a long one or a short one,” she said and 

gave me this perceptive maternal glance which made me feel a little uncomfortable and 

kind of guilty, for some reason. 

“What story?” I asked, now less angry and confused and more keen to present the front 

of being interested. 

“This story. The story I am in the middle of telling.” 

“Concerning hair length, the Queen and your employment?” I asked. 

“Yes. I am glad you are paying attention. Anyway, when I was around seven or eight 

years old, my hair had grown very long – two and a half foot long – my father got out his 

measuring tools – a ruler – and the whole enterprise of measuring got me quite excited, 

and my hair was the length of the ruler almost twice over. I loved my hair more than I 

loved any other form of life – is hair a form of life? To cut a long story short, he told me 

that I must have a hair cut or I’d risk balding. I played along, thinking he wouldn’t know 

how to cut my hair, but we went to the hairdressers. After the cut, when I looked at 

myself in the mirror, I wept hysterical with sadness. The hair cut was much shorter than 

I could have possibly imagined, barely shoulder length. I decided that this was a form of 

child abuse…. I would get my retribution, and he would feel the full force of the law.” 

“And so you became a police officer?” 

“A lot later, yes, but that was a little after I met the Queen.”

“What? You met the Queen?”


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Doctor Tonnan 

“You’ll mock me for saying this, but she is like the Father I never had…” she said 

factually, “I met her at the Wimbledon Tennis in 2010. I kissed her hand, she said that it 

was a joy to meet me, and that was that. She was sitting next to me. She cheered with… 

how should I say this… these days, after such a meeting with the Queen I don’t hesitate 

in ensuring that my use of language is correct… I suppose she cheered vehemently, if a 

person can cheer vehemently.” 

“Gee, Maggie, I didn’t know you liked tennis.” I said. 

“Tim – if that is your real name – I love tennis, but not as much as I love the Queen,” she 

said in a flirtatiously flirty tone. 

“Great. Cool story, Maggie.” I said. 

“That was the beginning and middle of the story. Do you want to hear the end of the 

story? The Queen features again, but she’s kind of an extra.” 

“Not now, Maggie. I have to get back to work.” I said. 

“Okay,” she said reluctantly, “I’ve always held to the idea that you should treat others as 

you would like to be treated. So, how about a ride back to the campus?” 

“Well, that sounds fantastic.” I said, feeling like Leonardo DiCaprio for some reason. 

Sure enough, Maggie was a woman of her word and next thing you know it we were in a 

police car heading back to Bristol campus. 

“Hey, Maggie, can you put the siren on please? I always wanted to be in a police car with 

the siren on.” I asked her as the car swum thru the darkening suburbs, out of the 

metropolis and into greenery. 

“Sure, Tim… in fact, the sound of the siren was one of the reasons I trained to become a 

police officer. And that’s the end of the story.” Maggie said, happily and perhaps a little 

patronisingly for the story was not really a story at all. But the wee-awe-wee-awe sound 

accompanied us for the rest of the ten minute journey so I was happy. I kissed her on the 

cheek when we arrived outside my halls of residence and she jumped up in shock, hitting 

her head on the police-car roof. 

“Oh, sorry, Maggie.” I told her and meant it. 

“It’s alright! Occupational hazard.” She giggled sheepishly and with a casual air of 

alertness. 

“See ya, Maggie.” I said. 

“Catch ya on the flip-side.” She said, and though I expected her to flip me off, she happily 

awarded me with the peace sign. I gave it back to her and waved. My three hours in jail

done and dusted, I could barely imagine what would happen next, and I didn’t need to, 

for reality’s algorithms are such that time moves in a linear fashion, pushing forwards 

and onwards despite a staggering universal number of births and deaths per second. 

Ultimately, I figure the Universe is moving towards its death, but this line of logic is 

primarily derived from my frequently nonsensical conversations with Rockland 

regarding the Universe’s expansion. I am qualified to offer my opinion that once it stops 

expanding, space will close in upon itself. But it so happened that, speaking of expanding 

matter and Rockland, at this moment the man himself appeared to offer his opinion on 

Victoria’s weight, attractiveness and position as a person of the opposite gender who has 

kissed me.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

“Hey man! I heard the sound of sirens and figured they were there to emit your return,” 

said Rockland, and before I could say anything he said “I saw you got off with that fat 

half-cast chick last night. Well done, dude. She was hot.” 

“Well, Rockland, I hope she still is. I didn’t notice that she was fat and the phrase ‘halfcaste’ 

is outdated and apparently discriminatory. Consider that poet in the GCSE 

anthology, the ‘half-caste symphony’ one.” I said, though thinking about it she was sort 

of chubby and ‘half-caste’ wasn’t a much kinder description than ‘mixed race’. 

Rockland stroked his temple thoughtfully, grimacing slightly, nodded then saluted me. 

“Oh well… you’ll know that as a poet my respect for time is determined by the amount of 

lyrical gravity behind each statement. Let’s get high tonight. I like to ride the light with 

no one to guide and nothing to hide. Now that I know Rebecca I feel so alive. I can’t 

believe it took this long to become my insides,” he sighed mysteriously. Although this is 

what he said verbatim, this forensically poetic set of statements now reminds me of the 

Lana Del-Rey song Born To Die. 

“I didn’t know you were a poet, Rockland.” I told him. 

“Well, Timothy, hopefully I still am… the English language can be utilised in such a way 

that you can exchange a simple word such as ‘use’ for utilise. My knowledge of this fact, 

combined with my use of ‘utilise’, is certainly enough to cement my reputation as a 

poet…” he said, shaking his head slightly and then pointing Eastward seemingly 

towards another accommodation, “We can smoke it that way, in yonder woods. 

“And you have procured said drugs already?” I asked him. 

“One thing you should know about me, Tim, is that I don’t play the victim. If I want 

love, I will get love. If I want to sound like a poet, I will sound like a poet… besides, I 

don’t do drugs, I do ganja.” Rockland said, inspiringly, though perhaps a tad 

psychopathically and in a way that ominously foreshadows the coming chapters ‘Vic-Tim’ 

and ‘Tory-Land’. 

“Okay. When do you want to smoke?” I asked. 

“ASAP… pronto… right now…” he declared and for the first time, and not the last time, 

I felt something that could be called arousal due to his joy-de-vivre. “Follow me,” he said, 

and led me towards the woods in a saunter bordering on a skipping run. We arrived at 

the lake, a wooden enclave of dark greenery. We lit up, Rockland toked three quick puffs, 

then he handed the joint to me and four separate yet almost singular coughs later, I was 

as high as a kite and noticed that moon was eerily full. Rockland noticed me eyeing it.

“I met the moon many years ago. It was my first auditory hallucination. It said ‘I’m your 

cousin’s mamma. That makes me your Auntie. Did you sleep with my sister?’ and 

immediately, instinctively I said ‘yes’.” 

“Wow. That’s a pretty profound experience to have…” I said, “But doesn’t that mean you 

slept with your mum?” 

“Well… the way I see it, there are people with parents and people who are born orphans. 

I fit into the latter category. My mum and I… well… we stay away from each other.” 

“But that doesn’t mean you slept with her.” 

“No, but this is what I told the moon,” he said, handing me a half-smoked spliff. 

“Thanks. Are you Schizophrenic?” I inquired. 

“Only when I want to be. I don’t mind it. It mothers me. She doesn’t mind it either,” he 

chuckled, nodding to the moon affectionately and coughing, even though he wasn’t 

smoking. 

“You know, I do poetry myself. Want to hear me make one up now?” I said. 

“I wouldn’t mind that, Tim. You know, I’m feeling in quite a romantic mood, what with 

Rebecca and all my future unfolding rapidly like a boat being pushed down a river. Go 

ahead.” Rockland said. I didn’t laugh at the time, but now that I think about it, this was 

sort of funny, and was the typical model Rockland used to construct his sentences. 

Maybe Rockland is the archetypal Byronic hero of this book; maybe he is the villainous 

antihero. As I’m writing these words and reflect upon my days in his company, I wonder 

if he is both./ 

“The moon looks especially handsome tonight, alright/And I thought about your hands 

on my left nipple/ ripples of fulfilled and unfulfilled longing/I got a buzz through my body 

like bees’ mating…” I said. 

“Good one. Your moon may be a man, but mine is a woman. Though we live in the same 

world, we are a universe apart,” he said, just as poetically. 

“Good one. That may be so, Rockland.” I said, and after a rich silence of several seconds, 

I asked him how his relationship with Rebecca was. 

“Well, she loves me and I lovers her. We… uh… reached some kind of… casual 

agreement that we would, given a few days notice, always be available for sex. We made 

some kind of…. bargain with each other…. In the world we can see.” 

“And what of the world we can’t see?” I ask him, feeling as if I were interviewing him. 

“That’s… well… that’s between her… the collection of words, the phrase is being ferried 

through saliva onto the tip of my tongue… we are – yes! that’s it – fuck buddies,” he said. 

What a funny man, I thought.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan

“Good for you.” 

“And what of your love-life, Tim?” 

“Well… sometimes we keep it to ourselves and sometimes we kiss and tell. Last night, I 

kissed Victoria, went to her room, we had a sleep-over and now I’ve told you about it.” 

“Boo! We want details with a capital D! Are you doctor-in-training Timid or some shit?!” 

“I had a good time. That’s all you need to know.” I replied, nonchalantly, “Let’s go 

inside.” 

“Oh boy, I don’t know about that. We can go back inside if, and here’s the big ‘if’, if you 

promise not to disclose my agreement with Victoria,” he said, then absorbing my 

confused look, added, “not with Victoria, with Rebecca.” 

