All entries for October 2007

Bar Dive Scores 8.6

I was flat, flat on the floor, flat on the floor in front of an entire audience whose heads have swung like motion sensitive CCTV cameras to take in every last moment of my humiliation. My backpack filled with clothes and flat-pack chair (for a more relaxed beer on the go) had caused me to over balance and shallow-dive through the doors of the bar, which was strange because up until I’d arrived in England I had tended to walk through the bloody things. Trying to show that I found the whole thing hilarious too, I heaved myself to my knees and then my feet with a grin on my face like hyena flat out on ecstasy.

I notice a man. He stands in a group of men. He wipes his nose on the back of his hand and spit flies from his mouth whilst he yells at the men around him. I can see he’s man’s man; he doesn’t seem to care how many disagree, he is right. I reckon a challenge to the authority of this type of berk will cause three things: a puffed out chest, a quick scrimmage with his manhood and a nose to nose yelling match during which the poor bloke that questioned him will be subjected to a salivary monsoon. He looks over in my direction.

“What is up with your hat sunshine?”

“C’mon mate, it’s the very latest. Ladies love it.”

“An aussie?”

“Y’reckon mate?”

I instantly regretted my rash decision to attempt rhetoric with a man who clearly has the social grace of a Great White with ADD. Soon, I am magically transformed into ‘Bruce the human spittoon’. Not being a show I wished to take on tour, I decided it was about time to get this human hosepipe to spit on some other fool.

“Look mate, I only just arrived here. All I want is a cold beer, or two, and I’ll be on my way. Although, if we do have to keep arguing, warn me. I’ll go get an umbrella for my face.”

The man’s friends hide sniggers.

“What you talking ‘bout you smug git?”

“Mate, I am talking about your inability to talk without precipitatin’ on a guy. Now, get out my face!”

The man looks at me, eyebrows raised. He takes half a step back to look me up and down. His knuckles pale as he clenches his fists, but at six foot two and fifteen stone, I’m not worried. I look over and see his friends have clearly enjoyed my little performance and won’t be backing him if he gets rowdy. So, I turn away from him and look straight towards the bar. I order some beer from a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like. She puts the beer in front of me and after a second look I decide that she looks more Marilyn in her present state, decaying. I think to myself that maybe living in a penal colony isn’t so bad. The outlook here’s pretty crap.

: 25 Oct 2007 02:53 |  Tags: 4 Icw Joshua Week Wells |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Box

People put me here. Not for my sake, for theirs’. They thought that they needed something like me. I am a mediator of dialogue. The middle-man, when face-to-face conversation is either impossible or maybe just too destructive to what must be said. My cuboid frame holds up transparent panels allowing people to glance into me, but they also keep the elements from molesting whoever is within. Ordinary machines are ambivalent. They don’t offer protection, most are unnecessary. I however, am like an inanimate mother. Speechless, still, but able to provide a womb in which conversation is incubated. Upon entry, people impregnate me with their presence, and I in turn nurture their thoughts until emotion is birthed into speech.

        Did they make me maternal? I embrace even the ugliest of my children. Not blinded by sentimental subjective love, but liberated through our intimate bond to a place of perfect objective tolerance. In me, joys are begun and ceased, lives are continued and ended. I amplify the calls of their voices. Dozens, hundreds, possibly thousands of miles away I ensure my children are heard. I will not allow them to be silenced for they are my voice. I have no mouth. I am at once lifeless, but vicariously alive as life and lives pass through me.

        He was laughing. Laughing is good I have heard. He hurt me whilst he did it, smashing my sides with lumbering frame. Cursing and laughing in a slurred hysterical tone he ripped me open, leaving me incomplete, my womb torn asunder. His nasal-toned confusion meanders into the night. I can still be looked into, but I can no longer embrace. His laugh is twisted.

She was laughing. Laughing is good they tell each other. Dialling numbers to relay convictions is healthy, makes them human to be able to make themselves known to each other. She tuts at my injury says she’ll call again, but mutters something under her breath about the bitch on the other end of the line. Her laugh is hollow.

