Petty Perversions (IV)

Rationale #1: Never give an inch - in love or in war.

When I grew up in Calgary, it was a city of philistines, deodorized career sycophants, evangelists, "westerners" - with their faux-cowboy regalia and all, oblivious nihilists, and conservative closet-cases. Upon my return, not much changed - apart from the fact that most of these people got rather rich, thanks to the luxuriant petrol that flowed so freely from Alberta soil, and suddenly they had a stake in the homeless problem. "The homeless question?" was a fashionable headline plastered over the papers - as if the problem was akin to that of an infestation, i.e. requiring quarantine or extermination (what's the number to the offices of Himmler, Eichmann, and Mengele again?).

A common compliant of Calgarians was the sight of transients and panhandlers in the downtown sector, most notably on the city's C-Trains. "How can I feel safe seeing bums on the train?" asked one respondent to a newspaper poll. Ah, safety, Hobbes' elusive telos, how can it be simulated? One answer: the Old Man's roof.

The groom must have felt so very secure under the dome of St. Mary's cathedral - preparing for a clean and dignified ceremony before a night of repeatedly sodomizing his blushing bride. But, hey, excuse the cliché - shit happens. For all his wealth and respectability, the groom was a petty, petty little man. You see - this is something that was not widely reported by the papers - he paid for a hymen restoration for his young bride, so he could lay claim to that particular conquest thanks to the wonders of cosmetic simulacra. Who lays claim to the original original cherry? Yours truly, of course.

Rationale #2: Tyranny must be resisted at all costs.

Affluent Calgarians believed they were entitled to sanitize and monitor all "public space" in their fair city; the groom felt entitled to the space between his bride's fine thighs. Petty perversions, such petty perversions - that is the source of tyranny, isn't it? Vanity, vanity, vanity - the whole way down.

Unfortunately for the groom, my unsuccessful - and spectacular - attempt at suicide had only emboldened my efforts to annihilate him. For days after the initial crash in the mountains, an aura of invincibility cloaked my every move. I heard the cosmos hailing me to crush my romantic rival and restore the universe to a salubrious state. Cosmic supplications, oh how they echoed within! As I sat on the C-Train and slipped into syncope, her spectre - dressed in a white satin gown - whispered, "Green Vert, Blue Bleu, Spilt Blood, Crimson Rouge." Floating through the dreamscape, I saw the fragments of a perfect murder. I awoke - staring out the window - to the perfect smiling image of my soon-to-be vanquished rival plastered on a billboard and the reflection of a transit cop - a pimply kid no older than nineteen - pointing a gun at me.