“I would have to lead my life again,” I remarked remarking on the overall pattern of humanity which we all are part of. Whatever my place whatever my standing; I am valid; I am necessary. Necessary in so far as I function as an individual in society. This may only be my perspective bearing in mind the mind of a serial killer. The hard boiled nature of the egg struck twelve and my hard earned self-realisation had yielded nothing but gut-wrenching vacuum of self.
It had taken me years to clean myself up and realise that I was as hollow as the immigration minister’s words. Artists reverence for Rembrandt is as a politicians is for Hitler. This kind of thinking occupies my days as the light is clear and the coffee is particle free.
The room I occupy is small and cramped, unfinished board games litter the floor and the walls are caked in yellow from the exhaled smoke of so many pipes. The smell of burning pipe tobacco is a smell that registers in my brain and brings memories of my childhood. A childhood spent down pit. It was I who spent it there.
“So a retired painter of self-repute wishes to undertake the development in pioneering work in astralnautics.” Were the words of the centrelinky lady as she typed on her little keyboarded electonica. I scoffed and signed a few times and knowing I was somebody fairly special I expected to be renumerated for my endeavours in the field of welfare recipience. Oh my feats in this field were legendary but I wanted to race my own race. That race I’m always on about.
Still this sense of vacuum and it had been quite an exertion to make my welfare appointment what with the scabs festering, the crotch itching, the bum chaffing and no mention of the lower limb difficulties which humility forces me to omit. I had no crutch a disposition not to itch and no cream in the cabinet. She was rather kind to offer me assistance and I feel a little embarrassed at my prideful outburst on this occasion.
On returning to my room, that yellow dingy arena for gladiatorial dosing and fits of apathy, the walls closed in and the books started their chattering and the things they said, it made the spine shiver and the table dance with wooden joy the cups clapped and the curtains which were sheets nodded confidently as the devil hid his scrolls.
The devil how did he get in here. Anyway this is what was seen: the devil chatting with the lord in various guises and the messiah inventing his own language, what fun. All this from my window and yet more disappointment on the identification of the external self with an other external self as my abundance of christianess proves costly. Nothing to do with my nationality that is not a disadvantage but a sore on the main scab of the major scab zone on the left fibula.
Not only do I wish to vacate these cramped premises but perhaps this planet and onto a new millennia and a new type of civilization. Three new forms of representation must be found, fostered and picked at like so much chicken and chips.
When I did get out and about in metropolis public transport was my preferred mode and trains particularly tickled my imagination. Screams of consciousness echoed through the heads of the drug-induced stupored train passengers.” They can hear my thoughts…hear my thoughts...thoughts... oughts,” shouted ones inner voice.” Keep it to yourself “ came over the loud speaker in the mind of one, to which another gave nods of disapproval which resounded and bounced like a ball on a trampoline resulting in a Mexican wave of a nervous twitches across the face of one. “Lock it up, keep it to yourself, keep it down, control.” Was the communal mantra taken by one in the campfire setting of the mind “ We are now approaching...” ”Hell” interrupted the thoughts drowning the inner senses with terror. Of course the suited man saw things differently: he’d say to himself “Annual income, such and such, art, literature and music burn in hell” this is how it was read by the affected types. A blink here a fidget there a magisterial cross of the legs and a turn of the broadsheet sent the message loud and clear: this train: this train; this train is my train. In every corner of the earth, wherever a social group is, no matter how small, over what period of time, the eternal and unrelenting external pattern prevails. Take one such group out and examine by itself and hold it up against another and it’ll be a perfect fit through the correct lens, of course. A social group can stretch millennia or decades, across the earth or in a small puddle of humanity. All of this on a billboard as the outside rushed past the train window. Something far greater was at work than this miserable speck of human kind.
Yes there I go again, when I say god I really mean that great pattern you’ll often hear me prattle on about. Our pattern who art mysterious and the great originator of the great and wretched race that I see everywhere I go and I go nowhere. If I took my vitamins, exercised and took a little sun a cripple I surely would not be but this is only my mentality that could be shared.
On arriving at my destination my point of departure I had a nap but awoke after a couple of eggs to a voice “Turn on the Television” the voice said as I scraped myself out of bed, the life of a TV cowboy is not easy I said to him, I made myself to the viewing facility. I turned on the television and settled into my seating facility well prepared as always for some stimulating electronic messages in a box. “You belong here” came the voice from inside my head. Jackaroo style holding bullwhip and stubby I flung my chaps across the bed; it was time to sleep was the directive from above.
Freedom must be an illusion because it implies infinity was the thinking behind my outlandish antics. I’d read further into it except that my concentration is of the flightless Galapagos bird variety. Thank god for advertisements on television were the words of my pastor. He was a TV evangelist. So I set about some more geometrical tasks, as assigned to me by the teacher and I thought commas create tone.
The spurs of my boots required a thorough cleaning and I didn’t care for this side of life, cleanliness that is. On the morrow I would trade with the shoe repairer to repair my spurs and ride my horse: I could again. That poor old horse, lets call her my world view, how I used her and misused her. In a way she saved me from total despair and this sense, all though not a true sense, of self-righteousness.
And the futility of the lifestyle of my ambition fighting and kickscreaming against the guns and hammers of the pattern that I became caught in as a wasp in a web never dawns on a boxcowboy. The best I ever knew was the worst that ever happened and the future will be the same pattern as planets in the suns orbit. Really this is it. Really to believe this is to see life as long but I ask this pickles on my burgers: I better believe it.
Outhouse in total disrepair and the well-beaten track to that door overgrown in weeds as the train of thought of healthy thinking and useful activity the outhouse and the weeds the weeds splitting selves as splitting cells in the air carrying liquid and self-denial.
Of all the strife and suffering mine is the greatest. My day will come; of that there is no doubt. These prickly sticks of bone and muscle wasted away by inactivity. My gifts the land for the colonial slagheap of I. Tennis elbow and no matches played with moments of insight and plenty of backhanders delivered.
A one-man operation at the right time at the right place without political assistance and a few secrets to be revealed. Key players in the crutch theft that is a great crime and an indignity in all proportion tell a story.
Those wacky, and I mean wacky for I whacked many, crutches intervened in many altercations that I instigated and promptly got my nose out of joint. This is why odours cannot reach the smell sensors in the nostril to send odourous messages that would say change your smelly pantaloons dear boy.
One minute the crutches were nestled in my armpit and the next they were off down the street after Id levered myself outside with the arrival of the ice cream truck. The doctors had lifted them as souvenirs to be sold alongside xrays, old swabs, blood samples and so on. This was medical industry of a new kind.
“I’ll have a urine sample with a cotton swab in a glass jar” said the first man attached to the biblical chappy, pulling up the hessian sack to their armpits. This was as I lay in a puddle of water after being spun around by the nurse who relieved me of my crutches.”chicken soup for all” I bubbled from my puddle.
After a few minutes had elapsed I dragged myself kicking and screaming up the stairs and back to the cold familiarity of my little abode. Keeping a close eye on proceedings I positioned my muzzled physicality at the window and draped myself over the windowsill. Sacks of folks, pair after pair made purchases from the ice cream truck and took a well-earned rest back to their daily lives.
My room was on the thirteenth floor and let me assure you getting up that flight of stairs to that floor was quite some epic struggle of Homeric proportions. Rice egg and fish (kedgeree) was the fuel needed for these struggles; fortunately my appetite was small and my struggles petty.
The black night and the white moon were my companions that night for no wooden stilts could hold me up any more. The broken television emitting a blue light and a stormy din and the previous nights rain still dripping onto the logged carpet. “At the end of the day who am I, the spokesperson for economic rationalism, to argue with a little exploitation.
On every wall of my room was a fire extinguisher as pipe ash causes fires in the home. Inside my head depression spot fires were put out with a little fire from the belly.
The window never opened for it was stuck because the weight was no longer attached to the rope behind the window frame and home repairs left me erudite in a bookish way. Cruising down the windowpane on a moony midnight two moths flapped ferociously for a few metric measurements. The light of the television attracted and confused them to be indoors but if only they knew the misery on my side of the window they would turn up their little mothmouths and giggle with glee.
Free-range chickens roamed the space pecking and clucking all the while and excreting with evidence of pellets. The stench is intolerable yet I tolerate it. With enough chicken shit I could begin to assemble my alternative alternative energy source and see at night.
From my windowsill vantage point I could still make out shadowy masses of the human variety traversing the street. Humans are animals; they are subjected to the same forces of reproduction, birth, growth, decay and death as any animal yet we think we are so special. Where was god when the dinosaurs roamed the earth? Whatever the case I’m no atheist, rather I advocate a new “god” I call it the pattern or the design.
The designer organised the three-legged sack races and that’s a fact. Factitiousness was my most redeeming feature that is clearly evident in this endeavour. Now and again I’d fix myself a drink of diluted ceiling water and of course search the room for the alcohol; a legally prohibited substance for financial reasons. Every endeavour has a physical component and mine was propelled toward oblivion by a music box machine of mentality. The physical is part of the mentality and disability is no disability.
We gain a greater understanding of this planet, this place, by travelling outer space; so too by exploring the astral can we learn about consciousness. The ideal environment for such things is chickens clucking, pipe smoking and so on.
Towards the end of that long night when the sun started peeking over the row of houses opposite my window and the birds started singing, an Italian Jewish sack came hopping down the street, the envy was palpable but alack. So I forge on but not before “Houston we have a problem” I blabbered in the astral climbing the silver cord back to my body.
Somehow by constantly chastising those transgressors against my person my main transgressor became myself for I always berated others to myself whilst presenting affability to the world.
“Your face is a picture of angelic calm.” said the inspector from the street through the window stroking his pet bat. I smiled a crusty cheese smile and my face said, “Behind my face is muscles which are involuntarily puppeteered by a rusty tractor.”His face muscles screwed up into a bundle of barbed wire revealing a slot machine front tooth gap and pushing out the words “My angry face is a symphony of hells disquiet” scratched his belly with one hand and a bat.
Between us was a yawning chasm of the stench of good things gone bad; as with time the supple flesh of fruit turns to unpleasant stuff with the potential for fermentation, and resultant punch bowl of ethanolic liquids.
Confrontations of this sort were altogether too frequent, and my resolution method was to pull the blinds and chastise my transgressor with noxious consequences. “Behind your face is a stage coach pulled by wild horses manned by a monkey!” screamed someone, who I don’t know.
Noxious manifestations of extreme scab irritation on my two outer lower extremities and glutius chaffing in the waste expulsion region below the pelvic line were the minor physical conditions mentally to overcome. The major ones being the inability of said items to operate in any normal pedic manner. That is to say walking, skipping, kicking, hopping, jumping, somersaulting and star jumping were activities beyond me.
After intense bouts of flagellating of others between four walls to myself any purile distraction was a welcome relief. Skinning peas with a fish-scaling knife came like a cold pot on hot day or a hot pie on a cold day.
Nausea spells ensued from the severest bouts of internal chastisement of foreign bodies, and my being rejected all foreign bodies as all healthy constitutions do. No distraction could relieve the symptoms of such periods of inner flagellatory exercises.
Chickens laid eggs and I boiled them; that was the order of things around here. Rooster spurs were no match for my cowboy boot spurs and the television blurted on and on.
I’m letting the words come. They come all over my belly. A bloated belly. My finger nails – my how much skin is under them. Mostly mine. I fought off my attackers with the nails. I crucified them. It took a lot of spirit. I was so drunk. That’s the tendency of the modern beverage – intoxication. Drinking and drunkeness go hand in hand. I do. I do. You may kiss the rye ...and barley extracts. When the wheels turn the lucky ladies come running. And the finest mares in the district. Both. The faithful steed and the unruly female. A tale for the ages. Long and boring. We all know the sort. Read this it goes for a trillion pages ergo profound. Half latin.
