Iteration

Once there was, and once there was not. Stories start, safe in the knowledge that they must - at some indeterminate time and some unspecified place - end. That’s their way. For every exposition, there is a denouement. That’s their raison d’être. In between times, we scrape our heels in a slow tide of humanity that never stops reaching for the shore, but which loses the plot on an almost daily basis. [And If truth be told, losing the plot is quite the best part.]

Take Was and Not, for instance. Merely another two amongst many.

Was had a secret love of pointlessness, spending whole days on end fuelling ice in the furnaces, in the hope of becoming some form of modern alchemist who could create tangible wonders from melted snow. Bears and buildings, penguins and pigeons, even motorcycles and popsicle sticks that glow - everything seemed possible, just as long as the hands of the ticking clock stayed stuck fast at right angles to each other. [And if truth be told, she had fixed them in place with the strongest glue she could buy.]

“I wanted fairy lights for dinner,” exclaimed Was, excitedly unveiling her latest creation. Working diligently, deep in concentration and with barely a murmur, she had fashioned a chain of coloured bulbs from the finest reconstituted icicles, which she now suspended proudly across the balcony for all the city to see. Through the dusk, mock chandeliers in far-flung living-rooms flickered their acknowledgement, and street lamps responded with a warming flourish of their phosphorus glow.

Not whiled away his weeks living high up in the clouds, listening for the sound of scattered showers rattling the see-through ceiling of his glass globe. On hearing the first signature notes of rain on the rooftop, he would press his face to the misted windows and roll his eyes downwards until they hurt. This was the only way in which he could survey the mechanical beasts swish glide down city streets, spraying water in their wake. Commuters, cars and commotion - all bewildered him. [And if truth be told, although none were exactly rocket science, he had long ago decided that it was much more enjoyable to feign incomprehension.]

Not frequently complained of an empty head. “I am blank,” he sighed, as he tore up sheets of lined paper for the sake of tearing up paper.

“Is that a metaphor?” asked Was, watching the fairy lights absentmindedly. [And if truth be told, secretly hoping that they would never melt back into icicles, back into snow.]

“No, it’s torn paper,” answered Not, clinging to his conviction that if he pieced these scraps of evidence back together, they would make some sort of sense. And soon. Certainly before the clock came unstuck and he was thrown unwillingly out of the door, parachuted back into enemy territory to land amidst row upon row of drones with their incessant buzzing and intermittent beeping.

At this point, time should pass. Whether it does or not is completely irrelevant. However, you can imagine it doing so. If it helps.

“Have you noticed that the hands of that clock aren’t moving?” wondered Not aloud, as he glanced down to see if his wristwatch was similarly reporting that the world had indeed stopped turning.

“Has it?” replied Was, idly. “I wonder how that could have happened? How very strange.” [And if truth be told, thinking that it wasn’t at all peculiar. Or odd. Or anything else, for that matter.]

Halfway through the story - between the start and the end, at some indeterminate time and some unspecified place, and on a meandering course to somewhere or other - there was and there was not. This is just a moment, more or less, in the plot that so many of us have gone to such great lengths to lose.

Scraps of evidence

Oh, the plans. The plans I had. Each of them scrawled on crumpled paper, folded and folded again for good measure and secrecy until they bulged with so much promise and barely repressed youthful vigour. Thoughtlessly stuffed in careworn pockets patched over sternums and alongside thighs, warm enough to sleep well - all too well - in oblivion.

I never let one go, never let a single scratched line wheedle its way from my vice-like grip. Loaded the barrel, then shot through every point with a finely aimed bullet. Straight into the temple. Clean and precise, merciless in the assassination. Murdered in its very moment of gestation, as blood pumped in ecstasy. From dead ink to dead skin to just so much dead sperm. Held in stasis, buried in ice and dust and fur.

No one can have you now. No one. No one excepted. Not even me. Even though I keep finding your tattered remains half-eaten in cotton corners. Chewed and spat out by so many starving moths, their eyes popping with slavering greed as they gorged on those feasts of words, shining ideals and crazed midnight notions until they reeled away, drunken to death with sickness and over-indulgence. Eat well then eaten better, consumed by flames. Snuffed out.

The mountain grows higher, day by day. I am trapped on landfill, yet all at sea, cut adrift in my own detritus. I have ceased caring about future generations, thinking only of my selfish, embittered self and the state of this yellowing frame in years to come. I’ll paper over the cracks, because it’s what we’re taught, and I have more paper than I could ever need; every word in existence could not sit squarely on these lines, filling out their endless length. I won’t look back, because my neck will break. I won’t dig down, because I’ll have forgotten where I buried the evidence.

I don’t plant flowers or fashion a cross. I don’t ask a passing angel to remember you in her prayers. There will be no eulogy chiselled in marble. I prefer to mourn at an unmarked grave.

Wrong number #3

“Ah yes, good evening. Can I order for collection? Thanks. I’d like one no.39, please - egg foo yung. One no.73 - the kung po chicken. Two 137’s - that’s the extra special fried rice with extra rice and the extra special, um, stuff. You know, the stuff I like on it? Oh, I’ve no idea. Absolutely no idea. Do you ever get the feeling that existence is truly futile? I know I do. If it wasn’t for you at the Scaly Dragon Chinese Takeaway, I think I would lose the will to get up in the afternoon. Um, anyway, yes, one no.46 and a half. That’s the king kung fung yung with added mung. Easy on the kung, because I’m watching my salt intake. No, really, I’m not taking the piss, promise. So, mmm, I fancy a treat. I want to spoil myself because no other fucking sod does - yes, I said fucking sod, do you have an issue with that? - so can I also have a banana fritter without the banana but with pineapple rings? You could open a tin for me. Or I could bring in a tin of them. Yes, I’ll pop into Sainsbury’s on my way. What do you mean - unreasonable? I am not being unreasonable. No, really. I’m not wasting your time, I swear. It’s just that I like your voice so much. You always soothe and comfort me after I finish my weekly call to the Samaritans. Please like me. Please. I’m desperate. I adore looking into your fluttering oriental eyes over the formica counter as you twist and knot the top of my free prawn crackers. Did I mention that I am sickeningly, gut-wrenchingly lonely and spend my nights watching old repeats of 1970s TV sitcoms on UK Gold? Will you help me? Save me? I’m begging you, because I really can’t go on spending this much on Chinese food. Did you get the message I wrote to you on the menu last week? Oh, but you must have seen it, you must! I scratched it in brute force biro next to the House Specials, with love hearts and all that shit, declaring that I wanted to run away with you and live in Buddhist tranquility in China … what do you mean you’re not from China? Wolverhampton? I suppose I can work with that; I hear it’s nice there, after all, and there must be Buddhists in Wolverhampton too. Her father? What? Speak up and stop mumbling, damn you. You’re her father? Oh. Right. No, really, I’m beyond embarrassment. I’ve died and come back immune, many times. So. Can I just have a sweet and sour chicken and boiled rice, then? I’ll be there in ten. Is your daughter there too? At university? Shame. Well, put the kettle on and we can have a llttle natter when I get there. Do you like Hobnobs?”

Into the white

They’re waiting. As I reside in the muffled stillness of an all too rare sun-dappled afternoon and silently mouth my prayer for peace, I can sense their presence outside the door. Waiting for me.

A snaking line of three hundred and thirty-three figures queues along the dark corridor, round the bend and down the stairs. They are so desperate to avoid invading anyone else’s precious space, to remain blissfully ignorant to mere passers-by, that they press their backs up against the painted, peeling, repainted walls and barely dare to exhale.

Yet I can hear the shuffling feet, carefully pacing time in their places, and the nervous coughs as sly glances are exchanged before eyes return to gaze at the floor. This waiting game seems a peculiarly British institution: the epitome of politeness just begging to be ripped asunder by the latent violence seething under the skin and bone. The assembled and expectant are clenching their knuckles and gritting their teeth, because one wrong move will almost certainly result in a burst blood vessel or two.

This halted procession may come clad in regulation blacks and greys, but in shape and size they couldn’t be more different. The straightened and the straight-backed, the straight up and down again; the bent and the bowed, the doubled up and round again; the crossed and the dotted, the cornered and the curved again. Each could wax lyrical for hours on end about their individuality, whilst claiming almost in the same breath that they believed in co-operation, teamwork, and striving together for a common goal.

They are so eager to please. Why would I want to disappoint them?

I should let them over my threshold. I should throw open my door, my welcoming arms and my dusty pages so they can reacquaint themselves with the surroundings and make themselves at home. Once, not so long ago, I was only too glad of their frequent company - even if, at times, their knocking was insistent, bordering on frenzied. I would welcome them under my roof, wash and clothe them in fresh apparel, listen to their tales from far and wide, then feed them warm words in return for such silver-tongued stories. Their appetites would be well and truly sated, and their eyes would gleam as they realised they were about to make their mark.

They looked into the white light, sank into the white lined.

Strange, then, that I should now wish to shoo them away, to stand in front of them and shake my fists in a scarecrow scattering. I haven’t missed my late night guests. I noted their absence, but never once queried their whereabouts, assuming that they had found some bed for the night.

I looked into the white light, warmed myself in the white heat.

I stared into the rising sun and saw half a face. Screwed up my eyes against the fierce glare and soaked up the shadowy profile. Yet that was all I needed. That was more than enough. I listened through the door, and not a single shuffling footstep or nervous cough could be heard. Inside, life went on.

They’ll be back, when the hunger grips them. When they need feeding. When they’re seized by the insatiable desire to let loose, scream, shout, stamp their feet and demand attention. When they can no longer resist the lure of the bright, bright white.

Random acts of stationery #36

Random acts of stationery #35

Random acts of stationery #34

Random acts of stationery #33

Random acts of stationery #32

Random acts of stationery #31

First day, last day, every day

Okay. So you wake up. You wake up, you yawn, you scratch yourself. You peel sleep crystals from the corners of your eyes. You check that your body is generally intact, as you left it the night before, before it was tossed this way and that in dreamtime or nightmare hours. You run your fingers through your hair. Bad hair day, Bad, bad hair day. That lank mop of twisted strands will take precious minutes to brush. Must move, really must move.

Radio. Radio on. News. Beep beep beep. Here is the news. The world is still turning, still spinning on its axis. Elections, rebellions, civil wars, surveys, mortgage rates, currency markets up again down again plunging down again certain to crash again then up up and away, celebrities, celebrity in drug shock sex addict bankrupt morally suspect sniffing coke from an upper class socialite’s breasts award-winning Priory checking-in shocker scandal outrage. Everything much of a muchness. Normality. The sick smell of torpor. Boredom creeps up your backbone.

“And finally …”

An announcement. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Correction. The only day. No more days. Just this one. Another correction. Not just you. Everyone. Pause a moment for a broadcaster’s nervous cough. He hasn’t had to deliver a report quite this momentous since the moment when a Princess’s ditzy head smashed into a bloody pulp in the back of a sleek Mercedes.

“Let me repeat that. It has been announced by someone or other - possibly God, possibly another omnipotent power who wishes to remain anonymous having ticked the ‘no publicity’ box - that today is the single day. Today will only end when you die. Existence stops here. You have two hours to make your arrangements, to specify precisely and exactly and without equivocation - without hesitation, repetition or deviation - how you wish to eke out the remainder of your tedious three score years and ten. Then that’s it. The end, but also the beginning. This, indeed, is the first day; but it is also the last day and the every day of the rest of your life. Choose wisely, since there is no appeals process.”

Make your decision. Whisper it into the silent white void. Speak it. Shout it. Go on. Do it. The clock is ticking, but what do you want to be doing when it stops?

Stickered tip to toe

Nothing fits, from dawn on through weary afternoon into still and sleepy dusk. I am out to visitors inside my own skin, since today I am an unwelcome guest myself.

Your face don’t fit, mate. You ain’t fackin’ comin’ in.

Frame cracked, smeared glass, imperfectly aligned and picture crooked. Up a bit, up a bit, down a bit, down, down. Yes. Just there. That’s it. No. No, you’ve lost it. Try again.

We could improve you with a snip, you know. Another snip, a tuck and a slice. We could tear you into jagged strips, rip you senseless, then lose crucial moments of your memory under the furniture, incinerate limbs in the ashtray, bleed your veins into screaming babies’ mouths, before trampling and scrunching your putrid leftovers into decomposing landfill under cover of night. Job done - a dirty one, but some unlucky bastard’s got to do it. We would be through by morning, ready to stick a red warning flag in any orifice you like, warning of poisons that may cause irritation and inflammation.

My hair is three sizes too loose. My scalp requires belting up. My cerebral cortex needs to be taken out back into a dark, wet alley and given a damn good kicking. My ears aren’t my own; never were, and never will be. My nose smells worse than it looks, my looks look worse through my eyes, and my eyes keep rolling out and falling into my lap at inopportune moments, coming to rest with one gazing heavenwards and the other praying desperately for a final resting place oozing between the floorboards. My fingers crack their knuckles menacingly, serving as a warning that my hands won’t ever stop itching for a chance to smack some sense into my face. My skin sweats, and a single drop of the sugar-salt moisture coaxes my tongue forth to taste. I am the living and dying, inhaling and exhaling image of a human-creature; a creature-human made flesh and bone.

From tip to toe and back again, nothing fits, nothing works.

This product contains moving parts. Maintenance should only be carried out by an authorised dealer. Warning: warranty void if removed.

