The Whisky Man stared down at the three chips still drowning in the lake of vinegar that he had gifted their tribe at the start of his meal. Salt grain spectators gathered around on the table observing as the dim lights of this palace of grease flickered to the zap-zap-zapping of the BugJolter 6000 that clung to the wall above. The whisky sat warm in his belly, a furnace powered by pure alcohol and fryer fresh dinners.

Whisky Man stared too long at the vinegar bottle, drool dancing on the edge of his canyon cracked lips, and he slowly forgot whether he was looking at glass or a mirror. He watched as his eyes buldged and his head distorted into strange shapes as he rocked softly back and forward, drunk as a skunk.

‘It’s crazy…’
‘Shhh…’
‘And then we all took turns…’
‘Are you joking, brother? No way…’
‘Works the counter and gives up the hole? Perfect employee.’

The men spoke softly, their words crawling like scurrying cockroaches over the backs of the plastic booths, and into Whisky Man’s ear. Stomach turning and concerning in an eatery such as this. Every one seemed to be begging for the falling hammer of a Sunday morning newspaper.

Strange things began stepping from the corners of the room as though they had always lived there. Specters of scent and sound, pickled egg pungency and brain shaking pings and pongs that were reminiscent of a paying out puggy machine. Whisky Man stared at them, then looked down at his hands, hands that began to disintegrate into a fractalizing frenzy.

This wasn’t drunkenness anymore, of that he was certain. He had spent many sunny summers and rainy winter nights more intoxicated than anyone had the right to be, absolutely tanked, and he’d never experienced anything like this. A drunkard, proud and pished, knew exactly when the liquor was talking, and when they were receiving messages on another level. Thunderclouds spilled in and took up residence in his kaleidoscope mind, filled with paranoia and poisoned pint glasses. Somebody must have slipped an extra dose of devil’s darkness into his glass at the pub, he had to have been spiked.

The girl behind the fryer looked up and for a moment the whole room seemed to revolve around her. The eyes of the cockroach men in the other booth darted back and forth, over to her and down to their plates, snickering. A new customer who had just billowed in with cigarette smoke and cocaine pupils stood staring up at the glowing menu above her and Whisky Man? He inspected her deeply, her form, a wondrous woodland being that weeped forth toil and innocence, pink and green. She ripped battered sausage snakes from the display case and tossed them down into the bubbling oil of their demise, such slaughter smelt glorious, and was breathtaking in beauty coming at the hands of such a nimble and pure creature.

One more blink made her fourteen, acne faced and exhausted, the next made her older than the trees and sky.

Whisky Man couldn’t believe his eyes, or his ears, or anything else that was floating and fluttering around his head. He could, however, trust his bladder and at this moment it became less of an option and more of a need to stumble his way back to the bathroom at the back corner of the chippy. The door groaned open beneath Whisky Man’s weight and he almost fell face first onto the floor. The room lurched sideways as the black and white tiles beneath his boots stretched out into an endless chessboard, kings and knights marching toward some forgotten war over by the urinals. He gripped the sink for dear life and waited until the porcelain stopped swimming.

Then the hand dryer roared to life, or perhaps it screeched, a great owl hidden somewhere in the rafters. Then another answered it. Their cries echoed through the tiled chamber until the room became a forest of concrete and piss-soaked grout. Bats wheeled through the shadows above the cubicles and goblins peered from the cracks in the ceiling. Their eyes glowed amber and their teeth were made of Styrofoam cups and wooden chip forks. He had to escape their infernal gaze, and so he staggered into the nearest stall, and collapsed onto the toilet. The world spun, round and round and round, then came the door. It was the cockroach men. He heard their shells scrape against the floor and their insectoid legs scuttling along as they barged into the room. Zippers came down and were followed by the tidal hiss of flowing urine.

‘What’ve you got on tonight then?’
‘Waiting for Rowan to finish up.’
‘Still?’
‘Yes bro. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’ll be coming with us.’
‘Us? As in both of us?’
‘You do want some, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, there’s perks of being the boss.’

Zip. Zip. Silence, and then the owl screamed again. Whisky Man felt sick, he got up, collapsed to his knees in front of the porcelain throne and wretched from the pit of his being. Nothing came up, but as he watched his twisting reflection in the water, his blood began to boil. The woodland creature, the ancient thing, a tired teenager with acne and fryer burns? She was the fair queen of this kingdom of grease and those cockroaches were set on defiling her. The cockroach men laughed and the door to the bathroom slammed shut behind them.

There was no doubt in the Whisky Man’s mind. He had to do something, he had to protect her, there was no other choice but to use his boots to stamp out the cockroaches. After all, what fate was more suitable for pests like those.

Back out in the welcoming warmth of the chip shop the world no longer appeared false to him, this was no illusion, it was a revelation. Whatever happened next would be decided by a man who trusted his visions more than his eyes, and perhaps, those visions were the reality beyond the veil of suffocated evil. Whisky Man moved with the terrible confidence of someone who believed heaven itself had pointed the way. Whisky Man’s eyes fell upon the vinegar bottle waiting faithfully where he had left it, presiding over the lake, the three drowning chips, the audience of salt. Now, it was a weapon. His fingers wrapped around the neck of the bottle before the thought had even fully formed. Somewhere above, the BugJolter 6000 crackled and spat blue judgement from its grills. The woodland queen turned another basket of chips and golden stars jumped joyfully from the fryer.

The cockroach men sat in their booth laughing. Why were they laughing? Their mandibles clicked and their black eyes glittered. Whisky Man marched towards them, following the coordinates to insanity’s edge, the deepest corner of the forest.

One step.

Two.

Three.

The chessboard leaked out from beneath the bathroom door and rolled and shifted under his feet. Pawns scattered and knights charged. Somewhere in the distance the owl screamed a blood curdling scream. That’s when the cockroach men finally noticed him.

‘Mate?’

The word echoed strangely as though a hundred frightened insects had chirped in unison. To Whisky Man it was like nails being dragged across a chalkboard. He raised the bottle.

‘Leave Rowan alone.’ He wheezed, barely sucking enough oxygen to get the words out fully.

The nearest cockroach man blinked.

‘What?’

The kingdom of grease fell silent and for a second even the fryer seemed to stop its ritual of incineration.

‘You’ve got the wrong idea, pal.’

The phrase bounced around Whisky Man’s skull like a moth trapped in a jar. The cockroach men stood with their arms outstretched. Not predators now, or monsters, or insects, just men.

Then the thunderclouds rolled back in, their shells returned, and their antennae twitched. That was it, enough was enough, Whisky Man brought the bottle crashing down upon the edge of the table and glass exploded into a rainstorm of dangerous diamonds. The salt spectators fled, the vinegar lake burst its banks, and the tribe was washed away like sin. A woman screamed and someone shouted for help. Someone else shouted his name or maybe it was God’s, he could no longer tell the difference. The broken neck of the bottle glimmered in his hand like a holy relic stolen from a grand cathedral built entirely of cola cans and newspaper wrappings.

The cockroach men backed away.

‘Listen to me, you’ve got this all wrong!’

Whisky Man knew he had it exactly right, why else would he be here, now? This was what he was meant to do, to save the girl, that’s what the visions were for.

‘Rowan, tell him he’s got this all wrong!’

There was that name again. The sacred name of the woodland queen, tired child, ancient spirit. The last good thing in a world filled with insects and clogged arteries. Whisky Man surged forward, the room stretched, bent and melted around him. The fluorescent lights above became comets in the night’s sky and the menu board a burning prophecy. Every face in the chip shop transformed into masks, every voice became amplified horror, every shadow hid between the booths. And through it all Whisky Man advanced with the terrible certainty of a prophet who had mistaken a nightmare for a revelation.

The first swing never landed, or Whisky Man never saw it land, at least. One second he was charging forward and the next he was standing ankle deep in swathes of spurting tomato ketchup. The lake had returned and it was red. Thousands of tiny bodies swept downstream but this time they were not grains of salt or chess pieces, biology knocked loose? Humanity cut free from itself, perhaps? There was shouting, crying and prayer but all the sounds folded together until they became one long note, one endless scream of hell becoming cleaved in two. The more Whisky Man swung and slashed with it, the more the bottle continued to shatter, and so did the room around him. Thousands of tiny chip shops glittered across the floor amongst the glass and in every one of them sat another Whisky Man. Some were laughing, some were crying, all of them were covered in blood and committing unspeakable acts of violence. Was that really him?

He looked to the ancient queen for reassurance but staring back was a trembling young girl with wide eyes filled with shock. Not a woodland spirit or a goddess, not a creature older than the trees and sky, just a teenage girl. Just Rowan. Existence faltered and the cockroach men blinked and bled, flashing in and out, men. Innocent or guilty, they were just men. One lay crumpled against the booth clutching his arm. The other crawled through the broken glass on the floor, his face white and blood smearing after him. Whisky Man stood amongst the wreckage of his revelation and listened, there was no hero’s applause, no thank you. There was only fear and the frantic buzzing of the BugJolter 6000. The room twisted once more and then settled, the comets were once again fluorescent tubes, the burning prophecy just a menu board and, the kingdom of grease was nothing more than a chip shop late on a Friday night. The broken bottle slipped from Whisky Man’s hand and shattered against the floor. Nobody moved or spoke but the entire world seemed to stare directly at him. He looked down at his hands, they were no longer dissolving fractals, they were just hands. Old, shaking hands covered in blood and attached to a hopeless drunkard. He could still feel the thunderclouds somewhere far away, rumbling beyond the horizon of his mind, but the storm itself had passed. All that remained was the damage, the bloodshed, his legacy of brutality.

When it was over, the chip shop seemed smaller than before, as though reality had returned to the scene and filled the room. Whisky Man shuffled back to his table, knackered, and picked up one of the last three chips. It was stone cold now, untouched for too long, forgotten in the ruin of his revelation.

A last meal fit for a God.

Subscribe now

Like Icarus, I have flown too close to the sun. I want to thank , , , , and all of my amazing friends and supporters who were cheering me on through this challenge. It’s actually fitting, today, the 16th of June is my birthday. Here’s to 16 days of the June challenge, it should have been more, but these things happen. Please enjoy some of my favorite pieces from the journey below. I guess over 2000 words in a night, Guerrilla Lit style, was biting off more than I could chew.

For the concern of the editor of the Mercer City Sentinel,

Pull harder on my reins, Uncle Sam. I saw the front page today and once again I am being smeared across the city in your newspaper. Unbelievable. I’m sure the government is behind this somehow, so if they’re going to call me a tyrant through your platform, I wish to respond here in kind. Firstly, I am no slaver, the only difference the people under my employ have with my own family, is the blood running through their veins. The agents who raided my property, abducted men and women who were terrified and weeping, took them from their home and their jobs, all heard them pleading not to go. Do you sleep well at night, officers? For I do not. Not merely because I still hear the screams of my friends, but I see the bloodied face of my closest confidant, Thomas Watson. A man who fought you with heart and conviction in his attempt to stay by my side, a face that haunts me. A man who is now dead, thanks to you and your “rescue.”

This clown show has turned me, my life and my home into a public spectacle. Protesters and stalkers outside at all hours, members of the press still trying to snap pictures of their 21st century Colonel Ward. Do I need to remind you that while the court found me guilty of the accusations that every single person who was liberated in your raid took the stand and spoke about me warmly and lovingly, as my very own character witnesses. I served no prison time and was forced to pay reparations, much less money overall than they would have made if they had remained working with me at my estate, by the way.

I was also given a no contact order, of course. You couldn’t risk my people coming back to me willingly, returning happily to their work, and looking like the fools you are. Now you are fools with blood on your hands.

Thomas Watson and his kin were given transitional housing in Willow Park, the most notorious and crime infested neighbourhood in the city, and in two weeks time Tom was the victim of a gang shooting. Found riddled with holes on the sidewalk. I had to find out on the nightly news. All through my persecution at your hands, when I was being dragged through the dirt, I did not cry.

I cried then.

The rest? They were sent to Franklin Heights. These are places where you wouldn’t dare raise your own children and yet you sent these people there, from the arms of safety, to the streets of squalor? If God will not damn you then I, Seh Baska, sure as hell will!

I suppose, if this is published, that I am technically not breaking any laws if it just so happens to be read by those who I am no longer allowed to have contact with. So, with that said, to the Watson family, to the Grover family and, to the Wilde family, I am deeply sorry. I am sorry that you were exposed to the corrupt hand of the law and the cruel world they preside over. I apologize that you had to deal with the devils in the courtroom and the bloodhounds of the media. Finally, I am sorry that I could not attend dear Thomas’ funeral. Not being able to pay my respects because of this twisted affair is a dagger in my heart.

The man responsible for organizing much of the day-to-day life at the estate was Sterling James. His was a funeral I did get to attend, the City Sentinel knows that, they published the pictures. Still, your paper never cared to mention him by name. Why would they? He was not black and therefore he was not ripped from his home that horrific night. He was simply the man who made sure everyone was fed and everyone had a place at our table. He cared for you if you were sick, he remembered birthdays and celebrated them with thoughtful gifts, and tended the children when their parents were busy. Everyone loved Sterling and Sterling loved everyone. Sadly, when caring for such a large family is the very thing you lived for, when it is taken from you? Life is no longer worth living.

A gun to the side of his own head and the beloved Sterling James was gone with the squeeze of a finger. The coroner said it was suicide, many others may say the same thing? But I? I know that he was murdered at the hands of the good old US of A and the world should know that too.

And now, with that accounted for, I wish to confess that I am about to do the same thing. This letter will be the last words ever written by the hand of Seh Baska. There will be no more mockery, no more rocks crashing through my window and startling me awake at night, terrified. No more ridicule. There will be no-one here stumbling through this residence of ghosts waiting to find out what kind of monster he has been painted as next.

I am sure you will not print this, that nobody will read these words, but at least I will die knowing that I wrote them. When I was on trial Miss Faith Wilde said this, ‘Mr Baska was a savior, not a slaver, and without him my family would have surely fell apart long ago.’ Many argued that I had brainwashed her, that I brainwashed them all, but I know she meant every word. From the moment I met Faith’s mother, when I was out at a car show in Huntsville, I treated her like the daughter I never had. But, that’s all irrelevant now, for even if I was their savior? In the end, I could not save myself.

With my death your justice will be served,
Goodbye and goodnight Mercer City.

Seh Baska

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature? Check out Brodie’s Last Stop, part of the Northern Gospel, and these other similar pieces linked below.

On July 1st, I’ll be taking a hiatus from Substack. Originally, I had planned to post this closer to the time, but it was mentioned and so we’re here now.

The June Daily Writing Challenge was never just a challenge. It was my way of saying farewell for a little while and making sure I left something behind as I went, something I could feel like I had accomplished.

July is a busy month for me. It’s my daughter’s first birthday. I’ve got visitors coming over from Scotland. There are family memories to make, places to go and people to spend time with. So rather than trying to force myself to write with one eye on a screen and one eye on real life, I’m going to step away and be more present with my folks.

I’ve always believed that life comes first. The writing is important, but the writing comes from our experiences and perspectives. If I want more stories to tell, more poems to write and more things worth sharing, I need to go and experience them with my whole self.

June is my goodbye tour.

Poems, stories, essays, and experiments. Some pieces will land better than others, still I’m making sure I’m proud of every single one of them because they might have been written by me, but they are for you and your enjoyment.

Thank you to everyone who reads, comments, subscribes and supports my work.

This isn’t goodbye.

It’s just, when the time comes, “See you down the road.” Let’s make the rest of this month one of celebration, camaraderie and great writing. Here’s to the June Writing Challenge, here’s to the Kerr Clan, here’s to us!

Kerr

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature? Check out yesterday’s Brodie’s Last Stop and these other similar pieces linked below.

Ya’ hear the fried chicken spot does country fried steak now? They talk about them baby boomers being the ones to piss everything up the wall but steak at the chicken shop? Them new kids are spoiled for choice and if they don’t have the choice they sure as shit make changes until they do. All in the name of progress I s’pose.

“Hey Pedro, pack of smokes and make it pronto.”

Just found out my brother died. Ain’t seen him since eighty-seven when I met Betsy and we moved down to North Carolina.

“$4.79, the fuck you mean $4.79 boy? These things used to be two dollars flat!”

Progress, I s’pose.

“Gimmie some of them Rhino pills, too.”

Haven’t touched a cig or fried food in about as long but now everyone’s dead and gone? What the fuck am I living for anymore? Looking after my health for who? Damn, this chicken sandwich is like heaven.

I wonder if I can still smoke on the bus? Probably not, can’t smoke nowhere anymore. I heard you can’t even smoke in the street out California way. I’d be screwed out there because I’m going to stand here and suck down this whole damn pack. Dingo and I used to stand out back of Pop’s bait shop and chainsmoke like a couple motherfuckers, one after another, talking about making it out of that place and getting it with some fine pieces of ass. At least we both managed that.

He called me in tears when his Sheila died, bubbling like a goddamn baby. I tried to get him to come down and stay with Betsy and I but he was hard headed. Told me that he didn’t need none of my charity like we weren’t family. I guess that’s the way it always was, Pop made us work for everything we ever had, even the dinner on the table at the end of the day. No work? No chores? No food.

I tried calling him when Betsy died, it would have been good to go see him and clear my head, but that sumnbitch never answered. Never called back either. Filled up his answer machine with one “Hey, it’s Brodie, could really do with a talk if you’ve got the time. Love you.” after another until all the space was gone.

All the space is gone.

Still, they said when they found him he’d been living in a rubbish dump. I s’pose that place wasn’t rigged up for phone service. A damn rubbish dump, Dingo? That was better than coming down, swallowing your pride, and spending time with your own brother? Dying in a goddamn tip? Sure does a lot for a man’s confidence.

Of course, here’s the bus just as I was about to light up another smoke. If there’s anything that gets a bus to show up it’s lighting a cigarette. I could already see the “No Smoking” signs on the windows, forget that, I’m sure there’s a shitter on there that I can spark up in.

I hobbled up the steps and the cock-eyed driver scanned my digital ticket. Originally I had planned to bring cash but the man on the phone said they don’t do that anymore. I never imagined a world where people don’t want cold hard American dollars, but I was living in it. Betsy would have hated it. She couldn’t work the damn microwave let alone use the internet for something. That’s why we made a good team, me and her, she’d tend the garden and mend the clothes and I’d cook the meals and do all the technical stuff.

After shuffling up the aisle and finding my seat I was less than thrilled to see I was stuck beside an old boy who should have booked himself an extra space for his gut. My seat was on the inside. Luckily this leg of the trip was going to be short, I could stand being pressed up against the window for an hour or so, then hopefully I’d get some breathing room.

“Hey tubby, jiggle over and let me sit down will ya.”

The man grunted, rolled his eyes and then scooped up his flab with his arms so I could get by. What else was I supposed to do? Climb over him? People can’t stand it when someone tells them like it is. If you’re a two ton Tony and you’re in my way, I’m going to tell you to shift it on over.

He didn’t get off at the next stop. In fact as the trip rolled on I seemed to be learning more and more about Gordo. Bus after bus, story after story. I wasn’t happy that I was stuck in my seat like a sardine in a tin but Lord, as time ticked on, I was glad for the company. He told me that he was going up north to visit his daughter, she had gone to university in Toronto, learning to do some science shit that I couldn’t make head nor tails of. Plus, when I went to sneak a cigarette in the bathroom, he didn’t say a word. That’s a good man right there.

Eventually, as the sun dipped below the skyline and night was well and truly on its way, I pulled out the Rhino pills from my inside pocket and stared at them. Who the fuck was I trying to impress with these things? Off to deal with the affairs of my dead brother, a happily married man with Betsy looking down on me, and there I was sitting with some convenience store dick pills in my hand? Who was going to fuck me? I turned the packet over in my hand and laughed. Twenty damn dollars. This was classic Dingo behavior, he’d have asked if I was planning on chasing some Maple Leaf poon when I got to town.

“Chasing poon my ass, at my age I’d settle for a woman who still knows how to work a television remote.”

Christ, I missed him. Missed Betsy too. I looked over to Gordo who had already pulled a strange sleeping mask over his eyes and was lightly snoring, like a car left with the engine purring, and there I was all alone again.

I looked down at the Rhino pills and shook my head.

Betsy would’ve called me a damn fool.

“At your age?”

At my age, darling, I’m not dead yet.

And as I stared off out the window, I swallowed one down.

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature? Check out yesterday’s Ad-Vice and these other similar pieces linked below.

California Dreaming
California Demons
Is California dreaming
If dreaming is believing?
Hollywood is haunted
Hollyweird and heathens
Do we have the band-aids
To stop Hollywood bleeding?

Darkness in the valley,
Moe, Curly and Larry
This place is filled with stooges
Selling fake fame and glory.
They say go up to Napa,
drink those vineyards dry
but demons follow drunkards
until the day they die.

California curses
Life in the Golden State
A land of opportunity
Drugs, deceit and hate.
There’re actors in the alleys
And dealers on the screen
Everything that will be
In a palace of has-beens.

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature from the challenge so far? Check out yesterday’s SubSmack StackDown and these other pieces linked below.

The first is an image of three clerks typing.

“Hush little baby don’t you cry.”

Silence, perfect but for the typing.

SUDDENLY. The double door flies off from the wall of the office turned stage, the crowd roaring at the outskirts. The clerks run off like rollicking Sims NPCs into the backstage, as the DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR arrives before suplexing an industrial grade printer. Indeed, Playstation 1 would have had trouble rendering his sprite, for this beast’s mesh muscles had a voxel-count upwards of thirty thousand tetrahedrons. He was doing his entrance, involving a sort of cocky dance, involving moves from a Zelda ripoff, as he walked past the office refuse towards the wrestling ring. NPCs in the crowd were dry heaving, starstruck, waving deckchair signs, and sometimes waving their deckchairs. Some were silent, apparently baracking for the other guy.

The themesong was playing: “He’s the show, he’s the concussor. Just when you thought you could sit down for a brief holiday. That deckchair. The chair. He consusses you with it! DECK - CH - CH - CHAIR CONCUSSOR.”

He is gyrating next to the stairs that lead up to the ring, in his red and green spandex outfit. Then the music distorts into static, smoke filters into the stadium.

“And next up, the one and only...”

The contour of his beard is the first thing to appear after the announcement. But the vikking beard is thrown across the whole floor setup, for he is being lowered from the ceiling, rotating on a special rotary harness, lights spiralling out from behind his huge form. He looks like the spitting image of Chris Hemsworth’s Thor from the MCU. The crowd roar louder than before, but there is booing aswell from the DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR supporters. He lands in the middle of the ring, in full view.

“Ladies and gentlemen, KERR M-MARTIN!!”

“Don’t stutter, announcer friend.” KERR reassured, “I am a right honorable man.”

The DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR points aggressively.

“You’ll get a bunch of fives and a swift little kick in your exposed liver area if you’re not careful, KERR.”

The crowd erupted, they had never heard such smack talk before. KERR MARTIN nodded thoughtfully. Then he delivered a headbutt, Glaswegian kiss style. Quite the traditional move for someone like KERR MARTIN who just so happens to be Scotch. Not specifically Glasgow Scotch but from the general country. The impact echoed throughout the arena and three rows of spectators were immediately diagnosed with second-hand concussion. The DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR staggers backwards, clutching his face. Blood. Printer Ink. CJ’s bike and the remnants of Grove Street.

The crowd smelled opportunity and stilton cheese.

“Hush little baby don’t you cry.” they chanted, over and over, as the typing of clerical keys returned and became amplified.

“Yes,” whispered KERR MARTIN. “Culturally appropriate if you catch my drift.”

The CONCUSSOR attempted to stand but that was a fatal error. The world froze, the crowd stopped moving, the clerks stopped typing. Even the music cut out, which was disappointing, as everyone had been enjoying the smooth jazz beats of Buckley Bumble.

The arena became silent and a small green crystal rotated in the top corner of the screen.

L o a d i n g . . .

The camera clipped directly through KERR MARTIN’s chest cavity before correcting itself, DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR looked around nervously.

“What is this buffoonery KERR? Are you trying to do a cheat?”

KERR MARTIN spun like a helicopter and posed.

“No, now it’s time for a cutscene, you polygonal nightmare.”

The camera zoomed directly into KERR’s beard so closely that individual textures became visible. The audience could see the stitching holding reality together. They screamed, The CONCUSSOR screamed too, and it looped twice because the audio file was too short. It made some of the crowd barf hard.

“No!” shouted DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR, “You can’t activate a cutscene during active gameplay! You were doing a cheat!”

“I can and I have,” boasted KERR.

The camera angle changed again and now the audience were viewing both men from somewhere near the ceiling fan. Top down mode activated.

The clerks suddenly appeared behind them. They weren’t typing anymore.

“Hush little baby don’t you cry.” erupted in unison from the spectacled squadron. One stepped forward and a nameplate appeared above his head.

CLERK #1

He spoke slowly.
“As foretold by company policy.”

The second clerk stepped forward.

CLERK #2

“The quarterly reckoning is upon us.”

The third clerk removed his glasses and the crowd gasped. Nobody had ever seen his eyes before and it made it clear who he was, just like Superman, Buckley Bumble himself.

CLERK #3 (BUCKLEY BUMBLE)

“You must pay taxes on pus-filled pugilism and pageantry.”

The arena lights exploded and DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR fell backwards in terror.
“Impossible.” he gasped as KERR MARTIN folded his arms. The camera zoomed in on KERR’s face, then it zoomed in further, then further still until only a single pixel occupied the entire screen.

The pixel cleared its throat.

“In this scene, Final Fantasy X’s Wakka was supposed to make a cameo appearance and force The DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR to complete his back taxes.”

The crowd remained silent and the pixel stayed perfectly still.

“Unfortunately, due to copyright disputes with SquareSoft, you all have to look at my pretty pixel face instead.”

The DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR was horrified, all his turkeys were coming home to roost.

“N-no, I haven’t filed for the last three financial years.”

PRESS X TO ACKNOWLEDGE TAX OBLIGATIONS.

Suddenly a disturbance moved through the crowd. The sort of disturbance usually reserved for tax audits, incoming Space Chads, or the unexpected arrival of STUMBLECUMPIN the Captivating Troglodyte. He was DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR’s favorite pasta chef and right hand man, famed for making an exquisite carbonara. The fact that these were the first two credentials listed on his résumé told you everything you needed to know about STUMBLECUMPIN.

Smoke filled the arena and a clerk coughed before they returned to their desks and started typing again. The audience recoiled in fear, they were worried but indeed captivated by the Captivating Troglodyte. The music of Buckley Bumble kicked back in and DECKCHAIR CONCUSSOR embraced STUMBLECUMPIN.

Two vs one, a real handicapped affair, would this be the end for KERR MARTIN?

Find out next week in SubSmack StackDown Wrestling sponsored by Metaphysical Muscle Milk and WageStock™

^{The network does not guarantee there will be a next week for SubSmack StackDown Wrestling.}

I want to thank for this absolute insanity, I was compelled to finish the story he’d set up and take part in the chaos, though in doing so it left me a little short on time for June’s daily writing challenge. This legend worked with me on a pseudo-collaboration that came out of nowhere and fulfilled my goal of publishing a new piece of writing every day. Please, subscribe to Metaphysical Builder, you couldn’t ask for a better friend and member of this community. The note that sparked it all is linked below.

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature from the challenge so far? Check out yesterday’s The Breath and these other pieces linked below.

Stop
And start
Ride the space
Rollercoaster
Gemini star sign
Celestial blueprint
One more day closer to God
Another turn of the sun
The mirror knows my face
Duality split
I am the twin
Confusion
Within
Me

You saw me in the darkness
As if that were my home
Dancing with starlight
Dancing alone
Born as two
I am
One
Call
On me
When you need
Someone to care
Heaven sent shoulder
You can cry here all night
Three eyes weeping the cosmos

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature from the challenge so far? Check out yesterday’s I Was a Teenage Vampire and these other pieces linked below.

☕Buy me a Coffee☕

I was told I’m not a real vampire.

That’s true. I know it. I’m not the kind they’re looking for, anyway. The closest damn thing to fiction, well, except the evil creatures who sired me. But what does it mean to be a real vampire? What does it take to become?

The fangs of a Mistress on my neck, corrupting, arousing. Nails in my flesh, fresh meat in the corner of the club, all eyes on me as my innocence was forever tainted. Being forced to fuck her. Being forced to taste her. Drink. Drink the blood, the essence of undeath, let it pass my lips and mix with my own living ichor.

Settling into my veins and birthing me anew.

Does a vampire not stalk the alleys? Charming and mysterious, enigmatic. Seeking love and understanding but the trauma is too much to handle. The curse, too real. The relationships doomed for pitiful horror from the start. Life dressed as gothic tragedy. Drugs, alcohol, insanity. Losing myself to the isolation between the night and the light.

They always knew me, from when I was a young boy they had me marked. My mouth marked, my heart and soul targeted for making and breaking. My cock…

Ten years old was the first time I felt the unwanted touch of a dark mistress, a predator. I lay pressed to her bed as she straddled my face and grinded against it as she played Hogs of War on the PS1. People hear vampire and think of fangs, I hear vampire and know it is corruption. I think of innocence being taken apart piece by piece and learning too young that the desires of the elders take precedence over the preservation of innocence.

And so I was cursed, left wandering through years of darkness looking for love and finding nothing but hunger. Nothing but pain. Nothing but rejection of the light.

Becoming something I never asked to become.

So, when I’m told I don’t count as a “real vampire” because I understand the word metaphorically, it leaves a bitter taste. I know the word better than anyone because I lived it, fought it, and continue to refuse it.

The metaphor came after the reality, my lived reality. The grooming came first, the bite came first, the blood came first.

The trauma came first.

I was a teenage vampire and I’m as real as it gets.

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature from the challenge so far? Check out yesterday’s 7/11 at Shinjuku Station and these other pieces linked below.

🫙Tip Jar🫙

There’s a line between the street and the gutter.
Shinjuku station.
Bubblegum spit on the sidewalk with glitter.
Dead Tamagotchi.
Virtual Pet.
Virtual Life.
Reality slides.

Mount Fuji erupts like Vesuvius,
Nature makes a fool of us.
In the temple the ghosts sway,
Molten ash.
Noxious fumes.
It reminds my master of the bomb,
His wife gone.

We move on.

Tears on her cheeks,
Tears in her kimono.
Pachinko machine rings out,
Where did my mind go?
Where did the time go?
Back out onto the concrete,
We taste the light beams.

Neon grief.
Disaster relief.

Ribera Steakhouse,
I’ve got the jacket.
A one way trip,
Not exactly how I planned it.
Bodyslammed in the Tokyo Dome,
I lost my phone.
There’s no way to get home.

I hear the score of Sakamoto,
Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence.
Apocalypse upon us.
Another saki,
7/11 Nanachiki.
Atomic flash or sunrise,
You’re coming with me?

This is no Disney movie,
Mickey.
In the end we die,
Let’s die pretty.
This is the invitation,
Shadows on the platform.

Shinjuku station.

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature from the challenge so far? Check out yesterday’s Naughty By Nature and these other pieces linked below.

🫙Tip Jar🫙

Summer dresses
Youthful confessing
A picnic and some wine.
She knew the names of all the birds,
I knew that she was fine.
She spoke of wrens and thrushes,
Of migration routes and pines.
I nodded like a scholar,
I just had to make her mine.

She laughed and all the honeybees
Abandoned their routines.
That’s how I remember it,
I was full of foolish dreams.
She talked about her husband
With affection in her eyes.
Which only got me thinking
That I had to change her mind.

Strawberries in wicker baskets,
Bare feet in the grass.
The sunlight caught her golden hair.
Surely it couldn’t last.
The swallows dipped above the fields,
The summer sky stretched wide.
For one sweet afternoon at least,
I sat there by her side.

Evening settled on the meadow,
Shadows danced beneath the trees.
She paused before we said goodbye
And offered her lips to me.
The blackbirds sang their vespers,
The sun slipped out of sight.
I’ve spent a thousand summers since.

None sweeter than that night.

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature following similar themes? Check out yesterday’s WageStock™ and these other pieces linked below.

☕Buy me a Coffee☕

Bitchmaker

Responsible for the conversion of dissatisfied consumers into compliant Brand Advocates through approved behavioural correction protocols.

Wage: 3 Praise Credits per hour plus one approved compliment every fiscal quarter. Bonus compliments earned based on additional bitches made.

Pork Extraction Specialist

Oversees the safe harvesting of market-grade pork matter from both traditional and non-traditional pork sources.

Wage: 14 Meat Tokens weekly and priority access to recreational sodium.

Synthetic Jejunum Milker

Maintains and extracts nutrient slurry from laboratory-grown intestinal tissues for use in consumer food products.

Wage: 2.5 Litres of Premium Gutmilk per shift and a company-sponsored vitamin graft.

Womb Miner

Operates deep-uterine excavation equipment to recover viable biological assets and reproductive resources.

Wage: 7 Fertility Shares and one commemorative embryo annually.

Pissflute Inspector

Ensures all fleshy wind instruments meet alliance safety, hygiene, and tonal standards. Issuing fines for unlicensed piss whistling.

Wage: 11 Bladder Stamps per day redeemable for clean water and municipal whistling permits.

Assistant Dildromeder

Supports the Senior Dildromeder in the management, calibration, and migration of pleasure-beast herds across corporate territories. Occasional pleasure-beast milking and mucking may be required.

Wage: Entry-level position. Compensation includes room, board, and supervised touching privileges. One year probation required before unsupervised touching is considered.

Twatsmith

Designs, forges, and refurbishes custom reproductive interfaces for civilian and industrial applications.

Wage: 40 Labial Vouchers monthly and participation in the Employee Breeding Lottery.

Consumer Regret Analyst

Tracks post-purchase despair metrics across all demographic sectors. Updates Officer David Gunman for local brutality visits.

Wage: 8 Remorse Credits and unlimited access to Premium Disappointment for you, friends and family.

Chief Semen Liaison

Acts as the primary intermediary between sperm-producing stakeholders and regional distribution authorities.

Wage: Competitive. Includes executive ejaculation matching and unrestricted access to Platinum Sluts.

Griefmonger

Sources, packages, and monetizes bereavement experiences for the luxury emotional commodities market. Secures open caskets and arranges deathgaze events for wealthy clients.

Wage: Commission-based. Earn up to 15% of every funeral memory sold.

Bone Dividend Manager

Maximizes shareholder value through the strategic acquisition, processing, and distribution of skeletal assets. Management of repossessions department for procurement of unpaid bone mortgages.

Wage: Quarterly payouts in Calcium Futures and preferred marrow options.

Kenneth of the Law

Kenneth. Of the Law.

Wage: New Kenneths receive whatever Kenneth requires.

Benefits Package Available To All Employees

• Half price dental subscription

• Air rationing privileges

• Up to three authorized dreams per month (Nightmares may incur additional fees)

• Family members may be cloned at employee rates

• Complimentary mourning after five years of service

• Retirement available upon approval from the Department of Remaining Useful Life

• Casual Fridays*

  ---

<sup>WageStock™ is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are made with regard to race, creed, religion, genetic purity, organ count, reproductive yield, dream productivity, and previous incarnation status.

Please note: Employees remain the property of WageStock™ until all training, cloning, breathing, and onboarding debts have been repaid. Failure to make these repayments will end in permanent disconnection.
Contact chief WageStock™ Profit Prophet for more information on your role as human cattle with us here at WageStock™ Industries.</sup>

"Every human has value. Some simply have more."
— Ellis Wiens, Founder & Profit Prophet, WageStock™ Industries

^{*Casual Fridays suspended indefinitely following the Organ Riots.}

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin literature following similar themes? Check out yesterday’s Things I Like and these other pieces linked below.

💳Invest in WageStock💳

I like bees,
I like cheese,
Traverse seas
To rugburn knees.

I like trees,
Bark and leash,
I’ll shoot to thrill
If you aim to please.

Dirty dishes,
Blood stained floor,
Call me anything
Except a bore.

Dirty laundry,
Let’s make more.
Be my everything,
Saint and Whore.

Be my everything,
Saint and Whore,
In poems written
On bathroom doors.

Be my everything,
Sate this whore,
I’ll give my all
As long as you give more.

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin poetry following similar themes? Check out yesterday’s Gutter Saints and these other pieces linked below.

☕Buy me a Coffee☕

There are ghosts inside me
Of literary greats.
Poetic and prophetic,
They assure me of my fate.
They teach me to be angry
And they teach me to be wise
They teach me of the bitter bite
That ends all mortal lives.

Arghezi stalks the gutters
Burns lives in my roots
Bukowski smokes his cigarette
And spits at men in suits.
Strummer plays the soundtrack
And demands you know the words
They are dead and so is punk
But I’ll make sure they’re heard.

So let me break the boundaries,
Let me slay sacred cows.
Not to prove those bastards wrong,
But prove that I know how.
If I should earn a place beside them,
Let it not be with applause.
Let it be because I dared to kick
A hole clean through their walls.

The hawk still roosts above me,
Its talons on the page.

The ghosts still haunt my body,
Their hunger still sustains.

They did not teach me reverence.
They taught me how to bleed.
How to tear the world to pieces
Until the work’s all that remains.

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin poetry following similar themes? Check out yesterday’s Doing Business and these other pieces linked below.

🩸Donate🩸

Bolster the brand
Vile liquid smears
Sanguine in sepia tones
Desert deaths
For corporate interests
Buy the product
Consume the corpses.

Taste too rich
The price of human lives
Celebrated in company colours
Make yourself sick
For your simple pleasures.

Crimson coins
Copper sweet
Sun bleached stains
Picket fence ledgers
Mark the conquest’s profits
Bury the evidence deep
Beneath the limited release.

Rotting tongue
Rotten needs
Heretic mouths
recite their greed.

Drop the bomb
Drop the act
Innocent souls

We can’t buy back.

Subscribe now

Interested in more Kerr Martin poetry following similar themes? Check out yesterday’s Kompromat and these other pieces linked below.

🍺Beer Fund🍺

Do we soar on eagle’s wings
or shuffle papers into dusty drawers?

Who is watching your wife good Sir?
Who is keeping your loved ones safe?

We ask only a price worth paying
to make certain the results
of your nightly prayers.

Procreate.
Celebrate.
Pontificate.

Dot the i
Cross the t
Make sure our attorney’s pleased
Give us access
Then some more
I’m sorry Sir,
your wife’s a whore.

Your son? An addict.
Your daughter? Nuts.
We read the diaries
best kept shut.

Not what you hoped?
Not what you prayed?
Isn’t this worth the price you paid?

Do we bury you with the evidence
or let you make the fateful mistake?
We’ve seen the scripts,
the pills you take.
It wouldn’t take much.

You’re starting to break.

We are watching you, Sir.
Who is keeping your loved ones safe?

Procreate.
Manipulate.
Terminate.

We will keep your loved ones safe.

Subscribe now

☕Buy Me a Coffee☕

“You thinking of visiting Ma’ since you’re in town?”
“Not this time.”
“Mmhm.”
“What do you mean, mmhm?”
“Nothing. Just drink your coffee so we can get out of here.”
“Look, after last Christmas I decided I wasn’t going back there.”
“And you haven’t. Doesn’t stop her from missing you.”
“Geordie, I’m a rigger. I’m not going to stop.”
“Even after…”
“Geordie. It’s what I do.”
“Still, she doesn’t have to like it.”
“Mmhm.”
“I don’t much like it either, Toddy.”
“Could be worse.”
“Could it?”
“Probably.”

We drove around to all the old haunts. Kerry’s bar, the Hockey Hut, the old college, then we headed to St. Isaac’s cemetery to pay our respects. The last time we were there it was thick with the winter’s snow. Pristine. Unmoving. Seeing it in the summer, lush with life and surrounded by blooming flowers and leafy trees, it was beautiful. I hated it.

