Never Trust a Crocodile

I walked along the shrinking beach. The birds would have sung like angels if I’d known what angels were. They chirped and twittered every morning just before the sun came up but today their melody was perfectly harmonised, as though they’d been practising for weeks. My veins still ached and my brain still throbbed from last night’s poison. I walked past the re-located grassy boxed off area with goats and chickens on the right, past the old one on the left; a garden which now belonged to urchins and seahorses. I walked past my favourite tree, the closest one to shore. It twisted and curled, reaching out to the horizon but water lapped at its base. I used to climb it as a child to watch the sunrise, count stars or to simply be alone. Its salty decaying limbs were too weak to hold me now and its leaves were yellow and speckled with disease. It slouched over to face the muddy floor: the only place left for it to go.I walked to the end of the woody landing which pointed out to sea and sat with my legs hung over the edge. The water jerked up and down, slapping and slurping at the platform’s rotting ankles. I felt it nibbling at my toes and watched colourful little fishes going about their underwater lives down below, happy and quaint in their anemone village, content to merely exist, oblivious to the complexities that I was accustomed to. They couldn’t know that the rising temperature and altitude of their aquarium would eventually destroy their tentacle homes. They would become displaced and starve to death, be boiled alive or implode in the ever increasing pressure of the ocean, whichever fate came first. I’d been told a slow death was the most painful.

 

I looked to the giant mirror of horizon and the pink sky above. Golden daylight leaked onto the glimmering distance and it trickled down towards me. I watched fluorescent clouds twisting and reforming, melting away and re-appearing, dancing for me. They converged and diverged in and out of faces of my parents, my friends, the elder and other tribespeople, all of which frowned and scorned. My day would start soon. The first or last of the rest of my life. Any moment now.

My seat squealed and moaned. It bowed down to a larger weight. I wasn’t alone. The elder no doubt, here to lecture me again, here to administer another dose of poison. I wiped the tears from my eyes, stood up and turned to face him. I gasped.

A crocodile. A gigantic thing. As wide as a hut and as tall as a palm tree if it could stand on the tip of its green-gold tail. It was grotesque. It had a dent in its nose which contorted its face into a grimace far more dubious than any ordinary crocodile. Scars and misaligned scales were dotted all over its back from battles long ago. Was this my end? My escape? At least I wouldn’t have to complete the test inside the monster’s stomach. The thing unclenched its battered jaw and luckily for me, rather than attacking, spoke.

“You look losssst” the animal rattled. Sound waves hissing out from it quivered the bubble of space around us, making my spine twitch and shudder. “May I be of any assissstance?”

“What would you care? I’m nothing but a snack to you.”

“You think that just because I have ssharp teeth and a big appetite, I wouldn’t want to help a poor young buy such as yourself?”

His manner was surprisingly calm and non-threatening. I couldn’t tell if its black sparkling eyes were looking at me or at everything else. They were perfectly spherical, empty and soulless, devoid of pupils or irises. Perhaps they were so full that they appeared blank. Perhaps an entire universe sat inside them, whirring around so fast that all I could see were two big black balls of nothing.

“What difference will my problems make when I’m in your belly?”

“All the difffference my boy.”

“What do you mean? Do you want to eat me or not? Is eating worried young boys a habit of yours?”

“Not in the slightessst.”

“What sort of crocodile doesn’t eat people?”

“The one that stands before you of coursssse.”The sounds scurrying out from between his teeth crawled on my skin like ants.

“So you’re here to help me pass my test?”

“You have a test to take, a part to play, a path to walk, but it’s not the one you think.” The animal now began to rasp and sigh as it spoke, forcing noise out with the last of its strength. Its dry old tongue too weak for lengthy conversation.

“Conversse with me a while… What will happen when you fail your tessst?¨

“If I fail, then I’m not fit to be a man. Not fit to be human. I’ll be killed; banished; transformed into some hideous creature, doomed to walk this island alone, over and over for the rest of my days.”

I paused. I’d worried about this possibility for weeks now. It was stuck in my skull like a spear and saying it aloud made it sting a little more.

“But I won’t fail.”

I forced the sentence out, twisting my burden into a more comfortable position, trying to convince us both.

“I’ve had practice. The elder has been helping me. I’ve taken daily doses of poison to train my body for today.”

“And what comes next, if you pass, that isss?”

“Well I haven’t really thought about that. They’ll put a tattoo on my arm of course, to prove my success. I can marry when I meet the right girl. We could get our own hut, plant some vegetables and raise children. I could pass more tests and become a witch doctor. I could save lives. I could get more tattoos and write new laws or prophesies on the cave walls, or simply amusing stories. I could even study magic and become the greatest elder there ever was. I could save us all from the rising sea.”

“And what then?”

“Then… I retire, they write my name on the cave wall, and I become a legend.”

“And what exactly is the point of all of that?”

His response bit me. I took an extra breath. I’d never been asked such a thing. I’d never prepared an answer.

“The people may remember you for a time, but after this generation passses your memory will be gone. They won’t care in time, and why should their caring or not caring matter once you’re dead? How does anything matter here once you’ve gone to other realms? You can achieve great things but they won’t make a difference in the end. Once you’re dead they’re all dead, to you, that issss. You’ll procreate, you’ll grow old and feeble, you’ll die, and your children will do the same. You’ll be forgotten no matter what happens between this very moment and the time of your passsing.”

I was silent for a moment. His argument pierced like hundreds of teeth, numbing me all over. I was angry.

“Why don’t you tell me what I want then? You seem to know a lot for someone who hasn’t met me before.”

“I’ve met you many times. I’ve met the boy before you and the one before that. You’re interchangeable you sssee. All doomed to live, die and be forgotten. Your existence won’t make a footprint in the sands of time. You don’t matter.”

“And who are you to say what does or doesn’t matter?”

The monster whipped its mighty tail against the platform. The structure yelped. Would we fall into the water?

“I’m the rumble in your tummy. I’m the little voice that whispers in you ear on lonely starless nights. I say that nothing is going to be alright. You will fall. I’m voice of reason; I’m the raging scream of emotion all in one. I am logic. I am chaos. I am one and I am all. I am the crocodile.”

I steadied my feet and clenched my fists, no longer frightened by this conceited, rambling fiend.

“And a modest one at that.”The monster blinked, either discounting or not noticing my cynicism.

“So what do you ssSsupposssse I do instead, Crocodile?”

“I suppossse you come with me young one. I’ll take you to other worlds, where you can live a less meager existence.”

“The elder told me not to worry about other worlds. Everything I need is right here. He’s also told me several times, never to trust a crocodile.”

“And you’d trust a sssnake over a crocodile?”

Maybe the lulling, pulsing, enveloping voice of the creature had something to do with it. Maybe it was just my perspective: the way the scene was coincidently standing at that moment. Perhaps it was the hallucinogenic effects of the poison in my veins, but as I looked upon the creature, the clouds above had aligned themselves in such a way that they puffed out from behind it, and the trees on either side in the background stretched towards it, so it appeared to be at the epicentre of a marvellous whirlpool painting. The surroundings were being sucked into and radiating from it all at once. I felt dizzy and faint. What the crocodile said made sense. What was the point of me staying here? What did I have to lose by following him?

The townsfolk were gathered in an eye-shaped formation on the sand behind. They hadn’t noticed us yet. A huge fire blazed in the pupil. Children jumped, fought and played around it, locked into the ceremony by a ring of mothers pacing around in circles with babies on their backs. The elder emerged from the bushes clutching the basket over his head. The drum beats started and I felt the things inside me flap their wings much harder. Butterflies or moths weren’t only in my stomach but filled me right from head to toe, beating their dusty wings. Flapping, buzzing, twitching every cubic centimetre of my being.

“Have faith in me young one, I’m much wiser than I look. I’ve travelled far and wide you sssee. I’ve been to the dizzying heights of mountain peaks and to the bottom of raging seas. I’ve wandered scorching deserts and reigned over countless swamps. I’ve seen the miracle of birth and the tragic but inescapable hand of death: a hand, or claw rather, with which I’ve touched thousands. I’ve peered over the very edge of this world to see the blank and limitless, and I’ve walked back from the brink of insanity. I know all there is to know my boy, and I know your test test is pointless. It’s time for your futile island days to end. It’s time for you to come with me.¨

I tingled; I shook, I swayed under the weight of his words. My knees buckled and I fell to bow for my king. I knew what to do. I poised myself and slipped past the thing before it could dispute. I ran across the beach, past the ceremony and through the jungle to the village. I went swiftly and desperately, with the perfect focus of a beast chasing prey. Someone might have followed but I lost them soon enough. I didn’t notice the undergrowth grabbing at my ankles or the leaves and sticks stabbing my arms and face. I didn’t care that my nose was bleeding, I didn’t think twice about stealing magic water from the elder’s prayer room. I collected wood, I made piles. I doused and lit them up. I poured it on the houses and they sighed as they turned dark and flew away to safety. I arrived at the beach bloody and quivering. The crowd stopped and stared. Heavy drum beats continued and merged with thousands of tiny wings inside me, bouncing organs up and down and side to side all at once. I gagged for more mouthfuls of burning air. It wasn’t giving my lungs enough of whatever it usually gave. The elder stood in front of me, offering the basket that was supposed to be my end. I tossed it onto the fire and the thing inside rattled, the fire shrieked, the tribe fell silent. Flames rolled over and over the basket. They bit and chewed, it convulsed up and down. Its last moments were tortured. Little glowing grey spirits of the trees and bugs; clouds of some insubstantial substance escaped from the blaze, finally free from this abominable place. They groaned, sighed or cheered, melted into one another and rose up to join the massive sparkling haze which hung above our heads. The crowd gave way like reeds to let the crocodile emerge. It let out a final, rattling groan and the top of its jaw rose up while the bottom fell to the sandy floor. Rows of teeth; some sharp, some blunt, some missing or decayed were only visible for a moment before they faded away. The inside of its mouth was blue melting into black rather than fleshy pink. Little stars twinkled as the upper jaw kept rising, stretching forward like a speckled blanket of elastic. I curled into a ball and let the universe envelope me. The island burned instead of drowned and I wept inside my starry womb. I opened my perfect obsidian eyes. My hand was now a claw. I was free.

Never Never

It was raining again tonight; another soaking winter. He would lie awake for hours again, just like last night and the night before; another exhausting circle of thoughts. He was so tired that he couldn’t seep. He was lonely, yearning again for the one he couldn’t have. He felt empty, less than empty, like he was wasting away. Afraid that the forbidden one and the all the others would leave him behind.

He always had such wonderful nights of mischief with the lost boys. They stayed up past their bedtime for nocturnal adventures in the streets nearby. Their nights together were nights of cheap thrills. They scaled fences, they trespassed, they frolicked under weeping stars, committing the occasional petty street crime. They climbed trees, they played hide and seek in the dark. Sometimes they’d drive far away from home, gliding over shimmering silver streets for strolls along mysterious frosty beaches, or moonlit treasure hunts in soggy parks and forests. The members of their club would come and go, mostly for bigger and better things. Blissful intoxication kept him warm on these adventures but his feet were numb and wrinkled at the end of every night. The puddles he tried to avoid would somehow always seep through his shoes and his feet would age a little more each time without growing any wiser.

The other night brought with it a drop of the unattainable; the most illegal yet delightful stolen kiss; one he’d never never forget.

He would eventually need to move on. It was well and truly time to grow up. It was time to stop wanting what he couldn’t have, time to bow his head, stop misbehaving and tread the dreary sodden street towards success.
But for now all he could do was dabble in his childish ways, thinking his childish, pointless thoughts of what might have been, what could have been, what should have been.

Agoraphobic Meets Middle Eastern Delivery Boy

It’s Tuesday. Knock knock. The groceries are here. Go to the door. Take your time. It’ll be fine. Deep breaths. Knives in my chest. It’ll be over in a heartbeat. It’s twisted in a knot. Peek through the gap in the boards on the window. He can’t see in, no one can. You can see out but that’s never a good idea. A dark new face, a Middle Eastern boy in red and white. Irritating colours for my irritable eyes. It’ll be over in a heartbeat. It’s trembling like a newborn. Look at the nametag. Gian-Carlo? What happened to FrankLin? Who is this imposter? I’ve read about the Middle East. He’s probably done God-knows-what to my oyster sauce. He might have poisoned the vegetables. I’ll be washing them this time, and checking the seal on every jar and bottle. Okay here it comes, just look as normal as you can. It’ll be over in a heartbeat. It’s burning like a furnace. It’s pumping like a jet engine. Turn the handle and the rest turns by itself. The World wakes up kicking and screaming and the door bursts open in a tantrum. Trucks and cars whoosh past, horns blare and sirens screech. Neighbors’ music drums my ears. The air buzzes, the wind pounds against my skull. Vines and flowers on the fence twist, twirl, curl and swirl and the porch, street and sky bend in like a vortex. It’ll be over in a heartbeat. It’ll be over in a heartbeat. It’s sucking you in, stirring you up and tossing you into infinity like a wormhole. It’s stabbing you in the chest like a fucking psychopath. It’s breaking out of its body and leaving you here to die. Hold out your arms for the grocery bags. Throw them inside. Keep your head down. Don’t look out there. Don’t look at Giancarlo. Grab the pen, scramble your name, gargle a “thank you” and slam the door. Fall to the floor. Tears appear. You’re safe in here. Deep breaths. Knives in my chest. His footsteps grow quiet. Everything goes quiet. It was over in a heartbeat. See? It was over in a heartbeat. It’s broken like a jar of gleaming black oyster sauce, creeping along the floor, oozing into the cracks between the boards.

Gaydar Misadventures

I’ve swallowed my pride

I’ve followed the legions

Here I am, another humble citizen in the abominable world of online romance.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse.

A message from a man arrived today. A plump, old man, boasting a picture of himself in the garden on a sun-drenched afternoon. He stood under a sprinkler turned away from the camera, tugging coyly at a pair of speedos. They were slapped around his waist so tight that the skin popped out like a ham bound with string. Water droplets glistened, the bathers shimmered with desire. He was the perfect pink and squishy ball of summer bliss, just begging to be played with. The lights went out once more and the last few photons of my final glimmer of hope vanished without a trace.

In Rainbows

I was lost in a familiar street. I stumbled in, ordered a drink and sat alone at a table in the back room. The beer garden was rectangular in shape and almost deserted. It was deep and narrow, stretching away from the rest of the venue, which stretched away from other bars in the city: all contemporary and soulless places. The walls of the room were a muddle of posters, pictures, and graffiti in every colour, size, shape, font, skill level and echelon of profanity. I hadn’t seen anything like it for years. I thought they’d phased out places like this. There were stickers and notes between the larger works on the wall; anonymous letters to anyone and everyone, replies to the letters and replies to those. The message threads were uplifting, talking of grand things and simple pleasures. Some of them were mindless and derogatory. Little symbols and patterns were etched here and there, easy to miss unless you belonged to the club they denoted. The duller wall spots were stained with beer, wine, grime and mould. There were careless smudges from furniture, disrespectful clumps of gum, angry slashes, dents, chips and scratches in the paint, and sad black holes where cigarettes had sparkled before being extinguished. Every spot in the room was coloured, discoloured, tainted and beautified, lovingly decorated and violently assaulted. The place was a mural never to be finished, a projectile vomit from collective imagination.

