Dog Eat Dog

It was the dog that brought things to a head. The last few months I've noticed it. The wife's up at the crack of dawn. I can hear her banging and clanging around downstairs, and I'm thinking, 'Ey up, she'll a have the fry-up ready with all the trimmings'. It's been soggy cornflakes, without fail. Cold, uninspired, monotonous. Drowned in milk, so much milk. All to the tune of Bruno inhaling juicy chunks of premium, pedigree meat in his bowl. 

That was just the start. More recently, she has been getting the fry-ups on, sausages and bacon and white pudding and black pudding. Yeah, but only for the dog! I says to her 'Yer not wasting proper food on that bloody thing' and she says, all angry like, 'Well you didn't get the dog food he likes, what do you want him to do, starve?' I was taken aback. And all I could think of all day was 'That dog is fucking picky'. 

So yeah, she's been short with me lately. Snapping at me. Of course, so has the dog. Et tu, Bruno? I put it down to her spoiling him, ruining him. She spends hours combing him. It's a bloody boxer, it has short hair, what does it need all that molly-coddling for? Anyway, it's been getting worse and worse, the situation. 

Dogs are affectionate animals, you know, I get that. They're always slobbering on people, it's just their way. But she used to... well she used to let it slobber on her... face... she used to purse her lips and... well it don't bear thinking about. From a point of hygiene at the very least. She'd take the doggie talk to an extreme too. I looked up the internet, said it could be that she's feeling unwanted in other areas. Well I'm sorry but after work at the tax office, and three hours at the Civil War Recreationist Society I don't have the time or the energy for any of that other... palaver. Besides, it's been in the bed the last few months, the dog. Not on the bed, actually in the bed. She used to complain about my legs kicking her during the night, but his jerky leg action is all right apparently. Whatever makes you tick, Doris, pardon the expression. 

I had to draw the line somewhere, put me foot down. And I was getting a bad back from sleeping on the sofa. Yeah, so I says to her, "Look love, it's either me or the fucking dog. Your choice, twenty years of marriage or a flea-ridden mutt." 

Anyway, it's probably for the best, no more allergies for one thing. Feel ten years younger for that reason alone. And it's a chance for a fresh start. Me sister's let me stay at her and her brother-in-law's for a while, so I have a roof over me head, knock on wood. Although they're talking about getting a dog themselves now too, for some reason. And I think they might be thinking about moving house because the brother-in-law's always leaving the classified ads around on the property page. But anyway, I'll worry about that if it ever happens. 

I went out for a early-morning drive recently. Now I'll admit I shouldn't have been doing that speed in a 30mph zone. I'm not proud of it. But I know she lets him out about this time of the morning. And I know those sausages I put down would be a track he'd follow to a future under my wheels of fortune. He'd sniff that heaven scent right into doggy hell. The Volvo's a safe ride, traction control, four-wheel ABS, so the damage should've been minimal. 

Turns out the damage wasn't minimal. Windscreen put in, and the front end smashed up from that lamp post. Well the last thing I expected to see coming out our back gate holding a fist-full of sausages was the fucking milkman. He loves dogs too, apparently, and shared an enthusiasm with Doris. Not all he shared with her. Been stocking her up with his milk for God knows how long. I was stuck with those soggy cornflakes and all the while wondering why the fridge is always full of it. 

So I got off lightly, all things considered. Community service and a fine, points on the licence. The milkman's making a decent recovery. Bruno ran down the road and got a GP to come up and give the man first aid and call an ambulance. The wife's still not talking to me, which is fine. I pled guilty to the charges, of course, even though if I'm honest I'm not really sorry about Doris and the milkman. 

I only hope Bruno can forgive me. He's the only one to come out of this whole sorry episode with any credit.

Machine Egg

A large frosty oval contains two different creatures. Machine on one side with sheen and serenity, the Egg struggles unknowing and insane in its melody. Its skin has not hardened, its form undeveloped still. 

Machine inches forward and clunks like a metronome. It runs its cold digits across the soft fleshiness. Egg recoils and shivers, still searching for comfort. Blind, deaf and mute - dislodged from its origins.

Squirming and writhing in unborn convulsions, Egg is pulled onwards by invisible forces. 

Agitated.

Machine watches with inexhaustible patience.

Egg needs hot fluid, the shroud and the soupiness. Soundscapes of safety. A sweet stinking universe. 

Rhythms pulse through them both. Egg jerks around again. 

Screaming silence to thunderous cacophony, these transitions are so hard to take. 

Agitated, but then... Stillness settles in.

A change in its whirring whims, Machine no longer waits. Machine starts to calculate. Machine starts to cultivate. 

