MEMENTO MORI

"In life's uncertainty, let us find comfort in the assuredness of death!"

I am suffering currently from being immortal, yes! Immortal! It seems as if I cannot die no matter what means I try. I have tried a gun, walking into flames, drowning and even the constant nagging of a woman! Lo! What a fate! Life lacks its beauty because I am constantly assured of tomorrow's existence, I can postpone this and that and nearly everything that would bring joy if not procrastinated upon. The now has become rather elusive to me. Memento Mori!

Don Stavo

There was once a writer, well we'd rather call him a dabbler since he himself failed to go by that title, writer. By any sound judgement I'd say he was rather good, especially at a time where writing, as an art, was dying out. You'd find him scribbling poetry in his notebooks, or hunched over a screen typing them, but rarely would you find him writing the very many books that would accompany the various ideas he had in mind for them! Of his poetry, I found his various pieces very intriguing, very "up-wards-trajectory" like, each better than the last. What really puzzled me is how he'd avoid signing off his name, once I heard him exclaim, "One cannot own art, especially great art, and it's a gift, an insight from powers, forces beyond us."

Soon enough his poetry began carrying a strange tag, a name I had never in actuality heard anyone call him by, Don Stavo, generally I assumed it to be a non de plume, I would much later find it had a deeper meaning, and not in an artistic or poetic way, a tragic way.

On one ordinary morning, after about nearly a week of not seeing him on his morning routine of glancing down on the world from his isolated balcony in nothing but boxers and a steaming cup of coffee, gazing down on us feeble mortals, for sincerely that's what we are in his rather grandiose and enlightened presence, I heard several sirens, ambulance and police sirens and by god, for a man whom I held not dear in anyway or even bore no real feelings for except for a bubbling sense of admiration, I felt oddly estranged and sad once I realized all that was for him.

I chose to avoid the usual inquisitor nature of my state's men that comes with tragedy. However news found its way to me that the old, wizened, "Don Stavo" had choked on his own coffee while reading the comic strip section of the newspaper, dated a week before. Out of this tragedy I'd say the silver lining was his death must have been humorous, at least to him, I'd like to assume he died laughing at whatever comic he was reading, quite fitting for the little old man who was nearly ever broody, quite a waste of his devilishly good looks if I may say!

In an effort to recover that month's rent, our rather money minded land lord sought to auction the writers belongings as he had no next of kin to the best of anyone's knowledge, besides his poetry being featured under his pseudo name a few times in the local daily, no one could put a finger to who he really was. Feeling obligated to the writer and his peculiar question raising memory and out of sheer curiosity I decided to buy his every last belonging with my most recent commission. The landlord trying to be quick with the dealings, perhaps out of the fear that the superstitious hold over the dead, gave me a rather fair bargain on everything.

Amongst the dead writers possessions were countless manuscripts, some of which were either a page long or incomplete others complete, a beautifully crafted typewriter, several notebooks with scribbling and poetry. Of the manuscripts I wondered and pondered heavily on why he hadn't had the complete ones published or the incomplete ones completed, some with pages worn out implying years of laying around, perhaps maybe the lie of tomorrow.

Years later after I had even moved from that apartment complex I arrived home from my rather mundane and pointless job which I had undertaken because being an artist was proving difficult for a new father trying to support his family, my beautiful wife ran to me with a ghastly look on her face and a piece of paper in her hand, "the type writer! The type write is possessed!"

On that piece of paper read

"Habere quod tuum est, Memento mori! Memento Mori!"

Own that which is yours, remember death! Remember death!

Death, dear old friend

Have you not grown tired of haunting me

Over the ages haven't you thought it once

That it'd be best for me to complete the reason of my being?

Before you burden me with more being

Cumulative years of self knowledge to gather?

How do I play this rigged game? Haven't we since long been acquainted?

Won't you then give me an hour more, to at least die drunk this time?

THE FIXER

What's my name? I don't think you quite understand the meaning of anonymous Mr. Reporter. I'm sure as hell that I don't need to know yours too, after all you're just an over glorified means to an end!

Wait sit down, I don't mean to come off as rude, I just happen to lack the necessary people skills, can you believe it? Nearing death, old as the wind, yet I've barely understood people!

Ah! I had mentioned being as sure as hell, but how sure are we about such things, because the preacher said it?

Oh, so you think your preacher is correct?

The unquestionable voices of god on earth you say?

Don't mind my laughing Mr. Reporter, knowing what I know, being who I am, there's little I can't help but laugh at, even death! Speaking of which, are you aware why you are here?

Yes yes, to document the confessions of a "fixer".

Do you have an idea of what I do?

Yes, you handle the dirty work for the rich!

No, I'm not that kind of fixer, at least not the Hollywood version you know of. Ha! Hollywood, do you know it's the same as the name of a tree Witches are believed to have carved their wands from, the spells they cast on your feeble minds!

