Saturday, January 31, 2009
the vegan buffet
“All finished there?” The plate was moving away and so was the table, and my chair seemed to be following it into the murky underground kitchen. Two strapping Indian men in loincloths and oiled chests swung meat cleavers around their heads like half-full shopping bags, and their first born adult son, strapped to the manacles on the stainless steel work surface, embraced his rapidly nearing sacrifice, crude black fiber-tip lines illustrating the incisions 1-2-3-4, and the first seemed to be straight across the chest, and the men and the boy both sang American folk songs, "Chimes of Freedom", and the sign outside said ‘Vegan Buffet’ so I wondered, still holding my fork and serviette, if there wasn’t maybe another kitchen, in-keeping with the Vegan ethos, where a boy wasn’t going to be cut apart in merriment as another city sacrifice.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
the girl with hands like an alien zygote
There is a girl I know, local girl, with hands like an alien zygote. Her fingers red and unusual, like suckered gripping tendrils to wrap unmoving around humanities weakest points, depositing eggs in an act of aggressive reproduction. They flit nervously – the hands – from task to task, the tendons pulsing beneath the cellophane-thin skin like a bizarre musical instrument, like an alien zygote. Perhaps their rigor-mortis hue is explained by a poor circulation, a baby strangled by her own umbilical cord with lasting life-effects, or perhaps it is the product of something far more extraterrestrial? When they approach me in purple – brandishing paperwork or cigarette lighters – I feel nervous, even afraid.
Addicted to coffee she prowls the aisles of the city’s leading department stores emitting a deep, rich aroma, crushed by the weight of her hands alien properties. They pass me and I shiver impulsively, unavoidably imagining them in a sexual context, running down the xylophonic rack of her ribs, circling her imperceptible aureole, the cold palms clamped remorseless over my thighs as we buck together in abandon of the horror of it all, my sweat drying cold in the muffled light of afternoon.
Her body had entered the public domain. The inexplicable tightness of her vaginal tract means that she has taken myriad lovers, but each of them would always eventually reveal some terrible fear of the very hands that aroused them, screaming out at the girls gestures, the image of John Hurt – comatose and fallen prey to so personal an invasion, a helpless vessel of the alien infant’s unorthodox methods – simply too much to bear, overshadowing even the might of a crooked orgasm.
Her yearning for love was matched only by her crushing self-doubt. Not a glove in the world could hide the hands that hung at her sides with all the calculation of an alien zygote, the fingers of disproportionate lengths, the palms mottled like an injury. At home she wept to see them, compulsively scrubbing at their oddity with soap and scouring pads, somehow hoping to wash their truth away, to immerse them in a secular baptism of regularity by consensus, of humanity. By morning they were always still there, more alien than ever in demonstrative rebellion of the previous nights exorcistic purging.
What did she do with her days, this girl? Did she walk or run, laugh or scream, did her hands glow through the din of modernity with their red red blood vessels, their stringy physiology? Where were her friends and where lay her family? She intrigued me from my melancholy, she fuelled my fantasies.
She moved encircled by loneliness. She bought drinks for one, an isolated organism defeated by the dance floor. She made her meals with the minimum of preparation, the cheap ingredients held together by nothing but the crockery. She wrote conversational responses to her own tepid questions on pieces of scrap paper, which she hid around the house; when she unearthed them days or even weeks later it felt spontaneous, like an unexpected chat with a person she almost knew.
Eventually she secured a job as a hand puppeteer for a children’s television show. She always played the alien characters, using her nasal and slightly fractured voice to good effect. The director said that the best thing about her was that she didn’t require any puppets to play her characters, because her creepy sausage-coloured fingers already looked so much like the antennae or tendrils of an alien zygote, a hideous extraterrestrial symbiosis with arachnid characteristics somehow formed on the ends of her arms. This made significant savings to the shows budget. The palms dotted with crude make up, her hands took on a life of their own, interacting with the camera with incredible proficiency. She drew massive audiences for her performances, but it was due more to the kind of morbid curiosity that attracts us to accidents than it was for the validity of her representations. The public demanded her abnormality, even idolised it in their revulsion, at once fascinated and disgusted by such deformity to the point of reverence.
When she had first started the job the sound engineer had told her that his name was Adrian and, uninvited, described himself as a man of bizarre sexual passions. She didn’t ask what this meant, and they ended up on a makeshift bed in an unused room somewhere in the studio. After their sex, he had thrown up on her. It came through his fingers, as though he had tried weakly to stop it, and he did look disgusted. She couldn’t be sure if it was a routine part of his penchant for bizarre lovemaking, or if it was a response to the hands that looked so much like an alien zygote.
The coffee on her breath had more than a tinge of decay. “When oh when shall I ever be happy?” she thought. “Or, even, less sad?” She applied the alien make up to her hands herself, and slipped into character: Emperor Filament – Beast of the Moons.
It was a life, of sorts.
Addicted to coffee she prowls the aisles of the city’s leading department stores emitting a deep, rich aroma, crushed by the weight of her hands alien properties. They pass me and I shiver impulsively, unavoidably imagining them in a sexual context, running down the xylophonic rack of her ribs, circling her imperceptible aureole, the cold palms clamped remorseless over my thighs as we buck together in abandon of the horror of it all, my sweat drying cold in the muffled light of afternoon.
Her body had entered the public domain. The inexplicable tightness of her vaginal tract means that she has taken myriad lovers, but each of them would always eventually reveal some terrible fear of the very hands that aroused them, screaming out at the girls gestures, the image of John Hurt – comatose and fallen prey to so personal an invasion, a helpless vessel of the alien infant’s unorthodox methods – simply too much to bear, overshadowing even the might of a crooked orgasm.
Her yearning for love was matched only by her crushing self-doubt. Not a glove in the world could hide the hands that hung at her sides with all the calculation of an alien zygote, the fingers of disproportionate lengths, the palms mottled like an injury. At home she wept to see them, compulsively scrubbing at their oddity with soap and scouring pads, somehow hoping to wash their truth away, to immerse them in a secular baptism of regularity by consensus, of humanity. By morning they were always still there, more alien than ever in demonstrative rebellion of the previous nights exorcistic purging.
What did she do with her days, this girl? Did she walk or run, laugh or scream, did her hands glow through the din of modernity with their red red blood vessels, their stringy physiology? Where were her friends and where lay her family? She intrigued me from my melancholy, she fuelled my fantasies.
She moved encircled by loneliness. She bought drinks for one, an isolated organism defeated by the dance floor. She made her meals with the minimum of preparation, the cheap ingredients held together by nothing but the crockery. She wrote conversational responses to her own tepid questions on pieces of scrap paper, which she hid around the house; when she unearthed them days or even weeks later it felt spontaneous, like an unexpected chat with a person she almost knew.
Eventually she secured a job as a hand puppeteer for a children’s television show. She always played the alien characters, using her nasal and slightly fractured voice to good effect. The director said that the best thing about her was that she didn’t require any puppets to play her characters, because her creepy sausage-coloured fingers already looked so much like the antennae or tendrils of an alien zygote, a hideous extraterrestrial symbiosis with arachnid characteristics somehow formed on the ends of her arms. This made significant savings to the shows budget. The palms dotted with crude make up, her hands took on a life of their own, interacting with the camera with incredible proficiency. She drew massive audiences for her performances, but it was due more to the kind of morbid curiosity that attracts us to accidents than it was for the validity of her representations. The public demanded her abnormality, even idolised it in their revulsion, at once fascinated and disgusted by such deformity to the point of reverence.
When she had first started the job the sound engineer had told her that his name was Adrian and, uninvited, described himself as a man of bizarre sexual passions. She didn’t ask what this meant, and they ended up on a makeshift bed in an unused room somewhere in the studio. After their sex, he had thrown up on her. It came through his fingers, as though he had tried weakly to stop it, and he did look disgusted. She couldn’t be sure if it was a routine part of his penchant for bizarre lovemaking, or if it was a response to the hands that looked so much like an alien zygote.
The coffee on her breath had more than a tinge of decay. “When oh when shall I ever be happy?” she thought. “Or, even, less sad?” She applied the alien make up to her hands herself, and slipped into character: Emperor Filament – Beast of the Moons.
It was a life, of sorts.
