Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Bulletproof Bikini

Marguerite Macintosh may have been wandering around Helgor City in little else than a metal bikini, leather boots, and a furry cloak, but this chilly weather should never have been confused for the “dog days of summer”. The only things keeping her warm were the burning pain radiating off of her fresh scars and her boiling blood over this wardrobe fiasco. Her bastard sword was sheathed on her hip; she kept a firm grip on the handle while her other hand carried a mysterious leather sack. She heard enough testicle jokes in her lifetime that they were to be expected when she carried around a package that big.


As she trudged down the sidewalk of this vast city with bustling marketplaces and massive architecture, Marguerite made sure to give stone cold glares at the various men who passed her with dirty thoughts racing through their melon heads. The smiles they gave her, the whistles, and the chuckles were enough to boil her blood even further. The women were equally worthy of her scorn; they twisted their faces in disgust, as though Marguerite was going to steal their husbands right in front of them.


Because the streets were so jam-packed with horn-dog men, racing children, and jealous women, she couldn’t help but bump into a few of them, though she wondered how much of that contact was on purpose. There were a few hands here and there and in an ideal world, those hands wouldn’t be attached to their owners’ arms anymore. The bastard sword was right there, yet she kept it sheathed the whole time.


“Just a few more blocks,” she muttered to herself. The frosty weather nipped at her flesh almost as harshly as the poor sucker she had been in combat with only an hour prior. Those razor talons and blade-like fangs were far from Marguerite’s idea of a fun time. But a payday was a payday and a meal was a meal. “That son of a bitch better not stiff me this time,” she said, referring to her mercenary boss Goldsmith Kingsville.


“You said stiff!” said a giggling teenaged boy as his father pulled him away, also in a chuckling mood.


Marguerite’s knuckles had turned as white as the frosty weather at the strength she was gripping her hilt. She could cause a city wide bloodbath that could only be written about in holy scriptures. She could leave heads rolling down the street like the beer barrels the men probably consumed by the gallon. She could leave intestines strewn across the cobblestones while the diarrhea they contained painted an accurate picture of all the bullshit this place was known for. She thought better off it and continued down the sidewalk. “The real battle…” She stopped herself before her words could be misinterpreted again by snot-nosed kids.


A few more bumps, gropes, and hee-haws later, she finally arrived at the steps of the Kingsville Combat Club. They would prove to be a long climb, not because of the distance, but because of the sharp pains in her leg scars with every step. She sucked it up and pulled herself up the stairs into the stone-carved barracks. It was somehow less painful than being leered at by horny men and scowled at by jealous women. And then she remembered that the cycle would begin all over again once she walked through the doors of her workplace, which she did.


Just as she had predicted, the sparring orcs, in metal armor much more protective than hers, took a break from their exercises to evilly-smile and snort at her. Some of them swirled their tongues around like they were about to eat a delicious roasted ham. Others wiggled their fingers in anticipation of a hard grip. One of them whistled like his voice was a jazz instrument, much to the hee-hawing delight of the other mercenaries. Again, Marguerite could turn this entire room into a farmhouse slaughter fit for oinking pigs. But she thought better of it and picked up her walking speed towards Goldsmith’s office. She slammed the door behind her and the sounds of sparring continued.


And there he was, his booted feet on the desk, his velvet purple suit on, a cigar smoldering in his mouth, and his eyes pasted to his magazine. His entire room was decorated with artwork of half-naked models and leopard print rugs. Marguerite had her angry eyes locked in not on those, but the pervert who hung the pictures there in the first place. He peeked out from his magazine and waved at her before blowing a drooling orcish kiss.


Marguerite marched up to Goldsmith’s desk and slammed the package on the wooden surface, almost creating a few splinters. She pulled the draw string on it and revealed the head of a rival orcish warrior, which made Goldsmith’s eyes light up like a shooting star. He grabbed the head by its hair and examined it further to make sure everything was on the up and up. “Fine job, Margueritie-Sweetie.” She cringed at that nickname. “Our client will be very happy with this!”


Marguerite then slammed her coin bag on the table with equally brutish force and opened it. She pointed inside and said, “Karma. Karma!”


“If you insist.” Commander Kingsville pulled a metal box from underneath his desk, unlocked it with a massive key, and scooped up handfuls of gold coins to put in the Marguerite’s bag. She closed it up, jiggled it next to her ear, and stuck it on her belt, ultimately satisfied with her payday. Goldsmith put the metal box away, but she was still there with her arms folded and a murderous look on her face. “What? You got your payday, now get lost.”


