Possessed By the Daemon Mishka
—by Mishka Zakharin
WARNING: This book is written by Mishka Zakharin; its
contents may not be appropriate for all readers. In this collection of journalish ramblings, Mr. Zakharin wrestles
his personal daemons with a bold and brazen bluntness—it is, however,
occasionally brightened by his esoteric and generally odd view of the cosmos,
which may cause an uncontrollable wetting of one’s self, whether from mirthful
exuberance or prurient delight or any number of reasons…. If you are daring enough to undertake reading
Possessed By the Daemon Mishka, to soar the heights or supernal thought
and wallow the depths of carnal degradation, you will no doubt discover it will
make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will pounce down upon you from the
(almost-)human psyche to pummel you and thrash you and leave you for dead… but,
most of all, it will make you wonder, “What the hell is he going on about
now?!?”
Journalish Rambling BookSurge
Copyright:
2002 ISBN: 1-59109-343-0
Excerpts—
Free-basing: July ’99.
The city… oh, yes, the city… the heat radiating up from the
pavement, ensnaring victims in its malaise, victims already inflamed by the
heated ire of summer and working and almost five o’clock on a Friday and life…
danger and intensity and… grit?… sure, there might be some grit… and hot winds
blustering about rubbish, darting out of an alleyway… someone’s soiled and
discarded underpants lying in the gutter… dry, bleached out husks of old
bones—and, hey, isn’t that part of a skull over there?… “I’ve got a femur!” - “Aw, you’re lucky!…”
I don’t really know anything about the city… but I guess I’m
not so sure about the country either… I suppose I just don’t know anything
about anything—but I know this: once
upon a time someone said to me, “I’ll get that to you in two shakes of a lamb’s
tail”… I didn’t even try to pretend I knew what she was talking about, and I
confessed as much to her—for there is no shame in unintended ignorance… (but if
you’ve been told and you forget, then three whacks to the knees with a hickory
stick!)—“I grew up in a predominantly urban environment,” I said, “and I don’t
know how long that is.” (For those
keeping track at home, it turns out to be about 40 minutes.)
I wonder what it’s like to be a human being. Some make it look so easy, and they seem to
be having a good time—despite the inherent drawbacks, which are multitudinous,
indeed…. Others just don’t seem to
care, acting blatantly contrary to their own well being; they generally don’t
seem to notice they’re not happy… and it would just be mean, I think, to let
them in on that little bit of information….
But I just watch, occasionally appearing to them… sometimes
to an individual, once in awhile to small groups—never to more than a dozen or
a score or so at a time, however, as you want to leave at least a tiny, little
bit of doubt in them… like it could all just be some mass hallucination…
chemicals in the water supply... standing directly under a hole in the ozone
during an extreme moment of sunspot activity and inadvertently O-D-ing on gamma
rays, or what have you… you have to leave something to faith, after all, or
what does any of it matter?…
At any rate, I watch, I observe, and I try to influence here
and there—just a touch, just a tad, just a gentle nudge in a specific,
pre-appointed direction, all for their own good, and for the good of all
mankind. Though it rarely seems to have
any effect—for such an intellectually limited life-form (I mean, come on… less
than ten percent of their brains?! What
the hell is that all about?…), they certainly seem set in their ways… as if
they almost enjoy being small-minded and obtuse… as if they have consciously
chosen to stagnate in their development, clinging to labels rather than seeking
out ideas, forever surrendering to emotion over the wisdom of logic… and then
they wonder that their lives and their societies are in turmoil, that their
world seems chaotic…. You know, the
brain pan isn’t designed for making soup… if they would just try exercising
that wrinkled, gray mass of over-cooked pudding found in the skull instead of
using it as a back-up storage facility for the intestines, maybe some new ideas
could take root, and they could grow intellectually and, perhaps someday,
spiritually… and when I appear to them and try to give a little push one way or
the other, they might actually recognize it as a means to an end that ought to
at least be considered….
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep… but there would be
mosquitoes, and, quite frankly, I’m a bit sleepy now….”
