Friday 11 January 2013

Still Life


On my birthday they take me outside, they lift me from the bed, carry me downstairs, put me in the chair and wheel me into the garden, where I sit and watch the birds at the feeder.
    It was my twelfth birthday last week, it felt like both a day and a lifetime since the last, and I wasn't expecting much. But mummy and daddy brought presents into my room and later that evening I had a cake and they brought in a television for me to watch a film. It was a film about toys who come to life and get lost and want to go home again. I was glad when they got back home at the end because I knew they would be safe.
    In my bed I listen to music sometimes, I draw on my pads, I always draw birds and trees and the sky, sometimes I will draw a picture of me and mummy and daddy all standing outside, but then it makes me sad and I throw it into the bin.
    Mummy and daddy take it in turns to teach me each day, and then we all say prayers on Sundays.  Sometimes I forget what day of the week it is, but the prayers always remind me and I can start to remember again.
    My favourite stories from the Bible are the ones where Jesus heals the sick, because I know that when I die and go to Heaven he will heal me and I can walk up there.  I wonder what Heaven will be like for me?  Daddy says it is where your dreams all come true, but I don't really dream.  All I know is this room, the hallways, the garden and the films they show me.  I sometimes feel sad that I am poorly, because I make life so hard for my mummy and daddy, but they are so happy and kind and they never make me feel bad.
    I remember when I was little and I would ask my mummy about the other children, sometimes I could hear them through the window, they would be laughing and shouting and on the sunny days they would be playing sports and games.  She would tell me that I shouldn't be envious of them, that there is more to life than playtimes and kicking footballs or hopskotch and skipping.  She would always read me the story of Job and tell me that I should be grateful no matter what lot I had received in life.
    Once I asked why I could not walk, and they told me that all children are born differently, some more able than others, but that does not mean that the Lord loves you more or less, but that he has chosen a different path for you.  I asked them what my path was, and they told me that it was something that I alone could figure out.
    They also told me about the doctors when I was little, that my condition was so fragile and precarious, that they were worried that I might die as a baby and I had to be kept in various braces and contraptions, that if I moved a muscle it could have caused various complications that would have killed me instantly, or worse, slowly.  Though I was better now than I was then, they did warn me that I should always be extra careful, that too much effort on my part could be fatal.  I asked if there was any cure for my condition, they told me that doctors were always working to find out how to help children like me.
    I hadn't seen any doctors since I was too young to remember, but my parents told me that they spoke to them regularly and updated them on my condition. They let me know that the doctors would tell us as soon as they had some tests they would like to try, but, as they had explained, medical science can take many years to progress.  I had special tablets that I had to take to help numb the pain, I had to take them three times a day, once in the morning, once after lunch and once before I went to sleep.

It is my thirteenth birthday and I have a cold, my mummy was surprised, she said she thinks daddy must have brought it into the house.  I don't often get sick, which mummy says is an advantage of being away from other children, and she tells me such funny stories about how disgusting they are, all snotty and splotchy with little bugs called nits crawling in their hair.  It made me very glad not to have any of those ailments!
    But today I wasn't feeling very well at all, and I kept sneezing.  Mummy put her hand on my brow and told me I had a temperature, she said that maybe I should stay inside today, but I begged her, I pleaded, and said that maybe the fresh air would do me good.  Mummy could see how much I wanted to sit in the garden and watch the birds, she smiled and said it would be okay, but not for too long just to be on the safe side.
    I grinned and mummy gave me my tablets and some milk before going downstairs to get the chair ready.
    I took my tablets, but had a terrible sneeze just as I did and they flew across the room and landed behind a cabinet.  Suddenly I was overcome with worry, I had never not taken my tablets before, and I was concerned that the pain would come to me quite suddenly.  I wished that I could get out of bed and find where they had fallen.
    The door opened and daddy walked in, I wanted to tell him about the tablets, but for some reason I was embarassed and scared about what he might say, he might think I had disobeyed mummy and him on purpose, they had told me about rebellious teenagers.  I was worried that if I told him, and if he thought that, then they might not let me outside.  Besides, he was smiling and singing me a little birthday song, so I just smiled back.
    Daddy carried me out of bed, into the hallway, down the stairs and put me into the chair.  He wheeled me out the back door and into the garden, stopping the chair in the usual place on the patio so I could see the bird feeder clearly.  He ruffled his hand in my hair and gave me a kiss on the cheek and wished me happy birthday again, then, as my mother was calling him, he went back inside.
    It was a little chilly, so I rubbed my arms to try and fight the cold.
    Maybe the birds were cold too, because there weren't any at the feeder like there usually were on my birthday.  I sighed and my breath came out in a cloud, which I had never seen before, I tried to do it again, but it didn't happen.
    Then a most peculiar thing occured, a bird came hopping out from a bush, as if it had been hiding, waiting for me.  I cooed to it, trying to make the best bird sound I could, but I didn't want to frighten it, so I was ever so quiet.  The bird did seem to notice, but it only twitched its head in my direction.  There seemed to be something wrong with it, and I saw that it was standing on one little foot, the other was raised up and bent backwards, like it had been sprained or broken.  Poor little bird, I thought to myself.
    At the back of the garden I saw a visitor that I had not seen before, a cat, it was big and grey with a white beard and mittens, and it walked low to the ground, moving along the fence with both its amber eyes staring hungrily at the little bird. I knew what the cat was thinking.
    I waved my hand and shouted for the bird to shoo, but the bird's curiosity only seemed to be raised by my gestures and sounds, and the cat was still stealthily slinking closer and closer.  Everything I tried only appeared to fascinate the little bird with its soft red tummy, and I would point and tell it that there was a cat, but it would just skip closer to me, twitching its tiny head and looking at me with curious eyes.
    With vicious intent the cat, now so very close, snuggled down against the ground, stretching itself out in readiness, a determined expression on its face.
    "No!" I cried and flung my arms with all the energy I had, and it was far more strength that I had anticipated, so much so that I managed to propel myself forwards and my chair pushed itself backwards.
    Down I fell, crashing hard onto the ground, my top half landing relatively softly on the grass, but my bottom half scraped nastily on the cold patio, it was rugged and angry against my skin and a sudden, searing pain rushed from the tip of my toes to the top of my head.  I did not wail, I was fixated on the bird, which had not flown away, but the cat had been so surprised by sudden collapse that it dashed out of the garden as if it were the one responsible.
    The dear little bird looked at me, a tumbled fool draped inelegantly on the ground.  I could feel an electric dampness around my shins, and I knew it must be blood.  I was so scared that I might die that I could not scream out for mummy and daddy, who would usually leave me alone in the garden for an hour or so when it was my birthday.  I remembered that mummy said they would come back sooner because of my flu, but I did not know how long she had meant, and I did not know how long I had already been outside.
    Lying on the ground, looking at the bird, it felt like forever, and I did not know what I could do, and I felt the wet of the blood make a pool and then rivers that tickled my knees.  I stared at the bird who stared at me and wished for an answer and the bird flew away.
    Alone on the ground I remembered the strength that had thrown my from my chair, the power of my arms, and I bit my lip, afraid of the pain, and braced my arms, pushing with all my might and managing to turn myself from my front to my back.
    I looked at my legs, expecting to see a grotesque and mangled mess, but there was barely a smudge of blood where I had imagined gushing rivers of frightening red.  I told myself off for such silliness, it was all in my head.  I moved my knee closer so that I could see.
    A tingle that began between my shoulder blades and danced up and around my neck caused me to stop.  I felt as if I had suddenly left my own body and was floating above it, looking down on me sat on the grass, with my cut knee cradled and supported by my left hand, and even floating there looking at it from afar I still could not quite comprehend what I was seeing.
    I stretched my left leg back out, back to where it had been previously, as if I was trying to undo what I had just done, but the very fact that I could do this was just as surprising.  I looked at the other leg, brought my right knee up, the same thing but mirrored.  With a new found sense of confidence I moved each leg in turn, and then brought them both up towards me together. Nervously I placed my hands behind me and carefully pushed on the floor.
    As I arched my body up off of the ground I could feel a numb weight, my legs, unused struggled and battled with the great surge of effort I was putting into them.  But I persisted, bringing myself up as high as I could before reaching out and pulling my chair back towards me.
    I climbed, my arms shaking with the strain, their juddering had a terrifying urgency as if they might explode if I pushed them too hard.  But I did it.  I hoisted myself up and flopped, a little inelegantly, into my chair.  I brushed my hair as neatly as I could, I rubbed at my grazed knees and pulled my nightie down far enough to cover the redness.
    There was a part of me that wanted to call out and tell my parents what wonderful thing had just happened, but, again, I was frightened as to how they would react.  I wanted to keep this to myself, a little secret until I could be sure it wasn't just chance.

Over the next few days I managed to only pretend to take my medicene.  My mummy and daddy were so used to the routine that they did not pay much attention to make certain that I was swallowing the pills, and I stuffed them under the pillows when their backs were turned.
    When I was left alone, which was often, I would practice moving my legs, I would raise them as far off of the bed as I could - which was not very far at all - and try to hold them off of the mattress for as long as I could stand.  Each one in turn, over and over, for every available moment of the day.
    But I was eager, greedy for progress, and knew I would not be satisfied until I had stood on my own two feet without holding onto anything.  However, I was worried, that I might fail, I might collapse on the floor, and my parents would hear the thump and come running to find me in a heap and scold me, warn me of the dangers of exerting myself.
    It had been three days since I began my exercises, I was confident and determined.  As soon as my mother had given me my morning pulls and left the room I whipped the sheets away and stared, fixedly, at my limbs.  I didn't say anything, but I felt like I was preparing them, giving them a little speech to raise their spirits.  Inside I was willing all my strength, all my energy, down from each extremity so that it would fill upside my legs like hot soup and give them the power, give them the tenacity to not let me down.
    Pivoting on my bottom I swung my legs so they dropped over the bedside and hung, loosely, down over the floor, a small drop between the carpet and the soles of my feet.  Keeping my hands gripping the bedspread, just in case, I edged a little further forwards, worried that once I pushed myself off that I might fall forever.
    Cautiously I leant ahead, getting a good look at my landing, my target, and I moistened my lips with had grown dry with nerves.
    And I pushed, and I slid down, the mattress rubbing the base of my spine as if it did not want to let me go, just as I refused to let go of it, and my feet placed themselves quietly, modestly, on the floor and my legs began to bend, I began to drop, but then I started to rise again, whispers of strength hurrying, as if they were late, up my muscles, and coming to life for the first time, being born again, and standing, and pushing me up, and standing, and my fingers opening, letting go of the bedspread, and rising out at either side, coming up so far that they were at shoulder height, stretched out either side to give me balance, like wings, and I was standing.
    I did not want to over do it, but I did not want to waste this moment, I stepped, slowly, made my way around the outside of the bed frame, so that I would always have something to grab if I fell.  I made it all the way around to the other side of the bed and I looked back at my path, at what I had accomplished.
    I decided to walk to the door, to see if I could make it without a crutch in arm's reach.  Each foot fall landed with a moment of doubt, I would check that it was placed solidly on the floor before moving the other, cautious that at any moment I would wake from this dream and find myself still lying in bed.
    I reached the door and placed my left hand on it for support.  My other hand, from some unknown instinct, had reached for the handle, but it just hovered over it, whilst I stared down at it, as if we asking one another of our intentions, waiting for the other to give the nod, to encourage the action that we both, so eagerly, so unashamedly wanted to do.
    What would be the point, I thought, of going back to my bed, of lying there like I have done for thirteen years?  Maybe this will all be taken away from me again, maybe this is a dream, but I should not turn back just because it might be dangerous, I should keep going until I can go no further.
    The handle turned, there was a quiet click as the door moved, and I stepped against the wall to pull it open and slide, eyes wide, out onto the landing.
    Things looked different, I had always been carried, now my view was the right way up which made everything most strange.  I took quick steps and put a hand out onto the bannister, giving myself a little support as I shuffled towards the top of the stairs.
    Standing there, one hand on the bannister still, I felt like a great change was happening, that this was truly a miracle, that I had been blessed, my good spirit was being rewarded and now my life could begin.  I could spare my parents burdens, they would not have to nurse me any longer, they would be so happy, we all would, and things will change for the better with every passing day.
    "Sophie?" came my mother's voice from a doorway behind me.  I did not know what room she had been in, having never seen any but my own.  "What are you doing?"
    "It's a miracle mummy!" I beamed.
    "You know that you could fall, you could fall down the stairs and die, that your condition could flare up at any moment, you could die Sophie, you could die!" her voice was rising with panic, but she did not move from the doorway.
    "I can walk mummy, I can stand.  Look!"
    I took my hand away from the bannister and showed her, I stood there before her, unassisted and her expression did not change.
    "Did Jesus heal me?  It's a miracle, isn't it mummy?"
    My mother called out, her voice directed past me, "Frank!"
    My daddy came hurrying to the bottom of the stairs and called up, "What is it?"
    "Come up here, Frank."
    My daddy walked up the lower stair case to the corner and stopped on the spot when he saw me stood at the top.
    "Be careful Sophie." he warned me, holding out his hands in front of him.
    "I'm fine Daddy, I can stand, I can walk."
    "We need to get you back into your bed Sophie, too much excitement, it could be deadly, you don't want to be in pain, do you?"
    "I'm not in pain, mummy, daddy, it's the greatest thing that has happened."
    My father moved forward, started to climb the stairs towards me, keeping his hands in front, like I was a wild beast and he thought I might strike.  I looked back to my mother, she was still standing in the doorway of that unknown room, it was dark behind her.
    As my daddy approached me I could not understand why they were not happy, why they hadn't run towards me with huge smiles and we had all wrapped our arms around one another and been so full of joy that we cried magnificent tears.  His face, the face stepping cautiously closer, was one of concern.  I knew he would put his hands on me and hold me still, that he would pick me up, like he does every birthday, and he would carry me back to my bed, that he would make me lie there, and now they would watch me take my medicenes, they would maybe even lock the door, they would not trust me any longer, and I did not understand.
    I thought we would all be happy, that they would praise the Lord and we would say how much we loved one another, and how much we loved the Lord God and Jesus, and thank them for the miracle, thank them for the gift they had given, the second chance.  I did not want to go back to bed, I did not want to be alone in my room, I knew there was a world out there and I could reach it, that I could fly away like the little curious bird and discover everything there was to know.
    My hands reached down to the bannister, I looked back at my mother and then turned again so that my eyes met my father's.  I did not want him to catch me.  I found all my strength again, I lifted myself up off of the ground, I swung my legs over, and, as I had done earlier, I fell and I felt like I fell forever.


Thursday 10 January 2013

The Coincidence Machine


I didn't know what it was at first.  It was shrouded in bubble wrap, which had rendered it spherical, but once the wrappings were removed it was a small rectangular casket with a leather shoulder strap.  There were various knobs and dials and a brass handled lever.  There was a yellowed roll of paper in amongst the wrapping, and on it was written these words: 'Henry, don't play with this, it's most precarious.  Uncle Stanislous.'
    Naturally this only piqued my curiosity.  I put the leather strap over my head and across my chest, the casket sat snugly at my stomach, the enticing array of buttons in easy reach of my eager fingers.
    I was ginger at first, choosing carefully which dial to twist, and doing so only gradually, but, as nothing seemed to happen I became more reckless, more ready to turn things as far as they would go, until at last in utter frustration I threw my hands to my sides and exclaimed; "How does this contraption work?!"
    At this point I stumbled backwards over an old dusty sheet, pulling the covering off of one of my father's bookshelves, revealing an assortment of aged tomes.  One in particular caught my eye, less dusty than the others, it was a small book, no more than 100 pages at most and didn't bare any inscription on the spine.  I stood up and slipped it from the shelf.
    It turned out to be a notebook, written by this Uncle Stanislous, and explaining the workings of the box at my belly.  It was, what he called, a coincidence machine.  I skimmed listlessly through the pages, the book falling on the final page of scribbled inkings, words stressed with harsh under-lining, emphasizing their importance: 'Perhaps it is best to leave things to chance.'
    This did not interest me, I flipped back to the beginning, to the operation of the machine.  It transpired that the various dials controlled levels of coincidence, from a little bit of happenstance through kismet and ultimately to destiny.  You could carefully adjust each dial to endeavour to incur the occurence of all manner of fates, from financial to romantic, though the book was rather unsure of the correct ratios to encourage each.  The lever was, quite simply, the on and off switch.
    To be sure I moved the lever back into the off position.  Just in case.
    I figured the best place to test the coincidence machine would be somewhere out in the open, somewhere public and prone to randomness.

I received a few suspicious looks as I strolled around the supermarket with this odd brown box hanging from my neck, carefully twiddling its knobs, but waiting until just the right moment to finally turn it on.  Finally I reached a good cross-roads, a small roundabout of baked goods where the breads and cakes were kept.  I stood back, surveyed the scene, and pushed the lever forward.
    There was a lady examining egg boxes, opening each one and checking the contents carefully, inspecting each half dozen, looking for the perfect purchase.  Nearby a father and his toddler were inspecting birthday cakes, trying to find the right one, the boy was unhappy with the selection of novelty caterpillars, football shapes and boy bands.
    "Well, what do you want on your cake, son?"
    "A picture of me fighting a hundred robot sharks!"
    His father chuckled, "I think that's rather wishful thinking..."
    "There it is!" his boy beamed, pointing at a cake down in the corner.
    "What?" his father stepped forward, assuming that his son had spotted another satisfactory confection and forgotten all about his surreal suggestion.  But there, sure enough, was a rectangle of sponge, smothered in icing and bearing a rather life-like image of the boy dressed as a space warrior blasting at a seemingly endless army of mechanised great whites with his double-barrelled laser rifle.  His father, with a look of some confusion and trepdiation in his eyes, snatched up the cake and hurried off.
    I quickly pulled the lever back.  I took out my camera, snapped a picture of the dials, and wrote - in a notebook I had purchased earlier - 'Tuesday 11am: Cake coincidence.'

I went to the park, it was a nice day but quiet, perhaps it was too late for all the joggers and too early for all the lunchers.  I sat on a bench and adjusted each dial ever so slightly, wanting to see what effects a small change would have before I tried anything too wild.  I looked around and pushed the lever.
    “Michael?” came an excited female voice, I turned, as it had called my name.
    Stood in the path, dressed in jogging clothes, removing the headphones of her mp3 player from her ears, was Elizabeth.  She had been a huge crush of mine throughout University, we were on the same course together, and she looked even more beautiful now than she had done so then.  She brushed a slip of her long dark hair back from her eyes where it had fallen from the neat pony-tail it was otherwise cinched into, and walked towards me.  I stood and received a big hug and a rather unexpected kiss on the cheek.
    “Hey!” I beamed, “It’s been a long time.”
    “It’s been five years exactly,” she nodded, doing the rather simple math in her head.  It was indeed almost exactly five years since the end of term of the last year of University.  “How have you been?”
    “Good, yeah, great, I’ve moved to London, how about you?”
    “Yeah, London as well, been here for a few months.”
    “Whereabouts are you?”
    “Stoke Newington.”
    “Oh, me too, I have a flat on Church Street.”
    “Me too!  Spooky.” She exclaimed.
    “I know,” I agreed, but I knew that this was not what she thought it was.
    “What number?”
    Tentatively I said; “Thirty eight.”
    “No!  I’m at thirty-seven, what a –“
    I cut her short, almost loath to hear the word, and feeling like the cruel invisible orchestrator of some twisted symphony.  “Are you still seeing…?”
    I only wished to imply his name, she’d been with Johnny for the final two years of Uni, they’d begun their relationship on the very day I had finally psyched myself up enough to try and ask Elizabeth out.  When I got to Scholars – our regular pub – there was Elizabeth and Johnny, fingers entwined, slumped happily on the sofa chairs at the back.  They didn’t see me, but I saw them and immediately turned around, went home and drank an entire bottle of Glen’s vodka.
    “Johnny?  No, we broke up about a month after Uni, in fact I haven’t seen him in – OH MY GOD!” she broke into another massive smile, but she was looking just over my shoulder.
    I turned, there was Johnny, he was riding a bicycle towards us, but came almost immediately to a halt when he saw Elizabeth’s grinning face and out-stretched arms.
    “This is SO wild!” she howled with glee.
    “Elizabeth?” Johnny smiled wistfully, “I don’t believe it.” He turned and looked me up and down, scrunching his eyes into a squint of remembrance, “And… Martin, good to see you too, buddy.”
    “Michael,” I corrected, shaking his hand.
    “No, it’s Johnny.” He corrected, squeezing a little more tightly as he did so.
    “So, how have you been?” his correction directed at Elizabeth, I was no longer part of his attention, I could have stripped naked, painted myself blue and farted the complete works of Shostakovich and he wouldn’t have noticed.
    “Great, yeah, me and Michael –“ (She emphasized my name for Johnny’s benefit, but I doubt it mattered.) “-were just catching up, we’re neighbours, can you believe that?”
    “That’s great,” Johnny said with a spectacular lack of conviction.
    “How about you? I thought you’d moved to Chicago?”
    Suddenly Johnny seemed to take on a different shade of confusion, he looked around like a concerned squirrel and surveyed the scene, the cold London skyline, the weary trees, the dew dusted grass.
    “I have,” he whimpered.
    “What brings you back?”
    “I’m back?”
    “Yes,” suddenly Elizabeth lost her radiance, “We’re in Clissold Park, Stoke Newington.”
    “What?! I… What? You’re messing with me, right?”
    “No, I, well, look, that’s the Castle, that’s the pond, er, how can I prove this?” Elizabeth got out her mobile phone, illuminated the screen and showed him the little location indicator beneath the clock that read ‘London’.
    “This is impossible… I was on my way to a business meeting… the most important…” his eyes darted from left to right, baubles of sweat were visibly sprouting out of his brow, his hands were shaking on the handlebars, his voice was beginning to quiver.
    I timidly glanced down at the coincidence machine and, very slowly so as not to arouse suspicion, edged the lever back to the off position.
    But, unlike fairy tales when the spell is broken, things did not revert back to normal, and Johnny stood there unable to articulate his bafflement. He was overcome with shock, Elizabeth, being the wonderful person she is, wrapped an arm around him and said she’d make him a cup of tea at hers and then they could figure out what had happened and how to get him home. I made some terribly flimsy excuses and, with waves of guilt crashing over me, took a prolonged and circuitous route back to the flat so as not to bump into my new neighbour.

When I was home I took a photograph of the settings and wrote; ‘Tuesday 1pm: Old friends.’
Now I was beginning to realise the terrible power of the coincidence machine. Whilst it had clearly brightened that child’s birthday, relieved – and, I think, worried – that beleaguered father, almost allowed me to make up for a missed romantic opportunity, it had, on the other hand perhaps destroyed a man’s career, cost him a flight home and, worst of all, potentially reunited a couple I was more than grateful to have seen the end of.
    I began to suspect that there was no real way to control the coincidence machine once it was operational, that you couldn’t will a coincidence into action, and, at first, the coincidence machine had a secret agenda of its own that, ultimately, fed off of the thoughts and feelings of those drawn into its sphere and brought about whatever little acts of fate they perhaps wished for or dreaded, unintentionally or otherwise.  Turning the coincidence machine on was a leap of faith, a plunge into the unknown, it was dangerous and could not be trusted.
    I felt that the power of this device was too much for anyone to be responsible for, that the consequences of operating it were too random and hazardous for further experimentation, no amount of analysis of those various dials would ever be enough to understand the machinations of fate, and that potentially tragedy could befall me before I completed my task.
    Worse, I worried that the coincidence machine had not only been effecting me, but it had impacted others, that, suddenly, spontaneously, around the world there had been a mass outbreak of coincidences resulting in all manner of awful and awkward situations. Though another, more romantic, voice in my head had posited that perhaps it could have possibly resulted in the discovery of important clues in unsolvable cases, of parents being reunited with long lost children, of lovers seperated by trivial notions who both longed to speak but had never had the courage miraculously found themselves face to face and immediately fell into one another’s embrace.
    What was it? I wondered. If there are two sides to coincidence, the magical and tragical, then does one outweigh the other? For all the strained conversations that a bad coincidence could elicit, perhaps the good that this device was capable of tipped the balance.
     I had convinced myself, it was worth the risk, I turned the coincidence machine back on, besides, what’s the worst that could happen, it’s not the end of the world.


Monday 7 January 2013

Altruism

The only truly unselfish act is one that you do not know you have performed. With this in mind, Alistair B. Maypole set up trying to unknowingly do something absolutely altruistic, not realising that intentionally attempting to do something unintentionally instantly negated the very purpose of that which he was trying to achieve. However, perhaps, even through this intentional unintentionality he would thusly do something outside of that which he planned upon performing that would lead, unbeknownst to him, towards good fortune for some absolute stranger and therefore, ultimately, confirm his hypothesis. As long as he never knew that someone had benefited as a result of an action he did not realise he had ever performed he would be undoubtedly correct in his assumptions. But he could never know this.
    However, he also believed that being a decent person in general was a fine way to live ones life, so would not feel any bitterness towards the fact that he would never get any personal satisfaction out of his altruistic act.
     Though, he began to wonder, whether endeavouring to always be good was indeed the true path to absolute altruism? For, indeed, he would always be aware that his intentions had other people's best interests at heart, therefore absolutely every action he performed was with the purpose of improving the life of others be they family, friends or perfect strangers. Now he was confused, perhaps a mean spirited person stands more of a chance of being utterly unselfish than he ever could?
     Alistair slumped in his chair and pondered his predicament.
     One needed, he considered, to somehow observe an instance of total unselfishness in another of strong moral character in order to confirm its feasibility as a concept. He considered his friends and found them all to be most lacking in moral fibre, especially Wendy. He considered his family and though he felt them all to be good people they lived too far away for him to permit them into his equation and, besides, he imagined that their flaws would come to him all too readily under observation. So, he nodded, it was settled, he must observe strangers in an effort to find one of absolute moral character.

He began in the park, it was a cold day, but there were a few people around. At first he observed a man stood eating a sandwich over a bin. Alistair thought that was most considerate to eat over the bin so that any crumbs don't litter upon the ground. But then he thought that it was most inconsiderate to any birds that might peck at those crumbs as a tasty supplement to a wormy main course, and then the man tried to kick a squirrel in the face, so Alistair realised that this man was perhaps not the paragon of selflessness that he had hoped.
     Secondly he observed a young lady flying a kite with a small child standing beside her, she had a look of unparalleled joy on her face, it was such a wonderful scene to see the two of them engaging in simple and pleasurable activity such as this. Perhaps Alistair's own preference for this young lady was buoyed by the fact that he did find her rather attractive, but, one cannot dismiss someone so readily just because of an attraction, it's just another form of prejudice. Yes, Alistair thought, what a most fine lady. However his optimism was duly crushed when the young child suddenly ran off in a huff and shouted, 'Mummy, this strange lady won't give me my kite back!'
     The third person that Alistair observed was an elderly gentleman riding a bicycle, he was whistling a little ditty to himself as he rode past but stopped to doff his cap and bid Alistair a good day. Alistair was so taken and charmed by this gesture that he himself utterly forgot to return the greeting and just stood staring, with a little smile, as the gentleman rode past. Unfortunatley the gentleman did not take kindly to Alistair's grimace and offered some cuss words as an epilogue to the greeting, thus distracting himself causing the bicycle to wobble and collapse beneath him, sending the elderly man onto the grass. Alistair hurried to help attend the fallen gentleman, but he was not injured and also seemed to bare the blame for his tumble on Alistair and proceeded to chase him around the park whilst brandishing his bicycle's - now broken - handlebars as some sort of makeshift cudgel.
     Alistair decided that perhaps the park was not the best place to start and sought a new venue for his observations.

After being thrown out of a library, a hospital, two office buildings and a haberdashery, Alistair retreated to the Dog and Duck where he consoled himself with a glass of sherry and his pipe. His good friend George was there, sat writing in the corner at first, he came over to clap Alistair on the back and ask of his day.
     'Do you believe in unselfishness George, old boy?' Alistair asked, dolefully tapping his pipe into an empty glass.
     'Why yes, I suppose I do.' George sounded rather chipper today. 'Buy us a drink there won't you?'
     Alistair got a pair of sherrys and handed one to his friend.
     'But how,' Alistair continued, 'can someone be truly unselfish? Surely all acts of kindness bring warmth to the one performing them as well as the one benefiting?'
     'What if,' George ran a finger along his thin moustache, 'you're performing an act that you do not wish to perform?'
     'Such as?'
     'Giving up a beloved possession?'
     'But if you knew that sacrifice would make someone else happy then you would feel good as a result of that, else why would you give up the possession in the first instance?'
     'You have a point there.'
     'Indeed I do, which is why I'm in such a grouch today. I believe I have to find an absolutely moral person in order to - '
     But George had already spluttered his drink at the words 'absolutely moral' and was now chuckling to himself.
     'Good Heavens Alistair, such a person does not exist.'
     'Really George, you think so?'
     'Undoubtedly old bean, the very act of existing is pure selfishness.'
     'I can't believe you think that.'
     'Besides, what makes you think a good person could be altruistic? Surely a terrible person would stand a better chance, I can't imagine them feeling a sense of goodness even if they knowingly had enriched someone's life?'
     George, as usual, confirmed Alistair's suspicions in a manner that suggested an immediate and absolute rethink of his proposition. He theorised that he should instead find the most despicable and terrible person he could, someone for whom an act of kindness would cause them absolute revulsion and, then, discover some good that has come indirectly as a result of their mean-spirited, self-centred actions and there he would find absolute altruism. Excitedly he explained this all to George.
     'I can see you're satisfied with your hypothesis,' George looked down at his drinking companion, his eyes narrowing along the smooth outside of his glass as if they were the sights of a rifle. 'But you're wrong again, my friend.'
     Alistair's head dropped into his hands, 'Oh, what now?'
     'I don't see how an unselfish act can be performed as part of a purely selfish intent?'
     'Poppycock!' Blasted George was right again, Alistair thought, he reasoned to himself that needed to find a new pub in which to drown his sorrows, as every time he comes here the damn fool always gets the best of him.
     'You see,' George smiled, 'it is quite impossible. Now, buy us another drink, be a good chap.'

Two more sherrys and Alistair's purse was as famished as he. Once the drinks were done he bid George farewell and took the long - and rather lop-sided - walk back to his rooms at the Langham. There he dressed in his bed clothes and climbed between the sheets, resolving to forget about all this altruistic nonsense come the morning. Thanks largely to the alcohol inside him it was not long after his head touched the pillow that he fell into a deep slumber.

 

Friday 4 January 2013

There's No One Out There For Anyone


St. Valentine's Day, an idea of a tradition clinging on from a long forgotten time when people loved one another and wished to express it.  I have a box of faded, delicate love letters written between my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, I'm not even sure if that's enough greatness, but I didn't want to waste your time.
    It was skin-crawling, reading those words, those sickly sweet secret sentiments shared between two people of an emotion, a feeling, I cannot conceive of.  It makes me shiver uncomfortably just thinking about, trying to imagine how that must have felt, it's like cockroaches crawling on your skin, or worms wriggling beneath it.
    But, for me, it shared a private, unspoken fascination.  It was a time where the feeling that lead to the conception of their children, and ultimately me, was driven by a different desire.  They weren't thinking about propogation, instead, they were in love and that love brought them together, provoked the desire to hold one another close, to kiss and cuddle, and, ultimately, to have sexual intercourse and give birth to children who they would also love and raise as part of a family.
    It seems so alien and irrelevant, but it is how it was.
    A friend of mine, I can't tell you his name, once told me, in confidence, that he thought he was falling in love with a girl in our seminars.  He was so ashamed, he didn't know what to do, he wanted to be with her, but he couldn't stand to think of her with other people and knew he couldn't say anything, that he couldn't ask to be his and only his.  If she told other people he would be ostracised.  He couldn't even bring himself to have sex with her, though she had come on to him a number of times, because he knew it would only make things worse for himself.  He would tell her lies, make up medical conditions, just so he could get out of it.
    I listened, but I had nothing to say to him.  I don't care about him.
    I don't understand why someone would want to go back to that way of thinking, where ridiculous imaginary emotions get in the way of sexual pleasure and rational reproduction.  Why would a man and a woman want to solely dig into the same genetic well when they could spread their genes far and wide creating a more diverse, culturally and intellectually exciting society.
    Love is a stupid concept, I don't know where it possibly could have originated from, it seems to preclude the basic instinct of any human being, the primitive, and ultimately more pleasurable, urge.  Why create a weight of guilt to hang around your necks when you commit, what they called, adultery?
    I have plenty of friends, a number of which I regularly have sex with, alongside those I have a handful of frequent sexual partners, and then there are nights out where perhaps I was go to a sex club or just to a bar and perhaps go home with some people for sex.  I am absolutely indiscriminate with my sexual preferences, as I feel everyone should be, and I have had sex with all types of people.  Why would I only want to have sex with one person for the rest of my life?
    I have tried to imagine it, and it must get boring, or the sex must lose its appeal for at least one, if not both, people in that pairing, and then, what can you do?  I imagine the stipulations and pre-conceptions of the love partnership would prohibit you from requesting another sex partner, and then your sexual frustrations could only be re-directed into unhappiness.  Why would someone do that to themselves?
    I will have friends all my life, as I will have sex partners, maybe they will continue to be the same people, maybe they won't.  If I felt that my sex partner had to be the only person I would be spending my life with then I would perhaps judge my sex partners and my friends more harshly.  I would not have sex with many of the people I have sex with for reasons as prejudiced as intelligence and genetic benefits.  I have friends and sex partners for all manner of occasion, and I feel no more distant or closer to any of them based on their thoughts and feelings.
    I wish my friend hadn't told me that he thought he was in love.  I don't think I can be his friend anymore.  He was always strange.  I thought he was quite liberal, but he would not have sex with me, yet he expected me to stay at his house drinking into the night, and I do not see why I should have to masturbate and he forbid me from doing so in front of him.  He is far more conservative than I expected, and I am surprised that he would dare open up to me.  People have said I have a friendly face, so maybe he thought I could be trusted.  I guess I can, I won't tell anyone who he was, but I shall have to cut him out of my social life.
    I feel sorry for my distant relatives, bound by their love, how that must have stymied them financially, how it must have inhibited their ambitions, compromised their dreams.  I have a freedom that they could only dream of, I am untethered, I am fulfilled, I am wanting nothing and bound to nobody.
    If someone loved me I don't think I would want to know.  I cannot imagine being able to sex with someone who loved me without pitying them, and that, among many others, is an emotion I do not wish to experience.  I have never understood why emotion ever invaded the enjoyment and gratification of sex.  If anything, when I try to conceive of love as a general experience, I can only see it interfering with the process.  How can the two things go together without one cheapening the other?  If you felt that strongly about someone then I can only see sex seeming tawdry when cast under that shadow.  Whilst sex as an expression of love seems ridiculous in equal measure.
    Sometimes I think my curiosity could be misinterpreted.  As much as the antiquated idea of love does fascinate me it is not for envy, as I believe envy is an emotion that is only really associated with love, and since we have no need for love we have no need for envy, we have no want because people don't treat things with such a precious facade.  I do not love or hate anyone, I am utterly indifferent, as I have everything I need and that which I do not have I do not need.
    I have only been refused sex three times, once by my friend as I have already described, once because they told me I was too young - I was seventeen and they were forty two - and once because they said I was too drunk, but I do not think that was the real reason.  Besides, I generally only wish to have sex with people who I share some commonality with, though, largely, I think this isn't always entirely necessary, it is my one real sexual preference and I am only less particular when I am outside of my comfort zone and feeling horny.
    There was one girl who got pregnant, that was a few years ago, and once she had the baby she was straight back at University.  I've heard about men and women who wish to raise their own child, but that isn't the norm, as it used to be, besides there are plenty of centres that will raise the child to a good standard.  My parents chose not to raise me, I have never met them and have no desire to do so, my early years attendants were good and I was lucky to have some strong teachers, hence why am I still in education now.  Though I'm not sure what I want to be, perhaps a banker, I hear they have a lot of sex.
    I think my sexual desire is quite high, I have sex every day, usually with one of my housemates in the morning or at night, and then often with classmates on break times or after school.  I go to a sex club probably once a week and can spend a whole day there and friends invite me to orgies quite regularly.
    There is so much I have to do, so many people I want to have sex with, so many things I hope to achieve before I day, and I cannot imagine trying to form the heightened, unrealistic emotional connection expected of my perception and understanding of the concept of love alongside trying to accomplish all that I wish to within the span of my life.
    But I read these love letters from generations past, left with me when my mother and father decided to take me to a centre as a baby, and I feel a twist in the pit of my stomach, a peculiar sadness that they were so naive, that they believed in a fantasy, and spent their long lives in this state of delusion thinking that it would have some sort of lasting legacy, some sort of meaning beyond their limited days, and here I am, many years down the line, and I know how little it all meant, how worthless it all was, and for some reason it makes me sad, and I never feel sad.


Me, Me, Me


Perhaps I am a control freak, but I can't help but feel that the world would be greatly improved if everyone behaved exactly as I do.
    Now, I do not think that I am a paragon of humanity, but I am courteous, organised, polite, thoughtful and considerate.  I look out for others and behave in a fashion that, if followed, would undoubtedly result in a decent, structured and well run society.
    Yet every single day I find myself cuddled onto the most packed train cars where the ignorant mass expect personal space for their newspapers at the expense of the comfort of their fellow passengers.
    Once I reach my office through the herd of self-serving cattle, I find a parade of toneless, inhuman emails impatiently stacked in the dreary inbox of my virtual employ.
    This carnival is sometimes punctuated by the snippy thrum of the work phone or the hurried chortle of my mobile and a tinny, inaudible huff will berate me or make vague requests, perhaps deliberately avoiding to ask important questions in some sort of surreal psychological test of my own, alleged, selfishness.
    Home I canter to be lambasted with rhetorical trivia and half-words, a string of nothing that somehow means everything to those eyes I try to love.
    I tell her all this, like a decent fool who still believes in honesty.  She chides me, calls me conceited.  Why does she stay here?  Why do I let her?
    If she were to behave like I, if she were to be reasonable and understanding.  But, I can't tell her this, because that makes me wrong.  I don't know how, but it does.
    I sleep bitterly again, as if my own life were travelling alongside me, out the window of a speeding train, and I am unable to reach it.
    I wish this world understood those things.
    I wish everyone was just like me.

The alarm clock jabs me awake.  The space beside me means she has already left for work.  Cruelly, I am glad.  I can savour my morning.
    In quiet rooms I urinate, I make toast, I drink coffee.
    I stand at the window and look at the city, if feels like it belongs to me.
    Before showering I look at my naked body in the mirror.  It has never quite been the body I wanted, I have been too aware of its shortcomings in relation to those presented to me, and I can only imagine how it appears to other eyes.  I have always considered myself a compromise and I guess I do feel lucky for the women I have had who have touched this body and kept their dissapointments to themselves.
    I dress slowly and erratically, my wardrobe an un-coordinated collective of muted colours.
    Do I even want to go outside today?  I am unsure as to what it has to offer me, but part of me is convinced it is beneficial in some regard.
    I reach the street, my bus is there, I hop on, checking the balance of my travelcard and easily finding a seat.
    A few stops later I slip through the doors and snake immediately into the coffee shop ahead of me.  I order my latte, fumbling for my bank card, hiding my pin and nimbly sliding to the counter at the far end whilst checking my phone for messages.
    The cardboard cup arrives, despite the heat I take a first lively sip.  It has a peppermint bite.
    "This isn't my latt-ARGH!"
    The sound is sharp, jarring even to me, but I am not startled by this involuntary bark for long.  More disconcerting is the worried, furrowed brow staring at me.
    It is my worried, furrowed brow.
    It is my worried, furrowed brow.
    Is it my worried, furrowed brow but it is on another body.
    I blubber sounds.  I am not aware but the cup has left my hand and I'm stood with one foot in a scalding pool of someone else's beverage.
    "That's my face," I slobber.
    But the jabbering panic of my own expression is not reflected in this doppelganger.  Instead its eyes look to its colleague, and, like signposts they move my gaze until I am looking at the cashier who wears my face with an auburn moustache.
    "Sir?" it says with a nut-brown toned impression of myself. "Are you well sir?"
    "I'm fine," I yelp loudly and then I lose consciousness.

I wake up in a strange bed.  Its sheets are stiff and foreign.  Almost immediately I know this is a hospital.
    A faded blue curtain surrounds me.  I can hear coughing and it is unnerving for its familiarity.  This curtain taunts me as if about to reveal the punchline.
    Instead, preceded by a rustle, a doctor walks through.
    At first I hold my eyes closed tighly, like a child trying to escape bad thoughts.  His presence moves around the bed towards me, and I cautiously peek at his shoes.
    They are sharp and bright black.
    It is inevitable that I look at him and, like plucking a thorn, I do it fast and suddenly.
    "Oh God, no." I whimper aloud, "Not this face."
    "How are you feeling?" it says, more warmly than I have ever been.
    I shake my head, "No, please, no, no."
    He moves a hand, palm out, toward my forehead and I flinch, then very deliberately avoid its contact.
    "What's your name?" I finally ask him, quivering.
    "I'm Dr. Raymond Cole," he replies with reassuring conviction.
    "That's not my name," I answer, more to myself, but he responds;
    "Why would it be?"
    "Don't you see?" I implore, as if the full question is already there, hanging in the air between us like a bauble.
    "See what?"
    "You have my face," I gasp. "We have the same face.  Those - those others had my face."
    His eyes, my eyes, scrunch up and examine me.
    "How old are you?" he asks,
    "Thirty four," I reply.
    The doctor then walks to the curtain and slowly, purposefully, draws it back a few feet.
    It reveals a body in the next bed, old hands, holding a bowl, my lips drinking soup from it.  My face, but olive coloured, hairless, liver-spotted and papery.
    "Mr. Ludlum here," he begins, "is seventy six."
    The doctor says this as if it explains everything and there was nothing more to be said.
    For a while I am unable to respond.  The wealth of questions is a disorderly crowd, each jostling for prominence that they cram my mouth, stoppering all sound.
    Naively, all I can do is put my hand on my chest and plead, "This is me."
    Its importance is lost on his vanilla face.

I am discharged and try to leave with my head dropped down.  But each glimpse of a face is enough to shift my eyes, alert like a cat's, into theirs and I see them all:
    There I am with a crew cut, wearing a Black Flag vest that shows off my tattoos.
    There I am laughing into my telephone,  a goatee beard and shark tooth necklace.
    There I am sitting in a wheelchair, one eyes shut tight, the other damp and red.
    There I am eight years old, one hand down my shorts, the other picking my nose.
    There I am dropping coins into a vending machine, my light hair down to my shoulders, my short top hugging my breasts.
    ...
    ...
    ...my...
    ...my breasts?
    "Do you mind?" she says, the words coming out of my face in softened, plasticine tones.  My chin is the smoothest it has ever been.  My neck looks odd without its Adam's apple and it slopes elegantly into the plunge of my cleavage.
    I am all too aware that I am staring.
    "Do you mind?" she repeats.

The street is worse, a shambles of sights: me in a hat, me with a dog, me with shopping bags, me with a fringe, me wearing a mini-skirt, me on a scooter, me delivering mail, me selling fruit, me in a hurry, me in a queue of me waiting for a taxi driven by me, me dressed as a statue dancing for coins, me on the floor disshevelled but smiling, me holding my baby me, me nervously shaking my hand, me picking up the wallet I dropped and handing it back to me and me saying thankyou which makes me bow my head, me jogging, me leafleting, me asking the time, me going home, me waving to me and me who are holding hands, me kissing me, me, me, me, me, me.
    I run into my flat and I close the door.  I lock it.  I unlock it and peek outside then I close it and I lock it again.
    "Hello?" I call, expecting to hear my voice return like an echo, but it is silent and I can breathe.  I note the time, she must still be at work.
    I look for pictures of us, but I can't find any.  I don't know why, but I expect her not to be me.  She just seems so permanent.  It doesn't seem possible.
    I open some books and they seem unchanged, but I haven't read them before, so I can't be certain.
    I need to distract myself, she'll be back in a couple of hours and though it seems so inevitable I can't dwell on it until it is too late.
    I turn on the radio and the familiar chords of Subterranean Homesick Blues are vibrantly rattling out of the speakers, but, as Dylan sings it is not with his familiar drawl, it is with a lumpen impersonation, an unsettling hoot that grates like bad karaoke.
    I leap from the sofa and pull my copy of Blonde On Blonde from the shelf, and there's my face standing against the scene, scarf, coat and curly mop of hair, the name is the same, I am Bob Dylan.
    I shut the radio off at the plug, as if that will somehow correct this tragedy.
    Then with a horror-movie turn to look over my shoulder I face the television.
    I'm answering the question correctly.
    I'm breaking up with myself whilst a pop song plays.
    I'm selling butter and then holidays and then car insurance.
    I'm scoring a goal.
    I'm playing Johnny B. Goode at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.
    I'm reading the news of my court case for fraud.
    I turn off the television and I'm reflected in the glass.  I try and turn it off again, but realise it's permanent.
    The front door unlocks and I bury myself in the sofa cushions, trying to muffle the sound and make this an event that's happening in the distance.
    I feel a hand on my back and I freeze, hoping it will forget I'm here and leave, but it runs up, under my shirt and toward my neck.
    I can't stand it, so I spring across the room, dragging my furniture with me and retreat to the corner.
    The voice follows me, "What is it?" it asks, it's sweet and concerned, it seems to want this to be a game, but there's a serious edge.
    I turn as if revealling some horrible disfigurment.
    There it is, plain as flour.
    She is me.
    "I hoped it would be you," I sigh, remorseful.
    She smiles, clearly misunderstanding.

I sit down with her and explain everything as far as I understand it.  To her credit she makes my face look attentive and committed, but I sense that regardless of what I say her reaction will be the same, I just don't think she's really listening to me, and that is strangely unlike her.
    When I finish she looks around, her eyes moving to three specific yet indistinct places across the floor, she then nods once and asks if I'd like a drink.
    She puts the kettle on, prepares two mugs, goes to the bathroom.
    I've left before she returns.

I hammer on the door.  Though I was here two nights ago I worry that he might have left, or that, for some reason, he never existed.
    After another minute or so the chain-lock is reluctantly removed and the door squeaks ajar.
    "Cliff," I blur, "I need a drink."
    "I'll get my shoes," comes a half-asleep reply.

More than anyone else Cliff resembles me.  Even before he had my face.  We have been best friends for twenty five years, so, oddly, it doesn't seem too unnatural when I look at him and see me.
    He, however, is looking at me with my face as if I'm crazy.
    "You think everyone has your face?" he asks, bewildered.
    "Look in a mirror," I gesture behind the bar where all my faces are reflected.
    He look at the both of us for what feels like a long time.  I am unable to comprehend his indifference, but it's there, and he soon breaks into a hushed laugh.
    "This is definitely the weirdest thing you've ever said, man!"
    "What can I do?"
    Cliff shrugs and swigs his bottled beer, his eyes glancing around the room.  He leans forward and whispers, "Mate, check that out."
    I look over my shoulder to see me by a cigarette machine in the corner drunkenly fondling my breast whilst sloppily and shamelessly sticking my tongue down my own throat.
    "Oh Jesus, man, don't show me those things!"
    "Christ," he sat back, "you really are messed in the head.  Maybe you should see a shrink?"
    "Yeah," I snorted, "or a priest."
    "Stephanie's dad's a vicar," he suggested off-the-cuff, but for some reason it made sense.
    Cliff called Stephanie and begged her for her dad's number, which she duly texted over in return for a month's loan of Cliff's cinema pass.  I managed to convince her father to speak to me at his parish church in two hours.

I was a little tipsy when I met the soft-spoken, silver-haired me on the rain soaked steps of St. Jude's, but he didn't seem to notice.  He told me to call him Danny, which felt peculiar.  I asked if we had to go to the confessional, he said he had coffee and biscuits in his study.
    "You were very vague over the phone," he smiled, "But you did sound genuinely troubled.  Can I ask, are you religious?"
    "No."
    "So why did you want to speak to me?"
    "For some reason I thought you might actually listen to me.  I didn't want another doctor just to shrug me off."
    "What's your concern?" It was a peculiar phrasing, but it felt reassuring.
    "Danny," I took a breath, "everyone has my face.  I mean everyone.  You.  You have my face.  Your daughter, Stephanie, she has my face.  Hitler, Hitler has my face."
    He considered his words for a moment and then asked, "How do you mean?"
    I drew breath through gritted teeth nearly at a loss for words, but persevered in the hope of sense tumbling out by chance.
    "Yesterday," I began, "people looked different.  My friend Cliff, my best friend, had a long nose, a Roman nose, like Julius Caesar.  My girlfriend had full lips, a bit like a moody fish, and freckles across her nose and cheeks, whilst her ears seemed just a little too small for her head.  But today they both look exactly like me but with diffferent hairstyles and body types.  Their voices also," I continued, jumping on top of his next sentence, "they sound like me doing an impression of them, and you, not only do you look like me but older, but you sound like me pretending to be the kind of person I imagine you are."
    I then proceeded to do a note perfect impersonation of Father Danny's voice which he smiled solemnly at.
    "If you've just come here to mock me," he said in a careful controlled manner and I immediately repeated the sentence back to him, matching the intonation perfectly.
    "I'm serious," I added hastily in my own voice.
    "Well," he murmured after some consideration, "follow me."
He walked me out into the main hall of the Church and we stood by the altar.  I looked down at the well maintained copy of the Bible resting there, whilst he stared up towards the abstract, coloured shapes of a stained glass window.
    "You remember," he stated rhetorically, "that the Lord made all in his image, perhaps that is the root of your dilemma."
    I raised an eyebrow, I was worried he was about to try and baptise me or something.  But he didn't say any more, he just held his gaze and I followed his line of sight and realised he wasn't looking at the stained glass window but he was looking at a statue of Christ on the cross, and I looked at the figure, and I realised...
    I was Jesus Christ.