It was more of a courtyard than a garden, with a corrugated plastic cap to keep out the dripping night. It was warm and damp like the other rooms. You could see the clouds through the leaky ceiling and if they fancied customers could enjoy a cigarette with their drink without breaking any laws. Plants dangled from the rafters in pots with chains, hovering above heads like terracotta halos. Their lovely tentacles sprayed up and trickled down to tickle peoples’ necks and remind them that this was the right place to be, the only place to be.

I finished my drink, went back to the bar in the front room and got another. A band was packing up for the night. I sat, drank, and did it again. I found a gallery in the side room. The paint was still wet, soaking in something secret and forgotten. Business was starting to pick up. The other rooms weren’t as vibrant as the courtyard but any sprays of colour and flair not found on the walls were splashed across the patrons themselves. The crowd was a sea of hats, feathers, polka dots, odd socks, dreadlocks, scarves, mittens, glitter, velvet jackets, hair to one side, black and white stripes, fluorescent stockings and drops of silver in the nostrils, eyebrows, back of the neck, between the fingers and anywhere that looked unusual and painful. They were wide-eyed students, washed-up winos, punks, emos, hippies, indies, homosexuals, intellectuals, poets who didn’t know much at all, writers who didn’t write, boozers, stoners, losers.

A young girl with a harmonica raced an old man with a plastic flute around the venue, each of them exchanging successions of off-key, out-of-tune notes they called songs for drinks. The sweaty silver man telling jokes for gold coins got more business but he spent them all on beer anyway, so all three both won and lost. Some of the patrons were a little too odd but were probably harmless, just there to wash away their sorrows like me, forgetting everything that lay beyond The Sinkhole’s clammy walls; until closing-time anyway.

I went back to the beer garden and sat in my favorite spot. There were people with pens, papers and coloured markers scribbling half-finished pictures at the table next to mine. There were musicians near the back door smoking forbidden cigarettes seeping that wild sultry scent of the underworld and they sailed off somewhere even more remarkable than the place I saw them standing.

I noticed him at the table in the corner. He sat alone smoking a self-rolled cigarette like the other musicians. He wore a top hat and a swarm of multicolour dreadlocks tumbled out from under it, sliding down his velvet back like sea serpents. Although he faced the corner I felt his eyes slinking over me. He took a draw on his sparkling stick, exhaled, and the smoke wound around his figure, thicker and thicker.

It wasn’t the transparent-grey, carcinogenic smoke of normal cigarettes; The thin noxious filth leaking from a prostitute’s, or a sad old homeless mouth; but the whiter, brighter, fluffier puffs from clouds and dreams. Glorious plumes of liquid silk; the type you could sit on and ride to infinity if only we lived in cartoons.

The harmonica girl was smoking too, and as she walked past she told me to enjoy my meal. I didn’t have any food. Before any objections could be raised she’d exhaled, and I had a face full of the same bleached fog from across the room. She blew a single note on her instrument and the commotion around us slowed gently to a halt. The cloud before me grew thicker, and soon the glowing yellow wall lights were all I could see.

“Who are you?” A man’s voice asked.

“I’m Frank.” I answered, flapping my arms to get rid of the haze.

“And just whoo is that?” The voice came from the figure materialising from the depths before me: a top-hatted square-headed, slow-talking silhouette.

“Frank.” I repeated “I’m from Edenvale Lakes. I work for Smith and Partners.”

“That new development in the No0orth” He extended and changed the pitch of certain vowels when he spoke; like a Machiavellian from a Hollywood comic book-movie adaptation. “All the subeerrbs are turning into those soulless monstrosities. Houses all the same, white, heterosexual, middle-class families, 2.4 offspring; all currently enrolled or alumni at St Whoever’s Grammar.”

The shadows continued to hide his face. His patronising annoyed me but I ignored it to concentrate on being polite. He was the only person who’d talked to me all night after all.

“… Yeah I suppose.”

“That anonymous grey tower in the centre of this dreary streamlined city. The accounting firm on the 56thfloor; that lifeless little cubicle with drawers and papers, computers and telephones; business-as-usual every day.”

“That’s the one.”

This was ridiculous. I wondered if he’d ask me a riddle next. Maybe he’d start rhyming as he spoke, or present me with a paradox of some sort.

“Can I interest you in one of these?” He gestured towards the grey packet with silver lining in front of him.

“No thanks. I’ve given up.”

A smirk wrinkled his forehead and tugged on his cheek. He was annoyed at my dismissal but wasn’t out of tricks yet.

“How about something special then?” His demeanor was playful now. He reached under the table and presented an oversize yellow cocktail glass crowned with a gold-orange blob.

“Apple Martini?”

It was indeed an apple; rotten, or fermented in something: the shriveled corpse of an apple. It was pierced through the heart with a larger-than-normal toothpick. The stick’s ends sat on the left and right edges of the martini glass so the old fruit hovered over the liquid with its belly dipped in. The cocktail must have been sitting on the seat the whole time; he’d plucked it out as if it were, although I surely would have noticed a drink on the chair earlier as I went backwards and forwards to the bar.

“They really pride themselves on presentation here.” He tuned solemn again as he took the ends of the stick in his fingers. They were thin, long, claw-like, and twirled the orb to coat it in the icy solution. He gazed at me as he did this, like a hypnotist dangling a pocket watch for a nit-wit.

“So tell me Frank; who else are you?”

I decided to play along. This was his turf, his poise and dress both said so. He was associated with any number of these wild bohemians, which come to think of it had all drifted away. It was just the two of us in the room but I was out of my element; best not to challenge him.

“Well I’m married. I don’t have 2.4 kids, not even 1. I used to write songs and hang out at places like this… Then I graduated and got a real job.”

“A real job? Who are you to know what’s real and what isn’t?”

“Here we go,” I thought, “the dirty little ‘what is reality?’ routine. Give me a break. Are you having fun with me Joker? Riddler? Mystery Man? You’re a fool.”

He stared at me while he slid the icy sculpture my direction. He trapped my eyes in his: big, wise, yellow, reptilian, intoxicatingly handsome. I opened my mouth to speak and then decided not to, then thought I’d better say it.

“Well I know this isn’t real.”

He was silent for a moment. His mouth remained open to let a breath of smoke seep from his lips, slowly and eerily to exaggerate the mystery.

“…It’s a shame you feel that way.”

“I’m only saying it because I know I’m asleep. I remember going to bed.”

He took another puff on his cigarette. The smoke circled his face, drops of silver in his nose and eyebrow glowed the same ghostly colour as the haze around us. Words oozed from the foggy space between his lips.

“At the moment you see me. You see this place, it’s all real to you now. But then you could wake up to find everything gone. What if you woke up while you were dreaming about a day at the office? How can you be sure anything that happens isn’t a delusion? Your days slaving away in the grey tower, your nights at home with the nice sensible girl, the one time a week you drink yourself into a stupor to numb yourself into thinking everythings alright. What if none of that is real? Who’s to say that one day you won’t wake up to find the last 20 years nothing but a bad dream?”

I froze. Stupefied. This guy wasn’t so dumb after all.

“…That would be fantastic.”

The cocktail was encrusted white with frost, vaporising in the room’s warm air. My fingers stuck to the stem as I brought the giant glass to my mouth. His eyes were glued to me as it approached my lips. I hesitated.

“It’s not poison,” he chuckled. “I Promise. Here, do you mind sharing?” His manner had switched back to playful now, even friendly. He took the apple on the stick and bit into it before I could answer. He passed it back and I put the glass down to concentrate on eating the garnish. The fruit was slippery and warm: chili stewed apple with cinnamon and cloves, and something else. It was delicious.

“I’ve got no idea how they make it. All I know is it’s the wildest ride I’ve ever taken.”

We continued talking. He told me about gold and rainbows as we passed the apple back and fourth. He said we all had rainbow insides and that gold was at the end. Everything has it to start with: people, animals, places, ideas; all born with it. The apple spurted juice and lodged itself on his lips. I watched as he licked it up with a smooth, moist, forked tongue. I hoped it would happen again. He told me that this was the last bar in town to keep its rainbows intact; the last one with a soul. Its wet vivacious organs weren’t ripped out, tossed aside and plastered over with cold steel, polished oak, twinkling glass and two-for-one Cosmopolitans for the ladies on Thursday nights. Its name wasn’t snipped down to a trendy acronym like its neighbor; the N.P.Y., AKA: the New Prince of York; or just a plain old “Q” (formally the Queen of Hearts, across the street). It was the last place where underworld was alive, the only one to keep its nose turned up to Hollywood movies, commercial radio, standardisation, mass-production and the 11 hour/6 day working week. It was the last bohemian stronghold in the war against a city that denied its people true freedom and individuality. The old patrons of The Sinkhole would drown here, and the young ones would not be gagged by white collars, not until they graduated anyway; apparently.

I informed him that this place burned down years ago and he told me I was right. He said everything was the drug-induced fantasy of some loser in a mid-life crisis.

When the apple was finished I put the stick on the table and he placed it carefully back atop the glass. He said we might need it later. This was strange, but no stranger than some of the other things he’d been doing throughout our exchange. Much to my relief he’d dropped the criminal mastermind act. His behaviour jumped sporadically from lively to solemn. We’d leapt from the topic of this bar, to philosophy, to Buddhism; he said the monks in the secret mountain temples made love to each other and got closer to enlightenment. He’d told me a nursery rhyme about a captain who didn’t go down with the ship. As soon as one topic would finish he’d swap straight to the next as if he was working from a list. Like he was trying to fill me with as many ideas as possible. He’d turn his head to the door every now and then, as if our time was running out, as if the next patient was due to arrive. He’d gaze deep into my eyes; his filled with pride, confidence, allure, then duck his focus down to the table, cowering away. I wanted more. What was he hiding? ¨Why, Riddler, are you so passionate one moment just to shy away the next?¨ I needed more. I gathered he was intelligent, highly neurotic and spontaneous, to put it lightly. His head was a muddle of disconnected and transient thoughts; probably from too many of these apple martinis. Maybe he had a disorder of some kind: Mild autism? Schizophrenia? He made me feel smaller and younger despite my prognoses. Its delivery was shaky but his knowledge was wide and true. He watched me again as I finally took the martini glass and sipped its yellow contents. It was cold at first and then burned in my mouth. It blazed as it slid down my throat. I felt it deep inside, hot and electric as it mixed with the half-digested apple. As I continued sipping my stomach felt increasingly bloated. He told me another nursery rhyme about a golden egg with monsters inside. The room swayed and swirled and I found it hard to concentrate on what he was saying. I nodded and pretended to understand. The apple must have been soaked in something unlawfully potent; deadly when mixed with the yellow muck in the glass.

