The Golden Scissors

A barber's shop, on a quiet street, in a ancient city, a long time ago.

The proprietor was a master of his craft; the whole city knew of his prowess. His fingers, they said, moved faster than the wings of Hermes' sandals, and his scissors, sharper than any known to man, were a gift from the Gods themselves.

It was an afternoon so hot and still that heat waves were the only movement in the streets. The citizens stayed indoors, sleeping on cool stone floors. The Barber and his apprentices pressed damp rags to their foreheads. The shop was empty. This was rare, but rarer still was it to see people outside in the heat of a day like this one.

Yet out of the sweltering sunshine came a tall, gaunt woman with her head swaddled in white cloth. Sweat beaded from her skin like condensation on smooth marble. The cloth covered her whole head. It covered her eyes.

The Blind Woman said, "I am looking for He who bears the gold scissors of Hephaestus."
The Barber said, "I am He."
She nodded. "I have something to ask from you, though I fear I ask too much. For your work, you will be handsomely recompensed."
The Barber said, "What is it that I can do for you?" for he could not fathom that it could possibly be so difficult.
The Blind Woman said, "First, your apprentices must leave. They must not come back until we are finished."
The Barber nodded to the boys. They shuffled out, reluctantly, into the hot street, staring at the Blind Woman in bemusement. Then they were gone.
She continued. "I want you to cut my hair. But you must use the gold scissors, and you must only look at me through a mirror. That is very important. You must not look at my hair, and you must be very careful when you cut it."
The Barber responded, "Of course," though his face betrayed the questions he was plagued with. She sensed this.
"Do not be afraid. But once I remove the cloth from my head, you must work quickly and until the job is complete. You will be well rewarded."

The Barber sat her down on a wooden chair, facing a large mirror. He took the golden scissors in his hand.  The Blind Woman began to unravel the cloth. "Remember, look not at me, nor my hair, but at my reflection. Your life depends on it." With that, the Barber saw why her hair had been hidden, and her eyes.

The Woman's eyes were tight shut, but she was not blind. And her hair was made of live snakes.

Medusa, they called her. Medusa.

Had the Barber any fear, he betrayed it not. He kept his gaze fixed on the glass. His hands were steady. And though the snakes writhed and snapped, he looked not into their eyes, nor did he succumb to their venom. Eyes on the mirror, his fingers gently took the snakes, one by one, and with scissors forged by Zeus's blacksmith, they were decapitated, deftly. Blood oozed from their open necks and splashed onto the pale stone.

When he was finished, The Barber wiped the blood tenderly from the Woman's neck. Then he saw the tracks of tears that had rolled down her checks. He saw the spot of blood on her lip from where she'd bitten down in silent agony.

 "Open your eyes," he said.

She opened them, slowly, wincing at the bright light from the street outside. In the mirror he met her gaze, and she turned him not into stone. Her eyes were full of pain and sadness. His hand rested on her shoulder. There must be no soul in the world lonelier than she, he thought. She who turns all those she sees into stone.

"Thank you," she said, tears flowing from her eyes, closed once more. She stood and wrapped her head back up in the long shroud of cloth. From her dress she drew a small sack, heavy with gold pieces, and pressed it into his hand.

"No," said the Barber. "These scissors were gifted to me by the Gods. It is they whom you should recompense. Take this bag to the temple that it may be an offering."

The Woman smiled through her tears, thanked him once more, and left the shop.

After she had gone, the Barber, smiling, turned to sweep the snakes heads from the floor.

In their place were emeralds, glinting in a dark pool of blood.

Sky Green

When I woke up this morning, the sky was the colour of thin slices of cucumber. I drifted in and out of sleep; it deepened into pistachio ice-cream and then ripened to avocado as the sun spread out its rays. By the time I had dressed and stepped into the street, the whole sky was green like a sunlit lawn. Its colour poured into everything and got trapped in puddles and car windows. People walked around with their heads in the air, arms held above their heads with Blackberries and Canons. People stubbed their toes on curbs and walked into signposts and each other, so mesmerised they were by this sky the colour of golden delicious apples.

As the sun set, the sky glowed like fireflies, and copper salts in Bunsen burners, and light falling through leaves in a deep dark forest. Twilight was like the head of a Mallard duck, and as night fell, we dreamt of wine bottles and emeralds, and sports cars in British Racing Green.

The Heart Thief.

I don't tend to remember them.
I remember her because she was beautiful.
I remember the scent of her perfume rising up into my nostrils as I slid my fingers into her handbag. It smelt like dark cinemas and parks on summer evenings. It smelt like almost-clean bed sheets; it smelt like a paper bag that once held oven-fresh bread. I froze, my fingers around the soft leather of her purse, and I nearly faltered, nearly lifted my hand away empty, an arcade claw devoid of its prize. But I have always been one to finish what I've started, so I seized the purse and slipped away, unnoticed, into the crowd.

Later I lay on my bed determining which of seven watches was the most valuable and whether I could get away with selling an iPod with "To Declan, love Mum & Dad xxx" engraved into the back. Doubtful. Then I remembered the purse; I could feel its gentle pressure, held tight against my thigh. Beige leather with a gold clasp; I opened it and there she was, her beauty framed in fuzzy passport photos on varying pieces of plastic. Identification, membership, loyalty. Her name emblazoned on everything, letters printed or embossed like elegant Braille. Photos of her family. £22.67 and a £5 Boots voucher. A Nando's card with seven stamps. Receipts and tube tickets. Remorse welled up, wet and acrid; I pushed it out with a sigh like the crashing of waves. An idea formed, little pieces of broken shell which fell together as the remorse wave eased back down the shoreline.

I sold my watches and used the money for a haircut and a new suit. I trimmed my beard, I scrubbed under my fingernails and I splashed on some aftershave, and all the while I could think only of the smell of her, the way her hair fell down her back, the way her thin bra strap had slipped down under the handles of her bag. The way I had simply reached inside and taken her treasure, soft and intimate.

Took the Circle line 4 stops and walked a few blocks. Found myself outside a magnolia coloured door with palms covered in sweat. The purse in my pocket, pressing up against my leg. I knocked brusquely. Seconds passed, my heartbeat counted them out loud. Then she opened the door to a cruel sea-fiend with the scent of his prey in his gills but all she saw was a well dressed young man, smiling nervously.

"Hello."
"Hello."

I asked if her name was her name, though of course I knew that it was.
"Yes." Uneasiness hidden by an expectant smile.
"Well," and I explained that I'd found her purse on the tube, and that the money was gone so perhaps she'd been robbed, but that it seemed like all her cards had been left alone, and I made a small joke about how thoughtful modern pickpockets were, and then explained that I saw her address and knew where it was as I used to live nearby, and thought I'd just pop round and bring it back to her.
Her face had long since lit up with one thousand suns of happiness; her beauty and her gratitude overwhelmed me. She thanked me with sincerity. God she was lovely. And the remorse washed back up the shoreline carrying foaming, shameful flotsam but there she was, this mermaid of loveliness, floating there, smiling at me from the deep.
"I don't know how I can repay you," she said. "I can't offer you a cash reward anyway!" and her laugh burbled like sun-filled rock pools, by God she was lovely.

"You could invite me in for a cup of tea, and I'll call it even." And I turned my eyes to mirrors to shoot her back her sunshine, her beauty, so she'd trust me. So she wouldn't see into my fathomless black soul.
She laughed and said, well, that sounds fair, and I followed her in, the smell of her perfume like a hook through my septum, a scent so beautiful it hurt.

The magnolia door shut behind us.
Within minutes she held my heart in her hand, like a soft leather purse.

The Ten Ways I Didn't Die Today

The first was when I
woke from sleep,
steady heartbeat,
breathing deep.

Two was with the
razor in the shower.
I didn't slip and faint
and quietly bleed for hours.

The third, at breakfast,
when I did not choke
on Clementine and,
gasping, slowly croak.

Fourth, I took the
stairs one at a time;
I didn't slip and fall
and break my spine.

Outside I fifthly
did not tread
in dog shit, fall
and crack my head.

Six was when
I let the cars go past
before I crossed the road;
by God! They're fast.

