STREET OBSERVATIONS - The Invisible Person

As you passed her it was the hand gestures that caught your eye. The woman stood with two hands opened out just so, in a Virgin Mary like supplication, the shoulders shrugging, fingers bent back and then as if being counted, wagged then pointed towards a destination, coy fingers pressed gigglingly tight against the lips. All the facial and digital signifiers of derision, exclamations and enjoyment expressed in a mere few seconds,in complete silence. Not addressed to me, or to anyone in the street, but to this entirely imaginary person who stood before her in her minds eye, with whom she intently. mutely was conversing. Her eyes never looking directly in any living person's direction, This was not street theatre, nor mime performance art. It was one lonely woman half living in this and another world totally divorced from everyone else. One where she could be heard and chat freely, endlessly if needs be. These ghosts who were always reliably there for her, available at any time of the day. Awake, even in the broken hours of evening

She'd found her spot on the octagonal seats round the base of a beech tree. Aesthetically positioned at the conjunction of four busy city streets, before the steps of an old bank. Now a bar and grill trading off its former position of good fortune. There she sat sequentially forming and smoking her own cigarettes. Her practiced tobacco browned fingers betrayed a lifetime of rolling her own shag, twisting and pinching the end, and letting it rest precariously smoldering between the twin beaks of her lips. All the while continuing with the same gentle gesturing of an ongoing polite conversation with the voiceless companion without form, who seemingly sat just to her left.

It was hard to discern what her true age might be, probably in reality her mid fifties, but street life had prematurely distressed her face, by ten, maybe twenty deeply wrinkled years. Spindly legs without much muscle left, disappeared up behind the damaged pelmet of a tan coloured suede mini dress, above it a bare mid riff, with a white crop top slouching down on one shoulder. Yes, she didn't dress her age, but then why should she need to? These clothes were comfortable, its the height of the Summer heat, and here on these benches she could ochre her limbs, Briefly disguising the winter pallor of drained poor health that lay beneath. 

On a casual glance you noticed her long peroxide white hair tied loosely in a stiff bunch. Which she swished backwards and forwards in the animation of her mimetic conversation. On closer examination it was clearly a wig. You could see its wavering loose edges, the hairpins, the hair and the scalp beneath a sickly yellow green colour, the consequence of frequent home bleachings, gone wrong. Scorching the suppleness out of her own hair, turning it lifeless, brittle, reduced to shaven stumps. The wig, a resplendent facsimile for a misremembered fulsomeness of hair. Cut, woven and shaped from the head of someone else.

Why was she stood here now? Well, who knows really? I doubt even she knows. In the past, maybe she'd professionally worked these streets, until drink or stronger intoxicants took the competitive edge off her trading profile. Though that's not the sole reason why you end up on the street. These days where the causes of destitution is a highly competitive market. Hard times undoubtedly fell upon her at some point, and now even this 'performance' is not for real, not for anyone, anything, anymore. This melodrama she's acting out, is cut off from whatever was its primary purpose or place of origin. The existential reasons for surviving this far remains a mystery, long buried. Going through the motions of a life no longer lived, of friends not real or really friends, a charade that you had to take a wild guess at, what it actually meant. 

SHORT STORY - Bibliophilia Unbound

He read the last page, turned over the book in his hands and stroked its cover with some affection. That specific tale now felt safely stored, still seeping into and along through his veins. Its pulse alive still within his memory bank of imaginative worlds. William absolutely loved the act of reading, and as a consequence rarely went out much. He might go for a walk when he had 'a good day' and willingly do the entire circular walk around the nearby park. Great for cardiovascular exercise' though that may be. A good book, well that could transport him to places his mid twentieth century legs could never carry him. Conjure up emotions that otherwise might be left dormant or atrophied through lack of use. 

The internet had become his saviour, as he could order anything he needed without the need to go out and physically buy and fetch it. The supermarket delivery van brought him all his food, and much more. Apart from going to the Library, browse the local bookshop, or visit the Medical Practice to collect his medicines, he rarely had any other purposeful reason to go into the town at all, The more distant city? well hardly ever. Far too many people panicking or in a furious hurry. He could feel their careless haste in the louche style of their clothes, the haphazard dashes of colouring in their hair, a directionless surfeit of attention floating around them in an aura of stressed pheromones. Often very pushy and self righteously too loud. There were never enough hours in the day for urbanistas. 

He could see how they too sensed 'the end times' were indeed drawing ever closer. And by focusing so intently on distracting themselves, they hoped to not to see its arrival coming over the hill. The evil monster of death they hoped would just jump out of nowhere and gobble them up. As an older and now distinctly world weary man, yes he could, strangely enough, empathise with their predicament. For his own terminal resignation was everyone's now. This was yet another reason not to go out, to stay in and surrender oneself to being beguiled by another book.

Nevertheless, like many a retired and prematurely widowed gentlemen living on their own William had a list of 'projects'  he desired to complete before the end drew nigh. They weren't written down anywhere, but lodged in his mind. Just so long as he maintained all his marbles they'd be remembered. He'd see to it they were systematically completed. Realistically he no longer had a full day of energy left in him, so he had to pace himself with these 'project work periods'. Making the most of the mornings perky recharge, then he cooked and ate his lunch, before taking an afternoon nap. All the time that remained assigned to reading. Everything executed in the slow and meticulous manner that his maturity and physical poise prescribed.

At least that was always the plan he thought he had fixated in his mind. But recently he got this unsettling feeling that actually he was wistfully wasting away his remaining years on Earth. Any 'projects' completion becoming more protracted, as the days of rain, excessively torrential wind, and the arrival of a freakishly tropical oppressive humidity, increased. Accompanied by those mornings when he just couldn't be arsed. All these reasons to delay projects began to run into each other. Meaning any weekly steady as you go plan turned into a runaway train escaping any directional plan. Far too easily he vegetated into the welcoming arms of a comely novella. 

Once he got a hundred pages in then he really had to stick with it, no matter what. Novels from small but perfectly formed to an unwieldy trilogy or gargantuan epic, with the occasional topical non fiction, a little bit of history. Whatever the genre he felt compelled to focus on getting them finished, before time itself ran out. His life once so driven and filled with purposeful flourishes of activity, was now gently, almost imperceptibly, being repainted in nerdy bookish colours. Hence the creeping sedentary nature of it. He read about all sorts of people, explored the world through the vivid imaginations of others. All reached from the comfort of his own living room sofa. Lifting his finger only to turn a page. 

When to stop and cook himself a meal, became mediated through how many pages of a book he had left to read. Just another ten pages and that would be halfway, or two thirds, or its only fifty pages from the end - let's go for it! Completing reading a nourishing book taking priority over actual nutrition. Not all books won his instant approval. So when he found a book he loved from its opening paragraphs, he was propelled into a state comparable to a spiritual, nay transcendental, uplift.  Ecstatically life fulfilled for the brief few hours whilst reading it. For William a great book was manna from heaven, a God given thing. The universal being was speaking directly to meet his most heartfelt desires. These moments were so very rare, he cherished them the minute they emerged. Slowing his pace of reading so he could wonder at the phrasing, the construction of each sentence, to fully absorb its conjured mood. To intravenously feed and fix his soul, so repeatedly injured by every time he read a daily newspaper.

He began to really hate it when a book wasted what time he had. Turning out to be disappointing in its basic premise or worse just dull, dull, dull. Then all progress would stall. Time dragging at the heels of his engagement. To give up on a book, however, would be synonymous with giving up on life. Who on earth would voluntary chose to do that? Novels that were far too cleverly constructed for their own boots. That hurled the reader over a whole gymkhana of linguistic jumps, of abandoned punctuation with complex sentence structures rendered willy-nilly, all to no real gain in meaning or enriching of the narrative. What a waste of time and space those sort of writers were. Their masturbatory self congratulatory indulgences poisoning his enjoyment. He cursed them! 

He frequently toyed with the idea of writing a scathing letter to be forwarded to the author by their publisher. But all that would take time away from his reading programme, so such ripostes rarely got much further than a clearly withering opening Dear Sir or Madam. He hoped the future cataclysm would permanently erase such literary aberrations. Though he had one recurring nightmare, that in the coming Armageddon all that survived of literary culture would be his Post Modern bete noire. And in the future, some misfortunate alien visitor would then be left the dispiriting task of deciphering what this endless stream of garbage meant. Trying to establish why late capitalist humankind valued being so deliberately opaque in communicating itself. What was it trying to hide?

Like a lot of avid readers Matthew liked to think he read spontaneously, sensitive in the way he responded to his intuitions. But in reality it was more of a deliberate hunting down of a familiar style of prey, than that. Scanning book reviews, interviews with authors, book shows on TV, or by You Tubers, recommendations from a friendly Librarian, and those scruffily hand written notes by staff on the shelves of his local bookshop. If any of these perked his interest, they were added to his book list, which having become obscenely obese had occasionally to undergo a purge. Focusing first on the books he could no longer remember why he'd listed them in the first place. To be followed by those whose moment had patently passed.

Today he was in the opening pages of a new novel, whose cover artwork of a quintessentially dream like Chagall cockerel he'd been drawn too. The novel called  The Passing Place, was by an author unknown to William - Bernadette Alderman. Thus far the reading had not been progressing at all well. He already had a really bad feeling about it. The prose style was incredibly dense and hard to chew on, so portentously was it wrought with a leaden spirit. His eyes had only to briefly scan its lengthy sentences and he could feel them begin to drowse then droop. Then he'd jolt back awake, only to repeat the very same cycle, but a few minutes later. He wasn't tired from lack of sleep. He wasn't even that physically weary. There was, so he thought a soporific intent woven into the entire literary construction of this book, one that appeared to lead to recumbent slumber as its desired outcome. The text itself was inducing this deep, existential level of boredom.

The story, was a slight character study of a man, who despite all his best efforts, was seemingly doomed to living a life of obscurity. William had thought there was enough in this that he might personally resonate with, to perhaps make it worthwhile. Instead he found himself fighting, both with the book and his own descent into napping at any moment or time of day. He'd awaken laid back on the sofa with the book splayed open like chest armour, and realise half the morning had gone by. And with each increasingly turgid turn of the page these periods of sleep appeared to be getting longer and longer. Until he seemingly had lost an entire day without really noticing. He'd had his breakfast at sun up, started reading and the next thing it was sun down. He could not allow this to go on. He'd have to cease reading it, bin it, burn it, give it to a charity shop, shove it in a book bank. Just put this unhappy state of affairs to its deservedly ignominious end.

He failed to fully carry through on his resolve. Instead inserting a book mark where he'd read up to, and placed the book back on his 'To Read' pile, stacked waist high on the living room carpet. Then he did what he usually did after putting a pause on a challenging read, he reached for the predictability of a detective novel set in medieval times. Even as he refocused his attention on its indulgently trashy novelty, he could feel this pulling on his mind back to The Passing Place. Sitting there inert and unfinished, accompanied by his conscience, perched like a whingeing gremlin on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. This bore all the characteristic habits of drug addictions he'd read about. Nonetheless he felt this compelling need to pick it up and casually look at its pages again, just one little peak. Was it really as bad as all that? Surely not. Maybe its not the book at all, its me.

Upon reading one word of one sentence, he was overwhelmed by a wooziness that ricocheted up,down and across his body, until it hit and exploded like a firecracker in his brain. He could feel himself slumping backwards. A sensation of being knocked over, replaced by the spinning of his spreadeagled body in space, his legs and arms akimbo. An origami like folding together of his beslippered body followed, as though he was a quarto being sewn into the spine of a book. All this happening in the slowest of slow motions. Sensing his own helplessness ever more keenly during each micro second. As his decrepit physicality crumpled, was atomised and then reabsorbed into the content of The Passing Place book itself. 

This encompassing vastness consumed him, absorbing as it did every book Matthew had ever read.. Burying itself inside an immense library containing all people,all cultures, all life, all worlds, all universes, all possibilities, all the gods and goddesses of pasts, presents and futures. Each book was burnished and with a surrounding glowing white light floated around space as though they were these folded paper angels decorating the heavens. Each with the same important message to be declared. One that all mankind was to read, inwardly digest and be totally consumed by in the coming millennia of tragedy.

STREET OBSERVATIONS - The Thirty-Something Couple

It was his stare that caught my eye, it was too intense. Behind him his partner pushed a buggy with a child in a foetus position sucking its thumb distractedly. Half pretending to be asleep, but no doubt secretly bored with being away too long from their toys. The woman is chatting animatedly on her phone, Wrapped up in a conversation with maybe her Mum, her sister or a close friend, sharing confidences or gossip and talking about tonight and their plans for it. She is walking along only half present to the street, whilst purposefully in the abstract moving her child and life forward. Her dress a coordinated range of light dusky pinks with a knitted bolero style jacket which looks as though it were made from Shirley Temple's golden curls. Her hair artfully a disheveled pile, with significant but random outlying strands aligning the face. She seems totally on it today, alert and engaged in her networking.

A good two strides ahead of her is the man, in his mid to late thirties. His body taken by his comfort eating over the cusp and beyond being slim fit, is quickly developing the squared off bulk of the stolid Dad bod. A full well groomed beard on a handsomely structured face. He's wearing all black, that is so well worn and washed that its now softened to a brushed charcoal. It has the air of being a street uniform, with miltary touches, a lot of straps buckles and lapels in a tight practical twill. Maybe this was a definite choice to wear just all black. It captured his mood or something. Or this is that lazy male habit of sticking to one colour, because that never bares much thinking about. And one would never want to make one's appearance seem too considered or deliberate, even though it certainly is. The watch word here is casual, with no observable care taken.

He's walking ahead, almost as though for today at least, he wants to literally be distant or disassociate himself from his partner and child. To appear to walk on this street alone. But not too far that it causes comment. And then there is the intensity of that stare. The eyebrows thick, horizontal but internally scrunched. There is something really pressing upon his mind, preoccupying him. He is not really present to this city-scape at all, so caught up is he in this one memory, of an event, or a cyclical battling argument with himself. Certainly this is tearing at him, tormenting him like a gremlin from the inside. Something seems existentially awry here, he has the face of a Hamlet plotting a future regicide. There is the fetid air of a person substantially stuck. Fearing the eternal nature of his own trap. Either through his own limitations of thought or this relationship. Unable to manage these better or to ever realistically find relief from how they are crushing his esteem.

Is there really no joy left in this life of his? Or has this view now become entirely self-reinforcing?. And the film that he is playing before those searching eyes is probably not helping. Circumstances seem to him, to have robbed him of any power or agency over the direction his life has taken, or will now take. After following the accepted male conventions and found them to be this deceptively tight but imprisoning paper chain. For which love, affection, sex and children form the sticky sentimental and loctite super glue for. In life a man is supposed to have all the privileges born of being male, that the woman through marriage has been deprived of, so the modern orthodoxy portrays it. Then why does he feel like they've both drawn a short straw here? Was this really what either of them wanted for themselves in their pubescent teen romance? Each now performing a role that seems not to represent their true selves anymore. Where liberation can seemingly only be achieved by driving a coach and horses through it all, in one destructive act of rage. 

SHORT STORY - Eaten Alive By Their Own Shadows

When the atrocity took place the world wept archaic tears. Acres of causal sympathy was shed. All the tribes across the Aegean peninsula made sure to express their anger  publicly. Disguising any strategic advantage they privately saw for themselves. Offering the Spartans their arms and armies, their money, their allegiance. They struck a deal and shook their hands upon the coming conflict.

Once again ministering angels were left to mop the brows and wipe away the tears of those left behind. The ones already encased in their shrouds and in their mourning. As vengeance was taken for them, becoming the foremost weapon shaken in the hands of men. And the oracles predicted doom into the emptiness of cavernous spaces.

 

That local delegation, those disingenuous Trojans, had appeared likable enough. Closely resembling the Spartans in their world view and mode of interaction. But then, they'd broken into the palace compound on the evening of their departure. Abducted Queen Helen, taking all her entourage hostage too. Further aggrieving their hosts by the slaughtering of slaves, sacred calves, children and killed King Menelaus's thoroughbred horses as they left. No one would be in quick pursuit of them as they made for a sea bourne getaway. As Sparta, so grievously betrayed, was plunged into mournful outrage.

Menelaus was so consumed by his emotional sophistry, that it never occurred to his imagination, that Helen might have left willingly. That he might have been neglectful and abusive towards his ravishing wife. That this 'abduction' might to some extent have been his fault. As he turned up on his older brother Agamemon's doorstep, to devise together a rescue mission. They compiled a list of those whose skills and fealty they should call upon.

