But then I, Saint Stephan, lose the thread. But then I, Saint Stephan, also lose the plot, which had been connected to the thread. Not a good thing. Am I still legitimate? Should my lapse in perfection be allowed? You’ll have to read beyond the 3 little X’s to find out…
And thus, we start:
Welsh Losser: Where He’s From. What He Looks Like. Whom He Claims to Be. Who He Really Is…
I am The Rational Man…
No one really knew where he came from. He said Washington State, and everyone just took it at face value, naively succumbing to his avuncular charms.
He claimed to have earned a million miles on the airlines, and as a prize, he’d been given a free destination choice of St. Petersburg, Russia, or Kyiv (Kiev, Kieff), Ukraine; so naturally, he chose Ukraine, it being “a no-brainer”. Somehow universally hoodwinked by this filthy load of hogwash, everyone simply nodded in silent amazement, buying him beers.
He said his father had been the captain of a big ship off the Northwestern Coast of the United States and had the tattoo to prove it, and everyone just believed him, because he was so jocular and amiable.
After all, it became popularly agreed among us that there could be no harm latent in a beardless pedophile Santa Claus on a Rockwellian Christmas Card (the “Wicked X-Mass” TM series) superimposed with a transparent of a Small-Town America fireplug in Winter, circa 1953, but who likewise merited comparison with:
- The Michelin Man (for the stacked rubber-like layers)
- Curly, of Three Stooges fame (from whom he stole the “nyuk-nyuk-nyuk”, but giving his endlessly mutating variants a barely audible undercurrent of ill-will toward his fellow man)
- W.C. Fields (from whom he contrived the raspy drawl; also, if one listened closely, filled with hatred and contempt)
- as well as, depending on what angle you saw him from: Elmer J. Fudd; Porky Pig; Frosty the Snowman; Uncle Fester; J. Wellington Wimpy; The Pillsbury Doughboy; and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, or a curious combination of any of these (with percentages varying based on personal experience).
‘All right,’ I say to myself as I ink this, ‘pretty good so far, but that’s only because my writing’s above par. But, I’m fairly certain we’ve seen all this already, here and there, in bits and pieces, whole sentences, paragraphs, and even entire rants, in fact, from the very beginning! Let’s see, Kowalski – what else do you have?’
- Did two out of three years of law school in Washington State, but then just decided to drop out before starting his third and final year, citing a lack of interest – LIE;
- That, despite not finishing the law school program, and not, therefore, sitting for and passing that state’s Bar Exam, and therefore not receiving a license to practice law in that state, opened a law practice anyway, citing a loophole in the state’s law, nyug-nya – LIE;
- That, in addition, he was an expert in the securities market, having practically been a broker – a business he was able to combine with his law practice, due to another loophole in his state’s law – LIE;
- That he told these lies in the Kyiv Poster newsroom, where he’d ingratiated himself with the chief editor for the business editor post, in largest part to impress his star business reporter, The Ferret, in whom he had a barely suppressed interest both leaning and tending toward the prurient;
‘Shit, Steve,’ I continue, now more concerned than ever that I realistically just may not be able to pull off this crime report on Welsh Losser, far more for Steve Kowalski’s benefit than my own, mind you, my own memories of Losser having gently faded almost all away, ‘then your notes on Losser just sort of peter out, and stop going anywhere. Is it because you got shitcanned by The Kyiv Commix? Maybe.
‘Nevertheless, Steve! Look at this! You leave me with almost nothing to hang any real charges on! Let’s keep going…’
- In actuality, attended a two-year community college near his home, where he majored in communications sciences, followed by a year of trade school, where he studied and gained valuable hands-on experience in the hospitality industry, anticipating a career as an events coordinator in travel and a destinations manager…
‘Sure, sure, Steve, but this only goes to his lies about law school; it’s nothing that can be developed into a case…’
- Was perversely proud of a watch…
‘Ah, now there’s something I can use – but why is it given such short shrift and buried so deeply in your draft report, Steve? Baaahh…’
- Threw his plagiarized short story collections onto Amazon Kindle, and used this to claim that he was now an officially published “writer”, attempting to elide from reality the established fact that self-publication – something that anyone can do, which is why it’s called “self-publication” – does not a “writer” make, much less help distinguish one as one from the crowd, which, in this case, is essentially identical to every other case like it around the world, and therefore equals millions of people running around, this way and that, claiming to be “writers”, but are not;
- To add credibility to the phony claim, he paid no less than 20 individuals to post reviews of his “works” on the Amazon website, easily half of whom for some reason decided to (probably due to high annoyance) disclose in their reviews the fact that they’d been paid by the “author” to write them, and then proceeded to give Losser no more than three stars for his troubles…
‘Mm-hm… Mm-hm… better… better…’
- Posted self-promotional videos on YouTube, where, in addition to being a “writer”, he also claimed to be –
‘Aaahh, come on, Kowalski! Same old… same old… AAAAAAARRRGGGHH!!!
‘I don’t know, Steve. With Losser, there appears to be a sort of tensile jouncing resilience, where you can’t make any of this stick. It all just bounces off of him. With the others – Axle Fischburgher, Sweaty Tank Top, Andrew Plumb, Boss Lard – sure, the writeups were awkward, cringeworthy, embarrassing to read; nevertheless, they projected a strength of conviction, a raw and unadulterated power, a building savagery of persistence, a wild creed of unrelenting and righteous evisceration.
