B O R N F R O W N I N G

C A V E R N

2016-05-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

White drugs flow through the aisles of the isle, the veins of my frame like greasy gin drowns Air Strip One.
awake.
not sad.

sleep.

emotionally and functionally malleable

biomechanical

engine.

For every problem there is a chemical compound and a brand name.

Procured via prescription or easily accessible pharmaceutical websites or over the counter with scant, legally required warning. Or via a phone number given from a friend of a friend of a friend, exchanged for clumps of pitched-in notes and used to chase the dying embers of a laugh you made some hours ago that reminded you what it was like to be a child. A scant refusal to bury ourselves or be limited to our circumstantial or biological lot.

A lie we tell ourselves.

We are in control.

We are really in control.

We Couldn’t Run Further than the Shadows that Fell

2016-05-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

The left of my reflection is my right.

The right of my reflection is my left.

Everything is backwards.

Words are screamed down generations. Arguments outlive corporeal presences, like miserable traditions. The wraiths of unfocused anger, never resolved, left to take momentary host and battle with similarly bodiless broyges’. Left like old shoes when we die. Just as wanted, but not as easily disposed of.

The words aren’t mine.

I’ve heard them before. From my mother to my father. From my father to my mother.

They seem as inevitable and inherited as the colour of my eyes.

I hear them split across relationships and genders and hundreds of years.

Where did they start?
I feel them spit out of my mouth.
My mother’s words. Her father’s words. All of our grandparent’s words.
They are heavy and jagged and ill-chosen and couldn’t be chosen better. Nothing this shape should fly so well. But they do. And every one of them lands where it was supposed to.
I know because I can see. I can feel.
Left side is my right.

I can see where they land. I can see it on me. I know because they land on me. They are meant for me. They are reflected from me. All these years later.

They taste sweet. Across my lips. The burn of the tepid thick liquid in my throat. In my gut. The prickle in my ears. I feel like I am right again and the words, they feel good coming out. Hitting wincing skin. She plays the role. I play mine. We are children. We are our parents. We continue. This will continue.

Long after we are dead.

Words shorn of meaning, retaining only their interpretation.

I’m sorry.

You don’t even know the words, do you?

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

You just know how good it feels.

I’m sorry.

How good it feels to know you are right.

15.03.2016

2016-03-15T09:40:00.003-07:00

Walking through the last remnants of the Aylesbury, listening to Health and Efficiency. The tape loops sound like the concrete is singing. I collect my prescription.
I wait outside Boots as the clock crawls towards nine. The men waiting for their methadone are genial and unsober. The loudest lets me go first. I am a visitor to his morning regular. A tourist.

I slip back into the world of commuters. Civilians avoiding eye contact, reading listicles like ‘top five Londoners you wish you didn’t have to speak to’. This list includes ‘the bus nut’, complete with illustration. A cartoon of the men I was waiting with, or the people seen shuffling around Camberwell, out from the Maudsley. Some wandering, broken-eyed, some shouting, some sheltering in Rock Steady Eddie’s. All of them human beings.

I realise the brutal self interest of the 1980s had children, and they embedded themselves at the heart of our culture. Sometimes there is no compassion, only regurgitated punchlines.

We used to make jokes about ‘skits’ when I was in in school. Wild-eyed men shouting on buses. Nervous hilarity. But I grew up.

This city produces mental illness like it produces lying estate agents.

I have pneumonia again.

Something died in me last time.

Sometimes I wish more had.

I held a god in my arms.

2014-12-11T02:58:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night that I had a child. I looked into this newborn baby's face to find my own, but different. I picked out the similarities, the parts of me. He had darker skin, but his nose and his mouth were mine. I looked at him and knew that the world was different for me now. Everything I loved and held dear was now a distant second. Everything changed in that moment. I was me, I was the child and I was my own father holding me and looking at myself. I cradled the child softly.

Later, the child talked to me, it held conversation. After a few moments I knew this was odd. I asked him how he could talk. “I get my smarts from my mother.” he said. “I get my crudeness from you”.

I knew, as I held the child again, that he was fine and ready and needed less of my help and protection. Then I thought about all of the things I held dear before his birth and realised they meant far less to me now.

Shield Bug

2014-09-06T10:46:00.001-07:00

16 07 14

2014-07-16T13:39:00.002-07:00

There’s a woman sitting, facing me. Staring through me as she chews her sleeves and moves slightly. Erratically.

One of the many cheap ‘everything you can imagine for almost nothing’ shops on Walworth Rd, I’m buying a hand blender which I was directed to after mime and sound effects. The woman faced the huge opening to the shop asI walked in. There is no doorway in this place, just a shutter. Her face is a map of scabs and sores. She stands close, just behind me as I attempt to pay. The cashier, new, is trying to work out how much the sale is with no price on the box. I tell her three times. As she does this, the young woman with scabs attempts to sell her a Casio watch. The cashier laughs when the owner won’t come to price. The young woman laughs a loud and hearty hollow echo.

Gae Pishen

2014-04-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a quiet old time at Born Frowning, my home town, out there on the edge of a panic attack. We all got through the winter, thanks for asking, the same way we always do. Dig in, hope for the best and let it pass the way it wants to. Now the trees are budding and the air is taking on that fresh smell and the sun feels like it did when you were young. Except we're not. Time doesn't roll that way no matter how much you wish.

Things have been slow over here and I've left a whole bunch of unfinished stuff, but I hope to pick it up again soon. Four years is a long time and I need to focus on bigger fish. But I'll be back. Maybe not every month, maybe not always stories, maybe just a picture or two like the one below. This ain't dead, it's just resting.

Tom | Born Frowning,

Where all the women are bitter and all the men are sad and all the children won't stop asking questions

Time or One For The Road

2014-01-01T06:22:00.001-08:00

Again, to be finished soon!

Tom | Born Frowning

Queen For A Day

2013-11-30T11:32:00.001-08:00

Soon come

Untimely Floral Lie

2013-10-31T13:07:00.001-07:00

Nothing this time, am working on some bigger things. Will try to make amends soon. In the meantime, please enjoy these photographs of plants I took some months ago.

Tom | Born Frowning

Between X and N

2013-09-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

Hold tight,
soon come

Treatment

2013-08-31T10:01:00.004-07:00

Treatment for Short Film

SISTER walks away from village train station. She appears to have been waiting a short time. She walks slowly carrying a weekend bag towards the seafront. She smells and listens to the nearing sea and listens to the church bell strike six. Beyond the church is the ocean. She spends a moment watching it before carrying on walking in little hurry, drinking it all in. She looks at the shop front of a closed iced cream parlour, ‘Harper’s Iced Creams’ and the remaining swooping gulls and allows herself a smile.

SISTER carries on walking down a street as dusk rapidly sets in. A figure stands in the growing darkness somewhere in the distance on the pavement in front of her. SISTER squints to try and see him. He doesn’t move. She stops in front of him and they spend a long beat looking at each other. They hug, somewhat awkwardly. SISTER runs her thumb over the collar of BROTHER’S winter coat. He takes her bag and they walk off together.

In BROTHER’S kitchen- rustic, oak, cast iron, etc, he serves her a lamb stew and cuts her a slice of bread. SISTER smiles softly and says “thanks”. He takes the dishes when she is done.

SISTER wakes up after a restful sleep, sun shining through the window on to her face. She gets out of bed and stretches. In slight pain, she rubs a scar on her left leg. She spends a moment looking at it, sat upright on the bed, her left leg stretched out, her right leg curled round beside her.

She sits in the same position on the pavement in a different time and place. A knife sticks out of her left leg, blue lights illuminating her face.

SISTER has showered and stands in her underwear, looking at herself in her mirror. She lightly prods her belly looking dejected.

She stands in the same position in a different time and place wearing a hospital gown, tenderly holding her stomach, shocked tears streaming.

Two fried duck eggs with vivid yellow yolks. Brown toast. Fried cherry tomatoes. In BROTHER’S kitchen, a picture of a cooked breakfast is served.

