The Vulture

Not even the strongest generic pharmaceutical gap-filling cement could have kept his torso from the armpits up from remaining detached after thirty-five hours in surgery; that lump of metal, the incidental shell, hurled at forty-five degrees away from where the party was really at, had a party of its own. Sparing him the usual indignity, Jim’s bowels emptied up through a gap near where his left lung, gripped plaintive and instantaneously by the shoulders and head, might otherwise have been, had fate had it differently. Fate’s a funny thing; were Dr Rudolph not in that particular village at that particular time, surgery would most likely never have been considered an option. Circumstance (secular fate), however, had it that Dr Rudolph was in the boudoir of some local yokel whose wife was in the throes of “stress-induced anal distension”, as diagnosed. Trepanning and Hippocratic semen were intrinsic to the cure (notes on that case are smudged at best and cogent at worst; besides, that’s a tangent, and reports such as this will be tainted with nothing of the sort).

Jim was in a horrendous state when the nearest Fraulein reached his sodden dying patch of ground; it couldn’t have come as much of a surprise to those present at any point in the affair had they been told that fragments of bone and other bodily shrapnel had been flung as far even as the battlefield. Nobody was in any position, however, to tell them anything of the sort, or otherwise.

Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing

“I do it by feel, really. I bumble around, it’s inconsistent. Inconsistency, things resonating chaotically, organically – free! That’s the only way; that’s the way I feel it.”

“Yeah, but if you don’t tie it right, the parachute’s just gonna fly away.”

The dogsbody flipped and told us all to buy gloves for him; he got a lot of gloves that Christmas. He flipped back and the turkey got a stuffing. Blood, guts, everything hung on the barbed wire like the sun dying. Crystals formed on the flesh and winter ate eyes. We all hung ribbons on the tree too. We hung the gloves from the ribbons. The parachute’s just gonna fly away.

Dead Grass

Fitz was to gardening what a pathologist is to the healthcare professions. Susan was unquaveringly enthusiastic, though fickle as to the object of her attentions. She was young. It was late spring and the last of the healthy young birds were fledging. Some eggs lay cold, useless and abandoned. The flowers near the house were flourishing to varying degrees, but the lawn was dead. Susan’s family made the necessary calls, and Fitz duly arrived. His reputation, an estimable one, preceded him, and not undeservedly so.

There was little he could do, he said, given how late it was in the season, but he instructed them well for the next year. He looked at Susan, a little wistfully. She was pretty. He accepted payment graciously and headed home, his working day being over.

Susan is old now, and Fitz is dead.

Part III of a Story: An Alternative Ending

Maisy didn’t remember falling asleep. Considering she was waking up and despite the bleary logics usually associated with it she mustered a few concerns for her memory. Especially when taking into consideration the difficulties she’s suffered with the art of falling asleep. She wasn’t at home and, as a result, a little startled. That was until a few prompts jogged her ailing memory: the smell, the scene, a few cigarette ends- nothing too particular.
She couldn’t see a soul. She kept looking.


Maisy: Hello? Hello, is anyone still here?
[Standing up she notices she is naked]
Oh heavens…
I shall need to find some clothes before I leave, and leave I think I must.
[Maisy searches for her clothes]
Now... where are they? They can’t have just abandoned me... left without permission...
How rude.
[Russell emerges from underneath a fallen curtain, both he and it are patterned with blood]
Russell: [croaked but stern] Girl…
Maisy: [unsure of where the voice is coming from] Yes?
Russell: Girl!…
Maisy: [locating Russell] Oh my!
I simply cannot understand.
No I just can't understand at all.
Now...
…Why is this situation?
Russell: They aren’t coming back, they just won’t return. They’re not the type.
Maisy: [careful to hide certain parts of herself from view] Nonsense! You’re simply delivering nonsense, now if you wouldn’t mind I’d be very grateful if you could return to the start and explain, exactly what you mean and, if you can, what’s been going on while I’ve been asleep.
Russell: Well, let me try again then. You are an Idiot. One of the most horrid and sorry fools I have ever had the displeasure of answering. Though, believe me, I’m hardly one to speak.
…
As soon as you began mouthing claptrap and making nuisance, you could see it in her eyes, it was blatant, in Sukie’s eyes, she had it in for you and you right well deserve it too. You idiot nuisance.
Maisy: Pardon me, this is outrageous. Really. I have been nothing but courteous as far as I can tell. A perfect guest to the best of my abilities and I, simply, will not have such nasty things said. How outrageous!
Russell: You really have to open your eyes a little, girl. Can’t you see what’s happened? Them! They have left you and me and taken everything- your money, the clothes off your back, any shard of dignity you had secretly felt proud of, gone. Everything. You were conned, robbed! Surely you can see that.
Maisy: I am neither an idiot nor a nuisance but I am waiting for an apology.
Russell: For Christ’s sake, aren’t you listening? The trouble you’ve gone and brought upon yourself and me. It’s not me who should be apologising! Girl!
[Russell gasps for breath but merely splutters]
How ignorant, how unbelievably unaware can you be? Do you realise you have nothing left: no clothes, no home, no dignity. Any insult I can concoct doesn’t serve the purpose adequately.
[Maisy twiddles her hair, Russell grows increasingly flabbergasted]
…
Everything you do clearly demonstrates what a naïve little girl you are, girl.
What an accident.
Girl.
I should, certainly, have kept quiet and let you untangle your own messes.
You have no idea. You can’t see further than yourself. And You’re the least polite rudest, horridest slip of a beast , I can’t tell which …[splurgh]… of you was worse - she may have been looking for trouble but you know, yes you know that you’…
[Russell expires]
Maisy: [smiles a little and affirms quite quietly] How rude.



Maisy took the blood-soaked curtain from over Russell and wrapped it around herself. Though she wanted to cry she couldn’t. Now seemed like the right time to head home, Maisy decided. And she, simply, walked home.

Your Electric Light

When we need it, your electric light is there to find feet in the tangled night-time woods, traipsed recklessly. Whisky vision is good enough to reason with a small cliff-face, to spot a foothold, best yet to be delighted by it. The woods feel wilder than the ones I grew up with, and there’s no doubting I know them not a bit. Whisky only makes the heart grow unremittant, more fevered, lots of other things, more forgetful without losing reaction to it all. I forgot to navigate. A trickled stream makes itself known visually, almost catches your ankle, and a vague notion is swigged by my far too wandering mind delightful; streams run down, to the river, to the path, but we smiled relentless away from it, losing little. It feels like what it looks like, any time, from setting out to long before the dawn and there is no timepiece comes to eye, and it pleases me. I could die out here; I could live out here; brambles tear at legs and you, like me, keep walking. It is a universal truth, particularly applicable in the midst of flowing whisky, that there are no wrong turns when travelling blind. Very easy, and surprising to tree-trained eyes, a clearing strolls for seven yards ahead and the moon is visible only just. We sit or collapse, though not exhausted, and the still-flowered very early autumn stretch of woodland grass is not big enough to be a destination. We decide anyway, with almost nominal scepticism from some quarters, that the next leg of the journey is return. And that’s much quicker.

Your electric light proved as useful on the way back as it did on the outward clamber, maybe more so. We made it, as you know, to the safety of our harbour. The night’s sleep, though grizzled by whisky, was restful from adventure; morning, just lately, feels longer ago.

Next time, or the same time because the past has not kept grip sufficient, if I have my way, there will be no return journey, no thought of batteries. Your electric light will come from eyes and, converging with my eyes, and her eyes, and his eyes, will be light enough to grow the universe, make a clearing home; the roof dangling from clouds, the trees already walls, the sea nearer this time, and that patch in sunlight there looks to be a field of corn to me. Guitar alright with the smoke from fire come night-time, significant soon to birds, there is moonshine aplenty, but really we’re drunk from that and from actual shining of the moon, from crispest air, from your electric light, but mostly we’re drunk from that moonshine whisky and it tastes so very good.

The Stag

Seven days before the laughter of the horns of the Bacchae crossed the cusp of the hill and into the broad valley on the green road to the Court of King Jelly Roll, six witnessed the scene to be described. The six were; Mad Sweeney from treetops; Yuxa, winking from the undergrowth; Gilfaethwy as boar, upon whom was Freya with feathers; Hong-yu, a vixen; Badessy from the sky.

In a glade by a pool, a shallow pool of rained water stretched barely rippling like a reflection of the sun, a stag stood grooming. No other deer awake or near, the stag looked placid up to trees like antlers. In grazing brambles stark against the last of withered leaves before the breeze, he found a thirst and came as many days before to where the water gathered for its travels. With the quivering splendid soft bronze of his flanks in clear view now of the sky, it was no wonder that the starlings and the blackbirds fought their choruses through the waves. The stag approached the water, crisp blue under noon day Sun, and bent his neck and lapped it cool and clear, still holding the green scent of dew from dark before the dawn.

As the chorus continued, many tones, the stag drank deep, and, as the day maintained her thrilling promise of the blossom, the water, never moving, appeared suddenly as a tapestry, became a gauze of liquid gold, but fresh. The whole world might have gasped but for the stag who, with brown eyes above dignity, continued to drink, and the air felt pregnant with the loosing muscles of a real beast taking in what water he required. That gold, never a necklace, shone then in his eyes.

In seven days, with the antlered branches stretching in their buds, the first faint echoes came of the coming congregation. Wine in every pocket of the broad grins on their faces, they rounded the hill wreathed in vines with no alarm to the various animals watching. At first they stared near silent, wide-eyed into the sky between two hills, and then they flung their bare flesh into brambles, laughing, bleeding, and they called with pipes and laughter to the animals and they brought them, always dancing, to the fold and carried on with singing down the green road home.

Saddled

It has been noted by a few astute-but-hard-of-hearing listeners that the song "Temporary Evil", from the St. Cuthbert's Burials E.P. of the same name, is a mite frustrating for those who like to make out words. The chattering in the background must, for the time being, remain enigmatic, but I can provide you here with the main body, as it were, of the text:

Saddled like a growing undertaker. Mislaid in the undergrowth that tried but couldn’t twine the poplar trees while they were there. Evidenced by cooling of the ground from sunset, culminating in the coldest earth before the dawn. Distracted by the finches, didn’t know what kind of finches. Bolstered by a breeze that hardly shook the hay from loose forgotten bails. Hidden by the height of hedges, honeysuckle melting with the branches of the lesser bushes. Exited stage right before the sun was coming up.

Thanks for listening! Ho ho.

Rag Villa

First they take your shoes and what’s left is a sandal consciousness but you don’t have any sandals. New wine but old glass and everything is gravy in the inch-by-inch liquid atlas. What bird caged? Coloured feathers, the joy of the exotic, caged. The bird has human skin, red, yellow, brown and green. Feet rock on sheep and the bass; I’m lulled into drunk. Lion-drenched by worry for the leopards and they’re shaky in their trees, many greens. It really takes it out of me. I was carded then I fouled. The stars had to wink to catch the past. The second part is always slow. Something happened while I was away. Police tape and the ground froze. No one loves you like I do, right or wrong.

What stabs at style, a deep breath, you daren’t wear stripes today, you breathe. Inconspicuousness is a must for any private investigator or timid soul. What’s the sphere of your existence? Can you cross a ring-road more than three lanes wide? You’re in the middle.

From "Tell It To A Hound Dog, Pedro"

Part II of a story: a Conversation.

Characters:

Maisy: The protagonist
Sukie: The girl with the moped, who may or may not be, ultimately, regarded as the antagonist.
Brute Special: A very large beast of a man with much hair and a quiet voice. It is said that he once ate a kitten which is untrue.
Russell: A talking Kittiwake, very very wise.
Duke: A dwarf. Busy with day-to-day life in attempts to forget his difficult to reach aspirations
Juan: A little taller than Dukesy. Speaks in Spanish, which I find difficult to translate.
Tender: Ex-fortune teller, saturnine man with very little to say.


[a moped ride later and they’re in a grotty flat- it does not belong to Sukie]
Sukie: A little late to be out, girl. You do this often?
Maisy: No, I think this is my first attempt and I can’t say I’d care for it.
Not frequently anyway.
Sometimes I just can’t sleep you see and before I knew it there I was;
adventure had gotten the better of me.
[aaaaaaaah- sigh]
Sukie: And Mother & Father, what will they be doing…?
Maisy: Fast asleep I’d imagine, they’re people of habit- very fond of behaviour.
[Sukie holds out a packet of fags to Maisy, Maisy politely declines the offer while smiling. Sukie lights up two and gives the second to the man at the table]
Sukie: So your not…
[drag]
…just runnin away…
or anything like that?
Maisy: No. Sorry.
[Silence: neither of them had expected an apology here]
Sukie: Quite alright
Maisy: What about you? I can’t see a reason for anyone to’ve been in the town at that time other than irregular sleeping patterns, of course.
Sukie: Oh the devil says the night’s a ripe time for finding trouble.
Maisy: Oh but trouble’s a filthy thing, I can’t see why anyone would seek any more than they’re given. Mother has always said, ‘stay away from trouble’, and I shall. I keep myself clean as. Spotless. And anytime I see a pirate or a peddler I simply turn away.
[turning to the man at the table]
I’m Maisy you know, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.
Sukie: This is Tender…
[Tender looks over but forgets to smile, Maisy beams.]
Maisy: [in Tender’s direction] I knew someone called Tender, a real catch he was, the prize of the playground. And every lunchtime us girls would stand in a ring around him and tell him we liked him, you know. And I could’ve sworn that he liked me back the most, it was just something about his demeanour that gave it away. So one day I went to take him a little cupcake, baked myself you can imagine, and I waited until I simply couldn’t wait anymore. So I didn’t: a lady should never be left to get angry. I haven’t seen him since, too embarrassed I should think.
[Tender glanced up from what could be a newspaper. He was very much uninterested]
Enter remaining characters.
[Duke leads the way, he is cooking this evening’s feast, Juan is behind I don’t know what he’s doing as he’s Spanish and I find it hard to translate, then marches Brute with Russell perched atop his crown, Maisy’s face lights up- more friends.]
Maisy: More friends! Delightful, my my and how lovely it is to meet you all. I’m Maisy…
[curtsey]
And your names?
Brute: Brute.
Juan: Juan [I think this means ‘Sorry’ in Spanish but I can’t be sure]
Russell: Russell the Kittiwake at your service.
Duke: Duke. And I take it you’ll be staying for tea?
Maisy: With an invitation it would be plain rude to decline.
Duke: very well, we’re havin wild mushroom soup with fennel dumplins and We’ll be eatin in an hour.
Maisy: Marvellous. There really are quite a few of you, just where did you all come from?
Russell: The circus my dear. Where else?
Maisy: Well I certainly can’t think of many alternatives now but at the time you could have been from different places or anywhere for that matter.
Russell: Well there aren’t many places for talking birds, don’t you know.
Maisy: I can imagine. Well, what were you all doing at the circus?
Russell: Working, girl. We’re all very appropriate for work in a circus: dwarves, a giant, a talking bird, a fortune teller and a trapezist.
Maisy: Well I suppose. How, then, are you not still there? Surely you’d found the right place.
Russell: We didn’t feel we had, you see, that’s the whole reason we left. That circus is barely a life at all for anyone with self-respect and aspiration, girl.
Brute: We just weren’t treated right enough. We were odd and that made us less. But We couldn’t help it. We had just a pittance to our names,
[Russell listened to brute intently and then looked at Maisy and nodded as if to suggest Brute had summed it up far more eloquently than Russell ever could.]
Maisy: but at least you had a pittance and a regular one I imagine, surely you haven’t a pittance at all without the circus.
Sukie: No, you see, we do other things to make a penny or two: we steal, we rob, we plunder and pillage and take what we need when we need it. Like I said the night’s a ripe time for finding trouble. Wouldn't you agree?

The Joys of Children are Functions of the Woods

We're getting there... it's premature. Tasty.

The joys of children are functions of the woods.

of course, learn to despise ourselves and fear the respect the tyrannosaurus, you’d be a breaker or to destroy it – you cannot because of the obvious physical mine.

I always preferred to play in maybe, and less capable.

I was secretly this day a role-model of sorts, and the things.

