He supposed at least the snow was melting. The estate he was staying on, the estate he’d been living on for over a year now, had been completely snowed in by the fierce winter and not even his dilapidated old Range Rover was able to traverse the narrow winding path that led into the village. He was glad because he was fast running out of cigarettes. Like all addicts, like all recovering addicts, he had come to understand his obsession with excess. He smoked nowadays, not one or two here or there, but thirty or forty a day, lighting one off the other and watching them slowly burn down, imagining they were the sands of time.

It had been over a year since he came here. Not a lot had happened. Of course, everything had happened. Just not to him. His father, caught up in the expenses scandal, was due to stand down at the next election and, he supposed, now that it didn’t really matter, the heat was off. He could leave, although he didn’t really have anywhere to go. Mia, he’d heard, was now married — to some rich banker. And she’d started using her title again. Contessa. Who’d have thought it? Sara was on television, one more reason to avoid it, and he hadn’t heard a word from Miranda, or anyone else from those days, since he left rehab in the clothes he’d arrived in and been driven to this desolate place and told to wait.

He was going to chance a drive into the village. He’d run the Range Rover every day in the snow, even if it couldn’t go anywhere, just to keep the engine turning. Matt grabbed his fake plastic Wayfarers and put them on — not the most cunning of disguises, but then again he’d started to dye his hair darker and slick it back, and he didn’t suppose anyone would really be looking for him in the depths of Surrey anyway. No reporters, no gangsters, no angry dealers looking to collect on his debts. He was, to all intents and purposes, a non-person. Lost in time.

The car started. First try. Matt rolled down the hill, past the white fields, through slush that had melted, making the roads passable again. The village seemed full of life. Sure, there were only two or three hundred people, and it seemed to him at one time there could be no more than two or three. But compared to the last two weeks spent sitting alone, this felt like heaven. He almost — but not quite — managed a smile. A queue at the village shop. He waited patiently. He had all the time in the world.

Restocked with Camels he wondered what to do. Life had at least had a little purpose when he was still going to NA meetings (the reason his father had allowed him the car) but they started to talk to him about God and he wasn’t having any of that. It was the final indignity. He’d rather trudge through the wilderness alone than get caught up in some goddamn cult. If they’d been more upfront at the treatment centre about exactly what “recovery” entailed he would have just done himself in there and then. As it was, he ended up getting better, but only a little better.

Deep down inside Matt was a broken man. He wasn’t an artist. He’d tried.

It was infuriating. His watercolours had no consistency and his oil paintings were just smudges of grease. Worse still, everything he sketched seemed flat, and dull, and lifeless. His drawings seemed to lack perspective and that, he supposed, was the problem with his entire life. He was a survivor, he’d been through the calamity. But now he found himself lost and utterly unable to find anything to do. At his father’s request he’d put in for law school next year, but that was a long way away. He had months and months to kill before he’d be allowed to return to civilisation. There weren’t even any girls. The village had two bars, which he avoided, and a small, grubby canteen. It was there that Matt headed, parking the enormous Range Rover outside.

He looked at the sandwich counter with a morbid sense of gloom and instead ordered a fried breakfast. He wouldn’t eat it, he rarely ate (the cigarettes, he supposed), but it would at least afford him some novel way of passing the time, of watching people from the window, perhaps sharing a word or two with the other diners about the daily news. Taking his sugary tea from the waitress he sat down with the day’s paper and began to flick through it. It felt like a dispatch from another world.

Foie gras and the veal, please. He found himself drifting away into a dream world, a world of expensive restaurants and beautiful girls on his shoulder, a world of late nights and bright lights and parties and cocaine and people, friends, people. But he was all alone.

The waitress set a steaming pile of grease down at his table, bringing him back to earth.
‘Are you alright, love?’ she asked. ‘You look ever so peaky.’

Matt had never looked in the best of health, but now with his dark hair his pallid complexion seemed even more apparent, and the doctors told him it’d be a long time before he’d be well enough to eat, to put on any real weight. For now his body ran simply on sugar, cigarettes, and a dour refusal to lay down and die. Consequently his gaunt appearance had continued its steady decline and now, his clothes two sizes too big for him, black bags permanently hovering beneath his eyes, every time he caught sight of himself in the mirror he could only think of Andros, his dead friend, his brother, his foil — the one who had to die before he could see the light.

Matt’s lifestyle had led him close to death. The doctors said he was very lucky, his heart had atrophied and his liver was ready to give up the game. Rehab. They’d made him feel bad about himself and he carried on feeling it almost out of obligation. His liver was getting better. But they could do nothing for his heart.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, finally. Adding: ‘thanks.’

At least Matt’s manners were finally improving. Now he had to rely on people’s kindness, rather than simply paying them a bribe. He could barely afford the breakfast, let alone find the money to leave a tip.

‘Never could understand what a nice boy like you is doing out here on your own,’ the elderly lady said. ‘Every week you come in here. And it’s always the same. Head shrouded in gloom.’

‘I used to be someone,’ started Matt. He faltered. ‘At least, I think.’

The woman nodded. ‘Thought I’d seen you on the telly.’

Matt shook his head. ‘You’ve got me confused with someone else.’

People often thought he was an actor for some reason.

‘I was a…’

Again he trailed off.

‘Never you mind, dear,’ the woman said, ‘it’ll all work out in the end.’

‘Maybe,’ said Matt. He was twenty five.

He stared down at the food on his plate. This was life. This was survival.

This was the end.

Trivial Blake

I wanted to fly to the south coast. My wings were clipped so I had to get her to drive me. It didn’t take long but the air was stale inside the car. I opened a window but the wind roared at me so I shut it again.

When we arrived I could hear my brothers crying in the sky. They sought out scraps left by the people on the beach. They needed the people but they would never be their friends. I heard them cry and I felt like crying too.

The sea was a darker shade of blue than I remembered. How long has it been since I last saw it?

In the house, pictures of friends on the wall: a magpie, a thrush, someone with a brown and white speckled breast. He’s happy in an artificial kind of way. They’re trapped in their frames, stone still because they cannot fly.

I know how they feel.

*

Their first taste of domestic bliss was three nights and three days on the south coast. Self-catered, they meandered around the shops and treated themselves to extra special biscuits and fresh vegetables. They laid their toothbrushes down together, showered and brushed each other’s hair. At night they made sure all the doors were locked and the lights were out. Alone, they made love, talked for awhile, and fell to sleep in an embrace.

He made bacon and coffee dressed only in his underwear. She wore his t-shirt like a nightdress. He liked the way she looked in it.

By the second night they were both wondering if they could do this full-time.

*

I dreamed it was my wedding day. The ceremony was delayed because I couldn’t get my jacket on over my wings. I wanted to just cut some holes but a faceless best man insisted that the wings would have to come off. I tried to reason with him but it was one of those dreams where something bad is inevitably going to happen. Two men came in dressed as fire-fighters with the Jaws of Life. They clamped it on to the root of my wings and squeezed until the bones cracked. I didn’t feel any pain, just emptiness. I sobbed and the dream ended before my bride arrived.

When I woke I saw a single magpie perched on the roof of the house opposite. One for sorrow. Her naked body slept curled away from me. I lay back down and curled away from her. We lay there in our own worlds.

*

High up, the hotel watched over the bay. If it strained its many eyes, it could see the town on the far side. It was benevolent. The gulls worshipped it and the presents its children left them. The children came and went. Drinking tea inside. Walking dogs outside.

They sat in the hotel and she told him about how she would like to get married there. He drank his ale and let his head get fuzzy. The sun was shining intermittently. When a cloud blocked it the wind picked up until eventually they changed seats to get out of the draught.

On the cliff they took a picture and were satisfied by how beautiful they looked together. His hair was wild and tangled from the wind. Hers was dark and sleek and tied back to resist the breeze’s advance. She leant her head against his. He returned the pressure and watched the gulls circling overhead.

At the house, she complained of a headache and went to lie down. He sat in the garden with all the flowers and drank coffee. He wrote about how he was a bird and how he envied the other birds because they could fly and he couldn’t. Looking up at the roof of the house opposite, he saw that the magpie had returned. This time he had a friend. Two for joy. The magpies hopped and perched and flapped their wings and were thoroughly in love.

*

I dreamed that I was sat in the garden. She was in the kitchen baking a pie. The flowers bloomed all around me. They were so fertile they attracted hundreds of bees. The bees swarmed, clambering in and out to collect the nectar, bumping into each other and becoming angry. The bees swarmed around me. I tried to swat them away but I was paralysed. They covered every inch of my face and crawled into and out of my ears. I tried to call for help but it was one of those dreams where you have no voice.
She came outside and rested the pie on a table to let it cool. She asked me what was wrong. The bees began to sting me then. Short sharp pains like needles tingled in the side of my face and the inside of my ear.

The pie burst open. Three magpies flew out and perched on the roof of the house opposite. Three for a girl.

I woke up and found I had fallen asleep with my face on her chest. I put a hand on her belly and felt how warm it was.

*

On the last day, they went to the beach. Not soft sand but round pebbles that moulded to shape them when they sat. The sea lapped the shore. The sky turned from sun to heavy grey clouds and eventually it rained but not for long.

They returned to the house and cleaned it so well to give the illusion that they had never been there. They shared the chores, pinched and groped each other as they did them and he remarked that cleaning had never been so fun.

Then it was time to leave. He was content to let her drive. He didn’t feel the need to fly anymore. In the car he was caged, but the air was warm and comfortable. He held her leg and it was soft in his palm. He stroked her hair and she smiled at him for a moment before looking back at the road.

The heavens opened and a thunder storm raged around them but they were safe and warm together. Rain lashed against the windscreen and they watched it, safe in their womb. He grinned inwardly and counted the magpies he had seen. Seven for a secret never to be told.

*

I’m sitting alone in my attic bed-sit. The sky outside is grey. Raindrops fall against the window. A magpie stands on the terraced roof opposite. He hops. He pecks at the tiles. Mostly he watches me.

I walk around the neighbourhood going nowhere in particular and with no reason to go there. I walk past the abandoned church and look at the names and dates on the tombstones and the good things said about the dead. In the park two magpies loiter on the grass in front of me. They part when I pass through them but do not fly away.

I’m sitting alone with my face in my hands. She fixed my wings and set me free but I have nowhere to fly to. Out the window on the roof opposite three magpies sit and stare at me. They want me to come out and play with them. They want me to come out and fly.

I silently mouth the rhyme:

One for Sorrow
Two for Joy
Three for a Girl…

And the buzzer to my bed-sit goes off.

*

She came to him swollen. She came to him battered but with a resilient smile when he opened the door. He pushed the clothes off the sofa and let her sit. She took it gratefully. She was too heavy to be on her feet.

“I thought I wouldn’t see you again. It’s good to,” he said.
“I left him. I told him the truth and left him,” she said.
“Looks like he didn’t take it well.”
“I’ll live. I have to for her sake.”
“So it’s a ‘her’.”
“We’re having a daughter.”

She cried. He made her a cup of tea. He looked around and wondered if there would be enough room for three of them. She saw the look on his face and came over to hold his hands.

“I know you have nothing. You know I know you have nothing. That’s how you know I love you,” she said.

*

To be a father. I look at books with names in on the shelves of bookshops and libraries but I never buy them and I never find the right name. I wonder how a child will look at me. I sometimes look in the mirror and see a child looking back. Sometimes that’s the child I want in my life, not a new one.

The magpies are gone. I think they went to escort the stork.

*

They tried to do it full time. She bought a toothbrush and put it next to his. She bought flowers to add colour to the little room. They lay in bed together and alternatively watched each other sleep and wondered what the other was dreaming.

They walked together, until she was too big to go far. They walked around the neighbourhood going nowhere in particular for no real reason other than to get out. He watched as she filled more and more of his space.

Then the time came.

*

Our daughter is born. A little underweight but healthy. She’s too tiny to be an albatross around my neck. She’s tamed me. I have nowhere to fly now. She needs me. She’s beautiful. She has her eyes, but she has my wings.

story by Graeme McCann
image by Simon Matthews designer/illustrator, member of the design team den75.

…I can’t believe that stupid bitch is wearing the same colour nail varnish! Kitty stopped herself. The ‘I can’t belie…’ coming out of her mouth was rewound and played back as ‘I can’t believe you made it on time! I mean you’re usually late.’ Kitty bit her bottom lip. It popped itself back out.
Lena swept her hair into a mane that flounced across the back of her head, over her shoulder and down her chest. It was all so Jerry Hall… she took off her pink cashmere jacket and placed it over the back of the seat Kitty had pulled out. Lena sat down, taking off her high heels and wriggling free her toes with matching nail varnish.
‘You like my nails, Kitty?’
If she was trying to annoy Kitty on purpose, she certainly didn’t show it. The way she said it made it sound like an honest question.
‘It’s the same colour as mine, Lena.’ Kitty’s lips went as flat as a pancake.
‘Oh really?’ Lena giggled and took Kitty’s hand and placed it down on the café coffee table. Kitty’s knuckles resembled the knots in the varnished wood underneath. Lena put her hand over Kitty’s.
‘Yes, now you mention it, I can see a likeness.’
Kitty pulled her hand from under Lena’s, their friendship rings clashing.
‘Kitty, what’s up?’
Any and everything that Kitty did, Lena just had to copy it. And do it better. ‘Oh nothing,’ Kitty said. She picked up her glass with melting ice from her café con yellow, and shook it around. ‘Why do you ask, Lena?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, sticking her chin out and looking up at the ceiling. ‘You just seem a bit tense, that’s all.’
‘I guess it’s because people talk. Yes, I suppose it’s just that.’
Lena rotated her head to the side and looked down. ‘OK, I see, what have people been saying this time?’ Her digital watch read 2.34pm.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ replied Kitty, turning to stare out the window. The view could have been anywhere. Passing cars are the same no matter where you are. Umbrellas are the same shape the world over too – apart from in Japan. Kitty recalled her time in Tokyo. She was in a café, not dissimilar, and out the window were stylish ladies walking in the rain. They had umbrellas, but they were more like contraptions with shower curtains hanging off them, or mini gazebos. Each woman had her own sidewalk cubicle, floating along, weaving squarely, slotting in and out of fellow female cubicles. You could see them way off into the distance. They looked like a tetris game. Apart from that, this could be anywhere, Kitty thought – though it was probably only here in L.A where it was acceptable for your best friend to steal your boyfriend.
‘Go on Kitty, honey, tell me what’s going on in that sweet noggin of yours.’
Kitty’s glance turned back to the table.
‘People have been talking about you and Clyde, you know, my boyfriend?’
‘Oh honey I’m sorry. If you want, I’ll stop seeing him straight away…’
‘No. I guess it’s alright. I mean, we were only dating for a year. He did propose to me… but it’s not as if we were married or anything.’
‘Oh Kitty, you’re mad at me.’
‘Well…’
Lena stopped the passing waiter in his tracks by holding onto his empty tray. ‘I’ll have whatever she’s having. What is it she’s having?’
‘A café con yellow.’
‘That’ll do fine, lots of ice cubes, please.’ She panned back to Kitty. ‘So where were we? Me and Clyde.’
‘It’s OK Lena, I think I’ve found another boyfriend already.’
‘Already? Girl you move quick!’ Her eyes almost popped out of their sockets. ‘Well, aren’t you gonna tell me about him?’
‘It’s only a sort-of boyfriend.’
What it came down to was that Lena was just that fraction more beautiful, plus the fact that she had more fizz than a soda-stream. Men just found her more attractive.
The conversation paused. There was nothing worse for Lena than a silence, and she’d developed the antidote to bring any dead conversation back to life. She could keep any party going for as long as she wanted, until she had won over Kitty’s man, or had fallen face-flat on the floor from her heady mixes of dope and alcohol. Kitty would do all the fieldwork and the go-getting, and all Lena needed was a formal introduction and took it from there. Kitty had lost count the times she had fallen in love and Lena stepped in and stole it for herself. Ultimately, Lena would offer the man her candyfloss and a good ride on her Ferris wheel, then suddenly close down the fairground. Why Kitty was still friends with Lena not even she could answer. Maybe it was that the guys came and went, but only they had the same matching friendship rings.
‘Lena, I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but I don’t want to be your friend anymore.’
The waiter brought the tray, giving motion to the tension as he placed the café con yellow down on the table between them with a clonk. Kitty’s glass was empty melted ice. Lena’s was full.
‘What in the world are you talking about, girl! Are you feeling OK? Hello? Did you drink too much coffee or something?’
‘Alright Lena. This is the last time. If you steal my next boyfriend, we’re through! You can have Clyde. Just treat him well ‘cause he’s a nice guy. You don’t deserve a nice guy.’
‘Thanks for the advice but I dumped him already. He was just so needy.’
‘He’s not needy, he’s nice!’
‘Nice is needy, honey. Besides, he turned the bottoms of his jeans up on the inside.’
‘And?’
‘And? Trust me, a guy who turns up his jeans on the inside… well it speaks volumes.’
Kitty could only sigh.
‘How about we order one of those zero-fat banana pancakes? To share.’
Kitty nodded.
‘And tell me about this new guy? What’s his name.’ She might as well take the fork from the table and prise it out of her.
‘Randy.’
‘Randy? How sweet. And how did you meet?’
‘We haven’t met, I mean, in real life. We’re just at the chatting on the internet stage.’
‘Tell me more!’
‘Well, it turns out that his favourite food is deep fried eel. That’s mine, too. Can you believe that? Out of all the strange things to eat, we like the same thing!’
Lena forced a ‘wow!’ and tugged on the waiter’s apron. ‘A banana pancake, zero-fat thank you,’ she said, turning back to Kitty, ‘So tell me more about him.’
‘He’s intelligent, he knows so much about everything, and he’s got a great taste in music. And he is a master in Kung-Fu.’
‘Wow! He must have a fantastic body.’
Kitty stared at Lena with eyes of fire.
‘Don’t look at me like that! And don’t worry – I hate all that virtual love shit.’
‘Just as well.’
‘Pancake ladies,’ announced the waiter. How was he so quick?
‘I’ll have a side order of blueberries,’ ordered Kitty.
‘Me too,’ said Lena.

They finished their pancakes.Kitty didn’t want to leave on bad terms. She kissed Lena on the cheek, forgave her and went back to the day job she kept telling herself she would one day leave. Lena followed her steps ,her eyes squinting, until Kitty had gone out of sight. She checked around to make sure Kitty hadn’t forgotten anything and counted slowly to ten.
‘Right!’ she said, rubbing her hands together, reaching for her briefcase. She was a record label executive (in daddy’s company), keeping herself as busy as possible without really doing much. She took out her notebook to check her schedule for the rest of the day. Just a contract renewal to deal with. More importantly, she fired up the internet. She keyed the following words into the search box – “deep fried eel” singles, L.A, love, Randy, settling down into her spongy seat as she scrolled through.
Kitty couldn’t concentrate at her work. She kept thinking about Randy, counting down the time she would get home and turn on her computer. She would tell him about her day and more about what she looked like. Auburn hair and Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffanies came to mind, but she wanted to show more modesty. I’ll tell him I chew the end of my pencil, she decided as she drew squiggles in her notepad, waiting for the next client to call. I’ll tell him about the lousy job I’m doing and how I really want to be a fashion designer.
Lena was a master at gist. She could read whole pages in seconds, simply paying attention to key words that grabbed her gaze. In the time it took to eat her melon sorbet and lick the bowl with clinks of her pierced tongue, she had Randy’s profile up on the computer. There was no photo, which irritated her. She would demand one before they took it any further. For a split second she wondered if Kitty had his picture and kicked herself for not asking, although she couldn’t help admit the intrigue he was putting her through by not having a picture for her approval. It was unbearable and she just had to know more. She would tell him about her job as record label executive and invite him to come and meet some of his favourite musicians. She made a wish that he was good looking and had a job as she pressed ‘send’ with her contact details.

*****

RANDY: So nice to see you again

KITTY: I missed you. You didn’t turn up.

RANDY: I did, but… I was a bit late. Did you wait?

KITTY: Yes

RANDY: I didn’t see anyone, so I left

KITTY: Dang! Can I be honest with you?

RANDY: Sure

KITTY: I was a bit upset

RANDY: Me too. Listen, I was thinking about cooking up an eel. Would you like to come over, say Friday?

KITTY: Randy I’d love to

RANDY: My condo overlooks Santa Monica. Bring a cardigan, it might get cold at night on the roof garden.

KITTY: Would you like me to bring anything else?

RANDY: Just bring your good self!

KITTY: lol, I will. Randy?

RANDY: Yes?

KITTY: I can’t help feeling that I’m connected to you. I mean I know we haven’t met, and that’s what makes it all so strange

RANDY: I know, I feel it too

KITTY: You do?

RANDY: I guess when you come round on Friday that’s when we’ll find out if what we feel is real…

*****

RANDY: You hang out with Amy Winehouse?

LENA: Yes, from time to time. And Beyoncé. And you?

RANDY: I only know her from her music. I don’t hang out with anyone famous, but I have a few artist friends and actor wannabes, which I guess is not that unusual in LA

LENA: You’re so sweet, Randy. I can’t help feel an attraction to you – and I haven’t even seen you!

RANDY: I don’t like to put my pic on the net

LENA: I bet you meet loads of women on the net

RANDY: Not really

LENA: I’d love to meet you.

RANDY: Me too, but I’m kinda busy at the moment

LENA: What, you mean you’ve got another woman down the hall and you seem to want me anyway?

RANDY: I’m sorry I can’t talk right now. Was that a Joni Mitchell line?

LENA: Why can’t you talk? Too busy talking to Kitty? Forget her, honey

LENA: Randy?

LENA: Are you there?

Randy has left the chatroom.

