Tuesday 21 December 2010

Untitled Dream Fragment

And Tim was by the stream, skooshing oil into the trickling water.
“Tim, what the hell ye doing?” queried Allen.
“Ah, you know, everyone thinks I’m like this eco-warrior or something.”
“Why are ye doing this?”
“Ah, just for a laugh really, just to piss people off.”
Tim ran into the house. Allen pursued and found each room in darkness. None of the light switches worked.
Upstairs, a room full of cardboard boxes. Tim sprang out from behind a large cardboard box and yelled AHAAARGHHH!
“AAHRGH ya bastard!” yelled Allen and promptly awoke with excruciating leg cramp.

Second Instance of Ritual Abuse

When he returned he seemed furtive, even more so than usual. The boys were quiet, the dog its usual animated self. Cut hands at the sink. A walk to see the excavators.

The Inscrutability of Certain Observed Participants

She arrived at the bar early but didn’t order a drink, she took a seat near the window and settled in to wait. Presently a young man appeared and asked her to confirm her name and the name of the man she was waiting for. She did this.
“He’s not coming… he sent me in his place,” the man explained with an enigmatic grin.
“You’re gay,” she told the man. She stood up and they left the bar together. They walked quickly and then simultaneously broke into a run, neither speaking. The woman was giggling, the man breathing deeply.

James Kelman was sitting on a park bench somewhere in Edinburgh, wearing dark shades and sipping carefully from a can of Coca Cola. He cackled suddenly for no discernible reason, spluttering coke onto his jeans. Next thing David Keenan came dancing past, a silly gleam in his eyes.
“Ya demented cunt,” giggled James Kelman. He scratched the stubble on his cheek. Keenan groaned and then farted.

“Sad to see it go. My libido that is. Ach well, we had a good run, aye, so we did.” The auld yin took a long sip on his pint then.
“You just made me waste all this money!” screamed the neurotic teenage art student, dragging her frail fingers through her straggly blonde hair.

Around dusk the swimming pool was quiet, there were no sounds except the ambient noise of insects stationed in nearby shrubbery. It was quite incredible. The sky was smudged with oranges and mauves, it was quite devastating.
He awoke. His sores throbbed. Night had fallen. Dogs barked in the distance, the sound echoed. He felt as if he hadn’t slept. The weight of everything. He was exhausted.

Nuances of the Epic Ritualised Humiliation

All participants submit themselves in total embarrassment. They are keenly aware of the sublime anguish they are about to voluntarily undergo. Unimposing shy men are financially dominated by shrewd, hysteric whores. Talented, intelligent, gorgeous women are brutalised by fat scumbags. These sicknesses repeat themselves, multiply, form a vast intricate pattern of exquisite despair. Rapists are congratulated and celebrated. Demure beautiful teenagers are forced to suck the thick, veiny cocks of obese sadists who harbour little regard for any kind of standard of personal hygiene. The worst, most tragic outcomes of any given situation are welcomed with consensual glee. A sort of sick, hysterical glee which revels in base errors and inherent vice. Satanic ideologies and psychological theories are woven into a new religion of nonchalant cruelty and spectacular violence. Effete fatalists wax philosophical on the subject of this mass moral regression as they sit in ruined public houses. The sky is a crystal clear blue, contrasting marvellously with the maroon hue of wet gore. Masked participants lurk in school playgrounds. Melancholy academics are bogged down by memory, ensconcing themselves in prestigious mental illnesses as an indicator of intellectual rigour. Waves of ennui and lethargy debilitate the populace of planet Earth on an overcast afternoon.

Saturday 20 November 2010

Device

Ah well, everything is impermanent. The way she was dancing it was like she was a device that had been activated. A manic intensity, she was impossible to approach or engage with correctly. One feels regret. Or one doesnae, what the fuck does it matter everything is impermanent.
The depth of the night. The infinite possibilities. It was astonishing, devastating. It made me ache with a trickling euphoria.

Trash

trapped inside wur heids, each one of us trapped inside wur ane heids. It wasn't exactly regrettable, it was...
sshhhh
Am just playing games, here now, dinnae fret! Hussshhhh sshhhhh c'mere now dinnae fret shhhh closer closer closer, mmm yeh dinnae fret now... touch this...

Foaming at the mouth, crying, fretting too much, fretting too much...

Shades

'Why don't you take yer pants off' he whispered and then giggled except the sound, it wasn't like a giggle, more like an hysterical shriek. She flinched at the sound. He noticed this and felt empowered. The pathetic, cowardly shite that he was.
The sky had darkened quite suddenly. A swollen purple hue. Like bruising.
He idly wondered how easily she would bruise. It wouldn't take much he decided. He would have to be careful.

Lowest

FUCKING SUCK IT, SLAVE! he screamed.
The delightfully grotesque spectacle of her vomiting over her Chuck Taylors.
They had been taking turns to rape her for going on four hours now. They had Allen keeping watch at the entrance to the ruins. He didn't question what was happening. It was likely that he didn't fully understand. But he did not question brutality. He understood brutality. He had learned brutality.

Tim was a man rendered so ineffectual he no longer understood the mechanics of pleasure. All he could grasp was his own worthlessness. He felt guilt for wanting, guilt for needing, guilt for existing. The anguish effected by the most mundane decisions embarrassed him.
Feeling his way into something huge and monstrous and
A darkness, stagnant smell, humidity, a warmth in the darkness, a gently roaring echo, a secret summer place. A tender sadness.

Untitled Farce

-Tim! Get the door would you?
-Alright Charlotte, okay!
-Just hurry up and get the fucking door would you!
-Certainly, you wizened old whore...
-What was that?
-Nothing darling! Oh! Look who's here to see us! It's Murray! Murray's here to see us!
(Applause
Murray staggers into the room in drag, dancing frenetically if a little drunkenly...
Tim aims a few jovially playful punches at Murray's shoulder, increasing in intensity until he winds up administering a thoroughly sound thrashing. Murray shrieks with delight.

-Tim! What are you doing to Murray!
-Pummelling him within inches of his life, dear.
-What was that?
-I said administering a spot of the old GBH.
-Oh. Well I do wish you wouldn't; it's thoroughly nasty behaviour and the slaves don't care for it too much.
-I'll decide what they enjoy.
Charlotte simpers.
-Such cruelty. Such strength. Such brutality.
-I'll fucking decide what they'll enjoy.
And with that Tim partially removes his trousers, sits on Murray's head, and expels a thick turd.
-Are you shiteing on the slave's head again dear?
-Yah!
-Oh I do wish you wouldn't. Frightfully unhygienic, not to mention unpleasant...
-But this little cunt fucking loves it!
-What strange things he enjoys.
Charlotte shakes her head in sad wonderment.
-Well darling, he is a nasty little whore, rememba?
-Oh yah, I suppose. What a terrible shame...
-Yah, it is a tad regrettable. Here, come watch him eat the shite...
-A grotesque spectacle if ever I witnessed one!
-You've witnessed plenty my love, since marrying me.
-This is true.

An animal being born. Millions of stars in the sky. The silent horror of gazing into an existential void.

With John

-Where is she but?
-She's in the next room with JOHN. Here, ye wantin' another game?
-She alright?
-Aye, she's with JOHN. Here, it's your turn.
-
-Dinnae worry, like. She's with JOHN. JOHN gets a shot of aw the lassies roond here.
-
-Here, it's your turn.
-
Ah've won.

FIN !

Thursday 11 November 2010

Poem II

In the theatre
my whole being aches towards her
Penguin Modern Poets
Volume V
The way she crossed her legs
I could tell she needed to pee

Monday 25 October 2010

Notebook Excerpt

'I'm so very amused by my own silliness,' the wealthy countess declared, fingering her vagina. She had just been devouring a packet of salt & vinegar crisps and felt rather chilly.
'Silly chilly willy!' she shrieked in a gorgeous cacophony. Guitars fan out across heaven.

'This is what you wanted right?' the American asked, a tremor of excitement shading his voice.
'Aye,' the wifey snapped and then yawned. Her voice was devoid of affect; she seemed morose.
'Ye sure now?' boomed Adam.
'Yeh.'
'Guid.'
'Aye.'
'Ah know.'
'Ah know anaw.'
'Aye right okay.'
'You write?'
'Naw... yeh... eh...'
Smirking and sniggering.

Sudden halt...
'Hus it burst?'
'Huv you burst?'
'Naw.'
'Huv ye came?'
'Aye.'
'Aye?'

The nurses bring me my clementines after my nightly wank, offer my mushrooms except they're disguised as bananas.

U.S. in 80s

As confident & tender
as flies by the river
the dog groans & whimpers
whilst all the fat boys simper
& we sneer malevolently
like other philanthropists
before us
the U.S. in the 60s & 70s
was a hell of a mess
I'd love to confess
yet
Ah wisnae there
Ah regret tae inform ye

New Poem

As my lips turn to leather
I remember I am made of purple
whilst I suck the cocks of all the
t-shirts I lost
& remember an overcast New York
afternoon.
The creeping weight of intellectuality
sometimes sublime

Saturday 25 September 2010

Appetite

He had lost his appetite, where that had went to he had no fucking clue. Where had that went and, as well as that, he kept getting waves of existential heebie jeebies. Other than that he was great.
Whining. Always fucking whining about his own problems. As if he didn't have an easy life.
It was amazing the extent to which people took things for granted. Like existence, for example. Sensory perception. Concepts, semblances, precedents, patterns, consensus. He kept forgetting what fucking planet he was on. He kept drifting off into slow motion reveries of silent horror.
His happy place was autumnal. A dark late afternoon, supremely peaceful and quiet.
It was mysterious how a natural reserve could build up between people. It was just the opposite of when a natural accord occurred between people. It never seemed to happen with him. He disliked mostly everyone.

The Hypnotic Spectacle

A mass, intricate pattern, too vast to be fully comprehended by any part immersed in it.
Resultantly chaos and banality occur, as does misery, despair, hope, longing...
chasms of emotion
well-being and memory
constance

animal patterns & dim animal grins
fervent cruelty

CHAPTER DOS

Satan was ambling down 5th Avenue when he witnessed a feral boy punching a fearful, feeble looking boy.
"Cool," he murmured, a sound like ice and wind chimes.
His hooves clicked methodically on the sparkling November sidewalk. The wind sounded like a radio tuned in between stations. The sky was a vast stagnant grey.
Actually it was night time. And the setting was Edinburgh, not New York. The street was Prince's Street, not 5th Avenue.
God, how he missed New York. How he missed many things. Like his girlfriend, for example.
Still, there was no point in dwelling on ancient history. He may as well relish all the opportunities for gratuitous cruelty that the present offered.

