beyond wunderman

Below the below

2012-01-27T00:45:00.001+01:00

Trapped underground with nothing but iron noise-makers to bang against the stones. Slippery stuff underfoot, spores in the lungs, oppressed by many phobias.

Let me out.

•

Long Gone

2012-01-20T15:06:00.001+01:00

I found Norf on the bathroom floor, long gone, messed-up. His shirt was long gone too, although one of the sleeves had first been torn off and tied very tightly around his arm. A nice state to find your friend in. The expression on his face was as ghastly as the scene itself, a tap on the shoulder from my own temptations, the reflection of a score of possibilities.

I got my arms under his and heaved him to his knees - you don't need to hear the rest.

•

Unnecessary fruit

2012-01-17T10:24:00.001+01:00

My mailbox was stuffed with fresh oranges this afternoon, which would have been a pleasant surprise on any normal day, but I had been expecting a rather important padded package and a mailbox full of fruit was, today, just an unnecessary and unwelcome event.

Yesterday it was full of apples, the day before bananas, the day before that - lychees (literally thousands) and before that a couple of grapefruit. Someone's up to something, but I'm not rising to it. I have other fish to fry.

•. •. •.

Welcome to the night train #28

2012-01-15T15:12:00.001+01:00

Oh too late once again - next time I'll jump in front of this damn train, even if it kills me - which it should right? Eurgh what a mean thing to do or say. I was joking of course.

No in fact a man just came up to me and asked me if I had a cigarette, again , and when I told him that I tend to avoid anything chemically addictive these days he snarled and spat that he should push me on front of the next train. Nice right? Cheers buddy, have a good night too.

People. Don't get me started.

*

Lines

2012-01-14T15:38:00.002+01:00

I've begun to see lines in front of my eyes once more. Three vertical lines, evenly spaced signifying, I believe, a doorway.

God this is bullshit! I just read that out loud and it sounds like the most ridiculous, pretentious crap imaginable. It's true though about the lines before my eyes though and it's also true (I think I mentioned it somewhere before) that the doorway to Chime has three vertical lines painted on it, but I'm putting the whole thing down to coincidence. My eyes have also been gritty and inflamed recently.

Perhaps something is up ....

And there she stood ...

2012-01-14T01:10:00.002+01:00

And there she stood, staring at nothing, telling me what I wanted to hear (although I had most likely misinterpreted her words to suit my own fantasy).

I ho-hummed to myself and went back inside, where the walls repelled me and the ceiling attempted to starve me, again.

Anyway, that was today.

Facts

2012-01-11T00:30:00.002+01:00

Ha well yes; all that almost spelled disaster, what a thing to admit (yesterday's post). Whatever.

I learned 2 things during the last telephone conversation I had yesterday:

Número uno - pole dancing is all about stomach muscle use, and
Two - eye zapping is possible.

And there we have it.

Fucking Starbux

2012-01-09T19:03:00.002+01:00

Fucking starbux at 6.50pm - the music is making me retch but we're so hungover and the donuts called us in here ... not the coffee. Is there worse coffee? Perhaps it's just this one. I have a new T-shirt on and it's making my body itch and the music is still making me retch. The whole affair is a disaster on every level. Fucking starbux.

*

E & K, Feb '10

2011-12-15T14:49:00.000+01:00

The television was loud again from next door, this time broadcasting in English. I wonder why. Subtitled, I suppose. The dialogue was laughable and suggested Victorian England, all backed by strange, industrial, ambient music.

“You’re not lying to me, are you Mary,” a man spoke. “Ah Mary, if only we could all see inside each other, through each other as I do you, right now. I can see so much, so much I never knew … Oh Mary, I never knew. I should leave now. Mary? What's wrong?”

“That ... that,” a woman’s voice replied, shivering yet determined. “Don’t ever do that again to me. Ever.”

“I won’t apologise Mary. You’ll never make me apologise. Never.”

It all sounded quite dramatic.

With my coffee mug in one hand and cigarette in the other, I sat down with my back against the wall and turned my attention back to E and Kaisha. Only the sides of their faces were visible in the dark, the glow from the uppermost X emitting the only light which touched their bodies. I had drank too much rum again, and as they swayed together to the sound of imagined music I could only catch the briefest snatches of conversation between them. What I could hear didn’t interest me, only the sight of them interested me. The sight of E laughing and smiling once again.

E whispered into her ear and in a fit of laughter Kaisha fell towards her, placing her hand on E’s arm to steady herself. E fell forward and wrapped her arms around Kaisha’s body. They fell down and were almost lost in the deep scarlet quilt which covers the bed. I looked to window and then back to their bodies. They had turned to face each other, close together, and with their hair over their faces I could no longer tell Kaisha from E. As the headlights from passing cars crawled across the ceiling and down the walls, their bodies were highlighted in sections.

2011-12-03T01:57:00.001+01:00

I dunno what came over me, all that sea stuff. I mean, I give the whole thing a sea-feel then rant about how much I hate being in the sea and, you know, that doesn't really look too good does it? What was I trying to say? I'll never know.
To hell with all that. Someone came up today in the street and asked me for my jacket, where did I get it, can I just buy yours etc. It wasn't a homeless person (to my knowledge) just some raving idiot. I told him he could have it for 300 euros and he looked like he was giving it some thought ... its not even that good a jacket, just something about the pockets being the sort of thing he was looking for or something.
I dunno what else to say about that.

*

Seaing

2011-11-21T09:41:00.000+01:00

This place has developed a sea look for no reason other than the fact that it had to look like something, so why not water? I myself don't care for the sea - I mean, I have no desire to get into it. It's wonderful to look at and listen to and comes in handy of course but generally speaking the sea doesn't float my boat. Haha.
And neither does seafood while we're on the subject - that shit belongs in the sea and not on our dinner tables.
*

Insect invasion for real

2011-11-12T02:11:00.001+01:00

I've been recovering from an insect ear invasion these days - not a nice situation, but a first. For me anyway.
That little monkey flew straight in there and vibrated the hell out of my head for a few minutes before falling silent and still which was even more alarming than the initial invasion. With no idea if it had flown out or passed out I had to get Stepek to peer inside and give me the news, but he couldn't see anything so I still have no idea where it went. Ah well. What can I do anyway?
Ten minutes ago Stepek suggested inserting a drop of lighter fluid and then a hot match, a combination he assured me would cause a flame to engulf my ear cavity for less than a tenth of a second. I declined, satisfied by the fact that only one year ago I would have been up for such a dumb stunt.
*

Satellite baby

2011-09-24T09:19:00.001+02:00

I have no idea where this is going already - not THIS train of course, I know exactly where that's heading, but I can't help wishing it was going directly to my bed. My weird sleep patterns are finally getting the better of me. I think this is a temporary thing though.

So the satellite didn't land anywhere near us, which was a shame. I really could have used a couple of parts from that to heatproof the top and sides of the oven in my apartment ... Never mind, there are plenty more where that one came from, eh?

Have a nice weekend, y'hear???

•• ¥**_•

•

The list obsession

2011-09-19T13:23:00.004+02:00

"Girls with guitars," I say.
"Then what?"
"Not sure ... carrot cake I guess."
"Then?"
"Sleep? Fuck, no ... coffee, jeez, coffee goes before carrot cake!"
"After 'girls with guitars' though?"
"Damn right!"
"Then what?"
"Then ... Hutch, I don't know. I prefer to talk about my least favourite things in life. It's a lot
easier."
"Ah yes, me too."
We sit in silence, looking around the diner. I gaze for a while at the broken television set and then watch a suited man at the bar gawp at the waitress across from him. I look down at my foot and tut at having spilt some maple syrup on my shoes.
"I hate this place Ken," I say. "Why do we always come here?"
"For the coffee?"
"Ah yes." I smile and take a last mouthful of the stuff then stare into the bottom of the mug. "And for the grubby mugs Ken," I say, looking back up at him. "Don't forget the mugs."
Ken frowns, staring into his.

•

Squish

2011-09-14T02:16:00.002+02:00

I saw people reading sheets of paper with my writings on them in the narrow, blue bar at Chime last night, I was too drunk to be ashamed ... That woman from the tv show was there with others but this time I had connections with her ... Later, in a fast taxi going firmly into an uphill bend I found myself squashed between the Russian's sister, who was holding my hand and the tv woman. I had my head on her shoulder ... The City of Lights buzzed past unaware.

home

2011-08-23T00:06:00.003+02:00

There was a nice welcome home sort of thing goingon in my head this morning - the original au revoir was almost threeyears ago now, but the return has erased everything bad that proceeded thatshift.

Let's get things straight around here - you knowwhen you are finally home when you stand, surveying your surroundings then geta surprise when you look down to see that your feet haven't melted into theearth around them, when, of course, they feel like they should have.

Dum de dum.

*

about that hole

2011-08-12T00:59:00.000+02:00

For the second time in about three years I seem to have missed an entire MONTH. Apparently though, July was a blast, so you (and I) will just have to take my word for it when I say that I reckon August will be just as much fun. It's already the tenth of course (I'm being informed from the other side of the room that its the twelfth) and err ...
GodDAMMIT, August isn't going well then, wouldn't you agree? Where the hell did the first two weeks go? They must be hiding back there along with July. Never mind.
Yeah so no photo today, just a short video for those of you who were a little freaked by my last post.
Come back here soon though, y'hear?
J

dark spot

2011-06-21T15:37:00.000+02:00

There is a stream of blood flowing from pin-sized hole onthe back of my left leg, just below the knee, just. Band Aids are doing nothingand I have been forced to begin packing toilet paper against it, holding it inplace by tying parcel string tightly around the leg itself.

More moon-talk

2011-06-17T23:39:00.000+02:00

There was a lot of moon-talk around these parts the other night,which was good ... gave me a chance to talk to those boys. Good grief, where isthis going? Moon-talk? Well, no matter, it gives me an excuse to post a pictureof the moon, taken under duress of course, just like all the others.