The seventh was the dog
that didn't bite me,
and didn't look too rabid,
though he might be.

The eighth crept up behind me,
as though to end my life
but then he didn't stab me,
as he didn't have a knife.

Nine the cigarette which,
Unlike mother said,
didn't harm me all that much;
I didn't drop down dead.

And number ten the blood clot
which, rising from the dark,
did nothing, and broke down
before it reached my heart.

Nathracha

In my dream I
left a dreary church
and walked out into the
dark graveyard.
As I slid from the pew,
my Grandmother turned,
and tutted.

In the graveyard I walked
up a grey gravel
path. The grass on
each side was long
and damp,
and in the grass were
snakes.

My legs grew weak
as might a newborn
foal's. I feared
movement, lest they
be drawn towards me
as I moved away,
like plastic bags
and jellyfish that
drift in the bay.

And sure enough I'd
stepped but an inch
when a long thin fellow came
at me with his mouse-trap
mouth. I threw my shoes
(which I'd been carrying)
and ran away.

Back in the Church the
air was still and quiet,
my shoeless feet were
raw against the
cold stone.
No one noticed me
come in; I felt
alone.

When I woke
I felt betrayed;
I thought the snakes
had all been chased
into the sea.

Oh, Saint Patrick!
You have forsaken me.

The Camel Who Loved Smoking

There once was a Camel who liked to smoke. As a young'un he was sold to some wild Arabs and they let him finish their rollies. The first time he just chewed up the butt, but after that he learnt that chewing burning tobacco hurts quite a lot. Eventually, he became quite the smoker. His owners thought it a fine novelty and let him puff on their hookah (his favourite flavour was double apple although he was quite partial to passion fruit). He got really good at blowing smoke rings, and lots of tourists paid to watch him smoke their Dunhills and Marlborough Reds. A Russian Oligarch gave him a cigar which went down a treat. Some Swedish hippies rubbed snuff on his gums and that he did not like so much. It tasted like the rim of an old man's hat.

The Camel slowly became addicted to cigarettes. He developed a pack a day habit, and his cough got worse and worse. He always stank of tobacco and his teeth started to get all yellowy. When he didn't have his morning fag he would get grumpy and refuse to let fat German ladies on his back. He couldn't carry them very far anyway, because his lungs were so full of tar.

The Camel kept up his putrid habit for a long while, for he was a proper addict and couldn't quit even if he'd wanted to. His owners started getting sick of him, he kept stinking up their tents and coughing up brown phlegm onto their nice white robes.

Eventually, they took him to an NHS stop smoking clinic, where a nice nurse gave him some Nicorette patches. He stuck one on his face like Nelly and looked pretty fly. It gave him a bit of a rush for a bit, but he still craved a smoke. Too bad for him he didn't have hands. Have you ever seen a camel try to roll himself a cigarette? It looks a bit like a camel stamping repeatedly on a tobacco packet 'til it bursts and the tobacco gets sand all over it. Bet you've never seen a camel light up a cigarette, either - it looks like a camel crushing a lighter into little plastic shards.

So, his owners stopped giving him cigarettes, and stuck on his patches every couple of hours, and although the Camel was pretty grouchy at first, he'd soon given up his nasty habit. Well done, Camel! Thanks, NHS.

Une Auditrice

I'm sitting in an attic watching two boys make music. I'm cross-legged and quiet in the corner on an old piece of carpet; they tower above me like giants, their faces lit up from below by a golden halogen lamp, their hair glowing faintly from a dusty Velux behind them. The sound is cacophonous, apocalyptic; the screeching amp permeates my eardrums whilst the battered blue drums pound out a heartbeat out of synch with my own. Their concentration is pure and all-consuming; I am not there. My silence is absolute. They are enthralled and so am I. I could sit for hours and bathe in their noise. I could sit for hours watching the fine bones move under the skin of their hands like the keys of a piano. Watching the cymbals open and close like clapping hands, watching the errant ends of guitar strings quiver in the air like a cat's whiskers. The sound envelops me whole. I feel it through my whole body.

I am always the listener, a quiet watcher. A watcher of men. Sat on the ground watching thumbs tap controllers and swivel joysticks, eyes fixed on screens split into two, or four, and no quarter is mine. I have spent countless hours watching boys play SNES and PES, Sega, Supermario, PS3, WWE, COD. Yearning for the controller but, when once in a blue moon it's passed my way, politely declining. Watching boys on the street on skateboards, bikes and rollerblades. Watching boys playing football in gardens and on TV. Watching boys play rugby and cricket, shoot bb-guns and catapaults. Watching boys fix things, dig things, break things. Make fire. Change gear, flick the indicator, check the wing-mirror. Watching bands play on stage; watching two boys play in an attic.

It seems to be a recurring pattern. Is it just me? Or is it inherent, perpetual, an experience shared by all girls who, by choice or by chance, live their lives surrounded by boys and brothers. Have I chosen this? All the neighbourhood kids were male, by chance; but it was I who chose not to stay inside with my sister. I have chosen this, this passive role. A female accomplice, an assistant to boys building, playing, creating. A side-kick. Laughing at their jokes and being warmed by their cameraderie. Admiring the quiet male love that rests between them, unspoken.

 Amongst them, I too am unspoken. And I don't mind. Amongst girls my lips run too fast, I crow too loud, say too much. Nerves, showiness, a desire to fit in. Amongst boys there's no need; I don't fit in but rest on the periphery, quiet, content. Myself. A wallflower, head slowly nodding in time to the beat of a snare drum, petals tremouring in electric waves of sound.

In the attic I'm watching two boys play music. I play no part in this. I do not feel left out. No. I am privy to this private performance. They are playing just for me. Audience implies a large group of people, no? What is the singular, feminine form? An auditor? An auditrice? I am this. This is what I am.

The White Tree

Last night I had a dream that I was going to be beheaded.
I was kneeling on a podium with my cheek pressed against a wooden block, although it felt more like an uncomfortable pillow. Thus is the nature of dreams. My body lay contorted behind me; tangled in a duvet, I imagine, in real life. In the dream I was only conscious of its awkward uselessness, barely a presence.

Opposite me lay a woman and she was the Queen. She was wearing a crown, though it was more like a wreath of golden vines. She had long brown hair but I couldn't twist my head to look at her face. She seemed to know me. Maybe I was her maidservant. I felt a certain awe and subservience towards her, and she seemed calm and reassuring, though I was frightened. I could hear the Executioner talking over my right shoulder, a few paces away. The Queen was watching him but I couldn't turn my head to see.Her demeanour was defiant, but also strangely accepting, and self-assured. As though she had been there many times before, awaiting death, though how could she have been? I felt impatient. I knew what was soon to happen, and I wanted it over with. I kept trying to turn round to see the Executioner but she told me to stop trying. Just to look at the sky, she said.

The sky was brilliant blue to the far left of my vision, the kind of blue that nature rarely permits. To the right it was a blood-orange sunset. Against the sky, a white tree shone, its branches surreal and curvaceous. It was beautiful, and as soon as I'd seen it all impatience left me and I wanted to savour every last second of life. I stared at the sky as though trying to draw myself towards it. As though it could save me. My eyes filled with tears.

Then I heard footsteps and I shut my eyes. The Queen was still there, her face close to mine. You're first, said the Executioner. It's better, said the Queen, and for the first time her voice betrayed fear. I shut my eyes tighter. I waited and the seconds seemed like awful hours, and then the Executioner said One, Two, Three and there was a blow, but no pain. It's done, said the Queen, and I knew my life was over. I could feel it slipping away, down my throat. Give in, said my right brain, and I felt Death coming on like heavy waves of sleep. Live! said my left brain, and I fought against its coming, fought to open my eyes for one last glimpse of that beautiful sky before terrible nothingness took me forever.

Then  I woke up.

Mcnuggets.

Peachy's Grandma died and he's an only child and so's his mum so he got baaare dollah. So we me and Grim were like maaate set us some and he was like oiiiiiiiii my nan just died yeah and we were like so what you dint even liiiike her like, you dint even knowww her, and he was like yeahh hahaha but my mums well sad. How much money did you get Peachy? Mind your own beeswax yeah. Awww maaate you can tell us yeah. Go on don't be a pussy. Loads, he said. Lesss go maccy's den, said Grim. Yeah, I said. Come on, lesss go maccy's and buy all der nuggets. Peachy clearly wanted nuggets so he was like FINE and we got in Grims car and I said SHOTGUN and Peachy looked welllllll pissed so I let him go in the front cos his nan was dead innit.

NE way, we got to maccy's at the services and the Q was loonnnggggg, 'llow dat. Less go KFC said Grim. Peachy said urrrr no we're havin maccys end of. So we waited for ages but it was ok cos der was dis girl with a weellllll huge arse in front of us and Peachy said he fort he could see a ded kitten squashed between her battycheeks and we said TELL HER but he wouldn't and we let him off cos his nan was dead innit. Stil a pussy doe.

Got to the front and the girl working was peng-a-leng and she said what can I get for you and Grim said a titwank but she didn't hear we just cracked up laughing. Then Grim said I want ALL YOUR NUGGETS and she was like wtf and I was like YEAH ALLLLLLLL the nuggets. And she was like we sell them in 3, 6, 9 or 20. Peachy was like er 20 then and Grim was like NO YOU PUSSY  he was like maate we want alll your nuggets, how many you got? So she was like urr I'll check and she went to check and we looked at her arse when she walked away and it was peng. Then she came back and was like I can sell you 10 boxes of 20 and we were like YEAHHH BOIIII and Grim got a Fanta and I got a Coke and Peachy got a strawberry milkshake cos he's a pussy then Peachy had to pay and it cost baaaarre. Can we have 50 bbq sauces please? She gave us 5. 

We got back in the car and started eating the nuggets and we couldn't finish them cos there was bare but it might have been cos Peachy didn't eat that many cos he's a pussy but maybe its cos his nan died so I said nuffin. So Grim was like lets get the rest and chuck dem at cars from that bridge and I said yeaaaah mate and Peachy was like dats a waste doe, I just bort dem innit and we were like pussaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy and Grim just drove off and Peachy's milkshake spilt on his lap but Grim didn't see and I didn't say nuffin cos his nan was dead innit.

So we went to this brige over the motorway and it was nightime so the cars couldn't see us, and we chucked all the nuggest at der windscreens and the cars were like hooting and swerving and shit it was siiick. When the nuggets run out we woz like ahh shit what can we lob now? And Grim saw that Peachy hadn't finished his milkshake and was like maate, frow yor milkshake init! And Peachy clearly dint want to and I felt a bit bad, it was well tight to make him lob it when he paid for all our nuggets but I didn't want to look like a pussy so I told him he should chuck it. And he chucked it and it hit this volvo estate like RIIIIITE in the faaaaace, absolutely meeerrked it, it was jks, but then the car went and crashed into this ditch and all these other cars crashed into the back of it, it was bruuutal shit man we were fukkin scarrrrred  so we legged it as fast as we could. 

We got back into the car and I jumped in the front without even sayin shotgun and Peachy dint even care, his eyes were wiiiide doe it looked like he was going to cry and Grim was praaanging man, couldn't even get his seatbelt on before he started driving and he stalled the car an everything cos it was a crappy banger doe. Peachy was saying all this shit like 'maybe we shouldnt leave yeah, maybe we shouldve stayed and called an ambulance and owned up yeah, oh shit oh shit man what have I done' and he was talking really fast and Grim was like SHUT UP MATE SHUT UP and driving really fast. I didn't say anything. I was pretty scared doe. 

Then the popo were behind us gettin welll lairy, had 'is sirens on and everything and Grim started to speed up and  I was like mate just stop, just stop mate just stop. So he stopped and we all froze like scared little babies who bin naughty. The policeman came up to the window and he was like can you step out the car and Grim said we ent done nuffin wrong, and the policeman said 3 boys of your description were seen throwing projectiles from a motorway bridge, you caused a very serious accident, please step out of the car and Grim said No but Me and Peachy were already stepping out. Peachy had tears running down his face, his eyes were really really red and he was makin sounds like a little dog man I couldn't even watch him. Then Grim got out and the policemen were looking at Peachy's hair which is ginge and they were like a witness said a boy of your description threw a milkshake and Grim said IT WASN'T HIM YOU CAN'T PROVE NUFFIN and they pushed Grim up against the car and handcuffed him. 

If it wasn't him, then why's he crying? said the policeman.

It's cos his nan's dead, innit, said Grim. It's cos his nan's dead.

The Boy Who Went to the Cinema, Alone.

The lights are still on when the boy comes into the theatre. Seconds pass and no friends follow him in. The cinema is only half-full but it's the back half; his eyes scan for a fleeting moment before he gives up and sidles into an empty row nearer the front. He's carrying a skateboard and a rucksack. He wriggles out of the latter and lets both fall to the ground as he takes his seat. The skateboard lands with a rather loud clunk; he looks round self-consciously. Behind him, rows of middle-aged women, mostly in pairs, some with men, but the boy is in the minority, in every sense. The lights grew dim. No friends still. The film starts; a film in English, subtitled, about the life of Margaret Thatcher. What attracted a teenage French boy to this ten-to-six séance, to this room part-filled with aging women? A political interest, perhaps. A little niche, but not entirely bizarre. Maybe he had nothing better to do. Wanted to go to the cinema, and this was what was on. But why was he alone?

Why shouldn't he be? What is it about the cinema that we feel is so social, anyway? We go in couples to kiss in the dark, or in herds, to graze on junk and hiss cynicisms through mouthfuls of salty corn. Hold hands between seats or brush fingers in the popcorn bucket. Whisper sweet nothings or bristle at annoying comments made by friends who won't keep quiet. We go together for nothing more than to distract ourselves from the films we've come to see, the films we've paid for. So that afterwards we can swap arbitrary commentaries for a few moments until we're back outside in the cold air, distracted into the usual babble of group conversation. Inanities and profanities.

Alone we lose nothing. We seek no hand to hold because our bodies may as well cease to exist, so lost we are in the pictures looming huge in front of us. No hushed asides needed; only quiet reflection is necessary. The film coaxes us in and envelops us, whole; we are Jonah in the belly of the cinematic whale. Our eyes stray not from the screen, and the film flows in, unbroken, unspoilt. Our reactions are purely our own, not engineered for the ears or eyes of others by our sides. No. We need not fiddle with the volume of our laughter for the satisfaction of our comrades. We need not hide our tears. What teenage boy would cry for the plight of Maggie T? Perhaps a lone French one, feet propped up on his skateboard. Surrounded by no one; hands holding nothing but themselves. Just him and empty seats, deep red faux-velvet, folded up against themselves in the absence of bodies. 

A Bowl Full of Animals

Last night I ate a bowlful of animals.
Fish and Bird and Horse and Shark.
Butterfly, Monkey, Lion.
They were dancing and jumping before
I put them in my bowl.
Now they lie there in a pool of
red.

Last night I ate a bowlful of animals.
I ate them whole, head to tail,
Internal organs, bones and guts.
If they had fur, I ate that too.
Fur and feathers, every morsel!
I ate every last morsel.

Last night I ate a bowlful of animals,
Creatures small and large, silent and
sad. I boiled them to death and
ate them with the
curdled milk of their own
Mothers. It wasn't quite
Kosher but
I was never one to
adhere to such things.

No. Last night I ate a bowlful of animals,
I ate them with no remorse, with relish,
I stabbed them with the tines of my
fork and crushed them with my
teeth. Now they lie quietly in my
stomach. I am the insatiable
Predator. I am the destroyer of
all things. I am Death.

Last night I ate a bowlful of animal
shaped pasta.

Breakfasts in Bed.

I

A shaky blue tray that rattles up the stairs. Tea slops over the cup’s brim and milk breaches its bowl like white waves against a ship’s bow. Roundabout, Rice Krispies lie beached, and the felt-tip blurs on the clumsily-folded birthday card.

II

Christmas morning (can you call it morning if the sun’s not up yet?). Fumble in the dark for the stocking. It’s full to the brim; Santa’s been! Dump it on the bed and feel crestfallen when the oranges are not of the Terry’s variety. Oh well, peel a clementine and play ball-in-a-cup til 6am (acceptable time to wake parents.)

