The Buzz: Life off the Mainland

Irmak Erol
4 min readJun 30, 2024

There is a buzz, as there always is at this time of the day, a buzz that’s not quite about half a bottle of red wine and a few shots of cheap whiskey that have been drowned consistently, rather the discrepancy each gulp evokes where one gets accustomed to moony tendencies. A calendar day becomes no more what it is set out to be. Each serving abides by an idea of a substance that proves itself to be distorted and at first glance rebellious. And there is always a wayward detour that leads to one’s buttocks for a chunk.

In the bathroom are two slugs, light brown in color with a pattern that resembles a jaded kilim carpet. They appear mostly at night time, right around when the buzz kicks in, and always in a slightly different spot.

I get hiccups in the middle of a cigarette that promptly transforms into a battlefield of my choosing for the time being.

The space appears to be highly shared. I don’t attempt to get rid of the slugs, at the same time I resist naming them. Same principle applies to the mouse living under my bed and the moldy leakage above it.

Acceptance takes place through an embellishment of the antennas sticking out of what I assume to be their heads and a disregard for the remaining of their forms. The slugs move very slowly, unlike the mouse, so they seem harmless.

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