The Boomerang Prophecies XXV: The Palahniuk Paradox

[Martin Riggs]

THE BOOMERANG PROPHECIES XXV: THE PALAHNIUK PARADOX

I sat there as he put a gun in my mouth. “Almost time” he quipped, pulling a stopwatch from his pocket. “Think about what we’ve achieved. Think about everything we‘ve done, everything we‘ve accomplished!” This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the beginning, it was a sign of things to come, a mistake already made, not looking to be fixed but to continue on its new path, stretching out its tangent. Let me take you back a few months…


This is Bob. Bob is a pillow. And in my mind, Bob has bitch-tits. As I lay there, my face dug deep into those two sweaty, heaving mounds of flesh, I felt an odd calmness fall over me. Was it the reliability? Was it the comfort? Still not back far enough…


So, I have this job. It’s very tedious, very boring, and the only reward I get from it is the betterment of my skill. I am a student. Supposedly, I’m here to learn, but really, all people are doing is passing the time, looking for an excuse to bump into someone, hoping that encounter will lead to a night of passion, sweaty bodies heaving, thrusting, recoiling. The men all think with their dicks, and the women, as stupid and foolish as it may seem, satiate their lustful desires, both parties falling victim to the inevitable weaknesses inherent within the society of today. You see, I have a problem. I’ve tried pills, I’ve tried sweet-talking, I’ve even tried expanding my interests, but no matter what I try, or how hard an effort I make, I just can’t talk to women. It’s an inherent problem I have. I say inherent, I don’t remember the last time I even saw my parents, let alone spoke to them. For all I know, this could be a genetic issue passed down the DNA strands like some perverted handshake. So I try, stumbling through social situations like a kid first learning to ride a bike. Amid the attempted conversations and awkward silences I stand, a small child lost at the beach of human relationships. I would spend entire nights saying nothing, lurking eerily in the background of chatter, waiting for the event to end so I could flee home and repeat the process tomorrow. Sometimes I would sit on the Subway, staring out of the window, hoping to see another train veer off its tracks and hit us, wiping us all out in an instant, bent metal and snapped plastic crunching together, eradicating all signs of life. Other times I’d look out onto the crowded streets of Broadway, envisaging myself plummeting to the ground, falling headfirst, slamming into the hard concrete, life’s problems wiped away in an instant.


They call it ‘Insomnia’. It’s a condition where a person isn’t really asleep, but they’re not fully awake. I can stay up for days at a time, surviving on coffee, the bags under my eyes stretching like worn elastic. I just lie on my bed, TV on, watching shitty programs on shitty channels, sporadically punctured by shitty commercials. I become entranced, fixated on the moving images, the colours, the sub par acting. Time passes, I don’t notice how long. I just lie there. Sometimes I’ll have to go to school. My alarm tells me when, I needn’t bother worrying. Work that should be done, somehow is. I don’t recall doing it or reading it, but nonetheless it’s finished. And so my life went on, in its depressingly average state: not worth enough for enthusiasm, not depressing enough for suicide.


Then, one day, I stumbled across a column on the Internet. It was a part of a competition, referred to as ‘CSI’. Suddenly, I was happy. I could laugh again. And because I could laugh, I could sleep. Babies didn’t sleep this good. Every night, I would arrive home and read the latest entries, laughing deep into my pillow, crying with joy at the serenity it brought me. From disappointments by newbies to the experienced columns of the pro’s, I was transfixed.


Good things don’t last forever.


One day, I logged on, eager to check for any new meat to sink my teeth into. There was an announcement. There was a winner. The tournament was over. No more columns meant no more sleep. It was uncanny. The satisfaction I’d found just days earlier had been ruthlessly ripped away from me, leaving me abandoned and alone, left to my own defences. Once again my world started to cave in. That was, until I met him.


I say met, I mean discovered. I checked again, hoping against hope that something had happened, that a new entry had been posted. But nothing. Nothing except a forum of disillusionment. A system crash had meant that any traces of my saviour had been swept away, lost forever in the wilderness of cyberspace limbo. Uncharacteristically, and unwillingly, I found myself signing on to join the site. I was asked for a name, and that was the birth of Johnny Boomerang. He was brash, he was confident, he was sure of himself. He didn’t give a fuck what people thought of him, he just followed his heart. I didn’t know what to do. I had lied. That wasn’t me. And clearly so, as I wasn’t a writer, wasn‘t capable of those things. But through this veil of anonymity, I was able to conjure up the strength to create, using the powers of literacy and wit to dazzle myself. After a few short hours, my masterpiece was finished. Doubt was screaming through my mind, ravaging my brain, begging me not to post. And so I let Johnny Boomerang. And he did. And it went well. Suddenly, I was sleeping again.


It’s funny how your mind can be tricked into thinking everything is okay. I would sleep, while Johnny Boomerang wrote though the night. Column after column, he churned them out. Creative, dazzling, engaging, the compliments were flying in left, right and centre. He was the genius behind this product, but I basked in the glory, safe in the knowledge that he was only there when I needed him. And need him I did, as he continued to produce magnificent columns, ever-improving, joyously rising above the previous column’s expectations. And while this was happening, I was sleeping calmly, ready to rise up and go to school, and skip in my step, finally able to look people in the eye. It’s funny, though, how quickly a look of confidence can turn into a ‘fuck you’. In people’s eyes I saw fear replacing the pity, a sense of danger overcoming the nonchalance I’d previously evoked. Before, I’d stood at the window and looked down, debating jumping. Now, I stood there and debated pushing someone else. I pictured them falling to the ground below, hitting the sidewalk with an almighty ‘splat’. I saw a fellow student carrying a blue book. It must be a Wednesday, we always had that class on a Wednesday. I didn’t even bring books to school anymore. I just sat at the back, sneering at the incompetence with which the teacher wrote her lesson plans on the board. I laughed at her syntax, lauded her spelling and lamented her penmanship. I was better than her, and she must’ve known it, as I was dismissed from the class the following day. I was assigned a new system, this one allowing me to study from home, arriving at school just to pass my exams. Now I could write columns all the time.


I arrived home to find Johnny Boomerang hadn’t started work on any columns. Instead, he was involved in something called ‘The Writers Block’. He was engaged in discussions behind my back. He was talking with other columnists, mingling with people similar to himself, excluding me from his activities. He began work on a new column, but this one was different from the others. The tone was more weathered, no longer wide eyed and full of enthusiasm: the innocence had turned to experience. The standard was just as high, but I felt distant from this. This wasn’t what I’d enjoyed. This was different. This was a whole ‘nother world, a world I’d just been exposed to and had taken too deep a breath from.


The hours turned into days turned into weeks. The columns kept coming, the new, ‘experienced’ air still about them, ever-growing in its confidence. Johnny Boomerang was working furiously, but I was being left behind. Angry, I took to the streets, hoping a breath of fresh air could clear my senses. I looked at a couple walking towards me, and steered myself into walking between them, shooting the male a stern look, silencing him before he could even begin to berate me for my actions. I didn’t give a fuck about what he thought, I didn’t give a fuck about what anyone thought. I was free, no longer trapped inside my own mind but able to fully express myself as I never before had. I stopped for a moment. That thought… Johnny Boomerang’s words coming out of my mind. I hadn’t even noticed, but I had transformed. In the past few weeks, I had developed, evolved almost into a man completely alien to the person who had trouble sleeping so long ago. I had started to become the man I created to soothe me. I had started to become the man I feared knew me too well. I had started to become the man who allowed me to act how I wanted to act, but couldn’t. Returning home in a frenzy, I checked the site. Suddenly, I was accessing areas I knew nothing about. There were tournaments he’d entered and helped won, there were congratulations on his recent column of the month win. Win? I checked the main page, and sure enough, there was a column by Johnny Boomerang. Who was he? How had he got all this past me without me knowing? Where was he now?


Looking down, I saw a saved document. It was his latest column. Opening it, there was only one paragraph:

I sat there as he put a gun in my mouth. “Almost time” he quipped, pulling a stopwatch from his pocket. “Think about what we’ve achieved. Think about everything we‘ve done, everything we‘ve accomplished!” This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the beginning, it was a sign of things to come, a mistake already made, not looking to be fixed but to continue on its new path, stretching out its tangent. Let me take you back a few months…

Johnny Boomerang had taken over my life, and now he was plotting to kill me. Johnny Boomerang was an unstoppable force, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a vicious sociopath, capable of anything. And now, Johnny Boomerang was free to join the real world.


He stopped typing, and sat back for a moment, smiling to himself. He laughed at the absurdity of the previous statement. He was who he'd always been, who he always will be. There was no 'other' person or personality. There was just him. “It’s good to be Johnny”.

with obvious thanks to 'Fight Club' by Chuck Palahniuk, of which this column parodied/was inspired by

[cicero]

I was about to say "have you been watcing Fight Club recently?"

I still believe you should have won in March.


Not as good as your last column but then, heh, what sort of a comment is that?


Please keep going JB, without you IFS has no meaning.