I laughed embarrassedly, then told him “Consider it forgotten.” 

He took me by the arm and we walked together back to our hall of residence. “Come up 

to my room and we can talk about your assault charge.” As soon as we got there, 

Rockland picked up an acid tab from his drawer, put it in his mouth and said “What 

strikes me most about this whole ‘Reality’ ordeal is that if you are not me you are 

someone else or something else. Stupid is as stupid does.” And he threw his hands up, as 

if he was stating a circular reason. 

“I follow you.” I offered, though I didn’t really follow him. 

“I… uh… I have something to tell you. This acid is a truth serum.” 

“Okay. I’m all ears. Could I have some acid as well?” 

“How about after I tell you what I have to say you decide whether you still want to take 

acid. If you do, it would be helpful.” 

“How about you tell me after I’ve taken acid.” 

“Okay, Tim. But really I am the victim of your public sexual extravagance. Hey, that’s 

funny – Vic Tim.” He said, laughing sarcastically then genuinely, probably at the sound 

of his own sarcastic laughter, then went to his drawer and got another tab. This one was 

coloured in the style of Donald Duck. Though of course I didn’t really care what it looked 

like, I was glad it wasn’t Mickey Mou/se. I put it in my mouth and let it dissolve. It 

tasted like… well, what acid tastes like, all alkaline… I can’t properly remember myself, 

but alkaline is my best guess. 

“I want to start about by saying sorry. Apologies to the Queen and apologies to you, my 

King,” he remarked ominously. 

“Okay, go on, Rockland.” I told him, already feeling a little frightened about what I was 

about to hear.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

“Two hours ago,” he started, “in my golden one four two blazed brain, I ceased the 

vilification and viewing of the visual and auditory apparition of the crazy yet content 

copulation of Victoria and you (and by copulation, I mean fucking, fucking as hard as you 

could, fucking as if that were why you were alive, fucking so hard she was bound to 

produce quintuplets unless she took the pill afterwards: validating the victorious vulture 

of her vagina, praising the priestly prude of your penis, angelizing the artisan aristocrat 

of her anus, seemingly concluding tearfully with your exclamation of the ecstasy of 

eloping with Eve into her evangelist ears and then continuing onwards with the joint 

exploring and adoring of every pore in the mercenary mountains of each other’s mouths), 

and then the vision gave way to my awestricken marvel at two haunting hallucinations, 

firstly of a slow serpentine blow job Victoria gave your knob and s/econdly of reefered 

anal sex in a palace of secrets: firstly, at dark in the park by the meadows (where 

mourning magpies’ melodies boomed as if they were responsible for the evacuation [or 

blooming] of chrysalises, and then diminished in decibels as if conspiring to never be 

heard again like a deleted demo of the future by the time-travelling sperm of the future 

Rock & Roll Legend cum President of the World) under the tree Victoria and you that I 

knew you both favoured for no particular reason, where she practically sterilised you by 

licking around the top of your cock and then caressing/ it in the cosy chasm of her mouth, 

repeating this rhythmically with such regularity you came home with her because that 

was where you lived; secondly, and this one tugged my heart apart like a horse and cart 

pulling it in a gallop towards the only infinity possible (for though infinity is infinite 

there is only one infinity), she seductively stated that she is Satan and that if she made 

you orgasm you would be responsible for the deaths of thousands of thousands of unborn 

babies. I didn’t say a word, for you apparently weren’t willing to continue this religious 

line of conversation. Victoria then recited the Lord’s prayer to you, pointing at you when 

she said ‘Father’, henceforth declaring you the Father of yourself, her own Father and 

my Father as if it were a gospel truth, then stroked your frigidly cold cock with her feet 

for an accelerated week, red toenails and dyed beige hair growing in a simulated eternity 

with weight being lost in both your images, until she parks her humungous arse on top 

of your erect cock, her hole submerges it and you fuck until your hair turns grey: by 

then, 234,000,000 unborn babies were dead and hell would be okay because hell would 

be doing it again and anyway this was just happening in my mind which was now bloodred 

with incandescent envy,” he said, and let out a deep sigh. 

“Great. Cool story, Rockland.” I told him. I’m not sure at what point the idea that he 

must sleep with Victoria ventured into his mind, but perhaps this vision was the trigger. 

At my old school, as soon as I kissed any given girl, they seemed to be next party’s girl de 

jour, and some guys would make a pass at her… it was a tradition: some were successful,

others were not. Over time, I did grow a victim complex because of this, but it was nice to 

always g/et the girl before the others did; it was like being the one who always checks out 

the best new coffee house in town before anyone else. 

“That’s not all I had to say, Tim. I wanted to say congratulations for the sexual victory.” 

“Okay. Cheers. I’m going to go now, buddy. By the way, I’m not all that sure what you 

saw was Victoria and I. There was none of that satanic stuff going on. The most erotic 

part of the night was her declaiming me ‘Homer’.” 

“Sure. Good luck with her. What a catch. Only a little bit fat, half-black and with a huge 

Babylon,” he said.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

Chapter Acid 

“Good luck with Rebecca.” I said, shaken and lying in a sense, for though I did wish the 

man success in his relationship with Rebecca, partially to protect my own almost nonexistent 

claim over Victoria, I felt some kind of sick fascination in thinking about 

Rockland, Rebecca and our ‘love triangle’. Rebecca was quite fit, sure, but she looked like 

my mum. I had only been in my room for a few minutes, thinking about what Rockland 

had said when a student leaflet advertising ‘A Freudian Masterclass on Breakfast at 

Tiffanies’ slid under the door. Shit. Shit. Not only was I just thinking about how Rebecca 

looked like my mum, Breakfast At Tiffanie/s was one of my favourite films. And my 

mum’s too. And then the acid started working. I put the leaflet on my table, and then lay 

in bed. I stared at the wall. I should be completing my assignment of memorising the 

bottom half of the periodic table of elements, but I already knew half of it. I thought 

about Victoria’s phone number, realised I still knew it and smiled contently. I could 

almost picture her now. I imagined our phone conversation. 

Hi Victoria, it’s Tim. 

Sup?/*/ 

And then the acid started working. MIT STI AIROTCIV IH. 

And then the acid really started working. I wandered tragically alone thru the fish-bait 

of coincidence, quickly figured out the great conspiracy that defined my social life at 

University, and then promptly forgot it as I saw a Santa-Claus shaped car… in my mind, 

my image got into the car and drove it into the White House… then a female hen, a 

sister death of sleep locked me in jail. I dived into great valleys of consciousness, bathing 

in whirlpools of supposition and then treading down the boulevard of wakefulness like a 

disused whistle that craved the mouth of its master.

I grabbed the notebook from the shelf and wrote in capital letters “I’m telling you. 

Something’s going on. People… they’re not all that good.” Then I climbed their stares up 

to bed and collapsed. The American dollar bill appeared in my mind’s eye. Shit. These 

guys know who I am. They’re onto me. That’s all I could think for a few minutes. Then 

my phone rang. It was Victoria. I recognised the number. I must have said that number 

out loud hundreds of times. 

“Hello, is this Tim?” said a voice. 

“Hi Victoria, Tim speaking.” I said. 

“Sup, homey?” She said in a conspiratorial tone. 

“I had mind-blowing sex with this girl, then everyone clapped, then I ate macaroons, 

then I got arrested, then I took acid, then I uncovered a conspiracy, then I forgot the 

conspiracy, then I picked up this phone call.” I told her. 

“I hope that girl was me, I didn’t clap and I’m a member of everyone, I love macaroons, I 

never once got arrested, I have never taken acid, I hope I’m not part of the conspiracy 

that you forgot about, and here we are.” Victoria said. Geez, this girl is a good talker, I 

thought. It’s almost like some of these people follow highly intelligent mass debates. 

“Cool. Anyway, how are you?” I said. 

“Good. Want to see me now? It’s 9 PM. There should be music on the plaza. 

“Sure, want to come over mine? I’m in my room, J83.” 

“See you in a bit…” she said. 

I went to the kitchen, where Rockland was microwaving a microwave meal. He didn’t 

seem in any mood to talk, so we just sat there. I told him Victoria was coming to see me 

here, he moved his lips as if about to say something of interest and then thought better 

of it, and soon Victoria walked through the kitchen door. 

“Hi, it’s Rockland.” Rockland said calmly but with a sense of mortal urgency. 

“What happened to Rockland?” Victoria said, with an air of happy yet feigned patient 

concern. 

“I AM ROCKLAND” He practically shouted, loudly. 

“Victoria.” Victoria said. It’s clear to me now that… uh… I’m an auth-or. Just say you get 

bored” 

“Doctor In Training Rockland, I’ll get you some water.” I offered. 

“What about the Queen?” He said. 

“The Queen, Rockland?” I said, seeing a crowned man dressed in drag in my mind’s eye. 

Victoria raised an eyebrow at me and winked.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

“I was born to eat banoffee” Victoria said out of the blue to the mellowing fellow as if 

discussing a subject of tragedy. 

“I was born for your majesty”, Rockland yells as if trying not to misspell majesty. I don’t 

think that it would be entirely feasible for me to live like that, a human chameleon 

changing his behaviour based on self-ordained judgement, a creature hopelessly chained 

to his desire, his instinct, his ownership, his love, his self-belief installed in his head by 

the hand of God and the hand of God alone. 

I sat back and eyed Victoria. She was beautiful to look at, if a little chubby; no, beautiful 

to look at and a little chubby. 

“Hi Tim.” She said, waving at me in a knowingly awkward way that was designed to cull 

awkwardness but rather served to increase it. 

“Hi, Victoria,” I replied. 

She walked towards me and we smooched for a while. And Rockland gazed at us, smiling 

almost as if he were witnessing young love for the first time, as if he were our best man 

at our wedding, almost as though over the course of the next few weeks he wouldn’t 

murder my sense of self with his analogies, metaphors and aggrandisement of these 

visions he was apparently prone to having. For a while, it felt like I was kissing one of 

those demi-Gods, one of MENSA’s Britain’s Next Top Model virgin porn star. I guess my 

story ends as it begins: I’m necking the hot vacant black aristocrat, a poor boy done good. 

I guess this is the story of teenage heartbreak that reeks of doomed love. I’ll tell you now 

the story ends now: flesh, sensations and dead friendships.

Chapter 5: Why Am I Obsessed With Me? 

So Victoria and I were kissing and Rockland was inspecting his heated ready-meal 

before he eats it when the fricking fire alarm goes off and we all have to rush outside. We 

had so little warning (and my sexual dynamism demarcated by hours, if not days, of 

experience is so persistent) that my jeaned boner remained his full length when we 

arrive outside. Nobody clapped. Nobody cheered. But I wouldn’t veto the evaluation that 

almost everyone was oblivious to him, except Victoria, whose presence didn’t assist in 

His Happiness’ rectification (or de-erection). 

Standing a little behind me, during the evacuation process Rockland had somehow 

acquired a notebook and pen. He was drawing a sketch of what seemed to be an early 

human body. 

“This universe is finite due to the fact that space itself exists..." Rockland said with some 

unease and apparently to himself with some unease, as if this supposition was 

controversial and could get him killed in one of the greatest academic institutions ever, 

"the grave realisation that infinity is really nothing transpires and you must confront 

the paradox of your own condition: a being of his or her own time but somehow still 

existing within a fraction of the total time. If you multiply space by time, you almost 

reach a surplus of energy. I always figured perception of time can be quantified by the 

amount of time thus far spent within this domain. Thusly, for a new-born time passes 

slow, because he has little concept of time.” 

“Well, that is one of the many paradoxes of being a pro-life vegan." Victoria said. 

"But you're not a vegan," I said to her. 

"Sure I am," she said sharply, "almost all of the time I am vegan, and that’" 

“If you’re not smoking, talking, writing, enjoying yourself or concocting a plan to escape a 

cardboard box, you are wasting your time,” Rockland went on, as if the 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++- to his stream of consciousness had not happened and 

we weren’t invited to the conversation. 

Though I’ve now learnt he was a hedonistic heathen, I couldn’t disagree. In fact, 

according to his doctrine, I was wasting time listening to him, which was quite accurate. 

"Since we are in a certain space rather than the totality of space, I can only assume we 

are self-aware bacteria within an organism..." Rockland continued, "also, since time 

passes, not even sighance can live forever; otherwise there would be no time passing.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

Does this make sense to you? When the organism we're inside dies, time itself will be 

slowly crushed... I expect that when the apocalypse happens, time will pass in a different 

(and not necessarily linear) way." 

“Gee, Rockland, I knew you were a heretic, but I didn’t think you were an idiot as well.” I 

say to him. 

“Screw you, Tim,” he said, my love now its regular size and thus not very likely at all to 

be noticed by the large gathering of people outside the hall of residence, “I am not a 

heretic or an idiot.” 

At this point I noticed that the black cat has attended the evacuation process. He looked 

really good; no, he looked great. I made to go up to him, when Rockland grabbed my 

shoulder and said “Hey, dude, that doesn’t happen to be the cat you kidnapped and 

assaulted, does it?” 

“Uh, no, Rockland…” I said to him, “I just like cats, okay?” 

I walked up to the cat, who bore his teeth and hissed at me, then wagged his tail happily 

upon my arrival. 

“Gee, Doctor-In-Training Tim, that animal loves you!” Rockland said. 

“Rockland, please stop using offensive language. How would you feel being called an 

animal?” 

“Gee, Tim” said Rockland [it sounded like a Russian saying ‘cheat him’], “I guess I am an 

animal. Are you PC or what?” 

“No, I am not PC Orwat… you know I got arrested earlier today.” I said, stroking the cat. 

“Of course I’m not a police constable.” 

Rockland looked more mystified than amused.

Anyway, keen not to cause a scene (for I was not aware at this point that my experiences 

would be written down by my future self and would become a full-length novel so 

controversial that the vast majority of the populace remains unaware of its existence), I 

looked for Victoria amid the gathering of young adults and saw her talking and listening 

to some handsome ass white dude. She was laughing, smiling and looked like she wanted 

to be there, though I have learnt that women can be masters of deception. My mildly 

autistic and mildly resentful mind shrugged. He probably liked her for the reason I liked 

her… if she didn’t possess these traits, she wouldn’t be her, I thought: let’s just hope our 

intents weren’t the same. The black cat stopped purring and turned away from me, 

seemingly displeased. I bid the fellow adieu and went up to Victoria, who, surprisingly, 

kissed me on the lips. 

“Hey Tim,” she said, “how’s your trip going? This is my friend Chester.” 

“Hi Chester. How do you do? 

For some reason, I don’t like making small talk with guys, nor girls for that matter, 

especially if they are formulaically competing for my mate, lol. 

“I’m not bad. You?” 

“I’m okay. How about you?” I said, pretending my head was elsewhere but in actuality 

calculating whether or not he wanted to have sex with Victoria. I decided that like most 

sane man he wouldn’t stop her from raping him (though I’ve found myself the victim of a 

mild ‘rape’ by a woman before and that didn’t arouse me because I didn’t fancy her… 

with that been said, ‘rape’ is a very strong word to put in such a ‘jovial’ and ‘anticlimactic 

[I have climaxed twice already and we are not particularly far into this ‘book’]). 

“I’m bad. I just hate it when someone asks me the same question twice, when the first 

time I gave the correct answer.” 

“Surely, then, there are two correct answers, then, wise guy.” Victoria said and then put 

her hand in mine!! This was a surprise though I know her better than you. I can only 

surmise that, as Rockland had said of Victoria before me, I was ‘quite the catch’. 

Chester doesn’t know what to say to this. There was a brief standoff. Smiles were 

exchanged on both sides. Then Chester turned to another girl, who laughed almost as 

soon as he said something to her. I’d hazard the guess someone such as Chester is either 

usually humoured by others or there is something funny about his person. I didn’t find 

him funny. Perhaps that was because I’m mildly autistic. I don’t know. At that point I 

blamed most of my pitfalls on being mildly autistic because I am on acid and was special


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

to som people, not that I was at all at that point except to an aghast Victoria. I went 

right up to bed after the fire drill ended, let go of her hand. When you love something, 

keep it away. Jesus Mary was right we all have our dignity (I don’t take it everywhere, 

so). If I’m guilty of one army of brain cells that I can’t control, she is not a memory. You 

don’t even know it I took acid and I’m placid when I want to be. I know enough people 

that deny me sex to know when the gentlemen needs ironing. This was not one of these 

days (can you remember what just happened? You’re not a good reader if you do, or 

you’ve read too many books too fast. I’ve been in a lorry; I raised His Holiness by myself: 

you know I don’t like it when anyone except for the Commander In Chief’s ex-dealer 

sings on YouTube like a lost cause of a medallion in the Hebrew alphabet, I reckon, like 

a sarcasm lyre who means everything he says about the supposed events of the song. He 

sort of inspires me to write my own songs, which is probably a good thing. There’s what: 

science of food, ‘creatures’, all that stuff. 

Chapter 6: You’ve the hero in all riddles and master of deceit 

She spits on my lungs as I got bored of plants and I was taken captive by a Tennessee 

tribe. 

The review came late after the Horde surrendered to the forsaken. My ire was not 

tolerated out of transcendence as a kid, I think. I forgot time fell such that the events 

were unrecognisable to the crucial eye but maybe I am not speaking rationally. Maybe 

my brain is bigger than I think. Still, it hurt to go on ten dates and not see her cock till 

she sleeps with me now. Her cruel blue figure memorised by my cool eyes which are 

sockets of portals into another environment where energy cuckolds the volume of the 

arithmetic development of the wars I realise I have lost by fucking a woman on my first 

day. I offer you no alibi. Maybe I’m lucky that I didn’t reiterate my status as a doctor in 

training like a miserable git. Nowadays my body rests next to Vicky’s in my Father’s 

house where destiny rejoices and memory of a better reckoning beckons. I sue the stupid 

in this memoir of the ride to speechlessness. I was raised a Christian and I’ll die as a 

God-induced-suicide which I hope God understands and she does too. 

Hey, you know that girl that sucked my cock with my speech because I love her more 

than anything? By the way, I will literally… (I went to a motherfucking novel writing 

course and she told me I was at a point of no return). I found out later she was married 

after she held my mind. There’s always another women to fancy. The only thing that 

obsesses me about womenkind other than their prophecies that don’t materialise like 

Rocklands is the smell of their shit and their bodies, heh. This is a point of no return. I 

would just read the closing statement if your STDs are bored at class, you spoilt rich kid.

I was rich too, apparently, bit I starved a player. Dawg nose your burden and enim. I 

never write the chorus to my songs because they’re not catchy enough to have them. And 

I always release songs give some people ecstasy.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

Chapter 7: Dyslexics Shouldn’t Go To University/ Doctor Rockland, Why Tape A Guitar 

At University After All You’ve… O 

I open my eyes and I’m in my room. I read a note. At the bottom is ‘I know I’m a jerk, 

Tim… toy, your not fluent. We said a lot during tantric but there’s a lot I didn’t say. 

Read this and feel sorry for me: Haruki Murakami’s Wind Up Bird Chronicle.’ I read the 

note and felt sorry for her. Being wound up deprived was pretty bad. My hard-on went to 

a halfie. I still sued the people that had me for sex when I was an eleven. Gone to find 

Rockland – he’s my best friend, right? – and I find out from Rick he’s in the shower. I 

looked the book up online. I was still in the mood for something else and realised I had a 

little work to do. I recall the other note again – I don’t write it all down; every reader has 

got to work… reading’s not for pleasure: it’s a necessity like reading. O, I’m so paranoid I 

feel like a porn star. That must be the hardest job. I yawn while I write and fatten 

because my body eats during intervals. 

My ‘friend’ the psychiatrist teacher calls. I realise he must live the saddest reality 

because I give him a chuckle effortlessly though I don’t really want to do much. My dad 

did call me lazy the other day. I really don’t like the practice. I’m always ready except for 

when I am out of time and this is really a book for a friend anywho. There’s a broken 

promise here. Someone’s been misdirected and so is misdirecting. You’ll have to try me 

again some other time. 

Victoria tied me to the palace of ruins and I fucked her on top of the monument we never 

paid for. And that’s why I need to drink more coffee and that’s the meaning of this 

section of the story. 

I’m alone on the stage of a pub and find me singing with my like sterile positions that 

break my heat in tree meaning unintended like a lol I nearly said it so sorry. The pat’s 

playlist was boring to me because it didn’t concern me. Once a woman sorry to say this 

said to me ‘you call that flirting’ like a foreign person she was in a one dimensional dress 

like a one dimensional friend it didn’t really make a limerence to me. 

Like most medical students, I was utterly engrossed by the grave. My obsession was my 

profession and my life goal was to stop people from dying. You may not think this 

prudent, but nowadays first and foremost I think of my days as a medical student as a 

daze of unsaved agnosticism. 

The instant this crossed my mind, the miracle of miracles overcame me like a storm: I 

could see that I was blind and Jesus was my saviour. 

I realised I was not bound to the sterility of form and that conforming to the norm 

results in death, as I suppose does any other ideal.

Anyway, the realisation of your own mortality on this physical plane yet acceptance 

contorts the sensation of every breath. 

I’ll tell you this while I can; I’ll warn you while I can. 

Your body is holy! Your books are holy as the table! The mosquitos as alive as the giants 

that are not fictio! 

You may not call it prudent, but foremost in my career as a carer and a practitioner of 

medicine I pretended to be engrossed by the grave. 

Though he was a hedonistic heathen, I'm still not sure he was wrong. But he got sent to 

an insane asylum for someone had secretly recorded him making these statements... it 

was a hospital that claimed to doctor the abnormal mind until it conformed to normality. 

He had fucked two of my ex-girlfriends by then, so as well as being a purveyor of the 

truth in a world of lies, he had done what I would have done if I were me, which formed a 

large component of the reason for my label of him as a hedonistic heathen. It is always a 

little creepy when you find someone who looks or sounds or acts a little too much like you 

wish you could, but not only was he a hedonistic heathen, he was also legally insane. 

With the mosquito farm's ownership as a company now transferred to the University, he 

got taken out of campus: the very last thing he said to me was "In order to be good at 

singing, always soul your mouth: use it as the centre piece, like an internal harmonica or 

saxaphonial gift to the audience like the sweetest candy that ever lived or the heart of 

darkness that you know you possess for that is where you love and live and die in my 

humble opinion."


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

APOCALYPSE KID 

I 

MEMORIES DON'T ALWAYS ARRIVE EASILY TO ME, BUT WHEN 

THEY DO, THEY VENTURE INTO THE BODY IN A CASCADE OF 

MADNESS, COLLIDING WITH EACH OTHER, NOT TO FORM THE SUM 

OF MY EXISTENCE AS A MAN, BUT AS A CLAUSTROPHOBIC 

CONCOCTION OF UNHINGED UNDERSTANDING... OFTEN IT FEELS 

AS IF MY SOUL HAS BEEN TRESPASSED AGAINST BY LONGING FOR 

KNOWLEDGE, NOT THAT OF MY OWN, BUT THAT OF OTHERS. I 

BELONGED TO HER. IT'S A VERY LONG STORY AND A SHORT ONE 

TOO. BUT NOW I BELONG TO ME. AND THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT 

HURT EVEN MORE. FOR SOME REASON, I'VE SPENT SOME MONTHS 

TRULY CONTEMPLATING WHAT & WHERE MY MIND PERCEIVED AS 

THE BEGINNING, BEFORE OR AFTER WHAT MY MIND PERCEIVED 

AS THE FUTURE'S END. I CAN REMEMBER THE BEGINNING AND 

CAN IMAGINE THE END. 

II 

THE WORLD-WEARY WOMAN LOOKED MY EYES UP & DOWN AS IF I 

WERE TROUBLE AND I DEFECTED HER DEAFENING LULL OF A 

GAZE. SHE FROWNED & SHOOK HER SUN-COOKED HEAD OF HAIR 

AS IF SHE CARED DOUBLE, AS IF THIS WORLD COULD BE A 

WONDERFUL MAZE. 

YES, FROM HERE TO THERE OUR TRIP FROM NOWHERE TO 

NOWHERE CAN BE A MUDDLE, BUT TO ME A LOT OF IT FEELS LIKE 

A GLIMMERING HAZE. I GET CAUGHT UP IN THOUGHTS WHICH 

DISTORT MY WILL UNTIL THEY BEFUDDLE, YET THEY DON'T 

ALWAYS CONTORT MY NIGHTS & DAYS. 

SO I REMEMBER TO FORGET & FORGET IN PHASES.

I SURRENDER TO THE SANCTITY OF SENTENCES & PHRASES. 

SHE STILL AMAZES ME WHEN OUR HEARTS EMBRACE... AND I'M 

BLUE BUT NOT FOR YOU. 

SOMETIMES I FORGET THE MADDENING SADNESS AND MY SOUL 

HAS NO NEED TO SHOO OR HEED THE ACADEMIA OF YOUR 

NICOTINE SCHEMES. SOMETIMES NO RHYME CAN EXPRESS ANY 

VALID POINT & MY WHOLE HAS SPEED SO I CAN SEE THE 

DARKNESS OF DEPRESSANT'S DREAMS. I SAW MY OWN FLAWS 

AND HERS TOO AND THEY MELT LIKE INFATUATED HEAT TO 

SWEET BUT SOME LINES ARE TOO FICKLE TO READ BETWEEN. 

WHEN THEY COLLIDE, THE MOON LIFTS MOON TO LUNAR FEAT & 

I WISH I'D BEEN APART FROM THAT OBSCENE SCENE. 

SO I REMEMBER TO FORGET & FORGET IN PHASES. 

I SURRENDER TO THE SANCTITY OF SENTENCES & PHRASES. 

NOT MUCH AMAZES ME BUT MY EYES GLAZE OVER... AND I'M BLUE 

BUT NOT TO YOU. 

III 

I SUPPOSE THERE IS A REASON FOR THIS NUMBER'S EXISTENCE 

BUT EVEN I DO NOT KNOW WHY. 

IV 

THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR BOTH OF US TO SLEEP ON 

THE BED, SO I WENT TO SLEEP ON THE FLOOR ON THE CARPET, IN 

THE SLEEPING BAG, AFTER I HEARD HER SLIGHT SNORE. WHEN I 

WOKE UP, AFTER HER, HER HAND ENLIGHTENED ME. 

WE WATCHED A TV SHOW ABOUT ZOMBIES. IT TURNED ME ON 

QUITE A LOT BECAUSE GREAT VIOLENT ATROCITIES WERE 

COMMITTED so AFTERWARDS I FELT LIKE KIND OF LIKE EVERY 

MOMENT COULD BE MY LAST. AND, TO BE HONEST, IT WAS A KIND 

OF BORING SHOW, ANYWAYS; SOME THINGS ARE TO HORRIFIC TO


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

WATCH. BUT AFTERWARDS, THOUGH? AFTERWARDS, SHE MADE IT 

COLOSSAL. I LOVED HER. 

AND HELL, BEING STUCK THERE, BARELY BREATHING FOR 10 

SECONDS, MY HANDS ON HER TITS, NOT NERVOUS, NOT FREE, 

WAS HEAVEN. IN LOVE BUT NOT IN LOVE. INFATUATED & NOT 

INFATUATED. I. OUR THOUGHTS COLLAPSED INTO ONE OR THEY 

DID FOR THAT MINUTE. I UNDERSTOOD HER. SHE UNDERSTOOD 

ME. THEN WE FORGOT ABOUT IT. 

I CAN’T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I WAS IN HER HOUSE, BUT 

FOR SOME REASON I KNEW IT WOULD BE MY LAST TIME IN HER 

HOUSE. WHEN SHE LEFT MINE, I KNEW IT WOULD BE THE LAST 

TIME SHE WAS IN MY HOUSE... AT LEAST THAT GIRL. PEOPLE 

CHANGE, I GUESS. MAYBE SHE’S BEEN IN MY HOUSE AGAIN. I 

DREAMED ABOUT HER OCCASIONALLY. BUT THEY WERE ALWAYS 

SEXUAL DREAMS. NO FRIENDSHIP. I SUPPOSE THAT’S WHAT 

HURT.. I DIDN’T LIKE HER TASTE IN MUSIC AND SHE DIDN’T LIKE 

MINE. WE WERE STUPID. OR I WAS ANYWAY. I WAS A STUPID 

TEENAGER. I DIDN’T EVEN LIKE CHEDDAR. 

V 

I DID NOT PARTICULARLY WANT TO BE A KID & I DID NOT 

PARTICULARLY WANT TO BE AN ADULT SO I TRIED OUT BOTH AND 

DECIDED TO try to LEAVE THIS PLACE, FOR THE BENEFIT OF 

OTHERS AND MYSELF. 

THIS PLACE IS FULL OF HEARTBREAK TOO AND I FELT LIKE I 

OWED SOMEONE ELSE AND I KNEW THEY WOULD REMEMBER ME 

FONDLY AT THAT POINT FOR I HAD NOT YET MADE MY STUPIDITY 

PUBLIC AND HERE’S HOPING I NEVER DID. ALSO, TO DISTRACT ME 

FROM MY LOVE OR FROM OTHER MORE SELF-SERVING REASONS, 

THE GOVERNMENTAL BODIES TRIED TO

ASSIMILATE/ASSASSINATE ME. I DIDN’T LIKE THAT PROCESS. 

EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING STILL FEELS LIKE IT NEEDS TO 

EXPEL CERTAIN SPIRITS FROM MY MIGRAINE. I WAS A DESEXUAL 

MAN IN A STRAIGHT JACKET.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

VI 

DREAMING TO THE RHYTHM OF JAZZ & DRINKING TO THE 

SACRED BLINDNESS OF ANGELS, SCREAMING FOR THE 

SUNKEN PROPHECY, HURLING THE BOOK OF CHANGES TO 

ITS RESTING PLACE, 

MY THERAPIST TELLS ME THAT THE BEGINNING HAS ENDED AND 

IT’S TIME TO START AGAIN, 

MY THERAPIST THINKS I’M GAY SO I STARTED HITTING ON HER TO 

COMPLICATE THE DIAGNOSIS, 

MY THERAPIST DOESN’T EVEN EXIST, BUT NOW SHE’S PREGNANT 

AND IT’S ALL MY FAULT! 

EPIPHANIES! CONFUCIUS! EINSTEIN! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 

SIN OF FOLLOWING? 

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MESSAGE? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 

MASSACRE? 

(WHERE ARE YOU MOTHER? WHERE ARE THE WEEPY-EYED 

RELATIVES THAT CAME FOR YOU? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 

SNORING MAN YOU SLEPT WITH OCCASIONALLY? HE’S GONE, 

MOTHER, YOU TOOK HIM WITH YOU AND NOW YOUR AFFAIR IS 

HISTORY! THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END, MOTHER, THE 

BEGINNING THE OF PENULTIMATE BREAKDOWN! O THE BLISS 

HAS STOLEN MY INNOCENCE AND I AM READY TO UNDERTAKE 

THE FINAL PICNIC IN HEAVEN! ) 

O WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE DRUNKEN TRIUMPHS & GOLDEN 

TOUCHES! IT’S ALL ERODED INTO THE ENDLESS MACHINERY OF 

DAWN AND THE SECRET INSATIABILITY OF APPETITE HAS 

RETURNED! IT’S ALWAYS BEEN EASIER TO FALL IN LOVE THAN TO 

BE ALONE! AND NOW EVEN THAT’S GONE TOO!

O FOOL ME THROUGH THE DARKNESS O FOOL ME LIKE A CAT! O 

FOOL ME LIKE YOU FOOL YOURSELF 

O FOOL ME LIKE A RAT! 

O SING A SONG OF SORROW WHERE THE DOCKS & WATER FIGHT 

AND THE OLD SOULSINGERS SING A SONG TIL THE SOUL 

EMERGES LIGHT 

(I BREATHE MY BREATH FOR BIRTH AND DEATH 

I LEFT THE REST BEHIND I TRIED TO TURN TO JESUS 

BUT THE CHRISTIANS CHANGED MY MIND!) 

O KISS ME LIKE A GODDESS O KISS ME LIKE I’M A MAN O KISS ME 

LIKE YOU KISS YOURSELF O KISS ME CAUSE YOU CAN! 

O TRANCE ME TO THE TRACTOR O TRANCE ME TO THE SKY! O 

TRANCE ME LIKE YOU TRANCE YOURSELF 

AS YOUR DREAMS GO FLOATING BY! 

(I ONLY CARE FOR SEX & LOVE! THE REST IS OBSOLETE! I’M 

RUNNING BACK TO THAT MAD OLD ORGY WHERE THE PEN & 

PENIS MEET!) 

O LOVE ME TO YOUR STROBELIGHT 

O LOVE ME TO YOUR MIND O LOVE ME LIKE YOU HATE YOURSELF 

O LOVE ME TIL WE’RE BLIND.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

VII 

YOU WANT TO BE A SLAVE TO HER 

AND KNEEL THE DAZE AWAY 

YOU FEEL IT IN HER SMILE 

THE DEBT FOR WHICH YOU PRAY 

BUT YOU DON’T HATE HER FOR IT 

HER LILIES AND HER LIES 

YOU JUST DREAM OF WHAT IT USED TO BE 

AND THEN YOU FALL INTO HER EYES 

AND YOU KNOW WHAT MUST BE DONE 

BUT YOUR BLINDED HEART FORBIDS IT 

AND ALL YOUR FEARS ARE SUNG 

BUT STILL YOUR MIND CAN’T RID IT 

SHE COMES BACK TO YOU ONE MORNING 

AND THE YEARS FALL DOWN YOUR CHEEKS 

SHE SHOWS YOU WHAT IT MEANS TO LOVE 

AND NO ONE NEEDS TO SPEAK 

THE LADY IN HER MYSTERY 

HER DARKNESS LIGHT AT LAST

YOU THINK OF ALL THE SIGHTS YOU SAW 

AND YOU THANK HER FOR YOUR PAST


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

VIII 

ALONE IN MY PYJAMAS 

EXHAUSTED & OBSESSED 

WITH THE FUTURE 

LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT LOVE 

THAT DOESN’T HANG HEAVY 

OVER THE INDUSTRY OF SELFHOOD 

AND COMPLICATED DREAMS 

LOOKING FOR THE PURITY OF EXPRESSION 

THAT IS ATTAINABLE ONLY THROUGH 

A PROTRACTED SERIES OF THRUSTS 

INTO THE BEAUTY THAT CONSPIRES AGAINST ME 

WANT TO BE A STABLE MEMBER 

OF THE ADULT COMMUNITY 

WITHOUT SACRIFICING MY WOUNDED 

SANITY OR TENDENCY TO SKIP 

DOWN THE STREET

WANT TO REWIND TO THE CREMATORIUM 

AND CHECK HER PULSE ONE LAST TIME 

BEFORE SHE BURNS 

THROUGH THE ORPHANED 

ETERNITY OF NIGHT 

WANT AN EXPENSIVE REMAKE 

OF ‘THE GRADUATE’ STARRING 

ME AND JULIA ROBERTS OR PERHAPS 

THE ELEGANT LADY WHO RESIDES 

IN NUMBER 37. 

LOOKING FOR A HAPPY ENDING 

TO THIS POEM 

LOOKING FOR A HAPPY POEM 

TO THIS ENDING. 

BEFORE I WAKE TOMORROW 

I WILL POINT MY PEN 

INTO THE SLUMBERING DEPTHS 

OF HER SAD AND FATHOMLESS SKIES


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

IX 

AS THE YEARS FLOAT BY, I’M BEGINNING TO FORGET MY OWN 

REMEMBRANCES AND THE ONLY REMAINING CONSOLATION IS MY 

DULLING MEMORY OF THAT NIGHT. SINCE THEN, I’VE 

SURRENDERED EVERYTHING BUT MY APPETITE. YOU’VE TAKEN IT 

ALL AND I’M STARTING TO DIE BECAUSE I CAN’T WAIT ANY 

LONGER! I’VE ALWAYS BEEN IMPATIENT AND NOW THAT THERE’S 

NOTHING LEFT IN MY LOINS I CAN HARDLY SEE THE POINT 

ANYMORE. FAR FROM MELLOWING IN MY OLD AGE, I’VE BECOME 

BITTERER ABOUT MY OWN IMPERFECTIONS. YOU BREATHE OUT 

GENIUS, YOU G-DLY BASTARD! I’M GOING TO BED NOW. WRITE ME. 

IT’S GETTING LATE AND I’M GETTING TIRED AND ALL OF ME IS 

ACHING. EVERYTHING FEELS LIKE SUCH A LONG TIME AGO. I 

MISS THE PASSION. I MISS THE PAIN. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. 

IF THIS SOUNDS SARCASTIC, IT PROBABLY BECAUSE IT IS. BUT 

ONLY THIS SECTION. I'M IN A JACKET, STRAIGHT & FORGET YOUR 

MADNESS. I WANT TO WEEP HAPPY TEARS.

HUGANGA HATED CHEDDAR BUT LOVED WOMEN 

HUGANGA HATED CHEDDAR. NOT ONLY DID HE LOATHE IT, HE 

DESPISED IT. HE COULD NOT TELL WHETHER IT WAS PRIMARILY 

BECAUSE OF THE SCENT OR PRIMARILY BECAUSE OF THE TASTE, 

BECAUSE HE HAD ONLY SMELT IT, BUT IT WAS SUCH A PUTRID 

SMELL THAT HE HAD SPENT AT LEAST 24 HOURS OF HIS LIFE 

HATING IT AND HE WAS OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT IT WAS NOT 

NECESSARILY EVIL BUT AN INVENTION OF MAN THAT HE 

CONSIDERED TO BE A MASSIVE TRUCK-UP, A MALODOROUS 

DISASTER THAT EVERY TRUE SCIENTIST AND BELIEVER MUST 

RESENT WITH ALL THEIR FACULTIES. 

ONE DAY, IN A SUBLIME ACT OF STUPIDITY, A FELLOW SCIENTIST 

SITTING AT THE SAME TABLE AS HUGANGA, REMOVED A 

CHEDDAR CHEESE SANDWICH FROM HIS NYLON BAG, AND 

DEEMED HUGANGA'S HATRED OF IT TO BE NO MORE THAN A 

RIDDLE THAT HUGANGA'S PARENTS THAT THROWN AT HIM, SOME 

KIND OF PHOBIA THAT NATURE HAD DEVELOPED TO TEST HIM, 

AND THAT HE WAS AMONG OTHER FOLKS WHOSE SENSORY 

ORGANS WERE AFFECTED BY SUCH CREATIONS, AND THAT HE 

SHOULD TRY IT. 

HUGANGA LAUGHED AT THE WALL FOR ABOUT FIVE SECONDS 

AND DIDN'T SAY A WORD. HIS MIND WAS IN OVERDRIVE, THOUGH 

HE KNEW HIS BRAIN WAS NOT BEING FED ANY NEW 

INFORMATION... HIS LIFETIME OF MIND-MUSINGS ABOUT 

CHEDDAR REPLAYED IN HIS BRAIN. THEN, FOR ABOUT A SECOND, 

THE WORD "FED" BLARED THREE TIMES IN HIS HEAD. AND THEN 

HE GOT PARTICULARLY ANGRY FOR REASONS WHICH THE 

AUTHOR HAS BEEN REQUESTED TO WITHHOLD.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

FIRSTLY, HUGANGA EYED UP HIS FELLOW SCIENTIST, SILLY 

GLASSES AND SILLY LAB-SUIT, THOUGH HE WAS WEARING THE 

SAME SILLY GLASSES AND SILLY LAB-SUIT. 

SECONDLY HUGANGA YELLED "O SOMEONE CALL A COP & CUT 

HIS CROP TOO. ANOTHER CENTURY'S AMBITION FLUSHED DOWN 

THE LOO." 

THIRDLY, HUGANGA POUNDED HIS HEAD AGAINST THE TABLE, 

THEN HELD HIS NOSE, GRABBED THE CHEESE SANDWICH FROM 

HIS FRIEND (SOON TO BE HIS EX-FRIEND), AND RAN THROUGH 

THE CORRIDOR DOWN THE STAIRS INTO THE DINKY HIDEAWAY 

BATHROOM AND FLUSHED THE CHEDDAR SANDWICH INTO THE 

TYRANT OF THE SEWERS AND WEPT AND GOT FIRED FROM HIS 

JOB AND THERE WAS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT 

IT AND EVERYTHING AND HUGANGA WAS VERY UPSET ABOUT ALL 

THE CHAOS AND HATED CHEDDAR EVEN MORE THAN HE 

ALREADY DID. 

FOURTHLY, HUGANGA TOOK A PHOTO OF HIMSELF EATING 

CHEESE. HE DIDN'T LIKE IT AT ALL. IT WAS LIKE ABANDONING 

HIS PRINCIPLES IN FAVOR OF PLEASING ANOTHER. BUT 

HUGANGA SENT IT TO THE COMPANY'S BOSS. HE WAS RE-HIRED. 

THE ONE WHO MOCKED HIS HATRED OF CHEESE WAS FIRED FOR 

GROSS MISCONDUCT BECAUSE, TO BE HONEST, CHEESE IS GROSS 

EXCEPT IN A PIZZA.

FIFTHLY, THIS IS THE SADDEST STORY I HAVE EVER WRITTEN FOR 

I DON'T LIKE CHEESE EITHER EXCEPT FOR SOMETIMES [USUALLY 

WHEN MY AGE IS AN EVEN NUMBER FOR SOME REASON... I CAN'T 

QUITE TELL WHY]. THIS IS THE SADDEST STORY I HAVE EVER 

WRITTEN BECAUSE THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO SOMEONE I 

DON'T KNOW VERY WELL AND THEY ASKED ME TO RECORD IT 

AND I HAVE NO CLUE WHY BUT REALLY IT'S SORT OF MAKES 

SENSE... I DON'T KNOW WHY HUGANGA DOESN'T LIKE COPS, BUT 

EVEN IF I DID KNOW, I WOULDN'T TELL YOU, FOR HE BECAME 

HUGELY OBSESSED WITH PIZZA AFTER SEEING A RANDOM GIRL 

OUTSIDE A PIZZA RESTAURANT AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT 

HAPPENED AFTER THAT BECAUSE HE DIDN'T TELL ME FOR SOME 

REASON [I GUESS HE DIDN'T LIKE MY RENDITION OF HIS TALE 

VERY MUCH FOR SOME REASON BUT MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE I'M 

HYPER ON COFFEE].


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

Abreaction 

"There are circumstances in which the patient considers him or herself too 

exempt from the supposed rules of behaviour in society that they perceive 

themselves to be separated to the point that it is necessary an abreaction 

takes place. The best position for said abreaction to take place is the 

missionary, heart pressed against heart, hand to hair. One could perceive a 

conversation at this point an art form. But it really is boring and a little 

frustrating having your private part stuck somewhere for longer than 6 

hours! The ecstasy of being released from prison after or before an orgasm 

means a successful ridding, a gigantic abreaction, an entirely solved sudoku, 

an eruption." The doctor shrugged. 

"As someone who has witnessed over 1000 abreactions, it is my duty as a 

doctor to report to you that you are not alone and neither are the dozens of 

organisms that live inside you!" The doctor nodded at me and then speaks 

slowly in a fatherly tone, stretching the words and varying the tightness of 

his arm muscles. 

"How do you find life in this mental hospital?" He asks. 

"It's been a long time since an abreaction" I said and looked down at the 

floor. 

"We can help with that". The doctor shrugged. "You may leave now." 

I can't remember how I got here but you can guess. I had abreaction after 

abreaction. The lady barely said a thing. I just told her I preferred to be by 

myself and she bit my neck. I nearly even joined NASA, I told her at one 

point. She sighed, coughed and farted. It was a good smell, like ostrich 

perfume. We didn't marry. But I was happy. I was cured of psychosis. It 

hurt so much I cried with happy.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

NOSTALGIA FOR CHEDDAR 

CHAPTER 1: “DANCING ON THE DESTRUCTIBLE” 

THEY WERE SITTING BY THE BROOK, HALLUCINATING THINGS. THEY WERE PROBABLY 

ILL. 

"I WANT TO BE ONE OF THE WORST-BEST STORY-TELLERS, 49,520TH BEST OR 

SOMETHING LIKE THAT, BUT OUT OF THE WHOLE UNIVERSE. I’M PROBABLY NOT UNIQUE 

IN THIS FACT BECAUSE THE 50,520ND-50,525TH SPOTS ARE OCCUPIED BY ALMOST EXACT 

DUPLICATES OF EACH OTHER. THE AUTHOR'S GROWTH WAS SO STUNTED BY DRUGS OR 

SO EXPONENTIALLY INCREASED IN COMPARISON TO THE LUCIDITY OF MOST HUMAN 

BEINGS THAT MULTIPLE COPIES WERE CREATED, A GROUP OF SUING MONSTROSITIES 

WHO DO NOT LET THEMSELVES BE PLAYED BY THE IDIOCY OF A STUPID HUMAN GOD 

WHO WANTED DEATH TO BE WIPED FROM THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. THE LATTER 

MEN, IF THEY HAD THEIR WAY, WERE ILL... I CAN’T TELL IF THIS IS PURELY REFLECTING 

REALITY OR WAS SUMMONED FROM THE RECEDING AND INCREASINGLY GHOSTLY PART 

OF MY BRAIN OR IS SIMPLY A CATALOG OF THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED IN THIS GREAT 

UNIVERSE. THERE’S A CONTRADICTION IN THESE WORDS, ALREADY, AND WE ARE BARELY 

TWO HUNDRED WORDS INTO THIS STORY. THIS IS A STORY OF BETRAY, LOVE AND 

UNBALANCING BELONGING. WHERE? 90,000,000 BILLION LIGHT-YEARS AWAY." 

SAYS WATERMELON FROM UNDER THE COVER OF HER UMBRELLA. NOT MANY PEOPLE 

KNOW WATERMELON PROPERLY: PROBABLY ONE OR TWO OR THREE, BUT SHE WAS 

SOMETIMES RIGHT AND SOMETIMES WRONG. WATERMELON SEES A FISH WITH TWO 

FINS CLAPPING ON THE SEA-SIDE. 

"I DIDN’T WANT TO DIE FROM THE SECOND I WAS BORN BUT THINKING ABOUT THAT 

DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE: I LEARNT ALL OF WHAT I WAS TAUGHT THAT WARM 

SUMMER’S MORN YET NOW I WANT TO DIE LEGALLY. I HURT IN A MILLION PLACES. THE 

REALITY BECAME CRYSTAL: MY MUM WAS A SEPARATE BEING FROM ME – SHE WAS NOT 

HALF OF ME OR MORE, EVEN THOUGH SHE RAISED ME. FURTHER FROM THAT. I WAS 

BORN INTO INFATUATION WITH CAKE, CHEDDAR CHEESE AND THAT WAS IT. MY 

PARENTS? I CAN’T REMEMBER MEETING THEM. I HAVE PARENTS. MY MIND & HEART STILL 

ALLEGE IT, BUT MY SOUL & SPIRIT WANTS TO RUN AWAY FROM IT. I THINK I WILL TRY AND 

RUN AWAY FROM HOME AGAIN. I’M 24. I LIVE IN A HOMELESS HOSTEL AND AT THE 

WEEKENDS GO TO SEE MY DAD AND BROTHER."

