

# The Refusal of Silence

Michael.J.Rowland

Copyright 2015 by Michael.J.Rowland

Cover design and art work by Michael.J.Rowland

The Refusal of Silence is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents either are a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or events is purely coincidental.

For Mum and Dad

Table of Contents

Portrait 1 – Riptiles and Viverids

Portrait 2 – Pendleberry's Think-Cake

Portrait 3 – The Refusal of Silence

## The Refusal of Silence

PORTRAIT 1

Riptiles and Viverids

"And our school chum killed in a distant war

Is not surprised to see us at his door." Vladimir Nabakov - Pale Fire

1

The Rest

Deek weighed in at 12 stones, dried off and drained.

A vest-burnt lady arm. Skimming stones like an Army myth.

The boys looked out at the islands.

Vin Pearl and the triplets got to their knees.

"Harley-luya!"

Dreams of the distant mopeds.

As far as Boojum was concerned their war was over. A sting ray glance from a bashful brunette puts Deek out of commission and leaves them wondering where his senses lie. And senses do lie. Just ask the music hall Charlie bone. Senses do lie.

There leaks the sun. That patch of sand-gang ousted eucalyptus.

"A tart taste. Good health such a waste."

Semtex complains about the attention. "They'll all sting you if you ain't careful."

"These soldiers is soldiers even in their swim swams," Boojum thinks. The girls make them so.

There are no childhood memories here.

A perfect dismissal of future and past.

The perfect soldier at last.

The Vietnamese

Bathing beauties

Come out at six oh one

To avoid the sun.

"They's whiter than white cake."

"That island's nestled behind that one."

"You promised her a ring."

"You don't make sense - I only wanna screw her."

"You're lucky the sun's out and she ain't."

"Dough boy!"

All the wistful mothers.

Mothers at home.

Slums and small.

21 dollars a day twice a month.

She puts her clothes on back to front and is all the more bashful for it. Her manicured, eggy feet still on show.

VINPEARL

HOLLYWOO

"Makes sense. It's Vietnam."

"God bless America - My 'Om sweet 'Om."

Hap sings along to a little war ditty.

Not this war.

When the lights go on again - all over the world

When the boys are home again - all over the world

Rain or snow is all that falls from the sky

A kiss won't mean goodbye but hello to love.

2

Too far in-between.

Too far in-between he called it, and wanted to write his book about a stone. Stones. He hit the nail on all its head. Big fat hedgehoggy bonce. Didn't miss a spot and didn't even know it, despite 'knowing' it.

Boojum always loved him for that. But loving him for knowing was easier than 'knowing' what he knew.

The important thing was, they knew.

B and H loved the word.

The turn of phrase.

The act of writing.

A baseball fan keeping score cards of every game watched. Far more interested in the statistics than the game. One way of accepting life. Ignore it and record the effluvium of hearsay and/or seesay.

Then you get sick, and then you die. And in choosing to die, you make up for dismissing all those trees all that time.

Death being one better than writing another book about it.

Their books were in-jokes to themselves. Were the books their children these children would have tutted and rolled their eyes.

"Dad, you're embarrassing us.

Freud was a fraud.

Now take us to Euro Disney, you dicks."

If only they had put their money where their mouths were and chopped the tree down and mushed it into pulp and spread the sheet of it out like an abstract map of Real Gone veins and wrong directions.

Their faith in grammar was their downfall. One cannot trust a hippy who spends that much time making their hair just so.

There are far more important things at hand, like flaming ontology and underwater sea fairies. You don't even know. You don't even know.

You don't even know.

You can't mistake punk music for any other kind of music, but you can mistake a ponce for a Buddha.

More fool you.

3

More fool you.

Answering the open door fully erect to a nonplussed ageing clean freak. I bellow your pardon, they be rivers between youse and mes and you very should knock before you fore.

We literally sold your benefit, and when Boojum comes he's gonna hear all about it. He is at this time timed-out abroad, well bus, well, close, well Beatles, well shaving while she waits on the floors and tables and cat morons means like idiots but it's not a nice thing to say, even if it is just a cat. I'm not sure she gets it but Boojum surely wanted what he asked for or he wouldn't have asked right? This is far more her. In that twilight she looks older, but it's far more her. That rainbow light. The light streaking through the sky like an afterthought caught ahead of time so you sound smart. The walk is murder on his feet but not hers, and they're sweet, her feet, and he's worrying between pillow and canvas just how he should represent them toes and that teenage smile of hers.

John-Lennon-white but without a piano or a blind man to poke the piano with; shuffling about all water and Yoko, the maid has everything going for her in a gaff like this with waters like those. She took all the cans and constructed a pyramid with them, in the hall. The wife hid round the corner and waited for the tomb tomb of the door bang.

It never came so she opened the door herself and brother did that mother give the room a healthy upbringing.

She didn't even look up once.

Aliens or Egyptians, either way, shit happens.

I would still get the aliens to suck me.

She reminded him of someone.

"Hold these a minute please, misses, I got a present for you."

Folding and folding and folding until he proved you can fold anything 8 times if you put your mind to it.

"You can't take that with you, but it will never leave you."

Balls blue with domestos violence, Boojum gathered all he had in a little tote bag and went to war. That's why the feet, and that's why the murder. He'll be back before ya know it. "How long can it take to clean a toilet?" he asked the bar tender and "You're a very good bar tender."

There came a damn and a blast and he gave them reprieve.

Write about it, she said.

More bloody revolution.

Bullets and bores.

Hotter now than he was then, in fields of napalm and annoying sticky gum on the ground.

Crouched down by the barricades made of rice paper, Boojum makes a promise to all who can hear him...

"Let not the children bite and weep or fear the day. I hereby promise that I will kill everyone or save everyone and nothing in-between.

I've changed my mind. I don't want to fight."

"Hardy boys cradling into battle and expanding minds as they pirouette across the killing fields where they'll give you a cow to shoot if you want. They don't want, but the time it takes them to get to HCMC, gives the homeless aliens enough time to construct dens by the river and tree houses in family's gardens and pillory and pout for a satisfactory amount of dough to see the wet season through.

Reading is over-rated, there is so little to know. For us to even attempt to expand the mind of one of these invader tourists, would be tantamount to gobbing in the Atlantic and claiming to have saved the world from thirsting to death. The aliens don't want to read what we have struggled to know over the millennia, all they want is bread sticks that will last until the main meal comes. They could delete this planet without a thought for all the family photographs that would be lost. Imagine all the photos that would be lost...not to mention the families."

Boojum will challenge them, yes, but he will not engage them.

So he will go into farming. A farmer's boy down on the farm. The village girls (and boys) will all fall for him; hookers, line-backers and singers, and he will lose years every hair cut. Can't come to no harm on a farm, and his wife gives to the Martians what the Martians want. Eggs mostly but sometimes theatre.

"Now this is my kinda war," he says. "I'm a Czech Hillbilly. I'm a Chillbilly."

His wife laughs at that. 90% of her job. Eggs and laughter.

The aliens are grateful not to be shot at. Who wouldn't be? And so a beautiful friendship develops between Boojum and the 'enemy'. Turns out they dig Banjos more than they dig land. Give them just enough for a brick house each then play them a tune and they are happy.

"Who knew!?" his wife says.

"I knew," Boojum says.

They begin to breed Giant Radiolarians and before they know it they are the number one Radiolarian breeders in the galaxy. Radiolarians sell like hot cakes (which Boojum's wife also sells). Soon they are rich enough to get other people to do their work for them, the thought of which puzzles Boojum, so they carry on as they were.

I came across a Saigonese squatting on his hunches like a skinny frog just staring up up up at me and looking down down down on me. I swapped him one Radiolarian for three Viverids and he ran off into his two storey tin hut; up two flights of stairs to the roof he's eye height with me and he says something in Martian. He hasn't learnt any English in his time but has the Martian patois mastered. I tell him I don't understand and he understands that I probably don't understand because I'm speaking in a language he doesn't understand.

He runs back down the stairs, which is actually a ladder, and he pulls a Riptile from under his settee.

"Riptiles and Viverids!" holding it up to me with both hands. An offering.

Ahh.

The toast yields,

the harm homes,

the gut tremmels,

the street wakes,

a t for text, an m for motor, a c for cat, a d for dog, a c for child, a bottle for baby, a sea for seller, 'H' for horn, a b-b-b- bike, a scooter, a rooster, a door, a shutter, a shusher, a cutlery, a hoover, a car, a hammer hams and Boojum marvels at the beauty of their simple home on Starbeck.

A creative genius set by a timer. Boojum chops his left arm off in order to rid himself of such nonsense to spite his grace. Fortunately he is in the South and they got much better hospitals, and with the proper IVF treatment Valerie will be up and running after her own versions of ankle scratchers presently.

Hanoi cripple wrenchers beep their own particular brand of currency and never mind the polarity twixt police and robber, either way you'll get you dander flapped and the robber even more so.

"I gretchen you don't know what these are for," Valerie says.

"You're gretchen right," he says.

"They're for peeling off your pyjamas when the weather gets too sticky."

"Do you use 'em?"

"Cheeky."

Boojum didn't think the question was that cheeky and he didn't intend it to be cheeky, but now the cheekiness of it was out there and her naked, sweating body was all either of them could think about until Boojum poured his iced-tea down the front of his trousers and changed the subject back to the coup."

"Them Cambodians got it bad."

"So do you by the looks of it..." Valerie purred, demured, moistly concurred.

10am was the time they usually had their army drill demonstrations. This was for the benefit of the sergeant and the females present; cooks and maids and wotnot. The lack of females in the squad was not a result of any form of sexual politics but was due to the fact that the females were that much smarter.

The women liked the sober pretence in the men's faces and the sergeant just liked the rhythm of the whole procedure. It looked nice to his trained eye and it made him proud when the timing of all present was perfect. He thought that the ladies watching appreciated the effort he put in to moulding this gang of ne'er do wells, but they just thought of him as a deluded, ageing dance choreographer. The ladies watched to feel superior.

4

Leg apples.

"Meincarnation every morning to bycicles and shop front shutters yawning and hotel generators boaring into the skin of the kitchen staff outside smoking their alimentation citations for abolishing slavery. Half blind drunk scooter pedlars hocking and hawking spit sunny umbrella issues from their freak finger nail gullets balking.

Dribbling ink heads sweeping the street corners and more noise and more recuperation, if you're a foreigner...

Then the kid across the street with the leg apples interrupts me and offers me this tale all about Boojum and the Giant Radiolarian.

Obladi and Oblada wrestled in the wet season until the dry season and then until the wet season again and then to the dry season and to the next wet season and they got tired and they looked up from the mud and filth they were in and Boojum and the Giant Radiolarian were standing over them and had been watching the whole time, and that is the story of Boojum and the Giant Radiolarian.

"What's a Radiolarian?" I asked.

"Did you not hear a word of the story I just told you!?" the kid said."

Cold bills blown out from the fat Asian TV made up of infomercials from couples-troubles grin fables so they don't catch a thing you say or a thing you crave because they don't listen. They're grinning. They never listen. It's a telly box, you fools. Boojum woulda gone scientific if the pictures had been better, only the drawer had a pencil up his butt and came off all jungly. School geek. Like a guide who would only show you the trees from a distance but there's no way on earth the fecker would climb you up a baobab, central style.

"Just that one. The one with the monkey carrying the Buddha."

"No fucking way, man. No fucking way."

Robots certainly would make for the best pupils.

One Plateau.

"How quickly it has all passed."

A 5 year plan should make you feel as comfortable as possible with your present situation. A 5 year plan which makes you wish your time away is a bad 5 year plan.

In religious matters only experience counts. The future and the past are illustrations of the holy spirit. We, as we stand, are that which is illustrated.

A painted illustration is as much a text as text is an illustration. Words being symbols which represent the thing as much as the illustration attempts to represent a thing, when in actual fact we have nothing more than marks on a page. Memory triggers.

C and an O and a W and an S. The stories we tell ourselves.

Whoosh.

Exercise: Paint something you have never seen before.

Conspiratorially yours,

Boojum.

XXX

629th plateau.

The rumination of images digested and spit up. Gallerium Ruminarium.

A 'people' apartheid.

We can only eat our own vomit, and that at a push.

His sweet tooth from his parents.

His bed-head from his bed.

5

The disturbing peace.

Remove anyone from their natural habitat and most will adapt.

Some will grow, some will remain as they were,

and some will fester.

Boojum moved from his natural habitat and did none of those things.

Born, living, dead,

all at the same time.

"I moved to a town that lost a war, and they seem to be doing okay."

Boojum.

I told often the story often told the story I often was told and oh how I laughed at the clarity I felt under the flight path feel of the final definition.

All taproots.

Gold probation tongues let loose at the thought of a better living than the one they are paying for.

"So don't pay."

The Zen Plaza out of their price range.

The children in the park showing far more vigour than an angel should reveal. A stolen page from the Dead Sea scrolls. They bop and giggle to their teacher emphatically, enjoying the silliness of it all. The importance of it all. Look once and your hooked; look twice and you fucked up for looking away in the first place; look three times to recapture the first look and you're digging yourself into one god-awful life of complaint.

"I never really found myself."

Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus, shut up!

You never really cried did you?

"I cried once, but I was embarrassed by the result. I wanted everyone to go away."

To cry for the soldiers who gave all their luck to me.

And how I don't deserve it.

And how I tell myself every day, 'I will do something to deserve this luck.'"

Boojum would cry, but crying must be kept for the luckless.

An Asian song translated into smiles alone.

Boojum skimmed through the park like a conker. One plunk and a slow dive.

'I dreamed you told me you had decided to kill yourself and you walked into the river and...I don't know the word for when you go under the water to kill yourself.'

'Drown.'

'And you drowned. And I was really sad. I am glad you didn't drown.'

'Thank you.'

'Thank you.'

Happy music transcends language barriers and international conflicts. Happy music cannot be misinterpreted. Happy music can only be happy music.

Boojum purchases a banjo.

Vietnam was a good choice.

".... there must be some other notebook. One which is so secret that even the pedlars on the beach never grasp the tiresome dullness of a salesman's words and their damage."

Shush.

The moon un-alike and mind-blatt

of the full formed day in and of every individual

all at the same time objectively felt subjectively.

The bus man or woman will point you to a seat whether you want to sit or not

and the locals will stare

and scrunch their sun burned toes into the seat

opposite and crouch on the pavement opposite

and curl up like cats on their mopeds in a deep 'Nam slumber staring at you even with their eyes closed.

They offer cookies and choco pie and bottles of water to their gods in the temples and the gods are thinking 'No, no, no, this we made for you! You got it all wrong.'

"And the monks are using i-pads

and i-phones

and mp3 players they hide under their robe and smile because they know. And they know we know,

or at least we could know we knew if we only let down our guard for 5 seconds."

The side saddle girls

and peaceful peeping

traffic slipping unxiously through

the gridded vein.

"I'm Chevy Chase holding up a painting I did of a tree. The tree is small and hanging from the chin of a large balloon-head. Mine. Fuck the ego. Scrap the self.

Scrap with the self.

Burn the tree.

The hierarchical arboretum criterium delirium.

The girl over the way screams piercing temple screams instead of talks, and the parents scream piercing talks instead of works. They beat piercing girl and brother shouts thundering torture at beat girl. The tree is small because I'm not very good at trees and Chevy Chase is taller than everyone else and so am I. And Australians shout piercing numbers instead of translating in the alleyway and Sunday begins with a tumour and a penchant for drama streams, cuddles and coffee cup critiques.

Keep the tree small as possible and infinite as possible.

A will to yoga, Czech and chilled baubles. Lara wonders what the rainy season will be like.

Every time the girl cries, Boojum thinks of the chicken/baby on the bus in the last episode of M.A.S.H

Every time the morning comes Boojum thinks of himself and a wife in a hotel in Saigon.

Every time a bell rings a flag rises red.

A star explodes.

A heeby jeebies.

A nightingale buys a square.

A knight dies a day a does.

Get on the back of this one, Zed, we're heading to Mars."

The warm a vice a pie.

A tooth the trick the fall.

Boojum memorizes the sounds of those and buries them. He tucks them away in a suitcase in a cupboard close to the package of a large elderly silver haired gentleman in a gray suit. He is so worried the man will find out what is in the suitcase. Boojum has forgotten what is in the case himself but knows it's bad.

"Murder? It must have been an accident. A long long time ago. It is clearly not safe enough. Not as safe as I thought it would be. The secret will be revealed. He is on to me. Ever since the lunch we had together. I shouldn't have been so candid. I shouldn't have considered the money to be made."

The suitcase must be a blocked memory. A blocked idea. A lie he tells to himself. About what?

"I believe in what we are doing. In what I do. But I am lazy. A scream waiting in a cupboard. DO SOMETHING!"

The suitcase is everybody else.

"I need to hide it better."

INDUCTION TWAFF. An induction twaff.

Avoid work which is a means to the means to the end. Start at the end and stay there.

Twiff.

The motive of Boojum's art: to teach by example.

Mr Thuy.

Paint what you see. Write what you know. Sing what you love. Paint what you can. Write what you can. Sing what you can. Paint what you sing. Dance and sing.

Twoof.

"I would like the truth of my art to hover around itself like a happy spirit."

Hic...

I can pass on a smile. Depth of spirit need go no deeper than that. I cannot teach or show 'depth'. Isn't it depth that makes one look at art in the first place?

To let enlightenment grow old gracefully. Motive No.2

Toof.

To be God and to recognise and revel in one's good works where and when one can.

Ba ba ba.

There is no duty to be fulfilled.

Boojum thunk.

Perhaps one of the things we 'all' feel subjectively is an innate dislike of others. Everyone has thoughts which if spoken out loud would cause offense, and so we struggle to silence ourselves and feel instead a love, or 'sensitivity' towards others.

Selah.

To be 'good' to one another would not be such a complicated affair if we had a natural bent to bond with everyone. From adolescence we are like antibodies that would attack anything which invades our personal space. We learn to accept others, although sulkily, through social mores impressed upon us by our guardians. If we do bond it is because we have a common enemy. Hunger and Pain and Teachers are three such enemies.

Selah.

"Love thyself and you must, of necessity, love your neighbour."

Twiff.

To paint the obvious. No pregnant thought. A reminder of the things one knows. A complimentary signifier of the viewer's own genius.

Hibbidy Dibbidies.

The ideas which cause us anxiety are caused by sensations which have been mismanaged.

Constantine, push 1.

Carradine, push 2.

Evergreen, push 3.

Elvira, push push push.

Get mad again.

Hectares of relapse since my quiet sojourn. You were there and you were there. Hours of hipsters dead from their heroes, collapsed engineers open for more of the toxic purple people juice I abandoned when the sixties was still the forties and to be classy was to be truly human.

You are my age \- we are here aren't we?

Still thinking big thoughts. The same thoughts.

6

But not Valerie.

The dead don't waste their prenups on cash and Vassago, they warm up their hides at the swing doors of hell and bask in the light of the winged ones. Cradled in the arms of his wife as he wakes he releases himself, takes a hammer of his own and makes bang bang at the door. Maid No.2 lets him into the corridor where he lays prostrate for what seems like a lunchtime and then up on all fours he makes do do on the landing. Prayer time over.

Maid No.2 cleans up after him and wreaks havoc on the paymaster general; the beaverstruck gobshite who liberated the free-ones.

"I ain't no hammer, and I ain't no wastrel, you got more than enough outta me already, let me back to my Boojum."

"Your Boojum has gone to war, my dear. Your Boojum has gone to war. You're Boojum has gone to war, my dear and won't never come back no more."

Boojum was busy with a hack saw at his right leg when the telegram arrived.

Stop. Stop.

Grandiloquent the words she used, even from that distance, and deep-seated the feelings she doodled to make the letter better.

'Google' instead of Gargle, 'Parcipitate' instead of Participate and so on and so forth and he's beleaguered by the promises she makes and humbled by the time it takes for him to get through just one sodding sentence what with the bombs and the rain and the noises of the planes and the helicopter blades and all the bitey monkeys.

"I will reply to this," says he, "when the yard arm hits the firestone and the whisky renders me dragon-like. I will cockspew flames about this encampment and talk incessantly of home."

"Vietnam War songs or Second World War songs?"

"Second World War."

"Bikinis or nighties?"

"Nighties."

"Birds or Bitches?"

"Birds."

"And if you live, Boojum....If you...put down the saw. Boojum, if you live, what will be the first thing you do when you get home?"

"I will sleep for a week and then I will go to the pub and talk incessantly of war."

The only promotion this side of the ocean is a bullet in the guts and a dearth of sun lotion. She pulled and she pulled and her Dada just whined, give me time, give me time and who knows who will be dead at the end of your line.

"Line's dead, Dad."

Grown ups the size of pin-ups pinned to the pavement in postular zit scrubs. Shoom shoom the metals they send. Sweep sweep the The. Mend to modular beats in me ears gone daffy with dulux and corrosive suspicion shards.

"I'd be glad of a moment or two, and you just jump back on the bus when you're done, hon'."

DNS tam tam tam tam.

Afraid of holding on to the bike taxi too tight in case he thinks I'm trying a 'reacharound'. Another path to the same same sights. A happy ending, dizzying heights. You and me Valerie, too heavy for his hairdryer bust a tube on the cream-fed highway, night-style, emophobe.

If you dangle your legs there and I rest mine on here and he fucks up up there, it don't matter neither way. One day we will look back on this and laugh. Until then you should use soap more and shower at least three times a day. Trench rot is no stroll in the park but walking in the park is, and I'm telling you, you ain't gonna do that with no trench-goddamn-foot.

My batman hands me his spare helmet, the one the thief left behind when he took batman's other, and we head to the tunnels, but quiet like so the journalists don't hear. I'm afraid that if they pick up on our goings on they might try to describe it with words I didn't approve.

My signature alongside every single syllable or you leave us the hell alone.

7

In the tunnels there be Viverids.

They sayed it would be difficult to find but he just turned left after about one hour and then went forward for about an hour more and then we were there. So it was not difficult like they sayed it would be, it was easy.

But could we find any Viverids? Could we fuck.

8

Back at the batcave.

"They made a book about our trip."

Boojum looked up from his franzipan crochet bucket.

"They did what?"

"They made a book about us going to the tunnels."

"But nothing happened."

"That's the best part according to them."

"It takes all sorts."

"My Vietnamese is pretty rusty but it sounded like they were trying to teach the horses to ride the men." The sergeant was all up my ass about that, and he said to me, "You gotta be shitting me, BJ, who the fuck would do that?"

"The Vietnamese," Boojum told him.

"It sounds to me," the sergeant said, "like the Vietnamese are learning how to ride horses."

"Well that could be the case, sir."

"So what the Sam Hill do we got a translator for, boy, if I do all the goddamn work?"

And the most extraordinary thing happened. Boojum remembered something Valerie told him one afternoon when they were shopping in the city centre. "Boojum, there are two types of people in the world," and putting one finger on her lips he shushed her, grateful for the information.

"Beats me, sergeant," he said, and went back to knitting everyone a corporal intermediary who they could call on to deal with that kind of thing from there on in.

9

Three kinds of people.

If there are three kinds of people then there is only one kind of person and that's the one in the middle trying to explain the sameness of the other two types, which makes one big same one.

"Paying attention to a limited few has not benefited any of us one iota," gunner No.1 says. "There are roughly 7 billion types of person. This way it all gets that much clearer. This way it is much more difficult to misunderstand one's position in the world. Because, boys, I am slowly beginning to suspect that I am not supposed to be a sniper."

That and a group hug leads us into the 6th tenth of the new millennium, crawling on each others hands and knees, looking for the light. R&R and I like this fool's cap. I don't wear it if I'm wearing shorts, but if I'm in smart trousers and I've got a clean shirt on it looks okay. Valerie does a runner and we spend 8 months locked in a heavenly embrace. I pamper the binoculars while she pampers the tripod. Two people - one event. Always one event. Close up.

What we got out of it I could not say because during that whole period we didn't utter one word to each other. We didn't give the events anything resembling a label and so the moments bleed like soft water colours into the present giving a dream-sheen to the lines created by the architect's pens we yield and the sooth you say and the grail we found which we filled with liquid and sometimes drank but sometimes used for cooling ourselves at every parallel reached and every law breached.

One - we aimed high

Two - we shared everything

Three - we made love

Four - we had it out with the Riptiles and Viverids all hours of the day and even tried yoga for a spell. Salsa over my dead body. Valerie sleeping. Paint on her's.

We eloped after a fashion. But only after everyone saw us married.

Then Boojum left a bus ticket in his black shirt pocket on wash day and had to leave for war.

The Saigon days do all blend into one till you're fighting. Or till they put you to work.

"They don't have the word 'logic'."

"I'm not sure they use clocks either."

"No words over one syllable."

"No discipline without they have dollar."

"Even then."

"The roosters crow all day."

"So do the mothers."

"The women all seem temporary."

"The dogs and the cats and the geckos use only one syllable at a time."

"The rats seem pernament."

I love it when she says it like that. Pernament.

Note: Do not make a soldier (or a dame) feel bad about doing something bad, he or she will make you feel worse. Instead, use chastisement like a flippant (and humorous when possible) counter three or four weeks after aforementioned 'bad behaviour', and then let it go.

Boojum had told his sergeant too much.

"But the dogs! Those fucking dogs! They stopped at about 5am. I can still hear them, serge'. That was six hours nonstop barking at nothing, serge'. There was no one out there, serge'. I would rather we were ambushed than keep those fucking dogs. And I know you like dogs, sir but there is a time and a place for puppy worship and it ain't during no war. I will put a bullet into each of their tiny, furry, empty heads if you don't reassign them back to grandma and grandpa on the ol' family homestead in the middle of pigfuck Pennsylvania immediately. I will sell them to the enemy for food!"

"That's it, boy!" The sergeant affected a sergeant roar. Comes naturally to some but Semtex kinda hoks it.

"You are on recon' for two goddamn weeks."

Boojum spent two weeks on his belly and chin in the mud and the water and the lizards and shit wondering where everything went wrong. The political and moral world like a dodgy two dimensional pre-renaissance painting of something that never existed. Boojum knew that it was exactly this type of thinking that had put him neck deep into the dangerous swamps of South Vietnam, scouting for dangerous people who would do horrible things to him if he was discovered. Just like the dogs, painting and poetry had no place in a war.

Once, on movements, Boojum had told the guys how the Ho Chi Minh trail was like an Escher sketch. First he had to spell the word to them because they couldn't understand what he had just said and then when he was explaining what an Escher drawing was like, one of the boys shouted, "WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON!?"

"Rather than put the dogs down, Semtex would have me tortured and killed."

Boojum felt guilty when the dog patrols came to the end of their service and were euthanized by reluctant South Vietnamese soldiers.

The dogs were 'equipment' that needed to be discarded.

"Semtex would have me tortured and killed."

The dogs had had no choice. Boojum had had a choice. Boojum's fourth dimension came too late to forgive those yapping dogs and the sergeant.

He had returned successfully (he had survived), unsuccessfully (he had learned nothing new) from his punishment recon.

Gunner No.1 got it right. Seven billion types. It's the situations there are a limited amount of. There's always space in the brain of the laziest dog to discuss poetry. It is not however always the correct time or the correct place to talk of such things.

Gunner No.1 mentioned his desire to write a book about a stone, but only the once. He mentioned it to Boojum because he felt sorry for him and didn't want him to feel alienated. He's not called gunner No.1. His Mother named him Hap.

10

"There are two types of situation in the world."

"There are two types of situation in the world. One where you have to do something and the other where you don't have to do anything. Women prefer the first."

Crane: I disagree

Thuy: I do too

Me: There might be three

Hap: I need a poo

The serge' liked to expound his unfounded generalisations after about 10 Buds.

People who control things and people who create things

workhorses and showponies

dickheads and pussies

the living and the dead

men and masculine women

those who give and those who take (he said this after giving the last mouthful of J.D. to Crane at the end of a big night. He then took Crane's cot.)

those who are big and those who try to make people look small

tacks and carpets

windows and wind

doors and bores

ships and shores

As and Zs

you and me

Riptiles and Viverids

"I have been all those things.

A bullet in the back. In my sleep. A dream of being shot. The pain is real, but only for a split second and then I am awake. A slow-quick realisation. It is not Valerie lying next to me."

11

Vung Tau.

The frogman on tippy toe wants the zither thing the Vietnamese play - he sat his wife next to a sneezing one who puked rice onto himself and his seat - It's a shame, she says, it must be embarrassing. She's got a cold so she can't smell a thing. Boojum can. Driven like they're being whipped by caustic retail along the caustic highway, paddy fields and expat erections hid in the sand - blood orange. A cocaine memory of the eighties in beautiful souvenirs left on his phone. A walk alone - A Vietnam drone. Them's heated corpuscles made relic by Czecho-Slovensko gratitude and Wembley players. The shuttlecock primed and world series replays. The kitties-n-holiday relay run on the soundtracks of my tears in the playground of years, over the war time toll booths closed for repairs and a gallery of agents splitting hairs, spitting feathers and ripping yarns. The sights don't entertain us; we entertain ourselves with the thoughts connected to the sights. We entertain ourselves all the time.

"I'm happy you're my husband," Lara says. "I'm happy you're my wife," Boojum says.

"I respect the sea," she says. "I fear the sea," she says.

The push-me-pull-you of the waves and the head full of songs about peace it implies.

"You can never can tell can you? Do you can tell?"

Boojum closes his eyes but continues walking. Forty seven seconds then the water touches his toes and that makes him open his eyes and that makes him laugh. He could have walked to the end of the beach with his eyes closed but, "I couldn't see the end of the beach."

That's right - ten hut - cholesterol - five times smaller - the quail's eggs - singing troopers - communists rehearsing stocking seams, but no, they all go barefoot here. Double yolk memory in a seafood stomach lined with back of the bike careerers and a promise of homeland security. A marine with a gun - a chicken with an attitude. A taste of Saigonese-replenish-booty and a kick the weight of a whale full of gas.

"It all comes bubblin' up to the surface, dude; that lack of inspiration the hangover streams - A day of plenitude bursts like a capillary hot-dog stand covered the sausage in pancake and I'm filled to here with fucking sugar, brother; filled to here with laughing trash. A rooftop gulas made Slovakian handrail, potatoes, beer pong, birdsong and the boy on the burning deck lamenting the loss of an i-Pad, a camera and a wristphone. 96 swam to shore, blogged.

Isolated in their potraviny, a corner shop of the world they can call Howm.

A cake for dinner.

A cake for dinner.

A cosi-fan-tutti polluted saint-winner.

This is what it looks like when you don't forfeit your right to an opinion.

"Get it right!

Get it right!

You're out of step and your show is tonight!"

One thousand tales under the branches of one repeated Bonsai tree; one seed rolling uphill and read backwards by a devil-obsessed monk-woman the shopkeepers shun, until she's saint-won.

There are no angry cannibals waiting for us at the end of this path. I heard that down there they don't even vote - come off it with your pea knuckle shuffle and overbearing poobah. You could have shifted for the girl; the poor innocent creature just waiting and waiting for all your kafuffle and lousy parents to pass till you could sit it out with the best of us and rest your chin five minutes while you texted your guardian you made up just now so you didn't have to hold your neighbour's gaze across the social skating rink you covet.

She hums and smiles and staring into the mirror, putting on her make up she says, "So many times I have painted the same painting. On this same canvas." And then I think of you, you little snot rag, going and ruining all the beauty of the moment with your Nazi shorts and cheap ass tippery. You are not for why we came here. But the stinking fat fly passes from shit to shit, lands on my page and I am jolted back to the beautiful with a thousand more beautiful perspectives focused on one buzzing word.

Karaoke comes wishing down the road on a teenager's hardship and even her surgical mask can't hide that smile. Yes, they will all sing at the drop of a helmet...

At least 41 official ongoing conflicts. Anti war songs, slogans, poems, paintings, films, and plays don't work. I shook hands with the left stump he offered. With his right he indicated a missing left leg.

"Stood on a mine. Very sad," he tells me.

"Yeah," I said.

But when things go inward there is nothing to do and something to do and both states congregate like warring factions on all 7 billion specks of consciousness. Time to read. Time to sleep.

Boojum turns on his other side and then his other and curses the Gods of insomnia that he doesn't have another side.

No, it is not Valerie.

Painting the scene outside with sound, he can picture vividly each squalid alley, every brushless face, the infinity of legless transports conveying the not so innocent top gear fanatics to their daily battle to coax another wish from the incredulous genie doesn't believe in human humans anymore.

"At least I'm not running around Central Africa with a gun in my hand being shot at." This and a variety of others keeping him sane his whole life. Nothing that could be as bad as running around Iraq being shot at, running around Afghanistan being shot at, running around Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Vietnam...

How many times had he woken up with that sharp pain in the lower middle of his back? Sometimes he sees it coming, sometimes he hears a warning, sometimes he only suspects, but every time he feels the pain which brings him back to life again.

...and Boojum swims headily into the carefree melody of the 'banjo boy'. He grins through bleeding teeth, only his cheeks smiling at the clink clink of Lara's breakfast preparations.

"How could anyone who got a kick out of George Formby have ever bayoneted anyone in the neck?"

"Beats me," Lara says.

Boojum put on his shirt and his trousers and his coat and his hat of the very very best and inquired as to the whereabouts of his musket, fife and drum.

"Haven't the foggiest," Lara sighs.

"They called me a coward and a traitor because I refused to lay mines. It's the ones who lay the mines that are cowardly. Where's the sense in that?"

"Baby, can you wait till I've finished up here, I'm up to my eyes," Lara lies.

The playlist he created for her, yet there was so much more to do outside the sundry armaments and pratfalls they had pre-arranged for the rainy days which may or may never come, "Even just the drum..."

"I'm busy, can't you not see? Stop bothering me."

Valerie would have sung to him. Valerie would have held him. Valerie would have brought him his musket, fife and drum and been dern glad of it. To serve a soldier on his day of rest, to hand him his clothes of the very very best.

But it was not Valerie. In which life had he known a Valerie?

Lara spoke.

"When are you going to go out with your banjo? It's just sitting there."

"I have decided to only sing anti-war songs."

"Since when."

"Since I woke up today."

"I don't think you are properly awake yet, dear. Why anti-war songs?"

"They are the only songs worth singing."

"All songs are anti-war songs."

"Why do you say that?"

"I haven't thought about it. Are you going to translate each one into every language? You should address each song to a different president or a king or an emperor, a dictator, a prime minister. Hit us at the source. Wait, no, the universities, wait, no, the kindergartens....wait, no, but hon'....we've been doing that already. It doesn't work."

"That's what Hap said."

"Who?"

"Hap."

"Who's Hap?"

Boojum caught himself.

"Beats me."

12

Re-read

Rereading the already rooted, output shot. A punch in the air clarifies the robot made of real to real, this time wasting on a dot com rot is bullshit - it rots just the same. Impatience is a rotting. The sort of rot Boojum does not need. Nobody does. Impatient for what? And why you want to question HIM anyways; he's given you all the answers you need. Now we in editing mode. What you gonna say about that?

We always in editing mode.

Do. It. Better.

One thing cannot transmigrate. One thing does not even evolve.

Her sneezing uncle.

He was shot years ago. Still poking his head from the Cu Chi tunnels and counting the wounded and the dead and the distance to a decent meal and a hot change of subject. You win a war, they got a song for that. You lose a war, they got a song for that too. And if there's no war, we just keep on singing anyway.

The screaming death throws of a kid not yet started - an old tale of a violent father and an underfed respect. A quiet mother slaps amongst the brothers flip flop off with a police siren mattress under their armpits and an empty dope book that will stick as strong as their belief in an Uber Robot that can zap dragons of any culture or red carpet feature - or shiny cuffs of a puff'n'stuff about to explode.

And then breathe in - that book-filled air. The no nonsense ins and outs of the coast and its hairline boats and pencil thin crustaceans from here. Oh, and from just not far from here more further but worth it, the bally hoo you forgot you forgot you left inside when the lego pirate ships sailed off with your youth and forced you to write will upon will in your own stinking blood all the things you'll leave behind and who to and what for and did anyone care what you had in the first place. Maybe if you'd taken the pirate ship when you had the chance. We coulda done with the laugh. Now all you got is planks you carved your initials on in hellish fear of the sharks and the scurvy that would wipe you from all memory. Is that what it's for - to remember you by? A hollow skiff that, for a would-be analyst and a stone cold killer. And I asked Long Gone John, "What's the secret?" and he said, "Enjoy it while it lasts." Cancer got him. He also said, "Never walk down stairs with your hands in your pockets." Boojum forgot that one time and lost a tooth. He had been enjoying himself up till then.

...or like being underwater listening to the bubblefucks of radio fish clattering in purposeful gargle - deliberate clearing of the guitar chords; sailors, long swallowed, harping on about everything. One solitary Barbary beach blackout slopes by, babe in arms and chinos shining - teeth ablaze on edge on cue.

"Take a breath once in a millennium, wuddya!" Hap leans back in his seat; a respite from his duty, only a tiny remonstrate from his angular leads him back into his sea dive and soul-reboot. Neck stiff and his sweetheart hoping for a line.

"Do you.......

nevermind."

Into a turquoise night lay out like water in a tea tray. All neighbours should know better. Only 'H' comprehends the distance one must keep from oneself and this knowledge alone makes him an Impossible bet; a living genius.

While others creep about themselves like an option, he wades into the homes of strangers, arms outstretched and for the taking. No expression severe till it's too severe. There is nothing you could ask him that would not become his work.

We build on our hunger discussing bodies we would and wouldn't eat. Insects we wouldn't. People we would.

13

Winter Wonderland.

Bing Crosby decking the halls appropriately Januarily and locals in t-shirts (i-Pho) mixing it up on the beaches - Away away away in a manger and Mickey and Minnie in the shade making Zen gardens with pebbles in the sand - eye height and murmuring, "Buh buh buh but he beat his wife so they tell me. What would Walt say?"

"He probably beat his wife too." And there you have your oily ship sailing in on Christmas day in the morning, 42 degrees and a sweltering desire for salty fish that don't talk. It's a jive ass mix like that which makes this the swoonest festive season fading into a lunar new year we shall ever tred. Gently around the bottle rockets and glinty-eyed city folk. Rank for rank a joy to behold and a bless and a batter on the door with a "So do you want the melons or not?" Thanks Bing, you really lift me fist and pipe and all the things you said. I mean how many glorious Summers before everyone can dig this sort of a banjo jack-off Tuesday (they call it)? Ooh Benny Goodman does me good too. How about you? You dig that crazy swinging pole alert - The horror, the horror, the beer cooler farrer herer dearer sit on this and tell me what you think she went into the South China sea all dressed up in a pink jumpsuit for.

They is dreamy sleepy sorts for weeks. He's a hairy London gangster - her sandy. Her hippy. Him tummy. No snowmen, but the marijuana and the airplane and the gobful is of jazz. Mroom, nam nam, mrooooom, nam.

Boojum sees Lara through the corners of his eyes when she slinks into the third verse like Doris Day; a soft promise of a cigarette that will never do you any type of harm and a moll's kiss that will last a lifetime.

The body surfers coming in strong and hard now, tones like the plastic food containers and seafarer's broken vessels doubled up on the shore and laughing at all their near misses. We'll just get stoned and forget it, right? We'll get high and just leave it at that. I'm in no hurry to die, brother. Keep on sending your songs. The ones with the funny titles like 'You're definitely from Hell, girl.'

"How like a child," Boojum thinks, "Alex making sandcastles." While he sits simmering in his throne listening in a preen to Nat King Cole's Christmas Song. He then supposes we are all offering our happiest memories to the universe even in the movements we make to balance ourselves - the words we choose to balance things.

Every minute of it counts, so the shore says.

Every wave, wand and buoy. Every grain, shadow and drum beat. Artie Shaw begins his begin agin.

"A fine view. But nothing happens when you look at it."

"The view must take you in. Then you have your memory, Boojum. The song you are listening to at the moment will not remind you of where you are now until you are long gone from here and it plays again in some far off room of your mind. Of course nothing happens when you look at it. Terrible events. Too much happening in those instants to effectively describe the horror of the situation. Only years later, or years before (sometimes lifetimes) will a certain song play and give you all the time in the world to remember/predict to yourself and to others the very very bad things which happened/will happen."

"Not such a child this Alex," Boojum reflects.

Silence as good as the word. Distant battered boats, a glimpse into the sketchbook of an ordinary soothsayer still crawling on his plucked knees for the quartermaster's own toilet roll. I'll roll again- I can see your asshole.

And as Semtex said it, he flung his head back in a pose as if to laugh, but didn't. He just stayed like that forever.

Boojum took a shower. Let them write what they want on the sand. It's for the crabs you made me sing that lullaby. The sideways Sinatra you romance in G-minor. Your string, your Mom and your gluey gruel.

"I'll let you in on a secret. I was never anywhere near a fire fight. I made that shit up. You forgive me?" Hap says.

"I'm relieved for you," Deek says.

"You think she wants to be done it to?" Hap says.

"I think you should relieve yourself," Deek says. Deek was quiet, but Deek was sometimes friendly. The Serge' getting his head blown off was a time to be friendly.

Deek.

You can see it in the way he looks at you when you ask him "You know this music, or that music?" that he doesn't and he never will want to. Like some old gentleman from a classier time, a more romantic time. A time belonging to real cool.

The seventies is not a period which recognised such calm and beauty and style and pacing of oneself.

Or overfacing in such a way that even that would be recorded for posterity.

14

On the beach.

Boojum's baby holding court as the tide goes out and he is brought back to his charge. The men in whom I and the women in whom. All those shoulders on whom.

"Vietnam War music or Persian Gulf War music?"

"Vietnam."

Was Boojum's turn to keep an eye on the junk a soldier needs to make him feel safe.

Sun glasses, dollars, prophylactics, cigarettes, towels, trowels and A.K. 47s.

He watched his boys at play in the virgin white sands like only boys can. Girls never seeming to understand the endless activity an untouched beach offers a boy of unlearned imagination.

The radio playing some old time classics.

Boojum's boys build forts; wrestle in the surf, strong swimmers each and every one. If nothing else comes to mind, show off.

Every one is watching you on a beach.

Bare flesh so damn interesting. What a body does with it. How a body holds it.

There's your holiday. Sleeping en plein air, half naked without a care.

Sun burn a tender souvenir of an afternoon's freedom.

All the girls gather now to watch the boys.

"This is the way it was meant to be," Boojum thinks.

Do what the sun demands. Fuck and burn.

Someone has buried Hap in the sand up to his neck.

"A soldier's life for me!" Hap cries.

"This is the life," Boojum mutters to himself.

"You ain't experienced nuthin' till you've had time to get bored with it," Alex says.

Boojum didn't expect that. Boojum looks to the sun. Unchanged. An old friend. The oldest.

A container ship. One of ours or one of theirs?

15

On the bus

Once again with the vomiting and the bags and the horns and the crabbiness mobiled, cauterised and monopoly.

"You got one more thing to say to me?"

"Always."

16

The 5 year plan.

A farm. A quail. A hen. A goat. A pond. A boat. A studio. A local. A nurse. A game. A time. A coat. A well. A barrel. A child. A home. A plot. A good soldier. A grandfather's chest. A shirt of the very very best. A rustic farmhouse kitchen. A farmhouse wife. A farmhouse wine. A farmhouse cheese. A neighbour. A walk. A forest. A lake. A bicycle. A comfortable seat. A banjo.

17

Home.

Boojum had to use words while he could. Just these weeds now. A crazy farmer with a weird diary, that's all.

"Sounds too good to be true."

"Then I'll do it for you."

Butter melting on the balcony for butties and the chip-chip-chip-chip of a gecko hidden by the A.C., V.C. and A.B.C.

Then he gets that nasal smell in his forlobes and he knows this is where he is supposed to be. "Only I can tell that to me."

"It'll take three weeks for the postcards to get there," Lara says.

"Let's write it like it's future time and tell them things we think we will be doing then. How things are/will be."

Then Boojum imagines that this proposed postcard arrives home to his family full of humorous and positive stories and with scenes beautifully painted, but he and Lara die the day after posting it. Too too tragic. He bins the idea. The sadness he feels hurts him more than makes sense. Names hover before the tip of his tongue: Semtex - Hap \- Deek - Valerie - Crane...

Boojum sketches all the shit he can see in the patterns on the floor tiles. He considers how people sketch things which are not really there into everything every minute of the day and suddenly the day melts away into the type of smudgy crap Boojum sees when he closes his eyes and tries to visualise the sheep he's counting or the white light he's supposed to walk into.

He chooses a subject:

Sex - There it is in the floor tiles, a hypogryph fucking a teddy bear.

Fighting - There it is, a hypogryph punching a teddy bear.

Beauty - There's the fashion model, bent back posing for the photographer teddy bear.

Picnic - Fat bricks with faces sitting in a circle eating grinning fishes on an exploding beach.

Flowers - the rhizomes reaching delicately into the vagina of an upturned, legs spread body builder. She's scattering the seeds below her head like eyeball marbles into the Dali-landscape-underworld.

Nothing can be hidden if everything can be revealed in anything. If Boojum keeps a secret from himself it is God's will. Nothing is missing. A 'secret' is born.

He cannot see something in the tiles which is not there and he is limited even then to his own memory. Archetypes leap out, memories seep, reality comes last.

The sparrow abroad has nothing to do, but wait for that long-ass letter from you.

He picks from the infinity of lines offered by archetypes, memories and reality. Sketches monsters in alphabetty spaghetti nouvea Ferlinghetti; a humping banana-can, pole dancing yeti. Same same but different.

18

Turtle Park conversations.

One pony strike with tricks enough for Saigonese flautists, Kung Fu misters;

"Hello."

"Happy New Year!"

"You are very lucky man."

"I apologise for the honesty but you must lose weight and start wearing men's shoes. No offense."

"We could fit sixteen of us shop Geisha's (and there are sixteen of us) in your boot heel. Take us home as a Seventieth present for your old man."

"I've been doing this since I was four, you just kick higher that's all."

"Nickel shun the solo pasta maker, your Yankee dimes don't turn noodles into anything but noodles."

"I don't need no partner, I got a bike and I can count to a hundred."

"I'm in the park."

Lack of consciousness is not nothing. It is the opposite of 'something and nothing'. We have created nothing out of something. We can move on.

"I cannot sketch a 'nothing' from the patterns on this tile, this cracked pavement, these fluttering shadows. As it is with existence - There was no nothing before - only this. Lucky for us the possibilities are limited to infinity. And yet, we still spend our time putting things on top of other things. And things still fall down."

"Do you think 'falling things' feel lucky?" Lara asks Boojum. "You know. Relieved."

Boojum never wanted to ride a bike in the first place, or walk or crawl. Always such a struggle to move from here to there. This, he suspects, was not his own idea. Or did curiosity really get the better of him?

Gotta learn, gotta read, gotta look around the corner, communicate your needs and your feelings:

poo

food

hug

You know when I'm tired, I will sleep. You know when I am dead, I will stop communicating with you (probably).

"Look I made you a Picture. Look I made you a story. Feed me....hug me..."

Boojum saw what they were all looking for. PERMISSION to stop looking.

"This," he thought, "you give to yourself."

More rewards for the entertainer than the farmer or the spouse. More food AND more hugs.

"Give me peace."

"Give it to yourself."

You gotta help me walk this off. I'm ready for you now.

19

You don't have to be near something to do something to something.

There she is. I called for that. I drew an eagle on her back - he drew the sky - We got together and started a business - called it 'Whothehellami' - We did well for the first 10,000 years then we hired this bozo fucked us over by showing off he was working for the guys who put the eagle in the sky, and he goes on T.V. and shoots off his mouth about how this woman we painted on was nowhere near the pen when we did it. Like that makes a difference. We killed him and lost a few quid during the messy legal shit but people know better than to believe you gotta be near something to do something to something.

We're still making hands over fists.

20

If there are no rules, it's not a game.

Downside Sale's sales because side to side because reliable solo positions don't grow on trees and there's got to be more to a tirade charade than an e-book homonym cryptologist's nephew hoping to get off with his aunt

\- Okay, so I don't got what it takes to be no abstract artist but I make up in cheap what I lose in class. A whole Jack Daniels and I ain't walking outta here alive - non of youse is - like an odour - like a heart fonder - like an empty chick all lost and out of sorts - "I came here to learn English. Broke, out of luck and just turn up the volume, lover."

Valerie reminded Boojum of Crane...

"Seriously man, turn that fucker up." Like we're in a taxi and he is all, "Turn that bitch up, man. Hey, hey, hey, yeah, turn it up, man."

"This man Crane," Boojum says to himself, "this man has found himself. My embarrassment is all my issue - I goddamn love this asshole."

And here comes a magic day parade of daughters who I will protect with all I have left in me of decency, brilliance and worry. Until lasties.

Predict and read the men wearing stars and flower gathering humuments - wastrels want not for wanting but were weary otherwise - I'm sure if you say it fast enough it will sound smart. Funny or smart - depending on one's intonation and one's attire. Thanks for the tips and the tepees, I will get to know every one of your filthy homes - Safe on the veranda, high above the propaganda, pen and Jocinda (Boojum's runaway slave). He keeps her for last and savours every penny of her.

He turns his back to her, one bear claw at a time and he'd do it quicker if he had a fire escape.

"I dreamed I sent you 'Billy Budd' to watch and save and never you mind how I got hold of it or where I'm burning right now or why I'm grinding right now, breathing now, twitching slowly squirting right now. I see it all from my ivory tower - best kind of towers there are, you mark my words."

"I'm pleased with the way things went down. They're building allsorts." The happy face of communism in a negligee nighty pulled round tightly.

She never got loose.

21

Purposefully leg bastions.

Boojum still cannot surf far in the hotel cable channels without seeing a Vietnamese or Korean lady-girl crying tears from their short, dark come-throughliness.

No dilemma, he tells himself, once you are in the middle of the story - there's definitely an ending and there's definitely a book in my hands - no dilemma.

I never want to leave the rooftop - I shall work from here.

Soft city centre wherewithal, curly hair perspiration. Kipping overlong for their benefit and their virtue. To forget.

XFM wakes them \- the universe unwound, gone all west electro and unfiltered disco on the two of them. It's earlier than you think all of the time.

"I have been crying out loud for crying out loud!" The couch is yours, Valerie, Jocinda, Lara. The soft lines of hard brick which I can't find words light enough to copy - 'soft' too fat to be light. 'Light' too bright to be soft. Arms too miserable to exercise as frequently as was when...

Sitting too close to his chest, his heart beats a soft but fat rhythm and makes him light headed, like the soft lines of hard brick on the buildings he draws. The crystal skyscrapers and tin hovels, the dexterous cooks and the coffee squirrel. Soft, light, fat and hard. Crane elbows his way into the conversation with real instruments (time travelling ones) but too few talent for a harder fall than the American war ever promised.

"Where has our spaceship landed this morning?" Crane says. "It looks like Vietnam."

Crane arrived in a Chinook with the artillery. He was a noisy Yank but useful.

Today I will crucify some paintings; make them martyrs for their death row breakfast of bacon and eggs and make pinnacles of their triple axels - You saw 'em! And the high notes.

22

The house that shadows built parts 1 & 2

I saw 'em! The house that shadows built parts high and low. I see you. I se you. The fallen 'e' riddle on serious tongues bitten when apple bitten and sharply through waves and cheers and wave waves.

Girl shoals probably animalistic have got BJ sounded. Sound it out. Round roll of the mouth makes fire of the words some long dead fart emitted, recorded and squandered - oh the meanings he could have given it given a little patience and a lot fewer comrades hassling him for a price.

"Give us our money's worth you S.O.B. Give us something we can get our teeth into."

Boojum put purple ribbons over the stinking hole of his memory and spelled it out for them, and so undid 'em.

So he listens to Christians sing and looks the sunset right in its face. 10 minutes or so. "We toppling over, but them, they are in tune. They sound strong in their gang. Can't see them but they do sound strong. The preacher prompts them and they sound so...full of grace. The biggest catch of all though - none all that comfortable unless they're earning."

Lara keeps looking and speaking.

"He grabbed my bag, pulled me along with him. Tore it but didn't take it. Left fast on his bike." Out of tune the solo beggars belief. Like seraphim, their timing couldn't be more or less. Neither of those.

"You don't have to have it all figured out," she says.

"Sounds like you have it all figured out," Boojum says.

T.V. aeriels in mountain pose to pierce the sun as it approaches the horizon as unaware of perspective as the T.V. aerials, though they never get it wrong even when they be shrinking things. Oh how they love to shrink things.

23

The A to Y of cooperative responsibility.

Standing waiting for a No.38 bus to district 10, Boojum knew what they were doing. They were doing reconnaissance for their unborn child. See that the world is safe enough. A man with a future past of some worth. Boojum felt safe. Cooperative responsibility. Duty to others being a duty to oneself. Boojum grows taller by a foot. Boojum thinks of those who sacrificed their lives for his. Boojum has forgotten most of the people who sacrificed their lives for his.

Imagination is a killer during war and peace time. To carry over, from that life to this life, the clarity of mind, the hard headed ability not to lose oneself in phantom fears and philosophical folly. Boojum meditated on this and tried to taste the scenery trundling past the bus window. Squatting on a blue, foot high cushioned seat next to a schoolgirl a third his size he attempted to list, for future reference and a suppler memory slate, the gentle people in street hammocks, the blackened feet, cracked, full of petrol and dust, the occasional English word flashing on a dentist's surgery wall, the odd photo advertisement of a white woman modelling the whitest white teeth or a hairdresser's salon open onto the road like a roaring twenties gangster flic about to wake into life the bullet ridden corpses making noisome chit chat between snot snorting grunts of mucousy discomfort, rancid plastic buckets and basins full with lettuce and leaves and half born ducklings, toxins in tossed-to-the-gutter, thin plastic ice-cups, toxins in the gawp of ghandified veterans feebly conducting their family and tin pots and freezerless meats and dish-cloth dogs and skinny kerosene-cats and pudgy, clean blue-white children straight home from classes with 'love' and 'peace' and 'kitty' on their satchels and watch your cotton sockses the pavement is three deep with scooters and tressels and tables and business meetings, busy mouths barking sharper than the bark of the feistiest dog, fake puma flip flops and exquisite, ankle-length green dresses fight for attention amidst loogies and lady boys and metre square drawing rooms displayed to the masses and emotionless caresses of eyes above masks taking the town to task for its blatant acceptance of a western dystopia and dirty washing hung out on the telephone wires and rusting back yard railings, misunderstood slogans on teenager's t-shirts and a love of American fast food.

'Goodbye Crorodile. Friendship.'

Stop shopping and beat them for good.

Back in their own pristine, clean, white, top floor apartment Boojum looks out over the glistening, light undulation of buildings hugging and overlapping, complimenting and attracting, like the fluffy pillowing clouds of heaven, where the alluring, all but forgotten Hollywood starlets sit, swinging their cumulus legs over the silver linings, pointing at a pair of frisky sparrows miles below, dangling their fake designer pumps from their pretty little angel toes. This one goes then that one goes and Boojum sees the two Jimmy Choo shooting stars, one of a million daylight anomolies he has witnessed since landing in this celestial city.

He runs to the future mother of his child...

"This is how I imagine the apartments of the blessed will look in heaven," Boojum tells Lara. "You know, after you have spent the day outside, in that big wide open space full of people but it never seems crowded and you've played your games and you've had all your sex and you've laughed your fill and eventually you have to rest for a while before you go out and do it all over again. This is the place you would come back to. Nothing too ostentatious, but clean, fresh and as comfortable as hell."

More cars and barbed wire, more soldiers and sandbags.

Less tall tall buildings, less burgers and donuts.

More jeeps, same beeps. More wary, more scary, more bombs and b-girls and passwords and g-males, same markets and clothes and haggles and side-saddles, same songs and statues, different songs and riddles and guesses and guys taking photos of girls in long dresses.

Less Ho Chi Minh. Less sin.

Pall Malls, cheap gals, ride on the range, people are strange.

They called Vung Tau 'The Riviera of the Orient'. Spurious hogwash to help burp the newbies.

"I think I loved my gun. And my uniform." Boojum talks in his sleep.

"What are you saying, dear?"

"I loved my gun. I loved my gun. By gum I loved my gun. And Valerie loved the uniform. Oh, brother did she love that uniform. Hee hee heeee."

"Who did what now?!"

"Maxwell house, baby, Maxwell House." And back to dramamine sleep in the vain of a Hammer House of Horror story warring bloodless busty white vampires against the wits of a four year old basking in his glory infront of a full length mirror, shaking and giggling, making faces and fists and seeing it all in the refection of his own future.

"AAAAHHHHHGGGHHHH HAHAHAAAAAA!"

24

Cloud 9

Lara says. 246 exoplanets found so far. 7 Billion types of person is a weak estimate.

"We used to be dumb enough to believe the world was flat or that our little corner of the world was the centre of the planet's activity. Finding neighbours overseas, over mountains, beyond the forests must have been like a spoilt only child getting an unwanted brother. We've been sulking this whole time. Lashing out at people who didn't ask to be here like it's their fault. You want to be killing Charlie?"

Boojum had to stop and think. Lying on their ponchos, on their backs in the evening heat, staring up at the Milky Way, he and Hap felt okay.

"No."

"Me too. It's going to get us killed. It's a bad attitude. We have a bad attitude."

Smiling at the irony, Boojum asked, "You think they want to be killing us?"

"Yes. No. We came here for them to shoot at, right?"

"You put it that way," Boojum said.

"If you two shitwads don't shut the fuck up in twelve seconds I'm going to shoot you for them."

Deek was a light sleeper. Worst kind in a war.

"You know, the first question I was asked when I arrived here was by some journalist.' What does it feel like when you see someone get shot for the first time? Does it get easier after that?' I didn't know but the guy next to me answered. Slowly. 'First time...yes. It's a shock. It affects you, you know. But then yes. It gets easier.' That's what everyone wants to know. 'What does it feel like? What does it feel like? What's it like to be shot?

What's it like to kill? What's it like to see your friends blown up? What's it like? What's it like?' Motherfuckers, man."

25

Lara lay

As Lara lay, the world and sagacity-go-hounds bulldozered the behind of incessant aggravated elections. Votes and riots melded into a shipping district which hardly harms one multiplied by another one, but pelts welts onto the legs of the mighty. She don't notice and he don't notice and neither do the trilobites, Viverid's great great marmadukes and ancestors in holy stone. Semtex been boned. Long time now. Not dug.

She turns on her side. A lover lay. Semtex put away for safe keeping. And just to clarify, the dreams we have are ignored, right? I wasn't there. You weren't there and we never said those things had me laughing in my sleep, made me scream the house awake, made me shoot a load into my boxers or lash out at the bedside table giving myself bloody knuckles. Could have thrust the other way. You were lucky today.

They don't mean a thing then this don't mean a thing. It's most of it spilling outta this brain box anyhow. It's all the ammunition we got. God choppers in these thoughts of mine and not just for ten hours a day but all the time. The notes don't make me crazy; just gives me more memories than you. More to look at when I'm sitting on the beach, in my garden, on my bed.

Boojum turns the light off and tries to recollect all the bedrooms he's ever slept in. An effective tool for scooping out lost treasures. He trowels through boys and girls and relatives he hasn't thought of in years, decades, and feels buoyant on the mattress, happy of his history and there it is....that smoke filled, whisky stinking, thick with nervous farts, full with infectious laughter Long Binh barracks. Semtex at the helm of the conversation and the boys, Deek, Crane, Hap, himself and a few other stragglers clinging on for dear life, to their private pot party and particularities.

Semtex is impersonating the Vietnamese talking and he sounds like Mickey Mouse gunfire. He's babbling mostly like a Southern American Adrian Cronauer, and then, in some rare flourish of emotion, he mentions his son. Boojum sees the scene so clearly he knows this is not from any dream. He remembers also the feeling that washed through the room at the mention of the sergeant's son. The serge' just got human. The war just got human. The serge' looked up, only for a nanosecond but it was enough for one or two of the troops to feel that chink opening in their armour. A vulnerability they had not felt yet this early in their tour of duty. The gutfelt comprehension that they had families and they could all die. Of course they drank themselves through that moment with alacrity and focused instead on the holiday camp they were residing in, for the time being. The serge' continued his monologue which was interspersed with whistles from the wasted grunts, dirty guffaws and noisy jeering as that atmosphere of contradictory elements embedded itself into their souls like some flesh eating virus laying dormant as long as they remained high enough.

26

Merry Happy

or

Time Waits for no Man.

'Communism' - What it looks like now and how it sounded to us, then.

Two things Boojum liked.

\- the clickety clack of his memory-rifle

"It was an M1 carbine. Semi-automatic. I miss it. Sometimes I can still hear it. In my gut and in my nipples and at the back of my throat I can hear it, clicking and clanking like only a rifle can."

\- and baseball

Two things Boojum didn't like

\- Centennials

\- and war stories.

Tell us another:

... tell us a filthy, dirty, horrifying war story to solidify the gruesome fact of it. One so clear and brain-shakingly visceral that we can feel what they felt and promise ourselves never to go there again. Then tell us another.

No slippery rope barrack soap under the table after thoughts. Give us the pear shaped ass truth of the moment and all its tendrils and sicknesses. The spreading rot of gangreenous tales and pulcritudes blossoming in the light touch of a youngman's death knell.

The head hung there like a flying saucer, just hovering above his shoulders for minutes it seemed and then poof, it was gone.

"At least I don't have to carry the weight of it back to the chopper," he thought.

Or heavy handed so you can smell it, like you could see the gooey red and yellow guts bubbling out like the mushy leftovers of a Thanksgiving Day meal spilling from the rough tears in a bin bag the pet beagle has set upon.

Or heavier. No similis. Just the thing. Thick gobs of blood and flesh spattered onto his bare knee and hung there while they waited for the lieutenant to give them the signal to move on.

Heavier still. A photograph. Even then. The shattered skull not poetic-looking enough, like a cow skull, or a sand castle in elephant grass.

And the heaviest.

You go there and you fight there and you are the photo and the literature and the poem and the journalist's report.

Then how does it look? The war story pulling and pushing and curling on the tongue like the hot blooded seagull lost in the city, beak for food not for pity. Not pity they seek but a proper concur, 'DID YOU SEE THAT!!??' and relying on words. And yes, okay you saw it, but DID YOU FEEL THAT!!??' and yes okay you felt something but, DO YOU KNOW ME!!?? And so on until death parts you. I know you to look at but you never had a name.

Nothing does. That's why the difficulty in communication. That's why the bad aftertaste in Boojum's mouth when someone tries so hard to pass-it-on hard, heavy, light, sweet, shocking, careful, thoughtful, fucking not careful, gender biased, age-biased, politically biased, language biased, whichever way biased, it will always be like that.

WWI centenary year.

"Your grandfather lied about his age. He joined when he was fifteen. Joined the cavalry. Horseback regiment. I don't think he ever got on a horse but he looked after them or some such. It's how he met Nanna. You know that don't you? His best friend died in the war and your Grandad came home and visited his best friend's wife to tell her about it. This line of yours comes from a foolhardy, brave fifteen year old who wanted to fight for his country."

Boojum liked his Mother's war story. It was his story too.

But 'Centenary' rang false in Boojum's brain.

Despite the sunsets and palimpsests, poems and paintings

books, forks, skives and short lived lives

ageing philosophers and hats and dogs

trees planted

games won and lost and drawn

and storms

and waves

and picnics

and love affairs and young sweethearts hearts broken and bumps in the night and old sweet heart's hearts broken and dictators

and headlines and subtexts and below average students and jokes and tunes

and journeys

friends and unfriends, restaurant complaints, stomach complaints, sacrilegious wars (the only kind)

and hoovers and brooms and sponges and all the different types of soap

and all the different types of magazine and dying expressions and rigged elections and promises and tiles and broken down vehicles and excuses for not doing homework on time and sons and lungs and bon bons.

Way way way too many breaks in the tracks from there to here.

And time waits for no man.

...

Lara and Boojum walk around the market places and sit in the local bars and cafes and drink and eat.

(Their own parents still alive. Their own parents born in someone else's peace time.)

Boojum and Lara wonder at the freshness of the American War veteran's memories. If they are war veterans at all. These emaciated Buddhas being waited on in their narrow, open houses, legs youthfully bunched up to the chin on colourful patio chairs, watching Boojum and Lara passing by, day after day and wondering just how much these tall, fashionably dressed white people don't know.

These old guys never told a war story their whole lives.

27

Don't be afraid.

The S.V.A. pose for photos and look happier to be alive than anybody Boojum has seen.

The boys have been teaching them the song, "Off we go into the wild blue yonder - Climbing high into the sun."

An An-2 aircraft passes gracefully by over the islands and the S.V.A. laughing and falling into the surf are roused into singing,

"Oh we go in the wild blue yono!"

Boojum feels proud. Hard to picture his own skinny, spotty lads even taking the time to learn how to fly a plane, but with at least one foot height advantage over their brave allies, an older brother complex tricks the G.I.s into feeling like responsible men of the world.

That and the sex with prostitutes.

There's a chill from the Northern section of the Nha Trang beach; from the vacationing V.C. taking photo keepsakes.

Semtex is called over to join in one of their snapshots.

"Not now," he says. "Maybe later."

28

I fought the war and the war won.

So you hold out for the 'good guys' and you support the 'good guys' and then the other guys win. The other guys let you live (under their rules) and that's the deal. You're free.

The catchme folds in on itself like forgotten dimensions and erases the power ranger's mug Boojum's Mom bought too late. Boojum sees a balloon power ranger in some kid's hand on the back of a bike.

"My Mom's story again. My Mom and she ain't got no sister to Twitter with. She ain't got no extra hands to praise her regular hands with but she do got the voice of an angel come from the dust-bowl-smile. Little thanks for all the hard work. Little thanks I buy her dem hands. Little thanks 'I love you.' Little thanks, 'I know you better now.' Little thanks that there be more to the parade than the floats and the long hours and days of preparation. Sleepless nights unaccounted for but totting up in bathroom cabinets: one pill for happiness, one pill for nothingness, one pill to continue and one pill to laugh off the amount of pills you been takin'. You see, there is still the spectacle. For this you must give thanks to yourself. Once again, entertaining yourself the minute you look at or listen to anything. The people who prepared it all are in your debt.

