an exercise in inanity

Triggers: Attitude. Salvation. Rum.
Word limit: 300
Time Limit: 3.5 minutes (took 2 extra minutes, and later, some editing)



They were wrong. All of them. Fools.

It’s not about attitude at all. Attitude is just a mask that one can wear and take off at will.

He ruminated over this as he gulped his dark and reeking homebrewed Rum. A renegade stream dribbled down his cheek under the spell of gravity. It flowed past his brow and through his matted hair onto the ground and tried to snuggle to earth’s bosom. Rum was earth’s eldest daughter, he thought. It sure wasn’t easy sipping rum while hanging upside down.

Eight more days to go, with just Rum and rumination to get by. Odin didn’t have any Rum to help him along. But well, my salvation, my rules.

As dawn burst through the seams of the horizon, bats came back to roost on the banyan tree. They cocked their rat like heads at him and flashed their beady black eyes in amazement, curious about the stranger hanging down their tree like their brethern. But they didn’t mind. They were an accommodating lot. It takes tolerance to survive through generations of nocturnes.

It’s definitely not about attitude, he thought, riding back upon his original train of thought. You have to be it deep down. If you seek madness, you can’t wear it like a fucking thong. You have to become mad. If it’s detachment on your mind, you got to learn to let go. And if its salvation, like it was in his case, you got to do it the ancient way. The way Gods did. After all, no path to salvation dares circumvent the inn of death. For salvation is becoming who you really are beneath layers and layers of this dream called your self. That takes pain, and death and resurrection.

Eight more days to go, he thought. He better get some sleep.