the voice of rot.

waking up next to her, watching her rouse from a sleep I knew was a pain to be stolen from, what I felt didn't have a syntax. language relies on the other person sharing the sentiment. you draw a line between the word, your meaning and their experience. without context a word is just a dumb sound. a lump of rot. and your voice would just be the voice of rot. the river spring of dead sentiment. that is why I could not say that I loved her.


the night before, we'd drunk a throat-full of wine. dried our vocal chords on plumes of cigarette smoke. we played the game of flirting, rallied to our intent and, on reaching out to each other, we'd stretched clear of sex. wordlessly we'd fallen into each other and, wrapped-up in each other's limbs, we'd fallen into bed. instead of sex, we met under a cave of blankets, kissed briefly, and only at the neck; then we were left with each other.


perhaps what needed to be said was too hot on the tongue. some incantations can set the body aflame. in any case, all things said cannot be unspoken and perhaps what we'd wanted to say we'd felt was the other's privilege to speak. to look back on the moment we'd confessed to each other. look back and celebrate the anniversary of our honesty. instead we were too timid and all our talk, the night before, of being true and honest and open, was just that... talk. in bed we kept our lips free to speak and said nothing.


small-talk is the art of skinning meaning from our words. making a sentence as light as air, forgiveable nonsense. nonsense makes fun of honesty. hyperboles the narrative. nonsense is an expedition into the blank space on the map. a way of claiming land we need no army to conquer. in that way that no country owns the poles, the sea, or space. to say that we are exploring, is to admit we own nothing of the land we touch. instead of invading, we go adventuring. possession in the sense of inhabiting, rather than owning. later comes the process of naming. of claiming, calving and setting up our borders. later comes the emperor, the king. later comes the war to hold land. the only free land left, the no-man's-land between trenches. perhaps I held on to the need not to lay claim to her. if we could have managed nonsense, we'd have been saved.


instead we laid there, not speaking. we watched the sunlight come out, bathe us and then retreat. we watched leaves bud and flourish, then turn royal and drop. we did not eat, for it would have meant our mouths were too full to utter a syllable. we did not leave each other's side that whole time. we thinned out until our bones were no longer just a suggestion of form. our skin tightened and began to rupture with bed-sores. and we held on to each other. and no words came. and we died there. alone.

first draft (scribblings of) 'The Death of Coil'

Homa (sanskrit) refers to ritual in which offerings are made to a consecrated fire.

Coda can denote any concluding event, summation or section (music).


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


1.0

It's late. Java is in Restaurant Bar and Grill, at a table reserved for two. The other side of the plus sign hasn't arrived. It equates to an expensive meal for one. Java is convinced that the waitress thinks he's pathetic. He should leave, but instead Java takes out his journal and a pen and begins to pretend he's a food writer. Java is pathetic. Java gets weepy over romantic comedies and falls for women ahead of speaking to them. Java is already enamoured with the waitress. Java convinces himself that the low light and large glass of wine is to blame.
The waitress sweeps over to his table and doesn't even ask before she clears away the cutlery opposite. He can't tell if it is an insult or an act of mercy. She asks him if he has decided what he is having. Pathetically, Java reads this as flirting.
Java explains that he hasn't yet had a chance to look, he smiles a lopsided smile and swallows audibly. Java suggests that perhaps she could recommend something. The waitress smiles and says she'll get him another drink while he makes up his mind. Mercy. Tells him the menu is a real page-turner. Insult. She turns on her heels and clicks off in the direction of the bar. After a few minutes he looks over and sees her smiling with a bunch of the bar staff. They look right at him and laugh. Java understands that he is amusing to them, but decides to think that he is doing them a service. Java is pathetic.
Java is not the age he is. He just doesn't act it. He's 13 in spirit. 60 for wisdom, when he applies it. He's 25 only when applying for credit, looking at his passport, gets asked by bouncers and when confronted with his birth certificate.
When Java sleeps he can be himself. When he's awake he's stuck being who he is.
Java eats what he's ordered and when the waitress comes over with the bill he asks her out. She says yes. Mercy. She says she's got nothing better to do on the night he suggested. Insult.

2.0

Zivora is the waitress at The Restaurant Bar and Grill. Working, she gets paid to smile at the unfortunates who come in to order this, that and whatever. Zivora has to act like she likes their jokes. Has to pretend to find them 'interesting'. Dealing out cocktails is garnish to the pretence. She gets paid to make people fall in love with her. Actor/smiler. She's cheeks and teeth. A grin for drab gentlemen. Her apron is a nest of bills, printed with the faces of long-dead contributors to a nation she's not even from.
In life Zivora is unsure whether her production outweighs her consumption. She has promised herself she'll only love people who produce more than they consume. Therefore, she can only love herself if she follows the same law. In work, Zivora produces feelings of radiant hope. She makes the patrons feel good. At work, she outweighs her consumption. She listens to their stories. She is consuming their lives, but a smile is enough in return. Their lives aren't worth much more. Outside of work, that's where her philosophy pales. Outside she might take and take without returning the gift of anything.
At work she smiles a different smile than her real smile. At work she will give while she takes in return; because when the customers move on, they don't feel the loss of themselves, only the loss of her. While they are in The Restaurant Bar and Grill she contributes light suggestion. “Try this drink.” “Try this dish.” Meat to the exchange is that smile, but the eyes hold the suggestion. All with too little sincerity, but just enough to pass for honesty. They choose to follow her guidance. It means they think she's worth believing in. If Zivora likes a guy, she'll refuse to suggest anything. At work, Zivora switches her eyes off.

3.0

Before the date, Java thinks a lot about Zivora. Java likes to think he's never seen the act she's paid to perform. Even though he understands how things work in The Restaurant Bar and Grill. Java is unsure though. Java asks himself how easy is it to change? How easy is it to leave that pattern of expression in the place that gives wage to it? Is it ever possible to refund the cost? Java is pathetic. Java wants to mean something meaningful to her.
Java's favourite café/bar is Mello Mello. Great vibe and tea to swallow, he chatters nonsense to staff members. Tallest of them is Paul. Tall Paul is not paid to smile. He's not even paid to sweep. He's here to bring forth the drinks that are ordered. Everything else is charity. This charity is the reason Java tips. And when the tip jar said 'great tippers make great lovers' he gave a little more. He tips because money isn't the sort of change he's scared of.
So, Java decided to bring Zivora to this place. The place of no pretence. The aim is to target the real her. The arrow is the truth of himself. Java is not a rich man. Java is not a man of particular talent or genius. Java is Java. And Java wants to know if being Java is enough for Zivora. So Java plays the game of disinterest. Decides that he wont flirt, or give signals (best as he can avoid it) and will treat their time together as a time between friends. He decides it is best to be dissimilar to every other man who's met her. In this way, Java hopes to be better.

4.0

Though each is unaware of its name. Both Java and Zivora believe in Homa Coda. In Homa Coda all is seen with closed eyes. Safe in bed is the need to speak, or rearrange earrings. In Homa Coda a haircut walks quick past periphery and swarms to gather with other things that go unnoticed. Homa Coda makes you blind to everything but the thing you want to see. So Homa Coda makes a break for sanity and trips up on the journey. Homa Coda be praised for the blind and the mute. Praise he who halves a newspaper page to rewrite a headline. Praise he who borrows salt for a mouth ulcer. Homa Coda is the cure to the human sickness.
Homa Coda is alive in small things. Homa Coda is the real name of true love. Homa Coda is the energy that goes between two people when they meet for the first time. Even if they have met before. Homa Coda is the glue between them. Homa Coda is the magic, for want of a better word, that makes fools out of those most logical and slaves out of the disloyal.

5.0

Zivora has a game plan for the night. Speaking slowly always wind them up. Speak like you're breaking poetry over your knee at the line-breaks. Speak like each word is enough in and of itself. Like even the word 'tea' has potency. Speak like you've got a five-year-old cross-legged on the floor before you. Speak like they aren't able to process. That always pisses them off. Zivora hated this. So, if Java hates this, if Java speaks of hating this. If Java has the guts to say so, Zivora will know. Anyone owning less splendour would put up with it to get in her panties. If Java riles to it, Zivora will know they are a match. Zivora knows this because Mylo did this. Mylo the ex.
Mylo worked as a mental health nurse for Liverpool Royal Hospital. Mother and sister trained him before schooling took over. He was dolling prescriptions; and, from time-to-time, on suicide watch, while other kids played with tonker toys. Mylo was a musician. Mylo with a camera lens for vision. Mylo, who tried to hold onto everything.
Mylo might have caught the curse of genes. Might have been natured into feeling depressed at regular intervals. In truth, most things are infectious. Habit isn't the antithesis of restraint. When you're around the mentally ill, you'll find the truth of this. Call it understanding. Call it empathy. Call it what you like, but you'll soon be rocking back and forth.
Mylo was a depressive and this weakness was good for Zivora. Weakness always breeds sympathy and sympathy keeps a bad relationship on its legs until the last. Fuck the band, fuck the photographs, Mylo and Zivora lasted until even the pity-brand of lasting began to falter. Limitations were set aside. Homa Coda in all its glory. This was the last time Zivora felt the faintest hint of Homa Coda.


6.0

Inside Mello Mello, Java waits for Zivora. Outside, Tall Paul runs a brush over cobbles. Java moves outside to smoke a cigarette. Tall Paul says he's 'sweeping up,' but means 'sweeping along.' There are no carpets to drag trash to and under. So he corrals it into a corner. Java gets some last minute advice from Tall Paul about how to snare Zivora. Tall Paul says that all he has to do to keep her, is act like he can live without her. At this moment Zivora rounds the corner and comes into view. Homa Coda from here on out.
They order. Java suggests nothing, retaliation for the previous night.
Java wonders why Zivora is speaking so slowly. Thinks maybe he could get a word in between each of hers. It is beginning to upset him. Java wants to fit more into the conversation. Wants to hear her life, her history, her particular take on whether life is just a journey of perdition.
Tall Paul brings out their plates and sits down with them. He tells them a story about his fish. His poor fish that died that morning. Says he's spent all afternoon trying to decide how to say goodbye. Java says he should treat it to a dose of the elemental. 'Spent it's whole life in water, why not singe him.' Java says, and Tall Paul agrees to run with the suggestion. They comfort him. Say that some things are meant for short lifespans.
Zivora goes back to speaking like she's set to a lower BPM. Breaking point comes when Java asks about her current position. He tells her he's had an earful of the too-slow conversation. Says he doesn't want her to take him wrong, but he wants to hear at break-neck speed too fit more in. Says he's loving what she's producing, but the conveyor belt seems to have snagged on something. Zivora smiles. At this point he sees an honest smile. And Homa Coda strikes to forge the bond between them.


7.0

Homa Coda has been blamed through ages for the current state of romantic tension. The truth is that few things are Homa Coda's fault. Homa Coda has to deal with derision. Homa Coda has to deal with humanity's need to see an evil in balance of the equation. Homa Coda is all glory; so, in the face of this, it can forgive them. Few romances are caused by Homa Coda, too few people pay it the correct attention. Too many people see a pretty face and launch for engagement. These are the sad times we live in. Married to a movie's impression of true love's expression.
Homa Coda is equal parts tension and elation. True Homa Coda is one person accepting another's limitation.

8.0

While Zivora dances below Christmas decorations, Java tries to straighten the spokes on a locked up bicycle. It isn't his bicycle. They've left Mello Mello behind them and the invitation to her apartment has pressed sole to concrete in a journey to see it.
Answer me, honestly, would you join her dancing in the rain of LED's flickering? Or him fixing the world, one bent spoke at a time?
Would you take her hand, sweep your other hand around her waist and dance like you can hear music? Could you break step to be with her?
Or would you conspire to fix what you can see is broken? Could you fail to notice that there is a heart below surface tension? Could you grin and smile in the face of a broken heart?
Java can sense the death of Homa Coda around her. Even with the birth of a new brand, old Homa Coda is clear. Zivora gives him a name for it. Mylo. The low soul with the band. The sad spirit wrapped in photo film. Java thinks that it is a little early for Zivora to be tending to a new crop of Homa Coda, but he wants her. So he forgives her for it. Accepts there will be a limit to how far she wades into it. At least in the immediate.

9.0

Homa Coda is never solid. It is dissolved into all things. It is the sleeping salve. It aims to heal when the healing is needed. More-often, it is the cure for itself. When a new swell of Homa Coda appears, it repairs the hole left by the one that proceeded it.
Zivora's Homa Coda with Mylo ended months ago. Only fragments remain. Java is to follow. The pace increases with proximity.


10.0

During sex Java has made Zivora's coil slip in her pelvis. She jokes about giving birth to something invented to prevent it. Java blames himself. Imagines he has a cock that enjoys tugging on string. A cat to yarn. They can say these things to each other. Homa Coda is a catalyst.
Java's mind is whirring. He's still trying to come to terms with Mylo. The spirit of the last lover. Java realises that there are no words that are used singularly and exclusively between them. Every word used has been used before. He longs for words only their mouths can manage.
Zivora's mind is stoic. Slowly she is extracting the shards of leftover Homa Coda. Mylo has less of a hold on her. She struggles with how to show it. Knows she has to set Java's mind at rest. Her coil is a bone of contention. She knows Java is sorry, but can't find a way of easing him of it. Far as she's concerned, she's producing more than she's consuming.


