Attention, ladies and gentlemen!

  The Three Ring Circus begins, bringing to you 12 raw and uncensored short stories of violence, sex, gore and perversions.
  Over this weekend, my new blog called Three Ring Circus goes live. Previously a collection of short stories I had compiled together with the intention of finding a publisher. Instead, I've chosen to post them for free on a blogsite for everyone over the age of 18 to read. Every Saturday, a new short story will be released, continuing for several months until all 12 have been posted. The schedule is already set, predetermined by order and prepared in advance. I won't even have to touch it. Everything is ready, guaranteeing a fresh tale on time every time. All it's missing is readers.
  That means you.
  Come to the blog. Follow it, or if you don't have an account, bookmark it. Read, comment and most importantly, share.

  The Three Ring Circus: http://grinthreeringcircus.blogspot.ca/

  Yours truly,

  Micheal Grin

Three Ring Circus

  “This week, I got older.”

  When this post goes up, it will be my birthday. I'm 31 years old now.

Last week, I offered up three copies of Princess Nonomi as a promotional filler. The offer continues this week, with another three copies up for grabs. The e-book comes in a PDF format and can easily be converted to any format you need for your reader.

  To win, you simply need to follow this blog.

  Starting next week, my posts will be bi-weekly. I'm currently working on my next book and have little time to devote to a blog about, well, nothing in particular.

  Since I'm mentioning my current project and seeing as it's my birthday, this week's post is a little taste of what I'm working on. The title of the novel is Three Ring Circus and will consist of short stories written around a nameless city. The city itself acts as a sandbox nightmare to my imagination, a place where the monsters we fear are not in the closet but in our neighbourhoods. Our stores. Our business. The world is crawling with twisted and horrid secrets. Each tale is touched with a sense of violence, sexuality or gore. Sometimes erotic. Sometimes disturbing. Always possible. Like Princess Nonomi, there is no limit to the amount of graphic descriptions in Three Ring Circus. It is not a book for the prudish and faint of heart.

  The following piece is the rough draft introduction to the collection. A prologue to madness. The first story to the Three Ring Circus. The unveiling of a mind unleashed. Free.

  The ghosts of my imagination.

  Enjoy.

* * *

Three Ring Circus: An Introduction By Micheal Grin

  As the audience sat in mute darkness, a spotlight snapped on the right ring. In the centre of the circle, a woman sat atop of a bloodstained oak table. Her arms were missing from the shoulder, the flesh stitched closed. The eyelids were melted closed, the lashes burned away. Over her mouth, a brace held the lips open, clamps forcing the teeth apart. The metal device wrapped around a shaved skull, her head rolling with pleasure. Hips ground perversely against the surface, crushing the vagina with each pull. Her legs were missing, the stumps on the thighs sewn. Her breasts were bare, the nipples pierced through with dull studs. Her groin hairless with a tattoo of a heart over the clitoris.

  A second spotlight snapped, lighting up the far left ring. A large dog lay on its side, legs akimbo. The muzzle slack, its tongue lay on the floor. Flies buzzed like a cloud around the corpse. The ribcage was exposed, flesh and fur torn away in shreds. A naked man, emaciated to but shades on pale grey flesh, crouched over the dead beast. His hands held the rubber entrails of the animal, caressing them with thin fingers. Eyes flickered to and fro in jerks as he masturbated his lengthy member. Short steel spikes protruded from his scalp like tiny slivers of reflective hair and his mouth drooled blood. Ill yellow semen erupted from his glands into the gaping damage of the beast.

  The final light, the centre ring. A lone man stood, dressed in a tuxedo and top hat. He was but three feet tall with a skull painted over his face.

  The Ring Master. He raised a microphone to his lips.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, bitches and fuckers. Children served in every way. Welcome to the Three Ring Circus! Tonight we bring to you the violent representation of hatred most pure. A sexual carnage presented through the submissive surrender of gore and beauty combined.”

  “A torso for your pleasure and a feast of the beast.”

  The spotlight vanished off the right ring, followed by the left. He stood alone in the darkness, a cruel smirk on his face.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. You bitches and every fucker out there. Allow me to introduce to you the master of masters. The ego feeding on egos. A sinner of saints.”

  “Mr. Grin.”

  The centre light vanishes, plunging everything in darkness. Moments pass. The right ring returns.