Friday, January 16, 2009
can I be the Starsky to your Hutch?
We only met because you know someone I like, but it doesn’t stop me wanting you all the same, and spending my time in thinking about sleeping with you. It would be good to see the way your face looks when I stroke your entire body with the tip of my tongue, and kissing you on the mouth, and looking deep into your eyes while I push myself right up inside you.
Please ride the beachside electric railway into my soul.
Play with my shirt buttons.
Rub your hairless toes against my erratic shins. The skin feels taut like a nectarine, sweet and full of promise.
We will kiss each other’s faces tired on a mattress until morning, when we can finally fall asleep with the curtains open and the cold sun pouring in, as if we have passed some test or won a competition.
The month is February.
My awkward hands don’t know where to lie when I learn your body for the first time again.
You remind me of outside, far from these walls.
The dust drips from the ceiling in a beam of light that we made blue with cigarette smoke.
I will make you breakfast with bacon and eggs and hot fresh bread. Even if it never gets made we can enjoy it to pieces with our conversation.
“Can I be your Starsky?” I will ask with blue eyes.
You will hold me tight and won’t whisper anything.
Please ride the beachside electric railway into my soul.
Play with my shirt buttons.
Rub your hairless toes against my erratic shins. The skin feels taut like a nectarine, sweet and full of promise.
We will kiss each other’s faces tired on a mattress until morning, when we can finally fall asleep with the curtains open and the cold sun pouring in, as if we have passed some test or won a competition.
The month is February.
My awkward hands don’t know where to lie when I learn your body for the first time again.
You remind me of outside, far from these walls.
The dust drips from the ceiling in a beam of light that we made blue with cigarette smoke.
I will make you breakfast with bacon and eggs and hot fresh bread. Even if it never gets made we can enjoy it to pieces with our conversation.
“Can I be your Starsky?” I will ask with blue eyes.
You will hold me tight and won’t whisper anything.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
a pancake story
This fat friend of mine and I once decided - after his mother had gone out of the house for a while - to try our youthful hands at making up a batch of pancakes. I gently beat the ingredients together while he watched, excitedly gasping with his meaty glistening tongue ever-so-slightly jutting out of his mouth because he wasn't that bright. When the batter had reached the appropriate consistency I heated a knob of margarine in a medium sized frying pan and coated the non-stick base in the creamy mixture, tilting the pan with an air of professionalism to ensure a full coverage.
The first pancake came out way too thick, as first pancakes often will, but we scoffed it up anyway with artificial lemon juice and sugar. The doughy texture seemed to agree with my fat friend. To my surprise, the second attempt was not any better, nor were the third, fourth or fifth attempts.
"Shit," I probably said.
By this time I had completely lost faith and hope in the project and just wanted to watch TV. Just then my fat friend inexplicably panicked about what his mother would say when she found out that we had tried to make pancakes, and I waited on edge for the inevitable moment when he would thoughtlessly hyperventilate while I tried to comfort him and dry the spittle from his downy moustache.
I told him to pour the remainder of the incriminating batter down the sink, but he said that was no good and frantically held the jug to his lips and began to pour it down his choking throat, gagging odd flecks of the mixture out through his widened nostrils. We put the last dregs in the back flowerbed. I'll never forget his face, wide, teary and streaked with pancake.
The first pancake came out way too thick, as first pancakes often will, but we scoffed it up anyway with artificial lemon juice and sugar. The doughy texture seemed to agree with my fat friend. To my surprise, the second attempt was not any better, nor were the third, fourth or fifth attempts.
"Shit," I probably said.
By this time I had completely lost faith and hope in the project and just wanted to watch TV. Just then my fat friend inexplicably panicked about what his mother would say when she found out that we had tried to make pancakes, and I waited on edge for the inevitable moment when he would thoughtlessly hyperventilate while I tried to comfort him and dry the spittle from his downy moustache.
I told him to pour the remainder of the incriminating batter down the sink, but he said that was no good and frantically held the jug to his lips and began to pour it down his choking throat, gagging odd flecks of the mixture out through his widened nostrils. We put the last dregs in the back flowerbed. I'll never forget his face, wide, teary and streaked with pancake.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
the girl and the tiger
It was a drab morning with traffic like an afternoon shadow that slunk through the streets with a sinister cough. A little girl in a pink frock with flowers across the stomach skipped by an unusual tiger, who looked funny in a dress shirt standing solidly on four paws beneath the blue and white striped awning of a small persistent greengrocers.
