A very drunk intellectual (Flash fiction)

I, good sir, am in an advanced stage of intoxication. I think it was Matilda Wormwood's father who once said that the only people he knew who went to college were hippies and cesspool salesmen. I can't help but shake this notion. They’re the fabric of this society I think, set apart from the majority by an entirely different attitude…Yes, an entirely different attitude…As for me personally I’m merely an observer. I take a slurp of my drink. No. A stain. A stain on the fabric that can only be seen in a UV light, like disintegrating sperm. And listen here now. The hippies are the ones who go to festivals, ye know, enjoying themselves and whatnot. And the cesspool salesmen are the ones engaged in economic activity. They're the entrepreneurial light at the end of our dark tunnel—that is, if you feel a strong compulsion to view life in terms of tunnels. And so I feel, in life, you mostly either fall into these two categories. You can’t be a hippy and a cesspool salesman at the same time, because of the conflicting priorities.


Three minutes later


Steve Jobs was a hippy who went on to become a successful businessman. I've therefore come to the conclusion that my previous argument about hippies and cesspool salesmen is questionable...Actually it's invalid...Forgive me I'm quite drunk. You'll notice that my near-perfect spelling is at odds with this previously-stated state of inebriation, but if you can envision a screw-balled face on my part, and a squinted right eye staring at the screen, I am the dreaded nemesis of grammatical mistakes. My concentration, second to none, I feel a strange sense of pride at this didactic process I am engaged in, unappreciated by peers, continuing the dreamy yet important work of such titanic figures as Newton and Galileo. I will pontificate on such a diversity of subjects until the drink in my hand is no more, journeying down alleys and side-streets, and back again. It takes a big man to own up to his mistakes, you know, to set aside one's ego which inflates one's head like a hot air balloon. What matters is that I dreamed up a theory and debunked it myself. A man of genius makes no mistakes, so said some reputable man at one time or another, whose name escapes me. A man of genius makes no mistakes, no, his errors are said to be the “portals of discovery” but they are also, I surmise, grounds for dismissal in his entry-level nine to five job.

“You're a genius my friend but you're absolutely useless” the manager says to the genius, who is sitting obediently in his office.

“You keep making too many mistakes. We're gonna have to let you go, I'm afraid.”

The man of genius walks away with the tail between his legs, but he'll soon have the last laugh when he goes on to become a world famous intellectual, with an oeuvre bigger than your mum's plump derriere.

2 hours later


The two large mirrors in my room give an unexpected view of my smug face. I stare at myself. “You beaut.” I say. “Mon cher, Mon bambino, Mon ami” I shift into a practiced battle stance—Southpaw—and do head-butts towards the mirror. “Come on then, let’s have ye, you think you’re a machine?” And I really don’t know what the hell is going on but I’ve quite obviously worked myself into a terrible frenzy. “I’M ALEXANDER, HE'S NO ALEXANDER!” I got my war face on, gobs of spittle running down my chin. I take a big swig of a can of Carlsberg while looking out my back window and am struck by this glorious feeling of importance, with this extremely powerful sense that I’m going to fashion a successful niche in life in spite of all the haters. Thing is, and I hate to say this but it's the utmost truth...Okay...The haters don’t exist..In fact, come to think of it, nobody knows me. If Facebook was to act as any kind of social barometer I've got thirty friends and most of them are family. And while the haters are imaginary they still serve to fuel my pointless intransigence and, make no mistake about it, I’m going to prove every.single.one of them wrong.