Brian and I

Brian and I

by Nicholas Morrell

copyright 2017

Horror/Dark Comedy

13,000 words

nickmorrell00@gmail.com

"Of all things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship."

Epicurus

"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"We've all got the power in our hands to kill, but most people are afraid to use it. Those who aren't afraid control life itself."

Richard Ramirez

"Don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride."

Bill Hicks

One of my least favorite pastimes is engaging in hard manual labor while wearing warm long johns and a thick ski mask on my face. It's even worse when the weather is really warm and humid so you end up sweating like a fat person eating potato chips on the couch. What really completes the shittiness of the whole situation is when it's really late at night, which means you're dead-ass tired while this is going on AND you can hardly see what you're doing. I actually had to go through that once, regardless of whether you believe it.

The only thing that made this hellishly uncomfortable activity tolerable enough to prevent me from hanging myself by the neck until dead on the nearby tree was that I didn't have to do it alone.

Brian was with me.

We were working on getting a big hole dug using only the spades we were each equipped with, both of us really sweaty and miserable at the moment. A few feet away was Brian's van. He had the sufficient funds for Mustangs and Camaros, but he always did praise the vehicles with the most proficiency in practical pursuits. Sports cars, he'd said, were practical for police pursuits, and police pursuits definitely weren't practical.

At one point Brian said, "Okay, I think we're good now. Let's get it in." We climbed out of the hole.

I brushed the dirt off my knees when I stood up, right before I brushed the dirt off my ass. It's very important to get every speck of dirt or grass off your ass anytime you get up. Who wants to look like a fool with a dirty ass? Imagine that. Walking around somewhere and suddenly you see a man in a perfect tuxedo squint his eyes (one of which is aided by a monocle) and say to his umbrella-carrying wife, "I say, dear, consider that fool over there with the dirty ass."

"What of him, husband?" she'll ask.

"Why, he expects to find a promising career and to gain the respect of his peers, yet he lacks the simple competence to brush the dirt off his ass and thus eliminate it, saving his last morsel of dignity, of which he had very little in the first place."

"I say, husband, you're right! This fellow is but a peasant with no wealth or class. He'll never be able to fuck the girl from the laundromat!" Then they'll both laugh snobbishly and continue on their wealthy way.

As you can now see, it is of severe importance that that you always and without fail remember to brush the dirt off your ass.

We opened the double doors at the back of the van. The lights inside of the van automatically turned on when the doors opened. "Shit," I said, and quickly ran to the front seat so I could promptly flick the lights off. Wouldn't want to illuminate the darkness that protects us, right?