That Bit In Mad Max

It was known prior to the shoot that the props, comprising of phasers and plasma boomerangs, had not been effectively tested in the real world, and could in fact be dangerous in the hands of non-professionals.  Such weapons had been imitated before, but none had been quite as sophisticated as those now being used in the new Spice Girls video.

‘These weapons have never been used before,’ Ginger told a documentary crew who were following the video shoot closely.  ‘We’re hoping for the nobel prize with this one.’

Disaster struck on the first take.

Mel B, untrained in the use of plasma weaponry, flung the hi-tech boomerang with the ferocity one expected of her general presentation, but with the precision unfortunately of a total amateur.

The plasma boomerang sliced through the crest of Victoria’s skull, cleaving her head open to reveal a pristinely turned-out brain. 

‘Wow, did you see that?’ cried Sporty.  ‘It was just like that bit in, y’know, ‘Mad Max’.

Spice Girls - Say You'll Be There

A Wolfhound at the Starting Post

Cuchullain's Castle 1

Brian Staunton had a willowy wolfhound that he brought into Murphy’s each day wearing a cloudy Dundalk F.C jersey. How he managed to stretch the shirt over the magnificent body of the wolfhound was anybody’s guess, and how he managed to survive a mauling while doing so prompted additional guesswork. I saw Taafe trying to avoid Staunton’s typical look of contempt as he sat at the bar scratching his head over the cryptic crossword.

Here’s the pub: A dry warm mahogany cave advertising the delights of prolonged ‘moments’, warped everydayness, and a place to grumble quietly or not so much, depending on your finances. We the grumblers sit single-file along the bar, shooting back and forth declarations and conclusions and statements and judgments and positions and suspicions. There is always one of the men there cursing at the television while his wife is breathing her last in the hospital.

‘Watch he doesn’t slobber over the floor again,’ said Taafe, without looking either at Staunton or the wolfhound. ‘I near slipped and broke my hole last time.’

‘You mind your own slobbering, eh?’

Taafe turned away from the cryptic crossword – it was angst he could postpone. McDaid noticed this and laughed in Taafe’s direction, a noise like an alien’s claw scratching at him.

‘You’ll never get there. You’ll never beat the master.’

I jumped in to change the topic immediately, going back to something McDaid had been trying to tell me earlier about a riot in the town in the eighties. With cryptic crossword failure being the newly-introduced theme, I didn’t want to be reminded of my own performance issues.

‘I never heard tell of it before,’ I interrupted. ‘When exactly did it happen?’

‘Well, I remember it proper,’ he said. ‘1986, I think. Paisley came to town. Peter Robinson was up in the court house for some antics out in Monaghan. The whole town went bonkers-mad. And most of it happened right outside here. I swear, this place was like Hamburger Hill. Bricks and sticks flying. The guards running around, didn’t know what the fuck was happening.’

‘A riot?’

‘A right old riot! Most of the town was closed. Everyone wanted in on the protest. It was a special day in town, you know. Like the Maytime festival or the American president visiting. We had to work that day though, I remember. But we clocked off early enough in time for the action, and came straight down here to join the petrol bombing. Still, I’m glad the Paisley one’s lightened up now in his old age. Imagine an alternate universe with that fucker the way he was back in the day in charge of the lot. He’d have declared nuclear holocaust on us all.’

‘These days, he’s on the Late Late Show sucking up to Pat Kenny. Fucking twisted world, eh? Anyway, I’ll be leaving you folks.’

‘Oh, you’re off. And I was just about to relate to you more tales of violent disapproval on the borderlands.’

‘Yeah, I’ve to go to McManus’s to meet the wife. She’s there with a few friends.’

‘Jesus, the rest of us are going home to see the wives quietly and have our dinners quietly and yous two are raving it up. Life’s fucking grand for you lot, isn’t it?’

Peach sky up. 6.30. I walked along Chapel Street towards McManus’s considering the length of my legs. Way too short, my legs. Compared to most sets of legs. In front of me as I walked, a man, must have been sixty, carrying a Superquinn bag full of briquettes, and I couldn’t help but notice how long his legs were. As long as the metre stick, like some kind of geriatric ostrich coming home from the shops. If he caught me looking at his legs, he could only have been flattered, such a deserted street as it was. I said hello to him.

‘Hello.’

‘Well hello there.’

‘Nice evening.’

‘Ah, it’s grand, you know.’

I was glad to be meeting Emer in McManus’s. It would be good to get out of the house for a change. We hadn’t been out in a few weeks. Staying in that house for too long with only each other for company was a fucking head-wrecker. I couldn’t stand it. We’d be killing each other over everything and nothing and all the rest of it. And arguments never worked in my favour. She was always running away with the last word, and I was always running after her and that last word, chasing the argument like an aimless mongrel on the sniff. We’d take a tour of the house with those disputes; sometimes we’d even see a dirty spot somewhere and start cleaning it together while still going at the fight. Last time, she used our clean-up diversion in the bathroom to clout me on the face with a soggy mop. Even intellectual disagreements, not so fierce, demanded much running around. For example, that very morning, the discussion of child-rearing in the kitchen:

‘I don’t want to raise my child under church guidance. It’s all bullshit.’ (She leaves the kitchen)

‘Well, what else will we do? (I follow her saying) Imagine this baby of ours suddenly appears tomorrow.’

‘What, like a virgin birth?’(She walks upstairs)

‘Just grant me this little piece of hypothetical, will you.’ (I follow saying) Imagine she’s born tomorrow.’

‘She?’

‘He, she, whatever. Picture us waking up tomorrow and there’s a little baby. What are you going to do?’

‘Raise him. (She grabs a cloth from the ironing board on the landing and begins wiping a nearby windowsill saying) Be a mother.’

‘But have you ever thought about how you’ll raise your child?’

‘He’ll be raised a good atheist.’

‘He?’

‘She, he, whatever.’

(I start re-folding some clothes that are lying on the ironing board saying) ‘We can’t do that. How do you begin to give a child a strong moral framework? You can’t just make it up as you go along. I don’t think it’s as simple as showing them ‘this is good’ and ‘this is bad’. You’ve got to back it all up with some solid foundations, with stories and the like.’

‘You’re talking shit. (She walks downstairs again saying) People do it all the time. They don’t need the bloody sacred heart.’

‘Yeah, but…(I follow her downstairs saying) There’s a wider education involved, isn’t there?’

‘You’re getting worried in your old age. (She stops in the hall to adjust a framed photograph of Pont du Gard on the wall saying) Afraid of damnation, eh?’

‘No way. (I follow and stand beside her saying) But damned in our doings anyway. (I begin to adjust a framed photograph of Sagrada Familia next to Pont du Gard on the wall saying) My life is streaming screaming damnation, I’d say, and there’s only so much of it you can take in a living minute.’

‘A living minute? You should accept your damnation will be much longer than that.’ (She disappears into the kitchen)

‘Thank God we’re not pregnant then, eh?’

Outside McManus’s, there was a blue car with three young lads buttressing themselves against it, eyeing passers-by purposelessly, posing with their fags and cans. I could have read the pointlessness of their intentions from a mile off, so I anticipated their words of passive intimidation, and went into a stance known as Crane Wildly Pecking The Wind as soon as I was within distance. They just shrugged, and told me to Fuck off. Another success for the martial arts.

