Fiction or non?

or “Be careful what you wish for”

Father and Daughter sip Scotch on a hillside terrace and talk of many things.

“I grow tired of the supremacy of fiction over nonfiction, Father,” says Daughter.

“Whatever do you mean, Daughter?” replies Father, languidly scratching his scrotum with an elongated pinky fingernail. “Nonfiction represents by far the bulk of the book publishing industry.”

“I speak of linguistic supremacy, Father. The word ‘nonfiction’ is defined entirely in relation to ‘fiction’—this form implies that fiction is the norm and nonfiction is merely its negation. But isn’t it absurd to define reality as not-imaginary?”

For a moment Father silently stares into the distance, where herds of pink and blue unicorns stampede past groves of twinkling lollypop trees as silhouettes of laughing children on magic carpets bob and weave in a deep purple sunset.

“Are you so sure, Daughter?” he asks slyly. “After all, can not fiction and nonfiction be indistinguishable, if the setting and action are sufficiently plausible?”

“Certainly,” said Daughter, leaning forward slightly to reduce the chafing of her blouse on a slightly chapped nipple. “The realistic portrayal of such things as fairies, phoenixes and abominable snowmen can give a fiction story the appearance of nonfiction. Excuse me, Father, there’s a vampire biting your neck.”

“Where?” Father enquires, slapping his neck randomly.

“On the left side. No, a bit higher. Uh, now lower. Lower. There, you got him.”

“Thank you,” Father says, frowning analytically at the bloody pulp of crushed vampire organs on his palm. He dulls the pain of the bite with a pinch of synthetic elf extract before continuing.

“Daughter, I must caution you against your assumption that ‘nonfiction’ in any way corresponds to what you so fancifully call ‘reality’. You are aware that all writing must be considered fiction unless proven to be nonfiction, yes?”

“Of course.”

“But surely, Daughter, you can see that it is impossible to prove that something is nonfiction, because you can’t prove a negative.”

“You mean, just like it’s impossible to prove the nonexistence of the Tooth Fairy?”

“Exactly,” Father replies, adroitly digging a booger out of his nostril and flicking it into a passing wormhole. “And thank heavens for that, because without that tooth fairy money we never could have paid for your braces.”

“But Father, if it’s impossible to prove that anything is nonfiction, then everything must therefore be fiction.”

“Precisely.”

Daughter giggles. “But that’s preposterous, Father.”

Father regards Daughter with a look of frightful solemnity, his face momentarily darkened by the shadow of a passing pterodactyl.

“Daughter, in my work for the United Nations I am privy to certain information that is not disclosed to the general public. I think it is time you knew the truth, if you are ready to hear it.”

Daughter shifts uncomfortably, her flabulent buttocks blupping gracelessly on the smooth seat of her molded plastic toadstool hoverchair.

“I—I’m ready, Father.”

“It’s like this, Daughter. When I say that everything is fiction, I don’t just refer to written matter—because that’s immaterial. The simple fact of the matter is that everything is fiction. Including you and me.”

“Father, you’re imagining things,” retorts Daughter in disbelief.

“You couldn’t be more correct, my dear. We’re all imagining things. Imagining, imaginary things. It’s not something our scientists and politicians are willing to admit openly—we don’t want to incite a panic, after all—but the truth is that sufficiently enlightened people have known for centuries that we are, both factually and fictionally, fictional people living in a fictional universe. So the epistemological divide that so troubles you is not that of fiction and nonfiction, but fiction and metafiction.”

“Metafiction? Fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction?”

“No, that’s the bullshit definition,” Father replies. He pauses to emit a long, low burp that, at its climax, frightens a nearby squirrel. “Metafiction is, in fact, fiction which, to our fictional faculties, merely appears to be imaginary.”

“But that doesn’t make sense, Father.”

“Only if you assume that reality is real, Daughter. But it is unreality that is real. As real as real ever gets, anyway.”

Daughter stares, dumbfounded.

“I know it’s difficult for you to believe, Daughter, but it’s true, and it’s the basis of centuries of human advancement. Indeed, it was the advent of the fiction sciences—or science fiction, if you will—that opened the flood gates of possibility and allowed our scientists to rediscover humanity’s lost mythomagical knowledge, fictionalize it, and integrate it with science to form a viable science fiction construct. And it is by utilizing the best of both the fictional and metafictional worlds that contemporary life has been made possible.”

“How so?” Daughter queries, for the moment ignoring a small but persistent itch in her sinuses.

