DEATH

On My Eventual Death, etc.

/ Dan Hackett / 2 Comments

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Nobody likes to talk about their own, utterly, utterly, absolutely, hilariously unavoidable death. But I want to discuss it with you for a little while now because it feels healthy to be aware of it; to avoid hopping through life blissfully unaware of my mortality, one day to be smote by a falling tree branch and, my consciousness obliterated, rendered a floppy assortment of blubber and bone. No; I see you, Death. I see you there, hanging around with your head down and your skeletal fingers thrust nonchalantly into the infinite pockets of your ghastly black shroud, whistling and kicking celestial pebbles waiting for me to cark it. Yeah, I see you. Bugger off. Continue reading →

Travelling Back In Time To Break My Father’s Nose, or, The Weirdest Story I Have Ever Written

/ Dan Hackett / Leave a comment

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Do you think you could beat your father in a fight? What about when he was in his prime? My uncle asked this very question at my father’s birthday dinner last weekend, and my father, without a hint of irony or humour, gazed straight into my eyes and told me he would ‘massacre’ me, even now. He’s 59 years old with a hernia and a beer gut, I am 25. The hubris. This simply won’t stand. Something must be done.

I am going to break your nose, old man. Not now, not today, while you’re old and feeble and your best years are behind you. There’d be no satisfaction in that, there’d be no challenge. No, father, I’m going to go back to the 1980’s, I’m going to find you, and I’m going to make you wish I’d never been born. Continue reading →

Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 3, Paris

/ Dan Hackett / 12 Comments

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Drink, Play, Loathe – Day 2, Paris

Woke up at 3am because Aish, one of the Canadian girls, was talking in her sleep. Her mumbles continued for some time, then grew into tossing and turning, then thrashing, until at 4am she swung her legs over the bunk, dropped onto the floor, and sleep-sprinted out of the room in her knickers. Her friend Sarah jumped up and grabbed her, then must have remembered not to wake a sleepwalker, and simply followed her out of the dorm. I shrugged and fell back asleep. Continue reading →

10 Best Attempts to Murder Castro

/ Dan Hackett / 1 Comment

With cigar chomping Fidel Castro at the wheel, Cuba has been defying the USA for decades without ever declaring open war. Both countries have imposed sanctions and trade blockades like they were going out of style, leading to a resource-strangled Cuba and a not-very-affected-economically-but-quite-embarrassed United States. It seems the CIA decided it would be a lot easier for everyone if Fidel was dead, and have poured a lot of time and money into attempts to make it so. Continue reading →

Falling into the Grand Canyon

/ Dan Hackett / 1 Comment

“Okay, follow me.”

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I took my tour guide’s hand and shuffled along after him sightlessly. Behind me was a long chain of blindfolded backpackers clinging to each other like a care home conga line. We edged our way along the path, which we knew would take us to the rim of the Grand Canyon. After a minute of feeling our way down the path, a sudden quiet implied we had reached the edge. Our guide, and my friend, a perpetually upbeat Puerto Rican named Nando, carefully positioned us in a line, and semi-joking warned us not to step forward. He gave the word, and we took off our blindfolds. Continue reading →