Wish fluff

The boy named snow is sleeping and lives elsewhere. Isolated in his somnambulance, for the third time this week he has a recurrent dream of slow travels as life unravels. He rides a tube train, alone, apart from the people. Lifting his eyes he meets the gaze of a girl named hannah, 23 on her last birthday. She sits, legs crossed, face painted, wears a turquoise shirt over a white dress. As he stares, the boy named snow makes no attempt to disguise his rapidly dilating pupils, nor the thump of his ever-increasing heartbeat. A girl named hannah flicks her eyes to the floor, back up to meet his then glances towards the door. They hiss open and she stands to leave. Snow rises.

-

In time the two of them will meet, like seeds blown together by the currents. At a bar chosen more for locality than comfort, their hands resting on the ash covered table and feet on sticky carpets, they will sip small drinks and make smaller talk. Suffocated by the isolation of a city trying to forget itself, they will board the first bus that comes along, pulled along by an unseen string that draws them to a pink and neon ice cream parlour in Piccadilly. They will order hot chocolates and take bites from sandwiches late into the night; silences weighing them down as they attempt to drown out the loneliness together. At 1am they will walk by the river, the large body of black water lapping at the tugging of the dark hole inside, filling them with a deep emptiness which they will neither discuss nor admit but nevertheless share. As night crawls forward they will journey to a house to continue their watch. An hour later sitting side by side on the bed of a boy named snow, wine will be poured and drunk, both of them aware of their duty and contract they have now entered into. They will make slow cold love, feeling nothing, meaning less, exchanging fluids in a hope to make up for the words that fail to pass between them.

-

In a day not far from the future, a child named rain will slip into a deserted waiting room. In this space not far from here it will be dark, cold, and his breath will frost the glass he leans on. He takes his place in the dance of the lonely.

-

the city is an insomniac and i have caught its disease

Sidelined

I'm standing in the wings looking at the lighting rig, the wires, the ropes, the cables; I'm counting the number of chairs stacked in the corner, losing track and starting again; I'm sitting on a metal stool, standing up, counting down, biding time. The comedian on stage is dying, dying slowly, horribly, dying; but still he plows on, drowning through his 15 minutes of lame. I stretch, breathe deeply, and try to stop shaking. I recite my opening lines to myself a couple more times, and bounce up and down. I am ready, no I'm not, yes I am, no I'm really not- why the hell do I do this? The comedian is losing limbs out there. Get off my stage, I think, introduce me and get the hell off my stage. I will save you, I will save this, this is my stage, I own it, I shall take it by force and own it. The crowd, a mixture of youthful yobs and theatrical snobs are baying for blood now, yet I have no fear of them, they are cotton wool to me. Stop shaking. I look at the lights again, I am addicted to their warmth, they nourish me more than sunlight and wash me clean. When I am under them I become, there is nowhere I want to be but standing in front of these strange strangers, a monkey dancing. I feel home, after the spotlight all else is shadows, music at half volume in a clattering, chattering tube carriage. This freedom lasts a heartbeat; off-stage is all a mass of sweating nerves and bad stomachs; after the lights I can barely remember what happened. Is it worth it? Am I worth it? Probably not, but it beats a proper job.

Jewels

While out for dinner at a great little Thai place in Soho at my friend's expense (you are awesome, i love you, feeding John is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give) I remembered this little story...

When I was in hospital, almost two years ago now, recovering from some operation or other, a woman left a very strange voicemail on my phone: 'Hi John, it's Sarah from so & so productions, great to speak to you the other day, we're all really looking forward to Edinburgh, and can't wait to start filming! Just one question, is your name spelt with one T or two?'. I put down the phone, took a sip of Lucozade and thought for a while. Err... what? I had no recollection of a Sarah, a production company, Edinburgh, and now I came to think of it, my home address. Ok, don't panic, I'm sure it's just a mix-up, a wrong number, if I call back she probably won't even know who I am. I call this 'Sarah' back and she recognises my voice at first answer. Uh oh. She asks me how the show's going. What show? I reply. The show silly! she chides. When did we last speak? I ask. Two days ago, she says. Ah. That would be two days ago when I just so happened to be high as a kite floating off my face on diamorphine. I'm pretty sure this would have been during one of those 24 hour periods when they tell you not to drive, or sign any legal documents, or accept any offers regarding fly-on-the-wall television documentaries of performers launching their solo career at the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It seems that in my state of prescribed inebriation when asked if I would be going to Edinburgh, I replied that not only was I going, but I was staging a full-on one-man Magic Spectacular such that the world had never seen. Bugger. I hadn't staged a show longer than 30 minutes, I'd never even been to Scotland, and- wait a minute, I used the word Spectacular!?! How could she have not realised I was riding bareback on the fastest horse this side of insanity. I voiced my concerns. But, she said, you promised the most incendary mix of live comedy, illusion, theatrics and religion! Religion? Apparently the documentary she was creating had quite a religious slant to it and in the spirit of good will, wanting to help this lady out and brighten up her day, I'd invented not only a fictional magical show of biblical proportions, but also passed myself off as an Evangelist. Great.

