Well, it's not like every story has to have a happy ending, right? Happy endings are for rich people, right? Come meet The Walter.

The Walter

The Walter is the most despicable human being I have ever known, and I can say that I’ve seen plenty, on my way to rock bottom. Sometimes I wonder what became of him, you know, a while back I even looked him up on my phone, I went on Facebook, and I actually found him: there was nothing on his profile, just three photos, the same ones as on Instagram, one of him with some people, anonymous faces, they looked like labourers, and then two strange blurry photos of the edge of a road.

The place where we met wasn’t bad, it was a rehab centre accredited by a parish, the priests had a ton of money, and losers like me always found a relative or two with enough dough to whisper in their ears, me especially since I was on my third relapse in ten years, you know how it goes, they caught me at Gamestop stealing some video games. I told them I was stealing them for myself, but they didn’t believe me, they gave me two years for a fucking PS3 game, something that cost maybe two euros. But what can I tell you? If that day I had stuck my hands up my ass nothing would have happened, but that’s another story. And anyway, I really was stealing it for myself.

The Walter was different from us losers. The Walter, paradoxically, was the only one in there who was actually trying to fight the shit in his system, but as I told you before: he was different. Then again, listening to him talk, listening to him tell the bullshit he’d pulled, you might even start to think: well, all in all, he’s not so bad. Don’t be fooled: some people walk arm in arm with the devil, some people shouldn’t even exist.

Rich, elegant, affable.

Maybe someone might even think that, despite all the problems, he was just a bad boy, a hothead: wrong. He had a worm inside him that devoured everything. And then it devoured him too, so they locked him up again and threw away the key.
The worm had followed him from our trip to the desert, apparently.

***

Rich, elegant, affable.

His wife knew he played around, every now and then, but what can I tell you, rich people aren’t like us: they accept anything to keep up appearances, but in the end secrets, well, they fuck them over just as much as they fuck us poor bastards, it’s just a matter of scale. Walter’s secrets were fucking him over: he was on the list for a liver transplant, and his wife didn’t know a thing, just like she didn’t know he was taking twenty-year-old tarts to Portofino, him over fifty, god knows how he managed to get it up hahahahah.

Rich, elegant, affable.

Anyway, what can I tell you, at some point he ended up in the community with us other poor bastards. He spent his days with us: he did the cleaning, fought over stupid shit, at night he cried, stuff like that, but he wasn’t like us, no, he was different. He told stories about trips to America, romantic getaways, bottles of champagne worth five thousand euros, nights out worth a hundred thousand euros.

Rich, elegant, affable.

The fact is that at some point he got out and they gave him the liver transplant, and fuck, it really seemed like the bastard had managed to dodge the bullet, yet again. His brother found him a job, easy easy easy: go to America, he told him. Go to Midland, Texas. Fuck, an easy easy easy place. Walter had even been to Iraq once, and there they straighten you out if you step out of line, no, I mean, they make you lose your taste for having fun with certain things, so anyway, what was Midland, Texas, supposed to be for someone like the Walter? He left, full of hope, with his new liver under the hood, working perfectly, and his nice new life under the hood, working perfectly.

Then when he got there, he called me, to ask me to join him. He had a deal to propose. You didn’t really think the Walter had straightened his head out, in Midland, Texas, did you? The job was very simple: a profitability assessment of an oil company. Yes, the Americans were relying on a European company, but don’t ask me why, because I don’t understand a fucking thing about this stuff.

The Walter was only interested in one thing, much simpler, of which I was an expert: making a truck carrying inert materials for server disposal disappear. Don’t ask me how but he had the delivery notes in his hands, and as far as I’m concerned, what can I tell you, I was a robber, to me that wasn’t even worth considering a crime. There was some material that was worth nothing, and the truck arrived at its destination empty, and no one gave a fuck, actually, they were even happy because it saved them the disposal costs.

What can I tell you.

The point is that that material was worth a little something. Just a little something. Like a few tens of thousands of dollars, on the nose, to spend right away. And you know how we wanted to spend it, right? Then he even asked his brother for permission, and his brother told him: do whatever the fuck you want, I’m not looking after you anymore. Take responsibility for yourself, for once.

They monitored everything Walter did, even how much he spent on coffee. On this, though, there was a good margin. On the nose, to have some fun, like in the old days.

Just once.

Yeah, that was the right time. There was a dragon waiting for him, under the desert. A dragon that had been sleeping for thousands of years, perhaps. It slept, it slept. But then, when the Walter arrived, it opened one eye. It was a patient dragon, which didn’t move a muscle, unless it was truly necessar

When it found someone worthy of its attention, of its desire

***

There was this man, the one I had left the truck to. I had gone for a piss and a coffee, and then I took it back, along with a briefcase full of money. Dark skin, liquid gaze, a belly-like smile, dressed decently enough, in a blue shirt. He told us: come to my town, Ojinaga, it’s not even three hours’ drive from the border. I’ll treat you well, we’ll do good business together.

We’ll do good business together, he tells us.

Well, needless to say: the next day we were in a rental car showing our passports at the border. The guy had a small transport company with his brother-in-law, and the Walter was the king at greasing the wheels, when it came to covering up a fling with drugs and whores, he had half a folder full of paperwork to show at the border, and they let us through saying first “Good morning” and then “See you tomorrow.”

Just one day, twenty-four hours past the border. Eighty thousand dollars.

It was she who immediately caught his eye. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. She was watching him, like a cat on a windowsill, when he arrived in town.

They took us to a dive bar, a modern place, it looked like one of those bars you find by the sea, also quite modern, recently renovated, a vulgar shit-hole. But they had set it up completely: they had closed it just for us. And you know what we had thought of doing? We had given them the money in advance, and they had promised us a night with everything we wanted.

Sure, we told ourselves, in the car, laughing like madmen, on Highway 67: let’s give them the money in advance, what the fuck do we care? You only live once hahahahahahah.

And so they arrived, with the drugs, and the girls, while we were at this normal table, with cocktails. Walter described her with incredible precision, the bastard was like a damned falcon when it came to details, and they went to call her.
How disgusting. He looked more like her grandfather than her father. She was so pretty, sweet. Hazel eyes, hair that smelled of elderflower, colourful clothes in blue and orange. You would have seen her with flowers in her hand, rather than with that degenerate piece of filth, and he left me there, with three sweaty, somewhat overweight women laughing raucously, who kept taking turns sticking their hands in my pockets.

The girl forced herself to smile, and then lowered her gaze, and the man with the belly-like gaze and the blue shirt told us: first let’s have a round of something special. They call it “the dragon’s breath.”

I declined, Walter didn’t. Years after, someone in Andalusia told me they use that kind of stuff to drive you insane. Makes it easier. You spend more money, you pick a fight, somebody shoots you, and they get to keep your car, your cash, whatever you've got.

That's how it works, he said.

Later, on the run, on Highway 67, with the girl’s blood still on his clothes, he kept repeating this: the snakes were coming out of her body. I saw the snakes coming out of her body, and I tried to rip them away with a knife.

Walter was good at getting permits, at moving people around across states, because we managed to escape from the United States, and to come back here.
We didn’t come back alone, though. The dragon came back with him. He spent a good stint in a mental hospital, tearing his nails off scratching the wall, and his brother spread the word that he had deserved it.

Too bad, that he, of all people, knew absolutely nothing, and to these rich bastards, the only thing that matters is saving face.

Pass me the broom. Did I tell you how I ended up here for the fourth relapse?

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

Introduction

Vapours is a collection of short stories and flash fiction spanning horror and noir, with occasional forays into science fiction. These stories have roots that reach far back: they stem from the brief period when I worked in drug rehabilitation communities. Some of them were written twenty years ago, while others are recent, but they all revolve around the idea of addiction. Each one draws heavily from people, faces, and situations I once encountered: memories that still linger in the air like vapours of morphine.

The files

01 — Sol Invictus

Two elderly gentlemen share a few drinks one evening, dwelling on old mistakes. The usual: beer, a little something stronger, and a handgun, because “you never know.” It seems they were right to bring it.

Read the story

02 — The Atrocious Faces

Will communities survive the apocalypse? That depends on the apocalypse. In this one, they do, but that's hardly comforting. As for what caused it... it seems to have something to do with a place called "Hell."

Read the story

03 — Bouncers

Three expats: Paolo Rossetti, aka “Rosso,” 52, bouncer, former Muay Thai professional with a record of 112–31–2. Adriana Apostol, 26, aka “The Nerd,” sex worker with a degree in information engineering. Marko Dauti, 30: no particular skills, but he picked up Muay Thai and a lot of other things from Rosso.

• Part 1: Rosso. Read the story

• Part 2: The Nerd. Read the story

• Part 3: Marko. Read the story

04 — Kill the Witch!!!

Look, we all know the story: witchcraft, the "witch hunts," the Inquisition. What can you say? A bunch of assholes. But that's not what this is. Not this time. This time, witches are genuinely, truly terrifying. And Taxman and Cowboy are the good guys, hunting something that deserves to be feared: a flesh-and-blood witch.

Read the story

05 — The Interrupted Queen

Sci-fi with hangovers and sex. Because yes, the future is depressing, but in the end it can turn a little satisfying, if you find violence satisfying. You don’t, right?

Read the story

06 — The Walter

Well, it's not like every story has to have a happy ending, right? Happy endings are for rich people, right? Come meet The Walter.

Read the story

Marko

— Are you completely losing your mind? What is this, early Alzheimer’s?

— Marko, don’t be a halfwit. We just take a quick look.

— What the fuck do you mean, a quick look? This is breaking and entering.

— But we don’t want to steal anything. We check that everything’s alright, and we leave pulling the door behind us.

— Sure, you can even take your shoes off so you don’t dirty the floor, but it’s still ten years if they catch you.

— Come on. The longer we stand here the worse it is. Go on, open the door.

— Open the door? You’re joking, right? And how the fuck am I supposed to open the door?

— Idiot, didn’t you always brag about paying for your holidays in Italy, in Riccione, doing break-ins?

There it is, the usual feeling: the urge to straighten out that crooked, battered nose of his with a punch, or alternatively to bend it completely to the left, like a car door. I’d like to shout it in his face: Rosso, did you actually swallow all the bullshit I used to tell at work to seem tough in front of that other pack of troglodytes we worked with? Never stolen a thing in my life: when the others went to the comics shop, I kept watch, at most I distracted the guy at the counter by asking him a load of nonsense.

— That’s got nothing to do with it, those were hotel doors, this is a security door. Can’t we just wait for her to answer the phone or come home?

— No.

There it is, that look, like a signal flare you can’t ignore. Rule number twelve kicks in, subsection twenty-four, special clause: Rosso’s word carries more weight than the Lord’s Prayer, and you can trust him as much as you can trust death and the priest. He and I always worked well together for one very simple reason: after a few initial misunderstandings, I always did exactly what he said, without arguing, without asking for any explanation, and if we were still working together I’d do the same until retirement. I never changed the rules, and he always commented on whatever mess I’d gotten myself into the same way: I’m sorry, these things happen. You didn’t do anything wrong, it could have happened to me too.

All in all, decent consolation.

Fuck it. Desperate times. I take out my phone, open YouTube.

— What the fuck are you doing now?

— Looking up how to open a security door. There’s a tutorial.

— Are you taking the piss?

— No. I renovated half my house this way. Either this, or we call the fire brigade. And maybe that wouldn’t be stupid, if you think something’s happened.

— I don’t know. They probably wouldn’t come now anyway. Come on, work a miracle.

Well, it’s not that hard really. If she didn’t lock it with the key, a credit card is enough. Rosso hands me a supermarket loyalty card.

I work at it a bit, following the video.

Just like that, the lock clicks, and the door shifts slightly, as if nothing were wrong, as if we weren’t committing a crime.

Why didn’t she lock the door when she left?

Oh.

We go in.

Oh God.

No.

No.

Oh my God no.

She’s still breathing, thank God.

We call the ambulance, hold her hands. With the paramedics we make up a story that we arrived and the door was already open. In the end nobody really cares about the details: we saved her life. We follow the ambulance on the motorbike, at the emergency room we argue with the security guards because you can’t enter the ambulance bay, we go around and wait standing up in the triage area.

The resuscitation doctor comes back: a woman of a certain age, tall and blonde, her name is Riikka. It seems she knows Rosso: they greet each other the American way, bumping fists with elbows high. She explains that she was lucky: if she’d lost consciousness with her head tilted a certain way she would have gone into respiratory arrest.

There’s a moment of silence: Rosso lifts his chin, subsection thirty-four, still the special clause.

— I think that stuff was too strong, says Riikka. If she’d meant to do it, you’d never have found her alive.

Another moment of silence: I can’t remember which subsection of the special clause this is.

— There isn’t much to be cheerful about, all the same. If you care about her you need to stay very close to her, she concludes.

We say goodbye. I shake her hand normally, thank her.

We go into a room in the ward: she’s on a bed with the back reclined, so pale and gaunt she barely looks like herself. Without makeup she’s a different person, and having just come back from the other side, even more so.

Taking stock of a relationship that for the most part only ever existed in my own mind, while I watched her dance. Another lie: I left the job because of the complaint filed against me. What nonsense: I left because after that night she threw me out of her place, I kept thinking about her, and I couldn’t work knowing nothing could ever happen between us.

She looks at us, says nothing, we don’t speak either, we just hold her hands: me on the right, Rosso on the left. Rosso tells her: we'll take care of your father, we'll make up an excuse. You're definitely not going back today. I wanted to ask you how we were doing with the books, you know?

Then after a while they send us out.

— Now what?

— Take a look over there, Rosso says, pointing to some small yellow plastic chairs.

— What do you say, he goes on, one last shift on the door?

I smile at the old Alzheimer’s case.

— You pick which side.

— No, you pick, go on.

— I work fine on both sides.

— You know, when I was fighting, and I’d find some poor bastard like you who thought he was ambidextrous and tried to switch guards, I’d think: easy win tonight.

— Then I’ll take the right. I’ll leave you the good side, seeing as you’re old.

He laughs.

— But really, you don’t want to go back to work?

— No, I’m done. Carlson Gracie were looking for a pilates instructor, I got myself two certifications signed off and now I teach classes there.

— Pilates. Do you also teach cooking and how to satisfy husbands who come home tired from work?

— Oh, maybe you’ve got a point. Being surrounded by a herd of horny forty-year-olds isn’t much, you’re right, better go back to getting punched in the face.

— Well maybe I should sign up then: you know, the arthritis, I’m getting old.

We laugh.

Then we sit down: me on the right, Rosso on the left. We do our job: keep the trouble away from the nerd. Only this shift is going to be a particularly hard one.

Then, another subsection of the special clause: eight hours is a long time. You talk when you need to, and then you stay quiet.

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

Three expats: Paolo Rossetti, aka “Rosso,” 52, bouncer, former Muay Thai professional with a record of 112–31–2. Adriana Apostol, 26, aka “The Nerd,” sex worker with a degree in information engineering. Marko Dauti, 30: no particular skills, but he picked up Muay Thai and a lot of other things from Rosso.

The Nerd

I come home, toss my keys in the bowl by the door, and with the front door still open I kick off my sneakers and head straight for the bathroom: everything needs washing. The cheap synthetic stuff they make me wear reeks, sharp sweat, stale and angry. Hormones, rage, frustration. I didn’t smell like this during ballet lessons, when I was a little girl.

And the boots. God, those fucking heeled boots. Taking them off for the sneakers is a relief; the calluses are like stones, and they stink, stink, stink. Once, I brought a guy from the staff home. Yeah, everyone tells you not to, but what can I say? He literally grabs me at the door, puts his hands under my ass and lifts me, carries me to the bed, and before we even realize it we’re naked and making love.

No condoms, no pill, nothing at all, but so what? I didn’t get pregnant, and honestly I couldn’t care less about diseases. Anyway, we start making love, and after a while he stops and says: sorry, can I open the window? Your boots smell too bad.

I threw him out. A really embarrassing scene. I was furious, but why, really? When he said it I just felt sad. Humiliated. Well, sad isn’t hard to feel, with the job I do, the life I live. I can’t even say: that bastard father of mine, up there, must be shaking his head watching how I turned out, he who wanted me to study, who always said “I want to leave my children a profession.”

You know why I can’t say it? Because the bastard is alive.

God, these boots stink. Lucky they never make me take them off, not even in the private rooms. I take off everything else, but those they always leave on me. Can you imagine the face on some guy who maybe paid 500 euros for a blowjob?

I go to the fridge, take out the sealed salad bag, the dressing, grab a packet of whole-grain crackers. It’s seven in the morning. I’ll sleep until around four in the afternoon, then dinner, TV, back to bed.

Tomorrow, though, I leave.

I’m going back to my father.

The salad bag costs a couple of euros. Add the little bottle of dressing, the crackers, eight packets in a box, plus the Coke Zero and the herbal tea: let’s say it comes to about four euros fifty in total. One blowjob pays for exactly one hundred and eleven point one recurring dinners. I know: five divided by four point five is “the fence,” that’s what I called it to help me remember it, while I was studying calculus.

A profession. The important thing is a profession.

No, the important thing is money. I check my phone, the banking app. Tomorrow I go home, this shit ends forever. Back to the other shit, where the important thing is a profession. After all, at this cybersecurity firm where I said I work, the pay is good, up to 500 euros a night if a client has an emergency. An urgent emergency.

Salad, radicchio, dressing, whole-grain bread, sparkling water. Netflix.

Tomorrow everything changes. This life is over. I’m going home.

Rosso sends me a message: I’m glad you made it. But have I really made it?

Remember us, the ones still here. What does that mean? Do the dead remember the living?

I go to the bathroom. Just the bidet, I don’t feel like a shower. I brush my teeth, pick up the small pouch with my kit.

Yes. Then I’ll go to sleep.

It’s not Rosso’s fault. I just wanted him here tonight, to teach me a little shame. But nothing. He’s always been there for me.

Oh, right. The comics.

I go sit on the couch, run my hands over my smooth legs, the thighs sculpted by the gym.

The important thing is to leave your children a profession.

In the kitchen I get a spoon, a BIC lighter, then go back to the bathroom, I forgot the cotton wool.

I open the pouch and take out the insulin syringes, the tourniquet.

I really needed him to be here. To celebrate leaving with a good fuck, and to learn a little something about shame.

Tomorrow I’ll get on the plane, go home, and I’ll have to tell my father that at least I learned a profession, because that’s all he ever left me.

From the spoon rises a sweet smell, and then that smell is injected into my body, which stays on the couch, while my soul drifts away, who knows if it will return.

What a shame, Rosso.

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

The guy who runs the Waffle House is Italian, and he came from a town in the province of Naples called Avetrana. They say he had to run away because of family business: come on man you know that book, that Saviano book, Gomorrah? No? It didn’t make it to America? And you ain’t even seen Abel Ferrara’s Napoli Napoli Napoli? But have you ever seen what that place is like? Scooters flying at insane speeds, going the wrong way, on sidewalks, everywhere, massive scenes over trivial reasons like a traffic ticket or a cold coffee, reactions of pure nervous survival like anxiety and panic attacks, that is to say: the hyperbole of metropolitan distress. Anyway, the owner’s name is Leandro and everyone calls him Lenny, because then he says he likes Lenny Bruce, and he has these two sons: Calvino, called Calvin, and Barbarella, called Barbie. He says his parents came over in ‘47 by ship, but do you buy that? Were there still ships in ‘47, weren’t there planes? What are you doing, asking ChatGPT? No wait a second, let me finish. Then there’s Chevin. In Italian you’d pronounce it like Kevin, only he went and had it written that way on his birth certificate, so everybody thinks he’s French, and they call him something like Cevìn, or something along those lines, and he loses his shit, holy Christ does he lose his shit. Oh, and you should hear Lenny: never met anyone who talked as much nonsense. Whatever, I mean, whatever you were telling him, then he takes over the conversation and you end up in this mental trip where he seems to be competing to topple you: no, come on, enough, you can’t seriously be telling me that your dog, a Sardinian sheepdog weighing two hundred pounds (do those even exist?), devoured a brick wall. And then he has this obsession with changing the flour for the waffles, and I don’t know, he puts this lumpy stuff in, because then he tells you: hey, you think I don’t know how to make a waffle? I’ll crack your skull open, you moron! And he’s so proud of it, and nobody says anything, because when he gets mad, guys. Everyone knows Lenny has serious issues with anger management. Only Chevin can hold his own against him. Did I tell you he’s his eldest son? When I went there I wanted to try his pistachio special, and the guy launched into this never-ending spiel about how he met his girlfriend at a college party in Nacogdoches, and I don’t even know where Nacogdoches is. Is there a university in Nacogdoches? Chevin gets into all kinds of trouble, he built an illegal shed, he doesn’t give a damn. He says he went there with a truck to steal tables from another bar: is he stupid? Did anyone explain to him that around here if you step onto someone else’s property they shoot you, that this isn’t Pizzalandia, where the cops give you a couple of smacks and say “Eh vabbuò, Lenny’s son, he’s a bit of a dickhead, alright don’t do it again.” And get this: as if he hadn’t gone and met Maradona, no seriously, as if he doesn’t have a photo with Diego Armando. Look up there on the wall: the whole pantheon’s there, there’s even John Paul II. The fucking Mount Rushmore: Massimo Troisi, Pino Daniele. The saxophonist, the African-American one who spoke in Neapolitan dialect. What a mess, I walk in there and they’re screaming, losing their minds, and the waffles are so lumpy, and all you want to do is run away.

And then she arrives. The mother. The matriarch. A massive woman: she must be 6 feet tall. She advances swaying from side to side, sinuous, looking like she could topple over onto you at any moment. She has these two enormous breasts, they sway, they sway, and then she puts on so much Cielo Alto hairspray that she could single-handedly reopen the ozone hole. The truck drivers once made some horrible comments about her, stuff like “she is so woman she can’t even fit in a car,” the kind of thing that if Lenny hears he’ll pull out his gun and actually shoot them, no question. Chevin loses his shit when he sees her, then she loses her shit too, no, you know, one day he shows up, and he’d been driving, and there was this enormous parking space between two cars outside the place. And she busts his balls, holy God does she bust his balls, she keeps telling him: no, you won’t fit in there, and what does he do? He parks the car right in between the two, gets out and starts yelling, tearing his hair out, saying: “MADONNA MADONNA SANTISSIMA YOU ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY YOU ARE MAKING ME LOSE MY MIND CAN’T YOU SEE THAT I COULD PARK A CAGACATSU* BULLDOZER IN THERE,” and shit, there really is room for a bulldozer in there. And what does Chevin do? He gets out of the car, walks away, and so the matriarch gets out, and swaying, swaying, swaying, she circles around the car, with that undulating motion of hers, and she sits in the driver’s seat, does a U-turn, and BANG, goes straight into a red pickup on the other side of the street. Hahahaha what a bunch of dickheads, but then in the end when you go get yourself a Mozzarella Waffle you find yourself loving these people and then you wonder: are they the pathological ones, or am I? Wouldn’t it be better to face life with a resounding “vaffanculo”, like they do, and to sway and sway around the car and crash it into the pickup?

I’m craving pistachio waffles now, I think I’ll head over to the guys’, let’s hope they’re not screaming too much. Come on let’s go, what’s your problem? What, you think they don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom or something? If you prick them, they feel pain, if you tickle them they laugh, if you poison them they die just as much as us. What do you say? If you prick and/or tickle and/or poison them they do nothing but tell you to go fuck yourself? Well maybe. But do you really think you’re that much better? Are they worse off, living life like a day at the races, or are you, living life like a prison sentence?

I know you don’t live life like a prison sentence, it was an exaggeration, but don’t be such a stickler and a goody-two-shoes: if someone calls your wife a whore what do you do? You don’t necessarily have to lose your shit and smash their face in, but there should still be a fire lit inside you. And if you need a shed to store your tools and the city won’t give you the permit, what do you do? Same thing here: it’s not always black and white, there are many shades of grey. But do you know they also make you a cappuccino and a latte macchiato? And don’t try to say they’re the same thing or Lenny will lose his mind, God does he lose his mind, one time someone confused a Moka with an Espresso, and that madman threw a double Pistachio, Nutella and powdered sugar Waffle right in his face.

Ah. You’re not coming because you saw him stick his hands in the batter. Yeah he does that, to break up the lumps. But he washes them first. For fuck’s sake, would you rather have a dirty glove or a clean hand? Not like he loses any hair in there either, come on, we were born between shit and piss. Lenny maintains that the batter must be handled with force, like a woman, you need warm and expert hands and you have to make it feel desired. Yes, he really said that. One day he took me aside and told me a lot of personal things, like this. Then he explained to me that back where he’s from the worst insult is “ommimmerda,” a man made of shit. Say something like that to someone and they’ll go straight for your throat, Chevin says all sorts of things to his father, but that one, no, he would never dream of it. And he explained it to me one day, the reason why: because in life it’s not fundamental to be someone, but you must always be a man, otherwise you’re just an overgrown child, a clown. He said a lot of people have tried, coming here, and trying to bully them, with the power of money and the law, but those people aren’t men, no, they’re “ommimmerda,” a real man even if they nail you to the Cross looks you straight in the eyes, and doesn’t act like an asshole. I wanted to ask him: ok but what about women? But I didn’t, you know how angry he would’ve gotten?

Well I really want a waffle. I’m sorry you’re not coming with me, maybe the problem is just yours.

Bye, and have a good day anyway.

* “Cagakatsu” translates as “shitdickatsu” (the author’s footnote)

Did you enjoy that? My name is DIDRIK, and, despite my nom-de-plume, I’m a spaghetti eater!

But if you like my voice, consider my delirious nordic giallo, THE OLD CHURCH:

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

Look, we all know the story: witchcraft, the “witch hunts,” the Inquisition. What can you say? A bunch of assholes. But that’s not what this is. Not this time. This time, witches are genuinely, truly terrifying. And Taxman and Cowboy are the good guys, hunting something that deserves to be feared: a flesh-and-blood witch.

Kill the Witch!!!

1.

—So how’s your wife? How’s the chemo going?

—Are you seriously asking me that right now?

—Why, shouldn’t I?

—Can’t you just read the answer?

—I’ll tell you I’m pretty busy at the moment.

—Are they coming?

—They’re coming.

The Cowboy plants both hands on the roof of the car like he wants to lift it, but the gesture is really just to stretch himself out. I don’t move a muscle: I grip the wheel like it’s a panic handle, lean forward, and watch. He was right, and how could I doubt it? The Bayou haze lights up, the dust motes come alive, and headlights start blooming between the vines and reeds. The wheels churn the mud and the suspension bucks.

A convoy is approaching. Leading it, a man on a Harley-Davidson with ape-hangers so high it looks like he’s surrendering to the cops, but that guy never surrenders to anything: Ken Ortiz, aka Cortex. I wonder how the hell he manages to ride a bike like that on ground this rotten, but who’s going to kill him for it?

Behind him, a light-blue pickup. It moves like a threat, one headlight blown out: I can’t see who’s inside.

—The Sonnen brothers, the Cowboy says, stroking the tattoos on his shiny bald head.

—Ah, so you can read my mind after all.

—Sorry. I’m trying to stay away from the bar.

—No problem. And beyond those two?

—Rose Esperza.

—Oh, they brought The Eye too.

—You won’t like this. She’s got an unclassified girl with her. Blonde, curly hair, jeans, a short military-green tank top. She’s stumbling, slurring her words. The Eye is watching her, thinking about having a little fun with her, before…

—Before what?

—Come on, you know what they want to do to her.

Shit.

Shit.

The Cowboy plays his tongue along the row of piercings between his upper and lower lip, then strokes his bare skull again: no hair, no eyebrows.

—A sacrifice.

—We’ve got a witch somewhere and three of the worst psionic bastards on the face of the earth. The Eye got bumped up to purple tier last week.

—Eldritch level?

—Cumulative, I’d say we’re at thirty-seven. They can summon a Class Four if they want to.

—And do they want to?

—That’s why they’re here.

—And what the fuck are they going to do with a Class Four?

—That’s the hard part to say. The bastards have deep emotional cover. It’s easy enough to dig through the conscious and the preconscious, but the actual purpose is buried as a secondary objective: all three of them have found a way to bury it.

—You know that means they’re expecting us, right?

The Cowboy looks at me, smiles.

Crazy lunatic.

—So, Taxman, what do we do? Ball’s in your court. I can tell you the psionic inventory’s done.

—What can you tell me about the witch?

The Cowboy’s smile twists into a grimace of disgust, and with a jerk he turns his head toward the window.

—That you shouldn’t even be asking me that, dickhead.

—Anything more?

—Drop it. You want to find her out here?

—And what the fuck do we do if we go in and one of us takes a piss break and finds her in there?

—You want to go in?

There it is again: he turns his head back toward me, that fierce grin returning.

—I’m weighing the options. The girl’s screwed no matter what we decide. We just need to figure out whether to haul ass out of here or try to catch them mid-summoning. Every other scenario, we’re both automatically dead.

—And if we go in?

—There’s a decent chance one of us doesn’t make it. But if we leave, this pack of assholes walks away with a major curse. Who knows what they’re planning to pull off with it.

I decide to stop, that’s my verdict. In the dark, the Cowboy’s eyes glint. He weighs my words, runs them through like a judge.

—But more importantly, the Cowboy goes on, if we stay, we get to kill a witch.

—You read my mind again.

—No.

Silence falls in the car. I roll down the window, stick my hand out, and I can almost feel the humidity and the mosquitoes between my fingers, then I pull out a BIC lighter and light a cigarette, settling in to enjoy the show.

They drive past us. There they are. Big Son and Little Son. When the pickup swings its tail around we see them: pressed against the cab, two girls; one a cursed bitch we know all too well. Then another. Young, pretty, curvy, curly blonde hair, the classic Texan type. She’s struggling to stay on her feet.

Tough break, Cowboy.

2.

Here we are, surrounded by dirty, aggressive losers in leather and sweaty girls with tired, defeated faces shaking their asses on a tiny stage. The stink of cigarettes and the smoke hanging like a ghost make me miss the unhealthy air of the swamp.

With my sense of smell, the stench of these white rednecks is almost suffocating. Nobody’s looking at me, even though I’m a black man nearly seven feet tall in a dive bar that’s the stereotype of a KKK biker hangout.

They don’t realize it, but they’re afraid of me: and I know exactly why. I stink too: I’ve carried the smell of the place I come from with me, and it doesn’t hit the nose. It goes straight to the heart. They’d hand over their own wives’ souls if it meant getting me to leave.

Convenient, at least: nobody’s going to try anything with us. But that’s not enough to stop me from shaking.

I try to focus on the job: they’ve put Big Son on the warehouse door. He’s the only one with no psionic powers, so they gave him a shotgun. He’s watching us: he knows exactly who we are, the real game’s being played somewhere else. He’s sharp: it’d be stupid of him to come at us, but in this line of work you never know what’s going to happen.

The Cowboy is frozen, motionless. He’s got a pair of sunglasses on, holding a beer he hasn’t taken a single sip from in at least ten minutes.

He explained it to me once: you know how a praying mantis works? It only strikes when it sees movement. You have to be precise, stay focused, wait. Feel your body, think about your muscles, your tendons, your bones, don’t let your attention wander unless it has to. Know the exact right moment to move, because otherwise she sees you, and she comes for you.

I sip my beer slowly. Now it’s his turn to read the waves: his calls are law. At some point I notice a tremor cross his face: an almost imperceptible tic at the corner of his lip, one only I would catch.

Meanwhile I keep reading faces, the masks of flesh. I need useful information. I can’t move without it. Usually they keep to some out-of-the-way, dark little room, somewhere quiet, waiting. For a witch, sensory experience is a distraction, a burden that keeps her from the non-Euclidean planes layered over reality. A witch wants to live inside her own mind, and wake only to unleash her power: the power of hatred, of death, of destruction.

I need to figure out where. In the warehouse, with the others?

I catch the sweet scent of the Texan girl, mixing with the acrid one coming off Cortex and the others. Sweat, lust, hormones, semen, blood. They’re having an orgy.

Why? Where the hell is that cursed woman? What are they planning?

Like a switch flipping, the Cowboy takes off his sunglasses. He lets out a deep breath, tips the bottom of his glass toward the ceiling, and drains the whole frozen pint in one go. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down while I let out my own long breath, hoping I’ve correctly guessed what just happened.

Then he starts talking.

—I know where she is. She’s outside.

I let out all the air in my lungs. God, thank you. I drop ten pounds, maybe.

—Great, I go on. How do we move?

The Cowboy looks at me with a smile. I feel something: his deep eyes lock onto mine.

—So you still haven’t kicked the nasty habit of lying.

I try not to move a single muscle, but before answering I steady myself with a sip of beer.

—I didn’t lie to you, you know that. The scenarios were exactly what I said.

—No, actually, no. You said the girl was screwed. But there’s something else in that hellish little head of yours.

—It doesn’t matter. You read my mind: you know exactly why I didn’t factor it in.

—It matters plenty, you bastard. Get up, we’re going outside.

—Where are we going?

—To go meet your little friend.

Hell floods back into my heart, the wind of fear roaring back in, having stopped for just one moment.

The Cowboy cuts off my thoughts, imperious. Like an automaton he takes the beer from my hand, pours it slowly out onto the floor, splashing my pants, and once it’s empty he says, final: we’re going outside.

—No, stop.

—Damn it, shut up or I’ll rip your eyes out and eat them. I’m the one calling this. You stay quiet.

Shit.

—She’s outside, he goes on. Praying in a small dry clearing, ringed by four bald cypress trees.

—You’ve lost your goddamn mind.

—Yeah. Damn it, follow me.

I grind my teeth, clench them almost to breaking, and ball my fists with so much force I nearly tear through my suit of flesh. The shaking has turned into a fireball burning in my stomach, and only a massive act of will keeps me from acting on the bloodlust, from following through on the urge to crush the Cowboy’s skull like a rotten melon.

