If there’s one thing I know, it’s shitty little seaside towns in winter where immolation barely touches the surface. Dear God, won’t you watch over my godlessness? Won’t you make her listen to her mistakes? If you’re going to act the burn victim, I’ll do all the talking, say your amens for you, what with you in all these dressings. But really, didn’t anyone tell you it’s presumptuous to want to see His plans? And if someone’s gone to the effort of not existing, least you can do is respect their decision. What’s that? You’ll have to speak up. Can you shake the feeling yet? And yes, this is my best snarling-devil voice. You see, thing is, pain looks like whoever I want, like different people all the time. Say after me: Forgive me my ibuprofen habit, my milk of magnesia moustache. But then, suffering’s too good for you, I suppose. Not that I’m complaining or anything, but only nearly dying insults your Creator. Like if you hadn’t bothered to try. I have no time for impatience, so I got some notes for next time—you can read them when your eyes grow back. You see, I find I’m allergic to creative types, take shots for it and everything. Making shit up like dogs barking in Welsh, babies crying over missed menstruations. Spare me. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me again I’m a minor celebrity, I dare you. Every evening before dinner, I plan to kill you between naps. I’m made sick, after all. I have this splendid stage 4 lymphoma of the self-involved cunt you are. Pretty girl like you mistaking yourself for a bonfire like that. If God were alive, He’d have killed himself laughing. There’s a to-do list includes your own private Hiroshima. Have fun with the shame, but not the other way round. And fuck Mary Magdalene, fuck all the saints and the necklaces they spawned. It takes nothing special to mop up after every backhanded compliment, but to save a soul in a pickling jar . . . now, that’s a thing. I saved my soul online. Takes up less room than you’d think. Cost fuck all, by which I mean you’re prettier now than you ever were, by which I mean it’s probably best you just stay in your room. I daresay life outside Scarborough is a thing, but you’ve got to die first, and now look. I could care less for the caring professions, by which I mean it’s my very great pleasure to watch you die. And when I say watch I mean I’m here to help. I’m going to meet a friend any day now, you’ll see. If I shouldn’t be around people, why are they everywhere I go? I say God bless Norma Desmond types and the men in suits face down in their pools. I know you’re wondering why someone like me would end up in a town like this and you’re right. Life is nothing but wondering. Your mistake was finding answers. You think God doesn’t speak to me too? Sorry if everything feels like it’s out to fuck you, sweetheart, but it is. Nothing feels real anymore, I get it. Not since we started thinking. And then what? You reckon the world owes you fireworks going off? Trust me, I’ve seen how death is spread too thin to be of deepening concern. Can you hear yourself thinking in tongues? Why don’t you just, you know, do something pretty with your hurt feelings? You can’t take the world seriously and be a serious person. Saying something and meaning it is the very epitome of human frivolity, so please excuse me for nursing you back to such a horrible place—I got a little carried away. But am I indecent to want the exegetical intricacies of the Holy Trinity thrashed out in the sordid entanglements of a ménage à trois? Maybe if you just let me eat your gnawing suspicion we can pretend there are more important things. Like how your saintly symptoms might just be cancer or appendicitis. Like I can’t help but feel, and how that’s no way to live. If you ever want to talk, try not setting yourself on fire. I have a friend who meant something once; it made them unemployable. I honestly have so much wasted pain, it hurts. Not all that glamorous, but someone has to drink your stomas. God speaking Welsh was too much. God speaks code, speaks Urdu, speaks Farsi, speaks beautifully, speaks liquid shits, talks bollocks, such exquisite bollocks. Says what if I’m getting it all wrong in no language at all. And there’s more than enough emptiness to go round. So many wonderful things come back to me from my days in the madhouse. So many emotions I can plug into and I plug into you. Oh shit, honey, you still looking at the light? I don’t think you can fit in there anymore. Silly old thing. Look, I’m trying to be kind, but I’ve been trained by humans. God fucks women—it’s true, but it’s nuanced. What was that, by the way? You think you’re vulnerable now, wait till you’re dead. You’re getting all worked up. Ending your own life radiates panic, and it’s been ages and such a waste of time. I have a responsibility to failed suicides, because it’s no fun to be reminded of ourselves, and it’s not right we spend our days thinking it might be nice to find love and finding mental illness instead. You know they sell full stigmata on the shopping channel for the price of a few ciggies, right? Maybe after I leave we can meet online, with the rest of God’s chosen. Maybe we can hang out of open windows till the urge takes us. Though you’ll have to learn to like the falling part. You know, because it’s all falling. And like you said, it wasn’t your fault. But I’m being stupid. I thought that was you on fire when the fire was out. I thought that was you making holes in me with scissors. Do you mind if I remove the last of the dressings now? I’ll be real quick, I promise. What’s wrong with overwhelming pain is how underwhelming it is. Am I right? It’s a funny kind of CPR that saves my soul. I know it’s late, but struggling to stay awake is precisely how dull it is to be dying. But so sweet of you to try. I am transformed so unkind you made me think things were looking up. Looking up God’s skirt, no less. God must be the loneliest girl in the world. You have no idea. Nothing you do can touch Him. Your Coney Island spirituality is such an ugly pretense. Snap out of it, honey. William Blake ain’t coming for your ghost. There are fleas more sacred than you. And as for all this writhing, there’s nothing dignified about it. Take away being: you can’t incinerate your body and transcend it too. 
Gary J. Shipley is the author of numerous books, including Stab Frenzy, So Beautiful and Elastic, Terminal Park (Apocalypse Party), The House Inside the House of Gregor Schneider (Cloak), Bright Stupid Confetti (11:11 Press), 30 Fake Beheadings (Spork), and You With Your Memory Are Dead (Inside the Castle). His monograph on Baudrillard, Stratagem of the Corpse, is available from Anthem Press.
Illustration: Christopher Norris
