Short Fiction
This is just a bunch of shorter pieces I penned a few years ago that I recently re-read and re-visited and now they're here in front of you.
The Seeing Frog & Grieving Man
So there he sat on the bench. A light dew bobbed about on the grass before him, thinking about riding the blade of grass down to the soil. Thinking about it only. On the left, down a small slope that gave way to a lake, a frog popped from patch to patch around the muddy, frosted shores.
The man’s hair was thinning. The autumn sun hung in the vapoury air and cast itself on his head. He pulled a tweed cap from the pocket of his wax jacket, puffed it up, and moulded it into shape. He loosely swept some strand hairs sideways before putting it on. Meanwhile, the frog continued its totterings, and settled an instant before flinging its taut frame out of sight, behind longer marshes. The man wondered where it would go.
It could continue flanking no man’s land — flirting with marsh between grass and water — soothing itself with an occasional ripple hit dip before thrusting to the left with a mighty in medias res jump. In the bubbling bog the frog would wallow, but by the damp blades its side would tickle and glisten. But it would shake the drops of liquid off its slime shell, off its hardened membranes, and bid adieu to the liminality, seeing a world of opportunity and recreation up the sloping garden and towards the corner of the house.
There, before it sprawls the flat plane of fresh-cut greenery. The expanse. The most feared and open section of the frog’s life. A risk territory. But it wouldn’t be fazed, this frog; it conjured and executed movement with ease. Leaps. Lobs. Kneels. The frog could go prone and phone home. It knew this too, and this particular morning the frog must have felt especially sprightly because it would bound forward and settle next to the darkened bricks of the house foundations. Here, it would look to its right, where the grass ceased, becoming the flat barked land next to the wooden shed. If the frog would only go over there, what would it see?
Beyond the mud of the bark chips, round behind the shed and in amongst some willow trees, it would see a small cross in the earth. It might stand over, smell the turf below, then recoil in ponderance and confusion. It would move away, leaving the dark area of the garden, hopping further outwards, away from the house again, where tall trees linger and sway in the misty winds.
Back at the waterfront, the frog would feel at home, and could sweep a comfortable eye across to other homes that line the oval lake. It would see a young family, two lots down, laughing in the growing morning light. They hold the hand of a son, or a daughter, and take them down to a stretch of decking, where lies a floating canoe. They help the child in and the father gets in too, and they paddle out into the still waters where they float for a time. The frog sees this and longs to be closer to the smiling, relaxing people. So it jumps in the water and works its way towards them.
The man sits on the bench. His cap on his head. His eyes slowly opening. Transfixed, now, in a dazed gaze towards his garden, the lake ripples a touch every second or so, suggesting movement. The man hears a giggle, and closes his eyes, subscribing to his wandering and yearning mind. A miniature tear appears in the corner of his eye, freezes, and settles stagnant in a wrinkle of his skin. A skin that turns green once more for the swim.
Mountain Beings
The man stepped upwards over and over and then over again. His calves burned. His skin and his lungs were sore. But the will was there. He told himself the will was there. Each step was against a gradient, a grind upon the path that flanked the valley wall. The scree and the debris loosened around his feet. His calves still burned. The will, have the will. Thin clothes slacked against his skin.
Above, a vestige of a cloud formed and whispered across the sky, settling below the sun for an instant. The heat was amazing, the incessant force of its contact made the man giddy.
The horizon was the horizon. It too, was incessant, a line of valley peaks and mountainous ridges set against irregular patches of muted greenery. The composition of this triad shifted into new formations, seemingly with every step. It never gave the man a marker. No perceptible, pursuable point of progress. No goal beyond the next horizon. The path was ever-narrowing, ebbing and flowing with a few metres of flat, manageable land that accelerated at points towards minor heaps of scree.
The man hauled his body through the hot air. His hair fell down at times with a damp, matted splat on his cheek and over his eyes. With just a loose and tattered piece of string keeping the ragged locks semi-tamed, he swung from side to side, avoiding heaps of dirt in his way. He staggered and weaved clumsily along the path. Each and every time, the path hit him back.. His hair drooped in clumps, the sun forced its hand, and the scree gave way beneath his feet. But he couldn’t stop. If the lure of the wilderness clawed him in, the will to survive now cradled him, patted at his back.
Ahead: a sharp turn. A corner of the valley peaked and pulled the face of the rocks to the left. The path followed suit, hugging the sharp walls. He shifted wild hair and sweat from his brow, squinting at the next stint in his skewed pursuit.
​
In a fragment of a vision, he reached and turned that corner. There was no plateau in the ground, the path rose upwards still, crawling to the next horizon, where it would merely crawl more. The sting in his eyes awakened. For a moment he returned, his drenched skin shivering in some vain relief from pain. He stopped after the corner and shook himself once more. Adjusting, he cast his eyes ahead. The path did rise, and meandered with the same intent to damage. But, in the distance, the unlevelled stone extended outwards from the valley wall. The path gradually widened to a platform. Below, the stone was reinforced by what seemed to be thin beams, weaving amongst themselves before settling in the wall further down.
A faint hum blew through the man’s head.
On the beams, where they met the valley wall, two figures sat on the poles. One — with a leg either side of the pole — balanced and grasped a vessel. Across from the figure, and closer to the wall, was another. This one withdrew a substance from the vessel and slapped it against the join.
The man stepped up and on, enthralled by their movements. Moulding the substance around the join, the second figure grappled and shaped it, rubbing and punching it further on with each balancing movement. Reinforcing the platform, the man thought. If the man could think. The two beings worked in tandem, shifting and climbing to the next join, the next intersection of beam with valley wall. There, they applied the substance once more, with giddying efficiency. The first being remained sprawled, swaying with its legs off the beams, holding the vessel and ensuring the other figure was steady.
