Rodin meets Jean Baudrillard

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I

' The average woman uses up approximately her height in lipstick every five years. '

The small bell above the door chimed to mark Valentine's arrival. Walking into the chemist his nose is tickled by a wall of perfume. All scents mixed together, distinct on the air. The entrance to the shop is flanked by rows of pink, white and blue boxes on the shelves and before each row, a small atomiser to test each against the back of one's hand. Valentine ignores all this and wanders over to the make-up stand, where the crown of his head is reflected by the mirror behind. He moves an inch to the right and there, in front of him, is what he came in for. Lipsticks lined up with their caps pointing out to show their shades.

Valentine peers around at the other customers. An old woman talking to the proprietor, who himself turns to spy at Valentine standing there suspiciously. Valentine turns to look at an 18-year-old girl looking at an assortment of coloured hair scrunches. The owner goes back to explaining something to the old woman, some instructions for the cream she's been prescribed.

For weeks Valentine had been trying to get the confidence for this quest. The grail; a tube of lipstick. The veil of the lips, something uniquely linked to love. For many months before he'd been obsessed by Rodin's sculpture 'The Kiss', a replica had appeared in his home along with the arrival of his mother's new lover, Andreas. For Valentine the statue was mesmerising; this union of two lovers, but made from one solid material. No fear of separation. It was an ideal; the representation of love in both action and physicality.

A particular shade of red stands out for Valentine, he can't tell why, but he fingers the tube. Sliding it out of the frame it is held in. Like a tiny bottle of wine; a wire rack of lipsticks. With the owner still busy with the old woman and the 18-year-old distracted by boxes of tampons, Valentine walks slowly toward the door. Through the corridor of scent. Flowers and leather, new books and chocolate, until the door opens. Another chime and the only scent is the summer air. His heart beating fast in his chest.

II

' The word "honeymoon" first appeared in the 16th century. The honey is a reference to the sweetness of a new marriage and the moon is not a reference to the lunar-based month, but rather a bitter acknowledgement that this sweetness, like a full moon, would quickly fade. '

Back at home Valentine's Mother is having her face sucked off by Andreas. The house had turned into a horror show, since his Father had left. A precession of strange men and each arriving with the promise of love. Each falling short of love after a few weeks. Andreas, like the other's, had at first made an effort with Valentine. Valentine 'the baggage', 'the package deal', the thing they could 'put up with' to be with his Mother. A few days of promising a 'kick about', a couple of gifts, before he was left alone. He'd been given a game for his Xbox, to keep him out of the way. With the arrival of Andreas his Mother had another 'honeymoon' period. The house went back to a world of doors, each containing a vision of his Mother being manhandled. Or bent in some odd direction. Lips like tentacle suckers, leaving red marks on her neck. She didn't bother wearing scarves, when she came to collect him from school. It was to show the other Mother's how much her new man liked her. Small sucker-marks of honour.

Running up the stairs, two at a time, he bursts into his room. The only safe one left in his home. His sanctuary. He moves to his desk and opens the drawer. Placing the lipstick inside, he closes the drawer and smiles to himself. At 10-years-old, Valentine's focus should be on computer games and marbles; but his mind had been altered by that image. By the beauty of Rodin's vision. His mind has turned over on itself, matured to the idea of love. As a concept; as beauty reaching further than an act of passion. His Mother's love seemed ugly to him, but Rodin's love was something spiritual. Something angelic and pure. Or not pure, but honest. Two people united by their need for one another. His mother, instead, is living a lie in honour of the pretension of love.

III

' It was believed that birds chose their mates on February 14th and because doves mate for life, they have become a symbol of fidelity. '

The next day Valentine meets up with his friend Gus in the local park. Lying on the grass looking up it is Gus who speaks first.

• Val, do you think that birds fall in love?

• Maybe.

• I think they might, you see them sometimes. Two of them on a branch together.

• How do you know they are a girl and a boy bird? Could be two boy birds!

• Don't be gross!

• I wasn't.

• Well, I think they do. My dad told me that Albatross fall in love. They are the birds from The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, they fall in love and stay together forever.

• They are better at finding love than my Mum then, she can't find love with anyone.

• Is the new man stupid too?

• Yeah, he gave me a game, but it was just to get rid of me.

• Lame.

• Yeah.

The two boys turn over to rest their elbows in the long grass. They notice two girls walking over to them. Gus turns to Valentine to speak.

• Look out, it's Margo and Felicity

• They go to another school, how do you know them?

• My Mum knows their mum, so we have to go around and 'play'.

The girls walk over and stand at Valentine and Gus's feet before kicking Gus lightly.

• Ow! What you do that for!?!

• You are meant to introduce us to him!

Margo said this with a finger pointed right at Valentine. She turns to Felicity and smiles evilly, before turning back to address Gus again.

• I think your friend is cute.

• Shut up Margo! Don't be stupid!

• I know you are Gus, but what am I?

Both boys get up and face off to their opponents. Without another word Margo lunges forward and kisses Valentine on the lips, before turning to Felicity and laughing. Both girls are off like scared rabbits. Their white skirts flicking like tails, as their shoes kick them up.

• That was dumb.

• Gus, that was hell!