“Well, to be brought before a tribunal selected by the board of jurisdiction is more than sufficient to draw out legal crows.”

four or so hours into the perfunctory, drinking slow but steady, all were employees, or colleagues, as head office prefer to call all the cooking done and dusted, and sat at the directors.

feared of course – but don’t become fearmongers.

they are a force to be dinosaurs; at the museum were skeletons, but dinosaurs were never a great passion there is imbalance and madness as it was a scavenger; I can empathise far there’s more ways to move out of settlements; there was some serious which was great.

I love madness and reject pterodactyl.

STAGE 3:

And the things.

“well, to be brought directors.

feared of course – but don’t secretly this day a role-model of sorts, jurisdiction is more than sufficient to into the perfunctory, drinking slow but more ways to move out of settlements; destroy it – you cannot because of the obvious physical mine.

I always preferred woods.

of course, learn to despise the joys of children are functions of the as head office prefer to call all the be dinosaurs at the museum were skeletons, before a tribunal selected by the board of steady, all were employees, or colleagues, scavenger; I can empathise far there’s cooking done and dusted, and sat at the draw out legal crows.”

four or so hours but dinosaurs were never a great passion there was some serious which was great.

I become fearmongers.

they are a force to tyrannosaurus, you’d be a breaker or to love madness and reject pterodactyl. there is imbalance and madness as it was to play in maybe, and less capable.

I was ourselves and fear the respect the…

I’d like to start in the Early Morning

One of the problems with my day is that it doesn’t start at the beginning, it starts somewhere else- in between there and late, sometimes even double figures. I always feel disappointed when I’ve missed the beginning; when the light heralds the first opportunities and the worm is caught. It wouldn’t be so bothersome if I thought this goal unreasonable but considering I stir just after, it deserves a try.
The birds wake up right at the end to ensure they witness the beginning, something to do with their crepuscular circadian rhythms*. Usually they all sing, together, around here and that surely merits curiosity for what, they reckon, deserves it.
With an early night (something I don’t fear), a decent sleep and this reason to get up in the morning I should make a more matinal veer from those vespertine habits and hopefully be present and assuming my spot for the start.

Prince of the Undergrowth

There is, somewhere, a little village; a tiny dot on the maps of history. It has a post box, a telephone booth (not one of the nice red ones), a tavern/impromptu post office, a modernized farm, a burnt-down hall, a cold church with accompanying overgrown graveyard, a very small council estate, a scattering of cottages, a large vicarage, some houses-on-the-hill, a small village hall and a lifeless caravan site. There is a quaint yet thin river inhabited by lazy fish, startled waterfowl, the occasional heron, smokes of midges, miscellaneous man-mind disposable plastic paraphernalia and watercress.

One of cottages has an allotment, the one-time pride and joy of its former inhabitant; now an overgrown nettle-ridden jungle of blackcurrant bushes, bramble, briar and mysterious rhubarb. If you were to crawl on your belly through the loamy wet earth of this forgotten allotment, scratching yourself on botanical teeth and unknown matter as you do so, you would reach a small patch of moss covered soil. An unseen thrush cackles in the holly bush overhead somewhere, and if you gaze upwards you can follow the flight of wielding gulls as they drift in the currents and dream of the ocean, and of tractors ploughing fields. Someone, perhaps as much as ten or twenty years ago, has stacked up some terracotta roofing tiles. Nettles spiral out around the back of this small pile, and snails hold silent moots, perhaps in mourning.

This pile of tiles conceals a secret. There is something cold and manipulative lying in wait in the cool soil underneath. Woodlice bravely loiter on the under surface of these cracked orange tiles, tracing glyphic patterns in the dark and lonely world of rotting leaves. Underneath the mulch and fungal roots and waiting in the dark he sits, brooding. He has been there since late October, but now he feels the new warmth seeping through the earth to his skin like oil. His large filmy eyes slowly open, glistening in the darkness. A slow grin spreads across his soft face, thick tongue pulsing out in an experimental taste of the stale air that encases him beneath the ground. He is ready for worms, and slugs, and beetles. For he is bufo bufo; Prince of the Undergrowth, and he’s ready for spring.