Is her laugh is put on; because now I’m open I can no longer encapsulate her talk? Outside influences force her to feign happiness. I would never make her fake, but I have let her down. I have been violated and cannot offer her what she needs.

Laughter is in the voice of the laughing. Hers and his were bastardised forms of joy. One too busy pleasing others, the other too busy pleasing himself. I cannot see, but I can hear. I cannot speak, but I can listen. You talk through me as if I am not there, but I care deeply for you. I am not one of you, but I see that people are alone together. I hope I help relieve that burden.

: 17 Oct 2007 00:45 |  Tags: 3 Icw Joshua Week Wells |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Number Crunching

If yesterday had begun as any other day, then perhaps the today George was presently cursing would not have ended in the way it had. In short, George had found himself in a predicament. The outcome of which, had put George in the sort of discomfort that would keep most men’s frown firmly the right way up. The pain killers had given some relief, but regret had been incessantly poking at the back of his brain, as if delighting in the particularly irksome position this unwelcome squatter had claimed for its own. So far no doctor had offered him something for that complaint.
George began to count the number of times the word “baby” was being used by the teenie-bopper pop-tarts that forced their way into his room via the hospital radio. He smiled for the first time that day as a pattern began to emerge. Stretching out his squat and hairy arms above him and gingerly placing his hands in between his pillow and head he assumed what he imagined to be a smug expression and waited. 
As expected, in walked a nurse, George’s nurse to be precise. George had been a touch disappointed by her. Given the nature of his injury he had rather hoped for a healing angel, but he had been charged into the care of something more akin to a breeze-block that had, unlike most breeze-blocks, the evident ability to make itself obese. George took a deep, but silent breath and tried to sound blasé.
“Don’t you love making a discovery?”
“Eh…?” The nurse had to turn bodily to face him on account of her thicker than average neck.
“Don’t you love proving something new?” George tried to reiterate.
“Say what, my dear.” She rolled her eyes and resumed rearranging his charts.
“I’m willing to bet you…”
“Oi, now stop that! It’s that kind of talk that got you here in the first place!”  The curtailer of George’s grand scheme took a purposeful step into the room. “I am special constable Veronica Brentwhistle. I am here to collect a statement from you. I would remind you that we know practically all the details at this point. Lying would prove fruitless, and would land you in more trouble than you want. Though, probably less than you deserve.”
The policewoman, at 5 feet 10 inches tall towered rather over the reclining George. With dark hair neatly bobbed and spotless uniform she managed to combine the image of authority with a strong air of fastidiousness. Her expression was taught. The slight smile was more a part of the uniform than any attempt at real civility. George, quickly deciding that offence was the strategy to employ here decided to take control of the conversation.
“Look here, I am in a delicate position and a fragile state. You are interrupting my nurse and further more if you think I’m going to talk to a…”
“A woman, Mr Stouton?”
“Exactly, given the personal nature of…”
“Mr Stouton, I am aware of your ‘injuries’. Believe me, I am deeply sorry for your loss, but I am here to do a job. Collecting your statement does not, correct me if I’m wrong, require the use of your testicles does it?”
“Well I…”
“Good. Then despite their absence shall we begin?”
“But…”
“I understand Mr Stouton that bereavement for ‘the boys’ must make this difficult, but if you will be careless with the financial details of your pimp associates then I think you can consider a boxer-brief filled with quick-drying cement quite a let off.”
“That’s easy for you to say! I have…”
“I know Mr Stouton, you have suffered. Well frankly, I’d call the doctor’s inability to remove the concrete ‘sans sex organs’ a poetic justice. A justice that makes me think there may be forces in this world that do a better job than us at giving you guys what you deserve.”
“Hey I don’t pay my taxes to be treated like…”
“Actually Mr Stouton, your 'talent' for numbers has meant you haven’t paid taxes for 12 years. You may not like the treatment, but in this life you get what you pay for. I would also point out that the more irate you become, the more you are what I can only describe as squeaking. Nurse Friar has already had to leave the room. She was quite unable to bear it, and I am no more fond of it than she. Now do be a good boy and tell me what I need to know.”

: 11 Oct 2007 00:38 |  Tags: 2 Icw Joshua Story Week Wells |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem