Before I get into today’s post, let me just say, blogging saved my life tonight. I’d just finished eating a very foul tasting burger courtesy of the Urban Grill in the Madrid airport. I had time to kill so I figured I’d knock out day 4 of #BlogPals19. I unzipped my backpack and reached for my iPad and it was there. Mild panic. I checked the other pockets. Nothing. I thought, maybe I’m just tired after 3 days of full on training delivery. I checked again. Nothing. I emptied my bag. Nothing.

Now full on panic set in.

Let me back up. About 30 minutes prior to this scene unraveling before me, I’d gone through security. They made me put my iPad and MacBook in separate trays. And then they made me go back through scanners because the lady didn’t like the contents of my bag. I had to empty the whole bag. I carry a lot of tech with me. I mean a lot. I filled 3 trays in addition to the 2 my iPad and MacBook were in.

I get through security and repack my bag.

My panic gives way to despair as I resign myself to the fact that there’s no way my iPad is still at security.

My thoughts turn black. Did they set me up at security? Deliberately separating me from my gear so they can nick my iPad?

The story ends well though. The security supervisor had my iPad safy stored waiting for the idiot who left his iPad to return.

I have only moments before I board my flight to Zurich. So here’s what I really wanted to post today – a flash fiction story.

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They tell me pain can be interesting. But it has never been to my liking. She had a habit of shooting up with razor blades, said she liked the strange rush of fear how it melted the pain into a dirty kind of pleasure. I can’t tell if she is addicted to pain or simplly just a weirdo. For some reason she was popular with the younger girls in the office, probably because of her exotic choice of hair colour.

Even now I can feel her drawing power from me. Pay no attention to me, I tend to whine at the slightest discomfort following my primitive impulses. I’ve got to take the power back. Rage Against the Machine told me that. She’s fondling her breasts now.

Listen to me talk to the world. I want you to think I’m oppressed. Can you follow what I mean? She wants pain. I want pleasure. There’s a discrepancy in the power dynamics of this relationship. Control. Loss of control. Control. Loss of control. Lose control. Never had control. No control. Accept my grief.

Are you crying for your mama? I can console you! Come, little darling, come to your good mama. I’ll sing you a lullaby. Everybody knows romantic love doesn’t concern love at all.

Large dark shapes move in and out of the corner of my eyes. They’ve been exposed to the outside world, had fear planted in them. I want to say that I’m scared, but there’s no time for that. I have to perform without bloodshed.

I’d sleep with you any day.

I’m too nervous to respond. I’ve lost her. I don’t stop, but move more slowly. now i’m unconscious, a machine, resting against her shoulder.

She leaves me there etherised upon the mattress.