There was a strange man got on our bus. The bus was loud but the strange man was louder. He was swaying at the bus stop, he swayed up the step, in water, in whisky, in dance. He was singing to Irish music on his phone. He had on an old waxed cotton jacket, smelling of fishing boats and cigarettes and rope. He tried to take a seat but he fell down and he didn't seem concerned and he pulled himself up and adjusted his threadbare hat and carried right on singing.
No one paid attention. We looked out of the windows. We were tired from offices and libraries and long shifts shouldering burdens and we thought, collectively, Go right on. Be that way. We don't care.
The strange man looked around, he asked some people how they were doing, they nodded and turned away. He looked at two girls, and we clenched our teeth, but he told them only It's a good night, then his eyes went roving on.
He talked to himself. We were tired from long shifts and we mostly looked at phones, out of windows, but we half watched when someone new got on the bus, the vague sport of what would happen. Everyone new was being tested; everyone sitting down was the old guard. We wanted to see the moment the new people discovered, whether they would sit beside him without realising, how that would play out. We were tired but we half watched for this.
Or we half watched the strange man himself, squinted a little, tutted just a little, silently to ourselves. We were doing badly, we were lonely and disappointed and lost, but we weren't the strange man. We all had at least that.
The strange man coughed a hacking cough and swayed and sang to his Irish song. The bus moved on up the hill. A middle-aged couple in matching felt coats and scarves sat down opposite the strange man. The strange man watched the couple a long time, started talking, and the couple stared ahead.
The bus got full and the strange man stood up to offer a woman his seat. The woman said No, don't be, and the strange man said Hey, it was, all was, come, all come - he said some strange thing, the woman said some flushed thing, moved off to stand down the bus. The strange man shook his head, shook in offence or disbelief, sat himself back in his swaying lagoonal glow.
We looked at phones, out of windows.
I'm sorry. That's what the strange man said to the couple. I'm sorry it's like this. I've lost... my. I've lost my... son. How do you carry on. How do you carry on when you've lost your son.
He said more, but we couldn't hear, no one could hear save the couple, and they weren't in the mood for talking. The bus moved on.
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Tuesday, 5 February 2019
Thursday, 22 November 2018
Day 208: Haircut
I’ve had my hair cut. It’s good getting your hair cut. You feel good. I mean, obviously you’re still fundamentally compromised as a human being, and utterly incapable of giving or receiving love, but you’ve got shorter hair on the sides of your head, and your fringe is insouciantly curled, and just for a moment you can believe that you’re not going to die alone. You will. You will die alone. But just for the briefest fleeting instant it’s so nice to believe.
You think about buying some new clothes to match your new haircut. Something grown up, smart, appropriate for your age; no more of these grungy threads you wear to cling on to your truthfully long since faded youth. You think how you might meet someone in the John Lewis clothes department, your eyes locking in the reflection of an all steel espresso coffee maker nestled in the department across the aisle. You’ll go for cake, an honest conversation, you’ll walk in the winter air together as workers rush home with their coats done all the way up, the trees above gently shaking off the last of their yellowing leaves.
You’ll admit that you’ve never truly tried at anything, you’ve never known who you were, you’ve sabotaged every relationship you’ve had because deep down you didn’t feel you were worth being with. You’ll wonder at the vulnerability you’re showing, but know it’s time, know that you’re ready to break apart the old you and start afresh.
After six months of dating you’ll move in together. A tumble down cottage with an open fire and plenty of room for books. And you’ll finally write that concerto you’ve been putting off, and start giving piano lessons in your spare time, and become a more active voice in your community. You’ll join the Labour Party. You’ll learn to cook seafood meuniere. You’ll spend weekends bike riding round the coast with your friend from work.
You’ll have children, and know how to raise them, and they’ll go to esteemed universities and during their holidays bring you breakfast in bed. Your children will have children, and you’ll hold your grandchildren, and looking into their newborn faces you’ll see the whole cosmos shimmering in the depths of their eyes.
The wonders you and your new haircut will be able to achieve will know no bounds.
Or… well… You blink, now, and glance again in the mirror. You look a bit stupid actually. Why is your skull such a weird shape? And your fringe doesn't appear so insouciant now you're out of the barbers.
No. You will die alone. Might as well roll another spliff, and you and your new haircut can settle in to a Brooklyn Nine-Nine marathon on Netlix together.
You think about buying some new clothes to match your new haircut. Something grown up, smart, appropriate for your age; no more of these grungy threads you wear to cling on to your truthfully long since faded youth. You think how you might meet someone in the John Lewis clothes department, your eyes locking in the reflection of an all steel espresso coffee maker nestled in the department across the aisle. You’ll go for cake, an honest conversation, you’ll walk in the winter air together as workers rush home with their coats done all the way up, the trees above gently shaking off the last of their yellowing leaves.
You’ll admit that you’ve never truly tried at anything, you’ve never known who you were, you’ve sabotaged every relationship you’ve had because deep down you didn’t feel you were worth being with. You’ll wonder at the vulnerability you’re showing, but know it’s time, know that you’re ready to break apart the old you and start afresh.
After six months of dating you’ll move in together. A tumble down cottage with an open fire and plenty of room for books. And you’ll finally write that concerto you’ve been putting off, and start giving piano lessons in your spare time, and become a more active voice in your community. You’ll join the Labour Party. You’ll learn to cook seafood meuniere. You’ll spend weekends bike riding round the coast with your friend from work.
You’ll have children, and know how to raise them, and they’ll go to esteemed universities and during their holidays bring you breakfast in bed. Your children will have children, and you’ll hold your grandchildren, and looking into their newborn faces you’ll see the whole cosmos shimmering in the depths of their eyes.
The wonders you and your new haircut will be able to achieve will know no bounds.
Or… well… You blink, now, and glance again in the mirror. You look a bit stupid actually. Why is your skull such a weird shape? And your fringe doesn't appear so insouciant now you're out of the barbers.
No. You will die alone. Might as well roll another spliff, and you and your new haircut can settle in to a Brooklyn Nine-Nine marathon on Netlix together.
Saturday, 17 November 2018
Day 203: Clip Show Special #2
Yesterday I compiled a list of my favourite comedy posts that have come out of this daily blogging challenge I've been undertaking. Here is a compilation of everything else:
Serious Stuff
Mental health, especially my own struggles with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and recurring negative thoughts, has been a huge subject in my writing. About one in twenty days I seem to be trying something silly or fun or creative, and the other nineteen I'm worrying sincerely that I'm a worthless failure and everything in life is irreparably broken. There's strength to be taken from writing about all this though, in helping me get through it, and hopefully helping others who may feel similar things. Here are some of my faves:
Day 12 - an early post about blogging as Zen painting.
Day 13 - being hit by waves of self-loathing, thinking back on an adolescence growing up suffering from acne. Painful, but helpful.
Day 25 - another early one, about dealing with my gammy eyes and what it actually feels like to be depressed. I used to be incredibly self-conscious when writing about my own depression. Guess I got over that.
Day 30 - to celebrate reaching my original goal of a month of sober blogging I wrote the most intimately I have yet done about having acne. It felt gross to write, and still feels gross now, but, hey, you gotta write that real stuff, or what's the point?
Commitment - a nice post about writing-as-relationship, about accepting the hard times.
Passion - a day finding beauty, or at least the briefest reflected glimmer of beauty, in the mundane, the quotidian.
Still - yet another attack of depression, but forcing myself to write through it, to get something down. To have come here on the hardest, worst, most futile days, and still to have hammered words out, is perhaps the achievement of which I’m most proud.
Friends with bicycles - a post about being socially anxious in a coffee shop, as is my wont.
Things I like - a nice dose of positivity. The bit about vision is cool, it’s something I think about a lot. Vision is weird.
Unwrapped - about going to the zero-waste food shop round the corner from my house. I still go. You should go. Just go!
Echoes - from when I did some manual labour with my friend and learnt all about being a man. Half silly, half sincere, as usual.
Storm - another post about feeling depression, I remember the effort it took to not rise to the negative thoughts, to accept them, watch them, write them out honestly, and let them go. At the time it felt like turning a corner, and though of course I’ve retreated back round the corner many times since then, I’ve also been able to retrace my steps forwards a few times as well. It’s slow going, but it’s progress.
Unique - at my sister’s in London, trying to fathom the scale and complexity of the world. I can’t. It’s unfathomable!
Triviality - a post in which you can hear me standing up to the negative voices that are continuously rattling around my head. The more I do this, the more power I have. If you have negative thoughts, try to do this. Shine the light of awareness upon them, bring them out, analyse them, and pick apart their faulty logic. They will dissolve under the flame of attention. Then they’ll come right back. But you’ll know what to do.
Windscreen - an analogy comparing depression to having faulty windscreen wipers on your car, explaining why it’s so hard to get yourself out of low moods.
Arty Stuff
I’m the most self-conscious about my writing when it is overtly attempting to be literature or poetry. Masking your clumsy attempts at fiction under the guise of an overblown Mad Max parody, or a vignette about ghost ships, is one thing; standing in front of everyone saying “I made this thing that wants to be serious art” is another. Sincerity is scary. But I’ve made a few faltering attempts over these past six months...
Flavours - I spent a few weeks trying some fiction writing prompts. This one, involving writing a scene around a bunch of flavours, came out like a young-adult story. It was fun.
Penny for your thoughts - another writing prompt, about an executive and a homeless man.
Photographs - loose, ramshackle word streams inspired by the photographs of Steve McCurry. Why aren’t I doing this every day, as a way to unclog the clay from my mind and get the words flowing?
Mirror - a day exploring Bradford with my family.
Interstices - similar to other posts about looking for the sublime in the ordinary, but more focused on the feel and flow of the words than on an argument for the intellect.
Bollard - the last day working with my friend, a post about the sadness of endings.
Solemn - a bit of writing about the flickering joys, and dangers, of being drunk. I like some of the lines in here.
Howling - a sketch of what it feels like to work a busy weekend bar shift. I was angry when I wrote it. You can tell.
Reviews/Articles/Other
And here’s a list of the stuff that doesn’t fit into the categories above. Mostly articles about films and videogames, and the odd thought piece.
Re-Bourne - a sort of draft of a review of The Bourne Identity. Man I love this film.
Story structure - notes on the hero’s journey, the monomyth, story circles, all that good stuff.
Switch impressions - as a reward for sober blogging for 90 days I bought myself a Nintendo Switch. Wrote lots about it. Here’s one such piece.
Blade Runner, the sequel, parts 1 and 2, the original, parts 1 and 2 - lots of words about Blade Running. My love for the first film knows no bounds. The second? I can take it or leave it.
Red Dead Redissonance - wrote a few posts recently about Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2. Some praising the beauty of the game’s world; this one was critical of the ludonarrative dissonance at the game’s heart, and touched on what it is we want videogames to provide for us: gritty art, or a warm bath? And can we have both?
Let’s have an argument about Apu - I tried to write an article that essentially argued the opposite of what all my friends felt about the news that Apu might be written out of the Simpsons, while avoiding any ego or aggression. I wanted to try to change people’s minds, or at least provide a fresh perspective. I think it worked well actually.
OK. It’s 4am, as usual, and I cannot write any more on this. Compiling this list today and yesterday has shown me how far I’ve come. Yes, every piece has been a rushed first draft, ragged and unfinished, often starting as one thing and becoming another halfway through. Many times I’ve had a brainwave as to how I should have written the post at the point at which I’ve posted it, and it’s continuously frustrating to have to put up work I know I could make better with time, but not having any time, already being stressed that I’ve stayed up too late and eaten into my energy and resources for the next day’s post. As has happened today.
But there’s been a lot of snatches of good writing within the greater haze of words. There have been many, many words, and a not-insignificant amount of them have been good.
Drop that desire for perfection, and suddenly it’s so lovely that I’ve gone and done the work every day for 203 days now, and that that work has even momentarily helped people, made them laugh, given them pause for thought - and of course kept me from throwing myself under a bus as well.
Writing is the best. It really is.
Serious Stuff
Mental health, especially my own struggles with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and recurring negative thoughts, has been a huge subject in my writing. About one in twenty days I seem to be trying something silly or fun or creative, and the other nineteen I'm worrying sincerely that I'm a worthless failure and everything in life is irreparably broken. There's strength to be taken from writing about all this though, in helping me get through it, and hopefully helping others who may feel similar things. Here are some of my faves:
Day 12 - an early post about blogging as Zen painting.
Day 13 - being hit by waves of self-loathing, thinking back on an adolescence growing up suffering from acne. Painful, but helpful.
Day 25 - another early one, about dealing with my gammy eyes and what it actually feels like to be depressed. I used to be incredibly self-conscious when writing about my own depression. Guess I got over that.
Day 30 - to celebrate reaching my original goal of a month of sober blogging I wrote the most intimately I have yet done about having acne. It felt gross to write, and still feels gross now, but, hey, you gotta write that real stuff, or what's the point?
Commitment - a nice post about writing-as-relationship, about accepting the hard times.
Passion - a day finding beauty, or at least the briefest reflected glimmer of beauty, in the mundane, the quotidian.
Still - yet another attack of depression, but forcing myself to write through it, to get something down. To have come here on the hardest, worst, most futile days, and still to have hammered words out, is perhaps the achievement of which I’m most proud.
Friends with bicycles - a post about being socially anxious in a coffee shop, as is my wont.
Things I like - a nice dose of positivity. The bit about vision is cool, it’s something I think about a lot. Vision is weird.
Unwrapped - about going to the zero-waste food shop round the corner from my house. I still go. You should go. Just go!
Echoes - from when I did some manual labour with my friend and learnt all about being a man. Half silly, half sincere, as usual.
Storm - another post about feeling depression, I remember the effort it took to not rise to the negative thoughts, to accept them, watch them, write them out honestly, and let them go. At the time it felt like turning a corner, and though of course I’ve retreated back round the corner many times since then, I’ve also been able to retrace my steps forwards a few times as well. It’s slow going, but it’s progress.
Unique - at my sister’s in London, trying to fathom the scale and complexity of the world. I can’t. It’s unfathomable!
Triviality - a post in which you can hear me standing up to the negative voices that are continuously rattling around my head. The more I do this, the more power I have. If you have negative thoughts, try to do this. Shine the light of awareness upon them, bring them out, analyse them, and pick apart their faulty logic. They will dissolve under the flame of attention. Then they’ll come right back. But you’ll know what to do.
Windscreen - an analogy comparing depression to having faulty windscreen wipers on your car, explaining why it’s so hard to get yourself out of low moods.
Arty Stuff
I’m the most self-conscious about my writing when it is overtly attempting to be literature or poetry. Masking your clumsy attempts at fiction under the guise of an overblown Mad Max parody, or a vignette about ghost ships, is one thing; standing in front of everyone saying “I made this thing that wants to be serious art” is another. Sincerity is scary. But I’ve made a few faltering attempts over these past six months...
Flavours - I spent a few weeks trying some fiction writing prompts. This one, involving writing a scene around a bunch of flavours, came out like a young-adult story. It was fun.
Penny for your thoughts - another writing prompt, about an executive and a homeless man.
Photographs - loose, ramshackle word streams inspired by the photographs of Steve McCurry. Why aren’t I doing this every day, as a way to unclog the clay from my mind and get the words flowing?
Mirror - a day exploring Bradford with my family.
Interstices - similar to other posts about looking for the sublime in the ordinary, but more focused on the feel and flow of the words than on an argument for the intellect.
Bollard - the last day working with my friend, a post about the sadness of endings.
Solemn - a bit of writing about the flickering joys, and dangers, of being drunk. I like some of the lines in here.
Howling - a sketch of what it feels like to work a busy weekend bar shift. I was angry when I wrote it. You can tell.
Reviews/Articles/Other
And here’s a list of the stuff that doesn’t fit into the categories above. Mostly articles about films and videogames, and the odd thought piece.
Re-Bourne - a sort of draft of a review of The Bourne Identity. Man I love this film.
Story structure - notes on the hero’s journey, the monomyth, story circles, all that good stuff.
Switch impressions - as a reward for sober blogging for 90 days I bought myself a Nintendo Switch. Wrote lots about it. Here’s one such piece.
Blade Runner, the sequel, parts 1 and 2, the original, parts 1 and 2 - lots of words about Blade Running. My love for the first film knows no bounds. The second? I can take it or leave it.
Red Dead Redissonance - wrote a few posts recently about Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2. Some praising the beauty of the game’s world; this one was critical of the ludonarrative dissonance at the game’s heart, and touched on what it is we want videogames to provide for us: gritty art, or a warm bath? And can we have both?
Let’s have an argument about Apu - I tried to write an article that essentially argued the opposite of what all my friends felt about the news that Apu might be written out of the Simpsons, while avoiding any ego or aggression. I wanted to try to change people’s minds, or at least provide a fresh perspective. I think it worked well actually.
OK. It’s 4am, as usual, and I cannot write any more on this. Compiling this list today and yesterday has shown me how far I’ve come. Yes, every piece has been a rushed first draft, ragged and unfinished, often starting as one thing and becoming another halfway through. Many times I’ve had a brainwave as to how I should have written the post at the point at which I’ve posted it, and it’s continuously frustrating to have to put up work I know I could make better with time, but not having any time, already being stressed that I’ve stayed up too late and eaten into my energy and resources for the next day’s post. As has happened today.
But there’s been a lot of snatches of good writing within the greater haze of words. There have been many, many words, and a not-insignificant amount of them have been good.
Drop that desire for perfection, and suddenly it’s so lovely that I’ve gone and done the work every day for 203 days now, and that that work has even momentarily helped people, made them laugh, given them pause for thought - and of course kept me from throwing myself under a bus as well.
Writing is the best. It really is.
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
Day 199: On being LOST
Home from another dull, interminable Monday close. Serve customers, sort breaks, post social media events, count the tills, take out the bins. On and on it swirls. The back of the bin store, reaching for bags wedged between the taps of the outdoor bar shoved in there because there’s nowhere else for it to go. The bin bag catching on the tap, tearing, disgorging its soggy viscera slopping onto the floor. The warm, vegetal aroma hitting the back of my nose...
I straighten. Haven’t I been here before? Wasn’t I just doing this?
I always take out the bins, but there are always bins needing to be taken out. I always count the tills, but the tills are never counted.
Why is it always nighttime?
Why are these customers always asking for the same three drinks, wearing the same slack-jawed expressions, making the same one and only joke they seem to know?
How long have I worked in this bar? Now I think about it, I can’t remember a time I didn’t work in this bar.
Has it always been like this?
FLASHBACK!
I’m dressed in an expensive suit, working at a law firm in the city. Everything is smart and well-lit. My partner, whose name is probably Jason, or Brett, wants me to come in on a scheme he has been cooking up to embezzle funds from a charity drive we have been overseeing. I know the scheme is morally wrong, but I’ve got my kid to look after, and he’s going to be kicked out of school if I can’t make payments on his education fees...
END FLASHBACK!
OK, I know this. I know what’s going on.
“I know what’s going on,” I shout. “I’ve figured it out.”
The scene pauses. Customers freeze, glasses halfway to lips. The young bartender, leaning back on a stool in boredom, stops in midair, hovering on two stool legs completely still.
A man dressed all in white, with a neat beard, looking avuncular, wise, steps out from behind a bottle display.
“We’ve been waiting for you to arrive,” he says. “We’ve been waiting a long time.”
“I’m here now.”
“So you’ve figured it out?”
“I think so. It took me a while, but I think I know, now. I’m... “
“Yes?”
“I’m trapped in a long-running glossy American television series, aren’t I? One where the characters find themselves in some sort of non-denominational purgatory after a terrible disaster in the first episode, and in which they now must spend each subsequent episode with their backstories explored in flashback as we learn of the emotional baggage they carry, while they simultaneously deal with parallel plots in the present day that draw out that emotional baggage and allow some minor closure to be found while still providing enough of a resetting of status quo to keep the show running for six to ten seasons. That’s why everything around here is so SYMBOLIC and METAPHORICAL. Why I always see the same recurring faces week after week. Why that smoke monster has been chasing me around the cellar for the past three years.”
“Well,” the man in white says. “No. Actually we’re here to clean the extractor fans in the kitchen.”
His two colleagues, also in white overalls, step out from the corridor. They’re carrying bags of cleaning supplies.
“We’ve been waiting ages for you to let us into the kitchen,” one of them says.
“Oh,” I say. “But… what about the smoke monster?”
“That’ll be the extractor fans, I expect. We’ve not been down to do ‘em in yonks.”
“And everyone freezing?”
“Ahem,” the customer nearest me says. “We were just a bit shocked, is all. You shouting that you knew what was going on like that. It really was rather loud.”
“Oh. Right. I see.
I let the workmen into the kitchen. I show them around. And then, in back of the storeroom, I find a strange hatch, sealed shut, with some sort of bizarre code scratched into the…
“That’ll be the fuse box,” one of the workmen shouts.
Dammit. I just cannot catch a break round here.
I straighten. Haven’t I been here before? Wasn’t I just doing this?
I always take out the bins, but there are always bins needing to be taken out. I always count the tills, but the tills are never counted.
Why is it always nighttime?
Why are these customers always asking for the same three drinks, wearing the same slack-jawed expressions, making the same one and only joke they seem to know?
How long have I worked in this bar? Now I think about it, I can’t remember a time I didn’t work in this bar.
Has it always been like this?
FLASHBACK!
I’m dressed in an expensive suit, working at a law firm in the city. Everything is smart and well-lit. My partner, whose name is probably Jason, or Brett, wants me to come in on a scheme he has been cooking up to embezzle funds from a charity drive we have been overseeing. I know the scheme is morally wrong, but I’ve got my kid to look after, and he’s going to be kicked out of school if I can’t make payments on his education fees...
END FLASHBACK!
OK, I know this. I know what’s going on.
“I know what’s going on,” I shout. “I’ve figured it out.”
The scene pauses. Customers freeze, glasses halfway to lips. The young bartender, leaning back on a stool in boredom, stops in midair, hovering on two stool legs completely still.
A man dressed all in white, with a neat beard, looking avuncular, wise, steps out from behind a bottle display.
“We’ve been waiting for you to arrive,” he says. “We’ve been waiting a long time.”
“I’m here now.”
“So you’ve figured it out?”
“I think so. It took me a while, but I think I know, now. I’m... “
“Yes?”
“I’m trapped in a long-running glossy American television series, aren’t I? One where the characters find themselves in some sort of non-denominational purgatory after a terrible disaster in the first episode, and in which they now must spend each subsequent episode with their backstories explored in flashback as we learn of the emotional baggage they carry, while they simultaneously deal with parallel plots in the present day that draw out that emotional baggage and allow some minor closure to be found while still providing enough of a resetting of status quo to keep the show running for six to ten seasons. That’s why everything around here is so SYMBOLIC and METAPHORICAL. Why I always see the same recurring faces week after week. Why that smoke monster has been chasing me around the cellar for the past three years.”
“Well,” the man in white says. “No. Actually we’re here to clean the extractor fans in the kitchen.”
His two colleagues, also in white overalls, step out from the corridor. They’re carrying bags of cleaning supplies.
“We’ve been waiting ages for you to let us into the kitchen,” one of them says.
“Oh,” I say. “But… what about the smoke monster?”
“That’ll be the extractor fans, I expect. We’ve not been down to do ‘em in yonks.”
“And everyone freezing?”
“Ahem,” the customer nearest me says. “We were just a bit shocked, is all. You shouting that you knew what was going on like that. It really was rather loud.”
“Oh. Right. I see.
I let the workmen into the kitchen. I show them around. And then, in back of the storeroom, I find a strange hatch, sealed shut, with some sort of bizarre code scratched into the…
“That’ll be the fuse box,” one of the workmen shouts.
Dammit. I just cannot catch a break round here.
Thursday, 1 November 2018
Day 187: Halloween
Hey you. Have you recently walked into the break room at work to find Gale and John and Lizzie chatting about decorations, and you've said, Oh, what are the decorations for? and they've paused and looked at Gale, who has coughed and said he's throwing a small Halloween party tonight, just more of a get-together really, a quiet affair, and then he's paused again and no one has said anything and Lizzie has started looking through the snack cupboard intently and John has busied himself at the coffee machine, and then finally Gale has asked if you would like to come to the party, and you've said that, yes, that sounds lovely, and Gale has said Great, well, great, OK, yes, OK then, and the three of them have walked out of the break room and now here you are with a Halloween party to attend and no ideas for a costume?
Well, if so then fear not, because I've got you covered with this handy list of practical and cost-effective costumes to ensure your night goes spooooookily well!
- That celebrity you sort of look like. Remember that time you wore your hair down and Todd from accounting called you Emma Stone in the morning meeting, and then when everyone was changing their Facebook profiles to their celebrity lookalikes you set yours to a photo of Emma Stone, and after a second glass of wine you added a comment to the photo in which you tagged Todd and said you didn't see the likeness yourself but maybe he was on to something, and you thought for a long time, on your sofa, alone, with now your third glass of Australian merlot, and finally you added a winking face emoji to the comment, and pressed send, and then you waited on your sofa not really watching Holby City on catch-up until past midnight when your phone buzzed with a notification telling you Todd had liked your comment, and you wore your hair down the next morning, and every day of morning meetings for three months, but Todd never said anything again, and later you found out he'd been sleeping with Lucy from HR since the office pub quiz last Christmas to which you'd not been invited because it would have "made the teams uneven"? Well, maybe it's time to bring back that classic.
- Something slutty. Why not crack out that risque dress from the back of the wardrobe you bought online two years ago and haven't yet had the courage to wear? Oh, but now you try it on you remember that it does make your breasts look less like the plump grapefruit of the model in the picture and more like two pale, shaved guinea pigs that have been gassed to death in their burrows. And the plunge neckline draws attention to that birthmark on your shoulder you hate. And your only tights without obvious ladders are the wrong colour, so there'll be no hiding the lumpy twists of your varicose veins. Maybe a slutty mummy then, which, contrary to the obvious interpretation, is just you in the dress and then wrapped head to toe in thick bandages. Perfect.
- Something political. That's what your co-workers appreciate about you, right, the fact you're au fait with current affairs? How about going as the woman "too ugly" for Jair Bolsonaro to rape? Someone "grabbed by the pussy" by the current Republican president, who bragged about it to the old Republican president's first cousin? Or an immigrant mother fleeing torture and rape in her country just to have her baby torn from her at the US border and interned in a barbed wire camp without adequate resources while being used as a symbol of hate to distract the masses while the ruling elite take all the money and give it to the already richest and most despicable of society? Or, no, maybe a Bangladeshi garment worker, sleeping on a concrete floor with fifteen other girls in a makeshift factory in an export-processing zone thousands of miles from her home village and family, earning a dollar and change for 80-hour gruelling weeks in horrendous conditions, where birth control pills are handed out like candy by managers who think pregnant women make for unproductive workers, and where those who do give birth have been known to do it under desks while at their machines, sometimes flushing babies down the toilet for fear of reprisal from bosses - and all this so the people at the party you are attending, these very people, can buy cheap costumes from Primark and Topshop and wear them once and then throw them away, which of course is also a contributing factor to the fashion industry being one of the worst offenders for pollution on the planet. Err. Why are you doing this again?