III

Too sick to go to school, Mum. Stay in bed, I’ll bring you a honey and lemon drink. Gee thanks. Don’t watch TV whilst I’m at work! Stay in bed! Yes Mummy, whatever you say. Bye! Even before the honey and lemon gets cold, I’m downstairs eating Weetos and watching Judge Judy.

IV

Pull self from covers, head reeling. Shuffle downstairs to kitchen. Flick the kettle on. Find bread; put in toaster. Wait. Too late. Swear and scrape burnt bits with knife. Use said knife to butter toast. Leave big grooves in the butter with black crumbs in their wake. Apathy. Stick same knife in Marmite (god it’s all over your fingers it stinks) and spread it over the melted butter. Put toast on way too small a plate. Trudge back up the stairs like they’re Everest. Get back into bed. Swear again because you forgot to make the tea. Apathy. Eat toast. Feel better, but still atrocious.

V

Open eyes a crack. What happened last night? Why am I naked?  Jesus, I’m in a world of pain. Drink stale glass of water on bedside table. What’s that smell? It’s coming from that box on the floor… Oh hello, cold pizza! How foresightful! I am a drunken genius.

VI

He comes in, wearing my pyjama bottoms and a huge grin, a plate in one hand and a glass in the other. Plonks the first on my lap and the second on the Oxford Hachette. Eggs benedict, he says. You told me you loved it. And I do. The yolk spills out over the muffin; it tastes like sunshine. Like tenderness.

VII

He sits opposite me, cross-legged in boxers. He spreads kitchen towel on his duvet like a picnic blanket, and breaks a baguette in two, then splits it open. Unsalted butter, and confiture aux fraises his mother made. It’s runny, wild strawberries floating in a crimson syrup, vibrant on the silver spoon. It tastes as strawberries should; not like Calpol, or pink Nesquik powder, or Neapolitan. The coffee’s inky black and bitter and his cigarette smoke weaves around us like morning mist. Buttery sunlight streams through the shutters and sets it glowing.

Margaret's Breakdown

Margaret had a breakdown at the church bake sale. Leslie and Amanda took her home and put her to bed with a cuppa, a couple of Bourbons and Marie Claire magazine. Then they talked outside in hushed voices thinking Margaret couldn't hear them but she could.
"She's not been the same since he left her."
"But Amanda it was three years ago! She can't still be depressed about Benedict, surely not."
"Well what else is it? What would make a 56 year old woman cry at a bake sale? It certainly wasn't my Eccles cakes, Leslie."
"Oh, I don't know. The menopause?"
Leslie, in her 60s, had been through the menopause and had made rather a big song and dance about it. She was now rather fond of attributing all of her friend's problems to it and advising them on how to manage it.
"Leslie, I think it's a bit more serious than that. She must be really lonely, with Christine in Australia and Hamish up in Edinburgh, too. You must know what it's like to have an empty nest."
"Ha! The day the last'un left was the best day of my life! Good riddance!"
"Sensitive as ever, Leslie." She sighed. "We must do something for Margaret."
"Perhaps she just needs a good hobby! You know, salsa, or quilling, or something like that. Yoga maybe. Doris swears by it."
"Maybe you're right."
"Did you see Violet's new perm? She looked like a Maltese poodle!"
And the two of them left to go and tend to their florentines and fairy cakes.

Margaret, whose cup of Barry's had long gone cold, sat thinking quietly. Her life, recently, seemed rather empty. Over half her life had passed her by, her husband had left her and her children were grown up and long gone. She had retired from her job, and had little more to do than associate with painful women like Leslie Pritchard and eat their dry, flavourless cupcakes.

But Leslie, as abhorrent as she was, had a point. She needed a hobby. She searched the internet for some local diversions. Flower arranging? Hayfever. Crochet? She didn't have patience. Ballroom dancing? She could think of few things worse than holding the clammy hand of a stranger with halitosis and shuffling round a village hall. Swinger's club? Margaret wasn't quite sure what that was, but she was certain it wasn't for her.
Then she found something a little more promising. Outdoor Swimming. She'd always liked swimming in her youth, and could probably do with the exercise, if she was honest. It was certainly guaranteed to be challenging, and would be sure to clear away the cobwebs, in any case. She phoned the number, and spoke to a nice man named Richard, who told her where she could hire a wetsuit, and how to get to the lake. They met every Sunday Morning at 8am. Oh dear, she thought, I'll have to miss church. The choir won't be pleased. Oh, what the heck, Margaret. You only live once.

Three days later, Margaret was standing at the edge of a muddy looking lake feeling rather awkward. The wetsuit didn't fit properly, and her weight gain had been rather more grave than she'd previously admitted to herself. She tugged nervously at the stretchy cloth around her stomach. But it was too late now. The other members of the club had already jumped in. She took a tentative step into the water, then another.
Soon she was submerged up to her knees. It was bloody cold. She stopped. Then she closed her eyes and launched her self gracelessly into the water.

It felt like being born.

Remember this?

It's strange when long-lost memories come back to you. Sometimes, they're so long gone that it's difficult to fathom whether they're true memories, or just reconstructions from stories you were since told or photographs you've since seen. Maybe it was a dream and it never happened at all. The doubt doesn't arise until you try to remember it in more detail. Then it's little things that get confused and you feel slightly frustrated, trying to remember what happened, and eventually you begin to doubt whether it happened at all.

As a child, I lived in Maida Vale, and went to nursery school a short walk away from our apartment. Although we moved out of the city when I was five years old, I have a lot of memories from living in London. But today one rose up out of nowhere, one that it seems I had all but forgotten. As I said, nursery was a short walk from home, and so every day I would be walked to and from it, sometimes by my mother, occasionally my father, but usually my nanny. I can't remember how old I was when this happened. I can usually judge by picturing my brother or sister in the memory and guessing, but here, I'm not even sure which of them was with me at the time. There was a pram. We had a double-buggy, so it could have been both of them. My sister would have been one at the most, and my brother three, if they were there. They must have been. But if they were that old, perhaps I'd have been at school already. Was it really nursery we were walking back from? 

Between the nursery and our flat was a corner shop, and outside the shop was where it happened. We were with my nanny, I think. I can't picture her face, I can't tell you which one. Maybe we weren't; maybe we were with my mother. It wasn't my dad, in any case. Definitely not.

She'd gone in to the shop for something. At first I thought it might have been ice lollies. But I remember looking at a poster for Opal Fruits lollies in the shop window as we waited, and that might be why I thought that. I think it was a sunny day. I was standing facing the shop and the buggy was in front of me. I can't picture my brother or sister, because they were hidden from view. But they must have been there.

This is what happened. A large, metal grate was propped up against the shop front. The kind some shops put against windows when they're closed, a metal frame with rigid criss-crossed wires. Without warning, it fell. It fell, and in my memory, it was going to land on the buggy, but I caught it. I was five at most and must have been tiny, my arms were weak, so I couldn't completely stop the momentum, and it landed against my shoulder. I remember struggling with it, trying to keep it from slipping down onto the buggy and hurting my siblings. I can't remember if I cried for help but soon my nanny rushed out (definitely my nanny) and pulled it off me.  I think she shouted at the shopkeeper. But  I could be wrong.

I don't know if it really would have hit my brother or sister, but in my adult mind, as I replay the scene, the damage would have been fatal had it done so. But as a child the grate would have appeared much bigger, much more capable of harm. My memories are all cluttered and unclear. 

But I'm certain it happened, because I remember touching the welt on my shoulder and feeling it sting. It was red and yellow and purple and a piece of skin was slightly peeling away. That is the part I remember the most.   Part of me wants to ask my mother about it; if she was there, perhaps she'd remember.  Part of me fears that it never happened at all. 

The dregs of childhood memory swill around in the bottom of my mind. Some of these, clearer than the others, stand out. I consider them to be certainties, and I believe that as experiences, they helped to form me as a person. What if someone were to turn around and tell me they weren't true? How would that feel? Confusing, at best. Debilitating at worst.

Looking at photographs of ourselves as children, we remember, perhaps, that particular trip to the beach, or that particular birthday or that particular t-shirt. But are we really remembering? Think about it. Do you remember the photo being taken? Did you say 'cheese'? Is your smile real or fake? Who took the photo? 