Takes Egg into insides. Pistons begin to pump. Patience has new purpose, absorbing through metal tubes. 

Machine sits in soundscapes of burning, bright industry. 

It stews and stirs, a parent of infamy.

The Ride

Ray listens to their conversations. On the bus or at the jobcentre where he works. The tiny circles of subject matter repeated endlessly. These people seem to live vicariously through their offspring, so proud of what they have produced. A colleague describes in minute detail her teenage son's exploits. Isn't it just darling? An objective ear would say she's raised a spoilt and obnoxious little shit. They see things through specs tinted by the bonds of DNA. Ray would remain silent, occasionally nodding, feigning politeness in response while a voice in his head growls 'Why do you think I'm interested? Why don't you hurry up and die?'. 

Births, christenings, confirmations, education, jobs, engagements, weddings. Joy! More births, houses, new jobs, promotions, retirements, funerals. More funerals. Did you hear Such-and-Such is dead? He was only sixty, still young. Still young. Saw him last week, fit as a fiddle. Funerals, grandkids, more funerals, death with DNA following only a few years behind. It's circles and cycles, unbreakable, endless, like Ouroboros, consuming itself forever. 

To Ray, life and death seem interchangeable. Was there much difference in the two? Past and present didn't exist. They were just traces, illusions. The 'now' existed, so the 'now' is every single moment of consciousness. Now is birth and now is death, but it has to go somewhere so it's birth again. More circles. So death is not the end. Ray couldn't figure out whether that was good or bad. Is there nothing besides endlessly repeating futility? Is there no way out of this? 

A child's voice whined. Stop the ride I wanna get off! Stop! Get off! Life is a ride, they say. You're supposed to enjoy it. Enjoy it, damnit! Ray wondered whether the desire to exit was right or wrong? Was it the truth or the lie? Sane or crazy? Which was the reality? 

* 

Ray sat and smoked Camel and blew smoke rings. They hung in the air for a moment before losing all shape and disappearing. He drank for months and didn't drink for months and then drank again. Circles pulled him back into place like gravity. 

Today he would go to his cousin's house. Frankie used to be in the air corps. Liked guns and junk. Ray was going to 'borrow' the Glock 17. It was kept in an Adidas box on top of his cousin's wardrobe. He would go see his old principal, the one who had always like to get 'physical' with 10 year old boys and girls. He would perform an experiment; 'The cathartic effect of homicide on the fundamental void of life'. 

* 

She was messed up in the head, or else she just had weird taste. It was the only explanation for her apparent interest in him. Kathy, married, no kids, tens years older. What was her deal? She was messed up in the head, and Ray was almost normal when he was with her. Sometimes he tried to count how many different people he was. He guessed that it was not healthy. Weren't people the same no matter what, or did everybody change completely depending on their company? He was good with her, a good guy. That's what she told him. She brought out the best in him, made him feel like a man and not a boy. She had a way. It was natural, for her, to be in total control and make him feel like a man at the same time. She had a way. 

* 

Ray sat reading a book about the holocaust. A picture of the sign above the death camps, Arbeit Macht Frei, work liberates. Self-disgust became worse when he thought of those who had truly suffered. He found it even more pathetic that his self-disgust grew in such a manner, and his cycle of thinking continued until he wished he was nothing. Not just self-destruction, obliteration, that didn't cut it no more. He wanted not to exist, to be anonymous and invisible. He wanted never to have existed. 

No. This attitude made him sick. Self-pity, self-disgust, pathetic maggot. Endless circles, inescapable. Fuck it. 

* 

His birthday was in July, so he was a cancer. And like a crab, he had crawled sideways his whole life. Never grown, just preserved like a science experiment in a jar. His 'thing' with this woman - that's what it was called, a 'thing' - wouldn't do. He accepted that. It was low, carrying on like that. Sleazy. Another reason for self-disgust, but it hadn't stopped him. He told himself it was her choice. She was the one with the spouse, the one with obligations, and responsibilities. She was messed up, she had a screw loose, she was a boozer. She had pity for him? Possibly. He wanted her to condense him down into a powder, melt him to a liquid and pump him into her veins. He wanted to enter her bloodstream and scream around her bloody heart. It wouldn't do. He didn't ask any questions. He didn't have any right to, being just an excursion from real life for her. 

* 

The school principal sits slumped on the floor of the office, holding his jaw from where the butt of the gun smashed into it. The collar of his shirt cuts into his jowls and a collection of stray hairs lay flattened on top of his head, cast adrift of their brothers. 

"I never... I never did anything!" 

"You think I don't remember. You think nobody remembers?" 

"I never did anything! I never did anything!" 

"Admit it, what you did." 

He doesn't admit anything, just repeats his mantra. 

The guy's insistent. He's convincing. His expression is incredulous and there is no flicker of recognition of what he did. Ray points the gun at him to whimpers and strange snorts of fear. It makes no sense, and Ray's mind starts to fog. Real or unreal, right or wrong? Memory is unreliable, just traces of existence. "You pathetic piece of shit," he shouts, still pointing the gun at the man, but not sure who he's addressing. 

* 

As Ray waits at the train station, a man sidles up to him. He's Scottish, with pleading eyes, dead pools of black, and he's grubbing around for 'a few quid tae go home, like'. His bare arm is like a map, with track marks and thick scars like white tatoos. "Goin' home tae kill mahsel', he declares, all matter-of-fact. Ray nods and instantly wonders why going home is necessary, but perhaps he has to settle a few things before he settles himself. Ray gives him a fiver, but this is apparently not enough, as the guy asks for more. A tenner does it, and Ray immediately feels slighted and resentful. Best of luck with that, he thinks acidly. He goes to the front of the train to avoid any further interaction with the Scot. 

The train fills up with chattering commuters. They talk about their jobs, and the weather, and then they talk about how their kids are doing. The woman beside Ray speaks about her daughter who is afflicted with some genetic muscular which means limited capabilities. She's done her final exams and is planning on going to college, despite her obvious physical limitations. She wants to be a veterinarian because she loves animals, an interest fostered by a childhood without many friends or normal activities. Pride radiates from this woman. She tries to contain it but she cannot. For one insane moment Ray loses his breath, head reeling. Screws his eyes shut. It passes. There are some worthy people, but I am not one of them, Ray thinks, disembarking. 

* 

The local news is on the television in the pub. The report is about the man who entered a local school with a gun and balaclava, threatening the principal after school hours. The story had been all the rage around town for the past week. The reporter is blathering about something else now though. "...recent publicity arising from the story has prompted allegations of abuse from one woman... " Several builders come in the door of the pub chortling about something, drowning out the voice, "...are being investigated by police...". 

The cricket is put on at the request of a regular, though others are complaining because the football will be on soon and they're not sitting here watching fucking cricket. Ray sits and drinks, and doesn't do much at all. He listens to conversations, waits for closing time and tells himself that he's going to give up the drink again, but knows that it won't be for too long.

Sunshine And Loneliness

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we're together... 

Lenny turned the corner of Colombus and Fifth and cruised up to the address listed on the crumpled piece of paper he clutched in his hand. The radio played an irritatingly catchy old tune which he knew would be lodged in his brain for hours. He climbed out into the heavy summer heat and inspected the anonymous-looking building. Front steps led up to a worn looking door, and a small sign on the wall was the only indication of the business within, and even then, the name was pretty vague. Two words in an old-style lettering were barely legible, 'All Portals'. A bulbous bumblebee meandered from the nearby row of azaleas to rest on doorbell, before jerking into flight once more. Lenny rang the bell. 

Brighter than a lucky penny... 

A voice crackled through the speakers. 'Come up'. It didn't ask any questions, it simply instructed. The door clunked and Lenny pushed through inside. 

A woman appeared from a door to greet him. Her outfit was not a standard dress code that Lenny had ever seen, but it did suit the unseasonable warmth. Her top consisted of four or five thin leather straps, purple in colour, bound strategically across her breasts and arms. Her matching skirt was similarly of the less-is-more variety. As if her outfit was in danger of taking all of the attention, her spectacular hair-style balanced things up pretty well. Shorn army tight around the back and sides of her head, it built up into a spectacular coiffure on top, streaked purple and white and standing two foot into the air above her. 

On first glance, she appeared to be some sort of exotic parakeet in the midst of a spectacular display of plumage, but as she approached, Lenny noticed her facial features. A familiarity lurked somewhere in the shape of her bone structure, in the symmetry of her face, her pale skin. She was certainly beautiful, in the same way that simplicity can be beautiful, and it was at odds with her overall appearance. Her eyes were a translucent grey, revealing nothing. The odd feeling that he'd seen her before persisted for a moment, but as the strangely exotic woman spoke, it evaporated. 

"Mr. Vali, welcome to All Portals. You've made the right choice. My name is Edun. I'll show you to our specialist, Mr. Brego. Please, follow me." Her voice had all the vibrancy of a gravestone. 

Lenny thanked and followed her, trailing in her scent of apple blossom to a high-tech area flanked by a large office. She gestured to her left, smiled a strange, sad smile, nodded and left. Somewhere nearby, a radio was playing low, yet audible. 

