Behold... The Arctopus

This is a story/free verse poem written almost entirely using names of metalcore, hardcore and deathcore bands. If you're curious what those band names are - and you just might discover some cool new music -  check out the epilogue, or just read along and enjoy the ride.

I am society's finest; but to crown the empire - 
Here: articles of faith fit for a king -
A day to remember, burnt by the sun;
Nights like these, side by side, beneath the sky;
I'd burn 100 demons beyond the walls of Jericho
      Because arsonists get all the girls.


Drop dead gorgeous Alesana, skip the foreplay;
Beloved Miss, may I see you next Tuesday?
Close your eyes, embrace today, forevermore.

But you stick to your guns, refused to cave in;
You loathe me, deny me as a limp wristed adolescent;
You saw no redeeming social value in my eyes,
That you could in big boys, misfits and FUs.

Repulsion like scarlet stigmata from her eyes
Throwsdown the word alive to the wind.

Alesana, you tear out the heart;
Your cruel hand rupture deez nuts;
All that remains is the agony scene.

This is hell, but the warriors born from pain
Rise to remain on broken wings

Blessed by a broken heart, I wage war,
Strike anywhere, terror while she sleeps

Attack attack! I killed the prom queen!

Green arrows and ice pick to a glass casket,
Upon this dawning, blood has been shed.

The void still remains in my kingdom of sorrow
The hope conspiracy converges in suicide silence
Falling in reverse from a second story window
From autumn to ashes, as I lay dying
Shadows fall, senses fail, but I prevail.

EPILOGUE

This is the full list of band names in the poem, in order. 

I AM, Society's Finest, Crown The Empire, Articles of Faith, Fit For a King, A Day To Remember, Burnt By the Sun, Nights Like These, Side By Side, Beneath the Sky, Burn, 100 Demons, Beyond, Walls of Jericho, Arsonists Get All the Girls, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Alesana, Skip the Foreplay, Beloved, Miss May I, See You Next Tuesday, Close Your Eyes, Embrace Today, Forevermore, Stick to Your Guns, Refused, Cave In, Loathe, Deny, Limp Wrist, Adolescents, No Redeeming Social Value, In My Eyes, Big Boys, Misfits, The FUs, Repulsion, Scarlet, Stigmata, From Her Eyes, Throwdown, The Word Alive, To the Wind, Alesana, Tear Out the Heart, Cruel Hand, Rupture, Deez Nuts, All That Remains, The Agony Scene, This is Hell, The Warriors, Born From Pain, Rise To Remain, On Broken Wings, Blessed By a Broken Heart, Wage War, Strike Anywhere, Terror, While She Sleeps, Attack Attack, I Killed the Prom Queen, Green Arrows, Icepick, Glass Casket, Upon This Dawning, Blood Has Been Shed, Void, Still Remains, Kingdom of Sorrow, The Hope Conspiracy, Converge, Suicide Silence, Falling in Reverse, From a Second Story Window, From Autumn To Ashes, As I Lay Dying, Shadows Fall, Senses Fail, I Prevail.

The original list had over 800 band names, taken from the metalcore, deathcore and hardcore pages on Wikipedia. And I'm sure you're too lazy to count, so I'll tell you the answer to the question on your lips: there are 80 band names in this little poem.

The Forgivable Sin

So there I found myself, standing all alone in front of a group of people with hate in their eyes, and twitching fingers eager to condemn me to eternal damnation.

How did I get here? It was hard to construct a story, butterfly effect style, that began at the beginning when I was two months old and follow its twists and turns to the now. No, it was impossible. Because, no matter how I tried to spin it, I had been a good person until moments before I did the unthinkable. 

I had been a loving father, a loving husband, a careful employee who knew when to work hard and when to pretend really hard, a dutiful citizen who paid as little tax as he could get away with, and a moderately annoying neighbour.

Harsh raps from the judge’s gavel snapped me out my what-ifs. He was saying something, but it was hard to focus. I could see the hint of a curly wig, but everything else was blurry, like reality itself was fading into memory. Instead, I turned my attention to the jury, whose burning eyes were turned towards the judge.

That young woman in the hoodie, with the restlessly tapping left leg, she would be the first to drop the guillotine. Not because she hated me personally, but because she really didn’t want to be there in the courtroom with all the senile old fools. One of the several men in business suits turned to look at me, and smirked. I sensed there was a hint of curiosity behind that slappable smirk, but who cared. I hated them all, my to-be executioners.

Presently, the judge stopped speaking. I didn’t really notice, but the burning eyes of the jury were back on me, boring holes, so it was clear I had to do something. I cleared my throat laboriously.

“We don’t have all day,” the judge droned. “And considering you refused the right to counsel, it’s clear you don’t really care. Even so, this is your last chance to mount a defence before the jury makes its decision.” The judge tried to work the leather on his face into a kindly smile, but it didn’t work. I looked down at my ten year old torn Converse shoes. I looked around to try and spot my wife, but she wasn’t here.

I exhaled noisily, as I considered my options. Maybe I had done it because I had a secret drug habit, and drug addiction was a disease, not a crime, and this particular drug caused fits of uncontrollable rage. Maybe I had done it, because I had just found out about my wife’s five year long affair. I’d hate to throw her under the bus like this, but she would understand. Maybe, I had found out about my cancer diagnosis. Maybe…

Someone in the jury coughed pointedly. I looked up to see a middle aged woman scowling furiously in my approximate direction. Clearly short sighted, but too vain for spectacles, and also equally clearly, a god fearing executor of medieval justice. She only needed access to a javelin and immunity from prosecution. I giggled internally at the doubly meaningful use of ‘short sighted’. Somewhere, a butterfly flapped its wings furiously to fight off a cyclone.

The sore throated woman’s distraction was more than just that. I knew then that nothing but the truth would do. Were I in the place of one of the suits on the bench, would I forgive myself? Bear in mind that I was someone who had absolutely no issues with cognitive dissonance. I lived and breathed ‘do as I say, not as I do’. And yet, I knew that I would condemn me in a heartbeat. So, the truth then.

“So, this is why I killed that man.”

Gasps from the jury accompanied that pronouncement like thunder to lightning. Come on, there were like thirty five witnesses to the act, and probably a few others who hadn’t been there but would back up the story for giggles. 

“It started from the moment he joined the company. I had never before met such a self absorbed human being, and coming from me, that’s saying something. This man strutted around like we were all privileged just to breathe the same air as him, but this isn’t about that at all. I’ve met a few pompous pricks in my time, it’s not worth killing over.”

I paused for breath, but dared not look at the jury for fear my heartfelt confession would derail in its tracks.

“No, the reason I did it was because this man - this abhorrent creature - deemed it his life’s purpose to tell everyone he met that their jokes weren’t funny.”

A wave of hushed whispers rippled through the crowd. I still continued looking at my battered shoes, but a tremulous voice piped up.

“But but, was this.. man... funny.. himself?”

The judge smacked his desk with as much force as he could muster. It was one of those cases of the effort being far more impressive than the result. Nonetheless, the voices stilled.

“This is most improper, young lady, interrupting a defence while on the panel.” A moment later, he added: “However, I’d like to know the answer to this too, so I’ll let this pass. Don’t speak out of turn again!”

I turned to see that it was the young woman in the hoodie who had asked the question. It wasn’t quite hate in her eyes now, but something… Different. Not daring to scan the woman’s neighbours for their expressions, I forged on.

“No, NO, NO, NO. NO!” I thundered like a trapped god. 

“This man couldn’t make a joke to save his newborn infant’s life. All he did, all he ever did, was strut around, and tell people that their jokes weren’t funny.”

“One day, everything came to a head. I was by the watercooler chatting with colleagues, and we were all laughing at something someone said. It must have been some joke, because if we had even sensed this guy’s presence, we would have walked right away, without the smallest nod to social etiquette.”

“There he was, looking us in our collective eye, and he said with complete and unshakeable self belief: ‘That joke was not funny’.”

“I went into autopilot. Like some kind of miniature Hercules, I picked up the huge flatscreen TV by the coffee machine, picked it right over my head and smashed it… smashed it into…”

My voice choked up with emotion, and I could say no more. When my sobbing stopped, I was surprised to hear a strange sound coming from the direction of the jury. My eyes immediately snapped up to see the medieval executioner lady crying. She was crying! The expression that took over my face then could best be described as confusion.

You may now disagree with my assessment of this story’s climax, but I’m sticking to it and calling it a happy ending.

The judge had his answer within moments of the end of my performance.

“I have worked this job for a long time, and very little I see everyday surprises me but today’s events definitely qualify.”

“If there can ever be something called a forgivable sin, this is it.”

“The jury would like to especially thank you for ridding this world of one of the most loathsome pests I have ever seen, a humourless dunce who unironically appointed himself as joke critic, and nibbled away at countless souls with uninvited, fun-killing barbs.”

Forgiveness

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Obsession: Part #1

In the dimly lit bookshop, an old man shuffled wearily from shelf to shelf, dusting the tops of books ineffectively. His eyes, if there was someone around to see them, were glazed as if focussed on something inward. Midway through his chore, he seemed to give up and slump into the solitary chair in the shop. A stray beam of sunshine lit up his face, and brought with it a surprise: the old man was thirty five years old at best. The rounded shoulders, the tired demeanour, and the unnaturally haggard droop to his cheeks conspired to fool the casual observer, but Scolo was definitely a young man. His eyes were still glazed over, and in his mind, he was doing what he did every day of every year since the time his other life ended. 

This was a memory so polished from repeated replay that it almost glinted at the edges like a shiny HD video. It was the memory of a tennis match; no, two tennis matches actually, with a point from each playing side by side, frame by frame in his mind’s eye. The opponent in both matches was his great rival Girona, his downfall and nemesis, but on the left side, he wore a fearful grimace on his face, while on the right side, an angry scowl. Yes, this wizened old-young man had been one of the best tennis players in the world. 

Scolo served. Left Girona and right Girona played a rally ball back. Both halves were so in lockstep, it was like they were the same match. Except for Girona’s face, of course, which seemed to resolve into hyperreal clarity. The rally went on back and forth for a few more shots, until Scolo sensed a tipping point - a tingling in his racket fingers that suggested that something was about to give. Scolo just knew in that moment what he had to do. Taking the pace off his shot, he massaged it straight back at Girona. Left Girona grimaced and shanked an easy forehand way out of the court, but right Girona - his nemesis and downfall - stepped in to smash it away for a winner. Confusion overwhelmed his thoughts - it should have worked! It had worked before! - confusion from the match bleached into the present like no time had passed at all, and he held his head as if willing it to go away.

It was always the same. If not this rally, if not this match, it was something else. But Girona, the man who everyone thought was a saint... the vicious spiral of his thoughts was interrupted by the tinkle of a bell. A visitor?

Old man Scolo shuffled to the door. It was the postman. Muttering to himself about unwanted advertising, he opened the unmarked envelope to see this letter.

“Dear Scolo,

I’d like to play an exhibition doubles match with you before I retire. For old times sake. And to bury the hatchet. Don’t turn me down.

Girona

“

Viscous rage flowed into his veins, rough from a lack of use, but familiar like a close friend that had drifted away. The nerve of that man! But he knew, even in that moment, that he was going to say yes. He hadn’t struck a ball in years, but he was going to say yes.

In retrospect, it had all started falling apart at that press conference. It was after a third consecutive loss to Girona. He had just lost his number one ranking, and every question in the press conference stung harder than ever before. He still didn’t know why he did what he did next, but he hung around in a small, darkened room by the main press area after his conference was done, to watch Girona’s press conference. None of the journalists knew he was still there - oh what a scandal it would be, he thought impishly - but made sure to leave the door slightly ajar.

“What did you make of your performance?”

He watched Girona shade his eyes, a tic he knew all too well, using that moment to reset his thoughts and reply with the bland stock filler answers tennis players give.

“I am happy. There are little things that maybe I can improve, but this opponent.. I have full respect.. One of my toughest opponents… Very happy.”