The aliens live amongst us

“Aliens, mostly. Definitely the aliens. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, lesbians. I wouldn’t be too sure about the Muslims, though I don’t object to them myself, you understand. You just can’t be too careful, can you? But you can’t say I’m not fair, because an American on the street would, well, you know. I just wouldn’t know what to say to them, passing the time of day and such. They would have a big car and insist on putting their letterbox on the lawn. Or a flag or something.

“People who listen to that loud rock ‘n’ roll music all day. Them too. Blang, blang, crash, doof, doof, doof. So aggressive. It can’t be good for them. Exotic pet owners - I mean owners of exotic pets, rather than people who are exotic and have, I don’t know, a little Cocker Spaniel or a tiny lapdog or one of them German breeds. That’d be fine, as long as they weren’t too exotic. Oh me! I laugh at my own, I do. So, no, I just don’t want to live next door to a zebra, that’s all.

Then there’s the … I really don’t like … erm, it’s such a nasty phrase, but Gwen calls them the kiddie-fiddlers. They put them on a quiet street just like this after they get out, you know, and they give them social workers and jobs driving minicabs. Mostly day runs, of course, taking pensioners to the luncheon club and the shops. So I wouldn’t like a kiddie-fiddler here either, but that’s only natural. That’s it, though. I can’t say I’d be minded against anyone else.

“Well, terrorists, of course. Obviously. That goes without saying. You’ve got to keep your eyes open these days. For the terrorists. We can’t give into our fear of them by changing our whole way of life - my mum called it the Blitz Spirit even though she lived out her days in a village in Dorset, but then she’d always go off on one about that Mister Hitler given half a chance. I told her that this was the modern world, that we had to forgive and forget. Dad drove an Audi, too.

“See, terrorists live in cells. That’s what it says on the news. I thought that was sort of funny. Cells! Should be in them, shouldn’t they? And these cells are on cul de sacs all over the country. A cul de sac like this. And the quiet people beavering away in their cells work at everyday jobs while planning their atrocities. That’s another reason I don’t take minicabs any more. It’s not just because of the kiddie-fiddlers, but the terrorists too. So I walk down to the corner every morning at 11, get what shopping I need, then come home and watch the street for any suspicious activity. I find it especially important around half past three when the school empties out, because that Quinn boy from number 27 drops litter on my borders when he’s showing off to his noisy friends. So I tap on the kitchen window and glare at them, mouthing the words. I don’t say them, because I don’t violate the Queen’s English. I just, you know, glare and pretend to shout. It’s safer.

“Gwen and I don’t really socialise. I sit here watching her side of the cul de sac; she sits at her window eating her Ritz crackers and watching mine, though she does get distracted. We call ourselves Neighbourhood Watch, though we never got the badges or the training or nothing. We’re quite futuristic though, you know. Because we don’t go for tea or things like that, we send these text messages. She bought us both little Nokia thingies, and so we update each other on events that way. Here’s one: ‘new family no 18 religious’. Gwen sent that yesterday. Hopefully she means Catholic or something, not Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s been quiet here, I’m pleased to say, so my last message was three days ago: ‘poss terrorist cell no 14 not gone shopping yet’. I felt a bit foolish when they had it delivered, later that afternoon. Waitrose, so they’re quite posh.

“I don’t tell Gwen about the aliens. Not even her. Because that’s my real worry, that the aliens live amongst us. Even terrorists, you know - until they do the suicide bombings they’re quite normal. Just keep themselves to themselves. Minicabs and secret missions. But if aliens moved in and colonised the cul de sac, I would just feel uneasy. A terrorist cell - well, you could complain about their ball coming over into your garden or if they were making the street unsightly by leaving their car up on bricks for a couple of weeks, because they would want to put it right quickly, wouldn’t they? So as not to attract attention to themselves. Exactly. But aliens just wouldn’t have those customs. You wouldn’t know how they might react. It’s a worry, isn’t it? A real worry.”

Your Ghost

Kristin Hersh

Says the shadow: “I painted this mirror for you last night, just as you asked many moons ago. I am an artist of broad, frenzied brushstrokes when the night sweats seize me and shake me senseless.”

Says the ghost: “From this moment forward, every drop of you will be forever soaked into the pitch black. Nothing to see here, nothing to see. Isn’t that the way you like it?”

Says the shadow: “No longer will I stand here, staring back at your startled gaze, hoping to trace out a final solution in the lines of your still frozen phizog.”

Says the ghost: “Did anyone ever tell you that you have a haunted countenance? If you open your face much wider, your skin will split. If the wind changes direction, you’ll stay like that.”

Says the shadow: “For Lent, I am foreswearing every drop of my rancid bitterness and its sickening smell, replacing it instead with only the sweetest perfumed thoughts.”