His eyes flickered and twinged with amazement. What mirage? What miracle? What marvel? Tracking up, his withering vision followed the beams to the platform, where more of the beings gathered and drifted in slick, mechanical movements. There were sheets of material, and poles sitting vertically in the platform’s base. These materials were passed and transported between them. The figures atop the poles caught tools, struck them on material, flung them to another figure. Clanks of metal echoed in the valley. The humming in the man’s head turned to a regular distant cacophony. Wood and pats and smacks.
They’re constructing a settlement. They’re…what are they? If the man could think.
He looked at the figures at work on the scaffolding beams. Then back to the figures up top.
To the scaffold. To the floor.
He fell, a mound of jagged rock rising to meet him as he slid backwards. His small bag shifted from his shoulder and rolled down the path. He lurched, grinding his palms into the crumbling scree and tearing the skin open. Propelling a foot forward, he clumsily stamped at the bag as it rolled toward the sheer drop. His breath hurt. He steadied and lingered and hoped. Major movements and lack of care are a recipe for avalanche. If the man could think.
A bottle in the side pocket of his bag contained lifeline back-up sips and groaning drops of misty condensation. It slipped outwards and headed for the edge. He reached forward his weak hand and tried to catch it, but it tumbled, downwards and darkwards, into the abyss of the hopeless horizon. Reeling back from his sharp move, he sat and looked at his hands. Sweat congealed and dripped from his hair, mingling filthy with the blood and the muck. He cried.
The humming of tools had now turned to silence, as though lost in his moment of despair. In a glimpse of hyper-awareness, he struggled to his feet and turned.
With delusional slowness, the man stepped up and on.
His eyes, casting a stream of desire through rising coils of dust, focussed once more on the platform. The figures on the scaffold beams launched themselves upwards in wild, urgent, monkey-like motions. They reached the side of the platform and crawled onto it.
The man stepped up and on.
One figure called out, his operatic cry starting small, before taking shape in different intonations. No language I know. If the man could think. The yelp rode a wavering crescendo to a thick, forceful chant, echoing and rattling off the valley walls. The figures with materials and on poles and passing tools halted stepped forward, towards where the path met the crest of the platform.
If the man could think, the man could see. These were not men. These were not people. Their statures were short and thick; their limbs adjoined to their cores with a shimmer, as though soldered by a valley technician. They moved forward, muttering incomprehensible incantations in unison.
The man stepped towards them.
The beings opened their bodies outwards, casting strong arms towards him.
He went to them. He needed them.
Sense and sensibility — a freewriting exercise
Here’s some fun for you: there are five men in a room, and each of them has only one sense available. None of them — at this juncture at least, for the purposes of this ’Test’ — possess the ability to talk. So we’ve got:
Mr. Touch
Mr. Smell
Mr. Sound
Mr. Taste
Mr. Sight
There they are, look. Just in there. They scribbled their names on the slate plaque out the front of the auditorium. Their names were selected, they passed the threadbare psychological and medical screening, and now it’s the day of the first Test. So they’re just in there. And they’ve only just been put in there. About thirty seconds ago. Good god and lashings of salted butter don’t they look like the most disoriented selection of people you’ve ever seen. Well that’s fair, I suppose, given how immediate and jarring the ‘sense deprivation’ process is. We’ve all been offered the opportunity to trial it, us ‘supervisors’. Albeit for ninety seconds max. I chose not to. Even for that amount of time, it’s a gnarly, unnerving and altogether challenging notion, I think, being deprived of all but one sense. These five folk are going to be working in increments. So this first Test they’ve got 5 minutes in the room. The next time it’s 15, then 30, then an hour. Depending on our findings, we’ll continue to bump it; they’re all open to that.
Anyway it’s underway. Session 1.
How am I going to do this? Well they’re facing me, the five of them. I’ll work from left to right. That’ll work. Yes, that will work.
Test Time (TT) 0.49 —
Mr. Touch is holding his palm against his face. He has not moved any other part of his body, he has merely raised his hands, which he could of course feel at his side, and started grappling with his cheeks. His eyes are glossed over in a quite horrible way (question not to ask: just how painless is the sense vacuuming process). He’s now lifting his legs slowly, but staying perfectly stationary. Just stagnant marching. Each time he lifts a leg, he brings the corresponding arm down from his cheek to feel the material on his thigh. Oop, there go the Test pants. We ok with that? Sure. Now he’s got both arms down tugging and stroking at the skin on his thighs. Why does his face look so utterly devoid of understanding? Does his skin feel different now because he can’t…because he can’t hear it? That’s unheard of. He’s moving around a touch now (TT: 1:37). He’s just knocked into…who has he just knocked into?
TT: 1.45 —
I’m going to assume it is Mr. Smell. His nose is flexing incessantly on his face, like a little sniffer dog on the trail of something right naughty. It’s the only part of him that’s moving now, his body is otherwise vacant and limp, as though confused as hell by the direction of his wandering nostrils. He’s following the schnoz across Mr. Touch’s body, and downwards. Where’s he heading. Oh he’s homed in on them. He’s getting closer. Yep he’s fully in them now, on his haunches, sniffing away at the pooled pile that is Mr. Touch’s Test pants. These are pants in the American sense, fear not. They’re jogging bottoms, really, but a bit thinner. Somewhere between an athletic pant and a loosey goosey travelling number. Doesn’t matter. Oh look, Mr. Touch has found Mr Smell’s head and he’s caressing it something rotten. Something sensual, rather. It’s a pretty nice looking massage motion he’s got going on. Of course, Mr. Smell can’t feel this at all, so the pleasure is all Mr. Touch’s, providing the hair isn’t greasy. It doesn’t look particularly greasy. Mr. Smell is burrowing his prone proboscis all up in the creases and folds of the discarded Test pants. My, what do they smell like? What precisely is tingling so royally and righteously amidst his olfactory mucosa?
n.b: Goodness, this is going to be a ridiculous observation. I should have gotten an express list of which subject was which beforehand. Actually, no. This way I can truly study their behaviour. Why should I know? It’s been pretty easy to figure out these first two, in fairness. But…but…the people running this Test — they’ve thought this through haven’t they? Why am I now wasting valuable time saying all these things?
TT: 2.03 —
Mr. Smell kept sniffing away at Mr. Touch’s shunned Test pants, and the latter moved from the former’s scalp down his shoulders, which he sort of cradled and grappled with, as though trying to steady the man. Is this them communicating? I think Mr. Touch is getting a bit overwhelmed by the overall madness of his phenomenological situation. He’s budging and bumping into his sniffing co-subject now, causing him to writhe a little on the floor. I wonder what this “feels” like for Mr. Smell? He can tell he’s being shifted, surely? But he can’t tell what’s causing it? The guy with just a nose is on the floor writhing around a bit. Haha, my word he’s rolling around. He’s smelling it, he’s smelling the floor.
n.b: Okay, this is the serious bit. I think the size of the room is too small. That’s what my preliminary ‘findings’ are. The situation above with the first two men in the line, well that could be avoided so quickly if a few metres were added to each side of the room. I understand the purpose of the study is to see how odd the reactions are with regards to interaction, but a little longer for them to gather themselves first. That would have been nice, no? Just a note that, for the next time you do this perhaps. Poor Mr. Smell could have done with extra space.
TT: 3.10 —
Things have certainly escalated behind that layer of glass. Mr. Sound was obviously baffled by the incessant rubbing coming from his right hand side (the hands on the thighs), and even more startled thereafter by rustling and rolling of Mr. Smell once he was floorbound. Mr. Touch’s creepy hands are swiping at the air and heading towards him now. He can hear it. That’s all he can do. Mr. Sound, three minutes in to this sensual soiree, is still clapping his hands together and listening and hearing the familiar sound, but he looks like a man that can’t feel his hands (he’s not making the most crisp of connections each time), or see them (he knows they’re his hands though? Right?). Each time, there’s an odd movement of the ear towards the source of the sound. But his hands move away every time his ear edges closer, because there’s no way of his body telling itself to let it happen. He’s lurching quite oddly actually, motions of clapping hand and yearning ear and not a lot else. Oh he’s going to…no he’s going to…Yep. He fell over Mr. Smell.
n.b: I wanted to keep the asides to a minimum, but it’s a carnage in there; and so early on as well. This does, however, bring me back to my original point. More space. Subjects need significant space to work within. Otherwise things become claustrophobic. It would seem that sensation is not strictly for those with access to all senses. It’s heightened, in fact, or at least so it would seem so far, by removing or vacuuming the other senses from someone. More space. Better materials used for the room (a simple one, but again, Mr. Smell’s nose is starting to look red and dusty and Mr. Sound is going to have a nasty scar. Not that he felt it. Shit, doesn’t that render the scar obsolete? Is it not pain that drives regret, that drives memory?) Too much of an aside this one, too much.
TT: 3.38 —
Mr. Sound is down there with him, and I’ll be damned if he can’t hear the sniffing. Two of them down there on the cold (?) concrete. One can hear his struggle and one can just about smell it. Mr. Touch has managed to locate the two on their haunches and move backwards to the rear of the room, where he’s rubbing his back against the wall there. A regular bear on a regular tree. Nothing to see here. God I bet that feels good actually, because it’s half padded half rubber, and the little ribs will be doing all sorts for his little ribs. 100% worth noting that none of these folk are really affecting Mr. Taste. Yeah that’s gotta be Mr. Taste. He’s got his tongue out and is lapping up some air, which must be slightly nuanced from the air outside this booth room, outside the auditorium, because he’s really lapping it up. Or maybe the air has taken on a different flavour since all this kerfuffle around him started bubbling and broiling? Maybe this explains why the room was pitched as a ‘twist on sterile’. What’s more, people writhing around on a floor are bound to kick up some amoeba of some such deliciousness. He looks like it’s quite an enjoyable flavour, actually (question to ask: did they alter it?) Completely still, he is. How?! No idea whatsoever, has he, of what’s happening to his right.
My — what is happening back there? This one-person-at-a-time technique certainly has its flaws, doesn’t it? Should have considered this before starting. Christ, the amount they invested in the sense vacuuming technology, and yet they’ve hired me willy nilly to document the first couple of Tests. Absolutely zero credentials. Budget run dry, evidently. But I wouldn’t know precisely how to document all of them at the same time. That’d be even more chaotic. Anyway, Mr. Touch is still grappling with the wall at the back over there. He’s turned around and is rubbing his front on it now, which is giving off quasi-erotic vibes, but to each their own. He’s completely lost interest in the head, shoulders, or erstwhile anatomy of Mr. Smell, who himself looks to have lost hope altogether; he’s sniffing the Test boot of Mr. Sound. Mr. Sound, god, these names are a nuisance…how could I possibly distinguish any better between them?!
TT: 4.15 —
Oh Mr. Taste is really loving it, he’s smiling, he’s actually got a grin on. Oop. No, hang about — he’s realised the grin is limiting his atmosphere-to-mouth intake. He’s a wise Test subject, this Mr. Taste. Completely unfazed. What on earth did they put in the air? I wish I could taste it in there, behind that sheet of glass. My air’s quite rubbish. Nothing distinctive about it, if I had to say, which I don’t, of course, but there’s something to be said for comparative comment. He has started twisting his head ever so slightly — obviously he’s exhausted the full beauty of the air directly in front of him. Sucked the goodness out of it, so to speak. Seeking it slightly from the left and right now, isn’t he, really extending his tongue with each swing of his head — the tongue keeps coming back round and hitting him lightly on the cheek, like an overzealous doggo. There’s a slight build up of saliva there now. I can see it glistening. Can he taste his skin? But not feel the skin? Aren’t they the same basic thing? Doesn’t he have to feel his tongue working on it to know there’s a taste? (question (both question specific and questions like this in general) not to ask: I should have done my research before. Hell, I was really unprepared for this right? This is quite the spectacle).
TT: 4.31 —
Final thirty seconds. There’s a final Test subject. He’s…he’s just standing there. His eyes are wide open, like wide, wide open. He has turned his body to a right angle from the starting position and he is holding a posture of poise. Little hunched, actually, little jaded, if I had to deduce. He seems to be assuring himself every couple of seconds by looking down at his body. What does he see, some hunk of matter, or something he can function? Either or, he’s processing. Those wide eyes — they’re, well, they are quite scary actually. Now my point about space is not corroborated by this subject, for Mr. Sight has taken himself nicely away from the quite remarkable fracas in front of him. He isn’t separate from it, though. He’s seeing what I’m seeing: four creatures writhing and jolting around in their own impossibly absent way. Absent. He’s got plenty of ground. He does look a little bit lost, too, mind you — that’s understandable. It’s quite disconcerting. In fact…it’s quite horrible.
Now. Now. TT: 4:51 — There’s a certain glint appearing and welling in his eyes, he hasn’t blinked, can he not feel to blink? (might be a question to ask, that, for it’s actually quite intriguing). He’s turned his head now. He’s staring at the glass, he’s staring me in the eye. Wait, he’s staring me in the eye. He’s staring. He’s moving. Can he even see me? I honestly thought this was a one way thing. He’s, fuck me he looks real mad, he’s looking really mad. He’s clawing at the glass, he’s…., okay he’s headbutting it and clawing and smashing it, there’s no pain in his eyes, just fear…
TT: 5.00 —
Test over!! Test over! Get me out.
GET ME OUT NOW, PLEASE, OUT. OPEN THE DOOR.
Bob's Bicycle
Bob: Name, please.
Informal Interviewee: Ralph.
Bob: Right, Ralph, this interview will be fairly informal. I’d just like to clear up a couple of things.
Ralph: Absolutely.
Bob: Where were you on the eve of last Friday, the 13th?
Ralph: At what time?
Bob: Say, 10pm?
Ralph: 10 pee emm
Bob: Yes.
Ralph: Yes.
Bob: Ah I see. Nice. So where were you?
Ralph: Somewhere on the walk from the shop to the taxi rank.
Bob: And did you run into anyone during this somewhere?
Ralph: I wasn’t running.
Bob: No, I mean, did you encounter anyone on that journey?
Ralph: The taxi driver, eventually. A number of them. They had congregated at the taxi rank. As is their want.
Bob: Before that. Before the taxi rank.
Ralph: Yeah I did actually, just as I came out of the shop.
Bob: Right, go on.
Ralph: Well to be honest with you, I’m still having trouble fathoming how a Snickers ‘duo’ costs like £1.30 and is the same size now, more or less, as a regular Snickers used to be, what, ten years ago? And they used to cost 50 or 60p those regular ones. It’s incredible what the confectionary industry has managed to get away with, be it buoyed or bastardised by inflation. Don’t you think? But there’s something enduring and extraordinary about the combination of choccie, nougat and nuts that just keeps me coming back, and the new ‘regular’ size Snickers bars are all of two bites at a push and they just don’t cut it — they know what they’re doing those pesky confectionaaaires — so of course I ended up getting a duo bar and sort of resenting the newsagents cashier for it despite knowing full well that it has nothing to do with him, or her, they’re just charging RRP. But yeah I got one and left in a tiny bit of a huff, but one of those softcore huffs accompanied by sheer excitement, cos I knew I was about to munch on a Snickers, you know?
Bob: Ralph, who did you encounter just outside the shop?
Ralph: A man
Bob: And this man — was he on foot? Was he on a bicycle? What did he look like? Did he do anything that struck you as odd? Help me out here Ralph, please.
Ralph: Well he was on foot. Or was he on hand? The man was wearing his jeans on his arms and his t-shirt on his legs, you see, and he was going into the shop. I found that quite interesting, naturally. Not him going into the shop. Convenience stores are very popular stop points to procure goods, however vital or whimsical. Anyway I was intrigued by his aesthetic so I lingered in the doorway for a little while and watched him. He went to the refrigerated section and took out what looked like a tuna mayo sandwich. He opened it. Straight up opened it without paying for it — the audacity! Then things got really fun. He opened each piece of the sandwich and scooped out the tuna with his fingers in clumps and accumulated all the tuna in his palm. He removed a little jar from his jeans, which were on his arms and so easily accessible. The jar was full of salt water, I can only assume., because he started pouring it liberally over the tuna in his palm and screaming at the tuna to thrive once more unburdened by bread or sub-par corner shop cucumber, to enjoy its natural habitat. I don’t think he realised the tuna was dead.
Bob: So he wasn’t on a bike before he entered the shop?
Ralph: No, not when I saw him.
Bob: And where do you suppose he got the salt water?
Ralph: Your guess is as good as mine.
Bob: Thanks, Ralph.
__________
Bob: Name, please.
Uncomfortable Interviewee: Tim
Bob: Right, Tim, make yourself comfortable, this shouldn’t take long.
Tim: Okay.
Bob: I understand you had a break in on Friday?
Tim: Well it’s not particularly tough to understand, yes.