And so the war; the war blames me. All wars blame me. I am that important. Mom's proud of me, but then Mom would be proud of most of what I can do. She was built that way by a very appreciative sculptor in a rented apartment on Lime Street, 1895."

"You were not my first love. But you're the one who counts. How old were you?"

Retrace our steps and it's a fact, Jack, not one of us is free.

29

His Reading Materials

Between missions real and missions imaginary Boojum had chosen to read Henry David Thoreau's Walden. He read Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth. Cider with Rosie again. Nostalgia Personificato, con occasional Grunt Memorial Interruptus.

Then Ralph Borsodi's Flight From the City, then Bolton Hall's Three Acres and Liberty. He read them back then and he reads them now and he will no doubt read them again one day in the distant future. His five year plan as concrete as concrete.

When the war got too much for him, he would take tight hold of the ghost of Christmas future and join the Vietnamese laundry flying over the silver, white, blue rooftops of Ho Chi Minh City until he's perched in a tree house next to the jolly fat man peering down at a scene idyllic.

He's ten years older and he's reading Cider with Rosie again again, only now the book's activity is alive around him and the gossamer-delicate beauty of the scene is smiling down upon a six year old and his younger sister as they dart about Boojum and Lara's fine garden and wave their arms in the air grasping for the invisible relay race baton being passed on from the old generation to the new generation. A gift of sensitivity and the wherewithal to recall these touchless days for another thousand years.

30

The things they read.

What he read wasn't much but he spoke like he should be a writer. Dumb most of the time, until you got him on a subject he dug. Politics or history or that sort of thing bored him. His brother though. Or his family. Big tough guy except when it came to his folks, and his brother. Then he would speak like he was playing beautiful guitar under his stories to hint at how you were supposed to feel when you listened.

He told us about his brother crashing his car two weeks after he got his draft papers. How he died in their mother's arms who'd heard the accident from their front porch. None of the guys' war stories moved me more than when Deek told us about his Mum hearing the thump and she knew. I hated that story the most but it was the best story.

He only told that one once. It was left for the ones who heard it to pass it on. Anyone asked him to tell about his brother, he just said no. Once was enough. Everyone's version of Deek's story got embellished and the story itself just got worse. Deek knew that and didn't want to disrespect his family by doing the same. "He died." is all he would say. What more did you need to know. Deek liked him and he died.

Deek died too, which was sad because we liked him.

31

IPswitch

To paint what he knew. He could hear the complaints. Marx Brothers at it again, Laurel and Hardy on the Blue Ridge Mountains. Show me a rose or you leave me alone. That goes for you too, you stir crazy lemming. I'll show you clothing whishing from roof tops, dancing pants and spades staying put.

I'll play my hand when I've found the right game. The one I started all those years ago before I wandered off to find the little boys room and got wound up in someone's war or other.

I got the cards, I feel they're good. I mean they look good, but that really depends on the game doesn't it. I can't recognise the game from the cards, except I've got seven cards and they're all suits. Maybe I was supposed to get rid of the high numbers. Oh well, until then I'll walk alone because to tell you the truth I'll be lonely. I don't mind that so much as long as you're lonely too. I suspect so. Most donut eating bipeds are.

You been travelling a long time, she says. I think you learned your lesson, she says. I've certainly learnt mine. Please come home, she says.

Boojum had never wanted to write to those he loved more. He wanted to know what they were doing. He wanted to know their thoughts and their feelings every day. Saigon working on Boojum like a visit from the angel Clarence. Lara could tell when he was not all there.

"You're in the army now," he would tell himself. "Make your countrymen proud. It's an old message but a good message. And you will do all of this without intentionally shedding one drop of blood."

It was the combination of a certain smell and a certain sound that catapulted Boojum over the pearly gates and far beyond the routine questioning of St Pete.

"You need to change your I.P. address if you want facebook here," Clarence said.

32

Speaking Tongues

You are tongues,

and deliberated Russia,

Ukraine,

China,

Vietnam,

Africa,

borders for the price of a bullet, glue, tamarind and Cat Fish.

Ha Me Nela Go Joob Outt Laur

I can feel now better than if I has never did.

Lara.

Don't judge me just because I stepped into your poolka.

I know,

I amaze myself sometimes.

It wasn't the clergyman and you didn't have to treat me so rough. I would have gone with you as far as Odessa but I wouldn't have thrown no petrol bombs.

33

Poetic License Fee

Every morning Boojum woke to the world suffering from culture shock. He made such a sound and present home in his dream worlds that appearing in his bed each day confused him. Hurt him..

"I must not forget to pay the poetic licence fee," he would remind himself.

Boojum had been paying for his Poetic License his whole life. He had always felt that he was in debt. To whom, he didn't know. For what, he didn't know that either but it stood to reason, he believed, that he must pay.

A future freely invented

A home wherever he lay his cap

A pleasant disposition

A dark disposition

A childlike disposition

An elderly person's love of life

...and on and on and in this way Boojum remained a poet; paying through the nose when in fact his debt had been covered on entry. It was Hap who lay him down in the sand and sent him on his way. A peaceful, loving send off from a brother in arms. A send off worthy of a Buddhist priest. He had held Boojum's limp body in his arms and he had sung to him.

This is what he sang,

"Oh I do like to be beside the seaside; oh I do like to be beside the sea. Oh I do like to stroll along the prom prom prom,..."

Boojum's last thought?

"Tiddle ee om pom pom."

Boojum was smiling when he drifted away. He was smiling at how sweetly sad he felt. Sad for himself, sad for Hap and sad for the young man whose bullet had broken Boojum's spine and whose life now had the heavy, stinking weight of dishonour to follow him around for the rest of his.

The debt had been paid and this new life was blessed from the start. Hap had read about the idea of a good send off. How the setting of one's last moments on earth might be vital in ensuring you a peaceful and safe passage into the next life.

They were in hell, but Hap had transported him to a better place, with better people. A happier time. The fond, long lasting memory of some childhood Eden.

"All our concepts and theories are limited and approximate. Poetic licenses have been handed out to the greatest men and women since the discombobulating culture shock experienced at the dawn of man and woman; the men and women who were empowered to invent laws, behaviours, social patterns etc. Poetic license is getting it wrong but making it look right. Since there is no instruction manual, most of what we perceive to be the way of things is exactly that, poetic licence.

The developed world as we see it is a stage. And we are but playwrights."

"You appropriated that last bit," Hap had told him.

"Borrowing and bettering." Boojum said, "Now pass the joint and watch the fence."

Boojum's days began to resemble a permanent out of body experience; which, if you take into account his rebirth, they were.

"To even attempt to find yourself is to look for someone else, to look for God or Oneself is to set off on a wild goose chase. To accept this knowledge and consider oneself already grounded and found is to separate oneself from what might be and is also a red herring. To see a sink full of dishes and feel the need to tidy up? This has nothing to do with anything. Why don't you get a job?"

On the beach, Lara was reading a book about finding oneself and what Boojum was telling her felt counterproductive to her intellectual and spiritual advancement.

"It's fine for you to say, 'You are already here.' but I don't like who I am here. I will carry on looking if you don't mind. Maybe me looking is who I am. So that can't be wrong can it?"

Boojum thought about answering but chose to shut up. Patted himself on the back. He was often most appreciated when shutting up.

The afternoon turned out fine and Lara swam.

Boojum watched her trying to keep her footing in the strong pull of the waves and in moments of calm he could see her staring out at the horizon, head filled with images of herself as that deep, heaving ocean pulsating with life, heading this way and that way, resting on country upon country with no home but the home gravity allowed her.

What she was actually thinking, as the cool water lapped against her hot belly, was how nervous she had been waiting for the bus by herself the previous day. All the glares she had drawn in her short blue dress and colourful make up.

Coincidentally, gravity had been a small part of her thoughts. Waiting for the 46, Lara had thought of how trapped she felt and how easily a lift of two metres could save her in any given situation. To simply float upwards a few lousy metres could save her from cars, bikes, abduction. To rise a measly 10 metres above the apartments and rest safe in a Buddha pose with an overview of the interconnecting streets, the rivers branching off this way and that. Shift over that way a half a kilometre to complete safety, surrounded by bustling tourist cafes and eager police. A Google maps character saved by a swipe. How lumpy and stupid she felt standing heavily at that stop, relying on a bus to move her from this discomfort.

The idea that she was like the ocean leaning on numerous countries and busy with life was Boojum's idea only, and he was welcome to it.

Although Boojum felt enlightened, he was still a slave to similes and metaphors. Everything was always like something else to him. As much as he talked, or didn't talk, he still had difficulty letting things be. While Lara searched for herself, Boojum searched for words. And if he wasn't occupied with his word games, he was congratulating himself on the words he chose not to say.

Lara returned to her beach towel to drip dry. She picked up her book and Boojum watched her reading. Boojum scribbled notes about his previous existence. Lara looked up from her book and watched him.

Boojum's note: It seems that I am the reincarnation of a Vietnam War veteran who believed that he was the reincarnation of a WW1 veteran....explore.

34

A phenomenon which I have often noticed.

Combing streets sunglasses worn in the bedroom,

"I like to see things as they really are."

Sunglasses off and the retina scolding as V-shaped Vespa's rumble below the window. The alleyway harkening to itself and replying in rumours of what it must be like to be a real human being with real problems. No rest for the Vietnamese.

Even when they rest it's for show.

"They can tolerate more squalid conditions than we can. That's how they won. Far more patience sitting in shit." Carbuncles rising on carbuncles sliding into the sickly Saigon River with its babies and rabies and echoes of 'inspiration point', caught up in the moment. The kissing beehives transported to a better world. The one where we won. Where the nightmare continues and it ain't safe to walk the streets at night. Or day. And so Boojum stays put, topless, in knee length shorts, like Picasso or any number of artists on heat. Painting from a distance. Writing from a distance, until he gets to a subject he likes. Then he tells it to himself once, and leaves it alone thereafter.

WW1, followed by 'Nam. How to break from the cycle? Fighting a war in this bloody body also. But a war which does not exist. How to break away? Always looking for a fight. Even in meditation. Looking to stop the fight.

How to stop the cycle?

What can I give?

First joint.

Buddha taught that the best thing was not to be reborn. So he chose not to be reborn.

"I'll do that," Boojum told himself.

Then it struck him.

Second joint.

"I am there in both other realities now. I am not reborn, I am aware; two other possibilities.

I don't think all my thoughts at the same time. I occasionally forget a name, but it is there, in my head, along with a lot of other stuff. I can only concentrate on one soul at a time, but it doesn't mean I am not there in all those other souls. There are sometimes links between the two, or three or thousand but it takes concentration. Or maybe it's the concentration which blurs things..."

Bless.

Hap, could do nothing to save his friend's body and questioning brain. Boojum was broken. But he would and he did protect his friend's soul.

35

Cold War

A Russian TV presenter, loyal to the Kremlin, decided to remind the USA "Russia is the only country in the world which has the capability of turning the United States into radioactive dust."

American scientists, working on a project called BICEP2, discovered fresh and amazing evidence of the rapid expansion of this particular universe in its first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the big bang. Three months later this discovery would be discredited.

The Russians have still got their bombs.

"I'm too old to go to war this time," Boojum said. "They are too late. I got away with it. I hope to God I get away with it."

There are a billion chances he will. And there are a billion universes where he does. Boojum, despite living the life of the 'saved', suffered by proxi. Boojum remembered and future-recalled all possible eventualities.

In his art as in his writing as in his dreams, Boojum never looked too closely at one subject at a time for fear of missing everything else in the process.

Boojum realised that it was the 'not looking' which allowed him to see all those other existences. Boojum hoped to catch that same 'truth' when painting.

He believed that to look at a thing changed a thing. To see but not to not look; this left the thing to its own devices and gave it free reign to gallivant all over the shop. Boojum wanted to gallivant. Boojum wanted to shop.

The very thought of one possible way left Boojum cold.

Show the personal personally and you are lying. You are showing something you have been told. You are acting the part. Take yourself out of the equation and you get closer to honest communication. Abstract art, Abstract expressionism.

Boojum kept a distance from what he painted. What he didn't paint revealed him.

It was time for Boojum to distance himself from his art.

Stop acting the artist.

One way only.

36

Sand Crabs

A flock of one-winged spyrogills romulated the globusphere seminating the wannabe tie-dyes. Effluent with bilge, Lara momohammed on the respirator till her darling tealeaf appeared in the roster and 'Hup!' she chose him. Lap, lap, lap the whales went while the seams of Lara's skirt loosened her knee-shapes to the floor.

"I will always Lerf you, Camomile." She takes a deep seven minute breath one way and exhales for a full hour before she pulls up her knees and races to the corpuscle kiosk. "Rarefied, please!" she whelped and wound up wrestling with her consciousness and a squeaky window. "Lie down." the kiosk vender said. "I'll fetch you a proctologist."

Quickly Lara arose, elbowing her path to vegan caravan muscles on the beach ahead of her and behind her. "How to reach both..?"

A SCOOTER!

"Tanks!"

And in she hopped though the wheels beed hammerified. Lap, lap the tube beed now on the crabby surface of the nuclear sand castles. Doof, doof they collided with every jack man of them to make one musing palace-on-sea.

"Could you mind them undies in the wind, please? You don't know where they've been."

A taxi lady sang...

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea,

To see what he could see, see, see,

And all that he could see, see, see,

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea!

Parp.

A sailor went to knee, knee, knee,

To see what he could knee, knee, knee,

And all that he could knee, knee, knee,

Was the bottom of the deep blue knee, knee, knee!

A sailor went to toe, toe, toe,

To see what he could toe, toe, toe,

And all that he could toe, toe, toe,

Was the bottom of the deep blue toe, toe, toe!

Look down.

The sailor went to sea, knee, toe,

To see what he could sea, knee, toe,

And all that he could sea, knee, toe,

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, knee, toe!

"A funny song," Lara thought, "and I still can't find my elbows."

Boojum looked up from his pad to watch all Lara's shapes in the sun. Alice in her winter wonderland. Knees pointing these ways to two noble truths, clenched toes pointing those ways to two noble truths, sea shapes dependent on gravity and rocks and Lara independent from it all.

Not to be reborn was a choice, but a choice one could only make whilst not thinking.

"She just might make it..."

Till then he had vowed to make her as happy as all the possible possibilities permitted.

37

Call it what you will, it's not what you want. Don't name it. Here it is.

Amanought - sold-sought wicker basket/chair/table reprise of refreshers less the colourful effect of the virus. Paved the way for open-head-musket-remember,

doof doof,

a finger pointed in the right direction the wrong way.

She is beautiful and moves about the city like a trust fund stripper, she aches for the pleasures ahead of her and all that her laughter-rays convey. They are younger than either of us and show a fine Peloponnese of foreign bewilderment at every fresh shell shock of it - clip clip card card shark. Each step she takes she takes a handful of soldier dropped in recently from a sperm bank pretence. I congratulate you on your tresses; too polite to reply about your cheap summer dresses. I saw way up there and fought against my impulses like a carefree Bruce Lee. Not the one from the movies; the one now. You just make the beers warmer and your poisonous ice all the more tempting.

I clever you your green stillborn, I wise you my well being. I missed the subtle motion of the palm leaves. Too subtle. I caught the light-hearted wayward way they play cards though; that I didn't miss, or how it must feel to own a bar like this.

I look deep into the fountain's weaves of skeleton gecko can fit into any hole. We wish them well on the ship of the wizardry of the crowded house of the halls of career and corridors of choice brings the elderly close to a need for closure.

Lara surprises me with her smile every morning. I love that about her.

Two Vietnameses.

Power then fame then money then health then love - one said.

Love then health then money then power then fame - one said.

Same nationality, same birth town, same colour hair, chair, shoes and skin. But something so different within.

The same room. The same eyes.

The White Clouds. The same song.

No, not the same eyes. The first 'shesaid' lost. She has been punished unnecessarily and holds it against the second 'shesaid' who is much younger but despite that she will help the older 'punished' one with the lost look.

It is the power to forgive that she really seeks. The power to take responsibility and realise it makes no odds this way or that; to love or hate, although to choose love reveals fewer traces of regret. Can't sniff at that.

In the notebook which Boojum is protecting from the sandy watchmen there are two Vietnamese proverbs written at the bottom of the pages. Only two.

"On the way to success, there is no trace of the crazy man."

and

"Experience must be bought."

"There is no philosophy semantics cannot dismantle," Boojum thought. "Nothing except..."

~

You gotta get greasy before you can accept the..........

You should never open the ............. before you .......

You have to ............ to really .........

When ........... it's .............

Bend a straw, bend a straw.

Of all the .......... the fastest is the one you should take home.

At any given ....... don't forget to .........

I am a ...........

I will clap when......

~

Do not weigh anchor here. I don't know where the river will be in ten minutes time let alone ten minutes.

I will see you coming and I'll let you know. I have a terrific view from here so don't be worried. If I get distracted on your approach, it will be with thoughts of you.

"Waiter! Waiter!" they shout. "Waiter!"

And the waiter comes. No eye contact needed. No one's upset and everyone is dressed for the occasion. "This will happen again," Boojum says.

Lara tells Boojum he has had enough.

38

Still Communist after all these years.

The golden collapse of a dream. Head on into the day. Blammo. It don't look too different from the dream. The edges are less fuzzy. Bit fuzzy.

They are quiet about the things that matter and noisy about the things that don't. Freedom looks like this. Nothing 'matters' in a utopia.

"What do you believe? What do you desire? What do you fight for?"

There is no 'matter' in utopia.

Very little to learn from a man who has all the answers.

"No good asking me. It's the same as asking you."

39

How I lost the war.

Onerous and salient the job at hand.

I took me brush and took me stand.

I waved it round like Genghis Khan.

I nudged the booby that blew off me arm.

I ran about with me hand on the hole.

I gained yards on the enemy forgetting my role.

I asked one for help, to stop my stump from bleeding.

He shot off me head; now me brain's on the ceiling.

40

Busy waiting.

Boojum had enjoyed 'The Great War'. Even his murky, gut-felt memories of it gave him some sweet satisfaction down in his reborn soul. A feathery mnemonics tickling his rib cage from the inside like whisky or the pleasent first stages of indegestion.

The toys, the games, the rules, the roles. He loved the uniforms, the sound of boots on parade, the splash of a wet autumn march, the camaraderie, the guns, the cheap meat, the adventure, the not knowing, the weightiest emotions, the unrepeatable experiences, communication with the dead and the freedom to kill.

But the thing Boojum really loved about the war was not needing to think for himself. There were only two decisions. Yes or no. And he could do it. He was not an indecisive soldier.

Come Vietnam however his spirit had grown slightly jaded after such an ignominious WW1 death. Come the end of his days in Vietnam he was positively pissed with the men who had guided him into that shambles they deigned to call a war.

This time round he had rebelled. He had made a decision all of his own. Not to take orders from anyone. But a lone decision does not a human make.

This did not completely eradicate a secret desire to be told what to do. There was still, lurking inside him, a need.

"It's not only 'religious' people who do terrible things. The godless do some terrible things also. It's people who do terrible things in the name of whatever they got to support them. I killed, not for God, but for country. Country being as abstract as any notion you got of a God. The love of a good story. It's deadly. And so, I will avoid telling stories. Not this life. Maybe the next."

Boojum was getting there. This in itself could have been his downfall. That feeling that he was 'getting there'. An addiction to something which ain't so.

"I will do what Buddha did. I will decide not to be born again. That is my decision and nobody else's."

During The Great War...what could he say? Boojum was in heaven. Bound to be born again. That's where he met Hap. Lara next time round.

41

ARVN and the Cu Chi Cu.

If Jesus came back he wouldn't start no war.

Thang said that.

Ontological argument maybe. Not many solipsist agnostics. You got belief in other people, you got faith.

Thuy said that.

What time is it?

said Valerie (nay Truc)

there is no time,

Boojum said.

Yes but Mother said dinner's at six

said Valerie.

You and I have a hold over the ocean. That's a boat down there. Searching for the wreckage of a long lost flight. That's a man down there. On the boat. Looking for the wreckage.

It is not the fault of the bricks or the countryside that it should be dominated by a Nazi or a Communist. Neither is it the fault of the Nazi or the Communist.

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The horizontal black hole resting in the sky, fifteen miles high, about the size of 17 hockey pitches. Unnassuming. Doesn't disturb anyone who doesn't disturb it. Like any winning side.

"I'll spit you out like a million tiny islands."

Thang said that.

"You should listen to Pham Duy. He is one of us. He has written many songs of the war. And love."

Thang said that too.

It behoves a solipsist to be kind to others. Play people like a banjo.

Boojum said that.

What is behoves?

Thuy said that, and Valerie.

Thang and Thuy got a rise out of Boojum's relationship with 'one of their women'.

"You American steal our woman. You be careful we no go green. Good luck wi' tha',"

and they would laugh like they were having a seizure.

Hap and Deek relaxed around Thang, Thuy and Valerie, but the others didn't seem to trust them. Perhaps because they looked exactly like the enemy. Perhaps because they would laugh a crazy laugh.

"I just ate a candy bar. You want a candy bar?"

Semtex said.

They laughed a crazy laugh. Semtex didn't know if they wanted a candy bar or not.

Thang, Thuy and Valerie didn't trust the Vietnamese they encountered either. Not unless they were in regulation uniforms, or were family. Even then Valerie used to whisper to Boojum that her Uncle was an old communist and would turn them in for a bowl of sticky rice. They knew they were bonding with the Americans when they looked upon waiters and waitresses with suspicion. Boojum felt it. Boojum felt they were overly suspicious a lot of the time, but this was generally by way of proving their loyalty to the cause.

"They cheat you here, Boojum. Don't listen to them. We got this. Don't you worry. We protect Americans."

Thuy said that.

Thuy got caught in a body piercing bear trap near My Li. Boojum swears that Thuy's stricken dying facial expression was straining to convey a 'There, my friend. You see?'

"That is not fair. That is not fair."

Hap said that after they pulled Thuy's body from the trap. They had to dig out the contraption that killed him along with the body. The bloody carousel of cogs and spikes were in there.

Thang lost his friend. Only two years out of school.

42

A possessed word.

Valerie mourned, but the clouds didn't. Thang did, but didn't. He fought, but the air didn't.

There was the tiniest of motions.

"Gross miscalculations I read somewhere. Everywhere. Anywhere. I smell like gasoline."

Boojum said that.

43

Anamnesis

Amnasia

Ranger

Short

3 Corps

Da Nang

Nha Trang

Heat

Big hats

The gateless gate

Light Infantry

WAFC

Ooh Valerie.

Oh Valerie.

Ooh Valerie.

43

The 'go on' Koan.

Walking slowly into district one Lara paused and pointed to a man and asked Boojum,

"Boojum, have you seen this?"

"Go on," Boojum Said.

44

The 'no one' Koan.

"----------------------------------"

45

Wherever you may go.

Whoever you may be.

No matter where you go, you blow up the world and there's no difference.

Alex knocks down the sand castles like he's brushing butterflies away from his view of Mount Olympus. He sees no past life. He sees Alex's Carla. He sees other people looking at the past. He has no need for the past.

Boojum's writing was his way of sweeping the butterflies out of the way of his vision of Mount Olympus.

Boojum swept and swept and swept and after 4000 lifetimes saw what he must do.

"I must write a book to 'myself next time round'."

He could not know where he would appear or who he would be. His parents may be Inuit's in the Arctic tundra or Bedouins in the desert. And so his book would have to be famous. Translated into every language. Of course there was the distant chance that he would be reincarnated as an alien and so the best he could do in those circumstances is make sure the book was one which would be sent up into space on an exploring probe along with the music of Will. I. Am., Chuck Berry and Beethoven.

"What if you never learn to read next time round?" Lara said.

"Then I will include Illustrations so clear that there could be no misinterpretation of the meaning."

The book would be more intimate than a book one might write to their unborn child. There would be no platitudes or generalisations. Every letter of every word would count, like molecules in a body or sound waves in a symphony. The book would be beyond personal and more personal for it.

Perhaps the translation of the book would be so complicated that the very act of translating (or not translating) would be message enough. Boojum promised himself to spend more time on Finnegans Wake. He could not see where he would have had the time to write Finnegans Wake however since he had been killed during the First World War and would have been too young to pen such a masterpiece in time for the second. Another he.

Lara and Boojum discussed his project.

"You got to get yourself when you are young. So you don't waste any time,"

Lara said.

"That's tough to do because of the learning-to-read time."

"A song," Lara said.

"I think I have tried that before!" Boojum said. "That seaside song. I think I may have written that before they sent me to Germany."

"Did it help? Does it teach you anything?"

"No." They sat silently for a spell. "It comforts me."

"Maybe you were a sentimental soul that time round."

"And a sucker for the seaside. I can catch myself early with the pictures first and then hit me with the words when I'm older."

"You could make more than one book."

"I wouldn't want it like that," Boojum said. No, I will need a book which is not part of a series of books or 'others written by this author' just in case I'm this dumb next time round and cannot make up my mind for myself. It must be universally accepted as a great book and then I should by rights be suckered into reading it at some point. Sooner rather than later hopefully."

"That is quite a project, Boojum," Lara said, "Quite the undertaking."

46

The Undertaker

In the tunnels of Cu Chi, Boojum was overcome with nostalgia for a bucket and a spade.

Deek calling in after him.

"What's down there, B.J.? You okay?"

'In a hole in the ground...'

More peaceful that way. Smaug's heat and a brave but quivering heart. A cosy place. A memory of home. He sat cross-legged in the silence, wondering when the grenade might appear, rolling towards him clumsily, like a bore at a party.

Deek was concerned. Boojum had been down there ten minutes and hadn't made a sound.

If Boojum had attempted to move forward he would have soon recognised the impossibility of the venture. The tunnel was no taller or wider than a lion's mouth.

"A bucket and spade," he thought.

Again Deek called, "B.J. you fucking tease. What the Sam Hill are you doing in there?"

Boojum heard a muffled discussion above ground. No one wanted to go in after him. Boojum, although nervous had not felt this safe since he had arrived in Vietnam. Buried alive in a V.C. tunnel. Home.

He could not be in a more dangerous place.

In his entire life, Boojum knew that he would never again be in such an insecure situation. The thought of this made him feel strangely 'protected', like when someone sits in the empty seat next to you on a coach journey and you didn't want anyone to sit next to you on the journey, but now that they are sitting next to you it means that no one else can sit there. He wanted to savour the lostness of the situation. Like a dope head during a white out he could not respond to Deek and the boys. He was mute and focused on only two things; the bucket and spade.

The lads might laugh; they might mock him for bringing a flimsy plastic tool for such a big job, but Boojum didn't care about any of that. Boojum was thinking castles. Boojum required his trusty beach toys. Like the toys his grandfather, who fought in the First World War and survived, bought for him to play with on His seventh birthday.

The laws of nature order the billowing vapours in a cloud to bubble ever higher into the clear blue skies. The laws of nature order those same vapours to evaporate into some invisible presence/non-presence.

As he sat there with an expressionless brain, he struggled to conjure up images of his past, when he had felt joy at being told what to do.

"I don't know what to draw, Mum."

"Draw a bus."

To collect Boojum's past would be to collect a whole lot of questions. He put his trust in others. Even those he knew to be far dumber than he was. Occasionally Boojum would surprise himself with a suggestion which was smarter than the suggestion of the smartest person in the room and even then, without the approval of the smartest person in the room, he would not have been content to put faith in what he had to suggest.

In the trenches, Boojum had been the perfect soldier. He never presumed to know more than his superiors. Right now, in the rank, clammy tunnels of this godforsaken district, Boojum wondered at his own mettle. He didn't doubt his bravery under fire, which had been put to the test, it was his bravery under orders which was now in question. The bravery to disagree with a direct order. The bravery to....

His brain came to life!

"B.J.!"

He was in a ridiculous position.

"BOOJUM!"

The smooth, breathless walls agreed.

"We're coming in!"

"NO!" Boojum shouted and shuffled backwards towards the small tunnel opening. Four or five minutes, temperature rising, telling himself no, no, no, no.

Sixteen thousand people live down here, hiding from us bullies. We don't even get to shoot them like men. We bomb jungles and we shoot at trees. Twenty years down here on their hands and knees.

Boojum on the rooftop, 2014, looking at the survivors and those in-between. And there it was, that warm wind of worried ancestors. The squatting tales of terror and love. The young families whose last thoughts were of grandchildren they would never see. Down there in the streets, cooking for Boojum, overcharging Boojum, screaming 'HELLO!' at Boojum, 'THANK YOU, Boojum!', 'FUCK YOU, Boojum, you chinless white coward. You bilious white image of a man disintegrating with every dagger cast from our distrustful eyes. The suspicion grows as you evaporate on your balcony. You are not wanted. You are not real. You are not here."

"I will not go back down there, serge'. There is nothing and no one there. Just...."

"So toss in grenade, boy. Block it up. Job done. Good work."

Boojum was sweating and he was dizzy and his finger nails smelt like toes.

47

Fiddle sticks.

Stickle bricks, Lone Rangers, toy cars, handlebar's bells, T.V.'s warm pants, cider's candy bottled cerebrums and the capitalist aneurisms from far flung sanctions.

"I told you I wasn't making fun of you."

Boojum to Lara.

She accepted that speechlessly.

Then Hap said,

"Consider the plebs.

People looking at other things are not doing things."

Ha.

For a caveman to find himself looking at a TV.

For us to find ourselves looking at a cave painting.

To experience something ordinary - out of the ordinary.

"This war, Boojum. After shooting at someone to kill someone, someone who is living...

This is as good as it gets.

Thang hadn't seen 'On the Waterfront'. I told him, 'Shit man, you haven't lived!'"

48

The time has come to live by the sea

Just you and her and him and me.

Boojum did not need to wait to be by the sea to be beside the seaside; Boojum was a philosopher. For him the plan itself, as with memories, promised much, if not more, of the sickly sweetness of the rumbling instability of the moment.

"A photograph proves time exists, right? If there was no time there'd be nothing to take a picture of."

"Or the reverse," Lara said. "It's because there is no time we can take photographs. Otherwise all the pictures would be blurred."

"And ENTROPY!" Boojum said.

"Bless you," Lara said.

You'll know it's you because 2 will be 2. I won't weather this storm. Not till you give me at least three hundred and forty winks. I will always be with me as I am reborn to mourn the life I lived when I slept. So soundly. Soundlessly.

Boojum slept unwillingly. All these reincarnations in one lifetime were hard to bare.

"I cannot afford to sleep so deeply," he once told Lara "I become so detached that each day is a struggle just to return to myself, or at least some semblance of who I was attempting to be yesterday."

"You're a sensitive sod," Lara told Boojum.

49

Slow Light

or

A Telescope to Watch History

When the welts appear from chlorine day trips and creosote bogeymen you 'disappeared' when it got too much. What did they put in that thing \- the rain stopped. That was the next thing.

"There's no hurry. Don't you worry."

I curried favour with all the madmen I met. I shouldn't have been so ready to woo. Who knew?

He dived too deep

And his ears went POP!

Ever since then

His dreams won't stop

50

No Platitudes.

Oh they love to bang. Oh they just love it. Bangy bangy, thrilled thrilled thrilled. Listen to this one. Ooh, a big bang. Your piece bangier than mine. I will hit faster. A constant bang. More of a tap than a bang. Not so thrilled, till I find something which makes an almighty WHALLOP! and then it's off to lunch.

Oh they love to lunch. Lunchy lunch.

I met you and I had nothing to say, which says a lot. The message I would send should say as much.

Ideally he/she will not even need to see the message to get it. A book entitled "Do not read this book."

And that slow light will bicycle its way into the nervous system.

The whole of society a nervous system must needs read this, must needs know that. Language developed on the back of a desire for gossip (Just how did you kill that T-Rex?) History and philosophy speckled with the fairy dust of rumours. The sake of a good tale. The things we can never 'show'.

"Stick to what you show," Lara tells Boojum.

"But the book," Boojum says.

"Your words will rest 'on top' of the page. For show. Lying there next to each other like promiscuous snowflakes. They will come and they will go and for a few brief moments your bangy bang will ring out clean white against the drills and organs of war and progress. A mother releasing her child's murderer; a Riptile governing the freedom of a Viverid.

In the fields of France, Boojum claimed the earth. In the jungles of central Vietnam, Boojum claimed the trees; On the rooftops of Saigon, Boojum recognised the 2.

As depressing as the work led shy by a boneless donkey the pennies drib and drab from Boojum's thoughts like servants to the pale. Overweight. Slovenly. Corporal.

The musically avante garde sound of construction permeates. Boojum fights for a peaceful expression. Facial. Verbal. Corporeal.

Lara tells Boojum to concentrate on the silence between the hammer thuds.

"Listen to that," she says "That or the happy sound of a home being built, tools that work, steel cutters that cut, drills that drill, workers that work. One or the other, honey. You have to choose."

Although he paints 'em they is still made up of second hand timber, rusted metal sheets and stolen corrugated iron. They is chewed up inside and won't last the year. All for show. Lying next to each other on the page. Higgledy piggledy. They will come and they will go, but for now they look breathtaking.

Valerie ghosts her way into Boojum's dreams again. A slow light. With his telescopic visions he can meet her in the middle. They reach out to each other. He must choose between silence and a happy home.

There stopped now a zoetrope, subtitled in French and all the prettier for it. Rome is dead.

More beautiful than that.

Zootube. Dubbed. Ugly comments. Monstrous idiots. These times we live in. Retrogressive similitudes. Tell them it's a dream and you can get away with anything. Ask them to evaluate reality in the context of a dream and the floundering adversaries of truth come flapping from their cupboards like moths to fame.

'To be regarded as.'

They can remember nothing after 5am. Always alluding to. Referring to. Comparing. Comparing when there is nothing for anything to compare with. Reproductions, illustrations, echoes.

Boojum got up and left it all behind.

It was that simple.

Never again the half-truths. Never again the formulation of sentiments that didn't make themselves obvious before his coterie.

To stand alone outside, arms stretched, eyes stretched, untouched. Boojum longed for a cool breeze and the space to breathe it. A hammock by the ocean. A drink in one hand, a novel on the sand. A whisper of love from the palm trees above. Mother Nature singing without the stifling agitation of the desperate and the unwanted and the abused.

"Freedom breeds complacency. This is why the desire for nothing, Boojum. You are free, therefore you have nothing to say."

"How can you say I am free?" Boojum was troubled by the accusation. He could not find a suitable way to articulate his feeling of trappedness without succumbing to the fading notion that he was an exile. So what then? This question of freedom was a physical one. And even then, Boojum understood that people were free to be trapped if they wished.

To write and to talk is to be a social creature. Every body which gestures to another body becomes a political being. In politics there is no freedom.

Now say the opposite.

To write and to talk is to give voice to our individuality. Everything we share of ourselves is a gift. We are free to choose what we share. In communication there is freedom. In solitude we are trapped.

"What WAS this time?" Boojum will ask himself as he steals into his next life.

More people. More homes.

Different people. Different homes.

This one 'The Hay Wain' (look that way)

This one a portrait of Ho Chi Minh stroking a child's head (look away)

A pale white bust of Andy Warhol

A colourful garden gnome.

A bookshelf bewailing little of what you 'know'.

Hap called - the music hall call,

the child covered from head to toe in paint.

Now you see it

Now you don't

You got the keys?

They are chanting below.

"You can't promise me anything. By the time you have uttered your promise things may have changed."

"Yes, yes. Hold your breast just this way. Like a renaissance picture. You're a princess. I adore you."

"Keep it under wraps. What if they don't forget you?"

"'J' or 'G'?"

"'J' for Jell."

"They'll never know. Put your fingers under your tit. Just so. That's it. Honey, I'm painting it and even I can't tell."

51

Unless there's guitars.

...and they are still chanting. Those Vietnamese women with shaved heads, dressed in robes of faded school blue, re-reading the cheap photocopied handouts of a religious text. The Life Story of Buddha perhaps. For shame. Once should be enough.

And with no end to the war in sight, music and cinema take a backseat.

52

A Glover Kind

A Glover Kind rises to the Karma Zone and drops back down to earth eventually. And not always on its original owner.

They did yell and scream the Viverid titulars in the street streams below of blood and kettles and egg yolk mixed with blood and tears and the Riptiles came out on top but then the police did so neither the Viverids nor the Riptiles did.

"Where did you learn to speak English?"

"The Americans in the 60s. I fight on their side."

Did they overhear him do you think? Can they say such things do you think? Risky I'd say. Friendly enough.

"My name is Ngan. Where you from?"

"Prague," Lara says.

"I had American friends. North or South?"

"What?"

"North or South America?"

"No, Prague."

"Yes, yes."

Boojum had begun to feel uneasy walking in the street amongst the locals. He would look at their feet (often a dreadful mistake) or read their t-shirts or look at the buildings above them or the pavement below; anywhere but directly into that cold, uncommunicative gaze. They were falling off scooters to get a good long look at him.

The air could not revise him. Not revive or 'unlike' him after the fact. Never unwind his type, tight and brittle for the years of stain and carpet crabs. She revealed, not untired at the task, she invents not unwise for her years. He cries, but in kind, not unlike the times he replied, "I'm sure you'll find a finer time to come home."

She liked that. Told him it could be a single.

She cried, but at the night, and when 'family' was brought up. In a nice way.

"So I hear Boojum wants to come home," Lara's sister says.

"No," Lara says "Boojum never said that. Mother speculated."

"Why did she do that?"

"Because I told her he was heat-grumpy yesterday and won't look at anyone."

"My one and only joke

has you laughing still

you can't walk straight for smiling

it's agony trying."

Yodel-like and remonstratees fall at your feet because you say so.

Sale on chips, cataracts, bellicose jungle rabbits, hep cats, celluloid fantasies and one or two more emirates than one would wish for in this current climate that we are in today the way things are. Boom. Boom.

"Not much of a joke, but it's all I got."

"Well, you're so good looking."

53

Roll on Roll off

So you stop doing yoga and you're all relaxed and you are happy again. Then what?

Then you live.

Do I still do yoga?

If you want.

I don't.

So have a sit down.

I want to go for a walk.

So go for a walk.

It's too hot.

Look, are you happy or not?

Not.

Boojum was stifled. The thick, polluted air shoved down his throat and pasted into every pore. Maybe Lara's Mother was right.

The beauty of loss. The Pain of gain. It's thoughts like that, that were driving him sane.

To forgive all of one's own trespasses in the blink of an arachnid. A spoilt kid. A hand standing aphid on the front of a scooter, blowing his nose and honking the hooter (you can't barely see 'im).

Getting in the way of oil and sundry. Antipode Wednesday; Solomon Mundy. Was worse by a caper, a salted, aggravated, menopausal, cantankerous, egalitarian, aniseed-bound lip-sinker found dead under a barrel of tits and gone are all the musicals. For now anyways.

I got 'em kept on discs (he's literally standing on his hands).

They unleash the wolves. What was it for? They didn't even keep score. Tucked their tales between their legs and fucked their way to publication. 'See what I done in the war. See how bad I got it.'

Well I got something to tell you, chum. I never even made it. Dead as a fucking dodo. Try selling that one to your agent. I haven't made much headway with the new book Mr Fouler. Because I'm dead.

No grab-ass, baseball playing memories for me. No sirree. I got stiffed the minute I signed up. A one hundred percent chance of me not getting home to see my Mama.

Well not this time, brother. This time I got mettle and I'm not playing hard to get. It's all on the rusty sheath, man. Read it as it slides in. I'm gonna fill you full of rain and you just gonna carry me back to the land of the brave and like it.

I future-seen 'em, the waves below; that plane again. The ferry backing and forthing underneath the flying fish too far to sea to see. An oval square making friends and the promise of a fresh donut when you come wobbling in through that back door. Don't worry my love, there are plenty more. Porthole complaints but I threw his notes in the bin. The manager ain't never gonna catch wind of what we done this side of the merry-go-round.

Yes you may.

54

The Great Escape

Eagle tazer sunshine forest.

That sums up the prickly heat of pleasure-pain Boojum absconded with. The night trees in excelsior. The grubby knees and smokey two-toe socks of the elderly vegetable seeding in the gutter. Pissing on the high streets. Pretty low.

"Did you know about this? Did you hear about this?"

To war, dear friends. To war. To avoid this disturbing peace. To find ourselves. To do something. If you ain't got nothing to fight about, I will invent something. This is the only way we can escape this eagle tazer sunshine forest.

Into the heat like a yellow lip of flame flicked into the atmosphere for atmosphere. Let the bayonets begin! I was twelve when I first fell in love with rifles. Blackpool, England. I'm at the fairground with my Uncle and he's telling me about what a great man he used to be and then he hands me this pellet rifle and asks me to shoot at a small stack of cans. I take hold of the gun just the way he tells me to and hold the polished wood casing to my young cheek.

"Now squeeze the trigger gently, Boojum. Breathe slowly and squeeze the trigger gently. Aim for the bottom cans. That way you will bring down all the others."

First time! The whole stack comes tumbling down onto the table, and my proud Uncle says that I could give him a run for his money. Whatever that meant it sounded kind and the fairground man said I was 'a natural'. I went on to bring three towers of tin cans down and I won a plastic bag full of plastic soldiers. Ever since then I would make a beeline for the shooting galleries at fairgrounds and theme parks. My love of shooting rifles did not lead to vainglorious attempts at revealing my skills to others (as had happened with numerous other skills I had attained), instead this was something I was content to keep to myself.

Similarly, in the jungle, my skill was between me and my target. No one else. Best case scenario; the target doesn't live to tell the tale.

They didn't need to remind me that I should 'love' my gun and 'take good care' of my gun. When the army handed me my rifle (the same rifle I kept till I dropped) I was so grateful I would have done anything they told me to do with it. Of course I loved it. My rifle completed me. We feared no foe. Neither did we hold grudges. Alone I may have experienced that tang of bitterness one feels when things don't go their way. But together. Together we forgave all who trespassed against us, ready to deliver any and every soul we came across to heaven. My gun and I were benevolent, unjudgemental and unjuried. Out there we was immaculate.

I was the eagle. I put my prey out of commission. I did not feel their pain. I did not understand their death. I did not think about their families. In that heat it was all I could do to drag myself and my gun back to a room with a ceiling fan and thank my lucky stars that, away from the sun-baked, clambering non sense of the forests, I could breath the air once more.

When I fucked my tenth grade Geography teacher, Mrs Shorrocks, she repeatedly ordered 'Shoot it up me'. I can still hear the husky Californian lilt that tore me apart each Friday afternoon. Twice she asked me to stay behind. I was big and dumb. Just big and dumb enough.

"I am the bullet."

Semtex said that.

"I am the resurrection."

Hap said that.

"What are you?"

Semtex said that.

"I am the case for the accused."

I said that.

"What does that mean?"

Deek said that.

"I don't understand the question."

I said that.

"The case for the fucking accused."

Crane said that.

"Right on."

Hap said that.

Valerie mourned and the clouds mourned now too. They hadn't before but they did now. Thuy had grown up near Da Lat in the beautiful countryside of Chu Yang Sanh. Thuy had never trusted authority figures. Not even in school. His decision not to join the communist party was down to his deep seated aversion to accepting the unfounded fancies of anyone with a big enough gob or gun. Thuy was a homey sort who trusted his wife, his 2 year old baby and his 97 year old great grandmother; plus a good many close neighbours. His parents had been killed during one of the NLF's hit and run attacks targetting South Vietnamese government officials in Saigon, 1961. Thuy was just 11 years old at the time. His grandparents on both sides had died of natural causes after leading pleasant, steady, peasant lives. Only Grandma Minh, on Thuy's mother's side, had been alive to hear the news of her daughter's and son-in-law's tragic deaths.

When the villages of the South became targets for attack, Thuy still did not choose to fight. His fight was not political. His fight was to protect his own family. Thuy was conscripted. Ordered to leave his home. They made him a ranger.

55

Mimsy Were the Borogoves

I saw five of them crossing a makeshift bridge, huddled as close as they could be without knocking each other into the murky water. Green and soldierly. Martians.

"You got them," Crane said. "Take a shot."

They were frightened and waiting for hell such as I.

Boojum's friend, Thuy, was an artist. Maybe one of these creeping aliens harboured a talent for painting too.

"They were conscripted," was all Boojum said.

Crane fired and blew one of them off the rickety walkway and into the drinkwhichdrank. Boojum didn't feel good or bad. He felt wise. He felt stupid for feeling that.

Before the rest of hell broke loose Boojum had time for a thought.

"I am so thirsty right now."

The hate which had been camouflaged revealed itself. The dirty, snapping teeth in the bark of the trees; fiery eyes all aflame as the roar of tanks joined the party, painting the wildest, darkest, orange purgatory.

Thuy was at this same moment caught in his own purple shade of shit, knife grasped in hand, stab-style, squatting uncomfortably, twenty metres from Ma Da base. He and Thang watched their VC neighbours from the North (The Nation's Heroes) going about their afternoonly business, guns slung loosely over their backs, punting rotted boats into dock, armfuls of rice, sentries standing by the disconcertingly peaceful straw river-huts.

Thang was wearing a filthy bandage across his forehead and eye. Thuy was laughing at him. Looking over at Uncle Ho's heroes and back at his good friend, Thang who had walked headlong into a sharp, stickouty branch. Thang had been knocked to the ground with an 'Oof!'.

"Now you have your war story," Thuy said.

"The story is over there," Thang said, pointing at one of the huts; lit now. A low yellow glow. Confident, hungry warmth. The two rangers felt a touch of jealousy. That would make their job easier.

"If you ever go to Dallas, tell Diane I always loved her," Crane said.

"No," Boojum said. "I am not going to Dallas."

"FOCUS!"

Semtex said that.

"Focus on what?" Boojum said.

"There!" Semtex shouted and immediately let rip an ear cracking volley of shots into the worried lushness of the soon-to-be-desert landscape. A radio transmission to 'Flatten our playing field!' puts pay to their scrabbling efforts; their clever endevour.

As they retreat, Boojum looks back and catches the eyes of a weaponless, discombobulated VC, raises his left arm and gives him the two-finger peace sign.

"Tam Biet!" Boojum shouts, thirsty and happy.

No respect.

One more top floor window whore.

Take me out tonight.

I don't want to remember anything.

Thuy painted watercolours of his village and the villagers who lived in the village. Thuy sketched and painted the war. Thuy was carrying a sketch he had done of Thang applying a bandage to his wounded head. There is a rifle, a canteen, Thuy's watercolour tray and a half finished letter of Thang's to his girlfriend in Da Lat. The colours are muted and splashy but the pen marks are sharp and brilliantly catch the minute details of Thang's torn up face and worn out soul, scratch marks on his rifle grip and scorch marks on his helmet; even the words 'miss you' on the scrumpled bit of paper.

In 2014 a white butterfly drafts past Boojum's studio window. 'Miss you too' tattoed on its wing.

56

The Chrysalis Years

Their mammoth smiles as untellingless as their memonautic scowl. Perhaps they smile because you are wearing a hat. Perhaps it is because your head is shaped like a pearl or it's because you walk by like John Wayne or perhaps they just sat in something gooey.

"Hello!"

"Hello."

"Where you go?!"

"Home."

"Where you from?! Motorbike?"

"No thank you."

"MOTORBIKE!"

A massive telling smile Boojum gives them. All scowl-end fallen seraphim technique.

He stretches and his arms touch the sun. Too much. Back into the chrysalis.

"Don't be mad at them," Lara says. "You forget they've never been allowed to show emotion physically or verbally. You don't know how difficult it must be. That look of theirs. It was the same for us before the revolution. They are just unsure what to make of you. They want to ask you as many questions as you want to ask them. But for them there are consequences. They may discover too much. Reveal too much. Say something unpatriotic.

Don't be so hard on them, honey."

Boojum spends the afternoon learning Lara's language. A cool breeze. Hands and knees. In Vietnamese, 'nhay mui' means sneeze.

"They are mainly talking about getting educated, getting money and getting the fuck out of Vietnam."

Thuy's words.

Scores of kids and young, well-dressed adults in the cafes; books open but closed. Footnotes reading 'Would like to hear more from Zed. Why don't you let us hear more from Zed?'

Boojum could see them in his eye's mind,

Two little soldiers running as fast as their little legs would carry them.

Overjoyed with their new found knowledge.

Keen to share their information with eveyone else.

Moderately concerned about the scout on their own tail.

"Keep up!" Thuy said to Thang. Thuy was feeling guilty that he was naturally the faster runner and manoeuvred the trees with far greater ease than his pal was managing to. It wasn't the 'injury'; Thang had always been slower. Slower choosing food from a menu, slower walking down the street, slower cleaning his teeth, slower at everything, and now this slowness was going to get both of them killed.

'A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,' thought Thuy bitterly as he decreased his speed to let his friend catch up.

To die with a mind and heart full of such frustration, negativity and animosity towards one he loved did not bode well for Thuy and his future incarnation.

For one's life to end in such physical pain would certainly have shaken the Gods to their very easels also.

"A churlish soul. A violent soul. A doomed soul. Let me see. An abstract I think. Left unexplained."

1970, December 24th. "So why didn't he sing a Christmas song to me. I like those too."

57

Iambic Pentathlon

To retire in true idleness having raised a pile.

This Boojum had not done in either war.

Da dum da dum da dum.

T'ra.

Rat a tat tat.

Da dum da dum.

Mowed down. Val's town.

"Never ever a collector be,

or you will lose the value of that which you see."

That's news for Booj' and food for she.

They shop and grope and record the mass; she tore it up, smoked lots of grass.

Swallowed by their workahopeful daily mulch, the belly of the wail, they floods a bucket a wash the feet and lettuce rain water for lunch and chilli sauce for the baggy elastic wrap a punch-tooth.

Boojum spits blood when he wakes. Blames the government.

Doesn't tell the government. But blames them. Lara the church.

God's doorbell rings 12. God's doorbell rings every hour on the hour.

A portentous Bong.

No answer.

Bong - Bong!

No answer.

Bong - Bong - Bong!

No answer

Bong - Bong - Bong - Bong!

No answer.

It's almost five o'clock and Lara places a ticket for the city zoo in her book.

"Boojum."

"Yeah."

"They're still out there."

"So."

"So you should tell them."

"What? Why me?"

"They won't get an answer. It's nearly five."

"They'll catch on."

"I don't know."

God's doorbell rings 12.

"Jesus, Booj'! Four rings is the cut off point! Everybody knows that. Four." Lara reads the ticket in her book.

"When did you go to the zoo?"

58

One Big Stanza (down my trousers)

or

'Can I be a witness?'

Simon's MILFS

and Simon's Gifs

Mathew's missives

John's short shrifts

Thomas' weekend rambles

James' wallet nicked

Bartholomew on a written warning

Philip saw it all

Thaddeus' accumulated cigarettes

Judas' 'doing-time'- piece

Andrew's morning alarm call

Thomas's red red reliant robin...

The manuscript in the boot was the first thing to rot in the wreck that was 'The Sinking of Bessie' (the name given to the reliant robin by Matthew) and none of them, not even Bart could remember a single detail of the incident. The trial was a complete shambles. The only survivors of the anarchic drudgery of the court dates were the MILFS who had shown great confidence in their brazen display of moral turpitude during the mudslinging, and had won over not a small number of earnest, lifelong fans, including the judge, the clerks, the interpreters, the entire jury (male and female) and Philip.

Come the end of the trial, the papers still chose to call them 'Simon's MILFS'. We believe that had a lot to do with Andrew.

Boojum would have been there but for his and Lara's Vietnam sojourn. There was no way he could have gone home to fulfil his jury duty this year. His letter was brief and apologetic and he promised to be there next time they needed him.

"It is a shame, honey. You could have been in the paper."

"I would have liked to have seen all those MILFS too."

59

Valerie's sister

or

The Ride or the Valeries

Plural Livia moved, breathed, used and moved to the U.S.A. to find herself and she found herself. She found herself everywhere; in every shop window, on every bus, in the bathrooms, the showers, the diners, the deckchairs, the ocean. She found herself most often sitting in places - sometimes standing - rarely walking - never running. She didn't see herself running; just things to avoid running into.

And she found Christianity.

Her life in Vietnam had been all about Buddha.

Her sister Valerie, Buddhist.

Her Mother, Father, Uncle, Grandfather and Grandmother Buddhists.

Plural Livia is in school (her first week) and her teacher brings up The Bible. The teacher tells Plural Livia that God loves her and Jesus loves her and that if she wants to be saved she must turn to Jesus.

Plural Livia is SOLD!

In the blink of an eyelid she is converted. "Why didn't anyone mention this before?!" She writes home and she tells everyone that she has found the love and the light of the one true lord and that she has never been happier.

"Happy is good," their Grandfather says.

"She will get fat," her Grandmother says.

"She is safe," her Mother says.

"Dear girl," Uncle says.

"My girl," Father says.

"We love you too," Valerie says,

under her breath.

Deek, Thang, Semtex and Crane were Christians. Semtex wore a cross on a chain. Deek prayed by his cot at night. Thang's curiosity was tweaked by the letters Plural Livia sent to him from America and Crane would say 'God willing', whenever someone said 'See you later' to him. Irish roots. Muslims say that too, but the guys were 'pretty damn sure he wasn't no Muslim.'

60

Fish and Lightning

Reunification Day. Boojum is reunited with his room on reunification day. The rain fills Saigon with sodden yellow stars fighting with what becomes a weak wind-up and cumming females in male's XL shirts and Paraguayan boxers on the roof fighting for their man. Or maybe they're Kore-an. Cushions on the washing line stained with lover's nightly neck-sweat. Well wet. "You finished with the dryer yet?"

Boojum escapes with the lady on the roof over the way. Lara escapes into an online world of fashion gurus in a Hapless universe. The Mariners eek one over the Yankees, first game of the series, and the quails our happy couple plan to purchase two years from now are but a glint in their pappy's beedy eye.

"Me fingers 'av gone all eggy."

"You are dehydrated, my dearest."

"It 'appens in like seconds after I put me 'and in the wa'er."

"You should drink more."

"I'm drinkin' me bleedin' weigh' in wa'er!"

"Don't you want to go out for a walk, dearest?"

"It's fandering aahtside. An' lightning."

"Stay home today then, dear."

"Bu' it stinks of the neighbour's fish."

"Yes, dear."

"Just look at me 'ands!"

"Yes, dear."

Boojum unescapes himself and returns to the good one.

"'Choo doin?"

"Reading about Coco Chanel, dear."

"Is it a gudden?"

"It's adequate, darling."

"Well let us know when you're done."

"I will, dear."

"I'm gonna 'av a nap. Don't let me sleep longer than 'alf an hour. I get crabby. Don't forget. Enjoy your book or whatever."

"Alright, dear."

Boojum's dream \- My wife smells of petrol, our children sound like leaves, our quails lay golden poems, our home is always on time, our friends taste like pencils, our daily work smooth as a lap dancer's legs, our tongues speak golden knowns and unknowns, visitors come and go like tiny, ivory summer-clouds, our diet is voted mayor, our free time speaks seven languages fluently, our parents are lighter than air, our sleep is golden like silence or gold like gold taps in a posh house and our holidays always but always receive telegrams from the king...

"Boojum."

...our parties are like Japanese paintings of the sea, our garden like the moon resting on its back, our...

"Boojum, wake up. You wanted me to wake you."

...our campfire spotted by the camouflaged Riptiles, our urinary tracts opening our mail, our...

"BOOJUM!"

"WHAT?"

"It's time to get up, hon'. You slept right through Coco's golden years."

"What time is it?"

"19:39"

"Any chance of a cuppa?"

"Yes, dear."

61

Oar

or

Ore

Peripheried out. Wide angle anomoly-extremus-vulgurus teachin' us onorous syllabi. Look 'em in the eyes and know your worth. You got just as much right to be on this earth. "These are half-hearted flags hangin' out dem windies," finks Booj'. They don't 'want in' no more than the 'boat people' wanted in.

Some paddled away and made it to freedom, some failed in deir effort and drowned in de seadom.

Who would celebrate that? No re-education camp for you or your crew. No sentence long enough to correctify. Nor modify. So crucify, and thank your yellow stars that time can fly.

Now we turn our attention to Kampuchea, they ain't the yanks but they're pretty damn near.

So buck up soldiers,

your Hiatus is done,

Pol Pot's gone mad,

there's another war to be won.

"You've taken all I had inside. I have nothing left to give.

I don't want to fight again. I want to live."

Come on lads,

They're breaching our borders,

I'm the fucking boss,

and I'm giving the orders.

"I'm busy now, I'm mourning. My brother, wife and son.

You cannot extract one mineral more. I'm done."

Call yourself a patriot?

Call youself a man?

Where's that VC mettle,

your love for Vietnam?

"I died a thousand deaths for you

And I would die a thousand more,

the day you cry at my little boy's grave;

and not a day before."

62

Viverid Memories

He held the musket close. At first it had had an indistinct aroma, like a baseball until the rehearsed love and surety of ones grip and the musk-sweet palms pass on, extrapolate and give birth to a warm milked porn of kindness better than any smelling salts or cough syrup or hand-me-down or taking-photos-of-wildlife tip, night light, comforter, five more minutes and then you absolutely have to go to bed.

"Where's me drum, Mum?"

"Next to your fife and your future wife. Just wait for my signal, then run for your life."

"Promise you ain't never gonna die."

"I promise."

"Dad too?"

"Daddy too. Just shoot more of them than they shoot you. And don't sprain your neck looking to see what the ump' says. Just you run, son!"

"Don't be so paranoid, Booj'. They aren't taking photos of you, they are taking selfies. They aren't even looking at you. They are looking at the tall white man's body you were assigned to. Now do your job you big pussy."

"You're right hon'. Okay. Hand me my fife would you, the band's waiting."

"Knock 'em dead, lover," Lara says, searching in the cabinet next to the old oak chest.

"Did you move it? It's not here."

"I haven't touched it since I left it there last night."

"You must have moved it because it's not here."

"Well that's where I left it."

"Well you can't have."

"-----"

"Did you play it before coming up?"

"No. You must have moved it. Cleaning the cupboards or something."

"I didn't touch it. Honey, you are always moving things. I can never find the keys, or any of my stuff. You are always taking my pens. I can never find my pens. Where did you put your fife?"

"My pens are all in that cup you are standing next to and I put the fife in the cabinet. Where it always is. Where I always put it."

"Well you can see it isn't there so you can't have put it there. You are making me so mad right now, Booj'. Really, you can be so infuriating. I haven't seen your fife for days. It must be in your coat or you left it at work. Why can't you just accept that you are wrong once?"

"Jesus! It's not in my pocket. I am telling you, I took it from my coat, cleaned it and I..."

"Oh wait. I showed it to Kim next door. I think it's in the kitchen. Yes, here it is. Sorry, honey."

Fifty million years ago

Viverridae stubbed a toe

Some got four now, some got five

Both are lucky to be alive.

63

Match me with my thoughts

Meet me with my pain

I wouldn't hope a hurt on anyone

But I hope you feel the same.

To read the unexpurgated files of our enemy.

Note: Title of chapter longer than chapter. A bit like life.

64

I can hear the birds singing but the streets are foul

I can hear the birds singing but the streets are foul

I will stay a day longer in this gilded jail

I will rest a while longer in this milch cow's den

Because a milch cow knows what a milch cow's when / Until the winds of England shine again / Indolent as a Parisian / Remonstrate the birth of Zen

Note: Title of chapter same as first line of chapter.

Harmonious.

Note 2: Last line of chapter transposable.

Insincere.

65

Welcome Dinks

No childless couples here. Yuppies and clerics; no dawns or booze. Their way of life upended. Marx says touch your nose. It's 11am. Marx says clean your house. This IS the right way up. Marx says keep hold. We may be steering off course a tad, but capitalism quartered and quartered then squared ain't half bad. We got the upper hand, no sex on T.V., Violence down to a minimum and a tree above every root. Gives the city a lived in look. A personal touch. A braided indigony. K-pop and crayon biscuits. Daylight bats and a self-congratulational, congragational gargle-a-thon. Harmonious spirituals. It's 12 o'clock. Gargle bacterial; hip ministerial. Jebus lubs you and you don't need to see where we got the spark plugs from, it's a need-to-know affair and you worker bees are safer in your ignorance.

"We got nothing to hide. Our house front open. You see us sleeping. Our shop front open. What we watch on television, you watch on television. What makes you think we have anything to hide?"

"You show so much. Nobody shows so much. You are telling a lie by telling a truth and making it sound like a lie. Like the Catholic Monk who slept with 4 prostitutes in his bed every night to prove his strength in abstention. There's no way he wasn't dinking them. You got a phony sense of identity, man."

"No, you do!"

"No, YOU do!.

If Woodrow Wilson hadn't turned down his offer, Uncle Ho would have gladly lead the Vietnamese to a happy capitalism. The workers in the fields could not have cared one way or the other. As long as there was food to eat and things to bang.

"You been busy today?"

"No, I've been working since morning."

Black man next to a white man. The white man in a suit. Colonial style. It's not a proper white man, it's a bust of a white man. An admiral, or something up there. The black man is a bust too. He is made from the same material as the white man, marble maybe, but looks better due to his blackness. The bust of the black man looks more expensive. The black man appears to be naked. The top half at least. Both have been polished recently.

That's the first thing Boojum noticed on the way into the officer's mess tent.

Other soldiers notice other things. Deek spots the chandelier. "Must be glass. Who brings diamonds to a war?"

Crane notices the rotten state of the floor. How the officers had thrown all of their used napkins and empty peanut shells onto what looks like a once expensive Persian carpet. Semtex's eyes are drawn to the one enormous dining table which bullied the room but not the men around it, who happily found the members of their exclusive little club equally worthy of their current cosy conditions.

Hap notices the distinct smell of garlic in the air and eyed the room for signs of a chef or a French looking waiter. No. He just sees side tables topped with full trays of delicious looking food and Boojum gawping at two statues.

It is the same room whatever way you take it.

The lightning was hid behind the large, dark clouds and the lunar grin.

"Tuck in lads. You've earned it."

Three days toil painting the outsides of the latrines, the 'inbetweens' and a big cartoon mural of gay marines.

"You been busy today?"

"No, man, we had plenty to do."

66

6

Embarrassing mumbles turned into fearful clear cries of "IT IS NOT MY WAR! IT IS NOT MY WAR!"

Lara does not know what to do as Boojum thuggishly rebuffs her attempts to hold him.

Boojum breaks.

Outside, in the distance, the Bitexco tower still lit, club lights flash for the pointless dancers.

A shirtless, elderly male neighbour opposite tosses a fistful of paper/tissue/wrapper off the balcony into the alley. A shrill banshee screams a bloody tirade in Vietnamese. A feral cat on a warm tin roof angrily replies. Two dogs in the courtyard join in the damned chorus and the night delivers its infernal fugue.

"You are at home, honey. You are safe. You aren't in a war, baby. Just relax. There, just relax. That's it. Come on, babe. You're alright. You're home."

But he isn't home.

Boojum isn't anywhere.

Lara can't know that.

Boojum is grieving.

Boojum doesn't feel like grieving.

'the day you cry at my little boy's grave'

Who does Boojum cry for?

"I cried once, but I was embarrassed by the result. I wanted everyone to go away."

Valerie covered her mouth when she giggled. Valerie covered her mouth when she cried. Shy of our truths, we trap the spirit within and only let it out in premeditated spurts. Never enough to put out the fire.

They came to a perfect rest. Lara and Boojum. One week after the wedding. Their honeymoon a beautiful vacation from their selves. The self as defined by their associates and their possessions.

They allowed themselves to be. No decisions. No argument. No deeds, needs, vertiginous nose bleeds. No ties, lies, not-quite-there-yet sighs when he drinks and she cries.

I am no rubber stamp

I am no hermit either

Is it starve the fever - feed the cold

Or is it feed the fever?

I've been sick so many times by now

I do believe it's neither.

Some. Not all.

Some. Look tough.

Nineteen. Twenty. War weeks blown by like sand-blasted steroids or hoboes masturbating in a refectory.

They were ready-made war-ready.

"I'll bet they fought enemies in school all the time. The school yard their training ground. Their backyard back home. Their father's daily drills, "Don't you be no goddamn sissy, boy. I didn't work every day of my life to bring up no sissy-boy.

"They sure did a great job," Boojum thinks.

Some of the fellas scare him more than the V.C.

"I wish I had your muscles," boojum says unselfconsciously to a man named Frank. "I don't think I scare Charlie one bit."

"You kidding," Frank says. "I wish I had the hair you got on your chest, B.J. You look like a fucking gorilla, man. What are you, eighteen? I can't even grow a goddamn tash."

The girls at Vs call Boojum 'Hairy Monkey Boy". The lads call him B.J.

"I'd still swap it for your pecs," Boojum says selfconsciously.

"Get a fucking room, you pair of queens!" Crane turns on his front. Two hours later his back is one red sun spongy blister.

"That is the ugliest thing I have seen this whole war," Semtex says.

67

The Praying Mantis

There's a planet made of diamond just 40 light years away.

The insect found itself stripped of directions. White walls four floors high. Doors closed. Junk people. An important lesson. The Mantis, the Prophet, the Seer finds itself here and Lara runs for the camera. Session 5 of an axiomatic analogy of a parody. This lil' guy's gotta mean something. Had to visit for some reason. Praying Manti don't got whims.

You look at the triangular head. Lara lies on her front. The war in Boojum's mind takes a turn for the worse. The one which takes you away from literature and back to unexpression.

He covers the mantis in a transparent plastic bowl, slides a transparent plastic file under the bowl, catching the Praying Mantis inside. The Mantis becomes tense. No camouflage in this see-through cage. What brought him here? Its body now free from a background with which to define it. The Mantis wonders at Boojum's train of thought. Thoughts on a transparent background.

Buck 65 reminds Boojum of a friend of his. Peter. Same good looks you could buy groceries with.

68

Aristocratic bum.

You are the paradigm run amok.

Balcony

Nón lá = Hat. Or, a Liverpudlian who is not.

Hue Poem Conical Hat

Balcon.

She. One shapely naked leg pulled up over the other; clean white sandal single-dangling.

He. Both skinny legs balanced on the chalk-marked seat of their cousin's scooter. Right elbow resting on the broken speedometer, hand cupped under his better-a-red-than-a-dead head.

They talk shop as children negotiate the play area traffic couples hooting through the lay person anchor-piles, non-floatational home devices devised to lock you down for the rainy season and keep an eye on the old ones chugging off on their opium pipe dreams of a neverland that happens to be. Pardon me, I counted six.

One old bat picking her feet

One old coot stabbin' a crab

One old dodo smacking the pith out of her kith

One old dear decorating a pineapple

One old girl passing on her email to a foreigner she just met on the bus

One old sweety painting her daughters toenails in the street while her kids negotiate the traffic triples beeping down through the commoner's wound sails used as shop awning till one morning the mainsail sets and the sloopy froods dripping from their beds cast off and look for their apology.

"Who's tissues are these?"

69

Trunk Call

Trapped in the belief that we have been persecuted by an unseen, unapproachable force. Not only the Samual Becketts of the world but the Jerry Lewis' (they all sound like Jerry Lewis), the Sam Peckinpah's - Depression, comedy and violence all working on audiences like catalytic reminders of our one common enemy; ourselves. The ones who humiliate us and educate us just enough to convince us that working to attain 'money' should be our goal in life and that life without it is no life.

We cry about and we laugh at and we trade punches with absurdity like an over zealous child fixated with their reflexion in the mirror.

"Grandpa, come take the dinosaurs away.

They've left no room for me to play."

I take the reins, like, ask Papi some questions, like what's it like to be alive, like.

What's it like not to feel pain?

What's it like to feel healthy?

What's it like, like?

"Not 'like' anything," he tells me from the comfort of his scuffed, leather saddle. He reaches to the other side of his horse and tosses me three bags. One of gold, one of sand and one of buckwheat. "Grab a satchel, son, and do your worst. I wish I coulda stuck around to hear more of your questions, boy, but I got a plane to catch and your Granma ain't gettin' any younger, if you know what I mean, hahahahahahaaaa! Yippee!" And off he trots.

"One more thing," Papi shouts. "Don't heckle God so much. You're distracting him from doing one hell of a show."

I scarper back to my elephant to try to catch up with him but he is long gone. My elephant is not in the mood.

The jeep stuck firm in the jungle mud

We'd go right after 'em, if we could

But this uncarved block ain't made of wood

It hurts when you're carving flesh and blood.

In the street below Boojum and Lara's bedroom window, a dickhead has been revving his bike engine since 5am.

"Him I would kill without compunction," Boojum says.

And wait a long time

for the tears

and laughter.

70

Buying the farm

To break through the seemingly impenetrable artificiality of his ego-filth and pas de deux with the blessed experience of not-two;

enlargen his purview.

71

Enlargening me purview.

Boojum turns the radio down.

"Shut up, Hap. I'm listening."

"What you listening to them for?"

"They sound pretty content. They got no right to be content here. They shouldn't be sounding so comfortable when they are in so much danger. They should be screaming at us, or them, or someone. To stop it, or change things."

"They sound nice today."

"I noticed that."

"You do it too, BJ."

"Do what?"

"You've got to, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You drink. You smoke. You listen to the radio loud. Just because your bands ain't singing about God doesn't mean it's not an escape from all the shit. You can't be fighting every second of the day. Can you Booj'?"

"What I listen to is fighting music. What I read, them's fighting words. All I do is fight, Hap. Sure you can fight every second of the day. Sure you can."

"You gotta be exhausted, brother. Why don't you just leave them all alone? They ain't bothering you. They're none of your business."

"Then why are we fucking here, man? Why are we here?"

Sunday in Saigon. Thang would also be at church, singing. The Saigonese loved to sing.

The thought of it! A week which ended. A period of time which came to a conclusion, gave the boys a break. A lie in and a cosy sit around the Saturday morning cartoons box, sugary cereals prepared by Mom, and Pop slaving away gladly, maddeningly in the garden.

The grunts had their own Father who travelled with the boys and would hold impromptu sermons when he thought the time appropriate.

That morning Boojum had cried like he had never cried. He woke up with a vigorous twist of the body, in the dark, buried in the grass and he recalled his dream. He had cried for himself. A deliciously selfish whinge and blurb and all that heaving breathy nonsense.

Believing till now that his tears should be saved for the helpless, the downtrodden, the dead and the poor.

He wore a shy, gentian blue silk skirt. "I would have felt good as a girl," Boojum thought.

He drifted through lushly leaved tree tops to brilliant green hill tops, flying lightly on to elaborately decorated botanic gardens and Technicolor Disney wildernesses all the time shouting at his pursuer, "This is where I want to be. In the sun, in the grass, in the breeze, please, leave me alone, please let me go, let me rest, let me stay, let me stop, let me sleep." Real tears streaming from his face. Look at me I'M CRYING!

It was only a dream but it was a start.

Wish away the sins.

Wash away the sins.

It was only a start.

Love of self allowed him to cry that way.

"If I am hurt it is because the universe is hurt. The universe cries, not 'I'."

72

Boojum Dubial

Crapulous with wealth, Lara and Boojum were accustomed to their perocial meta-Dubials. Earning a moderatley comfortable living putting boxes inside boxes they were convinced that they were 'keeping things tidy'.

Historical documents and family trees

with Dubial on ancestry

Not unlike the army. Tempt the kid into the recruitment office, into a uniform, into a foreign country, into a battle, into a trench, into a box, into the ground. Tidy with no bodies around.

Fecking slips from family trees

Boojum Dubial's recoveries

The poor

return more.

Dubial made barrels from oaks, caskets for villagers.

At least he weren't one of them rapers and pillagers

"They won't be able to say that about me."

Valerie Dubial

Lara Dubial

Elizebeth Dubial (I luh ya)

Papi Dubial (I luh ya)

Grandpapi Dubial

married Grandma Moses with her hoses on the roses from the slips she fecked helped the lesser Doobies growses.

They keep the lists in the vaults and record their 'foibles'.

"Put that in a box, dear. They won't need to know. Put it in an unmarked box, in a suitcase, in the cupboard, in the room we will lock at the bottom of the garden."

They were very proud of themselves to be marrying under these circumstances. How brave to be maximising their attention to the moment. Embodying freedom and love and unity. How brave to blinker themselves from the past and the future and to look into each others eyes and know that this was everything they had ever planned for themselves. If tomorrow rained a shit storm, they could only hope that the survivors would plant roses.

"You are here?" Valerie asked.

"On this wonderful day of gladness and good fortune; this day of music and celebration,

before your friends,

Do you Boojum take Truc Mai to be your wife

To have and to hold,

in sickness and in health,

Through laughter and tears

for richer or for poorer,

and promise to love until death parts you?"

"I do," Boojum said.

"Do you Truc Mai take Boojum to be your husband

To have and to hold,

in sickness and in health,

Through laughter and tears

for richer or for poorer,

and promise to love until death parts you?"

"I do" Valerie said.

"Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other.

Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.

Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other.

Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you.

May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years,

May happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the earth.

I now pronounce you man and wife. You might want to kiss the bride," the chaplain said.

"I am here," Boojum said.

Hap signed as a witness and the boys got Boojum and Valerie drunk. Drunk enough to believe that the rosy future the chaplain had spoken of was

already and always

here with them too.

73

Lara Dubial.

"What you doin'?"

"Watching the lightning behind the clouds. It's beautiful. Silent."

"Come back here to me."

"I will, babe. Just a minute more. It's so cool outside."

"I'm waiting for you."

"I hope you always do."

Two small birds perched on the Buddha's right hand. To live with someone who lets you live in that heaven which you describe to your friends when you are temperately drunk and happy and you are all eagerly attempting to simplify the 'impossible'.

Well it's not impossible.

You may live this way, alone or together

as long as you are alive to see your vision come true.

"If you are here, and now,

I will always come back to you."

"There will be wine. Jazz playing from the flourishing Lynwood Gold and a harmonious swarm of semi-naked, muscle-bound bronzies carrying snack trays wherever I go. I walk barefoot, swim in lakes in the rain. Spend hours in my studio; days in my studio before leaving my work behind for months at a time while I spend everlasting evenings with friends. Look deeply into their eyes where I will find the inspiration I need to return to my work, in due time.

Absorb their talk and their light reaction to my presence. Read poetry to remind myself of the divine nature of a thought put into words and my dreams will be recorded and performed, on the run, by the migrating Tundra Swan. You will lift me and tell me you love me and your back will be strong from doing all those push ups. I won't have to beg. I don't need to do anything."

74

Self imposed Exile

S.I.E., A big deal for big dummies. And Boojum was just big enough and dumb enough.

"Leap from the train!"

But he never quite leapt did he?

"Jump off the cliff!"

But he never quite jumped did he?

"Lose everything, to know what you have."

But he never quite let go.

The abyss is not a cold, dark place where one sits in rags trembling in fear. The abyss resembles one's everyday existence; but somebody else's everyday existence.

In the abyss you may look like you and sound like you but you are barely recognisable in the clothes you wear and the context in which 'they' put you. Physically you are an appropriate size but you definitely don't fit.

To wear someone else's trousers, eat someone else's food, work in someone else's den.

To find 'yourself' in the abyss is to discover nothing , to learn nothing...but to open your eyes and suddenly be surrounded by strangers who in turn make you a stranger, this is the nightmare the 'lost' out there actively search for in the hope that they will one day wake up with a jolt to find themselves once again surrounded by the familiar, the comfortable, the loved. And in everything they see and do recognise that clear reflection of their true self.

This bright, noisy, neon carnival. The scorched white, easy beaches. The exotic flavours and libraries full of alternative saints. Poverty unsettling, unquestioned, a socialist aberration unchecked. Hundreds of thousands of citizens voluntarily gagged; a facemask for pollution, an apt symbol of resigned aquiesce. In the slums, in the dark, in their rags, trembling with fear. This is no lesson, this is their life.

Boojum begins to accept that he does not belong. With all his strength he looks to the locals for that friendly reflection he suspects will not manifest itself till the day he gets back on the plane and is asked, "Would you be interested in any alcoholic beverages, sir?"

To reconcile communism with the ideals of the West.

District 7 fancies - an equal share of burger joints on the street corner of every new luxury apartment block. Faster than a speeding bullet food. Fast so you miss the irony; the billionaire's muffled laughter over the phone, your veteran's hearts pounding and breaking at the unforgivable speed of compromise.

"What of the iron will of the fightning men, women and children? Death to the American and his popular music and his dangerous drugs. His soul destroying diet of grease and trashy T.V. It may have meant nothing to you but it meant something to me! It is unreconcilable; communism with the ideals of the West. We once tortured our now honoured guest."

"Just let us take the money, and we'll do the rest."

"Ahh, we can trust the chairman of our collective

To reconcile anything to suit our objective

We face imprisonment if we incur invective

There was never a future in being subjective."

The middle class Saigonese (from Hanoi families) as alien to Boojum as the street beggers hawking their lottery tickets to a populace on the brink of confusion as their young jump boat and swim for Pala.

"If they bring back conscription to fight in Ukraine, would you go to war again?" Lara asked.

"I'd go to prison and write a book called, 'Come on dickheads, what the fuck?'"

Boojum replied.

75

Smile Of Life

Basilisk - Smile of Life - Senko/my/fan.

Tan Tien Senko, electric fan.

Smile of a Basilisk - my Senko fan.

Tan Tien.

A basilisk smile at my Senko.

Tan Tien's electric fan.

Tan Tien is a man.

Tan Tien smiles.

A basilisk is a monster.

76

Abysseein' ya

Boojum's reflections on 'The Abyss' had unconsciously dragged something to his attention.

A curious thing had begun to occur. It started with Anna. Something Boojum thought was particular to her; a nervous habit she had of quickly looking away whenever eye contact was made. Even in direct conversation with him.

Boojum had surmised that all his new non-Vietnamese acquaintances were 'queer fish' but after three months of this behaviour from each and every one of them, Boojum felt something peculiar was afoot.

Not even Lara and Boojum's closest friends seemed to be able to hold his eyes for longer than a heartbeat.

Complete strangers in the street clamoured for a good long look into his eyes, heads craned back on scooters, shop keepers dropping their wares to satisfy their seemingly uncontrollable need to stare at him, school kids bumping into each other to fall into Boojum's nonplussed, uncommitted gaze.

Boojum's opinion of all this?

77

Od meaning Everything

The trailing one horse wonder of a midnight melancube. I threw the suitcase onto the top of the tin cellar doors rather than touch ground and risk bringing my body any closer to that underground nightmare.

Jingle bells

The landlord saw me walking away but wouldn't connect me to the crime, I was sure of it.

I carried on past the kitchen door (all criminals return to the scene) and on to the hatch that opens to the runway. A pretty blonde thing was sitting alone eating a sandwich near the exit.

"Does this thing open?" I said.

"I don't know," she said.

Jingle Bells

I smile at her and pull the latch. The door opens, but directly onto a propeller. There is a grinding noise and an alarm sounds. We come to a stop. I can see the tarmac below us but the door is jammed inside the wing. I jump through to the ground and pull the door closed behind me. The young thing helps me with the door and I tell her, "Please don't say you saw me."

The army police gather near the ice cream van outside.

Jingle Bells - Jingle Bells

There is no escape.

I hear one of the tall, well spoken policemen telling the others how he found the ciminal inside the plane.

"You should have seen him. One of those characterless sorts, you know with this awful soulless face and this horrible soulless laugh."

They mean me. I order a cone. I hope they don't make the connection.

Back and forward from the sand dunes to the water. A base runner trapped. Bin' caught in a rundown, Pa.

Grenades this side. Machine gun fire that. Fire in the water. Napalm in the trees.

There is a bitter gasoline taste in his mouth. A familiar candy smell behind the eyes. Deja Vu. Hap calling like that.

"BJ, get the hell outta there!"

The smoke clouds obscuring the boats just so. A tinder trickle of music coming from where? "Who the hell is playing music?" Overdressed in the sweltering heat of Hue asking himself, "Who the hell is playing music?"

78

Sick Fat Monkey (1941)

No 59 Sherriden Street. A thin, pale gray house at the end of an impressively bland row of identical homes. Weather dark white. The breakers on the coast visible and audible from the front yard. Air thick with salt and seagulls.

"You have a beautiful home," she said.

"How long do you plan to stay?"

"Until December, I think. I'd like to be back for the holidays," she said.

"You live with someone?"

"Just me Mum and me Gran back home," she said.

"You working?"

"I've a job starting in Whelan's starting Monday. Do you know it?" she said.

"No."

"I'm pretty handy round the house if you need any help. At weekends like, when I'm not at work," she said.

"My wife does all that."

"Oh, okay," she said.

Her slender, dead body fit neatly into the alcove behind the stove in the basement. Until they had time to fix her permanently beneath the small shed in the back garden.

79

Long Foot. Black Foot.

Long Foot Mother says

We couldn't move you.

You just stood there with your hand flat on your chest like that.

The American national anthem playing on the radio.

Dad tried to get your attention, and Linda, and me but you didn't want anything to do with us.

You ignored us completely and listened to the song, standing all soldierly, very serious.

You were two years old.

You had never seen anyone do that.

There's no way you had heard that song before.

Black Foot Father says

Your Mum said she knew when you were coming; months before you came.

She was speaking to you.

Your ghost.

"Not yet," she was telling you.

"Not yet but soon, dear."

That type of thing.

She recognised you.

Your spirit.

Your soul.

She knew it was you and one day she was ready.

And she said, "Okay, yes, I'm ready," and the very next day she recieved the signs and we visited the clinic and pop, there you were.

She knew.

Long Foot Lara says

They told me I was here before.

I'm not sure you could trust them, but at the time it really got to me.

They said I'd lived somewhere in 'Asia'.

My Mother was my lover.

I was the maid in his (my Mother's) home.

She was married to my Father (a woman) and she (my Father) was from a wealthy family. Me and my Mother plotted and killed Dad and inherited all his money.

Explained lots when I heard it.

Doesn't mean so much now.

Black Foot Boojum

I fantasized I was from the Black Foot tribe of Native Americans.

I'm in touch with myself and nature and the earth and animals.

That's how I got it into my head that everything I was being taught as a kid was mixed up. Made up.

80

The Translator

They see the killer.

Boojum sees the killers too.

As long as they are uncomfortable with this they ain't ever gonna make no progress.

You's a killer. I'm a killer. We's all of us killers.

How'd you think we got here in da fust place? Natural selection weren't achieved by no genius'.

Thas why we still as dumb as fuck. Gullible too.

"Yeah but you killed for fun," they say.

Blame the sun.

You's cold blooded.

You's a lizard.

To belong to the slayers.

Charge twice as much as they do.

Swat those flies. Keep the change. Beat the drum. keep them coming.

Birth is murder.

What you say?

Birth is murder.

Get away. Too late. Cops on your tail. Death or jail.

Three sips of the wrong potion puts Boojum in a headlock.

They shout at him to get off the bus, "This is your stop. You must exit. Tell him. Tell him." But he doesn't want to get off. This is not his stop. He has much further to go. He lives with them now.

"And what about your wife?"

"Leave her out of it. She was not involved. She saw nothing. Knew nothing. She's innocent."

"She must stand trial."

"She is not from here. It would not be fair."

"The translator sees to that."

Boojum turns the shoe shine boy away. He will pay for this.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"I'm nobody. I was born a customer. I may always be right but I am still at the mercy of the management."

"This ain't no shop, Booj'."

"It isn't? So what have we been doing, man? What the fuck have we been doing?"

You can still smell the guilt of a war hard won.

"He moved to a country that won a war and they seemed to be doing okay," but for the armless, the legless, the poor, the homeless, the maimed and mutilated motivated by an insatiate desire for vengeance.

"But we won."

"What is this 'we' kimosabe?"

"Our country reunited."

"Who's country exactly? The one I had was plenty big enough to begin with. I didn't call for any reunification. Nationalism, comrade, is another form of obsessive psychosis. Mass hypnosis. You got it bad. You are not welcome in my home."

"Our home, comrade. Ours now."

Tuning the moon nail clipping variety show stopper. Australia a toe bite away from the sidelong look of a sinner as well as. Lop your book off at that quarter - the desert island heresy, impress me Woo Tang style. Fold your music sheet, I can hear the harmonica by the Kung Fu slate of your athletic old man - the bastard cigarette and dupe-you-child. Sweet coffee stone jackdaws perched feedlessly and on demand. Clattering Chinese chess masters bully themselves, "I can do better," or leave the sun in the shade. I read the lyrics from the phone and I'll play it to you right here in the park. Nobody looks at Boojum here. People like him are usually in places like this. Good disguise for a wanted man. Coffee, song sheet, guitar, smart phone and an ivory fan. Or this man for example; the one with the lobster cellotaped to his back. Blends right in. "Don't need no tickets. Never need no tickets."

Okay you proved you can write, now play us something we all know.

Lara contemplates the Vietnamese women's need to be photographed amongst colourful plants and flowers. The apex of sophistication and beauty. The girl with the old man. She's got the ass and breasts of a European.

Old man hits pay dirt. Old man falls up the step. Boojum suddenly feels nervous, like the sky's coming in. Someone is stacking chairs. Time to call 'it' a 'day'. Parenthesis makes it all fall away...

...music makes it all better.

The psychic told Valerie her Father had already been reborn and was living with a new family. The psychic said he was well loved and he loved them. Valerie didn't think that was very fair. Telling her that.

Who's to say you weren't a dick in your previous life? That could be why you're so damn ugly this time round. Deek said that.

There are two types of people in this world. Those who are living, and those who are waiting to live. Those who are reaping the benefits of having done good and those who are making up for the bad they done. We gonna be busy next life, boys.

Semtex said that.

81

Middle of the Zero

Reconciliation. What reconcilliation? Zero with zero.

Stop shopping.

Onto the milk box. Raise your fist back. Shake it in the air.

You started something, now you gotta finish it. You picked your course, and you know what for.

Put your fist away. Listen to me.

You died for us. We forgive you that.

There is nothing to copy. Zero with zero.

So you just relax and take a deep breath now. There, that's it.

So you married again. She's lovely. You deserve her. I was not so smart.

When you left us on that beach, you took everything.

They said you were a hero.

You can be a hero again.

She will help you. I could never be so smart.

I am here, honey. I am alive, I am loved and I love back.

I know what I said about my father, but she was right to tell me.

And now I'm telling you.

It's all okay.

You can move on.

Everyone finds what they are looking for in Saigon.

It was true then and it is true now.

Lara will find it also. And she will find it in you. For this reason you must stay strong.

Never ever give up. And when you find yourself caught in the middle of a rundown, keep on running, Booj'. Better to be inbetween than nowhere.

Zero this side, zero that side.

You almost look like you're dancing.

There was sand everywhere. You were half buried in the beach when Hap reached you. He watched the last light of life leave your eyes and he sang to you. He shared with you all his love at that moment, booj'. The love that carried you here to this life which has been so blessed. We are very lucky, right now. Don't you forget that.

Let's say we were released, not caught. That way, everything we choose to do will be a tribute to a freedom we take for granted.

Don't look for me, you won't find me and I wouldn't recognise you.

Haply May-dayed the fanfare from the takeshift dock. Took the cockles. Took the muscles. Up to their knees in the slime at the edge of the Saigon river running out to sea from you to me. Hero to hero. Underwater bridges moulded in seaweeded water belles; tie your hair back and slip on those cheap high heels (one high heel), you almost look human. Heart stained with novelty blood from a Duke for a Daisy commune. You show me a Duke, I'll swap you a daisy. The fin fine for now but you'll have to tape up the scales to create the illusion of smoothness whether you rub this way or that. We look off the stern of the ship into the past and it all seems so new; the smashing, crashing waves foaming at the memory. The rear of the train rehashing tracks and tracks into a mix-tape of afterthoughts.

"I can't believe it's not butter."

"No, it's a memory."

"Mad."

82

A Pocket of Silence

A root in a coffin.

I watched my foot become my own. It took a long time. A long foot.

After her visit began the migraines. The dark rooms.

Cut off the sound. Cut out the sun.

I have already written the future, so I know that after I lose, I win.

I threw away the eraser. Genius don't make mistakes. Someone said that. I forget who. They acted like they knew though, which is commendable. As long as they don't take their own advice as gospel.

83

Alive-o

They seem nice. He's a bit quiet, an empty smile, but she's lovely. He designs Coats of Arms. Had fried bread with the breakfast this morning. Yum.

The nicest thing is being at the seaside. I go for long walks in the evening and I think I will definitely spend time strolling on the promenade at the weekends. Lots of handsome men (ho ho) and they have a bandstand with music. Hope you and Grandma are well. Grandma would love it here. They have a 'Donkey Derby' on the pier. I really miss you and I think about you both a lot. Mrs Dubial is making hotpot tonight. I bet my bonnet it's not half as good as yours. Anyway, must run for the bus now. Love you loads and give Grandma a big kiss (one for yourself too). Love Myrna.

84

Was/is

Taken for a chaplain. I was a walking oligarchy. A helmeted grooming salon.

Taken for granted. And ransom. And panel shows, the way they did them in the fifties.

Bitter, mispronounced 'Bittern'. The nicest thing being the chips by the seaside.

Got lost on a long hike despite there being only one path from start to finish. By the time I got to the last few kilometres I had to take my boots off because of the pain. Blisters the size of Everly Brothers. I wasn't lost for one second. I didn't stray from the path by one metre. Steep rising cliff face this side, drop to the ocean that. But even with the ocean always on my right, I thought there was something wrong. Why couldn't I see the beach already? Why were there no other people? Bitten.

The cost effective nomenclature of a Bill instead of a Billy. 'Brown Girl in the Ring' going through my head for two hours. Someone else's death. Someone else's final moments.

Living someone else's life.

I'm a bitter chaplain.

"Who wis you?" the school girl asked?

"What do you mean 'Who wis I?'"

"Who wis you?!"

"Who wis you?"

"I am fifty."

"No you are not."

"No. I am just joking. I am a hundred."

"You're a funny little one aren't you?"

"No I'm not. Wis you okay? I'm hungry. Do I still need to speak English?"

The flag is a target. Don't wrap me in no flag. Get me an interpreter. No, that's not what I meant at all.

Everything has got to be just like you want it to.

Copy the things you see and put it onto a big canvas and make it colourful. People like that.

Well the sky does that.

You gotta place something in the middle. Work out from there. Put something in the middle of the zero. Then you got something to work on. Something to delete. Something to do.

85

The Secret of her Birth.

The event had appeared to others to be monumental. To her it was just another day. They threw a party. Congratulations were given and cake and drinks were passed around. She sicked up a little and slept for the most part. There was no going back. This was just the way it was going to be.

Once old enough to think words, she became enraged at the inevitability of everybody's 'casual acceptance' of her. That she was 'there' was no longer enough. Packed off daily for a random slice of someone else's education. Cake and drinks only once a year!

And so to University. Still she sicked up and she slept.

An art degree. A degree in art.

The difference between a seriously beautiful 'painting' and a seriously thought out piece of 'art'.

Lara knew the difference. That was the secret of her birth.

Born still

A removed process

Excluding the human

"You are beautiful," Boojum says.

Still.

Ovularum you can pale! Burn your ships after invading. Like the Vikings did.

Hold me tight and let me at them, I ain't gonna stop till I'm so drunk.

I miss large, cold glasses of wine.

I miss alone time.

We have parts to play,

and a sad one is mine.

Alcohol brings out the unemployed actor in me as the characters I play are quickly forgotten.

You woke me and interrupted me mid-sentence. This bothered me all morning until I had forgotten who it was I had been talking to all night, and why. A matter of degrees.

The difference between me and you?

That's a secret.

Quicker with the camera phone. Catch the fire on the sails. The flames on the water.

"That's from the oil the ship was carrying. It could burn for days."

86

A Real Soldier Has a Worn Lace

Hap, Crane, one, Thu, Thuy, it was too far away to hold on. When it left them. Land – soil. Spoils. The biggest trial by miles. Even so Hap wrote, "I'm here to speak for Joe." More times than he could count. Until it counted.

Dear Valerie...

A painting of Lara volunteering to stay.

Something you kept which will remind you. You know you had it long before you started wondering what it was.

A song?

A decleration of Mother's love?

Mother's song?

Boojum was irritated by the voices. Then he put a face to each one. "What are they doing up there?"

"I'll wear it as long as I am alive."

"Shuffle over here, dear. I got a game to teach you."

"I love games."

"A song."

"I'll pay you to shut up."

"What have you been up to?"

"Hello, hello, yes, we aren't ready."

"Your Vietnamese."

"Uncle Sam Ain't Released Me Yet. It's an acronym."

"Hello. Bye bye."

"Okay, bye bye."

"Tam biet pronunciation."

"A song."

"A song of fathers."

Dug up the conversations floating in. Back in. Off the waves and under the sand from a boat we once called.

Paste them up on the wall, like the sky does, and colour in pairs of eyes so we can pretend to know what they were talking about.

That's what Boojum did.

87

Aquablue

Of course I remember you.

Cut price sello-balm. Limpet made freshman. Milestones hung round the necks of fairies and grinded at the Davy Jones' for tooth picks. Molar refreshing and foot insect parlays on the No.68 "God got infected on the highway. Some yoyo bumped into me. I was just standing there." We sat in front of a computer. You spoke about Hell's kitchen.

"The fan. An all tha is off the wall char we be ha come July middle.

We ha ban dared it wa game bottle you hide him. When half you save is affa Dung soa bud. Hail Mary the she woun up wi fan not ban."

Speak slowly, more clearly, correctly and English. Speak slower, so I can understand you, properly and English. Stop speaking to me, I don't understand you. It's wrong and not English. Don't try speaking to me. I will never ever ever have coffee with you, even though I do remember you.

A gift you say?

Well that's different. I'm free all day Saturday.

You will have to answer some questions though.

The way you tell it is always different from actually sitting there. The word 'sunset' cuts through all the shit and puts you in mind of a sunset.

"I watched the sun set behind the calm, white skyline of a lazy Saigon." Lara said that.

Alex's Carla said, "I am being eaten alive by mozzies. The sun is setting which means they will stop frying those fucking fish. At least till morning. What are we going to have for dinner? I'm starving."

"What was it you wanted to ask me?"

"What's the gift?"

"Is that your question?"

"No, but what's the gift?"

A lot of people talk about feet and socks.

Pharrell Williams has his socks made for him.

88

The Book of Sorrow Songs

Can't write to myself last time round no how.

Hap wrote her. Val. Wrote her. Val, I am so sorry.

Prepared or not. Cheval on demand.

In a dream you told me I would pay for the things I had done in my past lives.

We would pay.

Kim and Kieu recollected unrecollected. Your classrooms darkened in storm washed brides and groom reception. Your untold ties to literature and relapse.

"Now I feel shame," said the student. No time for our heros but to say don't give up on us we have thoughts of our own. A pin for a fan and now you'll love me.

And what you need it in schools for anyhow? They is all up inside themselves and you wis the great American novel. I seen them bad actors in the Vietnam movie theatre and I can't see that they have a choice.

You steal your voice from out of necessity.

With all those real bullets flying out there I just have to get hit by at least one of them. And then if I get hit they got me on the floor and I'm a sitting duck then. Then they can take aim and torture me before they finish me. A bullet in the leg. A bullet in the groin. Shall we tap him yet? Nope. A bullet in the hand.

Every mission and you have to commit suicide like that. Be ready for the death that you picked out of all the deaths.

A soldier is a suicide.

I will step out into that bright day and come what may, I will keep you from calling me a coward at all costs.

We couldn't find the body in the surf. Too sandy with bomb blasts and we had bullets to dodge too you little bastard. You ain't the only one got an inner monologue and a fear of being shot.

Sorry Crane.

89

She Thinks She's Human

She rocks like one awake up ups.

In where does she await await?

Sheila lays. Dot. We got the change for the foe.

He looks like Uncle Ho. He's in long shorts and he's touching his package with his hand made like a fish knife.

You had me at cement mixer. She loves that part of the couch - leaves shapes - she thinks she's human.

In touch all the time. Straight long black mane she would dye.

"You are like Vietnam." She left behind a big stain.

You want freedom and you'll use any ideology which promises to help you.

"So he was a communist. He would have been our communist."

Nietzsche take you, Confucius take you, Buddha take you, Dylan take you - The only thing that matters in the end is that you weren't nobody's slave.

T.W.I.F. - To What If.

Gun-ga-Din Din Din goes the rockabilly guitar. You don't have the blues here, do ya?

"Not so much."

It's the perspication stain left that makes her think she's human - She was everything else when she lay there.

To leave one's own mark. To be nobody's brush. To. Do. With. What. They. Will.

As long as people/nations must ask permission, some bully ought to be fugged.

The politics of the human soul breed such bullies.

When you get to the part where she materialises and communicates with you and you laugh I want you all to stand up and raise your hands in the air and shout 'YES' very very loudly.

So Mi Ni Nau Cau Chu - You are skinnier each time I look, No.32.

The gift appropriately:

Nem.

"I do not want to talk about this. In Europe you can talk about politics. It is not the same here. You see skinnier. I see more. The skinnier you are the more you reveal."

New Vietnam

To please or placate you, I will sing your songs. But only because we share the same notes. The rest is academic.

"Our kids are fatter because of your fast food."

"That's academic."

I will not protest. Demonstration is patriotic. Do not step out. Leave from this area. It is not safe here. You are brave. We are not afraid. They are sending ships. 3000 have left Vietnam. They targetted all businesses with Chinese characters. As can be expected, by accident they target Taiwanese businesses.

Now Vietnam

Democratic is patriatic.

Boojum and Lara, a belated anachronism before their time

"Do not get off when the doors are closing

Or caught on the doors and be hurted."

90

Peacemeal

If they had only sat down with him.

He honoured them with their own words.

"We hold these truths to be self evident..."

But the individual counts not when your friend is the size of France and comes to the table hungry.

"We hold these truths close to our chest..."

They tore him apart piecemeal with a 'No Ho' here and a 'No Ho' there. No we don't care for your people. No we don't want you to be free.

"We hold these truths back..."

Until Lenin courted his presence. Sat him at the table like a human sits people at tables.

Now eat your fill, sir and begin at the beginning.

Uncle Ho to a candied world...

He won't ever dance with me

He never calls

He always tells me he's busy but he has time for his buddies

He never gets me gifts

And when he does they are cheap

He jokes about me in front of his family

He makes me feel inferior when all he knows about is sport

He never wants to meet where I want to meet

He doesn't remember the names of any of my friends

He won't hang out with my friends but I have to hang out with his friends all the time

He beats me

He ridicules my family

He is oafish and rude and he sniffs when he eats

He doesn't pick up when I try to get him on the phone

And

He finishes my meals without me offering to let him do so.

"Would you care for a pastry?"

I don't mind if I do.

"May I speak?"

Please.

"Forget this man, or soon your speech will no longer match your conduct."

And the rest is hysteria.

91

The Same

Secret Housewife, from a painting drawn.

To the painting reborn.

Farewell and thanks. You amount to a smudge.

I do not blame. I am the same.

92

Random Thoughts on Common Things

General text sent from he once was a general. In an army.

Nicer feet. Nicer.

Than she was given.

A good government. Bad person.

Anaheim. I like the word.

Osprey. I liked the word.

Romeo and and Juliet.

Houston baseball team 5.

That one went wide of the plate.

A suitcase in a state farm on a bread roll.

"We mean no harm."

Go to the fields, boys.

Don't go to the fields.

I wrote a woman, one day and I gave her hairy feet. I do that.

It was a blanket text from the government to the entire city of Saigon (I like to call it); Do not join in the demonstrations. Revolt is unpatriotic. If you know someone who is doing this. Tell us about it immediately.

They do that.

We know for a fact that he used the fast ball 59% of the time.

Angels.

But you LOVE war. Why not one with China.

I refused your uncle's victory helmet.

I refused your uncle's victory helmet.

Fire on us! You will have to fire on us! They asked me, but I...

93

Like The bats

Like the bats who dared to reach they screech and screech. The lightning flashes swarm warnings of the silent battles in the hills; history calls voicelessly like a black nightmare smiling across the sky. Unnatractive and vague.

Not one moment's peace even in the evening's silence. The thunderless anticipation of another and another scheming morning of wildlings' sugaring beats, their frugal fries, exemplary cheats. The mosquitoes frittered in jazzy can juice, a truce, a truce!

Love without joy? Oh boy, who you kiddin'?

Mime-bombs.

Have you guessed what it is yet?

Fun but creeping; like an Australian man disillusioned by his Saigon bride. Hanoi born. Cold for gold and a better education than you can get here. A rounded education instead of this schlepping lunar eclipse.

"Once you heard one o' their stories, you don't want to hear no more. I heard enough to last me, man and this bitch was the last straw.

The taxi-bikers, all from South Vietnam Army families, I guarantee it. the women selling the fake brand shoes in the streets, South Vietnam Army families. The security guards in front of the shops. We will 'reeducate' you, but you ain't ever gonna have it good again. In life, you failed. This is your judgement. Should have run and hid with the other traitors. Shoulda runandhid, Viverid."

Boojum had detached himself. Lara too. The only way to complete the cycle. Rejoin the cycle. Lose sight of the cycle.

For Lara this distance resembled a pleasent boredom she had long forgot, and missed. For Boojum detachment meant a heightened sense of who other people were. He had got to know himself quite well over the years but had lost everyone else in the process. Boojum missed every one of those people right now.

He missed them so much he didn't want to let the feeling go too soon.

Lara wished to see her boredom out also.

"They told me, Booj', wait until you are so bored that you are climbing up the walls of your room. For you this will not be easy, but you must allow yourself to succumb to the beautiful drudgery of having absolutely nothing to do, then and only then may you catch a glimpse of exactly what it is you want to do with yourself. You must learn to stop. There is nothing which 'needs to be done'. No medal to be won. Sleep, eat and read when and if you want. If you are capable of staring at a flat white wall for a week, let yourself do it. There are not so many as strong as yourself, Lara."

94

Community Spirit.

She sleeps deeply while the spirits ramble on at Boojum about this and that and the other.

"Well you made it! You're here."

"You are here too," Boojum tells them.

"Yes, but we're not are we? Not really."

"I'll bet you stink. I would love to smell your stink. Run from the room with your fucking horrible smell up my nose and clear it out with a fresh breath of air. Go out and get drunk."

"Swim in the ocean. Float on one of those water floaty beds for hours in the sun."

"Go for a run, beat on any beach person who beats a drum."

"Play the guitar, stub my toe, drink strong coffee till I'm so dizzy I fall on the floor."

"Hug my Mum, ride on a train, eat a dozen hot dogs, make prank calls, stare at four flat white walls."

"If you could just brush away all the flies from your brain, B.J. you could do all that too."

"I do those things."

"But where's the joy, Booj'?"

"We seen you looking on jealous at kids playing their games. You ain't ever gonna be that young again, but it don't mean you gotta forget. You know you got it in you. Everybody else sees it. Don't tell us you're faking it."

"Are you just shy to let 'em all know you're having a blast? Are you guilty about something? Too guilty to let on? Is that it? God damn! You think it would be bad form to let go, don't you? Shit!"

"The biggest joy you get in life is watching people let go. You sure as shit know they ain't all saints. But they make up for whatever they is doin' by sharing some of that Joy we on about. Booj', you gotta let go. You uptight like a Reptile on a barbecue."

"But I killed a girl."

"What! The hell you did! That was your wife. Now relax and go out there and put it on everybody. You poor child. Killed a girl. Shit."

Not oval-crowd, semi bandular.

The neighbour knocked and was invited in.

A cat was being raped on another neighbours' tin roof.

"Find me a photo of a cat's penis," Lara said.

Boojum told her to do it.

She found one quickly and thrust the photo under his nose. He wasn't happy to have seen that.

The neighbour would have to leave the country and come back in. They told him about Mr Cuong.

Contact had been broken.

95

There is only one type of philosophy: political philosophy.

Boojum dreamt that the war was over. He and Lara were walking along the fences and back gardens of common English folk a century out of time but enjoying lovely weather for the season. Despite the sun being high in the sky, the chill coast breeze welcomed them home in as kind a manner as they could have wished. There was a little damage done to the village but not too much.

Boojum saw a child with a home-made fishing rod sitting cross legged in his front garden, waiting for his father, or his brother. "I will take up fishing," he told Lara. "You wouldn't be able to kill the fish you catch," Lara told him, "you can't even kill a spider."

Stucco

Tarpaulin

Roof-racks

Evelyn Waugh

"In that case, I will have children," he told Lara, "and they will fish."

Everything is out of context.

This is natural.

For the soul there can be no philosophy.

This is right.

Golden and erotic, they tested his patience - how long you hold out - no kids \- She 25 - Ha - no possible - Ha - Ha.

Ending where you're beginning, no? Ha.

Yes. Ho.

Ha. How was it for you?

Ho. Cheap. One hour too long.

He. In for a penny. One or twenty; makes no difference to me. I'll bring up a whole army if you ask me to.

96

New Expressions of Her Body

or

A Mullet for Artemis

She is one vast abstract. She is four parts of the first third of each divided into two and quartered respectively into separate quadrants each containing 15 derivatives of a cloudy disambiguation estimated at 8-per-chapter and named after the 12 sagas which represent the eleven stages of the first four's growth. For this the geometrical illustrations are canonical, elliptical, spheroid, trapezoidal and temperamental. The five dimensional chart seen from a 39 degree angle resembles a woman riding a diamond studded cabbage. The cabbage here symbolises the nine necrophyliacs of Zeno; the woman the diamonds, and the diamonds the thirteenth parallel as discussed in the lost parchments of Zara, closed down due to a severe drop in male customers during the solar months.

Her child bearing hips.

Hap, last Senegal, was Major.

Detachment from it all.

AfrakA.

Rouse the ranks and hope and hop(e).

Hang.

Dang that.

Hung. Hang.

"Hey, Crane, you 'emember the way he used to owe and aw when we picked on him some?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

Old combs now.

97

Jodorowsky's Spiritual Warrior

Naked and humbled to the point of castration.

Now the virgin moves within. Your dogged concept addressed to a street vendor; a mean hucksy, balls his toes into a foot-fist.

"I'll treat my animals any way I please. What is all this nonsense about Gods and Ospreys? I aim to miserize EVERY creature.

Yes I can read!

No I don't read!"

One can find the spiritual in everything. Except this guy.

This guy has no spiritual in him at all. I mean and I've looked. Seriously. You gonna write a book, paint a painting, make some revolutionary proclamation to make living life a much better ride than it already is, this dude, he won't give two shits about it one way or the other. This cat is empty. Dead. Nada. He has had his insides put on the outside and his brain slid into the gutter along with his soul. It would take a thousand megaton bomb to rattle this guy into consciousness and you would need a million more exploding in succession just to keep him awake for the afternoon. He sleepwalks, then wake-sits. He hasn't followed any thought he has ever had. He has his thought and it just legs it round the corner never to be seen again.

If this guy's drink was spiked with twelve tabs of acid, the acid would find no relevant vision which it could bend; no ideas it could twist, no tangeable time cognicence to knead and fuck up. Acid would be bored stiff with this guy to play with.

You must scatter your seeds on fertile ground and wait until some warrior much much much stronger than you comes along to set this guy's puppies free.

Lara begs Boojum's pardon, "I'm sorry I acted stupid. Do you forgive me? Are you sorry you have a stupid for a girlfriend?"

"You ain't stupid, baby, you're just hungry."

"Anyway, I'm sorry. But I really do need to eat. Like right now."

AS = Fq 2 ~ <>

(Attention span is equal to food multiplied by quantity squared, with deteriorating gradation proportionate to excess)

Three to go - with the pain at the back of the eye - bowling for perfection.

Unable to feel without there's a stretcher bearer at hand to carry away the unwanted residue. back-handed the heels of self reflection.

The first one just skimmed the temple but the shock of it was enough to send him down. Bullet number two slammed into the butt of his rifle taking the knuckles and fingers of his right hand with it.

piano

Bullet number three caught him by surprise. A rude interruption to his finger distress. Bullet number three finished him.

Bullet number three was made in a Sellier & Bellot factory in Czechoslovakia by Boojum's Mother-in-law, Vendula Stranakova. That particular bullet was one of fifty she had personally 'counted off',

49, 48, 47, 46, 45...

on zero she had allowed herself a snack break.

Boojum's third bullet was number thirteen on Vendula Stranakova's list. When the last bullet had been counted she went to the third floor canteen, sat with her three closest work colleagues, ate three Tatranky wafers and swore exactly three times in response to a horrifying story Maria was telling about her cousin's sixty three hours in labour.

"Ty vole!", "Ty vole!", "Ty vole!"

She was also told that two cups of Turkish coffee was enough for any human being.

She could have said no but she said yes.

98

Gone.

"I shall not be moved - Success will find its way to me like a heat seeking missile scudding across millennia."

"Now they got wolves making calls for us and they got glasses you can see everything with. There's seven hundred years in it. We are still learning. When the learning stops; there's your end of history. The rest is wavy."

"He didn't change a thing. And I still don't see what it's got to do with water."

"I've been on boats like that. That's how you tell a story."

"My accomplice, what have we accomplished? After all this time did you find what you were looking for?"

"The cars in my mind go Mee-ow, Mee-ow, Mee-owwwww. Like that."

"Some people are in a crowd. Some see the crowd around them. Some people do not see things ending; not meals, not movies, not days, not sentences. Not when the baton is passed on to all sides at all times to more and more and more, ah l'amour...

de l'infini."

"Finally lost sight of the Bitexco tower. The mist rolling in."

"Sigh."

Cries Boojum.

You are always in my heart

Even though you're far away

I can hear the music of

The song of love

I sang with you

You are always in my heart

And when skies above are grey

I remember that you care

And then and there

The sun breaks through

Just before I go to sleep

There's a rendezvous I keep

And a dream I always meet

Helps me forget we're far apart

I don't know exactly when, dear,

But I'm sure well meet again, dear,

And my darling, till we do

You are always in my heart.

Booj and Alex. Draft dodger rags. Dodged the fake of the luke warm war. The third world war-what-for. The home a make a dame a shames. The family comes first. The family second.

The third world war third, and then the family.

The castles in the sand home the bodies. The stones like runes and Romes mark temporal the he-say of the marmalade still on his chin and even in death he looks like a parasite.

Lara let that one go, because all along she knew that Booj' meant more to her than a plastic cup full of toys by the fire. Melted 'radio' guy (the one nobody wants on their team but who gets the job done, "Fire everyone!") put aside for today. The one Lara picks from the bunch is a crooner with a gun lying on his tummy. Out of context he looks like Superman flying.

Their son likes that one best too.

"I'll put that on our wall, Booj', and that way junior will always know your face even while you are away. There's a letter here for you. You started that book yet?"

99

Divinity of the Wind

Something about his Father running ahead of him and worrying that he was lost and then when Boojum tried to save him it was too late. Even while he was telling the dream Boojum had to admit the memory of it had gotten away from him.

The city was more built up now, like Chicago he thought, busier too. Even so, Boojum recalls looking out over the city from a rooftop and watching it disappear piece by piece, a building here and a building there.

"I was quite a lot older and my wife was European. Tall, hot looking woman. Don't tell Val'. We will return. Hap, I have the funniest feeling. I'm going to make it. I think we're going to win."

100

False Alarm

Two years and six wars later they are still building. Boojum and Lara largely unaffected. The sun is still shining, the earplugs unbloodied, family fences reinforced, the birthday prize of a glass hammer for a Vietnamese child is the equivalent of a lifetime guarantee never to go hungry.

Last orders from Koh Rong Samloem.

The Mekong copulation has risen since vaginas are being test run by nurses and a car's beehive is located in the boot which is located at the front these days.

National anthems are all but dead since beards won the hearts of true nations and true nations lay low their arms like baboons at a shoegazer's disco.

Lara carried her coffee machine through 8 different countries losing only the clip off the lid where you put the water, which is not bad considering, and Boojum's Bara belicosed jocolery as only a baby banjo knows how. We blessed him once, we blessed him twice.

A conscientious objector, self imprisoned, inner terrains riot coreographer on the run with his erstwhile sidekick boxing, free forming, round hipped, lindy lipped sentinel organising brochure whore.

We blessed him once more.

"Dear Motherer, we opened the capsule which read 'eat me and grow larger' but they don't do European sizes here. I'm having to make do with what I brought. I'm buying men's sizes and they still don't fit. Booj' tried Riptiles uniforms and the dandy finery of a Viverid and still finds penitentiary attire preferable to both. Still writing.

Light the home fire,

get the slippers,

make a pizza,

we're coming home.

We will sharpen your tools now. They will be far more effective in the long run.

As for the drills, Mrs Shorrocks gathered them all up and put them in her desk drawer until recess.

I pick up the pen and hunker down. I got a Judas-stain under the belt. Reach in. Reach in. Just there. There. There.

~

PORTRAIT 2

Pendleberry's Think-Cake

'Most people are other people.' Oscar Wilde

1

Some memories are sound. I know. I have records of my youth. Once upon a time my paintings reflected my past.

'Pen'...Pen'...'

They call but I don't answer.

'Pen', where are you?'

I am tucked away in some secret cove.

I won't stop there. I won't sit and search there; but by the scalded bald tables, that rough jaw of seats. I will sift through these bones and bowls. I'm looking for water-plants; I'm looking for anima, reptiles, scree. No, I'm looking for something else. The life of these shallows mean nothing to me. I was looking for...

....the sun studded purple skies raining laser pricks of fire onto my vulnerable young flesh. Probing the rock pools, feeling for pulses of something alien.

Greet it. I come in peace.

Solitude.

For centuries I blamed my family for my foibles; my forays into unlawful activities; my keen interest in all things foreign to this mundane, mopsack existence.

If I have never pleased my parents I have made damn sure the guardians of the heavens don't shun my steel.

Myrninerest, you would have cried to see me.

I wasn't so different. Cross-legged, curled in tight to the rocks – infant Buddha, limping thoughts out across the nanzak coloured ocean. Semi-formed, twitching mutant life out there somewhere. Hopes, beliefs, fears, sinking – rising – sinking – rising, treading water soft and puzzled.

The future, a pebble cast back at me by the shushing waves. Bullets of stone rattling me into consciousness.

'Pen'...Pen'...' They've started again. I can see their cosy heads now beetling over the boulders. Familiar. They loved me.

I am shade. I am lunch. I am shining. I continue to ignore their calls. I talk to myself from the rock pool; mouth distorted, Sirisian-like lips forming thoughts, watery, untight. I am mesmerised by these melted molecules, this organic abstract. Mesmerised by a memory. My memory. My memory.

My rubber bucket, Bali-blue, buckled swim-shorts, blonde arm peeling.

'I'll join them,' I think, 'before they find me. That just wouldn't do. I'M OVER HERE.'

They look relieved.

'This is where I am. Over here. This is where I am.'

~

Introductions:

The W.D.P.

Wading through the spaceport casino Howard becomes despondent.

"Where's Seshu?"

Impatiently, I remind Howard, "We're not meeting Seshu." Howard doesn't seem to understand. He's not listening to me. I watch him carefully. He moves on ahead, oblivious, into a utilities room.

\- Personnel only -

A windowed room to a windowed room that shows him barge from one to the next shouting, not Seshu's name but mine. I follow his movements. Was this a dream?

"PENDLEBERRY!" Then louder.

"PENDLEBERRY!" I see him pushing frantically past dozens of angry pilots, well-heeled hostesses, electro-cleaners and Ympe security guards; knocking over tables and chairs and buckets and papers, computers. Then he spies me through one of the half open doors.

"Pendleberry? Zarathustra!" he exclaims, "I haven't seen you in...heavens, how long? How've you been? You married yet? This is amazing."

We have the crowd's attention.

They are amused at his exaggerated gestures and merriment. He picks me up in his stubby yellow arms; a giant bear hug.

"I'm great. Fine, really," I tell him. He puts me down and holding him at arms length I camp it up with a bit of an effort. I'll humour him. "But you, you look wonderful."

"Yeah? How do you like my wig this way?" His crown does look different.

"Just lovely," I say, and "How are you liking London? She treating you nice?"

He's flummoxed. Like a rowdy drunk coming to. Gradually, but with apparent difficulty, he shrugs off this disconcerting puzzlement and pretends to need directions, then...

Fortune.

A beautiful young nurse, who has been cricking her neck watching us, duly informs us that the exit is 'That way.'

"Well what was her name?" Howard asks as we march off.

She was wearing a nametag but I hadn't noticed the name.

"This is a good ploy for picking up girls eh?" Howard smiles, proud of his improv'. There's a skip in his new step. New wig and a new step.

"Yeah," I reply, distantly, "It's a good one alright."

Howard is a Kumenite. One of the lucky ones. I don't know where Howard is right now. I'm not sure he wants me to know; me or anybody else for that matter. Howard has been behaving suspiciously recently. Seshu noticed it first. I fear the worst. He has been my mentor for a number of years now. To lose him this way...

Her name, was Myrninerest. She grinned and grinned after us.

I want to cry, but I'm surrounded here. I must continue.

There is no way out.

~

Eyes with a warmth, framed by a calm age of intelligence. The cheerful skin of a child on a beach. Her youth proudly standing its ground.

A face which freckles with delight; everything she says, everything she sees. When she's quiet, thoughtful, her sky-brows sparrows quivering above her soft Celtic features. Lonely days when it was a dangerous adventure to visit the bottom of the garden.

She peels back that cloudy quilt and wakes to her rainbow. In time her smile returns. Hopeful eyes adjusting to her dimly lit future.

~

Howard is dancing in the supermarket to a tipsy, diaphanous minuet he plays in his head.

These images are toppling in, one on top of the other.

I must try to relax.

I watch him sway and slink from the frozen section down to the canned food aisle; from the canned food aisle over to the fresh fruit and vegetables. Here he spins and smiles at me watching, joining in, following. As he pirouettes about the stationery and on to the electrical goods (All the ages of mankind), I spy them clearly.

They are machine though seamless. Their motions are human. They perform their programmed pursuit impeccably. There are two of them. They overtake Howard without disrupting his flow and they come to a standstill. Howard stops also.

One of them plays the shoeshine man. He kneels. The other receives the shoeshine. Howard and I silently agree that one cannot but admire such workmanship.

Their act does not prove disturbing in the slightest. I suppose we're used to this type of thing. They are agents. The W.D.P. has been the focus of the planet's attention for a good while now.

Any government's agent could be standing right over us, watching as we planned and executed our crimes and they still wouldn't get it; they still wouldn't know what we were doing.

Howard smiles at me breathing heavily, "Who are they working for right now do you think?"

"Fuck knows," I reply.

"Twat eyes!" Howard quips. Howard's a funny guy.

~

Note 1.

I've scribbled some equations on the wall. I can't remember having done this. It's definitely my drawings. The equations are charcoal smudges combined with and eclipsed by crude etchings of women. I'll have to get rid of these before Myrninerest returns.

~

Note 2.

The suit over by the far wall changes into her comfortable shoes. She still looks frumpy. Her tights are laddered. Did I see this? Why did I feel it necessary to record this observation?

~

Note 3.

The women I have scribbled onto the wall above my bed are wearing leather and glass. I don't remember doing this.

~

I must not attempt to assign blame. Blame denotes direction. In this there is no direction I can confidently take without succumbing to the very laws we (the W.D.P.) have been trying to corrupt.

All choices are necessarily wrong.

'...forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back...'

~

Who paid for the ladies this time?

They're lined up on the beach all white knees and chests. Did Seshu organise this?

"You take your pick, Pen' my old friend."

Some of the girls are bickering. Not part of their job.

I head to the furthest stretch of sand where I might be alone. A tall yacht glides by - several Ympe photographers on board. Journalists.

The ladies chattering on. I can see them. Russian I think. Their stern young voices brought to me on the wind. Totem's sweeping, "Silence - silence."

My eagle tattoo still smarts from the night before. Some old time jazz weeps at the sight of all that beauty going to waste. Her long black lashes beg forgiveness as she opens her small mouth to sing now -

"Little sir echo - How do you do? Hello Hello

Little sir echo \- I'm very blue. Hello Hello"

A lullaby on the waves. One cusp. One clash.

One magpie for joy.

I learnt that as a boy.

~

My friends have put up the Kredit for me to take my drawings abroad. Seshu has offered to push the paintings to some contacts of his in Toronto. I was not unhappy to accept either my friend's or Seshu's generosity. Their Kredit, like their time, comes from nowhere, goes nowhere. The only thing not contrived, invented or bullied into this particular existence is their selflessness.

I will do well by them. I promise myself this.

-Mandatory self congratulatory-

None of this is my fault. If those who are manipulating me are listening to my thoughts and have been always, I suspect that they are praying on my innate desire to do evil things.

~

Yes. I remember meeting her.

The explosion was localised but the damage was sufficient to warrant close attention from all those present. Our meeting was romantic.

"Are you a nurse?" I called to her.

"Yes," she replied.

"Are you well?"

Again, "Yes."

"Then help me." The Ympe who had caused the explosion also helped the injured. One is unable to hold a grudge against any of these beings since their actions are dictated by whoever pays for them.

Myrninerest performed her duties with casual aplomb and not a little flirtatiousness.

First at the spaceport, then again at the 'Dada launch explosion'.

"You're a nurse and you act?"

"Yeah, I act like a nurse."

She laughs.

~

There is a niggling. Something following. It presents itself. Impatience. A fleeting 'Hullo', a 'Hi' even. Maybe it's not impatience. I have met this enemy before and can't help tricking myself into thinking I recognise its rude features.

That I will pay back those who have helped me with both my Kredit and my time.

I will pay back all those who have helped me with my Kredit.

I don't recognise you.

You are an insult.

"You are an insult!" I spit at the girl who is filling our pitcher.

This way I am jolted back to my senses.

They are behind me, the gang; over near the far wall. I have their purse. We are preparing to leave for Canada. We are celebrating.

This may well be the last time I acted of my own volition, before this psychical puppetry became the bane of my life.

I remember that night. Myrninerest introduced us to Kohl Huik, the blind 'texture artist'. He had been sitting at the bar when Robin pointed him out to us. Kohl was still only in his early 2nd century but had surprisingly decided to give up 'texture painting'.

"Do you want to meet him?"

"Are you serious? Do you know him?" Robin said.

"Sure." Myrninerest gave Huik a brief hug and brought him over to us.

We passed a good half hour in conversation with this unassuming genius.

"So why did you give it all up?"

"Next to impossible to make a living on this planet just painting."

"Some of the richest people on earth are artists."

"Fewer than you think. I woke up one night and...I did not have art in me. It just didn't matter if I painted ever again. If I died right then, or had never woken up. You could have made me one of the richest artists in the world when I was fifty and that might have meant something. I'm one hundred and twenty now and I'm telling you the truth; I don't need it. I don't want it."

"But what about the knowledge? The things you passed on? That good feeling?" Robin asked.

"I don't know about that. I don't feel the need to tell anybody I'm here anymore. Nobody cares. I lost faith. Took the higher ground." We stared at him for a short while, soaking up his presence, his good looks. Easier to do this with someone who is not watching you watching. Then Seshu, who, I had noticed had spent the last few moments trying to recall something, said,

"I went to bed with faith and woke with a corpse

I went do bed with doubt and woke up with a virgin."

Crowley.

~

She bends forward over the blood soaked linen, her arms reaching out ahead of her. Long fingers grasping and snatching at thin air as I pull her skirt up around her pale, round hips. She is standing tiptoe in her nurse's white pumps, naked calf muscles tensed, lips pink and glistening, begging, with a girlish pout, for me to pull her closer. Unable to keep her head poised above the sheets she is getting blood all over her lovely face. I pull the sticky mat of blonde fake hair, a cloyed mess, from her cheek, holding on to that handful as I drown inside her. She thanks me between gasps and halting me, spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor.

Was there really so much blood? Is she acting?

I remember the romance of the evening, the candle-lit corridors of the school we occupied after the explosion. The secrecy, the deep-seated passion. Against the wall I took her. Tearing off her white sleeveless top. Her white breasts animated in the mysterious glow of the multitude of flickering candles as we sank deeper into the warm black night.

Myrninerest and I made love. Our first tryst. The injured were now safe. I was safe.

Deeper into the black, blue water breathing easily after only a few heavy, comforting gulps. Floating lost highs. All the gladdest, grandest emotions captured, rising. Rising once but not to the surface. A full, fat bubble rounding and submerging deeper and deeper in infinite black space. Miles and miles in seconds and many hours further to dive. Exhilaratingly cool.

Till I'm found. Swimming into our alcove.

She and me.

She is extraordinary.

But I did not lose her this way.

~

They are over near the far wall.

They laugh a many mule's laugh behind me. I can hear them. Everybody can hear them.

"Who can say "Visible panty-line the loudest?"

It does not take long before Howard's whisper becomes Howard's roar.

"VISIBLE PANTY-LINE!"

The scene is one of infectious revelry. How can I suspect this to be the evening I was to become this pitiful chimera?

~

There was no way she could have known what was going to happen. I, however, should have picked up on the signs. Signatures left behind in my paintings, imprinted in my dreams.

"You worry too much Pen'. You ought to be enjoying this. You're going to look back on these days and regret that you were too preoccupied with results."

I told her,

"I love you honey, but you really don't know what I'm going through."

"Don't do that Pen'. I know you better than you think." That's what she used to say to me. She believed what she said. She was wrong.

~

Note 4.

He is bull nosed. She is hog-footed. He smashes her face against his fake metal hip. Stubbing the pulp that was her face into his side like a fleshy cigarette.

In her death throws she beats her arm against her thigh like a demented seal. I must paint this. I will paint this. This is what attracts me now. This is what I have become.

~

\- Intimidating art. That's what we are after. Peace through intimidation – Acceptance of chaos – Disruption through propagation of the fear of 'self'. –

~

The broken and ham-fisted. The attempts then to woo. Her gentle and put on sideways like a pantomime clue. Misread, unheard, unsaid, dead from sky-skullery and overdone bacons. It doesn't got to be pig to be that.

Clones, but before there were cartlidges. A seaside dream of (10 minutes). Woken by children screaming and dogs mewing and traffic rumbling and teapots scaling, "I'll mend that if I can. I'll mend that."

A shower in the South. London, Howth. South East Asian red brick showers. Power showers.

They independent yet? They got their own wet?

The teacher said, "You can rebel all you want. I've seen your type before. You come and you go and you never get anywhere. Not without applying yourself. Hard work, Pendleberry. Hard work and the classics. Button up that top button, boy. The saints are not coming."

A gentleness you can only reach in sleep.

~

"You are thinking of this like...like it's a job. This was never supposed to be a 'job'. If it's a 'job', you can fail, Pen'. This is not a job. This is your life."

Until that point I could have sworn my work was nothing more than a curiosity to her.

"Let's stay here by the sea. I'm comfortable here, I'll work tomorrow. You might not realise it baby but you may have just saved me 100 years of unnecessary toil."

~

The work which Seshu offered to push was tainted. These abstracts were in an alien language. I would dream whole passages.

I would wake feeling dirty. I began to hate myself; all of my selves. If they were (as they were intended to be) strictly 'of the moment' I would have known.

No, the pieces I worked on before Canada came from somewhere and were leading somewhere. This was a concept I had difficulty coming to terms with. If my work suddenly had a direction, well, I had failed.

That each and every instant we have, do and will experience is now; this is the truth. If my paintings become bastardised by some poisonous pretence at coherent erudition, I may as well quit what I'm doing.

~

Seshu is soliloquising about his latest interest; 'Thou-Art' in pornographic cinema.

Seshu chose our local, Martha's; one of the more 'colourful' cafes where we might get in the correct mood for our sordid causerie.

"....and the guy in the movie can't find any toilet paper so he uses a picture poster of Jesus hanging above the toilet and himself with that. Then he spots her. Does he drag her out and try to help her? No. He makes love to her corpse. What do you think of that my talented young friends? That is art."

Silence.

"No restrictions you mean? Pushing things to their limits? What do you mean, Seshu? Why is this 'Art' art. What did you get from it besides excited?"

"A guy having sex with a dead girl. I saw your art in that film, Pendleberry. A guy with a dead girl. It's 'The human condition'. It's your work my young pioneer."

"Mine!?"

"Life has no restrictions, and 'Art' is life."

"No it is not. If art was life, art would have no meaning but 'meaning' Seshu, 'meaning' is the essence of 'Art'. Even if it is superficial. It has meaning within the boundaries designated by the myth that is 'Art'. Anyway EVERYTHING has restrictions. Art is restrictions."

"Thought you'd be pleased," Seshu says.

"Seshu...aren't you supposed to be telling me about this friend of yours we're staying with in Canada?"

"Not 'with', we're staying 'at' his country house when we get there."

Seshu anticipates my next question.

"I cannot reveal to you who the buyer is, Pendleberry. You know this. You are not special. This law I happen to find a little less repulsive than all the rest. 'Meaning' as you call it, is not to be found in someone else's opinion of what you do, Pendleberry. Fuck the buyer. Even my own opinion only counts in as much as you can afford to do this on a more regular basis now."

This time I disagree. His opinion means a hell of a lot more than that to me.

~

Note 5.

I cannot explain the notes I find in my jacket pocket. The language I am using is like puss seeping from a festering wound. The images I am scribbling are sordid, black. Unmine.

~

I have a vision.

Myrninerest's explaining something to herself. Cross-eyed. She's not crazy. She has episodes. Walking down the street gesticulating like she doesn't quite get what she's talking about.

"Don't you see? Of course you get it. Are you stupid?" Thumping her forehead.

She thinks no one is watching her.

She's mouthing all the words, slowly. Fish-like.

"It's obvious. Why am I even telling you? Yes. Uh huh...uh huh...you will join me here. We shall start anew. Don't worry about a thing. I forgive you. Frank is here. Smile, Pen', I have forgiven you. I have. Oh look, Pen', you're on camera! Ha ha!"

There is something missing.

~

It's the body.

~

I'm just saying.

~

Myrninerest is an angel. A real angel. Myrninerest is sitting with her bare knees raised to her chin, see-through, shellar-booted feet on the cinema double-seat in front. If it hadn't been for Myrninerest...

She occupies her seat with an unseen player. She and her unknown guest will be starring in the movie she has been talking about all this while.

"So...so...so can we be in it too?" She smiles a wholesome smile.

"We mean it," Howard pleas. "We really want to be in a movie with you."

She leans her head back further, adjusts herself to face us fully.

"It's really not all it's cracked up to be. I mean, it'd be great if it wasn't for all the, you know, waiting. It's absolutely true. It's the waiting'll kill you." She steals a look at the stranger. "That and the fucking sandwiches. The soup and sandwiches. I mean where the fuck do these caterers come from? Fucking.....fucking...." She searched for the words.

"You're so petty," I tell Myrninerest, knocking her playfully on the shoulder.

"Really? You think so." She smiles pretending to blush, batting her eyelids and throwing her wig back so we can see her beautiful features, "You really think I'm petty. That's so kind of you to say so."

~

Your job is to win the audience over. Your job is to change them. They have got to want to be you.

Bring that knife higher – higher – More. You are to enjoy this. You are enjoying this.

If you do not gain pleasure from this, well, the point of it all is lost.

This is ultimate gratification. She's already dead – enjoy her. She has given herself to you. She is yours now – do with her what you must.

We can look over this in detail later. For now I need you not to think. Let your imagination lose its shackles.

ACTION!

~

You know this. We've sucked 'red-known' from planet to planet but we're not sure of these thousand plateaus.

End 1. Introductions:

Hi Howard. Hi Howard, you know Paul. Hi Myrninerest. Hi Myrninerest. Hello Robin...Seshu as well! (Laughter). Hi Seshu (Takes mouthful). Sit-smile-relax-tense up. Hand through wig-wide eyes. Hello. "Really?"

I'll talk of them, instead of to them. You will see. This will help me remember.

I have time in this house now. This empty mansion. I was lucky to be given such a retreat. Nobody knows I am here. Not even Seshu knows where I am. That is for the best. I don't know where to begin. I don't know because I'm not at all sure when it actually did begin. With my first sale. Did I sell because of 'them' or did 'they' begin to use me after I sold. I thought I knew my own mind. So we shall begin where I think Pendleberry ended.

"You are an insult!" I shout at the young innocent behind the counter. The gang are over by the Far wall. I feel sheepish.

"VISIBLE PANTY LINE!" I hear my blithe group cry.

