#pbwells

The Man in the Fortress by p.b. wells

I sit in my Fortress of Solitude.

no grand battlefield. no presidents. no ancient empires. no gods.

just me sitting here in the dark with a bucket of ice, a single glass and the Admiral.

this is just me holding court with myself, the Admiral, and whatever ghosts and demons still know the address.

I cue the music. low.

beginning with Pachelbel’s Canon in D major.

this kind of evening requires only instrumental music. no voices other than the Admiral.

maybe it is the tedium of the headlights sliding along SR 9 that brings the realization the world has become a goddamn lunatic asylum.

and yet somehow the music still calms me, the rum still numbs me, the chair still holds me, and the night still lets me think.

When it comes to war, Hollywood usually gets it wrong. So do most "leaders" who claim victory, claim credit and who never walked one goddamn foot on an active battlefield. Yeah, it's really starting to piss me off.

War Is Failure by p.b. wells

war is not courage.

I know, that sounds like the sort of thing that gets a man called a coward by people who have never felt a shell land close enough to make the teeth in their head feel rented.

but there it is.

war is not courage.

a man dragging another man out of the line of fire, that is courage.

some nineteen-year-old kid standing his ground because the poor bastard beside him has gone blind with fear, that is courage.

a nurse with blood up to her wrists, trying to hold pieces of a stranger together while the whole world acts like a slaughterhouse, that is courage.

but war?

war is the failure that comes before all that.

war is the bill for every bastard in a suit who could not find a chair, a table, a sentence, a little goddamned humility.

war is what happens when men with flags and swollen egos decide difference is a crime.

your language. your god. your dirt. your dead grandfathers. your side of the river. your old map with the pretty lines on it.

hell, we have killed each other over less.

we stack boys in mud and call it necessary.

we bomb cities flat and call it strategy.

we bury children and call it collateral damage because plain words might make somebody vomit into his polished shoes.

no matter the cause, no matter the anthem, no matter who started crying first, war is failure.

sometimes it may be forced on you. sometimes you may have no choice but to fight the bastard kicking down your door.

but don't dress it up.

don't put perfume on a corpse and call it glory.

the ones who start wars are failures with offices, failures with armies, failures with microphones, failures who never seem to run out of other people's children.

and maybe we should quit bragging about being the peak of evolution.

when was the last time one pack of cats slaughtered a million other cats because they prayed wrong, voted wrong, spoke wrong, looked wrong, or lived on the wrong side of some imaginary line?

cats hiss. cats claw. then walk away like arrogant little kings.

us?

we build graveyards, write speeches over them, sell postcards, teach dates, raise statues, then we do it all over again.

In the Fortress Again by p.b. wells

it has been too damn long since I sat here in my Fortress of Solitude with the night pressed against the windows like some old drunk looking for a place to sleep.

no noise. no demands. no little disasters chewing at my ankles.

just me, the Admiral, the dark, and a strange little bastard I derisively call my mind wandering off without my permission.

where will it go tonight?

maybe somewhere grand. maybe the edge of history. maybe the graveyard where old rulers rot and new fools stand in line waiting to become ghosts.

or maybe I’ll just think about dinner and how it tasted like regret with a side of cardboard.

maybe the Colts. maybe the Bears. that brain-strangling draft that made grown men stare at the television like it had just shot their dog.

maybe the babbling buffoon in the White House starting and bumbling another war while half the country claps and the other half checks the exits.

maybe a sunset out in the Midwest, that wide, holy bastard spilling gold over the fields like God had one decent idea left in him.

maybe television, that glowing sewer where talent goes to be shaved, powdered, and sold back to morons.

maybe Congress, that marble zoo full of spineless little men and women who would sell their mothers for a microphone and a good poll number.

maybe I will finally begin my educational series for people who cannot tell a communist from a socialist from an anarchist, and decide the punishment should be three books, one dictionary, and a month without internet.

or maybe I will write about the difference between a MAGAt and a maggot.

no. too easy.

one has two legs.

the other has an excuse.

or, maybe the Admiral and I will just sit here. the only sound the clinking of ice cubes and the pouring of a bottle.

yes, it’s 3 a.m.

by p.b. wells

I have walked through history with dust in my mouth and blood on my boots.

I was there when a sharpened stone ended the first argument.

I was there when kings learned poor boys could be traded for borders.

