Ultra kratke priče (Super Short Stories)
by Dino Pešut
2019
Adapted and translated for bal ‘23
Translated by Mislav Živković
GAY CULTURE (a cycle)
GAY CULTURE 1
Gay culture is based on the fact that our puberty has been taken away from us. We simply skipped it, because we had to hide, constrict or ignore our own identities. That is why our twenties present a decade of transformation. When you see a group of gay friends, they always resemble a highschool formation, much like the cliché cliques from American pop culture. There’s the queen bee, the jock, the nerd, the pretentious theater kid, the overachieving journalist, the ugly-pretty girl, the misunderstood, the much-too-understood, the slut, the class clown and the old slacker. Of course, much like puberty itself, all of it will prove to be a complete waste of time.
GAY CULTURE 2
Gay culture is the fact that we never got to have a teenage love story promised to us by pop culture. That’s why I chose you, the most beautiful boy in this town. And I believe I’m not the only one. Some of my past wrongs have been righted – but ten years too late.
So please, don’t hold it against me. Just play dumb and naive for a little while longer. I’ll grow out of it.
And don’t look at me like that.
Because then I’m afraid of heights.
GAY CULTURE 3
Gay culture is watching you dance and kiss some girl and being completely non-jealous about it.
Gay culture is normalizing the situation where I don’t even get a chance to approach you on the dance floor.
Something like a version of Robyn’s Dancing on My Own that no one will hear on the radio.
GAY CULTURE 4
A big part of gay culture is based on the fact that heterosexual men and women (do they still exist???) fundamentally do not understand each other. They don’t know how to communicate properly, which accounts for a big part of attraction, fuckability and frustration in their relationships. That’s where the gay best friend trope pops up, someone who can convey and decode personal messages, Hermes. The unwritten rule is that he must gobble up his sexuality and then lay an egg. Something will eventually be hatched from it, some kind of talent, some exceptional desire for beauty, or maybe some form of addiction.
To put it simply, gay culture is the lonely women who treat their gay friends as real-life Tamagotchis. Allegedly, those are fed shopping sprees and stories of their friends’ love lives.
GAY CULTURE, Another One
I have noticed that most gays I know yearn for something that is the most. For some it’s the most fuckable guys, for some the most beautiful houses and business suits, for some it’s the perfect body. For some the most amazing parties, life, taste and food.
Except for me.
I’m OK with this body. As well as with my half-empty apartment. I’m OK with my exes, and particularly OK with my career. I am only partially OK with my taste though. All in all, I’m OK with everything.
Except for myself.
GAY CULTURE 6
I read somewhere that young gay boys are often interested in Ancient Greek mythology. I found a bit of myself in that tweet. It was comforting to know that, once upon a time, even gods had flaws.
GAY CULTURE: FILM EDITION
(overview until 2018)
1. An urban tale. A gay man comes to a big city. He dances at the disco. He has a drink. He’s having a good time. He meets a handsome guy. They fuck. He dies of AIDS.
2. A rural tale. Two friends, most often teenagers. Their friendship makes the whole village deeply unhappy. Neighbors whisper, everyone complains, there’s an understanding but silent cousin from the big city, the priest nods and looks at the cloudy sky. Mother nags, Father keeps silent. The friends kill themselves. Then everyone cries at their funeral.
3. In the nature. Two men are isolated in the nature. A forest, a lake, a desert. They usually tend to some animals: cows, sheep, camels. They fuck once. Without a lubricant. They cannot address it so they develop a platonic love that manifests in the nature (wind, rain, hurricane). They both marry women, future Oscar winners. One of them usually dies, while the other one remains very sad.
4. Conclusion. It is very important that straight people learn something when a gay person dies. Usually something about the transience of life, so that everyone feels moved.
5. Bonus, for European film festivals. The story should be told from the perspective of someone very innocent, such as: a child, a younger brother, a person with disabilities or a demented old lady. It has to be a straight person so that it justifies the death of fictional gay characters as a moral diagnostics of the society.
VIENNESE NOTEBOOK (January 2019)
A SELF-PORTRAIT AS AN ACT
I live in a museum complex. This means that the nearest dating apps users are its visitors. That is how I know that my acts are competing for the visitors’ attention against masterpieces of Gerstl, Klimt or Schiele, my dickpics against Caramel’s minimalist innovations, and my mythomania against that of Andy Warhol’s.
D.
9 pm – At S.’ I meet D.
9:20 pm – I find out that D. owns a castle.
