The Ancient Shark Of Despair's blog

Monday, January 01, 2007

The landlord came round today. I figured he wanted to apologise.

"Did you know that you've got 'peedo' spray painted across your door?"

I looked at his hands. He grinned a little bit.

"What, have you been trying to lure the neighbourhood kids up to your apartment?"

I looked away from hands, at his eyes. His grin turned awkward.

"What?" He got more serious, "have you?"
He wasn't grinning at all anymore. He was holding his lips out. Like he was about to mouth a word starting with "wh".

"Where is Celene?"

The whole time I had been sitting on my bed. I looked at my computer. MySpace was on.

I looked back at his eyes. My mind was stuck on all the ways that he could have asked me where she was. I had about six in my head, but the way he did say it was probably the way I would least have expected him to.

I told him that. He sat down on my bed. Next to me. I thought he was going to apologise. He had that sort of tone to his expression.

"Look." His eyes just suck you in. The landlord is probably the saddest guy I know. "This place is a mess. No one is collecting the rent. If you don't let someone be the landlord it's all just going to fall apart."

I looked back at MySpace. I slowly moved to the mouse. I brought up a page with all of my friends on. I have eighty friends. I had to open the second page to see them all.

"I'm not asking you to pay me much. I just need to be a part of this again."

His mom had probably told him that he couldn't stay at her place anymore. I don't think they got on well.

I told him that I hadn't eaten since christmas. I had even eaten all three cans of beans. I hate beans. I was so hungry.

I smiled at him, but he looked away.

5:07 PM

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User comments

Creepy


you are my favorite morning murderer. I wish you fullness.

Posted by Creepy on Monday, January 01, 2007 at 6:56 PM

The Ancient Shark Of Despair


I'm glad that I am your favourite at something.

Posted by The Ancient Shark Of Despair on Tuesday, January 02, 2007 at 1:41 PM

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

I've entertained many a passing fancy over the last sixty years. I think my favourite has been the idea of companionship. Ideally I'd like shark companionship, but thats not going to happen soon enough for me to care. I guess I'm not leaving.
People come and go, like Celene. Others stay. And I'm just a shark trapped in an apartment. I can't really control these things. I'm gaining weight at a tremendous speed. Until last night I hadn't eaten in a week.

I spent most of last night watching television. I consider it research now. I'm writing a sitcom. My landlord offered me half of the month's rent of the entire building if he could have his job back. I pretended I didn't want his money, but I intend to tell him okay later tonight. He thinks that I am being mean, but the surprise will be worth it.

He's been cooking me food all day. He knows how hungry I am, but he thinks I eat too much. He knows that I am a shark. He can't really understand that though. I don't blame him though. I still treat most people like they're sharks. That's why they think I'm always being mean. Most people don't have a sense of humour.

I don't get lonely. I'm pretty good at that. Sometimes I feel really empty, like there's nothing in my life, but I don't need people to fill that space. I'm good with people. You just have to understand that it's all chemicals. Your brain. It's all like this stuff that we don't understand yet. You're probably never going to understand it. I will. I'm not going to die in the next 100 years.

1:57 PM

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

I let the landlord have his job back. We were just about to go to sleep and he said that he couldn't do this. He wanted to sleep at home.

It was just so late at night. It wasn't practical. I told him this.

He wanted to sleep at home. I told him I didn't know where I put the key. I'd find it tommorow. He didn't say anything back for a while. He looked desperate.

"So, you're not going to let me sleep at home tonight."

I looked at him and tried to smile the way that Celene does when she doesn't want to say anything. He closed his eyes and filled his lungs, holding out his chest.

"You know something? When you had me fired I was really angry at first. But I got over that. I always thought that you were living off me. When you fired me... I realised, I realised that I need to do something with my life. I need to get out this."

I looked at his closed eyes.
I swallowed the excess spit I had in my mouth.
I sounded optimistic.

"That's why I did it. You needed to learn this."

He opened his eyes and I looked away. He closed them again and did the breathing again. Quietly.

"Shark, I need people. I need to meet people. I need to accomplish something."

He called me Shark. It didn't sound awkward or anything, but he had never called me Shark before. I played along. It was really weird.

I placed my hand on his shoulder.

"I want to show you something. I would have shown you earlier, but I didn't think you would understand."

I was lying in bed. He was sitting next to me. I twisted my body so that I could turn on my computer monitor. I showed him the webpages I had downloaded.

He stared emotionlessly at the screen.

"Who are these people?"

I smiled at him. He wasn't looking at me. It was a smile of knowledge in the face of despair.

"These are the people I'm going to meet."

His face was contorting. Squeezed together, it struggled to absorb all of this.

"There are thousands of them. Where did you get these?"

I told him about the internet. About the community. I told him about all the friends I had on MySpace.

He stopped looking through the all the categories I had sorted them into: pregnant, christian, vampires, people who love their trucks, etc. He took his hand back and looked at me in all seriousess. He was a lot quieter than before.

"How old are these kids?"

I looked at him.

"How old..." He paused and considered himself." Have you ever talked to any of them? Not on your computer. Have you talked to any of them outside of your computer?"

I looked him squarely in the eyes. I pretended that I was lying.

"No."

4:35 PM

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User comments

chu tu


who needs to talk outside of the computer?
really...

how old is this landlord? be honest, shark.

Posted by chu tu on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 at 7:22 PM

The Ancient Shark Of Despair


The Landlord is 41 years old. I think he is midlife-crisising.

Posted by The Ancient Shark Of Despair on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 at 7:45 PM

chu tu


how old does he look?
why does he sound like
a teenager?

Posted by chu tu on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 at 11:41 PM

The Ancient Shark Of Despair


He says that he looks older than he should. I told him that it when he said that it sounded like he was doing a bad impersonation of a mother character in a one of the sitcoms. Then I asked him why he sounds like a teenager. He looked at me and I felt really bad.

Posted by The Ancient Shark Of Despair on Thursday, January 04, 2007 at 4:34 PM

spinelli venter


you have hands?

Posted by spinelli venter on Saturday, January 13, 2007 at 12:21 PM

The Ancient Shark Of Despair


Dude, come on. You know what I mean. I've been around forever.

Posted by The Ancient Shark Of Despair on Saturday, January 13, 2007 at 1:27 PM