On a beach, beneath a rockface, SISTER stands, limbering up. Then she closes her eyes for a moment. BROTHER frames the shot on tripod mounted camera. When they are both ready, he starts filming and she begins to dance. Modern, fluid and balletic.

They are sat around his dinner table, finishing an Indian meal. Take away cartons are splayed over the table. BORTHER and SISTER look full, tired and happy.

BROTHER: Told you it was good

SISTER nods in agreement.

BROTHER: Place has changed. Bernie’s is a surf shop now.

SISTER: I saw! Double Disc?

BROTHER: Closed.

SISTER: Aw!

It is a few hours later. The table is cleared. They drink herbal tea where spirits or wine would usually be drunk. Snatches of conversation. SISTER offering to pay to refusal, bits of their life, both personal and superfluous.

BROTHER drives her to the station. They get out of the car and hug. BROTHER insists on helping her on to the train. They both smile as he waits. She waves for him to go but he stays, smiling.

The End

Well Then

2013-07-31T08:33:00.000-07:00

We all sighed as we were kicked off the bus and onto the busy back town high street. The music from the Turkish Food Centre we stood in front of danced with the heat outside. The tar in the road glistened and the boiling ground broke up the air as we gazed over the curve in the road, waiting for the next 75.

“What’s wrong with the bus?”

“I’m told. It is not me”

“But what’s actually wrong with it?”

“I was running late”

“Now we’re all running late”

“I was told. They tell me. I am just robot”

The bus driver timidly attempted to placate the ginger woman, both too fat and too skinny. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt. The same type as the Mormons who try and ply their shite to hundreds of god fearing Africans and West Indians in the town centre just down the road, maintaining a plastic American smile at the end of a day of rejection. He was Chinese or Korean. I didn’t stop to ask his life story. You don’t see many of them driving buses. East Asians or quiet, timid men. He was far too quick with an apology. He wouldn’t last. I wanted to stop and get a cold drink. Enjoy the moment of pause that had been forced on me, but I couldn’t risk missing another bus. If I stopped I would stop. I had to keep going.

I walk into the reception. It is hot and cool. The polish metal head at the desk stares into the middle distance, one ipod headphone stuck in his ear. I try and breathe. It’s hot and cool.

Nothing works in this country.

“Room 48b”

Nothing works in this country.

“We haven’t got much left, love. You’re a bit late. Maybe some chicken goo-jons”

It’s ok, I only want a beer. Do you have beer?

“We wouldn’t be much of a pub if we didn’t have beer!”

They aren’t much of a pub. But they’re right here, where I need them. I watch the bubbles float through the sunlight. I can’t really talk. Not that there is anyone else to talk to. Hospital pub. I’m not the first person here to need a drink.

The Ladywell Unit Ha Ha this lady aint well Ha Ha Room 48b there it is go on in but here I am on the first floor in the café staring at the factory made muffins.

“Can I help you, love?”

Men shuffle slowly. How can they wear tracksuit bottoms on a hot day like this? It’s so dark in here.

“You ok love?”

Yes I’m visiting my sister I’m not one of them I’m just visiting my sister she’s in Room 48b she hasn’t been well she hasn’t been. She was just laughing when I found her. Just laughing and laughing and singing the theme tune to a kid’s TV show over and over and over again and I didn’t. Know what to do I. She hadn’t been happy. She hadn’t been happy that’s why she went away camping. With her friends. After the ambulance took her I went through her phone and called them all up. Her friends. I was angry and asked them what drugs they had taken and they said none and they sounded like they were telling the truth but I’m not sure I believe them because how else can this have happened how she used to be normal how else could this have happened

They all cheer, their glasses meeting in the middle of the table. The young, beaming doctors. A tired looking nurse sits behind them, enjoying the sun and the moment.

“Write your name here” he says, deafened in one ear by the headphone. The one hanging loose spits staccato high-end as it swings wildly. I write my name on the tag without looking up at him and peel it off the paper, not needing the muted directions given through the thin glass.

I pull the name tag off my jumper, looking at the fibres caught on the back. I let them shimmer in the breeze before I fold it over, pretending that I’m not disgusted with myself. My hands shake and I let the nametag soak the beer that falls. My name runs and I hate myself.

It smells in here. Of must and bleach and plastic sheets. Of confusion and terror and other worlds. It stinks of spastics, as we used to say every year about the coaches the school would hire for sports day. Danny Conners used to say it loudest. Say everything loudest. People used to say things about her. Behind my back, but I knew. Danny Conners said it too. Loud and to my face. I’d never broken anyone’s nose before. Or since. I did it for her. I said I did it for her. But really it was for me. Because if I could break a nose for her, then why can’t I open a door? I can see her through the window, reading. But it may as well be a wall. My hand goes out and I feel faint and I can’t I can’t I can’t. I need a beer, I say, and I promise myself, I promise her I’ll be right back.

The bus traveled home without incident. The chatter of people, the chatter of the road became a blanket I tried to hide myself in. The sun couldn’t set fast enough.

x

2013-06-30T05:45:00.001-07:00

May Apologies and Songbirds

2013-05-31T08:17:00.001-07:00

I have nothing this month. A close shave with pneumonia, a spell in hospital and a tussle with fate have put paid to that.

I am currently working on pieces from the past two months that should be up in the next couple-two-tree days (with any luck) so there should be something new soon.

I can hear wood pigeons from where I am staying. Their call has remained the same throughout my life, throughout the world. If you listen for long enough you can hear the harmonics above the call.

Apologies to anyone concerned.

Tom | BF

The Austere Man

2013-04-30T03:10:00.001-07:00

*RUSTLING SOUND, PERHAPS OF A PERSON SHUFFLING*

Listen carefully. This is the most important thing you will ever hear.

One inch by three. That’s how big it was. The first thing I noticed about the void was its size. This may strike you as odd, but I was never panicked by it, not even early on. It didn’t start as a small hole that grew. I didn’t wake up to find it had formed in the night. I was eating dinner and watching a TV programme. I think it was property show. I find them tedious and comforting. The pains of other people’s aspirations. I looked down, away from the screen and noticed it. Just there on my left arm. I suppose it’s a hole, but it’s not in any kind of medical sense. It’s not a gash or deep wound. I can’t peer into the meat and sinew. I can’t look at the bone and it doesn’t hurt or bleed. It’s just a void. Just a big patch of nothing. One inch by three.

That was a few weeks ago. My first thought was to go to my GP clinic, but I’m not ill. It doesn’t hurt and I find (found?) the clinical smell and the waiting so depressing. The tired look in the doctors eyes. I am so loathe to take the time off work for something that doesn’t exist, that they’ll have no way of explaining. But the more I stared at it, the more I started to see something in the dark, in the void. Something that I couldn’t really understand. Moving, shifting in a way I couldn’t really comprehend. Like I was just looking at something complex from an angle that made it seem simple. So I went against my better judgement and saw a doctor. He did little but ask me a series of questions relating to diet and stress levels and then laugh at the novelty. He took a tongue depressor and poked it into the void. It seemed to disappear as soon as it entered, yet was intact when he pulled it back out. I asked him what I could do about it. He asked me if it hurt, if I could still use my arm. I answered “no” and “yes” respectively.
“Then what do you want to do about it?” he replied.

I was half expecting to be abducted by a shadowy secret governmental division, to be locked away and experimented on. In truth I was little more than a dinner party anecdote.

Button down shirts have long been the saviour of people working office jobs, wanting to disguise or keep separate an aspect of their lives, from functional heroin addicts to the heavily tattooed. I now counted myself among their rank. The practical nature of clothes in this regard was not an idea I had considered up until this point, but would be something I would learn to rely upon in the days and weeks that followed.