11.0

Zivora gives birth to her coil. Java held her hand and tried not to squeeze back. Some ten minutes later Coil is sat on the cold kitchen linoleum. From now on it will never be just Zivora, Java and a book waiting to be written.
From this point forward, Zivora knows that her production will always outweigh her consumption. Giving birth to something made to prevent that brand of production is the hallmark of a new age of thinking. Coil is birthed to linoleum floor, slick with blood. Red, white. Candy striped. Growing and wiggling. From this point Zivora knows that, that which limited production has now been birthed free of her.
Zivora fixes her hair-clip. A click commands her own brand of self assurance. Light runs the line of her cheekbone. Kindles a stray hair she's missed. Coil lays twitching. For Zivora Homa Coda is a feeling that gets switched on after a second swig from a gin bottle.
Java can't believe his eyes. Not a product of him. A symptom perhaps. His hand in making something living. Something that should not be living. Horror subsides and he asks Zivora if there isn't somewhere to put Coil. A few moments later the fucia is uprooted from its pot and Coil is planted. A glass of water is a shower and the candy stripped youngster is clean. Bloodless. A shrug with arms raised to sky. Now Homa Coda is split three ways. A diagram in the shape of a coil. Zivora sharing Homa Coda with Java and Coil.

12.0

After Homa Coda comes on, Java and Zivora love Coil. Coil, though it cannot be expressed, loves its parents. Coil sharing Homa Coda with Zivora and Java. Coil can't smile either. Coil wiggles. Coil is a new shoot through topsoil. Coil needs a light mist to feel well. Coil is a ne'er-do-well. Coil is a symbol. Coil represents two paths to a dead end. Coil is the conception of contradiction. A way of moving forward which relies on staying in one place. Coil is the theft of, a yet unmade, something,


13.0

To be cliché. Music is the food of Homa Coda. Notes are a call to arms. A melody is a template for how things ought to be. So we share music when our tongues fails us.
Java and Zivora take Coil on an outing. They steal themselves off to Mello Mello for something soothing. A harp to make the tuning fork Coil reverberate with feeling. So that 'I love you' can be balanced, held on each string until it is freed.
The harpist runs miles on her fingertips. Around her, people listening close their eyes in an effort to afford more power to one sense. They do this until they are all ears and the rest of them falls into insignificance.

14.0

Your personal antitheses will always rely on qualities you own. It is these things that make 'it' what it is and what 'you' aren't. Homa Coda can make your enemy a friend for life. But Homa Coda can not revive a life.

15.0

Coil stopped wriggling early the next morning. The lifespan of a mayfly, poor thing. Zivora's distraught. Java can't say anything. Their grief is part disbelief. The other part is what is missing. There is no consoling either of them, not even in the face of past declarations. 'Some things are meant for short lifespans.'
Zivora takes to drink. To drown a feeling, mouth to throat from lip of bottle. My, oh my, oh my. The death of Coil is too sobering. While she wets the tongue, Coil is still dry soil and no wiggle.
Java looks down at Coil, wilting, coming slowly to lay on topsoil. Java would give his kingdom away for one more evening.
Homa Coda three ways is removed and the effect of it dissolved. Sad and fickle Homa Coda, so strong head-on, so weak against suffering. Homa Coda gets pissed free of the body. Homa Coda is itself only when acted out. Mass/massless substance.
Their Homa Coda needed a smile to remind them of itself. This body has to have words with this soul. 'This' today and the same 'this' tomorrow.
Java and Zivora end with the death of Coil.

Inland

>


[1]


We drove, near as we could, along the coast. Here and there the road stole the sea from us; tidal, it soon rejoined the shore after cutting inland for a short time.
A car-full of friends, all loved. Nothing reminds me of love more than coastal erosion.
Isla lost Keiran six months back and, while we all missed him, she had loved him in a way we hadn't. She lost a part of herself when he left, as cliché as that would be to say out-loud, here at least I can write it.
We measured progress by lighthouses. Didn't stop driving until we were satisfied that no one else had stopped within a mile of us.


[2]


Stop me if I've told you this already. When I was eight or nine Isla, Keiran and I went up to the hill. Highest point on the Wirral. We found a nest of baby birds. Each with a mouth open. I can't remember what type of birds they were, it is always hardest to tell when they are young.
Keiran nailed each one to a fence. Isla couldn't stop crying.
Funny how we fall in love with the people who are best at hurting us. I'll ignore the fact that it is because we do, that they can.
Isla never mentions it. Maybe because to remember would be to forgive.


