The man currently speaking is one who often appears at these meetings, in Manchester at least. He is somewhat older than the students who make up most of the circle, and wears a greying Mohawk and an old studded leather jacket patched with emblems for Crass, Napalm Death, Penetration, Rudimentary Peni, Flux of Pink Indians, Amebix, the Exploited, Dead Kennedys, Extreme Noise Terror and Head of David. George thinks he heard the man had some kind of autism or something on the one previous occasion when he met him, when the man, whose name is Steve he thinks, turned up at one of George’s Warhammer 40,000 sessions. Steve was a friend of Dan, another older man who owned George’s nearest Games Workshop and tended to preside over play. Steve was sleeping on Dan’s floor and Dan insisted that he be allowed to head a legion of Nurgle Chaos Warriors despite the fact that the teenagers making up the rest of the group felt uneasy about his intense mannerisms and reckless battle strategy. The soundtrack that afternoon was Uriah Heep’s 1972 album Demons and Wizards, a work which despite the archaic associations of its title nonetheless assisted George in the conjuration of the mental image of riding on a giant mutant rat through post-apocalyptic landscapes brandishing a stack of his enemies’ heads on a spike. Though this was not an existing feature of the standard Warhammer model landscape, George found his imagination frequently returning to it, often summoning it in the minutes before he went to sleep as an escape from the responsibilities and contradictions that pestered his waking life, as a vision of a world which if it existed would contain no responsibility and because it did not exist contained no responsibility. George was planning to make his own customised model based on this image as soon as he had a spare moment; Steve, however, reacted strongly against the sound of Uriah Heep, abruptly rising to his feet still holding the dice he had been about to throw and marching over to roughly eject the tape. ‘What’s wrong, Steve?’ asked Dan in a voice flattened by having asked this question many times before. Steve remained silent as he slammed the removed tape on the counter and rummaged in the plastic crate on top of the hi-fi system for something else to play.
I was at a bar in Goa, and it was the end of the world. The building was a kind of open hut, with bamboo canes plastered over a metal structure to create the appearance that the hut was made of bamboo, and through the side of the hut that was open to the beach I could see hot storm clouds massing over the sea. There was a song playing, which was ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ by Shakira, and a man and a woman were dancing to it between me, sitting at the bar with a rum and coca cola, and the beach. They were the only people dancing. The woman looked in her early forties, with bleach blonde hair, wearing a strapless top. She was grinding her tanned abdomen against that of a man of similar age with his hair in braids, wearing a mostly unbuttoned white shirt. Though my interest in this spectacle was largely prurient I gradually realised that the expressions on their faces were almost completely innocent and blissful, and it then struck me that Shakira’s ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ might be the most beautiful song ever written and the most fitting music to be played now, at the end of the world. The combination of its exuberant carnival rhythm and the yearning purity of the synthesized horn sounds, purer precisely for existing solely in the digital realm, seemed to gather up every moment of perfect communion ever experienced between human beings in the history of the world and re-broadcast it as the soundtrack to this bar in Goa where only a few people remained sitting, at 3.40 a.m. as the splashes of rum and coca cola on the floor became sticky and it began lightly to rain outside.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
poem
Ah the day you passed out in my bath,
mainlining on cavorite as fields of CGI deer gently lapped up your dayglo blood.
I understand, and by understand I mean love. Beached and watching jackal films on fried rice, you think you hear her walk past your window when 5 billion things that you disagree with come suddenly marching out of the hideous clarity while at every shore skull faced mermaids try to sell you real estate.
You sign up to write essays for plagiarists but find both that someone else has plagiarised your essay and that your essay was in the first place plagiarised from a paper originally published in 1924 by Squid Lizard, the nation’s favourite only Squid Lizard to come with a freelance alienation dinner, or similar.
Where are you going, twenty-seven year old man? You accumulate books like a hotel room yet still twitch and are incapable of love. Now behold as I save this document in three places simultaneously.
We don’t dance, we shoot people yeah? They found you, in a coat of nails listening to guitars with yr hair tied back. That time you thought you heard crying yes it was me. Go to bed without brushing your teeth, later when they drop out it will be a gift from yr past self. Spend not these nights cursing your earthly works.
You are making a terrible mistake. The only modern ism is everythingism. The only modern CGI is Squid Lizard.
mainlining on cavorite as fields of CGI deer gently lapped up your dayglo blood.
I understand, and by understand I mean love. Beached and watching jackal films on fried rice, you think you hear her walk past your window when 5 billion things that you disagree with come suddenly marching out of the hideous clarity while at every shore skull faced mermaids try to sell you real estate.
You sign up to write essays for plagiarists but find both that someone else has plagiarised your essay and that your essay was in the first place plagiarised from a paper originally published in 1924 by Squid Lizard, the nation’s favourite only Squid Lizard to come with a freelance alienation dinner, or similar.
Where are you going, twenty-seven year old man? You accumulate books like a hotel room yet still twitch and are incapable of love. Now behold as I save this document in three places simultaneously.
We don’t dance, we shoot people yeah? They found you, in a coat of nails listening to guitars with yr hair tied back. That time you thought you heard crying yes it was me. Go to bed without brushing your teeth, later when they drop out it will be a gift from yr past self. Spend not these nights cursing your earthly works.
You are making a terrible mistake. The only modern ism is everythingism. The only modern CGI is Squid Lizard.
Two Skins
This is an assemblage of things, not all original to me. Credits at the end.
One
There was a man once who lived with his brother on a cold plain where they sold animal pelts and ate the meat of the animals, and sometimes he dreamed of his mother with grey plaits and bloodied arms.
Ten years after seven perhaps also brothers had cut his mother’s throat when the wind blew to stop your lungs sharp the man walked out into the cold and ate raw things till he reached a forest. He helped an old woman cut trees for a fire, and she told him how to find a wife. As she told him to he hid in icy branches till fourteen black feet touched the snow.
By the lake the last swan tore her breast’s flesh with her mouth till hands burst out into woman, slim and placenta black. She washed the blood with her sisters in the hot lake, and he took her dead feather cloak from where it smeared the ground grey-red. Returning to find her power gone and hung on some unseen tree she bared her gums to bite out his heart. Come out, man, I am a sow or pack of hounds to tear you up, she said.
The other birds flew off in ignorance. The man held up his bloody hands. We’ll marry then, she said, and when you see me pulling out down for pillows I’ll fly away. But the man pointed her to where seven men who wore the skins of hunters hung their hearts that burn from what their lives are on their tent pegs to cool in the night wind. Somewhere on the frozen plain too big for me to search there is red meat steaming to the black sky, he said. Take your skin to fly and my purse to carry the organs, and I’ll take your heart to draw you back, he said.
With a nail she scraped down her tight ribs, pulled the heart out beating and sealed the tear with spit. He put the heart in his other purse, she slipped her head beneath the white and was gone. He made a shelter from branches. Next morning the swan wife stood over him, red mess twitching in the bag. You can’t hide on the plain like in the forest, she says. With my wings and bird eyes I saw the tangled arteries. As I left they must have felt the tug because they are near, she said.