IV

' The longest kiss listed in the Guinness Book of World Records lasted an incredible 417 hours. '

After the unwanted kiss of a week ago, Valentine's confusion had deepened. Even his idol worship of the statue delivered no lasting salvation. He was distraught, unsure of his own dream. If a kiss was as simple as Margo's easy plunge of lips, perhaps he was wrong to think of it so idealistically. What was meant to be an experience to alter his heart, had turned out to be hollow. A pointless action that meant nothing. He stole away to his room and burst into tears.

Some moments later his Mother appeared in the doorway. Seeing her son in such a state she ventured forward to ask him want the problem was. In between trying to swallow the lump in his throat, Valentine told his Mother about the kiss.

• Oh Valentine, honey. A kiss is only special when it is with someone wonderful. When you feel like the kiss will take your soul out of your body. When you feel it might start your heart. How you can't quite breathe without a kiss from the person you have set your heart on.

Valentine stopped crying. A kiss was a prescription, like the old lady and the cream. It was given with the intention of healing. Sure, you could kiss someone just normally, but it didn't hold the same power.

Valentine's dream was restored. He packed his bag to meet Gus at the leisure center. Wandering downstairs he turned to look through to the living room. Saw his Mother in the arms of Andreas. Saw her hug him closer and then grace his lips with hers. Valentine smiled to himself.

V

' Romeo: “Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.” '

Gus and Valentine undressed quickly and threw their clothes into their lockers. They each pulled a large red elastic band around their wrist; the marker that signaled how long they could stay in the pool.

The pool itself was a large 'L' shape and the boys ran in together, the shallow end first not reaching their knees and then cooling their thighs and then entering their swimming shorts. They fell backwards to let the water claim them entirely. Looking like two born-again Christians being baptised they rose to the surface wiping the wet hair away from their eyes and pinching their noses. Then opening their eyes they laughed that the sodden sight of each other.

Valentine swam a little, not venturing into the deeper length of the pool, where the adult swimmers were doing their training. He dove under water and as he turned looking at the ocean world around him, he saw a pair of legs and a pink swimming costume. Coming up to the surface he raised his eyes out of the water like a crocodile. There before him was April Drillard. The most beautiful girl in his class.

Feeling his knees going weak was fine while he was wading. Before the end of term she'd come over to ask him for a ruler and he'd fallen over, but here he was in no fear of falling. No further than in love, anyway.

Gus was over by the diving board, waiting his turn to do a belly-flop. So Valentine fixed his gaze on April and trod water slowly to get a better look at her. His little heart fluttered and he swallowed a mixture of saliva and pool-water. He almost didn't care Gus had admitted to peeing in the pool every time they came.

He imagined swimming up to her and being inches from her face. Seeing her beautiful pink lips up-close. Her brown eyes sparkling with kindness. He'd kiss her, draw close enough to share the same air. Then, like a fool, he'd dip his head below the water to hear his own heart beating. Like he'd done so much at home in the bathtub. His heart would be pounding so loud that everyone in the pool would be able to hear it. Then April would know that he loved her. His heart would speak for him.

Valentine trod water, not noticing where he was drifting. When April turned and shouted at him, he wasn't clear what she was saying, his head still in the mist of his own imagination. Gus flew in like an unskilled bird. His knee connected with the back of Valentine's head as he dove, unable to alter the path he was taking through the air. The lifeguard wasn't paying attention, his own mind in the mist of his own fantasy, involving April's older sister.

Gus tried to pull Valentine upwards, but couldn't raise his head out of the water. A moment or two later the Lifeguard has burst the surface tension of the pool to do his best to save him.

After being asked to back up, the people re-crowded around the limp body of Valentine Vettraiano. The Lifeguard brought his lips down over Valentine's own blue lips and pumped his chest rhythmically.

As his soul fluttered out of his body, Valentine couldn't help thinking that with April kissing him, his soul might have had a chance. Without being able to breathe, a kiss from April might have made his heart flutter alive and his lungs fill with air again. The perfume of her shampooed hair, his entrance back to life. Just like his Mother had said. 'How you can't quite breathe without a kiss from the person you have set your heart on.'

.

faux love sequence

I

The majority of the time I am lonely. I have very few friends. The reason for this is that I spread myself too thin. I need to be around people a lot and in an effort to not lose the close friends I have, I tend not to pester them too much with my issues and my need to be around people. As a result I have a huge phone-book full of people I will never ring and a collection of acquaintances that ensures that I will generally see 5 or 6 people I know a day. This is why I believe that it is in my best interests to get a girlfriend and quickly. Being with a girlfriend is a great excuse to spend a considerable portion of your life with people. You stay in, you have them. You go out, you have them and their friends. You do anything else and you can just about guarantee that you will see them very soon. That is what I need, along with the feeling of love and all that as well.

Often at night I dream that I have a lot of friends and a girlfriend. In the morning I say goodbye to them by name, assigning drops of toothpaste foam to each. Then I turn on the tap and they all swirl together and are gone.

II

I forget which charity she worked for, but I met Nikki because of it. She came in to explain a scheme whereby I would send money monthly to a child in a foreign country and then I talked to her and asked for her number. She is one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen and I’m surprised even now that I managed to get my words out. We met up a few days later and soon I was besotted. I kept looking at her and imagining all the places I wanted to kiss her and how good it would feel just to have her in my arms.

It came to me that I needed to say how I felt before she left for home on the train. We’d walked and talked our way around Bath all day, but even so it was difficult to declare my intentions. When I did, she said it was sweet. I think I knew at that moment that a relationship with her was improbable; I just didn’t enjoy the notion.

