The Drop

I might have a lead. Out of nowhere, an email dropped into my inbox like a beacon in the fog—an inquiry, a whisper of interest from a collector. My work. My figurative pieces. The sexual ones—risqué but never tipping into the vulgar. Always on the right side of good taste. I make sure of that. This morning, I fired off a reply, careful, measured, the bait perfectly set. Now I wait, dangling the line like a desperate fisherman praying for the big catch. I need a big fish. Hell, I need any fish at this point.

For the first time in what feels like months, there’s a slow-motion sense of worth creeping back into my veins. A flicker of recognition. Maybe I’m still in the fight. I know I’m a great artist—one of the real ones. But I’m invisible, constantly choking on the fumes of mediocrity swirling all around me. Everyone’s an artist now. Everyone’s a goddamn rockstar, shouting into the void with their pastel sunsets and shallow bullshit.

I blame Instagram. I blame all the socials, throwing open the gates and letting these lunatics rush into the mosh pit—my mosh pit. A sacred place for the real and the talented, hijacked by hacks who paint like toddlers and call it a movement. Meanwhile, I’m here, treading water in this cesspool of oversharing and hashtag hustle, waiting to claim my rightful place at the top.
Meanwhile, I’m back to the blank. That canvas is on its last leg—scarred, beaten, mocking me from the corner. But this is it. I’m going to start this new piece if it kills me. I’ve had enough of the waiting, the circling, the excuses. I’m going in. Hold on—kettle’s on. Coffee first. Am I ready? Hell no. But ready doesn’t matter anymore. It’s time to paint.

The January Exile From Booze

Nights are long. Endless, unforgiving. Tossing and turning, tangled in the sheets, dreading the dawn. The blank canvas waits like a silent predator, lurking in the corner, ready to pounce the moment I let my guard down. It’s a constant reminder that I’ve done nothing, created nothing—that all the noise in my head is just noise, directionless and weak.

January’s nearly over. Dry January. A self-imposed exile from booze, a noble experiment, the only item on this bleak month’s pathetic menu. But the truth? Being sober strips away the armor. No haze to hide behind, no warm hum of red wine or the dark comfort of a pint of Guinness. The blank canvas is sharper now, more menacing. My failure, my inadequacy—both glaring at me in crystal-clear focus, amplified by the absence of those familiar friends.

Still, what can I do? Tomorrow is coming, whether I’m ready or not. The sun will rise, the canvas will still be there, mocking me from the corner of the studio. I’ve got to get myself together, claw my way out of this pit. But tonight? Tonight, I’ll just lie here in the dark and pray for some kind of answer that probably won’t come.

When The Eye Thing Happened

 Four months ago, I woke up blind in my right eye. Not total darkness, mind you—just a smeared mess of blurry nothingness, like someone had smeared Vaseline on my reality. At first, I thought it was a hangover gone rogue or maybe some twisted prank from my own body. But no, it was worse. A blood clot in a vein, they told me. A central retinal vein occlusion, they called it, like that made it any less horrifying.

The why of it all? No one seems to know. Sure, I’ve got high blood pressure, but who doesn’t? I’m not some wreck of a man. I’m relatively fit, healthy even. A few beers here, a couple of glasses of wine there—perfectly civilized behavior. What’s the crime in that? But my theory—take it or leave it—is that this whole mess was courtesy of Covid, the invisible bastard that’s been haunting us all for years now.

To fix it? Three injections. Directly. Into. My. Eyeball. Once a month, like some twisted ritual. I can’t even explain the sensation without wanting to crawl out of my own skin, but I’ll say this: it seems to have worked. The vision’s back, more or less. Not perfect, but better than being half-blind and stumbling through life like a doomed character in a Kafka novel.

At the eye hospital, I was poked, prodded, and shuffled around like dazed cattle, then herded down sterile hallways under flickering fluorescent lights. They moved with the cold efficiency of people who’ve seen it all a thousand times before—just another body to process, another eye to fix. Finally, they led me into a room, white walls, white ceiling, no windows, with one chair sitting dead center.
Two nurses hovered like silent executioners. They guided me into the chair, and though they didn’t strap me down, they might as well have. The room felt like it was closing in, a perfect box designed for discomfort. My eye was numbed with anesthetic—a strange, detached sensation, like the socket had been removed from the rest of me.
Then came the needle. It hovered there for what felt like an eternity as I braced myself, every nerve firing in anticipation of the inevitable. And then it was in, sliding deep into the soft, vulnerable tissue. I could feel it—not pain exactly, just pressure, wrong and invasive—as a gel-like substance oozed into my eyeball, blurring the line between my body and the alien.
It was over quickly enough, but the aftermath lingered. I stumbled out of the room, disoriented, clutching my face like it might fall apart at any moment. The nurses said something, but I wasn’t listening. All I could hear was the faint buzzing in my skull, the ghost of the needle, and the thought that this was only temporary relief. I’d be back.