Inside McManus’s, it was dopesmoker’s night, with dub and roots reggae rumbling over the chattering heads. I walked around looking for Emer, amazed at how the place just never seemed to change in all my memory of it. Some of the very first social encounters between Emer and I had occurred in this place, when we were 6th years at school, both doing the leaving cert, her at the Lughaigh, me at the De La’. Our schools were right next to the other, the ultimate Catholic joke – single-sex schools slapped right beside one another, scores of frustrated boys and girls divided by a wall or two, libidos restrained, globules redirected. Once when we were here together, Colin Garrett was spotted rummaging around in the front of his trousers while looking at the Marilyn Monroe poster on the wall. He got some awful abuse for it, but all the poor lad was doing was violently disapproving of the sexual division imposed by the educational system. Marilyn was still there. The place hadn’t changed a bit.

I found Emer outside in the beer garden amongst a number of old heads that were merely footnotes to McManus’s in my brain. Some heads are filed away in the brain, others exist only as minor reference points. I was probably a footnote for most of them too, but that’s no fucking concern of mine.

‘Oh, here he is, back from Church Street,’ Emer called out, laughing, drunk.

‘Hey, how are you?’

‘Grand, yourself?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Ah, right so.’

‘Right so, I’ll get a drink.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay.’

‘Oh, and would you like anything?’

‘Nah, I’m alright for now.’

We all have to take that seemingly forsaken and fretful journey to the bar some time in our lives, while at the same time trying to avoid the wagging fags and thrashing elbows of day’s end.

The Eastern Nothing

I was having trouble in the head one day. I walked along Jianshe Road trying to shake the mess out. As I approached a little coffee bar with people chatting at the tables outside, I saw two giant rabbits leaping onto the pavement from a grassy area nearby. They were enormous rabbits, bigger and whiter than any I’d ever seen. It occurred to me that they belonged to a young kid who appeared to be chasing after them, but his father, who was walking ahead, suddenly called for him, and the kid ran off, leaving the rabbits. These giant white rabbits were strays, didn’t appear to belong to anyone but themselves. This was the sort of thing you got used to seeing in China. These two giant white rabbits scuffling about by themselves on a busy street in the middle of the city: it made perfect Chinese sense.

One of the rabbits suddenly darted across the road, leaving the other rabbit to toddle off in a different direction. This frustrated me. I’d made the decision just then to follow the rabbits as a fanciful literary upbringing had convinced me that if I ever saw a white rabbit I should follow it because a sequence of wonderful events would surely commence. But their parting of ways had now put me in the agonizing position of having to choose which one to follow. One rabbit may have led me to the wonders, but the other may have led me to tedium. Dodgson never gave Alice those options. He never gave himself those options. He may never have found Wonderland if he had. I gave up on the rabbits, and went into the coffee bar to forget the mess in my head.


                                                                                  *


The coffee bar was snug and mostly quiet, save for a turntable rigged to a Nad amp and a pair of JBL’s, issuing some pretty decent soft acoustic rock sung in Mandarin, noticeably different from the usual canto-pop on offer. The walls of the establishment were garlanded with pages from China Daily, the national English language newspaper, the pages covering well-known stories of recent years, the Lhasa riots, the Olympic games, and featuring headlines such as ‘Does the nation see itself as a superpower?’ Scattered across the newspaper pages were random photos of people travelling –staff maybe, or simply friends of the coffee bar. In a European bar, these photos would perhaps have contained the expanse of the world, youths photographed from Alaska to Zimbabwe, but here the photos didn’t stretch beyond China - yet the images covered a whole world of visuals, from desert to tundra to grassland to metropolis. One image could have been Greenland, another could have been Egypt. One image even reminded me of Carlingford Bay, quite close to where I grew up.

After the second coffee, a conversation pertaining to comparative philosophy arose. I can’t recall exactly how the conversation began. The other individual involved was a balding Chinese man wearing a check shirt and blue jeans. He’d said Hello to me and the next thing

‘In China, we enjoy a lighter, more intricate understanding of life. We like to make the journey from A to B and take in the uniqueness of the journey every time. In the west, your journey becomes more and more tiresome for you as you progress, so the uniqueness of getting from A to B is frequently forgotten. You get bored too quickly. Your philosophy’s too mechanistic these days. The sciences have put such a stranglehold on western philosophy that a great majority of it is about nothing.’

‘How can you say that? Are you saying that the sciences deal with nothing? I’ve a friend back home, he's a chemotherapist and he’d box your ears for you for saying that.’

‘I’m not talking about functional science here. I’m talking about philosophy.’

‘Yes, but isn’t philosophy supposed to be about nothing? Well, I mean, everything and nothing? Doesn’t eastern philosophy also deal with nothing?’

‘Certainly, but there’s a difference between that nothing and the western nothing. The western nothing is mostly tied up with physics and quantum mechanics and all those things. The eastern nothing is concerned with issues of personal being and relation.’

‘What about western religious philosophy, Aquinas and all that? Is that not the nothing you’re talking about?’

‘Yes, that’s something akin to it. All forms of life have this kind of nothing, whether it be within the religious man’s reflection, or the atheist’s rejection. But the philosophy of religion is really just an arm of western philosophy, a specific branch, often at odds with all the other branches, whether that be epistemology, metaphysics, even some ethical systems. Eastern philosophy is bound to this nothing, and will never detach from it. Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism – though they may be distinguished from one another are joined in their shared language of the nothing. Eastern philosophy is infused with the wonder of things. These days, western philosophy views that as naïve. But if you look closely at it, regardless of the eastern nothing we just talked about, eastern philosophy has always been considered by the west something primarily concerned with some mystical spiritual nothing, even though its chief concerns have always been grounded, rather than elevated, located expressly in the social, ethical, and political worlds.’

‘I’m losing you. My head’s a mess. What then is the key difference between these philosophies in your opinion?’

‘Poetry, my friend.’

The conversation ended around then, and I found myself suddenly alone in the bar. The mess in my head was less thick, but more swirly. I changed from coffee to beer. As the waitress brought the beer, she offered me a cigarette. She’d noticed I was smoking the same brand as her. Zhong Nan Hai, a Beijing cigarette, not as popular in the south as in the north. Here, in Hubei, you only ever saw a few girls or foreigners smoking them. Usually quite light compared to other brands and markedly cheaper. Zhong Nan Hai cigarettes were named after the government buildings in Beijing. In fact, they were Mao’s cigarettes, manufactured especially for him. Whether he actually liked them or not, I’m not sure.

My beer finished, I decided to leave. I said goodbye and thanks to the waitress and her husband who’d been sitting behind his laptop the whole time I’d been there, barely raising his head. He managed to lift his head to acknowledge my farewell. I gathered they ran the place together.


                                                                                 *


The mess in my head continued to swirl as I walked to the bus stop.

The wheels of cars swirled insistently.

The outdoor fans and air conditioners swirled mechanically.

The neon swirled in all able perceptions.

The world around me swirled with people and activity.

In the headlights of these kinetics, I caught the rabbits again - choosing to ignore them this time, I watched as they ran once more headlong into something I could only surmise was nothing.

Rational Thinking Thing

                                                                       June 16

                                                                      Bloomsday.