When you're near the rain cloud disappears... 

A beaming smile approached him, and an arm shot out from a man in his mid-forties. "Mr. Vali, great to meet you, I'm so glad you've come here to the number one service in town." Instantly, Lenny was wary of the excessive joviality. "Please step into my office and we'll discuss exactly your requirements." 

My requirements, thought Lenny. The number one service, for my requirements. It was all so vague. He'd been given this address and set up with an appointment by a friend, but he still didn't know what could be done. Could these people turn back time? Undo what's already done? 

The same music was being piped into Brego's office, thought it was incidental and unobtrusive. The leather chair was startlingly cold, and Lenny noticed a photo on Brego's desk, of that beaming smile and three other beaming smiles, almost identical, in a standard family moment. It looked like a super-fun summer holiday - Lenny's cynicism curled his lip in resentment - at the beach perhaps, and could easily have come supplied with the photo frame, it was so cliche. 

Everything that's wonderful is sure to come your way... 

"My wife and kids," Brego grinned, nodding now, his hands folded in front of him on the desk. 

"Very nice family. You're obviously a lucky guy." Lenny had never excelled at phoniness. 

"Luckiest guy in the world. But what about you Mr. Vali, eh, can I call you Lenny? I feel like we've known each other a long time." 

"Sure." 

"Lenny - I heard you have certain requirements that we can perhaps help you with?" 

"Well, I don't know." 

Brego adjusted his face to sincere and solemn interest, and spoke in statement of fact rather than inquiry. 

"You have lost somebody, somebody very important to you. You want to have them back." 

At that moment reality stepped in and kicked Lenny in the gut. What am I doing here? Idiot! Self-pitying idiot, making a fool of yourself in front of some whacked-out quacks! Get over it, goddammit, get over her.

Brego seemed to read Lenny's face and spoke with sudden incisiveness. 

"Lenny, we can get them back. We can bring her back, we have the technology, we've done it before, Lenny, we can help you!" 

"How? It's impossible, you're crazy, and I'm worse for coming here." 

No you're not, Lenny. You have hope. Nothing wrong with that. Actually, that's key, without it the realignment is never possible. We are not crazy either Lenny." 

He paused. 

"You've met my lovely assistant, Edun?" 

Lenny nodded. 

"Noticed something familiar about her, didn't you?" 

Lenny remained silent. What are you playing at? What is this? Some sort of trick? 

"You have seen her before, Lenny. Fifteen years ago, Lenny, when you first joined the force. Remember, the first time you saw action? Just a rookie cop, you unloaded that gun of yours at a real life human being? It wasn't enough to save Edun that day, Lenny. But we kept her, and we finally cracked it. And she's back, Lenny, she's back from the dead and she's not going anywhere!" 

Lenny remembered his first homicide, finding the dead woman, tracking down the sicko bastard. He remembered the lump of plaster hitting his face and the realisation that he'd nearly been a victim too, just like her. He remembered the moment he emptied his gun into the guys chest, the satisfaction, and he could still hear the heavy body bag zips cloaking up the dead. 

But it couldn't be... 

"We're not cryogenics, Lenny, we're not witches. We're science and philosophy merged, and there's a reason why we're holed up in this poky building, unknown to the public. Can you imagine if word go out? So we specialise. We pick and choose, and of course, we're limited to circumstance. Circumstance, and hope." 

Lenny sat back in the chair, listened, felt sick and confused. Brego described the technique, the apparent science. Time was an illusion. A fabrication of man. What Brago spoke of was the merging of 'nows', a selective process, discarding the idea of a linear timeline. There is no past and future, he explained, only 'nows', and his brand of cerebral experimentation lit up areas of the brain otherwise unused, melding together what is perceived as two different realities. Before and after are no different, he explained, and subject to manipulation 'reality' can be focused back or forward to whichever point is required. 

Once finished explaining, his beaming smile returned. 

"Now, Mr Vali, I have the papers here as regards permissions. We have a contract with the security services, you see. Just give me the green light and we can begin work." 

Lenny hated this guy. Despised his eagerness to delve into people's lives, exploit their desires. 

"That girl, Edun. Does she remember everything? Her skin... her eyes, she wasn't like that before. What is that?" 

"Well, she has limited memory capacity. It varies. As for her appearance, the physical reality will always be out of synch, somewhat. We've refined things since then. We can have your wife back with you, Lenny, as if she never went away. Virtually immortal. Things can be worked on afterwards. Now will I go ahead and process this?" He waved the forms at Lenny. 