When the men were close he spattered their hearts on the ground and they fell. The last one told him where to find the rest of his mother, skin gone but her ghost collected in a purse. The man took the purse and wrapped his legs round the woman’s swan hips and she flew him to his mother’s grave. He shook a drop of blood from the purse and it steeped the frosty earth till her grey hand came through.
The mother joins the man and woman’s hands together and blood runs between them. I love you and cannot return your heart, he says. The woman runs her finger down his chest and pulls his heart to herself. See how easy it is, she says, softly. Choking at my red ripped chest I take her heart and hock it to the air, above the clouds where things no longer fall. Fly for it. She, gasping hollowed, throws my heart up the same way. We are bound, and our knees fall to the cold.
As they lay panting in the snow his mother trudged through deep drifts to the boiling lake. Onshore the last swan tore breast’s flesh with mouth till hands burst to woman, slim placenta black, blood washed, and she took the feathers and held up bloody hands. Come out say the bared gums and
the other birds fly away and
Give me your heart, she says, I’ll give you skin and you must retrieve two hearts that orbit somewhere above and you return them in this purse and I give you it back. Swan rolls black eyes, opens chest, gives heart to mother flies to where the hearts bob in clouds spewing steam to the stars till they frost over, takes them in her beak and swoops back white to mother is but mother will not give her it back and she
takes my mothers heart and she
and we bleed immobile on the snow breathing white in each other’s eyes and
my mother pale and choking comes and gives us hearts back but her heart is still in the air and my swan wife puts on skin and flies to my mother’s heart and the other swan heart and brings them all back in the purse and see now, all our hearts in the air and flies free in soft white and hard black and blood drips steams through stars and runs together spiral to tongues, lick freezing sweat from black ribs and eat her heart and wear her skin and
scatter feathers to the dark.
There was a man once who lived with his brother and his mother on a cold plain where they sold animal pelts and ate the meat of the animals, and sometimes he dreamed of his mother with grey plaits and bloodied arms, and sometimes when the hearth smoked to the black air he thought of the swan woman.
Every animal suggests some crushing misfortune that took place in primeval times. The fairy tale betrays man’s misgivings. But its prince preserves his reason, so that he can explain his predicament when the time comes and be set free by the fairy. An animal, however, is doomed by its lack of reason to inhabit its form for ever – that is, unless man, who is one with it through the past, discovers the redeeming formula and succeeds in softening the stony heart of eternity at the end of time.
Two
A sudden blow: the great ghost wings beat still;
his guts are stuffed with polaroids,
and they're all humiliating.
Above the staggering drunk, her thighs caressed,
sitting alone in the 4am darkness of a pitch-black theatre,
he holds her helpless breast upon his breast, his breasts are
hollow apartments with the finest quality furnishings
he explodes like fireworks on the stage
Sing,
your voice just won’t stop blooming.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
He wrote a play and you're the protagonist.
All the girls you wish you'd fucked make a guest appearance.
His eyes are twin mushroom clouds,
His feathers are unsuspecting cities.
You just won't believe the ending.
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Fly me home, Giant Swan.
Your heart's a diamond, buddy, what's the price?
How can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
Your skin
is cheap
and your hair
is shoddy.
A shudder in the loins. Skin draped over luxury chairs where you can watch the ballerinas kick and spin until you die. Being so caught up,
So mastered by this brute blood of the air you
strip
down to your vulgar skeleton.
It will sting like a raw sunrise when the black swan is gone.
Back at the resort, the curtains closed, you haven't left the room for two solid weeks. With a pound of cocaine under the bed where the call girls perform their services, you left CNN on so you wouldn’t have to think about her newborn son.
Who's at the door, Leda?
Your heart is sweating and your hand's turning black.
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the pixellated beak could let her drop? "Give me all your money! Give me all your dope!" No second Troy.
And the sun is like a painting of your whole life; you scratch
at the canvas, but you can't get inside.
Dark webs, her nape caught in his bill; take me to the river.
one adapted from a story found in sabine baring gould myths of the middle ages ed john matthews blandford 1996 pages 115-6 two comprises lines from jordan blilie johnny whitney william butler yeats quote in between from adorno and horkheimer dialectic of enlightenment trans john cumming verso 1997 page 247
One
There was a man once who lived with his brother on a cold plain where they sold animal pelts and ate the meat of the animals, and sometimes he dreamed of his mother with grey plaits and bloodied arms.
Ten years after seven perhaps also brothers had cut his mother’s throat when the wind blew to stop your lungs sharp the man walked out into the cold and ate raw things till he reached a forest. He helped an old woman cut trees for a fire, and she told him how to find a wife. As she told him to he hid in icy branches till fourteen black feet touched the snow.
By the lake the last swan tore her breast’s flesh with her mouth till hands burst out into woman, slim and placenta black. She washed the blood with her sisters in the hot lake, and he took her dead feather cloak from where it smeared the ground grey-red. Returning to find her power gone and hung on some unseen tree she bared her gums to bite out his heart. Come out, man, I am a sow or pack of hounds to tear you up, she said.
The other birds flew off in ignorance. The man held up his bloody hands. We’ll marry then, she said, and when you see me pulling out down for pillows I’ll fly away. But the man pointed her to where seven men who wore the skins of hunters hung their hearts that burn from what their lives are on their tent pegs to cool in the night wind. Somewhere on the frozen plain too big for me to search there is red meat steaming to the black sky, he said. Take your skin to fly and my purse to carry the organs, and I’ll take your heart to draw you back, he said.
With a nail she scraped down her tight ribs, pulled the heart out beating and sealed the tear with spit. He put the heart in his other purse, she slipped her head beneath the white and was gone. He made a shelter from branches. Next morning the swan wife stood over him, red mess twitching in the bag. You can’t hide on the plain like in the forest, she says. With my wings and bird eyes I saw the tangled arteries. As I left they must have felt the tug because they are near, she said.
When the men were close he spattered their hearts on the ground and they fell. The last one told him where to find the rest of his mother, skin gone but her ghost collected in a purse. The man took the purse and wrapped his legs round the woman’s swan hips and she flew him to his mother’s grave. He shook a drop of blood from the purse and it steeped the frosty earth till her grey hand came through.
The mother joins the man and woman’s hands together and blood runs between them. I love you and cannot return your heart, he says. The woman runs her finger down his chest and pulls his heart to herself. See how easy it is, she says, softly. Choking at my red ripped chest I take her heart and hock it to the air, above the clouds where things no longer fall. Fly for it. She, gasping hollowed, throws my heart up the same way. We are bound, and our knees fall to the cold.
As they lay panting in the snow his mother trudged through deep drifts to the boiling lake. Onshore the last swan tore breast’s flesh with mouth till hands burst to woman, slim placenta black, blood washed, and she took the feathers and held up bloody hands. Come out say the bared gums and
the other birds fly away and
Give me your heart, she says, I’ll give you skin and you must retrieve two hearts that orbit somewhere above and you return them in this purse and I give you it back. Swan rolls black eyes, opens chest, gives heart to mother flies to where the hearts bob in clouds spewing steam to the stars till they frost over, takes them in her beak and swoops back white to mother is but mother will not give her it back and she
takes my mothers heart and she
and we bleed immobile on the snow breathing white in each other’s eyes and
my mother pale and choking comes and gives us hearts back but her heart is still in the air and my swan wife puts on skin and flies to my mother’s heart and the other swan heart and brings them all back in the purse and see now, all our hearts in the air and flies free in soft white and hard black and blood drips steams through stars and runs together spiral to tongues, lick freezing sweat from black ribs and eat her heart and wear her skin and
scatter feathers to the dark.
There was a man once who lived with his brother and his mother on a cold plain where they sold animal pelts and ate the meat of the animals, and sometimes he dreamed of his mother with grey plaits and bloodied arms, and sometimes when the hearth smoked to the black air he thought of the swan woman.
Every animal suggests some crushing misfortune that took place in primeval times. The fairy tale betrays man’s misgivings. But its prince preserves his reason, so that he can explain his predicament when the time comes and be set free by the fairy. An animal, however, is doomed by its lack of reason to inhabit its form for ever – that is, unless man, who is one with it through the past, discovers the redeeming formula and succeeds in softening the stony heart of eternity at the end of time.
Two
A sudden blow: the great ghost wings beat still;
his guts are stuffed with polaroids,
and they're all humiliating.
Above the staggering drunk, her thighs caressed,
sitting alone in the 4am darkness of a pitch-black theatre,
he holds her helpless breast upon his breast, his breasts are
hollow apartments with the finest quality furnishings
he explodes like fireworks on the stage
Sing,
your voice just won’t stop blooming.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
He wrote a play and you're the protagonist.
All the girls you wish you'd fucked make a guest appearance.
His eyes are twin mushroom clouds,
His feathers are unsuspecting cities.
You just won't believe the ending.
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Fly me home, Giant Swan.
Your heart's a diamond, buddy, what's the price?
How can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
Your skin
is cheap
and your hair
is shoddy.
A shudder in the loins. Skin draped over luxury chairs where you can watch the ballerinas kick and spin until you die. Being so caught up,
So mastered by this brute blood of the air you
strip
down to your vulgar skeleton.
It will sting like a raw sunrise when the black swan is gone.
Back at the resort, the curtains closed, you haven't left the room for two solid weeks. With a pound of cocaine under the bed where the call girls perform their services, you left CNN on so you wouldn’t have to think about her newborn son.
Who's at the door, Leda?
Your heart is sweating and your hand's turning black.
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the pixellated beak could let her drop? "Give me all your money! Give me all your dope!" No second Troy.
And the sun is like a painting of your whole life; you scratch
at the canvas, but you can't get inside.
Dark webs, her nape caught in his bill; take me to the river.
one adapted from a story found in sabine baring gould myths of the middle ages ed john matthews blandford 1996 pages 115-6 two comprises lines from jordan blilie johnny whitney william butler yeats quote in between from adorno and horkheimer dialectic of enlightenment trans john cumming verso 1997 page 247
Friday, 7 May 2010
Panicle
A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched inflorescence with pedicellate flowers attached along the secondary branches
(in other words,
a branched cluster of flowers in which the branches are racemes).
slightly edited from wikipedia, 2010
(in other words,
a branched cluster of flowers in which the branches are racemes).
slightly edited from wikipedia, 2010
November Manifesto
1. We declare this a manifesto for the new age, an age of
2. gridlock.
3. YOU ARE CAUGHT BETWEEN INTERLOCKING PULLING APART MACHINES you will run in futility from one pole to another and fall at each crushing yourself with your failure to care and unwillingness to accept
4. We are overeducated. We have managed to talk ourselves out of everything.
5. We declare ourselves against all organisation, holding the root of evil to be the attempt to turn desires into systems, to achieve one’s aims through negotiation with others. We declare an end to diplomacy, politeness and politics, proposing instead a sustained programme of wandering through cracked and abandoned streets, picking fruit off the vine and fucking who you please (libraries will remain open in case of boredom)
6. We have dissolved the party and handed power to the councils
7. we have dissolved the councils and handed power to the trade unions
8. we have dissolved the individual and handed power to a chaos of momentary judgements THEY FIGHT LIKE RATS IN A SACK! WE have split the atom, WE have torn down every edifice that keeps people from themselves
9. we are not sure what we are now faced with.
10. This is a November manifesto, its sentiments are those of autumn drifting into winter. Between the masks and fires, heating oil and cheap wine we will end and become the dead
11. this tickling in my throat says otherwise
12. WE WILL MARCH AGAIN OUT OF THE FOG! WE WILL NO LONGER FEEL THE COLD!
13. I no longer fear the dark.
14. We reject the concept of a ‘new’ year, prioritising instead a sense of perpetual ending.
15. We have dissolved the Party and handed power to the parties
16. We live in days of perpetual twilight
17. What we propose is an end, and not necessarily a beginning. We hold that current social, economic, political, cultural and military-industrial systems have reached a point where a complete lack of any system may in itself be viewed as a solution
18. the armies of the dead will rise from the estates and homesteads from the bog and bracken and systematically tear down all attempts to overrule them They will wait in the hedgerows with pikes made of bramble They know this terrain and will trip you up
19. We have taken parliament but the middle country is not listening
20. We are known in the country but the city does not trust us. We raise our flags in the back rooms of pubs, we raise our glasses and sing the old songs. We erect scarecrows against the outsider on abandoned roads We will not change for you
21. DISREGARD we are not only these we are many these people will fight amongst themselves until the good wins out they will at least still believe in something
22. We have tried to build our houses but they all turn into monsters.
23. We believe that at a push most people are capable of living in ditches, drinking rainwater collected on tarpaulins and exchanging bread with wandering mendicants
24. nestled in the mud till it feels like warmth.
25. We will die before we live in a way that is less than perfect
26. Therefore we will die, We do not consider life an end in itself
27. WE WILL EAT OUR DEAD AND BE REBORN! get out of our fields city boy, you don’t know what you’re dealing with
28. We have made temporary alliances with the trade unions
29. We have made temporary alliances with the mutinous army
30. We have made temporary alliances with the retreating aristocracy and will eat roasted pheasant tonight in the bombed out shells of their mansions
31. we have made a temporary alliance with ourselves
32. this is a november manifesto though largely an exercise in typography it expresses something of which we are not sure but which offers at least a way forward or out
33. we will eat our dead
34. we will begin by taking the factories
2. gridlock.
3. YOU ARE CAUGHT BETWEEN INTERLOCKING PULLING APART MACHINES you will run in futility from one pole to another and fall at each crushing yourself with your failure to care and unwillingness to accept
4. We are overeducated. We have managed to talk ourselves out of everything.
5. We declare ourselves against all organisation, holding the root of evil to be the attempt to turn desires into systems, to achieve one’s aims through negotiation with others. We declare an end to diplomacy, politeness and politics, proposing instead a sustained programme of wandering through cracked and abandoned streets, picking fruit off the vine and fucking who you please (libraries will remain open in case of boredom)
6. We have dissolved the party and handed power to the councils
7. we have dissolved the councils and handed power to the trade unions
8. we have dissolved the individual and handed power to a chaos of momentary judgements THEY FIGHT LIKE RATS IN A SACK! WE have split the atom, WE have torn down every edifice that keeps people from themselves
9. we are not sure what we are now faced with.
10. This is a November manifesto, its sentiments are those of autumn drifting into winter. Between the masks and fires, heating oil and cheap wine we will end and become the dead
11. this tickling in my throat says otherwise
12. WE WILL MARCH AGAIN OUT OF THE FOG! WE WILL NO LONGER FEEL THE COLD!
13. I no longer fear the dark.
14. We reject the concept of a ‘new’ year, prioritising instead a sense of perpetual ending.
15. We have dissolved the Party and handed power to the parties
16. We live in days of perpetual twilight
17. What we propose is an end, and not necessarily a beginning. We hold that current social, economic, political, cultural and military-industrial systems have reached a point where a complete lack of any system may in itself be viewed as a solution
18. the armies of the dead will rise from the estates and homesteads from the bog and bracken and systematically tear down all attempts to overrule them They will wait in the hedgerows with pikes made of bramble They know this terrain and will trip you up
19. We have taken parliament but the middle country is not listening
20. We are known in the country but the city does not trust us. We raise our flags in the back rooms of pubs, we raise our glasses and sing the old songs. We erect scarecrows against the outsider on abandoned roads We will not change for you
21. DISREGARD we are not only these we are many these people will fight amongst themselves until the good wins out they will at least still believe in something
22. We have tried to build our houses but they all turn into monsters.
23. We believe that at a push most people are capable of living in ditches, drinking rainwater collected on tarpaulins and exchanging bread with wandering mendicants
24. nestled in the mud till it feels like warmth.
25. We will die before we live in a way that is less than perfect
26. Therefore we will die, We do not consider life an end in itself
27. WE WILL EAT OUR DEAD AND BE REBORN! get out of our fields city boy, you don’t know what you’re dealing with
28. We have made temporary alliances with the trade unions
29. We have made temporary alliances with the mutinous army
30. We have made temporary alliances with the retreating aristocracy and will eat roasted pheasant tonight in the bombed out shells of their mansions
31. we have made a temporary alliance with ourselves
32. this is a november manifesto though largely an exercise in typography it expresses something of which we are not sure but which offers at least a way forward or out
33. we will eat our dead
34. we will begin by taking the factories
Monday, 22 March 2010
White City
White City
As one sadly protest-free from sore throat
Taken nonetheless aback by the rapidity with which the WHITE CITY
(this on the following day when I did finally arrive)
Had shrugged curling back to old millipede shapes, plural slate rainbow hues focused post convulsion back into the WHITE CITY
(‘plural hues’ fried goods)
Having thus arrived in WHITE CITY, the OCCUPIED CITY for recently adapted paperbacks reading room’s black mirrors perusal hoping archaic reflection on current predicaments in the WHITE CITY
(this sadly before actually arrive)
Having missed opportunity for hurl abuse at my toad squatting my empty mind, one thing at least being indisputably hateable
having missed my opportunity for not everything to be refracted WHITE CITY
having failed to mention shining WHITE CITY’s shining walls are acknowledged plural foundations so the dread toad can white loam on our faces because NONE OF IT REALLY MATTERS IN THE WHITE CITY
Wherein all colours run into one is the WHITE CITY
Wherein I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no-one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a demoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons – the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown. All of which is permitted in the WHITE CITY, and when
the following day wedding approach with esoteric bus reading of WHITE CITY’s possible broken legs
(this occurring sadly at moment of writing)
(this before sadly even belated iplayer failure
the following day I will recall that is now the past and the future comes in May and before the future are weddings because under the ivory bridges of Teloë flow rivers of liquid gold bearing pleasure-barges bound for blossomy Cytharion of the Seven Suns which you are also permitted to read alongside this year’s stabbing-free carnival according to any of the free newspapers available at selected points WHITE CITY
and sadly with sore throat apologise for off colour remarks wedding should be in context given WHITE CITY extracts together with all other blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is remaindered slather plural sediments
As one sadly protest-free from sore throat
Taken nonetheless aback by the rapidity with which the WHITE CITY
(this on the following day when I did finally arrive)
Had shrugged curling back to old millipede shapes, plural slate rainbow hues focused post convulsion back into the WHITE CITY
(‘plural hues’ fried goods)
Having thus arrived in WHITE CITY, the OCCUPIED CITY for recently adapted paperbacks reading room’s black mirrors perusal hoping archaic reflection on current predicaments in the WHITE CITY
(this sadly before actually arrive)
Having missed opportunity for hurl abuse at my toad squatting my empty mind, one thing at least being indisputably hateable
having missed my opportunity for not everything to be refracted WHITE CITY
having failed to mention shining WHITE CITY’s shining walls are acknowledged plural foundations so the dread toad can white loam on our faces because NONE OF IT REALLY MATTERS IN THE WHITE CITY
Wherein all colours run into one is the WHITE CITY
Wherein I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no-one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a demoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons – the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown. All of which is permitted in the WHITE CITY, and when
the following day wedding approach with esoteric bus reading of WHITE CITY’s possible broken legs
(this occurring sadly at moment of writing)
(this before sadly even belated iplayer failure
the following day I will recall that is now the past and the future comes in May and before the future are weddings because under the ivory bridges of Teloë flow rivers of liquid gold bearing pleasure-barges bound for blossomy Cytharion of the Seven Suns which you are also permitted to read alongside this year’s stabbing-free carnival according to any of the free newspapers available at selected points WHITE CITY
and sadly with sore throat apologise for off colour remarks wedding should be in context given WHITE CITY extracts together with all other blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is remaindered slather plural sediments
Leisure
This was written nearly two years ago and was my reading for Brighton's Short Fuse night.
Leisure
We get up around three most days, not that we’re lazy, we’re still up twelve hours just go to bed later. Night feels better for some things, like when you want to feel sort of cosy and just take things in. We get a lot more of that done since quitting waitrose, so I think that was a good thing to do. Waitrose was alright though, they let us be mostly. As long as we had some podcasts on our headphones we could just keep stacking. They wanted to move us though to more responsibility and handling incoming shipments. There was enough money from tony’s dad to be getting on with so we left it. So we have more time on our hands now, and it’s weird that when you stop working you really wonder how you ever managed working, when it’s just like leaving the easy side of things to be somewhere really cold and bright and not friendly. Obviously some people need to do it but we’re preferring things without really.
