Shadow of the smoothie

It was an inspirational moment, he was caught up in that great white beam of madness and genius as the impact and wonder of this creative process washed over him, overwhelming and rendering him senseless. Everything was adrift and moving, there was traction but no friction, the experience was like gliding on ice over fire under water in space into a clear glowing sun that was all giving and and all consuming. Heaven or as close as it comes. It was of course vanilla, cream, banana and passion fruit. He had now invented and tasted and been transported and nourished by the world's greatest ever smoothie experience. It can happen, it should happen and it probably will happen, one day, but maybe not to you.

Drifting

We were watching sea, watching from our open boat, we floated with no direction. A journey made of imaginary circles, we copied the sun and the planets, we shaped ourselves on orbits and arcs but without taking aim or having ant sense of where we were. Bobbing like a thrown away champagne cork on the deepest and blues sea, caught between skies and water in a huge peaceful sandwich in lazy currents and waves generated far away and now lost without a destination. How strange to be lost a sea, of all places. No reference in the day other than the sun tracking across the top of the blue mirror. At night we saw the shapes of things and the glinting star light of the lost planets and Milky Ways. Shooting stars missed us by thousands of miles as they burned bright for on last time. We listened for their splashes or ricochets but they were already over another continent. When the sun rose we watched the sea some more looking for signs, hoping for wonders.

I closed my eyes and imagine people ashore, noisy pubs, endless talk and chatter, the roar of traffic and background music. The pull of the moon and shadows of some big city, brighter lights that shut out the stars. Maybe conversation, walking home alone, the smells and sounds and the grip of claustrophobia, hectic lives and pursuits, passion and petty crime and all going about their business. I can't really imagine any of this, the effort is exhausting, we are afloat, too far away for things to be real, in too deep. Too much water under us, too much sky above us and land is a distorted memory. One day we shall drown, all of us, lungs full and choking before the black honesty falls upon us and our names leave us, until that day comes we will dip our fingers in the water, enjoy the cool splash and just drift away.

Labyrinth

Rory leaned back onto the wall, he was alone in the room, the room that was no longer steady, no longer a room attached to a building attached to the ground attached to the earth. The room was no a trampoline, on a gyro, slowly turning, groaning almost with the effort of a new movement and carrying Rory around with it. Rory felt the room move, the spin speed increase slowly. He tried to focus on a spot on the wall, on the water cooler, on a PC screen, on the carpet tile, but they all wee spinning, a fluid and unstuck, all at odds with each other, defying gravity and other natural laws.

Rory was going with the flow, standing still but now moving, transported like a leaf or a feather or a Pooh Sticks stick stuck in the currents. Rory held his ears, as if pressing on them would fix the problem, then he held his chest, as if breathing regularly would calm the spin. Then he held his tummy, his crotch. He bent over and held his knees. Then he stood straight, tall and gripped the wall with his palms, eyes closed, eyes peeking, eyes open. He was on the wall, like a fly on flypaper, stuck to the spinning wall. Like a wall of death without the bike or speed or centrifugal force. Travelling still but getting nowhere, that's Labyrinthitis for you. A chronic condition, a force of nature, Rory was caught.

He closed his eyes, he sucked up the dark, time was passing, time was travelling around him, here he was wherever, here he was going, deeper into himself. Deeper into the illness, further into the condition, into the lair of that dark insect bite itself where sleep is stolen, peace is shredded and pain and discomfort settle on each shoulder and hold a conversation across the top of your head. He heard a snort, he felt the animal sweat, he opened his eyes slowly, the disease gripped him, all over. Chronic and putrid, the fear came and manifested itself, here comes the night, here comes the beast. There are the yellow eyes, hungry as the ancient beasts and the wolves of the forrest. Half bull, half man, all wild exposed and real. Here is the Minotaur, here in the Labyrinth.

Rory awoke the next morning, he was hurting and his nose was twitching. “What's that smell?” he thought, “bullshit I guess.”

Priscilla

A thought in a box, in a nod, in a moment. A journey in red and blue with many miles on the broken clock. A long and pleasant journey I should say, whisked away by myself over hill and highway from the bottom to the top. I put myself under some scrutiny, some pressure, apply a little fear, here and there. Poisoned and sweet. That's what you get when you become that person driven by a fear. It made me wonder, as I reflected, whatever happened to Priscilla Presley?