Says the ghost: “Not a chance. I will soak your sheets and push you bolt upright at four o’clock in the morning, filling you with thoughts of what became of me. Yes, I could be mouldering, but what if I’m merely sleeping?”

Says the shadow: “There are times when I am grateful for the small mercies of short-term memory loss. Once forty dawns have broken and forty dusks descended, I may have forgotten the very fact of your damned existence.”

Says the ghost: “Show me the back of your left hand. Form a fist in my honour. You want to hit me, don’t you? You want to make me bleed, resorting to guts and animal violence. But what’s that? Is that my name scratched on your sallow skin? Who wrote it? Why has the ink not faded after all this time?”

Says the shadow: “Who are you again? Who were you? I never even knew you. Never even knew. Never knew. Never. And now I’ll never know. Your unmarked grave stays stony silent. It tells no tales, whispers no words.”

Says the ghost: “Shove your astigmatic eyes deep into the streaky glass and aluminium. Breathe in, breathe out. You won’t mist me over, I promise you. I am watermarked into your bloodrush and surging through your veins.”

Says the shadow: “Yes. Therefore, I am alive.”

Says the ghost: “Alive is as maybe. Yet your faded face is such a mess. Your hair is in a shocking state. Your body has seen better days. You are a shadow of your former self.”

Says the shadow: “Still, I can feel my heart beating. Still. It beats.”

Says the ghost: “Can I touch it? Can I feel the rhythm and pace of your mortality? Maybe then I will believe, as I sense you slipping the shackles in which I held you for far too long.”

Says the shadow: “Too late. Your fingers freeze me. You gulped down your pound of flesh, consumed me, and spat out the dregs. I let you eat your fill. The rest is mine.”

Says the ghost: “Maybe I can make amends. Forgive and forget and start afresh. Call me and let me explain. Let me bring my white light into your darkness.”

Says the shadow: “I am hanging on the line. Hanging on your every word, with my lips brushing the mouthpiece. But your voice is buried under antique dust. You are nothing more than crackles and static. You are robotic and drained of feeling. This call is concluded. There’s nothing more to say.”

Says the ghost: “So be it. Just humour me for one last time. Flick open those bloodshot peepers, cautiously and carefully. I want to show myself to you. I want to be naked. I want to be back as all skin and bone, muscle and mucus, heart and soul. Feast your eyes on every one of my physical imperfections. Let your gaze linger where it desires. Can you see me? Can you see?”

Says the shadow: “I see nothing. There’s no reflection, no lingering presence here. No whispering voice or softened footfalls. This corridor is merely dead air, empty as vessels. Just a hollow hallway, framed by mirrors at each end. No one in between. You have lost. You have turned bad, gone for good.”

Says the ghost: “Shall I sleep now? Shall I rest?”

Says the shadow: “Forever, if you can.”

• Kristin Hersh
• Lyrics to Your Ghost

Moonshot #1

I have hatched a plot whereby we can at last get our slippery, sweaty hands on our prey. I know you don’t believe it’s possible, but it is. It truly is. It has to be, because these sunlit, cloud-dashed days of ifs and buts are growing tired of our procrastination. A dull fever is setting in, and my forehead is creasing and caving in under such remorseless heavy weather.

We can hunt down the trophy, imprison it and make it ours. That ethereal globe has taunted us for far too long, making us loathe yet love it in equal measure each time it breaks through the blackness. Always the most unforgiving of searchlights. This is the moment, then, to make it answer to our every desire, our every ridiculous and impractical whim. When it is ours, it will glimmer when we ask. When it is ours, it will illuminate the creases in the bedclothes for twenty-five hours on end, if that is what we wish. Dawn will only come when we issue our demands.

We have documented our mission down to the last dotted i and crossed t. We are buried under the scratched-out signs and crumpled papers. Every footnote corresponds with formulaic certainty to every superscripted digit. We have worked tirelessly after dark, after dark and after dark some more, until dawn inevitably bled itself slowly over the horizon - by which point we had, of course, entirely missed our target’s slow nocturnal wander across the heavens. No matter. Not this night, nor ever again. The end is in sight. Our glorious victory is almost within our grasp, just up there beyond the trees. Close enough to touch, if only we can learn to stretch and push our pathetic bodies to their limit.

We have the plans, we have the diagrams, we have the angles mathematically charted down to the last degree. The only task remaining on our checklist is to lure the silver mirrored moon - that bloated, pendulous prize - into our nets, to tempt it with caresses and then clutch it to our hearts. Soon, our fingerprints will mould new craters from the compacted dust. Soon, our eyes will stare on its shadows like silent stars.

“Catch me, oh catch me, oh catch me if you can.”