So we get up around three and have some tea and some coco pops and maybe watch the new series of nip/tuck that we’ve been streaming overnight, it isn’t out over here yet but living is still on series four. We have a digital package with on demand so there’s a pretty good selection but sometimes you still have to stream. I think nip/tuck is a bit gay but tony likes it and I must admit it is entertaining and you never know where the plot will go next. We also like dexter, family guy, my name is earl, dirty sexy money, the sopranos, entourage, the wire, scrubs, csi, teachers, skins, csi ny, planet earth, have I got news for you, csi miami, the closer, medium, six feet under, the oc, smallville, friends, 24, heroes, death note, deadwood, weeds, californication, bones, buffy the vampire slayer, everybody hates chris, king of queens, everybody loves raymond, ed, angel, rome, curb your enthusiasm, jackass, the tom green show. Probably some others too. You can usually find something on even if it’s a bit rubbish. Later we might go to the pub or something, though not so much lately. Old lot aren’t around so much lately. Pub’s just at the bottom of the road so it’s not hard to pop down, though not so much lately. We’re happy staying in, people ask too many questions.
Tony’s girlfriend broke up with him. I think it’s okay though. She left her complete seinfeld box set and if just me and tony watch it we can do whole series at a time. We’ve ordered a chinese. It’s a nice feeling not knowing what is in the boxes till you open them, like xmas. For xmas this year I got a wii and some money but we don’t play the wii so much, it feels like being tested or put through your paces. Tony says we shouldn’t sell it though cos you never know when we might want to use it. We have chopsticks but neither of us know how to use them so we eat it with a fork. Sometimes things are really beautiful I think. While we eat we watch derren brown and then we flick channels. Later with jools holland is on, tony says it is boring but I want to watch it because it reminds me of home. Sometimes I think maybe I should get my own tv, I didn’t have my own at home so we watched what my mum or my dad wanted to watch. Once just me and him watched a documentary about pink floyd and we were happy.
Tony says he can’t sleep. I say that’s cos he doesn’t go to bed, he should go to bed and he says no, he wouldn’t sleep if he did, he can tell. Do you think I would watch tv till 4am if I could sleep, he says. With me I think it’s more like I just prefer being awake at night, but I don’t say that to him. The next day he goes to the doctor, so then I can watch jools holland on catchup from last night, but it is better watching it with someone to talk about the music with. A lot of the music is weird or boring, but the kings of leon play some good songs. Tony has been prescribed some sleeping pills. He gives me back my amazing spider-man which he borrowed to read in the waiting room and says that marvel is running out of ideas. I still like reading it though. I like how they will change everything, wipe everyone’s memory and start again just to keep the story going, because what would everyone do if it stopped? Tony asks could I get his sleeping pills from tesco metro, it has a pharmacy now, because I have to do the shopping tomorrow.
I get tony’s sleeping pills from tesco metro with the pizzas and the kit kat peanut butter chunky for me. The weather is sort of mild, a bit nothing. When I get back and put the kettle on tony is arguing with someone on the phone. He says it’s his dad and not to worry. We watch diagnosis murder. Later jimmy and big steve come round, they’re still at uni, they have the new grand theft auto and they say we have a bigger tv to play it on so. They were in the year below us but we moved back into halls for third year and they were tony’s neighbours. They are okay but can be a bit loud. Once they got tony a stripper for his birthday and I wasn’t sure about that. We play gta until two and they sleep on sofas.
Tony’s sleeping pills are working, he was in bed by twelve last night. I watch most of the next lost series without him which he won’t thank me for. It seems silly though not to watch the next episode when the last episode ends with making you want to watch the next one. When I get up he’s not there and has texted me saying he’s meeting his dad in starbucks. I download the adam and joe podcast and listen to it, it’s bbc but still quite good. Tony comes back and says his dad is cutting off the money unless we get jobs. It’s too late to do anything about it now so tony catches up on that series of lost. I watch some episodes over again but it’s ok, it helps to understand the plots and the beaches and women still look nice. Tony says his dad is only threatening and won’t really do anything.
Tony has told his dad that we have got our old jobs at waitrose back. I put some pizzas on, and later his dad calls back and says you know I know people there, that’s how I got you the job and I called and they say you’re not currently working there, did you really think I wouldn’t find out. Tony hangs up and says that didn’t work. Then he really calls waitrose to see if they have any jobs going cos they said we were welcome back if they did, but they haven’t. I’m watching paramount comedy through all this cos they’re doing a frasier marathon. I say maybe we could pay someone at waitrose to say that we’re working there and then tony’s dad would keep giving us money so we could pay them. He says that’s silly and like something someone would do in desperate housewives or maybe arrested development. He also says that I’m lazy and haven’t done anything to help this whole situation.
The next day I feel a bit guilty about what tony said so I go out and buy the paper with the job pages so we can look at it. Tony looks pleased and says he’s sorry and I’m a good guy really. that feels nice. We read through the pages with diagnosis murder on in the background but it gets a bit boring so in the end we just watch diagnosis murder. Afterwards tony says we should really go back to the job pages, and I think if he’s doing it then I have to really so I do. We don’t really see anything that we like though, it’s mostly construction and kitchens and assistant teachers and we’d have to change a lot of things if we were going to do anything like that. We watch the simpsons then, and have cups of tea. I say maybe we should not bother with jobs, they’re more trouble than they’re worth, and tony looks like he’s thinking for a while and says maybe. Then he says but what are we going to do about this whole situation, and I say it’ll probably blow over, why get stressed about it and change everything when we might not have to. He says yeah maybe.
I think tony’s sleeping pills have stopped working. he went to bed but came back down and we played gta, I wasn’t really bothered about it I find it a bit daunting and get scared of all the possibilities but he wanted to keep going so I thought I should. I felt a bit bad for him not sleeping cos I knew it was a big thing for him but he said he was fine and just wanted to finish this mission so I left it. It felt like as long as he wasn’t saying there was a problem it was probably okay. We went to bed at five in the end.
Tony wakes me up the next day to say his dad called and this time he really is cutting off the money and maybe this will get us off our arses since apparently nothing else works. I say maybe he’s bluffing, tony says no he called the bank and they said the monthly payment has been cancelled. Shit, I say. We have breakfast. Tony makes a fry up, which is nice. I offer help but he likes to do stuff like that on his own, not interrupt his system. After breakfast we say what are we going to do now then? I say I guess we should keep looking for jobs. Tony says yeah maybe. Then he says, but we didn’t really find anything when we looked yesterday did we, and everywhere’ll probably be the same. I can’t really be arsed with it, he says. I think and say yeah, me neither.
I say have you got a savings account or anything, cos I think sometimes people have things like that. Tony says not one that I could get at, dad controls all that stuff. Then he says I guess we could try the dole. That makes me feel a bit funny. I’m not sure waiting in a queue with lots of old men and crackheads is really our kind of thing. I suppose lots of people do that though, in fact I think jimmy and big steve do. I wonder though if maybe that’s why they do things the way they do and we do things the way we do. I don’t say any of this to tony though cos he might not think it was helpful. Then he says although I guess with the dole they try and find jobs for you and push you to get the first one that turns up, which might be a bit of a hassle. Yeah, I bet they’d get us to be toilet cleaners or something, I say. We laugh. Still, I might just check on the internet how much money we could get off them, he says, just so we know. Yeah that’s probably a good idea, I say, while you’re there you could check if the new indiana jones has downloaded yet. We saw it at the cinema but we didn’t want to wait for the dvd cos we thought it was really good and nice for a night in, maybe a marathon with the other three, which it does stand up against, especially the last crusade. Tony says ok. While he’s doing that I watch the last few episodes of that lost series. It seems a bit unfair on tony but he wasn’t that into it when we watched it before, said it was getting stupid, so its probably ok. Tony comes back and says there’s no way we’d be able to keep up the tv and broadband package on the dole. Also indy hasn’t quite downloaded yet.
