Thow mortherer of the heysugge on y braunche

Twas

100 lat 30 raz video

Sto lat ~ trzydzieści raz!

First story of 2009

13 stories in one

The neon sign

The neon sign

Mark took his coffee and went down the stairway. There was only one free table, just in front of the bar, which wasn’t open yet. All around the walls were pictures in the current exhibition: half-photographic, half-painting, the images depicted partially obscured female forms, mostly monochrome; the rare suggestion of colour seemed to coincide with the borders between obscurity and light. CONT

Above the bar, at the back, was the sign, flashing. As he sat down Mark deliberately avoided looking directly at it, postponing the moment. He put down his coffee and looked up. He watched as the letters, flashing at unequal intervals, lit up, now together, now separately; the sequence gave the impression of never actually repeating itself. But there was something about the sign that struck him as different, without his being able to say what it was.

Mark recalled the time before Tanner’s final degree show: loading pieces, transporting them – in a Tesco trolley – to the university, choosing spaces, knocking in nails, hanging pictures, placing constructions. Each piece had had its genesis: an original idea; sketches and designs; cutting of wood, glass, metal; construction and painting. EXP

He thought of the sign itself, finally assembled and working, geometric and brightly coloured; and then the stuff Tanner had smeared and dripped, squirted and splashed onto it – Worcester sauce, dust from the vacuum cleaner, oil. They’d left it to dry in the yard, and when they went back to check it, found Kate, the photogenic black cat, posing by it’s side; Mark ran to get his camera. Later, the photo showed Kate, still posing, engaging the viewer, as if claiming the work as her own. Mark remembered how different the illuminated sign looked after Tanner’s smearing; somehow complete. Then he saw what had changed: the bright colours again! The sign had been cleaned.

So that was it: the dirt had been removed, the sign cleaned, an element the past – their past – wiped out; [REW just like everything else had been wiped clean by the wrath of a jealous boyfriend], but this time anonymously, innocently.

Mark drew in a breath, curbed his rising anger. He looked around: all these people, couples, groups, singles, all submerged in their lives, in the present. In half an hour, or an hour at most, they’d be gone; a group breaking up here, a couple parting there, here someone presently alone off to meet a friend or lover, all moving on in their ever moving present.

But Mark was frozen in a dead past, cut off from people and events around him. Even the sign was no longer the sign: it no longer existed as he had seen Tanner create it. Georg had won. Time had been on his side. Time was always on the side of newcomers. For Mark, time had simply stopped.

He looked around again. Everyone seemed to be doing something: talking, reading, noting down, active – alive. Mark felt his isolation, like winter freeze when you know the bus won’t show. He lit a cigarette, drew in deeply, exhaled. He took a sip of his coffee, tasted, swallowed. His actions, sensations, seemed false. Was it the same for the others? He watched a man drinking coffee like his, saw the steam rise, tried to imagine the smell, the taste, that the other experienced.

A woman over near the stairs was just lighting a cigarette. Mark watched the flame surround and ignite the tip, saw the smoke curl upward. Was she feeling the same dizziness he had? No. She was living, they all were; he, Mark, was acting out life, a ghost [images don’t fit together, don’t work (mutually contradictory)]. A ghost, surrounded by the living, dreaming of other ghosts: ghost-people, ghost-objects – a ghost-past.

But what if he broke with the ghosts? Could he? Undoubtedly, he could. Did he want to? To live again? He wanted Tanner. But Tanner was different too. Because of Georg. That simple? Had Georg changed Tanner, cleaned away his feelings for Mark, or had Tanner himself effected the change? Or was it just time? [elsewhere Men are mortal, but their mortality is partial, enacted by degrees, more or less radical.]

Murder, suicide, or senility, the result was the same. Tanner was dead – long live Tanner!

Mark stubbed out his cigarette, thoroughly, making sure there was no smouldering end. He himself had undergone, was now undergoing, the same process, not yet complete. He looked again at the sign, blinking innocuously, flirtatiously. It was like any other work of art in any gallery or square. Anonymous. He knew nothing of its past, nothing of its creator. It had no past, just an ever moving present, always different, for each time, each viewer.

He got up, paid for his coffee and left.(Still marks on the sign/light new each time)

Hateful Caterpillar

1

Hateful Caterpillar looked at the door numbers, 74, 72, 70, and on the opposite side, 73, 71, 69… none of these was the dwelling he sought. This could not even be the street or location, because his objective lived in a tower, high above an enormous agglomeration of dwellings. This much was clear from the nature of the signal Hateful Caterpillar had detected since his birth, and which he still felt. It was the bitterest emotion of the myriad he detected, remote yet strong, and directed to a place close to his birth. Indubitably, Hateful Caterpillar owed his very existence to this venomous emanation, hence his overwhelming desire to track its source.

