Not in the system

Right royal pickle, this! I was down at the supermarket and I’d picked up a sweet pepper. You know the kind — quite long and ornate looking, nobbly but captivating. Like a Viking tool. It was a golden orange kind of colour. Oh c’mon you know the kind. Anyway, there the cashier was…scanning, scanning, scanning. Tunnock’s wafers, marmite, few bread rolls ya dig. Then she comes to this sweet pepper and she’s stumped. Absolutely flummoxed. What is this sorcery? Flustered as anything, she’s jabbing and digging and scrolling on the screen as she’s writhing and wriggling in her swivel chair, desperately trying to find the item to weigh the item. All the while I’ve finished packing the rest of the stuff into my bag (which was off-brand, by the way, to worsen matters), and she calls over a colleague who is equally perturbed by this item. I am growing increasingly lost, you see, and before long there are four (four!) staff surrounding the item, giving it the supermarket side-eye, exclaiming in varying degrees of panic: ‘that’s not in the system, that’s not in the system!’. Anyway, the people in the queue and even those perusing aisles are starting to recoil and raise eyebrows and some head for the exit in a state of frenzy.

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Rod’s juicebox

And on the second day Rod reaches down to pick up his juicebox and accidentally inflicts a little too much force, sending a small but upsetting spurt across the tarmac. Rod hurls a stifled curse at his own dimwitted exuberance, and carefully wraps his hand around the juice carton, ever so gently, ensuring the straw is not in a perilous position so as to waste any more valuable drops of the blackcurrant nectar. As he cradles it back to safety, he takes a sheepish, cursory look around, ensuring no souls witnessed his pesky plight, and sucked on that good juice with fading traces of furrows twixt brows. 

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Dictionary definition ‘peace’

I think peace is probably waking up in the morning and seeing a medium-sized alligator wearing a smoker’s jacket walking towards you with a ginormous cigar in its mouth and one little claw fixing a knuckle duster onto another and the craziest look in its eye, ever-upping its speed, and thinking ‘hey, this is quite alright with me’. 

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Off-centre

Slightly off-centre artwork, abstract on a brown wall. Will it straight with your tired eyes. Every speck of the frametop is dirty with dust, damnit, but daren’t you get up and walk over there. Tickles in the back of your nose fail to manifest as sneezes. Stout warms on the pallid perch. Peaches are fuzzy, neglected and blue in the fruitbowl. There’s a drip from the tap every 17 seconds. You’ve counted. It’s less annoying to you than the artwork. A corner of the rug is so threadbare that a little hive of mice have amassed to watch this nonsense. Damn near nothing changes. You’re clawing and clambering, completely still, for that off-centre piece to fix itself, just so you don’t have to.

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Halong

To’s, fro’s and floating homes. Green-patched limestone juts up in vertical daggers or broader harvests. The north Vietnam archipelago of Halong Bay: simultaneously sleepy and spry, with nets cast off of pallet platforms by expert hands. Shuttle boats transport us voyeurs to hidden beaches, or we kayak to cold caves. The formative descending dragon but snoozes and sighs. For us it’s shotguns and sheer awe. For those in the floating homes it’s a weary and worrying state of affairs. More hole cut cans plucked from nets by exasperated hands, more shuttle boats transporting us voyeurs. Plumes of dark grey to not-so-hidden beaches. 

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What I want you to do

Media training is an exercise in sapping individual personality. Little more to it. 

‘What I want you to do, ok, is spew complete uniform, non-committal soundbites. Something comes into your head that reflects some of the nuance of your personality? Squash that this instant! You can get away with a topical joke, providing it does not detract from the absolute greyness of your overarching comments, understood? What I want you to do is watch hours and hours of people saying the exact same thing regarding the thing they’ve just been asked about, and then replicate it near enough to the letter. Your media training is finished. Thank you.’

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Folds

The too blue sky above the readying...steadying...pedalling child. The worn but wondrous expression on the father’s face, speeding to a light trot, hand on the crease of his kid’s shoulder and upper back, propelling the precious little thing forward sans stabilisers. This, but very much also all of the life unfolding around it — all of the people contained or spooled from the folds of shops or cafes or leisure centres — all at different levels of stability, all with some hand on that same crease, if even their own. The father slows the boy to a halt, wipes a bead from his brow, smiles, utters a few words that no one hears, and sets off to saunter once more. 

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Little Timmy’s lip

There’s a single little hair growing from little Timmy’s lip. He sometimes lifts his sandwich to his face super slow at lunchtimes — when he’s sat bow-legged on the school-hall lunch bench — and lingers there for a second longer than usual. Not too long mind, lest he draw the attention of little Joe and little Drew who are little bullies. And just before, and even just during the little bite of that little white ham number, he brings his index finger up from ‘pon that there soft dough to that there little hair, and just pings it like the land’s slackest guitar string, reassuring himself that there’s something new happening, there’s something to monitor and focus on. Alas, the sandwich tastes bang average.

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Stevie Wonder’s meandering thoughts

And what of superstition? What of the crawling and tiptoeing through life, side-eyeing every inconsistency or instance that is itself consistent with that superstition? What of the fear, paranoia, justification, acceptance? I tell you, I’d love to speak to someone who possesses extreme and kooky superstitions. And what of you? Do you cross folks on the stairs? Do you wait until you are amidst the drizzle to put up your umbrella? Do you walk beneath ladders, avoid three drains, step on the cracks? Cracks. Come to think of it, I was a touch reckless when moving a mirror early this year, and it’s sort of fallen apart since. Oh what of it. 

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Yoga

Alison’s scapulas bulged on her taut back, shimmering with the early signs of sweat. Flexing and writhing like wings fighting to evolve.

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Stop time

What a rancid watch! Hugo could hardly believe his eyes. The thing on his opposite number’s wrist was so clunky, so drab, so tastelessly organised that he could barely focus on the words leaving its wearer. ‘Thing’ is the only word Hugo registered internally. His own cogs, beneath the receding hairline, turned and churned and tried to process such a monstrosity of a timepiece. That’s no timepiece. That’s an abomination. He lifted his forefinger up to cradle his head, making sure the constant suspecting glances to the watch weren’t noticed by the blabbering propositioner. 

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Nib

A tiny blot of ink collated on the shaking nib, wavered for a moment, and dropped to the page, where it sat for a fraction as dark kin to barely perceptible teardrops. The blot grew and boldened and spread its sickly little tentacles on the parchment. It crawled steadily outwards, obscuring select letters of scribbled text. Shivering brethren gathered on the nib above it. Sniffs and whimpers the soundtrack to this sad, silly scene.

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Bloody Nora

“Oops. What’s gone blank?”

The teacher was overweight. A bit grossly so. To fend off the fatigue, she had to lean on the desk of whatever child she was picking on at that precise moment. Nora this time, poor little thing. Nora looked up at the teacher, honing in rather swiftly on the accumulating sweat breaking out on her podgy forehead. Bit grim that, thought Nora, but in child’s speak. Unperturbed, Nora held her gaze, confident in the answer she’d given originally. 

“Miss, my mind’s gone blank — I don’t know”

The authoritarian, sloppy mess of a teacher just couldn’t comprehend it. Turns out, Nora was a dragon, and the limits of her academic capabilities were enclosed in her own fiery head. She blew out of her nostrils the brightest orange flames and burned the bitch to the ground. 

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Stovetop

Cold water in the bottom chamber. Tepid or hot if you’re burdened by impatience. Remove the lid of your jar, the seal from your packet, your corktop from the teal beaker. Reach for that small wooden spoon of yours, or a teaspoon, or freepour. Heap a nice little pool of coffee into the filter basket, and be sure to flatten it. Squash it right down. Preferably, straighten it off at the lip. This is hugely satisfying. Put the filter in above the water tank. Wipe any residual ground specks from the surface to your palms. Dispose. Locate and fasten the top chamber. Put it on your trivet. Gas and fire. A delicious dark brew. Yee-hoo.

