Saturday, December 31, 2011
We've moved!
Yup, it's only been a month, and already I've moved to Songs Made Famous By because it's a shorter URL, the design is more what I would like and... yeah. That's about it.
Friday, December 30, 2011
019
I was at an Everyman cinema to watch My Week With Marilyn with a friend of mine and as we were settling into our seats I noticed, in the seat in front, a man sitting, his right ankle resting on his left knee, with a mobile phone held up in his left hand. The screen was held up at an angle, so I could see what was on display. Which was nothing. It was totally blank – the start of a text message. While the adverts rolled and my friend tucked into her pick 'n' mix, I watched the screen and waited to see what this guy was going to write. I'm not sure why I wanted to see. No, wait, yes I am. Pure scandalous curiosity; maybe there'd be something funny/filthy. My friend and I had just been discussing the shocking stories emerging from the Leveson inquiry and the scummy ethics of the tabloid press. I tried to forget my own ethical views as I waited for the secret message to appear.
The adverts finished and the trailers started and still he hadn't written anything. He hadn't moved. He was sat in the same position, looking at the blank screen. And so was I. Was he thinking? Searching hard for the right words? Was he high? Slow? In the middle of some cataclysmic mental collapse? Why wasn't he writing anything?! My friend must have sensed my growing discomfort because she leaned over and asked me what I was doing. I whispered back that I was going to see what this guy was going to write, keeping my eyes on the screen at all times while whispering to her, and she just seemed to shrug and go back to watching the trailers.
The trailers ended and the film began. He hadn't written anything. His thumb hadn't even twitched. I couldn't see his face, but I was willing to bet he hadn't even blinked. That was a point, was he even awake? I'd assumed he was just because of the way he was sitting, but maybe he had narcolepsy or something and had passed out like that. I started to lean forward in order to check and then paused. If he wasn't asleep, he was going to see me lean right over and look into his face. Which would probably perturb him. To find out, I'd have to go out of our row, cross in front of him two rows down and try and get a look. The cinema wasn't full, but there were a few people in every row and it would definitely cause annoyance. I turned around quickly to have a look behind me. And there wasn't any guarantee that I'd be able to even tell whether his eyes were open or not.
And then, as if by divine response, he sighed. In a decidedly awake and conscious manner. It wasn't a lonesome complaint, or a soft moan, but there was something to it – some bridled emotion – that I couldn't quite pinpoint. My head had already gone through all the possible texts he could be sending. To his mistress, requesting a meeting. To his boss, telling him that he quits. To his mum, who's been diagnosed with cancer. To his son on his birthday. To his girlfriend, telling her where he's sat. To his best mate, explaining why he can't be his best man. To the family, with the ransom demands. To the babysitter, telling her where the fire extinguisher is. To his boyfriend, detailing what he's going to do to him tonight. To God, asking for more money. The sigh could fit any of those potential messages, but it was at least a definite sign that he was conscious and thinking.
Marilyn Monroe was saying something to Kenneth Branagh, who I think was playing Laurence Olivier, and she was crying – near hysterics – and Olivier was getting frustrated and telling her just to be sexy, wasn't that what she was paid for? And then Monroe stormed off. I had no idea why they were saying these things to each other, and I realised I had completely missed the first twenty minutes of the film. A few moments later I realised I'd missed over an hour of the film. All I could focus on was the soft purple light radiating from the screen a metre in front of me. It reflected off shiny patches of the man's skin and shone through his curly hair. It left little trails in my eyes wherever I moved them. My friend tugged at my sleeve, I told her to leave me alone. It was coming, I could sense it, a rising in my stomach, an awareness that this guy had finally come to some conclusion about what he was going to write. His thumb, I swear I saw it twitch.
It appeared Marilyn had taken one too many pills. Branagh and whoever was the main character were sitting in a cinema, watching her on screen. The man's thumb darted down, an 'X' appeared on the screen and he hit send. I never knew who to. I guess he couldn't think of anything better to say.
The adverts finished and the trailers started and still he hadn't written anything. He hadn't moved. He was sat in the same position, looking at the blank screen. And so was I. Was he thinking? Searching hard for the right words? Was he high? Slow? In the middle of some cataclysmic mental collapse? Why wasn't he writing anything?! My friend must have sensed my growing discomfort because she leaned over and asked me what I was doing. I whispered back that I was going to see what this guy was going to write, keeping my eyes on the screen at all times while whispering to her, and she just seemed to shrug and go back to watching the trailers.
The trailers ended and the film began. He hadn't written anything. His thumb hadn't even twitched. I couldn't see his face, but I was willing to bet he hadn't even blinked. That was a point, was he even awake? I'd assumed he was just because of the way he was sitting, but maybe he had narcolepsy or something and had passed out like that. I started to lean forward in order to check and then paused. If he wasn't asleep, he was going to see me lean right over and look into his face. Which would probably perturb him. To find out, I'd have to go out of our row, cross in front of him two rows down and try and get a look. The cinema wasn't full, but there were a few people in every row and it would definitely cause annoyance. I turned around quickly to have a look behind me. And there wasn't any guarantee that I'd be able to even tell whether his eyes were open or not.
And then, as if by divine response, he sighed. In a decidedly awake and conscious manner. It wasn't a lonesome complaint, or a soft moan, but there was something to it – some bridled emotion – that I couldn't quite pinpoint. My head had already gone through all the possible texts he could be sending. To his mistress, requesting a meeting. To his boss, telling him that he quits. To his mum, who's been diagnosed with cancer. To his son on his birthday. To his girlfriend, telling her where he's sat. To his best mate, explaining why he can't be his best man. To the family, with the ransom demands. To the babysitter, telling her where the fire extinguisher is. To his boyfriend, detailing what he's going to do to him tonight. To God, asking for more money. The sigh could fit any of those potential messages, but it was at least a definite sign that he was conscious and thinking.
Marilyn Monroe was saying something to Kenneth Branagh, who I think was playing Laurence Olivier, and she was crying – near hysterics – and Olivier was getting frustrated and telling her just to be sexy, wasn't that what she was paid for? And then Monroe stormed off. I had no idea why they were saying these things to each other, and I realised I had completely missed the first twenty minutes of the film. A few moments later I realised I'd missed over an hour of the film. All I could focus on was the soft purple light radiating from the screen a metre in front of me. It reflected off shiny patches of the man's skin and shone through his curly hair. It left little trails in my eyes wherever I moved them. My friend tugged at my sleeve, I told her to leave me alone. It was coming, I could sense it, a rising in my stomach, an awareness that this guy had finally come to some conclusion about what he was going to write. His thumb, I swear I saw it twitch.
It appeared Marilyn had taken one too many pills. Branagh and whoever was the main character were sitting in a cinema, watching her on screen. The man's thumb darted down, an 'X' appeared on the screen and he hit send. I never knew who to. I guess he couldn't think of anything better to say.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
018
They're just wind tunnels now. A gale flies gaily down them, whipping at the gravel and making the bolts rattle. It gusts up over the edges of the tracks and kick papers and stubs and crisp packets along the platforms, howling with delight as it goes. It bumps into the blue and white 3 sign that hangs above and creaks it back at a 30° angle. This is what the wind has always wanted it to be like. Before, there had been so many objects for it to work its way through and it was always being pushed around by the hurtling engines. Now it's free to play.
It whistles past a small hole in the wall by the kiosk on platform 4. Inside, a mouse shelters itself as he looks across the far side of the tracks to where the blackberries on the bushes that have grown up through the metal fence are just beginning to swell. This mouse is part of one of the few surviving families left here. After the people disappeared the food dried out and most had to move on someplace else. It's good being born so close to these bushes. He sniffs the air, pauses, and dashes down over and across the tracks to sink his teeth into the juicy fruit.
There are sounds and smells that taste more like memories than anything present. Gates clink with only the faintest of forces that they once had when people would barge through them in constant streams. Now, with atrophied mechanics, they pathetically try to recreate the sensation. Oil, that's been spilled from the bellies of the beasts whose stables these once were, slowly evaporates and fumes the air with distant ghosts.
Still the wind keeps blowing. It tears at already torn posters, dives into broken windows and skips in great strides along the length of the platform.
A door bangs itself repeatedly against a frame in recognition of its total lack of function now.
The cracked screen of a ticket machine occasionally blinks on and off, as if hoping to draw in moths.
The round-faced clock suspended above the tracks between platforms 1 and 2 still works, and ticks and tocks
around the entire station so that if you stand quite still for a few seconds its constant strikes become a deafening rhythm. [1,2..] It's unknown how this clock manages to keep ticking over but the clock would feel that it was down to its stout constitution and its inability to back down in the face of adversity. It was built to tell the time, and that's what it will keep doing as long as its cogs keep turning.
Weeds are growing up between the cracks in the platforms. The early scouts of a force that would, given enough time, reclaim all this back in to itself. For now they have their sights set on a nearby wooden bench that they can see their thick stalks wrapped around in weeks to come. Anchored high up in the wind, they'll pick and catch whatever they choose.
Soft crumpled polystyrene, dimpled cans, plastic bags and dust.
Burrowed deep inside the steps tiny insects feast and gorge on the wood that encapsulates them. They feed and reproduce, feed and reproduce, dissolving and consuming their surroundings in imperceptible but inevitable chunks. They'll always be there; anything other than their immediate environment is just so much nothing to them. For if the people come back with tools for smashing and cutting and reconstructing they'll still be here, alive. Them and the wind. Everything else will be crushed and caught and broken.
But for now, everything just moves in time to the beat of the clock and the steps of the wind.
It whistles past a small hole in the wall by the kiosk on platform 4. Inside, a mouse shelters itself as he looks across the far side of the tracks to where the blackberries on the bushes that have grown up through the metal fence are just beginning to swell. This mouse is part of one of the few surviving families left here. After the people disappeared the food dried out and most had to move on someplace else. It's good being born so close to these bushes. He sniffs the air, pauses, and dashes down over and across the tracks to sink his teeth into the juicy fruit.
There are sounds and smells that taste more like memories than anything present. Gates clink with only the faintest of forces that they once had when people would barge through them in constant streams. Now, with atrophied mechanics, they pathetically try to recreate the sensation. Oil, that's been spilled from the bellies of the beasts whose stables these once were, slowly evaporates and fumes the air with distant ghosts.
Still the wind keeps blowing. It tears at already torn posters, dives into broken windows and skips in great strides along the length of the platform.
A door bangs itself repeatedly against a frame in recognition of its total lack of function now.
The cracked screen of a ticket machine occasionally blinks on and off, as if hoping to draw in moths.
The round-faced clock suspended above the tracks between platforms 1 and 2 still works, and ticks and tocks
around the entire station so that if you stand quite still for a few seconds its constant strikes become a deafening rhythm. [1,2..] It's unknown how this clock manages to keep ticking over but the clock would feel that it was down to its stout constitution and its inability to back down in the face of adversity. It was built to tell the time, and that's what it will keep doing as long as its cogs keep turning.
Weeds are growing up between the cracks in the platforms. The early scouts of a force that would, given enough time, reclaim all this back in to itself. For now they have their sights set on a nearby wooden bench that they can see their thick stalks wrapped around in weeks to come. Anchored high up in the wind, they'll pick and catch whatever they choose.
Soft crumpled polystyrene, dimpled cans, plastic bags and dust.
Burrowed deep inside the steps tiny insects feast and gorge on the wood that encapsulates them. They feed and reproduce, feed and reproduce, dissolving and consuming their surroundings in imperceptible but inevitable chunks. They'll always be there; anything other than their immediate environment is just so much nothing to them. For if the people come back with tools for smashing and cutting and reconstructing they'll still be here, alive. Them and the wind. Everything else will be crushed and caught and broken.
But for now, everything just moves in time to the beat of the clock and the steps of the wind.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
017
The function room had been carefully laid out with the finest silver. Flowers had been specifically chosen and arranged by a person employed solely for that responsibility. Place name cards glinted with gold leaf gilt. Now it contained fifteen men, all aged 35 or 36, all in their own attempts at casual wear, which invariably meant straight, shiny trousers, shirt, tie and either a jacket or kashmir jumper depending on how much they were willing to let themselves go. They guffawed and greeted each other with loud cries and over-exuberant hugs; they clinked champagne glasses that each tried to secretly drink faster than the other.
Down in the kitchen, the sous-chef stirred the pot of soup that was the starter for the specially requested meal. She, and every one of the kitchen staff, was wearing a face mask, goggles and a pair of thick industrial-sized gloves lest any of it splash on to their skin. While trying not to look at the viscous, brown liquid, she scooped a portion out with a ladle and heard it splatter against the porcelain china bowl. She handed it to a waitress, who had turned a pale green. The waiting staff didn't have the luxury of protective face gear. One, who had just started her shift and walked in to the kitchen, had vomited on the floor. Whether to serve quickly and get it done, or serve slowly and avoid the risk of spillage, was all they could think about to distract themselves.
Upstairs, the men drank the soup in giant spoonfuls. Rivulets of thick, chunky, runny lumps dribbled out the side of their mouths as they shovelled the soup down. They laughed about the shit they'd had to eat at school. They ordered six bottles of expensive wine that one of them, the one who owned a vineyard in South Africa, assured them would be the perfect accompaniment. They scraped the last skid marks from around the bowl with fresh crusty bread and exchanged stories about the superficial banalities that made up 95% of their everyday working lives. One of them told a humorous anecdote about how he'd coped with the stress of firing 10,000 workers.
The bellows and cheers vibrated down through the floor into the kitchen. The sous-chef looked up, shrugged her shoulders and got on with preparing the main course. The best she could think of was to prepare it into some sort of jellied mousse. She tried to garnish it with some green sprigs, but it just didn't look right.
Speeches were made to the loud heckles and derisions of camaraderie. A kangaroo court was emerging whereby each man's life and yearly achievements were being heard and judged. Some were tacitly found wanting. The main course arrived on steaming plates and the man at the head of the table stood and raised his glass and muttered something in Latin. The others muttered a response and drank a toast. Then, instead of taking their knives and forks, they dived head first in to their mousse and sucked it down. A conversation broke out, over new wine, about the current social and economic problems. They agreed on the main points, half-heartedly debated the minor ones, and tried to decisively make their argument using the one classical quote they could remember from university. The general chorus was of anger towards the jealous, lazy and ignorant.
A fluffy soufflé was the obvious choice for dessert, and the sous-chef was surprised by how satisfying the finished result looked. With a squirt of orange purée around the side it looked good enough for her to eat. If she didn't know what had gone into it, of course. She wandered how it tasted to them upstairs. She wasn't going to taste it herself, so she'd gone by instinct when it came to seasoning and texture. But the plates were coming back empty, and that was good enough for her.
And the soufflé was accompanied by a vintage dessert wine. Debates had turned into arguments in some quarters, while others discussed their holiday plans. Some talked about the latest deals and thought about the possibilities the others presented. The same jokes and stories echoed. There was a sense of general remiss at how long it had been. They should meet more often, they said, as coats were slung over shoulders. Inside they each smirked at how much had been achieved, how different the world would be, as a result of these same friends meeting for dinner every now and then.
Down in the kitchen, the sous-chef stirred the pot of soup that was the starter for the specially requested meal. She, and every one of the kitchen staff, was wearing a face mask, goggles and a pair of thick industrial-sized gloves lest any of it splash on to their skin. While trying not to look at the viscous, brown liquid, she scooped a portion out with a ladle and heard it splatter against the porcelain china bowl. She handed it to a waitress, who had turned a pale green. The waiting staff didn't have the luxury of protective face gear. One, who had just started her shift and walked in to the kitchen, had vomited on the floor. Whether to serve quickly and get it done, or serve slowly and avoid the risk of spillage, was all they could think about to distract themselves.
Upstairs, the men drank the soup in giant spoonfuls. Rivulets of thick, chunky, runny lumps dribbled out the side of their mouths as they shovelled the soup down. They laughed about the shit they'd had to eat at school. They ordered six bottles of expensive wine that one of them, the one who owned a vineyard in South Africa, assured them would be the perfect accompaniment. They scraped the last skid marks from around the bowl with fresh crusty bread and exchanged stories about the superficial banalities that made up 95% of their everyday working lives. One of them told a humorous anecdote about how he'd coped with the stress of firing 10,000 workers.
The bellows and cheers vibrated down through the floor into the kitchen. The sous-chef looked up, shrugged her shoulders and got on with preparing the main course. The best she could think of was to prepare it into some sort of jellied mousse. She tried to garnish it with some green sprigs, but it just didn't look right.
Speeches were made to the loud heckles and derisions of camaraderie. A kangaroo court was emerging whereby each man's life and yearly achievements were being heard and judged. Some were tacitly found wanting. The main course arrived on steaming plates and the man at the head of the table stood and raised his glass and muttered something in Latin. The others muttered a response and drank a toast. Then, instead of taking their knives and forks, they dived head first in to their mousse and sucked it down. A conversation broke out, over new wine, about the current social and economic problems. They agreed on the main points, half-heartedly debated the minor ones, and tried to decisively make their argument using the one classical quote they could remember from university. The general chorus was of anger towards the jealous, lazy and ignorant.
A fluffy soufflé was the obvious choice for dessert, and the sous-chef was surprised by how satisfying the finished result looked. With a squirt of orange purée around the side it looked good enough for her to eat. If she didn't know what had gone into it, of course. She wandered how it tasted to them upstairs. She wasn't going to taste it herself, so she'd gone by instinct when it came to seasoning and texture. But the plates were coming back empty, and that was good enough for her.
And the soufflé was accompanied by a vintage dessert wine. Debates had turned into arguments in some quarters, while others discussed their holiday plans. Some talked about the latest deals and thought about the possibilities the others presented. The same jokes and stories echoed. There was a sense of general remiss at how long it had been. They should meet more often, they said, as coats were slung over shoulders. Inside they each smirked at how much had been achieved, how different the world would be, as a result of these same friends meeting for dinner every now and then.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
016
Repetitive strumming. A small whining noise followed by a crash. Hits and ups that slide and flow. Gender mysteries that know what they're up to. I just had to call. Had to. Open up your minds, open your room, open your arms. Swings and flows. 862-78-263-789. Questions about daddy and his whereabouts. Surnames are immaterial, any time and any place I'll just hang around. Open up your eyes, open your heart. Small whining noises, underlying rhythm. [] Crash. Open. Regular John.
Heavy thunderous raindrops. Smash, plop. Smash, plop. Heightened pitch and frequency. That small ray of sunshine that breaks through the pitch black clouds. I see Avon in a park, in a haze. A simple mind, yeah, to string you up and cut you down. Whistling past, headphones in, doo do do do doo. A perfect simple vision of rolling thunder to let you know that I'm a free range human displaying tame. I string 'em up, I cut 'em down, dare I say? Slowly whistling past, turn and smile at you. Catch can twist leg behind. Collapse and fall, collapse and fall, collapse and twirl and fall.
Don't I know this? Simple beginnings that fill up into familiar movements down. I remember being pushed and quizzed by a physics teacher aged 14. He'd make us copy down notes from the board and then castigated us for not pointing out the mistakes he'd made. I felt chewed out and just didn't want it. If only.. nothing at all. A few years pass. So blow my mind for making me lazy and all those days with no escaping. I held the wheel and let it go, didn't wanna stop don't know why I did. I got chewed out, but just don't blame me. If only, nothing at all.
I took. Some time. To make a head. Programmed. From oaths and I. Wish we. Would get away. Drink wine and screw. Fire tickle bane, Hobbes can refrain. I knew someone else before. Looked a lot like you. And they're gone, and I'm gone; in space. All these the oaths that I said before. Were loose in my head. Just whirling, wheezing and breathing, so rise and take your post. You knew someone else before, looked a lot like me. And they're gone, and I'm now, in space. My dad. Who? Likes this.. Bit. For the. Huh? Drone of... It.
Empty phone tones on a dead line. You would know. Blurry eyes out of focus, living on tinned baked beans. We just happy robots, cut from same cloth, ripping at the seams. Cut/snip. Smile, laugh but don't touch. Cut/cut/cut. You would know. Oh.. Shotgun loaded, got crosshairs in his eyes – ain't no big surprise. You would know. Dead streets handed to you. Gold beams gleam in the sun. Empty handed cold child waiting. Waitings for pills for her eyes. You would know. You would know. You would know.
Crackling reception. Mumbled words. Just the sweetest, dirtiest tone. Rumbles down below. Visions of future self kicking it along with ease to this. Too late to think or filter any more. And you've got it alright. Pfft. Let it go. A bitter pill to swallow baby you're. But you can't hear it. It's got a lot to do with many more infiltrations and maybe down the line, maybe we'll... if you're not glad of it, how can we remove your dread? So come on let us show to you how to handle a rope. Cos I've got it alright, tch. I've got a feeling that your devils and ropes around my neck won't even know.
Fat body after fat body after fat body after fat body thrown in a heap against a cell wall. In a prison. In Mexico. Dos cerveza, por favor. Said it was a setting Sun in a land of gold, the burning eyes of Mexicola. It's a terrible lie, but what she said was true – there's nothing out there. Keep saying – go out, keep saying – go out, keep saying – you won't live forever. Oh yeah and don't I know just what you mean, in a world that's full of shit and gasoline. Well one dog's dead, grandad's on the phone so I think we'll just leave it alone. It's that same old cell again, I hate its cosiness. Keep saying -
Future participle, future participle. Future participle, future participle. Subject object verb, subject object verb, genitive genitive, subject object verb, subject object verb, subject object verb. Future participle, future participle. Subject object verb, subject )object( verb. Future participle. Subject [object] verb. Subject [object] *verb*(Subject) {object} *verb*. Future participle, future participle. Subject object verb, subject ;object verb;. Genitive genitive. Subject object, subject object verb. Ablative absolute, ablative absolute. [] I've seen a little boy, in his garden, with his dog. Subject, object verb, subject object verb. Genitive genitive. [Email for full transcript]
This was a mistake, but who knows? Followed your friends, but you were not there. Followed your home, laid in an empty bed cos I want you to notice when I'm not around. Wherever you are. And then a long moaning sound of a slight pine followed by a barely shifting tone of whining agony. Looks like rain again – nights inside keeping warm by the smoke. You're solid gold, see you in Hell
From memory it never actually states what it is that the mule wants, but it's fun nonetheless.
A giant, sick, bald-headed baby with his face stuck to the floor. Cradling the enamel rim of the toilet, trying to direct his piss away and into a rusty old bathtub. And everyone outside in the corridor hums a melodic, stomach-churning accompaniment. Puke and shit stain his surroundings. The rest just keep on humming. A phone rings and whoever picks it up is chanting in foreign loops and white noise because apart from the odd word the noise is cracking this baby's skull.
----------------
Bonus Track.
Heavy thunderous raindrops. Smash, plop. Smash, plop. Heightened pitch and frequency. That small ray of sunshine that breaks through the pitch black clouds. I see Avon in a park, in a haze. A simple mind, yeah, to string you up and cut you down. Whistling past, headphones in, doo do do do doo. A perfect simple vision of rolling thunder to let you know that I'm a free range human displaying tame. I string 'em up, I cut 'em down, dare I say? Slowly whistling past, turn and smile at you. Catch can twist leg behind. Collapse and fall, collapse and fall, collapse and twirl and fall.
Don't I know this? Simple beginnings that fill up into familiar movements down. I remember being pushed and quizzed by a physics teacher aged 14. He'd make us copy down notes from the board and then castigated us for not pointing out the mistakes he'd made. I felt chewed out and just didn't want it. If only.. nothing at all. A few years pass. So blow my mind for making me lazy and all those days with no escaping. I held the wheel and let it go, didn't wanna stop don't know why I did. I got chewed out, but just don't blame me. If only, nothing at all.
I took. Some time. To make a head. Programmed. From oaths and I. Wish we. Would get away. Drink wine and screw. Fire tickle bane, Hobbes can refrain. I knew someone else before. Looked a lot like you. And they're gone, and I'm gone; in space. All these the oaths that I said before. Were loose in my head. Just whirling, wheezing and breathing, so rise and take your post. You knew someone else before, looked a lot like me. And they're gone, and I'm now, in space. My dad. Who? Likes this.. Bit. For the. Huh? Drone of... It.
Empty phone tones on a dead line. You would know. Blurry eyes out of focus, living on tinned baked beans. We just happy robots, cut from same cloth, ripping at the seams. Cut/snip. Smile, laugh but don't touch. Cut/cut/cut. You would know. Oh.. Shotgun loaded, got crosshairs in his eyes – ain't no big surprise. You would know. Dead streets handed to you. Gold beams gleam in the sun. Empty handed cold child waiting. Waitings for pills for her eyes. You would know. You would know. You would know.
Crackling reception. Mumbled words. Just the sweetest, dirtiest tone. Rumbles down below. Visions of future self kicking it along with ease to this. Too late to think or filter any more. And you've got it alright. Pfft. Let it go. A bitter pill to swallow baby you're. But you can't hear it. It's got a lot to do with many more infiltrations and maybe down the line, maybe we'll... if you're not glad of it, how can we remove your dread? So come on let us show to you how to handle a rope. Cos I've got it alright, tch. I've got a feeling that your devils and ropes around my neck won't even know.
Fat body after fat body after fat body after fat body thrown in a heap against a cell wall. In a prison. In Mexico. Dos cerveza, por favor. Said it was a setting Sun in a land of gold, the burning eyes of Mexicola. It's a terrible lie, but what she said was true – there's nothing out there. Keep saying – go out, keep saying – go out, keep saying – you won't live forever. Oh yeah and don't I know just what you mean, in a world that's full of shit and gasoline. Well one dog's dead, grandad's on the phone so I think we'll just leave it alone. It's that same old cell again, I hate its cosiness. Keep saying -
Future participle, future participle. Future participle, future participle. Subject object verb, subject object verb, genitive genitive, subject object verb, subject object verb, subject object verb. Future participle, future participle. Subject object verb, subject )object( verb. Future participle. Subject [object] verb. Subject [object] *verb*(Subject) {object} *verb*. Future participle, future participle. Subject object verb, subject ;object verb;. Genitive genitive. Subject object
This was a mistake, but who knows? Followed your friends, but you were not there. Followed your home, laid in an empty bed cos I want you to notice when I'm not around. Wherever you are. And then a long moaning sound of a slight pine followed by a barely shifting tone of whining agony. Looks like rain again – nights inside keeping warm by the smoke. You're solid gold, see you in Hell
From memory it never actually states what it is that the mule wants, but it's fun nonetheless.
A giant, sick, bald-headed baby with his face stuck to the floor. Cradling the enamel rim of the toilet, trying to direct his piss away and into a rusty old bathtub. And everyone outside in the corridor hums a melodic, stomach-churning accompaniment. Puke and shit stain his surroundings. The rest just keep on humming. A phone rings and whoever picks it up is chanting in foreign loops and white noise because apart from the odd word the noise is cracking this baby's skull.
----------------
Bonus Track.
Monday, December 26, 2011
015
The plans were spread out on the meeting room desk. Sheafs of paper that were covered in various sketches and designs, with tiny notes scrawled alongside each hand drawn mechanism. Conrad picked up a corner of one gingerly with his thumb and forefinger and held it front of his face. He tilted his head slightly to the left so that he could get the right angle on the sketches, but that didn't help any. To him they still looked like the incoherent ramblings of a madwoman. The designs were incomprehensible and seemed totally unrelated – here what appeared to be an idea for an engine for a fan, there an intricate (and admittedly somewhat beautiful) ink drawing of a starling. And the notes that accompanied these drawings looked mostly like gibberish to him – the words that he did understand looked like they'd been written backwards, the rest were simply made up symbols. He sighed and casually flicked the A3 piece of paper back on to the pile with the rest. He noticed some black ink on his thumb and finger and carefully reached into his pocket for his handkerchief, taking care to keep the dirtied hand well away from his suit, shirt and tie. As he wiped the stain from his fingers he grimaced and looked at the faces of the three other similarly suited individuals sitting at the table. He caught the eyes of Carol, who was sat at the opposite end, and raised his eyebrows. She nodded and turned to look at the thin, raggedy, squirrel-like woman standing with her arms tight by her side, looking down, the giant round glasses perched on her nose only a few millimetres away from smashing on to the floor.
'The thing is, Leo,' said Carol, 'we just can't see any practical application for this product.'
The small woman, Leo, looked up at Carol with disbelief in her eyes.
'Practical application?' she asked, her voice quivering slightly (which really annoyed Conrad). 'The practical application is that they're wings that will let people fly!'
'Yes, but so what?' Conrad shot at her. 'Who cares? What an annoying way to get about! We have perfectly good cars, planes, helicopters, the idea that people would use these for anything other than novelty entertainment, and, I might add, extremely dangerous novelty entertainment, is utterly preposterous! What you've got here are some vague designs, which, quite frankly, I'm extremely sceptical about whether they'd even work, and you're asking us for how much?!'
'£10 million...' It was practically a whisper but Conrad still snorted at her. 'And they would work...' she said, staring down at her feet. 'The designs are perfect. No one else could have created these. The engineering and ideas are totally unique. They'll work, beautifully, and... I just need some investment to get started.'
'Yes, but we won't sell any of the bloody things!' Conrad shouted at her. The other three heads around the table nodded sagely in agreement.
Now Leo looked really confused. She squinted her eyes and tilted her head to one side, so that her frizzy brown ponytail rested against the shoulder of her brown polo neck. 'Who cares?' she asked them, looking at each of them individually like they were illogical problems that she was trying to straighten out. 'They will be beautiful. With them humans will be able to fly like the birds!'
Conrad saw Carol put on her best sympathetic look. She looked like she actually cared. God she was good at this. He wanted to fuck her right there and then. 'I'm sure they're lovely, Leo. Really, I am. I bet you worked extremely hard on them, but this is a competitive industry. If we're not finding guaranteed ways to make money then we're failing ourselves. And we have the best engineers in the country begging for jobs here, and I can't help noticing that you don't have any official qualifications, nor any real portfolio to speak of, so we just can't offer you anything.'
That's right, thought Conrad. God knows how you impressed whoever it was downstairs who had set up this meeting. He was going to have to have words.
But Leo wasn't listening. She had turned her back to them and was facing out of the window of the meeting room on the 43rd floor of the Shard building that looked across the Thames over the city of London. She appeared to be doing something with her hands. The four board members sighed with exasperation after two minutes. After five minutes Conrad said, 'This is ridiculous...' just as Leo turned back to them. In her hands was a paper origami bird. She lifted it to her lips and blew on its wings. It flew, just like a real bird, round and round the room, right past their faces, diving to the table and rising to the ceiling, eventually coming to rest by nesting in Carol's hair. The board members stared at it in childlike wonder, then turned to Leo. But she was already gone.
'The thing is, Leo,' said Carol, 'we just can't see any practical application for this product.'
The small woman, Leo, looked up at Carol with disbelief in her eyes.
'Practical application?' she asked, her voice quivering slightly (which really annoyed Conrad). 'The practical application is that they're wings that will let people fly!'
'Yes, but so what?' Conrad shot at her. 'Who cares? What an annoying way to get about! We have perfectly good cars, planes, helicopters, the idea that people would use these for anything other than novelty entertainment, and, I might add, extremely dangerous novelty entertainment, is utterly preposterous! What you've got here are some vague designs, which, quite frankly, I'm extremely sceptical about whether they'd even work, and you're asking us for how much?!'
'£10 million...' It was practically a whisper but Conrad still snorted at her. 'And they would work...' she said, staring down at her feet. 'The designs are perfect. No one else could have created these. The engineering and ideas are totally unique. They'll work, beautifully, and... I just need some investment to get started.'
'Yes, but we won't sell any of the bloody things!' Conrad shouted at her. The other three heads around the table nodded sagely in agreement.
Now Leo looked really confused. She squinted her eyes and tilted her head to one side, so that her frizzy brown ponytail rested against the shoulder of her brown polo neck. 'Who cares?' she asked them, looking at each of them individually like they were illogical problems that she was trying to straighten out. 'They will be beautiful. With them humans will be able to fly like the birds!'
Conrad saw Carol put on her best sympathetic look. She looked like she actually cared. God she was good at this. He wanted to fuck her right there and then. 'I'm sure they're lovely, Leo. Really, I am. I bet you worked extremely hard on them, but this is a competitive industry. If we're not finding guaranteed ways to make money then we're failing ourselves. And we have the best engineers in the country begging for jobs here, and I can't help noticing that you don't have any official qualifications, nor any real portfolio to speak of, so we just can't offer you anything.'
That's right, thought Conrad. God knows how you impressed whoever it was downstairs who had set up this meeting. He was going to have to have words.
But Leo wasn't listening. She had turned her back to them and was facing out of the window of the meeting room on the 43rd floor of the Shard building that looked across the Thames over the city of London. She appeared to be doing something with her hands. The four board members sighed with exasperation after two minutes. After five minutes Conrad said, 'This is ridiculous...' just as Leo turned back to them. In her hands was a paper origami bird. She lifted it to her lips and blew on its wings. It flew, just like a real bird, round and round the room, right past their faces, diving to the table and rising to the ceiling, eventually coming to rest by nesting in Carol's hair. The board members stared at it in childlike wonder, then turned to Leo. But she was already gone.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Christmas Special
Given that it's Christmas, here's a genuine (in that it actually happened) memory of my own from Christmas a few years ago. I don't have many interesting stories, hence the need to make them up, and this one isn't particularly groundbreaking, but it's mine, and it's Christmas, so there it is.
Speaking of Christmas, now's probably as good a time as ever to say thank you to everyone and anyone who has been reading this blog (I won't say it for another year, so make the most of it). It's been a fun start, and I'm enjoying the challenge of writing a story a day. Except today of course, where I've kinda taken the easy option. But like I said, it's Christmas. Anyway, keep coming back and let me know if there are any that catch your eye. And have a Merry Fucking Christmas yourself.
I was six in '92 and all I wanted for Christmas was a Sega Mega Drive. I made this abundantly clear to my dad, who liked to refer to it as an SMD or "Smelly Metal Donkey" (he fancied himself a bit of a joker). In the weeks leading up to Christmas the two of us developed a bed time ritual whereby he would ask me what I wanted for Christmas and I would reply, "A Sega Mega Drive!".
Him: "An SMD?"
Me: "Yeah!"
Him: "A Smelly Metal Donkey?"
Me: "Yeah!"
I was six and thought this was a fun little joke that my dad and I shared. I thought we were bonding. I felt that he was taking an active role as a parent in making his son feel good and supported in his hobbies and interests. I can't even remember why I wanted a Mega Drive so much, other than that they were, and still are, fucking awesome.
On Christmas Eve the tradition in my family was that we'd take the wrapped presents from my parents' room and put them under the Christmas tree (one of the reasons, as well as a naturally sceptical mind, why I never really remember actually believing in Santa). Amid the hoard of goodies was a giant (to a six year old) box on which were written the words, "IS THIS THE SMD?!" Needless to say, I didn't sleep a wink that night.
The next morning, Christmas Day, I rushed downstairs cos I knew that I'd be allowed to open one present before we all went to church. I instantly grabbed the giant box and tore the wrapping off it. Underneath the wrapping was a cardboard box which I also pretty much ripped apart. Inside was a hell of a lot of polystyrene packaging which I threw aside as I dived into what I expected would be Sega fuelled goodness. Instead I found, right at the bottom, a small plastic donkey which had been drenched in my dad's cheap aftershave. I've never cried so hard in my life. My whole world had collapsed. All my dreams and expectations, cruelly nurtured by my dad, had been exposed as lies and cheap distractions.
It was only then that a guilty dad was ordered upstairs by my mum to bring down a present which I was told to open despite my tantrum, and there, in all its glory, was my shiny new Sega Mega Drive with its copy of Sonic the Hedgehog. Joke was on my dad as he didn't see me for the rest of Christmas. In retrospect, I was a fucking brat of a child, and probably would've taken away a more accurate life view if my dad had stuck to his guns. I don't begrudge him that, though.
P.S. One of the other presents my dad got me that year ('92, remember, when I was six) was the VHS of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I loved it, and watched it obsessively, but even so, that was a brave move by any parent. It's only in the years after that you truly appreciate your parents for who they are.
Speaking of Christmas, now's probably as good a time as ever to say thank you to everyone and anyone who has been reading this blog (I won't say it for another year, so make the most of it). It's been a fun start, and I'm enjoying the challenge of writing a story a day. Except today of course, where I've kinda taken the easy option. But like I said, it's Christmas. Anyway, keep coming back and let me know if there are any that catch your eye. And have a Merry Fucking Christmas yourself.
I was six in '92 and all I wanted for Christmas was a Sega Mega Drive. I made this abundantly clear to my dad, who liked to refer to it as an SMD or "Smelly Metal Donkey" (he fancied himself a bit of a joker). In the weeks leading up to Christmas the two of us developed a bed time ritual whereby he would ask me what I wanted for Christmas and I would reply, "A Sega Mega Drive!".
Him: "An SMD?"
Me: "Yeah!"
Him: "A Smelly Metal Donkey?"
Me: "Yeah!"
I was six and thought this was a fun little joke that my dad and I shared. I thought we were bonding. I felt that he was taking an active role as a parent in making his son feel good and supported in his hobbies and interests. I can't even remember why I wanted a Mega Drive so much, other than that they were, and still are, fucking awesome.
On Christmas Eve the tradition in my family was that we'd take the wrapped presents from my parents' room and put them under the Christmas tree (one of the reasons, as well as a naturally sceptical mind, why I never really remember actually believing in Santa). Amid the hoard of goodies was a giant (to a six year old) box on which were written the words, "IS THIS THE SMD?!" Needless to say, I didn't sleep a wink that night.
The next morning, Christmas Day, I rushed downstairs cos I knew that I'd be allowed to open one present before we all went to church. I instantly grabbed the giant box and tore the wrapping off it. Underneath the wrapping was a cardboard box which I also pretty much ripped apart. Inside was a hell of a lot of polystyrene packaging which I threw aside as I dived into what I expected would be Sega fuelled goodness. Instead I found, right at the bottom, a small plastic donkey which had been drenched in my dad's cheap aftershave. I've never cried so hard in my life. My whole world had collapsed. All my dreams and expectations, cruelly nurtured by my dad, had been exposed as lies and cheap distractions.
It was only then that a guilty dad was ordered upstairs by my mum to bring down a present which I was told to open despite my tantrum, and there, in all its glory, was my shiny new Sega Mega Drive with its copy of Sonic the Hedgehog. Joke was on my dad as he didn't see me for the rest of Christmas. In retrospect, I was a fucking brat of a child, and probably would've taken away a more accurate life view if my dad had stuck to his guns. I don't begrudge him that, though.
P.S. One of the other presents my dad got me that year ('92, remember, when I was six) was the VHS of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I loved it, and watched it obsessively, but even so, that was a brave move by any parent. It's only in the years after that you truly appreciate your parents for who they are.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
014
'I love the way you ticket, by the way.'
She turned around.
'Pardon, mate?'
'Your err... ticketing. It's very.. efficient.'
'Do you need something?'
Fuck. OK, Pete told himself, it's OK, just take a deep breath and think back to what you'd planned. Fuck. What had he planned? To come over here, think of something witty, complimentary and possibly even slightly saucy to say, and then ride the wave from there. Fuck.
'Err.. no.'
'Right, well do you mind moving then please? You're getting in the way of the car.'
'Yes, sorry.'
He stepped aside to let the woman move round the front of the car and take a photo. She shook her head. Pete's neck crackled slightly.
'Look, I was wondering if I could ask you something...'
'This your car?'
'No.'
'You got a car parked nearby?'
'No, I don't even drive. I mean, I got my license when I was 17 but I haven't actually driven a car since then. I don't really see the point, round London, y'know? I just cycle everywhere. But, err..'
She squinted at him. 'What you want then?'
'I think it's... y'know, I think our shifts match up, I mean, your morning route along this road and my morning coffee and breakfast in that cafe over there seem to match up cos I've seen you almost every morning for the last six months and, err...'
She was leaning back slightly on her right hip, arms crossed, glaring at him.
'And?'
'And I was wondering if maybe you'd like to take a break and have.. a coffee? With me?'
She laughed. Pete tried not to outwardly sigh. 'Are you taking the piss?'
'No.'
'Is this some wind up?'
'No!'
'Then why do you want to have coffee with me?'
That was a good question. She definitely wasn't the face/body type/ethnicity he was attracted to usually. 'I'm... not sure? I've just... seen you every morning for the last six months and something about you... was interesting.'
'How old are you?'
22.
'28.'
'I'm 43, mate.'
'So? How did we get to.. I mean, age isn't, it doesn't.. bother me.'
He probably should've thought of something better to say there. This was kind of it for Pete. He'd launched all his proverbial rockets and seen them bounce off as duds from her green and silver-streaked anorak and hat. Good time to make an exit that might save some esteem. Bad time to mention that he'd called her '4092' in his head because that was the number on her shoulder.
'You definitely don't have a car?' she asked.
'No! I don't even really have any friends who have cars.'
'Hmmm....'
Then she printed out the ticket, stuck it under the car's windscreen wiper, and walked off. Pete stood there for a moment, then turned and walked back to the cafe. He sat down and thought about what might happen in 24 hours time. She'd walk past. She wouldn't be on the route anymore. She'd walk in, sit opposite him, smile, and say, 'So, tell me more about my ticketing...' He'd put even money on any of the three happening. He waited until he knew she was several streets away then walked back to his car and took the ticket from the windscreen. £40 seemed a fair price to pay for a chance.
She turned around.
'Pardon, mate?'
'Your err... ticketing. It's very.. efficient.'
'Do you need something?'
Fuck. OK, Pete told himself, it's OK, just take a deep breath and think back to what you'd planned. Fuck. What had he planned? To come over here, think of something witty, complimentary and possibly even slightly saucy to say, and then ride the wave from there. Fuck.
'Err.. no.'
'Right, well do you mind moving then please? You're getting in the way of the car.'
'Yes, sorry.'
He stepped aside to let the woman move round the front of the car and take a photo. She shook her head. Pete's neck crackled slightly.
'Look, I was wondering if I could ask you something...'
'This your car?'
'No.'
'You got a car parked nearby?'
'No, I don't even drive. I mean, I got my license when I was 17 but I haven't actually driven a car since then. I don't really see the point, round London, y'know? I just cycle everywhere. But, err..'
She squinted at him. 'What you want then?'
'I think it's... y'know, I think our shifts match up, I mean, your morning route along this road and my morning coffee and breakfast in that cafe over there seem to match up cos I've seen you almost every morning for the last six months and, err...'
She was leaning back slightly on her right hip, arms crossed, glaring at him.
'And?'
'And I was wondering if maybe you'd like to take a break and have.. a coffee? With me?'
She laughed. Pete tried not to outwardly sigh. 'Are you taking the piss?'
'No.'
'Is this some wind up?'
'No!'
'Then why do you want to have coffee with me?'
That was a good question. She definitely wasn't the face/body type/ethnicity he was attracted to usually. 'I'm... not sure? I've just... seen you every morning for the last six months and something about you... was interesting.'
'How old are you?'
22.
'28.'
'I'm 43, mate.'
'So? How did we get to.. I mean, age isn't, it doesn't.. bother me.'
He probably should've thought of something better to say there. This was kind of it for Pete. He'd launched all his proverbial rockets and seen them bounce off as duds from her green and silver-streaked anorak and hat. Good time to make an exit that might save some esteem. Bad time to mention that he'd called her '4092' in his head because that was the number on her shoulder.
'You definitely don't have a car?' she asked.
'No! I don't even really have any friends who have cars.'
'Hmmm....'
Then she printed out the ticket, stuck it under the car's windscreen wiper, and walked off. Pete stood there for a moment, then turned and walked back to the cafe. He sat down and thought about what might happen in 24 hours time. She'd walk past. She wouldn't be on the route anymore. She'd walk in, sit opposite him, smile, and say, 'So, tell me more about my ticketing...' He'd put even money on any of the three happening. He waited until he knew she was several streets away then walked back to his car and took the ticket from the windscreen. £40 seemed a fair price to pay for a chance.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
013
1057 – Archway Station Bus Depot. Nigel puts his Father Christmas hat on and checks himself in the mirror. It's a good hat. It's not one of those hats covered in silly frilly bollocks like glitter or bells that Nigel feels would undermine any festive dignity, but nor is it a cheap bit of tat that he picked up on the market. It's a nice deep lush red with what looks like genuine white fur lining the rim. It's a good hat.
1059 – Stop 1 – Archway Station Junction Road. The C11 pulls up to the stop and Nigel puts on his best Christmas grin. His hat sits at what could be described as a jaunty angle. Nine people get on the bus. They all largely ignore Nigel and his hat, tapping their Oyster cards against the reader and keeping their eyes fixed in a downwards direction. One old couple flash their passes at him, see the hat, smile and wish him a Merry Christmas. He wishes them the same.
1106 – Stop 6 – Brookfield Park. A young mother has difficulty getting her pushchair up and on to the bus. Nigel quietly hopes that someone will help her, but when he checks the mirror they are all looking out of the windows or at each other or anywhere but her. She eventually manages to lever the pushchair up and on. Nigel smiles at her, but she ignores him or doesn't see.
