Strictly Bizness

Hello, it's been a while but here is 'The Son'

2011-01-21T18:38:00.001Z

I’m walking up James Street, fresh out of the office and trying to pull a cigarette from its packet when someone tugs at my sleeve.

‘Excuse me.’ I utter. I try to brush them away but their hand refuses to move. I turn my head to focus on my sleeve and see the stranger’s fingers hooked round my arm.

“Get off me.” I say, this time fixing my gaze into her grey eyes, hidden behind slack bands of skin. The woman in front of me looks about sixty-five but is probably nearer fifty or so. Her fingernails are yellowed and the musky smell of stale tobacco seeping out from her swathes of clothing indicates what bought her these extra years. My stride snaps faster as I try to get away from her, but now another clawed hand circles round my wrist, making the metal of my watchstrap bite into my skin.

‘My child, my child,’ she croaks at me. The woman is small; no more than five foot six but her grip is strong. I manage to release of her hands from my arm but as soon as I try to disengage the other, the first is back and pinching hard into my wrist with those yellowed nails.

‘Oh sir, please sir,’ she begs again, pulling down on my arm with such fervour that any attempt to move away is rendered practically impossible with her clinging onto me so fiercely. A woman walking past in a navy trouser suit with her briefcase wedged under her arm steps carefully round me, curling her lip in horror at me and my human sidecar. I don’t know why this lady who is still attached to my arm has chosen me, but she has and she’s still there and still not letting go. I’m growing fast aware that this is becoming a scene so I stop sharply on the spot, and the woman comes stumbling to a halt in front of me. A black shawl covers her head, and the bristly, grey hair poking out from underneath it muddles itself with the ragged fringing on the shawl. As the slit of her mouth opens to speak again I look at her yellowed but straight teeth.

‘My child, won’t you help me?’

Looking at her face covered in fault lines of wrinkles, I start to think that by logic this woman’s child, if there was one, would have to be about forty at best.

‘I-I’m sorry.’ I stammer, and offer her to help herself from my packet of cigarettes by means of appeasement. She looks at me blankly. I nudge the packet in her direction again with my free arm and wait. We’re locked in a stalemate. If she frees an arm to reach for the packet, I could get free; if she doesn’t I will still be stuck. Her right hand grips me tighter as she frees up her left hand to reach towards the cigarettes. She quickly takes one, but at a loss for how to light it clamps it between her teeth in the meantime.

‘I need to go.’ I say. I’m firm, but polite. Or at least this is what I am aiming for. ‘I need to leave now.’ Her hands fall away from my arm to stop in front of her and she weaves her fingers in and out of each other. ‘Here.’ I say, taking my lighter from my jacket pocket and holding it towards her. ‘Take it.’ And she does. I nod my head to her slightly and start to walk back down the street, inadvertently trying to straighten out my sleeve.

Five hundred yards down the road, my brow still knotted from the semi-altercation, I decide to step into a newsagents to pick up a replacement for my lighter and something else to take my mind off the woman. I stand at the counter waiting to pay but the mid-thirties shopkeeper is busy watching something on the television. I draw my nails back and forth along the counter at an increasing pace as though this will produce enough energy to animate the guy who’s meant to be serving me. Instead he’s still tipping his head backwards to watch the formula one cars dodge over tarmac, his head slightly bobbing as the cars take the curves. I clear my throat. He doesn’t look at me, but balls his fist and lifts a solitary finger as if to say ‘hang on, just one minute.’ First the old woman and now this, I start to feel the heat prick in my face and my shirt collar grow tighter with renewed frustration. I push the paper and chocolate bar I’ve picked up across the counter and make to walk out. The guy at the till seems to wake up at this point and rings up my items, although his eyes try to gravitate back towards the screen.

‘Two thirty-four.’

‘You’re a fan, huh?’ I say, by means of politeness as I hand over the money.

‘Hmm?’ he’s stretching his neck up to the screen again.

‘A fan, of racing.’ I should have guessed that even this would be hard work.

‘No.’ he replies. I take my change and walk back out, shaking my head as I go.

I’m in the middle of balancing my briefcase, newspaper and unwrapping a chocolate bar when I feel something pulling on the back of my jacket. I turn round quickly to find myself greeted again by those steely eyes. Before I can even think ‘Oh God,’ to myself her rasping voice pleads,

‘My child, my son.’

