How to Shoot a Squid and Steal its Ink

Tony Blair is Born Again.

fakenewsoftheworld:

The EU referendum has come and gone - June 23rd, 2016 was the date of the vote, if you must know. The British people decided that they didn’t really like their cousins that live on the other side the Channel. There’s just something about them that isn’t quite … well, British. They reckon. As a venerable Conservative politician once pointed out: ‘Portugal is not Britain.’ And he was right. It’s not. Although many of Portugal’s youth have recently taken to eating fish and chips on beaches and complaining about the weather. Many of them will be moving to Spain soon. And why not? Spain is a lovely country in which to live. As long as you can avoid the Spanish people, that is.

Many ‘Brexiteers’ believe that the French, despite their admirable history of art and culture, are, in fact, a very silly people; and the Germans, despite their best efforts to contribute to the development of the twentieth century, are humourless to the point of despair. The British pride themselves on their sense of humour. For instance, after proffering a dodgy dossier to the electorate to persuade voters to redecorate the Iraqi regime and therefore the entire nation, resulting in previously fully formed people becoming a tad limbless, Tony Blair, subsequent to a stretch of unemployment and much soul searching, landed a job as a Middle East peace envoy. He is reported to have said: 'If the bloody Iraqis can’t see the funny side of that, then God help them. I mean, what else do they want from me?’

Speaking of whom - that slick, reptilian creature is still crawling onto stage and hogging the blinkin’ mic. On Friday (February 17th, 2017) he addressed a room full of dishevelled reporters and TV camera crew. Articulating himself in that slippery Estuary English accent of his, he had this nugget of wisdom to convey: the 52% of the electorate that voted to leave the Europe Union were inconveniently mistaken and are now in need of some form of cognitive correction therapy. Implicit in what he said was the promise that he would not cattle-prod the 'Leavers’ into 'seeing sense’ but if necessary would campaign for them to be deported to Guantanamo Bay, or worse - Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon has declined to comment, although she could be heard by those closest to her grumbling and sharpening blades while slurping several glasses of whiskey. Just another bonny luncheon, if you ask me.

So, where are we? Described as a 'well-educated pillock’ by distant relatives, Anthony Blair has now re-emerged and descended to the podium to enlighten us with his grace. He is on yet another 'mission’. Those who voted for Brexit had a 'right’ to express their stupidity, he admits, but, of course, the 'mob’ cannot be allowed to have a serious political voice - otherwise that might result in something like … hmm … democracy? If only one of those imbecilic mobsters would give him a gentle shove over the proverbial cliff’s edge, then the citizenry - limbed and limbless alike - might be spared another minute of condescension. But that would be a little impolite, and not at all British.

Tom and His Very Odd Morning

Tom was a London cabbie and today he was feeling ill. So he decided to go back home and get into bed and rest.

      He was moving slowly because he was tired, and when he put his key into his front-door lock he did so quietly, partly because he didn’t want to disturb the love of his life, Jane. Jane was a primary school teacher, and since it was Saturday she was not at work and would want to have a ‘lie in’ until midday. It was twenty past ten. Tom gently closed the door behind him and stood in the hall. He could hear strange noises. There was a lot of panting and squeaking, and Tom found this very odd indeed. He took off his jacket and hung it on the stand and made his way towards the bedroom. He pushed open the door and was shocked by what he saw. Jane was making babies with Philip, their next-door neighbour. Jane was on top, straddling Philip, and when she looked over her shoulder and saw her husband standing at the threshold she screamed and jumped off of Philip’s penis and landed on the floor. Philip gathered the covers to hide his erection, but Tom had seen everything he needed to see. He turned around and went into the kitchen and poured himself a tall glass of whiskey. He drank it down as if it were milk, then he poured another glass and drank that one too. Then he opened one of the drawers and picked up a bread knife - the shiniest one. He returned to the bedroom.

      'I’m sorry, Tom,’ said Jane. 'I can explain.’

      'Yeah, Jesus,’ said Philip, nervously, 'we never meant for this to happen.’

      But Tom wasn’t listening - he was in a faraway place where no one could find him - and he stabbed both of them repeatedly, until neither one of them was breathing.

      Fuck, he thought. How am I gonna get all that blood out the carpet? He shook his head. He would think about that later. Or maybe not.

      He returned to the kitchen and placed the knife in the sink and rinsed his hands. The blood was very sticky and much of it wouldn’t come off. He dried his hands with a tea-towel and took the bottle of whiskey with him into the living room, sat down on his armchair and turned on the TV. He watched BBC News 24 whilst drinking his spirit.

      'Funny,’ he said to the empty room, 'in a little while I’ll be on the news and the chair I’m sitting on now will be vacant.’

      For some reason he found this hilarious and laughed for a whole minute. He was feeling much better.

Sunday Mornings

After his morning shower at work, Pete had burned his foot on an iron that one of his colleagues must have left on the changing-room floor with the plug still in the socket. He was now hobbling towards the housekeeping manager’s office after being radio-summoned, his right sole pulsating with pain. He knocked on the door but the manager, whose name was Sunday, didn’t look up; he was flicking through a pile of documents on his desk in his small windowless office in the basement. Pete coughed at the threshold and Sunday finally responded.

‘Are you sick?’ Sunday asked.

'No.’

'You have a cough.’

Pete didn’t say anything.

'Come in, sit down,’ said Sunday, straightening and flattening his documents. 'Did you clean Room 10?’

'Yes.’

'15?’

'Yes.’

'Have you finished 23 and 32?’

'Uhuh.’

'Excuse me?’

'Yes, I have.’

'So they are ready?’

'They’re ready.’

'Did you mop the foyer?’

'Yes.’

'Is it clean?’

'Yes.’

'I need it to be clean.’

'It is.’

Pete didn’t like the way Sunday sometimes looked at him – beady-eyed side-glances carrying the weight of negative judgement. Now, Sunday’s face was distorted in a slight grimace, his dark eyes roaming up and down Pete’s upper body. Pete leaned back in his chair and waited.

'I wanted to talk to you, Peter.’

'Okay.’

'You don’t say much.’

Pete pursed his lips.

'We are a team,’ said Sunday, 'a family, but you don’t speak to anyone.’

Pete clasped his hands together, locking his fingers.

'You’ve been working here for two months now,’ Sunday clarified. 'You’re still on probation.’

'Okay.’

'And you always come to work scruffy: you don’t brush your hair, you have stubble …’

A minute passed.

Then Sunday leaned back in his chair and sighed. He stroked his clean-shaven chin and spoke:

'I’m sorry, Peter, but …’

Pete came out of the changing room wearing his own clothes. He signed out, stumbled over a mound of laundry bags, walked down the hall and up the stairs to the foyer. He looked down at the floor: there were dark splotches left behind by fresh dirty footprints. Then the lift doors opened and Alex stepped out clutching three bottles of red wine against his chest. Alex was another member of the housekeeping team and, although he rarely spoke with him, Pete liked him. Alex had sharp blue eyes and an intelligent face. He’d been working in Ukraine up until four or five months ago. 'I had a good job there,’ he’d said, 'but I didn’t want the fucking Russians to kill me. So I came to London.’

Now: 'Are you leaving, Pete?’ asked Alex.

'Yeah.’

'Okay.’

'Okay.’

Pete then opened the front door, descended the stairs and embraced the rain. He didn’t turn to look back at the hotel.

When he got back to his studio flat in Ladbroke Grove Anya was lying on the bed, drunk. She was from Belarus, and when she got drunk she slurred her words to such an extent that she may as well have been speaking in her mother tongue.

He told her what had happened and she sat up and looked at him, her right nipple poking out of her bra.

'You lost your job?’

'Yeah.’

'Why?’

'I got sacked.’

'Why the fuck?’

'The manager didn’t like me, what can I say.’

'So what now? I can’t pay the rent on my own. Can’t you get your job back?’

'It’s over. I’ll go back on the dole and apply for housing benefits.’

'Fucking piece of shit.’

'Who?’

She topped up her glass with more wine and took a long sip. Pete got up and poured himself a glass, as well. He drank the first one quickly, refilled, sat down and rolled a cigarette. There were four bottles of very cheap red wine in the room, one of which was empty; the bottle he’d just used was almost empty. By the end of the night all four would be gone, and there was always the chance of him going to the shop for another two. He didn’t have work in the morning, so he could nurse his hangover and move at his own pace. Anya did have work, but her nightly drunkenness didn’t seem to have an effect on her ability to rise in the morning and travel to the restaurant where she worked as a full-time chef. She was also having problems with her latest visa application and was being heavily taxed on what little she earned. 'I am strong,’ she’d said to Pete the first time they met, 'I’m a survivor. I will keep fighting. On and on. Life is life.’  

They’d met on a doorstep in Earl’s Court seven months ago. He’d just quit his job as a kitchen porter and was walking the streets, getting drunk. He didn’t want to go home to his parent’s flat, and he didn’t feel like phoning a friend – a friend he hadn’t seen in a while – so he drifted along the streets, opting for the quietest (few were devoid of people). Then he sat down to rest. Roughly half an hour passed before she appeared. (She was sleeping on the floor in a room that her childhood friend was staying in with her husband.) Anya opened the front door and sat on the top step to smoke. She also had a half-empty bottle of red wine in her hand. He soon said hello to her and they talked into the night, for six hours, sharing stories and wine. She showed him the scar that her first husband had etched on to her body with a knife. It ran from the lower left portion of her ribcage to the side of her left breast. She said he’d been a crazy drug addict who died of a heroine overdose, leaving her to raise their son and daughter on her own. Then she found another man and married him, but they had recently split; he’d been a hapless gambler and lost all their money to debauchery. She subsequently had to move out of her flat, penniless, and start over – find accommodation, a job, a man. She was forty years old – nine years Pete’s senior – and felt as though time was running thin.

They lay together on the bed and watched Saturday-night TV with a smoke ring above their heads. Dusty, her Yorkshire Terrier, stirred and rose from his sleep. Then the room turned fetid and Anya sat up and yelled at the dog in Russian. The little shit had farted, and now the air was almost poisonous. Pete got up and spent some time in the bathroom. He took a piss and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He was developing jowls and his face was ruddy, his eyes were heavy and dark. Swaying slightly, he limped out of the bathroom and back into the main room. Dusty was up on all fours now, and growling. Dusty and Pete had never seen eye-to-eye, and Pete felt like he had no choice but to tolerate the dog’s emotional outbursts.

'Anya, your dog’s gonna start going nuts in a minute.’

'Huh?’ she said, lazily.

'Your dog! It’s gonna start barking.’

'He’s fine.’

'I can’t be bothered with this.’

'What? You’re scared of a little dog? Be a man!’

Then Dusty trotted into the kitchen for some water from his bowl. Pete crawled onto the bed again and stared at the TV screen. Then Anya turned round to face him, placing her right leg over both of his legs.

'What are we going to do?’ she asked. Her eyes were closed.

'What do you mean?’

'We have nothing.’

'We have each other.’

She laughed.

'We need money,’ she slurred.

'Don’t you think I know that?’

'Well do something, then.’

'I’m trying, baby.’

'Don’t call me baby.’

'Fine.’

'Hug me.’

'What?’

'I need a hug.’

He hugged her.

Then, just as he thought she’d fallen asleep, she began to play with his balls. She stroked his cock and he (eventually) got hard. They kissed, clumsily, breathing heavily into each other’s mouths. He took off his clothes, slid off her pants and began to make love to her. Then, after a minute or two, he heard growling. He tried to ignore it, but it was persistent and growing louder, more aggressive. Then Dusty started barking and Pete felt something sharp stab him – the little shit had bitten his burnt foot. Pete sat up, twisted round and kicked the dog off the bed. But it continued to bark, this time with an insane intensity.

'Dusty!’ Anya shouted. Then she spewed out a stream of words in Russian. The dog settled down and returned to its corner where it curled up into a ball, sulking.

'Shit. You need to put a muzzle on that thing.’

'He doesn’t need muzzle,’ she said. 'Come.’

'What?’

She lay on her back and pulled him towards her.

'I can’t,’ he admitted. 'I think my foot’s bleeding.’

'You’re like little boy. Be a man and fuck me!’

His foot was throbbing, yes, but was that enough to prevent him from having sex with a woman he … what? Loved? No, he didn’t love her – whatever 'love’ meant. He liked her, cared for her, enjoyed spending time with her … Maybe he could love her, one day. Wasn’t that how it worked? You meet someone you like and then your feelings for that person become richer and fuller, more complex, and then at some point you tell her that you love her … and await the response. But his burnt, bloody foot had hijacked his attention, and he wondered whether he would need to see his doctor to get a jab of some kind. There was only a speck of blood, and he wiped it on the duvet. He thought about how to flow back into sex, but he was now flaccid and could feel that he would have to struggle against the depressing effect that all the wine was having on his cock to get another erection. Plus, there was always the prospect that Dusty would leap up from his corner and take another bite – and who knew where the Terrier would aim for this time?!

'I’m sorry, Anya, let’s just lie here together – that can be nice, too.’

She sighed.

He stroked her long black hair, her back, her thighs.

After a while she said, 'Are you not attracted to me anymore?’

'Don’t be stupid. Of course I’m still attracted to you.’

'Hmm.’

'Hey, I think … I think I could love you, you silly woman.’

'You love me?’

He didn’t say anything. He continued to caress her back, and soon she was very quiet and still. He held her in his arms and reminded himself to be grateful in the present moment for having something good. He may have been poor, but he was lucky in many ways: he was lying in bed with a beautiful woman; he had family and friends, regardless of how distant he now was from them; he wasn’t mentally or physically challenged; he lived in a First World country in the twenty first century where he could get free medial care, nutritious food, another job. There were many worse-off people in the world, much worse-off, and he felt it important to think about this from time to time.  

Anya was sleeping, but Pete was still awake, and he whispered to her, into her ear, his body very close to hers.

'It’ll be all right,’ he said. 'We’ll make it work. Somehow. We’ll get by and build something together. You’ll see. Just … let’s hang in there. Don’t give up, baby. Don’t give up.’

When he woke up in the morning he realised that his hand was covered in blood. He peeled himself away from Anya and stared at his blood-soaked hand. But it didn’t take him long to come to his senses. He pulled her arm back so that she fell flat on her back and saw that her mouth and chest were also covered in blood. He shook her and called out her name, over and over, but she did not respond. He checked her pulse, and when he couldn’t detect one he tried again. Then he called for an ambulance, knowing – but not admitting to himself – that she was dead.

She had been a fighter, but the booze had finally defeated her.

While he was waiting for the paramedics to arrive, he cleared away the mess that he and Anya had left behind. He threw the empty bottles in the bin and cleared the bedside tables of ash, tobacco and many spillages of wine. He took a damp cloth to her mouth and chest and wiped away the blood, and as he did he wept. Then, struggling with the weight of her now limp body, he took off her bra and changed her into a fresh tee-shirt and pair of jeans. He removed the blooded bedsheet and stuffed it inside a black bin-liner. Then he lay by her side, held her hand and waited.

The dog was very quiet.

Black Box (a snippet of a novella)

Two days after the catastrophe, she called to tell him it was over.

‘I just think we’d be better off as friends. Don’t you think?’

He eventually sighed and conceded to his loss. This was not what he wanted. But she’d made her decision, out of the blue, on the day we learn the co-pilot had suffered from depression. The co-pilot, of course, flew the plane into a snow-topped mountain in the French Alps. 150 dead. As the plane plummeted, screams could be heard. The only survivor was the black box.

Robert wasn’t one of those depressives who like to keep their curtains closed. He liked to keep them open, even at night, when moonlight occasionally shone through his window. This was the same moon at which Jesus and Buddha would have looked up and gazed, and, for some reason, he was comforted by this idea. The very same moon. Imagine. Several hours after she said goodbye and put down the phone, he wanted to call her back to tell her to look up at the sky tonight. Maybe then she’d change her mind. But he didn’t.

In the evening, he went to the supermarket for a bottle of wine, and while there, caught the day’s tabloid headlines. Plastered on the front pages of all the papers was a photo of the same man: the co-pilot who’d brought down the plane. One tabloid ran with the headline: DEPRESSED PSYCHO KILLER. The font was big and bold and hulking, and Robert felt at that moment like hiding under a pile of potatoes. He bought a bottle of Merlot and a packet of cigarettes and hurried back home, away from strangers who might think he was some sort of freak. He was sensitive to people staring at him – all the darting eyes – and suddenly felt as though he had somehow been cast adrift. The headline had made him feel dizzy; it made him feel as though he didn’t belong. Vertiginous and hunched, he made it to his door.

'Hurrying’ wasn’t something he did with ease. A few months ago, he left his home in Ladbroke Grove with the intention of walking to Notting Hill – a short and usually uncomplicated journey. He wanted to peruse the shelves of a second hand bookshop near the Tube station but had to stop outside a church halfway up the hill to sit down on a bench and recuperate. He felt weak and fatigued, as if he had suddenly gained twenty pounds in weight and was now subsequently feeling the strain, aware of his own heaviness and gravity pulling him down. This wasn’t the first time that this had happened to him, and he was beginning to feel scared of the prospect of having to endure this bleak lethargy more often. A devilish element in his mind was busy cremating hope, optimism, anything with a positive charge. On that occasion – on the church bench – he got up, a little sooner than he would have liked, when a man with a Bible sat down beside him and asked: 'You don’t mind me praying, do you, son?’ The man’s voice was soft and wispy and disconcertingly soothing. Robert said he was just leaving, so go ahead and pray. Then he walked back down the hill and returned to his little box of a room under the reign of his parents.

His mum and his step-father and his little sister lived in a council flat just around the corner from Ladbroke Grove Tube station. He also lived there. His bedroom was small and messy and located adjacent to the toilet by the front door. Odours seeped out of the toilet and into his room, and these scents were more aggressive on windy days; they seemed to reside for a while in the corner by his bed so he would have to stop whatever he was doing and waft the air with a book or pillow, like a madman fighting a malodorous ghost. His parents were waiting to bid for a suitable permanent residence. At the moment, they were in temporary accommodation, between places – technically homeless. Robert was just happy he had a roof over his head.

Clinically speaking, he was, in many ways, an atypical depressive. When he opened the door to his flat he dumped his bag of shopping on his bed, went into the kitchen for a glass and raided the fridge. His mum had bought a fresh baguette that would soon harden and become stale, so he made a melted-cheese and ham and tomato sandwich – zapped in the microwave for twenty seconds – with salted peanuts thrown in for crunch and extra taste. Then he returned to his room, sat down on his single, unmade bed, filled his glass with red wine and sank his teeth into the soft and crispy bread. He ate half of it before even taking off his jacket. He drank his glass of wine within fifteen minutes. Then he poured himself another, lit a fag and smoked.

He was gaining weight. Maybe this was why Lucy had decided to brake up with him, he thought. He wiped a cluster of bread crumbs and other debris off his sheet – a sheet he hadn’t washed in a while – and sighed. The self-help book he’d read – and re-read – advised him not to ruminate, so he tried to distract himself by keeping his mind active and tuned in to uplifting externalities. This was how the psychiatrist who wrote the book had worded it. Robert would have written something along the lines of: anything that doesn’t make you feel like shit. So he turned on the TV (inactive distraction) and flicked through the channels until he came to a twenty-four-hour news station. There was another war; this time in Yemen; people were being blown to smithereens. He needed to find something else, anything to stop himself from spiralling down towards a pit of insanity.

He decided to call a friend.

He picked up his mobile and scrolled through the names on his short contact list until he came to Mike. He pressed the call icon button and held the phone to his ear. Mike usually had a woman by his side, regardless of his relationship status, so Robert wasn’t too surprised to hear a female voice say hello. He was, however, a little insulted – he imagined Mike looking at his mobile, seeing Robert’s name and dismissively passing on the phone for some chick, who was probably naked and stoned, to answer.

'Eh, hello,’ he said, 'can I speak to Mike, please?’

'Mike? There’s no Mike here.’ Her voice was mellifluous and light, and ever so slightly seductively coarse.

'Come on, put Mike on the phone.’

'Like I said: there’s no Mike here.’

'Look, whatever your name is, I know I haven’t spoken to him in a while … but—’ he sighed and paused for a couple of seconds '—but I’ve just broken up with my girlfriend.’

He waited.

'I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said. 'But it doesn’t change that fact that there’s no Mike here. Maybe you have the wrong number?’

'No, this is definitely the right number. If he’s there, just put him on. Please.’

'What happened?’

'What?’

'With your girlfriend? Why did you brake up?’

'Seriously?’

'Yes.’

'No offence, but I’m not gonna talk about this with someone I don’t even know. That’s why I’m calling Mike.’

'But you got me,’ she said. 'Right now, I’m all you’ve got. Isn’t that right?’

His frustration was turning to anger.

'Okay,’ he said, sharply, 'I’m gonna go if you don’t put Mike on.’

'You sound a bit flat.’

'This is ridiculous,’ he said. 'I’m gonna hang up.’

'Okay, goodbye, then. I hope you find what you’re looking for.’

'For God’s sake.’

He hung up.

The self-help book – which was called 'Navigating Your Way Through the Doldrums’ – was quite helpful, he had to admit. Since the author’s name was long and foreign and unpronounceable – at least for Robert’s English tongue – Robert simply thought of her as The Psychiatrist. The Psychiatrist advised her readers to recognise and challenge negative thinking. If Robert wanted to clamber out of his depression – and why the hell wouldn’t he? – he had to gather the evidence and balance the argument; he had to force himself to think of the positives – something, he realised, he found difficult to do. His mind, it seemed, was easily seduced by negativity. So after he hung up on Mike’s current girlfriend, he struggled to extinguish the idea that Mike had not wanted to speak with him; struggled to supplant this negative with a plausible positive. Alcohol was another demon, but at this moment in time he didn’t care – he needed a drink. He poured himself another glass of wine, scratched his head and groaned. The idea of Mike being dismissive would not budge; it was as if it had talons and was clinging to his brain; he would have to put up a fight to shake off this metaphorical creature. He imagined a large and ugly wild bird stalking the barren landscape of his mind, squawking in neural catacombs, searching for its next meal, its next prey, its next carcass to feast on and devour. He thought of a dark and shadowy drawing of a man possessed by bats that seemed to be fluttering around his sunken head. Maybe these birds weren’t bats, at all; maybe they were ghoulish owls or mythological. But the point was clear: these winged monsters were tormenting this poor soul. If Robert’s memory served him well, the man in the drawing had fallen asleep after trying to get a bit of writing done at his bureau. But the artist – whatever his name was – had a very bleak fate in store for him, Robert thought.

God is a Black Box

God is a black box

After everything that matters is destroyed and

returns to nothing

what remains is

a black box

buried deep in the snow of

a snow-topped mountain

It contains the ashes of

what used to be

ghostly whispers of all

the laughter and

all the screaming

sweet and bitter voices of

the past

The black box is an echo chamber

a soul coffin

wherein billions of butterflies flutter and die and flutter

again

The black box is a titanium cast entombing

the story of everything:

teary-eyed lovers holding hands

as the plane descends

the birth of your first child

the last child

your first words after

you had sex for the first time

the last time

The black box is infused with disco catacombs

technicoloured warzones

poets and priests and spiritual rapists

cyanide sermons and

hermit cannibals

kinky politicians and

monkey spacemen

fat cats resting on a mound of

broken bones

scabby skin

tattered clothes worn

by hapless, penniless

hobos with blackened teeth and

blackened eyes and

blackened lives and

souls

The black box is the crucified orgasm

la petite mort

ad infinitum.

Amen.

Dead Star Coffin Blues

I pick up my phone and hear tinny nightmares ringing. There is something inside of me that seems to be gaining weight. It weighs down my gut. I always seem to be walking into the wind, the dull, grey wind that blows down Portobello Road on a bland Sunday in another winter month. The market-sellers sell moulding fruit as the bums stagger through the cracks, shadow-veiled against soft streaks of daylight that pierce through overhanging clouds. And still I dial her number with smoke-swirling hope, half-expecting a booze-laden voice to crucify my name in full-fat seduction. The expectation alone is enough to send me to my beaten-up pillow, sail me into sleep and stormy dreams that nurse and cradle my swollen carnival-waxed mind. But of course I do not hear her voice, her sweetly-serrated voice that haunts the gaps between my ghostly, neuron-layered watchtowers. There is a candy-floss parade of vocal-chords fluffing its way into the dog-bark of the present, only to be bitch-slapped into the forgetful and sometimes regrettable past, and this memory stabs me in the heart and descends into the darkness of the well that I always knew was there, boom-splashes in the hellish distance down below, ripples yawning in the cold mist of echo and time. I put the phone down and turn it off and drink and smoke and dance on a spinning vinyl made from the skin of a thousand dead clowns and laugh at the sight of a moth fluttering towards an iced candle whose flickering flame is forever frozen.

Alone in a Room with a Woman’s Sole

She left the hotel room to smoke in the smoking area outside

drunk at three o'clock in the afternoon.

When she closed the hotel room door

her dog rushed over to the closed door

not knowing where she had gone

or what to do.

It was nervous, frightened

had fear in its eyes.

It stared at the door

the bland white door

sat down, waited

stood up, sat down

again

a lost and stranded, beleaguered

terrier.

Eventually

it took one of her shoes in its mouth

climbed onto the bed

curled itself around the shoe

rested its head against it.

Her other shoe was on the floor.

I looked at it and

then at the dog

it looked at me, briefly, blinked

turned away.

I nodded, stared at the door

drank my wine 

smoked.

Rain muddied the window pane

one tear after the other running down

towards the ledge.

Honey In The Night

We came to the end of the year and crossed over, perhaps regrettably, to another. Things weren’t going too well, and most nights we let our feeling be known. I had my way of talking and she had hers; and it'sstrange looking back, it really is. I don’t know why. I feel things could have been different between us; the dynamics needn’t have become so serrated. But she would have laughed at that, laughed at my way of wording my feelings. But this is all I can do. I can talk and write, express myself. What the fuck did she want? Well, she never said. She talked an awful lot, but she said very little. Some people are like that, I guess.

A mutual friend told me she was fucking someone else, and I confronted her. She didn’t deny it. For once, she told the truth. She took off the mask and spoke candidly. It was as if she was someone else. I didn’t recognise her. The woman I had been with for four years was a fantasy, I realised – the mask. The actress underneath was a stranger. She looked like the woman I had been in love with, but she wasn’t her; she was someone else. I can’t emphasise that enough.

Anyway, she left. The old story – she ran away with another man. Although she didn’t run; she was unnervingly nonchalant in her movements, packing her things as if immune to guilt. I watched her from my bed as she stuffed her clothes in her bags. I was detached from the scene: I had a bottle of red wine, and I very much intended to drink another bottle before the night came to a close.

But that night soon after New Year’s – Jesus, what a night. We’d both had a  couple of bottles of wine and smoked weed; we didn’t fuck – we hadn’t had sex in a while. We passed out in bed. I woke up at some point during the night, in need of water but finding none (I usually keep water by my bed). My state of mind may have been precarious, a little rattled from this and that, but what happened happened, from my perspective. She was naked in bed and I was awake. The world was very still, very quiet. I remember looking at her. She had obviously kicked the covers off her body, and was sprawled across the bed. Then things got weird. No one believed me when I told them this, but the world around us disintegrated; everything in my room began to swirl. This experience is easy for people to comprehend, really. A drunk mind swirls, sees things that aren’t there. But she really did suck everything up into her cunt, believe it or not. My curtains and desk and laptop, my chair and cupboard and rug, my lamp and table, TV, stereo, me. Yes, I found myself being sucked in. And she was suddenly awake, laughing, cackling, rejoicing in my demise. I couldn’t resist. I tried to grab hold of things, anything, but everything seemed to slip out of my grasp. I was being pulled further and further inside her pussy, until there was only the sweetness of libidinous decay.

When I told her this story in the morning she simply laughed. Of course, I knew it was only a dream. But there was a part of my mind that thought it was real. And that’s the part that worries me most. What seems to be real is subjectively true. And the subjective is all we have, in the end.

Three weeks later she left, and I have been thinking of that nightmare ever since.

Bloody Backdoor Blues

You awaken at dawn with an arse that is jammed

you sit down on the bowl with your head in your hands

you wonder to yourself how it all went down

when you wipe with a tissue, get blood on your gown.

There’s a woman in your bed, lying in the nude

she didn’t wanna fuck ‘cause she said you were crude.

Now, hungover, you wish you were dead

but then you harden and jump into bed.

She smiles as you slip the condom on your cock

and spreads her legs as you look at the clock.

You have to be at work in forty minutes time

you tell her to stay, you think, she is mine.

She wants to fuck now, they always do

even when you’ve just had a big bloody poo.

She says she don’t care, grabs you by the hair

late for work again – and what do you care?

Getting laid and sacked is better than death

you realise this as you take another breath.

She’s cum three times, you none at all

there is sweat on the bedsheets and blood on the wall.

You explain that your arse has been crucified by Christ

you feel you’ve been raped by three-thousand mice.

She doesn’t want to talk, she just wants to fuck

and you wonder what is wrong when you’re suddenly in luck.

The gods are laughing down from their phallus in the sky

the angels have clipped their wings, singing lullabies

as the devil files his nails, now his work is done

you got to go to work, you really got to run.

You tell her goodbye, stay if you want

there’s booze in the fridge, take what you want.

She sighs and dresses and walks out the door

another girl gone, will there be any more?

Dinner with the Damned

Jim and Annie sat down to dinner, which they did almost every night. Sometimes they ate standing up, but since this interfered with everything they’d been brought up to believe in, they rarely did this. Annie had once voiced her opinion on the matter by suggesting that the whole business of standing while eating was essentially pointless; and after Jim scratched his beard and sent a letter to his local MP, not just to raise the issue but to get a little advice, he agreed with his girlfriend of three-and-a-half years, waking her up in the middle of the night to tell her so. In response, she muttered something about a nefarious cow smuggling milk into Russia. She was probably dreaming.

Tonight was curry night, as was last night and the night before. Jim had ordered the masala and Annie fish and chips with curry sauce – it was that kind of restaurant.

‘What’s that banging?’ Annie asked.

Jim lifted his head – he often stooped while eating, like a horse at a trough.

'What banging?’ A pertinent question.

Annie turned down the TV – nothing important was on, just the London regional news.

’That banging,’ she said.

'Oh that. That’ll be the Jihadi in the basement.’

'The what?’

'The Jihadi in the basement. Did I not tell you?’

'No you did not.’

'Yeah, I met him on the Tube.’

'What?’

Yeah. He said he wanted to do one of those suicide bombings that everyone’s banging on about these days. But since I was the only other person in the carriage, he got a bit depressed. Said there wasn’t much point blowing just me up. I sympathised with him, what can I say.’

'So you’re telling me there’s a suicide bomber in our basement?’

'Yeah. What’s the big deal? I confiscated his rucksack.’

'What’s he banging for?’

'I dunno. He’s probably hungry. Maybe I should give him some of this. Wait, do Jihadis east chicken tikka masala? Doesn’t it have to be halal or something? Tricky dining with a Jihadi. Maybe I’ll just give him some bread. Bread and water. Don’t wanna meet seventy-two virgins on an empty stomach now, do you?’

'Why would I want to meet seventy-two virgins?’

'I dunno. He does, though. I think.’

Jim broke off some naan bread and poured cold water into a glass. He carried them down the hall to the basement door.

'You all right in there, mate?’ he asked. 'Brought you some food.’

'I want out of here!’ cried the Jihadi.

'You can leave any time you want, mate; the door’s open.’ Jim tried the handle. 'Actually, wait a minute, I must of locked it. Sorry about that.’

Jim opened the table-drawer in the hall and took out the key. Then he heard a loud explosion. Annie screamed. Jim dropped the key on the floor. He picked it up.

'Oh my God,’ Annie cried. 'What was that?’

Jim strolled over to the door and opened it. The walls of the basement were splattered with bits of flesh. There was a head by the washing machine.

'Jesus Christ,’ said Annie, flabbergasted.

'I know,’ said Jim. 'We really need to clean up down here.’

'I thought you said you took his rucksack?’

'I did. He must have found it.’

'Where did you put it?’

'On top of the washing machine.’

'What? In the same room as him?’

'That’s where I keep the confiscated items.’

'What confiscated items? You’ve never confiscated anything in your life.’

'Maybe. But I thought on top of the washing machine would be the best place for them, if I ever did. And, lo and behold, I confiscated a Jihadi’s rucksack.’

'What’re we going to do?’

'Finish dinner, I suppose.’

'We can’t just leave him here.’

'Hmm. There’s only one thing we can do.’

'What?’

'We’ll burn the house down.’

'What?!’

'Okay, okay, you’re right. A bit hasty. Come on,’ he said, 'I’ll think of something.’

'I can’t believe this.’

'Look on the bright side, baby.’

'What bright side?’

'We’ve still got half a naan bread left.’

The Spider Sits In Its Web As The People Dance

Frank stood at the back of the bar with his pint in his hand, watching the band but not really listening, just watching and nodding his head to the blues. On the first Sunday of every month the venue put on a burlesque night. Tonight was Sunday the fourth of January, and his New Year’s resolution was already dead. He took another sip of beer – he wasn’t going to drink too fast, not at over four-pounds a pint (plus he’d already had a six-pack before arriving). He had set out to get drunk and talk to people, to the girls, and to dance, but his body wasn’t in step with his mind. In the way of dancing, all he could do was tap his foot and click his fingers, wishing all the while that he could muster the energy to flirt. A few of the girls were dancing with a ferocious appetite. They had their arms up in the air, above their heads, their hands clutching their hair as they mellifluously swayed their hips from side to side. All around there were smiles and teeth; there was laughter, women biting their bottom lip. These women knew what they were doing. On every third or fourth song the burlesque dancers came on stage and did their thing as the band players did their thing, and the crowd in the cramped bar closed in on the stage, got as close as lawfully possible to the performers – mostly men, but the girls in the crowd got close too, perhaps to learn a tip or two in the art of seduction.

He knew he shouldn’t be here; he even said the words to himself. But he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He didn’t want to go home. Going home was the inevitable journey he would have to make and endure, and he didn’t want to think about it. It was boring and disheartening to be reminded of home, if he could even call it that. No, he wanted to stay out and have fun and maybe get laid, but since that wasn’t going to happen he would have to think of something else to do. Drifters wandered around the streets with a can in their hand, mumbling to themselves. He didn’t want to be a part of that club. But he did feel as though he was already scuttling along the societal cracks, vaguely sick and slightly hunched, like the many bums and ladies of the night.

He watched the dancers twirl the tassels on their tits, watched them shake it, watched the men in the audience leer and cheer. He placed his half-finished pint in the bracket by the door and went outside and sat on a bench and smoked; but he was the only one in the smoking area – it was cold, and the entertainment was inside. Live footage of the band was being projected on to the wall of the building opposite the bar, and he stared at this as people walked up and down the street. There was a queue to get in and the people in the queue looked eager but frustrated at having to wait for people inside to leave so they could get in on the now ‘one-in, one-out’ policy. As he was approaching the end of his cigarette a scruffy-looking man came up to him and spoke to him from the other side of the rope that separated the smoking area from the rest of the world.

'All right, mate,’ said the man.

'All right.’

'Can’t spare a little change, can you, mate? Just trying to get enough money to get a coffee and a bite to eat. It’s freezing out here.’ He scratched his beard.

'Sure.’ Frank got out his wallet and gave the man fifty pence.

'Ah, cheers, mate. Can’t spare a cigarette, no?’

Frank gave him a cigarette.

'Thanks, man. You’re a good man. Most people round here don’t give you the time of day. They don’t wanna recognise your existence, you know what I mean. Like to keep their wallets in their pockets.’

'I know, mate.’

'I wasn’t always on the streets. I worked for twenty years. But I lost my job, and the wife and kid. I also had a bit of a drug problem. But not anymore. No. I just drink now, that’s it. Given up the drugs. But I can’t get my benefits. I’m trying get a place, you know. Get housing benefits and Jobseeker’s Allowance, but there’s problems with my documents, or whatever, and it’s always being delayed. So now I’m sleeping outside a church. There’s a few of us. Just down the road. Only thing is, sometimes I wake up and my bag’s been raided. Nothing valuable in there, mind you, apart from my benefit papers. There’s some heartless thieves out there, I tell you. Looking for money to get high, innit. I know the type. There’s always someone out there trying to get you. The world’s full of hyenas. But that’s human nature for you.’

'I’m on Jobseeker’s Allowance, myself.’

'You’re lucky, mate. Lucky. And a good man. Listen, you haven’t got another quid, have you? Just, I’m not gonna get anything else from these stingy cunts.’

He gave him a pound coin. The homeless man thanked him and went on his way. Frank watched him ask someone in the queue for spare change and the bouncer told him to go away. He went away.

Frank went back inside, picked up his glass, wriggled through the spaces between the bodies, and descended the stairs. There were people down there, standing in clusters in the narrow hall. They were either waiting for a free toilet space or something else. He pushed open the door to the gents’. There were five guys at the urinal and the cubicle was in use. He stepped back out and stood in the hall. Six or seven people went back up the stairs. Two girls were talking under a poster of Muddy Waters. Another girl was leaning on the wall; she didn’t appear to be with the couple. She had dirty blond hair tied back in a loose bun; a few wild tendrils were sticking up and tumbling down the sides of her olive-skinned face. Her eyes were green and glazed and not quite focused. In her hand was a drink, which looked like a vodka- or rum-and-coke – something filled with alcohol, no doubt. She caught him looking at her, and said hello.

He said, 'Hi.’

They indulged in small-talk for a minute or two, talked about the venue and how isn’t it great that a place like this exists – a blues bar in central London that’s free to get in to, most days of the week.

'No, I don’t come here Thursday, Friday, Saturday,’ she said. 'Don’t wanna pay a fiver. Plus it’s too busy. Too many drunk twats.’ She took a swig of her drink.

People were sliding past them, going in and out of the toilets.

'Yeah, I wouldn’t pay to get in either. Not because it’s not worth it. Just, I’d prefer to get in free. Plus I don’t have much money.’

'What do you do?’

'I’m currently between jobs at the moment.’

'There aren’t any jobs out there. I’m fortunate to have had a job for a couple of years now.’

'What do you do?’

'Work in retail. In Westfield’s in Shepherd’s Bush. I’m a floor manager.’ She took another sip of her drink. 'What do you want to do?’

'Well, I’m trying to write a novel.’

'Wow. A novel.’

'Yeah, but the words aren’t right. Just need to keep on doing it and hopefully get something done. Don’t really wanna do anything else. Nine-to-five jobs are deadening. Sorry.’

'I don’t feel that way. I love my job; love the people; love keeping busy.’

'Yeah, I’m probably the complete opposite.’

'You don’t like people?’

'Some people. You’re nice.’

She smiled.

'What’s you name?’ she asked.

'Frank.’

'I’m Fay.’

'I’m going to use the toilet, but why don’t we go upstairs and watch the band. I’ll buy you a drink.’

'Don’t be silly. You don’t have a job. I’ll buy you a drink.’

He smiled. 'Not gonna protest against that. Why don’t I grab your number first, though?’

They exchanged numbers. It might have been the booze, but he felt very close to her, as if they had been friends for a long time and now they were about to take their relationship to the next level, as it were. But he was suddenly aware of someone standing behind him. He turned round, slowly, and saw a young man looming. He was too close for comfort, this person, and he was struggling to keep his balance. Frank assumed he must have been a friend of Fay’s.

'All right, mate,’ said Frank.

The young man looked at Fay.

'What you talking to her for?’ he asked, in a loud and drunken drawl.

Frank was taken a-back.

'Eh, we’re just having a chat, that’s all,’ Frank said. 'Sorry, who are you? Are you together?’

'She doesn’t wanna talk to you.’

Frank looked at Fay. Fay shook her head, indicating that she had no idea who this person was or what he was talking about.

Frank said, 'Mate, we’re just having a good time. How’s your night been?’

'Don’t “mate” me. I’m not your mate. And you ain’t my mate. You know what you are? You’re a fucking dickhead. A dickhead with shit hair and shit clothes. That’s what you are – a dickhead.’ He took a step closer. He was big, muscular-big, but he also had a soft face, which made Frank feel less intimidated.

'Look,’ said Frank, 'we’re gonna go upstairs and watch the band. We’re all just trying to have a good time here. No one wants any trouble.’

'You getting rude?’

'What?’

'You getting rude?’

He stood face-to-face with Frank and puffed up his chest. 'You wanna go?’ he said. Fighting talk.

'Dude, chill out.’

Frank saw the flash of a beer bottle before he felt the blood running down his forehead. He heard Fay scream. Then the bottle landed on the bridge of his nose, and again on the top of his head. He was stunned. The world around him became hazy, and he knew he was in trouble, that he would have to regain his poise and react, defend himself against another blow. But the young man just walked past him and went up the stairs, calmly, as if he did this every day. Frank was sure his nose was broken, and he imagined it bent out of shape. That was what concerned him most. The fight was over; there was no undoing it; he would now have to deal with the consequences. But he was also conscious of the lack of pain. His nose and head were aching, but the pain was dull, somehow distant. He felt as though he were having an out-of-body experience.

'Oh my God!’ Fay cried out. 'Are you okay, are you all right? Jesus. Let me get you some tissue.’ She hurried into the ladies’ toilet and came out with a large wad of tissue paper. She handed it to him. He took it and held it to his forehead. He didn’t want to touch his nose. For some reason his nose was very important to him. It would take an almost deadly blow for his head to end up permanently disfigured.

There was a large mirror in the hall, littered with posters. He looked at his reflection. Blood was running down his nose but there didn’t appear to be any blood coming out of his nose. That was a good thing.

He realised there was a group of people surrounding him, asking him if he was okay. Then the bouncer appeared. Fay explained what happened, described the assailant, the fucking idiot that had attacked him for no reason, and as she was saying this, Frank knew he was lucky to have met her, even if the price of their coming together was getting bottled. The mixture of voices around him was muffled and soporifically soothing, lullaby-like. Then someone escorted him into the gents’ and advised him to wash his face. He washed his face and stared at his blood dripping into the sink, watched the cold, refreshing water carry his blood down the plughole and into the dark unknown of the world of pipes and sewers, a part of him being flushed away for good. He took this opportunity to piss in the cubicle.

When he came out, the bouncer and another member of staff burst into the toilet. The other staff member had a first aid kit with him, and they talked about the incident as the staff member bandaged his head with gauze.

'You’ve got to go to the hospital, mate,’ the staff member said. The cut on your forehead is pretty deep. You’ll need stitches.’

'Did you find him?’ Frank asked.

'Nah, he’s gone. But we’ll have him on camera. He won’t be coming back in here again.’

'Maybe we should call the police,’ said Frank.

'I think you should get yourself to hospital first,’ said the staff member. 'You know where the hospital is? There’re cabs outside. We can call you one, if you like. It won’t cost much to get to …’ He turned to the bouncer.

'UCLH,’ the bouncers said. 'Up Tottenham Court Road. Not far.’ And as soon as he’d finished saying this, he walked out the door, perhaps back to his post. The scene had come to an end; the excitement was over. Frank thought the bouncer was a little disappointed to have only been told the story of what had happened rather than to have been directly involved.

'You want a cab?’ the staff member asked.

'No, I don’t have much money. I’ll walk.’

'Walk?’

'Yeah, it’s just up the road. I know where it is. The bleeding’s slowed down. Thanks, man.’

'You sure you’re all right?’

'I’m fine.’

Frank peeled himself away from the sink and walked out of the toilet. He felt a little woozy. He wanted a drink. Where was his drink? Where was Fay? Then he saw her. She was sitting on the stairs.

'Oh my God, are you okay?’ she asked when she saw him. 'That guy was such an arsehole. I’m so sorry for you. You didn’t even do anything.’

'I know.’

'Here. I bought this for you, as promised.’ She handed him a fresh pint. He took it and drank half of it in one go. As he was pouring it down his throat, his head tilted back, he noticed a spider up in the corner sitting patiently in its web. A few small dead flies were sticking to its web. He turned away from the spider and looked at Fay.

'Thanks,’ he said. 'You didn’t have to buy me this.’

'I thought you might need it.’

He smiled, drank some more.

'I need to go to hospital. A 'n’ E. Get stitches, apparently.’

'God.’

'Yeah.’

They walked upstairs together. He opened the door to the bar area and the music hit him and rattled his brain. The tiny dance floor was packed full of dancers. The burlesque dancers were out-of-sight. People stared at him as he pushed his way through the throng towards the exit. Fay followed. He finished the last of his beer and placed the empty glass on a table. Then he went outside and stood in the smoking area. The bouncer asked him if he was leaving. He told him that he was. The bouncer let two people in.

'Hey,’ said Frank, 'I don’t think the lady’s leaving.’

'It’s okay,’ said the bouncer, 'Fay can come back in. She’s a regular.’ He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

Then there was a cheer. Frank peered through the glass door and saw that the burlesque dancers were back on stage. The music started up again.

'Okay,’ he said to Fay, 'I need to get my arse to hospital.’

'Well, we have each other’s number …’

'Yeah. I’ll let you know if I need a head transplant.’

She laughed.

'You going back in?’

'No,’ she said, 'I’m going to get a cab.’ She pointed to a row of private taxis. 'I need to go.’

'Okay.’ He kissed her on the cheek, and he felt her lips on his cheek, too.

There were nine other people in the accident and emergency waiting room. Only one appeared to be alone; the rest were accompanied by a companion. Two men had head injuries. There were splotches of blood on the floor, and every now and then the cleaner came by and mopped up the mess. Frank was last in line to be seen. There were three NHS workers behind the reception desk. Frank assumed they were nurses – two women, one man – and they were chatting with each other, laughing, keeping their spirits high.

Frank was seen by a nurse at four-thirty in the morning, five hours after entering the hospital. The nurse, a cheerful young woman, escorted him into a room and told him to take a seat. He sat on a chair by the foot of the bed, and she attended to him. She removed the bandage and inspected the wound. She asked him what happened and he told her. She asked him if he was feeling faint. He wasn’t. He asked him if he was in pain. He wasn’t; not really. She laughed and said that his numbness to the pain probably had a lot to do with the amount of alcohol he’d had. She then told him what he already knew – that the wound was deep and that he would need stitches. She told him she would have to call for a doctor, immediately; then she left the room to make the call. But before she made the call he heard her say to a colleague, 'Poor thing, he’s got a cut in the middle of his forehead. He’s going to have a massive scar.’ Oh well, Frank thought, there are worse things in life than scars. Nothing is permanent.

Five minutes passed before she returned.

'A doctor will be down soon,’ she said.

'Okay.’

'Go and look in the mirror and have a look at your scar.’

'No, I’d rather not.’

'Are you squeamish?’

'A little.’

'I’ll tell you what, I’ll take a picture and you can see it that way.’

She took her mobile phone out of her trouser pocket and took a photo of his wounded face. Then she showed him the photo.

'What do you think?’ she asked. 'It’s a good one.’

'Yeah. Not as bad as I’d thought, actually.’

He wondered if she had some sort of fetish.

'You’re going to look like Harry Potter.’ She giggled.

'Well, he overcame Voldemort, so it must be a good omen, I guess.’

She wrapped his head in fresh gauze and told him to sit in the waiting area. The doctor would see him shortly.

Eventually, the doctor appeared. She called his name and he put up his hand.

'Come with me,’ she said, before turning and walking down the hall. He stood up and followed her into the same room he was in an hour ago.

'Sit down on the bed,’ she ordered.

He sat down on the bed.

She removed the gauze. 'It’s not that deep.’ She was speaking to herself. 'She said it was deep.’ She sighed. Then she told him to lie down.

'Okay,’ she said, arching over his now horizontal body, 'I’m just going to inject the wounded area with this numbing agent. You’ll feel a slight prick.’ She pierced his skin with the needle. The numbing agent was immediately effective.

'Do you feel anything?’ she asked.

'No.’

'Okay. You’re going to need about ten stitches.’

She got to work. Frank felt the full weight of his body as he began to sober up. He stared at the ceiling.

'So, what happened?’

'I got into a fight. Got bottled by some idiot.’

'Alcohol.’

'Well, it wasn’t my fault.’

She didn’t say anything in response to this, but he knew what she was thinking. She thought he was a reckless and irresponsible lad, a lout, the kind of insensitive and senseless oaf who gets drunk and vomits in the street, who hurls traffic cones in the middle of the road for the sake of another unimpressive spectacle of male bravado, an immature and mindless fool, an uncivilised, egotistical little shit who frequently ends up in A&E, wasting doctors’ and nurses’ and everyone’s time.

Or maybe she wasn’t thinking this, at all.

'Okay, all done,’ she said.

'That was quick.’

No gauze this time, just plasters on his forehead and across the bridge of his nose, where there was a small cut.

'You’ll need to make an appointment to see a nurse at your local GP surgery.’

'Okay.’

'After four or five days.’

'Sure.’

'To have the stitches removed.’

'No problem. Thanks, by the way.’

'You see, this is what happens when people drink too much alcohol.’

'It really wasn’t my fault.’

She put away the equipment she’d used.

'Are you Muslim?’ he asked.

She stopped cleaning and looked at him.

'Yes. Why do you ask?’

'Well, I couldn’t help noticing your headscarf.’

'Yes, I’m Muslim.’

'Do you believe in God? I mean, do you actually practice the faith?’

'Yes.’

'It’s just, I imagine it must be hard to be a doctor and a Muslim.’

'No. There’s no problem.’

'Because of, you know, evolution.’

'Evolution, by natural selection?’

'Yes.’

'It doesn’t interfere with my being a doctor.’

'But isn’t like disease and medicine pretty much incomprehensible without the theoretical underpinnings of evolution?’ He was surprised by his lucidity of thought and ability to express himself so articulately, given the circumstances.

'I don’t think about it that much.’

'Okay.’

'I have to go now. Remember to book that appointment.’

'I will.’

She left the room.

He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment. Dawn was approaching. He soon got up and left.

It was now Monday morning, he realised, and people were making their way to work. The world had awakened, and another day would come and go. He decided to walk home, all the way to Ladbroke Grove, west London. A few people stared at his wounded head, but most people didn’t appear to notice or take any interest. The shadows of the night before were still lingering, and the story was written on his face. He would be going to bed as people were getting up. There were many different worlds grazing past each other, and people seemed to keep themselves to themselves. It was clear for all to see that he would have a day devoid of responsibility, but only he knew that he would have nothing to wake up to, when he finally did wake up.

He walked through Hyde Park, alongside Lancaster Gate, trudging past panting joggers. There were many joggers, pro-active people keeping fit and healthy, increasing their chances of enduring life without illness, people who hoped to breathe and move easily till the end. Life was a constant battle against the apparently random forces of nature. Misfortune can strike at any moment, sweep aside the strongest among us with a single, definitive swoop. His head was beginning to ache now. He put this down to an encroaching hangover. At least it felt like a hangover coming on. But his injury played a part, no doubt – his wound that would leave a scar. He saw two people sleeping together under a tree and was reminded of other people’s problems, hardships much more agonising than anything he had ever experienced. He slowed down to look at the sleeping couple – a man and a woman, brown-skinned, hugging each other tightly, lovingly, bravely. He wondered if they were dreaming. What did people living like this dream? Did they dream at all?

The air was fresh, and, regardless of what had happened to him, he felt good to be out at this hour. There was a softness to the world at this time of day, the promise of tranquillity. But he knew it was only fleeting. In an hour or so the city would be teeming with people, commotion, noise, atomised instances of personalised conflict. He wished he was somewhere else, out of the city, in the highlands, maybe, by a lake and mountain range, ensconced in a blanket of serenity and quietude, a present-day nomad, self-sufficient, close to nature. But dreams are often contaminated with wishful thinking. The here-and-now is reality. Dreams are nothing but mirage-like fantasies.

He came to a church close to home. Perhaps a dozen homeless people were sleeping rough outside its doors. Frank stopped for a moment. These human beings curled up inside sleeping bags looked like dead flies. The innards of the church were dark and empty – apart from the pews and statues and other such holy furnishings, that is. He looked up at the brightening sky. He saw the fading moon; a single star; what looked like a cirrus cloud drifting by, alone on its journey. He also noticed that the church had had its steeple removed. He looked again at the Dead Fly People. Would Jesus beam them up? Or had He, once upon a time, spun a web of lies? Sometimes, he thought, hope was not all that dissimilar to sunstroke.

The last thing he could remember Fay saying to him before he made his way to the hospital was, 'I have to go.’ His ex had said something similar to him; she’d needed to go, too. But he would call Fay. Scar or no scar, he would call her. After all, he was now Harry-motherfucking-Potter.

Frank turned away from the church and walked the rest of the way home, back to his parents’ flat. He had a room and a bed, so that was something. His parents may have despised his being there at the age of thirty one, may have been frustrated by his prolonged stretch of unemployment, his lack of ambition, his nightly bouts of drunkenness, but at least he had a roof over his head. For now, anyway.

When he finally crawled into bed, he wondered how close he was to becoming a Dead Fly Person. How close are any of us to becoming a Dead Fly Person? Maybe God is the answer. Maybe he, Frank Mailer, should surrender himself to the Eternal Web. But first he would call Fay. He would call Fay and tell her how he got on at the hospital, and they’ll chat about the night of the bottling, yes, that night, oh my God, and how unfortunate, how terrible it was to have come into contact with that violent idiot, whom they now hoped would die an untimely death or at least fall down a well or spontaneously combust, and they would laugh together and realise over the phone that they would like to see each other again, that they should in fact set a date to have a drink; no, no, not a date date, just a drink or two or three in a relaxed and friendly environment, perhaps in a police station cafeteria where the prospect of getting bottled is next to zero, unless he said or did something to piss off one of the officers, who, in response, might react by beating him over the head with his truncheon, leaving him in the unflattering state of a bloody pulp, because there was just something about him, some indescribable, fundamental quality in him that made people want to bash his brains out; and they’d laugh some more and go back to her place, because, as he’d said before, as he’d embarrassingly touch upon, he lived with his parents, yeah, I know, his parents who hated him with a passion and wanted nothing to do with him; and plus, they probably wouldn’t like him bringing some strange girl back to his bedroom to fuck; and she’d say, Oh, so that’s what you have planned, is it? And he would smile and wiggle his eyebrows and they’d sip their drinks and think to themselves, Dear God, I hope so, I hope that’s what’s going to happen, because I’m not here just for the conversation and strong possibility of violence, I have needs, you know, sexual needs, and I’d very much like this person to satisfy those needs and….

At some point he fell asleep, with a smile on his face.

God is a giant spider in the sky

God is a giant spider in the sky

and we are the little flies

that

buzz for a while before

ascending or

descending to

the Eternal Web.

Here we shall remain

motionless

and

wing-damned

helplessly

and

hopelessly

trapped.

But let me tell the Spider in the sky

that I was once in love.

No web

however sticky

however intricate

can ever take that away

from

me.

When People Talk Hailstones Fall From The Sky

It doesn’t matter

how often you speak to people

or

how much you say

if you’re dishonest

and lie

you will always be alone.

Lovers At The Black Hole

I don’t know what or who

to do.

Jokes aside, okay?

Only emptiness.

But we now know that out of nothing

comes something

and it will be unholy

as it tumbles

and

decays.

I can’t predict or control

the forces around me

but I can hide

or seek

choose a woman

with whom to love

and live.

One I can love

and do

but our lives

will have to be lived

apart.

The other

offers

the opposite.

I cannot love

a whore

but

seemingly

I can live

with one.

Not so long ago I had neither woman:

I was alone

I drank

I drifted –

the nature of my nothingness.

Then these two women appeared

out of the abyss

one

after

the other.

I now tap dance around a black hole.

Ultimately it will suck us all

in

but somebody has to be the first

to take the

plunge.

Can I push the one I love

over the event horizon?

Can I not return to earth

get a job,

a little flat,

and,

down

the

line,

marry her?

Only a fool would commit

Love

to death.

Down By The River

I was aware of my surroundings. I was by the River Thames, Embankment, not far from home. The lights from the bridges and boats bounced on the surface of the water, like a pink-and-yellowish oil spill. Everything was quiet, serene. I walked past closed shops, on a deserted path devoid of people, other people, and I felt good, I felt like taking off my clothes and dancing the dance of a drunken dervish. Then a heard someone singing. She had a beautiful, mellifluous voice, soft and soothing. Her voice seemed to be coming from below. I couldn’t understand the words, but they sounded Arabic. I walked over to the railing, leaned over, looked down. I saw nothing but water. The water here by the bank was dark, almost black, small foamy waves lapping at the wall. But the voice continued to sing. Jesus, I thought, she must be somewhere. I had to find her. I turned round and searched for a way down.

I found a stone staircase flanked by two high walls. I pushed open the gate and descended the stairs. After six or seven steps I realised they were leading to nothing but the river, which drifted with the current. The steps were wet. I slowed down, conscious of the need to be careful. I didn’t go all the way to the bottom but instead decided to sit where I was and listen. The voice of this out-of-sight goddess was closer now, also slightly warbled. From where I sat I could see The Globe theatre. I thought of all the people who must have passed here over the years, over the centuries, all those forgotten souls, wilted lives, those no longer among us. They would have lost themselves to the sight of flowing water, found comfort, solace. Many of them would have gone to the original Globe, stood in a circle and watched one of Shakespeare’s plays. To be or not to be …? Timeless words. Haunting. I sat thinking about this for a while.

Then I spotted something. It appeared out of a shadowy hazy. There was a small boat under the bridge, bobbing on a fissure of distant gloom. She must be on the boat, I thought. No, I knew she was on the boat. The underbelly of the bridge was amplifying her voice, giving it wings. My eyes were still adjusting but I could just about see that there was a person on the boat. She was sitting down, perhaps cross-legged. I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to do something. Then something strange happened – something even more strange than what was already happening. The lyrics of the song changed to English. ‘Take the leap or forever remain / Frozen at the precipice / Don’t look down but come with me / And sink into your heart’s abyss.’ Suddenly I understood. I stood up.

'Hey!’ I cried. 'Hey!’

She stopped singing. I waved my hands in the air. She turned her head and looked over at me. From where I was standing – from my perspective – her face was a pale dot, very pale. The rest of her body was as if under a veil. But some flicker of light must have been illuminating her face. This was when my heart began to race – out of fear or excitement, I didn’t know; maybe both. I had no plan. All I knew was that I needed to be in the presence of this woman. Then I heard a simple whispered word: 'Come.’ I gestured to the river. Then I waved for her to row towards me. I waited. She didn’t move. I spread my arms as if to say, What now? What the hell do I do now? She repeated herself, another seductive susurration: 'Come to me.’ She wanted me to swim. She wanted to me to get into the water, the cold and dirty river-water, and swim towards her. This was absurd. She had a boat, for crying out loud.

A moment passed while I stared at the water. Then the woman in the boat started singing in Arabic again. I felt like a baby cocooned in a lullaby. A great wave of tranquillity washed over me. I decided to remove my clothes. I took off my blazer, trousers, shirt. I stepped out of my shoes and socks. I wasn’t cold. I felt nothing at all. Nothing physical, anyway. Then I descended the stairs until I was standing on the last step, in the water. Surprisingly, the river was not cold. There was no bite, no chill, only flowing water. Then my heart started up again, beating against the walls of my now bare chest. I had one item of clothing to remove: my underpants. I looked down at them, then up and across at the boat. The woman seemed to be uninterested in what I was doing. This was good, reassuring – I didn’t like people staring at me. I took off my pants and waded into the river. Then I was swimming. I was doing it. One stroke after another, remembering to breathe, remembering what I had learned all those years ago when my friends and I used to go to the pool and race each other, lap after lap, so full of energy and youthfulness. Where had those days gone? We had an appetite for life, for anything and everything. We used to run around and fight, kiss the girls under the stairwell of the block of flats of whatever council estate we happened to be on. We used to steal sweets, chocolates and crisps from our local corner shop, hoping the shopkeeper would give us a chase. All this, just for the thrill of it. And now life was nothing but the passing of time, one beat after another.

I gasped for air. I was submerged. I’d lost my rhythm somewhere along the way, and now I was struggling to get to where I wanted to be. I saw shards of light; they were all a ghostly blur. I’d lost my bearings. My senses were sharp enough for me to realise that I was somewhere between the bank and the woman. Either place was a place of safety. Or maybe not. Maybe here in the middle of the river was the safest point for me. But this, I knew, was a silly thought, and my survival instinct kicked in. That was all I needed to do: survive. I needed to stay afloat, buoyant. But why wasn’t she coming to save me? I could see her now. The water slapped my face, stung my eyes, but I tried, with every emaciated muscle, to keep my head above water. A hard task when things go against you. Somewhere along the line I had given up, given in to the volatile forces surrounding me. The boat was nearby, but it was like looking through a mirage, a glass darkly. St Paul’s Cathedral came into view. One lonely light shone through the pillars below its dome. I kicked and splashed, beat my arms against the body of the river, turned my head, somehow, caught another glimpse of the woman in the boat who was still singing her song under the bridge. She was not beautiful, after all. Her eyes were like chunks of coal, her complexion like that of a cadaver’s. A snapshot of illness and death. But how could the voice of death be so sweet? Surely this went against every evolutionary theory of the development of the human mind. Surely. But what did I know? I was a man flapping about in a river in the dead of night, under a starless sky, naked, hopeful of something now out of reach, suddenly realising that the increments of life built up to nothing but our inevitable demise. What a bleak thought to have when you’re sinking, when the water fills your smoke-filled lungs, while witnessing you’re last breath envelop you in bubble-form, it rushing to the surface like eager-eyed sperm.

I chocked.

I seemed to vomit up my own soul.

Then there was darkness.

Nothing but darkness.

Then I woke up.