“We going to see Dingo?”
“Fuckin’ eh we’re going to see Dingo.”
“Good, I brought a Forty tucked in my jacket. It’s a bit warm but he’s not going to care.”
“Man, I wish I could smoke a fatty right now.”
“You’re a rigger. It’s what you do.”
“Don’t get snippy with me, dick.”
“I’m just saying, you could make my Ma’ happy and smoke all the bud you want, bud.”
“And lose out on five grand a month? Yeah right.”
“Dingo lived in a dump and he was happy, what do you need five grand a month for?”
“Dingo was a grief stricken maniac, a gent, but a maniac.”
“Yeah…yeah.”
“We can’t all be over thirty and still getting high and playing Nintendo in the basement bro.”
“No?”
“No. Adults have jobs.”

That night I picked dad up from the Legion. It was 2am and he was drunk as fuck, the same way he always was when he was off work. I used to love drinking with dad and shooting the shit but tonight I wasn’t in the mood. Everything about him disgusted me, the way everyone in the place patted him on the shoulder and waved goodbye as he left, the cheeky smirk on his face, the sly wink he gave me through the window before he opened the back door and slumped down into the seat. It was so typical. He was so charming and everyone loved him. What a prick.

“Toddy boy!”
“Dad…”
“You shoulda seen me in there tonight son, the Gretzky of darts.”
“Phil Taylor.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Gretzky of darts, Phil “The Power” Taylor. Man’s a legend.”
“Whoever he is, he ain’t no goddamn Wayne Gretzky.”
“Mmhm.”
“Have you been to see your mother yet, boy?”
“No…”
“And what did I tell you the last time I saw you?”
“Don’t let anything come between us boys and our mother.”
“And what else?”
“That family comes before anything…”
“Before food, before pussy, before goddamn death!”
“Dad…”
“That’s right.”
“You want something on the radio?”
“You made her cry at Christmas, you know?”
“Fuck, I’m not the only one in this car who’s made her cry.”
“Now that’s low.”
“Low? It was your idea for me to come with you out onto the rigs and away from this shithole.”
“It was.”
“And now I’m supposed to just quit, throw it all away, because you…”
“Because I what, kid?”
“Forget it…”
“Come on tough guy, just fucking say it!”
“Because you fucking died!”
“There we go. Now we’re at the heart of the matter.”

I pulled the car up outside the house.

“You took me out there onto those God forsaken rigs, away from my friends, away from my home, made me feel like I had found my calling and then just when life here was far enough in the rearview? Just when everyone had moved along and forgot about Toddy? You go and fucking die on me. And what now? I give it all up to come back here and live in the shadows of the past? Fuck that man, fuck you.”

There was no reply.

I killed the engine and sat there in silence staring down the empty street. It was quiet apart from the distant hum of the highway and Missus Simmon’s dog barking. That dog must have been as old as I was and it had been unhinged just as long. Summer in the neighbourhood always smelled faintly of chicken fingers and ganja. Like everyone had just stepped inside after a weed fuelled cookout. Back when I had anything to say about it that was exactly what had just happened.

The curtain twitched, it was Ma’ sitting at the front window. She was watching the dark. Just…looking out into it. The way she did when I visited at Christmas, the way I’m sure she had every single night since the funeral. She said she thought if she stared long enough that dad might come shambling back up the driveway laughing about some misunderstanding at the Legion or singing about his big winnings on the VLTs.

I lit a cigarette and watched the ember glow in the windshield reflection. The basement light was on out back, of course it was. Warm yellow and bleeding out across the yard. Geordie was down there as usual. Shirt off. Cross-legged. Face too close to the television. Ashtray overflowing with roaches beside him. SNES humming softly while some old hockey game menu music looped forever into the night as he smoked himself to sleep. I could picture it perfectly.

The boyhood bunker.

The basement suite.

I got out of the car, locked the door, and made my way across the lawn. I could feel Ma’ watching me every step of the way but I didn’t turn or look. I kept my eyes focused on the steps down to the basement. I took a quick glance at the firepit on my way past, sodden and unloved, filled with the remnants of stick and ash that could have lay there since I was seventeen. There was a scorched can of Moosehead that probably had. I hopped down the stairs and slowly opened the door and stepped into a room that was lit with just the faint glow of the TV. There was Geordie passed out on the couch with an open tallboy gripped tight in his fist. I sat down on the beanbag chair that had been there since 2005, picked up his half-smoked joint from the ashtray, lit it and grabbed the SNES remote.

NHL ‘94, greatest game ever made.

Fuckin’ eh, somebody has to keep the dream alive.

Black and Green is the third and perhaps final installment in my Northern Gospel series. Read Swiss Chalet for Dingo, a short story collaboration with , and Basement Suite Blue, a poem based on that story at the links below.

Subscribe now

I have spent years debating whether I should ever write publicly about these experiences. I have woven them into fiction but now, in light of recent notes, I feel like it is time to speak honestly.

Part of the hesitation comes from understanding how stories like this sound to modern people. The moment somebody mentions spirits, psychic experiences, demons, visions, or prophetic dreams, most listeners immediately begin translating everything into categories that feel more logical. Mental illness. Trauma. Suggestion. Religious obsession. Coincidence. I understand why people do that because I have tried to do it myself many times over the years.

At the same time, there eventually comes a point where refusing to acknowledge repeated experiences begins to feel dishonest, to myself and to my family.

The women in my family have always had a strange relationship with the spiritual world. I do not mean that theatrically or metaphorically. I mean there was a longstanding understanding inside the family that certain people seemed unusually sensitive to things other people either ignored or never noticed at all.

Some embraced it openly, others were damaged by it, and then there were the ones who avoided speaking about it altogether.

My grand-aunt, who I will call Marsha, works publicly as a spiritualist within the Christian church. This was not treated as occultism in the environment I grew up around. It was understood as spiritual work, something connected to discernment, intuition, and communication beyond ordinary perception. At the same time, there was also an awareness within the family that spiritual experiences could become dangerous, destabilizing, or difficult to control.

Another grand-aunt suffered severe visions and psychological episodes throughout her life and was eventually institutionalized. A cousin later began experiencing similar episodes herself and ended up tragically alienated because of the things she was driven to. Another grand-aunt believed entities communicated with her through objects, particularly dolls, she was found in the attic of her house talking with them. Importantly, none of these women lived together. These experiences occurred across separate homes, separate lives, and separate circumstances. Whatever existed within the family did not seem tied to one place.

Growing up, these subjects were rarely discussed directly in front of children, but they were never fully dismissed either. There was always a strange tension around them, a feeling that people were carefully balancing skepticism, belief, fear, and familiarity all at once.

My grandmother represented that contradiction perfectly.

She was a Christian woman, like all the others, until something broke her faith. She was loving, practical, sharp-tongued, emotionally intense, and capable of cutting you down with her words. She survived cancer. She struggled with alcohol. She could be deeply generous one day and surprisingly cruel the next. She also had a habit of treating extraordinary things with complete casualness, which often made them far more unsettling.

When I was around ten or eleven years old, I stayed overnight with her and my grandfather. She kept porcelain dolls in the house, the kind many older women collected. Under normal circumstances I probably would not have thought much about them, but because of the stories surrounding my grand-aunt and her beliefs about spirits communicating through dolls, they already carried a certain atmosphere in my mind. That night I woke up and became convinced one of the dolls had moved.

I remember trying to rationalize it immediately. I told myself I had remembered its position incorrectly in the dark. Then it shifted again. It was the plastic baby doll sitting on a shelf at the foot of the bed surrounded by its porcelain sisters. Whispering came from all corners of the room. Even now I cannot confidently explain where it was coming from, only that in the moment I too became convinced the dolls themselves were speaking. I watched the baby doll crawl slowly forward until it eventually toppled from the shelf and struck the bottom of the bed loudly enough to make me scream for my grandmother.

What stayed with me afterward was not even the movement itself, but her reaction. She came into the room calmly, picked the doll up, and asked “Are the dolls talking to you too, son?” Not “What happened?” or “Did you have a nightmare?”

