Wednesday, May 31 2006

A Beautiful Demise

Posted by My House Arrest at 02:49 PM

The gorilla camera crew has begged me not to move. They said that if I remain in place, mapless and shoeless, it will result in the most wonderful of disasters. An explosion is slated to occur on this very spot in not very long. If they get it on tape, they will win the Grand Jury Prize for World Peace and get a three movie contract from a big studio. Also, the Soviets will be given a permanent seat in the League of Nations for ridding the world of the number one purveyor of anti-feline crime. And me? What do I get? The gorilla camera crew said I would die a free man, away from my house arrest.

I know I don’t want that.

Tuesday, May 30 2006

Fruit

Posted by brims assemblage at 07:19 PM


As an aside I must mention that in my most basic inventory I have the heart of Classic Doll. When I’d arrived back from shopping for the essential underwater travel accessories, Newts energy had to be ramped up from the closest source. This was an essential requirement after giving me directions to the tank and then exporting me in the manner of projection that brought me here. For Doll law in this instance to be respected one must be stabbed by another and so, in a dramatic leap of faith from one point to the other Classic doll dived, aiming for Newts chest, as if into water herself.

Impaled to the core, Newt spent five minutes with his eyes rolled upwards in ecstasy, his back arching over slowly as the little body was wrenched by taught ligaments. With Newt arranged in this position Classic pointed upwards and away from his chest like a penis. When she was spent, her sacrifice fulfilled, milked, the husk toppled slowly away from newt inert. As she did and lay down next to her receivers replenished, risen feet, Classic dolls desiccated chest rent open like a dried peel of fruit secreted of all its pulp and out from this cavity a final ejaculation of sympathetic nervous energy vented her heart. I had to bring that little mechanism with me and I have it here now as a bulge in my pocket.

Wednesday, May 31 2006

intercontinental ballistic missile

Posted by ezra kire at 01:41 AM

an intercontinental ballistic missile is an ICBM

it flies in the air like an airplane

it flies for hours

then it falls on a different continent

it can go from africa to north america

or australia to south america

or asia to antarctica

it flies in the air like an airplane

it is very calm and good while flying in the air

it flies alone and no humans sit inside of it

it flies alone and it is very calm and good

Tuesday, May 30 2006

Homesick

Posted by Smooth Blue at 06:08 AM

New York is wonderful. Fantastic. London and Manchester rolled together and then some. The buildings. The people. The buzz. I love it.

But, for some reason, it’s made me homesick. I look at the Empire State Building and think about Urbis. I see the shops and long for the Trafford Centre. Whenever I turn on the tv I wonder what’s happening in Corrie and Big Brother 7. I have to go home. Soon.

I’m not saying I regret coming here. It’s been great. Sunday was fantastic (after I got some birthday emails.) I went along to the opening of Helium’s installation. The crowd were well impressed when they took the cover off this enoooooormous balloon and the night sky appeared on a sunny New York afternoon. I’d hoped Brim would show but he didn’t, although I really thought I saw him in a tree at one point.

Then Helium, and some of his arty friends, took me to help celebrate his success at a bar that was all glass and shiny chrome. They toasted my birthday too. I stayed a bit longer than I intended and had more to drink than I should have.

Afterwards, I went to another bar to meet AP and Morgan. (AP never mentioned the cookout and I didn’t like to bring it up.) This bar was very dark and we sat in a booth away from everyone else. Morgan’s a dark haired, dark skinned little man. Shorter than me even. He talked a lot but I didn’t take in everything he said. Or maybe I did at the time and some of it was lost in the journey back to soberhood. Anyway, there was lots of talk about protocol and levels of security and responsibility and missions. I felt like I was being led down some sort of a maze with no exit. It was clear that Morgan wanted me to go back to Picar but I was very firm. Manchester is home and where I intend to go. He said there are things I can do in Manchester for him but it won’t be as lucrative as Picar. That’s fine with me, I said, I’ll have my nursing when I get back.

I seem to have packed a lot in during my time here. Seen the Statue of Liberty from the air and up close. Went to a recording of the David Letterman show. Actually managed to get a ticket to see The Colo(u)r Purple tonight. But I’m ready for home. Going to try for a plane for Thursday or Friday. It’s time I faced up to my problems. At long last.

Monday, May 29 2006

fractured

Posted by between moments at 12:59 PM

The circle is masked to me. This is a first. The eyes that stare out from those deep wells of obscurity are hostile, unfamiliar. The energy is blocked. No flow.

Something has gone horribly wrong.

Sunday, May 28 2006

Biker Joe

Posted by keeping up with A.P. at 11:51 AM

Biker Joe's turned up, unexpectedly. He was admitted to emergency at Cabrini Medical Center sometime in the week, and is now there, apparently lapsing in and out of consciousness. I only find out about this today since he was admitted as a John Doe and it took a while for us to make an ID. It's hard to say if he's there because somebody wants him there, but he did always live pretty fast. The crash report looks plausible to me.

I'm not certain how to get to him--he's most likely being monitored, and it's not safe for me to get so involved this close to home. P. and I have to do some brainstorming, I think.

In New York

Posted by Smooth Blue at 03:50 PM

Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday dear me,
Happy Birthday to me.

Well, no one else was saying it, not even Jez, so I thought I'd say it myself.

To the lake

Posted by J-Meister at 02:01 PM

Toni thinks I'm back in England, but I'm not. I've let her think that - told her so in emails - it felt too dangerous to tell her the truth. Maybe I'm just getting paranoid. Am I getting paranoid, dear reader? Are you still out there? Are you reading me? I need to know. Need to know i'm not going mad. I saved up coins for a few days (found some on the street too) and rang Tim, just to check that I was still alive - still real, and not dreaming all this. His voice was just the same - it was so great to hear it - he said everything back home is just as I left it. Nothings changed (except that all the cars have little England flags flying from their back windows - football or something, he said) - it was so good to hear. Good old England. Good old stupid grey dull and never changing England. God I miss it.

I've been making my way gradually north (I think) - hitching, walking, sleeping rough sometimes. The beach is a good place to sleep - I've hooked up with some good people along the way - building big fires, sharing what food we have. I'm almost out of money. I feel stripped away - the last few vestiges of my old life, my life before, my identity are all leaving me. I am lighter, thinner, freer than I've ever been in my whole life. I almost feel like I could step off the ground and fly, like a lost balloon- high high into the air - coming to land in some far off country - or maybe not coming to land at all...

I've heard there's a good place not far from here - with a big lake and trees and kind people - a place I could stay and maybe get some work - get some money - some proper food - clean clothes - a shower. I'm going to keep going till I find it - keep putting one foot in front of the other

Saturday, May 27 2006

Tank

Posted by brims assemblage at 08:24 PM


It started with the dolls, I was able to see them reflected in the mirrors as I explained in my last post. (Classic Doll has arrived and joins Newt Sublime upon the table where they can be seen always when one stands in the hall. I have set up mirrors in each room so that they can always be reflected to this vantage of interior geography and head height…)

They’d started to respond to something, radio waves I had read, inscribed upon the steamed up windows of the living room in which I now stood. I hadn’t expected anything more from them but the voodoo as advertised on the packet. But, and Classic Doll started the whole thing followed by Newt, each head began a slow revolution and then spun faster at different speeds until they synchronized. Small objects in the room drew towards them and a few other small but heavier pieces made it as far as a peripheral orbit around them like insects circumnavigating a light source. I began an internal investigation:

“Wow, I wasn’t expecting that.”
“What, the…?”
“The spinning doll heads?”
“Pretty scary though I think.”
“Yeah, but they had an official health and safety seal on the box so…”
“What could go wrong?”
“Right.”

Newt’s left arm began to expand and elongate, uncoiling across the floor like a root. This ‘Evil Dead’ like oddity took about twenty minutes according to my digital watch and reached the fish tank where it finally dipped into the water with an exaggerated unfurling of its finger, pointing. I’d been watching this from the sofa in case I got varicose veins or some kind of clot.

Classic Dolls mouth began a wide opening like a start to a word, a first word that sounded like the seed of a mouth move towards sound in a flesh cathedral. ‘For even the smallest choir means more than all that has ever been said.’ The words on a flap at the base of Newts box had seemed no more than an aphorism.

Like a minute hand Newts slow brittle lips released their monotone mewl which I recorded through a tiny mike inside my watch noted for its consistent quality and comforting whir. At playback I was able to speed things up and to hear: ‘to the lake through the tank with snacks for the fish Spin-boy.’

“It’s ok.” I thought and fathomed from the short and cryptic message orated by the Newt doll that I would begin a journey with the fish. I had been a grand guardian of Pookie, Swim-Swim and Bubbles for long enough to feel comfortable climbing into their tank but I would have to do some shopping first.

I went out and bought a large can of fish treat flakes called ‘Fish flavor flaves’ which are especially shark flavoured to boost the confidence of domesticated marine life. In the fish section of the pet-shop I found a manual entitled, ‘How to construct underwater breathing apparatus in no time at all from household stuff and such and so on.’

The book informed me that I had all that I needed and using parts from discarded coffee machines found in the cafe, old gas pipes and elements from around the house I was able to construct an aid to sub-aquarianism. The fragile spires of partitioned rental rooms tottered in the wind.

During my journey:

I meet Paparazzi frogmen who ask me whether I’m a member of something called Ten-sided. Through verbiage restrictive apparatus I refuse to speak and swim off with a porpoise like spiral.

I wondered at the interconnectedness of all things and felt grateful for my chest attachment which came highly recommended in the ‘Other good stuff to do.’ chapter of the useful book that I mentioned earlier. The small parcel as such contained amongst other things a change of underwear, toothpaste and a small booklet of Impressionist paintings.

I shrank a little which may have been the result of water pressure or perhaps just the pressure of narrative.

Anyway I blanked out or something and the next thing is that I wake up hanging on a hook, comfortably but hanging is hanging. These two people pulled me out and I’m a little confused.

My neck is a little raw and chaffed because of the wraps I had used to keep my breathing bits on. I am mostly disorientated however and there are welts on my thighs that seem conspicuously like that of a tumble drier interior.

The thing is I think this is all about err…The thing is actually, now that…they’re good people, I’m just trying to acclimatize. I asked questions, but I needed time up a tree to think and to mumble for a bit amongst the soothing shrill of coconut rustle. Whilst I was up there I remembered the fish. What happened to Pookie, Swim-Swim and Bubbles?

Sunday, May 28 2006

Strange Messages

Posted by The Softest Person at 01:08 AM

I've been receiving your messages, Alicia, but I can't understand them.

Who's barefoot? What does it have to do with me?

You haven't contacted me for days and then this?

Saturday, May 27 2006

New York is an island, too

Posted by keeping up with A.P. at 11:47 AM

Yesterday morning, M. dropped a case on my desk, and as I was reading through the particulars I was surprised to find that I knew one of the secondary subjects. An ex-boyfriend, somebody I'd dated in college. He had pale, freckled skin and red hair, and back then he was really slender. We spent the first few weeks basically just rolling around in bed and wrestling and laughing a lot. He had a really short attention span, and this devilish smile that he'd give me in almost any situation. He knew how cute he was.

I spent a few minutes perusing the preliminaries. There was a photo of him, he'd filled out a bit but still looked the same. It's funny, that wasn't even that long ago but now it feels like a different life. I asked M. to give me a different case. The ex isn't a primary subject, so he'll probably be fine.

Apparently Toni's visiting New York for a little while and has insisted on meeting with me ... it's completely against protocol for her to dictate this but what the hell. I have a feeling she wants to get to the bottom of it all, or something, I may have to tell her that there's no bottom at all. I've learned so much over the past few years but I don't really feel like I know anything. Maybe Morgan can be more convincing on this point than I am, who's to say.

And on rereading the email I sent back to Toni I realized I mentioned a cookout -- what was I thinking? It's a bit like a tic at this point. After last Saturday, it might be a while before I feel like doing that again.

On my way

Posted by Smooth Blue at 01:11 PM

Here I am in Reykjavik with three hours to kill. Tiny airport with hardly any shops to wander around but, luckily, there’s a couple of computers that accept dollars. Had to so something to stop going crazy.

There’s a man at the other computer who keeps looking at me. He’s wearing a coat with an enormous hood that comes right over his face. In England they wouldn’t let him into a shopping mall, never mind an airport. And his hands on the keyboard have a green ti “Oh my God he’s coming over.”

He’s gone now, thank goodness. I was scared, I can tell you. The only bit of his face that I could see was his tiny red eyes from within the darkness of his hood. He didn’t say anything apart from, “Toni Hutton?” I answered to my name in the hope it would make him go away. Which it did but before he left, he gave me a card. On one side there are the name and address of Cochrech Industries in Picar and, on the other it says, “Toni, give me a call when you get back to Picar, Tristan.” There’s a telephone number underneath. Yeah, right, like I’d do that. Even if I go back to Picar, which I doubt.

Whoops, gotta go, they’re calling my flight. Talk to you soon.

Friday, May 26 2006

Ears

Posted by On the Lake by the Snacks at 11:59 PM

We've made fast friends with Brim. However, there is a down side to this. He doesn't like us very much at all.

And yet, he follows us around with a curious kind of attachment. "Where are you taking me?" for example. But we're just wandering, too, and maybe he knows this. "Any of you got a pen or anything?" asks he. And then, "Curtains? Curtains in a forest?"

They're all great questions and he has a very abrupt way, which is nice, we don't have to wait for him to turn on. Like that electrical hum coming from Nels which crackles but never pops. You know, the other day, Nels says, "Okay, bye now, off to work." And this is at 9 o'clock, breakfast time. We get busy hanging up some new echidna posters and classic squid cutaways. Noon rolls around. We watch Turkish football. Finally, Fleur and I take a break, for which we strike out to the park.

And there's Nels, sitting there in his van. His hands were on the wheel. Back of his head. Looking straight. Glasses. Ears. Great posture! He hadn't budged.

Brim's well ahead of us. And rising. We look and he's way up in a tree. "Hey, where you off to, little man?" Fleur said that. He looked like a little wind-up duck pinned in the sky. Now how are we going to get him down?

But you don't ever have to get Brim down. It's a principle. He stayed up there long after dark, so we slept under the moist canopy and listened to his far off voice talking all about how to rig the Olympics and what sorts of places there are to hide money. For some reason, I always think of potted plants. But it turns out that rolled up socks are the way.

The Mammalian Series

Posted by The Softest Person at 11:59 PM

While I believe my most important work are dolls like Tug Christ and my Max Ernst series, I do create a number of dolls for children because they are easy to sell to toy stores. This is my Mammalian Series. I don't necessarily do animals so much as I make dolls that have mammalian qualities - soft, boggy, milky, toothing.

These are dolls with dolls inside them and with a glass shard inside the inside-doll. Parents must remove the glass-shard before giving the toy to the child. I am not responsible for what a four year old may do to his or her own anatomy or the eyes of a friend with this shard, for these shards I gather in the street after a home game and they are terribly infected.

Fortunately only very rich people can afford to buy my mammalian toys, and these are the kinds of people who can afford to have maids look over their children. Sometimes a maid intentionally leaves the shard in the doll and a legal battle ensues. However, my packages clearly say: Remove the glass shard from the inside-animal before giving to child. Thus I am not legally responsible. Usually it's the maid that's responsible and usually she's fired for neglience.

I secretly think that the maids who leave the shard in the inside-animal secretly want to torture the eye out of their little prince anyway and my toy gives them the opportunity to do so without being put in jail.

I also have a series for poor children. I mass produce this series in a sweathshop in Asia. It's called The Truth. It's very popular among college students and other such mayhem.

I want to give one of the Mammalian dolls to Alicia and not tell her about the shard.

My Bearings

Posted by My House Arrest at 07:27 PM

I wish I could locate a map. Picar is teeming with geography, especially for such a seemingly bucolic resort town.

I wish I had my brother's shoe back. Barefoot, I can't move.

And the gorilla camera crew has also left my house arrest to document my current predicament, on the empty streets of Picar.

Without a map and a shoe, this town is as good as a prison.

the geometry of darkness

Posted by between moments at 11:04 AM

I had an uncle once – my father’s twin. Twins, twins – dig back far enough and I spect this family is prlly full of em.

Fair twin, dark twin. Twin of innocence; twin of crime. Poles and counterpoles.

But this is not true, not at all. None of us are innocent.

And what about the triplets? Do they whirl around in circles, looking for weighted circumstance to give meaning to their lives?

I digress.

Picar leads me northeast this night, along the curving western coastline. The tides are slack and silent; the inlets sparkle in the moonlight. I could stand in the dry darkness of the caves and make them echo.

But not tonight.

Tonight I head around the bend to Parallax Point, which you will never find for as long as you search. You must simply walk in its direction, and if you are meant to make discovery, you will.

If you should find the Point you will know it by these things: a flickering fire; a circle of shadowy figures. And they will chant from beneath their hooded robes just to scare you; to bring you into that wavery nightmarish place of hot sparks and uncertainty in the inky blackness of night vision ruptured by flame. The chant means nothing; the robes are mere costume. Ritual and illusion: remember this. You will only fall if it is your desire.

And tonight, again, at long last, it my desire.

My need.

Thursday, May 25 2006

gorilla-proof

Posted by between moments at 08:44 PM

This island is not that small. The eco-tourists who have the balls to come here think they can hike n bike the circumference in a week’s time, and are invariably surprised when they’re still hundreds of miles from their final destination on the day they’re due to fly out. Fly home; back to the civilized world where topography plays by cartography’s rules.

Because Picar on the map looks like your average ordinary week-long adventure island. A couple hundred miles of gorgeous coastline; crescent beaches and sea cliffs and switchback trails. Sun, sand and surf.

But Picar on the ground is a whole different story. It doesn’t matter how expensive your compass or detailed your atlas, you won’t find your way unless the island says you will. Unless yours stars and moons are right.

And there’s hazard in that, too -- because chances are you still won’t end up where you intended.

But there’s nothing to be done about that. It’s out the window I go, in the pale light of half-past midnight. Slippers, robe, old red backpack filled with things we never understand.

K3 is calling again.

blink 182

Posted by ezra kire at 07:10 PM

i'm thinking about when i was alive

in leftover crack we played those chords from that blink 182 song

during '500 channels'

i'm thinking about that

'500 channels' has the lyrics

'with my credit and my bank my mind will draw a blank'

'i'll block out history and stare at my tv'

'for me there is no way'

'500 channels waste my life away'

i'm bored

leaky boats sink fast

Posted by between moments at 11:36 AM

The problem with Jemima (or one of them, anyway) is that she talks too much. Way too much. Does not understand the weight of silence, and how it can hold things down that need to be kept in place.

Flight has become necessary. Something I should have realized days ago. Those who wish to help can only harm, themselves and others. Possibly me as well.

Jesus! That woman …

Nocturnes

Posted by My House Arrest at 11:52 AM

I’ve been on the streets of Kallarackel's deserted kingdom all night, pacing them beside my brother Horace. For the first hour or two he was not aware of my presence. Finally, he stopped and said, “Charles, let’s be serious. Give me my shoe.”

And, with that, never once looking at my eye, or my face at all, he bent down and untied the shoe. Gently he removed it. Then - he walked on. Barefoot, I was stranded alone on the hushed streets of Kallarackel. This was certainly not the host country of my crimes or those who arrested me. I had been sent far – farther than I deserved, I thought.

I watched Horace disappear down a lane, the morning mist beginning to seep in from the seaside. I screamed for Lucy. I yelled for Alicia. I received no answer. I assume they’re still captives of my once and glorious house arrest.

Stranger and Stranger

Posted by Smooth Blue at 11:01 AM

I’ve got my ticket to New York. Paid for by my first money order from AP’s ‘people’. I leave from Kallarackel Airport at 3pm on Friday and arrive at La Guardia at 6pm Saturday (New York time). The actual journey will be 38 hours with time differences and all that. It’s made worse by the fact I have to fly via Reykjavik; God knows why. Even the travel agent said he’d never heard of anyone flying via Reykjavik. Anyway, it’s all booked and I’ve started to pack.