Gathering Thoughts

I walk home, the littlest jobo, my thoughts my only companions -so I'm pretty lonely. No money, no honey, I sing the Lexus blues. On the corner of Devonshire road I pass a woman I passed last night, at the same time, at the same place. That's two nights running. Does this mean something? She is mid fifties, dangerously overweight, and leans her head back as she walks to counterbalance. A phantastical delusion of these late night times. Who cares what people think when they think so little? The moon is incadescent tonight and floats in an ocean sea of inky blue darkness, a few whispering clouds stroking their feathers over the midnight navy of the panorama. A shuffling beat accompanies my footsteps padding through the night, I am a part of the ipod generations, sharing in the cubiclism of modern day solitude: trains, tubes, buses, whatever the transportation we sit in our glass worlds, our land of music for one, ignoring the ignorance. 'I miss you,' he said. 'How much?' she asked. He squeezed his index finger and thumb together, blocking the light between them. 'This much... Times a billion.' For a while I thought the only thing worse than the pain was the day that it stopped. Stupidity is not the word. I am nearly 25, I have nine more years before I reach the age my father was when I was born, the full circle. Incidentally, what perfume are you wearing?' 'Givenchy, why?' 'Just checking, because I never want to smell it again.' Once I am inside the house I consider unlocking the back door and walking around in my garden barefoot for a while. I don't know why, something about the cold grass under my feet, I think it would be good for me. Good for my soles... Sorry, I apologise, that was terrible, I want to take that back. Shit, that was terrible. In the pause that filled the silence he turned to her, 'I want to marry and impregnate you.' My parents have started admiring my haircut, twice a week they complement me on it. Unnerving is not the word. She looked at him and smiled a sad sort of smile, the smile of finality at the end of the rainbow, a smile that said more deafeningly than words ever could: Goodbye, Goodnight, God bless. Whatever doesn't kill you, they say, can only make you stronger. Unless of course it kills you. Switch my phone to silent, it'll all come out in the wash.

Happy Anniversary?

Guess where I am right now? Yep! Sitting in that horribly orange Easy-Everything in Victoria where it all started one year ago today. And as I sat there that rainy day, waiting for someone to arrive who never did, clattering away on that sticky keyboard, I did not hold out much hope for the future. Not much has changed here, except it's a bit more expensive, and I don't have enough money for a Subways these days. For me though, a year has made it all new, I'm doing the things I've always wanted to, I'm no longer trapped by a 9 to 5, everything is illuminated. I should be happy, I should be outstandingly happy, and somewhere, in some part of me, I am. I am happy. But there is much of me that is tired, and that is sad, and that is worried. I have talked a lot about loss and regret on here, a lot a lot. I tried to put a few happier things in, but then I walk around most days trying to escape the overbearing sadness that I feel pouring from the world. I hope I've said some happpier things, I've said some things I regret, and I've regretted some things I've had to say. I don't know. That's mostly what I've found out, that basically, I don't know crow, I am an empty bucket. An empty KFC bargain bucket with free Diet Pepsi. I wake at the mercy of chemicals, I take small capsules of hope because mine has left me. I am not really sure what is going on anymore. I'm just tired. I should sleep more. Yeh, that'll fix it. I'll sleep more. Man, here's to the next 365 days, may they come soon and pass quicker.

A Song for the Wounded

When I am getting out of bed and setting off for work,
I feel so down and out and I look just like a jerk.
So then I take a happy pill or 2 or 3 for sure,
And then I feel no sadness or like crying anymore.

I smile and smile and smile and smile and smile awhile I smile,
I smile and smile beguiled I smile and wave and laugh and smile.

Prescription drugs, prescription drugs,
When I need a hug I turn to prescribed drugs.