  A woman knelt on an altar of stone, side to the audience. She wore a nun's habit made of latex, raven hair hidden beneath the wimple. The chest of her robes was tailored around her breasts, exposing smooth round molds and hardened pink nipples. Black lips showed prominently on her smooth white face, eyes veiled by long lashes. Around her neck hung a large wooden cross, reversed in fashion. Three men surrounded her, each nude and muscular. She pulled consistently at two hardened members, the third swallowed to the pubis within her throat. Each male wore a full mask of an animal, the details of realism grand; a lion, a wolf and a sheep.

  The left ring returned, a man suspended off the ground by a length of rusted chain. The end vanished into darkness. He was bare, the sinew stretched with strain, head wrapped in a black burlap sac. Feet struggled to touch the ground as a second man entered the ring. Wearing a surgical apron and mask, he carried in a gloved hand a long razor. His bald head lacked the cap of the skull, brain exposed. Solemnly he stood before the suspended victim and with dextrous precision, began carving the flesh off the man's stomach. From the bag came an excruciating scream.

  The third circle lit up on a solitary man, his shaved head and goatee prominent above a priest collar and robes. He stared toward the audience, a speaker phone painted black in his hand.

  Mr. Grin.

  He raised the microphone to his mouth and shouted.

  “God!”

  A pause. He spoke gently, his voice carrying lightly.

  “This is my existence. A nightmare in my nightmare. My halls of desolation and chamber of eternal sorrow. Misery to your right, reality to the left. We, caught in the middle, stand alone against a hypocrisy of society and the vile rape of our future.”

  “Within my mind rests the one-shot two step, a macabre dance of visions wrapped further in visions. A city built on gore and lust. A kingdom raised on chaos. We live in the underbelly crust of secrets, walking on graves and corpses, eagerly aware that our very existence exists solely on the simple fact that humanity is lost and we are the monsters we bear.”

  “I am the monster we bear.”

  To the right, the men stepped back from the woman and she lowered her face in reverence. Hands raised before moist lips in a mockery of prayer. The three pulled at themselves, their glands aimed, each in turn ejaculated on her bowed face.

  To the left, the doctor stepped around the hung man, revealing a fleshless torso. Red muscle shined with blood. The head within the sac twitched in violent spasms, the penis below the carved layer standing erect in a climax of agony and suffering.

  Mr. Grin continued.

  “This is our tragedy. The children of children. The violated meaning coiled in godlessness and blasphemy. We create for the sole purpose of destruction and revel in the abuse of our fore fathers. We bring to light a darkness so thick of foul fog we choke on the scent and strangle on the meaning. Our race, of colour or blood, crawls like the mindless ants of a colony aimed at feeding off each other.”

  “And I embrace it.”

  “I coddle the heartless and the cold. I embrace the dead and unwilling. I wrap myself in misery and reality, curled within a shroud of horror and fact.”

  “We are disgusting creatures. We are the everlasting fuck that strives to destroy any sense of logic and drown the infant hope in a pool of piss and terror. We shatter our innocence like a victim of rape and the perpetrator of which take is take and giving is all that's left.”

Silence. He lowers the speaker yet his voice floats on.

  “Face it. We are all capable of such things. All guilty of crimes never committed yet forever achieved. We have inside us a creature of distorted morals and gutted values and to each of us we venture curiously. Seeking forever the limits of our discomfort and the towers of our hate.”

  “We want to fear. We want to squirm. We want to swallow and force every putrid thought like the coated pill of reason. And I willingly present it to you.”

  The lights vanish, plunging the flanking rings into inky nothingness. Mr. Grin stands alone, a beacon of blasphemy.

  “This is my mind. Please come inside.”

  The centre circle fades away. A distant buzzing of flies blend lightly with the hollow moan of primal pleasure and the wailing of a babe. In the darkness the sounds fade, leaving nothing.

* * *

Midnight, Sunday on the 29^th day of January, 2012.

Comments? Questions? Feel free to speak your mind.

Follow my blog for a free copy of Princess Nonomi, bi-weekly updates and posts.

Find out more about the Three Ring Circus. Visit www.michealgrin.com.

Filler Promo - Princess Nonomi by Micheal Grin

  “This week, I cut corners.”

If you haven't noticed yet, I wrote a book. It was published by Damnation Books and is currently available as print or ebook versions through their website, Amazon and many more distributors. You can the links along the sidebar.

This week, I'm sharing a piece from Princess Nonomi as my Sunday post. And to celebrate my procrastination, I'm giving away free PDF copies of the complete book itself to the first three to Follow my blog. These can easily be converted to any format necessary for your e-readers, or you can simply read it through Adobe.

