What’s your name?
Malone.
Really? You’re famous.
Bugsy, I suggest? Dorothy, the film star? John Malone, the media magnate?
Never heard of them. No.None of those, she says. Post Malone.
Who?
The rapper.
What a stupid name.Never heard of him.
You should check him out. He’s on You Tube. He’s a real cool guy.
So I do. She’s right. Now I play him all the time. My namesake. How cool to share your name with a famous rapper.
I caught an intruder in my kitchen just now. He was trying to break into the wine bottle. Anybody who knows me knows this is an intolerable act. I pulled out my gun and immediately ordered him to put his hands up. Thankfully as this photo demonstrates he was compliant. Henceforth I will keep my wine under lock and key.
Hey! Who’s been drinking my wine?
Rosco shrugs his shoulders.
It’s not the first time I’ve noticed the level’s fallen, I say. Do you know anything about this?
I only had a few mouthfuls.
But you’re a cat!
What is this? Can’t a cat be allowed to drink now? The RSPCA would have something to say about that.
Indeed it might but it might not be to your liking.
I thought I had him there.
Well, the top was off.
To let it breathe! Not as an invitation to drink!
Oh.
Drink your own wine, I snap.
I just can’t walk into a bottle shop you know and ask ….
Look, I’ll put a few mouthfuls in your bowl each evening if you must drink.
It’s for medicinal purposes only, you understand and looks up purring with innocence — and hope.
A jagged lump
of
Anthracite?
A crab carcass
Pointy
with spikes
Black as soot.
No!
A 3-cornered
Jack just
Plucked from
My foot.
I am about to read a book called ‘The Ninth Crypt’,
A novel I acquired for twenty dollars at the supermarket
But fear I may have made a grave mistake:
Browsing through the blurb I see mention of only
The ninth crypt, all well and good, but what about
The other eight? Perhaps the author is planning prequels
Based on the success of this volume but seeing he is
Now a septuagenarian who came to writing late,
This is most unlikely; perhaps if I dig zealously
Through the text I shall disinter enough cryptic clues
To keep me happy — but at 400 pages !!! I await
Clarification; in the meantime this tombstone of a novel
Shall stand on my shelf of great unread books.
Is it any good pleading? Thompson says.
For your life? Not really.
But you can’t just toss me aside like a dog carcass, not after all I’ve done for you.
You were more than serviceable, W admits. But you’ve served your purpose. You can’t argue with me.
Will it be painless?
Yes.
Well, get it over with then.
One minute, W says.
He reaches into his satchel and pulls out his laptop.
Finish your drink, W says. Out with the old and in with the new, he smiles, keyboarding fiercely.
And with that, Thompson is gone.
He laughed loudly.
A door closed behind him.
He laughed more loudly still.
Another door closed behind him. Slammed!
He continued. He chortled. He guffawed. He split his sides.
A text message came through.
“Will you STOP laughing, please? You’re annoying me.”
No, he said to himself. No. It’s my house and I’ll laugh if I want to.
And he laughed even more loudly.
The walls laughed with him. They too were beginning to split their sides.
A door opened quietly behind him.
The man was too busy laughing to notice.
He stifled his laughter as the cord tightened around his throat.
This was no laughing matter.
I am looking at the eye
At the space where the eye is meant to be.
It is blank. Dead.
Like an abandoned place.
Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t wink at me
Like it used to do.
No flashing-green come-on.
Nothing.
It has been swallowed by a black hole
Of indifference.
It isn’t as though we just met.
Why doesn’t she text, or phone?
John Malone 