The Diary of a Common Man

By Tevada Dismas Pay-Pey

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A Lesser Word Book

Published by The Lesser Word

Cover and illustrations by Tevada Dismas Pay-Pey

Text design and typeset by Microsoft

Published in the United States by The Lesser Word, Inc., Minnesota, an independent publisher of Catholic thought.

Table of Contents

Volume I (2024-2026)

LV 02/27/2026 , Friday : Cancelled date. 225

LVI 02/28/2026 , Saturday : A psycho date. 232

LVII 03/01/2026 , Sunday : The reject and rejectee. 235

LVIII 03/07/2026 , Saturday : When a coworker hosts. 241

LV
02/27/2026 , Friday : Cancelled date

Ah heck, made an impulse buy to a fraternity’s discord servera. The voice chat in “The-Pub?” White noise.

Today, Amelia cancelled our date over voicemail. “It was good meeting you, but I don’t think we have a future together,” she said. Yeah, she was a Protestant, but still. Ah well, I take back a lot of what I talked about last entry. Turns out, I was right to get a back-up date. Then, to be fair I did ask her dead father that if he burned in Purgatory, whether he’d give a nod to let me date his kid.

Talk about answered prayer. Anyhow, guess I get to go on other dates with other girls then. Speedrunning life here. Get a date, lose the 2^nd date, with the other girl, figure out how to end the relationship. Thanks be to Amelia, she gave a tip on how to do that.

Goodness, the guys in the pub are talking about what sport Jesus plays. Hold it together. Someone posted a chopped picture of Jesus. It’s the earliest image except instead of the original, it’s a—whatever. Life’s fine.

A young and beautiful virgin woman whom God to marry me to while my youth remains in me. Ah, if only such a thing would come. Got a Florida man talking about an old liaison he had, a Puerto Rican girl whom he laid with. Got me Dostoyevsky-maxxing. Yeah, I don’t take back everything I said from last entry.

Either marry me to a prostitute or a virgin. I can’t marry a woman who rides other men for free. Like, imagine marrying that Puerto Rican at the same time this guy talked about piping her. As a plus, the fellow sharing this liaison isn’t the most handsome guy.

Damn, hearing the experiences of these guys, yeah, I was right. Some men never know what their women were up to, and a man may be inside a woman without ever knowing she was married or partnered with another. Yeah, I feel pretty happy about the 2^nd date with Amelia falling through now.

The Lord has spawned me into this world. I adapt. Christians, Catholic, Agnostic, Secular, the infection called human nature runs too deep. A world of consents runs to sodomy, adultery, and hell. Listening to these guys, it is not an exaggeration to say that if the “good” men kidnapped virgins to wife the world would be better off.

Let’s paint the picture I hear, Lord. An innocent looking girl, a man’s fiancée with a ring on her finger, committing sodomy, adultery, at 4:00am. Imagine having that as your mother. Is this the world You had intended to make? Was this what Your Christendom, Your forgiveness meant to create?

Okay, this is actually a fun conversation. The boys are trying to help a fellow get girls. Ah, I may be a Catholic, but some things are truly universal… Catholic. Yeah, I’m feeling ready to get some hotties. Got to be retarded. Got to get more hotties.

And, if it’s any comfort. These guys get dumped after having good dates with girls also. Hmm, guess I better keep at it then.

On the other hand, look at me, Lord, a Catholic helping a man get nudes. What a world we live in.

I don’t think he’s getting nudes.

Great. This has turned into a whole chat about texting girls. We’re waiting on the girls to reply. It’s been 30 minutes. They haven’t replied.

Another 30 minutes passed. They never replied. They’re talking about something else now. Shared a bit about myself. “Watched Elisha Long’s videos. Retardmaxxing got me two dates. Then I made an impulsive purchase to enter the discord.”

All kind of ridiculous, but really, maybe I’m an addict for male camaraderie. One should hear the experiences of other guys. Learn how to adapt. Learn how to survive in the world. Blessed are those who overcome.

People are leaving the pub now. I have a cigarillo in my mouth I don’t even want to smoke. I left also. Guess that’s how the cookie crumbles.

Great. I get to process what I heard. Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do. Do we know what we do? What’s wrong is wrong and what’s right is right. If what’s doing what’s wrong is the only way for things to work and we know that, then surely we’d still die if we did wrong to get what works.

Take Lucius, my friend for example. I love him and he’s an example of how men who claim they’d wished to have never entered any other women besides their current wife are in error. See, if it were a grave mistake for a man to fornicate before acquiring a virgin for a wife then the fornicator would have never acquired that virgin on account of his prior adultery. Maybe it’s on account of forgiveness that a person marries an adulterer as the man who our Florida man cucked.

Does that feel right, Lord? I’m not a woman so I can’t imagine. But as a man, I can imagine, if not hear. Sitting next to me, on a date, call it the perfect girl. She wears a pair of jeans, a sweater, and innocence, the air. A prim and proper girl she seems. Never the kind to date around. But then you find that you weren’t the only guy she messed around with. Actually, as you were taking her out for a first date, she’s scheduled for a second date with another man one week, and she’s actively getting her receptacles rammed by another guy. To put your flesh where other men’s parts have been—a child would have to come from where other dicks have been. Your child would have to exit through the tunnel where other men who were not his father have been.

Say this adulteress who frolicked with the Florida man marries the man she was engaged to. Say she has a child with this man. Does the man have to contend with the fact that his child comes out the same womb another man shot his rope in?

These are the questions a man should ask. The terror of adultery almost makes rape upon a virgin, where in the fashion of the Old Testament a soldier then cleaves to marry thus his bride, preferable.

You gave me the fortune Lord, of having been born out of a womb untouched by the contaminations of other men. Is this how a child ought to think?

I am as a child before You, God. Birth is a crude thing. It’s more crude when the baby has to exit a tunnel stained with the ooze of men who were not his father.

It would seem that what I ask our Mother’s too high a task for God. Maybe it is because the will of God has to contend with the will of man. His will is done whether men multiply or don’t.

I am this close to looking for escorts to give me massages. Damn it. I know it myself. If I as a Catholic can’t even defend myself against lusts, then, how can I expect the sex easier to deceive to do the same?

None of this matters. The cross of this life is to suffer a losing battle. It is to take the loss of God as the Son did in His Passion. Even if the whole world asks me to betray Him on account of His lack of goodness, I can’t.

What good would be given to me? I have done wrong without knowing it was wrong. Then I did wrong knowing it was wrong. Surely I receive some part of the punishment of my sins.

What then? Will it be to God that He punishes me while he remits punishment from others? If it is to God then it’s of God. He has placed me on this string to reach for the things of the world, to suffer the preaching of men who do not practice what they preach.

If a man were Lucius were ever in a space as I, then his thoughts too would also be dark as I. He says I need Jesus. He needs Jesus! I am with Him every day. His heart beats before me in His chapel and to me He seems to stand, scarred and beaten back within His church because it’s the only place where He can hide his eyes away from what men get up to in the world.

Least, in a physical body He can keep His eyes on a place and be less present in another. Yeah, should God be with the man who drives his ram where the sun doesn’t shine? He’s God. He’ll be with man unto Sheol, but least, in His church he doesn’t have to see as well.

Man, have to at least see what’s available. A massage. I’m a good looking guy. I could probably get more than that. I hate this world. Beside God who can understand the soul?

Read a few of the Epstein files. Never found the rituals. What I saw so far was underage girls giving themselves willingly through modelling agencies. God, if a woman gives herself freely doesn’t the flesh trader do a good thing by assigning a value to her flesh at least?

Epstein was an old, horny, rich dude with drugs and rager parties. Teenagers giving themselves to such men happens all the time. In fallen land of Christendom will they give themselves for free.

In the pagan world daughters are sold. They are kidnapped. Many would fight to defend themselves from these men while people here give themselves for free. Do men across the world give themselves for free in fornications? They do. Then they marry.

Still, as a non-sexual thing, is it really so wrong to tip a $200 for a massage given by a pretty young woman? They’re Slavic too. Might be into Asians thanks to the Khan breeding with Eastern Europeans.

Does this count as a mortal sin? Yeah. Don’t feel like I should take Communion tomorrow. What a waste. Was it wrong? Yeah. Am I contrite? Probably not considering what I know about how men acquire good things in this age.

Our God is a dead God outside His church. Good Christian boys will be cuckolded on their wedding nights and they who pay for dinner dates will treat a girl who downs the food of another man at 4:00am, her head below his waist.

Am I wrong to betray the world that has betrayed me, God? I made proof of how I can adapt to the world. My conscious rails against me. You have taken my fasts and rosaries for naught. You have answered the adulterer and me as one answers to a dove and swine. To unrepentant sinners who make no right to their wrongs You have given the world. To the repentant You give hell on Earth.

What then? The page is before me, this one, and the other for their services. I can get dates with pretty girls. Damn it, God. I can pay for girls as well. If I have been driven to this sin, then it would be because You created me to overcome a world where boys are taught to sodomize their women and touch the thing attached below the hip of other men.

Well I didn’t end up booking anything. These massages are like chiropractors. Don’t want the health of my flesh in the hands of another person. It can heal on its own. Suppose I’ll go to confession for it. Not every massage service comes with a catalogue of lewdly dressed women. If You want to damn me during the night by ending my life in sleep then You will do that according to Your will.

And no, I don’t plan on humping my date today either. God, it’s one hour past midnight. I wish You’d speak less in omens and signs. I know You care because You should have killed me for sorcery but didn’t. Still, if I have repented and done what I could to amend my wrongs, should I not receive the reward of good?

It’s one thing for a person born into evil to overcome their evil nature. How come I have to get preached by those born into good who turned away from good back to good? I’ve turned away from evil and still suffer evil. Worse than this, the one friend who I feel should relate to me has been inoculated by his happy family life. Like, Lucius’s parents got divorced. He threw a girl out of his apartment to break up with her. He had his flings, evil was what he did and overcame because he was born to an evil nature on account of his parent’s divorce. He’s done evil and received the reward of good, so how can he come around and tell me that I should think more godly thoughts as if God has turned His back to me?

Maybe He has. He should love those in Hell more than those trying to get to Heaven. One lamb is in more danger than the other.

A woman has put a price on her own flesh.

Good. Least there’s been a value put to flesh. Then what is Love? The price of the flesh of God is obedience. To sin against Him is to deny yourself His flesh. The temptation to peruse massage services was not overcome. Damn it. If it’s just for a massage is it really a mortal sin? Like, Lord, what if I really just want the massage? Should I deny myself from You on account of that small desire for comfort which neither You nor this world will give?

To Hell with being denied by the world? These people around me can’t contend with a man who feels he is denied by both the world AND God.

I turn to evil and I receive no good. I turn to good and still no good. The greatest good I’ve ever got was to kick that damned habit of Onanism and even then that only came because I was evil. I preferred raping girls to pleasuring myself, then Heaven to Hell. I only keep Your Commandments because You have raped me with the threat of Hell. In my dreams I have never seen heaven, but I have seen Hell. I have seen who lives there and I don’t want to see him there. I am a soul whose love is entirely based on the trauma inflicted from Lover to love. You have not wooed me by pleasant gifts or sweet words. You ravished me and drove me to my place. Now, I am a miserable wretch who keeps the Commandments better than other men, who lives daily fearing Him he’s called to love. You have rejected me from Your seminary. Your creations have rejected me from passing on my genes. The arts of Your enemy have procured me nothing. What is there left for me to do but take Your world into my hands?

Why must my life be held according to the consent of adulterers and sinners? If a man or woman has sodomized why should they then get to set the terms for how another enjoys their flesh? Should a spouse negotiate with their husband and wife what they have given out for free before marriage? If the man or woman has given themself through passion then they should give themselves through duty, and if not, then perhaps beaten according to the prescription of Saint Aquinas. The person who has fornicated before meeting their spouse withholds the grace of matrimony? Screw that. Rape him. If a man snuck away at 4:00am from his previous fiancée’s house to ram himself down another woman’s mouth then what would it would be for the man to deny himself from his wife whom he’s married to?

Wretched knaves! Do You not dare to speak upon my lot? God, how many times have we come to this place before? If You would have given me what I asked, surely I’d not be damned. Do You ever consider by who this was said? Behind every Epstein, every Dahmer, is a man saying this thing!

Do You think we trade flesh for the love of the game? Does a man wake up one day and decide to rob a bank? Every day’s a time to wake up and decide whether one should accept their lot of getting hanged by the world or not. Most of us live our entire lives hanged by the world. So very few decide to do something about it.

You have given man insatiable desires and attached to him a finite life. Youth does not remain in man forever. There is a time when he’s called to multiply himself and a time when he’s to die. If man can’t do what’s for youth while youth remains in him, why else would he then seek the youth in another’s flesh?

Would the Khan have been what he was had he lived in a world where his first wife wasn’t kidnapped and raped? Would I be who I am if Your world had spared me from its design? The best thing about today’s world, proven also by the flesh trader, man can carouse with youthful women on a dime. He can have his harem, from the peasant to the king. Every man can have his harem. He only has to see the world for what it is. Epstein saw because he was a diddler. I saw on account of the poverty of my people across the sea. What use is this? What the world gives would damn man. It already does. What You give, least from what I’m living is nothing save for the ability to keep Your Commandments in a world which no longer rewards those who keep them.

Then there’s the time where you break one, like now, kind of, and it’s like, welp, you could be damned. Not that you’d know because God doesn’t directly speak to you. You just have a guess that maybe giving in to your weakness to scrounge a catalogue of lewdly dressed masseuses would damn you. You can’t even be sure because you can no longer tell if God is merciful to those who try their darndest to obey Him or merciful to those who sneak away from the man their engaged to to get the pickle of another man shoved down their throat at 4:00am. Hah! And it’s crazy to think a person like that’s going to be a doctor!

What a sick joke. The adulteress seeks to heal others. She damns them rather, and it’d have been better for the doctor to be dead than give head. Oh, I had already sinned. Would not God kill me so I can finally argue with Him directly? The joy in my life is gone. It has been replaced with the gravity of sin and the futile longing for a good far off.

In days like this, I wonder if the Lord has destined fate to make some like Khans. Is it a matter of consent or is it a matter of righteousness? My soul cries out all day long. The crowns of the rosary are crafted. A gift is given only for it to be turned to ash. If I am damned, it will be on account of my own self. Without the hand of God to make life easier for man, no man can live a life free from sin? Still, the Lord turns His face away though I make myself present before Him. The more I chase the further away He gets.

Mayhaps, for this night. The devil will have me. Then I will confess and it will be as the days before, walking as a dutiful spouse who receives no passion from her lord.

LVI
02/28/2026 , Saturday : A psycho date

Have a few minutes before I’m called for my sister’s birthday. Got back from a date with the older woman. Terrible learning about these girls. To date is to play where one decides how to break up or hump. Credit to Amelia, she broke things off before I got my chance to do the rejecting on account of her Pentecostalism. In fact, I had a hope she’d stoke my flesh enough that I’d consider my no kissing before marriage rule. That was it, and, if I was wrong I’d be glad to be wrong. Unfortunately, I was right.

This girl also, I’m leaning towards separation. The part of my soul displayed on our outing, she heard a man doing his best not to say, “God is not good sometimes. Actually, He may be terrible most of the time to some people. That’s good. Some men are made to get nothing from this world and die.” The hard truth was that it was difficult to be physically attracted to her by looking at her. If the older woman didn’t have a body, and was to be judged on what she said of herself—deep devotion to Mary, prays her rosary, discipled by Father Mike Schmitz etc.—I’d be on her.

Thing is, I am a spiteful man and that makes me a superficial one. Knowing I could date a girl like Amelia has turned me off from dating this other girl.

Maybe this is the grace of being me, being Marc. I’m doled and dole out. Let’s give this other woman a name. I didn’t touch Rina at all. I didn’t touch Amelia either. Amelia hugged me, but I didn’t hug Amelia. I am convinced God removes potential lovers from me based off their history.

I want sex. But I only want it because a visions more glorious than naked flesh seem far from me. More than a figure, I’d seek to strike the tower of Babel, to set aflame the world that killed my wife before she breathed.

The desire for sex in the way I desire it comes from lack of glory.

