Flashing #16: Chuck Palahniuk

This week I will be revisiting the original memoir but attempting to do it in the style of other popular authors, starting with Chuck Palahniuk. Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favorite modern authors. His style is very distinct – minimal, aggressive, and rhythmic. He starts later in the story and brings the reader up to speed. Sarcastic and satirical and not without the occasional vulgarity and honest observation. I tried my best to capture that, all within a thousand words (996 words, to be exact). I modeled this story as a chapter in a Palahniuk novel so I can hit all of the signatures without rushing through the entire memoir.

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Six hours and fifty-eight minutes ago I was setting the hotel-supplied alarm clock. It wasn’t a difficult alarm clock to set, especially considering I’m in Germany. Come to think of it, I don’t know why a German alarm clock would be difficult to set. Germans are all about promptness and order and occasional world domination, after all. I just figure foreign countries would have foreign alarm clocks. Whatever that means.

Six hours and fifty-seven minutes ago I was asleep.

Probably around five hours and twenty-seven minutes ago I was hitting REM for the first time.

Probably around three hours and fifty-seven minutes ago I was in deep REM. Dreaming about lesbians and clowns in dirty suits and bullets penetrating necks and whatever other memories my mind was consolidating at the time. If I were awake, the fact that I was getting into the longer REM cycles would have been a sure sign that something was wrong. However, if I were awake, I wouldn’t be having REM sleep and now where would we be? In a different story, that’s for sure.

Five minutes ago I was horny. I was grinding the bed and my hard-on was perfectly happy fucking the mattress. My cheek was pressed against my drool-soaked pillow and my bottom lip was held tightly between my film-crusted teeth.

Four minutes and twenty-six seconds ago I realized how dark it was outside. The parts of the window that poked through the shades were (are) black. You know that feeling you get as a kid when Santa Claus kicks you in the balls at Macy’s? That’s what seeing the blackness felt like.

Of course, my hips didn’t care. My cock was being rubbed raw against starchy hotel sheets and a pillow-topped mattress.

Four minutes and twenty-two seconds ago I looked at the German-made alarm clock and noticed that I was supposed to get up around three hours and fifty-seven minutes ago, give or take.

Four minutes and twenty-one seconds ago I jumped out of bed and shouted no, no, no, fuck no.

Three minutes and fifteen seconds ago I finished masturbating because I still had this hard-on and, fuck it, what else was I supposed to do?

Three minutes and twelve seconds ago I realized I was hungry. I pulled back the shade and looked outside – the streets were empty.

Three minutes and two seconds ago I got into the shower and washed the cum out of my pubic hair.

One minute and fifty-six seconds ago I was toweling off. My cock was still semi-erect, and I knew I’d be carrying a drop or two in my underwear. Didn’t matter.

One minute and fifteen seconds ago I was back in the jeans and t-shirt I wore all day. I didn’t see the point of putting on anything special. I just wanted to find food; my one commitment-free night in Germany, home of beer and John Thompson, was over before it began.

Forty-seven seconds ago I was waiting for the elevator. The hallway was dead silent.

Three seconds ago I was exiting the hotel room. The air was cold and held a mist. I figured I’d walk towards the metro.

There’s a grocery store on the left. Closed. Fence adorned with padlocks and topped with barbed wire.

There’s a gas station just beyond that. Open. I can at least get some bottled water and candy there if worst comes to worst.

Sex shop. Closed. It’s never a good sign when the sex shops are closed. It means couples already had their drinks and purchased their perversions and took them home and inserted them into pussies and assholes and mouths. The quiet on the streets leads me to believe that this all happened hours ago.

Sex shops being closed also means that the single people have already come to terms with the fact that they weren’t getting laid tonight. They already stopped by the store to purchase a woman or a fleshlight or visit some sort of booth “just to look” and briskly walked out five minutes later, making eye-contact with no-one.

The sex shop being closed really worried me.

Restaurant. Closed. An Italian restaurant. Also not a good sign.

And then I saw Jesus, on a donkey, riding into Jerusalem for the first time. Except Jerusalem was Schwabing. And the donkey was a bus with a disco ball and strobe lights and techno music blasting out of the open windows. And Jesus was a 19-year-old girl with a tight shirt on and her hair all tricked out, standing amongst a sea of passengers, and grinding the bus pole. She was dancing for no-one but me, riding the crack of her ass up and down a metal cylinder that’s designed to help old ladies keep their balance.

Hosanna.

I didn’t care where the bus was going but I followed it. It would lead me to the temple. It would tear it all down. It would upset the quiet that I was currently wading through.

Hosanna.

Two blocks later I see another party bus.

Hosanna.

Two more blocks and I see people and lights.

Hosanna.

I see bars and clubs and restaurants and life.

Hosanna.

I get a slice of pizza at a window because there’s no time to sit – I have so much to make up for.

Hosanna.

I pick a bar to start at. It’s the dirtiest, darkest, sleaziest place I can find. I want to get drunk and make mistakes and get murdered, if that’s what God has in store for me.

Hosanna.

I walk inside and a cute bartender walks up to me. She’s speaking in German. She’s smiling. I have no idea what she’s saying. She’s using my phrase book to try and tell me something. She has one of those German jaws. Straight black hair. Thighs you can grab onto. We don’t understand each other at all. She keeps smiling. Seven hours and thirty-two minutes ago I was setting the hotel-supplied alarm clock.

Hosanna.

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