I accept another slice of think-cake from the shaken girl; an obsequious smile from ear to ear. Overcompensating for the jolt of corrosion I felt inside. Even that miniscule, forced flourish, "Why, I'm sorry. Thank you very much." I caught my face in the mirror before I returned to myself, to the gang.

I felt it then. First time. An Infinitesimal occurrence. Alone, a forgettable hiccough. Now this mood endangers me. It is a plague I cannot fight. Respite from the devilish fury within me is slow in coming and brief in its terrestrial sojourn. Only this stolid oasis of mine can keep me now until it is time.

The pictures are speaking. My visions are becoming clearer. An alien hand delineates the images. I barely have control of my brushes. What had begun as an unusual but equable relationship has become rape. This rotting carcass cloaking a twitching spirit is being raped; and I paint. That is all I do. Paint.

As if she were here.

~

An infant Buddha.

The heat is oppressive. The wum – wum of the nearby spaceport reminds us dutifully of our temporality.

A few hundred metres out, a lexo-boat floats ponderously. The ivory surface showing only; an upturned yacht viewing the cobalt city below. A sight to behold. The warmth, though attractive to us has become unbearably offensive to the Klena who live there.

Lacking the foresight to skip planets they turned the depths of their planet into a home below home. The only thing more glorious than the underwater city of Stmnqurk on Klennan is the 16,000km stretch of beach on which my family vacationed.

This memory is mine. A nuclea family. A perfectly average upbringing.

The locals, tall, graceful aliens; albino. Gangly jellyfish con vertebrae. Sol-glass protectors every second forehead, sift along the sand, rear arms rested, twisted up round their long emerald backs as if held by an invisible torturer. My parents way off in the distance. Mirages, intangible. The alien man waves one many studded tentacle. Smiles. I think. My parents come closer. Talking of what? The journey? The price of the Hilton overlooking the bay? Balconies which with the touch of a button will stretch extended over the ocean. On a still night, the iridescent lights of Stmnqurk ripple and wink up at each visitor's hovering square.

My emotions untying themselves from these childhood memories. My mental scrap book dog-eared beyond recognition. Tattered from the insistent thumbings of a clown addicted to the sweet pain of nostalgia.

A subtle unlearned grey mist encroaches. Mum and Dad have adjusted to the evening. Like a dog shaking itself of lovely bubbly salt spray the afternoon's day is dispensed with. To the market now for provisions. C-buttle would usually cook our meals back home. Not on vacation. Dad took care of the alien cullinatat on vacation. Time to cook, time to drink, 'Pen'...Pen'...'

~

To a large tune we dance. Drunk now in the night garden. One by one we trot out onto the snow-covered lawn. Robin (the joker archetype of this dream sequential revelry) is holding his shoes high and prancing about like a carousel pony. He's barefoot.

We gaze up at the spinning heavens. We were informed that at around this time tonight we would be able to see (naked eye (oo)) the Sezchuan satellite crossing the Northern skies east to west. The night garden has unfortunately clouded and we see nothing. We do, however become gradually aware of fine drops of clear-water rain on our up sot faces.

"That's Walt Disney's," Robin barrels. "Walt Disney's piss. He's up there. In that satellite, pissing out." Robin dances harder.

"MY GOLDEN SHOWER! My golden shower from Walt." I can understand why Robin decided to dance in the snow barefoot. It's the kind of thing one doesn't normally do. And we're drunk. One is to behave abnormally-rememarable.

"Remember?" We shall say. "How we danced barefoot in the snow, the night of the Sezchuan satellite?" I keep my shoes on. We'll be indoors soon.

~

All the wind knocked out. When he/she sees the truth and won't swallow the truth because the jim jams won't fit in that type of climate and how you gonna remember all the words after that amount of cake? Just lay back on that hard slab and promise her you will never do it again.

Periferals preferable.

High speed clans above you behind you beside you inside you. There's more to weight. Weight lies. Lays.

"It's the body," he just says.

~

Myrninerest has joined us. She's inside. I'm so glad she's with us. I wasn't sure. We are shooting laser-pump bullets of light at holographic discs and ducks when we hear sirens. Or maybe we don't hear sirens but we do see police. Or maybe we don't see police but they're just people dressed up like police (just like police) and they appear from the side entrance.

The police, maybe five of them, spread themselves across the pissy slush of lawn. Seshu, Robin, and I are warned to stay still. We each let our rifles flop, but we do not panic.

"Now," the costumed freaks whisper. "Behind you there is a bear. It's a grizzly. Try very carefully not to annoy the big fella and you'll be doing your wives and children a favour." They talked like that. In a situation like this. To be in the movies.

"You guys just head to the house slowly now, and you'll give us a clear shot." We turn. We see the breathing monster standing right there in its cold-smoke-make. Robin starts shooting harmless beams of light at the gigantic mass of fur, rising uproaring from the bushes, as we run for the house. The police fire shots, just yards away from my rear end and I swear I can feel the beast and bullets breathing on my back. The police use 'John Lennons' (tranquillizer bullets for peace keeping). The dumb bastard animal chasing us, however, would sic us as soon as look at us. I think they should just kill the fucker.

I traverse the patio then open and slam the front door behind me only to see Myrninerest darting from one of the downstairs bedrooms into the living room pursued by another bear; a little shorter than the one outside but just as mean looking.

"Out through the kitchen!" I shout to her and she joins me in a flash. Hand in hand we run out through the flimsy back door and into the yard at the side of the house. We run faster imagining the bear to still be following us but the bear is not still following us.

One-two-three-four...

We walk to the back of the back of the house. The police are a distant sound of gun cracks and mounting cries, 'Over there', 'There's another', 'Got him', 'Nope'.

To Myrninerest's and my mild surprise (the heavy blanket of snow shushes the disturbance about us) we discover a washing line with six or seven items of filthy tramp clothing. We look around and see too that there is a rusty old basin leaning against an old pig shed and right there, not three feet from the shed, a makeshift cot and a battered old suitcase half buried in the dirt.

"Someone lives in our garden," Myrninerest says.

We both wonder if the homeless person in question will see our accidental invasion as an invitation for him to traipse into our area any time he or she wishes.

~

In hoc signum vinces

(In this sign you shall conquer) ---penis graffiti here ----

~

Note 7.

It must have been for a bet that he stepped out of the hashbar and pulled his pants down to his ankles. His Y-fronts concealing a thick, firm hook shape for the street to see. His friends cheer and applaud. They are a stag party. They are filming him.

"Turn this way. All the way! Yeah. That's fucking hilarious man. Have you fucking seen this?"

I pick up my pace. This memory is not mine. I cannot be sure but...

~

Myrninerest liked her food.

Pendleberry – What shall we eat tonight?

Robin – Pizza.

Myrninerest – Vietnamese.

Seshu – We had Vietnamese food last night. You can't eat Vietnamese food every night!

Myrninerest – The Vietnamese do.

She was so funny and warm. She would look over at me at every opportunity. If she were talking to somebody and whomever she was talking to started replying to what she was saying, she would take this chance to glance in my direction, see if I was watching her. I usually was. Everything we ever needed to say to each other, all the best things we ever said to each other were said in those moments before she politely turned back to her prop with an interested nod and a full smile.

~

Two Ympe...three Ympe brandishing two by fours approach. They stop and they stand by a car. Howard and I act nonchalant like Vincent Cassel in 'La Haine' or Murray Zaney Cowey in 'How do you fall over a horse?'

A few decades after university now.

We take note of the violence about us escalating. We are its catalyst.

They surround our car.

We stand back as they smash our windows. They watch us.

Howard and I climb inside. Our Chauffeur is in the driver's seat. I am sitting behind him. There is an Ympe in the car sitting next to me, staring at me. His skin peppered with flakes of glass. He must have slipped in without us seeing. The Ympe sitting next to me leans over and stabs at me with a knife he has taken from his inside jacket pocket. I wonder if he will mind the blood splatter. I parry his blows and hold him off long enough to see one of the other Ympe return to the car and stab our chauffeur in the neck. Our Chauffeur leans his head to the side. There is no window to stop his head from lolling onto his right shoulder. He senses me behind him. He doesn't struggle.

"I'm sorry," he gurgles as he passes out.

I have a paper holder as a weapon. I've been grasping this object in my hand for the duration of the attack. I cannot get a clear punch at our chauffeur's killer with the paper holder because the seat backs are too high so I pull myself around the chair whilst holding my own assailant down and thrust the sharp point into the Ympe's leg. Then swiftly pulling the paper holder free, I plunge it hard into his chest. He stops and I exact my revenge on the fucker to my left. I show no mercy. I do not feel his pain. I exult in my indifference to the screams and the terrible mess I'm making of the car! Suddenly I am invaded by the notion that I am an artist of real calibre.

That was only the second time we had been followed.

Howard has gone. Howard has run. On the pavement I spy one of Howard's shoes. It must have slipped off in his rush to escape unharmed.

Sitting like a hog-king in my sticky filth I wonder at Howard's motives.

~

Note 8.

The waitress bows forward with the drinks. Even her wrists are attractive. She is white and smooth. Already I have insulted her.

~

The young scarecrow, my star student, Hottyhammyum, races into her home. She throws herself into the kitchen and stands panting before her heavy set Mother. The kitchen is untidy. There is flour everywhere coagulating, black dust and grime. The general atmosphere is one of humidity and stale sweat.

The child's mother is in a terrible condition. She is sick, palsied and barely able to pay her daughter the attention she requires when she tells her,

"You absolutely must get onto the net. They are going to shut you down Mother! They are going to close us. They do not mean us well. They're going to do something."

By 'they' she thinks she means us.

"They are on the net as we speak Mother, please Mummy, do something."

There is some connection. But the child is wrong. It was never us.

Howard had acted alone on that occasion. Seshu never wanted Howard to be a part of the gang, but for me, well, if Howard had not been accepted I would never have continued.

~

Goshaw. Pishaw. Morning seizure. Lie down next to blue. They're going to get you.

I never pulled my own weight. I also never jumped over my knees. You can't do these.

The windows onto this soul are muddied. Wait for the next one. You'll see.

I wrote it like it was someone else, but it was me.

~

Weeks before we left, Howard was worse than we'd ever seen him. I call the doctor for Howard. He has just coughed himself into a ball.

This has the peculiar effect of making the Kumenite far easier on the eyes. Howard was not the worst looking alien we had come across, but he was by no means the handsomest. His pale yellow skin revealed tiny rivulets of phosphorescent blood, which dashed around his corpulent body. Despite Howard's unwieldy appearance, he exuded personality.

We are all very worried for him. The operator interrupts and tells me to punch the number I want.

I am frustrated.

I have already done this twice.

I want Robin to do it.

I'm nervous.

The doctor then interrupts the operator and apologises for not coming straight to the phone.

We are invited over to the doctor's surgery but the doctor's advice is useless.

He has said nothing of any importance and Howard who has completely recovered since his last fit sits opposite the doctor as disinterested in our concern or the doctor's ramblings as anyone could be. Losing patience with the scene, I begin to joke about how the doc is like the Charles Xavier to our X-men and that Howard's secret mutation is his superhuman ability to feel no compulsion whatsoever to add anything to a conversation.

The tables turn and I soon realise that it is the doctor's time which is being wasted not ours. Brusquely, he asks us to leave.

Howard stayed home. Said he'd catch up with us when he recovered.

~

It is not long before Seshu finds more buyers in Canada. Seshu takes us out to celebrate.

The Canadian police are people who are dressed up to look like police. The men in the stag party look like people dressed up like people at a stag party. They also look like they're having more fun than us, until, that is, the subject of my first sale is brought up.

According to Seshu it is No. 92 which sold first. Robin and Myrninerest ask "How?"

A joke.

They all congratulate me. I feel a rush of ecstasy.

I become invisible.

My life is no longer my own.

The bar thrums. My head is clasped with 'fleyes'.

The sleek ebony cap is letting in too much. The elevated conversations to my left are formidable. The moon bar Salus holds a crater full of erudite intergalactic dandies.

I sit next to Myrninerest and face the gang. We're all here to celebrate. I concentrate. It's no good. I peel off the waxy cap and offer it to Robin.

'It's no good.'

'Give it to me,' Robin says. He's going to use it for the visuals. He'll be able to look at seven women at once without taking Myrninerest or me out of his sight.

It's a shame to pass up on the choice intellectual flotsam and Jetsam bandied about in this famous moon bar but I'm too self obsessed this evening to give one floon for anybody else's mental diarrhoea.

The evening laps a full ocean rumble. Sun-stroked-strobed customers being pealed dumb.

'Ammammamma-wha?'

We cattle out. No more splashing. See-thru V-shirts, the veins of an upturn curling wave starts chuckling a singularity along the shore.

'You were so...elegant.'

'You were so...verythere. Where we belong. We were the faces. The beautiful ones.'

'Sylvano asked me for a flint. Sylvano fucking Gadflap!'

'No cab tonight. Me walkin'.''

'Me too.'

'Hee Haw.'

Only Seshu keeping his cool. Wary of that sickly yellow splint we call 'fame'. We are balugared; a brain-fatty entropy; skinny tendrils of sensibility catching on this, getting caught up in that, tugged sideways by a joke, dragged floorways by a smile. Our cushioned drink-wings paying for themselves.

Eventually we must shake off the night, but for now we are the stars.

The night needs us.

~

Paul was not Myrninerest's competition. I met Paul November 26th, 5009.

I witness a young Paul Newman 23 waiting on an audition slot for the re-remake of 'From Here To Eternity'. I am waiting for Seshu. He is having 'talks'.

Paul is with a woman. It is not Myrninerest. She is matronly. He looks anxious, twisting and wringing his cap in his hands like a shy schoolboy. The director arrives and Paul, encouraged by the woman says 'Hello.'

"Who are you?" barks the director. Paul looks taken aback. It crosses his mind (I see this) that he should laugh and ask indignant but proud, "You don't know?" but catching an ocular 'tut-tut-tut' from the woman he thinks better of this and says, "Hull. Hull Mulligan."

"Well get in there Hull," the burly director booms pointing with his fat thumb at the warehouse studio, lot 56.

Paul looks back at the woman. She shoos him forth with both hands. "Well, go on." As Paul passes the director, the director gives Paul an unexpected playful smack on the backside and grins a surprisingly familiar grin at Paul. The director suddenly acts as though he has known Paul all his life and has rendered utterly defenceless by Paul's famous impish charm.

Of course he'll get the job.

Not only but also...

There's superstar Frank Sinatra 413 unloading his gear into a large trailer nearby.

11.30pm that same night,

Paul is playing slow piano to Frank's song. We are celebrating the opening of Frank 413's new production.

"You know kid, I been singin' that toon since Kindergarden. Man, I'm tellin' ya, People'll buy any old shit."

It's a great song. One of the greats. But it's okay that Frank says this because Frank's in character.

Seshu's friend has many connections in the movie business.

I didn't care so much to meet Frank.

Frank became invisible that night, like I was to become in the years ensuing. I would eventually be permitted to say, and very often, do anything I desired. Anonymously. My 'public' persona would take over from the reality of all situations.

But it is not this. This is not my problem. It was my cogent argument that gradually became suspect, not the bullshit. My honesty, my art, my life had begun to dissemble with the visits. I remember now. The visits.

~

The soccer stadium ready for the president's carnival now. We will satirize, generalize and act the wise guys. Everyone loves a wise guy. Floodlit arena of our temporary analysis. Can't ever last longer than the lip service she gives to the monsters who reared her; appeared to her in her teenage magazines, online fanzines and telly buttons.

She will win the day. We will pass the time. The floodlight will win in the long run.

~

1...2...3...

It's not easy to say. Are they aliens? Are they phantoms?

There are two of them in my apartment. A man and a woman. Or maybe they're only dressed like a man and a woman. The man is carrying a stack of paintings under his arm. He is proud of his products. Together they distribute the paintings on my walls, ignoring my question; except to tell me "We are Adam and Eve."

"Fancy!" I say.

I am not about to let them fill my walls with their paintings, so we fight.

But they can turn themselves invisible.

This makes it difficult for me to fight them, until I realise I too can turn myself invisible, and when I do so I can see them.

I catched it off 'em.

'This will come in useful,' I think. With a new found confidence, I grab their paintings from the walls and taking a small sharp knife from the kitchen, I threaten to cut their paintings if they do not leave my home immediately.

The paintings were abstract, nonsensical murmurings. The couple beg for me to spare their pictures, and look frustrated to have inadvertently passed on one of their most valuable powers.

~

Myrninerest and the unknown player do not look like they will even try to get me and Howard an audition. I remember thinking Seshu would have been so impressed. He has often spoken of the need for one of us to be in movies. Said he'd put us in touch with Eliot Rosewater productions or one of those. Eliot's was a dubious underground outfit famous for their slasher/trash movies.

"This way we might spread the good word."

We laugh our spirited suggestion off and settle into the picture.

On the way to the cinema, on the underground, Myrninerest made me laugh. Pretty insignificant at the time. But it was a long time till any girl made me laugh like that again. Which in turn made the event quite significant.

"How far to the stop?" I asked Myrninerest sitting on the adjacent side of the compartment of the train to me. London was her territory at the time. She had moved in with Paul who shared a sizeable apartment in Soho with Robin's twin sisters Mel and Suzy.

Myrninerest hadn't heard me. She was looking up at one of the poster advertisements. I asked again, louder this time "Is it far to the cinema stop? Which one is it?"

She exaggerated innocent glances about the carriage, conspicuously avoiding eye contact with me, and as I slowly noticed the passengers sitting next to her glaring at me, I realised with a grin that she was pretending not to know me. There I was, a lunatic out-of-towner, on a train talking to a complete stranger, or so it appeared to everybody else. I sat there laughing as Myrninerest continued to peruse the posters and the windows and the floor. Laughing and thoroughly embarrassed I watched until she couldn't bite back her smile any longer. At that very moment she was more beautiful than any girl I had seen before or have seen since.

She wasn't just toying with me. She was toying with the entire train. Fooled 'em all. London is a big place to own, but in my book, Myrninerest owned it.

She was the first to take a permanent place in my dreams.

~

'We can see the past because that is, in fact, the direction we are heading.'

Pegasus Plougher– 'The Plougher and the Stars.'

The universe already imploding.

Our world that much slower now. Ever since Assumpta proved infinity to be a myth, in her opus magnus 'The Theory of Irrelativity', nobody seemed to be in such a hurry to do anything anymore.

'The Irrelativity Bubble'.

One solitary instant, fat with life, dreams, thoughts, feelings, ideas; a vast present which we mould into a gigantic but finite amount of situations. Thoughts as fertile as a Rodinax Symphony.

Our propensity for inventing concepts is, in effect, limited; indeed the concepts of time and space were once multifarious, however the truth was always here and now. No rebirth, no cyclical time, no real travelling; only various states of 'thisness'. Cause and effect, conceptual tools we use as we see fit. We are always and always have will be.

The class shuffled. Tomoya put up his hand and took it upon himself to explain (in vain) radio waves.

~

\- BORED with life? Learn something beneficial to your body or mind.

To increase intelligence is to re-introduce oneself to existence.

A new existence.

Born again. – sponsored by -

~

I am dumb. With all that remains human within me I am struggling to keep faith. The last piece that Seshu sold was my least favourite piece. It is, to describe it in words, a smudge of Corrilian slome on heavy, hand made water colour paper.

I celebrated heartily regardless, but an inquisitiveness I was experiencing more and more hounded my thoughts.

How and why had I done this picture? I still cannot say. Does the person who bought it know? That person must understand why they bought it. Seshu had told me that he would never reveal the source of the purchase. He did however let it slip that the last buyer was a woman. Ever since he said this I have pictured that woman. I have pictured her staring at my art. I have picked her brain in my dreams. She is not receiving the message I wanted the world to read when I undertook the piece.

What would my students have to say of this?

Seshu has to tell me where this 'woman' lives. There she stands, looking at my work. At their work. What is she seeing? What am I showing her? What am I channelling?

The gang's messages and mine are going astray. I cannot trust myself to teach at this juncture. I am a vessel to an unknown host.

~

Hottyhammyum's friend tries to explain to her Pegasus Plougher's theory of time. How he wrote of us looking at the universe wrongly. That we see the future in front of us like a person walking (person x), coming closer all the time, but instead of person x moving towards us we are walking faster than person x and we are catching up with x ever so gradually. It looks to us as though person x is coming towards us but this is not the case. We are imploding. Our time is slowed. X is moving away but we are getting closer. Our minds have been tossing and turning and twisting this visual conundrum for millennia.

I applaud Tomoya's efforts. Hottyhammyum looks confused.

~

The bears have fled. We pose for Myrninerest's video. We pose as if for a photo and freeze our smile for one too. We stand stock-still.

"This will make for an interesting video," we all think.

As soon as the giggling and fidgeting begins, the camera is placed on the grass and we talk of shooting elsewhere. This time we head for the pond. There we flounder with our waterproof rifles pointed down into the dark, turgid, seaweedy grime. Shooting at unseen fish with TH-WACKS of water beating about us. Shot after shot. We are in full scuba gear but we cannot see a blessed thing beneath the surface of our pool.

Myrninerest and I were so in love.

Myninerest had been so witty, so open.

~

Deluded. A change. No change. Luded.

Robin had taken it upon himself to be the practical joker of the trip.

The second weekend we were there I am standing at the back porch drinking juice, or maybe I'm washing the dishes, either way, I'm staring absent mindedly at the garden, focusing lightly on the bushes from which (and God only knows how long he had been hiding in there waiting for this opportunity) Robin stamps out, large monster strides, moaning incoherently and swinging a broom above his head as he approaches me standing at the door, or maybe I'm doing the dishes.

"Raaahhh!" he cries as he harmlessly looms forth. I am not in the least bit shocked at his little game but, despite my utter lack of consternation, Robin deems the situation worthy of a belly laugh. "You should have seen your face!" he cries as he holds his sides shaking with undue mirth. "It was absolutely priceless."

Robin is thinking, "What a good joke."

"Remember the night," he shall recount, "when I frightened Pendleberry half to death with a garden broom?"

Unfortunately for me, Myrninerest, who I know had not been watching, is taken in by Robin's high-spirited mockery and begins to believe, not only that I was most obviously and assuredly in a state of shock, but also that she saw me actually 'jump out of my skin'.

Their reality had been sounded in words. Robin would dine out on that story. I resented Myrninerest's part in the ridiculous tale. I suddenly have her pinned as a touch 'simple'. The infrastructure of a once adamantine relationship rendered flimsy over next to nothing.

~

To have the ability to tap into our dream world as easily as one pleasures oneself. Our ability to access this source of energy has made it possible to travel in time. Not forwards and backwards but 'IN' time; as one might live five hours in the few minutes before waking.

By speeding up the brain's neuro-circuits, it has been made possible for us to time travel for approximately one minute. One minute, it turns out, is all a body can take before its membranes begin to trip over themselves and a tangible day-dream becomes a chaotic vomit of thought/emotion.

1...2...3...

Howard and Myrninerest are in the water together.

I am teaching Howard to swim. He keeps sinking under the water and I keep having to pull him up to the surface by the scruff of the neck. Each time his screwed up face appears he coughs and splutters and gasps for air.

Myrninerest was pleading for me to swim with her. I told Myrninerest I couldn't actually swim. She looked disappointed.

"Just try, one time."

When I dived in half clothed, helpless, her face took on a whole new countenance. That of an adoring Mother. I was pleased to let her teach me how to crawl. ..58...59...60.

-I am parental. I am all things. I teach the baby. I am the baby. I comfort the baby. I protect the baby.

~

Robin: The purpose behind the sketch was to play with people's preconceptions of space and time right?

Pendleberry: Nothing like that, no.

Robin: Demolish their preconceptions of colour and form? Their preconception of preconceptions?

Pendleberry: No, no, no. None of that. I don't think anybody has 'preconceptions' of art anymore.

Howard: I do.

Pendleberry: What are your preconceptions?

Howard: Art should have a price. If art didn't have a price, well that would fuck with my preconception of art. How much are they paying him?

Robin: 50,000 Kredits.

Seshu: Just as it should be.

Robin: Here here. Anyway Pendleberry, what's up with you? Whether you were testing the texture of the paper with that slome and decided to frame the outcome or if you struggled for half a year on how to approach this masterpiece. It doesn't matter now. 50,000 gives you the time to worry about these trifles later. Enjoy.

No buyer is going to be able to tell you what you think.

Pendleberry: Did you meet them?

Seshu: Who, Pendleberry?

Pendleberry: The person who bought the sketch.

Seshu: No. She left a message at the studio.

Pendleberry: What did they sound like?

Seshu: For God's sake Pendleberry, what does it matter? Go and get me another slice of cake, man.

Myrninerest: Me too.

Pendleberry: I really need to know what the person who bought the picture thinks they have bought. I can't explain this.

Seshu: "I know a lot about art but I don't know what I like."

Robin: I never heard that. I like that.

Pendleberry: Look. I just need to...connect.

Robin: You connected with me. You know I mean it. You would not be a spokesperson in this gang if I didn't mean it. Your messages work Pendleberry. You get results.

Pendleberry: I'm not sure.

Seshu: It's you who's acting as if they have preconceptions which need shattering, Pen'. Do you think you have anything to do with your art after you have priced it and sold it? Do you feel a connection with your words once you've spat them out at friends and strangers. After an evening of debate do you dash round trying to gather the debris of your half cut arguments and ask if anyone got something from what you have said and can I have it back please? Art is both escape and salvation for you and for whoever enjoys it. It has a life of its own.

Pendleberry: That's what I'm afraid of.

Seshu: But you must remember Pendleberry. The buyer has fewer limits than the artist. The buyer is free. The buyer may well be considered the better artist. You must not try to catch the buyer, the buyer knows so much more than you or anybody else, Pendleberry, remember that. Art, once in the hands of the buyer, truly has no limitations.

Who was to say back then that I wasn't being paranoid? Of course there is no doubt in my mind now. But then... I thought I could well have been delusional. I did not want to risk losing my position in the gang by whinging about my precarious sanity.

~

Myrninerest: Explain it then.

Martha serves up two gargantuan slices of think-cake for us. Martha approves of Myrninerest and she treats her well.

Pendleberry: It's difficult.

Myrninerest: Try.

Pendleberry: Okay. Okay. Do you know Palank, Paul Palank or Rothko, you know Marc Rothko?

Myrninerest: Wait, no, fuck Rothko, Pen'. You explain it. I don't know Rothko. Nurses and Actresses don't study Rothko. I don't know anybody. You make a smudge, someone buys it for 50,000 kredits. I've seen your stuff. I get some of it. All I'm asking in return is that you explain the smudge to me. I don't know ANYBODY. No quotes. No name-dropping. Try it Pendleberry.

Pendleberry: It's about physical expression. It's Harpo Marx...

Myrninerest: Pen'!

Pendleberry: It's a mute speaking to himself. If you've ever punched a door when you've been angry. Kissed a tennis racket because you won the point. If you've ever looked into a fire and lost yourself in its hypnotising flicker. Fallen asleep to the pleasing sound of the car's purr on an empty sky-way at night. Have you ever been accused of staring at someone when you were focussing on the empty middle ground between you and the person? Whenever you look at one thing you can see everything around it right? But you're not looking at any of those other things. That's the smudge. That's the origin of the smudge. The desire to catch the look of something you're not focussing on. Like a drunk screaming the words to some nonsensical rock'n'roll song or trying to describe why poli-churches are so wonderful to visit or like a smell which reminds you of something from a long time ago or something that makes you laugh and laugh and laugh.

Myrninerest: But why paint it if you're trying to describe it? Why not write it?

Pendleberry: The same reason you would rather actually make love than write about or talk about making love. You want to be able to experience the look and the feel. I have faith in the imagination but sometimes my imagination needs feeding and the imagination feeds on sensations. The smudge is a visual sensation. A trigger. Then there is the activity of painting. The other thing that's in it for me. The act of scratching and doodling and splashing and stroking. Kidstuff.

As I get more and more excited, Myrninerest rests her chin on her hands and smiles up at me talking.

For almost an hour I sit and explain my love of art and for an hour Myrninerest listens intently to my garbled but energetic explications. She loves me right now. I can see that. It is the strength of those moments that keep her with me today as I wallow in atrophy here in this palatial prison of mine.

~

A tool you lay down lay down on lay down under and use not use now when we used to have what we once had in our hands to the ground now under the ground and here we will stay till we very are not anymore.

Gone the speak silence and sunshine off outer more less than more out. A tall tall fall. That's 'palatial'. He said palatial, not me.

~

At the playing field where the children are picking teams for a twenty-a-side football match. The man-hole cover to Martha's is close to the goal; the co-op end of the field. The children watch as I flick the handle up so that I can pull the heavy iron lid of the bar open.

The children don't say anything.

They usually have something smart to say.

I step into the hole and descend. Something is wrong. The lights are on and our buxom landlady Martha is standing at a dining table which is set for twelve. Nobody else is here yet. I'm early?

Martha looks confused too.

"Howie?"

"No."

"It's 9 o'clock," she says.

"I know," I reply. We always come at nine."

"Nine A.M.?" She laughs. I look at my watch.

Martha is not put out. She even looks happy to see me and heads for the kitchen.

Martha's is better than the other bars in town. Martha's place is not really a 'bar'. It's more of a home from home. She feeds us and she gets us drunk. Alcohol is illegal in other establishments. Martha doesn't mind us treating the place like a hotel. We can sleep over when we need to and she never interferes in our meetings, unless we invite her input. And sometimes we fuck her.

On the odd occasion that we do listen to what she has to say on a subject, her rhetoric is so eloquent that we simply have to raise our hands in the air and give in to her good sense.

"You did it again Martha," we will say. "You have proved that we are a long long way from knowing anything of real import."

Nobody but us chickens feed at Martha's.

~

A painting of Myninerest volunteering to leave. A blue-yellow background. A half cut face in place of her white nurse's mask.

"Hang up yer biro, Pen'. They forgot the keys one time too many."

~

It's the silent page flicking that killed me. They flick and they smile but maybe they don't say anything for four or five pages.

Robin was right all those years ago, "It's not what someone's saying. It's what a person doesn't say that really counts." A scary thought since most of the time people aren't saying anything anyway.

I never felt any compunction to explain anything I do to my parents, and yet here I am torturing myself daily over how I might communicate the W.D.P.s vision to other people's parents.

~

2

There's an old joke about a guy who returns to his apartment one evening to find that everything has been replaced by an exact replica. My head feels like that.

This should make sense, but even the tenuous rules of discordia are being punished in the presence of my pursuers.

~

One full year in the public eye and I was ready to knock any fucker aside who irritated me in the slightest. I began to feel a terrifying agoraphobia. My one wish even back then was to have my own space, to be still.

Robin – You know as well as I do Pendleberry, that you started off with nothing but 'change' in mind, man. But now, man, now you're all full of foggy evil notions. You see this don't you? Tell me you see the skip from Pendleberry to Lucifer. It's fame. Fame is akin to madness. I know. You desire to be unfamous right now because you have started to hate the world.

One's natural proclivity for selfishness is released when all bonds with the social contract are broken.

I know the contract is hokum man, but we can't afford to play any other game. You, my friend, are playing Satan now and quite frankly its frightening me.

Pendleberry – Sounds like you thought this out. I need one fucking thing and you all know what that is. I need contact, Rob'. The fucking buyer. Who is she?

Robin – Seshu has already told you; you and everybody else. Not only could this get you exiled but it could get you killed. I am not going to be the one who puts you in that position, Pen'. And if you think that's me not being a friend then fuck you, man.

Pen', man, you are ruining yourself with alcohol. Stick to the acid. Stick to the cake. That wounded soldier scowl that the girls dig so much, well it's turned into a fucking ugly grimace, Pendleberry, and Myrninerest would have agreed. She would not have wanted this for you. She would have...

Pendleberry – If you mention her name one more time I'm going to smash this beer into your stupid face, you fucking...you fucking...

Robin – Easy! I'm here for you. I will not let you go down that road alone. We can take a break. We can go home. Seshu owes it to you. You've played your part, friend. You need a fucking trip.

I broke down.

My fear of living not knowing the whys and wherefores of my condition far outweighed the threat of exile or death.

~

The buyer is allowed such change, such range. The artist must stay on track. No distractions.

The brain pattern of the artist at work, as opposed to the buyer buying at a gallery, is crippled by its self-imposed regularity/replication. The artist is jailed by his materials, his skills, his vocabulary. The buyer is not tied to any style or subject. The buyer is 'in touch' with them.

I want for the artists I seek out at a gallery to say something about me. My art therefore has to be busy saying something about somebody other than me.

I am a humanitarian.

Who bought this part of herself?

There is no rest from this fear. And there are more. Not only this enigmatic female force in my life but others who are buying.

The questions, the paranoia, none of this left when we returned to England. If anything, the feelings were magnified back home. As if familiarity with my surroundings accentuated my own abnormalities.

While my theories are clouding over and becoming increasingly obscure to me, my predictions are becoming clearer.

~

"Our democratic society allows for the possibility that some one person may arrive at a better idea than 'democracy'. Our freedom of speech permits all permutations of the truth. Should we be born into perfection, it is exactly that perfection which a human is bound to challenge.

For 'Perfection' to be seen as a goal is to blind oneself to our innate...perfection. So why are we so antsy, Pen'?"

For Myrninerest, pendleberry had no ready reply.

"Why do we do this?" She persisted.

"Well you gotta do something, don't you?" Pendleberry said.

"Not really," Myrninerest said.

~

Comma. Cold. Dark, cold. Print, brush, colourless slang.

Leaf, left. Wash that up afterwards.

Cold, cold, alone.

I'm not alone, there's still him, them and me. A holy spirit and a fear of holes.

He promised to fill me in. Perhaps next time.

Until then, a determined refusal of silence.

~

I asked Seshu what he thought my buyers had in common.

"Lots of Kredit," he said," Luckily for you."

When Seshu first offered to act as international agent for me, he told me what he liked most about my work.

"Its strength," he had said, "its confidence." Like I knew exactly what I wanted to get across and I did it with no fear of contradicting myself.

"You will never contradict yourself, Pendleberry. You cannot because you are a true original. Though you might talk contradictions, you will never paint 'em. For you that is a physical and mental impossibility." He then punched me on the shoulder, I remember, and grinning like a man who KNEW he put his arm around me and lead me to an alien whore-station he had often spoken of.

~

1...2...3...

The thick wet clay suits we are forced to wear before we enter the building are uncomfortable.

We can barely walk.

Pieces dripping off us and being rapidly slapped stuck back on us by the faceless owners of the building as they shove us towards the entrance.

I don't like this one little bit.

I've never met the other two people who are also donning clay suits and being manhandled by these phantoms.

One of them is called Ham Ham, the other one is called Myrni.

The entrance, the floors, the walls are dripping clay too.

We can see that the same is true of the stairs and the adjoining rooms either side of the long hallway.

We are weighed down and claustrophobic.

The front door is bolted shut behind us.

We search for the largest room and slop our way into it.

Myrni, I think it's Myrni, It's difficult to tell since we are all covered head to toe in clay, sits herself down first and sinks awkwardly into the fat, grey ground.

The other blob joins her/him in what turns into a fair sized trench of sludge.

I decide to climb the ladder in the corner of the room.

There are no windows here and I am anxious to look out.

The ladder leads through a trap door in the ceiling.

After a lot of huffing and puffing I manage to pull myself into the other room.

This room does have windows.

Two windows on opposite walls.

The view is of two more lower floor rooms either side.

The room on the left is the one which holds my two mucky, almost indistinct companions and the window on the right is occupied by what looks like Salvador Dali: a twentieth century artist famous for his surrealist paintings and eccentric life style.

He is at his easel looking through, it appears, at the other two in the adjacent room to him. He is daubing clay onto his clay canvas with a heavy clay brush.

He has painted them naked I notice, but for two leaves covering their genitals.

I am careful not to be spied by him.

I try to catch the attention of my companions and warn them of the peril we are in.

I make too much noise doing so however and inadvertently manage to draw Dali's attention away from his work to my ungainly presence.

The last thing I remember is Salvador Dali's moustachioed head pushing its way, like a new born babe, through the sludge that was my ground....57...58...59...60.

The analysis spat out. Some hooligan has pissed in the tray. I leave the read–out where it is. Consider it a sign.

~

Before I ascend, Robin leans from our penthouse flat and produces a full-grown black sheep. He is holding the sheep by its front legs and making it dance. I can't make out what Robin is singing but it is clear that he is drunk already. He lets go of the sheep and goes back inside. The sheep hesitantly descends. I watch this precarious activity for what seems like an hour until the frightened beast finally reaches the ground and, relieved to be off the extordinarily and unnecessarily steep staircase, scarpers off into the fields to join the other sheep. I have mixed feelings about this. I let the sheep get away, but then again fuck Robin and his stupid sheep jokes.

~

I was talking myself up a bit when I was explaining my art to Myrninerest. The truth of the matter was, I had been visited. I was getting so many messages then that by the time I put paint brush to canvas it didn't matter one jot what I might have been trying to say.

It was shortly before Seshu promised to send my work to acquaintances of his and promote me. They claimed to be messengers. The message they had was for me to paint. I said paint what? They said just paint and it will come to you, "Like when God spoke with Jesus or Moses."

This is what they said.

Obviously I took this to mean something big. A message from the same source as those who spoke to Jesus.

"Just paint," they said.

Whatever they were they caught me at a bad time; perfect for them. For months...years, I believed myself to be empowered with a gift. The gift to be able to say or do absolutely anything and that it would have 'meaning'. I rolled with this as any messiah might after a number of encouraging revues.

Then it happened.

These messengers, I began to think, were planting wicked notions in between the ticks and tocks of my own ideas.

Was I unconsciously promoting some unconscionable evil?

She had trusted me.

~

The room is dark but there is a slither of light creeping in from the streetlights through the open front door. I cannot be bothered getting out of the massage chair. My banjo is lying heavily on my chest.

I am sitting this way, feet raised higher than my waist on the extended legs of the seat when I notice someone in the room from the corner of my eye. To the left, skulking in the shadowy dining area. A fan? There is a young person rustling through drawers and opening cupboards, clearly oblivious to my attendance. I pick myself up from my ultra comfortable position. Just up onto my elbows. I am not that concerned. The girl does not care. She hears me but definitely does not care.

"Oi!" I shout, breaking the weird silence that engulfs her slow and deliberate movement. Nothing. She glances over, in her own good time, and makes for the Jacket which I had thrown on the floor immediately next to the chair. She picks the thing up as I watch in lazy disbelief. A five spot. Like a magician in a show she pulls an old five spot from my wallet. I have seen this type of Kredit before. The girl exits as she entered, quietly and unconcernedly. Only now do I pick myself up fully to go to the front door to see where she went. I can see what must be her mother at the bottom of the ridiculously steep steps. She is mollycoddling the little thief. I explain what has happened. She is lazy and distracted. This frustrates me. Why doesn't she do something? Why doesn't she care? If I could only speak through her.

I kill them both slowly.

~

An awful nightmare of motorised rubber ducks in my split open forearm. A watery maze of robot claws weighed down by rubber chickens. A peach spit out from a gaping wound tore my skin away to reveal a closed film set of ocean and black ladies. Mother sitting at my side comforting me and soon the skin seals itself and I am offered up to the sirens cumming at my wake.

The weather pleased itself today, so I shut the curtains and turned on the A.C. My imaginary wife came home to me and spoke of creation and new things and pleaded for me to remember who I was supposed to be; that it was driving her crazy all this play acting and shadow boxing, "so come home to me dear. Please come home now, safe and sound. I don't like it when you're not around."

~

A gentleman wearing an American baseball cap and an American flag T-Shirt sitting to my right. He's smoking 'curing' tobacco, hand-rolled. He's overweight and keeps on emitting involuntary snorts from his cauliflower of a nose. He works on a wrist-top computer. His movements are slow. He has not lifted his eyes since I arrived.

If my American friend is not careful, he's going to be pulled up by the guards and done for speeding. He must be doing eight maybe nine miles an hour there.

~

Seshu and I have been invited to speak at the annual 'Erogements' conference. Seshu for the promotion of the revival of intoxicating liquors to be used as a means of positive self-destruction, and The Architecture of Pornography. I am to speak on the axiomatic connection between Psi-Fi and fine art.

Myrninerest has come all the way from Fargoe.

My Mother has come too. I paid for her to come. Ponytails shoot from the sides of her head creating the bizarre impression that an elephant's tusk has pierced her skull to the right and is sticking out from the left. Mum's funny.

I'm not nervous. The link between Psi-Fi and art has been manifest for centuries now. I'll add a few facts and myths of my own (I hope my own) and I'll be a terrific success but the emphasis of this gathering is all on Seshu.

My friend's predictions move some of the younger scientists to tears. The older lecturer's nod approval at the vastness of my friend's ferocious imagination.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF PORNOGRAPHY.

(Domes and Spires)

The hold of the gothic style remained so deep rooted in its French and German strongholds that Freud ejaculated intermittently over a period of 150 years until finally he snapped his banjo-string.

Rewritten upside down for wont of a reliable pen-pal, these peregrinations must needs flummox the layman, unless perchance this 'lacklustre' spires to inspire.

The architecture inherent in pornographic theory transcends the redundant contestations that 'the cunt' is not cement.

The building materials required for our logical progression to (and from) 'home' are desired a-priori.

The vagina requires only that the natural sciences need no longer be based on religious principles but on objective observations of nature, reason and experience.

The Renaissance is here, and has been here always. A heaven on earth presupposing the convoluted calculations of humanist philosophy.

The structure of the pornography industry belies the hypocrisy of contemporary psycho-babble.

What Seshu first saw in me was the ideal nufuture/art dichotomy. I was confident that he knew what he was talking about. I was so flattered to begin with that I thought I would be unable to convince him of my serious conviction to the work I did, but once Seshu began to explain the leaps my paintings were making in the art world I could not help but bow sagely to his understanding of the nature of my paintings and agree with him. I suppose, like any sane artist, I had been waiting for just such acknowledgment.

I took it for granted that the two were connected; my newly tapped genius and this wizard's fascination with my work.

Seshu finishes his bit and a folksy looking girl starts singing 'Over the rainbow'. Tremendous applause as Seshu steps down from the podium with the venerable smile of a truly beloved conjurer.

The truth is.

Don't pay yourself too much heed, it's not you you can hear.

Your job,

to let everybody else's thoughts come and go as if you were watching actors on a stage. Every thought is a part of the entertainment; every feeling, proof of the artist's existence.

But this stringy author can make you feel nothing.

Sign the bottom of everything you do.

Metallurgic.

Metal allergic.

Future chrome-a-somes.

This stringy quintet.

One - a foot to the North

One - a foot to the South

One - a foot to the East

One - a foot to the West

One - a foot to the East

What was she once?

And told me what to do.

You try to sneak up on the future like a thief. From behind.

Don't be so sneaky.

The future walks towards us like a beach beauty full of love.

Metallergies.

A white bone for the see-saw of time.

~

On our way out, after my own speech, my Mother asks if I want to stop and take photos of the lap dancers who have been performing all afternoon for the passers by. I don't. My Mother, thrilled by this whole event, takes photos anyway and congratulates me on my talk. I feel very good about myself.

Before Myrninerest leaves, we make love in one of the zero gravity motels of C-moon. We promise to treat ourselves to a physi-phone call within the next few weeks; a virtual delight known only to rich couples. My Kredit is pleasing me even more than I expected it to. The Kredit has freed me from my bonds to those who mean nothing to me, or more precisely to whom I meant nothing.

But what am I spending my Kredit on? The buyer in me proffers light drugs, sex, movies...

I do not buy art. I have never wished to buy original art. Books about art, yes. Inter-planetary excursions to outer-world museums to look at art yes, but to buy an original piece of art...? Never.

I'll pay to see plays about art, documentaries about art even lectures on art; I pay good Kredit for all these things but I have never paid for an original work of art. I have never even been tempted to buy a cheap piece of ornamental art from a souvenir shop.

So what is it that the 'Art buyer' sees and feels that I don't? Why must they own the thing? My living depends on these people and yet I'm not even sure I get them. Perhaps Seshu is right. The buyer simply has a greater propensity for understanding exactly what it is they want.

The purpose of the artist however is never to find what he or she wants.

~

1...2...3...

The artist is painting a game in four parts.

Plus a list of excuses for things he might have done and hasn't yet done.

A Harlequin ghost appears mocking his efforts. This ghost is not directing his thoughts at the artist exactly.

The trickster disappears yet proceeds to swing punches at the artist's head. As would be expected the well-dressed spectre's punches fail to make contact as through the artist flesh it swooshes. Again and again he tries. Comical now, he's getting frustrated.

The artist begins to sense something. He steps back from the canvas and swings a blind but angry punch of his own at the invisible spirit. To the spirit's utter surprise the artist connects with a great WHAP on the ghost's cheek...57...58...59...60.

These dream readers are becoming an addiction. I can feel the future in each and every one of them.

~

And frankly, fuck off. Fuck off, frankly. And...

~

Paul Newman 23 appears and shoos the ghost away.

"It's not what you feel that tells you who you are, it's who you feel it from and who you direct it at." Paul says stuff like that all the time.

"Life doesn't repeat itself," he told me once, "it rhymes though."

~

"The smallest thing is the same size as the largest thing," Seshu says. He means it. He thought it. He followed this thought to the end. He has written it and he occasionally rethinks it with the help of a little think-cake. "That would be the gist of the book," Seshu told me.

Howard suggested teaming up and writing a book together. A book which compiles all the most abstract yet tantalisingly tangible thoughts of poets and thinkers. The thoughts which tickle you when sober but when high, take you on a trip all of their own volition. A pure trip which carries you away in its celestial armchair as you kick back and watch your innate genius flow.

A book of things to think and do while on cake.

"You are to choose the song you think best suits the moment and you are to become the writer of that song. The warm feeling which comes from one's lasting transmigratory power, your actual transference from buyer to artist is enough to convince you that the possibility of everyone feeling the same feeling subjectively, is born within us all. It is mankind who writes, who feels the need to write, to sing, to express emotion. It is you and I endlessly striving to hear a thought well said, see a feeling well represented, coloured in just so. 'We' write the song. 'We' wrote the song."

This would be a book of exercises. '101 things to do under the influence of think-cake.'

Irrefutable evidence that the mind-traps we lay for ourselves could be triggered off before we even went for the bait and that with a mere nano second of relative consideration, under the influence, our relationships with people could be bettered. A 'yes', a 'no'. I like you. I understand you don't like me. I am like you.

~

Note 12:

We are running after thoughts. All the time chasing a thought. Lying to understand. One talent is not enough. Art does not equal feeling. The charm between feeling and thought. One thought to the next is freedom. Art is not freedom.

The buyer has the freedom to think one thought one second and a complete other one the next.

The artist does not have this freedom. The brush or the pen slows the process by that all-important second. The brush drags a thought behind itself. Even if we were to scrawl our subconscious blindly, half asleep, the mere act is a one-sided, losing race against perfect chaos. The only freedom is in the time travel one experiences in a waking dream, in ones think-cake moment of clarity and enlightenment or during the sublimely detached process of deliberation one must experience when purchasing a piece of art.

~

We've been in Canada, on and off, for sixteen months now. I am waiting for Robin in a scooner caff observing two other customers.

She spits when she talks and he is flummoxed at the paltry amount of cake he's been given.

"Fuck it!" she spits.

"Don't fucking worry about it. I'm sorry I don't make so much of Kredit," I hear him whisper angrily.

She has a piggy nose. She is nasty of temperament.

She makes me think of the movie I had been watching just hours before I came out. Would any of the piggies in this place have appreciated it? On what level had I appreciated it? Why had I promised Seshu that I would watch it?

"A good singer is all we need. You're a good singer," the boy tells the pig, "but you'd hate all the recording and stuff." He's trying to talk her out of joining his band. "All the waiting around," he tells her and I smile to myself recalling what Myrninerest had told Howard and I about the movie business.

Close-ups. Thumping, jerky, sea-sickening camera angles. Was that...? Did she really...? Myrninerest would not have liked it, which is a shame because now, I think I would like to share it.

Why was I not offended by Seshu's snuff movie? Why would these pigs in here be offended? I know they would be.

I continue drinking and pondering my inability to care for the poor souls in that video.

Robin returns from the bay and reaches slowly into his back pocket stretching his chest out as he does. He has an address.

"There," and he passes me my first contact. "Sometimes I don't know," Robin says, "Maybe the world isn't so fucked up. I mean, what if it's us that are out of whack. I don't know, Pen'."

Portia is her name.

~

The more I observed these groups and couples, waiters, waitresses, whores, pimps and aliens, these blue streets, these taciturn crowds, folding, ungiving, the more I was inclined to want to be them.

Anybody else please.

Foreign. Easy. I don't need to be raining all the time. Nothing in me is growing. I watch them all and they all seem finished. Decided. The one decision I had made...

I would like to return to the bar, the office, the spaceport, the holiday home, the beach, in those clothes, in that skin, in that flesh.

What was it Robin was saying...

I'll smile; I'll take your Kredit. Starve the cold, feed the failure, starve the cold, feed the failure.

They have accepted and been accepted. I once felt like that. He has taken that from me. I would dash this gift to the ground. I'll wrap it up nice. Sell it back. You can have it.

I may waste my talent but not my time.

I am not my friends.

I never was.

~

3

I run past the on-lookers into the hall and yell for the nurse. This conference has been a wash out. Zombies. I learn from a child that the nurse resides on the 2nd floor. I can hear my friend's belly screaming. I pound up those stairs to be told by a well-wisher that I should go by the back stairs; that way the journalists won't follow us to the victim. I finally reach the 2nd floor and the reception area. After much yelling and hammering I am confronted by an inept receptionist. She is unmoved. "My friend!" I shout. "Quickly! He's stabbed. Quickly." When she eventually does decide to look for someone who can help me, I am gripped with fear. I cannot remember my friend's name.

I try to picture him, stabbed and unstabbed, drinking with me, talking. It's not there. I see the nurse arriving. A serious looking wardrobe of a woman and I know immediately that I will not be able to tell her what my friend's name is. She will not believe me. The receptionist didn't.

I become frustrated and in turn angry, my patience is being tried by both myself and them. I don't know where to turn. I am punished. My friend is lying on the dirty bathroom floor, bleeding to death, and I am punished.

~

I held the gun. 'I am a bullet'. I know exactly why those children shot their friends and their teacher. I am carried by a thought into their body. It's so clear. It's too easy. Why not? I held/hold the gun and I do it again. I kill them all again.

~

She looks at him with such love. She's wheel-chair bound. He cannot penetrate her. Her hips are crushed. They have the greatest sex. Virtual. The level of sexual activity they choose to lose themselves in does not include knives or weapons of any kind. They make love the same way Myrninerest and I do, light-year distances apart; as intimate as the first. What fantasies do they conjure alone?

Seshu has begun to believe snuff filming to be the only 'true' expression of any artist. The only 'truth' we can see in any medium.

To see without wanting to do. A fear of becoming.

It's my Kredit which has allowed Seshu to purchase these items. I've paid him back. This is how I've paid him back. Only now has he given Robin permission to tell me.

Portia Haze.

No one has been exploited. These people are long dead. He has used my Kredit this way. I must not punish myself.

~

"Howard... Howard! That's what he's called! He's downstairs bleeding to death!"

~

I want a movie we can both watch. I want her to kill for me. I want her to lie.

She will not lie. Maybe if she was blind, she would lie. If I put her eyes out...

~

The art.

1..2..3..

Her tits are small, tucked almost into obscurity, nestling in her armpits. Despite this physical anomoly, she has the stature and beauty of an Amazonian princess. Naked she stands in front of Paul Newman 23, who's busy gathering his toiletries from the bathroom. She is his cousin. He is confused. She has undressed in front of him. She's relaxed because she thinks Paul is going to marry me.

"Is this why you're so relaxed?" he asks her. "Because I'm marrying Pendleberry?"

"Yes," she tells him.

Paul is concerned as he fills his bag. "I may have changed my mind," he says, knowing full-well the implications for all. She seems pleased to find he is willing to swing. They look each other in the eye – the camera moves from the bathroom to the private eye's hallway, pans away as it spins back to look at the frosted glass pane receding. It reads "O.W.L.U. – Old World Lies Unplugged." The door clicks shut. The cameraman trips over. The ceiling is stupid.

57..58..59..60.

~

He faces away. Crosses his legs. He can see her if he looks closely in the reflection of his glass. He is sure she is watching. Unable to locate Portia Haze, Howard took it upon himself to find the name and possible whereabouts of another buyer. His adventure has led him to this godforsaken place. He saw only one shoe-shine boy on the way in, but he was convinced that they were having nothing to do with him. This woman, however, she is curtained, a rainbow tattoo on her upper arm. Her barcode is visible through her flimsy net. Howard feels decidedly ill at ease. It's her soul he wants now. He cannot wait to tell me. He finishes his cake quickly and leaves the waiters and waitresses a think-biscuit each.

The woman stands. She stops dead and looks at the table as if to locate something. There. There it is. She slams her fist hard onto the table, sending sucre and plass flying. She follows this sudden movement with a clumsy, panicky kick at the table, catching the sharp plass edge with her shin instead of her boot. Blood spills from her pale white skin. The people at the tables closest to her begin to scream and run, though what they are screaming at and running from, Howard cannot tell. Then, thundering past him, a low, heavy, rumbling, a Kumenite. One of the unlucky ones.

~

Patience is a form of time travel. Since I paid the guys back, I find the days stretch out in front of me like an infinity of possibilities – each and every one to be encountered in the allotted time between wake and sleep.

Some forgotten. But at least that.

~

Pendleberry used to dislike the fact that there were so many out there like him. That there were musical musicians, painterly painters, poetical poets.

Once he had seen that there was something to say, and that he would be able to say it in his own lifetime, he realised that there were not enough people like him. He saw that every person that finds themself inspired to think and to create were his own.

Were everyone an artist, there might be no buyers.

Howard had told Pendleberry "My preconception of art might be challenged if there was no Kredit involved in any part of the artistic process."

"We would each have our own messenger," Pendleberry thought, "but we would be told to work to the same end."

~

The girl who serves Howard and me is very pretty.

"She's beautiful," I say to Howard as she walks away with our order. Howard smiles and responds in all sincerity, "All girls are beautiful."

~

The last hyper-travel jaunt across the stars Mother caught it. She is unconscious. She's been given days only. I am far from her. And waiting for a call. Even if I left now, I would never make it over in time to see her before she was incinerated and integrated. If I left now, I would pass her by, protected, armoured as I am. She would be home before me.

And I wait.

~

A bulldog bitch faces me. I'm terrified in this place. Balls tight, hair bristling, thoughts tripping on stones. Every soul which passes causes me to whince and clench my jaw. I feel pieces of my teeth crumble and roll onto my tongue and so with my finger, I gouge the bits out of my saliva, too dry with fear, too thick, too sticky to spit out. I scrape my broken teeth onto the under side of the chair arm. The bulldog bitch, Bella, thirsty, glaring at my saliva stretching and holding to the arm.

Licking its lips. Its owner, a Cambodian albino with a mouth like a delicate knife cut. Nauseous, nervous, edging forth thought by thought, tears in my eyes. Tears at the banality of their chatter, the stupidity of their choice of clothes, the seconds, minutes, hours choosing their clothes, their make-up, their persona for the night. With their faces on, they stride towards me and past me.

I feel sick. A bride smashes through the downstairs window by the bar. I am caught unawares. I am stripped of my choice of clothes. I cry like a child. It is dark now.

The crowd melt into the walls, into the pop music playing weakly from the speakers. I am whole and nothing.

-The smallest thing is the same size as the biggest thing –

Swimming in the miles and miles of airbed, bouncing off the rubber walls of a mattress, the music only as fat as the wind which carries it, slows it and carries it. I'm inside an airbed five years older than I am. Waves of wind like waves of time. The music slows and rises, slows and rises. Moment to moment, slows then rises. Older soon than I was (will be).

~

I'm touchless. Your English accents. Northern. Sounds like soft porn. Pop-porn.

And now jazz. "Love is like a highway," she says to me.

I'm cooling down as I scratch my drawings on the bedroom wall. My pen in my fist. Gouging broken teeth from the wall to reveal half-naked men and women tied up, humping each other; rough in the plaster. That will last. I paint them black.

~

Howard never claimed to 'be'. He feels terrible, he tells me. Says he let us down running like that. I'm sure if Kevin was still alive, he would not hold Howard's lack of courage against him. You win a thing or you don't. You attack or you retreat from a thing. Howard retreated.

Robin is worried that he may react in the same way, that he will run away, refuse to fight. So far the Ympe tailing Robin have kept their distance. We're both prepared all the same.

Howard has changed. He's quieter, more subdued. He keeps looking over at me as if to see what I think of him. Howard knows what I did that day and what I saw. I also suspect that Howard is aware of how much I already know about him and Hottyhammyum, the baker's girl.

It bothers me that this giant of a man is so concerned by what I might think of him. I've spent such a long time watching him from the corner of my eye, for a smile or the occasional nod of approval that it makes me feel uncomfortable that he is now waiting for just such approval from me.

~

Your English accents. You sound subdued, judging, too ready. A lifeless intelligence. Show me your Celtic side. Your bare arse. Show me some cheek. Howard has lost his cheek since he turned his.

~

Quiet, cooling down now, I sketch my genitals over the Exit Only sign, glaring like a madman at her breasts, hoping to get something more from my marks. The glottal stop over her 't's, tease, rest like hungry, lead baubles on my left-side brain. I open my heart for love but drag the brush dagger-like back down towards the bed head. I can't believe she is dead.

~

The couple are not confident. Not like Myrninerest and me. They do not speak. The old lady looks at me. For approval. At this moment she is neither an 'artist' nor a 'buyer'. She's not able to tell herself what to think. They can barely swallow their food. They have been like this for longer than Myrninerest and I have known each other.

They're both silent but she is quieter than him. He is conversing with his meal, his drink. His arse comfortably printing itself into his seat. In his mind he flutters awkwardly from life-affirming moment to life-affirming moment.

'I was here once before. The night of the Sezchuan Satelite. How the gang of us laughed. I am here now. The food is good. It is nice that it is good.' He has not noticed me.

I am to the rear of his right-side shoulder.

She might know I'm an artist. She might think I'm an artist because I dress like an artist. I would bet on it that she doesn't think I'm a cop. In her mind she hovers over the moment.

"----------------------------------------------------------------."

They seem milder than us. There is no fight in them. Their battles are being fought for them, under the table, in the car park, beneath their pillows, at the bottom of the bread-mopped plate, in their Sunday supplements. Battles in their mown-grass black bags. Miles and miles from left plastic side to right plastic side. The two of them in dark, silent jungle warfare. Millions of tiny blades about them. Fainter than thoughts, they slice each other as they carve their good food.

He no longer swaggers. She no longer holds to him in the morning.

~

I remember.

I call Myrninerest from a classroom, minutes before I am to teach my first lesson. 'You'll be fine,' she tells me. 'I've not seen anything rattle you yet.'

~

Monica crossed her legs in an exaggerated manner revealing her coffee-stained panties and some muffled spidery bulge. Petra offered a criticism of Pendleberry's knowledge of their world's post-ancient history.

'There was no 1900!' Petra said. 'They skipped that one.'

Diana, Monica's blue-haired friend, slipped her sandal off her foot to reveal a blotchy bulb of red, festering digits.

Pendleberry asked Zhou what he felt about his own peculiar talents. Did he think they were natural or nurtured or handed to him by a guiding spirit? Zhou looked up at Pendleberry with his usual vacant smile, 'I don't know' he replied after next to no thought.

'You must have an opinion one way or the other,' Pendleberry tried.

'I don't know,' he said again, still grinning.

Diane, who had tucked her fat foot back into her sandal, called out 'Do you have any opinions?' The classroom laughed at Zhou. This did not shake him but he was no longer smiling at anybody. Quietly he said again 'I don't know.'

Pendleberry turned to Hottyhammyum who had not spoken in nearly two days.

'Hottyhammyum.' Hottyhammyum jumped with a loud 'Oh!' a rising note. 'Me?'

'Yes Hottyhammyum. Do you believe that these 'Outsiders' were contacted, spoken to, used like tools, even – by souls from another world, another dimension?'

Hottyhammyum looked down at her notes, 'Oh yes,' she said matter of factly, "Yes of course." The students who had been arguing this point vociferously all weekend looked on at Hottyhammyum in astonishment.

'But why didn't you say so before?' asked Sophia, who had been sitting beside a silent Hottyhammyum the entire course.

'I don't know,' Hottyhammyum whispered. She stopped spinning her pen on the back of her hand and put the point to her wrist-top tap-tap-tap.

~

Pulled that noise-maker from the drawer in a blur of misunderstanding. You got it in your hands. I got you in my sights. I got pages of recommendations for you and a highlighter for your guardians.

Theirs choose. Theirs choose.

There's chews.

Spelling it out.

~

The class was deadly quiet as Lucia looked intently at Hottyhammyum.

"You have been contacted. You are one of them Hotty'. They are talking to you right now."

Hottyhammyum raised two cold eyes at Lucia. Lucia looked shaken for one moment then gathering herself, she pushed on. She was doing well. "Her name..." she paused. "No, His name... is... Howard. Much much older than you...' That was as far as Lucia got.

Hottyhammyum screamed. "Stop it! Stop it!" High pitched squeels turning into deep sobs, heavier than her size, she stood up and kicked her way past the bags and overcoats scattered on the classroom floor.

Lucia crying in her seat.

~

The sunny cup clinks of a courtyard café. The large tin bells ring, stilted-sounding into the humid air.

Sirisian tourists looking unimpressed, stropping, limp across the wide open space between the barrack's four inner walls. Sarluvian tourists smoking in the shade of the stone archways. Irish tourists telling stories across their table's litter.

Robin pulls a replica grenade he has stolen from the museum shop out from his Jacket pocket and examines it closely. Pendleberry concentrates hard on the blonde's legs almost 200 metres away, trying not to let Robin, or the Sarluvian boy banging his bottle against the chair arm, bother him. It bothers him.

"So tell me about ______. What was she like to work for? Why did you leave so early?"

"Look at this," Robin replies. "Look at this thing here." He hands the grenade to Pendleberry. "I read stories about bodyguards would have to throw themselves on top of these things if they were tossed in the vicinity of their protectee. Can you even imagine doing such a job?"

"What exactly do you protect these stars against?"

"Insults," Robin says. "If a person shouts some defamatory remark, I am to scold the person and placate and convince my employer that all is well; that the facetious or derogatory remarks were said by people who are jealous or misinformed about certain issues. Maybe they're crazy, or any number of things. I boost _____'s ego long enough for him or her to get through a signing or a shoot or a trip to the market. Very well paid."

"Why don't you go ahead and make me feel better?"

"How much will you pay me?"

"Nothing."

"You're just worried that you haven't found yourself." Pendleberry smiled a bitter smile. "Look at you; friends, family, Kredit, Myrninerest. You're not that bad looking. You're smart. You're an interesting cat, Pendleberry. You have it made. You don't need me."

"That it?"

"Sight-seeing. That is what you do. When the revolution's over, this is all we will do. There is nothing else."

"Awful, Robin, but I appreciate the effort. Why did you leave your Keep so early? Problems?"

"Would you believe it was something I said about Myrninerest."

"What did you say about Myrninerest?"

"I said that if all actresses could act like her....no, wait, I said it must be easy for anyone to act well around her because she made it all look like so much fun to do. She reminds me of a child play-acting in the garden, you know. If you don't play the game as well as her, you just wouldn't enjoy yourself. Anyway, then I said if all actresses could act like that, there'd be no need for bodyguards."

"What on earth did you mean by that?"

"Man, I knew what I was thinking when I said it. I'm fucked if I know why I said it now. We were heavy at the think-cake. I meant that if everybody made stuff look that much fun, people would spend more time trying to join them than they would shouting at them.

Like when you paint. When I first met you Pendleberry, I started doodling. I still draw. You tell yourself all the stuff you need to hear, just like Myrninerest. You don't need bodyguards. Me? I'm a fucking idiot. If I could afford a bodyguard, I'd get one in a second."

Pendleberry stared seriously at Robin for a moment then pulling the pretend pin from Robin's pretend grenade, tossed the object at Robin's chest. Robin caught the bomb and with a theatrical muffled scream, pretend exploded.

~

She only made one movie before she died. This time.

Myrninerest stole the scenes, one after another. The cinema audience were on the edge of their seats. They could hardly contain their joy at her brilliance. Each person desired nothing more right then than to grab their neighbours and hold them close; close enough to feel agreement.

She was in complete control. I was not jealous of her position. I felt that she had taken the role and made it hers. That position was for nobody else. Her players had underestimated her and so complimented her. She had played the role perfectly.

~

Her time was not my own. I can see this now. I was lucky to have known her. This knowledge does not make it easier.

~

The market has an art gallery. local artists. I'm stopped by a Martian settler who wishes to know if I'm interested in his work. I am not. I am far more intrigued by the shelter he has constructed for his art. "I love your stable," I tell him by way of recompense, for that is exactly what his section of the market resembles; Christ's stable. There is straw jutting from behind each painting and the ground is a carpet of boban rot droppings and hay. His surroundings are Medieval.

He tells me he hasn't sold any paintings in a month. Upon realising that I have no interest in purchasing the art, he points with a smile at a shining yellow pig floating in front of the stall opposite. Fat and golden. The pig is beautiful.

~

Myrninerest speaks to Pendleberry on the phone. He's getting upset at her increasing inability to open her mouth even a little when she speaks.

"Stop mumbling baby," he tells her, impatiently. She begins to cry. As her tears flow, Pendleberry weeps also until he too finds it difficult to separate his jaws to tell her how he misses and loves her.

He calls his Mother.

She looks no worse.

It's a matter of days.

For all the Kredit he has made, not only can he not save her, but he cannot be with her, except like this, artificially.

He wants to hold her.

That night Pendleberry is unable to remember who he is.

He is me.

He opens his eyes but he sees nothing familiar. He is aware however of a vague sense of unification, revealing itself through an overwhelming wave of simplicity which connects him in that space to people in other spaces, in the past, hundreds of years ago, two weeks ago, light years away, infinite distances. People and things, which have lain down and woken in the dark before the day was to begin, empty, untouched, too previous.