***

Got back from birthday celebrations. Sister got sushi with our clan. Her boyfriend, a spastic lad, was also present. Would it surprise you, Lord, that I can talk like a normal person? The hostesses at the front were sexy. God, if You’ve read the previous entry You’ll know that any chastity I maintain looking at pretty women comes from a broken mind. Ever read Boy’s Abyss? The flesh works, but a hateful dialection keeps the flesh in check. If only there were a man out there who’d affirm my belief. I’d be happier, I would, giving in to desire. I’d be happy if there were no heaven nor hell. That to spill my brains meant waiting in black until conscious thought would return unto this form.

And how hollow are the trite testimonies of men? One prayed the five decades of the rosary and he received his riches. Another prayed the chaplet and You lifted him out of poverty. Will there ever be a man who isn’t dead who’ll be one of my kind? I’ve recited the full rosary, fifteen decades, daily for 89 days. That’s 13,617 Hail Maries. Still, the desires of my heart are unfulfilled.

You’ve turned Your face. You’ve made me as one of Your saints. What disciplines sinners more than splintered crosses and stigmatas? What’s this nonsense about a relationship with God? For the love of God do we not cry out to Him all day long? When will He come to bring Justice to the land? When will He come to turn the sinner from his way? To end the suffering of the poor, of those who face nightmares alone? Does He not show mercy for too long? Has He not given us His Son? How long Lord will You wait? When will the blood and sufferings of Your sons fill Your cup of wrath? How long Lord will we live in a peace run by the prince of this world? Punishment for my sins was Your gift.

Getting baptized unto God was a terrible choice. Christianity is an ill-fitting suit, and there have been nothing but pointless tribulation since I sought Him. No coin has comforted me. No cloak has warmed. The hairs of my head were counted for the blade and stone. Neither seminary nor woman chose. A scourge upon the Church am I. Through the Old Law will progeny be secured. How I pray You’d prove me wrong!

Out of wrath and despair You reap. My soul groans for salvation from this earth. Do You refuse to gift me what is good because I’d stay here if You did?

Damn it! Why would Your people look at me as I’ve sinned more by buying flesh! Who gives a damn! They’ve damned themselves consensually! The rapist damns himself! The slave woman and her buyers are damned! All to hell! All! And then there’s You, telling me what I should want! How I should live my life! How I should just wait and throw myself to chance to scour this barren wasteland of the damned to see if there’s a set of lips I can bare to put my mouth around, praying those lips haven’t kissed another man’s ——! Sticks in the pile! All to burn! And You want to save these people! These disgusting people! I was one of them, dung at the bottom the heap! The king and peasant burn together! Why would You pick me apart from this pile if You’d leave me all alone! I am stuck looking at a heart beat, at a God who never speaks, who if He does speaks to one who can not hear.

Why do I even write? Do I expect You to write back? No, maybe it’s how it came. Thou art I as I art Thou.

I am a part of Your flesh. Which part? The heart. Others may be part of a beautiful front. I am stuck inside this pulsing blood. Am I meant to feel what You try to hide, Jesus?

Thy will be done not mine.

The God who considered bringing the angels down? The God who considered avenging His own self? Every permutation, every future, You saw, and knowing You could make a new world, You loved us so much You gave Yourself to the abuse of those You could have killed. You are the God of the Flood. You’ve considered ending the world. You’ve done it before. Jesus, is what I feel also a part of Your love?

It is. To overcome Justice for Mercy is the heart of God. To struggle with a righteous thought with a thought more righteous. That is God. Perhaps it crosses Your mind to kill me on account of my sins. You don’t because if when the day comes for me to die You’ll kill me for salvation over damnation.

These records then have their purpose. The story of a soul forced to live against the world.

If You let me be a priest, I’d fail to write these things. You decided to form instead a common man’s account.

One day, You’ll give me a wife to my taste. If a willingness to settle with Amelia didn’t please You enough, guess I’ll shoot for Ciel… again.

Hells, God give me larger friend groups. Maybe I should call Mattias from the young adults group at Saint Mary’s to see if he’d like to head to the bar to pick up chicks.

LVII
03/01/2026 , Sunday : The reject and rejectee

The hour is 03:22pm. Here’s a record of the day. I woke up, lay in bed for 2 hours, dressed, drove up a hill, then shambled into the church at 11:00am. Found a seat on the right side pews, Father Will gave a homily about the voice of God, and then we ate Him. Before eating, when Father held the Flesh I prayed for a beautiful young virgin for a wife while youth remained. After eating, I went to the back chapel where He sat. There I sent this message to Nina:

Hey Nina, it’s Marc. Enjoyed our date and I don’t want to lead you on.
I didn’t feel a spark. We’ll have to cancel our second date. I’m not going to the game.
Thank you for your time. It was good meeting you.

Then I read some comics off my phone till about a quarter after 1. Then I left for home, ate chicken and eggs in the kitchen, and came up here to type.

Before God, I’ve grown so much compared to the formative years of the man He killed by baptism. More got done in February than Marc did in a decade of lusting conscience. He has been spurned, he has spurned, and having been on both sides Marc says, “Israel is dead. Her people play devils’ games. Romances of lust. No shame. The man will charm for a woman’s consent to die. The ugly, the beautiful, they deny and accept the same. The less comely woman will deny the man whom the beautiful accepts right after. What terrible work must man do to find a consenting partner to die.”

The Catholic Church is the true Church. Its laws and ways are good. We have fallen, Lord and we can not rise. I have sipped upon the fruit. The impossible made possible, it will only take one decision for the path to hell to open. Why is hell behind locked and unlocked doors?

Yes, I can get a girl. Who can keep her? The adulteress is a tomb enclosed. She’s locked to her own husband. She opens the gates of fire for another. Alongside her her lover’s damned, but only in the life after. On earth there is none to punish her nor her lover. There is none to stone her. There is none to say sin no more.

And why, this reminds me of the homily Father Will gave today. How does God speak to man? Father Will relayed the happening of a miracle given by a Saint’s intercession. A young girl had an incurable disease. She was going to die, but the Saint healed her and she lived. The girl never asked for the Saint’s help. The Saint healed her without asking. Later, the girl, now a woman, was interviewed.

“How does it feel to be the miracle responsible for a Saint’s canonization?”

“I don’t know. I don’t go to mass. I don’t go to church.”

I couldn’t help but stare at a wheelchair bound girl who sat in the frontmost pews. Could she even go to the bathroom by herself? Why does God ignore those who cry to Him all day long? Why does He give to the faithless who do not pray? The Lord saved this woman’s life and she in her decades of life thereafter she never once went to a mass to thank Him. Why? There’s a girl and her parents who come to mass every week? You are literally with us in Spirit and Flesh. Why do You heal them who are afar off instead of us?

Are we not also sinners? Have we become so holy that we’re no longer sick? Is that how You see us, Lord? Has Your world always been this way? Does the sinner continuing in sin receive Your blessing more than those who turn from sin?

All vexation of heart. I only received the thought to break things off from Nina after eating You. A young and beautiful virgin woman? Course works follow from prayer. Nina wasn’t exactly young anymore.

So what then, Lord? Presumably, You remove options from me because they either aren’t virgins, beautiful, or young. You’ve given me the grace to know that I can attract, and that spergs like those in The Pub can attract.

So if there are women out there who are to the qualifications of my prayer, what work would I do to know them? There are a number of works You could do to get me to know them. For one, let’s imagine a few characters.

Girl-loser atheist with badooks decides to convert and comes to masses at Saint Mary’s. The coworker I’m to eat with after work has a couple of daughters. “Hey Sinke, you mind if I date your daughters?” Someone pretty moves to Springtown.

An infinite number of permutations to fulfill my prayer exist. What will come of it? The trouble for the devil is that there’s a young man who prays full rosaries daily who he can only damn if the man decides to take matters into his hands instead of God’s.

The man can commit any number of sin. What should the devil do to drive him to act against the will of God? Does the devil wait?

Maybe he does. Then, if he waits, what am I to do in between the waiting? Writing’s the art of a man retreating from the world. If the Scriptures are meant to bring a man to God, make a man like God, then what I write. What’s that supposed to do? In the year 2026 it is difficult for a man to find beautiful women when he graduates from school. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’d be different if I worked in a corporate role. Actually, for the conditions I gave to God, it’s probably impossible for me to find a woman who is both beautiful and never known a man. This, well, it was once thought impossible for me to get a date. Now that’s possible. I’ve been sat here for two hours. I live waiting to die. I wish there were a call to action. I’d father a child out of wedlock if it weren’t a sin.

***

Continuing the record of the day. The hour is 10:47pm. Finished praying the rosary and before that finished a talk with two other men at Saint Mary’s. The three of us sat in the youth room for a study hosted by the young adults group I helped form. The number of this group was larger than 3. Still, it was 3 that night, and in the way young Catholic men talk we went over radical ideas. Ajay liked the idea of Monarchy. Patrik called women who cried over their exes immature. I went over arranged marriages and had some blowback until clarifying I didn’t mean for forced marriages. Somehow, this ended with an open promise to get together at a bar. That would probably end with me and Patrik wooing girls while Ajay sips.

Such is life. To an American the world is grey. I am an American, but my parents are pagan. My world is black and white. Ajay tells me I can meet nice Catholic girls at dances. I don’t want nice. I want right, a black and white she’s mine. The jungles of my parents homeland make sense. Some girls are made for loving. Some are made for trafficking. Others are made for marrying. One can either be a good man or a bad man, living or dead. You can be human. A man can be a man and a woman a woman. Poverty, mortality drives men to live. Then what of America, this sterile state?

Patrik and Ajay believe the people are NPCs, that they have little or no culpability over their crimes.

“A person who marries doesn’t know it’s for life.”

“A woman who aborts her child thinks she’s aborting a clump of cells. Marc, when you ask them that is what they say.”

Since when did we start taking sinners at their word? A man or woman will say anything to avoid punishment for their sin if that’s what they intend.

“Why did you get an abortion?”

Who will answer that with, “I didn’t want to raise a kid when I was planning to go to Yale.”

Will we ask, “Why did you kill a child?”

The psychological genocide runs deep. I can’t blame my peers. We’re raised to believe a woman’s words. Unlike them though, experience taught me to always read between the lines. Women kill their children because it’s convenient. They don’t want to have a child, so they kill it. They’ll say they thought it was a clump of cells. Nonetheless, they know they’re to kill a clump of cells that’ll become a child.

They kill children and they know it. They knew it when they killed them and they know it after when they’re asked the question, “Why did you get an abortion?”

Maybe in this I am alone. It was like that when we talked about marriage also. Ajay made the claim that 90% of people don’t know what marriage is supposed to be, which is why most marriages according to our religion would be invalid.

To this, as a simple-minded fellow, I refused to believe. So people can’t tell what through sickness and health, poverty and wealth, good times and bad are supposed to mean? According to Ajay, no, they can’t.

The absolute state of American man in 2026. What makes a marriage then, Ajay? He answered complete understanding and full consent.

How do people not understand, Ajay? It’s in the vows. Actually, there was a priest once who went over the change in the annulment rules in the 60s. Did you know that most annulments in America, if you push them to the Vatican level are actually invalid annulments? How is that? It’s because they added a different category to the annulment decision, what they call psychological state.

Well Marc, if you aren’t sound enough to consent then it can’t be a valid marriage.

Ajay, who decides if one is psychological well enough to marry? This isn’t something a person can prove in retrospect. If a man or woman feels like marrying in the day of their marriage they feel that way, but who’s to stop them from spotting another hottie at the bar and saying, “I didn’t actually think marriage was forever when I married her, so I’m getting an annulment.” Do you see the problem, Ajay? People lie, and you can’t annul based on evidence you can’t prove, but we do. Marriage as it’s known here in this country, love based entirely on consent and feeling does not work.

I fail to recall what happened after. Patrik talked about his exes and how emotional immature people were. His exes had body counts and they couldn’t get over losing their virginities to guys in their teenage years. How come they can’t move past that, he asked?

Patrik, I chimed, we have a saying kind of in more traditional societies. No hymen, no diamond. Actually though, how should I put it, a woman isn’t supposed to forget it when someone… makes her bleed. That’s like, they’re not supposed to forget those experiences because they’re women. Youth is all they have unless they cultivate another skill: piano, violin—friggin Asians. If they give their best years to a guy who leaves of course they won’t forget him.

Returning to the present, this room where I sit, Patrik would have heard the suggestion to find a girl without a past to him. He told me it was a fat chance at his age. I told him to go for younger women, but then, wait, that’s probably when they start also, in their teenage years. Patrik agreed.

Back to the world of heart and thought now. This may be a time of Nero, a time of the beast. It almost seems that the only way to acquire a virgin is to go to parties with hosts like Epstein and pray you’re the first one to get to her in the orgy. An exaggeration. I know of at least three I could make an attempt on, maybe four. Then I have all of Laos for my grandparents to scour when God gives me the money I want. I really should get something for Patrik. Does he like Asians? When I marry and if my lover has friends, we’ll have to see about giving them to some guys I know.

Jesus, guys like Epstein really are just perversions of good things. All that money, all that charm and influence. Why couldn’t he just set up girls with husbands who’d care for them for life? I wonder what would cause a man who, least by some account, was liked by those he eventually sold to be at enmity with You, my Lord. Maybe seeing too much of the world breaks a man as it did with me.

One day you’re an American born in 2 o 2. You learn young women like older guys. Call it a teacher or an athlete. Then you graduate and it happens to you. You’re not even famous, but a girl who went to the school you went to, tries to come on to you. What else happens? You travel to a savage land, break an old woman’s leg, and pay her family off with an $100 bill whereas in the supposedly compassionate land of freedom your countrymen would sue you for your lungs if you did the same to them.

The world is flipped on its head. America is flipped on its head. Men dress up as girls, and they can’t even look pretty doing it.

My God, I am convinced You make me more of who You meant for me to be each day. Not everyone loves Jesus. Not everyone loves me. How chilled am I to be more like who I love. Then if I am like You, Jesus, maybe You’ll join me to one like me.

My lover is mine, he whom I hated in my youth.

He sought me. He wished to touch my heart.

I wanted no part. Away from him I ran.

Then one day I knocked upon his door

So he’d guard me from the wolves.

That he did. The door opened. He drove them out.

Then he let me in his house. He loved me still.

I entered and I did not love him yet.

He was good for food, good for drink,

And the roof placed over my head.

Then robbers came. He failed to fend them off.

They beat and threw us out, took everything we had.

With torches they burned the house to ash.

As the robbers left I saw my lover groaning on the ground.

He had no food, no drink, no roof. What use was he now?

I lifted myself, shambled down the road,

Then I turned around. He covered me. Their strikes bled through,

But he covered me. He tried.

What else is one to do for the man willing to die for you?

My lover had no food, no drink, no roof.

I decided to love him there. I was headed to the city

And he was coming with me.

LVIII
03/07/2026 , Saturday : When a coworker hosts

I’m going to quit thinking about the technique behind the prose and write from the heart. There are 58 records, 58 days of this life of mine spanning from 2024 to the present year of our Lord, 2026, and it’s all about a man, a real man living in the state of Minnesota. There are a number of grammatical errors, and the story isn’t particularly entertaining. It’s unromantic, and the entertainment value may sit under a bridge. Only, if this should ever be out in print, its utility would that of a historical artifact. Then, unfortunately, since the people in this record are real, for privacy’s sake the names men and places are changed. So a real town around Minneapolis or Saint Paul would have its moniker, and it’d be hell for anyone later down the line to figure out which town was what at this time.

Still, Saint Paul and Minneapolis are real enough, and whatever made up towns surrounding it will be what one will imagine a suburb by the cities would be like. As for the rural countries west of the capital that I travel through, if one cares enough to kill me socially, a good detective may find my identity. If that’s revealed then I may come forth as a public figure, and die as one like me may die according to the culture of this state. By the weight of these confessions, it would be a fair fate to die at the hands of those whom the Man I love loves. I have loved Him, and I was glad to have loved Him in the way He has chosen me to love Him. For in the 23 years I’ve had, I always counted love as a transactional thing, but by robbing me of gifts that He gave to others by grace, He has given me the greater grace of knowing how to love without condition. I have loved without wealth, without beauty, with ugliness and disability, and even when my Lover is of no use at all I’ve loved Him, carried Him with me in that way which He has given me. To know how to love unconditionally and to receive love without condition is the beauty that saves the world. I have known this love. So while a day may pass where one like me is judged, I keep the love of He who has demonstrated and helped me demonstrate the love offered to every man. Through sickness, through health, good times and bad, heaven and hell; fidelity to another whom the whole world conspires against.