Point is, the clouds are clearing and within a matter oftime things will be back to how they were before. Don't you just love that?Man, I can feel it in my back teeth already, and that's a damn good thing.

steel mouth

2011-06-08T17:41:00.001+02:00

I wish the elevator hadn’t stopped at the top. I wish it hadkept going. This isn’t nearly high enough for me. I promise I won’t look down,I promise I won’t look down. Why had I promised again? “When you get to thetop, don’t look down,” she said, but surely she didn’t mean it literally and in fact we certainly were not talking about a big empty building like this.

“There’s a woman in a black hat with a child in a pinkcoat.”

There are not nearly enough clouds today. I had hoped formore. But it isn’t sunny either and it’s neither warm nor cold. The man insidesaid it was miraculous that there is no wind today. All of this is leaving medirectionless.

“You can see right across the city, over the water.”

There is movement beneath us, but often I am the only one toregister such goings-on. It must be the same here, because there are no changesin the voices around me when it happens. So no one else knows then. Nice.

“If I hear someone else say the cars look like beetles andants I am going to barf.”

dust

2011-05-16T00:37:00.002+02:00

There was a man on the other side, standing still, facing me,a gun - a pistol - gripped tightly in his right hand. I licked my lips, for they had driedat the sight of that weapon, and lowered my head in order to see the face of theman, but in the second it took me to adjust my stance he raised the gun andblew a hole straight through his head, the lifeless lump of his body slamming onto the floor another second later.

In that moment I had pushed myself backwards across my room,falling hard on my ass, my legs scrabbling before me propelling me from thescene. I plunged my hands through my sweat-damp hair and fought for breath, mymouth forced open in silent rage and fear. Smoke and fine debris filled theair.

When my heart finally slowed and my hands ceased theirshaking I took time to analyse my reaction to the incident. I've certainly finishedoff my own fair share of men, both good and bad, in this way, I thought,getting up off the floor. I ran my hands over my clothes, removing dust andbits of woodchips, suddenly feeling one-hundred percent again. That momentaryloss of cool had been just that, a moment. I sighed, and then laughed out loud,turning back to the kitchen counter.

I was a little upset to notice that a slim layer of dust hadsettled on my coffee and eggs.

* * *

There is a lot to be said for large areas of nothing.

2011-04-11T07:14:00.001+02:00

There is a lot to be said for large areas of nothing.

I can't live without the city but occasionally I suspect that the city could live without me, on those summer lunchtime zoom hours when I have to fight to stop myself being squeezed from the angular concrete and screaming steel like that last centimetre of toothpaste.

But when change is forced upon me, or a decision is reached, and solitude is once again sipped, it doesn't takes long to slide into that big easy nothing and forget about time passing.

So here i sit, waiting on that jolt that always sends me scurrying back. I can almost taste it now.

*

Fever in April

2011-04-10T01:58:00.001+02:00

There is a lot of noise down there tonight ... I blame the unseasonal heat. Don't they know I am trying to work up here? I may be forced to throw the washing machine out of the window, just lever the damn thing up and out - it doesn't work anyway and the Beast uses it as a toilet. Man what a sick idea (bad sick, not good sick). I couldn't possibly face the world again after carrying out such an act.
Noise and heat noise and heat noise and heat noise.

Bloody couples

2011-04-08T00:54:00.001+02:00

The funniest thing about Hutch and Rachel is Rachel's insistence on pointing out Hutch's curved backbone and his webbed fingers. He looks like he was born in a swamp, she will say, and laugh. Hutch will sit there looking confused, because he tells himself he loves her.

He tells us she is a tramp or, if the wine has gripped him, worse. She wouldn't laugh at this, you can be sure of that - she would no doubt wait until they were alone and then beat him like a hound.

She tells E that Hutch is "the one" though, so what can you do?

*

Tigers and owls

2011-03-06T00:39:00.001+01:00

If there is one thing I can safely say I know almost nothingabout it's got to be owls. What are owls all about ... the swivelling head, thenight thing, the woot woo and those freaky eyeballs.

But never mind birds when there are tigers on the loose,right? Right. I've had my suspicions for weeks ... faint growling and stuff disappearingfrom my refrigerator during the night, whole legs of lamb and that pig's headwe had saved for demonstration purposes. I think we are on to something thatthe authorities have missed. Tigers.

Ah but let's not bother with all this ... I mean, wildlife ... don't ask me about wildlife.

red rising

2011-01-18T14:32:00.001+01:00

I sat until 9am had come and gone, waitingon the sun to rise, before I finally lost patience with both the sun itself andthe whole, overrated concept of dawn. The red neon light from the enormous Xoutside my window continued to buzz and crack at me, filling my eyes with stingand cramp.

“That’s it for me,” I called over myshoulder to one of the girls. “I’ve completely had it with daylight. Theearth’s rotation was about the only thing left I felt I could completely relyon, and look. Utter darkness. It’s after nine now, isn’t it?”

No answer came from beneath the bed cover –that crimson quilt was the only thing the neon glow didn’t affect in thisplace. Everything else had been stained by it’s unnatural glow, giving me anightly desire to scrub and tear at everthing around me.

I sat for another hour at the window,waiting like a neutered lunatic for something to happen, but of course itdidn’t. The end was creeping up, imposing itself upon me. I could feel it on myback; cold, wet and aged.

Spongy ... and so very wrong

2011-01-10T23:11:00.001+01:00

Damn, this screen is way too bright and thekeys are unfamiliar. They have a spongy feel which I don't like, and the y andz keys are in the opposite position to my desktop keyboard. But this is 2011.Indeed, we are now two hours and eleven minutes into 2011, so I should quitcomplaining and get on with it. But - spongy these keys are. And the y and thez are ... yep. Thank the Swiss for that. Two hours, twelve minutes, two whiskeys and a bottle of red into 2011. Iforesee a sore forehead. And eyes. This screen is too bright. Writing at night,this screen is too bright. I should goto bed. I can't be bothered, too comfy and ... I don't think I will get a goodsleep but ... this is dreary (my words) and my bed will be warm, plus – andthis is a big plus – there is a beautiful naked (possibly, it is winter though)woman in it. Well, there is a beautiful woman in it, but I doubt she is naked. Nomatter, non-nakedness is not a permanent state. Something can always be doneabout non-nakedness, especially after two in the morning.

* *

oh, good

2010-12-27T18:06:00.002+01:00

xmas, xmas, December, xmas .... what's going on? Someonejust told me that today is the 27th --- the 27th people! That means that all myplans to begin this, this and this in December will have to be put back toJanuary. January 2011. That's next year. I am going to have to go back to dawnsleeping again.

On a positive note though; I just got back from the mooneveryone! Hey, I tell you ... all that shit's made of cheese ... don't letanyone tell you otherwise. Grnnn ...

space monkey mafia

2010-12-15T23:47:00.001+01:00

This last week has been full of pain thank largely to a hugeclenching of the jaw by myself. it took a while to put two and two together,but there we are ... don't clench your jaw to tightly for long periods of timepeople. On top of this I have had the dreaded lurgy once more - I say oncemore, it's been almost a year since the last time I was hit with the goo stick- and also, my inspiration has sunk to a new low. But that is all over now; the lurgy has been drained and the pain in thejaw has lessened now that the reason has been found.

All good news. For me anyway.

France, Miss

2010-12-05T12:46:00.009+01:00

It's the first Sunday in December no less,and just like the same Sunday last year, we are breakfasting on Banania to facilitateour recovery - drinking everything in Stepek's apartment last night whilst watching Miss Franceon TV and eating a bunch of Quaaludes we bought from some kids seemed like such a good idea at the time. Oh whatfun, it was, indeed.

But that was before the police beganhammering on the door, in the traditional Parisian style, demanding to seeeveryone's paperwork without even removing their boots.

"But Miss France is on the box, yourancid bastards. Have you no respect for your own institutions?" Stepekhowled at them, while Ken begged, "Please, you must tell us where this 'Bretagne' place is."

Stepek takes the show far more seriously than the rest of us do, but thanks to his lack of respect for authority he is the onlyone of us who didn't get to see the final result, unless they had a TV for him in jail, whichis certainly more likely than the chances of them giving him Banania forbreakfast ...

Too bad. But on a positive note, for Ken anyway, Miss Bretagne won. My personal choice to represent our adopted country in the world of Brains & Beauty would have been Miss Roussillon, but she didn't quite cut it and therefore got her marching orders in the first round, which pissed me off because this year I had decided to pick a winner based solely on personality. Well, I think that tells you everything.

It was three years ago today ...

2010-11-30T23:50:00.000+01:00

But still, it doesn't seem that long since I was writingabout a paranoid schizophrenic who finally became so twisted that he began tosee evil through the eyes of a living bat. That thing would hang in the cornerof his room, in an old wardrobe, staring out at him, taunting him day and nightbefore it would swoop down and out of the window, off into the night to witnessunspeakable things on behalf of my lunatic hero.

But I got lost in that story and theconclusion was muddied by my haste to get the damn thing finished. I lost sightof the goal, which was to write a publishable novel, but really, see the aboveparagraph for a clear reason as to why that would never happen. I still haven’tgiven up hope on it – it could become the world’s first metaphysical gore-bookfor children, although, that’s unlikely.

You know what ... I can’t decide whether towrite more tonight or just go to sleep.

my favorite mug is toast

2010-11-27T22:45:00.000+01:00

man, it hit the tiles so hard that not even the handle is identifiable ... we are going to have to dig out the dental records I guess

i'm sorry, i just can't talk about this right now ... i mean, it wasn't even washed ...

*

public transport

2010-11-24T01:58:00.001+01:00

We were driving like lunatics through Rome, trying to blendin, when the cab began to lurch and grind. It became clear, almost instantly tome at least - I can't speak for the others - that we would have to stop anddeal with the probability that ... deep breath ... public transport would be needed for that final and most crucialphase of our journey.

"Take me to the railway station", I yelled. "Ihave a train to catch."

"Jonas," Stepek yelled back at me. "You slimybastard. There are no rail tracks where we are going. A train would be uselessto you, unless it was mythical, in which case you couldn't afford the ticket.Trust me."

The words, "trust me" reverberated around my skulllike a two-stroke motorcycle looping the loop inside an enormous, dried-out coconut shell. Ilooked over at Hutch, hoping for eye-contact, solidarity, but he was stillgnawing on his hands, unable to let go.

not much of a signal

2010-11-21T00:59:00.004+01:00

"It's me ... I'm going to be late. Yes, I know that's what you said, you were as right as ever. It was Ken's fault ... what? No, I can hear you fine, can you hear me? Good. Yes, all Ken's fault. Ken and what's-her-name? Rachel! Yes. No Rachel. Really. His new girl is called Rachel as well. I have no idea if the old Rachel knows. Who cares? She was a dingbat, a friggin' loon. Sorry, but you know what I mean. I'm running late because Ken turned up with New Rachel and then ... what? I dunno, nice face I suppose. Too good for Ken, but so was the last one and ... yep, a dingbat. Uh-huh, anyway Ken punched my landlord in the kidneys, a low but sharp blow even by his standards. Well, it doesn't look good, I was in the middle of negotiating a late rent payment ... yep. No, all spent. Ken didn't like his tone, he just ... you know how he looses it. Who? Oh, Rachel Number Two she, err, well, she fled ... I dunno what came over me, the whole thing was so ridiculous that I told her she would likely be next, just to keep her on her toes. Never mind all that. Order me a Monaco, I'm finally getting into them. They're purple. Are you sitting outside ....?"
*

sometimes ...

2010-11-20T11:31:00.001+01:00

Sometimes you have to just say, fuck the nice pictures and the fancy setting and get on with it, to hell with formatting (it drives me to drink anyway.)I've been under a rock since the great old lady showed us what she is really made of, once again. Those days of two years ago seem like a dated blockbuster now, and reality, the ignorant and the scared, have taken over once again.There really was nothing else to do except crawl under here and contemplate what all of this really meant, and now, as winter kicks in, its clear that in fact there is nothing to be done for such situations. If there was it would have been done over forty years ago.So to hell with all that - let's just build a wall around the great old lady, and be done with it.
*

Open all night ...

2010-11-18T01:14:00.002+01:00

It occurred to me, whilst writing to a friend earlier on, that while my brain usually feels like home-made, wholemeal bread, it currently resembles a soft, bleached-white loaf from a 24 hour discount store.
Which is no good to anyone, especially me. But not to worry. These things can be rectified if they are identified in a hurry, and identified they have been so we can move on from that.
The blog may be lacking color right now, but I think you will agree that today's photo is particularly blue. BLUE.

* * *

letters from the barn #1

2010-11-13T23:50:00.002+01:00

Stepek,

I'm taking time to get back up to the maximum, taking timeto sit down and wonder what it was all about. It seems to have gone for now.

No matter. Your letter amused me and made me smile for thesecond time since I got here - I'll be kind and leave it at that; I'll justassume that it was written under the influence of something expensive. Or maybecheap, in which case I hope your head still fits inside your helmet. The lasttime I was bunked by Norf I thought everything in the entire universe, exceptfor my brain, was trying to shrink.

Man, this is a lame reply. I'll fill you in on where I am assoon as I get a bearing on the sun. For now, get the engine running. Prime thatcab. I may need you guys.

* * *

snippets from the end

2010-10-27T23:52:00.004+02:00

I could taste dirt.

No, forget that. It was anger, fear and understanding that Icould finally taste. My senses were back, as alive as they had once been. Ilooked across to E, sitting with her knees drawn up towards her chin, at theother end of that worn old back seat.

"At least we are sure of seeing the eclipse," Isaid to her.

She looked at me and bobbed her head from side to side alittle. "Perhaps," she said, turning to look out the side window oncemore. "I wouldn't get your hopes up though J. He has a ..."

"I know, I know," I hissed, tasting dirt oncemore. "I know, I saw it too."

I'd been hoping the heat and been messing with my vision,but obviously it wasn't.

dream 17

2010-10-22T23:15:00.000+02:00

I am sitting at the head of a long table surrounded by people I know well butdon’t recognise, family, friends, girlfriends, neighbours and work colleagues.On the table in front of us sits an enormous box, like an oversized coffin,covered with a thick white cotton sheet with a slit running lengthways down themiddle.

Thebox contains items that have yet to be discovered or invented, things no personhas ever seen or touched before. To be more specific, everything inside the boxbelongs at least five-hundred years into the future. I tell everybody this,adding that it is incredible important that we don’t touch or look at anythingin the box as it could really screw around with space, time, and… well,everything, but nobody is listening. It’s quite easy, if you reach far enoughthrough the slit in the fabric, to grab hold of and remove these items. As soonas one person discovers this, everybody starts trying to get their handsinside, arguing and shouting, fighting, scratching, and biting and even in onecase, gouging at the eyes of another fellow human being. People become lessinterested in the contents of the box and more interested in each other. Butnot in a good way.

I stand up and walk.

** ** **

dream 3

2010-10-16T21:46:00.000+02:00

Finallyasleep in my own bed, I dream that I am back down in the Metro again, althoughI am not on a train this time; I’m just running along through tunnel aftertunnel. I arrive at junctions but have no idea which way to go but I can’t stop running so I choose the lefttunnel each time. Eventually I see a turnstile up ahead. As I run I scrabbleabout in my pocket to try and find my ticket. I can’t find it of course and I still can’t stop running. I’m gettingcloser and closer to the gate. Just as I reach it I find my ticket in thedepths of my back pocket… I insert it into the machine, but it won’t go all theway in. The card becomes damp and then wet as I try and push it fully in. Itjust won’t go. Now it’s just a soggy lump of cardboard. I start to climb overthe top, hoping I won’t be spotted, but as I do this I hear shouting frombehind me, several angry voices. Rather than turn around I try and force myselfbetween the bars and the gate on the other side, scraping and tearing the fleshon my arms and legs... I make it through, bleeding and out of breath… I beginrunning again…

Eye-bursting pleasure

2010-10-13T23:10:00.000+02:00

Oh man, eye-bursting pleasure - er, hold that thought.

Or rather, don't. There is far too much going on these daysto even consider the new Carte Noir packaging, shiny black and gold though itis. E and I sat up till after 4 againmaking fake coffee ads with her handycam, coffee ads which would of course beunwatchable - or unshowable, at least before the 10pm cut-off. Caffeine is thebest of all drugs, it's been said - often here - many times before. I'm buzzingright now from other things, including, tv, which I normally avoid. But, as Isaid other things are happening - likebasic human needs. I need three things : motivation, energy, E's chestnut andpear crumble.

Ramble on ...

look closer

2010-10-02T23:41:00.001+02:00

Both E and K were wearing exactly the same shorts this afternoon when I woke - it was warm in the apartment, a result of our decision to switch the heating on prematurely this year. It was a nice but complicated view I had from my bed, two sets of legs bustling around in the same shorts. ° Why are you both bustling around?° Bustling? J, that's what old women do.° Well ... why are you both wearing the same shorts. It's making me feel selfish.° They're not the same J ... look closer.I rubbed my eyes a little and stared at E, and then K's shorts. K's were slightly lighter.° Ah, you're right, your's are lighter. I think I should get up now.
I cant remember where this was going

*

One for the patient amongst you

2010-09-21T23:54:00.003+02:00

Most of my work is almost over and winter is about to come swinging by once more - perhaps I'm jumping the gun a little, but it's good to be prepared, right? This coming winter for me has but one aim and for that I am happy - that doesn't happen too often. Getting the book finished. Ha, yeah not much of an ask, but still. It's all there, just got to buff the edges or something.
This is how it starts ... (for now, that may all change.)

Beginning

Is this a beginning? Treading lightly through the winterrain, tiptoeing behind the man as we climb, with no choice but to follow and noknowledge of what is to come? Surely it is, because for me, no memory is thereof what came before. But let us be clear, I don’t want that fact to cloud anyissues. This lack of memory is of no importance. It is, for me, logical toassume that there may not have been any ‘before’.

The man, Franklin Jaw, needlessto say, has been here before. “This is it”, he says as we stop before a typicalapartment block. He has the door code and is unhesitant as he climbs the stairsand strides with familiarity towards the unmarked door of an occupiedapartment. It is not his apartment, he has no key. Nevertheless, he does notstop to knock.

“Girl, stay here,” he says to mewithout emphasis on any word. As he twists the handle I turn around and climbhalfway up the next flight of stairs to sit myself down, still able to see theman and the entrance to the apartment, but without being too obvious. I have noissue with his command, not at this moment. Yes, I want to go in there – don’task me why – but I don’t want to go in there just yet, even if this surely isnot the season for any girl to be left alone on stone stairways.

*

yeah I know, its just a snippet. But still, its going to be a fast winter .....

Go on home

2010-09-21T00:20:00.002+02:00

Goddammit it's the 20th and as usual in this year of panic I have discovered that I have left just 3 posts. Well, 4 now, but thats not really the point is it. I'm writing fast and off the cuff as its raining hard outside and I need to get across the city as soon as to pick up a few things, and the police were screaming about bombs on the Metro all day. It was hot and crazy then, and now its cool and wet, so talk of bombs has subsided.
I'm listening to JB at Sin-é ... good lord, that voice is messing with my emotional state, to no end. The memories of the first time I heard that are painted with fear and paranoia.
the air pressure is high

*

Don't think I'm ready for the underground ...

2010-09-15T00:41:00.000+02:00

Finding out thatmy coffee had effectivley bee spiked for the last week not only made me mad butit also explained a lot. Spiked, I mean ... I'd been drinking decaf, which willteach me to pay more attention if nothing else. Not to worry. Suddenly I am back with a bangand it means all sorts of things, especially considering that we are enteringAutumnal territory. Ah, Autumn, here of all places is just utterly incredible.Colours, smells and the general atmosphere when you crawl into the Metro at 1amto find somewhere to hide while they lock the gates up ...

... where is thisgoing? I'll explain one day, but I recently hooked up with a tribe of Parisianswho can navigate the underground like you wouldnt believe. Ah, I have no timefor details which is a shame. It's coffee time.

xo

2010-09-08T23:52:00.002+02:00

I had to try and dealwith the basic harsh reality of life this morning after suffering a night ofnosebleeds, imaginary yelling and dreams of fucking my ex-bosses wife. I blameE and K collectively for this state of affairs, how can I be expected to remainstable when the environment we three have chosen to live in is littered withscreaming lies, dirty ex-habits andtangled, sweating limbs?

° Why on earth wouldyou want to sleep with ******'s wife J?

° Just to piss him offI would imagine, I mean ... good God, I don't think it would be possible to engagein any kind of sexual act with her. I would have to be fucked on smack again toeven consider it, and even then it would have to be for huge amounts of hardcash.

° But were you onceagain hooked, Mister, you wouldn't be able to complete the job, remember?

° That's a good point.Please tell me we have coffee.

° We can't. Unless weare allowed to lie before breakfast?

This is where I camein I believe.

Tomorrow is Thursdayhowever. I was born on a Thursday, so ...

We need to go deeper ...

2010-09-03T11:55:00.001+02:00

° Deeper, we need togo deeper, this isn't working, she whispered in the dark.

° What was it youwanted to discuss? I thought I was asleep, I replied without moving my lips.

° Needs, fears. Beliefs.

° Ah, is that all?It's 4am right enough, if there is a better hour for this kind of talk it'sbeen hiding itself from me all this time.

° J, the hour isn'timportant. You of all people know that.

° Ok, well here goes :I need sleep, I fear I am not going to get any, I believe therefore that I willfeel terrible tomorrow. Terrible and irritable.

° Well, there you areonce again Mister. Wrong on every count. We need to go deeper. This isn'tworking, she whispered in the dark.

Orion's belt again.

2010-08-26T23:59:00.004+02:00

"Sotell me about your new woman Ken," I asked him, changing the subject awayfrom my own misfortune.

"Sheis a friend of Julie, pretty hot. Extraordinarily pointed elbows and anklebones, but yeah, pretty hot."

"Uhuh. I forgot to tell you", Stepek butted in, "Julie gave me a messageKen, you're not going to like it. Your new woman doesn’t want to see youanymore. Already."

"Ha!"I blurted accidentally.

"What?Why? She likes me, I mean, she told me she does."

"Wellit's because - and before I go on I'll just say that I don’t see why this issuch a bad thing, but anyway she says that having sex with you is like being anextra in a porno."

Ken lookedcrestfallen. His response rather took me by surprise:"Anextra, is that all?" he slammed his beer down hard on the table.

"Well,that’s what she said," Stepek continued.

"Theyhave extras in porn?" I asked, suddenly feeling the swirl of the last sixCoronas. "What for?"

"Waita minute," Ken interrupted, "what do you mean by 'and I don't see whythis is a bad thing'?"

I caughtStepek winking at me while Ken stared down into his bottle. "I'm goingoutside," I said getting up. I had promised myself I would stay away fromthese scenarios.

Onceoutside I took a quick look up at the stars to check my bearings and as Isuspected Orion's belt was slightly askew. "Someone needs to have a lookat that," I said to Mac, the noise monitor. He nodded, frowning.

Finally ....

2010-08-20T02:41:00.001+02:00

There hasn't been one single photo of a glitter-ball yet in this blog. Until today.

*

Neon light on skin

2010-08-19T00:40:00.003+02:00

Even with all the upsand downs that tend to happen, you really got to hand to it to the man whoinvented night time, right?

It's night time rightnow. I'm looking over to my window and I can hear the atmosphere of the streetbelow. The skin on my hands is bright red thanks to that neon X which is justtoo high, blasting through my window from 8pm 'till sometime in the morning (Inever see it go out.)

I'm about to hit thestreet, slightly gassed. God only knows what will happen tonight, and that'spretty much the way I like it.

See 'ya on the otherside ;)

Something different - a word from E

2010-08-09T02:25:00.000+02:00

guest post

2010-08-04T14:53:00.001+02:00

I'm out of town ..... but you can go check this out for now!!

Thanks Monica :)

Clutching at straws

2010-07-22T23:25:00.004+02:00

Someone was doingtheir best to confuse the hell out of me Wednesday last. It began with a rehashof the chicken livers story and ended in drunken despair, fighting and nonstopchannel hopping. I banged on Ken's window at 3am, hard enough to cause a smallcrack to appear in the corner of the pane. He didn't stir I noticed, but that pane-crack discouraged further attempts to wake him. I turned to E and asked her toturn the radio down but she too was asleep, so I lay silent, for although I wasn'talone I was as far from anyone as had ever been. I could hear the faint breathsand the tiny murmuring which confirmed I was drifting, securely.

my bad

2010-07-20T20:52:00.001+02:00

Goddammit I hate that phrase, my bad. Who the hell came up with that one? Well, nevermind, because I am glad they did - it applies to me right now. I've been kind of busy and never got around to thanking those of you who left kind messages a couple of posts ago, (a boy) or maybe I did. The truth is I can't remember. But also, to anyone who comes around here for a short blast every so often - its much appreciated. I hope you get as much out of it as I do when I go snooping around your blog, assuming you even have a blog. There was something else I wanted to add. Ah, well ... it's gone now.

*

With a rough heart scraped around them

2010-07-18T00:38:00.001+02:00

It's dark again and it'sraining finally. Looking left there is another overflowing plastic bag lying onits side, there are fag-ends on the floorboards. Looking right, there hang mydark curtains, the ones I had to make out of old blankets. Looking down thereare knife marks on the floor - a drunken idea once upon a time. The marks looklike the letters J and E with a rough heart scraped around them. Looking up hurtsmy eyes as the light bulb is directly above my head. Here's hoping it's screwedin properly. You can never be too sure about such things, right? Looking downagain now - on closer inspection there is a K in there too.

Fake jukeboxes

2010-07-07T23:38:00.000+02:00

Either the milkshakehad been spiked or I was in the depths of a flashback - it was difficult totell, all things considered. We - Ken, E, Julie, Stepek and I - had been ripped for the lastthirty-six hours flat.

In the midst of thisfoolishness we had, as one, become excited by the addition of a grand lookingWurlitzer which had appeared in the corner of the diner, an obvious addition."It was made by that man there," Click said to us, pointing towards asweating man at the counter. "I make them for pleasure only," hesaid. "There is no profit in fake jukeboxes."

Stepek was standing infront of it, one hand on the glass, snapping his fingers in slow motion,pouting. The tempo of the music was uniform but Stepek's finger snapping appearedsyrupy. This was when I began to feel doped. Ken was talking. I pulled my eyesback to his face as he ended a sentence with the word "purpose". His intonationand raised eyebrows suggested that it had been a question.

Sleep is King

2010-06-30T23:16:00.001+02:00

Midway through mylatest job I was confronted by three hags. I had been acting as I always do when I am around celebs; bored. The last thing I want is for them to think I want to beanything like them, which is contrary to how most people behave. It's stomachchurning to watch.

I was sweating badlyand I could smell red wine from my open pores.

"Everyone is having babies" said the grimmest of the three. They babbled together for a few moments and then staredat me. Sensing some kind of reply was expected I blurted out, "its 2010,the year we make contact," and then fled the room, feeling pressure.

Clearly I was havingflashbacks from the session Hutch and I had the night before, a session whichhad only ended when it occurred to me that the sun had come up and I was latefor the job. We had been discussing Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, and hisSri Lankan connection until the early hours, which became the regular hours,which meant it was time to leave. "I'm skipping sleep" I told him,"I won't need it for this job."

This was of courseWrong. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Sleep is King.

a boy ....

2010-06-16T21:14:00.002+02:00

A bunch of mugs

2010-06-10T14:25:00.000+02:00

For regular readerswho are also fans of coffee mugs, I seem to remember banging on once about myfavourite coffee mug, which looked like the one above but was in fact blue.Well, that mug is dust now. So I have a new favourite mug, which is red, andlooks the same as the one above, except the one above has a chip out of itwhich would suggest that it is on its way out too.

It's not easy being amug.

Hmmmm.

Speed trials

2010-06-07T11:13:00.001+02:00

I have a list ofthings I need to get done which is as long as my arm, and I have longish arms.Life certainly doesn't sit still does it? Apart from that one moment of course.

But let's not get intothat again.

Or maybe it would begood to get into all of that again. But the sun is out, even if some clouds arecoming over (but they're not dark enough to ruin anyone's mood, especially mine)I have a hot coffee here and the windows are wide open. I'm listening toElliott Smith for the first time in an age and he's contributing to my wonderfulmood, so let's leave the heavy stuff for another day, right? Or a night. And anyway, as Isaid, I have a lot of stuff to get done.

If you haven't alreadydone so you should go click on that moon over there ==>

*

Moonage daydream

2010-06-04T11:28:00.004+02:00

When I stepped outsidethe moon spat at me. I pulled my t-shirt up and rubbed a hand across mystomach, which was still damp with sweat and still had traces of Norf's hairdye smeared across it. A line of three streetlamps burned holes in my eyes and asI turned away a motorbike changed gear and my legs turned to jelly. Nevertheless, two or three steps confirmed that my own motor was also running.

But it only took a mere dozen yards of purposeful striding before a sludge in the pit ofmy stomach began to suggest that guilt and shame were soon to muddy my manner. I looked up at the moon and asked for forgiveness, and she spat at me once again.

