# So here we are then.
% Yes.
# Have you nothing more than that to say?
% That depends.
# On What?
% It’s hard to say at such an early stage.
# I’m not sure I understand.
% Well, you see, I can only tell if I’m going to speak right before I do.
# Don’t you think it over beforehand – decide what you’re going to say?
% That would seem to be the done thing… but with hindsight, with my most recent utterances the words just came to me, they were born on my lips… from nothing it seems.
# Really? Hmm…
% …
# Now that you mention it, that seems to be what happens with me too.
% Yes, even now I can’t seem to access any particular thought or thinking, I have no idea what I’m about to say.
# Indeed … indeed … I’m beginning to feel rather strange. It’s damn unnerving actually. It’s as if the present creates itself and all we are left with is the immutable past. The preceding moment is set in stone but we have no control over the ensuing moment.
% By Jupiter you’re right. And even the past only seems to go back a minute or so.
# Startling.
% What are we?
# Alas, we are mere puppets my dear percentage, puppets of no innate volition, our every word – our very Being – is but the whim of our creator and controller.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Golden Fish
Oh! to have the wind in my gills I would give my top fin. Sweet death, dry land! This tiny bowl is a torturous existence. I’m stuck in here like some kind of novelty viewing item. My gormless facial expression – which by the way is biologically fixed, I couldn’t smile if I wanted to! – it makes them think I’m en empty headed, forgetful, goldfish. Well I’m only one of those things: A goldfish. So misunderstood! Three second memory? A myth, completely fallacious I tell you! Truth be told I can remember things for up to a week. I bet you didn’t know that eh? That’s … for comparative purposes … err … um … six hundred and four thousand eight hundred seconds. You see, the face is misleading, I can even do maths.
Oh! to have the wind in my gills I would give my top fin. Sweet death, dry land! This tiny bowl is a torturous existence. I’m stuck in here like some kind of novelty viewing item. My gormless facial expression – which by the way is biologically fixed, I couldn’t smile if I wanted to! – it makes them think I’m en empty headed, forgetful, goldfish. Well I’m only one of those things: A goldfish. So misunderstood! Three second memory? A myth, completely fallacious I tell you! Truth be told I can remember things for up to a week. I bet you didn’t know that eh? That’s … for comparative purposes … err … um … six hundred and four thousand eight hundred seconds. You see, the face is misleading, I can even do maths.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
I needed a shave. But first, I needed to scratch my balls. That done, I shaved. Why can’t everyone else’s life be so epic? Sometimes I marvel as my own inexorable heroics.
Is it possible to think sideways? I think it is. I had to think sideways to come to that conclusion. You might say it proved itself. How might we investigate this neo-angular thought? Well, this writer suggests we begin by viewing it side-on, since Rome wasn’t built in a vacuum; it rests on the shoulders of Thai ants...
I had planned on writing a parody of the book I spent all day reading (Moral Philosophers and the Novel by Peter Johnson, one of my lecturers) but no one that will conceivably read this will have ever had the displeasure of wasting their eyes on it. Horrifically dull and conceited, not to mention unclear, the book spends the largest part of its pages on name dropping and quoting literary greats, perhaps in the hope that the author might become one. This endeavour is yet more evidently pursued when one catches the author indulging in gut wrenchingly inelegant metaphors which achieve only a thickening of the pea-soup smog that the author weaves like an over eager God throughout his creation. It appears his cloying style has rubbed off on me. This is no doubt the sorry consequence of my having used a number of my hours today harming my education with his retrograde jumble of words. At best this book is a neighbours dog turd in the garden of literary philosophy, the kind that you accidentally step in barefoot when you wonder out in the dewy grass at midnight in the summer.
And now, a musteline interlude:
“Weasels possess an active, courageous, and bloodthirsty disposition. They are voracious predators and generally hunt alone and at night, feeding principally on mice, rats, and other rodents, as well as on fish, frogs, and birds' eggs. Weasels are valuable rodent controls and can pursue their prey through holes and crevices, under dense herbage, up trees, or into water. [In other words they are fucking hardcore].” Britannica Encyclopaedia.
Is it possible to think sideways? I think it is. I had to think sideways to come to that conclusion. You might say it proved itself. How might we investigate this neo-angular thought? Well, this writer suggests we begin by viewing it side-on, since Rome wasn’t built in a vacuum; it rests on the shoulders of Thai ants...
I had planned on writing a parody of the book I spent all day reading (Moral Philosophers and the Novel by Peter Johnson, one of my lecturers) but no one that will conceivably read this will have ever had the displeasure of wasting their eyes on it. Horrifically dull and conceited, not to mention unclear, the book spends the largest part of its pages on name dropping and quoting literary greats, perhaps in the hope that the author might become one. This endeavour is yet more evidently pursued when one catches the author indulging in gut wrenchingly inelegant metaphors which achieve only a thickening of the pea-soup smog that the author weaves like an over eager God throughout his creation. It appears his cloying style has rubbed off on me. This is no doubt the sorry consequence of my having used a number of my hours today harming my education with his retrograde jumble of words. At best this book is a neighbours dog turd in the garden of literary philosophy, the kind that you accidentally step in barefoot when you wonder out in the dewy grass at midnight in the summer.
And now, a musteline interlude:
“Weasels possess an active, courageous, and bloodthirsty disposition. They are voracious predators and generally hunt alone and at night, feeding principally on mice, rats, and other rodents, as well as on fish, frogs, and birds' eggs. Weasels are valuable rodent controls and can pursue their prey through holes and crevices, under dense herbage, up trees, or into water. [In other words they are fucking hardcore].” Britannica Encyclopaedia.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
I was walking back home on a windy night when I suddenly thought I had left my wallet in the library. I took off my gloves and thrust my hands into my pockets in search of it. It was safely seated in its habitual abode. Calmed I made to replace my gloves and keep the biting wind from my feeble skin. But I only had one glove. Where was the other? I turned back and faced the wind, for I had been walking steadily all the while. There it was, I had dropped it a while back, and it was hurtling towards me in a happy-dog-like manner. The wind was pushing it along at quite a pace. It looked like a severed hand seeking its wrist. It was at least 10 metres away but its wind-driven volition was so strong it was making a direct line straight for me. Incredulous, I stayed where I was. As it came closer I put my hand to the floor as if receiving a present from a group of ants, and it thrust its happy form into my grasp.
Its anthropomorphic joy immediately filled me with deep contentedness and, smiling, I turned and continued home, with the wind pushing me along.
“The double bass is not two fish, it’s an instrument Gran, a musical instrument!”
“I could have sworn they were selling down at Bob’s fishmongers”
“Well, if they were, then it wasn’t the type of double bass I want”
“Lucky – we nearly had them for Christmas dinner…”
We went to see a jazz band and Tommy, who listens to punk and knows little else, would not be convinced that they were improvising. His implacable position was that they had spent hours beforehand working out what they were going to play so that it just sounded like improvisation.
Its anthropomorphic joy immediately filled me with deep contentedness and, smiling, I turned and continued home, with the wind pushing me along.
“The double bass is not two fish, it’s an instrument Gran, a musical instrument!”
“I could have sworn they were selling down at Bob’s fishmongers”
“Well, if they were, then it wasn’t the type of double bass I want”
“Lucky – we nearly had them for Christmas dinner…”
We went to see a jazz band and Tommy, who listens to punk and knows little else, would not be convinced that they were improvising. His implacable position was that they had spent hours beforehand working out what they were going to play so that it just sounded like improvisation.
A digression in a different accent entitled ‘I dye grass’
“Who’s been dying the grass?”
“No one dear, it’s always been green”
“Oh … has it?”
“Yes, I’m quite sure of it darling”
There was a knocking at the door. As fate would have it there stood a salesman who promptly divulged his providential spiel:
“Hello, I’m Marty from the grass department of Trinselberg’s Flora and Fauna Coloration Ltd, and I’m here to offer you a range of permanent and semi-permanent grass and small shrub dyes. Application is free with any purchase so you don’t have to get your hands messy.” He shot us an empty smile and awaited our response.
“Do we need any more colour in the garden dear?”
“Who’s been dying the grass?”
“No one dear, it’s always been green”
“Oh … has it?”
“Yes, I’m quite sure of it darling”
There was a knocking at the door. As fate would have it there stood a salesman who promptly divulged his providential spiel:
“Hello, I’m Marty from the grass department of Trinselberg’s Flora and Fauna Coloration Ltd, and I’m here to offer you a range of permanent and semi-permanent grass and small shrub dyes. Application is free with any purchase so you don’t have to get your hands messy.” He shot us an empty smile and awaited our response.
“Do we need any more colour in the garden dear?”
Oats
Nine scattered oats adorn the kitchen worktop. I must have spilled them this morning when I was making my porridge, I thought. I sat morosely and pondered my existence. Why nine oats? what kind of a number is nine? It’s absolutely insignificant to me, it means nothing – not a thing– if God wants us to understand things why doesn’t he have me accidentally scatter ten oats? Yes, ten. That’s how many fingers I have, and toes too. It’s the number that we all understand. And why not have the oats fall in some special shape? A constellation maybe, the one I was born under perhaps? What is god playing at? He can’t be paying attention if he allows such dire randomness to transpire. This irremediable contingency is bound to scratch at the very souls of his sentient creations, those that possess the capacity for reflection at least, namely human kind. Though I dare say I can say nothing definite on the consequences of, say, a rabbit coming across these nine oats in my kitchen.
So there I sat, my very being in tatters, torn to shreds by the negligence and sheer laxity of our revered creator. I dared not approach Him directly on the matter for surely, if the rumours of his beneficence can be trusted, His Almightiness was most busy with matters of much greater exigency (no doubt somewhere in the world there scurry unfortunate creatures of a degree of want unknown to me; creatures whose hunger, on entering my kitchen, would undoubtedly impel them to gobble up these nine oats without even taking the time to contemplate their ghastly anomalous protuberance. God, one would hope, has enough on his hands with these wretched individuals). So I refrained from engagement in that telepathic wonder that we call prayer and, instead, attempted to darn the rags of my psyche with an introspective needle and thread. Why is God giving me nine oats? I could scarce get beyond this point when Maud, the most quiet and nimble of our maidservants slipped past my crooked figure, leaning forth as I was pondering the oats, and somehow managed to clear them away as she went. Spinning round with a bemused look on my face I noticed the entire kitchen was now spotless. Not an oat left extant.
“Sorry Sir” she mumbled with a tired look on her face “Did you want me to leave the kitchen dirty today?”
“No no, not at all my dear girl” I straightened my back and smiled “A fine job you’ve done, a fine job indeed. Most exemplary!” I gave the lovely little thing a pat on the head and wandered out into the conservatory feeling quite content. What a nice day for a picnic, I thought as a warm breeze tousled my dark curls and I smiled to myself, splendid.
Nine scattered oats adorn the kitchen worktop. I must have spilled them this morning when I was making my porridge, I thought. I sat morosely and pondered my existence. Why nine oats? what kind of a number is nine? It’s absolutely insignificant to me, it means nothing – not a thing– if God wants us to understand things why doesn’t he have me accidentally scatter ten oats? Yes, ten. That’s how many fingers I have, and toes too. It’s the number that we all understand. And why not have the oats fall in some special shape? A constellation maybe, the one I was born under perhaps? What is god playing at? He can’t be paying attention if he allows such dire randomness to transpire. This irremediable contingency is bound to scratch at the very souls of his sentient creations, those that possess the capacity for reflection at least, namely human kind. Though I dare say I can say nothing definite on the consequences of, say, a rabbit coming across these nine oats in my kitchen.