Follow this blog. Add to your ebook collection. It's that simple.

Enough self-masturbation for now. On with the post.

Enjoy.

* * *

AN EXCERPT FROM PRINCESS NONOMI, BY MICHEAL GRIN

The Bus Stop - The Present

It might rain. I can smell it in the air. It’s interesting how certain things smell.

Rain smells moist, a humid coolness that clings to the inside of our noses and coats it. It’s clean and refreshing, like a fresh shower or a dip in a lake. Blood, on the other hand, though wet as well, has a metallic smell. Copper, like sucking on a penny. It’s thick, not only drenching your senses but drowning them in it, a tub of dark crimson blood you fall into and gasp for air. Every breath you take, you swallow more. At a point, you would start to throw it up. Now you’re throwing up blood and swallowing it at the same time.

This is just a taste of the world I exist within.

I’m sitting at a bus stop, in a glass shelter waiting for the No. 16 to take me out of this fucking city. I don’t care how often I might have done this, doing something so common as taking the bus always leaves me feeling naked. It’s maybe, what, nine or eight in the morning? I don’t know anymore. The clouds are gray and all these tall buildings are hiding them from me. I haven’t slept yet. I don’t remember the last time I’ve slept.

At a point of insomnia, you enter this orgasmic state of perpetual distance. The cars passing on the road, the people walking to their little jobs. I’m above them. I’m floating and looking down, hovering above their computerized heads. Across the street there’s an apartment building. It would make a great vantage point. I’ve never fired a rifle before, but with practice, like after the first or second kill, I’m sure I could take out a whole lot of these fuckers before the cops arrive.

That’s what I want to do right now. I want to kill everyone here. If I had a samurai sword I could just start swinging. Heads would go flying, fountains of blood rising from the collared necks and low cut blouses of men and women. There’s a man right now, across the street. Stupid suit, stupid suitcase. The bitch he’s walking with looks like a librarian. I bet when he fucks her, he fantasizes about ramming a fist in her ass, choking the stuck up bitch while he pictures her twelve year-old sister.

We’re all capable of thoughts like this. Everyone out there: the meter maid checking all the parked cars to my left, the loser on his bike, looking like a bug with his helmet and full bodysuit, the mother walking with her two boys, both of them looking bored. We are all capable of murder, all capable of the horrors and nightmares we fear.

The meter maid maybe goes home at night, thinking about all the tickets she had to hand out, all the people who came running out of the store, screaming in disbelief. “I just ran in for a minute to get milk. How was I supposed to know I couldn’t park here?” You can’t tell me when she goes back to her shitty apartment with her four cats, unfucked and unloved, that she doesn’t get the urge to dress up in a sexy dress, to head out for a club, to walk in with a pistol and just start shooting up the place. A bullet in some trendy cunt picking up Mr. Handsome. Blow the brains out of Dj Maxolisious. Just firing randomly, trying to kill as many of them as she can, like trying to rack up a high score in a video game. When the sirens approach, she’d likely turn the gun towards her face and marvel at how it looks a little like the exhaust pipe of a illegally parked car before the shot spreads her ticket-handing brains all over the bar.

What about tired old mommy over there? When those two boys are screaming and fighting over what to watch on television, you can’t tell me she doesn’t consider how easy it would be to hold a pillow over their faces at night, one first while the other sleeps. How easy they’d be to carry out to the minivan, toss them in, and drive out to the woods. To ditch their little bodies among trees and bushes, and be a free woman once more, ready to wear a short skirt without panties again.

“I like long walks on the beach, romantic dinners, and I hate having kids. If I get pregnant again, I’ll take a lesson from my past and mutilate my pussy with a crowbar. Abortion is the new chic.”

I wrap my arms around myself tightly. This fat black chick just sat down beside me, and I can’t shuffle over anymore. She smells like cheap perfume and hairspray. I think I’m going to be sick. I want to stick my knife into her three chins. I want to rip out her windpipe and piss in it. That would be hot. I want someone to piss on me.

To distract myself from her, I look over the map again. Dr. Collin gave it to me. It shows how far into the mountains I have to go, about a day or so from the city. So far, I’ve gone from the east side all the way to the west side of town. I’m sure by now the pigs are searching for me. Dr. Collin’s probably mad.

The Enchanted Woods, where Imagination Begins.

