I love your abused mouth; your lips pad together with final words.
I will die here too in a place where no-one can say my name, except for you. And you are dying mouthing not my name, but his.
Cities have fallen and cities will fall.
fiction
October: Brunhilde (i) (forward)
I lived on a mountain. My house had thick walls made of mud which men had carried on their backs all the way from the river banks of my home country. They were whipped up hillsides, forced over rocks wet with pure river water and through gullies slimy with stinking moss. The rugs in my house had been stitched by the women of my father’s house. They cried over each stitch. I could taste their tears when I put my tongue on the rugs.
It was a good place to live.
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September: Baby, I’m on Fire
August: Attempt at modern folk tale
The third child of the third daughter fell asleep beside a lake at the edge of a forest. Although the woods were ancient, thick and dark, the third child wasn’t afraid. As soon as night came she fell asleep just as she always had.
The spirit that lived on the edge of the lake and that carried the memory of the old world within it saw the third child sleeping, and without hesitation ate her.
June: Park Story
Up above, the sky is open blue. Down beneath, the grass is living green. Kelly watches as the smoke from his mouth curls out into the blue. Near to him, in a group to his left, a girl plays bongos. She is wearing a tan fringed jacket. She has feathers in her hair. This morning she gave Kelly a flower. Someone else is playing an acoustic guitar. Maybe it’s Dan, muting the chords with his fat fingers. Reedy voices that have been up all night and into today attempt to keep pace with the stumbling guitar.
Somewhere off to Kelly’s right, away from his people, he can hear the thunk pause thunk of a cricket bat. Spattered clapping. There are families over there. He saw them arrive, before his come-down made him lie-down. The June sun sinks – into Kelly’s face, exposed arms, feet in sandals.
A shadow touches his right leg, nearabout the ankle. Kelly looks.
May: Voyeur
They’ve always been a good-looking couple.
I said, ‘you’ve scrubbed up well,’ to Charlotte when I found her after the ceremony, in the still centre of an eddy of well-wishers.
She smiled. I felt a wash of everything run off her when she smiled, happiness, exhaustion, nervous energy. She smiled with her teeth shut together.
April: The Expanding Universe
I’d do it. If you wanted me to.
I have taken you to Dr Somerset. He told us there was no more help he could give. I have taken you to Dr Trevellyan. She told us, ‘Could be three months. Could be a year. Some people can continue indefinitely on the medication.’ She told us that you’re not technically suffering. Your pain is deadened by the medication. She said a nurse would come and show me how to soften food and thicken fluids for you. I told her I used to be a nurse and I knew how.
Jolie visits once a week to check on you. She is checking on me. She takes your blood pressure and looks in your eyes. She checks your padding. She inspects your chair to see that it is clean and dry.
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February: Sighting
I saw you from the top deck of the 243. I was with Marianne. We were going to see a film. I don’t remember which one. This is what I remember: seeing you. In fact I see you a lot in crowds, coming towards me along an underground platform, turning into a supermarket aisle. But this time it was really You and not just a shadow in a stranger’s face. I am used to the mirage of you.
January: This is The Life
I’m going to present to you an option: The Life. It’s a modular option. You can choose which modules suit you, but really the idea is to build them up. You won’t appreciate it fully unless you can see the whole. That’s the idea.
December: King Kong at Christmas
Christmas for Kong had never been as bloody, nor as violent and carnal, as legend might lead one to expect. For so many decades the community on the other side of the barrier, seething with their own concerns, had made tribute to the great Kong, the King Kong. Fashions and tastes changed from generation to generation behind the barrier, but the offerings remained as steadfastly, as solidly, uniform as the dread Kong himself. It is no wonder, of course, that the people thought of him as a god. And as a god he could not go blameless when a typhoon capsized the fishing boats and destroyed the market. But as a god he could be placated; a quiet Christmas could be predicted by a doubling of tribute. Not just a young girl, scented with clove oil and drugged to calmness, but also a teenage boy picked by a lottery, and a basket of glass blown into shapes too delicate for Kong to handle. The glass shapes represented fishes, fruits, sometimes eggs (for fertility), female shapes (for luck in marriage) and flowers. For the people behind the barrier, flowers symbolised prosperity. If Kong overturned the basket while ripping the human offerings from their stakes, then a bad year was foretold. If the basket remained more or less intact then the people could rejoice in a great and fortuitous year ahead. He ate the offerings. This is what he has always done. For the offerings to take place at Christmas was natural: the Winter Solstice heralded the triumph of light over darkness and a true beginning to the next twelve months of survival and trade.
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