Shark fin heels cut swathes through the aisle,
Flexing her thighs wide as a smile,
Stretching her tights cos that’s just the style,
To dress up your floating logs as crocodiles.
Slumping in seats, languidly lazing,
The taut, dark brown fabric gradually fading
Through phases, thinning from day after day
Without changing. Her knee caps are
Straining beneath a drab cream
That’s just itching to burst.
Oblivious, mother hen is hatching her purse,
Casually cradled, craftily able to
Explore all her things,
iPhone, lipstick and gold plated hoop earrings.
She coughs into a cardigan, politely hiding her germs,
But a hand is preferred when manners are learned,
A vicious hacking bark has dislodged her perm,
And it feels like a corner might just have been turned.
She re-fluffs her tresses to make sure they fall right,
Palms down the creases on the dress she wore last night
Tries to put on her makeup under the right light,
Steady hand, steady wrist,
Checks her phone, what’s she missed?
She looks disappointed,
Forlorn and let down:
The 3G signal is feeble,
Because we’re a mile underground.
Tag: thesaurus
June 1st Commuter
Black gauze stains skin as the
Silken sheen of tights trickles over limbs, and
Pools in a pair fake leather boots.
The sort that gnomes would make,
The sort that shops would fake
So suck it up, suck it in, squeezing the limb
Pudgy upper arm, veins near the skin
Wrap the bacon rind around the bingo wing,
Such a tight thing for such short sleeve,
The toothpaste’s lid’s open and the crust
Makes a smooth fit an impossibility.
Softmint eyes ebb and flow over pages,
Reading for days, assuaging the ways
That the lines on the page beat those
Cut on Friday nights with a razor blade.
Rapid page flips, shuffling whip cracks,
She sniffs up the plot, must be engaging,
Cos she’s reading the lot; losing the plot and
Her lips might be moving, but no sounds, not one jot.
Tracing the words, silently reciting as if she forgot,
That the carriage is bare –
But it’s seventeen forty three, so of course it’s not.
May 31st Commuter
The pastel silhouette of a face pushes itself through a sheet,
Sketching the faintest of features
In the folds of the fabric,
Telling itself it’s poking holes in the rubric,
Tracing paper eyebrows that lack all viscosity.
A placeholder ellipsis scribbled in to mimic pomposity
Makes scoffing so easy it sticks in her throat
A mix of smokers catarrh and afternoon coffee.
The lickle-spit envelope flap of silver scarecrow thatch droops
Limply over squashed features. Carved from pumpkins and
Badly transposed from cellulose.
Beneath the adipose lies a life so varicose,
First blanching, then flushing purple and red through
The thick, plump flesh gorging on her
Swollen, twisted ankle of a face.
Doughy as a suet ball, plump dumpling
Bobbing in a stew; can’t trace the bevel
But then what else is new?
Day #32
Apophyge: The small hollow curvature given to the top or bottom of the shaft of a column where it expands to meet the edge of the fillet called also the scape
Prescapula: The part of the scapula in front of or above the spine or mesoscapula (like lymph node)
Donatist: A follower of Donatus the leader of a body of North African schismatics and purists who greatly disturbed the church in the 4th century They claimed to be the true church
—–
Picture the scene:
The artist commissioned to paint your portrait hasn’t been seen for months and has presumably disappeared with your money. Upon breaking and entering into his studio, you find a letter addressed specifically to you. It states that the artist made a deal with a spirit and rightfully fears for his life. There is no signature.
This was the exact situation that Mr William Withers found himself in on the 17th morning of March, 1863.
Withers scrunched the letter into a chrysalis with his right hand and let it fall to the stone floor. The room was dark and stagnant, dust motes hung lazily in the air as though held by invisible spider webs. A terrible stench of rotting milk pervaded the air, from the apophyge of the Doric support columns down to the crusty grout upon the floor. Withers held his handkerchief up to his nose and looked around the small, dimly lit studio. The walls were covered in paintings that had been hung about with white muslin sheets. It looked as though no-one had been here for weeks.
The devilish swine, thought Withers with indignation, jiggling the few remaining coins in his trouser pocket subconsciously. A pittance. When he found the artist, there would be more than money to repay.
As though expecting to find a clue to the artist’s location, Withers began ripping the white sheets from the paintings. He was disturbed by their content and shocked to find in each image a recognisable likeness of the artist staring back at him. A hideous half-man, half-dog creature with bulbous tumours sprouting from its prescapula and fore-shoulders. A heretic being burnt at the stake by an ebony crowd of Donatist separatists. A man stretched upon a rack covered in spikes. A wretch nailed to a crucifix atop a mountain peak, eagles with bloody beaks feasting on his gizzards.
Withers turned away, fearful and disgusted by the paintings. Yet rather than the graphic subject material, he was more alarmed by look of pain and fear that shone from the pigments of the artist’s face in each scene. So much depth and resonance; the bulging whites of the eyes, flecks of white spittle smeared across his face, taut and tense muscles that strained as though they were being ripped from the bone. It was as if he were actually feeling his tortures, as though they were more than simple paintings, but momentary glimpses into some distant occult scene.
Highly disturbed, Withers turned to leave but as his hand touched the door handle, a scream of pure agony ripped through the small studio. Drenched in a sudden cold sweat, Withers looked about the room but could see nothing. He removed his shaking hand from the handle. Averting his gaze from the uncovered paintings, Withers hurried towards the artist’s desk, grabbed the crumpled letter from the floor and shoved it in his pocket. Without looking back he left the studio, the echo of a scream forevermore ringing behind him.
Day #31
Aves: The class of Vertebrata that includes the birds
Frogs bit: Frogbit, flowering lilypad
Overwrought: Wrought upon excessively overworked
—–
The smiling faces of my family trickle towards me, one after another. Overwrought grins, pearly white like bathroom tiles, bloom brightly for a moment then sour like milk when they think I’m not looking.
‘How are you Grandad, are you well?’
The voice belongs to a young man who I don’t recognise, but he seems to know me, so I just smile and nod. He rolls his eyes as he turns towards another conversation, seemingly annoyed at something. I hope it isn’t something I’ve done. I don’t like to upset strangers, it isn’t polite.
There are people all around me and I suddenly feel claustrophobic, like a gorse seed tangled in sheep’s wool. I sit silently, hoping that they won’t notice me if I shrink into a corner. I try to take in my surroundings, assessing my situation, trying to spot an escape route. I’ve had to do this before, so I know what to look out for. It was the German’s last time, but everyone here is speaking English, which confuses me. I don’t remember the camps being so shiny and bright either, so maybe I’m not in Germany anymore.
There are photos on the walls and I try to match the faces with the people in the room. Some seem to match up, but they look different, tired like pages in an old book. I can’t recall the last book that I read – I find it hard to keep track of the stories these days, the words blend together and fly away as the pages turn, spreading like a bird’s wings.
‘Aves,’ I mutter to myself. A man nearby looks at me strangely. I tell him it means birds, but he doesn’t seem too interested. I learnt it at school and it feels somehow important, but I’m not sure why. Perhaps this man nearby knows, but when I ask him he smiles, nods and walks away without answering. I wonder if he is going to ask someone else what it means. He doesn’t need to as I can tell him the definition. He merges into a group of people and then he’s gone.
I examine my hands, enjoying how the light falls on my wrinkles, shadows just like puppets. There once was a man who used to hit a lady with a bat to get some sausages, he should have bought her flowers to apologise. When I was a boy, Alfie and I snuck into Mrs Pickens’ garden to steal Frogs bit from her pond. We were courting two sisters and their favourite flowers were the fluffy fuchsia ones that sat on the lilypads like colourful frogs.
A woman, one of those from the wall, approaches me with a plate in her hand. It’s got a piece of cake on it, like a frog on a porcelain lilypad.
‘Sarah and Alice wanted the pink frogs from the middle of the pond,’ I tell her, ‘otherwise they wouldn’t come to the pictures.’
‘That’s nice Dad,’ says my daughter, smiling.
Her teeth look just like pearly white bathroom tiles, but her grin sours like milk when she thinks I’m not looking.
Day #30
Denizenize: To constitute one a denizen
Vast: A waste region boundless space immensity
Euphrasy: The plant eyebright Euphrasia officionalis formerly regarded as beneficial in disorders of the eyes
—–
It’s the dead of night in the middle of the day. It’s the colorful reflections in a pool of oil. It’s the thick, heavy cowl of an executioner.
The trio – a man, a woman and a young girl – were walking slowly across a vast open plain. It was a wasted region, dry and arid, flecked with small, coarse bushes like balls of twisted copper wire. Between the sporadic vegetation, slow growing melanin deficiencies, the russet dirt had become the daily canvas for their feet, whilst up above a low hanging sun offered little beyond a weak, anemic twilight, punctured with heavy, ominous clouds. The air pressed at their skin, kissing it, as though a storm were waiting to break.
It’s the nightingale’s feathers. It’s the bottom of a wishing well. It’s the skin of an olive.
One word hung in each of their minds, a monotone chime that rung ‘home’ with the swell of each heartbeat. Father knew where he was going; he knew how to reach safety, how to get ‘home’.
The girl, Little Rosa, had run on ahead and stopped abruptly, standing over a body lying in the dirt. She’d screamed.
Her mother, Marta, assured the small girl than the man was ok, that he was merely blind and taking a rest. That is what the blind did now, there was no way he could find ‘home’ without sight, let alone walk, so he would rest instead.
‘It is what happens if you eat too many grapes,’ said Marta matter-of-factly. ‘ The juices fill up the stomach and spill into the eyes, filling them up until you cannot see.’
‘Why the eyes? Why not someplace else?’ asked Little Rosa.
‘Because the eyes look like grapes the most, they feel familiar to the grape juice,’ replied her mother.
Father shuffled over to the dusty man, his sunglasses reflected two bodies, dull and muted. He mumbled slowly over the body, always the same words, a token gesture before moving on, ‘I denizenize you as member of the human race, may you rest in piece.’
It’s the dilated pupil of a white-eyed Lion. It’s the Cimmerian abyss. It’s the self-effacing tabula rasa.
*
The moon is out and still the trio walks. It is cooler now and the insects have retreated for the night, a welcome respite. Yet the stillness is too eerie, too real, too much of an emphasis on how alone they really are.
From pocket to hand to mouth, Father chews buds of euphrasy flowers into a bitter paste. He stumbles onwards, reeling in ‘home’ like thread on a reel. He feels the dirt between his toes, the air on his face, the whistle of shifting sand in his ears, and tastes the iron tang in the air. He swallows the euphrasy paste with a grimace and then futilely adjusts his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose.
‘Just follow Father, he knows where to go,’ says Marta as if repeating an oft muttered mantra. She’s crouching so she can meet her daughter’s gaze, wide-eyed and trusting. It breaks Marta’s heart when Little Rosa looks up towards Father, an uncertain look on her face.
Unaware, Father simply gazes out towards the horizon, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses.
Day #29
Zymose: An enzyme, occurring in yeast and in the digestive juices of animals, that causes the inversion of cane sugar into invert sugar.
First: Preceding all others of a series or kind the ordinal of one earliest as the first day of a month the first year of a reign
Lapp: Also called Laplander – a member of a Finnic people of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and adjacent regions.
—–
‘Steady now son, hold that position, follow him with a firm eye, caress the gun, cradle it, not too tight but not too loose. When you’re sure…take the shot.’
The whip-crack of the gun ripples across the snow, humming as the pellets inscribe a full stop at the end of the caribou’s life. The boy lowers the weapon, his shoulder hurting from where the butt had jerked backwards. His fingers tremble and any joy he should be feeling is hollow as a rifle’s chamber, as though an emptiness had suddenly been awakened inside of him.
Looking up at his father, he sees the crease lines of a smile beneath the man’s frost-covered stubble.
‘You did good lad,’ says the man, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Your first caribou… Wait ‘til your mother hears of this!’
‘Dad, no, it’s fine, honestly,’ says the boy, embarrassed, ‘can’t we just say you killed it?’
His father looks at him curiously, a mixture of anger and sad resignation etched into the crease lines of his forehead, four short, horizontal lines you could compose upon. His ruddy cheeks flush rosy as holly bush berries, letting out a huff of dissatisfaction swept away by the wind.
‘Ok Hurman, we won’t tell your mother.’
‘Promise?’
‘On my honour as a Lapp!’ grins Hurman’s father, ‘besides, I wouldn’t be much of a Lapp if I didn’t try to claim as many caribou kills as possible, would I?’
His throaty guffaw echoed like another gunshot, short, sharp and loud. The white blur of a hare ducks into the overgrowth, probably saw what happened to the caribou.
Hurman and his father slowly approach the caribou. It lies silently, stewing in a pool of dark, steaming blood that had dyed the snow around it a vibrant strawberry pink. The creature was dead, bled out by a single bullet. Most impressive declares Hurman’s father, but Hurman doesn’t think so.
The pair work quickly, draining the blood and gutting the internal organs. They keep the tasty ones – the slippery bean-shaped kidney, the grey disc of the liver – still juicy, still warm. The rest they toss to one side in a slobbering heap, let the wolves have theirs, says Hurman’s father.
Still feeling queasy and with his knife deep inside the caribou’s belly, Hurman nicks the creature’s stomach and a flood of partially digested berries, seeds and vegetation spill out all over his hands. The stomach acid, rich with corrupting zymoses, stings Hurman’s skin and he yelps in pain, a sickly sweet smell filling his nostrils.
‘Put your hands in the snow!’ yells his father, sharply.
Hurman pushes both hands deep into an envelope of snow and screams loudly as the acid is slowly and painfully neutralised.
Pulling them out, Hurman’s hands are covered in dark purple scars, like the reflection of lightning rippling on the surface of water. The pain flares like a lit match, even the unscarred skin isn’t left untouched, stinging badly, the agony throbbing in time with the pulsing of his heart. The agony drip dropping like the tears of happiness on his cheeks. He’ll never hold another gun again.
Day #28
Payen: Pagan
Coppel: a shallow, porous container in which gold or silver can be refined or assayed by melting with a blast of hot air which oxidizes lead or other base metals
Antephialtic: (medicine) Acting against nightmares
—–
Freedo was weird; there were no two ways about it. I guess being his friend gives me special dispensation to label him so. He was the sort of weirdo who lived life vicariously through his computer, etching his existence pixel by pixel on forums, blogs, message boards – like a digital disciple. The Book of Freedo. He was the sort of weirdo who took antephialtic meds bought from the deep web to stave off the nightmares brought on by the stuff he saw on the deep web.
The lilac coloured tablets had screwed with Freedo’s circadian rhythm and now he was one of those people that, even though you’d made plans hours ago, would always keep you waiting. There was always some essential little thing on the cusp of being finished, a bit of coding here, a torrent download ratio to maintain there.
In fact, the only thing Freedo wasn’t late for were World of Warcraft raids. He took those very seriously. I never really understood the allure of screaming obscenities into a headset at some kid from China, but in Freedo’s defense, his Chinese was getting pretty passable. He was the only person I knew who would go out of his way to revise the pronunciation of insults. He said there was no point in calling someone a ‘monkey-fucking cock-sucker’ if they weren’t going to understand you.
