The old guy is freaking out. He’s rushing for the sea now that spring is on its way and the ice has slipped back into water again for a short time. He’s running down the sand with his best blue-striped bathing suit that he won on a bet with his wife about whether summer would ever come back again. Finally, it’s coming back and the old man won’t miss his chance this time.
Last year he stayed inside all summer for some stupid reason. He just clean forgot to get outside and into the places lit by the sun and before anyone could say “Boo!” and wake him, it was winter again. The sea froze and we all just sat inside wondering whether this time it had come to stay and finally we would be slaves to the bosses for ever. The guy was the same, just sitting there too afraid of the cold, swirling snow outside to check his chains and see whether they actually existed at all.
“It’s May 68!” said his wife, “Summer must almost be here again just like it was in 36.”
She was right, it had the smell of summer for sure. It was as if we were going to be allowed outside for a bit, to walk on the grass and dip our feet in the river that belongs to us all. We’d walk arm in arm and strut about in clean, soft clothes instead of the stained layers of greasy rags that we’d wear inside. Winter made us too fearful and shrunk within ourselves to bear the frosty draughts to even think of washing our armpits, let alone our stinky clothes.
“But yes!” she said, “It looks like spring is here so lets take a rest and lets have a bet, my silly husband.” She said all this but it was a big mistake and the summer didn’t happen after all. The men with the bowler hats and the falange decided to cancel it all over again. “Damn!” said the old man that time, as a young man. “I won’t make that mistake next time!” he swore.
So now the next time is here again and the old man is running for the sea. The bosses are hoping to have the sea frozen right before he gets his toe anywhere near it.
After many years of hiding, Slightly Fox has stepped out of the dark caves of the internet and into the comparatively bright light of the printed thing. My work can be found somewhere in Issue 6 of Levga (www.levga.gr), allegedly in the shops from March 16th 2012 in bookshops like Protoporeia and Politeia and other ones starting with P and rhyming with ear. Thank you.
This girl Heather here with the striped dress puts her hand over her heart and hopes. She wants to pledge allegiance to something but she can’t think what. Nothing seems big enough or good enough or inspiring enough to make her want to swear any kind of obedience to it.
She stands there and thinks of all the things she likes instead. She thinks of water and fish and streams and silver birch trees and bracken and a kingfisher and a cloud passing overhead. She thinks of hedgehogs and foxes and birdsong and cuckoo spit and nettles and dockleaf and the sound of a dog barking far off through the woodland.
She thinks of Tuesday morning long ago lying in bed, of cotton and fur and clay tiles and the smell of rain on hot concrete, of lichen on a big rock, of paper clips and hole punches and rubber bands and the face of a surprised policeman in a riot.
It all comes tumbling in like a tactile packet of confetti fluttering down across her mind, a snowstorm, a summer shower and a sudden gust of wind, a forgotten song and a distant holiday beach with windbreaks and broken plastic spades and the feel of sand blowing across the dunes.
“Is any of this good or bad?” she wonders. “Is any of it something you can rely on? Is there anything in it that you can hold onto or will it all slip away?” she asks, but she gets no answers even from the rocks and the trees. She knows there’s no sense and no explanation for how she feels but she still wants to do something about it anyway. She pledges allegiance to the whole empty everything and carries on with her day.
Flame-haired Simon stands and his hair burns like a thousand flaming carrots in the orange twilight of twin suns, or so he likes to think. As he passes by, people turn away to protect their eyes from the awesome, ginger glow, lest their retinas be vaporised by the magical sight of the most terrible orange in the universe. Or, at least, this is what Simon tells himself.
“They can’t stand my awesomeness!” he growls at the mirror in the privacy of his bedroom, alone with the dying memory of public outrage and all the fools turning away as he was strutting his stuff along the High Street. “I’ll show them!” he vows, shaking a fist, and then rushes for the bedroom door, brushing his tears away as he stamps angrily down the stairs with the dust flying and the mice cowering in the basement.
“Slam!” shouts the front door and a passing dog flinches at the terrifying sight of approaching rage coming down the garden path. Even the flowers feel slightly wary and visibly wince as Simon sets off to meet destiny on the corner of the High Street.
“I’m here!” he squeaks awesomely once more, jumping up on a milk crate for a pedestal. “Yes I’m back with my shocking, flaming locks that you can’t bear to look at no more because you’re so jealous!” he pipes up, but no-one’s there, not even a cat. Even the pigeons aren’t there because they’re with everyone else in the pub.
“Where’s Simon?” asks the barman to the nearest chap at the bar. The man turns to face him slowly, as if time were limitless and frozen, as if filled with the tiredness of the all time and a pigeon sat on each shoulder. “Oh, he’ll be having a psychotic episode again” says this man wisely, stroking his Freudian beard before taking a long, lingering sip on his pint. “It’s going to be a long, tiring weekend for everybody.”
“See ya, Martin!” Martin waves his hand, just like he always does. It’s always “See ya” and never a welcome, always “See ya later” and never “Hello now, Martin!”
I caught up with him once when he was hurrying away and asked him what he thought about life. “See ya later mate” he said, “Gotta go!” and ran off faster than before. “Where you going?” I shouted after him but he pointed down the road. “Can’t talk now, gotta dash!” and he was disappearing around the corner.
