Watch out
I've gone off the song 'Maneater' by Hall and Oates.

Every week I run miles and miles. Thousands of steps. Steps over rocks and steps over concrete and puddles.

Some while ago, I put rocks into my coat pockets and rocks into my rucksack and I sat alone on a cold beach. There was a sign for no dogshit please and there was a shut down ice cream parlour and there was no one there and in my hand there was a bottle of gin and then the gin was gone. I was obsessed with doing it on holiday. It just sounded so...statemental. A clue to a deeper question, hidden in the banality of my answer. I sat and drank the gin while the sea smirked white smiles, and the wind; the wind howled. I saw traces of sand blown in wisps along the shore and I looked for meaning, and I found a meaning and so I quickly steered my thoughts away. I debated leaving my shoes on the shore. A plastic epitaph by Shoe Express. But I wanted more to vanish entirely. I wanted most for almost every single thing I'd touched to be washed so it would be clean of me. I started to walk into the sea and the waves lapped at my knees then at the black hole in my belly, then at my throat and I could feel the rocks and the waves, and the sand of the shore, and the wind howled. The sea tasted of cheap salt. Of bad tears. While all this was going on; the gin and the wind, the way the big rocks had been turned into meaningless sand, and the way the sea just fucking sat there, the salt, holidays, I had the song 'Maneater' by Hall and Oates in my head. It amazed me that, at a time supposedly as portentious as this, I could have a fucking song in my head. I stumbled as I sang, "watch out boy's she'll cheeew you up". The waves covered my head to the saxophone riff.

I was underwater, hoping for meaning. But all that I could hear was 'the beauty is there but a beast is in the heart" It got so that I knew if I took one more step, I'd be free. One more step. But I couldn't. I couldn't take a single step. Instead, I dropped the rucksack with the rocks, turned round and headed back to the coast.

Then I went home to my family and no one knows. Dried out, stopped over thinking. Mental, really. But,oh, every time I hear that song.

That rucksack and the rocks are probably still there, under the surface.
(sirolimus, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 17:27, 41 replies)

Lol attention seeker

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 17:30, closed)

It takes a special kind of loser to fail at suicide.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 17:47, closed)

fucking hell.
you should make this your suicide note. everyone would understand.
( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 17:50, closed)

alright shitshitshit

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 17:51, closed)

I got very, very hard, whilst reading this,
and am wanking as I type my reply.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 20:35, closed)

and those responses above ^^^
is why this site is dying on its arse. Click on the OP's username. See what he contributed to the site in the past. Then, his first post in 3 years gets the predictable response from the shower, nay deluge, of twats that have invaded this board.

Please, Rob, kill off QOTW; it's just home now to people with some fairly serious personality disorders and any "talent" there might have once been here has been driven off by the braying pricks like those who've commented above me.
(TheImmortalJenkins, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 21:44, closed)

pretty sure dour, self-important little trolls like you who have been here all of five minutes aren't helping either
hope this helps xxx
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 22:22, closed)

...and in he charges, on his Shetland destrier, dual wielding his weapons of Dullness and Sanctimony.

EDIT: did you have any luck sniveling to the mods about Ringo's sock puppet?
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 22:28, closed)

tell me more about my imaginary bedsit
no really, I'm all ears
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 22:43, closed)

Imagine your own bedsit, you lazy spastic.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 22:46, closed)

PROTIP: your imagination made it in the first place

www.b3ta.com/questions/socialmediameltdowns/post1999625
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 22:48, closed)

So now you want me to furnish it, too?

I dunno, there's a shitty brown couch, smells vaguely of mould and despair. Floral carpet, long past its best and threadbare in many places. Half pint of piss beside the camp bed, which is itself covered in greying, unwashed sheets. All illuminated by the guttering light of a single candle, burned now for so many hopeless nights that it's no longer than your cock.

Do I have to do all the work, here?
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:00, closed)

tell me more
who else lives in the building, what kind of neighbourhood is it in, whereabouts in the country is it
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:06, closed)

Sorry, it imaginarily burned down. You were in it at the time.

