tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87367191135372932042024-03-05T11:51:32.397-08:00The Meth LabFucked up stories and poetry from the gutter of the Internet! The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.comBlogger192125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-75831089146594144722023-06-11T02:57:00.003-07:002023-06-11T02:57:17.776-07:00Leprechaun Pu$$y N’ $hit<p> <img alt="" class="wp-image-799" data-attachment-id="799" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-caption="" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="image" data-large-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image.png?w=640" data-medium-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image.png?w=300" data-orig-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image.png" data-orig-size="640,480" data-permalink="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2023/06/11/leprechaun-puy-n-hit/image-15/" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" src="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image.png?w=640" srcset="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image.png 640w, https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image.png?w=150 150w, https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image.png?w=300 300w" style="background-color: #1f2527; border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;" /></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px auto 32px; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Flat on my back, I awoke to bass booming in the background, as if I were outside of a nightclub…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">I yawned. Sat up in bed, and my nostrils widened at the strong scent of marijuana smoke. Then I stretched my arms and lost my breath, for a second, when I sighted a vista of floor-to-ceiling windows.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Outside, it was a golden morning, and I was awed by the postcard-perfect sea views. The azure ocean appearing like an exquisite pattern of ripples, sparkles, and small waves. Its waters moving like a massive blue sheet of shimmering satin.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Taking stock of the bed, too… It was nothing if not lavish, and I felt as if I were practically floating as I rolled from side to side and stretched my limbs out on the super-soft memory foam mattress… smooth, cream-colored silk sheets caressing my skin…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Then I wiped the sleep from my eyes and further panned my gaze around… This bedroom was palatial. Featured a vaulted ceiling that must have been 40 feet high. It was clean too. Not a speck of dust or dirt anywhere. And everything was white- white walls, white marble floors, white furniture. Everything sparkly, electric white.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">All appeared shiny too. Almost to an exaggerated extent. Like an Instagram filter. The entire room brightening, practically blinding, making me squint my eyes as I continued scanning around the room, wondering where I was, where I’d woken up.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">And who I was… Given the shock, I knew I wasn’t at home. But I didn’t know what or where home was.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">I couldn’t even recall my name…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"></p><div class="wp-block-image" style="background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: calc(750px); text-align: center;"><figure class="aligncenter size-large" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; display: table; float: none; margin: 0px auto; max-width: none; padding: 0px;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-801" data-attachment-id="801" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-caption="" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="image-1" data-large-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-1.png?w=600" data-medium-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-1.png?w=300" data-orig-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-1.png" data-orig-size="600,450" data-permalink="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2023/06/11/leprechaun-puy-n-hit/image-1-11/" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" src="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-1.png?w=600" srcset="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-1.png 600w, https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-1.png?w=150 150w, https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-1.png?w=300 300w" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" /></figure></div><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px auto 32px; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Though I couldn’t recall how I got here, a slideshow of images, flickering like an old PC, flitted through my mind: a long glass table, an electric scale… Me wearing blue latex gloves that made my fingers look like popsicles…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Then I had visions of driving, inching forward in heavy traffic while tapping at a phone affixed to a Hyundai’s dashboard. </p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Then a hazy recollection of a house party. At an apartment with vintage movie posters papered over the walls. A din of chatter and someone with a jackhammer of a laugh. A Young Thug video, muted, playing on a wall-mounted flatscreen TV…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Following all that, somehow, I had woken up in this luxurious, high-rise residence.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">I slid out of the bed’s silk sheets, ambled over the windows, which encased the entire room. I touched my forehead to the cool glass and saw only an infinite sheet of sea. I couldn’t spot a nightclub anywhere, or even a sliver of land. What if I was abducted by aliens, left on a water planet? But nowhere in the bedroom did I spot any space aliens, and the bass was sounding from all different directions, booming like distant fireworks.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Padding over to the bathroom, I found that it too was white. White as fresh milk. The bathroom equipped, decked out in white everything. White towels, white jacuzzi bathtub, toilet, sink. It was when I found myself facing the mirror atop the sink that I experienced the most unexpected.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Everything in the bathroom was white… Except for me.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Standing in the mirror was a young Black man, in white silk pajamas. A young Black man with face tattoos. An inverted crucifix between my eyebrows and a couplet of incomprehensible scribble across my left cheek.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Hold up, I thought… I knew that face. It was the famous rapper Shootah Sho. I was Shootah Sho! But how did I get from driving a Hyundai to being a world-renown rapper?</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">At this point, the previous night’s events slowly crept back into focus, clearing up like clouds after a storm.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">I’d been smoking weed at a house party. One of my friends had brought a friend, and none of us had ever seen this guy. But there was something mysterious, intriguing about him.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">He was like a celebrity. He had that “it” factor. Not only due to his swarthy, handsome looks; but charisma just oozed from him. He exuded a certain magnetism, and everyone in the apartment’s living room was drawn to him. Everyone at the party wanted to know him. Everyone asking him questions as he held court. And he had brilliant answers to any question. He cracked joke after joke, leaving everyone in stitches. He ripped unbelievably big bong hits and blew perfect smoke rings, smoke rings the size of donuts, as he regaled us with charming anecdotes, film trivia, and random quips. He appeared to know everything about anything. It was as if he were the human embodiment of Google, or powered by ChatGPT. </p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Even his name caused a stir. “Satan.” Who the hell names their kid Satan? But no one could gather whether or not it was his real name because, just like ChatGPT, he was evasive in all his answers to personal questions. Not in a way that implied malfeasance, or condescension, but rather his was jocular. This Satan was a merry prankster.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">But when I caught him in the kitchen later, annihilating a box of marijuana cookies (chewing loudly, too, with his mouth wide open) he appeared far heavier and older, the etched lines on his forehead far more visible; twin grooves on each cheek framing his mouth like parentheses. His wavy black hair, which had been neatly combed and shiny, now looked greasy, had been sculpted into two twin wet spikes. His long face had dimmed, too, shifted from jovial to subdued. Though his split-open eyes still appeared glittering, curiously restive….</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">As he wiped weed cookie crumbs away from his mouth with his forearm, I noticed how darkly hairy he was and that his legs appeared too slim and stubby for his chunky torso, making him look sort of like a goat.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">I could have sworn I’d seen Satan before wearing a tuxedo, with a cape, like almost a Dracula Halloween-type costume. But in the kitchen he wore tattered blue jeans and a black T-shirt with AC/DC, with the lightning slash, embossed in red lettering across the chest. I noticed he wore no shoes and had feet so small and gnarled they appeared as hooves.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Satan, his expression plaintive, neglected any niceties or salutations. Instead, upon my entrance into the kitchen, he asked me, directly, in a robotic voice, what I’d be if I could be anything.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">I told Satan I’d be a world-famous MC. A gangsta rapper. That that was my childhood dream. Satan’s countenance brightened as I told him about my early memories, as a Boy Scout, watching DMX videos… Memorizing DMX’s lyrics, mirroring DMX’s movements in front of the television… Doing D’s signature pit bull barks and shit…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">A smiling Satan, his eyes shining like sunshine over snow, then handed me a minty-smelling marijuana cookie.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">I guess he’d granted my wish. Maybe all those fire and brimstone preachers were wrong. Maybe Satan isn’t such a bad guy…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"></p><div class="wp-block-image" style="background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: calc(750px); text-align: center;"><figure class="aligncenter size-large" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; display: table; float: none; margin: 0px auto; max-width: none; padding: 0px;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-803" data-attachment-id="803" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-caption="" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="image-2" data-large-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-2.png?w=600" data-medium-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-2.png?w=300" data-orig-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-2.png" data-orig-size="600,400" data-permalink="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2023/06/11/leprechaun-puy-n-hit/image-2-9/" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" src="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-2.png?w=600" srcset="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-2.png 600w, https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-2.png?w=150 150w, https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-2.png?w=300 300w" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" /></figure></div><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px auto 32px; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Now I was living my dream. The bathroom I stood in was probably bigger than any apartment or room I’d ever rented. I was living the life. I was in an episode of MTV’s Cribs. Sauntering out of the bathroom, I started walking like a pimp. I was on my way to kick it in the condo’s living room, where I estimated there would be fresh bottles of lean, candy bowls full of Xans and Percs, towering pyramids of cash and marijuana, and like 20 naked bitches, all of them spread eagle or bent over, all of them just waiting to have wild sex with me.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">My bedroom’s door looked made of steel. Submarine-silver, it was heavy as a firewall and pulling it open felt like playing tug-of-war. Catching my breath, I saw the rest of the condo was just as spectacular. An infinite space adorned in Rothko-style paintings, sleek furniture, identical white décor.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Panoramic, floor-to-ceiling windows featuring fabulous sea views further encased the entire abode, and the distant bump of bass continued to reverberate from various directions… The stink of cannabis steady growing stronger… Oddly, though, the condo’s other rooms were all uncomfortably hot, and I couldn’t locate a thermostat anywhere…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Oddly as well, prowling about the massive space, I happened upon no other people. No naked bitches. No posse. No one drinking lean or forty-ounces. No one smoking blunts. No stacks of cash. In Shootah’s videos, there were always stacks of cash, fancy cars, hordes of gun-toting homies and naked or near-naked ratchet bitches bouncing, aiming and bobbling their butts everywhere. So I was perplexed, wondering where all my money, homies, and butt-shaking bitches in thongs were at.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">A loud knock then erupted from the front doorway, and I was expecting to open the door to discover a whole cheerleading squad, a whole gaggle of smiling, twerking bitches. Maybe the twerking bitches would be petite beauties holding moneybags. Be like one of my favorite Shootah songs, “Leprechaun Pussy n’ $hit.” </p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">I also hoped the twerking bitches might know how to operate the a/c, as I was dripping with sweat…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">But when I pulled open the massive, submarine-silver, 10-foot-tall front door, which, too, was heavy as a firewall, the loud bass in the background suddenly ceased, the odor of cannabis completely vanished, and a blast of cold air pushed me a step backward. Filling the doorway stood a scowling pair of late middle-aged, mustached policemen in uniform. Both smelled of coffee. Both had dark rings under their glowing eyes.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">“Sir, are you … ?” one of the mustaches asked, in a gravelly, cigarette-smoker’s voice. But I didn’t know the name and shook my head, shrugged.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">“Sir, are you Shootah Sho?” the other raspy-voiced mustache asked, his wet breath stinking of stomach acid.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">But I was mute, unable to speak. Words just wouldn’t form. My tongue stuck to my teeth. The policemen then handed me a warrant. At first, the tiny black words on the document’s white pages looked like lines of crawling ants. But then the document came into focus. It detailed numerous charges under the RICO Act, a number of felonious crimes, and the possibility of life imprisonment.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">As the policemen patted me down, clicked a pair of cold metal cuffs on my wrists, read me my rights, I began to tell them about my meeting with Satan.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">It was then my stomach sank, and I wondered just who Satan really was…</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 32px auto; max-width: calc(750px); overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"></p><div class="wp-block-image" style="background-color: #1f2527; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; font-family: "PT Sans", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: calc(750px); text-align: center;"><figure class="aligncenter size-large" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; display: table; float: none; margin: 0px auto; max-width: none; padding: 0px;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-805" data-attachment-id="805" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-caption="" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="image-3" data-large-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-3.png?w=508" data-medium-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-3.png?w=300" data-orig-file="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-3.png" data-orig-size="508,338" data-permalink="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2023/06/11/leprechaun-puy-n-hit/image-3-6/" sizes="(max-width: 508px) 100vw, 508px" src="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-3.png?w=508" srcset="https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-3.png 508w, https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-3.png?w=150 150w, https://methlabpress.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/image-3.png?w=300 300w" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" /></figure></div>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0FQHM+PH Ballycurrin, County Mayo, Ireland53.4793744 -9.216035699999999147.847028208813143 -18.0050982 59.111720591186852 -0.42697319999999905tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-35237761537972932742023-06-02T19:52:00.001-07:002023-06-02T19:52:29.748-07:00The Girl Wearing Sandals with Socks <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQ-K1ld2UOzqyFtFNOrgCrPzqUGUpCfhsTRKOvHK_MWG48Iln1zHn2vUBH7PmffvdrZikb3w1TDMSjpvJwhZ1AhgiwY1YuMLOkxJPVAGGy5Dxm_T1anTDXcGtI8q_dWQ2-8W9X-DB6ghdpjRwZ78iKXOsU_A0Gn7ENMgSkT7SoHUwD5NQfHhbxrovh" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQ-K1ld2UOzqyFtFNOrgCrPzqUGUpCfhsTRKOvHK_MWG48Iln1zHn2vUBH7PmffvdrZikb3w1TDMSjpvJwhZ1AhgiwY1YuMLOkxJPVAGGy5Dxm_T1anTDXcGtI8q_dWQ2-8W9X-DB6ghdpjRwZ78iKXOsU_A0Gn7ENMgSkT7SoHUwD5NQfHhbxrovh" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Grayson, Kentucky… Yup, I visited there once. Many, many years ago…</p><p><br /></p><p>I’d gone to meet a girl I’d met online.</p><p><br /></p><p>Driving in from the Big City, I discovered truth to the notion that small-town folks are often friendlier than their urban counterparts. Almost instantly, I felt charmed and welcomed. </p><p><br /></p><p>Randoes smiling, making conversation. Strangers strolling by at the gas station, happily asking “How are you doing today?” as I was filling up my tank. At first, it was slightly off-putting, coming from the Big City, where most everyone is tight-lipped and in a hurry. But I quickly came to appreciate Grayson’s slower pace and congeniality. </p><p><br /></p><p>Grayson, to me, was like a real-life embodiment of The Andy Griffith Show. It just exuded that category of genial warmth and inviting atmosphere.</p><p><br /></p><p>Not only were the people pleasant, but I also found the area’s surroundings majestic. And green. Full of bucolic foliage emblematic of the Appalachian Plateau… That sorta gorgeously rugged terrain steeped in rolling hills and deep plunging valleys... Panning my gaze, I admired a multitude of oak, hickory, and maple trees alighting under the big blue sky, sniffed in a stack of fresh air, and appreciated the peaceful rush of a nearby stream as I idled at an intersection. </p><p><br /></p><p>Seizing on the feeling, I whistled The Andy Griffith Show’s theme song over an obnoxious AM radio ad for an ambulance-chasing lawyer.</p><p><br /></p><p>When I arrived at my motel, which boasted of having “Color TV!” the place was quiet. Nearly to a creepy extent. I might have been the only guest there, at this roadside, self-proclaimed “Motor Hotel.” I wondered who exactly would be staying at a roadside motel, in rural Kentucky. Perhaps other people in town to meet people from the internet.</p><p><br /></p><p>After checking in, getting situated, I decided to get some exercise and walked a couple of blocks down to the downtown but didn’t find much. I’d read an article in Rolling Stone about how Walmart and its pernicious, predatory business model had killed Small Town America. Decimated Main Streets. And that was what I found. Boarded-up shops, empty buildings. I can imagine it being far worse now, with all the phone zombies, Amazon, post-Wuhan Virus…</p><p><br /></p><p>After my disappointing foray downtown, I returned to my motel, washed myself up, slapped on some deodorant, trimmed my nose and ear hairs, changed into a nicer shirt, and readied for the big night. Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop” was on MTV, on my room’s “Color TV!”, and I grooved and lip-synced with myself in the bathroom mirror.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was psyched to finally meet my internet girlfriend. We were to meet at a bowling alley that evening. But she wouldn’t be coming alone. She would be accompanied by her younger sister. Which I didn’t really like. I wanted to meet my internet girlfriend and only her. But I could understand. Meeting a stranger online was, I’m sure, why she didn’t want to meet me alone.</p><p>Despite the 1950s sitcom vibes, Grayson had to have its darkness... So I plugged in my laptop, connected to the room’s ancient 56K modem. After enduring a painful series of strangled beeps and white noise, I started Googling “violent crime,” “crime rates in Grayson, Kentucky.”</p><p><br /></p><p>But my search didn’t yield much aside from a 1993 school shooting, when some shitbag pulled a copycat attack inspired by Stephen King’s Bachman novel Rage... Then I read about a few meth labs exploding or getting raided… But crime in Grayson seemed nothing like the urban war zones, gang violence in the Big City. So I felt safe enough. </p><p><br /></p><p>However, I considered my safety. I didn’t carry much cash and decided to stash my gold watch at the motel. </p><p><br /></p><p>It’d be a pretty dastardly scheme to lure a stranger from the Big City to Grayson, Kentucky, just to rob him. The local scammers and crooks could easily rob locals, I thought. But maybe they already robbed all the locals and were widening their base.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or were they trying to steal my kidney? I was more concerned about getting my kidney stolen than anything else because I’d recently seen a movie and read an internet story about organized, international kidney thief syndicates. And that was more in line with the sort of scam I’d envisioned. A healthy kidney could fetch $40K to $50,000 on the black market.</p><p>(For a time, I worried everyone, anywhere might be conspiring to steal one of my kidneys. That even visiting a restaurant or a trip to the dentist put me at risk of waking up in a bathtub filled with ice cubes.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Just in case I was being drugged, about to have my kidney stolen, if I got groggy before passing out, I planned to yell out that I have AIDS or Hepatitis C or something like that. Sure, that might not stop a highly professional, diabolical and well-prepared kidney thief. But maybe it’d work against my date.</p><p><br /></p><p>But fortunately, that night’s events never reached such dire outcomes. Although what transpired was dark, too, in its own right…</p><p><br /></p><p>I’d videochatted with the girl. I’d seen pics. But when two young ladies entered the bowling alley, I was struck by their appearances. They were practically identical twins. They looked about the same age. And both had heavenly faces. Both with perfect Barbie doll features and facial structure.</p><p><br /></p><p>But from the face down, the two were far from alike. One had an hourglass figure, was showing lots of skin in a black half-shirt and a shorter-than-short plaid skirt. Her silver, fuck-me heels clicking louder upon approach. While the other, in a loose floral sundress, had a squarish physique, as if she were built of Lego blocks.</p><p><br /></p><p>But far worse…</p><p><br /></p><p>She wore sandals with socks.</p><p><br /></p><p>I’d only seen headshot photos of my internet fling and when we’d videochatted, I’d only seen her face. But still, I was invisibly slapping myself. How could I not have known? Or thought to check…</p><p><br /></p><p>That she wore sandals with socks.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bright white tube socks underneath big clunky Birkenstock-style sandals too... </p><p><br /></p><p>As the two approached, my heart thumped like a drum. I was hoping, praying, just really, really wanting the girl in those loud, click-clacky heels. No, not the girl in sandals with socks. No… Not the girl in… No… Please, not the…</p><p><br /></p><p>Then they introduced themselves. And yes, mine was the one in sandals with socks.</p><p>I was disappointed. But I decided to stick it out. I’d really vibed with this girl. We’d had long chats and shared secrets, deep thoughts. We both said that if it didn’t work out when we met that we could be friends.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, what happened next would change everything…</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlqfCc8s7vODwDY7gI_9BrSXArbJZmFb-a9eAmG-aCsa6DcrJoZSPWbIL7809UtbMX6LwAlfaIbdHQ7-DldL0cCJvNkpe0rOtFzZBgaH6OqpTf5Q0y_eGXto5lYrHkLyONKvCOlUhyOCN3aiKBCOLbMLDv_hzwISmgp2jr_RUm6pX5Cb90fMR8vKqm" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="637" data-original-width="958" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlqfCc8s7vODwDY7gI_9BrSXArbJZmFb-a9eAmG-aCsa6DcrJoZSPWbIL7809UtbMX6LwAlfaIbdHQ7-DldL0cCJvNkpe0rOtFzZBgaH6OqpTf5Q0y_eGXto5lYrHkLyONKvCOlUhyOCN3aiKBCOLbMLDv_hzwISmgp2jr_RUm6pX5Cb90fMR8vKqm" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>As we sipped Cokes, munched on pepperoni pizza, the younger sister, who was sitting to my right, without provocation, ran her hand underneath the table, and rested a warm palm on my thigh. </p><p><br /></p><p>She played coy, showed no change of expression as she went below the belt. Began snaking her sticky fingers under my cargo shorts. Then she went below my boxers. Wrapped her soft digits and palm around the tip of my cock, which was growing, inflating like a balloon. Lightly, she squeezed and caressed my mushroom tip. Started working her way back. Glided her palm along my shaft. Then, her hand still slick from the oily pizza, she started to slowly jerk off my suddenly stiff dick.</p><p><br /></p><p>Her sister, to my left, showed no sign of knowing what was happening and went on with this long story about her cat’s strange habits and that she honestly thought her cat might be gay.</p><p>I’d never heard of a gay cat, but it didn’t shock me. I think it’s great that cat was living its truth, its best life. And I might have been able to offer more than an occasional assenting nod or “yeah,” as she spoke of the cat, its gayness. But I was clenching my teeth, my cock hard as concrete as my internet girlfriend’s smoking hot, horny little sister went full speed, throttle-choking my chicken. She must have been left-handed too, with the precision and strength with which she wanked me. Or at least was ambidextrous.</p><p><br /></p><p>Whatever it was, it took everything I had not to flip over the table, fling the nymphet to the floor, hike up her short skirt, tear off her panties and plow into her.</p><p><br /></p><p>The nymphet was wearing one of those sexy Catholic school-type skirts. It was criminally short too. Upon first sight, I’d been silently hoping she left the skirt on as we bowled, so I could sneak glances at her legs and ass, and the whole meal I’d been doing all I could to avert my eyes from scoping her svelte, luscious thighs. But now that she was strangling my dick, not reacting was tortuous…</p><p><br /></p><p>Thankfully, Socks and Sandals got up to use the bathroom, mid-handjob, so I was finally able to turn my attention to her sexy sister and her most wonderful helping hand.</p><p><br /></p><p>Our table was in the back corner of the bowling alley’s dining area and there was a red and white checkered tablecloth overhanging the table, so no one, except maybe a mouse crawling on the floor, could see what was transpiring under the table. That my date’s college-aged sister had reached into my cargo shorts, was performing a surprise sex act on me.</p><p><br /></p><p>I figured it was time to return the favor. As Socks and Sandals shuffled off toward the bathroom, I swung my gaze to the nymphet, who was coquettishly looking the other way, chewing on her lower lip. Admiring her features, her pointy nose and super high cheekbones, I just loved how deliciously trashy she looked, wearing that much glittery makeup. With fake lashes that long. Platinum-blond hair teased that high. Even some strippers might have told her to tone it down. But I was game…</p><p><br /></p><p>I sniffed a tang of the nymphet’s fruity perfume, then peeked below the table, for an instant, just to check that I wasn’t imagining things. I wasn’t. Then I raised my gaze to hers. Our eyes met. Instantly, I smiled and chuckled and she returned my smile. Hers was a sexy, crooked smile, and it possessed a certain mystery. For a second, I examined her physiognomy and had to wonder about this chick… Here was this girl, only 21, giving an unsolicited handjob to her 25-year-old sister’s date, a random 28-year-old stranger from the internet… Just who the fuck was this girl?</p><p><br /></p><p>Sure, I was a good-looking guy. In shape. I ran, swam, walked, played racquetball, did calisthenics, lifted weights. But I was also a bookish corporate dweeb with terrible anxiety. Porno flick shit, stuff like this never happened to me. I was suddenly feeling as if I’d stepped onto the set of a Girls Gone Wild video rather than The Andy Griffith Show. But maybe shit like this happened all the time in Grayson, Kentucky. I’m not sure. Whatever... I went with it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Like a submarine plunging below the sea’s surface, I lowered my right arm underneath the table, slapped and clasped my right hand onto the fine young freak’s legs, which were crossed, and petted, stroked her delicate thighs. Her thighs felt soft as feathers. Feeling along that smooth skin as she pumped my cock was bliss.</p><p><br /></p><p>I crawled my hand along her sumptuous thighs, worked my way up, went under her skirt and then made a beeline for her cunt. As I cupped the girl’s cunt, over a pair of thin cotton panties, I felt that she was bare, down there, and it gave me a thrill... Feeling her bare cunt breathing… Warm as a midsummer breeze... </p><p><br /></p><p>I slipped my middle and index fingers underneath the hem of her panties’ crotch and playfully explored the young skank’s slick, bald mound. It was just as svelte and soft as her thighs. And radiating heat. Afterward I traced the folds of her fat, outer pussy lips, felt along her wet hot cunt crease. Right as I touched her slippery slit, she groaned, audibly, under her breath, began beating me off harder.</p><p><br /></p><p>Though I’d smiled at her, in acknowledgement of her efforts, I’d kept silent about… whatever we were doing… Neither of us made any mention of our illicit charade. In fact, we maintained small talk, her telling me about running track for her college. But when my fingers found her opening, started sliding in and out of her steamy, tight little pussyhole, she unloosed a whimper and a slight “ooh.” Quickly went quiet. And all subsequent conversation ceased. </p><p><br /></p><p>I began rotating between fingering her cunt and flicking at her clit, which was enlarged and the size of a kidney bean. With each flick at her throbbing clit, she seemed to inch up in her seat a bit, so I kept doing that. Then I noticed her posture go straight as a pole for a beat before she relaxed back into a slouch, and she covered her mouth with her free hand, leaned closer toward me and whispered, in a sultry voice, “I just came,” which pushed me over the edge. The floor then fell from under me, euphorically, and I blasted a big wet load into my boxers. Thank goodness my cargo shorts were a dark color. If they’d had been gray…</p><p><br /></p><p>The nymphet noticed me coming and giggled, pulled her hand away after squeezing out the last few drips. Then she wiped her small hands clean with a clot of napkins. I, likewise, withdrew my guilty hand from her crotch and also snatched a wad of napkins from the dispenser. A premonition struck and I spotted Socks and Sandals, at 11 o’clock, emerging like a Lego figure on the horizon. Yet she was still at a safe distance, so I asked the younger sister for her phone number or Myspace. Her eyes narrowing into a surly, vexed countenance, she capriciously shot back, “Like, why, so we can date?”</p><p><br /></p><p>Honestly, I was hoping to have Round Two later at my motel room. But, alas…</p><p><br /></p><p>“Uh,” I could only stutter. And when Socks and Sandals returned to the table, began pulling back her chair, her sister rose to her feet, pointed at me and angrily declared, “He just asked me out!”</p><p><br /></p><p>Flabbergasted, my tongue felt made of stone. I couldn’t even manage a word. Then Socks and Sandals cursed me out, threw the remnants of her Coke in my face and the two stomped off in a huff. I’d expected a sardonic wave or a middle finger from the nymphet but received none.</p><p>In hindsight, sure, I probably should have resisted the nymphet’s naughty temptation. But, to this day, I’m unsure what even really happened. Perhaps that was the nymphet’s way of “vetting” her sister’s internet dates. Though I guess it worked. And was far more cost-effective than hiring a private detective...</p><p><br /></p><p>Whatever it was, it was an unforgettable fap. Plus, I am very grateful that I didn’t get my kidney stolen. </p><p><br /></p><p>Heading back to my motel, I decided to leave the next morning and never returned.</p><p><br /></p><p>Still though, to this day, I get more than bad fashion vibes if I see anyone wearing sandals with socks…</p><p> </p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCb8KbInOEHGcnQ40KzaaKcbY7YwKT05A-wy9BPU2tu_xeGkc8qD_eBtaqJ_nfeDcN5CBgfqvfmRUEPJLvyZGpHNvAQ6SyK7Ekxr3f0omSknRngUz9onoeg9LTH_DxHqlRzykKnP71uyzWQqnYu5a5kpgxX5ZIn3g3Td5nRfSJYRyQYiHGlJS9poq9" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1100" data-original-width="1320" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCb8KbInOEHGcnQ40KzaaKcbY7YwKT05A-wy9BPU2tu_xeGkc8qD_eBtaqJ_nfeDcN5CBgfqvfmRUEPJLvyZGpHNvAQ6SyK7Ekxr3f0omSknRngUz9onoeg9LTH_DxHqlRzykKnP71uyzWQqnYu5a5kpgxX5ZIn3g3Td5nRfSJYRyQYiHGlJS9poq9" width="288" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Grayson, KY 41143, USA38.3325812 -82.948502310.022347363821154 -118.1047523 66.642815036178845 -47.7922523tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-62683304134269283932021-07-07T21:28:00.001-07:002021-07-07T21:28:04.484-07:00"Bum Bashing"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuqWKm8MfTqi1Sh_43-X14hxWcWvrgHiB-JUXWgEG5V8vlaI68uZ6YLgJMAIoxMSuAGlrlnXyPIerKj4z-OxnjJe0uWtHRRDQsYhE4CnXbnfATPcgDOdjCeO3LrJ2bMZ3Xl7JCa5Y77BQ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="626" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuqWKm8MfTqi1Sh_43-X14hxWcWvrgHiB-JUXWgEG5V8vlaI68uZ6YLgJMAIoxMSuAGlrlnXyPIerKj4z-OxnjJe0uWtHRRDQsYhE4CnXbnfATPcgDOdjCeO3LrJ2bMZ3Xl7JCa5Y77BQ/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Hank and Jimmy were the biggest bullies in our high school.
They were the stereotypical “bad kids.” They wore lots of black baggy clothes
and had multiple facial piercings. Hank even had a tattoo of a Chinese
character on his forearm before it was a fad.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(Of course nowadays, since he wasn’t Asian, he might be
accused of cultural appropriation, though it’d be hard to picture anyone saying
that to his face.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The two were inseparable, and if it weren’t for the rumor
about Hank raping a drunk girl, on a sofa, at a party, it might have been
thought the two were lovers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The two were always beating up on nerds, scrawny kids,
foreigners. There was a pudgy little Indian kid named Kartique (pronounced “Karta-kay”)
and they’d kick the crap out of him, call him “Farta-kay” and steal his lunch
money, damn near every day. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The worst I heard about them (well, maybe second to the
raping) was that the two liked to go “bum bashing.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bum bashing, I didn’t even know what that was until my
friend Tim filled me in. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Bum bashing is when people go out, normally under the cover
of night, and beat the shit out of bums, homeless,” Tim told me, in the
cafeteria, as he chomped on a corndog. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tim had gone on to say that Hank and Jimmy would allegedly
carry baseball bats, pipes, hammers, whatever blunt object they could get their
hands on, and then they’d set off in the night, find homeless sleeping rough in
parks or in alleys and then savagely beat the ever-living shit out of the vagrants.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tim and I then joked about dispensing a healthy helping of
vigilante justice on the pair. Maybe slapping an electromagnet at Hank and
Jimmy’s faces, watching it vacuum off their facial piercings. Then we talked
about flinging gasoline on them, as they stood behind the gym, smoking
cigarettes, setting the fuckers on fire. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We fantasized about numerous horror movie scenarios,
numerous gruesome ways to murder the two. Even though they never picked on us
as much as other kids, still, Jimmy had punched me in the stomach once and
stole my Chicago Bulls stocking cap and Harry had slammed Tim’s head into a
locker and stolen his Gameboy. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yup, even though I already despised them, hearing about their
penchant for “bum bashing” pissed me off to no end. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For real though, despite stinking worse than a bus station
bathroom, the homeless in our city were mostly harmless. Most were elderly,
with mental problems, many were Vietnam veterans. I always felt for those vets,
too, since I’d had an uncle killed in ‘Nam. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For real though, those veterans deserved better. Dammit, that
was the last thing they deserved, getting beaten on by those two snickering shitheads.
The more I thought about it, the more my blood boiled. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Soon after that cafeteria chat, I saw a story on the evening
news about a homeless man, in his 70s, who’d been found, beaten to death, not
far from our high school. I’d suspected the perpetrators to be Hank and Jimmy.
But I didn’t have any proof, aside from the rumor I’d heard. However, I’d considered
calling the police. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As much as I hate snitching, murder, especially that of a
senior citizen, now that’s fucked up, and the more I pondered it, the sicker I
felt, and I contemplated calling the cops and leaving an anonymous tip. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I decided not to after I heard the news. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was a damp, chilly and foggy Monday morning, and I got to
school late after missing the bus. My friend, Tim, who was my only friend,
really, back then, had seen me in the hallway, between classes, and he ran up
to me, giddy as can be. His breath smelled strongly of mint chewing gum. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Hey, you hear about Hank and Jimmy?” he asked, his eyes bulging
and blazing with excitement. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Shaking my head, “Nah, what about those asshats?” I asked. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“They were out wilding last night, slashing tires, breaking
windows, beating up on bums. But, like, a younger homeless veteran spotted them
wailing on an old guy in a cardboard box, and the veteran ran over, went
fucking Chuck Norris on the pair, beat the both of them... bad… Beat ‘em bad, I
mean, reeeeeeal bad. Hank’s neck is broken. Dude might never walk again... And
Jimmy… Yo… Jimmy is dead…”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Dead?” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Dead. Got his skull caved in. And the veteran is in jail.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I lacked the language to respond, I was so floored by the
news. Jimmy was the first person my age I knew who’d died. Even though I
despised him, still, his sudden, violent death hit me like a gut punch. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hank showed up to school, a couple months later. But he
wasn’t the same guy. He was emaciated. He had these heavy bags under his eyes,
making him look almost like a raccoon. He kept quiet and was transferred to the
“special needs” classes, where he sat with the mentally retarded kids. Later
that summer, he was convicted of the murder of the old homeless man, and was charged
as an adult, sentenced to a lengthy prison term. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The young veteran pled guilty to lesser charges and got off
relatively lightly, with only a short prison sentence. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m not inclined, usually, to believe in karma, but
sometimes, sometimes I wonder…<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-QZTl_bSq24f3sOLJ53flW0UNdox9W-HnoEDoX4UOPfkEXvDozClrHMXCIKhFN69pv3XlWDolIs67LgbC8AJi4-QTYJrLOm2EindmhGPpbaerR6NCwOtVUuf2hayz-H7acNSIjzfQHHg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="1280" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-QZTl_bSq24f3sOLJ53flW0UNdox9W-HnoEDoX4UOPfkEXvDozClrHMXCIKhFN69pv3XlWDolIs67LgbC8AJi4-QTYJrLOm2EindmhGPpbaerR6NCwOtVUuf2hayz-H7acNSIjzfQHHg/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0United States37.09024 -95.7128918.780006163821156 -130.869141 65.400473836178847 -60.556641tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-69787350314682837052021-06-16T19:31:00.001-07:002021-06-16T19:31:17.546-07:00Dispatch from the Afterlife: God is a Fan of the Silent Treatment<p> <a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2021/06/17/dispatch-from-the-afterlife-god-is-a-fan-of-the-silent-treatment/" target="_blank">GOD IS A FAN OF THE SILENT TREATMENT</a></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-70294294512090430072021-06-09T18:34:00.002-07:002021-06-09T18:34:36.870-07:00JESUS SPEAKS TO THE METH LAB!!!!!<p> <a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2021/06/10/dispatch-from-the-afterlife-jesus-finally-breaks-his-silence/">JESUS SPEAKS TO THE METH LAB!!!</a></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-30181891520621735152021-06-02T19:40:00.003-07:002021-06-02T19:40:57.881-07:00Sermon of James: A Correctional Officer’s Story, Part 3<p> <a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2021/06/03/sermon-of-james-the-correctional-officers-story-part-3/">SERMON OF JAMES 3</a></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-57839689621813179172021-05-26T20:36:00.000-07:002021-05-26T20:36:07.918-07:00Sermon of James: A Correctional Officer's Story, Part 2<p> <a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2021/05/27/sermon-of-james-a-correctional-officers-story-part-2/">JAMES 2</a></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-86662852968500150522021-05-19T19:52:00.000-07:002021-05-19T19:52:09.125-07:00Sermon of James: A Correctional Officer’s Story, Part 1<p><a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/sermon-of-james-a-correctional-officers-story-part-1/" target="_blank">CLICK SICK </a> </p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-70229742690958832622021-05-15T01:57:00.002-07:002021-05-15T01:57:43.197-07:00"Dao of Lisa: A Sorority Girl Obsessed with Serial Killers and Spree Killers!"<p> <a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2021/05/15/dao-of-lisa-a-sorority-girl-obsessed-with-serial-killers-and-spree-killers/" target="_blank">CLICK FUCK CLICK </a></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-12109703554099405932021-05-12T02:48:00.003-07:002021-05-12T02:49:17.765-07:00Home Alone Kid Gets Canceled<p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFNkGSGnCehE2UhSKicuhJT52Q0WzFs6vI-HZdgYTRjLv5-zuVKBHelwlTuJ95jKLbphmLiG60bQgRqkiSJYAzJm_6MMTCR_t8OeqsNyGSrzUWl89KFh3W7SF0ONBAMQDweDHXNkCjEp0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="179" data-original-width="281" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFNkGSGnCehE2UhSKicuhJT52Q0WzFs6vI-HZdgYTRjLv5-zuVKBHelwlTuJ95jKLbphmLiG60bQgRqkiSJYAzJm_6MMTCR_t8OeqsNyGSrzUWl89KFh3W7SF0ONBAMQDweDHXNkCjEp0/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2021/05/12/home-alone-kid-gets-canceled/" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">CLICK HERE</span></b></a></p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-41082053802532647322021-05-08T03:10:00.000-07:002021-05-08T03:10:01.478-07:00BACK TO THE FUNERAL HOME! Mia talks looks, men, and her friend, Lisa, the sorority girl obsessed with serial killers!<p> <a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2021/05/08/back-to-the-funeral-home-mia-talks-looks-men-and-her-friend-lisa-the-sorority-girl-obsessed-with-serial-killers/" target="_blank">CLICK HERE!</a></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-74106167499323205572021-05-04T03:32:00.000-07:002021-05-04T03:32:01.675-07:00"Oh Shit! I Shot My Teacher!" by Kim Cancer <p>SLEEP, EAT, FUCK, CLICK:</p><p><a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/2021/05/04/oh-shit-i-shot-my-teacher/" target="_blank">OH SHIT!</a></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com06070 Refugee Rd SW, Pataskala, OH 43062, USA39.9700484 -82.607985138.256767504042216 -84.805250725 41.68332929595779 -80.410719475tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-19750613125132253312021-05-04T03:27:00.000-07:002021-05-04T03:27:04.392-07:00NEW SITE!<p>The Meth Lab has a new home. </p><p>Please visit:</p><p><a href="https://methlabpress.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Meth Lab Press</a><br /></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Kikori, Papua New Guinea-7.2071323 144.4342138-24.4811725098431 126.85608880000001 10.066907909843101 162.0123388tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-13461502391855973882021-04-28T19:53:00.004-07:002021-04-28T19:54:41.266-07:00"The Tibetan: Tashi གསུམ་ (3)" <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSwhovHdkikB60FOLAMmMV9UU58xHStuv3Q8tVRUumeB3UNbPTYBFBTr59qq2H8L5faQlbZG_rUI2V5W88lSAFBrUj4pRVNzQokjz6-dQVhy96TYtgyBFqr3LslHcqIo6nkuYi5O8-nII/s736/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="736" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSwhovHdkikB60FOLAMmMV9UU58xHStuv3Q8tVRUumeB3UNbPTYBFBTr59qq2H8L5faQlbZG_rUI2V5W88lSAFBrUj4pRVNzQokjz6-dQVhy96TYtgyBFqr3LslHcqIo6nkuYi5O8-nII/s320/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">My time at the camp flew by. Perhaps because every day was
exactly the same. In my dormitory, with 20 other men, we’d be awoken by
airhorns at 5 a.m., tidy up our bunk beds, wash up, stand upright for a roll
call, then go to the canteen, eat, then go to the classroom, study Maoism,
Communism, study Mandarin, study the PRC Constitution, Chinese history, and
watch propaganda videos. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Every lesson would begin and end with us passionately singing
patriotic songs. Our teachers were police officers; all of them old, cagey, and
having serious, sunken, grim facial features, with loads of bluish spots around
their thin, jagged faces. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then, after classes, we’d have lunch, which was the biggest
meal of the day. It was standard Chinese fare, rice, noodles, meats, fried
everything… I must admit that the food at the camp was surprisingly tasty. This
was undoubtably due to the kitchen staff receiving specialized culinary
training in preparation for posts at 5-star hotels, high-end restaurants, and
military bases throughout China. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Following lunch, afternoons were spent doing light labor
around the camp- cleaning, landscaping, farming. Everyone had an assigned task.
Some were assigned to a factory on the site that produced children’s toys. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After dinner, we’d take evening exercise, usually running,
walking, or marching in place. This was followed by nightly assemblies, where
speakers, generally police or low-ranking party members, would deliver
motivational speeches or we’d be shown propaganda films. Afterward, we’d return
to our bunks and wash up before lights out. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Most there, including myself, followed the program. I told
them what they wanted to hear. I read the propaganda with gusto. There were few
who resisted. I only saw one who talked back to a guard, in the canteen, and he
was beaten severely by that guard and the guard’s guard comrades. The guards
made a point of beating him in front of us, kicking and lashing the man, who’d
crumpled up and sobbed into a defensive ball on the canteen’s white linoleum
floor. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There were “points” we could earn for informing on a fellow
prisoner, points which could help us possibly get released early. But I never
saw or heard of anybody doing anything suspicious or subversive. And I don’t
think I’d tell if I did, although I might have had to, because if I didn’t,
there were also penalties you could receive if you didn’t tell the guards about
suspicious or illegal, immoral behavior. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So I kept quiet and avoided any unnecessary interactions
with my fellow prisoners. I kept my head down. I followed orders. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now and then, at night, if I couldn’t sleep, I’d lie in my
bunk and would reflect on what my grandfather had said, about this being karma,
Tibet’s punishment for abandoning the dharma. Would this be atonement? Keeping
quiet? Shouting Chinese slogans? I hoped so. But most of the feelings, ideas I
had soon died. My mind went quiet. My soul was numb, like my back and shoulders
had turned when I was beaten. I stopped having feelings and allowed my place,
my spot in the universe to be whatever it would be. I surrendered…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At my release hearing, I was praised as a model prisoner. I
was assigned a job as a tour guide, which shocked me, because it was nothing
I’d ever done before. But I realized that if they feared the foreigners
receiving bad news about Tibet, I would be the perfect person to not spread bad
news, since I was fully aware of bad news’ and rumors’ consequences.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Once I’d returned home, my family, my wife, and young
daughter, were overjoyed to see me. Springing at me with soft puppy dog eyes
when I walked in the door of my home, they hugged me tightly. We cried tears of
joy and anguish. I hadn’t seen them in three years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We’ve never once discussed why I was gone. There’s no need.
Others in my village have had the same experience. Many remain in the camps. I
know how lucky I am to return. Buddha is merciful… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tibet is often closed for foreigners, so most of the time,
I’m in my office, which is on the second floor of a government complex, just
outside the city. The complex is enormous. It’s a long horizontal line, a
series of identical square, glassy concrete office buildings. However, most of
the buildings and offices in the complex sit empty, unused... <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m often sitting alone in my office, watching soccer, or
I’m with a Chinese coworker from down the hall. I don’t know what his job is,
and I’ve never asked. He doesn’t appear to work much or ever be in a hurry.
Many days, he doesn’t show up to work at all. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There’s a Tibetan security guard I play cards with, in my
office. We smoke cigarettes and chat. Our talks are always about European
soccer. He hinted once at gambling on matches, but I pretended to not hear it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I collect a regular government salary, which is generous,
more than I earned as a teacher. I’ll have a good pension. My family receives
state healthcare. Life’s okay. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The foreigners they assign me are almost always curious to
know about Tibet, its culture, history, but few ask about politics. Many ask me
to help them buy drugs. They think every Tibetan smokes hash. I’ve never smoked
anything but cigarettes. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Occasionally a foreigner will ask about the Dalai Lama or a
sensitive issue; they’ll twist their eyebrows into question marks, speak in
hushed tones, innuendos, expecting me to utter a revelation, picking at me for
something they can post to Facebook. But I don’t answer any of the foreigners’
questions that would have me in trouble. I avoid unnecessary interactions. I
stick to the script. What would it matter anyway? What would it matter if I
spilled my guts to one of these snow-skinned, yellow-haired, blue-eyed men or
women? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My grandfather told me that the world knows of Tibet’s
plight. I read of it online, too. I read of it before, in an internet café,
when we could access foreign media sites. I’d use the BBC, YouTube to study
English, to gather learning materials for my classes. I saw articles about
Tibet. Maybe they still speak of Tibet, I don’t know. I can’t access those
sites anymore. They’ve been shut down. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And these days, I wouldn’t even try to find them. In a
neighboring village, a college student was recently arrested for selling VPN
software that enabled users to bypass China’s internet censorship controls,
allowed access to foreign news. For his crime, he was sentenced to two years of
hard labor… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not only is foreign media banned, but there are times, too,
around holidays or anniversaries, the entire Internet is shut down for a day or
week…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Does the world know about Tibet? Does the world know of our
plight? Does the UN know? Yes, of course they do! The world knows everything
about us. They know about our leader, His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. They know
that it’s illegal to place a picture of the Dalai Lama anywhere, even in our
private homes. They know it’s illegal to fly the Tibetan national flag, even in
our private homes. They know. They know!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">They know what’s happened here and what is happening here.
But, to be frank, they do not care. No one cares about Tibet. Most Tibetans
don’t care anymore. Our youngest children can barely speak Tibetan. Tibetan
language has been banned in schools. There are Tibetan children in Lhasa who
only speak Chinese. There are children in Lhasa who call themselves Chinese. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And no one cares. No one cares. The world has turned its
back on us. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tibet is a country that doesn’t even exist. We’re just
ghosts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Lhasa, Tibet29.654837999999991 91.1405521.3446041638211454 55.984302 57.965071836178836 126.296802tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-67800120552204434132021-04-22T02:32:00.004-07:002021-04-22T02:33:04.770-07:00"The Tibetan: Tashi གཉིས་ (2)"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgsB7AjJUQtcGZ12qFBqS-cQGswv_e8dS7fV3XKlmZ0ak-HgdzhW6YGiBPT4o8vuzcYApMk2aQOjlq4t-VQtIC5-QUgwv-OrWsxEZzE2Gt5b36HLbGR9WPQIWZG9Lvbbp1Vmf7SNsoj4/s736/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="736" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgsB7AjJUQtcGZ12qFBqS-cQGswv_e8dS7fV3XKlmZ0ak-HgdzhW6YGiBPT4o8vuzcYApMk2aQOjlq4t-VQtIC5-QUgwv-OrWsxEZzE2Gt5b36HLbGR9WPQIWZG9Lvbbp1Vmf7SNsoj4/s320/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The faceless guards led me through a series of dark, narrow,
bending hallways and brought me to another cell, another icebox. It had lights
overhead. They were golden and intensely bright lights. They were lights like
spotlights on a stage. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the cell were 15 other men, all Tibetans, except for one
Chinese, who appeared mute or deaf and was missing about half his left arm. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We weren’t allowed to speak. And we didn’t want to, either.
A bird-faced jailer sat on a plastic stool, staring at us from the shadows,
behind the harsh light. He’d sit pensively, somewhere behind the cell, and
would emerge, with a truncheon, and rattle at the bars if anyone spoke. Another
jailer, also with enraged eyes, brought us our food, and, in the evenings,
wheeled in a TV, that we were required to watch. It’d show Chinese state
propaganda, generally news, documentaries, and sometimes soap operas of happy
Han families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We slept on the floor. We used a bucket in the corner for
piss and shit. There was one small, grimy sink, with a single cold-water tap,
next to the bucket for washing. We were fed twice daily, a small bowl of rice
and a bowl of clear soup with a chunk or two of pork fat and slice or two of
cabbage. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I was there a while. I wouldn’t find out how long until I
left. The days and nights, time, became irrelevant. There was no window in the
cell, no clock, and the lights were kept on 24/7, so time didn’t really exist
there. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In that deathly, luminous cell, we all just sat staring at
the gray wall. Since I thought I might be sentenced to death, my thoughts, at
first, were of my next life, where I’d be, who’d I’d be, what I’d be, and how
much karma I’d earned and how I might be reincarnated. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But then my thinking turned to fear, wondering what I’d be
charged with, what my “crime” could possibly be. I worried about being sent to
one of the worst labor camps. I feared never seeing my family again. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It sounds horrible. I sound like a monster when I say it,
but I actually didn’t think too much of my family during this ordeal. Firstly,
because it was too painful. Secondly, though, because I thought, perhaps, that
they’d turned me in, for whatever my crime was, and that hurt so much more. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thinking, about anything, became too difficult, so I
stopped. I stopped my mind from racing, from conjecture, and I accepted karma.
I began to silently recite Buddhist mantras, over and over, and I’d meditate,
revisit the calm of dreamless sleep…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eventually, the faceless men in turtle helmets returned,
took me to another room, in another part of the jail. This room actually had a
window, and I saw the sun for the first time in ages. The sun! The glorious
sun! Its yellowy light pouring into the room, like the aura of a deity. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sitting down to a hard metal chair, I was not strapped in or
bound, but my back and shoulders still ached, from the first day’s beating, and
from sleeping on the cold concrete floor. But I could feel the beautiful,
merciful touch of the sun’s rays, shining in from that window, and the sunlight
tickled and warmed me and brought me back to life, and I shifted my weight
toward its glow, like a flower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The men presented me a written confession and a pen. I’d
have almost signed anything, just to be out of there. I’d have maybe confessed
to murder if it meant being outside, working in the sun, breathing fresh air,
never seeing that jail again, never again smelling its mutant stench of feces,
urine, and bodies. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The statement said I’d been reported by a neighbor for
“spreading rumors and subverting state power.” It didn’t say the neighbor’s
name. It didn’t elaborate on exactly what “rumor” I’d spread. I couldn’t
imagine what I’d said that would have been considered a “rumor.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I knew of this charge. I heard of others receiving it,
usually for criticizing the government or holding an unsanctioned religious
event or gathering. Short of being told that everything was a misunderstanding
and declared innocent, a charge like this was the best I could hope for. It
meant probably, at most, maybe 5 years, and in a reeducation camp, not one of the
hard labor camps. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I signed it without question and was then whisked to another
part of the building, brought before a panel of 3 judges, one of whom, not much
older than me, looked Tibetan. I don’t know if he was for sure Tibetan, but he
looked like it. I’ve rarely felt such anger as I did, toward that judge. I’d
expect the Chinese to do this, but a fellow Tibetan, being my judge, no, I
couldn’t... Part of me died inside, just laying eyes on him. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Buddha forgive me, but I’d have killed him, with my bare
hands, if I could have. I’d have sprung up, charged at him and wrapped my hands
around his skinny neck, and strangled him to death, snapped his neck, like a
chicken, and stomped on his lifeless face until it was gone, until any trace of
his Tibetan features were erased. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’d never felt such hate for my fellow man. Rage jolted
through me, as I stood there, my teeth chattering, and I hung my head and
stared at the floor. In that moment, I couldn’t see the judge’s face. I
couldn’t bear it…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The panel sentenced me to three years and asked that I
apologize and acknowledge my crimes to the court. And I did. I threw my head
back. I looked up. I told them what they wanted to hear. That I apologized for
my crimes. That I loved Mother China. That I was proud and loyal to the
Communist Party. That I would correct my errors. I would have mentioned my
errors, specifically, since I know that would have made them happier, but I
couldn’t, because I still wasn’t exactly sure what I’d been accused of saying. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(Deep down, it dawned on me how grateful I should be that it
was a “neighbor” who’d been the informer and not a family member. I felt
horrible, too, that I’d ever suspected my family of such treason. Buddha please
forgive me for this sin…)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The judges admonished me. They spoke, sternly, iron-eyed,
saying how hopefully “I’ve learned my lesson.” I was immediately led, in
handcuffs and shackles, to a van, which had three other men, who were Chinese,
and we were transported to a reeducation camp that was fairly close by. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Lhasa, Tibet29.654837999999991 91.1405521.3446041638211454 55.984302 57.965071836178836 126.296802tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-75109759726655532302021-04-14T20:31:00.002-07:002021-04-14T20:31:31.042-07:00"The Tibetan: Tashi གཅིག་"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilDXuZbolJ7lvpxxJ4jVhlUEJrt93WH_w3MGliKWRXif4LnpNl8yXSyQsbADaAiPnA47iwFRmZmu-LNL8mWJreY0iWq5RrlVoZkLKQmskNewyVfk54e9xemUTcrkcUKTGocgicyL_OJkg/s736/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="736" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilDXuZbolJ7lvpxxJ4jVhlUEJrt93WH_w3MGliKWRXif4LnpNl8yXSyQsbADaAiPnA47iwFRmZmu-LNL8mWJreY0iWq5RrlVoZkLKQmskNewyVfk54e9xemUTcrkcUKTGocgicyL_OJkg/s320/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I don’t like to talk about it. But I see it in dreams. I
dream of it. I’m there. On the floor, that cold concrete floor, where I stayed
for what I think was months. I stopped counting the days. But it was probably
two or three months. I only know this because the season had changed. It was
the dead of winter when they came for me, when they came to my house. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We’re used to seeing them. We’re used to their questionings,
or them cordoning off the village. They rope off the village during holidays.
Or if there’s an immolation. There were more immolations before, but they’ve
stopped almost entirely since the Chinese began arresting the immolator’s
family members. Is it guilt by association or that they fear the family members
would do it next?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s unclear, to me, why they’d care. The cynical side of me
believes they’d be happier with us in flames, us eaten by fire. Then there’d be
less Tibetans for them to worry about. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My grandfather spoke of our country before it was invaded
and captured. He spoke of greed. He spoke of serfdom. I wasn’t sure whether to
believe him or not because he’d been in a reeducation camp like I was. He was
schizophrenic. He’d parrot the party line in public, but at home he’d speak of
the country, the old times, independence, both in nostalgia and disgust. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He spoke of it being karma. That Tibetans had strayed from
the righteous path the Buddha had set for us. He’d wished the next life, for
him, and for every Tibetan, to be better. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I pondered the next life a lot, my first days in jail. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When they arrested me, they bound my arms behind my back,
blindfolded me, and hauled me away. Then they brought me to jail and chained me
to a chair, a tiger chair; my arms and legs strapped tightly, by leather bands,
to the cold, hard metal seat. I sat rooted in that chair for hours. I pissed
myself. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">They yelled at me, again and again, demanding that I confess
to my crime, but I didn’t know what crime they meant. I’d been an English
teacher at the local school. I’d only taught from the books they gave me. I’m a
devout Buddhist. I don’t believe in harming others. I’ve never stolen. I’ve
never committed an illegal act. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I repeated, over and over, that I’d committed no crimes.
That didn’t satisfy them. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I remember the room… The interrogation room… It was dark and
freezing. It stank. It’d stunk so thickly of urine, already, when I’d been led
in there. The atrocious smell was the first thing I noticed when I entered the
room, blindfolded, my hands roped behind my back. I was revolted by the
intensity, the heavy punch of the stench. It reeked worse than any toilet or
outhouse or manure pit… It made me woozy… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">They’d untied my blindfold, but I couldn’t see their faces.
All I could see were their helmets. The helmets were pill blue and shaped like
turtle shells. I still couldn’t quite see their faces when they approached me,
either. It was as if they had no faces. There was only a ball of darkness where
a face should have been. There was only a black bubble, a void between their
uniformed bodies and turtle helmets. It was as if the turtle helmets were
hovering in the air above, like flying saucers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I believe that I pressed my eyes shut when they approached
because I didn’t want to see them. I wouldn’t see them. I would control that,
if nothing else. But I couldn’t stop hearing. I couldn’t stop hearing the
cries, accusations of sedition. Sedition? That’s what it was about, I pieced
together. And I denied that, strongly. I professed my patriotism to the
Communist Party. I professed my love for my country. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“What is YOUR country?!” one shouted, before dashing over
and whacking me, hard, on the shoulder, with a truncheon. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“China!” I cried, “China!”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“China?!” he bellowed back, before striking my sides and
shoulders several times, sending shockwaves of crunching pain searing through
me. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There’s only so much a person can endure, and eventually the
anguish reached its crescendo. My nerves became blunted, and I numbed up, and
thank Buddha, the last couple strikes I felt only the sickening jolt of their
sticks whipping my numb body. But at least the pain… the pain slept… Then I
figured out what I’d said wrong... <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The People’s Republic of China!” I cried out, and then
began to sing the national anthem, “March of the Volunteers.” I’d memorized it by
heart, after hearing it, every day for years, blasting from the loudspeakers
installed around my village. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Once I started singing the anthem, the men relented striking
me.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So I sang louder, and louder, my voice straining, hot-salt
tears involuntarily streaking down my cheeks, I sang, “Arise, ye who refuse to
be slaves! With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall! As China
faces her greatest peril, from each one the urgent call to action comes forth.
Arise! Arise! Arise! Millions of but one heart! Braving the enemies' fire!