Friday night came with the slow inevitability of the next orbit of Haley’s comet. Kitty tied her hair up with chopsticks. She had it all planned in her head – the deep fried eel. They would sit down for dinner and she would pluck them out from her hair and start eating. That’s when he’d laugh and sees both the funny and sexy sides to her in a double whammy. She took a taxi to his condo in Santa Monica and buzzed. The door clicked open and she called the elevator. She entered and pressed for the ninth floor. It gave her time to check her lipstick. The ninth floor was low-lit with non-descript paintings on the wall and yakka plants pointing the way to the sunset with their spikes. The door for apartment 9C was already ajar, and Kitty stepped across the threshold.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Hi honey, I thought he’d cancelled you,’ replied Lena on the sofa, flicking through Randy’s seventies soul vinyl collection. Kitty dropped her handbag.
‘I have a date with Randy and you have a date with my fists if you’re not careful.’
‘Huah huah, where d’ya get that line from? The internet?’
‘Lena you are such a mean cow!’
‘Listen honey, as always, the guys prefer me in the end.’
‘I know why you’re doing this. You are just insecure.’
‘Is that what your shrink tells ya.’ She slid the sleeve out of the record cover in her hands. It was Teddy Pendergrass.
Kitty didn’t know what to do, but her long leg did, as it shot up and her pointed foot kicked the record out of Lena’s hands.
‘You’re in big trouble now,’ said Lena. Kitty kicked again. A flick of the ankle that slapped her toes across Lena’s nose. ‘Right bitch,’ said Lena as she stood up and pulled Kitty by her leg onto the wide cream cotton sofa. ‘You’ll pay for that!’
‘No Lena, you’re gonna pay for all the boyfriends you’ve stolen and all the times you’ve copied me.’ Kitty closed her eyes and waved her arms towards Lena’s face. Lena managed to grab onto a flapping wrist and hold it tight.
‘Right, this is it!’ Lena huffed as she twisted Kitty’s hand, causing her arm to bend, and under excruciating pain, Kitty had to succumb and twist her body around so that she was horizontal and face-down on the sofa, while Lena positioned herself on top of her.
‘Calm down Lena and we can do this the nice way.’
‘Who you calling Lena? You’re Lena and I’m Kitty.’
‘Now now Lena, I’m Kitty. I’m the one with the date.’
‘You’re such a…such a…’ Kitty had no words. She simply sobbed her mascara into the cream cushions.
‘Now, this is what happens. I pretend to be you, Kitty, and have my date with Randy. Meanwhile you get the hell out of here and we’ll talk it over in the morning. Got it?’
‘No!’ cried the real Kitty as she flipped herself around, gripping onto Lena’s boobs and yanked them, span her around and pinned her down on the sofa.
‘Kitty!’ Lena laughed. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you.’ Kitty was straddling Lena on the sofa and full of rage. She took the chopsticks out of her hair and pointed them at Lena’s throat.
‘Come on Kitty, you wouldn’t do that!’
Kitty pressed the chopsticks further into Lena’s neck and wasn’t deterred when she started to choke. She was going to put Lena on a skewer, she was going to stab into her best friend’s windpipe, and at that second of her life, she didn’t care.
‘P–sss…. he–p…. m–ee,’ Lena begged as Kitty saw that this time she was for real. Lena’s pupils were dilating and foam was starting to build up and bubble out of her mouth. Kitty held the chopsticks firmly at the jugular. Just a small push and they would surely poke their way through Lena’s noodle veins. Lena’s head was swelling up and in the silent struggle they both heard a noise coming from another room.
Kitty released the chopsticks.
‘Do you hear that, Kitty?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can you smell fish?’
‘Yes.’
They both got up off the sofa and followed the sound – click and bleeps and sizzles.
‘It’s coming from in there.’
In there was the kitchen. Kitty went first, opening the door a little to fit through the gap, stepping into a large kitchen with frescos on the walls and ceiling lighting that was too bright.
‘Look Kitty! There’s something deep frying on the stove.’
Kitty walked over to where Lena was standing, and there, in a yellowy pool of oil, an eel was frying away.
‘Randy? Where are you? Lena, have you seen Randy.’
‘Yes. I mean, no. I haven’t seen him. Have no idea how he looks. And you?’
‘No.’
‘Jesus girl, anyone with a bit of sense would know that you have to see the photo first.’
‘I just thought things could be different.’
‘Well Kitty, you don’t think enough. That’s always been your problem. Anyway, Randy? RANDY?!’
‘Where is he?’
‘Do you think the eel is cooked yet?’
‘RANDY?!’
‘RANDY?!’
The eel was crisping nicely at just the correct temperature.
‘I’m over here,’ came a voice.
‘Over where?’ said Kitty.
‘Here?’
‘Well I don’t see anyone,’ said Lena.
‘I’m here, on the breakfast table.’
‘Randy?’ Kitty was perplexed. I can’t see you my dear.
‘I’m in here.’
‘Where?’
‘Inside the computer.’

Rob Plews

Illustration by Marie-Pascale Hardy.www.mphardy.com

The front door opens, slams. You turn your black, coarsely-haired head and she is standing there looking sophisticated, young, and beautiful. There is a man behind her; he looks tall, well-bred and strong. He is wearing a tailored suit. She walks into the sitting room, followed by the tall, bespoke man. You go to follow her, but everything around you distorts and changes. Perception is muddied, immersed in unclear water; you can see a bubbling froth hitting the shore line of smooth, white porcelain. Your transparent insect like wings are covered in layers of grease; realization hits. You know what you are, where you are, you are alone in the washing up bowl, with the dirty water and detritus. Insect legs attempt to clamber aboard a plate emerged in the bowl, out of the water, but you are powerless, impotent; still covered in so much grease. Razor sharp teeth thrust out of the water. The kitchen knife jaws slice, they cut. You can almost feel and sense them about to pierce you below, through the abdomen, between your scuttling legs…

You wake up. The dream is disturbing. You never remember your dreams, but this was so clear, so lucid. It’s lunchtime, feelings of numbness pang in your stomach, and you feel strangely tired, almost atrophic from a gluttony of sleep. When you eventually drifted into a half sleep last night you had left the TV on standby -symbolic of your life, on standby, in some sort of red dot limbo.

Thoughts dissipate, the TV is on, flicking through the channels, creating a montage of fractured dialogue. You rest on a channel-five quiz show; the female presenter is blonde and beautiful – she reminds you of her. You’re mildly titillated by her orthodontic, wholesome smile, but no response from your prick occurs. Life changes: sometimes fast, sometimes immeasurably slow. Life now in this instant has become like a prosaic TV quiz you no longer have interest in, you have no care for the trivial questions. You’ve lost all recognition for the cash prize and cuddly toy. At the tender age of twenty five, you lay in crisis. If your life was a show it would certainly be scheduled between the morally bankrupt chat show and a program that sells bits of antique tat. You let go of your cock. You have even made an enemy of your penis – it’s too depressed, too deflated to perform.

You can hear an old man outside your door in a towel dressing gown, pottering about. You know he is old, in a gown, because he is your Father. You returned home a long week ago. You went back to the London flat, packed up the last of your things and returned to your Father’s house, your old home. You drove away in your higher purchase car, driving out of the cold, congested, cruel City streets along the malignant motorway and you finally found yourself spat violently back into your hometown of stale, bitter-sweet memories.

You hadn’t been that way for perhaps over two years. It has become a uniformed and ugly town; a citadel for blandness. Pubs dotted on every corner; driving through you could see more and more looked to have sprouted up all over; like a pubescent boy with bad acne, bars and clubs erupting and spreading over the face of the entire townscape. For some reason, perhaps misplaced nostalgia you had navigated slowly through the newly paved and littered streets, following the snaking, and constricting concrete and glass python that is the new shopping centre. You arrived at a roundabout; one of the new buildings appeared reminiscent of a large fort-like garrison, JRR Tolkien’s Helms Deep. You couldn’t help but to stare out the window and picture orcs, chavs and drunkards being released on a Friday night from the countless bars. You imagine them being corralled and channeled by Police to this point, the cavorters and revelers crashing like a wave onto the mighty concrete walls and glass plated windows.
You arrived home; you had parked the car, shook your Father by the hand, both of you unsure whether a hug was too much, and unpacked your things. You were back home; back in the wilderness of suburbia.

Now you lay here, having quit your job, relationship, quit your shinier life in the nightmarish dreamscape that was and is the big smoke. Thoughts swim, wondering replaces doing, what next, what is it all about, what awaits… Must regroup and head back to the City, back to being a young professional, back to urban body combat, back to buying to let, back to the merry go round of sexually paranoid physical relationships, back to visceral smoke free bars and smoke full streets… must you?
You don’t know. You are in crisis. You are dancing on quicksand…

…All that floats through your mind is her face, her soft body, her fucking that prick behind your back. Numbness prevails, and nothing makes sense. You lay back in the womb like splendor of your old single bed with BMX racer duvet. A phone beeps.

‘I heard about the break and that you’re back home, sorry mate; but listen don’t get stuck to the fly paper that is Romford, see you soon as!’

You will reply. You will get out of bed. You will look to avoid the flypaper. Just not yet, just not now, just sleep, just sleep.

Story by Tom Siggins
Illustration by Linda de Canha

Enjoyed this? For another short story written in a similar style, check out Scene from a Typical House Party… 

Cassio mocks Bianca’s love for him to Iago (a device Iago uses to pretend it is Desdemona who is being mocked); calling her a whore and laughing at how she wants to marry him and hangs around him, particularly describing a scene on the bay/harbour in Venice. Later on in the plot Iago plants Desdemona’s handkerchief on Cassio, who gives it to Bianca to copy. Jealous that the handkerchief might be a token from another woman, nevertheless Bianca takes the handkerchief, saying she “must be circumstanced”.

I have always found Bianca’s character fascinating. She doesn’t say very much in the play, but she reflects the angers and hurts of many of the characters, and the problematic status of women in this period and today, with the dichotomy of the whore/angel; what it means to love someone who doesn’t love you, and the nature of real and imagined jealousies.

Sian Norris

He loves me he loves me not I sing to myself as I pull flower petals off the stem and fling them in to the sea; it is a pretty pose, don’t you think? I lose, and so I play tinker tailor soldier sailor with cherry pips and laugh to find my happy fate lies with the thief, because truly my heart has been thieved by this damn soldier, and I think both the flowers and the fruit are not lying.

He does not love me, I know that much, but I think he needs me, and that is something is it not, is it not, because for as long as I am needed then I can see him, and the more he sees me, then the more he will realise that he needs me and he will grow to love me. It is a fallacy I know but what else do I have to go on.

‘Are you ashamed of me?’ I asked him point blank one night, a night where he sat by my side and introduced me to no one and allowed me one touch on my knee as if to reassure me that he still cared. But behind the closed doors of his room then his hands move from my knees to send me shuddering and him short of breath.

‘Are you ashamed of me?’

For why this awful denial, this pretence that we are nothing but acquaintance, before the press of his body against mine filling me up with a love that I can never suppress. He told me no, of course not, why would I be, but just like my fantasy of his realisation of his necessity, it is a fallacy. He hates to be asked such questions because he wants to admit nothing. He refuses to recognise what we are, and when I try and say such things aloud he calls me brash and coarse, and I am forced to turn it in to a joke, so that I can be his monkey once more.

That is not love. Whatever he feels for me is more akin to hate than love. Something in him revolts from me, he hates the passion I inspire in him, I know it so well, for I am not the right kind, I scare him. He calls me monkey and gipsy and says the words are endearing, but I know his secret. He sees a wildness in me that is out of his field of control and I know that when I display the ecstasy that he brings in my bright face, he is somewhere inside recoiling in horror.

My eyes are too bright and my hair is too curled and my skin is too tanned and I know that to him I represent excess and lushness and an honesty that cannot be endured by the politesse that surrounds his world. So he denies me in front of all, and I strive against all my instinct and all that makes me what I am. I demurely accept his repulsion.

But why should I accept, my heart tells me angrily! I am who I am, I I I I I I say I over and over, me mi a me mia donna like a scratch across the grooves in my brain, repeating like a mantra to try and bring myself back in to this equation of two. Where am I to find myself as I allow him to take over all that it is that I love in myself, all the passion that makes me happy with what I have become, all the fire that he wants to reduce in to ice.
Sick of it! Sick of the men who take all they can from the flames in me so that they sputter and I can feel me being reduced, so that I have to keep repeating I I I to remind me, I need to remind me of me, before I lose myself in the mires of their lusts. I want my self back, I think. But it is too late now; I see that more and more. He has taken too much and I bend and flex to his will, to his want, so I keep quiet, even though at his revulsion part of me revolts, but I am learning to hush, to accept, to be silent.

For I have realised slowly that to win his love I have to change, and once the self in me is abandoned and left, then he will see the woman he loves, then it will be the time when we walk down by the canals, my hand in his, my head lowered – respectfully. But it is a struggle to keep my blood from rebelling against my heart. Angrily the little cells gang up on the muscle they are instructed to obey. She pumps hard to keep the rebels in line. Some day soon my blood will be tamed and I will be quietened as he wishes and then I will have learnt not to fight anymore. The fighting will be left to his sword.

Flushed with wine and with swaying steps I found him on the bay with his men and I laughed too loud and spoke too clearly, placing my arm around his waist and proclaiming him as my lover, yes! He is my lover and yes! I love him and yes! I have held this body so covered in finery bare and sweating in my own moist palms. My tongue was loose and I tried to press it against his, whilst he nervous and fidgety told me to run along, and his friends they laughed, they laughed at my dress slipping from my shoulder and called me a whore and pushed me hard against the wall as I struggled to find my soldier. They pushed me hard against the wall of the bay as I shouted out to him, but he had snuck away, ashamed of what I had done. Yet somehow still I love him.

So I sail on this boat to his side but I know what I will find there. For even in the heat of the dry arid landscape he will only see what is dry and arid, and no amount of sun will lighten the coldness of his attitude to me. As the bay laps against the shore, the ship tilts and heaves – as does my belly. The belly from which should come life, the life that he wants to take. I lie alone in this bed, in my cabin in the heat, and I see his face bending over mine. I toss my head against the covers and close my eyes to try and stop this imagining. For if I look at the sight of his face I don’t know what my mind will tell me I see there.

He words me girls, he words me, that I should not be noble to myself. I can’t let him go.

I arrive on this island, stepping off the boat with my head held high for a moment, a moment when I can allow myself some pride. Soon my head will duck down and I will be silent against his voice. I see the general’s wife and she is all that he wants me to be. All I hear is of her, of her and her beauty, of her and her sweetness, of her and her purity. And I think well whose fault is it that I am not so sweet, whose fault is it that I am rendered whorish, when I am no worse than she, really, I am no worse than she.

If it is a damned life I lead, well by god it is an honest one. We are both women and we both bleed, and if the breaking of blood was not spilled by a husband, then who is to say that that was my fault? And how dare he talk to me of this? He who values purity so highly has no trouble pressing hard against my breast, he who takes what he wants from this body he so despises and then blames me for not keeping to the story book version.

And I want to gnash my teeth and I want to shout and yell and riot on the street that he so drunkenly fell about on, and scream why won’t you be mine like I am yours, why do you refuse to see that I am no worse and she is no better than me. I think he loves her and I think of what I hear, and who knows if I think wrong, for I think I hear that the general thinks he loves her too. It’ll all end badly, I think I know that much.

He sends me to my room with this damn piece of cotton, this damn strawberry patterned token from some woman’s hand in to his, and I have to laugh, I have to pretend that I don’t mind. I flirt prettily of how I could not bear his absence, whilst I hide that to be from him is too painful for me to bear. But he thinks I came here because my slut body needs satiation. For god forbid that a woman like me could love him tenderly, for how can my lust for his body be matched with a love like that which I feel. What woman would love the feel of the body against her own, could feel passion and heat, love is not for the demure! Damn him and his refusals! Damn him and his denials! He will not be seen with me and I beg my foolish head to release me from this, I tell myself that I will not be seen with him, and I laugh, I laugh I laugh, for what punishment is that for him?

I must be circumstanced. I know that he laughs. And I know I won’t be his.

Though my heart aches to control my blood my passion rises. I shout and I yell and I accuse him of loving this other, this pretty lady who is so pure and so sweet, and after I cry and cry, for I know that so long as my head refuses to settle for that which he offers, he will never offer more.

Despite his nervous denials, I find him there in my room. The distress from all that is happening here is lined clearly on his face, and my heart peals out to him. It is love, I think. For like a woman to a child, to see him sad leaves me sad, and I wish his sadness on to me to carry as my burden. I press my palm against his cheek and call him my darling and my love and my sweet thing and all kind tones I can think of. He needs me you see. Some part of him must know this, for what else would explain his presence here in my room. The secret muscles kick in to action and lead him to my door. He has no conscious choice.

And he returns my caress with his hand stroking my cheek. But I know what is concealed in his hand. It is not love that provokes his action but desire, and if I am to be what he desires, then I have to accept what he holds there. That invisible paintbrush in his palm, from which he can create the picture of the woman he wants me to be, smears itself across my cheek, and replaces it with softer, rounder, dimpled ones that smile. His eyes see only his imaginings now, painted there for him to view with pleasure. Beneath his fancied art I am lost. The paintbrush he holds in his mind’s hand does its work, as his mind brushes away the reality of myself. My cheeks become pale and milky, and blush to a perfect rose that signals a brand new modest innocence. The sharpness of my cheekbones are filed down, and that angry flare that brightens what was once my face is subdued, the bristles rub out my eyes and colour them blue, drowning in that sea the lust and fire that resided there formally. He is perfecting me in the image he wants, and I let him do it, and I submit.

I lower my head so that he can wipe out the darkness from my hair and when I timidly rise my eyes to his I see in them reflected the one that he wants. His desire pushes me inside of myself, and I curl up there, out of sight, lying safe in my belly. And once he has hidden me, then he can take what he wants. As I lie covered deep down, the fresh brightness of my skin reflects a light that gives him the image he is pleased to see, the brightness blinds the dark flashes hidden under the painted blue so that they lie blank and white staring, and yet he doesn’t see the damage that this desire has, and me, still, I accept, I accept all because I tell myself over and over that if I accept then he will love me, he will have to love. How could he not do otherwise?

But still I rebel, my body won’t obey what he inflicts on it! I can’t control my passion, I can’t control my response, and I know that if I don’t try harder I will throw myself out from behind his new portrait and he will be forced to confront the truth in my face; I grit my teeth and order my blood to halt its rush, but my heart won’t listen, and the soft pink cheeks they won’t listen either, they melt away under the pressure of the fight in me, and although I strive to keep her hidden, I can see as I look in his eyes that she has escaped, and he rolls off, frustrated with me, for I could not succeed in keeping the picture of his happiness.

And I lie prostrate by his body and I know this is the end.
I know this is the end.

Morning and all is silent, I am in bed, and it is around 6.
On the Devon coast, along the shoreline, spitting feathers are gathered up by the hands of the crest of each wave, sunlight is appearing in rusted yawns, and slowly opens her eyes, splendid and enchanting, washing the rocks in white wine.

After the shower, comes the corridor, the driveway, the bike and my first tree of the day.

There is a lady made of purple wings and eyes and apple cores, she is sitting upon a leaf, on a branch on a tree, my first tree of today.
It is a silver birch, beautiful in the morning light, and I never want it to leave my sight again.
She is overlooking the morning rising.
She is suggestive in her eyebrows, her mouth swirls rouge pate in correlation with her twitching wings and lips.
The street below is full of almost twenty people avoiding the other zombies and things. No one it seems has noticed her, except for me. I have been staring at her for too long. I become anxious about time and clocks. I jump on my bike and pedal.

I ignore the cars and stop despite their beeps.

On the cycle ride to work I pass a man, stuck, head deep in a thorn bush,
‘Are you ok?’ I ask him, my tone concerned,
‘Of course I am’ he shouts back, ‘are you ok?’
This question stops me, like a squirrel stops a falling nut or branch or bird, dead in the air, between its cunning teeth.
My feet hit the floor.
I am standing on the pavement, my bike between my legs.
The man, I look back at him, he is still in the bush, but seems to be ignoring me now.
I turn my head to the sky; it is blue and full of lethargy and clouds.
I ride on, a little disturbed.

9 am is such a wonderful day.

For the first hour, the shop sits silent, despite the hundreds of eyes and feet that swarm the newspapers and coffee machines, I am ignoring them all, it is far too early. Instead I doodle tired eyes behind the till.
However, over by the lifestyle section, something catches my eye, a rainbow has just this moment formed, flowering from the ears of a passing customer. I stand stern, attempting to ignore the floral brigade of colour, which grows in voice from his ears, and marches across my eyelids, increasing in volume and great song.
He has noticed me looking at him, I have failed in my casual gawping, he seems intrigued by me, but at the same time, it appears he is oblivious to the rainbow air flowering from his ears.
He approaches me, and there is fire within him, it turns loudly in his face.
I attempt to explain about the rainbow, but as I try, his face turns into a red plum red cloud, which rises above the both of us. I point at it half in admiration, half in fear, ‘you can’t do that’ I yell, ‘first rainbows now clouds, you are causing a scene!’
He seems confused by this remark. It has become clear to me that he does not believe in rainbows,
This saddens me, so I turn my back on him, and with this, he takes the hint and walks toward the exit.
As he leaves the shop, the most amazing thing happens, and for a moment the whole of the shop floor turns into a deep sea mist of cloud and rainbow. There are waves and whales and penguins and silhouettes and circles everywhere. I remain starched behind the till, like the tall white duke of books that I am, in complete awe. Then as quickly as it rose, this scene dissolves back into the early morning. Outside the shop I can hear the caffeine rain hitting the pavement and hats outside.

He makes model boats and takes pictures of them, so they look like real boats.

I place a book inside a bag inside a book inside a bag. I am serving. I attempt to hold its hand, it reels back a step, and pulls its phone from its pocket for protection or comfort or perhaps just to look at the jazzy colours and stars on its cover. What is certain is that is it does not want to touch me. I look at it, but it will not look at me. It gives me some money, I add it to the till, which beeps and groans with delight. It departs with its book inside a bag inside a book inside a bag in hand, hands that would not even look at me. Another now approaches, it has ginger hair and a moustache, I scramble in my pockets for my phone.

And the sun is the moon, and I am the moon, in the night, watching from the blackness of sleep.

I am in the toilet, the disabled one near the café shop; it is my favorite one. I have been here for twenty minutes now, and will be here for another ten at least. It is piss bleached white and very bright. I am thinking of the Moleman. I saw him earlier today. He is much more interesting than the man who is a woman who is a man, and reeks of old perfume and sausages and oil, she is just rude. Moleman talks about himself in the third person, he goes space stalking on weekends, and is also haunted by monkeys. He is my favorite of the queue. Someone has just knocked on the door, I am going to have to stop talking now, I don’t want them to hear me.

There are five already serving, I am the sixth.

I remove another book from the trolley and place it in its alphabetized shelf space.
Then another,
and another,
and another too.
There is a voice, which echoes across the shop, it demands my assistance. I recognise the voice, it is comforting. I drop the book I am holding and head to the till. The queue is without smiles and long; it has many eyes and haircuts. I serve and wrap and bag and cash for ten minutes, placing books inside bags inside books inside bags, until all the faces and feet have passed, and then return to the book on the floor. I pick the book up, place it in its alphabetized shelf space, then I remove another book from the trolley and placed it in its alphabetized shelf space.
Then another,
and another,
and another too.

The staff room, a neon white light of easy wipe furniture and no eyes.

There are five people sitting.
They are reading and eating,
They are munching and digesting,
They are slurping and picking the debris from the table,
from their mouths and behind each other’s ears.
They have corpses on their tongues.
I am afraid of joining them; I do not want to enter into this world. I quickly step quickly step, and swiftly remove my sandwiches from the fridge. My fingers are warm and scared, the sandwiches are cold. Without a word, I exit this strange place.

A wet sloppy elephant, uninterested and dull.

It is after lunch, same moves, same words, same tired motion. I remove another book from the trolley and place it in its alphabetized shelf space.
Then another,
and another,
and another too.
There is a voice, it echoes across the shop. I recognise the voice, it is comforting. I head to the till. There are five already serving, I am the sixth, the queue is long, and it has many eyes. I serve and wrap and bag and cash for ten minutes, placing books inside bags inside books inside bags, until all the ears and haircuts have passed, and then return to remove another book from the trolley and place it in its alphabetized shelf space.
Then another,
and another,
and another too.