Her face is ripped in torment and tears are starting to moisten her eyes. By now I am confused and angry, trying to figure out what this woman wants from me and in exasperation thrust my Snickers towards her, stopping just short of those to teeth all lined up like tombstones. She reaches up, I think she is going to take the bait again, but instead her hand closes round my fist and lowers it to in front of me and doesn’t let go.

‘My son.’ she says. Her other hand moves up towards my face and grazes my cheek as she pronounces these words. The tips of her fingers catch themselves in the stubble pricking over my face. I’m too stunned to say anything or to move away from so we stand there, one of her hands still clasped over mine.

‘Your eyes. Like my son’s.’ A tear spills from her eye and I start to imagine why I had been chosen, why she followed me after I thought I’d got away the first time. I push her hand away from my face and tell her,

‘I can’t help you. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.’ This woman standing in front of me looks confused and her mouth stutters as though her words can’t quite work out which is the most important to come out first.

‘Your face is my son’s.’

But it’s not. Maybe to her but to me I’m another commuter trying to get down James Street and make my way home. It could have been another one of the faces in the rush, but she had chosen me.

‘I’m sorry. But I’m going. ‘ I say finally, and add, ‘I’m sorry for your son.’ I push her arms back towards her sides and hold them there for a second to make sure they’ll stay put. I try to look her in the eyes but don’t quite manage it so instead look down at her battered black loafers with the leather peeling off before trying to get home again. I walk about twenty paces and turn my head over my shoulder. She is still standing there, arms where I left them, tucked by her sides, looking at me.

Write from the point of view of a clean sock that was mistakenly placed in the hamper

2009-11-04T20:11:00.001Z

someone had daft creative writing tasks, I stole one for a 5min brainworkout:

These fucking scum. Look at them, lounging around in their own filth, drunk on their own vile stench. I feel their grime soaking through my fibres and inside of me. Oh god. This is what they call “dealing” with the problem. Just because we can’t see them hanging around lost and lonely anymore, didn’t mean they had disappeared forever. Ha. How stupid of me. How stupidly someone grouped me with these sickening layabouts oblivious or even happy with their own state of self-neglect. Jesus. I can feel them sneering at my perfume, they can tell I’m not one of them.

A light comes from above. It’s…it’s…an air strike. I watch in horror as more of the cotton paratroopers swirl down to smother me in their stench.

Makerel on my mind

2009-08-22T18:33:00.000+01:00

She Burns

2009-06-30T22:52:00.001+01:00

She felt the sun pricking on her arms. The stale air pressed against her lips already cracking against the heat. She groped for the glass of water next to her, tilted it towards her face and felt the water warm in her mouth. The more she poured into herself, the more she expelled. Wedged a hand into the small of her back. It bathed in the sweat collected in the shallow hollow of her skin. She pushed it down her legs, water fighting oil; water fighting heat. Splaying her hands she stretched the skin already shrinking against her bones under the heavy rays.

Somewhat distracted

2009-05-23T14:02:00.001+01:00

Tock, tock, tock tock that lulling clock is the sound of hooves. I see myself at home. The pages grazing my fingers are now grass. My eyes hurt from stark bulbs rather than dim sunlight. I blink myself back to my desk and away from the fields. My eyes are rooted to books but my minds off walking elsewhere..