That’s a day in the month of June put aside by the cultured wing of Dublin to celebrate the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. The day can be celebrated elsewhere in the world, if put aside by other cultured wings, but the celebrations have more gusto in Dublin because that is where events in the book take place. We’re number one when it comes to this particular thing, said Dublin’s cultured wing, and just right they were for saying so. It's a particular thing to be proud of, is it not?  So what better way to celebrate a masterful work of literature than dressing up like cartoon yesterdays and eating salads.

Caitlin had never read Ulysses, but reading the book had not been a requirement for this new job. Her last job had been four months ago. In a delicatessen. She didn’t want to work in a delicatessen again. Rational thought and acute personal awareness hued this reluctance; she'd come to feel nauseous around salads. She knew exactly who she was and that person was not a devotee of the salad.  But late pallid afternoons watching rain pimple windows had led her to say yes yes I will Yes to a position with a catering company serving guests at a Bloomsday party near Merrion Square. Salads aplenty would play by the plateful, she was sure of it. Boredom convinced her to accept whatever the world was presently offering.

The sky glowed phantom white across the city, the sun providing a teasing backlight for the unfortunate humans of that acre of world. Caitlin kind of liked the sky when it took on this egg-white character. She enjoyed dreaming of a private party for a host of suns behind the clouds. The world wasn’t invited, would never be. She had an hour before the job started, so she stopped for a coffee on Baggott Street in a small café which had seats outside. She needed to have seats outside so that she could smoke a cigarette or two. Even though she was in favour of the ban that existed for smoking inside public buildings, she continued to experience some degree of guilt whenever she puffed legally. Her coffee procedure was not the complete procedure others were allowed, taking on as it did the mantle of banishment. She dealt with the guilt however. Her addiction convinced her to accept whatever coffee procedure was presently on offer.

A man tripped over her outstretched feet as he was leaving the café. He didn’t fall, just stumbled a little.

Sorry, she said.

He gave her a look of determined disdain, and then walked on. Caitlin considered why he had been irritated by the incident so very much as to refuse her apology. She usually attributed such treatment by men to her appearance. She wasn’t a pretty girl, she was certain of that, and thought that perhaps if her small elfin composition, ashen-skin, bland spectacles, fuzzy brown hair, and lazy dress sense were replaced with the trimmings of the cosmopolitan lady, vogue hairstyle, and make-up, lose the glasses and experiment with the perfumes that attract, then maybe she would be treated more favourably. Maybe that man would have accepted her apology graciously, told her not to worry about it, asked her if he could join her even, talked about all manner of things, before complimenting her frantically, and asking for her phone number. But no such good fortune; she was stuck with the disdainful look. The guilt swelled up inside of her as she put out her last cigarette with covert skill.

A weatherman from one of the news programmes was drunk and he knocked a plate out of the hands of a middle-aged woman, the wife of a tycoon from the midlands. The woman cried out in horror, her fanciful 1900’s-style dress drenched in the decorative superfluities of her chosen salad. Caitlin served a potato salad to the woman’s husband who was insensible to his wife’s catastrophe. That’s horrible, dear, he said, as he took the plate from Caitlin without saying thanks.

Caitlin kept one eye on the watch her nearest colleague was wearing in aching anticipation of her break. The strap of her own watch had snapped amidst a stampede to board an evening bus recently and had fallen and been lost to the streets. Her nearest colleague’s name was Katya and she informed Caitlin that she had come from Kiev in Ukraine in pursuit of her ex-boyfriend who had stolen some money from her. She kept a switchblade in her purse in case she ran into him.

Why are these people dressed like this? Katya asked Caitlin, surveying an ocean of nostalgic high-class fashion.

The book is set early in the last century, replied Caitlin. I think that’s why they’re dressed like this.

What book? asked Katya.

Ulysses. You know? That’s what this is all about. Bloomsday is all about that book.

I thought Bloom was a saint. Like Patrick. It’s just a book? What a big deal.

During her break, Caitlin measured her financial situation. With the money she earned from this Bloomsday job, she could pay an electricity bill that had been worrying her for some time. The digits in the bill had been slowly expanding and developing. The 2 on the last bill that had unnerved her considerably had reformed itself as a frightful 3 on the current bill. As she measured her situation, she came to the conclusion that the principal source of her anxieties throughout the course of her experience as a human had been these digits, constantly the same individually, but changing according to context in the daily business of living. She stubbed out her cigarette under her shoe, and returned to the Bloomsday proceedings, cursing digits as she marched past guffawing bow-tied dandies.

I am so happy you are back, said Katya, when Caitlin returned. That means I can go for my break. These people are strange. They keep saying these things to me I don’t understand. I wish they would all just get sick now and go home so we finish.

Caitlin herself had begun to feel a little sick as she’d been walking back; the odour of the salads, which she'd been able to deal with up until now, was suddenly stronger, and the whole function was bathed in it. She found it quite rank. She resumed her stationery role and attempted to guard her nose from the smells as Katya walked off muttering to herself.

Three women in their early thirties approached Caitlin’s table just then seeking salads. Caitlin studied their lavish and evocative hats as they continued talking to one another, making her stand waiting for them to issue their personal preferences.

But, that’s it, you see, said one of the ladies, deep in conversation. I would not have dined there at all if I had known it would be like that. And their wine selection, oh my God. How awful.

Yes, but they have a wonderful vegetarian menu, did you not think? said another lady.

Passable, yes, I agree, said the first lady.

Do I know you? the third lady suddenly asked Caitlin.

Her face did not match any in Caitlin’s memory. A little like a lottery winner’s sister she had seen in a newspaper once. That could be it.

I’m not sure, smiled Caitlin. I don’t think so.

Yes, I think I know you. I seem to recall you. I think I may have been in some classes with you all those years ago. UCD?

No, I didn’t go to UCD, said Caitlin.

No? Are you sure? I could swear that’s where I know you from. If not, you look awfully like that girl. She looked just like you. She wasn’t a friend of mine or anything, but I certainly remember her.

Very peculiar, said the first lady.

Yes, she looks just like that girl, said the third lady. A funny little thing she was. Always wore these ghastly orange leggings. The revolutionary brigade, you know.

Oh, yes, laughed the second lady. I remember the type. Screaming for attention.

Yes, this one was very quiet, said the third lady. A real loner, you know. Maybe she dressed like that to compensate, I don’t know.

Yes, it’s funny actually, Caitlin said then to the third lady. Because you look familiar to me too.

Oh? Really?

Yes. Are you that lottery winner's sister?

The woman looked blankly at Caitlin.

No, that’s not me.

Later that night in bed Caitlin reflected on her Bloomsday experience and especially took to considering the incident with the three hat-wearing women. Loners all over the world were trying to erase their histories while lottery winner’s sisters were prone to denying theirs. Maybe behind the changing faces, a shared desire to run off and join the circus lay for all. She thought it best not to try and pinpoint the moment she’d become the person she was now; for all she knew, her identity had changed once more without her being aware of it.

One matter she was certain of in relation to her existing identity though: she was absolutely rational in her distaste for high society and salads.

FATAL STABBING PROMPTS INQUIRY

A murder investigation has been launched after a 32 year old man from Belarus was attacked and stabbed to death, Gardai said. Dmitri Kosciusko, originally from Minsk in Belarus, was set upon by an as yet unknown assailant on Lower Dorset Street on Tuesday evening. He suffered serious injuries and was hospitalised at Mater Hospital, but died early Wednesday morning.

For Dora do

For Dora do is a home for the spiritually enlightened that rests at the summit of a mountain in Northern China, in case you’ve been wondering. Only finer minds are admitted and a charlatan wouldn’t last a minute.

Lynch recently gave up the drink. He was sitting on a barstool when a full-bodied ale was placed before him and he had a significant realization and said, ‘I wish to travel further.’ He left the ale standing and walked away. Many barflies questioned their lives that day.

For Dora do was paradise for intellects. For the wise, it was cloud nine. Lynch thought he would like to check it out. He'd read a newspaper once. It was a lot of old cobblers, but just by reading it he got a good sense of the wise. Just by reading a newspaper he was able to grasp attitudes, reasoning, society’s rules and ways. Lynch was wise to the wise.

If Lynch had been a student and gone to college, he would eventually have been likened to Aristotle. That’s how right for For Dora do he was.

He left his hometown. It was bound to happen. With a place like For Dora do in the world, there was nothing to hold him back. It took him a while to get to China, but he got there in time. Lynch was a patient man. He would have waited twenty years if that's how long it took. He found the mountain of For Dora do and began his ascent. It was a big mountain.

Finally, For Dora do. It was quite a palace. Lynch could hear the buzz of many stimulating conversations inside. There was a lovely light wind in the air. Lynch didn’t think light winds occurred on such high mountains. He decided to sit down outside and enjoy the light wind for a moment. He found a most comfortable patch of green grass gleaming under the noble Chinese sun.

Two days later, Lynch was still sitting outside. He hadn’t yet knocked on the door of For Dora do. He was contemplating his journey through life. There was no time for For Dora do.

Weeks later, Lynch was still sitting outside. He was hungry. He ate some leaves.

A month later, Lynch was still sitting outside. Inside For Dora do, a monk saying a prayer at his window noticed Lynch. He opened the window and called out. ‘Hello, individual. Are you quite alright there?’ Lynch looked up and answered, ‘Grand. Yourself?’

A year later, Lynch was still sitting outside. Some pilgrims came along. They were heading for For Dora do. They speculated on Lynch’s condition.

For years, Lynch sat outside. He became part of the legend of For Dora do. The management of For Dora do came out to him one day and they asked, ‘Would you like to come in? It’s really good inside.’ ‘I’m fine,’ replied Lynch. ‘This is all I need, just this.’

The management accepted his repudiation. They went back inside and went back to their wonderful conversations.

A boy genius inside For Dora do was fascinated by Lynch. He spent days watching the lonesome sitter from his window. A cult grew in the palace. The watchers of the sitter.

One day, Lynch stood up and went to the door of For Dora do. He started beating his fists against the door and banging his head against it. ‘Send me out a woman,’ he was shouting.

Will Self's Evulgate Blues

……….the angry angler of Antwerp, the bonking babboon of Ballynahinch, the catapulting cavecruncher of Cobblegate City, the dippy devildater of Denmark and so on and so on I’ll go. Point? None.

My walls seem filthier every day. Once entirely yellow, they’re now covered in dirty black shards and little pieces of blue tack from years ago that I was too lazy to remove. Van Go insisted on yellow walls, didn’t he? Something about the colour reflecting well on his disposition and then he put the bullet in his stomach.

There’s still a substantial volume of dark visible in the wine bottle that’s perched upon my desk, almost resembling a wrestler or bodybuilder with its hefty frame and small neck – could be talking to me – with a little enhancement of my infamous decadence, I could make that throat bob. Grab the bottle, throbby throttle.

the empty ear of Eercis, the hulking hatstand of Hapkido.

Yesterday, I walked to the library. I thought I’d look around – not for anything in particular. Take in the atmosphere. Check out the female talent. Most of them were students, ripe with their blue leggings and white shirts. I was also fond of wishing for a glamorous librarian. But she wasn’t there - no, never was. Just some wench with frighteningly furry nostrils. I may go to the library right now actually. Who knows? Maybe the employees have been altered in the space of a day. I wonder if it’s opened. Nah, who
cares?

As I contemplated the unsightly fur of an old librarian's nostrils, I thought of another flocculant thing, my pet rabbit Bertie who’d died the previous year. I’d neglected to provide him with a mate. And I feel that his lack of another bunny to fuck was the chief cause of his demise. Here is a conversation we had before his death:

BERTIE: I’m working and slaving my life away here.

THE SELF: You’re running around the garden all day. I’m giving you lettuce. You’re giving me shit.

BERTIE: I’m dying here. Look at my whiskers. I look like a grand old thing.

THE SELF: There’s nothing wrong with your whiskers.

BERTIE: They’re getting weird.

THE SELF: What do you want me to do?

BERTIE: I need a lady, wiseacre. I need a woman. I need a roll in the hay.

THE SELF: You ate all the hay.

BERTIE: Besides the point. You haven’t even tried to sort me out with a doe.

THE SELF: I’m sorry. You’re in the same boat as myself.

BERTIE: Beg your pud, bud. You’re in the boat. I’m strapped to the side. And that’s no place for a bunny.

THE SELF: I’m a little slow off the mark these days. But I have passions too, you know.

BERTIE: Passions? Pah! I get ten times the chubbies you get.

THE SELF: I’m sure. I’ve seen some of the calendars you have pinned up in your hutch.

BERTIE: Don’t I need the recreation? I’m withering. I want a bit of crumpet. With a big bush on the
back of her.

THE SELF: You’ve a fine tongue.

BERTIE: You see, that’s the kind of compliment that increases my frustration.

the instigating It of Istanbul, the jogging Jap of Jesus, the kettle-kissing kitekiller of Kidgelldare, the laminating lustlover of Lentilmerrick. I may delve once more into that story. “He’s happy is Incubus”. HE’S HAPPY IS INCUBUS. Like the sound of it.

Carl was aware of a great scene of debauchery taking place in one field. Many witches had assembled and were skinning live goats, eating at the grass and engaging in sodomy with the wailing red remnants of the animals.

The wine’s gone. I’m already half-sozzled –  lack of edibles all day. Drank too much the last while. I must refrain. Discipline. Go on the tea and…….maybe some vol-au-vents.  aaaagh There’s the TV on now. Never moves. It would be good if it did, like the one in Videodrome. This music that’s on. One of those fucking teen boy groups where they hardly ever move except to hold their hands up every now and again or to close their eyes and roll their heads aimlessly.

Rastibularbogglefibularpixelandsunkenmelting menstruating monk of Meaty, the nesting nib of Naanassolgacarriedermotommystuckcannot writea thingfionaengo, the oscillating oxovomitter of Oslo, the pesty pillpopper of Pippin.

A hand slowly lowered itself onto Carl’s moist forehead. The hand belonged to a dazed young girl, naked, and swaying to the music of chaos. Nonsensical roars and shrill orgasms formed ugly melodies over the great floor of flesh at Carl’s feet.

The doorbell rang. I would normally avoid so bourgeois a response as to answer it, however I choose to investigate via ennui.  There was a woman standing there with a clipboard. She had to have been in her thirties and she wasn’t a million miles away from pretty. She had a pert and attractive nose that almost looked like it could be pressed in, an argillaceous dough it appeared to be made of. I haven’t a clue what the fuck her nose was like to tell you honestly, but I liked it.

She was wearing a blue and white tracksuit and looked quite athletic in it, a rather becoming chav. I’d say she was involved with sports for a living. “Hello, I wonder if you would be interested in taking part in a short questionnaire concerning health and fitness” – see, I was right – “just a few minutes of your time it would be,” the woman said. “Absolutely,” I told her, becoming more attracted to her with the passing of every second and enthusiastic about anything that would help me forget my block. Damn, I haven’t shaved. “What’s your name?” I asked her, as we sauntered into the sitting room. “Suzanne,” she said. “Oh,” I say. “I love you, Suzanne.”

HER: “Excuse me?”

“It’s the Lou Reed song, you know.”

HER: “Oh. I thought it was Leonard Cohen.”

“Eh, well, either.”

Magnificent. An interesting beginning for this acquaintance. I asked her if she would like a cup of tea and she said “no” but “thanks” because the questionnaire “probably wouldn’t take too long.” But I kept at it until I was rewarded with a “yes, okay, wouldn’t do no harm”. I brewed up the tea while she described my paludal prison of a home as “nice” just to be polite and I answered “thank you”, gleefully resisting “I decorated it myself”.

Tea made, we settled in the sitting room and embarked on Suzanne’s questionnaire and I’d forgotten what it was all about. Oh yes, it’s health and fitness, isn’t it? Then on with the inquisition.

“Are you at present……..”

“No.”

“Have you ever…………..”

“No.”

“Do you…………………….”

“No.”

“Would you………………..”

“No.”

“Have you…………………”

“No.”

“Well, that’s fine. Thanks for your time and the sip of tea.”

“Sorry I wasn’t a wellspring of answers. Sports aren’t really my cup of……coffee.”

“No bother at all. I’ve had a lot of that. All you can do is persevere, can’t you?”

“What’s it for, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s a council matter. Nothing important. Thoughts about a major town gymnasium or something. It’s only in the pondering stages right now.”

“Right. So that’s why you’re wearing the tracksuit, yeah?”

Her eyes became Tony Blair’s devil-eyes.

“Why? Do you think my clothes peculiar?”

“No. I was just……..well…….”

She turned into a creature of immeasurable terror before my eyes. Was she the Succubus to counter my Incubus? Her tongue rolled like the priest's who presided over last year’s Lammas; his tongue had shot from his mouth and coiled itself around a large pillar like a red python before demolishing the structure. This woman transformed in a manner that surprised even me. It was a paroxysm so grotesque I felt impelled to take her mid-mutation and fuck her till her brains reached the point of combustion. Her neck became bloated and worms began to seep from her cheekbones. Her arms elongated and finally tore open and her veins whirled wildly and the rest of her form bled, shaking and thrashing as it changed.

A magnificent specimen lay before me, widened, reddened. Her crevice was a compelling mesh of oozing scarlet and huge black lips. Our union was, needless to say, hasty. As I fucked her, she roared dark obscenities and twisted prayers of hate and I thanked the lord of sickness and decay and famine for granting me this object of mad pleasure. I envisioned our spawn. A demonic child of puss and rot, killer of future life. The first progeny of Incubus and Succubus.

Suzanne, my sapphic witch of ancient evil, was nowhere.  To be seen, to be heard, she was neither. Perhaps having no existence outside of my literary diablerie.

I soon forgot all about health and fitness and Succubus.

the questionhurling Queen of Queens, the roving rat-face of Romadan, the swirling sundial of Satyrikon, the tickling tommachank of Tatsbride.

If a man alone can thrive regardless, the isolation can dangle. It’s the delirium of it that keeps me here with the vol-au-vents. How can there not be eventual rapture in this comedy? I’ll have to contrive a sack of grandiloquent mysteries. Think I’ll invade an avenue. Subjugate a pavement.

the undulating urchin of Urbania, the vending vampire of Vestibular, the wanking weaver of Wicklow, the xcited x-wife of xenophobeland, the yapping yitterbug of Yangtze, the zealous zabaglione of Zecktar. Jesus, mother of Joseph. Spiritual perfection’s looking cloudy.





ENDING

Sleepy Words

A bunch of lazy, sleepy words. That’s what I got. Words that wouldn’t move for anything or anyone. Burned out, apparently, you see. Shattered. I went around to the word-place to ask them for assistance and they were all just lying around, dead to the world. A lot of lazy, useless words. Leave us alone! We’re bloody exhausted, they moaned. I walked around for a bit, kicking a few of them. Get up, will ya! I yelled. But it was no use. They weren’t about to budge. Some of them were snoring very loudly, others were half-asleep and drooling and sniffing. I noticed the feeble concentration of one particularly zonked nome trying to see what was happening on the busy television set in the corner of the room, but mostly the set buzzed away unwatched. I continued to walk around. I hoped to find just one or two words of a semi-conscious nature. I was sure if I found just one or two I could spend a little time nurturing and reviving them and hopefully I could bring them to a ready state. But there didn’t seem to be one word available to me. A crowd of slackers! Yonder is the main culprit. Yonder is perhaps the sleepiest word of them all. A lazy so and so. I’ve had countless arguments with that layabout. He is such a bad influence on the others. And the most distressing thing is that I have never needed his help before in any grammatical sequence. He is not a word I would normally consider employing. But I feel it is he who emboldens this idleness. The others are impressed by his lack of fretfulness. He’s an old hat compared to many of them. The experienced old sage. They look up to Yonder. Think he’s a pretty cool word and everything Yonder does, they should do because of how cool Yonder is. They call him The Word. That’s what they call him. But really Yonder’s had his day in the sun. Sure, he’s still available for use if a sentence requires his presence, but he’s no longer a word of frequent use. They don’t often require his presence at all. So he’s depressed about it naturally and, as a result, he usually sits around on his arse all day long promoting the joys of vegetation and we duly lose so many words to lethargy. Yonder is looking pretty rundown at the moment. That doesn’t surprise me. Yonder always looks rundown. Even more rundown than some of his younger colleagues who all have greater reason for their looks of weariness considering they are more commonly implemented words. Ey, amigo! Yonder said, addressing me. I issued a Pardon me? I looked into his eyes. They were wretched and sneaky. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a word? If you haven’t yet done so, be prepared for a wild spume of cajolery. You be lookin’ for words, amigo, yeh? he continued. Yes, I’m looking for words. What’s it to you, Yonder? I responded, mordantly. He said something else to me in a blackguard style, but I ignored the lazy bum and continued to peruse the room for near-awake words, not getting anywhere. It was shocking to me. I knew there had been a significant decline in effort within the world of meaningful terms and appellations recently, but I had not imagined it to be as serious as this. Everywhere I looked, words of little drive or burden. There wasn’t a single word in the vicinity that was likely to operate within a system of syntax. There were slumberous nouns, sluggish pronouns, bored verbs, droopy adjectives; it was a sight for sore eyes. Quite a lot of words, similar not only in their attitudes but also rather strangely in appearance, yawned at me as I walked past them. Drawl, Shawl, Crawl, and Trawl were just a few. Hello guys, I said. Yawn! they answered. Fine, then. Yawn himself was actually there with them. Spread out yawning on the floor in a sprawl. What a pathetic company it was. Even normally lively words like Skedaddle had dulled down to Skedawdle. Drawl came up to me and drawled, Can’t you get it through your thick skull? We’re not playing by your rules anymore. You’re not wanted here. I offered him all I had in my wallet at that moment if he would agree to take part in a sentence I was planning to create later that evening. I really wasn’t thinking straight at this point. I was looking for any word at all. Anything would have suited me. I didn’t have a position vacant for Drawl. The sentence I was planning didn’t call for such a word. But I would have settled for anything. I would have settled for Drawl. Get out of here, you sleazy mongrel, and take your money with you! We don’t need your kind here. We’re tired of you. We’re tired of it all. Yawn! I decided to get my hide out of there. There wasn’t much point in me sticking around. They weren’t going to help me out. I started to leave. Ey, amigo, you be leaving? So long, amigo! I heard Yonder calling after me. Good riddance! voiced Drawl. Yawn, yawned Yawn. As I was leaving, I noticed some punctuation passing by. They were being obscenely loud and boisterous. Ever since the words first displayed their disillusionment and started sleeping and lounging all day long, punctuation marks had become a reckless kind. They spent their time going to parties and raising hell. They thought they were movie stars. They caused such a racket. And when they did bother to show up for sentence duty, they caused further hullabaloo. Commas showed up drunk and picked fights with random letters. Apostrophes could be spotted indulging in lewd behaviour right in the middle of respectable phrases. And question marks ignored timetables, showed up when they wanted to, whenever they ?wanted to, with little respect for the laws of language. I wasn’t going to begin looking for punctuation marks. I hadn’t even got any words yet. What was the point in that? It pains me that this is what we’ve come to. That these blasted words have just decided to drop out of everything and leave us to our own devices. I’m going to get out of this game altogether because there’s not much point in respecting words if they’re not going to respect you back. Oh, I’ve said it, haven’t I? I may have just gone too far. I’m expecting a backlash any minute now from these particular words for that last comment. Yes, I’ve said it. These words will be asleep any second now. Conked out. Yes, they’re turning from mildly active words to sleepy words. They’re getting tired suddenly. Jesus, very suddenly. It’s
                                                           almost like the
words have been
                            have been
given a shot of                               some
                                                                                                    kind because now
they’re                                  passing along

at a
                                                                                             slow and
sleepy pace. Holy
                                         mackerel. They’re fading fast but very                               slowly.
             Such                         weary                                              weary
words. To              Hell
with it. 

I’ll                                                          survive
                        without them.                                   I’m a

survivor.                            If                                you

want                         these

                       words,                                            you
can have them.

Bec  ause                                           I su re       w    on’t be
nee   din g the    m
  
                                                                       f   o    r                                  
m     u                      c     h

          l                     o                      n                          g                                 e                         r.

A Four-Course Year

The Choices of Autumn

Autumn almost snatched the menu from the waiter’s hands. She was eager to see what choices she had, but knew her decision would rest on some as yet unseen shine in her nature.

Minutes marched by.
‘Hmm, let me see, I’ll have… no, wait a minute…’

Autumn was aware the menu meant nothing. She could choose whatever she saw fit to choose; the menu listed only a portion of what was truthfully on offer.

‘Hmm, let me see…’

Just then, Summer walked in wearing a pleasant ocean gown and mandarin-coloured charm; Autumn was at once ablaze with memory. Leaves were emerald green again.

Autumn looked the waiter dead in the eye.
‘I’ll have whatever she’s having.’


The Designs of Winter

Winter’s dinner date adjusted his tie again and again as they waited for the starter dishes to arrive. He was an encyclopaedia of insecurities. He knew she didn’t love him as he loved her, so his anxieties swelled with every droop and turn of her head.

It had taken some time for Winter to become certain of her beauty. Always considered the harshest and most hostile of sorts, and knowing there was some truth to be found in these estimations, she had spent many moons examining her profile, unsure if there was any beauty there at all.

‘What would you like to do after dinner then? asked her dinner date. Would you like to go see a film? Or, if not, we could just go for a drink somewhere? Whatever you want.’

He worshipped her. She was beautiful. She was certain of both.

He stopped adjusting his tie once the starters had arrived at the table. He tried to focus on the food, but was disrupted by Winter’s wandering gaze. He saw that her eyes had located Vivaldi. He hated Vivaldi, that greasy piece of shit. He put his fork down and chewed slowly. He’d seen Vivaldi trying to seduce some diners in this restaurant before, all of them spirits of distinctive impression. He’d even made a move on Winter, but she’d laughed him away. Wasn’t Vivaldi sweet on Summer now?

Winter’s eyes swerved dryly, seeking to contain only the food that was before her. She delicately cut herself a slice of bread, buttered it, and tasted.

Winter’s face turned ashen-grey.
‘Oh, it’s too warm!’


The Pangs of Spring

‘Wake up, buddy!’ yelled Spring, slapping the waiter’s ass and laughing. ‘An espresso, on the snappy double, ya hear me?’

Nobody in the restaurant liked Spring. She was too animated, too pushy. There was an excess of sun in her disposition, too much for one so young. Although they desired sunshine in their lives, they knew they were living within an operation of weather. They expected a certain proportion in the colours and qualities they experienced. Spring’s sunshine seemed to them immature, boisterous, and somewhat artificial. She was just a schoolgirl.

Why don’t they like me? Why do the waiters in this restaurant ignore me? Is it because I am young? Maybe I’m too full-on, eh? They’re not ready for me. When will they be ready for me? They may never be ready for me. They’ll wait until I’m in my teens, when my legs have grown long, and I’ve learned how to treat my hair in such a way that I can dye it blonde.


The Foxes of Summer

Summer’s entrance entranced all present. Sullen expressions became expressive smiles, miserable husbands became tawny forsythia, miserable wives ivory gardenia. The restaurant became the golden beach banquet of a diner’s dreams.

Minutes after this spectacular entrance, Summer collapsed. Vivaldi was the fourth to offer his assistance, but the first to get to her fallen body (following the stampede and wrestling to get there).

‘Are you okay, sweetheart?’ asked Vivaldi.
‘I just…came over all dizzy,’ she groaned.
The alarmed diners gathered around the scene as Summer’s complexion slowly faded, her vim slowly weakened.
‘Don’t die on me, honey,’ wailed Vivaldi, as Summer breathed her last.

Autumn, Winter, and Spring arrived to observe the commotion of Summer’s passing.
‘What’s all this?’ asked Autumn.
‘Summer took a turn,’ a voice replied. ‘She collapsed.’

Autumn aimed an unusual expression at Winter and Spring.

Then all three bowed their heads gently, invented condolences swiftly, and presented them furtively, like foxes attending a farmyard funeral.

Edgar the Sloth

- There you go, son.

- What is it?

- A sloth.

- Is it dead?

- No, it just doesn’t move.

- What use is it?

- A seat maybe, or foot-rest, I dunno.


Edgar could hear leaden voices surrounding him, the empty verdicts of sedentary minds.

He went to the toilet on the floor unbeknownst.

Wudangshan

As each stair is taken, another pound of flesh in sweat is spilled. The stairs of these mountains are painted with human strain. On each step lies the residue of a million toiling bodies. But alongside that spattered body stain you can also see the dye of human courage and endeavour. Isn’t that nice?

I’m not the only one climbing these mountains. Many others are doing so. Chinese people climb mountains such as these as a weekend pastime. I follow sweats up these mountains and sweats follow me, like stinking tinkerbells spitting through the air, the dizzy sprinkling rainfall of human struggle.

I turn my head in extreme slow motion and watch as one of my own residues drips slowly from my chin, landing explosively on the craggy rock stair, melting into motionless stone, and still history.

I’m dreaming of Hong Kong, my girlfriend wails. I should be shopping right now.  You’re a bastard!