My lover has chosen me from my youth

And now the world which was at peace before

Has gone to war with he whom I was sworn.

Who betrays their lover hated by the world so he can be spared from the violence of the world? Love which so loves so as to war against the world is the highest pearl. Should the whole world turn against my beloved, will I fight against the world for the sake of my beloved? Will I side with the world for riches, pleasure, peace? A filled belly? Silks? Scents? Circuses? Bread? Or should our bodies be laid down in this trench, this whole, this buried sea, where no light will ever reach until the hymns of victory? Then of victory, if the world shall kill me and he whom I love, how long will it be until our flesh is dug from the soil of the earth?

What meditation. I near forgot in this ecstasy, that I meant to make a record of a coworker in Saint Paul, an Irish named Sinke with whom in Dallas was shared a great number of confessions from myself to him. After months of deliberation, we managed to schedule on Friday a time for us to gather at his house.

Sinke lived in a neighborhood in Saint Paul. Not a ghetto or a particularly affluent lot, a sprawl of houses one or two floors tall. Rain nibbled down on the car. Made the whole world grey, fit for murder, blood rivering down the drain. I parked the car in front of a house of two floors, Sink’s house. A young man jumped the fence to the house next door. Okay then. Ignoring that, locked the car, walked through the yard, knocked, knocked again, and a young African woman in a rather long, colonial dress opened the door.

“Hey, is Sinke home?” I asked.

“He’s in the bathroom. Come in.” She answered.

I never did have much experience describing interiors did I? I closed the door behind me to find a set of stairs leading to the second floor in front. Cramped, a bit claustrophobic, the entrance box was all that separated the living, dining room, and the aforementioned stairs. An old-timey phone in the dining room sat on a chair. A piano in the living room with open sheet music pressed against the wall. The lamps were of a warm-golden hue. Family photos lined the walls. Basically, Sink’s house was like the house from Up if it were populated by a large Catholic family which it was.

The African called for Sinke. “Dad!” Not a minute later, Sink came out of the bathroom in a plaid shirt and jeans. He stepped down, shook my hand, and said, “Hey, Marc! I see you’ve met my daughter, Rita. Rita, this is Marc, my coworker. Come on.” Sink guided me to his porch, not an outdoors porch, but of that kind with a roof, walls, and windows people outside could look through.

“Make yourself at home, Marc. Let’s take a seat. Take off your coat. You can have the couch. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“A water will be fine. Actually, do you have tea?”

“Water? Tea? That I do. Let me get it for you. Hey, Rita!” Sink left the porch. I sunk into the couch. A smodge of cards, toys, and games littered the floor. An image or statue of Jesus, Mary, and the saints found themselves on every shelf and wall. Straight ahead, the door to the yard. By the right wall was another couch.

I was lifting my peacoat off when Sinke came back with a couple of glasses. He laid one on the table beside me. “Here’s your water,” he said. Then he sat on the other couch.

Now, the details of our conversation eludes me. It was yesterday, and don’t know whether everything I can recall should be logged. We talked. Sinke said I should relax and take my coat off, again, which was to refer to the suit I wore. I did as he said. Somewhere in this, Rita served me tea, tip toeing a bit demure, in that awfully slow manner one has when serving to strangers who were guests. The filter was one of those novelties where the leaves lay in a casket with many holes.

Sinke talked about consoling a man over the phone before I arrived, how he wished to help. He asked me to recount my past which I did. How did I come to the Catholic Church? I was atheist, Sinke, then after messing with the occult I found myself in a place where I needed God to be real. I didn’t want devils to haunt me, so I looked up Aquinas’s proofs and that was enough for me. I wasn’t Christian yet, though. That happened in college when I was looking for churches.

How did that happen?

I first went to a Catholic mass believe it or not. They never contacted me back though. It was an Evangelical pastor who first brought me in. He helped me become a Christian. Fast forward three years later and I decided to become a Catholic my junior year of college because it was originally Aquinas, a Catholic, who proved God was real to me. And yeah, figured that if the man who proved God was real to me was a Catholic that I should become Catholic. Still, all that time, I was messing in the occult, and as such, never became truly Catholic, that is to say, all in until a Muslim roommate and friend of mine said I had a demon attached to me. The day before he said that, I had a dream about a devil going from my room to his.

Sinke nodded along. That’s powerful, Marc. See, we’re Catholic because it’s the truth. I come from an intellectual background.

Theology, right?

Yes, theology. Mean, I grew up in a Catholic family, and thank God, I had the grace for it. One time my mother was saying God would understand if we didn’t go to mass. She said we were too busy, but as a child, maybe nine years old, I said, “Ma, we need to go to mass. We can’t skip it. God says we need to keep the sabbath holy.” It took some prodding, but we eventually went. Still, remind me again what background your family was from. Do they not have a religion?

I took a sip of tea. Sinke, they’re Buddhist, but they don’t—excuse me. It’s better to say they’re pagan. They believe in heaven and hell, more than a lot of people in this country actually. They also believe in guardian angels and superstitions. They’re just not Christian because they never had the same impetus as I did to become a Christian.

How so?

It’s probably on me, Sinke. I don’t invite them to mass.

Sinke probed more about religion. We stayed on it while his kids came in and out. “That one’s Winnie.” A little boy. “That one’s Louie.” The young man who hopped the fence. “Say Marc, you want some wine?”

“If you’re offering, yeah!” I answered. How drab were the little things of life.

Sinke left again. I sat counting nothing. He returned with two glasses. He said, “Now these are table wines from California. Nothing too crazy, but these will do.”

Sinke said a bit more about the wine. I fail to recall the trivia. To it, I said, “Sinke, I’m not a connoisseur. It’s good, the wine.”