Is my body failing me now? Edging slowly toward 50—half a goddamned century on this spinning rock, and suddenly the cracks are starting to show. The machine isn’t running like it used to. A few skipped beats here, a strange ache there. Little things, but they pile up, whispering the same grim question: is this the start of the long, slow decline?
I try not to dwell on it, but it’s hard not to see the signs. The blood clot, the high blood pressure, the eyeball injections—what’s next? Every creak and groan feels like a warning, a nudge toward the inevitable spiral. Is this the beginning of the end, the body starting to rebel after decades of mild abuse and good intentions? Or is it just paranoia, that cruel little bastard that comes with age, always whispering in your ear?
They say it’s all downhill after 40, but maybe they were being generous. Maybe the spiral starts earlier, slow at first, so you don’t even notice you’re slipping until you’re too far gone to claw your way back. Or maybe—just maybe—it’s not a spiral at all, but a battle. And if it’s a battle, then hell, I’m not done fighting yet.

And now the question lingers like a bad smell from a men’s changing room locker: will I ever paint again? A one-eyed artist—it’s almost a joke, isn’t it? Like some cruel myth about hubris and punishment, except I didn’t ask for this. I need two eyes. Depth, perspective, the whole damn picture—how can I capture it with half my vision smeared in static? The blank canvas still waits, mocking me, daring me to try, and I can’t shake the feeling that my right eye held some essential piece of the process, some secret key to everything I’ve ever created. Without it, am I just fumbling in the dark? Or worse, am I already finished, the best work behind me? 
These thoughts churn like a storm, but I can’t let them win. Not yet. Not while there’s still a brush in my hand. Still, I can’t help but wonder if it’s really over—or if this is just the beginning of the next strange chapter in a book I never agreed to write.

Drawing A Blank

Starting a new piece is like standing on the edge of a cliff with the wind screaming in your ears, daring you to jump. The blank canvas sits there in the studio, mocking me—white and empty, an abyss of potential failure. I stare at it, and it stares back, and somewhere between us hangs the unbearable weight of expectations. What if it’s no good? What if it’s a disaster? What will the collectors think, those vultures with their wallets and their opinions, waiting to swoop in or turn away?

I haven’t sold a piece in months. The bills are piling up, threatening to drown me in a sea of red ink. Every day feels like a countdown to some unseen catastrophe. Meanwhile, the canvas sits there, taunting me like a schoolyard bully, daring me to pick up the brush. Fear of failure? Hell, that’s nothing new. Fear of being forgotten, though—that’s the real beast.
I pour another cup of coffee. Stronger this time, black as motor oil. Maybe that’ll do the trick, or maybe it won’t. Either way, the canvas is still there, waiting. It always waits.

Some time later—who knows how long, time means nothing when you’re locked in battle with the void—I found myself staring at the canvas, utterly blank, the very essence of my failure reflected back at me. And then, without warning or reason, I painted the damn thing white again. Pure white, same as it started. Don’t ask me why. Maybe I snapped, or maybe I’m on to something no one else has the guts to see. Either way, it felt good—cathartic, even. Like resetting the game while the house is burning down.

White on White

Now I’m sitting here, coffee in hand, staring at that fresh white expanse and wondering if I’ve tricked myself into thinking I’m some kind of genius. Could this be it? The masterpiece itself, hiding in plain sight? Is it done? God, I almost hope it is. There’s a kind of sick beauty in the absurdity of it all—me, the tortured artist, slapping white on white like some deranged minimalist with delusions of grandeur. Maybe I am a genius. Or maybe I’ve just lost my mind. Either way, it’s finished… unless it isn’t.

Morning Dog Walk

The Morning Dog Walk

I took the dog around the park like I always do, dodging dog shit like landmines in a war zone. Routine, simple, mindless. The kind of activity that tricks you into thinking the world is stable. Somewhere in the middle of it, I sent a video to my brothers on WhatsApp—just my usual incoherent morning ramblings, the kind of thing they probably roll their eyes at before scrolling back to their memes and bad jokes. But walking home, something shifted.

I felt strange, like the edges of reality were peeling back ever so slightly, just enough to make the world feel unreal. The air seemed thicker, heavier—each breath like trying to suck syrup through a straw. My stomach still throbbed, that dull ache spreading outward like an oil slick. Was it the biscuits? The morning? Or just another reminder that life itself is a fragile balancing act, one missed step away from chaos?

The Mouse Trap

Mouse Trap

I set a mousetrap in the kitchen last night—a grim little contraption, all sharp edges and spring-loaded violence. The kind of thing that feels like it belongs in some deranged cartoon, but there I was, playing executioner. The mouse had been taunting me for days, scuttling around like it owned the place, leaving its filthy calling cards in the corners. It was war.

When I woke this morning, the trap had done its job. There it was—caught, alive, and looking at me with those beady little eyes, as if to say, You bastard. I couldn’t kill it, though. Not like that. So I stuck the thing in an old shoebox, grabbed the leash, and took it along on the dog walk.

At the park, I opened the box, and the mouse bolted—free again, racing into the grass, probably terrified out of its tiny mind. The dog watched the whole thing with mild disinterest, sniffing at a nearby pile of something unmentionable. I stood there, wondering if I’d just given the mouse a new lease on life or handed it over to an owl’s breakfast. Hard to say. Life’s a cruel game either way.