- Lucy from HR. She of the office pub quiz. She of the insouciantly tousled bangs. The thighs just the right amount of plump in her designer-label pencil skirts. The spine that arches seductively as she bends over Todd's desk and musses his papers playfully, picks up his pens and chews on them, pulls slowly but firmly on his tie with those long, elegant fingers, pulling until the tie goes taut, just a touch further, before letting it fall back and straightening herself and walking away on six-inch heels that surely she must have taken lessons somewhere to be able to glide so demurely across the room upon. Why not go as Lucy from HR? Slap on makeup, dye your hair, squeeze your calloused feet into heels, drink all of a bottle of Aldi-brand peach schnapps, and turn up to the party screaming to Todd that you've made yourself into the woman you know he wants. A foolproof plan.
- Yourself. Or go as yourself. You're 35. You've been single for four years now. You're not even sure if you're mentally secure enough to raise children, whether you want to bring them into this bitter world sliding inexorable into far-right fascism, but you're rapidly running out of time for that even to be an option. You've been overlooked for promotion on a continuous basis since you started at the firm that you were only ever working in as a stop-gap but in which you've now laboured for so long that it's listed as your employer on your Bebo profile, if Bebo profiles are even still a thing. The wallpaper has been peeling behind your dresser since at least last spring, and you have neither the energy nor the inclination to fix it. It just peels gradually higher and higher, and you feel a similar peeling inside yourself, down in your soul, it is as if your being is tearing slowly asunder, and soon you will tear right through and fall to the floor as two wispy sheets on the ground, not even making a mess because there is nothing, you feel, of any substance, nothing real or pulsing or beating, inside you. It is all dust. And your cat doesn't love you. He only stays because you feed him. You haven't painted in years. You look at your old sketchbooks now and it all looks so mundane, so uninspired, and you wonder if anything fuelled your old belief in your secret talent beyond that central illusion that you were special, that you mattered. But you are not special. You do not matter. You will die, alone, and then you will be gone, and no one will remember that you once lived, just as the universe itself will fade, the very energy that fires it pushing it slowly away from itself, into the reaches of oblivion, until every grain of matter comes to rest isolated and unseen and abandoned, staying there, in stasis, for eternity; empty, meaningless, dead.
On second thoughts, maybe you won't go to that party after all. Happy Halloween though!
Well, if so then fear not, because I've got you covered with this handy list of practical and cost-effective costumes to ensure your night goes spooooookily well!
- That celebrity you sort of look like. Remember that time you wore your hair down and Todd from accounting called you Emma Stone in the morning meeting, and then when everyone was changing their Facebook profiles to their celebrity lookalikes you set yours to a photo of Emma Stone, and after a second glass of wine you added a comment to the photo in which you tagged Todd and said you didn't see the likeness yourself but maybe he was on to something, and you thought for a long time, on your sofa, alone, with now your third glass of Australian merlot, and finally you added a winking face emoji to the comment, and pressed send, and then you waited on your sofa not really watching Holby City on catch-up until past midnight when your phone buzzed with a notification telling you Todd had liked your comment, and you wore your hair down the next morning, and every day of morning meetings for three months, but Todd never said anything again, and later you found out he'd been sleeping with Lucy from HR since the office pub quiz last Christmas to which you'd not been invited because it would have "made the teams uneven"? Well, maybe it's time to bring back that classic.
- Something slutty. Why not crack out that risque dress from the back of the wardrobe you bought online two years ago and haven't yet had the courage to wear? Oh, but now you try it on you remember that it does make your breasts look less like the plump grapefruit of the model in the picture and more like two pale, shaved guinea pigs that have been gassed to death in their burrows. And the plunge neckline draws attention to that birthmark on your shoulder you hate. And your only tights without obvious ladders are the wrong colour, so there'll be no hiding the lumpy twists of your varicose veins. Maybe a slutty mummy then, which, contrary to the obvious interpretation, is just you in the dress and then wrapped head to toe in thick bandages. Perfect.
- Something political. That's what your co-workers appreciate about you, right, the fact you're au fait with current affairs? How about going as the woman "too ugly" for Jair Bolsonaro to rape? Someone "grabbed by the pussy" by the current Republican president, who bragged about it to the old Republican president's first cousin? Or an immigrant mother fleeing torture and rape in her country just to have her baby torn from her at the US border and interned in a barbed wire camp without adequate resources while being used as a symbol of hate to distract the masses while the ruling elite take all the money and give it to the already richest and most despicable of society? Or, no, maybe a Bangladeshi garment worker, sleeping on a concrete floor with fifteen other girls in a makeshift factory in an export-processing zone thousands of miles from her home village and family, earning a dollar and change for 80-hour gruelling weeks in horrendous conditions, where birth control pills are handed out like candy by managers who think pregnant women make for unproductive workers, and where those who do give birth have been known to do it under desks while at their machines, sometimes flushing babies down the toilet for fear of reprisal from bosses - and all this so the people at the party you are attending, these very people, can buy cheap costumes from Primark and Topshop and wear them once and then throw them away, which of course is also a contributing factor to the fashion industry being one of the worst offenders for pollution on the planet. Err. Why are you doing this again?
- Lucy from HR. She of the office pub quiz. She of the insouciantly tousled bangs. The thighs just the right amount of plump in her designer-label pencil skirts. The spine that arches seductively as she bends over Todd's desk and musses his papers playfully, picks up his pens and chews on them, pulls slowly but firmly on his tie with those long, elegant fingers, pulling until the tie goes taut, just a touch further, before letting it fall back and straightening herself and walking away on six-inch heels that surely she must have taken lessons somewhere to be able to glide so demurely across the room upon. Why not go as Lucy from HR? Slap on makeup, dye your hair, squeeze your calloused feet into heels, drink all of a bottle of Aldi-brand peach schnapps, and turn up to the party screaming to Todd that you've made yourself into the woman you know he wants. A foolproof plan.
- Yourself. Or go as yourself. You're 35. You've been single for four years now. You're not even sure if you're mentally secure enough to raise children, whether you want to bring them into this bitter world sliding inexorable into far-right fascism, but you're rapidly running out of time for that even to be an option. You've been overlooked for promotion on a continuous basis since you started at the firm that you were only ever working in as a stop-gap but in which you've now laboured for so long that it's listed as your employer on your Bebo profile, if Bebo profiles are even still a thing. The wallpaper has been peeling behind your dresser since at least last spring, and you have neither the energy nor the inclination to fix it. It just peels gradually higher and higher, and you feel a similar peeling inside yourself, down in your soul, it is as if your being is tearing slowly asunder, and soon you will tear right through and fall to the floor as two wispy sheets on the ground, not even making a mess because there is nothing, you feel, of any substance, nothing real or pulsing or beating, inside you. It is all dust. And your cat doesn't love you. He only stays because you feed him. You haven't painted in years. You look at your old sketchbooks now and it all looks so mundane, so uninspired, and you wonder if anything fuelled your old belief in your secret talent beyond that central illusion that you were special, that you mattered. But you are not special. You do not matter. You will die, alone, and then you will be gone, and no one will remember that you once lived, just as the universe itself will fade, the very energy that fires it pushing it slowly away from itself, into the reaches of oblivion, until every grain of matter comes to rest isolated and unseen and abandoned, staying there, in stasis, for eternity; empty, meaningless, dead.
On second thoughts, maybe you won't go to that party after all. Happy Halloween though!
Friday, 24 August 2018
Day 118: The worst kind of shame
Naomi walks in, catches it on my screen. I pull the cursor across the expanse of pixels, 1080 down, 1920 across - why do they make screens so large these days, so revealingly large? - I drag the cursor at breakneck speed, grapple for the minimise button, but it is too late. Naomi has seen.
I reach forwards and turn the power to the monitor off. The illicit pixels flash in neon for one final moment, then fall to darkness. The darkness of a pit inside me.
My heart is thumping.
Naomi stands in the doorway there, lit from behind, her slippers frozen to the thick carpet in front of the door.
"Well," she says.
I pull a smile at her wide as the grave.
"You've started up again," she says. It isn't a question.
"I-" I begin.
"-Fuck that," she says. "After everything you promised me. After all the tears. All the apologies. I can't believe I listened to you. I can't believe I listened when you said you'd changed."
I want to reach out to her, touch her cheek.
"It was only this one time," I say.
"Oh fuck off, Dan. How often have I heard that from you? I'm such a goddamned idiot. And with the card for the joint account, I suppose?"
"There was a special offer."
"I'll bet there was. Christ, look at you. Red faced. Panting. Glassy eyed. How long have you been at it? All afternoon?
"Not that long."
Naomi just looks at me. Looks and looks.
"You told me never again," she finally says.
"I'm weak," I reply. "I don't have the strength that others have. I was doing so well. But then this month they released the Battle for Azeroth expansion. The reviews have all been saying it takes the game back to the core of what World of Warcr-"
"-DO NOT USE THAT NAME IN MY HOUSE! I TOLD YOU NEVER TO USE THAT NAME. I'M PACKING MY THINGS. I'M STAYING AT CHRISTINA'S TONIGHT. DON'T TRY TO CALL ME. WE'RE THROUGH."
I watch her go. I hear her in the bedroom. Then the stairs, the door, the engine of the car. I sit a while longer, and then I turn the monitor back on again.
Wednesday, 8 August 2018
Day 102: It came from under the boardwalk
This is what happens when you hear the same song fifteen times in one day. For Joe and Dale.
Oh when it's dark at night and there are no stars out in the sky
And your stomach gets so knotted and you feel that you might cry
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
That's where a portal between dimensions ripped into view
(Under the boardwalk) That's where the beast came from
(Under the boardwalk) It was drawn to our blood
(Under the boardwalk) People torn from above
(Under the boardwalk) Feasting on their guts
Under the boardwalk, boardwalk
In the park you hear the piercing scream of fleeing crowds
You don't know which way you should run to save yourself
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
You come face to face with a trans-dimensional monstrosity
(Under the boardwalk) That's where the beast came from
(Under the boardwalk) It was drawn to your blood
(Under the boardwalk) It pulls you into its mass
(Under the boardwalk) As you lose consciousness
Under the boardwalk, boardwalk
Oooh under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
It has been a number of hours. You awaken. Your vision is somehow sharper, yet less distinct than before. You are able to pick up minute variations in the currents of air around you. Your sense of smell is... different. You feel a ravenous hunger. Your skin itches. It hangs loose upon your... shape. What is happening to you? You open your mouth to shout for help, but a guttural, squelching howl is all that emanates from the orifice in your... face? You look down at your arms. They are not arms. Your legs are not legs. You do not know who you are. All you know is that you have a hunger, and it is rising. You crave something of which you do not know the name. You spot a small boy paddling in the waves twenty or so feet out. He has not seen you here in the dappled shadows under the pier. Maybe you will go to him, ask him if he knows what is happening. You can smell his eyelashes. The matter under his fingernails. The tang of sweat on the skin around his armpits. You begin to pant. You will go to the boy. Yes. He will be able to help. He is just what you need. You rise from under the boardwalk,
BOARDWALK!
Oh when it's dark at night and there are no stars out in the sky
And your stomach gets so knotted and you feel that you might cry
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
That's where a portal between dimensions ripped into view
(Under the boardwalk) That's where the beast came from
(Under the boardwalk) It was drawn to our blood
(Under the boardwalk) People torn from above
(Under the boardwalk) Feasting on their guts
Under the boardwalk, boardwalk
In the park you hear the piercing scream of fleeing crowds
You don't know which way you should run to save yourself
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
You come face to face with a trans-dimensional monstrosity
(Under the boardwalk) That's where the beast came from
(Under the boardwalk) It was drawn to your blood
(Under the boardwalk) It pulls you into its mass
(Under the boardwalk) As you lose consciousness
Under the boardwalk, boardwalk
Oooh under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
It has been a number of hours. You awaken. Your vision is somehow sharper, yet less distinct than before. You are able to pick up minute variations in the currents of air around you. Your sense of smell is... different. You feel a ravenous hunger. Your skin itches. It hangs loose upon your... shape. What is happening to you? You open your mouth to shout for help, but a guttural, squelching howl is all that emanates from the orifice in your... face? You look down at your arms. They are not arms. Your legs are not legs. You do not know who you are. All you know is that you have a hunger, and it is rising. You crave something of which you do not know the name. You spot a small boy paddling in the waves twenty or so feet out. He has not seen you here in the dappled shadows under the pier. Maybe you will go to him, ask him if he knows what is happening. You can smell his eyelashes. The matter under his fingernails. The tang of sweat on the skin around his armpits. You begin to pant. You will go to the boy. Yes. He will be able to help. He is just what you need. You rise from under the boardwalk,
BOARDWALK!
Thursday, 12 July 2018
Day 75: Stroopwafel
Heya hotpots, it's ya best bizzle Robbie Pizzle here, delivering you the hottest in news, reviews, and ghost ship sightings. Stay tuned for all your ghost ship related chat, right here on this little show I like to call "The Internet".
There, now I've done my regular introduction, which I do every post, it's time to get down to business.
Oh, that's a lie, I don't have any business. I've got nothing today. Absolutely zilch. I was up at 8am to walk to town for a staff meeting, then I went to a coffee shop to hang out and stroke my beard and peruse the New York Times, and to try to concentrate on a bit of writing. That didn't work, so I walked the 40 minutes back up the hill for a nap, then I walked back down for my shift, watched football not come home -- I think it's like a timid cat that got scared off from us all shouting it -- then I got back 20 minutes ago, and I'm back up in five hours to be at work for the delivery in the morning.
I mean, I swapped shifts with Zoe so I'd be off tomorrow evening for a friend's birthday, so I'm not complaining, I'm just saying to you that if you want the reason there's no substance in this post, then that's it.
Umm... OK. Let's do some writing. About...? Drrrr... Ghost ships? No. Yes? Yep. Ghost ships. That's all I've got. It's ghost ships all the way down. What about ghost ships, you ask? Erm. Well. There's... a meeting of ghost ships. Once every six-hundred-and-sixty-six years, when the tide is low and a red moon hangs motionless in the night sky. The spectral vessels drop anchor around a hidden cove on a forgotten island in seas off South America, and if the wind is blowing in just the right way, and the crashing of the waves against the rocks calms at just the right instant, the sound of shrill voices might perhaps carry on the breeze into one's waiting ears...
"Call that a ghost ship? More like a ghost rowing boat, you ask me!"
"Whatever. Which are you from? The Caleuche? Sounds like a particularly violent sneeze."
"Do not besmirch our lady's good name. The Caleuche--"
"--Bless you."
"I am warning you. Our vessel is an ancient and sentient being, crewed by the drowned and the lost, doomed to forever sail the Chilean oceans on her macabre mission. She bewitches sailors. She is captained by mermaids and warlocks. All who gaze upon her know the face of death. She is no mere ship. Do not take the name of Caleuche--"
"--Bless you."
"That is really incredibly irritating."
"Look, how about we all just cool off and..."
"Oh, go boil your barnacles! You bloody Mary Celeste lot, always playing the peacemakers. No one cares about your stupid pansy-named ship, and no one cares about you, pansies!"
"Hey, it's the 21st Century. There's nothing wrong with a ghost ship being in touch with its feminine side, if it so wishes."
"Oh, sorry. I thought it was still 1352. Which ship are you from?"
"Ahem. The, umm, Lady Lovibond."
"Figures."
"And there's nothing wrong with that!"
"Heeeey guys! What is, how do you say, ooop?"
"Oh, no."
"Oh, no."
"Oh, no."
"Yaaaah! It is us, the crew of the Flying Dutchman. You know, the most famous ghost ship in all of the world! Sorry we're late. We were just picking up royalty checks from Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Productions. Have you heard of them? They're rather popular, it turns out. It's actually hard work, you know, being this well renowned."
"Salty Satan, who invited these chodes again? I thought after last time we were going to tell them the wrong meeting place or something."
"Anyone fancy a stroopwafel? Or maybe some weed? I have so much of it, I can't smoke it all myself. I'm so baked right now."
"They're really not doing anything for the stereotypes, are they?"
More is surely said. More ghoulish schemes are surely hatched. More nefarious plots are surely plotted. But at this point the wind chooses to whip up. The pounding of the ocean intensifies. And any further conversation, if further conversation exists, is lost to the ceaseless thrashing of the waves.
And the waves keep their secrets.
The watery bastards.
Good night.
There, now I've done my regular introduction, which I do every post, it's time to get down to business.
Oh, that's a lie, I don't have any business. I've got nothing today. Absolutely zilch. I was up at 8am to walk to town for a staff meeting, then I went to a coffee shop to hang out and stroke my beard and peruse the New York Times, and to try to concentrate on a bit of writing. That didn't work, so I walked the 40 minutes back up the hill for a nap, then I walked back down for my shift, watched football not come home -- I think it's like a timid cat that got scared off from us all shouting it -- then I got back 20 minutes ago, and I'm back up in five hours to be at work for the delivery in the morning.
I mean, I swapped shifts with Zoe so I'd be off tomorrow evening for a friend's birthday, so I'm not complaining, I'm just saying to you that if you want the reason there's no substance in this post, then that's it.
Umm... OK. Let's do some writing. About...? Drrrr... Ghost ships? No. Yes? Yep. Ghost ships. That's all I've got. It's ghost ships all the way down. What about ghost ships, you ask? Erm. Well. There's... a meeting of ghost ships. Once every six-hundred-and-sixty-six years, when the tide is low and a red moon hangs motionless in the night sky. The spectral vessels drop anchor around a hidden cove on a forgotten island in seas off South America, and if the wind is blowing in just the right way, and the crashing of the waves against the rocks calms at just the right instant, the sound of shrill voices might perhaps carry on the breeze into one's waiting ears...
"Call that a ghost ship? More like a ghost rowing boat, you ask me!"
"Whatever. Which are you from? The Caleuche? Sounds like a particularly violent sneeze."
"Do not besmirch our lady's good name. The Caleuche--"
"--Bless you."
"I am warning you. Our vessel is an ancient and sentient being, crewed by the drowned and the lost, doomed to forever sail the Chilean oceans on her macabre mission. She bewitches sailors. She is captained by mermaids and warlocks. All who gaze upon her know the face of death. She is no mere ship. Do not take the name of Caleuche--"
"--Bless you."
"That is really incredibly irritating."
"Look, how about we all just cool off and..."
"Oh, go boil your barnacles! You bloody Mary Celeste lot, always playing the peacemakers. No one cares about your stupid pansy-named ship, and no one cares about you, pansies!"
"Hey, it's the 21st Century. There's nothing wrong with a ghost ship being in touch with its feminine side, if it so wishes."
"Oh, sorry. I thought it was still 1352. Which ship are you from?"
"Ahem. The, umm, Lady Lovibond."
"Figures."
"And there's nothing wrong with that!"
"Heeeey guys! What is, how do you say, ooop?"
"Oh, no."
"Oh, no."
"Oh, no."
"Yaaaah! It is us, the crew of the Flying Dutchman. You know, the most famous ghost ship in all of the world! Sorry we're late. We were just picking up royalty checks from Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Productions. Have you heard of them? They're rather popular, it turns out. It's actually hard work, you know, being this well renowned."
"Salty Satan, who invited these chodes again? I thought after last time we were going to tell them the wrong meeting place or something."
"Anyone fancy a stroopwafel? Or maybe some weed? I have so much of it, I can't smoke it all myself. I'm so baked right now."
"They're really not doing anything for the stereotypes, are they?"
More is surely said. More ghoulish schemes are surely hatched. More nefarious plots are surely plotted. But at this point the wind chooses to whip up. The pounding of the ocean intensifies. And any further conversation, if further conversation exists, is lost to the ceaseless thrashing of the waves.
And the waves keep their secrets.
The watery bastards.
Good night.
Wednesday, 11 July 2018
Day 74: Sun
Whaaaaat is up hombreros, it's ya boy Robbie P here with all the juiciest word treats for your ear tongues, word treats such as: "textual", "crumbly", "diaphanous", and "fishfinger". So sit up, strap in, and let's get gobbling those linguistic goodies!
I hope you're enjoying that introduction, which I do at the beginning of every post now. It's just my thing. I'm really enjoying it. I think it's great.
So what's going on? It's sunny again today. The sun has got his hat on and he's coming out to play. No, incorrect. The sun doesn't wear a hat, because he's an inanimate collection of plasma held in place by the force of his own gravity, and also because no hats will fit him. He does, however, wear a visor. All the astronauts from all the countries got together and built the sun a big visor out of old car windscreens that they glued together, enabling the sun to still get heat on his spheroid head while avoiding the glare from the other stars, because... well, because he's so self-conscious these days after a nasty scientist told him he was only a medium-sized and relatively uninteresting star out of the billions of stars in but one of the many billions of galaxies in our universe, and after hearing that he lost all confidence in himself, our sun did. And he stopped shining and we were all bereft.
So we sent our top therapist, Brian McCoolidge, up to have a chat with him. Brian McCoolidge told the sun that he, Brian McCoolidge, didn't know what he, the sun, was worried about, that the sun was a great sun, that McCoolidge had read that the sun was the most massive object in the entire solar system, which system, by the way, was named after the sun, if the sun hadn't noticed, and that that was pretty good going, McCoolidge reckoned, seeing as he, McCoolidge, was ostensibly the Earth's very best therapist, yet didn't have a system named after him. But the sun did. So chin up, basically, is what McCoolidge told the sun.
The sun replied that, yes, he guessed that was true. But... but... this system, the one named after him, was nothing special. Look at Alpha Centauri, the sun said. The very next system along. That system had not one but three suns, and the largest was already larger than he was. What good was it calling yourself the sun if you look to your side and your next-door neighbour is already a better sun than you are? Really. He might as well just supernova and get it over with.
And McCoolidge said that, look, it isn't about where you stand in relation to all the other suns. It's about where you stand in relation to yourself. That if you're looking for validation from the external you will never find it. There will always be someone better, some sun brighter. So what you have to do is find something worth doing for its own sake and just bloody do it, and let it consume you.
And the sun cheered up a little, enough to give Brian McCoolidge horrendous skin cancer, but then he went out again. He just couldn't get past the brightness of all those other stars hanging out there in the endless firmament, each one bigger, probably, and better, probably, than he was. It made his spheroid head swim.
So back down on Earth the people all held a summit to try to solve the crisis, to which each country sent a representative, because no one could cope any more in the miserable ceaseless gloom. And the delegate for England was like, Right? Why do you think we drink cheap lager and smash each other's faces in all day? And everyone chuckled. And the delegate for England necked the rest of his can of Kronenbourg and nutted the delegate for France.
Then the delegate for the US said that he was going to veto any suggestions that negatively impacted the winter coat and central heating industries, under pressure from winter coat and central heating industry lobbyists, which industries had seen profits soar in the dark times since the sun had gone out.
The Ecuadorian delegate coughed and said but what about the, well, just as an example, the sandcastle bucket and beach towel industries, which surely had suffered unprecedented financial downturns of late? Shouldn't the delegate for the US be worried about them? And shouldn't policy-making be entirely removed from the concerns of big business? Shouldn't it be the role of business to fit around policy, not the role of policy to fit around business? Like, ooh, as another example that she, the Ecuadorian delegate, was picking completely at random, why not instead of bullying a World goddamned Health Assembly into abandoning legislation that would have promoted breast-feeding in developing countries, just because you smoke cigars on Tuesdays with the CEO of an infant-formula manufacturer, why not instead of that you do your goddamned job and vote for what is morally right, and you let your cigar buddy, if he's any good at his job, reposition his company to sell containers for freezing breastmilk, or slings for breast-feeding mothers, or, oh, she didn't know, the Ecuadorian delegate didn't, she wasn't a business-person, but she did know what was right, and kowtowing to the whims of infant-formula or winter coat or central heating industries was not right, she was damn sure of that.
And this was when the Swiss delegate, because it's always bloody Switzerland, isn't it, in an attempt to diffuse the frosty atmosphere that was rapidly descending over the meeting room, suggested the majestic and rather brilliant visor scenario, to which everyone hastily agreed before any lobbyists could get involved, and that is why our sun can be seen in the sky above us even now bobbing around in a giant visor that blocks the glint from the other stars and leaves him free to look like he's in a Californian pop-punk band circa 2002, which the sun secretly loves, being a big Lit fan (obviously), and the moral of the story is... sometimes if you're self-conscious about work being better than yours you just have to block it out and get on with having fun your own damn self. But also the moral is that if you find yourself placing the profits of infant-formula manufacturers above the lives of mothers and children in developing countries then you need to go shoot yourself in the face immediately. And then also also the moral is that if you have nothing to write about on your blog and you just start writing then what comes out might be completely insane. But you just gotta pull that visor low and get humming those sweet Orange County tunes...
Please tell meee
Please tell me whyyyyy
The car is in the frooont yaaard
And Iiiiiii'm
Sleeping with my clooooothes onnnnn
Came in through the windoooow
Last night...
Monday, 9 July 2018
Day 72: War
Writing prompt playing with styles, with the idea in this instance to describe something mundane about your day in the style of an epic fantasy.
Robb, son of Jack, rose gradually from the depths of his slumber. Night clung to him like an encasing shroud. He struggled to free himself, up, out of the hypnotic bindings of sleep, into the light.
He blinked and looked around. His chamber was the same as ever. His low bed, in the "futon" style popular in the distant lands of the Orient, dominated the south-facing side of the room. His writing desk, littered with papers and many virtual games of dexterity and skill, stood beside the bed. His robes were slung over a chair next to the desk. Beyond that: his guitar, resting on a machine for amplifying the ornate instrument's sound, a dressing mirror, and a collection of books, ancient tomes of wisdom and erudition from the four corners of the globe, with titles such as "Infinite Jest", and Batman: The Killing Joke".
The sun was already half risen in the sky. Robb guessed the time to be nine in the a.m., or thereabouts.
He made his way to the privy and splashed cold water on his face. The water was fresh and invigorating. Robb stared at his reflection in the looking glass on the wall, and blinked.
The witch's curse had worked its black magic once again in the night. Each evening Robb went to bed in high spirits, and each morning he awoke, dazed and morose, having been subjected to some kind of terrible affliction in the night that left his wits torn and his senses stupefied. It was as if a dark beast of some kind, terrible and unseen, was ravaging his mind as he slept.
But who was the witch that had cursed him? Robb could not recall. He could not recall anything, now he thought about it, outside this room. How long had he been in here? How many nights had passed? A thousand, all identical? Or one long and ceaseless night?
Had it perhaps been Robb's own avarice, his own experimentation with powers outside of his control, that had led to his current predicament? Or was there yet a malevolent presence outside his own comprehension casting a cruel hand across his life?
Robb did not know. But he knew he had to escape. He was a man of the North, and the blood of the first men flowed through his veins. He could sit idly by no longer. No more the many procrastinations of his life. It was a time for action. A time for fire. A time to ride!
Just then a knock came at the wooden door to his chamber.
It was his housemate.
"Kettle's on. Fancy a brew?"
He did. Robb did fancy a brew.
First, a good cup of tea. And then: to war.
Sunday, 8 July 2018
Day 70: It's coming
Skeechy-neechums!
That's my new introduction, as I'm sure you'll recall. I do that at the beginning of every post now. It's my thing.
So, hey. How you doing? Oh yeah? For real? That's good to hear.
Me? I'm sweaty. I'm just a big ol' bag of sweat. And I've got heat exhaustion. Or just normal exhaustion. Whichever. Work wasn't so fun. Work was sweaty and bad.
But it's OK. It's all OK. Because... well, I'm not sure if you've heard. I'm not sure if anyone's told you, but--
--it's coming home!
It's coming.
Football's coming home.
And after we've all been so concerned, as well. We haven't been able to sleep, we haven't been able to eat, we've been sick with worry. We've put out bulletins. We've released adverts on the back of milk cartons. We arranged a press conference with old father football and mother football, the mother stoic and strong, though the bags under her eyes told a different story. The father, voice cracking with emotion, through rasping sobs, imploring, beseeching his son, football, to please, oh please, just come on home.
Well football has listened. Football has heard.
And it's coming home.
Football's coming home.
We're jubilant. We gather on the streets. We fill our squares. There are flags. There are streamers. Have you heard? You've heard. We've all heard. But can it be true? It can. It's happening.
Football's coming home.
But wait. What's this?
Plot twist. Football was home all along. Football never left. The calls were coming from inside the house!!!
We scream, run for the door. But football has us. A gloved hand presses over our mouth. Rippling muscles tighten their grip. We struggle, but football is so strong. We are powerless. Football's breath is hot on our neck. Its frame towers above us.
We kick out, catch football's toe. Football roars, momentarily loosens its hold, and we fight with all we have, and suddenly we are free.
We fly through the house. We fly down the stairs. Football is behind us. Football is right on us. Our breath is coming in ragged spurts. Our heart is bursting from our chest. We pump. We run. We fling items from shelves behind us as we go, trying to slow football's inexorable pursuit. Down goes the chest-of-drawers. Down goes the pan stand. Down goes the collection of River Cottage cookery books a well-meaning relation has been buying for us every Christmas.
A crash, a howl. Something has connected. Football is down.
No time to look. We skid on the linoleum of the kitchen. We're at the door. We fumble for the key. Please. Please God. Oh please God.
The key won't go in the lock. We hear a noise. The key is at the lock. There is the noise. We drop the key. We grasp madly for the key. Our hands aren't working. Our hands slip.
There is no noise. All is silent.
We are wailing. We are sobbing.
Our fingers close round the key.
The key goes in the lock. We wrench open the door.
... And there is football.
Football stands before us.
We step backwards. We slip on a copy of River Cottage Gluten Free, its spine unbent, and we go down. There is a rush of wind, the acrid stench of sulphur. We are screaming, but we hear nothing.
Football advances. Its tongue lolls from its suckling mouth. Its eyes roll back in its narrow head. From some shrouded orifice extends a fleshly proboscis, pale and many-jointed and dripping with some form of glutinous jelly.
The proboscis clamps over our nose and mouth. We feel warmth. We feel a gorged, dizzy sensation. We cannot see. We cannot hear. All is football. All is blackness.
- - -
When we come to we are wearing a white shirt with a red cross on the breast. Our head is shaved. We have patriotic, faded tattoos on our leathery forearms. We hold a can of proper English lager, like the Canadian Carling or the Australian Fosters or the Danish Carlsberg or the Spanish San Miguel or the American Coors Light or the Dutch Amstel or the Belgian Stella Artois, in our bear-like hand.
We climb to our feet. We scratch our behind. What were we doing on the kitchen floor? Must have passed out after that legendary sesh last night. Fletchy was acting a right bell-end. Good kebab though. Top bants. Great night.
We plod through to the living room, switch our 52-inch television to Sky Sports Main Event, and, utterly at peace, we watch the game.
Football never leaves. Football is always home. We love football. We are football. We always were.
How could it be any different?
That's my new introduction, as I'm sure you'll recall. I do that at the beginning of every post now. It's my thing.
So, hey. How you doing? Oh yeah? For real? That's good to hear.
Me? I'm sweaty. I'm just a big ol' bag of sweat. And I've got heat exhaustion. Or just normal exhaustion. Whichever. Work wasn't so fun. Work was sweaty and bad.
But it's OK. It's all OK. Because... well, I'm not sure if you've heard. I'm not sure if anyone's told you, but--
--it's coming home!
It's coming.
Football's coming home.
And after we've all been so concerned, as well. We haven't been able to sleep, we haven't been able to eat, we've been sick with worry. We've put out bulletins. We've released adverts on the back of milk cartons. We arranged a press conference with old father football and mother football, the mother stoic and strong, though the bags under her eyes told a different story. The father, voice cracking with emotion, through rasping sobs, imploring, beseeching his son, football, to please, oh please, just come on home.
Well football has listened. Football has heard.
And it's coming home.
Football's coming home.
We're jubilant. We gather on the streets. We fill our squares. There are flags. There are streamers. Have you heard? You've heard. We've all heard. But can it be true? It can. It's happening.
Football's coming home.
But wait. What's this?
Plot twist. Football was home all along. Football never left. The calls were coming from inside the house!!!
We scream, run for the door. But football has us. A gloved hand presses over our mouth. Rippling muscles tighten their grip. We struggle, but football is so strong. We are powerless. Football's breath is hot on our neck. Its frame towers above us.
We kick out, catch football's toe. Football roars, momentarily loosens its hold, and we fight with all we have, and suddenly we are free.
We fly through the house. We fly down the stairs. Football is behind us. Football is right on us. Our breath is coming in ragged spurts. Our heart is bursting from our chest. We pump. We run. We fling items from shelves behind us as we go, trying to slow football's inexorable pursuit. Down goes the chest-of-drawers. Down goes the pan stand. Down goes the collection of River Cottage cookery books a well-meaning relation has been buying for us every Christmas.
A crash, a howl. Something has connected. Football is down.
No time to look. We skid on the linoleum of the kitchen. We're at the door. We fumble for the key. Please. Please God. Oh please God.
The key won't go in the lock. We hear a noise. The key is at the lock. There is the noise. We drop the key. We grasp madly for the key. Our hands aren't working. Our hands slip.
There is no noise. All is silent.
We are wailing. We are sobbing.
Our fingers close round the key.
The key goes in the lock. We wrench open the door.
... And there is football.
Football stands before us.
We step backwards. We slip on a copy of River Cottage Gluten Free, its spine unbent, and we go down. There is a rush of wind, the acrid stench of sulphur. We are screaming, but we hear nothing.
Football advances. Its tongue lolls from its suckling mouth. Its eyes roll back in its narrow head. From some shrouded orifice extends a fleshly proboscis, pale and many-jointed and dripping with some form of glutinous jelly.
The proboscis clamps over our nose and mouth. We feel warmth. We feel a gorged, dizzy sensation. We cannot see. We cannot hear. All is football. All is blackness.
- - -
When we come to we are wearing a white shirt with a red cross on the breast. Our head is shaved. We have patriotic, faded tattoos on our leathery forearms. We hold a can of proper English lager, like the Canadian Carling or the Australian Fosters or the Danish Carlsberg or the Spanish San Miguel or the American Coors Light or the Dutch Amstel or the Belgian Stella Artois, in our bear-like hand.
We climb to our feet. We scratch our behind. What were we doing on the kitchen floor? Must have passed out after that legendary sesh last night. Fletchy was acting a right bell-end. Good kebab though. Top bants. Great night.
We plod through to the living room, switch our 52-inch television to Sky Sports Main Event, and, utterly at peace, we watch the game.
Football never leaves. Football is always home. We love football. We are football. We always were.
How could it be any different?
Friday, 6 July 2018
Day 68: Fringe
Writing prompt about showing a character who is angry.
The fringe was sticking to Darcy's face. It was obviously sticking to her face. She had not asked for the fringe to be sticking to her face. She strode down the street, blood pumping, cursing the hairdresser.
Forty pounds. For this. Forty pounds. It was the last of her wage this week. Chris would be paying for her tea for the next two days. And wine. She needed a glass of wine tonight. Probably a bottle.
She'd almost not paid. First she'd told the new guy who'd done this to her that it wasn't what she'd wanted. He'd taken more off the sides to balance it out. That just made it shorter than she was comfortable with, and the fringe was just as bad. She'd looked at it and felt like maybe it would be all right, at first, and so she'd handed over the money and left. But now, after checking on the selfie camera on her phone, after taking a bunch of photos, she could see it was a complete disaster.
How could they let someone so inexperienced loose on paying customers' hair? It was atrocious. It was unbelievable. Didn't they practice on dummies? Wasn't this place supposed to be well-regarded? How did they think this was acceptable? How did they think they could get away with it?
Darcy stomped on.
And she had the presentation on Tuesday. The presentation. How was she supposed to deliver that confidently to the whole senior team, to Brian Rivera, to Stacy, while knowing she looked like this? While knowing she looked like a goddamned rat in makeup!
The presentation could mean everything. It was what she'd been working towards the whole time she'd been with the company. It was the culmination of so many months of effort and grind and prostration.
And now it was being ruined by some spotty runt who surely wasn't old enough to be working in a hair salon. How could he have done this to her? Darcy thought about his stupid face, that awkward smirk when she'd said she wasn't happy. Like she was supposed to feel sorry for him! How pathetic. Own your mistakes. Don't try to smirk your way out of them.
Darcy carried on walking. Maybe it wasn't all that bad. She stopped at a bus stop and clicked onto the camera app on the phone that was still clutched in her hand.
She was a mess. A bedraggled, freakish, disastrous mess.
She'd have to shave it off. There was no other option. She'd have to say she was a cancer patient.
Maybe she could get some sympathy from the team if she told them she was having chemo. Maybe they'd give her a pass.
God. That twerp. How dare he do this to her!
She was walking again. She turned a corner off the main road, kicked at a bunch of scraggy weeds sprouting under the wall to someone's garden. Who'd leave the space in front of their home in such disrepair, anyway. It was terrible.
There was a huddle of kids on the corner of the street. Darcy glowered at them, daring them in her head to stare at her. Just watch what I'll say if they shout anything about my hair, she thought. Just watch.
They said nothing. They watched her pass in silence.
Darcy continued down the road. She was clenching and unclenching her fists. She just... It was just... She couldn't even... Eeeurgh!
Evening was drawing in. It was getting dark. There were fewer people on the streets now, and her heels echoed on the paving stones as she walked.
She would go home, unload on Chris, drink all the wine, perhaps some gin and tonics, run a bath, and sort everything out in the morning. Surely someone could fix the harm that that idiot trainee had caused.
"'Scuse me. You got the time?"
It was another child. Her life was filled with children tonight.
"Sorry. No. I'm in rather a rush."
Darcy resumed her stride.
"How about you just give me your phone then?"
The boy flashing the knife was not another, but one of the same kids who had watched her pass before, and, though it was probably of little consolation to Darcy, he really hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary about her haircut at all.
The fringe was sticking to Darcy's face. It was obviously sticking to her face. She had not asked for the fringe to be sticking to her face. She strode down the street, blood pumping, cursing the hairdresser.
Forty pounds. For this. Forty pounds. It was the last of her wage this week. Chris would be paying for her tea for the next two days. And wine. She needed a glass of wine tonight. Probably a bottle.
She'd almost not paid. First she'd told the new guy who'd done this to her that it wasn't what she'd wanted. He'd taken more off the sides to balance it out. That just made it shorter than she was comfortable with, and the fringe was just as bad. She'd looked at it and felt like maybe it would be all right, at first, and so she'd handed over the money and left. But now, after checking on the selfie camera on her phone, after taking a bunch of photos, she could see it was a complete disaster.
How could they let someone so inexperienced loose on paying customers' hair? It was atrocious. It was unbelievable. Didn't they practice on dummies? Wasn't this place supposed to be well-regarded? How did they think this was acceptable? How did they think they could get away with it?
Darcy stomped on.
And she had the presentation on Tuesday. The presentation. How was she supposed to deliver that confidently to the whole senior team, to Brian Rivera, to Stacy, while knowing she looked like this? While knowing she looked like a goddamned rat in makeup!
The presentation could mean everything. It was what she'd been working towards the whole time she'd been with the company. It was the culmination of so many months of effort and grind and prostration.
And now it was being ruined by some spotty runt who surely wasn't old enough to be working in a hair salon. How could he have done this to her? Darcy thought about his stupid face, that awkward smirk when she'd said she wasn't happy. Like she was supposed to feel sorry for him! How pathetic. Own your mistakes. Don't try to smirk your way out of them.
Darcy carried on walking. Maybe it wasn't all that bad. She stopped at a bus stop and clicked onto the camera app on the phone that was still clutched in her hand.
She was a mess. A bedraggled, freakish, disastrous mess.
She'd have to shave it off. There was no other option. She'd have to say she was a cancer patient.
Maybe she could get some sympathy from the team if she told them she was having chemo. Maybe they'd give her a pass.
God. That twerp. How dare he do this to her!
She was walking again. She turned a corner off the main road, kicked at a bunch of scraggy weeds sprouting under the wall to someone's garden. Who'd leave the space in front of their home in such disrepair, anyway. It was terrible.
There was a huddle of kids on the corner of the street. Darcy glowered at them, daring them in her head to stare at her. Just watch what I'll say if they shout anything about my hair, she thought. Just watch.
They said nothing. They watched her pass in silence.
Darcy continued down the road. She was clenching and unclenching her fists. She just... It was just... She couldn't even... Eeeurgh!
Evening was drawing in. It was getting dark. There were fewer people on the streets now, and her heels echoed on the paving stones as she walked.
She would go home, unload on Chris, drink all the wine, perhaps some gin and tonics, run a bath, and sort everything out in the morning. Surely someone could fix the harm that that idiot trainee had caused.
