The End

And so we sat on a red tiled roof four stories up, looking out on the town glittering with the streetlights in the dark, and we could have fallen to our deaths but we didn't care, because as we know alcohol sucks the fear from your heart by osmosis. And there we sat arm in arm and you were saying words to me that touched me right in the soul, although I can't remember them precisely because the alcohol blurred them like ink on paper. And though we weren't watching our watches we heard voices crying out across the town, dix, neuf, huit, and the light was all golden, sept, six, cinq,and we held hands I think, quatre, trois, deux, and suddenly the whole year came back to me rolled up in a ball, made small, every thing I saw everything I smelt tasted heard every word I said every word my fingers scratched out, typed out, everything, all at once, cancelling each other out so that in effect it looked like nothing, felt like nothing, un.

Bonne année!

nothing.
everything.
I love.

you.

It was pancakes, actually

I wake.
Above me, my clothes,
hanging next to your clothes above the bed
and you're gone I don't know where,
though from the kitchen
I can smell something
cooking and it
smells like
a future.

The Gift

You sit on a bench in bright sunlight, grinning because I hadn't seen you and had walked the other way
and I'm a bit annoyed because I've got a heavy case and because you didn't bother standing up although I'd come all this way. Beside you is a longboard and I think it's yours. The wheels are the same but the board is different. "You've changed your board", I say. You flip it round to show me. It has new grip. Bright blue. "Do you like it?"
"Pas trop," I say. "Too flashy."

Your face falls. "Its for you."

I'm shocked and silenced. Sorry.
"Tu l'aimes pas?"

It's not that I don't like it no no not at all. I just wasn't expecting it. I said I wanted to learn but I probably didn't mean it. No I definitely didn't. Its just one of those things I say sometimes. What am I going to do with a longboard? It's heavy it doesn't match my shoes I'm going to fall off I'll be terrible I'll look stupid people will laugh at me. And now I've hurt your feelings.
I feel a little burdened. I say nothing.

"I can change the grip. Any colour you like. I can take it off."
I hold your hand and see where the skin has been left rough putting it on in the first place. I sense the hours you'd put in making it neat and perfect for me. I sense the disappointment you're trying to hide.

"Maybe tomorrow you can take me for a ride?" And if I fall off and hurt myself, at least I can say I tried.

Je viens te voir

Here I am again.

Though I've not been here before.

Sleeping on the floor of a ferry

midway across the La Manche in the middle of the night.

Different places, modes of transport,

destinations, even;

but the same feeling in my chest.

Like I'm some pilgrim come to see

a holy relic

(you.)

Days

It seems the days have slipped away like water through a sieve. Looking back into the sink they seem somewhat foreshortened, as though they went quicker than they did. It's a trick of the light, at least, they taught us that in school. And it is, it truly is. Each second took as long as every second has ever taken and the days of our childhood passed no slower, nor any faster. Tell yourself that. Tell yourself that though the year is almost gone it was nonetheless a year of as many seconds, minutes, hours as any other. That you were bored for hours. That you waited in queues for hours, that you were happy and sad and happy again for hours and hours and hours. In your head it's flattened down into some kind of box of photos and you'll say, 'where did the year go?' because that's what we always say. Well don't say it. I won't say it. I won't say it now and I won't say it on my dying day. I refuse to see time that way.

I will see it as a walk in the mountains. The path ahead looks long but once it's done I'll look back and, far below, I'll see where I started from. Foreshortened by the distance. But I'll know how far I've come.

Festive Advice

Never go to the cinema on Boxing Day,
unless you want to sit in a dark room and breathe in
turkey farts.

Presents Past

Christmas Day. 

Not this year but many years ago,

I received a princess dress and a special set

of stones which, when put in some kind of solution

turned into little plastic gems.

What happened to them? 

No trace of them remains. 

I see them in the palm of my hand 

as in a dream. 

What other insight have I to give on a day like this? The church seems emptier, true. Who here still believes the words we repeat? Not I. And who really likes turkey? I don't. Who really means thank you? I do, I still do. And the tree is more beautiful than ever. But the gemstones, what of them? I think of them as I amass my small pile of cherished gifts, worth more in money and practicality than plastic rubies. Where did they go? 

Did they dissolve, perhaps, when we stopped leaving out mince pies, and a glass of milk?

Quality Street

It is Christmas Eve,
But all the Purples are gone
So there is no God.

Found Ring

Then I went into my room, looked at my desk
and it was there.

Lost Ring

Suddenly,
the middle finger on my right hand felt
bare.
Something wasn't there.
Something I never usually ceased to wear
and now it wasn't there.
Something small but also precious,
something delicate and rare,
beloved beyond compare,
and now it wasn't there.
It slipped off without my notice
and vanished into thin air.

Rovers Return

When I come home it feels as though nothing has changed.

Except for Coronation Street, but Mum fills me in on all 

the things I missed.

Deli-rium: Soup of the Day

In the lead up to Christmas we stopped serving sandwiches. We needed the counter space for making hampers, and there wasn't much point ordering in stock that would go off.

The lunch-time regulars weren't best pleased. Some took it well and left with a scotch egg instead. Others took it not so well. One gentleman stormed out because we couldn't do him a ham and cheese on granary, slamming the door behind him.

One thing we could offer still was soup. Everyone likes soup! we thought.
Wrong.
No one wants soup. We sold one or two cups a day, at best. And it didn't seem to matter what flavour it was. Tomato and basil sold just as badly as wild mushroom. People only wanted sandwiches, and because there weren't any, they weren't interested in anything else. It didn't matter what soup we put on the board, no one wanted any.

And because it didn't seem to matter what we wrote on the board, we started writing all kinds of things just to see if anyone would notice. Parrot and Coriander, was the first one. No one batted an eyelid. Then we tried something a little wilder. Flea and Spam. Octopus and Cucumber. Butternut Squash and Sadness. Elephant and Castle.

The customers didn't notice.
Which was probably a good thing because Cream of Anthrax would have gotten us shut down.

Let's pretend it was because of that.

You drove me to the station and when I got out I felt this overwhelming sense of something I couldn't quite place. Of nostalgia, perhaps, or some deep and heavy loss. I felt it in the pit of my stomach.

Then when I got on the train I realised I'd left my hair straighteners at your house.

Sudoku

It's one of those things that people do on trains, and for want of anything better to do, I'm now one of those people. I'm stuck, of course. That stage where you can't put a number anywhere. And suddenly I'm flooded with the thought that everyone in the carriage is watching me, out of the corner of their eye or peering over my shoulder, and that they all know where the numbers go but I don't, and that they're judging me, and I still can't deduce where the nine goes but I can't give up, can't lift my eyes from the page because the Evening Standard has suggested I finish in 30 minutes and because if I didn't, everyone would know. But I'm flummoxed, and I'm getting flustered. Maybe I should pretend my pen has run out and be done with it. 

Memory pool

I just found my Piscine De Coubertin membership card. My stomach sunk to the deep end. My eyes stung. Nostalgia, it seems, is chlorinated

An Image

Once I saw a puddle, in which someone had dropped a bottle of milk. The bottle had burst, and the milk spread out into the murky water.

That is what the sky looks like today.

Sitting on trains

Only fools take the train home on the last day of Michaelmas term. At one of the country's oldest and most reputable universities, fools, of course, are in abundance. Myself being one of them, I joined the throngs of students crammed sardine-like into carriages, encumbered with fat suitcases stuffed with dirty laundry for mothers to wash or full of books that won't be read for essays that won't be completed. There is something strange and comical about wealthy boys in blazers sqatting in train corridors, chinos hitched up to reveal wool odd socks above loafers or brogues. I settled down amongst them, wedged between bags, skirt pulled over crossed knees for modesty's sake thinking, oh, could I not have seen this coming? Then i smiled at the parallel that sprang to my mind: an Indian passenger train loaded with people, sitting on carriage roofs, hanging onto windows, clutching onto metal rungs for dear life, making no complaints as the train lumbers on over rickety tracks in the swarthy heat.

Of course, they hadn't paid £75 return for their seats. The students bristled and brayed, bemoaning their hangovers, their longing for mother's cooking, the disgraceful nature of the British railway system, the injustice of it all. I settled down and braced myself for three hours of pins and needles, countng my blessings

The Gallery is the Coldest Place on Earth

The cold crept up into my bones,
or rather, every shiver of heat crept
out of them. Numb fingers numb toes
numb head, mind dulled into simple,
animal logic by the cold, driven to
mad frustration, grumpiness.
Trudged home bitter and almost
wept when I couldn't find my door keys.

And yet, it was nothing
two friends, a duvet and
Nigella Lawson couldn't fix.

The Star of North Road

This star is made not
of burning hydrogen.
Instead it is composed
of Tin foil and a
Jaffa Cake box.
Not through the desert but down
Cobbled streets it guides
Drunken revellers (not weary magi).
Who come not from the far east but from
Some living room,
up some bailey side-street.
The star shines dimly, dances,
(Flops to one side)
And comes to rest. Wise men
Would find this place stranger still than
any animal shed. But the pilgrims
Enter, nonetheless, and pay their £3
Repects in homage to the new-born king.

And yet He is not there.
It is no place for Him.
Only in abstraction, only in name is this a celebration of his birth.
Whilst filthy, too, this place is far removed;
There are animals, of sorts, and singing, but not that of angels. and here the virgins stand in corners, palms sweating.
The star falls to the dancefloor where
It it is trodden in.
And we sin,
And sin,
And sin.
In pseudo-honour
Of Him.

On Handing in an Essay

The pride that comes from your masterful creation,
the relief that comes from its completion,
Alas, akin only to that one feels
having emptied one's bowels.

The Library Prison

Prisons should be abolished. Instead they should lock offenders in a library. Their ticket to freedom is not measured in time but in essays. Petty thieves must write fifty. Murderers must write 200. The essays will cover a variety of topics, with a heavy focus on ethics and moral philosophy but not excluding any other academic area. Each given title must be explored in depth, critical analysis must be displayed, references must be made and correctly formatted. Illiteracy shall be no excuse. They are there indefinitely; there is time for everything to be learnt. Essays will be marked, say, by masters students looking for extra credit, or retired professors with time on their hands. A minimum standard will be required for the essay to be counted. Improvement must be displayed. Bibliographies must be alphabetised. There will be no plagiarism. Surveillance will be absolute. The best essays might even be published. There will be no internet except perhaps for online journals and academic resources. This does not include Wikipedia. Whilst there will be no deadlines, prisoners must complete all of their assigned essays. Those who do not wish to comply will never be freed.

After they have written a certain number of essays they will then be allowed to specialise, choosing their preferred topics. Finally, their last essay will be a lengthy dissertation or thesis. Then and only then will they be freed.

A Modern St Vincent Millay

"My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends — It gives a lovely light!"

We understand the metaphor. We can picture the candle burning. And writers now will continue to use such imagery, because it remains understood. But its relevance dwindles. Gone are the times when candles and firelight were our only means to fight off the darkness. It remains a pleasing archaism; but should our writing not be modernised to meet the modern world? Should it not reflect our contemporary thoughts, our new, shared psyche? Should we not slough off tired words, clichéd images, just as old technology is cast aside, buried under layers of dust? We live in a time where candles hold scant importance. They have become delicate vanities. We might blow them out and and light the way with bright new similes that burn with white fluorescence, that hold up fiercer beacons of relevance in our dark new lives.

My laptop battery's running low; it will not last the eve;
But it's okay, I've charged my phone, I'll ring you when I leave.

And yet, somehow, these words are meaningless. Utterly trite. We live in a world where urgency is false, transience is illusionary. Convenience surrounds us, enveloping us in constant, blinding light. 
And if we want to escape, it suffices not to blow out our flames. We must unplug ourselves entirely. 

The Tiny Museum of Miniature Objects

Cecilia wanted to be a curator. Open her own museum or gallery. But she didn't have the money, or the location, and she had nothing to put in it.

So, instead, she opened The Tiny Museum of Miniature Objects.
She built it out of cardboard and painted it by hand. It was quite small, but really quite something. The advantage being, of course, that she could make it look however she wanted. Every curator's dream. She kept it simple, for simplicity lends itself rather well to the exhibition of objects of whatever the size. White walls, 'marble' floors, and grand high ceilings that let lots of light in (because they weren't there).  She carefully selected the objects she wished to showcase, even creating minuscule plaques giving the visitor some informative and thought-provoking details on each piece. Then, when it was ready to be unveiled, she sent round invitations announcing the opening night.

Whilst you'd have expected that the name of the museum would have given some kind of a clue, people were none the less a little flummoxed to find themselves staring into what was essentially a cardboard box filled with a handful of knick-knacks. The atmosphere was slightly tense, as it often is in the room of a new exhibition where no-one understands the work, but everyone is keen to pretend to. But after a while, the visitors started to warm to the Tiny Museum of Miniature Objects. Using the magnifying glasses provided, they were able to read the plaques next to each object and learn, for example, that the sad-looking blue-painted porcelain cat had been found in a flea-market in central France, and was one of a pair; or that the rather plain looking stone came from a Northern-English beach on a grim December's day. They noticed the care with which the objects had been presented, put on display, and the simplistic genius of the architecture. The Tiny Museum of Miniature Objects received a glowing appraisal in the local art review, and with the admission fee of 10p a look, Cecilia was soon able to expand outside (if you'll excuse the pun) of the box, and host a whole number of new exhibitions including an installation her friend made out of matchsticks and a piece of performance art by a hairy brown spider.

In Somno Veritas

Last night, you told me, I sleep-talked. Rolled over and held you and said, "Je veux pas que tu partes. Je veux pas que tu quittes l'Angleterre". And then, as if nothing had happened, fell back into the silence of sleep. I don't remember it. I don't remember any of it. But I meant it. I meant it with my whole heart.

2 for £1

"Donuts"
A display in the middle of the aisle, three or four stories high. A yellow sign: 2 for £1.
"T'en veux?"
His eyes light up a little.
"Oui j'en veux bien"
"Jam or custard"?
"Jaa-am? Custard?"
"Confiture ou... creme anglaise."
"Vous foutez de la creme anglaise dans les donuts ici?"
"Bahhh, non, c'est du custard, c'est bien un peu different. Custard. On test?"
"Ok. One jam one costaaard alors."
"Bon."

We put them in our basket.
On the walk home, in the darkening cold, we bit into jam doughnuts and grinned, jam running out onto bitter fingers.

In the living room, fingers laced around warm mugs of tea, we each had a custard one. My smile that of nostalgia, expectancy; his of discovery, pleasant surprise. These smiles we know so well, having seen them so often on the face of the other.

dans ta chepo

They say a problem shared is a problem halved. And I will be the first to admit that 

two cold hands in a coat pocket 

don't stay cold for long.

Lovely Mistakes

I like it when things are a little lost in translation. Not always. Not entirely. But just sometimes. And just a  little bit. So that the translation makes sense, but sounds a little strange. And words are given a whole new edge, a new feel, a retouch, because of their new context, their new intended meaning. The unusualness, the sore-thumb quality of the word, makes it endearing. Makes it special. Makes it unique to the speaker. It punctuates their idiolect like a flaw in a knit jumper, rendering it one-of-a-kind. And I love it most of all when it comes from your lips. The way the images your words create are quite distorted from the ones in your mind, the ones you intended. But they are none the less beautiful. Unique. Your mistakes that only you can make. Your lovely mistakes.

Fancy

Suit and dress,

dress and suit.

Well suited.

Well dressed.

Cheri, il a neigé

We knew it from the way the light came in. Cold and white like milk. We knew it from the way the only sound we could hear was birdsong, solemn and far away. It is something you feel in your bones. 

The first snow.

Whitley and Tynemouth

The sun was cold and setting when we got to the beach.
The wind, and your beard made my cheeks both sting.
So we fled to the chippy, had a battered haddock each.

Cold Blood

My blood ran cold.

Something characters say in stories. You'd be long dead before your blood ever reached a temperature that could be described as 'cold'. 

But then my blood ran cold. 

It is the only way I can describe how I felt. I felt as though I was sinking in an icy black lake, and that the water was somehow coursing through my veins, my inner ears, my guts, my stomach. Cold, cold, cold. Dark.

This is how I felt when you told me that you swerve your car to hit cats on purpose, because you find it funny. Because you hate them.

You'd never actually killed one. Which to you made it perfectly fine. You expected me to laugh, I think.

But some small part of my soul died. Spiritual road kill. 

And my blood ran cold.

Thanks, River

The river burst its banks. A great serpent grown glossy and fat from the rains which fed it. It rose up in vast waves and currents, eddies tearing down trees and carrying them with it with a force we did not know it had.  The arches of bridges shrank into semi-circles. The water drank the banks and pathways, devoured bicycles and cars. And it seeped into the basements of the faculty, lapping at chairs where students once sat. It slithered into the boiler room and settled down.

The heating broke. We shivered in the upper rooms whilst the water receded. They closed the building down and we rejoiced like schoolboys sent home early due to snow. The collective dream we've shared since infancy.
No
More
School.

In the morning we slept in with smiles on our faces, saying prayers of thanks to the river gods.

Arrival

It is a journey I have made many times. By day. By night.
Now I make it again, only this time, as I rise from the bowels of the city, I feel my stomach rise with it,
and my heart rises, into my mouth. I rise from the city step by step, upwards into the amber light, leaving the city behind, a kaleidoscope of glitter and darkness. Cold wet leaves on cold wet stone. Step by step. Shoes scuff and slip. Breath burns out in cold clouds. Heart beats. Muscles sear. Numb toes stub hard on errant cobbles, though I know these streets. The climb is hard, though this too I know well. The night is young; yet the darkness is full-grown. I rise through it. Step by step. And as though emerging through mountain cloud I emerge on the platform and am bathed in golden light, breath heavy, triumphant.

I wait for you.

Selective Memory

Once you said something to me and it moved me to tears. We were walking home through the dark. I remember the exact street we were standing on, the direction I was facing in, the exact spot I stopped in when your words sunk in. I remember the way you looked at me, the way your face changed as my eyes began to redden and sting. I even remember the clothes we were wearing. I remember how long your facial hair was. And  I remember the feeling, the crushing weight of  beauty so immense, so difficult to bear. The way it filled my chest and choked me up. The way you took me in your arms and made it well up and over and melt away.

But I cannot, cannot for the life of me remember what it was that you actually said.

Writing Assignment 7

The train is full of strangers, as trains almost always are. It is stationary. The doors agape as still more strangers traipse aboard, alone or in groups. Cold air breathes in, and with it seeps the silence that is so often found in such places. Strangers sat together in an enclosed space. It is night. The lights are bright but yield little warmth.

The doors croon their closing song, a forlorn sound from which all urgency is lost into the night. The last passenger steps onto the train. The doors close.

She is drunk.

As the train moves she staggers and collapses into an empty carpet-coloured seat, falling into place amongst silent strangers.

She breaks the silence.

She begins to slur strange words in a strange language. A Latin language, but it doesn't matter which. The importance lies only in the fact that no one understands it, and no one understands her. The strangers shift uncomfortably. She begins to shout. Her features wild and angry, expressions marred by the viscous slowness of alcohol in the blood. Her hair wild and dark, her clothes, too, a swathe of darkness about wild limbs. Her eyes teary. Glaring. Wild. All the while shouting, muttering, uttering.

