Visual Art
Literature
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scrawli.
We met where someone had eons ago carved meet me here when your world falls apart into the grey, crumbling, concrete path separating the road from the park. Though I doubt she noticed the graffiti.
It was either dusk or dawn; I can’t remember which—the light was in a temporary stalemate with the darkness, and there was the faint promise or impression of stars, coming or going, led or shepherded by the moon looking as though it had been slightly erased from the deep, middling blue of the sky. There were no clouds.
I didn’t notice her coming until I heard the scuffing of her shoes. I was glad I could only hear one set of footsteps: she’d heeded my request. Turning, I felt in my pocket for the square of tightly folded paper, passed it over without a word, trying to converse through our eye contact. I went home without looking back, silent.
ii.
When school started back after the summer holidays, she sat next to me in Engli
InnocenceIt was a time of love, a time of hate, the era of justice and immorality, the season of both insanity and clarity of mind. Sound familiar, don't it? Me wife used to love Dickens. Read him to me all the time, she did. That Jane what's-her-face woman, too: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a criminal who committed a crime is in want of a good hanging. Ring a bell?
Yes, I like me literary allusions. I do, you know. Remind me of sweet Elaine. She was a messy death, but worth it. Oh boy, was she worth it. Crying and begging right up to the end. She had it coming to her, bet your arse she did, mate.
Why am I here anyway? I've already confessed. I'm a doomed son of a gun. Don't I get any last whatchamacallits? Can't I have a coldie, before I go up there and have me neck snapped back? Any beer will do – I drink 'em all, so long as it's not that light crap.
Answer me, goddammit! What the bloody hell am I doing here? Kill me already. Inject me with the needle or string me up like
Vodka on RocksEnclosed in darkness, my frigid
window pane, in cold morning fog
he sits, alone, I wish I could
kiss his doubts away, and wonder
'will he ever?', I'll never know.
/
I remember hands on me, he
used to tell me, 'you'll be okay',
and faded paper in my hand
is all I have for memory.
A full moon rises up ahead.
/
Oh how I wish he would return
his voice, his breath, his scent around
my glass of vodka, vodka on
rocks he bought me, you know I still
keep it. I don't like alcohol.
/
He always knew just how I felt
could coax me with a look, a word,
and I was his, yet he didn't say
anything. Just sat there and stared
fists clenched arms folded, over tea.
/
Older, older, I'm never old
enough, to see stained evening snow
even though it collects at my
feet and won't let go, no no no!
He wants me safe and protected.
/
It means a stroke of sleepless nights
thick protruding veins, hazy blur,
three beer cans later, on the floor.
Try to move on, nothing works but
bashing my head against the wall
/
'i love
BonedustYour hands are spider-clawed<da:thumb id="437131803"/>
and I take flight to flee your calcifying web.
An icebreaker, you barrel through these boundaries
the selfsame way you shatter me.
I fear your hands on mine
because your x-ray fingers know too much.
I can’t let you discover
that my putrefying bones
no longer stream out sunlight.
Arch-EnemiesMr Edwards doubted he’d be able to remember what Miss Smith looked like once she’d left the office. In fact, he doubted he could describe her now, with her sitting in front of him. She was average. Absolutely and perfectly average. Which was what gave it away to the professional eye. Patently an alter-ego.
Mr Edwards couldn’t believe his luck.
Arch-Enemies was… discreet. No website, not even a sign on the door. After all, it was a highly-specialised introductions agency and all suitable clients found the place through word of mouth. Business rivals made their first acquaintance here, bitter enmity spurring each side on to making more and more money. Songwriters and poets were introduced to highly unsuitable romantic partners, so that after a brief and distressing love affair everyone could go off and make art about how bloody awful their ex was.
This was the everyday, bread-and-butter stuff. But every so often the real deal came along.
“Miss
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