"'Scuse me. You got the time?"
It was another child. Her life was filled with children tonight.
"Sorry. No. I'm in rather a rush."
Darcy resumed her stride.
"How about you just give me your phone then?"
The boy flashing the knife was not another, but one of the same kids who had watched her pass before, and, though it was probably of little consolation to Darcy, he really hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary about her haircut at all.
Saturday, 30 June 2018
Day 63: Penny for your thoughts
The same writing prompt as yesterday, but using the idiom: "A penny for your thoughts."
The homeless man sat down next to the executive. The executive made no outward movement, except to cross his right leg over his left, his moleskin chinos riding up his calf, exposing his cotton work sock and an inch of lightly tanned skin.
The executive continued to smoke his cigarette, knocking ash on the floor.
"Alright, fella" the homeless man said.
The executive nodded, looked away.
"You don't have a tab I could pinch, do you?"
"Sorry." The executive shook his head. "Last one."
The homeless man batted the apology away with his hand. "Don't worry."
The square was quieter now. You could hear the hum of taxi engines idling in the pick-up bay, the shush-clack of wheeled luggage, the rhythmic zwoosh of the automatic doors opening and closing. Above the two men the sun, bright all day, was finally going down. The light was draining from the world. There was a band of pink haze sailing to golden further down, and then, just before sky touched land, a line of brilliant blue, clear and deep as the first ocean of the world. Looking into it you could believe the universe just went on like that, uninterrupted, forever.
"Cheer up," the homeless man said. "It might never happen." He grinned with yellow teeth.
The executive pulled a brief, polite smile, made a noise in his throat that could have been one thing or the other.
"I mean it," the homeless man said. "You're best off letting it go. Don't sweat it. You know?"
The executive this time made no sound.
"I saw you here, I said to myself, there's a fella who's got his share. You can tell. Yeah. There's a bloke going through it. I saw you, I did. But am I wrong? Tell me I'm wrong."
"Everyone has their share," the executive said. His shirt was crisp. He either had barely sweated into it during the heat of the day, or had changed on the train.
"I knew it. Oh I knew it." The homeless man raised his arms, as if to accept praise from an audience. "You can tell. Yeah. You can always tell."
The executive stubbed his cigarette out, shifted his weight on the bench, coughed.
"Come on then, my man," the homeless man said. "What's eating you?"
- - -
Forty minutes later the executive stood up to leave. It was dark now, and there were fewer passers-by.
The executive looked at the homeless man. "Thank you," he said."I'm sorry. Thank you. And here--"
He thrust his hand into his pocket, brought out notes, pennies, the lot. He handed it all over.
The homeless man took the wad carefully, folded it, stood up, slipped the wad into the pocket of his filthy joggers. "Hey," he said to the executive. "Good luck. Seriously."
The executive didn't know what to say in return. The two men stood facing each other. Finally, the one man put out his hand, which the other man clasped in his. They both shook.
And then the executive, picking up his leather briefcase and dipping his head, moved off into the night.
The homeless man sat down next to the executive. The executive made no outward movement, except to cross his right leg over his left, his moleskin chinos riding up his calf, exposing his cotton work sock and an inch of lightly tanned skin.
The executive continued to smoke his cigarette, knocking ash on the floor.
"Alright, fella" the homeless man said.
The executive nodded, looked away.
"You don't have a tab I could pinch, do you?"
"Sorry." The executive shook his head. "Last one."
The homeless man batted the apology away with his hand. "Don't worry."
The square was quieter now. You could hear the hum of taxi engines idling in the pick-up bay, the shush-clack of wheeled luggage, the rhythmic zwoosh of the automatic doors opening and closing. Above the two men the sun, bright all day, was finally going down. The light was draining from the world. There was a band of pink haze sailing to golden further down, and then, just before sky touched land, a line of brilliant blue, clear and deep as the first ocean of the world. Looking into it you could believe the universe just went on like that, uninterrupted, forever.
"Cheer up," the homeless man said. "It might never happen." He grinned with yellow teeth.
The executive pulled a brief, polite smile, made a noise in his throat that could have been one thing or the other.
"I mean it," the homeless man said. "You're best off letting it go. Don't sweat it. You know?"
The executive this time made no sound.
"I saw you here, I said to myself, there's a fella who's got his share. You can tell. Yeah. There's a bloke going through it. I saw you, I did. But am I wrong? Tell me I'm wrong."
"Everyone has their share," the executive said. His shirt was crisp. He either had barely sweated into it during the heat of the day, or had changed on the train.
"I knew it. Oh I knew it." The homeless man raised his arms, as if to accept praise from an audience. "You can tell. Yeah. You can always tell."
The executive stubbed his cigarette out, shifted his weight on the bench, coughed.
"Come on then, my man," the homeless man said. "What's eating you?"
- - -
Forty minutes later the executive stood up to leave. It was dark now, and there were fewer passers-by.
The executive looked at the homeless man. "Thank you," he said."I'm sorry. Thank you. And here--"
He thrust his hand into his pocket, brought out notes, pennies, the lot. He handed it all over.
The homeless man took the wad carefully, folded it, stood up, slipped the wad into the pocket of his filthy joggers. "Hey," he said to the executive. "Good luck. Seriously."
The executive didn't know what to say in return. The two men stood facing each other. Finally, the one man put out his hand, which the other man clasped in his. They both shook.
And then the executive, picking up his leather briefcase and dipping his head, moved off into the night.
Day 62: Coming in or going out
Paul stood in the doorway of the living room. He had made it this far, but could go no further. His mother was watching Holby City with the sound up loud, a can of Dark Fruits on the coffee table beside her.
"You coming in or going out?" she called.
He was doing neither.
He'd been over it in his head, over and over, for the last three hours. But he could not, now it came to it, go all the way. He could not say it.
It was different to when you had it straight in your head. It was now and it was horrendous. His tongue felt fat in his mouth. He was dizzy. It was like he was down inside something that was wide and lashing above him. He decided to escape back up to his room.
But he couldn't come downstairs, stand in the doorway, then go back up. That would be weird. So instead he went into the front room and pretended to be studying the street out of the bay window.
"Is it bins tonight?" he asked. "I feel like it's blue bins tonight. I can't see any of the neighbours' bins. But maybe they haven't taken them out yet. I was coming downstairs and I just thought, is it blue bins tonight?"
His mum didn't look up from the screen. "Blues on Monday, moron."
"Oh, of course. Well that's good. It's almost full already, with those magazines from tidying my room and everything. I just didn't want us to forget."
"I'm glad you finally got rid of those lads mags, Paul. They're basically porn. They give you unrealistic ideas about women. You don't want to grow up like that."
Paul swallowed. It was as if God was listening, giving him his chance. It was now.
"Mum..." he began.
"I know, I know, it's gross when I talk like that. I won't say no more."
Paul could hear his heart beating. He sat and listened to his heart beating. He sat and listened and sat and listened, and slowly felt the moment slip away.
On Holby City one of the doctors was having an affair with one of the surgeons and the doctor's husband had just found out. Paul's mum drained her Dark Fruits and shook the can.
"Be a darl and get your poor old mam another cider," she said.
It was her evening off. She wasn't back in the factory while midday tomorrow.
Paul decided it would help to leave the room and gather his resources. He went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, stood looking inside. He gazed at the half cauliflower, the bag of wet carrots, the crusting remains of the pasta bake from the night before. It was just Paul and his mum. She meant everything to him.
He pulled a can off the ring pull and took it back into the front room.
She mussed his hair.
He sat down next to her and looked ahead. On the telly the doctor's husband was yelling and the doctor was crying. Paul looked at the wall.
He swallowed.
He couldn't tell her.
What would the other women at the factory say? He knew how their sons all talked at school, the words they used. They had to get it from somewhere. His mum found it hard enough at work as it was. She wasn't good at making friends. He didn't want to make it harder.
But by the same token she was the most important person in the world to him. How could he not tell her?
"This show is dumb," he said.
"Shh."
"It's not... people aren't like this. Relationships aren't like this."
"You'd know, Casanova!"
He stared ahead. The room opened before him. The walls were going to swallow him. His tongue was enormous. His forehead prickled. Everything was thudding. Everything was exactly as it was.
"Mum," he said. "I threw the magazines out because I didn't need them. I didn't want them. They were just... I felt I should have them. But they weren't... what I wanted."
On Holby City the doctor's husband was the one now crying. He cried and while sobbing he said he couldn't believe that the doctor had lied to him. The doctor replied tearfully that it was their relationship that had been a lie, it bad been a lie from the start and she couldn't live that lie any longer.
Paul's mum was watching the drama. She was listening to Paul, but not hearing.
"I'm glad you didn't want them," she said.
"The thing is, Mum... the thing is... they weren't for me. Maybe other magazines, but not those."
His mum turned to him. "Paul," she said. "It's OK. I understand."
Paul looked at his mum.
"You don't have to be ashamed," she said. "I won't judge you."
The air was alive in front of Paul's face. The air was electric.
"You don't have to make excuses," his mum said. "Don't worry what I said before. It's completely natural for you to enjoy looking at a bit of bush." She let out a long cackle. "You're a healthy boy. There's nowt wrong with it."
But that was almost precisely the problem.
Paul let his breath out a long, long way. He let his shoulders sag. He couldn't say it. How could you say it?
On the television the husband wrestled with the doctor fiercely and the two crashed through the apartment, into the bookcase, around the dresser, through the balcony doors, over the railing, and down to the street below, the lie they had been living finally having engulfed them both.
The credits played, and then the news, and then Paul went back upstairs.
- - -
So that was a writing prompt called Idiomatic. It involved creating a scene based on an idiom -- in this case "Beat around the bush" -- which scene had to also contain the literal use of one of the figurative words from the phrase -- so here it was the word "bush".
I didn't get there, I don't feel, it didn't quite come together. But it was fun trying, and it's 03:30 now after a long shift and I have to put this up and go to bed. Back on the open tomorrow, for my sins. TTFN
"You coming in or going out?" she called.
He was doing neither.
He'd been over it in his head, over and over, for the last three hours. But he could not, now it came to it, go all the way. He could not say it.
It was different to when you had it straight in your head. It was now and it was horrendous. His tongue felt fat in his mouth. He was dizzy. It was like he was down inside something that was wide and lashing above him. He decided to escape back up to his room.
But he couldn't come downstairs, stand in the doorway, then go back up. That would be weird. So instead he went into the front room and pretended to be studying the street out of the bay window.
"Is it bins tonight?" he asked. "I feel like it's blue bins tonight. I can't see any of the neighbours' bins. But maybe they haven't taken them out yet. I was coming downstairs and I just thought, is it blue bins tonight?"
His mum didn't look up from the screen. "Blues on Monday, moron."
"Oh, of course. Well that's good. It's almost full already, with those magazines from tidying my room and everything. I just didn't want us to forget."
"I'm glad you finally got rid of those lads mags, Paul. They're basically porn. They give you unrealistic ideas about women. You don't want to grow up like that."
Paul swallowed. It was as if God was listening, giving him his chance. It was now.
"Mum..." he began.
"I know, I know, it's gross when I talk like that. I won't say no more."
Paul could hear his heart beating. He sat and listened to his heart beating. He sat and listened and sat and listened, and slowly felt the moment slip away.
On Holby City one of the doctors was having an affair with one of the surgeons and the doctor's husband had just found out. Paul's mum drained her Dark Fruits and shook the can.
"Be a darl and get your poor old mam another cider," she said.
It was her evening off. She wasn't back in the factory while midday tomorrow.
Paul decided it would help to leave the room and gather his resources. He went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, stood looking inside. He gazed at the half cauliflower, the bag of wet carrots, the crusting remains of the pasta bake from the night before. It was just Paul and his mum. She meant everything to him.
He pulled a can off the ring pull and took it back into the front room.
She mussed his hair.
He sat down next to her and looked ahead. On the telly the doctor's husband was yelling and the doctor was crying. Paul looked at the wall.
He swallowed.
He couldn't tell her.
What would the other women at the factory say? He knew how their sons all talked at school, the words they used. They had to get it from somewhere. His mum found it hard enough at work as it was. She wasn't good at making friends. He didn't want to make it harder.
But by the same token she was the most important person in the world to him. How could he not tell her?
"This show is dumb," he said.
"Shh."
"It's not... people aren't like this. Relationships aren't like this."
"You'd know, Casanova!"
He stared ahead. The room opened before him. The walls were going to swallow him. His tongue was enormous. His forehead prickled. Everything was thudding. Everything was exactly as it was.
"Mum," he said. "I threw the magazines out because I didn't need them. I didn't want them. They were just... I felt I should have them. But they weren't... what I wanted."
On Holby City the doctor's husband was the one now crying. He cried and while sobbing he said he couldn't believe that the doctor had lied to him. The doctor replied tearfully that it was their relationship that had been a lie, it bad been a lie from the start and she couldn't live that lie any longer.
Paul's mum was watching the drama. She was listening to Paul, but not hearing.
"I'm glad you didn't want them," she said.
"The thing is, Mum... the thing is... they weren't for me. Maybe other magazines, but not those."
His mum turned to him. "Paul," she said. "It's OK. I understand."
Paul looked at his mum.
"You don't have to be ashamed," she said. "I won't judge you."
The air was alive in front of Paul's face. The air was electric.
"You don't have to make excuses," his mum said. "Don't worry what I said before. It's completely natural for you to enjoy looking at a bit of bush." She let out a long cackle. "You're a healthy boy. There's nowt wrong with it."
But that was almost precisely the problem.
Paul let his breath out a long, long way. He let his shoulders sag. He couldn't say it. How could you say it?
