Twitterature (12 page)

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Authors: Alexander Aciman

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IʼM REALLY UPSET RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I KILLED AN OLD WOMAN AND THOUGH I TWEET IT MY LIPS CANʼT SPEAK IT.
 
I think the coppers are starting to get suspicious on account of my acting LIKE A CRAZY PERSON WHO KILLED AN OLD WOMAN.
 
If you could spare a few hours, Iʼll tell you about the intricate details of my very simple moral dilemma. Try to listen through my tears.
 
I wish I could just shout it on the streets, then I think no, because everyone would look at me weird. Because killing old women is weird.
 
 
I cracked and told @StSofia, which was a weird choice since the second lady I killed was her friend. She didnʼt seem too upset, though.
 
Perhaps Jesus could help with some of these guilt issues. Religion against my ideals though - same ideals that made me kill that woman.
Alienation too much. Confessed to my crime - being sent to Serbian prison. Only seven years though, and Sofia loves me for some reason?
 
Another day in the old jail cell. Everything seems pretty bleak. Other prisoners hate me, and thereʼs nothing much to do.
 
 
Oh hey, itʼs the New Testament. Iʼd like to suggest that this book is going to change my life, but thatʼs really a story for another time . . .
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
@HeathBar
 
A family has found me, and they keep calling me gypsy. Have I stolen their wallets yet? NO.
 
Theyʼre all miserable excuses for people. They hit me and treat me like Iʼm bonkers. Or a gypsy. Except Catherine, sheʼs pretty cool.
 
The maid is also very nice, but sheʼs a maid, you know? Theyʼre like slaves. I guess I am a gypsy, so not much better.
 
Catherine very clearly likes me, and I like her too. I hope we can spend the rest of our lives together.
 
 
Get off of her you motherfucking dogs, fucking devils.
 
Apparently is not OK for little kids to swear that way. Catherine now stays with another family, and Iʼm not allowed to see her.
 
 
I want to see her. She wants to see me. Canʼt we be together? Catherineʼs brother is a total ass. Sorry. A pence for the cursing jar.
 
Enough. This home is miserable. Everyone is cruel. Iʼm leaving. Theyʼll be sorry.
 
After a time Iʼve become rich and successful, and very good-looking. This ought to mess with their heads back home.
I canʼt believe it. Catherine has married the twatting tool across the street.
 
The house is now mine. Since the neighbor has Catherine, Iʼll seduce his sister. Weʼll see how brave he is when sheʼs got Heathcock in her.
 
Girl is preggers. Catherine is dead. My world is over. Iʼve become an evil, evil man. Naming my son Heathcliff Jr.
 
ALL I WANT TO DO IS BEAT MY WIFE. RAGE!!! PASSION! HEAT!!! HEATH!!
 
Jrʼs been bad. He must stay locked in his room without food. Wiseass. I should have pushed his mother down a flight of stairs earlier!!
 
Iʼm dying. Life has been meaningless. Oh Catherine!
 
My dying wish: that my spirit be united with Catherineʼs, that we roam the heath together forever, and that Kate Bush writes a song about us.
Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov
@PolanskiFan106
 
OK guys, yes, my name is Humbert Humbert. Letʼs try to be mature about this.
 
I need to find a place to stay where I can write. My work is important. No pets, no noise, no distractions of ANY sort!!
 
Did I just see a Nymphet - or was it my fertile writerʼs imagination? Theyʼre like sex goddesses, but mini. So like, SkineMax at Gymboree.
 
 
This girl is a goddess. I must rent this room. Then Iʼll get her to come over, put on some music, crack the vino. And make some magic.
 
Her name is Lolita. But her mother, Charlotte, is obsessed with me. I should bail but damn, her little honey of a daughter is FINE.
 
When I was twelve, I was hot for twelve-year-olds. Whatʼs changed? Nothing, as far as I can tell. I am in a haze, or soon hope to be.
 
 
@Charlotte: I have a diary on my desk, please donʼt look at it. Itʼs personal, also incriminating. Tempted yet?
 
Problem suddenly solved. Lolitaʼs mom got hit by a car. Thank goodness, now I can get down to business.
 
@Lolita: Time to come home from camp. Your mom is, uh, sick?
Ohhh, this hotel looks classy. Enchanted Hunters, sounds mythical. More like Enchanted Humpers, nʼest-ce pas?
 
@Lolita: Do you smoke after sex? Oh wait, youʼre too young to smoke. But still, would you like a smoke . . . after?
 
Thereʼs a guy who looks just like me. Heʼs kind of cool but follows us in his car. Yet with a name like Clare Quilty . . . What, me worry?
 
Lolita must have an education. She canʼt be simply an ignorant whore. I like a girl with brains. Looks arenʼt everything after they turn thirteen.
 
I got a flyer for a school play. Itʼs called
The Enchanted Hunters
. Quilty again!
 
Lolita is sick. We must get her out of this school. Itʼs Clare Creepy. Iʼm the good guy this time, for a change!
 
No! Little Lo-lo has disappeared from the hospital. I am her immediate kin. Who authorized this?
 
 
Iʼm gonna find that Quilty fucker and stab him in the face. Thatʼs what he deserves for stealing my almost-a-woman!
 
Later. Found him but Lolita was not with him. She got away. He wanted to make a porno with her, that sick fuck. Sheʼs just a kid!
 
So you see, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Iʼm not so bad after all. No, Iʼm a good person. Please let me off?
 
Can you imagine me in jail? Not for pedophilia, but for murder. Youʼre never in for what you deserve. Sigh. So let me tell you a story.
Gulliverʼs Travels
by Jonathan Swift
@LittleBigMan
 
Though I have made a life as a surgeon, I do enjoy a good travel. In this day and age, ʼtis not hard at all to acquire a ship and crew.
 
All goes well thus far upon the sea. My men are loyal, and I do believe I captain this vessel well. Oh shit! A ROCK!
 
 
Awoke in an unfamiliar land. The boat and my crew are gone. Oh dear, the people here are very small. Oops. Sorry about that.
 
I donʼt mean to boast; Iʼm not a terribly tall man. But these people of Lilliput are the size of childʼs Johnson. Still, they have captured me.
 
 
I have become a great favorite of the Lilliputian court, whose antics are like an adorable tiny version of King Georgeʼs, the blithering idiot.
 
These tiny men are very serious, and engaged in a war with their neighbors. Plus they donʼt like me calling them ʻshortyʼ and ʻjuniorʼ.
 
Helped them by stealing the enemy fleet, as if playing like a boy in the bathtub. But they demand ʻBlefuscudian delendum estʼ and I say no.
 
The Lilli-fuckers have decided to blind me. Luckily, I am twelve times their size and escape was not difficult. Back to England!
I feel compelled to set out again. This time I shall have to improve my captaining.
 
Again my crew has abandoned me. Oh dear! Woke up to see a gentleman over seventy feet tall. What a clever turn of events! Now IʼM dick-sized.
 
I have been turned into something of a traveling novelty. I even have a little house. All goes well. OH SHIT, AN EAGLE.
 
Home in England. Yet I am compelled to set out again. Wife seems skeptical; what does she know? Hope things go well this time.
 
Attacked by pirates who left me marooned on an island. Starting to understand why Iʼm the ʻcaptain of several shipsʼ. Donʼt tell my wife.
 
Picked up by flying city. Theyʼve invented bombs and the computer. In the seventeenth century. Perhaps Iʼll see the foresight of this in 300 years.
 
Back in England. Never traveling again. Ever. OK, maybe one more time. Just one more time.
 
Marooned again. How many ships have I lost now? Oh well. There is an extremely ugly, stupid man here. He canʼt speak or reason, it seems.
 
This island is run by horses. Beautiful, wonderful, brilliant horses. They are perfect beings. The man I saw earlier is their slave.
 
Horses amused by my spark of intelligence. Yet, my ability to lie is a ʻthreatʼ to their society and I must be expelled. Canʼt I stay, please?
Back home. I cannot stand human society. I have taken to wearing horse shit about my neck as my wifeʼs smell repulses me.
 
In the stable, brushing my horse. I should be here most of the day, and for the rest of my life.
The Wall
by Jean-Paul Sartre
@SpanishToms
 
God this room is bright. How much did I have to drink last night? Oh right, nothing but the stinging nectar of my own angst.
 
Guards wanted to know where Ramón Gris is. Didnʼt tell them anything. Iʼm not a rat, though rat sounds good right now. Iʼm awfully hungry.
 
In a cell. Not so bad, except one kid seems very nervous. Another guy talks about how in Morocco they trample prisoners to save ammo.
 
@GreyJuan: I donʼt think theyʼll run us over here. Donʼt worry. They wonʼt run us over. Unless, you know, theyʼre really low on ammo.
 
 
Sentenced to death. Never really thought of death before. No reason. Have reason now, on account of my being executed in the morning.
 
I feel pity for the kid, but his inability to cope with his
completely cruel and arbitrary execution without tears bugs me for some reason.
 
A doctor is here. Normally I would talk, but I didnʼt feel like it. The trivialities of life have begun to fall away.
 
The kid is trembling and asking if it hurts to be killed by a firing squad. His fear of pain and suffering bother me more than my execution.
As the night goes on, Iʼve started to think maybe it isnʼt so bad to be a bit upset by this whole ordeal.
 
Picturing the execution in my head over and over, like a song I canʼt stop humming to myself - except it ends with 4,000 holes in ME.
 
 
In a way, Iʼm already dead. The doctor is fascinating as a man who, by virtue of not being about to be dead, is truly alive.
 
 
Still, in a way, his impending death is just like ours - just less clear. I suppose life is pretty bleak, huh? Canʼt even LOL.
 
 
If Iʼd known Iʼd be shot like this, I wouldnʼt have spent a moment chasing girls or talking at anarchist meetings.
 
But if Iʼd known, and then not gone to meetings, I wouldnʼt be here. So I wouldnʼt know. Then Iʼd go to meetings. This is heavy, man.
 
I want to die cleanly. Iʼm not sure why, tho. In theory, deathʼs meaninglessness should invalidate any dignity taken from life, right?
 
The big morningʼs here. Theyʼll take me out to that wall, that terrible, terrible symbol of the absolute nature of inevitable death.
 
 
They keep asking me where Ramón Gris is and promise to let me go if I tell them. But I am a true revolutionary. I face death with dignity.
It would be pretty hilarious though if I just told them some nonsense and sent their soldiers on a wild goose chase, huh?
 
@TheSoldiers: Ramón Gris? Heʼs in the graveyard. Heʼs hanging out with the dead, just like me. Parallelism is vital to deathbed humor.
 
 
True humor: Ramón Gris actually IS in the graveyard. And now heʼs going to be killed. And so Iʼm free. I LOLʼd so hard I cried.
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
@FirstThoughtBestThought
 
Usually a man wills his home to his wife or kids. But sometimes, he wills it to a distant relative, so when he dies, youʼre out on your ass.
 
And then, and THEN, that distant, meddlesome priest of a relative tries to seduce one of your sisters.
 
 
Unsure why anyone would want my sisters. All they want is to hit it with the officers - what war are they even fighting in the countryside?
 
 
Though my older sister - Jane - is nice. How could she not be? Jane is such a good name. I would like anybody named Jane.
 
 
The English country is a dull place much of the time. Local dances, hysterical family, long, long afternoons with nothing much to do . . .
 
Oh shit, some rich young gentlemen just showed up. Score!
 
This one man seems quite interested in my sister - but the other, a Mr Darcy, is very cold and condescending. I find that . . . attractive.

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