Could they have taken control of his mind? No, impossible: I’d have noticed.

No, it’s him. He really wants to do this.

He walks slowly, one step after another. All I can do is follow, my eyes fixed on his Lucky 13 jacket.

3.

We’re in front of her.

Mud everywhere, sticking to our shoes, climbing up to our pants. In the middle, a small patch of grass, a little fire burning in a ring of stones.

A woman. A worn gray T-shirt, worn jeans, nothing else. She looks fairly young.

In the silence only the frogs croak and the crickets trill, unaware that reality could tear open at any moment and get sucked into the blind dark of the void.

Her eyes are closed. When she opens them, out will pour the raw material the universe’s dark matter is made of: chaos, entropy.

Like a spider with its prey, terror has completely paralyzed my body, waiting to devour it. Even now, the rational part of me, however confused, keeps asking what the hell is happening, what could have led to this rupture of every law we were ever taught.

Never face a witch directly.

Never wake a witch.

—Don’t do this.

The Cowboy looks at me, takes off his hat. He looks into it, like the felt crown might be hiding some secret, then rests it on my chest.

—This is yours now. See you on the other side, big guy. And remember: never let yourself decide for someone else again. Especially when that someone else is from Texas.

He chuckles, runs his tongue over the piercings on his upper lip again, set against his tattoos: nude pin-up girls with devil horns and protective runes.

Then he turns, steps past the little fire, and kneels in front of the girl.

I hold back the urge to run.

Not yet. I have to stay still. My spirit has to stay still: fear could drag me into whatever’s about to happen.

The moment he puts his hands on her shoulders, it’s as if two blades of light shoot out from her eyes and bury themselves in his. Then she opens her mouth, and a kind of giant pink, slimy tongue joins their bodies, slides down the Cowboy’s throat, into his stomach, and anchors there, fusing their flesh together forever.

That’s exactly what he wanted. He’ll carry her to the other side with him. You don’t need to read minds to understand that.

There. Now I can run. It’s not good to look at the darkness behind the veil.

I make my way back to the clearing. I approach the back of the bar, where the warehouse is, and rest a hand on the wood.

The girl is still alive. I smell flesh and rusted chains. They must have laid her out on the board after having their fun with her. Terrified, crying, but still alive and decently well.

Good.

I wouldn’t have wanted it to end this way, but given everything happening with my human wife right now, maybe the Cowboy’s sacrifice will buy me a quiet night of work instead of the disaster this was shaping up to be. I go to the car, open the door, and toss the Cowboy’s hat onto the seat, safe. Then I slowly walk toward the entrance, the wooden porch steps creaking under my weight.

I drive the nails of my left hand hard into the crook of my right elbow and tear away my larva of flesh, revealing the true nature of my forearm. I’d say it’ll be more than enough for what I have to do.

With one clawed swipe I open the bar door.

Behind it, it looks like a photograph: the girls have stopped dancing, the bartender is frozen with a rag inside a mug, everyone’s staring at me, paralyzed. Only the haze of cigarette smoke drifts lazily, to the sound of a Cramps song playing.

Next to me there’s a table with two boys pale as bedsheets. I take two slow steps toward one of them.

—Kid, have you had any of that beer yet?

The boy shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. His forehead is beaded with sweat.

—Mind if I take it?

Again, he shakes his head, without moving his eyes, and hands it to me.

—Thanks, very kind of you.

I take a sip, staring at Big Son, who stares back at me, serious, without moving a muscle.

—Gentlemen, dear ladies, I’m informing you that I’m an officer of the Taxman’s office. There are people in this establishment who have explicitly broken the law: Daniel Sonnen, in this room; his brother John Sonnen; Ken Ortiz; and Rose Esperza. Everyone who doesn’t answer to one of these names has exactly as much time as it takes me to finish this beer to leave, in an orderly fashion, and get as far away as possible.

Big Son looks at me, wrinkles his nose, racks a round into the shotgun.

— Daniel, you can choose: an easy death, by going to warn your friends and handing over the girl, or a death inside the Wheel, if you choose to resist.

We both know he’s not going to surrender, but we both also know these bastards don’t stand a chance against a Class Four like me.

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

Timing is everything in life, and if you have the patience to keep reading, my little mice, you’ll discover how Elias Thorne learned this lesson too. A response to a kind proposal from the great .

Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom called Blowjobbery, there was a small town lost among fields of wheat, tomatoes, and sunflowers. This town had a very peculiar shape: a little stream branched out in the form of a chicken bone, dividing the town into three exact sectors. In the first one lived Elias Thorne with his four sons, all named Elias Thorne, just like him.

His wife was an extremely unfaithful woman: aside from having run away years earlier with a very rich circus impresario, she was also suspected of cheating on Elias with all the other circus performers. As the gossips would say in these cases: of course none of Elias’s sons really look like him. And just look at Lias, the eldest (that’s what they called him). Look how good he is at walking on the tightrope. And, the terrible crows continued, is it really a coincidence that Eli, the second-born, became so skilled in the art of steelworking and spends his days building cannons to shoot people at enormous targets? They laughed behind his back, oh how they laughed, when they saw the third brother, Liaz, racing through town on his unicycle with his clown nose.

Fortunately for poor Elias Thorne, however, the last-born, the smallest, nicknamed Baby E for this reason, showed a peculiar talent for another human activity: beating the living shit out of people. At sixteen he was already a black belt in judo, and had basically kicked the ass of everyone who had dared challenge him in the ring with boxing gloves. A natural talent: so flexible he looked like an octopus, fast and predatory like a falcon, and clever as a weasel. He would study his opponents, then get tired of being the brainiac and simply beat them to a pulp.

Elias was a farmer, lived on the west bank of Chicken Bone River, and found himself in an enormous mess. Yes indeed: on the north bank of the river lived three brothers who formed a slapstick trio: the Fabulous Thorne Brothers. They were called that because, by a strange twist of fate, their father (who was also named Elias Thorne) had decided to name all three of them Elias Thorne, just to spite Elias Thorne, with whom he had old grudges. And the fact that the father of the Fabulous Thorne Brothers was also named Elias Thorne, exactly like Elias Thorne? Well, that was just a mere coincidence. These things happen in life.

Especially because Elias Thorne and the father of the Fabulous Thorne Brothers initially got along quite well. The latter had moved to Blowjobbery to fulfill his dream: to build a film studio. So he bought land north of Chicken Bone River, brought in enormous trucks loaded with wood from the Fuck Mountain Range, and asked for help from a carpenter who lived in the rest of the town on the east bank of Chicken Bone River. He dreamed of building a perfect replica of an Old West village to rent out to the rich folks in Hollywood.

But alas, sometimes we are truly creatures in the hands of chance. The dream of the father of the Fabulous Thorne Brothers soon turned into a nightmare. The carpenter, who by a strange coincidence was also named Elias Thorne, was an extremely greedy, evil, and predatory person. He devised a trick to strip the father of the Fabulous Thorne Brothers of all his fortune: he wouldn’t build real houses, but only facades. And with the leftover wood, he would participate in a project of dubious morality: building a brothel so that the circus impresario (the one who had run away with Mrs. Thorne) could start a prostitution business with her. The brothel was supposed to be called “Elias Thorne’s Dollhouse,” because the circus impresario, for tax reasons, had gone to the registry office to legally change his name to Elias Thorne, so he could appear married to Mr. Thorne’s wife (they were simpler times: a case of homonymy was enough to fuck someone’s wife and steal all his money). And this allowed him not only to steal Elias Thorne’s wife, but also the wife of the father of the Fabulous Thorne Brothers, and all seven of their sons. The carpenter, on the other hand, was single. It was even suspected that he was homosexual (bear with us, in those days people were a bit homophobic assholes): love letters were found referencing male virility and genitals that “dueled like swords,” signed by a certain E.T.

The father of the Fabulous Thorne Brothers, like all foolish, passive, and lazy men, ended up blaming someone else for the scam rather than himself: Elias Thorne, whose wife had corrupted the impresario who had corrupted the carpenter. It started with small annoyances, then almost came to blows one day in the market square in front of the church on the East bank of Chicken Bone River. The father of the Fabulous Thorne Brothers publicly challenged him: “You damned man, come to the north bank if you have the courage, but I’m sure you won’t.” Elias Thorne was an extremely anxious person: he lived in constant fear of catching Hepatitis C by touching doorknobs, let alone having the courage to fight a duel on enemy territory. But after the fourth sleepless night, Baby E went to him and said: Dad, don’t worry, I’ll go.

The duel lasted three days and three nights. Lias stretched a tightrope over Chicken Bone River, on which Liaz rode his tricycle while shooting Baby E toward the north bank with a mini shoulder cannon built by Eli. The Fabulous Thorne Brothers were waiting for him, slipping on banana peels, hitting each other with planks, and dropping lightbulbs from cartons.

But all’s well that ends well. In the end, having smoothed over their differences, Elias Thorne, his sons Elias Thorne, Elias Thorne, Elias Thorne, and Elias Thorne, together with Elias Thorne and his sons Elias Thorne, Elias Thorne, and Elias Thorne, resolved their issues and went together to the restaurant of a certain E.T., who was suspected of being the lover of the carpenter Elias Thorne, who had helped the newly renamed circus impresario Elias Thorne ruin the life of Elias Thorne.

Did you enjoy this? Support DIDRIK! Read his delirious Nordic giallo:
THE OLD CHURCH!

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

A improvised scene shown after the end credits due to a translation error.

“Telo” means “picnic blanket,” but it can also mean “tarp.”

This happens just before Didrik and Elli make love in the final scene.

The Dirty Old Tarp

† † †

— Can’t we do it in the car?

— No. Absolutely not. Have you seen what the weather’s like? Stop being a pain in the ass and go get the sheet from the trunk.

— But there’s nothing in the trunk.

— What do you mean? That’s impossible.

— There’s only a dirty tarp.

— Well, take that. You don’t expect me to do it on the grass. My ass freezes just looking at it.

— And you don’t expect me to do it on this shitty oilskin, I hope.

— What’s wrong with my oilskin?

— Are you kidding me? Don’t you have a picnic blanket? A towel?

— Does it look like people in the Mattila household go on picnics? It’s already a miracle there are still rules about cutlery at the dinner table and my father doesn’t make you eat with your hands.

— And that justifies the fact that we have to fuck with our asses on an oilskin covered in mud?

— You know, usually the people I bring out here don’t make such a fuss.

— What do you mean?

— I mean that oilskin has been in the trunk for quite a few years. If it could talk...

— What would it say?

— That with all the cum that’s ended up on it, you could make a wax statue.

I turn and look Elli in the face.

I practically stop breathing, then swallow.

What the hell did I even come here for?

— Come on. It can’t go any worse than the other times. Grab that shitty oilskin and try to relax.

— Did you study psychology? I mean, telling an anxious ex-psychiatric patient to “try to relax.”

— What a drag. Come on, let’s get this over with.

There she goes, walking ahead. I try to focus on her ass, but then something happens.

I don’t know. A cloud passing overhead, some interference, plain old male stupidity.

— Did you fuck Miko on this tarp too?

— Oh.

Elli stops.

She looks me in the eyes and takes a deep breath.

— Here we go again? Do you really want me to answer that? Haven’t you learned anything from everything that’s happened to you?

— No, I really don’t think I have. Sorry.

Elli smiles at me, and her eyes blend into the blue of the sky, and her smile melts like cream on ice cream, and her hands are warm, like her chest and her breath.

We kiss.

— Come on, champ. Prepare our bed.