The calendars tell the time and answer all the questions.

I am standing on the top staircase, shielded from the gleaming eyes of vehicles and moons and faces and clothes, by a selection of calendars. A man in a brown jacket walks past, he does not see me. A woman in an orange coat, with fossilised hair, passes by slowly, and I am sure she senses something, though she does not show it. I turn on my foot, to hide a little deeper, creeping into the cavernous candy of multiple days. A woman with a perm and ears approaches from the rear. She has seen me. She asks me a question. As she speaks, a thousand voices grow from her lips, some shouting, some howling, some complimentary. I simply nod, and stare at the calendars. I dare not to move, this woman scares me with her questions. She stands watching my face, waiting for something to happen, then realising that this is all that will ever happen, she leaves.

In the Bubble.

I remove another book from the trolley and place it in its alphabetized shelf space.
Then another,
and another,
and another too.
The room is now a stream of pink light and grey ice. I am secretly sitting upon a giant hand, overlooking some children and animals waving flags.

Yesterday, I quit my job.

I am surrounded by hundreds of faces, plastic books and haircuts. Yet no one acknowledges me except to give me money in exchange for something they want. There is a man with no trousers on inside the shop; next to him stands a Po-faced monster on stilts beneath a sultana sun. The man is shouting stories of wooden sheds and soft petal tears, as a smile cracks on his face. He is smiling because the monster has just mushroom floated off his stilts, landed on the floor and discovered his first glass flower. His voice sounds familiar; it is warm and yellow hearted. All the books have fallen from their alphabetized spaces. It is my voice. Outside I can see the clouds forming tulips and soft faces with the blue sky, I shall go there.

by Michael Powell
Illustration by Gordon Brown
Delve deeper into Michael’s world by clicking here

The station cafeteria was dingily lit: everything was dingily lit in Holzweg. The cafeteria had an inferior gaslight that cast a sickly greenish tinge over every living thing. A couple of old men who looked like farmers were slumped in the corner, reeking of slivovitz. They eyed him suspiciously while the blind eyes of the Emperor simpered fruitily in dragoon uniform from a wonky framed print on the wall.
Istvan looked around.

“Service?” he asked.
“What do you want?”sneered the older and sadder-looking of the two farmers.
“Are you the waiter?”
“I might be.”
“Well if you are, I want a roll. If you’re not, I want the waiter.”
“Rolls are on the counter, under the glass. Pork, or pickled herring.”
“I don’t eat pork.”
“Jew, I suppose.”
“No, I just happen not to eat pork. I was at the front, old man. I’ve seen what pigs eat.”
“Eat the herring then, it’s all the same to me.”
Istvan peered through the glass.
“It doesn’t look very fresh.”
“It’s the light – you don’t look so good yourself. Look, friend, if you don’t want it, go and eat somewhere else. It’s nearly eight. I’m tired. Walk into the square if you’re hungry, and go and bother Bogdan instead. But you’ll hear the same thing- times are hard here, since the war.”
“Yes, of course. The war. I was forgetting. But you’re far from it here, aren’t you? Not like the towns that are actually on the border, or the divisional areas.” He was aware that he had begun to raise his voice and paused before speaking again. “I’m off to Chemnitz myself, in half an hour. You should see that before you start moaning. All the houses taken over for billets, shell holes in the streets and in the roofs. It’s only soldiers and stray dogs left up there now. Even the whores have left.”
“The herring then, or what? I was talking over here.”
“Yes, the herring. And a coffee.”
“No coffee, not for months. No tea, either.”
“Christ. A brandy, then.”
“Slivovitz.”
“I suppose so. I was almost missing it, you know, I’ve been so long in the capital. Your picture’s wonky,” he added, nodding at the Emperor.
“I know.” The waiter’s eyes blinked slyly.
“You know?”
Istvan looked around the room. The government newspapers were neatly folded on the counter, their reports of gallant cavalry charges and brave frontier forts holding out against unequal odds clearly unread. But the foreign papers, the sort that always accumulate in railway towns, were scattered on the table, grimy with prolonged attention and bad news.
“Your drink. I’ll dust off your roll. Here.”
“Thanks. Your health. Christ, that’s rough.”
“Tomasz over there makes it, and look at him. The plums were bad this year, what with the gas clouds and all that. Even down here, you can still feel the shells hitting the ground on the front. I think it frightens the trees.”
“Does it frighten you, old man?”
“Old men are frightened of different things to boys. You’ll learn that. If you’re lucky.”
Istvan raised his eyebrow ironically, then inspected the herring. He pushed the little plate away, scattered a few kopeks on the counter, and lit another cigarette instead. He checked his watch.
“Another slivovitz.”
The old man refilled the little glass, then filled another for himself. He held it up to breast height.
“The Emperor!”
“The Emperor.”
They wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands, inhaling cool air as they did it. Istvan retched slightly. The waiter smiled, his ugly bald head looking like an old liver sausage in the greenish light. “Ten to eight,” he said. “You’ll miss your train. Don’t you want to go to Chemnitz?”
Istvan nibbled on the butt of his cigarette. The cafeteria clock was surely fast.
“It’s not about what I want. It’s about duty.”
“Duty. That’s a fine word. I did my bit for the Emperor when I was young, for all the good it’s done me. You’ll learn what duty means soon enough.”
“Yes.”
“Cheer up, son, you look like you’re going to cry. Forget it, it might not be so bad. Here, have another drink, on the house. You’ve got time. Here, look, a nice big one, see? I’ll have one too. You’ll get out of it alright, lots of them do. They’re always good to officers. They’ll see your fine boots, and your fur-lined coat, and they’ll treat you like a gentleman. Who knows? Maybe we’ll hold them, anyway. It’s a big river to cross, what with guns firing at you.”
“Yes. Look, I’ll take the roll after all. I’ll have it on the train, it’ll be too late to eat at Chemnitz when I get there. But I have to go.”
Istvan put his gloves on slowly, looking at the picture on the wall. He spoke in a shy, shameful voice.
“And can I buy the slivovitz? The bottle, I mean. It’ll do for a present, for the lads in the mess. They’ll like the joke.”
“Course you can, son, you can have it for a couple of crowns. There’s plenty more out the back.”
“Thanks. Well. I have to go.”
“Yes. Good luck, son.”
Istvan smiled a little, looking at the wall.
“Thank you.”
He buttoned up his greatcoat and rearranged his sword belt before walking to the door. There, he wheeled round smartly, clicking his heels and saluting the Emperor’s portrait, before pushing through the clattering doors with his bottle tucked underneath his arm. When the jangle of his spurs died away and the train wheezed its way towards the front, the waiter went back over to his table. He lit a cigarette and studied the wonky print of the Emperor with a thoughtful gaze.
“Tomasz. You know who that was? I didn’t realise at first, but it was the Crown Prince. The Emperor’s son.”
But Tomasz was asleep.

by Aris Roussinos
Illustration by Linda de Canha.

Rose had been a restless sleeper ever since the fight – or the accident, as she called it. Sometimes while sleeping the pain would tear through her left side, radiating from the crossshaped scar on her upper thigh, making her bolt in the middle of the night. But she also wondered if her sleep wasn’t disturbed for an altogether different reason. She wondered if, even now, she was still afraid. Would she be happier if she wasn’t alone? She had her son, but he was almost eighteen, he wouldn’t be around forever. She couldn’t actually hear the ticking of the clock from her bedroom, even through the paper-thin walls of the East Finchley flat. This was a small relief. But sometimes she thought that she could hear its hourly chimes, and even in her sleep, those relentless tranches of seconds still ticked through her head, slicing through her life.