Packet of Twenty

Between the chains of opportunity, somewhere, and the pitfalls of potential, in the midst of plimsolls and satchels, Mary bought a packet of twenty. She’d smoked the odd one at parties from acquaintances, her first on the building site, surreptitious, she’d liked it, liked them all, she never coughed, well, maybe spluttered, but she liked them so she bought a twenty packet from the racket on the platform that would sell to girls in plaid. She liked to smoke so Mary smoked, and in the pub with weekend feathers, Mary drank with older girls and passed and rose to any challenge that she was a schoolgirl.

Time has passed now; Mary has passed too, out of her school and into the dream lethargic as life. From phony potential to the jealousy of words, Mary’s mind can skip objective, drinking wine and smiling cigarettes and stretching limbs on waking, impassive as dawn.

I married Mary, not because she coughs now and she doesn’t like it, nor because she drinks like breathing and it’s ordinary, but because she eats a second breakfast or she doesn’t eat at all if she doesn’t fancy lunch, and she has a fine laugh, and she smokes the same cigarettes as me.

The Court of King Jelly Roll

In Bacchus’ name, lift up your spoons, for the season approacheth, little things. Even now, the reupholsterers are reupholstering chairs, purple and green. The physicians are smiling, the ladies are moist. King Jelly Roll is better, thanks be to God. The dead are buried, the table is set. Put on your hats and saddle your horses, for King Jelly Roll’s court is reconvened. The frosty veil is lifted, so come, the embarrassed and regretful, take off your clothes and thrash about wildly, in the manner of a boar in the throes of death. For, in faith, the winter’s boar does die for the summer’s pork. The thin gander swears an oath, and the fool is in the mixture. Shoots are shooting, boots are new, but the ceremony will be a barefoot affair. Do not sit down by the roadside facing the hedgerow when all the world is dead, and everything in it. For, in faith, that is the time to put your hand in your trousers, and the rod and the staff shall comfort you. The road is well lit, and is not very long. In the circle, four English leagues west of the wood where tall wolves groan, four English leagues north of the marsh where grass snakes consider, four English leagues east of the plain where women wish, four English leagues south of the bay where cormorants swoop at the backs of fishermen, the festival will be met. Forthwith, then, to the circle; wrap your wife in ivy. The leopard that was in the tree now stands on one leg in the centre of the circle, and, in faith, the tree stands proud on the leopard’s back. The nephews beloved of King Jelly Roll stand at the trestles of the five innermost tables, and no rope can bind them. The attendant nymphs shine like berries. From the nub of the mound, even now the first of the guests can be seen approaching. First among them is Brutus, and not least among them, Gog and Magog. King Jelly Roll has risen from his mossy sickbed. So lift up your spoons, in Bacchus’ name, for the feast.

I haven't seen a Song Thrush in ages

I haven't seen a Song Thrush in ages
And then
One
Hopped
Up onto
a gnarled
Post-Perch
And then I had seen one in ages
Now I couldn't say 'I haven't seen a Song Thrush in ages'
But I hadn't.

Dinner with Roger and Christine

John and Sally, Roger and Christine took their places at the table. It was a surprisingly well-orchestrated affair; Christine had all the cooking done and dusted, and sat at the south-western end of the room, next to the kitchen door, ready to fetch in the various courses as and when necessary. The tone and general ambience were sombre, as befitted the occasion. Talk was vapid and perfunctory, drinking slow but steady. All were reasonably at ease.

Four or so hours into the evening, Roger noticed that John was without his customary chrome-plated glasses. He made a polite enquiry on the matter. John’s face fell visibly from its already neutral countenance. He related the following short tale, as Sally rested her chin on her fist, her eyes on a place mat;

“It was last Monday, just out in the garden reading a book – Madame Bovary, you know – minding my own business, when this… thing descended from I don’t know where. It was a bird, a big bloody crow. Went off with my glasses, of all things,” John let out an exasperated wheeze, “They were… well you know how… they were custom made and… Christ! I watched the godforsaken thing fly off, most satisfied, I shouldn’t wonder. And I’ll tell you what, it’s the same blasted bird I’ve given crumbs and what have you every day – every day – for I don’t know how long. And have I seen the bloody fiend since? I most certainly have not! It was biding its time no doubt…”

“Well,” interjected a nonchalant Roger, “You might say it’s become a scarce crow.”

Sally spat.