He aught to have understood his siblings nefarious nature better. He'd seen the self serving cruelty of him many times. But now Menelaus was not just forgiving of it, but wished to co-opt his kin's less respectable instincts. The more lee way you gave Agamemnon, the more he greedily would make a grab for places, persons and power to service his own advantage. Menelaus, in the righteousness of his anger knowingly failed to restrain the bullish bear, that was his brother when unleashed. This ego inflated leader always on the make.

In Agamemnon's hands their joint mission, quickly turned from rescue into a campaign for annexing Trojan territory. The seeking of an ocean wide continental supremacy. To turn their quickly hewn confederation of warriors, into an undefeatable power across the vast Aegean Sea. No one foresaw then, that the fighting would go on and on for ten grueling years of increasingly futile conflict. During which, Helen and the hostages had become an entirely secondary consideration. The interminable nature of this war focused minds completely, to the point of blind obsession, on wiping the Trojans entirely off the map and out of existence. To put a final end to their darkly pernicious terrorism, with the Greeks own far from virtuous version of it.

And as these two malign military forces  exchanged ever deeper atrocities against one another, no one could be proud of any victory. For each battle won appeared ever more cyclical and pyrrhic in nature. No one could envisage the end to it. So as they grovelled ever closer to the ground they fought over, they were simultaneously being eaten alive by their own shadows. Whilst the oracles continued to predict doom, into the emptiness of cavernous spaces.

On the day the ignoble Greeks finally stepped onto the streets of Troy, all they could think of exacting was genocidal murder. To pillage and bring to ruin this once fine city. The revenge rapes and the immolation of women and children on pyres. Reducing everything, whether despicable or admirable that was Troy, into blackened glowing embers. To pound its walls into the dust of forgotten history. 

Menelaus, once the rightfully wronged man, had over a decade of blood fueled fighting corrupted his image from the god endorsed abused, into an egregious abuser himself. Any moral high ground he'd once occupied, now crushed under the feet of his own actions and utter debasement. 

Helen emerged imperious out of the bonfire of Illium's royal palace, and without a look of recognition walked straight passed Menelaus. No longer seeing him as even worthy of her respect, let alone affection. Any love had been extinguished under layers of grief, for all those fine men and women who'd died as a consequence of her decision to chose self determination, happiness and joy, over a cruel and dependent servitude.

SHORT STORY - The Man Who Wished For Things To Be Different

Adam, was visibly a fully grown adult man, but nonetheless at heart was still a boy. Deep down he retained an unwarranted affection for that free spirited, impulsive, yet shy boy, he felt persisted within his psyche. The boy who would with unabashed confidence, wish for things to be different. Even though life as it had so far turned out, had not proved very receptive to the influence of such magical thinking.

As a child he'd wished for quite simple things. For it to be sunny so he could play out. For it to rain so heavily games period would be cancelled. For the bully boys not to be waiting for him on the way home. When he entered his teenage years, he dearly wished to be different to how he was. Less insular and withdrawn, more outgoing and extroverted. Better at sports than he was, more confident, with taughter muscles, luxuriating in chest hair, more vigorously masculine, braver, fitter, a better fighter, with long flowing hair like a heavy metal rock star. The list of traits he did not possess grew endless.

He knew what he was expected to be like, and in him, inevitably, there was this distinct short fall. And yet the wishing for himself or the situation to change, never appeared to translate into overt action. Passivity took charge of his life's direction, and over his body for that matter, which remained slightly flabby around the edges. To which going to a gym would be anathema as a solution.

Some things did, of course, change. Though he had a sense that this was more coincidence than any godlike ability he possesed to adjust reality, to make it conform to his will. He did, however, hide a special secret, that he was gay. Initially he hardly understood the full consequence of the word, but he never felt the need to wish for this to go away. He was really relaxed and OK with it. Everyone else was simply wrongheaded. 

The wishing would then refocus on imagined erotic encounters. With the boy next door, or the man who regularly walked up the side alley to the Working Men's Club, whoever the latest love interest, slash voyeuristic obsession, was with. And if he wasn't imagining being ravaged by a greasy car mechanic, he dwelt on the trickier question of who he wanted to be career wise, what to do with his life overall. The answers to which, infuriatingly, eluded Adam's imaginative reach. These all seemed frustratingly beyond wishing's remit.

In the midst of indecisiveness, he tended to settle for just getting by, without too much effort being exerted. He knew that this 'easy life' was a huge failure of ambition and initiative on his part. Yet in the quiet and undemonstrative private realm of his imagination, he continued to see himself as a writer, a poet, a pop star, an actor or artist, practically any creative pursuit you could think of. He tended to treat these as oracles. Ones he hadn't the foggiest idea how you could ever forge a career in. As he entered his twenties, wishing no longer felt like it had that necessary fizz anymore. That was never going to be enough. So what the fuck was he actually going to do? He couldn't be this naive day dreamer all his life, could he?

Adam allowed himself to drift, surrendering himself to an sea of possibilities of chance meetings or random events, to direct movement in his job prospects. These filled in the time until the big opportunity would turn up. Then there'd be no oracle to announce its arrival, though he'd have to be ready to act instantaneously, or risk missing dame fortune as she'd sweep imperiously by, like a drag diva.

Alongside all of this there was also finding 'the good man', the man he'd want to spend his life with. This was proving so much harder than he'd imagined. Though he placed much of his vision for the future upon it. Imaginatively pushing for this to happen, despite the spasmodic and disappointing dalliances, the casual pick ups and the all too short lived affairs. Surrounded, as these were, by rather too vast an ocean of celibacy. 'The good man', yeah, he'd waltz in, one day.

But as is often the way opportunities and 'good men' turn up when you're least expecting or are prepared for them. Adam was temping in a call centre, selling home insurance. This was already showing signs of being unlikely to last above a few weeks, before a rebellion would break out. It paid the rent, but provided little else. 

Today he was on the loo, smoking a cigarette, already wondering how much longer he could swing being away from the phones, with this really bad case of diarrhoea. When some one thumped loudly on his cubicle door. 

'How much longer are you gonna be mate? Yours is the only loo not already clogged with shit and paper. Unless, of course your...... blocking another one as we speak."

'Oh...sorry,....just finishing off ... be out in a... trice'

'Yeah, I bet you say that to all the guys'

And with a final perfunctory wipe, and making sure he was leaving the toilet in a respectable state, he gathered up his trousers, put on his jacket, wondering who the guy outside the cubicle was. Did he recognise that voice? Nope. Would he be young or old? Tall or short? Slim or pudgy? Hipster or nerd? With a sharp intake of breath, stealing himself with - lets hope for handsome and fit - like in a horror film he opened the creaking cubicle door.  This was when he first met Gideon.

SHORT STORY - Deep Listening

There was an excited thudding of the heart as an unbidden thought emerged. And that thought suffused and settled itself upon their mind like a descending fog. And that thought spoke to him and said - ' could you listen to a piece of music, without your mind wandering or falling asleep? Wouldn't that be a challenge. Are you up for trying?' A nod of the head indicated consent, whilst a tightly bitten bottom lip perhaps spoke otherwise.

Their mind woke up to what the carrying out of this new task could entail. It was ideal, part applied practice, part pleasure, part strenuous endeavour. What would be the right piece of music to accompany this? Well, that took a while to establish. They had to overcome a certain nerdy ambition they possessed, that quickly infested their sense of the task at hand. How long the music should be, wildly fluctuated in length. They didn't want to be a pussy, and so thought-  lets go for a full twenty minutes. This shifted down in five minute geared increments, then cranked itself upwards again, until another minor genuflecting moment of retreat. Back and forth it went on like a game of hesitant table tennis. 

Having provisionally settled on five minutes, the next issue was musical style. In many ways popular music was better at a short musical form. The discipline of three minutes being widely adhered to. Rarely stretching longer though, even five minutes was a bit of an ask, unless you chose a 12 inch remix. Classical, however, was the reverse, a long form of musical encounter, that placed little value on brevity. You had your minute waltzs, but longer, as in five minutes longer, was harder to find outside of the odd Chopin Etude, a Gymnopedie by Eric Satie, or something considered charmingly unfinished. Most frequently it's romantic loquaciousness recognised no horological boundary.