III

When away from her I try not to think about her. I do this in an attempt not to be pained by her absence. I miss her eyes the most, then her lips, both join in the union of a smile that makes my heart stammer.

Being in love is similar to being depressed. It feels distinctly as though your heart is being squeezed. Then of course with depression it feels as though it is rotting. So that is the difference, because love is precise, it shoots through your heart in one stab. When trying not to think about Nikki I listen to music. I have started listening to ‘Velvet’ by a-Ha. It seems to sum up how I feel for her, which is bad because I get tricked into thinking about her and longing for her.

‘Her skin is like velvet

Her face cut from stone

Her eyes when she's smiling

Will never reach home…

Her touch would be tender

Her lips would be warm

But when we're together

I'm always alone’

I tell myself that I pressed the repeat button by accident.

IV

While exploring Bristol, Nikki and I stumbled on an indoor tropical jungle. We decided that it would be fun to go in and check it out, so in we went and I got some steps ahead of Nikki before I noticed that she had fallen back. I looked back and asked if she was okay and noticed she had a look of sheer dread on her face. I remembered instantly that she had said that she was arachnophobia and there were some tanks ahead of us with spiders in.

To me a spider is an example of Nature’s strange and fascinating variety of creatures. Nikki, a strange and fascinating creature in her own right, looked the weakest I had yet seen her. The whole time I wanted to just hold her and soothe her, but it was early days. So I tried to calm her down and handled the situation with grace and tact.

It may have been strange to take comfort in her reaction to the spider, but then, she had caused dread in me plenty of times, so I thought, in the end, it was only fair for me to see her in such a state. More than anything it harboured the feeling of the an uneasy need to keep her safe, but then, maybe I just thought she was beautiful with her eyes slightly wider and her lips parted to breathe easier.

V

After being told that we were going to be ‘just friends’, I wasn’t in the best of moods. So I grabbed a bottle of white wine and went to the park to drink it. The wine, mixed with the misery at the loss of hope, was bitter. I thought about smashing the bottle and using the broken fragments to gouge chunks of flesh out of my arm, but thought that would be stupid after hurting my fist the night before.

I downed the bottle and went in search of a sweeter wine. I ended up in an over 21 bar and sat by myself for a further two glasses before I walked up to three girls. I bought them a pitcher of Sex On The Beach and then settled into a mindless chatter, while I proceeded to drink most of the pitcher.

I’ve no idea how I got home and cannot recall their names.

VI

At work I think about just being friends with Nikki. It is a strange notion when the feeling is so strong. I train myself to think of other things. When I got the txt from her saying that she wants to ‘just be friends’. My mouth dried instantly. My stomach turned. Tears welled up and then disappeared again. I knew that I was to be friends with her anyway. There was no need to get upset. So I txt back that being friends is ‘FAB’. Only half-meant it. I warmed to the idea when I met her on Sunday and spent the day in the sunshine. My heart thawed to her for a second time and I knew it was possible.

We walked barefoot through the fountain’s pool and got attacked by an ill-mannered child. We each were soaked, but gave as good as we got. The day with her ended as the evening came and the sun dipped below the roofs. I walked barefoot to the train station, where I put on my shoes, after finding the platform I needed. I traveled home in the quite carriage, which was a mistake because it gave me time to think.

VII

Sitting outside a small café with a glass of coke, ice melting quickly in the summer heat, I look at Nikki sitting across from me. The feeling of love hasn’t gone, just changed slightly. Instead of passion I feel a milder caring. I’ve never really had a friend that I felt that for, and I like the feeling intensely. It made me think that maybe friendship is something that would perhaps be the better option in this situation.

Behind her feathered hair, that the sunlight caught and lightened the colour of, flying ants flew about haphazardly. Occasionally they would get caught in her hair and each time came the notion that perhaps I should not pick them out, for fear of it being too intimate an action. I’m not a very touchy-feely person, so it was awkward. I thought about a child’s foot and how tempting it is to stroke the soft sole of their feet between a finger and thumb. I told her about that and she responded that she always felt like ‘chewing on them’.

It was the last time I saw her.

end.

festival of brides

[work in progress]

My ex girlfriend. By which I mean, the last girl I was in a long-term relationship with. The girl I was in a three year relationship with. That ex-girlfriend has just had a baby with another man.

It doesn’t really bother me. I’m a little put out that she got with a new guy and got pregnant. That she was part of a new family within a month and a half of us breaking up. I’ve always wanted to wake up one day with a family. To just not have a choice either way. That’s just how life goes sometimes. Some days are like torn condoms.

In the aforementioned month and a half, I slept with 4 women. So I know that I didn’t love her. I explain the three years to people as being a time when I couldn’t see that I didn’t love her for all the loving things I was doing. Its like not seeing the wood for the trees. Except you don’t see that you feel nothing, for trying to feel something.

What I never told her, because I was busy trying to love her, was that I was already dating someone when we met. I later learnt that the girl I was dating had loads more in common with me than my ex girlfriend. I sometimes think that if I had chosen differently I might not have had to fake love. ‘Might’.

My mother used to say that when you sleep with a woman, she stays with you. You are married to her by God. She always said the same thing about horror films, that once watched they never leave and you’ll have those images in your mind forever. She never warned me against romantic comedies. She should have.