I wipe a particularly stinking tinkerbell from my forehead and begin to rethink my judgment on all manner of things.

As we crawl upwards towards the first gate, my girlfriend suddenly happy having discovered fellow-climbers she can share her troubles with in plain Chinese, I find I’m the lone foreigner ascending the Wudang Mountains, in this long neck of the high woods anyway, so I stop for a moment, and allow the others to sweat on ahead of me. Below me I can see the Purple Cloud Temple swathed in mist, its ancient roof seated above the cloud, looking like something I’ve only seen in King Hu movies. To my right is a tree covered in red Taoist bands. These bands provide blessings in Taoism, and this tree looks considerably blessed. I reach over the cliff, looking down to see if I can make out where it is the tree begins. Of course, I cannot. We are too high up, and the main body of this tree is already hidden amongst a crowd of other trees branching out of sockets in the mountain. Then I start thinking.

Which mountain are we on, by the way?

Shut up, she says. Show me Hong Kong, you bastard!

Not Then When Again

Tom is following her home from school again.

Not again. How can he be so stupid.

Does he not realise she can see what he’s up to, hiding behind cars while she’s in the supermarket, his head emerging then when she exits, his head slowly hovering behind the car windows like a loch ness neck moving along the water in postcards from the beyond?

Did it look like he was going to stop?
Certainly not then, no.

She wouldn’t say anything, but she decided tomorrow to take a picture instead when again the creature surfaced and maybe sell it to Scotland where they’re interested in that sort of thing.

Eyeball Thieves Remain Unnoticed

Jack Hanratty observed the field coolly and industriously. He blinked only at the sound of the hurley’s cracking off each other. The game was a lively one, muck making delirious patterns in the air as players spat obscenities up and down and up and down the pitch. There was a crowd of youths behind the goalposts to the north and they were stumbling all over the place and passing a bottle around. Jack was sure it was poitin in the bottle. Jack had coached some of these boys some years ago. They’d been good players too. These were the ones to be seen regularly abusing the present generation of players from the sidelines.

A boy was on a run. He charged forth like a rocket, sprinting down the field. The boy’s physique grew in his own estimation with every stride. Nobody could catch him. The other players huffed and puffed in his wake.

But his glory was ill-fated. Tripping on a torn clump of turf, the boy was flung through the air. He landed facedown on the end of his hurley. The steel band on the head of the stick gorged into his brow, plucking his right eye out. The eye came out very slowly and clung for a moment to the boy’s face before detaching completely and dropping onto the grass.

Laughter erupted from behind the northern goalposts, the drunken youths falling over themselves. The first person to see that the boy’s eye had been driven out of its socket was the tallest and most fearsome player on the pitch and when he saw the terrible aperture in his fellow athlete’s face, he turned aghast and scuttled off.

Jack walked very calmly towards the fallen player, in a way that seemed already enlightened to all manner of dreadfulness. As he came upon the throng of people gathered around the wounded player, he stopped. On the grass before him, he saw the boy’s eye. It had been missed by the concerned masses. Jack knelt down and quick as a flash popped it in his pocket.

Picture by Daniel Johnston

A Hong Kong Stuntman Thinks: 1967

King Hu was a little too remote and bizarre for me at first. He didn’t appear to have any interest in the martial arts at all. To be honest, I felt he was aiming to exploit their cause initially, jumping on the wuxia bandwagon.

The first time I met him was on the set of Dragon Gate Inn in 1967. He didn’t care much for us stuntmen. We were the ones producing the goods he would benefit from, but he barely spoke to any of us. Han Ying Chieh, the martial arts director, didn’t care much for him either. He didn’t appreciate Hu’s estimations.

One day, Han Ying Chieh got into a serious argument with Hu. One of the actors had tripped and injured his head badly on the stairs. Hu swore loudly to himself behind the camera as he’d been aching to acquire a particular shot. Han Ying Chieh was getting sick and tired of Hu’s mulish need for perfection, so he began shouting angrily at him. Hu was simply a man of letters, and could not have stood against the martial competence of Han Ying Chieh. Yet Hu responded to the angry response with characteristic pigheadedness. He came from behind his camera and walked towards Han Ying Chieh slowly, as though he was about to engage physically. He stopped about a foot away from Han and began to unload a plethora of abusive Mandarin nonsense which nobody really understood, except the Taiwanese extras, who were giggling in the background.

I had to intervene, as I could see Han Ying Chieh was ready to floor the bookish Hu. If I didn’t do something, a dreadful beating would have occurred. And I was beginning to feel that there was more to Hu than had met my eye.

I ran to the actor who had fallen on the stairs, pulled his slippers from his feet, and stamped on them maniacally for about a minute. All present on set looked at me in astonishment. Han backed off, left to go drink some tea and calm down.

Hu stood bewildered, staring at me for a large moment before asking me what it was I did and what was the purpose behind it.

‘A touch of zen was needed in order to complete this moving picture,’ I replied.

How he took it, time would either tell or disregard.

Chagang Flood

I arrived home late last evening to find the Earth at play again, launching a new attempt to swallow my apartment building. Ganbei! roared drunken Earth. Bottom’s up! It took me an hour to wade through the muck and swamp to reach the front door.

An old couple on the first floor were scrambling around in the broken light of the building’s entrance. Their apartment had nearly surrendered to the deluge. As we worked to make certain their electricity wouldn’t be affected, the old man showed me his underwater library. It was a large and attractive library and the Chinese characters on the book-spines looked grand swaying delicately underwater. I wasn’t yet fully informed with regards characters but I could make out one or two titles from a few nuggets of filed familiarity in backseat of brain. I could see the Gu Wen Guan Zhi, a famous book of classical Chinese essays. I knew this because I had an edited copy in my arid apartment upstairs. The old man had an enormous edition however, obviously complete, fat with knowledge and history, and now bloating fatter in its submersion.

I invited the old couple up to my apartment on the fifth floor for some tea to wait for the flood to pass. I felt somewhat of a hero for doing this, and resolved to reward myself with a fast food meal the next day. As we entered my apartment, the old woman pointed to the pair of heeled sandals which belonged to my ex-girlfriend that were lying upturned and unemployed at the doorway. I couldn’t understand what she said to her husband about the sandals. But the incorporated disappointment in her comment was certainly not of my imagination.

I made some tea and the old couple appeared very happy about that. I showed the old man my copy of Gu Wen Guan Zhi. He laughed at it, perhaps because of how slim it was compared to his copy, and perhaps also because it was in English.

The rain started again. Very heavy. It thrashed down against the windows mercilessly and I could see a gloom swab at the old couple’s faces.

I decided to play some music to take their minds off the rain, but I found myself struck with frustration trying to choose something appropriate. Rarely does a DJ find himself with only an elderly Chinese couple to entertain. I thought to search for Chinese music I had on my computer, but all I had in that respect was limited to underground rock bands from the recent era of Chinese punk, post-punk, and post-rock. I couldn’t be sure how they would respond to the reactionary sounds of modern youth in the People’s Republic on this evening of great stress, so I just discarded the whole idea.

I sat down beside them in the sitting room as the old woman began to fall asleep. I took a pillow from the cupboard and her husband thanked me and gently tucked it under her head.

