Wednesday 16 December 2009

Wabbits

a povel

prestmain

Their breath smells like must; dust makes me gag; I have to stand too close; her hair smells like chutney; a distinct smell of hammers; they rub against me; “Why don't you look at me when we make love”; imagining them all naked makes the smell of sweat seem cleaner; they smell like food; do I smell like toast?; he eats tea for every meal; he eats coffee; if we were naked this wouldn't be so awkward:

Something is vibrating my tree; I can seeeeee vibrations; my hands are dead, just let them typetypetypetype until they stop; stop dead; stop being dead; mostly stop dead a few times and then wander to youtube; men are better than toddlers are better than paedogeddon are better than onions are better than real people; I made an infinite, pardon me:

Say “excuse me”; will you excuse me?; they never excuse me, they just want a token to keep:

Passing out on buses because they rock me; “rock me” (to be said in an Austrian accent); please help me rock you; it would be so easy to sleep if you didn't have to worry about dropping things; my feet are sticky but I don't mind putting my bag on the floor? That goes on my lap; double standards:

One hour equals £5; does size factor into the equation?; 5/(1010 cubic inches) is not correct; do you factor in empty space covered by product?; what about electricity bills?; we should all play cards by any equation:

If they were all zombies this would be easier:

He says they were looking at us funny, all I saw were people; foxes see in black and white, maybe I do too; if I was a fox I would move to the country but not too far from a village, because I couldn't kill a pheasant, much less catch it; I saw a pheasant run away from me once, it looked like it fell out of a tree, only backwards:

When I walk into dark rooms alone I imagine there might be a body there and it will traumatise me and give me a phobia of walking into rooms alone; a neurosis isn't a phobia, no matter what people tell you; I am only occasionally scared of spiders; I need to talk to them, if we just ran in opposite directions this would be easier:

This could be easier:

Some days it's just hard to walk down the street and not kill someone; target permanent; the ability to cover everything is underestimated; everything includes yourself, people always forget that; I'm everything sometimes, when I walk down the street and sing to myself and the world, we're best friends in an abusive relationship; it's no-one's fault, we share the burden, but I swear he's seeing other people:

It would be easier if it was ok to take your duvet everywhere you went, then people wouldn't be able to find me:

Don't believe what they say, the earth is mostly just rock; my rock is billions of years old but I don't feel awed, I'm that old too and I can at least talk about it; my cat remembers being a tiger; sometimes I am a monkey again, and then I get hunted, but they are more scared of me than I am of them:

People are so polite when you kick them; being grumpy makes people like you; can I appreciate things while I have them please? The build up is so much better; I am in a constant state of missing something; people tell me I smell like hammers: that's a lie, I made that up, it's just a bit of legerdemain, some prestidigitation.

Tuesday 17 November 2009

The play

Well, the first readable/performable draft is finished. I'm not entirely sure it gets its point across clearly, but I am quietly cheery about the results. Considering this is the first time I have attempted to write a script, I'm quite pleased.

I have been told the "writing (Read: Conan's language) is too esoteric", however I'm thinking that's just a synonym for "the theatre students are dumb". I'm thinking I'll just ignore that and steam ahead; I like Conan hamming it up and being ludicrously verbose.

Anyway, here it finally is. Draft 3, The Draft That People Could Read. Part I. Take 2.

(You may have to click it on the right, it's too big and badly formatted to fit on this page. Yea, I suck at converting Word docs into HTML)

In A Wicked Age






Characters: (they are quite
noticeably of identical build)







ROBERT HOWARD: a tall, well
built 30 year old Texan author.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA: a tall,
well built 30 year old fictional character with long black hair and
blue eyes.











The two men are sitting. They
start facing away from each other. ROBERT HOWARD is dressed in black
jeans and black flannel shirt, while CONAN OF AQUILONIA is wearing a
chain shirt and black jeans. They stand in a corn field, almost ready
for harvesting. It goes on forever, there are no signs of humanity.







ROBERT HOWARD



I took mother out for a drive
today.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Across the fields.







ROBERT HOWARD



Across the fields, yea. She
needed the air. Clears her chest up fine, lets her breathe for a
while. She needs the air.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Her cough gets worse every day.