That specific phrasing disturbed me because it implied familiarity. It suggested she already considered communication with the dolls a genuine possibility. Looking back now, I think that moment changed something in me because it was the first time I seriously considered that the adults around me might actually believe these experiences were real. Around the same period of my life, I also began experiencing moments that I struggled to explain rationally. Predictive dreams came first. I remember dreaming that my mother unexpectedly picked me up from school and took me to a restaurant. A few days later the exact thing happened, the same booth, the same food. I looked down at my meal and remembered every detail.

Then there were episodes of déjà vu so intense that they stopped feeling psychological and began feeling existential. I would become convinced I had already lived through certain moments before and that something terrible would happen if I followed the exact same sequence of actions. Sometimes I deliberately changed my behaviour in extreme ways simply to disrupt the pattern because I felt as though I was trying to avoid a future I had already seen once before. I’d pour cups of hot coffee over myself just to avoid the grip of death that I was sure was coming.

As I got older, these experiences became more specific.

The clearest example involved a friend during a sleepover. Throughout the night I began telling him things I should not reasonably have known. What toy he played with while his parents packed up the car to move to my town. It was a bubble maker. The chocolate bars his grandfather bought him after swimming lessons every week. Taz bar. What his mother collected despite me never having met her or visited his house. Thimbles. I even predicted the colour of the bedsheets his friend Jack had on the bed when he had visited him the previous day.

At first he laughed and then he became uncomfortable, by morning the atmosphere between us had changed permanently. Years later, after moving to North Carolina, I experienced something that disturbed me even more because it involved my wife directly.

One night I woke beside her and heard her laughing. Immediately I knew something was wrong because the sound did not resemble her normal laugh at all. It sounded low and cruel. At first I assumed she was joking or half asleep, so I asked her to stop. She ignored me completely and continued laughing.

Then she began asking me whether I was afraid.

I remember repeatedly calling her name while her eyes remained shut the entire time. The voice speaking back to me did not sound like her. Eventually I physically shook her awake.

The change was immediate.

She opened her eyes confused and exhausted and had absolutely no memory of what had just happened.

Experiences like these eventually forced me into a complicated spiritual position. I am a Christian, and so were most of the women in my family who experienced these things. I believe demons exist. I believe there is a genuine spiritual reality beneath ordinary life, and I believe some people are more spiritually sensitive than others, whether by nature, inheritance, or some combination of both.

At the same time, I also believe sensitivity without discernment can become dangerous.

Recently, after years of distancing myself from these subjects, I found myself slipping back toward them again. The truth is embarrassingly simple. A fellow writer on Substack, , asked if there were any psychics around and I immediately responded before even thinking properly about it. Not because I was searching for the truth or because I was trying to help anyone but because I wanted to show off.

That is the uncomfortable part of all this that I think many people avoid admitting. Spiritual experiences can easily become entangled with ego, pride, curiosity, and the desire to feel exceptional. I had promised myself years earlier, while going through my darkest days, that I would not walk back toward these practices, yet there I was reaching toward them the moment the opportunity appeared. That realization frightened me more than any paranormal experience ever has. Not because I doubt these things are real but because I know they are. I know what lies behind that door.

My grandfather’s surname is Kerr, and at various points throughout my life I heard references to something called the “Kerr Curse.” I have never been able to determine whether this was an actual piece of recorded folklore or simply family mythology passed between generations until nobody remembered where it began. In Scotland those two things often overlap anyway. Oral history has a habit of becoming folklore if it survives long enough.

My grandfather came from the Scottish Borders, a region with a long history of violence, superstition, religion, second sight, and spiritual paranoia. Border families lived hard lives shaped by raids, blood feuds, isolation, and generational trauma. In older Scottish communities, particularly rural ones, spiritual sensitivity was not always treated as fantasy. Certain families were believed to carry “the sight,” prophetic dreams, intuitions, warnings, or unusual sensitivities through bloodlines in the same way other families carried illnesses or temperament. Whether the Kerr side of my family truly has any connection to that folklore, I honestly cannot say with certainty. Most of the experiences I have described here came through my grandmother’s family, not the Kerrs. At the same time, the phrase stayed with me because it seemed to describe something I could already sense before I understood it.

There was deep affection in the family, but also secrecy, addiction, pride, resentment, and private grief that rarely surfaced directly. Looking back now, I sometimes wonder whether spiritual sensitivity and emotional intensity become intertwined over generations, whether certain people simply become more open to things other people instinctively shut out.

I also want to make clear that this essay is not a complete account of every experience connected to me, or my family. If anything, it is only an overview, a first honest attempt to document patterns and events that were usually kept private or discussed only in fragments. There are other stories I have not included, other moments I still struggle to express properly, and experiences belonging to relatives whose privacy I want to protect.

I am aware many people reading this will dismiss everything I have written. Some will see mental illness. Some will see religious conditioning. Some will see coincidence stitched together into mythology after the fact.

I understand that reaction.

I know these experiences did not happen in isolation. They stretched across generations, across separate households, across people who often disagreed with each other about almost everything else. I do not claim to fully understand what any of it means. Maybe that is all this piece really is in the end, no revelations, just documentation before the stories disappear with the people who lived them.

Subscribe now

When invited me back into the Author Arena with the challenge of writing a 500-word horror story about a place that should not exist, I was excited. Then, when he revealed that my opponent would be the mighty , I knew for sure that Substack was in for a showdown of epic proportions. When writing my story for submission I got a little carried away, and before I realised it, I was way over the 500-word count. The story you are about to read is my story, in its original form, before I had to take the hatchet to it. Firstly, I hope you enjoy, and then come back and click the read more button below to see what became of Healing Hands Therapy. If you still enjoy it there as much as you do here? Give me your vote.

- Kerr

Wirrowac’s Playground

Kerr Martin vs. Stefan Baciu

Welcome warrior of words…

Read more

a month ago · 13 likes · 10 comments · J Wirrowac and Kerr Martin

Coach told us to go home. I wasn’t going home. I had been sacked by some behemoth, Andre Evans, in the closing minutes of that shitshow game and I needed a good massage. When I pulled into the arena, VIP parking lot of course, I saw a door that read “Healing Hands Therapy” and it was calling my name.

Stepping inside I was met with all the usual trappings of a hippy dippy massage parlour. There was a massage table in the center, a tall rubber plant in the corner, a desk with a CD player and a stack of Whale Sound and Rainstorm CDs, and of course a bunch of crystals and junk dotted around. It stunk of Nag Champa but I couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from. Probably the staff room, which I could only assume sat behind the door on the opposite wall than the one I came in.

“Hello?!”

I inspected the desk closely. Apparently, the junk wasn’t just junk, it was superstitious junk. Talismans. A frog with a coin in its mouth, a statue of shiva, and a small golden hand that had a swirl in its palm. I supposed that must have been the healing hand this place was named after.

“You’ve got a customer, y’know? Brett Sandler. Greatest rookie year in NFL history?”

I was sure that would get them moving, but after a couple more minutes passed, there was still nothing. I couldn’t believe it, nobody passed up a chance to meet me, they should have been jumping at the chance to get their hands on an icon. Walking over to the door on the back wall I gave it two hard thuds.

“Hey, you mooks working for your money or is this place just for show?”

The door clicked open and swung back with great force, as if someone had pulled from the other side. I stepped back to make sure no crazed maniac came rushing for me but, to my surprise, the room on the other side of the door was empty.

And it stunk…

Not of Nag Champa but of something foul. Something I’d only smelt in the worst kept locker rooms in the country. Sweat, damp skin, a sourness like the breath of a chain smoker caught in a rotting mouth. I knew that smell well, it was the one that jumped out of Pa’s mouth when he was pissed at me for putting a foot wrong during drills.

It took a second for my eyes to catch up to my nose. The light in there was dimmer, yellowed, like it was being filtered through something thick. The walls…moved.

At first I thought it was a trick of the light. Shadows shifting. Then one of them twitched.

Fingers.

Layered over each other so tightly they formed the surface. Hundreds of hands pressed together, knuckles and palms making up the structure of the room. Skin of every tone, every size, all packed in, writhing slightly like they were dreaming.

I let out a short laugh. “Alright. Real funny.”

I wanted to run. Inside I was screaming in terror, but I couldn’t let the world see I was afraid, Pa would never allow it. So, I stepped inside.

One of the hands peeled away.

