Beyond The Street

 

 (published 'Eastern Rainbow' 1994)

Orlando Blueman dreamt that he was walking lost around an unknown Northern town, searching for the car he had parked hereabouts before he fell asleep.

He could have sworn it was down this street. No. Or that...

He then cane across a cobbled wayfare which reminded him of somewhere he could not quite put his dreaming finger on. The pub on the corner. The supermart. A thin woman in curlers peering quizzically at him from the doorway of one of the shabby two-up-two-downs. The dark entrance to a railway bridge...

It all came back to him in a rush, as he saw an ex-serviceman type staring his eyes out, from the community centre. But what’s this? The Graffiti Club. He could not remember that bit. But dreams could never get everything right, could they? If they did, they would be real life, wouldn’t they.

A factory. Baldwin’s Fashions. Yes, a loud-mouthed harridan was arguing the toss of the day with a toff in a smart overcoat. That all seemed to fit in.

Better pay a visit to the pub. Ask the way to his car. That sort of thing. The Dreamer’s Return, it was called. It couldn’t be him, of course, but never mind.

It had a homely interior, snug and comforting. A rotund lady was politely smiling: “‘Ey up, a customer for a change, Bet.”

A blonde bint came in from the back, a bit long in the tooth and even deeper in the bosom, lightly manhandled her hairset and said: “Yes, sir? Ain’t see you in these parts often.”

“You must be mistaken, I’ve never been here before. My car is lost, you see.”

“Have a drink with me, while you’re here then. Though, I could have sworn I seen you somewhere.”

A rough and ready character had just appeared from the Gents toting a crate of beer bottles, sweating two to the dozen. It was surprising that a bloke like him was even allowed in a place called the Gents. “Blimey, Guv!” he said. The accent did not quite seem to jell. “You’re the geezer who’s in that there soap opera called ‘Foreigners’ on the telly, aint yer? You’ve just lost your missus in a road crash and is about to wed the woman in the corner shop called Mavis ‘Blind’ O’Riley. No, no, you had a nervous breakdown, didn’t yer? It is ‘im, aint it, Betty?”

He turned to the rotund lady, who just kept on saying “Luv” between hiccupping laughter. Evidently this was her way of talking.

Orlando Blueman was only a dream name, he decided, with a frisson. He ran from the pub, now desperate to find his car so that he could escape the dream. If indeed that was what it was. Perhaps he’d better find his bed instead, which may be parked on double yellow lines, for all he knew.

As he turned the corner, he came upon a recent road accident in Rosamund Street. A lady had been badly mutilated. Despite that, her face looked almost familiar in the relentless lights of pulsing blue.

 

DFL

 

( published 'Agog' 1988 )  

Nial Hopper loved just being alive. However, if he but realised the nature of the tenuous existence he underwent, as a character in a story by DFL, he would have cherished this precious consciousness, this shallow-seated awareness even more than he normally did. But believe it or not, he thought he was an ordinary human being, albeit one more famous than most from his several appearances on a thing called television; but if you opened up his arteries, then blood of the deepest, darkest red would flow as freely as does water from the spout of my can on to the richest, strangest orchids of my imaginary garden.

* *

Nial: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you, without fear or favour, to yet another edition of the favourite TV show of the century. And, as you watch, remember our one dictum, the incontrovertible truth: ONCE CEASE TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, THEN YOU'RE LOST TO THE NOTHINGNESS THAT LURKS AT YOUR EVERY CORNER. We have a caller: We have our first caller of the night: Who have we at the other end of the line seeing fit call the Nial Hopper Show?

DFL: Who do you think you are!?

Nial: (eyes shifting from side to side) Can I have your name sir?

DFL: Never you mind, I've got your measure Hopper, and don't give me any lip?

Nial: (motioning to the studio staff to cut me off) We evidently have someone who thinks he can beat me at my own game - but he's been cut short (laughing knowingly into the camera) I fear, by the peccadilloes of the telephone - no doubt wrapped up in flex like an electronic mummy. Next caller, please.

DFL: I'm still here, Hoppo. There's no pair of scissors in the world that can snip my line through to you .

Nial: (now aghast and signalling violently like he'd seen floor staff do before) Keep your head on sir, this is a family show with good living its by-word. I fear for the language you're about to break into?

DFL: Don't you worry Hoppo, once you've got rid of me, you'll be without your better half. It's your language I fear will take us off the air - words spoken with too much ease and puckishness can sound naughtier than most.

Nial: (finding himself perhaps for the last time) If you;re who I think you are, then please. dear sir, stareinto the mirror and question whether it can be right?

DFL: (interrupting and getting a stage direction for the first time) I challenge the world to turn off this rubbish - nothing can be done for him people, as Nial so-called Hopper is an alien from the back bowels of God?

* *

The mirror reflected nothing. I replaced the hand-set in its cradle. I'd given him enough air time, enough of his own medicine and my ear was still ringing with the sound of millions listening. I took the scissors and jabbed them into my wrists, one by one and watched the brave new freedom of the bloods. I had had enough of believing that I could muster myself beyond the margins of those who were larger than life.

God: What a pillock! He'll be good for no more then manure. (God turns on a video for a re-run of Genesis to watch His favourite bit in the Garden of Eden.)

White Slacks

 

 (published 'Psychopoetica' 1991)

The beautiful girl stood upon the sea's roof as it sloped from horizon to beach ... and sloped back again.

Her hair forked in the gusty wind, legs straddling in sharp-creased slacks.

The rafters of the sky were a striped storm, the sun's rays twirling down like spotlights.

The land separated out into barges, manned by some she had loved ... others hated. Their horse-drawn faces were mooning.

Tilting to and fro, she aimed to dive into the space between ... where her heart had been lost.

Written in Dust

(Published 'Psychopoetica' 1992)

Gradually, the room filled with sobbing sound, as if the muffled ignition of a reluctant motor boat was being fitfully stirred.

But there was nobody there. Nobody in fact to vouch for there being nobody there.

Hence: the lonely sadness that came in waves of growing realisation upon sunbeams of disturbed dust.

Love's When Every Day's A Sunday
(Published 'The White Rose' 1989)

Felix Arthur Crewe was neither rich nor poor, just comfortable enough for a couple of bottles of wine each week and, with a little stretching of his housekeeping, a nice piece of steak gracing his Sunday plate amid a garland of green vegetables.

In spirit, he was down on odd days and up on the even, starting the count from Monday, of course, as one does in the part of the country where Felix grew up. Sunday didn?t count at all, naturally, being the Sabbath: in the sight of God, one must neither be sad nor happy, for any degree of richness is as nothing compared to the trappings of Heaven.

Then he met Margaret, a girl from a family who expected a lot from her, having foisted good breeding upon the narrow shoulders of the child.

'Walking out with Felix Crewe!' The shock was pandemic, stretching back into decades of Margaret's ancestors and even forward into the unborn posterity of her own children.

Felix and Margaret decided to ignore the wagging tongues, especially on Sundays, when it was easier to miss out on the local scandal by merely not going to church. Felix wore his best bib and tucker the whole week round in any event, and Margaret did a good line in maidenly dresses fitting for the most becoming Wednesday afternoon tea dances. Hand in hand, they did the tour of the watering places, the being-seen vantage points, the promenades, the top-of-the-hill sighting-holes...

The community, however, could only remain snubbed. They had not condoned the relationship before it started. So it was impossible to rubber stamp it now. 'What a carry on!' some said. Felix, himself, had no defenders at all. So when the liaison finally expired on the spurt of a late afternoon caprice, he was hounded from town upon a tide of gossip that had no good words, even for his careful housekeeping nor for the swinging pendulum of his soul that counted the days, for ever and ever, amen.

The Moon Pool

A collaboration with with M.F. Korn

Published "THE LESS FASHIONABLE SIDE OF THE GALAXY" by eraserhead press 2001

P>EVENTUALLY TO BE PUBLISHED IN A COLLECTION OF DFL COLLABORATIONS: <A href="http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/long-term-project-to-find-an-independent-publisher-for-a-selection-of-my-collaborations-from-yesteryear/" data-mce-href="http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/long-term-project-to-find-an-independent-publisher-for-a-selection-of-my-collaborations-from-yesteryear/">http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/long-term-project-to-find-an-independent-publisher-for-a-selection-of-my-collaborations-from-yesteryear/</A> (26 Sep 12)</P></FONT></o:p></SPAN>

BAD REASON

Published 'Not One Of Us' 1995

   

I was a stranger.  The street I walked was lit only by the windows of terraced houses stretching interminably either side of me.  All were curtained across, some with swish, home-tailored fabrics, printed with every combination of colourful abstracts, flowers and stripes.  Others were dowdy and tawdry, no doubt hanging in textures of dust.  A few showed straggly hems, threadbare patches, frays, tears, nicks and, yes, sickening stains.  One passing window, much to my bewilderment, was completely uncurtained.  I could see a single bare bulb flexing from a crumbling rose in the ceiling and shining out with glowing quilts of yellow light across the glistening pavement.

 

            I pulled the coat collar tighter over the adam's apple, since the wind had taken a renewed tug upon me, mixed with sleety rain and gnawing bonechills.  I stopped, walked back, peered over the squat garden wall into the empty window.  I had often wondered what really went on in this town after dark.  If curtains are drawn together, there must be a good reason for so doing.  If undrawn, there may be a reason, too.

 

            Within my over-large wellington boots, I stood on tiptoes, but still could not see much beyond the bulb, the peeling blistered wallpaper and a tallboy chest with what looked like rags  hanging out of the ill-fitting drawers.  There were some miniatures on the wall, which were too far away to make out.  The large carriage clock below them on the chipped baroque mantelpiece told a time which seemed to have stopped for more years than it had stood there.

 

            The longer I loitered and stared, the more details of the interior emerged.  There was actually someone standing by the mantelpiece, leaning upon it, cigarette smoke disfiguring his face.  He was evidently sounding off to a person sitting under the window inside the room. 

 

            Then the words themselves could be heard, as the man by the fireplace pitched his voice further into the street.

 

            "You slut!  A daughter or mine dressed ... like that!  I can very nearly see every bit of your body which God gave you to hide.  I'll tell you again, you're not going out, till you've changed into your something decent."

 

            I crawled over the sodden front garden and cowered under the window-sill to hear the girl's response:

 

            "All my friends dress like this to go to the dance band... And... And...  You only say what you do because you're jealous - your eyes are always all over me.  No wonder Mum has taken to her bed..."

 

            There was a crunch and, then, silence.

 

            Desperately trying to scurry back on hands and knees to the pavement, I must have missed the most significant part for, eventually, I saw that the carriage clock had disappeared and worms of smoke crawled along the mantelpiece.

 

            And a girl's face gradually slid like a red sunrise over the glass of the window, with all the clockwork of her head hanging out with springs of blood...

 

            I shrugged since I was nothing but a stranger. 

      

Growing Pains

GROWING PAINS

Published 'Ocular' 1995  

 

Willcombreed had no soul.  Yet the place where his soul should have resided did not feel entirely empty.  On the other hand, he could never be exact as to the degree of such emptiness, unaware, as all emptinesses were, of how much space they were called upon to fill.  In Willcombreed’a  case, the place-of-no-soul eventually was a shrinking, if tantalising, fallowness, fraying at the edges and sucking him towards the middle of his own tiny body—or, at least, towards where this body's centre of gravity appeared to be.

 

                A sense of absence—a sorrow without sadness—a wish without desire—a bereavement in a world where death was more by good luck than misjudgement—a pain that killed painkillers in ever-increasing circles—an anxiety for a loved one who was never to be born—a hope without faith—worse still, a faith without hope ... these were the various symptoms of Willcombreed’s missing soul.

 

                He did not know his own name, but someone else did.  She, this someone else, was Elspeth who, despite being a human being in contrast to Willcombreed’s own elfinness, was even smaller than Willcombreed.  Many called her petite; many more a midget.  She enjoyed that part of the day which was neither afternoon nor evening, but a bit of both, when the trees around her mother's cottage collected sighs for their leaves to articulate with their needlepoint of rustles. 

 

                Having left her mother to clear up after her own attempts at clearing up which her lack of height prevented her from perfecting, Elspeth wandered the place that, in her dreams, was her own garden with swing and see-saw.  But, now, it was a nondescript expanse of set-aside belonging to a local farmer.  Were it not for Willcombreed, she would probably only play there during her actual dreams.  Instead of which, she went there as often as possible – although she knew, in her heart of hearts, that Willcombreed was essentially a dream, but an insulated dream that lived autonomously in the waking world of reality.

 

                "How are you today?"

 

                As soon as Elspeth spoke, Willcombreed emerged from behind a vision of himself which he had planted as a prop in his unvanishing act, performed to amuse the girl.

 

                "I have no soul."

 

                His voice was spoken with confidence, as if it could actually be heard.

 

                "You don't exist?" she said, inevitably ignoring his words.  "But who wants to exist?  My life is nothing but trouble."

 

                There was a grain of truth in her statement, although it had primarily been made as a comfort, like a nurse with a dying child.

 

                The 'dying child' in question looked at the girl from his greater height and said in pining troubled tones: "At least trouble is something.  It's better than nothing."

 

                "You are a silly elf," she announced, suddenly aware of the paradox regarding the simultaneous awareness of Willcombreed’s predicament.

 

                At that moment, the sun performed its own unvanishing act, having earlier duped the pair of playmates with its version of Peek-a-Boo between some distant trees.  A shaft of gold penetrated their heads, causing their eyes to become torches playing Noughts-and-crosses, and, then, Who-Blinks-First.

 

                They played Touch-Catch, with nobody winning, until there was no longer any doubt that night had lost the need to cheat in its tenebrous game of Hide-and-Seek. 

 

After Elspeth, amid blown kisses, had departed for real dreams under cottage-thatch and cot-top, Willcombreed loitered in the now even more nondescript meadow, along with memories of their games.  Anxiety was something he could manage to set aside.  But love was something else altogether. 

 

 

His emptiness, still yearning for a soul, vowed to wish fulfilment of different thoughts tomorrow, one of which might make Willcombreed and Elspeth play Leap-Frog—instead of the ardently breathless chase involved in Touch-Catch.

 

 

Elspeth, meanwhile, was a wayward sleeper, stretching her legs towards the cot bars, to test if they were now long enough to reach the end. 

           

 

Contrapuntal

Published 'Stuff' 1994

 

 

It was a single voice. Yet there was a pair of voices, one upon the edge of t’other. They vocalised in unison, painstakingly tracking a rehearsed recital path, whilst damping down any rouge echoes each of each. With quick-firing alternations of being silver-tongued and crudely outspoken, neither missed its cue. Tongue sharpened itself on tongue as their single-minded speech increasingly cut its teeth on monologues of salaciousness and smut. I owned one such loose-tongued, if tongue-tied, mouth-twanger. and, being so familiar with t’other one, I could instantaneously duplicate its double-talk. Not that I believed a word of what t’other wagger said – which automatically entailed I spoke with forked flapper, too. Yet who was leading whom astray? I, of course, spoke with my characteristic lisp, whilst t’other had a definite halting thtutter. Eventually, after each had g-g-g-gunned fitfully in counterpoint with each, tongue plaited tongue and one of us hummed while t’other strummed.

 

HINDSIGHT

Published 'The Equinox' 1994

 

As I ambled across the field by means of a fading footpath, the broken shadows shafting over the grass slightly out of tune with the clouds, I was surprised to see a solitary rider cantering around the outskirts.

 

I had no particular reason, of course, to rack my brains over the identity of the only other human being within sight. For the sake of convenience, I assumed the rider’s gender. He ignored me pointedly, turning his head away at every tight turn of his steed.

 

I was en route for the Woodman pub., not exactly to celebrate my original entrance to this wide world, but thinking back on it with benefit of the foresight I originally enjoyed before these events, to mark the occasion of my exit from it.

 

It is strange, perhaps, that nobody celebrates the anniversary of their own death. On the other hand, not strange at all.

 

The rider, eventually, after much reining in and snorting hooves, turned her skull’s head towards me.