Day 1 of the rest of my life 

“FUCK OFF.” 

FUNK 58, he called it.

There was a run on the banks that morning but I wasn’t interested. Money… Banks… I had money but it wasn’t locked up in some public pool of make believe. I buried my coin in the sand on a little island on Concrete Lake. 

It’s all Juice now anyway. 

I don’t care. 

I woke up that morning lost. Not in some silly ‘spiritual’ way. I was actually lost. I was behind a dumpster in a shabby part of town. 5:37 it was. I saw the digital display on the Krackerberry Liquids across the street. 

“Hey little wigga, brum brum brum… want a taste of this pussy!”

He was an exceptionally small Vietnamese teenager, 18, maybe 19. Offering his arse for a quite reasonable ask – bacon and eggs. 

I declined. 

I picked up my hat and left. 

I walked another block and hit a line of Kank Kard enthusiasts. A convention or something. I searched through my pockets for a lollipop or cyanide or anything. I found a green marble and a stick of bubblegum. And a crumbled receipt. 

WHEN YOU FIND THIS … CALL 047 047 047 047 

– Stevie YEAH 😉 

I searched my pockets again to see if I had any Juice left. None. No ticket. No card. No coin. 

I already knew my wrist was out. I don’t like to Juice unless I really need to. I’m fine living off the excess of the rich pricks. Content with crumbs. Better than wasting my life inside those fucking systems. SYSTEMZzzz.   .   . 

Cheap dopamine. Cheap shit. 

Now though, I was intrigued. I couldn’t remember last night, and I couldn’t remember the night before, the last memory I have is being kicked out of a Whore Dome. I spat on one of the girls, she called me something. I can’t remember what. But I didn’t like it. 

The sun was rising or setting. I couldn’t tell you which. Dust was everywhere. I sighed into the sun and kicked a hole in a chain-link fence. 

Without another second of hesitation I walked over to the line of Kankies and asked a fat one dawdling against the wall if he could spot me some Juice. 

“Juice?” he asked himself, “Need some Juice, huh?

He reached down into his shining bespeckled bag and pulled out a handful of tickets. 

“I can only spare one. Just one.” 

He handed the ticket over with a look of deep dejection. 

I thought about thanking him but didn’t. 

This was shaping up to be a weird fucking day. Even for me. A weird fucking guy. 

I stuck the ticket to my wrist and waited. 

TICKET 2079 JUNE 1368910001 D Class 

CONFIRMED 

I sat down on the curb and waited for the call to connect. 

“Stevie…?” 

“I have one thing to say to you.” 

“What’s that?” 

I looked to my left and studied the groups of walking smack-bags, then to my right and the Kankies dressed in fluorescent garbage bags and purple wigs. 

Stevie scream whispered in my ear … 

“FUNK 58”

Sticky City 

All I wanted to do was write, bang bitches, work out like crazY and eat what ever I felt like. Those are the activities that constitute my life whenever I’m in a big city. 

Sticky City. It was sticky. And stinky. But I was sticky and stinky, I didn’t mind it, I rather liked it actually. It was more to me than that. If I’m honest. 

I was going for a personal record, maybe a world record in not changing my underwear. It had been a week, or two, maybe three. I still had the same dark blue undies on, Japanese words I didn’t understand scratched into the waistband. 

It was probably three weeks. I had been in the hotel room that long. I arrived at the airport in the early morning, sometime after three. Me and Stevie had jumped in a car and got to the hotel sometime after four. 

Stevie insisted on staying in the same room, for security reasons. And I insisted Stevie fuck the fuck off. We ended up in two doubles, facing each other across the narrow, pear-green wallpapered hallway. 

Stevie had agreed to separate on one condition. 

I keep the FUNK Spinner. 

I was going to keep it anyway, but it was fun playing along. And this way I had a line that would come in handy when I needed him to go grab some meat from a tiger’s mouth, well – “HEY! I KEPT THE FUNK SPINNER!” 

Stevie spoke in a way only the most intelligent could understand. I always understood Stevie. He had worked for nineteen long years on space rigs, flesh backstop of hundreds of separate systems. 

He told me the story of seeing a best friend ripped to pieces by a machine just a week before retirement. Watching the young recruit, just six months on the job, liquify, had really changed him. 

Now his software had changed. No easy fix for it either. 

Stevie was completely lucid one minute and the next transformed into a stream of consciousness of the Kank smack variety. 

“The wheel was on fire and running across the concrete. Marathon ready. The cargo ship sinks in the bathtub. There’s only one way for a man to live, screamed the bling boy. I grabbed the gun with my left, blew a kiss with my right. Dork Storm. Steam Avengaaah. The police were everywhere, raping everything. Good night pony. Oh boy. The Dogs and The Cats. Are the best animals in my opinion. Summer holidees or punk poutine.”

“Keep rolling.”

“Gangsta. Bak jack Tak HAK bingo king, slick slut in Jersey lookin’ for a bat to beat his wife. Tricky Dick, tired in Atlanta, Atlantis. Stop Cold! Gimme that finger. With some. Cream. Stop now. DO not tempt me. now. , Purrrfact dicked trans-dimenzional stip stip. Burn everything.” 

This episode went on for another ten minutes. 

Devolving or maybe evolving, into a dancing Stevie, shaking out the demons with the ladyboys and kid liquid pushers on the floor. 

I looked around the large bar and beyond into the lobby. Seven people all together and three of them were the receptionists. Me and Stevie made nine. 

The ladyboys and KLPs had failed to bag a customer. Not for a lack of effort. After Stevie refused their services, they left in short order. Dejected. Off to some other hell hole to peddle sin. 

Stevie cracked open another beer, wiped the sweat from his pasty forehead and whipped a look at my wrist. 

“You’ll need some real Juice for the journey you’re going on.” 

He tilted his head to the ceiling and opened his throat, the bottle was empty in seconds. 

We headed upstairs from the bar. Drunk and emotional. 

In the elevator I noticed the floor count 79 

79 floors, 20-30 rooms a floor. Just off Solstara. The beating heart of Sticky City. Cheap whores and easy drugs. And the whole place was empty. 

I washed my face with the water left in the sink from my morning shave and fell onto the hard mattress. I got back up to check the FUNK Spinner and then hit the lights. The room went black and my mind went with it. 

Someone was in my room. 

I opened my eyes, adjusting to the darkness I made sure not to move. Whoever it was, they were in the bathroom. Must have been hiding behind the shower curtain. Usually I check that. Amateur mistake. Not like me. 

I knew what to do, I knew the outcome. I was more angry at the truth of my mistake. I had been fucking bested by some little curtain lipin’ dickstein. Chankazas. 

1

2

3

I threw off the thin duvet and launched at the open bathroom door. 

“FIND THE GRAVY SYDNEY!” I screamed. 

Distraction can sometimes make all the difference. 

He let out a scream and dropped to his knees. 

“Don’t kill me, I’m jus ol ol ole man!” 

He raised his round potholed head to the ceiling and stretched out his fingers. 

“I following you sin Mexaco.” 

“Jerkin of behin Mexacan dumpstar and stay weeks in rat-ass Solstara hotel room. Nice life” 

“It’s a lifestyle.” 

“Look, for right price I find you guy need to talk.”

“I have 657 baht.” 

“That not right price.” 

“You think you fall me hay. You whities won war, have government cares, give Juice for free. I want Juice for free! You rich as my Hainan dick long. Juice. No baht shit, only Juice. I wan three month Juice” 

“Eh.” 

“Three month Juice.” 

I didn’t have time to negotiate, I took my knife and smashed his head into the plasterboard. 

He made a really nice AH AH AH sound. 

“I give you name an address.” 

“What!?” 

“I GIVE YOU NAME AN ADDRESS!” he cried, splitting his lips into a brown-toothed smile. 

“What is the name and the address?” 

“Pink Harlem, local call him Pinky,” spit dribbled from his open mouth, “Monroe Island.” 

He looked pathetic. And for some reason his scared shitless face looked a lot like a Cindy Lauper Bot, the original line, the Prime Line, back when robots were fun, back when robots had soul. 

“You find him on Monroe Island, just ask anyway, it tiny place, 400 people maximum. You find there.” 

If it was a lie I could easily gut Cindy the next time I was in town, so only stabbed him a little bit. 

Six twists in the ribs, a slash across the forehead and a deep wound in the flesh of his sino arse. 

“Thanks for your help.” 

Monroe Island 

“Don’t forget to lock the fridge.” 

“What?” 

“I don’t repeat myself.” 

She left through a swirl of ‘squitos, faux leather short shorts spray painted red. I do get up to some stuff don’t I. 

I did. I do. 

Sleep had done little to recover me from the bang on the head. It felt worse. I checked in the dinghy wooden hut bathroom mirror, big bump. I grabbed my shirt off the rack and put it under the tap. Despite the heat outside and the terrible roads, the plumbing held up, water was ice cold. 

I went back to bed, the wet towel stuck to the big bump. Seemed like it was important. Something about a fridge. I lifted my head and gave the room a sweep. There was no fridge. I went back to sleep. 

In the early afternoon came a loud knock through the straw door. 

“This is Pinky, heard ya looking for me.” 

He wore a pink baseball hat turned backwards, and a tight pea green jockstrap with a cup. I lifted my body up and felt the big bump. No change. Still big. Still stung. 

“Look there mister, I don’t have a lot of time to play around with you here, I have a spin class at 7 and my niece wants me to pick up some marmalade from the store, so shall we get to talking.” 

I rubbed the buildup of crusty bacteria from my eyes, got up and walked to the door. 

“Come on in, Mr. Pinky.” 

“No mister, it’s Pinky.” 

We sat on the foot of the large old bed in a deafening silence. It was worse than that actually. My ears burned and my eyes watered. I hated it. 

He had moles all over his knees. Big thick, fat moles. Black domes of sickly hard tissue. The image of a cow eating a black man, a rapper, one of those rappers with golden teeth, played behind my eyes. The cow chewed so delicately. 

The cow chewed. The silence continued. 

The humid air was tense. Electrical lines wrapped around my skull. I felt the possibility of lightning striking me through the heart at any time. 

My mouth was dry too. 

Pinky placed both his hands on his knees, covering his moles from view. 

I could hear the monkeys swinging from the branches. They were making conversation. Lots of EahEiAkz and Alaertkakitatatd. 

They were calming noises, soothing sheiks, reminders of Earth. 

I opened and closed my eyes slowly, I could feel my heart beating. Beat by beat my fleshy engine beat, beat, beat. 

I was sanguine now. Completely at peace. And I noticed something odd in an already odd situation. A Kank Kard stuck to the wall, right down by the floor. It glistened, must have been rare, only the rare ones shine like that. 

I wasn’t an expert on Kank, HAH! but my ex-girlfriend used to be obsessed. She never used Kank itself but for some reason loved everything else, all the other shit and crap. I remember us using the lube from the Adults Only Naughty Line a few times. Worked well enough from what I can remember. Was easy on the wrist too. 

Pinky’s pinkies were now drumming a tune on his skinny brown thighs. 

‘Focus and remember’ I said to myself. 

“FUNK 58.” 

“FUNK 58. Who told you to say something stupid like that to me.” 

He stood up and jumped for the lamp, grabbing it with his left hand and swinging it back, cracking me in the side of the skull. It happened so fast. It was violence but incredibly comedic. That was my last thought… 

‘Violence but incredibly comedic.’ 

Violence but incredibly comedic 

I was naked now. My body caked in blood. Dry blood. Hours since it had pumped through my veins. I was alone and it was dark outside. 

I squeezed my hands into fists. Nothing. My Juice had been fully drained. 

I screamed and spat blood at the door. 

“Rough night huh.” 

The voice was coming from under the bed. 

“Rough stuff as the B R A D would say, HAH! he he he…” 

“Gotcha self caught up in an oiled pickle HAH, he he he…” 

“I’m Gerome, frands call ma, G-Dawg.” 

‘I’m 29 years old.’ was my first thought. 

‘It took me this long to lose my mind.’ was my second. 

I wasn’t 29. I only looked it. 

“Look friend, I don’t want to alarm you but you’re stuck to a chair and you’re covered in blood.” 

“I know what you want.” 

“What do I want?” 

“FUNK 58,” he smiled… 

…“but, really, you want to know what the fuck FUNK 58 even is, am I right!?” 

He lifted his arms above his head and swung them from side to side, a hula. 

“FUNK 58 is a story. It’s written on pages, special pages that don’t break, don’t burn, with ink that will never fade. And whoever has it, whoever got FUNK gains superpowers, superpowers far beyond what anyone can buy, even Max Juice just a nothing compared to the powers bestowed by FUNK 58.” 

Gerome began spinning in a circle. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster. A little red tornado. 

I hadn’t noticed his colour until now. He was red, red from head to toe with one exception, his sticky green fingers that dripped a clear goo. 

“Legend? No, it’s truth. Problem is, only one person can get it at a time. And once that one person got it, they keep it for a lifetime. Many can search, some can find, but only one can get! And here’s the thing, here’s the MAIN thing!” 

He stopped his spin and looked me dead in the eyes. 

“FUNK chooses you!” 

I asked him who he was. You know who I am, he said, before disappearing back under the bed. 

I stared ahead at the straw door. A few moments later Gerome walked through it. 

Remember! 

The wolves are out to get you! 

Remember! 

The vultures are circling! 

Remember!

Everyone that knows FUNK, wants FUNK!

He stood there. Eyes popping blood vessels. Hand reaching out in dramatic fashion. After exhausting himself in the full body squeeze, he spat a ball of blood onto his shoe. And then dropped to the floor and vanished. 

The world was silent for a long time after. The wind rustled the palms no longer and the waves were frozen still. No screams of the monkeys. 

Feeling came back to my arms first and then my legs. My fingers and toes fizzed with lava pricks. Reminders. Future memories. 

It was a wonderful speech. Truly remarkable and very informative. It answered many of my questions. The perfect character for this point in my story. However. But. You see. I was still bolted to the fucking chair. 

I didn’t even know how my body was attached to it. I couldn’t feel any rope or chain. No handcuffs around my wrists. It must have been some industrial glue. Maybe my arse had been welded. I didn’t know. I didn’t like it though. Wasn’t ideal. 

I considered my options. But I couldn’t think of anything. It was as if my mind had headed home from a long night shift. It was back in the apartment playing 80s Japanese city pop and smoking cigarettes. Jerking off to pictures of big muff and all natural tits. It wasn’t interested in helping me out of my fix. 

I started counting. 

My first run was 1 to 459 

My second run from 1 to 1677 

My third hit 3837 

Life’s hard for a guy like me. 

I pissed myself. I was happy I was naked so I didn’t have to feel the warmth of my own urine, and the fabric of my skinny jeans stuck to my thighs. 

The image of my mind returned. This time stronger. A deep and clear dream. 

My mind was sitting there. He was a teenager and he still had his dick in his hand. The apartment was small with a single window, the skyscrapers of some giant downtown metropolis twinkled in the night miles away. 

Earth was out there somewhere. 

My mind was staring at the ceiling. At first I couldn’t tell if he was depressed or at peace. The ambiguity of this character, jet black leather jacket, thick rimmed bottle glasses, blue denim jeans and wild unkempt hair looking like he wiped his cum through it. 

My mind was what some might call a loser or a freak. Loser Freak! 

But only the deeply soulless. The hordes. The sheep. The rats. This mind of mine was a megastar. A Cosmic Einstein holding the universe within. A map of every galaxy behind his eyes. 

A warm wave passed over me. Maybe I was drowning. I couldn’t open my ears. I felt home. 

While my mind stared at the ceiling, dick in hand, I walked towards the kitchen. I wanted to see what my mind fed itself. 

Inside was the smiling head of the rapper and one of his thighs. Good for the cow, I thought to myself. I slowly closed the fridge and then my eyes. 

Last boat back 

The next morning I woke up on the beach. My lips kissing a pool of warm ocean foam. I licked it all off with my tongue, deep flicks up to my nose and around my unshaven face. 

Beside me was a bright gold book. Yeah. 

It was incredibly gaudy. So bright and attention-seeking, insecure in every way. I was both fascinated and felt sorry for it. Weird that. It had a thing about it, its own personality, more human than object. 

I sat there in the sand for a long time trying to remember. 

Gerome was his name. I remembered that. I knew it was real. It was no dream or wicked delusion. 

I’m pretty sure about that. 

Running my eyes over my body, my blood was all cleared up, the deep cuts had been stapled shut. Precise work. Care was taken. I felt a great deal of appreciation for that, which severely annoyed me. 

My wrist had been carved up and my Juice had been removed completely. If that happened any other time I would have gone insane. Now though. Well now apparently I was the chosen one. 

My wrist was fine when I was stuck to the chair. Pinky must have removed it when he came back. Why though? Was that the deal, get FUNK lose your Juice forever? 

Juice was fucking stupid anyway. 

I would have loved to have seen his face when the book chose me. Probably shat blood through his eyes. 

A large wave came crashing up to my feet. 

I ran my hands through my balding hair. How much longer until it was all gone? I didn’t care. 

The ocean was beautiful, and the trees and the people far off in the distance enjoying their day. The world ain’t so bad is it. 

I picked up the book and opened the cover…

FUNK 58 

The title inside was a printed picture. 

Above the strange yellow sign was a black and white drawing. A bald man with a gun. Maybe it was Gerome, I couldn’t remember his face. 

I asked the sky what time it was. There was no answer. 

I felt like an ancient monster had reached inside my chest and scooped out my heart. 

The monster was holding it out, squeezing and releasing. With it’s monster hands. Teasing me, horribly. 

I had a ten second sudden panic attack when I thought of Concrete Lake. It was nothing to worry about now.

I took a thumb and a finger and squeezed my forehead fat. 

I was a fucking mess. But I was holding this book though. This all powerful, timeless talisman.

… or so all those twatfaces wanted me to believe. 

A few metres up the sand was a bag and a pair of sandals, everything brown leather. For me I guessed. I placed FUNK 58 into the bag and stuck both sets of toes into the sandals. 

It was time to get off this island and head far away. Some rural bum-fuck nowhere, a little house on a big farm with a thick door and a strong lock. 

Or maybe. Maybe I’d head back to Sticky and see what happens. 

At the car park outside the port, a young hyena started talking to me. 

“I like big boys with bicks!” her smile revealed every tooth, “BIG DICKS!”

The Hyena laughed and spat specks of thick saliva all over my face. 

“Pearls of the orient.” I said aloud to myself. 

“Wat!?” 

“Okay, well, you have safe journey and you come again, yeah!” 

The Hyena jumped on the local yellow bus back to town and immediately started a fight with the driver over the ticket price, the screaming and spitting faded into the distance as the bus rounded the mountain. 

Remember! 

The wolves are out to get you! 

Remember! 

The vultures are circling! 

Remember!

Everyone that knows FUNK, wants FUNK!

I felt my inner jacket pocket one more time. FUNK was safe. 

The ferry rocked up as the sun touched the horizon. The boat was wooden with several large chunks of the hull patched up with tape. It didn’t look safe. Maybe for a pond or a puddle, but this thing had to survive a four hour crossing twice a day. And yet it had, so far anyway. 

I took a seat on the open deck upstairs. 

I massaged my neck with both hands and squeezed my eyes shut. I could smell shampoo and chocolate. Maybe chocolate shampoo. Maybe shampoo chocolate. 

I looked across the boat and saw the hyena. She had left. I saw her leave. Strap that battered helmet to her head and drive off on the back of that scooter. No, that wasn’t a memory, that wasn’t what happened, it was the bus and the bus driver, the argument. I watched her disappear around the bend of the mountain. 

I couldn’t trust my own mind. 

Anyway… she was now sucking on ice cubes twenty feet away. 

I sat down on the broken bench across from her. She continued sucking on her ice cube, oblivious. 

I turned my head towards the stern, out at the endless blue sea that had to end somewhere. 

Brilliant white bristlehead hornbills glided in the wake of the little wood boat. 

I leaned in and gave a knowing smile… 

Nothing. 

“Hello there,” I tapped her knee, “do you happen to have a twin?” 

She smiled. And I knew that smile. Every tooth. 

She stood and crossed the space between us. 

“You’re not the only one.” 

“And 58 is NOT THE ONLY FUNK.” 

. 

And then a voice, 

from the skies, from the seas. 

“You were happy”