Archetype

[ i ] Birth of Prototype


Anastasia had a barcode and, below it, a serial number tattooed onto her inner thigh.
Her clothes lay in a pile next to that heap of food for rust she has become. A mound of that which hangs in the fashion of flesh and disconnect, she lies there, waiting for the renewal of her energies.

Ziv tore her to pieces. Did not want a follower. Ripping wires out. Crushing plastic limbs, until she was a pile of switch-off.

So Ziv set off, left her in limbo, torpor – a dreamless, ageless sleep. An endless repetition of nothing. No ones. No zeros. Yet ridiculously retrievable.

Ziv is a collector of fragments. Anything that had once tasted life he stole from their shallow graves, preserved and recorded. Taking them to Central as part of a larger effort to catalogue things from the time before.

Now he walks the new desert road. Past parades of broken homes. Those antique urban living spaces, now crumpled, folded over, now all so much dust.

He stops and watches as a shuttle scuttles past on a breath of disturbed air. One of the endless sweep and drop. Skimming the strands of miscommunication, telegraph wires now analogue to digital translation. Quickening itself away as it is fed with foot and pedal.

He looks to his wrist, watches as the minute hand progresses taking ground and losing all that it has gained just a second before.

So much time has passed since life was stolen. Now all that survives is fiction. Not false. Created. He is abstract humanity. That which mimes the human life, but is so far from life. Not written in that book.

Light and Dark being Light and Dark through contrast. Life ceased to be life. The balance tipped.

Nothing lives that moves, consumes, progresses through this new world.

Ziv is not human. Though more human for the attempt at that which is so far from reach, than humans ever were or could have been. For no human ever thought enough of being human.

[ ii ] Growth of Prototype


The sun is setting on that exiled archetype of humankind.

Loosed from all but the burning copper band that stretches out behind the flats like a conduit to paradise. Ziv is balanced on a rooftop. One hand grasping the battered pack, slung over his shoulder and the other shielding his face from the merciless intensity.

Ziv has been a ghost - emotion thief - for as long as he can remember, his whole existence fragmented and vomited into his mind; not just into there but into his heart. So that the heart roasts the brain. So that things become clouded. Emotion for his kind is mathematical not chemical. Numbers in electric addition and subtraction. One up, one down. He has lived in a thunderstorm till now.

He takes a jar from his pack. Inside is a preserved worm knocking weakly against the glass. He lets it drop the distance to the earth below. Ziv hears no sound in return for his offering.

“Even still” –he was once told- “feeling will always claw at your heels, you can try your best to beat it back and with each step you’ll succeed and fail. You can’t hold back that flood forever. For all things must account for themselves.”

He’s balanced here waiting for his judgement day.

So that he may finally cut loose from the curtain of light that
hounds him,
that has loomed over his left shoulder,
like a leering spectator, since that morning when
he left Anastasia.

So that he may plummet into shade.

Into cool air.
Out
of
heat.
&
light.

”Yeah, but he'll die with the wind in his hair.” – say his admirers; say those who have no clue.

“So I will cease to be” – says Ziv – “and will have lived.”

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."



<

the high-K adventure and desire for prime sturgeon

CHAPTER 1 – Amateur radio presenter… master debater.

Set for another immeasurably long radio show was the ‘Born Son of The Infinitesimal Spirit’. Wounds healing [knitting back together]; there was little fear inside him. So little that a breeze might lift it, but in the studio all is stale.

So the ‘Born Son of the Infinitesimal Spirit’ (that is Jensen)… Jensen sits watching the record player’s needle scratch its way to sound waves. It took most of his god-damned energy and concentration to ensure the needle kept up with the grooves. All the while the red 'on air' sign buzzes and threatens flies like it could do blue zaps and the 'femme fatal' it would take to call them over.

Regardless… he walks into the small kitchenette while the music gears up for a death rattle.

The thing that upset him more than heartache... was that he was trying to steady himself and couldn’t shake the ambition to tumble. He was heart-broken. Broken hearted. Oh was he broken hearted! And that led to a melting of feet and jellied bone at the kneecaps. The pictogram went… He(in two)art.

Bella Cope was the chica with the talons. Long, red, varnished and razor sharp. She'd upped sticks and had a bundle tied to one end of them, off down the long road to elsewhere without so much as a 'see you later alligator'.

With a too-strong coffee, Jensen staggers back as the needle reaches the end of the known world of spinning vinyl. Now he's got to take calls.

“You're on the air, I swear...”

The Born Riser from The Born Again Fire (that being Cup) – the boy whose family was born again and again and again – graces the airwaves and the station with the nonsensical. Cup's called-in to Jensen, who is doing the ‘see you later’ slot on public radio. Cup's on line 3. “Hello caller. You're on the air, I swear...”

Cup says he's tired of listening to dehydration. The unfresh, old and dusty vocals of long-retired geriatrics. Voices and joints crackling. He wants some younger singers; or, if not, then at least some younger recordings.

Jensen ignores him and asks a question of his own instead.

“So, in theory, to be able to construct electronic computers in the foreseeable, and from this stage onwards, we would need to ensure that to build is to ‘birth’ and to upgrade ‘to grow’?”

Cup can't answer. He loses the will and puts the phone down. He’s thinking in the melody of the last song, the one he wanted to rail against.

Suddenly there is a ringing from the receiver he's just dropped. So he picks it up again and there he is in the Rochester Booth talking to a lump of plastic. He takes a seat and listens as he's told things he's told he's meant to hear.

The Rochester Booth is one place that works in bundled time, you walk in to the diner, walk past the New York Booth and you enter a time loop where it's 1955 and you lose the will to escape until you've settled the bill and stagger homewards.

“The officials are shot! The remains are being put through weathered processors to remove the information they possessed and grind them into puppy chow. And, my god, we've learnt that the so-called high-K material, which is the only export of The Tribulation Kingdom, it's missing! Our work is urgent. Our work is as much a struggle as climbing a hill only to find that actually you need to be on another, slightly higher one.”

Cup is as confused as you, but that is what he heard being shouted at him down the line. It wasn’t a tin can next to his ear, he couldn’t find out who it was talking by following the wire, or tugging once or twice to hear a yelp a few yards away, so he asked.

“Who is this?!”

“My name is Dr Kronkard. I am responsible for The Wirral Department. For all of its contracts and ensuring that 10-centimetre-tall, erect, dog-mess is cleared before the arrival.”

“What arrival?”

“THE arrival.” *Click* And the voice is gone.

Standing (but only just) Cup makes his way to settle the bill. Three more hours and he's meant to be in work. Cup is hammered and needs coffee more than he needs his car keys, but he can't form the words to ask for one from the waitress, let alone see through the haze of beer suds. And anyway, he can feel his keys in his pocket without looking.

Jensen gets back to the microphone after another break during a Wanda Jackson track. Three more hours and he's off-air at last.





CHAPTER 2 – Answer the god-damned phone!

[Later that same day the born son of the infinitesimal spirit watches a preacher being grilled on a question and answers show.]

From the TV: "Today, ‘ers’ and featured ‘erms’, are not fledgling terms. They are fully developed evasions from questions. I will that you would speak Sir Preacher!”

From the preacher's throat: a swallow.

From Jensen's phone: ringing.

Jensen takes the stick of celery out of his mouth. He contemplates not answering it. He decides that he'll leave it to chance. If it rings again he will answer.

From Jensen's phone: ringing.

Jensen stretches to unhook the phone from the receiver. “Hello?”

“Ah good, you’re up! Dr Kronkard here. I have a question.” (there is a pause) “Ok, so… if the quantum can be made smaller, as we have already largely disproved, then can we assume that anything can be accomplished?”

“I think that birds answer that question.”

“How so?”

“I could never be a bird. That could never be accomplished; some things don’t want to be!”

“Quite right, my boy. And your point?” The Dr asks.

“We are proving the existence of the infinitesimal spirit here! I would answer that we have no business changing the size of atoms and it is stupid to imagine that anything is possible because some things want to remain impossible… it is THEIR desire! Things have to be allowed to happen if they want to… without us willing them into fruition, equation, being or formula. The chance of the ultimate possibility cannot be disproved, you have to take a step back from your examinations and figure that its a game of alchemy, at the end of the day.”