Untitled Poem

As the phaser pedals cast
their spells he
fingered the beaver of the caustic
teen.

Untitled

He was the last to leave the swimming pool. He climbed out and dried off. The sky outside was yellow. He wrote a note to let his teachers know he was the last to leave. Except his handwriting didn't look like his own. And this unnerved him.

Later he was in a field. It was a very cool night, cool and clear. He felt as if he had made a very big mistake but couldn't remember what that was. He danced around the field slowly, alone.

He ventured back to the swimming pool late the next morning. It was a typically autumnal day, quite windy. He stripped to his trunks and lowered himself into the water. He waded around, smiling serenely. He found himself thinking of a pretty lassie he knew. Next thing he knew he was semi-erect. He tried to think of other things. He felt as if someone had played a trick on him to stop his thoughts coming out properly. It was a sheer fucking drag. It wis a sheer fuckin drag so it wis. It wis a fuckin nonsense man.

He pulled his trunks down and did a jobby. He would come to regret this decision.

An investigation had been launched. The culprit was being sought. Auld tarts were eating their Weetabix in a dank, murky, alien dawn. Rage and punishment and hysteria were being incubated in preparation for being unleashed on certain hapless cunts.
Respectable eejits were forming mass circle jerks in bohemian suburban boredom centres. Beautifully ethereal whores were being used as cum dumps by studiously crass, balding, aggressive ignoramuses.

Celebrations of boredom, depravity, exploitation, desperation, seediness, brutality, injustice, despair

The solemn psuedo-mother guided the feckless washing machine idiot boy

They Who Had Deemed Him the Niggardly Simpleton

She had made a calamitous faux pas she realised abruptly, her cheeks flushing red, her eyes becoming vacant, her lips parting. Her sister gazed over at her.

The effete boy pisses himself under the stern gaze of his elder peers. Some birds flutter into the autumnal sky.

Quite unable to make sense of other people. Awoke in a fantastic whorehouse. Reluctant to store her condiments correctly.

An Angry Dilettante

"Are you singing to yourself?"
The question stopped him dead in his tracks; he was mortified.
"Check yo ego, nigga!"
An inappropriate response, it occurred to him later. As they sang to him. Those absent and fond lassies. Golden hair. Sad combs. Wide eyes and white faces.

It was merely a toast frae the lassies, the ones who had strived so hard...
She don't like me

Untitled

-You dizzy ya cunt?
-Aye.
He looked sullen, violently morose actually.
-Is that cunt dizzy?
Other voices. He continued to look down, could not look up. Vertigo, existential vertigo, of the most intense variety. Not too palatable, lad.

-Aye, and you're no gay! You're no gay ya cunt!
Exaggerated sarcasm to imply scepticism. The bus sped onwards through the dark night. Knees against plastic, metal. Tension in the calves, flinching as he moved his leg. The awareness of his drunkenness, and his manic grin.

His quiet influence was observed, only he didn't want to acknowledge it, he was reluctant in this regard.

He felt rattled by the rush, man. It wisnae good, no. He shook his head, sighed a wee bit.

Her sagacity went unquestioned, her attitudes and motives were ancient, seemed ancient, and thus seemed time-tested to an unimaginable degree.

-Why have you disappear?
Her question to him. One that required pondering; there was no simple answer. Or else it was obvious but in a really vague, ineffable way, you understand what I mean? I hope you can grasp this.

He had a lassies grinding about on his lap and wouldn't have said he objected to this state of affairs too much. It was rather agreeable in fact, truth be confessed. Oh yeh man, he wis totally getting a semi like, no question about it for fuck sake. Yeh. At this rate he would be spunking in his briechs before too long ya radge.
The lassie grasped the corner of the wall for purchase, she had a blankly feral, erotic glimmer in her eyes he imagined. He groaned and she whimpered in response. It was fairly pathetic. He began to soften.
The music went quieter. Gas flares illuminating the November sky.

Women were perverse; they saw a guy enjoying himself they wanted to stifle him, to shut him down. Merriment was disallowed.

He had to sedate himself in order to engage in various activities.

She mistook glee for an out of body experience, rather frivolously he felt.

Torment, a familiar notion at 4pm. The quiet agony of overcast skies. Incinerators just out of earshot. Welcome home, son.

A vague ennui, no known cure.

Untitled

He loved the way each moment gave way to the next one. No he didnae, that was a lie. It wasn't that he didn't love it, it was just irrelevant. Often he found it disgusting or terrifying, reality that is. It could be intoxicating and sublime as well though, for sure.
There was the infantile aspect to consider as well, about other people, his friends, how they could be so infantile. It was disappointing.
The sublime pulse of moments. He wasn't sure how to behave sometimes. All the moments-to-be, stacked up, no wonder he felt waves of horror and existential heeby jeebies.
And how did any of this come about? He didn't recall lending his approval to this set of circumstances.

Engaging with various things, that was the key. The quality of the light, the avoidance of human beings with their affectations and
Abstract concepts were preferable

Saturday 26 June 2010

The Sublime Catastrophe

Food - that was what was needed, he just couldn't decide what to eat where to go. There was that pub along the way that did decent food but something about the ambience, he just didn't like the ambience of the place.
Keep on walking then, down onto Rose Street where there was a wee Turkish takeaway tucked down an alleyway. He had been here before got quite a good pizza, it was quite good but nothing amazing. He looked at the menu on the wall. He turned suddenly and began walking back onto Rose Street, just keep walking, keep walking. He clasped his book in his hand, tucked inside its pages was a sheet of paper with the poem he had written. Keep walking. Keep walking. See the horror etched into every face. Eh? Stop being such a melodramatic wee shite. Everything was fine, people were fine, he was no misanthrope or nihilist or pessimist. Okay, the thoughts could become gloomy now and again but everything was alright ye just kept walking where was he going but? He knew where he was going, he had a destination in mind, he smiled as he clasped the book and thought of the piece of paper within, the wee poem he had written. He had a final destination, yeh, but he wasn't ready to go there just yet. Food, it was food that was required now. He passed a McDonalds and a Chinese Buffet place, walked down onto Prince's Street. There were no chippies around here, at least none what wis open. Hmmmm. Top of Leith Walk there was bound to be something. But he didn't want to veer off in that direction. No. He walked up over the North Bridge seeing the horror etched into every face, mibby he would jump off the bridge, no, he had just way too much energy and enthusiasm for life the now. He smiled. He had his wee poem. It would be delivered.
He stepped into the doorway of a chippy, looked at the menu behind the counter. Nut. Nothing took his fancy. Walking, walking again, some aimless ambling for a while until such times as he located a suitable establishment to effect the purchase of
What pish was he slavering now? He passed a teenage couple nuzzling against each other at a bus stop. The lassie's eyes were glazed with such serenity he thought christ I need some of that. A luscious lassie, a fine female specimen, that was all that was required folks. And food, sustenance, nourishment. That's all any of us really needed eh when you stripped it down, the inane machinations, tenacity and lunacy of the human race.
He passed a pie shop. He was after pizza really, he had a wee yen for pizza. There was a restaurant up here but he wasn't in the mood to sit in a restaurant alone, plus he felt like being more economical. It's not that he was mean really, just careful with money and averse to frivolity, decadence and self-indulgence. For the most part, anyway. But he also had moments of total whimsy which were great, especially if you entered into them sparingly.
After some hesitation he walked up Chamber Street, he could see a pizza place at the end of the road, in the distance, beckoning him.
When he reached it he went inside and it was empty, no-one there behind the counter. Where was the guy. Fresh pizza lay cooling on the counter, sliced and ready to eat. He was looking at the menu when the guy emerged from the back. He decided he didn't want anything and left. Back out on the street, keep walking, ye just keep walking. There was a wee place up here, he had been before with his girlfriend for a kebab. He used to have a girlfriend, he didnae now. Circumstances change.
Inside he ordered a spicy chicken pizza and took a seat. A can of coke as well. The guy brought him the pizza after 15 minutes or so and asked was it coke he wanting and he amended his order to a can of Lilt instead. He let the pizza sit for a minute, let the mother fucker cool off. The Lilt was good and refreshing. It was the first carbonated beverage he had ever tried, back when he was a wee laddie, and the taste had been, it was like drinking fire, it had made him greet. Come to think of it he had wept often as a wee laddie, a sensitive, tearful wee shite. So no much had changed then. Fuck sake, pitiful.
He consumed the pizza with trembling hands.
Two guys were sitting at a table nearby, apart from that the wee place was empty. He heard one of the guys saying that his ma had had a tough weekend, that it would have been her 25th wedding anniversary. He consumed his pizza and then went to enquire about the existence of restroom facilities within the premises; he was wanting to wash his hands. The boy directed him down some stairs. But when he got down there he discovered the male toilets to be locked, an out of order sign on the door. Fuck sake. What wis that cunt playing at, sending him here? Unless it was genuine absent-mindedness or even ignorance of the situation on the part of the guy. You had to give people the benefit of the doubt a lot of time, most of the time.
He went to pay for his pizza and beverage. The bill came to £5. He had thought it would be more, the guy had made a mistake. The guy gave him £15 change: £10 note and five coins. Except on closer inspection one of the coins was a 20 pence piece. So had the guy realised his mistake and was now tacitly trying to rectify it? Yeh, most likely that was it.
Back out onto the street. He walked around the corner to Teviot place and he was now becoming slightly nervous and excited because he was arriving at his destination. Would she be here but? Would she be working tonight?

After the excruciating, the fucking excruciating
It was just... awful it was just the worst thing he felt calm it just fucking awful
It was so awful and he felt calm he
He walked round the corner with his book, the piece of paper still inside because she, fucking, she didn't want it, she fucking didn't
It had been awful, just excruciating, her whole body language, facial expression, it had been of complete reluctance or something even worse, distaste.
He walked around the corner into the shop and effected the purchase of a half bottle of Buckfast wine, placed it in his back pocket, exited the shop and began to walk, headphones into the ears, some music, he walked and was aware of the rhythm of his breathing his steps
He didn't think, he was calm, he felt the surging horror and anguish and he drank the wine quickly to contain his
He was in the meadows, walking through the meadows, an abundance of bodies sitting or prone on the grass, everyone languishing in the agreeable weather
He just kept walking, round in a circle, back onto the streets, he guzzled the wine quickly
He was calm and content with life in general no he wasn't it was shite it was hopeless nothing ever worked out he was just scunnered with every cunt
His phone rang and it was Rorie, it was his friend Rorie, they would meet
"Where are ye?" Rorie wanted to know. He looked around him. He was sitting on a bench in front of a statue. Groups of tourists milling around. Parliament Square. He was somewhere called Parliament Square on the Royal Mile. He conveyed this information to Rorie. He could here Rorie conferring with his flatmate as to the whereabouts of Parliament Square.
"Rorie, it's where that football thing on the ground is that everyone spits on," he said. Rorie knew where was now and was about to board a taxi.
The wine was finished. He got up off the bench and walked around a little. He went to the shop and effected the purchase of a can of Heineken lager, returned to bench. Some Austrian tourists, middle aged ladies, came and talked to him. They liked him. Older women tended to like him, whether it was maternal instinct or what the fuck, they liked him, endearingly perturbed manboy that he was.
Here came a taxi. Someone emerged from the taxi, it was Rorie. He got up off the bench and walked towards him, smiling benignly.

