All entries for March 2009

lent part 3: rejected monologue for the new series of Spooks

On my first day they gave me a small plastic packet in which two squat white cuboids sat resolute. I pried open the seal with my fingernails. It was contact lenses. One set was hazel, the other green. I considered giving myself one hazel and one green iris but obviously, that would’ve been foolish. It would’ve been suicide. Obviously I didn’t do that. It was obvious what they wanted – no blue or brown eyes. DNA samples can recreate a blue or brown iris with ninety-one percent accuracy. Green or hazel eyes reduce the accuracy of such measures to under seventy-five percent. I had brown eyes. Now I have hazel eyes in some countries, green eyes in others.

  In the locket round my neck is small camera that transmits to a smartphone in my belt-buckle. These are difficult to detect in x-rays because they are difficult to recognise. Because the technology is so rare. Because so few people have been trained to recognise such technology because it is too rare for precedents to be made available for recognition training. Making such training rare. It comes down to luck; luck is a synonym, referring to your preparatory measures compared to theirs. Bad luck is what happens when they are more prepared than you. Good luck is a direct result of your superior and more thorough preparatory measures. Bad luck would be facing another operative with an x-ray. Good luck would be either no operative operating the x-ray, or recognising that an operative is operating the x-ray and removing the evidence before it can be exposed by the x-ray.

  My pockets are stitched together with threads of magnetic tape. This was my own invention. Only I know about it. No other operatives, ours or theirs, will be able to receive the information written on that tape. I will personally unsew my pockets, remove the tape and read it. I will then pass the information on to my superiors. They can trust that it will be accurate. I am the source. They do not want to know my methods. Just like they don’t want to know that the reason I know so much about the x-ray machines and what they can or cannot recognise comes from an episode involving another man’s jawbone. I placed his jaw between my elbows. I brought my knee up. I felt a soft pain gnawing beneath my knee, I felt a beautiful snap, I heard a crack like tiny thunder cracking. He screamed from his gut and now I know what an x-ray machine can or cannot recognise. The information was received in a series of guttural sobs recorded on magnetic tape stitched into my pockets which I then removed and played back. The quality was poor, his pronunciation was worse. But I had enough precedents to make my conclusions. I removed my contact lenses and placed them into his dead eyes. I opened the second cuboid. I blinked green eyes at his glazed hazel eyes. I left him softly bleeding heartbeatless on the bathroom floor.

: 13 Mar 2009 12:29 |  Tags: Lent Story |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

the sleeping passengers

Writing about web page http://www.myspace.com/thesleepingpassengers

so the sleeping passengers now exist!

will kerr... who says things like "I've seen tenaments reduced to colours on a rippling wave"

jenni mellor... who says things like "I never knew what it meant to walk inland"

I... who say things like "electric fences line the undiscovered"

what I'm trying to say is we're a poetic bunch. first recording is up. www.myspace.com/thesleepingpassengers

: 03 Mar 2009 14:05 |  Tags: Music The Sleeping Passengers |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

….lent, part 1

inspired by jennifer mellor and ivan juritz I am giving up not-writing for Lent. here's how it's been going so far. xx

...lent

Shrove Tuesday

How’m I supposed to explain it all on a day like this. That is to say, one thing will lead to another. By accident kisses will happen, I am hoping. I can watch the way light moves through your hair, rather than bounces off it. I can watch this for hours, though its physical effects mean that I will see nothing.* I will just keep watching. I could watch for hours. And I will see nothing. It is difficult to explain. Today being how it is. That is to say, today being today. I hope for accidental kisses. The light will move through your hair. It will be to all intents and purposes invisible. Hours will pass. I will watch, I will see nothing. I will just keep watching, for hours. And see nothing. Explain! Today, now! Say it! One word will lead to another! Kiss me, accidentally! I continue to hope, as if by accident. The light moves through your hair, by accident. It forgets to collide and bounce. Hours pass, and I watch, watching your invisible hair. For hours. I continue to watch. Hours! Nothing! Plain day now, say, hoping, watching, invisible hours. How am I? I am supposed to explain. Explain it all, in one day! Today, no less. Of all days. Today, when every hour passes invisibly. I watch your day, I watch your hours, passing like invisible hair. The light ignores you and I. The hours pass with the light.

*i.e. becomes no reflected light will enter my retina. BRO

Ash Wednesday

Covered in bruises and silly-string I emerged from the pub.

-         For God’s sake, look alive!*

That was the sound of a bus almost hitting me. Well – the bus sounded more like – skreepow, brrmmm, but the driver opened his mouth and he said aye ooh ah aye and bordered it with consonants.

  I should thank him. If he hadn’t yelled, I might be dead. As it is, I look alive. No matter how I may actually feel, this is how I appear.

  What time is it? It is night time. Could sailors tell the time from the stars and moon, as from the sun? Did time stop at night? Did the night watch guess based on how much of the candle had burnt down?

-         Christ, what happened to you?*

  What happened to me? I cannot remember. I wasted time, remembering. Am I drunk? Who is speaking? Is it me speaking? I don’t remember drinking. Perhaps I am too drunk to remember drinking. Was there a fight? I try to work out how my body feels. I make the mistake of starting with my toes and get confused. I cannot remember whether I meant feel as in physical sensation or as in perceived emotion. I struggle to give my toes emotions separate from the emotions felt in my brain. I confuse the words emotion and motion and am temporarily satisfied by simply wriggling my toes.

  My Samaritan looks at me, expected a response to his well-meaning enquiry. He looks baffled at my bafflement. It was a simple question. I try to bring it to mind. I am the resurrection and the death.*

*The savagest trinity lashing (Whitman). BRO

Thursday

Morning staggered hungover into my bedroom, almost smashing the closed window, clawing desperately at the ragged curtain like a drowning sailor. The figures in the bed shrugged off the hairy sleep-smell’s albatross talons. From miniscule future-technologies alarm bells that would have terrified generations of European monarchs (and rightly so) raised an unholy din through tiny tinny tune-holes. The shrill demonic howl of last night’s demiurge! It manifests itself it crunchy wrinkles around the reluctant pupil-filled eyes.*

  I think today will be the day I actually attend lectures and classes. I think that will be today.

*Your love has taught me to be cross-eyed. BRO

: 02 Mar 2009 19:29 |  Tags: Lent Story Words |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem