Once

Once, as a child, I was lost.

I don’t remember my exact age. Time has never been kind to my memories and my recall of events – dates, details – has always been a vague and untrustworthy thing. But I remember a sibling in the baby seat of the shopping trolley and as I was old enough to walk and wander by myself this must have been my brother and I must have been in the region of five.

It was in a supermarket. I was following my father and I turned away, just for a moment. What caught my five year old attention in the vegetable aisle of Safeway I do not know, but for a moment I turned away and I slipped into another place where I was lost.

I didn’t know I was lost until I turned back; mind still elsewhere, dreaming the day gone, and I put my hand into my father’s and then, at a jolt from him, dragged my gaze along that hand and the arm and looked up into the face of a man who was most definitely not my father.

He must, I think, have been a nice enough man. His puzzled smile is kind in my mind; his amused ‘hello?’ is gentle.

He almost certainly did not deserve the look of horror I bestowed on him, or for me to scrabble, cringing, away; heart tripping with mortified shame at having touched a stranger so casually with a trust that did not belong to him, and with the panic of being alone, alone – no parents, no sisters to be seen and the sudden, absolute, nightmarish conviction that they would not be found again, ever, and my throat clamped down with fear –

And there, down the next aisle, was my father; one hand on the trolley, frowning down at a packet of pasta. I rushed to him and clung, to his confusion. Bemused, he asked me what was wrong and so I learned he hadn’t even known that – for a moment – I had been lost.

Five things I like (and a bonus)

1) Ethnic supermarkets 

The ones you wander round in a happy bemusement of childish glee, picking up products and wondering what they are.

There will be packets covered in a language you do not speak, with pictures that seem to have no relation to food at all - or which you hope don’t. A small child may feature, or a cartoon panda. Or a small child dressed up as a cartoon panda. Is it panda flavoured? Small child flavoured? How do they know what small children taste like?

You will buy it and it will sit in the cupboard until you unearth it again and learn from the one piece of information you can understand, the sell by date, that whatever the child-panda food is it is now sadly past its prime. It doesn’t matter. You have consumed all the possibilities it contained. You can throw it away now.


2) Proper second hand bookshops

It should have nooks and crannies and precarious, avalanche ready piles of paperbacks leaning against the one shelf you are trying to get to. It should have the smell of books; their yellowed pages and crumbling, Penguin-orange spines and the dry, faintly-vanilla dust scent of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of much loved words.

It should have at least one cat and if possible the owner should have a beard. Even if they’re female.


3) Snow

Or the moment, first thing in the morning, when you step into freshly fallen snow.

Or the moment right before you step into the snow, the moment just before your foot places down.

The virgin moment just before you raise your foot and take that first explorer’s step.


4) Reading something new

Reading a poem or piece of prose and coming across the first, startling line or turn of phrase that hits right underneath your heart and makes you want to gasp. That makes you want to stroke the page and lift your fingertips to your mouth afterwards as if you could taste the words.

They would taste dark and roughly sweet.

They would taste clean and fresh and prickle your tongue with their lightness.

You want to find someone now and press your mouth to theirs and open up so they can lick the tang of the words from your tongue and savour your amazement with you.


5) Inspiration

The flash when inspiration strikes and the words start filling your head and you hurry home, cupping the words carefully, in dry-throated terror that they will spill and trickle out from between your fingers and leak away before you can capture them safely.

All the way back you are holding back part of your breath and the people on the bus only see your far-away look and don’t realise that you are a tightrope walker, a circus act; balancing wonder and performing miracles above their heads.


And a bonus 6) You

I like you.

(Keep it secret, but really you are my favourite.)

Twitter fiction

I worked out that I've written about 1,500 words of fiction on twitter under the hashtag #vss (very short story), and since I haven't posted anything here in a while I thought I'd take the lazy route and repost some of my favourites.

Some of these were written using 'tweet the random' rules that I'd made up: use a random word generator to come up with five words, use at least four of those in a #vss, hope like hell the story makes sense. So if some word choices seem a little more... well, random than others, you'll know why.

(Posted from March 2011 to now)

Your bloodstream is a liquid buffet to me. Rapids of sustenance spiralling round. Of course I don’t sparkle. I’m a leech not a firefly. #vss

“I told him. Don’t say those things about Mam and me” He’s calm now. Guards lead him away. The psychiatrist’s body cools behind him. #vss

A neat man, he liked to grapple with big questions. Was hate distinctive to humans? Did God exist? Can’t Tesco sell a nice sandwich? #vss

“I could just eat you up!” He starts to cry. His mum comforts him “Granny didn’t mean it!” His Gran bares her teeth, white and strong. #vss

Beauty products. Processed food, additives. A chemical taint. The decision not to eat human flesh is a matter of taste, not morals. #vss

Nuclear winter’s not so bad if you have the essentials, she thinks. A solid bunker-door. Provisions. Every series of Star Trek on DVD. #vss

‘Well.’, the witch thought vengefully as the oven door clanged shut, ‘At least the little bastards will end up with cavities.’ #vss

‘Let’s play a game.’ She ran her thumb over the knife. Licked off the blood and ignored their whimpers. ‘You hide and I’ll seek.’ #vss

The sun is shining and there’s the scent of new blossom on the air. The lid stays on the pills. Today is a good day not to die. #vss

“There.” Vicki drops the purple crayon she’d used to draw in the bruises. “Now Barbie looks just like Mummy.” #vss

When he reached the seashore he thought he was safe. Turns out zombie barnacles are very tenacious. #vss

“Look, we all voted. It was fair. Why the complaints?” Bob the cabin boy eyes the knife and wails “We’ve only been adrift for an hour!” #vss

You’re like a bog, she said, densely packed. I’m like the tundra. I only seem empty; you have to look close. I don’t get it, he said. #vss

“Ours was a tainted love” he said. “With melamine, like the milk scandal?” I asked. “Replies like that are why we split up” he said. #vss

‘Make Yourself An Exhibition!’ Should’ve read the fine print. My heart’s on a plinth, my face’s skin in a tidy silent scream behind it. #vss

We overthrew all the rules. Of physics. Geometry. Now we don’t know if up is down or what shape we are. And we’re so happy. #vss

I know the shining fracture in the sky is just the moon on the clouds. But it’s so bright and there’s the whole universe beyond it. #vss

“Well, would you prefer I called you gorgeous patronisingly or ironically?” he snaps. “Are those my only options?” she asks. #vss

I go on a biennial desert cure. It sears away my tears and dries up my heart, so I can show the world a cold face for two more years. #vss

“Divorce is a terrible thing” she says “How would the kids have coped?” I tell her she’s right and ask her gently to give me the knife. #vss

I’ve made an iron heart to replace my old ceramic one. This one is strong and will not crack or chip or shatter. Or let anyone in. #vss

It’s not been all bad, locked in this cellar for years. The ants made me their king, the wall’s a good talker and I’ve kept my sanity. #vss

Early rising

It’s early, and you are

probably still asleep.

Warm and safe and

soft

in your bed.

I could come

and join you.

Creep in and

slide home beside you.

Swathe you with my body,

the covers hot and semi-

stifling on top of us, and kiss

you lightly. Wet your lips

and stroke your sides and

feel you come awake

all over,

underneath me.

I could slide

down the bed and

open up to your taste and

get you to stir and rise

like the winter sun

just gleaming in

through the curtains.

But it is very early. And you

were probably up late, and you

are likely still in bed.

Soft and safe and

warm,

asleep.

Why won’t any of you cunts dance?

No really. Why not? Because Throwing Muses – however fucking AWESOME they were tonight (and they were pretty fucking awesome) – have never been a favourite band of mine. They’re a band I was vaguely aware of during my teenage years, I recognised some of the songs tonight but that’s about it.

But I was still rocking the fuck out tonight.

Yes. I was that annoying bitch in front of you who was constantly moving around and headbanging to some of the tunes. Yes, I was the one who was howling like a wolf to try and encourage an encore.

And this is a band that isn’t even one of my favourites.

So why weren’t you dancing? Why weren’t you grinning madly when that bass line kicked in? Why weren’t you moving – helplessly, ecstatically – to the drum beat on that song?

How can you help but move? When Kristen Hersh is singing – in that rough, throat-fucked voice that makes you want to offer up anything you can so long as she’ll keep singing? When the bass and the drums melt over each other and beat into your chest and take over your fucking heartbeat?

Why are you all standing there and not moving a fucking inch?

This is music! This is something that, even if you’ve never heard the bloody band before, should beat in your fucking soul!

Dance like there’s no fucker watching. Dance like this says something to you. Dance like you’re fucking enjoying yourselves, you cunts!

*errata – this was written while I was a little drunk. I fucking stand by it though.

(Edit: I was indeed drunk here. Drunk enough to use 'errata' when I obviously meant 'caveat'. I still mostly stand by it.)