Later tony says we’re not gonna go on the dole are we? I say nah I don’t think so. Tony says, I really can’t face getting a job either. I say no, me neither. What shall we do then, I say. Maybe just leave it, says tony. I think for a minute. Yeah, maybe that would work, I say. I mean, we’ve got a bit of money to be going on with, so it’s not like we have to change anything for a while yet, he says. I say yeah. We think about it on our own for a bit while we watch without a trace.
We don’t really mention it again the next day, but I think we both feel like it’s the way to go. I watch cartoon network cos some of the cartoons are actually quite funny, and it feels better watching stuff like that when you know you’ve got nothing to worry about I think. Tony comes back from shopping with all expensive taste the difference type stuff, marks and spencers too. I say this is a bit posh, and he says well we might as well mighn’t we? I suppose he’s right. So for tea we have one of those ham roast things with a fruity sauce where you just put the tray in the oven, and it’s really nice and reminds me of when my mum cooks. I don’t call my mum very much any more cos when I do it’s always annoying cos she’s not nice like I like to remember, she always nags me about money and girls and things. Jimmy and big steve come round later for that indiana jones marathon, which we all really enjoy. Jimmy asks the same question I asked about the posh food and tony says you know, why not? They say we’re right jammy bastards getting all this money for nothing and we laugh cos they only really mean it in a joking way. Tony doesn’t mention that we’re not getting the money any more. Jimmy and big steve sleep on couches again.
The longer we spend just chilling out and not worrying about stuff the more sense it makes to me, I mean why bother going after money so you can do the things you like when it actually just gets in the way of doing the things you like? It’s much simpler just to stick to doing good things. I say to tony his dad might be okay with it if we explain it to him like that, after all he said he didn’t want us to have hardship like his generation had, and we’re not doing. Tony says probably not mate, older people don’t really get stuff like that. He’s probably right. We get another chinese for dinner, a big one this time with the stuff we normally want to get but can’t really afford, and we watch goldfinger cos they’re showing it on tv. Sometimes it’s nice to watch old things just as they come on, with the adverts and everything, makes you feel like rainy Sunday afternoons at home when you know everyone’s watching the same thing cos there’s nothing else to do.
Next day jimmy and big steve call to ask about coming round but tony says we’re busy cos they made us feel a bit weird about the food and the money last time. I think that’s fair enough really. Later while we’re watching the simpsons, a repeat but quite a good one, tony’s dad calls and says have we got jobs yet, he’s sorry he had to go this far but nothing else would get through to us. Tony is really calm and says yes, we have, we signed up with an agency and we’re doing ok. I don’t know what tony’s dad says next but everything seems ok. After hanging up tony looks a bit upset like he would have liked to speak for longer, but he gets over it alright. A bit later tony says maybe we should get rid of our phones so people can’t bother us any more with stuff like this. That seems a bit odd at first but then I think that if you’re going to start doing stuff that other people don’t understand then maybe there’s not much point in carrying on with them, like they’re holding you back or something. We’re sort of going off the grid, or going dark like on 24. tony says we should cancel our email accounts as well.
Next day I ask tony what he did with our phones, he says he left them out for the rubbish collection. Then he says I hope that’s ok, the binmen have already been so even if you’ve changed your mind. I say no you don’t need to worry about that, though I do feel a bit sad inside cos there were a lot of numbers on there that I won’t have any more. I think tony notices that I feel a bit sad cos he says I can choose something for us to watch even if it’s not something he really likes. Normally I don’t mind about that kind of thing, I’ll watch anything really, but then I realise that I do really feel like watching a disney or something like that, something nice and comfy from when we were kids. In the end we watch aladdin, which tony says he doesn’t like but then ends up quite enjoying. It seems obvious to say, but we have a really good time together. I wouldn’t want to be doing this kind of thing with anyone else.
A couple of days later tony comes in looking a bit anxious. He’s got a letter, cos there’s no way to stop getting those, from the tv and broadband guys saying they haven’t had our payment for this month and they’ll cut us off if we don’t pay it. Tony laughs and says it would have to be now, wouldn’t it, just our luck. I suppose maybe we should have thought about when the payment needed to be, but there you go, it’s done now. I start remembering how tony’s dad said that the payments from him and the payments to the tv and broadband guys both should be monthly so our finances keep steady. I guess this is the kind of thing he was trying to avoid, but then I think it probably isn’t very helpful to think like that at the moment. Tony says the gas and electric will probably be doing the same thing pretty soon. I say wow, this is all coming a bit soon, and he says yeah. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later though, and maybe in a weird kind of way it’s better that we had our fun for not too long a time, cos otherwise we might have started taking it for granted sort of thing.
It doesn’t say on the bottle of sleeping pills how many is a proper overdose, so we both just take half of what’s left. It’s quite a big bottle so it’s probably enough. The pills taste quite nasty especially when you’re eating a lot of them, but we make some big cups of sugary tea which makes it a bit easier. I don’t normally have sugar in my tea but I suppose it’s as good a time as any to try new things. We’ve already put a film on cos we thought it would be nicer to do it with something like on in the background, so it feels a bit more friendly. We spent ages deciding what film to watch, cos it feels like a pretty important thing. Eventually we chose hook, cos it was both of our favourite film when we were kids and we basically know it off by heart so it seemed sort of appropriate, not sure why. After we’ve had the last of the pills we both start thinking about stuff, like you would I suppose. Tony says to me, you don’t mind that we’re doing this now do you? I mean I know we could have left it a bit longer but I figured neither of us want to finish up in a dark house without heating or anything so. I say yeah, no, don’t worry about it, you’re a good mate. He says sorry you didn’t get to speak with your folks before we got rid of the phones and all that. That’s alright, I say, they would only have complained and given me a guilt trip about all this we’re doing. The way I see it this is sort of like being with the family anyway, cos the best of those times is always when you don’t have to worry about anything.
I like falling asleep in front of the tv cos it feels like something’s with you and sort of cradling you into the darkness. Some people might find that a bit weird, but I think things like that are fine as long as you don’t stress about them too much.
Leisure
We get up around three most days, not that we’re lazy, we’re still up twelve hours just go to bed later. Night feels better for some things, like when you want to feel sort of cosy and just take things in. We get a lot more of that done since quitting waitrose, so I think that was a good thing to do. Waitrose was alright though, they let us be mostly. As long as we had some podcasts on our headphones we could just keep stacking. They wanted to move us though to more responsibility and handling incoming shipments. There was enough money from tony’s dad to be getting on with so we left it. So we have more time on our hands now, and it’s weird that when you stop working you really wonder how you ever managed working, when it’s just like leaving the easy side of things to be somewhere really cold and bright and not friendly. Obviously some people need to do it but we’re preferring things without really.