‘But Losser… exasperation. Hell, now that I reflect upon it, I begin to remember my own frustrations with what was nothing less than a supranatural phenomenon of Losser multiplicities, his terrifying and uncontainable proliferation in America. And now I remember killing scores and shitloads of them, Lossers, in Nicolas Cage’s backyard, mowing them down with him, and mowing and mowing them down, together, with Cage’s machine guns, until they were dead – because I had to, only to have to face more of them, as I escaped L.A. for the cliffs of the Pacific shore, leaving Cage in his studio offices to his own defenses. And yet, they followed me… right into the ocean…
‘Under such circumstances, how can I defend your name, Steve, which I, at least, say is good, writing up these criminal rap sheets for this raft of fraudulent, grifting punks, who took up a decade or two of space and time in Kyiv claiming to be writers, and then publish these reports to the Kyiv Unedited website, on your behalf, to protest your firing, and as a way to urge The Board to justice by reinstating you in your post as The Rational Man?
‘Or, maybe it’s worse than that,’ I continue, suddenly perturbed. ‘Fired – that’s one thing. Maybe… OH, NO! Maybe, Steve, maybe YOU’RE DEAD!!!
‘And being fired, and being dead, are two things I know a thing or two about. Actually, I’m nothing less than an expert on both, and I say that with no great boasting!
‘Oh, my world, my world… did The Hunched Cornish force you into the Hasidic Guillotine and… CHOP YOUR HEAD OFF?!? How could this happen?! And did he… did he – oh, I can’t say it, ooohh… did he then put your head in a box and have it delivered to… THE HALF GUINEA?!? OOOOOHHH – no, no, no, nooooo!!! How is that possible? Unlike the Cornish, after all this time, we still don’t know where the Half Guinea actually lives! Ooohh-ho-ho-ooohh… Personally, I think he just stays in The Checkout Kitchen. Oh, my world… my world…’
xxx
“Hey, what’s all the phony-baloney boo-hooing about? You’re pissing me off…”
“Oh, ah, hi, Steve. So… so, you’re… still alive?”
“As you can see, Saint. Say, what is this place? Where are we?”
“I don’t know, Steve; can’t quite explain it to you. You won’t be here forever, so just deal with it. Funny I should immediately know who you are, since I don’t think we actually ever met.”
“We haven’t. So, how do I get out of here? Snappy with the answer, now, Saint…”
“Wait, it’s not hard, but don’t go. Tell me, Steve, didn’t the Hunched Cornish decapitate you in the Hasidic Guillotine?”
“No, Saint, it didn’t quite go like that.
“After I regained consciousness, after being KO’d by that fucking pussy, Smith, using his gun butt, who couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag if you tore it open for him, the Cornish very roughly lifted me up off the ground with one hand and manhandled me to the guillotine, threw me down on my knees, and immobilized me with my head somehow suddenly exactly where it was supposed to be. I was going to die, and I only waited for it to be over, praying for it to end quickly, while seeing my entire life pass by before me, and I heard and felt the snap and tug of the rope when the Cornish pulled it, and felt the vibration of the machine, and heard the ping and whoosh of the blade as it released and descended, and it was so fast, so fast, and yet it took ages to reach my neck.
“And then it went through, Saint! It went right through my neck – and… and time sped back up again to normal, and I felt the wind’s buffeting cold against my face, and all of me, and I… opened my eyes! And… I WAS ALIVE!!!
“And… and the Cornish was gone, and… I was not encumbered or surrounded by the device, but free to rise. So, I… I got up off my knees, Saint, and I… walked away – from Death, as it were. And I… wandered the streets of Podil all night and sat down by the river, until the sun broke through to morning, and all I did just now was walk into the nearest tunnel, where I heard you going on in that comical and unreal way, and I somehow walked in, and here I am, telling you about it, to answer your question…”
“Sounds like quite the transformative experience, Steve. Hell, I should be man enough to admit it – even more so than my own.”
“Yeah, I’ll say…”
“Funny, I never would have thought, but it sounds like the Cornish actually did you a favor.”
Silence.
“So, what’re you gonna do now, Steve?”
“Well, if you would be so kind as to show me out, Saint, I’d like to be on my way to The Kyiv Commix…”
“The Commix?! But I thought you were –”
“I was. But, well, you know how that Board is, ‘cause, I’m sitting by the river, oh, not all that long ago, and it’s just barely morning, and I get this text, and it’s them, and they say they want me back, as The Rational Man, and I text them back, nothin’ doin’, no Rational Man, just me, Steve Kowalski, and I ask them, what was it that changed their mind, and they’re, like, all coy about it, but all they say is something like, ‘you’re biggest fan left, and we need a replacement,’ so, kind of a joke, kind of a backhanded compliment. It’s okay. I know they meant CG. And I figure I know why.”
‘Why’s that, Steve?”
Well, for two reasons, both of which I think are true at the same time. One – to be with that fag, John Smith; and two – because she’s been getting sick…”
“You think it’s the –”
“Yeah… yeah… I do. I told her. I pleaded with her at the Curmudgeon, not to take it. But she not only took it, but then, like, I don’t even know how many after that. And so, there you have it.”
“It was good of you, Steve… good of you to have tried…”
“What’s out of here?”
“Oh, ah, just go right through there, and…”
“Thanks. Bye…”
“Bye…”
For I am… The Rational Man!!!
Filed by Saint Stephan, January 23, 2026
What happens next would blow your pants off! But we’re not gonna run it, nyug-nya!