Friday 11 June 2010

He Remembered Her Fondly

His tenacity would yield results, this is what he reminded himself. He walked. He was aware of his breathing, the rhythm of his breathing, the rhythm of his steps. His tenacity would fucking yield results.

So he had written her a wee poem. Fuck sake. Pathetic, man. Just totally ridiculous and pretentious and desperate. So he thought he was a fuckin poet did he? Jesus. What a fuckin asshole. A completely effete asshole. A frivolous bastard.

Caramelised biscuits. Her hair was like caramel. He wanted to smell her hair but she would never allow it she would never ever fucking allow it in this lifetime.

He wis getting guy scunnered with every cunt. Events seemed to be conspiring to agitate him. Too much noise. Hysteria and banality, the prevalence of these extremes. People and their inane fucking machinations, his friends even, his relatives even, he was just getting guy scunnered with every cunt, fuckin, it was just

Plunge pool. There had to be some sort of plunge. A drastic vault into the nomadic void. I mean he was going to run away somewhere. He had to remain tenacious, his tenacity would yield results. Tenacity would yield motherfucking results for this tenacious motherfucker. He would run away, with her. But she wouldn't fuckin ever go with him, never ever, no in this fuckin reality.

She wasn't there. She was never ever fuckin there where had she got to. A bottle of Tyskie please. Could Ah just get a bottle of Tyskie please.
Take a seat, I'll bring it over.
It was an Australian lassie, she wis new, he had never seen her before, never ever had he fuckin seen her before. Such things are we brought to, it being known as the gradual imbibing of the Polish lager. He looked around at nothing in particular. He wasn't sure where to look. He wis wasntin a whisky. Naw he wisnae.
He wis just mental about her but she wisnae here.
Where was she but? He remembered her fondly.

Saturday 5 June 2010

It could never be denied that she had a swell pussy, I mean, that was just a fact and it couldnae be denied. It couldnae be denied by nae cunt. Fucking senseless trying to deny it. Don't be denied. I mean don't let it be denied. And don't let it be denied. Mmm, let's see what's this pish yer scribbling. You actually write this pish? he queried incredulously.

It was incredibly easy for men to become disheartened and demotivated in various circumstances, that was a sad given. And was he one of these men I mean was he going to succumb to apathy or else a kind of foul, caustic pessimism?

A luscious lassie. A fine female specimen. This is what was required now. One preferably no too daft, likes. The taut flesh of the thighs, hips. This is what he sought, the warmth from, for him to lay his heid against. He imagined the exquisite sigh he might emit in such a scenario.

He was convinced his vodka had been confiscated until he found it amidst the spare blankets and linen stowed beneath his bed and it occurred to him that he had placed it there whilst inebriated. Hidden it. Hidden was the word. So mystery solved! After about a month of mystification, paranoid speculation etcetera.
Ach it was a nice thing to be inebriated it just felt so ach it was shite it was just senseless and a waste, such a waste to stupefy the senses thus.

She is skinny and she wears skinny jeans, I have no idea how old she is. 30? Give or take. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
He imagined smelling her hair, he imagined taking her from the rear, he imagined various things. He sipped his beer. He was alone in a room. He felt the pressure of his pinkie on the atlas he was leaning on as he wrote this inane pish yer reading now folks.
His question: how was it possible to enter into a mediation without a gaining idea? His answer: Easy as fuck likely, Ah don't know, who gies a fuck? He cackled euphorically, throatily.

The elderly Scottish man's voice issued from the dictation machine somewhat distorted. The young lady listened intently, her lips pursed in concentration. I could feel the humidity on my skin, I could smell the stagnancy of the humidity and the vegetation. An upper storey flat. Grey skies. The elderly man's electronic voice drifting over an empty city. A cool wind, complete desolation. Empty plastic bags drifting into puddles. An intensely melancholy piece of music played on an old piano. We taste the intensity of the jungle. The goose bumps on the young lady's flesh, an exquisite shiver.
The elderly man's cackling voice allows us to imagine him: bunnet; sunglasses; reddened, gnarled face; wild grin
His voice drifts over the city like an electronic wind. The young lady is all set to decode.
She is something of a young, wizened, beatific whore.

The dog is relaxed now. His ear was inside out so I flipped it over for him. His eyelid descends slowly over an upturned eyeball the wet red area showing.

Surreptitiously, that was how he had done it, he was a surreptitious bastard it had to be said. With great care and stealth the bottle was retrieved. He his it near his seat and then went ben the kitchen to pour himself a glass of orange pineapple juice. Returned ben the lounge, added some of the vodka carefully, quietly.

When she told him his face quickly became ashen and it was all he could think to tell her that this would take some getting used to, he repeated it a few times and he knew it wasn't the right thing to say but he couldn't help himself, he just kept repeating it, knowing it was wrong, it was fucking it was like an out of body experience man it was fucking wild.
And now he was on the bus. He felt remote, acutely anguished. He tried to put it out of his head but it would linger at the perimeter of his psyche and he would only think what is it I'm trying to forget and he would instantly remember because he was clinging to this drastic news, clinging to it, trying to resolve it, come to terms with it inside his own noggin. And now he was on the bus, inserting distance between himself and the, the, not the problem, the eh situation, he needed distance and time alone to think and he knew where he was going.

He ordered a bottle of Polish beer and she told him to sit, that she would bring it to him. And he did sit and she did bring it to him and he did imbibe it praise the lord. He loved her. Naw he didnae, he didnae fucking even ken her. But there was something. That ineffable feeling of such potent attraction it was like magnetisation. It was glorious and agonising he wanted to scream and ravish her and protect her so much he almost hated her.
Here she came walking past don't fucking look at her OK a wee glance... He sipped his Polish beer. Christ, such a self-indulgent shit of a man. Useless. Totally fucking hopeless.
Aw here she comes now now here she comes now now here she comes now now mmm mm mm she looks so good mmm mm mm she's made outta wood just look and see
Yeh man. Yeh okay. He didnae realise that in a few weeks he would think of her as a cunt. He didnae realise that in a few weeks time there would be another lassie from eastern Europe, a lassie with pale skin, a lassie whose arm he would wish to bite. He didnae realise much other than the obvious ie. reality is acutely astounding.

She had the wildness, the glint in her eye. The husky voice. The loud manner. Would he be equipped to handle her christ she seemed like she could be quite temperamental. She would seize upon any sign of apathy, weakness, indecisiveness, despondency.
His ex used to become angered if he couldn't decide which pasta sauce to select ot he opted to take a nap circa 7pm. But it was winter and he was feeling lethargic and listening to Dead C. If any of that amounted to an excuse at all. He suspected it didn't.
He enjoyed to listen to some exceptionally strange musics. Sometimes he took cannabis, not often.

The dog was exhausted, as evidenced by its occasional groans, deep breathing... The man also felt a wee bit exhausted but no enough to sleep yet. There was a comfort he felt in nocturnal solitude, scribbling away, as if he was reaching the end of something perhaps. The end of his tether. No, something like that but more of in a positive sense.
He had mixed his beverage strong as if he had something to forget. No he had nothing to forget and no too much to remember. He was just... here.

The gradual imbibing of the bevy, that was the thing, the gradual unfolding of the euphoria. No giddiness, no dizziness, no double vision or slurred speech, no reckless spontaneity or destructiveness, no black holes or erosion of the memory box.

His father in the next room, tucking into cornflakes. The clink of spoon against bowl. It was 12:40am, June the something 2010. It was 4th of June, he was almost certain. Some exquisitely strange musics ie. Vampire Belt. Meditative harshness.
A diet of inebriation and writing he had prescribed himself. Gradual, measured inebriation, none of yer crude stupefaction.

The dog was exhausted, folks. He need to rest his warm black body. This was also something the writer need to do. He [the writer] sought to cuddle him [the dog] except it wasnae a good idea; his weight would crush and disturb the dog from its euphoric slumber. The dog now licking its lips or clicking its teeth or something some saliva sound or -----

He was just... here... just here, man, and he was contemplating obtaining another beverage. It was definitely rather a good idea, for definite.
Memories seeping back: escalators, discount stores, train stations, ancient dreams, ancient mysteries and enigmas. Acutely and eternally fascinating for sure.

Father departs for bed, ascends the stairs to retreat to bed. The dog has been roused, will likely follow. He is panting now, vibrating the couch. Licking his lips, looking around, panting again with something like a grin on his face. The pressure of my pinkie on the atlas as I write, keep writing, keep on
There goes the dog. Ah, he has relocated himself to the floor. Innaresting manoeuvre. No doubt building up to making his way up the stairs to his basket or the bed my brother's bed. I am sleepy and consider whether another beverage is such a sage notion. Perhaps no. Perhaps aye.
Deep breath.
Vampire Belt is bloody fucking good.

Thursday 3 June 2010

Terms of Collision

sex, death and warm climes
the potent warmth of dust
distant echoes and yellow light
the nuances of a ritualised humiliation
had come to be known by him
him, a consenting participant

never before
has it been easier
to wield terms

of collision

Wednesday 2 June 2010

His hair had began to feel like a warm, comfortable hat, he felt its weight and length keeping his ears snug. Sometimes his skin felt like a too tight jacket. The sky was all different colours today, different sections of sky bleeding into different shades. Cutting didn't help. Here was a dog, forlorn, forlornly swishing its tail. It looked at him beseechingly. I cannae help you pal, although I empathise with your anguish, complete tedium, boredom, the consensus of banality that weighs over us all. He walked on. Why did the dog think he could help it? Was it a look in his eye, a benign, carefree look in his eye? Now he understood how a woman might feel amusement or even contempt for a pleading, desperate lover. We are all alone, he decided happily.

Friday 7 May 2010

Untitled extract

He hadn't even fucking been wanting coffee, his hand trembled as he finished the mug. He felt agitated. He breathed deeply, he wanted to run outside, he wanted to leap into cold water and scream deliriously.
So the coffee was finished. The coffee was finished and now it was time to make a move. That's what ye did, ye finished yer coffee and then you made a move. Don't linger. And don't look at her christ, keep yer eyes on the book on the coffee mug on the edge of the table christ he could see her out the corner of his eye was she looking at him was she
Deep breaths. He felt exceptionally agitated as if might have a panic attack.
Ye paid for your coffee and then ye left, all there was to it. And ask her. Mind and ask her. No christ don't ask her, people will overhear the total humiliation will be unbearable. So ye don't ask anyone anything, ye silently pay for your coffee and then ye make a fucking move and never come back
He was going to ask her, he had to ask her. He hadn't fucking even been wanting coffee but there had to be some pretext, christ, it was amusing if ye thought about it except he felt a bit like crying
Right, no histrionics, ye pay for yer coffee and then make yer move and
She walked past and he was completely aware of her presence, her aura
He had to time this exactly so that she took his money at the till and no one of the guys
Except it felt hard to time it without it seeming contrived, everyone in the cafe was completely aware of what he was doing it was pitiful, it was fucking
Deep breaths. No-one was fucking even paying attention to him, he was invisible, he was just total fucking spectral, man
He took the caramelized biscuit from the saucer and pocketed it. It was in a cellophane wrapper and so could be consumed at a later juncture
He steeled himself and approached the till

The Infinite Motherload

We stopped by the bench
while
she had a smoke.
It
was too wet to
sit down.

EVENTS SEEMED TO BE ORDERED INTO AN OMINOUS LOGIC

He woke up and his lips was sticky and smelling of medicine so he washed them. He was already dressed so got out of bed and went outside.
He went to the cafe.

"Ye wantin' a cup of coffee, aye?" the wifey shouted/
"Aye," he answered morosely. He had fucking been hoping the younger lassie would be working the day, the one he had taken a fancy to. The luscious wee thing.

The cafe was a regular haunt for Ali. He worked nightshift at a petrol station on the outskirts of the city. At the end of his shift he would go home and sleep for a few hours then catch a bus into town to go for a coffee, hoping the lassie would be there.

He was trying to write a novel but he was too sleepy, too easily distracted, too easily demotivated.
He sat reading a novel in the cafe, glancing up whenever the lassie walked past. He hadnae spoke to her yet.

All the afternoon hours absorbed in melancholic lethargy. All the senseless pining for the infinitely unattainable.

"Is it a cup of coffee yer huvin', aye?"
"Aye..." he barely whispered.

The lassie wasnae Scottish. He didn't know where she was from.

He took long walks around the city, timidly skirting the cafe, working up the nerve to visit for another solitary cup of coffee.

He liked the routine of the petrol station nightshift. The quiet consensus of banality. The sleep deprived serenity.

The hateful grinding noise of the coffee machine when she wasn't there. He wasn't even fucking wanting coffee but he had to order something. Couldn't walk in and then just walk out again once he'd clocked she wasn't there. Couldn't arouse suspicion like that.

When he walked to the coffee shop he would try and notice as many beautiful women on the street as he could. These women are more beautiful than the waitress he would tell himself. He was insulating himself against what he felt was the inevitable excruciating rejection.

He came to find out her name.

Where had she gone? He was getting worried. Three visits in a row and hadnae spied her. Mind you it wasn't on consecutive days.

He came to find out her fucking name.

Where did all they gorgeous creatures go? What doors did they pass thru? What turbulence or serenity?

As he walked he fingered the accumulation of caramelized biscuits in his pocket. They came in wee cellophane packets.

He lay in bed tensing and untensing his calf muscles. He felt exhausted yet was unable to sleep.

Morosion. Was that a word? An explosion of morosion. No, an implosion of morosion is more accurate. A slow motion, sinking feeling of horror.

"Is it a cup of coffee yer wantin', aye?" the wifey shrieked.
"Aye," he whispered through clenched teeth, tears welling in his eyes.
Another cup of coffee, another cellophane wrapped caramelized biscuit to add to the collection.
Keep the caffeine levels topped up, keep the sugar levels topped up. Keep himself feeling nervy, keep the mood swings erratic.

People sometimes looked at him and he thought what are they thinking now?

One day he went to the cafe and she was there and he came to find out she was Lithuanian. He decided he would ask her out. He fingered the accumulation of caramelized biscuits in his pocket. If she said no he would stuff them all into his mouth and hopefully choke to death.

THE END?

Sunday 11 April 2010

Today in the Gardens

She was reading an art newspaper. She was perusing a contemporary art brochure. She was intent yet infinitely nonchalant. She was ancient and shriveled. I sat beside her a while. I wanted to hold her. Eventually she got up and walked away, extremely unsteady on her feet. She looked as if she was at least 90. It was early afternoon. I feel as if I could love her.

Complete Strangeness of y Disgust with the News

"Our thoughts are with the family of the victim, who will be supported by a trained family liaison officer at this most difficult time.

In an interview with the Metro newspaper, Mr Cameron said: "I think this is just an absolutely appalling way to behave. If Gordon Brown has a moral compass he should get it out and have a good look at it and apologise to these people straight away."

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London rapper Plan B held on to third spot - his highest ever chart finish - with She Said as Lady Gaga's Telephone slipped two places to No 4.

Pass Out, the former No 1 by Tinie Tempah, held on to fifth spot ahead of Timbaland's Carry Out, featuring Justin Timberlake.

Hot, by Inna, came in at seven ahead of Rihanna's Rude Boy, Justin Bieber's Baby and Cheryl Cole's Parachute.

In the album chart, Lady Gaga was given more reason to celebrate as The Fame soared to No 1 at the expense of Brother, by Boyzone.

Justin Bieber's My World, Sunny Side Up by Paolo Nutini and Lungs by Florence and the Machine completed the top five.

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Have your say: Crime

Atheist authors Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens proposed the action against the Pontiff for his handling of child abuse scandals in the Catholic church.

Wednesday 7 April 2010

Notes on TV

Older woman - cardigan - pained expression - vast, sparse room - beech? walnut? stain wardrobe - man with glasses, neat haircut, neat fitting coat - officious, fastidious air - Bald man and younger man - wearing sweaters - serious conversation - beer bottle - green - grey sweater - clenched jaw - 4 MONTHS LATER - pale blue door - woman with head close to door - Man in suit and tie - sudden car crash - cut to office interior - woman in vertical striped shirt - bookcase blurred in background - grey cardigan conceal nice breast of cordial, demure woman - older man wears brown woolen sweater, pale blue shirt, spectacles - seems agitated - younger woman sympathetic - Oh fuck his earlobe is fucking huge - all floppy & shit
Interior of bar - sexy women talking - Interior of room - woman removes lop balm from inside boot
People in a room - wearing suits - being all serious and shit - impassioned argument - Punch! Retaliation! Brawl - woman on street on phone - Cut to woman emerging from subway on phone
Old man w/ black beret & white beard sat at table upon which is a green ashtray - neat fastidious man enters - followed by a vaguely threatening looking dude
Briefcase full of money
Dude with bust lip on phone at the airport - studies photograph of attractive woman - selfsame woman walks past - 4 MONTHS LATER - blue - car - investigating interior of car - washed out, bright - slightly grainy (this will be the defining TV aesthetic of 2010) - roll credits...

The Comfortable Yen for the Infinitely Unattainable

Jonathan Marks, lazy, timid, pessimistic, quietly hopeful, approached the cafe. He hoped she would be there. He walked past the window, glimpsing into the dim interior to check. She was there. He realised this at the last moment as he walked past. He continued walking for a moment then paused, counted to 20, and then walked back and went inside. Goddamn he hoped she hadn't seen him peering in a second ago.
He ordered white coffee (last time he had ordered just a cup of coffee and she had brought it to him black and he had been too shy to request milk or sugar). Sit in or takeaway she wanted to know. Sit in. She told him to sit down, she would bring it over. Exact same ritual as before.
He sat near a couple drinking wine and eating salads. They were of different nationalities from each other and were conversing in english as a common language, or so it seemed. Actually the guy may have been Scottish.
Here came the coffee. He thanked her and smiled warmly and she smiled back.
There was a wee biscuit with the coffee this time. A wee caramalised biscuit in a cellophane wrapper. Jonathan turned it over in his hand and then pocketed it. He would consume it later. He briefly considered gifting it to the waitress and then quickly recognised the inanity and absurdity inherent in such an act.
He sipped on his coffee. It tasted good. Even without sugar. He glanced about but couldn't see where it was kept. He was reluctant to go and seek it; too self-conscious.
Christ, what a pitiful state of affairs. A man of 26, too timid to assert himself. Too pessimistic to long for anything other than what was safely impossible to acquire.
Things could be helluva worse though. That was the thing, despite his caution, negativity, acute bouts of despair he was by and large a cheerful and enthusiastic sort of a fellow.

The cafe was almost deserted. He finished his coffee and returned the mug and saucer to the counter. The waitress was adding two scoops of ice cream to two large glasses of Coca Cola. He stood waiting at the counter to pay her his £1.95 for the coffee.

Outside it had darkened suddenly and the streets were damp from a brief shower that had occurred unnoticed by Jonathan whilst he was in the cafe.
He walked briskly, feeling the caffeine surge through him, feeling acutely thrilled and enthused by life.

Notes

She brought me my coffee and I was too shy to ask for milk or sugar. I had been somewhat discombobulated when I ordered, so...
It's fine, I'll acquire a taste for black, unsweetened coffee I decided.

Second time I went I had the sagacity to order white coffee. Normally I just order coffee and wait for them to check how I want it. A bit too passive of an approach, especially in the city.
So I got milk this time. Still no sign of sugar anywhere. Ach well it's very tasty coffee anyway. Do me good to cut down on sugar. A pure caffeine fix is what's required here.
Instant coffee tastes helluva bitter without sugar. But this tasty gourmet shit, ah man. A taste to be savoured.
My waitress wore blue jeans and red Converse sneakers and I glanced at her ass as she walked past, I have to admit. She had spectacles on as well on this second visit. Not sure what I think about them. They emphasise how short her hair is I think (shorter than I normally prefer). I still like her and plan to return to the cafe.
Today the office closed early and I almost went along for a coffee but decided against it. Two days in a row would definitely be veering into some sort of unhealthy territory.

I am in my grandfather's conservatory. I can see a squirrel darting across the grass. Birds cheep, distant sound of my brother listening to bad rap music in the adjacent room.

Her hair isn't that short, just shorter than what I normally prefer. I didn't find her as attractive on the second visit I have to admit. But I still like her, still plan to return. Mid-week or perhaps Friday night. The best time to go is early evening when it is deserted, lunchtime crowd long vacated, evening drinkers yet to arrive.

She seems to be eastern European although for some reason I don't think she is Polish.

The squirrel is ascending a branch which wavers in the breeze. I hear my grandfather in the hallway. He is going to go for a walk. My mother is exasperated. I hear my father chuckling nervously.

Sunday 4 April 2010

The Sonic Youth of Uphall

It was at that particular stretch of woodland where the feral youths tended to lurk and as I approached that night I sensed they would be there. I could hear them. Tex ran on ahead carrying his red frisbee in his mouth.
They had bottles of pear cider and cans of super lager. One of them wondered if Tex would like some super lager.
What does your hat say one of them wanted to know. Sonic Youth, I told him. We're the Sonic Youth of Uphall he explained in reply. I gave him an amiable thumbs up.
They're not often so friendly. They must have been at that pleasant brink of inebriation where one tends to have more of an amiable disposition.
We passed thru, me and Tex. I wasn't too discombobulated. Then we had to go back because Tex had left his frisbee.
Dog walk finished? they wanted to know. No, he left his frisbee, I explained. Go get it, I told Tex.
Once when I was drunk I talked some shit to a feral youth on the streets of Broxburn. He threatened to stab me. I decided not to find out if his threat was genuine.
Today I went to a cafe where I like this waitress. She has realised that I like her. It's acutely thrilling.
At the cafe I went to the john and took a fantastic shit. Visible vapours of steam were emerging from this blackened turd. I crouched to scrutinise it. I imagined it blocking up the toilet and then the waitress, at the end of her shift, having to come and unblock it. Possibly with her bare hands.
I don't know why I imagined this.
I'd like to end this post with a couple of shout-outs. I'd like to give a shout out to my man Rorie, the Krave addict. Also my man Stephen chilling up in Dundee. And my man David, let's hook up soon for some more jams, bro. I'm seriously contemplating buying an alto sax and shit.
That's all for now, later dudes.

Saturday 3 April 2010

THE CORRIDORS OF ECTOPLASM

Chapter One

April O'Neil applauded unenthusiastically as Rick Moranis triumphantly landed a kickflip over the overturned shopping trolley. He had only fucking been trying it for half an hour. They were outside Livingston Shopping Centre, beside Safeways supermarket. It was a mild afternoon towards the end of autumn.
Egon Spengler was hanging out too. He had happened by 15 minutes ago and was now crouched against the glass facade of Safeways with April, watching Rick. He had an observable erection.
Rick wore grey slacks, a blue cardigan and black Vans Half Cab sneakers with an ollie hole in the right one (he rode goofy).
"Let's head down the skatepark, ya doss cunts," drawled Rick.

At the skatepark they found Peter Venkemann sauntering around. He was at that brink of inebriation where he was still coherent yet overly cocksure and given to erratic, unsociable behaviour.
"THE CORRIDORS OF ECTOPLASM!" he roared in a New York nasal whine upon seeing Rick, April and Egon.
"Shut it, ya doss fanny," retorted Rick. Egon snickered nervously.

Heat: they all yearned to return to the womb. Venkemann had found an alternative; whisky induced stupefaction. Within the next five years Egon Spengler would find an alternative; black tar heroin. Rick Moranis was given to abstract poetics and all manner of surreal rapping, April O'Neil to compulsive promiscuity.

April O'Neil was a whore. Her pimp was a cadaverous black man named Winston Zeddemore. He had pimped her for over 15 years, since she was 14. He had been sure to sample the product many times over the years to ensure it was still up to scratch. He estimated that she had another five years left on the game. Then he would turn her loose, return her to the windy streets, to a life of inevitable drug dependency and self-mutilation.

Later that afternoon Rick, April, Peter and Egon caught a bus out to Edinburgh Airport. They had spontaneously decided to go on vacation to Chicago, USA. Fuck, they didn't even know if there were any direct flights or how much it would cost. But they didn't give a fuck. They were given to spontaneity of the most inane, decadent variety.

The afternoon had turned overcast by the time the bus trundled up to the wasteland at the outskirts of the airport.
They stepped off the bus and the driver disembarked with them, seemingly to take a smoke break.
"Where do we go now?" Rick asked the driver in a feeble voice, grinning sadly. The driver grimaced as he took a powerful draw on his cig. He (the driver) pointed silently towards the outline of a distant building, a look of supreme disdain clouding his dim, cadaverous features.
They trundled en masse to the airport, the bus driver inexplicably joining them (just kidding).
They had the collective deameanour of bored teenagers. The sky was suddenly beginning to darken. Then it lightened, returning to a pale grey hue as they neared the terminal building.
Outside the airport, beside the automatic sliding door, a shrill middle aged woman was hysterically berating a stoic looking older man in a wheelchair. The doors slid open and shut open and shut due to the continued proximity of the wheelchair.

Inside the terminal building they found themselves in a nearly deserted cafe. Dull clattering sounds of dishes being cleared away. It was roughly 5pm. A special meditative ambience settled over the terminal building. It seemed all flights had arrived or departed some time ago. The airport bore the spectre of frenzied transit, now everything settled into peaceful grey skies, runway dust, distant echo of wind voices.

Kim Gordon of the rock band Sonic Youth sat in the airport cafe sipping black coffee. She wore black shades. She looked somehow different. Rick Moranis shuffled up to her and asked for her autograph in a pitiful, simpering voice. She pretended not to hear him.

Undeterred by this spectacle, Pete Venkemann approached her table and proffered a copy of SYR5 for her to sign. He held out a black marker pen. She took the pen, signed the record sleeve and then tossed it onto the floor. Pete bent down to retrieve it, his mannerisms those of a furtive dog. An aloof teenage girl standing nearby wearing shades snickered caustically. Kim remained infinitely glacial.

Egon Spengler shuffled up to Kim's table, his hands in his pockets. His overly rigid stance betrayed the true anxiety behind his nonchalant posturing.
"How do ye coax such glacial abstractions out of ye guitar?" he asked in a casual, husky voice. Kim continued to silently gaze straight ahead. Egon retained his blase demeanour as he shuffled slowly away again.

The sun was setting over the observation deck. Egon, Rick, Pete and April stood watching the planes depart and land. Kim Gordon had joined them but remained mute and indifferent. April O'Neil had unfastened the top three buttons of her blouse. Her brassiere was almost visible, a fact all three men had separately noted. Egon Spengler was harbouring a fierce, pulsating erection. Pete Venkemann farted but the sound was obscured by the roar of an airplane taking off.

Chapter Two

Raymond Stanz was absorbed in a solitary game of Subbuteo in his garage. He moved from one side of the table to the other, flicking the plastic players to and fro. It was mid-summer 1994, approximately three months before April, Pete, Rick and Egon's encounter with Kim Gordon at Edinburgh airport.
Ray looked decidedly boyish in his shorts, t-shirt and Vans sneakers. He looked like a fag is what he looked like. He had the surly temperament of an impatient, ineffectual pederast. His man tits jiggled as he danced to and fro from either side of the table.
Enter Pete Venkemann.
"Yo bitch," said Pete.
"Hey." Ray barely acknowledged Pete, still engaged as he was in the Subbuteo. By the way if you don't know what Subbuteo is, fucking Google it.
Pete wasn't really here to see Ray. They were both aware of that. Ostensibly he was, but that was mere pretext. He was here to see Ray's luscious sister Janine. Janine and Pete watched the same avant-garde sitcom everyday. It was entitled The Corridors of Ectoplasm. It was set in the autumn of 1992. It was about the distance between desire/longing and the reflection of amber streetlight in shallow puddles. It was a cult hit. Crude, boyish 25 year olds with asymmetrical haircuts and unnecessary spectacles discussed it in reverent, girlish voices.
Pete and Janine would often watch it together side by side on the couch, an achingly unbridgeable gulf between them.
Onscreen, Marco the humourless Spaniard was engaged in an impassioned rant to a dog sleeping on a leather couch. The dog was snoring. Marco had a pained, pious expression on his face.
Pete dozed off for a while. When he awoke, a shriveled spectral woman with red eyes was speaking onscreen.
"Her ectoplasm will hold a special place in our hearts."
He felt as if she were addressing him directly.

Tuesday 30 March 2010

The Villa of Medication

The Villa of Medication

The walls were painted black which immediately struck Samuel as a nice touch, an appropriate detail. The surface of the swimming pool shimmered almost imperceptibly in a faint breeze.
Here we are, in the villa of medication, he murmured aloud and then wondered why he had said that. The words seemed almost no to have emanated from within himself. He felt feint embarrassment but Sigorney seemed not to have noticed. She was as inscrutable as ever in her black shades, lips slightly pouted, straggly hair. Her skinny arms encompassed by a mass of over-sized t-shirt. But then:
Why did you say that? she asked suddenly in a chilled North American accent.
An unseen audience exploded in mirth.
The walls of the buildings were painted black evoking a sense of an ancient evil looming before them. But there was something comforting about the eeriness. Tranquil Satanism.
The sky was white. Samuel observed an interesting tableau by the swimming pool: A sullen adolescent girl, an aloof teenage girl and a simpering young man with a flushed face. The man seemed furtive and vaguely anguished, a constitution he tried desperately to hide with a pained smile.
Keep ye hands to yeself! the adolescent girl screamed in a Northern English accent. The teenage girl smirked caustically. The young man seemed even more anxious now and he grinned even harder to compensate. He and the adolescent girl were standing either side of the teenage girl who lay prone in a sun lounger. She wore shades. She seemed annoyed. Samuel wanted to dry hump her. On a hill. During a humid summer afternoon. The words 'parched' and 'chafe' flowered in his mind.
All at once he realised the furtive young man was himself and the aloof teenager was Sigorney. Who was the shrill younger lass then? And why was she levelling such unsavoury allegations?
A black Labrador plodded along the tiles leading to the edge of the pool. It gazed at Samuel beseechingly, slowly swishing its tail.

Smoke Emanating from Semi-Erect Penises

Samuel left the villa complex to go the supermart. He planned to obtain some cold, refreshing orange soda. He sauntered down the wide, unpopulated avenue, his footfall heavy in the heat. He looked suitable ridiculous in a Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda swim shorts and tennis sneakers. A ludicrous spectacle, truly worthy of denigration.
He was exhausted already. He couldn't wait to get back to the pool. He couldn't wait to see Sigorney in her bikini again, to smell the suntan lotion on her skin. He stepped up onto a pavement and his foot immediately sunk down into freshly laid cement.
In the distance loomed a construction lorry with a few workers milling around. The lorry started up and began trundling towards him, the workers regarding him from afar. He turned and began to pace quickly back towards the Villa of Medication.

I like it here in the villa, he decided.
The pool attendant was cadaverous black man named Winston. He wore black shades and moved in a decrepit fashion as if animated by vague breezes. He rarely spoke. He murmured cryptic non-sequitirs. He gave the impression of being prophet of some seething mystery.

"Swing flesh swing
Draw me into a world of the flesh."


All of a sudden the mystery had evaporated. Raymond's limbs ached.
It was 10am. A sunny, blustery morning. Seagulls swirled in the pale blue sky.
Raymond extracted himself from his semen encrusted shorts and waddled nude to the bathroom where he showered under lukewarm water. He shaved, cutting himself in four different places in the process. He affixed small torn strips of toiled paper to the wounds and gazed morosely at his reflection. He dressed, prepared a breakfast of coffee and scrambled eggs. Consumed the breakfast of coffee and scrambled eggs.
Walked through two inches of melting snow to the bus stop. Waited six minutes to board a city bound bus. The driver was the same cadaverous black man from his dream. Same oversized wrap around shades. They gave the impression, along with his expressionless face, that he was blind.
Took a seat towards the rear of the bus. Gazed with impaired longing at a fine looking woman.
Reached the city in 40 minutes. Alighted on Borges Street. A few yards from the bus stop was an office building. He entered, keying the door code, 2666, into the electronic lock.
He climbed a flight of stairs and entered a room with eight desks positioned together to form one large central desk. Five other men sat at these desks, engaging with laptop computers, occasionally lifting shrill telephone receivers. He sat before his own laptop machine, not acknowledging any of the other men. A window permitted a view of a rooftop and other buildings, a slim rectangle of white phosphorescent sky above.

The Villa of Medication had initially been envisaged as a place where people who felt an overwhelming and disproportionate sense of guilt could come to humble themselves. It had since devolved into a place where carefully orchestrated humiliations were devised and then carried out.
Shrill women and meek men were drawn to this place. There was a pervading sense of hysteria and hopelessness. Timid, furtive men lurked about, simpering painfully. Stocky or angular women with shrewd, pinched faces hovered around, scowling caustically.

"Visualise and then actualise," Professor Spengler explained to the assembled feckless. He carefully articulated each word.
Lucas End jotted this down in his A5 notebook, feeling a surge of potency and optimism. This fleeting sense of empowerment was what he was paying for at these seminars.
The Villa of Medication was full of people like End, people crippled by their own intelligence, their over-analysis of all life's minutiae rendering them catastrophically ineffectual. They needed all sorts of ideas and concepts to get them steamed up, to help them make up their minds.

Lucas stands in a baguette shop, paralysed by the endless permutations of filling combinations available to him.
The lassie behind the counter smirks. What an endearingly hopeless specimen she thinks to herself.
Lucas musters his nerve. He orders a decidedly unpalatable combination of prosaic fillings in a small, whimpering voice. He seems as if his eyes might tear up.

Back at the villa, Samuel is languishing on a sun lounger. It's easy to be sentimental for things that have ended or can never be reached again, he decides.
As he thinks this, he watches Rachel emerge from the pool, chlorine laced water streaming off her taut, tanned skin. He notices Winston, the cadaverous pool attendant, watching her as well. He briefly imagines a sordid threesome.
Rachel towels herself off and occupies the lounger next to Samuel. Samuel's eyes, hidden behind shades, are peering dramatically to the right to study the nuances of Rachel's drying body. He desperately wishes she would remove her bikini top. He wants Winston to see her perfectly shaped breasts.
Colour of the sky today: mustard.

The nights were very dark, black, leaves trembling in a wavering breeze under amber streetlights. Samuel sat at the villa bar, nursing his second bottle of beer. Strange, early 90s minimal techno music played. Winston, the cadaverous pool attendant, was dancing by himself on the dance floor. He resembled a reanimated corpse. A gaggle of teenage girls sat in the corner, watching him, occasionally whispering amongst themselves and giggling. Other than that the bar was deserted. It was a little after 8pm. Rachel was in the room, perhaps drowsing to cure a sun headache, perhaps reading a novel. A chronic sense of ennui had driven Samuel out to the bar.
"Bust yo shit, nigga!" Samuel suddenly hollered. Then felt panic. He had no idea where the words had emanated from. Perhaps he was developing Tourette's synodrome he speculated idly.
Winston grinned and pointed a finger at Samuel. The teenage lassies exploded in hysteria.
The beats were coming slow and heavy.
Winston gyrated his crotch in a most obscene manner. The lassies squealed and gasped exaggeratedly. Samuel nodded his head approvingly. Winston clapped his hands along with every second beat, squatting low, gyrating his hips.
Samuel finished his beer and launched the empty bottle at the table of teenagers who nervously pretended not to notice.
Now why did I do that he wondered.
He bought another beer. He approached their table.

Journal Entry of Lucas End, February 18th 2018

What a wretched man I am. Voiced reach me from an eviscerated void to remind me of this. The odour of ink and semen reminds me of this. Remembered faces of my past tormentors reinforce this.

Smother

He approached their table and sat down, busting out a gang shape with his hand as he did so. He made a face at the lassies to put them at their ease. They pretended to be at their ease. He apologised for launching a beer bottle at them. He chuckled ruefully as if it was all some amusing misunderstanding. The girls laughed nervously and bit their lower lips. Samuel sloshed beer over his hair and then slicked it back with a violent gesture.
Winston was still busting out his shit on the dance floor, a cruel dreamy grin on his face.
In an effort to impress the teenage lassies, Samuel committed suicide.

Epilogue

Insidious cruelty is an interesting thing, Lucas scribbled in his journal. A respectable woman looked over his shoulder and her face went blank with dismay.

FIN (frenzied audience applause and cheering)

Friday 5 March 2010

The Sad Tale of Stevie and Niggerlilly (excerpt from opening chapter)

This is the sad tale of a transvestite named Stevie, her dog named Niggerlilly and a violent, narcissistic sadist named Murchie. The tale is set in the village of Mire, a small settlement on the outskirts of a large Scottish city.

The vodka had to be acquired. That was a fucking absolute necessity you know what I mean?

Stevie led her bitch down the pristine winter pavement.
“Niggerlilly! Here gurl! Come here!” she called out dramatically.
She tottered precariously on her high heels. The bitch swished its tail and sniffed at some detritus on the street.
“Come here ya wee slut!” screamed Stevie. The bitch gazed over its shoulder at her imploringly. Stevie tottered towards it, her heels clicking on the glittering November pavement.
“Niggalilly!”
She tottered round the corner under an archway.
“Careful ya daft tart!” admonished Old Man Buggergrips. Stevie flinched. She felt saddened. Old Man Buggergrips was one of her neighbours and tended to have a genial disposition towards her. Except for now when they were in a public arena and he was compelled to display the general loathing and disdain the community of Mire harboured for Stevie.
She couldn’t really blame Old Man Buggergrips for his behaviour, if he was seen to sympathise with her he may end up becoming mired down with her. And that would be senseless and unnecessary.
Stevie scuttled onwards, urgently summoning the bitch with a quiet voice. She leashed the bitch to a railing and entered the small supermarket.
Prospective Friday night pissheads milled around, acquiring crates of Stella Artois or Tennents Lager. The whole place seethed with immense brutality and manic despair. Feral locals muttered caustic comments under they breath. Check the state of it. Many referred to Stevie as an it. Legally she was still a man. She had been banned from a nearby shopping centre for her insistence upon using the female toilet facilities. But she was not so well known at the vast shopping complex. The sight of her unshaved legs and thick layer of facial stubble had proved deeply unsettling for the gentle old ladies attending the toilet at that moment.

Stevie moved towards the liquor aisle amidst hoots of derisive laughter. She absorbed it readily, it would be stored away and then expunged later by administering copious quantities of vodka.
Stevie itched her phallus. Perhaps she would masturbate tonight.
She carried her intended purchases, a bottle of Russian Standard and two bottles of ginger ale, to the checkout. She was refused sale. On the grounds of intoxication.
This was fucking a disaster man naw it wisnae she’d head round to Drinkers’ to pick something up. Drinkers’ Paradise was one of the few stores on the main street of Mire. Stevie untied Niggerlilly from the post. The bitch swished its tail eagerly, its eyes glimmering with enthusiasm.
Stevie was refused sale at Drinkers’ Paradise as well. The only other alternative, the final resort begun to form in the back of her mind but she was still reluctant to acknowledge it.
She began to walk and she knew where she was walking but she didn’t want to think about it. She wouldn’t confront it until she had to, when she arrived at Murchie’s house.
The name sent a shiver of repulsion down her psyche.
It was very dark now. The swollen sky seemed to convey all the seething desperation, drastic sadness, black festering turmoil that she felt. Niggerlilly plodded alongside her sadly. An ominous wind had begun to pick up.
A passing youth bounced a basketball off Stevie’s face. She felt her eyes mist over and her nose and lips felt numb. The youth’s face seethed with feral cruelty and it snarled. Niggerlilly whimpered and mewled softly as Stevie clutched her face. The youth danced off into the fantastically evil night.

Saturday 27 February 2010

The Dripping Internets

By 2666 the humans had all disappeared. All that remained were their networks, their electronic configurations waiting to be interpreted by alien visitors.
All that data, unobserved for eternity now. All that fleeting beauty, grandeur and turmoil.
Infinite labyrinths of horror and madness.
Ruined libraries with network routers still intact.
The endlessly trickling sadness of pornography.
Parasitical skies over heaps of slag.
Ruinous eyes observe vehicles emerging from howling tunnels.
Violins. November. Dark wood.
Vile things. Vile occurrences. Secrets. Jokes. Smoke. Laughter. Ruins and vistas.

The secret internet is a vista of ruinous hard-ons. Pulsing data, whirring devices. Smoke emanating from semi-erect penises.
Secret knees.

Drenched pussies and faces wet with gore. Novels.

Things hovering in the skies. In her eyes. Vacuum cleaner turmoil.

Thanks Very Much For Those Few Kind Words - A Sitcom

Theme Song - 13th Floor Elevators

Montage of shots of Gordon and his Grandpa including:
Gordon grinning guilelessly at something off-camera, Grandpa laying beside the deactivated electric fire endeavouring to warm himself, Grandpa violently losing his temper in slow motion, Gordon typing and gazing at a laptop screen, shots of 36 Blossom Terrace, Grandpa wandering around in the snow partially dressed, Grandpa tucking into a jar of marmalade with a cutlery knife.
Also starring Anya: shot of Anya mixing up egg mayonnaise in a bowl, shot of Anya grinning guilelessly at a bewildered looking grandpa.

Setting: Interior of 36 Blossom Terrace
Grandpa shuffles into the kitchen, humming a tuneless drone. Anya turns from the worktop where she has been preparing egg mayonnaise in a ceramic bowl.

ANYA: A wee egg...
GRANDPA: What's that Aggie?
ANYA: Am no Aggie, Am Anya
GRANDPA cackles mirthfully.

FADE TO NEXT SCENE

Setting of spare bedroom. Gordon is sat before a laptop typing rapidly. He pauses and gazes at the screen, emitting a prolonged sigh. Grandpa shuffles in and watches his grandson speculatively.
GRANDPA: (in an earnest tone) What time do you want to get up in the morning?
GORDON: (murmuring lethargically) I can't be bothered getting up.
GRANDPA: (suddenly frenzied) You lazy fucking idiot!
(Hysterical audience laughter)

FADE TO NEXT SCENE

Dining table. Grandpa is slowly and carefully devouring a seafood dish. He has the countenance, posture and mannerisms of a young child. He reaches for a nearby jar of marmalade set amongst other condiments and turns the jar in his hand, studying the label in silence for a full minute. He then removes the lid, utilizing his cutlery knife, begins spooning the marmalade into his mouth. Anya appears from the kitchen.
ANYA: Right Bobby, that's for putting on yer toast in the morning, no for eating out the jar.
She confiscates the jar.
GRANDPA: Oh, is it?
Anya disappears into the kitchen again and, after a moment, Grandpa retrieves the jar and studies the label again for a full minute. He then removes the lid and repeats his earlier consumption procedure.
(Subdued audience chuckling)

Interior of spare bedroom. Gordon is sprawled out, dozing restfully. Anya enters the room and rouses him.
ANYA: Where's yer grandpa?
GORDON: Downstairs.
ANYA: Naw he's no.
Shot of Gordon and ANYA descending the stairs, smiling self consciously at the camera (also all dialogue is delivered with deliberately stilted amateur awkwardness). They booth stoop to dress their feet with shoes.
Cut to an outside shot of 36 Blossom Terrace. Gordon and Anya emerge into the brilliant glare of the snow. They trudge to the gate and look up and down the street.
Cut to a shot of Gordon jogging along the pavement with a solemn or bored expression. The camera follows alongside him then turns to reveal he is nearing Grandpa who has evidently wandered off for some esoteric purpose.
Gordon dials a mobile phone.

GORDON: I've found him.
Grandpa cackles mirthfully

Kitty Lost, in the Rain

He sat in a booth, sipping urgently at a beer, snatching greedily at pockets of euphoria. His friends played pool nearby. He breathed deeply and tried to relax, tried to ignore the gnawing feeling that something was deeply awry.
He was at a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a classic pre-gentrification dive that was now a tainted hipster enclave. He scanned the crowd, testing the hipness of the clientele against his own. A hipness that was painstakingly acquired and precisely measured.
He patted his finger in some spilt beer and then dabbed the liquid around his eyes. He wanted to appear emotional, intense and out of control.
Outside the rain was incessant. Had been for the whole month of June. He dabbed beer on his eyelids and imagined that he had AIDS. Damaged. Edgy. Volatile.
His friends: a short haired black lesbian and an effete, nervy web-designer. They completed their game of pool and then came and sat next to him.
Something was wrong. It could no longer be denied. It was most apparent in inconspicuous and abstract ways. A suddenly distant gaze. Boredom barely concealed by gnawing, apocalyptic humour.

Something lost forever in the rain...
He snapped out a profoundly melancholy reverie and decided it was time for a therapeutic trip to the bar. A Bud and a shot. He stood and drank them at the bar then ordered the same again. He returned to the table feeling a glimmering surge of stupefaction. Quite rejuvenating really.

Down Against It

The name of the group Jock was reviewing tonight was Malaysian Malaise and he didn't much care for them. The usual bunch of solemn art jesters in lurid purple or magenta t-shirts, tinkering with electronic pedals and devices, summoning what they perhaps felt was some deeply religious and ecstatic current of drone. The whole thing was too self-aware and codified to really carry any weight.
Jock watched elements of the sparse, rapt audience with subdued disdain and then took a long drag on his beer. Beer was a funny thing. Oftentimes a man could harbour a profound yen for the stuff and then, upon acquiring it, recall that it tasted helluva bitter. Yet oddly compelling. Then two or three beers later the taste was re-engaged to the familiar flowering of stupefied pleasure in the feckless recesses of the mind.
Malaysian Malaise turned slowly to their respective amps and then abruptly shut them off in tandem. Silence and then a smattering of enthusiastic applause from a fervent few.
Jock took a few minutes to finish his beer and then rose from his seat near the bar. He had been commissioned to conduct a brief interview with Maya, the only female dronette amongst the other droners of Malaysian Malaise.
He located her in a room which was lit and decorated in the style of a classroom amidst vintage analogue phaser pedals and tangled patch cables. In the background the drifting sounds of Double Jonathan, the next band onstage, became apparent.
Although she had the appearance and surface demeanour of a neurotic hippie chick, Jock discovered Maya to be a warm and alluringly luscious lassie. He wanted to linger near her indefinitely but sensed a gradually accumulating evasiveness on her part. Desperate to stem this, he offered to buy her a beer and went off to the bar. When he returned with two bottles of Brahma he was sad to find she had dispersed. He sat alone in the empty, overlit classroom and quickly drained both bottles. Then he returned to catch the end of Double Jonathan's self indulgently abstract set.

Pulsing glimmers of euphoria in the deep, howling, blackened void of the universe.

Jock caught a bus home and sat near two irreverent kids with slim fit jeans and asymmetrical haircuts. One held a freshly gripped skateboard deck on his lap.

He preferred to dance at home, alone, his socks shuffling on the carpet. Such was his preference.

Thursday 18 February 2010

THE DUBIOUS JOURNAL OF JONATHAN MARKS - 18/02/2010

When I come into the house Niggerlilly gazes at me imploringly, beseechingly.
Her wants me to take her out walking.
I am too lazy or too busy looking at jackets on the internet.

The jovial, mild mannered Canadian that sits across from me got a new i-Mac. (at work I am speaking about now). I plan to write a story about this incident. He carried it back from John Lewis looking harried and weary. He also seemed bewildered as to why the boss had bought him it. I couldn’t help smirking at everyone in the office. I observe everyone. But I am too quiet. They single out quiet people.
I drank too much at the weekend. I got drunk last night. Today is Friday. I feel good.

I left work at 8pm tonight. I immediately caught a bus.
I want to buy a saxophone. And a drum machine.

I’ve just added another (albeit small) section to the novella I’m working on. It’s entitled the Sad Tale of Stevie and Niggerlilly. Yes, I may change the title. Writing is really difficult. It is such an ineffable art. Good writing is like observing smoke slowly curling on a winter’s morning. Or a hypnotic walk through an echoing tunnel.

Earlier I wrote today is Friday. I was mistaken. It is Thursday. I have been confused a lot as of late. Potential side effect of drunkenness. I was supposed to meet with (NAME CENSORED) this week. But I lack enthusiasm to do such a thing. Isn’t that awful! I’ve been meeting (NAME CENSORED) instead who is twelve years my senior. And who lives with her ex boyfriend. I can’t visit when he is around. No, it’s not an ideal state of affairs.

Went out dancing on Saturday night. It was predictably sucky and shitey. (NAME CENSORED)’s cousin and sisters danced around like lobotomised goons. I had to get exceptionally drunk to maintain. Which was frowned upon for some reason? I theorize that everyone was just jealous of the euphoria I was afforded via intoxication. An absurd theory, aye, mibby. But Ahm entitled tae it.
No idea why I lapsed into dialectical Scots there. Mibby cuz I’m extremely bored? Oh aye, that’s probably it.

I had the mother of all nosebleeds on the bus on Monday night. Me hand and face were wet with gore. Everyone studiously avoided looking at me apart from a sweetly concerned teenage lass. Her wanted to take care of me, methinks. Clean me, soothe me. A tender young lass tender in her years with soft thighs shut up shut up shit.

Sunday 31 January 2010

Kim Gordon. Marijuana Nihilism

Stupefaction sought
Our terms of collision are unspecific. I
need

My dog snores peacefully
It's not easy
to be me
but it's not hard.

The volume of snoring whores was incredible I was so incredulous. A caustic sneer extinguished all optimism.

He would type this shite up on a computer. Publish it over the internet. That's what he'd do, kid.

Me gums is gonna bleed like fuck when I utilise this new toothbrush, lad.

When I hear my dog gnash his teeth as he sleeps I feel a potent yen to nuzzle against him.
His ears twitch in a moment of vigilism.

Kim Gordon. Marijuana Nihilism.

Ye get these patched of turbulence. Howling pockets of anguish. And then everything is grandiose and acceptance is sought.

Terms of Collision II

He had resolved to write a short story in the month of January 2010. The story was to be entitled 'Terms of Collision' which was a name that had occurred to him quite spontaneously one day whilst walking the dog.
Terms of Collision. Terms of Collision. One wee problem: he had absolutely no fucking idea what the story should be about.
Well, he had some ideas, but they were vague and muddled. The more he tried to summon them the more blurred and out of focus they became.
Terms of Collision. It was to be a fairly bleak, sparse, minimal piece of prose.

Terms of motherfucking shitey hell.

The device made a whirring sound like an electronic cicada. Was it configured properly?
He was writing a science-fiction novella entitled 'Configuration of the Pegadrift' about a vast, omnipresent, telepathic computer.
A load of implausible shite aye perhaps.

He did quite enjoy the sensation of stupefaction that could not be denied. The presence of other people tended to exhaust him. He loathed people. And yet he needed them near him.

The Men Who Understood Computers

They were the men who understood computers. They knew this about themselves. They were self aware in this regard.
I never understood computers. I had trouble configuring devices. I had trouble configuring a lot of things. Computers seemed almost to be allergic to my presence. I figured it only a matter of time before my calculator developed a virus.
Troubleshooting was always a convoluted, despairing affair. The unfathomable mysteries of technology, electricity.
One day they would develop the ultimate, pre-sentimental, telepathic, all encompassing device that would decode and replicate our desires in a vast feverish codex below a swollen thunder sky. Or so I postulated. But what did I know. I did not understand computers. The men who understood computers were at hand. They were standing by. They were meek and mild mannered. They had few complaints vis-a-vis life. Problems were eradicated. New interfaces were configured if necessary. They were intuitive, like the updated software they tinkered with during endless slow-motion Sunday afternoons.
In 2010 a wide array of content was available. More than any of us could comprehend or absorb with any degree of satisfaction or meaning.
Passwords were set. Virus scans initiated. Shortcuts memorized. Backups created.
I understood damn all.
I meditated to the drone of my refridgerator every night. A heady lull. Until it clicked off suddenly, leaving a trace of almost silent whirr.

Last Saturday of January 2010

I'm listening to the splendid second LP by Loose Fur. I have a tumbler of vodka w/ ginger ale. I am alone. All in all a fairly agreeable state of affairs.
How tenuous are we permitted to become?
Why are these fleeting pleasures... I mean... can they they no be prolonged?