The Man, The Siamese

2009-05-18T20:36:00.001+01:00

There is a man. Standing on the corner. Sipping a cup of coffee. Not a take-away cup, but one from his kitchen. His lip rasping on the chipped rim each time he raises it to suck on the smooth, dark liquid. Next to him is a cat. A Siamese. Its blue collar matches the man’s blue cotton trousers. They are both disinterested in each other and in their surroundings. The man is calm, seeming as if it’s completely normal for him to be standing there away from an entrance to any house, but not seeming to be waiting for anything, anyone. The Siamese sits. Raises her paw in time with the man lifting his coffee cup. They both lick. Him, his coffee; her, her paw. They are still looking for nothing. A car rolls by. The man, the Siamese, follow it with their eyes. Their heads slowly moving from left to right as the man’s shirt flutters lightly across his turgid belly. Once the car has passed they resume their positions of staring blankly ahead of themselves.
A woman comes out of the house nearest to where the man, the Siamese are standing. She leans her twisted frame against the rusty bricks of her porch. She is now watching the man and the Siamese, who are still watching nothing. She squints as the sunlight burns harshly onto her retina, tries to scratch it away with her gnarled hands. They used to be smooth and dark like fine leather, but have now aged and resemble an old satchel, battered from years of use. Her lined face is a map although she herself has never left the city. The old woman wonders where the pair on the corner may end up going, instead of questioning why it is that she has never left.
The children kicking a yellow ball back and forth, back and forth down the street have not yet thought of where they will end up. Nor have they noticed the odd trio of observers a short distance away from them. They are too busy pretending to boot the sun around amongst the cars, pretending the apocalypse will come if their miniature sun happens to slide under one of the many vehicles that line the street. The ill-fitting shirts draped over their tiny frames billow like parachutes behind them as their feet dart around after the ball in too-big shoes. Tripping over themselves to save the earth, they let out a fierce shriek and simultaneously drop to the floor as the ball disappears underneath a cobalt Volvo and the apocalypse arrives. When a skinny arm fumbles blind under the sooty car, catches the ball, the world and the game start up again.
The house opposite from the old woman breathes out muggy spices, pricking the air. Inside the kitchen is one of the children’s mothers. She draws the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping away the oppressive air and replacing it with a thin film of oil. The ghee starting to hiss and spit at her in the battered pan snakes up and coils into her nostrils, licking the insides of them. She winces slightly as it deposits a chilli venom and reaches for a glass of water. Picking up her knife she starts cutting the pile of vegetables in front of her. The dull thud of the knife against the wooden board echoes her boy tap tapping his feet against the ball in the road.
Her husband in the room next to her is flicking through the paper. His glasses peering slightly more over his left eye than his right grasp onto the end of his nose, saving themselves from toppling off. He prods at them with a single, squat finger and catches the lingering smell of curry on his skin. Like trees gaining a ring to every year of their lives, the man in the armchair seems to gain another layer of this warm scent to each of his. From when he was the age of his child, who is still booting the sun around in the street, his hands have not only thickened with bark-like skin, but have soaked up the years of spices, damp in the air. It reassures him in a strange way how the smell of home has wrapped itself around his skin. Breathing them in deep this time, his fingers and their smell paint an image of his wife bludgeoning vegetables in the kitchen.
The husband can hear a child crying next door. Its wails filter through the red bricks and raised patterned wallpaper. He turns the pages faster hoping the slice of paper through air will help cut through the screams. He cannot see the new mother next door with her fingers grabbing at her hair in fistfuls of rope trying to climb up and away from her relentlessly shrieking child. The child goes on and on, its cries getting faster, higher, shriller. The husband’s paper is whirring through pages as though it were a flick book; parliament, death, cricket blurring before his eyes. He turns back to the beginning and relays the action. The new mother is also on repeat. She clutches the child once again, tries to negotiate the bottle and its mouth. Its red fists clawing at the air the mother dodges the swipes from the ball of anger. She sinks herself, still with the baby tucked like a package under her arm, deep into the sofa and joins its cries with her own. There is now nothing where the man next door was sitting. Just the failed flick book fanned out on the floor where his feet were not long ago.
The children are still skimming the ball back and forth along the tarmac. A bit away from them is a group of three youths. One leans against a wall tilting his head back toward the sun, heating himself up like a lizard, his skin slowly turning into caramel in the light. The other two are laughing, their voices fighting with the music coming from their friend’s car which is teetering on the pavement beside them. The young mother drags herself up and curls her fingers round the net curtains, spying on the noise that set off the screaming ball of nerves in its crib. Frustrated, she starts cursing at them through the glass, her pitch getting higher and higher as her breath starts condensing in front of her on the window. One of the youths turns his head and spots the frantic mother silently shouting. Her mouth opens and shuts, whirring away like an irate ventriloquist’s dummy. The youth nudges his friends and they turn to watch the woman gesticulating wildly in front of them, caged behind the glass. They laugh again and the bass from the car resonates harder down the street. Tears are streaming from the young mother’s eyes. She feels the anger strangling in her throat as her cries try to push through the window, the bass pushing it back into her. She feels her face turning hot as the blood beats its way to the surface of her skin. The youths continue to watch the molten mother who has become a scarlet flurry of emotion.
The twisted woman who was propped up against her porch has been watching. She hears the fights between the increasing bass thudding away, the silent screams crashing in the muddy air. Grappling for the doorframe to steady herself, she forces the handle down and edges herself behind the safety of her door. She spies from her window the youths rolling about with laughter as they finally tumble into the car which is still shaking with beats. It thuds down from the pavement and sends the children playing in the street scattering like pigeons. The young mother crumples on the floor, her chest heavy with sobs whilst her child’s plaints become less and less with the gradual distancing of the car’s basslines. The wife next door is still knocking back the beads of sweat forming on her brow. The smell from her kitchen is still weaving its way out of her open window and into the hot air outside. The man, the Siamese, are still looking for nothing on the corner.

