Perhaps four clerical spheres on my nose was overkill. I looked a fool.
"You look lacking," said a patient observer.
I swung my pained expression around to his and he swallowed nervously. Four fat flowers swayed in the breeze behind us.
"I know," I said aloud, arching my eyebrows to create an even more pained expression and allowing a stream of gunk to flow down from my left nostril.
"Would you like the key to my tissue factory?" asked the man sympathetically.
"I would," I said. "Thank you."
Being somewhat out of range of my mother's sleeves, I was forced to resort to messily wiping my nose on the right shoulder of my T-shirt, which was soon caked in a thin layer of mucus reminiscent of a snail trail and glinting controversially in the daylight. But despite this, I succeeded in arriving at the steel marble doors of the tissue factory and even managed to fulfill the key's potential. Inside I found box upon box of low to medium quality temporary sneeze sheets, an exposed wall of which I dived into nose-first and relieved myself.
"Bless you," came a voice to the south.
I turned to face its maker.
"Thanks," I said.
"But why don't you just come out with it?" it asked.
"Because I'd sooner die."
She Wore a Rasberry
The Thames was eaten up by two cackling witch banks this time last Thursday. I stood, glum as usual, on a pedestal made from four oak columns and watched the glorious bleak liquid wash away. It was an inspiring sight, I tell you! Immediately afterwards, I ran a forty-minute mile (as I was in England) and arrived by legs at Central Park™, where I stopped in for quickie and returned to the slippery and flat slopes of Thornbury with the aforementioned cup of steaming brown. Soon I found myself, after playing a brief game of solo hide and seek, in the black and white district and decided to stop in on my old. Opening the door a crack, I transformed back into a human to enter and pay my respects to the lumpy creature who will take over my body when I reach forty. It, however, was too busy juggling two wildlife channels to notice me, and I slipped quietly outside again. Picking myself up off the ground and cursing the bastard who spilt ten gallons of Pepsi Max™ on the stairs, I left, humbled, and made my way to the next paragraph.
As it was that time of the month, I headed across town to my estranged wife, who I ignored by pretending to be interested in my 8 year old daughter's blabberings about the oh-so interesting goings on of the passed few years, and gave her a letter. She sighed and put the H in the waste paper bin, from which a familiar stench was emanating, and I jogged out of sight.
Four years later, I decided to become a man in prison who liked birds.
Viva la Prince!
A Greedy Moniker for Witchcraft and Such
Little by little he polished the kettle and varnished the buckles on his pilgrim shoes. In sixty minutes he was due to appear and switch into a competent, repetitive routine which would see him to the end of the week, but he looked ill-prepared and sickly sweet, as though he was mud-wrestling with an internal dilemma. A handful of minutes passed cautiously and left 25 before the trip. He cashed in the remaining time by looking out the window and squeezing ambitious plans into his leisure hours which would inevitably go unfulfilled.
As the day brightened his mood sunk, and over the horizon he saw B-grade stars. Eventually an overdue bell rung, and he was relieved to be reversing the morning's journey. Home was soon where his heart, along with the rest of his internal organs and his body, was, and he slunk like a washed-out spring in a grand armchair and fell asleep. He awoke to the sound of something and punched himself in the leg.
And that, fortunately, was that.
T-Bolt Strikes Again!
Ben was inspecting his wrists; I was fingering a cup of coffee. Outside, it was exterior, and the sun (to which we owe a good deal of heat) was doing the usual. Roughly around this time, the door (to which we owe our presence inside) decided it was going to open and reveal a familiar figure on the doorstep. It was an 8. We let it in and fed it a series of increasingly fattening courses, each of which began in Germany and ended in batter. When this post's namesake finally returned from his casual sex sabbatical, a little the worse for wear, he was incensed to discover his two pals courting an anthropomorphic number, the last of which happened to be reclining in his favourite chair. This developed into wild fury when Hugh made a joke about exchanging telephone numbers and he dived forward and tore the 8 in half, forming two little zeros that scurried out of the room as quick as their shapes and the angle of the floor could roll them. Ironically, this solved the issue of the 8's unwillingness to choose between hosts, so Ben and Hugh dashed out in pursuit, leaving T-bolt alone in an empty room with half a dozen greasy plates.
When at last Ben and I returned, we found him slumped unconsciously over the table, still dressed in his familiar blue outfit and white cape. A gentle prod returned him to our world.
"Hugh?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Ben?"
"Yes."
Hugh thought it best to pat him gently on the skull, while I remained my usual self and refrained from any outward displays of affection.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"It's OK," reassured Ben.
"Yeah, don't worry," added Hugh.
There was a pause
"We understand," I said eventually.
T-bolt looked up at me dolefully and nodded his head.
Hugh and I spent the night having wild sex with the two zeros—in separate rooms, I might add. The zeros took the jacuzzi. (Sound of drum and cymbal.) But to be serious for a moment, we both ended up impregnating our respective halves of the 8, and before long our DNA was swimming inside two little half-human, half-half-eights. T-Bolt, on the other hand, married something far less abstract and produced something far less repulsive and far more human-looking than the numerical cross-breeds. But was I any happier? It's hard to say. Sure, I had a loving family, a cape and a hyphen in my Christian name, but was I truly happy? And isn't it weird thinking about what our cave-dwelling ancestors did with umbilical chords?
T-bolt spent the next sixty years of his life investigating exactly what our cave-dwelling ancestors did with umbilical chords, and, in the process, neglected his family. In fact he neglected them to such an extent that he didn't even notice when they left him to live with Hugh and Ben and the zeros in their joint household. But when he finally found out what it was that primitive humans did with the tube that connects the abdomen of the foetus to the mother's placenta, he died a happy man.
One day, Hugh and his zero spouse were cutting up ingredients for a big salad when the knife slipped and severed two points on the right side of the zero's body. A piece fell out and turned the zero into more of an oddly shaped C. Adding a syllable or two, Hugh finally settled upon a name for the zero after years of referring to it as 'love', 'dear' or, during arguments, 'nothing'. Ben, on the other hand, had christened his significant other early on, and he and Nicole (or 'Early On', if you want to make that joke) have never looked back.
A fairly happy ending, then.
Madam Council Worker
Where to turn in times of trouble? Madam Council Worker. The first thing that strikes you upon entering her abode is the startling range of off-beat bohemian ornaments and ornately framed mirrors. Soon you begin to detect the subtle but claustrophobic aroma of incense, which hangs in the air like death. None of this, however, could prepare you for the sight of Madam Council Worker herself. Clad in elaborate brass beads and platinum bracelets, she resembles a watermelon emerging from a wedding cake. Layer upon layer of colourful fabric was wrapped around her body, with the only visible flesh being that of her bony wrists and creviced face, to remind you that you are in fact staring at a human being.
It was many a problem that had led me to her door. Far too many to go into here. Suffice to say, I was up a creek and in a spot. I tried all the usual solutions: reasoning, denial and alcohol, but none of them improved my situation. Madam Council Worker was my last and only hope.
I first heard of her from a friend of mine, who, after suffering years of alcohol, drug and physical abuse, turned up one day looking positively radiant. When I asked what brought about this amazing transformation, she simply smiled and replied: "Madam Council Worker".
"O Madam Council Worker, I have travelled great distances to reach you and seek your advice."
She gazed at me through thick lizard-like eyelids and nodded slowly to herself. I waited in obvious discomfort.
"Fuck off," she said finally, waving me out rudely with her bony wrists.
And I did.
Février
Her face cackled like two winds in an overblown afternoon — that is to say she laughed. The wisened man tying her shoelaces laughed too, proudly.
"O one day, my love, you will be able to do this all by yourself," he said.
She lent down like a leaner and kissed his world-weary cheeks with a smile that mooned my dwindling infatuation. I nodded politely.
The lo-ovely man of everything a humble woman could hope for rose with a glance and a proposition.
"No sugar," I answered with fierce discretion. And he a-went off in the general direction of what I supposed to be the kitchen, leaving me entirely alone but for the other person in the room.
"You see why I love him so?"
"No-o-o-o," I retorted in song. "All I see is an unhealthy man and his nurse."
Her face reflected the horrific aftermath of a juvenile joke told to the wrong audience.
"Grow up," she snapped.
"All right. Maybe then you'd..."
"What is your problem?"
"He's in his forties!"
"So?"
"So-o-o-o he was your age now when you were a baby."
"I hardly think that matters. He's only ever known me after my coming of age."
I glowered at the floor and paused for a trickle of ugly sun.
"But why?" I resumed a moment later.
"Why what?"
"Why allow such a man to approach you?"
"Because such a man could offer me more than any other. Such a man is a well-polished pit of knowledge and experience that only comes from many years."
"And you don't waver on that at all?"
"No. It's maturity or nothing."
"And maturity only comes about at the halfway point?"
"In men, yes."
"I wouldn't call a man who goes for women half his age mature."
"I would. It means he's broken free of the restrictive social barriers and begun to appreciate people for their minds and not their status."
"Ah but you're looking for a mature man who is looking for a younger woman, which means that you both have different views on the situation."
"You don't expect me to marry myself do you?"
O and then the cups were brought in by the shining knight from the forty-year war, who sat down and gazed at his lover in awe and patted her fragile skull with his paw.
"Darling, look how you've grown," he gushed.
And I asked Ben, who had appeared from the window, grappling hook in hand, what his relevant thoughts were.
"I preferred the six-sentence version to the umpteenth degree," he told.
Betwixt Tumblers and Tonnes
O and how horrible it seems sometimes, when things are a-flickering and blue bars are on the move and it's over into tomorrow. And around you nothing but peeps and in front of you nothing but bobbing cabinets. O and not much but a stream of nothing above a time that's wrong, over in an hour that's been and gone. And on and on, till a sizable lump has grown from an O and ended before the end.
And o-over the things that pile in stacks and are filed away but float away, and rest when the restless are restless no more and faceless and wondering like the rest. Where o-awful things are wording by word and making each other wonder. Why the stooped knee-trodden is rattling the right cage and scooping up the crap that falls. Why the face he makes is inappropriately sculpted and jarring in the very best sense. And when he feels a wind of regret or anticipation, he nets it too, and tags it and cages it as the very best excuse in town. O and he charges the very best people the very steep prices, which leave the fakers at the roots and finds the successful weary at the peak.
