24th of March to the 29th of March

Uff! Those Kindergarten infections are trouble. My twice-a-week ice bath did not prepare me for those. Not even us as a family. There is still some pain in my tonsils occasionally. My wife and kid had a much harder fight with coughing fits and all that. This time just some painkillers and loads of liquid helped to get out and I hope I can put this behind me for this year. Otherwise, things are good. I gave a few speeches and there is more comedy stuff on the horizon, even though I need to work on the structure of my sets. I feel that people find it hard to follow. Maybe the context is often more clear to me than it is to the audience. All that being said, let’s continue with the writing prompts of the past few days. Please enjoy!

24th of March: “What is your favourite hero that comes back with his/her boons”

The question was in literature, but I believe the one that has the most grip on me is from a video game. One of the best video games. Definitely the best video game on the Super Nintendo: Terranigma. This game came out on the last leg of that console generation and rivals in graphics some great 2D Adventure-RPGs on the first PlayStation. The hero there is “Ark” a boy that lives in a beautiful village with floating soap bubbles roaming through the air. One day he opens a box and the darkness enters that village, he fights his way through towers that in turn make the continents of earth appear. After bringing plants, animals and humans to earth he walks through said earth to influence everything that happens. A powerful boy that has his mysterious hand in many a thing but to you, as a player, that is the life, that is your adventure and everything you can influence and that is powerful. It works. You created the world, shaped it and filled it with life but once created it works without you, but you will leave a massive imprint and I believe that is a fantastic story. You are not all-powerful, but you have the means and boons to shape and influence the world in ways you might not be able to grasp. What a fantastic game!

25th of March: “Do not play Ping-Pong with a manic depressive…”

It’s always the same. You ping, I pong. You start, I end it. You smile, and I frown. You energetic, I’m exhausted. The Yin to my Yang. “Do not play Ping-Pong with a manic depressive” he yells across the room. The words hit him and Jesus shrieks back: “And this is why no one ever plays with you. You asshat!”. On the other end of the table, Donnie picked the paddle up. In slow motion. Again the last night flashed in front of his eyes. Cigarette smoke, glasses of wine, smoke, whiskey, cocaine, smoke, wine and in between beelines to the bathroom. “Let’s go.”, Jesus said calmly. The bar fell silent. The ping and pong filled the room. The pacing increases. Only huffing and the ball hitting the table. The shouting person makes a stride through the room to watch the match. In reach of Jesus, he grabs his wrist. The one that holds the paddle. “What the fuck!” is all he can say as the ball pong-pong-pongs on the tile floor. Donnie hurls his paddle across the table. Straight hitting the matchstopper with the wooden handle on the bridge of the nose. Immediately streams of blood hurl out of his nose, he lets go of Jesus’ wrist, stumbles back, gets pushed from the back and lands on his knees. The ball meets a shower of haemoglobin and leaves a dotted red line on the floor. “That is why you shouldn’t play with that nutcase” is all he can mutter while holding his nose with both hands.

26th of March: “Amusing spoonerisms”

The donely luck was ever so donely. Her kucky lids left the nest a long time ago. The wuckdeed tasted worse with them out of the pome hond. Drister Muck was doing his thing. Going out looking for companionship outside the puck dond. He tried to find a way into the group of pity cigeons. They are pretty and bkinnier sirds. But in reality none was as pretty as the donely luck. She was shite as wnow, begs up to the lutt and feathers thick like a jown dacket. The kucky lids had her genes. Drister Muck was shunned by the pity cigeons. He spoke too slow and they falked tast. He dot grunk instead. The kucky lids had a dantastic fay and the donely luck was the ptar of the sond. The pome hond all hers.

27th of March: “A message to a deceased person”

I wish I had a few. To Hitler I would write: “I hope you rot and suffer wherever you are. You should have stuck with painting but I guess no one loved you.”