March on! Braving the enemies' fire! March on! March on! March, MARCH ON!”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’d had a cousin who’d been interrogated, beaten, and he’d
spontaneously burst into the song, thinking it might make his captors let up
their assault. And it worked. Fortunately, it worked for me too. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But again, they demanded I confess to my crimes. I knew my
options were limited, that I would probably have to confess. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After they’d struck my back, the blows must have damaged my
lungs because it hurt to breathe. Between choking gasps of breath, I requested
they present me my crimes, in writing, and that I’d sign a confession. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I supposed that as long as I wasn’t being framed for a
murder and wasn’t facing the death penalty or life sentence, I might confess,
depending on the charges. Once the Chinese arrest you, whatever they arrested
you for, you did, whether you really did it or not. I’d learned from others’
experiences that the only way out is to confess, that way you’ll receive a
lesser sentence. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A murder or other heinous crime that carried too long a
sentence I wouldn’t confess to, since either way, I’d be dead. A death penalty
would be better, anyhow, than a life in the Chinese labor camps. I’ve heard of
life there, waking up at sunrise, picking cotton all day, digging holes, doing
hard labor, or toiling with backbreaking factory work. Being beaten, kept in a
small dog cage if you didn’t meet quotas. The prison labor camps in China are
hell on Earth. I’d rather they just shoot me in the head...<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Lhasa, Tibet29.654837999999991 91.1405521.3446041638211454 55.984302 57.965071836178836 126.296802tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-31682213145431019772021-04-07T20:54:00.004-07:002021-04-07T20:55:25.901-07:00"Immolation in Lhasa, Tibet" <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgazumdPS1uUJfU1FH8KirtJu7u9_7INHdQs-vAWvy02F5Mf9KPCYtDZNFVGicHKpRiLjQWQtVE8zefS1I00booiD36dcx18luJaTLdjN8OD2yXummdnoNNqtGQZCwsMz3-QtDIQqNXOkI/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="283" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgazumdPS1uUJfU1FH8KirtJu7u9_7INHdQs-vAWvy02F5Mf9KPCYtDZNFVGicHKpRiLjQWQtVE8zefS1I00booiD36dcx18luJaTLdjN8OD2yXummdnoNNqtGQZCwsMz3-QtDIQqNXOkI/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">As the evening sky began to purple, I shifted my gaze and
spotted a young Tibetan girl, maybe 15 feet from us, down the city block. The
girl was in an oversized, floppy white robe, like what a cult member would
wear. She’d shaved her head, like a Buddhist nun, and her face appeared
reddened, yet blank, emotionless, like a passport or driver’s license photo. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Showing no feelings, she set down a backpack, and from it,
lifted out a red canister, held it aloft and doused herself in a clear liquid. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">She then whipped out a lighter from under her white robe,
flicked it with her thumb, and touched the tongue of the tiny orange flame to
her chest. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">She didn’t explode. It wasn’t like a bombing. It was more
like when you start a fire and the kindle begins small and spreads, grows. The
flames began in a small pool on her chest and grew into waves that wrinkled,
washed sideways and upwards, slower than I’d have expected, although it could
have been that the scene was so surreal that it appeared as if the whole thing
was happening in slow-motion. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Standing with her arms outstretched to a “T”, the fulgurate
flames fully engulfed her form. She appeared as if a burning effigy, inhuman,
particularly given her silence. I’d have expected she’d scream or chant, utter
a statement, and maybe she did, but I didn’t hear it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After a handful of long seconds, she then crumpled to the
ground, her forward falling body becoming a burning ball, a heap of tumbling
flames. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then the smell reached us. It was far worse than that of
burning hair. It was burning hair mixed with the smell of burning flesh. It was
such a nauseating smell, such a stench, that once the smell found me, I felt an
ugly sensation tingle and wash over me, sickening my stomach, like I swallowed
a thumbtack. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was then, I swear, that I saw the girl’s soul, like a
specter, float upwards and leave her body; her ghost, her soul in a spectral
cast, ascending luminously from the fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The girl, in her white robe, was whole, intact, her form
translucent and radiant. Her face was resolute, contrite, as she rose from the
burning lump, like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Then she broke apart, into a
thousand hailstone-like pieces that whirled and washed in with the wafts of
bone-gray smoke billowing below the purpling night. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The police in the booth nearby had been playing on their
phones, when it happened, and were too late to stop the immolation, though I
guess they rushed in once they’d looked up and seen the flames. The cops, panic
painted all over their twisted faces, clumsily hurried over, brandishing fire
extinguishers, and they desperately shot a volley of gooey white foamy liquid
bursts that extinguished the blaze. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But they were unable to prevent the soul from exiting the
body, and all that remained on the pavement was a white and black blob, vapors,
and curls of smoke…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Our group stood transfixed, watching the scene. It was like
some shit from a movie, seeing a person burn themself alive. I’d never seen
anyone die before. I was frozen in shock. Then I shuddered, my throat dry as
salt, my throat clicking. I was thinking I might vomit. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even the Welshman was moved by the scene. He just stared at
it, somber, his face bleached pink and his upper lip curled, his head cocked to
the side. The other guys cried. My eyes teared up a bit, too, I’ll admit. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I wondered if she’d moved on to another life. I hoped she
did. I hoped she wasn’t a ghost, an unhappy ghost, wandering the Earth. That
wasn’t a sky burial. But did it count? Was it merit? Or would she go to the
Buddhist version of hell, Naraka? I wanted to ask our tour guide about it… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I wouldn’t have the chance. Another group of cops
quickly showed, swarmed the scene. They whisked us away and led us to a couple
idling cop cars and brought us to police headquarters. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9TAbfx9Sp_fMDZ7BQ9GgrNbCnTsQxi9jaagcuR3JNVtNouQiehhyI7kzjfOgmKO8bCaf0KIOO-Jlkt2XBCkeK3X86Ir_qJHzgm2rJlMS3ypeeqEUC3A3ciGppveaeWVWaSTkS7z4LPx4/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="175" data-original-width="288" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9TAbfx9Sp_fMDZ7BQ9GgrNbCnTsQxi9jaagcuR3JNVtNouQiehhyI7kzjfOgmKO8bCaf0KIOO-Jlkt2XBCkeK3X86Ir_qJHzgm2rJlMS3ypeeqEUC3A3ciGppveaeWVWaSTkS7z4LPx4/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Man, that police place was grim. It was a big gray box of a
building, and it seemed like everything in it was gray or colorless. Worse yet,
it was cold as a meat locker, smelled moldy as an old gym, and practically
every cop inside was smoking cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes inside their
offices, the hallways, at their desks, even in the elevators. I’d never seen so
many people smoking. It was like we’d stepped out of a time machine, stepped
into a 1950s black and white movie…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The police didn’t handcuff us, and they weren’t rough with
us. But, with the help of an interpreter (a police lady, a young, 20ish Chinese
girl, not bad looking, either) a pair of shifty-eyed middle-aged coppers
questioned us for an hour or so about the incident, asking the same stupid
questions again and again. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were then shuffled from one drab, gray room to another,
made to wait. Finally, an English-speaking policeman arrived to question us.
The policeman had a fat head, and the flesh around his eyes was all puffy. The
fat head gamboled in, walking in confident, elongated strides. He was smoking a
cig, of course, and he sat down to speak with us. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(The fat head’s comportment and his appearance gave him the
look of a man who is very important, or a man who just thinks he’s very
important. I couldn’t determine which…) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The fat head’s eyes had a quiet kind of animosity to them.
He spoke impeccable English, almost in an upper-class British accent. He
proceeded to interview us as a group. Then he brought us to other identically
drab waiting rooms and interviewed us separately, asked the same shit he and
the other cops asked, “What did you see?” “Where are you from?” “Did you know
her?” et fucking cetera, man. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(Like any of us would know a random Tibetan chick on the
street? Come on!)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then another set of cops, in different uniforms trudged in.
They were more military looking, these cops, had helmets, combat boots, the
whole nine. With furrowed brows, lips seemingly curled in disgust, they checked
our phones, and one of their gruff superior types, who didn’t speak English,
demanded us, through the cute girl interpreter, to delete every single photo
we’d taken during the trip. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The cute interpreter maintained a polite tone and trembling
smile as she spoke with us. Obviously, none of us wished to trash all our vacation
photos, all of which were innocuous, since I can’t remember any of us snapping
photos of the immolation. However, none of us protested the policeman’s
commands.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq_Oijomw05H_GqK7FLXw9CPKgMPZEMy5acc5RbJpVTW_jPBa7mUdZbafsfGkfKNamxRvkdjMyXBFvHlNRiY0tCgvA0kDsgWRYwRji5deZjtrG_3wMIbUry2oZuXUoajnSDS-lhMxiKKM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="512" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq_Oijomw05H_GqK7FLXw9CPKgMPZEMy5acc5RbJpVTW_jPBa7mUdZbafsfGkfKNamxRvkdjMyXBFvHlNRiY0tCgvA0kDsgWRYwRji5deZjtrG_3wMIbUry2oZuXUoajnSDS-lhMxiKKM/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After they thoroughly inspected our phones, they huddled up,
and the interpreter returned, told us we were to be deported immediately. She
told us “no why” when we asked why, all the while maintaining her formal tone
and polished albeit shaky smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were stunned. We couldn’t figure out why we were being
deported, what part we had in this, aside from being witnesses… Perhaps it was
that they saw us as a bad omen, bad luck. Welshman speculated that it was
probably because they would lock down the area and that meant kicking
foreigners out first. Whatever it was, the decision was final. There’d be no
appeals. Peering over at the cops, with their menacing scowls, they didn’t
appear to be open to negotiations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Once they finished the interrogations, they requested us to
sign paperwork, which was entirely written in Chinese, and which the interpreter
told us was simply a confirmation that we’d witnessed a “terrorist attack” and
an act of “insurrection.” However, flipping through the papers, we wordlessly
glanced at the Chinese characters... To me, the words were like strange
hieroglyphics, practically an alien script... <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then, glancing at each other, we shook our heads, and, to a
man, we refused, on the grounds that we couldn’t read Chinese, and we requested
to speak with our countries’ consulates. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thinking we might be spending a few days, or weeks,
possibly, in the police station, we decided that would still be better than
signing a statement in a language we can’t read. A statement that perhaps could
be a confession or political ploy, form of entrapment. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But only maybe 20 minutes later, the cops returned, without
the paperwork, and escorted us out and drove us to the hostel to gather our
things. Then we journeyed directly to the airport, to leave on the first flight
out to Hong Kong, which was the next morning, and so we spent the night in the
airport, accompanied the entire time by angry-eyed, surly police escorts. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Chinese police didn’t abuse us, but there was a look in
their eyes, a seething hatred toward us that I could sense. It was a look like,
“If we had the chance to kill you, to shove you in front of a firing squad, we
happily would, so don’t try anything brave, you stupid fucking honky…”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“…”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh02gQIEgqOsb8W3rwKUNlKcDYvv4dnqucop3a8AZpcc7x1tEf4ZJBkuChyphenhyphenD8BLXiPeMAa1SN2kkRYHAS4DNbgYY88ci3h7UXN-A691udjzEOeiwlXGiYWDuctY6RdKJ12sS0s4BeTzspk/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="736" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh02gQIEgqOsb8W3rwKUNlKcDYvv4dnqucop3a8AZpcc7x1tEf4ZJBkuChyphenhyphenD8BLXiPeMAa1SN2kkRYHAS4DNbgYY88ci3h7UXN-A691udjzEOeiwlXGiYWDuctY6RdKJ12sS0s4BeTzspk/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We spoke briefly, by phone, with the tour guide, who
promised us a partial refund, because the portion of the trip to Mount Everest,
to drive around the foot of the mountain, would be canceled. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I can’t climb the fucking mountain naked, right? Bullocks!”
grumbled the Welshman, disappointed. Though he whispered to me, triumphantly,
as we stood at the urinals, with our dicks in our hands, pissing, that his
camera and phone were both set to the cloud and the photos would be safe. He’d
be posting them to Facebook later. He bragged that he’d once sold a picture to
the AP of a soldier shooting a protestor in Bangkok. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Wonder how much the Firestarter will fetch...” Welshman
wondered aloud in a hushed voice, and a cunning little smile touched his lips. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The whole time in Tibet, even though I’d downloaded a VPN, I
could barely get online. I guess he had satellite net or something else. A few
weeks later, when I was in Japan, he emailed me the pics, but forwarded none of
the “Firestarter.” I didn’t ask why…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Though I was bummed I couldn’t check out Mount Everest,
seeing that sky burial, then seeing that soul pass from the girl’s body, was
far more powerful than visiting any mountain, even the world’s tallest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Man, watching the girl’s soul, watching her ghost,
witnessing it with my own eyes, it was, to me, a verification that the
Buddhists are right. There is a soul. There is karma. There is another life.
There is something more. I’d seen it. I’d really seen it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ever since then, I became a philosophical Buddhist. I don’t
visit the temple or pray, but I’m with the ideology. I can relate a lot to the
Buddha. I too was a sheltered rich kid, a prince, who was profoundly changed,
after leaving my palace and witnessing the real world, witnessing suffering...
I so totally respect and love the Buddha’s story, the Buddha’s whole vibe. I
love the Buddha, man; like every other religious figure is all blood and guts
and damnation, and here’s the Buddha, totally chill…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe I’ll do like him. Start a new religion. Or start a
cult. Colt’s Cult. Cult of Colt. But it’d be a cool cult, like we wouldn’t be
into sex crimes or suicide or spaceships. We wouldn’t be weird. We’d just go
somewhere and chill. Be chill. Like the Buddha…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m still a party guy, a philanderer, sure. I’m far from
perfect. But it’s all in fun. Everything I do is fun. I try to create positive
vibes because I know they’ll boomerang back to me. And I know that if I create
positive energy, my next life will be rad. I totally believe in reincarnation,
man. I’m ready for it. Like, death could be awesome, I think, if you’ve been
living right….<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, look, I’m not afraid of any ghosts, man. I’m not afraid
of that house. I’ll visit it later. I mean, for real, after what I saw, I know
that ghosts are a part of something greater. Ghosts are just like you or me.
They’re travelers. They’re passing through, and they’re not to be feared. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You know what I have come to believe? I believe that the
scariest ghosts and monsters are alive. They’re inside us. They’re the evil
living in the hearts of men. They’re the impulses of rage, insanity. They’re
what make people kill. They’re the hopelessness, the desperation that would
drive a person to burn themself alive. They’re our darkest feelings. Now those…
Those are the fucking scariest spirits. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1tDAdMEV_Qxt2VExsQIi0-EbQ1hN2U01kk1-lEBUyYoRDMaqRBC9gG3CJlrTzGAhPzjE1gB-35m-rZBsVUkBmF0BjGlPgk3lciIdfq1AbOCYn31oXmc3cmqvhIbXbep73nqR3GxOVABM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="736" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1tDAdMEV_Qxt2VExsQIi0-EbQ1hN2U01kk1-lEBUyYoRDMaqRBC9gG3CJlrTzGAhPzjE1gB-35m-rZBsVUkBmF0BjGlPgk3lciIdfq1AbOCYn31oXmc3cmqvhIbXbep73nqR3GxOVABM/" width="258" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Lhasa, Tibet29.654837999999991 91.1405521.3446041638211454 55.984302 57.965071836178836 126.296802tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-51773950299111514332021-03-30T02:52:00.003-07:002021-03-30T02:52:47.646-07:00"Killing Mr. Potato Head"<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzdd0O8OG8k4mUqtDlBptu8pE0YhwtJXM6ImQ0aFyksY-14bfBpkyQf5o5opwvyvkM7aPDofg-GRmoV0TiyHqCwTj9OSuiY8rzVLpOIoo9xbjniYl9SKdPe3NMfvsaUyfR2eJ_hNCgO_E/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzdd0O8OG8k4mUqtDlBptu8pE0YhwtJXM6ImQ0aFyksY-14bfBpkyQf5o5opwvyvkM7aPDofg-GRmoV0TiyHqCwTj9OSuiY8rzVLpOIoo9xbjniYl9SKdPe3NMfvsaUyfR2eJ_hNCgO_E/" width="320" /></a></div><span style="text-align: left;"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></p>The evening’s reception was a resounding success. There must
have been over 100 people in attendance!</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Smiling through sweet sips of champagne, Mr. Wu gazed proudly
around the pristine reception hall. The place was nothing short of immaculate, with
its teak walls, jade sculptures, marble-top tables, and crystal chandeliers... <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mr. Wu drew in a deep breath. Then he nodded in
satisfaction, and his eyes twinkled as he soaked in the sights and smells of the
feast, and his ears perked up at the clinking of wine glasses, hum of chatter,
and choruses of laughter. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This was it. His years were coming to fruition. He’d bought
a big house and a fancy car. He’d married a beautiful woman and had a beautiful
baby. Yes. This was it. He was on his way to being a true tiger. He could see
it now. The IPO, the private planes, Swiss bank accounts, luxury ski trips, interviews
on TV. It was happening. By Buddha, it was happening! <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mr. Wu’s daughter, Lin, eyed her father with disgust. Her
eyes blazing as she sat rooted to her chair. Watching her father drink and be
merry, it made her sick. Watching him brag about “his” business… Ugh, it boiled
her blood. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lin hated everything about her father, starting with his
personality. She hated him as a person, first and foremost. But she also really
hated his appearance. Particularly his head. The shape of his head, it was
weird. It was like a big, boiled egg, like his face was just a drawing on a
boiled egg. Oh, and the way his forehead slopes at too sharp an angle, like a
ramp, as it curves to his scalp, to her, that was also highly unnerving. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not only did he have a big stupid weird head, but she hated
his short legs and arms too. With his short legs and arms and big bald head,
her father reminded her, unflatteringly, of a Mr. Potato Head doll. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">How could any woman be with a man like that, she’d pondered,
in dismay… She’d suspected her mother had had an affair. That he wasn’t her
real father. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">God, she really hoped he wasn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mr. Wu’s wife, Shan, sat by his side, like always, steeped
in silence. While Mr. Wu bloviated, Shan incessantly checked her phone, tapped
on her tablet, kept track of products, sales, and clients. Shan was a shrewd,
serious, silent, and solemn woman. A woman with eyes like crystal balls. A
woman with eyes that always appeared to be staring directly at you, like an
Andy Warhol painting. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Shan was a woman of few words. But when she spoke, her words
were elegant and refined, shot at measured clips. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And when she spoke, people listened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lin glowered at her father, thinking of ways to kill him.
She’d most enjoy murdering him with a blunt object of some sort, she fantasized.
To feel the flaying of his flesh… To feel his bones breaking as she beat him to
death... His big stupid head bursting and squishing open like a watermelon… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">God, she hated her father. She hated him more than anyone.
It was a secret hate, though, one she’d never confessed. It was a secret hate
that manifested itself in fits of silence, lack of eye contact, and, during
college, a series of online “hookups” with older men, of varying ethnicities. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">She’d read once that a woman’s first relationship with a man
is the father/daughter relationship, how that sets the tone for all future
relationships with men. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The mere thought of that made her want to jump off a bridge.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As usual, they left before the drinking games began. Above
them hung an inky-black, starless sky, featuring only a fuzzy outline of its low-hanging
crescent moon, and Lin and Shan crossed through the parking lot, in lockstep,
arm in arm, stepping swiftly in the heavy cold and its growing darkness. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Shan clutched Lin’s arm tighter. Her opal eyes bulged. Then
she peered around, panoramically, and swung her gaze, touched her lips to Lin’s
left ear, and whispered in wet hot pulses that perhaps the car had been bugged.
That Lin’s father had possibly planted a listening device in the vehicle’s
dashboard. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The pair swallowed their words, piled into the Porsche. Their
ride home featuring a symphony of sighs, sign language, screenshots and knowing
nods. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was just past midnight when Mr. Wu stumbled home,
stinking drunk. His unwelcome arrival like a sudden nosebleed. His arrival
announced as he slammed the door, shaking the house’s foundations. In a form of
mimicry, a madman’s cries cut the air, and he was acting the fool, kicking the
couch, shouting incorrigibly. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Shan, her face twisted in broken sleep, padded forward, her
arms crossed defensively over her chest. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a red flowery bathrobe, she descended the winding
staircase. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The noise hushed into gaping silence. But only for a minute
or two. Then the screams began, grew louder, shriller. Shan’s pained shrieks
echoing, piercing the character of the night, rousting Lin out of bed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lin groggily stepped down the winding staircase. Then a
frisson of fear passed over her like an electric current. Words were dead and
meaningless as she laid weary eyes on her father, Mr. Potato Head… Mr. Potato
Head all red-faced, in the atrium, gripping a brick-shaped butcher knife. Mr.
Potato Head pinning her mother against the double door. Mr. Potato Head
pressing the blade of the knife to her mother’s throat. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lin ran to the kitchen, grabbed the first blunt object she
saw- a frying pan from off the stovetop- then dashed into the atrium, and
cocked back the frying pan like a baseball bat and whapped her father upside his
horrible big bald head. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mr. Wu grunted, and the air left his lungs as he dropped the
knife, the knife landing with a clink on the hardwood floor. Then Mr. Wu
crouched and wallowed in pain, cupping his hands defensively over his skull,
and he waddled sideways like a crab, in a lame attempt to escape the oncoming
blows. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lin continued to hammer at her father’s big stupid head with
the frying pan, hitting him again and again. The pan clanking as it beat at his
skull, the metal reverberating in high-pitched jangles, like a blacksmith
hitting hot iron. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lin lost herself in the violence. It felt so good. Her
serotonin surged. Bashing her father’s big bald head was such a release, such a
huge release that it was almost orgasmic. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was the first time she’d ever fought back against her
father. After everything he’d done. And there’d been a lot he’d done. There’d
been countless slaps and shoves. There’d been countless threats. He’d beat her,
her mother with impunity. He’d belittled them. He’d been such a tyrant. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But that was ending. Ending now. And Lin let a bloodcurdling,
celebratory howl. And she swung the pan harder and harder, heaving it at her
father’s horribly ugly head, which was gushing blood and beginning to resemble
a pepperoni pizza, the way his yellow skin was peeling back over his skull to
reveal thick clumpy red patches. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mr. Wu lay unconscious. Shan then tugged Lin away, hugged
and comforted her. Lin dropped the blood-splattered pan, curled and cried into
her mother’s bosom. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lin begged her mother to finish him off. It could be
self-defense. They could finally break free of him. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Shan gently broke their embrace. Shook her head. Rubbed her red
face and stared off into the unknown distance, wistfully. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mr. Wu woke up late the next morning, in the anteroom, his
head throbbing and pulsing, his skull feeling like someone was tap-dancing on
it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He pushed himself up from the floor, lurched into the
kitchen. No one was there. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then he moved slowly and lifelessly, like a zombie, making
his way into the backyard, where he threaded through the freshly planted rose
garden, and he purposely stomped on a few budding plants. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The garden led him to the bean-shaped, empty swimming pool,
and he circled the swimming pool, the bright blue crater, a few times, unsure
what he was looking for. Perhaps someone just to tell him what happened to his
head, and why he’d awakened, on the floor, in a crown of blood. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Bangkok, Thailand13.7563309 100.5017651-14.553902936178845 65.3455151 42.066564736178847 135.6580151tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-34136506371760580742021-03-24T19:16:00.000-07:002021-03-24T19:16:14.094-07:00"Sky Burial in Tibet" <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUiR1ZRthzP73EHy4GaaNaqJggNkm6fc6oyWMmCT1HDwAsLB8gZGXR3tF6KXG9LdAqTYW5-2vHBqO_-5NJ_HXwMD21PKpK8KxEu9lQzC9DGSYqtDZL52dHKbnUTHIr_BFCjnZRc0w61rg/s736/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="736" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUiR1ZRthzP73EHy4GaaNaqJggNkm6fc6oyWMmCT1HDwAsLB8gZGXR3tF6KXG9LdAqTYW5-2vHBqO_-5NJ_HXwMD21PKpK8KxEu9lQzC9DGSYqtDZL52dHKbnUTHIr_BFCjnZRc0w61rg/s320/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">After the palace, we drove out to the countryside and saw
something I could never, not in my wildest drug-addled dreams, have ever
imagined. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A “sky burial.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Suffice to say, we weren’t scheduled to see it; it wasn’t on
our itinerary; we were to visit a temple nearby, but, on the drive over, from
the van, we saw a small procession dragging a corpse up a rocky hill, and we
asked the guide about it. Once he responded that it was a sky burial, we
hounded him to pull over, to let us see, and he begrudgingly obliged, parked on
the side of the road and we rushed out to view the unfolding spectacle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The corpse was a plump, brown-skinned old man. His naked,
lifeless body was being dragged by three men, two of them youngish, one of them
middle-aged. At the top of the earthy hill, the men, accompanied by 5 chanting
monks, lay the corpse down. From off their shoulders, the men threw down and
opened backpacks, then fished out what looked like small axes, chopping
tools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Flanked by the chanting, bald-headed monks, the men, in
floppy orange clothing, were smiling and nonchalantly chatting, and then the
men suddenly raised their axes high in the air and began hacking apart the
corpse, chopping the body into pieces. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My stomach shifted, watching it. The others retched. The
Welshman didn’t, though. He’d served in the army so he’d seen way more gruesome
scenes. Still, he was speechless, awed by it, watching the men laugh, not
callously, but so normally, so casually, as they broke the body apart. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Our tour guide was unmoved. But when he noticed how affected
we were, he explained to us that in Tibetan Buddhism, it’s believed the soul
passes out of the body, after death, so that body is not a person anymore, it’s
just an empty vessel, a shell. The remains of the shell, he said, would be fed
back to the Earth, be food for vultures. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hearing him discuss the sky burial was the first time I’d
heard any emotion, passion in his voice. Not a lot of emotion, mind you, but
certainly a trace… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He said the monks’ chanting was part of a ritual to summon
vultures to eat the corpse, that the monks would sprinkle sugar over the corpse
to sweeten it for the birds. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The men chopping up, separating the body were a “Todken” a
sky burial master, and his assistants, who specialized in these burials. Most
Tibetans, the tour guide told us, believe that if they didn’t have a sky
burial, they’d become a ghost, wandering the Earth, unable to pass on to the
next life. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I asked the tour guide if he’d have a sky burial, and he
nodded, reluctantly, not making eye contact. His head cocked back, his eyes
were solemnly locked on the scene at the top of the hill, where the men were
pulling the corpse’s limp limbs off as if picking apart a crab. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then I asked the guide if he believed that he’d be a ghost
if he didn’t receive a sky burial, and he didn’t reply to my question. An
awkward silence hung heavy in the frigid mountain air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He went on to say that the ground in Tibet is too hard,
cold, and rocky to bury bodies, so sky burials were of a practical nature, but
also it fit Buddhist beliefs that humans are a part of something greater, a
part of the universe, and the body, being empty of a soul, could be made
beneficial, could be made a form of merit, being fed to the wild like this.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwWOmUHdZO5JBbmcUy_6DGiMFjaaxrl_jknluIxNT3_7VJnbTtiEgR33gXRfev0B7EQIwE5V7JIns992HohAdOytqKFqr2_A0O04nSmAfO-ww-_IJpg33DZHhAKTtpSuUcmWSkgLLA1t8/s580/Sky+Burial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwWOmUHdZO5JBbmcUy_6DGiMFjaaxrl_jknluIxNT3_7VJnbTtiEgR33gXRfev0B7EQIwE5V7JIns992HohAdOytqKFqr2_A0O04nSmAfO-ww-_IJpg33DZHhAKTtpSuUcmWSkgLLA1t8/s320/Sky+Burial.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Excarnation,” exclaimed the Welshman, smoothing back his
scraggly blond hair that’d been flapping in the increasingly bitter, cold and
dry wind. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The icy Himalayan air kicking up, to a man, we were a
shivering mass, our jaws twitching, teeth chattering. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“It’s not always a ceremony like this one. Often the family
will bring the body out, leave it by the temple, leave it for the vultures…”
mentioned the tour guide, shifting his gaze and walking with heavy feet towards
the van, and we followed him, like a V of swan, back over to the vehicle. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I wanted to quip to Welshman about being dead, left out like
that, on a hill in the Himalayas sure saves a lot of money on a funeral. Is
nice to the birds, too, feeding them dinner. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But then I remembered how it’s possible that your brain
remains alive, possibly, for days after you die, and you’d maybe experience
that... The corpse up there perhaps had just suffered the torture of being
hacked apart with axes and would now endure the horrific ordeal of being eaten,
picked apart like a Thanksgiving turkey by fucking vultures... Cremation, a big
smoky final session in the sauna sounded a whole lot better to me…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We continued onward, drove up to a nearby temple that stood
on a mountain spur. It was another white stone, red wood, and gold-trimmed
complex and was nestled at the foot of a jagged, rocky hill, overlooking a
crystal blue, surging river. Bands of multi-colored prayer flags hung from its
front rafters and a gargantuan golden stupa spiraled from its center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The temple had tall, whitewashed walls, topped by bands of
red ochre and golden circles. There were massive entry doors, made of wood and
iron, and high, sloping walls. Like the palace and Jokhang Temple, the walls
were decorated in Buddhist-themed motifs, like the ashtamangala.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Strolling the temple grounds, we kept tripping and stumbling
over raised steps in the doorways, which we found amusing, in a
self-deprecating way, laughing at one another’s follies. However, the tour
guide maintained his poker face and told us in a deadpan voice that the thresholds
were intentionally built high, to block wayward spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In one of the winding halls, the Londoner swung his red face
to me, his thin lips barely moving as he spoke, and he mumbled about how he had
met a Tibetan girl working at the hostel and was trying to bang her. He then
stopped to hand a few small bills to a monk at the temple for a blessing,
whispering to me afterward that “I’m doing it for luck, so I can ‘shag’ that
Tibetan girl. If this doesn’t work, I can assure you, I am done with Buddhism…”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Though this temple was smaller in scale, inside, it had a
curious vastness. Walking about its corridors, I had an uneasy feeling.
Glancing around at the lifelike Buddha sculptures and busts in every corner,
many of them appeared to be glaring, and it was as if the weight of a thousand
eyes were baring down on me. I was experiencing a creeping omen, an anxiety,
like perhaps spirits in the temple’s vicinity were trying to warn us about
something…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After touring the temple, we returned to Lhasa. We had an
early dinner, without our guide, at a Nepalese restaurant near our hostel. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(The tour guide was with us during the day, but at night
he’d departed in his minivan to go back wherever it was that he went, and we
were left to our own devices…)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Staggering out of the restaurant, our bellies stuffed with
curry, jasmine rice and nan breads, we went wandering through the city center,
then decided to check out a nearby bar. On our way, we must have passed by a
police booth at every intersection. Seemingly, on every street, there was a
small white and blue police booth, manned by one or two cops. Atop each booth,
and installed at every intersection, and all around the city, were a panopticon
of security cameras, the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party. Man, I was getting
the feeling like the CCP could see more than God… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The heavy security presence, cameras, abundance of police
were noticeable to us upon arrival at the airport, and throughout our stay.
We’d also passed by numerous roving Chinese police squads, usually consisting
of about 10 men, 10 sour-faced coppers, in phalanxes, marching in lockstep, all
fitted with fire extinguishers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And now was when we’d understand why most of the cops in
Lhasa wielded fire extinguishers instead of just the traditional police accoutrements…<o:p></o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Tibet30.1533605 88.78786781.8431266638211561 53.6316178 58.463594336178843 123.9441178tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-18671287759501776872021-03-17T19:02:00.000-07:002021-03-17T19:02:24.929-07:00"A Visit to the Dalai Lama's House"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn_efRqfFapef8NY_rj3tSSCq8pQbsGW3Cj1h06pc4sNfwtOKf17NwTNTdqzBXqA17P6S9FqT3suE0GNfnG_LmKpITtXLN4qF7tPorNphj-vUM3U8iFMSvPt3qaT1E6DQOCQynAadnhG4/s736/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="736" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn_efRqfFapef8NY_rj3tSSCq8pQbsGW3Cj1h06pc4sNfwtOKf17NwTNTdqzBXqA17P6S9FqT3suE0GNfnG_LmKpITtXLN4qF7tPorNphj-vUM3U8iFMSvPt3qaT1E6DQOCQynAadnhG4/s320/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Aside from the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa wasn’t as crowded or
peopled as Hong Kong. Perhaps there aren’t a whole lot of people who’d want to
live in a place that high off the ground. I wasn’t sure how people could live
there, really, living up in the sky like that. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Back in Hong Kong, I’d read an article about how Tibetans
had evolved differently than other humans, developing special genes and
anatomies that enabled them to survive at a higher altitude. Their very
existence, like, an example of Darwinism, these people of the skies…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Tibetans were interesting people, man. They had a
different appearance to them than the Chinese. They were something of a hybrid
between the Indians, with their shorter stature and dark brown skin, and
Chinese, with slanted eyes. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Visiting different spots around the city, I noticed
immediately how friendly they were, the Tibetans. And I’d laugh at how the
street peddlers would cajole us, some even trying, absurdly, to wrangle us,
pull us into their street side stall, so they could sell us tchotchkes, sweets,
or whatever they had sitting under canopies or large umbrellas. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t know what they were saying since most were speaking
Tibetan to us. But it was obvious they were hawking their wares, pointing to
things, shoving them in our faces. It was comical, really.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although, man, it was sad, some of the street beggars we
saw. There was a time or two, when a beggar, holding a little baby, would
literally hoist up the baby and thrust it at us, while pleading for money.
Welshman said not to be fooled by it, however, because, apparently, in parts of
Asia, there’s a “baby renting” racket, where “professional” beggars will rent a
baby for a day, to elicit sympathy… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There were little kid street beggars, too, skittering
around. One beggar, looking no more than 6 years old, ran up to our group,
wrapped himself around the tall lanky Londoner’s leg and wouldn’t let go until
the guy gave the kid a couple bucks. It felt more like a form of emotional
extortion to me… But really, it was sad, man, to see that level of poverty, to
see little kids doing that…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I mean, dude, I grew up rich. I pretty much grew up in a
castle. The worst thing I could remember witnessing was a friend in summer
camp, on a hike, stumble into a beehive, and get swarmed by angry waves of
bees, stung up and down his back. I was roughly 20 feet away, viewed the
horrific scene as we trekked up a path, by a clearwater mountain stream. I
remember the bees, the buzzing mass, the hovering shadow encircle and swallow
him in its clutches, the army of flying insects jabbing and stinging at him as
he wallowed, his voice cracking in misery, pain and terror. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Amazingly, he didn’t die. But his back, his face, and his
arms and legs were swollen, sheeted in red lumps. Dude looked almost like the
Elephant Man... It was ill… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That was likely the worst, saddest thing I’d ever seen in
person. But I’d never seen such wide-scale suffering until I traveled to the
developing world. I had never seen truly grinding, truly generational poverty.
I had never seen such inequity, corruption and failure of leadership until I
traveled to Latin America, parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa. Man, it was
fucking visceral, seeing that. Seriously, like, I’d take the worst slum, the
worst neighborhood in America, any day, over the slums I saw. Americans really
don’t understand how some people are living. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I remember, as a kid, seeing that fat lady in those
infomercials, pleading for money to feed starving African children. I didn’t
see her anywhere, in my travels. I was thinking maybe I’d spot her in some
slum, on the outskirts of a city, filming an infomercial. But I didn’t. I
remember that we’d always joked, my friends and me, that she’d been eating all
those kids’ food, or she was like a cannibal or some shit, kidnapping and
eating the kids. But after seeing those places, for real, all that became less
funny. I wonder what happened to that lady. I don’t know.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But, seriously, man, like I really became aware of how
fortunate I was, in so many ways, after traveling the world, for real…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Most of the Tibetans we came across had obviously not
traveled much outside of Tibet. Most had obviously never seen white people
before, with how they were looking at us, gazing at us in wide-eyed, happy
amazement. The rural, farmer types in particular. They’d point, wave, stare at
us. Here or there one would speak to us, in Tibetan, smiling and asking us
questions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Welshman whispered to me something about how it was a far
cry from the first foreigners who’d visited Tibet and were hissed at and spit
on. Nope, we were treated far better, thankfully… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When the Tibetans would speak to us, wave, say stuff in
Tibetan, we’d just smile back, shrug our shoulders. Our tour guide, you might
have thought, would have translated some, but he kept quiet, dour-faced as
always; his lips firmly pressed together at all times. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As he led us around, his hard face betrayed little emotion,
and he kept his eyes fixed to the ground or in a straight line toward our
destination. He only translated when a transaction of cash was necessary, like
at restaurants or buying entrance tickets to temples or if we wanted help
purchasing a souvenir.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was striking, to me, how positive most of the locals’
attitudes were, given the circumstances, and how much random people on the
street smiled. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I only knew a bit of the history. I’d read online, before we
came, how the Communist Chinese had invaded Tibet, occupied it since the 1950s
and declared it a part of China, how they expelled the Dalai Lama, considered
him a terrorist. To the Chinese, the Dalai Lama was like Osama Bin Laden. It
was all strange to me, seeing that I’d always viewed the Dalai Lama as a
peaceful, friendly old man. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’d read too that the Chinese had even banned the Dalai Lama
from being reincarnated. Man, the Chinese had things in Tibet so locked down
that they controlled reincarnations! I wondered how that worked, if the Chinese
government had paranormal police, like the Ghostbusters, and if the Dalai
Lama’s ghost would be thrown into a paranormal prison, a purgatory of some
sort. I couldn’t quite figure that one out. The communists are weird, man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of the Dalai Lama, we were able to visit his house,
the Potala Palace, which is an immense, mammoth red and white structure atop a
hill, in the old city area of Lhasa. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Driving in and stepping out of the van, we tossed our heads
back, gawked and gasped at the sight of the palace. The palatial structure
towered and skied above us, sat imposingly with the sharp teeth of the
Himalayas as its backdrop. Its grandiose appearance gave it a curious aura of
seclusion, and to enter the palace, we had to trudge up a small mountain of
steps that were almost like an unending stairway to the heavens.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Walking up the vertiginously ascending, zigzagging, endless
flights of white stone stairs was like climbing an obstacle course, with how
thin the air was. We were all parched, huffing and puffing, hands on knees,
once we reached the stairs’ summit, but our moods were slightly lifted upon
being greeted by the snow lion statues at the entrance. We then wordlessly
panned our gazes, appreciated and soaked in the jaw-dropping views of the
Tibetan plateau.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In contrast to its bewildering façade, the palace felt
curiously empty inside. But it was definitely worth seeing for its panoramic
views of Lhasa and its environs. Not to mention the breathtaking, lush wooden
architecture, columns, and inward sloping walls painted in iridescent reds,
golds, and greens. The walls were beautifully decorated, too, meticulously
painted in detailed Buddhist scenes and images. With the overall craftsmanship,
scale of the 32-acre complex, with its 13 storeys and over 1000 rooms, one
could easily understand its UNESCO status, designation as one of the “Wonders
of the World.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite its grandeur, there really was an empty feeling in
being there, I thought. As if we shouldn’t be there. The palace was a graveyard
of sorts, a house of ghosts, a place in enemy hands. It felt like Paris, the
Eiffel Tower, during the Nazi years. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Just being a tourist there felt wrong, guilty in a way. I
felt like a graverobber, like I was prying open and exploring an ancient tomb…<o:p></o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Lhasa, Tibet30.1533605 88.78786780.70914194493128591 53.6316178 59.597579055068721 123.9441178tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-6631378821934120392021-03-10T20:11:00.000-08:002021-03-10T20:11:06.526-08:00"A Trip to Tibet"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4HjiO1GecIm7WCp7UoD6_PinRXbAljhgnXx9dewNes20YmV-7TtrgSyFXCdvTm8KHwaf8I5qbacWnXuFXsNU_M0NCHNHJ7shDX6R2UnMnMNJu3wx3icRFPsVAmjQVIorZ6BscNNWBZc/s736/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="736" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4HjiO1GecIm7WCp7UoD6_PinRXbAljhgnXx9dewNes20YmV-7TtrgSyFXCdvTm8KHwaf8I5qbacWnXuFXsNU_M0NCHNHJ7shDX6R2UnMnMNJu3wx3icRFPsVAmjQVIorZ6BscNNWBZc/s320/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Soon
enough, we were lifting off, in another plane, this one to Lhasa. Flying into
Tibet, soaring over the Himalayas, a shudder plaited down my spine as I peered down
from the plane, gawking at those mountains. The Himalayas were mountains like
I’d never seen before. They had this unique shape, twisting sharp tips and spooky
gray, white and black colors. They looked more like a leviathan, a strange dark
living organism, than a chain of mountains. Thinking how they’d risen, erupted from
the Earth, they were, in a way, the Earth’s adult teeth, wisdom teeth, fangs
from the ground. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Stepping
off the plane, the air was sucked dry from my lungs, as if a vacuum tube had
been shoved down my throat. Frigid winds whipped at my face, causing my eyes to
wet up and my nose to coldly congeal and drip icy snot. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">It
was tough to adjust. I felt breathless and lead boned as we lurched through the
airport, respirating in rapid, shallow sprints. All of us were feeling rough,
light-headed, dizzy due to the sudden shock of the altitude sickness. And we
all were slightly aphasiac at the magnificence of the place’s scenery, the
ruggedly exotic, breathtaking landscape. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">(I’d
been to Denver, so I’d been “mile high,” but this place was something else. It
was 14,370 feet in the air. It really was the “rooftop of the world,” like
walking through the clouds. If you stepped too quickly, especially when
ascending stairs, you’d be gasping, literally. We found out fast, that in
Lhasa, slow movements were preferrable…)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The
vibe in the place was weird, man. I don’t think I could ever have adjusted to
it. Tibet, Lhasa, was just heavy with tension, and the minute we met our tour
guide, by the baggage carousel, I felt a cold-dripping premonition... <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">We
piled into a minivan with our tour guide, who drove us from the airport to downtown
Lhasa, and he started telling us about the city, its ancient history. His
English was excellent, only slightly accented, which was certainly advantageous
for us, since none of us spoke any Tibetan... <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Peering
out the van’s tinted windows, we saw red flags everywhere. And I mean real red
flags, the Chinese national flag. Chinese flags plastered on billboards,
Chinese flags hanging from lampposts, Chinese flags attached to traffic lights,
Chinese flags hanging over seemingly every business or home. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">There
were gigantic billboards lining every road with what looked to be propaganda.
It was hammer and sickle, commie stuff, Chinese characters with lots of
exclamation points and brave, happy peasants working under or saluting the
omnipresent red flag. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Looking
at the Chinese flag, the Welshman whispered into my ear that the flag was Mao’s
bedsheet dipped into a pool of blood, and that Mao had run, like a cricket
bowler, and launched himself into the sky, snatched five evil dwarf stars from
space and then crashed back to Earth, slapped the evil stars onto his
blood-soaked flag. Welshman said he’d read something about that in a book by a
Chinese dissident.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">“Ma
Jian is my favorite Chinese writer,” Welshman whispered, panning his snarling
mug back toward the passing scenery of wintery plains and spiraling swaths of
snow-capped mountains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The
Welshman was a bit of a bookworm, read a lot, unlike me, who’d read some, but
was more into nonfiction and thrillers, the page-turner, Tom Clancy stuff. The
Welshman read fucking Russian, French, and Indian novels and shit… However, you
probably wouldn’t pin him as a reader, if you saw him walking down the street.
Given his perpetually scowling Sid Vicious face, you’d think of him, likely, as
a ruffian. And you’d also be right. The Welshman was really a case study of
interesting dichotomies...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The
Welshman pointed out that every street sign was tri-lingual, with the Chinese
characters atop, in the largest type, then the Tibetan script underneath,
roughly half its size, and English, smooshed to the bottom, even smaller. “The
irony is didactic,” mumbled the Welshman, as he angled his handheld digital
camera, pressed it to the van’s windows, snapping pics like a seasoned
traveler.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Arriving
in downtown Lhasa, I found the city itself to be a dichotomy, a curious amalgamation
of modern and ancient. Modern, glassy boxes of buildings were situated next to
slanted roof, chalk white structures; knots of Buddhist monks in saffron robes
played on cell phones in front of golden, triangular temples, constructions that
appeared over 1000 years old; elderly street hawkers, with faces worn as an old
leather glove, wrapped almost like mummies in countless layers of clothes, the
hawkers squatting on tiny plastic stools, curbside, the hawkers with colorful blankets
unfurled and piled with vegetables or fruits or handicrafts to sell to passersby,
the hawkers adroitly operating smartphones, accepting mobile phone, digital
payments… It was quite a scene…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Driving
by a temple, we passed a group of lumpy elderly women, their bodies wrapped in
heavy orange shawls. They were facedown, prostrating on the street, outside the
temple. I’d never seen anyone prostrate. One of the other Brits exploded in
laughter, upon witnessing the women throwing themselves, crawling on their
bellies through the icy muck of the street. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">“What
is that shite?” he asked himself, through gasps of cackling, high-pitched
laughs... The Brit had a narrow, ruddy face and a frohawk style haircut that
made him look sort of like a chicken… <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">“They’re
prostrating,” spat back the Welshman, sounding annoyed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">“Prostrating?
What’s that?” the laugher queried, speaking in one of those London accents that
omitted every hard “T”. “Prostra..ing,” he chirped, but after realizing his
ignorance, the Londoner’s laughter quieted and slowly died. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">“It’s
a religious thing,” returned the Welshman, sneering and pointing his camera at
the prostrating women. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">I’d
half-expected the Welshman to crack a dark joke about it. But he didn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">We
then arrived at our hostel. The place was a total dump. It had graffiti written
on the walls and stank like a pungent mixture of cigarettes and unwashed ass. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">After
we checked in, our tour guide, a local Tibetan, a chunky, 30ish, sad-faced man,
pulled the Welshman aside and whispered something, the guide speaking with a
somber expression.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The
Welshman stepped back over to us, with a pained face. He said something about
how we needed to keep quiet about political matters. That the tour guide had done
3 years in jail because he got ratted out for criticizing the Chinese Communist
Party, saying something he claims he never said, and it had taken 3 years in
jail for it to be cleared up, so we needed to be careful how we spoke during
our trip. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">(Yeah,
like, I’d noticed immediately something was off about the tour guide, man. He
had the thousand-yard stare and spoke mechanically. He never smiled. His lips weirdly
twitched. His dark brown face, especially his eyes, looked droopy, like an
invisible weight were pulling them downward. He had unevenly buzzcut hair, color-clashing
clothes, tattered sneakers, and his yellow jacket was zipped up to his chin. His
head seemed to be bloated, like the size of a pumpkin, really unnaturally large,
even for his heavy-set body... He just didn’t look right, not at all… Man, I
bet the poor fuck was tortured like a bastard for years in that Chinese prison.
We all really pitied him after learning his past, laying our eyes on him as if
he’d been a holocaust survivor or some shit…)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">“A
fucking cultural genocide,” mumbled the Welshman, as we hauled our heavy
backpacks, wheezing as we trudged up three flights of twisting, narrow stairs,
to settle into our dingy rooms. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Shortly
after getting situated in the hostel, our guide took us out on a short drive
around downtown Lhasa. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Man,
it was amazing. It was sort of like I’d have imagined India to be, except
colder and less populated. It was more modern than I’d envisioned, too, full of
shiny new cars, vans, buses, trucks, and motorbikes. And there were no
animal-pulled carts or rickshaws, either, like I pictured. Except for the
bicycle driven rickshaws, though, which, like, at that altitude, those dudes pushing
and pedaling those bicycle rickshaws had to be stronger, more jacked than even
the most roided-up Lance Armstrong… <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The
traditional Tibetan buildings around the city were similar to other Asian
buildings I’d seen, with the triangular, sloping roofs. But they were slightly
different, had a chalkier white exterior, smaller windows, and loads of bright
orange prayer flags hanging from their upcurved eaves.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Lhasa
was turning out to be a bustling, lively little place, with tons of
restaurants, tiny shops, street vendors, people in brightly colored garb, puffy
sheep fur jackets, turban type head wraps and various colorful ethnic clothes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">(With
their explosions of radiant colors, the woven patterns on their loose, long-sleeved
robes, their wide-brimmed hats, plaited hair, beads, precious stones,
glimmering jewels and finery, the Tibetans, reminded me, in a way, of Native
Americans… And I spotted one Tibetan woman, in a purplish red robe, who was
wearing a headdress that was similar to a Jamaican beanie, and I couldn’t help
but wonder if she was a fortuneteller of some sort, maybe the Tibetan
reincarnation or sister spirit of Miss Cleo…)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">All
of Lhasa’s winding streets and curving alleys seemed to be leading to the Jokhang
Temple, which was the heart of the city, both spiritually and economically. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The
temple was where our short driving excursion ended. We parked across the street
from it, got out, set out on foot and perused the rows and rows of stalls
outside the temple’s gates. The stalls were selling items to the masses of
tourists (who were mostly Tibetans), hawking stuff like Buddha-themed souvenirs,
Tibetan knickknacks, prayer wheels, and local food, largely consisting of
dumplings stuffed with yak meat. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">As
we walked through the rows of souvenir stalls, toward the imposingly tall,
golden temple gates, which were glowing effulgently in the cold sun, we encountered
more folks out front, Tibetan pilgrims, predominantly elderly, in black robes, who
were prostrating, chanting and crawling on their bellies, through the streets
beside the temple entrance… None of us said a word as we walked by, shifting
our paths to avoid them, their bodies undulating and sliding as if submerged in
water… <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Our
guide then brought us inside, took us on a tour of the Jokhang Temple, shepherded
us around. It was astounding. Beyond words, really. There were bald-headed
monks in saffron robes chanting Buddhist mantras as we walked in. I got
goosebumps, stepping in there, for real. It was like a scene from a movie, like
<i>Indiana Jones</i> or something. To a man, in our group, we were all pretty
speechless, in awe of it… <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The
Jokhang Temple has an impressively long history. Our guide said it has stood in
various forms since 652, and the Welshman whispered something to me about how
it was a miracle the place survived the Cultural Revolution, when mobs of angry
young communists were running amok, all over China, smashing up every temple in
sight…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The
temple was jam-packed with people, largely Tibetan pilgrims, Buddhists, who
were there to pray. Long lines of worshippers were streaming in and out of the
temple gates, crowding and moving in masses through the halls, rooms, and
spaces. Practically every inch of the place was peopled. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">We
carried forward, amongst the knots, like passengers in a packed train station. The
temple was like a maze. It was disorienting, overwhelming, and incredible, with
twisting, turning halls and corridors that were brimming with statues,
paintings, writings in Sanskrit. The halls and corridors were somehow narrow
yet vast, infinite yet still somehow small... <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Throughout
the temple, there were Tibetans on their knees, chanting, bowing to Buddha
statues, bowing and praying to and with the monks. The Tibetans were really into
their prayers too. Their bodies electrified as they knelt. The monks sitting
there all cross-legged and Buddha-like, too, were the epitome of Zen. It was
quite a sight. The monks’ and pilgrims’ chanting reminded me somewhat of
preachers speaking in tongues. But, really, it was nothing like you’d ever see
in America… <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The
temple was simply magnificent. Man, like, I’d seen gorgeous churches in Europe,
but I’d never witnessed anything that could compare to this temple, certainly
not in terms of exoticness. It had these intricate frescos of scenes from Buddhism,
and immaculate, brightly painted red, gold and green wooden beams, and various Buddha
sculptures sat everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">We
trudged up a steep stairway to a rooftop deck, took a look at the peaks of the
Himalayas that ringed around the temple. I noticed that the temple’s roof was
gilded, and part of it looked to be made from pure gold. I couldn’t imagine how
they’d constructed it, with that much gold. It looked like more gold than I’d
seen in every gangsta rap video ever made. I think Trinidad James would die
from a euphoric heart attack if he ever saw it… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">I
wanted to ask the guide more about the temple’s construction, but he’d stopped
to pray with a monk. He was on his knees, his eyes shut, and was chanting, rocking
back and forth, and so I didn’t think it was the ideal time to disturb him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">A
feeling surfaced in me, like, how peaceful this was, the temple, how chill.
Unlike Christian churches, with the bloody Jesuses hanging overhead, the
Buddhist imagery seemed so… serene. It seemed to be about life rather than
death and purgatory. That was the vibe I got from it, anyway, and I appreciated
it…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Not
only was visiting the temple incredible, but the smell inside, oh man, it was
unforgettable. The monks were burning incense, “joss sticks,” everywhere, plus
some other sort of stuff that I couldn’t identify. As we made our exit, clumped
amongst another surging mass that pushed toward the gate, I asked the tour
guide about the unique scent, and he said it was yak butter. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Like,
wow, the stuff had the most pungent smell to it. The smell crawled and nestled itself
in my nostrils, clung to my clothes. It was stronger than any cigarette smoke, as
if the scent were a power of its own. Everywhere in Lhasa, I noticed it, that
same smell, that cloying, heavy scent of yak butter. At first sniff, it
repulsed me, but pretty soon I got used to it, and even started to like it... <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Walking
out of that temple, our group was dead quiet. I think we were all experiencing
a touch of sensory overload. It blew me away, really, that something so
beautiful, intricate, and incredible could actually exist. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Tibet 30.1533605 88.78786781.8431266638211561 53.6316178 58.463594336178843 123.9441178tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-27901230336471700252021-03-03T19:21:00.000-08:002021-03-03T19:21:17.119-08:00"The Welshman"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCKY73xgxzPCikp4F60Q9EQVjDJ1pkQW8fm1dRL1yN7z-9U5_l27X2IHdH8qrl8WOqB3oMEGLWg3oIdGmPPENcORZLSsq7wp9vxc_5tIOO4FfXinv_MzOXL3ktoWbmuBnhlvHHRur05IM/s736/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="736" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCKY73xgxzPCikp4F60Q9EQVjDJ1pkQW8fm1dRL1yN7z-9U5_l27X2IHdH8qrl8WOqB3oMEGLWg3oIdGmPPENcORZLSsq7wp9vxc_5tIOO4FfXinv_MzOXL3ktoWbmuBnhlvHHRur05IM/s320/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">So my mom’s been spazzing… Man, she’s petrified about moving
into the new house. Claims it’s haunted. It’s certainly haunted by bad vibes.
There’s no doubt about that. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Everyone heard of what happened there. That kid going nuts
and blasting his family, then attacking his school. Oh, and his trial, what a
spectacle. They’d actually tried “demonic possession” as a defense. His lawyers
even hired some quack to testify on his behalf. This quack was a famous ghost
hunter, and he testified about his “examination” of the house and played, in
the courtroom, these hissing and popping noises he’d recorded, claiming they
were “voices of the dead.” The whole fucking shitshow was on TLC. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If you ask me, the “ghost hunter,” the quack, was just a
clout chaser. He was trying to cash in on the tragedy. Look, he sold a book
about it, went on TV shows afterward. He was an asshole, as far as I’m
concerned, a bullshit artist, same as those psychics and mediums, those
parasites who exploit misfortune, target the naïve, rake in blood money… Fuck
him and fuck every one of his ilk…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m not sure if I believe ghosts are sentient beings. I
imagine them more as forces and energy, but indifferent, not malevolent or
benevolent. They’re basically the same as a gust of wind or the pull of
gravity. They’re a part of nature. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ghosts make for fun flicks, though. I’ve watched a lot of
horror movies. When I was younger, I’d be scared by that stuff, too. <i>Carrie </i>freaked
me out. The frothing, fucking demonic bitch. I could have seen some lame chick
I pumped and dumped going batshit like that. I could see her covered, head to
toe, in blood, chasing me down a school hallway, shooting fireballs from her
ass…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nowadays, there are tons of Carries, right? Aren’t a lot of
these kids, shooting up schools, a Carrie? It’s the revenge of the nerds out
there. Nerds going homicidal. You know, like the middle school kid with dental
headgear who got his face splashed in the toilet a couple years ago and then
opened fire in the school cafeteria. Or that kid at a high school a few towns
over, who got a banana shoved up his ass, at a houseparty, by jocks, and later went
out and shot up a football game. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Carries, nerds. Man, don’t fuck with the nerds anymore… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But people still do. I bet they always will. It’s human nature,
to fuck with people. And like nowadays, with the cyberbullying, it’s even
worse. Like, remember the retarded kid with a lightsaber? That video went
viral. Millions of people saw that. Millions of people saw and laughed at an
11-year-old retarded kid’s worst moment. It’s terrible. Really, it is. That kid
will grow up to be a mass shooter or a serial killer or some shit. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not that I’m innocent. We pranked lots of kids. We gave kids
atomic wedgies. We did that shit. And the older kids did it to us. It’s a
cycle. An ecosystem of abuse. But I never thought of anyone shooting up my
school. We were fortunate that no one in our class was the type. But shit, if
I’d been living in Colby Oswald’s neighborhood, right? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yeah, dude, I was scared more of ghosts, as a kid, than
school shooters. I believed in ghost stories, I believed in Slenderman and
urban legends. I believed, at one point, for real, that if I said “Candyman”
three times, into a mirror, Candyman would show up and kill me. And while I
don’t believe in Slenderman or Candyman, anymore, I still sort of do believe in
ghosts. But in a different way. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Look… my views changed. My outlook changed. I changed after
I traveled the world…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That’s one thing I’m most proud of doing. Traveling the
world. It’s one thing no one can ever take from you, your travels. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I remember hearing an interview with the rapper Lloyd Banks.
He was once famous, on top of the charts. These days, he’s not, and an interviewer
asked him about it, asking him euphemistically how he felt now that his time in
the spotlight was over. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Banks, being cool as fuck, like he is, replied by saying
something about how the money, fame, that comes and goes, but the experiences
he had, especially traveling the world, that’s something no one can ever take
from him. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And I feel that, man. I feel the same way. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lloyd Banks, in that interview, was reminiscing, talking about
visiting beaches made of volcanic sands, these black sand beaches, in the
Canary Islands. Yo, I saw that too. I went there too, man. I actually saw that.
I walked, barefoot, on volcanic sands. It was absurd... <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Man, I floated in the Dead Sea. I strolled through areas of
the Middle East that have been inhabited for over 10,000 years. I trekked
through Aztec, Incan, and Mayan ruins in Central and South America. I chased
after an alpaca that ran up and stole my phone with its mouth. I rode a donkey
in the Andes Mountains. I hiked in the Amazon, went scuba diving in the Philippines,
spearfishing in Tahiti. I visited the Roman Coliseum and the Eiffel Tower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As cool as all that is, the most spectacular place I’ve ever
visited, and the most unforgettable, most transformative experience I ever had,
without a doubt, has to be… Tibet. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My perception of the world, of life, of virtually everything,
changed, drastically, after I visited Tibet. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m lucky to have ever gotten in. Mere entry is strictly
controlled. If you want to enter the country, and you’re not a Chinese citizen,
you have to be part of a Chinese government-approved tour group, be part of a Chinese
government-approved tour. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I was fortunate enough to have joined such a tour group,
along with a handful of travel buddies I’d made while staying in a hostel in Hong
Kong. The idea was instigated by my bunkmate at the hostel, an older British
“bloke,” this former S.A.S., heavy-drinking Welshman. Dude was fucking nuts.
And cool as shit. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I mean like here we were, in this pub in Kowloon, and out of
nowhere, his eyes bulge and he blurts out, “I want to climb Mount Everest
naked…”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I thought it was a joke, that it was the beers talking. We
really were shooting the shit, slamming pint after pint in that pub... <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That pub. It was an authentically British place. The Brits
seem to have a system, a network of British pubs, in every city in the world. I’m
sure you’ve seen one. A place with pictures of soccer players and cricketers on
the walls and Union Jack flags hanging from the rafters. This was one of those
places… A place that served bangers and mash and pork pies and eggs and baked
beans and black pudding and haggis and all the other weird shit the Brits eat. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yo, I tell you, man, like I’d always heard British food was disgusting,
but when I tried it, it was delectable. Traditional British food is far better
than advertised… Just don’t ask what haggis or black pudding is made with…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, this crazy Welsh motherfucker was slugging down
pints of Guinness. Using the side of his forearm to wipe away the froth from
his thin lips, he starts getting serious, his face tightening, and he’s going
on, writing an itinerary, plotting a voyage to the Himalayas. He proclaimed to
have been to 82 countries, but said he never saw the Himalayas, never went to Tibet.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He was 43, he said, but looked 35 or so, and had a head full
of scraggly blond hair. As with most Brits, he was shockingly pale, looking
like he’d taken a bath in bleach. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although he didn’t have any scars or wrinkles, aside from a
couple light forehead creases, he did appear as the sort who’d been in his
share of fights, had his share of drama, but, given his disposition, it was
easy to picture his opponents faring far worse than him in any dispute. Dude
was pretty jacked, I gotta say, looked like he pumped iron or did hundreds of
push-ups every day. He had that natural, tensile type, corded musculature…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yo, for real, how is it that so many of these army dudes
stay ripped, even after they’re discharged? My Grandpa was like that. There’s
something about what being in the army does to those guys…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But yeah, dude was bemoaning his traveling days coming to an
end, confessing that he missed Wales. During his lamentations, with his face
crinkling, and the way the neon light trickling in from the pub’s front window flashed
off his face, I remember starting to think that he looked older and that I
could see him being in his 40s. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At least I was able to understand him. His accent was clean.