Picking the hardened skin around the balls of my feet was habit I am not too pleased to admit to or let people see, at least when I still could, but has been a basic pleasure since a young age. I am glad to say I had graduated to a pumice stone for the most part, but would often indulge this admittedly disgusting habit after returning from work. As I picked at the skin around the base of the little toe on my left foot, a long strand of skin came away. As I pulled and pulled it ran around the little toe like an orange peel, revealing raw, bleeding skin and muscle. An article I had read some months before had talked about how humans are still evolving. One example they cited was the loss of our small toes, how they were effectively useless now, given how few people walk barefoot. I really don’t remember thinking much as it happened. I certainly don’t recall any pain, or even that much blood. My little toe seemed to come off neatly in my hand. I didn’t really know what to do with it. I knew I didn’t want it back but I couldn’t quite bring myself to throw it away. It wasn’t as if it was hair or toenails and would regrow. I placed it in a ramekin and covered it over with cling film as if it were last night’s dinner. Then I remember thinking how uneven my feet looked. The other came off just as easily, with even less bleeding.

The next day, the remaining bits of flesh had begun to turn into blackened ribbons, like a plaster that had been left on too long. Like many men my age, I ran and swam to keep fit. I thought about my weight and appearance probably too often. As I stared down at the tatters of hardened skin, I began to think about home improvements. About streamlining and minimalism. About efficiency. Why should buildings have something that I wanted for myself? Why should remodelling stop at fitness or gender reassignment or turning yourself into a fucking catman. Why should I wait on the slow pace of evolution for improvements? I wanted them now. I deserved them now. I sat near-naked and stared into the void, the hole that was not a hole and pulled at the skin on my legs. It came off like paper that scratched in my gut. I could imagine that a few days before this would make me gag or cry but now I barely even saw the blood. I wound it round and round until the skin up to my thighs was gone.

Next, I thought about my hair. The money I spent on haircuts and products. The time and energy on worry about the inevitability of greying and hair loss. I had begun to get a widow’s peak like my father and uncle. Shaving was not enough. It was only a reduction of the problem, not a solution. And so I pulled out my hair, from the root. This did make me feel sick. Not because of the physical sensation, but because of the memories of a boy at school who would get into rages and do the same in a ball of angry tears and snot. This passed after the first few clumps. Then it was just dry crunching sounds from the inside of my head and the jerk of my vision as my head jumped forward when the hair came free. I placed the skin and hair into a vacuum-sealed bag and put it in the fridge alongside my toes. The reaction at work was muted at best. Some comments. Some to my face, some murmured. I didn’t care. Everyone had begun to seem from another time to me. I was just readying myself. Preparing for something that they couldn’t see was coming. That they couldn’t be bothered to open their eyes for. No matter either way. They wouldn’t see much more.

With a mind to presentation, I left my hands as they were, but my feet looked odd with skin and no nails. Out they came with a pair of pliers. Easier and easier. The pain was left for someone else, some other part of me to complain about. The part that was being left behind. But I had the same thought as before. All these pieces of me. ‘Of me’ in the loosest sense now, of course. I couldn’t throw it away, freezing it was pointless, but any other option would be just leaving it to rot. I looked at the tiny, greying digits, the mess of skin and hair and toenails in the fridge and I remember sighing, pitying myself. The me that soon was. I took the toes first and dropped them into the void. They disappeared into the darkness that was in and on my arm. Where that piece of my arm used to be. Silently gone. Slight surprise at first until the thought fit perfectly into place. Streamlined into my new way of understanding. The void pulsed and grew, as if happy, before returning to its original size.

Apart from my face and hands, the rest of my skin was next. Peeled off and fed into the void in one long line. I wasn’t quite ready to completely remove myself from society. Twice weekly visits to sperm banks had near guaranteed my part in propagating my bloodline and species, so my genitals were next.

Consulting anatomical texts and diagrams I located my appendix. My hands sank into the flesh of my gut and I pulled it out. My body didn’t bleed out aside from some minor fluid loss, as if we had come to an understanding of sorts. Perhaps my body had no control at all. I was beyond the point of scrabbling for scraps of reason.

I didn’t stop with my appendix. Beyond supposedly useless organs and body parts (spleen and spare ribs), my stomach went next. Perhaps my greatest move as to remove my reliance on food was to remove my reliance on everything. Produce, therefore money, therefore work, therefore the outside world. No more guilt over eating too much or the wrong things! I had become the perfect human! A model of freedom and efficiency!

Naturally, my feet and legs were next. My ears. My nose. By god, my nose. To be rid of the foul stenches and chatter of the ordinary. My face, no longer needed. No one, if seen, was owed protection from what I have now become. It continued. So on, and so on, pieces given for the sake of efficiency. Pieces for the void. It grew and remained, just beyond my realm of understanding, somehow happy.

Little more than my head, some torso and right arm now remain. Above the void I have stripped my left arm to the bone. The shoulder joint is a marvellous piece of work. So fascinating to find out how muscles and tendons really work by removing them one-by-one. I leave this to you, whoever finds it. The one reason my tongue remains- to leave a record of my achievement. The pinnacle of humanity, I am alone. I am streamlined beyond a need for this world. Perhaps one day you will understand, but I think this is doubtful. I have realised there is nothing else to do, except this final act. My right hand is pushing inside the void. It feels warm. My thumb has taken purchase outside of the hole. I am beginning to pull in. The void. The void is growing to meet me.

*DISTORTED CRACKLING*

Apologies again. I have this all planned out but am not able to write it as I'm laid up in hospital with pneumonia.

Thanks,

Tom ¦ Born Frowning

Golden Hours

2013-03-31T07:27:00.001-07:00

Soon come...

Apologies-

Tom | Born Frowning

FOUND

2013-02-28T06:36:00.003-08:00

A long while ago I wrote three separate pieces, collected under the title A Collection of Rudimentary Notes On an Experiment Yet To Be Completed. Far from being the pretentious title it seemed to be, this was actually the first stage of an experiment. The second was to create a new piece using a cut-up method, as documented here. The third was to give the assembled nonsense to my dear friend and occasional collaborator Francesca Allen to do what she does best, i.e. make things look amazing. She certainly didn't disappoint. This is the end result, presented now as it was earmarked for a project that didn't come to fruition.

Thanks,

Tom/ Born Frowning

Design © Francesca Allen

Words © Born Frowning

Duh

S.S.P.

2013-01-30T05:35:00.003-08:00

I lost everything yesterday. Fevered dreams, I don’t know where they ended and the day started. I slept until three, but I don’t remember waking.

When I looked out of the window, everything was covered in snow. The cars parked outside looked like lumps. The whole world was an unmade bed. The light was still there slightly. Fading fast. I walked up to Superdrug. As much as I could walk. I damn near burnt a hole through my leg in the night. I didn’t take a sleeping tablet, I wasn’t drunk or high. I just needed sleep that badly, I suppose. I don’t know how it happened, but I slept right through it. I bought some cream that’s meant to heal burns. They didn’t have the right thing. The first place. I had to walk to Boots. The concrete felt like slow, thick liquid. I was on the deck of a ship. Everyone’s face was one I recognised but didn’t know why. I should see a doctor.
That night a fox darted across my path. I had left the house again for something I felt I needed. It shot out of the darkness of the park by my house. I had to jump to a stop and I held my breath as it ran across the main road. Nearly dying. But the cars didn’t even come close. A dog, a pitbull was chasing foxes in the pitch black. I couldn’t see an owner I couldn’t see much at all. Just orange flashes. The dark white of the dog’s body in the moonlight. Blotted patches that bled into stripes. Maybe there was someone there, maybe it had just run off. Should I do something? Who do you call for something like this? I was too scared to look. What if it was dangerous? Or its owner was nearby?

I’ve never trusted pitbull owners. Not in a city. I let them keep running and walked on home.
When I was 16, my friends and I went to an alley by our school to smoke weed. I don’t know where I got it from, but I was the one with the connect. It was pretty nice. Buds, thick with pollen, but before the days when skunk had saturated the market and overcome everyone’s senses. Dry and fluffy shit. The doritos of cannabis.
Mersh. Commercial. High grade. Weed. None of that cracked out bullshit.