Annoyingly they found the right music hard to find, let alone forgive. When a piece of music, proved to be even a few seconds over or short of the required time. They reminded themselves they weren't in competition with anyone, except, of course, themselves. Boy this was proving hard. It was an experiment after all. If they should ultimately fail, well, no one else need know about it. Yet, why did four minutes eighty four feel so much worse than four minutes ninety? How come everything always has to be so neat and bloody precise, but mostly wasn't?

Setting aside Sunday evening. They lined up the chosen music on the computer, plugged in the headphones, pulled up a favourite armchair, and pondered whether it was ever possible to truly prepare oneself for listening intently, without distraction. They made a cup of tea. Then realised perhaps that was not such a good idea. What if they needed to pee two minutes in? Thoughts about the distended nature of your bladder, once they seeped into your mind, you'd never be able to shut them up. This 'in the moment' deep listening stuff, needed more careful preparation than anyone would have first imagined.

So the phone was unplugged, mobile turned off, all the doors either locked or do not disturb signs attached. Did the room need to be darkened? Lights on or off? Eyes closed of open? Headphones or speakers? The issues provoked these questions, and they kept on coming. The sense that all this prevarication over actually starting the experiment, was simply nervous delay. The perpetual nature of them grew increasingly discomforting, until they struck more base, sabotaging, carnal motivations. Shoes on or off? Sitting up or lying down? Clothed or naked? No, just no to that. You know what you'd do - in time to the music no doubt. Shame on you.

Eventually, fully clothed, out of a burgeoning self exasperation they pressed the start button, and just as the opening chord struck immediately put it on hold. No.That was too hurried. Rewind. Pause, take several minutes to deep and luxuriate in the breath. Still a bit hyper, calm down, breath slower - be gentler. Prepare your entire psycho- physical being. Imagine a pond with ripples becoming stiller and unruffled like a mirror. Yes, that one always works.

And....then...they fell asleep. Oops, nodded off for a bit there. Are you really alert enough? Well slept enough? You can always come back to this later. Go take a brisk invigorating walk. After an hours walk at sunset, and a ten - twenty minute nap, have another go. 

This time they sat bolt upright. Touched the button and off they went. Gosh I always love this opening, so magnificent and grand, reminds me of when I walked through those estate woods in Norfolk last autumn, low sun, the extended shadows, and... Hey, are you listening? Nope. Stop the music. Pause. God, you're only giving a bloody running commentary. Not truly listening with the entirety of your whole physical, mental, emotional, spiritual being. You"re writing a review. What's your strategy with this then, oh mighty deep listening guru? Rewind, Start again. Deep, deep sigh. And.......

God, No, I'm just so annoyed with myself now, really really uptight. What to do? Just listen to the god damn music! What's so difficult about that? Cool the anger dude. Deep breaths, let them go, let them go, Let Them Go, from the head down to the feet....and again. 

No, No, No, I can't do this right now, I'm so damn wired. A cup of tea. That's back on the agenda. Get up, switch on the tap, fill the kettle, wait till it boils, bag in the teapot, splash of cold water, pour the hot water in, wait till it's brewed, time three full minutes, milk in the cup, then the tea, retire to the sofa, sit and slowly drink it in. Now why can't listening to music be like that, eh? Like switching on a kettle and making a cup of tea. 

You know, maybe this is simply not the right time, another day perhaps. What am I trying to prove here, eh? OK, move on then - check your phone - one missed call - nope - they can wait - swipe. I'm chillin for a bit, know what I mean?

Written by Stephen Lumb

February 2024

SHORT STORY - The Lineage of Wise Words

At first there was a moment that erupted into time, that became a feeling, an overwhelming surge of inspiration, that came forth in forceful words, the vehicle for eloquence in thought, squeezed persuasively into a sequence of sentences, creating a moving elevating oration, and the person from whom these wise words emerged was as surprised as everyone else was, at how well they came across, the people were awed by their perceptiveness, so when this new sage abruptly upt and left, it also left the people bereft and wanting for more, so they pursued the sage absolutely everywhere, they mobbed them, besieged their house, camped on their front lawn, their lives became no longer their own, they were not let alone day or night for months and months and months, being forced to give impromptu off the cuff speeches, until eventually this all became way too much for an ordinary human to bare, and so the sage quietly retired to a private attic room intent on bringing it all to an end, leaving a note on a side table in the entrance way written in large print capitals - NOW PERHAPS I'LL GET SOME PEACE !

- yet the people who'd pursued the sage, had listened carefully, their emotions were stirred, they'd been broken in their hearts, tears had been wept, an impression was left upon them of something immensely important having been said, yet few could put their finger precisely on what, it was more of a 'you had to be there' sort of thing, afterwards, those in possession of a better memory faculty could recall more content from the speech, so between them they compiled an agreed facsimile that passed for what they thought the basic essence of the sage's speech of wise words had been, they then dedicated themselves to keeping this alive in their memory, through passing on the teachings orally to new devotees they turned themselves into the repository and guardians of the spoken wisdom, for those who could recount the wise words became by a simple process of association - wise themselves - the people came to see them, to hear them speak, the people pleaded : 

- 'repeat for us once again, for we are forgetful of those neat aphorisms, that sum it all up, explain them please, so we might also understand with greater depth, and hold the words of wisdom within our hearts and minds, present them with bullet points if need be, a tick list, whatever will be easier to recollect, maybe a mnemonic, anything to help us feed our yearning to know, to enable recognition within to arise once again, the one so profound that it swept the dust from our souls, it cleansed, consoled, it healed us of our insignificance, our lack of purpose.'

-  it was discovered that this was not solely about the words, but the pauses, brief silences where inner peace could enter to purify the hearts of the people, so embedded in their tawdry guilt, their dirtily greased and obscured perceptions, they were unable to see any other way out, except for when they heard the wise words fluently spoken, and The Retainers of Wisdom were more than willing to respond 

- 'if you cross my palm with silver I will gladly tell you' 

- and such was the demand to hear them simply speak the words, not sotto voce, but bold and clear, out loud, The Retainers of Wisdom became immensely rich, eventually public demand did outstrip the ability of even The Retainers of Wisdom to meet it, even as the pressure mounted they felt a reluctance, none of them wished to give away their exclusive rights - to the profit of a prophet to utter the wise words, until the inevitable day arrived when one of their number rebelled, broke rank and took pity on the people, and said

 - look I'll write it down for you.

- and the people breathed a collective sigh of relief, having had enough of being continually fleeced, whilst confessing shamefaced, that they could not read, so The Retainers of Wisdom, trying their best not to be seen smirking or being patronising, nodded knowingly and seized this opportunity, they set up the schools and took on the task of being the teachers of reading, for a modest tuition fee, only then, once there was a substantial ready made market for books, did they publish an authorised version, a compendium of the sage's wise words, bound in expensive leather, gold tooling and illuminated velum within, for nothing was too lavish for the words of wisdom, however, though everyone was now able to read it, the people were so poor, few could afford to actually buy the book, however treasurable, they'd have to save up, and that could take quite a while, with a gap in the market opening up wide, cheaper bootlegged copies began appearing on the black market to fill it, and so, afraid their lucrative monopoly on the printed word was quickly slipping from their grasp, The Retainers of Wisdom altered tack, ruthlessly undercutting the bootleggers by producing their own cheaper abridged paperback version, with a tacky embossed and foiled cover.

-and yet, once everyone was able to read the wise words for themselves, things fast began to shift and change, and not for the better, but far worse, to deteriorate the very truth of the matter, the wise words themselves, these became the subject of textual analysis and revision, a process through which they became tainted and strangely falsified, elements of doubt were placed, like demon seeds, into the very grammar and syntax of the wise words, that questioned their veracity, their validity, were these exactly what the sage of the wise words had said? how could anyone know for certain these were the sage's authentic words? what if there were later insertions, made up bits? and if the wise words were not authentic did that mean, despite what they felt about them, they were not true? further emboldened they took to challenging the need for The Retainers of Wisdom themselves, as an institution, for it was now centuries, millennia, since the sage of the wise words had martyred themselves, by taking their own life, and things, well they were so different now, and couldn't you find it all for free somewhere on the Internet anyway? the original speaker of the wise words, well, if they were so wise, why did they top themselves, did they even historically exist? what if they were just a phantom stooge, a front, a creation of the illuminating elites, one big millenia long con to preserve the position and status of The Retainers of Wisdom, with all the extraordinary power and wealth they represented, the wise words had been saved for posterity. not to enlighten, but solely to keep the people subservient and needy, to enslave them, the people remarked:-

- 'may be we no longer need wise words handed down to us from above, can we not think for ourselves now? each of us, could we not find our own wisdom? hold to our own truth? we don't need to belong to anything, what use to us is an elitist heirarchy? the sage was an ordinary person just like us, so having grown beyond all of that dependency upon their wise words, can we not now all be spiritual in our own individual unique way?'

- and greatly enthused they organised zoom sessions. posted video lectures on social media, garnered followers, subscribers, hosted there own patroen page, everyone could truly be their own Retainer of Wisdom - though quite rapidly the situation descended into a vitriolic and poisonous factionalism, the distinct cults that emerged, frequently clashed. these formed themselves into roughly two broad strands - the ILP's - inflexible literalist puritans - on the one hand and the CLC's - callous libertarian crusaders - on the other, both of them wishing to appear champions of free speech for everyone, but really only in it for themselves, so only they could be heard above all others, everyone else was to be closed down, roasted in public forums, their arguments destroyed, their integrity defamed through the medium of short expletive ridden social media comments, conjuring up an authoritarian climate online of intimidation and threat, that was no longer about discovering a deeper resonance, meaning, intent or relevance in the wise words themselves, but primarily focused on maintaining the ardent certainty of their followers, what the cults themselves represented, in a 'you're either for us or against us' battle  for allegiance.

 -gradually reinterpretations of the wise words themselves, perverted and twisted what the truth of them was, putting them to serve a view of the world that was totally anathema to their true spirit. And whether these were Defamers or Defenders of the Wise Words both resorted to actions that were frankly, dictatorial and oppressive, that brooked no free thinking opposition, everyone had to toe the authorised line or face being terminated with extreme silence.

- and so in thought word and deed the populous picked up their faith battered souls and drifted away from the wise words, letting them go, abandoning all overt public devotion to them, the books of wise words were openly burned in the street, the websites were hacked, all proselytising frozen, the people became disillusioned and bellowed:

- 'we must live free of these wise words, for everyone who espouses them now are total cunts - Completely Unprincipled Nepotistic Two-Faced Swindlers - we'd rather wallow in abject despair than have a bogus hope thrust down our throats unwillingly. If we must vomit, let us spew it upon the sage's gravestone, for it is they who lead us all astray for far too long.'

- this reached a shamefully dark place, a dread-filled nadir, where everyone was compelled to keep their faith hidden, their heads down, until the moment when one person finally cracked, ceasing to care what would happen to them, chose to emerge from the crowd, to stand up, to speak out, and as they gave voice to their thoughts in honest, plain and unembellished language, they found themselves transfixing the soul of the entire world.

written by Stephen Lumb

November 2023

SHORT STORY - And So I Float

Being, it is nothing. Its an all encompassing feeling, the container for emptiness, above, beneath and within. So I can successfully suspend myself in such deep and murky water, and feel entirely at home. However, though I float in this expansive pool of water, I'm still rippled like a snake with emotions and sparks of indecision. Am I going to go all the way with this, or am I simply allowing myself to drift for a while, like leaf fall, hitherd and thithered by random instructive breezes? Looking for some sort of egregious sympathy.

Here we are then, rocking, face down, icy cold. The body positioned as though in the slowest of last throws of mortality. Yeah -, 'as though' - not yet - 'as was', or 'as intended.' Somewhere, between casting myself in and the just about buoyant, the resolve became drenched, weighed down by its own extraneous clothing mostly. Here I meander amongst the gentler undulations of my form and thought. No longer sure, exactly what I was meant to be carrying out. Why I've abandoned myself simply to floating.

Its an accidental impression of a human sized waterboatman I make. A sodden island, isolated in the centre of a mere, fed by the upward swirl of an underground stream. A lump of chilled white flesh, with clothes wrinkling and warping ghost like, around me. 

Why am I here? Oh, but that would be to start recounting a tale, already far far too long. No, really, I can't be arsed. Other than, I am a container for mulled resignation. That must be sufficient. Don't ask any more from me, it doesn't help cheer the draught of the mood. I'm passed being 'talked out' of any of this. Even though this now resembles an increasingly redundant gesture. Who is there left to care, eh?

Seemingly I still do. Care, that is. For I was meant to be lancing the boil of all the emotional turmoil of the last few weeks, with this conclusive dramatic finale. But haven't, of course. This floating feels too passive, so altogether pathetic. As time progresses, limbs, dangling so freely begin to hurt. Losing the sensation in hands and feet. Neck and blue veins stiffening. Thoughts began to slur and slip in and out of clarity. Appearing to open up my imagination, like a heart valve, to let the dream like reveries enter in. As though I'd never done any of this? A ship docking myself into some gothic harbour, overseen by the long shadows of skeletal ruins.

Just when I was more reconciled to totally abandoning myself to fate, there are thumping hands grappling for purchase on my body. Clamped around my extremities, lifting me up. Slipping a hammock around me, which with a roar of petrol exhaust and cascading water heaves me up. Hovering and twirling in the air, dribbling waterdrops, all around me. Gutteral shouts into the air - 'Got him'. They've come to save me, from my self, from procrastinating over my demise. Well, this sorts that out for a while, I guess. The hoist swings me over to dry land, face down on the grassy bank. Where the body, strangely does not stir. They stand around it, looking blank and pityful. As do I, I see myself as they do. as I am.

Something isn't right. I hear them chuntering between themselves - another poor bugger - second in as many weeks - looks like he's been floating here all night. Really! That long? Manhandled, then roughly plonked on a stretcher. The advancing noise of a long zip being pulled up from my feet, then over my face. Locked in. They think I'm dead, they actually think I"m dead! -  I'm alive - No - No - No - why can't they hear me?  I left it much too late, once again?  I am lost, in the many senses of that word. Who... what... where am I going to float too now?

Written by Stephen Lumb
October -November 2023

SHORT STORY - Mission Creep

I looked at myself in the bedroom mirror, and there it was, the fungus the bogeyman face. During the day I successfully became yet another variation on a human being. Yesterday an unsightly and obese boy, tomorrow perhaps I resemble a desiccated human walnut, a good deal older. Not always masculine either. Some times the race or gender shifts, even a little indeterminately. Lets just say I can receive funny looks - of the 'what is that?' -  variety.

When I pull myself away from the truth that inhabits mirrors, I imagine myself as this perfect simulacrum, perhaps young, unformed, even gauche. All those small tropes of behaviour that help define the human, the usual things they like to eat, drink and be merry with. 

Once I side glance my reflection in a shop window all of this falls away. Pretences? No longer convincing. Mirrors will not lie. They tear down facades, dissolve any artificial perception filter I've erected. That this happens solely within my vision and no-one else's, is unsettling. My being, being so bloody changeable. This is not why I am here on earth, surely? To visibly hold my sense of self together, with gaffer tape, for the good of the Misson.

I can't remember when this slipperiness in my appearance started. Was there a multiplicity always present? How I was made in my DNA? Except, I've always assumed I didn't have any. I'm made to pass as human, no more than this was required of me. No one will ever know otherwise. I move around, and each gender disguise is never seen through. Successfully I concoct yet another new 'appearance' to add to my wide range of recognisible personas. My being, mind and body is a 3D blank canvas upon which my line managers paint.

Today I was a teacher, I walked into the local comprehensive. I taught mathematics there. I ate my lunch in the canteen, I conversed with the students, with other teachers, the caretaker, nothing went remotely amiss. They all appeared to see me for who I was; a kind and capable supply teacher.  I returned home happily convinced by my own portrayal. A moment of shock, taken a back again. I was a woman, a middle aged woman, smartly dressed, high powered and businesslike. Had I changed gender during the tube journey home? I was a man for sure when I left this morning. Same cheekbones, chin too perhaps, but definitely male. The worrying thing is I didn't notice any change happening.

I've little control left over who I am. It used to be I could set in concrete the gender, the character and career etc. Now it can roll over of its own accord. Its anyone's guess who I'll become any day, any hour, any minute. So far nothing has altered whilst I've been out on assignment. Well, not that I've noticed. Which is fortunate.