No-one came to the funeral.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:10, closed)

where was this funeral

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:14, closed)

Blandford Forum.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:16, closed)

what type of church
Methodist, Presbyterian or Episcopalian
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:19, closed)

I imagine it's just like the one I'm supposed to live in
Damp and somewhere in Finsbury Park, right?
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:40, closed)

Nope.
Howdy HP.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:20, closed)

Well, you dodged a bullet there. He was on your case, warbling about getting you a permaban or something, right up to the moment he deleted the thread in a rare moment of self-awareness.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:27, closed)

well, colour me impressed
did you look up "self-awareness" on Wikipedia, or Urban Dictionary?
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:44, closed)

You've already stunk up one subthread with your dull, trying for two is just needy.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:57, closed)

yeah, bored with that now
what's your favourite Mike + the Mechanics album?

you can't say Living Years
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:59, closed)

Can't say as I've ever listened to a whole album of theirs, but I remember them having something quite listenable in the charts at roughly the same time OMD were peddling "Sailing on the Seven Seas". So I'll go for the album that came from, whichever it was.

At the time, I preferred Roxette.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 0:09, closed)

why did you like that song

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 0:11, closed)

Something to do with the drum noises.

"tch-TCH!"
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 0:19, closed)

A moment of complete and utter
Beige-ness?

It's a bit dis-heartening that 2 of my stories FP'd last week - I was pleased but really I know I'm not the best out there - it's just sad that a lot of the good story tellers don't even bother sticking their heads around the door lest they get showered in dribbly shit.
TBH it seems as tho the mods either are too busy with their digits in dogs bums or some of them appear to be in collusion with the shit-flingers & if that's the case then why even bother coming here anymore?
Anyhoo...
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 0:02, closed)

Fair point, but there were one or two Narcissistic gobshites amongst the "classic" posters of yore. In any event, I much prefer an under-modded forum to an over-modded one.

Pity about stories like the OP's here, though - nicely written, inoffensive, more or less on topic, and still coated with the aforementioned dribbly shit.

Hey, ho.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 0:17, closed)

Yes, there were some posters
who were perhaps somewhat "inventive" with their stories - but at least they were generally well-written and on-topic and amusing.

The howls now of "lies" whenever anyone posts anything which may, for example, involve that person having had sex (which does, strangely enough, happen to most people, although the arseholes who now clog up QoTW could probably not believe that) and general abuse that greets most posters has put off most people from bothering.

In general I'd agree with you about the desirable levels of moderation, once the 10 worst offenders at the moment had been nuked from orbit. However, as they are so desperate for the strange validation they take from coming out with their crap, odds are they would be back before too long anyway.

Hey-ho, there's always the QoTW archive to look at for good stories...
(TheImmortalJenkins, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 1:00, closed)

I've gone back a good couple of years -
srsly good laughs in some of those Popular Pages.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 8:24, closed)

yes, the internet would be a barren wasteland without his sex lies,
failed suicide attemps and alcoholism. thanks for playing though..
( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 22:32, closed)

Janet
More tedious whining really? Don't you ever run out of bile or is there an unlimited supply to draw from?
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 16:18, closed)

i think if you read back VERY carefully,
you'll find you're barking up the wrong tree re whining.
( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 16:36, closed)

Stop crying.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 23:22, closed)

Could you please post a list of acceptable responses?
We could all use that, instead. We'll all save so much time when we can reply "Reply No. 4", rather than typing anything more complicated.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 0:37, closed)

Hahahahaha yeah.
Fuck off back to mumsnet.
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Sat 17 Aug 2013, 13:42, closed)

I like his writing.
But I'm not sure that this well-known self-help website is the best place for him.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 15 Aug 2013, 22:44, closed)

alright, bellend
i think you might be lost. this is a comedy forum where people post silly stories, puns and sex lies

also - try fire or earth next time. water is too unreliable. it's a lot harder to coward out and shrug off a tyre full of petrol when your fat is melting and your sinews have become as brittle as twigs

hope this helps
(alright alright, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 8:10, closed)

I tried a tyre full of petrol once
Didn't taste nice and it made my farts highly flammable
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 16:20, closed)

Have you ever considered taking lessons in dignity from Frisbee Adam?

( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Sat 17 Aug 2013, 13:41, closed)

hauntingly beautiful
I really enjoyed this. You have one heck of a talent with words, and an eye for pathos.

The banality of it all is just brilliant. Good luck with your journey.
(justin(e), Mon 19 Aug 2013, 13:38, closed)