Unlike some of the other Brits I’d met, most notably the Scots. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Some guys from Glasgow, I could barely understand. Coolest
people, funnest people in the world, the Scots, but I couldn’t comprehend what they
were saying, half the time. I’m not even convinced what those Scots were saying
was even really English. Maybe it was a kilt and bagpipes, fucking Gaelic
language or something. Part of it was English, I’m sure. It sounded like
English, anyway. I’d seen the film <i>Trainspotting</i>, so that helped. Too
bad the real live Scottish people didn’t come with subtitles, though… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Oh, and I remember asking a couple Scots if they’d seen the
Loch Ness Monster, and most of them just looked at me funny, shook their heads,
though one responded that “I don’t think anyone’s ever seen it...”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Oh, man, fucking British people, they’re great. They say
funny shit! Like, even if they’re mad and yelling, it still sounds funny, just
because of how they talk. I’d always thought of the Brits as only being these
tea-drinking, “posh,” jolly fucking Prince Harry, Lady Diana Jane Austen type of
assholes. But nah, they get rowdy!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Especially around soccer, which I can understand, since it’s
so boring. Those soccer hooligans, they gotta beat the shit out of somebody to
make a game that stupid and boring into something more exciting. I can
understand it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Part of that must be related to the drinking. Those Brits
get wild when they drink. You feed the Brits a few pints and all that stiff
upper lip shit vanishes. And man, seriously, they drink hard. Like, having been
in a frat, I saw heavy drinking, but the Brits, they were fucking animals. They
took it to another level. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Oh man, they’re great. I loved those British guys. They were
the best…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tough bastards too. Lotsa shaven heads. Missing teeth. Ready
to brawl in a minute. A real warrior culture over there. Like, that island, how
fucking cold and rainy it is, you gotta be tough to live there. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I visited Britain, too, and loved it. It was so green, like
even greener than the Irish Spring commercials, all the rolling hills, fucking
Leprechauns hiding out there with pots of gold and shit. Oh, man, it was bucolic,
truly beautiful, but those people are wild. They’re fucking animals. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why don’t we get those sorts, the wild Brits in America? The
“yobs” as they call them there... We don’t get those in America. We only get
the goofy fucking Monty Python, Benny Hill, and John Oliver types or the classy
types, like the Royals, and rich businesspeople, the “Excuse me, sir, might you
have some Grey Poopah” riding in a Jaguar Brits, or the rock stars, or the
Harry Potter magic wand waving Brits, or handsome Harry Styles or David Beckham
soccer ball kicking motherfucker Brit. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The rest, they don’t get passports, probably. They do a good
job keeping their animals hidden, caged up in that cold crazy island. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The UK doesn’t let its maniacs out. But America does. Any
American abroad is likely either in the army or a criminal or evil businessman
or all three. Or an escaped child molester. Or worse- a missionary. If you ever
see an American abroad, run away! Nah, I’m only kidding. Sort of.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Some of the maniacs do escape Britain, though. I met a few
maniacs, like the Welshman, traveling in Asia. And I have to say, they were
pretty fucking cool. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Back to the Welshman, first time I met him, in my hostel. He
was lying on the bunk above me, reading a book about the Korean War, and was
wearing a t-shirt, a fucking t-shirt, and blue jeans, in the middle of winter.
Dude had some big biceps, too, a pair of guns on him… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was so cold then, too, in Hong Kong. This shit cold. This
thickly humid cold. This damp cold. The cold was almost like a living force, a sinister,
malignant being. It was everywhere and touching everything. I never experienced
such nasty cold. It was miserable. And it was made much worse with the rainy,
misty weather. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then here was this Welsh dude, with this tattoo of a
green dragon on his muscular arm, and he invites me out for pints and starts
talking jokingly, then seriously about hitting Tibet. His sweet beer breath
fogging over us, he was getting hyped up, his blue eyes bulging as he started talking
about really going there, not to hike Mount Everest naked, but going on a legit
tour. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Damn skippy, I’m with it. Tibet? The rooftop of the world? To
me, it was the most exotic place imaginable. It was the farthest end of the
Earth. I’d come to Asia without much of a plan, was just gonna bum around,
check out different countries, and I was stoked to check out the wildest one
possible… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We booked the ticket, tour from a travel agent nearby our
hostel in Kowloon and left a few days later. It wasn’t the most opportune time
to go, being winter, and colder than a witch’s cunt, but Tibet was open and way
cheaper, at that time of year, so we seized the chance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(Welshman said China would frequently close Tibet off around
“sensitive” times of the year, like an anniversary of an uprising or holiday…)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Man, just flying into the place was a thrill. We flew first
from Hong Kong to Chongqing. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Chongqing, somewhere in southwest China, was so foggy that,
as we descended and approached the city, I could barely see anything from our
plane’s windows until the black tongue of the airport runway appeared, almost
magically, and mere seconds later we touched down with a hard bump. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the airport in Chongqing, we had a short layover, part of
which I spent hitting on a cute young Chinese chick working at a souvenir
stand. She was petite, with sky high cheekbones, big brown eyes, and straight shiny
black hair reaching to her flat belly. She was wearing a tight red sweater and
hugging blue jeans that complimented the curves of her flawlessly trim figure,
and looking her over, I was starting to grasp the concept of “yellow fever.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">She spoke about 20 words of English, and I couldn’t speak a
word of Chinese, but anything I said was making her laugh like I was a standup comedian.
I asked for her number too, but she just kept laughing and giggling. I did the
phone hand signals and everything. I don’t know if she didn’t understand or
just didn’t want me calling her. Eventually I gave up and rejoined my travel crew,
sat by them on a metal bench facing the gate. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Welshman swung his gaze at me as I sat down, and he snarled.
With his snarling, his thin upper lip curling, his face reminded me a little of
Sid Vicious. But like a blonder, older Sid Vicious. A wiser Sid Vicious. An in
an airport in China middle-aged Sid Vicious. A Sid Vicious who hadn’t murdered
his girlfriend and overdosed on smack. A Sid Vicious if he’d joined the S.A.S.
instead of the Sex Pistols. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I couldn’t really imagine Welshman doing smack, but I could
see him murdering people. I could see him murdering lots of people. Shit, he
was in the army, the S.A.S., so who knows how many bodies he had… I could see
him in gully suits, running loose in jungles, jumping down from trees, his face
slathered in green camo paint, all that Rambo sorta shit. Yeah, man, I probably
didn’t even want to know the crazy military shit he’d done… Accordingly, I made
a mental note to stay on his good side…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Welshman was sipping on a can of Coke, and he declared that
Chinese chicks were hot; “fit” was the term he used. (“Fit” means “sexy” in spoken
British.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Though he warned me about Tibetan girls, proclaiming that Tibetan
girls have hairy armpits and bad teeth, stinky breath. He was one to talk, really,
considering his teeth were a train wreck, but his breath never stank, except of
alcohol. His generalizations would have triggered people on Twitter, I bet. I
sure hope he never took to tweeting. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He was tendentious, a skosh borderline racist to everyone, though;
an equal offender of sorts, so I didn’t care, and again, he did frighten me a
bit, so I kept quiet about his occasional inflammatory remarks… <o:p></o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Hong Kong22.3193039 114.1693611-5.9909299361788442 79.0131111 50.629537736178847 149.3256111tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-48290013165159584302021-02-24T19:52:00.002-08:002021-02-24T19:52:28.244-08:00"Mr. Wilson"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDHi9h8-F8jIiP_oFMigH5lXn3uRVOxSR_p2Sxhg9gRvlpmF1lTcearUSXE46iD6_469jyPXGVOSY5wdGfc7SbbBavW1oU-u2cEBh2y8QaTGQYjRD2PQgVFrbKoCXTkq4kobctz0vEd_Y/s1506/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER+BIG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDHi9h8-F8jIiP_oFMigH5lXn3uRVOxSR_p2Sxhg9gRvlpmF1lTcearUSXE46iD6_469jyPXGVOSY5wdGfc7SbbBavW1oU-u2cEBh2y8QaTGQYjRD2PQgVFrbKoCXTkq4kobctz0vEd_Y/s320/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER+BIG.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Mr. Wilson:<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I tell you what, I’ve been in this neighborhood my whole
life, and that house has always been an eyesore. It’s completely out of place.
Who wants a big kooky gothic building like that in a residential area? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Its history is something else too… </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The house was built by a tobacco baron, about 220 years back.
But the very day he was to have moved in, him, his wife, and their two kids perished
in a ghastly accident. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The family was en route to the house, riding in a horse-drawn
carriage, when the carriage suddenly caught fire, and the four burned to death
inside. A lantern had spilled, lit the carriage ablaze, apparently. But this
was a while back, before forensics, CSI, and science like that, so it’s
impossible to say what exactly happened. Whatever it was, it must have been a
terrifying experience. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Worse yet, the driver of the carriage and the family’s
butler had tried to pry the stagecoach doors open, but the horse got spooked
and galloped away and that dang runaway horse then dragged the flaming carriage
all through the town. The townsfolk, their pants scared off, were hollering and
pointing and running every which way…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A policeman on horseback finally rode in, chased after the
flaming wreck, and shot the runaway horse dead. Tragically, however, none of
the family survived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I tell you, it must have been a nightmarish scene. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Allegedly the house was built on the spot of a battle, or a
massacre, depending on who you ask, involving Pilgrims and Indians. Exactly who
massacred who is hotly debated among historians. But it is for sure that many
died and were buried on those grounds. The Pilgrims’ bodies were dug up and
moved later, given proper burials. Rumor has it that the Indians, though, are
still buried there…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For years it was considered cursed, hallowed ground. No one
wanted to build anything there. One merchant tried to build a general store,
but accidents kept happening during the construction, and he gave up. A couple
workers died too during the construction of the house. Both fell from tall ladders,
in the same spot, weirdly enough, I read. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the tobacco guy and his family died in that freak fire,
the house and the land sat empty for years. Until it was bought by the funeral
folks. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yessir, I remember back when it was a funeral home. When we
were kids, we’d ride our bikes by the house, rubberneck and gawk at it. The
funeral home only took in bodies, embalmed or cremated them, at that time, from
what I can recall. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’d creep the heck out of us, watching columns of gray
smoke billow up from the chimney, knowing where the smoke was from… There’d be
a noticeable metallic odor around the house too, kind of like a roast lamb or the
smell of a cooking grill after cleaning it…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">No one wanted anything to do with the place, other than gawk
at it out of morbid curiosity. No one I knew had ever gone in there, no one I
knew had stepped foot inside that creepy gothic monstrosity… </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was a family business for years, the funeral home. Then
the family moved on, passed on. I never read about or heard of any accidents or
gruesome stories involving the funeral home family, though, the Barkers. The
patriarch was said to be a fine man. He was well-respected in the community and
donated generously to the local church. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the sons eventually became the undertaker and ran the
place. But he didn’t live there and wasn’t active in the community. I remember
seeing him. He was a freakishly tall, thin, and pale fellow. The man was pale as
a vampire. He and his assistant, another pale, tall fellow, lived on the other
side of town. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The two seemed to always be together and no one knew much
about them. Given their work and unsettling appearances, no one wanted to have
much to do with them. They were an embodiment of death. They looked like ghosts
themselves, and there were rumors that they might actually be ghosts. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The two scared the bejeebus out of everyone. I got the
heebie-jeebies just at the mere sight of them. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The pair worked there for years until they closed the
business after the last Barker died. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You know, it’s off-topic, but I wonder what happens when an
undertaker dies? Who buries the undertaker? Must be strange for an undertaker
to bury another undertaker. I don’t know. I wonder about stuff like that. My
wife says I talk too dang much. Anyway…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, they sold the property. We thought it’d be torn down
and rebuilt, but a young family bought it and moved in not long after the
funeral business shut down. It surprised everyone in the neighborhood. We
couldn’t quite wrap our heads around why they’d want to live there, of all… You
know, the stories of that place… </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Everyone had a ghost story about it, about the house.
Everyone in the neighborhood would talk about how they’d see strange phenomena,
‘round there. The most popular was the story of a ghost lady in an old-style white
dress, and her stomach was ripped open and bloody, as if she’d been attacked,
stabbed and murdered in a gory way. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The lady allegedly looked like someone from colonial times; she
had a bonnet of some sort, and she’d walk around in circles, on the front lawn
of the house, looking confused, like she was searching for something. At least
that’s what everyone said. I never caught a glimpse of her. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe because I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in that
ghost hooey. I never cared for scary movies or any of that jazz. I never even
believed in God, to tell you the truth. But I never told anyone about that
because there’s nothing worse than an atheist. An atheist is one step up from a
communist. Or are atheists worse than communists? I don’t know. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I used to hate going to church. I hated pretending to pray.
I’d daydream during the sermons. The priests up there in their robes. They were
only grown men in pajamas to me. You know, one of them touched the altar boys, and
I’d heard about it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t believe in God, because I heard
the rumors about the priests. I heard it long before it became a national news
story… </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I hated the church. I hated it for most of my life. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But after the shootings, I’ll admit that I came to
appreciate the community aspect of our church. I must admit the prayer
services, candlelit vigils helped me through those dark days, just being with
others, at that time, you know?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Still, the ghosts and that jazz, it’s hooey! I think it’s
people’s imaginations. I can’t stand those silly horror movies. I really can’t!
My wife watches them, but I think it’s nonsense. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And I can’t stand those “ghosthunter” shows on TV, either. I
tell you, it’s a bunch of shysters, if you ask me. Hoaxes and hoaxers. All
that. All those mediums and exorcists. Those “demonic possessions.” For shame!
Those possessions back in medieval times were probably just some poor, mentally
retarded kids, kids with speech impediments or folks with mental illnesses. Demons
and ghosts, hah! It’s hogwash. It’s sad. It’s gosh-darn sad. Plain sad. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Everyone in the neighborhood figured they’d tear the place
down. Not that I believe in ghosts, but still, who wants to live in a former
funeral parlor? It’s yucky. It makes me want to throw up, thinking of those
bodies in there, rotting and being embalmed and burned. The blood and guts
running up and down the pipes in there. Who wants to shower in that? I gotta wonder
if they flushed the blood and guts down the same pipes as our sewage. And then…
does the treated water go to the same place as our drinking water comes from?
The same pipes our house water comes from? I could google it, but it’s probably
one thing you don’t want to know… Ick! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But, anyway, they remodeled the house and converted it into
a residential property. I’m thinking they removed the funeral equipment before
the family moved in, although I can’t say for sure. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Rumor has it the place still has its original furniture, the
antique furniture, from the tobacco family, from 1800. Now that must be a
sight, I tell you what… </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Heck, they seemed alright, that family, the Oswalds. I
remember them. They weren’t kin to the, you know, the infamous Oswald, but it
must have been strange to share his name. It must have toughened them up, I’d
think. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">They came to a few neighborhood cookouts. But, tell you the
truth, it was always uncomfortable being in their presence. Because they lived
in that house. It was like the death clung to them. The spirit, idea of death
had wrapped itself around them. Anytime you’d see them, you’d think of the
bodies, the corpses being drained of blood or burned or whatever. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Again, I don’t believe in that junk about ghosts. But how
could they live in that house? Why would they? Just look at it. Its gothic spires,
its Victorian architecture. It looks like something from Edward Scissorhands. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">They’d only lived there a couple months before… that
happened… and all of them had been looking haggardly and sickly, more so than
ever in the days prior... </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A couple of the neighbors had caught a whiff of a burning smell
coming from the house, similar to when the crematorium was running. Another
neighbor said she’d been smelling a puke-like stink wafting out of there,
another said it was like burning garbage. But me, no sir, I never noticed
anything of the sort. Aside from the folks looking sickly, I never noticed
anything strange ahead of that.. that day. That nightmare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was such a nightmare too, when it happened. When the kid
snapped. The kid had seemed normal enough, originally. Before he became a
recluse. He’d been running around the neighborhood, same as any other kid. I
heard other kids teased him, and his siblings, over their house, called them
the “Adams Family” and stuff like that. You know how cruel kids can be. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I don’t know if that was enough to make him snap. I
don’t know if there’s ever really one reason. If there’s ever really one sign
or there’s many signs. I don’t know. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I blame the parents, to be honest. How do you let your kid
not leave his room? How do you let your kid sit around 24/7, playing violent
video games and posting gory pics of plane crashes and gruesome murders online?
The kid taped black garbage bags over his bedroom windows. He washed himself
compulsively. He had no friends. He was pale as a ghost and only wore black. The
kid looked like a monster, like a vampire. It was scary. Like sometimes you
hear that a neighbor or coworker snapped, and you think, “How could he?” But
him? It was like, “Of course he did…” The kid was a freak. He had serious
issues.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So why did the parents buy that little freak a gun? A
machine gun? It’s not like he’s going deer hunting with an M-16. I can’t wrap
my head around it. Really, I just can’t. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t hear the gunshots. But I was home. I was getting
ready for work. I saw the little freak, too, driving his mom’s minivan, on the
way to shoot up his school. It was the first time I’d seen him in months. He
looked a lot older than I remembered and was wearing a dang wedding dress. His
face was blanched, looked made of marble. I couldn’t spot a trace of emotion.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of course, I didn’t know he’d just shot his whole family and
was on the way to shoot up his school. When the police interviewed me, I told
them this. I wish, I so wish I would have known. I wish I had a clue. I would
have called the cops. Then maybe I could have stopped the little freak from
killing those poor kids at the school. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That’s the regret I live with. That’s what I think about. I
flashback to that muggy morning. How hot and sticky it already was. How high
the sun hung in the clear blue sky, the sun this huge shimmering orange ball.
That might have been the hottest morning I can ever remember.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My dang car was like an oven; it was plain scorching inside.
The steering wheel in my car felt like it was on fire. I was standing in the
driveway waiting for the car to cool down when I saw that little psycho,
driving along in his death van. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I think about that, about seeing that kid, that freak. He
didn’t look at me. But I looked at him. I almost waved at him, like I do every
neighbor, but I didn’t. Because he scared me. I think of that too. What if I’d
waved at him and he’d rolled down the window, of that brown death van, and shot
me dead in the street, like an animal?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What if that stopped it, though? What if he’d shot me, then
the cops came and stopped him from going into that school? I’d rather he took
me out than those kids. Maybe I’d have survived, and it’d be me in that
wheelchair instead of that kid a few doors down, who’ll never walk again. I’ve
lived for 52 years. That kid is only a kid. That kid is only 15, and he’s got
to be in a stinking chair for the rest of his days! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I live with that. I live with those thoughts.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the days following the shootings, I wanted the house torn
down. Everyone in the neighborhood did. There’d be gawkers, idiots driving by, snapping
photos of it. As if that’s what we needed, after the press, media was hounding
us, with all their press vehicles, photographers, slick-talking journalists poking
mics in our faces, their news tents pitched everywhere up and down the block. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We wanted to have that ugly house bulldozed once the cops
were done with the crime scene. Heck, I’d have driven the bulldozer myself,
taken it down. Everyone around here wanted that house gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But not the relatives of the family, some cousin who inherited
the house. No sir. He insisted on keeping it and renting it for now. He’s
holding out to sell it later, apparently. Maybe he’s thinking the infamy will
wear down and he can command a better price. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We, and I mean me and the other folks on the neighborhood
council, lobbied the bank to buy the property so it could be torn down. We
wanted to build a playground on the site, or start a small farm, a garden, do
something to put life there, bring life to that place of unspeakable death. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But we didn’t get our wish. That ugly old horrible house is
still standing, high and creepy as ever. And weirdos still are driving by to
take photos of the dang thing. It’s a travesty. It absolutely is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now a former NFL player is moving in, renting the place. I
remember him playing. The guy was a terrific lineman. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But when I saw him driving up, walking into the house, he
didn’t look good. He was limping and his face was sullen. I think he’s fallen
on hard times. That must be why he’s living in an old murder house. Poor fella…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I wonder, would a guy like that be afraid of “ghosts?” I
mean, he played against the fastest, strongest, most ferocious athletes in the
world. What’s scarier than an NFL linebacker? No one is tougher, nothing is
scarier than an NFL linebacker flying at you. A dang pumped up, 6’2, 240-pound
hot mess of muscle. A meathead with a neck as thick as a tree trunk. A mohawked-maniac
stabbed full of steroids, all screaming and flying at you like a bat out of
hell. I tell you what, nothing is scarier than that...</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of linebackers, Junior Seau was that fella’s
teammate for a couple seasons. Junior Seau! I want to ask him about Junior, the
“Tasmanian Devil.” I loved that guy! He was a favorite player of mine, probably
my second favorite linebacker ever, after Derrick Thomas. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m not sure I could work up the nerve to ask about Junior,
though. Not after what happened... I guess it’s one of those things you
shouldn’t mention…</p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Tsaratanana, Madagascar-17.2552423 47.6061625-25.693938506070687 38.8171 -8.8165460939293112 56.395225tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-3624541923584476342021-02-18T03:03:00.004-08:002021-02-18T03:03:42.109-08:00"Super Bowl Loser"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq1xcpKzlzAGzp2ATlzlKYvMgtjgb5kyuvdn3gK1XTRgMonYMHNDEmQdbHk-MFdoO-6H66EU6yPWCZiVTrzYUoytSD4Asgq7bGx0BM7znW6Ig8JyLFcShgl8_DNrGQjp8X3b7Ewfoxu_I/s736/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="736" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq1xcpKzlzAGzp2ATlzlKYvMgtjgb5kyuvdn3gK1XTRgMonYMHNDEmQdbHk-MFdoO-6H66EU6yPWCZiVTrzYUoytSD4Asgq7bGx0BM7znW6Ig8JyLFcShgl8_DNrGQjp8X3b7Ewfoxu_I/s320/NFL+CONCUSSION+PROTOCOL+THE+TRAGEDY+BOOK+COVER.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b>“Super Bowl Loser”<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I was so frigging scared I thought I might die. Anyone who
tells you they weren’t scared or nervous, anxious before playing the Super
Bowl, they’re full of crap. Everyone on the team was amped up. Our mouths were
dry. Our hearts were pumping. I must have pissed 5 times before we hit the
field. It was the biggest game of my damn life, everything I’d dreamed of since
I was a little kid. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t sleep a wink the night before. I was running on
fumes. It was pure adrenaline and passion. I was just so amped up… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But once I hit the field, it became another game. However, the
hits were harder. A lot harder. The intensity was certainly higher,
super-charged, really, but the game was no longer an idea, no longer a fear; it
was a game. It was the game I knew well, every movement, every formation, everything
was inside me, in a physical, damn near spiritual language. I was a cog in the
team machine. And we were in motion. We were grinding, and I was pushing and
moving as my body had for years. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Until the final drive. That was something else. I’d never
been so excited in my life. The rush returned. My mouth was filled with salt. My
mouth was like a damn desert, it was so dry. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And I felt alive, so goddamn alive! There was a divine power
running through me, a feeling like some sort of superhuman strength, like when
a mother can lift a 10,000-pound car to save her baby. This is how I felt. I
think I could have picked up a semitruck and thrown it across an ocean. That
was the energy I had. That was the voltage thumping and surging through me. A
force of God was pumping through my veins. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I remember trotting onto the field after that long Super
Bowl commercial timeout. I remember my eyes were squeezed to slits. In the
huddle, I was shaking, I was so fricking amped! The crowd noise was deafening. I
can still hear its hiss, like an airplane engine, I can hear it; it’s blurry,
but I hear it. Goddammit, when I have the flashbacks, when I have the dreams, I
hear… I hear the hiss... <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were playing in the Georgia Dome, and usually, for
Falcons games, that place was quiet as a library, aside from when they pump in
fake crowd noise, but for this game, this noise was real, and running like a
power saw in my ears. This was the damn Super Bowl, and on that final drive, my
ears were in pain. Dammit, I’m not lying, I think my eardrums were ready to
bleed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were fighting, pushing and scrapping, charging our way down
the field. I wasn’t letting their sack specialist DE have any piece of my QB. I
was pancaking his bitch ass like nobody’s business. They talk about the NFL
being a “family game,” but, let me tell you, the stuff that’s said on that
field would make a nun faint.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And, dammit, you should have heard the trash talk in that
game. Their superstar DE, goddamn, he was cussing, talking the worst trash talk
I think I’d ever heard. He was talking about my mother. He was talking about my
ugly horse face. He was calling me a fag and a bitch and a honky chickenshit
motherfucker and everything under the sun. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He was one to talk. He was one ugly sumbitch. A teen wolf
looking motherfucker, looking exactly like Michael J. Fox in that shitty 80s
movie. The dude looked like a fucking werewolf, with his big buckteeth. I think
he really was a goddamn werewolf. He was one mean man, a tenacious competitor.