You feel lost now, don't you.

Waking on a Train on a Winter Morning.

I open my eyes to
fields of blinding white.

They rush past like 

falling sheets of paper.

The brightness

stings like citrus, like

curtains drawn at dawn. 

The sky looks ashen

in compare.
a blank word document with 

grey margins.

Villages rear 

their spiny heads and

fall away again,
into the deep;
briny snow dripping from

scaly spires.

Wine-red abattoirs

lurk in their wake.

Black trees flash past.

Mistletoe sits in balls on

barren branches.

I think of poodles' legs;
I smile.

The weary snow blankets

everything, like bed sheets

blown from washing lines, 

now trodden on.

It lies lost on the footpath like

sodden socks and 

handkerchiefs, and on the

rooftops it lies lazily spread 

like sleeping cats.

When the sun comes to

warm them they'll melt like

lollies onto toddler's fingers;

but now the rivers 

still run slow,

like spilt

milk.

Well this is cheesy.

Val Rogers was woken, as usual, first by his alarm, then by his mother. When this was unsuccessful, his mother sent his little sister in to wake him, much like a drug lord would send a menacing henchman to collect debts. Despite her small stature and lack of firearm, this was a job that Lola carried out with considerable efficiency, usually by throwing her whole body onto his bed with as much force as she could muster. One day she would break his kneecaps, he was certain of it. This time she landed, mercifully, on his abdomen. It must be my lucky day, he thought. It was.

“HAAPPYYY BIIIIRTHDAYYYYYYYYY LOOOOSERRR!”

He groaned. His birthday. Not entirely awful in itself, but…

“HAPPY VALENTINE’S’ DAAYYY, VAAALENTIIIIIINE!”

Why. Why. WHY did he have to be born on the 14^th of February? And why oh why did his parents imagine that naming him Valentine would be a good thing to do? What kind of sick individuals were they? Today would be irredeemably awful, just like every other birthday had been. A decidedly ungrateful, pessimistic world view, one might stipulate. Well one might be right. Val’s family were well-intentioned and well-off, and he had always been showered with gifts and attention. He was a very lucky boy, in many senses. But there is only so much heart-shaped chocolate a teenage boy can take. There were only so many jovial pink cards and wilting red roses Val Rogers could handle before it became all very tiring, an old joke that people just couldn’t let go of – they carried it around year after year like a dog with a torn old  slobbery plushie that no one could prise from its jaws. He didn’t even like chocolate for chrissake. He moaned again, and, shoving Lola off him, swung his legs over the edge of his bed and dropped his head into his hands. He was not ready for today. Nothing could get him through it. He ran it through in his head like a movie, envisaging every awful moment occurring as he knew it would occur.

He would go downstairs and his mother would have decorated the table with red heart-shaped doilies and red roses and red heart-shaped balloons and little red heart sequins scattered all over it. There would be presents wrapped in shiny red paper with big kitsch bows. The overall effect, he imagined, was not unlike a brothel, although he for one had never set foot inside one. For breakfast, there would be heart-shaped pancakes or heart-shaped eggs (his mother had purposefully purchased a heart-shaped frying pan from a catalogue) followed by little heart shaped chocolates.  He would be expected to smile and laugh along as his father and brothers mocked him and his mother and sister fawned over him and scrutinised his face for gratitude.

He felt sick, a deep, heady nausea. School would be worse; the mockery descended from light hearted family in-jokes to full on, gritty comprehensive ridicule. His locker would be jammed with Valentine’s cards, none of them genuine, all of them comprised of clichéd poetic parodies:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

U R a faggot

I hate u.

His friends were little help.  They, too, thought it was incredibly witty to buy him chocolate plaques from Thornton’s with personalised messages on them (one of them somehow managed to coerce the woman behind the counter into drawing a large phallus, in impressive detail). Once or twice they had clubbed together to get him an Xbox game or something, but as they got older, they all seemed rather short on cash. This was due to the fact that it was Valentine’s day, and they were spending all their money on their love interests. This problem extended to the evening, when he could never, ever expect to have a party, or go to the cinema, or even just have friends round to watch a film, because they were all on ‘dates’ of some variety. Val never was. And that was the very worst part. We all hate Valentine’s day the most when we’re single. Valentine Rogers was turning 17 and he had still never even kissed a girl. I am a joke, he thought. I am St Valentine reincarnate and no one loves me except my mum. For this, he mostly blamed his parents, for their poor choice of conception date and atrocious name selection. But he also blamed himself for his loneliness and lack of success with the opposite sex.  His self-esteem was crushingly low; how was he to know that it was in fact Hallmark, not he, that was largely to blame?

At least there was Hester, he thought. Hester sat next to him on the bus. She was a goth (a remarkably good one, no pink stripy tights or awful fingerless gloves) and hated Valentine’s day as much as he did. She was quite pretty but she wasn’t interested in him like that, which she made very clear by talking about how much she hated men. She also hated meat, Christians and pop music, so at least the hatred was diffused a little. She was the only one who would treat him like a normal person today. She wouldn’t even acknowledge that it was his birthday, let alone Valentine’s day. Her hatred would be a blessing.

He rubbed his eyes and squinted at the room around him. Lola had cleared off; probably gone downstairs to pour pink glitter into his rucksack. He showered, got dressed, and, bracing himself for the worst, headed downstairs. He wasn’t ready for the red-light-district glow of the dining room. He should have worn his faux Raybans. But when he got to the foot of the stairs, he was greeted by a rather unconventional sight.

Lola, dancing in circles and shouting HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Nothing out of the ordinary. Apart from the fact that she was wearing green face paint and a witch’s hat.

Val turned, bewildered. Lola was a strange child, but this transcended all expectations. She ran into the dining room screaming. He followed her. The dining room was strangely dark…

As he entered someone hit a switch and the room was filled with ghostly green light. There were orange faces glowing on the table. Pumpkin lanterns. Fake spiders dangled from the ceiling, tangled up in woolly strands of artificial cob webs. Plastic cauldrons overflowed with sweets.

“SURRRRPRIIIIIIIIIISE!” A chorus lead by his mother’s lilting alto, Lola’s squealing soprano and his dad and brothers’ half-hearted baritone. Val was taken aback. They were even dressed up – a werewolf, a vampire, a really rubbish mummy. His mother made a rather impressive Cleopatra. This defied belief. His birthday morning smile, for once, was genuine. He couldn’t hold it back; his cheeks were flushed with embarrassment of the chuffed variety – not at all what he was used to. His family noticed this and were smiling, too. From behind him  he heard a slight noise. He spun around.

A pale, pretty girl, with long black hair and a serious face. Hester. What was she doing here, at 7:45 on a weekday morning? How did she know where he lived? Val felt his face grow redder but hers stayed white as paper. From behind her back she drew a single rose, not red, but spray painted black. A shadow of a smile played across her face.

“Happy Birthday, Valentine.”

X for 8 points.

There are things
I'd like to write about
but I can't even
think them.

I take the words
like scrabble pieces
in my head and
rearrange them.

They don't make sentences that
I'd write with pride.
No doubled letters,
no triple-word-score.

So I sweep them
from the table,
let them clatter
to the floor;
I need to think some more.

There are things
I'd like to talk about
but I can't bear to
hear them.

The phrases fully form themselves
and wait there on my tongue like
people at a bus stop
or metro platform.

Clamouring to climb aboard,
kept back by my lips like
doors or a sheer drop
to death if they leap
too soon.

They cling to my teeth
sometimes,
white-knuckled,
'til they grow numb and
let go.

Is it courage, that it
takes to let them out?
Or foolishness?
Is it fear or sagacity
that holds them back?

Either way,
cheeks burn as
words fall from my lips.
They land in ears like cupped
palms. Are they safe?

Or were they better
held back?
Locked safe at home
in bed or in an
Institution.

Put to bed by gentle
nurses, belts and
hairclips confiscated.
Left to grow cold,
quietly.

There are things
I'd like to write about
but I can't even
think them.

It's enough now; I'll stop.