When Rose woke up, the third time that night, it was still the pitch dark dead of night, the only light illuminating the room the pale, washed-out orange from the streetlamp outside which crept through the mottled curtain drawn against the window. The room was an outline of dim shapes. Still half-asleep, she thought she could hear the chimes of the clock, faintly, from the living room, and turned her head back to the pillow, emitting a nearly silent sigh that was as much one of boredom as it was of disappointment. But the sound came through again, clearer this time, an irregular pulse that sounded more like something shattering than the passing of time. Then the sound came again, louder, a second, third time.

Rose lifted herself from bed, placing the weight on her right foot first, then her left, wincing only slightly at the stab of pain that ran down her left side like a highway of marching, biting, tiny little ants. She reached out for her dressing gown, blue, woollen and worn, and moved methodically for the door. In the living room the clock ticked on, obliviously providing a metronomic click to the irregular cascade of noise coming from beyond the living room window. It was the sound of broken glass – of glass being broken, and of glass being crunched underfoot. The sound was getting closer.

The pain on her left side had eased after the first few steps, and as she stepped quietly over the threadbare carpets, past the doors to the other bedrooms, Rose tied her dressing gown tight over her hips, hugging its lapels to her chest. Every winter, always the same – the flat was so cold at night. She pulled the curtain back, the dim orange light streaking through the rectangular shoebox shape of the living room, and peered out through the murky window. A character, a creature, half walked, half dragged itself down the street. It was dressed in rags, in clothes that were torn and jagged around the edges. It beat its fists into the windscreens of passing cars, and when they did not break, kicked loose their wing mirrors, sending shards of fallout tumbling down onto the street.

No alarms rang out. Save for the sound of falling glass, the street remained silent. The creature looked up, and Rose glimpsed its eyes as they fixed upon her, briefly, for just a second. She wasn’t sure what she saw there. Shame? Dirt? Then the thing looked away and shuffled on, punching the
wing mirror of another car as he passed, sending waterfalls of glass into the night. Her body shook slightly. Now there was nothing, save for the repetitious sound of the striking clock, as the creature disappeared into the distance.

Rose turned towards the clock. Its beats were regular. Its time did not decay. It was a screaming anachronism now, an unbearable reminder of the past. She walked over to the clock and paused in front of it, her mind still half on the man, his sunken-in, beaten-up face. With a swift, semi-subconscious movement she swiped the carriage clock from its perch, sending it tumbling down onto floor below. The glass front cracked open, split into two. The ticking stopped. She stared at the clock for a long time, stared at its smashed-up face, and then turned away.

She sat down on in one of the two old armchairs; her left leg crossed over her right, and lifted a cigarette from the nearly empty packet on the coffee table. Lighting it with shaking fingers, she felt like crying, but she did not. She was lonely, but she needed the quiet. Her son, semi-naked and shadowy in the dimly-lit flat, poked his head out from behind his bedroom door. Their eyes met, and between them there was a shared moment of silence. ‘What is it?’ he asked, ‘Are you okay?’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said, smiling faintly. ‘Go back to bed.’

He closed the door. Then, again, there was silence.

by Richard Allday
Illustration by Dave Cardy.

No more. Once we got used to the fact that the male population no longer needed to stand in a muddy hole in France writing poetry and that food was rationed only by how much cash you had in your wallet, there’s been no real sense of uncertainty. What have we had since? The three day week? For a long time I thought the three day week was some sort failed utopian experiment, but I’m told that people actually disliked it. The Cuban Missile Crisis had all the makings of a top quality disaster, but it’s just a bit too distant to really spend much time discussing down the pub. And nothing ever actually came of it.

We’ve tried pretty hard to offset the boredom. We tried having lots of sex and taking lots of drugs, solutions that many people still have time for. We tried having extreme hair cuts and mutilating our bodies with piercings, while listening to angry music. Good as far as it went, but let’s be honest, the drugs and the sex were winners. Next up we tried to earn as much money as possible, while trying equally hard not to notice that if everyone is as rich as you its no fun.

Once one’s chosen life style is normal it doesn’t really lend much drama to the general proceedings. Consequently we’re constantly inventing new lifestyles. The problem is the same as the one that designers of new cereals face: what new combination of honey, nut and sugar could possibly look novel? Just as Kellogg’s have moved towards adding marshmallow, the general population has had to move towards injecting their testicles with collagen until they swell up into a 2ft uni-bollock as a lifestyle choice (doctors are divided about which is more dangerous). Or paying to be put in a parcel and posted somewhere for (presumably) sexual pleasure. It’s called ‘crating’. I shit you not.

So in this spirit I went along to observe something called ‘buffing’. Somewhere on the western rim of London there is a very special car wash. While a thorough wash and wax is applied to your car you sit inside and check your transmission fluid — so to speak.

When I arrived, I wasn’t greeted by a bevy of camp homosexuals – the staff looked more the kind of people who work at any valeting service. There was an older, fatter guy and two young Asian blokes. Any sexual overtones sometimes associated with the car wash were put pay to by the location— a lean-to shed with a pressure washer in a dead end back street. A guy was just driving off but it was hard to tell if he had availed himself of the full service. I wasn’t going to flag him down and ask.

How do you get into that sort of work? Apparently the operation was set up without any seedy intentions. They spent a good couple of months getting mysteriously large tips (no pun intended) until they realised what was going on. Rather than try to stop the covert behaviour they realised that they were doing rather well.

‘After a while you just ignore it, I don’t even make a point of not looking now. We’ve had one guy who left after a while, partly because of it, but no-one has actually left in disgust,’ the manager of the firm told me.

Inevitably, they describe their customers as ‘everyday people’. It made me wonder if anyone I know is bored to the point of masturbating in front of strangers. Talking to one of the attendants, I got some sense of the popularity of their full wash. ‘We get mostly men but sometimes we’ve had women at it too. I think word must have got out, because sometimes people come in from quite a long way,’ he said.

Before I left they offered me a free wash: it was a quiet day and they were clearly proud of their work. As they started it occurred to me that this might be an invite to ‘oil my big end’.

I was sure that I could conceal my activities– I tried to look as though I had lost something in my lap. In a way, I felt as if I was conforming to the social convention here, not breaking it, and it’s even possible that not partaking could be considered rebuffing my host’s hospitality. I’m just doing this out of journalistic diligence, I reassured myself. After a while I became fixated by the stalk on my steering wheel that operates the windscreen wipers. It’s quite large – it also has some controls for the stereo on it to save you reaching that extra distance to the main unit. In an action that I now realise I’ve rehearsed in my head many times before I went down on this automotive sex stalk. Once properly lubed I gradually manoeuvred my expectant arsehole down towards it by kneeling on the passenger seat. To do this my face was pressed against the passenger side window, from where I could see someone doing my hubcaps with a tooth brush. He glanced at me and we shared an awkward moment.

It’s a process of psychological ramping: you start by convincing yourself that you can conceal your activities, but with each step you make your behaviour more obvious, thus making any further attempt at modesty increasingly pointless. By now I think they’d probably figured it out. My winking anus had not only turned on the stereo, but turned it up very loud. With each enthusiastic pelvic thrust a jet of windscreen wiper fluid spurted suggestively across the screen. The wipers themselves (front and rear) moved in a manner more appropriate for a fishing trawler in a severe Atlantic storm. Having realised that you are engaged in this ramping process, it makes no sense not to take it to its logical conclusion: I reached behind me for the dangling key fob and pressed the “panic” button, which is indeed what people started to do as the indicators and throbbing alarm sprang to life.

I ejaculated to the sounds of Jo Wiley with my head banging against the window, one knee in a loose change compartment, holding onto the rear view mirror that was now detached from the windscreen. My right leg could find no foothold and moved involuntarily like a dreaming dog. I quickly realised I had made a mistake.

Unwinding the window the minimum amount, I posted through all the paper money I had in my wallet. Then I fled.

Vermillion Sproul
Illustration by Joe Sumner