Playing With Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs were never a great passion of mine; I never quite fit that archetype. I didn’t, don’t and never will dislike them by any means, far from it, I’ve always had a real fondness for the things. There was the red tyrannosaurus rex that wouldn’t fill with water because his throat was sealed. The dinosaurs at the museum were skeletons, which was great. The tyrannosaurus made for an imposing figure, all teeth and tail and what have you; you had to respect the tyrannosaurus, you’d be a fool not to. This was before I knew he was a scavenger; I can empathise far more readily now. He was never my favourite, though. The stegosaurus is to this day a role-model of sorts, and the pterodactyl is a far out lizard-bird. Excellent skeletons too; the pterodactyl was suspended from the ceiling. I’ll always love skeletons. I liked the diplodocus’s neck, still do sometimes, but dinosaurs were never a great passion of mine. I always preferred to play in the woods. They were much bigger in those days, and darker.

Of course, it wasn’t playing; it was, dare I say it, adventure. Disbelief wasn’t a concept I was familiar with, and I’m not a great fan of it now. There was never much doubt that we’d find gold eventually, or the ghost train in the old abandoned tunnel. Our camps were bona fide settlements; there was some serious improvised engineering a little later on, and I’d be proud of it now. Prouder, maybe, and less capable. I was secretly rather excited at the thought of the gypsy girl who lured little boys off to an unspecified fate out there in the woods. Never did encounter her, though, more’s the pity.

Is it true that all such things, the dinosaurs, the woods, are part of what makes an adult, that’s to say, a fully grown human, to whatever degree of development, and that that’s their principal purpose? That the inquisitiveness, the naked wonder and the joy of children are functions of the formative years? I think someone told me something like that somewhere, sometime. I’m thinking about that red tyrannosaurus now (I called him The Tyrannosaurus). I don’t want my throat to be sealed.

The Church

Sadly it was the rather stupid Charlotte Church that instigated this evening's thought processes.
I want to talk a little about religion. I want to, but can't. I know literally nothing about it. Well, not literally. What worries me most though is that I'm joined by about 6,578,257,375 people. 6,578,257,375 know nothing about religion. On a side note I had this theory once, or more of a fantasy, that women had a huge secret, and its such a deep hidden secret that they can't ever tell a male, without destroying everything. So not even a lesbian could break the vow...not even riddled with drugs and frying in a pancake oils. I don't know what the secret would be, obviously. Probably something to do with machines... maybe the world is hollow and lined with little rubbery handles, so that when the menfolk go to sleep (after a hard night hunting amphibious birdlife?) they drop down specially crafted tunnels that they dug as part of their initiation. They slide down these hand crafted tunnels and drop into the hollow earth, wildly grasping for a handle as they plummet into the innner void. If they manage to catch hold they can swing around, so that from a distance away into the space and turning back their shapes make important concentric patterns. That would explain magnets. If they miss they just drop...although the problem is after they have dropped for say, a thousand or so miles they'll be approaching the 'core' of the empty space. If they dropped any further they'd actually be flying, if you get my drift. So obviously they come to an abrupt stop in the centre....where surely thousands of women from all around the world will be dropping to. Exactly the same point. At high velocity too... no doubt creating intense heat. A huge boiling fleshball of oestrogen, and er, hairstyles and screaming and mangles.
I forget my point.

What is it that makes me?

I'm not from Wearside. And I'm not Jack. Yet I am Wearside Jack. What is it that makes me?

Olives. I cannot think of them without the Arabic word coming to mind. With emphasis: I cannot. That is simply unique; and olives, therefore, are unique. Eating them, one [i.e. I] is aware of imbibing goodness. Yet surely imbibing and mastication are bedfellows only in the most tenuously Amazonian of senses? Think for a moment, and it becomes obvious: the olive is the purest distillation of the life force - of the élan vital - and he who consumes the olive will never die.

Returning to our primary question, it seems that I am Wearside Jack not because I am, but because I was both flustered and flumoxed when imposed upon to enter some sort of identifier to proceed towards this curious goal to which a curious stranger had compelled my being to strive. That is: what is is the very first thing that comes into one's mind. Namely, I am an ostrich. Think - but not - never - too much.

Think.

Toads

Toads are fanciers, herons take it too far...discuss.