1110 – Stop 10 – Gordon House Road. A young boy, Nigel guesses about 14, gets on and tells Nigel that his hat looks 'well gay'. Nigel ignores him.
1117 – Stop 15 – Royal Free Hospital. The hat is starting to make Nigel feel self-conscious. As far as he can tell he's spread minimal festive cheer, has been directly insulted once, and indirectly (he assumes) many more times. He starts to wonder why people find it so difficult to cheer up at the sight of a slightly silly hat that's meant to remind them of happier times.
1124 – Stop 24 – Primrose Hill Road. Now this is a dilemma. A man has got on and tried to use an Oyster card that's out of credit. He's trying to put on his best look of incomprehension and claiming that he only just topped it up, but Nigel's heard it all before. Also, the man only looks a couple of sips of White Lightning away from collapsing on a park bench. He tells the man he'll have to get off. The man refuses. Nigel insists. 'Come on mate, it's Christmas.' Now Nigel is stuck. The man is gesturing at Nigel's hat. He wants to say, 'That doesn't matter,' to the man, but he knows the words will taste like ash in his mouth. 'Try it again,' he tells him. He does so. 'Yeah, it's fine, must have been a problem with the computer.' It's a lie, and not one Nigel feels great about. 'Merry Christmas!' the man says. Nigel half-smiles and nods.
1133 – Stop 31 – Fairhazel Gardens. A mother and child get on. The mother sees Nigel's hat and her mouth cracks into a wide, beaming smile. 'Look Justin!' she says to the child. 'Father Christmas is driving the bus!' The boy looks up in shock and awe. Nigel lets out a heartfelt 'Ho! Ho! Ho!' as the mother drags the enraptured child down the aisle. The kid doesn't stop watching Nigel for the rest of their journey.
1141 – Stop 39 – Solent Road. A badly shaven middle-aged man gets on and mutters, 'Prick,' under his breath as he taps his Oyster. Nigel smiles at the man and then accelerates away just as the man's about to sit down.
1149 – Stop 46 – Cricklewood. A group of giggling teenage girls get on. They see Nigel's hat and break out into hysterics. Nigel can't tell if they're laughing at him or not. He wishes them a Merry Christmas but they ignore him.
1157 – Stop 54 – Brent Cross. The final stop. Everyone gets off. No one says anything to Nigel. He slowly pulls the hat off his head and stares into the distance, not moving. Then he turns the bus around, puts the hat back on, and begins the return journey.
1059 – Stop 1 – Archway Station Junction Road. The C11 pulls up to the stop and Nigel puts on his best Christmas grin. His hat sits at what could be described as a jaunty angle. Nine people get on the bus. They all largely ignore Nigel and his hat, tapping their Oyster cards against the reader and keeping their eyes fixed in a downwards direction. One old couple flash their passes at him, see the hat, smile and wish him a Merry Christmas. He wishes them the same.
1106 – Stop 6 – Brookfield Park. A young mother has difficulty getting her pushchair up and on to the bus. Nigel quietly hopes that someone will help her, but when he checks the mirror they are all looking out of the windows or at each other or anywhere but her. She eventually manages to lever the pushchair up and on. Nigel smiles at her, but she ignores him or doesn't see.
1110 – Stop 10 – Gordon House Road. A young boy, Nigel guesses about 14, gets on and tells Nigel that his hat looks 'well gay'. Nigel ignores him.
1117 – Stop 15 – Royal Free Hospital. The hat is starting to make Nigel feel self-conscious. As far as he can tell he's spread minimal festive cheer, has been directly insulted once, and indirectly (he assumes) many more times. He starts to wonder why people find it so difficult to cheer up at the sight of a slightly silly hat that's meant to remind them of happier times.
1124 – Stop 24 – Primrose Hill Road. Now this is a dilemma. A man has got on and tried to use an Oyster card that's out of credit. He's trying to put on his best look of incomprehension and claiming that he only just topped it up, but Nigel's heard it all before. Also, the man only looks a couple of sips of White Lightning away from collapsing on a park bench. He tells the man he'll have to get off. The man refuses. Nigel insists. 'Come on mate, it's Christmas.' Now Nigel is stuck. The man is gesturing at Nigel's hat. He wants to say, 'That doesn't matter,' to the man, but he knows the words will taste like ash in his mouth. 'Try it again,' he tells him. He does so. 'Yeah, it's fine, must have been a problem with the computer.' It's a lie, and not one Nigel feels great about. 'Merry Christmas!' the man says. Nigel half-smiles and nods.
1133 – Stop 31 – Fairhazel Gardens. A mother and child get on. The mother sees Nigel's hat and her mouth cracks into a wide, beaming smile. 'Look Justin!' she says to the child. 'Father Christmas is driving the bus!' The boy looks up in shock and awe. Nigel lets out a heartfelt 'Ho! Ho! Ho!' as the mother drags the enraptured child down the aisle. The kid doesn't stop watching Nigel for the rest of their journey.
1141 – Stop 39 – Solent Road. A badly shaven middle-aged man gets on and mutters, 'Prick,' under his breath as he taps his Oyster. Nigel smiles at the man and then accelerates away just as the man's about to sit down.
1149 – Stop 46 – Cricklewood. A group of giggling teenage girls get on. They see Nigel's hat and break out into hysterics. Nigel can't tell if they're laughing at him or not. He wishes them a Merry Christmas but they ignore him.
1157 – Stop 54 – Brent Cross. The final stop. Everyone gets off. No one says anything to Nigel. He slowly pulls the hat off his head and stares into the distance, not moving. Then he turns the bus around, puts the hat back on, and begins the return journey.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
012
Ben's fingers slipped on the white glass pane as he tried to find a grip somewhere along the black iron frame that ran across its face. His feet were nestled securely into a couple of niches in the brickwork below but the easy part of the climb was over now. No more brick, no more obvious grips, now he was going to have to improvise. He looked straight up and saw that he had twenty minutes to finish his ascent. Two hundred feet below he could hear the murmurs and occasional screams of the ever-growing crowd that had gathered to watch him. He didn't dare look down for fear of losing his concentration, and hold, but he could sense what felt like hundreds of pairs of eyes boring into him – some offering encouragement, others waiting in anticipation of a grim anticlimax.
He tried once more to get a secure grip around the large metal V above his head and found that if he stretched right up and wedged his fingers hard enough round the back of it, he would have enough support to pull his body and legs up a few feet higher on to the black iron cross that sat beneath the V. So this he did. His path was becoming more obvious now; he was going to have to crab along sideways, using the giant numbers and the rows of metal encircling them to make his way indirectly to the top. He felt a wave of confidence wash over him that almost distracted him from the burning cramp in his arms and legs. Sweat ran down his face in heavy streams, stinging his eyes and making his t-shirt cling tightly to his body in the winter's chilly midday sun. He should've worn some gloves. Red marks and blisters had erupted all over his body. His chest heaved and sank in irregular rhythms. Still, he was convinced, he was going to make it to the top.
The letters to his left looked easier to climb, so he stretched out a hand towards them and slowly edged his body over there. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a helicopter following the course of the river towards him. He remained there, motionless, as he waited for it to get to him. It hovered about fifty metres away, another passive observer of his climb. It didn't make any noise, other than the steady thrumming of its rotors, and he couldn't make out any insignia on its side, so after a few minutes cautiously watching it, he moved his left leg over to where his left and right hands were resting and continued his journey. He was keeping a steady pace behind the large hand, eager not to try and overcomplicate things by trying to overtake it, and cautious about what would happen if he tried to use it to support any of his weight. Just under twelve minutes to go.
It was when Ben was at possibly the easiest point and heading directly upwards, manoeuvring towards the IX above his head, that his right foot slipped on the iron railing below and his whole body slumped downwards. Out of instinct, his fingers tightened their grip around the top bars of the sideways X, but that wasn't enough to stop his hands slowly sliding down along the sloped diagonals until they bumped into each other at the centre and started squeezing hard together. His feet dangled and flayed beneath him, scrabbling for some support. His face was pressed up tight against the glass and iron and he couldn't see or move and was rapidly feeling the panic overwhelm him. He thought he could hear a lot more screaming from down below. The helicopter sounded like it was moving now, possibly to get a better angle on his position, or maybe there was more than one of them now. The pain in his hands and along his arms was getting unbearable. This was it. In a few seconds, he knew, his own body would force him to let go and he'd plunge. And just as it was all too much his feet finally hooked in to some secure bit of metal and he was able to relax the tension in his arms.
He looked up. Five minutes. Shit. One last final squirt of adrenaline rushed through him and he found unknown strength in his limbs. He could hear a cheer rising up from the crowd below. He was so close now. Not even concentrating, just letting his arms and legs move in the same gradual motions that they had been for the last few hours. Until. Finally. There he was. Poised, hanging, next to the giant hand as it moved slowly towards the upright little hand that was pointed almost directly at the XII above it. And as they swung together, and the bell in the tower chimed, Ben moved his body across and sat on top of the hands and shouted, 'Who's the Big Ben now?!' and even as he said it he knew that it hadn't been worth the effort.
He tried once more to get a secure grip around the large metal V above his head and found that if he stretched right up and wedged his fingers hard enough round the back of it, he would have enough support to pull his body and legs up a few feet higher on to the black iron cross that sat beneath the V. So this he did. His path was becoming more obvious now; he was going to have to crab along sideways, using the giant numbers and the rows of metal encircling them to make his way indirectly to the top. He felt a wave of confidence wash over him that almost distracted him from the burning cramp in his arms and legs. Sweat ran down his face in heavy streams, stinging his eyes and making his t-shirt cling tightly to his body in the winter's chilly midday sun. He should've worn some gloves. Red marks and blisters had erupted all over his body. His chest heaved and sank in irregular rhythms. Still, he was convinced, he was going to make it to the top.
The letters to his left looked easier to climb, so he stretched out a hand towards them and slowly edged his body over there. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a helicopter following the course of the river towards him. He remained there, motionless, as he waited for it to get to him. It hovered about fifty metres away, another passive observer of his climb. It didn't make any noise, other than the steady thrumming of its rotors, and he couldn't make out any insignia on its side, so after a few minutes cautiously watching it, he moved his left leg over to where his left and right hands were resting and continued his journey. He was keeping a steady pace behind the large hand, eager not to try and overcomplicate things by trying to overtake it, and cautious about what would happen if he tried to use it to support any of his weight. Just under twelve minutes to go.
It was when Ben was at possibly the easiest point and heading directly upwards, manoeuvring towards the IX above his head, that his right foot slipped on the iron railing below and his whole body slumped downwards. Out of instinct, his fingers tightened their grip around the top bars of the sideways X, but that wasn't enough to stop his hands slowly sliding down along the sloped diagonals until they bumped into each other at the centre and started squeezing hard together. His feet dangled and flayed beneath him, scrabbling for some support. His face was pressed up tight against the glass and iron and he couldn't see or move and was rapidly feeling the panic overwhelm him. He thought he could hear a lot more screaming from down below. The helicopter sounded like it was moving now, possibly to get a better angle on his position, or maybe there was more than one of them now. The pain in his hands and along his arms was getting unbearable. This was it. In a few seconds, he knew, his own body would force him to let go and he'd plunge. And just as it was all too much his feet finally hooked in to some secure bit of metal and he was able to relax the tension in his arms.
He looked up. Five minutes. Shit. One last final squirt of adrenaline rushed through him and he found unknown strength in his limbs. He could hear a cheer rising up from the crowd below. He was so close now. Not even concentrating, just letting his arms and legs move in the same gradual motions that they had been for the last few hours. Until. Finally. There he was. Poised, hanging, next to the giant hand as it moved slowly towards the upright little hand that was pointed almost directly at the XII above it. And as they swung together, and the bell in the tower chimed, Ben moved his body across and sat on top of the hands and shouted, 'Who's the Big Ben now?!' and even as he said it he knew that it hadn't been worth the effort.
Monday, December 19, 2011
011
I walked through Waterlow Park in the crisp morning mist. My bare feet touched cold morning dew, frozen white and grey like my dress that clung tattered and clear to my legs. I caressed the purple petals of flowers that hung heavy and let my fingers run delicately over their smooth skin, feeling their softness and trying to pull that sensation into my self. Bright red splashes spilled from my body and stained the ground where I trod. Black smudges and marks on a fruit that had been dropped and smashed. A fenced in pond shimmered, tiny ripples danced over its surface and I laughed despite myself. I crouched down by its side and rested my hand on its freezing surface. I whispered sweet lullabies to it and asked for it to dissolve my own turbulent waves into its shiny black surface. As I awaited its response I felt the sudden wet nose of a dog pressing into the back of my neck and I ran from that place screaming, hair and skin trailing behind me.
A hard bench, wrought iron and prickly wooden slats, where I found myself collapsed and weeping. It could have been the view, at the bottom of a valley, bare but for a single tree run through with rot. Coming apart from the inside. Infected by invisible parasites violently placed to strip away the leaves and bark so all that's left is a husk, good for the fire. I wept then for things lost. For terrible knowledge. For unsolicited feelings that filled my chest and made my limbs ache. I hoped to find a feeling or a word. I hoped to find despair but knew that I was now too numb for the privilege.
A mother came past, pushing a baby in a pram. I fell to my knees before the child and started to babble to her about truth and pain and existence and brutality and the strangeness of others and purity and innocence and she looked at me with beautiful wide eyes, a light, clear, impossible blue, and I saw her smile at hearing of all the horrors that awaited her until her mother came from round the back of the pram and pushed me away so I fell back on to the grass and a great spurt of blood erupted from me and the baby burst into tears and the mother stared at me, sickened, as I giggled and started rubbing my arms and legs back and forth against the grass, like you do when you make snow angels, and I hummed and sang nonsense rhymes to myself and to the world and I rubbed my head back and forth and remembered the last time I had lain like this and then I stopped frozen staring into nothing, my lips pouted just so slightly, my features frozen, while the mother asked if I was OK and I rolled over on to my front and slept.
When I awoke the Sun had burned away the mist and the park was too full of people. Joggers, walkers, parents and lovers, too many normal people for me to see and I knew my time there was done. I stumbled up the hill and along the grass towards an exit, taking to care not to walk on the paths. The adrenaline that had kept me initially afloat was seeping out with my blood, so now I shivered constantly. The tears on my cheeks were dried and frozen. Scarlet blood still dripped. A howl at a look of concern. Hands up and tearing at a sympathetic arm as I slipped and fell. Strangers all of them, no one left in the world who would know who I am or recognise me. Hundreds. Thousands. Miles away. Choking at the fingers of ghosts around my neck, flinching at sensations of pressing and stretching.
