[matchup #49 in Tournament of Bookshit]

The year was 2012 and we were all under the assumption that, in some way or another, the world would end soon. We knew that the Mayans had nothing to do with it because, as we all know, when one calendar ends we just buy a new one, we don’t assume the worst. Capitalism might collapse, geotraumatic insistence might just find us no longer rooted on the earth, it’s too bad NASA itself is gone. All that’s left to feel is our own collective solar body moving through time and space.

We find our bodies in bars, we find our bodies consuming alcohol, we find our bodies consuming more alcohol, we find ourselves going outside for a cigarette, we watch stars plummet and all make the same wish; that we can sustain, that the world won’t end, that our accelerated reality stops, calms down, pauses for a second.

Back inside the bar the same reader is still reading, and we have all lost track of what he’s talking about. He’s just listing numbers now. The numbers have no context, but suddenly the numbers take form and there’s a black obsidian rock floating in the middle of the room. A mexican black king snake slithers around it. This is an image we can all relate too, but the guy who is reading can still be heard. Everything is distracting. Words have lost their meaning by now, and we’re either drunk or just decentered from whatever it is we’re supposed to be paying attention to. We understand that the world is ending so it’s time for a bender. The only way to make time infinite is to be drunk. The man keeps talking and we don’t want this sort of infinity, we want another.

I watch the snake freeze in the air. I want to grab him and straighten him out, fashion him into an object to hit the speaking man with. I want to shout at the man STOP FUCKING READING AND PAY ATTENTION TO OUR WORLD but I can’t seem to commit to making any sound whatsoever. I realize it’s because I’m not actually in the room, I’m standing outside the door incapable of crossing the barrier that stands between me and the room of the bar, namely the barrier of space. I pull out my dick and try to get hard but realize that the man’s voice has frozen everything. Is anybody asleep? Can we sleep now that we have nothing?

The world will end soon and the only escape for us, the working class, is alcoholism. This disease will cure our unease as we sleaze our way into unmitigated sexual utopian nightmares. Fuck you reading man, your story is gone. I am here. Let’s do this.

– Impossible Mike

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WINNER: Alcoholism