Zeus

2009-05-15T20:31:00.000+01:00

She felt it hammering down on her. The sodden screws driving through her clothes and her temples. Tipping her face back and parting her lips let it slam into her eyelids, her teeth. It pushed against her forceful as he did. She gasped and winced as she felt its power, remembered his. Pummelling her through her clothes and seeming to push her to the ground as her breathing hastened; fighting against it, him. Staccato breaths matching the rain, sucking in the water slivers between her bruised lips. She flung her head forwards again and stared ahead of herself through the rain and the tears.

TapesandTapesandTapesandTapesandTapes

2009-05-14T12:39:00.001+01:00

She sits, her mind runs reams of thoughts. A cassette player chewing them over and over, vomiting out a tangled mess of tape and emotions. She knots her brow and tries to see through the gaps and a way of undoing it all. But all she sees is the mass of magnetic tape, the coils falling all over each other. The sounds and the voices play out in her mind, the conversations skipping and looping playing in stereo in her mind. She reaches up and buries the base of her palms in her eyes, their cold pressure slowing the voices down. She hears her blood in her ears keeping the beat for the voices still clicking at her in her head. She rocks herself gently from side to side, keeping pace with her pulsing blood as she tries to stare her thoughts into sense. The cassette still whirrs. The tape still keeps filling up her mind.

For S x

2009-05-04T18:29:00.001+01:00

My head sits spinning in front of him. My mouth he sees as grinning spokes twirling manically as it clicks round in ecstasy. My hair has become blurred in the frenzy and resembles to him the slick rubber of tyres, chafing between his fingers. He reaches out and grabs my handlebar arms, delirium in his eyes, clasping my fingers together, streamlining me. I feel my body murmur with shudders as his eyes scan over me. I can feel him mentally razoring off my curves, resenting my hips jutting out cumbersome from my frame. As I crunch my eyes shut I will them away, wishing my body cold, taut, lithe for him. He pedals through me and I try to catch him. But he doesn’t see me. Just my head rotating in front of him, faster, faster.

Not quite a fishwife...

2009-04-25T23:37:00.002+01:00

this is what happens when you cross Jools Holland with a mackerel.

I still love owls

2009-04-24T15:27:00.001+01:00

The Wooden Girl

2009-04-22T08:06:00.001+01:00

I feel wooden from lack of sleep. My legs two heavy trunks kicking out from under me. My arms are awkward and my fingers clumsy as they reach for things once, twice, three times closing round objects and carelessly letting them slide from their grip. I don’t know why I can’t sleep. I can feel it winding its way round me like a vine, slowly working its way up through my muscles but never quite managing to finish me off. So I’m sat here with my head full of sawdust and my eyes gummed up with sap. I brush leaves of hair out of my eyes and prop myself up on my desk. My arms serving as two splints for my tired frame.

The Human Seesaw

2009-04-14T18:59:00.001+01:00

Look at him. Teetering over the abyss. His eyes skirting the edge of that black hole, his fingers clutching the edges like rough crustaceans on a rock. What is he looking for? He balances precariously on one leg, the other jutting out behind him like a broken ballerina. He can’t see. Once again he lunges forward. His back leg hovers behind him, stabilising the carrier of a dappled beard. His arm, thrust forward, delves in. Recoils. Goes in a second time. He hoists himself up further onto the plastic cliff, his belly aggressively kissing the Sulo sticker. On its third venture his hand proffers up a small, round nugget. He slides back down the bin, his leg clicking back down to his side, his stomach pulling gently away from its embrace. He lets the lid fall down with a clunk, then wheels the portable cavern onto the pavement.