Bob: It’s a figure of speech, Tim.
Tim: I could eat a horse.
Bob: Yes, that’s one too. Nice.
Tim: Ah it’s no skin off my nose.
Bob: That’s enough figures of speech now, Tim.
Tim: Another one bites the dust.
Bob: So, who was it that came to your house?
Tim: Funny looking man. Knocked all friendly and when we answered he became a bit forceful. Just walked straight in. Said he needed a jar of water, stat.
Bob: Anything else, Tim?
Tim: He was carrying a cat.
Bob: Right.
Tim: On his head.
Bob: Right.
Tim: What are you, a sat nav? Ha. Ha...
Bob: The cat, Tim, the cat...
Tim: Yeah, and he was stroking it as though he was shampooing his hair. It was a fairly impressive balancing act really, and I’m surprised the cat was so calm.
Bob: And after this?
Tim: He took the cat off his head, put him down in our kitchen. The wife was in a bit of a tizz. We hadn’t invited this man in. He rattled through the cupboards. I protested and tried to slow him. Didn’t work. He found a jar and filled it with water and got water all over our draining board, which is fine in retrospect, because it’s easily wiped. Took our table salt, too. Then he lent down, kissed the cat on the head, and left. There was no damage. I only reported the break in to try and find the cat’s rightful owner.
Bob: I see, so he took water and salt, left the cat.
Tim: That’s correct.
Bob: This man, did he have his jeans on his arms and his t-shirt on his legs?
Tim: Absolutely not. What kind of question is that? He was balancing a cat on his head, I’ve told you that — how on earth do you envisage that he’d be able to navigate that squirmy affair with a t-shirt on his legs?
Bob: Understood. And did he arrive on foot or on a bike?
Tim: He arrived on foot, and the cat arrived on foot, on his head.
Bob: Ok, thanks Tim.
__________
Bob: Name, please.
Unfocussed interviewee: Will
Bob: Hi, Will. I just need your attention for a couple of minutes if that’s ok…
Unfocussed interviewee: Will
Bob: Will, your attention please.
Will: Will my attention please what?
Bob: No, not..look, I just need to ask you a few questions.
Will: Righto
Bob: You lost your cat on Friday, yes?
Will: Did I?
Bob: Didn’t you?
Will: I did.
Bob: And what time approximately did — what’s the cat’s name, sorry?
Will: Found
Bob: The cat’s name is Found?
Will: We never lost the cat’s name, just the cat.
Bob: Hm, so around what time did the cat go missing?
Will: 8, maybe 9.
Bob: And what time did you recover him?
Will: The cat is a female.
Bob: Ok, same question applies.
Will: Next day. Saw an advert for a cat — our cat! — on a poster; they were trying to sell her.
Bob: And you claimed her back?
Will: Well I had no evidence that Found was mine, so I had to buy her.
Bob: But who was it who took Found in the first place?
Will: I don’t know, do I? She goes wandering and gets all sorts of lost, our Found. Normally she comes back if I give her the call. We have a special call. Suppose she’s aptly named in that regard. Was a toss up between Returned and Found. We landed on Found.
Bob: You didn’t see anything or anyone strange lurking in the area. Perhaps on a bicycle?
Will: There was one guy. Had a bicycle rested on his head. I suppose I found that quite strange.
Bob: Carry on.
Will: You’re so needy
Bob: Please, what was this guy doing?
Will: He was walking around in circles. I clocked him out the living room window. The bike looked way too heavy and clumsy to be balancing on his head but credit where credit’s due he was near enough managing it. I mean, he needed to reach up and stabilise it now and again, but his circular walk didn’t falter. It was pretty hypnotic in fairness. He was making quite loud cat noises at intervals, and a few times he shouted ‘DON’T YOU DARE FORGET ABOUT THE TUNA. WHAT ABOUT THE BLOODY TUNA’.
Bob: Mm. So this bike — what kind of bike was it?
Will: Not one that was expressly designed to be balanced on one’s head, I’d imagine.
Bob: Obviously, Will.
Will: Obviously will what?
Bob: What colour was the bike? Did it have any distinguishing features that you can remember?
Will: It was balanced on a man’s head as he walked in circles, made cat noises, and bellowed about tuna.
Bob: Please!
Will: I’m sorry, but I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to the colourways or structural distinctions of the bicycle. It was black, mostly? Bit of grey on there? Two wheels?
Bob: Okay. And you live just next to the porters lodge, is that correct?
Will: That is correct
Bob: So whatever porter was on duty will have seen this man and his bicycle and will be able to back up your story, right?
Will: Absofruitly. It was Paul on duty that night. I know that for a fact cos he came over afterwards for a Lucozade Sport — we prefer berry to the classic orange, and we only ever have half a bottle each. He comes over after shift sometimes and we put the world to rights and suck on that sweet sweet energy juice. That day we definitely talked about our fella with the bicycle on his head, so you’re in luck if you’re after someone to ask more questions to.
Bob: Ah great. It was Paul. I’ll reach out to him. Thanks, Will.
Will: Miaow problem
Bob: That was poor
Will: Ok, we’re done?
Bob: Yes Will, we’re done.
Will: I’ll just whisker away now then
Bob: Please go
__________
Tired interviewer: Name please
Paul: Paul, and who are you?
Tired interviewer: Ah sorry, I’m Bob. I was hoping I could ask you about an incident outside the porters lodge on Friday?
Paul: Ah yes, the tuna fanatic cat with two wheels for ears, I assume. Corker, that.
Bob: What did you do when you saw him?
Paul: I went out and checked on him. Seemed a touch on the unhinged side, all things considered. He didn’t answer any of my questions. Just kept walking in circles the fella. Stopped making cat noises though. Muttered to himself that he didn’t really like his hat anymore, that it was getting a little bit uncomfortable, and that maybe he would take it off and let some air get to his head.