And though it feels wrong in aspect it's from a boy who lost the verve, and wants it back and wonders if he ever had it. So the admitting comes fast and thick and phrases flow but none of them stick, and he as an entity of whatever is left falling over himself until he's picked up on and left. O and then he'll grow and he'll wonder some more. Why he couldn't be much of anything in anything and why he tried. Why the manuscript repeats the word Forest for days on end.
Then o-o-another time will pass and apologies will be fed to the forgetful unwanting from a postman's lovely bag. And he'll still be left to wonder and a-wonder why no reply was forthcoming from a healthy communiqué. No doubt was overtaken and forgotten in the slightest by the federal rover in silly knee-high ivory nails. Who had a crisis of fate and welled a wish upon a star in a half-dead act. O accidents happen all the unsuspecting.
And in his beard he'll wonder too who became of the other one on resentful slopes. Who seemed to lay claim to any of the worth that he's long since put to waste. O and who it was who was destined to never be known. And he can picture himself waking up to their shoulders and storing the veil in a box somewhere unspecified. Like he can picture himself with half the world.
O and a-wondering and a-knowing the very reactions from the few, who look like their ears are bursting and their souls are spent. And one in very particular who abhors every bar and has lost the rival who fed his survival and lives in a car. And who is destined for floor-shows and microphones and dying Labradors. Who has just witnessed adolescence expelled upon a screen and left uncleaned for fifty days.
He knows the very diseases that will plague him tomorrow and the next. He knows the very cures but can't build enough of that party stuff to pay off the chemist and the like. And o-he knows of the things he was aiming for. The pipes in the clouds that could clean the very best expositions, and wipe the smiles off hundreds of rotting politicians in Dorsett Alley.
And over they tumble like wheels of lead, never getting any clearer or nearer his goal. Soil from his well-off roots have stained the carpets from his boots, and branded o-his every move, from valuable creeks to small bakeries.
O o-they end with the usual whimper, and he wonders who's coming to dinner. Over frosty packets and heaped dishes, he studies the guides and plans the rest of his night. O and it ends with nothing but nothing over the horizon.
And o-over the things that pile in stacks and are filed away but float away, and rest when the restless are restless no more and faceless and wondering like the rest. Where o-awful things are wording by word and making each other wonder. Why the stooped knee-trodden is rattling the right cage and scooping up the crap that falls. Why the face he makes is inappropriately sculpted and jarring in the very best sense. And when he feels a wind of regret or anticipation, he nets it too, and tags it and cages it as the very best excuse in town. O and he charges the very best people the very steep prices, which leave the fakers at the roots and finds the successful weary at the peak.
And though it feels wrong in aspect it's from a boy who lost the verve, and wants it back and wonders if he ever had it. So the admitting comes fast and thick and phrases flow but none of them stick, and he as an entity of whatever is left falling over himself until he's picked up on and left. O and then he'll grow and he'll wonder some more. Why he couldn't be much of anything in anything and why he tried. Why the manuscript repeats the word Forest for days on end.
Then o-o-another time will pass and apologies will be fed to the forgetful unwanting from a postman's lovely bag. And he'll still be left to wonder and a-wonder why no reply was forthcoming from a healthy communiqué. No doubt was overtaken and forgotten in the slightest by the federal rover in silly knee-high ivory nails. Who had a crisis of fate and welled a wish upon a star in a half-dead act. O accidents happen all the unsuspecting.
And in his beard he'll wonder too who became of the other one on resentful slopes. Who seemed to lay claim to any of the worth that he's long since put to waste. O and who it was who was destined to never be known. And he can picture himself waking up to their shoulders and storing the veil in a box somewhere unspecified. Like he can picture himself with half the world.
O and a-wondering and a-knowing the very reactions from the few, who look like their ears are bursting and their souls are spent. And one in very particular who abhors every bar and has lost the rival who fed his survival and lives in a car. And who is destined for floor-shows and microphones and dying Labradors. Who has just witnessed adolescence expelled upon a screen and left uncleaned for fifty days.
He knows the very diseases that will plague him tomorrow and the next. He knows the very cures but can't build enough of that party stuff to pay off the chemist and the like. And o-he knows of the things he was aiming for. The pipes in the clouds that could clean the very best expositions, and wipe the smiles off hundreds of rotting politicians in Dorsett Alley.
And over they tumble like wheels of lead, never getting any clearer or nearer his goal. Soil from his well-off roots have stained the carpets from his boots, and branded o-his every move, from valuable creeks to small bakeries.
O o-they end with the usual whimper, and he wonders who's coming to dinner. Over frosty packets and heaped dishes, he studies the guides and plans the rest of his night. O and it ends with nothing but nothing over the horizon.
The Awful Delay
With steaming brown swirling through my innards, I took to the mines with spade and barrow in search of poor man's platinum and a bigger house. Upon arrival (it was morning, you see) I saw a man milling outside the grubby entrance and, naturally, bumped in for a closer look. 'Twas none other than the esteemed silver resident. I was about to greet in my usual reserved way when I noticed the look of deep and drowsy sorrow 'neath his brow and a rattling jar marked with skull and crossbones in his paw. With my indiscreet inhale he turned his slow eyeballs towards mine and sadly acknowledged me. I looked away. I could not bear it. From my vision of wobbling red plain I spoke.
"What are you a-doing?"
"J'attends le bon moment," he answered dolefully.
"And what are you going to do when it comes?" I asked.
He glanced down at the jar in his hand.
"Ma vie ne fonctionne plus," he said.
"But why? What's happened?"
"Ben ne visite plus mon emplacement."
"Is that all?"
"Non. J'ai cessé de visiter mon emplacement aussi bien."
"What's stopping you from going back to it?"
He wearily looked at my ears and said: "Je n'ai jamais trouvé un chéri."
"You're still young," I reassured.
"Et mon roman est terrible." He handed me a wad of faded manuscript paper and turned away theatrically. Having no other option, I sat upon a comfy rock and poured my eyes out.
Fifteen odd hours later I had finished.
"I liked it," I announced from my comfy rock.
"Menteur !" he screamed.
"No really. I particularly liked Mary's character."
"Soyez silencieux ! Vous ne dites pas la vérité."
"I wouldn't be me if I did."
"Maintenant pouvez-vous comprendre pourquoi je suis sur le point de se tuer ?"
"No. Don't even say such things."
He smiled and opened the jar.
"Au revoir Hugh."
But before he could place the pill on his tongue I lunged forward and tackled him to the ground. The jar flew out of his hand and bounced drily down the hill. Watching the pills spill out across the red, he began to giggle and cry.
"On me flatte que vous avez essayé de me sauver, mais j'ai déjà pris un avant que vous soyez arrivé." he said as he rose to his feet.
"What?" I cried. "How long have you got left?"
"Environ trois minutes."
"Jesus. Can I do anything?"
"Oui. Améliorez votre français." He began laughing again.
"I'll write something for you on my page," I said firmly.
"Et il coulera comme le fleuve, aucun doute."
Two odd minutes later he fell like a stone.
"Je vous enterrerai dans les mines," I said as I dragged him into the dark.
I perched him up against one of the walls and started to dig.
Gold wasn't forthcoming.
"Il n'est pas aussi facile qu'il regarde," I said.
The hole I was digging became body-size.
I sat atop the mine and took great pleasure in being. Especially over the current scene. I wasn't to be rich, I wasn't to be successful, but I hoped that somewhere down the track I would own an old car and be afforded the luxury of occasional leisure.
The sunset was setting and I was happy till dark. Wording my tribute for the most of it, the walk home wasn't nearly as arduous and I enjoyed the darkness for once—mainly because there wasn't to be anyone else in it. Occasionally I would falter and feel horrible over the prospect of having to work for my keep, but for the most part I was strangely calm and energised by the silver resident's departure and what I would write for him. I was happy I had known him, and that helped me cope.
As I pushed the wheelbarrow into the shed, I was again struck by the crushing blow the absence of gold brought about. It was still there as I glanced at nothing discernible through the kitchen window with a waiting cup of brown. And it was still there when an imperturbable silence reigned.
And now Monday loomed.
Quite and Nobody's News
Outside was fairly light and nice today. I had a fresh cup of steaming brown for breakfast and I might make another soon.
I saw Tom in the city last week. He had his hair in a bun and wore a 'No Planet!' t-shirt. He had a bundle of St. Kilda cakes in a shopping bag too.
"I'm going to sit on top of a building at Southgate and eat these cakes," he answered.
"No thanks. I've got pressing concerns," I replied.
At the stroke of 10.35 a.m. I appeared, almost as if by magic, at the café—only my visible entrance through the doors betrayed me—and sat down opposite Harry for luncheon.
"Henry is still in denial," he told. "And I's still over the moon in love with my local market employess."
"Wear the tails," I instructed.
"A bit too fat," he added.
Next up was afternoon tea at the best afternoon tea room in the land.
"It brings out the leaves," said one.
"It strangles the leaves," said I.
"A better album has seldom been heard," said both.
And of course the phone call.
"We will be it, you hear? We will destroy them. I hate..." said the phone.
"Yes, but have you..." I said.
"Monday."
And finally.
"I took this at..." he said.
"Yes, but why?" I asked.
"It stank."
What a nice day! But it's not over yet.
Only Wankers Use Diminished Chords
And as he turned away from the three bails and glanced artificially at the sweeping horizon, a note from the flutist's exposed pipe fluttered with all the gall of an ancient Frenchmen, and lapsed like a refreshing blanket around the previously silent and awkward mood, finally settling in the yellow grass near a fisherman's neglected knitting needle. The glancer's illusion shattered like so many dead flowers in a field (I've seen it happen, you know), and he was suddenly grounded in all his horrible flaws and imperfections and left with a face uncertain of whether to laugh or ball. In fact it did neither; he merely nodded slowly and glowered his way out of sight. But can you blame him? What man wouldn't act thus if he was faced with the same dilemma? As for the flutist, well, he just blew out the rest of his steam and went the other way.
The next day had the advantage of youth and celebrated by way of a particularly shimmering sun, which awoke the still-sleeping and patted the awake gently on the nose. One of the latter was cooling himself by a faulty air-conditioner in a building of sorts, and fluttering his store-bought eyelashes for extra heat-resistance. Another of the same was next to him and eating a ham roll mundanely, while all around flies made their presence felt on her yellowed right-hand. The same couldn't be said for someone who wasn't in the same situation, and won't be.
But on returning home, neither the flutist nor the industrial relations employee knew where the secret of All Rather lay. I did, but that's another matter. And then it happened. I wasn't watching, mind you, so I won't be able to fill you in on the details.
After forty years of the stuff, it didn't hold up, and eventually was laid to rest in a tomb of caskets.
To be discontinued...
The next day had the advantage of youth and celebrated by way of a particularly shimmering sun, which awoke the still-sleeping and patted the awake gently on the nose. One of the latter was cooling himself by a faulty air-conditioner in a building of sorts, and fluttering his store-bought eyelashes for extra heat-resistance. Another of the same was next to him and eating a ham roll mundanely, while all around flies made their presence felt on her yellowed right-hand. The same couldn't be said for someone who wasn't in the same situation, and won't be.
But on returning home, neither the flutist nor the industrial relations employee knew where the secret of All Rather lay. I did, but that's another matter. And then it happened. I wasn't watching, mind you, so I won't be able to fill you in on the details.
After forty years of the stuff, it didn't hold up, and eventually was laid to rest in a tomb of caskets.
To be discontinued...
Rope Around My Heart
Here's a small prod in the right direction, and one that resembles its maker to an uncanny degree. It goes from woe to whoa in the split of an atom and freezes inconsistencies at the push of a belly. It lights the phases of the faceless and walks the plank of despair into an ocean of plum. It mourns on broken shore-lines and breaking tides, where caking actors smile on the inside only, and puppies moan from exhaustion. It brightens on entry and bellows a roar from ear to ear.
The prod, now a respected member of society, lives off its remainders by cutting the fence-sitters down to size and smoking in prairie bathers. On occasion it speaks to the meek who gather at its door and instructs them to follow the clouds and seek the divine, so as it's left in calm and free to wear fancy. And sometimes it is allowed the luxury of mansion-hunting in the spring, where the washing is lined and the people who need money are.
On its deathbed, the prod is wisened and wistful, and willing to circumvent any troubles which pass its way. The moon, as some would have it, is still very much bent and bending, and is quite visible from the prod's lovely winding window. The sun, however, is a probing occurrence which greatly disturbs its daily peace, and leaves it bitter and unable to swallow. Things could be worse, I suppose.
The prod, now a respected member of society, lives off its remainders by cutting the fence-sitters down to size and smoking in prairie bathers. On occasion it speaks to the meek who gather at its door and instructs them to follow the clouds and seek the divine, so as it's left in calm and free to wear fancy. And sometimes it is allowed the luxury of mansion-hunting in the spring, where the washing is lined and the people who need money are.
On its deathbed, the prod is wisened and wistful, and willing to circumvent any troubles which pass its way. The moon, as some would have it, is still very much bent and bending, and is quite visible from the prod's lovely winding window. The sun, however, is a probing occurrence which greatly disturbs its daily peace, and leaves it bitter and unable to swallow. Things could be worse, I suppose.
Saul Bellow vs. Glenn Richards
It was as I witnessed two conversing creatures on a Hurstbridge train that it first occurred to me; and it was as they reached the conclusion that a certain engine was superior to another that the occurrence transformed into a full-fledged decision, one that I would act upon that very day, and which would grant me further isolation from discussers of automobiles and portable phones.
As soon as the journey saw me safely home, I prepared a sink full of water and burned every T-shirt and brand-name piece of clothing I owned, leaving only the clothes on my back, which I planned to dispose of after I had secured a replacement pair and many besides to make up my new wardrobe. Not being very handy or well-equipped, I burned my arms and hands many times in the process, and eventually left my house resembling a bomb victim with an unusually calm disposition.
Upon arrival at the reasonable pre-loved clothing store, I found myself in the company of numerous items which would suit my transformation and see me, at the very least, looking the part. Eventually I decided upon a heavily-patched brown jacket and plain belt-supported beige pants, which, along with a week of white shirts, I purchased in bulk with as little variation as possible for the unstately sum of twenty dollars.
The next step in the process awaited me at the library, and was laid out in multi-edition volumes, collected essays and histories, with inevitable detours through non-non-fiction to keep my mind up to imaginative speed. I became such a frequent visitor in my second closest library that the staff therein actually greeted me from time to time, and, on occasion, slipped a smile into their mannerisms, an expression seldom seen since the gay days of their youth.
When I was confident that my mind was suitably expanded, I began to try my hand at writing essays, ranging from mundane commentaries on the fallings of today's society, to attempted profundity in my philosophical forays. Publishers wouldn't touch 'em, but I still thought of myself as on-par with those who had inspired me and a bourgeoning talent, to say the least.
Unwilling to acquire new companions, I turned towards my former ones, who were on friendly terms with yesterday's version of myself, but wholly unfamiliar with today's, and, in an attempt at bringing them up to scratch, recommended books to them which I thought would be adequate tools for re-shaping their minds and ridding them of their pop-culture fascinations. Somewhat perplexed by my erudite vocabulary and peculiar outfit, none of them were enthusiastic about their reading, and I dare say none of them actually read what I had taken great pains to choose and procure, so I gave up on them slightly after they gave up on me and convinced myself of the merits of solitude.
Though feeling that I still had some way to go before I was up to scratch, I was eager for an opportunity to flex my brain. It came within a month of that thought in the shape of two coffee-drinking university students discussing philosophy at an up-market café in the city. Listening discreetly for as long as it took to get a feel for their level of intellect and ideals, I finally interjected where one of them had clearly reached a point of contradiction by comprehensively arguing to the contrary. I'd like to think that it was solely due to the strength of my argument, but in recent years I've started to wonder whether it was partly my appearance and manner that induced their silence and rushed departure. Nevertheless, I counted it as a victory, but a victory, I'm glad to add, which was superseded the following year by a bout a stuffy professor and myself engaged in concerning the deterioration of the English language, in which I allowed no room for credible opposing views, and from which I emerged victorious after rattling the morals of my opponent and leaving him completely speechless.
With my ego fully-pumped, I took to the trains and waited for my former fellow passengers to breathe word of automobiles and portable phones. When they did, I was glad to discover no connection bar species linking me to the filthy twenty-somethings at the back of the carriage and those like them. It was at this point that I knew that I, like my spiritual fathers before me, was close to defining the human condition, and that sufficient time was the only object in the way of achieving this through the truthful fiction of my own pen. Though the pages had yet to be writ, though the plot and characters had not been outlined, I knew that the truth I had finally discovered would give birth to the modern masterpiece and bathe me in all the world.
The Drought
I was sitting in the caking sun with a checkers board spread glamorously across my knees, and with a bent-backed thesaurus flapping at eye level from a music stand, when my steam ran out and left me with the bill. Removing it from my lips, I rose to catch a glimpse of my fleeing companion, who had, I might add, only half-heated the water, which I and he intended to be tea only moments before, and which, after the transformation occurred, we intended to drink and eventually flush away. But I was too sluggish in my reaction and had no chance of catching an explanation. After sighing and tut-tutting a few times, I decided to pay a visit to the well round the back to see how things were getting on.
On arrival, I was shocked and awed to discover that the well was empty; no longer was there the refreshing gush of water, or the distorted reflection of a face giggling back at you, to be replaced by bare foundations and echoes. Indeed so distraught was I over this revelation that I simply could not make anything for the rest of the day. Thus I went to bed severely undernourished.
I inevitably awoke and found myself one day closer to my day of dying, which I had estimated on my extended bedside calendar in grim red strokes. As I unloaded my bladder into a basin, I began to think about this empty well of mine, and how I would go about filling it. One possibility splashed from the basin onto my feet but the mere thought of it sent me into sickness, so I let it go unharmed. Another made itself apparent over breakfast and was much less demanding, but because of a strict word limit imposed by the task master, and already exceeded by myself, I never got around to doing it. I shouted "Ho Hum!" to the heavens instead.
ELO vs. The Beatles
A magistrate of considerable talent, dipped himself into a majestic pool of considered opinion, and, with pale disinterest, withdrew a disentangled drawing implement, which in this case was going to be used as a writing implement, and vindicated a verdict upon a considerably clean sheet of paling paper, that stated, in carefully measured statements and cluttered clauses, the decision reached by him as to the fate of the accused, who was accused of interfering with the fate of a merchant by murdering his principles, and the body and soul that lived by them, in one swift stroke of a pen, which allowed or ordered a certain accomplice, whose job it was to do the dirty work, to dispose of the disposed in a quick clean manner that left as little evidence as possible as to whose hand felled the deceased, and as to how the hand achieved this, and as to why it happened and, in this case specifically, where it happened, as it was soon discovered that the place where the body was found was not the place where the body was created, which opened up a whole new bag of suspects, and ruled out old ones, who could never have done the deed if the place where the deed was done was not nearby, and thus a whole case of filings concerning motivations and possibilities for these nearby folks was rendered void and quite literally thrown out the window, whereupon a new set of filings were writ into existence concerning the motivations and possibilities of a new group of suspicious minds belonging to a place near to where the crime took place, and, after a few weeks in this mindset, they found their man, who now swings from a post somewhere as a warning to other potentials, and as an example of the no-holds-barred approach favoured by the authorities in these parts.
Commenteers of Rage
And here the double-edged sword, with its previously unfounded name, soars into focus over mein eyes and rears both its points with surging precision, whereupon it mouths an I-told-you-so and glints carefully out of narrative attention. It represents attention wide and expectations great, and it refers directly to certain practitioners of the footnote variety, whose job it is, with the understanding that the traffic flows in both directions with equal ferocity, to occasionally make their presence felt. Thus with an expectation of feedback do I now approach each piece, and with public dread and delight do I open the increased blue, perhaps purple, number near the grey, unremarkable signature. But it was not always so.