Out of synch? Limited memory capacity? The girl's lifeless tone echoed in his head. 

"No I'm afraid not, Mr. Brego. Zombify your own fucking wife." 

"But your Chief said-" 

"The answer's no." 

As he pounded down the hall to the front door, Edun's voice called after him. 

"Thank you, Mr Vali. Detective Vali. She lent in and kissed him softly on the cheek, her lips smooth but cold as ice. Despite her words, sadness dwelled in her perfectly restored face. 

Lenny sighed. "I'm sorry I wasn't... better." Turning to go, he paused. 

"What's it like? Being back?" 

Staring into his eyes, she replied, and he saw nothing but death in hers. "Like I'm not really here." 

He left for the Cemetery, for the first time aware of the vibrancy and life that dwelled there. The various dates, the different roles filled, stories lived out, some completed, some cut short. There's something pure about grief, he thought, something pure and true. Most things fade in time, for better or worse, but there were certain things that would burn as strong as ever. 

Cause you're in love, you're in love, and love is here to stay... 

Plasma Dreams

The universe is dreaming... and our lives are its dreams. Completely transitory, impermanent, destined to leave no trace whatsoever. There is no past or future, they are illusions, there is only the Eternal Now. And the Eternal Now is just too damn hard to pin down. When we die, we are only dreams fading away, but we will be new dreams. 

But what about nothingness? A complete absence of anything. Surely that is what happens when we die? 

Like going into a deep sleep and never waking up? Just nothingness... well, what was it like to be born? Was it not like waking up after never having gone to sleep? So surely after this perceived existence ends there can only be more of the same, maybe somewhat different, but similar. You won't remember it, but it would be kind of a drag if you did. You'd get bored. You might have a night packed full of dreams, but it's normally only the very last dream or two before you wake which you remember. Occasionally, you get snippets of other dreams, perhaps you woke at some point and recorded it a little bit better than normal and recalled it. Like past lives, perhaps? Our lives are not so dissimilar to dreams. 

Nature was pretty much balanced before humans exercised their stronghold on things. Balanced and acting as one entity. A unitive world. Individual cells in our bodies may be singular, and countable, but they all add up to one human person. Similarly, we all add up to one entity, and it is a myth that we are truly individuals. If the Big Bang is correct, then we are all the same matter now, the exact same matter that exploded outwards back then. One entity then, still one entity now. Our perceived 'ego' is a lie, our consciousness can not be found somewhere in our heads or hearts, but it comes from outside. From the universe - and our individual bodies are just vessels capable of experiencing the consciousness of the universe. This is the only thing close to a 'God' and it's in all of us. We are all God. 

The philosopher Alan Watts said long ago "If you say 'I am God' in a western country they call you insane or a blasphemer, in Hindu culture they'd say 'Congratulations! At last you found out!'". We can find it in each other, because it's sometimes easier as humans to look outwards. We're uncomfortable looking directly into each other's eyes too much, though. It's weird and rude, staring like that. But when you fall in love with someone and embarrassment goes out the window, and they use the corny expression ' getting lost in each others eyes'. You see the universe in that person's eyes. And the universe looks back at you, and you realise you're both actually one entity. A unitive world. 

The Hindus have something called a kalpa. It's an extraordinarily long measure of time, millions of years, and they say that in each kalpa the universe plays hide-and-seek with itself. For one kalpa it remains asleep and dreaming, hidden to itself, going through every kind of experience until finally it wakes up. And it spends another kalpa awake, before going back into the dreamworld. From the plasma and dust and nebulae floating in space, to the plasma and cells inside our flesh and blood, we are the universe. Our lives are its dreams, and they're pretty hard to pin down, so let's just go with it...

Big Day Coming

Did I tell you of the dark and lonely road?  Can you feel the bullying wind? We'd wake up the neighbours but the neighbours are all dead. We'd walk into town but the town's burned down. There's a big day coming and I can hardly wait.  

The broken leaves cackle as they flee from the dying oak tree. Tiny hibernating mammals lie underground, their slow hearts grow cold and halt.  There's a big day coming and I can hardly wait.

The blackbirds are running out of time.  They panic and explode in the sky, bloody feathers, beaks and bits rain down.  For once the void inside attains equilibrium with the world.  Mirror of shame, mirror of guilt, reflects the way everything is.  We are the only ones left.  In a world where even the ghosts are gone, we are the most hardy of wraiths.

Watch the sun go down forever.  I've never been more ready.  I've never been... 

On darken streets tonight I see the warning lights, I see the sky catch fire.  The orange glow of eyelid interior turns to brown, turns to black.  From the hot soup of creation to the cool air of indifferent world, to the ultimate numb.  There's a big day coming, and I can hardly wait.