Stock question after stock question followed, and pat came the inoffensive, cliched responses, and Scolo began to switch off. He wondered what Cara was up to. She was probably much more busy than he was. She definitely was, considering he was lurking in a dark room daydreaming. But presently, his eyes snapped back to the press room, as if alerted by some supernatural instinct.

“Girona, in the early part of your career, despite being widely acknowledged as possibly the more expansive talent, you lost nearly every match you played to Scolo. And now you’re on a winning streak. What’s changed? What’s the secret? I’m sure Scolo would like to know.” Amused chuckles filled the room.

“Scolo hasn’t tailed off, not really. His record against almost every other player is still as good as it ever was. It’s you. What’s the secret?*

To Scolo’s utter surprise, Girona did not immediately respond with a press friendly cliche. (“Oh, I’ve been lucky a couple of times, I’m sure Scolo will fight back”, “At the highest level, tennis matches hinge on a handful of decisive moments that are hard to pinpoint.”) A very awkward pause filled the room as Girona stared straight back at the journalist. Eventually,

“Could you repeat your question?”

And when the journalist did, Girona still seemed frozen. Wondering murmurs spread among the throng, but still Girona said nothing. The press coordinator leaned in to whisper in Girona’s ear, nodded at his response, and proceeded to announce to the journalists that Girona was suddenly taken ill with a dizzy spell and would have to cut the press conference short. 

The buzzing drone of stifled conversation slowly dissipated as all the journalists filtered out, but Scolo stood there in the dark for a long time. He was shaking and his eyes were aflame with sudden revelation, because he knew, he knew with absolute certainty that Girona was cheating.

To understand Scolo’s conviction, you had to understand the kind of tennis player Scolo was. Yes, he was very talented, fairly hard working, in decent shape, but so was everyone else in the top twenty in the world. Where he stood out, and what allowed him to be the number one player in the world for two years, was an almost divine sense of intuition that guided his game. It wasn’t just that he knew each player’s weakness and could target them, again, probably every player in the top twenty could.

It was that he knew to millisecond precision what shot each player was going to play in each given situation. Again, this was nothing as naive as saying that this and this player played more forehands down the line than cross court, but much more sophisticated than that; he would know with certainty that at a given point in a rally, at a given point in a match, given the way his opponent had played thus far, given the way his opponent was feeling mentally, given how tired - or not - his opponent was, he would know with certainty that he would next play a down the line forehand.

Scolo couldn’t explain the formula to you if he tried. Instead, he embraced his gift and trusted it and rode its power to the top of the world. Girona was, in the beginning, one of the easiest kills for his spider sense. He was only six months younger than Scolo, and everybody - even Scolo himself - freely admitted that Girona was probably the most talented player the sport had ever seen. But faced with Scolo’s unerring anticipation, his beautiful shots fell apart to almost amateurish proportions. Occasionally, Girona would cling to his game long enough to steal the shorter matches, but the head to head was embarrassingly one sided. Scolo 12 Girona 2.

And then Girona had begun to cheat. It had to be that!

A faint, faraway whine resolved itself into the voice of Coach. A very annoyed voice that made it very clear that it was repeating itself for the four hundredth time.

“Running forehand drills?”

As he smacked ball after ball back at the brightly lit moving laser targets on the opposite court, Scolo’s mind drifted to the Girona question again. It had to be drugs. How often was Girona tested? Players didn’t know one another’s testing schedules, but he was fairly sure there was a lot of out of competition, random testing. Yet, clearly, Girona was somehow beating the system. He was - 

“Ouch!”

Coach had just smacked a vicious forehand drive straight into his midriff.

“What are you playing at, Coach?”

“No, what are you playing at? Where’s your mind at? You’ve never been the most industrious pupil but this is ridiculous.”

“Have you even noticed that the targets have been moved up to the net for you to practice your passing shots?”

Scolo looked up in mild consternation. Yes, they had been moved, and yes, he hadn’t noticed. And Coach, a normally mild mannered man who had to be pushed to say a word, was furious.

“Sorry, Coach. So, here’s the thing.”

“I think Girona’s cheating.”

Scolo paused for the full import of that statement to sink in, but Coach didn’t even blink.

