Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Troubled Joe

Am I overdoing it with the YouTube clips? Oh well, what the hell. Overdoing it must be what blogs are for. If you can't overdo it on a blog, where can you?

Anyway, today I finished a new short story. It is called 'Troubled Joe'. I've had the idea for some years, but recently it just seemed to me that now was the time to write it. It's my usual practice to write copious notes before I begin a story, but not this time. This time I went straight in and spoke with the voice of the ghost who is the narrator. Yes, I suppose I felt like I was channeling.

I mentioned earlier on this blog that I got drunk on Friday and was later embarrassed at all the nonsense I had talked. I spoke to the friend I was with that night, and he brushed aside my embarrassment, assuring me that I was "on fire" on the evening in question. And I feel a little like that with my writing at present. I feel that Satan has, in fact, accepted my soul, and now it is given to me to play a literary fiddle till the strings catch fire. In fact, I will have some news about my writing at some later point.

Anyway, the story 'Troubled Joe' is built upon the premise that begins the song A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours, by The Smiths. I found a video of it on YouTube. It looks like someone has put the video together specifically for YouTube, but it's ingenious. The lines with which I preface my story are the opening lines:

"Hello, I am the ghost of Troubled Joe,
Hung by his pretty white neck some eighteen months ago.
I travelled to a mystical time zone,
And I missed my bed, and I soon came home."



I'm going to type up 'Troubled Joe' very soon. If anyone wants to read it, let me know, and I'll send a copy.