9:35 pm – D. is my new best friend.
9:40 pm – cheap flights, skyscanner.com, ryanair.com
RIDDLE
In Café Jelinek, having a cake and talking to my new friend M.
M. has a boyfriend who has two boyfriends. Everyone involved is happy.
The question is, how many boyfriends does Dino have?
RIDDLE 2
I meet a drunk person, my future friend. He too owns a castle. But his grandpa was a communist. It’s complicated, he says. He will tell me sometime.
The question is, how many castles does Dino have?
A DETECTIVE STORY
I find out about a truly heinous crime. Someone has hacked my acquaintance’s e-mails and stole the Chanel PR manager’s contact. She suspects that her former business partner is the culprit. That uncool bitch.
(If the Chanel lady is reading this by any chance, I’m open to collaboration.)
DOPPELGANGER
This morning, while I was eating an apple strudel at Savoy, I was sure I saw Elfriede Jelinek. I didn’t. But now I know how those teenage girls who saw The Beatles felt. I guess everyone has a celebrity who helps them overcome their repressed sexuality.
CONTEMPORARY ART
I followed a group of artists towards the metro after the annual exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts, hoping I would get to meet one of them (!). They stood next to a visibly drunk young guy and a visibly insane older guy. Instead of saying hi, the two jolly fellows put their feet up on the seats and laughed. The art students, I have to mention – all of whom were white, just subtly moved away. I believe this encounter illustrates the state of contemporary art most accurately: white upper-middle class artists afraid of alcoholism and insanity. How art has changed since the 20th century.
THROUPLE
In a library dedicated to Richard Gerstl I find out that his relationship with Arnold and Mathilda Schönberg had oedipal undertones. Wouldn’t it be more simple to say that they were a throuple? Mathilda felt like it so she briefly eloped with Gerstl. My friend Ž. had the same thing happen to him. When I think about it, gossip needs to stay within the oral literary tradition. Thus instead of writing, I am calling V. to tell him what exactly happened to Ž.
NEW PLAY
An idea for the title.
Pretentiousness awakening. Like Spring Awakening, but with hipsters. They all die at the end because they have a cup of cow's milk (!!!) that they paid 5 euros for at a new brunch place. I’m still not sure whether they die from lactose, or, like me, from a heart attack when they see the bill.
BRUNO, ESCORT
We found out that one of our close friends had been an escort for years now. And we are not entirely comfortable with this. I mean, we had a friend who did porn in Berlin. But we expected that from Joško. Because Joško was fun in a not so funny way and he was doing way too many drugs at that time. We were kinda proud to have a really close friend who did porn. I even jerked off a couple times to his porn. Joško is handsome. On top of that, Joško didn’t have that many talents so it’s no wonder he committed to going out and fucking. That’s what we expected of him. Why am I writing about Joško all of a sudden? He’s really not important. At some point he fell in love with some filthy rich guy. That guy got him to settle and there, last summer we attended their wedding ceremony at Lake Como, where they live in a mansion. Of course Joško had things work out for him like that. I still sometimes masturbate to his porn. I saved it on time and I keep it in a folder that is sometimes named various and sometimes 2015_works.
But this friend of ours, that’s something different. He is beautiful. And so talented. I can’t write his name here, but his working name is allegedly Bruno. We expected a lot from him. He is beautiful and talented. He was supposed to succeed through his work and dedication and talent. And he had it going so well. In college he already proved to have a real gift. And we really tried to make others aware of it. And now we find out that he has been an escort ever since we met him. One time we saw him with this older guy, but thought it was just a matter of taste. We knew that his father was a sailor and often wasn’t there. And we’ve all been through a phase when we have had to compensate for the boring cliché of an absent father with even more boring older guys. Except, we were doing it out of love, and he was making money off of it. I never have and never would take money for sex. Except that one time, when I needed some to pay the rent, but that was also love, or something similar to that.
Anyway, Bruno is supposed to be hanging with us tonight. We’ve been sitting on my terrace for two hours already, wondering what to do, how to deal with this new fact. Because suddenly it’s somehow awkward. We shouldn’t even know about it to begin with. So we sit. In silence. And we don’t know what to do. Some attempt a feminist approach, thinking that we need to show support and use politically correct terms for it: sex work, that is, sex therapy. Others are hurt because they feel betrayed, as people and as friends. And some others are disappointed. Oh fuck it, who am I kidding? I’m sad. I’ve loved Bruno for years now. For free.
_