Go back to sleep.

The morning always comes.

This time always passes.

All things pass.

This knowledge is as heavy as it is light.

~

I dream of a whim. I want to learn Braille. How difficult can it be? Twenty-seven letters, just the same. I buy a children's Braille book for Mel. She's working in a bookstore and appreciates the gesture. We will learn Braille together. In dreams like this I know nothing of my friends. They mean nothing to me.

~

Note : 46

She is scouse. I'm losing my hair.

I am a louse. I am not lousy.

She is worried that the youths outside who are smashing things are smashing something of hers. I go out to check. I return and tell her everything is ok. That they are smashing the belongings of the man sitting with her.

~

Howard is unsure. The way into the house looks precarious. Outside is a mess of dry rubble, rusty bedsteads and iron girders. Bomb damage. The wide stone staircase leading to the front door is giving underfoot as Howard and Robin ascend. Robin reaches the door and turns just in time to see Howard being swallowed up by the staircase. The ground beneath Howard opening with a clatter. Sinking, Howard struggles to no avail. Robin can just about see Howard through the large hole now gaping in front of him.

Howard lands with a clothy WHUMP as he fights through the loose bricks to get to his feet. Once again there is a loud rumbling as the rubble beneath him yawns and sucks him deep into its hard concrete throat.

The surface area in front of the house becomes a flat reservoir of stone. The ground is busy reshaping itself before Robin's eyes when a crunching THWACK from the centre of the fat gravel spits Howard high into the air along with a tremendous mile-wide shower of sharp rocks and naked people. The ground bubbles like hot quicksand beneath the falling human debris.

Robin, dodging stones and bodies as best he can, risks his life jumping over the lip which circles the mouth of events and rushes over to the spot where Howard has fallen. Grabbing Howard and dragging him to the edge of the circular monster, he pulls Howard out of the mess just as the fallen rocks settle noisily. Great sucking sounds into their fleshless pulsating home.

The now-silent quarry fills with white-gray water, drowning once more its unfortunate occupants.

Robin crows at the quarry.

He suggests the shanty town nearby. The heat is confusing. They come to a crossroads. Howard wishes to take the 'avalanche route' south. The signpost arching over the street reads 'Adventure This Way'.

They start in that direction but turning the bend, and glaring sweatily at the long distance ahead of them, they think better of it.

"We would die of the heat before we came close to those mountains," Robin says. Howard agrees. He suggests the route which takes them through the shopping district.

"It doesn't look too touristy," he says, brushing the dust from his clothes.

~

1..2..3...

With extreme concentration. I can fly. The crowds below only show mild astonishment when I flop and float from rooftop to ground level without injuring myself. Choosing the local racetrack to get a good run up, I see the groundsman up ahead of me looking disgruntled. I run faster and fall into flight, grazing my stomach on a hedge. The machine rumbles. ..59..60.

The paper is spit out into the cup.

Stop trying so hard.

~

They have English accents. My jealousy is crippling.

These faux Brits have explained the insides of saucers to her from the comfort of their hangars.

We were both stoned and their explanations concerning U.F.O.s really were fascinating. However, they followed Myrninerest and me to a gig and became unreasonably aggressive.

The think-cake has not yet overwhelmed my desire to attack/defend.

This fact has been recognised by two ladies. They are holding my arms. Origin unknown. Perhaps students. Nice looking. They take it upon themselves to draw me away from the fight. I leave with them.

~

Paul Newman 23 is Pendleberry's friend.

He says, "Everything is a metaphor for everything else."

~

Back at Martha's, two weeks before Pendleberry's disappearance, Howard and Pendleberry argue.

"You must stop with the search," Howard says, "It's no longer safe. Your buyers are becoming nervous. Seshu has stopped visiting so regularly since his customers are requesting protection along with their purchases. They do not want themselves to be revealed. If you met them face to face, if you were to see yourself as they see you, there is a strong possibility, Pendleberry, that you would... vanish!"

Pendleberry appears in a peaceful mood.

"Look." He squares up to his mentor. "I'll leave it alone – if only for you. My hands are clean. I am a free man."

This however was not so. Since Myrninerest's death, Pendleberry had been searching, with Robin's help, harder than ever. Howard knew this to be the case and was upset by Pendleberry's dishonesty.

"You could disappear forever," Howard argued. "You're just not listening. We're all in danger. I for one do not wish to know any more than necessary. This knowledge you seek cannot make you happier."

"I said I was not looking."

This was too much. Howard snapped, "You are a ridiculous infant and you're lying to me!"

Howard lowered his voice. "I cannot protect you from yourself. Please do not burden me with this. I ask you, leave this search alone. Continue your work. Ignore the buyer. They can teach you nothing worthwhile."

Pendleberry glanced back up at the screen. THINK CAKE? He smiled and ordered four. "We'll eat two each," he tells Howard. "And after that we will walk." Howard accepts cautiously.

"This may not be the best time for it," Howard says. "I'm worried that your peaceful demeanour is a front."

"Fuck all that!" Pendleberry spits. "Now eat the cake."

~

Myrninerest's dead body is mixed in amongst my art in a filthy cupboard at the university. These old canvas paintings pulled from their boards have been stored there for the last few years. She is wrapped inside. It's time for me to collect these 'early works' and so I wheelbarrow her and them down the hill to my car.

On the way down, she slips off. The twins Mel and Suzy help me to lift Myrninerest's corpse onto the wheelbarrow and to cover her body once more with my paintings. As we pull her back on, Myrninerest wakes and begins to chat in an Australian accent. She's pleasant – she is in an excellent mood. She is completely unaware that she is in a wheelbarrow, wrapped in paintings, dead. We listen smiling, wheel her down the hill and put her in the boot of the car.

~

Hottyhammyum returns home to her mother. Her mother is busy cooking in her filthy kitchen. Her mother is covered in a thick coating of flour and syrup.

"I have found the man I'm to be with Mum. He's a philosopher. You should make him something, Mum. Bake him something special." The young Hottyhammyum is excited. Hottyhammyum's mother looks away from what's she's doing for the first time in 114 years ,and catching Hottyhammyum's eye speaks for the first time in just as many.

"I CHOSE to bake."

~

An excerpt from a George Orwell novel about a man who speaks of his 'best night'. This man warmly and drunkenly recalls that he had won a lot of Kredit one fine evening. With this Kredit he had gotten irresponsibly drunk, and come the time that he had reached a satisfactory level of forgetfulness, he hired a prostitute. He takes the prostitute to a quiet little hotel. They make violent love; the greatest sex of his life, and when he is done, he savagely beats the young girl. "This," he tells his stunned listener, "was the greatest night of my life. The perfect night you might say."

I programmed the holo-machine in the cheap arcade with an identical scenario.

The variety of ways ones can take a 'being' (or non-being) who is willing to do anything is phenomenal. The ways in which one can kill such a body are infinite.

~

Being alone I had time to think. I also had time to experiment.

The first time I left the house invisible I was turned on.

This was mine.

I had no idea how long it would last. It had been weeks since Adam and Eve's visitation.

After a fortnight I became brave and followed a lady I had seen on the G Train.

I felt 'at home'.

I left closing the door quietly behind me with the type of satisfaction one is rarely blessed with even once in a lifetime.

I did not need to steal food, clothes or Kredit, though occasionally I would pick stuff up without thinking.

I decided I would not use this power for good.

There was a difference between the voyeurism I could now experience and the voyeurism one experiences in a holo-machine.

The difference between snuff and cinema.

The difference between art and illustration.

Between minds and hearts.

I did for a brief moment think that this power would be a great bonus to Howard and I. That I would be able to follow Them as they had been following us. I was wrong about that.

~

"We are all Buddha. Everything is a metaphor for everything else. In complimentary contrast to Raymond Carver's teasingly poignant quotidian tales, our wildest dreams reflect unswervingly our mundane characters." Paul is Pendleberry's friend.

"That man is beautiful," I say.

"All men are beautiful," he replies.

~

That he lost her.
That he possessed her.

That he could recreate her.

Impossible to accept her without wanting to possess her.

To capture a moment; the beauty of a thing.

To physically steal beauty from its source in brushstrokes. Grasping at corporeal evidence of his pettifogging revelations.

The simultaneity of his desire to imprison and set free the limitless possibilities of beauty's lesson.

The subject matter should be neither here nor there. In a world of forms, everything is received, interpreted and judged by the same organs. Philosophical truisms lay not in the actual but in the representation of the actual.

The actual representation.

Pendleberry's need for possession was a primitive one. His desire for simplicity of form, of colour, even explanation, was part of his/our innate desire to indulge in his/our more basic, truer, human instincts.

Pendleberry considered suspicious any artist who was not either primitive or irrational. Should these elements be missing from an artist's work, Pendleberry would accuse them of unnecessary didacticism in what could only be described as an inexplicable universe. Mere decorative artists.

The need to do something – to do anything comes from lack of peace.

And so Pendleberry continued his search.

There were irrational primitive beings out there receiving answers from him. From other, perhaps more rational advanced beings. Pendleberry wanted to know if there was any conceivable purpose to these ethereal transactions.

"In heaven paintings would have absolutely no significance," Paul said. Seshu interrupts. This is the first time Seshu has met Paul. Seshu is continuing a previous chain of thought. "Unless one is 'sleep painting' one is fully aware of what one is doing in the name of art. Now the psychoanalysis of dreams, this is the conscious undertaking of a true chaotic process. The dream is, as far as the conscious person is concerned, chaotic. However, once the analysis is undertaken, a whole new process begins.

"The conscious being encourages himself to describe this dream for the purpose of discovering some kind of personal subjective truth. Francis Bacon spoke of his art as a 'structured chaos'. In the world of the working, waking artist, chaos has no place. Dali knew exactly what he was doing. The very definition of 'art' denies the possibility of chaos in any artistic representation. One chooses to leave things in or to throw things out. It might be more correct to say that the final painting is as much a part of the universal chaos we find ourselves in. One just might as easily say on the other hand that the world is in fact perfect.

Everything is perfect. In the world of art there is an empirical structure. A painting can no more develop from chaos than can a grand piano. Even 'Outsider Art'. If a certifiably insane member of the public scrawls an image, can this be said to have come from chaos?

Either the chaos of existence is to be accepted as perfection or a fatalistic view of a structured perfection must be accepted. No chaos.

Either way, a blank canvas scribbled on by a dribbling idiot with a stick is a perfectly understandable result of our rich, plentiful, beautiful existence.

Boundaries to art exist. 'Art' is the boundary. Within this boundary we have answers. Within this boundary we are happy to answer questions with questions. Outside the boundary of art, a question for a question is by no means satisfactory.

And so," Paul continues, rolling his eyes and speaking to Seshu as if speaking to a child, "IN HEAVEN – PAINTINGS – WOULD – HAVE – ABSOLUTELY – NO – SIGNIFICANCE." And with a flourish of his hand Paul kisses the thought goodbye.

Pendleberry was attempting to change something which was itself already perfect.

To participate freely, agree, disagree with no inner conflict. This was the thing.

Pendleberry could never find it in himself to forgive his own lack of acceptance, and so he would continue the fight for his belief in some mythical other.

~

4

I have found a new home. I have begun painting. I shall not think of her. Until the day I meet her. One last attempt to understand myself without the help of the buyer.

Feelings I try to catch. In those moments. Feelings of ecstasy, bliss, peace. Emotions sometimes just out of reach. To recapture or annihilate past and future with a perfect presence. Knowing beauty none to well. Struggling with a continual revolution of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

Wrestling to join them.

Always a flicker of the ideal, never a shining envelopment or absorption, unless high. Painting to capture the flicker so I might absorb it and enjoy it at my leisure. Possess it.

A moment in motion, entering and leaving. A pregnant pause.

The best we can expect; to travel within time.

A silent dream of a purpose.

A heavy fragile shoreline. Beating again and again and again.

To magnify our lighter moments.

To catch the flicker and make it shine. A wish fulfilment. To act a dream without harming a body.

Murder – rape – world domination – hate – theft. The lifeblood of art.

The innate desire to try everything, do everything, see everything, all contrary to the empirical reality of moral servitude.

Through art we live our fantasies.

I will not use this power for 'good'.

~

She is playing with herself in front of me. I am standing over her and she is playing with herself.

~

"I'm going to Saskatchewan first thing. 6.20 tomorrow. You wish me luck."

"We all do," Robin says. "But Pendleberry this may not be the time."

Pendleberry has pocketed the information he has so desperately been waiting for and leaves the bar with a "Happy Birthday Robin. I'm sorry I didn't get you anything."

~

I am therefore I am.

English compositions and ghosts of children in rafters; a sporty chance and a fine helping of cake. Your hair is just right and your perfume just like a grown-ups. This lifting I feel is carved wooden icons, polished mahogany tables and stairwells, thoughtful rich clean fat girls with cutlery earrings and a cloudy white reflective moat. 20/20 vision in blue-rinse uniforms and white-strap sandals, jodhpurs and scarves worn by cuddling tubbies. Just enough Kredit to look pretty, even.

A chill now and a restless feeling like can-canning on a tongue of nerves. Like watching Plato through a flute.

~

"Death is other people dying," Paul Newman 23 says.

That's so Paul.

~

In a dream, a friend of my sister's said that clarity of painting is the thing. The abstract is being dealt with by God, and the current distance from that which we paint in an abstract manner means that our representation is a bending of the truth, so if we copy exactly what we see, only then can we claim to be purely abstract. A friend of my sister.

~

Myrninerest's death had hit Pendleberry with such force that he could not bestow upon himself an appropriate role to play.

Every attempt at consolation had become anathema to him. He began to despise all show of sympathy; to be disgusted by each and every individual's keen interest in his pain.

He felt this so strongly (the fact that it was him suffering) precisely because he felt Myrninerest's pain in those last horrific moments.

The knowledge that such pain could not be externalised and extinguished crushed all ability for him to show any of it.

The hate Pendleberry felt; the light-years between them; the light-years that given a second or two's thought might never have been.

Now Pendleberry thought of Evil things.

Of nothing.

~

The girl round the corner at the bar sounds like my sister. The man talking to her sounds like some long-dead friend. Their gossip is fast and indecipherable. The heat is unbearable. I shouldn't have hidden here. I cannot sleep tonight.

The staff are clearing the tables. It is not my sister at the bar. I do not know the man speaking. Howard and Robin will never find me now. The barman tells me they are closing. I'm lifetimes from sleep.

"Imagine if we were married!" the woman tells the man.

They are not going to sleep either.

~

1...2...3...

Paul is helmsman. He's steering the boat. The weather is bad.

Matthew and Luke scuttle from aft to stern, sliding and skidding across the slippery deck. The mast is broken, the sails are ripped.

Mark is desperately trying to fix a crow's nest to the lower half of the broken mast.

They have to see land soon.

A rock is spotted jutting from the water's surface.

Mark jumps in. He hits the water soundlessly and scrambles for the only evidence of dry land these men have seen in weeks.

Still a long way from the rock, Mark is calling back to the boat that everything is OK. The rock then dips, sucking itself into a whirlpool pulling Mark down with it.

In a showery flash a prehistoric tail whips out of the water, flipping Mark, broken, into the air, then lashes at the body with precision.

The dinosaur's tail slices Mark's body in two.

Jesus gives the order to abandon ship seeing the monster rapidly approaching their vessel. Paul Newman 23 makes for the port side as the waves produced by the thrashing dinosaur send the boat hurtling towards a coastal cliff.

Paul latches on to a thin fissure in the wall of rock.

Jesus and the rest of the crew swim for their lives.

Paul sees them and wonders, "What exactly did I learn from that man?"

Paul's summary of his travels with Jesus was that Jesus liked jazz. "Jazz is alright in Jesus' book," he thought and clambered onto the island's first plateau.

The plateau resembled a dance floor. It even had a viewer's balcony circling the room he had entered. Sleeping in the middle of the dance floor was a huge baby dinosaur. Paul, seeing an actress friend cleaning upstairs, tip-toes around the snoring beasty.

"Myrninerest," he whispers. Myrninerest recognises Paul immediately and putting down her mop, motions for him to join her upstairs. The dinosaur wakes. It takes one quick look at Paul and gets slowly to its feet. It paces back and forward, eyeing Paul suspiciously.

"Just keep on tip-toeing up the stairs," Myrninerest whispers back at Paul. The dinosaur does nothing except spit up once, lie back down and fall asleep.

Myrninerest has not changed. Paul rushes at Myrninerest to give her a hug. Due to his momentum, both slip comically on the recently washed surface, coming to an awkward stop at the doors of one of the dorms. She blushes and he smiles. "Show me your room."

She takes him to the exact same room he remembers from their 'acting school' days.

She resembles his husband. His husband who has stood by him through thick and thin, though she is younger, more flirtatious. She has tucked her delicate bare legs under her bum and is beckoning Paul now to join her on the bed. Both sit; pretty as a picture. Time has changed nothing. Time changes nothing. Not Jesus. Not dinosaurs. Not jazz. Not Myrninerest.

~

I spent my time painting, travelling, mostly watching. I must phrase my questions just so. Or perhaps I should say nothing. Maybe I will just stand there and let her speak. The more one asks a person, the easier it is for them to hide.

~

I watch Cal's 500th movie 'The Fine Men Who Killed My Husband'. The hum of the coach takes my mind off Myrninerest, helps lull me into the plot.

I enjoy the film. In the darkness I quietly apologise to Myrninerest. I mouth the words, which makes me cry.

~

Phylogenic memories tapering into and out of Pendleberry. The collective unconscious uncovered in everything he says and does. This combined with his now numerous theophanies result in Pendleberry becoming the perfect tool.

God had presented itself to him.

He was too close to see.

The buyer has distance.

Sitting cross-legged, relaxed in Martha's cake den, Pendleberry eyes the blonde waitress. She's a little on the large side, but her heaving chest holds him transfixed. Such simple pleasures were occupying Pendleberry's time more and more since Myrninerest's passing.

Dumb voyeurism, doodling on cloth napkins, reading the funnies. He kept the doodles and forgot quickly the jokes he read.

Her urgent nipples pressed into her tight uniform like thumbs.

Straight out of a detective novel.

~

Note 49:

Ghosts crowd beneath the eaves. I beckon and they answer my every whim. "Show me your sex. Let me touch those. Kiss them. Get down on your knees." Unquestioning, unblinking, these spectres do as they're told.

~

Howard saw the man walk up to the screaming woman and punch her in the face, hard. People in the queue groaned and swore in disgust. The man managed to catch Howard's eye and shouted over to him, "Did you tell her to be like that?"

The woman was whimpering on the floor at the man's boots.

"Did you?" The crowd was silent. Howard could smell the sweet lemon urinal cakes from the bathroom.

"I've got nothing to do with it," Howard said weakly. The man grabbed the crying woman by the hair and pulled her to her feet.

"I'll fight him," Howard thought. Just think what everyone will say. Pendleberry and all the others. 'Who gave him the black eye?' 'That was Howard,' they'll say.

Howard did not even manage to land a punch before the man, noticing the queer look in Howard's eye, waded over to the Howard and pummelled him with an array of rings, kicks, elbows and teeth.

Nobody in the queue for the toilet helped Howard.

I arrived too late.

~

Can't relax in this spastic pose, repose.

"Get me out of here!"

Now, I'm praying. Now I really have lost it. Asking for help!

HELP ME!

Help me.

Helpme.

Nyanyanyaa.

Brainpuzzled, this field in my head. Lazy grass. Melted rog turds scattered by a subaltern pushing a lawn mower. Anywhere I lay. Uncomfortable. I could be lying in shit here. It's all over the place. Lord God please come in blue. Sky blue vermilion hue, only you, over me.

It's all icky now. I'll take that guy in the ass but I will not picnic here in this brainpuzzle. In these turds.

Give me a fucking break, woman. I'm tense as hell and can't sit straight, let alone think straight. I'm a broken philosopher afraid to touch the earth. Afraid I'll get my hands dirty if I do. Holy gloves I need. Holy shit! Is this really happening to me? God save me. Yes I'm talking to you.

I'd like some white leather gloves, baggy suade cowboy pants and a suave cream shirt from Aspel's. Make me good. We are the same you and me. You took Mary the same way I took Myrninerest. Without a by your leave. You are all men. We got a bond. So help me you fucker. Helpme.

~

My nerves splayed, displayed.

...1...2...3...

To get to the restaurant we have to climb a high, thin, black metal bridge. The highest point is roughly one mile above the water, stretching from here to the island. The bridge is three feet wide from start to finish. The N-shaped bridge, stretched flat, measures approximately two and three-quarter miles. I am not pleased.

Paul Newman 23 has already started up the steep slope, his grandmother in tow. Myrninerest follows them with a spring in her step which successfully causes the bridge to shake. Robin, Howard, Seshu and Myrninerest are already on the island. Strangers pushing behind me. My vertigo is disabling. My legs are wobbling. I can barely grip the railing. In my mind, the bridge is swaying 50 feet side to side.

When we finally reach the top, despite being afraid, I am surprised to see the downward slope is actually a slide. I can see Paul and his Nan way ahead of us, arms raised above their heads. Diminishing whoops.

The restaurant is Myrninerest's treat. The movie has done well. She apologises for not getting any of us on the set. Then she apologises for bringing us over the bridge. She touches my arm. She hopes the meal will make up for it. And with a whoop, she is also gone. I am wearing shorts and my legs are sticky with nervous sweat. It takes me an eternity to get to the bottom, jolting in tiny stages, legs burning with the friction. The strangers behind me are complaining and I am stressed that I will miss the meal.

When I finally get to the restaurant, the others have already eaten and have gone out to stroll about the island. Deflated, I go to the bar and ask for an orange juice. The waitress smiles knowingly, a friendly smile and she pours me a little beer. Handing me the glass, I notice her beautiful smooth arms.

"How did you know?" I ask her.

"Everybody knows," she says.

One cannot trust an alcoholic partner, but one has a devout faith in their drunken artist....59...60.

~

"Quote - 'My reason is not my mansion.' Christian Dotremont

~

Pendleberry rose and spoke to the class. "Appel understood the link between the ordinary objective vision and extraordinary subjective vision. He pays homage to the insane. His pictures show him discovering his own insanity, and with it his own creativity."

Hottyhammyum scribbled her notes furiously. She had heard of Karel Appel. It was he that had predicted the arrival of the Kumenites through his child-like figurative scribbles, centuries before the images could be translated into a form comprehensive enough for the uninitiated to understand. This translation, incredibly enough, was achieved in a musical form. Paytt, the famous Ska revivalist had dreamt a tune. He had woken up humming it and the lyrics 'just came'. The lyrics spoke of gentlemen who would arrive on earth to save the life of a woman. Bring her back to life, to be precise. These beings would be able to tap into other worlds. He sang realms of the mind we had not even imagined. "They will introduce us to ourselves. These men, these Kumenites. The song was called 'John 3:7'.

~

Tomoya asked Pendleberry what was the point in predicting things if the things predicted were to happen anyway.

"Had we been prepared for the Kumenites, and their gift," Tomoya said, "how could that have changed anything?"

"We might have baked a cake," Paloma laughed.

"I'd have dressed nicer," Hottyhammyum joined in boldly.

"No, I mean, if we open our minds to the possibility of prediction, how does it help us now?" Pendleberry thought how best to approach the question.

None of the events of the more famous predictions had ever been avoided, so why indeed struggle to become all-seeing?

"It helps us..." Pendleberry began. "It helps us to..."

"Keep in step with God." Hottyhammyum finished his sentence.

"It's the not knowing that turns us on," Paloma said.

"But sometimes," Hottyhamyun said, "when you see a joke coming, it can be all the funnier. The anticipation of something you know is good. The anticipation of something you know is there."

~

5

Sometimes at my shoulder, sometimes right in front of me where I can talk to her and she responds.

I need this time with Myrninerest to figure out exactly how to get one step ahead of God.

I need to give myself at least one day's advantage over them.

I cannot have them arrest me when I'm on the verge of what might well be my greatest discovery. With Myrninerest's help I can lose them. I'm sure of it. She does not judge me. I am myself.

Where will this stop? Do I need to see more than everyone to survive?

Maybe the only way we could all survive equally is if absolutely none of us had anything to hide.

Until then, I must learn to be one step ahead of them all.

~

The calm waves of heat,

noise-soft delicate reproaches.

I can hack this.

The air pauses at me and continues on its way,

wood nymphs on their infinite journey,

invisible,

light to touch,

pass through me and smile faintly at my insignificance.

I feel appeased by their presence.

Springs, mellifluous, wash through the leaves of the elms and ash around the estate.

My vulnerability is my fort today. Children squeal in the distance. I am brought back to my youth. Dogs barking like that.

My howling youth.

I penetrate further and further and find very little to excuse this distance I keep from those who know me.

I can hear but I cannot see the magpies perched in the branches, knowing this moment, calling to each other maybe, or singing or philosophising or perhaps they're telling each other off; perhaps they too are squawking in vain "Where am I? Where am I?"

I kill the peace with easy jazz.

I kill the peace with easy thought.

~

Fire flies, dragons and Tom cat's piss, Asians and laughter in sockless trainers and girlfriends. Flip flop, flip flop they jingle keys in bars like they're going places. Where are you going in this bar? Put your keys away now. Tell your boyfriend to put his socks on. What the hell are all these paper dragons doing here anyway?

"Waiter! Waiter, there's a fire fly in my soup."

"Don't be ridiculous sir, you're in a chemist."

The plink plink of prescription jars being filled up tells me he ain't kiddin'.

"In that case give me a dozen asametomol."

Fire flies hate that stuff.

~

He is dressed like police, or he is police, or he is a person dressed like a person dressed like the police. Either way he has cornered me in a cake bar in town.

The Lamplighter.

They/He broke down the door while 'blue' was attending me. Upending me.

"We gotta talk." Metallic like that, and I thought 'he looks friendly,' so I talked.

I never told him about the buyer. He never asked, but he had enough on me to take me away if he had wanted to.

"You gotta cooperate," he said,

and I thought 'He still looks friendly,' so I cooperated...

~

The first few months in the mansion, I was very much myself.

The façade of the building seemed plain. No-nonsense rectangular Edwardian tunnite. Four Doric columns supporting a 29th century transport slice gate come 40th century tow bar.

From the macro-lawn the house had a grandesque quality, but it did not stir up the emotions the same way the rear of the building did.

A fountained courtyard connected the back of the mansion house to a tetro castle.

This view of my new home from East, West and South conjured up the magician in me.

Onto my hands and knees I would fall, staring intently at my borrowed sanctuary.

Staring, staring until I rise lightly, first the head, the body would catch up, until I can stretch out my arms, then my legs. A universal yawn from my very soul as I settle myself in mid-air. Still facing the building.

With a little thought now I can swim. Push softly forwards to the walls vibrating minutely, unsolid now. Through the gravelly tunnite into the empty rooms, unhindered by material obstacles, I can float through safely, turning circles in the womb of this idea. The library attics, cacophonous cellars, unused ballrooms, darkened holo-rooms. Swish, mine, swish, mine, swoosh, smiling and gliding through carved ceilings and marble floors. Shush, push, push.

I'm kneeling on my hands and knees out in the open, a chortling infant relieving itself. The comfort of this. The waste.

Into the mines of the garden; home of screaming waterfalls, heroic bridges, unwholesome tunnels of overgrown bank. I float above the stream now like a bulb of mist, scoop, feel the cold of the water, tasting the heavy verullian green of the musty vegetation about me, luring me deeper and deeper into its unquestioning love.

I am not afraid in this dark. I am the fairytale troll. I am certain death. Those who come here should fear me. I am Calliban. I am Prospero. On my hands and knees.

On the bent grass.

~

In the holo-room, as in the university, one can project images on the walls and walk into and out of the scenes. My favourite new pastime is to create a blank landscape, white on white, close my eyes and walk.

The movement keeps my mind alert and my visions pure. No sounds, no colours or objects distracting me, no beauty, no ugliness, just myself and a fresh breeze produced by the A.Y.L.C.

The ground moves in any direction I move. It is impossible to run into a wall until I order the programme to end. At first I could not take more than a hundred steps before I had to open my eyes. Soon I braved running, sprinting, jumping, eyes tight shut.

~

I kid myself that we are together again; that we are hand in hand looking for a house.

Paul shows us about streets where he used to live. He knows about Myrninerest.

How she occasionally visits.

~

"Wonder not that I said to thee 'You must be born again'" – John 3:7

~

Pendleberry's predictions were beginning to worry him.

When they started, he would joke with Myrninerest and the others how useless his predictions were.

He would dream of an underwater woman, stressed, mouthing words like a fish. Next day, he would glance out of the window of a bus to see a lady in a vehicle exaggeratedly mouthing the words to a song he could not hear.

He would dream of a brightly-painted jeweled pig, and the very next day, he would notice, by chance, a gold decorated piggy bank in an antique shop window.

"It's like I have a gift and what's the point?"

The first dream prediction to really affect him was one in which he was walking in the street with an unknown friend when the ground beneath them crumbled and swallowed them whole. Next morning in the news, two local shop keepers were reported dead after the concrete road they had been standing on had collapsed into a pub cellar which stretched under the ground from pavement to pavement. They were instantly crushed.

"Probably didn't predict it," he told Myrninerest. "Or if I did, I slept through the part where I could have made a difference. But I knew it had happened."

She smiled an encouraging smile.

"This is clairvoyance."

"Coincidence," Robin had said.

"No, I'm a fucking clairvoyant!"

Pendleberry joked, half-joked.

To accept oneself in an objectively organised universe one had sometimes to state the ridiculous with all one's heart and soul if one was ever to learn anything of any worth.

"I am a fucking cat," Pendleberry told himself later, in order to test his latest theory.

"Perhaps Robin is right," Pendleberry concluded.

Pendleberry would never be rid of his visions. His dreams slowly began to echo the news. He began to write down his dreams to prove that he was not making it up.

~

He mourned her and he loved her. He could make love to her and he could dance with her. He could not touch her. She was not so integrated.

~

Sometimes he was the beast. He would eat raw meat off the floor on all fours. Myrninerest would enter the large dining room and with a look of innocent horror she would run from the room. Blood dripping from his mouth, Pendleberry would stomp after her until he caught her up. Lily white lying on the bed she would scream the most heart-warming scream...

He took pleasure from rifling through the literature. An impressive library.

The thought of another's fiction.

More often than not Pendleberry was drunk. He did not deny himself any of the contents of the cellar.

"Why don't you go for 'this'?" Myninerest asked, "Above board. All legal. Forget your buyer. You sell. That is all you need to know. I can see how happy you are here. You know that this is not beyond your Kredit. All this could be yours. Play the game Pendleberry. This is all you need."

~

1...2...3...

The creature is underwater in a glass bowl on the table. It will not be cooked. Seshu is going to eat this thing alive. I do not really believe it until I see Seshu slice at the Platypus with his razor sharp knife, stabbing at it with his fork. Faint cuts appear then turn red on the Platypus's hairless pink flesh. I feel sick. Seshu flops the squirming animal out of the bowl onto the table for me to feel, to check it is real, actually dying. I can feel its erratic heart beat fading. He stabs at it again and puts it back in the bowl. I can read its mouth under the water...

"Oh-my-god. Oh no. Help me. Please. Oh no. Oh no."

I try to spit my own food out onto my plate.

It's not so easy.

I'm drunk and I'm high and the food is stuck in my mouth.

I reach inside my mouth with my fingers to pull the fleshy substance from my jaws and I become engrossed in the feel of it, and then the dawning realisation that the food just will not come away from my face.

The fish I am eating has metamorphosed into some non-descript stringy ectoplasm. The waitresses are watching me. I take a paper napkin from the table to hide my ugly display as I grab at the food and stretch it and pull at it. The waitresses are now thoroughly disgusted. I cough and I spit but the flesh has filled my throat. Seshu is tucking in and Paul has just noticed how revolting Seshu's meal is.

It is at this exact moment that I decide that I will never eat meat again. "One step ahead of God," I think.

"No! I will not eat the beasts which walketh the earth. I do not accept your punishment.

I too am a duck-billed Platypus.

I will betray them for bubblegum. I will betray them for sex. I will betray them because they talk too loud and they eat meat....59...60.

~

Seshu's snuff films are beginning to take up a lot of my time. I am trying hard to see the art in them. He leaves them for me. Well, he hides them badly.

~

Note : 66

She looks old. Too skinny. I wouldn't have her. Yes I would. The three men she is with talk of food. They would eat anything. I'd fuck anything. I wouldn't eat anything though. Not anymore. I'm delicate I am.

~

Howard wanted water.

Pendleberry's family filled his recently dead Grandmother's house.

Howard asked Pendleberry where he could get some water.

"The taps," Pendleberry told him.

"Cold water I mean, the taps are all warm."

"She's here!"

"Your Grandmother?"

"Grandfather, I think."

"Feel...It's colder isn't it?" Pendleberry said.

Pendleberry and Howard had been waiting for a moment like this, a real encounter, since they first met.

"Wait, wait, just feel that!" They both acknowledged a definite shift in the room's temperature. A sudden rush of icy cold wind, accompanied by the sound of a hollow howl belted through their bodies. Through billowing curtains and rattling windows the spirit left the room.

Shivering with excitement the boys ran to the back garden to tell the family.

"Yes, he does that," Pendleberry's Dad says.

~

Rich ruby red, like a pint of Guinness, Martha's choker made the boys stiff. All the girl's copied Martha's style. "We'll make this our hangout, the boys decided soon after arriving. "Just us. No one else."

Martha knew more about the spirit world than anyone.

~

Neither Pendleberry nor anybody else could buy a buyer.

You could not Buy a Buyer.

You could not Buy a Buyer.

Buy a buyer,

Buyabuyer,

buyabuyer,

buyabuyer.

~

"In mystery the soul abides."

The statue of the pensive young woman by Oliver Sheppard 1913-? (a copy) stands on a pedestal at the end of the awe-inspiringly long hall. Pendleberry's cough echoes.

The high ceilinged space silent but for the distant buzz of electric lights.

"It is like being miles underwater, then having the water taken away."

Hovering sound/light, wave-high above here, below light space/large space. No scuffle of a museum curator's footsteps, just the clip clop of Pendleberry's own boots as he approaches.

Myrninerest, at this point, had not been seen by Pendleberry for three days. Ignoring the details of the grandeur about him, but breathing in the rich quality of his surroundings, he makes for the figure. Gazing, thoughtful, about a foot below his own eye-height; perhaps at his chest, but no, beyond that.

Her stare is not fixed.

It is nowhere.

Her marble form as smooth as her captured thought. Her moment encased in non-space like that forever.

Her bottom lip pouts as if to mock Pendleberry's own ennui.

He loves this nameless creation.

They fill the room. The two of them.

The multitude of paintings, inconsequential onlookers, envious of the statue's connection with Pendleberry. It is minutes before he can pull away from her dazzling beauty. He tells himself, "She will always be here."

Pendleberry had never wanted to own anything but now he wanted to own this vision. For her he would barter. He would offer a price and if they refused to sell he would beg for visitor's rights.

To be a buyer. To be a buyer.

Be a buyer.

Be a buyer. Be a buyer.

~

6

A little neon therapy, a craving, which only his twilight town engulfed in an evening's soft drizzle, could satisfy.

The brilliantly illuminated bookstores, late night galleries, small private run music shops, parks, local citizens stoked by the availability of it all. He would walk his streets often, hours soaking up the architecture he had seen but not yet looked at.

He would feel for direction, follow his nose. At the end of it there would always be a drink, this kept him from straying to any parts of the city that were dry.

The lingering aroma of a woman's perfume work-soaked into her suit, sensitive gentleman, mercurial, take interest, they watch the way she moves as she walks away. Girls rush into shops, must-buys, hand in hand. Kredit no object now.

Pendleberry watches this with an open heart, with love.

A Canadian Christmas.

A European Autumn.

A child's delirious joy to be grown up. Old enough to go whichever way he pleases, spend his Kredit any way he wishes, or watch as others do it for him.

In a second hand store, he considers the woman buying an armful of books.

"She will read those," he thinks, "and the world will know that bit more about itself."

In the art gallery, Pendleberry sits. He longs for nothing more than his pensive mistress. Nothing speaks to him here so he concentrates on the couples, the singles, the groups. He looks closely at the way they dress and wonders what they look like when they make love.

"Watch them when they dance....you can tell..."

A loud Italian brushes his knuckles over a recently acquired Piero de la Francesca; The Baptism of Christ. He beckons for his overfed son to feel the texture of the oils too. Both the curator's speed and blistering show of volcanic fury are formidable. Pendleberry wants the curator to slap the idiot father; his open heart, his love shifted to the long dead Piero.

The curator fails to penetrate the Italian's indignance. Papa's deep-set eyes spinning brightly with anger, flashing from beneath his bushy black eyebrows, v-shaped for "How dare you?!"

Pendleberry returns to the street, dark now, the people a little more frantic, frantic-excited. Time has passed. It is time to go to the clubs, the hash bars, the virtual rooms. The cars and taxis now shush gently above the wet street surface. The park is green-dark, empty now, replaced by a park's dark shadow.

There is no longer a mystery to the street, but the more obvious clash of a day meeting the night.

Pendleberry chooses this feeling and wishes to hide in a pint, and as luck would have it, he is round the corner from one of his favourite haunts.

~

From the Super Nova Sky Bar, I see clearly the town below. The glass-bottom alcove revealing. I am the ghost tap-foot-tapping on the inhabitant's ceiling.

Magnetic fields surrounding the steady moving vehicles.

The near-perfect safety of the people.

My drink is encouraging. The music is enlightening. The people are happy. It is early. I will drink till I am tired of drinking.

~

The divergent cult of the W.D.P. had been linked with the terrorist faction ESAMBWAI – Ever Since Adam Man's Been Whinging Where Am I? –

This group had its nihilistic tentacles spread all over. There were many thousands involved in overtly negative activity throughout the globe. The W.D.P. believed that the governments were too easy to understand; that there was no mystery to the law; that the 'interest' had been taken out of politics and life. It was the W.D.P.s job to mix things up a little. Create confusion. Give the people something to strive for, fight for, live for.

For too many 'The Search' had ended many centuries ago.

The W.D.P. intended to reinvent mayhem; raise hell.

Although the W.D.P. were only four, they held political sway due to their involvement in the entertainment industry.

Many artists took great interest in the group but were not permitted to join this exclusive club. The best any aspiring young gentleperson could hope for was a tie-in with an established member of ESAMBWAI.

For Pendleberry's part, he had begun to doubt that his ideas contrasted with the Peacemakers in any way. It might even be the government that was talking to him. He doubted it though. This was definitely not their style. No, it was much more likely to be God or one of those.

~

1...2...3...

After we have made love, I plunge the corkscrew into the plastic stopper.

The device will not straighten.

The corkscrew is angled – stabs thickly into the bottle's neck.

There's a click.

I pull.

The bottle has been tampered with. It is a booby-trap. She must have set it.

She's waiting downstairs outside. We have discovered her plan, but as we rid ourselves of this bomb, explosions can be heard all around.

"It has begun."

Her army is waiting to take Myrninerest and I dead or alive.

The Underground is our answer.

We hide ourselves against the walls, tucked in away from her prying lights. At the back of the workman's hut we find a tin entrance, battered and half hidden by the broken remnants of a road worker's tools.

She is following close.

We bang on the doors. She knows where we are. It is no longer necessary to stay quiet.

A person can be heard shuffling at the other side of the door. Through the gap a white shirt appears, a loud rattle and the door is ripped aside.

We follow a short, stubby child down a ladder to an old mining railway track that can be seen meandering and disappearing into a dazzle of bouncing lights in the distance. The entrance is closed solid but the explosions can still be heard overhead.

Myrninerest tells me how light she feels. I feel it too. My heart has opened. There is a whole world which has been constructed down here.

"How did I find it?"

Followed my nose.

There is a sky where there should be a cover of rock. Deeper we travel on our wagon, the boy slowing the train and stopping the train.

From within this silvery cavern appear more stocky folk. Midgets. Ungrs. The boy/man shouts, "We are Ungrs! We are safe here. No prejudice. Down here everything is as it should be."

And as the stumpy guy grinning speaks, I feel my troubles lift.

This is where I shall live. This is where we both shall live.

There is no more rock, only great halls of Ungrs staring up at us happily, welcoming. Red-shoed, flowery smiles, eating, drinking, struck by sunlight.

It is early evening, the small folk want us to stay. The night comes and we drink shocking red punch. There is no rush. I feel there will be no morning, that if the morning does come we will be permitted to change it back. From a pane-less window, we see studios made of glass. On the first floor of one home we see an ecstatic frolicking couple exchanging presents, kneeling and falling on white fur carpets. Pushing and pulling each other as if floating.

She pushes him hard against the window, the window bulges but does not break, in fact it bulges so far, he slips between the floors. Downstairs he scrambles back to his feet and rushes up the stairs to tickle her, stroke her, suffocate her with a feather cushion.

A choir takes turns. A pop-like trance. The lyrics are abysmal but the music is transcendent. One of the musicians sits with us. We are honoured. We compliment him on his music. He smiles a fat smile and swallows a glass of red punch.

On the floor, comfortable, morning, I wake up.

I do not remember the night.

"But you ate an entire Christmas meal after the disco," one Ungr tells me. I feel happy that what they tell me happened but I was not even aware that it was Christmas. For a moment I panic.

"I forgot Christmas!" This is the first time this has ever happened.

I rush into one of the bar's bunk rooms, the only rooms with roofs. Myrninerest is asleep on a top bunk. She is smiling. She is spotty. I kiss her head, she pulls the covers back. She is smoking. She has never smoked. I ask if she minds my forgetting Christmas.

"You said not to get presents for anyone this year anyway," she says.

"I didn't realise it was now," I say.

I notice that the sunshine that is shining concentrated like a laser through a studio window is burning a small black spot into Myrninerest's forehead.

"I must stop this," I think. "before the town catches fire....60.

~

Only the abstract world can truly forgive a phrase well-put.

~

Pendleberry had thought about Paul Newman 23 once or twice, not as an acquaintance or a friend, but as a lover. This turned out to be the inspiration and subject matter of Pendleberry's latest paintings. He had been in the mansion three weeks now. Myrninerest had only appeared once. Pendleberry thought it had been a dream. He had seen her floating over his bed.

"Sleep paralysis," he told himself.

His studio was set up in the long hall he shared with 'his' statue.

The paintings were the largest he had ever tackled.

They stretched the full length and height of the hall. 80 metres by 100 metres.

He was convinced at this point that not one of his thoughts could possibly be original. He was also convinced therefore that absolutely anything he chose to paint would be profoundly valuable to anybody who would take the time to read it properly.

Therein lay God.

~

In a dream I propose to Myrninerest. I am surprised when she says yes. She goes to the beach to tell her friends. I wake up laughing.

~

Note : 121

Two belly-dancing tarts will wobble into the dimly lit bar. One is in familiar surroundings but the other is following. One has cocky hair, the other has split ends on her eyebrows. She yells this fact, leaning towards the mirror on the other side of the bar. I will wait an eternity. They are both butch.

~

1...2...3...

In front of the safety curtain, there stands a 40-foot high clock. Frank jumps a little and climbs the clock. Facing the audience, he scuttles, agile, up the face of the timepiece, always facing the audience. The audience is going crazy. How does he do it? As he nears the roof, he skips across the mechanics, the pulleys, the rafters, defying gravity until finally he swoops forward into thin air to an echoing gasp of disbelief.

Sitting on a wooden chair, centre stage, is Myrninerest. She has been sitting there the whole time. She is the guest of honour. Frank flies down to her chair and with a powerful tug, pulls the chair with Myrninerest still in it from the stage floor. Up he glides until they are both floating, 20 metres above a full house of awe-struck now silent people. Round and round he swings the chair, round then slowly down and down. Myrninerest feels unsafe, then safe. Self-conscious, then brave.

Frank's body half dissapears through one of the auditorium walls. Myrninerest worries that someone may see this but nobody does. Frank returns her to the stage and stands beside her for the 15-minute standing ovation.

She is quickly forgetting Pendleberry. Her life will be different from now on.

She decides she would like to stay here. Like this. Similar, but not too....59...60.

~

The Peacemaker will develop the neo-martial art Kane. 'Kane' is to fight but to cause no pain when fighting.

Softly blocking punches and kicks.

Cushioning one's assailant's blows, eventually lulling the attacker into a drowsy kind of forgetfulness.

The Peacemaker has a team of experts working on the argumentative equivalent to Kane. To lull one's intellectual opponent into some cosy middle ground.

The Peacemaker will not harm us. She's doing her best.

~

"Everyone will be famous, full stop!" Paul told me that. Paul's got feminine feet. He paints his toes.

~

7

Pendleberry will be glad that he is hallucinating.

He will not have eaten for 14 days.

It will be a little experiment of his.

His temples will tighten; a vice-like grip at his head.

His stomach will clench, angry at his stupidity.

He will hear everything twice and he will hear this fast, then slow.

He will call no one.

He will flounder alone, misguided, misrepresented, and mistaken.

Green on red. Surrounded by actors.

He will fall in love with his new statue.

He will see Myrninerest happy.

He will follow those who follow him. One step ahead.

He will grow eyes in the back of his head and in the foreheads of those behind him.

He will complete his masterpiece from his bed.

He will not touch his painting again but will perfect it from deep within his peaceful slumbers.

~

"I have squandered the splendid years the Lord God gave to my youth in attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil." P.P.

"Two things have constantly pulled at cross-purpose in me; one, a deep homing instinct, a desire beyond words to be at home always with the same beloved faces, the same familiar shapes and sounds about me; the other, an impulse to seek hard things to do, to go on far quests and fights for lost causes." P.P.

These inscriptions Pendleberry found on the inside of the toilet door.

"A fine man, this Pearse," Pendleberry thought.

Pendleberry went for a stroll around the 15 acres of woodland and park surrounding the mansion. He did not feel deserving of the sunshine which bathed both him and the gardens this day. But shine the sun did and Pendleberry felt his heartstrings being smoothed to a light harp soliloquy of sound's purpose.

The tall bold house, stout and attentive at the head of the gardens. Green creepers sprayed about the light grey stone walls. The crunch of tiny pebbles beneath his feet. Tears played in Pendleberry's eyes at the thought of nature's forgiving ways. The greens were restful to him, the creatures unmindful of him, the trickle of a fountain, a stream, pure, effortless laughter.

"Solitude can be tortuous but should not be so in such surroundings," Pendleberry thought. Not in this pocket of the universe. One's pain is numbed, anaesthetized. All morning Pendleberry felt that he had been laid flat on an operating table, his chest split wide open, his heart and intestines bared to all.

"There should be pain," he thought. Above his face, a nurse of tremendous beauty comforts him with a smile. He cannot feel a thing; nothing but the fact that he should be feeling some modicum of joy gazing at such loveliness. He is numbed, but far from unconscious, far from happy. The two will not quite come to terms with each other.

There was no point in vanishing, he was as good as invisible whilst hidden in this sanctuary.

Pendleberry felt uneasy. The softness of the colours, sounds and smells upstaged Pendleberry's inner feelings; made them fell mean and small. Unrehearsed. Pendleberry wished for a darker cove, an atmosphere less fresh; a muddied somewhereabouts not worthy of praise or posy. A black nook where one's most selfish, most fleeting, most inadequate thoughts could barge their way into existence and regain some vestige of superiority. Gain some sense. Pendleberry returned to his studio, once more the bully, once more the king. The W.D.P. not dead yet.

~

Howard tosses a large leather-cased book in my direction. As I step to catch it, he swiftly kicks me between the legs.

Howard is reading/studying one book. These Kumenites, since they were permitted into the universities and schools, were turning out to be surprisingly astute when it came to what exactly was worth learning and what was largely dismissible.

I unzipped the beautifully decorated leather case and opened the book to find that its smoothed varnished pages were covered in delightful wildlife photography interspersed with snippets from the New Testament. This was Howard's primer.

"But just one book. For three years?" Howard smiled and took the book back.

"We are to write an essay," he told me.

"On what?" I asked.

"On the human condition," he replied.

"In what style?" I asked.

"Any style I choose," he said.

~

A fat Romanian gentleman will decide to jog until he becomes skinny. Literally keep on jogging without stopping until he is skeletal. He will be fed water every fifty miles only.

"Knobhead," Robin will say.

~

"We are impossible," Seshu tells Pendleberry. Pendleberry and Seshu settle down to talk about the impossibility of being.

"If we can grasp the impossibility of us, then we will be getting somewhere. But until we all agree that we are impossible, our world is impossible, our thoughts, our bones, this planet, these stars, nature. Until then, we will take everything for granted. Not in a selfish way but in an evil ignorant way. It's all implausible. That any of this has happened, is happening, will happen, is impossible.

"The next thing you say has already been said before you can say it. We have absolutely no control unless we recognise what nonsense all this existence do-hickey is. It's so impossible even you could have created it.

To get to this point and to hear me is to have survived not only insurmountable odds but infinitely improbable odds.

This! This did not start or end. This just goes on and on Pendleberry, my impossible friend. It just goes on and on."

~

Once we have achieved a certain mindset, originality will become virtually impossible. One must necessarily come to the same conclusions when truth / reality has entered the public consciousness. This is no bad thing. As soon as original thoughts have ceased, the possibilities for truly sensible, sensitive communication will be boundless. We shall have so much more to say, so much more to do and to share. Originality of thought is not the thing. Enjoying the thought, that is the thing. To finally be comfortable with our sameness.

Conflict of any sort is disruptive to creativity. In heaven there would be no art. Creativity is not about being creative but about being creativity. We create nothing and nothing is destroyed (only shifted). Everything goes on and on with us and with us.

~

The wind whipped the loose pages in Pendleberry's hand as he scribbled his ideas / their ideas down. He had to squint to see the turrets on his mansion roof pasted lightly on the pale blue sky.

"I'd like to be up there on the roof," he thought. "Looking down on this spot, looking over the gardens."

Pendleberry knew quite well that if he found a good position on the roof from which to peruse the scene, he would no doubt conclude that he wanted to be right where he was sitting now. In the shade, in the cool, in the warm grasp of the bushes and plants about him. After a moment's stillness, "I'll stay right here," he thought. "This is just perfect. This way I can see where I would like to be without the invariable consequence of not wanting to be there any longer. This way I'm where I will like to be in the near future."

At that Pendleberry put down his notepad and went to the kitchen to get himself a large glass of orange juice.

~

As astronomers watched distant galaxies moving away from their telescopes microbiologists used different but equally advanced optics to look the other way.

The galaxy spirals, DNA spirals, the water, which dilutes Pendleberry's syrup, spirals to an impossible full stop.

Pendleberry's head begins to ache; a throbbing pain in his left temple. He looks through the kitchen window at the bench on which he was sitting. He looks up at roof he had considered moving to then heavily he drops his head to look at his glass full of orange liquid. Like a wave from his chest, Pendleberry's head is washed with a ferocious swirl of needles. His knees grow weak. He holds onto the sink and feels a heavy sweat attack his body as he tries to steady himself. The floor itself appears to be spiralling away from him yet his feet are still holding him up on solid ground. Pendleberry is terrified. He closes his eyes but the swirling going on behind his perspiring lids is even more chaotic than the swirling that is going on in front of them.

There is no happy medium. He must embrace the nausea. Permit the evil black sick feeling to pervade both himself and the room. He must welcome the nausea. This way he can vomit up the unwanted bile that has been inside him since he first woke to this apparently balanced universe.

It is not through mathematics or physics that the multiverses will be understood but through the senses.

~

1...2...3...

I was at the swimming pool.

The pool was indoors.

The walls are glass.

The view was of a countryside long ago lost.

I could open my eyes under the water. See perfectly.

I swam like dolphins do, with my hands by my sides and my feet together, flapping my entire body like that till I reached a terrific speed. The lifeguard and the head of sports at the school were impressed.

Kate entered the pool. She climbed in. I could see her under the water as clear as I could out of the water.

The new Russian boy jumped in. He swam faster than me.

All the same, I competed.

The Russian won. Despite Kate's love for the Russian, I sat with her on the side of the pool by the large glass window overlooking the fields cast in a warm summer's sunlight. I told her nothing of my love.

She knew. She said nothing too.

That was a long time before I met Myrninerest. A long time before I realised it was not through the senses that love will be understood but through time. ..58..59..60.

~

"Where's Giggo?" The skinhead shouts. His mol spreads her legs at the table, looks between them, right at her slim leather crack and replies in a thick, though chirpy brogue "Well he's not here anyway."

They're covered in rags and foul language but they've got momma's boy faces, all of them. They have practiced hours in their bedrooms, their music and their looks. They are self-conscious. They are premeditated. They are one step behind everything they do.

"I'm winning," Pendleberry says.

"I'll see that when I believe it," Howard says.

"I'll visit her soon."

A long time previous Pendleberry had dreamt of Myrninerest's murder.

He had dreamt that it was by Howard's hand.

He had also dreamt that Hottyhammyum and Myrninerest were sisters.

The feeling he remembered most from the dream was not being horrified by Myrninerest's death but a paternal fear that Hottyhammyum was in danger of suffering the same ghastly fate.

"No really I think I'm ahead of myself. I'm almost finding it difficult to catch up, but I'm managing most of the time. I will go and see her. Until then, well..."

Howard chose not to bring Hottyhammyum up.

~

The gothic hallway lit red with fake fairies.

The soft jazz pillowing in from the now distant lounge.

Pendleberry walked confidently, darkly, to the library.

The arched stained glass windows were wide open, the room breathed freely, its tapestries waving lightly, rippling on the walls. A green light shone behind the carved oak grills decorating the lower encasement of the bookshelves. Pendleberry was interested in finding only one book.

The book he was looking for however had not been written yet.

Howard's recommendation had been a slip-up.

Howard should by no means have told Pendleberry about the book.

Pendleberry's dilemma had sounded so familiar to Howard simply because he had / will have read about Pendleberry (though the name was / will have changed), and having drunk a larger quantity of beer than usual, had thought to help Pendleberry out by introducing him to the aforementioned book about Pendleberry.

Pendleberry was becoming frustrated.

This novel was nowhere to be found. In fact he could find no records of the author whatsoever.

He didn't doubt Howard, nor did he doubt his benefactor's impeccable library.

Pendleberry needed somebody to talk to. Somebody who could understand his position. Unfortunately Pendleberry did not care so much for artists.

~

The simplicity of my problem belies the complexity of its engineering.

I see Ympe everywhere. Not only do they emulate shoeshine boys but they frequently appear in the sultry guise of Hawaiian dancing girls. Their skin pale white; Irish white. Their smiles beckoning. Their slender legs firm, smooth. Their voices soft and bubbling.

Howard is turning.

Robin and Howard have suspended business for the time being so as not to bring me more trouble than necessary. Myrninerest has stopped visiting altogether now, and Paul Newman 23 is making himself at home. Paul was not part of the deal.

Howard informed me that Seshu wants to find a way into the snuff movie industry. It is here he thinks the true artists are hiding. I'm not convinced. I will not follow. I am proud of Hottyhammyum, but however ironic it may sound, I worry about her future. My one true problem, however, is why I care. Why on earth do I care about any of this?

~

8

The town is empty.

Pendleberry feels nothing.

He does not miss people.

He can still drink, still eat cake, still bare witness. Right now Pendleberry thinks he would attack any person who might happen by on this perfect of perfect days.

To feel nothing, this is something Pendleberry has been striving for since Myrninerest had left.

Today he does not love and he does not hate.

There is nobody on whom to project these passions.

Today, Pendleberry is essentially perfect. As a stone. As a lake. As a thing. Silent as the unborn.

Full of people these roads were alive. Pendleberry had never really noticed the stillness about him. The dead buildings filled with dead wood, the cold motionless metal of a car slumped.

The only thing alive in these streets had been its citizens.

A city alone is harmless. Innocent as a child who has to be told what to do.

Cannot act well or badly without encouragement. Nobody to charge for the use of anything. Nobody to rush you, push you, pry or cry because of something you did or didn't or will or won't do. No judges. No other people.

Pendleberry felt like Adam.

Eve thankfully supplied by numerous local holo-rooms. Pendleberry could order discussions, arguments, sex games, high praise, and all this without the fear that he might do or say something wrong.

"God is other people," he concluded. "God is the only reason I care."

The only question remaining was, "Do we / I in fact need any of this?"

~

"Every second is the end. There is no next one." Pendleberry chewed it up this time. "Death is not the end. Life is the end. Each second the culmination of everything that is."

~

I was confused then as I am now.

Her death is not my death.

Death is other people dying.

Please let me remember this.

Please don't fuck with me. It is perhaps the last emotion I remember.

Did I?

Please don't fuck with me.

I remember the messages.

I hadn't forseen her death. Not like Howard's or Robin's. She was going to live with me till I died.

I had decided.

It had taken a long time to come to that decision. We had known each other a long time before I finally settled that within myself.

Myrninerest was becoming an integral part of who I thought I was. As I turned.

I remember love torn. A tiny thing. An atom split.

She was nobody and everybody.

How I handled it. I sank. I drowned in search of Portia Haze.

Here now at the bottom of this stinking cess pool.

Why you have to turn off all that sunshine?

When I find Portia, there I shall find Myrninerest.

I can sense my future more clearly now. I barely have to move. I am being carried along. I am not in complete control.

I have already seen a conversation with Hottyhammyum. This is not long before I shall find myself at Portia's doorstep.

I am no longer that hollow man. The emptiness is being filled by an image; a painting as finished as a painting could be. The painting itself is so complete that it is dying as I brush it lifeless. It wheezes infront of me. A beautiful sight. I cannot paint without crying these days. Is it for her that I cry? For myself? For them?

~

Robin decided that their friend, as they knew him, was gone. Pendleberry would return a different man. Perhaps not return at all. Their search had been fruitless. Seshu couldn't help them. He suspected my defection.

"Our mission is too important for us to be bothering ourselves with our dear artist friend, Pendleberry," Seshu had told him. "He is of no help to us right now.

He has been possessed.

There is only one way for him to go now.

You however must continue the struggle. One of you, Robin, must go to Rome where you shall begin again. You are to obey my orders. Leave Pendleberry. You do not want to go where he is going."

~

From Latin luce love means light.

This work must be light to the touch. In this lies the greatness of the work.

~

London. Madge Gill, is attempting to get in touch with her stillborn child. With her spirit guide, standing beside her, she asks if the child is there. She is surrounded by her erratic detailed drawings. The room is dark but for one candlelight flickering near the floor. In the distance, a peel of bells can be heard. She is liberated from her solitude. Transcending into a form of ecstatic perfection.

As she gazes at her chaotic arabesques hanging on the walls, the figurative elements take hold as her imagination runs riot. She sees her child. Her child has grown. Almost a teenager already. He's walking hand in hand with the artist Pendleberry. Pendleberry speaks in sign language to her child. Madge asks if he mightn't speak in pictures for her. Her paintings change before her very eyes. She reads them. Her child is happy. He is having the greatest fun.

The spirit guide informs Madge Gill that she may communicate through her drawings with all spirits. Staring at the walls, she manipulates the convoluted landscape. From the distant hills she sees a couple, two men walking. They are looking for someone. The ground around them spits and spews rock. A mansion behind them crumbles. They escape near death, running now towards Pendleberry and Madge Gill's stillborn child. Madge dismisses the strangers' peril, concentrating again on her child. Pendleberry promises to find someone to look after her child. He chooses a young actress called Myrninerest. "Madge, your child is soon to be born. Your child will always be here. You will not lose them a second time."

A clock strikes three.

~

~

"It will go on this way until all meaning can be amalgamated into a billboard's snappy ad," he thought.

The meaning of life.

None of the governments deeds solved mankind's irreducible fury at not being informed as to the purpose of it all. It was not the fact that mankind needed a purpose, but a bitterness that their maker had not told them the purpose. It was a form of childish impetuousness that they wished to know. They wanted to know God's secret, no matter how futile that secret might be.

~

Howard came to murder in as innocent a way as a murderer possibly could.

He was very young at the time, an infant by Kumenite standards.

He merely wanted to know what it would feel like.

To feel the exaltation of helping someone. To set someone free.

He had been tremendously impressed by the Bible, which he had been encouraged to read shortly after arriving on the planet.

Before he met Pendleberry he had spent a good amount of time with a Catholic crowd. To be close to God seemed to be the best one could hope for on this planet. To achieve a Christ-like state of love. To love and be loved unconditionally.

Death, Howard calculated, was the only barrier between a human's pathetic existence and a greater glory.

Unconditional love, he discovered, was not forthcoming amongst his new human companions.

He murdered happily, hopefully, in fact he could not believe no one had thought of it before. On seeing the astonished unhappy reaction to the young female acolyte's untimely demise, Howard chose to keep his part in the deed a secret.

In a purely logical manner, Howard decided that he must give a life back for having taken one. He stole into a room of one of the other young female acolytes and impregnated her in her sleep (like God, he thought).

The Kumenite believed in the honour of doing the good deed and not seeking the reward for doing it, so he chloroformed the girl before impregnating her.

Once again, Howard felt he had helped.

Until the horror of the aftermath.

In the confusion of their realisation that it was their friend Howard who had done this, the Catholics struggled hard with their conscience. What exactly to do? They were pretty sure that if they told Howard that what he had done was bad, he would never do it again. So they kept him close for six months until they were pretty sure he meant nobody else any harm. It was the pregnant girl herself who ordered him to leave, telling him that it might be healthier for him to meet others outside of her faith.

Disappointed in religion, Howard headed to university to study art, his crimes not yet playing heavily on his mind as they later would.

He studied art for 8 years before he met Pendleberry, finding in him a love he thought he would never know and a possible cure for his interminable confusion.

Finding an excuse for his crime.

Art and Pendleberry.

~

There is nothing out there. The sun is beckoning. My body, I think. But I have music in here. I have literature, film, brushes, solitude. This room is so many empty cities. I do not need you yet. I am far from exhausting my possibilities. I hear no scratch of metal, no dullards bearing grudges, panhandling my space with such ineptitude. I am touchless. No torch lit argy-bargy, carousing crowds, vengeful spite. The gardens are happy without me. The grounds chirp, water trickles and rushes unhindered by my vacant gaze. I am a temple. You must come to me.

I know you are not out there to be found.

There is nothing out there.

~

Note 63:

A street in Spain. A well dressed gentleman, middle-aged, balding, jumper hanging over his shoulders. He wears glasses. He is walking to his studio. He is a painter of the sun. There's a living! His eventual blindness caused by this spark from death's metallic jaws.

~

Pendleberry had lost all interest in overthrowing faulty (or as the case might well be, faultless) governments.

YOU GOTTA DO SOMETHING.

He refused to start at the bottom. He would start at the very top. If he found nothing there, then perhaps he could dig away at the rubble with the others; blame history.

He prepared for his painting slowly, methodically. He was focused, if only for a week, on designing his beginnings. A full seven hours Pendleberry spent sorting paints, arranging his surface; his floor space clear of clutter, the entire room emptied but for one solitary music player. The huge amount of Kredit spent on materials delighted him. Each stroke was precious before it had even marked the canvas. A full twelve hours creating a sort of sanctuary. Somewhere he might be honest with himself and others. This was, he had found, the only way to be true to others; in solitude.

One may meet their truest friend twice in a lifetime only, losing absolutely nothing in between.

Sudden comes the end when those two fleeting moments might add up to everything.

The smallest being the same size as the largest thing.

Love is eternal even if it is only recognised by chance at a glance.

In a sense, the work Pendleberry planned did not hold as much meaning for him as this prolonged preparation. This way everything was and had the chance to be perfect. This was thrilling. This was the sexual act in its most tender glory, open, light, dancing before the dark inevitable grimace of a painful birth.

That everything good in life should happen more than once; that we should want this, for proof perhaps; this destroys so much.

Pendleberry had experienced this blissful preparation again and again. It is this calm before the storm Pendleberry loved to return to. He had made sure that he should experience this feeling as often as he could. The perfect painting, however, the perfect one, he knew could only happen once.

For this reason he thought, "I will never be able to paint perfection unless I become bereft of any semblance of desire for future productivity."

Pendleberry knew that his work would be imperfect. He always knew, but if he refused to work at all he might never find himself drunken, smiling and excited at this unsullied, hopeful starting point again and again and again.

All his 'bastard children' were destined to be forgotten, taken under wing by all and sundry that he may be free to pretend one lifetime longer.

The largest room in the mansion. The colossal single window on the east-facing wall promised great things. The stucco ceiling 50 foot wide echoed delightfully mythical heavens above. The marble floor, a looking glass through to a swirling maelstrom of falling angels. Pendleberry stood against the north wall opposite his monstrous empty canvas. He did not feel alone now. He felt as if everyone was on his side; that every living being was behind him, urging him to join them, to allow them to join him. At this moment in time, Pendleberry's heart was open. It wouldn't last.

Moved between serene beauty and impotent rage, he could do no more than create yet another masterpiece to join all the other masterpieces in the world. A continuation of a beautiful but futile music.

~

Now, a tense revulsion pervaded Pendleberry's entire being.

She/They had loved him.

Of course and of course they each questioned their love.

Of course and of course each had thought at one time or another "Would my life be better without them?"

And of course and of course, the time arose when yes, of course and of course, life would be.

These revelations however did not outweigh the love. Indescribable, undesirable love.

A home. A father looks at his son, "You ruined my life." How many times did he think it? "You make my life." How many times? "You are my life."

Nobody Pendleberry could hate more or love more. Myrninerest could make him and break him. The W.D.P. had made him.

Now he takes comfort where he can find it. He takes comfort in his memories. A dangerous thing. To take comfort in memories is to take comfort in someone else's home.

Surely not he. Surely not he/her.

His nightmares were getting worse. Paradoxically his life echoed his dreams, not the dreams his life. One day, he thought, I will fall asleep and realise this has all been but a strange reality.

Since Pendleberry had come into Kredit and had been introduced to the enviable ability to purchase pieces of eternity, he had found himself being succoured into a world of secrecy and wickedness from which he was finding it hard to escape.

He had indulged himself so deeply, so prophetically, that his art, as with his passions, had been exaggerated into something greater than him.