I watched empires rise with marble teeth and gold prayers, then rot from the belly like fruit left in the sun.

Rome burned. Troy burned. cities nobody names anymore burned so clean even the ghosts left.

I saw men march under crosses, flags, moons, eagles, and every holy excuse ever stitched to cloth.

they all said God was with them.

funny thing.

God always seemed to be on both sides until the screaming started.

I saw boys run into cannon fire because some clean bastard called it honor.

I saw mothers dig through smoke and brick for pieces of children while speeches were written miles away by men with soft hands.

I saw trenches swallow a generation.

I saw camps where the air itself looked ashamed.

I saw cities turned to ash in one bright flash.

and after all that, after the graves, the flags, the medals, the prayers, we learned not one goddamned thing.

we still hand the keys to the loudmouth evolutionary dropout.

we still cheer when some swollen tyrant points at strangers and says, there, there is your enemy.

blame the foreigner. blame the poor. blame the darker face. blame the wrong prayer. blame anything except the bastard picking your pocket while promising salvation.

I have watched the whole sorry spectacle. kings. generals. presidents. holy men. businessmen selling patriotism by the barrel.

they build monuments with stolen bread.

they build statues tall enough to hide the bodies.

and the people clap.

Christ, how the people clap.

I have walked the same road for centuries.

different boots. different flags. same mud.

same hate. same lies. same little men standing on the backs of the desperate and calling themselves giants.

and I am tired now.

bone tired.

tired of courage shoveled under speeches.

tired of sacrifice chopped up into campaign music.

tired of decent people worked hollow while silk-suited parasites lecture them about duty.

still, some stupid piece of me keeps looking for us poor dumb animals to grow up before we strike the match and call the fire progress.

Make the Exit Ugly by p.b. wells

don’t let the bastards take you quietly.

not the doctors with their soft shoes and clipboard faces,

not the priest waiting in the hallway like a salesman with one last brochure,

not the family whispering around the bed like Death has better hearing than the rest of us.

fuck that.

if Death comes in wearing a clean suit and smelling like flowers, tell him to wait outside.

tell him you’re not done spitting nails at the ceiling.

tell him there are still debts unpaid, lies unchallenged, songs half sung, women remembered, enemies outliving their usefulness, and one last glass some son of a bitch forgot to pour.

the world wants you tidy when you leave it.

folded hands. closed mouth. washed face. no trouble.

but you were trouble when you came in, red-faced, bloody and screaming, dragged from the dark like a wet little lunatic already pissed off at the world.

so why leave like a church mouse?

kick the sheets. curse the pain. laugh at the machines. make the nurse shake her head and the relatives stare at their shoes.

let them say he was difficult.

good.

let them say he would not accept it.

better.

let them say he kept swinging at something nobody else could see.

best of all.

because Death has enough quiet men stacked in the earth, enough obedient bones.

make the exit ugly.

make it loud.

make it honest.

make it memorable.

make it yours.

and when the dark bastard finally reaches for your throat, lean close with whatever breath you have left and tell him,

not yet, you miserable motherfucker.

Everyday Advice From a Common Bastard by p.b. wells

first thing,

when you find yourself in "polite company," leave.

don’t explain it. don’t apologize. don’t stand there holding a sad little glass of something with fruit in it while some well-fed bastard discusses the market, his boat, his goddamn renovation.

just go.

smile, maybe. or don’t.

there are worse crimes than being rude. murdering some gloating, gluttonous, arrogant prick is one of them.

now,

before you lower your pants in any public restroom, inspect the paper situation like a man checking ammunition before the last battle of a stupid war.

I learned this on May 7, 2026, in a "superstore" that was not super in any way known to God or plumbing.

there are dates that live in history. Pearl Harbor. the Kennedy assassination. the day I looked over at that empty cardboard roll and understood the cold machinery of fate.

also, on a related note,

never speak to the man in the next stall.

not even in desperation. not even if your life has become a brown emergency and your dignity is hanging by one trembling thread.

silence is sometimes the last clean thing a man owns.

in New York, never trust a bar restroom that makes you go downstairs.

nothing good lives below a bar except old pipes, wet floors, broken locks, and the kind of smell that makes a priest lose faith.

as for politics,

never engage in such a discussion with a true believer wearing his ignorance like a red carnival hat.

tell him to fuck off, then walk away before you start thinking reason is still alive somewhere in the room.

reason left early. probably took a cab.

at society parties, wear a loose jacket.

a man should always be prepared for weather, a beautiful, kind-hearted barmaid, war, and the sudden need to liberate a good bottle from people too rich to deserve it.

Camus Cabernet Sauvignon rides nicely under the left arm if you keep your face solemn and nod like you are pondering the future of civilization.

and finally,

never vote for the lesser evil and call it virtue.

evil with a good haircut is still evil.

evil with a flag pin is still evil.

a smaller pile of shit still draws flies.

that’s the whole lesson, really.

leave early. check the paper. don’t talk through bathroom walls. avoid stairways beneath bars. never discuss politics with morons. steal only from the comfortable. and don’t shake hands with evil just because it washed one finger.

take care and be well.

Staircase Memoirs by p.b. wells

I was the spine of the house, the hard crooked backbone holding up all their velvet, silver, manners, promises, and the rot underneath.

they wore polished shoes here. they came up my steps smelling of cologne, cigars, brandy, roses pinned to black coats, powder on the throats of women who had already learned how to smile while dying inside.

I heard the formal dinners below.

the crystal clinked. the knives flashed. the laughter rose in careful little bursts like trained birds.

then came the talk.

Land. Money. Politics. Marriage. who was sleeping with whom. who was failing. who was drinking too much. who would inherit. who had become an embarrassment and needed to be sent away quietly.

every family has its little songs of murder. most of them never need a knife.

there were weddings here too.

flowers, lace, candles, a trembling bride on my landing about to walk down and hand herself over like a signed receipt.

everyone smiled. everyone lied. later, I heard the same bride coming back up with a split lip, a dead look in her eyes, and a husband downstairs explaining to the guests that she was emotional.

there were parties.

sweet Jesus, the parties.

champagne, piano music, heels slipping on my steps, hands under dresses, mouths in the dark, young men with predator grins, old women whispering poison, servants moving like ghosts carrying trays through all that expensive filth.

I heard a girl cry in one of the upper rooms. I heard a man tell her not to make a scene. I heard money fix things that should have burned the whole place down.

I heard a shot once.

then silence.

then footsteps. then somebody praying not because they loved God but because they were scared shitless of consequences.

children ran up and down me too. they laughed. they hid. they grew up into the same hard faces and cold hearts as the bastards who made them.

and now?

now the house is gutted.

the wallpaper hangs like dead skin. rain leaks through the roof. the windows stare blindly into nothing. my railing is splintered. my steps are cracked. I carry only dust, rats, wind, and the weight of all that happened here.

no violins now. no candles. no perfume. only mold, ruin, and the long black breath of abandonment.

what do I see?

I see the truth after the costumes are gone. this place was never beautiful. it was only decorated.

what do I feel?

tired. cold. meaner than I used to be.

but not surprised.

people came here dressed as civilized creatures, and left behind the same old stink people always leave behind:

lust, greed, cowardice, violence, regret.

I go down and down into the dark center of it, circling what is left, and if the dead still gather here at night, I understand why.

hell likes old houses.

and old houses remember everything.

Warning: This is a late-night, spur-of-the-moment, still-under-the-influence creation. That's the only way I can even think about the concept. If you have never watched the 1973 film "Soylent Green," you likely won't know what in Hell I am talking about.

Going Home Soylent Green Style by p.b. wells

watching Soylent Green with the Admiral sweating in the glass, I sit here thinking maybe the future doesn’t arrive with flying cars or silver suits or some clean little miracle from a lab.

maybe it arrives with a government clerk handing you a form and saying, when you’re tired enough, we have a room for that.

going home, they called it.

soft music. pretty pictures. a clean bed. the last kindness dressed up like theater.

and hell, part of me understands it.

that’s the dangerous part.

because life can wear a man down until the walls start whispering and the bottle looks like a priest who finally tells the truth.

but once a society builds a beautiful door out of here, it starts pushing people toward it.

the poor. the old. the sick. the inconvenient bastards who cost too much and complain too loud.

call it mercy and you can sell anything.

call it dignity and the murder looks polished.

maybe going home is a good idea only when the soul decides it and no one profits from the ticket.

maybe it is evil the second it becomes policy.

or maybe I’m just drunk on spiced rum, old cinema and the rotten suspicion that humanity will always find a way to turn even death into a business model.

the Admiral hasn’t said anything.

which, for once, is probably wisdom.