When I’m alone at lunchtime and I don’t know what to do,
I take my bag down the stairs and creep into the loo.
Morphine makes the world more fun it makes the sky more blue,
And brown and red and green of course and pink and yellow too.

I stare and stare and stare and stare and stare out there I stare,
I stare and stare and glare and stare and gaze and gawp at bears.

Prescription drugs, prescription drugs,
Not crack or cocaine, just cheap and legal drugs.

When I’m in bed late at night and trying hard to sleep,
I’m scared of robbers breaking in, I’m scared of counting sheep.
I take a little Zopiclone my tiny small green friend,
And then I take Tamazepan my sleep will never end

I sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep so deep I sleep,
I sleep and sleep no peep I sleep and snore and snooze and sleep.

They’re cheap and they’re legal,
They make the world less evil.
If you need a high and money is tight,
Then get a green form they’re open all night.

Prescription drugs, prescription drugs,
Oh how I love my prescription drugs.

Full Circle

It is 12am, I have just swallowed two white tablets that in 45 minutes will cease the wrenching agony currently twisting through my gut, making balloon animals out of my intestines. Unfortunately they will also dismiss any chances of healthy sleep I have for this evening, and possibly incapacitate me for much of tomorrow. As I wait I write. Ok here is what chronic pain is like: It is like remembering you have something very important to remember but having no idea what it is. It is like fumbling your last cigarette when you've just found a light. It is like taking a piss in a dream only to realise five minutes later that you still need desperately need a piss. It is staring into a 100w bulb, unable to look away, knowing the switch is just out of reach. It is something you cannot forget, but there are times when you are not sure you remember. It becomes a part of you, integral, its absence unimaginable, you become suspended, on constant edge, existing in unequilibrium. Then all of a sudden you cannot decide if you feel pain or not, you question whether it is/was all a mere trick of the nerve endings, neural misfirings, shadows in the dark of your head. There are times when you lay there each night clutching your stomach as the pain turns you inside out and sucks you away from the inside and you begin to think you are going crazy and if this doesn't stop soon you really will go crazy and why the fuck can this not stop hurting for one fucking minute it has not stopped for two fucking years now, two years of non-stop pain no break from it no pause and the constant ache is burrowing inside me like an insect, like a whole sea of insects, scarabs clawing and tearing into my stomach with their pincers and jaws and now i am thinking about it and i am focusing on that spot of white light that burning vacuum inside of me growing bigger drawing me into one point folding me over and is this real? this is in my head right, this isn't real physical pain, this stopped hurting years ago my pain sensors are just stuck on go, i can't turn them off, fuck i can't turn them off. And as I sit here editing and re-editing these words the wave hits me, a wall of muffled silence, and the pain floats away. I gaze through the thick fog, losing coordination, my fingers becoming too heavy to type with. It is so much better and so much worse.

-

Things that buzz

- bees
- fridges
- contestants in quiz shows
- me on pethidine

On the shore

I am the boy named snow, eleven years old. I sit to the right of my mother who named me. She is not eleven years old, but older. We travel from Balham to Waterloo.

I am the mother of a boy named snow, eleven years old, but I am older. We travel from Balham to Waterloo. In my bag is a handwritten letter that I shall deliver to the consultant in person. I am nervous, frustrated that I missed the first post and have a weak bladder.

I am a commuter with the mother of a boy named snow, eleven years old. I travel from Morden to Edgware, it takes 1 hour 24 minutes. On a good day I can repeat this journey 9 times each day, providing I stop for only 3 cups of coffee, black no sugar. This is a good day.

The boy named snow sits on a seat shared by approximately 794 people this day, it has been freshly installed only 2 years previously, and wear and tear is minimal. One of these people, John van der Put, 24, from Honor Oak, London, is currently asleep in South Wimbledon.

In three days and 4 minutes he will meet the mother of a boy named snow on the Clerkenwell road. She will drop the hat of her second child and he will scoop down and pick it up. As their hands touch for the first time, small particles of sweat, skin and saliva will transfer. Stained they will continue their journeys.

The mother of a boy named snow will transfer these particles to her son’s hair in a gesture of maternal comfort brought on by a diagnosis of sickness. These traces will linger between strands of blonde for a time, before floods of seramide neutrinium cleanse the roots.

Strands

my love spits petals from rosy lips
to floor bound scrapes and swaying hips
in luminous light i reach and kiss
those slips of lace that beckoning hiss

For the love of G.U.D.