“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Commander.” Marguerite cleared her throat. “Are you okay?”


Goldsmith throatily laughed and slapped his desk a few times. “Are you kidding me, babe? Business is booming! I’ve never felt better in my life! Are you okay, my ass!” He laughed some more.


“That’s not what I meant, Commander. What I meant was…are you okay…as in…what the hell is wrong with you?!”


“Huh?”


“These other mercenaries, all of which are men, get to walk around protected head to toe in armor while I’m stuck out in the cold-ass weather in… whatever this is! You say business is booming, yet you can’t afford to get me some halfway decent armor?!”


Goldsmith placed a hand on Marguerite’s shoulder, which was instantly swatted away. “Listen, lady. Walking around in a metal bikini isn’t so bad. It’s lightweight, so you can move around easier. You have any idea how heavy those other suits of armor are?”


Private Macintosh grabbed her boss’s jacket and snapped, “Cut the bullshit! This skimpy armor isn’t going to protect me from anything! Look at all these scars! Look!”


Goldsmith pulled on his own collar to signify discomfort. “Trust me, I’m looking.”


“Exactly! You didn’t buy me this piece of crap armor because you wanted to protect me! You certainly didn’t want me to move faster, because let’s face it, fast-moving women make it impossible for you to do your little thing with them. This isn’t protection, Commander! This is fantasy!”


Goldsmith shoved her to the floor. “If you want real armor so badly, then use your payday to buy some! There’s enough in that coin bag to get you at least…”


She got up and got right back in her boss’s face. “You paid for their armor, now pay for mine! You just said yourself you have the money to do it, now quit stiffing me and…”


“Stiff this, you dumb bitch!” Goldsmith tried to slap her with the magazine, but she caught it just in the nick of time and started poring through it.


This wasn’t a literary publication at all. Not a single poem about flowers and shit. Not a single piece of prose about gallant battles. Not a single epic about conquering giants. Just pictures. Pictures of women wearing the same metal bikini as her. Just when Marguerite’s stomach couldn’t twist and wind any further, the final picture in the magazine…was of her. A realistic drawing of her wearing that same bikini, posing seductively at the reader, and blowing a kiss.


Marguerite’s breathing hastened. Her heart thumped in her chest while an icy river of anxiety cooled her burning scars. She dropped to her knees and vomited on the magazine, completely undoing her entire nutrition for the day.


“Oh, don’t act so disgusted! That’s the best art you’ll ever see in your lifetime! He’s great at what he does!”


Marguerite wiped the vomit from her lips and slowly rose to her feet, her trembling hand gripping her hilt even tighter than before, to where her palms were beet red. She angrily whispered, “Did you just say…HE’S great at what he does? He? As in…the male gaze?!” She finally pulled out her bastard sword and sliced Goldsmith’s desk in half, causing the boss to jolt backwards in fear. Sure enough, he had other magazines of half-naked girls stashed in there as well as his cash box.


Goldsmith pulled his collar in discomfort again. “I can explain!”


Not giving him a chance to do so, Marguerite threw a thunderous slash his way and sliced his massive head off, the last of his fucked up mind oozing on the carpeted floor. She dropped to her knees again, shaking in a combination of anger, disgust, and fear. Commander Kingsville had been masturbating to her this whole time. He had thoughts about her. He wanted to be with her. That metal bikini wasn’t practical in any way. It was all a perverted fantasy. Marguerite threw up yet again, this time loudly enough to draw the ire of someone knocking on the door.


“Hey! What’s going on in there! You alright, boss?!”


Thinking quickly, Marguerite took her bastard sword and wedged it between the double door handles. She didn’t know how long the lock would last considering how hard the orc was knocking. The sword even bent a few times like it was made of rubber. Marguerite took the cash box, grabbed Goldsmith’s head, and chucked it through his stained glass window, giving her an easy escape and the orcs enough reason to slam even harder against the doors.


Once the doors broke down, Marguerite, with cash box in hand, ran like the wind. Her leg scars flared up to where she was begging for an amputation. But she kept running through the back alleys. She kept hearing the sounds of orcs grunting behind her. Those throaty screams and curses, as much as they pounded against her eardrum, they softened the further she ran. And then she took a sharp turn into another alleyway and her legs finally gave out on her. Blood running from the wounds made her dizzy. The burning sensation caused her eyes to well up in pain. She was certain the orcs were going to chop her up and have her for lunch…or have her for lunch regardless, which made her gag even more.