[3]


The rest of the Wirral is pretty flat, but I've always been an up-and-down-type. The best holidays are the ones that remind us a little of home.
When I was younger, my family took us to up Snowdon. For the view, my parents had said, but all I was interested in was thin air. I'd gotten it into my head that, like fabric, the thinner the air the more you'd notice what it's made of. It doesn't work, it didn't even taste different. Just made it harder to concentrate. That might just as well have been the cold.


[4]


Back here. In this car. With these friends. With Isla. With Miller and Clare. Here I can taste the sea.
We pull up to a spot we've always returned to. We're like pacific turtles. In another life we were born here. Might have pushed ourselves up through the sand. Turns out some animals have to buried before they come alive.
But I was born in Arrow Park Hospital. Grew up like a shoot through concrete in a town two miles away. Used to play in the woods behind as a kid, pretend we were Indians; while our parents would walk the dogs and talk about their lives. Back when pointing at someone killed them. When you came back to life when you were bored of staring at clouds.


[5]


Miller and Clare are off in the dunes somewhere. The love in them is a river; speeding up in places but always flowing. Gravity is how well two things know one another. I half expect she'll give birth to pebbles.
I light a cigarette and throw the packet into Isla's lap.
She tells me she's quitting, as she takes one and reaches toward my lighter.


[6]


Keiran held on for years really. The doctor said he had a month, but he'd had cancer for two or three years before it was found, and that counts for something. When his month was up, we knew him only by his smile.
He died in spring, the time when most things are waking up.
If Isla didn't love him before, she did after that. She loved him with everything she had. Loved him for what he might never have been.


[7]


Here we are in the middle of winter and I'm suggesting we brave the waves and swim together.
Isla stares at me; not like I'm crazy, but as if I'm giving her the secret to a magic trick. Then she agrees. It is only now that I realise I was just forming words with my tongue.
Without a word, we strip down to our underwear and run down to where the sea is waiting for us.


[8]


For a young guy I've almost drowned a few times. The first was in South Africa. I was six or seven years old and almost in control of my feet. I can remember tripping and breaking the surface tension of the swimming pool. I can still remember the view from the bottom as I struggled upwards; blue, with the air beyond like faded denim.
It was air that drowned me when I got out. Not a drop of water had been swallowed, yet the shock had me gasping like a caught fish.
My grandmother, who'd see the whole thing and knew I could not swim, said to my mother "Dylan's fine. Anyway, its the quickest way to learn how."


[9]


Some way out we turn around and watch Miller and Clare sit down back on shore where we'd shed our clothes. The water was colder now than I'd ever felt and made the blood flee the coast of our flesh. Our skin was the same grey as the sky.


[10]


We wrapped ourselves in the same blanket. Talked about how driftwood reminded us of bones. How the sea is an open grave. But also how the sea never really takes the coast, but makes a new gift of it. That to take it, would mean that there would be no coast remaining; but there always was and would always be. A new coast cut from the last. It was adolescent philosophy; but we knew it.
"Maybe it is the same with people," I said, "one person taken so you can see another in a new way."


[11]


Sailing is at its most dangerous the closer you are to shore. You can learn where the rocks are, but the sand changes shape. Maps have to be re-drawn.
We used to watch scuttled yachts being pulled free of the sandbanks. Middle-aged adventurers being rescued by the coast guard. We'd laugh, but now I can understand why sailing is a draw for so many. I think we love mysteries and the sea is one of the biggest. Anything that belongs on land can only know land. The sea is another planet. Unless you are part of it, you'll never truly understand it.
Mysteries call up the best parts of us. Questions that act as the moon to our better selves. Stirring up the sea within us; when one tide is lost, another rises in its place. The same way that losing one love, you have to find a new way to love again.


[12]


So much of what we recall are the stories re-told to us.
So many times I have thought I'd caught a loving glance from Isla. So many times a touch lasted long enough for me to question it. I lost faith in my own recollections.
Miller and Clare dropped us off at the start of our walk home. We talked about how Al Gore, the guy who is convinced that sea-levels are going to rise, has just bought a waterfront property.
I was still a mile from my own home, when we reached the house Isla shared with her mother.
Stopping outside we hugged, broke apart and then kissed.
We shared another cigarette and talked some more, this time about everything we'd missed out.
"Don't compare yourself to him," she said, "You're different enough that I can love you."



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