Hour 1

I'll tell you what I am. Fucking talentless. Sit here in the dark working on ruins, feeling them sweat like old buildings. Nothing ever happens in the dark. Sure, when you turn on the light, something's changed. You're not like the man of old. You sit there and don't speak until someone approaches you. I used to fucking respect you. Now I wait for the days when you'll need me to piss.

I can't write because I took the edge of my mind off with drugs. I could have been pure, but now look at me. Or I could have been alive, but that's a joke now. It doesn't do you good to think like this. You want something to spin, but it doesn't. What was that lift you felt in the old days, when a story was like an old interesting smell you were trying to remember? It formed in your mind before you put it down, not after.

You're so lazy you should have been a poet. This prose stuff isn't for you, you know. Oh, she was the darling of the ball, her ankles, those ankles. I find it all trivial, all of it, kaput. Everything has been said, so post modernism is merely trying to say it backwards. I used to have plans, back when it was fashionable. I used to have dreams, before they became cliche. Now I just sit in a room and check my facebook (not writing as myself, I never use facebook).

I count three of you. Children and OAPs, for free. That devil on your back, he'll cost extra. Come on, Sammy, you know you love me really. No I don't, you're fucking rubbish. I'm always there for you. Yeah, like an ulcer. I think we have to straighten a few things out. You're completely alone, except for all the things you've nicked. Yes, I believe you'd be some sort of original, if it weren't for that.

Are there writers who spend their whole lives writing drivel just to make themselves do something? If I was getting paid for this it wouldn't be half as painful. Meagre lines, bone-dry of meaning - and you think that the bone is the meaning, but it isn't, it's just the skin. He used to be a paragraph, in his salad days. Now he's shrunk to an axiom. His epitaph is eagerly awaited, however. Oh, fuck, it's so dry in here, in this place, with these words.

Latin is a dead language, they say. But all language is dead. Writers are just grave-diggers, and librarians morticians. Even this sentence, if I were to brandish it in front of my face, does it not look a little like the hand of Eliot? Christ, you'd expect me to have more interesting thoughts than this over the course of an hour. Oh wait, you're talentless, remember. I'd love to be a nice, normal person - in fact I'd give up my stinking soul for it, and that's the issue, really.

So imagine 10,000 hours more of this, then. Are you having fun already? Don't tease me, I have dying ambitions of a faintly romantic persuasion. What are we going to do when the biscuits dry? That's what I want to know about global warming - not when the seas will overcome the land, but I want to know the moment when you look at a tea cup and realise things will never be the same agin. It's those moments on which history is built.

If I keep this up I'll turn into a pen. My fingernails will sharpen like quills, and when I kiss my lover I'll leave ink in her mouth. Oh, you're enjoying yourself really. If you got yourself a laptop you could go into the park with a picnic and do this. Just stay the fuck away from coffee houses. Made yourself a little bottle of cordial, down here in the dark, typing away for precisely no reason.

Does this count as practice? Surely as much as those meaningless scales on a musical instrument. And every thought is new, not some old thought you try to squash in with your strange mistrust of your present state of mind ('no, the past self was better ...'). The only difference between you and all the past selves is that they outnumber you. I could write the most beautiful sentence of my life right now, and in fact am slightly better equipped for it, but simply unlikely due to the sheer amount of hours I've spent writing versus this one.

He walked across the room like all that you've ever loved. The thought of his breath makes you conscious of his mortality, and you comfort yourself that his breath is clearer than the air around, and his silence is like thunder beneath clouds - how then could such a person ever die? You realise your own absurdity, standing there and watching him with your useless stitching and a passion that will never break your smile, but still: he walked across the room like all that you've ever loved.

When the count thought of his wife, he thought of lemons. Their brightness, and the images of the sun that collected around them. How they could sit on the shelf of a grocery and still bring a bit of the continent with them. Just like lemons, his wife went with a cocktail perfectly. Her dresses lit up parties, and her sharpness suited conversation well - in small amounts, of course. Her body had the small hardness of a lemon: but most of all what reminded him was how they tasted when sugared, and when bitter.

'Are we alone?'

'Yes.'

'You're sure?'

'He's gone, Clarence.'

'I'm sorry, Joe, but I just can't stand him.'

'I know. It's not your fault.'

'Yes, it is my fault - I mean, he's done nothing to make me feel this way.'

'Apart from -'

'Yes, apart from that. But it's not like he could choose -'

'Well, any more than I could.'

'Yes, but I know you ...'

'What you mean is that you knew me before you knew what I did.'

Word count: 1035

She crinkled her eyes, that had dried up with age.

"I'm so glad you've returned."

"I'm not staying long, Mama."

She rose and crossed the room, serene even with her elephant's skin. She poured milk into a glass and when she returned she placed it directly into his lap with motherly insistence.

"We kept your room the way it was."

He was startled.

"All this time?"

"Yes. Would you like to see it?"

"No."

There was a pause. He looked at the cross on the mantle piece. It was big and thick, and cast a white-gold glimmer all around. As he looked at it he felt the urge of old to touch it.

"It must be twenty years since you left us."

The old woman hesitated before continuing. He looked at her skin, which was so pale that she seemed to be diffusing into the white wall behind her, but not at her eyes.

"I know we should have told you before we did. But there was no protocol for us to follow. All we knew is that we loved you ... things were different then."

"Love wasn't different. Love was never different."

"We didn't tell you what you were because we didn't want to hurt you."

"You let me think I was an abomination for years!"

"But times have changed. The pastor says that homosexuality is like heroin addiction, and that we should love the sinner ..."

He had memories of small rooms, bent in endless prayer, and the dark smell of sweat. As he heard her speak he realised he would never see her again after that day.

"I'm going to go. Goodbye, mama."

Her eyes instantly filled with tears.

"Are you sure you don't want to wait until your father gets back?"

"Yes."

"I love you very much."

"I love you too."

"We both forgive you."

He left the room.

13/7/10 (The Fire Wall)

There was a raw red anger in his face. He had some letters to open: he did this with his hand still trembling. The rage shot up in him and he punched himself in the head. The letters fell to the floor. He was strong, he was strong. He could crush a mountain if he wished. He'd fuck any cunt up who came near him. Fuck them all. Fuck the fucking arses of the lot of them. The swearwords ran off his tongue, and the frustration was still there, that there were no worse words, no words that'd strip the skin off them.

"What have you got going on down here, Mule?"

It was Trevor's voice. Fuck him. He'd like to spit poison at him. He'd like to reach into his face and tear off flesh like clay in his hands. Fuck him.

"Get out of my work space."

Trevor smirked at him and continued down the stairs. He was loving every second.

"This is a work space, is it?"

"Just don't provoke me, alright?"

"Or what? You'll go psycho? You need to lighten up, mate."

Words bubbled up and died inside his mouth. The burning ached: the anger was so bad he wanted to sob. He would come down at them from a great height, and see them run before him, the frightened sheep they really were. He would eat them, biting off the tips of their fingers and tearing open the sides of their necks and seeing the joyful blood come out. He would look into their eyes as the pupils shrank. He would listen to their pleas for mercy. He hated every one of them, the fucking cunts, the stupid mother-fucking cock-sucking cunts. He tried to focus all of this into a single glare that rested on Trevor as he walked around casually examining things.

"How do you cope with the loneliness down here? Wanking off to internet porn, I bet. You put up the fire wall, after all."

Trevor laughed softly and then suddenly looked at him. There was ice in the Mule's face, and beneath flames were distinguishable. He carried on walking, searching for something to interfere with. He put one foot up on a disconnected computer monitor, and said:

"It was only a prank, Mule."

"Fuck off!"

Unfinished

Summer days pass with a may-fly's drunken clamour, no longer than the spaces in a lazy conversation. I couldn't tell you what happened yesterday any more than I could tell you what will happen tomorrow, except that both will be good. Rafi, clothed in sunlight, stooping to dive into the river. Pawel, the stillness of the air in his eyes. Both as much a part of nature as a pebble on a river bed.

They're helping me recover from the operations, day by day. Pawel helps me to shave my chin, and Rafi my legs. Both of them have barely been outside this village, so that while the grocer may refuse to serve me, Pawel cycles to my cottage on his bike without gears, laden with bread and fruit. Rafi sits in church with her face as pure as silk, her hand clasped in mine.

Pawel's father came into his room one day, and demanded why he hadn't invited a girl to the dance. Pawel, a school boy, decided to take Rafi, who was a fully-grown woman. They span soundlessly in the midst of the marine lights, their heads on each others' shoulders. Afterwards Pawel's father beat him ruthlessly, and Pawel came to me crying angry tears.

"I want to escape this place."

"But the life you have here is so beautiful. You swim every day -"

"You don't see me how I am, but how you want me to be!" Rafi sat in the corner reading.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a misfit. I can't be free like you."

"Well then, we'll go to the city together," I say. Rafi looked at Pawel from the corner, the brightness of the day in her eyes.

The memory of my final operation is a haze of instruments I know I could never have seen, and the recollection of Pawel's face, then Rafi's. Mainly I recall a human body lying in pure whiteness, changing without ageing, its wounds gaining the strength of flowers. When I awoke smiled to see I had two little angels at the foot of my bed, praying for me.

That night, I remember our dark hotel room glimmering in city light, where we sat at the window gazing out. The stars seemed to be propping up the heavy night sky - overloaded, they began to fall, one by one, in a shower as beautiful as any of us had seen. Each star disappeared into the thin dull glow of the city until the sky, punctured by starlight, settled back into a black mass.

Rafi came up to my cottage a few days later with a painting she had been working on. It was of all of us, myself in the centre, and Rafi and Pawel on either side with an arm round me. I called to Pawel, who was eating in my kitchen, to come and look at the painting. At that moment, I heard a knocking at the door. I went to my window and saw Pawel's father standing there.

"Pawel! I know you're in there!"

I went to comfort Pawel, but Rafi went out to confront his father. I saw them through the kitchen window, with Rafi talking to him quietly but angrily, and then I heard him say:

"You're not my son!"

He turned and left. I saw that Pawel was near the painting, and had smeared it with his hand so that his face was obscured.

Since that day, Pawel has left the village forever. Rafi is an artist, and she has never tried to redo that painting of the three of us, even though it is one of her best. I see her cycle along every day on her old bike with no gears, I can almost smell the salt in her hair: and I think I know why. Every single person is a work of art, unfinished.

Fate

A sickly wind blew through the town. It lingered in alleyways and died in gutters, doing nothing to alleviate the heat. Worse, it carried the stench of the late summer with it, smothering the decent doings of the townspeople with the smell of rot. Small sensations turn pervasive in such weather: a dry mouth is intolerable, and sweat itself makes one feel weary.

A woman crying on a hot day becomes a terrible mess. There should have been a strong man to comfort her, but there was just me, and I shrank from her as she sat on the balcony, letting ants crawl over her. The crystalline pureness of the grass framed her white form, and gave her the immediacy of a vision. It was obvious that she didn't want me to look at her, and yet I couldn't help it all the same. She really wasn't at all beautiful in that moment, and so she fascinated me.

But more than that, I needed my tip. I could tell that in the midst of her histrionics lay a sort of revulsion for me - that I could think of money at such a time. They were all the same. A job's a job, and where would we be if we didn't abide by such things? Eventually she rose and walked over to the small table by my side. I would have passed her handbag over, but it would be improper to handle a woman's purse.

As she took the money out, I saw her fingers go stiff. She was wrestling the impulse to throw the money to the floor. People had done, in the past. I never stooped - it was not in my job description - but armed with my polite cough I would wait for them to come around to my way of thinking. When I received the coins from her, they were already damp with her sweat. I bowed and walked out of the room, and past the torn envelope that lay where she had dropped it in the hall.

The next house featured a young, married couple who were always arguing. I could hear them shouting at each other to get the door for some seconds following my unobtrusive knock, and then eventually the man came to the door. He too was flustered in the heat, perhaps thrown also by my pristine uniform and serene air. So instead of tipping me instantly, he opened the telegram that was addressed to his wife.

It was always a good idea to wait, because if the telegram was good news they were prone to tipping handsomely. However, it was clearly not good news. His face turned white, and then red. He turned suddenly, attempting to slam the door in my face, but I had thrust in a well-polished boot. Without looking at me, he took out his wallet and left me a handsome tip. I thanked him and left.

I was making unusually good progress as I walked over to the poor side of town, and felt inclined to whistle as I stepped among the rubbish. I forced open the gate of an old mining house, on the sort of street where it looks as if the architect has tried to carve as many dwellings as possible out of a single block of white stone. A troupe of handsome children ran to the door. Avoiding them as much as possible, I reached over with the telegram and placed it in the mother's hands.

"Thank you."

Being poor, of course, they always spoke to me. It was rather infuriatingly informal, to tell the truth, and I kept up a haughty silence on my end. She would often speak at me, on whatever pretence her loneliness forced on her - mothers, of course, being among the loneliest of all. She was an earnest, well-scrubbed type, the sort of person who being hit by an ambulance would say, "that was lucky".

She looked up, and smiled, although sometimes eyes have a truth in them they can't conceal.

"I'm afraid I can't pay you."

I smiled back.

"I'll wait."

She disappeared into the darkness of the house. One of the smaller children remained in her wake, staring up at me. I tried to deflect her gaze by looking in a constant way above her head, but after a while it became most disconcerting. For the first time I felt the heat of the day reach past my uniform, and sweat prickled at my neck.

"Ask your mother if she'll be long."

Instead of leaving, the insolent brute merely looked back into the cottage and shouted for her mother. Then she returned her eyes to my face again, when no answer came. I decided that enough was enough, and narrowly resisting clipping the child around the ear, turned on my heel and departed the awful place.

I met my boss in an old pub where he and I liked to lunch together. The ancient glass of the windows produced a narrow shimmer, like a coil of smoke, that made the world outside seem small and dreamlike. My boss had already begun his poacher's pie, and merely gesticulated to the bench in front of him as I entered.

"Afternoon, Harold. Devilish hot, ain't it?"

Without waiting for me to reply, he suddenly raised his yellow eyes at me.

"How was the rounds?"

"Well ... not too bad. I think the weather's baked people's brains."

"Oh, yes?"

"People were acting strange when I gave them their telegrams, that's for sure."

He raised a straggly eyebrow.

"Did you have many telegrams, today, Harold?"

"Oh, the usual."

"Harold, today we got into your locker. We found steaming apparatus, a typewriter and a bunch of opened telegrams."

By that time I was out of the door. The blast of heat carried with it his voice, rising in anger:

"Harold! ... Harold!"

# 1

I am dying softer inside the lines this time, slow and deep within you. You're a cat searching for a goldfish, and then the goldfish itself, melting away into darkness. Every sound we make is another name for beauty. Suddenly we are near, very near, and you look as startled as if we'd met in some forest clearing. Then the chasms between us open up, and we are both alone in togetherness once more.