But then the orcish voices were gone. She couldn’t hear them anymore. If she was dead from her wounds, then heaven looked an awful lot like Helgor City. It wasn’t heaven at all. Maybe it was hell. Maybe it was some unseen god punishing her for murder and theft. Speaking of theft, the cash box was still right there by her side. She patted it and breathed a sigh of relief once she knew it was safe.


“You know…maybe I will buy my own armor…and a vacation…I wouldn’t mind a vacation right now…”

Saturday, July 16, 2022

Let Me Sleep

VERSE 1

I’d kill for a nice set of doggy days

But the AK-47 blew some kids away

But the women are living The Handmaid’s Tale

And the cops who enforce it never go to jail

I took a break from the news, but I have to return

So much about the world that I still have to learn

It matters very little if my short fuses burn

Can’t run forever, ‘cause it won’t get any better


CHORUS

Too much trauma at once, in the shit we’re deep

For god’s sake, just let me go the fuck to sleep

Is one good day too much to ask for?

Just let me sleep, let life be a bore

Let me sleep!

Let me sleep!


VERSE 2

I could walk down the street and shoot some hoops

It could get me out of this dystopian time loop

But all I want to do this afternoon is take a nap

And hope I don’t get snared in the news cycle trap

I can’t save the world when I’m by myself

Even the baddest of badasses are in need of help

We can start a revolution on any other day

But for now, I’ll let my mind drift away


CHORUS

Too much trauma at once, in the shit we’re deep

For god’s sake, just let me go the fuck to sleep

Is one good day too much to ask for?

Just let me sleep, let life be a bore

Let me sleep!

Let me sleep!


BRIDGE

I don’t need you to read me my last rites

Just tuck my carcass in and say goodnight

Try not to wake me up with bombs and blasts

Or a jeep motor that blows smoke like an ass

Or fireworks long after the fourth of July

Jingoism is dead, kiss that shit goodbye


CHORUS

Too much trauma at once, in the shit we’re deep

For god’s sake, just let me go the fuck to sleep

Is one good day too much to ask for?

Just let me sleep, let life be a bore

Let me sleep!

Let me sleep!


FINAL LINES

If I spent the night in a no-tell motel

Would you still shoot me dead, shrug it off like, “Oh well?”

Monday, July 4, 2022

Social Media Vacation

Hey, everyone. Starting tonight, I’m going to take a two-week vacation from social media. This includes Good Reads, Deviant Art, Face Book, Twitter, and You Tube. I’m hoping this will help recalibrate me after spending so much time doom-scrolling and consuming horrible news. If it’s affecting my mental health in the way I think it is, then two weeks away will be sufficient. When I eventually return, I’m probably going to have an ass-ton of notifications on all of my sites. I won’t be able to answer them all if that’s the case. Thanks for understanding and I’ll see you again on July 18th. Until then, take care, everyone.

Sunday, July 3, 2022

Capsize Your Narrative

Generational narcissism is your only narrative

Got a past, present, and future of embarrassment

You could break the cycle, but that ain’t fun

So you plant your flagpole like an army of one

Scream your head off and then play the victim

Tears in your eyes when you’re asked to listen

Mucous in your nose when you’re held accountable

Not by yourself, because those odds are insurmountable

What will it take? Some cuffs on your wrists?

Or bloody knuckles over the wrong guy’s fist?

Or a trip to the afterlife, the point of no return?

Strike the match, your legacy is yours to burn

Every dollar you made, every friend you abandoned

All the art you consumed, all the raging fandom

It doesn’t mean a damn thing in the very end

Because your actions and words I will never defend

So what happens next? Do you pass on your genes?

To the next generation of hateful teens?

I wouldn’t put it past you, because it sounds imperative

Your only mission in life is to capsize your narrative

Monuments of Cringe

There are certain parts of your past where you should not plant your flagpole. There are certain hills you don’t want to die on. There are certain dumpster fires in your life that will burn you so badly that your ashes will blow away like a fart in the wind. The other day I discovered one of mine that I’m probably going to regret sharing with the world. I signed up for a Letterboxd account so that I could have a place to post my movie reviews. One of those reviews was for the 1985 film adaptation of Clue. I wrote this review when I was thirty years old, so I should have been mature enough to not go through with this horrible shit. But in this review, I…um…I, uh…laughed at Miss Scarlet’s “fruit” joke about Mr. Green (who’s gay) and I…suggested that it’s okay to ogle Yvette the Maid before you realize what she looks like now that she’s older.