Jemima keeps saying that it will be difficult to go. Or rather to stay away. She says I’m a person who belongs in Picar, even though I’ve only been here a short time. There’s something about this place, some force that lets you leave but soon makes you come back. And then she went on about a cave and vampire tides and K3 coming for me. Strange!

Talking about strange, I went with her to see Leo yesterday. It felt weird right from the start. Jemima packed a bag for him. It held, and this is the honest truth, an Adidas shoe (size 10), a miniature trunk, a story about a couch arguing with a rug and something she called a mollydoll. She added a pot of jello (you can never have too much jello she’s always telling me) and a Kallarackel cake.

As we left the Golden Chain, there was a man in front. “That’s Charles,” she said and, handing the bag to me, she ran after him. But she didn’t catch up with him. “Totally disappeared,” she told me, adding, “That was Horace’s brother.” It took quite a while to get to the hospital, it’s hidden out in the countryside somewhere quite far from here. It seems to be some sort of mental institution, very forbidding outside but friendlier inside, apart from the locked doors. And the nurses! Not like any nurse I’ve ever seen before! A bit too friendly with the patients if you ask me. Actually saw one on a patient’s bed, lying next to him. They wouldn’t put up with in Manchester, I can tell you.

Anyway, they talked for ages. Very intense it seemed. I couldn’t catch most of it, I was in the corner out of the way, but the odd word came to me. I caught K3 (again!), Cochrech and Tristan. They talked about Lucy too. And then we came back here. Not sure why I was there really.

When I came in I checked my emails. There was a sweet one from Jez, saying he’s back at home sorting things out and, if I go back, maybe we could meet up for a chat and a coffee some day. But there wasn’t one from Brim which worries me. I’d emailed him asking if he wanted to come to see this Helium thing in Central Park. I hope he’s alright. He’s so vulnerable – perhaps someone’s hung him out to dry.

There was one from AP. Talking about maybe having a cookout while I’m there and about me having a serious chat with someone called Morgan. I don’t know if that’s a first or last name.

So, I’m off tomorrow to the big Apple. Wonder why they call it that? Talk to you when I’m over the jet lag and the journey.

Tuesday, May 23 2006

Another One Gone

Posted by Smooth Blue at 04:23 AM

Horace has disappeared. Gone in the night. No message or anything. I'd been getting worried about him. He kept saying, “I’m being watched, I’m being watched,” and refusing to look at the window in case it was true. I never noticed anything but, I was so tired by then, I probably wouldn’t have noticed an elephant even if it stood on my toe. Just before he left, he told me he’d found something, a clue, about where Lucy is but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. Now I’ll never know.

And there’s another thing. When we discovered he’d gone, Jemima turned to me and said, “I know where Leo is.” There’d been a phone call from a nurse (another nurse!) telling her that he’s in some sort of hospital. She’s talking about visiting him and she wants me to go with her for moral support. I’ve said yes but that it will have to be quick because I’ll be getting out of here soon. My life just gets more and more complicated.

Monday, May 22 2006

On The Outside

Posted by My House Arrest at 04:37 PM

The streets are lined with cobbles and the salt spray is palpable if not confirmed. I still haven’t seen any actual shoreline. But what I did see was my brother, Horace. He was busy searching, very busy. I tapped my toe (clad in his old shoe) twice on the window pane, and he did not so much as turn his head. He seemed preoccupied, overturning pillows, dumping out drawers, and conspiring with a tired-looking maid.

So I’ve departed my house arrest. I’m out on the streets.

It might really be best for everyone, if I simply returned.

Jez's Gone

Posted by Smooth Blue at 12:44 PM

Jez’s gone. Left. I’m devastated but, in a way, I don’t blame him. We tried to make it together in an artificial situation, in a place where neither of us belonged, when neither of us was settled. So no wonder it didn’t work.

And the last week has been absolutely chaotic. There’s Horace for a start, all over the place, going on about finding Lucy and Leo when none of us knows where they are. I knew he was getting on Jez’s nerves and I’m not surprised. Expecting him to do stuff on the computer that he really wasn’t able to do. I did my best to help Horace, tried to find out information for him. Asking everyone questions, looking through the cellar, things like that. Have to say I’ve got quite close to old Horace. He’s had a tough life really, lost contact with his twin brother, Charles, and now he’s looking for his twin children, especially Lucy, and getting nowhere.

And the other thing is, I’m doing some work for AP, well not directly for AP, there are other people in charge but he’s the one I’m sending information to. Don’t understand it really, what I’m doing, but it seems to be going OK, no complaints yet anyway.

So, all in all, I’ve been running round like a fool for a week. No time to post in my blog or anything. Life should be a bit easier now. Jez’s gone, which is a shame, but now I don’t even have to pretend to respond to those come-to-bed eyes. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested, it was just that I didn’t have time.

My job for Jemima finishes this week as well. Holber’s coming back to work on Thursday. And I think Horace will be going soon too, I think he’s learnt all he can and it’s obvious Jemima doesn’t want to be around.

I think it’s coming to decision time. Do I stay here? Do I carry on working for AP when I know there’s more to it than appears on the surface and there might come a point where I’m involved so deep that I can’t get out? Sometimes having money isn’t worth the price to pay. So maybe I should go back to Manchester and being a nurse. My four weeks unpaid leave is nearly up and my job and my flat are waiting for me.

But the other thing is, I’ve had an email from Helium. He’s doing one of his balloon installations in Central Park soon. It will be an enormous balloon that reflects the sky for most of the time, but when it changes it will show the night sky (in the day) and the day sky (in the night). So one minute there’ll be a seemingly empty blue sky and the next there’ll be a big chunk of nighttime in the middle of it, complete with shooting stars and the moon. It starts on 28 May, which is my 36th birthday and I’m thinking that, maybe, I could go over to New York to see it. I could make that crunch time, time when I decide finally, home or carry on with this lucrative but suspicious deal AP’s sorted out for me. Maybe I could even meet up with him, talk face to face, find out more about what’s involved. I think that’s what I’ll do.

I’ve never been to Central Park. Or to New York if it comes to that. I wonder if there are bears in Central Park? Probably, because I’m pretty certain there’s gorillas.

Collar Poisonings

Posted by On the Lake by the Snacks at 06:32 AM

We lugged up Brim and hung him up high where we could let the water drip down. On a hat rack in the motel. We let him air out a few days. Poor waterlogged joints. His knees especially, but mostly his face.

Yeah, let's see: you've got the lake and the motel and the trading shack and the sausage stand and the book mausoleum. That's it.

Saturday morning, Fleur and I came down and sat on the circular green rug just near Brim's feet. Both of us were wearing sky blue.

"So?" he said.

We nodded. We were sitting back to back. Arms folded, with sunglasses.

"So really? This is it?"
Fleur said, "What?"
"The inside of my washing machine?"
"Could be."
"It definitely is."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"That you're sure."
"Am I dry yet?"
"In a bit. You are sure then?"
"No."
"But."
"Exactly, but I can remember the sensation of the soles of my feet scraping against the linoleum of the kitchen."
"You must think you're pretty important."
"Well, somebody's trying to kill me."
"How's that?"
"With a car."
"No, how is that?"
"I'll show ya when my elbow moves again."

Fleur stopped a moment, a most expert pause, and I breathed in and then gave my explanation of the crisis he has contrived, how it places him at the center of existence while everything else folds outward.

"Am I gonna get a cramp up here?" And he also complained of itching and swelling in the collar. "What's that disease that travels on the hook?"

I told him cholera is intestinal, that he would feel a tremendous force in his stomach. This calmed him. I hit him hard with a common relaxation technique: I explained a few of the hundreds of words which Eskimos have for snow. This was certainly a grave embellishment, but we did take the hangman down after that.

Sunday, May 21 2006

A Choice is Made

Posted by My House Arrest at 01:29 PM

Lucy and I were at a standstill. Who knows what Alicia was up to, but I assure you it involved her mollydoll. I wore my twin brother’s shoe, and I was perfectly willing to step right through the hedge.

“Escapes are not uncommon,” I told Lucy. “Just recently, another man fled this bucolic village.”

She simply shook her head.

“Okay then, Lucy. Just tell why I must stay – give me one explicit reason.”

She did not answer. Instead she dropped to one knee and reached for the laces of my shoe. She yanked them into a tight and secure double-knot.

Gone

Posted by J-Meister at 11:15 AM

I'll have to be quick, dear reader. I'm having to pay for this internet connection, and I need to save what little cash I've got left.

I've done it, I've got away. It was really starting to feel that bad - like I needed to escape. I felt like Toni was watching my every move, checking everything I did - quizzing me about who I'd spoken to in the guesthouse, out in the street. Every night she would sit up late poring over sheets of numbers and funny squiggles. If i tried to distract her or something, she'd snap my head off - even if I flashed my puppy eyes at her or gave her my best come-to-bed smile, it wouldn't work. Some days she'd brighten up, her eyes shining, and be all attentive and nice with me - but I think that was just the days when she'd managed to work something out - get her code-breaking fix, or whatever the hell it is.

Last night it just all got too much. She didn't come home and I had no idea where she was. I couldn't sleep - kept tossing and turning - slipping in and out of more wierd and scary dreams (there are bears now too - bears dressed as people, people dressed as gorillas, giant children with wild staring eyes and horrible mocking laughter). God, enough of that... Anyway, I just got up out of bed, threw my stuff in my bag and set off. I left a note for Toni - can't even remember what I put on it now. Something garbled about needing some space I think. I walked out of town and up on to the main road - managed to get a lift from the first truck that went past. And now I'm somewhere else - don't even know where. The trucker dropped me here - said it had good coffee. Its just a big shack really - but at least I can get somethign to eat and get this message out. Don't know where I'm going to go next. I couldn't find my passport when I left. I hope to god Toni hasn't done something stupid with it.

Toni, if you're reading this, I'm sorry. I know you'll be upset, but I didn't know what else to do. Please look after yourself. Whatever you're getting into, and I don;t want to know what it is - think about it. Think about it before it's too late. Remember what happened with the gambling. That felt good for awhile but look where it led. You're too wonderful a person to get messed up in something bad - don't lose yourself again. I care about you. I really do.

