Day Eight.

So I was reading Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale when I came across the following stage direction:

Exit, pursued by a bear.

And I thought to myself, what if I could get Zach to be in The Winter’s Tale? Because then if I was the director and if I rented a bear suit then I could chase him offstage, and it would be perfectly in character for me to kick him in the shins, in front of a rapt audience. That would be embarrassing for him.. So then I was like, okay, I need a bear suit. So I called the bear suit shop and was all, hey G, how much to rent a bear suit, and G, the owner, was like ‘500 bucks.’ and I was like what, does it look like I am made of money? For it does not grow on trees. Do I look like a tree? I should do, for there is no money growing on me.

This quest to physically remove Zach’s shin flesh from his shin bone was going to be more of a drain on my wallet than I’d previously expected. So I put that plan on hold. It has been mentally filed under “Shins, ways to kick Zach in the, dramatic examples of.”

But tomorrow I will kick Zach in the shins. In front of a paying audience. ‘Are you not entertained?’ I will scream, holding Zach’s shins in the air. I will drink deep of the audience’s approval, and yell in pure animalistic aggression.


Listening to: Badly Drawn Boy - The Shining

Day Seven.

Bad news. Today, Zach bought shin guards.

Yeah, I know, ostensibly it’s for “soccer” (he’s American, so he says “soccer.” It’s really annoying, and yet another reason to plunge my thirsty leg into his waiting, engorged, blood-rich shinbone), but I think we all know what’s going on. I’ve got him running scared here. Finally, I think the tide is turning. I may yet kick Zach in the shins before the year is out. But first, I must remove his shin guards.

That is where the crane with the giant magnet attached to it comes in. I rented one from a local construction company; the boss owes my uncle a favour. Anyway, so what I’m going to do is like wait for him to be walking down the street with his shin guards on, and then I’m going to like turn on the giant magnet and it’s going to go whumm-umm-umm-umm and pick him up because he’s got loads of change in his pockets, and he’s gonna get picked up and like stuck to the magnet and he’ll be all like helphelpi’mstucktoagiantcranemagnet and I’ll be all haha then I’ll run up and take his shin guards and run away, except he won’t know that it’s me, because I’ll have on the Green Power Ranger mask (Tommy) I got for my last birthday

And then tomorrow I will kick Zach in the shins. For he will no longer be protected in that area. After all, “the giant crane’s the thing / wherein to catch the shin guards of the king.”

Listening to: Hilary Duff - Shine

Day Six.

I went for a walk today, just to clear my head. I mean, I don’t need to tell you there’s a lot of shit going on in my life right now. Seriously, the last thing I need on my plate right now is another shin-related issue. But no, of course, it’s never enough. So I learned today that, apparently, Zach has already been kicked in the shins. I felt so betrayed. It’s that bastard Tom. Now every time I walk into the room, I catch them going at it, Tom’s stupid, ugly graceless foot gliding down Zach’s exposed thigh, his face tightened with sweet, exquisite pain. It just sickens me. I go away and to throw up. Why? I mean, why? All I wanted was to kick Zach squarely in the lower leg regions – just once, I’m not greedy. Is that too much to ask?

Dammit, Tom. Why did you have to come between us, between my steel-capped toes and Zach’s bare shin? Well, it’s not for much longer. I’ve long had a secret plan in place to deal interlopers. I’m afraid, Tom, that your time is running out – sport you while you may. You may have been Zach’s first, but when I kick him in the shins he’ll be in so much pain that you’ll be driven far, far from his mind. Yeah, driven. Like you will be. Off a cliff.

So tomorrow, assuming my plan to murder and dump the body of his current partner goes to plan, I will kick Zach in the shins.

Listening to: Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Were Made For Walking

Day Five.

So I’m sitting at my desk reading a little bit of Browning (as you do), but my heart really isn’t in to it. I’ve got Porphyria’s Lover propped open in front of me, and it’s a really great poem, but for once I’m not thinking about the madman who’s decided to kill his lover in order to keep her love forever pure; no, I’m ruminating on how to kick Zach in the shins. The man has thus far eluded me, and to be honest I’m beginning to get a little annoyed. What is it about me that makes me incapable of kicking him in the shins? Or perhaps it’s him. Yes, I think it’s him. Perhaps just as I finally kick him beautifully, squarely, perfectly, just once, on the shins, then I shall wind his long yellow hair in one long yellow string three times his little throat around, and his shins once more blushed bright beneath my burning kicks. And then we’ll see who gets the last laugh.

I’ve just remembered that Zach’s hair is short and brown. I shall have to find another way to forever document that one glorious, climactic orgasmic moment of final leg-snapping achievement. I think I’ll look into getting a Sony Cybershot.

And then tomorrow I will kick Zach in the shins. Because then, I will have a camera to document the moment for the ages. And yes, it is a moment well worth documentation.


Listening to: Stevie Wonder - Knocks Me Off My Feet

Day Four.

I was listening to a beautiful Billie Holiday song on my computer in the late afternoon, just appreciating her voice and wondering whether Lady Day ever had any shin-related issues in her turbulent life. She did, after all, fight a protracted battle with abuse, both of drugs and from husbands. As time went on and Lady Day slowly succumbed to age and a rough life, her voice changed with it. It got rougher, less sweet, less cutesy. There are fans who prefer the early Billie of the Colombia years; there are those who prefer her later efforts such as final album Lady in Satin. But irresepective of which period you like, or if you like both for their individual merits, what matters is that you're a fan of a woman who almost nearly indubitably once tried to kick someone, somewhere, at some point, in the shins.

Yes, readers, this was a Joycean epiphany of sorts for me, and I don't mind admitting it as such. If Lady Day could do it, then why not me? But by then my iTunes had moved on to Nena's 99 Red Balloons, and I lost all will to do anything but... dance.

But tomorrow I will kick Zach in the shins. For Miss Holiday tells me that I can.


Listening to: Aerosmith - Lord of the Thighs

Day Three.

I woke up last night in a cold sweat from the worst nightmare I'd ever had. I was in the middle of an ever-changing, ever-moving landscape, brick-red and olive-green and sea-blue. The two suns in the sky beat down with large, yellow baseball bat beams, and I was naked and sweating a river which ran into a rivulet which ran into a trickle of a drip on the red, red earth floor. But as I walked into the impenetrable landscape, I looked up to scan the inverted horizon and saw a silhouette, a silhouette I knew only too well. The silhouette of Zach, back to me in habitual disdain. And I looked down again, and on my feet were leather-made, steel-toed boots, and they were supple and strong and fit as skin fits sinew. And I started running, so I could run up to him, before he had a chance to turn, and plant a steel-capped foot into his shins, and feel and hear the delicious crackle of flesh giving way to pure shin, unadulterated bone.

And I ran and ran and ran for what must have been hours, or minutes, and I reached Zach and skipped around him, dainty and eager and willing to crush shin on steel. And I danced around him like a bumblebee in the featherweight division, and kept dancing and dancing and Zach did not have a front. He had no face, no nose, no shins. And I was skipping, still skipping around and around him, waiting for the inevitable presentation of the shins that just would not come.

And so I woke in a cold sweat, and now I can't look at Zach without imagining the sheer shinlessness of his person. I know it's silly, and I know he has them, but I just... can't.

But tomorrow I will kick Zach in the shins. For, after all, he is but a man, and all men have shins.


Listening to: Tracy Chapman - Cold Feet

Day Two.

I decided that, if I was ever going to be able to kick Zach in the shins, at least properly, then it was time to work out. I mean, it stands to reason, really. There's really not any point in gearing yourself up to kick a guy in the shins, finally getting the opportunity to do so, and then squandering it on a weak, powerless kick because you don't have the requisite muscle for full-blown shin-centric destruction.

So I decided to take a couple days off and pump some leg-iron at the gym. Well, not leg-irons, because those are chains, but you know what I mean. So I'd just been for my second workout, mainly weights, a little cardio, you know, just to keep in shape, and then I saw Zach, and he was working out too, benching like eighty or something. And as he exhaled for the contraction and his adonian muscles bulged around his chest, I just caught his eye, and the glimmer in his corneas was half of recognition, half of pure, animalistic, masculine rage. So I decided to row a couple K on the ergs instead.

But tomorrow I will kick Zach in the shins. Well, as long as I don't get cramp from all those lateral curls.


Listening to: ZZ Top - Legs

Day One.

So today I finally worked up the courage to kick Zach in the shins. It took a bit of psyching up, and I spent a couple hours throwing up in the office toilets, but I finally got it together and decided that today was definitely the day.

So I walked up to Zach when he was sitting at his desk, and was just about to reach out a leg and rake it forcefully, languorously, down his left shin, but I realised that I couldn't really do it while his legs were under his desk because the angles just didn't add up. So I stood there, for the longest time, waiting for him to turn around. I mean, what could I do? Just leave? How pathetic would that be? Seriously, what would you have done in my place? And then Zach spun around in his swivel chair and was all like "What do you want?" and I lost my nerve and was all like "nothing" and I walked away and threw up again.

But tomorrow I will kick Zach in the shins.


Listening to: The Shins - Kissing the Lipless