It goes like this :

2010-06-04T00:10:00.003+02:00

dark blues and inkblack ::: raindrops on steel ::: confusion, ambiguity :::

half finishedconversations over coffee and ice cream ::: hand rolled cigarettes :::

cars destroyingreflections in street puddles ::: green neon, buzzing and cracking :::
smartguys and smarter girls ::: innuendo and sizzling undercurrents :::

hints andlies and garden paths :::

movie sex ::: literal suffering ::: pointless breakups and not a dry eye in the house :::

taxi rides through countries that don'texist ::: everything you know is wrong ::: disgusting behaviour :::

three greystripes on a nameless door ::: partially closed blinds ::: plastic stars :::

Coming down is the hardest thing

2010-05-25T00:00:00.001+02:00

Hourslater, I requested that they both bite me at the same time - all over, seriouschunks. It was the taste of blood from a cut on my lip which had ignited this idea."Don't break the skin though, it's supposed to be erotic, not lunch."But at some point during all this they had made eye contact and "got thegiggles."

I rolledonto my back and feigned disgust until K crawled her way up towards my mouthand said some magic words. My head hurt. She was pulling my hair. Soon she wasjoined by E, and as they took turns tasting my cut mouth I began to pass outinto a deep, drunken sleep.

I dreamt that there were two, weightless birds sitting upon me, their tiny heads buried inside my chest as they fed from my insides, tearingand pulling with their razor sharp beaks.

Away with words ...

2010-05-21T01:37:00.004+02:00

... someone once said. Or was it "a way with words."
I don't, in fact, have a way with words at all. I think that's why I write. Also, I think that's why some of the stuff I write in here seems to go down well with a few of you; because I am a terrible writer. It makes me focus like crazy on each sentence to make sure its just right. Where am I going here?
Real life ... in real life I sort of mumble my way through things and then later on I say "damn" out loud when I realise what I should have said. When I was a teenager I was practically a mute.
I am, however, bursting with unsaid things. If you ever meet me in the street and tell me something incredibly serious or important, and I don't seem to respond, please don't take it badly. I am bursting with things I cant seem to say. *
enough of all this, someone is saying. We want more threesome stories ...

Apples. Sunset.

2010-05-10T13:03:00.003+02:00

On Sunday night we ate apples and watched the sun go down from the comfort of the sand dune. The sunset was as you would have expected - the apples were not. They were huge. We bought them from a roadside stall outside a farm. I suspect they were not intended for human consumption. Still, I managed to finish mine even if E did not. Then I got scolded for eating the core.What's the big deal, I asked.An apple tree will grow out of your head, she said.I crossed my fingers as the orange blob which was all that remained of the sun melted into the sea.

*

What else ... bleurgh

2010-05-10T01:16:00.001+02:00

These last few days have seen little in the way of written content, which can be explained by the fact of another Swiss trip; an addictive place I have to say. It looks like a model. In fact, I would have to say that whatever image you have in your head of the place is probably about 100% accurate. Someone took a great deal of care when they made this particular country, the fluff was picked off and deposited on its neighbours, that's for sure.
Kenneth Hutchinson earned the award for the person who said "what else," the most after we passed the monstrosity pictured above (one of the few monstrosities to blight the landscape) but as been noticed before, if you want to predict anything he is going to come up with, just think of the most needless thing imaginable.
Ah, the hostility. This whole post was supposed to be about an Edinburgh whorehouse, but my PC ate my god-damned Word file. I don't want to get into that particular subject again though.

*

Horse-sized reptiles

2010-04-28T13:19:00.003+02:00

What is there left tosay on such subjects? Summer is elbowing its way into our lives up here in thenorthern hemisphere and for that we can be thankful. Until August, when, ifwhere you live is anything like where I was last August, you will want winter toget a march on, and, uh, yeah. But where was this going?

The last few posts,this this this and this, oh and this and this, have had names changed and so forth, but those postswere in fact from the first chapter of the novel I am working on while thisblog is in progress, another work in progress itself. So yeah, there is more tothat story, but there is so much more to this story as well that in order tomove on we must first look around a little bit more, soak it all in, stretchout. Lounge a little.

I'm feeling a touch hypertoday. Here's a photo of the biggest sand dune in Europe, which was prettycool, but I couldn't help but think that some horse-sized reptiles would haveimproved the show somewhat.

Thinking and drinking.

2010-04-24T11:28:00.000+02:00

If I go to bed, Isleep, and then the next thing that happens is that it's tomorrow, and believeme; tomorrow can wait. Tomorrow can always wait. Plus, I get more done atnight. I get more thinking done. Thinking and drinking.

Falling ...

2010-04-19T22:55:00.000+02:00

“Isn’t it a strangething, J, to be in the house of someone who has just died, to be in the veryroom in which they passed away, left us? Someone who was such an enormous partof our lives?” E had asked me one rainy day which now seems like a very long timeago.

She slipped her armaround me and we held tightly onto one another, isolated in the centre of thebedroom of our recently lost friend. E told me later that she had wanted totouch his belonging, to touch his fingerprints before they faded, to make onelast connection, whereas I had been fearful of even brushing against anything,as if his possessions carried some illness, the death disease.

“How does it make youfeel?” I had said.

“Closer to death J,much closer to death,” she whispered against my cheek, her arm tighteningaround my waist. “Closer to the dividing line. Standing on ice. Driving toofast. Falling, falling.”

I simply felt guiltyof the fact that I felt nothing at all except the desire to quit the scene. Ifelt that the room was sucking me into some void, and that if we stayed herelong enough the door would not open when we chose to leave, or if it did, therewould be nothing outside. Perhaps that is because, unknown to E or anyone else,we’d had the same taste in toxins, and looking at his empty bed and hisscattered clothes, knowing that none of them would ever touch his body againmade me feel close to death also, but closer than I could ever explain withoutexposing my appalling weaknesses.

I stood motionless,staring at the reflection of her face in the rain-streaked window. I hope Inever have to see her with that expression ever again, I had thought.

And of course I never did, notuntil we met in the café that afternoon and I listened as she told me about theman who had appeared in her apartment.

"But he was right; it was rotten and smelled bad" …

2010-04-16T23:36:00.002+02:00

I stared at her as she talked. I couldn’t think of any logical explanation for her words. If she was trying to drive me away this made no sense. If she was trying to scare me about her own state of mind she was doing a good job.

“E, you’ve had a dream. We were together last night, don’t you remember?” It was then I thought about the light in her apartment. I looked up. It was turned off again, the flicker of the TV set the only sign of life up there. E was following my stare.

“You see?” she said.

“But he wasn’t right about last night, you were with me.” I was beginning to feel on edge, frantic. I didn’t need this to be happening right now. I was in control of myself these days, staying straight, but I still needed more time.

“But you and I didn’t do anything last night, J. Yet I was quite sore down there this morning,” she said. She looked down to her lap. Her hands were twisting together on the table top.

“E, I’m …” I began, but I didn’t know what I had planned to say. I was utterly lost. I could feel tears in my eyes, and could see that there were none in hers. This was all wrong. I felt sick. I felt unable to speak, so scared was I of saying the wrong words, pushing her the wrong way.

She saved me the trouble of deciding. “I won’t be going outdoors anymore,” she announced as she pushed her chair back and stood up. She turned and walked quickly towards the door, stopped, put her hand in her bag and pulled her purse out, dropped a ten onto the nearest table. I watched her do all this, but I didn’t react. I couldn’t move. I could feel a few eyes on me by this time; we were causing a minor scene. I felt frozen as she left, and it wasn’t until I watched her through the glass, cross the road and enter the main door of her stair that I could shake myself from this state. I looked up at her window, stared, unblinking, until the light came back on.

I just wanted her to get to the end of the story because it was ridiculous and it made no sense. It was insulting ...

2010-04-15T23:36:00.000+02:00

“He came today, earlier on," she began. "I was preparing some food, some salad with olives and … he was sitting on the chair, the white chair, the one you don’t like, facing the television set but there was nothing on. He was flicking through the channels with the remote and it was all static as if it was broken but he didn’t seem to mind at all. I sat at the table near the sink and ate my salad, trying not to look at him. But then he got up and walked over, and he began emptying everything out of the refrigerator and dumping it on the work surface. He was feeling his way around, I don’t think he can see J, I think that maybe he is blind. Sometimes. Then he came over and stood so close to me and told me that all the food I had in the house was off, rotten and he turned and threw it all in the bin, all of it, and then went to the bathroom, feeling his way along the wall. I couldn’t finish my dinner, my food had taken on a moldy, decaying taste, and I could hear him in there, peeing in my bathroom, God it went on forever. I couldn’t move.

"He left the bathroom and found his way back to the chair, picked up my book which I had left lying face-down on the arm, your book actually, and flicked through the pages. He was swearing under his breath, he threw the book onto the floor J. I got feeling back in my legs and I walked over to the other chair and I sat down and looked at him. He yawned and rubbed at his eyes, loosened his tie and said he was sorry but he was just so tired and then he asked how my day was, but I had never seen his face before. And he didn’t seem blind anymore, he seemed perfectly normal in fact. He smiled at me and winked and then he asked if I had enjoyed last night, in this dragged-out, sort of southern drawl. Enjoyed last night? I asked, confused. I was with my boyfriend J last night. He just said, yeah, and he laughed. I got up and walked over to the kitchen and took all the food he had binned and placed it back onto the work surface. But he was right; it was all rotten and smelled bad …”

continues tomorrow

“Someone else comes around now,” she said ...

2010-04-14T23:36:00.000+02:00

I stared back at her. My initial reaction was to explode with anger but I somehow managed to control myself sufficiently to suppress this urge. My vision did blur for a moment, but that was all. I placed my hands beneath the table and slid them between my crossed legs, then leaned forward and said as gently as I could, “Someone? What are you saying?”

“Just a man. He comes around now…” she replied into her cup.

“What are you talking about? What man? When did he…”

“Today,” she said, suddenly looking desperate. “J, you must let me go now.”

But I wasn’t stopping her from going anywhere. I glanced up at her window and then looked back at her face. “Today? When? You never said anything. Who is he? Is he there now?” I looked up at the window again, almost standing, ready to rush up there and cause mayhem.