“Can you feel yourself getting smaller?” He asked, his eyes glowing wisdom and sobriety.

“Excuse me?”

“Can you feel yourself getting smaller?” He held the left end of the toothpick atop the glass in his fingers and gestured me to do the same to the right.

“Hold on tight. Don’t let go”

The hot feeling inside grew. Tentacles in my belly clawed their way up my esophagus, through my sinuses and poked at my brain. I was dizzy. I focused on the glass getting closer and closer. I gripped the toothpick in my fingers, my hands, my arms. It surged towards me and in a moment I had to hoist myself on top of it to keep from falling to the table, which was a long way below. I stood and looked ahead. The bridge across the golden sea was a big enough diameter to walk. I presumed he was at the other end and made my way to the middle. It was hard to balance so I took extra care to keep away from the sides. I found him half way between left and right and he said it was time to wake up. He took my hand. His was hot and wet. My skin tingled.

“Close your eyes.” He instructed. “Take a deep breath. Dive.”

He held me close during our descent. The air flying past rang in my ears: scrambled notes from harmonicas and flutes; a jumble of shrill, stabbing sounds which were nothing close to music. He lost his hat and his hair broke free to thrash about like frenzied snakes. Liquid surged through my nostrils when we landed, toxins burrowed further into my brain. We sunk deeper and deeper until it was dark, wet and cool. The air down here was so crisp: fresh wet nourishment for my polluted old lungs. All I could see were those eyes: golden, snake-like, irresistible. I didn’t know where the surface was or the ocean floor. I felt his lips on mine: warm, soft, strong, gentle. It didn’t matter which way the current was flowing. I didn’t care where we were headed. Underwater, under a spell in the dark I breathed easier than ever before. I felt his tongue slide between my lips and wrap itself around mine. There were hands all over my body; more than two. His grip was tender then ferocious. Claws dug in hard. I saw stars. I felt him hold me from behind and hot breath on the back of my neck. My skin caught on fire and heat rushed through me.

“Can you feel yourself getting bigger?” He slithered in my ear.

A response leaped from the thing in my gut. It surged up my throat and gushed between my gritted teeth. A moan, a scream, a cry for more. He touched me in a place I’d forgotten was there. Snakes inside and all over: rubbing, twisting, turning, pounding. Skin against skin, body against body, heart against heart. Two souls dissolved into one. The pressure inside me kept rising. A balloon filled with water; an egg about to crack. I saw more stars. Real stars. I burst. A downpour to flood away the empty years between now and the last wet Winter’s night he was here. My rainbow ejection shot off in all directions. Ribbons of information hurled out to fertilise every faceless white dot in the sky.

I woke up sprawled across the muddy floor of the bathroom. Daylight fought through the gaps and cracks in the boards on the window. The toilet had overflowed and its contents were strewn all over the room. I waited for the stench to pinch me, to make sure I was awake. All I could smell were those magic self-rolled cigarettes. The paint on the walls was dry, faded, chipping and scorched. Graffiti, pictures, stickers, messages, angry cuts and burns made a beautiful and monstrous room. A final, bewildered outcry from a schizophrenic opposition. A protest burned to death years ago by cleanliness, efficiency, safety, fear, perfection. Apparently it was a horrible accident but there were a lot of people inside.

I went to the bar and ordered a drink. I lit up a cigarette and sat at a table. I wrote a song about a golden egg with angels inside.

I went home and made love to the nice, sensible woman I’d been chained to for the last 20 years. She moaned and twisted under me. She bit the pillow, writhing in a height of pleasure I’d never reach here. I stabbed and stabbed at the dead grey thing inside, trying to resurrect it with all my strength. When I came I heard their screams and cries. My hypercolour children coughed and spluttered, choking to death on the thin noxious filth inside her.

We lay together afterwards in that usually blissful moment of warmth and reflection. The time of staring into each other; our eyes steady and hearts complete. She was searching for something this time. She noticed something missing, or something secret. She waited for the eyes that never lied to waver, dart away, confess. I didn’t. I held her in my gaze: selfish, yellow, reptilian. I told her about my song and she told me that was silly. I knew she´d say that. She told me I was going to be late for work. I left the room. I walked down the beige corridor and descended the stairs to nowhere. I left the house and the street. I passed many others that looked exactly the same. I went to the empty city of cold stone, twinkling glass and business-as-usual. I jumped from floor 56 of an anonymous office tower and I landed in rainbows.

Dearest Emma

Dearest Emma,

Thank you for your kind words. Your note is very lovely but grammatically fucked in the ass with a bottle brush (brackets within parentheses do indeed work (“parentheses” is another word for “brackets”), but you only need to put one bracket in at a time (when you’re using a bracket within a bracket (or a parenthesis within a parenthesis)). Always remember to end your parenthesizing/bracketing ventures with exactly the same amount of brackets you begun with. Under no circumstances may you have more, and definitely never any less (if you’re paying attention you’ll notice there are currently two sets of unclosed brackets in this paragraph) (but not any more!)).

Neat, tidy and clean (but very confusing when smiley faces ( : ) ) or frowny faces ( : ( ) are involved) parentheses are a truly wonderful grammatical tool (because you can put sentences within sentences (and sentences within those sentences (you get the idea?).).). It’s also very important to note that punctuation (for example full stops or question marks) are placed AFTER the closing parenthesis (or bracket) because the sentence cannot finish before the bracket does (because a sentence within brackets standing alone, not already IN a sentence doesn’t make any sense at all (because why on earth would you need brackets around a sentence that wasn’t already in a sentence (that’s the whole point of brackets, right?)?).).

Are you feeling me sister?

The World does stop turning when you die

It’s not a lie. You’re special. You’ve been chosen and you have a part to play. Your life is indeed scripted. Your world is like a tragedy. Events that happen all have meaning, and they roll on to eventually form a wonderful dramatic climax before a meloncholly ending.

You were doomed from the very start.

The credits roll and The World is a stagnant black void: perhaps waiting to start again, but we’ll never know for sure.

Poison

It strokes your hair
It whispers in your ear
It wraps you in its lovely tendrils
And tells you everything’s alright
It lulls you off to sleep
And curls around you tighter
You’re warm, you’re safe
Floating through the air
Bound in a delicious grasp
It folds you over
And over again
Until you’re dizzy, giddy
And you blissfully forget
It’s all washed away
Your memories wither
Your childlike optimism fades
Your helping hands are tied
Your drive to make a difference,
The beauty you saw everyday things,
The very foundations on which you stood
rotting, decaying, wasting away
One glorious sip at a time

Learn Your Lesson

Strolling through the woods alone
A golden afternoon
Perfume fills the air around
Flowers are in bloom

Glimpse a sparkle from afar
A shimmer in the sky
Giant tower made of glass
Looming elegance hillside

Approaching under bleeding sky
The stars won’t shine tonight
A gaze I’ve missed for ages now
Their wise and ancient light

Danger licks its lovely lips
This isn’t the first time
But then there’s nothing left for me to lose
Silent doors glide shut behind

The bell sounds, the floor pulsates
Under watch of setting sun
Catapulted in my capsule
To lilac skies above

See the land below no longer
Still soaring ever higher
Swiftly fly through violet clouds
To the top of awesome spire

Horizon bleak and vacant
Truly limitless from here
My head so giddy with wonder
Far away from guilt and fear

And the wild roar of thunder
Monolith crumbling down
Glass breaks beneath my feet
I fall towards the ground

Plunging downward through the air
A noise that drums the brain
Deafening is the din
A new and loathsome pain

Furious is the Earth that seizes
I land with broken bones
Shards rain down, I’m bloody
I’m hurt and cold and alone

Lie here broken weak in misery
A Dark night is to follow
But the stars will shine again
And the sun will rise tomorrow

Treasure Hunt

The leafless skeletons of shrubs jitter jattered in the breeze. Lazy lumps of birds and marine creatures lay motionless, dotted along the shore like awful warts, casting elongated shadows that stretched rather desperately and twitched quite secretly if glimpsed from the corner of an eye. Green smoke billowed up, melting seamlessly into the sky from triple cylindrical chimneys on the hill and a sluggish technicoloured Sun crawled up, struggling through the haze, peeking over sodden yellow dunes. It stopped for moment to see if anything had changed but alas, not today. So with a sigh and another forced smile, the sun showed the rest of its face, illuminating her beautiful, abominable home.

It was another perfect day for treasure hunting. She exited the path and stepped into the mud. Stray bony claws of shrubbery were stuck in her transmitter again. They’d tried to grab for it as she hurried past. Everyone wanted a little piece of treasure, even the plant life. Those pesky bushes were a meddlesome menace indeed – interfering with transmissions and such. Her crown was a special device she’d made herself: a silver jumble of wire, shards of twisted drink can, nuts, bolts; false treasures she’d found before. These materials transmitted best. She clutched a battered metal wand; a drainpipe re-born with a rusty frypan attached, for waving over the ground, sending up transmissions whenever there was treasure underfoot.

She consulted her map. Invisible lines divided the beach into a giant grid. She was to work in section G208B today, the one with the whale right in the middle. She’d been putting off searching this area for a while now because she didn’t know if the creature was friendly or not. If it wasn’t such a gigantic thing its unfriendliness or friendliness wouldn’t be an issue. She’d dealt with foul-mouthed birds before and some of the seals she’d met were quite uncouth. She had heard that most whales were lovely but she’d have to be careful all the same. If it wanted to it could swallow her whole in one single wretched gulp.

She approached slowly, carefully, until she realised it was sound asleep. Thank goodness gracious her lucky stars the beast was dreaming. She wouldn’t have to worry until much later. She knew that whales always slept for long intervals. She got to work without delay, scouring the area with her wand, careful not to step on shells or sticks that might snap-crackle to wake the fiend, and tucking birds and fish into sandy blankets along the way so they wouldn’t get cold at night.

***

It had been a long and disappointing search. All she’d found was a needle, an old boot and a bottle cap. She made herself feel better by recalling the conversation she’d had that morning with a seal about why sharks are scared of dolphins, or why dolphins are scared of sharks. There was also a debate with a catfish about cats that could catnap and octopuses that could pussynap. It was suggested that they could octonap just as easily but she thought this was a silly idea, catfish aren’t the smartest of amphibians after all.