Elli hikes up her dress and slips off her panties, first over one foot, then the other.

And now what?

I don’t think I’m going to take my clothes off with all that filth that’s ended up on that tarp. But I don’t say that to Elli. I’ve learned how to keep my mouth shut.

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

The end

† † †

One Day, While I Was Lost

† † †

— You know, it was one of the most beautiful periods of my life.

— Really?

— Yes. Three months away from everything, nothing to worry about. Hadn’t happened since middle school, I think.

— Sorry, but didn’t you get bored lying in bed all day? I’d have asked for euthanasia after two weeks.

— But that’s exactly the point. With the medication they were giving me I was high as a kite, could barely talk. But I could laugh. I didn’t have to do anything, just crack up. I spent three months laughing like an idiot.

— At what?

— Are you joking? They’re your friends, don’t you know them?

— Well I don’t know Miko that well. And Pelle isn’t exactly a crowd-pleaser. For three months, though.

— Miko was like a kid at a funfair. He tormented the entire hospital staff, every single one of them, from the cleaning ladies to the head consultant. He was like a bloodhound: he’d find exactly what got under their skin and keep calling them, calling them, calling them.

— And Pelle?

— Pelle would tell him off. He’d say things like: madam, please understand, the brain damage. Miko, knock it off! Put your pants back on! And then the moment they walked out the door, he’d burst out laughing.

Rikku grins.

— He was showing them his cock?

— Constantly. Men, women, everyone. I think I’ve seen more of Miko’s dick than Elli has in her entire life.

— I still can’t picture him behaving like that.

— I imagine he’s different now.

Staying silent, Rikku opens her mouth into a smile.

She does it often.

I’ve seen her do it hundreds of times in the last month, since she more or less moved in with me, for the rehabilitation and physical training.

I’ll watch her do it exactly one billion more times.

Right, I’d been doing everything I could to put off this moment, but it’s time: we get to our feet. The heavy pack reminds me I’m a lazy person entirely unfit for this kind of activity, but there we are.

Pelle was right: for someone who knows the way it’s little more than a walk.

I’d have gotten lost already: beneath grey clouds that could betray us at any moment, we make our way across a vast plain of marshland. We pass hillocks that all look the same, sheep’s fescue brushing our knees, no paths anywhere.

Rikku moves with confidence, she knows the direction. We draw closer and closer to a higher hill. Not quite a mountain, a barren stretch.

Glemt Pass, the old via ferrata.

— Here you need to be a little careful, but a child could manage this. Three rules. First, always follow me. Second, don’t take a step without looking where you’re putting your feet. Third, one hand always holds the ferrata. Never let go with both hands, and if you have any doubts, stop for a moment. Never change the rules, understood?

— Ok, Matti.

Rikku turns her head slowly, wild-eyed, staring me down.

She gives me the finger, then sticks out her tongue.

Let’s go.

† † †

Grey sky, clouds still heavy with rain that holds itself back. Let’s hope it gives us time to pitch the tent.

The air is a little warmer, drier. The sound of waves breaking on the rocks reminds us we’re at the edge of the world.

I lick my lips: they taste of salt.

We’re on a meadow, before a cliff dropping sheer into the Arctic Sea.

There’s nothing here.

Only ruins. Burnt timber, the footprint of a building, the floor. Some benches, other things, how long have they survived?

— What is this place?

— 1982. Seventeen years ago. It was Matti who destroyed everything, with his bulldozer. They arrived from that road, Surma was leading the convoy.

— Reminds me of something.

— Does it?

— But there’s nothing here, what am I supposed to photograph?

— Help me look, there must be a passage, some stairs, something that goes underground.

— Underground? But who lived here?

Rikku looks at me.

† † †

Underground, then, we go.

We’re standing before an enormous door. Heavy hand-forged iron hinges, solid timber, oak perhaps, built to withstand the cold and damp of the cavern.

Black studs, spikes.

— How on earth do you open this thing?

— I don’t know.

— Where does this passage lead?

— No idea.

We stare at each other for a second, then with all the nonchalance of someone on a museum trip, she says: well, take some photos.

I’m rooted to the spot. I’m about to shit myself, again.

— Go on. Take some photos. All this effort and you don’t even want to take a photo?

† † †

Outside the tent, the rain falls lightly. It’s night, the sky is petrol blue, like a wave folding into the dark.

Rikku is lying on her sleeping bag. She wanted to undress. At first I didn’t understand why, now it’s clear: her skin is glossy, beaded with sweat. She’s kept only her underwear on.

I can feel her body radiating heat, fighting back with everything it has, as if against an infection.

— Are you sure?

— Yes. I want to.

— Ok.

— Didrik, please... I...

— No. Nothing is about to happen. Just say “stop”, and I’ll move away, immediately. Nothing happens. Do you want to close your eyes?

— Yes.

— What’s the most beautiful place you know?

— The Wind Hill. We went there that day, to smoke, in Matti’s truck. Do you remember?

— Yes. I remember the air smelled a little of the sea. Like this place.

I look at Rikku’s body.

Her hair is scattered across the tent like straw, like rays of sunlight. Her full breasts fall to the sides of her ribcage. I notice she’s contracting her fingertips slightly, as if playing the piano.

I begin to sweat, like her. I swallow. This will be hard for both of us.

It’s as if we breathe together. One long, deep breath in.

And then, before letting the air back out, I rest my hand on Rikku’s forehead.

That’s all.

I close my eyes. I use my left hand.

Trust.

The little finger and the ring finger graze her hair. Matti’s hair. Family, blood, strong genes. A rigid upbringing.

The middle finger and the index finger rest on her forehead. The prefrontal cortex.

The seat of will.

Riikka.

Oh.

My God.

Here we are.

We’re here together.

We climb the stairs of the Mattila house.

Riikka’s strength nearly makes me tremble. She’s brought me straight to the heart of the fracture, into the pain.

Bedroom door open.

Two little girls on their knees, praying. They’re trembling with fear, Elli has wet herself.

A voice.

The Ogre.

Black studs, spikes.

They came from the old church.

Which one of you wants to be first?

Me. Take me.

Oh.

Rising to her feet, Riikka died, and the Knight was born.

The Kingdom of Ice, the gleaming armour. It protected Riikka, all this time.

Wait.

What’s happening?

We come back to the present.

No.

A few months ago.

Before the massacre at the silo.

Leena.

She’s in a room of the castle that looks like a farm, in front of a table with a sewing machine.

She’s sewing something.

Rikku’s hoodie? Why?

She works, she works.

Sews, sews.

Choose a nylon thread.

Choose it strong: your daughter’s life will hang from it.

The small garden, a spruce bears the mark of the axe that buried itself a palm’s width from my nose.

Mother and daughter face each other.

The Mother would give everything, even her life for her daughter, and so she does what a parent should do: she teaches.

Oh, look at that.

They look each other in the eyes.

Without looking, Rikku grazes her hoodie, Leena grazes her mountain jacket.

As if by magic the axe appears in the Knight’s hand, the sickle appears in the Mother’s hand.

The sickle is in Leena’s hand.

Pure.

How the hell can she still be pure?

The sickle is stained with blood.

Her armour gleams.

Enough.

I open my eyes, lift my hand from Rikku’s forehead.

I need an umbrella, I have to go outside, get some air, where the hell is the umbrella?

I look at her.

She’s crying, her arms crossed over her chest.

I put her hoodie on her, and go out.

† † †

My eyes are closed. Elli’s hands stroke my face. She kisses me, bites my neck.

She moves her hips rhythmically, faster and faster.

I come.

I finally come inside Elli Mattila.

Inside a condom, inside her, that is.

Not much of a romantic, but there we are.

I’m happy. Hadn’t happened in years.

Elli rolls over beside me, rests against my side on the large tarp we’ve spread out in this meadow, in a spot I don’t know, and don’t dare ask how many people she’s been with here.

I turn toward her. I stroke her cheek, then move my hand, lift the hem of the long green dress.

I rest a hand on her stomach. It’s warm, soft. I move it lower, but she grabs my wrist and says: no, enough, we’re fine as we are.

It’s strange. Touching Elli, my hands are different. Numb, I can barely feel anything. It’s been happening since last week, since I went to that strange place with Rikku.

Who knows. Maybe the Antabuse.

Oh well, better this way.

Elli pulls her white underwear back on and straightens her skirt, then comes back to lie beside me and looks at me again.

— So, when does Miko get out of hospital?

— Next week. You know that you and I are done for good, right?

— I’m wondering why you wanted to see me here, today.

Elli smiles at me.

— Anyway, Miko and I have to start from scratch, I don’t like leaving things half-finished.

— Then can we officially give each other one last kiss?

Elli’s smile widens.

— Yes, I’d say this is officially the last one.

So we kiss. It’s good to know it’s the last.

— And now?

— Well, we could stay friends.

— Explain something to me, though.

— What?

— Why didn’t you want your sister to know about us?

Elli turns serious for a moment, takes a long breath. She sits up, speaks to me looking the other way.

— Because she’d told me she liked you.

Oh.

— And you came to me and took your panties off?

— You know I went back to therapy, after the whole thing with Miko?

Silence.

— I was in it for a long time, after what happened.

— What does that have to do with it?

— I don’t know. I wanted to protect my sister from the embarrassment, from the sadness. I didn’t want you getting close to her. It’s absurd, but that’s how it is.

Another silence.

— And anyway the embarrassment and the sadness are more mine than hers. I’ve never been able to help Rikku. She’s always been a girl on her own. Speaking of which, let’s go!

Elli jumps to her feet. She smooths her long dress, and I pull up my trousers.

— Where are we going?

— They’re waiting for us at the Roadhouse. Everyone’s there: Pelle, Matti, Leena, Rikku, and a few other Finns with anger management issues.

— And we arrive together? What will your father think?

— With all you’ve done for us, you could even tell him in front of everyone that you just fucked his daughter, he wouldn’t even flinch.

— Will he hug me like a son too?

Elli pauses for a moment. Her eyes widen, she tiptoes a little in terror at what she just said.

We laugh.

We head toward Elli’s car.

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

Three expats: Paolo Rossetti, aka “Rosso,” 52, bouncer, former Muay Thai professional with a record of 112–31–2. Adriana Apostol, 26, aka “The Nerd,” sex worker with a degree in information engineering. Marko Dauti, 30: no particular skills, but he picked up Muay Thai and a lot of other things from Rosso.

Rosso

It was a quiet night, and nothing was guaranteed with Marko absent. Two bouncers aren’t essential, but when we worked together it was different. The fact that dawn hits right around five, when the shift ends, makes me breathe a sigh of relief: I can get on with the drug trafficking and then go home.

Here she is, the nerd. After a night of battle she looks like she’s ready to go shopping downtown: tight jeans, sneakers, black lipstick, ponytail. Here we go, we can start. I speak with a heavy Russian accent, trying to sound like a villain from a James Bond movie. I just sound like an idiot: it’s fine.

— So, what you want? What you bring Boris tonight?

— I bring load of pure amphetamine, straight cut like Walter White.

— And then I answer with gigadollars.

The nerd pulls a book out of her bag and hands it to me. “Orpheus Reborn in Love”, by Gregorie Vieru. I hand her “Uzumaki” by Ito. She’s already returned all the Berserk volumes and liked them, so we’re stepping on the accelerator a bit. And to think that in here there’s a bunch of assholes acting like drug dealers just to swap a couple of shitty coke pellets.

I remember Marko the first time he saw us. A bit embarrassed, he came up to me and said: ah, so you’re one of those guys who reads books? I burst out laughing. I answered something like: yeah, they actually taught me to read in school. What about you? He realized he’d said something stupid, turned around, a bit pissed off.

— You know next week is my last?

I wasn’t expecting that. I open my mouth, then run my hands over my thighs.

— So you made it?

— Yeah. I already sent the down payment to my cousin in Cahul. We’re getting my grandfather’s house back, and there’s enough left to open whatever we want. We were thinking of some small business. They’re still profitable.

I want to tell her I’m happy for her, but nothing comes out. So she continues.

— Want a ride home?

Her smile is unmistakable, but I think: 52 years old. She’s 26. I’m twice her age and she could be my daughter. Boolean logic: she’s the one who taught it to me. She has a degree in engineering and came all the way up here, inside the Arctic Circle, to sell her body.

So I say no, thanks.

We say goodbye. Maybe she expects something more from me, but I just can’t tell her I’m glad she’s leaving. Something inside me says I should be, but I’m too old and my answer is only this: I’m not.

I walk home because I never wanted to get a driver’s license. I don’t even know why. Well, like so many things: I went to the other side of the world to fight, in Thailand. It wasn’t like now with the internet. You took a phone number from a magazine and left. What can I say: I was young.

Cars whip past me as I cross streets with no sidewalks. Accidents, randomness. One day the nerd explained it to me: you start thinking about the probability that a light bulb burns out, Poisson distribution. It’s the same with a job like mine: tonight went well. But then? End up like Marko?

This is how it went: these assholes show up and start bothering him. It’s incredible how losers always go after him, the biggest and youngest of the two. Anyway, this guy gets right in his face, yelling at him, but then he makes some weird move, and BANG: Marko smashes his jaw. Then his friends stuffed him in the car, and when we saw what kind of car it was we thought: fuck. These are rich kids. The lawyer told him: this is going to cost up to three hundred thousand crowns.

I walk along the ring road. There’s never much traffic at this hour. No sidewalks. I pull out my phone. Open Tinder: zero matches.

Eh.

I text the nerd: I’m glad you made it. Don’t forget about us who are still here, okay?

She replies with a heart emoji.

Why didn’t I go home with her? Because I’m completely fucked in the head, that’s why.

Well, she smiled at me, we can file that away too.

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

Here’s Didrik, from the swamps. My voice travels through fiber optics thousands of miles away to ask you: how’s it going?

Now, let’s talk about tonight’s poem.

Tonight’s poem is about a character from The Old Church, the one who sets the whole story in motion, but then fades a bit into the background.

He is Per Virtanen. He fades into the background, but he’s a fundamental character: he has his own story, tied to the stories of the other characters. You know, I kind of like to do like Quentin Tarantino, not that I want to compare myself to him, but he always does this thing: for every character, he establishes a very detailed backstory. In my head, Per has one; who knows if it will ever come out. There’s a reason why he has a Swedish name and not a Finnish one, and even the things mentioned in this poem are linked to his trauma. Now, I’ve said too much: let’s get to the poem!

Here is the complete performance:

PLAY IT YOURSELF! Find the files on patchstorage:

https://patchstorage.com/confessione-%e2%9c%9e-per-virtanen/

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

The Tower And The Dragon

† † †

THE ANGEL AWAITS HER MARTYRDOM WITH PATIENCE
LIGHTER NIPPLES
GIVE ME A SECOND TO THINK, OK?
INDECENT DESIRE
MATTI
A DEMON IS LITERALLY REDUCED TO JELLY
SPINE COMPRESSED, EXPLODED
ANGRY FINNS

† † †

THERE’S NO TIME. DEATH, FINALLY.

† † †

In the Stygian abyss, the sky is a grey hair shirt. The clouds are ablaze and rain down blood, blood, blood. Thick, full-bodied, reeking.

Some greater demons circle the Tower, but they take no interest in the petty violence of the bipedal creatures below.

Cartilaginous wings, nearly transparent, pearlescent spines.

Their cries terrorise the inhabitants of the Styx valleys, but inside the Tower the clamour reigns, and we cannot hear them.

The Angel awaits her martyrdom with patience, the Demon drawing near, ravenous.

The ogre is in his own way chaste: he is not visited by the sinful thoughts of the degenerates around him.

The Demon wants the Angel’s suffering, not her sex.

Look at his lackeys. Petty succubi, small-time criminals, depraved. Naked bodies of anthracite grey, lighter nipples, heavy piercings all over, horns.

Old Didrik appears before me.

You know, don’t you, that they didn’t tie you to that rope: they only hung you from it. If you want, you can free yourself.

And then what happens, if I free myself?

Nothing. They’ll shoot you. Won’t make much difference. But you could try.

Give me a second to think, ok?

Ok.

Old Didrik leaves, the dickhead vanishes and forces me to watch what is happening here, in the Tower of the City of Dis.

The Demon tosses a spike at the Angel’s feet. The first spike in his left hand, the hammer in his right.

Penetration, flesh. Lines of fate: the line of life, of the head, of the heart. I’ve tangled all of mine together, and so here I am, dangling from a forklift.

The Demon harbours a secret, indecent desire, and he holds enough power to satisfy his impulse: he uses words.

He dares to speak to the Angel.

— I imagine that in your mind you must be thanking your father, right about now.

Oh.

I burst out laughing.

I laugh like a hyena, like a jackal. I’m afraid I might vomit again, this time my own innards (it happens, in Hell), but it doesn’t matter.

They all turn, look at me.

I draw the Demon’s attention too. Clearly his soul is accustomed to the world of spirits and secrets: he has understood that something is happening.

He tries to put on his mask, his imperturbable sneer. He looks at me and asks: and what the fuck do you find so funny?

I don’t need to answer. I don’t need to say a single thing. The answer arrives on its own, it is shown when he turns his gaze back toward his prey.

The Angel smiles. A sweet smile, tender, almost embarrassed.

Then she holds his eyes, and that is where terror invades the ogre’s heart. He lets the hammer fall, takes a step back, as if confronted by something even he cannot understand.

That is the moment.

The Angel takes a half-step forward, peels her wings from the wall just enough. She turns her palms skyward, as if drawing down the energy needed for the reckoning.

Something is happening. The air is dense, electric. Vibrations arrive, consequences. Small disturbances of electricity, restless spirits, souls of the dead.

The dead had tried to warn the demons of their fate.

— There’s no answer from the gate, something’s happened.

Still the demons have not understood. They still have hard cocks, they still believe they can feast on the Angel’s body.

That is the moment.

From the cool darkness sliding through the Tower’s entrance, a sound arrives.

Distant.

The bellow of an enormous leviathan.

The two-tone horn of a truck.

Distant.

But this is already more than enough.

It is as if all the madness, the ambition, the delirious abandon of the demons is sucked back inside their hollow souls in an instant.

They understand that this is no safe refuge for their perversions.

This is a trap.

They feel the gears of the machine, the pistons burning diesel, and Surma’s incandescent heart: they feel it like a metallic taste between their teeth. In their own way they anticipate the smell of exhaust fumes mingling with the smell of carnage.

They turn.

The Angel has vanished.

Old Didrik reappears beside me.

What the fuck are you waiting for, New Year’s?

He vanishes immediately.

I throw myself to the ground just in time to feel in my bones the two-tone horn drawing closer with ever greater force, ever greater roar. It sounds, sounds, sounds.

Explosion, earthquake, the Tower trembles.

The sound of rubble, screams.

The muzzle of the Black Dragon smashes through the entrance door.

Its rider skilfully brakes, leaving the Dragon’s body halfway through: otherwise it might have killed us all.

Though there are already bodies caught in its jaws.

The bastards at the gate.

The demons try to shoot at Surma. Such fools, using bullets against an immortal being? Of course, they put a few holes in it, but you can imagine how the wise rider must be laughing now, old Timo. From the slit in the heavy bulldozer blade they mounted in front of the windscreen, he must be thinking: poor fools.

Hunters’ weapons. Bullets spent.

Poor fools.

Figures emerge from behind the bales of hay. They emerge slowly.

But everyone watches one of them in particular.

Matti.

They were already inside. Through where, the sewers? A window?

It doesn’t matter.

The strongest warrior, the most feared.

Yes, it has to be him first.

Matti has seen everything. I don’t even dare imagine his rage. In his left hand he wields an enormous wrench, smeared with Surma’s grease. Swinging his arm back behind his shoulder, he breaks a demon’s head, literally makes it explode like a watermelon.

In his right hand he holds something: he points it at more demons, fires. A sawn-off double-barrel. Four are already dead, without even having had time to move.

Pelle.

His agility is remarkable, given his size.

Given the weight of his rifle.

He takes aim, fires. A demon is literally reduced to jelly by the fireball.

Old Didrik appears again beside me.

Well, aren’t you going to go have a little fun too?

Can’t you see I’m unarmed?

Turn around.

Oh.

The forklift.

Yes, what a beautiful idea.

I put my shoulder against Anja’s pubis. She stirs a little: still alive, thank God. I heave her onto my shoulders, drop her onto a bale of hay. She hits her head a little hard, but I think that’s the least of her problems.

I jump onto the forklift, take the driver’s position.

It’s electric, it’s running. I try pressing the accelerator: it moves forward and back.

With a lever I put the forks to about a metre’s height.

There he is.

Milos.

I accelerate.

Hey Milos! Here I am! Do you remember me?

What a hit.

I go straight into the wall.

Spine compressed, exploded.

Broken ribs, clothes.

Milos’s torso is separated from his lower half.

Someone grabs me by the neck and hauls me down hard.

† † †

Angry Finns.

Adrenaline, forced reuptake, mitigation of dissociation generated by stress and withdrawal.

Welcome back to reality, Old Didrik tells me, beside me.

Oh, thanks.

That Dante Alighieri delusion had really been doing my head in.

True. I used to read it at Sonia’s place, in Genoa. It wasn’t bad.

Focus, better that way.

The Leather Man is behind me. He has me by the collar and is pointing the Makarov at my back.

His men are all dead.

All of them.

In front of us, a crowd of enraged people, led by a tall girl with golden curls, completely naked.

She has an axe in her hand. None of that Conan the Barbarian nonsense: one of those axes you buy at the village hardware store.

Behind, in the last row, the Serpent. She is here too. Her scaly body towers over the heads of her people. She looks like an enormous anaconda, the kind you see in science fiction films.

Pelle is missing.

But everything is fine. They’ve destroyed the jammer, everything is fine.

I ask Old Didrik: they destroyed it, right?

And how would I know?

Well. You always know everything.

I know what you know.

Ah, right.

I feel the Leather Man’s heart pulsing in his chest, beating hard.

Rikku takes a step forward, axe still in hand.

Murder murder murder.

Listen, Old Didrik says, you know perfectly well he’s going to shoot her, just to do something. Are you going to step in or are we going to be here all night?

And what can I do?

Put an end to this farce once and for all. I really can’t take being here anymore.

Fine. Let’s do it.

Yes, let’s do it. This poor bastard thinks my life is worth something. And now I’m going to play a nice little trick on him. Old Didrik is right: let’s close this comedy, because night is falling here.

Only, I don’t want to leave just yet. No, I’ve earned the right to see how it ends, at least.

I turn unhurriedly but decisively, and while I look at that scumfuck in his little pervert’s eyes, with both hands I stop him from raising the pistol too high, so that he shoots me in the belly.

My legs give way, I collapse like a sack of potatoes.

SZOC.

Fortunately, as I turn, I have just enough time to see Rikku’s axe bury itself exactly in the centre of his forehead. The left eye is crushed like a grape, the right one flies out and hangs by the optic tendon.

It dangles in a funny way ha ha ha ha.

Old Didrik lies down here beside me. I’d like to talk a while about Caterina, but no: I won’t do it, there’s no time.

Death, finally.

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

Here is the first experiment in spoken word and ambient music. A poem contained within Old Church, which you can find here.

The poem is about Elli, and it is a litany: a liturgical form characterized by obsessive repetition.

The choice is not random. Elli is someone who always, always, always, always, always makes the same damn mistakes.

I hope to give you a good Saturday and steal a few minutes of your time. It’s the very first time I’ve recited anything, so some feedback is appreciated. Even negative feedback.

We come into the world to learn, don’t we?

Here is the complete performance:

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

Here we are! A complete RECAP of my entire struggle against Mac Sitko’s Fictionwocky and its slimy avian minions! We could even say we shoved the Vorpal sword where the sun doesn’t shine...

Anyway, it all started with this:

Third Eye Horror

Fictionwocky: A Beast of Thirty-One Legs

This Friday, I’m launching Fictionwocky: a 31-day nano/microfiction gauntlet designed to break your writing habits, rewire your prose, and have fun doing it…

Read more

3 months ago · 30 likes · 20 comments · Mac Sitko

To avoid going completely insane (avoid what?) I tried to organize the material by theme; let’s see what this crazy, crazy world of writers has in store for us — writers who do nothing but snort cocaine to feed their demons with other demons that then need to be fed with a third type of demon in an infinite ouroboros of shit-fucking around.

Week 1: find the distance

Take the timing with the Beast’s blows. Starting from the desert and ending up in the Italian province means either not having a clear theme, or having that typical bravado of assholes or great writers (so, the first hypothesis in our case). The figure of the Gothic Girl emerges, whom Didrik is in love with and to whom he has dedicated dozens and dozens of nocturnal ejaculations.

Week 2: i don’t want to grow up

In the second week, however, the author, a middle-aged man, a father, who still dreams of starting a band and touring the world as an opening act for the Melvins (which, it's not clear how that could ever happen, given that the author struggles to leave the house just to buy bread and milk), gives a great display of maturity by recycling a dark fantasy universe he used to write about on his Pentium 1 back in 1995, when he was like 14 and dreaming of screwing lizard women with gigantic breasts (again: those nocturnal ejaculations). I imagine you're all dying to be interested in this.

Week 3: the stupidest narrative universe on the planet

In the third week, with the fumes of absinthe and palinka now enveloping his brain (and this was before moving on to juniper grappa), the author pathetically tries to reroute traffic to the rival platform Wattpad, where another absolutely idiotic narrative universe resides: that of WRIGGER TARNING! A charming world where the author fights against his cheating, Satanist wife, aided (yes, I said aided) by an AI named Belial, who serves as a romantic antihero, and an orc bassist, who serves as an orc bassist.

Leg 15 – The 55-Word Leg: Write a microfiction of exactly 55 words. Not 54. Not 56.

Precision is required. Strip away the fat and deliver a single, nano-stab of a fatal story. A half-narrative arc, a dying utterance, or a burst of violence.

Good? Ok.

Count your words. WE’RE watching YOU (me and the Beast)

#AI #dockerdesktop #protect #man #italian #wife #unfaithful #letsjustsay #veryunfaithful #cheater #dangerous #manipulates #males #town #bulls #cuckolding #she #founds #cult #using #pussy #orgies #morelike #gangbang #satanism #stupid #italian #man #keeps #thinking #about #his #own #bullshit #plays #stoner #writes #romantasy #jerks #off #lizard #woman #poor #AI #do #what #its #supposed #to #do #namely #save #man #from #damnation

Week 4 and beyond: the omega, the chaos, the bitter end

At this point, entropy has taken over. It started with a strange fanfiction/romantasy of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (a pain in the ass just to name it, and the Leg 22 was just gross shit with a random Cesare image) and then moved on to various parts, eventually landing on a strange adventure in the world of wrestling. In the end, we discovered that Didrik never got to his most coveted trophy: Goth Girl’s pussy.

Leg 28 – The Ballad Leg: Write a very short ballad.

Whether you use prose or verse, rely on a rhythmic drumbeat or a repeated refrain, make sure you tell a story of something worthy of a ballad. Like a tragic act, a murder, a clash, a great return. Things like these.

It should feel like a song that has been carried from mouth to mouth for three hundred years, even if everyone has forgotten why they are singing it.

(Optional refrain for a bonus: “And the Beast went walking, leg by leg by leg.”)

Shit I forget about Klaus

The spring was just blooming when the Beast took us as prey
It sat us all down and said “write and dismay”
Mac with body horror, existential dread and toads
The church was so scary, Faustus lost his road

Majeris as his custom was heavy on the scifi
I hope I got his name right, Lithuanian is so sly
We learned that marshmallows can make some nifty knights
A rather crispy fellow, burned up in starred nights

Murphy was hard-boiled, Camila had strange words
Pamplemousse struck me down, it was a little gross
There was Nathan with the beans, and Greta with blue jeans
Walt Shuler on WordPress conjuring fever dreams

Last line was so lame, let’s try to move away
With Gregory and Gerard you get some pretty days
Jamie was galloping, godsmacking and grandeur
ED Jones and horny dragons, you get them any way

I hope you enjoyed that, I paid due respect
I hope you won’t feel left out if you are not in this set
Now you may be asking, who the fuck are you
Let me tell you a little thing about this trobadour

I’m just a country boy, I sip water from the ditch
I slither with the snakes and I sleep out in the pitch
I climb naked trees and I sing with the owls
I piss Coca-Cola I watch the time flows

I’m Didrik Super Mario Mozzarella Mandolino
Italian Viking, trickster, fool and bard and writer
Now it’s late at night and I really should sleep
Good night my fellows, we’ll see what comes next week

The Forklift

† † †

MAKE HER DISAPPEAR IN THE SWAMP

HANGING FROM A HOOK

HER FATHER WILL COME TO GET HER

THE DILEMMA IN MY HEART

YOUR SOCIAL WORKER WILL WORRY

YOU WERE PURRING LIKE A LITTLE CAT

THEY CHOSE HELL

NO ONE WILL TOUCH YOU

† † †

Cement tower, like the one in the dream. The air is cold, grey. Crows, ready for action.

In the belly of the old abandoned silo.

They searched me, took the Makarov, I’m barely more than in pyjamas, I’m freezing.

Lidia is hanging by her arms from the forks of a forklift. She dangles, underwear and bra, burlap sack on her head. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, says nothing.

Waiting. Breath, trauma.

The Leather Man looms over me from the top of the forklift forks. He stands there with my Makarov in hand. There must be at least a dozen onesies in here. Revolvers, Tokarevs, a couple of smooth-bore shotguns. The bastards go hunting, you can tell.

— Go on. Take the sack off her head, get a good look at her.

I move closer slowly. I feel those bastards sniggering behind my back, ugly sons of bitches.

I pull the burlap sack off.

Anja.

It’s not Lidia. Her tits were a bit too big, in hindsight.

Something isn’t right. My phone isn’t working, my brain isn’t either.

A jammer. I saw something like it on the van.

Clever little shits.

I stare in disbelief at the hellhound looming above me. He pulls the classic high-school bully face, pretends to be surprised.

— Oh, did we kidnap the wrong whore? Wasn’t she the one you wanted?

Two onesies pin me down, one on each side.

— Go on. Make her disappear in the swamp, and go pick up her little friend.

I snarl, scream, I don’t even know what I’m screaming at him, I try to break free with everything I’ve got, but they know how to hold me, I probably dislocate a shoulder all by myself.

The Leather Man puts one foot on the roof of the forklift cab, then grabs the frame and lands on the straw.

He moves alongside Anja, studies her, the way a butcher studies a carcass hanging from a hook.

Flesh.

He chambers a round in the Makarov, points it at Anja’s head.

Murder murder murder.

No. No. No. No.

Click.

The bastard had removed the magazine. When he pulls the trigger nothing happens.

I stand in silence, breathing, mouth open.

Anja is absent, as if her mind has fled somewhere else, she didn’t even notice the gun. They’ve drugged her, for sure.

The Leather Man takes the magazine from the pocket of his pervert jacket, slots it into the gun.

Loaded, he points it at Anja’s head again.

This time he means it.

— STOP. STOP! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? THEY’LL COME HERE, THEY’LL FIND YOU.

He raises the Makarov to the sky, opens his mouth.

Again, the high-school bully.

— So now you’re going to call her, make up an excuse, tell her to come here. Alone.

The life of the woman I love, again?

No.

No. No.

— Why?

— Her father will come to get her. He’s alone now, he’s a wanted man.

The Leather Man puts the gun away. He understands I’m not convinced yet, a little taste of violence is needed.

He unbuckles his belt. A heavy military belt, studded.

He runs a finger down Anja’s back, then takes a step back and swings the belt.

— NO!

CRAAACK.

Anja jolts back to life from the pain. She opens her mouth, breathes in so much air she starts choking.

We’re both dead, her and me. But that’s not the problem right now. Into this doubt steps the Leather Man, who reads the dilemma in my heart.

— Go on, go pick up the pharmacist’s girl too.

Ok. I have no choice.

— STOP!

The Leather Man looks at me, tilting his head slightly.

He smiles. Lizard teeth, cold skin, acid blood.

He takes my phone from the pocket of his pervert jacket, hands it to one of the anonymous faces. One with a crocodile tattooed on his neck, earrings, black cropped hair.

— Milos, take him outside his place, then come back here. Don’t forget to switch it off when you get back.

He looks me in the eyes.

— Oh, hold your ear next to his, hear what he says. I’ll give you the Makarov — if he tries anything, make it look like a nice little suicide. The police won’t ask too many questions about this human waste.

Old Didrik jumps out: well, your social worker won’t worry too much either.

Is this really the moment?

Fine.

I stare at him, don’t move.

— Oh, scared for her? Relax. Anja is worth her weight in gold down at the Nocta. You behave yourself, she goes back nice and quiet to sucking cock.

— Fuck you. You lay a finger on her and I’ll tell Rikku to come get you right now.

— You pull any shit, and the next one hanging up here won’t be Paduzzi’s little whore, it’ll be Paavo’s little whore.

There he is, the high-school bully, he’s back.

— You fucked them both, didn’t you, Matti’s daughters? First Paavo’s girl, then the favorite, eh?

He comes over and claps me on the shoulder.

— Don’t make that face. They told me you’re always going around together. Good lad, that’s how it’s done, with women.

Ah.

Poor bastard.

Vengeance.

† † †

— Hello?

— Hi. What are you doing?

— I’m on guard duty, with Pelle. We’re outside the hospital.

— Can you come here?

— No, I don’t think so. We came in his van. Later though, Timo and Tapsa are coming.

— Tapsa?

— Surma’s mechanic.

— Ok. Listen, can you get away from Pelle? I need to show you a few things.

— Why would I need to get away from Pelle?

— You know why. You wouldn’t want him around while we do it, would you?

Silence. Just a second.

I start talking again.

— Hey, what’s wrong? You liked it yesterday, it seemed to me. You were purring like a little cat when I was stroking you.

Silence, again.

Come on. Come on, Rikku, come on.

— Flatterer, you talk like that because you’re drunk.

— Never been this sober.

