The Prince’s brother let me in, nodded at me, seemed a bit nervous at it, and made sure I couldn’t see much of his face behind that curtain of greasy hair of his. He was about thirteen or whatever, at least about two years younger than The Prince and I, but he acted so shy around me you wouldn’t believe he was that age.

“Yo. Learned any new tricks?” He was leaning on his skateboard. I supposed he had been on his way out when I arrived.

He shrugged, then shook his hanging head with all that hair in front of it, but I could see him look at me through it.

“Whatever,” I replied with a similar shrug.

“Whatever,” he mumbled with a concealed smile.

I waved at him and climbed up the stairs.

Usually I didn’t knock before entering The Prince’s room, because if I had he’d only have ridiculed me for it. But this time, just as I was reading for the door handle, I had to pause, thinking of this ominous circle of his. Not having the first idea what that was about, and recalling from the phone call that he wasn’t alone in there, I thought it safest to knock this time. For all our sakes. There were a few things in The Prince’s most private private life that I really did not want to bear witness to. Like, ever.

So I knocked.

“Get the fuck out, brat!” His brother’s name was Bradley, by the way. It was pretty obvious he meant him, though I ditinctly heard the t at the end.

“Okay, then I’ll just go back home!” I called back. Then I heard him groan and someone else giggled.

“Don’t knock, you troll, come in.”

“You sure? You’re not naked or anything? Rolling around in the bed or whatever?” The giggling grew louder. I opened the door and stuck my head through the opening.

The Prince and two slags from school were sitting on the carpet around a – I never get this bullshit right – some sort of oracle-séance board with letters on it and a glass on top of it. It was something with an O, I’m sure.

One of the girls, who never spoke a word to me at school by the way, smiled at me and lilted: “It just works better with four people.”

My cheek sort of flinched in a sour half-smile.

As I sat down between the girls, albeit reluctantly, they explained to me what they were trying to do. It had to do with that Sue and Thomas, whoever the hell those people were, and with them being a couple or whatever. I won’t bore you with it and I don’t remember any of it anyway. So don’t worry. You’re spared. I wasn’t.

I had to place a finger on the glass and used my right middle finger. They didn’t seem to mind. After a  few seconds the glass started moving.

“Someone’s pushing it,” one of the girls whispered. I rolled my eyes and snorted.

“Der.” The Prince’s pointed glare shut me up.

They whispered some letters while they shoved the glass around, and when they were finished and started discussing their result, I gladly retrieved my finger and looked out the window. Someone poked my arm.

“Huh?”

“Do you have a question?”

“Huh?”

“For the board.”

I looked at the glass.

“Yeah, actually I do.”

“Aha, now that it’s your turn you’re all into it,” said one of them. I can’t for the life of me remember what their names were. We placed our fingers on the glass. They looked at me expectantly, all the of them. I was going to ask “Why do you believe in this bullshit”, but suddenly I didn’t have the heart to do it anymore.

“Should I fuck Derrick,” I said instead.

They all left the glass alone and glanced at each other.

“You’re not taking this seriously,” one of the girls accused me.

“No, of course not!” I said.

“I don’t feel we should have someone so neggediv in our circle,” whined the other one. She actually said neggediv. And feel. She doesn’t feel they should. I clutched my forehead.

“I hope you all get cancer,” I mumbled. When I looked up they stared at me in shock. Not The Prince, though, he just glowered.

“Her mother has cancer,” whispered one of them.

So? I didn’t know her fucking mother, why would I care? I didn’t say that, though.

“So?”

“You should really watch what you say,” said The Prince.

“Whatever.” I stood up. “Gonna do something useful now.”

They whispered among themselves when I left.

Sue Is Idle

“What were you doing when the news came?” asked she, trying to sound profound.

“I was watching porn,” said I, trying to shock her. I looked at her with a smirk, but she didn’t look back at me.

“And jacking off to it,” I tried. It didn’t work.

She just mumbled: “You can’t ‘jack off’, you’re a woman.” I rolled my eyes, sighed, shrugged, and thought: ‘What else am I going to call it then?’ all at the same time.

She continued staring off into the dust in front of our faces, in the space between the street below, and the eightth floor where we were sitting. And I kept watching her. I was rewarding her crappy emo-depth-performance with that, I knew, but I just didn’t want to miss it. It was so funny.

Now she sighed and wrinkled her brow, both very artificially.