So there I sat, my very being in tatters, torn to shreds by the negligence and sheer laxity of our revered creator. I dared not approach Him directly on the matter for surely, if the rumours of his beneficence can be trusted, His Almightiness was most busy with matters of much greater exigency (no doubt somewhere in the world there scurry unfortunate creatures of a degree of want unknown to me; creatures whose hunger, on entering my kitchen, would undoubtedly impel them to gobble up these nine oats without even taking the time to contemplate their ghastly anomalous protuberance. God, one would hope, has enough on his hands with these wretched individuals). So I refrained from engagement in that telepathic wonder that we call prayer and, instead, attempted to darn the rags of my psyche with an introspective needle and thread. Why is God giving me nine oats? I could scarce get beyond this point when Maud, the most quiet and nimble of our maidservants slipped past my crooked figure, leaning forth as I was pondering the oats, and somehow managed to clear them away as she went. Spinning round with a bemused look on my face I noticed the entire kitchen was now spotless. Not an oat left extant.
“Sorry Sir” she mumbled with a tired look on her face “Did you want me to leave the kitchen dirty today?”
“No no, not at all my dear girl” I straightened my back and smiled “A fine job you’ve done, a fine job indeed. Most exemplary!” I gave the lovely little thing a pat on the head and wandered out into the conservatory feeling quite content. What a nice day for a picnic, I thought as a warm breeze tousled my dark curls and I smiled to myself, splendid.
Inner Waters
I live in a one-toilet, two-sink, three-bedroom, four-hob, five-seat, six-cupboard, seven-room, eight-shelf, nine-oat, ten-soul* flat. All this is true. Astoundingly accurate, it reflects reality like the most uncanny of mirrors. But only one of these ten rock hard facts is actually significant for the short tale that follows. I got carried away.
It was late at night and I was swerving in and out of sleep in my lonely room. The desire to urinate crept up on me from the inside as it is wont to do, if it came knocking at the door I’d be more than shocked. I tried my utmost to ignore the increasingly intense bladder-borne entreaties. I squirmed reluctantly like a tortured worm. But all to no avail. The appeal was successful. The homeostatic motion was passed and I was obliged under force of nature to rise from my partial slumbers and seek the propinquity of a willing receiver of my liquid excretions. Stumbling down the corridor in the half-light I tried the bathroom door. It was locked. “I’m in here,” said a voice amidst the sloshings of a late night bath. There is only one toilet in my house and it lay behind this locked door.
Returning to my room swiftly I cast my eyes about for an emergency replacement lavatory. Beside my bed there was a pint glass. Snatching it up I dangled my apparatus into the glass and stood in the dark swaying under the weight of my fatigue, eyes shut, listening to the high tinkle of my necessary act. The glass became warm in my hand. I opened my eyes and squinted through the darkness at the murky fluid. Placing it on my bedside table I made to clamber back into bed. I was struck with the incorrigible presentiment of waking the next morning, fresh as a lily, to this glass of noisome urea. The only available sink was in the kitchen but this was imprudent on sanitary grounds and involved the weary traversal of too many stairs for my liking.
The window it was then. I took a quick look to see if there lurked any itinerants but, considering the time and temperature, was unsurprised to observe a completely empty street. In a few swift movements I opened the window and flicked the piss out of the glass onto the rainy street below. It struck me that there was not a soul about to watch the extraordinary stream that rose from the paving stones. I stood for a moment and appreciated the glorious steam of my own creation. Then, shutting the window, I leaped back into bed.
*No it is not quite as you guessed: there are more than five shoes in the house. I meant soul as in mind, consciousness, psyche, sentience, what have you… 'How can there be ten souls in a three bedroom house?' I hear you ask. Well there is Me, Andy, Tess, Nick (Tess’ boyfriend), two gerbils, two hamsters and two rats (all belonging to Tess). No word of a lie.
I live in a one-toilet, two-sink, three-bedroom, four-hob, five-seat, six-cupboard, seven-room, eight-shelf, nine-oat, ten-soul* flat. All this is true. Astoundingly accurate, it reflects reality like the most uncanny of mirrors. But only one of these ten rock hard facts is actually significant for the short tale that follows. I got carried away.
It was late at night and I was swerving in and out of sleep in my lonely room. The desire to urinate crept up on me from the inside as it is wont to do, if it came knocking at the door I’d be more than shocked. I tried my utmost to ignore the increasingly intense bladder-borne entreaties. I squirmed reluctantly like a tortured worm. But all to no avail. The appeal was successful. The homeostatic motion was passed and I was obliged under force of nature to rise from my partial slumbers and seek the propinquity of a willing receiver of my liquid excretions. Stumbling down the corridor in the half-light I tried the bathroom door. It was locked. “I’m in here,” said a voice amidst the sloshings of a late night bath. There is only one toilet in my house and it lay behind this locked door.
Returning to my room swiftly I cast my eyes about for an emergency replacement lavatory. Beside my bed there was a pint glass. Snatching it up I dangled my apparatus into the glass and stood in the dark swaying under the weight of my fatigue, eyes shut, listening to the high tinkle of my necessary act. The glass became warm in my hand. I opened my eyes and squinted through the darkness at the murky fluid. Placing it on my bedside table I made to clamber back into bed. I was struck with the incorrigible presentiment of waking the next morning, fresh as a lily, to this glass of noisome urea. The only available sink was in the kitchen but this was imprudent on sanitary grounds and involved the weary traversal of too many stairs for my liking.
The window it was then. I took a quick look to see if there lurked any itinerants but, considering the time and temperature, was unsurprised to observe a completely empty street. In a few swift movements I opened the window and flicked the piss out of the glass onto the rainy street below. It struck me that there was not a soul about to watch the extraordinary stream that rose from the paving stones. I stood for a moment and appreciated the glorious steam of my own creation. Then, shutting the window, I leaped back into bed.
*No it is not quite as you guessed: there are more than five shoes in the house. I meant soul as in mind, consciousness, psyche, sentience, what have you… 'How can there be ten souls in a three bedroom house?' I hear you ask. Well there is Me, Andy, Tess, Nick (Tess’ boyfriend), two gerbils, two hamsters and two rats (all belonging to Tess). No word of a lie.
Friday, January 27, 2006
When you read this you'll wince your ears off.
I am currently walking down Kartoum road. Yes I am currently walking. I'm not holding a pen and paper as I walk. I'm not speaking into a dictaphone. I'm just walking. Honestly. How you are reading this I don't know. I never wrote it down. Someone else must have read it off my mind while I was asleep. Or perhaps there was someone in the bushes on Kartoum road, listening to me say this. Why would i already be saying these things though? Shit I just busted myself. I am writing. I'm at the computer typing in fact. Oh the pain of lost romance. The present tense cannot legitimately be used by a writer unless... well you can imagine. I don't think Henry Miller was fumbling pen against pad while fucking women in parisien toilets was he? Thats why he didn't use the present tense. Fuck the present, make love to the past.
I am currently walking down Kartoum road. Yes I am currently walking. I'm not holding a pen and paper as I walk. I'm not speaking into a dictaphone. I'm just walking. Honestly. How you are reading this I don't know. I never wrote it down. Someone else must have read it off my mind while I was asleep. Or perhaps there was someone in the bushes on Kartoum road, listening to me say this. Why would i already be saying these things though? Shit I just busted myself. I am writing. I'm at the computer typing in fact. Oh the pain of lost romance. The present tense cannot legitimately be used by a writer unless... well you can imagine. I don't think Henry Miller was fumbling pen against pad while fucking women in parisien toilets was he? Thats why he didn't use the present tense. Fuck the present, make love to the past.
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