Bob: His hat being the bike. Did he take it off?!
Paul: He did. He took it right off and put it super super gently on the floor between us. Then carried on walking in circles.
Bob: Then what?
Paul: Well I picked the bike up because it was in the middle of the road, brought it over to the lock-spots just in front of the porters, and lent it against the wall. Told him that he could fetch it when he was done circumnavigating.
Bob: Right, and then?
Paul: Well then I went in and finished watching Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. I honestly just can’t get enough of it.
Bob: And what happened to the bike?
Paul: I have no idea. I left it where I put it, assuming he’d fancy his headwear again before too long. I heard a few pretty raucous purs over the show — made me rewind one great scene, actually, a segment where they’re wondering whether the tyrant Scarlemagne is a tyrant or an ally — have you seen the show? Unreal. Anyway. He purred pretty heavy but the next time I looked up he was gone, and so was the bike. Pretty sure it was Dane Daners, to be fair. His Uncle is a friend of one of my friends. Me and the friend of the Uncle get together and watch Kipo every Wednesday at 4am because our schedules are so different. He’s mentioned that a friend of his has a nephew that likes cats and tuna and wearing bicycles as hats. Never mentioned anything about walking in circles though, so that’s where the doubt creeps in.
Bob: That’s where the doubt creeps in, is it Paul? We’ve been sat here for at least 8 minutes and you’ve just thought to tell me that you know the name of the guy?
Paul: Dane Daners.
__________
Bob: What is your name?
Mess: Dane
Bob: Dane, did you steal my bike on Friday?
Mess: I don’t know.
Bob: What do you mean you don’t know.
Mess: For me, it is kind of like Friday didn’t exist. You should ask someone else man, I really don’t have a clue, I’m sorry.
Bob: I’ve asked others, Dane. I need my bike, and I’ve heard, via numerous back-trackings and crude descriptions, that you were out in the area near my house with such a bicycle, perhaps on your head. Do you have a bike?
Mess: No.
Bob: You don’t remember taking a bike and putting it on your head and walking around in circles and purring and waxing lyrical about tuna?
Mess: Wish I did. Sounds class.
Bob: You don’t remember stealing a cat? You don’t remember replacing, I’d assume, the bicycle on your head with the cat you’d just stolen, and going into a house that doesn’t belong to you? Any of this ringing any bells? You wormed your way in and put the cat down and stole a jar from a cupboard and filled it with water. Took their table salt too, yea?
Mess: Hang on…
Bob: …and you took the jar of salt water to a corner shop and poured it all over some tuna flakes that you’d pulled from a sandwich. You know you did all this right? So you know where you left my bicycle?
Mess: I’ve got to be honest, I’m not even sure my name is Dane.
A Surreal Procession
‘Every day is an endless stream,
of cigarettes,
and magazines’
Simon & Garfunkel
Instead of magazines it’s books. And there isn’t enough oxygen in the place, so the words fall away in a procession of (partially, fleetingly, mis)understood visions. And I think it is worth reading the words back, perhaps, but their initial effect is far gone. That’s how the trip comes and goes. Still, the leaves of the book shiver on my fingers, and the numbers go up in sets of two. A week of another world, and in another week it’ll be a different one. And that’s the point of literature, no?
The windows of the hotel room are steaming up. Across the way, an undertaker lifts and drops his shovel with slumbered monotony. He looks like Don McLean, and he’s searching for something. The music. Digging his way back into that time, those thoughts, dreams, thwarted directions. But the dirt rains back into the orifice. Sediments of congealed dust fly back in, darkening the space again. All that once was, was just that: once. The shovel drops to the ground, and the slight shudder of the tectonic divide ushers the undertaker out.
I hear the drizzle of the rain. And the book is finished. Outside, a slow trickle of water runs from the pathway down to a puddle, where it settles with a ripple for but a fragment of time.
There’s a knock at the door. I go to see.
The maid wants to make up the room, but it’s too early in my morning, in my life, to let someone I’ll never see again change the things around me. I throw the book onto the pile and wander to the desk, where I pick up another one. Some Huxley. Not long now until I lose my place in the room all over again. But there’s another knock on the door. He’s here.
‘Who is it?’ I ask.
‘You’re expecting someone else?’
‘I don’t expect anything’.
‘Open the door, and I’ll give you a lot of nothing’.
I open the door to Roger Hodgson, and his tenor temperament brings me crashing into the armchair, where my chest rises and falls without me asking it to. His does the same, and it makes me question how his rises, his falls — how they bring with them a host of thought and alienation, and mine are left just listening and absorbing.
‘Goodbye Stranger’, I say, as he takes his tones out and down the hall.
For a time it dawns on me that check-out is 11am, and that the world I left behind for this little existential escape is sure to slowly crawl back into my arms. The world is folly. The world is aflame with the familiar.
In the corner of this room a young child starts playing a piano, and every key he hits brings my nose further up my face, my skin tighter around my eyes, my confusion to an all new high, because he looks like me. For a second I feel the river flows in me and only me. And then someone joins in with the strings. The harmony is so beautiful and sweet that the floor falls away and I’m left again with the blood in my veins and the book in my hands.
A few weeks ago at home I was reading Kafka — one absurdity or another, you know — and the mirror from the wall slipped from its hinges and fell on top of me. I looked up at the glass and the reflection and the panic and for a moment I felt as though I had me figured out. Then I looked down at the glass and the fragments and the cuts. I brushed the shards from the pages and raised my feet and kept on going amidst the mess. Homeliness was a wave I rode too often, it just moved and moved and never broke. I went about finding a way to find myself away. Now I’m here and check-out time is coming and the wave is amassing again and Kafka is but a slave to the immediacy of Huxley’s wild notions.