“I have no idea. He must be,” she said meekly, “there is a light on now.” She looked directly at me for the first time. “Please sit down J.”

I sat. I was stunned, and to illustrate this to her I spread my hands wide and then slumped in my chair. “And what? You’re leaving me for him?”

She shook her head as she looked down into her hot chocolate. I heard her whisper to herself. She sounded exasperated. I felt as if I was missing the fundamentals of something huge and obvious. Then she looked up and spoke to me, talking as if she didn’t believe a word of what she was saying, trying to explain the unexplainable, something incomprehensible. Words came both slowly and deliberately, or burst from her in spurts, a desperate need for them to be free of her body. She book ended each sentence with irresolute pauses. It was all I could do to not interrupt. I just wanted her to get to the end of the story because it was ridiculous and it made no sense. It was insulting.

continues tomorrow

The meeting with E couldn't have been more bizarre, even if I had made it all up ...

2010-04-13T23:36:00.000+02:00

“How are you today?” I asked her.

I don’t know why I began with that question. I should have started the conversation by asking her what was wrong, because something was very clearly not right. We were seated next to the window of the smoke-free café directly across the road from her apartment. Every so often she would look up at her window. Whether she was longing to be back up there, or afraid of returning it was impossible to tell, but there was something stirring her, a negative emotion. Her tiny nose was red from being constantly rubbed with the grey ball of tissue paper she held tightly in her left hand, her nostrils flared as she tried to breathe normally. Her skin was always pale, a healthy pale, but today it appeared dull, pulled tightly across her protruding cheekbones, losing the elegance she naturally carried.

She sighed. She hadn’t looked at me since she sat down. I had a feeling that everything which had remained unspoken between us was about to come to a head, although I knew that not much did in fact need to be said for that to happen.

“I’ve never been in here before,” she said finally, looking around, appearing to have not heard me speak. The waiter walked over and she ordered a hot chocolate. I shook my head. I was, in those days, avoiding caffeine, chocolate, anything addictive. She didn’t talk again until her drink arrived. I asked her another two or three times how she was, but received no response of any sort.

“Hutch phoned,” I said, for some reason. “Rachel has a new theory on why none of us will leave the city.” I went on to tell her that Stepek had called just after Hutch, and that I hadn’t answered. “He just wants to tell me that he has got together with Julie,” I said. “He doesn’t know that I don’t care … I’ll let him sweat it out a little longer.” I thought she may approve. She didn’t flinch. We carried on in silence.

A while later, just as I was just opening my mouth to ask another question, “Why are we in here?” she interrupted me to say, “J, I’m sorry, but you can’t come up tonight.”

I blinked. I hadn’t planned on going up that night. We hadn’t planned on seeing each other that night. It was E who had called me. The statement made no real sense.

“And before you ask,” she continued, “you can’t come up tomorrow night either. You can’t come up any night. Not any more. There’s…” She looked up at her window again. I hadn’t noticed but there was a light on in her apartment. I wiped some of the condensation from my view with the side of my fist. The glass squeaked as my skin wiped across it. It was much later when I realised that it hadn’t been on when we first sat down.

“Someone else comes around now,” she said.

continues tomorrow

The journey from my front room to the street below ... again

2010-04-12T23:36:00.004+02:00

The television set in the other room was showing, naturally, a French film. The volume was as quiet as it was thin – I would have had to concentrate hard to understand anything that was being said, but it certainly created an appropriate atmosphere. It was late in the afternoon, just as the rush of traffic was starting to fill the roads and pedestrians were beginning to thicken out on the pavements. I looked out from my window to the cars and mopeds swarming through Pigale and then squeezed my eyes shut. I turned away, looked through to the doorway and watched the light from the television set flicker against the white wall opposite. I shuddered slightly. I didn’t want have to go and meet E at this time. She knew I wouldn’t want to meet her at this time, when it would be impossible to navigate the streets at a respectable speed and the Metro was full, and yet she had still asked. This could mean several things, I thought, and while just one year ago the apprehension would have excited me, now it only caused me worry. Things were, in fact, not getting any better. I cleared those thoughts from my mind.

The journey from my front room to the street below was interrupted three times; the first interruption came from Madame Jasmine, my landlady, who stopped me on the stairway to ask me for the third time that week if the triple-x neon sign outside my window was keeping me awake at night. “I try to get them to take damn thing down,” she said to me as she waved her arms around her head, “but still they refuse. You must go talk to them Mister Wunderman.” I gave her the same answer I had on the previous two occasions, speaking fast, and as ever she didn’t understand a word of it. “You need to talk slowly to me, Mister Wunderman,” she said with a wrinkly smile as she tapped her left ear. I smiled back, squeezing her arm on my way past. The next interruption was as unnecessary. It came from my telephone.

“J.”

“What is it Ken?”

“Rachel said something interesting.”

“Interesting? Are you sure it was Rachel?”

“Oh yes, we were still in bed. It was this morning.”

“Uh huh.” There was a long pause. “Are you going to tell me what it was Ken? I am about to go out into the street, I wont be able to hear you. I don’t want to be late … uh, meeting E.”

“Yeah well she said the reason I won’t ever leave this city is because I am immature and can’t face the realities of the world outside the peripheral road. She says that’s why you won’t leave either. She said that living here prevents us from feeling any real responsibility for events which take place in the world outside. We deny ourselves any social responsibility.”

“Kenneth, Rachel is just a walk-on part in your life. Don’t listen to her. We have everything we need here, all within that road. That road is important. I don’t even want to know what goes on outside of it anymore. Don’t listen to her, she talks to much.”

“Well, that’s what she said anyhow. What do you think I should say in response?”

“What? Ken, I don’t know. Ask Stepek.”

“Stepek? She says that’s why he won’t ever leave either.”

“Yeah? Well, who knows Ken? Maybe she’s right. In fact, just tell her she’s right. I need to go now Ken, I’m in the street,” I lied. I listened to him begin a sentence which I knew wasn’t going to end with him saying goodbye, and so I snapped the telephone closed and dropped it into my coat pocket without a second thought. My hand had barely reached out for the handle of the main door when I felt the phone vibrate inside my pocket once again. This third interruption was a call from the man himself; our friend Stepek. I looked at the display, and then, in one well practiced movement, I slid the phone open, snapped it shut and dropped it back inside my pocket. I knew exactly what he wanted to talk to me about, and I wasn’t at all interested.

The meeting with E could not have been more bizarre, even if I had made it all up.

continues tomorrow

The night they put viagra jelly in my drink ... again

2010-04-11T23:36:00.001+02:00

“How you feeling anyway?” Hutch asked over the top of his glass.

My thoughts froze instantly in my head and my internal alarm bell went off. I looked from him to Stepek. Fuck, I thought, they’re looking at me like two kids watching a newly caught bee in a jam jar.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing. You ok? How you feeling?” Stepek asked.

That was the confirmation. They’d spiked my last drink.

“Ok, what the fuck was in my drink?” I asked, disguising my terror. With this pair of arseholes it could have been anything in my glass.

“Nothing man, for Christ’s sake J, what do you think I am?” Stepek asked, turning his hands face-up for added effect. For back-up he looked to Ken, who sat, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling.

I looked straight into Stepek’s eyes for a few seconds. He had definitely done something, because if he hadn’t he would have been laughing at my paranoia instead of displaying his finest poker face.

“Ok it’s that kamagra jelly stuff,” piped up Ken, which caused Stepek to burst out laughing, thigh-slapping laughter.

“What the hell is that?” I asked. I really had no idea. Why would I?

Utterly wasted, It took me about four attempts before I could get my key into the lock. I stood there with my head against door, my hand wavering around in front of me like a… whatever, anyway, first thing on the agenda when I got in was to get my jeans off. My hard-on wasn’t letting up, three hours after I drank the damn stuff, and had become massively uncomfortable.

The feeling when I finally unzipped my jeans and pulled them down past my knees, swiftly followed by my shorts, was one of immense relief. My cock fell out and into my hand with an almost audible slap. I looked down at it; it was genuinely enormous, definitely bigger than normal. It felt like it was going to burst.

“Christ, what a waste!” I said out loud, holding my hands up in the air. I moved my hips from side to side and watched it sway about in front of me.

I was so drunkenly impressed that I decided that the best thing to do was to take a photo of it, and so I scanned the room for my camera, which I remembered was in the bedroom. I wandered through without taking my trousers fully off and found the camera where I had left it on my desk. I switched it on to check there was still space on the card, then fired off a few shots, a couple from the side, a close-up and another by holding the camera above my head for a full on birds eye view with me squinting into the lens and giving a thumbs-up.

It was quite a strange sensation, as I didn’t feel at all horny… I settled on having a shower to see if it would have any kind of calming effect.

In the shower, I leaned my head against the wall, trying to steady myself. It’s always when I jump in the shower after coming home from a night out that I realise just how drunk I actually am. I gradually reduced the hot until all the water pouring over my body was freezing cold, but it didn’t make the slightest difference.

Two hours and a bottle of Côtes du Luberon later my hard-on eventually began to subside, but slowly, like an old film showing the demolition of an industrial chimney which had filled the skyline of a small working class town for a generation.

Schoko and awe again

2010-04-10T23:36:00.003+02:00

How did it start? E admitting to me on the night train that she was attracted to Kaisha, while I was too wasted to understand.

"But I mean seriously," she said, "not just some girly crush. I’m just telling you now, so you know."

"But what if it was a guy, would you tell me then?"

"No. but it isn’t, hasn’t happened. And won’t. You really are everything I need, in that department. This is something different, totally different." And she looked away, but I could still see her reflection in the window as the city swept past us; she was almost too hot. She looked back at me and said with an open face, “we made out in the restroom at Chime tonight. Just before we all left.”

"Hmm," I replied, as I shoveled Schoko Bon after Schoko Bon into my mouth in a desperate attempt to sober up and fully grasp what she was telling me.

After I had finished brushing my teeth that night, I spent some time staring at my eyes in the bathroom mirror, counting flecks of color. I could see K in the room behind me, lying on her back on top of the bed covers, naked, one leg bent, phone in her hand.

"You want to read this?" She handed me the phone as I walked over to her.

“I wish I was squashed between you both,” I read out.

"So do I", K said. "We will have to take turns."

I looked at her and felt my eyes shine.

"Can we call her", she said. I nodded. "What shall we say?"

"Tell her to get in a cab," I replied "I’ll pay."

I left to put my contacts back in while we waited on her arrival. I didn't want to miss anything. We lay naked, the beginnings of lovemaking, so difficult to hold back. K chose this moment to continue with her confession.

"I’ve made love to E twice."

"You mean Kaisha?"

"What? J?"

"Uh? No, E? Forget ... forget it. What were you saying? When were you with her?"

"Monday and then Wednesday night. J are you alright?"

The doorbell rang.

"She knows you know," she added as she bounced out of the room.

As large a quantity of alcohol and a touch of drugs had levelled me out it wasn’t nearly as awkward or strange as it would have been if I was sober, or with plenty of time to wonder what was going to happen. E led her into the bedroom, where I lay, comfortably naked, and as K undressed wordlessly E lay beside me and placed her hand on my chest, staring at Kaisha ... I mean E. I don't know what I mean

You may have heard this ...

2010-04-09T23:51:00.001+02:00

The second time I saw her I had a cut onmy bottom lip, left of centre. I had felt so self-conscious about it, but sheonly looked concerned when she noticed. She stared at my mouth and sighed thewords “you’re hurt,” before kissing me as passionately as any girl ever had,more so. Her tongue would flick over the cut, and as I flinched against thepain and squeezed her tighter she would gasp the words, “fuck, that tastes so good,” over and over.

Nobody comes 'round here no more ....

2010-04-06T00:44:00.002+02:00

Which means :the color has fallen from the airthe shine has been scuffed from all the starsthe mystery of clouds has been shrouded by handsand perhaps the words have been pressedinto nothing worth talking aboutreally?

°

poisson d'avril

2010-04-01T02:45:00.005+02:00

* * *

Back to the very heart of it

2010-03-29T16:52:00.002+02:00

The city is why Idon’t sleep, and why I don’t mind this drilling insomnia.

The city at night ismanmade nature stripped of its superficiality and design, and like myself it isunrecognisable from its daylight self, not to outsiders perhaps, but to thosewho know us intimately. We fuel the neon signs.

It was with suchintimacy I swept from street to street tracing the journey to E’s apartmentthoughtlessly through the mist which had crept over a mile from the river.Avoiding eye contact, making it known that I was here because I belonged. Gomess with someone less sore.

“You woke me.” She washuddled within her nightdress. I couldn’t see her face for her hair.

“I should hope so.It’s almost 4 a.m.”

“Almost your bedtimeJ,” she whispered.

“Which is why I amhere. Didn’t want to sleep alone. No reason.”

“Get undressed andcome to bed.” She was already underneath the sheets when I pulled my shirt overmy head, still buttoned. By the time I stood naked she was asleep, a pale whiteface finally revealed as still as a death mask, tiny, lost amongst the thick bedspread.

But this was a verylong time ago.

* * *

Orgasmic yelps

2010-03-29T16:41:00.001+02:00

I have tinnitus in my left ear thanks to E's orgasmic yelps.

E and Kaisha. February 2008.

2010-03-26T11:08:00.000+01:00

The television wasloud again from next door, this time broadcasting in English. I wonder why.Subtitled, I suppose. The dialogue was laughable andsuggested Victorian England, all backed by strange, industrial, ambientmusic.

“You’re not lying tome, are you Mary,” a man spoke. “Ah Mary, if only we could all see inside eachother, through each other as I do you, right now. I can see so much, so much Inever knew … Oh Mary, I never knew. I should leave now. Mary? What's wrong?”

“That ... that,” awoman’s voice replied, shivering yet determined. “Don’t ever do that again tome. Ever.”

“I won’t apologiseMary. You’ll never make me apologise. Never.”

It all sounded quitedramatic.

With my coffee mug inone hand and cigarette in the other, I sat down with my back against the walland turned my attention back to E and Kaisha. Only the sides of their faceswere visible in the dark, the glow from the uppermost X emitting the only lightwhich touched their bodies. I had drank too much rum again, and as they swayedtogether to the sound of imagined music I could only catch the briefestsnatches of conversation between them. What I could hear didn’t interest me,only the sight of them interested me. The sight of E laughing and smiling onceagain.

E whispered into herear and in a fit of laughter Kaisha fell towards her, placing her hand on E’sarm to steady herself. E fell forward and wrapped her arms around Kaisha’sbody. They fell down and were almost lost in the deep scarlet quilt whichcovers the bed. I looked to window and then back to their bodies. They hadturned to face each other, close together, and with their hair over their facesI could no longer tell Kaisha from E. As the headlights from passing carscrawled across the ceiling and down the walls, their bodies were highlighted insections.

where are we

2010-03-24T12:02:00.000+01:00

* Whereare we?

* J, you are lying next to a train wreck.

Between the bars

2010-03-23T18:10:00.001+01:00

... then we pored into the lane outside the slimy bar and the streetlights made me scream until I felt myself fall under Stepek's fists."I'm planning on kicking him while he is down there Hutch. You should maybe stop me.""Ken," I mumbled through what felt like inflating teeth and tongue, "take a picture of me. Get your phone out and take a photo of me for our records.""Are you really going to start kicking him Stepek?" Hutch asked as he fumbled for his cell phone. "Do you think it will help? Shouldn't we go get Norf instead?"I could hear Stepek drunkenly mumble something about me being a weak junkie fuck, so I curled into a ball and waited for the boot to be administered.

Stupidity tries

2010-03-18T01:15:00.001+01:00

I was standing outsideChime with an open bottle of red wine concealed beneath my cotton shirt, waitingfor Ken and Stepek. It was cold, I should have worn a coat, but damn it, it wassunny this afternoon when I woke. I got that March/sun confusion thing - thelong months of winter, any winter, erased themselves from my mind like asnowflake in the path a blowtorch. I scrambled around the apartment, huntingdown morsels of food, wasting time, tripping over laces and by the time I gotoutside the sun had dropped out of sight. The wine had smelled fine and tasted divine,and so, with a flash, beneath my shirt it had gone. The guys arrived, my wineKen spied, we finished it off. We went inside. Stepek began to berate me for mystupid drunken rhyming. He said, "Jonas, please stop fucking rhyming. Its embarrassing."

interruption, number 2 of 6

2010-03-15T19:17:00.001+01:00

This one was a long time in coming. Waffle weather is almost over, certainly 'round these parts, but not over for good. They'll be back, along with a sprinkling of sugar. These ones were a little light on the chocolate sauce for my liking. It was pointed out to me last night that I have almost made the "year" mark with this blog, which I am quite pleased about, because making even a week was never likely. But here we are. Almost. I'll try and think of something interesting to say nearer the time, but for now ... let's just leave it at that I think...Ah yeah, you can find an incredibly short guest post I did over here, if that suits you.

interruption, number 1 of 6

2010-03-09T23:57:00.003+01:00

I know what you're thinking. Where's today's photo? Jmarls80 left a comment yesterday asking me if that had been my photo attached to the post ... which it was. I think (although I cant be bothered looking) that all the photos on the blog are mine, I'm sure would have said if they weren't (oh, obviously not the Cindy Sherman photo way back at the start) . Where was I going with this? I'm drinking tea right now, which is useless. It makes me drowsy and forgetful .
The shark! That's right. No photo, just a shark. The shark was drawn by Allie at Hyperbole and a Half, a blog which must be viewed. I love it. There is something ... well, it's just brilliantly fucking nuts. Its either a work of artistic insanity or just genius. I cant decide.
Also, ages ago ... this has no relevance to anything else I was saying by the way ... I decided to switch to Wordpress instead of Blogger, because, if you believe everything that seems to be written all over the place, Wordpress is a "grown up" "real" "professional" blogging system for "real" "professional" "grown up" people ... but I am here to tell you that it's not. It's terrible. It's the most ridiculous thing I have ever come across and seriously, if you are one of these people who think, "gee, I wish I had chosen Wordpress in the first place" then don't bother. It's awful. Choose any other blogging platform BUT wordpress.
What else ...
* * *

Spurious lightning ...

2010-03-08T00:52:00.003+01:00

It was Norf who developed and tuned that phrase. He said it often enough. One day he announced that it was his phrase, only to be used to describe those certain moments.
We lay in a haze for what could have been days.
I concluded that it couldn't be a phrase because it wasn't long enough. He assured me it was. There was no point in arguing and there was no desire to begin arguing because the bliss had yet to dim, the numbness was still a few hours off.
Those two words come back to me a lot though. I never did fully understand what he meant at the time - nothing we said meant much - but now I think that his phrase was perhaps a signal he was planting in my consciousness, a signal which would awake in my mind when I least expected it, to remind me of those days, to try to direct me back again.

I can't get it together

2010-03-04T23:37:00.000+01:00

I cant get ittogether i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it together icant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it together ic ant getit together i cant get it together ic ant eir it together i cant get ittogether i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it togetheric ant get it togerthter i cant get it together ic ant get it gotgether i cantget it together i cant get it together i cant get it toger why i gcat get ittogeterht i cant ger it together i cant get it together i cant get it togetheri cant gwt it together i cant get it together ic ant goet it togvdne

To explain why Hutch makes me want to leave my own apartment °8

2010-03-04T12:32:00.001+01:00

° What's that? Itscircular.

* It's goat's cheese

° Can I taste?

* Sure.

° Christ almighty Jonas,how can you eat this shit?

* I can't. I hate it.It's E's.

° How can she eat it?

