The Mountains 

‘one foot at a time’ 

That’s how you climb a mountain. 

How do you forget? 

You do something so physically and mentally painful you don’t have the energy to remember.

It was harder before, or maybe easier. 

Back when everyone would struggle through life, the winds always against you. 

Now I could forget if I wanted, like magic. 

I couldn’t bring myself to take that easy option though. And it wasn’t that easy. The 0.01% chance of catastrophe was still there. Failure could mean erasing her from me forever. I couldn’t risk it. 

Little Brown Girl was barely functioning.

It was a miscalculation forty years before during a routine fix. There had been an earthquake on some planet. She sustained surface scratches and some broken fingers and twisted toes. 

Whoever performed the simple 20 minute job ruined her. Their failure planted the bomb. And it went boom on me.

Fuckin’ BOOM!! ON. ME. 

I went on a wild run of murder in the weeks after. I used my superpowers to do horrible things. 

Not a single one of them could be scooped up and stitched back together. 

These were real victims. 

This wasn’t like before, not like back in Sticky. That was different. I’m pretty certain 100% of all those people I killed recovered. Biology is sacred. 

They were saved. 

I always knew they would be. 

Was it massively traumatic in the moment for them, yeah probably. 

Was it highly inconvenient for them, yeah probably. 

This was the real thing. Annihilation. 

I went on an annihilation spree. 

an annihilation 

Anannilation. 

!

I’m laughing and they’re all looking at me. 

LOOK 

I don’t like them very much. 

Turns out. Turns out heartbreak was the missing ingredient I needed to fully explore all of what FUNK gave me. 

Super speed ! 

Time manipulation ! 

Telekinesis ! 

Sometimes I could snap bones from across a shopping mall. 

These superpowers weren’t the strongest, each effort took a lot of fucking effort. But they were there and getting stronger, and I was starting to get real skilled at controlling them. If I focused on one intensely for only a few minutes, special things would start happening. 

Vile. Evil. Real fucking evil, special things. 

I was a bad bad bad superhero, maybe even a supervillain. . . 

“Heh!”

Let’s get back to the mountains. 

I stayed on Earth, these were Earth mountains. 

Canadian. 

Reaching the summit didn’t fill me with pride or relief. I always feared it. Up top meant the fight was over and there was nothing left to climb. 

At the top, the thinking began. 

Why had it happened that way? Why on the day she broke, I saw the beauty of her insides like that. Those eyes. 

And why did I have that attack of horrific blue? 

Just before. 

It was minutes before she fell. 35. 40. 

I fell apart. 

Anyway. I climbed mountains. After all that murder. I climbed mountains. Because of her. I killed because of her and I climbed because of her. 

To get through it. 

Waking the Bears

I took out a carton of chocolate milk and snapped it open. Like breaking a wish-bone. The snow smelt of cold. I guess the sun smelt hot. 

I smelt like plastic disease. 

Your Mother’s Cunt 

Your Mother Is A Cunt 

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. 

They were all in my head. 

I took sips of chocolate milk and looked out at the calm. 

Sitting here almost feels like everything is the way it should be. The innate intelligence of existence built that bark and those leaves, grew up those giants from a single seed. The nature of the world is complex. There’s no single answer. 

I formed some snow between my legs into a ball and threw it as far as I could. I almost smiled. Little Brown Girl was still broken and cold and alone. So I didn’t smile. I couldn’t. 

That pain was a constant. It was suffocating. I sometimes wished love wasn’t a thing. I wished I could just fuck and kill and enjoy myself forever without ever having to feel. 

Not feel like this anyway. 

I took out a pack of cigarettes, Juliette Blues, struck a match and inhaled the flame. 

Blues were new for me. I’d always smoked Maxxx Reds but here I was caring about my health or some shit. I wasn’t. The store at the base back in town only stocked Blues. And I didn’t have it in me to care. Blues it was. 

And Blues were quite delicious. 

Juliette. 

Little Brown Girl would smoke these, if she could. These would be her romantic talisman. 

Human. Older. In bed in cartoon panties. No top. Small erect puffy tits free. Reading psychology and Selene Hartwell. Juliette Blue between her fingers. 

