Author: gabrielsmy

Dissecting Myself

Now I can start by
pulling the heart
Superiorally
And cutting through the inferior vena cava
Which is bringing the blood back
From the regions of the body
Inferior to the diaphram

Again I’ll take the scissors
And cut through the aorta
and the pulmonary trunk
So those major outflow vessels
have now been cut

The last large vessel
That I need to cut through
Is the superior vena cava
Returning blood from
the upper limbs
and the head
back to the right atrium

So, again, I will cut through that
And the heart will be free.

Taken from a human anatomy dissection video, uploaded to youtube on 25 September 2010. Submitted by Isart.

A night at the opera

Big ideological statements
Giant snakes
One expects to get one or the other
One is rarely deprived of both.

The means are the simplest
As the audience files in
a small army of white-dressed people
are placidly picnicking.
As the music starts
they strip off their clothes
and paint each other blue.
Yes, it sounds weird
but the Ring is weird.

Sometimes they are slaves
Sometimes they are even inanimate.
The gods all sport matching platinum hair.

They don’t try to fool us
and yet something about them
is perfect anyway.

Picked out of a review of Wagner’s opera Das Rheingold on the blog Likely Impossibilities. The word ‘are’ replaces ‘seem to be’ in line 8. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.

Lined yellow paper

feel like I don’t have to
know everything

feel strong like I could
do anything I want to

feel unrushed

something got after

feel like I know what I’m doing
at this moment

don’t feel alone or crazy

An anonymous pencilled note handwritten on lined yellow paper, found at the Charlottetown Confederation Centre Library in a book on Buddhism in 2008. It was topped off with a green organic banana sticker. Submitted by Steven.

Whether you could bear the idea of marrying me

I can’t advise you in my favour because I
think it would be beastly for you, but think how nice
it would be for me. I am restless & moody
and misanthropic & lazy & have no money
except what I earn and if I got ill you would
starve. In fact it’s a lousy proposition. On

the other hand I think I could do a Grant and
reform & become quite strict about not getting
drunk and I am pretty sure I should be faithful.
Also there is always a fair chance that there will
be another bigger economic crash in
which case if you had married a nobleman with

a great house you might find yourself starving, while I
am very clever and could probably earn a
living of some sort somewhere. All these are very
small advantages compared with the awfulness
of my character. I have always tried to be
nice to you and you may have got it into your

head that I am nice really, but that is all rot.
It is only to you & for you. I am jealous
& impatient — but there is no point in going
into a whole list of my vices. You are a
critical girl and I’ve no doubt that you know them
all and a great many I don’t know myself.

From a letter written by Evelyn Waugh in 1936, after his first wife had left him, asking her cousin whether “you could bear the idea of marrying me”, found at Futility Closet. Submitted by Marika Rose.

The darkness and the light

A creature born
within the comforting anonymity of darkness

Awakens in the harsh truth of daylight

It squirms
in the glare
afraid of the light
that pins it to the chair like a needle through its heart

Its heart beats faster
Panic starts to creep into its soul

Does it understand?
Or is it so blinded by the light
that it can think only of returning
to the velvet cloak of darkness?

No matter

Perhaps it is better that it doesn’t realize
how close death has come

But make no mistake, there is no escape
It has reached the end, and soon it will die

It bares its tiny fangs
hoping for a chance to strike
to sink its teeth deep into the flesh of its tormentor

But that chance will never come

And somewhere
beneath the gleam of hatred in those eyes
lurks the certain knowledge of its impending death

And it begins to know fear

This is part of your guilt. You did this to me

And you don’t even know who I am

I wasn’t part of your war
I was an innocent

I’m glad that you remember
Don’t you feel guilty?
Don’t you feel ashamed of what you did

Indiscriminate killing
No sense of morality
No thought given to the consequences of your actions

That’s what makes us different

The creature’s diseased mind
cannot understand its plight
Its imagination is too limited
to perceive the truth

It cannot be saved

The creature’s cries grow louder
but no one can hear them

It’s time

From the lines of Silaran in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode The Darkness and the Light. Lines with plot points in removed and punctuation stripped out. Submitted by Wesley Brown.

Dearest Jamie

I bought my lovely boyfriend Darren
your book for Christmas and i haven’t
had to cook a meal
since

He went through the cupboards
to find out what we were missing
from your list and he even invested
£100.00 buying a magimix.

He stopped smoking Monday
and finds thinking about what he needs
to buy to prepare the evening meal
a good distraction from the withdrawal
symptoms.

Now i don’t want you or your readers
to think that i’m complaining
because
i know i’ve got it made (he even hoovers,
irons and cleans the bathroom)
the only problem i’m having is that
everything
is so tasty i’m clearing my plate
and i’m worried i’m going to be
the size
of a house

We’re moving to a new home next month
and he’s informed me he’d like a black
gloss kitchen and a range to cook on

He bought me black diamonds,
I think he’s a keeper.

Taken from a comment left on a dumpling recipe on Jamie Oliver’s website on the 7th January 2009. Some exclamation marks removed. Submitted by Nikki.

Drunkorexia

“Eatin’s Cheatin’” echoes around the office on a Friday afternoon.
Women pick over their naked salads and extra extra light low fat
Philly on Ryvita. The preparations for ‘Rosé o’clock’ are well
under way.
They’ll grumble through the afternoon and suppress the urge
to be
‘naughty’ whenever anyone offers a biscuit, sweet or chocolate.
Fun.

From Drunkorexia: A stupid name, but a serious problem on the Independent blogs. Omitted words: ‘as’ (line 1) and ‘their way’ (4). Submitted by Rishi Dastidar.

Flower battle

Enter and stand
Enter, leap at, roaring
Back slowly off

Roar, shake arm, roll on back
Eat earth, throw rocks
Rush at and past opponent

Avoid, show back

Leap at opponent’s back
Miss
Return

(Without looking) avoid
Turn to face opponent

Catch head with rear hand (without looking)
strike head with forearm

Rise, stagger, roll on back
Roar, shake arm, leap on head

Avoid, back off
Roar, pursue
Leap at roaring

Grasp head with forearm
flick rear arm in arc
strike downward blow

Sag, moan, rise
leap and crush in bear hug
lift in air

Draw dagger
Stab in chest

Fall on back
Die

Advance calmly, inspect corpse
Back off

Basic fighting movements: a section of the perang kembang (flower battle) from a puppeteer’s handbook for the study of wayang kulit or Javanese shadow play. As found in On Thrones of Gold, ed. James Brandon, (Hawaii 1993). Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.