The strangers eyes seek something else, anything else but her; invariably they find the floor, occasionally other eyes, the eyes of other strangers, and something is communicated, some fleeting yet pervasive sense of discomfort. She stands, staggers, shouts louder, directing her strange words at no one in particular yet everyone all at once. Gesturing. The scent of alcohol on her breath is palpable, though no one can smell it. She stands and sways, shouts and spits and sits down again. Eyes look elsewhere.

The train roars through black-dark tunnels. The strangers sway. Shoulders bump. Hands that briefly brushed are snatched back apologetically.


She turns and speaks her tongues to someone else. To everyone else. To no one else. Guttural sounds that made no sense. Or rather, no verbal sense. Sense is made on another level, a primal level, more gut-felt, more profound. I am angry. I am angry and frightened. I am frightened and confused. I am hurting and I want to hurt. I want to hurt and I want to hurt myself. I want hurt myself as I am angry. I am angry. I hate you all. I hate you all and I hate myself. I am angry.


The train lights splutter.

From her pocket she draws a packet of cigarettes. All eyes lift from the floor to follow, with disbelief, the shaky trajectory of her hand from box to lip. Then she pulls out a box of matches.

The train swerves again, more violently. The box falls to the floor and the eyes follow it, see the explosive scatter of match sticks about their feet.

Silence.

Despair, despair, helplessness, uselessness, shame, hate, hate, despair.

The train stops and the woman, screaming a dying tirade at everyone and no one, flees the carriage like a wild, dark bird. Cawing, jabbering, into the night. Leaving the strangers to their silence, which seeps back down from the ceiling and settles into her empty, match-strewn seat.

Tree Song

On nights like this when I cannot sleep, when the rain's lullaby does not suffice to comfort me, I rise from my bed and throw the window open to let in the night. The rain lets itself in after, and I stare up at the tree behind our house, bare of all foliage, all colour; it's wet bark inky black as though blown across a page with a plastic straw. My eyes move as though to count the branches, but they appear infinite, uneven fractals spiralling wildly into a low sky, cast bronze by the street lights. In the storm, its voice is the mightiest of whispers. The most profound of lullabies. I gaze up at its boughs until my skin grows numb. Then slink back into sleep.

Nib

I can't write about you any more.

You're too deep under my skin
to scratch out with the nib of a pen.

Wish Bone

We tear you from the
still-warm carcass of some
poor, once-feathered thing.
Frail little bone, piece of ribcage.
You are everything.

You are that from which
we are made, from which
all things are made.
(Though Eve betrayed us, we are loathe
to blame the part you played.)

And we will break you.
Because we break all
things that can be broken.
Bones and vows, seals and silence.

But our wishes go unspoken.

Wine

There is a darkness in her mouth.

Teeth tainted, where the

poison swilled, purple-black.

On the pink swell of her upper 

lip it left a bruisy mark.

You can taste it, just by looking.

Blood-warm.

Grape-dark. 

Haiku: peeking through my window on a stormy night

Frail white toadstools push
through dead leaves and dark roof moss;
above, trees thresh, and toss.

Composite Sensations

There are some sensations, when, paired together, can recreate a sense of time and place with vivid realism. For example, if someone were to, somehow, make my eyes hurt with the sting of hours spent looking at a screen in a dark room, and make my mouth dry, and play me the sound of bird song, all at once, I would suddenly feel as though I was working on an essay the night before the deadline. My stress levels would increase dramatically, I'm sure. 

I don't know what I'm trying to say here, because my eyes hurt, and my mouth is dry, and I can hear the sound of bird song even though it's dark outside.

Sleep beckons. 

Good Night, Inanimate Objects.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the sounds my laptop makes disturb me immensely. Its little electronic groans. So human. Like a stomach digesting, quietly. Or the sounds I imagine a brain might make, whilst it thinks.

I want to close it down so it can sleep.

Which, in itself, is testament to my incessant personification of things.

But at night, everything needs to sleep. The teaspoons, tucked up in their drawer, the lights, switched off like shut eyes; even the clothes hang like bats at roost. 

Only the microwave, the oven, are left awake. Their insomniac eyes unblinking, red and green, in the dark.

Littering

We do it every weekend, more or less. Mum phones up. She's good at expressing interest in things she's not really interested in. There's a voice she does. Softer. More high-pitched. It reminds me of when I was little. Which is rather sad, when you think about it.

When she gets off the phone we get in the car. Sometimes it's just round the corner. Other times it's quite far away. The longest we've driven was for an hour and a half. It isn't too bad though. We listen to ABBA, and sing along.

Mamma Mia!
Are we there yet?
Here I go again!
Are we there yet?

When we get there, there is usually a small, suburban, semi-detached house; the kind that England does so well. Scrappy front garden with an overgrown lawn. Plastic window frames. Sometimes there is a farmhouse in the countryside.Those are the best times.

We knock on the doorbell and it is answered, usually by a woman, often wearing a baggy t-shirt and jogging bottoms, but sometimes by a man, often wearing a wife-beater. But not when it's a farmhouse in the countryside.

They take us through to see them. They're usually in some kind of back room or garage, in a special pen. Mum chats to the man or woman with that voice of hers, and we get to play with the puppies.

It's not always puppies. Sometimes it's kittens, or even baby rabbits. But the puppies are the best. Fat and squirmy and playful. A mass of soft fur in white and black and brown, tails wagging, little tongues lapping and yapping. We let them lick our faces and put them in our t-shirts, and pick out our favourites as though we were picking out our new pet.

But we never were.
It was sad, at first. We always hoped that one day, Mum would let us actually take one home. Once or twice we made a scene. She threatened not to take us again. Now we're older, we understand. We know we're not allowed. We can't afford it. We've learned to play along, to gulp down the lump in our throats each time we put the puppies back.

After a while, Mum says, 'Thanks, they're just what we're after, I'll give you a call,' and they believe her. They always do. And we get back in the car with smiles on our faces. 'Thanks Mum, you're the best!' ABBA comes back on and we sing along again.
But we don't mean it. Our hearts are much too heavy.
Our souls are full of puppy-shaped holes.

The Advisee

Ben asks for advice.

Not because he thinks he needs it.

No one thinks they need advice.

Not deep down. Not really.

Ben asks for advice to hear his own thoughts 

spoken back to him. So he can nod and say,

Yes, yes, you're right, I hadn't thought of that.

Ben asks for advice,

Not because he needs it.

But because other people need to give it.

They need to be seen as good friends and good

listeners, good problem-solvers, good 

advisers.They like to feel perceptive.

Like their view of things is somehow of more 

value than anyone else's. 

They like to feel that their words can have an

impact on the actions of others.

They like to feel like other people's problems are

worse than their own.  

Above all,

they like the sound of their own voices. 

And Ben knows this.

It is a kind of catharsis,

that they didn't know they needed.

And Ben is just 

giving them what they wanted,

though they didn't know they wanted it.

It is something they can't seek out,

not by themselves. To advise, of course,

there must be one in need of advice.

And this is the role Ben plays.

The fulfiller of societal desires of the most 

mundane variety.

An advisee.

Garlic Sauce

The chips 

were golden.

crisp and sodden, all at once. 

Salt. Vinegar. Plastic fork. And 

garlic sauce, in a polystyrene cup, 

(which split softly in my grip

as I tipped it up).

The centre tines snap

off as I dig in,

but I don't care;

I scald my tongue in 

haste and splutter steam 

into the night air.

The sauce is all I ever wanted,

cool and tangy, great on chips.

 And I'm starving, 

scoffing, scarffing, and it's

dripping down my lips.

"You're gonna stink love!"

But I'm drunk, and I 

could not care less.

(Garlic's fine and dandy when

there's no one to impress.)

Tandem

Out of the library windows, a strange sight:

A man and a woman on a tandem bike.

The way they stopped at the bike racks, the way the man helped the woman dismount, made it all seem commonplace. As though their bike was nothing out-of-the-ordinary. As though this was how they rode everywhere, every day. They both had dark hair, and their clothes were khaki-green and tweedy-brown. Their bags were made of tan leather, as were their shoes. But none of it looked pretentious, nor pre-arranged. Their coordination, like their bicycle, seemed natural. A part of them. And when they'd chained their bike to the rack (the back of it jutting out, like a limousine in a supermarket car park), they walked off, holding hands. Their feet falling in step.

In tandem.

Honeysuckle

Last night before I went to sleep, I thought about writing.
Not about writing, as such, but more, the act of capturing something. Some elusive, nameless feeling, some almost audible whisper; some slight, fleeting colour in the corner of the eye. It almost impossible to put this process into words. But a writer must always try...

Consider, if you will, a night fisherman, casting his net into the ink-black waters for something, he knows not what. And all the while the boat is gently rocked by the oncoming tide. The waves of sleep. And before he knows it, his lantern blows out, and he is pulled adrift...

In the dream I was in a garden, adrift with snow. And  I was thinking about the honeysuckle. How to put it into words. I was staring at it, thinking, how can I describe this honeysuckle, the way it looks with the snow falling all around it. And then I realised suddenly that it couldn't be snowing, if the honeysuckle was in bloom. And then the dream shifted, and changed, as someone might turn their face away in a crowd to keep from being recognised. I found myself in bed. Still in a garden, but there was no more honeysuckle, no more snow. And you were in the bed beside me. Was this the shared dream we were seeking? "Look," you said, "look at the birds", and above us was an enormous tree, filled with birds of all varieties. The birds were building nests and flying from branch to branch. There were a great number of pigeons, I recall. And we lay there for quite some time, just looking at the birds together. And then you got up. "Why are you leaving," I asked. "We didn't need to get out of bed, not just yet." But you didn't reply, and then you were gone. And then I realised that the birds weren't just making nests, they were building something altogether more complex, a system of ropes and pulleys and strange structures. And that blossoming on the trees were huge honeysuckle flowers, and this realisation unsettled me more than the birds or anything else. It started snowing again. I realised that I was dreaming, and I woke up.

What did the night-fisherman catch, with his dream-net?
A flock of strange birds in a strange tree.
Honeysuckle flowers.
Soft flakes of snow.

Your absence.
Your absence, the feeling I couldn't put a name to. Because how can you name nothing? How can you name emptiness and loss?

A writer must always try.

The way it crumbles

There's a chocolate chip cookie sitting on my desk in the library.

I don't know who left it there.

I don't know how long it has been there.

But it's a sure sign of library-induced dementia that I am

considering

eating it.

Writing Assignment 4

Writing Assignment (4): Briefly describe a character who is as unlike yourself as you can imagine. Then get inside this character's head to individualise him or her.


I could come up with an infinite multitude of such characters. Opposite me in every way, in any way. As different from me as day is from night.

But all I would be doing would be painting a picture of myself.

How so?
Just so.

If I were to describe an elderly black man, for example, you might guess that I'm a young white girl. If I were to describe someone poor, you would know that I am not. If I were to describe someone with short black hair you might deduce that mine is long and blonde. If I was to describe someone in prison you could safely assume I'm a law-abiding member of society. (Or, at least, that I had not yet been caught).

It is like an exercise in binaries. In the separation of the self from the other. Othering. (How bleak that word looks without an M before it!)

Equally, it is difficult to avoid unconscious arrogance. For example, were I to describe a detestable character, I would be unwittingly implying that I am likeable. To describe ugliness would be vain. At the other side of the spectrum, of course, would be describing someone with positive attributes, the implication being that I do not possess them. The painfully self-aware modesty of this would be almost as bad as the unconscious arrogance.

So here I am, staring at the question, rolling it around in my head as one might suck on a gobstopper. Hoping to reduce it, eventually, to something smaller. Less problematic.

Then it came to me.
I think too much.
Not a negative quality; nor, for that matter, a positive one. But a freshly-proven fact.

My character, I realise, should be someone who thinks less.
Who doesn't torture themselves with questions, introspective self-analysis, hyperactive self-awareness, over-reactive self-loathing.




This is why I chose to write about Neil.
And I know exactly how it reflects on me.
And that is the desired effect.

Bad Taste II

I never got round to buying a poppy.

I'm sorry. I meant to.

But the welt a paintball bullet left on my arm is blossoming. Blooming. A delicate, curved form, pale red. 

Poppy-like. It's tender. It smarts to touch. 

We will remember them.

Bad Taste

We went paintballing on Remembrance Day.
Bad taste.

Going out to war we were laughing, arms looped, blurting jokes through plastic masks. And through the masks, blurred with steam and scratches and spit, the sky was the bluest blue. The leaves were all the colours autumn leaves should be, all at once, all in one wood, and the soft ground underfoot was green with moss and red-brown with the dead leaves and blue where the bluest sky had fallen in puddles. It was beautiful. And the tree-trunks were splattered green and yellow from the bullets bursting. They burst on our backs, too, and our arms and legs and hands. They bit so hard into our cold flesh. The wetness of the paint. The pain. We were surprised, each time, to see no blood. Our feet, our hands, were bitter-damp. Our fake masks couldn't keep back the fake gas and so we choked. The sound of the gun-shots. The screams. The thudding of our hearts. The fear. And when the game was over, the silence fell. The heavy silence that only falls where once was devastating, deafening noise. That only falls when everyone, everything is dead. That silence rang throughout the wood. And then we remembered them. We remembered them. We remembered them.

We put our cold guns down. Took our masks off. Ran our hands over our dirty faces. Ran our tongues over our lips, wet where bullets had burst through the mask. Thick, lurid paint.
Bad taste.

Neil

I met a man at the gallery opening last night. His name is Neil. I was standing in the stairwell, searching for my name on the list of volunteers. Neil was looking for his, too. When he found it, he pointed it out to me. That's how I found that he was also a volunteer, and that his name is Neil.

Neil has a loud voice which cracks and wavers off-key. A Geordie-ish accent being played back by an underwater tape-recorder.
Neil has a handshake which is neither firm nor limp.
Neil has dandruff. I'd even go as far as to say he has severe scalp-localised psoriasis. The flakes fleck his shoulders like stars in the night sky.
Neil has grey-ish teeth. The bottom edges of his top-middle incisors slope upwards and inwards. They don't look like teeth should look but they don't look like the photos on cigarette packets, either.
Neil's eyes are slightly green. He looks at you when you're talking to him. He looks at you when you're not talking to him. But he doesn't meet your gaze. Not quite.

Neil likes fashion. "Do you go on lookbook.com? I do."
Sometimes I do, yes. "Who do you think is the best dressed girl in here? I think it's the one with the dreadlocks. She looks fabulous." I agree with him. "You look nice, too." I thank him. So does he. "I like your coat." Thank you.
Neil is wearing brown slip on shoes, the kind mostly worn by men who want to be comfortable but still smart, or those who don't know how to dress.
Neil is also wearing black trousers, a light pink shirt and a black anorak (with star-spangled shoulders).
I think, for someone who likes fashion so much, he doesn't seem to be very fashionable.
"Girls have such nice clothes," says Neil. "I sometimes wish I was a girl so I could wear pretty dresses."
He says it without undertone, neither shame nor irony. His grey teeth smiling, his eyes looking at me but also elsewhere.

What do you do, apart from volunteering? I ask.
Neil's slightly green eyes look less at me and more at the back wall.

"I eat," he says. "I sleep. I drink. I dance. I piss. I shit. I ....... I wash the dishes!"
Me too, I say. I do those things too! And we laugh.

Later I go in to the vault to watch the film installation. In the dark the colours and sounds make me feel like I'm drowning. My heartbeat slows. Then Neil comes in, walking in front of the projector so that a human-shaped silhouette slices through kaleidoscopic lights on the wall. People around me bristle. He sits down and looks at me. It's dark and I'm looking at the film but I can still tell that he's looking at me.

"HELLO!" he exclaims. It's dark and I'm looking at the film but I can still tell that everyone in the room is looking at us.
Shhhh, I say, and smile.
"You're nice," he says. People look once more. "I'm glad I met you because you're nice."
And suddenly I'm not in that dark room, I'm inside Neil's head and in there it's very light, and simple, and filled with pretty girls in pretty dresses, and his whole life is separated out into nice boxes, sleep and eat, drink and dance, piss and shit, and when he looks at me he sees a nice girl in a nice coat, nothing more. He can't see inside my head. Perhaps for him I don't even have an inside-of-my-head and neither does he.

I looked away from the film and looked at him in the dark and suddenly I could have cried with the burden of it all, the weight of the past and the pain of being and the sadness of everything, everything, everything. I just looked at him and wanted to be like him. To be him.

 I've never wanted to be a person with dandruff and grey teeth more than I did just then, in that moment.

You're nice too, Neil, I whisper. You're really, really nice.

Sad Food

There must be a special place where all the bad food goes. Not spoiled food. Bad food. Food that's badly made, made using bad ingredients or by someone who doesn't know how to cook. Food that's made on production lines by sad people. The food you get in garages and hospitals and regional airports. Food with no taste. No soul. Sad food. The kind that is easy to chew but difficult to swallow, that leaves a slight lump in your throat as if you were about to cry. The kind you feel ashamed to eat. That leaves you feeling full, but somehow, slightly empty.

There must be a special place it goes. Not a real place, of course. Not tangible or visible or visitable, in any case (who has the right to say what's real and what's not?) But a place like heaven, or hell; some spirit-world, some purgatory, inhabited by cold, badly crimped pasties, dry scotch eggs and packaged sandwiches that taste like soggy paperbacks, amongst infinite other culinary mediocrities.

Perhaps they don't go anywhere. They don't pass on to the next life. They stay here in the mortal realm, floating forlornly after those who had the misfortune to eat them. The saddest part is most people don't even see them. They don't notice anything's wrong because that's the only kind of food they eat. There's probably a taxi-driver out there being followed by a ghost jacket potato covered in rubbery, insipid 'cheddar', and behind it, a whole host of other banal breakfasts and dismay dinners, trailing after him as though he were a kind of sorry, school-canteen pied piper. Does that woman at the bus-stop see the microwave lasagne sitting on her shoulder like a squat parrot? If these things were visible to you, you might even come across a swarm of those greasy prawny-chickeny creatures Iceland sells in 'party boxes' drifting forlornly around the office. Or white-flecked, flaccid bacon and a big lump of over-cooked scrambled egg hovering around a construction worker's hat.

I too, am haunted by these monsters. I am followed by a ghoulish, phantom picnic. I see them all, sitting on my desk or stalking after me in the dark. The own-brand biscuits. The discount lemonade. The curled up egg sandwiches. The shrivelled cocktail sausages. I am followed by a ghoulish, phantom picnic.

Stop, stop, it's too sad, I might cry.

Dreamshare

We tried to share a dream last night. We decided when and where to meet. We set the scene. Something simple and at the same time, specific enough that it might stick in the memory with ease. Somewhere recognisable and strange both at once. So that our minds could hold onto it whilst falling asleep, as a child might hold a small bear. 

I formed, in my mind's eye, a perfect recreation of the scene. I visualised it to perfection. I held onto the image, held onto the idea of being there in that dream place with you, held onto it so tightly. Then I drifted off into sleep.