Blasts from the past

I finally got round to converting old files from clarisworks and found some poetry from aeons ago. Most of it's shite, of course, but I might play around with it and cannibalise it into new shapes. But this one I won first prize in a local poetry competition with and I still like it in a nostalgic way so I'm putting it up in its original form.

I won a £50 book token, in case you were interested. Spent it on Miroslav Holub and William Carlos Williams collections.

BLACKBERRY AFTERNOON

            It’s summer.

            Afternoon,

            sultry, decadent heat.

                        Lying on the grass,

            a bowl of blackberries between us.

                        You’re talking

            and I am listening to the sound of your voice,

            watching your lips.

            (and touching those lips with the tip of my tongue

            unbuttoning your shirt kissing your throat)

            and we’re talking of books read,

                        and music heard.

            (and I’m whispering in your ear brushing lips on

            your eyelids running hands across your chest)

            No.  I’m not staring,

                                                    just looking at that bee.

            (I’m sitting astride your chest pulling my t-shirt

            over my head watching your pupils dilate)

            You go into the house.

                        I’m not blushing, just flushed from the sun

                                    and, if my mouth is dry,

            it’s from the tartness of the blackberries

            lying beside me,

            untouched in the sun.

This is a safe space

We’d been planning it out for days but of course when it comes down to it Alex manages to fuck up the timing. So we aren’t quite ready for Dave coming home and we’re all caught out. He stands in the doorway and looks at us. We stare back, looking kind of guilty. Then Fiona coughs and says, Dave. She says, Dave, we all care for you. You know that, right? She’s got the air of someone who’s cleared her evening for this bullshit, damn it, and is going to see it through.

Dave drops down into the armchair, carefully positioned so it faced the group but the placing of it wasn’t intimidating, and he says oh, come on, in this weary voice. Didn’t we do this already?

Fiona forges on. She likes to see things through. We want you to know we care about you, Dave, she says, it’s just that there are things about your behaviour we’re concerned about.

The late nights, Alex says. The stains on your clothing, says Bethany, and the rate you’re going through the drain cleaner; you claim you’ve got it under control but—You’re taking risks, man, Malcolm says bluntly, interrupting. You’re going to end up getting caught. It’s not as if it’s hurting anyone, says Dave. Well, says Malcolm, it kinda is. If you think about it. Malcolm’s always been a stickler for accuracy. Dave rolls his eyes. Ok, he says, it’s not hurting any of you. Is that better?

Fiona raises her eyebrows at me but I just shrug. What? I mouth at her. I’d been going to make the point about the drain cleaner before Bethany stole my thunder. Fiona glares and I sigh. I knew we shouldn’t have voted for her as chair.

Mate, I say, the thing is that it is hurting us. You’re going to start bringing down attention we don’t need and you—Hang on, says Alex, aren’t we meant to be using ‘I’ statements? ‘I’ statements and no generalisations, remember? All this ‘you’ stuff is very confrontational.

Fine, I say, I think that you need to stop shitting where we all have to eat, Dave. I feel that you using this area for your ‘episodes’ is going to affect us all and I think that you should keep your habits at a safe distance, like we do. Is that ok, Alex? I ask. There’s no need to be snide, says Alex.

We’re getting off topic, says Fiona. What we want from you tonight, Dave, she says, is an acknowledgment that there’s a problem and an agreement to deal with it. She pats his hand. We’ll help you if you need it.

And if I don’t agree there’s a problem? asks Dave.

John’s been quiet so far but now he leans forward to say his piece. Then the bottom line is, he says, that we start looking at other ways of remedying the situation. He smiles at Dave. Kill or cure, Dave. You know how it is.

Distraction

How am I meant to concentrate

when I know what you’re like

when I know what you like

when I know what

makes you

shiver.

When I know what you

sound like and

the noise you make

in the back of your throat

when I touch you

just like this

just

there.

Poetry workshop

Had a go at the Guardian's poetry workshop for the first time, which was an interesting exercise: Jo Bell asking us to consider what will survive of us in 'Digging deep: personal archaeologies'. I'm not sure I'd say I'm 100% satisfied with the result but reasonably happy at least; there's a line or two I'm quite pleased with.

And hey, I got a finished poem out of it! 'For once then, something' :)

Remnants

My personal footprint in history is likely

to be light.

All my most loved things have

been someone else’s in their time. I’m

just their latest keeper.

And will anyone be able to sense the thin

strata of self I leave behind on

second hand books and vintage hand-me

-downs? Will someone else see the beauty in these

poor man’s object d’art, this ephemera that will mean

nothing to those not me?

Perhaps I will, somehow, deposit

a few molecules of my joy onto

these copies of Durrell. Mayhap a

hollow echo of wonder will ring

from the cracked pages of Holub, of

Beckett, Wyndham or Oliver.

Surely the pleasure I took from it

will add to the patina of this bowl filled with

pebbles, turned quarter profile

to the light, sun motes of dust

dancing on its rim?

Someone, I am sure, will desire these sunglasses;

round and delicate, from the era of flappers, of

waved hair and waved morals. Someone will,

like me, question what’s been seen

through that dark glass and maybe their

careful fingers on time-cracked, tortoiseshell

plastic will feel the ghosts of mine

under their tips.

But my individual relics will be few. I will

leave no fossils in my wake. I will be

the pigment in the slate, the faint

shadow taint of blurring

in the outline of the landscape, signalling

some barrow of the long dead.

It will be my absence that tells you I was there.

A way of saying what you mean....

...without saying it

The mask's slipped.
   Slid down and
                            wont fit anymore.

The foundations shake.

Let the cat
                   out of the bag
and
                   into the box, but

          things are decaying.

The poison seeps through and
kills you,
                      Pet.

Till all you're left with
                                     is
                                        bones
and moth-eaten fur that's
never going
                   to keep nobody warm.

Equilibrium

We are at that
                     awkward stage

betwixt and between.

Expanding out of love
                                  but
not yet contracted into hate.

Our possibilities haven't
collapsed and
taken us with them yet.

The past remnants of
happiness and
the future relics of
                           bitter words
are both exerting their influence;

colliding with us in the dark.

And, oh,
        which one

will knock us
from this careful,
                       breath-held
                                   

   balance?

Old poetry

...very old poems. do forgive...

Not taken

You didn't mind science.
Preferred music and film,
books and art,
but had a certain appreciation for the
stricter disciplines. Especially
chemistry
and the botanical arts. We never spoke about
physics that I remember.

In the quantum theory of the multiverse
there must be worlds
where the ice was never pushed back.
Where the dinosaurs won.
Where the wheel
was never invented and there was
no car for you to climb into that morning
and you never died.

There must be worlds
where you never existed,
and no group ever gathered
there in our living room,
to drink whisky in shocked silence
and look up with tired, blank eyes
as someone says, almost pleadingly,
"No, really. It is a joke, right?"

A man dies
on the way to his grandmother's funeral.
Just the sort of dark jest
you would probably have enjoyed.
And maybe,
somewhere,
there is a world
where you're laughing.

Idle Hands

The institute is fairly pleasant. An old fashioned building set in grounds that they are allowed out into under watchful, armed supervision.

He gets bored very quickly.

* *

He cannot play as much as he wants to. Not with all the eyes watching everything he does all the time. Not when these people will have access to his files and know what he’s done elsewhere.

He had managed one quick game soon after he was transferred; something that did the double duty of taking the edge off his nerves and underlining to the rest of the patients who he was. What he was capable of.

He hadn’t been overly punished for it. No matter what he’d done before, this was obviously an accident. Self defence.

Because no one would have been able to calculate the angle of a shove to deliberately crack the soft egg-shell of the temple against that sharp table corner, would they? Especially injured, trailing a broken limb like a surrender flag of helplessness.

(And that had been harder than he thought to manage: bracing his forearm between the fixed table and the wall, letting his body fall heavy forward and hearing, feeling that painful snap.)

There was slight surprise as Fuller had never attacked another inmate before. First time for every first offence, though, and Fuller had favoured the young, innocent look in his victims before being caught, hadn’t he? (As he had known from the man’s first lingering glance at him. It had made him so easy to trap.)

A medical examination after he’d been found in the room with the body – huddled in a corner, trembling – had shown bruises along with the broken arm: contusions, damage… tearing. He could not be blamed for fighting back.

(After being taken back to his new ward he had clenched his inner muscles and felt that delicious ache of rough use and thought of Fuller panting, hook-caught, after him into the storage room. Allowed the dead, dark smile to come into his eyes where only his fellow prisoners could see and saw them shrink back from him as he had known they would.)

* *

The others know him after that. Knew what it was they were locked up. Like recognises like, and predators always prefer to go after prey rather than kin.

They see his weapons, the others. The doctors, even the guards, are soon taken in by the wide eyes, the slight stature; the breath of innocence. But the others see beneath to the teeth and claws and stay away, affording him little opportunity for fun.

With the lack of easy companions he doesn’t dare play very often. If caught that would mean a loss of the privileges he has so reluctantly been granted. But not all of the gamekeepers are as blind to the wolf under his lambskin as the rest, and that does give him some room to amuse himself. And to have something to talk about.

* *

His calls are watched – privilege does not extend to privacy – but he and his correspondent are old hands at this dance of subtext now. He settles himself into the bolted-down chair set in front of the caged monitor screen and smiles at the face waiting there.

“My friend, it is good to see you again. I hope you are well?”

Dark eyes meet his and the other inclines his head. “Yes, I am in good health. I trust you are the same?”

The familiar opening move, showing none of himself. No offering to betray weakness. He is sometimes very sorry he never got to play chess with this man when he was still free of these walls.

He nods but lets his smile dim a little. “Yes, I am. Although…” lets the smile fall away completely now “Something unfortunate happened here at the institute the other day”

“Oh?”

It is like watching a grandmaster. No-one else would be able to see the eager spark in that cold gaze; know how much his friend wants to hear what he has to say. He looks down and lets a tiny tremor into his voice “Yes. One of the orderlies here. There was a commotion with one of the other – the other patients. They were upset and it was on the second floor, out on the corridor, on the landing by the stairs, and the orderly he didn’t look where he was stepping and he fell. He tripped and fell down the stairs”

He looks back up, eyes wide “I saw him. He broke his neck. A terrible accident”

And it had taken so little to achieve.

Just making sure the other patient had his fit in that particular spot, when the cleaning had left the floor still slick and shiny. Meeting the orderly’s eyes from several careful paces away and suddenly letting all that he was, all that he wanted loose into his eyes and his smile.

And then all he had to do was watch the man cringe. Flinch back and stagger and fall.

The hardest part had been closing his eyes to the delightful ruin , so nobody would see his pleasure shine through.

He lets it gleam now though. Locks eyes with his friend and knows the other man can read everything he’s left unsaid. The other man’s eyes go wide, then heavy lidded with satisfaction and the silence lasts just a beat too long before his friend says, low, “Terrible indeed. It seems we both have had… disagreeable things happen to those around us recently”

He hugs his glee to himself, makes his eyes go round to imitate sympathy and settles back to hear of the latest ‘accident’ at his friend’s workplace.

He does look forward to these little chats.

The anticipation is the best bit

Towers are meant to be climbed. Or something

but the colours are always so pretty

The miracle of...

At 9 months the baby ate its way out.

People at his wife's funeral say "Your daughter's beautiful".

The baby smiles up at him, teeth sharp.

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Rivalry

After several sessions the doctor at the hospital they were keeping you at told us it was called ‘Paranoid Body-dysmorphic Mutilation Syndrome’.

He said a horror of its involuntary movement was why you’d bitten your own tongue out. 

I waited till he left the room before pointing out to you that your left eye was twitching.

my skillz, let me show them

(No. No context for you)

Opinions on alcohol

Just your typical Glasgow Fair Monday

I have a view of a hotel from my office window. It’s the hotel above the railway station, behind the car park, with a view of the motorway.

In the underpass ‘plaza’ directly below it, with its handful of small businesses, there is a lapdance club. And a café that will sell you things fried and wrapped in cheap white rolls as light and unreal as the cotton wool clouds on a children’s collage. It is not an upmarket hotel.

There is currently a man standing at one of the windows – four from the top, third from the left – and he is naked and masturbating. I’m struggling to imagine what it is that he could possibly be excited about in the view of the top storey of a 1980’s concrete-slabbed car park or the slightly grubby exterior of the ex-school building that houses the office I work in but, to be fair to him; he does not seem that passionate.

The curtain at the window is giving him bother. There seems to be a fault, as it keeps falling across the window – he can’t arrange it to his liking and has to keep stopping to push it back. Or possibly it’s the weather that’s troubling him. Dank and drizzling, with the sky the colour of grubby, sweat-stained sheets. That old Glasgow welcome.

Perhaps he is in town for some unwelcome task, or a boring meeting. Maybe it’s thoughts of quarterly figures and budgets that are making his hand listless, his enthusiasm limp.

Or, can he see us looking back at him? Are there more watching him from the other windows he can see? Is performing for a bored, disinterested audience not the pick-me-up he expected?

He’s turned away from the window now and the curtain, free from interference, creeps lankly down again, leaving a slight gap. I idly wonder if I would hear him sigh if I was in the room, and then go back to trying to decide what to have for lunch.