When I was younger, once, I realised that life was like a car journey. As a child, you sit in the back, being driven. All of your decisions about the future are made for you. You just look out the window, enjoying the present as it passes, and strain to see the future through the windshield, though it is obscured by headrests and hair and shoulders. If you look out the back window, the past is clear and close behind you, comforting though unimportant.

When you get older, you sit in the passenger seat and the future swells up in front of you, spread out and all-encompassing, though sometimes you pull the mirror down and stare into your own face instead. Preoccupation lets the present slip by at speeds which far exceed the limit. Cameras flash.

Older still, and you're driving, determining your own direction. The future is in your hands. But you can't stop your eyes darting to the rear-view mirror to reflect on the past. The black cars with dark windows, looming menacingly. The roadkill that festers in the periphery. The countryside that flashes past and is gone, forever. Gone into the background.

I remember the day my Aunt died. My Uncle picked us kids up in the back of his jeep and took us to the house. I remember looking out the back, watching ferns and blackberry hedgerows zip round bends in the winding country lanes. I thought about the car being life and that when people died, they were dropped off and left behind. In my mind's eye I saw my Aunt left standing by the roadside, shrinking as we drove onwards, then disappearing into the distance. I understood we couldn't go back for her, but the thought made me feel sad to the very depths of my soul.

Now, I think of the path of life as being more like a long, long corridor, separated by doors of glass. When a door has been walked through, it shuts behind you, and there is no way to open it. Through the glass, you can see the past, laid out vividly in the memory like a splendid banquet. It feels so close, it stays with you. You are but feet away. You press yourself up against the glass like a child against a sweet-shop window, but you will never reach the time you once had, the time that has passed. Though you can't really smell the candy, or taste its sweetness, its colours are vivid and enticing and you know what you've lost, because you had it once before. It's never the same, really. You never remember it as it really was. You'll smear the glass with your fingers and mist it up with your yearning breaths, tainting memory with nostalgia.

Last night I took a hammer and I smashed the door down. The glass shattered around me and the blood roared in my ears. I was so close to it I could touch it, touch what once was mine. But when I reached out for it the glass had appeared again like some dreadful force-field. I could  do nothing but press myself up against its coldness and feel lost and lonely and separate. Past and present, simultaneously inseparable and isolate. Like ex-lovers, awkward and pyjama'd, trying not to touch, in a single bed.

Arnold the Arsonist Dog

Arnold was a Airedale terrier who lived in a nice home with a nice family in a nice neighbourhood. Outwardly, he too was nice. Well behaved; fetched sticks and came back when called, didn't chew shoes or pee on the rug. But he wasn't a nice dog. He had a deep emptiness inside him that wouldn't go away; he lay awake at night in his basket in the kitchen, the appliances staring at him with their little red and green eyes. Sometimes he would whimper, softly, and other times he would howl. His owners just blamed the next-door neighbour's Springer spaniel, and his plight went unnoticed.

In the day he would try his best to keep up appearances. Play with the children, wag his tail, lick his bollocks - the usual doggy rituals. But Arnold was little more than a hollow shell of a dog. He had bad thoughts. Bad, bad thoughts. Thoughts about the Anderson's Maltese poodle and thoughts about biting Mrs McKendall's big swollen ankles and much, much worse. His mind was dirtier than those special red bins in the park. His insomnia was a problem and when he did sleep, his nightmares were getting worse. He dreamt of blood and teeth and fire. Always fire, burning fiercely in his mind with such intensity that he woke up with smoke in his nostrils. Burning down the houses of the dogs he didn't like, of the children that pulled his ears, of the cars that nearly hit him and the cats that shat in his garden. Burning down the woods to chase out the rabbits. Burning down the town, razing it to the ground. And dogs were afraid of fire, more so even than we are, so as you can see, Arnold was a very troubled little hound indeed.

In the daytime he'd fill his mind with happy thoughts like rooms full of Pedigree and bouncy balls, but at night, the thoughts of fire would come creeping back to singe the corners of his little doggy mind. And the emptiness and hollowness and sadness inside him eventually became anger and hatred, a hatred so great that it, too, burned him inside out. And one night, when the family had forgotten to take him for walkies, he cracked.

Arnold left the kitchen through the back door, which one of the children had left ajar. He ran down to the shed and seized a petrol can in his sharp doggy teeth. And he ran out the front gate, sloshing petrol about as he went, frothing at the mouth, madness in his eyes. He poured it over Mrs McKendall's house and he poured it on the spaniel's kennel and he poured it on the Briggs's awful Volvo estate and he ran round the block, pouring petrol on fences and doorsteps and shop fronts. Then he ran back home and picked up a big stick in his mouth, and, nudging dials on the cooker with his nose, set it alight. And with his burning torch he scampered round the neighbourhood setting everything ablaze, howling and growling as he did so, running in circles as if he were insane, and he was. He was a canine anarchist, a harbinger of fire and death and doom, and he was maddened with desire to burn, burn more, burn everything. The fires began to leap and smoke and his beady brown eyes were set aglow with orange light. He began to dance and spin through the fires, barking joyously at the beauty of destruction. Down with the neighbours! Down with their fancy houses I'm not allowed into, down with their children who put me in their horrid clothing! Down with society! Down with cats! And he danced and danced in the flames until the neighbours began to wake and panic and dial nine nine nine.

Meanwhile, Arnold had caught fire. He burnt with the ferocity of his melancholy and the heat of his repressed desires; he barked with the joyous liberation of self-destruction. The flames grew brighter and his barking and leaping and dancing, having reached their zenith, began to slow.

In the morning police were puzzled as to how the fires started. The investigators found abundant evidence of arson but had no suspects, and no leads. But if they had nudged a small pile of ash by the gutter, they'd have found a small metal tag that said Arnold, though they'd never have believed in an arsonist dog.

Some questions.

Where am I? I’m on a train hurtling through British countryside. I could be more specific. I’m heading through north-eastern fields and mining villages. I’m going past sheep grazing on browning, snow-strewn grass. But my position is transitory; any given millisecond I’m already in a different location to the millisecond before it. I could give a series of descriptions, of fleeting screenshots flying past my window. Vivid scraps of windswept plastic in a barren tree. Three red hens in a muddy back yard. A drab white horse with a blanket draped over its back. A scarecrow, rather scantily clad. I’m not in those places any longer.  But I am in Seat 65, Coach F. Let’s leave it at that.

Where am I going? I’m going to London King’s Cross via Darlington, York, and Petersborough. I’m going to walk to St. Pancras then I’m going to get the Metropolitan line to Chalfont. Then I’m going to High Wycombe. The next day I’m going to Oxford, then back to London, then back to Oxford then to High Wycombe again and then to London again and then to Paris, then to Clermont. I could tell you where I’ll go after that, probably. Ad infinitum. One day, I’m going to die. But at this moment, on this journey, I am going home. Let’s leave it at that.

Where have I been? Oh, here and there. Durham. Before that, a train, and before that, another one, and another, and another. Seat 28 Coach D. Seat 15 Coach 16. I’m picturing my journeys backwards, sped up, like a rewinding video-tape. I’ve been many places before this. I’ve been to Rome, to Beijing, to Johannesburg. I’ve been to the Wycombe leisure centre. I could even tell you the first place I’ve ever been. I don’t remember being there, though I was there for 9 months of my life. I’ve been around, let’s leave it at that.

What was I doing? I was visiting the friends I’ve missed. I was visiting the places I’ve missed. I could tell you everything I did, in chronological order. I could tell you how I felt. I could tell you what I said and what was said to me, though that would be paraphrased and possibly untruthful. Or I could describe to you certain moments that have stuck in my memory. Like handing you a camera to flick through. But I’m not going to crack open my memory like a photo album for you to pore over. No. Though what I’ve been doing has been imprinted onto my body. I’ll let you have a look. A purple, swollen toe from someone else’s shoes. A tender redness between my thumbnail and the flesh beneath, from carving a crude face into an apple. Raw knuckles on my right hand from rapping against a green door, like I have done so many times before. These are the physical embodiments of memory, and soon they will heal and be forgotten. Let’s leave it at that.