We’d gone to an alley to smoke it. Roy had said it was ok. He said he knew it. Barely on a cycle of the joint, a man came up to us. He was walking with his girlfriend, their infant in a pram and their pitbull on a chain. He didn’t think twice. She took the pram and faced the other way and he took the dogs chain and moved closer. I wouldn’t give it to him, even though he demanded. At first we all stood and bullshitted. “Some guy gave it to us” “What do you mean some guy?” “We just bought a joint” “Gimme the weed”. He kept demanding. The knees of my friends caved, but I decided for the first time in my life to say ‘no’. I was angry and tired of being bullied and I had paid for this weed with my pocket money. So I said ‘no’. Even when my friends pleaded with me. He made the woman hold the dog’s chain as she continued to look the other way and he walked close to me. Firmly. Without raising his fists. And I caved along with the rest of them. I gave him the ten draw. Nothing, even then. The woman had taken the pram and faced the other way as he mugged me. Mugged a child. Apart from the hot anger and embarrassment and the feeling as if I’d once again finished last, the confirmation of every shit thing I felt about myself, I thought about the kid in the pram. What kind of hope did it have?

So I left it alone. The dog. I left it alone. I didn’t call anyone or tell anyone or think about it again that evening.

The next morning I found its body in the snow. Grey and soft and muscular. Stiff and limp. Frozen, the muscles had started to seize. I was walking through the park. I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been waking up at around half past five every morning. Not gradually, because I need a drink or a piss, slowly pulled out of deep sleep by an encroaching physical urgency. I wake with a gunshot. Every morning at half past five. I don’t sit up, like they do on tv. My eyes are just suddenly open, as certainly as they were closed before, and I am interpreting life anew. As similar as the day before, but every day a new reality. A new existence. It always took me longer than I felt it should to ground myself. My grandmother used to suffer from micro strokes. One aspect of senility, the horror of living as your brain begins to die. The short term memory is the first thing to go. Failing synapses forcing a brutal Taoist or Zen interpretation of reality. The moment is the only existence that can be understood. I often wonder if this is not what is happening to me.
Sometimes I can manage to return to sleep after half an hour or so. Sometimes I read or make half hearted attempt at masturbation and I realise sleep is lost to me. I had already decided I wouldn’t be going into work again. I finally accepted that I wasn’t going to work or to sleep or to do any of the things I probably should be doing, from reading to getting myself wed ha ha ha.

I pulled on clothes from the floor. I gingerly put trousers on, wincing as it went over the burn. My hip feels like it’s out. Or. Not right. My hip. Like it needs to click. My hip and my arm. My shoulder. Needs to break. They don’t hurt. But they need to break. To be ok.

The burn on my leg. It’s getting worse. The blister is about the size of half a golf ball. I thought a burn this bad would feel hot, but my body feels cold. Not because of the cold! No! From the inside. Spreading from the burn on my leg, up and inside and seeping. I imagined the blue liquid from a tampon advert taking over my body.

How are you! How are you!
I am fine! Ha ha ha! Yes! Thank you!

The half light. It is still the evening to everyone but me and milkmen and the animals and the traffic that never stops. There are no footprints, except paws. Dead air. The gulls that had been brought into the park along with the brand new lake. A living feature. Crows. Squirrels. Foxes. And somewhere, that dog.
The blues began to leave, taking with it the colour of the night. Whites, blacks and browns were all that remained. I walked, marking the ground for as ever as I could. It was ok. I wasn’t really here. I hadn’t opened my eyes yet. This part wasn’t real.

I stopped at the bridge. The white and the ever shifting light. The canvas onto which I painted imagined memories of the long dead Grand Surrey canal. The dull grey green of the weed choked waters, further discoloured by the perpetual traffic of industry. They formed in the haze I painted onto the world. I climbed onto the bridge and watched the boats pass under. I nodded and waved at the old canal workers in an assumed camaraderie that the water encouraged.
I stepped off the bridge.
With no hesitation.

I floated above the surface of the water by barges and tugs. I cleared the water and watched the pikes and the minnows and the eels jittering and dancing under my feet. The pond skaters flew around my feet. Lines and lines of them, firing off over the curve of the earth, from a lump on the equator, obscuring what would be the rising sun, were it visible. I floated towards it.

The dog’s head was cocked slightly, first above the water, then above the ground as if waiting to hear a command from beneath the earth. Its tongue had lolled out of its mouth. The sharp pink against monochrome. Whites and mottled greys. Slowly becoming grey itself as the physical memory of life became more and more distant, as the matter, the corporal pieces that had made up this animal entered a new stage of its existence.
It just looked like meat with the skin on.

“Shame, that. Must have slipped his leash”
I couldn’t place him, the boat-less man. Standing on the waterless ground. His high-visibility vest shone out against what was now the endless white. Saying nothing, he picked the dog from the ground with both hands and put it in the back of his small, green, off-road vehicle. He took a moment to brush the snow from the body before driving away.

Woodhouse: Part Seven

2012-12-31T07:00:00.000-08:00

“ …came as soon as I could… the… it was hard to get a taxi… I”
The door bounced off the wall and back into Alex’s side, full of the same fraught energy that had opened it so fast.
His mum was sat in the corner of the darkened room on John’s old chair. Her eyes were red, her body hunched, thin. He’d never seen her looking so old, so frail.
“You didn’t spend too much did you?”
“Oh, I … yeah, I mean it was… at this time of day, the distance…”
“Here, take some money”.
His dad started to take his wallet from his trousers.
“Oh no, please…”
“Go on, you don’t get hardly anything to life off, I know what it’s like being a student”
“I… no really it’s…”
His words were lost already, sucked into the void around his grandfather’s bed. His breath, his voice, his heart. John stared at the ceiling, his eyes shut. His cheeks sagged unnaturally. They were red, mottled at the edges, yet the centres were an awful, awful pale white. His mouth remained open.
“What did…” Alex said after a near endless ten minutes of silence. “what happened?”
“We… we don’t know yet… we’re waiting for the coroners… they should be along any time…”
“where’s…. where’s Jo?”
“She’s… round at a friend’s, we didn’t think that… she didn’t… well, she’s still very young you know?”
“She… she didn’t want to be here?”
Alex’s dad came over and put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. Never before in his life had he felt so connected to his dad. Feelings of sorrow, inevitability and a fear of mortality, both in the real and the abstract, flowed from the body of the old man; through ever inch of Alex and into his father through that slight physical connection. Three generations bound to a single moment.
His mother remained sat in the corner, saying nothing, just staring quietly at the body of the old man. Little quirks and foibles of the building became both deafening and dissipated into insignificance against the silent white noise of grief.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

The three of them turned around to face the door. A man in a suit was already walking through, as if knocking was a formality and not something you had to wait for a response from.
“Oh, er, oh” said the man, before turning back to the care worker who was stood behind him.
“Oh, I thought, er, the, er, family were gone”
“Oh, I didn’t know that they were in here…”
The official looking man, who must have been from the coroner’s office turned back round to the family.
“Uh, well, take as much time as you need. We’ll just be out here or upstairs when you’re ready and we’ll take away the uh, uh gentleman”
The official man said ‘gentleman’ in a way that was clearly a substitute for ‘body’ or ‘it’. Later Alex would be hateful towards this man. Later still, understanding of the separations and objectification that one must have to go through in such a job, for the sake of one’s sanity. Right now, he was just trying not to weep.
The door was shut on them again.

“well…” said Michael, looking up at Lucy.
Lucy nodded and began to get up. She walked slowly over to the same side of the bed as the two men. Her two boys.

She then turned and faced the old man and sighed. Not cried, not stifled tears, just sighed.
“Poor old man” She said. “Poor old gent”
She leaned over and stroked his hair and kissed him on the forehead and walked towards the door without saying anything. Michael stroked his hair as well, before turning around and leaving.
“Bye dad”
“Come on son, let’s go”

Alex nodded and started to take baby steps to his grandfather’s body. Weights were tied around his ankles and the hands of the dead clawed at his feet, but still he walked. He reached over his grandfather’s body and brought his hand to his head. He looked so real, like he could wake at any moment, yet like nothing he’d ever seen before. Like looking and one of his dad’s digital approximations of a building, it was both real, and so obviously an imitation of what it was supposed to be. Remnants. A memory. Nothing.
He slowly stroked his grandfather’s hair.

“Goodbye granddad”.
Alex shut the door behind him.

Woodhouse: Part Six

2012-12-31T06:39:00.001-08:00

Lucy stood at the front of her family and knocked on the door.

“The man you know as John is dead” came the muted reply from inside. Lucy turned to Michael. After a moment of confusion and another bitter reminder that there was little she could do, composed herself and held her finger out. The rest of her family waited at her command. They waited and caught snatches of the conversation that followed.

“Dad?”

“Yes?….are you”

“….daughter…all the way…to see you”

“…don’t know… daughter”

The conversation dropped below and audible level. The dull roar of the ventilation system took its place, as did the sound of elderly programming on viewing station and the cries of someone upstairs.

“Dad…” asked Joanne, quietly, hesitantly. “Is granddad ok?”

“Um... yes, I’m sure he’s fine. Mum just needs to have a little talk with him on her own. I’m sure it’ll be ok”

Alex stood silently, staring at the floor.

A few more moments passed before Lucy stuck her head round the door again.

“OK” She half-whispered. “It’s ok to come in”

The family entered, with no little trepidation.

“Now dad, you remember Michael, don’t you?”

“Hello there dad. How you doing.” Michael held his hand out. John, who was lying in bed, hesitantly held his own hand out.

“Oh uh, how do you do”

“Hiya granddad”

“Oh hello”

“This is Joanne, your granddaughter” Helped Lucy.

“And this surly one is your grandson Alex”

“Alright granddad”

Alex stood back and waved. They all took seats facing in towards the bed.

“So… How are you, granddad?” Asked Alex.

“Oh, yes, you know… Can’t complain. They treat me nice here. It’s a nice place. I’ve had a lovely holiday but I can’t wait to get back home”

“Uh.. Do you know what day it is?” Asked Michael, thinking of the first thing off the top of his head.

“It’s a Wednesday.”

“It’s a Saturday. Do you know the date?”

“Is it October?”

“Its… Its June, dad… it’s the middle of summer. Let’s try for a year. Do you know the year?”

“I’d say it was the year… two thousand and… sixty five”

“Uh, no dad, its 2084”

“It is not! No!”

“Ha! It is, look at the calendar”

“So, I’ve had a very nice time here, but I’ll have to leave soon. They need the room for someone else”

“Oh yeah? So where are you going to?”

“Oh, I’m going everywhere”

“Everywhere?”

“Yes. Everywhere. All around the world. All over the world”

The family were left bewildered. After a while they began to talk amongst themselves.

“Uh, so… um, Michael, what’s been going on at work?”

Though a stilted and forced question, it was one that Lucy was genuinely interested in.

“Well, it’s got a bit interesting of late. We’ve started work on some areas south of the river, as you know. We’ve got into a place that they’ve recently opened up again, and it’s actually near where John’s from, from where he was born…”

“Did you hear that dad? Michael’s been working near where you were born”

“Oh good. Heh. That’s nice.”

“So, we’re looking at this row of houses near a park- it’s all the usual row housing, you know, but then there’s the remnants of this one on the end and its very unusual for the area. Its… well, it’s an unusual design, very grand- must predate the rest by at least 40 or 50 years… and another thing we’ve noticed is, well its suspected anyway- we won’t know for sure until its fully mapped and simmed, but one thing we- suspect- is that much of the damage took place a long time ago, much further back than the rest of the area… but it was just left there, just remained there… I get the feeling that this place is going to throw up a few surprises when we begin to document it fully. I mean, what I’ve already seen of the ground and basement levels…”

“It’s been very nice staying here, but they’re going to send me back very soon”

“Uh… there are various signifiers to suggest that, old though it is, this isn’t the first…”

“It’s not the sort of holiday I would have chosen”

“Uh… structure to be built…”

“…but you can’t complain can you?”

“*”

“Oh look dad, it’s almost time for your tea. What are you having today?”

“I don’t know. They’ll tell us later”

“Well… what did you have yesterday?”

“I had… uh… porkchops”

“You… had? Are you sure?”

“Yes, positive.”

“But dad…”

“Yes…”

“You… you’ve been a vegetarian all your life... Since you were born!”

“Don’t be so silly.”

Lucy looked shocked.

Michael interjected with the first thing he could think of to try and paint over the obvious.

“So… uh… we don’t know yet for sure but there is some indication that this house may have been used as some kind of commune or alternative/outsider lifestyle venture in the late 20^th/ early 21^st century”

“You mean like the Paris commune?” asked Alex, to his father’s surprise.

“Uh, no not exactly, but in some ways, I mean, well done!”

Alex snorted and muttered “You’re not the only one that can read you know”.

“There were a lot of political communes, but some were political in the sense that they just sought to exist outside of the mainstream, as some kind of alternative, so I suppose there’s a case of similarities to be made… But were not sure how successful it was, how long it lasted, whether it was gone before the house…”

“I remember Paris. I remember going there in my twenties. I just got bored of living here and packed my bags and went to live in Paris for a while.”

They were never quite sure if these stories John would come out with had any basis in reality. The rest of the family looked at Lucy, the closest thing to a family historian. She would normally nod or shake her head. This time she just shrugged.

“I… wasn’t in a very good way… it was the middle of my twenties and I’d just broken… I mean, I hadn’t met your nan yet… I packed my things and I went to live in Paris for four months, in a squat.”

“Squat? Squat! That’s the name”

“It was a funny time. I hated it at first. I’d lost that my sense of home. That’s a horrible thing. Whether it’s a person or a place… you know, you begin to destroy yourself because you feel so alone… but after a while, it was like no other place… and there I met your grandmother! Funny how that works. You think you’re running away from something, but you’re actually finding something without even knowing it… Heh. “We’ll always have Paris”. Know what that’s from?

Everybody shook their heads.

Woodhouse: Part Five

2012-12-17T07:26:00.001-08:00

“Where we going then James?”

“I’m Alex, granddad! James’ nephew?”

“Of course you are”

We’re just gonna pop up the road. I thought since it was your birthday we’d go for a little drink.”

“What?”

“In a pub”

“Really?” His face lit up.

“Yeah! Why not? Not sure mum would like it, but then…”

“… She’s not here is she?”

“Exactly!”

Alex put the two pints down on the table. Ale for himself, a dark stout for his grandfather. The liquid lopped down the side of the glass and discoloured the lacquer of the table, making it grey, white, like skin too long in the bath. He dropped the bag of crisps he’d been holding in his mouth and tore them up one side, exposing the contents and placed them in the middle of the table

“There you go!”

“Oh, you’re a good kid aint you? Now you sure you can afford…”

“Look, I told you mum left me some money for shopping and whatever. I think its alright to spend a bit on you, so let’s not hear any more about it”

“God, you’re your mother’s son alright”

“How do you mean?”

John just smiled and shook his head.

“You seem pretty at home in a pub, don’t you?”

Alex shrugged.

“Go there sometimes at lunch in college. We’ve got one near us that doesn’t really care”

“You get served alright here?”

“Yeeeeeah, no problem”

The chatter in the public house got louder. It was about this time that Alex realised that he had no idea he was. The man sitting opposite him. He knew his granddad, he knew his mum’s dad, the old man with a voice like gravel and was the benchmark of everything that was factually and morally right and correct… but he had no idea who this man John was. It was hard to think of him as a man, as someone who had loved and desired

“How’s your pint?”

“Oh lovely, lovely. I haven’t had a nice black stout for year and years”

“So how are you getting on in there granddad?”

“Where?”

“In the home”

“The… oh the home. It’s ok. I have the paper each day. I’ve got my books, the art classes are nice.”

“I dunno. The place… it seems so stilted. Like it’s not your own place…”

“Well, it’s never gonna be like the home I made, is it? Look… Alice used to be a social worker OK. Watchu call them now… social fluidity agent? Social correction officer? Kind of like that type of thing. Less… I dunno. More well meaning. It seemed so anyway. Well, she saw some things. Some real dives. We’re talking about… forty years ago now. It was like a different world in many ways, but even now… you have to understand that this was before all the big ecological reforms, population control… medicines for the body were getting better but there wasn’t much for the mind. Still isn’t really. Hah. Look at me. I just start…”

“You were saying grandma was a social… worker?”

“Oh… yes… oh….”

“About housing”

“Yes… I was just… I don’t think elderly care has ever been a priority in any society. It’s an awful hypocrisy… Look, even with all this technology, the amazing things they can do these days… even with all the energy consumption legislature, even with the… look, we’re still in a society that doesn’t appreciate individual worth… it just makes you believe it does. It’s still a capitalist dictatorship marauding under the guise of some kind of freedom, democracy and… What I’m saying is that passed the age where you’re useful to society, it stops giving a damn about you. Because I was a teacher… it’s a job that directly benefits society, and it’s also a job that no bastard wants to do… especially not in a city… so I was guaranteed care in my older life that was of a certain standard. You read about the teaching crisis of ’48?”

“What, all the marches? And the riots?”

“That’s right. That kind of perk for social sector jobs came as a result. Well, between mine and your gran’s pensions… that place is OK. I’ve heard stories about awful, awful places that are still far about the legal minimum…”

“That’s terrible”

“That’s right. That’s right. So do something.”

“What do you mean?”

“Write a letter, make a phone call, talk to people. If not about this, about something else… I’m not saying fight this cause, just… look further, look deeper, look behind things… I’m sorry, I’m going off. Just don’t think you have to accept things if they’re not right. You’re a good kid you know.”

The babble swelled up again.

“Did I ever tell you about my mum… your grandma”

“Great grandma”

“Of course, yeah”

“Not really. I didn’t meet her”

“No she died well before you were born. She was an amazing artist, you know. Had me young. Very young, barely 20 years between us. Did it on her own.”

“You didn’t have a dad”

“Not…I mean… no. No.”

A pause.

“She… she could have been a great artist. She was, but you know what I mean. She worked hard to support me. I never wanted for anything, not attention or anything. She loved to draw and paint, to sculpt. But she loved me more. It was only when I had your uncle and your mother that I appreciated what she had done, how hard it must have been. When I look at you and your sister. It seems so easy now… not to say that it is, but this is the position you’ll find yourself in one day. Able to look back and say everything was either much better or much harder. Heh. But, I mean, you guys are OK. I helped make sure. You’re dad’s got a good old job… Uh what is he?”

“He’s… it’s kind of like archaeology. Preservation, restoration, documentation…

They’re looking at some of the places that they’ve reclaimed after the flooding, working out the structures...”

“Blimey… that’s… its… it’s interesting, it just feels a bit beyond me. But this is what I’m talking about, in as many ways as the world is different, its changed so much. It wasn’t easy back then. The infrastructure of the country was collapsing, the world was changing too quickly and no one really knew how to handle it. The climate. Everyone was saying things and no one was doing anything. Hundreds of thousands of people were dying each day and no one would even talk about it. Famines, floods, earthquakes. There’d be TV appeals, but nothing would really happen. When I think back on it, it seems like it was around the time that Castro stepped down… You know Fidel Castro?”

“Um… he was…”

“He was the leader of the communist party in Cuba”

“Oh right. So why was that then?”

“Timing maybe? The Maybe nothing at all. I don’t know. I think everything was heading to shit anyway, but looking back, when I started to take some kind of interest in it. You have to think I was very young when what I’m talking about happened. For some reason it feels like that was the point of no return”

It pleased Alex that his granddad would swear like that in front of him. So thoughtlessly, not shielding him. It was perhaps the first time he’d been treated as an individual, as a man. He felt proud that this was his grandfather. That they were together at this moment.

“Can I get you another one?”

“What’s the hurry?”

Alex smiled.

Woodhouse: Part Four

2012-11-23T06:48:00.000-08:00

Alex waited at the new security door. The thumb scanner had taken his print and was now awaiting verification for entry on the other side. Thank you granddad! Still, it was probably for the best. John was still having turns.

“Hi there”

“Oh, hi!” Alex looked up from signing in.

“I think your granddad is downstairs in his room”

“I’ll... Great, I’ll go see. Thanks”

Alex rapped lightly on the door, right underneath the picture of his granddad smiling.

“Hello?”

He walked straight in. His granddad was sat on the chair by his desk, turned around so that he could see out of the window. He was dressed in a dark green linen suit, beautifully pressed. He was freshly shaven and smelled lightly of cologne. Alex was taken aback. In all his 18 years, he’d never seen his granddad look this smart. The room light was off. The dull daylight filtered through the polarising window, masking its true beauty.

“Uh. Hello granddad! How goes it?”

John turned around, pulling himself in from wherever he had gone to.

“Hello!”

John responded in a way that indicated he both knew who Alex was, but at the same time had no real idea. A name on the tip of his tongue, a memory surrounded by broken synapses. At the moment Alex was happy that there was at least this level of familiarity.

“Do you know who I am?”

Alex sat on the side of the bed, next to him.

“Yes, yes of course, you’re… my… you’re”

“It’s Alex! I’m your grandson. Your only grandson.”

“Yes, of course you are. I’m sorry. Come here and give me a hug”

The two men embraced. Alex breathed in the smell. Cologne and thick air and moth spray. It smelled of age and memories that were slowly dying.

“Do you know what day it is today?”

“Tuesday?”

“Well, it’s Thursday… but no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh, right”

“Do you know what the date is today?”

“It’s the.. uh…”

“It’s the 26^th of April!”

“*”

“Your birthday!”

“Really?”

“Yes really! Happy birthday!”

“Thank you!”

“Look… I got you something….”

Alex handed him over a cellulose bag

“Now look, you’ll have to be careful with these, cos you’re not really supposed to have them but look. I got you a card”

John opened the card. Paper and illustrated with a Cezanne painting.

“Real card! From a tree! To… Grandad… Happy birthday… love… Lucy… Michael… Alex… and Joanne. Oh that’s lovely”

“It’s from before the ban, you know? So you’re not really supposed to have it. I wrote on it with a special pen, so you can rub it out of you don’t like the message or want to use it again.”

“Oh, no no. Thank you!”

“And this… I got you. I was told it was rare. It’s some folk art from Mozambique. Do you remember where that was? When it was?”

“Yes… yes…”

John revealed the piece of carved wood, shaped into an almost photorealistic sculpture of a deer.

“I think it’s some kind of African animal. I don’t know what it’s called. There used to be different sorts. It’s not a Monkjack or a Watusi, but I don’t know… I think they might have a few in a conservation centre in London Centre. It was carved out of a parasite wood over a hundred years ago. It’s older than you even!”

The old man had tears in his eyes. He was far too old to be ashamed or embarrassed.

He sniffed and wiped under his eyes.

“Ah, you’re a good boy”

Alex shrugged.

“How’s your mum and dad?”

“They called today. They’re having fun”

“Where… where have they gone?”

“They went to Canada to visit Uncle Graham. Do you remember Uncle Graham?”

“Uh…”

“He was at mum and dad’s wedding. Dad’s brother. Quite tall.”

“Does… does he have a lisp?”

“Yeah, a slight one! That’s him! Anyway, they decided to spend a month over there cos they’re not sure when they’d get to go again, and this was the only time they could get. He’s not been well, either.”

“Oh dear. Hope its not too serious…”

“Cancer. He should be OK”

“Oh. Good”

“*”

“ You wish they’d taken you too, don’t you?”

Alex shrugged again.

“‘spose”

“Well look, don’t be too mad at them- they’ve had a very stressful time of it of late…”

“I guess… I just… why wouldn’t they want to be here for your birthday”

“Maybe they didn’t have much of a choice. Maybe they trusted you”

John stopped talking and looked at the door. He put the carving and card back into the bag and under his bed. Seconds later Juliet walked through the door.

Alex just about held his jaw closed. The old man was Sharp. As. Fuck.

“Hello hello hello!!! Happy Birthday John!!!”

“Happy… uh…Thank you!”

“Don’t you look smart! My word! If I were just a little bit older…”

“Ha…”

“Well, you start dressing like this every day, eh? And Alex! Its nice to see you, coming down on you’re granddad’s birthday! Where’s your mummy and daddy?”

“Still in Canada”

“Having a nice time?”

“Yes, I think so”

“I hope you’re not having too many parties! I know what you kids are like!”

“Ha…”

“Now John, since you’re all nice and dressed up, I want you to come upstairs into the sitting room. We’ve got a little surprise planned out for you”

John looked round at Alex with an arched eyebrow. Alex shrugged again.

“OK, so come upstairs in a minute OK?”

“Sure”

When they made their way into the front room. All the residents we’re there, herded in. Fred, Lee, Britney, Chantelle, Ramaya… Everybody. Some chatting some locked deeply in their own worlds of confusion and depression. They took seats near the communal viewer, broadcasting images of landscapes from throughout history. Alex’s young eyes and conditioning could make out the slight, slight differences between these sculpted, crafted and generated images and ‘real footage’. It was ‘too’ real, even when the images were as painted and soft as these. A lifetime of looking over his dad’s shoulder as he worked and viewed his own replications had made him able to spot the difference without a second glance. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon faded into the Rainforests of Brazil, which faded into the Tundra of Alaska.

“Is it alright to set up here love?”

A chubby, seedy looking middle aged man carrying a couple of bags stood near the entrance of the sitting room, facing where John and Alex were sat. He was joined moments later by his equally seedy looking and middle-aged wife, dressed in trousers and a top, which were unbefitting of both her age and the environment.

“Yes, please do,” replied Pearline.

He pulled out a small bag, about the size of a large fist, and unzipped it, pulling out a compact mess of metal, looking somewhat like a squashed spider. He pushed a button on its underside.

“Stand back ladies, this things gonna go off! Heh, heh”

Legs unimpressively extended out and found the floor, adjusting to a preset height. A flat panel then extended out widthways, resplendent with keys like a piano.

“ooooohhh!” went everyone who was paying attention, barring Alex.

A holder extended out of the back, in which the man placed his motherbox, which promptly chimed its tinny chime. He then connected small metal pads to the walls at various points around the room, just were his ‘box indicated. Two large, flat ones and six semi-circular. Alex had seen this before. The large pads turned the walls into speakers. The communicated directly with the keyboard. The smaller pads were autonomous speakers, which handled both the high end, and also filled in and embellished on the sound from the wall. It was a showier, flashier version of one that Alex had had, aged 7 when he first learned to play keyboards. Alex hoped this wasn’t going to be what he already knew it was.

“Where can we change my love?”

Pearline pointed to a large disabled toilet near the entrance to the common room. The pair bounded off together with a bag and locked the door behind them.

Ten minutes of tea delivery and chattered conversation passed. Though subtle, the atmosphere of excitement was noticeable.

“What do you think they’ve got planned then granddad?”

He shrugged

“Oh, god knows”

Suddenly a drum roll cracked through the air. A fanfare of horns. Lights from the front of the keyboard cutting through the mid days sun. And in burst the couple. Him in a pink, sequined dinner jacket and silver bow tie, her in matching coat and ill-fitting sliver sequined leotard. Their skin was tighter and shinier than a few moments ago, and their smiles look painted on. They danced their sequenced dance over to the keyboard, with the man standing behind the keyboard, and the woman grabbing a cordless mic.

“Hiya folks!” the man screamed. “what’s the rub?”

“Hiya folks!” joined in the woman, waving around the room.

“We’re Sandy and Dee and we’ve come to sing you a few songs you might remember!”

“I’m Sandy”

“And he’s Dee!”

“Or is it the other way round?”

“Oh, you! One, two three, four…”

The music started up. Lush, cheap, overpriced syntheses of a hundred instruments at once.

“Baby, can't you see, I'm calling…”

“Are ya?”
”A guy like you should wear a warnin'”

“That’s what the police said!”
”It's dangerous, I'm fallin'”

“Oh no!”

Their well-rehearsed voices swam round each other, as soulless and unreal as the instruments that accompanied them.

“With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride,
You're toxic, I'm slippin' under,
taste of a poison paradise,
I'm addicted to you,
Don't you know that you're toxic?”

“Oh no! Stand back folks! She toxic!!!”

It was all Alex could do for his eyes to not melt out of his head.

Sandy (or was it Dee?) kept the music going with an alternating on/off hand pattern, so beloved by Cockney musicians. Dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah.

“Do’ncha wish you’re girlfriend was raw like me… do’ncha? Don’cha?”

“I bet you do folks, I bet you do! Come on now!”

“Don’t wanna be an American Idiot…”

Song after song, all unknown to Alex, flowed over him, as he tried to properly conceive of these two people… what were they like at home? He started to think and couldn’t help but get flashes of their disgusting sex life.

Dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah.

“Now I believe we have a birthday here today. Am I right?”

Dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah.

Oh god.

“Now I think it might be… Jonathan! John! Where are you Johnny boy?”

Dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah.

Pearline lead the woman over to John’s seat. She perched on the arm.

John was sitting with a smile on his face, his hands on his knees, his knees rocking in time to the music. Alex felt angry and betrayed for a split second and then embarrassed by such feelings.

Dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah.

“Hiya John! Happy birthday”

She held out the mic in front of his mouth.

“Uh……………..Hello?”

“Is this your grandson? Come to see granddad on his special day?”

“Uh…………….yes”

His embarrassed response echoed around the room.

“And what’s the big number today?”

“Um… ei…ei… eighty…?”

Alex held up his first finger.

“Eighty one”

“Aww, in’t he sweet ladies and gentlemen?”

The pandered crowed ‘awwed’.

“You’re so sweet in fact, I might let you take me home”

“You can have her mate!”

Dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah.

Another song stared up.

“Oh take me home… tonight… I’ll bet you’ll remember this one!

Where there’s music and there’s people
And they’re young and alive
Driving in your car”

“BROOM BROOM!!!”

“Aw, look at that! He’s embarrassed! Don’t be shy son! Hold you’re granddad’s hand! Hold on to granddad’s hand!”

Dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah.

“Now, taking you back to one of the greatest tragedies that the world has known. I’m sure you all remember this one”

Dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah.

“Where were you when the world stopped tuning,

that September day?”

Dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah, dum-bah.

That was just about it. Alex got up, awkwardly smiled, grabbed his granddad by the hand and then got out as quickly as he could.

“Meet me by the door; I’ll grab your coat.”

Alex ran downstairs to his room and grabbed a coat and scarf. Harris tweed. When he got back, Janine was standing in John’s way.

“Now John, you know you’re not supposed to be going out, not after all the trouble you’ve put me through recently.”

“But…”

“No, I don’t want to hear about no lawyer, no solicitor, no mystery woman… You be good and go in there and enjoy the music”

“Ah, sorry. Look this is my fault. I promised him I’d take him out for a walk today and I’m busy later”

“Hmmm, well… I don’t know”

“It’s OK, we’ll only stroll about”

“I’m not sure you know”

“Look, I’m 18 and I can call if anything goes wrong. We won’t be far away at all. I promise”

“OK, as it’s his birthday. You go, have fun, but I don’t want to hear nothing bad about this, OK?”

“Oh, sure. Thank you. Thanks”

She went into the office and hit the door release. The cold, bright air wrapped around them. Birds and cars created a bio-mechanical, cacophonous hello. They were in the world and happy.

Woodhouse: Part Three

2012-11-16T05:18:00.000-08:00

“Granddad? Granddad? What the hell is going on? What’re you doing out here?”

“I’m going to meet my lawyer”

“You’re… what?”

“I was told I had to meet my Lawyer. I was told to wait here to meet my lawyer.”

“You don’t have to see a lawyer. You don’t even have one”

The wind was bitter, cutting through meagre clothing. It had started to spit dirty, gritty rain.

“He called me up. He called me up”

“Come on granddad.”

“No.”

“Come on. I had to rush over here. Just… come on!”

Alex took his arm and attempted to guide the old man inside, but he stayed fast. His thin flannel trousers and cardigan began to dampen and grey from the rain.

“No! Who… who are you? I have to wait here”

“It’s me. It’s Alex.” His eyes moistened in the rain. He refused to cry. He was the only one who could deal with this situation. John refused to look at the boy.

“Look. If you stay out here, you’ll catch your death. Come inside with me and I promise that when he comes he’ll ring the bell and I’ll let you know.”

John stopped, looked at Alex, then gruffly nodded, allowing the young man to lead him back inside.

“Alex!” Marianne, the Sunday manager, was in tears. When she had called him up, she had been barely able to speak. Alex hadn't wanted to leave- he didn't feel like he should be dealing with this kind of thing, or in fact know what he would be dealing with. Joanne was staying at a friend’s. He’d sent her a message, no reply. She had started ‘that age’. The age he was just seeing the end of. Marianne had almost broken down on the phone. Her voice had wavered and just about held as she said ‘please’. This couldn't have happened two days ago, when his parents were still in the country, of course. Barely a child, Alex knew better than to let his parents know until he had to. His mum was so highly strung about everything since his grandma had died and granddad John had become more and more distant. He held his tongue. He didn't desperately or ask what had happened. Too much high emotion already. Be a man. He didn't demand to know why trained healthcare professionals couldn't handle one old man, or why he had just suddenly started acting like this after two years. Just get on. Be a man.

“Thank you for coming! He was… He went…I couldn't stop him”

“I’m going to take him downstairs and… make him change his clothes. Uh, do you think you could get him a hot drink or something? Sorry to ask”

Marianne smiled and nodded and Alex led his granddad downstairs to his room. The old man muttered indecipherable words as Alex sat him on a seat next to his bed. John wasn't too badly soaked. He didn't think he’d have to have a bath or anything. Alex looked through the cupboard and pulled out a pair of green cords and an ancient grey cotton shirt. The collar and cuffs had been darned. Probably by his grandma. Alex lightly ran his finger over the stitching, over the label, before roughly folding the shirt and placing it with the trousers and a change of underwear on John’s bed.

“Now granddad. Granddad?”

“Huh? What?”

“I’m going to turn my back and let you change, OK? I want you to let me know if you need any help.”

“Don’t need bloody…”

Alex stared at the wall, at the photograph of an old landscape that looked like a painting. A giant tree growing in some kind of desert. He’d always been fascinated by it. It was like a surrealist painting. Trees didn’t grow in the desert now. Nothing grew there any more.

He could hear the sound of fabric and rustling. Heavy breathing and frustration. He turned round to see his grandfather tangled up in the clothes, one arm caught at the elbow, two legs in one trouser leg.

“Oh Jesus Christ”

Alex knew how patronising and dangerous it was to think of old people as children. They were helpless at times, but after two years of visiting his granddad here he knew this not to be true. He could still see the flashes of brilliance that had always been there, the wit, the dry humour, the knowledge, the things he was only now beginning to appreciate, the things that were more and more scarce.

“Come here. Look. Sit on the bed.”

John sat on the bed. Alex put on his shirt properly, then his trousers and picked some shoes. Brown. Soft leather. John’s breathing had calmed, but he hadn't begun talking again. It seemed at least that this episode had passed.

Silence.

“Where’s Alice? Is she coming to get me?”

“Granddad… Alice is… Gran’s dead. She passed away.”

“What??? No!!! When???”

“About three years ago”

“Uh…”

John held in a dry, desperate sob.

“Where… where is she? Where’s Alice?”

“She’s… She passed on granddad. She died.”

“no…. no…”

“Uh… uh… James”

“James is my uncle, granddad.”

“Uh… sorry… It’s just… where’s Alice?”

“She’s… She’ll be here soon”

Marianne brought in some tea. They sat and drank it in silence.

Woodhouse: Part Two

2012-11-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

“Granddad! Granddad!!!”

“Oh hello kids!”

John put down his paper as Alex and Joanne entered. Joanne ran in loudly and greeted him with a hug. Alex propped himself against the wall nearest the door and waved, muttering something.

”m-ight”.

“Go and say hello to your granddad properly”

Alex was nudged and shuffled forward. He held his hand out, which John took with both hands.

“Hello young man”. John smiled at his progeny. Alex went back to trying to drown in the paintwork. Joanne sat down and fidgeted.

“Hello dad” said Lucy, hugging him and drawing him in close. Michael stood behind her and waved.

“How you getting on then?”

“Oh, you know…”

“We saw your art teacher upstairs. She says you're doing really well.”

“ehph”

“She said you were the most eager one there”

“Well, it’s been such a long time since I've drawn anything. I was never really much of an artist”

“ I'm sure there’s something in you. Remember the drawings that gran used to do? Do you still have those?”

“Oh I don't know. Maybe. They might have got chucked out with everything else when I got moved”

“Dad, you know there wasn't any option…”

“I know, I know”

“So kids, how are you doing in school? Jo?”

“Yes, really well thank you! I’m in the top set of advanced math-er-mat-ics and we had a test last week and I came top, but maths isn't my favourite, I like science the best because last week we got to see what happens when you put magnesium in water can you guess what happens?”

“Tell me!”

“It EXPLODES! And that’s why I like science the best.”

“Well, my! And how are you getting on… erh…erh…?”

“Alex”

“Yes, Alex”

Alex just shrugged.

“Go on Alex…”

“No, leave the lad Luce. He'll talk if he wants to.”

Silence.

The clinking of a tea trolley.

The ever present humming.

The dry electrical air.

“So how are you getting on with your new neighbour? Francis is it?”

“Him? Oh he’s ok. Good bloke. Doesn't talk much.”

“Oh, well you should get on well with him!”

“Noticed a copy of Capital in his room. Must be alright”

Lucy nodded approvingly.

“Ha! Is he another old lefty like you?” chimed in Michael.

“Well, certainly seems that way. I tend to give it a bit of time before I talk politics you know.

“Very wise dad”

“ I don’t need the rows. I’ve had enough over my life. Mind you, don't need the friends especially, either.”

Alex sniggered.

“ You'll never guess who he is dad”

“Well, probably not. Don't keep me in suspense”

“It’s Alex’s old music teacher’s dad”

“Oh… Small world… Nah, he’s fine enough. It’s that Fred that I can't bloody stand. He marches around, bold as anything, ranting away, firing out questions. ‘What are the five greatest rivers in Germany?’, ‘name the capital cities of all 50 American states’. He’s an absolute nut!”

“Well, you know people can go a bit funny when they're old”

“Age as nothing to do with it! He’s a nut! He thinks he’s a reincarnation of Richard The 3^rd! Why is it that every reincarnation nutter not only thinks that they were someone famous and not a bloody privy cleaner but they're always the most worthless, wretched people”

“Dad..”

“He was ranting on at me the other day, talking about reincarnation. I asked him how it was possible that people could be reincarnated and there could be a finite number of souls when the population of the earth is increasing. You know what he said? ‘Yes that’s right! That’s right! The population of the earth IS increasing’ It’s just bloody impossible. If he can't even engage in some...”

"Dad"

"...logical..."

“Alright dad”

“He’s an arse!”

“Alright!”

“Well, look, we better be off” Michael attempted to break the silence.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, look at the time. It’ll be your tea soon”

“We could probably stay a bit longer” Stated Lucy.

“No, I think we should go, give your dad some rest”

“ I'm really not…”

“ We'll see you soon, OK dad?”

“Alright. Take care. Mind how you go”

Goodbyes were said and the door was shut. The sound of an angry and suppressed row muttered down the corridor, until there was nothing more but the sound of humming.