Even after attracting or forcing anybodies into my womb, I was still beset by mere carefreeness, but a carefreeness that was partially limited by my own standards of practice. It was only as the words grew to be more articulate and constructive that my awareness and my pen were sharpened and shaped accordingly. The feeling that comes with this is not, in all honesty, a pleasant one. Indeed some might call the sinking sensation rotten, but it is, nonetheless, vital and important in the shaping of all things writ. Without it, one muses, this one wall would certainly crumble in on itself with only the fanciful hope of Professor Unknown stumbling, quite by accident, to a mess, which, in his dextrous hands, becomes a masterpiece, keeping it up.
And though it tears right through me like a ball and chain, I am grateful to the extreme for the honesty presented and the unflinchingness with which it is presented. And though I am being pierced from both ends, I feel that I, as a non-representative of personkind, am most certainly the better for it. The populous of my theatre, with bobbing heads and rampant chatter, are the be all and end all and the givers of worth and the givers of words, and for that, again (and echoing one of them particularly strongly with the whole gratitude angle), I thank.
Frayward Thinkers
Resembling a fed-up parent who's been snubbed by a heavily defaced door for the last time, our saviour, our armour in shining knighthood, has sent us out into the ditch of responsibility and horrid independence, where casualties are pushed to the road and forced to fend harder than ever before, and where flickers of life's majority are projected on the fore as a reminder of the monotony—for most of us—of things to come. But, unlike some inconsiderates out there who choose to throw their brought-up-by-hands straight into the fire without so much as an asbestos bandana, ours is kind and thoughtful enough to provide us with suitable inspiration, out of which we managed to forge deceptive word-games and succeed in banishing the cruel caesareans from our once again aptly named strongholds.
We enjoyed our freedom and uninfected habitats like two jolly laural-resters, and all but forgot that which had worried us so when we were initially overrun, but, thanks again to our mentor, we became aware of our selfish ways and expanded our minds to include the poor others out there who have not been so successful in their battles. Eventually we schemed to plunge into the kettle ourselves, with a full-on onslaught of three (for the moment) and marshalled might and courage, and this supplied story-tellers with material to embellish, and children with idols to live up to; we were going to their homeland to lay waste the source of their creation once and for all and shower peace across the rolling hills and lively settlements.
And it is here we sit now around a superbly cartographered map of our destination, that, with the aid of diagrams and complex battle-plans, in theory should see us to victory. Our Captain is suitably donned, and we—me and the one who resists French-leaning foes but welcomes the English-speakers—are also prepared and adequately equipped. Our tally, too, has been carefully hoed, and from here it looks promising. Tomorrow beckons with all the beckoning of a seasoned beckoner, and we await.
Bottles
In a room, a young man with paint and a paintbrush and a canvas thinks about where the next splash of paint should be splashed, and, while doing so, hums a quiet tune. Remember that tune: you'll need it later. Anyway, this young man, whom I've just described as a painter of sorts in the process of painting, now, at last (for me, at least; for the rest of you have only just joined us), puts brush to surface and creates an abstract face of blue. The use of blue here, I believe, indicates to the looker (that's us) the mood of this figure. A good-looker will spot this instantly, but for you, who've only been with me a few short weeks, it'll take a while longer. You'll get better with practice.
In this room, this young man spends a while longer on his masterpiece, finishing it about now with a delicate stroke of yellow. Good, huh? Pay extra attention to the use of lighting and form. You'll thank me later. And now the young man, the painter, marvels at his work, at his masterwork. Look at his face. Look at his genius.
A few hours pass and, as of now, have passed. His hands pass over the canvas. He feels every pulse of life within with every pulse of hand without. Then he reels back. I told you he would. Now he's taking a closer look. The room's lights—a couple of candles—dim obediently as the painter enters the other world. Yes, his body stays here, but his spirit is soaring somewhere we, with our academic imaginations, can only fail to comprehend. I have, nevertheless, written an approximation of what he may be experiencing:
Clouds. Clouds everywhere. I am free and floating. Below me are rolling green hills and beautiful forests. Everything is swimming. I am too. We are merging now into one. I am everything. I am the hills, the trees, the lakes, the butterflies. The clouds. I am as ethereal as ethereality itself. Every form of matter presents itself to me within me and without me. I am, I am.
Of course, one can never know, but, in light of his work, this must surely be close. Thank you. See how he's not moving? Not even his eyes. He's no longer of this world. He's somewhere much more spiritual. And we're stuck here. Still, you've got to play with your hand. The hand you've been dealt, I mean. But it makes you think. Makes you question the ol' 9-to-5, you know? Anyway, I'll see you all tomorrow.
Which is now. The young painter, in his workshop, is still very much there physically, but, as you can see, he hasn't moved, and thus we must deduce that he is still out-of-body. And you can't blame him. His hand and brush have opened the doors of perception the hard way, and I'm sure he doesn't want to throw it all away quite yet. Remember to mention this at the year's end. See you in a few weeks.
Even at the sake of his safety, he remains locked in the other world. His skin is pale and his bones are showing, but on the upper deck, peace reigns. He's reached the contentment we all strive for, and it's reflected in the painting. The blue figure has the same look as he does now. The 'not quite here' look. And, like him, the blue figure isn't aware of his surroundings. Remember to rephrase that when you come to write it yourselves.
Though dead, he still gives the impression of a free spirit, as if he is beyond mortal perceptions of life and death. I firmly believe that he is as he once was all those weeks ago. I'm sure this will be amusing to some of you, but to me it's as real as day. And on that note, have a good one.
I Thwart the Robotically Imminent
I've been overrun, the Parisian's been overrun, but Ben, being Ben (and, by rights, Yodo), is still holding them off gallantly with his marble-substitute trophy and his girly wits. A harrowing wind collapses me and I feel like a meek slice of butter and grease—and then you realise that you have wasted your opportunity to say anything—and I, me, him (to you), wonder about things and other things.
And now we've been viciously ex-patted from our homes and are both forced to seek refuge at Ben's hill, where we help out as best we can by making dinner and doing housework while our saviour fends off our foes (and his). Mother Stephan, meanwhile, looming like a God over the hillside, gazes down upon us—me in particular, his runaway son—and tempts fate and the mechanical onslaught with a dangling line of vulnerability.
Cries of cartoon creatures and dieting success stories rise from the unoiled cogs like kettle-drum-o-parking-lots and are picked up by the clever ears of our three overexposed but underdeveloped protagonists (me included), who were hitherto busying themselves with needlework; now, after I realise I just spent two-and-a-half grand on that joke, we make a stand outside our adopted home (in the two's case) and almost succeed in failing.
While all this rubbishy stuff is steadily going on, the Tu, locked up in an unnamed state, bemoans the state of his previous full-colour starring-role rendering, and heaves a sigh into his belly as he makes his way here. Wondering where my long hair went, and where is the me he used to know, he diverts himself innocently and taps metal keys in the dark. When at last the lights return, he discovers that the inked paper result reveals undesirable dark shades in personkind, which he previously thought nonexistent, having been raised on a diet of life-affirmation.
The dreadful chunder still remains in the form of a deeply unsettling and awful smelling stain across the face, which obscures all but the letters S, T, O and X. And it was his favourite T-shaped shirt.
In a small bedroom sits Harry. His eyes are fixed with intense concentration upon his human-sized canine, who in turn has her eyes fixed upon an enticing little bin hiding in the shadows and expelling a delightful odour.
Mr. Bee breathes easy by a safe man with head in hands.
And the three have finished their (our) stand, and now they (we) stood and watched our wrinkles become more and more prominent. It was fun to say the least, but I, being the race I am, prefer to say the most: it was an enlightening, bold, brash, humbling, beautiful and long experience.
And now we chew through the heavenly stairs and gates and clouds and angels until we may stumble upon our better halves and produce better thirds or quarters—if our seeds haven't dried up, that is; and if they really are the sunshines of our lust; and if Ben really hasn't paired-off with the bloodsucking machine of yesterday.
Over the Hill and Far Far Far
Here sits four decades wrapped in a bitter, wrinkling shell. The room is gloomy and filled with unsuccessfully hidden magazines. The centrepiece is an over-varnished Elizabethan desk with a stylish computer on it. The decades are tapping their furious and frail fingers on a transparent keyboard and causing letter-shaped pixels to appear on the screen. No relating or friendly years are ever seen in the room. On the bright side, the decades have upped their quotient to two posts a day. Today's post reads as follows:
Desolation squats above me like a ludicrous mosquito and lowers a tendril of despair into my vein. Outside, the collective world meets friends at a coffee shop and buys gifts for their adorable spouses. The day starts at morning, reaches the centre at midday and peaks at night time, yet to me this is only apparent through the light-levels in my room. I hate every wretched lung of personkind — mainly because I am part of it. There's no way to succeed in life. Not in this life. Not in this endless bowl of false fish and employment. I gaze upon my beautifully awful walls and picture myself sliding into 10 to 6 aprons. Loneliness is the only true emotion. I don't trust anyone who isn't lonely. Lonely. Yes, I'm quite lonely. I think I'll look at porn.
The decades are very proud of this addition. In celebration, they read through all the previous additions to remind themselves of how clever they are. As each giggle and exhale of awe is wrung from the text, the decades wonder how no one else appreciates it the way they do. Except maybe those loyal fans from decades ago. They've stopped posting comments, but the decades are certain they are still there. Somewhere.
Here stumbles the decades upon a 21-year-old post from August. No one will notice, they think. No one will mind. So they lift the second paragraph and post it anew.
Cups of Brown
A fresh cup of steaming brown was nestled in my hand. Aside from that, I positively decided, at that moment, that things, as they were, weren't as I necessarily wanted them to be. World politics swirled clockwise in my unsweetened cup, thanks in no small part to a silver spoon that may or may not have been in a newborn's mouth. Theories and ideals wobbled as I brought the cup towards my chapped lips and tilted my hand, which also, by rights, tilted the cup that was in it, eventually leading to a slope of brown that slid onto my tongue and was promptly swallowed. The history of personkind found refuge in my inner bits and infused me with contempt.
My next utterance resembled a gurgle, and would have, if deciphered, caused an open-minded soul to think about things, and perhaps even act upon things. Instead I was left with the remaining two-thirds of steaming brown which, in my hands, were destined for greatness: the greatness of my belly.