Not detached, just lifted, showing that it was part of something much larger. It reached for me slowly, deliberately, and pressed into my shoulder right where I’d landed when Evans planted me earlier.

I tensed and it dug in hard. Pain flared sharp enough to make me wince and then it broke. I should’ve fought it but my body leaned in before my brain caught up.

The knots, years of muscular damage, gone in a single press. I sucked in a breath, half laugh, half groan.

“Okay,” I muttered. “Okay…”

More hands followed from the walls, floor and even the ceiling above me. Cold ones. Warm ones. One that felt feverish. They mapped me fast, like they’d been waiting. Fingers pressed between ribs, along my spine, into my thighs. The hands found everything. A thumb slid into my lower back, went too deep. Then something shifted with a wet, internal click. My knees buckled but the hands caught me.

Held me.

Worked me.

Not random. No movement was random. They knew where to go before I did. They bent my arm just past where it should, held it there, then released it into something better than perfect. Fingers dug into muscle and pulled tension out like it was rot.

Pressed. Twisted. Reset.

It was the best I’d ever felt. Better than a winning game, better than the roar of the crowd, better than being named Rookie of the Year. Better than anything.

When it stopped, it stopped abruptly, and the hands slipped back into the walls like nothing had ever happened. I stood there, breathing hard. Everything was…aligned. No ache. No stiffness. Wellness resting easy in every muscle and joint. Then, one hand rose from the wall again, and I jumped back. It followed me and pressed two fingers against my lips.

I didn’t say a word.

The door opened behind me and I left.

I went back the next night, and the next, until it was time to leave town. We were playing Cleveland and I had to catch a plane, leave all of this behind. But, I’d be back, I had to come back.

I was playing better than I ever had, better than my record-breaking rookie year. Faster. Stronger. I was untouchable. They said I was God’s gift to football, but I knew better. Cleveland, Seattle, Denver, we took them all down, yet after every game all I could think about was that room, those hands. It was eating me alive. Eventually I told a teammate, Big Joe Bronson, I had to. I thought saying it out loud might kill the itch and give me some joy back, let me count the wins at least. I needed to feel something other than the wanting. Joe just laughed, shook his head, and called me a wild ass white boy. What else was he to say?

Then he went.

He didn’t come back.

The police said his body gave out. Nothing had hit him, there was no evidence of a struggle, he just collapsed. Body compressed inward like something had worked him from every side at once, until he was all but skin and bone. It didn’t make sense to them, but it made sense to me.

I’m outside the door again now, I’m supposed to be heading to Atlanta, but I changed flights. Took the redeye just to be here. My shoulder is starting to tighten, my back is pulling just a little, I need this.

I can feel the hands already waiting behind the police tape and “Do Not Enter” signs.

And this time? I know they’re not going to stop.

I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

Subscribe now

🫙Tip Jar🫙

-Vote for Kerr-

Wirrowac’s Playground

Kerr Martin vs. Stefan Baciu

Welcome warrior of words…

Read more

a month ago · 13 likes · 10 comments · J Wirrowac and Kerr Martin

It’s 2008 and we’re ten years too late.
We’ve learned to love and learned to hate.
SNES humming in the corner,
it doesn’t know it’s been replaced.

Blowing into cartridges?

Better than blowing out our brains.

Outside, the snowbanks are grey.
Ashtrays and exhaust pipes,
a sky that never commits to blue.

Basement suite.

Wood panel walls sweating nicotine.

Paradise.

We’re white trash in bobble hats,
reliving moments that should have been.
Laughing at jokes far too obscene.
Someone’s older brother talking about “Up North”
like it’s the promised land
and all the pretty girls he’d seen.

This couch helps me remember…

The friends who left,
who never leave.
Indentations in the cushions
like fossils in cheap foam.
I’ll never flip it,
they’ll never go home.

The shadows stay longer than the daylight.

Stretching across the carpet
past the burn holes
past the beer rings,
they sit with us.
They don’t talk,
they pass the joint
and let the room fill up
because what’s the point?

Let the world think no one lives here.

Roll another smoke.
Drink another beer.

Just like them…

I disappear.

Subscribe now

Basement Suite Blue was directly inspired by my collaboration with , Swiss Chalet for Dingo, or perhaps it was the other way around. Before I knew that Theodore wanted to do a short story instead of a poem I had started dabbling with some lines. Those lines made their way into this piece. Both are “stories” about boys too young to already feel this haunted. Neither piece romanticizes poverty or self-destruction, instead they understand the warmth of surviving a working-class upbringing, and how strong friendships are required to get us through the cold.

Thank you for reading.

Jerry Cove, the gardens slum.
Hidden by plastic grass
Above a dreaming coffin.

At night I danced in sewers
With flashlight eyes
claws like dull knives.

I hung on blue windows,
hearing screaming ghosts.
Kids clutched broken dolls
to let the evening fly.

Father beats his boy.
Mother starves her girl.

But so above, so below
And what is up below?
Beneath the shouting,
A choir hummed.

Beyond Jerry Cove,
Beneath the plastic grass and concrete floor
A factory, buried without clocks.

Gray clean walls
Tools without hands
Stalls without doors

Flat statues beneath
Silently singing
Silver,
Memories
Of death and rebirth

The night it happened,
I found prey
Bushy tail upright
Standing still
Waiting for me
I pounced,
Grabbed and bit
My fangs snapped
The squirrel was stone.

Big man with big stick grabbed me
Held me by the tail, his son in wait
They plucked my black fur,
Threw me in the air and
Hit me with their bat
Splattered me against the fence,

Blue blood found the ground.
My bones, broken like a clock.
I saw my own eye
Lying in the grass
A little girl came to help me
But ran away, scared of my black fur.

From the sewer grate
A boy arose
a collage pretending to breathe
Cut from the page,
skin stretched across nothing.
Spun invisible with transparent eyes.

The boy moved motionless to me,
and spoke without tongue
He told me meaning came like the electric bill,
A tiresome curse disguised as a gift.
But their curse was in the life above,
Mine was deep below.

Under Jerry Cove,
A factory, the one that made me
And the one made for me.

He reached his flat hands to me
Hands not intent on petting.
Betrayal with two friends in tow.

Skin erupts
from my feline suit,
Claws become nails
Fingers lengthen,
My eyes stay slit.
The rest bursts anew.

Paper men sing to me,
Hailing the concrete coffin
Below the plastic grass

Rooms with forgotten function
Waiting to be mine.
Writing walls made for me
With empty bellies and silent songs

I wait where the bus forgets them.
The children ask who I am
I tell them I have a black cat
They smiled with all their teeth
And never asked again.
I take them by my hairy hands,
Guiding them through tunnels of sweat
Into cold, narrow hallways

The paper boy below
Guides them to their pens
They hold each other
Like newborns blue
But the doors have vanished
And I have too.

The young pups in their crates
Sing for their release
Their barks awaken dead machines
Their meows push the levers
A blue haze simmers in the pale kennels.

They collapse with broken bones.
First their skin, now the flesh.
Squeezed together by deaf walls.
Black fur erupts from liquid flesh.
This pound is reserved for man.

Gaping mouths that plead for mercy,
I’ve seen what plastic builds.

Every act preserved in me,
as me.

A reflection.
An error.
A cat?
No, a man.

They scratch.
They whimper.

Fuel for the childhood kiln.

Let their salted flesh melt like
their creators by the mass below.
Rebirth them into a new God.
One that does not cry or bleed.
One that never left Jerry Cove.

This piece belongs, first, to my writing partner .

Subscribe to Oliver

He didn’t come to me empty-handed but with this surreal creation already breathing. Tone, texture, and world only recognize when it was laid out in front of me. That’s rare. Most of my collaborations start with a seed. This was already well rooted and growing. He trusted me enough to step into his mind and meet it where it lived. That takes courage. Oliver understands that. He understands atmosphere, restraint, and when to let something stay strange and when to go stranger. So whatever this became when I got my hands on it? Whatever teeth it grew? It all started with him.

Thank you, friend.

Gas Station Carnivals

An Actors Illness

Act I…

Read more

3 months ago · 17 likes · 9 comments · Oliver Losinski

Subscribe now