“It is possible, and I won’t even ask why you think what you think, and I don’t care. It’s forehand drill day, and that has nothing to do with Girona or cheating. Let’s get on with it.”

Scolo was jolted out of his thoughts. He didn’t know what he was expecting Coach to say, but it wasn’t this. He was instantly grumpy but finished his drill before it got too dark. 

He seemed to get over his dark mood in the coming days. Racking up win after win, and not playing Girona definitely helped, but it was probably more Cara. Cara always helped. She was gentle and sympathetic, but always impartial and slow to judgment. She had always helped. After a whirlwind lifestyle as a young professional, with numerous flings with actresses and supermodels, page three scandals, and money and endorsements and more money, Cara came into his life. She was a supermodel too, so it wasn’t like that movie where the dashing hero romanced stunning woman after stunning woman before finding out that the homely neighbour was where his heart lay all along. No, Cara was a stunning woman herself. He was a handsome, young tennis player with a charisma that enveloped everyone in his presence and lifted them into a higher plane of existence, a heady, exalted plane that made them feel special. Cara was not immune to his wiles, and he added her to his list of conquests. 

Or so he thought, because to his everlasting surprise, he actually fell in love. Cara became a homebody supermodel, and he, the almost comically quintessential Casanova figure with the roving eye almost never flirted again. Yes, Cara, lovely Cara, had been sympathetic to his suspicions about Girona, but merely warned him to keep a hold of his emotions and not say something in public he would come to regret.

Famous last words.

Both Girona and Scolo reached the final of the Madrid Open. Scolo knew this might happen the moment he saw the draw, but the rapid rate at which his hard won good feeling fell away, to be replaced by a black, knotted rage surprised even him. Hours before the final, he skulked his private locker room area and muffled screams slipped from his lips from time to time, despite himself. He punched a wall so hard he wondered if he’d broken a finger. He had never done that before. It didn’t help. Despite losing the first set, Girona came back to take the next two and win the match.

He could barely look Girona in the eye during the post match handshake. Girona probably didn’t notice that he was trembling, that man was so amiable that he was practically blind. He knew he should take a breather for five minutes before the press conference, but he walked straight in.

Somehow, he survived the first round of banalities. But then the red mist descended in an instant when a journalist asked him about his losing streak against Girona.

“Do you think Girona now has a mental edge against you, and that is why he is winning against consistently?”

“He’s winning because.. He’s a CHEATER. HE’S A FUCKING CHEATER!” His voice rose to a scream. A shocked silence fell over the room. The journalist who asked the original question recovered and began to speak again.

“What do - “

“SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!” Scolo picked up the water bottle in front of him and hurled it at the journalist. Without looking to see what happened next, he stood up and stomped out of the room.

The Key To Everlasting Happiness

This is best illustrated with an example. 

You have a house. Your house is dustier than the streets of Delhi. You are super annoyed about it, but just can’t bring yourself to get around to fix it. For reasons; and since I’m chock full of empathy, I’m not going to attack you personally by insinuating that you’re lazy. Instead, I’m going to offer a solution that doesn’t involve giving up on your most cherished ideals.

What if you hunted through your fridge instead for the smelliest carton of milk, took it out, and carefully and liberally spilt it all over the floor? Making sure, of course, that you picked spots that were likely to leave behind the hardest to remove stains, until you eventually found the energy to get up to clean them off. 

What’s this got to do with the dusty house, you wonder? Therein lies the rub. While you were busy worrying about how on Earth you would get rid of that big splotch of milk in the middle of your drawing room, you forgot all about the dusty house.

Even better, the sweet kick of endorphins after you solved the spilt milk problem made the dusty house a little more tolerable, chipping away at your frustration one floor stain at a time, until some day, you won’t care about dusty houses any more. Problem solved.

This is a variation of the Acupuncture Principle™, of course, and can be paraphrased as:

To solve a problem, make yourself a bigger problem.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel like I’ve discovered the key to happiness itself. And like all great sages of yesteryear, I’m willing to share my wisdom for no charge at all. (Here’s my Patreon.)