Each evening I melt into the armchair and let whoever I've been that day evaporate away. Back to the fat glutenous blob I really am, that only I see in a mirror, its not pretty, not humanly handsome. I sit, an open channel processing and offloading my experiences of that day. Then downloading the life mantle I'm to assume tomorrow. Absorb the notes and details, then prepare for the constructing of the facsimile the following morning.

I've not told my bosses about the unannounced shape shifting. They'll just blame it on me, I know they will. Even during my training I found conforming to a fixed identity hard to maintain. Something within me wants to rebel. Though I thought I had a good handle on it. Obviously not.

I have this intentionally boring foundation character I assume at home, a Mr Average. Its just so I don't arouse the neighbours suspicions. Onto this base is layered today's experiment. Today this surface level is a younger man, early twenties, works in a call centre, hates his job, hates himself, just broke up with his partner of two years, currently on a bit of a downward spiral. Not a cheery chap to be, or be around

He feels considerably more fidgety mentally. I really have to grapple to keep hold of him, more than most 'appearances'. A strong undertow of depression. Everyone I'm encountering so far avoids him. He stinks a bit of piss and liquor. People walk to the other side of the street. I hung around on a park bench for a while, fell asleep, till a park warden gave me a sharp poke with his stick - 'you'd better move on mate, before the bill are sent for, don't make it harder for me please

So I get up, walk around the park a bit, down the edge by the canal. It's quiet here. Until I encounter a group of men. They begin to tease and taunt, and this ends in them manhandling and joshing me. I lose my balance. I fall in the canal. My 'appearance' is totally unable to swim, so I instantly flounder and thrash about ineffectively in the dingey water. I ask for their help, they jeer and walk off. I fight for air, sink and gasp  till the weight of my clothes begins to get the better of me. I become entangled in something in the canal bottom. All my energy to fight for life, proves insufficient. I submerge beneath the turbulent surface. As I slowly descend into the murky sediment, all I can think of is - is this what they do when you begin to malfunction? Am I being taken out?

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 5/5 - Hanging Offence

Pictures of phallic shaped potatoes with hats and googly eyes peaking above foamy bath water, were everywhere in the papers the next day. With headlines like 'Ride em Cowboy' , 'Mr Potatoe Head, 'Spud -Pedo,' Much fun was being had at his expense. The rude photos and cartoon caricatures were in the tabloids. In the mainstream opinion columns they were in fully incensed mode, frothing about how reprehensible and abusive his behaviour had been. Questions were beginning to be asked why Henry was still in his job at the Express. Henry, meanwhile, carried on writing his column, and the ongoing but failng campaign to 'expose' Andy Barnes as a swine. Though that was now really a lost cause when placed against his own ever expanding and grosser infamy. Henry finally decided maybe it would be better if he took 'Garden Leave. Hoping he might be able to sit out the furore and at some suitable date return. But then an event pushed that time still further into the distant future.

Andy Barnes, had endured weeks and weeks of negative untrue stories about himself, most of them with their origin in Henry Beddington's column. The press paparazzi hounding him wherever he went. He'd been forced to abandon his own family home, wife and children, in a vain attempt to protect them, or at least diminish the amount of gross intrusion they had to face. He'd gone to ground, hid himself way out in a bothy in the wilds of Scotland somewhere, well out of range of hassle from the Metropolitan press elite. London press journalists rarely venturing beyond the constraints of the M25, it being alien country the further north you went. Once Andy had escaped their unwelcome attention, separated from his family and emotional support, his mental robustness took a serious dive, and in one sour drunken evening he'd attempted to take his life. Leaving a simple note - 'If you want to understand why, look no further than Beddington's fuckin lies.'

That became the banner headline - Beddington's Fuckin Lies. The press were not now in a mood to find him mildly amusing anymore. They were out to roast Henry over his responsibility for pushing Barne's to an attempted suicide. Compiling a list of the stories he had promulgated about Barnes and printed a tick for TRUE or cross for a LIE by each. The majority, given Henry's 'self-brewing', unsurprisingly were found to be the latter. 

Without any further question the Express quickly suspended, then sacked Henry. Promising an investigation from its own feeble ethical standards committee. They went through all the motions of seeming to do the right thing. Neglecting to acknowledge their role, that all these lies that had been listed had once been approved by them, they'd been more than happy to print. Willing to overlook not just a little, but an immense amount of massaging of the facts. Because it sold papers, it kept folk reading online. The many victims and casualties of Henry's column over the decades, recounted their own mental struggles and grievances against Henry and his column, with pleasurable revenge. It turned into a public stoning. Andy Barnes would survive. Though now he needed to be turned into something approaching a living saint. The Sun having signed and paid him in advance for this already, the moment he'd first emerged from a comotose state in hospital.

Without his work, Henry had no scrap of purpose left. No one would let him buy things on account any more. The cafe wouldn't set aside his favourite lunch, his special secluded corner was gone, always booked by some ne'er do well  Worst of all Rebecca up and left. Without a PA, he had to relearn how to type, to deal with the messy complexity of his finances, the alimony, stock market arrangements, mortgages on his three houses, the simple daily expenditure of living in London. It became obvious, once he started to do this for himself, just how much he was living beyond his present means. Funds were fast dwindling. No one was going to offer him any work anytime soon, nor touch him with a barge pole. Not even the scuzzy end of right wing nut jobs, such as a Talk TV host, or that home for has been journos - GB News. Not a whiff of interest from these or any other quarter. 

There was, he realised one channel still available to him. he'd joined the status of those who' as a consequence of verbal slips, racial euphemisms, moral laxity or sexually Neanderthal transgressions., found themselves 'cancelled' from mainstream media  Much as he hated the idea. It cost very little to set up and create a studio. He was going online, launching his own You Tube channel. From where he could champion real free speech, sexual libertarianism, and be the scourge of trendy woke ideology.  He was going to offer the truth according to Henry Beddington, to 'his people', who ever would like and subscribe. Within days of launching, there were millions of them. Companies sought him out proffering sponsorship deals. A new destiny dawned.

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 4/5 - Four Queens Speak

So far the past lovers rival gossip columnists had dug up, had been all too willing participants in his youthful priapic adventures in infidelity. Though he may have treated them with abysmal callousness when ending the affair, nothing, so far as he could discern, could be interpreted as abusive or a misuse of power in the engendering of it. Apart from grossly betraying his wives trust, sometimes with his next wife of course. He was a great lover of women, however profligate he may have been with his affections. Obviously, he didn't appreciate his sexual experimentations as a younger virile man being so publicly traduced and lampooned

It appeared, however, that by virtue of a Twitter frenzy, the press articles had had the exact reverse effect, in that they actually improved his popularity and public profile. For the first time in his fifty two years, though now no longer possessing a flat six pack, with a wine red nose and a disheveled dress sense, he was being lauded as an icon of male libertarianism. The Daily Mail absolutely loved him. Though Henry wasn't at all sure that particular endorsement helped much. It was a bit like Machiavelli praising one's ethical rectitude. 

Henry understood the rules of this game blindfold. Why were they holding his ex wives testimony back? Even he couldn't wait to hear what those three queens of his life had to say. Scandals always had a limited time and momentum to them, before fatigue set in. As long as you kept feeding them daily with new, fresh and juicy details, the fickleness of public interest might not depart. At some point the focus and pull of these revelations would inevitably need to be re-adjusted, or brought to an ignominious ending.

As though someone had a line tap on his innermost thoughts, the next day all three of his wives - Nola - Jessica  & Patricia -were on the front pages of the tabloids. And were they complaining about his infidelities? No. They all were quite happy for him to play away from home, because it left them free of the pressures of  'servicing his needs'. According to them he was so perpetually rampant, his 'needs' became literally oppressive to them. The down side of his widely spread infidelity was they were constantly seeking treatment for a venerial infection, or other such like. They made no complaint about the generous financial arrangements once they'd divorced him either. This was all going quite swimmingly well. Then Patricia, his most recent and longest lasting wife, dropped in an offhand comment that exploded into the awaiting stagnant cesspool.

