Hidden Treasure, Or Why Happiness Hurts

 

Alone. In a vanilla-scented room of small proportions. Three people could sleep stretched on its blue-carpeted floors, provided it was a clean room, which it isn’t. The dim lighting from the laptop alone illuminates the otherwise colourful posters rather disagreeably. I down another mouthful of Chivas and try to register its entire route towards my acidic stomach. Holding my breath, I imagine being as simple as whisky. Somewhat poisonous, somewhat addictive, almost a teenager. One more year and I’ll be thirteen. This will not happen for my whisky of course. Not in a glassed bottle. No, it will stay twelve forever. Either that or urine. Blood floods my ears, turning them into a heart-beat monitor. I’m alive. Bap-boom. Bap-boom. I exhale.

I wonder whether this current stream of thoughts is futile… I render it as such and decide to clean the room.

I’ve never cleaned it before so this would be a laborious task. Master of Puppets is chosen as the feat’s soundtrack. “ Battery” grabs my low spirits from their hair and lifts them up. It instructs copious amounts of headbanging and I concur. Down goes another mouthful. Semi-obstructed air escapes my lungs showcasing enjoyment for a thirst-quenching drink. “Master of Puppets” comes next. I punch the wall with excitement. I feel pain and I laugh. Not drunk enough. Down number four. Punch. Number five. I smile. Soon I’m cleaning happily while anti-bacterial wipes run up and down on all surfaces. I vacuum. Back-pain is piercing and laser-accurate at times, smooth and all-embracing at others. I accept both. Individuality and totality existing simultaneously. I feel all the more true. I’m enjoying this. Possibilities of happiness surround me. I struggle not.

“Come on, you bastards,” I smile, eyes drooping luxuriously.

I rest my forehead on a “Highway to Hell” poster. Bon Scott’s paper belly cushions my oily skin. I look down. Something’s caught between my heating unit and the wall. Quickly, I make a run for my closet but being not even a meter away from the aforementioned wall, my head bangs on it.

“Goddamn it,” I mock-curse, rubbing my eyebrow. I raise my self with the closet’s handle, opening it at the same time. “Efficient,” I think. Grabbing a wire clothes-hanger I try to fish out the article, which by now, could be as close to a hidden treasure as a chest of fucking diamonds. My heart races with excitement. The treasure “bites” the hook and I draw it out slowly.

“What the fuck!!!” I scream ecstatically. It’s a thong: A white, Lycra-based thong, with a grey lace outline in an elaborate pattern, grey butterflies “flying” all around, and a pink shiny bow on the front. Examining closer the crotch, (what else?), I notice brownish stains. So I bury my nose into it and inhale deeply. “Mmmm!”

Soon, I’m naked and wearing the thong.

“Tee hee hee!” I chuckle, my man-boobs cupped in my hands.
Standing in front of a full-sized mirror, with my balls hanging left and right, I can't believe how “sexy” I am and burst into laughter. Then, I start to oscillate between flirting with myself and flaunting coquettish comebacks at me in such unison that will make your regular split-personality psychopath overtly jealous.

The mirror, unable to confine my beauty slash handsomeness, cracks in a thousand pieces, while my idol oozes out of every crack and creates another Me. Naturally, I make out with myself... hard.
In reality though, I was licking the mirror.

Unfortunately, a pus-filled zit was sprayed all over that mirror the day before. Somewhat disgusted, I am downing an entire bottle of Listerine while reading the upside-down warning: DO NOT SWALLOW.

So... recap: Drinking a litre of whisky, headbanging, wearing a possibly STD-ridden thong, flirting/kissing myself, licking pus, swallowing half a litre of Listerine.
“Hmm,” I hmm and I pass out smiling...

Two days later my roommates are standing around me, worried, yet appalled by my testicle-strangling thong.
“Is he dead?” the German asks.
“Look,” the Korean says, pointing at the blood stain, caked on my cheek.
The Italian taps my hip with her foot. “Alex? Are you ok?”
Suddenly, I come to and start screaming. Scared shitless, they run out while I laugh like a maniac. Everything hurts.
I cut myself out of the thong with a pair of scissors and massage my balls for a while. Then I trample into the kitchen naked, for some juice. My roomates are huddling and clamping themselves in a corner, chanting Oh God, oh God.

I sit on a stool, drinking my juice. "So... What's up?" I say.
I'm waiting for their answer when my semi-erected penis reminds me I haven't masturbated in TWO days.
"Excuse me, guys. I have to attend a meeting, if you know what I mean, wink-wink."
They cry.

 

the end,

 

back