So we get up around three and have some tea and some coco pops and maybe watch the new series of nip/tuck that we’ve been streaming overnight, it isn’t out over here yet but living is still on series four. We have a digital package with on demand so there’s a pretty good selection but sometimes you still have to stream. I think nip/tuck is a bit gay but tony likes it and I must admit it is entertaining and you never know where the plot will go next. We also like dexter, family guy, my name is earl, dirty sexy money, the sopranos, entourage, the wire, scrubs, csi, teachers, skins, csi ny, planet earth, have I got news for you, csi miami, the closer, medium, six feet under, the oc, smallville, friends, 24, heroes, death note, deadwood, weeds, californication, bones, buffy the vampire slayer, everybody hates chris, king of queens, everybody loves raymond, ed, angel, rome, curb your enthusiasm, jackass, the tom green show. Probably some others too. You can usually find something on even if it’s a bit rubbish. Later we might go to the pub or something, though not so much lately. Old lot aren’t around so much lately. Pub’s just at the bottom of the road so it’s not hard to pop down, though not so much lately. We’re happy staying in, people ask too many questions.
Tony’s girlfriend broke up with him. I think it’s okay though. She left her complete seinfeld box set and if just me and tony watch it we can do whole series at a time. We’ve ordered a chinese. It’s a nice feeling not knowing what is in the boxes till you open them, like xmas. For xmas this year I got a wii and some money but we don’t play the wii so much, it feels like being tested or put through your paces. Tony says we shouldn’t sell it though cos you never know when we might want to use it. We have chopsticks but neither of us know how to use them so we eat it with a fork. Sometimes things are really beautiful I think. While we eat we watch derren brown and then we flick channels. Later with jools holland is on, tony says it is boring but I want to watch it because it reminds me of home. Sometimes I think maybe I should get my own tv, I didn’t have my own at home so we watched what my mum or my dad wanted to watch. Once just me and him watched a documentary about pink floyd and we were happy.
Tony says he can’t sleep. I say that’s cos he doesn’t go to bed, he should go to bed and he says no, he wouldn’t sleep if he did, he can tell. Do you think I would watch tv till 4am if I could sleep, he says. With me I think it’s more like I just prefer being awake at night, but I don’t say that to him. The next day he goes to the doctor, so then I can watch jools holland on catchup from last night, but it is better watching it with someone to talk about the music with. A lot of the music is weird or boring, but the kings of leon play some good songs. Tony has been prescribed some sleeping pills. He gives me back my amazing spider-man which he borrowed to read in the waiting room and says that marvel is running out of ideas. I still like reading it though. I like how they will change everything, wipe everyone’s memory and start again just to keep the story going, because what would everyone do if it stopped? Tony asks could I get his sleeping pills from tesco metro, it has a pharmacy now, because I have to do the shopping tomorrow.
I get tony’s sleeping pills from tesco metro with the pizzas and the kit kat peanut butter chunky for me. The weather is sort of mild, a bit nothing. When I get back and put the kettle on tony is arguing with someone on the phone. He says it’s his dad and not to worry. We watch diagnosis murder. Later jimmy and big steve come round, they’re still at uni, they have the new grand theft auto and they say we have a bigger tv to play it on so. They were in the year below us but we moved back into halls for third year and they were tony’s neighbours. They are okay but can be a bit loud. Once they got tony a stripper for his birthday and I wasn’t sure about that. We play gta until two and they sleep on sofas.
Tony’s sleeping pills are working, he was in bed by twelve last night. I watch most of the next lost series without him which he won’t thank me for. It seems silly though not to watch the next episode when the last episode ends with making you want to watch the next one. When I get up he’s not there and has texted me saying he’s meeting his dad in starbucks. I download the adam and joe podcast and listen to it, it’s bbc but still quite good. Tony comes back and says his dad is cutting off the money unless we get jobs. It’s too late to do anything about it now so tony catches up on that series of lost. I watch some episodes over again but it’s ok, it helps to understand the plots and the beaches and women still look nice. Tony says his dad is only threatening and won’t really do anything.
Tony has told his dad that we have got our old jobs at waitrose back. I put some pizzas on, and later his dad calls back and says you know I know people there, that’s how I got you the job and I called and they say you’re not currently working there, did you really think I wouldn’t find out. Tony hangs up and says that didn’t work. Then he really calls waitrose to see if they have any jobs going cos they said we were welcome back if they did, but they haven’t. I’m watching paramount comedy through all this cos they’re doing a frasier marathon. I say maybe we could pay someone at waitrose to say that we’re working there and then tony’s dad would keep giving us money so we could pay them. He says that’s silly and like something someone would do in desperate housewives or maybe arrested development. He also says that I’m lazy and haven’t done anything to help this whole situation.
The next day I feel a bit guilty about what tony said so I go out and buy the paper with the job pages so we can look at it. Tony looks pleased and says he’s sorry and I’m a good guy really. that feels nice. We read through the pages with diagnosis murder on in the background but it gets a bit boring so in the end we just watch diagnosis murder. Afterwards tony says we should really go back to the job pages, and I think if he’s doing it then I have to really so I do. We don’t really see anything that we like though, it’s mostly construction and kitchens and assistant teachers and we’d have to change a lot of things if we were going to do anything like that. We watch the simpsons then, and have cups of tea. I say maybe we should not bother with jobs, they’re more trouble than they’re worth, and tony looks like he’s thinking for a while and says maybe. Then he says but what are we going to do about this whole situation, and I say it’ll probably blow over, why get stressed about it and change everything when we might not have to. He says yeah maybe.
I think tony’s sleeping pills have stopped working. he went to bed but came back down and we played gta, I wasn’t really bothered about it I find it a bit daunting and get scared of all the possibilities but he wanted to keep going so I thought I should. I felt a bit bad for him not sleeping cos I knew it was a big thing for him but he said he was fine and just wanted to finish this mission so I left it. It felt like as long as he wasn’t saying there was a problem it was probably okay. We went to bed at five in the end.
Tony wakes me up the next day to say his dad called and this time he really is cutting off the money and maybe this will get us off our arses since apparently nothing else works. I say maybe he’s bluffing, tony says no he called the bank and they said the monthly payment has been cancelled. Shit, I say. We have breakfast. Tony makes a fry up, which is nice. I offer help but he likes to do stuff like that on his own, not interrupt his system. After breakfast we say what are we going to do now then? I say I guess we should keep looking for jobs. Tony says yeah maybe. Then he says, but we didn’t really find anything when we looked yesterday did we, and everywhere’ll probably be the same. I can’t really be arsed with it, he says. I think and say yeah, me neither.