Where do we start? Well you're the professional, ask away?

My life story?

I was born just like any other person, I had a childhood and from it I realized the rewards of being a goody two shoes will always be deceit, mockery and a cocktail of other disappointments. So in light of that I went the other way, the path most trodden, may Robert forgive me, see, the world is bad enough on its own to have good guys fix it, that's why you've got to be real bad to be real good.

What do I mean?

I thought you reporters had better interrogation skills than the cops. What I mean is that it's a dark world out there kid, you haven't seen the half of it. I've done some work for your "good pastors and priests" covering up their tracks for the innocent children they molest, the investigations into their fake miracles and alike.

Don't look shocked, I'd rather they suffer by paying me millions to hide their errors, it's not like the Vatican does anything to reported priests, and neither do your governments. You know what government is kid? It's a Latin word that means "mind control". Don't believe me? How do you explain thousands having to die because one head of the same snake seems different to the other head? You get digested either way son! Speaking of government, do you think you really elect your leaders? I mean for Christ's sake why would any "intelligent power" let idiots choose the policy makers? Believe me, the real power is in the hands of the uber rich, the aristocrats, you and me son, were just peasants. At least I have my seat on the floor where the most crumbs fall.

Oh boy, yeah, I've worked for them politicians before, covering up the most gruesome of acts, heard of adrenochrome kid? Wait till you lose a kid to them then you'll find out. In 98' I helped them, yeah the government, sneak some explosives into a fully occupied building and we killed multitudes. Why? They have this belief that fear and terror are the best way to get you to submit to hero figures, lets nit even go into their mythology, some god or gods of theirs really appreciate suffering, really! Why do you think more kids go missing than you can count? Look up adrenochrome kid, look it up!

You know how many good kids who went into politics trying to change the world have had to "disappear" just because they got in too deep?

The world is run by something much darker, something much more sinister, you wouldn't even believe it if I told you. From the food to the water to your medicine to your vaccines, the overlords have their tentacles wrapped around you, slowly suffocating you, your individuality, your consciousness, guess who gets to cover it up, me kid, me!

My first job? I helped my father hide the dead body of my mother right after he killed her in cold blood because drunks don't like cold food even if its 3am in the morning, witching hour. My second job was a personal one, I drove a screw driver with a mallet into my father's head right after he fell asleep because of the exhaustion of having me dig a grave for my own mother, it's a cruel world, isn't it son? Since then it's been carnage and mayhem all the way.

My latest job, well kid, that's why you're here, see, someone very powerful doesn't like it that a rookie journalist is about to marry into their aristocratic family, let's just say you aren't cut out to marry the daughter of a billionaire.

Oh why do you look so puzzled kid? You better relax, you don't want to increase your heart rate, it makes the cyanide move faster in your system, howdya like the coffee? You have a few more minutes, seconds maybe, then you die.

How many sips have you had so far?

Just 2, marvelous, you still have a few more minutes, any last questions?

Why? It's my job ki...….

HEADLINE: "SELF CONFESSED ASSASSIN DIES AFTER DRINKING POISON"

You are this beautiful notebook and the world is a bunch of half baked writers too obsessed with aesthetics and perfection to devour you and blemish you with their raw thoughts, they're saving you for a beautiful memory they'll never have because they aren't daring enough

Yet all you want to do is to be this memory of you they hold, something that will be washed by the tides of death.

Before I go bang!

Drive the point home, they walk dogs on paved streets your mother slipped off a temporary bridge into her aquatic sunset.

Every time you hear buffet you remember your father losing his first job as a cook because he brought home the food his bourgeoisie masters thought wasn't befitting even to their gluttonous appetites.

Last time you were in hospital with a severed finger because you had to work overtime and fell asleep on the assembly line just so that you could finish off your student loans, you were distracted from the pain by the memory of your infant sister dying months after her vaccination and your mother going into a spiral of depression, aquatic demise would have sufficed, better the peaceful dead than the troubled living.

It's been 15 years since you plunged head first into someone, you can't blame her for following God's call, yes, you can't have anything at all, even the love of your life was seduced by god, she's now at a convent somewhere in the Philippines, you wish you'd have told her how much she meant to you before god dialed her number. Perhaps even mentioned that this deceitful world has made you so distrusting that you even question your own happiness. I hope God is a better lover, surely he has to be good at something, anything, other than ordering the death of millions and letting things get of hand.

It's Saturday and I'm 21 again, I get a call, Jack, a cold one, the local. I pick up my jacket and head out. Jack has a few too many, on his 6th shot he breaks down, he has cancer, I don't know how to feel, Im not the one dying but I'm dying he's barely made it past the gates of his mother's house, he was going to record an album with all genres of music, be a famous artist then one day disappear, he had the wildest ideas now cast asunder from their forthcoming reality by this shadowy disease. 3 years later I think they ought to pull the plug on the poor fella, after dozens and dozens of rounds of chemo he's only sicker, his mother finally accepts a suggestion to have him treated using natural and holistic means, he died that evening, sheets soiled, eyes crossed and tongue shredded, a convulsion, not even the cancer, he died of a convulsion!

I'm standing here, with about 10 kgs of C4 sown into my clothes in strips, I've been working for Kwick Klean for the last 10 years, I watched my eldest brother die on a peace keeping mission to a country where war was instigated by the powers that be for whatever selfish reasons, I watched the man I called father drink himself into a grave, I have buried everyone but myself, I shall today. We have been contracted to clean the parliament premises, I have been here enough times to know the structural weak points and the surveillance lapses, everything is set, I'm going out in a grand way, taking down the head of the beast with me, but this isn't some poetic political move, I'm simply suicidal.

Jane gets a call, a mild mannered co-worker that I have for a long time feared to be a half-wit because even my worst jokes get a laugh from her, her child is sick she says as she drops her mop, "Can you cover for me?"

God you dear old bastard, a child had to get sick just so that you can stand in the way of my overdue exit? I guess the fireworks will have to wait for another day, a mother needs to see her child and keep her job, I'd hate to have another me around in a couple of years.

A revolutionary has died!

He lays bleeding in his mother's arms, she wails, mourns the death of her brave son, who ought to have cowered behind her skirt, and shared the fate that is dished out to the obedient, the unlived life.

He lays bleeding in the arms of his lover, she whispers into his cold ear, that his blood will water the flowers of freedom.

He lays bleeding in the hearts of all who listen and strive for freedom, they will beat, louder than the firing squad

He lays bleeding in playgrounds long forgotten, covered in a thick dust of practical and law-abidedness that drowns the soul of artists

He lays bleeding, washing away the facade of freedom.

.

The walk.

"They will give us everything but dignity. "

My father had pounded that into my head since infancy i'd presume, you had lullabies, I had constant reminders that if I didn't value myself the world wouldn't and in that little lesson grew a great admiration for a man who had nothing but his wisdom, family and a vague memory of never having have had anything.

It's the broken street lights that have struck up this thought, fancy folk don't know broken, maybe hearts, not homes, not hospital equipment and certainly the only darkness they have to face is that of their souls and when they close their eyes and go into that dark oblivion devoid of simpleton worries.

300 meters, a warm bed and maybe food, I shall know. There's an unsettling feeling in my gut, like the weeks before papa died, I could tell that something was creeping up on us, death. At least he went with a semblance of dignity, that's what his whole life was about, making sure he died well and passed onto the grave well. His death a summation of his life's work, perhaps the grandest funeral, that would serve them right he said, and in death they'd be equals.

200 meters, anxiety, heavy, suddenly my breaths seem harder to draw in, cold air, burning joints. Something is indeed looming, quick prayer, burning joint. I increase my pace, the dark has set in quite well, like a faulted child awaiting punishment. Darkness has a sound, it sounds like our dreams when we drown them in practically, injustice, unrequited love, fear!

150 meters, I can swear I'm being followed, their presence becoming heavier and heavier, my breathing weighty. I rush my steps, maybe it in my head, isn't everything, so says my friend Juma, he's one of father's infamous "them" those so lucky they can think about "higher objectives" and transcendence while the rest of us are worried like fools over our next meals. The old man would once in a while remark how they sit in their high towers giving us alms and their compulsory community service that they'd rather go without yet they walk around in a savior like manner at the expense of our dignity.

We don't need handouts, we need true education, the kind that doesn't lie to a fellow scum lord that he can be a slum lord and ascend to the ranks of our benevolent alms givers. Education that would have great artists like my father not live for the day he'd die, with unsold pieces that would rival Picasso, we knew he was going mad when he burnt his favorite, mother's portrait, he painted it whilst trying to woo her, she's always been hard to impress, taught me that a man is more than what he does for you when he wants a quick fuck, and that's exactly how she said it, a vulgar yet modest woman in all accord. Father couldn't stand having his prized gem sold to some pseudo-art enthusiast at insane prices while in the ghetto there was darkness

50 meters, have I inherited his hate for the well-off? For those born into a kind of royalty that cushions them from the darkness of unfollowed dreams? Half explored desires? Violence? The steps again.

10 meters.....

I'm searching, searching for my self, I'm not at the butt of a cigarette, the bottom of a bottle, the too, in I love yous

I've been searching everywhere, for approval on how well I've lived my life from people who are sleeping through theirs, tired, I'm sick and tired of them.

I'm searching, for that place that makes me whole, where I was never a fraction of anything other than the source of all being , this place within, elaborated upon by masters and sages across time.