She started talking about Chalfont/Clarissa, and how he'd always been Henry's favourite offspring, but 'to an unhealthy degree'. When asked what she meant by 'unhealthy' she was frank. He liked to get into the bath naked with him when he was a child.' And left the statement hanging there unexplained, then blurted out - 'You'll have to ask Chalfont/Clarissa about all that. All I'll say is that it marked him. If Chalfont/Clarissa is a little confused about themselves today, then this is largely his Father's fault'  Henry's eyes bulged, he covered his mouth lest anyone heard him scream, then cried out loudly - ' That is the lowest fucking level'

The teasing nature of the press attention, was now approaching its smutty hub, that waste of space that was his son. And he was still his son, even if he now wore makeup, heels and a heavily ruched silk dress to work. Chalfont/Clarrisa worked as a personal assistant to some up and coming trans designer, that Henry had never heard of. The photo used in all the papers showed his son had had quite bit of reconstructive work done recently. Where he'd got the money for this did perhaps not require a palm reader, look no further than one of the tabloids. To Henry he looked ever more like an arche, but high glamour version of his own Mother. In other words - patently ridiculous.

The interviewer wasted no time getting to what she wanted to hear about. 

'Could you tell me more about your childhood in relation to your Father, those times in the bath with you'

' What I remember is he loved to be naked and play with my toys in the bath with me. I don't remember if my Mother was around or not. I was young, two or three, I didn't think it odd at the time. It was fun playing with Dad. He appeared to get more and more enthusiastic, then onetime he got a hard on. Delighting in showing me his engorged member, he put a small hat and pair of goggly eyed glasses on it. Shouting 'ride em cowboy' repeatedly.  This happened just the once'.

'So he never did that ever again'

'No, not that.'

'Do you mean he did something else.'

'Well, he did used to dress up in Mum's clothes, when she was out. He got an erotic kick out of that too'

'He was aroused by it?'

'Yep, but. Mum and Dad divorced shortly after this. I've always assumed there was a link. My Father has always been completely lead by his dick, a devoted wife was never going to be enough for him. I was never enough for him either. He criticises my behaviour repeatedly.  Unable to please him in whatever I chose to do, I recognised a long time ago I'd never win with him. So now I just do whatever the hell I want. Since I started transitioning he refers to me as ' only a fig leaf of a man left' or ' that prosthetic woman'. So, as you can imagine, I want little to do with him.'

The bathroom incident Henry recognised, but not the inserted innuendo - the 'pedo' slant being put on it. He and his wife, had, during their days experimenting with Viagra and other performance enhancing drugs, taken to walking around the house stark bollock naked, all day long.  Both often in a highly charged states of arousal. Patrica knew that, but was deliberately omitting her part in this account of their permissively sexual decadence. 

The hard on in the bath had taken even him by surprise, which was why he'd tried to make fun of it. It was truly embarrassing to recollect. Particularly because he recognised how badly this was now landing. His explanation, however true it might be, would not diffuse any scurrilous misinterpretation, it may even make things worse. For in matters of sexual ethics, public opinion, often quite rightly, wants to believe the very worst in people. Any desire to establish the factual truth of the matter, being the first casualty slaughtered on the altar of salacious gossip. 

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 3/5 - A Bigger Prick

As it happened it turned out to be Petronella Rishworth, a relatively short lived, minor mistress from during his first marriage. In his mental sweep stake she was seven to one, to fire the starting gun on a free for all on his reputation. How she chose to do it - no holds barred going straight for the jugular, reminded him what he'd most enjoyed about his relationship with her. Unconventional, because she was the wealthy heiress of a fortune made in marmalade and pickles. Meaning she didn't need to care a fig what anyone thought of her. A fiery Yorkshire temper that he'd found quite a turn on. And a sprightly curious intelligence that never minded exposing the laughable hypocrisy of it all. In short, he'd felt she was very like him. How wrong he'd been.

Her version went like this:-

'Of course Henry Beddington is one prize shit, he was fucking me whilst still married to his first wife, for christ sake. So I guess I should have expected he'd one day piss on me from a great height with someone else. But I bloody well didn't expect it would be with my younger sister, who was only just over the age of consent at the time. It may be only a small dick, but it is attached to an even bigger tumescent prick, that certainly ensured it got itself liberally applied - absolutely everywhere it could.'

Henry, for a moment felt a certain pride in that statement, but couldn't quite place the name or face of her sister. After all this was over thirty five years ago. He didn't have to wait long. The following day a terse statement from Clarabelle Rishworth-Balls was published. He didn't recognise her middle aged older face from the photograph. She'd married a second league tennis player, with whom she was reputedly in a blissfully contented marriage and had three children. Under the headline - ' A Complete and Utter Wanker' - she was happy to fully put the boot right in.

' My, thankfully brief time with Henry Beddington was one of the most depressing disillusioning experiences of my entire life. He uses women atrociously like they are sexual chattels.  He did once possess a wild and debonair charm, which judging by his recent writing in his column he is no longer in possession of. He is just a crude and wrinkled hack now. The very worst incident was when he'd tried to coerce both Petronella and myself to do a three in a bed with him. We both refused, even when he begged on bended knee, offering vast amounts of money, for us to do it. He's a complete and utter wanker, however tiny that legendary dick maybe in reality.'

'Agh! thought Henry 'the constant little dick references? Theres' the rub, the standard belittling tactics of the wronged woman. Its been the same since Medea slit the thoats of her own children. Come on Bedders you invented a lot of this stuff. This is minor cat nip, the drip drip approach to defamation, tawdry scene setting, Keep rising above it, and this will just float away eventually in a wash of effluents.'

Nonetheless the litany of former mistresses, girlfriend's, so called 'friends' continued unrelentingly. Until it formed itself into a relationship lineage you could draw an elaborate mind map of. He'd been nothing if not thorough in the range, age and class of women he'd once taken to bed. Out there he was sure there were children that even their Mother's were loath to say were his. So much did they not want Henry Beddington forever in their lives. But when the press came a calling with their bottomless promises of money, its amazing how quickly mindsets were changed. At least some good could now come of that tawdry brief fling and progeny.

Henry felt he was beginning to respond with an uncharacteristic air of defensiveness
'So I liked sex, so what? Nothing wrong with spreading your seed widely. As far as I'm concerned, the entire validity and purpose of the British Empire was to fuck, or fuck over, anything that moved.'

For all its comprehensiveness, there was no killer blow he could see coming. None of his three former wives had yet broken cover, which  did concern him. What had been published so far struck him as simply titillating background reading, against which something else he suspected, would be shown in starker and more alarming contrast. He'd written this playbook, he recognised the rolling format. Though it was an entirely different and more disconcerting thing when it was being used against you. Impossible to second guess exactly what may be coming next, and it was his life they were mining for tittle tattle.

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 2/5 - When Word Gets Out

A particular focus of Henry's performative ire in his recent gossip columns had been a scandal that Henry had been 'self- brewing'. Previously there hadn't been much to be said about Andy Barnes, he was a bit of an anodyne personality. A broad empty smile, severe side parting, orange coloured skin and undoubtedly fake fair hair colouring. Partnered on his early evening magazine chat sofa by Sally Wallinger.  'A vacuous piece of fluff more than the intellectual equal of Andy' is how Henry described her. Both had worked there empty headed way up to adult programming, from unremarkable origins in kids TV. Mainly through working engagingly with hand puppets, both fabricated and human.

Henry discovered Andy had a distant cousin Don who, so it turned out, was a bit of an all round wanker. Done several turns with an ASBO as a youth, highly inappropriate behaviour towards women, leaning towards rapist, recently in court for selling recreational drugs in Brighton's backstreets, had once been known to be living rough on the streets of Hove. 'Self brewing' basically meant creating a scandal where one didn't really exist, but you used the dark media arts to conjure one into visible being. Henry just went to town on the sad bad story of Don. Did his best to implicate Andy in all his cousin's felonious activities. To basically slap tar on him as being made with exactly the same brush. Implying an ever growing scale of involvement. So he knowingly tolerated, then encouraged, progressing to engaged with Don's wrong doing himself. Done repeatedly, some of this scattering of wild seeds would stick.

That Andy had been estranged from Don for well over ten years, since his first stretch in prison for rape, was consciously overlooked. As was anything that might conceivably contradict the desired narrative thread that he alone was constructing. Henry had decided he was going to bring Andy Barnes down, in order to demonstrate that he still had the power to do so. He'd done this many many times before. Relishing the challenge of turning a complete innocent into a heinous pariah, preferably within a fortnight. This was what he did for fun.