I woke up and realised I'd missed our meeting. I'd been elsewhere, with other people, doing something else. I wondered if you'd been in our place, waiting for me, alone, or if you had dreamt that I was there with you. But it seemed more likely that you'd been elsewhere, too. No matter how hard we held onto the place we wanted to go it still escaped us in the end. We couldn't carry it across the border into sleep. Much as, no matter how tightly the child hugs its teddy to its chest as it falls asleep, it is always on the floor the next morning. The same sorrow applies. Though it is not our fault. We are sorry nevertheless.

I'm sorry.

Sparrows

A sparrow flew across my line of sight. In its beak, a slice of bread bigger than it's entire body. Its flight was significantly impeded; it flew in dogged dips and swoops. Then it dropped the bread. It turned back but alas, much too late; another sparrow had already reached the bread. The first sparrow managed to grab it back at the last moment, breaking it in half. Then it flew away, much more competently, with a more reasonably-sized slice.

I wondered if sparrows knew how to share. Or if they could learn. Surely the first sparrow would learn from his experience? Or if, instead they were doomed to a 'dog-eat-dog' mentality that meant they would always try to take everything all for themselves, and often be left with nothing.
Silly sparrows.

Carshare: Le Vieux Fou et son Chien Pourri

Clermont-Ferrand to Paris, 11.20. Mercedes camping-car, it said. Gros luxe! I thought. €27.00. I reserved a seat. Daniel F, 70 years old. Nice old man, I'm sure. 

I turned up fifteen minutes early. Not a "camping-car" in sight. But an old man was waving at me from beside his dusty white Renault people carrier and I had to face my fate. He gave me a kiss on each cheek and gestured towards our fellow car-sharer, a tall mixed-race man with glasses and a flat-peak cap, who was smoking. "J'espere que vous n'avez pas peur des chiens!" No, I'm not scared of dogs. Then I saw his dog. Enormous. The size of a bear. When I got into the car the smell of its breath hit my nostrils hard and I had to grit my teeth not to gag. When we set off, it leapt up and tried to lick my face; I squealed and Daniel F ran round, opened the boot and shouted "PILOU! ARRETES!" whilst pummelling the great beast in the stomach. All this happened in the middle of a busy street; buses were hooting their horns and people on the street were stopping to stare. I quickly realised that Daniel F was un vieux fou, a mad man, a point which was reiterated by his constant attempts to make slightly sexual jokes about English girls and constant failures to apply the brakes properly. I resigned myself to a long journey spent politely fake-laughing, breathing through my mouth,and glaring at the back of the flat-peak-cap-man's head, jealous that he'd gotten the front seat and wasn't chilling in the back seat with the beast. He knew it, too, and looked round to laugh every time the putrid bear-dog decided to lick my hair. 

Then the third passenger got in. She'd already made us an hour late demanding we detour to pick her up. And, it transpired, she was terrified of dogs. She was from Burkina Faso and when she spoke French her accent was mad and beautiful, lilting and drawling and speaking twice as fast as I could follow. And once she started talking she could not keep her mouth shut. Screaming wildly every time the dog came near her, babbling about how the French are sick and strange for loving animals enough to let them in their houses, to feed them at the dinner table, to let them sit on the sofa and watch TV like human beings. When I eventually fell asleep I kept waking up periodically to find that she was using my arm or leg as a prop to illustrate a point in some wild story or other she was telling Daniel F, who was partly loving her loud-mouthed honesty and partly terrified. Flat-peak-cap was sleeping, too, or at least pretending to like me.

Then Daniel F stopped the car because the radiator was too hot.

This happened several times. He kept getting out to put water in the reservoir and every time he opened the boot he had to wrestle the bear-dog to stop it running into the motorway (RESTES LA PILOU RESTES LA!!!)  Later, Pilou the bear-dog attacked Burkina Faso and she threw her blackberry at his head.

When, five hours later, we arrived in Paris, we couldn't have gotten out of that car faster had it been on fire. Once Daniel F was out of earshot, we all looked at each other. I said, "Camping car?" and flat-peak said "LOOOL!" and Burkina said "Camping car MON CUL!" and we all laughed, united, at least, by our collective discomfort and disappointment. 

Next time, I said, I'm taking the train.

Scooters

In Lombok you drove a scooter over hot dusty roads,

wearing an old pair of jeans cut off at the knee.

The sun burned your forearms deep brown.

And behind you, there was I.

Clinging on for dear

love.

In Clermont you drive a scooter over cold black cobbles,

wearing tracksuit bottoms underneath your jeans.

The rain leaves you soaked to the skin.

And behind you, stacks of boxes.

Full of pizzas,

Getting cold.

Sun and Moon

We sat on the steps of the black cathedral in the sunshine. When the sun passed behind the clouds you said, look at the moon. I laughed. That's the sun, I said. No, you said, because you can look straight at it. A clear, white circle. It's the moon.
You're stoned, I said. Keep watching.
And the clouds moved on and the moon turned into the sun, and we were both blinded, and we collapsed with laughter on the black rock steps.

When we climbed the spiral staircase we were still blind. We spiralled upwards in the dark until we couldn't breathe and then emerged into the light, panting. You'd never been up before. The red roofs glinted below and clouds loomed, bruisy plum blue in the distance.
Look at the rainbow, you said.
And there was a rainbow more beautiful than I'd seen in years.
We were blown away by its beauty. A sight for sore eyes.
Eyes blinded by the moon.

Comfort Cuts

Nostalgic. We're both nostalgic. So we were content just doing the things we used to do, before I left. Walking down the streets we used to walk down, arm in arm. Sitting on your sofa drinking coffee after sleeping past midday. Eating meals made from whatever we could find in the fridge, in front of American films from the 80's, dubbed into French. 

All the things I thought I'd never do again. 

Like cutting open old wounds.

But instead of pain comes happiness.

Cuts that comfort.

Dunelm

We're so close to Dunelm Food stores that in the time it takes to walk from door to door you couldn't even smoke a whole cigarette. Then you have a choice. Stamp it out and enter. Stand outside and smoke it, bathed in the bright yellow convenience store light. Or cross the road and walk out onto Kingsgate Bridge, and lean on the rough concrete wall watching the river ripple with the Prince Bishop Centre's lights, and admiring the way the great arches of Elvet Bridge are mirrored in the water (numbered 1 and 2), and glancing left towards the cathedral that looms like a great ghost above black trees. There you can smoke to the sound of black water running far below, you can watch the smoke rise from your lips, set a-glow by the white halogen lights that line the bridge. You can admire the red ember's slow descent towards the butt and see, suddenly in the distance, a similar red light, floating down the river, and wonder what it is. You'll never know. You'll just stamp out the butt and head back to Dunelm for your Rubicon and Kingsmill or whatever it is you were going to buy. And your fingers will be cold, the cold river air will have chilled you to the bone, but the cold will feel like a kind of peace that has sunk deep down into your soul and you won't care about the pint of milk you forgot or the Ritter Sport you bought instead.

Hello, Ween.

Walking down town in the dark. Cobbles glossy with neon lights and vomit. All around me dance strange creatures of the night, whooping, hooting, howling. Wolf-whistles and cat-calls. Boys and girls, birds and beasts. Faces daubed in garish warpaint, bodies clothed in strange plumage, tattered rags, or barely clothed at all. Chips fall to the ground and scatter; bottles fall to the ground and smash. Girls' ankles twist sickeningly in heels and yet they stumble on. The walking dead. I walk on past zombies and skeletons, mummies and vampires, witches and devils and so, so many slutty cats (Clare's accessories are terrifying, granted). Here's a jilted bride and there's Bane and here's Alex and his droogs and there's Cleopatra (comin atchya), side-step to avoid a pack of Smurfs and dear-god-no-he's-NOT-Edward-Cullen-urgh
and then,
there's me,
A lone hotdog wandering through Market Square. Neither terrifying nor terrified. More, bemusing. Bemused.

The Work of Art II: Henry

"Cop on, Henry. Don't look at me like that or I'll kick you down the stairs."

Henry is being difficult. He's old and grubby and one of his wheels doesn't really turn any more, and the wire doesn't unwind as smoothly as it should. Suction's ok, as long as your knuckles are white gripping the joint where the metal pipe meets the plastic tube. And he's much too portly to rest on a single step so you have to keep one knee pressed against him so he doesn't fall. It would serve him right if he did, the way he keeps getting stuck round corners and tripping me with his wire. 

Day two of my internship and I'm hoovering the back staircase.

The building is just covered in debris. Mostly fine sawdust and flakes of paint, but also dust and god-knows-what-else. There are three floors plus the basement. It's taking a long time, my back hurts, I'm covered in dust. And after I'm done, the front staircase awaits.

"God, Henry! Stop being a little bitch."

The plastic overalls are making me sweat.

I said it before;

Art is hard.

Stew

What makes for better writing? Feelings as fresh and raw as a newly severed finger? Thoughts scrawled out as you're thinking them? Memories imprinted on the page as you live them, like a photo onto Polaroid paper? Or that which is left to simmer, to settle? To congeal. Maybe those words we've rolled around on our tongues for months are the best ones. The grit becomes a pearl.

We all know some dishes are better the next day. Takeaway curry, for example, or Mum's lasagne. It's best to leave your tea to cool, lest it burn your mouth.

What is this, then? It is it an attempt to excuse laziness, tardiness, distractedness?
Probably.

But I've had at least enough time to think on things that I could come up with a better excuse for my literary absence than mere writer's block.

So let's just say, I didn't forget. I wasn't too lazy. I just wanted time to reflect. Time to let my thoughts develop, slowly.

Time to let the meat of a story tenderise, slowly.
Time to let it melt off the bone.

The Work of Art

Today I started the first day of my work placement at an art gallery.

Which is a euphemistic way of saying, Today I painted the walls of an abandoned bank for three hours.