Wake Up Call (I love living in the city)

2009-04-13T07:37:00.000+01:00

My eyes claw open. Her throaty yells punch through the night air. WHO ARE YOU? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? Right now I don’t know. I try and shred the sleep from my brain and answer, her voice demanding again and again WHO ARE YOU WHO ARE YOU? Rubber squeals on tarmac. A banshee to her northern roar. How old do we think she is? I’M TWENTY FUCKING FIVE. All I hear is her shouting like an abusive tape player on a loop. I only grasp the one half of the conversation. It feels as if she’s playing drill sergeant to me at 5am. I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM. The tyres screech through my head again. Wrong answer. I try and think with the screaming, the burning rubber scolding me like a teacher for perpetually tumbling on the wrong answer. I DON’T KNOW I DON’T KNOW. Her yells subside into a rumbling laughter. I still don’t know. Her age is still apparently 25, not 20. The sound of tyres slinks off; her bellow rolls softer round the streets. I’m still thinking about who I am.

BUNNYBUNNYBUNNYBUNNYBUNNYBUNNYBUNNY

2009-04-12T22:04:00.002+01:00

I also make lame easter cards apparently.

Bringing back tasteful fashion

2009-04-11T14:47:00.002+01:00

Has fashion nowadays really gone to the dogs?

The Man. The Siamese

2009-04-11T11:27:00.002+01:00

There is a man. Standing on the corner. Sipping a cup of coffee. Not a take-out mug, but one from his kitchen. His lip rasping on the chipped rim each time he raises it to suck on that smooth, dark liquid. Next to him is a cat. A Siamese. Its blue collar matches the man’s blue cotton pants. They are both disinterested. In each other and their surroundings. Looking as if it’s completely normal for this man to be standing there, away from an entrance to any house, but not seeming to be waiting for anything, anyone. The Siamese sits. Raises her paw in time with the man and his coffee cup. They both lick. Him, his coffee; her, her paw. They are still looking at nothing.

Twit Twoo

2009-04-05T14:31:00.000+01:00

Yes we're looking at you

Doll's House

2009-04-05T14:26:00.000+01:00

The little leaded windows and tiled roof like overlapping slabs of chocolate. The Tudor effect veneer. This was our dolls house. Or to be precise, our mother’s dolls house that we had adopted. Lights first tripped by our great grandfather trialling his rude electrics would fade in and out as if the house were breathing. My fingertips would scuff on the coarse green lawn, marching them up and down. Or I’d sometimes plonk them down on the settee, kicking my sister’s fingers masquerading as legs beside me on the shrunken furniture. Our fingers would cook together, chase each other round the house, skipping up the stairs. It’s funny thinking about it now. Like a scaled down version of our own house. My sister’s and my fingers still laced together, whilst those of our mother pattered off somewhere else.

99

2009-04-04T15:11:00.000+01:00

Where are the 99s? When the icecream van comes rolling round churning out a clunky, haphazard version of Greensleeves the 99 is still there. In a sense, anyway. It is in essence, still the 99, but not quite. It bears all the hallmarks . The soggy corregated cardboard wafer. The chemical vanilla cream, slick as bath mousse. And the stamp of authenticity: the Flake. The chocolate shards digging into your lips. But this is not a 99. It is merely masquerading with its £1.20 price tag. I am not fooled.

Watch Your Mouth

2009-04-03T12:28:00.000+01:00

I'd like to have the simpleness of being a child. Or more their directness. Instead my words form traffic jams on my tounge, stalling over ettiquette. I'd like to go back to when my mouth and my brain worked hand in hand. Finishing each others sentences without second thought. Cut out the production line of speech. Maybe then I'd get the salt passed to me quicker, instead of sitting here, deliberating over the 'right' moment to trip over words. I'd like to be more free in myself. Not like a clunky piece of machinery. My movements concious and jerky. I hate how childhood is stolen by daft rules of politeness.

Milk

2009-04-02T14:51:00.000+01:00

What happened to those forgotten milk bottles? No longer waiting with their ripe bellies to greet you on your doorstep. Their tinfoil hats ready to be patted down on their heads. They are probably lying facedown and broken in gutters, shut away in larders; milky tears tracing down their faces. The spinster bottles can’t compete with the modern plastic family, with daddy 6 pints, mummy 4 pints and not forgetting the cute little one pinter who’s newly arrived on the scene. No, our old milk bottles’ glassy bones have grown brittle, sitting on the shelf in the retirement home, rocking slowly back and forth.

Tartan Stone

2009-03-28T14:19:00.002Z

She is tartan. Tartan is exuberant with her hair incessantly tying itself in knots. Much like Tartan’s mind. She had tried to rein both of them in, but has now succumbed to them. She likes to mix her trademark tartan jacket with as many articles of clothing that cause your eyes to cringe as possible. Her aim is to distract you from her face. Her grey eyes and creamy pallor are not quite enough. She wishes her face to be more linear and cohesive like Tartan.
Tartan is with Stone. His clothes: stone. His face: stone. His mouth seems to move independent of any other features like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. No flicker of emotion unless you can interpret the bobbing of his goatee. His hat pulled low over his brow shields any eyebrow movement, assuming he has any. Unlike Tartan, chameleon Stone is dressed in numerous shades of grey. His granite jeans to his pigeon tee shirt. His eyes are blue-grey blending into his skin, greying from too many years of conversing with cigarette ash. Stone would be an expert at camouflage in a canyon if it wasn’t for the wasp coloured laces on his Doc Martens.

Stag

2009-03-28T14:19:00.001Z

They prowl around, pacing their territory. A pack. Hyena shrieks shred the air whilst they buck their heads in approval and fall about on the blunt marble floor. Their eyes mere fissures in their faces as they search out prey and rivals, closer, closer. Others have their faces wedged in glass troughs sating a thirst with oozing amber liquid. A final roar and they pound off, metal heels cracking on the desolate marble plains. This is the stag party.

Case Histories

2009-03-25T16:40:00.000Z

I'm starting to loathe cases. Their pregnant bellies vomiting up my life's contents in some kind of textile morning sickness. Not only do they have a habit of spewing chaos everywhere, but they somehow manage to turn my room into some sort of breeding ground for clothes. Maybe they've all been birthed out of the case. Generating more and more until I'm completely overwhelmed with cotton, plaid, silk. Or maybe not. Maybe I should actually get on with packing. I'll give the case a hysterectomy first though.

Russian Doll

2009-03-24T23:53:00.000Z

The other day I saw a Russian doll that must have had about 30 shrinking clones tucked up inside it. I like to imagine people as them. Their stories etched into bellies, progressing through their histories. Seemingly bold strangers, their large and gaudy outer shell. You find out a little more about someone, part of their story is told and you can split them open and discard another part of their facade. When you're finished ripping off their heads 10 or so times hopefully you'll be left with the concentrate of what you liked about them in the first place.

Circuits

2009-03-23T23:46:00.001Z

Sometimes I feel like they’re within me. My veins and arteries replaced by live and neutral wiring. I spend so much time with laptops, lamps, speakers, pumps that maybe the electrons are slowly working their way into my skin. As I type. Each hit on a key punching them further into me. Perhaps that’s why you get headaches from staring at a monitor for too long. Current surge. Typing so fast your brain overloads with all the new charges ripping through my skin and pushing through my plastic-coated nervous system. Maybe I’m going mad. But then switching off and shutting my eyes to calm down would only reinforce my point now, wouldn’t it?

Hidden/Found

2009-03-23T22:56:00.002Z

When I was younger I used to pick my way through my mum’s jewellery box when she was busying herself in the kitchen. I’d listen for her movements so I could time my getaway run along the landing, back to the safety of my room still garnished with trinkets. Once I managed to snap the lid open on a small, red box with a gilded pattern on the top. I was hoping for more oversized rings to hula-hoop round my fingers. Teeth. Tiny, white shards resting on a bloated velvet cushion. I was confused. Thinking they were sharks’ teeth. Polished and hollow. The flat tops and silken enamel became horrifically familiar. My sister’s and my teeth conversing on their lush seat. I snapped the box shut and buried it again under all the other treasures and ran out of the room. Looking back on it now, I just see it as another set of treasures that she kept. Those of our youth. The same as that perfect curl taken from my head and captured in the green box I found a few weeks later.

Tunnel Vision

2009-03-23T21:07:00.001Z

Alarm. Up. Kettle. The three primary components to his routine. As he watched the water turn slowly opaque with coffee he swilled the word ‘alarm’ round his head. His daily wake up call no longer warranted its name. It had long since ceased to be alarming in the slightest and now only functioned as a begrudging reminder of the monotone day that was awaiting him. There was a degree of comfort in it, he supposed. Knowing exactly how his days, week, well, even month was prescribed to pan out. No nasty surprises. Shit, he’d better get a move on. Thrusting the plunger down on the cafetière he signalled the end of his daydream and the start of his day.
His collar securely tucked up round his ears, serving as both a windshield and a set of blinkers he clicked the door shut behind him and felt the key scrape in the lock. Tripped down the two steps outside his house then started the 145 paces until he descended into the tube. Why the hell this dank underground network was romanticised by some he couldn’t understand. The smog, the dirt, the carriages stuffed full of bodies at this hour made him think of cemeteries overflowing during the Black Death.
Back out in the open he rounded the corner, attempting not to see the Big Issue guy who was, without fail, waiting to ask if he’d possibly, kind sir, consider buying one. His blinkers were on the blink and failed to hide him, so he sharply shook his head in a firm “no”. Why now would he change his mind? He’d insisted for the past seven years of working in this office and tracking past the seller everyday that he DID NOT WANT ONE. Why did he bother to keep on asking? It was admirable, to a certain extent. It was another faithful constant in his life that helped keep everything in order, just so, as he liked. He wondered to himself what would happen if one day he turned onto Gladstone Street to find a man-shaped void on the pavement where the seller once stood.

*

“Coffee?” the intern’s eyelids flicked open and shut like a doll.
“Yes.”
“……” greeted with a pressing stare Adrian struggled to think what else this girl could possibly want.
“Oh, dash of milk. No sugar.”
She looked disapprovingly at him.
“Thanks” he added absentmindedly. He watched her stride off, a skipping pace, the fabric of her skirt stretched taut across her buttocks. Sitting staring at screens all day didn’t half make some people tetchy, his delayed politeness would probably result in scowls and a watered down coffee. Damn. He thrust his chair out from his station, Swivelled off it in a fury and went out for a smoke.

*
Closing the door once more on the streets, the office, he regarded with disdain the wad of letters on the floor that his letterbox had vomited up this morning. Bills, junk, Mr. Peterson. Who was this Mr. Peterson? He’d like to meet him. Tell him exactly how fucking inconvenient it was having to redirect his mail three times a week to god knows where, then having it arrive on his mat again looking all proud a couple of weeks later. Unpaid bills. This time a threat of bailiffs. Ha. He thought about coming home one day and finding no trace of himself apart from the musty smell permeating from the walls and curtains. Mr. Peterson would still be happy playing house wherever he was whilst he’d be left contemplating the remnants of his own. The way things were going at the moment it wouldn’t be surprising. It was the sick kind of joke this world would play on him.
Click, click, clicking through the channels he slumped further into the worn coves of his armchair. It fitted like a beaten leather jacket, creaking in the right places, worn creases that moulded only around him. An advert told him of “Amazing reductions! Cut-price couches!” and he looked from his chair, to the screen and back again. No. He’d stick with this one thanks, and dragged his scuffed fingertips along the arms of the chair, the rough fabric gently pumicing them. Settling for some non-descript home renovation programme he picked up his plate and stared despondently into it. Chicken, chips, frozen peas. Adrian predicted having a mirror meal the day after tomorrow. Food was now just another component in his day. Fuel to tide him over from one task to another. Still, he looked sadly into his plate again, hoping as if by some miracle its contents would have changed. Nope. Oh well. With that he flicked the ring pull and let out a sigh, dueting with the hiss seeping out of his beer can.