“I see. I made a new acquaintance last night. One 'Cup Shonee', he was a caller who couldn't answer the question.”

“I remember.”

“Good good, well I want you to meet with him. And next time, answer the god-damned phone!” *Click* And the Dr is gone.

Jensen wonders why the Dr wanted to ask that about atoms and if he’ll manage to make them smaller. He wonders who 'Cup Shonee' is.





CHAPTER 3 – The book of Job

Monday 10:45am: Cup is awake and shaking, jesuit is he shaking! He couldn’t shave for all his shaking.

Not apologetic of his night drinking he stumbles into work. His tie is slack around his neck in a big loop. He looks like he might hang himself with it. Still might, if his headache gets worse. His week plays out as follows…

Monday to Friday are soul crushing defeats marred with petty disagreements about work quotas and last year's projections. The nights are sweaty and don't end until the scotch bottle is empty.

Saturday and Sunday prove to be days full of milk and honey moments, each.

This week started badly, in other words with Monday.

But Friday is when he was fired. They got one more week of filing from the 'car-crash Cup' before they canned him. Good on them. Heaven help them find anything where it ought to be though.

Fired for drinking away his morning hours and thinking he can still collect a pay slip. Fired because they know he moonlights as rent boy for truckers. Picking up guys at the diner.

The Rochester Booth acting as his office and the drinks the waitress serves him are 'twink courage'. Someone must have noticed the cum stains on his suit trousers.

Monday has come again and he has just applied for a job on the radio… figures he can play better music than Jensen Miller any day of the week. And if able, all week!

CHAPTER 4 – Push for Rushmore and Rudell.

Regardless…

Jensen is flattered that the Dr still chooses to call him. It must be total infatuation, he thinks, at least in short term. Jensen is a quart through his dad’s port. Soon he’ll be on to Mother’s Ruin, GIN [even saying it brings his cheeks and ears to a reunion.] I'll have a g[r]in please.

Jensen could be named after a car. The 'Jensen Interceptor', made by British Steel, back in the day. Except his daddy never heard of no auto-mobiles and no steel companies, neither. Instead it was a mistake, but lord knows what the aim had been.

Jensen is brazen and soppy stern… rowdy only when asked politely. Jensen is wide blue eyes and a mop of greasy, ruddy brown hair. Jensen is unshaven.

“Why for this red light?” He says to himself.

“I'm on the air.” Cup answered.

“No man is 'on the air' before me, it's the way it is. We play static before I show up!”

“Not true now. Not true no longer.” Cup replied.

Seeing he was already defeated and knowing that his objective was Cup's friendship, Jensen let it go. Though he'd have slit a man's gut for less, had he half-a-mind and no instruction.

Jensen is asleep in the armchair. Jensen’s dreams are running behind his eyelids.

Cup plays records, regardless. He is thinking about drink. Cup has little regard for anything less.

CHAPTER 6 – Am I missing a chapter?

Cup's family history is lovely. His mother’s life rests on a prescription slip. His father, an IBM manager, a success story. Jensen ate the page that had the last chapter on it. They call Jensen 'brimful of uselessness' and he sometimes deserves it. But gone are the pages of Cup's history, along with the story of how the two men, after hardships unnumbered became brothers.

CHAPTER 7 – ‘Flawless’, even the birthmarks!

“Let me be clear! Clear as a VS1 diamond! Very slightly included, but more or less flawless. Let me be clear with you old man!” Jensen says to Cup. “Let me be clear! Your Father has divorced your Mother and married a 15 year old girl from Abergaveny. She has a lazy eye and a birthmark on her shin.”

“Yes.” Says Cup.

“And this happened recently?

“Yes.” Says Cup.

“The birthmark, old man – it is the shape of a ‘Cup’!”

“Yes.”

“You say that a lot… The shape of a ‘Cup’ MAN!!!! Imagine!!!!”

“Indeed, it makes me think that the girl from Abergaveny might well have been meant for me. It means my father is a casualty of my destiny.”

Cup’s parents have finally [and formally] divorced. His mother thought the events were demonic. His father gained a distaste for God after spending an hour rimming a girl young enough to be his daughter. Apparently she tastes better. They are, undoubtedly, in love.