I emerged on to the street and joined the tide of people taking care to ignore each other. I knew where I was headed. I'd read of its beauty and macabre nature in the travel guide of London I'd been handed on the boat. Uphill all the way, my legs empty, sucking the last bit of essence my heart still had in it, trying to tell myself that it would be worth it, as if all the hope hadn't been squeezed and stamped out already. Across roads, stepping out blindly, cars screeching, horns blaring, people shouting, and all I could do was keep my head down and hold the last fragments of my dress around my shoulders and mumble incoherent prayers, the kind my mother would chant to me every night, and felt the sore heaving in my throat as I sobbed my last. Until finally a bridge and beneath it, in all its splendour, the city of London. Where I had been bought. Of my own free will, I could hardly remember. The city I had always dreamed of. And this infamous bridge. I stood on its railings, felt their sympathetic chill under my curled toes. Then I tipped back, threw my head up to the heavens, and fell towards peace. The papers called me the Ophelia of Highgate. If only they knew.
A hard bench, wrought iron and prickly wooden slats, where I found myself collapsed and weeping. It could have been the view, at the bottom of a valley, bare but for a single tree run through with rot. Coming apart from the inside. Infected by invisible parasites violently placed to strip away the leaves and bark so all that's left is a husk, good for the fire. I wept then for things lost. For terrible knowledge. For unsolicited feelings that filled my chest and made my limbs ache. I hoped to find a feeling or a word. I hoped to find despair but knew that I was now too numb for the privilege.
A mother came past, pushing a baby in a pram. I fell to my knees before the child and started to babble to her about truth and pain and existence and brutality and the strangeness of others and purity and innocence and she looked at me with beautiful wide eyes, a light, clear, impossible blue, and I saw her smile at hearing of all the horrors that awaited her until her mother came from round the back of the pram and pushed me away so I fell back on to the grass and a great spurt of blood erupted from me and the baby burst into tears and the mother stared at me, sickened, as I giggled and started rubbing my arms and legs back and forth against the grass, like you do when you make snow angels, and I hummed and sang nonsense rhymes to myself and to the world and I rubbed my head back and forth and remembered the last time I had lain like this and then I stopped frozen staring into nothing, my lips pouted just so slightly, my features frozen, while the mother asked if I was OK and I rolled over on to my front and slept.
When I awoke the Sun had burned away the mist and the park was too full of people. Joggers, walkers, parents and lovers, too many normal people for me to see and I knew my time there was done. I stumbled up the hill and along the grass towards an exit, taking to care not to walk on the paths. The adrenaline that had kept me initially afloat was seeping out with my blood, so now I shivered constantly. The tears on my cheeks were dried and frozen. Scarlet blood still dripped. A howl at a look of concern. Hands up and tearing at a sympathetic arm as I slipped and fell. Strangers all of them, no one left in the world who would know who I am or recognise me. Hundreds. Thousands. Miles away. Choking at the fingers of ghosts around my neck, flinching at sensations of pressing and stretching.
I emerged on to the street and joined the tide of people taking care to ignore each other. I knew where I was headed. I'd read of its beauty and macabre nature in the travel guide of London I'd been handed on the boat. Uphill all the way, my legs empty, sucking the last bit of essence my heart still had in it, trying to tell myself that it would be worth it, as if all the hope hadn't been squeezed and stamped out already. Across roads, stepping out blindly, cars screeching, horns blaring, people shouting, and all I could do was keep my head down and hold the last fragments of my dress around my shoulders and mumble incoherent prayers, the kind my mother would chant to me every night, and felt the sore heaving in my throat as I sobbed my last. Until finally a bridge and beneath it, in all its splendour, the city of London. Where I had been bought. Of my own free will, I could hardly remember. The city I had always dreamed of. And this infamous bridge. I stood on its railings, felt their sympathetic chill under my curled toes. Then I tipped back, threw my head up to the heavens, and fell towards peace. The papers called me the Ophelia of Highgate. If only they knew.
Friday, December 16, 2011
010
Polly is glaring at Monica because of what she's just said and Rex is watching them both with an amused look on his face, waiting to see whether Polly is going to go off one one like she does when Monica makes some crass generalisation about the state of the country, which Rex enjoys because it gives him a chance to use the kind of inane or inflammatory language that he knows will wind them both up but they'll be too caught up in trying to prove the other one wrong to direct their ire towards him, while Lil Jim sits back on the bench with his arms stretched out either side of him in a relaxed pose with a calm and benign look on his face that he likes to put on whenever tensions flare like this because he feels that radiating peace will somehow have an affect in dissipating the tension, which it never does, but now Monica is starting to realise that maybe it's too soon to be starting an argument, at least before she's got the ammunition she needs in order to end it decisively, so she offers to get a round in and takes the orders of each person at the table – Polly has a glass of wine, Rex has a vodka and coke, Lil Jim has an ale and Monica plans on getting herself a gin and tonic because what she really wants is a cocktail but she knows that this, their local, isn't exactly the kind of place that serves cocktails – in the hope that this will distract from the anger that Polly is directing at her, and give her a chance to check her facts on her iPhone and come back with some referenced material with which to quash Polly and make her see sense instead of clinging on to her ridiculously idealistic beliefs (it's a flawed hope, she knows, because she's been trying it for years)
…
and while Monica is at the bar, Rex turns to Lil Jim and starts explaining to Lil Jim why he [Lil Jim] is still single and that the main cause is his inability to be close or intimate with anyone because of his own moralistic hang ups and that the sooner he drops these and finally accepts that getting laid is the right course of action for leading a balanced psychological life in this day and age the sooner he'll stop being so fucking awkward every time they go out and meet new people and Rex goes on to explain what he means via a story about the last time Rex was out on the pull (last night) and how there are certain techniques which make getting a girl to sleep with you an almost certainty, only he uses particularly crass language and goes into full lurid details about what he and the girl did when they got back to his and throughout Lil Jim is trying to maintain his nonchalant expression and body language but Polly can see that Rex is getting to Lil Jim and she wonders whether she ought to intervene but she finds that she can't because deep down she agrees with Rex, although not his methods, and has always considered it a great waste that someone as lovely as Lil Jim has never had a romantic relationship with anyone because of his innate fears and for a long time she wondered whether he was deeply repressed or something and still hasn't found an answer to that question but finally Rex goes too far in his graphic descriptions and both Polly and Lil Jim signal this to Rex who just laughs his amused giveashit laugh and tells them both to lighten up
…
at which point Monica returns with the drinks and they all clink glasses for the 5th time and prepare for the next round of argument which begins almost instantly with Polly telling Monica that she's baffled at her confidence in having an opinion about the state of the nation when she has no real interaction with it as she spends all her time consuming and buying in the flawed hope of somehow filling the empty gap in her soul that her parents left there through neglect and Monica tells Polly not to get so fucking pretentious just because she [Polly] thinks she's somehow making a difference with all her action and opinions because she wouldn't be so free to do so if it weren't for people like her [Monica] making those opportunities available and she quotes some piece of text that she's just read on the internet that she thinks will prove her point, and Polly replies with a quote that she too read in an article that was a response to the one Monica had read and they both realise that they're in a deadlock because they've run out of original thoughts and so Lil Jim chips in with a trite bit of philosophy, as he likes to do, and no one has the energy or desire to tell him to fuck off, and so it's left to Rex to make some inappropriate joke so that they can move on and just get drunk together.
…
and while Monica is at the bar, Rex turns to Lil Jim and starts explaining to Lil Jim why he [Lil Jim] is still single and that the main cause is his inability to be close or intimate with anyone because of his own moralistic hang ups and that the sooner he drops these and finally accepts that getting laid is the right course of action for leading a balanced psychological life in this day and age the sooner he'll stop being so fucking awkward every time they go out and meet new people and Rex goes on to explain what he means via a story about the last time Rex was out on the pull (last night) and how there are certain techniques which make getting a girl to sleep with you an almost certainty, only he uses particularly crass language and goes into full lurid details about what he and the girl did when they got back to his and throughout Lil Jim is trying to maintain his nonchalant expression and body language but Polly can see that Rex is getting to Lil Jim and she wonders whether she ought to intervene but she finds that she can't because deep down she agrees with Rex, although not his methods, and has always considered it a great waste that someone as lovely as Lil Jim has never had a romantic relationship with anyone because of his innate fears and for a long time she wondered whether he was deeply repressed or something and still hasn't found an answer to that question but finally Rex goes too far in his graphic descriptions and both Polly and Lil Jim signal this to Rex who just laughs his amused giveashit laugh and tells them both to lighten up
…
at which point Monica returns with the drinks and they all clink glasses for the 5th time and prepare for the next round of argument which begins almost instantly with Polly telling Monica that she's baffled at her confidence in having an opinion about the state of the nation when she has no real interaction with it as she spends all her time consuming and buying in the flawed hope of somehow filling the empty gap in her soul that her parents left there through neglect and Monica tells Polly not to get so fucking pretentious just because she [Polly] thinks she's somehow making a difference with all her action and opinions because she wouldn't be so free to do so if it weren't for people like her [Monica] making those opportunities available and she quotes some piece of text that she's just read on the internet that she thinks will prove her point, and Polly replies with a quote that she too read in an article that was a response to the one Monica had read and they both realise that they're in a deadlock because they've run out of original thoughts and so Lil Jim chips in with a trite bit of philosophy, as he likes to do, and no one has the energy or desire to tell him to fuck off, and so it's left to Rex to make some inappropriate joke so that they can move on and just get drunk together.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
009
Juliette and Barnod Aranovski first arrived in London in 1853. The pair started off performing magic tricks in the pubs around Spitalfields. They mostly performed card tricks and up-close illusions but before long they had garnered a reputation for impressive sleight of hand and a repertoire that was both original and humorous. At the time, the majority of acts would go from pub to pub performing the same rudimentary tricks, the mechanics of which were known to the regulars and fans of the trade. But the Aranovskis had developed an act that managed to play with the assumptions of their audience – leading them on to what they thought was an inevitable conclusion before a surprise reveal, such as Barnod pulling a card from out of his mouth, that no one expected.
Soon they had become a regular act at the newly built Alhambra theatre in Leicester Square, where they entertained packed houses with their pioneering magic show. They developed illusions that were decades ahead of their time. Many of the standards of modern day illusions, such as the sawing in half of a woman in a box, or levitation, were first practised by the Aranovskis. Juliette would do all the talking to the audience, while Barnod would perform the technical aspects of the pieces. One of their most famous tricks was the Dead Cat, where Juliette would present a normal looking black cat, and take it round the audience to show off its authenticity. Barnod would then take a hammer and appear to batter the cat to death. Barnod would then bring the cat back to life by playing a continuous C# on the French horn. Their show was described by the Times in 1855 as a 'spellbinding triumph. This wondrous duo push the envelope in terms of what can be conceived of and achieved on stage with their unique magical abilities and charming on stage personas'.
Not much was ever known about the personal life of the Aranovskis. Juliette spoke with a regional accent that was impossible to place and Barnod never spoke in public. It was assumed that the two enjoyed the air of mystery that they created around themselves and cultivated it so as to enhance the mystique of their shows. They were known to be regular guests at Buckingham Palace, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert would often make trips to the Alhambra whenever the Aranovskis had a new set to perform. It is believed that Prince Albert was so fascinated by Barnod’s abilities that he offered to sponsor Barnod for a research position at the Royal Society, a position that Barnod turned down due to his desire to concentrate fully on the show. The pair were rarely seen on the streets of London and when they were they would be mobbed by the public, desperate to see a new trick or hear how a trick was done. To the former request, they were happy to oblige, but they never told a single soul how their tricks were executed, nor did they record their techniques down on paper, so many of their methods are still unknown.
The Aranovskis enjoyed fame and success for over fifteen years, but, inevitably, the ideas started to dry up and younger, more innovative acts began to emerge. These young illusionists no doubt had a great debt towards the Aranovskis in terms of what it was possible to do with on stage magic and showmanship, but they rarely acknowledged this. As the audiences waned, the Aranovskis decided to put on one last show that would include all their greatest hits and culminate in the Great Disembodiment, where Barnod took himself apart limb by limb, piece by piece, only to be re-assembled by Juliette. It was an incredible illusion, one that was considered unsurpassable at the time, but still it was not enough to halt their inevitable decline.
With their act finished, the Aranovskis descended into poverty. Their desire not to move in the great social circles of the day meant that their few rich and powerful friends soon disappeared and, with no other source of income, they lived by the barest means possible. In one bizarre move, Juliette and Barnod posed naked in a series of photos, but this early attempt at sensationalism was largely ignored. Juliette died in 1876 from tuberculosis. It is not known what happened to Barnod, but it's thought that the grief over Juliette's death broke him to pieces and that he died soon after.
Below are the only two pictures that still survive of the Aranovskis. First is the pair posing for their Dead Cat illusion, and second is a picture from the series of nude shots taken c.1875.
Soon they had become a regular act at the newly built Alhambra theatre in Leicester Square, where they entertained packed houses with their pioneering magic show. They developed illusions that were decades ahead of their time. Many of the standards of modern day illusions, such as the sawing in half of a woman in a box, or levitation, were first practised by the Aranovskis. Juliette would do all the talking to the audience, while Barnod would perform the technical aspects of the pieces. One of their most famous tricks was the Dead Cat, where Juliette would present a normal looking black cat, and take it round the audience to show off its authenticity. Barnod would then take a hammer and appear to batter the cat to death. Barnod would then bring the cat back to life by playing a continuous C# on the French horn. Their show was described by the Times in 1855 as a 'spellbinding triumph. This wondrous duo push the envelope in terms of what can be conceived of and achieved on stage with their unique magical abilities and charming on stage personas'.
Not much was ever known about the personal life of the Aranovskis. Juliette spoke with a regional accent that was impossible to place and Barnod never spoke in public. It was assumed that the two enjoyed the air of mystery that they created around themselves and cultivated it so as to enhance the mystique of their shows. They were known to be regular guests at Buckingham Palace, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert would often make trips to the Alhambra whenever the Aranovskis had a new set to perform. It is believed that Prince Albert was so fascinated by Barnod’s abilities that he offered to sponsor Barnod for a research position at the Royal Society, a position that Barnod turned down due to his desire to concentrate fully on the show. The pair were rarely seen on the streets of London and when they were they would be mobbed by the public, desperate to see a new trick or hear how a trick was done. To the former request, they were happy to oblige, but they never told a single soul how their tricks were executed, nor did they record their techniques down on paper, so many of their methods are still unknown.
The Aranovskis enjoyed fame and success for over fifteen years, but, inevitably, the ideas started to dry up and younger, more innovative acts began to emerge. These young illusionists no doubt had a great debt towards the Aranovskis in terms of what it was possible to do with on stage magic and showmanship, but they rarely acknowledged this. As the audiences waned, the Aranovskis decided to put on one last show that would include all their greatest hits and culminate in the Great Disembodiment, where Barnod took himself apart limb by limb, piece by piece, only to be re-assembled by Juliette. It was an incredible illusion, one that was considered unsurpassable at the time, but still it was not enough to halt their inevitable decline.
With their act finished, the Aranovskis descended into poverty. Their desire not to move in the great social circles of the day meant that their few rich and powerful friends soon disappeared and, with no other source of income, they lived by the barest means possible. In one bizarre move, Juliette and Barnod posed naked in a series of photos, but this early attempt at sensationalism was largely ignored. Juliette died in 1876 from tuberculosis. It is not known what happened to Barnod, but it's thought that the grief over Juliette's death broke him to pieces and that he died soon after.
Below are the only two pictures that still survive of the Aranovskis. First is the pair posing for their Dead Cat illusion, and second is a picture from the series of nude shots taken c.1875.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
008
- Here's for the preacher.
- I told you, I ain't no preacher.
- Well here's for the man then. Here's for the women and the children. Here's for the grace of God almighty.
- Oh god.
- Come now, preacher...
- I ain't no preacher!
- Come now and accept your reward for the things you have bestowed upon us. Drink from this cup.
- Ack.
- Drink. Good. Accept the blessings of the people you have served for so long. Take to heart their final message and their rewards for the gifts you have forced upon them. Look out on the sea of faces that have come to hear your thoughts in words and to learn from your wisdom. Speak, let them hear what you have to say.
- You're... there's no one here... I... please, I'm not a bad person...
- Speak and pray for their love. Speak and pray and perhaps their love will set you free.
- I... please... there's been some mistake...
- Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to remember the actions of one man who took it upon himself to cleanse us of our sins by accepting them for himself. The murders..
- No.
- The rapes...
- No..
- The deceits..
- No...
- And the tortures. All at the hands of the man you see before you. He is at our mercy now, and we at his. Come, preacher, and give us that which we need. Give us that which we are drawn towards, that which we yearn for, that which we need to satisfy our souls. Give us repentance through your humility.
- I didn't... I couldn't... Oh god... I was acquitted!
- It is not the law of man that directs our souls to Paradise. I have performed the rites that will save your own and will hear your last confession.
- Please... please...
- I offer you this freely. Take it, confess, repent, and you will be set free. No, look at me. Look at me. Good. Now.. speak.
- I am sorry.
- Good.
- The men. The women. The children. Forgive me.
- For the grace of God almighty.
- For the grace of god almighty.
- Hasn't he done well ladies and gentlemen? Give him a big hand!
[The sound of rapturous applause. A wall opens to reveal the audience.]
- But... I...
- We have heard it, and it is good. Now I anoint you with oil, and purge your sins with fire. May the lord have mercy on your soul. Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
- I told you, I ain't no preacher.
- Well here's for the man then. Here's for the women and the children. Here's for the grace of God almighty.
- Oh god.
- Come now, preacher...
- I ain't no preacher!
- Come now and accept your reward for the things you have bestowed upon us. Drink from this cup.
- Ack.
- Drink. Good. Accept the blessings of the people you have served for so long. Take to heart their final message and their rewards for the gifts you have forced upon them. Look out on the sea of faces that have come to hear your thoughts in words and to learn from your wisdom. Speak, let them hear what you have to say.
- You're... there's no one here... I... please, I'm not a bad person...
- Speak and pray for their love. Speak and pray and perhaps their love will set you free.
- I... please... there's been some mistake...
- Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to remember the actions of one man who took it upon himself to cleanse us of our sins by accepting them for himself. The murders..
- No.
- The rapes...
- No..
- The deceits..
- No...
- And the tortures. All at the hands of the man you see before you. He is at our mercy now, and we at his. Come, preacher, and give us that which we need. Give us that which we are drawn towards, that which we yearn for, that which we need to satisfy our souls. Give us repentance through your humility.
- I didn't... I couldn't... Oh god... I was acquitted!
- It is not the law of man that directs our souls to Paradise. I have performed the rites that will save your own and will hear your last confession.
- Please... please...
- I offer you this freely. Take it, confess, repent, and you will be set free. No, look at me. Look at me. Good. Now.. speak.
- I am sorry.
- Good.
- The men. The women. The children. Forgive me.
- For the grace of God almighty.
- For the grace of god almighty.
- Hasn't he done well ladies and gentlemen? Give him a big hand!
[The sound of rapturous applause. A wall opens to reveal the audience.]
- But... I...
- We have heard it, and it is good. Now I anoint you with oil, and purge your sins with fire. May the lord have mercy on your soul. Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
- Amen.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
007
My brother is a dick. He obviously has, like, issues or something cos we're sitting in the theatre and he's trying to stab me.
Mum thought it'd be good for us – to get out and see some theatre. I think she thinks we're thick or something, but I'm not. Luke is. He's an idiot. He's always doing stupid stuff like jumping off bridges and getting his mates to film it so they can put it on the internet and he's always getting in trouble. He got expelled from his last school for slapping a teacher so now he's in the same school as me. I'm doing alright, the teachers say I'll do good on my GCSEs, but he's in the year below and doesn't understand anything.
She bought tickets for me to go see Hamlet cos Michael Sheen is in it and she knows I have, like, the biggest crush on him. I've got a poster of him on my wall and I've watched all his films about 50 times each cos he's just brilliant. I wanted to take my friend Christina with me cos she's well smart and knows loads about Shakespeare and I thought she could help me understand some of it, cos I get it, but not all of it. But mum insisted I take Luke cos she thought it'd be educational for him.
Now there's a knife sticking out of my thigh. I hope she's happy.
As soon as the play started Luke was acting like a fuckwit. He kept texting on his phone, which was really embarrassing, and when someone told him to stop he told them to fuck off, and really loudly too, so that the actors, like, paused for a bit and everyone looked around and I just wanted to die. Then he started kicking the back of the seat in front of him, and this was just when Michael Sheen was doing that famous Hamlet speech that everyone knows but I've never heard before and I was trying to concentrate but all I could see was Luke kicking the seat and I had to tell him to stop it which meant I didn't keep track of what was being said on stage and by the end I was just well confused about what had happened and I didn't get why Luke didn't just leave if he was bored.
There's a lot of blood now and I can see Luke staring at it.
At the interval one of the theatre staff came over to us and said we'd have to leave, but Luke said no, cos he'd paid for the tickets (which he hadn't) and he was enjoying the play (which he wasn't) and if they were gonna make him leave they were gonna have to drag him out and I could've said something but I live with him and I know there's no point trying so I just stood there looking at my feet and besides she was talking to us in a well patronising way probably cos of how we were dressed or something and I thought maybe, just maybe, Luke would calm down in the second half and I'd be able to concentrate on what was going on.
Then in the second half, when Hamlet stabs Polonius behind the curtain, I heard Luke chuckle and I saw something flash quickly in the dark light but I just thought it was him getting out his phone again. Then I felt like this pressing sensation against my jeans and I looked down and saw that Luke was nudging me with the tip of his knife, just pressing back and forth constantly against my thigh, trying to work the knife through the denim and I looked at his face but he was watching the action on stage with like this weird expression on his face, and I tried to push the knife away and he moved it and then two minutes later he was doing it again and I didn't know what to do. Then he just lifted his arm up and brought the knife down, splitting the jeans and tearing open my thigh and he drove the knife all the way down until I could feel the it scraping against the bone. Then I screamed and everyone turned to look at us.
Now there's so much blood and I feel faint and everyone around is moving out of their seats and I can see people rushing over to us and Michael is standing wide-eyed and open-mouthed and he's staring at me and I'm smiling back at him cos he's looking right at me and Luke is muttering fuck and wow under his breath and I wonder what I did as a sister to deserve a brother like him.
Mum thought it'd be good for us – to get out and see some theatre. I think she thinks we're thick or something, but I'm not. Luke is. He's an idiot. He's always doing stupid stuff like jumping off bridges and getting his mates to film it so they can put it on the internet and he's always getting in trouble. He got expelled from his last school for slapping a teacher so now he's in the same school as me. I'm doing alright, the teachers say I'll do good on my GCSEs, but he's in the year below and doesn't understand anything.
She bought tickets for me to go see Hamlet cos Michael Sheen is in it and she knows I have, like, the biggest crush on him. I've got a poster of him on my wall and I've watched all his films about 50 times each cos he's just brilliant. I wanted to take my friend Christina with me cos she's well smart and knows loads about Shakespeare and I thought she could help me understand some of it, cos I get it, but not all of it. But mum insisted I take Luke cos she thought it'd be educational for him.
Now there's a knife sticking out of my thigh. I hope she's happy.
As soon as the play started Luke was acting like a fuckwit. He kept texting on his phone, which was really embarrassing, and when someone told him to stop he told them to fuck off, and really loudly too, so that the actors, like, paused for a bit and everyone looked around and I just wanted to die. Then he started kicking the back of the seat in front of him, and this was just when Michael Sheen was doing that famous Hamlet speech that everyone knows but I've never heard before and I was trying to concentrate but all I could see was Luke kicking the seat and I had to tell him to stop it which meant I didn't keep track of what was being said on stage and by the end I was just well confused about what had happened and I didn't get why Luke didn't just leave if he was bored.
There's a lot of blood now and I can see Luke staring at it.
At the interval one of the theatre staff came over to us and said we'd have to leave, but Luke said no, cos he'd paid for the tickets (which he hadn't) and he was enjoying the play (which he wasn't) and if they were gonna make him leave they were gonna have to drag him out and I could've said something but I live with him and I know there's no point trying so I just stood there looking at my feet and besides she was talking to us in a well patronising way probably cos of how we were dressed or something and I thought maybe, just maybe, Luke would calm down in the second half and I'd be able to concentrate on what was going on.
Then in the second half, when Hamlet stabs Polonius behind the curtain, I heard Luke chuckle and I saw something flash quickly in the dark light but I just thought it was him getting out his phone again. Then I felt like this pressing sensation against my jeans and I looked down and saw that Luke was nudging me with the tip of his knife, just pressing back and forth constantly against my thigh, trying to work the knife through the denim and I looked at his face but he was watching the action on stage with like this weird expression on his face, and I tried to push the knife away and he moved it and then two minutes later he was doing it again and I didn't know what to do. Then he just lifted his arm up and brought the knife down, splitting the jeans and tearing open my thigh and he drove the knife all the way down until I could feel the it scraping against the bone. Then I screamed and everyone turned to look at us.
Now there's so much blood and I feel faint and everyone around is moving out of their seats and I can see people rushing over to us and Michael is standing wide-eyed and open-mouthed and he's staring at me and I'm smiling back at him cos he's looking right at me and Luke is muttering fuck and wow under his breath and I wonder what I did as a sister to deserve a brother like him.
Monday, December 12, 2011
006
Hannah is sweating. A cool thin ridge of sweat has burst out of the top of her forehead. She can feel an uncomfortable prickling sensation in her armpits. Her heart pumps with abnormal ferocity. The adrenaline coursing through her veins makes her extremities tingle. This isn't right. Something is definitely wrong. She looks around at the other tables, hoping to see similar levels of concern and panic on the faces of the people sat there but at worst a couple of them are just staring off blankly into the middle distance. Most mutter to each other or scribble down an answer. How can they possibly know? She was UK Mastermind 2011, had been the captain of the victorious Only Connect team in 2009, had captained the Balliol – Oxford team that had been crowned champions of University Challenge 2008, and now here she is at the Southampton Arms pub quiz on Highgate road, stumped by a question on which former member of Boyzone died in 2009.
She knows the answer. She knows she knows the answer. So why won't it come to her? Where in her memory is it buried, and why can she not excavate it? She's never had this problem before. She's been called the Human Encyclopedia by the press, and the human Wikipedia by one paper that didn't see it as a backhanded compliment, like she did. YouTube views of her record-breaking performance in Mastermind, where she scored a total of 44 points and answered every single question correctly, have reached five figures. Jeremy Paxman had taken her aside after their semi-final against the University of Edinburgh, in which she had personally accounted for 215 of Balliol's 260 points, and told her that she had one of the most impressive brains he'd ever come across. Victoria Coren had wanted to be friends with her. So why. Why. Why why why why why can't she remember this useless bit of information?
She stares at the answer sheet, willing the answer to come to her. Her pen hovers a millimetre away from the paper in anticipation of the answer. Beads of sweat drop from her head and onto the sheet, smudging the answer to question three. This is only question four. What if there are other questions that she can't answer? The thought increases her panic levels tenfold. For the first time in her life she wishes she had a team with her. They'd always held her back in the past, offering up ignorant and simplistic answers to questions they simply didn't know the answer to, and for a year she's been quite happily touring the pub quizzes of London solo, taking on other teams and winning with ease. It pays for the beer. But now, what she wouldn't give to have someone sitting with her who knew the answer to this basic and foolish question. She starts to feel a hatred building up inside her for the idiotic quiz master who's come up with such a moronic question. Who cares about some bloke from a shitty boyband? She's answered questions concerning the philosophies of history's greatest thinkers, on the chemical equations of existence, on mathematical concepts so dense that Paxman had stared at her open-mouthed when she'd got the answer (287) before he'd finished the question. So why the fuck has her brain decided that the name of some dead singer is too difficult to recall?
Then she realises that she's been so caught up in her anxieties that she's missed the next question. She heard the sound of the quiz master shouting, but she didn't hear what he'd said. She waits to see if he's going to shout it again, but when it becomes clear that he isn't the panic goes into overdrive. She leans over to a nearby table to ask them what it was and as she does so she considers sneaking a peek at their answer sheet. Cheating. The thought is anathema to her. She's never done it once in her life. She's been proud of the fact, and proud that she's always reported copiers and people checking their phones to the nearest authority as soon as possible. And now she finds herself so desperate for the answer that she has to close her eyes as she's asking the fat gentleman sat closest to her what the question was for fear that she won't be able to control herself.
'Which British Prime Minister was assassinated in 1812?' Oh easy. She knows that. Doesn't she? Doesn't she? Why can't she remember? Where has that information gone? And so it is for the next question. And the next. For all 50 questions. Her first three answers turned out to be wrong. And as she leaves the pub, distraught and lost, she suffers a massive stroke and dies on the street. Because the simple answer is that Hannah's brain didn't feel it necessary to know anything anymore.
She knows the answer. She knows she knows the answer. So why won't it come to her? Where in her memory is it buried, and why can she not excavate it? She's never had this problem before. She's been called the Human Encyclopedia by the press, and the human Wikipedia by one paper that didn't see it as a backhanded compliment, like she did. YouTube views of her record-breaking performance in Mastermind, where she scored a total of 44 points and answered every single question correctly, have reached five figures. Jeremy Paxman had taken her aside after their semi-final against the University of Edinburgh, in which she had personally accounted for 215 of Balliol's 260 points, and told her that she had one of the most impressive brains he'd ever come across. Victoria Coren had wanted to be friends with her. So why. Why. Why why why why why can't she remember this useless bit of information?
She stares at the answer sheet, willing the answer to come to her. Her pen hovers a millimetre away from the paper in anticipation of the answer. Beads of sweat drop from her head and onto the sheet, smudging the answer to question three. This is only question four. What if there are other questions that she can't answer? The thought increases her panic levels tenfold. For the first time in her life she wishes she had a team with her. They'd always held her back in the past, offering up ignorant and simplistic answers to questions they simply didn't know the answer to, and for a year she's been quite happily touring the pub quizzes of London solo, taking on other teams and winning with ease. It pays for the beer. But now, what she wouldn't give to have someone sitting with her who knew the answer to this basic and foolish question. She starts to feel a hatred building up inside her for the idiotic quiz master who's come up with such a moronic question. Who cares about some bloke from a shitty boyband? She's answered questions concerning the philosophies of history's greatest thinkers, on the chemical equations of existence, on mathematical concepts so dense that Paxman had stared at her open-mouthed when she'd got the answer (287) before he'd finished the question. So why the fuck has her brain decided that the name of some dead singer is too difficult to recall?
