This story is unpublishable, but should provide some small source of amusement. Tell your friends, if you like!

THE RANDOM WRITER

     The random writer woke up around midnight because it was expected of him. He would given thought to who exactly expected it from him, had he half a mind to ponder such matters, but he knew better. He wrote horror, therefore he woke up at midnight. Noblesse oblige, or the closest equivalent for writers of dark fiction. It was right up there with yelling 'Cthulhu Fhtagn!' when the mundanes needed freaking, and standing around brooding. Oh, yes. Critically important, that. Nothing attracted the gothic women quite like a dark conservative standing around brooding.

Pulling on his most intimidating hoodie, he made his way to the mirror and gave it an appraising glance. Lank, greasy hair hung to either side of his face like a pair of shabby fourth-hand curtains, just like Professor Snape if he could remember who the Hell Professor Snape was. His eyes, red-rimmed, beady and bloodshot from hours of being darker than Darkie McDarkass, regarded their reflections with a suspicious glare. He scratched idly at his beard.
     "You talkin' ta me? You talkin' ta me?"

     No response.

     "Faggot!"

     Time for fun later. The random writer had work to do. He switched on his computer (black), booted up Windows (start sound: "Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!"), and regarded the wallpaper (black with skulls tiled all over the screen). A thought fizzled between a couple of synapses before dying of embarassment.

     "Not dark enough."

     A few clicks with the mouse turned the text from white to a shade of dark grey, and replaced the tiled skulls with images of skulls wearing shades with lit cigarettes clamped between their bony jaws. He allowed himself a grim smile of satisfaction, content for the moment that his computer (nicknamed The Computer of the Grave) was at last dark enough for its purpose. It was time to create dark fiction.

     The random writer never allowed such pansified notions as spelling, grammar, sentence structure or imagery to get in the way of his muse. He was an artist, his medium was horror, and he painted with big brushes. He avoided the trappings of conventional, inferior creators like he avoided the shower. Nothing should stand between him and the horror. Slowly, hunting each key with the index finger of his left hand, he considered the title of his next work. The story itself hovered around his head, buzzing in his ear, but he swatted it away like a bluebottle. The title had to come first.

     "Horror. Horror. Lovecraft. Hmm."

     After six of the longest seconds in the history of his career, he slowly typed THE THRESHOLD OF THE GRAVE, and congratulated himself for his ingenuity. A second later a spectre of doubt possessed him; he could not help but feel that he had forgotten something -- something that eluded him at a fundamental level. Something so crucial that it meant the difference between him being the reincarnation of H. P. Lovecraft or some poseur whose existence occupied a twilit no-man's-land between lurking in basements and being banned from every forum that lacked the vision to let him hype his work. Panic drenched him, searing his soul like a burst of acid rain, and relief only came when, positioning shaking, clammy hands over his keyboard, he resumed writing.

     THE DARK THRESHOLD OF THE GRAVE.

     OF HORRORS.

     Perfect! He considered characters. Like any horror writer who followed the old-fashioned style of horror writing -- or so he named it -- he realised he needed a protagonist and a monster. The protagonist should either die horribly or survive, horribly scarred by his experiences. Considering such characters for two whole seconds, he caved in and chose a variation on his usual theme:

     "He was a writer, but one who wrote of the horror of the mind whereof the blood came out of the mouth and the faggots were jealous because he dared to write for the straight audience."

     By his own admission, the random writer considered himself his own harshest critic, and all the evidence on his hundred journals corroborated this; he meticulously deleted all critical comment from them on a daily basis.

With this self-critical spirit strongly in play, he conceded for the second time in as many minutes, that he had missed something. He had to be edgy, he had to be in-your-face, and he had to show his audience that he wasn't afraid to sail close to the wind. Clicking his mouse in several places within his sentence, he liberally distributed the words 'fuck' and 'motherfucker' and found his work good. No; not good. Not even great. The greatest work of his life; the magnum opus -- the piece that would make everyone sit up and take notice. Already he saw Dame Fortune beckon, and she was a real lady with tits and everything. Big tits that didn't bounce so much, just like those tits without implants in. He knew a lot about tits, did the random writer. He was Mr. Tits and none dared dispute him, or at least he saw no disputing comments in any of his blogs.

     Six seconds later, the random writer wanked like a frustrated bonobo, until he caught himself imagining the size of Dame Fortune's penis. Ball lightning fizzed and sparked in his stomach.
     "I'M NOT A FAGGOT!" he yelled, but the lack of response did not encourage him in the slightest. He repeated himself, adding the adjective 'FUCKING', just in case his point remained doubtful.
     He tried to resume writing. A 500-word foreword for his 200-word story helped bulk the word count up a bit. A rant against a writer or two of moderate fame -- since he needed notoriety like a crack-whore needed her rocks -- and he considered his work done. He felt curiously unsatisfied; robbed of his victory. Somehow the accomplishment that came with writing the Darkest Story Ever Told had lost his sweetness. How to fill this sudden void, this chasm that yawned open in the deepest pit of his soul?

     Six seconds later, the random writer wanked like a frustrated bonobo again but he couldn't stop crying.