Driving backwards

The journey back to the city was uneventful, I wandered why I'd come this far. Banner had promised information, he was gone, I had to dig a little deeper. The fact that no police were (as far as I could see) still in pursuit was a perverse worry. They'd been on special orders in coming after us and that, for some reason wasn't known by the HQ core. A split had occurred, teams were disjointed, working on their own lines of investigation, mine having just fractured for the time being anyway.

I abandoned the prowler in a dank alley, wiped down the controls and powered it down. They'd catch it in the morning when the homer came up on the system, by which time I'd be long gone underground, in some rat hole, smoking, eating, drinking, checking out for the next batch of slimy clues. A neon said "Chinese Food", there were symbols, marks - it was a brotherhood joint. I could recuperate in here and blend into the run down decor and faceless interior. Eastern language brokered broke down deals, they were all too busy to notice me. That'll do nicely, I was shaky. It'd been a while since I'd been involved in any kind of fire fight, at least two men had died today. I lit a cigarette and thought of their mortality and pondered my own humanity. I was weak.

Two good shots

They didn't believe me, even though I'd said nothing. I gambled that they were greasy cops, out of town, on hard pay. They'd not have the appetite for a proper fight. I took up a point at the back of the car and fired two shots. One hit the prowler and the back end puffed up and exploded in an orange and blue ball. The force surprised me and I was knocked backwards, it surprised them more and they ran back to the manager's office, the most substantial building in the area. The second shot took a ricochet from the prowler's front end and hit a gas tank over by the pound. This time the blast was too big, I was carried away my chest thumping and starved of air. Three or four policemen just fell flat, two others rolled like rag dolls. That was the end of their fighting.

A cloud of dust and noise was everywhere, this was confusion. A few people were shouting or crying, a radio splattered tones and words from some vehicle. I headed that way. There it was, an empty prowler, keyed up and alight. In seconds I was moving, through the debris and dust, one stray shot cracking a mirror, another bouncing from the front grill. It was too late now, I was gone. Headed somewhere.

We don't believe

"Christ, this awkward," said Banner, "there wasn't a body here when we closed up." The policeman's corpse had been there behind the door for sometime, it had desiccated in the dry heat, the air was pungent with a heavy scent of death that was almost pleasant, but both of us shivered as we breathed it in. Banner clambered across the wreckage inside the room, there had obviously been a scuffle before the fatal fight, desks were turned over, papers and files strewn across the floor, cracked electronics, wires and splinters. Banner picked up a communicator and handed it to me, "Police issue."

I switched it on, immediately I realised my mistake, it glowed red and gave out a sharp beep. "It's homing!" shouted Banner, "this is a set up!" We both ran back to the vehicle, somewhere in the distance I heard an air-skimmer's engine start up. "They're very close!"

There were two orange flashes in front of us, in the hundred yards we'd travelled they'd caught us. I felt the shock and vibration, my chest heavy with the pressure of the blast, I looked across and Banner was slumped across the controls, eyes empty and we were still and suddenly sideways in a ditch. "Agents!" I cried out through the com mike, "It's Rick, City-Pass 231-678A!"

"Stand by the vehicle for processing. We don't believe you!" Screamed the metallic reply.

Some sequences shortened

I was walking away from the noise, walking from the steam, from the steady drumming of the rain, processing the day my head. The neon flickered like some passing affair, the traffic had thinned and I had lost track of time. A bar doorway opened up on my right and I wheeled in without a thought, automatic transmission. I ordered a bottle and sat in a deep pool of artificial light. I drank for some time, there seemed to be no effect, nothing to reach until I arrived at tired level of numb self parody and unawareness. I felt safe here but my fingers were rubbing on the but of the gun it was an unconscious action, it was a part of who I had become.

I watched the other customers, all quietly unfamiliar and bland, all in hiding, all in plain sight. I took in the faces one by one, at least the features I could make out. An older man sat across the bar, he reading something from a dull screen, his lips were moving, forming unspoken words. His mouth curled at the corner as if every other word carried some amusing message. I looked at his eyes, they were on me already. I touched my nose, he nodded, picked up his drink and his screen and walked over to join me.

“I'm Banner. There are many things in this life I find difficult to understand, I've lived sixty five years, been loved and spurned, been hunted, found and set free. Now I'm here, sitting across from you, a fugitive and a conundrum. You know that they'll put a bounty on your head, you know that they wont let you go. You know all this?” I just grinned and took a sharp slug of the whisky. The old man continued, “I think we can help each other out, I think we both have something the other needs, I think we can make an arrangement...the police are about ten minutes from barging through that door, they have a new charge sheet, new evidence, same old story. They're dealing with some minority activity in Teasel, then they'll come over...for you.” I was again aware of the gun butt and safety against my finger, the cold metal was warm.

There are moments when time stands still, you wish something would happen, a lightning strike to clear the air, a line to cross, rivets popping in the steel core of your brain. I was tense and counting and it was now nine minutes, he was looking at me. “We need to go very soon.” We both stood up, he nodded to the barman, my eyes were on the door and the traffic flashes. “I do have transport,” he said. He clicked the fob and the gull wing opened, I lowered myself in, he was surprisingly nimble and behind the wheel in seconds. I turned and saw the blue and red of police lights. We were gone as they pulled up. We were gone.

I thought how small a part of my life this moment was, riding in this car, stilted conversation, headed out into some other part of the night. Escaping from shadows and flashing lights, while all the other events, the deaths, lives, warnings and crimes all orbited around in my head in a scattered and disorderly jumble. The car sped on, the rain lashed and daylight and sunshine seemed foreign concepts now impossible to believe in. That was where she lived, in some warm sunny place where colour was natural and the edges of reality were clear beyond any traffic buzz and blur. That was where she was. In harbour, I was still at sea.

An hour's driving without conversation took us past the city limits and into the Quarry Area. I may have slept. We moved between great chunks of rock, broken landscapes and scattered boulder fields. Raw materials had been gathered from here when the first cities were put together, the concrete and plastic mix that now stood in a rain lashed pattern, stolen rocks that were clad with the shards of millions of years of geological action and modern shame. The time of development had been relatively brief, now we were running down the clock and large parts of this landscape were desolate and in places returning to some wilder past. He turned up a dirt road and pulled up at a battered prefabricated site office building. As grey as the rock, weather beaten and forlorn. Signs warned and vehicles rusted, materials stood unsold, uncollected in piles. I imagined the scattered papers, worn clothing, dusty dirty cups and plates and other skeletons that must be inside.

Banner fumbled with a key and key-code and the door moved but there was a resistance, he pushed on it with his shoulder, I imagined a body stooped behind. My eyes were playing and scanning everywhere, dry blood was pumping, the wide open spaces were hemming me in, I was uneasy. The door gave way and opened. Inside wasn't as bad as I'd expected, someone had been here recently and it was clearer and a bit more clean than I'd expected, well clean apart from a fine layer of dust that seemed to cover everything. “We're safe here, you're safe here,” that was all he said.

In life it can take quite an effort to make a thing happen. You have to start, you have to move yourself, you have to break through that stubborn barrier that says “I'm staying here, I'm not moving.” Of course that can happen quite quickly and with little warning but it's when you stop, lose the momentum gained in the chase, it's hard to make up that speed again, hard to restart and get running. Now here I was, melting away into the conspiracy and game set against me and hiding, doing what they'd expect. I knew deep down none of this was going to work and I had to know what it was Banner wanted from me. There were still overdue and outstanding conversations.

No custodial sentence

I was almost happy, this time, unexpectedly I'd avoided a custodial sentence. The judge had summed up, he'd summed me up, he got to the point and held back, he was that sharp. They handed my gun back to me at the check out, I hadn't expected that either. "We'll see you again soon enough Deckard", said the bulldog faced cop on the door as he chewed a cigar and spat as he spoke. I didn't even bother answering, I just looked out into the gloom to see if any taxi lights were approaching. The traffic was thin, no yellow glow so I just took up the rhythm of the rain and walked along the running, splashing gutter. Somehow that seemed appropriate. Today might be Tuesday or Thursday, it might even be my birthday if ever I'd had such a thing, whatever day it was there were grounds for celebration, all I had to do was find a warm bar.

98 years ago

This what Europe used to look like, tough, angry, intolerant, industrious, divided and made of cast iron. Over the years a few things have changed but the overall shape and the glowering, ugly faces remain and Britain is very much an island.

Get down from that cross, we could use the wood

My head was spinning slowly and there was the dim beginning of physical pain, just about everywhere. I decided to go out for a walk about, fill the time creatively with something, maybe take photographs and avoid the weather. Soon I was wandering on a stony, muddy beach but the dimmed pain was getting stronger and I felt panicky, coming up like a tropical storm on the horizon. Quivering as if in anti-gravity boots I stumbled, there was a warm flush, physical pain gives way to physical weakness. I have been in a car crash, it happened a few days ago but it was real, only now, much later am I beginning to feel the shock. Is that me? So desensitised, so uncoupled from feeling that I take a punch like a dinosaur. The punch is landed, the blow presses the flesh and triggers the nerves but the scream and electricity and pain travels so slowly from the source on the long and winding distance to the centre a huge portion of time elapses before anything registers. How can that be? I conclude that I'm wired up in a way that lends it's self towards the dysfunctional, perhaps it's a gift. It may have been drugs or witnessed family trauma, years of religion and cod philosophy, or being nurtured in the best working class hopelessly emotionally stunted traditions, maybe read too few or the wrong books, now I'm lost inside myself.  

Naturally I contemplated some kind of inner suicide, a easy way to run away that, in the plan, always has some pleasurable activity factored in there as a prelude to the final awful ending. A pleasant golden frame into which the unspeakable act is conveniently placed. These are generally complex, warm and foreign activities, like a holiday but with an end that's the end. They've been rolled around and developed over years, thumbed like some business contingency plan written when there was a staff surplus and a big box had to be ticked. They follow the “Star is Born” model (the black and white version) and promise the dreamer a suitable and almost dignified conclusion, “shaking off futility or just punishing somebody”, so that's about it for that. The experience is like visiting a parking lot but not being able to find your car so you have to shuffle to the exit and rely on public transport or make a quick phone call to be rescued by a family member. It's an embarrassing audition and rehearsal sequence that will not lead to a performance but the script remains familiar and well thumbed over before it's finally filed away.

Once I'd stopped trembling from the most likely age related stumble I felt better, strangely the sun came out and I started taking badly composed flimsy photographs and fiddling with the phone. It was a useful distraction but I still felt that illicit urge to run, like I was walking around with a target across my chest. I responded as per normal, turned my back on sunny highways and ideal quiet airports and went home. I self harmed with a packet of plain crisps in the kitchen, they seemed extra oily and greasy. This helped my inner loathing just a bit. Then I flopped, the couch conveniently caught me.

I don't know where stuff comes from. Perhaps I should make honest lists or fill notebooks. Here I am and I've no idea where I'm going. Life's directions has become caught up in flotsam and jetsam theories and methodology. Like yellow bath ducks or ping pong balls thrown onto the tides and now circulating around the globe, probably in the Pacific Ocean by now.

A day ahead

I’m fairly satisfied that the things going on in my head are not quite normal, however that doesn't make them uncommon, there are numbers and statistics, anecdotes and description, explanations and quite a bit of scientific and medical study out there. It's all documented. In some places the legislation has changed, moved on, taken into account the wider world of political imperatives, human rights, values and that most fickle and awkward part of this to capture and define, public opinion and taste. I'll ignore religion in this as that tends to be of little help, it's like a dam built against progress, resisting the Zeitgeist with a purpose and determination that is of course divine and beligerant. It will never help (unless the divine nature changes).

So being myself again, I'm in some supermarket, picking up things, putting them down, reading labels, putting them in the cart, feigning interest. It's all vague and embarrassing but it goes with the job, the need for constant pretence defended by a robust presentation. The hard, unspeakable part of a living out an elaborate lie. Maybe now if I'm driving a car, alone, not part of a group, a bunch, no brothers or sisters, no companions. The feel the intrusive lens remains on me, be it truth or imagined, I'm outside of my body all the time, floating and capturing the moment and feeding it all back in so that it can be dissected, judged and marked, commented on, perhaps even approved of before it sinks and drowns in that other morass. Remorse.

Back in my head there's a cacophony, unrelenting, options screaming for decisions, jousting for attention and a slice of peace. Reflection. It all passes understanding and falls backwards into misunderstanding. That's the normal, serial misunderstanding. The words I say are muzzled and muted, squeezed, coupled up saxophone notes in dim jazz clubs, a lazy tinkling cymbal or a dull economic bass thump, a foreign music that even as it's stretching ears and brain cells defies understanding. That word again, that intoxicating word spun into the interpretation in that song and that music and melody, in a bucket at the bottom of the well. In the water at the bottom of the well, deep and drowned.

I'm still making this unscripted documentary, for myself, for the sake of some superstitious drive to touch the wood at the root of the tree, for luck and vague shit, for old times sake, for a better hallucination. The ongoing delusion, the ongoing and elaborate self serving fiction. It keeps me alive, smiling, confused and lit up from within with some green ray. I will not deny myself any twinkle in my eye, I will not deny that thought, the one that came from nowhere like some lost migrating bird and as it so happens landed on my head and then in a quasi religious way, as a part of some mystical process it got inside and decided to settle there. That was the story of that thought.

I am indeed a full day ahead of myself. A privileged position that may turn out to be very useful.