Then I would write things to cheer up some dead people: “Hey Kurt, you are missed. You influenced a whole generation and more with your music. Dave, you remember him, continues in a fantastic and uplifting band called the Foo Fighters. You also seemed to have started a trend of people leaving this world at age 27.”

After that I would write to my grandma: “I hope you are doing fine wherever you are. I wish I would have introduced you to more people that I love in my life. You wouldn’t believe it but I would even have been comfortable bringing a boyfriend if I would have had one. Nowadays that is kinda normal and that is cool. We have a child now and we named her after you. And when I look at her, then I see me and I think you would like that. You are dearly missed.”

28th of March: “Dramatically disoriented”

This doesn’t happen too much. But I do hate it when people wake me up when I am about to fall asleep. This has gotten so much better these days but in my teens, this was something that could trigger me to the point of becoming violent. One time I had a sleepover at one of my friend’s places and while I was falling asleep my other two friends found it would be fun to draw stuff on my face. When I realised what happened after I got up to take a pee and only then saw clear enough to make out black marker lines in my face I grabbed the smaller one of my friends and power bombed him into the sofa where I slept. I felt bad immediately but then we laughed it off and something like that never happened again. Another time I just got my driver’s license I fell asleep in my car after a concert in a garage. I knew I was not able to drive for a few hours. At one point and thankfully after some hours a knock on the window woke me up. It was cold. The windows of my car were blurry with everything my body exhausted that night. Two figures walking around my car and trying to wake me up. I rubbed my eyes. Got ready for a fight or show my papers to some authority. That thought woke me up like a strong coffee. I wiped the window with the sleeve of my hoodie and saw a friendly-looking couple. I let the windows down and asked how I can help them. They asked if I could drive them home. They even offered to pay. So I drove them home and it wasn’t even far. It could have been more dramatic, like asking me to have the car for a couple of minutes to have sex in there.

29th of March: “10 seconds of action”

The springs inside the mattress screamed in pain. The 50-kilogram body strained them to the highest degree. Release was coming in milliseconds. The feet lost touch with the mattress and catapulted into the air, rotating the body 180 degrees and then a bit. Not all of the pressure came back onto the mattress. Part of the weight was relieved onto the fishbowl next to the bed. Just some 40-kilogram sprawled out on the bed. The fishbowl was less forgiving and gave less way that made her burst and left a mark on that head. A gaping wound that required surgery. The room was giggling. Don’t leave your kids alone jumping on the bed when possible head-injuries just wait for them everywhere.

Also here is a bonus, as this was an exercise that I did for my creative writing course:

Yoga is my passion

120 kilos are rooted firmly to the ground while I am squatting on the floor of my tiny apartment. I push up, stretch my arms overhead, let the hands touch above my head - think - like a candle. Here comes my cool-down. I lift my left foot and angle my leg at the knee to move it up, but there I am shaking. My hips sway in violent motions left to right to balance me but fail.

My hands raise downwards towards the wall to stabilise what my hips failed to and my fingernails scratch the wallpaper until they dig a bit into it and my hands take my weight and push against the wall.

My left leg still in the air I am a tripod with my arms being strong kickstands. Instead of left foot rooting me again, the wall gives way, like a wilting piece of wood - grey dust flies into my face.

My body like a huge wrecking ball unstoppably moves further through the two cracks that become one shaped vaguely like my body or an iron church bell that halts for 59 out of 60 minutes but for that 1 minute just does its thing and so do I. I move through the wall hands first, head second, body third.

Feeling helpless like a candle being blown out in a hurricane. In the 2 seconds, my fall takes I notice my apartment extending to that of my neighbour. I see him. Sitting there, with his dreadlocks, a bong in hand on a colourful rag that covers his soft bed in a tie-dye mandala. I can’t tell the smoke from the dust I am creating. As I lift my chin up from his floor, my second chin following straight ahead a golden buddha with the sun behind him grins at me from a poster saying: Let That Shit Go…