I'm looking for this lonely place where I am not alone, amongst those beaten half to death for their deathly grip on the remnants of their tattered souls.

Flight 666

Hi, Steve, what are you in for?

Phil, uncovering fraud and embezzlement.

Well I guess that's a good enough reason, I'm not sure why I'm here really I just remember getting really drunk and heading home. What do you mean "Uncovering fraud and embezzlement"?

Well yesterday was my daughters birthday and I had to close in on a new client in Nairobi but I had already sent my daughter and wife out to Malindi to begin our one week vacation, well deserved if I may add.

Yeah?

So I told my wife id drive down to Malindi over the weekend once I tied that loose end up.

Why not fly instead?

I was gonna get to that, I have a crippling fear of heights and a bigger one for flying, rather had!

What changed?

My meeting with the new client went well and I closed a deal worth millions, then later in my office as I was doing the paper work so that I leave and head out on my vacation, I noticed a huge discrepancy with the returns I file and what the VC reports to the board.

So he'd been skimming of the top?

Worse, he'd taken everything from me, I had sacrificed everything to get to the top and he just glided in because his father owns the company.

Sacrificed everything?

Yeah, might not seem like much but I used to be a writer, but you don't get the luxury of luxury by selling your thoughts to people who are barely aware of their own thoughts. So I did what any sane man would do and bore through pointless schooling, job searching, internships and a temp job just to get to the top. I sold my soul to get to the top and they put in an incompetent oligarch in power?

How do you know your own thoughts and ideas wouldn't incite them to think for themselves? So uncovering the fraud was more of a chance perpetuated long standing feud as opposed to an issue of moral and ethical responsibility to you?

It doesn't matter as long as I had him on record with his stubby fingers stuck in the honey jar! So the next day instead of driving out I met with the board and gave them my findings and got a promotion, the thing is I told my wife id drive there and a whole day had passed and Id be late and my daughter is certainly cross with me already.

So what did you do Mr. VC?

Well time wasn't on my side so it was time to face my fears, after all the stoics do believe embracing the inevitability of death is the beginning of life. So I booked an evening flight and headed out. Next thing I know I'm here.

Phillip Kanu? Or is this Philippe? Ah just line up behind these two!

Peter I suppose? The gate keeper?

You're close, something of the sorts, oh you can leave the sweater over with that pile, the climate here is quite tropical, Malindi like if I may say!

I saw a sole cactus at a crossroad

Succulent insides with undecided potential

Destined to remind weary travellers in its ambiexistence , almost ironically, that there is no middle ground, no safe path to destiny.

Poetry of the wicked

I shallnt stand before do gooders and explain what they claim to be misdead, I shan't be the one to challenge their moral insanity and rules that stipulate nothing but vanity, let the fires of hell rain on me, see how pure the end shall be, for the strongest steal is forged in fire and I have taken death's sickle and made him my harvest, listen to these blasphemous utterances of mine and tremble because what comes after me is darker, you will be forced to reckon with my dying breath, you will be forced to live

Who talks of the damned? Who prays for the sinners, who sculpts their visages, who reckons of their purpose

In silent contemplation relate to their struggle, the saints over glorified and mystified, tyrants dressed as martyrs

Who wept for hitler? Mussolini? Who shed a tear for the damned?

I man the flames that devour the do gooders and their devout piety

I man the flames of those who cling on good deeds as if they're the currency of life.

The day of reckoning shall come and the lion's shallnt gnash their teeth because they do not lock

Look at this thing you want me to be, this sorry pathetic docile creature, in fear of words strung together posing as rules and guidelines

Look at this being, putrid and rancid, the deficated refuse of a draining society

Look at this shadow, this cloth loosely held together with moral fibres aching to be free

I shallnt die while I breath, I shallnt be anything lesser than the god to whom you mortals plead

Monday mourning the dreams I had drowned in Sunday woes and lately my needs have become foes and my wants turned into greeds and unfathomable deeds done to please but never the self we can put him on a shelf, like the decorative degrees that you thought would hand you the keys yet the castle always had a draw bridge you beg and toil yet the masters take and they do as they please, I don't think they'd say please, another puff to appease appetites suppressed and tensions unreleased

Monday morning breeze speaking of dreams cut short by the alarming reality of our lie

Shopping malls

Disgusting marble tiled clear windowed displays silk gowns and suits that could cloth a country

Sweet sweet stench of baking croissants and gourmet coffee reaking from the food court

Black sleek hearses for the leaving, yeah we are always going, just because we are going.

The rule bends so that we might drive a Mercedes

These are the reasons for which we must toil, and shelve our dreams

I am twenty two with no clue

Of where I should go or what I should do

What I am I ask my self who is you

The face on the mirror ever so new

Yet I know I have sixty and a six more

Before I can know for sure

Whom I am, but for now I am twenty two