The Waiter

Bus stops served by more than one route; a train platform with multiple destinations; an airport lounge; these are the places I choose to wait. And I wait. Tube stations are too confined, too restricted by their singular purpose, suspicions are easily aroused, ambiguity is everything. Four to six hours can slip by, waiting, for the bus that never comes, for the plane that never lands, I don’t notice, because I’m not waiting for them; I’m waiting for me.

It is in the queues, the delays and the hold-ups that we can slip into the invisible. In these places people switch off and blank out. For to register the time spent languishing at the behest of Others is only to accept the absence of control, the failure to affect. Better to stay the onslaught of thought, to become the white noise, and fall into an empty dream, as these people do that stand in these waiting places. Watch, as they endlessly revisit their breakfast choices, or rearrange the letters in the street sign opposite, or notice that scuff mark on the suit jacket for the very first time. Watch as we watch them.

Sometimes I'll be joined by another, an old woman perhaps, frail and frightened, too alone to be alone. She'll come and sit next to me, she'll shuffle uneasily as bus after bus goes by and she realises we’re playing the same game. Sometimes I'll make it easy for her and get on a bus and sit there for thirty minutes until I'm somewhere I don't want to be. Sometimes I won't.

This is how I pass my day. Whilst others get up to work, I get up to wait. Occasionally people ask me for things: the time, cigarettes, money. I just look at them until they go away. To wait is a calling, a sacred calling, and I can't be disturbed. So let those around me get on with it, let them make hay. I shall sit implacable, waiting.

Higher Power

God is not just a TV channel
But sometimes I wish he was
Because then I could turn him off
Before he could turn me over

Bitesize

In my new bed I have some new friends. I wake in the morning with bright red lumps on my arms, legs and chest, lumps that I'll pass the day scratching, until they're mounds, then hills. Are these kisses from loved-up bed bugs? Bites from passing gnats? I catch spiders strolling guiltily across my covers, hurriedly wiping their mouths with napkins... they don't escape my notice. Don't get me wrong, I'm not averse to the company, it can get lonely in a double bed when you're a single cover. Maybe I just need to put up a sign: No Picnics.

So Shoot Bullets Through Me

Twenty-four hours ago I had it all: a potentially award-winning show, an incredible close-up set, endless prospects, a girlfriend, a mobile phone... Twenty-four hours later, as I blink my eyes open in a hotel on the seafront in Eastbourne, I have nothing. A neglected rake on the stage (a fifteen degree slope that is, not a gardening instrument) put paid to our meticulous piece of lushness, sending balance out of the window and sparking an inevitable, unstoppable chain of events: actors fell off chairs, lines were chopped, cigarettes dropped, glasses failed to appear and flames did anything but ignite. To mourn the loss of our show we took the matter into our own hands and got heroically drunk. All very well, except the very next day I had a close-up competition to win, or at least to try and restore some credibility. After three hours sleep I woke unable to move my head and with two hours left to do six hours preparation. I had the shakes so badly I thought my phone was on vibrate mode and I'd become surprisingly popular. The competiton went as well as it could have done under these conditions, i.e. poorly. I returned to the bar and began drowning my sorrows in orange juice when my phone, having had had enough of all the text messages of mocking commiseration, decided to join in. Unfortunately its circuits are rather more sensitive to citrus than my sorrows are and it shorted. Now, although I was enjoying my being cut off from the outside world, my girlfriend was not, especially as I'd spent the last two weeks holed up in rehearsals and incommunicado. When she did finally get hold of me on a friend's number, it should have come as no real surprise to me she suggested that, no, perhaps I shouldn't give her a call on my return, and yes, seeing each other was no longer an option. I, too tired to do anything but accede at this point, returned to the bar with work to do. A long night later, I woke up this morning, and in the abject pity of it all, when I came to with none of those things that had seemed so necessary, I felt a new peace. I let the blissful absence wash over me, the cleansing emptiness that liberated at last, and the truth finally flowed free: Nobody died, everyone's alive, they'll be other days. I turned on the stereo, so very loud, and left the last words to nina:

'Well once I lived the life of a millionaire
Spending my money, I didn't care
Takin' my friends out for a mighty good time
Buyin' boot leg liquor, champagne and wine
Then I began to fall so low
Couldn't find me no friends
Had no place to go

Just as soon as you get up on your feet again
Here they all come, they say that they're your long-lost friend
Oh lord without a doubt
Nobody knows you
When you're down and out'

Security Alert

Ladies and Gentlemen this is a customer announcement for a Mr Ming the Merciless. If there is a Mr Ming the Merciless in the station, would he please return to the ticket office immediately where his interplanetary death ray and army of robot soldiers are waiting for him. To avoid any unnecessary station closures in these times of heightened security, customers are reminded to please keep all cases, packages and weapons of global destruction with them at all times. Thank you.

They Start Them Young

The apocalypse of the coffee bar culture has escalated. Not content with charging the price of a hot meal for a cup of coffee you can't pronounce, not content with controlling the listening habits of a nation and forcing Katie Melua on us all, the caffeine-mongers have finally noticed a few of their customers are non-paying! And they've put a stop to it. No longer can the under-two's get away with it! They have to pay like everyone else, as the powers that be have finally catered for this niche: The Babyccino. That's right, a hot drink for a baby. What does it consist of? Well they take the milk and froth it and... Oh, that's it. Frothed milk! They charge money for this? And what you are supposed to do if you're still breast feeding? Perhaps if you asked nicely they'd squirt it up for you, but, like bringing in a tea bag and asking for hot water, it's probably frowned upon. Now, while we're on the subject, surely that milk frothing device thing can be improved somewhat? Why do people go to coffee shops? To talk, to read, to pass time, i.e. for the quiet. What is that frother device other than the noisiest machine in the world! You might as well have someone digging up the road in there, it's worse than the dentists. So my next revolutionary life-changing device? That's right, a froth-silencer! For the frother! They have them for guns, let's put some of that destructive knowledge to good use, all it would need is some sort of vacuum thingumy thing. Patents on a postcard please...

Just the Two of Us

I like smoking.
I like smoking alone.
I like smoking by the sea.

The cool breeze on my face
contrasting the hot smoky air
travelling inside my body
from mouth to lungs
and up again.

Sometimes
it’s a way of counting time:
from my house to the tube... two cigarettes!

Sometimes people don’t like me smoking.
Sometimes they make me and mr cigarette go all the way outside.
Guess what? I don’t like people sometimes.

Me and mr cigarette are a match made in heaven!
Together! Forever! Until our last breath!

by john and maya

A Blue Golf with the Lights on

Vicars occupy dangerous positions at the best of times, but a vicar with a tendency to pause in all the wrong places? Oh very, very bad. I was at a church last Sunday when the Collar came out with the following: I’ve... just got a message... that Shelley has passed....... ...up to me. The sound of thirty old ladies' relief has never been so audible. Well, at least outside the day ward.

Eco-Jim

I've just moved to trendy trendy North London, where everyone's into all that hippy crap about recycling, energy efficiency and water saving. Save the water! Save the whales! Save your breath. Whatever. I've got a much better way to redeem the environment. I've discovered an almost inexhaustible supply of renewable energy right under our noses, and no-one has tapped into it yet. You wanna know where? Go to your local Gym and take a long look around you. What do you see? Twenty or thirty hot and sweaty corporate go-getters running on treadmills, driving the pedals of stationary bikes, rowing invisible boats merrily upstream. And where does that energy go? Nowhere! It's harnessed as efficiently as a grease covered duck held in the hands of an ADHD two year old with a penchant for waving. I mean, it doesn't even power the lights! C'mon, seriously, why has nobody realised this? So I'm going to open the world's first enviro-gym? Everything is powered by you! That little television you watch on top of your step machine? Better climb faster if you want to make it to the end of Friends! Want a coffee? Sure, that'll be three miles at a 15% gradient. And you ain't going nowhere near the hot showers if you've done less than 20k on the treadmills. You know what? I bet there'd be enough power left over to run a couple of buildings for a week, or at least my hairdryer for ten minutes. It's ok, there's no need to thank me, once again, I've created the future.

eyes across the room

j. She was talking to someone else when I met her
a. I was ready to leave when he walked in.
j. I didn’t even see her at first.
a. I was talking to someone else when I met him.
j. I offered her a cigarette
a. I said I already had one. I offered him a light.
j. I said I didn’t smoke.
a. He looked a bit small, standing with all those people.
j. I caught her looking at me.
a. I pretended not to notice.
j. I asked her who she came with.
a. I said the piano.
j. I was talking to someone else when I met her.
a. I thought that had been a weird thing to say.

Business Idea #47

You know what I love about hotels? Room service. You know what I hate about my flat? No room service. Will someone please invent a takeaway room service? What about breakfast-in-bed.com? Think about it, you place your order the night before, room service turns up at your house the next day! They deliver a full breakfast to you and your beautiful partner, all on one of those little wheely tray things with the four-month-old rose on it. What could be more perfect? Ok, ok, so you would need to give them the keys to your flat, and they'd tend to be wandering around specifically at a time when no-one else was, so there might be a couple of security issues to sort out, but other than that, really, I'd never leave home without it.

Single for a Reason

When I first started shaving, I once suggested to a few friends that both sexes experienced an equal degree of pain in this world. Women had the agony of childbirth to cope with, and men had the equivalent level of pain dissipated daily throughout their life in the scratch and scrape of the morning shave. Of course, as I've gotten older and grown to understand more about the world and this life, I've realised how silly and naive I was being... Labour's much easier.

parklife

I watch the simple bumble bee
flit between the flowers

I wish that I could young and humble be
at peace in all the hours

I sit amongst the OAP’s
flat out on benches sour

And wait for night to fall on me
and beat me til I cower

Puppet Love

Ummm… three weeks. Yeah, three weeks since he quit giving up. It’s- He’s been much better, patient, kinder… just easier to live with- he snaps less. It’s been good for him, and… us. You know, I like him again, which sounds funny, but I do, I can bear to be in the room with him for more than ten minutes, and that’s- well- it’s good. He likes himself again, which is a relief, I guess sometimes you lose that, sometimes you- well, we all lose that sometimes. There are bad days. Still a few bad days. Sometimes I catch him, feeding his guilt in the corner, feeling sorry for himself, feeling- I don’t know, lost? Just for a moment he looks small… and lost. Maybe it’s not the best, maybe none of this is, but then, who wants to be alone? When you really come down to it, who wants to be alone? I’m not sorry for needing it, for being selfish, for being- you know, for being! Life is all about the guilty pleasures. What’s the problem in admitting it? Everyone needs a vice in the city, and I don’t want to let go of that. I don’t want to be the stoic, to deny my cake. I choose not to eat? Why would I do that? Others will still go hungry. I need this. I need him. I need.

Baby on Bored

My best friend's baby has just started crawling. Very good news for me, as he is now double the fun, and we can build obstacle courses and get up to much more mischief. For them however, it's not quite such happy tidings. This baby is a magnet to danger, any uncovered power sockets, dangling cables, slammable doors he's pulled unstoppably toward them. It's uncanny, there could be any number of colourful bricks, musical rabbits and psychedelic alphabet books around him, he'll ignore them all and head straight for the kettle boiling. I don't think we should waste this talent. He could have a lucrative sideline as some sort of health and safety guru. We could send him into new buildings or damaged structures, and within five minutes he'd have found each major danger spot, located the weak beams, and be swinging from the exposed cabling by bedtime.