Understanding this, to say I am a bigamist is an understatement. I’ve often though about having all the women I’ve slept with come together. There would be a festival of brides, because a church would be too small. Also because a lot of them would get on, so we’d get a few bands to play and have a laugh.

At the festival of brides I’d get up on stage and all the girls would file past me in one line. Just like the Pastor did at my old church. Each Sunday he’d welcome each person and they’d take the bread and wine. Except that I’d only kiss each girl. There would never be another last meal between us. I’d never ask them to do anything in remembrance of me.

If I had to choose between keeping all these wives, or trading them for one wife and a kid. Then I’d choose the baby with one. Except that is human nature. Its the same thing as hunger. An involuntary feeling. One you can ignore. In fact, if you asked me to choose then I’d sucker punch you in the gut. I’d say ‘I can do as I please!’ ‘There’s no God in control of me!’. I’d think hard and then say. ‘I don’t think I’m in control of me!’

So my ex girlfriend has had a baby and named him after a singer who killed himself. I’m of the opinion that this is asking for trouble. If I had to choose to name my kid after someone who killed himself, then I’d choose someone who was at least very successful first. Otherwise what hope’s the kid got?

In truth, I don’t worry for the kid. She’ll be a great mother. I know I didn’t love her, but the kid has to. I’m glad that she’s found a guy she can be happy with. I’m getting on with things. Sleeping my way through the phonebook. As Jim puts it.

When the festival of brides rolls into town, there will be no ex girlfriend with her baby and new boyfriend. There will only be me and the women I never loved. The women I lied to. Out of hope, not out of cruelty.

the story of Amis and how he became known as Amis the brute.

It should be put to the reader that Amis was at first known as Amis the Pointless. He was, as is evident, of little danger to anyone before this point and certainly not deserving of the title 'brute'.

Amis the Pointless was a sullen creature prone to bouts of weeping inconsolably at the vision of a crushed flower or a chess set that had not been set out correctly. He was even once found sobbing at the state of the country, but that's enough to make anyone sodden through, except that in Amis' case he was lamenting the lack of affordable housing for nomads.

Amis smoked, that's another thing you should know about him. As we all know now that does not make him a 'rebel' or look 'kool'. Except that Amis was born during the eighties, when men wearing mascara was considered cool, so smoking was picked up as a small distraction from the state of the country.

Not that Amis did much at this stage to improve the state of the country. In fact he was more an example of hypocrisy than we can be allowed to ignore. Amis was as much a reason for the country being shit, for the fact he did nothing to improve it. He was apathetic and in this day and age there is simultaneously no more prevalent and virulent a state of existence.

This however is the story of Amis and how he came to gain his newer title. How he came to be renamed.

Amis was in one of his moods of torment on the road between Meols and Hull, when he sighted a huge man walking toward him along the road. At first he thought the man was very close, because of his size in relation to the things behind him. But allowing a moment to gain perspective he was advised by his brain that the man was indeed still some way off and there was huge, but yet to be of threat. Which is, of course, the first thought of a pointless and brainless creature such as Past Amis. To consider anything larger than himself is a very distressing thing indeed. In fact, so often do they find dangers so daunting, that they attempt by any means whatever to rid their path of it, be that by running away, hiding, making them sign some form a declaration, or by employing a very large army of half-wits to dispose of the hazard on their behalf. Such is the lesson of history. Such is the state of the country.

Now it is that the large figure walking toward Amis is in fact Kevin the Tiny. Not a title that is in any sense reflective of his stature, but rather the only adjective that could accurately describe his brain. He had been studied, in his youth, and x‑rays and f‑rays confirmed that the size and shape of his brain is best likened to a teabag. The round traditional type that has been dunked a few times and then drained and placed on the side of the saucer. Puckered up and feeble looking.

The comparison goes further toward the truth. The f‑rays were more the decisive picture, showing his brain to have the same colour and even a very thin outer membrane, which the doctors hypothesised may be that through which Kevin's ideas might squeeze. Anyone who knows anything about tea-bags, or anything with a similar purpose, knows that the thin fabric lets out only the flavoured water that has swilled through and not the tea leaves themselves which remain within. As such it is the same with Kevin, only the most minuscule of thoughts can bypass this blockade layer. All the real substance of his mind remaining locked in the bag of his brain.

Who knows what grand theories might have played against the insides of Kevin the Tiny's eyes on seeing Amis the Pointless. The only thing we know is what a robin nearby heard slip from his lips. A single word. 'Friend.'

Amis' mind was agog with a reeling team of scenarios. Most of which ended with the idea that he might be cut up and eaten over a period of a days. Or however long it would take for such a monstrously huge man to eat him. Amis readied himself for a fight. The robin flew toward Amis and settled himself in a tree nearby to gauge his intentions. 'Fiend.' Amis muttered. The robin was not best pleased.

When they were only 200 yards apart Amis stopped in his tracks. Whether it was through fear, he would never admit. But we know that Kevin matched this action. Who knows why he did, other than that the outer wall of his teabag brain sanctioned the impulse to pass through and instruct the legs to cease their lumbered progress.

Amis was aghast. He was trapped in a stalemate by the giant whose name he did not know at the time. He thought about the state of the country and how such monstrous people are allowed to wander the footpaths of the land with impunity. Perhaps it was his subscription to the Everyday Moan that bred this ill‑reasoned leaning toward intolerance. It certainly can't have helped that he partook in the practice of reading the badly written wordy-bilge of such a ridiculous paper. It was headline after headline of 'Immigrants' this and ‘Royalty’ that. Moreover there was a flippant use of polls. Readers submitting their opinions on a given unsubstantiated fact and the results would be published the following day. As much as one can trust in the results and consider them a true reflection of the state of the nation.

Kevin grinds the toe of his shoe into the gravel path. Amis balls his fists. Amis walks forward and stops. Kevin does the same. Amis starts walking again. Kevin follows the action with the precision of a reflection.

The robin travels back and forth but doesn't hear another word uttered. All conversation now an internal process. Except for Kevin, who didn't have any thoughts.

It crossed Amis' mind that perhaps it might be best to walk across the field, rather than to carry on down the path and eventually meet whatever fate awaited him. There was a gap in the hedge to the right of him and he pushed his way through.

Coincidence permitted, in this strange case, that there were also a gap for Kevin into that very same field and he climbed on through, much to the horror of Amis. Kevin was mirroring him move for move. Repeating the action and even taking to running when Amis did, remaining parallel to him until he met the barrier of the next hedge. A hedge that was, for each, impassable.

The robin looked on in horror as Amis scanned the ground for some form of attrition. Seeing a tree branch he picked it up and, being the same thickness as a baseball bat and the same length as a golf club, he lifted it above his head and charged forward.

Kevin had no such luck in finding a suitable comparative prop to mimic Amis accurately and instead he simply took to running, charging down the length of the field.

What passes is the nearest approximation of the incident as described by a robin who, having been distracted momentarily by a worm, wasn't in the correct frame of mind of commit every action to memory.

Kevin and Amis reached each other, but Kevin, of his own accord, stopped. He stood there, towering over Amis and smiling a dumb but sincere smile. Amis, struck by this intense strangeness, turned on his heels and ran in the other direction and, on reaching the lower right corner of the field, curled into a ball.

Kevin was at this moment distracted, similar to the robin, by a passing bee and took to following it, soon disappearing over the edge of the horizon. No doubt off to the home of that singular bee and a waiting mob of non‑too‑welcoming and highly‑protective soldier bees.

Amis missed all this, quite in a world of misery and tears. He was crunched so tightly in a ball that he would have done well just to breathe. Upon unfurling Amis found no monster above him, nor giant near him, nor even a figure on the horizon. He picked himself up, brushed off the dirt that hadn't cemented itself (wetted by his tears) to his trousers and stood tall.

Still clutching the stick he walked cautiously toward the path and continued on his way. The robin settled on an upcoming fencepost and watched Amis passed tentatively.

Recovering his confidence in light of the deduction that the huge man (Kevin) was headed in a contrary direction to begin with - and had probably resumed his journey toward where Amis had come from - he himself continued on his way. As a last act to anoint this sure conclusion, a last sacrifice to mark the dissolution of his remaining fears, he hurled the large stick behind him. Unbeknown to Amis, striking the robin and it was this unfortunate soul who recounted the tale for the world. Insisting that Amis the Pointless should henceforth be referred to as Amis the brute, for a brute he was ‑ in thought as much as action.

introduction to Bowlhead and The Lockjaw Squaw

To say that Bowlhead and The Lockjaw Squaw were friends would be to underestimate the sheer parasitic nature of their connection. They were crutches for crutches. One held the other, who held the first, and in that way they were precarious all the days of their lives.

It was Bowlhead, so named for an unfortunate haircut, that made the first move to extend the hand of companionship. She'd seen Lockjaw emerge from behind the bus shelter rubbing her jowls painfully. A few seconds later a frustrated lad came out and burst off at speed. Exactly what Jockjaw had been up to was held as a mystery until detailed accounts of her activity, previously reserved only for her diary, were shared with Bowlhead in the hope to elicit the similar confessions from her. Bowlhead however, had no such tales to tell.

So began their relationship, a friendship that went from strength-to-strength, as they learnt how best to band together to userp the hoy palloy of High School and onward until, as 20‑somethings, they met out abuse to the characters who'd shout abuse at them or were odd looking and therefore also were deserving of abuse.

Lockjaw and Bowlhead moved in together in fall of 1997. Their flat stradded a corner shop in the area sypathetically known as the 'artistic quarter'. It wasn't much more than a run down town that had been swallowed by a run down city. At night the trains rattled by on the rails they ran down. Occasionally a young child might be run down, a tragedy but not too much of a loss really. The whole place was a miniaturised model of the state of a run down land.

Bowlhead and Lockjaw had similar taste, they decorated their flat with trinkets, souveners from all over the world that they'd been sent by their friends and family. Garish looking woodern totems and a tiki god or two. Framed artworks from Chili and Sheffield. Numerous figurines of donkeys, scarabs and primitively carved animals made by the mentally ill in hospitals as far away as the pasific islands. There was even an Inuet representation of the Britsh Saint, the late, Diana Princess of Wales. Most of the figures were carved from single trees. Specially picked out due to their sheltered upbringing, coddled by their mothers and then unable to cement lasting relationships in the forests from which they hailed. Too much sci-fi and other nonsense, the loggers supposed. Then again, the loggers had bought their wives and had them delivered on the empty trucks that were then filled to export the stacks of single trees. Trees don’t have the same customs, you see.

Most weekends held the promise of nights of debachery and days in recovery for Bowlhead and Lockjaw. However the weekdays were given over the the drugery of working life. The 9‑5 that brings with it just about enough to pay rent, bills and eat. This being back in 1997 and long before The Re-Reformation, whereupon money became redundant. (Not to mention, though I will, rent and bills also.)

It was almost too much for Bowlhead, who’d aspired to become a bee-keeper. Something which her mother and mother’s mother had done. Though each with limited success, for there is only so long you can go on stealing honey before they are likely to grow wise to the practice and relocate to less thieving places. For Lockjaw, there lingered within her the passion to be a singer, though she could not sing, and dancer, though she could not move a musically motivated foot forward without falling on her face. (Remembering also now that 1997 means that X-Factor and the like were a long way off. So there were few outlets for people talented to Lockjaw’s extent.) Each armed with their impossible dreams, Lockjaw and Bowlhead tried their damned-able best to struggle on through the mire of pre-post-modern life.

It was also in 1997 that they met with The Cosmos Kid. Quite by chance they were wandering along the canal in the evening of the 12th of October and there, jauntily strolling toward them, was The Kid himself. They’d known it was him due to the clothes. A leather waistcoat and checkered shirt below. Spurs on his boots. A formidable revolver in his gun holster belt. The famous hat, bullet-hole in the crown allowing a tuft of his hair to poke through. They were each overwrought by the vision of manliness breezing toward them.

The Kid too had noticed them, though tried not to. He knew the next stage was disbelief, followed by a sort of dawning realisation that brought with it the need to sign his signature. To save this, he sped up. He passed by and said ‘Howdy.’ In that way he was known for. And they hadn’t the time to get to the stage of coming to their senses. Our two girls are far too sharp to be kept at bay in such a way for long and they stopped short of a meter after passing him. Then, much to his chagrin, took to running back toward him. Caught foul of his own fame he had to stand there for more than a few moments to sign his name, write a message of best wishes and make mono-syllabtic small-talk before he was allowed to shoot on by.

There was something in that meeting that will forever remain significant, for it was this fleeting moment that turned the the two girls into life-long admirers of The Cosmos Kid and his brand of creation. Even the previous incarnation of admiration, Captain Wilco, couldn’t size up to this new magnitudinal colossus of cool.

So 1997 met not just with the dimming of stars, but with the ignition of a few as well and further made inseparable our little Bowlhead and the infinitely frustrating Lockjaw Squaw.

citizen journalist

The story of how Jensen the Citizen Journalist ventured forth to Hosannah.

From a formative age, the very days after birth, Jensen could often be found in his crib scribbling critical observations of the parents that coddled him. Or perhaps more often in the corner of a room, encircled with pillows, books towering around him also; writing out the inner frustration that he could not yet muster up into sound. So it is that Jensen is a citizen journalist; meaning, he writes essays from the perspective of being a man on the street. He is not always on the street, sometimes he is sat in front of his computer in his home reading an article on some website or other and a thought strikes him. Nevertheless he is always set to toe-level, for a perspective of reverence at the mundane and an envious anger directed at those found deserving. (Certainly those in need of it.)

Jensen will write on seemingly ordinary topics, or else he will write on extraordinary ones. In any case he is always an outstanding example of solomnity and social virtue. His moral compass was firmly set to left.

We might as well mention he is also a novelist, not that this has been brought to the attention of the world at large. He is currently writing a general and sweeping history of the world. Starting with creation and ending a few thousand years from now. Any further insight sadly caught short of itself in light of an absence of gifted mediums and prophets within his price range.

Jensen is a citizen journalist and that means that he fills his free time reading trash and trying his best to reword it to the contrary and pass it off as his own. Not that that is what citizen journalists do, just that he does and he is one. Logic falls away.

Jensen is sat in Liverpool’s Egg Café. He's dubbed this place his 'home in the clouds'. Owing to its altitude and because of the breezy angels that hark out the numbered call of orders. A call for order is never needed, as the people in here are subtle roudy and angry only when asked very politely. They might well be called birds for the twittering they do or the chirping into their mobile phones. Put a mirror to them and they'd kiss it; in the manner of budgerigars.

He's read the tale of Amis the Brute and is deeply concerned over the health of the robin involved. He is drafting a letter to The Protector (the only sensible newspaper left, though it too has moments of lunacy). He wants it to say something about the state on the land, when a man like Amis gains merely the honour of a new title, rather than a set of handcuffs, or at the very least the fine.

He's enraged and, checking the temperature of the world, the world is too. For the most part. The state of the land is such that there is 80 20 split in opinion. 80% of the people think it is awful, 20% think its Amis that has been wronged. Then again this was a dipstick of opinion that didn't take into account that another percentage could be met out against it. 99% of people asked didn't give a shit, or cared only for the state of their lives. Lies and damn lies and all that, but in truth bigotry and apathy remains the current climate.

Dashing off 60 words a minute on the subject, the citizen journalist is called by the editor of The Protector. A protracted conversation gleens that he has been nominated to head a team that will look into the fishing habits of landlocked countries with little or no water. The post requires he be sent to a few such places and research before presenting his findings in a 100-page suplimentary magazine.

Jensen has got better things to do, but can't afford to not do the lesser for the sake of the larger. So he agrees. The history of the state of the land will have to remain on hold. So too his open letter in demand of justice.