Three pomegranates: £0.75p.
One red apple: £0.16p.
What a cheap apple, thought the girl in the pink frock.
She saw the tiger between the pumpkins and a pile of sacks which all contained onions. She smiled like daybreak. The pumpkins weren’t quite ripe and still had patches of green on their orange sides, whilst the onions smelt a little too ripe. This is often the case with the produce in a greengrocers, she thought. Perhaps the severity of the pavement and the faces of the customers constantly watching the sacks of onions made them turn bad quicker than they otherwise might in the vegetable rack at home. It wasn’t for the tiger to pay much attention to either the vegetables or to the little girl who stood alone in the street. In front of him she asked from nowhere:
“Where are we going to go?”
The tiger blinked slowly. If he hadn’t been covered head to toe in luxurious striped fur that was as warm as a good coat I think he would have blushed.
“We could go to my place,” he said quietly. The little girl thought he had a slightly Germanic accent, but found it unlikely. After all, there aren’t many tigers in Germany. “It’s just this way.”
He started off down the street, past the butchers and the turf accountancy and the church and some dogs sniffing at a lamppost, and the little girl took a big bite out of a juicy red apple and quickly skipped after him.
*
They had seemed to walk for hours and hours, all the way out of town, over the old bridge, over the new bridge, through the cemetery where Gravedigger Pete said hello and rubbed his eyes in disbelief at the sight of the tiger, until eventually they both stopped, a little out of breath.
“This is it,” said the tiger. He gestured towards a charming cottage hung thickly with ivy. The windows were clean here.
“I didn’t expect tigers to live in houses like this,” said the girl sweetly. She is sweet, thought the tiger.
“Caves are a crude myth, dummy.”
She belched while the tiger opened the front door with a heart shaped key. Everything clicked into place.
There was only one room, full of glass boxes each about the size of a standard single bedroom.
“WELCOME!” came the exclamation.
“What the heck is… that?” The girl felt warm tears flowing down her face but was unable to ascertain mentally the emotion with which they were connected.
“It’s tiger time!”
Good God almighty!
*
Draw a thick black line about three inches long. Cross it.
*
It was like an explosive and dangerous dream without enough blankets. I am a naughty boy.
“You twisted awkward gangling shit.” The face looks like a cookie jar.
Tiger bones rattling rhythmically, hauntingly down a steel fire escape. Dong, dong, dong, dong, thud. Is this a Chinese preparation? Scrap the olives. All reasons are inexplicable.
Breezeblock fashion show, red cage white dais, snarling paw fuck frenzy.
The little girl had her socks pulled up to her knees and her black leathers had shiny silver buckles and she looked very smart standing sobbing with her swollen red face.
“Where’s my twenty-five you fucker?”
“Watch yourself around that because that’s likes um they’s self, hear me?”
And like slow motion cinematography:
Apple core falling,
Brown-turning before our eyes,
Floor-contact-apple-core-crushed,
Pulse my vein eyes,
Flare my nostrils,
Quiver my lips,
Cock the sails.
I had never heard a scream like that before, as though hair became wet of its own accord, drip drip. Tiger: reading a newspaper; Tiger: preparing vegetables; Tiger: a wicked smile.
In a residential part of town the porch man exterminates flies in honour of his dead wife – the porch leers and creaks like his dead happy wife – who still sits in her easy chair and whom he lovingly fucks every night and tenderly dresses every morning, his dead dead wife.
“I’ll wipe your chin dear… ummsperm…”
“Whaddaya think of the place?”
Answers in a saucepan.
*
Dad catches up on the newspapers and mum makes fish-steaks for tea and the condiments remind me of a party bag, laid out on the midweek tablecloth.
*
The tiger raised a paw gently to the little girls hand and smiled warmly.
