Another Night

It's the second time you wake up after a night spent sleeping on an Oxfam bag full of vomit that really makes you think. The first time is like a battle scar a story about a Friday or Saturday night  'I was so mashed last night. I woke up in some guys flat. I was sleeping on the floor just resting my head on a Oxfam bag full of vom' is obviously a hilarious story. It invites the kind of competitive storytelling that usually ends with Steve telling us about the time he fucked one of the dinner-ladies from high school. As I was pulling myself into a standing position I took stock of the night, this time was subtly different. I cast my mind back through the night to make a  Monday morning story and found myself board of listening to my own memories. There was no joy in the night.  Sometimes we don't know when to stop.

Rebirth

...stepped out of the sea, slipshod and dripping in a suit, davy dark with cuffs all seafoam and polished pebbles. Even with the evidence that was impossible to imagine him waiting on gamely into the ocean, or even diving slick like a salmon noiselessly into the waiting sea. I knew then, salt tongue on my tongue, that I’d witnessed a kind of birth. Not the usual screaming battling and forced unknowing free from the womb. It was dignified and conscious. Rebirth, rebirth. You know it when you see it. It’s not always a dramatic shivering emergence . Sometimes its a first step on a street or first tortured syllable drawn from a new tongue.

This case however was dramatic. Complete.

One doesn't simply leave an infant alone wailing its first breath of cold dry air. at least no one with a heart pumping warm blood. I spent some time plastering a comforting smile on my face. I put my left arm most of the way round his shoulders and waited until dusk. When no one came to collect him I took him from Twilight’s bleak beach and swaddled him. Stopped him from shivering.

Talc white scholar’s robes began the process of teaching.  Teaching him was like assembling an endless bouquet.

Part five

Have you ever heard a pub go silent?  I have once it was an ordinary night. Dan, bit of an arse but sound really, was giving it some guff about Beirut. Standard shit young men say. I was there  I’d...  We should just go in and shoot the lot of them doubt they’ll put up much of a fight. This old bloke in a grey flat-cap piped up. 'it's not a game, son'.     He didn't shout but it’s a small pub.  Everyone heard. Dan tried to brush it off. But, as is typical of old men in flat-caps, he wasn't so easily brushed off. As it transpired,he’d been in the war. He told about fearing for his life. About shooting high and praying to miss and numbing feeling that comes when god doesn't listen. About looking a dead friend in the face and only being able to feel relief that it wasn't you. For almost five whole seconds you could have heard a pin drop.

Part one here

Part four

I remember, before the end he looked so old. so much older than his ninety years. he was so fragile. thin birdlike limbs and paper thin skin like an x-ray on grey crépe paper. he barely reminded me of the man who loved his dog more than he loved me. or the man who turned from me in racist hate for the man I married. or even the old fool who had been taken for a ride by audacious teenage degenerates, I feel so guilty for noting that he spent my inheritance on cocaine. he knew I needed the money. I couldn't spurn him then though, on his death bead. couldn't turn away from him as he had me so many times. I desperately wanted not to care. we laid him out in his grey suit. I was stoic but my tears betrayed me in the end.

Part one here.

Next part here. 

Part three

He was so handsome when we met. A real gallant soldier in a uniform with bright shiny buttons. He looked so fierce then he was marching with his men behind him cowering slightly every time he barked an order. But he spoke so tender to me. I was only a girl and I thought I loved him. So of course as they always do things took their course. Not after the first time but soon he shipped out. He left me with a gift. A little boy with his face. It was hard in those days to be a single mother. But I wasn't the only one with a soldier’s bastard and things were easier than they had been. I never married. In the beginning I hoped he’d come back. But of course he never did. I knew he was alive when I started getting cheques in the mail. I imagine him sometimes old and grey, I wonder if he’s as lonely as I am.

Part one here.

Next part here.

Part two

It was the kind of party that ended in shattered glass and bleeding feet endlessly dancing blood into a cream carpet. I remember the solution to this was to impregnate the carpet with white cocaine powder which has the handy side effect of being a topical anesthetic especially in damp (or blood soaked) environments. This was considered a practical solution by our host. He was an elderly gentleman wraith-like and sober, but seemingly with a voyeuristic dedication to debauchery. He liked to see the young things dance. Frenzied two steps seemed to be the the style that predominated even the dubious grace of the Charleston was impossible to strung out kids. But he liked to watch young bodies move I suppose. We all took him as a joke, sober as a judge in a grey suit. Everyone kissed him of course, it was that kind of party.

Part one here.

Next part here. 

Part one.

Have you ever noticed someone for the first time only by their absence. When I was a child I took the train to school. So by necessity I took the same route at the same time every day. Four o’clock has a rhythm, you know. You start off with a wave of your peers with bawdy jokes and general rambunctiousness. It gets quieter as time goes on. When you are eventually walking alone, in-between prosaic adolescent concerns, you notice your community. I remember one day when I noticed that I didn't see the grey-faced old man who I habitually acknowledged the existence of with a vague nod while he was walking his dog. Then I never saw him again. I never knew his name but I remember being certain that he was dead. He was my first brush with the reaper.

Next part here.