Any other time I would have gone back to the guys and let him go on his way, but this time I decided to follow him. I kept a distance, sure, but I followed him down past the shops and the post office to the park on the corner. When he thought he was out of sight he took a sharp right, found a bench and sat down to catch his breath.
I waited a while to see if this was where Martin had come to make a secret meeting or do some kind of shady deal, but no-one passed by at all. He wasn’t looking at his watch or anything to suggest he’d been stood up by someone. He just sat there quietly, enjoying the sunshine. I’d never seen him so relaxed before.
At last a man came by who seemed familiar, a chap we both knew who worked at the ministry. “Hey Martin!” he called out and straight away Martin stood up nervously. “Hello!” he said, “but sorry I gotta dash” and set off down the street once more. “But…” said the guy, “I was justing wanting to…” but Martin was already off and away.
I went across to greet the chap from the ministry. He smiled in a confused way and gestured after Martin, who was down by the station by now. “Did you see?” he said, “Did you see Martin was here but he left?” I nodded and said “Yes. He always does that. It’s annoying, isn’t it?” We both smiled and nodded for a bit and stood there enjoying each others company until the boredom and banality of the moment became unbearable and we went our separate ways.
In these strange times, it’s not unusual for something ridiculous to happen. A dog might suddenly fall from a second floor balcony and you’d simply step out of the way and hope that you didn’t get any muck on your shoes. You might go to a cinema show only to find a meeting of angry children taking place instead. None of these things surprise us anymore, and the only thing that we’re waiting for is a big hole in the ground to open up and swallow us as long as it isn’t as boring as the last time.
This flapped-out hippy here is one such person who thinks like this. How many trips has he had? Does he even care anymore? Does he even know if he’s tripping or not, or if he’s here or there or a he or a she or a hippy or a sheep anymore? No, he doesn’t so what he’s left with is pure, raw experience and you can’t argue with that. He goes out walking in the multi-coloured hills and it’s real simple out there where the flowers and the bees are. No way can any of that bad-trip vibe make its’ way outside the bad bread-head city and rear its ugly head in the shared natural consciousness of the goddamned countryside.
Yeah, I thought that too before all the colours started draining out of it. Hell, even if last year was boring at least it was in technicolor and you could tell good grass from bad grass simply by the shade of green or brown that it came it. You wouldn’t have to get down on your knees to smell the quality before you sit down like you do now that it’s all grey. Different darkness doesn’t mean nothing and we’ve got fifty million years of evolution to tell us that. What’s this colour thing mean if it ain’t something to do with survival?
Well, I’ll tell you. It’s there because that’s exactly how we make it. If your colour’s draining it isn’t time to start blaming the bad trips or the evil man in the factory office sucking it all out for his bad-man machine. No way. We’re letting it slip, man, that’s all it is. No-one can let the colours go but our very own selves. We got bored with the last year and the whole terrible business of finding something new to do and why it isn’t brighter than before.
And so by over-trying we made it all grey. Sure as hell we did. We made our own grey hell. Too late.
Country Wild Kid stands, tongue lolling and flapping in the wind, his mind loose and drifting like a plastic bag across the lonely fields. The saliva drips down onto his bare feet, sticky like honey and glueing up his hairy, mucky skin. The itchy feeling spreads and blossoms but his mind can’t engage with tactile sensations right now, lost in the swirling trash of oblivion. He gurgles softly and the thought of a smile slowly enters his consciousness.
“Crack!”, a crow caws loudly and the rough, rasping echoes clatter around his empty thinking space. A word forms and this word is “What?” but he goes no further. He stands there thinking “What?” and the crow caws once more, a thick, gritty noise to chafe and tease a normal soul, but the bumpkin urchin is beyond reaching and he stands there still leering and gurgling by himself in a field.
No-one knows him, not here in the field where he stands and leers. Here he’s no-one and all alone he can do as he pleases. No, the trouble lies way back down the road in the town where the old ladies are scowling just at the thought of this wild child with his hanging tongue and the way he drools on the street and in their living rooms. Yes, now they know they shouldn’t have invited him in for a glass or two of lemonade and a cookie but some perverse optimism had lived in their old dresses and giving them the suggestion that such a lad would be a nice warm entertainment for a dull afternoon. But, no, he isn’t at all any kind of fun like other boys. He’s a mess and a pain and a force of his own.
So, thus, they disowned him and now this is how he came to wander up here, up the road and into the fields where he can stand. Yes he can stand and let his tongue hang clear without those moaning, well-meaning old women huddling around him and trying to push back in his wild tongue with a big stick. He didn’t like that one bit, so he said (in his best voice) “No, thank you” and wandered off. And that was that.
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- Good Old Rock-a-Monkey
- Wee Jim McFootba’
- Before the Sun Hits
- Get Back in Before it Freezes Again
- Released into the Wild League
- Here Heather Hopes
- Flame-Haired Simon
- See Ya Martin
- I Can Feel It (Draining Out of Me)
- Country Wild Kid
- eleni: A Beautiful story about alienation pop. Deeply observed and colourful in it' s distinct Robert way.. We are surrounded by Martins and we become a
- admin: Γεια σου! I'm glad you like it. Yes, I'm trying to get it stumbled but I don't know if people have a long enough attention span. I never see an
- Harris: I find you from the stumble...goooooodd...Hola robako...