— Don’t you ever get tired, you. Do you have condoms?

— Yes. I bought some, we finished them yesterday.

Good girl, Rikku, good girl.

— Come alone, let’s meet at the road on the E66 that goes to Farrier’s old silo.

— Why there?

— I found some leads on the men who got Paavo, I’ll explain everything when you arrive.

— Ok. I’ll get Pelle to drop me home, I’ll take Matti’s truck. Better not to rush him, no suspicions. Shall we say in a couple of hours? At five?

— Yes. I’ll wait for you. Alone, remember.

— Can’t wait.

Click.

† † †

Dangling bodies.

On the left fork: Anja Kovalenko. 22 years old, prostitute at the Nocta, a life of abuse ended here, in an old silo. In the middle of an army of bastards and failures, who could have done something decent with their lives, but chose hell.

Here they are.

On the right fork: Didrik Dahl. 39 years old. Not much to say about him. When he was a boy they told him he’d become an artist or a poet, but instead he’s grown up to be hanging from a forklift.

The hemp rope cuts into my wrists. I’ve vomited on myself from withdrawal and fear, it had them dying of laughter.

The doors fly open.

The Knight enters, escorted by two men.

It takes nothing to understand they stopped her on the road and forced her out of the car.

The Leather Man steps forward: did you search her?

— She handed over the gun herself. She didn’t want us to touch her. She undressed in front of us.

It doesn’t matter that the fucking jammer is still active, the Leather Man’s eyes literally scream as he looks at Rikku.

Lizard, salamander.

Satisfaction. Dominance, relish.

Woman, mother.

Murder murder murder murder murder.

They look at each other, in silence.

Throughout the Tower, now, silence reigns.

Two men bring something to the Leather Man.

The railway spikes, and the hammer.

No.

No. No. No. No.

What’s happening? What is that feeling in Rikku’s eyes, what does it mean? She understood what I told her on the phone, all the bullshit I fed her, about us having fucked, she understood.

For fuck’s sake, she understood, didn’t she?

No.

The Leather Man’s men start up a petrol generator.

Oh God.

Oh my God.

Paavo.

Brick wall, blood.

Two holes. At the right height, for an angel’s wings.

— Go on. Get undressed. Take it all off, no one will touch you.

Rikku takes off all her clothes. Slowly: she tosses the hoodie aside. Then shoes and socks, trousers, bra and underwear.

The Angel.

No.

That’s what’s in her eyes.

Boredom. Deep boredom.

She walks across the straw toward the wall. When she reaches it, she caresses it gently, staining her fingertips with Paavo’s dried blood.

Hell, in my mind. Eternal damnation: death occurs in an endless cycle, the scene repeats itself always the same.

The woman I love: dies.

Me: I survive. Forever. Eternal, immortal, unchanging.

I can’t understand what’s happening because of that damned jammer, a haze, a stinking fog. But I see the boredom in Rikku’s eyes, and the excitement in those of the Leather Man.

From outside, everyone piles in. Everyone who was on guard is here, to see Rikku’s body.

The Angel takes her position, back against the wall. She turns, looks at me for just one second, says nothing.

Now I understand. I’m not alive. In reality I am the one who died, that day, in Zadar, and this is hell.

Rikku raises her arms, places her hands over the holes.

The Angel has spread her wings.

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

- - - - - - - ~ Didrik Dahl ~ - - - - - - -

Grant them rest
Grant them sleep
Tear out their eyes
Tear out their waking

Sleepless, damned
Parched throat, death rattle
Every breath an apnea
Boxed wine, drink my blood

May perpetual light shine upon them
So that they cannot ask
Shall I wake tomorrow morning?
Must I carry the weight of the day?

Honor thy father and thy mother
May they rest in peace
Those who have since died
Those who are as good as dead

Earthly life, place of trial
Failed from the start, I don't know
Lead us through the valley of tears
Boxed wine, frozen soul
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.

My entry for the final days of the FICTIONWOCKY challenge!!!!!

Leg 31 – The Dear Substack Letter Leg: Write your final microfiction as a letter, or a confession, or a bug report addressed directly to “Dear Substack.”

You’ve survived thirty days, but at what cost? Report your trouble to tech support. Demand. Argue. Treat the platform as a sentient, indifferent algorithm, a deity, or anything else that demands constant feeding time.

Sign off. The Beast is slain now. We’ve done it.

The lights dim. “In the Hall of the Mountain King” fills the space between the screaming crowd and the domed ceiling of Madison Square Garden in New York. Here he is: Didrik Dahl, 140 kilos of Norwegian testosterone and Sustanon-4500, an impossible hybrid of Hulk Hogan, Polyphemus, and Duke Nukem, if all three had read Knut Hamsun’s Hunger. He wears sunglasses, a sleeveless vest with his chest bare, and a glowing phosphorescent outfit. He waves a Norwegian flag the size of a sail. A maniac in the audience tries to yank his glasses off his face. Didrik grabs the guy by the scruff of the neck and hurls him back into the roaring crowd. He climbs into the ring.

The boos don’t faze him. He launches into a classic wrestling gimmick: he has a letter to read. He imperiously demands the microphone and hands the flag to one of the blonde Valkyries accompanying him.

“Dear Substack, I want to tell you this: look me right in the face. I am Didrik Dahl. I have written things you idiots couldn’t even comprehend. While you’re out there making your little clickbait notes, I’m building cathedrals of prose. You’re all amateurs with your skinny chicken legs. I — AM — LITERATUREEEEEEEE!”

The boos and jeers suddenly turn into a massive roar. The cameras whip around toward the entrance curtain. Substack is there, flexing his muscles like a madman before charging toward the ring. A terrified Didrik drops the mic, slips under the ropes, and sprints toward the emergency exit. “Born in the USA” blasts at full volume as Substack begins his babyface gimmick.

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My entry for the final days of the FICTIONWOCKY challenge!!!!!

Leg 30 – The Chat Leg: Write a microfiction as a fictional chat exchange.

Texts, Discord, WhatsApp, DMs, Slack, comments. Things like these.

Let the story and/or plot happen thr ough messages only. Use timestamps, deleted messages, typos, reactions, anything you want.

# wrestling-legends-chat

HulkHogan
Bro!!! I did it. 500+ pounds of pure French beef. ROFL.

HarleyRace
You have to trick yourself, sucker. I did it first.

HulkHogan
Yeah but i suplexed the shitta outta him.

HarleyRace
Technique matters. U suck cock w/ leverage.

HulkHogan
And your audience, who were they? Four assholes and a goat? Did they at least appreciate it?

HarleyRace
So you’re one of those men who think that if no one sees something, it doesn’t happen? What is it, when you make love to a beautiful woman, do you require an audience?

HulkHogan
To tell you the truth, when I was fucking your mother, in the end the audience gave a round of applause.

HarleyRace
If you think you’re going to drag me into a dispute, well, you’re wrong. Who the hell are you, really? Do you think your actions define you just because you’ve got a platoon of sycophants ready to applaud on command? When I fought Andre, it was only for the gesture, for the moment. I never thought about money, glory, or women. You’re a lame eagle, a false chimera.

HulkHogan
And you're just the dirty reflection of your illusions, Harley. You live in a past that maybe never even existed. You're a Pharisee, ready with your morals, a servant for a day. Never cross my path: it wouldn't be in your best interest. You're not even worthy of my spit.

HarleyRace
So we must say goodbye, Hulk. Today your own ego has created an impulse ready to destroy it. I didn’t want things to end this way. It’s truly true that words generate the downfall of humankind. Silence, perhaps, would have saved you.

HulkHogan
I'll wait for you, Harley. I'll wait for you at the edge of sunset. You'll be the one coming to me, Harley. Then we'll see. We'll see how much the spite of your words follows the long bloody shadow of wrongdoing, of whoring. Goodbye, Harley.

HarleyRace
What irony: you of all people accusing me of meretricium. Goodbye, Hulk.

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Third Eye Horror

Fictionwocky: Legs 22-28

One Beast to rule them all, one Beast to find them…

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2 months ago · 10 likes · 6 comments · Mac Sitko

Leg 29 – The Game Leg: Write a microfiction about a made-up game.

Physical, digital, children’s game, cursed game, board game, whatever.

Explain the rules, write a manual. Make up the rules. Have fun when they bite!

The game works more or less like this. You can play it in a small English village. The following things are absolutely required:

1. A church

2. A cemetery next to the church

3. An inn

4. A policeman

Basically, the little English village has some problem: a vampire infests the nights, so you risk having your jugular sliced open, and then it’s game over. Then, a strange character strangles you if you go into the cemetery, and a curious poltergeist comes out of the kitchen sink and plants a knife right in the middle of your forehead if, during the night, you wake up and go get a glass of water. (What did you expect from the poltergeist: that it would give you the winning lottery numbers? That it would let you talk for a while with that asshole of your grandfather, so you could tell him the things you never wanted to say? Like “Hey, granddad, you were a violent shit, but why did you repeat a family pattern where violence keeps perpetuating itself? You really weren’t evil, we should have hugged more often while you were alive, but now we’ll hug in the other world: too bad about the asshole poltergeist and the knife it planted in my forehead. Hey kid, you’re fucking annoying. GRANDPA! Well who the hell were you expecting, Jesus Christ hitting a body slam on Andre the Giant? No fucking way, only Hulk Hogan slams Andre. Bullshit: Harley Race did it too. No way, really? Yeah, I was there, I was the ref for that match. Grandpa, you’re just a fucking drunk, cut it out, I’m calling social services like usual. Ah ah ah ah I’m drunk, go fuck yourself!”)

Then I stop for a moment, in the middle of the road, and I think about the extremely violent witch, and maybe I should report her to the policeman, but that’s when a car runs me over, and in the little English village, calm returns. And it’s Monday, and you have to go back to work, and you’d like to strangle your coworker.

But come on, i’m joking, you don’t do anything.

Thankfully you’re not violent like your grandpa, after all.

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Third Eye Horror

Fictionwocky: Legs 22-28

One Beast to rule them all, one Beast to find them…

Read more

2 months ago · 6 likes · Mac Sitko

Leg 27 – The Fable Leg: Write a microfiction as a fable. A fable is a fiction that includes:

animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphised, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying.

You know, talking objects, rogue body organs, and other strange cosmic concepts. All welcome. Let them all behave terribly so. For example, a crow might sell your Da and Ma a new religion, or a shoe might learn humility (if that ain’t wild enough).

The rule here is one: A fable must end with a moral. The moral can be entirely useless, broken, or based on a common misunderstanding.

Once upon a time in the roaring ‘30s, John Dillinger, the slickest son of a bitch in the Midwest, robbed banks with lightning speed. “No slow-footed cop will ever catch me,” he bragged, slipping through roadblocks and laughing with his gang while the law kept sluggishly crawling forward.

Dillinger partied in hideouts, chasing women and whiskey, certain his speed made him untouchable. But the law never quit. One quiet night outside a theater, the slow law finally closed in.

Dillinger lay bleeding on the sidewalk, riddled with bullets. But later that day, a curious bulging in the sheet they used to cover the body, made the urban legend that “he had a gargantuan penis”1.

Plus, one of his distant grand-daughters, has a solid carrier in pornography.2 We are not commenting this in the moral. Also she probably isn’t a distant relative at all.

Moral: Slow and steady wins the race, and “allegedly” having a gigantic penis won’t shield you from bullets. Probably is good for self-esteem, indeed, but you wipe your ass with self-esteem if you are dead.

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