SAYS THE HAPPY MAN WHO IN HIS FORMATIVE YEARS HAD PUT ON SO MUCH WEIGHT 

AND BEEN CONSTIPATED FOR SO LONG THAT HE CONSIDERED TAKING PART IN SUMO 

WRESTLING AT AN ELITIST SCHOOL ABROAD. 

THE HAPPY MAN'S TAN IS POURING FROM HIS BODY, BUT THE BREAK-BACK BEAUTY OF 

THE WATERMELON RUBBED OFF ON HIM SO HIS BROWN SKIN [WITH HIS CLOSED BUT 

GUESS-ABLY CHESTNUT EYES SENSING A VISION ON THE LEFT SIDE OF HIS MIND, A 

LOTUS WITH EYELIDS, FLUTTERING NONCHALANTLY YET ACCUSINGLY] GREW TO BE 

A SEMI-PURPLE WITH GLOWING HAPPINESS, LIKE HE WERE OLDER THAN THE 

WATERMELON.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

CHAPTER 2: THE RIVER BOAT 

TODAY, I ACCIDENTALLY CAUGHT A QUEEN BEE ON MY RIVER-BOAT ON THE RIVER 

SYPHNX. SHE LOOKED STRAIGHT INTO MY EYES. SHE BLINKED FURIOUSLY, AS IF SHE 

WERE PLEADING FOR CHEESE OR DEATH. I RELEASED HER AND WONDERED HOW I 

KNEW SHE WAS A QUEEN BEE. IT WAS PROBABLY BECAUSE SHE ESCAPED WITH MY 

CHEESE AND LIFE. 

THERE ARE MANY TIMES OF CHEESE. CHEDDAR AND BRIE ARE THE ONLY TWO I CAN 

REMEMBER AT THIS POINT IN MY LIFE, FOR THESE ARE MY FAVOURITES AND TO BE 

HONEST I DON’T LIKE CHEESE VERY MUCH. BUT YOU CAN LOOK UP CHEESE IN A 

LIBRARY AND YOU WILL FIND MANY TYPES THAT CAN BE CONSUMED FOR YOUR 

PLEASURE. I WONDER WHAT THE DIFFERENT CHEESE SOUNDS LIKE WHEN THEY ARE 

HIT TOGETHER. I WONDER WHAT ALL THE CHEESES OF THE WORLD, MIXED 

TOGETHER, SMELL AND TASTE LIKE. SOMETIMES I FIGURE THE FEDERAL 

GOVERNMENT PUT COLOURINGS IN THE CHEESE TO MAKE THE CHEESE LOOK MORE 

ATTRACTIVE. IT’S A CONSPIRACY THAT HASN’T BEEN PERPETUATED BY THE , 

BECAUSE MARGE IS THE ONLY ATTRACTIVE ONE IN THE SIMPSONS AND I THINK THAT 

SHE IS A BLACK WOMAN IN DISGUISE. CHEESE IS BLUE. MY GIRLFRIEND ALLEGES IT. 

BLUE CHEDDAR ALLEGES IT. THEY BOTH ALLEGE IT. 

IN THE MUSEUM OF CHEESE, A MAN ON THE MICROPHONE STARTS TO SELL RARE 

TYPES OF CHEESE. THERE ARE SIGNS AROUND HIM ENLIGHTENING THE ONLOOKERS 

AS TO THE RESONANCE OF CHEESE IN MODERN DAY SOCIETY. I BUY ONE SLICE, GO 

HOME, MAKE AN OMELET AND CRY, FOR MY GIRLFRIEND HAS LEFT ME DUE TO THE 

FACT THAT I STOPPED BELIEVING THE CHEESE CONSPIRACY. AS FOR THE REAL 

REASON WE BROKE UP? I DON’T KNOW. THE CHEESE CONSPIRACY? BOTH THE 

CHEESE AND SHE STILL ALLEGE IT. WE’RE FRIENDS, NOW, I GUESS... BUT THEY BOTH 

STILL ALLEGE IT. 

I SUPPOSE LOVE IS A BATTLE, ESPECIALLY WHEN PHOTOGRAPHS ARE BEING TAKEN 

EVERYWHERE. I DON’T KNOW ABOUT SEX. MY EX- GIRLFRIEND, ONCE, WHILE WE 

WEREN’T HAVING SEX, SAID SHE WANTED TO DIE A VIRGIN. WHY, I ASK HER? SHE 

RAISED BOTH EYEBROWS. I DON’T KNOW, SHE SAID. I JUST DON’T THINK IT’S FAIR 

THAT SOME ANIMALS DIE VIRGINS, SHE SAID, AND I DON’T THINK I’M BETTER THAN

THEM. I AGREE WITH HER. DONALDSON IS CORRUPT. SHE ALLEGES IT. I ALLEGE IT. 

WE BOTH STILL ALLEGE IT. 

CHAPTER 3: JOINT THE HUMAN PARADE 

WHY IS ONLY NO ONE BUYING ME? WHY HAVE I ONLY SOLD ONE COPY OF MY BOOK? 

HITER WAS EVIL. MY BROTHER ALLEGES IT. I ALLEGE IT. WE BOTH STILL ALLEGE IT. 

I SEEN DUMB PEOPLE AND I SEEN ANIMATED PEOPLE. I CAN’T TELL WHO IS DULLER 

TO WITNESS. IF I WERE BEING COMPLETELY HONEST, PEOPLE WHO PRETEND TO BE 

STUPID ATTRACT ME. I DON’T KNOW WHY THAT IS. MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE.... NO, I 

FORGET. REALLY, IT’S SAD, THOUGH. I’M NOT NECESSARILY ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE, 

BUT... NO, I FORGET. 

FOR SOME REASON, FROM A VERY YOUNG AGE, I HAD A VERY ACUTE AWARENESS 

THAT ANIMALS WERE ALIVE, YET HUMANS DIDN’T QUITE FEATURE IN THE EQUATION, 

FOR I DID NOT UNDERSTAND THEM AND I HADN’T FIGURED OUT YET THAT A WHOLE 

LOT THEM WERE ILL. I HAVE BEEN ILL IN THE PAST, BUT IF I’M BEING HONEST, I’M NOT 

THAT ILL RIGHT NOW. 8 BILLION MEN & WOMEN & BABIES? IT’S AN UNENLIGHTENING 

FIGURE BY ITSELF, FOR ONLY AN EXTREMELY OLD PERSON WOULD KNOW HOW 

MUCH THAT IS AND BE ABLE TO PICTURE IT IN HIS MIND’S EYE. IT’S JUST TOO 

DISGUSTING TO EVEN CONTEMPLATE. ONCE YOU HUMANIZE YOURSELF, EVERYONE 

ELSE IS HUMANIZED TOO. BUT REALLY, IT’S JUST TOO DISGUSTING TO EVEN 

CONTEMPLATE... 

JOIN THE HUMAN PARADE: BORN OF THE WAR-HORNS OF YOU WHO MAY DIE TODAY.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

CHAPTER 4: IGNORE THE MAJORITY OF THE HUMAN PARADE 

I DO NOT THINK THAT ONE HUMAN BEING'S MIND, IMAGINATION OR BRAIN IS MORE 

VALID THAN ANOTHER'S. AS TO WHY THIS TEXT IS PRINTED IN CAPITALS, IT IS 

BECAUSE THAT I HAND-WRITE STUFF IN CAPITALS RATHER THAN THE STANDARDISED 

WAY OF WRITING AND THAT I WROTE THIS BOOK, NOT YOU. 

ME, I DON'T REALLY CHEAT THE IQ TESTS, BUT I CHEATED ONE. I SLEPT FOR 12 

HOURS, SMOKED A COFFEE CIGARETTE, THEN DID IT AS FAST AS I COULD. I GOT A 

144, WHICH I CALCULATED, USING AN ALGORITHM A SANE MAN INVENTED, GIVES 

ME AN IQ OF 122, WHICH IS ACCEPTABLE ENOUGH FOR ANY FOOL TO COMPOSE A 

BOOK, GIVEN HE HAS READ AT LEAST 2,000 OTHER BOOKS WITH WORDS IN THEM. I 

WOULD BE STUPID IF I SAID THAT THIS BOOK HAD NO INFLUENCES, SO I SUPPOSE I 

WILL SAY IT IS INFLUENCED BY MY PREVIOUS BOOK. BEING STUPID ISN'T ALWAYS 

SEXY, BECAUSE I CHEATED ON A TEST THAT DIDN'T MEAN MUCH TO ANYONE AND 

THEN I DECIDED TO DISCLOSE THIS TO YOU. I DON'T THINK BEING WELL-PREPARED 

FOR AN IQ TEST IS CHEATING, THOUGH... REALLY... WHAT CAN I SAY? I SUPPOSE 

PRETENDING TO BE STUPID CAN BE ATTRACTIVE.... SORRY FOR WASTING YOUR 

TIME... I HAVE AN IQ OF 144: THE FORMULA THAT THE SANE MAN INVENTED WAS 

TERRIBLE. 

"I DON'T ENJOY THIS LIFE ALL THAT MUCH, EITHER" SHE SAYS TO ME,"BUT THAT 

DOESN'T MEAN SOON I WANT TO DIE FOREVER". 

"SOON I WILL DIE FOREVER." I TELL HER AGAIN, OBSTINATELY. 

SHE CLOSES HER EYES & NODS, AS IF SHE WERE WILLING HERSELF TO GO TO SLEEP. 

"YOU WILL DIE VERY SOON IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS... YOU JUST DON'T 

HAVE TO KEEP TALKING ABOUT IT", SHE SAYS. 

"I ACCEPT THAT IT WON'T BE BAD OR GOOD" I TELL HER, JUST THE SAME AS IT 

ALWAYS WAS FOR EVERYONE ELSE EXCEPT THEY WON'T... THEY WON'T KNOW WHO I 

AM ANYMORE." 

