Miguel Sanchez Presents… by Sebastien de Robillard

He wanted to make it up to her. To apologise, not too much, but enough, and also to give her something. What exactly? A music compilation: nothing original, but involves enough effort and can speak volumes. What was the intention of this gift you ask? Why bother bro? He thought he had been a little too rude. Not that rude, just too rude.

But where did this all stem from? Why the sudden guilt? It probably had a lot to do with Monday night. It was not a normal Monday night for Jack. He decided to go see a film (which did meet his expectations, but was not brilliant, which is a shame as it should have been brilliant) and a film he saw, friends in tow. The cinema was not too cold, it was actually quite full for a Monday night.

The film didn’t finish late. And he was in bed by 11 p.m. He turned the light off not long after this, and waited for sleep to take him to a world of red nightmares and black dreams.

But Jack did not sleep. And there were three reasons for this.

1) Coffee. Strong coffee. With three sugars.
2) The film’s central monster character reminded him of himself. He saw all of his bullshit in that one, fake character. His selfishness and his manipulative thoughtfulness (He wanted a king for him and his friends. Not because they needed leadership, but because he wanted somebody to blame when things went bad. Someone to hurt. He was nice so others would be nice to him; he gave so he would receive).
3) His not so nice behaviour on the previous Saturday. He had grunted responses throughout the night. Not that this was the problem. She had been fishing for attention no doubt, and she definitely wanted compliments, but she did seem to genuinely want to talk to him. Jack wasn’t that interested in any of these things. Compliment yourself! He probably thought. Get your friends to lavish you with attention, he would have pondered. He only grunted, and that was okay. Short, sharp responses were perfectly apt at this point. Jack didn’t feel like playing the losing game anymore. He had participated in this game for a long time, and was quite good at it. But then the losing game got too hard, so he pulled out. No games. But or however…? (No, however sounds better). However, as mentioned in the introduction, Jack felt he had been too rude. Too rude. Jack’s brain replayed scene after scene of him being a bloated, grunting, mono-syllabic arse, and felt like shit. Who was he to treat someone like this? Why was he so superior? At two or three in the morning, he admitted, out loud, to himself, in the dark, that he was an arse. “Now let me sleep!’ he exclaimed.

So, what happened? What was the tipping point? He was asked a rather simple question. Simple and harmless.

“Are you coming to my birthday party next weekend?” Jack, without missing a beat, looked her in her pretty eyes and said, “Probably not.”

In fact, and I cannot recall this detail as well as I would hope -I was busy scoring blow at the time - he probably just coughed some inaudible, bullshit, insensitive comment. For the sake of this tale, we will stick with ‘Probably not’.

Probably Not. What a bastard.

So, this rather cold response leapt back and forth in his head, all night long. He didn’t fall asleep until four in the morning. Poor guy, he must have been pretty tired the next day at work.


So he wanted to make it up. He thought a mix-tape would do the trick. He hoped it would say the following but not the following after that;
1) I am sorry for acting a little rudely.
2) I don’t think I will come to your birthday party, but I hope you have a good time my dear.
3) Please understand that this is not a last, final grab for you affections, but rather an apology. This is not a present made my starry eyes, but a show of affection, respectful attention. We may not be friends, but that doesn’t mean I can’t and won’t respect you.

But Jack my dear boy, what about her, the girl?

1) What if she doesn’t remember?
2) Does remember but doesn’t care?
3) Thinks you are a boring bunt (silly kunt) anyway.

What if this piece contains too many lists? Will people lose interest?

If she doesn’t care, Jack thought, that was okay, and if she doesn’t remember, then that was okay too. This was about him behaving badly, and him feeling the need to make it up to her.

This was about him about doing the right thing and not doing everything for himself.

He wanted his mix-tape to travel back in time, to the previous Saturday’s party, and say the following:

‘You look spectacular tonight. Amazingly spectacular.’

Stoker’s Horror Blog: Thoughts and Critiques by Steven Rogers - Part 15: Tears and Cartoons by Sebastien de Robillard

Modern cartoons don’t have the heat of old cartoons. I think that every time I see another crappy trailer on TV or before a feature. Crappy animation, crappy story telling and crappy acting.

Of course, you could argue that I, Steven Rogers, does not watch kids’ cartoons. I don’t have time for that shit. But some of my friends love them. Especially the Pixar films. I don’t get it. I don’t get Pixar and why they are so popular and wonderful. I mean who gives a rat’s arse about a fucking rat, or some stupid toy or some stupid car? I don’t.

I recently purchased the new Yeah Yeah Yeah’s album. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. They seem to have lost their old punk-styles, and developed a more generic, synthesizer sound. How dull and predictable. Rec didn’t think so. She thought it was marvellous.

‘Don’t type that. I never said it was marvellous Steve, I said it was really good. Don’t put words into my mouth.’ She was lying next to me, apparently reading the morning paper. She knew I would probably use the following words in my review of their album: “shit”, “popular” and “boring”.

‘Is this like your whole “Kings of Leon” thing? ‘Cos they are massively popular now?’

‘No, no, no. No. It’s not like that. You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Of course not. I wouldn’t understand how your opinions on things are based on the opinions of others? Right. Sure.’

‘Oh hey,’ she continued, ‘there is a documentary about a metal band form Baghdad showing this week in town? It could be good.”

I made a face. She didn’t look at me.

‘Is that your pretty face Steve? God I hope not.’

A few hours later, she picked me up from the comic book store down the road - new Green Lanterns, a new Robin, a one about Zombies (genius) and some Superman stuff. I had called her because it was spitting a little, and I didn’t want to walk home in the rain and YES I DON’T HAVE A CAR.

Okay?

‘Thanks Rec my sweet dear,’ I said, jumping into the back so I could lay out the comics as I opened up each one. She looked over her shoulder.

‘You know its only a few hundred meters home?’ I ignored her. I wish she didn’t fucking interrupt me when I was reading my comics. Fuck.

I started reading the first one, Ah Hal Jordan, you are spectacular. I finished it and then grabbed another. Something was wrong. We were in a car park.

‘Where are we?’ I asked. She looked at me, and said, with measured controlled,
‘We are at the movies.’
‘No, Rec, no, fuck off. Please no. I don’t want to go to a movie about stupid fucking metal. I won’t go. I refuse to go.’ She got out of the car and started walking away; I quickly jumped out and followed her. She locked the car with that beep beep sound.

We quickly reached the box office, and I grabbed her arm, with all the manliness I could muster.

‘No, no. I will not watch this film.’ I looked around; metal heads everywhere, all wearing the individualistic uniforms of black on black on black. Fucking losers.
‘These people are so fucked. I mean, look at that fat one, wearing a grey cardigan over an ice hockey top. Who fucking dresses like that? Is he trying to be ironic? Look at his glasses too…’
‘Steve,’ Rec cut me off, ‘I am seeing this film now. Are you coming in with me?’
‘No.’
‘Fine, meet you out here in 2 hours.’
‘What? No. Well…give me your car keys at least? So I can get my comics.’
She came up to me, brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, and gave me an almighty kiss. I kissed back – what else could I do? This was nice. This was very…
‘Fuck you,’ she said and turned to walk inside.
‘Well, what am I SUPPOSED TO DO FOR 2 HOURS?’
Rec shrugged her shoulders without turning around.