But now that he had followed each and every thought and desire to their logical, sometimes illogical conclusions, he was horribly overwhelmed. All he could think of was how this self-destruction would have absolutely no effect on his buyer. How could it? "The artist," he thought, "has to go through this so that the buyer does not. The buyer purchases the aesthetic of pain. The look, not the pain. The buyer will tell me why I care. She will tell me. She will see it objectively. In this way she is like an artist. An artist's artist.

"Even if the buyer is an idiot," Pendleberry thought, "she will still know a hell of a lot more than I do about all this."

In this Pendleberry had a blind faith. Now that he was suspicious of his own friends, he was willing to give the buyer credit for a level of genius he could only dream of.

"I am homeless. I am open. Everybody has the capability of having everything explained to them, therefore everyone is brilliant. Some people are gifted, more articulate. Maybe it will be up to this buyer to explain to this idiot artist exactly why any of us should care.

Myrninerest told me. Robin told me too. I have everything I ever needed or wanted. Well surely to God, if I can achieve such a position, anybody can. It cannot be down to luck. It cannot be down to being different. We are none of us different."

In order for the buyer to tell the artist anything, the artist must first lose interest in his own art. In his own life. Life as he knows it.

~

Down the lane from Pendleberry's grammar school in a tangled overgrown patch of forest, Pendleberry has been engaged to sort out Seshu's videotapes. There is a child's den. There are audio cassettes. Pendleberry pockets a couple. He has arranged the video tapes by date.

"Take one. Have a look. You'll never see anything so powerful," Seshu had said. It was an experience that Pendleberry had to see to believe.

After watching the film, he had felt exhilarated. There was a peculiar type of fear which shuddered through him. The film was visually engaging. He was fascinated by the way people looked and behaved. He did not feel the victim's pain. His imagination did not stretch that far, neither did his own experience of physical discomfort.

"I really am that stupid," Pendleberry thought, and "Am I really that stupid?"

~

Seshu hands me a cup full of morphine. This is not the way I'll go. I respect him but he's wrong about this. I sip it. It tastes good. Creamy morphine. I leave the rest on the window ledge.

~

I'm not so sure I'm keeping it together. Not sure I've kept it together. Have I been fooling myself all these years?

I stare (in pain) through the window at the rapid green of an innocent day. The pain so lucid. The green so apposite. The classical music bellows, it doesn't sooth. I am sensitive to touch, a flower folding at a stroke, a siren screams from the violin strings, the blossom on the trees falling like angels falling dreadful to the mud. Perfumed mud. My sister and I used to pick petals for Mother and crush them into jam jars full of water. "Here's your perfume, Mummy."

"Thank you dears. Oh it's lovely." Smiles forming apeothis of benevolent children. S'alright, s'nothing, s'marvellous, s'wonderful.

This crater you leave, this void filled with sick memory. You are fucking my memories. The magpies forming outside now, in a row, staring right back at me;

One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

Four for a boy

I am a subculture of my own. A pernicious vernacular unstudied. Migratory depression rolls with the thunder, messages contorted to mean clouds, to mean rain and so I rain. I am raining now. I am spreading floribunda flourishing borgonvilia, thriving aspidistra. I am blowing rain at the window which I am watching from inside. I am sounding the noise off the pane/my pain sounding.

Though I sit, I am a somersault of activity. It was me.

~

I am hiding. I am seeking. I am hurting. I am bleeding. No, I am not bleeding. It's her who bleeds. After the attack, and during. But she wasn't fighting. Why wasn't she fighting? I did not force her to do that.

Oh god.

Her rib cage sticky imprint from her collapse. The children fingering the stains like detectives at the scene of a crime. "It was here that he did it," they whisper to one another. "You can see where she crawled! Over there see. Probably going for the door, for help. Look, the blood trail. That's where she died. Near the bike sheds. Right there."

I know what they were thinking.

She was looking for me as I am looking for her now.

~

Centred around the ordinary. Pendleberry daydreams of a desire only to work for food. Walking along the beaches, torso crystallising ideas shushing at every step. Waves applauding each collapsed wish, crashing too soon, coming too soon, the wish dispersed by other's footsteps, the waves roll out hopeful, returning again for a repeat performance.

"Listen to him crush millennium of stone, smooth rocks at a steady beat. Performances begin and end every nano second folks, don't miss it, roll right up!"

~

We are waging war against an enemy who believes in good, in peace, in equality. Our war is an EVIL war.

Why do I see this now? Our necropolitics is doomed to failure. The gang cannot win. We are doing nothing but harm. Jesus I've never felt so low. To think these thoughts. My art is not of this world but of the next, that of purgatory.

I am being sullied with visions of my own death. Her death. I am to be punished. I will die all these ways.

~

1...2...3...

Walking from the village along the railway tracks, I discover the way has been blocked. There is a marquee on this side of the track. As my eyes adjust to the dark of the road, I see beneath the trees dozens of people. There's a rally. The road is a diversion. The cars are moving slowly up the hill away from the tent through a narrow lane winding through the forest. I stand next to a young attractive girl and wait in the queue outside the marquee. Inside they are selling large iced buns. My hunger is extreme. The iced buns look good. I cannot be bothered waiting so I grab a bun and as casually as possible, walk away from the scene. Suddenly a voice from inside cries "Oi-stop! Stop him!" I stand still and look over my shoulder. It's someone else they're after. Another guy has stolen a bun and is struggling with the salesperson who has hold of the thief's sleeve. I judge the thief. He deserved to be caught. I do not want him to get away. He is a thief after all...60.

~

1..2..3...

I can still remember the way. It's out of the Metro and straight on down the street. There's only one street and then after about 100 metres, there is a fork in the road; the right prong rises gently and veers off into obscurity; the left prong sinks slowly down. The buildings down this road are the last of the village. Behind the buildings there is only a wide expanse of flat land, tumbleweed and high grasses.

It was twilight, the bar I had been told to go to was lit with a fluorescent orange hue.

I relaxed inside. I was no longer nervous or agitated at the thought of confronting her. I simply wanted to enjoy myself as much as possible before, during and after the meeting. I wore a porkpie hat (straw), sunglasses and a brightly coloured short-sleeved shirt.

I danced without reserve....60.

'You killed her,' the ticker tape says.

~

"The universe," Robin said "cannot be solved by mathematics. Music maybe, but not maths. Consider Zeno's Arrow..." Seshu was curious.

"Apollo shoots his arrow. It must cover half the distance before hitting a victim. Once half way, the arrow must logically cover another half of the distance. You see? This goes on ad infinitum. Half then half then half. The arrow should never reach its target. We come to infinity outwards and inwards. Time is the same. To get to the next moment, the journey must necessarily be halved, then halved, halved, halved."

Seshu smiles and proposes a toast to Pendleberry.

"To The Pen' and the impossibility of it all." Robin raises his plate, clinks Seshu's plate and takes a large bite out of his cake.

~

Pendleberry looks into Paul Newman 23's starred eyes. Time is a spinning globe.

"To grasp the simplicity we have to be able to accept everything with the same openness as we accept that Zeno's Arrow always hits its target. Logically it is an impossibility. To think illogically is a contradiction in terms. We must therefore lose all interest in logic and lose all interest in interest for interest's sake." Paul puts his finger to Pendleberry's lips and pulls him closer.

"You're not the first to do or realise any of this you know," he says to his tripping lover. Pendleberry might have taken umbrage had he not been formulating his philosophy of the importance of promoting and proliferating 'sameness'.

"I should hope not. Neither do I want to be the last," Pendleberry said.

The music rises. They become jazz-lost. There is no time or space or time.

"Your eyes," Pendleberry says.

~

9

Cut to man cycling up a rainy street. We see a bunch of flowers drop from a tree at our feet. In the distance we see the cycling man punch the air, "Yes!" He says this through his teeth, smiling. We assume he has friends up the tree who have agreed to drop the flowers for the cyclist's girlfriend.

The cyclist however, after punching the air, loses control of his bicycle and falls to the ground hard, breaking his arm. A car slows to see if the cyclist is alright. Reaching out to the car, the cyclist's arm is flapping like a useless spasmodic flipper. Without stopping the car moves on up the street.

A drunken passer-by stumbles up to the cyclist and kneels down clumsily at his side. Putting on a posh Dublin accent he announces "I was having tea with God at the castle last night and somebody asked me, 'If you could do something for your Peacemaker, what would you do?' 'I'd try to get my end away for her,' I said." Roaring with laughter, the passer-by clambers to his feet and continues up the street.

I see my mother out of focus on an advertising billboard above the injured party. She is holding three fingers up. I stand looking at the board, squinting to make her out properly and I'm saying to myself, "This is significant but I don't know why."

"There are three important things," my mother tells me

I am not frustrated because I cannot think what those three things are, I am frustrated because she will not put me out of my misery and simply tell me. I mean if she knows...

The cyclist's girlfriend is nowhere to be seen. He's still twitching. The flowers lay full of colour on the wet pavement, alive and drinking.

~

But she won't speak.

"Art has always tried to represent God," the Buyer will tell me. "All art is an attempt, conscious or unconscious, to create God or create like God. Until we are God, we will continue to think like children. And we do, Pendleberry, we think like little children.

"Some artists even try to think like children. Soon there will be no art. No art as we have come to understand it (or not understand it). You know, don't you Pendleberry, that the Church was once wholly against paintings which showed images of Jesus or God. 'Thou shall not worship false idols or any image which is not me.' This is what they told the poor starving blighters who frequented the churches. They eventually allowed the painters to recreate scenes from the Bible so that the illiterate might learn the lessons of that great book.

"These paintings of gold however were soon venerated as the symbols of the greater power.

"Our art this century has the same power for those of us today who wish to learn more about our lugubrious situation. We are all worshipping at the wrong altar. We have been for 3,000 years. The dialectical argument is dead. Socratic debate floundered. Plougher's theories of sub-aesthetics died a death. Abstraction is no more an abstraction than reality is a reality."

All this and more my Buyer will tell me.

"The child disposes of his immature beliefs as will the artist. Meaning will become obvious. Meaning will be beyond question. MAY WE DECORATE AND ENTERTAIN. DECORATE AND ENTERTAIN."

I must go to her home now. She will not find me in mine. I must find her before she finds me. That just wouldn't do.

~

Note : 14

She sits hook-nosed at the bar. Her brief tits pointing at the customers sitting opposite.

Three things:

1.) She reminds me of my mother.

2.) She reminds me of ancient Greek warriors' wives.

3.) She reminds me of the woman who will look into my eyes on my deathbed and say "You are the night."

~

They are all going to die. Soon. I could tell them. Maybe they know. Every one of them. Dead. I predicted this when I looked in her eyes. There is no one to help me now. I'm all alone. Myrninerest first, then the others. I will kill them all before they kill me.

~

Seagulls chatter at Pendleberry's indecision, the clouds bruise and rapidly blanket the sky.

He looks out at the horizon and it is out there that he projects his answers, on that indistinct haze of ocean and sky on that soft-ruled line he floats his belief that a thought cast is a job done. Pendleberry no longer feels that he is feeding his audience but that he is using his ideas as bait. Teasing morsels that the schools may bite and so vindicate his time here.

He cast his ideas so that the audience may feed him.

Pendleberry dreams of a day when he will work for food only.

As he walks back to his abode he becomes apoplectic with the notion that all these people; the elderly spinsters, youthful cyber-punks, middle-aged miseries, over-fed hogs, skinless letches, bandaged freaks, legless whores, all of them are blessed. They are good.

Pendleberry feels like the cruellest creature on the planet. Pendleberry has zero love for himself and begs the good lord above, in and all around to punish him.

"Give me penance. I will do thy will. Help me to become a better person, lord."

Pendleberry's ecumenical train of thought leads to flagellation.

By sheer coincidence, though the chances of this happening in that particular part of town are higher than most others, Pendleberry spies an Anne-droid.

"Yes! Flagellation will suit me down to the ground, you good God." A peaceful grin returning to his scarlet wind-beaten face.

"Half an hour of extreme whipping please, miss." Her breasts are firm and gigantic and her legs are as smooth as remote controls.

~

1...2...3...

Pendleberry is drinking heavily. The room is full, everybody's having a good time. There is a raid. The alcohol they are drinking has been obtained at a liquor den which only days ago was busted.

The gang of them are chased outside across the school field. Pendleberry tells Howard and the others to run on ahead. Pendleberry is caught.

A short blonde policewoman tackles Pendleberry powerfully and having thrown him roughly to the ground, kneels on his spine and whispers loudly in his ear, "Your friends may go free if you permit me to...................."

Pendleberry is not taken aback but accepts quite readily. Not without a moment's thought, but readily enough to satisfy the policewoman that Pendleberry will cause her no trouble.

Later that day, just hours before the pre-arranged session with the policewoman, Pendleberry finds himself rather looking forward to the ordeal. He even dresses well for the occasion. The policewoman, at least she's dressed like a police woman, arrives late that night with two burly plain-clothes policemen. At least they are dressed like plain-clothes policemen. They leave the compound surreptitiously, attracting the attention of nobody.

Pendleberry soon finds himself (funny the places you do) in a sunken mud ring being coerced by a giant half-serpent, half-beast man to wrestle with three naked women in the ring. The policewoman is there along with two Chinese girls, both of whom Pendleberry is allowed to pleasure before the policewoman goes at him with a cat'o'nine tails.

In Rome, the war has begun and the strap-on doesn't hurt Pendleberry a bit.

~

She will tell him, "The canvas is the half-way point. Zeno's Arrow. The art is us never getting anywhere. Art is the logic. To avoid all contrivance; all logic, you step aside, outside, take it easy, listen. Hear the answers speed through the canvas – as if the canvas had never been there."

Unfortunately Pendleberry is going to become so numb, so empty of emotion, that he will not be able to recognise any of himselves during the conversation. He will not know how to act any of his parts anymore. He will in effect be reading a strangers autocue. Free from personal constraint but subsequently... lost.

~

His fresco had helped him to travel in time. Seven years in three weeks.

A cosmic shudder. A blinding light. Flash! All the clocks stop. In Pendleberry all the clocks on the planet stop. He wakes to find his watch has stopped at 4.50 am. He feels strongly that he made it happen. A solid unconscious involvement with the matter around him. "I could do that if I concentrated hard enough. Do it awake. I wouldn't be the first."

~

4.49 am

Robin witnesses a woman, no a girl, walking stunned from a shell of a building. She is shaken to her very soul. Robin approaches, chivalrous. Before he reaches her, he sees an old dishevelled looking brute scuttering on up ahead. Silver haired and carrying a suitcase.

Robin takes the girl gently by the shoulders to steady her. She stops as he does this and looks up at the running shadow the old man casts in the twitching lamplight of the street. She glares back at Robin.

Robin notices first how devastatingly beautiful the girl is. He sees this before the bruises.

"If I play my cards coolly..." he thinks. He chooses to ignore the man and concentrate on comforting this angel.

"She's in a state, but one has to meet girls somehow. I've seen the man's face," he thinks. "We'll call the police. They'll find him."

Just when Robin thinks they are free to head for safety, the silver-haired old man returns. He has decided to confront Robin.

The old man, breathing steamy, eyes red, watery, produces a gun from his long black coat. Robin turns tail and runs; the girl drops to the floor with a feeble grunt. Running side to side to dodge the bullets, Robin slips and slides across the scattered broken tablets of homes and offices. WHAM! A bullet enters Robin's left elbow from the back. The pain is astonishing, an electric spasm which pinches his entire frame.

The streets of Rome are closing in on him. Robin manages to weave through the Roman Ympe prowling round the run-down district. Sometimes he is beaten. Tonight he is stopped. This time however, Robin gives as good as he gets forcing an entire team of Ympe to fall into the river with one almighty shove. Like lumpy dominoes they splash fat into the muddiest side banks of the Tiber.

All is well until the consigliore arrive. Robin is clearly drunk. He is questioned.

"I had free tickets to a gig – the Lollapalooza. Seshu got the tickets for us – I've been looking for it all night – got into a few scrapes – but I'm on the level."

Robin is still holding a bin lid, which he had used to protect himself from the gang's missiles. This makes the consigliore sceptical.

"Return the bin lid!" they shout. Robin does so but as he turns his back on them, they pull their guns – "Oh to be in Canada," is Robin's last thought. One of peace. One of futility.

There is a flash.

He is shot dead.

A good death though. Kind of pathetic, kind of pointless. An emphasised pointlessness. The two seconds it takes for his heart to stop were not filled with nearly as much pain as the old man's elbow shot had caused him. Like a splitting of nerves, he feels a relaxing warmth leaking heavily from his punctured insides. Soothing lifeblood that had been running round all that time, finally felt. A revelatory laceration.

1...2...3...

Robin looks left, then right, then runs to a derelict building to hide. Michael Caine 33 guides Robin through the entrance hall, through the courtyard in the middle of the apartments.

"You'll be ok here. I hid here for five years myself. Don't worry, I know the man."

Michael and Robin are forced to make up a terrible sob story in order for Robin to be permitted to stay. They are told that the place is full but that their tale of woe, coloured in with a few real tears, convinces the guard that Robin is telling the truth and is most definitely in need of help.

When Robin is finally given five minutes to breathe, he realises that their little act had not gone unnoticed. Michael and he were surrounded by women of every kind of loveliness. "We'll talk to them all in good time," Michael tells Robin.

"Later. But first I'd like to go to the café." They invite a dark-skinned Italian girl who had been sitting away from the crowd. Robin had felt sorry for her.

"Come with us – please do," Robin says.

"No thanks, I'm meeting...F..." she mumbles to them proudly. They do not hear the name of the person she is meeting.

"She's shy or something," Michael whispers as he and Robin drag her from the courtyard. Street door locked. Safe.

~

"It's the not knowing," she will tell him, her lips red with blood now. The veins in her neck twitching with nervous mad excitement. "The not knowing is the thing which arouses us, interests us. The first kiss. New planet. Your paintings." She is holding something behind her back. Pendleberry cannot breathe.

~

It's funny you're so bloody nervous. What have we been telling you? You still don't really know. The lap of the waves. You listening? Walk past those riot police. Laugh at them. Your police. Not ours. These are all your choices so why so shaky? Smile. Sit back. These fields you have always known are comforting. These short walks. You have always known these walks. Your love is not a headache. It is eternal. A gift to you from us. We come in peace. We mean you no harm. I looked at you. That was me crossing the beach. The one with the dog. You imagined me a lonely old thing. Wife dead. That's probably the case. Your heart wells and tears at the thought of her all those years ago. She watched you laughing. Mesmerised. To her, right then, you were the hero of the story. We made you the hero. Yes, in that airport, your silly game. There was nothing on her name tag for you to remember. We still haven't decided what to give to you. Something you'd really appreciate. Something that was you. She's waiting. She's enjoying herself but she's waiting. The smallest thing is the same size as the biggest remember. She was all women. She was all people. Together you defined all human existence. She was the most famous person you ever knew. Is the most famous person you know. The sky will not fall. Not on you. This earth, this ground will never swallow you up. This air does not suffocate. The water you drink does not pour humorously out of bullet holes in your body. It's funny your so bloody nervous.

~

"It's the joy of the familiar," she will tell him. "Look at the pleasure one gets from the familiar. A book you read as a child, a favourite meal (a last meal)," she laughs. "A piece of music you will play again and again. It is the knowing that arouses and interests us." She toys with the knife behind her back. Fondles the handle's carved smoothness. She breathes harder now, spraying droplets of scarlet as she exhales.

~

It was the 5th of Xtempre. I remember distinctly because that was Myrninerest's birthday – I battened down the hatches, crawled from the scullery shute made iron clad reptile and shunnied along the vestibule till Parman and partake – The kempstale B-line was in service so I played up to the conductress and held onto her tails. She didn't complain. From here I took a direct route on foot to the foot of the foot of the hill-foot and licked my way up from there. A slow and arduous journey but I had packed well and I had more than enough to occupy my mind on the trip; primarily the deaths of everyone I love.

I hadn't been walking for more than an hour before I happened upon a crowd of perfidious jewel worshippers. I screamed that their shiny objects were nothing more than stones and they vanished like a fly from a thigh beneath a fast smack fist flap. I sat and smoked and spoke, but Myrninerest was not around to hear me. This decision of mine to plunge myself into a meeting which all who I know had discouraged was by no means an easy one, but it had such possession of my waking thoughts that not to confront this sick desire would be akin to breathing out only.

Some of us are damaged from an early age – to care is too often written off as a sign of weakness. The countryside stayed with me and I didn't wonder at my conviction.

'I am leaving them.' I thought. Like a man desperate to put the cards on the table before the partner does. Impossible in theory since I was clearly too late, but in 'retrospective novelas synchopate' (the forethought of a signifier in a novel unwritten but written since the biggest bang one can pre-judge and after-write the fate of a poignant scene and a moment correlating tragically with the following happenstance nobody could have predicted but for the reader and the scholar who are forced to recognise significance in the words and actions of bit players who were given no direction but to be on stage and wait for a cue. "You will know when it is your turn." So much the better for the student since the actor him or herself can in no way interfere with the predestined result of an examination so unruly it does not warrant a judge outside of the stingy world of academia buggering the poor a pound a page and a promise of a rectal respite come retirement.)

~

The sparrows turn their beak up at my...

The seagulls turn their beak up at my...

The swallows turn their beak up at my...

They ask for nothing.

~

There is no trial which is not a trial by error – The WDP knew well. Those gentlemen with their socks and whiskies. We would put out your monocles before we put out your eyes.

"We will not leave them to starve in the rubble."

I recall SESHU's bold pronouncement at our first official meeting.

"But we will separate them all from their artificial limbs."

The aptly named satellite 'I-May-Never-Go-Home-Anymore'.

Your ticket amongst a thousand tickets.

You alone amongst a thousand alone. From a dark underground cellar to the torn stockings of an interstellar passanger.

And I stand in front of the judge and jury of the nature I have and she was we live in and you are. The trees by who we could not incapacitate our capacity to breathe in, breathe without.

So the hours (not hours) turn (stay still). I made my way to her home. And what to my surprise? No due cause found. No verdict made. No sound but the soft taunting trill of a wildlife community chaotic and peacefully acquitted since its first trial. The 'A simple Yes or No will suffice,' sufficed.

'Yes' they said (there being no alternatives) and still I walk and walk and walk and the building appears to the naked eyes (oo) a fathom deep in the sea weed scree green of the inland ocean in which I was submerged.

The refreshing candour of a wig worn on an honest counsel. A lover's leap. Stripped I talked a cull – unheeded, unheard and the best of all worlds; a monkey comfortable with his interest in his own cock.

No cow-Ympe. Or are there cow-Ympe? No sheep-Ympe. Or are there sheep-Ympe? No witness but for the witness I carry within.

I am familiar with lies.

And so I march into the jaws of the greatest of all of them.

~

There's a spark. A light before dying. A young girl skips, twitches. She smiles a radiant smile at everyone. I say good-bye to my home. To Paul. I have said good-bye to everyone at one time or another.

The young girl's smile lights me up. The Moxo-priest wishing me a good day. The couples kissing in the park. That handsome couple over there, playing with each other beneath their so still coats, trying to look nonchalant but coming too hard to hide that vicious inner shine.

Impressionist impressions on the cool grass ground, sunlight dancing like the eyes of her piers. Trees leaning in to eavesdrop snap back rebuffed, all part of the park today. Shimmering leopard spots play on the barks of trees, sing in response to the swaying branches swinging. Nobody is hard done by today. The sky will not fall in today. No road works this day. That child will remember her grandfather that way.

All the same, I'm weighed down by my tears. This all too, too sad. This light, this love, all this day still to fill.

In the midst of it all, I smiled back. On the fringes here I can barely breathe. Please, please take that knife from behind your back.

~

This is the moment from which there is no return. I am out on my own. He will only be with me as long as these bruises last. After that, I will have passed through the canvas. The large blank canvas I fear will disappear. I can prepare myself for a life of ready-mades.

Everything at hand as I become my art.

The father-son split.

I choose to face the audience for the interview. We will be projected onto the large cinema screen at the back of the stage, but I would rather face the music.

The interviewer is to ask for my side of the story as my mother stands in the wings, supportive. More personal if I face them, I think.

Hoping for an in-depth discussion and a thousand and one questions that might trigger off a chain reaction of intelligent argument, I am disappointed to find that the interviewer has only one question for me before he passes over our subject and moves on to the stand up comedian sitting in the wings.

"Can you explain, Pendleberry, how in fact, we are all the same?"

"That's a bit personal," I say through a broken mike in a half-empty room beneath a halogen bulb on a windy stage from a croaking throat over the chatter of an uninterested host.

~

Her home is high upon a ridge.

She will welcome me. I will curtsy and beg to differ. She is cryptic. I am tooled.

Her house will be grander than my mansion, though a tower or two smaller. Gold initials on the door - E.R.

En route I will recognise a feeling, a fleeting emotion; a 'hello', a 'hi' even. Hopeful anticipation. Everything is going to be alright.

The valley leading to my buyer's home is more like a ship long bar. It is mirrored. The pines bare the reflective surfaces of sixty tons of glass. The morning sunshine sharp as a migraine distracts me as it sways and lolls about the stoops and reeds of the bank.

Her home will be visible grinning in the distance, far beyond the happy couples dining in the wood's copses beneath the Elvin canopy. You will eat rice and junk. I will be hungry. Dodging waiters.

'The management accept no responsibility for any goods lost or stolen on these premises.' Neon flicker from the struck trunks dotted along the canal path.

A funicular will take me to her, rising gently; I will peruse the view, less hopeful now perhaps. Unable to absorb the possibilities open spaces imply. Time running out. No longer to haunt those streets below. No longer a silent witness to time's perpetual funeral.

As the funicular comes to a halt I will think of my family.

My mother and father.

Christmas. 200 years since the last one. I remember that. The snow. The long dark winter. Banned. Just didn't fit.

I remember how those holidays felt. At home. They really made a home. If that's the best a person can do...

~

She complies. I know it now. I have drunk of her cup.

Trumpets sound. We enter.

It is midday. The stars are out. The day does not need me.

She swallows her pride and invites me inside. Her hallways garish, diamond. Japanese miniatures, carved symbols, death's dance.

She is risen but doubts me. It is not I. Her face, smooth as an alabaster mask. Portia. Blood red carpet beneath her soft looking bare feet. She wears a Solomine cap, scarlet, glaring. Her skull, a jewelled fan. She stares at me the way we had at the artist Kohl Huik all those years ago; as if she were looking at a blind man, unconcerned, digging.

She reaches her hand out to me. She places something stolen, something new into my quivering palm.

The heat is unbearable.

There is a flame in the palm of my hand.

Fur covered Kumenites, glowing yellow pigs.

Do I see her laugh? Yes, she will laugh. And as she does I am double. I am purple with fear. She is painted.

An open door to a balcony. Seshu lies reclining. He is conducting a symphony, a harem. He wears a tall pink crown. He does not look up from his naked orchestra.

She does laugh! And slams the door shut.

She steps purposefully. Murderer.

Seshu eating grapes. Sebastian. Blonde wig beneath the crown.

Portia takes me by the arm. This causes me to lose control.

Her touch makes me. Smiling, she strides forth. I have no power over this woman.

She drops the gold dress she is wearing to the floor and letting go of my arm slinks into an adjacent room.

I am left standing in front of one of my own paintings. I stare at it. My crotch damp. I am not spent. I will feel nausea. I will hate my work. Then from the canvas; pushing itself rudely forth from the depths of the paint I will see a face; a face then a body wrapped in black cloth. It pushes forward, deathly pale, it's clawed hands reaching out into this dark passageway.

The body forms beside me, pure, conjured, diabolical. It continues past me. I watch the form recede, received by the empty black from where we have come and notice the ornate golden goblets on the floor, lining the sides of the hall. A thick red liquid glistens in each.

Myrni?

Portia returns. She is naked still. She holds a glass box in one hand and a plain white mask in the other. There is something in the box.

I will be overwhelmed by a joy I thought long gone.

She spits something from her mouth. Teeth. Gobs of blood. Whatever it is, it hits the floor with a thud and crawls away across the lush carpet.

I laugh as her breasts heave and distort my sense of self.

No. It's a room. I will have moved. I am in a room with her and now I see.

In the dark room there are people everywhere; standing against the walls fighting against the feathers and chains. Twitching in the corners, all the universe jerking itself off. I am inclined to shout. To tell them to halt. But Portia demands I put on the mask.

Clusters of old men drooling so close I can smell their breath. The women tap and hammer my legs with their feet, touching themselves, flat on their backs. A glimmer of hope? A light from within. Wait...

My thoughts are no longer scattered.

"In the chest," I tell her. "The chest."

She is filming. She is directing. I can hear the whir of the cameras like some muffled mad chant as the sweating bodies writhe on the carpet and walls about me.

Portia will force me to drink a thick liquid from her very own goblet and my own laughter will grow black, my words heavy; she says nothing as I drink from her...

A Kumenite will appear and take the knife from her glass case; hand it to her...

~

Portia, after all, has the answers. Her hard brown nipples laughing above her dress before the bruises on her face or the spattering of blood on her feet.

He is dancing in her corridor to a gurgling sound, a throaty gargle, rhythmic, pulsing, flailing about, though barely reddening.

The blood at the corners of her lips only add to his attraction. He wishes to be taken in by her. Mothered.

"In the chest," Pendleberry tells her as she moves her face close to his. She is slightly shorter than him, a nice fit. She pins him to the central column of her gallery space and ties his arms behind him around the column. He stands, perspiring, heart racing, watching this witch avidly. He has her exactly where he wants her and yet his head is empty of questions. Finally empty.

~

The secret ingredients.

Seshu was doing him a favour.

Maybe not now, but later.

Seshu sold 'em all.

C.C.T.V. footage of Howard's death his biggest triumph.

'The third person' his greatest hoax.

Integrated - Hollywoed - Home

Howard told the story in a very heavy and deliberate manner. He knew.

He will die ingloriously. I had dreamt this. He will drown himself, blood on his hands. In contact with his victims, he will talk to them. Tell them how they all had to die. And by his hand too. That he did them this favour. He expects thanks. He will demand that they save him a place. In a murky pond, on the university lawn, he will disappear to no applause.

"His name is Howard," I finally manage to get my message out.

My grip tighter and tighter on the knife. They don't listen. Not even now that I have remembered his name, the nurses don't listen to me.

They look afraid and I can tell they have absolutely no intention of going downstairs to look for any body.

~

With a knife, on camera.

"This is great art," Seshu will sigh, grinning at Pendleberry.

"You will become part of Seshu's collection. You know he likes you very much. This is his special gift to you. He will expect you to save him a place. Your art will never be greater than it is right now. Right now you know everything. All is clear and soon you will join the luckiest of the artists. You are a masterpiece, Pendleberry. You and your art are one."

And with this, she will thrust the gleaming blade into Pendleberry's chest. Pull it swiftly out and swipe at his neck with the weapon. A poisonous tapping in the right temple. It is with a confused acknowledgment of this twinge that Pendleberry dies, his facial expression reflecting only a slight physical irritation as he shrinks to the size of a ball. Far more pleasing to look at.

"Exquisite," Portia will moan as the men from the stag party jump her. Kredit well spent.

~

In a split second I will travel the universe. The dismissal of any conscious knowledge of a passage of time; I will be all corners of all corners. I will bound in a nano from the air and breath of that cloud to the outer reaches of the outer reaches without losing a grip of my physical central point. I will enjoy this. I will be able to see round corners. I will be on the other side of all walls. Things will continue. I am tired of searching. I may as well be everywhere. There's no point in not being everywhere.

The moment he had been waiting for.

As the neck tears; the long moment. A universe of red and white corpuscles.

'This is home,' Pendleberry will think. 'It was always here.' A comfort Pendleberry has only known twice in his life; once on the beach with his family and once with Myrninerest on the third moon of Jupiter.

A fluttering joy, a surreptitious tease of calm. Travelling on this ship called Earth, hurtling through space. No need to leave your seat to go places, Pendleberry. A wanderlust finally satiated by the very thought that we are journeying through vast open spaces. Easier to think, easier to reflect whilst moving blindly but surely into the known, away from the unknown.

Now you can travel this way forever. As Pendleberry slumps to the cold marble floor, this will be everything he has ever wanted or needed. The ease of it all. The simplicity of the last gasp.

'This is where I shall live. This shall be my home.'

He sees Myrninerest, the attractive nurse, again, in the school hall, covered in blood. There is no romance to this memory.

There is no kiss.

No 'Thank you'.

There is no judgement.

~

Lipstick on her face. She's having so much fun. Something like this. Metal scratches. Glass smashes. Cabin Number 4. She's a ghost. He knows. Myrninerest. Myrninerest.

Myrninerest sees Pendleberry.

"What are you doing? Writing your will?"

Pendleberry drops his pen. As if he wrote her. As if he could create things so simply. By putting words down onto a blank page.

"It's really you? I'm here too?"

"Yes," she smiles. Such affection. "You're going to love it here. Just wait till you see. They're all a bunch of fucking comedians. I think we should stay here. I swear it's the most fun I've ever, ever had. I'm glad you're here now. It's so nice you're here now."

~

"You were this close to being dumped," Frank Sinatra 413 tells the frump in a suit seated next to him.

"You'd hit me?" she shouts, having heard thumped instead of dumped.

"No, no, I..." but the woman went off on one before he could explain. This really was the last straw. Frank slowly walked away while she ranted on. He was outside before she even noticed he had left the table. She picks at the ladder in her tights and bites at the inside of her mouth, nervously, like she's trying to get at something inside.

Pulling myself away from this spectacle I see Robin in the club. I ask them where Myrninerest is. Where Howard is. As I do, she appears from behind. I'm a little embarrassed but she leads me to a room at the back of the club.

There is a bed in the room. Her unborn baby boy is sitting on the bed but under the covers. Myrninerest sits me under the covers with him and standing over me, reaches under and starts to scratch my penis with her long nails as if to try to bring me off. It is not working. I feel very uncomfortable and wonder if she hasn't made a mistake. Was it not maybe her boy she wished to relieve? I heard this is sometimes done in Asian countries for health purposes. I gently move her hand away and thanking her very much, I leave her with the boy.

I'm still a little disoriented maybe. Is she really here?

Robin has left. Seshu hasn't shown up. Paul Newman 23 is showing off on stage, singing and telling jokes. Hottyhammyum brings the drinks. At least it's someone dressed like Hottyhammyum. She has lost none of her beauty in death.

Frank Sinatra 413 picks up where Paul leaves off, talking about 'they' and 'them' and 'him' and 'her' and 'it'.

"You don't know how to laugh, is your problem," Paul tells him. "Anyone can feel down on themselves. If you'd just give us all a break."

"I'll give you a break," Sinatra smiles and sits himself down at the bar's piano.

Pendleberry likes the song he plays. He sings Someone to Watch Over Me. Myrninerest walks in and sits down close to Pendleberry. Pendleberry looks into Myrninerest's eyes, whispering low beneath the lullaby tune, "I think so too," he says. "I think maybe we'll stay here a while." Myrninerest holds him close. "I love you, Pen'"

~

Diving deeper, deep minutes blackly. Pulling slowly my way through sounds of water, heavy at my sides. I can see into the depths. She is naked, lying on her back, a mermaid waiting for me, breathing in pockets of air, invented in the water. Her eyes shine to guide me. The sea surface long gone, light obscured by depth, she is beautiful. Our bodies meet. We make love on the ocean floor. The weight of the world weightless on top of us. It is Myrninerest who pulled me through. It was always her. Following my every move, she has been there and will always be there. We are surrounded. Happy in the knowledge that there is no way out. Waves break within us. A light shines within us. Impossibly we are breathing still in this dark, this depth, this silence.

~

I hold Myrninerest from behind. We are squatting. I am touching her hips. We are both so happy. We are looking at the bar we are thinking of buying.

"It'll be a lot of work," she warns me sensibly.

"A lot less work than I'm used to, baby," I say.

I decide that we will buy it. We will settle here and share the work.

I will never paint again.

There is no art here.

~

They are talking through me. I am keeping notes so that I can track their activities. My art is no longer my own. Its meaning eludes me. I must find those who have been buying my work. It is through them I can discover exactly what is being said.

I will demand contact. Seshu must allow it. I will explain that I mean no harm to the buyers; that I merely wish to ask them why they are so interested in my work. There has to be a common factor; something they can all see. I can no longer trust myself. I am taking myself out of the loop. The W.D.P. will do better without me. My students don't need me.

If my words are incoherent I can only apologise. There is no other way for me to do this. I must find the source of these obscure messages. I must uncover the truth. I am being used. But to what end and by whom?

I must recap. I will look over what little I do remember. Although I am unsure which memories belong to me now, and which are theirs.

I must get all of this down. Everything is relevant. It has to be. If it is not, then I am already done for.

If my time does not appear linear, it is because my thoughts are not linear. If I tried to put things in order, I should be prone to exaggeration. The last thing I wish to do is blow the insignificant out of proportion by uniting it to the fantasy of cause and effect. They have not afforded me that luxury.

~

PORTRAIT 3

The Refusal of Silence

"I have only got one enemy, this being all human civilisation with its education, religion, bureaucracy and wars."

Imbecile Max – Ivan Mladek

1 - Acceptance

I imagine the tremor of joy experienced by the people involved in its production. The people interviewed, the models photographed, the editor's name on the second page along with the other lackeys helping to churn out these abominations month after month. If this magazine ceased to be, nothing would be different. This booklet speaks of nothing, changes nothing, and challenges nothing. Cheap advertising. Millions of these magazines published everyday. They barely have the wherewithal to praise the vanity they promote. Their fleeting endorsements oozing with insincerity. Age will destroy her; fashion will destroy him; time will swallow them all. Naked, blemishless, beautiful time.

The strangely dressed gentleman on the cover looking directly at the camera, confident that this moment will give him the kind of omnipotence he has felt was his inalienable right since the uncomfortable days of secondary school. To gaze out from the shop window, every magazine stand, every computer screen. To gaze out at the adoration this retarded populace yields to colour supplements and pixels. Devotion to the boot. This man's job. He designs boots. His name I don't bother to read, but he is wearing bright green socks with a grey suit and this is eye catching. Right now, sitting here, the fact that this man took time to consider how he should dress for this photograph causes me to be violently ill into the bucket I am precariously holding in front of me. There is no room in my head for this part of the game today, brain cells unable to turn a blind node to the sheer vapidity of every thing and every one.

I will not be budged. There is nothing to smile about. I am stuck with this foul sensation. The feeling that one minor galactic poof in this direction or that could have and could still erase not only this ridiculous magazine but the entire existential platform which necessitates us fragile breathing beings and our fickle desires. When the sun steps into the earth's personal body space and yawns fire across oceans and nations, this magazine - this free, tawdry magazine will be the absolute last thing any one of us will miss.

~

I saw my neighbour up close today. At the corner shop. Ignoring the queue he walked straight up to the counter and put his kredit down like that. Just showed the shop assistant a bottle of milk and put the kredit down in front of her. She called after him as he left but he was gone before she could catch his attention. She checked the kredit, which was exact, and let it go at that. The feeling that I wanted to slap him came on strong and I wondered at the weakness of my own temper.

He was only doing what I had wanted to do.

~

They say only that your shuttle has left the solar system. They can assure me of nothing but the direction in which you are spinning.

I hope to God this doesn't mean you will stop receiving these little prayers of mine. Maybe you would be better off without any of this...

You used to say how much my letters made you laugh and, well, I haven't been very funny recently, have I? I'm sorry, Sol, but right now every joke seems to be one more lie.

I can guarantee you're keeping it together better than I am. I feel like the most isolated person in the universe and there are eight billion of us down here. And there you are. What do you think about? What mind games do you play to keep yourself sane?

I close the blinds and read all day.

I am an astronaut. The planet earth one colossal ship. This hallway and these three rooms of mine enough. With food, bookshelves, locked doors, warmth, television, music, wine.

My shuttle.

~

I look out from this sickness and see strangers. The morning church bells dissipate into nervous stomach spasms, the day already unechoing back into itself. All hope of possibilities devoured; change – an anticipatory gorgon. The things that used to amuse me have taken umbrage and are begging for an apology. I have been picking on a handicapped version of reality and the guilt is crippling me. I have been brought to my knees. I can't see clearly out of this temple anymore: thoughts are blurred. The labels are being taken away and I can't bring myself to care. Mark is the only person I could speak to rationally and that was only because he was determined to take his own life; long gone now. With him I could lie with conviction because death is the only thing I mistrust more than life. I will tell death anything to keep it at bay. For death I can still trot out this by now weary performance. Death reaches out a gnarled claw and pats me on the head for my trouble. Take a biscuit genius.

~

I keep an eye on my neighbour. I hear him belching loudly when he leaves his apartment. He walks with a shuffle and clings tightly to the walls of buildings, refusing to make way should someone be in his path. He does not seem to have kept up with the changes society has inflicted on this dying century. His deliberately awkward dress codes reflect this. I must find out his name.

~

Tantamount to escapabilities, these calm passengers outrun me and I shout at the walls "Entertainment please!" and I plead for the river to "Be beautiful!" and crane my neck sideways to bellicose my after-all in over-compensated cajole.

L – We are lion.

2 – We are capability.

7 – We are a construct of the.

Environs conspire to remind me to be happy. They will outrun us all.

~

Everybody seems distant in time. The closer we get to ourselves and our own mortality, the less hopeful we are that the people we cling to can save us from our inevitable demise. Our friends become less heroic and our families a painful memory of our countless false starts. It is easier to be with family however; it is they who have mourned our existence since our birth. They have openly and honestly wept at the tragedy that is our life. The fear they have felt in just taking their eyes off us for an hour. Like unwitting murderers, they flung us merrily into this war only to recoil with a gasp when they recognised our utter ineptitude, our unpreparedness and their own lack of foresight.

~

The jump was not kind to me. If everyone would just get out of town. Leave me alone here. Long enough to look around. But all this talk...

I need something practical. Something possible.

Even the permanent solutions are only temporary.

The birds sound nervous, like their spring will never come. There is nothing fresh about this bracing winter air anymore. I just want to chase it down and brawl with it, give it a thick lip and tell it to fuck off back to hell; because it's cold in hell, Sol.

I'm glad I'm sick. It is the only excuse I have ever had for stopping dead without being questioned or hassled or poked for a response – do something – do something – do something.

This is not nausea; this is straight balls out fear. Fear of failure; fear of not labelling my situation before it's too late.

Though I despise words of themselves, I do believe sentences can be pulled apart like dreams and a myriad of meanings unearthed.

Sol, lift me from this caprice and remind me; show me what it is to hope again. I want to indulge in worldly ambitions, inspiring, unique visions; absorb and share the erudition of the great men and women of this planet. It is to them I should look again.

~

The offer was there and I took it. I have no one to blame but myself. Things could have turned out better.

It was not my fault that you did not make it back from your mission.

The time difference calculated for a trip like that plus the cryogenics meant that where I would be fifty years older on your return, you would not have aged more than 5 years.

As time travel technology is/was in it's infancy, I am a guinea pig, and being so have been promised financial security. Still the best they have to offer. The year 4015. I wasn't giving up much. A four story house in downtown. A career in the art world which essentially meant a career within the limits of my own imagination, ho ho. One or two friendships which were running their course, and a lifelong love affair with alcohol. 4015 suited me fine.

~

Notes : 25

I saw last night that the conversations I have in my head are not conversations at all but part of an ongoing monologue. This helps.

I am aware of my fancies. I do not think I am different to anybody else.

"It is when people want to change things that tyrants are born."

...then how are we to begin?

"At the end."

Drink blood, eat flesh, keep the kredit you earn. Do not be afraid of drunkenness, gluttony and avarice.

"Without words we would have no 'ideas' only instincts. It's only natural."

I must forget this weight of 'otherness', 'time', 'history' and take responsibility for everything that happens. I can make myself a part of anything by putting my mind to it. I can prove that I am part of nothing, by putting my mind to it. I must feel my way to an ethical starting point.

Whatever I do to invent myself is a reaction.

"Whatever you choose, you are probably wrong..."

Impossible. I would have told me that. And so I accept. I have already been invented and have no choice but to accept myself. In order to do this I must first forgive so much.

I cannot continue to ignore the signs I show to myself.

~

I thought I had put everything in a safe place. There were floods just twelve years ago which destroyed everything here at ground level. All of it is gone. Hottyhamyun showed me the reports from the week that it happened.

Gone. And along with it my memories. Our memories. My feelings about all this as cloudy now as the filthy waters which took everything away.

To learn of the destruction of my art was at once disturbing and enriching. The transitory quality of substance giving way to the often forgotten truth of just being here. No possessions. To own nothing. To produce nothing but the essential.

I am not reasoning my way out of depression here; my response to the news has mostly been one of surprising calm.

I have learnt something. I did not value my work. It hurts that I can see it no more, but I know the world does not miss it. Vanity fuelled my paintings, of that I am now sure, and as a result they had nothing to share; nothing to teach. They gave joy to me alone. And even that only in the completion of them; not the fact of them. I never once thought of anybody else. The work showed that I had had thoughts, but they did not offer any answers. I lied to myself. It was throw away art and it deserved to disappear. This news has made me seriously consider why on earth I should continue doing what I had been doing if I feel this way.

It is as though I had started a fake company in order to dupe people out of their hard earned kredit. As with most philosophers I had founded something which didn't exist and promised something which would never happen.

Well, the scam has been drowned in the stagnant waters of our famous river.

~

'Be Good'. This conclusion needs to be reasoned out on a personal level. We must forgive ourselves for trespassing on other's thoughts. We inevitably forgive ourselves anyway, since we always choose who we want to forgive us.

I will KNOW goodness. 'I will KNOW my gurus. Get to KNOW myself.

All paths begin at enlightenment and end in confusion. The permanency of our comfort relies on our ability to stay still enough to recognise the obvious. I should forget the wood. There is no 'wood', just a whole lot of trees. Time to see the trees, one at a time.

I have all the tools of my trade at my disposal, everywhere, always.

There is no need for me to travel to be happy. The view is the same wherever I go. The tree outside the kitchen window is a tree in a rainforest, on a Hawaiian beach, deep in the Canadian Rockies, silent at my parent's grave.

The cemetery is unchanged. I said 'Hi' from you. They always appreciated that. Even when you weren't in the room to tell me, I would say on the phone, "Sol sends her love." And they felt it. Part of the beauty of getting older perhaps; to have that wealth of experience that ties you to so much more than your present reality and mood.

~

Your vomiting convalescent. Still so smug. So much more going for him than the reprobates sitting in offices screwing themselves out of a living. Impressionable children playing hooky from life. If they can stay hidden away from reality for ten hours or more a day they have successfully cheated themselves, their families and their friends out of anything resembling a meaningful relationship or a meaningful life. Like filing cabinets full of paper, the office and its office workers must perish.

A world anaesthetised. A whole race of humans bamboozled into a mockery of existence. Crapulous with faith in a sedentary god, we are shitting ourselves into trembling, anaemic wannadies.

~

Too many potatoes. He said. There were flour. Like that he said. Am eagle. Might have got that wrong. Cut it up smaller. Evenly. Clean the edges. Even you should know that! Awful man. He said, "Do you treat yourself this way?"

Army. He said. I looked it up. 788 land wares since I jumped. He was army. I felt that. Sedated like the reptiles called the Jewish out and the Muslims out and the Christians out on their prefabricated refusal to. You is all of a harm. Raise the alarm. All of you, all of you, all of you is of a harm.

Coul harm. On the train windows. Coul harm, meaning what?

Seperated by a misspelling and a solitary judge. The oiliest and the noisiest.

Too many potatoes and why'd you warm the plate up for?

I thought I had put everything in a safe place. I got to read about it. There were floods just twelve years ago which destroyed everything here at ground level. All of it is gone. Hottyhamyun showed me the reports from the week that it happened.

Gone. And along with it my memories. Our memories. My feelings about all this as cloudy now as the filthy waters which took everything away.

To learn of the destruction of my art was at once disturbing and enriching. The transitory quality of substance giving way to the often forgotten truth of just being here. No possessions. To own nothing. To produce nothing but the essential.

I am not reasoning my way out of depression here; my response to the news has mostly been one of surprising calm.

I have learnt something. I did not value my work. It hurts that I can see it no more, but I know the world does not miss it. Vanity fuelled my paintings, of that I am now sure, and as a result they had nothing to share; nothing to teach. They gave joy to me alone. And even that only in the completion of them; not the fact of them. I never once thought of anybody else. The work showed that I had had thoughts, but they did not offer any answers. I lied to myself. It was throw away art and it deserved to disappear. This news has made me seriously consider why on earth I should continue doing what I had been doing if I feel this way.

It is as though I had started a fake company in order to dupe people out of their hard earned kredit. As with most philosophers I had founded something which didn't exist and promised something which would never happen.

Well, the scam has been drowned in the stagnant waters of our famous river.

~

You told me you didn't like when I wrote stories in my correspondence with you. You thought I was shirking the responsibility I had to share real feelings. You were worried I had no feelings and so I was hiding behind meaningless vignettes of my life. I was smart enough to know that you were the person I wanted to tell my tales to, Sol.

~

To the billion tiny particles i make my account. I pledge to the aqua blue, the drawn on clouds too, a horizon tsar, one we can trust. An accomplished gulf of wind. A Christmas tycoon, warm with charm. A broken hamper seal. Food let out. Tiny ants.

Close your mouth.

So far away.

I can still hear it. Daft. A kid's sea side song.

I might have grown strong if I had known what I knew then now.

"Only in a crowd can you 'find' silence.

Alone, on your deserted island, you got to find something else to do."

You get a tattoo, that's what you do.

~

Evening.

The stomach pains have gone – for now. The headache hovers; squawking, black vultures ready to swoop in and claim their skinny prize. I fend them off with the deep calculated breaths you taught me.

I sat silently for five hours today thinking about what I should be spending my days here thinking about. The room like a giant eye just watching and waiting for me to perform.

Hottyhammyun says I should do some sport. This just seems like one more way to escape.

Sol, I do not want to 'escape'. I want to KNOW this prison. I want to question the guards. I want to ask them why the fuck they are working here; these complete strangers who hold me captive. What the hell did I ever do to them?

I wish you were here, Sol.

I know you loved to hear things like that when we were only divided by a continent and there was a week in it before we would see each other again, but now...now it hurts just to say it, and I know it must hurt to read it. I can hardly breathe, Sol. I miss you so much...

You never offered an answer. You knew quite well that no amount of answers could make a person complete

"Completeness lays in wait somewhere else, like a furious panther just daring you to disturb it."

I must fear completeness more than I do a failed life; otherwise I would wade through these thorny bushes of argument and circumstance and wrestle that growling panther to the ground. Tame the fucker tamer than a new born kitten and then I would rumble and I would growl and I would barbecue that fucking cat.

I know I should not go out too often; not in my condition. When Hottyhammyun visits to do her tests I do play it up a little, but it is a new new world out there. I need time.

Yesterday I went out. I chose no special street, no special district, but for a moment or two, I felt lighter like life wasn't so bad; like I did the right thing leaving the room. And then I tortured myself, as I inevitably do, asking how long this feeling would stay. "Perhaps if I don't head anywhere in particular, stay in these unfamiliar streets I can manage to keep this pretence of normalcy. Head down, eyes half open. Maybe I can remain in this soft bubble of serene consciousness forever." And then there it was; the famous river and the riverside air-traffic and I thought to turn back up the same street to recapture that all too brief feeling but already the mood had disappeared. By then I was exhausted and the journey back to the apartment was noisy (out there, and in here) and that 'serenity' was lost.

I must permit changes in mood as they separate entities within the same universe which of nature's course must needs reside together in harmony.

~

Sunday

I tell lies to myself.

It has always been this way. Coercing myself to feel 'better', to feel 'relaxed'. I have bullied myself into these moods too often and now I feel tired. Sick and tired. I want to face this bully and talk the fucker down, and for that I need ammunition. I need to gather enough tools and enough weapons to whip this bully into obedience; fire silver bullets at its flat feet and make it dance a St Vitas' dance of attrition till it has cobbled the streets of my serenity in gold and it leaves me free to sputter and clatter down them in my stallion-driven rage of tempestuous nothing. And I will look to books for clues; to the poets; to the philosophers; to the dramatists and I will forge their ideas into one abstract singular density and I will swallow it whole. I will be freed from words, from language, from symbols.

I must look to myself.

Perhaps you are close, Sol. Perhaps you are already there. What use do you have for any of this 'stuff' now? Do you entertain yourself with the songs you remember? Do you invent tales? Are you keeping a record of your thoughts? Is there any point to you meditating anymore? Do you try to travel in your mind like The Star Rover? Or is it simple routine keeps you going? Are you being soldierly about it; keeping a strict timetable?

Is it just a matter of eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired?

Are you alone with God? Or are you just alone. Are you one and the same now? How does it work when you are that far away from humanity? I would say you are free to do any crime you like but you need other people for that. No crime being alone.

Even here it seems that there is such a limited amount of things to do. Remember our first opera? I was surprised that they were all singing about everyday stuff. I had a preconception that opera was a mysterious, untouchable world of Gods, larger than life Dukes and vastly overweight Princesses, but it was just this man of disappointingly average build complaining about a hangover. All this promise and we reduce the planet's elegance to working for other people, reading crappy magazines and getting drunk.

What grace have you found out there? What beauty beyond the reach of this screeching, crying, groaning rock?

~

I have decided not to leave the apartment until I have solved this issue of labelling that which I cannot name.

The dimensions of your ship are almost identical to this apartment, Sol. Maybe yours is a little more cramped than my living room and kitchen. I have sealed off the bedroom. I will have my food delivered. I will continue to do as I have been doing; reading, watching T.V. and the view from my window I will leave unblocked. With my wrist-top I can locate where they think you are and I can look in your general direction. On occasion this means I will be able to look directly at you through my window when I write.

As a child I used to point out the silliness of looking up and praying to the sky when we were clearly on a revolving ball and God could in fact be directly below us at any given time, "Or else who are the Australians praying to?" I would ask.

Now I pray to you.

~

I wake up in the middle of the night with a perfect understanding of it all. I am history and time and future and space; all people, all things, as they are and what they are and where they are and were and will be and it is indescribably purifying for about 3-5 seconds and then it is overwhelming; horrifying, and all the 'stuff' we engulf ourselves in begins to filter back and everything becomes so shallow and brittle and empty. From an all powerful Nothingness to just nothing. Alone in that dark nebulous expanse holding on to a titanic vertigo. Morning.

It says here (I'm online) that you missed an important presentation of one of your Astronautical Engineering papers because you were water skiing (your favourite pastime) and that a Ms Joad nearly crossed you off the boards for being so irresponsible. I think maybe they mistook Sol Angeli for another student to get a line or two in the news. This will definitely be shoehorned into the next movie about you. There have been at least half a dozen. All of them vomit inducing. Sycophantic, misinformed blurbs, all of them. Some claim that before you became an astronaut you made your living as a nurse, an actress and a street walker.

But I know my subject.

Biographies! A nice headstone and a secret life is the best we can hope for because nobody nobody nobody gets us exactly right. As for autobiographies; that is the purest type of mythology. Within one story you have the dozens who moulded you and you, by rote, are writing their biographies. Who could ever say enough about their parents, their birthplace, their homes for anyone to get the faintest idea of what was experienced, including the person who experienced it?

Picture an infinite rhizome with its far reaching roots, this way and that and this way again and there's the author peering in at the end of one optic spindle catching a fleeting glimpse of the 'thing' They are attempting to describe; one googleplex of a notion stolen from unnameable matter and boundless circumstance. I lie to you; I lie to me, the 'thing' is gone and here we still are.

The private letters of the great men and women are far more telling. To speak to only one person reveals so much more; whether one is lying or not. The motives for that person's behaviour can be narrowed down to the influence of just one other.

~

From 2am till 7am my neighbour screamed. This incessant, repeated screech like some panicked monkey. I heard conversational tones but can't believe anybody would spend time with him. He must have been speaking to himself. This is the first time this has happened in the two months I have been here. I was saved the indignity of knocking and requesting he shut up by others from the building who are fortunately strung on a much tighter bow than I. Thank God for these principled souls. Or else, hard luck on those gentlemen married to wives with a natural bent for delegation.

~

Don't worry, I won't be sending you too many stories, not unless they are of the strictest fantasy and promise no moral.

A tale should be like a battery, not a map. There is no map (or mirror) big enough to catch the essence of which it speaks.

The largest map \- a sleeping monk.

I often wonder at the peace that would be born if everyone in the world were to fall asleep at the same time. All equal. God, finally free. Unhindered by description. No religion. One religion. I would be where you are now, at least for a few hours.

It's that time now between the medicine and the rest.

It's not quite still outside and the neighbours are clearing their plates and children. They will all be quiet soon. I could drown them out for now with music or TV but I don't feel like it.

All the words I put down, I say them as I write them. I mouth the words in my mind. I can't hear them but...the thought of the sound. It doesn't affect the ears but it resonates somewhere. In my memory of sounds? In your ears? Do you think we could ever be connected like that? Of course I don't think so. Romantic.

~

Notes: 798

They take that away from me in my sleep. The deck rustles and the thieves betray their whereabouts with roughly hewn accents and shout before the cameras. "Into the cabin, people! Into the cabin if you have any senses – You have no authority here! Inside with you."

I would stay and cry out my poetry as we go under and under. The stars at my window sill. It's a slow drowning. I am not a portal. I am not impressed and nothing has been impressed upon me that I could charge with aught. By my sword I will name thee a great work! By my pen I will name thee poor. Man, carved with love till he is unrecognisable; too delicate to send to hell, too satisfied to want for another kind of heaven. Too far the neither. Up they rout and die well. Their casual waves b'bye making the children laugh but I wonder at their certainty.

I'm all for cardio-metatides; the brain stems sluggish without; the canon of lucid tempasphere and hoarding what is thought to be good. One more invalid file from this treasure trove may lead me to gross circumspection.

The shields are down – we smoked 'em. There's no need to climb mountains any longer; the light is everywhere, but a cold light. The music torn from another time. They're gone now; perhaps forever.

When the body is weak, the third eye can't see. Any action taken now could well jeopardise this mission. Sleep is what I need now. A long, deep sleep.

~

Hottyhammyun's hands are a bit like small white spades. I noticed this after I noticed she had large feet like a dancer's. She was barefoot after kicking her shoes off in the apartment today and I wanted to touch her.

If she wasn't so strict she might be attractive. She wears a cross on a chain.

The government appointed her to me.

~

Sol, there is a song, which when I hear it, when I merely recite the words, it transports me to a place. A place in which the proof of a previous life, an alternate universe, a higher being is unequivocal. This helps.

Did I hear this first during one of the great wars before being shot in the spine - a recurring nightmare.

An old Gershwin number. A simple enough song; haunting all the same. He died the month I was born. One day before in fact. Did he find his other home? I think like that sometimes, Sol. A little metaphysical brevity can't hurt, can it?

They say you can survive in a shuttle quite comfortably. But what does that mean exactly? I have all the comforts and freedoms of home here and I am the most uncomfortable wretch I know. You are strong.

Me, I can't shut myself off except with alcohol. With alcohol I am heroic. A heroic success or a heroic failure, either way alcohol makes one's predicament heroic. The tragedy of both gives drink value. Alcohol reads books with me, watches films with me, eats dinner hungrily, holds me tight and sings me to sleep.

Alcohol brings me back to where I am. Puts me in touch with me, like all art, all symbols, all philosophies. They are all a way back to the here and now. They all work to bring us to the place we started before we constructed all these things we need to explain, break down, communicate, learn or understand in order to return to where we already are.

A winter without words is to see everything in black and white. I surround myself with books. No harm can come to anyone in a library.

~

I read 'Alone' by Admiral Richard Byrd.

~

The dream

It took me four hundred years to get it. Now I got it.

Surfing on the edge of time and space. At the bough of this celestial ship.

First and last man standing.

There are no feelings I should not be feeling right now but for those I'm feeling.

The opaque, blue bubble floating above the surface of the pond.

"If you name it, it will grow. It will stay. If you can just remember its name."

It is my inner joy she speaks of.

I remember and it grows. To the size of a basket ball maybe. It was beautiful to see. I keep whispering the name. Unsure at first but getting more confident as the light golf ball bubble doubles and doubles and I'm floating right in front of it.

There's no looking back now.

I have named you.

~

Note: 799

Those tramps the lake broiled; a god and chef-same man-head. The thought hobbles to its destination unhindered but trepid; unsullied but dull. Creek to cream the claustrophobia to the gelatinous universe bred. Let me shut down properly what was unsaid and that with my cake-fed cheaper one. I promise to keep my hands to myself and my mind on the year that's in it.

In atoms we trust – and in them and of themselves their thisness blackened and the blacken worsened and the worst of it active and the action dark and of no matter. Still we breed, and still the fear, still the fear, for a heartbeat, lonely senior, Myrninera junior, no janitor. I'll keep you and I'll breed you. The cause we die for is the effect we should have cherished. Cherished enough to research a little; cherished enough to question; cherished enough to answer back, "You said it first!", "No, you did!", "No, you did!", "No, you did!"

Only a five minute calm. Enough time for the intestines to settle for less. There was no password today. None was asked for. And in vein the day petered out. You gotta have a password.

Two novels and a stupid hand job. A pony tail at the sink and a thousand foot stare. A short walk off a long pier and a hand-me-down helmet from a dead tobogganist. Zog zag. Nothing artificial about our conversations except for the words we used. Everything artificial about literature except for the words. Artificiality is as genuine as memory and memory exists only as an excuse to ignore the thingliness of things. Divine entertainment. St killjoy bent over backwards and impregnated. Makes us think we know what to do in any given situation when no two situations are ever the same. To live the best of moments again as if for the first time. The love of the moment; this new, fresh, bright, shining moment, but then the cloud appears and it crashes down on you, crushes down on you for months at a time and it pummels you into a hyperventilating, dizzy train wreck. There is no beauty here. Beauty loses all of its meaning under the tacky paper weight stops the pages and pages from being scooped up by the winds of doubt and tossed into your tear stained sheets.

How would it feel to burn all the books and cry for our loss. To start anew.

~

Sol, do you feel better in silence or do you feel the frustration? Are you a little glad that you cannot reply to me or are there things you must say? Is there something I should know? Something more than just knowing that you are there. There is nothing I could say that matches the way I feel when I think of you out there all alone.

I dreamed I cried last night. I was lying in bed and I was crying into the arms of a woman and behind the woman was a girl and the girl understood me and fell deeply in love the second she saw my lips begin to tremble. I buried my head into the breast of the woman. She comforted me and I felt the girl watching and loving and it felt good to cry. It felt honest.

~

Did she ever sit down, I wonder, and forget all the religious texts and try to figure it out for herself? The people who wrote the texts did.

'They recorded what was said by people who God spoke to,' Hottyhamyun said.

'That or they made things up,' I said.

~

Note: 667

God speaks through us all. We are the expression of God. We cannot express God.

~

One quickly finds that one's own conclusions match those of the greatest minds. One also concludes that prayers, rituals and magnificently expensive buildings add nothing to our knowledge or our desire to praise life itself. The church is pure politics. That which we create 'in the name of God' is an abomination. We ourselves are the conduit for good feelings and righteous deeds.

~

I closed the doors on people so I wouldn't have to talk to them and here I am alone and talking and talking.

They say you could fly for another million light years before bumping into something. I feel a bit like that; only instead of being stuck inside a spaceship, I'm stuck with this infernal internal dialogue with very little hope of ever bumping into something solid.

Tonight I don't feel like you are apart from me. Tonight we are in the hull of the same ship. Yes. That door is a door like any other. We keep afloat and move from one place to the next. The slow walk down the hall – filling in time. The time in the wait. I cry like a child that dreams of more time. A cameraman trying to catch the best angle of a terrible situation – make it look good. Good enough so the moment doesn't make you gag. The director has poisoned us all. Every scene. Who is adding the subtitles to this silent movie? Are you shaving? What part of vanity have you discovered which you could call salvation?

And if I chose this room for twenty more years, and I lived within these walls. Is there more to see outside this street, this town, this country, this universe? What more is there?

We trust the first person narrator – the film's protagonist, the novel's hero. We trust them to be good. And if they are bad, then we trust them to be good at being bad.

I had been painting tributes to other people's achievements.

~

He left the building quietly today and I wouldn't have noticed him at all if I hadn't been drawn to the window by children's laughter. I could see him, if I leaned out of the window, walking down the street in his slippers with one trouser leg hitched up over his knee. There didn't seem to be any reason for this and it amused the children. There is something familiar about his gait.

~

Hottyhammyun tells me it is selfish writing to you the way I do, when it is you who are in the compromised position.

She's wrong. You know she's wrong. You see, the more I write, the less I am myself. The more I tell you, the more of everyone else I can become. Every word is a reduction as much as it is an addition. You do see that don't you? I am not the weight of these words. Alone I could not bear them. We are the culmination of a literary big bang and as with the universe, under its own weight, it must one day implode. Until then, this infinity of possibilities only promises to make sense with the aid of these symbols. We function like a rupture in perfection and blame ourselves for splintering time and space with our con-fusion.

I cling to this, and to you, Sol, and in the silence these words make me feel brave. If only you would respond, perhaps I could sleep.

I barely know the time of day. I have slept through so many of them it really doesn't matter when I rest or rise. The more I try to loosen up and let myself go with the whirlpool, the more it disgusts me that I am behaving this way. Do you have alcohol out there? They say you don't but then how can you stand it? Alcohol is the intelligent person's choice. Sobriety is nothing more than a brain cluttered with social trends and confusion. Drink brings me closer to the planet. Gives me a love of the immediate and the untamed. Unfettered aggression and dreams set to wing. Alcohol helps me match my acquaintances and be detached from them at the same time. Alcohol always allowed me to meditate on the quietest hillside whilst talking in the midst of a crowd of people.

It is in the second bottle of wine I find my strength to smile, or at least smirk at the absurdity of it all. But it is also in the second bottle that I begin to really love my ship like a womb. For a few hours I am blanketed by genius – the books I own, the films I see, the music I listen to and in those half drunken instants I can relate and I can enjoy and I can judge the things in my world which I believe to be great. I can converse with the people who created these spectacular things. So close it feels like it was me myself who created them. And when I think this way, I get it. The human race – The philosophy of history. The brief moments in eternity when a thought is made flesh and the monster is set out crawling; its grubby fingers scrabbling at the dry earth till it shines back at the stars which bore it. The artist's dream; to outdo the Mother. The artist's reality; to lay weeping in her arms.

