The Old Men and the Sea

The moon was one day on the wane and the old iron bell clanked out across the bay. The nimble breeze carried in a fresh, crisp spray that began to clean the streets of the wispy tendrils of night that still remained. Fires shook out the static, lazy air of the awakening houses and blew a rich perfume of sardines and coffee into bedrooms. While some small heads were still hiding beneath the sheets, resisting their mothers usual threats, twelve men pulled on their boots and made their way to Old Maclaurin's statue on the cliff top. They each placed a fish at its feet.

Rory McKillock quickly taught the ceremonial poem to Angus Laidlaw's son, Craig, who had taken his dead father's place in the twelve. He nodded when he had it, smiling a little, enjoying the feeling of being a novice at 67. They followed the path down the tapered side of the east cliff wall, marching down to the stony beach of the cove. Each man unravelled the thin brown rope he'd brought wrapped diagonally across his torso. They tied themselves together with a 25m spacing and slowly spread out to form a curve of twelve straight lines, around the incoming sea.

This was a local annual tradition, probably the only that was older than any of the current participants. It would survive them. Time and the tides, two things man can never stop. In the thousand years since King Canute had tried the one, both had kept on coming. The day itself bobbed like a ship at anchor, not fixed exactly to the calendar but never straying too far. They took the full or new moon closest to the Spring equinox, some time around the end of March. Here, the sun and moon locked arms as part of the endless celestial hoe-down and spun the seas in a merry dance.

Each man's job was to stand where the wave broke and move back to mark the new highpoint if a wave passed him. They covered the full curve of the beach. The cove itself was mostly made up of the soft rock cliffs, brown and craggy and full of nesting birds and loose footholds. The winds and the seas and the oh-so-subtle movement of the land would cause whole sections to tumble into the sea. The sound would echo up to the village a few times a month and everyone would hold their breath, waiting for the noise to settle. Castles made of sand, and all that.

The rope enabled them to watch how the water was shaped that day, a battling army steadily advancing its borders. With half an hour left till high-tide, they could see that it was coming furthest up just to the right of the middle of the beach's curve so the old men detached the ropes and drew tighter around the tongue tip of the longest lapping wave. They would take it in turns to place a thin cane on the highest stone that the sea kissed, allowing them enough room stand out of water's way, not wanting to interfere with its sloshing path. When the cane remained on a stone for over fifteen minutes, after the time for high-tide had passed, it was accepted as the tide-stone and the man holding the cane picked it up and dried it with a handkerchief and then placed it carefully in his pocket.

They went back up the cliff path and at the top were met by the whole village, many of whom had been watching the whole process from the beginning, smoking pipes and discussing the past and the future. Next to the statue, the caster was waiting. It was a young lad called Steven. The headmaster of the school picked a boy each year, balancing a hefty build with a character deserving of the honour. They placed the stone in his hand and then, together, recited the old poem. Then Rory nodded to Steven and he took a short run up before hurling the stone in a shallow arc, straight out into the hungry sea. A cheer went up, breaking the reverent silence, and chatter broke out as everyone bumbled back to the village. Pubs filled up and dusty bottles were pulled up from the cellars, kept aside for this day.

The stone sank in the grey water and settled on the bed. The currents dragged and fish swum by. The water rolled in a myriad of eddies and whirls, some conflicting and some combining. The stone began to creep its way back to shore.

The wind that the willows brought

Toad races around behind the stacked chairs. Heads swivel and crane, following the clattered sonic path. The cardboard car slaps against seat backs and clips the reverend’s ear as it's tugged around the corner and up the central aisle. The following line of assorted policemen and woodland creatures bump and stutter into each other like an awkward conga, which stops and starts fitfully.

Toad leaps triumphantly back up onto the stage and performs two satisfied hops. The hops are noticeably odd; his upper body barely changes position, he almost seems to tuck his legs up into a floating torso and then snap them back again. It highlights the quality of the little boy's performance, he's so other. He tilts his top hat forward and smirks, an artful dodger for a second with the jaunty angle and the flowing purple of his slightly ragged coat.

The policemen and creatures have found their way back to their positions in the two chorus lines that flank the raised platform stage. Ratty and Mole push through from the back, readying themselves to clamber up and join Toad. From the back of the hall, standing on a low bench, the teacher gestures to them to begin but before they react, all eyes snap to a crash and a shout from out in the audience.

Mole stares gormlessly as Ratty shoves past and weaves through the rows of little chairs, brushing past my lank frame, tucked up like a praying mantis. Teachers gorp at each other, hoping for something to come down the wire, a semaphore in glances, but no one can make out what has happened.

Finally a few heads pull back and I can see Ratty's delicate face paint slipping from her cheeks in chalky streams. Her hand is on her grandfather's chest and she looks at her mother in seeming slow motion as her hand comes up to cover her mouth.

I watch Toad on the stage. He stands on his spot, still twitching his shoulders in total dedication to his character. He waits for his cue.

Locking Eyes

He leans into the tops of the tap handles, resting his chin on his hands, and stares at the girl across the dark wood bar as he waits for her pint to fill. It overflows and he doesn't even notice. Her head stays down as she picks at a suede frill that hangs from her strap. Occasionally she tugs hard and he can glimpse into the bag; each time is a tantalising moment of nothing. What does he even want to see? He guesses there is a book in there. And a pair of sunglasses. And a tampon. And an untouched apple. And a small compact. And a lighter?

She doesn't want to look up at him, she's too nervous. Is he just staring at her? Why is he taking so long? She doesn't know what to do and she digs her nails tighter into the suede strand, yanking the bag back and forth. Harder and harder, it twists slightly around her and rucks up her cardigan around her shoulder. Finally, she over does it and the contents spill out; some on the floor, some on the bar.

The boy doesn't even help, he's mesmerised by her suddenly spluttered contents, it's caught him totally off guard. She scrambles her book from the floor, along with a hairbrush, a phone, her wallet and a hair-clip. She stands back up. On the bar is a lighter, a banana and some Vaseline. The pint behind the bar has over filled the drip tray and dribbles heavily onto the boy's crotch.

Their eyes meet.

An empty message

The remaining hangers clattered together as I tugged my jacket free, their empty bones rattling out a final farewell. The whole cupboard was like a carcass with the thin, white pole a spine. I had finally picked it clean. She must have removed her clothes at some point earlier as if she couldn't stand them to become further tainted by mine, like I would cling to her forever as hidden fibres. That actually sounded about right.

I slid the swollen suitcase onto the floor and sat on the bed so I could press it down under my Converse and wrench the zip around. I didn't even want any of this stuff, I'd have taken it the last time if I had. I was just tired of arguing; she said she wanted it out so out it was going to go. The zip broke, not the teeth but the handle on the zipper came off, so I tied it... with a tie.

I pottered around the room, a room she'd returned to later but I (I had been told) would never see again. My pictures hadn't been replaced, they were just gone; far more damning. I toyed with some of her things, feeling their weight and wishing for some memory to spark like it would in a movie; a couple staring into a shop window from a sunny street, a slender hand pulling a ribbon from a box, clothes dropping onto a wooden floor around red high heels and the camera tracking away to follow whatever had been knocked to roll across the planks. Nothing came though. I pocketed a lipstick.

I found a pen and paper and an envelope and I settled at the little desk beside the bed.

“You left me a letter”

“Yeah”

“It was blank”

“It was written from the heart”

Toothpaste Kisses

Her shoes matched her lipstick. He wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't tried to put her foot behind her head. The booth's low light poured down the pear curve of her upturned calf, sheer tights sparkling in alluded silk. His gazed slalommed to halfway down her thigh, where the edges of her short grey wool skirt clapped against either side of the stretched flesh. A narrow ladder, like a mouth, marked a taught line his eyes didn't dare to cross. The mouth opened wider, teasing him with a broad smile of white skin.

As she pulled tighter on the back of her ankle, cocking her knee, her hips thrust closer too him. Her skirt hiked higher and another inch of her slid free as if she were being squeezed out like toothpaste.

His eyes switched nervously to the five empty glasses on the smooth black table; two Martinis, two mojitos and her untouched water, so much for good intentions.

Later, she kissed his hand while telling him he was her favourite guy in the office. The smeared vermilion on his palm was all the colour left in yet another familiar evening going nowhere. Her shoes were removed by someone else that night. His stayed on, eventually covered by a blanket pulled lazily over his half-tanked frame. He slept, one curled hand clutch tight to his chest. He dreamt it grew mint.

Flood

The flood came and went in one night so to many of the townsfolk the wet carpets and two metre tide marks were treated in personal isolation. It was often only when they attempted to call the office, some grateful for the excuse not to work, that they found the lines down and they began to suspect that they were part of a broader picture. The assistant mayor muttered and swore as he fished his favourite tie from out of the basement laundry room. He would have no answers for the angry public. His young boy stood naked in the front room, smiling broadly as he looked out of the French windows. In the middle of the lawn were many balls, all different sizes and all thought lost to the garden next door.

Banshee beat

The road slopes up way, way too far. How am I meant to climb that? An old lady in an unseasonal coat begins before me. Maybe it's not that bad. I count my steps, knowing I have a roughly half metre stride, so I can work out the angle from the top. I've lost count by the time I reach twenty, or seventeen or whatever. The houses are painted different colours so the stepped terrace becomes a radical pyramid of toy blocks. Mixed colours also distort my face; the forehead white as the blood puffs red to my cheeks. My feet slap on the rough, dry pavement, big feet in enormous shoes; I'm a breathless, tardy clown.

A beat is bouncing thickly down the hill, knocking on houses and regulating footfall. It could be coming from any of these tributary streets that pump life into the rising road. Children peer around corners, searching, festival ribbons tied in their hair and cat masks painted bright on their faces. My head slops left to right as I stare down the passing streets, a tired fan-head that can barely raise a breeze as it blows forlornly around the room.

I'm sure I haven't passed the marching band but they are rattling away from me, dragging me inland, uphill, closer to the end. There are banners taunting me from houses, draped flags that wave me on. A hat thrown high to hang up on a lamppost, signs that something was here but has now gone.

“You're late, you clown. Here, drink up, we're going.”

“Why?”

“I'm sick of all that drumming”

The Longest Day of Summer

A leap year and the longest day of summer but even Noah would have shaken his head and gone back under the covers as the droplets clattered down. The dark shoulders of light coats showed umbrellas that had gone up too late. Shoppers hid under overhangs and awnings as if washed from the roads, thrust to the river banks by the rushing flood-water. The gutters quickly quenched their thirst and spat back unwanted water. Bus tickets, leaves and Mcdonalds packaging gurgled down the streets, the torrent dribble of a city giant.

It was 3 o'clock and I watched as the street light in front of me switched silently on. It illuminated the rising stream that was flowing just below the level of the pavement, heading downhill towards the pockmarked sea. A river often cleanses, a river can wipe away but most of all a river changes. The flow narrowed and spread as if inhaling and exhaling while it raced on. It carried boats. I wished I was aboard; an owl or a pussycat in a pea-green apple pie box, moving, changing.

I stood still, aside from the occasional shudder and the flitting motion of my eyes. Cold snakes slithered down my back and soaked into the top of my jeans. I could see both ways from here, at the top of the shallow hill; where I'd been and where I was going, both were empty of people. I wanted to run out into the rain.

A runcible tramp came up to me and asked me for change. I told him he was asking the wrong guy.

Entropy

First; the colour leeches out of it, not entirely but enough. Grains of rice contract and bond, becoming a lump. The water gently evaporates from everything, most notably from the thin brown sauce which becomes a flaking stain on the plate and a thin skin on the food it's coated. The meat of the pork chop shrivels slightly into itself and detaches in places from the bone, fat coagulated on its borders.

Second; spots of colour begin to reappear, a light blue with a green hue, or vice versa. The spots blur and spread, seeking each other with uniform growth. They flick out tender tendrils, running rank silk over every surface, binding the rice tighter together and knitting the meat back to its bone.

Third; the food has entirely lost its identity and is a loosely monochrome lump, an ugly tumour attached to the inanimate plate. The meal I cooked is gone as are both the love I cooked it with and the love I cooked it for. Both have been assimilated into the meaningless monochrome of my grey memory.

Entropy is this; everything turns to shit. She's not coming home

A lick of paint

In the back of an old warehouse, Billy found a box by accident. It's invisible. He walked into it in the dark and, after finding and turning on the lights, he saw the blood from his elbow sliding thickly down the air. He prodded at it with his finger and felt the side. He's sized it up; it seems to be a cube, about 75cm each way. He's shining a torch through it now to see if the light reflects or diffracts but nothing's happening, we can just see a weak yellow circle dancing across dusty crates.

He's decided to take it home but can't work out exactly how. It's not that it's heavy, quite the opposite, just it's going to raise both eyebrows and questions if people think he's miming carrying a box. What's he doing now? Aaah, there we go, he's painting it. He saw an industrial bucket of white emulsion and he's splatting it on with a rag. He'll go outside after this, lie in the soft dirt and wait for it to dry.