Hell, I hated the shit-talker but respected his game. He was fierce. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I kept him in check. I pushed him off on every play. I
was a wall, I was a man of steel, I was a barbed wire fence, I was standing
taller than a wall surrounding a prison or an army base, dammit. I was Fort
Knox. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Dammit, fucking dammit, I felt invincible that whole game. I
didn’t allow a single sack. We scored 28 points. 28 points. It should have been
enough. It should have been... <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My senses were so heightened that game, that day. I’d played
football my whole life, but I never really noticed the stink of the game. I’d
never noticed the smell of piss, shit, vomit, sweat, farts, blood, any of those,
probably because I’d be so super-focused on the game. But in that game,
especially that final drive, my nostrils were flaring, burning with smells… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were neck and neck the whole contest. Then they kicked a
52-yard field goal, right after the two-minute warning, and seized the lead. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then… that last drive. It was magical, like it was in slow
motion. We clawed down the field. Our QB was throwing bullets. He was throwing
daggers. Precision passes. It was surgical. He was Tom Brady. He was Joe
Montana. He was cold-blooded, sweating buckets of ice water. He was stoic.
Methodical. Moving us like soldiers. Inching us forward, inching us forward,
yard after hard-earned yard. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I was feeling it. I was tasting the champagne. It was that
storybook ending. We were going to Disneyland. We were fucking going to
Disneyland, I kept ensuring myself. It was my mantra…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then the last play, from the 15-yard line. Shotgun
formation. Then the snap. Then the throw. The catch and the dive. The receiver wrestled
down, the receiver reaching out his long wiry arm, touching the ball toward the
goal line. From my vantage point, I thought he made it, I jumped up and roared.
I thought we were going to goddamn Disneyland. I was there. I was on a float in
a parade. I was in fucking Disneyland!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But when the refs waved it off... But when the refs shook
their heads, when they shook their heads and slashed their arms, when the
confetti fell and THEIR side ran hooting and jumping and dancing onto the field.
I stood in disbelief for a couple minutes. I was thinking there had to be more
time, one more play, just one play, just one more play, dammit, that’s all we
needed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I was frozen in shock for a couple minutes. My body seized
up. Then the humiliation hit me, crashing over me like a wave of shit, like
somebody had scooped out shit-water from a toilet and dumped it over my head.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Goddammit, we lost the Super Bowl. We lost the fucking Super
Bowl. We’re the biggest losers in America. We’re the biggest losers in the
world. Everyone, even people who don’t watch football, saw us lose. Everyone was
at their Super Bowl parties, sitting on their couches, eating potato chips,
drinking beers and pointing at us. Everyone was laughing at us. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We lost. We were fucking losers. We disappointed everyone.
We’d have to go back to our city as losers. There would be no parade for us,
only an empty, cold airport. There would be no afterparty, just a depressing
hotel room. There’d be no champagne, no chummy interviews with the press. No
fucking trip to Disneyland... <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Dammit, the way the media guys in the locker room were
speaking to us, sad faced and solemn, really, it was… as if we were at a
funeral... <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The locker room after the game, it was dismal. You could
hear a pin drop. Barely anyone said a word. A couple guys cried. The whole
world saw us lose the Super Bowl. We were losers and we all knew it. Every
dream I’d had as a kid, growing up, playing football, it was to win the Super
Bowl, to hoist that shiny silver Lombardi Trophy, to kiss that trophy. And here
we were, in the game, fighting and scraping until the last minute, but we just couldn’t
get it done. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were losers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I can’t imagine how horrible and soul-crushing it must have
been to be on those Buffalo Bills teams that lost 4 straight Super Bowls. I
don’t know how those guys were able to show their faces in public again after
that. Honestly, just losing one had me thinking of checking into the witness
protection program or disappearing to a deserted island in the Pacific. I was
so ashamed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My old man told me there is no second place. Only a first to
lose. He’d never played in the NFL, but he played D1 college ball at Army. When
I made the NFL, I thought, “at least I’ve done something HE never did.” I felt
so proud. When we made it to the Super Bowl, I thought I’d wear my sparkly
Super Bowl ring to every Christmas party, and then… maybe then… then... he’d be
proud of me. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Just once, I’d like to have seen him smile. The man never
smiled. Never. Not even on holidays. Weddings. Nothing. He’d never once
congratulated me. Not when I played D1 ball, not when I got drafted, nothing.
It pushed me to be better, and I won’t whine or anything and I love him all the
same… But it’s just… that I looked up to him, playing ball. I looked up to him,
when I was a kid. I mean, dammit, he was a colonel in the US Army. My dad was a
bona fide hero. He was my hero. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And I’d thought of him patting me on the back, hugging me
during our victory party. It’d have made him proud… It’d have made him smile…
He could’ve bragged about it to his buddies at the VFW, shown them my Super
Bowl ring…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But no. I lost the game. I was a loser. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I couldn’t look my old man in the eyes afterward. And I
never got a second chance at a Super Bowl. I never got back to the big game. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not that I could really face my Pops, even before that game.
But after that, dammit, I never could really talk to him, not even when he was
on his deathbed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Dammit, I made millions. I was an all-pro. I played 16 years
in the NFL. But the only time I got to the big game, I lost. Losing that Super
Bowl, being the biggest loser, having to face my old man, my family, after that
game, having to explain to my children that we lost, that was the worst moment
of my life. That was far worse than losing my money. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Goddammit, we let everyone down. And I have to live with
that. I lost my pride with that Super Bowl. I will never have a second chance.
That game, that drive will haunt me forever. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That game… The noise, the crowd hiss… That sea of camera lights
flashing… Me, shoving forward, beads of hot sweat burning my eyes as I was
looking up over the rows of helmets and knots of padded bodies… Me, seeing our
guy twisting on the turf, stretching his arm to the white chalk of the goal
line, and then… the whistles, the fireworks, the reckoning, knowing our guy came
up just inches, dammit, just inches short, that… that wakes me up in the middle
of the night... It fucking haunts me. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I only watched that game tape once, during the offseason
following the Super Bowl. Otherwise, I don’t ever want to see video of it. Not
like I need to, anyway, since it often creeps back, runs on a loop, in my mind.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When I flashback to that Super Bowl, that’s pretty much the
only time, really, these days, I think much about football. I don’t even watch
the Super Bowl anymore, unless I go to a party… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My wife’s been talking about this haunting crap. I don’t believe
in it. I believe in real ghosts. The past. Traumatic memories and lost
opportunities… The ghost of Super Bowl past. The ghost of lingering
disappointment and lost pride. Those, dammit. Those are my ghosts. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><a href="https://www.free-ebooks.net/horror-gothic/NFL-Concussion-Protocol-The-Tragedy" target="_blank">CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE FUCKING BOOK</a> </o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Buffalo, NY, USA42.886446799999987 -78.878368917.32334042881164 -114.0346189 68.449553171188342 -43.7221189tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8736719113537293204.post-51919587157587905722021-02-16T02:54:00.000-08:002021-02-16T02:54:13.338-08:00“The Ultimate Fuck Trudeau Selfie” by Kim Cancer <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizCdwhPlTsnagKm3kuX4ecFFidcvo7ku4DSzXlBQ3jcgMH7cif11eZEr9cBOXsZfev8o8wXqoZ9tvZDQkMYncW52tim3FsjgzOBA8hpkE3LUqkKOfxNbLnYF8sC8r7ckyIWiEU7HvnJgE/s1068/trudeau-blackface.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="1068" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizCdwhPlTsnagKm3kuX4ecFFidcvo7ku4DSzXlBQ3jcgMH7cif11eZEr9cBOXsZfev8o8wXqoZ9tvZDQkMYncW52tim3FsjgzOBA8hpkE3LUqkKOfxNbLnYF8sC8r7ckyIWiEU7HvnJgE/s320/trudeau-blackface.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b>“The Ultimate Fuck
Trudeau Selfie”<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Careening toward the Canadian border, we are snow-blind, forcing
forward, following fat clouds. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Finally, we arrive. Join the juxtaposition and encounter a lengthy
line of snowmobiles, hockey players and Bigfoot. Peering up at the checkpoint, we
see motorists collared and searched, probed, and the rectal exams begin, asses
hanging from car windows, border-crossers stood spreadeagle, Canuck Grim Reaper
Bots extending robotic arms, latex gloves snapping back in coruscating flashes
of light.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My Adam’s apple bobs up and down as I dart a glance at a Bigfoot
bending over, propped against a plastic palm tree, a gloved Canuck Bot’s hand
halfway up Bigfoot’s butt. Then a gust of wind splashes a sheet of snow at our
windshield, coloring everything milky, blurry white…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We should have just snuck in through the woods or taken a
hot-air balloon,” Melvin affirms as he’s probing his nose with pliers and
plucking nose-hairs meticulously in the rearview mirror. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But what if the Canuck Bots caught you? I ponder…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Canuck Bots nor the Canucks are usually violent. But
they could be, right? All that politeness. All those niceties. I’ll bet inside
every Canadian, there’s a raging monster, an anger, a pressure cooker, a bomb
waiting to explode. Any Canadian could be a merciless killer given the
temptation and opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">An aggrieved Canadian, that could be the world’s most dangerous
animal. Aside from playing hockey, the world doesn’t know what the Canadians
are plotting, what they’re doing up there. I envisage dark, insidious actors,
underground ice-bunkers, and cutting-edge weapons in the hands of polite and
helpful neighbors. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Jeffery Dahmer was a Canadian,” mentions Melvin, who’s
slapping rhythmically on the dashboard, along to the drumbeat of Led Zeppelin’s
“When the Levee Breaks.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Shaking my head, I proclaim that “no, he was a Wisconsinite…
Similar accent, though.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Melvin curls his upper lip in disgust, mentioning that that explains
everything, and there are “no worse people than the Wisconsinites.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Oh no, the Canadians are way worse, I insist. Their Mounties
are monsters. The Mounties created like Frankenstein, monsters made from
assembled body parts, the evil beings born sniffing for blood. Officers of Satan,
the Mounties. The Mounties, militaristic, riding on battle moose, moose themselves
perfected in laboratories, moose decked out in body armor, moose fitted with jet
engines and wings, moose on clandestine flying moose missions; the flying moose
fitted with machine guns, missiles, and laser beams blasting from moose asses
and antlers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s like I tell Melvin, moose run incredibly fast, too, for
an animal that size, moose reaching a peak running speed of 35 MPH… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Even if they don’t fly the moose, just imagine those Mounties
on moose back, those moose hoofs clattering and the Mounties making morbid battle
cries, sounds worse than Celine Dion’s most dreadful multi-octave wails. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Imagine Frankenstein riding a rodeo bull like a racehorse.”
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Or a war elephant,” Melvin opines, and I nod my head
tacitly, and I continue, “It’s sinister… Far worse than the Wisconsinites’ black
bear trampoline terror campaigns and rattlesnake catapult attacks,” I assert,
plainly, and not even Melvin will argue this… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Our car inches closer. Melvin is practically licking the
windshield. The snow slips wet, clearing the screen, leaving us with only the
fuzzy outlines of oncoming Canadians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Melvin has been stirring in his seat. Says the last time he attempted
to enter Canada, the immigration officer refused his entry, without explanation,
aside from hinting that Melvin looked too poor to be able to fund his stay in
Canada. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s like I tell Melvin, you can’t wear dirty basketball
shorts in winter and turtleneck trench coats in summer without repercussions… At
least today he’s in a pink tutu, glasses/nose/mustache disguise and a wrinkly
old Wizards Jordan jersey…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The line speeds up, fast. We unbuckle our belts, prepare to
be fingered. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Heck, I might even enjoy it…” I mention, reaching down to
unzip my fly. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The stink-hungry border guards are 30ish; they are red-faced
men, troglodytes, with slow-moving eyes and potbellies. They only peer at our
passports, and one of the border guards pops his head into the car, scans around,
then grunts and nods. These Canadians are far gruffer than I’d pictured. They
speak in a trembling tone that sounds forced, and one of them only speaks
French to us.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But they let us pass, unmolested, and I feel a sense of
release ease over me, a burden lifted. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not Melvin, though. Heading through the Canadian immigration
checkpoint has reanimated his PTSD. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Melvin reiterates his negative experience, relives it, and reminds
me there are indeed Canadian cunts, that they exist. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Cunts exist everywhere,” I affirm, scratching my eyebrows; after
crossing into Canada, my right eyebrow begins to itch incessantly. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Melvin cocks back his bald head. His scruffy red lumberjack
beard looks itchy too. He scratches at it again but paws at his face in a way
that appears contemplative. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I wonder if the border guards threw itching powder at us or
something. I could see the French-speaking one being shifty like that. I didn’t
like his man-bun. I don’t trust a man with a man-bun. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Melvin shares my disdain for the man-bun. Says he hopes to
witness a mullet resurgence and rambles about the repercussions of hiding in
some bushes, or up in a tree, then jumping out, like a ninja, and snipping off the
policeman’s man-bun, with a pair of garden shears…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The sun starts to set, the bloody orange ball sinking into the
panorama of the purplish-blue horizon. The sky here is heavier than home. The
air up here is way cleaner. Everything is cleaner. The streets are so sanitary
that they are aglow, gleaming like ice rinks. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Melvin is apoplectic, angrily scratching his face, and still
ruminating on the stubborn border guard from two years ago, saying he wanted to
go find him and…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We nose into the parking lot at the mouth of the Niagara
Falls. The old box Chevy had died so I’d been behind the car, pushing it like a
loaded shopping cart for the last three blocks. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Melvin yanks the parking brake, hops out and hurls
invective, then spits at the car, kicks the tires, and screams something in Spanish.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Falls are raging. A violent hiss, a vibration, a smell
of powering water wafts and swirls about in the air, and I forget my itch. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Melvin and I pop the trunk. Inside are the squirrel suits.
We zip into them. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Melvin laments that America never conquered Canada. That we
tried in the War of 1812 and failed miserably. He says we should have annexed
Canada and Greenland, a long time ago, for the oil, wood, and maple syrup. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“And the Tim Hortons,” Melvin asserts, convincing me that
he’s a true expansionist, a proud imperialist, the last of a dying breed.
“Teddy Roosevelt was America’s greatest president!” cries Melvin, climbing the
protective fencing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m partial to Martin Van Buren,” I retort, and I climb up
next to Melvin, flanking him. A crowd forms, encircles us. Fingers point,
phones aloft. When the police race over, one riding aggressively on a Segway, shouting
polite Canadian police things, it is then… it is then that we know… We know the
moment has arrived. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“And we’re keeping William Shatner!” hollers Melvin, his
head tossed back, his eyes toward the purpling heavens. His nostrils flaring,
the veins on his neck popping like cables, he then swivels his gaze toward me,
snorts and sneers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Together, on the count of three…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Two…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Three…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And we dive, face first. FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH… Our plunge propelled
by the Lazar engines in our suits. Our dive is like an inverted parabola, first
plummeting down, then straightening out, then arcing up and angling to a
perfectly parallel, horizontal approach, flying full force forward toward the Falls.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Foooooooooooosh… And we’re zooming like fighter jets over
the animosity and immensity and indifference of the pooling water below. Zooming
over its frothy white bubbling, its supernatural strength and uninvited
violence. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Zooming in a straight soar, we then angle and twist, slip
under, bend behind the Falls, the curtain of water, the mammoth of motion, and
we glide the tunnel, snap the ultimate Fuck Trudeau selfie and then shoot out
the other end, ascending, and we’re over, backflipping a guardrail, touching
down to a battered path, paved with blood and broken teeth. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then we peel off our squirrel suits, disrobe, and run, naked,
screaming names of recent Stanley Cup winners. Our naked, hairy man bodies, our
shaven chests and backs painted in anti-Trudeau, Banksy-style artworks. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Naked at last, the itch returns, intensifies, overtaking us,
as if we’d been bitten by a thousand mosquitoes, and as we run, we stop every
few feet to flail, grunt, and scratch. Yet we somehow sustain our suicide sprint
in the direction of the border, doing our damnedest to achieve the dash and to meet
the simplicity of selection. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6FMeb6emnt5CNMqtS4_eXFhpe5B6mKwwyXwnGrHF8UnfPE4eZtA1HMRz2pKVLK0QgdEsGg70v_uj1yLLSumnHV-euSeLVgLHcHoUCHcJbYkvLb0sMnnS0353nZqMx03QxyhJSsXT-x8E/s1280/Niagara-Falls-freeze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6FMeb6emnt5CNMqtS4_eXFhpe5B6mKwwyXwnGrHF8UnfPE4eZtA1HMRz2pKVLK0QgdEsGg70v_uj1yLLSumnHV-euSeLVgLHcHoUCHcJbYkvLb0sMnnS0353nZqMx03QxyhJSsXT-x8E/s320/Niagara-Falls-freeze.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>The Meth Labhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10994874345845075679noreply@blogger.com0Niagara Falls, NY, USA43.0962143 -79.037738814.785980463821154 -114.1939888 71.406448136178852 -43.8814888