SlightlyFox

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.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

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.”

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

“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.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

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.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

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.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The country hick he waits and smiles and waits with his cat waiting and smiling there behind him. “Hey Jessie!” he says to the cat, “There’s people watching us from through the internets.” Jessie can’t believe it. You’re not supposed to acknowledge the people from the internets. You’re supposed to wait and smile and develop your own personal essence and let it radiate.

“Look at them funny people” he says, this funny beardy man Jack in his blue dungarees. Can he really see out from his suffocating box of reality, out into the next dimension where his own reality isn’t really a reality but just a dream instead? Can he make you think that maybe you’re a story too and maybe that cat behind you isn’t real and maybe some person somewhere is reading about you on a thing like a webpage or a book or a story for children?

No, you’re way too stuck for that. You keep on insisting that it’s the Jessie cat that isn’t real but he wonders just like you. He has feelings and cat-nature just as much as you do. He doesn’t sit there with a funny look on his face while he’s reading the internets. He doesn’t have a fit of cynicism to cover an existential crisis.

Or does he?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

She sits there and waits. What’s happening? Nothing. Life is dull and useless. Just the wind and the sand blowing over and around same old dreary life here. What’s the point? Don’t tell her she should vote, there’s no point.

What could possibly happen? It’s not as if some pink-striped creature is gonna fall on your head in chicken-shit town here where nothing happens. Sun beats down and no-one gives a shit. Not even the people who give a shit that no-one gives a shit give a shit.

It’s all just a pile of words and what does that even mean? Words don’t even mean anything any more and you can’t even tell what I’m saying. It’s like a big waste of time and even that doesn’t make any sense. You don’t know what I mean and how could you? You don’t even know what the phrase “don’t know” means and here we are, all just floating in space and sitting on a girder waiting for something that won’t happen because it never happens. Not here.

I think we can be pretty sure about that, if we’re sure of anything.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

“One day all of this will be fields” says the managing director, dressing down in orange sweater as a way to connect with the odious cretins that work for him. “Fields… everywhere.. ” he repeats, over and over again until his voice wears thin and silent. Simon stands by, at ease like his best soldier-son impersonation.

“Erm.. will be fields?” asks Simon. He looks for at the boss for a second and then back straight ahead and arms resting false casual like a police officer. “Aren’t they fields now?” he says and then winces at his mistake.

The boss laughs, coughing at the boy. “What’s that?” he asks in mock surprise, but he smiles and emits an aroma like boiled potatoes and sausages, the smell of disdain and superiority. “So much to learn..” he says and shakes his head before continuing.

“In my day, thinks made sense like that.  Bridges went from one side of the river to the other. Cats chased mice and Dogs chased cats. Grass was greener on the other side and a stitch in time always save nine.” He paused and sniffed the air and licked his lips, as if trying to taste the flavour of the moment. “But things are different know, can’t you see? The old ways are gone and now black is white and night is day. Nothing is what you think it is anymore.”

A silence hung between them and Simon blinked with an expression of ignorant stupidity all over his fluffy, moronic face. “Yes, I think I see…” he said hesitantly. “No!” barked the chief officer right back at him, all paternal chumminess hidden now behind a sargeant-major’s red and pimpled bursting grimace. “It’s exactly the opposite now!”

“What?”

“Yes, now it really means that you don’t think that you don’t see. It’s not like you thought at all but in fact that means that you do see but you don’t realise it, which also means the opposite. See?”

“No”

“Good boy. Well done. You’ll go a long way.”

With that, Simon knew it was best to shut up right away and just stand there alongside the old nincompoop with his brain slowly turning to jelly and all the wet sheets and embarrasment that it promised for the weekend. Indeed, the old ways lay shrivelled around them like so much detritus of a collapsing society or last night’s discarded kebab wrappers.

And everything was exactly how it should be.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

“So, Mr Custard Head” says the doctor, the doctor of brains to the man with his hair shaped like a custard trifle. “We understand that your psyche has escaped”. Doctor waits for a second with his smug grin and hands in white coat pockets and a wealth of knowledge and fascist learning stuffed inside his fetid skull.

The silence hangs like a blanket waiting to suffocate them both. The goofy man fixes his goofy teeth over his bottom lip and makes gurgle noises softly. The game is set and the first one to speak is the loser. Can’t hold out against a doctor with his hands and pockets and rock solid knowledge of fascist mind games and confirmed Superiority of Science and how it can break the spirit.

“You can’t break me” he says and maybe he loses just like that.  Shit he thinks now and realises he messed up and gave in to the glasses and the icy stare, the iron will of the Scientist and his doctor face and stuffy, dusty learning. Damn, I’m in for it now and it’s back to the hospital once more.

“There’s an escaped psyche on the loose” says the doctor and suddenly the game is back on an even keel. Now they both spoke, now no-one  has the upper hand. Now no-one’s gonna drag him kicking and screaming back down the shiny, disinfected wards into the smooth linen bedroom again.

Two psyches on the loose. Shit, no. A million, billion psyches on the loose. Ain’t no walls no more. No, there never were and don’t you forget it, not even once.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Windy days come in the foothills, on the edge of the farm, way down the track and by where the grass tussocks spring tall from the damp earth. Wendy stands there and lets her hair blow like she doesn’t even think at all.  She pulls her striped jumper up to her mouth, her favourite green and white woollen jumper up around her neck and feels the wind blowing through her hair.

The way it whistles in her ears, she can hear a song whispered to her. “Once more, ignore. As I wrap me around we. I’m never quite there at all.” and for sure she feels the same. Icy cold blasts of air whip up her orange hair but she doesn’t feel real anymore.  All that died inside.

If it were only so easy just to stand here and feel the wind and let the thinking just stop and not be there at all. But it doesn’t stop. She’s caught in a whirl. She’s several girls or no girls at all. So she just sighs quietly into her green and white jumper top, tastes the smell of damp wool and feels her feet cold now in converse boots.

“Oh my wet feet, where did it all go?” she sighs. All the whirl and excitement stopped one day and dropped her and now she stands sad in the wind and trying to not think so much. The orange hair blows, the feet grow cold and she knows it can’t last. It has to go.  She has to go inside and not let it blow on and on like this no more.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites