The Radiated Body

Have you ever listened to our people speak?  They talk of pain with such soul-shaking normalization.  They speak of migraines, of being incapable of standing or opening their eyes, for fear of muscle spasms in their wilting brains.  Hence they are inactive for hours. 

But hark! there is a cure, a small, wafer-like pill which dissolves upon the tongue, but after taking part in this anaesthetic communion the sufferer must allow for five hours of fatigue.

Life hurts, by nature, it harms, existence wounds, survival injures, survival damages.  In general, persevering upon this coil does tend to ache a bit.  But we require no justification for this pain, small white blobs of salvation are so readily available that we do not question why life comes with the necessary element of pain.  Be that pain a serrated edge hard upon our guts (which leave us dangling our left shoe on one cold finger), or a mute but persistent spider scratching our eardrum.

We are born broken, and happily so.  We bond over pain, those who share ailments discuss them as tennis partners would ruminate over last weekend’s game. 

~

I cannot stop these muscles spasms, scorching and dense with tension – poreless, sweatless – retaining all heat – temperature increase –dangerous levels.  Microwaves cook from the inside.  My brain is butter, keeps its pretty cauliflower shape but runs slick down the knife when you break its crust. 

Radiation morphs my tissue, I cannot feels it but my child can, her home is growing hotter, it bends her body this way and that.  Her shoulders extend forward.  Her slight and delicate angel wings are left detached and compensate by following the path of the spine.  CO2 fills her small frame and her flooded lungs learn to adapt.

I give birth to a cockroach, and cry for joy, for she will survive.

Mother/Baby

Detach the baby from your front,

translate it into a subjective being

by pushing Baby instead of carrying Baby.

Except now Baby has multiple uses,

Mother can place shopping beneath Baby,

wind hairbands round Baby’s handle,

lean on Baby while mounting a displeasing incline.

And, a new feature, Mother can rock Baby single-handedly,

while pumping smoke into Mother’s virginal lungs,

Mother may even rest the apparatus of said act

upon Baby.

Baby won’t mind.

Why They Run

Nobody truly knows why they run.

You’d have to study their lose-limbed ways

religiously, and for many days

before you recognised the rhythm

in the squealing, sticky-fingered hive

that is the playground, alive.

I was a child myself, you see, and

even I do not know why we ran.

Tree tag, net tag and British Bulldog,

building nests, constructing home bases

even the elusive kiss chases.

But if asked, I could never recount

how such antics came about,

or the names, or the faces

of those who, in their graces,

did charge us with our daily races.

We ran, never grew hot or tired,

never panted or ached in the chest,

our streamlined figures,

our unrestrained cries

– the sexless body so easily flies.

“I have a star!” cries the boy,

scrutinising the contents

of his companion’s pink palm

 “what do you have to protekt?”

Oh just our heart and our health,

and our countries and our wealth,

for all our faith and our dreams

would give so easily at the seams

if we were to run.

Short Story: Grandpa Arthur

I stumble down the stairs, still dazed and wiping sleep from my eyes, I can hear the booming tones of Grandpa in the kitchen and sigh, another Sunday morning, another epic tale from Grandpa Arthur.  As I sit down besides my younger brother Grandpa coughs unsubtly and raises an eyebrow at me across the table.

“So glad you could join us this fine morning, Charles!”  And then those oh too familiar words, “you nearly missed the best bit.”  My brother is in fits of excitement, clapping his fists together so violently that he’s rocking the feet of his highchair, little Freddie loves the ‘best bit’ and is always overjoyed to hear of its approach, week after week.  “Fredrick, do you want to hear the rest of the story?”  Grandpa coos at my brother, who shrieks in delight.  “Right!  So, by this point I’m in quite a fix, all of my barons fighting over something as silly as their place at a table!  And no one knows what to do, they’re shouting at and screaming, tossing wine in the air, throwing chicken legs and slabs of beef at each other, demanding that they sit at the head, at the seat of the highest esteem, you see?” Freddie clearly doesn’t see but at the mention of throwing things he has bubbled saliva at the mouth, Grandpa glances at me and I dutifully wipe Freddie’s mouth with his bib.  “And so-”

“Look” I say, standing, “if this is gonna be a long one I demand some breakfast.”  Grandpa sighs and waves a hand at me to be excused before turning to my brother and continuing.

“And so, I’m lost as to what to do, my barons are in an uproar about the seating arrangements and I cannot think of any way of bringing peace to our meetings.”  I get a bowl from the cupboard and begrudgingly pour in a helping of ‘frosted flakes’, surely a man who supposedly defended Britain from the Saxons can afford branded cereal? 

“But then I come up a brilliant idea, a way of securing an equal place for each of my barons, so that no one can argue about being lower than any other...do you know what I did Fredrick?”  Grandpa lifts a pointed finger and traces a circle in the air before Freddie’s fascinated eyes, he has, after so much time, learnt to respond to Grandpa by mimicking the circle with his own stubby, clumsy, little index finger.  “That’s right!  I designed a round table, so that everyone could be equal to every other.  And then the Round Table went down in history, you can still see it in Wace’s Roman de Brut.”

“I think dad has that aftershave.”  I say, sloshing milk into my bowl, returning to the table, Grandpa eyes me “You know, Charles, this breakfast table is round too, that means we’re all equal, none of us superior to any other.”

“Except for the King in his high chair there,” I nod to Freddie, who is still smiling at Grandpa in unquestioning awe.  I often wonder if Grandpa’s tales every impressed me that much, it was probably conducive to the ‘tension’ of the story to have the short-term memory of a toddler.  

Short Story: Peter & Francis

Were it any previous year, Peter and Francis would both have been awake by now, peering across at each other in expectant glee from below the covers.  They would have been listening intently for their mother’s footsteps on the wooden stair, third from the top, the one that made a surreptitious creak, pre-empting her arrival.  She would raise the latch and open the door with a smile on her round face, then in a flurry of shrieks and tossed-aside duvets the boys would leap from their beds, fully dressed, socks, shoes and gloves already fitted in preparation for the Falcon-girl’s party.  This annual prank never failed to amuse them, and their mother would always respond with a yelp and an expression of shock and awe. 

Yet this year was to be different, this was the year that they had democratically agreed upon as the time of their official transition into adulthood.  Two years ago they had had a covert meeting, hidden amongst the lolling tongues of the willow tree in the back garden; and the twins had made a pledge.

“We’re nine now,” Peter had said to his twin, “we’ll be adults soon; we need to act like it.”  At this, Francis had stopped fiddling with his buttons and thrown his eyes up at his other half.

“I thought the same thing last Tuesday.”

“I know you did.”

            “I knew we shouldn’t have bought those cocoa pops, you were right, we should eat Musli.”

“Yes.  But I think we should stop jumping out at Mom on Falcon-day too, not yet but soon yeah Frank?”  Francis looked mortified, but agreed, and swore upon a secret handshake that, in two years time, they would treat the fifth of January like any other day, presenting their confirmed adulthood to their proud parents, who would no doubt congratulate them on their maturity.

“Mom is probably getting too old too, Peter, she might have a heart attack like that old lady down the street.”

“Yes,” concluded Peter, “she is getting too old now.”

So, this morning was a morning like no other before, Peter had woken himself furtively with an alarm beneath his sheets, just to check that Francis had not forgotten their deal.  But Francis had moved in the night, he was asleep on his back and breathing in near silence.  The two of them had always slept in the same position, be it on their side, back or front, it was a unvoiced contract they made each night, Peter usually got to choose, he would slide onto his left, with a glance to Francis, who would quickly emulate his pose in his own bed. 

The creak of the stair.  Peter resisted the urge to imitate sleep, and instead he sat up, ready to greet his mother at the door.  She peered into the room with an expectant grin, an element of their act Peter had never seen, and one that disturbed him, and so he met her with a smile that was slightly wonky.

“Oh!” She cried, “Good morning Peter,” he relished her surprise and immediately stepped from his bed, still in pyjamas, “ok, so…is Francis not up?”

“He’ll wake up soon, can I have a bowl of Musli please?”

His bemused mother turned without responding and Peter followed her through the doorway.  As he left he turned to see Francis begin to rouse from sleep, heaving the duvet across his chest.  The blanket shifted up from the bottom of the bed, and Peter caught a glimpse of black rubber soles, and leather, and neatly tied laces.     

Short Story: Morning

10:00am and the air was black.  The corners of the dressers were highlighted in red, Mary’s alarm clock, the newly acquired one Sarah and her new husband bought her for her eighty-first birthday.  They demanded the introduction of technology into our house, said we needed to wake up before midday, I retorted that we had no need to be up, save a heated summer’s day where the milk may curdle on the doorstep.  And Mary needs rest so often these days.  But we agreed to set the alarm, no earlier than 10:00am, and simply to please Sarah.  The offensively bright figures shone on the box beside Mary’s head, flashing, as it shrieked in short bursts.  And still she did not wake.  Oh Mary. 

It was the only light source in the room.

No hints of navy blue pervaded through the dark, it was merely black, and thicker than even the night should be, for the street-lights had flicked off on their timer, the amber light, that usually I scorn for invading my privacy, had finally let me be, and I thought I might miss them all too suddenly.

I felt the familiar dryness in my throat, the dust from that damn bed cover had gotten into my throat again, I hate the thing, coated in absurd floral patterns and peacocks.  When Mary had bought it, back in the sixties, it had been her most prized possession, she hung it up on the wall in their little semi-detached and would sneak glances at it over dinner.  But nowadays these colours were two a penny, nothing new, nothing exciting, you could hardly buy a stamp without noticing the gaudy intensity of the blue behind our Queen’s head. 

I coughed painfully into my fist, feeling dust dislodge, somehow the beeping beside Mary’s head did not stir her but my muffled splutters did, and she made a noise like a squeaking mouse.

‘Oh! Fred, is everything okay?’

I glanced again at the alarm clock, which had finally given up on rousing its owner, and now sat in silence.  10:03am and the world is still black.

‘Yes dear,’ I heave myself across the bed and place a hand across hers, on top of the covers, ‘everything’s just fine.’

[more] Elvie

There is no sound in Upper Slaughter tonight.  I’ve already had the nightmares; I’m over that stage now.  Having been so cajoled by such an evocative title, my ears spent the first few weeks fervently heeding to the sounds of this town, and subsequently manipulating the mundane into an orchestra of elaborate horror.  A town built on the blackened dirt of an abandoned abattoir, etc.  My blood-fuelled ear-drums would pick up on the sound of a particularly eager wind whistling through leaves and interpret it as the sound of squealing pigs, the echo of far off traffic became the sound of desperately grunting cattle, a sliding door in the night became the drop of a guillotine. 

I have heard all of these things, and now that my mind has satiated its masochistic whims I hear the something which is worse, the utter desolation that hangs in the silence of a town asleep.  The inhabitants of this place seem to extinguish at sunset, as if they never saw the advent of the gas light, after dark they do not even titter with life, let alone roar with it as the houses in London did. 

And so now I sit on the floor by the window, and await sound, breathing so slowly that the hairs on my upper lip may well fear me dead in their stillness.  I can’t yet tell if I like this silence, maybe it should reflect upon me, penetrate me and instil an inner peace.  But as far as I can tell it merely makes way for all the sounds oneself makes, in the silence one can hear everything, every brush of skin on skin, every slip of hair across a brow, I imagine hearing the sliding of eyeball against lid –grating like sand caught between skin and tight cloth.  In silence the body pants and grunts and gurgles, in silence sweat and the hot thick scent of skin seem obscene. 

Here, you cannot modestly close your eyes and slip away into the background of humans, engines and movement; here you are a splash of magenta on an otherwise clean sheet.

I wish to be a cat, black and lithe, sprinting across roads and through bushes, scaling trees and walls, mounting roofs and revelling in the obscuring soot of their chimneys.  I would race through scores of humans, navigating their ankles as a stealthy wind would pass through a forest.  A fluid being, insubstantial, with flat paws of such lenient substance that any surface brushed by my escape would not register the touch – I would leave not a single mark, and I could flutter through the masses in peace.

I sit on a floor which is not my floor, by a window which is not my window; the only thing in this room which I can claim my own is the carbon dioxide, and that is of no use to me.