all trees are grey in the dark
but cats? they are different!
their eyes glow in any grove
their ears flick to disquiet
their tails can tell you a story
of a recipe of cheshire pudding
which of course you’ll have to make
and offer humbly up to them
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021
Any time I want to cry, I go to the kitchen and start cutting onions. Is it cowardly? Yes, maybe, but I cannot afford to let my guard down. The bearded dragons will take advantage of me if I do!
They’re tough little buggers. They cry only when they need to clean their eyes. So practical! Am I practical? Hell, no. I eat their dust in that department!
If I do cry in front of them, they glom on with their tiny straws and start sucking me dry from my tear ducts. I nearly died the last time that happened!
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021
TONY: So, we’re gonna talk about art again. Would you like to pick the piece this time?
TATI: Again? Why don’t we talk about cryptocurrency mining for once?
TONY: Crypto—what?!
TATI: Oh, dear me… Tony, it’s 2021 outside! The sixties are long gone. Wake up!
TONY: Already?! Damn. Time sure flies when you’re an anachronism.
TATI: Yes, your shoes and hairstyle are proof of this.
TONY: Ahem… ANYWAY! What are you going to choose?
TATI: Okey-dokey, but you should brew me some coffee if you don’t want me to fall asleep during our discussion. And where should I look? In your Instagram?
TONY: Sure! Why the hell not?
TATI: Hmmm. There are pictures here that I like, and there are others that I don’t. But I can’t question they’re art because you’ve clearly put time and effort into them. Your creativity is quite evident.
TONY: Aw, shucks!
TATI: In short, there are no bananas taped to walls.
TONY: Well, I’m not much of a fan of bananas taped to walls anyway. Actually, I’m curious as to which of my drawings you don’t like. Care to enlighten me?
TATI: Are you sure? Promise not to cry like last time?
TONY: Hey, it’s not my problem if a man expressing his emotions makes you uncomfortable.
TATI: Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Well… I think this is one I like the least out of everything you’ve posted.
TONY: Interesting! Truthfully, it isn’t one of my favourites either. May I ask why this is so for you?
TATI: Maybe because I can’t see the ‘story’ behind her. She looks dull. I don’t know who she is but nor do I care. She doesn’t make me curious to learn more about her.
TONY: So, you like drawings that give you the feeling of an underlying narrative?
TATI: It’s great but not necessary. I am also fine with simple, cute things. Even if they don’t tell a story. Even if they don’t arouse your imagination. It can still be pleasant to view them.
TONY: So… this drawing doesn’t do even that for you. Is that what you’re saying?
TATI: Yep.
TONY: Erm… okay.
TATI: Tell me her story, Tony. Make me love her.
TONY: I don’t know… Hmmm… She got her face stuck in a dot matrix printer and so that’s why she looks like this? It’s quite a tragic to-do.
TATI: Hee hee hee! Why has she done this?
TONY: Well, she didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident. Perhaps she was trying to fix it instead of asking her butch lesbian lover to do it.
TATI: Why are they using a dot matrix printer in the twenty-first century anyway? Are they printing invitations for a sixties style LGBT party? Pray, do continue!
TONY: Why not? Even chic gals and their butch lesbian partners deserve to get down and boogie once in a while.
TATI: Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you were so smart that you knew dot matrix printers were invented in the sixties, and therefore you made that connection! I bet you just found a fancy filter in Photoshop and decided to use it!
TONY: Of course I didn’t make the connection! And of course it was just a filter I used! And anyway, I thought we were both doing some sneaky ‘backwards engineering’ here!
TATI: You old pervert! Don’t you ever dream about ‘backwards engineering’ with me!
TONY: Hey, your mind went there. Not mine!
TATI: About engineering… What if she was standing near a hydraulic press right after she smashed her husband’s head in?
TONY: What the fuck?! How does this even suggest that horrific scenario to you?!
TATI: Don’t you like the scenario?
TONY: It’s just that… well… I just hadn’t realised you were so bloodthirsty!
TATI: Oh, come on! Don’t be such a boob, Tony! Stephen King, by the way, included this film in his list of most notable horror movies from 1950 to 1980!
TONY: Smashed in heads. Boobs. Horror movies. What kind of conversation have I walked into here?
TATI: You started it all!
TONY: Oh, that’s just rich! Fine. I’ll never draw again.
TATI: But you know what, Tony? Funnily enough, you have finally done it!
TONY: What do you mean by ‘you have finally done it’?
TATI: You have made me love her! I like this drawing now! Oh, what if we have a sixties style evening? Some good old horror classics and piles of popcorn all around? Your shoes would be welcome!
(Tati rushes out of the room to make preparations.)
TONY: Cryptocurrency mining with the current price of electricity… are you kidding, Tati? To make such an evening profitable you would have needed to have it back in the sixties! But crypto art? Now that is quite a different story…
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021
the oncologist called
said the tumour was benign
i returned to my laptop
an open tab beckoned me to proceed
looks like i’ll be transitioning
from mortal fear back to dull career then
but, damn, even if the tumour’s benign
why should i continue this drawn out
malignant metastasizing existence?
so i click ‘yes’ and proceed
to my merciful mail order death
by stoning and virus coroning
they ask for the expiry date and cvv
i type six six six and laugh
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021
Dear Diary,
I will not thank God for CCTV. CCTV is the Devil’s work. Or God’s work. Perhaps they’ve collaborated on my humiliation.
Every day I enter the shit hole that is my work space and plop my bottom into a saggy arsed chair before a bank of dull, flyspecked screens. Maybe some people feel like God (or the Devil?) when they’re spying on and controlling human beings from such a vantage point, but I sincerely and wholeheartedly hate this. I would not be here during a pandemic if my job hadn’t been deemed an ‘essential service’.
Honestly, why do people scratch their genitals when they’re the only ones in the lift? Why do they check for nostril hairs in the mirror? Why do they do this whenever they damn well feel like it? And do they think if they spoil the air that their mask will make them invisible to whomever enters the lift next? I don’t know what they’re eating but it smells worse than my own ungodly clam after a session on the exercise bike. I just don’t need this shit.
It’s clear that they’re not computer scientists, aeronautics engineers or high powered executives. They’re human-sized babies. Frankly, they can’t even open a packet of potato crisps without committee approval. And the aforementioned masks? Don’t get me started on the frigging masks! Those thin strips of fabric deprive their tiny brains of oxygen and common sense. They end up with nothing in their heads but a basket of fucks not given. What other explanation could there be for their flagrant disregard for my territory?
Anyway, it may be a minor point to them but not to me. They’re always mucking shit up and I’m forever doomed to supervise it. The best place for my shapeshifting is in the lift, so how am I supposed to bear this ignominy? It’s enough to make you howl in despair…
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021
unbolt me 