I love that line. On the other side of the map, it’s got a picture of it, of the plywood walls shaped like turrets, the cotton banners hanging over the portcullis. They almost sway with the breeze on the paper. It looks so real, and I know, I just know, if I get there, it won’t look like it does on this poster. It will be real. It will be tangible, and magical, and everything I knew it was.

A real castle, just within the mountains. A place to call my own. A kingdom for Princess Nonomi.

Midnight, Sunday on the 22^nd day of January, 2012.

Comments? Questions? Feel free to speak your mind.

Follow my blog for weekly updates and posts.

The End

  “This week, wondered if it will ever end.”

Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see Armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this
Bullshit three ring

Circus sideshow of

Freaks

- “Aenima” by Tool

I turned the radio off and pulled the car over. It was raining hard, the static fall of drops pounding on leaves. Trees all around me.

Pulling up the collar of my coat, I walked around to the trunk. I drew my gun and opened the lid.

He stared up at me in horror. Hands cuffed behind him. The garbage bags bulged with the remains of his marriage. His life. His dreams and ambitions.

His wife.

Her head had fallen out, lifeless eyes staring in his. Her lower jaw missing. Tongue hanging limp.

Aiming my gun, I ordered him out and grabbed the shovel.

“I've got a terrible habit of finding random shit on the internet. A common theme recently is the end of the world. Predictions, both current and past, seem attracted to me like fish to bait, just waiting for me to reel it in and absorb its pessimistic promises. Like a shadow, always so near.”

“What is our obsession here? Why do we need to feel like everything around us has an expiration date?”

“Why do we want it to end?”

“The most recent and familiar event involves a certain Mr. Harold Camping. He originally predicted that the biblical kickoff known as The Rapture would begin on September 6, 1994. When that faithful day came and went, he quickly revised his calculations and set the timer instead on September 29, October the 2^nd and again on March 31^st, all for the year 1995. He would again warn of the end on May 21, 2011 before adjusting his claims for October 21 of the same year.”

“It's 2012 and we're still here.”

We walked for no more than ten minutes. He stumbled, tripping on roots and fallen birch. His bare knees scratched and torn. He dragged the bags along, beaten. Disheartened. I followed, the rain a cleansing shower. Cleansing from what, I don't know.

We reached our destination. The clearing was clean of grass. Nothing but dirt turned into mud.

I removed the cuffs and forced the shovel on him.

With a sob, he began to dig.

“Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel, predicted that the world would end in the year 1981. That's the year I was born. Scottish clergyman John Cumming claimed we were fucked by 1862. January 1^st of 1863 was when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. In the year 1666, the number of the beast brought about fears of the Apocalypse. In 1284, Pope Innocent III declared the end was due, for it was 666 years since the rise of Islam. The Statute of Rhuddlan happened that year, incorporating Wales into England, and life continued.”

“The list goes on and on.”

“It seems to me that since mankind has first been able to contemplate the concept of time, space and death, we've been looking for a simple answer to when our stretch will end. Are we so unhappy as a species that we feel the need to check our timer consistently, judging repeatedly when it is we will stop? When we'll follow in the footsteps of so many creatures before us?”

“Why the fuck do we want things to end so badly?”

The hole was deep enough.

No one ever came here. There, in the middle of nowhere. A hole in the forest, far from human breath. Human sweat and human tears. A sanctuary against mankind, hiding in the heart of nature, the brain of wilderness.

When he crawled out of the hole, I let him know.

I wanted to keep the garbage bags.

He tore them open.

“Is it our own insecurities with death, or with society, that we feel the need to hope for a stop? Do we feel that, as a social and expanding parasite, we are off the right track and just looking for an easy way back? An undo button to wipe the slate clean. To give mankind a second chance. The Second Coming a rebirth. A global nuclear catastrophe our free exchange to a better beginning.”

“Maybe we don't want it to end, per say. We just can't think of a better way to start things anew.”

“Perhaps our obsessions with Armageddon is a spiritual reset button. In centuries since we first built the wheel, man has improved and then looked back with regret. We had wars that wiped out nations. Diseases that strangled our numbers. Religious mistakes that regressed our advances to complete and utter omnipotence. It could very well be that we simply want a second chance. We need to cleanse everything back to the way it was.”

Each piece of her was a part of his soul. His memory. Every choking sob that proceeded a part of his wife lost in the drowning shower. His eyes red with sorrow. His muscles weak with fatigue.

I lit a smoke and watched, leaning on a tree.

He took his time with her legs. Her arms. Her hands. He stared at each, remembering her. Remembering her as she was.

He closed his eyes in agony and finally lowered her head in. When he tried to close her vacant stare and failed, he was ready to grab the shovel and end the torture.

In the shelter of leaves above, I exhaled smoke.

“Today, we continue looking for the clock, that doomsday timer counting out our minutes. Our seconds. Why, with our families, careers and material distractions, do we find time to even think it could all end? We want a zombie uprising. We want the threat of nuclear war. We want our children to step out of the fallout chambers and look upon a new and alien world. Why?”

“Are we so desperately trapped in our conventional lives that we see it as a way out? We wouldn't have to go endure our dreaded 9 to 5 on Monday if the dead suddenly crawled out of the ground and started eating our neighbours. The divorce would mean little if a comet fell from the sky, landing in Times Square. Our grades will disappoint no one if Jesus rose a second time and the Four Horsemen rode on nightmares and fears.”

“I think we're just a lazy species regretful of our past and looking for a celestial suicide. The collective equivalent of slashed wrists and bloody bathtubs. The noose around our universal necks. Goodbye cruel world. Better luck next time.”

All that remained of her was a mound of dirt. An earthen tribute to tragedy. His dead wife. His lost love. Her smile imprinted on his mind. Her jawless grin.

Without turning to me, he stabbed the shovel down.

He began to dig anew beside her.

“Maybe I'm wrong, though. Maybe we are just scared little monkeys, spinning through space on a small rock, wondering when we'll crash. Holding each other and staring at the stars, waiting for them to grow until the light scorches away our lives. The fear of the end, the unmovable chain we have no luck affecting. Deflecting. Changing. Inevitability is our greatest horror. The sense of helplessness when the time comes and we have no choice but to join hands, bend over and kiss our asses goodbye.”

“Is it a fear of the end then, or the worry that despite all our accomplishments, we will fail to prevent our doom? Our anxieties reflect our weaknesses against death. We can't prevent our own conclusion. We therefore feel terrified of perishing globally.”

“Or perhaps we just don't want to die alone. The end times would see families, sitting at dining tables. In the comforts of each other. The sky lights up but they are together. Forever. We don't want to face our fears alone.”

He stood above his grave, staring at the emptiness of it. His flesh soaked with rain. Hair black, clinging to his skull. Eyes heavy.

Breathlessly he turned to me. To the barrel aimed at his face. His heart already dead and soon his body would follow.

“It has been predicted by Rashad Khalifa's research of the Qur’an Code that the world ends in 2280. Issac Newton said it would happen 2060. The Mayan calender ends this year.”

“We will go on. Clinging to each other. Reading signs where we think they are. Just waiting for that moment to come.”

“And in the end, it will. Each one of us has a clock above their head, ticking away. The tolling bells of death itself. Our own apocalypse. The end of everything we know.”

“The day I die. You die. Our eulogy.”

I grinned and pulled the trigger. The explosion was lost in the storm.

“We just don't want to go out alone.”

Midnight, Sunday on the 15^th day of January, 2012.

 If you have comments or questions, feel free to do so. Shameless self-promotion: the first three people to follow this blog will receive a free E-Book PDF copy of Princess Nonomi.

Resource links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

And if you haven't done it yet, pick up a copy of my book, Princess Nonomi, published through Damnation Books and available as an E-Book or print through various online vendors.

Fuck you Wordpress

 I have very little patience for websites that demand more from me than I'm willing to put in. Or more than I am capable of. I don't understand HTML. I don't care to know. When I write a blog, I just want to copy from my OpenOffice and paste it. I don't want to go through a shit ton of editing.
So fuck you Wordpress. You pissed me off.
Starting this Sunday, my blog will resume here on blogger.

I should add; there will be two posts following this one. They are the previous post since the start of 2012. I'm just giving them a new home and testing blogger.

That is all.

Who Am I?

  “This week I asked myself; who am I?”

I lifted my head, waking from a dream. In my fantastical world

of the subconscious, I was tied to a set of posts flanking me, naked

with my legs open and wearing a ball gag. There were these men,

each one a shadow of my daddy, and they each took a turn raping

me.

Outside the window, it was night. The sky was oil, the stars a

reflection of every tear I lost. I rose sore and walked to the mirror.

My beautiful blond hair was a mess and the ponytails were out,

the scrunchies I used, loose. I fixed myself up, then stared at my

reflection. Then, I ranted softly.

“Little whore. Little whore. Why would he love you? How

could he love you? Daddy’s little girl. Daddy’s little princess. Burn

motherfucker, burn. Burn. Burn. How could he love you? Daddy

broke you. Who can love a broken doll? Burn. Burn. Little whore.

Ruined little cunt. Pussy too loose for the doctor. How could he

love you? How could he love you? Burn. Burn. Burn.”I giggled, a

wet line down my cheek. Then speaking so sweetly.

“Little whore. Little girl. Let me hit and rape you. You look like

a doll. You look like a slut. Burn. Burn Burn. Touch me and see.

Taste me and see. I’m not broken, doctor. I’m not broken.”

I sighed and cocked my head, frowning exaggeratedly.

“But you’re not a princess, and princesses I love. You’re not a

princess, you’re faking, my love. Find me a castle. Find me home.

And I will show you…”

I leaned closer, staring unblinking into my eyes, staring deep

into my soul and I saw her—me—the little girl with only a doll for

a toy. Alone in her room. Unloved. Forgotten.

I growled. Not a purr, a deep-throated voice from somewhere

inside of me. A monster. My monster.

Me.

“Burn.”

• Page 109 “Princess Nonomi” by Micheal Grin

I stopped reading from my laptop and faced her. She shivered in the cold air, her lips trembling with nerves. Her bare flesh littered in goosebumps, perspiration on her round breasts. Damp in the hair of her loins.

Her head rolled from side to side, struggling to see through the blindfolds. Her wrists pulled against the ropes keeping her trapped to the table. Her legs jerked effortless against the straps around her ankles.

Every muscle of her sex tightened with my voice.

“I wonder at times the definition of who I am. Don't we all? The underlining mystery to life as we know it poses as an eternal question; who are we and why are we here? The ego drives humanity to try and understand the very purpose to our existence. It's the cosmic or spiritual lust that propels us forward. That lends us the will to fight. That gives us meaning.”

“I'm not out to understand the meaning of life. Fuck that. It isn't meant for us to know. If we knew the truth to our existence, then what would be the point of continuing? If you know how the story ends, why read it? Where would be the twist? The plot development? The humanity?”

“No. I simply want to know, “Who am I?”

She gasped sharply at the touch of my fingers, pleading in whispers. I turned from her body, to the table beside us, and picked the most friendly of choices. The blade was polished, reflecting the desk lamp.

Long and sharp.

I relished the way she startled and froze as the flat of the knife slid down, between her breasts, along the curve of her stomach. The tip teased her navel. The cool metal pressed firmly against her clit.

She grunted in absolute terror.

“We all do, I'm sure. I might not be an expert on the common person but I have a feeling I'm not far from the mark. We all strive to make sense of the face we see in the mirror. The body within the skin. Perhaps not as frequently as I do, but often enough. We want to have a better understanding of who we are on the inside.”

“Labels. We cling to them as if they held any definition to the person we make ourselves out to be. “I'm a goth. A jock. A sinner and a saint.” These are fail-safe methods we cling to, hoping that name tags will help us better identify ourselves. Perhaps allow a glimpse through the eyes of the observer. See ourselves through the audience.”

“We all want to be onstage.”

With a twist, the edge of the knife dug between her labia and effortlessly began its journey back, along the unseen seam of her body. A railroad trail, sliding up through the stomach, towards the chest. It crossed along, creating a junction over the collar before I moved it back between her thighs. After sliding one finger in the cunt, I traced the pelvis to the hips.

Her screams were like angel cries.

“I couldn't care less about how others see me. I'm sure everyone has their own opinions and I'm certain that they are all wrong. What they see on the outside, what we all see of others on the outside, is the illusion of conformity. The mirage of humanity. We are puppets wearing masks over our masks. The reflection is a lie and the truth underneath is what really matters.”

“Who am I? I'm a person who enjoys his cloak of lies as much as he hates it. I'm sure we all feel that way. We want to be something more, someone else. We want the world to perceive us as we perceive ourselves, regardless of whether that is who we are or not.”

“Sometimes, who we are is not as good as who we think we are. Other times, who we are is better than who we want others to think we are. Sometimes, the answer is simply to convoluted to decipher.”

Her body convulsed as shock took away my enjoyment. The nerves were exposed, the flesh pulled aside like the covers to a book. Her book. Muscle bound breasts and sinew covered stomach. Her groin the starting point to the girl within.

She lay open to me like no one else could, red like roses and smelling of vanilla copper.

Putting the knife back, I sensually caressed her inner layer with my hand.

“I was thinking, “Maybe who we are is but the reflection of society. A shadow cast by the expectations of pop culture, of television and of mainstream media.” It could be that there is no unique identity left in this world. That originality has been played out beyond repair and we are all just factory made vessels squeezed out like unwanted babes into the river of expectations. We are not special. We are not loved.”

“We are simply human beings.”

“I asked myself the question; who am I? My conclusion is that I might never know. Many of us might never know. Perhaps, by that thought, there is no heaven or hell. Instead, in death, this final question might finally be answered. In our last moments, the illusions we've weaved about us may lift like a veil and for once in our story, we truly see the character within us.”

“And maybe, when that time comes, we fully understand what it is to be human. To be unique. To stand in the spotlight.”

She died well before I came, well before my bloody hands had touched every inch of her muscle, every bump and nook of her bones. By the time I had made love to her, she was but a corpse, but to me she was more.

Lying on the table, her flesh pulled open like angel wings, she was real. The illusion of who she was gone.

Sitting at my desk, I blew smoke up in the air and turned to the screen.

Already she was forgotten.

“If so, I will die with a grin.”

Midnight, Sunday on the 8^th day of January, 2012.

Comments? Questions? Feel free to speak your mind.

A Fresh Start (Carried from Wordpress)

  “This week I decided to try once more with my blog.”

“Sheep! You are all fucking sheep! Breeding and eating and

eating and shitting! Fucking and working and living each and every

day lying to yourself about who you are and what you want

out of your pathetic, useless life! Convincing yourself that this is

right!”

“Is it? Is it right? To live this way? Is it fucking right? Do you

know who I am? Wake up!”

“This is not the way we are meant to live. This world is not for

me. Fuck your HBO and your McDonalds. Fuck your MTV, your

oil leaks, and your voting parties. Fuck your Top Ten lists and your

fucking rules. Fuck your reality TV, your Flicks on Demand, and

your Eco-friendly alternatives. We are not meant to live this way.”

“It will end. Someday. When it does, I will be there. I will be

there. You think I’m crazy?”

“I’m not crazy. You are.”

• Pages 27-28 “Princess Nonomi” by Micheal Grin

I tossed my book down on the surface of my desk and turned to him. His eyes flickered with candle light, the sweat on his brow like diamonds. His fear was intoxicating.

“Princess Nonomi describes the way I feel almost every minute of my life. The hatred and frustration she expresses during the moment suits emotions that bury deep inside of me, threatening to claw its way out. Like a cancer. My anger is a fucking cancer. And there is no cure.”

I took my time, my hand passing over the many tools at my disposal. I watched him, his frightful stare following my dancing fingers. I was judging. Hunting for the perfect reaction. When he gasped into the duct tape sealing his mouth shut, I smirked and stopped.

Nice choice. I picked up the cordless drill.

“2011 is done now. The new year is upon us. It's a time for new beginnings and regrets. A time for planning and hopeful wishing. A time to think to ourselves; what exactly do I want to accomplish next year? Me? I've got a shit ton of resolutions planned for the year 2012.”

“Things didn't necessarily bad for me though. I've published my first book. My short story “Peaches” was voted to be in the Deviant Nightmares Book Project anthology. Two fairly nice accomplishments, in a sense. However, the list stops there.”

Each step towards him was torture. Not my own. His. He squirmed against the rope, his boxers soaked in the front. Have some dignity, my good man. Have some fucking dignity.

I stood before him, a god, his jury and executioner. He tried to rock the chair. No luck. It was bolted to the floor. His flesh was pale as chalk and mine was on fire.

“I'm broke. I'm lost. I'm frustrated and I'm caged. This month, I'll be 31. Where the fuck did I go wrong? I thought things were just starting to change for the better. What the fuck happened here? Where am I headed? Is this even fucking worth it? What the fuck do I have to do to have some flicker of meaning in this pathetic excuse of an existence? I don't fit in the fucking world we inhabit. Not at all. I try, without a doubt, to blend with the rest of society. I just can't seem to do it. I just don't care enough. I hate every choice there is to make and love none of the alternatives. I'm on the dead-end road through life.”

A single squeeze of the trigger. A quick spin of the drill bit. It sent him screaming in agony. His head reared back, eyes shut tightly. He was unable to ignore the pain. The sharp tip caught the flesh of his collar. Pulling. Twisting. Tearing. It dug in briefly and then stopped.