Then she realises that she's been so caught up in her anxieties that she's missed the next question. She heard the sound of the quiz master shouting, but she didn't hear what he'd said. She waits to see if he's going to shout it again, but when it becomes clear that he isn't the panic goes into overdrive. She leans over to a nearby table to ask them what it was and as she does so she considers sneaking a peek at their answer sheet. Cheating. The thought is anathema to her. She's never done it once in her life. She's been proud of the fact, and proud that she's always reported copiers and people checking their phones to the nearest authority as soon as possible. And now she finds herself so desperate for the answer that she has to close her eyes as she's asking the fat gentleman sat closest to her what the question was for fear that she won't be able to control herself.
'Which British Prime Minister was assassinated in 1812?' Oh easy. She knows that. Doesn't she? Doesn't she? Why can't she remember? Where has that information gone? And so it is for the next question. And the next. For all 50 questions. Her first three answers turned out to be wrong. And as she leaves the pub, distraught and lost, she suffers a massive stroke and dies on the street. Because the simple answer is that Hannah's brain didn't feel it necessary to know anything anymore.
Friday, December 9, 2011
005
Someone has been blacking out the eyes on the posters at Kentish Town tube station. The posters that line the platform wall, advertising the latest DVD by that funny man off the telly, or the latest album by the latest pop sensation, or the latest Hollywood blockbuster/tearjerker, that feature people looking imploringly at any potential consumers, have been attacked by someone with a thick black marker pen. Whoever it is has filled in the eyes with big black chunks that occasionally streak down the face.
The first time I saw it I stood frozen and staring at a poster for some beauty product for about ten minutes. It was one of the most disturbing things I'd ever seen. The defacement seemed so personal, so violent. It had transformed the woman in the image from a happy, smiling person into a soulless entity. Then I realised it wasn't just the one poster; all of the images on the platform that featured a person's face had received the same treatment.
It got me to thinking about why it was such a powerful... statement? The eyes communicate so much in such subtle ways that I'd never really picked up on until I saw them carved out like this. The face was still the same, physically, but it had lost an essential part of what made it human. It was totally unnatural, horrifying, to see a person with their eyes plucked out and black holes placed in the sockets instead. A change so simple, yet powerful in a unique way that made me consider the basic qualities that make up our humanity.
Then I started to wonder about the person who had committed this act. They don't appear to be entirely healthy. The gouging of eyes, the removal of the soul, the attempt to make repugnant that which is considered beautiful. I wondered, 'Is this an artistic statement or an act of violence?' It's almost impossible to tell. There was no other mark on the faces and bodies of those in the posters, no attempt to take credit or gain notoriety, beyond the base mark itself. It didn't happen just once, either. A couple of months after I first witnessed it, a new set of posters went up. These too were defaced in the same manner. Nor have I seen it happen at any other tube station. Does some local resident of Kentish Town have a mental issue that means they despise these people and have to attack them in such a brutal and... yes... beautiful way? Or is it more basic than that? Did some kid with a thick black marker think it would be a fun bit of graffiti, and in doing so totally fail to realise the weight their actions would have on me, the observer?
It seems too deliberate to be random chance. But that makes me fear for the wellbeing of the person doing this. For the wellbeing of those around them. I half-expect to read about someone found in Kentish Town, murdered, with their eyes gouged out and black tar poured in to the sockets. Because that's the level of hatred that I feel emanating from these posters. A hatred for the model's beauty, for the products they are selling, for the people that buy them because they are told to. All of them are dead already, lost, deprived and wanting of that basic essential humanity, and this person feels it to be their responsibility to highlight this fact, to make it clear to everyone as a warning of what these posters really imply about out souls, about the risks we take in forming pacts with these false idols.
I respect this person for the brilliance of the simplicity of their statement. I am terrified of the images they have created. I fear the potential of their sinister psychology. I wonder if they observe me observing their work and whether I make them proud or not. I think about beautiful virgins, gutted and marked for the pleasure of some mystic god. I think about what these people have done to get themselves on a poster, and whether they deserve to be scarred like this. I consider buying a black marker pen and carrying on the message beyond Kentish Town tube station.
For I can never forget that first image of the dead face with the endless empty black holes for eyes. It awakened something in me – rebirth from death. I feel marked, complicit, joyous and abhorred. And one day, when I feel empty, I will take tar to my eyes and begin all over again.
The first time I saw it I stood frozen and staring at a poster for some beauty product for about ten minutes. It was one of the most disturbing things I'd ever seen. The defacement seemed so personal, so violent. It had transformed the woman in the image from a happy, smiling person into a soulless entity. Then I realised it wasn't just the one poster; all of the images on the platform that featured a person's face had received the same treatment.
It got me to thinking about why it was such a powerful... statement? The eyes communicate so much in such subtle ways that I'd never really picked up on until I saw them carved out like this. The face was still the same, physically, but it had lost an essential part of what made it human. It was totally unnatural, horrifying, to see a person with their eyes plucked out and black holes placed in the sockets instead. A change so simple, yet powerful in a unique way that made me consider the basic qualities that make up our humanity.
Then I started to wonder about the person who had committed this act. They don't appear to be entirely healthy. The gouging of eyes, the removal of the soul, the attempt to make repugnant that which is considered beautiful. I wondered, 'Is this an artistic statement or an act of violence?' It's almost impossible to tell. There was no other mark on the faces and bodies of those in the posters, no attempt to take credit or gain notoriety, beyond the base mark itself. It didn't happen just once, either. A couple of months after I first witnessed it, a new set of posters went up. These too were defaced in the same manner. Nor have I seen it happen at any other tube station. Does some local resident of Kentish Town have a mental issue that means they despise these people and have to attack them in such a brutal and... yes... beautiful way? Or is it more basic than that? Did some kid with a thick black marker think it would be a fun bit of graffiti, and in doing so totally fail to realise the weight their actions would have on me, the observer?
It seems too deliberate to be random chance. But that makes me fear for the wellbeing of the person doing this. For the wellbeing of those around them. I half-expect to read about someone found in Kentish Town, murdered, with their eyes gouged out and black tar poured in to the sockets. Because that's the level of hatred that I feel emanating from these posters. A hatred for the model's beauty, for the products they are selling, for the people that buy them because they are told to. All of them are dead already, lost, deprived and wanting of that basic essential humanity, and this person feels it to be their responsibility to highlight this fact, to make it clear to everyone as a warning of what these posters really imply about out souls, about the risks we take in forming pacts with these false idols.
I respect this person for the brilliance of the simplicity of their statement. I am terrified of the images they have created. I fear the potential of their sinister psychology. I wonder if they observe me observing their work and whether I make them proud or not. I think about beautiful virgins, gutted and marked for the pleasure of some mystic god. I think about what these people have done to get themselves on a poster, and whether they deserve to be scarred like this. I consider buying a black marker pen and carrying on the message beyond Kentish Town tube station.
For I can never forget that first image of the dead face with the endless empty black holes for eyes. It awakened something in me – rebirth from death. I feel marked, complicit, joyous and abhorred. And one day, when I feel empty, I will take tar to my eyes and begin all over again.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
004
My earliest memory is of me lying in my pram and looking up at my mum lighting a cigarette. My dad used to hate the smell of smoke in the flat, so whenever my mum felt the need to have a fag she'd have to go outside, and quite often she'd stick me in the pram and take me with her. I've been told since that this can't have been my first memory since I was too young at the time to form proper memories, and that I must have created it through pictures and associations. That would make sense, given how whenever I think of my mum the first thing that comes to mind is her holding a cigarette, but then the things that happened that day might have been enough to sear the memory into my underdeveloped brain.
My mum used to smoke Silk Cut. We lived on a small estate near Finsbury Park station and there was a newsagents nearby on Seven Sisters Road where she used to buy all her packs from. The people behind the counter got to know her from so many frequent visits that often they wouldn't even exchange words – she'd go in, they'd take a pack off the shelves, she'd give them the money, they'd give her the change, she'd walk out on to the street and instantly light up. Like I say, my dad hated it but I think he'd given up the battle in terms of getting her to quit way before I was born. I don't know if her smoking while pregnant with me had any affect on me or not. I'm kind of short, but then most of my family are. I don't think I'm any worse off than any of my friends, but how can you really tell?
It could've gone either way with me. I might have seen her hacking up half a lung every morning, might have associated that smell of stale smoke with cloying and sickness, might have started paying attention to the ever-present warnings on the packets, but instead, after her death, I found all those things a comfort. I started off with Silk Cut, stealing the occasional one from her handbag while she was still alive. Pretty quickly, though, I found that, for both financial and aesthetic reasons, I preferred roll-ups. Drum Gold, that was my brand. I loved the challenge of learning how to roll, and the subsequent exhilaration of the ritual. Take a pinch. Tease it apart. Move the thumb and fingers in well-practised motions to shape the whole thing into a tight cylinder. Place just the right amount of saliva on the tongue and then run it across the last edge of the paper to seal it down. Then light, inhale, and enjoy. I remember my dad's face when he first saw me smoke and realised that he'd lost another battle. He didn't even get angry; just sighed and turned his back on me.
I live now in a flat in Balham and my housemate has a similar attitude to smoking as my dad did. Thankfully we have a balcony, so I can smoke outside in relative comfort. I was the last of my generation to enjoy the privilege of smoking inside. Now I guess all smokers feel like my mum did twenty years ago. Forced outside to shudder in the wind.
The other day I saw a woman pushing a pram down the road, towards my flat. One of my favourite parts of finishing a cigarette is taking the butt-end between my middle-finger and thumb and flicking it away. I've become so practised at this that I can now hit a target from at least ten paces, wind permitting. I've used this skill many times outside pubs to show off or win a bet. I don't know why I'm so accurate with it. Just natural ability, I guess. Anyway, this woman was pushing the pram down the street, and I could hear her talking those random stupid sounds that mothers coo to their babies. Without realising it, my left hand rose to my forehead and rubbed the mark in the centre of it as I took the cigarette between the thumb and middle-finger of my right hand and waited.
Because the reason I think that my first memory is legit and not some assimilated fabrication is that on that occasion it was really windy and just after my mum lit her cigarette a gust of wind caught her hand and made her spill the lit cigarette into the pram and onto my forehead. And pain can be a powerful memory aid. It burnt and singed and scarred a mark into my forehead, and as I stood on my balcony and flicked my cigarette and watched it arc perfectly away and down and into the pram and heard mother and baby scream and looked down to see a glowing mark in the middle of the baby's forehead I smiled because I knew that now there was someone else out there like me.
My mum used to smoke Silk Cut. We lived on a small estate near Finsbury Park station and there was a newsagents nearby on Seven Sisters Road where she used to buy all her packs from. The people behind the counter got to know her from so many frequent visits that often they wouldn't even exchange words – she'd go in, they'd take a pack off the shelves, she'd give them the money, they'd give her the change, she'd walk out on to the street and instantly light up. Like I say, my dad hated it but I think he'd given up the battle in terms of getting her to quit way before I was born. I don't know if her smoking while pregnant with me had any affect on me or not. I'm kind of short, but then most of my family are. I don't think I'm any worse off than any of my friends, but how can you really tell?
It could've gone either way with me. I might have seen her hacking up half a lung every morning, might have associated that smell of stale smoke with cloying and sickness, might have started paying attention to the ever-present warnings on the packets, but instead, after her death, I found all those things a comfort. I started off with Silk Cut, stealing the occasional one from her handbag while she was still alive. Pretty quickly, though, I found that, for both financial and aesthetic reasons, I preferred roll-ups. Drum Gold, that was my brand. I loved the challenge of learning how to roll, and the subsequent exhilaration of the ritual. Take a pinch. Tease it apart. Move the thumb and fingers in well-practised motions to shape the whole thing into a tight cylinder. Place just the right amount of saliva on the tongue and then run it across the last edge of the paper to seal it down. Then light, inhale, and enjoy. I remember my dad's face when he first saw me smoke and realised that he'd lost another battle. He didn't even get angry; just sighed and turned his back on me.
I live now in a flat in Balham and my housemate has a similar attitude to smoking as my dad did. Thankfully we have a balcony, so I can smoke outside in relative comfort. I was the last of my generation to enjoy the privilege of smoking inside. Now I guess all smokers feel like my mum did twenty years ago. Forced outside to shudder in the wind.
The other day I saw a woman pushing a pram down the road, towards my flat. One of my favourite parts of finishing a cigarette is taking the butt-end between my middle-finger and thumb and flicking it away. I've become so practised at this that I can now hit a target from at least ten paces, wind permitting. I've used this skill many times outside pubs to show off or win a bet. I don't know why I'm so accurate with it. Just natural ability, I guess. Anyway, this woman was pushing the pram down the street, and I could hear her talking those random stupid sounds that mothers coo to their babies. Without realising it, my left hand rose to my forehead and rubbed the mark in the centre of it as I took the cigarette between the thumb and middle-finger of my right hand and waited.
Because the reason I think that my first memory is legit and not some assimilated fabrication is that on that occasion it was really windy and just after my mum lit her cigarette a gust of wind caught her hand and made her spill the lit cigarette into the pram and onto my forehead. And pain can be a powerful memory aid. It burnt and singed and scarred a mark into my forehead, and as I stood on my balcony and flicked my cigarette and watched it arc perfectly away and down and into the pram and heard mother and baby scream and looked down to see a glowing mark in the middle of the baby's forehead I smiled because I knew that now there was someone else out there like me.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
003
Half of Raydon Street in Archway, north London, had been deemed unacceptable by Camden Council. The part where the street met Dartmouth Park Hill was declared no longer fit for purpose, in their eyes. It had become mottled and grey. Riddled with potholes. The white dashes that indicated the designated parking spaces were now barely visible. 'It's too much,' the Council cried with their collective voice. 'Something must be done.' Men were dispatched with cans of spray paint to tag strategic parts of the pavement with officially-sanctioned graffiti.
And so early one Monday in mid-November 2011, the workmen arrived. Cars were forcibly removed – picked up and placed on the back of trucks to be ferried away to, where? The workforce took up positions around the pre-painted marks. Then they began hacking and drilling, at 8am, to make the destruction of this already crippled road complete. It took them all day to chip away at the tarmac surface until by the end all that was left was a soft brown gravel that appeared to ooze in the bright winter sun like an exposed wound. The scab had been torn off and a new dressing would be applied at some later date.
The next day they returned, in their fluorescent yellow jackets that covered their fluorescent orange overalls and in their hard hats that protected them from any vengeful chunks of road that might fall from the sky (as a result, perhaps, of any residents watching from their balconies that felt resentful at this forceful rejuvenation of their beloved old street that they had come to know and love), and they set about it with giant machines. Heavy rollers that crushed and smoothed the lumps of tar that had been strewn across the street just previously by weird-shaped lorries, with funnels and sieves that spat out the virgin surface as they edged along at an impossibly slow pace. The men waved their hands in coded gestures and barked incoherent orders at each other and at the drivers who sat behind the wheels of these land-altering behemoths. For hours they crept up the street, filling the air with a rumbling cacophony of bangs and scrapes and the slow, crushing sound of alteration.
By 5pm the street had been transformed into a slick black river. It shimmered and shined in the evening winter haze. It looked impossibly smooth from where I stood on my balcony three floors up, looking down on it. I went down to have a closer inspection. I knelt down on the pavement and placed one hand against it, on its flank. I could feel the whole street heave underneath me, like a felled mammoth breathing its final deep breaths, not panicked but in a state of calm acceptance. I felt its last breath leave it and then it was still. Now the road shined but no longer shimmered.
The men came back on the third day to finish the task. New machines were brought in to tattoo the black body with marks and strips that would make it intelligible and navigable by drivers and pedestrians – the users of this road for whom it had been built and who would share it in conflict, as they had done before. Down... Up. Down... Up. So went the contraption, that looked so basic compared to the monoliths that had torn up and reconstructed the road itself, that laid down the white paint that marked out the bays in which the cars, when they returned, would park. There was no need for a central dash, for Raydon street was, and still is, a one-way street. Continuous double stripes of yellow near the T-junction with Dartmouth Park Hill to mark the areas where on no account was any car to park, for reasons of safety and convenience. As before, the workmen went about their task in a slow and considered fashion, fully aware of the significance implicit in each brush stroke, of the importance in making sure that the language they had been told to communicate between the council and the public about how the street was to be used in future would be impossible to misinterpret.
When they had finished they looked down and saw, as I did, that they had created a thing of beauty. A brilliant new street, crystallised in this one moment in a unique manner. For though it was wholly fresh and new, it had not been put to the task for which it had been created. And in that first moment when wheels drove over it, it would be sullied beyond repair, and yet be fulfilling its purpose. The residents whose cars had been towed complained to the council. Their case is still ongoing.
And so early one Monday in mid-November 2011, the workmen arrived. Cars were forcibly removed – picked up and placed on the back of trucks to be ferried away to, where? The workforce took up positions around the pre-painted marks. Then they began hacking and drilling, at 8am, to make the destruction of this already crippled road complete. It took them all day to chip away at the tarmac surface until by the end all that was left was a soft brown gravel that appeared to ooze in the bright winter sun like an exposed wound. The scab had been torn off and a new dressing would be applied at some later date.
The next day they returned, in their fluorescent yellow jackets that covered their fluorescent orange overalls and in their hard hats that protected them from any vengeful chunks of road that might fall from the sky (as a result, perhaps, of any residents watching from their balconies that felt resentful at this forceful rejuvenation of their beloved old street that they had come to know and love), and they set about it with giant machines. Heavy rollers that crushed and smoothed the lumps of tar that had been strewn across the street just previously by weird-shaped lorries, with funnels and sieves that spat out the virgin surface as they edged along at an impossibly slow pace. The men waved their hands in coded gestures and barked incoherent orders at each other and at the drivers who sat behind the wheels of these land-altering behemoths. For hours they crept up the street, filling the air with a rumbling cacophony of bangs and scrapes and the slow, crushing sound of alteration.
By 5pm the street had been transformed into a slick black river. It shimmered and shined in the evening winter haze. It looked impossibly smooth from where I stood on my balcony three floors up, looking down on it. I went down to have a closer inspection. I knelt down on the pavement and placed one hand against it, on its flank. I could feel the whole street heave underneath me, like a felled mammoth breathing its final deep breaths, not panicked but in a state of calm acceptance. I felt its last breath leave it and then it was still. Now the road shined but no longer shimmered.
The men came back on the third day to finish the task. New machines were brought in to tattoo the black body with marks and strips that would make it intelligible and navigable by drivers and pedestrians – the users of this road for whom it had been built and who would share it in conflict, as they had done before. Down... Up. Down... Up. So went the contraption, that looked so basic compared to the monoliths that had torn up and reconstructed the road itself, that laid down the white paint that marked out the bays in which the cars, when they returned, would park. There was no need for a central dash, for Raydon street was, and still is, a one-way street. Continuous double stripes of yellow near the T-junction with Dartmouth Park Hill to mark the areas where on no account was any car to park, for reasons of safety and convenience. As before, the workmen went about their task in a slow and considered fashion, fully aware of the significance implicit in each brush stroke, of the importance in making sure that the language they had been told to communicate between the council and the public about how the street was to be used in future would be impossible to misinterpret.
When they had finished they looked down and saw, as I did, that they had created a thing of beauty. A brilliant new street, crystallised in this one moment in a unique manner. For though it was wholly fresh and new, it had not been put to the task for which it had been created. And in that first moment when wheels drove over it, it would be sullied beyond repair, and yet be fulfilling its purpose. The residents whose cars had been towed complained to the council. Their case is still ongoing.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
002
There are lots of celebrities in London. I'm not sure why this is, but in only a year of living here I have seen multiple celebrities walking about on the streets like ordinary people. They include, but are not limited to, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, Chris Morris, Reece Shearsmith, Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding, Stewart Lee, Robert Vaughan, that Ian Curtis rip-off from Misfits, Christopher Ecclestone and Seasick Steve.
Where I lived before there were hardly any celebrities. I bumped into Dylan Moran once on the street, but everyone I knew had bumped into him at some time. It was something of a local phenomenon. I was there for five years and he was the only celebrity I saw.
I've seen others performing live on stage, but I don't think that counts.
I've never gone up and spoken to any of them, though. I don't think they would appreciate it, and if they would, I don't want to give them the satisfaction. I'm not here to validate their existence, nor am I there to ruin their day as they walk about with their children. I did talk to Julian Barrat once. He was very drunk in my local pub and I made some comment about how drunk he was. I didn't let on that I knew who he was though. I thought that would sully the experience for both of us. I spoke to Christopher Ecclestone as well, but only to recommend an ale he might like. I recommended one from Manchester, because I knew that was where he was born and I thought he might like that.
But when I'm famous I'll want people to talk to me. That's the only reason I want to do anything, is so that I'll have people stopping me in the street and telling me how much they like me and how I changed their lives and how my existence gives them some meaning and direction in an otherwise senseless and horrible world, because that's the kind of power I want to yield. And I'll ignore them because I'll have better things to do, because if I don't then I don't deserve to be famous.
I almost spoke to Stewart Lee, but he was at an alternative comedy night watching his wife, Bridget Christie, who I'd spoken to the week before without realising who she was, and the whole thing seemed very sordid and unfortunate as a result. I thought he might appreciate that and I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.
I've ignored all of them when I've seen them. Diverted my eyes and tried to pretend I haven't noticed that one off of the telly because they're probably sick of it, or desperate for it, and either way it's just too embarrassing for all involved not to pretend that I'm not even aware of their existence. It's probably for the best.
If someone does that to me when I'm famous I'll probably punch them.
I've probably walked past people that others would consider famous, like someone off the ironically titled I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, and genuinely ignored them. This makes me happy on every level. I like to think of my ignorance causing them pain in a similar manner to the pain that they have inflicted on me.
I don't care about celebrities but I do sometimes worry that I'm obsessed with them. With fame. Like maybe that's the reason I moved to London. It's not. The reason I moved to London was fortune. And fame. It's complicated and I wouldn't expect members of the public to understand.
But just to be sure, and because I felt that given our proximity I should've met her when she was alive, the other night I snuck down to Amy Winehouse's grave and dug up her corpse. It's lying, bound and gagged, on the roof of my flat and most evenings I'll take a glass of wine with me up the small ladder to the roof and I'll sit there with Amy, discussing her music and shortcomings. She's a lovely girl. It turns out they're just like us, really.
Where I lived before there were hardly any celebrities. I bumped into Dylan Moran once on the street, but everyone I knew had bumped into him at some time. It was something of a local phenomenon. I was there for five years and he was the only celebrity I saw.
I've seen others performing live on stage, but I don't think that counts.
I've never gone up and spoken to any of them, though. I don't think they would appreciate it, and if they would, I don't want to give them the satisfaction. I'm not here to validate their existence, nor am I there to ruin their day as they walk about with their children. I did talk to Julian Barrat once. He was very drunk in my local pub and I made some comment about how drunk he was. I didn't let on that I knew who he was though. I thought that would sully the experience for both of us. I spoke to Christopher Ecclestone as well, but only to recommend an ale he might like. I recommended one from Manchester, because I knew that was where he was born and I thought he might like that.
But when I'm famous I'll want people to talk to me. That's the only reason I want to do anything, is so that I'll have people stopping me in the street and telling me how much they like me and how I changed their lives and how my existence gives them some meaning and direction in an otherwise senseless and horrible world, because that's the kind of power I want to yield. And I'll ignore them because I'll have better things to do, because if I don't then I don't deserve to be famous.
I almost spoke to Stewart Lee, but he was at an alternative comedy night watching his wife, Bridget Christie, who I'd spoken to the week before without realising who she was, and the whole thing seemed very sordid and unfortunate as a result. I thought he might appreciate that and I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.
I've ignored all of them when I've seen them. Diverted my eyes and tried to pretend I haven't noticed that one off of the telly because they're probably sick of it, or desperate for it, and either way it's just too embarrassing for all involved not to pretend that I'm not even aware of their existence. It's probably for the best.
If someone does that to me when I'm famous I'll probably punch them.
I've probably walked past people that others would consider famous, like someone off the ironically titled I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, and genuinely ignored them. This makes me happy on every level. I like to think of my ignorance causing them pain in a similar manner to the pain that they have inflicted on me.
I don't care about celebrities but I do sometimes worry that I'm obsessed with them. With fame. Like maybe that's the reason I moved to London. It's not. The reason I moved to London was fortune. And fame. It's complicated and I wouldn't expect members of the public to understand.
But just to be sure, and because I felt that given our proximity I should've met her when she was alive, the other night I snuck down to Amy Winehouse's grave and dug up her corpse. It's lying, bound and gagged, on the roof of my flat and most evenings I'll take a glass of wine with me up the small ladder to the roof and I'll sit there with Amy, discussing her music and shortcomings. She's a lovely girl. It turns out they're just like us, really.
001
There are zombies at Tottenham Court Road station. I know, I found them. My throat is dry and my lips are parched, but for different reasons. My throat – it's like that first feeling of a cold. There's a rawness at its top, near the start of the sinuses, that no amount of saliva or phlegm or swallowing will heal, though it feels like they should. Not even heal, sooth. No soothing from the moistness. Maybe it's not like a cold, it is a cold.
There are zombies at Tottenham Court Road station. That's why they put up the big metal sheets at the platform edge and told us that the Northern Line wouldn't be stopping there until late November 2011. The ceiling-high slabs of metal, with the little divots that aren't holes but look like they should be, like they should be ventilated or something but that's stupid because zombies don't need to breathe. I saw these metal sheets blocking the platform from view every time the Northern Line train would slow down on its journey between Goodge Street and Leicester Square and crawl past them and I knew what was behind the sheets because I would see them shudder occasionally and would hear faint groans and the sounds of tearing flesh. I knew that there were zombies at Tottenham Court Road station.
I knew then and I know now what the truth about the platform closure until late November 2011 was and still is really about. Shuffling, thoughtless, all-consuming hordes of the undead. It happened late one night in February (why not?) after the station had closed and the only people left there were Barry Trickles, the station master, and his partner Martha Vestoon. They're satanists, obviously. And after the station had closed, Barry and Martha, they let their congregation of twenty like-minded souls into the station and lead them down onto the Northern Line platform and there they consumed the seven pints of blood that they'd drained out of the six-year-old child that was Barry and Martha's son and performed the dark rites over it and once they all had consumed it they felt the change come upon them and then they were zombies.
So a lot of commuters died the next morning.
But that was part of the plan.
And to stop it getting out, they (who?) barricaded up the Northern Line platform of Tottenham Court Road with large metal sheets and told everyone that it was due to planned engineering works. It wasn't, it was because there were around 30 unholy undead stumbling around underground looking for human flesh to devour. It was almost sexual, no, it was sexual, the sense of arousal that they got every time a train of fresh meat would crawl past just on the other side of the metal that blocked them off from the outside world.
I had just been to see a bit of farce at the theatre with my wonderfully connected friends and as they exchanged stories in the bar afterwards about a world that I could never inhabit involving people doing things that I could never accomplish I decided that I had to go to Tottenham Court Road station to see the zombies for myself. I wanted to touch one. I hid in a dark corner of Leicester Square station until the last train had departed and then I walked up the underground line until I got to the metal sheets. I had a crowbar with me. And I prised the sheets apart just enough so that I could crawl under them and I got on to the platform. And there were the zombies, and entrails, and blood, and gore. But they ignored me. They just stood in rows, swaying slightly, staring directly at the metal sheets, waiting for something to come. I touched one. He rocked slightly with the pressure. I tried getting in front of them, but they just looked straight through me.
But I saw them, and there are zombies at Tottenham Court Road station. Now my lips are parched and my skin is flaking and I feel fine.
There are zombies at Tottenham Court Road station. That's why they put up the big metal sheets at the platform edge and told us that the Northern Line wouldn't be stopping there until late November 2011. The ceiling-high slabs of metal, with the little divots that aren't holes but look like they should be, like they should be ventilated or something but that's stupid because zombies don't need to breathe. I saw these metal sheets blocking the platform from view every time the Northern Line train would slow down on its journey between Goodge Street and Leicester Square and crawl past them and I knew what was behind the sheets because I would see them shudder occasionally and would hear faint groans and the sounds of tearing flesh. I knew that there were zombies at Tottenham Court Road station.
I knew then and I know now what the truth about the platform closure until late November 2011 was and still is really about. Shuffling, thoughtless, all-consuming hordes of the undead. It happened late one night in February (why not?) after the station had closed and the only people left there were Barry Trickles, the station master, and his partner Martha Vestoon. They're satanists, obviously. And after the station had closed, Barry and Martha, they let their congregation of twenty like-minded souls into the station and lead them down onto the Northern Line platform and there they consumed the seven pints of blood that they'd drained out of the six-year-old child that was Barry and Martha's son and performed the dark rites over it and once they all had consumed it they felt the change come upon them and then they were zombies.
So a lot of commuters died the next morning.
But that was part of the plan.
And to stop it getting out, they (who?) barricaded up the Northern Line platform of Tottenham Court Road with large metal sheets and told everyone that it was due to planned engineering works. It wasn't, it was because there were around 30 unholy undead stumbling around underground looking for human flesh to devour. It was almost sexual, no, it was sexual, the sense of arousal that they got every time a train of fresh meat would crawl past just on the other side of the metal that blocked them off from the outside world.
I had just been to see a bit of farce at the theatre with my wonderfully connected friends and as they exchanged stories in the bar afterwards about a world that I could never inhabit involving people doing things that I could never accomplish I decided that I had to go to Tottenham Court Road station to see the zombies for myself. I wanted to touch one. I hid in a dark corner of Leicester Square station until the last train had departed and then I walked up the underground line until I got to the metal sheets. I had a crowbar with me. And I prised the sheets apart just enough so that I could crawl under them and I got on to the platform. And there were the zombies, and entrails, and blood, and gore. But they ignored me. They just stood in rows, swaying slightly, staring directly at the metal sheets, waiting for something to come. I touched one. He rocked slightly with the pressure. I tried getting in front of them, but they just looked straight through me.
But I saw them, and there are zombies at Tottenham Court Road station. Now my lips are parched and my skin is flaking and I feel fine.
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