It was a productive day despite the lack of treasure. The metal items she’d unturned could and would be attached to her transmitter to amplify future transmissions, and although she hadn’t found it today; that was another 73.6m2 where the treasure couldn’t be found… Unless it was under the whale: a scenario she hadn’t considered until just now. She frowned, perplexed over this, and how on earth she might move the enormous thing, while standing knee deep in multicoloured water which left a grey-purplish film on her legs. She scrubbed her wrinkled hands and feet with a sea sponge, struggling with the stains that came with every treasure hunt.

When she was clean, or at least as clean as the beach would allow, she collected wood and lit a little fire a little way away from the dormant whale. She apologetically gathered three snoozy fish from the sand and despite their objections, cooked them on the coals and ate them up. They were absolutely scrumptious.
She sat facing the giant on the sticky sand, licking her fingers and brooding some more. The whale stank. It had been there for five weeks and 11 days now. It lay perfectly still on its side: a black and white, pink and brown festering heap. The longer she stared at it the more it began to move. Its belly started to heave and ho, in and out, and she saw little puffs of water vapour escaping from the blowhole. Its mouth hung slightly open and the black facial markings above the eyes warped the face into a frown. Little worms, which she’d heard were actually baby flies, danced around a wound on the side of its offensive head. It leered at her through its enormous grey-white eyelids. Come to think of it she had felt the beast watching her ever since it arrived, using her futile search for its own amusement. As she continued to stare she wanted more and more to get that stupid expression off of its face. It mocked her. It knew exactly where the treasure was; it had been hiding it all along. The bounty certainly lay underneath this horrible mass of blubber and bone.

Her revelations were interrupted when she spotted a bright yellow figure pop out from behind the whale. An alien or a space man? A man in a space suit, right here on Earth, on her beach?
He was wandering around like he owned the place. He bent over to pick up a fish (the nice fat one she planned to eat tomorrow), and added it to the collection in his black and yellow bag. He turned around and stopped for a minute when he saw her. He hurried over, flicking up mud from behind, dotting his flamboyant ensemble all the way.

A bewildered face gawked at her through the plastic window atop the suit. He puzzled over her transmitter.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he rasped through a little black vent which concealed his mouth. He seemed very anxious indeed.

“I’d like to ask you the same thing. Who do you think you are, walking off with my dinner like that?”

“What?”

She gestered down at the bag in his hand so he knew what she was talking about. There was a short silence as his face twisted into horror. “You’ve been eating these!?“

“Of course I have. I’m not about to cook up a seagull, not enough meat on those and they’d taste horrid anyway. And I wouldn’t like to try getting any meat off that whale, too much blubber to fight through, and I don’t see a great deal else to eat around here unless you fancy seals or seaweed.”

He looked down at the ground, his head shaking side to side in a baffled stupor. Like he couldn’t believe it. “Good god… How long have you been here?”

Who on Earth did this man, this space man, think he was? Of all the places he could have landed… He was leering at her transmitter again. Was he looking for treasure too?

“That’s none of your business. This is my beach. Now you tell me who you are and what you want from here.”

“My name is James.” He spoke very slowly. “I work for Bluestreak. Up there on the hill.”

“The dragon?”

He stopped for another moment. Was this man daft?

“Uh, yeah… This place is dangerous. You shouldn’t be here.”

His voice was calm – too calm. He was definitely up to something.

¨We have to go now okay. Will you come with me? To the dragon? He wants to meet you.”

She wasn’t going to fall for his tricks. No no no. The seagulls had warned her about aliens. If he was going to get a single dollar of her treasure it would be over her dead body. She lunged at the intruder and wrestled him to the ground, losing her transmitter in the process. He fought back fiercely, shouting protests and abuse as they tussled next to the whale which began to twitch, emerging from its slumber. She let out an almighty shriek when he ripped out a handful of frizzled hair and a giant black eye opened up to look upon them. She began to think he was tiring, she thought she was winning, then she realised he’d somehow fumbled a gun from one of his many yellow pockets. She jumped to her feet at once and froze in front of the gigantic head. She flung her hands in the air to surrender. He shot.

The bullet burned in her skull. It blazed through her brain like acid. It pumped in her veins and spread through her body until everything was numb. She fell to the ground. The beast let out a hideous sound, somewhere between a squeal and a roar, so loud it shook the Earth around them. It flailed its enormous carcass and rolled over onto its belly, towering over the pair like a god. The alien stepped out of view but she was stuck in position, her body was glued to the ground, unable to take her eyes off the marvellous creature. It opened its mouth to reveal a brilliant golden light blaring from inside and with a sharp squeal, a flick of the head and a lock of jaws, she was gobbled up.

The faint distant sun frowned and slinked into the muddled rainbow sea. The alien finally forced the jaws of the massive creature closed. He was exhausted. She was heavier than she looked. One day scientists would open up this dreadful tomb, find the remains and assume she’d been eaten. Everything would be fine. Everything except the beach. He trod back towards the monster on the hill. Its green swirls of magic smoke were still oozing from its nostrils, melting the stars and clouds into the sky. The lazy lumps of sea life lay perfectly still, wrapped up and snug, dreaming in their sandy blankets. And the treasure hunter sat cross legged, giggling in ecstasy atop a pile of coins inside her rotting treasure trove.