The old man and I sat for a while without talking. I took out some cigarettes and offered him one, but he declined. As I put the cigarettes to one side, he surprised me suddenly by asking if I had any wine. As he asked, he checked that his wife was soundly out for the count. Luckily I had a full bottle of baijiu in the kitchen which I’d nearly forgotten all about. The old man beamed giddily upon the revelation. I carefully poured two glasses of baijiu as he once more checked on his wife’s slumber.

The rain kept beating outside.

Ganbei! cried the old man.
Ganbei! cried I.

Earth rose up around us, but we continued into the night together, flooding our bodies and souls in rather wonderful defiance.

Pre-Trimmed Tree

This very morning, I found a pre-trimmed tree in a little junk shop in the Wuhan University campus.

20 yuan, the man said.
Hao Ba, I replied.

I was delighted. The tree sure looked exhausted of yuletide cheer, but something about its existing constitution appealed to me, being myself exhausted of cheer and existing in my own constitution. The top was crooked like the man who sold me a tree last year – he was bent over too, and as bristly as Christmas tree salesmen come, bitter and crabby from standing around all day in the cold with a bunch of green deadweights. The tree’s head looked like it had been whacked out of profile a few times, maybe beaten up after a messy whiskey afternoon playing Trivial Pursuit with the family with tattered cracker-hats on the floor. Threadbare tinsel, Cantonese pink and Mandarin orange, formed a sleepy ‘S’ on the tree’s chest. There was one wiry string of silvery-white tinsel, brown-taped to a wonky branch, extending from the sleepy ‘S’ like Jack Frost’s tongue. Scattered around the upper body were a hundred Santas, all looking very thin and gaunt for my liking and his own too probably. I’d never seen Santa looking so slim before. Someone in China felt Santa needed to go on a diet and was directing their manufacturing lines in terms of this conviction.

Smiling, I began to leave the junk shop, happy I was now prepared and adequately equipped for a Chinese Christmas.

‘Happy Christmas,’ the man in the shop said, as I carried my pre-trimmed tree away.
I didn’t respond, as I didn’t hear it so clearly, and wasn’t sure if it was him who actually said it. Having written this now, I feel enormously guilty that I didn’t return that Happy Christmas, and expect to be taxed heavily on future pre-trimmed items purchased.

Universal Knowledge

Their general performance during seminars and the essays they submitted were monumentally different, and their physical appearances were in such vast contradiction of the other, that many were unable to get a clear fix on the root of their friendship. Yet they were friends. Close friends. They were never seen apart. Use these words to make a mental picture:

Grace long droopy tall pretty prepared designed careful
Faye small chubby bespectacled casual alert smart

They were at the checkout paying for their groceries. I was looking for coffee when I spotted them. It was snowing outside, so they were both layered heavily in wools and puffs. Grace looked like a cartoon caterpillar, Faye like a muscular plum. Faye suddenly punched Grace in the stomach as they were paying for their stuff. Grace pushed Faye over and she rolled along the floor of the supermarket. Some shoppers with good reflexes saw her coming, and jumped over her. She rolled into a stack of watermelons which had been stacked too high earlier by the old woman who worked there. The old woman had always stacked them that high, but there’d never been a problem before. The collision made the watermelon tower topple and it rained down on top of Faye. Thankfully, her layers saved her from being badly hurt.

The next day in class, I asked Faye why she punched Grace.

She thinks Kobe Bryant is a better black than Barack, she replied.

Mere Selves

Two foreign gentlemen sit outside a bar named after a French wine along Yanjiang Dadao – sun shining, heat dizzying, people coming and going along the promenade. They are perched like kings. They shield themselves from any feeling of discomfort in a foreign land through sheer bullish ignorance. They nod to each other and guffaw as another teen in summer dress passes.

The men are smiling confidently – super-confidently. One has recently come south from Beijing having secured a big deal which will ensure lots and lots of money for whatever company it is possesses him. He calls the waitress over. He eyes her above the rims of his Gucci shades. ‘Another round here, sweetheart.’

When she returns with their expensive German beers, the other gentleman, a man positioned high in a major soft drinks company, comments on her manner of customer service, offers some advice with regards how things are done in the west, then says, ‘You’re lovely. What time do you get off?’ The waitress blushes even though she can’t understand a word. Her English is good, but theirs is unconcerned with it not being her native language, so she only hears rapid-fire vernacular, and recognizes very little.

Later they bring her to an establishment normally frequented by westerners. She leaves following a sudden drunken declaration of love from the soft drinks man. The two foreign gentlemen remain however, spending and spending, and beating their chests to the disgust of locals, mere selves in a land long underwhelmed by the notion of self.

The Turtles in the Temple

Cici arranged to meet her friends at the hot springs. When she arrived, she was appalled by the sight of many ugly men and women floating like dumplings in the water. She said Yuck to her friends and left.

Later, at the Gui Yuan temple, Cici marvelled at the elegance of the turtles as they swam lazily together in the courtyard pond. The turtles were poets and painters as they bathed. The dumplings were no contest for them in these trials.

The Foxes of Summer

City foxes take to the streets regularly in the summer, but we rarely see them. They’re sharper than us, so amuse themselves with our blindness.

I’ve noticed one. I’ve fallen in love with her, but she knows my dimness, so dances without me.

City foxes play tough in the summer.

Re Gan Mian

CLACK – CLACK – CLACK – CLACK
I wake up every morning to this sound coming from the apartment upstairs. I’ve occasionally reflected on sinister explanations for the sound – maybe it’s a young couple conducting mutual lashings with a cane for some kind of sadomasochistic breakfast ritual – but I’m pretty sure they’ve just got a ping pong table up there.


CLACK – CLACK – CLACK – CLACK they never tire.

Once I’ve risen and revived for the day ahead, I take to the streets of Wuhan in search of the ultimate pot of Re Gan Mian (hot dry noodles). I’m not the only one. I see many noodle-hoppers each morning, going from stall to stall, faces jumping from pot to pot. With so many distinctive variations in the way the noodles are served, the spice addicts are keen to be first to the gates of Heaven.

The spices fill the air. Sometimes they are sweet old grandfather spices, frail, but wise and hardy. Sometimes they are robust and aggressive industrial spices – they mean business and will slice your tongue in half, clean down the middle. Sometimes the spices are young and lively, almost too much so – a little bit of every season in the alignment, they tend to make a lot of noise in your mouth, before slowly receding in the twilight. My preferred spices are those that are tempered, yet influential, capable of getting to the core of one’s desires without even trying. They usually come in all manner of hue and ability. They can be fishermen, secretaries, professors, and clerics. They work hard, but don’t take things too seriously. These are the spices whose aromas fly lighter in the air, unconcerned with competition.

I decide to ditch the search for perfection today and opt to eat at my favourite stall with the lady vendor who always has a smile for a wandering foreigner such as I be. Her Re Gan Mian is delicious, and saturated with the tempered spice I prefer. She gives me a bottle of fizzy orange because she knows I’ll be reaching for liquids very soon after the initial twirl of the chopsticks. When I finish, I thank the lovely lady vendor and she says to me in English, ‘Nice Ireland man.’

After I’ve eaten a pot of Re Gan Mian, I always feel a sense of delayed being, as though time has steamed on ahead without me. I usually walk the streets in a daze, thoughtless and calm. Then when I get home, time finds me.

CLACK – CLACK – CLACK – CLACK

The ping pong match upstairs chases my invigorated heartbeat as my whole body sizzles in ecstasy.