On the television the husband wrestled with the doctor fiercely and the two crashed through the apartment, into the bookcase, around the dresser, through the balcony doors, over the railing, and down to the street below, the lie they had been living finally having engulfed them both.
The credits played, and then the news, and then Paul went back upstairs.
- - -
So that was a writing prompt called Idiomatic. It involved creating a scene based on an idiom -- in this case "Beat around the bush" -- which scene had to also contain the literal use of one of the figurative words from the phrase -- so here it was the word "bush".
I didn't get there, I don't feel, it didn't quite come together. But it was fun trying, and it's 03:30 now after a long shift and I have to put this up and go to bed. Back on the open tomorrow, for my sins. TTFN
Thursday, 28 June 2018
Day 61: She should eat
Another show-don't-tell writing prompt, this time attempting to express the feeling of depression.
Claire's bedroom was thick with the smell of damp. The washed clothes had been sitting in the machine for a day and a night and half a day again, and now Claire had finally hung the creased shirts and skirts and jeans over her clothes horse they were giving off an acrid, wet-dog stench that was permeating the room.
Claire gave up and climbed into bed. The quilt was a tangled mess by her legs, stained with the crusty spillage of some microwaved meal or other, and she kicked at the wad until it rolled off the foot of the bed and landed in a heap on the floor, on top of a pile of folded print-outs from a lecture from months ago.
She'd only been to two lectures since then.
The laptop was going, playing a series on Netflix that Claire had enjoyed as a child. She'd meant to put on a documentary or a foreign film or something that would be good for her intellectual development, but had somehow ended up with this series instead.
She stared at the screen. The main character, an American high-school troublemaker, was plotting how to go on a date with two girls from his class at the same end-of-term summer luau.
Claire watched the show without seeing. She fidgeted with her hair, scratched at her skin. She had a small rash on her stomach. She tried not to scratch it. She gave up and scratched it. She watched the show. After a while, halfway through a scene, she closed the lid of the laptop and lay back into her pillow.
She dozed fitfully for an hour. When she awoke it was beginning to get dark. her blind was already half closed. She pulled it down all the way and turned on the light.
She should eat. She should eat. She should eat. She wrenched herself to the edge of her bed and looked down at the teetering collection of plates and coffee mugs and bowls on the carpet. The plates were covered in the crumbs of toast and pizza; the mugs had rings of congealing residue in the bottom. The bowls were a sugary, milky mess.
She turned herself back over, lay there looking up at the ceiling.
In the corner of the ceiling were the fine scraggly remains of a cobweb. The strands were dancing in the draft coming in through the window. So what? The spider that had woven the web was dead now. So what? Claire watched the silk tilt and sway, watched it, saw it, saw that it meant nothing, saw and saw, closed her eyes, kept her eyes closed.
The evening wore on.
Claire's bedroom was thick with the smell of damp. The washed clothes had been sitting in the machine for a day and a night and half a day again, and now Claire had finally hung the creased shirts and skirts and jeans over her clothes horse they were giving off an acrid, wet-dog stench that was permeating the room.
Claire gave up and climbed into bed. The quilt was a tangled mess by her legs, stained with the crusty spillage of some microwaved meal or other, and she kicked at the wad until it rolled off the foot of the bed and landed in a heap on the floor, on top of a pile of folded print-outs from a lecture from months ago.
She'd only been to two lectures since then.
The laptop was going, playing a series on Netflix that Claire had enjoyed as a child. She'd meant to put on a documentary or a foreign film or something that would be good for her intellectual development, but had somehow ended up with this series instead.
She stared at the screen. The main character, an American high-school troublemaker, was plotting how to go on a date with two girls from his class at the same end-of-term summer luau.
Claire watched the show without seeing. She fidgeted with her hair, scratched at her skin. She had a small rash on her stomach. She tried not to scratch it. She gave up and scratched it. She watched the show. After a while, halfway through a scene, she closed the lid of the laptop and lay back into her pillow.
She dozed fitfully for an hour. When she awoke it was beginning to get dark. her blind was already half closed. She pulled it down all the way and turned on the light.
She should eat. She should eat. She should eat. She wrenched herself to the edge of her bed and looked down at the teetering collection of plates and coffee mugs and bowls on the carpet. The plates were covered in the crumbs of toast and pizza; the mugs had rings of congealing residue in the bottom. The bowls were a sugary, milky mess.
She turned herself back over, lay there looking up at the ceiling.
In the corner of the ceiling were the fine scraggly remains of a cobweb. The strands were dancing in the draft coming in through the window. So what? The spider that had woven the web was dead now. So what? Claire watched the silk tilt and sway, watched it, saw it, saw that it meant nothing, saw and saw, closed her eyes, kept her eyes closed.
The evening wore on.
Wednesday, 27 June 2018
Day 59: Feels
The email came through to his work address. She usually WhatsApped, or called. He didn't think he'd even given her this email address. She must have found it somewhere online.
He read the message. Then he went back and read it again. Half an hour later, when Pat came to his cubicle to hand him the morning's sketches, he was still reading those three paragraphs -- for three paragraphs was all she had written him.
He minimised his email window, brought up the layout plans.
"How goes it?" Pat asked, ruffling his hair.
"Oh, fine," he replied.
When Pat left he got the email back up again.
Three paragraphs. That was all.
He looked at his hands on the keys of his keyboard. He looked at his wallet on his desk. The leather-bound day planner with the scruff on the front. The potted cactus, needing so little, needing something. "Like you," she had said. Before.
He looked at Percy, the green arms wrapped around his desk tidy in the corner. He looked in the dinosaur's big eyes. He reached out and touched the soft head, then took the toy's tiny hand in his own larger hand, held it tight.
He sat like that until Nikki came to see how the design was going. he let go of Percy, pretended to be arranging his desk.
"You OK, pal?"
"Oh, yes. I've got some errands to run this afternoon though."
He walked without knowing where he was going. The streets repeated. Kebab shops being set up for opening, overflowing bins, the little parks, the bus stops, the offices. They flitted by.
He found himself outside a large department store. Through the big glass doors he could see mothers dragging their recalcitrant children, elderly couples shuffling along, a gaggle of store workers stood around the perfume counter gossiping, touching each other on the arms, putting their hands over their mouths, all bending over in laughter.
The sun was going down and the street was getting dark, but inside all were lit by a warm glow.
He stood outside and looked in.
"May I ask, sir, whether you are happy with your current broadband supplier?"
The man with the clipboard was young, with a sharp stubble line and a piercing in one ear. There were flakes of dried wax in his hair. He had only made three referrals today. It was looking like another bad one. Well, he'd buy another of those six-packs on offer after work, roll a fatty, see if anyone online was up for a raid or two. There was always tomorrow.
The man he was addressing turned, and for one terrible moment the man with the clipboard thought the other was planning to attack him. What the other did instead was teeter, and then collapse into the folds of the man with the clipboard's coat.
Through the thick fabric and the rocking sobs the man with the clipboard caught only two words:
"She's gone."
- - -
That was a writing prompt to create a scene where a character was "upset about the news he had received", written without any "feeling" words. So no saying "he felt sad," for example. I think it could have gone better, but I was out looking at alpacas and climbing trees with Mike and Zoe all day, and then I collapsed when I got in. What can you do? You can't hear about an alpaca farm and not instantly go there. They're alpacas, for Chrissake!
He read the message. Then he went back and read it again. Half an hour later, when Pat came to his cubicle to hand him the morning's sketches, he was still reading those three paragraphs -- for three paragraphs was all she had written him.
He minimised his email window, brought up the layout plans.
"How goes it?" Pat asked, ruffling his hair.
"Oh, fine," he replied.
When Pat left he got the email back up again.
Three paragraphs. That was all.
He looked at his hands on the keys of his keyboard. He looked at his wallet on his desk. The leather-bound day planner with the scruff on the front. The potted cactus, needing so little, needing something. "Like you," she had said. Before.
He looked at Percy, the green arms wrapped around his desk tidy in the corner. He looked in the dinosaur's big eyes. He reached out and touched the soft head, then took the toy's tiny hand in his own larger hand, held it tight.
He sat like that until Nikki came to see how the design was going. he let go of Percy, pretended to be arranging his desk.
"You OK, pal?"
"Oh, yes. I've got some errands to run this afternoon though."
He walked without knowing where he was going. The streets repeated. Kebab shops being set up for opening, overflowing bins, the little parks, the bus stops, the offices. They flitted by.
He found himself outside a large department store. Through the big glass doors he could see mothers dragging their recalcitrant children, elderly couples shuffling along, a gaggle of store workers stood around the perfume counter gossiping, touching each other on the arms, putting their hands over their mouths, all bending over in laughter.
The sun was going down and the street was getting dark, but inside all were lit by a warm glow.
He stood outside and looked in.
"May I ask, sir, whether you are happy with your current broadband supplier?"
The man with the clipboard was young, with a sharp stubble line and a piercing in one ear. There were flakes of dried wax in his hair. He had only made three referrals today. It was looking like another bad one. Well, he'd buy another of those six-packs on offer after work, roll a fatty, see if anyone online was up for a raid or two. There was always tomorrow.
The man he was addressing turned, and for one terrible moment the man with the clipboard thought the other was planning to attack him. What the other did instead was teeter, and then collapse into the folds of the man with the clipboard's coat.
Through the thick fabric and the rocking sobs the man with the clipboard caught only two words:
"She's gone."
- - -
That was a writing prompt to create a scene where a character was "upset about the news he had received", written without any "feeling" words. So no saying "he felt sad," for example. I think it could have gone better, but I was out looking at alpacas and climbing trees with Mike and Zoe all day, and then I collapsed when I got in. What can you do? You can't hear about an alpaca farm and not instantly go there. They're alpacas, for Chrissake!
Tuesday, 26 June 2018
Day 58: Flavours
Another writing prompt, this one about noting down 12 flavours, of ice cream, sweet, savoury food, whatever, and then writing a scene including all the flavours, starting with the words "The sparkling water was..."
The sparkling water was tangy, like Stilton, on Booker's tongue. She swallowed it down and looked out at the horizon. The first of the drop ships were landing on the ridge to the east. By the end of the night royalist troops should have taken back the city, and fresh supplies -- including clean drinking water -- would hopefully begin to flow out to the camps once again.
Booker took a bacon-and-cauliflower-bake capsule from her pack and snapped it open, and poured the drops of concentrated liquid within onto her ration of boiled cabbage. She ate hungrily, trying not to look down at her fork.
The sky was dark and the polythene cover of her compartment snapped in the wind. Booker sat on the corrugated tin roof, painted mint green to signify her refugee status, and settled in to watch the fireworks. Hundreds of miles away balls of orange flame popped like exploding grapefruit against the black of the sky. The royalist aerial bombardment had begun. Scattered plasma fire, pink like the bubblegum Booker had once chewed with her classmates at school, ripped loosely into the night -- Iphal militia fighting back.
Booker thought about her school, wondered whether any of those fiery blooms in the distance was the site of her childhood memories going up in smoke. She thought she remembered rebels taking the school as a stronghold, after Arch Pasha Monsul promised to free the country. But maybe that was the gym. Those days had been a blur. Booker hadn't wanted to leave home because she had been baking pecan slices in the reactor oven -- she hadn't understood, was annoyed at her father, but he had grabbed her wrists and pulled her to the door, and Booker had been halfway to yelling, had felt full of fury, but then she had seen the worry and terror in his face, and had fallen silent.
She thought then about her father's whiskers, about the scent of chocolate and vanilla on his skin when he used to return home from the factory and put his ID and payment chips on the sideboard and gather Booker in his arms...
She didn't want to think about that. She chewed the last of the mush in her bowl, licked it clean, and stowed it back through the flap that was the one window of her hut.
The plasma fire was more sporadic now; Iphal were losing.
Everything was as Monsul's soldiers, clean and fastidious in their caramel uniforms, had said it would be. They had marched through the camps two days ago, handing out lemons and loaves and that funky-tasting sparkling water, and promised that the city would be freed by the end of the week. Some refugees had cheered. Most, like Booker, had looked on, starved and exhausted, wondering whether these tall warriors were going to undo the last three years, wipe the survivors memories clean of the atrocities they had witnessed, or whether these new liberators would be another layer added to the palimpsest of this small but bloodied country, scratching their mark crudely over the top, yet never quite erasing the horrors that had gone before.
Away at the edge of sight another fireball erupted, and Booker, sitting with the wind whipping at her skinny legs, perched on top of her makeshift house, watched as her town was demolished with engines of fire so that the charred remains could in the morning be presented back to her. She sighed, and looked out.
The sparkling water was tangy, like Stilton, on Booker's tongue. She swallowed it down and looked out at the horizon. The first of the drop ships were landing on the ridge to the east. By the end of the night royalist troops should have taken back the city, and fresh supplies -- including clean drinking water -- would hopefully begin to flow out to the camps once again.
Booker took a bacon-and-cauliflower-bake capsule from her pack and snapped it open, and poured the drops of concentrated liquid within onto her ration of boiled cabbage. She ate hungrily, trying not to look down at her fork.
The sky was dark and the polythene cover of her compartment snapped in the wind. Booker sat on the corrugated tin roof, painted mint green to signify her refugee status, and settled in to watch the fireworks. Hundreds of miles away balls of orange flame popped like exploding grapefruit against the black of the sky. The royalist aerial bombardment had begun. Scattered plasma fire, pink like the bubblegum Booker had once chewed with her classmates at school, ripped loosely into the night -- Iphal militia fighting back.