It had not taken long for Chalfont's proposed change of gender to become a thing of ribald comment in the gossip columns of rival publications. Henry, of course, gave his son's decision not one single mention. He was a professional gossip columnist, he knew you could never starve a good story to death. Particularly when there was so much festering hate in the industry, and amongst celebrities, towards Henry. With decades worth of pleasure at other more famous folks reputational expense. So the desire in some to give him a good return kicking was going to prove irresistible. Even when some of them had a public standing that could not really get much lower. This never stopped any of them from pointing their grubby immoral finger at someone else's shit hitting the fan. Said finger becoming miraculously holier than thou.

Henry could sense all sorts of scum coming up to the surface. For his own life was not exactly short on areas for scandal and controversy, if you were determined to find them. The gossip fraternity had no doubt already done the research, taken and kept notes. But had stayed quiet about them, for fear of prematurely rousing Henry to go ballistic on them. They would be daily gaining in confidence, with the first whiff of ridicule over Chalfont having passed without comment from him. Once these early indications of weakness showed themselves, his invulnerable status would visibly sag, then open season would begin. 

Henry sensed this moments imminent arrival in his very bones. And he could tell exactly where it might be set alight from. One of his previous wives, mistresses or acrimonious ex-girlfriends would break the silence, that their non disclosure agreement was meant to impose. In his mind he was already running a mental sweep stake as to which one would be first.

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 1/5 - The Daily Routine Disrupted

Henry carefully placed the pen down. That was enough words. He'd reached around the usual limit for his column. Words in his hands, composed in his mind, became these instruments of correction. Applied sparingly but with the desired effect they became a scathing whip. Their only purpose to publicly shame their victim, and to do so hard. Instilled with his version of neo puritanism that was so prevalent these days. No longer religious, it now underlay most modern discourse with its secular strain of self righteousness and mortification.

His colleagues at the Express thought him the last crusty reprobate remaining on the paper. A view reinforced by the fact he wrote all his columns out in pen and ink. Defiantly old tech, a fuddy duddy affectation it maybe, but one that chimed with his insensitivity towards all contemporary moral niceties. The type seemingly always prefaced with hash tags. He'd never justify any of his behaviour or provide reasonings. Didn't feel he had to explain himself, ever. Just so long as his writing was good, delivered on time, who the fuck cared?  

Of course someone else had to type them up. That was his PA Rebecca's  job to sort that out. He never enquired how this actually happened, just so long as it did. On a rare occasion this well oiled process would foul up. The copyist perhaps misinterpreting his illegible inky scrawl, producedf a sentence of uncharacteristic opacity. In such circumstances, it was as though the writer suddenly leapt straight off the page, and punched you in the face. It found its voice, and it was that of a foul mouthed rottweiler, ready to tear limb from limb. Henry, when angered, well, no one wanted that.

Anyway, he'd finished his column for the week. Handed it to his Rebecca. Went out for lunch. He never arranged to meet anyone. Categorically refusing to both eat and talk. Preferring to eat out alone. Everyone else preferred he did too. So much unpleasant slavering, shirt spillages, explosive grunts and derisory laughs as he read through the opposition's papers. His favourite restaurant had a corner reserved specially for him. They screened him off. Where he ate the same lunch every day, steak chips and peas, in a lake of gravy. And without fail there it would be, piping hot, ready for when he'd arrive at midday, on the dot.

He ran his life on this tightly controlled treadmill, and largely on account. Trusting the conscientiousness of his PA to deal with a complex web of monthly payments. Otherwise, lunch might be off, as would his PA. The current one, Rebecca, had worked for him for about a year. A sign of immense skill and tact on her part. Working for Henry Beddington, meant any future job would be a breeze by comparison. Other people respected you instantly, they knew exactly what you'd had to cope with. 

Ditto Patricia Beddington his long suffering and now very ex wife, who'd poured her bruised soul out, delightfully cramming it with colourful anecdotes, to a rival paper. She'd now become an extremely popular TV agony aunt. Dispensing clearly one sided advice, basically of the - all women are terribly good - all men are terribly bad - variety. Henry frequently would regularly feature as an egregious example. About which Henry was privately livid, but publicly affected to be beyond caring. He thought about his revenge all the time. But so far he couldn't quite face the exertion, not to mention expense, of going down the route to litigation. Ever since Oscar Wilde this sort of thing, of defending your bruised ego in court, could so easily backfire. Particularly as his own carefully cultivated abrasive public persona was deliberately meant to rub the liberati up the wrong way, into apoplexy.

His life outside of his writing, had frankly turned into one gigantic tangle of failed or failing relationships. All his disappointments, frustration and anger got siphoned through his columns via the verbal vitriol he dispensed. It was how he processed and resolved issues. By the time he got home after lunch, Rebecca had filtered and sorted his mail out, into Do it Now or They Can Wank For It - piles, anything else passed quickly through vetting and straight into the jaws of a jabbering shredder.  

At the top of the Do It Now was a long handwritten letter from his young wayward, and only son, Chalfont Beddington. In it he was at pains to explain in precise detail to his Father, how he had always felt himself to be really a she, and that she would now quite like Henry to call him Clarrisa from now on. Henry's heart, then jaw dropped, then his temper rose. An expletive ridden response was loudly aired, approximating to - not on your bloody nelly. Until it dawned on him quite how badly all of this might play out once it inevitably hit the tabloids. It was incontrovertibly a bad thing whenever a gossip columnist themselves became the subject of the gossip. 'God, this could be one fuckin feeding frenzy, a five star disaster in a matter of days.'

WINDOW VIEWS - Murder as a Cultural Reference

Given time I thought, things are bound to pick up, they'll improve.  I was mistaken. And not just in my mind. It was a commonly held notion, that we would always be going someplace, heading somewhere, reaching for where ever more of more was to be found. It never remotely crossed anyone's mind that civilisation might go into reverse, and could do so rapidly. Decline was more than feasible. But to lose our entire grasp on economic progress and decent civility? Impulses became coarsened, natures turned unfiltered, the raw and the prejudicial began to rule. To permeate everything and everyone with an authoritarian stridency. I tried to tell myself that I would not, could not, respond in such a way. That such a regressive change may indeed be happening, but not to me. 

Yet I too harboured intolerant, murderous feelings. I thought badly of my neighbours without good cause, even loathed my closest oldest friends, was highly judgemental of family members. If anything, how I was, well this was way worse, simply because I affected a surface facade, that not an ounce of malign prejudice was there. Until of course it was, very much there. Fully formed and vicious. When I acted, I acted with an unearned impunity, a lack of remorse, brutal in intent. Too late now, as it was then, for regret. The worst cruelty was in my cold heartedness, indifferent to any opprobrium of my killing spree. For goodness sake, I took the time to chalk a white line around the slaughtered bodies of my victims. Circled, numbered and named the important clues. I meant it as a joke, a knowing reference to the cliches of detective fiction. But what does that tell you? Murder had become just a cultural reference for me. I wanted to take an active part not just in the crime, but in its discovery and the catching of the perpetrator, that was me.  I wanted to be in charge of how this whole storyline was framed and unfolded. From the puritanical vigilante finally purging society of its self evident delinquents and defective minds. To the inevitability of the detective catching and putting me away for a very long time. Posting photos on social media standing by corpses grinning with the pleasure and infamy of it all.

I ended up here, in this sparse miniscule room, with a sink, a bed, a bucket to shit and pee in. My creature comforts. The only view an obstructed one of the roofs of the prison block opposite, through a window striped with iron bars. I scrawl on the wall feelings of injustice, so defiant am I not to be ignored in my ignominy.  I wanted my public fame to continue.  Speedily removed from general society and my phone. I was incarcerated here in the hope of minimising copycat murders. When the riots kicked off, they didn't happen in the prison, but erupted in the ordinary streets and houses of suburbia. The days of middle class reserve and politely modulated dissent suddenly collapsed. There was a war on for food, heat, resources, general survival going on. Our prison guards left in a hurry, in order to barricade and defend their homes, never to return. Leaving myself, and a handful of others, boxes of Snickers bars and tap water to survive on, til both of those ran dry. One day, very soon, I'll go to sleep, never to reawaken. Maybe it's for the best they didn't leave the keys. For who knows what further atrocity a middle aged hedge fund manager might perpetrate, as it all comes tumbling down.