With a jerk I pulled it out and proceed to do the same under his left shoulder.

“This blog, this joke of an attempt to promote myself; what the fuck is it for? Does the world even care what I think of it? No. The world doesn't want to know what is going through my mind. The earth is rotting away at the surface, infested with the disgusting bacteria called Man. No one cares about one person. No one wants to know.”

“How do I continue a blog or contribute to it regularly when I have nothing good to say? I fail to see the point so long as it's expected of me to provide an insight on our lives. So long as it's not a perspective seen through the eyes of a horror writer. Through the thoughts of a madman.”

Two holes pierced, I returned to the table, placing the bloody instrument down. He's gasping, head hanging. The gouges bled like tears of angels and I was only just getting started. With cold amusement I took hold of the next toy.

He raised his face to the scalpel in my hand.

“The last post I did, I started to explore the concept of an atheist death. Maybe provide an opinion. A point of view. Why did I stop? The answer is simple; We die and there is nothing we can do about it. Quit fucking worrying and pay your damn taxes.”

“I have no concept of god or society. I can offer nothing of importance other than the exploration of my fictional and diluted mind. The violence and sex that stirs a heat in my core. That's all I can give. A hateful rant against the planet we chose to destroy. A spiteful finger to the establishment of church and government.”

“The only thing I have to offer to anyone who reads this is my sincere thoughts of the world.”

Like the macabre ballet of agony, I spiralled the blade across him. Through tender flesh, leaving my touch tattooed in red ink. Suffer. Feel. He screamed and begged. Each syllable from him the song that carried me.

Die, friend. Die.

I want to watch you die.

“I’m not crazy. You are.”

Mere moments for me. Days to him. His skin hung in strips from his skull. His chest torn apart, muscles exposed to the damp air. Vomit on his lap. His penis a useless chunk on the concrete floor.

I returned to the table, hands sticky with cooling blood. Placing the blade back, I bent and picked up the canister of gasoline.

By this point, I doubted he even cared.

“That's why I never updated before. I had nothing nice to say. We all know the fucking advice; “If you've got nothing nice to say...” I looked into self promoting my book and any advice I found sings the same bullshit song and dance. Write a blog.”

“Well, this is my blog and all I want to do is piss on everyone out there. Self promotion? I'm no fucking salesman. If I was, I wouldn't be broke and unemployed.”

“Do I post this instead? Yes.”

Ritualistically, I showered him in petrol.

“I've decided to give this one more try. A final phoenix chance. Only this time, things will be different. I will share a point of view, provided only the way I can. Through my eyes. My ears. My thoughts. I'm not a monster. Far from it. I'm simply angry, lost and tired. But now I have an outlet, a tunnel to take me home. I'm inviting you all along.”

“I thought to myself; what if I take what I observe in a week, pick something to comment on, but add a Mr. Grin twist to it? What if I was saying it to someone else? Someone caught in my world?”

I leaned in close to him. The stench of fuel burned my nostrils and I smiled.

“Someone like you.”

“This is the third reincarnation to maintaining a blog. A rebirth to provide a dark look at things, at life through the philosophy of my psyche. If it offends, I don't care. If it entertains, all the better. I only wish to share what I learn each week about the world we live in.”

“That is my goal; to update weekly, bringing a new topic, a new observation as only I can explore it. They might be serious. They might be simple. Regardless, someone will suffer as I share. Someone will die.”

“Let's blog through sex and violence. Let's chat on my terms. Let's explore the mysteries of over priced coffee or the decline of religious power while I choke the life out of you.”

“Let's see if I make it work.”

“Until then, I'm not dead. I'm alive and enraged. Disgusted and tired. Sickened and far from hopeful.”

“Perhaps this will help keep idle hands from straying.”

I sat back in my chair, desk behind me. The glow of my laptop a sick ambiance in the room. He lifted his head, eyes swollen, and looked out at me. I doubt I was any more than a shadow to him, a silhouette against the light of heaven.

Taking one last drag of my cigarette, I flicked it. It streamed an amber fire, twirling like the devil's dance.

It ignited his final inferno.

“Fuck the world you know. Welcome to mine.”

Midnight, Sunday on the 1^st day of January, 2012.

Comments about the new direction I'm taking? Questions? Feel free to speak your mind.

For more about the Deviant Nightmares Book Project, go to http://deviant-nightmares.deviantart.com/