Carshare

Sunrise at a service station in subzero conditions. The autoroute is lined with snow. The car’s a silver Opel with upholstery the colour of wet pavestones. The back windows are translucent with a thin layer of ice, through which the pale sky glows coldly. I’m in the middle seat waiting for the others at the rest stop. There were four others in the car to Paris. A brown-haired cinema student from Paris named Noemi. Greg, a journalist for Canal+ making a documentary on police brutality. A middle aged man, with deep wrinkles and glasses, whose name I did not catch. Aziz, the driver, who told me about his wife and children in broken English whilst the nameless man nodded and the others slept. Now they were all gone and I stayed, staring at the dashboard through clouds of my own breath, staring out the windows through sheets of ice. The glove compartment is all scratched and I’m wondering what did it, a dog? Someone with a penknife, bored after a long journey? The scars are deep in the slate-grey plastic. I watch my breath curl and dissipate. Something moves in the periphery of my focus, a dark shape through exhaled steam, past the scratched dashboard and through the misted windscreen.  Outside in the snow, a dark-clothed figure with their back to me. A man peeing. But then he knelt down and seemed to peel up a dark square of earth from the snow, shifting it slightly. Still on his knees, he bowed deeply and touched his head to the ground. When he rose again, it became clear that the dark patch he knelt on was a prayer mat.

I watched him bow, and rise, and stand, and kneel again. I couldn’t hear him praying. I couldn’t hear anything other than the whoosh of the motorway behind me, like waves washing up on the shore, and the cold, capsular silence of the car. The man, still in prayer, was framed by the windshield, and it seemed as though I was watching a silent film in an empty cinema, black and white and grey. My whole body was tense with the cold and watching him made me feel it all the more, his knees pressed down into a damp mat on the snow, his gloveless hands, unseen, held out into the cold air. But he showed no sign of haste, nor reluctance. In my secret, barren cinema, I watched him praying and it was I, the silent voyeur, that was filled with reverence.  I looked away and began to scrape slivers of frost from the window. Not embarrassed, but humbled. When I looked up again, the figure had disappeared from the screen, leaving only prints in the snow. The driver’s door suddenly opened, and I jumped a little.

Aziz’s smiling head poked in. “Il fait froid!” he chuckled. In his hand, a prayer mat, dusted with snow; he placed it under his seat and shut the door. In the rear-view mirror, I could see his face, reddened with cold. Smiling.

Haikus from a Horrible Day

Five AM, minus

Ten. Legs goosepimple under

Two pairs of stockings.

My fingers bitter

Punching an ATM that

Won't give my card back.

Feet turn to ice as

I wait twenty minutes for

A silver opel.

Squashed because I'm not

Quite sure how to say "shotgun

Not middle" in French.

The metro stinks of

Piss so I'm holding my breath

To keep down vomit.

See a passport at

The Eurostar office. It

feels like being punched.

Crying in the loos

Tell the cleaning lady what's

Wrong. Laughs in my face.

Then trying to cry

Persuasively at border

Control. (Doesn't work)

"Take line 2 to get

to the Irish Embassy."

There is no line 2.

Irish Embassy

Opening hours: half nine

To twelve. It's now one.

Yes, I'm blocking the

Staircase with my heavy case.

Whatever, don't help.

Blind beggar asks me

For spare change on the metro

No mate, my day's worse.

Train back to Clermont

Costs seventy-five euros

Return. FML.

Spend three and a half

Hours going back the way

I came from. Super!

French countryside, you

Bore me. Also, graffiti

is so ten years ago

so you should get some

petty criminals to wash

it off or something.

Watch the sun set and

Don't give a shit. (Saw it rise

Today already.)

Get a lift in a

Car full of French boys, trying

Not to laugh at me.

Fay made me a stuffed

Pepper but didn't even

Give me the red one.

Punched my passport in

The face. Yeah! That'll teach him.

I hurt my knuckles.

The Twelve Dinner Guests of Shengxiao - Part Four

Miss Ma was polishing her motorbike in the darkness of her subterranean garage when she heard the news. She'd been humming along to some pop song, an old favourite of hers. When the music cut short, she stopped polishing and inclined her head to listen, as a horse would swivel its ear. When the announcement was over she rolled her eyes and blew a thin, derisive stream of air through her lips. Then a smile crept up on her like winter sunlight and she let out a small laugh, a short spurt of breath through her nostrils. She shook her head, which set her ponytail swishing, gently, black shot through with streaks of grey. The Jade Emperor, yes, that was what they called him now. Dinner for Twelve at the Imperial Jade Palace. How crass! Like a tacky gameshow. She hoofed her feet into black leather boots and swung a long leg over the bike, a movement both oafish and graceful in equal measure. Her haunches shone, black and glossy in their tight leather. She kicked and the engine roared into life. She sped off, leaving behind her exhaust fumes and a red taillight like a cigarette butt flicked, still burning, into the night. Ponytail flying in the breeze beneath the roundness of her helmet. It had been a while, she thought, since she'd seen him. The Emperor. Her Emperor.

Xiao Se was sitting on the sidewalk, spitting the husks of sunflower seeds into the gutter. Phissst. Phissst. They shot from his lips with considerable precision and a hiss. Phissst. A thin pink tongue slipped out to lick the salt from his thin lips, set on a slim sallow face. His eyes slanted downwards sullenly, at his shoelaces. He began to roll himself a cigarette, slender fingers moving deftly, sharp tongue jutting out once more to lick the flimsy paper. The smoke soon snaked from his nostrils into the evening air. He sighed and stood up, in a sinuous movement which someone of his stature seldom seems capable of. A long thin body. And a long, thin face. Flicked the cigarette butt into the gutter and dropped his skateboard to the ground with a cacophonous clatter. He stepped on and, pushing off with his other foot, swerved away. Walking was for everyone else. This was how he would travel, always - gliding smoothly and swiftly, winding round pedestrians with prowess. A fat man with ruddy cheeks burst out of an alleyway, panting. Xiao Se wove around him sharply, so close a shave that he could smell his obstacle's sweat. Relieved, he turned back to the road, where he saw a beautiful woman on a motorbike slowing down for the traffic lights. Perfect. Crouching low on his board, he slipped behind her and, certain she hadn't seen him, tied one end of a rope around the back of her bike. Red, amber, green, and the bike and its strange trailer sped off, the parasite going unnoticed by his host, who dreamed of the look on her old lover's face when she turned up at his doorstep...

The Boy Who Could Never Keep Still

There once was a boy who could never keep still.
He kept his mother awake at night, tossing and turning in
her womb. She thought he would be a
footballer because he kicked so much.
Sometimes, she thought he'd somehow
miscarry himself;
pregnancy defeats rationality, it seems.
He was a fidgeter. A twister, a turner,
a Blutac-flicker,
a scab-picker,
a can-kicker,
a pen clicker.
A runner, though never in a
straight line.
Assembly was difficult,
Church a nightmare.
In class he drummed the desks,
made aeroplanes,
rocked his chair so far back he
fell.
Get out of my classroom,
Go to the headmaster's office,
I'm calling your mother.
Stop fidgeting.
Stop fidgeting.
Stopfidgetingstopfidgetingstopfidgetingstopfidgetingstopfidgetingstopfidgeting.
Stop it.

He tried to keep still.
He tried.
He did.
He sat on his hands,
but they went all
pins-and-needley.
His mother bought him a stressball
but he picked all the foam into cavities and
threw it at the back of the teacher's head.
Go to the headmaster's office.
I said, get out.
Now.
Now!

He tossed and turned in his
sleep like he had in the
womb.
He couldn't keep still, even asleep, even
then.
He began to feel very lonely, a lonely soul inside a
body that would forever move against his will,
against his best intentions.
When he concentrated his hardest, his
very hardest, when he stayed motionless for as long as
possible, he could still see the rise and
fall of his chest and when he held his breath,
he could still feel his heart
beat
beat
beat,
moving inside him, always,
always moving.
Sometimes, he thought that the
only way to stop moving would be if he were
dead and
that made him
sad.

So he began to stare at objects,
classroom chairs and blackboards and
parked cars and rocks and just
long to be as still as they were.
So calm, so motionless.
So still.
He ran his fingers over fences and
park benches, yearning for their peaceful
stillness.
He wanted for himself the
unconscious sleep they
enjoyed so quietly.

