Last Fish Supper
How to Mistake Madness for Revelation. A Guerrilla Literature short story conceptualized, written, and published by Kerr Martin, 6/15/26 - 6/16/26.
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.
Like Icarus, I have flown too close to the sun. I want to thank Stefan Baciu, J Wirrowac, Mike smith, Crystal Gallagher, Ira C. Zipperer 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.
“Old, shaking hands covered in blood and attached to a hopeless drunkard” sums up the story pretty well. Great piece Kerr x
No one serves up whisky and vinegar better. Best wishes!