[Original[Original[Original Work]Work]Work]

[Enguin Enguin Enguin Enguin]

This story will not have a happy ending. How do you feel about that sentence as an introduction? It doesn’t really tell you anything because you don’t know if you can trust me or not. I have made a statement, and it will either be true or false. However, you knew this without me saying it. The idea was already there inherently, I’ve just brought it to the forefront of your mind. Why have I done that? Would I lie? Am I bluffing or double-bluffing? Triple? You’ll be thinking about this the whole way now. Have fun.

 

Eoin was unemployed. No, Eoin was a high-earning attorney. No, Eoin was a middle-aged man with a mid-tier office job at a publishing company. No, Eoin was a greasy-haired teenager with no friends and sheet taste in everything. No. Eoin was a funking enigma. I could describe his appearance, his life, his career, but it doesn’t really matter, but you didn’t actually know that it doesn’t matter so this paragraph, unlike the last, has not been a waste of time. This one is teaching you something. It’s establishing a break from conventional storytelling. It’s demonstrating the pointless kind of self-awareness where I remark on the mediocrity of what I’m doing but make no effort to improve it, making the whole exercise meaningless. Almost. It does give me a sort of pre-emptive defence to criticism, in the “ha I don’t care if you think this is bad I already KNOW it’s bad!” way, but I will admit now that that is a stupid tactic. I’ll still use it, but I’ll take no pride in it.

 

That was a longer paragraph than usual. I’m sorry.

 

That one was shorter.

 

That again.

 

I’m not sure they’re even counted as paragraphs when they’re just a single sentence. Eoin wasn’t sure either. The thought had been troubling him for a few minutes. Hours. Weeks. Depends if you want to play this straight or as a joke. I’ve done you the courtesy of including both, as well as a mid-point, so you can delete as applicable and choose your favourite. You’re welcome.

 

As was Eoin to his new home by a landlord who seemed he’d rather be anywhere else and left as quickly as he feasibly could short of not showing up in the first place. Eoin had already seen the place before renting so there’s no need to describe it, he’s well aware and you’re not there. He quickly set about whatever you do when you move into a place for the first time and after however long that took he decided to incorporate a jarring time skip right here right in this very paragraph. Four years later, Eoin left his now no longer new residence and set out to find his birth mother.

 

Also, Eoin was given up for adoption when he was three years old. He had vague memories of his life up to that point but as they were the first thirty-six months or so of his life he didn’t have a thorough understanding of what was and was not real, and so his apparently vivid memories of the period often times turn out to be Barney episodes slightly misremembered.

 

Also, Eoin’s mother was a tailor. She sewed his new blue jeans. His father was a gambling man, down in Kildare. He was a few short thousand miles away from having an iconic back story. That was really the story of Eoin’s life really, always a few thousand miles from relevance.

 

As the story of this story began to collapse in on itself, Eoin set about establishing a human trafficking ring as part of the search for his mother. It may seem quite the illogical leap to an outside observer, certainly doesn’t make any sense to me but what can you do really, Eoin was always a bit mental.

 

Time passed and Eoin’s empire grew and soon he was smuggling boats full of Chinese orphans across continents to work as slaves in rural Irish farms, though a frustrating lack of progress was made in the search for his mother. So frustrating, in fact, that Eoin gave up on it to commit himself full-time to being a criminal lynchpin. I, however, felt that Eoin was becoming a somewhat unsympathetic character and urged him to reconsider. At this point he kidnapped my wife and twin daughters and sold them to a Belgian sex trafficker for less than a third of their actual value, and I in retaliation killed his parents before cooking their corpses into what Eoin was led to believe were apologetic steak & kidney pies which he and his family then ate only for me to reveal the truth, which drove Eoin’s wife to suicide, which led to his children being taken into care, which all factored into Eoin’s eventual mental breakdown and ensuing eight months of rehabilitative therapy.

 

Once that was done with Eoin and I agreed that it was best to leave the past in the past and he deconstructed his criminal empire while also resolving to never again pursue the truth about his birth mother.

 

At this point 5 years have passed since that opening paragraph and now that I mention it you’re remembering my telling you that this story will not have a happy ending, and perhaps you’re also thinking that in light of recent events and the flippancy with which they have been relayed to you that this is not a story capable of evoking emotions other than confusion and mild disgust, but you’re wrong there you clueless prick who are you to tell me what I’m capable of Shakespeare made up words and everyone thinks he’s great is that what you want is it you just want me to go making shite up I’m well able for it let’s go fliddle imacien ketrop tephnase plo merwania slij alright that’s enough of that it wasn’t very fun to read was it didn’t make sense but that’s basically what Shakespeare did and he’s held in high regard so given that you do actually have some concept of what’s going on here I’d say I’m doing fairly well, and Eoin agrees.

 

Nodding in agreement with this sentiment, Eoin set out once more to find his birth mother. Moments later, he remembered his pledge not to do this, and promptly stopped. However he now found himself at a loss as to how to live. His wife was dead, his children fostered, his friendship with me was never going to really be the same in light of the murders and such and he had lost contact with most all of his relatives. Seeing no point in continuing, Eoin decided to kill himself.

 

Invigorated by his decision, Eoin felt a new lease of life as he wandered the aisles of his local supermarkets and hardware stores and weapon emporiums, gathering as many options to end it all as he could and giving consideration to creative combinations of multiple methods. He eventually settled on a four-in-one in honour of his favourite Chinese culinary export; he would slit his wrists before washing down a lethal amount of paracetamol with a bottle of bleach while hanging himself. The organisation and timing required to pull it off really drew Eoin in, as he had always had a flair for the theatrical.

 

This was first evident when, as a three-year-old, he made a series of damning accusations of negligence and abuse against his mother and had her convicted and imprisoned for eight years based almost solely on his witness testimony.

 

Now that that’s been wrapped up, let’s start a seemingly unrelated tale with an all-new cast of characters that is masterfully tied into the first one at the death and has everyone marvel at my storytelling wizardry.

 

Actually let’s not, because I care about Eoin. You should too. When I suggested just abandoning his storyline like that you should’ve leapt from your seat and shouted NO! I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS! If you did do that please leave I don’t want to be associated with the likes of you, but also thank you for your passion Eoin appreciates it. Or at least he isn’t here to deny my claim that he does.

 

Anyway Eoin set to work getting all his affairs in order in anticipation of the act. He wrote a will, and that was it. He didn’t have any other affairs to settle. I suppose the paragraph’s opening sentence would be more accurate were it to say “Eoin set to work getting his affair in order”, but that would be putting the punchline before the setup and I’ve done that already with the adoption thing on a much larger timescale so to rehash the gimmick so quickly and cheaply would be classless and this story is nothing if not classy.

 

Eoin, I forgot to mention, was a prominent social media figure of some kind, and so he planned to stream his suicide live for his audience of 12-year-old girls and 45-year-old men masquerading as 12-year-old girls. This decision was ultimately to be his downfall, as the large amount of promotional material inevitably attracted the attention of the authorities, and Eoin was again put into care, this time for a two-year spell.

 

He was released again but by this stage he was so different from the man I knew 1559 words ago that it would be entirely justifiable for me to reuse the joke of describing him as various things that he is not because it is once again applicable however yet again may I remind you that such a practice would be classless and that once again if this story has nothing else it has class.

 

So now we arrive at the present day. I forgot to mention before that everything up to now was the setup to the real story, and that story is the story of Eoin as he is now. He is staring blankly at me. I wonder if he really sees. He’s heavily medicated now. He probably should have been for a long time before this but better late than never I suppose. There’s not much to tell about him. There’s a sliver of drool flowing freely from the left corner of his mouth and pooling on the table below him. I suppose I could wipe it away but I have to relay this information in real time and if I were to move to do so I would be unable to in the same moment describe the action to you and the flow would be lost as I would have to return to tell of it after the fact and break from the present tense play by play style that I have adapted.

 

I can’t be certain but I think Eoin just indicated to me that I should start a new paragraph, and so I am doing that. He’s a mysterious fellow is Eoin. His eyes are glazed his face is stationary his hair is greasy his mind is gone and yet still he is the main character of this story. I don’t resent him for having my work end on such a pathetic note, in fact it does tie back into my promise of this not having a happy ending. Say what you will about the acts I have attributed to Eoin, the husk sat across from me now is not nearly as compelling as the protagonist-material man he holds the form of.

 

This is more realistic. This is less outlandish. More pedestrian. Less cartoonish. I don’t think it’s better for it. I miss the Eoin of manic, unrealistic adventures, who would leap backwards and forwards through time and interact with the narrator of his own story. If I could bring him back I would but I hold no sway over whatever it is that has taken him. This isn’t really a sad ending, it’s not any kind of an ending at all. The story’s just going to be over because there’s nothing left to say.

[mitchermitcher]

I think I liked the previous one with this style a little better.

 

Now that this is the second thing I've read from you with this kind of style, I think I do like it. It's funking stupid, it's retarded, it eschews the story in favor of the telling so hard there is nothing to tell, but the telling itself is the spectacle I come to read this for. It's a sheet story but it's fun to read and it becomes so meta the meta is no longer the spectacle but just another part of the charade, and the storytelling can then focus on how to make that meta storytelling obnoxious, that's great.

 

I actually wouldn't mind a book written in this kind of obnoxious style, or a collection of stories like these.

[Enguin Enguin Enguin Enguin]

I think I liked the previous one with this style a little better.

 

Now that this is the second thing I've read from you with this kind of style, I think I do like it. It's funking stupid, it's retarded, it eschews the story in favor of the telling so hard there is nothing to tell, but the telling itself is the spectacle I come to read this for. It's a sheet story but it's fun to read and it becomes so meta the meta is no longer the spectacle but just another part of the charade, and the storytelling can then focus on how to make that meta storytelling obnoxious, that's great.

 

I actually wouldn't mind a book written in this kind of obnoxious style, or a collection of stories like these.

I think I have another one, will post it if I find it. I find it difficult to adapt this kind of thing to a longer form, although I admittedly haven't tried very hard. Thanks for offering no negative comments and stroking my ego Mitch-daddy.

[mitchermitcher]

I think I have another one, will post it if I find it. I find it difficult to adapt this kind of thing to a longer form, although I admittedly haven't tried very hard. Thanks for offering no negative comments and stroking my ego Mitch-daddy.

If a longer form doesn't work necessarily then yeah, a bunch of short stories like this would work better.

 

To be fair it really is a dumb gimmick, taken to its logical conclusion. Rather than a story, it's like someone else is telling you about a story and their speech quirks, as fun as they may be, keep getting in the way. I'm not sure it's possible to keep someone emotionally invested for a long time while keeping that kind of narration style where the narrator hogs all the attention. It might work if like, it's the same narrator telling a lot of these and there's some kind of link between the short stories. The closest thing this reminds me of are the Pseudonymous Bosch books that I read as a kid I guess.