"MAYBE THAT'S NOT SUCH A BAD THING", SHE SAYS.

"NO." I REPLY, BLUNTLY. 

"SO... WHEN DO YOU WANT TO DIE?" SHE ASKS, TRYING AND FAILING TO TRICK ME 

WITH HER TONGUE. 

"I DON'T KNOW." I SAY. 

WE STOP TALKING.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

CHAPTER 5: FORGETTING THE SADNESS AND EMBRACING MELANCHOLY 

DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE GOT DETAINED BY 

THE GOVERNMENTAL BODIES OF THE STATE THAT I LIVE IN? I AM NOT EVEN SURE 

WHAT I WAS ARRESTED FOR. MOST OF THE TIME, IT WAS FOR BEING HIGH ON 

MARIJUANA, I RECKON. 

ONCE, I SAT ON A BUS AND REFUSED TO GET OFF. I WAS ON MARIJUANA BUT I DON’T 

THINK IT WAS AN ILLEGAL TYPE. 

ANOTHER TIME, I WORKED IT ALL OUT; I FIGURED OUT THERE IS A HUGE 

CONSPIRACY. I’M NOT TELLING YOU WHAT IT IS, THOUGH, BECAUSE EVERY TIME I 

FIGURE IT OUT I’M LOCKED IN A JAIL CELL AND THEN ASKED SO MANY QUESTIONS 

AND HAD SO MANY WEIRD TESTS DONE ON ME THAT I FORGET ALL OF IT. IT’S TOO 

BAD TO BE PUT INTO WORDS OR TOO SAD TO BE PUT INTO WORDS.... I HOPE THE 

EXTRATERRESTRIALS INTERVENE AND SAVE US, FOR I KNOW THEY ARE THERE.

CHAPTER 6: THE DENTIST IN 2014 

ONE OF THE WORST EXPERIENCES I EVER HAD WAS HAVING MY MEMORY WIPED AT 

A DENTIST. I DON’T KNOW HOW IT HAPPENED... BUT THEY PUT MY HEAD IN SOME 

KIND OF SCANNER AND THEN WIPED MY MEMORY. I COULD REMEMBER SOME OF THE 

CRUCIAL FACTS OF BEING ALIVE, BUT I FORGOT A LOT OF MY SHORT-TERM 

MEMORIES & THOUGH THE PLACEBO OF FORGETTING FELT GREAT AT THE TIME, I 

REGRET GOING THERE. I WAS FORCED TO, ACTUALLY, SO I CAN’T TRULY REGRET IT. 

AFTER MY HEAD WAS REMOVED FROM THE MACHINE, THE DENTIST ASKED ME HOW 

MANY TIMES I JUMPED OFF SUICIDE BRIDGE. I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY. 

CREDIBLY, IT’S VERY DIFFICULT TO SURVIVE JUMPING EVEN ONCE. BUT MORE THAN 

ONCE? THAT’S THE STUFF OF ROCKET FICTION. I’M PRACTICALLY THE SAME SANE KID 

I WAS BACK WHEN I WAS EIGHTEEN OR SO... BUT I CAN’T REALLY GET AS DRUNK AS I 

USED TO AND STILL FUNCTION. BUT WHEN ONE PRIME REACHES ITS NADIR, THE 

OTHER REACHES ITS SUMMIT. 

CHAPTER 7: SOON I WILL DIE FOREVER 

"FIRST I REALIZED ALL MY FRIENDS ARE CELEBRITIES AND THEN I REALIZED I DIDN'T 

HAVE ANY FRIENDS. I NEARLY WEPT FOR TWO DAYS STRAIGHT." SHE TOLD ME, 

DESPERATELY. 

"I'M YOUR FRIEND," I TELL HER, "BUT SOON I WILL DIE FOREVER". SHE NEARLY CRIES 

AT THE MERE THOUGHT OF IT. 

"I DON'T ENJOY THIS LIFE ALL THAT MUCH, EITHER" SHE SAYS TO ME,"BUT THAT 

DOESN'T MEAN SOON I WANT TO DIE FOREVER". 

"SOON I WILL DIE FOREVER." I TELL HER AGAIN, OBSTINATELY. 

SHE CLOSES HER EYES & NODS, AS IF SHE WERE WILLING HERSELF TO GO TO SLEEP. 

"YOU WILL DIE VERY SOON IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS... YOU JUST DON'T 

HAVE TO KEEP TALKING ABOUT IT", SHE SAYS. 

"I ACCEPT THAT IT WON'T BE BAD OR GOOD..." I TELL HER,"IT WILL BE JUST THE SAME 

AS IT ALWAYS WAS FOR EVERYONE ELSE EXCEPT FOR THEY WON'T KNOW WHO I AM 

ANYMORE." 

"MAYBE THAT'S NOT SUCH A BAD THING", SHE SAYS, BLUNTLY. 

"NO..." I REPLY, BLUNTLY. 

"SO... WHEN DO YOU WANT TO DIE?" SHE ASKS, TRICKING ME WITH HER TONGUE.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

"I DON'T KNOW." I SAY. 

WE STOP TALKING. 

I SIGH HAPPILY IN THE LIGHT DARK. 

YES, I THINK TO MYSELF, SOON I WILL DIE FOREVER.

Gregory Saunders 

Exactly a month and a half ago, Gregory Sanders, 77 years old, decided that he was 

ready to have his funeral. The idea had crept into his head during the closing credits of 

the last episode of ‘The Wire’. He wrote down a list of all the good things and all the bad 

things that could come out of a Premature Celebration of His Own Death, chuckled to 

himself and then called up the Bullingdon Arms. 

** 

We are now in the Bullingdon Arms with around half of Gregory’s favourite people. It is 

the date of Gregory’s funeral. There is a jovial atmosphere in the air. There is a jukebox 

playing jazz in the corner and there are lots of drunken old men and women everywhere 

else. Gregory is gregariously introducing a man with a very bushy beard to a woman 

with very curly hair. Something tells him they might get along. 

Gregory gets them talking, heads for the bar and spots Suzanne, a well-dressed lady with 

hazel eyes. It has been twenty-three years since Suzanne and Gregory divorced, thirtynine 

years since they got married and sixty-one years since they had their first sexual 

experience on her parent’s couch. She is wearing a blue cardigan, sipping a glass of 

white wine and looking exquisitely beautiful. He asks her about her cats, she asks him 

about his cactuses and then they talk about more interesting things. 

Just as Gregory is considering making a move on Suzanne and Suzanne is considering 

making a move on Gregory, Gregory and Suzanne’s thirty-eight year old daughter rushes 

over to them. She is called Emily. Emily has Suzanne’s aptitude for music and Gregory’s 

oversized ears. She is an English professor at Leeds University and got married eight 

months ago. She’s looking kind of grumpy right now, partly because a man named 

Ronaldo spilt his beer all over her and partly because she’s seven months pregnant. 

Emily asks why Lanky Larry isn’t here. She and Lanky Larry always end up in an intense 

discussion about Renaissance Literature, and Suzanne and Gregory and the rest of the 

room never have the foggiest idea what they’re going on about. Gregory explains that 

he’s not sure which of the following categories Lanky Larry falls under, but that three 

people have died, eleven people couldn’t be bothered to come and the rest had 

concerns about the spiritual implications of a party called ‘The Premature Celebration of 

Gregory’s Death’. Mother and daughter smile and roll their eyes at one another. Gregory 

excuses himself, for he has ingested three pints of beer and his bladder is suffering.


2013-2018 by 


Francis 

© Dominic 


Doctor Tonnan 

The party continues without him: a small gathering of elderly men ridicule the 

government; a dizzy woman steals a hat from its now hatless owner; a born again 

Christian imparts his apocalyptic revelations to an apathetic ex-Librarian; three partially 

deaf pensioners attempt to discuss the weather; and the man with the bushy beard & the 

women with the curly hair have mysteriously vanished. 

But Gregory is finished in the Men’s Room now and, as is his custom, he zips up his fly, 

washes his hands and looks in the mirror. Gregory finds mirrors highly educational; 

something in them always surprises him. What surprises him this time, however, is not a 

newly bloomed wrinkle nor a stain on his shirt, but the figure that is standing right 

behind him. Gregory blinks a couple of times and slowly turns around. It is a masked man 

dressed in black. It is tall, skeletal and wielding a giant scythe. It is Death. 

Gregory & Death stand there, still as statues, staring at each other in mutual 

bewilderment. Gregory is about to speak when he notices that Death is attempting to 

suppress a giggle. A smile slowly spreads across Gregory’s face & Death is no longer 

able to contain himself & before you know it Death takes his mask off & Death is Lanky 

Larry & Gregory & Lanky Larry are howling with laughter in the lavatory of the Bullingdon 

arms. 

Someday Gregory will model for a life drawing class & someday Gregory will meet his 

granddaughter & someday Gregory will watch ‘The Sopranos’ & someday Gregory will 

move into a nursing home & someday Gregory will have another party & someday 

Gregory will get married & someday Gregory will die; but for this short minute of his life, 

all Gregory could do was laugh.

Born on February 13 th 1993 Walking Doctor Tonnan, Dominic Francis, was 

raised in Hampstead, London and still lives there. He was or is married 

only twice. His four studio albums were released to indifferent critical 

acclaim and he plans to release Like The Sun Wouldn't Swoon in 2019. In 

2018 he claimed that he had been monogamous all his life. He lives in a care 

home, with family or is dead. 

1 

i 

Walking Doctor Tonnan © 2018 

1

The Very Best Version of My Insanity

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