*
Alarm. Up. Kettle. Same again. As he padded round the kitchen he felt the coarse grains of dirt under his feet, making his toes recoil in horror. Maybe he would clean it later. It wasn’t really necessary as he spent minimal time in his kitchen anyway. What was the point in cooking up elaborate meals for one? No one to impress or share it with, it was a waste of time and money. He flicked his eyes down to his watch. 15 minutes and he should be showered and dressed. 30 minutes and he should be reaching for his coat and stepping out the door. No milk. Brilliant. He hammered the cup down on the tea stained worktop and watched it crack into three glacial pieces. The handle still clenched in his hand he headed down the hall to his bedroom glowering at the front door as he passed it, the evil portal to the outside world and his shitty, mundane job.
He felt his feet rush out from under him and saw the world slide slowly upwards as his coccyx crushed against the tarmac. The dilemma of the tea had set him back 2 minutes and he’d failed to properly tie his laces, resulting in him now finding himself planted on the pavement. Gathering himself together, and the ream of expletives expelling from his mouth he brushed his trousers off, and winced as he felt the grit on his palms being pushed further into the welts on his skin. He glanced at them. A bloody, etched mess of dirt and grit.

“Big Issue sir?”
“You know what? No. No I don NOT want your Big Issue. Nor did I want it yesterday, or last week, or even a year ago for that matter. Just so you know, I will not be wanting one tomorrow or anytime soon so can you PLEASE stop fucking harassing me?”
The husk of a man standing before him looked crazed for a second, then Adrian watched as his features started crumbling into themselves. He walked off, feeling like he’d just detonated a building and now all that was left was a mound of sullied clothes on the pavement and the man’s soul gently creeping out of it in wisps of smoke.
Sitting in his cubicle, doing the same old number-crunching. Crunch, crunch crunch. Like the human cement mixer across from him shovelling crisps into her mouth, mixing them with her spit to form a foody paste that would end up as render on her hips.
“What?”
“Sorry?”
“Do you want something?” words and shards of crisps came spraying out her mouth. Realising he’d been studying her with morbid fascination for about five minutes he thought, fuck it.
“Yes. If you insist on eating at your desk, could you kindly keep your mouth shut whilst you do it? Thanks.” He said, the acid tones dripping from his voice. Her eyebrows shot up to meet her gel-laden hairline and her jaw slackened. A crumb that was teetering on the edge of her ballooned lips wavered, fell.
“What the-ˮ Before she could empty her mouth of more words and detritus, he’d got up, grabbed his bag and had headed for the door.
He was out. Disorientated. His nice little routine was lost now. Chewing on a cigarette, listening to the angry hiss of the paper burning away beneath his fingertips his mind felt like the jumbled mash of numbers he’d left buzzing on his screen. His feet carried him down the pavement, switching between the paces set by hurried workers pounding the ground in front of him. He pushed between people, still pressed for time with apparently nowhere to go. Flustered, angry looks met him as his swaying bulk dodged between them and then sunk into the bowels of the city.
Riding from one end of the line to the other, getting off, changing, repeating, he started laughing to himself. Manic. That’s how he must look. Manic. Giggling, feeling like a kid playing truant which he’d never had the balls to do. He tried to settle himself on one of the seats, the cushioning sitting at jaunty angles due to its millions of previous occupants. The row of faces sitting opposite him in the carriage had the same variants of expressions: blank, dishevelled, stressed, drained. His face was doing its own dance of contortions as his body tried to accept this new freedom. His fingers fidgeted in his lap. Turning them over and over, picking at the grit stamped into them from the morning’s chute.
He’d exhausted all the lines now. Mapped the entire city. His head felt dazed from its freedom to roam and his eyes smarted from the muggy air. He clamped a hand up to his head and massaged the grooves of skin by his temples.

He’d be back in the office tomorrow.

Flight Attendant

2009-03-23T20:36:00.000Z

I rotate on the spot. My mouth jarring; open, shut, open, shut. Expelling phrases like one of those dolls with a string to pull, sending them reeling off nonsense. "located on the...please ensure your se-"
I am covered in a peach render, lips daubed with standardised 'blush' paste. Hair scraped back like a layer of icing covering my cranium. My mouth gums open, "Is there anything you would like, sir?"

Those Girls

2009-03-23T20:26:00.000Z

The chairs are sizing me up. Comparing my clunky legs to their sculpted forms. I watch them as they waltz with their partners: 1 step back, 2 steps forward. They land promptly in their laps. So firm and moulded, their muscles permanently flexed whilst I contemplate my own flaccid thighs, rippling like the lowly tear curving down my cheek. I will never become one of those elite, mesmerising girls.