A sublime beverage, lustrous musique, a pen and a paper. Jonny is quite content.
Now I will write a wee story!

Nuances of the Nightmare

It was a subtly nuanced nightmare and it had been on-going for 26 years.
There were times when he thought of himself as part of a tradition, mistook himself for part of a tradition.
Gazing out the window of the upper deck of the bus, gazing speculatively at female pedestrians.
Vain, self-aggrandizing notions flowing cooly behind his eyes.

The preposterous wee cunt had this wee box thing a wee plastic box that made all these weird whirring sounds man when ye pit batteries in the cunt.

Untitled

See these frivolous bastards Ah tell ye still it doesnae pay to be a total humourless cunt neither, ye wind up alienating every cunt.

He glimpsed his silhoutte on the cold pavement and decided his new haircut mibby wasn't so disasterous.

Untitled

He walked fast, the vacant sky high above him, he kept walking quickly, startled by the cold air.
He watched the lassies that walked past him. Some met his gaze. Some were beautiful. Others grotesque.
He was ready to flee. He wasn't sure about this. What was the etiquette for dates these days anyway? She had suggested meeting up, perhaps she ought to pay.
Maybe he could suggest this, brusquely co-erce her into buying both tickets. She would either of be appalled and leave or she may even acquiesce. He was indifferent anyway. He had nothing to lose.
Maybe she could pay for things, buy him things. In certain scenarios her insecurity and eagerness may prompt her to do other things he wanted. Heh heh heh heh heh.
No, he was kidding of course. His black sense of humour. Shared or comprehended by few.
Or was he kidding. Perhaps this weird jesting was a portal to his true nature, i.e. sociopathic, narcisisstic etc.
As he walked, he wrote a book in his head. This was an unfortunate tendency he had where he concocted what seemed like marvellous wee passages of prose during the act of bi-pedal locomotion i.e. walking.
The trouble was, was that he forgot the damn fucking things by the time he got hame!

(Igloo)

"Keep your hands to yourself!" shrieked the precocious girl in hysterical glee.
It was a stiflingly hot day. The older girl had blonde hair, wore oversized sunshades and a petulant expression.
The simpering freak had flushed cheeks and he felt sweaty and ineffectual.
He had a mild headache and his clothes felt uncomfortable and he was unsure what to do with himself.
The blonde sipped her coke and scoffed quietly as the simpering freak sat on the grass and rested his head against her shin. Her body felt rigid and distant.
The precocious watched the freak with an expression of longing and hatred.

Tendencies

Something is blocking me.
Something is certainly wrong.

He breathed on her. Hot breath in her ear. Both ears. Glazed eyes gazing.

To live and shave in LA. Other subtle weirdness.

What's going on here? What's happening? What are you doing? And could somebody please tell me what's with all this fucking commotion.
He exploded in grey mirth and cackled deliriously.

Codes approximated.

Shag ass, smoke this, smoker.

He fancied himself as something of a debonair twit.

Deformed, decapitated. Smells.

Pens sapping ink. All my devices have leaked. I am not configured properly. I am a machine that has

A sense of well-being.

obsolete. Forgotten its original purpose.

So: all devices sapped.
I am leaking energy with twitches and grimaces. I am petty, bitter and haunted because my diet is incorrect.

Tendencies.

It's more convenient to believe that.

Hierarchy. Repitition.
Disassociation.

Be more tranquil.

Gormless grin. She marvelled at his jealous tendencies in nasty fascination, much to the

It was unpalatable.

Problems emerge.
This is a thing we can watch and discuss.

"Are you talking to yourself?" she queried in a biting, sarcastic tone.

Shoes

His shoes weren't right.
Ach aw the shite contributed into a molasses of shite an here was the undisputed fact: his shoes were not right.
(emphasised with nasal elocution)

Terms of Collision

Memory of Friday night, an epic oddysey to Granton, lost, trying to seek a party, drunk, falling over on the ice, roaring my friend's name, an ecstatic consonant-less bellow to the grim Granton night so that he could locate me.

That malicious cunt of a boss saw fit to garnish my beverage with handwash when I wasn't looking. It wasn't too malicious really, just more of a juvenile jape, a prank lacking finesse.

So I punched him in the chuckies.

Observed

Languishing at the bus stop Jonson emitted a faint pump. He glanced around to see if any cunt had bore witness. An old guy leaning on a railing looked up to meet his glance. The auld yin looked at him like Ah clocked ye, ye dirty bastart.
A fine female specimen wandered past pushing a buggy. Who's this fine female specimen, Jonson wonder to hisself.
Careful hen, dinnae inhale that odious waft.
The thing was to act nonchelant as hell, son, don't incriminate yourself with furtive glances. With regard to public farting.
And admiring fine female specimens.
When the bus rolled up Jonsons carried out his standard assessment of the lower deck, scanning for fine female specimens. None observed, he ascended upstairs to the vacant upper deck. He took a seat and began writing this senseless pish yer reading now, boys and girls.
A folded newspaper lay on the adjacent seat. It had rather a convoluted headline. It seems some lonely AIDS sufferer had purposefully infected his wife with his sickness so that he might enjoy sexual relations with her again.
It seems some guileless whore of an administrative assistant has banned two weans from attending a school Christmas disco on account of they didnae possess a 100 percent perfect attendance record. But this was on account of the fact that their old man had been tallied and the poor wee cunts had to take time off to attend the funeral. Bereavments count the admin whore had stated sternly.

Some drivers dinnae even bother looking at the damn fucking thing and mibby I'd be the same who kin blame them. Ye pull over in these wild wee villages like Uphall, yer no wanting to question anybodd's intergrity. Especially if they are dishonest.
Then ye get these other cunts that scrutinise the damn fucking thing. Then again, mibby I'd be like them, a right officious cunt.
I'm talking about bus passes by the way.
I'm no at my ease on the upper deck of the bus on a Saturday night. Too many brutal rajes liable to no look too kindly on some cunt writing notes (i.e. me).
Blasting the auld bit Sonic Youth in the auld lugholes, braw man, braw.
The bus rumbles onwards over these atrocious roads.
Neds murmuring vaguely in the background. Scheming against yer hometown son, yer affable and humble narrator.
Failed plans, schemes, lost imperatives on this malignant December night. Uncertainty and meaninglessness.
Chrissake get a few tins down the auld mouthhole everything'll be alright.

Body High

His high was definitely fading, Pete realised glumly.
And still, under such regrettable circumstances this whore demanded carnal attention. Pete deftly tore open the packaging of a rubber and began a careful attempt to enwrap his semi-erect penis.
It was useless. Akin to trying to cling film a tape worm.
He chuckled exasperatedly.
The whore was watching him with fervent, glittering eyes.
So this was reality.
It didn't feel good, exactly. It lacked the light slow-motion mirth of a sitcom.
Reality was gloomy and desperate.
His high had faded. A sad swimming pool echo, a barely familiar semblance.

All things fade. Raymond Stanz understood this. He tried to ward off this knowledge by affecting the carefree jest of a flawed but likable sitcom character.

Jennifer

In infinite afternoon minutes
of wintry contemplation
structures reveal themselves in
glimpses of cohesive thought

There is an art to this:
writing on a trembling, speeding
bus
Knees crammed against plastic
hungry and forlorn
w/ a keen sense of senselessness
I'll go home and gaze at Jennifer
on TV and maybe remember
fumbling sexual
encounters of a quiet, pained
adolesence
As I gaze at prosaic and gorgeous
actresses in stupefying sitcoms
and giggle mindlessly
I left my novel at work
along with most of
my sensibilities and
I can't fucking write
on this cramped juddering bus
I chose to sit downstairs
near attractive women
Sit near them but
never look at them
Today I got sucked into the
political whirlpool of
drinking tea at work
and fuck explaining what that
even means
I must resemble an
insane hermit
scribbling in this fucking
notepad

The Supremely Dubious Journal of Jonathan Marks November 2009

The beautiful lassies circulating around Edinburgh make me want to chew my fist raw. I see them as I walk by the art college. I see them on the street when I'm vacated from the office by a fire alarm.

It was another shitey day at the office actually it wasnae too bad. But ye get this looming ominous feeling on Sunday nights, a sense of imminent collapse, a nameless foreboding. And then everything's fine, ye get these wee pockets of relief from the sad sickness and dreadful longing of existence.

I was vaguely on edge for the first half of the day, mainly due to the imminent proximity of other human beings which usually makes me morose, aye it's an awful thing to say mibby but it's true a lot of the time.
Ye ken what it's like. Or mibby ye don't, mibby yer one of these well-adjusted cunts.
The fire alarm went and the boss motioned for the boy nearest the door to nudge it shut.
But then it eventually occurred to us that we should evacuate. Outside we went, eight of us into the pristine November chill.
I gazed at a waitress from the restaurant from below our office with impaired longing.
I worked on until 6:30pm. It was very dark and cold when I left the office and walked briskly up to the art college to submit my application form for life model work. Ah christ, there's some bohemian princesses lurking around there that make ye grind yer teeth son, yer eyes tear up and ye just gaze forlornly.
I walked quickly back down to the bus stop to catch my bus home. A foxy blonde lass was loitering there and I held eye contact for a bold couple of seconds.
Then the bus for Glasgow rolled up and she boarded it and dang that was it, she was gone, carried out of my life forever son.

Monday 4 January 2010

On the Train

"We like you cuz you're damaged," the older man informed the boy. The younger man remained silent, simply remained gazing at the boy with those unsavoury, damp, bloodshot eyes. The boy smiled his polite, effeminate smile.
The older man presented a naked lustful leer.
"Come sit closer," he suggested to the boy. The younger man continued to gaze and simper in a grotesquely exaggerated manner.

He tousled the boy's hair, inducing a feeling of calm. The younger man was on an upper bunk, gazing downwards intently. He drew his covers around him and whimpered softly.

"We like you cuz you're damaged," the older man reiterated. The boy offered a shy smile, his cheeks slightly flushed.

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What fucking situation am I in now man no it's fine fine too much too much

Guess what
(guitars twang calmly, forlornly)

I thought I realised something earlier, something worthy of being written down I cannae mind now

All evil emanates from feminine hysteria.

That wisnae it. Or it might have been who knows man who knows, fuck it.

05:17am ya loco cunt and a massive pilfered beverage to contend with. Such have been the drastic whims of the Pegadrift.

Can ye objectively study psychological phenomonen such as pride, ego etc? I don't even know what I mean, I mean, I've been drinking

Yeh, ye realise things and ye forget to write them down. Important things! Shitey ruminations of no consequence more like but who can deny any cunt their own idiosyncratic quest for inane, delusional knowledge.

I thought I wrote something down earlier, I thought
 
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