There’s a special rhythm to the movements in the room above.
There are a few more ripples in the puddle outside.
There’s a chocolate chip cookie on the desk.
There are murmurs in the hallway and a laundry trolley wheel that squeaks in circles.
My eyes look for something on my eyelids.
.
Later, after they’ve found something worthwhile and enjoyed it for a little while, they come back to the square, brown room. My mouth tastes like aluminium foil and crazy dust-mites. I go and pour myself some water in the bathroom. It’s tepid.
As my eyes brush words, my hands brush the sheets. An odd texture, no doubt. A linen line that wavers like an ancient language. Across the room, a dictionary of fine reflections sit in a microchip inside a device, which itself sits and gathers day-old dust into sleek curves. I read a few more lines but the murmurs are growing louder and it must be near eleven.
I check the drawers for something I’m bound to leave behind. But I haven’t used the drawers all weekend. There’s a Bible. There’s a crumpled receipt with fading grey lines marking some joy, some economic misadventure.
My mother calls me on the phone and I put my book in the bag, hear her voice, answer her questions, ask her some too, say yes a few times, close my bag. It’s heavy with knowledge, pointlessness, or something else entirely. As I leave, the brown walls and their giddy, dumb pattern close in on nothing and I wonder if there’s a single thing someone hasn’t either written, spoken or thought of once before.
No matter, now. I’m Homeward Bound.
One of those would be nice
I can imagine it pretty well, I suppose. A stupid snail is clinging to the stupid windshield, up in that unreachable corner. No lights on the road but my own. No place to stop safely. Nothing but meandering tarmac for miles. All I can hear is coyotes and the odd leaf thrown by gusts against my window. The car is cold. The air outside is colder. It’s brutal too. So I’m not about to reach out mid-meander and scuffle with this insistent stupid snail on this gloating stupid windshield. Probably end up driving right off that cliff. So I let it sit there and catch my eye. First my peripheral vision with each bump in the road. Then a second of close spiral scrutiny here and there, when the road feels safe and straight enough. Bloody snail. So much more resilient than my snivelling self.
​
Or — ah, picture it. I am slightly younger and my cheeks are a slight pink. Plump with life and sore from laughter. I’m sat in the centre of Piazza San Marco, my camera pointed up at the church of St. Mark. There is no wind at all. Zilch. Just stillness despite flickering life. I steady the frame and click the shutter. A fraction before, to my right, a small boy plays and giggles by a gaggle of nibbling pigeons. What is the plural collective for pigeons? No matter. His laugh is so high, so utterly devoid of worry. They flutter and fly briefly, and some of their grey feathers blur into the bottom right corner of my picture. But the angle, the staging of the sunset, the lighting on the clock-tower, they are all still and serene in that moment. Now the composition has changed. So I look at the capture, and I think, you know, those slight grey marks will remind me of this moment more than any postcard ever could.
What else possibly? I’m younger still. Of course — not the same as my younger self, not the same as any precise snippet of my history. That’s the idea. 24, maybe, and reaching a sort of youthful professional zenith. I walk the sidewalk, and for a slither of a moment I completely forget that the camera is there. I completely forget the faint whir of the dolly as it tracks alongside me, recording my gait and the nuance of emotions that pass my side profile. The Hudson River stands still but pays attention — its ripples are calm, a dose of liquid love for the scene. There’s a fine lady beside me — my co-star — a figure of divinity in the midday light. Our lines are scripted of course, but they are felt. We are falling in love. From fiction to free-fall infatuation. And for that incredible series of seconds, the crew and the extras and the river wall fall away, and the two of us are smiling silly smiles but strolling straight ahead, and just then we reach for eachothers’ hands with soft understanding.
I’m confined to this hospital bed.
My brain can’t remember what it did yesterday. It refuses to communicate with my body. What I eat is liquidated, at least I think it is. Imagine that! I try not to. My days come and go with pangs of dreams and outdated fantasies. This is my view now. The curtain rail curves around the patient in front of me, and from it falls a beige sheet, wrinkled and bored. The floor is beige too. Even my own bedding is off-white, either through a flawed choice or a neglect of proper care. You’re in the room aren’t you? I can’t acknowledge you. I can just about move my eyes to confirm your presence. I can’t so much as smile at you as you walk in. And when you arrive again tomorrow I’ll wonder, who’s that over there? And I just won’t remember. You start to whisper childlike greetings at me.
Those scenes you just read.
It’s fair, wouldn’t you agree, to lie here, withering and directionless, and to think:
One of those would be nice.
Holeo's Prodigious Journey
Here's a brief screenplay.
I hope you like it.
— — —
EXT: SOMEWHERE GEOGRAPHICALLY PRONE TO SNOWFALL AT AN UNSPECIFIED TIME OF YEAR. EARLY EVENING.
The wolves howl and the snow falls and the mountains cast a daunting figure. We pan to Holeo. A man. He doesn’t shiver or clutch himself or fear for his life. Instead he sprawls himself out on the settling sheets of whiteness, considering just how well his environment slots into an action-movie, coming-of-age, will-he-make-it-will-he-not stereotype. Whilst pondering this, he realises his name similarly fits the bill. Such mystery.
Was it a surname? Or a wholly unorthodox forename, coined by his parents in pursuit of avoiding the norm? These thoughts had littered his youth and had been met with no answers. The lonesome name — a single, standalone island of a name! — meddled particularly with his submission of application forms. Also, in his interaction with young women, and the common digression from his customary charm required to explain that he was, in fact, unaware of the origin of the name, perhaps even of how to pronounce it. He often thought it sounded more like some writer’s creation for a fair but aimless screenplay than that conceived of and coined by loving guardians willing to rear their offspring and send him off into the world a rounded, polished chess piece on the board of life.
