Sex & Death / A Farce in 34 Notes

By Chris Dreyfus

Sex & Death

A Farce in 34 Notes

Sebastian and his long-suffering wife attend a funeral like no other. Sebastian Field-Marshall thought this collection of notes would fit nicely into the Adventure genre. Personally, I believe there should be a new genre entitled Travesty.

There are many diversions, tangents and deflections. As he admitted himself, this journal is the very definition of a moral hazard. Worse still, he addresses the reader directly. Yes, the fourth wall is breached on several occasions. He ignored my entreaties in this regard. Bugger off, whose story is this, I believe, was his response.

 

My fondest wish, he remarked, has always been to guide the reader through the many perilous stations towards sex, death and French doors. I hope this volume, amounting to a mere 157 pages, displays his many great and not-so-great thoughts. Upon presenting him with the finished draft, he slurred – seek the light – before passing out. All the lights were off in his house, so perhaps that is all he meant.

Chris Dreyfus

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Dreyfus
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215916858

Chris Dreyfus

Chris Dreyfus is an Australian writer of fiction and a visual artist. His characters drive the narratives of his fiction, often with a good dose of dark humour. He has produced many short stories and several novellas. Shortlisted for a short story prize in 2017, he has also published shorts in the literary magazines - Field of Words, The Honest Ulsterman, Blood & Bourbon and Every Day Fiction. Sex & Death / A Farce in 34 Notes  - eBook and Paperback. Search for it on all digital platforms. Foibles, a volume of three interconnected novellas released as an eBook and paperback. Search for it on all digital platforms. The Extremists / 14 Stories - eBook and Paperback. Search for it on all digital platforms.

Book preview

La Petite Mort

This story is about a funeral. I have only ever wanted to attend my own. Oddly enough, and I will explain in due course, the act of copulation led me to the chapel on this occasion. Perhaps it is not odd at all. People might regularly have sex before a funeral for no reason other than the obvious. I must point out that I have never had a libidinous reaction after being informed of a death. Enthusiasm for the pleasures of the flesh, however, is an acknowledgement of the self in the full bloom of health, so some could consider the act a comfort on sad occasions. Not their own funeral. That would be weird.

Sex was described as knowing a person in the old days, and as we understand from a very early age, knowledge is a double-edged sword. Too much, and we may be cut to the quick; too little, we remain in ignorance. Either way, we are left unsatisfied. With the exception of the act of knowing, I’ve found most human activities to be less than satisfactory, but then maybe satisfaction is overrated. A person needs to experience considerable disappointment at a young age to achieve adulthood. Otherwise, you will end up an arsehole at twenty-seven. I know several of that age professionally, and let me tell you, a tad more tribulation would have served them well.

Speaking for those survivors left to mourn, a funeral should be viewed as not only the culmination of our existence, but also life’s brevity. Revelations of love, despair, abandonment, and even relief can potentially be exposed at such an event. To a degree some of us may wish we had stayed at home. Particularly the deceased. As it turned out, I would not have missed this passing for the world.

It is my cross to bear that curiosity is a constant companion in my wheelhouse. Once I have started the engine and find myself breasting the waves, I am capable of anything, often with a safe birth not always guaranteed.

My name is Sebastian Field-Marshall, and my wife, Phylida’s surname is the Marshall addition. We were informed this arrangement was unconventional. For some reason, the wife’s name is supposed to appear before the husband. We pride ourselves on our unconventionality, Phylida and I.  

I am on long-service leave as a barrister in a city law firm, and Phylida is more usefully employed as a high school principal. I am fond of the military-sounding hyphenation, but I am unsure why. My wife doesn’t care but is adamant her family name is referenced wherever possible, a confusing caveat, as she thinks of her father as an abomination. He is pretty unpleasant. One could call him a curmudgeon and not in the silly old avuncular way, but rather in the way you might think of a person as consuming oxygen better-behaved people could be using.

He is not the dead guy, by the way. I don’t know why I’m banging on about him, except to say I believe Phylida is the only good to come out of him to date. I swear I’ll never mention him again.

As indicated, I had been a reluctant witness to the memorial service in question. It was during a fateful sexual encounter when I inadvertently yelled an affirmative YES at the point of release, sealing my attendance at Zander Volkov’s funeral. That is his name. The dead guy. I will come to him shortly.

This story requires patience, some might say perseverance. Does not perseverance reap rewards? With that in mind, consider this: the feeling you get after orgasm has been described as a little death. I just looked it up, and this is what the Oxford English Dictionary has to say about it – La petite mort (French pronunciation: the little death) is an expression that means the brief loss or weakening of consciousness, and in modern usage, refers specifically to the sensation of post-orgasm as likened to death.

Nobody knows who first made the remark. A French person or a Francophile? Sounds awfully French-like to me, though the gender of the coiner is unknown. Did they say to their lover: That was a little like dying? Can we die again soon, my love? I like to think a woman wrote it, but I detect the presence of a man. Whoever said it would have done so in French and imbued it with that nation’s famed je ne sais quoi. We say that, too, as there is no adequate translation in English. The English refer to venereal disease as the French curse and the French call it the English curse. They have had an infantile history of tit-for-tat for centuries that does not shine a flattering light on either country. Still, the French are responsible for many excellent ideas. Surrendering to Germany every fifty years may or may not be one. Yet, take French doors; who would settle for one door when two are available? The French are all over it when it comes to both feelings and joinery. The English have not developed much of a reputation for either. One over-stuffed dilettante or another is always banging on about Queen Anne chairs. If you have ever sat on one of those examples of baroque excess, you will be led to the conclusion they were not designed with the human posterior in mind?

By the way, there is another French word that comes close to explaining the feeling after ejaculation – jouissance. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan describes it thus, and I am paraphrasing: the body experiences itself at the level at which pain begins to appear and when a whole dimension of the organism can be experienced. So, a sense of the pleasure experienced in the mind is on the same sensory plain as the body itself, but even this does not adequately explain its meaning. Unlike little death, there is no direct English translation of jouissance. An annoying little conundrum, so forgive me for even bringing it up.

Suffice it to say, sexuality is mercurial in its essence, moving through us from birth and forward with our dreams of future survival. And they are but dreams, unknowable in our waking state. An accident might befall us, or a horrible disease could smite us; how can we know? The act of sex is responsible for our existence, yet it all comes to an ignominious end when that final bitter breath escapes our parched lips.

The Value of Words

You have already figured out my digressions will be numerous, egregious even. There is not much about me or my behaviour you will find endearing. Quite the opposite; I am a moral hazard, according to one colleague who once told me that if I had been born a road sign, it would be the one indicating a slippery surface. The remark carried little affection. A bitter little prosecutor with bad teeth and horrendously wealthy relatives. They made billions from commercial real estate, though the entire bunch had such an aversion to dental hygiene that they wrote a caveat into every deal they made barring dentist clinics on their properties.

You might be surprised that the rich have precisely the same affection for dentists as the poor. The middle class, on the other hand, embrace the necessity for healthy teeth wholeheartedly. Probably because the bourgeoisie is dominated by dentists.

I don’t know why I wrote about the prosecutor or his teeth. I was trying to make a point, but now I have forgotten what it was. In any case, you will be asked to forgive a lot, some of it decidedly unforgivable. So, you might want to make a run for it while the going’s good.

I’ve also been told I have a tendency to use a $10 word where a 50¢ one would suffice. Judges tend to regularly point out my flaws regarding this avenue of endeavour. There has been, for some considerable time and effort afoot to demystify the law by the use of plain English. I would thank you, Mr Field-Marshall, to note, at least in my courtroom, its desirability. I decided against pointing out that those two sentences alone were clearly from someone with money to burn. My case at the time concerned the doings of a ghastly little thug of ineluctable recidivism, looked shaky, to say the least, and the judge’s opinion of his lawyer, among other relevant facts such as evidence, saw him marched off for an extensive sojourn at his majesties pleasure.

My point is why an author, even an amateur like me, would choose a poverty-stricken little word when a richly embroidered one lies within easy reach. Did you know, reader, that some people fear words? An entire phobia has been provided for these sufferers – Onomatophobia ($16.75). I propose a room in our hearts to be set aside for the word-fearers. The tiniest of bedsits would do. A judge’s robing chamber perhaps, the judge included. I am prepared to buy an old suit at the welfare shop, but I’d save up some serious moolah for a rather spiffing word.

Do I have a reader? Perhaps one or two, though even you two will have your attention diverted by the necessity to lance your cat’s boils or some other urgent duty. Anyway, time marches on. I wish it wouldn’t, but there you have it. Then again, Einstein said time is an illusion. I refuse to dispute brainy guys, as I continually end up on the wrong side of the argument.

The Comforts of Corduroy

Speaking of cut-price shopping, I’ve decided to avoid buying new clothes going forward. On my first day of leave, I donated all my conventional work suits to a charity store and now intend to practise law in a selection of garments you will most likely see at an antiquarian bookseller’s convention. I have given up trying to be sartorially pleasing. Some unkind people have suggested I’ve never had the gift.

It appears I don’t look good in any kind of getup, no matter how fancy. A judge once looked over his spectacles at me and, thinking himself terribly amusing, remarked: My learned friend appears to be observably ill-suited to his profession. My opponent, the dentally challenged little prosecutor I mentioned earlier, laughed out loud while simultaneously broadcasting the urgent need for a periodontist. Ha! Ha! You will keep, was my silent reply—vengeance would be sweet. Alas, my brief at the time concerned a man who went on a violent rampage, damaging persons and property in one of those extraordinary lapses of judgement some in society allow themselves to have. I contended the perp had an ironclad alibi, citing the reason for his actions as a nutmeg-induced frenzy. I announced to the court that nutmeg contains