*Click* And we'll move on.






CHAPTER 8 – Mother’s Ruin.

Cup's mother is a wonderful women. Or she 'was'… before the frown pills took over motor function and made her shake uncontrollably; small price to pay for sanity, allegedly.










CHAPTER 9 – Retardation.

The Dr now addresses both men simultaneously over speaker-phone.

“We're delighted with your progress as Adventure Agents. You are both up for promotion; provided, of course, you recover the high-K material.”

“We're up for it.” Jensen replies, while Cup just smiles and nods.

*Click* and the Dr is gone.

“Where do we look?” Cup asks.

“There's a nunnery that we can check out. They're high-K addicts, every one of them. They ship it in via the black market. It is cheaper to get it from rural sources, rather than by prescription. The prescription stuff is stronger, but the rural stuff has lower overheads due to the workforce being the poorest farmers in Tribulation. Nuns don't have much money, not a sterling to shake between them.”

“What do they do with it?”

“They put it where they can't put a penis. Then it gets to fizzing away like an Alka-Seltzer. It's meant to be quite a rush.”

“So why does the good Dr want the stuff back so bad?”

“This is prescription K, man. The stuff is worth shrapnel, any fucker would empty is pockets to get his hands on some of it. The Dr is a business man, he knows the value of the darker pharmaceuticals. And I'll bet the Dr isn't above a bit of fizz, now and again.”

CHAPTER 10 – Seek not salvation, it's not on the menu.

Dark is a sky without a sun in it. Darker still with the moon behind a cloud. So was the sky for the brothers Jensen and Cup as they close in on the high-K bandits.

A group of Dr Kronkard's rivals had been the culprits. They'd sought a means to de-thrown the King of Chemicals.

“Set those wrists at sky-level, you fuckers!” Cup yelled, breaking down the distance between him and the thieves.

“Well said Cup, well said. Now the all of you, get down on the ground and don't try for your 15 minutes.”

Three toy chests full of high-K were retrieved. None more is suspected to be in circulation.

The council published their report after a month of further investigation.

“After a month, the high-K investigation and debriefing of the high-K-related detainees has been exhausted. As the matter now stands, the high-K investigation has gone as far as is feasible. It is the recommendation of this council that Cup Shonee and Jensen Miller gain their honours and are released from their duty to the organisation.”

Cup and Jensen are free to return to their disk-jockey ways. Both are relieved.

CHAPTER 11 – Real life.

“She seeks to pin me to her wall, or chalk me on her chalkboard as some strange feral child, rather than a real boy… ‘wooden’ she called me! and I’m an experiment to her – nothing more than a sunglasses wearing, ass-pinching, ‘hey’-shouting senior specimen.”

Jensen has been carrying on like this for the last three track changes.

“Sometimes we have to play to our strengths. Remember that the mystery of booze isn’t that it gets you drink, but that it burns!” Cup says.

“Good point…”

*Click* And the next track is put on.

Our Jensen is now in a shirt, paint-spattered and white with jeans and no shoes. His name is Sunshine for this day alone.

Jensen Miller no more, at least for today.

Sunshine is kept together by staples, loud background music, and vodka.

“It don’t matter where you bury me. I’ll be home, I’ll be free. It don’t matter where I lay. All my tears be washed away.” He sings as he [at last] makes a success of his walk to the kitchenette. So, being sober enough to get there, he takes a bottle of Vodka out of the freezer drawer and caps it for a slug. He brings the bottle back for Cup.

“Sunshine, where's the Dean Maverick tracks?”

“Maverick's under 'Coo-coo-cool', good brother.” Sunshine says, hiding his burning resentment.

Sunshine hasn’t seen another human being, other than Cup, for two days. They are back to back DJ's now and it is all they can do to take the calls that have come flooding in. Talking to locals has its merits. There are gifts and promises of drinks for the resident heroes, the both of them. But Sunshine's beginning to miss the faces, the realness of people. Or he's started detesting the realness of Cup.

Looking down at his shin he notices, as if for the first time, a birthmark in the shape of a kettle.











