When Kat's Away, Meiss Will Play

Alicia Meiss and Kat Patel were flatmates and best-of-friends. They cooked together and drank cups of tea together and hung out all the time like best-of-friend-flatmates tend to do. They even shared a bed (for convenience’s sake, but also for midnight-chats and morning-breath-natters).  

This wasn’t to say they were two peas in a pod. Looks-wise, they differed to such an extent that any pod containing two such peas would be kept in a jar in some kind of museum of horticultural oddities. Their habits were a little at odds, too. Kat abstained from alcohol; Alicia drank into oblivion. Whilst Kat revelled in prayer and the infinite almighty, Alicia believed only in new-born lambs, funny shaped clouds, and humanity (sometimes). Kat was a beautiful human being who left a trail of tidiness and delicious meals in her wake. Alicia was a disastrous explosion of chocolate wrappers left in cups and clothes strewn all over the place like a tornado hit Topshop (or, perhaps, just Primark in its natural state). Kat’s clothes had never met a floorboard in their lives; they hung elegantly together in her closets, complementing each other, floating quietly.

Alicia tried desperately to keep her mess, her craziness under control. And for the most part, she did so. But when Kat announced she was going away for a week, a box of glitter hit the fan in Alicia’s head and shimmered down into her eyes. As soon as she heard the front door closed, the madness began.

On the first day, Alicia opened all the windows and danced naked around the apartment to Django Reinhardt and ‘Niggas in Paris’.

On the second day, Alicia, still naked, painted several large ‘murals’ onto the walls, taking inspiration more from Pollock than Van Gogh. When she got cold she put on some of Kat’s clothes and painted some more. No preventative measures were taken other than rolling up the sleeves.

On the third day, Alicia invited her friend Bernadette over to drink tea and eat chocolates and biscuits and sweeties. They cleared out the whole of Kat’s supply, and stuffed all the wrappers into teacups and glasses and then burped, really loudly. They had a burping contest. Bernadette won.

On the fourth day, she brought her bike up to the apartment and, naked once more, rode round in circles, crashing into everything and smashing Kat’s beautiful tagine set and hand-painted shisha pipe. She left the pieces in a teacup to deal with later.

On the fifth day, Alicia made a pig shaped piñata out of pink paper maché and strips of bacon. She filled it with salami and saucisson of all shapes and sizes, and, blindfolded with one of Kat’s scarves, beat it open with a huge frozen ham joint.

On the sixth day, Alicia made a lavish pavilion using the tables, chairs, curtains, throws and spare bed sheets (and some of Kat’s clothes) She lined it with the mattress and the cushions from the sofas and made a big nest in the middle with their duvets. Then she invited her boyfriend over to drink whisky and fornicate in the fornication fortress.

On the seventh day, she rested. Then she woke up and looked around her at the destruction she had caused, and it was good. But Kat would be back the next day, so she had a massive clean-up which involved repainting the walls, getting all of Kat’s clothes dry-cleaned, Hoovering and eating an awful lot of pork products.

When Kat got back she was impressed at how clean Alicia had been in her absence. It was as if she had never left! Then she saw the teacups filled with her broken shisha pipe and punched Alicia in the mouth and she bled and cried. Then they hugged and they were friends again.

Vulcan

Tonight Puy-de-Dome's silhouette was bold as ink against a cyan sky that tinged yellower as the sun set, like the pages of an old book. The peak was shrouded by a thin shred of cloud, billowing off like smoke from a factory chimney. Its edges burnt with the sun's red glow. The overall effect was beautiful, yet sublimely terrifying; it looked as if the volcano had woken from its slumber.

Imagine if it had! Seven thousand years dormant, sleeping through the millennia of humans climbing its vast back. Romans carving roads, and building temples; millions of shepherds herding billions of sheep; Scientists building antennae and hang-gliders gently hang-gliding off it. And now, all of a sudden, stirring from deep sleep, magma building in its deep belly like burning bile, an indigestion no Milk of Magnesia could quell.

Imagine if it erupted. Imagine if the lava rolled down the mountainside consuming everything in its path, engulfing houses and turning green pines into frizzled matchsticks. Imagine if the sky turned black and red and grey ash rained down on a grey city. If the lava flowed all the way down the valley to flow in Clermont's streets, to course over cobbles of volcanic rock and lap at basalt steps, lava on lava, hot on cold. People would run screaming for high ground, and hide from the lava in the lava cathedral, safe in its cool lava bowels.

In the streets, like those of Pompeii, would lie lava people. Stone dogs attached to stone punks. Stone beggars holding stone cups. Stone pigeons on my windowsill. Cold lava stone like the city's streets and steps and walls.

The Mighty Rubber Johnny Went To Rome To See The Pope

Rubber Johnny was a happy little latex condom who wore a shiny foil jacket. He looked very smart in it. He knew one day he'd have to take it off and do his rubbery duty, but for now he just hung out in a leather wallet looking dapper and alluring. He knew that some people weren't too partial for him and his kind. But for the most part he was proud of the job they were doing for the human race. He knew all about HIV and unwanted pregnancies so thus he saw his eventual destiny much as a soldier might see going for war - it was gruesome, yes, but it was all for a cause he believed in.

One day, however, he overheard an M&S receipt telling a Domino's voucher talking about him, and about some guy called The Pope. Apparently, this Pope guy didn't like him much. Wanted to abolish him, in fact. The horror! The repression! What about HIV and unwanted pregnancies? This man must be stopped, thought Rubber Johnny. And I'm the one to do it! For Humanity! For Condomkind!

So he whispered in the Lloyd's TSB credit card's ear, telling her to tempt their owner into buying tickets to Rome. Not hard, for her; their owner was very easily persuaded by her flat and shiny wiles (in fact, they called him 'The Spender'). Four weeks later the owner and his girlfriend headed off on a Rome-antic weekend that was totally The Spender's idea because he was so romantic.

Anyway, on the Sunday, as planned, Rubber Johnny peeped out of a trouser pocket to see he was in Vatican city, and that The Pope was giving his Sunday reading from a high window. Johnny asked a kindly Roman pigeon to give him a lift up there and, seconds later, he landed softly on The Pope's Bible.

"Oi!" said Johnny. "Why do you hate me?"
The Pope didn't react. He just calmly slipped him up his sleeve, and carried on with his reading. He barely batted an eyelid. Perhaps he didn't realise what I am, thought Rubber Johnny.

Oh but he did; for when the reading was finished, the Pope pulled out his fat Hermes wallet and slipped  Johnny into it with a chuckle. He was going to cry out in shock, but he was suddenly hushed by rustly voices around him. Voices that sounded like his own. He wasn't the only condom in this wallet.
When he thought about it, he wasn't entirely surprised.

Emptying

At the moment I keep thinking of when my brother used to run into my room when I was half asleep and yank my duvet away from me and I'd pull it back with all my might but my fingers were sleep-weak and I'd always relinquish, and lie there, defeated.

I'm also thinking about finishing drinks. Those last few seconds when the straw makes that sound as you savour every last drop. Or when you scrape the very last of the ice-cream from the bottom of the bowl. That feeling, of approaching the end of something you don't want to be over. The slurps and scrapes of sadness.

What about when pens run out of ink, or when phones run out of battery. What about stretching putty as far as you can, what about blowing bubblegum up to as big as it will go, until it bursts, and it's gone. What about letting sand fall between your fingers. Hourglasses. Impending sunset. Sunrise. Alarm clocks. Those last few seconds of sleep before you know you have to get up. You'll reach the bottom of your bowl of sleep and your spoon will just scrape you awake. And what about those dreams you want not to end, and those you try to remember but you can't quite, not ever, not really. No, not quite.

These are the things I'm thinking about. This is how my heart feels. I can feel you draining through my ventricles like sand from an hourglass, slipping from my fingers like a duvet. I am savouring you.
But every spoonful tastes of sadness.

If heartbreak had a sound, it would be partly like tearing dates from a calendar, and partly like the sound of air sucked through an almost empty straw. But most of all, it would be like the cold, quiet, metallic sound of a finished-with spoon, placed down gently beside an empty bowl.

Gold Heart Cash

They say I have a Heart of Gold.

I do. It's

Heavy. And cold.

So take your Heart of Meat,

and throw it

for the wolves to eat.

Take your Heart of Glass,

and shove it up your

transparent condescension. 

Take your Heart attack,

your cardiac arrest,

Take your quintuple bypass,

And I'll take my

Cash4Gold.

Footsteps

I called round to Christina's house as usual; we were planning an evening of light eating and light drinking (light meaning heavy). I pressed her buzzer, she yelled 'GIVE ME TWO MINUTES' and I waited for her to come down. Her front door opened, two minutes later, but rather than being greeted by a pint-sized, smiling Irish girl, as per my expectations, an elderly Frenchman came out, towing an even more elderly poodle in his wake, muttering a little too loudly. I stifled my surprise and let it out seconds later when the real Christina emerged. 'He dyes his hair', she said (it was rather obvious, he looked like a withered Danny from Grease), 'And every time he walks up the stairs past my apartment, he makes weird grunting sounds'. We giggled, high on each other's company after long days spent doing nothing  in our apartments, and headed off to Carrefour to stock up on light food and light beverages (lardons and Desperados).

Back at her apartment, we waited in hushed suspense to hear the old man's footsteps on the stairwell. We laughed as we heard him grunting and muttering his way up to the third floor. He never spoke to her; he just made grunting sounds, muttering madly. 

A few hours later, I left to seek out further light beverages (Martini Rosso) from my tepid freezer. As I descended, I heard footsteps and grunting coming from the stairs below me.

It was the old man (no surprises there). What surprised me, however, was that he wasn't dragging the dog up behind him. He was cradling it in his arms, like mother would her child. 'Bonsoir', I said. 'Est-ce qu'il est fatigué?'. Is he tired? No, he responded, gravely. He's had a stroke.

I wished him good evening and listened to him climbing up the stairs behind me, grunting with the effort of carrying his beloved companion, muttering reassuringly in its ear. I walked out onto the street, a sick-sad feeling in my stomach, eyes glossing over. Laughter silenced.

Our Pages are Numbered

The first one to go was a school edition of Hamlet, dog-eared before its time, well-thumbed but not well-read, annotated sporadically with DEV 4 TANYA and Tippex phalluses. It slipped out of a battered school rucksack (also plastered with aforementioned phalluses) as a moth might from a chrysalis, spread its mass-produced duplex cover, and took weary flight, stretching its scorned spine and shaking Dorito crumbs out of its leaves as it rose past Geography windows and cafeteria roof tiles. It was tired of being under-appreciated, tired of incessant, melodramatic 'To Be or Not To Be's. It chose To Flee.

The Larkin Anthologies took note and followed suit, tired of students flicking straight to 'This Be the Verse'. They tumbled off the shelves in the English department and flew out of high windows, past the sun-comprehending glass and beyond, into the deep blue air that shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

The school books were always going to be the pioneers; their years of derision and ill-treatment left them little reason to stay. They cared little for Edexcel or AQA. They didn't mind if Jenny Richards got into Cambridge or not. They began to fly out of satchels and off library shelves like great flocks of tattered pigeons, chased by incredulous, mirthful children and bemused, incensed head teachers.

Soon the other books began to go. Big black tomes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica heaved their heavy bodies into the air like a murder of crows or vultures, bloated on the festering carrion of outmoded information. Once the staple go-to of the curious intellectual, with the advent of the internet they were no longer needed, and spent the rest of their days looking rather stately but gathering rather a lot of dust. Upper-middle-class neighbourhoods were plagued with the shadows of their dark wings. India to Ireland. Garrison to Haddock.

Waterstones began to empty like a vast aviary of exotic birds burst open; neat bright colours and sharp white edges whirled around puzzled shoppers. They were angry about Kindles and other such technologies and the hardbacks hurled themselves at the glass cases to smash their electronic rivals. The sound of their frenzied flight was unforgettable. The shuffling of a trillion cards at once. A hurricane in a paper press. People shielded their faces from paper-cuts.

The air was filled with the smell of books, new in the bookshops, old and musty in the libraries. Pseudo-intellectuals chased their faux-read copies of War and Peace out of coffee shop doors. Old biddies in Scope and Save the Children tried to catch errant Mills and Boon novels in casserole dishes. But there was little to be done. The books had had enough of being replaced with flat little screens and audio-books and film adaptions (many tried to rip off their own movie-poster covers in disgust). They'd had enough of not being properly cherished, as they once were. They all took flight, and the skies were filled with their beautiful bodies, pages fluttering like butterflies or crisply cutting through the air like swallows.

We don't know where they went. Some surmise they donated themselves to village schools across Asia and Africa. I suppose that makes sense. A book is worthless, if it is not read, and appreciated. But a part of me likes to picture Collins Pocket Dictionaries perched in rainforest canopies, and Puffin Classics making nests in barren coastal cliffs.