"I feel like a goddamn vampire, and these days are killing me," he used to say, without really explaining himself or what he meant. God, he could be fucking annoying.
He would read the collected works of Nikolai Gogol, compulsively. Consequently, everything he said was a reference to overcoats or noses or some goddamn quarrel between Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich.
We never understood... I mean, Gogol is pretty good and all, but we never understood his obsession. I swear to Christ that's all he ever talked about - Gogol this and Gogol that and fucking overcoats and noses.
"Diary of a Madman" was his favourite piece. I guess he probably identified with the comically tragic aspects of the story.
He tried to get a band together. I can't remember what they were called though. He gave me... RogueQ76! The name of the band was RogueQ76. (I have no idea how I remembered that...)
Anyway, he gave me a piece of paper with some lyrics on it once. I always kept that piece of paper. I don-don't really know why. I think it's because I always knew things weren't gonna work out his way and maybe I wanted to... aw, I dunno. I don't know.
This is what was on that scrap of paper:
choose a side, make a move, pause, make a move
if this is peace, then give me war, war, war
choose a side, make a move, pause, make a move
if this is it, then give me more, more, more
That was supposed to be the chorus, I think. It sounds like a chorus.
Of course, he couldn't get a band together, which was just another testament to the monumental fuck-up that was his life.
He used to say he could see faces everywhere he looked - brutal, cold, distant faces.
He'd see them in the clouds; in the folds of curtains; in the faces of the people walking by.
[False perception of reality (e.g., hearing voices that aren't there or seeing people who do not exist): auditory (hearing); visual (sight); olfactory (smell); tactile (touch); and taste.]
Then one day everything somehow became portentous of a coming evil.
Patterns in the carpet would dissolve into malignancy; the innocuous sidelong glances of animals would suddenly appear demonic; people sprouted wings, secreted bile.
[False belief system (e.g., believing you are Napoleon, have magical powers, or the false belief that others are "out to get you.").]
We never saw anything.
We never saw anything.
It was really sad what happened to him. I mean, he was just a lonely kid.
He was just a lonely kid, and I think he thought there was nothing he could do about it.
"I feel like a goddamn vampire, and these days are killing me."
[...] the priest, the book or the congregation?
Written on Sunday, 8 May 2005