I take your skeletal claw in mine.  I look into the dark and seeping skull-holes. Watch the melting flesh dangle from your bones, and drip onto the cold earth.  We burn in the cold of death, and wait for everything to turn inside-out.  There's a big day coming, and I can hardly wait.

The fifth season creeps up like perversion, it smells of whiskey and the seaside. We played in the sun, a long time ago.  We played in pretty radiation and forgot.  Is this the season of relief?  Hell is here.  Heaven is here.  Pain and pleasure all played out, bored and old and all burnt away in the void.  The world is neverbeen.

There's a big day coming, and I can't even wait.

Reflections On The Water

Lunar twins shine and glisten in the heavy night air.  One sits on its throne in the indigo wrap, noble and imperious on the great cosmic map.  The other lurks lows and leers at me, elusive and mysterious, shifting with silent schemes.  On high a witness, ready to disown and decry.  Below, the accessory, in deeds complicit and in morals awry.  I dip down into the lake, through weathered reeds and wade through mud toward my shimmering confidante.   

Her body is blue and bloodless.  Swollen and bloated, ready to be infested, ready to rot.  My mind keeps asking about guilt, and why it ain't registering none.  So many fictitious folks are wracked by guilt, haunted by nightmares.  I'm feeling pragmatic.  There was little I could do, she was obsessed.  Those ideas she'd got, she just couldn't let go of them.  She couldn't handle reality.  It had to be this way.

Still, hauling her heavy frame from the muddy bank has prompts me to remember fonder terms.  The first time, the same venue and much the same audience.  The crickets called out as soft, sallow light guided me into her.  Our blood boiled and bubbled inside, and the water rocked and thrashed around us.  A hungry kiss and a hissing urge, the panting harmony of urgent union.  We rose to the moon and back down again, exhibitionists to the cosmic voyeur.  Redemption among flesh and bone, bona-fide salvation from the abyss.  Salvation, though not for long.

She said she wanted to float toward the stars, lose herself in the nebulae, drift forever a celestial body.  Ripples drifted out from us, circles of life, messages sent out across the dark expanse.  As I drag her in by her legs, different messages drift outwards.  Splashdown, finally.  She bobs and weaves, still being evasive, slipping from my reach.  I got her now though.  Got her.

Don't leave me.  I'm hurting.

You and me both.

It doesn't have to be like this.

It's over.  You've got to realise that.  I'm sorry.  I've got to go. Jesus.

Sweetheart...

She didn't get it.  Didn't understand.  Her tongue pushed out vitriol past contorted lips, birthing hurt in bloody pools of castigation.  Miscarried thoughts, stillborn words slopped out, all bloody and dripping with failure and blame.

I'm burping here in the cold water.  My reflux brings blood and pills half dissolved.  The rope is secured, a union made before a pair of lunar twins.  You're not rid of me.  Not now, not ever.  Sweetheart.

We'll float, now, babe.  We'll float.

h o r s e f e a t h e r s

we thought you were dead

let us tend to your wounds

wash the dust from your dry, broken lips

throw down your bones on this bed of

. . . h o r s e f e a t h e r s . . .

i am Gone, and this is Longing

we thought you were dead

Red Letter Day

  
It was a red letter day all right. John Law was turning up the heat. John Law wasn't the only one. The rumble on the street was that Jimmy Cohan was sending out droppers to keep the job hush-hush. He was taking out his own men to make sure they didn't talk. 

People were always talking. They talked a lot, people. They said I'd been hitting the giggle-juice too hard. That my brain was fried. They were right. Why else would I work for Jimmy Cohan? I guess a dog can only be a dog, a cat a cat. You take a hood from the slums and bars and what, you expect a choir boy? You can't change what you are. 

I was drifting around before I found my calling. Learned from the best can-opener there ever was. Paulie Fingers. There wasn't a safe he couldn't crack. He disappeared a few years ago. Whacked, sure, but by who and why? I found no answers, but you don't find many on the floor of the gin mill. Recently, I tried to lay off the sauce, get my act together. That's how I wound up with this job. Another good career move. Knocked over the wrong people. Diamonds and pearls, ice and marbles, and more mazuma than I'd ever seen in my life. I was there for the box-job. The buttons arrived just as we were through. They plugged Sid the Kid but the rest of us shot out way out. Somebody ratted on us. The swag got back to Cohan, but I never did get paid. 

I was about to skip. Packing a bag with a bottle or two, clutching a train ticket in a sweaty hand. 

"You look like a little flushed, Red. You feeling okay?" 