He's going to come back in and push it home and even though he'll forget to paint the underside, the thick grass field behind his house will catch the dripping emulsion and lick it across the bottom, giving it a scrappy but complete coating. He'll leave it in the garage and run in for dinner. Tomorrow he'll realise that he can't get the paint off and it will stay in the garage where his dad will eventually use it as a place to rest his tools. 

I wish we could tell him to stop.

Parliament

It was time to vote. Some stared up at the oily blue sky, distracted by passing shadows but only momentarily. Feet were shuffled and the noise of scattered earth ran across the ground like dancing insects.The accused stood still, alone in a small, open circle, his eyes locked to the floor as he tried to control his trembling heart.

New members came from the south and joined the ring quietly. They looked over the heads of the others to the accused. It seemed as though they were rising out of a warm, static sea since the rise and fall of the rutted field made the tops of the crowd's heads into a rippling wave, almost motionless, like an old video on pause.

There had been no evidence given, there were no facts to think over; it was just a matter of waiting. So they waited and a decision took hold. It seemed to come in on the air, packaged in dust and dandelion seeds, suddenly filling the collected heads. The open circle around the accused snapped closed as they rushed him and in seconds his blood crept down the cracks of the dry crust that covered the field and the occasional drop blew off light on the breeze.

The parliament dispersed and from the air, each looked back at the one they'd left for the ground.  

On a warming vent

Outwards from a molten core,

a fiery heart to which all hearts draw,

leaving other hands to fettle

to lick the walls of liquid metal.

A hearth surrounds with fierce grate

a ponderous flow of silicate

which floats a plate so gently curved

where some are saved and some are served

and on this dish we'll find a spread

of all things upward from the dead.

Past hubbling bubbling pockets black,

through toiling tubes that suck them slack.

From carbon to calcium, marrow dry bone,

look at what's been set in stone.

Time's passing fragments firmly stuck

where bodies marinade in muck

and splash the wheels of the circling truck;

death then life, eat and fuck

live then die, fuck and eat

ad infinitum, and its repeat.

We reach the playground in the mud

which boys have filled with dry grey blood.

Will mother laugh at how they played

or damn them for the mess they made?

We reach the burrows of clanking worms

who rattle us round the languid turns.

Follow the tracks of the tunnelling train

and maybe you'll come back round again.

In pallid carriage, avoiding sun

it's none for all and all for none.

Climb the ladders, climb the seams

To papered pockets full of dreams.

Up spine, up belly, up back, up vein

To a grey and sloshing brain

Where the head-case bookcase fills each shelf

With blank-paged manuals of the self.

Rising onward as before;

one man's roof, another man's floor

To the station's coursing crowd

whose feet drum chaos loud and proud

And for all that chasing, all that stress,

their motion tallies to motionless.

Look! Above us. The One True Light

The sun we sang of in the night.

A grubby shaft

A rising draft

A gap gapes open as we pass.

The light diffracts through dripping glass

held by a lost and desperate clutch;

a hand forced to extend too much.

Baptising memory in lament,

to splash the head of time long spent

with heart and cloth and spirit rent

such cost for so little consequence.

Past one cocked knee so harshly bent,

lies a lonely man on a warming vent.

Cinnamon Lips

Rankin and Forsythe thought the bruise looked like a kiss, a tender blessing behind her ear, but Josep, the coroner, said he couldn't make it out. Josep said he was too long in the tooth to see anything more than the facts. It seemed that the one blow had killed her though, cracking the skull at the base and knocking her straight out, never to wake up. She had a thin sliver of glass in her ear that looked like a piercing. Josep ran the trolley into the chiller room, next to the body pulled from the water that morning. When he stood at her head, looking at her face upside down, a spark of recognition flashed in his mind but couldn't place it. He said nothing. Rankin and Forsythe continued to argue about lunch then left.

They returned an hour later. Forsythe was still finishing a pulled pork sandwich and he waved away an assistant who tried to shoo his food out of the morgue. Josep told them he hadn't had a chance to look at her properly and they feigned annoyance but slunk off again to get coffee and pastries. They didn't have any leads anyway and didn't expect to get any; her mother had been the only person they could track down and she hadn't seen her for over a year. They checked in again at the end of the day, sharing a cinnamon swirl, but Josep wasn't around so after staring gormlessly at the kiss for a few minutes, they left for a bar, not bothering to brush away the crumbs that had drifted down onto her lips.

Later that night, Josep was about to start examining her when the recognition grabbed him again. She had worked somewhere he went. Where was it? Damnit, where? The supermarket? No, he could picture the four women who worked there easily, two being part of a running fantasy in his head. The cinema? Hmmm, maybe but it didn't jump out at him. The garage! She hung around the garage where that greasy prick would rip him off for new brakes and oil changes every few months. Maybe she was a girlfriend, surely not an employee, not with that hair.

He got in his car, which was behaving today, fortunately, and he drove out to the garage. Everything was shut up but not with any real security in mind so he easily climbed in through a broken side window and used the light from his phone to begin snooping around. He clattered against toolboxes and stumbled over chains, looking for a clue, anything, a connection. He slipped on an oil patch and flung out his arms, grasping something hanging on the wall. He managed not to fall but he grazed his shoulder and face. He brought the light up and saw he had caught hold of a tool in a rack made from a rusted metal sheet. The tool was a heavy pipe with the last quarter bent at a right angle. It had a hexagonal mouth for loosening bolts. A mouth, he noticed, with hard metal lips. A door banged.

Rankin and Forsythe were on duty when Josep's body turned up a few months later. The new coroner didn't agree but they were adamant that the heavy mark on his temple looked just like a kiss. After searching all the unmarked morgue units, they eventually found where Josep had hurriedly stored the woman who they'd brought in that day. They pulled it open and were hit with the foul stink of a rotted corpse. The new coroner mumbled something about dodgy temperature controls and how some sort of contaminate must have got in. Rankin swore he smelt cinnamon but said they would check it all out, after lunch of course.  

Over in a flash

Old and fat, Sam felt old and fat and he decided that he didn't want to any more or, at least, that he didn't want to today. From the cupboard, he took his best suit, only worn three times; a wedding, a funeral and an awkward date. He stood, hands on his hips, watching the iron until a thin plume of steam told him it was ready.

He gave the whole suit, jacket and trousers, a rough once over before getting down to the detail. He hunted wrinkles and chased them out with the boiling, pointed tip, like St Patrick banishing the snakes. He took the same care with a beautiful French shirt, laying a handkerchief over the collar so as not to damage the subtle, embroidered, floral motif. He thought back to when he had bought it; a spring day, five years ago.

He had scuttled into a tiny boutique in the Marais district of Paris, avoiding a brief downpour that had interrupted a glorious bath of sunshine. He had looked back out of the window for a minute to watch the panic of the other passers-by. Beautiful, young gay men had pranced around the forming puddles and clutched each other into doorways. Amazonian women had tucked tiny dogs into their hand bags and strode out of sight with long legs so sheer, you couldn't imagine even a drop of water catching hold. Chinese tourists plucked see-through red and yellow plastic ponchos from their backpacks and carried on shuffling window to window. He had turned back to the shop and seen the shirt and bought it without even trying it on, caught up in the moment.

He hadn't felt old that day and, line for line, wrinkle for wrinkle, he looked more or less the same. It must have been something under the hood, a subtle difference in the self. Everything ironed, he showered and got dressed, matching a thin tie to the suit and shirt. He felt the warm caress of sunshine as he opened the front door and he stepped out into the awaiting day. A gorgeous pair of legs appeared at the end of his road, glowing gold in the light. Without a moments hesitation, he smiled broadly, slipped down his zip and showed her what he had.

In the back of the police car, he sat quietly. The officer asked him what he was grinning about but he didn't reply. As the car turned a tight corner, the seatbelt tugged at his jacket and he felt something from the inner pocket against his chest; it was a triple pack of condoms, from the last time he'd worn the suit. He chuckled to himself.

Beauty

The golden ratio is a connection that appears in nature with bizarre regularity. I'll try to explain it as clearly as I can. Take two poles, one shorter than the other, and attach them together to make one long pole, let's call this a flagpole. Now measure all the poles; the short one, the longer one and the flagpole. Next, work out what percentage the short pole is of the longer pole and what the longer pole is of the flagpole. If these percentages are the same then we have a golden ratio. It's always the same percentage too, around 62%. This may seem just a mathematical nicety but this connection appears throughout nature, everywhere in the universe.

It shapes the spirals in the heads of sunflowers and the long arms of the milky way. It's in the proportions of bodies and, in more detail, of faces. Leonardo Da Vinci used it in the layout of many of his paintings, not as another code for some ludicrous religious mythology but because the human eye is drawn to this ratio. It makes things look how they are meant to, you could say it's beautiful. You could say it's beauty, maybe that is a measurable thing, anything could be if you found the appropriate connection; the whole world and everything beyond, laced like buttons on a line.

A Rube Goldberg machine

He made a Rube Goldberg machine of his life. With one finger, he pushed over the first cd case and it dominoed into the second. The carefully placed albums were in order of when he had bought them so he watched as Parklife by Blur knocked into Garbage's eponymous debut, which in turn toppled The Best of Otis Redding. As the tumbling plastic cases wound their way, snake like, across the table, he made his way to the swivel chair in the middle of the room so he could sit and watch his story unfold.

The final album, Happy Soup by Baxter Dury (son of Ian, the Blockhead king), crashed into a loaded mousetrap which flung his father's watch into a dangling plastic bag. There was a coat hanger suspended from the ceiling and from either end of it hung each lace from his latest set of Converse. He had had a pair for his entire adult life, cycling through the various colours in a typical attempt to be non-conformist. The plastic bag was attached to one lace and the other was tied to a drumstick, almost mint looking; another discarded dream. When the bag caught the watch, it pivoted up the other end of the coat-hanger and the drumstick was slid out from under a tin of supermarket beans, where it had been acting as a stop.

There were 39 cans piled precariously on their round sides, one for each year of his life. Baked beans and spaghetti hoops made up most of them, representing his childhood, his time as a student, his brief time with his child and a few for the last couple of years. There were some green beans for his 8 months in the south of France, picking grapes. Two tins of chickpeas honoured his period of semi-voluntary vegetarianism.

All the cans rolled across the tea-stained counter top and most dropped off the edge into a bucket, standing on a stool. The bucket was full of a brutal cocktail of whiskey, gin, beer, red wine and a thin scum from two emptied bags of cocaine. The falling cans displaced the liquid and the level rose until it slopped over the top and some flowed down a chute, made from some of the central heating that he'd ripped out.

He'd stacked books into half an Aztec pyramid with twelve narrow, shallow steps, showing how long he'd known Sandra. There were a mixture of novels, textbooks and the odd self-help manual. On The Road and Our Man In Havana supported an outdated French grammar hardback and A Beginner’s Guide to Buddhism, which had never been opened. On nine of the twelve steps were things of Sandra's. The last three steps were empty.

The stinking cocktail swilled out the end of the last pipe and tipped her lipstick off the lip, onto a birthday card she'd made him for his 28^th birthday. Some of the objects didn't fall as they should but the pocket vibrator on the fifth step rolled on and on and kept the chain reaction going. A large, framed photo was on the ninth step and he watched as it plunged forward, hiding the three faces from him and slid to the bottom, where it hit a button, turning on a fan.

The fan blew a sheet of A4 paper, covered in scrawled, barely legible writing. The sheet was a sail that turned a horizontal wheel. The string that was attached to a spoke came loose. The penultimate step had failed and he sat, watching the wheel still turning, useless.

He shuffled his chair forward and pulled the string himself.

The final part worked exactly as planned; the hot, spiralling metal burst through the top of his eye socket, spraying out thin bone shards in it's wake and ripping through the dense mass of his tired and grateful brain.

Out for the Count

Some quirk of biology had made his blood extremely dilatant, like cornflour in water; it became thicker the more force you applied to it. He ran down the corridor with rapidly decreasing speed until he was reduced to cartoonish slow-motion. He would, if able, have laughed when the Count appeared at the end of the corridor, backlit by candlelight, for not only was his slow mime of running actually rather funny but the reality of a living breathing vampire was ridiculous. The fangs in his neck sent him unconscious but the Count soon grew bored of the work, sucking at him like milkshake through a thin straw, and left him on the floor. Had he been awake, the panic may have quickened his heart rate sufficiently to dam the punctured holes. Alas, in peaceful slumber, he oozed to death on the cold stone. Some time later, the body long removed, a maid would find the half-dry crimson stain surprisingly difficult to remove.

It's not quite right

Flic rested the painting up against the front of the covered chair. Each of the two sides rested against one of the ornate arms, hidden beneath the old, splattered sheet, so the picture was angled at about twenty degrees. She prowled the room, eyes fixed on the canvas, looking for a new illumination, for the light to hit it in such a way as to show her where it was wrong. It was deeply frustrating to be so sure something was lacking and yet have no idea what it was. She had spent yesterday going over it with a magnifying glass but for all the tiny alterations she had made, she couldn't see any difference in the overall impression. She was becoming desperate.

She lit another slender French cigarette and squeezed the smoke out the sides of her mouth, fuming like an angry boiler. She lit another with the stub and continued pacing. The windows were grubby and flecked with bird shit, so the sunshine cast small oval shadows sporadically across the floor and walls. As the smoke filled the room, the light refracted off the swirls and threw out ethereal dancing patterns. The painting came alive. Flic knelt before it and tried to capture this beautiful quality of light.

The fixed shadows were easy enough, she simply darkened the areas which were there, filling in each oval as it was projected onto the canvas. The swirling shades of smoke proved more difficult. Eventually, she tied five brushes together and held them in one clawed hand, dancing them like a puppeteer as she traced them softly over the  picture, hoping to capture that essence of motion within motion.

She came to look at it again a week later and hated it. She picked up a bucket of black emulsion, meant for the back wall, and poured it over the picture.


Somehow, it got included in her next show and a collector bought it for fifteen thousand pounds. He told her that the thin shroud of black hid only the details but the relief of the brush stokes told the true story of obsession and irritation; nothing would ever be just right. She told him to fuck off. He smiled and nodded his head.

The step that made the dance

The soft warmth of early summer coated the rooftops and poured honey down the windows. From the top of the hill, Will could see the others slowly filling the street, white shirts bright and amber gold glasses glowing like citrine. He rolled a cigarette and then scraped the rest of the tobacco from it's shiny plastic packet into a leather pouch, which he tucked into the top of his sock, under the jangling bells. His final touch was to push his earring through the skin where the hole had closed again. He went down to join his side, having spotted Dennis and Macky. Old friends and half-familiar faces greeted him with winks and nods, slaps and pats, cheers and smiles. Someone bought him an ale and the hint of caramel in the hops made him smile in satisfaction. He nodded a thank you to his patron and made his way outside through the hustle, in a dance as old and true as any they'd ever done.

It had gone three by the time the first set performed and Pete, their fool, weaved Puck-like through the dancing limbs and waggled his beard at the women. The crowd clapped and whooped and wished sobriety off on it's merry way. Over the course of the long afternoon, they only had to clear the road once, for a passing truck. The shoppers and families and youngsters bustled a few streets on but here there was a blissful bubble as occasional passers-by watched with a smile and then moved on.

Macky performed a jig for Marianne and she she took him inside for a drink, letting him stare at the tops of her breats without her usual protest. She had caught the sun and Will thought the red patches across her cleavage might look like eyelids for two bulging, milky eyes. He had caught her changing once, out the back of the cider tent at the Norfolk Folk Festival and the image of a fully naked half of her, arms up and head back as she put on a tshirt, had stuck with him for a long time.

Jed, who had been their squire for the best part of ten years, dragged Will away from a friendly argument about  preserving meats where he had made a bet involving a ham which nobody would remember. Sam, their rag and bag man, passed out their sashes, ribbons and short staves. He tried to tell them a story about a hen he'd bought at the market last month but he kept getting distracted. They teased and mocked him good naturedly, slurring their own stories and also losing the thread.

Their set was the last of the day and it showed. Dennis had his waistcoat on inside out and back to front so their symbol, a bright red helmet wrapped in green leaf, was hidden against his chest. Sam tripped twice into Jed and the supporting crowd were the ropes that held him up as he circled, punch drunk. As the dance continued, they formed two facing lines of three and held their staves at both ends, smashing the middles together in rhythm. Macky lost his grip and with a resounding thwack, broke two of Will's fingers.

At the hospital, they had to cut off his wedding ring when the purpling digit swelled around it. He never put it back on and he still remembers that day as one where he'd never felt more himself.

Blink

“Cold” he cried to a distant brother.

“Aye” was the long reply.

“Come” he said into the following silence, an idea that had formed over so many eras.

He came, and others. They sat, packed close, and watched and realised that they were on the borders of a movement, a society, I guess.

They were cold no more, “quite the opposite” they would joke. Ha. The distant capital began to glow.

The capital grew and many of them held hands and danced around it, seemingly forever, although nothing was and everything seemed to be.

As everything grew they joined and separated in ways not immediately obvious, so different when seen from the minor or the major. Once again a centre began to appear and warm.

They swung around the light

“I am a giant” one rumbled happily as he rolled on his fat, hot belly, nudging at his brothers. Like the great plates of the turtle they jostled.

A cooling sweat grew on his back and it would scream and evaporate where it meet with the bright, liquid power below

At his border he fought millennia in inches. He and his brothers rutted their ugly heads above water and rippled spikes into the moist sky.

Clouds swirled in the changing ether as he struggled for position and he spat himself hundreds of miles into the sky, and he also remained.

From the sky he fell, reeking and dense, into the ocean that shaped his darkening surface.

There are many like him and they spent many happy moments rocking. Ha.

As the moon pulls the tide and the tide is the water and the water was all around, he moved and evolved, each passing second diminishing his form.

Goodbye to weight and size, back to the speck, the nothing, No! Not nothing! He crawled to land in a swirl and lay there to dry.

His peaceful sleep disturbed by the gargling ether, which whipped him sharply in land.

He passed over the natural land and saw what else had come from sea, come from the sky, from the space. Oh this new thing knows itself alright (or they know themselves, he supposed they would prefer), but what does it really know. He knew. He blew up the garden and landed on a soft white globe, which began to blink.

That is why I cry love, not for you, never for you, even as you close the door behind you.

They all lay on the bed

The party bustled on downstairs. Sky could hear the claps from Another one bites the dust echoing around the living room. Jonathan would be telling his story about the time he met Freddy Mercury, probably for the 3rd time by now. She slurped at her champagne, not bothering with manners in this dark room, away from the other guest. She placed her glass on the window sill. She stood with her hands on her hips and looked down at the mountain of coats lying on the bed, wishing the light was working.

She picked up her jacket and rifled through the pockets for her lipstick. She was wearing plum this evening, partly to go with her black velvet dress but also as cover, in case she hit the old vin rouge a bit too hard. She couldn't find it and why was there an apple in her pocket? This probably wasn't her jacket. She was very curious about the party-apple-bringer though so she thoroughly searched through all the other pockets and found a set of keys on a key-ring from the south of France; this must be Sally's. That would explain the apple to as she was on the Atkins. It was working too; Jonathan had definitely noticed. She tried to put on the jacket but couldn't and, in a moment of spite, hid it under the bed.

Where was her Burberry? Everyone seemed to have brought very similar coats, she had to hold up most of them to check the size so she ended up just searching all of them, telling herself it was the easiest way. Most of them had one of Jonathan's new business cards stashed from when he'd been throwing them out like bloody confetti earlier. Why didn't he give Sally one? Or had he and she'd slipped it intimately into her purse rather than ignore it like everyone else? She continued looking and came across Jonathan's Barbour. She glanced at the door in a fleeting moment of guilt but it passed.

Ten minutes later, Sally pushed the door open to find Sky crying softly, sat on the floor with an empty glass and something clenched tight in her right hand. Downstairs, the single scream was drowned out by the mass sing-a-long to We are the champions. Jonathan wasn't singing, he was in the kitchen, propped against the black marble breakfast bar, staring into his drink. He smiled to himself, running over the words in his head. He'd wait till the veranda was clear then he'd bring her out there and do it. He wondered nervously what she would say.

Dead Man's Fingers

"Where did he get the damn fool idea to go out to Croucher's Bay anyhow?"

"Darned if I know, Pete. You know how it is with these city boys; get an idea in their head and there ain't no gettin' it out."

They were on the long route out to the bay, the choppy water making them steer as wide as they could round Dead Man's Fingers, the sharp rocks that clawed out along the east coast of the bay.

"I got to say though, Tommy, your brother-in-law's got some balls on him, coming out here in those waters what we had yesterday."

"Don't I know it. It's those balls that always gets him though, my sister'll tell you that much."

They plotted a loop up and down the mouth of the bay, not wanting to drop anchor with the weather still so rough. They scanned the open expanse, looking for flashes, the tell-tale of a piece of hull or floating metal. On calmer waters, they might put out the dingy and scavenge the rock lines that encased the bay but there was no chance of that today.

"God-damned waste of a boat too, if you ask me, Tommy. He bought that thing what, a month ago?

"Yeah. That'd be about right."

"City boys"

"I know it, Pete"

"The thing I don't get is if he hit trouble why he ain't fired his flare. You told him 'bout the flare, didn'tcha?"

"I did, Pete, I did. Perhaps he used it and nobody saw"

"Nope. If he fired it, sure as shit somebody saw it. Every man in this town got an eye to the sea when a storm comes in. You sure he even had a flare?"

"I'm sure"

The wind rose and flicked the spray up into their faces, making it harder to see. The old boat rocked and swayed but the two men paid it no more mind than they would the rising sun; this was their home.

"There! Tommy, by Dead Man's Fingers"

Tommy saw it too and they revved the gurgling motor and ploughed through the furrowed, grey sea. They were wary of the rocks; this wasn't some idle folklore, whispered to quivering children around the fire. This place deserved it's name. They saw the flash again and now there was no mistaking it. It was a gleaming watch, still clasped tight around a wrist.

They eased in closer, as carefully as they could and Pete leant over the side with a long pole, hooked at one end, and he swept at the floating body, hoping to catch on the clothes. After a few long minutes they managed to get a net down and thye hauled it up onto the short stretch of open deck.

"That's him, Tommy"

"Yup"

Pete laid him straight and arranged his clothes, pulling the white shirt back over his belly and then closing his eyelids. Through the soaking cotton you could see something in the top pocket so Pete pulled it out and unfolded a sodden photograph.

"That's him and your sister, I suppose. You can't real make her out"

Tommy grunted

"They in Vegas?" Pete asks, pointing to the neon hotel in the background, "I didn't know he'd taken her to Vegas"

"I guess"

As Pete stared sadly at the photo, he felt the wind rise and before he and Tommy could do anything more than turn, he saw a wave pluck up the boat and race them in towards the rock. Pete dragged himself to the wheel and gunned the engine but it was too late, they were caught; wedged between two jutting spikes. Pete grabbed the radio but before he could say anything he saw the lights on it flicker and die. He searched behind the wheel for the flare gun and climbed to the highest point of the ship. He held it aloft, pointed at the blackening sky, and pulled the trigger. A damp spark whimpered from the gun.

"God-damn it! These damned things are supposed to never fail."

Tommy crawled towards a steel box, secured to the deck.

"Tommy! What we gonna do?!"

The wind almost ripped the words from his mouth. Tommy didn't turn to him but continued to struggle desperately with the box. Could he even hear him?

"Tommy! Tommy! The flare didn't work"

The box jerked open and Tommy thrust a hand inside.

"It's okay, Pete!" he shouts and waves the thing in his hand, "I brought a spare."

In a glasshouse.

The smoke plumed in thick swirls as the last of the weed burnt quietly. She tried not to inhale too deeply, not knowing what it would do. The smell swam around her as she sat hunched forward on the chair, holding a half-full black bin bag. She hated making decisions. She found she could put most things off until they resolved themselves or her hands were tied, for better or for worse. This choice, though, was the hardest by far. It was about belief, about who she was, about the past and the future and where, in all likelihood, the only true consequences would be up here, in her baffling brain.

Her old world was almost gone; she never knew how much it could alter. The earth used to be flat, a hockey puck around which the universe spiralled. This was an undisputed fact, until it wasn't. But the trouble with a changing truth is that, unlike all other types of change, it happens both backwards and forwards in time. The earth did not become round; suddenly, it had been all along. Her old world was the new world and she'd have to try to piece it together again.

The fire had died out by the time she stood up and she flicked through the remains with the toe of her boot. Perhaps she should have emptied the bag onto it too but would that have been for him or for her? She swept up the ashes and put them in a bucket in the greenhouse. There were only 7 tomato plants and a sunflower in there now that she'd destroyed all the marijuana, which was why it'd always seemed so lacking in colour in here, through the dirty glass. Where she had not asked questions, now she had been a fool but surely only a true fool would heap more misery on herself.

Her mind made up, she went out into the round world to spend a dead man's money.

The brick and the wall

When you get close enough, the brick is the wall, he's always thought this. But today he also decided that this must be true too if you're far enough away; the brick and the wall are the same since they are utterly indistinguishable within a distant point. Now, though, this leads us to a very sticky question; when do they split? Is there a level of zoom or a set of criteria where some grey suited drone in Brussels can tell you 'Yes, if we move from here to here we have a separation / conjunction'? When is the atom the molecule? When is the thread the cloth? When do these racing moments become life spent?

He so desperately wants this to be true for him and her; that at some perspective they're a thing combined yet still separate from others. How much distance would close the gap? If a sniper stood on the roof of a crowded plaza and swept the sight past them, could he confuse them for one? Faces melded together, arms up each others sleeves, twenty fingers in ten? He shuffles closer to her and hopes that when the bus turns the corner and approaches the stop, the passengers on the top will see, for a second, just one person standing here.

At some point the clouds, too fat or too tired or too full, began to rain. The neon street lighting reflects off the splashed drops and as the bus rumbles to a halt, he makes out a face, patterned into the pavement. Then it's gone. He reaches out his hand to take hers but she has moved back to avoid the spray from the wheels and he grasps at empty air.  

On on off off on

The stair light was off, done by the upstairs switch, not the downstairs. Main upstairs bathroom off but mirror light on at the dimmer of two settings. All the rest of the top floor was in darkness. Downstairs, there were the three kitchen lights on and the outside security light was set for motion activation but had not been triggered. Mike stood with his clipboard, looking down at the multimeter, which was illuminated by a small, battery powered lamp. He flicked the living room light on and and wrote down the voltage. No change. He flicked it off again. He marked a neat cross next to the line and looked at the next permutation on the list.  He decided to skip ahead one, so that  he didn't have to go back upstairs. He switched the stair light on by the downstairs switch, returned to the living room, flicked on the light, noted the voltage, no change, flicked it off, marked another cross. He tried again with the same set up except this time he had the stair one on by the upstairs switch not the down. A small change in voltage but not enough to be significant.

He heard his wife pulling into the drive so he unplugged the multimeter and stashed it back in the cupboard before sneaking upstairs to sit with his laptop, burning the battery down. Two minutes later, Stella came in to the bedroom and he looked up to see her holding the clipboard that he must have left in the living room. He smiled apologetically.

-You said you'd stopped

-I know

-It was just a random power surge or something, how many times do I have to say it

-Yeah but...

-...nothing else was affected, I know, you've said. It was just a god-damned TV, Michael. Who cares?

-I do. I want to know how it happened. I only do it when you're out anyway; why does it matter?

-Because...it's just weird.

-Well. Don't come crying to me when the microwave bursts into flames or the fridge spontaneously goes on fire

-It was a few sparks Michael and I'm sure it can be fixed if you just take it to a repair guy.

-I don't care about the TV, Stel, I care about our safety.

-It was a random surge! Philipa at number eleven said her stereo cut out at the same time, you know that. The whole street's connected and it affected everybody.

Stella stomped back downstairs, turning on all the switches that she passed. Mike didn't rise to the bait. Out of the window, he saw the Warburtons' bedroom light up before they pulled the curtains shut. Stella was right; the whole street was connected. Weren't the Warburtons going on holiday next week? That gave him an idea. He made some notes on the clipboard.

On the page

She opened the book for the first time in 34 years and, because of the physics of the thing, rather than chance, there between the pages was a leaf from the tree where she had first kissed her husband. She looked up at the terracotta urn on the bookshelf, empty of his ashes, which were now floating in the channel (and probably still stuck to the cliff face because of that bloody breeze). She didn't know what type of tree it was and it wasn't a very pretty lea, plain and oval. As she picked it up, a small, black spot detached and landed on the page. An ant, dead. She cried. He had a horrible temper but god how she missed him. The wind pulled another leaf from a tree and rippled the water around the southern coast.

I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?

Watch the tail . It's winding carefully back and forth through the air as the body shifts quietly. He's transferring his weight as he scans the air above. He moves carefully forward and reaches the bottom of the tree. Sunlight mottles his small frame, plucking out his yellows and filling them until they brim with liquid gold. The blacks shine majestically where the light catches them, a blue hue like gemstone. The tail lays silent on the leafy floor as he rests on his haunches. Then he begins to climb. The trunk branches low so he weaves his way up slowly, almost in a spiral around the central core. He pauses half-way up as he scans again. The intense blue of the sky holds the tree's detail in perfect silhouette, a lace of interlocking capillaries. He continues.

He must be careful now; he can feel the wood flex heavily under his weight. He makes his way out along a stretching arm, he's finally found what he came for. There's no noise, there should be noise. He leans in front of it, reaches out and taps. Nothing. He swipes at it and the bottom front crumbles off, baring an empty core. One, solitary bee flits around the hive, then leaves; there's no home for it here. He swats at it in irritation and slips. He bounces to the ground, admonished by a thousand spanks from the green, early summer branches which, like a stern parent, punish him but ultimately keep him safe.

He leaves his bee costume in the shed and slips into the house, glad be home but fearful of hot baths and the loving touch of antiseptic.

Coagulate

As Frank pulled himself up and turned to seat himself on the edge, the heel of his jeans caught on corner of the ladder and toppled it into the rhododendrons. The wife was at work, the neighbours too and he'd even left his tools on the grass as he'd just come up for an initial inspection. On the up side, the gutters weren't leaking, merely blocked up, leading to seepage over the top. He cleaned them out with his hand, dumping the rank, sodden clumps right down onto the freshly turned soil near the kitchen window at the back of the house. He was going to plant peas there next week, now that the rain seemed to have let up. The rotten leaves would be good for them. He inspected each handful curiously. It was amazing that each leaf, each twig, each grain of muck, would pass through unnoticed if it were alone but somehow, at some unspecified point, they team up and  coagulate in the heavy plastic pipes.

He'd done all he could within an hour so he sat on the peak of the roof, facing down into the back garden. The grass needs cutting, he thought. Perhaps it was time he got a new mower too, now that he thought about it, the wife had just got a new hoover so she could hardly kick up a fuss. Besides, that money they were going to spend on Danny's new brakes wasn't needed any more, since the sister had given him that battered Golf. He'd better check the books anyway. How much was left on the mortgage? Not sure. Credit Cards? Not a clue. Funny how things are allowed to get this far unchecked. Look at those paving stones leading down the side of the house. When did all those weeds appear? And was that a crack across the two by the back door? That tree had spread; it was almost touching the upstairs bathroom window. One blustery night and it might well come right into the house

The wife returned a little early and put the ladder back up. He kissed her quickly on the cheek before trotting towards the house.

"Need a pen and paper, love. There's a list that needs writing"

It rained for an hour that evening. When it had stopped, two slimy leaves remained papered to the newly cleaned gutter.

Je t'adore, mon armure

Warm, so warm. Warm and smooth, her body was laced with the soft smell of jasmine, which seeped into her clothes. The clothes, in turn, bled into her skin, the new die leaving delicately smeared traces where she had sweat. He laughed when she observed that when she arrived her clothes were an affront, a barrier for him to tear down and discard, freeing the flesh, but when she left, he begged for even the smallest scrap to be left behind. And she would, often handing him her scarf that he would toy with between his fingers. The occasional jasmine scent triggered a picture of her; back arched and the wires of her muscles taught, sweat traced with dust, each loaded moan and grunt echoing from her mouth.

Every time she left, he would troop to the open window and watch her from the balcony, tracking her fighting through the crowds beneath until she became lost among them or passed out of sight. There was no peace when she was gone, neither in his soul nor within the space around him. The family above banged blackened metal pans. In the streets below, traders battled for custom, their cries rattling above the heads of the jostling flow. Old men sat entrenched in doorways, shelling out hard-fought wisdom. Unmuzzled dogs screamed in anger at the hovering sun.

Sometimes, another noise would claw it's way above the others like a rat scrabbling up rubble. It was a deep, menacing roar. It swallowed all other sound, not in volume but in presence, its black hands folding all words and breath and movement into its dark shroud. The heads turned upwards, looking for shadows where normally there are none to be found. Hands sought other hands. On the balcony he clenched the scarf tight within his fist. He wore her love like armour

What would I want, sky?

On the platform, I watch the passing of planes; straight, white plumes quartering the bright cold sky. What do you find at the crossing points, where X marks the spot? Nothing, of course, as the intersections are only perceived as we watch the heavens in two dimensions. Those paths may never come close to crossing. Whenever I see two planes in the sky at once, curving languidly overhead, I like to imagine they're running on wheels around the inner surface of a huge ball of glass, spinning like those daredevil motorbikes that dance round spherical cages and stick two fingers up to gravity.

In the windows of the slowing train, I watch my reflection. My great coat billows gently around me and my hair is clumped sideways across my head, it's getting quite long and is a bit of a mess. I stand, mirrored, staring into myself, before I'm brutally dissected by the opening doors.

The Rat-King

Her fingers began to tire. There were thin red lines appearing, thicker than the veins and lines of her middle-aged hands. Occasionally she paused to lick her thumb and rub away, in moist circles, any dusty marks she found on the leather. She enjoyed the smell. She was fortunate that for the two pairs of shoes that didn't have laces there were thin bands across the foot where she could pass the lace from other shoes through the gap, between the two pieces of leather. For the flip-flops, she simply looped them twice around the thong. 


When she'd finished it looked like a rat-king, the mythical cluster of vermin found with their tails tied together and, given her motivation, she was delighted with the association. She picked it up by the central knot and carried it out the house. With a deep breath, she hurled it up towards the telephone lines that ran in tandem with the street. First time lucky. All his shoes hung there together on the sagging wire, a good fifteen feet off the ground. At least that would get him out the house and maybe he could start the fucking gardening.

Heliotrope

Stretched out on the grass, I follow the sun like a craning flower. What a gorgeous way to drown. A renegade bubble that sinks, content, into bottomless goo. My, our, star; I follow it always in minute motion, craving heat and comfort. The stereo loops over and over, it's beautiful roar played out hour after hour. Soaring, pure, hungry music.

With my eyes barely closed I teeter on the brink of sleep and in this halfway state I begin to absorb the world around me. I feel each grass blade's tendril kiss and how they connect under warm earth. I hear plants sway, brushing sexless kin in quiet orchestra, just audible above the music.

I hear distant motion and distant excitement, the cries and screeches of summer children, as if newly unwrapped, perhaps so. I feel the momentary cool of passing bird's fickle shadows and those of the insects that fizz and babble in this bath of sunlight. I feel a part of everything.

I am in the hot cabins of trucks that clank through baking streets, stomachs full of cold food, packaged clothes and petrol. I am in the tops of trees, each one a mountain, looking down on ball games and effortlessly unfolding romance and also searching up, in reverence, to clear skies. I'm in the thick strings of bass and rippling through the taught skins of snares that howl out of terrace basements.

I reach inside for the tethers and slice through each with a thought, Unleashed, I drift away.

Growing old

They left her out there all summer and her varicose veins snaked out into the ground and took root.
She drew up nutrients from the soil but little joy came with it. She missed the weight of food in her mouth and the rattle of worn metal tines  against her stumpy teeth and gums. Her shoulders sprouted branches but they came out as old as she was, no array of green buds nor the strength of the sapling. An old woman became an old tree. When she died, they cut her down and on counting her rings, realised they had missed a number of her birthdays, so they added more flowers to her grave. It's hardly what she would have wanted.

Worth a shot

A car careened around the corner. The screeching tires ripped him from his shallow sleep and in a moments confusion he pulled the trigger, firing at nothing in particular and sending the hotel doorman scurrying inside. In an uncharacteristic panic, he threw the rapidly disassembled rifle into a bag, along with the wrapper from his sandwich and the flask of coffee. Useless bloody coffee! He rushed out the room and tripped over a fire extinguisher, falling down the top flight of stairs and breaking his wrist.

Some time later, reading a three-week-old newspaper, he found out that the ambassador had died in a lift accident. He laughed. It probably wasn't even an assassination, knowing this countries approach to health and safety. He celebrated with a cigarette and the smoke dissipated quickly in the warm air of his cell.

Just a crack

Something had cracked one of the windows, earlier in the month, but nobody had noticed and the train continued to rattle up and down the Jubilee line. On the final journey of the day, a drunk staggered into it and the heavy corner of his bag hit the crack and smashed the pane. The noise was drowned out by the clatter of the tracks and the rushing air and besides, the drunk wasn’t the only one too drunk to notice.

In the morning, a mother took her child to school, the car having stalled in the winter frost. The child wandered up the near empty carriage and peeked her head out of the broken hole. Before her screaming mother dragged her back, her hat was whipped off by the turbulence and lost in the black tunnel between Southwark and Waterloo. She continued to school with a cold head and a red mark around he wrist where her mum had gripped he tightly until they got off at Dollis Hill.

Five dolls from Kiev

He must have missed something because when he lined them up on the counter, side by side, the first and last dolls were the same size with the third, the middle, doll being the smallest. Despite this, no matter what combinations he tried, they would only fit into each other in one order. The shopkeeper smiled, pulling gently at the sides of his moustache, and once again packed the fifth doll into the smaller fourth and then both into the smaller third, continuing to the second then the first, both of which were incrementally larger.

“But how?” he pleaded, unable, as always, to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

“You, my friend, are looking at it the wrong way” replied the old man, his English surprisingly clear here, in a dark corner of Kiev.

The young American thumped the counter, grabbed his hat, and stormed out. It was the third time he'd heard that answer and he was tired of it.