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Dyst

The smell of hops wafts across the dirt road. Some among the passing, trudging masses, and only some, respond to the rich scent with a quick, risky glance. Their eyes pass the dirt road to the tall-milled brewhouse, where machines churn and the fumes are rich and pungent. If such a glance were caught, the operating officer would doubtless stop the whole parade, the whole dredging, humiliating repetition, buckling the glancer into submission and apology. But the hops are so sweet, so pervasive; they hover and hang like a fabulous fog. For a time, the masses’ faults are fallacies, their fears rest, and the doubtlessly brutal, fucked up result of such a glance goes by-and-by. One by obstinate one they all veer their heads. They clench their eyes to see through the dust, and pull the hoppy contents through their nostrils in the most aggressive displays of gratitude. 

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Poor satsumas

Satsumas are too feeble and poor to be called oranges. They’re also very close friends with clementines, and yet neither ever get called up for the yearly christingle. Why is that? Why the fuck is that? Their segments are as sharp, juicy and delicious as an orange’s. They’re more than apt as a tonic to dry mouths the world over (apart from where citrus numbers struggle to yield, granted). Their shape emulates that elder, larger fruit, too. Really, you’ve got to take a long hard look at the die-hard orange fans to get any kind of understanding into the disrespect shown to satsumas. Christingles are fascist; they’re not celebrating Christ or the power of good, they’re pushing a real messed up agenda and as long as I’m on this earth I’ll cling on to hope for satsumas to see their day in the limelight. 

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Hennesseys, BS3

This cafe that I am sitting in: Henneseys. How I’ve overlooked it or walked past it before I am not so sure. It’s lit in an endearingly muted kind of way. There are books strewn everywhere. All genres and spinetypes and angles on shelves, sides, desks, walls... There are piecemeal artworks, skateboards, bike saddles, beermats adorning most inches of space. There’s some driftwood just up there on the left, and a psychedelic butterfly directly above me. A catalogue of memories and sketches, collections and recollections of the long-time patron, I assume. Another double espresso for me, sir, to sip, to dwell. This is medicine.

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An ode to notifications

Beeps and boops and reminders and prompts and unpluggings and re-pluggings and timebound must-dos that mingle and flirt and fuck around with constant popups. Good, now you’re organised. Now you’re on your way. Ping.

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Some alliteration and a drone op

Filipe stared intently at the monitor, jostling the joystick. A joyless jaunt. An unerring, unethical escapade. Unnerved? Ah. The images that passed across the screen were of a distant town, a bird’s eye view of relative debris and muted greys, the odd dweller dotting around or passing between spaced buildings. Filipe stared, slowed the already slow pan, zoomed in slightly, leant in slightly, brought his non-controlling, non-patrolling hand up to his bristly ginger chin, flicked about for a bit there, then took it to his mouth, flicked around with his tongue and teeth for a tenth of a second for some loose bit of skin to grapple with, and proceeded to rip and gnaw at it. The images on the screen stilled, the infrared glaring, the target locked. He was bleeding down the side of his nail. 

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Putting up a tent in wind

The tarpaulin is frenzied in the gails. Crumpled. Taut. Taking turns between those two. Howling and clinging and battered, the thin parallelogram above their heads has gotten itself into what those in the tent world call ‘a tizz’. The wind has graduated to a storm and its sole certificate is this peculiar ability to change direction. Entirely, and at will. As such, it offers up the odd second of respite, wherein the tarp rests and sings its little creases out a little, before once more the gail changes its course and conjures up a perpetual finale of droplets the size of your eyeballs — hot rain — dripping off drooping leaves all around and above the tarp, onto the whimpering tarp and the muddying jungle floor. Probably should have waited.

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Bright cheery energy

If shadows showed malaise how dark would the surface of the waking earth be? If the sleeping earth showed bright and fine dreams in the form of shooting stars what would be the best shutter speed to capture the circus?

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Ssssstatic

I’m darting through a crowd of the static staring startled starlets to the duller side of town. Screens all over show the same images, the same bulletin, invariably. Projecting the deliverance of our deliverance from a different planet. The threat made real by the impending impact. Ohh starlets, all stood stupid in their spick and span suits, gawping. And I’m darting through it to those who are turning blind eyes and rolling dice with their friends or breaking bread with their family, where screens are in short supply, and ignorance or overcoming smell the same. 

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Attritional seconds

‘And you’re close to some surrender’. The prying, constantly whying investigator sat across from Blake, suffocating him simultaneously with silence and a shoddy, designed placating gaze. They both knew it was a matter of time; the passing of attritional seconds, Blake’s resolve waned with every bubbling, bursting thought of the life he’d once knew. The investigator looked down at his fountain pen, twiddling the lid around its nib for a moment, circulating it, before clasping and securing and placing the utensil on the cold steel table.

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Absolutely flying

Full pelt she was going! The sting of sweat accumulated in tiny potent droplets on her eyebrows and lingered and hung and swung as she sprinted in the near dark. Her shadow, erratic and faint as it was, made for more comforting company than this pesky pursuer. Other than this searing fear for her life, aching calves, and shoddy sense of direction, the biggest, most brutal of burdens had to be jeans. Jeans are not good flee-wear. She thought this before regathering herself and charging on. Super duper restrictive and chafey. Focus. She brought her forearms up to wipe her eyebrows. Still galloping frantically from the drop site. Still in jeans. Still. She listened beyond her deep panting breath for the footsteps in her wake, but detected none. As she slowed, the very last cast of pinkish sky turned black.

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Go back

Say you could go back to the environment you lived in when you were 10 years old. Not just the general geography or the street or even the specific rooms, see — I mean the full monty. The people you were spending time with. The things you were learning, interested in, playing with. The guardians you had taking care of you, the grass you lived nearest to, your favourite sport to play. Say you could go back to a precise time at 10 years old, complete with whatever half-concerns you were experiencing, whatever fruits were in season, whatever radiators were on or not on at school, whatever school that was. Say you could go back. Knowing what you know now — what drink would you opt for in the morning? 

 

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Thanks Santa

‘But a procession of confusing turns, false peaks and plummets’ 

Who wouldn’t sit down as a buzzy, eager-eyed 27 year-old and plop that on the top of their christmas wishlist?! Scrawled zealous and all sorts of wonky it is:

 

Dear Santa, 

I have existed this year. I think that warrants the greatest gift of all — a regular flow and ebb of excitable anticipation and bitter let-downs — do you not? You have been kind enough to grant me this wish every year of my adult life thus far, and it fills me to my gurgling core with gratitude. If you don’t send me this again this year I don’t know what I’ll do — be either elated or depressed or neither or both, I suppose. I will likely just continue to exist in the coming years regardless. 

Thanks Santa!

From,

Me. 

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Clusterfuck

Children’s sport. Think of it. Park and playground alike. There’s got to be something to the insatiable gravitational pull of the ball or frisbee or hackysack or contorted plastic bottle. Right? It’s the rudimental component of competition — “I am going over there because that’s where that is, and that’s the centrepiece of this”. For a long (fun) time, Sunday mornings and weekday lunchtimes are a frenzy of flocking bodies. Slowly, some sort of tactical pragmatism seeps in and the smart ones realise that space is an alluring ally. Oh aye, the gravity of that centrepiece will shift and shape itself towards you. It’ll find you. 

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A yummy recipe

Caught in the crosswires of ambition and fear lie — I would hazard a guess — around 79% of this here human race. Not scrambling, not particularly succeeding. They are a vessel for the age-old mixing bowl. One pinch despondence. Two measures delusional grandeur. Give it a swirl. Add salt. Voila — the native dish of the crossroads. You eat it to survive and sometimes you don’t mind it. You eat it to survive and grow aghast at its funky textures and flavours. Pull away or find yourself a passiony zest, some new ingredient. Lo! You’ll do well to remember that transport planning renders similarly troublesome crossroads, somewhere down the line, entirely inevitable. This is Sam Fletcher for Rogue Metaphors TV. Have a good day. 

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A sign!

There I was, out having my early morning cigarette — the drill being you roll up and pop out post-water, pre-hot-drink, pre-any-form-of-scran for the mild sense of satiation and the occasional headrush. There I was, little curlicues of fluid gassy ribbony death rising upwards toward and just beyond my eyes before dissipating into the atmosphere. I followed it, and as it disappeared, appearingly in its place emerged a pigeon atop the fencepost. Big fucker. Clutching a fair sized twig in its beak. If I am the Noah of nonsense, this was my sign to press on. And there I was.

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Eyes peeled

Every single evening at 8.20pm, Kat sat on her matt black picnic bench and looked out for something she knew she’d never see. In all her years of perpetual isolation, not one thimbly, slithery portion of hope had abandoned her. In the early days, neighbours and now faded friends had told her how misguided her yearning appeared to them, but she cared not for their cynicism, or else their greater grasp of the situation. She willfully alienated and argued with those once close. Nowadays she did very little with her minutes prior to and following the 8.20 stint, when she’d always be there, empty cup in hand, quivering with anticipation.  

 

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Guilty

‘Why does a falsetto stir emotions that a baritone for the most part can’t?’

 

‘Mr. Sachs, that is not a plead in the eyes of the law’

 

‘I understand that, but it’s inextricably tied to my supposed crime, and thus to this entire case, and thus to your judgement, so surely we should start with the important questions — not some utter fallacy like ‘how do you plead?’.

 

‘Be that as it may, Mr. Sachs, I need you to enter a valid plea at this juncture’

 

‘Especially if it wavers, too, I find. But only ever-so-subtly. Little variations, you understand. Warbling falsetto doesn’t stir anything much in me’

 

‘Mr. Sachs I am losing my patience’.

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Shower forever mate

The second hand on the magnolia clock in the bathroom that sits in the divot and crease of the tiling and sometimes falls down when a particularly steamy wash renders the tiles slippy with condensation has stopped ticking entirely and so now any time spent in the bathroom is in fact the opposite: timeless (not not spent in the bathroom, but I can see how you’d maybe construe that poorly).

 

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Ah an advert

Most of the time, rather than chagrin or a sense of wastefulness; rather than apathy or boredom or impatience, the people of the mundane modern Western world greet advertisements with either semi-humorous compositional analysis or with the more hard-line option of complete physical departure. Both are valid. 

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WOZ ERE

And down at the Church — that one on the corner with the distorted pavement, withered flowers and sun-drenched notes of sympathy from that ‘accident’ 6 months ago — well, the Vicar’s all wrapped up but he still shivers, and he struggles and jostles his key into the lock of that door just up from the pavement and flowers and notes, the door adorned with crude ‘woz ere’ and ‘4 eva’ scratches, and he just can’t find the sweet spot, and he stops for a second to let his iron-cage, tar-addled lungs deal with the difficulty of it all. 

 

******

 

A kerfuffle

‘Owwwwww MY EYES, you’re out of your mind!’

John clambered on his hands and knees, wincing and groaning as he clawed at his face. Standing over him, the woman closed her eyes and stretched her neck on both sides, calling forth a corker of a click. She tossed the mace-spray across the room, where it landed somewhere amongst the growing mess. John’s most hostile visitor towered over him, nudging her knee into his ribcage and gently pushing him onto his side. Then she knelt down beside him, and as she pushed his head with great force down into the carpet, the veins started to rise and quiver on her lean hands.

 

‘Oh John’. She spoke softly, grinding her hands further into his temple as he squirmed beneath her. ‘Stop your nonsense, or I will bring into question the durability of your cranium’. She smiled to herself wryly, and her crimson red lips glinted, as though impressed by the threat they’d produced. Looking down upon him, she saw as the creases surrounding his eye became smoothed, and he glanced up at her with a look that all but conceded defeat. He took a long blink, winced once more, and just about managed a confirming nod through the strain of her hands.