That Clue review was what I like to call a Monument of Cringe, of which I have thousands of all over the internet. I read what I wrote and I cringed in disgust. My face was the color of zerg piss. My body shivered like someone dropped a toaster in my bathtub. My insides melted into whale slurry at the thought of someone eventually finding this review and broadcasting it out the world. And then the internet celebrates my past mistake with the hashtag “Garrison Kelly Is Over Party”, although my writing career won’t be derailed because I never went far to begin with. I’m grateful to have a small audience. But what if it grows overnight and they wade through this museum of cringe together? All of my embarrassment broadcast for the world to see. Hell, I probably said some embarrassing shit in this essay right now that I’ll get raked over the coals because of.


So what do you do when you realize that you have Monuments of Cringe all over the internet? What do you do when you realize your own published books are Stonehenges of Cringe? What do you do when you realize you built an entire legacy out of being disgusting and horrible in the way you’ve written? Nothing. You don’t delete your entire social media presence. You don’t pull your books off the shelves. If you must apologize to your audience, do so in a genuine and heartfelt way. Don’t make excuses. Remind your audience that they deserve better behavior from someone they look up to. And when you promise to keep growing, keep that promise and be the best version of yourself that you can be.


Because the truth is, a lot of art from the past doesn’t age well. Remember Ace Ventura: Pet Detective? Remember how the audience hee-hawed when they discovered that Einhorn had a boner in her underwear? Well, if you’ve made any effort to unlearn that behavior, you’ll see that transphobia is more harmful than funny and should therefore stay out of comedy forever. Remember all those jokes you heard from Boomer comedians about how much they hate their wives? Remember when the ultra-fat dinner guest ate the “wafer-thin mint” in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and then exploded all over the restaurant? Do you know why these things and many other pieces of media are now considered Monuments of Cringe? Because we’re (hopefully) learning more about the world around us. The more we learn, the more we apply it. And the more we apply it and grow into better people, the less likely we are to hold onto piss-poor nostalgia. That’s how life works: it progresses into the future.


I’ve decided after spiraling into disgust at my own past, I’m going to keep my Monuments of Cringe up. Not only do I have so many of them out there that I can’t get rid of them all, but I continue to create them in the present day and there will come a time when they age badly too. Learning to be a better person isn’t something that stops happening when you get to a certain point. It keeps going and going until the day you’re lowered into a wooden box with RIP scrawled across it. You can’t change the past no matter how hard you try. Yes, people will willingly see the ugliest parts of you before they see the best. But for every zergling and goblin that eats you alive, there are even more people who love you. You have to go out of your way to find them, but love is there if you look for it. Hell, there are people who still love J.K. Rowling even though she’s a transphobic bastard. There’s hope for you yet if you have even half the number of Monuments of Cringe that I do.


Perfection is a myth. Everybody has something they’re not proud of. Those who work on atoning for their worst behavior will successfully do so. Those who can’t admit it when they’ve fucked up? Well, let’s just say the over party will be complete with a disco ball and a bowl full of cheese dip. I’m telling you all now that if you happen to stumble upon my Monuments of Cringe and you think the worst of me, I apologize with all of my heart. If it’s years after the fact and another person finds them, I’ll apologize again. And if the future continues to roll on and I get called out for it again, I’ll apologize again. And again. And again. And again. While it is true that you can’t please everybody, you should at least try to be a halfway decent person even if perfection is indeed a myth. You may feel like you’re being looked at under a microscope. I do too sometimes. But if you think you feel alone, try being in the shoes of someone you’ve disenfranchised with your worst behavior.


But if you must hold an over party in my name, at least bring refreshments. Bring lots of Diet Coke. Bring enough pizzas to touch the ceiling. Bring enough bags of potato chips to give me the heart attack you’ve always wanted me to have. While I am sorry for every horrible thing I’ve said over my lifetime, I do indeed have a life to live. Will I live it with you? Will we eat potato chips together and dip them in a wading pool full of sour cream? Will we shove giant handfuls of cake in our mouths and talk about the world together (not with our mouths full, of course)? When I’m done atoning for my sins, I want to party with all of you. The Garrison Kelly over party has a conga line that I’ll gladly lead. Let’s party like it’s…a year that hopefully aged better than whatever god awful nonsense the 80’s and 90’s were. But if you ask me, I’ve erected more Monuments of Cringe in the 2000’s than at any point in my career. Remember Deus Shadowheart and Dr. Scott Cain? No? Good, let’s keep it that way.