“Well, Daughter, look at the amazing work the mermen have done cleaning up our polluted oceans. Or our success at rehabilitating problem dragons by giving them honest work in foundries and kilns. Or the giant fusion reactors that combine black and white magic to power the world, requiring us only to dispose of a tiny amount of toxic grey matter. These challenges were met not by fleeing into a childish fantasy world of lightsabers and the fucking Force, but by scientifically addressing the subjobjective reality of metafictions such as mythical beasts and sorcery.”

The conversation pauses as Father and Daughter enjoy the familiar spectacle of Space Station Atlantis gliding across the twilit sky. The gigantic swarm of genetically-modified space leprechauns that protects the Earth from meteors is changing shift, one stream flooding into the station’s zero-G rainbowdromes while another exits.

“Daughter, I know this might be hard for you to believe, but there was a time when the average genetically-modified space leprechaun would have scoffed at the idea of orbiting space stations, calling them figments of a primitive and superstitious imagination. And now they not only live in orbiting space stations, they would consider it absurd to live anywhere else. This is the unreality of modern life. What was once supernatural is now natural; the miraculous merely aculous.”

“Wow, Father,” Daughter says, “I never thought of it like that before.”

“I know, because your generation takes it all for granted, don’t you? Tell me, Daughter, have you ever been sick?”

“Of course not, Father, not really. As soon as I get a sniffle or lose a night of sleep, I go straight to an allohomeopathic witch-scientist. These days they have a spell for every ill.”

“Yes, I’m afraid they do,” Father sighs. He coughs up a small bubble of phlegm, and then, after a moment’s reflection, swallows it.

“But I think I know what you’re getting at,” Daughter continues. “I’ve heard rumours that the over-use of magicine is actually hurting public health.”

“It is, Daughter, because it encourages the evolution of ever-stronger curses and hexes. But people don’t want a moment of hassle or discomfort any more, do they? No, everyone’s accustomed to easy living in a world where we have genies to do our cleaning and fairies to suck our cocks. People think that every little inconvenience in their lives can simply be wished away.”

“Well, that’s not quite true, Father,” Daughter asserts. She repositions her foot, and yelps as the cold, slimy entrails of an inadvertently crushed slug squish up between her toes. “Everyone knows that you can’t just wish away your problems—controlled studies have shown that one must wish upon a star to get the desired effect.”

“Exactly, Daughter. And we’ve grown too goddamned dependent on the stars, haven’t we? That’s why our current unreality is unsustainable. The United Federation of Astronomers and Astrologers has been warning us for decades that we’re running out of stars to wish upon—the stars’ birth rate would need to be literally trillions of times faster to keep up with current demand. But no one wants to admit that our skies are vastly over-wished.”

“But why should the stars ever run out, Father? Can’t we simply wish for a billion more stars to wish upon?”

“That’s what everyone wants to believe, Daughter, but the truth is, that wish has never worked. And we’ve wasted literally millions of stars trying.”

Father pauses. He covertly shifts his penis from one side to the other, and then, immediately dissatisfied with its new position, shifts it back. He continues:

“Soon, Daughter, the world’s superpowers will go to war over the handful of remaining wishing stars. And life as we know it will change forever.”

“I—I had no idea things were that bad, Father,” said Daughter, almost unconsciously raising her arms to ventilate her uncomfortably moist armpits. “It’s a sobering thought.”

“Then you’d better have another drink.” Father says, pouring a fresh round of Scotch.

Daughter laughs. “Oh, Father,” she chides.

And so, Father and Daughter toast and move on to happier subjects, the many threads of their spirited conversation catching the breeze and taking flight like the frolicking pixies in the iridescent sky above, bobbing and weaving and leaving glowing trails of fairy excrement in their wake.

Come and gone

Alas, cum-fu master David Carradine gave himself the ol’ five-finger death squeeze last week. But we can take solace in the fact that this Hollywood icon died doing something he loved: masturbating with a noose around his neck.

Autoerotic asphyxiation. It sounds like humping the tailpipe of a Ford Probe in an unventilated garage—and it can be this if you want it to be—but this term actually refers to any solo sex act that involves reducing the supply of oxygen to the brain. And it must be said that it’s a fine way to kill some time—not to mention Bill.

I speak from experience, as I am well-acquainted with the heady euphoria that results from partial suffocation in the boudoir. In fact, I believe that no enlightened sex life should be without some occasional interpersonal choking. But when I’m alone I employ strictly safe methods, such as inhaling nitrites or squeezing my throat with my hand.

The hanging method, on the other hand, is extremely risky because if you accidentally pass out you’ll probably die. And there have been some high-profile casualties, including rock star Michael Hutchence, British MP Stephen Milligan, and now Mr. Carradine.

Didn’t Carradine know there are safer ways to achieve the euphoria he was looking for? Had Grasshopper grass ‘n’ poppers, he might still be with us today.

Then again, perhaps the danger was an essential part of the thrill. Perhaps he wanted to experience the divine eruption of orgasm at the very edge of oblivion, to die la petite mort in the heavy shadow of mort itself, to cock the line between coming and being overcome. We’ll probably never know.

But what I do know is the moment the kinky masturbation angle hit the headlines, there was an immediate backlash from The Prudes. The narrative became cluttered with calls to stop publicizing the lurid details of the death, citing “respect” for Carradine and his family.

Yes, it was just fine to speculate and sensationalize when it was assumed that Carradine died miserable and suicidal, but now that we know he died happy, doing something fun that just happened to be an elaborate masturbation act gone awry—oh dear, please don’t disclose any more details about his blissful final moments on this planet!

Clearly, masturbation still carries a huge stigma in mainstream culture if suicide gets a higher approval rating.

Here’s a strange fact I learned in my days as an abnormal psychology student. When someone commits suicide, family members often alter the scene of the death to make it look like an accident—but when someone accidentally dies while masturbating, the family often alters the scene to make it look like a suicide. (Which is to say, wipe up the semen, pull up his pants and tell the cops “yes, that’s exactly how we found him.” Thanks, Mom!)

That’s right, the shame of acknowledging that a family member was a kinky masturbator is so strong, many families prefer to tell outsiders a despicable lie—that their loved one was secretly very unhappy, and committed suicide without warning—rather than admit the truth.

Well, I’ve had enough of this sex-negative silliness. Masturbators of the world, it’s time to lube up, stand firm and tell this stuck-up world that masturbation—even kinky, dangerous masturbation—is infinitely preferable to suicide. And that autoerotic asphyxiation is actually a pretty pleasant way to die, as accidental deaths go—from what I’m told, the only thing that beats it (so to speak) is an accidental heroin overdose.

We also need to correct the record regarding the much-maligned autoerotic asphyxiators among us. They are the supersonic test pilots of the masturbation world, right out there on the edge, pushing themselves to the limit and beyond, always searching for the greatest, most intense pleasure that the human body can give itself. And they achieve heights of mind-blowing self-gratification that most of us can’t begin to imagine. They are angels wanking among us, too good for this Earth.

So let the common hordes giggle at the autoerotic asphyxiators, just like they giggle at cross-dressers and the leather crowd—the simple fact remains that masturbation martyrs like Hutchence, Milligan and Carradine give the squares a whiff of the kicks they’ll never know. And for that they will be fondly remembered.

I would like to further honour Mr. Carradine’s passing by making a few simple requests.

If I am someday so fortunate as to expire in a masturbatory mishap—which, although unlikely, is certainly not impossible—please don’t let The Prudes besmirch my legacy with the “respectful” omission of lurid details. Disrespect away. Seriously.

And if you happen to be the one who finds me, please don’t wipe up my terminal jizz or pull up my pants. Instead, I want you to stick a little Canadian flag in my urethra—I always think of the motherland when I stroke, you see—and then throw open the doors and shout:

“Fair citizenry and members of the international media, come hither and behold the lifeless, cock-holding corpse of Glen Callender, a true and noble self-pleasurer who had to depart this Earthly realm, not because he committed any crime, but because he simply wanted to come… so hard. And verily, he came so hard he never came back….”

Prudes and their prudish prudery have no place among adult adults in an adult world. So I have no hang-ups about discussing the dirty details of David Carradine’s fatal outcome. I honour the manner of his passing because I’m a fellow transcendental masturbator. I make jokes about it because I’m a comedian.

And I’m talking about it now because people—especially celebrities—need to be better educated about kinky masturbation safety.

We Have Nothing In Common

A small TV studio. The audience applauds as taping begins.

Host: Hello, and welcome to We Have Nothing In Common. Our first guest is Gerald, a 32-year-old man from Saskatchewan who’s never had something in his eye. Hello.

Gerald: Hello.

Host: Tell me, Gerald, how is it you’re in your thirties, and yet you’ve never had something in your eye?

Gerald: I have no idea. It’s not like I live my life any differently. But for some weird reason, I’ve never had an irritating particle of foreign matter get stuck in my eye. It’s just never happened.

Host: But surely you’ve been buffeted by grit in strong winds?