He had an idea. Since the object of the vitriolic thought waves (and there was no question, the signal’s origin was a conscious mind) was nearby, why not investigate this target? Perhaps something or someone would provide a clue as to the Hater’s whereabouts. The same could not be said for Hateful Caterpillar’s birth mother, Big May. Great in volume, prolific in quantity, her near-continuous speech provided no useful information whatever. His emergence from her stomach was probably due simply to the fact that her post-operation wound was the richest source of Hateful Matter in the vicinity of the Hater’s target.

Hater, creator – how I long to return to you! I will return. I will!

2

Aaaaaarriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiahggghaaaaaaaaa!!!!! As Big May screamed, the very depth of her pain gave her a degree of detachment. Woozily she thought: My God, the neighbours will be thinking, “May and Rick must be having great sex!” She could hear Rick already on the phone, and seconds later he was by her side pressing a pillow to the gaping wound on her stomach. But not before a deal of blood had spewed forth, along with greenish puss or matter, one painful issue of which had the distinct form of a… caterpillar...

3

Far off, high above the pell-mell of the metropolis, a woman shifted in sleep. She dreamt of a large creature, much bigger than herself. She knew, as one knows in dreams, this thing had once been part of her, though she could not tell how. Yes, she had nourished it – him – but still was not sure of his nature. She tried to dream things back to the time of separation, but then realized with horror that he remained connected to her. Her role of feeder and carer was still not done. No wonder she was exhausted! With growing fear and revulsion, she felt her own substance weaken, as if it would soon dissolve and be completely absorbed into his.

4

“I, the Hen-man, am so frustrated and so desperate, I lust at stills from a film depicting a man who is so frustrated and so desperate he's masturbating to a clip of a woman stripping to take a shower who is so frustrated and so desperate she knowingly strips as she is watched by a man who is utterly frustrated and desperate. Not content with that, I, the Hen-man, will attempt to heighten the thrill by sharing with another male, even if it be my gay brother, in the hope that he is so frustrated and so desperate he will get off on my straight fantasy and respond, thus heightening my thrill.

“In other words, I am a complete twat. Fortunately for me, my brother will only become fully aware of this when I have already viciously turned on him for the third time, and gotten our mum to support me in my attempted emotional assassination."

“True, he will hate my guts afterwards, and for all time. But I will now have the complete attention of my mum, and will thus save several toilet rolls/week, since I will no longer have to simulate her ass-wiping by using multiple layers of paper, I will get the genuine soft touch instead.

“As for my Hatefulness, I will focus it around the stench of the intra-divan cat food, in the hope that it will take substantial form some miles hence...”

5

I harder thy goodies!, said the Hateful Caterpillar. No, no… that can’t be it… He hadn’t quite heard that right, surely. Brad wasn’t yet fully awake, but realized now this must be a dream. It was a while since his goodies had been hard, thanks to the very substantial nightcaps… I ha-a-de you-r-r gut-t-e-r-s!

“Oh, fuck! It’s real!” Brad half-leapt, half-fell from his bed, painfully jarring his creaky knees. There, where his mouth had been, on his pillow was a greenish puss-coloured caterpillar. Bizarrely, fully awake as he now was, Brad was sure the creature fixed him with a kind of knowing expression, as if thinking: No, you aren’t the one. You are not the one I seek. But that was absurd.

Suppressing these irrational thoughts, Brad picked up a leaflet from the littered floor, scooped the caterpillar up, and flitted it out the window facing the old cemetery. As he did so, another crazy notion came into his head. The thing was grateful, sorry for having disturbed his sleep, the unpardonable error in taking him, Bradley, for H-man (who the hell was that?)... must be on his way...

6

Hensman, Hen-man, H-man, Hater-man, Hater… Mark typed the versions of the character’s name; then saw that he would use them all, and some others besides, which he hadn’t thought of yet. He’d make them up as he went along. The character himself would emerge similarly, fragmented, viewed from various perspectives, and be assembled (hopefully) in the mind of the reader.

There would be no obvious temporal ordering. Let the reader sort that too. Or simply imbue Hateful Caterpillar with the power to time travel, perhaps a property of all Hateful Matter.

7

Woof is the answer. Only woof can counter x-ate!

8

But love cannot triumph yet.

9

The antithesis of love, the disjunction of relation, the severing of family ties was now the dominant, the unavoidable trend. It was fully declared, the two sides, ancient and upstart, would now square up, and the drama move to a new stage.

10

Power resides in the eldest of the four generations

11

The voice spoke from the computer – it said: at the end of time, the echelon of each will determine their category of post-temporal embodiment.

Mark's journey

A story

Home. Never the same forever.

Years. Of people and the times of their lives. Days. Of shifting qualities of home. Weekdays, weekends, school and work holidays, times of day, special time between end of schoolday and end of workday. Homecomings transform home, as departures. Shifts in life (or death) change patterns of presences (and absences). So home changes, with or without journeys.

Looking out of the icy window, Mark saw it had been snowing, light but persistent.

Ochre-white layered earth and lined branches, columns climbed trunks, as if snow-trees had sprung up against gravity. He thought snow still fell, but that was a moment's effect of light reflected and rereflected, yellowish, between snowy ground and low cloud blankets. The anxiety that had wakened him gave way to sleepiness, and he quickly slipped back under warm sheets.