CHAPTER 12 – Heartbeats are for milk and honey highway rides.

Slapping itself, wet, against the inside walls of his rib cage – Sunshine's blood-pumper is looking for escape. After staying up all night missing people, he got into his car. [Bottle of Vodka, as a passenger, propped up in the seat with a belt around it.] Cup sprawled out asleep where he lay and the radio station playing static, like back in the good old daze.

His eyes keep misting over, but he wants to get to the mall for a mocha.

He’s popping omega-3 in pill form and blinking away each ray of sunshine that makes it to his iris.

He is no longer Sunshine.

Jensen gets to the mall and goes to the café.

Taking his mug to the nearest empty table, Jensen has a mind for puzzles.









CHAPTER 13 – My favourite number.

Cup wakes up and notices the missing soul. Cup's a little heartbroken at the loss of him. He was heart-broken. Broken hearted. Oh was he broken hearted! The pictogram went… He(in two)art.

Picking up his Mini-disc player he goes for a jog along the lakeside.

His mobile phone purrs away in his pocket.

Cup takes the stick of celery out of his mouth and stretches his legs before taking the phone out from his pocket. “Hello Dr.” He says.

“It is time for the rewards, my boy!”

“Where do I need to be?”

“Carsonova. 30 minuets.”

“I’m already in Carsonova, where precisely do I need to stand?”

“At the business end of a street named New England Road.”

*Click* And Cup is gone.

CHAPTER 14 – The call for extra credit.

“You need to kill him, Jensen.”

“Dr, I'm not sure I understand you. You want me to kill Cup? Why and whatfore?” Jensen breathes heavily into his mobile.

Dr. Kronkard sucks a breath in, between his teeth, he might have been inhaling a drag from a cigarette. Or he might have an asshole stuffed full of high-K, who could tell?

“My boy, you have this last task to perform – if you do it well enough then there will be a reward for you. 72 sturgeon.”

“I'm listening.”

“By that I mean 72 prime sturgeon, which are each a positive whole sturgeon that have exactly two positive divisors, 1 and the sturgeon itself.”

“I'm in.”

“Good, go to the business end of New England Road, once there take your hands and wrap them around Cup's neck. Don't stop until his eyes go bloody and his heart stops in his chest. The aim is for limp and lifeless, with a hint of blue at the cheeks.”

CHAPTER 15 – New England Road.

With a celery stick poking out of his mouth Cup looks like a loiterer. One foot is sole-to-the-brick the other set-to-the-earth. He stands like he’s cool. [He is wearing his dirty black boots and an attitude.] In a bag at his side is a new vinyl that Jensen will like.









CHAPTER 16 – Across the street from the business end of New England Road.

While Jensen crosses the road with his mind on a single grim purpose, he neglects the traffic and is mowed down by a passing Caviar Lorry. The scoop is that the driver kept going. The story is that he is still out there, somewhere, still driving. That story’s lead character is a joy rider with blood on his bonnet.

Cup was the first at Jensen's side.

“Dear Jensen, my Sunshine. Please stay wide-awake for the time it takes for an ambulance to arrive!”

Not so much in response, but involuntarily, Jensen shits himself. Soon a tear is falling down his cheek. Soon another. Soon the sky starts crying too. And Cup. And every passer-by. All unknowingly crying over a man who would have murdered but a moment before. But even if they knew, sympathy isn't all or nothing. They'd still have felt at least 5% sorry for the crippled Jensen, lying in the arms of Cup.

Cup, who rocked Jensen gently. Cup, who sang to him. Cup, who sang old songs; rather than the new ones he'd have wanted to hear, if he were dying. Cup who heard the dying words of Jensen 'Sunshine' Miller.

“Prescription please.”

CHAPTER 17 – Another part of the full story. Gift and Gory.

Long after Jensen had been placed underground for safe-keeping, Dr Kronkard appeared at the radio station.

Cup had just switched over to static to give himself a time of reflection and he saw the tall figure enter the room.

“Dr Kronkard, I presume.”

“Indeed, and I come baring gifts, young man!” The Dr said, in a jovial tone. “72 prime sturgeon, for a job well done!”

fin.

Rodin meets Jean Baudrillard

.

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.