“Glad you like it, anyhow…”

Oh brother, the memory comes in and out. Sinke introduced me to his wife, Kara. Kara talked about converting family. Me and Sinke were both uncool older brothers to our kin, so that wasn’t happening to either of us it seemed.

When she left, I asked Sinke how they met.

Met during college. Then we moved to Italy for my degree in Philosophy. And it was there we got used to it. Wine with breakfast, wine with lunch, wine with supper. Then we came back here. We ran the bookstore until it went under, then I got into marketing for a year, before finally working for the Knights of Columbus. Say, have you ever gone shooting before?

No, I haven’t.

Ah, let me show you something then.

Sinke guided me to the basement and showed me his guns. “This is my hunting rifle. This Ruger LCP is what I carry every day. This is a ——.”

“That’s not the spy gun?”

“Nope, it’s not the spy gun. Kind of looks like it though.”

Ah! Goodness me! Trust me when I write that this was a wholly enjoyable experience! Sinke had pipes, old books, two electric guitars, Irish flutes, bagpipes, his work desk, his gun cleaning desk, all in this one office in his basement. The calculus of logging what happened fails to recall the blessing of hospitality given from Sinke to me.

He promised to take me shooting, he fed me fish with his family for dinner, and set a date for us to visit again in April. I don’t remember where we left off conversation wise. I remember now, it was about demonic activity. Something which happened to his family though they never asked for it, how the devil works against those who walk with God, how these supernatural manifestations then prove our faith.

How merciless are these records in their dry retellings! Give me the records of my life and I would rather do anything else but read it. Still, may this be a spiritual exercise. The visit with Sinke was Friday. This is today, and to recall what I did today, I went to mass where I asked our Lord to marry me to a beautiful young virgin woman when he became present in the bread. Now that I sit before the blessed relic of His true cross at my desk, I wonder if I should ask for her to have big boobs. If a man asks Jesus to give him a lover with big boobs, will the Son of David have mercy on him, the sinner? You may not heal my eyes, Lord, but if You will not remove my need for glasses will you then give me girl with big boobs? What vanity it is! My sight being now what it is, I wonder if I should be able to see beauty anymore. My face may have to be pressed to the nose.

So that was mass. After that, I sent a thank you letter to a couple of friends for their hospitality on Monday, and visited with the old men from church at McDonalds. After that, I came home, ate a slab of liver, typed these records until it came time to play DnD over voice chat, finished that, wrote more, and here we are.

Before this, forgotten off the list, was a consideration of me going to a dance at the Ukrainian Center in Minneapolis. Those plans ashed when Ma made her announcement to have her dropped off at the Coolsville Center. Not that I’m too displeased about it. I’m displeased, slightly, and also pleased that the decision was made for me rather than me make the decision on going to the dance.

See, now that I’ve gone on a couple of dates, one with a pretty girl and another with a girl who failed to also stoke the heart off the dance floor, I’ve found that that which was originally thought impossible was possible for me.

There has been a rise of men who have never gone on a date in their adult lives. God has been kind. He has graduated me from that class, and shown me that dating is possible for me when I try.

So if what was thought impossible before is possible now, where else does this apply in my life? If I could have gotten a date, which was previously thought impossible, surely I could do any number of things the zeitgeists consider impossible.

Does experiencing the impossible apply to fornications? Does it apply to getting romantic entanglements? Dating multiple beautiful women at the same time? Getting a woman who didn’t want you at first to lay with you? The impossible was made possible, and I know that whatever I am was enough.

Why? Does the why matter? I went to these dances, I asked when I could, and between those comely and uncomely it didn’t matter. Those who will deny will deny and those who submit will submit. In the war of consents beasts posing as men reign, in a jungle I was never meant to die turned out to be a place where I could thrive to the standards of this time.

If I hindered myself by believing that the impossible was impossible instead of counting it to God who made myself like Him that the impossible was possible, then, what impossible things are possible now being that I know the impossible possible?

And I remember now. Sinke talked of this as well. I told him about my experience with Lucius. He sat drowsy from the wine, from the 2 hours spent hosting a guest at his house at this point. Still, he humored me.

“Marc, she must have been pretty cute for you to go for her. I’ll give you that, you have some gumption to do that, to ask her out.”

“Well, I asked her dad if I could ask her out. He said no because I was Catholic and because he said she thought I was weird. Still Sinke, if you have to say no, doesn’t that mean there’s a chance?”

“Gumption’s gumption, Marc. There’s something to be said about persistence. At our church, the Saint Mary’s in Minneapolis, my son has a friend. He was engaged to this girl, and this girl didn’t like him at all. He asked her out when they first met. He said, ‘Hey, I like you, can we go out?’ She said no, but he kept asking and now she’s madly in love with him.”

The possible impossible, all things possible with God. The dance will be skipped tonight. The power then with prayer be trained. I haven’t explored that avenue yet. If a man prays to God continually, with the mass and rosary, will he receive everything he asks? I will see. If a man goes sits at the feast of God, and asks Him without ceasing, surely if a good thing is asked for God will relent to give Him that thing. Will He nudge the right person into his life? Will He inspire another’s thoughts?

Man himself is limited in his works. God is infinite. So then, if one’s wife was murdered before she could marry, then God would have accounted for the loss with another gift, a greater gift. The Lord sees all, and He accounts for the free will of man while submitting it to His purpose, His design. He will do good to those who ask nothing of Him. How much more good would He do for His friends who love Him?

By Him, beside my Lord in Flesh and Blood, I pray. What answer then, will He give?