To start things off, here’s a list of what I have cleverly named The Acupunctuals: a list of fallback solutions that will help you get over any problem in life. Just pick one and off you go.

1.Shoot a neighbour.
2. Set your house on fire.
3. Contract Ebola.
4. Go to work naked.

Unemployed and anxious about it? Go shoot a neighbour! You’ll no longer have to worry about being unemployed and anxious. And so on.

Sometimes though, you might not need car-sized hammers like these for your tiny nails. Fret not, my vast expertise transcends generalities.

If you find yourself anxious about those unfolded post-laundry clothes lying in a terrifying heap on your sofa, start chucking soiled clothes on the floor, one at a time, every day. Before you know it you’ll find yourself no longer fretting. About the unfolded post laundry clothes.

If the idea of writing daily status reports at work is boring you to tears - and if it isn’t, please feel free to check in your homo sapiens card when you leave the building, there’s a long waiting list - go ahead, and break that super important, super critical client facing system. No more status reports, and your manager will thank you in secret. Or openly, if post-work beers are your thing.

If you’re tired, get yourself a cold. 

If you have a cold, get yourself a full blown upper respiratory tract infection.

If you have an upper respiratory tract infection already, break a leg. 

If you have a broken leg, break another leg.

If you have two broken legs - have you considered buying lottery tickets? - cut off a limb. 

If you’re there already, sorry I’m out of ideas. May I point you to the list of Acupunctuals?

If you’re happy, and you’re a masochist, treat yourself to a day of hedonistic decadence involving copious amounts of alcohol. You’ll be happier, and you’ll forget the little joys that caused you such pain the day before.

Sometimes though, the key to successful application of the Acupuncture Principle is tangentiality, not degree. The uninformed might call it procrastination, but I say: tomatoes, tomatoes.

Do you have a homework assignment to do? Pretend to think about beginning work on that novel that’s going to make you rich and famous. 

When you’re ready to actually write down the first line of your novel, you’ll always have the homework assignment to do. 

There. Thank me later for only just dropping the key to everlasting happiness in your lap.

Deception, appearances, and all that

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Glass Half Full

(Have you ever felt that you live in a world built for cynical people, and it is oh so exhausting? Normally, I'd laugh you out the door, but I'm in that sort of mood where I look at a quarter full glass and shout from the rooftops that I have a glass that's half full. Sharing is caring, right?

Well, in that spirit, I've decided to pluck some of the gnarliest proverbs I could find, and smoothe them into messages of hope and upliftment. Who needs all that negativity?)

• When you're down in the dumps, and all hope seems gone, your friends will all.. be there for you and support you, because that's what friends do.
• A chain is only as strong as #teamlinks because #oneteam, #noblamegame, #together.
• Actions speak louder than words (when you're at a metal concert, otherwise words do fine. Actions are fine too - I love Die Hard just like you - whatever floats your boat).
• A fool and his money are soon parted. Sure, but a thief and his money are soon parted as well. If not, that's OK, because he has mouths to feed, right?
• A leopard won't change its spots because it's spotty and proud as it should be.
• All good things come to an end, because great things are around the corner.
• An empty vessel makes much noise. That’s alright because you’re like a drummer playing the drums, and everybody loves drummers.
• Appearances can be deceptive, but they usually aren't. Yellow taxis are yellow taxis most of the time.
• Bite off more than you can chew, because how else would you know how much you can chew?  
• Blow your own trumpet, because it’s better than a vuvuzela!
• Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile. Yes, but if that’s your partner planning your surprise birthday party, more power to them, right?
• Cry away over that spilt milk, because let it all out, detox, and milk’s as good a thing to rue as any.
• Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open, your mom says? Well, mama don't know all when it comes to kissing well.
• Go ahead. Run before you walk because in a world full of escalators, walking is overrated.
• Man proposes, and man implements, and man is happy, because who does that sky deity think He is, disposing of other people’s stuff?
• You take your horse to the river, and she drinks through a straw, because they're still around.
• My old dog just learnt that she can run from one end of the room to the other with her eyes shut. That’s a pretty darn neat trick eh?
• What's wrong with me, you wonder? Nothing, because whatever you are, you are golden.