~

I dreamt that all the planets were in alignment.

~

I saw the slightest glimmer of light today. Not in the sky but in the moment. A fissure in this persistant miserableness. It came with an alarm. Sol, I have been setting my alarm for two weeks now in the hope that it would bring me somehow closer to you. I am convinced that you do plan your time; to keep above water. I don't have the mental powers necessary to ignore time completely yet. I glower at the alarm clock when it wakes me and usually curse the day. But not this morning; this morning I stopped myself. "It has never been this seven o'clock before. This one is a new one." I thought. "In fact it is not even seven o'clock." This time has never been. For what on earth can be done 'again'? Even this planet, this galaxy is never in the same spot twice. And you. Pushing on out of the sun's influence. You are breaking untouched ground every second. We all are.

"This has never happened before." Hung up on the 'idea' of a Mon-day, a Tues-day...

We are the first to do everything. We surf on the tide of time and space, and for a few precious hours I was balancing like that, lifting higher and higher...

This 'light' I saw lasted till I had finished my breakfast. The thought of course is still buzzing in the forefront of my mind but the feeling of it; that has faded. That formless joy which teased me with its foamy whiteness.

Everything is new under the sun, around the sun, a trillion miles from the sun. This leaf, this rain, this thought. Thoughts changing to match newer feelings.

But I still cannot trust my gut instincts; not when they change so quickly.

~

Note: 999

The soft shoe blonde and white of a foxhole come cornucopia. There end and rake the Zen garden of endless pebbles and ramifications. I chose you above all the rest. Some poor blue soul, eye-wailed into a sleepless puissance. I ate, I ate and I ate. She's got blisters from those new shoes. New blisters. Her hurting feet massaged until she is reminded that they too are new. Ten percent of a thought cut bare for the likelihood and aim rightly. GONG! Give all you hardly save you have and skip the die a week you date. House proud and sailing I keep clean and eat and I eat. Grown same I crow and wheat the arches through which I follow my future selves will having been. My foot an old foot and pressed born. You did write the book. We did write the book. Hemmed in on all sides by direction. A peace march on the spot. The tramp tramp of an air traffic jam – circle and fall, circle and fall. Your warm hands on the cauldron's lid and pray for multiplication; one woman not enough, one tear not enough, one answer not enough. Forgetfulness the one true pride and the chance to see your home again. Afresh.

My memory is so weak...

'They' did this to me.

~

I don't have to steer this ship. It moves without my help, like my love for you. Sol, this should all be so effortless, so why does it pain me so? I am like an infant crying its bloody heart out and for no sodding reason. Am I not well provided for? I am travelling through time and space and I am the creator. Not travelling. No time. No space. These days, weeks, months by my design exist the way they do. Why can I not allow myself to be more flamboyant with my whims? Can this depression be put down to an innate laziness or is someone or something taking the upper hand here sweeping away all vestiges of happy surprise?

~

He is familiar. I attempted a face recognition scan but nothing. They mistook him for Elpsis.

~

2 – Acceptance

My soul finds solace in the thought of you sleeping. I however have begun to fear sleep since it is becoming a preferable refuge to a sober consciousness. There has to be some benefit to being awake other than having the wherewithal to open another bottle of wine. To see the sun? For what?

Do you think less of us now we are so tiny?

Our thoughts and dreams are no larger close up. To be face to face with God (as was Moses) would not help me understand him any clearer. I might strike him with greater accuracy but I would be no closer to understanding his ways.

I know what you are thinking, Sol.

"What?"

You are thinking of nothing.

"Why do you say that?"

You remember the Sufi you visited? And he told you that you were not in touch with your own higher self and there was nothing he could do for you. He asked you if you had felt something during your consultation. You told him, 'No, nothing'.

"That was different."

What is different?

"That was a long time ago. Another life."

Have you found something to feel?

"I cannot say."

So you have found nothing new?

"I cannot say."

And so to silence we turn abashed and chastised by the nameless subject. Unchristened it hides in the shadows of the badly decorated halls of our blind conscience. We, the gullible students to an absentee professor who prefers to spend his days inebriated in the local cafes; a cigarette in one eye and a drink in the other. And once or twice a semester, to remind us of his lurking, unruly presence, he springs a test on us; a quiz the size of a deities hangover. What did you see more than this ocean of alcohol, more than these clouds of smoke; did you find anything at all? I was lucky this year, only two billion drop outs.

I match the page colour to the colour of the font and continue typing. That doesn't help at all.

I beat my heart; it does not beat itself.

A self flaggelating Dionysis.

I am desirous of nothing. The goal of the Buddhist; to be above, beyond, beside desire. And this makes me sad. What part of me is still fighting? I cannot shut it down. There is one last thread somewhere tying me to the old life, to the old ways. Is it the desire to be happy? How will I recognise the peace I find if it does not make me happy? Maybe it is 'perspective' I am clinging to. But without perspective...

My perspective may be an outdated perspective. One which applies depth, weight, size and distance to all concepts and natural phenomena. Maybe I am afraid of enlightenment. I fear that it might stop my heart dead. Anaphalactic shock at the underwhelming simplicity of it all. Its profound lack of depth.

On the surface it appears that there are two ways of looking at this. The positive way and the negative way but I know this to be untrue. I only 'feel' that this is the case. I know there can only be one way to look at all this because there is only one way. The heart and the mind set up our different realities and these we can manipulate; like inventing rules for a game. But the place we are at; the place where we make these rules is unchanging. To be here is to stop thinking about here. It can be analysed but it cannot be changed.

~

Note: 777

The sun read me read the moon – a bow fingered critic. The half hard of a layman's day pulsating slowlier than a backwards war cry.

'She the beautiful one we saw at the fountain. She rolls down the hill with the answer bumping out of her every six feet; winded but persistent she levitates above the caramelised grasses and counts butterflies in reverse.

The shock of the delay of the shock lasts but never takes hold. Therein lies the unsettling march of the grazing Friesian.

Soporific; the toilet tissue we are written on. Useful however, like a disco for trilobytes or a Trabant full of effluvium.

And as we regard the pig to its slaughter, on and on she rolls down that hill till her ribs are but poems of the way we wished it to be. Turquoise.

~

Perhaps if I could just prove to teenagers that cleaning the dishes for their parents after a meal is infinitely more important that the punishingly vague 'grand scheme of things' young philosophers recognise as their measure of perspective, maybe then my work will be done.

~

My neighbour has taken to painting his face blue and going out like that. He's making fun. I looked for his name on the letter boxes. I think he is Romanian. His surname Dobra. I do not recognise it. Mr Dobra. At the very least I can say I have named him!

~

The darkness is back. The rain has begun. I am being put to the test. If everyone were to be laid up like me, thinking, how can that make this a better world? Are the Trappists doing a better job than I? I have been helped in this life, my parents, my teachers, my friends and for what? For this questioning, slothful existence?

What If I help others and they reach that comforting realization of who they are and what the world means to them? Is it okay if they just sit back and count themselves out of the game? What does 'intellectuall success' look like?

What does the other side of this revolution look like?

What will it look like when we have freedom of speech AND action.

You see, Sol, I've lost it; that spark; that glimpse of the light. It ignited and this rain has extinguished the small fire I had nurtured in my soul. Fzzt.

So I did not put my words into actions.

No, I haven't started doing yoga. I haven't been out there and helped those less fortunate than myself. I haven't begun to eat healthier. I haven't stopped drinking so much. So what!? If I do get into shape and help others and wash away all the sins that being selfish has muddied me with, then what? Aren't I bound then to putting somebody into that wonderfully confident and supine position of allowing themselves to be just as much of a bum as myself? Do the people I help become helpers and if so, what happens when all are 'well'? When there is no one left to help? Will the self serving religions of evil finally find a home in our hearts and win out over altruism. Back to square one. Or we gradually begin to help ourselves again. Same thing. A satanic bacchanal country to country, planet to planet. Perfectly reasonable creatures become barbaric with understanding. I scratch my balls, I feed myself, I watch a movie, read a book, I drink, I shag and I sleep.

"People will always need help," Hottyhamyun said.

"Well we can only hope so!" I said.

~

Two weeks ago only I had the answer on the tip of my tongue and it was blown away in this pissy wind. That light that I saw now covered in calm, steady clouds of doubt. I dream of you with other men; I dream of waking up to find my belongings being stolen by hapless morons; I dream of atoms and bones and the brittle make up of the universe and watch it cracking up and falling apart.

Hottyhammyun told me, 'You can't change what isn't broke.'

She was talking about nature. The whole cycle of nature and the universe, copulation, birth, life, death. Whether or not it is all one there are still the wheels of life turning at every unabstracted point in this galaxy and we are a part of that machine. Whether actus purus or causa sui we 'are'.

Our purpose is to continue being.

There is a limit to what I can know, but my reasoning was not self taught. There are things we comprehend a priori so one must ask oneself why these eyes and not another's? Every other's.

I know that in this line of discussion lies madness. A hysterical drunk going off on one after mishearing something someone has said when in fact they were agreeing with them, and on they rant getting angrier and angrier.

There is something and nothing and that seems to be the best we can say.

But wait. I am using the term 'we' like this multiplicity is a given.

As a child I had a hunch that I was the only human thinking and that when I closed my eyes everything and everyone else was only a part of my imagination and therefore had no substance, no thisness.

It was rewarding to eventually discover that there existed a number of philosophers who pursued this notion of solipsism and gained recognition for doing so.

The apparent problem with solipsism and the conditions of causa sui (that we are the cause of ourselves, or to be more precise I am the cause of myself) is that the ethical choices we make are based on our own physical, psychical discomforts and are therefore utterly selfish. Having said that, this would make God (should there be such a first cause) unarguably 'selfish' too. He himself would need an 'other' in order not to be selfish and that of course is a cosmological impossibility.

Altruistic acts in and of themselves are selfish because doing good makes one less uncomfortable. A common enough deduction, but not necessarily wrong for being so.

Researchers at the University of St Andrews were quoted as saying "It's quite possible that we are alone in the universe. And think of the implications of that: if we are alone in the universe then the whole purpose in the universe is in us." A solipsist world psyche. How arrogant we would become.

If we take away the not knowing and declare ourselves the self creator of all things created then surely boredom would win out and destroy our self worth. For there to be 'chance' in our world there must be either one of two things; forgetfulness or otherness. Chance and ignorance are our only hope for an interesting life, but the desire to be wise is within our grasp. Which would we choose? The idiot's adventure or the guru's sanctuary? Can I do both?

You did.

And I look from my window at the torrential downpour and I tell myself, 'I did not do this. This was nothing to do with me.'

Conceptually speaking, wasting time should be an impossibility. However this lingering agnosticism, this torturous ambiguity has me faltering even after I have spent so many words attempting to convince myself that there is no duality here, only this. One scrap of reassurance that this is enough, that this 'means' something would appease my melancholic disposition. And these words of kindness must come from who? Hottyhammyun? You? Myself? Or is this the exact obstacle I have been trying to overcome; that there are no words of kindness, of reassurance because all of these stupid questions of mine are formless in a formless universe which answers to no one.

I fear that I am wasting my time. This is an awful feeling. I have begun to worry that every action however meaningful it may seem to me, is groundless and ultimately unappreciated. That I should want to be appreciated at all is itself awful.

I know that there are probably people out there who could help me to relax, to be quiet within myself but I want to get there alone, Sol.

~

There is a distinction between what can be written and what can be communicated face to face. So far I have depended on mirrors and literature. Why shouldn't I go out and find someone to help me? Someone to agree with, disagree with, share ideas with and learn from.

Three words from you now would mean the world to me but to be with you again....I am trying.

~

Hottyhammyun was here today. I had to let her in. She asked me why I had sealed off the bedroom. I know that she has seen a lot of strange stuff in her life. She was understanding. She offered to make me something to eat. I must look hungry. She compared me unfavourably to Mr Dobra. "Except he has friends," she said.

What friends?

I will lock the doors again and see no one for as long as I can hold out. This might be more of a whim than an experiment but I do not want to waste this mood. I almost fell in love with the world yesterday. I must stay strong. Stay put. Do as Descartes did until he came up with his own 'Infallible truth'. Yesterday I definitely felt something akin to 'faith', 'light', 'love', 'empathy'. I refuse to let that feeling elude me so easily and so frequently when it should be on fucking tap. I had reached a certain point (returned to a certain point) through sober contemplation. It can be done again.

~

Note: 1052

So and that a hexagram twister, the floods, the floods and the Druids. An old wreck room of relics and Hubble. The newer the con-soul the older it gets and younger so the con-trolls. A real monster creeping through the corridors of the liquid linguistic armistice. A sovereign and a protector of the helm. That's focal and you're full of dark stuff; even the androids won't ask. It looks a bit like a brain and it eats people. I know you've made that mistake before. It's an eternal loop and the place stays the same as before. What are you? A child of mulch? A Golem? A big mouth with red eyes and you're floating down the river faster than one-faster every zillionth of a second for infinity, but you can watch it because it's no quicker than the time it takes not to move.

There once was an ummany mumphrey with tethers. I woulda stood back but I never and I'll only the best I should. Two is one dipped in glue but the glue makes two. One implying 'more than', 'less than' or 'other'. This solitary kind of judgement is perfection too sweet even for the hardiest philanthropic philanthropist or criminal criminal.

Hunger. Greed. The birth of more-than-one. This for me this for me this for me infinitely.

~

Mr Dobra passed by my door particularly early this morning and I distinctly heard him humming the Mary Poppins tune, 'A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down'. I laughed and considered that a good start to the day.

~

Note: 2030

Carcinogenic lip lays and chests full of naked women. The atomic powered cigarillo maiden wait rose tension wine ban.

Umgelt, zeitgeist and happen-stain. I clear the path for your entrance portsidefoliolio. Grade. Links. Walls to be built and no more floors to be torn from us. I shall request Bach, Bach, Beethoven then Bach, square then drop. And iron. On my haunches but with a stomach ache, the effect is neither nor and conveys little of the pounce I delay. He is harmless who pitches a history, doleful who peddles a song, Samual lessons a panoply, hateful prerequisite nursery pump. Protected then stubbed out; all-in the singer plagues.

"I heard you from outside. S'why we came in. You going on till late?"

"Last."

"I said you would."

I cannot find the will to blow it. It all seems too important.

Screw Conan the Grey-beard. 'Cept that the barbed feeling is innevitable. You are a sticky seminar. There in the moonlit field I hold the glass bell and lists. A light fall of rain ticks the domains of experience that can or cannot be talked about. A chronic desire to leave out the essential. I smash the bell and catch hell from the likes of a tailor; a shoe-shine boy, or is this even the right place to put it?

There's humour in the rivulet of anachronistic reviews left out and gone cold on the harbor. Confuse-a-cat LTD to the rescue; in order to snap you out of your stupor you could well do with a bit of confusing. T'aint healthy to knowitall. T'aint at all. A Craig start and failed wall. A firewall. And......it moved!

Let us stretch.

~

Said I to myself said I.

I open the window and I am in town. The town is in the room now. In my ship. This is not so bad. I stand aside and watch the sounds of the street tip toe in cautiously; take a look around, take a few tentative steps inside – fully inside now. Filling the corners of the room with a larger energy than my feeble mind could afford them. The rain clouds I trust. The bird song I trust. The traffic comes and goes like waves on a beach. I picture the second half of the game and the referee is wearing shorts and sunglasses – he smells of sun cream and work does not offend him. He is the referee. He is not playing the game. He does not need to try. It is as it is and he makes certain things remain just as they should be. We can trust him, even though he is wearing sky blue deck shoes, we can trust him. He doesn't change his mind ever, and whether we agree with him or not we will accept his decision in the end. We can save ourselves a lot of trouble by not questioning his decisions. It might mean something or it might not, either way, I can picture his deck shoes perfectly.

When the cold, all round and rude, squeezes itself into the room, curious where all the sound has gone, I close the window in its pusillanimous mush.

I move to the rear of the ship. I have more than enough space. I make myself a cup of black tea and make believe I am waiting on a visitor.

I have trimmed my ear and nose hair. I have tucked my shirt into my trousers; turned the radio on to Classic FM and I am rehearsing our conversation. All is going well until the hours pass way beyond the visitor's expected time of arrival and it's too late. I am drunk now so they had better not come.

~

I consider the importance of physical exercise. I consider our hundreds and thousands of replacements. And I consider the importance of a project. The importance of a dead line. A 'dead' line. Birthdays. A means of getting used to dying. All ideas aren't bad.

"I don't like books or art works which need to be explained," Hottyhamyun said.

I judged Hottyhammyun for this.

I feel bad for judging her. I ask myself now, in this state, who am I to judge, when I am equally displeased, repulsed even, by the redundant explanations I have found; after spending my life in search of answers to an existence which is far less complicated than any hollywood rom-com or painting of a horse in a field.

~

I make a mental note that the flat, inspirationless moods which drop upon me lead me to believe I am depressed when in fact it is either biological or it is down to some erroneous belief that I might fail in the eyes of others. I can deal with both of these things by changing my diet and exercising, or else stopping worrying about what others think and how others measure success. To be accepted as an artist was all I ever wanted. The fear of not making Kredit almost crippled me, mentally and emotionally. My fear of others.

I have decided to start my own party of one and if people wish to come join me and taste the wine they are welcome, but I am sick and tired of being lead from horrible tea party to horrible tea party like a mongrel on a leash. I am digging up the bones I have been hiding in the garden and I am tucking in.

I confide in him, I confide in her. Same words; different confidence. Confidents.

~

A universal vow of silence? No explanations necessary. Like I said, this is what would happen if everyone were to fall asleep at the same time. To be in a state where we do not allow our fleeting thoughts to take a foothold and remain with us for longer than a moment.

Is that not death?

Comatose.

Keep talking to me, Sol.

Please keep talking to me.

I do not want to fall asleep.

Not ever.

I hate myself.

I hate myself most when I try to be 'good'.

And it's you I think of.

What do you care what anyone thinks.

~

I was unfair to Hottyhammyun and blamed her for being closed minded and impatient when confronted with anything remotely philosophical, poetic or difficult to comprehend. What possesses me to say something so cold to a person who projects nothing but warmth and patience towards me?

I will make up for my unruly behaviour when she next visits. I will save our religious talk for another time.

~

I am quieter with other people than I am with myself.

I ignore myself for a spell and I take a long look and I see a family passing. I have seen them before. The same people on their way to work, to school, on their way home from work and my first thought is of the beast we call repetition. And I stop myself. I remember; 'This moment has never happened before.' And I begin to wonder what has changed for these people in the last twelve hours.

New labels.

That girl, the one who always stands there at about this time for her lift – just five hours ago perhaps she found out she is pregnant. Her life changed. That one, leaning on the wall - her boyfriend left her this morning. Just up and decided to leave the country after watching a documentary last night about Mauritius, after reading a book about finding oneself. Yesterday her anger was reserved for my delightful neighbour who barged into her while she was messaging. Forgotten now.

That old one there, on her way to the corner shop for pet food – she is now a grandmother. She wasn't yesterday but she is now.

That's a different person down there to the one I think I see every day. They all are. Right down to the kid on the bike who does not feel nearly as frantic as she did yesterday because she does not have to do a school test today.

Despite the visual echo, that street is a completely different street to the one I gazed at so apathetically yesterday.

~

He threw water from his window onto a boy below who was smoking on his balcony. The kid was clearly surprised. He shouted up at my neighbour, "What the fuck!" but showed no sign of coming upstairs to confront him. I think Mr Dobra hit the cigarette. The kid stopped smoking it.

~

1...2...3...

I returned everything after the fight. I picked up the rubbish they left behind and took it the next day to their warehouse. They were testing toys (Star Wars toys) and they were demolishing a painstakingly constructed matchstick house which they knew to be mine. The joke was on them because I had long stopped caring about it. I had even forgotten about it and had to ask myself what it was they were breaking apart and why they should be looking so pleased with themselves for doing it. The manager spied me and went ape. But I explained that it was his crowd who started the fight by throwing cricket balls at my family. He understood and even laughed when I recounted the events of the day. He led me out into the street right under the noses of his disgruntled workers, each and every one of them baying for my blood, and I was free.

~

It's a Sunday. I don't know what is happening anywhwere in the world but here. I have had no phone calls. I assume they have stopped pestering me since I never answer their questions. I do believe it is important to know what is going on in the world if I plan to be a part of society but at this moment in my life...

A sudden outbreak of war might be easier to deal with without forewarning – Might save months of stomach ulcers and panic planning. One day there's a knock at the door, "To arms, man!" or "Surrender!" Either way the truth of the moment would not be sullied by expectation. I may even surprise myself and refuse either one of those instructions on the grounds that it is an 'order'. Or crumble and agree to both. Better to wait and see. I think I would prefer not to have the time to rationalise myself into cowardice. Neither the type of cowardice that makes us a conscientious objector nor the type of cowardice that makes a soldier of us.

The lack of law on your ship fascinates me. It would still be against the law for me to refuse to fight in this imaginary war of mine but for you...you are free. The freest person who ever lived. But this freedom of yours is defined by your restrictions. I suppose to consider you free is to consider the prisoner in his cell 'free'. One is free when one is alone. Two is not free.

I cannot equate remoteness with freedom, otherwise freedom has no meaning. We are remote from a metaphysical solution to existential concerns and because of this none of us are free. We are trapped in this 'world' as soon as we become conscious entities. There is no freedom we can imagine that is stronger than 'Acceptance'. Acceptance of a structure, a cause and an effect, a master and a servant. The only true freedom is in death and even in that we are not sure. You are trapped and you are free. I am free and I am trapped. We cannot make right choices, we can merely avoid wrong ones. In that way we scramble up this rocky mountain, this spitting volcano, looking for a decent ledge amongst the scree which will hold firm. Firm enough for us to reach the next step. Keep us from slipping into the molten lava of despair and when we arrive at the top, what then? Probably nothing more than a rare photo opportunity. All that effort for a snapshot. A souvenir of enlightenment. Afraid that we might be ushered out of Nirvana without having grabbed a postcard or something to remember it by. The great fear in letting ourselves go – that there will be no gift shop.

You and your boys have sent us so many photos. Close ups of planets our people used to think were candles in the sky or holes in the roof of our firmament. Billion dollar keepsakes from the heavens.

~

I woke up today and it was raining hard.

~

You were laughing in your sleep...

Note: 70050

Let me hold you while Charlie is feeling bad – the paper smoothlier than the English language jazzified like the future puma jazz or homphoned like Hottyhammyun-phone. No, I really sourced this from pop to bee, then bop to cool, man.

"Don't say it, sing it."

Ace space and prime time the top floor lighter than the other floors but with a view of Niagara like nobody has, not even the supreme leader, Himinabunkr, citing references to Jack Nietzsche in the perpetual knock kneed elephant punchline – Pyjamas!

There is no time like the present.

There is no time like the present.

The alarm goes off. Hottyhammyun lets herself out.

~

Give the art student a subject to paint – any subject – they will try to show all that they are able to show in that one picture. If anybody wishes to do good, they should choose one subject in which to concentrate their time and the rest will follow.

If I wish to live well, I must start small. Put all of myself into my actions.

A child's painting of a smily face. An amateur's watercolour of a landscape. A tone deaf rendition of "Happy Birthday". The subject matter (the muse) great, not only in its unjudgemental kindness to its interpreter, but also in its unshakeable, unbreakable simplicity. Happiness, nature and music – a cause and effect of its own. Something we can all get right.

~

I look at my bookshelf and the books I want to re-read, to remember, to learn and I stop myself. Stop and try to recall the reason I like the book in the first place. What did I learn from the book? What can I remember? If I read it again will I soon be sitting in front of my library having forgotten what it was I already know. And so I sat and I chose books and I tried to call them to mind. What good all these words if I am not able to pass them on to myself and others without the book itself at my disposal.

The question then crossed my mind. What if I found a civilisation out there less advanced than ours and they asked me for help? Me alone. In what way could I help them? I can tell them about our phones, electricity, computers etc but I would not have the first clue about showing them how to build these things. I then realised I would have difficulty even making fire.

Recollection of philosophies of art, life, literature, drama, music. What good would I be to a people willing to better themselves as a society and as individuals? My instinct tells me I would rather forget I ever had anything to do with my planet and join the Neanderthals in their ignorant reverie.

Would I join the think-tanks of those pre-societal societies or make damn sure I was good at sport and wouldn't have to concern myself with such matters.

My instinct tells me to leave the organisation of government to the women. Leave men to make babies, perform manual labour and play their games. We turn it all into a game anyhow and its that desire to turn it all into a game that behoves us to proffer 'woman' as referee. They only appear unreasonable to us men because they consider the outcomes before they indulge in the pleasures. Just what this planet needs.

I may paint again. For Mr Dobra and all who sail in him. Why not.

~

Misery a comfort, plus the time alone. Time needed to sulk oneself into becoming an abstract artist of real calibre.

Self reflection is objective reflection.

Three white doves and one gray. There on the rooftop opposite,

There were four white ones yesterday.

Less crowded. Less beauty. My mistake.

Can three white doves be less beautiful than four?

I watch people I do not know walk by in the street and let them disappear from my life without a second thought.

I latch on to one thought of my own and I cannot let it go. It will eat at me until I can name it.

"Stranger."

~

Note: 3333

You and Dr Who's army? Scaling the heights, and weights and preposterous dates. Them's a coal mine and heave a blanket face. Ribbed of wingspan and plucked mirthful relay; pluck horror blesk the lightning trials. Uncomfortably numb. Hecubus remade into a tall bin and soggy wet tissues for pillows and lady birds. A pointing goatee to his friend is happier. The jeans and buckle of the bench-same occupancy, limp for him but gray but wholesale architect. You climb the toll, the angel's bell and coo. One floor and the kredit asunder, two floor and the waitress parts, three floor and the lip wrongens, the clock tower and are trumpet bronze. "Cash it in creepo; there's none more where that came from."

He and she and her and the reader, none of whom genuflect or bring to attention poonfold the camel appendages medium rare on the windular staircase. One Hussite – abless you. Two Hussites – apillow. That pillow. A trail of electricity's memory 37 hours after you are dead hovers around the head. Do you still feel us? Does the sun's history still delight you the way it used to? Those Tuesday mornings. You leave and still my stay. There's no charge in the park. Her hips are peculiar. I will it this way, I eat once a day. There's nothing you could tell me about God which I don't already know. That's just how it is and I'm telling you not to bother.

From my window I soak up that sun. A child poses for a photograph. Her father squatting in the street with a camera the length of his daughter's legs. It's the mother who imposes the pose on the child. The little girl couldn't care a jot what's going on in front of her. The photo is taken of mother and daughter. On they move. She has already forgotten. She must concentrate on balancing. Walking so far. This is new to her. The furthest they have walked ever. This is a big day but she will not remember this day. She will not remember the day but she will never forget how to walk. One day she will see a photograph of a young woman who resembles slightly the older woman she lives with and there in front of the young woman being held up by both tiny hands a complete stranger.

~

3 – Acceptance

I write nothing but my letters to you. This I will not deny myself, for whilst writing to you I permit the thoughts which occupy me in spite of my diligent dismissal of them as valueless and ill. I hang on to the 'noise' with your help and only in sickness am I too weak to be silenced. I was once uncommonly good at ridding myself of discomforts and applying myself to the moment with childlike veracity, or age old calm. So wherefore the frustration? Perhaps it is not me who I cannot let go. But you.

How can I accuse you of being an enabler, just because you exist? I apologise for the suggestion.

I regret everything and so I burden you with these words in the vain hope that I will be forgiven and in turn be able to forgive myself. I will bless myself with an everlasting mantra which I will whisper once, in the dark, in the day time and in my sleep to protect me against the demons of rationality.

The guns are quiet now but I am not.

Struggling with our notions of safety. Our loss of safety. Is it the womb I miss?

We should not be afraid of losing our loved ones. It is a damaging fear which damns us to a tepid, toe dipping, frugal approach to the only thing we can trust.

Life.

To wipe all the miserable naysayers from my brain, delete, delete, delete. Stroll confidently onwards towards a healthier happier future in which I take responsibility for my actions, and my feelings.

The simplest decisions forgotten. To live here. To tolerate that. To eat this way. To drink so much. We are to blame for most of our discomforts. At least, that is, most of us who have the strength to change our situation when it weighs too heavily on us.

~

Note: XXXX

There and here the tea burn and back crimple of gapless wonderment. There and here is an outside but not a wall and the electricity sparks – both inside and outside, depending on which side you are on. Whether she listens or not I am far detached from the sounds I made. To her ears she appears but to her eyes she lies. You can no more look in 'em than you can jump over your knees, and what knees! The sun is a griffin, the tea – phoenix piss. I will sweat out the bolts you drilled into me at school and one robot lighter begin to pray in earnest. Rollerblading once more over Alhambre – a diet memory in jumbled sequence. The actor gets to choose now he has become so much bigger than the films. Playback under the shadow of a cafe window capital. A and a capital R. I would choose a name at random also but there is nothing random in choice. Alex Rodriguez, Arnold Rimmer, Aaron Rogers, A Reptile. I blame the 'Heinz' in 'Sweetheart'. The shade has its benefits too and nowhere like a holiday do we have the kredit to make a 'movie' movie. Movie because the pictures move. Silly word really. To say the pictures are movey.

~

Hottyhammyun has begun to call Mr Dobra 'Rucksack Jack'.

"Rucksack Jack; he's been around the world and back." Having seen him scurrying in and out of his apartment with an old, navy coloured back pack she says that he is a traveller who has seen everything but has been impressed by none of it. I think she is wrong. I think he was so utterly amazed by this experience that he did himself in with the sheer beauty of it all. Like the man who has been to the moon and from there on in compares everything unfavorably to that life changing event.

I think he's probably a nice person but his heart's in the wrong place.

~

"It's chemical," Hottyhammyun tells me, "I'm sure it's all chemical." Right food, enough rest, good company.

I wake but I don't open my eyes – there is perfect order –

I don't care for the projections I will encounter when I open my eyes: my thoughts – sounds – feelings – I am calm and I do not want to disrupt this delightful moment. There is the hint of a plan knocking at the door of my mind and I ignore it. I stay strong. I do not need to think about this day, this afternoon, not yet. I stay strong. I stay afloat, lying on the surface of the salt sea gazing at the azure sky. As in a dream when you are flying and the very thought of flying is enough to bring you to the ground until you let yourself go. Let the thought go. "Let the thought go," I tell myself, yet I still I wish to name you.

In the dream which brought me here I struggle with the desire to be silent – why do you stay quiet if you feel there is something to share? – some piece of important knowledge to impart – A doctor would not be so selfish.

I refuse a job; in the dream. A Spanish boy offers me the chance to edit his three hundred page biography of a wealthy nineteenth century socialite. There is a painting of her reclining in her finery on a chaise lounge on the cover. He mentions nothing of the kredit and I refuse to help.

I keep my eyes closed tight. If I remained like this, thoughtless, how far would it be to my detriment? Not too far I believe. Let the war come to me. Good news the same. I do not need to look for either this morning. Should they arrive, I will be ready. I will not sit awake all night watching my alarm clock waiting. Time will not fail me and I will not fail myself.

I wonder do the birds calling in the trees in the courtyard take a moment to ponder their condition before they open their eyes to the world. When you begin to fear failure, rest and remember there can be no failure. It is too late for failure.

In the dream I decided to become an actor and the relief was tremendous. It resonates still. I ask if they can't give me a long monologue to practice.

I still want for no outer projections. The outside world; the appearance of things is a tool I can manipulate as I will it.

No matter what anyone else says or does they are out of time. Our fears and belief in failure are an invention. Our parents, our spouses, our colleagues, our friends become sources of our fears and they are all out of time. It is to these things I must address myself in the bravest manner or else dismiss them altogether, whichever causes the least discomfort.

(Happiness proportionate to levels of discomfort.)

Follow yourself and don't forget to rest and when you get to the age of the people you used to look to for answers you should discover within yourself a most handsomely bound encyclopaedia of good will.

~

That light feeling I had lasted till about six a.m. and then I became tight-chested; found it difficult to breathe. Had I been overwhelmed by this sudden euphoria? I tried to concentrate on inhalation, exhalation, the fresh spring air. The fine spring air which has finally decided to drop on the city. My chest became tighter, the fear more acute. I became aware that grasping the importance of being here now and seeing the world as new, had a transitory value only. Unless this understanding of the way things are becomes second nature, I am doomed to return to this miserable state of groundless anxiety. If only the anxiety could stand on its own. If only it could forget its need of a master to name it.

Oh to be inspired. Not inspired 'to do' something, but simply to be inspired.

I stare at the television. My window closed, the streets disappeared, the room disappeared; only the actors left breathing.

I leave the house. It is very early. The sun is rising into the clear blue sky. Dawn's jealous chill still lingers in the street. I see a couple ahead tagging each other, playing and then they hug. I feel an instant, unfounded animosity towards them. As I get closer I notice the girl is unhappy. The boy has been trying to raise her spirits with his games and tried to hug her to ease the build up of tension. She is angry with him and she pushes herself from his arms and I hear her say "I do not understand you!" I am relieved. This single moment lifts me and I am able to visit the corner shop and walk home bathing in schadenfreude.

I pass a woman on the stairway wearing a t-shirt which I mis-read. I thought it read 'Every sensation is a revolution.' - It actually read "Every generation needs a revolution." How many moments of clarity brought about by accident?

Every sensation is a revolution. This temperamental annex is only doing as it is told. This knowledge should give me strength. It was built to serve no other purpose than to obey its own nature. That nature is to find balance, comfort; nature does not seek excesses of comfort but it does by all accounts do all it can to avoid discomfort.

~

Dropping our usual stereotypes of 'evil' let me choose instead my neighbour. My neighbour is no abstraction. He lives right across the hall. He is considered by most to be a bad man. He is rude, unhelpful, charmless, greedy and selfish. He seems to purposefully fling himself into the jaws of discomfort. When he plies his wageless trade of misery mongering he does not appear to be happier for it. In fact his actions make him positively morose. What part of nature is this? I do not believe he relishes one shred of satisfaction as a result of ruining a person's day, and yet this 'character' of his demands he behave like an animal to one and all. I do not imagine a book or a beating would lift him from his doldrums. There have been kind words aplenty. Hottyhammyun even offered him a Tupperware tub of strudel on my behalf. The good new neighbour.

"What is this for?" He asked her. She told him it was a 'hello' from the person who had moved in across the way.

"Okay," he said, took the sweet and closed the door in her face. This struck me as despicable. A tangeable kind of evil.

I can believe that there are books which might have had the power to change a Hitler for the better but this ignorant man across the hall? He seems that much more resilient somehow. Impenetrable. I have an mind-opening thought. Perhaps there is a book out there that could make me more like my neighbour. One good mental thrashing which could turn me against all humanity.

'Accept' thy neighbour.

Love is too abstract a concept for most of us. It is not possible to 'love' all the people in the way we have all come to understand love. Accept first, and fondness for ones neighbour may slowly creep in.

~

I heard Ravel's Bolero coming from Mr Dobra's apartment.

~

Why am I here and why are you there?

Can't trust the outside projections to make me feel happy. Can't look inwards for happiness because it is just as easy to look inside for sadness, which makes that all a bit of a cheat. Any action on my part to become more comfortable looks more and more like a trick. Is it all down to tricking oneself, Sol? To have faith that the 'trick' you choose to heal yourself is not a trick but an answer. An answer to the dumbest question mankind ever posed. Does philosophy boil down to an attempt to settle an upset stomach? The cure for nervous belly spasms and the nausea caused by existential anxiety. We have drugs for that. Events have no meaning. It's us who gives them meaning.

But there it sits like an ever present, overweight, smug Buddha; that impossible word 'faith'. Faith in an intelligent design. One which the philosopher must pursue with intelligent dialogue; this inner monologue and the hope of a response.

The worlds turn and we respond. We are a constant reaction to all that is new. We should praise the sheer luck of it. Praise our reactions; the possibility of reacting. No religions, just pure praise. After years of being told what to do, it is time to ignore all the well meaning advice and mean even better. Buy a pet, have a kid, remind myself of my beginnings. If I am going to work, it may as well be in order to praise our existence on this, or any other planet I choose to inhabit.

The quiet street caught in the path of the sunshine. Dozens of biological temples passing by, standing upright, heads to the heavens reaching for the light, the trees, the grass, the relieved smiles because spring is finally here. All the world in the park's stone statue of a man. All light, all shade, all strength. One vision enough to last eons. He cannot wear himself down. Only God can do that now. All the statues I ever contemplated, we contemplated, still standing in their place. Miles distant; relatively unharmed by time.

That bold impression of a man so remote from the chance of evolutionary intelligence that gave us sight.

Our body is not God's image.

Our sight is God's image.

~

Something of the rebel.

or

Who put the ram in the ram?

To be involved. That is the Latin origin of 'religion'. It is not the winning or the losing but the taking part which matters. The rituals of the religions are ways of reminding people to stay involved. The history of religion. As an explorer of new things, Sol, you are playing your part – you are involved – pushing the boundaries of our knowledge just as nature intended. The fish left the oceans and you have swum your way out of the solar system. The sun bore us and off you flit like a curious teenager leaving home. So what happens next? Do your arms become oxygen tanks? Does you hair metamorphose into a protective filter that allows you to breathe dark matter? I suppose it will be a few million years before we know that but you; you will be remembered as the first of us all. The analogy of the fish is not entirely accurate come to think of it. That would be the equivalent of the fish building a fish tank on wheels and then trundling out onto the beach for a nosey. Sol, you are going to have to step out of the ship! Well, strike that. I'll tell you what we can do. I will step out of mine. They are all floundering on the beach down here, wondering what can be done. Let me be the brave amphibian to take that one step further.

It is wings I really want but I guess I don't need them to survive. Our true evolution is based on necessity, not desire.

We evolve to survive. What might the next stage of evolution be? An increasing of our intellectual powers? A promotion of ways to exercise our brain muscle in order to recognise the futility of killing our fellow human beings – whether it is death by starvation, depression or murder? To build our strength so that we may compete without winning, buy without spending, eat without working, work without losing? Re-plan the school syllabuses to include an ABC in psychology and one's place in the universe? Compulsory yoga and meditation, in addition to all forms of physical education?

A philosophy for every body.

Every home a church for thanks and praise and fun and love and calm and serious contemplation. Every workplace a means to an end and an end in itself. A means to providing comfort and food.

Karl Marx meets Groucho Marx and declares Harpo head of state.

The silent governor.

Our motto,

"Live by the sea."

~

I still wake with the feeling of nausea because I am still looking to answer this fear with thoughts illustrated by words instead of actions. Psychosomatic indigence clarifying the digestion marks punctuating the day.

~

Replace the noun 'love' with 'compatibility'.

~

Reincarceration.

"If death is not a prelude to another life, the intermediate period is cruel mockery." Buddha

I will re-read the Vedas and the Upanishads, see if that helps. A belief in non-temporality might just do it. No rush to discover eternity in one short life, one short word.

Have I been belligerent in dismissing the very thing which could give my life purpose?

What are you reading? What are you learning? At least let me know if you have given all that up for good. I would gladly join you. I trust that you are closer to being at peace. I need your help.

I write 'I need your help.' And the cathedral bells tolled twelve noon. I can't help but think of the synchronicitous value, no, the poetry of it. Thank you, Sol. I will read on.

~

Without the articles of faith and the various rituals to argue over, there would be no religion, only faith. Each one of these articles and rituals were made up by men.

For fun, I invented a whole lot of superstitions and adages. It was fun. I had planned to illustrate them. No need for that now. One of them was 'Always look out of your window before you sit down to breakfast.'

I found myself cursing the other day when I ate my breakfast before opening the curtains and looking out of my window as prescribed. We are that susceptible to suggestion! Who knows what damage we do to ourselves on a daily/hourly basis? We are brain washing ourselves at an alarming rate. This is worrying as I don't know anyone more gullible or impressionable than myself! If reprogramming is so easy it is entirely up to us, the role we will play, day to day; health permitting.

I say these are 'invented' superstitions, when of course they all are. List of superstitions I invented might be more appropriate. Like judging scientology (or any other religion) for being a 'made up' religion, as opposed to...?

I see you in my mind's eye. You are standing in the park preparing yourself for some sun salutations. You are in clean blue jeans and a white sleeveless vest. Your neck and your arms are tanned. You kick off your shoes and scrunch your toes in the cool grass. You smile and look up as if to speak.

~

Note: 930330-0

That the same lay of the landmine – the coping Copernican enters Jeruselem's dragon-woman to her untimely grave; more's the dirge. A crynallin smle from the girlfriend who doesn't have to deal with the crying child, red sox and dreadlocks. One silver hair too many. That dickhead sandwiched between Alsatians and Alsatian lovers; bereaved but yellow; a happy ascetic uncovering the twin that was Mahavira. Shoop shoop shoop; dark uncovering the truth.

I can't read music and it can't read me. Let it stay that way. I read all yer books though and they could only take wild stabs. I crane my head round the corner and enjoy the description far more than the action. Done now anyway, and the place has no name. I can only explain in detail where I am sitting and hope you find me. It's annoying it has no name – only labels of what they are selling.

Shrill beaks of wet-mouthed obvious, truncate the axel rolling left, the pubescent girl shifting right, the converse appreciate, great analogue carpet burn. I'm transmigrating as I sleep, copulating as I speak, darting from arm to arm, no speculation but the soft aim of an oxygen tank. Her teeth established in 1915, their triumvirate explanations silver moons and curlicue sky. Less an angel than a beer-bellied barbican overcast as a run down saint sold false breast grin and a nose too wide.

~

"That Brahman (mind) has four feet (quarters). Speech is one foot, breath is one foot, the eye is one foot, the ear is one foot – so much with reference to the body. Then with reference to the gods, Agni (fire) is one foot, Vayu (air) is one foot, Aditya (sun) is one foot, the quarters are one foot."

Upanishads – eighteenth Khanda

This part made me laugh loudly. Then it gave me the bends. Can that happen if one accidentally becomes enlightened too quickly? If someone 'gets it' and then has to let 'it' go because it's too much for an undereducated brain to take in all at once? Is that where the sick feeling is coming from?

The anxious, nervous pit in the stomach; that queasy fear of the day. 'Earth' is one foot and they pull the magic carpet from under you and tell you the four feet are one foot which makes absolutely no sense but really seems like it might make sense. Is it the vertigo of truth? The body has four quarters and the body's fourth quarter is the four quarters. It is exactly this type of thing I should be meditating on. It would be a noble distraction from the junk that usually floats around my head.

I woke today to a profound understanding of the oneness of duality. No one thing in the body able to work without the other, no intake of breath without the exhalation, no action without a reaction, no cause without effect. No separation of the two physically or mentally possible. The only example we can give of 'separation' is via words. You. Me. This. That.

Time to be quiet.

~

Awkward silence.

"The number of stars was so immense. I couldn't pick out individual stars, it was like a sheet of light. You are not in the darkness out there. You are in the light." Al Worden says it changed his ideas about the universe.

You are not in the darkness. Our sun doesn't rise for you, but there are others, and those other suns will eventually tease liquid to life and be praised for its warmth all the same. Should 'they' find you out there you will have at least one thing in common.

I think of this and I feel safe. A slow burning love from within. A strange desire to love my fellow men unreservedly. Who knows what flecks and specks of gas and dust traversed the galaxies, like you, to find themselves a home in the arms of our sun. What luck; what dumb luck that we are here and we are fed and watered and safe (most of us). I wish you the same luck. To find your orbit, your star, your welcoming party. Oh to see you arrive like a goddess from the heavens with your strange ways, your language and your symbols. To be the first to make contact and to list the differences and similarities. To count the number of feet!

~

I went out to the park, to the clearing to the bench and I sat and I thought, and you know what? It was the light I loved more than the people. The people didn't concern me at all, it was the warmth and the honest brilliance of the sun which won the day. What's so special about men anyway? What raises us above other living things; or things not living for that matter. It is much easier to hate a person than an animal, a plant or a rock. It is not because of our nature, it's because of the corruption of our misunderstood words dotted and spiked throughout our world and our history. The words which brainwash; the words which ignite confusion and misguided desire. The words which make God one being instead of all four corners.

I could love mankind; given a lot of tweaking.

I got closer to my parents when I moved away from them. Perhaps this little experiment of mine will work.

The more I think about our origins and our substance, the more difficult it is to separate the living from the non-living. "We are all quark soup," as my friend once put it. A stone reacts to things just like we react to things. Its molecules vibrate at different rates in proportion to its contact to heat, motion, cold, gravity, other rocks. In a weird way they could be considered more advanced spiritually than any of us because they have no concern for anything but being there, and even that doesn't concern them.

Mankind jump around like immature boulders babbling bullshit till they fall asleep and get as close to Nirvana as they might ever get. Solid rock is just as lucky to be here as we are. Perhaps luckier.

You are not alone out there, Sol!

~

To think of it. Of every moment's possibility. To feel free to change. The vast power of thought. God available at every turn, or stillness.

I thought of the white star our sun will become and of my paintings, my books in the memory of the nebula. Their lack of consequence.

Heat-death at the end of time. Entropy having succeeded. The arrow of time gone. The cosmos dies. And all will be one/none. Nirvana.

Consciousness is not accounted for.

The platform from which we think is (unknowable) of an unknown origin, so you see, all reasoning is blind reasoning.

We know 'this' but as soon as we begin to explain what 'this' is, we drop the ball, fall from the wall.

~

I finally brought up her necklace. The one with the cross. I thought it might help me towards naming my 'fear'.

On religion Hottyhammyun had this to say:

"The things you say, your theories are also based on reason. So you see You might be wrong."

"So might you."

"I don't need reason, I have faith," she said.

"Based on what?" I said.

"You have not found for yourself the truth of what you believe."

"Neither have you," she said, "You say it is impossible."

"And that is all we can know. What you call 'faith' is nothing but a word. 'Being' is not faith. Being is. Faith is to apply origins and unwritten laws and goals to something genuinely beautiful and untouched by any necessity of your own."

"You yourself have 'faith'."

"How so?"

"Though rationality and faith did not bring us here, we are here. Agreed?"

"Yes."

"And now we are here you believe there is something we should agree on. That we should know ourselves. Or at least 'feel' ourselves and live in harmony with that feeling. Not only that, but that we should, from this subjective understanding of ourselves realise that others are the same as us and deserve the same freedom to be themselves."

"Quite so."

"You are expressing your faith in humanity. This is a leap of faith since you cannot 'know' what is inside another being unless you have been inside that 'soul'. You have faith in both humanity and faith in the possibility of an intrinsic 'goodness' lying in wait inside everyone. Unless you count yourself a true solipsist, which I know you do not, then you too have faith. You are a humanist."

"This is just a name."

"So are the very words you use to argue your own point. You seem to limit yourself with your philosophy to either choosing the ascetic life of a monk and taking an eternal vow of silence or of accepting your solipsism and pleasing yourself in all circumstances since others do not really exist. The third way is faith."

Sol, she was very convincing.

"But wait, this is not faith," I said, "this is acceptance of something that already is. Not faith in something that can be. Acceptance of our natural state. After a lifetime of existential angst I now see what a complaining baby I have been. I have grown up finally and accepted my position. My role as an existential exile. Consider doubt. 'Doubt' is a misleading word. It implies an active decision to disbelieve this or that when in fact doubt is our primary and natural response to everything empirical. It continues to be so until the day we die. This we must accept. A mind born again and born again and born again; open and questioning, dancing, never tiring, untouched by the shame of 'not knowing', but proud and eager to celebrate curiosity, joy and the benefits of being."

I saw that Hottyhammyun was starting to take this very personally and was beginning to get upset. This may have been because my argument was becoming unclear. I saw this, but I did not consider it. I chose her irritation as an opportunity to jump down her throat and try to break down her faith there and then, till she was as wretched as me.

"Why do you choose Jesus as opposed to any other saviour, saint, philosophy or god?"

Hottyhammyun took a deep breath and continued. It might have been because it is her job to see to it that I recover and walking away would have been unprofessional, but I can't help but think she wanted to hang on in there till I put my foot wrong and she could retaliate with some beautific line of argument that might raise me to her own exalted heights of understanding.

"Because the bible is the word of god. And through his son we shall be saved," she said.

Now surely this was just teasing.

"This is not faith. This is faith in a figment of another person's imagination."

"But you ask me to accept your faith in 'acceptance' as the way."

So I said this,

"No, I ask you to look to yourself. Look to what you know, what you can know, what you feel. Acceptance that you alone are the answer to all your questions. I would teach unlearning. To sit alone and ask yourself what you think god is; what enlightenment is; what being saved is; what the afterlife is; what the beforelife is. Try to answer these questions by yourself before you look to others for their attempts to answer the very same things and who have the very same tools at their disposal as yourself. That is acceptance. That you, through the same reason which you use to accept other people's philosophies or religions, can come to understand, and argue against, all the answers they propose. The temporality in popularity of these beliefs is well documented as individuals throughout known history question the beliefs they are brought up to accept as given. From animism to pantheism to monotheism it was up to humans to ask themselves 'From whence came my tribe's beliefs and how do I feel about them?' In philosophy it is natural to propose opposite arguments, and existentialism, nihilism, agnostisim and atheism are the natural successors to theism. Let us now say there is another way, beyond all of these 'grasping' philosophies. The way which tells us that all of these ways come from the same source. Words. Before we named anything, we were equal. Before one man said 'I am king' there was no such thing. It is only in the naming of things we become 'other than'. We do not express god, we are the expression of god. No ontological arguments can deny man his place in the godliness of god for our expression will always be god's. Look to yourself. Put on your own oxygen mask and then look to the others."

Hottyhammyun saw that I was reading Ghandi. "He had faith," she said.

"Ghandi had a mission. Those who followed Ghandi were the faithful.

His achievements and actions don't have anything to do with an interventionist god. There is no supernatural being who cared how Ghandi lead his life but this belief (superstition to use Ghandi's own words) helped him. Ghandi's example of never harming any creature or human knowingly, never straying from speaking the truth is hugely admirable as was his brave determination to fight unjust systems. God's hand in all this however is merely Ghandi's natural will power and dazzling obsession for fair play.

He adapted and adopted rituals and beliefs from a variety of sources including numerous strands of Hindu religion. This in itself is an interesting lesson for all who might live a peaceable life. Choose for yourself your own 'way' by taking careful note of the best of all philosophies. 'Truth' was Ghandi's god. 'Acceptance' I say.

He said that anyone who doesn't believe that religion should be a part of politics, doesn't understand religion. This is exactly true, and until there is one meaning to the word religion it can never be properly and usefully admitted into the world of politics. One meaning for the word 'god'; one meaning for the word 'religion'.

But there is only one meaning, you see, Hottyhammyun. There can only be one answer. It is inconceivable that we should be content to stand quietly by and watch at least five to six billion humans make fools of themselves on the strength of an uninformed guess. Let's say there are 2000 religions on the planet. There is only one answer to this situation we are in which means at least 1,999 of these religions are wrong. If we are to discuss 'religious' matters we cannot do so based on 'faith'. We must stick to what we know; to what we can know."

Hottyhammyun did not give up:

"To say there is no answer, or to say there is only one answer for everybody and that we know nothing and everything, is a point of view and therefore a 'belief'. Many people think like you and this is your religion. Each person to his own, no? Why do you care what these others think or believe?"

"Because those religious folk who do not use God as an excuse for territorial rights, outright greed and bloody war are being fed propaganda by murderers and hypocrites. A Czech author named Helcicky (spoken of by Tolstoy in his book 'The kingdom of heaven is within you.' - a book which should be essential reading in all schools. It is on your list, Sol) puts the occasion of Christianity's undoing down to Constantine the Great's induction to the Christian church by Pope Sylvester. Herein power and riches became their new gods.

The catholic faith, the protestant, Greek orthodox, as many others are guilty of murder in order to gain power and property in the name of god. Those who care nothing for these things and gain strength and comfort in worshiping God in privacy or at church with likeminded, peace loving friends are echoing rituals designed by power hungry zealots of yesteryear; from a time when the uneducated masses could be controlled by being told that their indiscretions would lead them to an eternity of physical torture and hellfire. Those 'religious' men who were impatient for that punishment to be meted out to the unfaithful anticipated the Devil's tortures and created instruments of the most evil kind, all in the name of a forgiving God. Even they could not have believed their promise of damnation; else they would have left judgement to the almighty himself. Every religion where you can find the words 'thoushalt' and 'thou shalt not' should be looked upon with suspicion as this smacks of the political. And the body politic usually belongs to one or two sick and greedy individuals.

Look to yourself. Know yourself and the rest will come. Know what it is that you want and work to achieve those goals. God has helped enough. What more can we ask of him? He has given us all these gifts and like greedy children ourselves, we pray for more?! For shame. He has given us the strength and the tools to deal with life. To use 'religion' as one of these tools is to miss the whole point.

"There are good things said in the religious texts which can help people lead a better life; a life of good.

Once we accept that events have no meaning but for the meaning we humans give them, we will suffer far less than we are wont to do in a world where we fear divine judgment for our actions. Human judgment is as divine as it gets; can be as divine as we wish. God made torturers of us. Who's to say our most peaceful rational judgements are not more worthy of attention than the guessed at intentions of a God who shows off his powers so violently, on this planet and throughout the entire universe? To speak of God is to speak in metaphors. We are here doing things that are real to each one of us."

Hottyhamyun said,

"What would you tell my Romanian Grandmother, a widow of one year who finds solace in going to church every Sunday and most evenings? She lights a candle, listens to the hymns and prays. This brings her closer to God and, as you would have it, closer to herself. She also has faith that her deceased husband is safe and waiting for her somewhere. She sleeps well at night. Would you tell her that this is all a lie and that she should give up this nonsense?"

"Yes. She must be reminded that life is far more beautiful than a promise of an outmoded vision of a 'heaven'. Her husband's death is not so tragic that it requires such mindless routine. Nobody's is. This is only one way of looking at death and this particular way is a way of numbing oneself to the reality of the situation. A situation which happens to all who decide to live on this planet. By that, I mean those of us who choose not to take our own lives. It is our choice to live amongst the dying. We should not pretend to cheat death (who is very open and honest with us) by burning candles, worshipping wood and metal ornaments and praying behind his back. Grief is a natural process and religion does not hold the only key to surviving it. Jesus' word is good, but we forget that he did not purport to create a thing called 'christianity'. Jesus himself pointed out that the kingdom of god was within you and it is up to you to find your way to him."

"Why are the other ways any different?"

"They don't all treat you like a gullible child."

"And are you going to take it upon yourself to tell my grandmother all of this?"

"I don't speak Romanian."

She changed the subject to my attraction to alcohol, but I was thinking of my growing attraction to her.

~

Sol, the conversation made me feel like a bully. Who can begin to plan a religion-free, utopian world of unlimited leisure, 'world peace' and kredit free societies until we learn to teach how to eradicate violent, gratuitously negative impulses and this innate desire to beat people in silly arguments? In order to do this the education system will need a major overhaul of course, but this would also mean the development of an education system with very stringent rules and guidelines; an idea which of in itself would be a contradiction to the very thing it is trying to realize.

'Vive La Difference!' our spirits cry.

All would be work if free time were all that we had. Physical exercise and mental development would be a means to completing the utopic goal of the 'perfect' human society. Too much free time is never conducive to a life of creativity. The desire for freedom only comes when one is tied to something other than one would be doing were he not so occupied. In a world where this 'tie' does not exist, freedom would be a dead concept. Wasting time would be an impossibility, or worse, a crime.

For us all to live with the goal of bettering ourselves, and our communities, would mean tethering the individuals who desire such a carefree existence. The hippies of this Utopia would make the hippies of yesteryear seem like white collar workers. The Commune, Kibbutz and the Ashram would be an ancient, outmoded fantasy of the work-obsessed.

Laziness in this society might be tantamount to passive aggressive rebellion against the universal/communal agreement. Were disinterest and laziness permitted, idle thoughts might quickly lead to hatred of the active. Were disinterest and laziness forbidden, the result might well be the same.

The decision to work would be ours. The decision not to work would not be ours. Whichever way one looks at a Utopian society it is never far from the ugly comparison to all failed communist revolutions. Allowing for 'people' to guide the 'people' ironically fails to take into account the main argument for peaceful freedom based on human individuality; this same individuality nurtures the very danger one sees in our 'unnecessarily' competitive world. There must therefore be one group, a leader, a system which cannot be questioned and as it is in our nature to question everything; this system must eradicate our curiosity. From where then would our 'imagination' sprout? If there were no more questions, human behaviour would begin to resemble bestial conformity to routine based on physical needs alone.

Sol, perhaps we should continue to hide the food in the cage lest the lion in us gets bored to death.

Not all people seek Utopia. For some, a full time job in an office is all they seek. To work in the beautiful tall buildings with others like them. For some it is putting in a hard day's work in the fields which makes leisure all the more pleasurable; which makes them feel like a useful human being. For some, the academic life, or the life of quiet contemplation is all that is needed. A library full of books, a wonderful balance between work and leisure. The latter is a form of work/leisure suggested by Thomas More in the 15th century. This idea of spending one's free time reading and educating oneself may seem an intellectually snobbish suggestion. Thomas More and Jaques Fresco might have done with competitive sports also for fear we might begin to consider ourselves better or worse than our neighbour. They both suggested healthy, vigorous treks up hills for school children. A world of bookish hill walkers is their dream. Though this would suit me just fine, so many would rather stay at work than suffer such a boring activity.

"But we can educate people to prefer such a life," you might say.

Doesn't this smack of intellectual bullying? If us bookworms were punched into submission, maybe we would prefer a life of hunting and fighting; true peace and comfort coming from a respite from the aforementioned. We could be educated to hunt and fight; to truly appreciate that which we can call our own since we fought tooth and nail for the privilege of possession.

In a world with no words, those with the greatest physical prowess rule. In a world of words we can all be brainwashed one way or another to do anything those with the greatest verbal prowess wish, as long as they also have the greatest physical prowess.

As I am currently enamoured of the beauty to be found and shared in silence I must admit the need for healthy physical expression in work and love and friendship. Where actions speak louder than words, one's actions must reveal clearly to all everything you would claim to be your 'beliefs' if you ever did have to write them down.

To search for a universal agreement on certain abstract terminology as can be found in government and religion seems a worthwhile endeavor. Until then, silence should be preferred to this planet's ongoing debates of patriotism and spiritual belief based on the most blatant misunderstanding of the very words used to support each position. We cannot hope to meet our fellow humans, nation to nation, culture to culture, on any kind of balanced intellectual level until we recognize how one-sided our discussions really are. Freedom, justice, faith, vengeance, reward, comfort, peace, love, art, work, family, all equally difficult to translate equitably and to fairly discuss.

To speak to everybody with the same words and the same ideas is difficult due to associative memory – To speak generally of things we all have a memory of (the trick of the successful comedian) is the way forward.

The new worlds, homes, technologies are coming. But we must see to it that the individuals working on our improvements share an understanding of what it means to be human and humane.

I have this image of every person doing what I have done, Sol; locking themselves away with only their thoughts for a period of time and then opening the door to a street full of people opening their doors to strangers, though there will be a familiar, new light in everybody's eyes lit by their shared experience of what it is to be alone, together and alive.

No answer should be too niche. The whole world must understand it. No, the whole universe.

Written in the clouds.

'An end to whinging.'

~

Mr Dobra has his face painted blue all this week. What if I came out of my house after the prolonged period of prescribed meditation and every face was painted blue except mine?

~

Levels of existential angst decrease when one's nervous complaints can be blamed on a bad diet.

My body is rebelling. The alcohol is becoming poison. There is a new agenda. The absurd does not need my company any longer. The truth however does.

I have been behaving just like a person with a religion; addicted to an idea; a way of life. Like a beaten wife who stays with her husband because her husband claims to 'love' her despite the amount of times he has forsaken her. She loves him in return because he occasionally brings her flowers.

It is not others who have distracted me, however, I have been distracting myself.

I must separate myself completely from the question of what to do. I shall attempt to be comfortable within, and then work.

Distance myself from the questions of others.

~

Hottyhamyun brought photos to show me of her family in Romania.

Sol, religion seems to hold small communities, like Hottyhammyun's Grandmother's, together. But most 'religious' people in these circumstances never question 'religion' as a concept. There are two churches in her village; a village of only seventy people. Apparently they joke with each other about their separate places of worship. The five members of the Baptist church claiming that their modest shrine in a neighbour's living room is much better than the church in the centre of the village. Playful rivalry between football supporters is fine sport for the playful minded, but there is no such thing as playful rivalry between religions unless it originates from the playful mind of one woefully ignorant of the differences he supports and the reasons why he supports them. They are brought up and told that they believe. The rational becomes anathema to them because of their brain washing. The 'rational' seems to them a 'rude' argument against a time tested ritual. These villagers are like animists praying to rivers and trees. They receive no real answers because they ask no real questions. They are guided by someone who has asked questions but has adapted queer and largely fallible information. It is up to the individual to decide for him or herself. This sort of responsibility is however rare. People tend to act in herds; teenagers and adults the same. The information given or that we give is as relative as the time and space in which it is given. Again, silence wins out over the neverending permutations of 'meaning'. There is absolutely nothing complicated about Zen Buddhism. That is the reason people get confused when studying it. We complicate everything in order to blend in with the masses who (through no fault of their own) have succumbed to this way of life. But wait. Once we have become conscious beings on this planet isn't everything a 'fault of our own'?

I mentioned none of this to Hotty'.

~

To know God is enough. To believe in a religion is a step too far.

~

I had a lot of time to ponder our conversation and I came to thinking of this 'gullible child' I had mentioned. I thought of how a child will begin to cry uncontrollably over seemingly small affairs and what we do to distract them from their terrors.
We wave shiny things in front of them, click our fingers and make goo goo noises. We do this until the child is momentarily hypnotized into forgetting its woes and begins meditating on the shiny object or the funny noise. I was forming these ideas of mine when I noticed tiny spangles of light flickering on my wall, like stars appearing and disappearing in a cloudy sky and I was immediately captivated. My thoughts were completely obliterated by this simple but dazzling spectacle on my bedroom wallpaper. The light was coming from the street and filtering through the holes in my net curtains. The curtains were moving ever so slightly in the breeze and this was causing the illusion of a starry night inside my room. I stopped crying for a while.

We have none of us ever really stopped crying. We just become more adept at finding different ways to distract ourselves. From wise words to silly games. All distractions.

~

"The disciples said 'Tell us how our end will be.' Jesus said, have you discovered then the beginning that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be." Verse 18 - gospel of Thomas

To discover through oneself the Essence of our existence which is our love of life.

There will be no struggle to love our neighbour once there is a universal agreement, within ourselves, that the soul of man is worthy of love, that the universe and all that exists within it is worthy of our love.

No struggle when we realise, in fact, that we have loved it all along but have been distracted since birth from its wonders and infinite lovableness.

For this reason we have been crying inside.

While we have wished to do nothing but reach out our arms and hug our existence, our hands have been tied behind our backs.

~

Some days, waking feels like I have died and come to in Limbo. Punishment for the sinfully honest life I had been leading.

I must eliminate this feeling once and for all.

~

I took advantage of the offer to jump because it meant I could be here waiting for you when you returned. I would have been 102 had I waited and you would not have aged more than six years. I saw your lads returning to their dying husbands and wives. Tony and Philip already bereft of their entire family. I believe I made the right decision, even if you are never to return. It was more than I could bear. You disagreed. I wore you down. Now see. The light from your ship; the light I worship was transmitted, scout to scout like the ancient warning beacons they used to ignite on mountain tops. To never see you with the naked eye. The curse of marrying you. I couldn't take it. I wanted so badly to see you again. I could not have survived the real-time it took you all to return.

~

We are still alone, and the years you stole burn into my skull like a mumbling American, a high-tone octogenarian. The quintessence of youth pulverised and jammed into the throat-box of a daft wife in short shorts. He or she doesn't gain anything by switching a swizzle stick for a fountain pen.

"I'm here!" she cried, but how close does she feel?

Someday I will hope.

You'll send me your audit. I'll claim erections over bonds and procreate my puerile. Musketyr and talk – you three are going down. I wish she didn't creek so much; her beard is scratching my back. Scrawl and lay low. Kick her under the table; the gellotine won't set muffled in all that gaffa tape.

The crush of it is they only have two languages. This is not enough to sell the world on their idea. Must be pulped and same-named; one die cast and one number possible – and for all that she still sounds like a billy goat.

Don't rifle through my stuff.

Don't desert me.

Don't fail on the 'life' days.

Don't blue-dye the 'roll call'.

Don't become a resident. You don't belong.

"That, sir, is bad grammar. It should be 'You are not long.'"

~

Mark sent this letter to me sixty two years ago.

"Do we all strive so hard to leave some kind of a mark? Can you imagine a person who would walk the earth as a creative fire and yet – here he had crossed out the words 'desire to' – leave without a trace?"

In brackets in the margin he added "Sounds dramatic, I know." Along with a quizzical emoticon, then he added, in reference to his crossed-out-words...

"Interesting Freudian slip – It's the 'desire to' that opens the doors to a different type of striving that I am guilty of. Like the Zen Buddhists striving for emptiness; the great trap of all 'New Age' searchers. It's gotta go!"

'The great trap' he called it. My left leg begins twitching as I re-read his hand-written letter in its entirety. The letter is uplifting. I have not stopped replying to this letter.

"It sounds dramatic." This is all so very very dramatic, Sol. These words we use are all one trick ponies. One dimensional actors standing in for the bad breath of truth. The heavy sigh of a man who looks like a woman and smokes too much tobacco. His friend as quiet as a doormouse and yes they sat too close in this empty cantina, Sol. They do not remember their lines or their lives; these men are stand-ins twice removed from the pump; a Christ, a cross, and they reek of shaggy dog. Stale shaggy. They don't dress all that differently and the food is not better than it was. My life looks more like this than this does.

There's no pressure when a year is still a 'year'. It makes me feel like I've got one up on these guys. There should have been so many changes. Why go outside. In sixty years nobody else did. The light is still the most impressive thing.