Please don't try to follow me.

fucked

Posted by ezra kire at 08:41 AM

i felt fucked in india

i felt fucked in new york city

in brooklyn after a show fourteen year olds came up to me

and i felt fucked

i said to the audience, 'fuck the police' and i felt fucked

a fourteen year old came up to me on the street

i said, 'fuck barnes and noble'

i said, 'fuck mohawks'

there's a photo of me as a young man on the internet and i have a mohawk

i was born in india

A Fine Job on a Very Full Lake

Posted by On the Lake by the Snacks at 12:57 AM

So, we are still in the woods and, a few days ago, a bear walked up to us, dressed in a very loose-fitting man costume. The mask was crepe paper and full-color. The gown was some shiny tie-on material. An ordinary man-style costume. A middle-class father with some paperwork to do and a general look of malaise.

And it was with some boredom that the bear walked by and said, loudly, "We've all got jobs to do. We all fit in somewhere."

Fleur and I both laughed because he said it like it was some kind of desparate joke. He kept walking and we kept walking. We had seen several other bears in the woods. Those bears had plenty of paperwork as well. But many of them were asleep or drunk with honeypots in their hands. And they fit in just fine.

We stopped for a bit to take a sip from a drinking fountain. The fountain was still attached to a staircase, which was laid out horizontally, a very long and winding staircase, parallel to the ground, still attached to the supercomputer. Remnants of the old control tower. You had to lie prone to get a drink. But it was good, pure water. Fleur took a stab at running up the stairs. Earlier, we had seen a bear in a blue shirt bounding up several flights with a clipboard. He kept falling on the dirt, too.

Soon, we found ourselves walking toward the first bear again, the one dressed as a typical man. We were walking the same way and he was walking in his original way. This time, he comes right up to us and says, "You know, I found a spot for you guys. Do you want it?"

Fleur says, "We're looking for a..." She sort of moved her hands.

"Just treat me like I'm one of you," said the bear. "Tell me, relate to me."

"We're looking for a young woman," said Fleur. "Brown hair and glasses. Very petite. But she's gotten bigger, hasn't she?"

"Age: forty-six. Five five. I mean she's small," I said, "Yes, and brown hair."

"Well," said the Bear, as man, "it sounds like you two would be perfect for an opening I have at the lake. It's a volunteer position and you get to talk to one British guy and there are possible blogging opportunities. Events happen there which are often bloggable, suitable for the public daily archivist inside you. There's a zipline and a trading shack."

Fleur outright busted up at that and, since I'm a blogger, I was just a bit befuddled, but Fleur thinks the word is crap, so she really gave it a mocking laugh. "No, no this is bloggable enough," she said. "No, no, thankyou, but no. We have a staircase. Show him, Pal. We have a staircase, right? Absurd, I love this. I am losing my mind. I love this!"

And the bear took off his man mask, as best he could, and looked at us with very sorrowful bear eyes, and he said, "There is a little boy drowning in that lake right now."

We were very concerned and ran down the trails behind the bear, though we had a hard time getting through some very dense electromagnetic waves, invisible but textured like thick foliage. We came around the lake and many bears were off in canoes, enjoying the day, but we clearly saw some catastrophic splashing just off the dock's end. Fleur kept her feet bolted to that last plank as she reached down to the wavering, colorless image of the boy underwater. His fingers now gently wrestled against the surface of the welling, burgeoning lake and she latched upon them and heaved the man out. For as he came out of the water, his body grew in scope and deployed new sizes of ribcages. This was the promised British man, sputtering lung and swatting us away, insisting that he was Brim.

Saturday, May 20 2006

Cookout tomorrow!

Posted by keeping up with A.P. at 09:30 AM

Looks like the weather's going to turn out great tomorrow for our cookout. I sent out an evite earlier but the same disclaimer applies: If you didn't get one just let me know, I probably forgot to put your email into the invite list.

My roommate Graham's been talking about how he's going to caramelize some onions, which I gotta say I'm pretty psyched about. And a certain somebody says she might even bring by some kalbee, which would make it all multiethnic-style. If you seen the Flickr photos you know how big the last one got. So bring friends, and friends-of-friends, and friends-of-friends-of-acquaintances-of-neighbors-of-friends, etc. See y'all tomorrow!

Thursday, May 18 2006

happy

Posted by ezra kire at 08:24 PM

i was crying

i was in the house crying on the bed

i stopped crying

i thought, 'wait'

i thought, 'i'm happy'

i thought, 'wait'

i realized i was happy not depressed

i am happy

today i am happy

i am in the house on the bed happy

Wednesday, May 17 2006

Two Glorious Days

Posted by My House Arrest at 09:32 PM

For two days, Lucy has been locked away in the attic and the transmissions have been constant. And during these past two days, it would be no exaggeration to assert that my house arrest has reached its greatest glory. And for these two days, Alicia and I have sat at our kitchen table, regarding my twin brother’s shoe. I know Horace and I know he’ll want it back.

Finally, I could wait no longer, and, with Alicia’s nod of blessing, I reached for the shoe and loosened the laces. As I slipped my foot inside, Lucy came bounding down the stairs.

“No, Ol’ Uncle Charles,” she warned. “I must tell you that is not such a good idea.”

back to work

Posted by keeping up with A.P. at 05:50 AM

P. and I had some rough words first thing Monday morning, but I have to admit she's right; I have been letting it all get to me too much. Not showing enough professionalism. I had a good mope over the weekend, but this week I've shrugged it off and I've been really cranking. Mostly just research, no trips planned yet but of course you never know. These days I am the master of the getting the last-minute reservation.

Called Toni back and worked out some details like payment info and whatnot. For now I've just got her on reporting duty. Tell me everything you see, I told her. Of course I didn't explain much further. Her ignorance will simplify matters. She was suspicious of my cover story regarding travel research, and I suppose I could've worked harder at that. That's okay. Most of her doubts will probably disappear once those money orders start arriving.

Tuesday, May 16 2006

Posted by Voidwalker's realm at 10:36 PM

To all those with your "clever parodies" of the photo of me with the katana, where you're holding screwdrivers, wooden spoons, and candy bars: Thanks. The lawyer says getting ridiculed is good for building sympathy for me. Keep them coming.

What's happening

Posted by J-Meister at 05:20 PM

Things just keep getting wierder. Jemima (who runs the place where we;re staying) - well, her supposedly long lost husband, Horace, turned up at the weekend and he's been driving me mad ever since. He seems to be on some kind of mad mission, and he's got Toni roped into it - and now he's trying to get me too. Keeps saying he needs my ace computer skills (like hell) cos he's got to find Lucy (the supposedly long lost daughter). I don't know what the hell is going on. And I can't really get much sense out of Toni. She seems to love all this mystery. Looking for clues in everything. She'd be reading my tea leaves given half a chance. I've started going for long walks on my own - mostly by the sea. Wondering if I should just get out of here. I do miss my boat now. A lot. I miss Tim's stupid little face and even my mother's sarcastic comments. I miss the English skies - all damp and grey and unpredictable. Here the skies are too big - you just get lost in them. God, I'm started to get all poetic.

And I'm worried about Brim too. He seems to be having the same gorilla dreams that I had (are they dreams? Am we both going loopy?). And here's something really wierd - I dreamt about Jesus bloody Christ last night - looking all god like and floating above the water - it sort of looked like the sea here, but I was in my boat, bobbing about and feeling out of control. Jesus (I can't believe I'm writing this down - the men in white coats will be along soon) starts pointing down into the water, and I see someone there, battling the waves - and I realise its Brim (even though I've never met the guy - it was just that dream logic - you know) and I tried to steer the boat towards him but the waves were too big and pushing me back, and I saw him go down once, twice.. and then I woke up, feeling crap, like i'd lost a part of me - and I had to make my excuses to Toni and take one of my long long walks. I've just heard her voice downstairs - she's back from work early. I'd better stop now. Goodbye. Goodbye

Monday, May 15 2006

gravity rides everything

Posted by between moments at 10:11 PM

There are some things that are so true you can’t believe them; you spend your whole life fighting against their weight. Any son of Picar should know his life will always be someone else’s game to play. Free will, self determination – these thing exist, for sure. But on the small island where I was born there are other forces in motion – forces that supercede even the strongest of wills to pursue one’s own reality.

You can escape these forces for a while, but only because they let you. Which is, of course, no escape at all. And eventually you end up right back where you started: drenched in an ocean cave, tides turning ebb, draining your life force back to the sea. Vampire tides.

There will be moonlight on your face, as you lie flat on your back within the arch of the cave. Chest heaving, hair matted, patches of sand clinging to your chilled skin. There will be a presence all around you – a presence you cannot see (of course) but can most certainly feel. And those childhood ghost stories – all that legend and campfire bullshit -- will suddenly be true. K3 will have come for you.

It doesn’t matter if you’re of native or colonial blood; karaii or karaiia -- you can see from the words themselves how unimportant such a distinction is. What matters are your moons – the ones you were born under – and whether they can tap your tides. Conduct you like a circuit board; an electrified marionette.

And yeah, there’s power to be had in going with the flow, especially if your tides are strong. You can surf it, kinda. It’ll get you high. Riding that cresting wave of energy, hundreds of thousands of years of everything K3 has come to be. Not one man – not even a king. So much more than that.

But there’s always a wipeout in the end. An ocean cave, ebb tides. Gasping for breath as the rippling moonlight takes everything away from you. And each time it takes more than you thought you had, until you find yourself inhabiting negative space. You no longer exist.


Boo.

The Shoe of Revelations

Posted by My House Arrest at 01:05 PM

This morning I visited Lucy in her attic (it’s my my house arrest, but, I’ve admitted, the attic, and the transistor radios, are all hers). She’s there before I wake each morning and still tweaking dials when I rest my head to sleep. But this morning she was conducting a symphony – it was a glorious chorus of crackles, static and hissing pops. I shouted to her, “You’ve done it! You’ve found a frequency!”

Without patience she shoved back her safety goggles. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m transmitting.” Then she offered me her first smile. “Transmitting like I’ve never fucking done before.”

Luckily, Aliss arrived at the moment and took my hand. She led me down the flights of stairs to the ground floor of my house-prison and out into our small garden, where we came up to the rich bush – an azalea – from which she came. The exact spot where I first found the girl, clutching her rope doll. She pointed at the dirt and said, “Please. Smell. Take a sniff, Ol’ Uncle Charles.”

I dropped to my knees and did this very thing. And I’m not sure if I liked what I smelled. The smell of salt and fish and oxygen-rich air. Apparently we were living in a seaside town. It was the wrong place all together for a truly glorious house arrest.

When I stood back up she was holding forth a shoe – three stripes along the side. Nambo’s shoe – from my trunk.

“How did you get that, my girl?”

“I opened the trunk.”

Things were not going right. The house arrest was not holding together. “Then, am I right to assume you’ve taken possession of the mollydoll? My mollydoll.”

She nodded. And pushed Nambo’s shoe into my arms.

“What do I want with this fool’s shoe?”

“Before Nambo wore that shoe, it was loved and worn by another man. He told me to call him Horace.”

“Horace? Dear Aliss, do you know who Horace is? He is Ol’ Uncle Charles’ twin brother.”

She hadn’t known and she didn’t seem to find this fact remarkable. Instead, she told me to put on the shoe. “It will carry you out,” she said. “With this shoe on, you can walk through the hedge and straight to the sea.”

“What? But Aliss, this is the Golden Age of my house arrest.”

I stared through a gap in the hedge and feared what lay beyond.

“And, please, Ol’ Uncle Charles. It’s time you call me Alicia. I believe that name has become available once again. Alicia.”

And with that a scream came from the attic, the voice of 1,000 transistors in unison. The girl and I looked to the sky and watched the blue atmosphere shiver. It was in this moment that Lucy led the world in prayer – a prayer in my name.

Sunday, May 14 2006

nine-tenths of the law

Posted by between moments at 09:17 PM

No, I don’t think Aliss is one of them. I think she’s mixed up in it now, somehow, and if I discover it’s my fault I’ll probably try to kill myself all over again.

What am I saying? Of course it’s my fault – if it wasn’t she wouldn’t be involved. She’d still be here. Or ... wherever she is when she’s not with them.

Which is most certainly where she currently is. With Them. Fuck. And she probably has no idea what’s going on. How could she? Aliss knows a lot about a lot, but who could ever grok K3 unless they were allowed?

I can only imagine what kind of scenery they’ve painted for her; what the hell they’ve said about me. Have they cast me as a twisted monster? Pathetic nutjob? I guess neither is far from the truth if you’re standing in a certain light. But neither one is accurate without the proper context, either (is anything?) and if she believes them I’ll never be able to reach her.

Fucking Lucy.

She ... oh, SHE – she’s been with them all along. I know this now. She didn’t just show up on my doorstep. She was sent. And she didn’t need my help to find her way back to Picar. K3 could have deposited her on Jemima’s doorstep anytime she wanted. Or at least, anytime they wanted.

Maybe that’s how they p0wned her.

Monday, May 15 2006

murder

Posted by ezra kire at 02:27 AM

i am in heaven

i hate everyone

jesus christ told me i was immature

i hate everyone

i will kill everyone

i will kick jesus christ's nose bone out the back of his skull

i will kill jesus christ

jesus christ said i was immature

i will kill him

i will kill everyone

i hate everyone

Busy

Posted by The Softest Person at 01:52 AM

I've been very busy. I've even been too busy to figure out who wrote me the strange letter about Alicia. Too busy to really truly figure out once and for all who Alicia is. Where did I meet her? How did she get so involved with my friends and customers? I fear I've scared her to the point where she won't ever answer.

Mostly I've been busy making a wide variety of dolls - classic dolls, deformed dolls, religious dolls, molly dolls, animals dolls, shrapnel dolls, music dolls. What has made me even busier is that in each one of them I include a clue, a deformity, a hidden object which will solve the mystery of why these dolls were made.

I have often felt that the problem with consumerism is that all meaning is obliterated. I am a firm believer in craft and meaning. All else is perversion. And my dolls without the proper understanding is nothing short of perversion. So to save my customers from utter perversion and depravity, I have begun to include clues - either in the doll or on the packaging. Alicia understands the clues and that's what gives her such power.

Sunday, May 14 2006

Twins

Posted by Smooth Blue at 11:15 AM

Yesterday afternoon I went to the hospital with Jemima to visit Holber, the woman whose job I’ve been doing. It was weird to be back in hospital again, my feet squeaking on the lino floor surrounded by the antiseptic hospital smell that had an occasional undercurrent of urine and boiled cabbage. I felt like I should be in my uniform, bustling down to A & E ready to face the scared, the belligerent and the intoxicated. But instead I followed Jemima to Holber’s bedside and sat quietly while Holber told us that she was hoping to come home soon and, after a week’s convalescence, she would be fit to work again.

When we arrived back at the Golden Chain there was a strange man sitting on the doorstep. Well, he was strange to me but Jemima knew him. It was Horace, the husband who’d left 10 years ago. No one had seen him since, but from the way he talked to Jemima, you’d think he’d just popped out for a packet of jello. At first, when he started asking, “Where’s the twins?" I thought he was talking about me and Ann and I suddenly felt a huge pang of homesickness.

Jemima told him that Lucy had gone away to help a friend and she hadn’t seen Leo for about 7 years. He tended to find life difficult and she suspected that he’d had some kind of breakdown just before he left. “Left suddenly,” she said, “I came home one evening and he was gone. No note or anything.” She glared at Horace. “Like father, like son.”

Horace paced up and down asking, “How do you know he’s not dead?” but not listening to the answer Jemima gave, which was that Leo sent the occasional postcard saying, “Don’t worry, I’m doing OK.” She offered to get them for him and went into the house to find them. Horace followed her in and within minutes I heard raised voices in the kitchen. “You should have looked after them,” he shouted, “I left you in charge of my twins and when I come back, I find you’ve let them go off God knows where.” “They’re adults,” Jemima said, “adults!”

I went upstairs out of the way. Jez was on the computer. “Hey, look at this,” he said as soon as I walked through the door, “They did a virtual funeral in an online game for one of the players who really died.” “Yeah?” I said, not really listening. “And a bunch of other players raided the funeral,” he went on, “and it all ended up in chaos.”

I sat down on the bed and said, “Holber’s coming back to work soon. I’ll lose my job.” “Hmm?” said Jez, still looking at the screen. Then the door burst open and there was Horace, his face all red and angry. “Clues,” he said, “I need clues about where Lucy is. I’ve got to find her. Maybe she knows where Leo is.” He pulled the pictures down off the wall and stuffed them in his pocket. He took the books down off the bookshelves, flicked through them then tossed them on the floor. When the bookshelves were empty but the floor was piled up, he searched through all the drawers, most of which had mine and Jez’s stuff in. Any letters or documents, including the one from Aliss, he slid inside his shirt because his pockets were full. Then he turned to the computer. “Get off there,” he said to Jez, “I need to look for clues.” Jez hesitated before standing up and letting Horace sit down in front of the computer. He put his hands on the keyboard and then looked up at Jez. “How do you work this damn thing?”

I left them to it and went to sit out in the garden and try AP again. It was still his answerphone and I left another message. What’s up with these people, saying mysterious things and then never having their mobile turned on?

Saturday, May 13 2006

Craters

Posted by brims assemblage at 06:32 AM

I can’t avoid the Gorillas any longer. I can feel their primate sinew stretch in the night like ethereal wire connected to yesterdays flesh, a synaptic trace of this morphological variant like a splinter from a hologram. Our great dark and brutal clown parades from dream and nightmare, safely withered by entertainment but perhaps just a tiny bit of Antonin Artauds’ vision for the re-birth of ancient rites remain for those close enough to the costumes surprise.

I woke up yesterday on the floor, unable to breath and my pillows were thrown outward and away from the bed as I unconsciously ejected my body to escape disappearance. I haven’t had an attack for a while. I had been trying to keep tabs on my repression, my little carpet lifter and visceral sump.

Classic Doll has arrived and joins Newt Sublime upon the table where they can be seen always when one stands in the hall. I have set up mirrors in each room so that they can always be reflected to this vantage of interior geography and head height, a moment of panoptic certainty.

Some things of troubling:

1. Missing things, for example those that for a moment offered an opportunity to overcome traffic with regards my first post and the little relic reasonably known as cat mummy for identification purposes that turned up in Jezs’ houseboat and more recently Nambos’ shoe.
2. The little notes upon which the word ‘Shoe’ had been written remain a mystery. The letters on the reverse T. C. W so far mean nothing to me.
3. Everybody else seems to be travelling somewhere else apart from me. Brim here in bloody Camberwell, this remnant zone and survivor of the Blitz that left so many fetid pools for the delinquent children of Bauhaus to mud pie in.
4. Watch this space.

Friday, May 12 2006

things fall apart

Posted by between moments at 11:06 PM

The new “nurse” has disappeared (no surprise there) but her visit has been memorable. Heh. Fuck. To say the least.

She was in my room last night, all moonlight on the edge of the bed, and maybe it was just a crazy lucid dream like I used to have – I don’t know. Maybe they’ve started cooking my meds into my jello because they know I’m not fucking taking them.

Anyway. I wake up and her tart little face is in mine, slanting angles and a strange softness, and her bony fingers wrapped around my wrist. Cold hands.

“He needs to get out,” she whispers, dark eyes shining. “Please don’t try to stop us.” The look on my face must have been saying something, because she smiles then, a hint of menace, and squeezes my wrist.

And I get a flash – like a video montage – of the whole damn thing. From the beginning. Cochrech’s easy smile, that first day in class, feet up and chair tilted back but eyes oh-so alert. Camping at crater lake: firelight, rustling underbrush, snapped twigs, that blur in the woods, terror and exhilaration and acid shakes in the sleeping bag all night. The knives, the blood, the scars. The freefall into sweet, all-seeing oblivion. And then graduation, K3 in the shade of the greening maples, smoking his damn cigar. So fucking cliché, all of it. Which is exactly why it worked.

And I had forgotten it all – all but Tristan’s name, Tristan’s face. And a hazy narrative in my head that matched not at all the truth I’d just remembered. How the fuck did that happen?

“Alicia,” I blurted out – surprised the both of us. She looked excited but scared. Glanced around in classic paranoid fashion, then leaned in close.

“Leo,” she said, but it became a kiss before it was ever fully a word, my name, her lips, her hips pressed hard against mine, sliding over my prone body, knees to either side, but she kept sliding and then she was gone. Nothing left but a trace of cinnamon and me to wonder if I’d just woken up – or if I was still sleeping.


Alicia.

Tristan.

Good Christ, is that what this is all about?

Then that makes Lucy ... and Aliss too?

Oh, hell.

stormy weather

Posted by keeping up with A.P. at 12:52 PM

It's funny how your mood can change: A few days ago I was on my way home and happy with how everything went at the conference, but the last few days I've been feeling really blah. I suppose part of it's been the weather. Grey skies really get me down.

The work itself has been light. No operations, really, just paperwork and open research. I even snuck away for a matinee of M:i:III which I thought was pretty great in a mindless sort of way.

But I can't help but feel that the organization is rudderless, and I'm being pulled adrift with it. Not financially, there's plenty of work, but I can't remember what we're supposed to be doing anymore. It's part of what I picked up at the conference. I'm not certain if it's the politics, or the fact that there are so many more global players now, or maybe just the fact that we have too much money and don't know how to spend it all. But you can see the signs: Too many anonymous clients. Operators with unclear motives. Less people at the conference who were happy to be introduced to strangers.

On the plane I read an article about how pork is farmed -- apparently the meat spoils quickly if the pigs are stressed, which they are from being locked into small cubes for their whole lives. In the 1990s, a scientist discovered what he thought was the gene that made pigs stressed, and they bred it out of them but it didn't do anything. Pigs still died of shock when tractors drove too close to the barn. The meat still went rancid.

Yesterday on the way home from work, I stopped in Union Square Park and found a spot on a bench. The sky was grey and there was a wind picking up. I sipped a Coke and watched couples walk by with children in expensive scooters, and I tried to figure out exactly the point when I stepped off the rails of a normal life. Was it when I was leaving college and let myself be recruited? Any of a dozen times where a mission took me deeper than I'd thought I would go before? Or maybe the idea that I had a choice was an illusion in of itself, an easy mantra we tell ourselves at night so that we can get up in the morning. Maybe I would always end up here. Maybe I was made for this.

At some point Toni, from that guest house, called me, but I just let it go to voice mail. I haven't been in the mood to talk to anybody, and I already know how to get in touch with her regardless.

Everything is murkier now. The decks need to be cleared but I have no idea what that requires, and just thinking about it makes me anxious. weather.com says it's going to rain tonight.

Thursday, May 11 2006

The Burroughs From the Trees

Posted by On the Lake by the Snacks at 09:17 PM

Hey, I've mentioned Nels' computer, haven't I? This thing is massive, I had no idea. We're just at Checkpoint L, relay 77, and I'm logged into a little screen that's plugged in down here.

Fleur and I have paced out eighty kilometers and we haven't even hit the spires yet. It's a decommissioned military supercomputer which used to fit vertically inside the very tall control tower in Seabirth, with a large percentage added underground during its second run. I think Nels said that the machine has only been powered down twice in its career. The last shutdown, back in 1986, was thought to be the last, when the Burroughs Corporation replaced it with a bunch of smaller computers that worked together on train cars, attached and stuff.

Nels was trying to mind his business as a minor technician on the faxmodem couplings, but news trickled down of management's plans to sail the machine off on a desolate iceberg. Finding himself very attached to machine -- due in part to a ten-year-long affection, but also incident to an elastic umbilicle fiber which kept the computer advised about the possible fluids and visceral resources available from its caretakers -- Nels marched up in a glorious fit (and one can just taste the sousaphone soundtrack) and offered the vast woods astride his apartment building as a crashpoint. Let the V-A 1200 Supercomputer give a heave of relief and settle its adequate trunk and spread out beneath the canopy. A few cords, of course, trailing up into the windows of my dear brother-in-law. And I do remember his perky whistling that day, skippety can do. We applauded, we barbecued, we nearly carried him on our shoulders, we certainly pounded the barrels. His depression granted him one day's immunity.

So, from the looks of it, I can't say that any kind of life has been back into Checkpoint L. It's like a world of magnetic crates and cylinders. A very large black unit is trying to detach itself from a very large dark dark black unit. None among the array of dark, house-sized diamonds and ellipses seems to care. It is rising so slowly. Fleur stood next to it and it was shoulder-height off the ground. She ran around it once and came back several minutes later. Stood near it and it was up to her chin. She whacked it with the tip of her blowtorch and it didn't do a thing. She fired up the torch and burned off a few cords and Nels got on the speaker.

He's back at the flat. He said he knew we were up to no good. An elephant character on his screen (probably off in the background of Bloodfoot Palisades) had jiggled. Overall rendering had suffered. One of his chat windows skipped a line. An online woman, a housewife, was revealing the location of a secret donkey. We had erased the 9-digit access code to the drawbridge.

"You should come down here sometime, Nels! Your computer looks like it's breaking!" I yelled.

"Then, it's probably working exactly right," his compressed voice bellowed. "Appearances mean nothing in the computer world. It's the design." He smacked his lips. He was probably eating a cinnamon bun.

"We're pretty deep," I said, in case he cared.

There was a silence and we walked on. We shared some dried fruit and stopped behind an upright circuit board, printed: Relay 77. Fleur has the schematics. She's really great at this stuff. I think she's paying alot more attention since her sandals got melted off when we crossed over that chrome conduit.

Made it at last (I think)

Posted by J-Meister at 02:53 PM

God, I can't believe its only been a week since i last wrote in here. It feels like forever. I feel like I've been to the moon and back, and there's part of me still out there that hasn't managed to catch up. this is the first time I'[ve had a chance to get on to a computer (there's a couple in teh place Toni and I are staying that guests are allowed to use - there a bit old and slow but get there in teh end (bit like me then - apart from the "old" bit).

So, where should I start? I finally got here on Monday night after the journey from hell - I couldn't believe that I'd actually got to the right place - not till I saw Toni come running out of the house to see me. God, I was so pleased to see her, you couldn't believe. Let's go back to the beginning of this epic adventure, dear readers...

So, I managed to get to Liverpool on that Friday (in another lifetime, that feels like). Lots of boring sitting around waiting, and the trains were in a mess too, so it took me forever to get back home. Had to lie to my dear mother- said I'd been off with Tim on one of this crackpot days out and we'd ended up getting delayed. Didn't want her to know about the whole passport/running off to the other side of the world to be with Toni/probably jacking in my job thing. The next day Tim helped me book the cheapest last minute flight we could find - with some crap airline I'd never heard of, that sounded like the former Soviet blok equivalent of Easy Jet or something. Ver y early (and I mean very very god awful early) on Sunday morning Tim drove me down to Gatwick (I suppose he is good for something after all - actually I quite miss him come to think of it). [I left a long loving note for my mother by the way, just in case you're worrying about the state of her sanity] Anyway, I arrived in good time and got through customs only to be told the flight was delayed for a couple of hours. No big deal. I munched my way through my Marmite sandwiches, trying to make them last till boarding time. Just as I ate the last one, there was another announcement - another two hour delay. Shit. I went round duty free for the umpteenth time and read all the magazines on the newsagents shelves (without buying any - canny, eh!) Needless to say, dear reader, the delay ended up being 9 hours in all - 9 HOURS! You can imagine what state I was in by the time I finally got on board (especially as I'd started treating myself to a little drinky poos every hour on the hour after the first five hours had dragged by). We eventually took off and I think I must have fallen asleep straight away - forgot to put that sign up that saiys "wake me for meals" though, so I woke up some long time later starving hungry and very bleary eyed. I though we must have arrived as the plane seemed to have landed - but no-one was showing any signs of getting off. Then all these scary looking men in uniforms came on board and started checking everyone's passports - luckily mine was shiny new and legit. THen this was the wierd bit - and I still don't know if I'd fallen back asleep or entered some wierd hunger and hang-over induced hallucinatory state - the plane was suddenly full of gorillas (or maybe it was people in gorilla suits, I don't know) and they were going along the aisles asking if anyone was English. Well me, being Mr nice and polite and well brought up, put my hand up - and they came and asked if I knew someone called Brim in London. Aagh!!! Wierd and horrible and spooky and everything all at once. I really hope it was a dream. I really hope I didn't tell them anything (though of course it wouldn't matter if I did - seeing as it was only a dream, right?). Then they were gone, adn the plane took off but seemed to go just straight up in the air and back down again - and suddenlty I was in the right place, and getting my luggage and throwing myself in teh first battered looking taxi I could find... and now I'm here.

And its's a lovely place where Toni has landed up - and friendly and welcoming guest house kind of place, near the sea. And there's nothing to do but hang out with her, when she's not working, and go for walks and stuff. And it is great to see her, but I can't help feeling strange too ( i haven't told her the wierd stuff from the plane - adn I know she won't be reading this anymore now that she's got the real thing - i.e. the lovely me, in the flesh. I don't want her to think I'm a loony. Its shaken me up - reminded me of all the blue women stuff that happened before and that I'd tried to forget). Anyway, like I said, it feels good to be with Toni, but I also don't really know what I'm doing here. I feel a bit lost - a bit shell shocked - like i ought to be somewhere else, but I don't know where. She seems to be so at home here - she's found out about all the local history and customs and the name of former kings and obscure stuff like that, and she keeps going on about it all. That, and dolls. Why is a grown woman so interested in dolls, I don't want to know.

Anyway, dear reader - bear with me, and don't forget me. It feels good writing in here - its like a link with my old self. Good old Jez. I even miss my boat, just a little...

Wednesday, May 10 2006

dropped?

Posted by between moments at 09:12 PM

What the fuck? New Nurse just came in and snatched the Adidas off the trunk. Looked me right in the eye as she squeezed it in her firm little hand. “Tristan needs this,” she says. Struts the fuck out.

Tristan?

If she means Tristan Cock-Wreck my whole sideways world just went upsidedown.

buns

Posted by between moments at 05:55 PM

New nurse today. Weird. Curvy little brown slip of a thing, breezed in with my tray of fucking jello and wafted out again on a cloud of ... cinnamon? Twitch of the hips in her tight little uniform, underneath which she was clearly not wearing granny panties. Come to think of it, none of the other nurses dress like that. They all wear scrubs. It was almost like this chick’s getup was ... a costume?

Christ, I hope she didn’t poison my fucking jello. I’m the only one around here who’s allowed to kill myself, and I’m done with that gig. Things are getting way too interesting.

Children

Posted by brims assemblage at 05:26 PM

Sadly this week Sally, the new girl at a small shop that I have so far neglected to mention, a long standing corner shop that nudges right up to the edge of the right side of the café had an accident. She slipped inside the café during her lunch hour and twisted her ankle and I am to blame because it was I that had waxed the floor that morning. I had been thinking of other things, I had been thinking about Classic Doll and Alma Halmstrom. Alma had a small house in an area not all that far from where Toni is living at the moment. He had wrist charms that gave out far seeking symbols that rose to occasions of danger like engorged nipples and inspiring a sort of tremulous dodge that threatened a decent day, that’s what it says on the side of the doll box at The Softest Persons web.

The box that embalms Classic Doll, until the seal breaks to that first gasp of obsolescence, is slightly more attractive than the case that Newt Sublime arrived in. Classic Doll is an earlier pearl born of fine technique, steady hand spirit and that lotion totemness that so refines all that bleeds from the aching womb of the Softest Person. Classic Doll inspired Molly Doll, but and this is only rumour, hearsay, gossip and the uncontrollable variant of evolving whisper, Molly Doll enforced an exile upon herself some say of unfathomable humility. Molly, and there is so much assumption and creative writing here, sought to find her greatness equalled through experience above the vulnerable mask of aesthetics that her skitty form scorged mythically from her predecessor. Alma Halmstrom? La,la,la, I’ll get there later.

A flyer came by today that said ‘Shoes’ on the front in 36pt emboldened Arial. Outside there was a scattering of these flyers as they’d been discarded by limited interest all over the street outside.

“Brim, you wanker!” A car zips by with Nambo hanging out, wailing and giving me the appropriate gesture. GERDING! He cracks his head on a lamppost. The car stops and Nambo rolls out whilst Helium, who’d been driving shoots out from the other side and around to cup the mans' head with a little irony.

“Fuckin' hell, you alright Nams'?”
“Ne…” He was fine, just a little wound above his temple, a borderline machismo gash, and a wound of little beneficial credence.
“You find my shoe Brim?”
“You called me a wanker.”
“I hit my head.”
“No shoe. Are you responsible for the flyers?”
“Flyers?” I held up a flyer to his face. Nambo rose with a little rise from Helium (Jesus)
“These.”
“Not I.” He said. So, I thought, not he. I gave a long, slow and thoughtful look of conspiratorial subterfuge out over the South London horizon and thought…

Alma Halmstrom is on the side of the Classic Doll box because he stumped up much of the lolly for the Softest Person and this is all in the small print of course. Alma is related to a king and “ah…” you say, “ah, The King, King Kallarackel III?” Indeed, the great doll financier himself.

“So then...” I say, “Who is responsible for the flyers?” Helium, Nambo and Brim look around them whilst the camera rises above in a circular motion, the scene fades to black.

a productive trip

Posted by keeping up with A.P. at 09:21 AM

It's been a productive few days. Saw a lot of interesting talks, caught up with colleagues (the ones I like), made connections. Did a little work, too: I had taken an assignment before I had gone to the island, and I took care of it on Monday night. Not for my main job, but a freelance gig, just to keep my options open.

When I took T.S. down to the ocean I couldn't help but reflect on what happens to our bodies afterwards. His limbs flopped around like a doll's. He had been surprised, of course, but obviously this sort of thing is a standard occupational risk, and at any rate he brought it on himself. Years ago we'd worked together briefly and I could tell then that he was becoming undisciplined and unstable. A liability. Sometimes my job is that simple: I limit liabilities.

Just before leaving on Tuesday afternoon I ended up having another chat with Toni. We compared notes on our favorite spots in London but it was fairly apparent that we ran in different crowds. Jez wasn't around. He had gone to the shops because they were planning a picnic on Toni's day off. Eventually I just said "you know, it's not that hard to get out of debt if you're open to the right kinds of opportunities." She looked surprised, I suppose because I hadn't gotten her to mention her debts at all. I handed her my card, and right then my car arrived.

On the plane back home, I was thinking about how nice it can be sometimes to just do the same work in a more pleasant climate. I definitely have to figure out how to get more of those sorts of gigs. I also remembered that I was in a rush to pack--even with the fresh sea air, my sleeping habits were just as bad as before--and may have left some of my things in my room. I suppose it doesn't matter. I don't expect anybody else to make any sense out of them.

Tuesday, May 09 2006

A strange email I received

Posted by The Softest Person at 11:50 PM

Dear Sir,

You don't know me. I don't expect you to have followed the progression of my art through the easily lost medium of the Internet. Besides, I am unsanctioned, so I cannot claim authority when I ask you to refrain from posting these terrible misives regarding our mutual obsession with Alicia. Regardless of the obvious differences in our view of this woman, I will attempt a thorough examination of the evidence, hopefully in my favor, so that this wonderful addition to humanity might be relieved, despite her obvious lack of concern on either of our parts, of the burden of the evil fem.
Where can I begin? Describing her scent and color as cinnamon seems tacky and cliche, but how else can I speak of this gingerbread holy? Where her corruption ended our hope began, and if you were not privy to this side of her nature then I can only hope you can pity me for having received its dangers and bargains in full earnestness. She whispered 'true' as though she were the ruler of veracity, and when I lay before sleeps' pleasant escape that word rings through my essence. Leave her alone.
She spoke of you well, and I hold no grudge toward you, despite her habit toward the end of our affair of mocking practically every portal from which her delivery to me was assured. When she met my friend the architect I felt the cold chill of lies as she manipulated time for the advantage of the conventional escape. I did not care, until I found your angry complaints. Now I must confront my lack as provider and lover, while you are free to imagine her as you wish for the sake of a false poetic fortitude that my own nature, alas, has denied. She weighs no more than 101 lbs., and I don't need to inform you, I am sure, of her penchant for black silk underwear, a favorite from my most plastic days.
I do, however, feel the urgent need to request you cooperation in the removal of any public discussion you may harbor regarding Alicia, as our acquaintances include some individuals with the authority to send your apparently unemployed and, without even a hint of bitterness, married self out of this country for more egalitarian and less American locals. I hope I do not sound threatening, as I have been acquainted with the Paris '68 crowd and admire them as much as the next obsessive.
Alicia has denied both our corporeal fates her own, so the next best thing I can wish is the removal of proof from any accessible medium I might find. I happen to be very skilled at finding mention of her, by the way. Enable both our escapes. Burn her memory from your mind and manuscript. She deserves the loss. She forgot the sensations.
Your most reluctant yet sincere Friend,
Tristan E.Cochrech

A Domestic Squabble

Posted by My House Arrest at 07:02 AM

Today, I heard the girls talking. Aliss is more forthcoming with Lucy than she is with me. She was yelling at Lucy, telling her to STOP!

Lucy told Aliss to “relax.” She said, “Don’t worry, girl. I can’t even communicate with him. The gorillas have confirmed it. These radios will never receive messages from the outside world – they can only send transmissions.”

Aliss was still ill at ease. She hugged her rope doll and told Lucy it was wrong. “Don’t contact him,” she begged. “I don’t want to hear from Leo.”

“Like I said, Aliss, don’t worry; that’s simply impossible.”

Leo?

I set to my writing table and drafted a letter, to be hand delivered through my traders. I would order a doll from the Softest Person, perhaps a gift for Aliss. It should be a lion, a doll that shows the greatest cunning, that emits the most compassionate of ferocities.

Sunday, May 07 2006

Doll Conference in Mississippi

Posted by The Softest Person at 10:20 PM

I just got back from a trip to Mississippi for the annual Crucial Doll Exhibition. I don't know how to link, so you'll have to google it. It was held at the Southern Miss in Oxford, MS.

As fate would have it, the conference took place at the same time as two similar events. A special bichon dog exhibit and a conference on Scandinavian literature. The dog show had an old-fashioned southern band playing for the dogs. I hate those dogs. The people next to me in the motel had little yappers with them in the room and those damned animals woke me at an ungodly hour.

The doll people, though I go every year, disgust me. I think they are all perverts who secretly build fuck dolls. They have the eyes and shuddery hands of masturbators. Their hands are clammy. It's a wonder they can work the needle at all. And no creativity, no vision, no awareness of the spiritual potential of dolls. They are obsessed with recreating the same dolls year after year, trying to perfect a dead style. The style was really was invented in the 1960s, but these people treat it like a timeless truth. It makes me sick. While protesters were struggling to end the war in Vietnam, these perverts sat at home in front of their televisions subliminating their desires into these bland dolls. Sublimination style. That's what I'm going to call it. It reminds me of the bichons.

Anyway, the Scandinavians seem equally impressed with playwrights from the 19th century. One of them apparently believed that having sex drained his creative powers, so he would abstain from sex for a month and during that month complete a masterpiece. According to the journals (these perverted scholars will dip into the most private matters), it was a real struggle for him. He seemed to like sex even more than writing plays.

What these things have in common is that for several years I've been developing a theory of doll-making influenced by Artaud's "Theater of Cruelty."

Saturday, May 06 2006

the sea air

Posted by keeping up with A.P. at 06:16 AM

It's nice out here by the sea. I've been taking a lot of short walks by myself during the conference--which goes 'til Sunday but I'll be staying a few more days for extra business--and enjoying the salty air, and even just the sound. If you close your eyes you can still hear that you're in a large open space. Just from the way noises bounce around you can tell that you're not on Avenue A.

The conference has been okay so far. The talks themselves are fine, and I've been enjoying them: cell phone video, plausible deniability, convergence & mergers between old and new media, extractions, headless organizations, next-gen video formats. One session was all about how to use pliers. It's been educational.

But there's a tension in the crowd, between sessions and at the end of the day. Everybody's got their names on, everybody should know everyone else but there's a new distrust that's been settling in. The herd stopped thundering all in one direction and now they're anxiously eyeing one another, wondering where their next meal is coming from. People keep bringing up September 11th, but I think that's a copout. The dysfunction runs much deeper than that. In fact you could say September 11th was an opportunity and we blew it. Be careful what you wish for, right?