I used to sit and watch television. Now I lie. Then the tears set in. From the set I learnt how to turn on the water. No laughing. No kidding. I used to cry. Cry in my beer. My beer. Mine. It was my beer. It made me cry. So wet. So bubbly. I cried. I cried This is my beer. It was my beer. I drank it. I turned around and it was gone. It went with the wind. Peanuts were the cause. I blew the top off a cold one. I turn my back on you. I turn my back on myself. I kick sand in the face of my castle. I live there now. The water is ebbing. Boy is my confidence low. The shores edge keeps pushing out until I can walk to Antarctica.
Where did I go wrong? Everything has gone smoothly. It all went wrong. I wanted it that way. I wasn’t always a fuck up. So I fucked up. From the first I set up a chain of already falling dominoes. When the last falls I’ll say my goodbyes finish dying my shorts. It will not be pleasant. I’ll go out smiling. Waving. Flapping the extremities up to the pearly gates. Knock knock. Who’s there. Go away. Dad It’s me. Your one and only son. Daddy I have returned. Daddy let me in. It’s your son. I should go onto something else. Less revealing.
I’m not giving up hope. My brain is alive. I wanted it that way. I had no choice. Let me pontificate. I have taken to it. I like to. Let me reiterate: I pontificate. I get on my high horse. Screaming. Hoarse. Only to find it’s only wooden. Only! Think of the trees. They gave their lives for their pontif. They gave their lives for my position in life. That great and noble vacation: Scribbler. What miserable inklings I leave. But I digress. Think of the trees. Growing and shooting. Shooting their shoots. Growing their twig. Snapping and bearing. What joy for the trees to be felled. A tree. A log. Snap snap.
Time for my next project. A sad state of affairs. More joy to be had. I’m in no position to comment on others. All I can safely say is on myself. My life. My death I shall write of one day. When the land is green again. I don’t build. I’ve been building a lead balloon. I think it’s my best yet. It’s lead. It’s a balloon. It will fly. Fly balloon fly. The shape of the thing is grand. What joy. To be a builder. I build balloons. They fly. I have seen them. Not my own. Others.
I used to write for the fun of it. Now I merely labour. What joyous labour. The sheer joy of slaving over misery. The freedom is gone. I chained myself under the stairs. The stairs lead to my room. I stare at the wall. I’m inspired. I write to punish myself for writing. Community service. I choose death before deportation. I’m straining. I strain. Brocolli and rice. The rice is perfect. The green is not so. The green is brown. It’s dull and soft. No nutritional value. It’s value plumetted. It can’t be exchanged. I ate it. It did nothing. It had no taste. The taste was in the rice. It rose. So it was that I ate.
An ending and a beginning. The dream is gone. I’ve been looking for the exceptional when I should have been looking for the common. It’s little wonder I’ve had such trouble locating myself. I wrapped myself, hogtied and shoved in a sack, and dragged myself to the attic, which was a cellar at the time, just enough to eat, the classics mostly. How unexceptional. The process is one that takes years to achieve. Thankfully society is there to assist.
Full of purpose. I had such luxury. It was luxuriant. The luxury. The chair was soft. It was down. The seat was down. I went anyway. I always made sure. I went to study at the finest institutes in the land. I went as a patient. I came out as a doctor.
Skirting the walls were the boards. They hemmed in the house. The occupants even more so. It was their fault. Their flaw. They skirted and held up the ceiling. It was plastered. It was not plastered.
My facial paralysis is worsening. It’s been doing that for some time. Some time soon the whole network will shut down. My head will be one chunk of meat. Food stuffs will not be contained. The lips will falter. They’ve always faltered. The eyes will be bloodshot. There will be no loving looks from eligible females. The females will pass me by. Their eyes will be elsewhere. My eyes will be elsewhere. In a special case. They’ll find it hard not to stare. They will stare. The staring will engender love. All genders will be engendered so.
Norm
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