Jensen drains the tea from his cup and thinks he hears a faint sigh of relief as he sets it down carefully on the table. Standing, he walks past two tables of women worthy of a wink or two and leaves his home in the clouds. He hits the ground running.

The commission was to be engaged with immediately and that was perhaps a fact I should have mentioned. The plane was booked on the basis that The Protector’s Editor was confident Jensen had nothing better to do with his time. Wrong as he was, he was validated.

So our citizen journalist touched down at the first destination, The Republic of Cheryl. Greeted by what was known as a ‘courtiarge’, which was just a posh word for their version of a welcoming committee. There were baskets of blushing radishes. Quivers of long slimy mushrooms. A procession of megaphone players and power-drillers. Even one or two newspaper rufflers were there, playing the latest print of The Protector in homage.

After this fine welcome the crowd dissolved and he was left there with the team he was to lead. They headed first for a pub and, once filled to cell-atrophy with booze, then on to the hotel, like a procession of disoriented crabs. It was on their wanderings in this state that they came upon a figure dressed in a sack.

It was a burlap sack, that was for damn sure and the voice of an old crone shone out of it with a respiring unease.

“Where for you go, but little do you know!”

It was clear that they needed to know something and so, to get the answers a little quicker than they would otherwise, Jensen seasoned the moment with an empty sentiment and a request to be put out of his misery.

“Where for old crone, yet do you know something that might make my interest linger with you?”

“That I do” She replied. And it was settled, she did. So Jensen requested to know what it was that she knew that was what they did not yet know, but might know by her explanation.

“Phelamongarat make great breakneck beats,” She replied “Terrible things will happen, they will happen to you. Yet will you do them to others, it will be infectious. And what I have told you is true.

Fearful of asking anything more, lest the date and time of his death be reveled, Jensen walked on. However the old crone called after him.

“Jensen, though you have not told me your name I KNOW IT! And I must tell you, you must journey away from landlocked countries and instead take residence at the town of Hosannah near the sea of pillows. There you will be made increasingly drunk and write a great masterpiece.”

Jensen was aghast, then closed his mouth. Should he travel to Hosannah and jack in his commission?

“Yes” Screamed the old lady from some unknown place, for she was now too far away to see.

It was settled. This being the story of how Jensen the Citizen Journalist ventured forth to Hosannah.

to be continued...

the birdcage

Nothing happens the way you read in the history books. In war there aren’t two armies, there is only a field of men. There is no number of dead; but individual lives snuffed out. That is what the subject of history is, years shelved and decimalized. Birth and death, graphed to the simplicity of lines. Great wars a footnote to the next great war. The achievements of men and women plotted out against the bookmark of day, month and year.

And somewhere amongst this, my mother breathed. Somewhere danced in now long-closed nightclubs, laughed at jokes told by a younger version of my Father. And then the unpin-able moment she fell in love with him, after which she would have sworn there was no moment, that she’d always loved him.

I try to place things, to tell the story to myself, but you cannot know the story of a life; you can only tell a new story from theirs, as one cannot speak with another’s tongue.

Whilst other children would be given sweets, I would have to excavate them. Taught to choose plots on a map of the sandpit outside, my Father overseeing the dig from a deck-chair; playing ‘hotter/colder’ until I made a find.

We lived for History, my father and I. My bedtime stories were tales of Waterloo, The Somme, The Crusades. Though I had no nightmares because of it. There was always a happy ending, however bleak the tale. So that Napoleon grew closer to his family while in exile on the island of Saint Helena. That while a centimeter cost the lives of two allied fighters, The Somme gave knowledge enough to win the war – brave men have given their lives for less, my father said. And whilst The Crusades themselves cannot be reveled in, they did at least give Cecil B. DeMille another epic to direct. One that birthed the solid memory, that once my Mother, Father and I sat together; watching armor shine as bright as the actor’s smiles.

The ultimate theft is one letter from the act of giving. ‘Gave’, becomes ‘grave’ with a stroke; and that is how my mother left us. Blood drowning her memories, until her body held no more knowledge. Until there was no understanding of breath; and then, an unpin-able moment later, there was no recognition of spirit.

After my mother passed, we moved to a small flat in the centre of the city and so we no longer had the yard. Instead my father gave me centuries to play in. The new game became one of memorising dates to win sherbet lemons and sour apples.

At the time I was a child and at that age you cannot understand loss – perhaps you never do. It just becomes a fact of life. One that reers itself up at odd moments and doesn’t take the form of grief. How can you grieve for a face you remember as a dream, for to dream again is to replace them.

Instead I learnt by example. My father, with his sadness, taught me to horde buttons, as she had done. One jar half-filled, where she’d left off and then a row of others, as if she would return and marvel at our progress. Another thing her daughter and her would have in common. As if there would not already be enough to unite us. My Father and I proved that a loss shared is not halved, but doubled.

Inspiration seems to be resurrection; the common miracle, a person gathered beneath the someone else’s skin. The body is a tube carriage, our whole lives a long rush hour. Our own spirit sat alongside Nabokov, Camus and countless musicians. Death merely a change at the next station before we go on; in the body of a child, lover or fan-base.

So she became my muse and I began to do the same weekly crossword that she enjoyed. Filled in the words with red ink. I own her old records, with only a few extra crackles added to those she would have heard, dance to them with an empty coat as a partner. I’ve eaten cake with a teaspoon ever since I learnt that my mother did so. It was these, as well as countless other quirks, which men would fall in and out of love with me over. An inherence of small habits, the currency of a life without her.

I see myself as a moth, with no view of the sky. Blindly searching for a scrap of moonlight. She was the moon, that Mother above us and I searched tirelessly. Trying to hold on to the feeling of her, as she raised the tide of my blood, before she was lost again.

If she was there it was just around the next corner, a word on the next page. Like my Father said “Tomorrow never comes, its always today and then today again.” My Mother’s spirit felt like this; each corner, each page reached and she was already behind the next.

In the year I left for university my Father took a job as a researcher, rather than choosing to retire. He said it took his hours by the hand and led them away from him, but this was a blessing to him. I’d often picture him hunched over some dusty book, a slow motion fellow in a world of hushed hurrying as students darted in and out of shelves around him.

I often try to reason why he chose this; perhaps as a way to journey backward, past his own memories. Into the territory of other people’s victories and miseries. Where the future held only days without her, the past held the certainty of days already seen through to their end. Days already paid for, exempt from the debt of regret.

On February 6th he brought me a belated housewarming gift. He placed the bell-jar shaped gift on the table and instructed me to unwrap it.
A moment later and a sudden morning brought a yellow canary into song. A small life flitting back and forth out of fright, or expectation. He’d given me a bird, but I learnt it was the cage that was important. He told me it was to remember Hindenberg, so that is what I called the canary. Where other’s might have named a canary Banana, or Tweetie – I named mine after a tragedy.

He explained that the airship fell to earth like a meteor and with it died one dream of flight. From that moment the age of the airplane took-off. A huge balloon, a talisman of flight, burnt down to the ribs of a birdcage.
There was a long pause, as I looked at the cage and then at my Father, the man who never spoke of his grief, though it was at the core of every silence.

— And the bird? I asked.

— He’s to help you remember that dream of flight, that humans never let a tragedy stop them from moving on, or else we’d have called it a day after Icarus fell.

My father, the man who never took his own advice.

spontaneous

I met a girl on the train this morning. I say ‘met’ when I mean ‘saw’. I rarely meet girls. They aren’t easy to talk to and never say hello to me. So I met (saw) this girl and she was beautiful. Which is another reason I did not talk to her. Or, perhaps, the reason she did not talk to me.

I knew very little about her, but told my friend Jim anyway. He said I should describe her to him. Jim always describes the women he meets. He does actually meet them. Jim sleeps with them. Jim is spontaneous. I am not. So I told him she had long brown hair, big blue eyes and a very big nose. I told him I didn’t care about her nose, because lots of people have faults and love doesn’t see big noses. He said that love might not see big noses, but that if she was a Jew then she’d never love me. Jim doesn’t think that the Hebrew people can love. Except Jim has never met one. He calls it a ‘fact’ when really he means it is an ‘idea’ he has.

I think tomorrow, when I meet her, I’ll take a Torah with me. Women like nice jewish boys. Even if they are not jewish themselves. This I have noticed.

My manager took me aside today and asked me to be a ‘greeter’ at the door, which means he wants me to stand at the entrance to the shop and welcome people. I don’t work in a supermarket, I thought, I work in a bookstore.

Jim says later, that when my manager puts people in job positions that aren’t right for them it is called ‘Muppet Shuffling’. I’m shuffled quite often, I feel like I’m the 3 of clubs. I am not an ace.

Half way through the day I take my bright red lunch-box out to a little courtyard near to work. I light a cigarette and pretend I’m a detective. I have my own office. There is no courtyard. There is only a little office with a filing cabinet, a desk, a swivel chair and my name on the door. Everything is black and white.

I pretend I’m Sam Spade. I pretend this because the cigarette ash does what it does in the book. “The ashes on the desk twitched and crawled in the current.” I think about spontaneous combustion. I check my temperature. I think that if someone wrote about my life, then they would write ‘he “twitched and crawled”’.

Sometimes I’ll imagine I’m going to explode. That every bit of me will be lit up like the embers from the end of a cigarette. I will be walking along and a strong gust will cause me to dissolve into the wind.

At the end of the day I haven’t had a chance to buy a Torah, but she is on the train all the same. She gets onto the carraige and sits down across from me. I can smell her perfume. She smells like flowers, but I don’t know flowers well enough to know which ones she smells like.

I’m half-way home and the train jerks forward sending my book flying to the floor. We both bend down to retrieve it. It is like a film. When the two characters reach down to pick something up, usually a dropped book like this one. (Probably not ‘Penthouse XXX’ though.) Their eyes meet and somewhere in the space between their noses, they fall in love. If we were to fall in love now, there wouldn’t be much room between our noses. Her nose is very, very big.

Except, what happens, is more like a nightmare than a movie. We bump heads.

We both sit up and look at each other in the confusion that is caused by two heads hitting each other by mistake. We both sit up and look at each other and I’m bright red. My cheeks are the colour of my lunch-box.

This isn’t my stop but, when the train stops, I get up. I try to say ‘I love you, you are beautiful and I don’t care about your big nose.’ Except that a woman screams and fate decides that she only hears the last two words. And the woman screamed because at that moment, just as the door opened, I stopped being solid. I turned into a swarm of embers.