I was trying to make things be real. “Make it be real, make it be real”, I screamed tremulously. I had become a broken man at this stage you understand. I’d been pushed too far and yet – at the same time – I hadn’t been pushed far enough. I had made mistakes and plenty of them. I had made mistakes that I had sworn I would never ever make again, and yet I make them all the time! I don’t do anything else but make them. I don’t ‘learn from my mistakes’, I am my mistakes, if you see what I mean. If you get my drift. I am the mistaken and the mistake is me. There’s no undoing it however, there’s no fixing it – that’s what I was going to learn, at some vague and unspecified point in the future. I was going to learn that the mistake which was me couldn’t ever be undone. I was going to learn that the more you try to straighten it out the worse it gets. That’s learning for you. That’s real learning – the real deal, not like that phoney-ass ‘university type’ learning. Which – as we all know – is pure garbage. Which – as we all know – isn’t worth shit. “Make things be real, make things be real”, I scream impotently. And there’s nothing worse than hearing some poor fool screaming impotently, is there? There’s a really annoying whine to that. I’d lost my grip you see – I’d lost my grip and – consequently – become a nasty hollow echo of myself. Which was – I must tell you – not a particularly pleasant feeling. ‘Not ideal by any means’, as we might say. Then again, when push comes to shove you have to make do with what you’ve got – in my experience. Don’t you just hate people who say, ‘in my experience’? Wankers. They’re pathetic wankers who are always trying to validate themselves by talking even more bullshit. Bullshit on top of bullshit. “I am the master of all I survey”, I comment dryly to myself, in real time for once. I surely AM the master of all I survey and all I can survey from here is shit – shit as far as the eye can see, shit all around, shit to the north and shit to the south. “I am heir to Endless Realms of Shit”, I tell myself grandly, “and no man may come between me and this Foetid and Malodorous Domain”. Reasoning thus, my spirits rose phoenix-like and I became indomitable. “None shall gainsay me”, I croak triumphantly, my voice cracking and quavering with pride – “no one shall gainsay me for I am the Supreme Master of All Shit Things”. In my heart of hearts however I couldn’t help wondering if my narrative was a bit askew. I couldn’t help wondering if perhaps I was fooling myself, which is something I do rather a lot. I couldn’t help wondering if all the Shit Things weren’t perhaps the Lord and Master of me.
