His Retirement.

On the first day off work he went to visit his wife’s grave and then went shopping. Came home with some Mexican take out food, a few bottles of wine, and an easel and a pre-stretched canvas. He vowed to learn to stretch them himself, but was impatient to begin. He prepped his canvas with Gesso, and, stimulated by the gooey texture, masturbated in the shower. He masturbated again and went to sleep.

His still life became an abstract expression. He smeared black paint on his penis and went to the shower.

On the third day of his retirement it hit upon him to use semen and wine stains as his medium since he had so much of it at the ready.

“I shall build on the work of Ruscha!”

And cigarette holes, now that he was smoking again.

The vomit canvases really began to smell and they had go. The same with the excrement canvases. Most of the blood canvasas had puke or shit on them too, so they went. He kept a couple of the blood canvases that escaped soiling. He was making progress.

He put flowers on his wife’s grave, bought more wine and cigarettes and ordered another crate of canvases delivered.

He woke up on the fifth day, passed out on a canvas, his pants around his ankles a meager drip dangling off the tip of his raw, red and flaccid penis. He was out of semen and out of wine. He went into town.

He came home with a whore, passed out and the whore took his wallet and what money was lying around, his computer and the booze. She left him half a bottle to get him through the next morning.

On the seventh day they found him, without identification, passed out on his wife’s grave, his pants around his ankles, with a bottle in one hand and his penis in the other. He couldn’t remember his name. They let him out on the street. They didn’t connect the grave to his family, who never saw him again.

If he’d ever remembered where he’s lived, he would have found his son’s family living there. He never did. He just ambled on, incoherently hustling booze money from strangers and clutching at his shrunken useless cock.

--Dan Kilian

The Critic Masturbates

Godzilla's Ghost