Prompts followed by the nonsense I spew with great regularity in August second, 2013, a friday, a flash day

Barbaric, fondness, corrupt

Those are my prompts. Use them or don’t; it doesn’t matter. If you don’t use them they’ll be used anyhow. Some words come and go and if you don’t use them now you’ll have missed your chance. Those words, up there, the prompts? They have job security. I long for the day when they are no longer needed, even fondness, a cowards term for love, but I’m unlikely to live that long.

No I haven’t been thinking about death, not my own at any rate. I rarely do. I write about death often enough, but it’s more of a rhetorical thing. You end a story with death and no one feels cheated out of an ending. It’s a bit of a cheap, dime store rhetorical device, but if you’re trying to keep things short and have some kind of plot, nothing beats killing someone off for lighting up the neon sign that says “See? Ends Here. You want a conflict? You want a character to go through changes? Well, there you go, ya ghoul.”

A lot of biographies end that way. Beneath the Underdog, Mingus’s biography starts off that way. Almost all auto-biographies end that way. It’s a little conceited when they don’t. I know, among the fucks you aren’t giving today that one is near the top of your list. Mine too. It’s kind of significant if you look at it sideways.

I’m probably doing the prompts wrong. I don’t mean the prompts themselves, I mean I’m posting them wrong. Again, the fucks I’m not giving? Their name is legion. Collectively, you know, respectively I’m sure they call one another things like Charlie and Susan, because, and no offense if you are I fuck I have not nor will not give, they all kind of look the same; a hopeful potential, doomed all the same. Perhaps there will be a religion one day wherein they tell the wee children “… And if you aren’t very good, all the fucks you haven’t given, and even some of the shits you’ve refused to give, will meet you at the great orifice and judge you worth against your deeds.” Frightening. Imagine if people were afraid not to give a shit or give or fuck, and so, like the Calvinists who wanted their neighbors to believe they were among the 144 thousand saved, everyone attempted to give a shit or give a fuck. You think the universe is chaotic now?

As a side note; no offense to any of you Calvinists; you might be one of the 144 thousand chosen, but, if his eye is on the sparrow he knows you’re faking. My suggestion would be act as you see fit, you’re already chosen or not, personally, I’d prefer if you didn’t go around coveting and killing, so channel it into idolatry willya? Or sloth, or some other no-no that isn’t a person to person crime. Oh, and you should probably cut holes in your sheets just in case there are fucks you need to give.

I almost went with some deadly sins and shit for my prompts, seems too easy. I think it’s almost like giving up. Flashes almost imply certain morality anyhow, whether you want them to or not. You don’t have time for much else. You get one point, one hash mark, one small dent in the fender of the readers mind. One of the beautys of flashes is how much like real life they are, I mean real life between strangers --- they start in the middle and end in the middle and raise more questions than provide answers. Perhaps it’s also their problem with flashes; you don’t have the time for comparative morality, and if you paint the sketch with unconventional morality someone isn’t going to get it, will try and shove the square flash into a round flash hole. I remain shitless and fuckless.

Figuratively of course.

Literally not giving a shit might be indicative of a serious medical condition. Not giving a fuck, I assume, refers to either how little passion or how little joy you with which you view the matter at hand. Perhaps. I mean the actual act ranges from a joyous celebration of endorphin release (and other happy, happy chemical brain soup) to something violent and derogatory. I, of course, cuss too much. Among the many reasons I’ve been given for why that’d be a problem only two stand out.

1. Demonstrative of a limited vocabulary and/or a gross limitation in the ability to express oneself.
2. Very few sweat words are not sexual in nature and most are used in anger. Using acts of sexuality in an angry expression is verbally tantamount to sexual assault; a crime of anger and not love.

The first one can go fuck itself. In fact it might just be the reason I cuss so very much; the art of communication involves not censoring anything. Intelligence is not measured in any significant sense by what you don’t say (no, that’s not true at all; it’s not measured in any significant sense by the words you use to say the dumbass or ill-considered shit you say). The second one has a very valid point. I’m pretty fucking secure in my intelligence (and/or lack thereof) and pretty secure that I’m the least rapey person I know, I mean, to me no means no even when it doesn’t. I’m a god damn gentleman I am. Even drunk. I don’t have an inhibition that’s afraid to be sexually aggressive and takes a hike when I get a few shots in my gullet.

Y’all want to argue with number two. You want to say “Shit isn’t a sexually charged cuss word, nor asshat, butt-munch, shit-for-brains, etc.” Yeah, no, you might not be anally retentive. Those very few of you who’ve never looked at porn titles might not realize it but anal is a major genre and scat a sub-genre of not insignificant proportions. Try googling scat, betcha anything the top ten hits are not Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme.

Like deadly sins I think using prompts like fuck, shit, blow me is indicative of having jumped the prompt shark. This is all opinion by the way, y’all do what you want. I will do your seven deadly prompts or your fucking, shitting, blowing me prompts. As I might have mentioned at least once in the last week; it ain’t nothing but a chicken wing.

And I’m spent.