It wasn't the only thing I did. I also drank coffee and explored the bank vaults in the basement. Dark and dusty with metal doors half a metre thick. Some dimly lit and full of dirty tools, some black and filled with obscure miscellanea. One well lit and filled with coffee table books. One almost empty, save for a single red glockenspiel in a pool of white light. I struck a G. The warm note flooded the vault and its closeness startled me, as an unexpected tap on the shoulder might, if you thought you were alone. I left.

The building was icy cold, and on the upper floors the rooms were white and concrete grey, ceilings populated by snaking pipes. Stepladders wandered round half-built installations. Paintings hung still. Wide windows let in white light and views of dancing tree-tops, vibrant yellow. I pushed my Nikes clumsily through the legs of a white overall. It had a hood.

Then I picked up a bucket of paint and an assortment of brushes and clattered down the back staircase till I found the bits of wall the last painter had missed. Long strips behind banisters and wide stretches of sloped ceiling. The paint smelt wonderful. And it was so white. The wall was the colour of discoloured teeth. I took pleasure in the bleaching process. You can't leave brush strokes, but you've got to blend the new white with the old white so it doesn't show. Not easy. But it's an art. A work of art. I liked the rhythm. The repetition. The sense of completion. The mindlessness. The cleansing. The catharsis. I painted until my arms ached, until my necked seized from gazing at the sloping ceiling, 'til my head span from the fumes and from the vertigo of being on the staircase but not looking at my feet.

When I'd finished the flight of stairs my hands and shoes and face and watch were flecked with tiny white dots. Like stars. And bright silver sparks flew around my peripheral vision. Like stars.

The vast and empty rooms grew dark save for the faint orange glow of street lights where once shone the golden leaves. I scrubbed my hands in icy water and peeled myself out of the overalls and wandered round dark corridors looking for someone to say goodbye to.

Then I left. Wearied from my strange, quiet work experience.
Art is hard, they say.

The Race

At the end of the race they handed me a medal. Dull heavy amulet on a yellow string. A consolation prize, for coming seven-thousand-three-hundred-and-forty-eighth.

I didn't run thirteen miles for this.


I did it for the pain.
I did it so my heart would thump against my ribs.
So my feet would hurt and blister and bleed.
So my legs would cramp.
So my throat would burn with the cold.
So my stomach would churn.
So my brain would rattle inside my skull.

I did it for the sound of twenty-four-thousand-four-hundred-and-ten feet pounding tarmac, out of time.

I did it for the relief of it all being over.
I ran so I could finish.

Happy Yingmei

In a dark wood a Chinese woman in a white night dress told me her dreams.
She dreamt of a mother hen with four babies. Working hard to find food. In the dream, each day the chicken mother lost another baby. She said she could sense the sadness, deep inside her. But the chicken mother kept on searching for food to feed the remaining chicks. She said, you should go into the countryside and find a chicken family. And follow them. And then you will learn about hard work. And sadness.

Platform 1 (Southbound)

There's something I like about a train station of an evening, when the sky is turning dark teal-blue and the lights bless the platform with warm, synthetic gold. It glows here and across the way, on the other side, where the people congregate and buzz like flies. The numbers on the clock and the train's destinations tick over in that same orange-gold, and the sky grows bluer still. Ink blue. Deep sea documentary blue. My hands are cold and the wait is long and time goes slow but there's something I like about being on the platform. And when the train finally comes, I don't want to go.

Persephone

Yes, I ate the seeds,
but only six.
Let me back.

Let me back.

I admit it, yes,
I accept my fate.
you can keep me
here all winter,
only,
let me back one day,
Oh, let me back.

I made my wintry, hellish bed,
and I'll yes, I swear I'll lie in it.
But promise me you'll let me back.
Some summer's day when the sky is blue.
When the black spire slices the sun in two.

Let me back.

Skype

You are not you and 

I am not I

we are just

blurred versions.

Voices lagging.

expressions dragging.

Freezing up in little

squares and missing

punchlines, nuances.

Each other.

No touching.

No one prefers it.

But you can be sure

our ancestors would have

killed for it.

The Cure

You want to hear something good about mankind? Too bad. There's nothing good to hear any more. There's nothing good about mankind; we've wrecked the world and sold our souls and we can't buy them back. And it doesn't even matter because we're all going to die. Everyone. Everyone is going to die. Does that make you feel small, does it make your guts go cold? Do you want to hear something that will make you feel better? I know the secret, I know the only thing that will light up the dark abyss that rages inside you all through your sleepless nights.

I know the cure.

Get out of bed.

Go to the kitchen.
Take a knife, yes, you heard me, take a knife in your hand.
And with the knife, carve a
knob of butter from its rumpled foil, and
drop it into a frying pan.

Then take a banana and peel it, and slice it down its middle, and savour the ease with which the blade
slices down through it.
Place the slices in the pan and inhale the scent of butter, frying.
Put the kettle on. Put a teabag in a cup.
Slice a hunk of soft bread.
Spread butter on it.
Flip the banana.
Pour the water into the cup. Add milk. A spoon of brown sugar. Discard the bag.
When the banana has gone from ivory to rich, golden yellow, when its edges are soft and ever-so-slightly burnt, tip it out, onto the bread.
Add a quick grind of black pepper.
(Trust me.)

Eat.

And you'll feel better.










(O, humanity; if only there were enough bananas for you all!)

Genesis 3 Revisited (Or why I ate Rich's Fruitcake)

Now the fruitcake was more crafty than any of the other baked goods that Rich's Mum had made. It said to Isobelle, “Did Rich really say, ‘You must not eat any of the delicious treats in the kitchen’?”

Isobelle said to the fruitcake, “We may eat snacks from the fridge, but Rich did say, ‘You must not eat the fruitcake that is in the middle of the table, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the fruitcake said to Isobelle.  “For Rich knows that when you eat me your eyes will be opened, and you will be like him, knowing good and evil.”

When Isobelle saw that the fruitcake smelt AMAZING and was pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

And it was good.

Hunger

Sometimes I'm so hungry that I get irrational. Yesterday, for example.  I was thinking about how much I hate Peter Piper. God I hate that man. So, so, much. Because he's got all these pickled peppers and I've got nothing. Have you seen the Muffin Man? No I haven't seen the muffin man, but when I do see him, I'll punch him and take all his muffins. And the Gingerbread man can't possibly run that fast, little prick. Then I'll stare at my toes and wonder which little pig it was that had roast beef so that I can steal it from him. Toes don't even have mouths and they've got more food than I have. Snow White! Are you finished with that apple? Oh she's asleep. I'll be having that then.

Then I'll go to the kitchen and eat some toast and be fine again.

Blowing Smoke Rings

Breathing wispy Cheerios,

O O O O huffffffffff

(the last one's just a puff)

Lost Proverbs

I've started forgetting how to speak.
No, it's not quite as serious as that.
But I'm mis-saying sayings. Which is saying something.
I'll just be talking and throw in an idiom. And it will come out wrong. And I won't know why.
Like water from a stone. I make a really dogs ear out of it. A real pigs dinner.
And I've forgotten, too, how to pronounce some words. People snigger.
I was never like this. Never so malapropriate. Which isn't a word, I am aware. That was on purpose.
I used to make fun of my Mother for the very same thing and now, I am just as bad.
Maybe it's from long months spent speaking another language. I'm forgetting my mother tongue.
Maybe it's from so many hours spent writing, searching new metaphors, avoiding the very clichés I can no longer even get right.

I don't know.
Maybe I cut out my tongue to spite my face.

Baboon

Baboon
Baboon
Baboon
Baboon
Baboon
Baboon
Baboon

Rather Taxing

We could have seen it coming. The unemployment levels were rising. The population was rising. The oceans were rising. And all the taxes were rising, accordingly. Although he promised that they wouldn't. Our prime ministers aren't dictators, men who look good on propaganda posters, whose power, whose very voice, leaves the nation prostate in fearful admiration. No. They're bumbling Geography teachers and sheepish fathers, worn down by their job and their obese, nagging wife of a country. It's not that she let herself go. She was like that long before he wed her. He married her, it seems, for the money.

Too bad there wasn't any.

So the taxes have landed. And amongst them, the one that we could have seen coming. But, at the same time, the one that we could never have imagined. Perhaps because we'd joked about it too much.

The Air Tax. Income assessed, of course, and assessed, too, by the purity of the air you're breathing. Londoners get it pretty easy. Most city dwellers, in fact, have gotten off quite lightly. But in the countryside, and on the coastlines, the people have annual taxes that would make a banker wince. It works sort of like the TV licence. A yearly lump sum. Sadly, you can't dodge the Air Tax by hiding the TV in the loft. We all have to pay. It was protested, of course. Something about human rights. Well, air is never mentioned in the bill of human rights, because it is taken for granted. And shouldn't it be? We're in no danger of it running out. None of it is going to waste, and there's enough to go round, even with all the Seychellian immigrants (their country drowned).

How do you protest against an Air Tax?

You stop breathing. A few fools tried it. A couple of deaths; accidental, it was claimed, not suicide, although I'm not quite sure of the legalities involved. Some eccentrics decided to breathe out of oxygen tanks, carting them round on their backs all day like extremely lost SCUBA divers. They refused to pay on the basis that they weren't breathing the government's air. Biting off their nose to spite their face, it seems, because the canisters of oxygen were a lot more expensive than the tax itself.

I don't know. You can't really complain. It's ridiculous, of course, but they needed to tax something. Rather pay for air than healthcare, anyway. No one touches our NHS.

Snowberries

We never asked anyone what the plant was called. Did we ever? Were we just told? That's a hydrangea, over there. With the flowers that are pink and blue, both at once. Those are rhododendrons. The ones with the little ballerina flowers are fuchsias. And that's a camellia.

No, we never asked and we were never told. Because we named it ourselves. The Snowberry Bush. It describes it well enough that perhaps you might know the plant we mean. With the little white berries, round as snowballs. We used to pick them on the way to school. We knew we couldn't eat them, though we never tried. We flicked them at the back of each-other's  legs. We crushed them under our feet. We held them up close to our eyes to marvel at how snow-like they really were; their insides, white mush, so similar to snow that it was hard to believe how warm they were.

If you hold one to your ear and crush it between your thumb and forefinger, the sound is like a footstep on a new blanket of  snow. The cold breath of Winter, whispering to you. I'm coming, he says. I'm coming.

A Strange Butterfly

On mornings in the autumn when the cold is setting in, I know the plight of the chrysalis. To tear oneself from the warmth of enclosed darkness with weak new limbs. To find oneself in stark, shimmering light, the cold sharp against new skin. Wings crumpled. Quivering.

Vertigo By Proxy

Hey jellyfish,
hey lost balloon,
who let you go?
And where you floating to?
The background's getting
darker, darker,
deeper, blacker blue.

There you are, inside a
tiny capsule, just for you.
Where did you come from, tiny man?
Where are you going to?

Nice helmet.
Nice space suit.
Are you going to outer space?
Well, I know that you are scared,
because I see it in your face.

Checking checking
everything. Checking,
Everything. Did you
check this? Can you
hear me?

We're watching you.

The door opens.
I could vomit,
watching you.

Let go, let go.
But don't. Please, don't.
(But do).

And there, below, the world curves.
Vast and round, and
nauseous blue.

Little white man,
how my stomach
churns for you!

And suddenly you're
dropping,
tumbling,
falling,
little fleck in
endless blue.

The world is watching,
but not breathing;
Your mother's crying
for you.

I can't believe what I am watching.
I can't believe I'm watching you.
Little thunderbird. Plastic figurine
my little brother threw.

You'll snap when you land,
I fear, though I don't want you to.
You'd shatter into pieces when
you land out of the blue.

But you don't.
Your parachute unfurls.
Small petal, white on blue.
Your feet touch down to
earth just like we
prayed for them to do.

Story, Plot

Story

The girl phoned the boy to say that she was coming. When she hung up, he got up off the sofa and put an Edith Piaf vinyl on his record player. Then he made himself a cup of coffee and sat back down, rolling a cigarette. Meanwhile, the girl rolled out of bed. She pulled a bottle green dress on over her head a little haphazardly, and pulled up black stockings, a little more carefully. Brushed her teeth violently. Shoved her feet into tan leather boots. She tied her hair up into a loose bun. Some strands fell down the nape of her neck. She shrugged on a navy duffle coat, grabbed her keys and, slamming the door of her apartment, flew down the black stone steps of her apartment building. At the bottom she unchained her bike from the drainpipe in the hall way, and wheeled it round clumsily. The pedal tore a hole in her tights and left a bruise. She opened the door, mounted the bike and free-wheeled down her cobbled street, into the cold night air. When she got to his apartment she chained up her bike and rang his bell. He threw her the keys from his fourth story window. She caught them, and let herself in. By the time she reached his apartment she was out of breath. He was at the door waiting for her. They embraced. They kissed. They spoke. And they went inside, shutting the door behind them.

Plot

The boy heard his phone vibrating on the table again. He walked to the window. The girl was standing in the street, looking up at him. Smiling. He threw her his keys. She caught them. Moments later he heard her footsteps on his stairs. She could hear Edith Piaf. He went to open the door and there she was. Wearing that dress he liked. Wearing her hair up, because he said she looked beautiful like that, even though she didn't think so. She had a small hole in her tights at the shin. Her boots were scuffed. He took her in his arms. They kissed. He tasted of coffee, and cigarettes. She tasted of toothpaste. Her nose was cold. "Your keys hurt my hand," she said. "How did you get here?" he said. "Cycled," she said. "Come inside," he said. "It's warm."

This Modern Love

(Disclaimer: this is about being at a gig.)

There's a small, round bruise,
on my arm, below my wrist.
Liver-red on ivory.
Like a lover's kiss.

Small relic of a mystery blow
Inflicted by some flailing limb.
Bone on bone. Blood
blooms under skin.

The lights flash blue and black;
I'm crashing, smashing, into you.
This raucous, clumsy, modern love
has left me black and blue.

Glossy Leaves

On the bridge
In the bright Autumn sun,
The wind made a magazine
read itself.

Giving Up

Sometimes giving up makes you feel worthless. You feel as though you've crawled through the desert and died of thirst fifty metres from an oasis. You feel weak and small and sad, faded, tired out, deflated like an empty balloon.

Sometimes giving up is a weight off your shoulders, a weight you were carrying all your life, that you never knew about. And suddenly it's gone, and you feel as though you should be flying upwards but instead you fall to your knees with relief, with joy.

Before you give up you never know which feeling it will be.
I'm about to give up.
I'm about to see.

Tattoos

I dreamt, again, last night, that I got some tattoos. Three tattoos on my right arm.
One of a turtle, with the word 'turtle' under it.
One of an arm. A tattoo of an arm, bicep curled, inked onto my bicep. How meta.
The third was a small green jewel, drawn on my wrist. Badly.
It didn't hurt, in the dream. And at first I really liked them, though I can't say why, considering how tasteless they were. Then someone pointed out to me that they were ugly. And permanent. And suddenly came the revelation, the disgust, the regret. I spent the rest of the dream walking around looking for somewhere that did tattoo removal.

I have had this dream more times than I can count. Different tattoos, in different places. Always hideous. And always, the sense of regret is enormous, overwhelming; it consumes me, devours me whole. And every time I wake, the relief is immense. I feel reborn, clean, as though I have had a second chance at life.

I've always listened to my dreams, a little. I haven't gotten a tattoo, for example. Because it seems that's what the dream is telling me. But now, I realise, that I was never really listening. No, not at all. Because I think in reality it's a dream about regret. About the permanence of my actions, about how the past cannot be undone. Though I try to pretend that, in forgetting, it is gone. No, no. Never gone. It will never be gone. There is no laser removal. And though my actions don't show up as ugly markings on my skin, they will never go away.

I am full of regrets. I am so regretful. I am covered in ugly, invisible tattoos.
And I should realise that if I don't want ugly tattoos, then I shouldn't get them in the first place.

The Jade Man

Beneath the glass cabinet before me lay the dead man. Not dead, really. Not a man.

But the concept was there, evoked in a way that moved me to stillness. The idea of a dead man, spread out on black cloth and lit with museum light, crystalline and quiet. A person mapped out in pieces of jade, smooth and green as sand-smoothed glass. Jade feet. Jade shins. Jade knees. Jade buttocks, jade phallus, jade heart, jade hands. Two jade eyes, two jade ears, a jade nose, and a jade tongue, carved to look like a cicada. All thousands of years old, all taken from different tombs. Here, now, in unison, parts of a new whole. I imagined the pieces, long ago, being laid gently onto the body of the dead one. The coldness of the stone on the eyelids refreshing, a baptism. The gradual descent, as the body melted into decay,  of the jade emblems, until eventually they touched bone. The blackness of the earth around them. The worms that could not bore them.

It left me with the strange desire to lie down on the museum floor, cold hands open, cold feet pointing skywards. To sleep until my body melted away and left only smooth green jade. 

Sardines

Olga went into the kitchen to make herself some lunch. She cut a thick slice of sourdough bread and tried to squeeze it into the toaster, but it wouldn't fit so she smushed it with the heel of her palm and then it did fit, just about. Next she poured herself a glass of water but it was too warm when she first sipped it so she poured it out and ran the cold tap again until it wasn't warm any more.

Then she opened the cupboard, realised she'd opened the wrong cupboard, opened the right cupboard and took out a tin of sardines, in sunflower oil. Although she'd have preferred tomato sauce. And she opened them, over the sink so she wouldn't spill the oil on the counter.

But there wasn't any oil. Because the tin didn't have any sardines in.
It was full of  sand. White sand, with tiny shells and bleached pieces of coral and tide-smoothed glass. It poured out of the tin as though from an hourglass, or a shoe worn on a walk along the sea-shore. And the watery sunlight shining in through the window made it glow, and the sight was so strange, so unexpected, so beautiful, that she could do nothing but stare as the sand slid slowly down onto dirty dishes.

She stared for so long that she could smell the toast burning.

Haiku, Untitled

My bed is like a
kitchen drawer, empty but
for one little spoon.

The First Astronaut

Once upon a time in Ancient China there was a man named Wan Hu.
He wanted to go into outer space.

So, he attached forty-seven rockets to a chair, and, dressed in his finest attire, tied himself atop it.
Then forty-seven attendants lit the rockets with forty-seven torches, and fled for their lives.

There was an almighty explosion, louder than thunder, brighter than lightning.
When the smoke cleared, Wan Hu and the chair had disappeared.
He was nowhere to be seen, and never found.

Now, the legend goes that Wan Hu was killed in the explosion. His body disintegrated in a burst of blinding light.

But what if he didn't? What if, somewhere out there in the vast nothingness of space is a skeleton strapped to a charred wooden chair, dressed in Mandarin finery? Drifting past satellites and asteroid belts, jaw still open as though gasping for air. The first man in space, chalked down in history as a colossal, self-destructive failure.

When in reality, he was a secret pioneer.

Michaelmas, Night.

Back to creeping cobbled alleys on starless nights,
Past windows misted with drunken breath,
Crossing bridges whose bright lights make
ghosts of passers by, where far below the
black river rushes and, all the while, the
cathedral watches over it all.
Its faces glow like phantoms.
Its bells, silent.