Sunny Weather! Always makes me feel more together. I've used the wrong shower gel this morning and consequently I smell like a girl. I smell quite nice though, so might do it more often. Here's one of the reasons why I think my brother is so awesome: Last week, on a day filled with costume changes, I had a pant drout. Of all the times when containment was of paramount importance I found no fully secured briefs of my own. I thought it best to err on the side of caution and borrow some of young Michael's Tommy Hilfiger double-fold-cover boxer shorts, the type that even Steve McQueen would have trouble escaping from. A day later he confronted me. Apparently I ruined his whole morning, and spoilt his Good Underpant Day! Yes, my brother, sharer of my genes, has a Good Underpant Day- a once weekly event where he dons his favourite nether garments and enjoys the snug fit and elasticated waistband. It's such a good idea I have decided to inaugurate this and all future Tuesdays as my day of Good Pantage.

What's in a name?

'I have a terrible memory for names,' people say. Stupid people that is. Names are one of the easiest things to remember, Dave, Kate, Jeff, Chris, Anne, Clint, I could go on! Pete, Dan, Liz, Sam- ok you get the idea. Matching names to faces is the nightmare. It's all just a lot of eyes, noses, mouths and eyebrows, especially late at night when you're not really concentrating. I have a theory there are probably around 37 different types of face, and all the others just variations on a theme. I meet so many people working as a magician, at an average gig there will be maybe 150 people, let's say I do 3 gigs a week, that's 12 a month, 144 a year, so 3 x 12 x 144 x 150... it's roughly a billion people a year. How am I supposed to remember all those names? Doing magic has taught me the totally crippling non-social skill of memorising a name for approximately ten minutes, just long enough for them to get off my stage, then woosh! that name is outta there. That's what I take through to my social life, at parties I will be in the middle of a great conversation about crisps and prime numbers, when slowly a horrible realisation dawns that I don't know my new friend's name. Why do I never listen at the beginning? I'm always too busy thinking about Jaffa Cakes or something. And like a shark attack, you can be quite ok for a long while, lazing in calm still waters unaware of the danger circling below, when out of the blue it is time for the number swap. I'll ask for business cards, I'll ask for it to be written down, anything other than the dreaded cellular entry. But nowadays people know these tactics, so they just reel off numbers and watch as you type digits into your phone, glistening with sweat, viciously ransacking your memory for potentials while your thumb hovers over the name field. So if you're at a party with me and I accidentally call you Steve, don't take it too badly. Especially if your name's Claire.

the Lie About

I'm a happy-go-lucky type-a-guy, laidback and carefree, a no-plan no-worry chancer. Usually. I wile my way through the days, busking in the sunshine and dusking through the evensong. Usually. Lately though I have felt the dark tendrils of worry start to creep insidiously over me, disecting and infecting my soul with long inky fingers. I have nothing, I am 24 years old and have nothing- no car, no house, no wife, no kids, no five-year plan, no three-step loan, nothing. Those two great corrupters, money and power, have left me untainted, unfettered and unpainted. Left to my own devices, sitting in my happy place, I am quite content without them, but I know that at some point soon I need to be the hunter gatherer. Or people will talk. As I consider all this on the walk home I see a puppy on a lead, pulling its owner into a grassy patch of some flats, leaping and bounding around, half swallowed by the grass. And while I watch his tail bobbing about with excitement it becomes clear to me that I wouldn't know what to do with all the shiny things. Give me a simple life, show me a stage, hand me a pen, buy me a sandwich; I'll be happy. As for tomorrow? Maybe I'll get a puppy.

Denial

So here's the thing, when you suffer a rejection, no matter what, why or how she says it, it just ain't gonna make you feel any better. A no's a no, the blow unsoftenable. Take this recent example: John I just want you to know, that to have someone I admire and respect so much as you ask me that, someone I just think is so awesome and amazing, well, to think that someone like you could like someone like me- [sigh] I just can't tell you how much that means... Ok, well, err, I don't give a monkeys! As harsh as it sounds, I couldn't care less, because basically in a rejection here's the subtext: I looked at you, I carefully considered our future together, I weighed up all the positives and negatives, good points and bad, and guess what? The negative won over! On balance you're in the red, no credit, bankrupt. I conceived of the happiness we could achieve together and decided it wasn't worth it. In other words, you suck ass. Anyway, whilst pining away my unrequitement like a lovesick halfwit teen-rager, I was wracked with pangs of stomach-churning love so strong it felt like my insides were eating me up. Then I realised it was pancreatitis.

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