transgressive fiction needs to make a comeback by Bogdan Dragos

he used to write those
very intense
works about
human suffering and
degeneracy
and the corruption of
good souls into evil
criminals - Breaking Bad style

He hated supranatural stuff
in writing. Stayed away
from it.
“It’s just stupid,” he said. “There’s
more than enough magic,
both dark and light, into the
human heart to keep
a reader entertained. You don’t need
to invent it, just report it.”

And he did
in every one of his
twelve books
but unfortunately not one of them
got published

He had two agents
who saw something in some
of his works
and tried to sell them, but after numerous
failures they both gave up
and parted ways
with him

Apparently
it just wasn’t meant to be

“It’s the state of today’s
world,” he said. “The large majority of
people have been reduced
to an infantilized status. This
generation grows up only
with the body,
but the mind remains stuck somewhere
in childhood. They are
too sensitive for their own good.
In movies
as well as in literature
they stay away from gritty, offensive
stuff. They want cool superheroes who
beat the bad guys and
save the day. Childish shit like that.
The shit I
can’t fuckin’ stand. I don’t know
where it all went down so
low. It’s like people are afraid to live
life these days. The moment you
introduce them to a product
that could potentially
offend their tastes, they're losing their
minds, going ballistic, they
want to hurt you for it. But they won’t
hurt you themselves. No, they’ll cry
like babies to the authorities
to do the job for them. In a writer’s case,
you write some shit
that offends people and they’ll
cry to the publishing house
to remove your books from stores. So
the publishing houses are
no longer willing to take this risk.
Logically.
And that’s why, as of today, I am
still unpublished. Something needs to change
in the world. Transgressive fiction
needs to make a comeback.
Maybe I, myself, gotta do something about
it.”

He already did write
his sixth essay on the subject
but nobody would read it

He also stuck some of these essays
to the doors of some
bookstores and the offices
of literary agencies, but all he got
from it was a
fine for vandalism

It was time for a different
message. His last
short story was about a writer who
went insane (or perhaps
he always was) and started assaulting
and murdering various people
who worked in the
publishing industry. He would
paint a message on the walls
with their blood
and guts. It was
a good story but of course not one
that would ever get published

So no different
from the rest
of ‘em

Well sometimes you just gotta
swallow your pride
and…

Nope, he picked up the
gun and just
like that
decided to become the next
reason people can’t handle
disturbing fiction

Surely
there is someone
somewhere
who’s somehow rooting for
him

I know
there is…