Gerald: Oh yes. It happened all the time on the farm.

Host: And surely, you’ve been splashed in the face with dirty water?

Gerald: Of course. But in both cases, nothing actually ended up in my eye.

Host: Hm. What about shampoo? Have you had shampoo in your eye? Or suntan lotion?

Gerald: Not that I’m aware of, no.

Host: What about onions? Does chopping onions make you cry?

Gerald: [confused] Uh, no. Why would it?

Host: Fair enough. So how do you feel about this lifelong lack of ocular irritation?

Gerald: [cheerfully] Well, in some ways I’m quite happy to do without something I’m told can be quite uncomfortable. [Waits a beat as studio audience titters. His face falls.] But on another level, it makes me feel isolated on the fringes of society.

Host: Explain.

Gerald: Well, you’d be surprised how often our popular culture references the experience of having something in one’s eye.

Host: Really. How so?

Gerald: Well, for example, all my life I’ve seen that clichéd scene where a character—usually a proud man who doesn’t want others to see him crying—starts to cry. And when someone asks him, “are you crying?” he replies, “No, there’s just something in my eye.” Well, I simply can’t relate to that.

Host: Interesting. Yet you understand the concept of having something in your eye.

Gerald: Yes. On a purely intellectual level I completely understand that having a small particle lodged between one’s eyeball and eyelid would be painful, and that the eye would involuntarily produce tears to flush away this particle, and that this process can easily be misconstrued as crying—just like crying can easily be misconstrued as involuntarily producing tears to flush a particle or particles from one’s eyes. And I fully understand that, to save face in certain social situations, a person might wish to pass one off as the other.

Host: But this isn’t enough for you.

Gerald: No, because I have no visceral connection to it. Intellect aside, I truly can’t imagine crying for any other reason than the emotional… people have tried to describe it to me, but I suspect it’s much like explaining vision to a person who was born blind.

Host: You feel excluded.

Gerald: Yes. And it’s not just a problem with contemporary culture. Take that scene in Othello, when Desdemona says “Mine eyes do itch; doth that bode weeping?” and Emilia replies, “’Tis neither here nor there.” I really don’t get that.

Host: Really.

Gerald: Yes. I even have difficulty with the Bible. “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

Host: Matthew 7.

Gerald: Yes.

Host: You don’t understand the passage.

Gerald: No. I don’t have a brother either, so I’m really out of the loop on that one.

Host: Tell me, how does this gulf of understanding affect your day-to-day life?

Gerald: It’s a terrible burden. You see, I’m an observational stand-up comic. I depend on my essential commonality with my audience as the basis for my act. My livelihood.

Unbeknownst to Gerald, three stagehands are sneaking up on him from behind.

Gerald: And when my audience and I don’t share something as basic as having had something in our eyes, it makes me doubt my observational instincts in general. Oh, I would give anything to underst—

The stagehands suddenly wrestle Gerald to the floor and sit on him. One forces open Gerald’s left eye and another, with a pair of tweezers, carefully drops a single grain of sand in his eye. They release him, leaving him writhing on the floor.

Gerald: [clutches face] Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

Host: [offers Gerald a cup of water] Here, here, take this.

Gerald awkwardly pours the water down his face, blinking rapidly. After a moment, he calms.

Host: Are you alright?

Gerald: I’m okay. I just had something in my eye for a moment there.

He gasps. A look of utter amazement fills his face.

Gerald: I—had something in my eye. Oh my God! I had something in my eye!

Host: Yes, Gerald, you did. A single grain of sand. Tell me—how did it feel?

Gerald: [excitedly] Awful! It was—it was so tiny, but it felt so big—and it kind of burned. In—in my wildest dreams I never imagined it would feel like that. I’m—I’m finally starting to understand.

Host: Indeed you are! And if you wish, we can take you backstage and force as many grains of sand into your eye as you like!

Gerald: [overcome] Thank you, thank you so much for helping me. I never thought—I never— [his voice breaks, tears begin to run down his face].

Host: Are you okay? Do you have something in your eye again?

Gerald: No. Only tears. Tears... of joy. Thank you….

The audience cheers as a weeping Gerald tightly embraces the Host. The Host pats his back comfortingly and speaks to the camera over Gerald’s shoulder.

Host: And there you have it, another outcast successfully reintegrated into society. After the break, we’ll say hello to Barbara, a 25-year-old med student who’s never had a minor cut requiring a Band-Aid, and Philip, a 44-year-old footballer who’s never been kicked in the testicles. Stay tuned!