Bath Time

She was taking a bath. Gazing at her feet and the body leading down to them. Breasts like small islands, pale against her tanned skin. Beyond her stomach, too, (bellybutton filled with water like a small pool), a triangle of white from her bikini bottoms. Hair dark against the porcelain white. She doubted the skin there had ever seen sunlight. Her legs looked strange, foreshortened by the viewpoint, magnified by the water. Her toes were wrinkled. She wriggled them.

Then suddenly small creatures began to pour out of the taps.

Not insects. Larger. Tiny animals she'd never seen before, some humanoid, some not. All different colours, all different shapes. A lurid assortment of fins and feathers, scales and skin. They trickled down and swam or floated or floundered around her feet. She froze. She tried to blink them away but they wouldn't go. She tried to wake up but she was already awake. She drew her feet back up towards her, and reached for the plug.

They all got sucked, spinning and screaming, down the drain, and she was left in the empty bath, sitting naked in a puddle of guilt with beads of confusion on her brow.

Fur and Bones

I have a fur hat. It's made of rabbit skin. I don't feel bad about that, though society might expect it of me. Guilt, I mean. For wearing fur. The blood of innocent rabbits is on my hands. Or rather, head. Well, on my head be it. I don't feel bad one bit.

 How cruel, you say. How inhumane. Well, my friend, I saw you eat a burger yesterday. I saw you suck the marrow from a chicken bone. It didn't take you long; in a matter of minutes you'd devoured it whole. And didn't that cow, that chicken have a life, too? Don't you believe it had a soul? And it was killed only for your gastronomic pleasure. Did it please you? A life ended in a series of bites and chews and swallows. Did you swallow your guilt down too? Does it sit there in the pit of your stomach, getting cold?

You put it on your plate and now it's gone.
Well, my hat will serve me all winter long.
And many winters to come. The rabbits' lives were fleeting, but their skin lives on.

And perhaps I don't deserve so kind a sacrifice.
Maybe I should pay some sort of penance, some sort of price?

So when I die, please be so kind as to take my bones,
and build a lovely little hutch for rabbits to call home.

New House

This new bed makes my skin crawl.

And I feel as though the duvet is a pall.

But I like to hear their voices in the hall.

And I like the way the morning sun draws straight, bright, lines

upon the wall.

ottffssent

I'm sick of counting.

I don't want to, any more.

I don't want to know how old I am.

I don't care who's keeping score.

I don't want to know my height,

or my cup size, or my weight.

I don't care what year it is,

nor the time, nor the date.

I don't want to count my chickens,

I don't want to count my blessings.

And I'm sick of counting calories

and foregoing Caesar dressing.

I don't want to cross off boxes, 

on a calendar, with a pen.

I don't want to count down the days until

I see you again.

Keys

Keys are nice,

in a way. New keys,

especially, are nice.

They're nice because 

they mean you have 

the right to go into 

somewhere, or to open

something, that other 

people can't.

They mean freedom
and safety, all at once.
And that's nice.

And it's nice the way,
when you're walking home at night,
you can grip them in your hand,
real tight.

And oh, it's not nice,

the way they make

your hands smell all

metallic, or the way

they taste a bit like 

blood when you hold 

them in your mouth,

or the way they don't

fit in the way you want

them to or the way

they hide themselves.
Lose themselves, even.

Like any other thing.

But it's nice the way 

that if you throw them

up, they sing.

Banana Pancakes

For breakfast there were two options:

Toast, or banana pancakes.

The toast was vile.

The banana pancakes, on the other hand, were divine.

Always. The bananas, soft and fleshy, piping hot and sweet. 

The edges crisped in the grease of a pan with years of 

burnt in grime. 

(Wherein lies, of course, what made them good to eat.)

You'd sprinkle sugar on yours;

On mine, I'd pour 

the condensed milk they brought us, with our tea

(and you'd give all of yours to me). 

My breakfasts were banal before this;

and ever after, too.

Now muesli seems so meagre

and my mornings are so blue,

But I couldn't eat banana pancakes.

No. 

Not without you.

Beached

We were swimming beneath the
crystalline sea.
Pale visitors to an
alien realm, holding
wrinkled hands and
kicking rubber feet and
gazing into misted glass,
where eyes should be.

The currents
dashed us into bright corals
and we bled bright blood,
and the sunlight burnt our backs.
But we felt nothing.
We were submerged in
silent beauty.

Then the salty water began
to seep into our lungs.
The tide began to tug us away.
We kissed;
and then
we drowned.

I awoke alone
in a distant land.
Bones cold as lead.

Washed up onto a
single bed.

A Box of Photographs - Enambelas

Photograph #128

This is a photograph of an aeroplane window. This time, it is taken from the outside. The window is glazed with the reflection of clouds and a clear blue sky. Looking through it, a small, pale face, framed by fair hair. A girl. She is staring straight into the lens. Her blue eyes watery, piercing. Sad.

-x-

You put the photograph down and feel as though you have woken from a dream. You don't know how much time has passed since you opened up the box, but outside, the light is growing dim. You look at the last photo and realise, suddenly, that it was impossible. Such a photo should not exist. Who could have taken it? The plane was in the air; no one could possibly have taken it. You flip through them again, scrutinising every image, finding plenty more in which the identity, or existence, of the photographer is uncertain, problematic. Many, of course, could have been taken using a timer setting. But not all of them.  And certainly not the last photograph. You notice that the improbable photographer seems to have been attached to the girl, present during her outward journey, lingering after the boy had left. As though the photographs, though not taken by her, were personal to her, were representative of her memories, her psyche. And though they aren't all taken from her perspective, you wonder if, perhaps, these are her indeed her memories, her version of events. Indonesia 2012, as told by the girl. Somehow consecrated as physical images. An unsatisfactory conclusion, logically speaking. But you feel that somehow it is the only solution that makes sense. You clear the photographs away and place them back in order in the box you found them in. With the utmost care. As though you were reaching into the girl's mind itself, to put back the memories where you found them.

A Box of Photographs - Limabelas

Photograph #126

The interior of a hotel room, one you don't recognise, but suspect you have seen before. From the outside. The girl is lying on the bed, on her side. Head resting on her arm. Gazing at the boy, who is kneeling on the ground, shoving something into a large travelpack. His brow furrowed in concentration. Hers in sadness.

Photograph #127

The boy is standing up now. The travelpack on his back, enormous. He has the girl in his arms, her face buried in his chest. His lips pressed against her head, his eyes closed. Her arms hang limply down at her sides. You put the photo down because it makes your heart feel like lead.

Photograph #127

This is a photograph of a hotel room, from the outside. Door, window, table, chairs. You've definitely seen it before. This time it's day time. There is nothing outside, nothing on the table, nothing hanging from the chairs. But though the curtains are drawn, you can tell that there is still someone inside. Only one, small, sad person. Lying on the bed, face down. Or crumpled in a heap on the floor, or curled up against the door. You wonder how you could possibly know this. You just do. Because your leaden heart told you it was so.

A Box of Photographs - Empatbelas

Photograph #124

A photograph of coconut trees, whose thin, grey trunks are incredibly tall, incredibly smooth. These two qualities are something you notice especially, because at the top of one of them is a man. Barefoot. Holding on with one arm, and not a rope in sight. Your head reels thinking about it. He is easily forty feet above the ground. In the other arm, he holds a machete. You notice that fallen coconuts are lying on the ground below, and that he is stretching up to cut down more. He would reach up, and hack, and hack, and then the coconuts would fall, inevitably, nothing to stop them but the ground. Thud. Thud. The sound of an ending.

Photograph #125

The young couple sitting on a log. The trunk, it appears, of a coconut tree. They are facing away from the camera, looking out towards the sea. They have their backpacks at their sides. They are holding hands. A boat is approaching. On the back of the photo it says, 'Waiting for the ferry back to Bali'.

A Box of Photographs - Tigabelas

Photograph #88

This is a photograph of the girl, from behind, in a blue-tiled bathroom. She is wearing a white sarong, tied at the waist, but nothing else. Her blonde hair falls down her back, which is sunburnt. Rather badly. Above her waist, you can see a white band, left by her bikini top.

Photograph #89

A photograph of the boy, stretched out in a hammock, a cigarette in hand. The hammock is tied between two wooden poles of a hut on the beach. Beyond him, wooden boats painted white and orange, blue and pink, and a sea the colour of the sky, late on a winter's afternoon.

Photograph #90

Another hammock, this time inhabited by the girl, curled up like a cat with a book whose cover you cannot make out. The strings of the hammock are cutting into the flesh on her shoulders. You get the impression that the both of them have been there, in their hammocks, for a long time, and that they have no intention of moving. In the photo, at least, they would be there forever. Forever in those hammocks, by the beach, in that island paradise. Yet, you think, a little forlornly, those photographs are the closest to forever they could possibly get. In every other way, they're gone.


Photographs #91-106

A series of photographs taken in quick succession, all of which show the same dirt lane, lined on either side with shrubs and palms and banana trees. The first shows the boy on a bicycle, at the top of the lane. In each photo he gets closer and closer, eventually passing by and continuing off round the corner, out of the frame. You hold the photographs at the edge and flick through them like a flip-book, watching him cycle jerkily, like a stop-motion film.

Photographs #107-123

This time, the girl cycles down the lane, coming from the other direction. When you flip through them quickly you can see her hair blowing in the breeze. As she passes the camera she holds up two fingers in a V shape and sticks out her tongue.

Photograph #124

This is a photograph of a sunset. Its beauty is otherworldly, impossible. The sun has gone down behind a faraway mountain, miles across the sea. The sky is spangled by streaks of cloud in gold and peach and red and pink, colours which fall into the sea which jumbles them up with blues and greys. It looks like a painting, a post-impressionist oeuvre by Signac or even Claude Monet. The light cast around is warm and pinkish, unlike any natural light you've ever seen. In the sea, two silhouettes stand, black against the glorious light.