* Well, she's foreignto us for a start. That means she can do loads of stuff we can't. Especially here in Paris.

° But ... Rachel is foreign to us as well, andshe eats what I eat.

* Yes but she'sforeign in a different way Ken. They're more like us. Can you get out of my refrigeratornow please.

° Hang on. What's this?

* That's cheese aswell.

° Christ Jonas, howmany differ ... wait! Is this cheese too?

* Yep.

° Oh I'm not sure Ican cope with all this, J. What's wrong with these people? I don't think I candeal with life abroad Jonas. This isn't going nearly as well as I'd foreseen. Never mind the cheese, have you seen how many people smoke? And I still can't find anywhere that sellscigarettes ... and people ask you for cigarettes on the street! People withcigarettes, while I have none. They actually ask me for cigarettes. J? Jonas?Where are you going? Come back!

Zap that can

2010-03-02T00:49:00.001+01:00

This was meant to be a photograph of my Zap Book, but the battery is dead in my camera, and its kinda late so the photo is random. Not that that's unusual, yeah? The one below was scavenged from the internet, which in fact marks a first for this blog. mHmm.

My Zap Book contains notes I have been scribbling down every now and then for the last couple of years. Its cover is yellow and black (such contrasting colors ... as soon as I saw it in the shop I could do nothing but buy the damn thing) Well, its full now, soft and crammed with weirdness, and so I am on the lookout for a notebook with the word Zoom on the cover.
This is the first thing I ever wrote in that Zap Book. I was flying from Paris to NYC at the time and it was the first time I decided to blend fiction and fact. This piece is the beginning of the novel I am working on .... right .... now!!
If you are here every so often you may remember this. Well, I finally took my own advice. It feels tremendous.
Ok, thats it .... Be nice now, y'hear????

No explanation °17

2010-02-26T00:40:00.001+01:00

I placed three bottles outside of my window four weeks ago. Two of them are now quarterfull of rainwater and melted snowflakes, the other is empty. I haven't touchedthem. I am on the third floor and you can't reach my window ledge from anywhereoutside. Weird yeah? It's unlikely, but not entirely impossible, that chance isat play here. Imagine that. My friends think I am trying to fuck with them, and havesuggested I start going outside again. I'll think about it.

Insert (inspiring town) name here

2010-02-25T01:24:00.002+01:00

I could sum up my ownside of the story with this one sentence: It begins one afternoon when I kill acat and discover a Rose and then twists and turns its way around the unlikelyand the impossible before ending tragically as I drown beneath the waters ofthe river which flows next to my hometown, (insert inspiring town name here). Telling the story may take a little longer.

This post is an explanation for the lack of recent posting.

2010-02-17T14:43:00.001+01:00

I am trying to avoid sitting down right now, which isn't as easy as you might think. Oh and there is nothing wrong with my ass either, before you ask (or assume) its just that I have fucked my back ... I mean, what next? Thanks to life's general brilliance I was riding the crest of a wave so to speak and then a week ago I slid off my sofa to change the DVD (a Curb afternoon) and BLAM! something happened to my back. I say something, because - and I guess there are plenty of you who at one time or another have experienced this - it's completely indescribable. So I gave it a day or two and then went to the Doc's and tried to explain the unexplainable in a language I haven't quite mastered yet, never mind learning vocabulary about unexplainable bodily happenings. The Doc gave me a ton of drugs, which I was hoping to avoid, and sent me to an osteopath, who broke me into pieces and then stuck me back together again using powers that only osteopaths have.
Yeah, well it's all good now, unless I decide to sit down. Which is where we came in, I believe.
This post was apparently an explanation for the lack of recent posting, but on reflection it was only a gap of three days so .... well, thats prescription drugs for you.

Zap that van.

2010-02-14T01:43:00.000+01:00

This photo sums it all up perfectly.
I am in full-on rewrite mode just now, which means my coffee intake is off the scale, my swearing has hit Malcolm Tucker levels and my eyes look like partially sucked M&Ms.
Rewriting is a funny business as I am sure some of you know. I can never imagine how I will get it done, but it never ceases to amaze me, after a few hours at it, how awful the original actually was. Quite terrifying really.
Ok, its valentines day, right? And we all know what that means ...

I better be quiet now.

2010-02-11T01:07:00.004+01:00

I have found myself ina situation, which, if someone had told me was happening to them I would havegiven them some very precise advice which I myself am unable tofollow. For someone who is pretty much always loaded with spectacularly graphicadvice this has come as a terribly depressing surprise.

Anyway, as a result ofall that my swearing has gone over the top today, way into the nineties. That'salmost off the chart, but not quite. Later, E bought me a ton of things I love to eat, and soon I had stopped swearing and begun to enjoy (biscuits) life again.

Tomorrow is Thursday though. I was born on a Thursday, so technically it's my birthday tomorrow, which should mean more biscuits and maybe poulet roti for lunch.

Darker skies than I expected at this time of day.

2010-02-10T00:36:00.002+01:00

I am not here right now, and to put it as simply as I can ... it sucks not to be here right now. Soon I will be here again, and it will suck less, until I try to navigate Châtelet at rush hour. That really sucks. Trying to navigate Châtelet at rush hour sucks ass big time, (to quote my niece)

Somewhere in chapter 18

2010-02-08T00:30:00.001+01:00

I was spinning incircles, unable to eat, unable to sleep even, since Clem’s disappearance. Oncethe sadness had worn off, anger took its place, followed by a seeminglydepthless depression and finally hysterical paranoia combined with a desperateneed to sort this all out. How dare he just leave like that when everything wasjust beginning to make sense? How dare he bail out on me? I shoved my head throughthe hole and into Rose’s apartment, grabbed the telephone from her desk andpulled it back into my room and sat in the middle of the floor. I took a deepbreath and dialled Clem’s number, my finger shaking at the thought of diallinginto some kind of nothingness, wherever he was. It was making me sweat. I hadvisions of cables disappearing through dusty holes behind walls, down insidetoilet bowls, down throats, into bleeding wounds, into ... God alone knowswhere. I shook my head, shooing away these ghastly scenes.

Idialled, it rang. Shockingly, he answered after three rings, the unlikely soundof his voice booming from the receiver forced me to pull it away from my earand stare at it with scepticism.

Theconversation went something, but not exactly, like this:

Ibegan by shouting, “Clem, you moron! Where are you? What’s going on?”

“What!?”he yelled back. There was a lot of background noise, people talking, shouting,music. “Who’s that?”

“Who’stha ... it’s me! Henri! Henri Merle! Nowlisten, tell me where you are and I will come and get you. It sounds like youare in a deal of trouble.”

“What? Holdon a minute, I can’t hear you. Maurice?” he yelled, before speaking to someone elsein the background for what felt like an age. Eventually the music dropped andhis voice came back again, talking at a more normal volume, “Ok, right-o. Who’sthat?”

“Clemit’s me, Henri. I miss you.”

“Henri?”

“Yes!I have so many things I want to talk to you about Clem, things that arehappening, things we never got around to saying, I still really, really needyour help. I think I am beginning to spin out of control Clem, I amdying and confused and I don’t know what is real anymore. I don’t know if I amwriting things that happen or if I am writing things that happened or even ifperhaps these are my own ideas after all. I have someconclusions that I want to share with you. I’ve made notes. If you ...” I stoppedas he interrupted.

“Wait.Henri who?” he asked just as the music went back to its originalvolume and someone began singing along, revoltingly out of tune. “Hello?”he shouted.

“Clem!”I yelled.

“I’mhanging up now,” he screamed, “can’t hear a damn thing inhere.” Crack! Silence.

bath time

2010-02-05T10:45:00.002+01:00

Still in the bath it seems. Ireach to the side of my head and turn the tap. It screeches in my ear and Ijump with fright and yell out, hurting my throat. I haven’t spoken for twodays. The cold water splutters out and I drink down what I can get into my mouth,Jonas you have a train to catch, the rest soaks my tee-shirt and darkens my jeans. The water hits my stomach like gasoline. I slither and slide in the tubas I try to get out. Tears sting my eyes.

An award and a sigh

2010-02-04T00:04:00.002+01:00

The sigh is because one year ago I was in Rome, (see picture) and I had great plans to go back there again at the same time this year. But obviously I haven't. I'm not even in Paris right now, which I think explains the normalness of the recent posts. Paris inspires, and often creates, madness. Woah, this was supposed to be about Rome and I am already off track. I think I have mentioned before my love/hate relationship with Italy ... hate is too strong a word, its just the goddamned mental driving I can't cope with. It makes driving round the Parisian peripheral road seem fun by comparison. Everything else about Italy is great though. Uh, well ... let's not start about Italian politics. (Did you notice Paris got squeezed in there again a couple of sentences ago though) Sigh.
Almost forgot the real point of this post. I was thinking about blog awards the other day after spotting a few blogs which declare themselves award-free, which is fair enough. Let's not get into the whys and why nots here though. I'm just going to invent an award and some rules and hand it out ... I seriously dont know where this is going.
brb
Ah well, its the fish again.

I'm handing it out to five people, because more than five is a waste. Of time perhaps.
So here they are ......
Scarlet over at Scarlet On The Couch because she seems to be fairly new to all this but posts like crazy. The photos are few, but if you like to read a lot, shoot over there right now.
Phoenix over at res ipsa loquitur because she writes long posts which don't feel like long posts. Like this.
Jasmine over at an experiment in poverty for various reasons, especially this post.
De'May over at De'May Plush for this and this.
Actually, I have just discovered that the last blog I was going to nominate has disappeared, which has kind of ruined my night. Why? So I am going to leave it at four for now, but there will be more in the future I suspect. It's kind of difficult doing this kind of thing, what with all the good stuff out there. Whatever. Ah yeah, rules for the award. There are none. No, there are a couple. Give it to someone else. Five MAXIMUM. But you have to mention a specific post when you do. Or of course, if you are award-free, then you can store it in the attic ... no worries!