“How’s it going to be from now on?” said she softly. That broadened my smile into a wide, stupid, expectant grin. She was going to say something really old and dumb next, wasn’t she? Something along the lines of ‘It’s not the same without him,’ or ‘Everything will be different.’ My mouth opened of its own accord, and I must have looked really retarded, the way I stared at her like a child as if she was a clown – someone actually trying to be entertaining. I mean, on purpose. And then she spoke.

“I asked you a question.”

“Uh?” said I automatically.

“Does. Not. Compute.” What the hell?

“What?!”

She shoved me rudely in the side, so that I almost fell from the windowsill we were sitting on. I had just steadied myself, when she –

“Asshole! You liked him, you cunt! Be sorry! Stop grinning, you stupid shitface, mourn! He’s dead, now mourn! He was your fucking friend! BE SORRY!”

She jostled me some more while shouting at me, and I took it for the first few seconds I needed to get over the shock, and then jumped off the ledge.

Her high-pitched scream that wafted down to me through the noisy swishing of the air was the most amusing thing to entertain me during these last few seconds. So the last thing I actually heard was my chuckle.

No, actually, it was a messy cracking sound when my skull connected with the concrete.

When I woke up it was already afternoon, and I had missed the morning cartoons, football practice, and a call from The Prince, precisely in that order. My stupid mother, upon returning from whatever important housewive business she had to attend to on Saturday mornings with her equally stupid housewife friends, acted as if that was the most reproachful thing I could have done, oversleeping. She nagged and nagged as if the world depended on her killing my brain with it, while I spooned up my Fruit Loops and chanced the occasional glance at the newspaper on the kitchen table. I didn’t dare read it properly in front of her, while she was nagging ...

            It must have been about the same time in Laune, a neighbouring district, when some girl I’d never seen in my life killed herself. Normally I wouldn’t have cared, of course, because I hadn’t known her at all, never even heard of her before her death. People commit suicide all over the place, so the news wasn’t even remarkable when it reached me. But I did begin to care when I became aware of the impact this particular suicide had on my friends. But we’re not there yet. I was at breakfast in the afternoon.

            So my mother finished nagging, I finished my cereals, and I placed the bowl and the spoon in the dishwasher. Only then did I take a look at the display of my mobile and saw that a girl from my football club and The Prince had called. I deleted the two notices and called The Prince back over the housephone. Now, there are a few things I should tell you about The Prince before he enters the story, because otherwise you might get the wrong first impression of him from this particular phonecall. First of all, he was intelligent and knowledgable, really. He was my classmate, my friend, had a twisted sense of intelligent humour, similar to mine, and was extremely eccentric. If I ever had such a thing as a “best friend”, he was it. The one I had most in common with, and whom I liked best. Now on with it.

“Yes?” He was whining.

“Hey. You called. What is it?”

“Don’t snap at me, bitch. We need to talk about Sue.” I hadn’t snapped at him at all, I was just being curt as always, on the phone.

“Who is Sue?”

“What do you mean, who is Sue – Thomas’ ex-girlfriend!” I had no idea what he was talking about, or who Thomas was.

“I still don’t know her. Or this Thomas character. Who the duce are Thomas and Sue?”

He sighed impatiently. “Don’t be thick, you know them. Whatever. You have to come over NOW, and join our circle.”

I blinked at the receiver. Join the what? “What?” He just breathed impatiently. “...Okay, I’m coming.” And then we hung up.

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The Swamp

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That's what it is.

A fragrant swamp of warmth and bliss.

You sink in deep, tempted to sleep

Your vision grows dim, and if you don't learn to swim

You will drown as it pulls you down

But it's so beautiful

It's so safe and warm and healthy.

There's pressure from all sides, but it's tender.

Soft, hot, living tissue surrounds you like a body.

Its pulse replaces your own.

There's a hitch in your heart when those eyes bear down on you from that sky.

And you stop breathing when you hear this song of a voice.

Then you draw in what you expect to be air.

But it's the scent of the swamp, nothing else is there.

From now on, you are breathing the bog, if you can breathe at all.

And your bloodstream is nourished with this steam and liquid from all around.

The Master of the marsh looms over you, tall

While you just lie there, and look up in a daze.

The figure over you sort of gleams in the haze.

He bears into you with his unyielding gaze.

You're intoxicated with this, and the dizziness grows.

You're becoming a sigh, your lowly meekness shows.

The Master's eyes keep staring, and you think he knows.

Everything, why you're there, why it's you.

And you have no idea where you are and what to do.

This comfort feels strange, it frightens you a bit.

It's heating you up.

Love, is it?

-

As always, comments and criticism of all kinds are welcome.