I turned to find Edie Cohan standing in furs and finery. Yeah, that's right, Cohan. Daughter of the big cheese. Forbidden fruit for the goon crew. Gams like a stairway to heaven, heart like the pit of hell. Here she was in my basement apartment while orders for my head were being placed. I just stood there, wondered if some Bruno had his piece aimed at the back of my head, waiting to take me down a lead-ladened highway. 

"I'm here alone." 

Sure you are, dollface. Eyes the colour of a summer evening's sky. Black hair like a curtain, to be drawn or veiled as required. Her lips didn't posture or pout, they remained matter-of-fact, with an innocence I assumed was greatly deceptive. Yeah, so she was a looker. Like any amount of them. But she was a formal invitation to dinner with the ballyhoos. Everything's on the menu, except the concrete footwear. That's the reason I never acknowledged her presence any time I visited the Cohan's. I'm clever, see? Just not clever enough. 

"Oh yeah? You ever heard of knocking? How'd you get in here, anyway?" 

"The door was open." 

Of course it was, Red, you left it open. Real clever. 

"Doesn't mean you can just swan right in here. What're you doing here anyway? This place will be crawling with buttons soon." 

Edie laughed and for once I thought she looked older than she was. Like she knows the score too well. 

"It'll take the police at least a couple of days before they come looking here." 

"Well what about the goon squad your father sent out. I'll be taken out. Or is that why you're here, to keep me busy? Well I'd like to, sweetcakes, but I'd prefer to die with my pants on." 

She wrinkled her nose up at my coarse words. It was a good-looking nose. 

"I don't like your manners." 

"Well I'm not crazy about yours, either. Now what are you here for?" 

"I'm in trouble." 

"What kind of trouble?" 

"From my father. I need your help." 

"What, you think I fell off the last melon wagon? Maybe you don't realise, honey, but you're part of this town's biggest gang family. Anyone who even gives you the once-over ends up as fish food. But you need my help?" 

"Yes. I'm trapped. I can't live, can't do anything." 

'What, the swanky pad not plush enough? Your allowance not big enough? You'll forgive me if I'm not buying." 

"I don't care if you buy it or not. My life is controlled by my father, I can't do anything without him demanding to know about it. You should have seen what it took to be here right now." 

"No I shouldn't. I don't want to know. You're going to get me killed. Now scram, will ya?" 

Starting to sob, she sat on the edge of an old armchair. Curious, the silk dress pressed against a scratched and mangy armrest. She looked old again. Old and tired. 

"You're not on the list. For the goons." 

That pricked up my ears. 

"Oh yeah?" 

"Daddy thought you were different. You weren't like the others. You had skills." 

"Damn right." 

"He said he could use a man like you." 

"I bet he could. Suddenly I'm in demand." 

"You also never sleazed all over me. You positively ignored me. That's another reason." 

I was starting to buy it. If it was a set-up, it wasn't a very good one. Then again, I was starting to buy it. 

"So how do you expect me to help?" 

She answered quickly, too quickly. 

"Take me away with you. Out west. Or to the south. Anywhere." 

I waved the half-packed bag at her. 

"Sure, yeah, we can survive on two bottles of bourbon and my whites. That should tide us for quite some time." 

She raised an eyebrow and stood up. I saw for first time the small case on the floor. 

"It's most of it. The stones and quite a lot of... what do you guys call it?" 

"Mazuma?" 

"Right. As precious as your whites are, Red, this case could be useful too." 

I was impressed. I was more than impressed. It's not everyday some dish arrives at your door with that kind of scratch. 

"Could be. So why don't you just split. Take off." 

"On my own? I'd last five seconds." 

"You're not scared I'll bump you off?" 

She laughed quietly. Perhaps it was my choice of words, but I thought it was the very notion that I could bump her off that amused her. I could tell this was a dame who certainly would be able to last five seconds. 

"You can't change what you are, Red. You're just wrong about what you are." 

The dame was the bee's knees. The 'rat' who put the heat on? Yeah, you guessed it. She had it all mapped out. All the crew accounted for, heat drawn to everyone except us. And, yeah, so I was sweet on her. There's that. And yeah, she was a looker. There's that too. I tell myself that's the reason I ignored her, I saved us both. I tell myself that some part of me knew the score all along. But who am I kidding, it was all Edie. Sitting on a train headed to the sun, away from streets awash with villainy. Under skies as blue as her eyes, I'm drying up. Can't ignore the dame now. 

Couldn't if I tried.

Normality

The manta ray is back. I was walking home from work in the cold evening air, about seven in the evening, and I saw him swimming across the sky. I hadn't seen him for years, but there he was, propelling himself through the air, indigo body set against a firmament of fading persian blue. His silver underbelly flashed as he made his way, majestic, mysterious, in serene display. Still, nobody seems to notice him. I don't understand why. 

Back to the dust and the debris of life. Back to the two squeezed-empty toothpaste-tubes mating on the bathroom sink. To the individual coins loitering at skirting boards, hiding behind bed-leg-wheels. Escapees from the midnight break from up-turned jeans, an eager jingle before they flee. Split up, we'll be harder to find. Back to the dust and normality. 

Some of Saturday's noodles are stuck to the kitchen counter top. Who'd have thought they could turn so hard? I'll need a chisel to get them off it. They missed the boat and are left to dry out in the air, until they're virtually immovable. Stuck in the same place, spoiled and old. 

The hospital stays in my nostrils for hours. It lingers. Disinfectant, to try and keep down the killer bugs. Try and keep down the smell of piss and shit, of deathly sweat and vomit. It stays with me even in sleep. Dreams wash over like bactericidal balm to the festering drudgery of waking life. Just like the smell, I can't escape the manta ray, even in dreams he comes. In one I ask him through a turquoise haze, where he's from and where he's going. 

"Places you have never been," he replies, his voice a garbled, bubbling sound. 

And then away drifts away, until his dark shape has faded into the soupy, blue cocoon. 


* 

Normality. 

I saw her on break this morning, she sat with us. Quiet. They say she's quiet and quiet is not normal. Who doesn't talk? Who doesn't fill up the air around them with chatter? It's not normal, they say. Normal is to contain Britney's fall from grace and the weeping sores on eighty-three year old Mrs Burrows' arms and legs in the same world. Normal is to speak of the top-ten worst celebrity fake tans and the parasitic worms in the stool of malnourished Joe in almost the same breath. Normal contains the seemingly uncompatible. To accommodate both is a survival trait of the mind. I doubt very much if I'm normal either.

* 

Normality. 

The pub on payday, and a dutiful after-work bender. She is not here, never is. I'm glad to avoid the walk home. I don't want to see my manta ray today. A familiar fog develops amid the clinking of glasses and laughter, amid the wiped froth moustaches and bumped tables. It's the fog that keeps a person suspended above the snake pit for a little while. To keep them from the writhing doom of serpents (or is it noodles?) for a little while longer. 


* 

New week but same old manta ray. Same old mantra. I have decided I am mental, at least in some regard, possibly psychosis. I am suffering from 'a loss of contact with reality'. But in only one regard, it seems, just this sea creature steadfastly moving across the sky. It's only one little thing, I tell myself. If any more show up, any great white sharks walking around with mobile phones or octopuses serving lunch at the cafeteria, then get yourself to the doctor. And I can't ignore him, he's so... captivating. 

And he's relentless. Not quick, just determined. His slow flaps never end and I want to know where he's going. What places did he mean? How could such a creature become unstuck like this? Is he trying to get back to where he belongs or is he about to explore a whole new world? 

* 

Normality. 

The pub on payday. No, not normal today. She's come, and through the fog she comes closer still. She talked and I listened. And then they're were just two. It felt good, to provide reception. I felt her relief, in saying the words she said. It was clear in her nervous chuckle, the way her hands moved from lap to expressive performance and back to shy settlement again. The booze flowed and drained through like the hours, and some idiot was shouting about closing time already. And what she told me? That was said in confidence. I had an unusual hangover the next day, feeling good about feeling lousy. 

* 

I've started to hold extreme opinions on odd matters. The slight lines at her eyes, her heavy-hooded steel-blue eyes, the lightly freckled upper arm. Like when the poor become rich, it changes perspective. I'm abnormally silent for much of the day as my mind dwells on these odd matters. It's a nice distraction from that bloody squid, I think, knowing that he's not a squid but somehow thinking he might hear my thoughts and that the misnomer might annoy him. 

Later I see the manta ray's path has deviated. He is higher, much higher, and rising. 

* 

I brought her with me on the walk home. Just to see. The moon is out I say, eyeing my pelagic friend, waiting for her to confirm or disconfirm my insanity. 

"Weird, she says, I thought I saw something up there. Flying." 

For a minute I look at her wildly like she's mental too. When I look up again he's gone, no longer patrolling the skies. 

"I must be seeing things," she laughs. And suddenly I can't smell disinfectant, just the night air and her beside me. 

"Oh yeah I get that too," I say, as normality merged all black and blue into the depths of the heavens. And I took her hand, my mind bubbling with the places we would go to, my heart racing to places we've never been.