But now Freedo had a new hobby: Bitcoin. He’d been introduced to it at some Hackathon in east London a few months back, one of those events hosted in unfinished, rented office space, full of guys with tumbleweed beards and illuminated by the wet glow of laptop screens like some kind of midnight payen ceremony. We’ll sacrifice this circuit board in the hope of a virus free summer…
So now Freedo barely left his house, like, at all. He sat in his room trying to mine bitcoins all day long. He called it his grand plan, described how after mining just one bitcoin he’d sell it for a packet, invest the cash in some start-ups and let the money roll in. It was a Generation Y wet dream. We both knew it wasn’t going to happen.
I was sitting on the end of his bed, selling him on the benefits of a post-1am kebab – or midnight brunch, as I was marketing it. He hadn’t moved his eyes from the screen for almost thirty minutes, face swallowed by pixels and hands fiddling with a smouldering circuit board. Freedo had yet to mine a single bitcoin, yet apparently he burnt through circuit boards as though they were joints, the floor of his room covered in them like Quality Street wrappers.
‘So what do you want to do?’ I asked, bored.
He pulled something out of a desk draw, a shallow metal dish.
‘We need to go and rob a bank,’ declared Freedo.
I thought I’d misheard him.
‘What?’
‘I need some gold to melt in this coppel,’ he said, waving the dish in the air, ‘I’m burning through too many circuit boards. The copper’s crap and besides gold’s a better conductor, they’ll last longer. So get your stuff, we’re going out.’
I’d never robbed anyone before, let alone a bank, so wasn’t entirely sure what to say.
‘…can we get a kebab on the way back?’
Day #27
Horselaugh: A loud boisterous laugh a guffaw
Owlery: An abode or a haunt of owls
Verbarmolto: Italian, “much very”; extremely
—–
The snap, crackle and pop of twigs crushed beneath fleeing feet.
The slow, tentative crack of each and every twig, hypnotic as the pursuer stalks his prey.
Short sharp breaths, ragged as tattered clothes and greedily grasped in the fist of each lung. A salty sheen of sweat, the same brackish patina as glass washed to shore, the feeling of skin being shrink-wrapped as it evaporates. The sling cradling your arm is stained a dirty brown, blood and dirt held in place by a small metallic safety-pin that shines decadently in the dappled light of late afternoon.
The calm, collected oxygen exchange of a seasoned hunter, chest swelling and falling like budding flowers. The wolfish twitch of a nose, nostrils flaring, flooded with the tiny particles that comprise the sense of smell. Eyes taut, framed with prison cell eyelashes, pupils opening like the dark side of the moon. The webbed strap of a gun digs into his shoulder blade leaving a red welt imprinted under his shirt. The inquisitive bloodhound nose of the gun barrel pokes through the undergrowth, probing like a snake’s tongue.
A hollow beneath roots, a momentary bower presenting itself amongst the melted candlewax limbs of a gnarled old oak. The owlery above gushes forth with a sudden cacophony of soft hoots, oddly melodic and soothing, yet a stone cold musical flare. Here you are. Surprise. The horselaugh of your pursuer echoes through the wood, bouncing strangely off the trees. He may have heard the owls, but can he hear the quickening of your pulse?
Adagio…molto adagio…verbarmolto adagio…he edges forward, conducting the orchestra of his senses with the precision of a maestro. Slowly…more slowly….extremely slowly…eyes close like chrysalises and sounds suddenly metamorphose into something tangible; every coo, every hoot, every crackle, every ragged breath, he can hear it all. And now he’s coming for you. Brazen footsteps aren’t hidden anymore and the laughter he lets forth is more and more like the howling of a wolf, calling for his pack.
You hobble forward, uneven footprints left in your wake, full of microscopic scents that deer may sniff at later. The owls subside as the tree fades against the fabric of its cousins, roots entangled in the knots of a family drama. Thick, dry saliva taints every breath, dehydrated like a slug in salt, a spider web of drool that sticks to the roof of your mouth. You trip and fall on something unseen, cursing loudly and silently as the numb buzz of pain hatches in your knee, a yolk of warm blood seeping forth.
The crack of a gun. Shards of bark explode from a nearby tree, wooden mayflies departing at the sign of danger. A second shot, more shards, the noise of the gun buzzing like cicadas in your ear. Breath held. The steady boil of red heat rising in your chest. Not like this, please not like this.
There’s the crack of another bullet. Shards shatter just above your head.
There’s his horselaugh again. Closer now.
There’s the seductive rustle of bushes, the confident snap of a twig. He’s right behind you.
It can’t end, not like this.
Day #26
Eglantine: A species of rose Rosa Eglanteria with fragrant foliage and flowers of various colors
Disbar: To expel from the bar or the legal profession to deprive an attorney barrister or counselor of his status and privileges as such
Penholder: A handle for a pen
—–
The full moon’s pallid light spilled stark shadows over the alleyway, tessellated like a crossword puzzle. Lindburgh kicked a dumpster out of frustration, the throbbing in his toes a nice reminder that he hadn’t frozen to death yet. He checked his watch, gold rim, leather strap, expensive. Too expensive to have a built in glow effect, so Lindbergh twisted his wrist awkwardly into the moonlight – fingers just like short, fleshy petals of a blooming flower – and checked the time.
The bastard was twenty-seven minutes late. How the fuck was Lindbergh supposed to win his case if he turned up looking like shit, face tired and clothes tattooed with yesterday’s wrinkles? This wasn’t a fucking game. He could get disbarred for this shit. What was the point in winning if you didn’t look the part? Fuck man! Where is he?
The wheels of a car purred on the pavement, the crinkle of an immolated crisp packet, the soft slap of rainwater in a pothole being displaced. Headlights sent the shadows fleeing, drowning the moonlight amongst heavyset waves, then dilated like a cat’s pupil as they were switched off. The click-slam of a door opening-shutting followed by the languid clip of Italian leather shoes drew Lindburgh from his hidey hole, a cockroach drawn to the vibrations.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Squeaked Lindburgh.
You could hear the rats listening in the pause that followed.
‘Charles Lindburgh III?’ asked a deep, resonant voice, ignoring Lindburgh’s question entirely. It was the sort of voice that had its own in-built echo.
Lindburgh edged forward tentatively, fully aware that this was it; now or never, fight or fly, do or die…or any number of other empty platitudes. It was a cold, clear night but that didn’t stop a nervous thread of sweat from weaving its way down the small of his back.
‘Y-Yes..’ he replied, voice cracked like the window pane behind the dumpster.
‘You got the money?’
‘Y-Yes…’ Lindburgh’s voice now as flat as the soggy cardboard boxes that lined the alley. He fumbled inside his jacket and withdrew a healthy looking envelope, grasped tightly, his hand walking the fine line between sedition and penholder.
Lindburgh held the envelope out, green bills spread like peacock feathers within. The man produced a larger, thinner envelope and let it dangle loosely between two fingers, a forbidden apple.
The exchange was made quickly, envelopes suspiciously examined and then stashed away inside cars, inside jackets.
‘Non-marked bills, right?’ asked the voice with a sudden reverb of concern.
Lindburgh looked up, taken aback, confused. ‘What? There was no mention of-‘
Cruel, rasping laughter cut him off, each throaty bark as sharp as an eglantine thorn.
‘I’m shitting you man, relax! Your sort…you watch too many fucking movies…’
The man seemed to consider something for a moment, then got back in his car and reversed out of the alley, disappearing into the night.
A cloud passed over the moon and Charles Lindburgh III stood shrouded in shadow; alone save for the rats and the large, thin envelope stashed inside his jacket.
Stories On The Sofa 