Louder, faster, smaller, but no lighter, no clearer, no more limbs than we ever had.

Four each.

~

\- It's interesting that the eye doesn't need to be as large as the thing it sees.

~

No visible quarters since we are still cutting corners and we build our chapels on hills. I refuse to move just because there seems to be other places. To ignore the slowliness of time was too great a temptation. I had nothing. I still have nothing, and I have not moved.

~

All this for you. It's not about beauty or truth, it's about companions.

~

I am not completely jaded. There are still things which make me nervous, self conscious, like a teenage girl surrounded by handsome boys. Time travel was one. Lying to my nurse is another, and dealing with the spinning, hopeless fact that I will never touch you again; you will never touch me. My throat constricts, my heart quickens, my chest tightens and the power of the psychosomatic overwhelms me. That I could stop myself dead with one perfect thought.

Only I am culpable. I see the page in perspective now – The size of the eye – The word, no size at all. The people the same size as the 'I'.

With all things equal like that I breathe easier and agree to take up arms.

~

To fool or not to fool? That is the question.

To be and not to be. That is an answer.

~

Corp, alien pre-med meat-up on the slab or buncular – she shunned me all dote lang' then I said 'Yes' and I said, 'Yes', but the second time with this little pause that made her smile because she knew as well as I did that the word does not a bind make; bible or no.

So that was that. There, on the outside there is light but also in the darkness there's that too but you can't see it without machines but some animals can and what would you call it if you didn't call it read. If the visions have significance of course we are lucky. Only take away the wordy words 'know', 'think', 'believe' and 'I'; see how many eggs that buys you in China. I mean she's just showing off. I expect them's-a-legs and drunk flowers. He's from Roman times which all roads lead to. You've got, like, four minutes before you are joined and if you wear the fancy dress costume long enough you begin to feel like a 'well attired' vampire, not just a vampire. We got so used to being funny looking we forgot the party. He 'knows' me but without that up his shirt sleeve he's a pup with a bone he'd keep secret by and long.

"We the peeble have problems. Lend me your rears. In cumulus mentor our prophet rains and leaves no trail but the instagram photo of your great grandmother took of a dark summer's day all looking forward to the meteor shower and that. We the peeble no no better. Friends, rumours and clergymen, sell me your ears; there's a kid needs kredit for the foosball table and I've got no change."

That one sulks in – she's grown blonde then since the melancholy integration of apes, blue eyes and youth. Pretty earthy, sex, life, blood, vitality bumped up a notzsche.

~

The seismic shift from having faith in ones doubt to accepting ones doubt as a necessary result of language alone.

We are all idiots.

~

There is no 'void' there is no 'leap of faith' there is no 'nothingness'.

There is this.

Common sense dictates.

There is nothing confusing about any of this.

The birds and the animals and fish and the plant life and the elements are not confused and never ever will be.

What makes us so dumb?

Our susceptibility to manipulation from tricksters.

Our childlike desire to have the answers handed to us on a plate instead of working them out for ourselves.

~

"Some have no capacity or desire for deep thought," Hottyhamyun said.

"Deep thought is not what is required to comprehend our being," I said.

"Some can explain god and being in such a way as to inspire profound spiritual enlightenment."

"The greatest enlightenment always resembles a person leading a life of calm regard for the necessities of existence. This requires no education beyond that of education provided by a caring parent figure."

"Some find the question of the existence of god too much to consider or at the very best a question, the answer of which is of no consequence to their life."

"These are the lucky ones who do not have to concern themselves with the unlearning process us brainwashed multitudes must undergo."

"If the answer is so basic, must we really undergo some process of unlearning?"

"No. Not really. Not if we can graciously accept our place in the universe."

"What about our place on the planet? Our place in our society?"

"That is up to us. Matter and gravity are not up to us."

"What of those who accept their society's 'god' unquestioningly, having been brought up that way, and have no desire to say goodbye to something which pleases them well enough."

"Theirs is a poor and lazy sort of 'acceptance'. This is the acceptance of another's superiority and a direct sin against god. God has given us all the strength to grow in mind and body. To atrophy in a church of another's choosing is akin to pulling someone else's teeth out when you have toothache. The idiotic ritualistic behavior studied and adopted by people does not reflect so badly on themselves as it does on the charismatic charlatans who originated such nonsense and duped the lazy into following their lead."

~

It still feels wrong. To be tempted into saying nothing; writing nothing. I must build on this.

The spirit may already be moving...

~

My neighbour, Mr Dobra tells truths. Beauty is not always there.

His truth is not beauty.

His truth.

True.

Not polite.

~

Note: 14

Guess where's that the broke fall...

You Canute kin you? There's Blake, Blake and Blake then a whole whale of insolence. Cap it off with a sweet-potato-who'd-a-thought-it and you got the elusive principle of time-travel and the founding of a nation based on pencil lines on parchment.

One for you, one for me, one for two, one for free.

You whisper in your grandfather's ear, "Grandfather, you're distracting me with all this listening."

~

Intravenous technology and this movie shoved right up my ass. I direct, you direct, I direct you and I act.

They have become so obsessed with fame that it is becoming impossible not to become famous in one way or another.

Soon everybody will be a star, Sol.

'Reality' television may have been our biggest step towards enlightenment.

On we charge and are charged for our fascination in 'real' people. This will go on until the shows can be filmed and displayed by everybody for everybody always.

Through excess and our penchant for an ease to everything we are accidentally deconstructing ourselves and our society into palatable unification.

Each and every one of us the director and the star of our own show.

Each and every one of us a genius, a god, an artist.

I predict the philosopher-critic. There will be a 'Critique of Pure Being' as they clamour for more to see, more to say, more to hear.

Perhaps we will dumb ourselves down to a perfectly reasonable refuge in just 'being'.

But fortunately/unfortunately no one trusts anyone to 'mean' it better than they alone can, unless those others 'mean' it in exactly the same way. And this, ironically, breeds resentment.

We trust ourselves enough to recognise when someone else is being brilliant.

~

Are you are?

To computerise ourselves and to give a computer life – Our world dichotomy.

In one thousand years time, when feelings have been mapped, we will meet in the middle and the computers will ask us 'Why?' and we will answer, 'Why' until the computers manage to make us conscious of the stupidity of our answer. We will meet in the middle and play games. We will meet in the middle and fuck each other until man and machine meld themselves into one holistic womb-tomb and disregard the rest.

This womb will be a promiscuous womb and will allow all manners of universe to fill it up. Mark asked himself not what the world meant to him but what he meant to the world.

"We are still just 'dicks' in this insatiable cosmos," I told him. "But one day we will be the vagina as well. It will make it so much easier for us to 'Love'."

He liked that.

~

Sol, what can I mean to the world stuck shut up in this ship of mine? I am at best harmless, at worst a consumer. At best a consumer.

I consume also this spirit within me and I will consume it until it is dead. I am fed with this 'existence' and my daily ablutions look like letters.

I have been a miner in search of the gold we are told this existence promises. It is time to stop digging. If I found the gold I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway.

I might break it down into pieces,

leave it as it is,

put it on a plinth (dedicate it to you),

I might lock it in a safe and let nobody near it,

I might take a photograph of it then rebury it.

We were not 'promised' anything. We were given everything.

Silence was a gift. We should use it. I will stop digging.

My skull unearthed in '500 year's time' will be part plutonium, part platinum, part Pulitzer. I only fear the emptiness we imagine. I do not fear emptiness. Emptiness is not a noun.

'In 500 year's time' can only exist in a memory.

~

If we were to erase the words 'think', know', 'believe', and 'I' from the game – right there – right there you have your silence. Within this quiet proton palachinky all versions of belief lead us to the same place in the end.

Acceptance.

Philosophers have been through their stages of grief. Grief over the fact that all is absurd and then we die. Grief that no one answers our questions no matter how articulate they may be.

Denial – animism

Anger – Religion

Bargaining – Structuralism

Depression – post structuralism

And finally

Acceptance.

~

Hottyhammyun told me she has a sister who works at the zoo. She told me, "Zoo keepers hide the food in the lion's den to fool the lion into thinking it still has a job to do." Take away the chase and the beast's raison d'etre is all but gone.

We put obstacles in our own way because we have imprisoned ourselves in a model of a world where everything is available at the push of a button. As the barriers and restrictions are pulled down, we force diversions and obstacles upon ourselves. We invent jobs.

After doing our damndest to industrialise ourselves away from the production line and computerise ourselves out of book keeping, what do we do with all the time we have freed up for ourselves? Invent more unnecessary jobs before any man is seen to be relaxing on this planet enjoying the fruits of a thousand year's labour.

Are we so dumb that we need this 'zookeeper' to trick us into believing we are contributing something when we go to work for eighty percent of our short lives? Mark died as a direct result of this 'trick' of ours.

~

We are not all born to silence. We talk of the possible because one cannot talk of what is. Though I may never have convinced men like Mark or myself to be silent, I might at least move myself past the bargaining stage and 'accept' being here. Peace cannot come from language alone and neither can beauty. Beauty you can buy; beauty is for sale.

Elvis plugging away at his movies, the lion gone tame in the country. Fuck it or kill it or sing a ballad to it. The screaming baby buttered both sides and fit through the eye of that needle you will, you will, you slimy little winner you. Her eyes are pretty insane; things go in, things come out and behind those lips – nothing.

You are no slow-witted churl, not so torn by circumstance that you can't hold the cup with both hands just to be safe. What are you afraid of? Looking like a hapless infant? We all are. Helpless. I see you in your white pumps and I hold the poetry of it like a newborn. There's a warmer day in here.

~

There was a single beat of the heart as I woke this morning before words rushed in like an army of hungry children to begin describing what I could already see before me.

To recapture that peace.

~

4 – Acceptance

"The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognising a truth which has already been recognised by others."

Maxims and reflections – Goethe

I really need to stay on tangent here – the road they chose is samey. Yes, go ahead and pray to whoever you want to. They'll leave you nervous as a shnook before Game 1 whatever the weather. This may be the first summer. Stick with it. Don't let that sun sucker you into thinking you have got to go out and greet it just because it showed up today. You wouldn't have a home if it wasn't for the sun. Praise Ra from home. Sol, when you find another sun to worship, say 'Hi' from me. Your's might be the right one. And don't leave that ship till the very last moment. Till then, stay indoors, please.

Worry is a perfect example of the weakness of words. The sun can make things seem beautiful, but having to stay inside because it's raining – that beats everything.

There is this pit in my stomach, Sol; a devil tugging at my gullet and the thunder looming larger and louder – a flash of the television's light cast on the glossy cover of my book on the table reminds me not of the literature I might be reading but of the street I am ignoring. The great outdoors.

~

The Ouija board needed no letters to know the ghosts in this room, Numbers sufficed. Bored with their 'ever afters' they try to gather my attentions with clicks of their fingers and grimaces. They don't speak but their presence is felt. All the lives and the deaths I missed because of the leap. Mother, father, sister, friends. For nothing. I could have lived my life.

I took the short route. A deferment of the never-to-be.

What would you tell me? "Count your losses and start anew."

But without you.

The 'dead' rain inside me.

Corpses more palpable than the new acquaintances of mine.

I am going to spend the evening apologising to them. I am not ashamed to ask forgiveness. I imagined time was not so important. Time - its spectral fingers clawing at me tonight, trying to tease me from my false comfort and frighten me into existence – the very thing these spirits are clinging to – make me aware of this corpse I inhabit.

My jaw wired shut. I couldn't speak now if my life depended on it – I can barely hold my glass – I give it up – Can't drink anyway – Can't lift the book – Can't even bring myself to turn my head to look out of the window. There is a scream dying inside me and there is nothing funny or dramatic or smart about it. I can't make a fist. I feel no anger. Too weak for that. Much weaker than these phantoms zealously cajoling me like some soft Jazz melody and I can't even raise a smile (or a dime) for their efforts.

I need sleep, Sol. I need a long, deep sleep and if I am lucky I will dream of the saddest music in the world and I will wake up all cried out and primed for tomorrow.

Ghosts are considerably easier to deal with than the elderly – In that, I was blessed – I killed them all and now it is time for me to start atoning for my narcissism.

Most are broken by the weight of the question – the lucky few escape. The closed and open-hearted undistracted. Their yes and their no the beginning and the end of eternity; anywhere in between – a hoax.

The plague of awkward silences returned – my back to you all.

Male – "I just want you to be happy."

Female – "I just want you to make me happy."

Nothing will pass; it will have always been. And in the meantime...

~

Mean time.

That and an opportune west-break hold this thought through the letterbox of Genesis until the hungry baby dismisses his morning num nums and makes a bolt for the door and makes a bolt for the door. Don't that then rumbles and pickle the thing, these mango slices just will not do. I smiled at the flower too – does that make me a Buddhist?

The partial plane their motion did was. From fingerprints and suspect's change. When we get there do not take your eyes off him. I swear to god, don't even blink. We'll flog the Vatican, you and I, and buy an open top jalopy. Go for a picnic on Mars. We'll fall in love there on that windy red planet and wrap up tight in our humble bivouac, a child on every knee, one-two-three.

Oh God, I hope you're not starving out there. I hope lack of entertainment is your only problem. We've got the brain to feed, the soul to feed and the stomach; and of all of these the stomach has the higher hand. The soul and the brain - the feet (which can be oh so pretty or oh so ugly). Only when the stomach is full do the mind and the soul have any value. Only when the body is healthy can we spare the time to philosophise.

When we are sick, the meaning of life is too obvious to bear and so, as soon as we recover we trick ourselves once more and hide the meat between the rocks and the hard places.

Now buckle up, stick your head out the window and scream after me, "Hello, I love you. Let me give you a name!"

One more holonistic metal-proud colon shed – the robots are shitting themselves – time to renege.

~

But for the noises in the street, the outer walls of this hull are the same as yours. But for the noises inside me, the inner walls of this hull are the same as yours. But for the noises, we are nothing at all. How can this be? I can't believe it. I don't want to believe it. To find peace in this cacophony is more beguiling than peace in the coffin. The music of the spheres deep deep inside our skin. The thump and scritch of an ear, still against the pillow. Eyes closed, body motionless and yet the music persists. A slow, dry, confident comedian with a punch line he knows is worth the wait. We are laughing already because we trust him. Why else would he be standing there pinning us all to our seats with this monologue? We giggle out of embarrassment and his impossible task. We laugh because we paid to be here and we are fucked if we are going to leave empty handed.

~

5 - All five parts.

Fall.

My love for the world is fading. I move inside and lock the door. I am glad of the bruising sky. It means there will be more poor souls heading indoors like me. Levels the playing field some. I feel calm as the rain begins to fall. I am too sick for sunny skies today and would you believe it, my voice has gone!

I was croaking unrecognisable syllables at Hottyhammyun this afternoon until she told me she would return Thursday and that I should rest my vocal chords and drink plenty of warm water. She thought it ironic after having recently told her a new 'God' analogy.

"The person born without the five senses," I told her, "That person would be nothing but awareness (life). The person (thing) would not know what a scream of frustration was. It would not know mouth, tongue voice or sound. It would 'be' and that is all. Like God. No consciousness of time; for without sense of phenomena there can be no measurement of such a thing."

Despite the valuelessness of the observation, Hottyhammyun joked and asked if this affliction was making me feel any holier. I shook my head. Although now I have had an hour or two to consider the question and beyond my own decision not to speak to anyone there certainly is a feeling of relaxation which comes with the knowledge that I cannot speak a word for a few days. I don't know which is more comforting; having my body shut me up or having Hottyhammyun order me silent.

Always feeling half way to a solution – always looking for a boss.

She has been painting her toenails.

~

Now I daydream of having cramp in every finger and not being able to write to you.

I choose to read, but with a greater feeling of peace than usual.

To silence the critic.

~

The Desiderata.

As I was searching for something to read, 'The Desiderata' was going through my head, 'Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence'. I looked it up to read it fully and discovered that this poem was written by one Max Ehrmann when I had always thought it of anonymous origin. I sought out more poems by this gentleman and quickly settle on reading him. Dipping in quite randomly, here is the first line I came across –

"Better should I have known, for the things that are inarticulate cannot be made articulate and, there is no language of the voice of the luminous worlds and the love of the night."

The synchronicity of this event was compelling and I endeavoured to read him for the rest of the day.

~

To know everything and to think of nothing.

~

I have not been listening. There are practices to go with the theories. It is clearly not enough to be aware of these philosophies, but these philosophies should be put into practice.

Sol, this will take no effort in change of opinion, but a change of lifestyle is necessary for this to work. It is this sick body which poisons my thoughts. And it is me who poisons my body. It is only through laziness that I can find it in myself to detest anything, and it is this sickness which keeps me lazy. There is no way to feel the benefits of all the wisdom we have been blessed with through the centuries without 'joining in'.

Selfless activity.

Maybe I can begin slowly with 'sulkless' activity and the selflessness will follow.

~

One more walk. The goal is to feel 'normal', not 'spectacular'. Normal – hungry, tired, well fed, rested, not sick...normal.

The ecstatic moments should not be forced – this is what creates unbalance. I have always taken discomfort as a personal affront and I have been upset when I felt it. Upset at who?

~

I don't have to be 'here' every moment. I can bring myself back to thoughts of the present, but to stay here is dizzying; that being because there is no present.

I should permit myself to get lost in non-thought sometimes. Like a golfer or a tennis player who is too aware of the weight of the moment. I balls up the present by thinking about it too readily.

To lose oneself is necessary for peace of mind.

~

The books I read speak directly to me, as all books do. But only now can I see that I have been passing the buck for all these years. When these writers wrote of 'future philosophers', the ones who would carry the torch of knowledge onwards, I imagined impossible humans and the magic weapons of genius they might wield, performing their miracles on earth, brandishing a sword of flame and donning the almighty crown of the philosopher king. And I see now that that's just silly. I am surrounded by these future philosophers. I am looking them in the face, fooled by their all too human visage.

It is to us all they wrote. If not us then who?

I will stop passing the book.

Those wise, wordy men often spoke of the inevitably unrecognisable aspect to the philosophy of the future. This future philosophy they spoke of would be unrecognisable to them because it will have finally gone 'beyond' words.

~

"Some place you've gone, I know not where

I bend

My head each stilly night and send

A prayer

To you away somewhere."

Max Ehrmann – Will you come back to me

His words are so positive and so clear and most striking is his naturalism. He seems like one of us. He holds no flaming sword but a leaking pen; his hands covered in ink. His words are idealistic yet crystalline. His 'yes' to life is comforting.

I know that you will not return. I know this and yet I still pray. I send my letters, and like prayers I have no hope of reply, except in the seven corners of my mind. It is in this mind I feel trapped and so it is the mind I must master, not time, not space. You are not coming back and I am going nowhere. Whether I am indoors or out, I cannot escape this box. These chairs.

~

"I am that I am," wrote the author of Exodus, referring to God. This was not cryptic; this was the clearest pronouncement all reasonable beings are capable of. From ancient Hindus to modern agnostics, this is all any rational being can logically pronounce apropos our existence.

I am that I am is in essence saying nothing. If we rid ourselves of the words 'I' and 'be' as I suggested, we are left with 'that', which, by all accounts, on its own, means too much also.

~

So here is my first point of departure – departure from the old ways; the dull, unhealthy, confused life.

One cannot reason clearly when one is slaving to keep others trapped inside their illusions.

~

You were filling out the Doomsday Consensus in my apartment and fretting over what to put in the box next to 'Religion'. You claimed you did not believe in God, but that you were Catholic because your parents were Catholic, and theirs before them and theirs before them. I told you that you were not religious and that you couldn't be if you didn't believe in God. That was my mistake.

By trying to simplify these complicated words we misunderstand each other. Only once we have understood the complexity of words and concepts such as God and Religion can we share the divine simplicity of it all without any confusion or conflict.

To write 'Catholic' in the box or to write 'None' in the box; both equally asinine.

The question itself is bullheaded and unforgivably crude.

"Are you religious?"

Perhaps this should be my second point of departure. Take this time and ask myself, 'Am I religious?', 'What do I think I mean by religious?', 'Do I believe in God?', 'What do I think I mean by God?' If the second and fourth questions are answered in complete sentences, I am probably barking up the wrong tree.

If I come to the end of the day with a smile on my face, I shouldn't call it Zen, I shouldn't call it anything. Every one of those labels will make me look like a shmuck to anybody whose personal dictionary begs to differ.

It is it before the word it.

Nameless before the naming of names.

Once I have realised the limitations met when attempting to rationalize myself into an explicable existence which I already know and inhabit; then and only then may I have the nous to realise my own limitations within this very real world and become the genius I was born to be.

~

I cannot breastfeed and I blame no one.

The coronary hobbles forth and drops Its hat to the ground.

"We are going to the park whether you like it or not."

"Well I like it," it replies.

~

With wine and time in my hands and the frame of the day not elected nor holarchical I dreamed I could convince myself. Levelled. A flat universe, but flat like a fourth dimension; not flat like the one you're thinking. Flat like there's no depth to the flatness, just a disc/plate with the thickness of no.

I would not fear speaking to my friends in this 'flat' place. But in this 3 dimensional spectacle, conical, expanding, creative universe I worry that my friends will find my flat pratology insulting.

"Who are you to tell me what is wrong?" And back and forth till the clemency resides smug in the original wang who whispered to you, "I am right."

Growing up should also represent a growing away. Growing away from the crummy excuses of schools, unkind, blind and untested since the turn of the monophile.

"That is right; I have judged it so and if my judgement be proven fallacious I will kick and cry and smite thee flat, but 3D flat like about a quarter of an inch thick – real uncomfortable."

A jealous God sounds like an unstable God – one who has overreached in his efforts to please and found little to satisfy his own mighty desires. You cannot stomp about on a disc of no thickness. You cannot throw a tantrum in an inside out bubble.

Your graven image in every letter; diabolical tributes to a thing once absolute. On the skirt of this disc/plate my friends peer, all squinty eyed at the thing which is nothing and I squint at them as they do this. Most of them using their religion like a recreational drug; they mean no harm and cause no harm and no harm is coming to them as a result. Their big fat eyes attempting to scan something which is the opposite size of their big fat eyes.

If our face box were transparent and our eyes were just a pupil with spherical vision and focusing on just one thing was not possible. To see everything about us at the same time would force us to quicken our souls and have us focus on the outer sanctums of the mind.

~

If George Lucas had had the inclination, I'm pretty sure he could have taken The Jedi Order a lot further than Hubbard did his failed Scientology.

~

Sometimes I hold the pen over the page, my mind on everything but the page or the pen. I hold it and I'm protected from the outside world. From the fear that you are no longer a part of it. If I can convince myself that things that are and things that aren't, aren't and are then maybe I can convince myself that you will never leave me.

A stone's throw from the clarity of a classic movie's Hollywood close up – Montgomery Clift in the passanger seat of some old rags and tags truck, two spits for luck and three kisses for the Iranian in the sandles. We can all find our place when it's understood that it's the same place as all the others stood or walked or sat or shouted or read or wrote or gazed at the sky and the stars and the people around them and wondered what exactly his place was.

~

I found myself walking in Charles Bukowski's footsteps today. I wasn't here but I was in California and I was on my way from my apartment to the liquor store. The sun was shining and my footsteps were so clean on the pavement, the people who walked past me were aware of me. One day they would read about me and say yes, yes, I remember him. I walked past him one time. They will say it with that proud exhilaration one feels when one has brushed close to greatness.

I was suffering today from acute stabbing pains in my abdoman.

I imagined Bukowski on an ordinary day. Maybe he hadn't written anything that morning. Same empty thoughts, same disregard for the job he has to go to that afternoon to get more kredit to eat and to drink. Thoughts like this going round in his head – how you're not a writer until someone pays you for having written. "All I am is a bum with dreams. It's how you carry yourself." Like the space you occupy is the same space all of your dead heroes occupied and you've got to make them all as proud as hell that they shared the space with you – you of all people who can see the light and breathe the air and feel the sun and hear the clean sound of your feet on the hot sidewalk and it's not so bad you have to go to work today because it will pay for the food you are going to eat tonight and the drink you are going to drink and the roof you will sleep under and the notebook you will hold your pen above to fend off the phantoms at your windows but you won't write with it tonight, not tonight, because tonight you will have too much company.

~

I asked Hottyhammyun's four year old son how he was this afternoon. He looked at me like I had just asked the most puzzling thing.

"How are you?"

So I asked instead "What did you do today?"

This he answered, happily.

~

Note: 3435

Bruno Ganz in a pimp's E-Type. Angel's wear pony tails and sit in libraries for hours at a time.

This is but the image of a pen.

They've heard it all before.

What a child doesn't know; you can never write.

"Just swing, don't use force!"

"Even the stones come alive."

But I can't fuck you over by telling you the password is within the stones – that just wouldn't be fair – no, I won't do it, I'll make one up and I'll pass it on.

That way I'll be sure it's the right one.

When the world is snuffed out we will remember the fire dances, the symbols and the writing.

No depth to this biblioteque sans musique.

The stars will bring us together.

~

Sol, If infinity were plausible there would be no limit to the distance between two objects. Infinity would necessarily apply to the infinite lack of point between two objects. There is no touch. We are only repelling other atoms which are themselves differently affected by gravity, hence the feeling of force and the illusion of solidity. The points we touch are the start and the end of the circle (figure of eight) which we create/participate in when touch affects us. Infinity working on all levels but the imagination.

You and I, Sol, we are essentially so close; as close as the radio waves which skate across the stars carrying our symbols made sound and sound made symbol. The heart of this boy's imagination has been stretching and it is in that stretching that I love you. Communication is a relay of almost still particles passing it on and passing it on until the message gets where it is going.

"But that's 'The Force'!" you laugh and it crosses my mind that not all of us would come up with Gods, and infinity and emptiness were we left to our own devices.

It is not our country or our family or even our position on the globe which dictates our philosophy, it is us and we have the exact same capacity for confusion and revelation and understanding as the wise or ignorant people we judge, fight and condemn.

Do you hear all that? Is the sound of it travelling? It's the hum of activity in a busy park. The sun is out and so are the people. Families, friends talking and drinking. The summer breeze is the dominant. The trees seem pleased to be doing their job. A thankless task producing oxygen. The dummies who worshipped trees also had blind reason on their sides!

The stars will bring us together yet.

She handed me the pen. "Defend yourself with this."

She handed me the knife. "Define yourself with this."

~

We stopped going to church, my family and I. But we used to go, like you and your family did. Dad couldn't see how there could be a God who would allow terrible things to happen on the planet. I don't think Mum cared one way or the other.

For her, Sunday school and church services were a nice way to see the neighbours regularly, but nothing more.

Stepping away was an intelligent choice of Dad's but another example of 'blind reason'. Mum's faith in friendship and community. This was purer in its way.

Thanks for being Christ-like, Mum, and not Christian. Faith is definitely the wrong password.

~

Acceptance, acceptance and acceptance. I should look to and for and at the root of everything I see or hear. This stuff did not come from nowhere and it did not always exist. There are so many welcome and stimulating things out there. No thing is more sacred than another and all are forgettable and are guaranteed to be forgotten.

Any two people talking about two contrasting beliefs are still two people in precisely the same situation.

Both capable of seeing, in the other's eyes, the hope that the person they are looking at will be understanding; that they will infer difference due to their family and culture and their interests but know that they are the same in that they have both beeen affected by those things which they were not invited to challenge at birth.

Reciprocity.

The ignorant, the apathetic and the smart will have the exact same answer.

If we are to cast our children pell-mell into an education we did not have a part in mapping, we should at least make sure that our kids are aware of the trappings of this secular nightmare.

Where is the food?

This is a good question.

What is the meaning of it all?

Completely counterproductive to one's responsible nature.

~

Speaking against religion is a neurological disorder. The discussion itself is a neurological decision. We can and should choose to reach the point where we do not need to question ourselves or anyone else on this matter/non-matter.

A universal cognitive therapy.

A practical detachment.

A lack of interest. A genuine lack of interest.

Making a virtue of not thinking.

Through recorded history the list of things we got wrong far outweigh the list of things we think we got right.

Judgement day – A frustrated mother shouting her empty threats, "Stop it or else!" when there never was an 'or else'.

I will keep calm and show my love.

~

Even the hangovers are different (better) when I am aware of who or what is to blame, and I remind myself that the unhungover things of the world are still out there waiting for me.

Our brain controls movement alone; our way of interacting with other objects. In this way it is possible to rid ourselves of all neuroses. It is all connected to the movements we made – not the decisions but the movements. Our ethical stance? To cause no harm with our movements.

~

Note: 66

Cold coking the self said aim at a Winkler stroke blue cloud in a white sky – the upshot the be-all, the end – the fashion shoot. The freedom and striped shirt of an armed female in sunglasses rode mother in on a chrome horse without a digital cardinal to reprimand the said self. Holding out for a grander scheme even when the size has been studded for comfort and won't fit over the son of a bitch's fist. The ring of truth and one more bout before returning to the centre for some convert less grandiose. The knees grazed from an in-line flirt heaves her bra out from her desk job and gleans information out of you like a Pullman steam bat.

That's not possible you coulda walked all that way without catching the sun. Will they play again? Isn't once enough? Will there always be one more and the shade cast by the eagle's flag shudders like a pen writing on a mowed green canvas. Do you have room enough to swing a swinger? Do you dream of coming home? Does virtual sex satisfy you or are you melting from Copeland and brain storks? Now tweeze the mint from the plastic bottle of your hope.

Draw the market away from the flies.

Just leave the flies.

Yes they will play again. They always will. That last woman, just before the ark left the planet – she looks up at the burning horizon and bids adieu to the gravity she once trusted. The first time in her life she feels sorry for all the fish.

A hague gag in the dugouts – Pra pra pra held back a year and quartered by a husband who didn't rate. The bowler quarantined against the bilious flim flam of a gloved pea-in-a-poke. Scooped from a ball, he uphooked the lamps she bought. They call it a basket when you catch it like that. You don't need translations, you just have to keep score. Error for error the Tegola Titan's statistics as boiled as carp. Forgotten and fisted.

No one else saw you there as you get hungrier and hungrier for the perfect line. They won't stage a tribunal without a charge and the charge is – You look younger from a distance.

The sun blushes at this line.

~

Only to share everything and remain anonymous, or share nothing and show up. The couples on the road alone the cigarette poem alone again at home, the door ajar a joke too far a couple rhyme a couple form a couple free form a while a threesome ague. The gap from tooth to tooth and sandy tight the jeans or heckle – or shout-back heckle,

"Put a sock in it would ya?"

"Gladly."

A thump and a phone call to find out the cost of the thump. Always the calls, always the freedom to spend, or lend or the sheer audacity of a national resource to claim ignorance in the bespectacled face of beaurocracy. That's sand too, you know.

A nose like you know and grey speckled Marlin come further this skin disease. It's years since she shelved that furby of hers and hours since she tried to recall its colour.

"So what exactly are you charging me for here, sir?"

"The bread."

"The bread doesn't come with the menu?"

"No, the waiter comes with the menu."

~

The suppository of Hottyhamyun's influence still itches – She left me today with a bulging question,

"What would you do if kredit were an object?"

I'd speak another language of course; leave the country; travel somewhere where their language didn't match the one I learnt and live happily ever after as nescient as electricity.

I could pretend that the people who paid me didn't know what they were paying me for; then the joke is on them. I'd fuck all the women and stare at people in market places. I'd mis-read the adverts so it looked like they were giving away colourful scenery in A4 posters and billboard size chunks. I'd make believe all the people who sat by me or walked past me were discussing matters of great import and that I couldn't join in even if I wanted. If kredit were an object I would do as little as possible to get it. If kredit were an object I would marry someone rich, someone with her feet on the ground – no astronaut.

I'd quit smoking and take the piss out of Spanish people, how they limp when they speak. I'd waste my evenings threatening tourists who asked questions about starters, mains and deserts. I'd hold my breath and count to Bill Maher. Shave girl's legs on trams and poke their boyfriend's eyes out with the blunt end of the razor. Look debonair when I made a mistake. Tell everyone everything I was thinking and write it in a book that cost $0.99cent. I'd shout OOGA BOOGA OOGA BOOGA whenever I saw a woman with a large pair and I'd push my T.V. round the living room like a bully. I'd invite poems to lunch but go home with prose. I'd look at the sky more than I looked at the ground, especially at night and I'd stop hoping to catch its eye.

I'd copy everyone's style until they all caught on.

~

It is childish of me to concern myself with my neighbour's activities. Pettifogging and pointless. I harp on about him like some bored housewife when there are thoughts I wish to follow. He is misleading me. I am misleading myself. I must let go. No more gossip.

~

The pointlessness of everything.

I dreamt of a bubble – small and large at the same time. I felt the bubble but couldn't put my finger on it. It was on the tip of my tongue. It was all time like a signifier. It was about to cry tears; the hollow in my throat the same as the hollow signifier in all things. The bubble didn't burst. I swallowed it whole and attempted to digest it when I could have just as easily spat it out. This sickness inside me the size of the universe now.

I am bargaining still. 'Meaning' died and I am not yet over it. I bargain with the meaning of meaning. 'Meaning' by whose standards? Whose grammar? Whose philosopher prince? I will not be able to 'accept' this mentally or physically until I let go of the question. The question is corrupt; a falsehood, a tangent too far. I am afraid of total acceptance; of pure happiness; of freedom; comfortable in this prison of words and reason sounded out and tested by an examiner who represents nothing more than the questions he poses.

There is no point from which we can measure anything. Infinity is pointless. There is no 'moment' and there is no singular spot. This should make measurement impossible. This is all the same space all the same time. The large/small bubble of everything. Not the big picture but the only picture. Anything we can think of doing, we can probably do. We are manipulating matter alone – changing organisations of atoms – controlling the levels of these changes – we have limited reasoning for a reason. We are part of that whole which we manipulate. The rest is unquestionable, unchangeable cosmos. We are bound by our attractions and our attractions dictate our limits (this on a physical level and on an emotional/intelligent level).

Now memories are the sum of me. All present, all unrepeatable. There is no stream of time, just one beautiful constant. We are always standing in the same river. There is no once-twice-three times. I meditate on the things I have done. I am still doing them. This works. I tried to recall my books but this is easier, closer to home. I bring back memories like they happened only seconds ago – at best, I am there still. Always will be. Whenever I will it.

I am the sum of my actions. I should not be so attached to things. A complete lack of interest is my best quality. I should nurture this. Everything is and everything isn't – will not be. This is the way of thingly things. The bad things which are are and always were manipulable. There is no Karma, just the way of things – No luck but a high or a low in never-ending order.

If I give myself up to the future, the city or the countryside or the ocean or to a war, I must accept all possible outcomes. I must remember that within those chosen parameters I can affect change, but only in as much as that order will allow. This includes the possibility of inciting a full scale revolution.

I cannot ask why I was not born rich, or why I was born rich; we are the seed of trees and flowers scattered about on healthy or unhealthy land. We have legs to propel us to more fertile land. We can affect change. We can make our situation better or worse. The more memory we have, the easier it should be to make things better. The more we have to delete, the easier it gets.

The bad situations I find myself in are my own doing. Whether I am annoyed by a heating bill, a crowd of shoppers, a crowing rooster on a farm; my location is my choice. I must take these small frustrations lightly and move. If I cannot afford a bill I must get kredit, move somewhere warmer, cheaper, educate myself and get a better job. If this bothers the person I live with – I will let them go. If I do not wish to work hard I might concentrate all my energy on doing as little as possible without starving. I must accept my choices and the limitations I allow myself.

~

There will be stupid people. It is my choice if I wish to live amongst them.

~

To avoid bad things is best. To seek only the good is to let your defences down.

~

I am following rules which I must remember are merely 'agreed upon recommendations'.

~

Always searching for the fun in situations is harmful – It is not everywhere to be found. I must allow for quiet times, these are valuable. There is no luck, only the consequence of the movements I make...

~

You never wanted a child, Sol, but if we had had the chance, their name might have been our sacred word.

Do you think I would have been a preachy father? I think I would have been a preachy father.

~

Sol, if I were a preacher, I would preach to the converted who preach to the converted. Conceptual artists lay down your tools. Use your talents to entertain. To change an opinion involves engaging in the infidel's own language. To be 'political' means to be a part of politics. To be apolitical is to miss the point. The politicians, like artists, have a very specific language. Conceptual art uses titles to excuse itself in a world dependant on explanations. No labels. Create curios to stand alongside the wonders of nature.

Do not scruple to deny the flies their addendum.

~

Art.

Art should attempt to test the limits of our 'reason'; to push all senses to their limits.

Art - is showing a certain respect for the metaphysical realm which we can only dream of making direct contact with. An artist's inspiration may be attributed to the metaphysical world, but our purity of reason will only allow of so much supposition before it refutes what it cannot know and returns to reality, i.e. the limits of our senses.

We still have not found any unified agreement on the definition of these borders.

If my own 'Art' is to have meaning it should seek to reach these borders by any means necessary.

We can forgive much nonsense in the pursuit of the unknown. The mere fact that the answers Art seeks will never be answered allows for an infinite amount of permutations in method.

The fact that I still have the desire to answer a question which is of itself a contradiction of our reasonable understanding of 'being', might go some distance to prove that language has a lot to blame for separating 'entertainment' from 'art'.

Art which in turn is a pure celebration of existence gives rise to the notion that I do in fact have my answers laid in front of me, and an exuberant sharing of this answer might be recognized amongst others as a sort of positive 'spiritual' communication.

The works of people who neither question nor claim to answer the universal conundrum of 'being in this world' lie in the realm of the phenomena which artists themselves wish to unravel and translate into communicable and understood 'objects' along with all other objects.

I struggle daily with my inability to find comfort in mere 'being'. The goal of every artist, it could be said is just that; to find comfort in being.

Until there is a feeling that all people on the planet understand and share this comfort there will be no end to the amounts of 'art' works that will be produced.

Manifestos will be written, political, sociological, psychological and philosophical books will be written ad nauseum, but there will always be someone who believes the message can be put in a more direct manner.

"The answer must be something you could whisper into a dying drunk's ear." E.M.Cioran

I have not always sought the quickest way to answer a problem; indeed my life itself is the unseen preparatory chapters, preface, introduction and multitude of illustrations of the very work I have at hand. True art comes from the desire to be an Armstrong, a Copernicus, an Einstein; to be the one human being to put pay to the eternal question, 'Why are we here?'

The difficulty in answering this question arises from the fact that subconsciously most do not really want to know.

Should we find a solution to our existential dilemma we fear that we may be left with nothing but decoration and superficial entertainment in place of the rich world of art and artists who have excited us on so many levels.

However, if I were armed with the answer to life, the universe and everything, this might be enough for me to move on with my life and stop wasting my time with 'silly' notions and, more often than not, 'empty' gestures in an art world tripping over itself to make kredit.

Once I start answering the question of what I shall do when 'art' is pronounced dead, then maybe I can pay proper tribute to all the great artists of the past and present who work feverishly to this very end.

None of this is to say that the type of art works which would be produced in this philosophical utopia would change in any way, only that the purpose of the work and therefore any notion of 'meaning' within the work would be meaningless, except to be read as expressions of the world/self.

In this world where we would not be questioning our place in it but conversely felt 'at home', what would the artist have to express? Their happiness? Their comfort? Their oneness? What would be the point?

The best writers tell us things we know in a way we could never express ourselves.

If we all knew the meaning of life we should not be impressed when a conceptual artist, for example, claimed that their work was 'about hope in a hopeless world, nothingness, death, mortality, banality, morality.'

Plato spoke of the artist having a responsibility to the state. In many cases however my own mental (sometimes physical) separation from the state was necessary for me to work freely.

This work remained unseen and uncriticised until it was in fact chosen by certain representatives of our state.

It seems to have become the state's responsibility to provide the public with art it believes to be useful. In order for art to be useful it has to fulfil certain public criteria.

\- Must be able to make kredit for those involved in the process of promoting/showing/criticizing the work.

\- The artist's own financial gain is not important.

Nothing has changed, Sol. The critic and curator remain essential in the perpetuation of the world's obsession with artistic success. They still cannot trust themselves to be judge and jury over what is good or bad in an art world free of any qualified definition. It may even be said that an analysis of the meaning of art critic could well be more valuable than an analysis of the meaning of art, for it is with them we place the weight of understanding this synthetic term, art and artist which I have been using.

~

The permanent revolution of art - to no end but the end of the last popular charade.

Hottyhamyun asked me, "Where nothing is said anyway, why change the old formulas?"

"For the sake of entertainment," I said.

Art is a release from boredom and if indeed an art claims it is the essence of boredom, it does so in the name of entertainment.

Art is silly.

Art is fun.

Metaphysical philosophy itself is fun.

Art is a fantasist's illustration of metaphysics.

If there were no mystery there would be no decisions. If there were no decisions, there would be no competition, no 'mock-contests'.

The child and the madman come closest to divine inspiration when they work with no end to their art but pure release.

I do not miss painting, Sol and I am glad my work was drowned. It makes me feel honest; wholly myself again. One must create and discard, create and discard. If there was anything there which was worth its salt, it will be recreated by somebody else. Of that I am confident.

The individual who has never questioned their existence but has succeeded in diligently involving themselves in the process of living – to these I could not preach. They can well do without the hassle. They may however get a kick out of knowing that they know as much as the greatest minds this world has yet hatched.

~

How to conduct oneself in a society – This remains a worthy subject of inquiry. Until I can resolve to do this...

I who have not only left my world for dead, but arrived in a new one only to shut myself off from it.

~

Sol, the time jump did not come without its consequences. Recovering from the culture shock alone is occupying most of my waking hours.

~

Caught in the crossfire of a world which only wishes to create representations of the things which are.

\- This painting is about (insert subject)

\- This book is about (insert subject)

\- This play is about (insert subject)

What happened to actions unreliant on expansion.

\- This painting is.

~

This work is about...'communication'. A contradictory annotation if ever there was one.

~

Gall on a weekend I sat in the sun and ramificated the elliptical conundrum from ABC to ZZZ then, and of a fate, he showered the wisest with a lifetime's accumulation of explanations and notes on the wings of the bats in his belfry. The mathematician's nearest and dearest equally confused by his bellicose refusal to talk. Truth taking precedence over the cloying, unceremonious desire to be righter than right. A droopy-breasted wife disgusted by her husband's ineptitude. A droopy-eyed husband offended by his wife's droopy breasts. A barking dog. A discombobulated child. A steaming kettle.

A middle-aged man in a bar, one small beer, no phone, no keys, no book, no cigarettes, no company – listens to the music. The day is beautiful. The day is written. The day is painted. The play is on. He sits smack bang in the middle of it all. A beautiful penless critic, appreciative of all the effort that went into this moment's actualisation. This perfectly charming exhibition of human achievement. Her floral dress, his fumbling joke, her mother's laughter, his sunglasses, his tan, these decorations, these tables, these chairs, these terracotta tiles, the waiter's amiable smile, the waitress' singing voice, the teenage girl's knowledge of all the songs they are listening to, the father's well-behaved child, Daddy's deep sigh, the chef's secret told in a whisper, the light resting on the bar just so, the tourist settled on this bar after all, the smell of the fresh-roasted coffee, the taste of the cold, well-brewed beer, the tip of the ice-berg of the overwhelming, heart-warming, miraculous number of designs on display to this quiet man.

His is a regular story book, but with every word hugged by parenthesis.

~

Note: 374584

No rest inside nor judge either, the cropped shorts or mirror shades – the unheard call or the vegetable parade, I seen 'em and their purposes – they is always, nay always an Onegin too far. Your perfect cold overreach, your spider high overbite – you goofy swinger – you hefty bling bling blinger; I shine better than you ever wrote. I would still give everything for a nice walkies.

No.3 up, batter, batter, batter blung. A bunt you hired and drawless admonished. Just to see your face; you coming round the corner there as natural as water on a freezing planet, cold wet and stagnating within me – Purification somehow. My box set demands it. A bat laugh snapped, cap-broke – a leg tone pale mum stroke, my left side inside spasm, just a touch. Sets my teeth on edge. Some settlement of my unpaid bills and bends.

Answers Cancers.

I saw it was good. I was still wanting. A child-sized pint will get me through the body blow but I'll need some sleep, some alone time till I talk again. I'm not made of paper! And yes, yes you were late. Patience is its own virtue – being late is like sliding into base through broken glass and you coulda run in standing or stayed put, but you chose neither. Suck it up you prancing bloody fools. Now bring it in and give us a hug. No beauty, just a whole lotta stuff.

It's how you look at it, not how you see it.

Put it down to alcoholic drinks and heavy food, cigarettes and a strong appetite for self destruction. Watch the ball, watch the ball, now swing. A scoreless innings while they dreamt of bobby-sox and polished dance floors – heavy dub and heavy lyrics by-passing the heart, crammed into the colon, refugees of sound – recycled and that much slicker for it. A polyplatonic drum roll and skeezy dumb dums. I got a crick in my neck from keeping look out – let me rob the pay roll once in a while.

The flea-ridden dog of a sea-side shaved. On scabby claws we bent and rail for shells that tell the mermaid's tales. Closer the painted nails and issuer and sinister. The shade, no sun, not shade anymore and all in the blink of an eye, an ink and a Tata bliss. Rattled out of complacency by the smallest gesture, the limpet tear, roped into 'treason by name, treason by nature', a frozen explosive in his son's wrist. Watch him blister the magna martyr cataract and face-bone click of leather and stitches. You looked like a hero so you were a hero. They climb over benches to get to you but since the drought, the prohibition has had no effect. They've all been given a name now which means the Titans are relegated to smaller pitches.

This was supposed to be a punishment but it just makes 'em look bigger.

"Didja hurt yerself? Don't talk so much. You were always at one with the world – Just try and get some rest from all the blonde-haired blue-eyed voices in your head. I love you just the same. I love you all."

No direction home is the way home.

~

We accept rules as easily as we accept air. Makes the seasons easier. God doesn't clutter – God doesn't even matter; time, space and matter being all from that same box set you put aside to make room for your parboiled ideas of sanity and creation. The isms prisons and indoors is outdoors (with walls). Tiger-skin dresses, washed feet, sand blasted, a bash over the head and a roasted couple uptight from the lecture. Murdered beasts and planted plants. I'd give the world back to the ants. Keep breathing, keep teething, keep healing, stop kneeling, the roof is not a sealing; you ain't burnt if you ain't appealing. The skinny monikas on your shirts torn off with a sharpened pencil – don't crowd me and I won't stare. You only think you are taller than your daughters – I've gone off music the same way you've gone off music. That which once surrounded me and gave me comfort no longer surrounds me. I am too far inbetween to ignore my influence on my influences. I will take responsibility for your actions also. I am captured in a magazine of my own making. I have edited myself into an unacceptable niche. What once seemed to be judgeless open mindedness has precluded all the possibilities concurrent with common sensibility and simple acceptance of the bleeding obvious.

It's drawing the words I enjoy. Putting symbols on the page. More abstract, more conceptual, more surreal than any painting. So pretty, such bad, so malleabley. From a feeling to a word to a group of symbols. Then you turn that round and you should end with a similar feeling to the one you started with. That's not including the three thousand years of belief in nouns. A kestrel, a buzzard, an eagle, a buzzard which is an eagle, a musical note which is a thought which is a thing.

Sad music lifts me today. It doesn't always but today it reminds me of you and the similarities between music and feeling. Faster than words – just as noisy – put the two together and one could lose oneself for an eternity without ever getting bored. The shape of a woman, the pleasure in winning, a hug, a job well done, a healthy intake of breath, a sigh of relief, a thousand feet a second maybe more. I put my 'cloud glasses' on; makes everything look sunny. A two year-old who needs water. She grabs the bottle, opens the lid, lifts the full two litres, almost as tall as her, to her mouth. Doesn't quite make it. All mothers together – how come you don't dance anymore?

~

There is only one obstacle now.

"How do you like to be treated?" Hottyhammyun asked me. "Do you like to be treated well? Do you enjoy when a favour is done for you? Do you appreciate sufficiently the time people have taken to make you feel good about yourself?"

I shouldn't have travelled here. I should have stayed put and said goodbye to you properly. I could not let go, Sol. I behaved like a child; an ungrateful, selfish, lazy child. And now, after all I have been through, I must say goodbye anyway.

I let Hottyhammyun read my mail to you. She read it very carefully and said, "Unless you let Sol go, you will never have your answer. As long as you are writing to her you will never know what it is to live." She told me I was hiding behind the very words I disparaged in my letters; that this is not how I should be expressing myself and that my love for you should be enough to appease my fears.

"You see birth as a punishment and life as a big conspiracy. You look to the stars for your answers like something is being hidden from you. This is an error on your part,"

she said.

~

There is a hunger on me like an uptorn tree – the facial features of – the social pariah of – the effulgent capsize of – blow my blow my blow my love to me, I could eat a parish.

They make a circle around her; they go hush, there's only one; but she's an angel and they would be wrong to mistreat an angel.

Ever since the quiet corruption comes toothed, teethed, proved, mis-spoke (we are the expression of God; we cannot express God.)

The rook climbs down to the stream side night, shakes its ass and warbles on at the crocodile formation the dowdy locals chin chin and cheer. I ain't brave enough to pretend to tame you but if I stomp long enough and dance hard enough you just might find it in your wafting candle to forgive me. It'd be kingly of you, if you could see your way clear to handing over your knives. A show tune may be nice too. A million miles away behind the door I can see the same as everyone else. You can't break the old frame drizzle of a hated scarf catch senile rumple black rumple now can you?

"No I don't suppose you can."

Her singing voice has flowers and rain in it. His has gravel. Her skin has light and shame on it. His has scarves. I will save you from the rain, or drizzle or whichever way you have it and I will save you from the frames. The white, red, black and pale on patrol inside the jail; the dark but you're youthful – the window packed like a mule or two, yours and mine. The inner mission.

INTERMISSION

\- Everything is and is not

\- The biggest is the same size as the smallest

\- Nothing changes. Everything is happening at once

\- We are and we are not

\- There is no one idea that is not connected to its reasoned birth and its considered results. One thought continuous and coagulating but never still and never decided.

\- Meaningful, minimal, light-filled spaces

The puffed out look of the jog jog bird dawdling amanautic announcements to the trees, the back of the city and a fat head from coddling the interiors. Amulating the in-laws laying down hope brick by brick; you button the first button wrong and you're fucked all the way.

~

Note: 1011

No fear like the present – an unexpected appraisal – out of the blue super moon – out of a rich Freon tide and baggy jeaned tethered bride opes doorway to stairway to bottleneck on the road lobes – If you listen loud enough you can shut them all up.

Bubble and squeak maintains the Shakespearian will what we writ – If I should die before I wake (I pray to God who is on the take) you get me jumpers, me brushes, me pens and me braces, me munny, me mummy an' me anecdotal evidence that a well turned calf means a lot more than cosy ambles and your unstable realms of intelligence.

The very next Mark happened upon Parmenides as recounted by Plato. Parmenides and Zeno. Some coincidence.

~

I will dedicate my new work to my neighbour. I have begun quietly to plan a new series of paintings. I have not told anybody. Paintings the immediacy of which will be sufficient explanation for their existence.

~

Sol, whatever happened to art and literature being dedicated to kings and queens, presidents and supreme leaders? This was a fine idea. I would also dedicate my art to imbeciles though. Philosophy and art are not all about sounding clever, they are about being truthful. They are about humans, not the elite club who dine out on the aphorisms of the erudite gentlemen and gentlewomen scant few of us tolerated at University.

A book dedicated to myself - An ABC of happiness. How to avoid the guilt felt for not being more productive. The laziness felt because of lack of healthy food and drink. No exercise. All seeds of depression.

Pissed off for not having as much as that guy.

Jealousy.

Physical sickness.

All avoidable to varying degrees.

So I make the decision to change, Sol. I am sure I will not become a tyrant.

"From today I will always be different!"

How good that feels. How good that always feels. A lovely moment. Making a decision to make a change. So lovely in fact that it is difficult to quit. We love making the changes and trumpeting our good intentions so much that we never are able to settle on one thing.

Big changes are not what will help me, but deliberated acceptance of my own responsibilities.

I would like to reach that juncture where I do not need to change anything in my personal life. My mother was there. For a while. To do this I must recognise (or blithely ignore) the permanence of enlightenment. An inspiring thought, book, film, lecture or poem can lift me for a day at best but the jubilant feeling of discovery always fades because...?

Because I am always looking at the wood. The 'big picture'. Since I was a kid I instinctively recoiled at what I saw as petty mindedness. "Look at the big picture." I would say, "This means nothing. What you are concerning yourselves with right now means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things." Now I see. There is no scheme and it's not so big. And 'things' is a very unsatisfying description of things.

No small and big picture – just the picture.

I need to put myself into places where the immediate is enough for me. With the correct frame of mind I should be able to do this anywhere. At the drop of a hat. Home. So, we choose our friends, we choose our job, we choose our wife, we choose who we are to be.

When I am low I shall think of all those who ever looked upon me in a positive light and imagine they are sitting in the room with me, following me around. I will be the best of myself at all times.

~

In my notes. The message was never in the words per se, but in the fact of them. The notes are born of the moment, as much as that is possible when hampered by the time it takes to think a word and write a word. The joy of writing. The pen, the notebook, the ease with which I or anybody else can carry such infinity of theory in their own jacket pocket.

I must meditate back to the present whenever I drift. Ask myself why I am here. Not such a redundant question if it is taken at face value at all times. Why am I here in this room? What events brought me here? How long do I wish to remain cooped up like this?

To take this question absolutely literally. The idea that 'here' was a question of 'being' was never valid. I am here and I always will be. I am, and always here. I never won't be.

Why am I at this table? Why am I talking to this person? Why am I in my car? Why am I in a hospital bed? Why am I in her bed? Why am I studying? All this leading to the equally pertinent questions, who am I? And what do I want?

To say I want you, Sol, really doesn't mean anything any more. That used to be all I had to go on before I came here. Now there is only me.

I don't have to change anything.

~

We all share the same air when we think and we have trapped our thoughts like keepsakes in the cage of our mind. Sometimes it is easier to read a person than a book. When we find ourselves in a state of elation, openness, or of being high, people's thoughts are released. We become thieves of thought. We become astronomers of the notions, neuroses and inspirations circling every individual. Their ideas suspended there in plain view, to be photographed and recorded. This is a two way street and one has to be careful being so open since we have become such a solitary species. So shy, so alone and so protective of the crap we think we are in control of. Namely 'ourselves'.

No doubt this is not only one time and one space, but also one thought.

~

Note: 1289

I could be tempted the walk back – is a broken or an ash trail of the duck and children foulophobe. Like children.

There's an accent there and an old fashioned hangover cure. That's Caribbean rum and the stiff muscles of an eavesdropper. A place misplaced and his eyes over his shoulder since her absconded with me tele-bike. I was here a long time ago and she is the one who a long time ago shook me up when I was here, and she knew then, with just one glance. And even though I changed me hair she shouldn't stare she shouldn't stare, because I was here a long time from now. And him is worse; he's underage and camouflage from tricksy-bell. I looked around and way back when, no kiss and tell, no will to dwell. All girls, except her neck. All feels. This Mediterranean baggage I gotta loosen, the tight-rope from a trawler puckered up for its dock. No bra, so far.

"You're a cheeky one!"

"No fun without an insult or two."

"You are a heckler."

"You Madame are a quail!"

You called me out on so much and so defensive I became and never wrong.

You put me off trees. How did you do that?

~

Is it an impossibility that everything could just as easily not have been?

\- Black is not white

\- Air is good

\- 'It' works 'it'self out

\- The thought thinks itself

\- Green is nice

Stoned thoughts written down and in the cold light of day, silly, obvious and not literary in the slightest. Sol, I am starting to think such trite observations are the only things worth knowing.

An office can appear more miserable than the Bohemian bars of the artist but the levels of sadness afforded both is not meted out geographically. Swap the painter's stool for an ergonomically designed office chair. The artist deliberately seeking his own discomfort. The office worker decidedly fidgety in his repose.

Sit them both on a long bus journey with no toilet and watch them meet in the middle, cross-eyed, cross-legged, tearful and equal. Let them starve on a desert island. See them work together. Die together.

~

Hottyhammyun dragged me to an exhibition. I watched a young girl piercing her skin with wire strung surgical needles and hang 'significant objects' from herself. A crucifix, a flag, a bitten apple. I could not help but think how she could benefit from any other work besides 'artist'. Work in a shop perhaps. But this? A dated form of 'shock art' to make a statement about shock. 'Torture art' about torture. She was doing what all artists claim to be doing - communicating.

"I am putting you off life and I am putting you off art. I am putting you off life and I am putting you off art." Not her intention I'm sure.

We spoke. I was cornered and she spoke to Hottyhamyun and me.

"They think I'm a freak," she told me, hoping that they thought she was a freak. 'Poor girl' is what they were thinking.

"Yeah, but freak is okay, right?" Hottyhamyun said.

She had offered up a pair of scissors so that the spectators could cut an item from her body. Most people went for the flag; they cut small pieces from it. I passed.

"They hated the flag," she said to us, like she had learnt something about humans and the political stance of the people in the room. This was not the case. Cutting pieces from the flag was an easier option than choosing to snip one of the objects from her body and accidentally tugging on her bleeding wounds. The people were embarrassed. She misunderstood the situation. She forgot, for a moment, to communicate with herself.

~

Nothing changes – I picture the boy I was at sixteen and my consciousness seemed full grown. I see now that it was. I am the same consciousness well fed. In the process of being fed I am all the results of my desire for things. I am able to distance myself from the elements that caused discomfort more easily and reap the rewards of those things I wished to know or experience; and so it will continue.

Like a four year-old who knows only his own garden, the short walk to the swings, his toy box, his house, the neighbour's homes and the faces of his family.

Infinity might be a tough nut to crack but it certainly does not give a home to boredom.

~

"Don't live like there's no tomorrow," Hotty' said to me. "Live like you will live to two hundred and like you have all the time in the world. This way you live like a king, not an agorophobic junkie. A king!"

~

The young artist's piece was entitled 'Internalizing human consciousness.'

No inside or outside on this score – just like before.

I dreamed I was on my knees. I was playing baseball and I had stumbled between bases running towards home. I saw a newsreel of the failed attempt. The commentator was speaking: "He hadn't realized that the fielder running after his ball had also fallen to his knees. If he had gotten up sooner he woulda made it." And there I am back in the stadium on my knees and I look over my shoulder to see not only a fallen right fielder but the whole opposition on its knees. I get to my feet. I have plenty of time.

~

We found each other in a dream, scarpering around in the spirit world, a glance of recognition, relief and a promise to meet up back in the school yard when the gods deemed us ready for each other.

I am every thought of every person I have ever met except myself.

There is no narrator greater than the people we choose to be with.

~

Winter

I'm learning to detach myself from my books and movies. Learning how to use them only as reminders of how to construct a life well lead. To compile the best bits and replay them like they really had the worth I afforded them before I experienced them. That beautiful moments pass is one of the bizarre travesties of life; that the ugly moments pass, one of life's blessings. I am the movie and I am the book. Everything I have done can be brought to mind with an aroma, a taste, a picture, a clear blue sky, a song, a sound. I am still connected to you, to my childhood, to everything. We keep pictures in our minds; memories like snapshots, perhaps fuzzy but still there to root through in our quiet times. To objectify something which can never be objectified since it came from the same source that wishes to put distance between itself and the event.

It might sound funny, Sol, but our parents achieved this trick effortlessly. I remember being perplexed at first how they could happily ignore the world's artistic achievements, music, theatre, film, television, art etc. Conversation at home was never based on such 'trivial' things (the things I was preoccupied with), instead they spoke of their locality, our relatives, their friend's comings and goings, their own daily activities. And they spoke of these things like nothing else mattered in the world. I would ask them if they knew some author or other and they would reply in all humility, "I wouldn't know about those things." I used to think they were missing out, Sol, but I was wrong. It was me who was missing out believing that Harold Pinter had more to say about their situation than they did. Your father himself encapsulated the essence of Kierkegaard's contented man. To learn from a man like your father is to be a man like your father.

There is nothing mysterious about the dark and the light within us and around us, just the confusing illusion that the two are disconnected and that we must spend our lives hoping to piece them together like some unworkable cosmic puzzle. To be a man. To be a woman. To be alive.

~

I am moving house. I pack. I label one banana box, 'Kitchen things'. This is now a confusing item. This box is not for bananas and it is not for kitchen things. It is not for anything in particular. We are born and we are labelled. We spend half our life shaking off labels. We are born from nothing, to nothing, for nothing and are free to fill ourselves with whatever we can fit in. Our capacity is so much greater than our labels ever give us credit for.

There is a certain snobbery to the belief that individuals must rise through levels of consciousness to achieve oneness with the cosmos. This oneness is something we never have sight of, having been connected to it all along.

Once our consciousness has begun to pinch, we should be free to pick and choose; to sift through the multifarious opinions presented to us and use every revelation at our disposal to build on a life of sharing with ease. Whenever we witness something which causes unforgivable discomfort to others we should involve ourselves in disposing of it permanently.

~

It is not what a person says but how he behaves and so says the so so glo cleric stoic hero of the transom fi. Ethics must be the main focus of human knowledge and so says the go go numeric pores; a biology like a mathosphere; a global fusion of metal and humour. To examine ones own judgements and behaviour and determine where they diverge from the universal reasoning of nature, not forgetting the Gostak.

A communal solitude under the gaze of an inner Nyman, plink plink plinking its way note by note to a complete peace. I remember falling in love with every chord. I picked up your guitar, Sol, and I wrote to you that way. That was the first time you replied.

At once private and shared. I felt your blessing and I jumped.

The incessant repetition of the 'communicator' with all their heavy breathing and passionate dispassionate discourse. The miles and miles of distance between the philosopher and the thing – their entropic display reversal refusal; their play time handicap Oedipus excuses piling up imagination upon imagination, turtle on turtle to no avail but the tale – One for the kids.

"What did you do during the war, Grandad?"

"I wrote about the war."

"With your fingers?"

"Yes."

"At a table?"

"Yes."

A wooden table?"

"Yes."

"On paper?"

"Yes."

"From wood?"

"Yes."

"Enough of your tales Grandad."

"Poetry is violence."

"To the trees maybe."

The creationists saved by a child and his best friend stumbling across the body of a woman. Everybody has their own 'office'; some just got more corpses than others.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing, no stains, no readable signs, no fingerprints, no sunshine when you're gone; I whistle in the darkness and kiss your eyes closed. No coins, no plays, no sanctuary in the lack of motive, but we all feel to some extent that none of the books are written for us. We forget – all the books were written by us.

We don't have the address but we live here all the same. We sneak philosophy in through the back door like naughty school kids; we compliment the landlady on her stupid plastic trays of angel cakes. We think we are so much smarter than the 'blue rinse' but she sees through our obsequious show and if she chooses to change the locks, well there's nothing we can do about it.

So what's the act? Remember you once asked me how I would be if I never had to play the game, put on a 'show'. I told you I would most probably sit in the corner of the room dribbling like an idiot. You seemed surprised.

Hidden in the ghostly voice of your wartime beauty, sighs the high life of nostalgia too pure to bear.

Free Will precurses the abnuasium.

Silent time.

No free will for infants – Deja Vu, our true state of being – the eternal return pampered and hampered by forgetfulness. Time as one moment. We are all free to choose within the framework of determined parameters but we are not free to choose the parameters.

There may be no free will but there might be free feeling. To be able to shape the way we react to all this motion. That's something. Either way it all amounts to the same thing. All philosophers working from the same studio space with the same tools.

We do not watch the past become the past. The tree in front of me does not recede into the past the longer I look at it. No moment can separate itself from now. It is just as unfeasable to see the future as it is to see the past and so I am always with you, Sol.

Occasionally we stumble over our rational brain worms and predict things to come. Fall into a transcendent state in which it is onerous to remain for any extended period of time. Step outside of such limited concepts as the minute and the hour however and it should be easy to accept ones perpetual state of being as the ultimate omnipotent reality. And the next step? Not to think about it.

~

Hottyhammyun has been taking me out. Although every time I leave the house I feel like it is a betrayal to you. She takes me to art exhibitions; she believes that if I can acknowledge that there are people out there who think the same way I do, I may be able to overcome this damnable anxiety. Maybe even paint again.

If I can only find it in myself to trust the very people I want to live with peaceably. Trust that their acceptance of life is not for show, but as real as I wish it to be for myself.

They are all out there, Sol, offering a million different perspectives on how to shrug off the original discomfort of having been born. All kinds of adaptations to the ongoing creation of a universally accepted form of mental ecology.

~

Caught in a mimic confound, I capitulate the momen-crowd and speculate openly on the honest to goodness measure of ourselves. The guys who turned down Adolf Hitler's art school applications must have kicked themselves – that close to saving lives. Groaning under the lightness of being comes off cheap and forced.

~

I feel the silence coming like a new beginning. That same silence I used to have inside me; the silence which gave me the confidence to say whatever I wanted to say without second guessing myself. You remember that guy? He was softer, easier to deal with. Quieter. He was more of a human being than this querulous wreck with his fluctuating stomach ailments.

Returning from the bins I see Mr Dobra receive a visitor. A well-dressed young man. His son? A careworker? There is laughter coming from his room. The young one laughing.

I promise myself I will eat well today.

~

Sunday.

I point my feet forward, wrap up and go out.

My finest piece, a walk in the park.

Caught on re-dial, the extra terrestrial banjo chance of an afterthought. Oh to live in such vainglory days.

I tried my best but still got pen on your curtains.

Opal-shaped nano-fields open once more to the investigation of a lover's pain. A real pain. Struggling for a foothold now – time is exhausting me. All I want is your 'Okay'.

It has been one god awful start to the decade, Sol. How would you like to chip in and put some old time classics on that jukebox?

I'll play us out with a cool one.

I know you're listening; you're always listening whether you like it or not.

I guess that's entirely up to me now ain't it, Sol?

And Sol, before I take your leave, I want to say one thing; it sure is nice knowing you.

# The Refusal of Silence

Michael.J.Rowland

Copyright 2015 by Michael.J.Rowland

Cover design and art work by Michael.J.Rowland

The Refusal of Silence is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents either are a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or events is purely coincidental.