The following day I woke up on Cliff's sofa and I felt an enormous weight had been lifted from me.  I was not expecting it all to have been a bad dream, indeed, the sight of me making me breakfast seemed strangely comforting, as if I was somehow both observing and performing those actions.
    I drank the coffee he handed to me, he chuckled to himself and asked, "You seem pretty happy, did you discover God last night or something?"
    I was content to go about my day, almost embracing the idea of a world populated entirely by me.  I even began to notice the improvements that I expected, such as better pedestrian awareness, more orderly queuing systems and simple, polite behaviour directed towards strangers.  In general, people would smile at one another, laugh at their own fumblings and always be willing to lend a hand and look out for their fellow citizens.  This was immediately apparent even from the most cursory of observations, there just seemed to be an almost choreographed harmony to the way people moved when out in society and it didn't feel forced or artificial, it just felt right.
    I decided to go to the same coffee shop as yesterday, something which, in the normal world, I would have been apprehensive of, but here the same staff members treated me warmly and respectfully, though they must have known it was me.
    They must have known it was me?  This kept going around my head like a carousel, the question asking itself in varying tones as if searching for the cadence that would invariably lead to an answer; They must have known it was me?
    Some time later that day a woman with my face approached me smiling widely and held her arms open as I drew close.
    "Gavin!" she beamed.
    I kept walking towards her, but my pace slowed cautiously.
    "Gavin!" she repeated, no doubt registering in her voice.
    I looked over both my shoulders, but there was no one else there.
    "Gavin?" she asked the name this time and I shook my head apologetically. "Sorry," she said, her tone sad and confused.  "You look just like him."
    I smiled and nodded, "I can imagine."
    It didn't really bother me until it happened again later, but this time the name was Oliver.  The old man who had mistaken me apologized.  I asked him if I looked like Oliver, and he said, "Yes, you're the spitting image of my son."
    This rattled me, so I went to a charity shop and bought some new clothes, then I got some hair gel and styled myself in a fashion unlike any I had tried before.  I took a bus to the florists where she worked and brazenly strolled up and down, barely a foot from her nose.
    She looked at me and smiled warmly.  I smiled back, feeling very foolish, until she said; "Can I help you sir?"
    I scowled directly at her, her wearing my face, and I abruptly left the shop.
    I looked deeply into every one of my faces that I passed, and they all looked back at me, smiling at first, but, as their expression met mine the smile soon dropped and all that was left was the fear in their eyes, the fear that had been there all along.
    I went to the bar where Cliff worked and I ordered drinks from him without him ever geuinely acknowledging me.  Sure, he grinned and called me 'Mate', but he did that to every patron of that bar that I observed him serve.
    I felt like a ghost, as if I just floated through rooms, sometimes someone felt my presence and they smiled in my general direction in order to appease my restless spirit.  But it was no longer enough.  I wanted to tear down the walls around me, to strip myself of my clothes and bare my naked body to them all and proudly scream: "This is me."
    But that would not be enough, not for them.
    How long had these people had my face?  Had this world of me sprung up overnight or had everyone always been this way and I had only just awoken to this world as if from a dream?
    Whilst there are remnants of unity throughout general opinion, the population is still as splintered as it was when every face was unique.  To me this makes sense, whichever way you look at it.  If this change was spontaneous then, of course, opinion would remain.  If it has existed for ages then, even if all thought began alike, it must have fragmented.  But then, why haven't looks evolved?  Why this constant?
    Perhaps this is merely just some cruel joke, no matter how you dress people up they will never be unified, there will never be consistency of thought and feeling, no matter how destructive, anti-social, xenophobic, misogynistic, sexist, racist, homophobic, vile, ill-tempered, disgusting, degrading, degenerative, repressive, regressive, insensitive, hurtful, shameful, bile-inducing their ideas may be, decency, goodness, warmth, supportiveness, these things don't chime with everyone, at least, not in an all-encompassing fashion.  Though it seems, to me, that any thought outside of my liberal viewpoints is backwards, broken, selfish and strange, there are many others who would disagree.
    But, isn't that why I wanted this, everyone to be like me, it doesn't make sense that thoughts should still be fragmented.  The more I know myself the more I hate myself, the more I see the doubt and distrust in my behavior.  As much as one can fear the uncanny and the unknown perhaps the opposite is just as unsettling.
    It is not everyone else, regardless of what face they wear, what attitudes they hold, when they take everything away, when you get down to the very core, it is what I have always known, it is what has always, on some guttural level, driven me, it is a simple truth, it is me I hate.
    Walking around this world of doubting faces, where everyone is uncertain and so fickle of who they might be staring at, who they might be talking to, I am all too aware that if I were to die today it would be hard for anyone to miss me.  There are a billion other mes all jostling for prominence.  Once I am gone to the unimaginable nothingness of death time will continue and, in a way utterly disconnected from myself and all I ever hoped to achieve, I will be replaced by another exactly like me.  Stripped of any individuality, if I were to die, how would anyone grieve?  The only thing anyone can miss here is my name, and would they really miss that?  What do I offer this world outside of myself?  Every thought, every idea, every ambition, every dream, I have kept them all inside, I have sneered cynically at the world outside from within my shell and never tried to better either it or myself.  It doesn't deserve me, I have thought, and I was right in the wrong way.  This world does not deserve me, I should burden it no longer.


Thursday 3 January 2013

Underground Tigers

Another story from the 2007 notebook.  This one was written on my daily commute from Oakwood to Boston Manor tube station.

Underground Tigers

Travelling on the tube had quickly become routine, and each day started with a high speed shower, a cup of coffee knocked back and a quick jog to make it to the bus-stop in time that would aggravate his in-grown toenail.
    He didn't mind travelling from one end of the Piccadilly line to the other, though, on this particular occasion, a large gentleman was staring at him, his eyes piercingly white, his expression like that of a tiger emerging from the bushes about to make a kill.
    He looked down at his book and, after a moment or two, glanced back up again.  The man was still staring.
    It's baffling how someone's sense of etiquette can be discarded so easily once they're sat on the tube.  Why do the rules change underground?  If these two gentlemen were sat in a cafe opposite one another, but at seperate tables, would he still be staring so intently?
    Another man, this one in a business suit with a sick-green shirt and tie combo, sat near the doors is looking his way too, but he's peering out the side of his eyes, lids streamlined into two slits and there's an odd smirk on his face, as if watching an innocent slowly lured to its doom.
    Perhaps this is pack mentality?  Make sure the prey is firmly in position, observe its behaviour and then strike.
    He's been looking at his book, re-reading the same line over and over, but the words won't stick and he keeps thinking about their eyes.
    He has to check again, but in an effort to seem casual he pretends to be looking up and down the tube, y'know, just in case.
    Sure enough their eyes are still on him, but now, at the far end, sat facing out into the aisle is a man in his late-fifties, a large thick grey moustache resting over his lips, which are pulled into some sort of contorted sneer.  He has a rucksack on, but it's too tight and has forced his arms back and chest forward, puffed out like a strutting goose.  Finally, despite his dark tan glasses, it is obvious that he too is staring at the poor, innocent commuter.
    For a while their gaze is locked and then the old goose slowly opens his mouth into a huge, wide, silent roar.  No, a yawn.  But, he doesn't cover his mouth and the passenger finds himself now squinting a little as he's presented with a view down the dark cavern of his throat.
    He's aware again of the other two sets of eyes and begins to imagine them licking their lips or eagerly scraping cutlery together.
    As the tube passes through the tunnels it makes a squealing sound like starving dogs battling with hungry seals and the commuter knows it is the rest of their species descending upon the train, readying to tear him apart limb by limb.
    His journey is only halfway through.  He grows impatient and his right buttock aches.  Unfortunately his job will do little to help with that.
    The businessman stands, moves to the doors and waits.  But the train stops in the tunnel and the lights flicker for a second.
    The commuter looks up and down the train, only he, the businessman, the white-eyed guy, the old goose and a woman applying lip balm are in this carriage, and he is certain that she is the female of the pack, probably heaving with cubs back in the den, many mouthes to feed, hungry sharp teeth, tiny teeth that need to grow.
    She purses her lips and makes kissing faces at her distorted reflection in the glass.
    Any second now.
    Any second.
    With a dull heave, and a thud that reverberates under the carriage, the train begins to move again, snaking its way to the final destination.
    The tigers of the underground dissipate as the penultimate stops go by until the commuter is left alone.  He looks around at the walls of the carriage, at the belly of the metal anaconda that digested them all then spat them out, or worse, one by one.  He wonders why he does it?  Why does he subject himself to their eyes and the fear that everyday, one day, he'll be eaten alive, torn apart like a Sunday chicken?  Why doesn't he go to the country and grow vegetables and read books by candle light?
    But, as his stop approaches, he gathers his bag, puts his book away and eagerly awaits the opening of the doors.
    The day is still young and the smell of the morning is refreshing.  He is full of hope and optimism.  He crosses the road, a spring in his step, and soon comes to a standstill.
    He looks up and down at the small crowd of people that forms around him, and one man, at the back, is staring at him with hungry eyes.
    They both get on the bus.

Tuesday 1 January 2013

Mr. Preston Brown

I was tidying my room and started sorting out some old notebooks.  Flicking through them I wound up reading a fair few old bits of writing, some half-finished short stories, some ill thought through ideas struggling to get out of my head as fast as I could think them, some transpositions or recordings of things that actually happened.  I have decided to write these up and post them on here for your reading 'pleasure'.

This first one was written in 2007 immediately after the events described below actually happened.



Mr. Preston Brown

Walking towards me was a man with an odd look on his face.  At first I thought he was grinning eagerly, but as he approached I realised he was crying, or, perhaps he had been grinning and made himself cry once he got closer?
    He wore a black baseball cap with a cartoon green bird and the word 'Shag' on it, an unwashed dark grey (or faded black) and white striped polo shirt, Adidas tracksuit trousers and white trainers, but no socks.  HIs face was contorted into a grimace of despair as he began to tell me his woes.
    At first he just seemed to want directions - oddly that had been happening to me a lot lately - but suddenly he told me his father had just died and he needed to get to Manchester for the funeral.  It transpired that he had assisted other members of his family pay to travel to the funeral, he had however neglected to pay for himself.  Perhaps this kind of financial negligence, or selflessness, may have seemed foolish to others, but I grew up knowing my father and weirder choices have been made.
    He said he'd walked from Chelmsford, though he also claimed to live just down the road, he said he'd lived all over the world in Australia, Hong Kong, Canada and America - specifically North Carolina, where he said the racism was too prevalent.
    He told me of his seven houses and many cars, that he'd been trying to sell a BMW for cash in the preceding hours in an effort to raise the £20 he needed to get to Manchester.  He even kept offering me his phone - a strange teal coloured box, it had a touch screen like a PDA, activated by a little pointer - in exchange for financial aid.
    I had already told him I had no money on me - a lie, I'd just withdrawn £20 and spent £10 at Tescos, but I also told him I am unemployed and would help if I could afford to, which is true.  But he persisted, he kept dropping his hands to his calves and sobbing, bringing face and his wiry little goatee - deposited above the chin, in the space below the bottom lip - up and staring at me as if there were nobody else in the world.
    He was relentless, he said he'd walk to a cash-point with me, perhaps I should have walked to the train station and bought him his ticket, then I could have seen how genuine his need was.  But I was scared, scared that this one intense emotion of sorrow he was displaying could turn to another extremity.  Every time his hands went near his pockets, I took a cautious step back and wondered how I would defend myself.
    Finally I figured the only way to get rid of him would be to supply him with some money.  £10 would do from my end of the deal, though he kept asking me to make up the full £20, so, rather foolishly, I said I would go back to my flat and return, but he would follow me if I left and so all I could do was allow him to accompany me.
    He waited outside and rolled a cigarette whilst I pretended to go upstairs to find some money in my room, when in actuality I just stuck my hand in my inside coat pocket.  When I presented him with this crisp, clean note he continued to talk to me, he told me how he appreciated it because it came from my heart - a word he said with almost exagerated tenderness.
    He told me about his father, how he inherited his business; Preston Transport he said it was called, told me that they had helped people who were in trouble with the IRA.  He had introduced himself as Peppy (Pepe?) and then referred to himself as Mr. Brown, but when he insisted I took his phone number he told me his name was Preston, like the company.
    'Have you ever heard of Preston Transport?  You have now.'
    But he said his mother had wanted him to become a doctor, though he had trained as a barrister with the hope of becoming a magistrate.  He had taken odd and confusing pleasure in asking me to guess his profession, much like he had asked me to guess his age; he is forty two, though I might have guessed mid-thirties.
    He said he was born in Salisbury or Salford, but grew up in South Africa.  His father would teach him to fish in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) and had taught him of pride, pride being in your heart, again said with a sentimental whisper.  But he was also regretful of choices he had made, he felt unfit to fill his father's shoes, to live in his shadow especially as an only child, and he kept calling himself a wanker.
    I nodded and agreed where necessary.  He offered me his mobile phone again, and then more mobile phones.  He offered me his BMW and then, after asking if I liked 'boys or birds', he offered to get me a girl, but I continued to refuse.
    He insisted he would pay me back, he said he would never be indebted to anyone in his life and later swore on his father's grave that he would do something for me.  £1000 he said, asking if I was a student and whether that would be of any use to me, but I insisted he need not do me any favours.  But he wanted to take my address and we exchanged phone numbers.  It was only later that I remembered I'd told him I didn't have a phone on me.
    My phone, the little bastard, had ran out of battery charge when I was in Tescos as a friend was trying to call me and I hurried out after paying to get back and charge my phone quickly to call them back.  If they had called and my battery hadn't died and I had spoke to them whilst shopping I would not have left so quickly or may have left via a different route and not met Preston Brown.  Indeed, I had taken a slightly different choice to get home then usual and if I had taken my regular choice perhaps then I would have been £10 better off.
    How selfish I am, mourning the loss of £10 when Preston has lost his father, or how selfish Preston is using the death (or imagined death) of his dad to take £10 from a humble idiot like me.
    He said he'd remember my name because of Michael Owen and Owen Hargreaves, he said he'd bring me a Michael Owen shirt, and he shook my hands a good few times and even hugged me twice.  It was at this point - perhaps the pressure had pushed a button - that my seemingly dead phone returned miraculously to life and serenaded me with the 'low battery' sound twice in a row.
    Preston looked at me and questioned this noise, he said; 'I thought you didn't have a phone?'
    I said, 'I don't, but I have a watch.'
    Which made him nod and say, 'I have a watch too.'
    He began to leave, examining the house with his insistent eyes, placing the cap back on his shaved head.  He said he used to have long hair down to the base of his spine but his girlfriend had made him cut it.  He's got a Harley Davidson and wanted to be a biker, 'Y'know, just for the shit of it.'
    So, looking up at my house, trying to remember the street and insisting, imploring the I still come with him and get something to eat, or continue to aid him on his quest he began to walk down the street, he told me how generous I am, that he doesn't know how to articulate my kindness.  He said 'cool beans' and 'cool bananas', saying they were phrases from his Dad, from South Africa and Australia.
    He walked back toward the door, reiterated that he will do something for me and finally walked off, allowing me to  close the door and breathe.
    I blame my sixth year junior school teacher for reading us Great Expectationsm because now I have to help, I'm afraid to ignore people or walk away because there is the glimmer of a dream that perhaps they are genuine, they do have morals and heart, and one day will remember me and bless me, genuinely wish my dreams to come to fruition or, perhaps, just send me a Michael Owen shirt in the post.