I’m in the front yard, sunning myself. (For, really, when you get right down to it,
whom else might I sun?) It’s… I don’t
know what time it is… maybe 6:15 or 6:30-ish… as I have been here now, writing,
for quite some time…. I’ve just killed
an ant—BAM! Dead. A little life, just crawling up my leg,
snuffed out like a very small bonfire in an avalanche of pistachio pudding—or
perhaps not quite so dramatic as all that… and, still, what a brute I am…. And there is, indeed, a woods right off over
there a bit, and—well, in short, what I said earlier, about the anti-inducing
factors of bothersome insects and personal lethargy, still applies…. (Not that it’s any of my business
anyhow!… [I don’t know what that
means… {I don’t even care what
that means…}]) Oh, Well! Had a beer; now it’s gone. Soon I shall eat supper, methinks.
(6:34 – 87 degrees.)
The forest calls out to me… but, I mean, not literally, of
course… I’d have to be daft to hear a bunch of trees calling me over… quite
bloody daft, indeed, I’d say!…
Apollo’s trying to sneak off around the side of the house
now in his flaming chariot… I probably shouldn’t say, but… well, oh,
alright—I’m a bit smitten with his twin sister… ah, fairest Artemis!… yet when
last didst I but make known unto her the pinings of mine heart, she turned me
into a stag and sent her hunting dogs after me… they’d have probably caught me,
too, had I not, as luck would have it, run smack dab into the middle of a stag
party; of course the dogs all became distracted by the strippers… and when the
girls had gone, the dogs, feeling a great deal more mellow, settled into cigar
smoking and poker playing… I even had a portrait made to commemorate the
evening… it never fails to remind me of the great affection I feel for glorious
Diana… I still can’t go out when the sky is clear and the moon is full—for I
know if she sees me, and if she recognizes me, she will again try to kill me
because of the longing I feel for her… but I don’t mind, really… for to be
killed by a beautiful, beautiful goddess—well, that really is sort of almost
like a weird, voodoo kind of love, don’t you think?…
But, really, I wonder what it must be like to be a human
being. I watch, and I try occasionally
to influence—though it is generally resisted… and I sometimes think I’ve almost
caught a hint of the sense of it—but not completely, never completely… and even
the limited extent I have managed to grasp onto is always only pretend, always
a facade… such that, even as a participant, I feel I am yet really but an
observer….
* * * * * *
9
January 2000. (Trippin’ 2…)
Alright then… my neck hurts….
I’m on a flight to Memphis—Pharaoh’s land… the majesty of
the pyramids… the mystery of the Sphinx… the chocolate in my peanut
butter…. After that, it’s on to St.
Petersburg—the Winter Palace… Red Square… [alright, yes, fine, I realize Red
Square is in Moscow, but I’m trying to do a thing here…]… the Eiffel
Tower….
8:42 a.m. (Yawn~) We’re getting ready to fly out of
Memphis…. I’m sitting next to a very
beautiful, lovely smelling, young woman—aside from that, I prefer my old plane…
(well, I mean… you know—like the one I came from Milwaukee on…). All I really know about her—aside from her
great physical attractiveness—is that, no, thank you, she prefers not to have a
life-saver… and then she put her clothes on and left… (though, of course, more
in a figuratively literal sense than in the literally figurative one…).
“She’s a plane girl—and, of course, I mean that in the sense
that I have met her on an airplane, not that she, herself, is plain…. She is sitting beside me, trying to sleep…
the bastard child behind her kicking at her seat—such control she has, such
patience, and willing to put up with majorly annoying behavior… that’s the girl
for me…. I can’t help but think of
her—each breath I take captures the essence of her perfume… each time I try to
spy a glimpse from the corner of my eye, I am blinded by her brilliant beauty…
(though that may just be the sun on the clouds out the window beyond her…) …I am in love with her nose—with all of
her!… (but especially her nose…)—so pert and fresh and young and alive… (again,
all of her—but mostly her nose…). She
turns to soundly throttle the kicky, little ne’er-do-well behind her… such
grace, such poise… her lips look soft and warm, and I long to know their sweet
touch… and I want to touch her nose… I want to touch it and playfully pinch it
and lick it—yes, lick it! (but only the exterior—don’t be vulgar…)—and look upon
its perfection for all of eternity….”
“Like her nose, she’s just absolutely perfect—fitting
comfortably in the palm of the hand… brush her out, turn her off, and put her
back in her box… turn out the light, shut the door, and go home—”
[Sorry—let’s just try this again…]
“The perfection of her form, like her nose, is all ever I
could have hoped for—yet more ever than I dared dream… her hair—which is brown,
lovely and brown—hangs to her shoulders, and her eyes… well, they don’t hang so
low… [sorry]… I’ll be honest… I don’t remember her eyes—she is, after
all, beside me, and I dare not risk eye contact for fear of being bedazzled
into blindness… I’ve already mentioned her lips (and my longing for them), and
her nose (and my eternal love for it)… she’s thin, like I like them—petite and
wonderful… she’s wearing shoes, but I sense that her feet are
delightful—perhaps as delightful as her nose…? …No, no, of course you’re right…
how could that be?… no sense getting all carried away… feet as lovely as her lips,
then—and, yes, my longing to feel their sweet touch also consumes me….
“She is distant in demeanor… perhaps it seems so only
because of the negation on the life-saver issue… I don’t know… perhaps she
doesn’t like me… perhaps, in actuality, she loathes me—the sight of me, the
thought of my body pressed firmly to her own… maybe it was the lap-dance with
the stewardess, and this is just an angry silence born of bitter jealousy… oh,
woe and heart-felt commiseration—the Fates be damned for their feculent tauntings!…
but whatever the cause, she never talks to me… we just don’t communicate
anymore… I know, I know—what about
me?… I haven’t said anything either…
(aside from that whole life-saver fiasco—I still get credit for that!) …but
surely she can sense my great affection and admiration toward her… or at least
toward her remarkably beautiful nose….”
* * * * * *
February
10, 2001.
O Kewelest of Gileads—
Well, well, well, well, well.…
Oh, how I tingle! Tickle-tingle-tickle-tingle-wiggle-wiggle -flop!!
(None of your business!!…)
What’s shakin’? he asks… what’s shakin’?!?… Come over here a little closer and I’ll show you what the hell’s shakin’ there, missy! (No, no, just hold on a second—it’ll pop right back out… [damn! Six more weeks of chastity!…]) I know not what…
Yea, yea—before this day is through, thou shalt deny me three times… (but on the fourth, I’m gettin’ some! Heh!). [My apologies—wherever appropriate…]
Yea, yea—thanks for the picture, and your hair, or lack thereof, is most spunky. It quite threw me at first, but, oddly enough, it looks as appropriate on you as the long hair did. You’re lucky that way—if I grew long hair, I’d just look like a young Ben Franklin.… At any rate, I’ll reciprocate with a photo of my own. I apologize for the size—I know, I’m huge… it sort of scares the ladies sometimes, to see just how very large I am; you’ll hear them whispering amongst themselves: “My god, look! He’s almost as big as Castro!” and then they giggle and snicker and carry on (as women will…), and they do a funny, happy, little dance—seemingly innocent or innocuous or indecently indelible, but wrought with gyrations and flatulations of erotic intent… and then it’s sticky-sloppy-smeary all the way home.… [I think that counts as the first denial of me.…]
Anyway, I’ve been very, very sick. (So very sick have been I! O woe! O woe is me!) But I’m feeling better now. I still have a cough, and periodic nasty, pounding headaches, but mostly I’m good. And my eyes are bleeding—though, of course, not literally… I mean it in the spiritual sense of one’s eyes bleeding… so not quite so disgusting as it at first sounds. And work has been extremely busy lately—which sucks, because I have to go in despite feeling like crap… because, of course, if I don’t do the work, who will? That’s right—no one! So, sucks to be me.… But, as I’ve said, I’m better now, so, even though we’re busy, this next week should be okay.
I’m just in a nothing sort of a mood. No, no—what do I mean?… I don’t feel like doing anything—but I really feel like doing something… you know? Now that I’m not so very, very sick anymore, I feel a little restless and want to go out and do something, I just don’t know what. (And it’s colder than a witch’s tit outside, and that’s not helping anything—but that’s neither here nor there…) I don’t feel like reading. I don’t feel like writing. I don’t feel like watching T.V. I don’t feel like going anywhere. I don’t feel like staying home.… So, I guess, then, you win—because this letter is already twice as long as I’d been thinking it would be… (unless you think this letter sucks; then you wouldn’t be the big winner—you’d be the big LOSER!!… [This, then, shall be your second denial of me.…]) So, methinks, I know not what—or what have you… I’ve said too much… no more shall be said of this… I don’t know anything about anything.…
I think I have to poop. Oh, Well! Mayhap tomorrow.…
So, what else is there?…
I had a very odd dream Thursday night. I was in outer space, on a huge platform—about the size of a football field, I guess. The front quarter or so was a few feet higher than the rest, and covered with grass; the lower portion was covered in sand. There were two other people with me—one was a dwarf, and the other was one of those non-descript dream-people whom you don’t notice if you’re looking directly at them—and we were controlling the motion of the platform with the power of our minds. It seemed unclear whether all of us were controlling it together, or if we just didn’t know which of us controlled it and so decided we should all act as one just to make sure it stayed controlled (as it were…). Anyway, we got into some sort of argument (you know how people are always getting into arguments when there are dwarves and non-descript dream-people around…)—I don’t know what it was about, as there is no sound in space, so I was unable to hear what we were saying—but I got all pissed-off and decided I was going to get our platform flying as fast as I could… I know not why.… They struggled with me mentally, trying to psychically hold the platform at its current rate of speed, and I was trying to will it to go faster; it was all very intense, as you might imagine, what with the three of us clinging to the platform so as not to float off into space as the it whisked us away through the dark void—and then, suddenly, I broke the wills of the other two, and they were thrown back into the lower, sandy portion of the platform, and my will alone shot us off through space at faster than the speed of light!… I woke up in the Andromeda galaxy, thoroughly moistened by the erotic endeavors or my nocturnal adventure.… [Ah, ha! Without doubt—the third denial!…]
Alright, okay, okay, alright—fine... I see I’ve been denied now three times, and that must therefore hallmark the end of this spunky missive. But there are a few items I need to clear up first:
#1: When I told Tatyana about this yesterday I gave her a different version: “I had a dream last night that we were in a long, dark tunnel; I was squirting you with a giant hose, and you were tossing hula-hoops at me… then you turned into a bowl of banana pudding and I turned into a spoon, and Sigmund Freud showed up and used me to eat you.” Oh, Well! Anyway, I would be most interested in any sort of interpretation that might occur to you regarding my dream; I have suspicions, but they’re all very vague and nebulous and what have you.…
#2: Speaking of Tatyana, did I tell you about the ’theme’ conversation? Probably not. A couple of weeks ago, we were having a discussion about writing, and we were trying to remember the five themes in literature—we came up with Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Self, Man vs. Society, and Man vs. Machine. And then I said, “And of course there’s the sixth, which is rarely ever seen, and is, therefore, often overlooked—Man vs. Shellfish…” And Tatyana rolled her eyes and smiled at my drollery. I commented, “I should have said ‘pudding’, right? ‘Pudding’ would have been funnier than ‘shellfish’?” And her eyes lit up and, excitedly, she exclaimed, “Or noodles!” So that was fun.…
#3: Speaking of noodles, for lunch today I’m going to have left-over beef and noodles and gravy—but with no beef, as it all has been et. Oh, Well! The noodles are where my heart truly lies… though a lie in the heart is as the smell of a fart, and though you still may get laid, ‘tis the soul that has paid… for when the truth has been truly—hey! There goes Miss Julie! Of lovely flesh, she has oodles, for which to suck up like fine noodles! All over her I squirm, her glorious virtue to defile; to cast all upon her loveliness such mush and muck and scum—as if my love is sprung from the sludgy bottom of the Nile… the inspiration of her sublimation burns all through me, and I am off to get me some!… (Woo! Woo!~)
Unindigenously,
-MFZ
Featuring—
13 January 1997 (Smoke screen)
16-26 May 1997 (Trippin’: The Voyage of Discovery, Part II)
Interlude: Lebensraum
Free-basing: October ‘97
Free-basing: March ‘98
5 July 1998 (Thomas Jefferson)
Interlude: Cannibalism
17 October 1998 (Shits & giggles)
January 6, 1999 (Millennium letter)
March ’99—Flashback: June 25, 1994
Free-basing: July ‘99
Interlude: The Illicit Leg Affair
15 October 1999 (Pants)
December ’99—Flashback: December 6, 1996
8-16 January 2000 (Trippin’ 2: Siren’s Song)
11 February 2000 (Bacon & vodka diet)
Free-basing: August ’00: “Writing With Gonorrhea”
22 September 2000 (Flashback: September 1987: Interlude: “Dance Bash Orgy”)
Interlude: ‘Anna Karenina’ Rejects
25 December 2000 (Interlude: The Story of Christmas)
29 April – 2 May 2001 (Trippin’ 3: Sabbatical)
October ’01—Flashback: October ’93 (Ideas & things)