Booker thought about her school, wondered whether any of those fiery blooms in the distance was the site of her childhood memories going up in smoke. She thought she remembered rebels taking the school as a stronghold, after Arch Pasha Monsul promised to free the country. But maybe that was the gym. Those days had been a blur. Booker hadn't wanted to leave home because she had been baking pecan slices in the reactor oven -- she hadn't understood, was annoyed at her father, but he had grabbed her wrists and pulled her to the door, and Booker had been halfway to yelling, had felt full of fury, but then she had seen the worry and terror in his face, and had fallen silent.
She thought then about her father's whiskers, about the scent of chocolate and vanilla on his skin when he used to return home from the factory and put his ID and payment chips on the sideboard and gather Booker in his arms...
She didn't want to think about that. She chewed the last of the mush in her bowl, licked it clean, and stowed it back through the flap that was the one window of her hut.
The plasma fire was more sporadic now; Iphal were losing.
Everything was as Monsul's soldiers, clean and fastidious in their caramel uniforms, had said it would be. They had marched through the camps two days ago, handing out lemons and loaves and that funky-tasting sparkling water, and promised that the city would be freed by the end of the week. Some refugees had cheered. Most, like Booker, had looked on, starved and exhausted, wondering whether these tall warriors were going to undo the last three years, wipe the survivors memories clean of the atrocities they had witnessed, or whether these new liberators would be another layer added to the palimpsest of this small but bloodied country, scratching their mark crudely over the top, yet never quite erasing the horrors that had gone before.
Away at the edge of sight another fireball erupted, and Booker, sitting with the wind whipping at her skinny legs, perched on top of her makeshift house, watched as her town was demolished with engines of fire so that the charred remains could in the morning be presented back to her. She sighed, and looked out.
Monday, 25 June 2018
Day 57: The locker
They kept the head out of sight. They chopped off the head but they kept it out of sight.
It was a bright and blown out day as I walked down to the house on the corner. The national football team had won that morning and there were groups of revellers still swaying out of the pubs, thumping one another on the arms and singing snatches of patriotic songs. Families bobbed down the hill on the way to town: mothers in sandals that slapped on the hot tarmac, fathers pushing prams with gaudy helium balloons tied round the handles. The warm weather had turned the city into a festival.
But as I walked round the high street the crowds began to thin. As the road dipped I passed into shadow and shivered, cold now I was out of the sun. I had been to the house before but found myself lost in the coiling warren of streets leading down to the valley, and I had to consult the map on my phone to find my way. Men taking advantage of the day to wash their cars stared up at me as I passed, their eyes suspicious under their flat caps. I nodded stiffly and continued on my way.
I heard the party before I saw the house. I heard laughter, the murmur of voices, the clink of glasses drifting across the little gardens with their hanging trees. Suddenly the side passage loomed before me. I steeled myself, and went in.
At the party were people I knew, and people I did not. I scanned the faces and saw gaiety, ease, yet underneath something else. It was subtle but it was there. I saw hunger.
None of the guests were eating. The host came out numerous times, then went back inside the house. Next door a family were getting ready to leave for an afternoon out; there was a picnic bag, cameras, games for the children, and I got the impression that our host was waiting for these simple folk to depart before he commenced our proceedings.
There was no mistaking it, a palpable air of anticipation now filled the garden. The house was built into the side of a steep hill, and the garden stepped down on crooked levels. The guests were congregated on the patio on the lowest step, huddled on chairs and stools. The positioning of the trees and fences meant that this small area was entirely hidden from the outside world. On the top step of the garden was a table with supplies arrayed upon it.
Between the guests and the table stood the locker. The host had brought this locker specially for the occasion. It was old and chipped. The inner shelves had been removed and discarded. The locker's door was closed tight, a deep colour smeared around the handle.
We waited.
Finally the neighbours left, and the host emerged from the darkness of the house. In one hand he carried tongs; in the other a large metal cleaver.
The door of the locker was swung open. The head had already been chopped off and was kept out of sight. The host removed the smoked body, and the party, held in check for so many hours, was now able to begin.
- - -
So that was a writing prompt I came across, an exercise that suggested writing about your day as if it were a mystery story (though I guess I wrote more of a horror?). Arron and Pat smoked a pig, is what happened, and had everyone round to Arron's for a barbecue. Being a vegetarian I wasn't exactly elated at the idea, but the animal had been ethically farmed, and I do think if you're going to eat a living creature it's only right that you take responsibility for that, are prepared to do the butchering yourself. Anyway, I ate veggie burger, hung out for a while, then came home. Now I'm going to leave this here because I've been going to bed way too late recently, and if I stop right now I can read for half an hour in bed and still get a good night's sleep before work in the morning, and to be honest that sounds sublime.
Ciao x
It was a bright and blown out day as I walked down to the house on the corner. The national football team had won that morning and there were groups of revellers still swaying out of the pubs, thumping one another on the arms and singing snatches of patriotic songs. Families bobbed down the hill on the way to town: mothers in sandals that slapped on the hot tarmac, fathers pushing prams with gaudy helium balloons tied round the handles. The warm weather had turned the city into a festival.
But as I walked round the high street the crowds began to thin. As the road dipped I passed into shadow and shivered, cold now I was out of the sun. I had been to the house before but found myself lost in the coiling warren of streets leading down to the valley, and I had to consult the map on my phone to find my way. Men taking advantage of the day to wash their cars stared up at me as I passed, their eyes suspicious under their flat caps. I nodded stiffly and continued on my way.
I heard the party before I saw the house. I heard laughter, the murmur of voices, the clink of glasses drifting across the little gardens with their hanging trees. Suddenly the side passage loomed before me. I steeled myself, and went in.
At the party were people I knew, and people I did not. I scanned the faces and saw gaiety, ease, yet underneath something else. It was subtle but it was there. I saw hunger.
None of the guests were eating. The host came out numerous times, then went back inside the house. Next door a family were getting ready to leave for an afternoon out; there was a picnic bag, cameras, games for the children, and I got the impression that our host was waiting for these simple folk to depart before he commenced our proceedings.
There was no mistaking it, a palpable air of anticipation now filled the garden. The house was built into the side of a steep hill, and the garden stepped down on crooked levels. The guests were congregated on the patio on the lowest step, huddled on chairs and stools. The positioning of the trees and fences meant that this small area was entirely hidden from the outside world. On the top step of the garden was a table with supplies arrayed upon it.
Between the guests and the table stood the locker. The host had brought this locker specially for the occasion. It was old and chipped. The inner shelves had been removed and discarded. The locker's door was closed tight, a deep colour smeared around the handle.
We waited.
Finally the neighbours left, and the host emerged from the darkness of the house. In one hand he carried tongs; in the other a large metal cleaver.
The door of the locker was swung open. The head had already been chopped off and was kept out of sight. The host removed the smoked body, and the party, held in check for so many hours, was now able to begin.
- - -
So that was a writing prompt I came across, an exercise that suggested writing about your day as if it were a mystery story (though I guess I wrote more of a horror?). Arron and Pat smoked a pig, is what happened, and had everyone round to Arron's for a barbecue. Being a vegetarian I wasn't exactly elated at the idea, but the animal had been ethically farmed, and I do think if you're going to eat a living creature it's only right that you take responsibility for that, are prepared to do the butchering yourself. Anyway, I ate veggie burger, hung out for a while, then came home. Now I'm going to leave this here because I've been going to bed way too late recently, and if I stop right now I can read for half an hour in bed and still get a good night's sleep before work in the morning, and to be honest that sounds sublime.
Ciao x
Sunday, 29 November 2015
Faking It
Character sketch for the fiction course...
Laurie sat, legs crossed, reclining slightly, left hand cupped beneath the bar, right hand ripping at the corner of a bottled-lager-branded beermat, sienna hair falling over bare shoulders, drinking her Martell brandy, thinking how you couldn't compare. Comparison was the mother of... It was a path to... It fucked you all kinds of up, is what it did.
Not that she was comparing with the best of them. Not with those... things. The undulating ones over there on the dance-floor, those shimmering sirens for whom the surrounding men were practically spasming-out in orgiastic fervour. They were welcome to it. I mean obviously, if given the... but you had to be realistic. She'd let them have the beauty and the glamour and the riches, if they'd let her have an ordinary life.
Ordinary. But you couldn't compare. Each life was unique, uniquely felt. You couldn't lay one on top of another and say the peaks here are higher, the troughs there not so deep. From the inside, each life was terrible enough.
Still though. To be an averagely attractive woman. A bit fat, even. She'd take fat. A plain, plump girl -- someone who'd maybe had to wait until second year of university to lose her virginity, but had (lost it), to perhaps a computer programmer living on her floor, who'd played drums with zero rhythm and had moved on top of her with even less, who'd spent three months of evenings curled beside her watching his little portable television as the two of them gradually realised how little they had in common.
Laurie would have taken this. She would have taken this gladly. But you couldn't. You couldn't.
She swirled the nubbin of ice in her glass, brushed the hair from her broad face with a move she thought of as "defiantly feminine" -- which sounded nice but did not, in the end, assuage the feelings of ugliness and ungainliness that bubbled up at her -- and she considered the possibility of being taken home tonight.
49.05 percent of the country's population was male. Of this number, maybe 20 percent might see Laurie on first appearance as anything more than a twisted monster, an aberration, a faggot. Maybe one percent of this number, maybe less, would see her not as an object of pity or sympathy but as a woman in her own right, someone they could legitimately be attracted to.
There were, at best guess, 80 people in this bar, which did not exactly stack the odds, the fucking piece of shit fucking god fucking damned odds, in her, in, fucking...
She wrenched her thoughts away. She ordered another brandy from the barman who was trying not to look, she tore at the bar mat, she drank the brandy. The worst was in truth behind her. She no longer felt at war with her own body. More like a refugee making camp in a war-torn land, hanging fairy-lights around the barbed wire, laying rugs at the bottom of trenches, doing the best with an alien landscape that would never quite be home. If she sometimes still thought briefly of open skies, of a short plunge and then endless expansive peace, the borders of her being marked by the stars themselves, well, that wasn't so uncommon.
She was not, she had been assured, mentally unstable. Rigorous psychological evaluations prior to the multiple medical procedures on which she had spent all her savings had made certain of this fact -- though of course she allowed secretly to herself that maybe she was just good enough at faking it. But then wasn't that, when it came right down to it, the best any of us could say: that we were good enough at faking it?
Laurie (née Daniel) Staples, 28, alone once again on New Year's Eve, composed and demure and, yes, beautiful in a sequinned azure dress, drinking overpriced brandy and contemplating the smudged and fiery walk home by herself to a flat without central heating or companionship, did not then feel it but was, in this moment and for all moments after it, loved.
Laurie sat, legs crossed, reclining slightly, left hand cupped beneath the bar, right hand ripping at the corner of a bottled-lager-branded beermat, sienna hair falling over bare shoulders, drinking her Martell brandy, thinking how you couldn't compare. Comparison was the mother of... It was a path to... It fucked you all kinds of up, is what it did.
Not that she was comparing with the best of them. Not with those... things. The undulating ones over there on the dance-floor, those shimmering sirens for whom the surrounding men were practically spasming-out in orgiastic fervour. They were welcome to it. I mean obviously, if given the... but you had to be realistic. She'd let them have the beauty and the glamour and the riches, if they'd let her have an ordinary life.
Ordinary. But you couldn't compare. Each life was unique, uniquely felt. You couldn't lay one on top of another and say the peaks here are higher, the troughs there not so deep. From the inside, each life was terrible enough.
Still though. To be an averagely attractive woman. A bit fat, even. She'd take fat. A plain, plump girl -- someone who'd maybe had to wait until second year of university to lose her virginity, but had (lost it), to perhaps a computer programmer living on her floor, who'd played drums with zero rhythm and had moved on top of her with even less, who'd spent three months of evenings curled beside her watching his little portable television as the two of them gradually realised how little they had in common.
Laurie would have taken this. She would have taken this gladly. But you couldn't. You couldn't.
She swirled the nubbin of ice in her glass, brushed the hair from her broad face with a move she thought of as "defiantly feminine" -- which sounded nice but did not, in the end, assuage the feelings of ugliness and ungainliness that bubbled up at her -- and she considered the possibility of being taken home tonight.
49.05 percent of the country's population was male. Of this number, maybe 20 percent might see Laurie on first appearance as anything more than a twisted monster, an aberration, a faggot. Maybe one percent of this number, maybe less, would see her not as an object of pity or sympathy but as a woman in her own right, someone they could legitimately be attracted to.
There were, at best guess, 80 people in this bar, which did not exactly stack the odds, the fucking piece of shit fucking god fucking damned odds, in her, in, fucking...
She wrenched her thoughts away. She ordered another brandy from the barman who was trying not to look, she tore at the bar mat, she drank the brandy. The worst was in truth behind her. She no longer felt at war with her own body. More like a refugee making camp in a war-torn land, hanging fairy-lights around the barbed wire, laying rugs at the bottom of trenches, doing the best with an alien landscape that would never quite be home. If she sometimes still thought briefly of open skies, of a short plunge and then endless expansive peace, the borders of her being marked by the stars themselves, well, that wasn't so uncommon.
She was not, she had been assured, mentally unstable. Rigorous psychological evaluations prior to the multiple medical procedures on which she had spent all her savings had made certain of this fact -- though of course she allowed secretly to herself that maybe she was just good enough at faking it. But then wasn't that, when it came right down to it, the best any of us could say: that we were good enough at faking it?
Laurie (née Daniel) Staples, 28, alone once again on New Year's Eve, composed and demure and, yes, beautiful in a sequinned azure dress, drinking overpriced brandy and contemplating the smudged and fiery walk home by herself to a flat without central heating or companionship, did not then feel it but was, in this moment and for all moments after it, loved.
Thursday, 12 November 2015
Full
Another wee thing from the fiction course. Can't be bothered doing anything with it so I'll just leave it here for your delectation...
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