[Uncle Joe]

HA, everytime I talk to you, I picture Ed Norton... how creepy. The homage/ripping of of Fight Club was superb old boy. But wait, if Johnny Boomerang is your alter, who the fuck are you really? Brad Pitt?

[Coolio]

good column, and i never guessed the Fight Club reference, because i had never seen the movie. I'll for sure read you next time.

[Box Car Rocco]

I haven't seen Fight Club so I didn't really get the reference but it was still a fun sight into how Mr Boomerang's mind works.

[Tony Starx]

The first rule of the CF is that you don't talk about the CF. You sir broke the first rule, so now you must die. Sorry, mixed in some James Bond for some good measure, I know how you Brits love that guy.

[JoeyShinobi]

Perhaps ironically, the first rule of the Block (before you were admitted) was 'don't talk about the Block outside of the Block'. You, sir, actually have broken the first rule, and so have I. We can run away together.

This is a welcome return to form after the last one I gave feedback to, and now perhaps this has been posted, people can quit writing columns about writing columns, because they won't make it much better than this. I have seen Fight Club, shame on all of you who haven't, and although I picked it up fairly quickly, it seems that having not seen it doesn't detract from the quality of the column. For that, you deserve high praise.

Great work.

[Benjamin Button]

I haven't seen fight club but if it's half as good as this column, perhaps I should. This column was emotional and thought stirring. I loved how you came around to your first paragraph and brought it out in a brand new light.

[Super Chrisss]

Dude, how the fuck do you come up with this stuff? I swear, if you decide to become a best-selling author one day, it wouldn't surprise me one bit. You just have a knack for these kinds of columns.

Personally, I enjoyed this column better than your last one because at least this time you had a proper ending. Brilliant work my friend.

[Dustbunnie]

Now this is a guy that needs to be but on the MP.

[Creeping Death]

A full time MP'er too, not just a feature for winning the CotM.

Shall I start a chant?

Johnny Main Page Clap Clap ClapClapClap

[Martin Riggs]

Cic, IFS gets me through the week, so if i can keep it up then dammit i'll just have to keep posting!

Joe, i don't know who i am, my identity is blurred. D'ya know i've had about 6 actual names in my life? Ridiculous, really.

Coolio & BCR, go and watch Fight Club. You'll thank me. oh, then re-read this column. Just because, really. it's a nice column, i enjoyed writing it!

Starx, yeah, the more bond the better! Nice reference, sir! I talked about nothing.

Joey, yeah, i had to come back after my last column, this just hit me so i started writing. Glad you enjoyed it sir, we shall run away to Barbados. Or maybe just go hide at Mazzas

Button, i'm begging you, please re-read some of my older stuff. It's just that worth it! Ta for the compliments, Mr.

SoupSea, i'm amazing, aren't i? You should see me do Improv shows, i'm great. No, seriously, i am. But, ego aside, thanks for reading. I like to be different or interesting, so thanks for letting me know i can be interesting!

Dustbunnie, motherfucking word

CD, Too true, my friend. I've petitioned to let me on the main page, they said i was 'too good', and they didn't want to 'embarass the current crop'. They also told me to stop making things up...

[Freeman]

Oh hell yeah! JB, you absolute freakin' diamond! Even if you had posted the biggest piece of shit of all time, the fact that the whole thing was built around my favourite film of all time gets top marks from me.

However, in no way this a mere piece of tripe. It was uber creative, superbly written and well built up. Loved the way you kept you and Johnny Boomerang serperate throughout, and also how you stuck so close to the original storyline, and even managing to almost quote sections of the film word for word yet still making it work with the column. You sir, are the shit.

So put simply, loved it, loved it, loved it! Gosh, columns built around movies hey? Isn't there some other douchebag that does that round here? Oh wait...

Catch you on the next one boss, in the meantime I shall be reading and feeding your main page installment.

[Jules]

This was great. I suppose I need to watch more Ed Norton movies, because I did not get the homage thing until the very end... but that did not detract from the "well written-ness" of this one bit. Not a dull second. It was personal, creative, and a joy to read.

This may just be a weird coinky dink (or perhaps you've John Malkaviched your way into my head) but I was recently considering doing a column based on an Ed Norton movie.. only mine was going to be his great little "fuck this" rant from the 25th Hour, if you can recall that obscure little film.

Great stuff anyway.

[Martin Riggs]

Freeman, yeah, if there was one person i could guarantee would love this, it'd be you. Just know that...appreciate the love dude, check you soon!

Jules, that is a bit weird. And now you've put the idea of a 'Being John Malkovich' column into my head... oh, and it'd be so good as well!! Thanks for the R+F, dude