I say have you got a savings account or anything, cos I think sometimes people have things like that. Tony says not one that I could get at, dad controls all that stuff. Then he says I guess we could try the dole. That makes me feel a bit funny. I’m not sure waiting in a queue with lots of old men and crackheads is really our kind of thing. I suppose lots of people do that though, in fact I think jimmy and big steve do. I wonder though if maybe that’s why they do things the way they do and we do things the way we do. I don’t say any of this to tony though cos he might not think it was helpful. Then he says although I guess with the dole they try and find jobs for you and push you to get the first one that turns up, which might be a bit of a hassle. Yeah, I bet they’d get us to be toilet cleaners or something, I say. We laugh. Still, I might just check on the internet how much money we could get off them, he says, just so we know. Yeah that’s probably a good idea, I say, while you’re there you could check if the new indiana jones has downloaded yet. We saw it at the cinema but we didn’t want to wait for the dvd cos we thought it was really good and nice for a night in, maybe a marathon with the other three, which it does stand up against, especially the last crusade. Tony says ok. While he’s doing that I watch the last few episodes of that lost series. It seems a bit unfair on tony but he wasn’t that into it when we watched it before, said it was getting stupid, so its probably ok. Tony comes back and says there’s no way we’d be able to keep up the tv and broadband package on the dole. Also indy hasn’t quite downloaded yet.
Later tony says we’re not gonna go on the dole are we? I say nah I don’t think so. Tony says, I really can’t face getting a job either. I say no, me neither. What shall we do then, I say. Maybe just leave it, says tony. I think for a minute. Yeah, maybe that would work, I say. I mean, we’ve got a bit of money to be going on with, so it’s not like we have to change anything for a while yet, he says. I say yeah. We think about it on our own for a bit while we watch without a trace.
We don’t really mention it again the next day, but I think we both feel like it’s the way to go. I watch cartoon network cos some of the cartoons are actually quite funny, and it feels better watching stuff like that when you know you’ve got nothing to worry about I think. Tony comes back from shopping with all expensive taste the difference type stuff, marks and spencers too. I say this is a bit posh, and he says well we might as well mighn’t we? I suppose he’s right. So for tea we have one of those ham roast things with a fruity sauce where you just put the tray in the oven, and it’s really nice and reminds me of when my mum cooks. I don’t call my mum very much any more cos when I do it’s always annoying cos she’s not nice like I like to remember, she always nags me about money and girls and things. Jimmy and big steve come round later for that indiana jones marathon, which we all really enjoy. Jimmy asks the same question I asked about the posh food and tony says you know, why not? They say we’re right jammy bastards getting all this money for nothing and we laugh cos they only really mean it in a joking way. Tony doesn’t mention that we’re not getting the money any more. Jimmy and big steve sleep on couches again.
The longer we spend just chilling out and not worrying about stuff the more sense it makes to me, I mean why bother going after money so you can do the things you like when it actually just gets in the way of doing the things you like? It’s much simpler just to stick to doing good things. I say to tony his dad might be okay with it if we explain it to him like that, after all he said he didn’t want us to have hardship like his generation had, and we’re not doing. Tony says probably not mate, older people don’t really get stuff like that. He’s probably right. We get another chinese for dinner, a big one this time with the stuff we normally want to get but can’t really afford, and we watch goldfinger cos they’re showing it on tv. Sometimes it’s nice to watch old things just as they come on, with the adverts and everything, makes you feel like rainy Sunday afternoons at home when you know everyone’s watching the same thing cos there’s nothing else to do.
Next day jimmy and big steve call to ask about coming round but tony says we’re busy cos they made us feel a bit weird about the food and the money last time. I think that’s fair enough really. Later while we’re watching the simpsons, a repeat but quite a good one, tony’s dad calls and says have we got jobs yet, he’s sorry he had to go this far but nothing else would get through to us. Tony is really calm and says yes, we have, we signed up with an agency and we’re doing ok. I don’t know what tony’s dad says next but everything seems ok. After hanging up tony looks a bit upset like he would have liked to speak for longer, but he gets over it alright. A bit later tony says maybe we should get rid of our phones so people can’t bother us any more with stuff like this. That seems a bit odd at first but then I think that if you’re going to start doing stuff that other people don’t understand then maybe there’s not much point in carrying on with them, like they’re holding you back or something. We’re sort of going off the grid, or going dark like on 24. tony says we should cancel our email accounts as well.
Next day I ask tony what he did with our phones, he says he left them out for the rubbish collection. Then he says I hope that’s ok, the binmen have already been so even if you’ve changed your mind. I say no you don’t need to worry about that, though I do feel a bit sad inside cos there were a lot of numbers on there that I won’t have any more. I think tony notices that I feel a bit sad cos he says I can choose something for us to watch even if it’s not something he really likes. Normally I don’t mind about that kind of thing, I’ll watch anything really, but then I realise that I do really feel like watching a disney or something like that, something nice and comfy from when we were kids. In the end we watch aladdin, which tony says he doesn’t like but then ends up quite enjoying. It seems obvious to say, but we have a really good time together. I wouldn’t want to be doing this kind of thing with anyone else.
A couple of days later tony comes in looking a bit anxious. He’s got a letter, cos there’s no way to stop getting those, from the tv and broadband guys saying they haven’t had our payment for this month and they’ll cut us off if we don’t pay it. Tony laughs and says it would have to be now, wouldn’t it, just our luck. I suppose maybe we should have thought about when the payment needed to be, but there you go, it’s done now. I start remembering how tony’s dad said that the payments from him and the payments to the tv and broadband guys both should be monthly so our finances keep steady. I guess this is the kind of thing he was trying to avoid, but then I think it probably isn’t very helpful to think like that at the moment. Tony says the gas and electric will probably be doing the same thing pretty soon. I say wow, this is all coming a bit soon, and he says yeah. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later though, and maybe in a weird kind of way it’s better that we had our fun for not too long a time, cos otherwise we might have started taking it for granted sort of thing.
It doesn’t say on the bottle of sleeping pills how many is a proper overdose, so we both just take half of what’s left. It’s quite a big bottle so it’s probably enough. The pills taste quite nasty especially when you’re eating a lot of them, but we make some big cups of sugary tea which makes it a bit easier. I don’t normally have sugar in my tea but I suppose it’s as good a time as any to try new things. We’ve already put a film on cos we thought it would be nicer to do it with something like on in the background, so it feels a bit more friendly. We spent ages deciding what film to watch, cos it feels like a pretty important thing. Eventually we chose hook, cos it was both of our favourite film when we were kids and we basically know it off by heart so it seemed sort of appropriate, not sure why. After we’ve had the last of the pills we both start thinking about stuff, like you would I suppose. Tony says to me, you don’t mind that we’re doing this now do you? I mean I know we could have left it a bit longer but I figured neither of us want to finish up in a dark house without heating or anything so. I say yeah, no, don’t worry about it, you’re a good mate. He says sorry you didn’t get to speak with your folks before we got rid of the phones and all that. That’s alright, I say, they would only have complained and given me a guilt trip about all this we’re doing. The way I see it this is sort of like being with the family anyway, cos the best of those times is always when you don’t have to worry about anything.
I like falling asleep in front of the tv cos it feels like something’s with you and sort of cradling you into the darkness. Some people might find that a bit weird, but I think things like that are fine as long as you don’t stress about them too much.
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