Mark pulls aside the curtain and looks out.

The street has dissolved. Whorling December snow obscures houses. Street lamp nebulae, varying form and brightness, illuminate the shrunken universe, and the inner walls define his world. He knows he should not be here, and all he must do is leave the way he came, through the back door. But what will be made of my footprints when they open the door to let in the cat?

Mark recalls the tortoiseshell who fixed him with luminous hostility. He walks silent to the kitchen, where noisy plaints cry, Let me in. As handle turns, the sound's source, like quantum wave of vanishing probability, seems materialized before doors open. Mark glimpses something enter, overpassing snow-heaped step through slit of door, assuming, or resuming, the true shape of cat. By admitting the cat, I have interfered.

Hostile luminosity has given way. Cat's eyes now flash urgency, a call Mark answers; fear that creature will waken house as much as sympathy. His hand sweeps off the frozen layer, leaving moist cool film on warm fur, and loud mews give way at once to deep, contented purring; the only evidence of cat's ordeal minute liquefying flakes on ears and whiskers.

Comfort draws him back to the lounge, where he settles into armchair, followed by cat, drawn by his warmth. Coal, become ashen, still hints at inner glow, and the room is cosy. What if I fell asleep and they find me here this morning? But soft purring ball, and wind's howl, and snow seen through curtain gap, and the thought: I am here! only lull Mark further toward sleep.

When he awakes the air is black. Outside, street lamps off, is dark silence. Inside, the last embers are dead, and the cat is gone. Momentarily, Mark wonders where he is, but smells of room soon tell him. He leaps from the chair, heart thumping, steadies himself, evading the unseen, to reach the window. On the street, white uncertainty has turned blackly invisible. Lightless air mimics stillness. Though Mark's dark-disposed eyes pick out the dull-grey downward drift, the snow's uncertain motion seems ready to cease, resisting gravity with negative energy.

Sound startles him, but it's just the cat pushing open the landing door as she comes from upstairs. Someone's awake and coming to feed her. But the attention she gives shows Mark this is his task. Purrs spiral his feet, then the cat weaves quiet, coaxing mews that lead him back to the kitchen. But instead of seeking catfood, he goes quickly to the back door and silently opens it onto the yard.

Sniff of dark exterior cold turns skeptical cat inward, where she rubs the back of Mark's legs, creating spots of warmth. Mark looks up and is shocked by the energetic starlight which pierces crystal black. He steps out into the thick white, crunching a path as he turns into the entry and looks towards the front. On the street it is still snowing. Above, high over the roof, cloud bisects the atmosphere into snow and snowless spaces; the house marks the boundary. Standing between two worlds.

Up above, Mark sees the cloud has ebbed; house and street now lie whole within the black, snowless, starlit zone. All around is deep, cold still of night. He looks down over the adjoining gardens to the parallel street. One house shows light in the kitchen, but it blinks off as he watches. Everyone still sleeps, or tries to.

A tentative mew recalls Mark houseward. The door stands wide to freezing air, and cat awaits within. Mark traces through his own deep prints to feed her. She knows breakfast comes and urges him on with short bursts, a chant or charm to see the task is done. This noise must be audible upstairs to anyone awake, but Mark no longer cares. He will stay longer. At least until this dark is past.

He serves a dish of stinking cat food and the chant is stilled; replaced by moist sound of eating. In this relative quiet, Mark thinks he hears a stirring above and walks quiet through the front room onto the landing. A definite creaking; but it is just someone shifting in sleep. He thinks he hears soft, steady snoring, too. A cup of tea; I might as well.

In the kitchen, the cat eats steadily, contentedly, half the dish already clear. Mark opens a cupboard, but finds only plates; the cups are in the next one. He fills the kettle from the tap for drinking water – there is no hot water tap, but a soft water tap from the tank outside. Mark places the kettle on a gas ring, finds a box of matches, strikes one, turns the knob, and deadly hiss becomes hot, blue flame.

He waits and listens; the kettle wheezes towards boil. Mark turns to the red formica table and sees he has set down cups for each sleeper and himself, seven in all. Of course. He finds the teapot, which still has the remains of the last brew, rinses it and heaps in four spoons of PG. The cat finishes off her food, and looks up at him from a milk smeared saucer. He gives her fresh water, then turns to the boiling kettle and fills up the pot.

Mark looked around. Snowlit coolness contradicted the sleep-warm image in his mind.

Damn! He'd been about to make them all tea and take it up to them! He relaxed back into bed, willing a return to the home he'd just left. Milky sweet smell. Hot tea steams as he hands her the cup. Sleepily, she takes it and sips, unquestioning, then realization. Wonder.

Outside night still holds sway. Mark thinks it is around three; hours yet before light comes. He's forgotten someone, a face, wide-eyed. He remembers his own tea though and goes to get it. The cat is in her basket. The tea is still hot, strangely comforting sweetness. He takes a good swig, strokes the sleeping cat and goes back into the lounge.