Holeo opens his mouth and catches some of the falling flakes as he considers all of these things all at the same time. Not in canon, in unison. Dancing, daring, self-directed questions of great weight and destiny. A feat that a simpleton with a normal name, or even a quirky first-name surname combo couldn’t even dream of achieving. He fights off the cold with sporadic lashings of karate. He’d had after-school lessons in 3rd grade, and was thereafter entirely self-taught. He used to bosh watermelons and hay bales and passers by for giggles and, on the odd occasion, some shits. Holeo is clotheless, and reflects on how this came to be.
FLASHBACK: Earlier, similarly snowy scene.
Holeo removes his poncho and ski-mask (his only two possessions) and attempts to start a large fire by rubbing them together vigorously. He does so for between 5 and 7 minutes. We follow this action for its duration (in the flashback), focused entirely on his efforts. No sub-texts, no distractions — just good cloth on cloth action. He grows frustrated, stops rubbing, and spits on the two items, at which point they ignite in the most wonderful fire of orange and red and light blue. He does not realise immediately, but Holeo is powerful and strong and obstinate and he does not burn. His arms do get very hot very quickly though, and Holeo panics. He throws the furnacey attire directly down into the snow and covers them up with fresh flakes he kicks with his feet. The fire goes out. Holeo walks away, a little confused by the whole episode. Holeo then walks naked through the ridge of the mountain for 15 minutes or so (again, we follow this in real time; nothing happens of note, but he’s nice to look at, our Holeo, and many audience members will still be trying to get their heads around his name, so the 15 minutes really fly by). He stops, abruptly, realising he’s wholeheartedly wronged the poncho and ski-mask. He realises he panicked at their having caught alight on receipt of his spit (he does not realise or remember that fire is precisely what he was after), and feels that he’s wronged them by hastily chucking them down and burying them. He returns to the site of the burial, back 15 minutes in a straight line from whence he came. Obviously we do not follow the duration of this return journey, and instead smash cut to three select music videos from the 1980’s, which cinema audiences will have an opportunity to select at the outset of the screening.
Holeo arrives at the site of the burial.
Yep, we’re still in the flashback.
HOLEO
I’m sorry.
He recovers them from their place of rest and scuttles off, sobbing lightly and carrying them under one arm.
Precise current moment.
EXT: ON HIS BACK, IN THE SNOW, HOLEO LICKS HIS FINGERS AND SCULPTS HIS EYEBROW HAIR UPWARDS. BOTH FINGERS GET STUCK.
Holeo realises now why he is still naked.
Later: SAME PLACE. FINGERS ARE STILL STUCK, BUT HE’S MANAGED TO STAND UP.
Holeo starts dashing through the snow, pondering both the absence of a one horse open sleigh and the reason for this particular mode of movement, acknowledging that it would only serve to consume valuable energy and bring forward his inevitable death. Holeo keeps dashing. Holeo also takes the opportunity at this time to realise that his dash has neither direction nor relevance. Of course, Holeo communicates all this only with his eyes (and the slightly hindered range of emotion they can now omit with his fingers stuck above them)
Later still: ANOTHER PLACE, STRIKINGLY SIMILAR AESTHETICALLY. HE’S DASHED THERE.
Holeo has stopped, and he’s starfishing on the ground, Holeo lifts his head and gazes at the poncho and ski-mask sitting opposite him. He has attempted to construct a conversational companion from them. We slowly pan to it. It measures about 40 cm in height, and all things considered he’s not done a bad job. But it certainly resembles more a pile of Indian brown woollen fabric with a top of the range Ski-mask perched upon it than a conversationalist of any great distinction. Nonetheless, Holeo has named it Gonzalo North-Face.
Immediately after naming his companion, Holeo becomes unsettled by its triple canon title, and wonders if he’s dubbed it as such to reconcile for his own titular shortcomings. Thereafter he becomes increasingly agitated, and then perhaps even angry, accusing Gonzalo of stealing one of his names. Over the course of a 12 minute uninterrupted, eloquent rant [n.b. Yet to be written], Holeo comes to place all blame for his turbulent upbringing on his new creation.
The pair remain in conflict for over 6 hours, which we see in short bursts with funny things happening. Ha ha.
Holeo decides to try and settle their differences over a warm cup of Coco. Which he doesn’t in fact have. So another hour passes (this time we are with them every step of the way), and it’s during this hour that Holeo realises 7 hours is the upper limit for viable tension. After 7 hours, the call of harmony is just too potent. It has to prevail. Will it prevail?
He speaks in Native American whistles to Gonzalo, hoping the poncho recognises the tones and agrees to a communion.
HOLEO
Ooo whhhh ah shiiiee loohhh
Holeo begins to cry. He thinks he sees Gonzalo cry, too, but it is melting snow on the visor of the ski-mask. Holeo realises this and becomes angry at himself. He feels his efforts are going unnoticed. Not to be defeated or ignored, he whistles harder and harder, accompanying his whistles, which are now growing incoherent, with Native American arm stretches, thrusting them forwards to conjoin his own remarkable energies with those of his companion.
Gonzalo North Face’s Ski-mask drops to the floor. Holeo falls silent.
We hear only the plop of his teardrops falling off at his nostrils.
He awaits the next move.
GONZALO NORTH FACE
*silence*
SMASH CUT TO BLACK.
END CREDITS COMMENCE.
AUDIENCE ROUSES FROM A STATE OF UNBRIDLED AWE [WHICH SOMETIMES RESEMBLES SLEEPING] AND STAND TO APPLAUD.
SOME CRY. OTHERS DON’T AWAKE, POTENTIALLY DEAD.