Years later, long after he'd learnt to
keep still,he learnt, too,
that every object was made up of
tiny molecules which
whizzed around in even the
stillest bottle of water,
that trembled fiercely in even the
most unmoveable boulders,
and that within every atom,
electrons span like
children round a maypole or
on a merry-go-round or
like a boy who could never keep still running
laps of his house in the middle of the
night.

And besides,
The whole wide world was
spinning, too,
like a top whipped up to
it's zenith,
like a centrifuge,
one hundred times faster than a speeding car,
and we're all spinning with it,
spinning through time and
space,
spinning, always
spinning.
We never stop.
We never stop moving.
We can never keep still.
And You,
And Me,
All of us;
We are all that Boy Who Could Never Keep Still.

Snow: A Pantoum

Fat snowflakes fall like swarms of flies,

Black against heaven's blinding white.

Nose against glass, I raise my eyes,

And watch the ragged moths in flight,

Black against heaven's blinding white -

Pieces of coal on a snowman's face.

I watch the ragged moths in flight,

Like stardust drifts in outer space.

Pieces of coal on a snowman's face;

A woollen scarf your grandma wove.

Like stardust drifts in outer space,

The snow piles up in banks and droves.

A woollen scarf your grandma wove,

I'll take your mittened hand in mine.

The snow piles up in banks and droves,

We're nearly home now, we'll be fine.

I'll take your mittened hand in mine;

Nose against window, we'll raise our eyes

We're warm at home now, we'll be fine.

Fat snowflakes fall, like swarms of flies.

Fanny Levoisier et L'Avocat

Fanny Levoisier was the only daughter of Aurélie and Guillaume Levoisier, a nice old couple who lived in a small village in the French countryside. They owned a large apple orchard, from which Guillaume produced cider, and several beehives, from which Aurélie collected honey. They were relatively wealthy, and the Levoisiers were both well-liked and well-respected in the surrounding areas. Guillaume, though comfortably into his 60's, was a broad and handsome man, whilst his wife, though increasingly on the plump side, possessed a rich, ruddy beauty for which she was still very much admired. Both possessed a keen wit, and were renowned for the enjoyable soirées they held for their friends and neighbours.

Fanny Levoisier, on the other hand, was a useless oaf. Utterly simple, to the point of being really rather stupid; utterly plain, to the point of being really quite ugly. Since childhood, she had been disliked by her peers for her bad manners and lack of social intelligence (not to mention her massive turnip-face). Her parents despaired of her; they had cherished her, smothered her with love, never once neglected her, done everything they could for her, given all they had for her. But in spite of this, she was an irredeemably awful lump, utterly unlikeable, let alone lovable. She spent her days killing bugs in the garden and throwing faeces at goats. (They once had chickens, but she would stamp on the eggs with her big flat feet, just to infuriate her poor Maman.)The Levoisiers had long since given up on this unfortunately awful girl, and had sent her off to the city to finishing school at great expense to themselves but, equally, great relief.

Eventually (after a week) the school expelled her, and Fanny was sent to live with a rich old Aunt in the city, who was rather senile and therefore barely registered her presence. Whilst Aurélie still shed the odd tear over her horrible daughter, the Levoisiers, it must be said, had a much more peaceful existence without her. They hoped the best for her, really they did, but at the end of the day, deep down and unspoken, was the fact that they were happier in her absence.

One day, after a long and peaceful Fanny-less period, the Levoisiers received a letter from their estranged daughter. It read:

Dear Mama et Papa,


I am to be married in the Springtime to a rich, dark and handsome gentleman. He is un avocat, and I love him very much.


Your daughter, 
Fanny.


Well! said Guillaume. Well! said Aurélie. It was settled; she was off their hands for good. But un avocat! A lawyer! How could such an ugly, stupid, unlovable girl like Fanny every marry a lawyer? They were considerably bemused but chose not to think too carefully about the matter. They were happy to live in ignorance. Guillaume scrutinised his daughter's scruffy, childlike hand, sighing quietly. Then he noticed the following:

P.S. I'm bringing him to meet you next weekend.


Guillaume sighed again, more audibly this time, but Aurélie was thrilled and began wringing her hands with excitement.

A week later and Aurélie had laid the table beautifully ready for Fanny and l'Avocat's arrival. She was very nervous, but still extremely pleased that her heinous daughter had found happiness at last, and with an avocat, of all people! A lawyer!

When Fanny turned up at the door, her father, who had been spying through the curtain as she walked up the path, turned to his wife with a rather puzzled look. Fanny appeared to be completely alone. Aurélie answered the door to her daughter, nonetheless, and embraced her warmly (Fanny remained rather stiff). "Where's the avocat then?" she asked, beaming, though slightly nervously, for there was no man in sight.

"He's here, silly!" blurted Fanny, and thrust out her hand, in which she held un avocat. Slightly squashed, but dark, rich, and handsome, as her letter had described. Un avocat. Not a lawyer, mind. An avocado. She brought it to her lips and planted a big sloppy kiss on its bumpy surface.

Her mother fainted.
Her father just sighed. He had expected as much

Bernie the Gorilla

Once upon a time there was a gorilla called Bernie who knew sign language. He'd been specially trained since birth and now, at the age of 8, he knew over 400 signs. There was even an article about him in National Geographic. He was a miracle of science, people said. The zoo charged visitors lots of money to look at him, and they paid it, because they'd heard that he was really quite something. But afterwards,some of them would ask for their money back, because when people signed to him, he'd sign back saying 'F**k off, you deaf prick.'

Paper Cranes

If I went to prison,
I'd take ten thousand sheets of paper,
I'd never get bored or lonely
because I'd make ten thousand cranes.

If I went to prison,
I'd never get bored or lonely,
I'd sit for ten thousand hours
making folds for days and days.

If I went to prison,
I'd sit for ten thousand hours,
watch the walls fill up with sunlight,
watch the cell fill up with cranes.

If I went to prison,
How the inmates would berate me!
crazy woman who folds paper
can't even see her, for the cranes!

But as the sun was setting,
I would borrow someone's lighter,
I would set the cranes on fire,
burn to ash and fly away.

The Two Ladies.

A winter's morning so cold my minty-fresh mouth stings with every breath. Listerine's kiss (O! Cruel Mistress!) lingers on my lips. My appendages, red and raw, feel they might freeze up and fall off like Special K Red Berries only to rehydrate again in ice cold, milky puddles. This one's a strawberry! Mmm! This one's a ... toe? Morning thoughts like these swirl in my morning-fuddled head. Morning! There's a reason it sounds like mourning.

I shove my berry-red fingers (desiccated remnants of a long gone summer) into my pockets, folding them around miscellaneous objects, poky yet familiar. I breathe out (minty madness) and watch my breath steam away fleetingly. I am a dragon. I am a minty dragon. My scales would be bright sea-green like Listerine. My God, my breath is fresh.

My toes hurt.

There are lots of people bustling around me; I'm in the largest square in France and it's a Saturday. Their coats are ugly. Teenage boys eat pastries from brown paper bags with red, red fingers. Everyone's smoking, we're all dragons but I'm the best dragon.

So I'm walking to where I want to go and I'm thinking morning thoughts and looking at morning people and watching them go places too. Then I see something that makes the morning thoughts dissolve like sugar into tea.

Two ladies, arm in arm, walking along the pavement. Ugly coats, in the Auvergnat style. Short, middle-aged-woman haircuts. Nothing remarkable. But before them, two white sticks are swaying, in time. Side to side. Jittering over the uneven pavement, in time, like battered old metronomes. As though they had invisible little dogs on rigid white leashes. I'm staring. You shouldn't stare. But I remember they can't see me; eyes glazed over, not even looking at each other let alone me. Is it still wrong to stare? I felt so. But I couldn't stop; their swaying canes mesmerised me, the sound of them scraping the ground, their footsteps falling into time, their quiet conversation and their absorption in one another. They were the only ones in their world, I imagined. Nothing but each other, and then darkness. You couldn't buy friendship like that. Perhaps you wouldn't want to.

I watched them walk away, canes moving leisurely, like a snail's antennae.

My toes hurt.