Mascara and lipstick stained across her pillows and sheets. 

Candle sticks flickering, a little wooden window open, letting in the beach and the sea. A warm breeze. This is some hidden place. Just for her, and just for me. Together again and alone. We didn’t need anyone. We needed each other. A quiet life of pancakes and milk. Tea and soup. 

We’d dangle upside down in a sky made of sand. 

Hand-in-Hand … Death Would Fear Us 

Old music. Old tapes. Old devices. 

I loved her. I loved every fantasy and the real thing. 

Love. 

Love like I’d never felt. 

There was no real meaning beyond love though. 

Was there. 

What ever that love is. An intense love of: Obsession. Be it with a woman, an art form, a country, a planet, a drug, a little brown girl – a robot, one hell of a fucking robot. 

I teased pain out of my skin with the fire at the end of the stick. I touched the tip of my nose and my forehead until I felt an awesome sting. 

I flicked my carton of chocolate milk. 

I felt workers in my brain, repairing rips and tears. Dead neurons being engulfed, destined for debris. 

I had trillions of believers, all depending on me. 

I took my fingers and massaged my skull. 

‘I’m here.’ 

I crossed my eyes and blew spit bubbles in the cold mountain wind. 

I had to change things around. Somehow I had to fix her. 

I started to scream at the heavens and the forest below. 

I screamed and I screamed. 

I screamed so loud I woke the bears. 

I heard them coming from down the trail up to the summit on my left, but the trees were moving on my right. 

I don’t know. 

Disoriented. Dehydrated. Dead? 

Hope not. 

I readied for the fight. 

Loud rumbling growls of intent came. I just stood there, drinking the last drops of my chocolate milk. I think. 

Maybe not. I don’t know. 

The only clear escape was a jump down the face of the mountain. A sheer cliff, a drop of a thousand feet. 

Other than that I was surrounded. 

Angry bears were coming to get me. Hungry bears would soon be here. 

I wasn’t too concerned. I was a superhero afterall. 

Super. 

But it all happened so fast. 

Hero. 

It all happened too fast. And I was still a newb wasn’t I. I still needed time to really affect things. 

Oh well. I looked at my boots and clenched my arse cheeks. 

And then I saw them. 

Majestic. Massive. 

They were majestic and massive. 

Machines of Death. 

I laughed. 

The fur was thick and beautiful. They were at least 14 feet tall from paw to back. Standing up, they doubled. Almost 30 feet with foot-long claws. Five of them. 

No fair! 

Snooker ball eyes, black, white axe teeth. 

Fucking wild shit. 

Dance the Dooga—Looooo-Jew 😀 

I dropped the carton. 

I threw the Blue in my mouth at the gap between us and did what I could. I grabbed air from all sides, and exploded the cigarette into a grenade. 

It didn’t do much. The bears still wanted a fight. 

Five. Full grown. Fat bastards. 

I did my best. I’d do my best. 

They were coming at me. Licking their lips. Smiles. 

These were geniuses of death. 

Maybe I wanted to die. 

Consumed to the last string of flesh. 

Impossible to repair. 

Or maybe I wanted to live. 

Maybe I wanted the fight. 

I don’t remember much else. 

I remember …

The bite out of my arse 

I couldn’t breathe anymore 

A single claw clean through my thigh 

That hurt 

My hand through eye and into brain 

Me Madman – . . . . . . 

I woke at the bottom of the cliff. Bleeding badly. 

Blood on snow is romantic and pleasing. 

It looks so nice. 

It was sticky and warm. 

Actually, in the moment, I did want it to be the end. Not fully. I guess there’s always an animal need to remain. But I did want to go. Not be here anymore. 

Just be done with the body and time and worry. 

I was exhausted. I wanted to fall back asleep and never wake up again. 

Crimson. Crimson lakes of blood expanded their domain upon the snow. 

And I rested my eyelids together. 

I don’t know what saved me, or who. Could have been the bears. Could have been Sarah. 

It was probably me. 

Might have been Sarah. 

It was me. 

It would have been fun if it was Sarah. 

Though. 

Smelly fists. 

That would have been. Funny. 

Convenient Kank 

“You have anything stronger?” 

“Nope. Just the Blues” 

“Any drugs?” 

“DRUGS!?” she smacked a hand at her mouth in shock-horror! 

“Yeah. Spook. Smat. Sally.” 

I could have used some. Spook. Smat. Sally. 

“No. None of that stuff.” 

I itched my neck and looked at the sparkly grey counter. It was so clean. 

“Any Kank?” 

Her face got serious. 

“We do not have Kank.” 

I smirked, ‘course not. I was at that level now. Asking for Kank. 

I was joking though, of course. I’d never go that low. Or…

“I have Kank.” 

What. 

“What?” 

“I have Kank.” 

She had Kank. 

“Okay.” 

“I don’t sell it. If you want, we can do some together.” 

I agreed. Why not. Eyyyy!? My life was fucked anyway. 

And I was in a lot of pain. 

Time to make things worse. 

I’m Super Pro at that. 

“I’m new. I don’t really know much about doses. I took some a week ago and it wasn’t horrible but I…” 

She leaned in and whispered. 

“…came so intensely.” she giggled, shy. 

I widened my eyes and said nothing. 

“I’m not sure about it. I want to do it again but I’m scared. It would be great to have someone more experienced guide me.” 

I’d never done Kank. Kank was for absolute fucking idiots. I told her the opposite. 

I bought a bag of popcorn and went outside to wait for the Kank session. 

I sat on the curb and turned the popcorn bag around in my hands, reading each side. I only had a lighter to get the kernels inside poppin’. 

I could have gone back in the store and used their microwave. But I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t. 

I guess it felt like the scene was over ya’know. Popping back in like that just didn’t feel right. 

I tore the bag open and placed each little seed on a jagged piece of metal I found on the road. I heated the bottom and we had popcorn. 

It took a whole hour to get through. I’m not sure the effort was worth the calories. I didn’t even really like popcorn that much. 

I didn’t want to feel. I was about to feel. I could always sense it coming. I was always on the tracks, tied down, waiting for the freight train. 

The sky was a deep blue. Dark. I love the way the skies look at the top of mountains. 

I breathed deep. I took long deep breaths. 

My lungs were fine. My ribs however, they rattled with their broken bones. 

Then came the feeling. It sliced me up. Worse than the bears. Far worse than them. 

I was in a woodchipper. Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch .. erh 

I walked up and down the mountain road. I counted my steps. My heart squeezed and thumped. I was excited and disgusted. 

What was I doing. 

Seriously. 

What the fuck was I doing. 

The snow on the road was so neat. Someone really cared to make it so. 

I gave them more work to do, I kicked the shining white powder all over the frozen black road. 

I was caged. Furious. I hated this. 

I beat the ground with my fist. Beat it ‘till my hands bled. I jumped and shouted. I was fucking sick. 

I slapped my chest and face as hard as I could. 

My toes were cold and my dick was getting hard. 

It had been a while. 

I dreamed of genocide. Lots and lots and lots. 

The great birds watched all of this from the tree tops. 

I hated them. 

Jerry and Steve and Phil. 

And. 

Toby and Harry and Dave. 

And. 

Mike and Tim and Dan. 

Great birds. Watching me fall apart. 

I imagine now all the horrible bird shit they were talking. Cruel, sly, beaky fucks. 

Bastards of the Trees

Bastards of the Breeze 

Smiling. Winking. Laughing at me. 

The silly horny depressed human making a mess. 

Down there on the road. 

The mountains were intrigued. 

The mountains below, the mountains above. I had climbed them all now. 

Grinded each one under my spikes and my rubber. 

I was suffocating. 

I was moving as fast I could. 

The Kank Session 

A little plastic bag on an oak table. That’s all it was. 

It felt like a huge turning point in my life. 

The bottom.

The end. 

There was no climbing out of this well. 

It wasn’t that serious. But it was. 

She had a dead bob cut. A bob cut growing its way out and down to touch the arteries of her neck. 

She wore a tight pink cardigan over a black tank top, a clear-strapped plastic bra awkwardly poked through. Her skirt was long and baggy, a size too big. 

Her thick black oval-lensed glasses were glued to her face. They never moved, they really could have been glued. HA. 

She seemed too straight-up to do drugs. Too prissy. But here we were sitting with a bag of the bad stuff. 

And it really is bad stuff. Different drugs have their different nods in culture. Kank though. Kank was an empire. An empire born of ruined souls. 

Somedays I didn’t even know if I had a soul. So how much could it really hurt? 

It still freaked me though. 

Never do Kank. Kank is the worst. 

In a month of use this girl next to me would be absolutely done. Splazzzed out in the sun. Selling those human holes for ten minute fixes. 

Maybe me too. 

The thought was both funny and terrifying. 

Maybe this could be the solution. Kank would save me from the agony of destroyed love. 

I could melt into the concrete of New Sticky City and be done, be free. 

I never learnt her name. I call her Sarah. 

She looked like a Sarah. 

After a long time of sitting there, Sarah placed her hand on my thigh, just missing one of the worst wounds. No worries. It was time to cook. 

“Well, we should start, shouldn’t we.” 

“Yeah, we should start.” I said. 

I clapped both hands together, gave Sarah a confident look and a cheeky wink. And picked up the bag. 

“How did you do it before?” I asked her. 

“Straight up the nose, with a plastic straw.” 

I lifted my eyebrows. 

“Should I go get the straws?” 

O, Sarah 

“No, I’ll heat it and we’ll drink it, it’s better that way.” 

I wasn’t entirely sure if it was, I’d read a lot about Kank though. Academically. The best way was to let it slowly digest on a full stomach, the worst was injection, up the nose was just gaudy and yuck. 

I took the bag to Sarah’s little kitchen and turned on the stove, filled up a pot with water and set it down to boil. 

As the water boiled I heard “oh fuck”s and groans. 

This Sarah bitch was weird. 

Sarah was weird. Not a bad weird. 

I peeked my head out the kitchen, she was already getting started. 

I think she was fisting herself. 

Here I was. Woo. 

I stopped myself there in that tiny square room, barely big enough for a single person to manoeuvre, and made myself a promise. This would be the first and last time. I would not become a fucking Kankie. 

I don’t know why it was such a thing for me. But it was. It always has been. 

I lifted my head and let out a sigh. 

It was time to cook. 

I emptied the powder into the bubbling water and mixed with a spoon. The final result was a deep blue, thick liquid with bits. The blueberry soup of hell. 

I made two cups and took them back through to the small living room. 

Sarah had now removed her clothes and was sitting there naked. Staring at the wall. 

Her body was stuck, only her eyes moved. 

She had a dirty, creepy smile on her face. 

“Just do anything you want to me when it starts.” 

“Yeah, okay.” 

“Wait, not anything. I’m visiting my sister and her fiance in two days, so don’t cause any damage to my face.” 

I wasn’t really thinking about doing her any harm. 

She probably shouldn’t have been giving a guy like me ideas though. 

I decided not to hurt her. We would fuck, hardcore, we were doing Kank, that was obvious. But, my days of murder were behind me, for now anyway. 

Warmth and Colour 

Time stretched 

The Cow Goes MoooO00000000000000000 

It hit Sarah first. It hit Sarah hard. 

Her agonising banshee-like scream burst through my eardrum. 

Obliteration. 

Then the Kank hit me. 

Wow. Really, Wow. 

“It’s time we DINE!” 

“Dine?” 

Sarah smashed her skull into my chest and took a chunk out of my belly. This wasn’t fun. It really wasn’t very fun. I was still regrowing missing pieces of flesh from the bears. Now this. 

She wouldn’t stop. 

She just kept biting me. 

It really wasn’t very fun. 

This Sarah bitch. 

Ripping flesh and eating it. 

Fuck sake. 

Sarah. 

FOR FUCKS SAKE Sarah. 

I got her in the toilet and barricaded the door. 

Never again. 

NEVER THE FUCK AGAIN ! ! ! ! ! 

To howls of a Kanked-up nutter. I cried. 

I sat on the coach and cried. 

I was going back home. 

I was going back to see Little Brown Girl. 

I had to save her. 

I had wasted too much time. 

It had been months now. 

I had to find a way. 

Life wasn’t the same without her.