Since my attendance was so last-minute, I couldn't get a reservation at any of the big hotels. So I'm staying at this little guest house, it's okay in a small Hamptons B&B sort of way. Not my thing, but acceptable.

Wierd thing happened on Thursday morning, though: I was getting ready to head to the conference hotel for the talks, and all of a sudden I could smell the same smoke from earlier in the week. Like the husk of that Greenpoint warehouse had somehow followed me, still sour in the same way. Like a squatter's burnt body being discovered under wet ashes.

I walked cautiously into the kitchen and it turned out there was just a malfunctioning toaster to blame. I ended up chatting with Toni, this British woman who's ostensibly a housekeeper here but you never know. We made some meaningless chit-chat about breakfasts or something for a while until the woman who runs the guest house came through and I was able to slip out and get back to the conference. But not before getting a piece of that burnt toast to eat as I walked to the conference hotel. Didn't taste half bad, actually.

Thursday, May 04 2006

waiting

Posted by between moments at 09:58 PM

Woke up this morning and the sun was shining in.

Wait, that’s not my line.

But it was. Shining in, that is. Nice change after four days of rain. Spring and all.

Still, it’s hard. The air smells like home, like childhood. Like something I’ve lost that I won’t ever get back. I let my eyelids drift down and reduce the room to shapes and light and it’s almost there. Hardwood floors and white cotton curtains instead of speckled old lino and cheap plastic venetians. It flickers into place for a moment -- a signal in the static, and then the nurse squeaks in on her thick white sneakers and it’s gone. Bitch.

No – it’s not her fault. What the fuck do I know – she may not even exist. Even if she does, she is apart from all this. She knows nothing. About Lucy, about Aliss, about the strange shoe sitting on top of the trunk when I woke up this morning. It looks like a vintage Adidas, brown with white stripes. Pretty beat-up. Maybe a size 10? Anyhow, the nurse didn’t give it so much as a glance when she came in. Like it wasn’t even there.

Heh – maybe it’s not.

I’d think maybe I wasn’t either, except for the jello they keep fucking feeding me. Christ – at this point even Jemima’s burnt toast would be an improvement.

Our Man Jack's Womb

Posted by On the Lake by the Snacks at 06:38 AM

I'm sad to report that we bought all of our groceries with counterfeit banknotes this week. We didn't craft them, though. The postman gave them to us as change. He was standing in our yard, we bought alot of stamps from him, and he handed us currency which had two minor defects. First, all the numerals (upon examination with a loupe) were a simple series of ornate puppy tails; and, secondly, the bills were one-sided. The money was unfinished.

Which is where we came in. Fleur fashioned a small handheld press from condensed cork and a pair of dental tongs. The cork was fastened with a resin compound: coconut oil and sealing wax. The handle of the tongs was decorated with banded agate, polished over again with vinegar. I held my breath while she did that.

Then came the tough part. What sort of scenery did we want to project across the rearward surface of the cash? I voted for snails and their curly shells. Fleur said, "Whoa, whoa," and set a few ground rules. A moratorium on rich symbolism and encouraged me towards a soothing, natural scenescape. We both agreed on Hebrew text, though. Fleur envisioned a crosshatch vignette beneath the text. Perhaps a cat underwater. The cat would be dead. Still limber, but just drowned. And a nice coral border at his feet.

Off we went, contriving some God-beautiful Hebrew together. And by the time we brought our pens up the right side of the bill, we ended up with a portrait of our old neighbor, Jack Brownish, who had cherry orchards. We didn't have any room to add the trees, but he did have his own encompassing oval and cherry blossom boutonniere. Admittedly, there is some feminine symbolism in the oval. Fleur almost abandoned the design, but I patted her hand and got her back in her seat. Then, I added a small toner cartridge to our man Jack's breast pocket, which we both agreed was absolutely devoid of meaning.

We had twelve in all, which we spent on dog food and gin. And we tried our best to be casual about the transaction. We set our goods up on the conveyour belt with slight exhaustion, coupled with a very calm confidence. We took our time strolling within view of the cashier. And we waited to hand over the bills until she had clarified the amount aloud.

"Do you take dinars?" asked Fleur. Good, this is what I suggested.

"I don't read Hebrew," said the cashier, "and I am cautioned not to accept dinars. But I am also encouraged to embrace the cultures of our customers and, it is in this tender capacity that I warmly accept your dinars and eagerly anticipate the continued flourish of your people." The cashier read from a teleprompter beneath the cash register. Her eyes flicked up slightly. "Please hand me the dinars."

Fleur stretched out her hand, clumsily fanning the bills out and said, "We had a really hard time finding the toothpaste, you know. Actually, we gave up and went ahead with just buying dog food and gin." Perfect, that's my gal. Moving right along. She brought a real soulful energy that I just didn't have. But not possible without my very calm and dignified quietness that underscored her performance with implied scholarly annotations.

"Can you make toothpaste with dog food and gin?" asked the cashier. "Seems like I've heard of that. Or maybe it was soy sauce. Or like: you can poison your dog with soy sauce. Yeah, you can poison your dog with soy sauce. Very interesting stuff." Her hands had felt around the shapes of our new foods and she got it all packed away neat in a bag with tucked ends. "Here, let me see your teeth," she said.

Fleur clenched her teeth and reflected light, tilting. The cashier checked it out and said, "Okay, see." She handed me the bag and looked at me and really looked at me piercing. "You know, I've seen you play before out at Mulberry Kites. That kite store, you played there. Your name is Pal H."

Which was bizarre (wrong wrong bizarre) and neither Fleur nor I knew how to take it. We blitzed for a puppet frown apiece and ran the hell out of that place.

joy williams

Posted by ezra kire at 12:06 AM

i am reading joy williams

jesus said, 'read honored guest by joy williams'

i am reading honored guest

it is about a person named lenore who is dying

lenore will soon be dead

she is not ready

after lenore dies her daughter helen who is in eleventh grade

will go to florida to live with her father

lenore says her own name sometimes

she ays, 'lenore!'

she is not ready

i am crying

i am reading joy williams

it is a nice day in heaven and i am crying

Wednesday, May 03 2006

Hold ups

Posted by J-Meister at 04:59 PM

Shit shit shit ('scuse my language). I;ve been running around the last two days desperately trying to find my passport (in between having to go back to work and trying to avoid my mother so she doesn't get suspicious - she can read me like a book). I finally found it late last night, and it bloody well ran out last year - I hadn't even noticed since I've not managed to have a decent holiday for so long. Now what am I going to do!! I was hoping to get going this weekend (been looking at flights, and they're not too horrendously expensive if I go at some God-awful time in the morning). Anyway, Tim just told me that you can go to Liverpool and queue up all day and get a new passport then and there - so I guess I'll have to try and get the day off on Friday (or throw a sickie) and do it then. Jesus. Life is never simple.

Hang on Toni - I am coming. Just might take me a bit longer than I hoped (in my usual pretty-useless-but-cute-with-it way...). So don't disappear anywhere else, hon

richard yates

Posted by ezra kire at 12:31 AM

i am reading richard yates

jesus said, 'read dick yates'

i said, 'i will read dick yates'

jesus said, 'look him up under richard yates'

i said, 'richard yates'

i am reading richard yates

i am in heaven

i am reading 'the easter parade' by richard, or 'dick,' yates

Tuesday, May 02 2006

warehouse on fire

Posted by keeping up with A.P. at 07:26 AM

The radio says that this morning there was a five-alarm warehouse fire in Greenpoint, with literally hundreds of firefighters working to put it out. When I woke up this morning I could see it out of my window, a thick plume of smoke in the distance, across the river. The radio says there aren't any injuries reported yet but since it was abandoned they have to look into it later to see if any squatters were in there.

I think I can smell the smoke from here, it's acrid but also sour in this way that makes me wonder -- but of course I could just be imagining the whole thing.

If you didn't make it on Sunday, I have to say our cookout was generally a success. Lots of people coming by and a music situation that was more-or-less orderly. Some faux pas' (what's the plural of that?) with Bill but everybody who knows him knows it's no big deal. He's under a lot of stress from work recently and he's bound to say or even see things he doesn't quite mean. Get a few Stellas into him and he's okay ;)

Getting on a plane -- again! -- tonight. Going to a week-long conference, which can be boring but at least it's in a nice seaside town so I'll get some fresh air. (As opposed to this burning-warehouse air I've got going on right now.) Some of the talks look okay, but of course everybody knows that the reason you go to these things isn't the talks, it's the networking.

Monday, May 01 2006

She;s gone

Posted by J-Meister at 10:35 AM

Damn it - I've only just logged on after two days of doing very little at my mother's apart from sleep,eat and lie for hours in a lovely warm bath with lots of bubbles, still with a slight comforting sense of floating and swaying, as if I was still in the boat. But now I'm in front of the computer and I find that Toni's gone - she's just up and left, with nothing but a new credit card and loads of debts behind her. She's out there all alone in some strange country, running and running, and there's nothing I can do.

Just had a cup of tea and a think, and now I've calmed down a bit I know what I can do. There's nothing much to hold me here - the boat's nice, but it doesn't matter that much - I've got a crap job, crap friends and nowhere to really call my own - so what have I got to lose? The bit of money I've got saved up could get me to wherever she is (where is she??) and maybe together we could make a go of it - start again - build a new life. The short time we've had together has felt so good, so easy - I hadn't really realised till now how much that means. I don't want to be faffing about anymore, wondering when my life will start - my life's out there with her. ( I can hear the violins playing - I'm starting to sound like some fuzzy hero at the end of a Hollywood movie..) I don't care though - I'm going to find her - even if she thinks she doesn't want to be found. Bugger work, bugger everything. Hey, and listen Brim - thanks for your words of support - you think she needs help, and I think I can give it. I know I don't know you from Adam, but somehow it helps to know your out there, thinking of me, thinking of Toni, building your wierd and wonderful worlds in your head. Yeah, lets keep in touch - and keep thinking of us - keep keeping us afloat.