“Perhaps somewhat overwhelming?” he asked, and referenced their surroundings with a well-placed head movement. The little girl nodded and almost broke a moist smile. There were businesslike tigers all over the place, some in the glass boxes and some doing regular activities about the house. One tiger sang Aretha Franklin and watered plants. Undoubtedly it was a significant amount of stimuli for one so small to take in, thought the original tiger sympathetically.
A sign said: PLEASE FEED THE TIGERS!
Another said: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A TIGER TO LIVE HERE… BUT IT HELPS!
Good old-fashioned tiger humour, thought the girl. “What do you guys do here?” she asked. “I was scared just now but I think I’m okay. Can we play some games? Or maybe just have some fun? That would be excellent, Tiger.”
Tigers have faces too, and this one said something about never having children in the ever-so-slight raise of an eyebrow while he looked around for a red rubber ball.
*
“Now what shall we do now what shall we do?” pressed the little girl to a tiger who was tired. Playing ball could be tiring after a hard day spent wearing a shirt.
“Maybe it’s time you got going? I’m sure your parents are beginning to get worried, after all. You have been here for three days now.” He seemed to be talking with an air of nervousness, like he had stolen a lucky deck of adult playing cards.
The little girl put on her sour face. This made the tiger wince. He had seen it one too many times and thought about snarling, but dismissed it with an air of civility.
“But I like it here with you tigers,” she said pleadingly.
“I know, and we like having you. But you must go.”
They looked at each other for an amount of seconds.
“Okay,” she agreed, and kissed him lovingly on the forehead and skipped out of the front door without saying thank you.
Heaving breath of tiger relief.
*
“Yes officer, this dinner’s been on this table for three days, just waiting for her to come home to her beloved old mum and daddy. A man in the high street last saw her with a tiger!”
The officer frowned past his moustache.
“Those… fucking tigers, missus. I knew it was only a matter of time before trouble started with those furry sons of bitches. I have a stressful job, sir.”
“You don’t mean…”
“I’m afraid so, couple.”
Heads hung with choking gasps. The vengeful insistent eyes of the frustrated policeman: “Better get the boys.”
The boys can’t change what hasn’t happened, but nobody thought of that, did they?
*
The last thing the tigers saw was a flash of unusually blue sky as stretch-guy police officers unloaded their rifles through the open front door.
*
And the little girl just got home, in proclamation:
“What a wonderful time I’ve had mummy!”
Three pomegranates: £0.75p.
One red apple: £0.16p.
What a cheap apple, thought the girl in the pink frock.
She saw the tiger between the pumpkins and a pile of sacks which all contained onions. She smiled like daybreak. The pumpkins weren’t quite ripe and still had patches of green on their orange sides, whilst the onions smelt a little too ripe. This is often the case with the produce in a greengrocers, she thought. Perhaps the severity of the pavement and the faces of the customers constantly watching the sacks of onions made them turn bad quicker than they otherwise might in the vegetable rack at home. It wasn’t for the tiger to pay much attention to either the vegetables or to the little girl who stood alone in the street. In front of him she asked from nowhere:
“Where are we going to go?”
The tiger blinked slowly. If he hadn’t been covered head to toe in luxurious striped fur that was as warm as a good coat I think he would have blushed.
“We could go to my place,” he said quietly. The little girl thought he had a slightly Germanic accent, but found it unlikely. After all, there aren’t many tigers in Germany. “It’s just this way.”
He started off down the street, past the butchers and the turf accountancy and the church and some dogs sniffing at a lamppost, and the little girl took a big bite out of a juicy red apple and quickly skipped after him.
*
They had seemed to walk for hours and hours, all the way out of town, over the old bridge, over the new bridge, through the cemetery where Gravedigger Pete said hello and rubbed his eyes in disbelief at the sight of the tiger, until eventually they both stopped, a little out of breath.
“This is it,” said the tiger. He gestured towards a charming cottage hung thickly with ivy. The windows were clean here.
“I didn’t expect tigers to live in houses like this,” said the girl sweetly. She is sweet, thought the tiger.
“Caves are a crude myth, dummy.”
She belched while the tiger opened the front door with a heart shaped key. Everything clicked into place.
There was only one room, full of glass boxes each about the size of a standard single bedroom.
“WELCOME!” came the exclamation.
“What the heck is… that?” The girl felt warm tears flowing down her face but was unable to ascertain mentally the emotion with which they were connected.
“It’s tiger time!”
Good God almighty!
*
Draw a thick black line about three inches long. Cross it.
*
It was like an explosive and dangerous dream without enough blankets. I am a naughty boy.
“You twisted awkward gangling shit.” The face looks like a cookie jar.
Tiger bones rattling rhythmically, hauntingly down a steel fire escape. Dong, dong, dong, dong, thud. Is this a Chinese preparation? Scrap the olives. All reasons are inexplicable.
Breezeblock fashion show, red cage white dais, snarling paw fuck frenzy.
The little girl had her socks pulled up to her knees and her black leathers had shiny silver buckles and she looked very smart standing sobbing with her swollen red face.
“Where’s my twenty-five you fucker?”
“Watch yourself around that because that’s likes um they’s self, hear me?”
And like slow motion cinematography:
Apple core falling,
Brown-turning before our eyes,
Floor-contact-apple-core-crushed,
Pulse my vein eyes,
Flare my nostrils,
Quiver my lips,
Cock the sails.
I had never heard a scream like that before, as though hair became wet of its own accord, drip drip. Tiger: reading a newspaper; Tiger: preparing vegetables; Tiger: a wicked smile.
In a residential part of town the porch man exterminates flies in honour of his dead wife – the porch leers and creaks like his dead happy wife – who still sits in her easy chair and whom he lovingly fucks every night and tenderly dresses every morning, his dead dead wife.
“I’ll wipe your chin dear… ummsperm…”
“Whaddaya think of the place?”
Answers in a saucepan.
*
Dad catches up on the newspapers and mum makes fish-steaks for tea and the condiments remind me of a party bag, laid out on the midweek tablecloth.
*
The tiger raised a paw gently to the little girls hand and smiled warmly.
“Perhaps somewhat overwhelming?” he asked, and referenced their surroundings with a well-placed head movement. The little girl nodded and almost broke a moist smile. There were businesslike tigers all over the place, some in the glass boxes and some doing regular activities about the house. One tiger sang Aretha Franklin and watered plants. Undoubtedly it was a significant amount of stimuli for one so small to take in, thought the original tiger sympathetically.
A sign said: PLEASE FEED THE TIGERS!
Another said: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A TIGER TO LIVE HERE… BUT IT HELPS!
Good old-fashioned tiger humour, thought the girl. “What do you guys do here?” she asked. “I was scared just now but I think I’m okay. Can we play some games? Or maybe just have some fun? That would be excellent, Tiger.”
Tigers have faces too, and this one said something about never having children in the ever-so-slight raise of an eyebrow while he looked around for a red rubber ball.
*
“Now what shall we do now what shall we do?” pressed the little girl to a tiger who was tired. Playing ball could be tiring after a hard day spent wearing a shirt.
“Maybe it’s time you got going? I’m sure your parents are beginning to get worried, after all. You have been here for three days now.” He seemed to be talking with an air of nervousness, like he had stolen a lucky deck of adult playing cards.
The little girl put on her sour face. This made the tiger wince. He had seen it one too many times and thought about snarling, but dismissed it with an air of civility.
“But I like it here with you tigers,” she said pleadingly.
“I know, and we like having you. But you must go.”
They looked at each other for an amount of seconds.
“Okay,” she agreed, and kissed him lovingly on the forehead and skipped out of the front door without saying thank you.
Heaving breath of tiger relief.
*
“Yes officer, this dinner’s been on this table for three days, just waiting for her to come home to her beloved old mum and daddy. A man in the high street last saw her with a tiger!”
The officer frowned past his moustache.
“Those… fucking tigers, missus. I knew it was only a matter of time before trouble started with those furry sons of bitches. I have a stressful job, sir.”
“You don’t mean…”
“I’m afraid so, couple.”
Heads hung with choking gasps. The vengeful insistent eyes of the frustrated policeman: “Better get the boys.”
The boys can’t change what hasn’t happened, but nobody thought of that, did they?
*
The last thing the tigers saw was a flash of unusually blue sky as stretch-guy police officers unloaded their rifles through the open front door.
*
And the little girl just got home, in proclamation:
“What a wonderful time I’ve had mummy!”
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