There is a long pause. The two
men are not awkward about it.







ROBERT HOWARD



There's blood now.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



There has always been blood.







Another pause, shorter this
time.







ROBERT HOWARD



True.







Another pause. As long as the
last.











ROBERT HOWARD



I'm weak, you know.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA does not
react.







ROBERT HOWARD



I mean... I mean I'm strong an'
all. I could lift you clean over my head if y'asked. Let me show you.







ROBERT HOWARD stands and makes
a move towards CONAN OF AQUILONIA with his arms out as if to pick him
up. CONAN OF AQUILONIA stops him with a stern look, stands quickly,
then speaks.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Do you deem yourself strong,
because you are able to twist the heads off civilized folk, poor
weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a
wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong. I did that
before I was a man.







Silence. ROBERT HOWARD sits.







ROBERT HOWARD



I wish I could take a break now
and go boxing. I wish I had a beer. I wish I had time. I have to work
twice as hard to earn half as much, what with looking after mother
taking up my time.







I lay awake at night listening to
her. Holding my breath to hear the wheezes and the chokes; they're
killing her while telling me she's still alive.







I need to rest, to be alone.







ROBERT HOWARD stares at the
floor and speaks in an imitation of the townsfolk who talk about him.







What kind of young man
would go around mumbling to himself? Punching an imaginary enemy?
What kind of young man chooses to write for a living? That ain’t
no living. Why, he’s just leeching off poor Isaac Howard, that
nice doctor. And you know what he spends all his time writing about?
Ghosts and warriors and harlots. All just sex and violence. He
should be ashamed of himself. I heard he carries a pistol in his car.
And he sleepwalks at night!”







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Civilized men are more
discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite
without having their skulls split, as a general thing.







ROBERT HOWARD stops staring at
the floor.







ROBERT HOWARD



I caught them following me last
week.







I was picking up some of mother's
well-wishers and noticed a movement in the fields. Harvesting season
is almost on so the fields were high but my eyes... my eyes are
sharp; I saw the rustling, the bending stalks.







They were watching again.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



So you thought.







ROBERT HOWARD



So I knew.







Long pause.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



What happened there?







ROBERT HOWARD draws a .380
Colt and stands.







ROBERT HOWARD



I took out my Colt and shot off a
few rounds into the field by way of a warning.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA nods
slowly, looking thoughtful.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



You see devils where there are
none.







ROBERT HOWARD



I'm not going out of my way
looking for devils, but I wouldn't step out of my path to let one go
by.







Long silence.







ROBERT HOWARD



One has hold of mother. She has
done nothing but help others her whole life, and she suffers like a
dog. The devil is on her back laughing at me, using her as a shield.
It wants me, it's always wanted me. It put me in the wrong age and
watched as it fell apart.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA looks
somewhat disinterested throughout.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Give me a clean sword and a clean
foe to flesh it in.







ROBERT HOWARD



(Sullenly)



It's a liberty we rarely enjoy.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



For which I pity your civilised
age.







ROBERT HOWARD



(ROBERT HOWARD turns on CONAN
OF AQUILONIA somewhat aggressively during this. Gesticulating with
his gun)



My age? At least my age is real!
Yours is all illusion. No, delusion! Just a wish! Just...







CONAN OF AQUILONIA turns on
ROBERT HOWARD and interrupts.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



I know not, nor do I care. Let me
live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat,
stinging wine on my palate and the hot embrace of white arms, and I
am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over
questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion,
then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real
to me. I live, I love, I burn with life, and am content.







An angry silence. ROBERT
HOWARD sits.







ROBERT HOWARD



(With rising desperation)



She's dying you know. She's all I
have left. Do you know how that feels? To be alone? To be helpless?







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



When I cannot stand alone, it
will be time to die.







ROBERT HOWARD looks at CONAN
OF AQUILONIA for a long while, as if thinking, then leaves, CONAN OF
AQUILONIA looks on after him.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



All fled, all done, so lift me on
the pyre;



The feast is over, and the lamps
expire.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA sits down.























Tuesday 27 October 2009

A play

A play will be forthcoming, as soon as I get a first draft done. I think I need the fear of people actually looking at it to finish it.

More dreams

I was at an art show. I knew this much.

I was bored, or didn't like it and had wandered off to the back room where they kept all the books. I was thumbing through them and found a book called something like "The Necrovisions of...", I couldn't remember the author. I looked through it, it was an art book full of glossy pages full of black and white and red photos, mostly of bits of anonymous lumps of meat hanging on lines, siting on the floor looking rather sad. Then I got to a picture of a mans face, he was pure white skinned and had chewed away his lips. They hung down in taters.

I hated this. It was the last straw and I decided to leave, I didn't want to be there anyway.

The problem was, I had to go through the show room to get out. I went in and people were seated on the a kind of baseball layout seating, barely a scaffold. They were waiting and watching the other side of the room where it had been covered in plastic sheeting with a plastic curtain in a kind of mockery of the theatre. They wouldn't let me leave because I had paid for the show so I might as well stay and get my money's worth.

The artists came out. He was a decadently fat man (from good living, not laziness) and was wearing a golden dressing gown. He was powdered up like Elizabeth I, all pure white. There was another man with him, he was dressed like a mortician, black rubber apron and gloves, white overalls, and a mask that hid all of his face; you couldn't see his skin.

The artist took off his robe and he was naked, entirely white. He laid on the nearby table and the other man took out a delicatessens' meat shaving thing and started shaving him down, spraying blood everywhere (it was most up his white body). He moaned in agony and ecstasy.

The show ended with him eviscerated up to his ribs, splayed everywhere. He moaned quietly and the audience clapped.

Tuesday 30 June 2009

Fevered notes

Was a pretty although disturbing (like an adult baby) face sitting attop a black scaled shape shifting thing. Although the shape shifter took the form of a tall hulking humanoid with skin like an anaconda's. His fists were white. Tney loved each other (the head was sometimes considered the woman, although genderless and reffered to as a "he". They loved each other unconditionally, although there was no physical aspect to it as far as I can tell). They were helping their friends get somewhere (getting somewhere was always a chore, this is post apocalyptica. At one point they slipped through Disneyland at night, dodging the shotgun wielding Disney cultists).

This pair (possibly the whole group) was being chassed by a man. I'm unsure who he is, but he's definately part of "The Law" as it stands. Not a mere bounty hunter or something, he had moral justification for what he was doing. Think the Big Sleep, but more of a sociopath. He would do anything to get them. "For the greater good" etc.

For some reason the shape shifter stays behind as the others go on. He doesn't doubt them, he knows they wil succeed even, he just stays. The face doesn't think this is a good idea (the face is a reasonable thing, moderate, keeps him safe, acts as another pair of eyes). The body rejects the head. Eventually (after some kind of conflict) giving it the big scaled body and pushing him away, breaking his heart (possible setting fire to the body (not sure), the face runs around in pain for this turn around). The body becomes a full person (he didn't need him he says/shows him) and puts him in a bath tub full of hooked tentacles (I have no idea) which strip aways the body, down to the bare neccecities to keep the head alive (maybe only mobile, I'm not sure). Now it is emaciated, ribs (literally) show, and his hands are over-sized crab claws on weedy arms.

The face is tortured. The ohysical torture is not so bad, the body is not so subtle, more beatings and semi-drownings in the tub. It is the emotional aspect that hurts. The body becomes some kind of gang boss. This is only important in showing his self-sufficiancy, the gang is irrelivant.

The detective finds them, but I don't think he recognises the body. He would suspect that he would change, but not that he would hold his head captive and torture it. He invites the detective to dinner, he brings his pretty wife.

The face is brought along, and humiliated. Innitially he is full of mad hatred for the detective, shouting through teary eyes at him (tears mainly of rage, partially of what he has lost). The body hurts him (physically, somehow) and makes him apologise. He is casually abused by them through the meal and has to say he enjoys it, answering the detectives questions in a submissive answer. The face is given a fatty, raw tongue to eat, some comment is made on it, he picks at it, eating the meat (he is so hungry, but he is humiliated by this). He wishes he had told the body he loved him (I think he loved him too much to let the detective know who he was. The body didn't even think the face would let out the truth, unconciously trusting their bond).

During this dinner something happens. The detective says something, his wife agrees and the body decides to go on after the others, asking the face if he should (unconscious relyiance on habit? he still maintains a distance, although a hint of sincerity comes through). He knows the others have found what they were looking for and he wants to go find them. The detective seems to fade out.

They leave and it becomes irrelevant. The face can't love the body again, but he goes through the motions.

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Pic-ar-ture

The colours are my sword

I'm covered in blood
I'm covered in seman
I'm covered in teeth
I'm covered in salt
I'm covered in gold
I'm covered in skulls
I'm covered in silk
I'm covered in colour

I want to write this novel

Once bitten twice bitten

Chronochloric mastibules clamouring for attention
grabbling up your trunk to the brentiferous bounteous branches

Bite them and they retreat back down away from you, watching from a safe distance so as not to upset you, so as not to make you think that they take it personally

They do

Break open a spellonic slice and they dance their dance again

(Cheap little whores)

Friday 1 May 2009

I am you are we will

A broken melon on the pillow with it's pink insides only held in by gravity and careful handling
(not a drop has been spilt, but we have tasted it and it's good melon)

A pink ball of gum not used to being out of the wrapper looking strange there on the bed
(you say you like it like that and I believe you through my protests)

A house full of friends without a drop of blood between them
(oh how they laugh at the spectacle)

A road that looks too safe and too straight
(there are no trolls here)

A bucket of kittens
(each one a promise)

Monday 20 April 2009

We Die Soon (v.2)

We die soon.
With mankind in general if we could

Effects enchanted me vastly

Depth of any considerable
insistence

East Longitude 175o
seemed to be a greater task than had been expected

Of two sorts:
One or two cases of cleanly severed bone.
No wonder he ran back to the camp shouting

Weed was seen

Earthquake tremor the night before
Do not often reproduce
it

Excited and disturbed
survivor

Out of the earth, the black spirits of earth
or subtlety could elicit more in this direction

No longer alive, they would never really die

Wholly into the charge
echoed above even the hill noises and the dogs barking on the night

Devil’s hop yard
is sacrificed at the proper time to certain heathen gods

Element of furtiveness in the clouded brain which subtly transformed him from an object to a subject of fear

Slept poorly.
On he felt dimly that something ought to be done

Others were ahead of him,
not of tri-dimensional earth

We die soon

Thursday 12 March 2009

Fluff

Pick up
Put down
Carry along
Treasure it
Holding it in your pocket
Stroke it when you're down
Linty memories
Taste the linty memories
Roll the linty memories up in a ball

Hold it when you need to remind yourself
Divine the linty ball like a gypsy
Cross your palm with fluff
And you will know your future

Fluff never knows anything
But is always optimistic

What does fluff know?
It has no bones
To break

Friday 6 March 2009

tragedy/comedy

tragic times take tragic people to fix them
in place they sit gyrating slowly
to the rhythm of me i dance
slowly downward we go
together at the last
train home
ward bound
in bandages dripping
from my body falling away
go the tragedies in jellified dollops
and make haste to greyer pastures elsewhere

Wednesday 4 March 2009

A steady living

Savvy

Trumpets alert me
brass and
cold blown
from pursed lips
shrivelled
like an old woman's anus
blowing evil down the tube

Carried well on the wind you can hear them from so far away
smell them from so far away
listen to their alarms
their foetid alarms signalling disaster so you might as well give up and go home

Regal and authoritative
brass band salvation army knows what's what
who's who
who wants what
no one wants you

Tuesday 3 March 2009

kiteing you

grab a kite by its tail and follow it until it goes so high you cannot let go without breaking your back and become a paralysed ball of chewed gum left on the floor tough and mangy and bitter and old and alone until you get swept up by the cleaning staff and dumped in the bin only able to just peek the kite as it flies away
ribbons trailing behind
remember the feeling of rope burn between your hands as you hold on
but never come to that point because you hold on tight and make sure to open your eyes even if its windy and makes you sore even if it is bumpy and you keep losing grip with one hand and then another and readjusting and finding how to support yourself without ripping free
(when you lose one hand let it rest for a while and wave loose in the wind)

sugarplum

you can re-plaster but it won't help much
the damage is done
and i am
am here
and
stuck
and stuck
like a fly in
honey in honey and
enjoying the death
caramelised
hard-
-boiled
sweeeeeets

you can
know in your

bed that

i am with you, always
not ten inches away
at all times
indelible

Popppp

Pop!

Taken in absurdity
life is all about nudity

And the intervals in between
feel all the more obscene

for their waiting

and their baiting
and their stupid masturbating
of the head that sits upon your neck
and talks and talk and talks and talks and
talks a little more in it's special quiet language

until
it pops

Monday 23 February 2009

It's puuuuurdy

Something a tad strange - Autobiographical

Once upon a time there was a six year-old boy painting a picture in a violent assortment of primary blue and nasty orange, much like his overall. The overall was of the sort that always stank of cleaning fluid and organic, sticky paint (god, he hated sticky paint). At some point in the past someone had thought “Hey, you know what? Kids are exciting and active, why not make an apron to reflect that?” and then immediately went and destroyed a coast guard’s lifeboat. It’s exciting, active AND tastefully coloured. Or so the logic goes. Anyway, this kid, henceforth referred to as “child”, was/is me, seventeen years ago. Welcome to the introduction, now wipe your feet and get out.

That was my first memory. At least I think it was. It may not have been. The chronology is all muddled. Maybe that child gained self-awareness right there in front of that board, staring at the layers of navy blue on vomitising orange (“it’s exciting!”) shooting out in all directions. Possibly the particular geometric arrangement of stripes triggered an aesthetic pleasure never before experienced and the child’s mind thought to itself “Aha, the fractal ripples of my brush strokes are a joy to behold, quite aptly matching the lurid nature of my pallet”, and then immediately shared it with the rest of his dormant mind. This, for better or for worse, has lead to this moment of reflection, of autobiographical, self-effacing, masturbatory wankery.

But I digress. What happened to this painting, this wonder of consciousness-granting magic, is a mystery. Maybe it was whisked away by powers unknown to the like of myself to be used upon small babies to grant them premature self-knowledge and thus ushering in a new age of enlightenment, us not aware of this because these vast intellects are only now maturing to the point of adulthood, ready to shake the world to its dark roots whether we are prepared for the Ragnarok-and-roll or not! Or possibly it is still in my loft; after all I haven’t been up there in some time. Who knows? Not I.

Monday 2 February 2009

Fitting

The man mountain

Tomorrow you will pretend you are dead
and all your skin is gone
it has left
you

all
you have
now is the flesh underneath and
it hurts
so much
that you cry
but you
can’t
cry

your eyes are full of sand and
it pours out around your head in sharp dunes
and they wash over your face as
you cry and cry these empty deserts
until you can’t cry any more but it is too late
and you are trapped under the sand (there is sunshine
outside, there is sunshine) and it bakes you
bakes you into a chrysalistic mountain range





the sand is a perfect fit
it slides into the grooves of your
muscles and your
ears and your
tongue

and you
rise

from your mountain
of dry tears

and you are more rock
than man

as you emerge from the
falling foothills

hardened against the wind
forever and solid
man

It's been too long

Sunday 1 February 2009

Passion 101

There needs to be less chill in my work.

Gotta warm myself up with some passion. Good thing I have some assistance really.

More experiments are forthcoming.

Old story new feet

Walking in the new land in old footprints in old footprints
alone

or

together
it's all the same

and step in the holes that come at regular intervals
and never see the footprints

they are so old that they're part of the scenery now

Step in down to the shin, bruise yourself on the way out
Trip on an old metaphor and bleed under the skin

always tripping and wandering
sometimes
in a forwardly direction
sometimes
not



You always come back
They always do

because


because you have nowhere else to go and the way back is dark

the way forwards is dark
but you don't know where it ends



follow those holes and get an ending or bust
you haven't got anywhere else to go

on this worn out path

this escalator of the gods

at the top of the metaphor is a reason, where everyone is shiny and you have lovely teeth

Friday 30 January 2009

Itzl, the man

Breaking away from the group, Itzl rode out. Head low to the horse as he cut against the wind, carried by a Golden Arrow towards the herd. Holding on with the lightest of touches, the most subtle of movements he stood in his saddle, eyes closed against the fierce air. All he could feel was the rush of wind and the rhythmic, practised pulsing of his mount beneath him, something more comforting than his mother’s voice, more familiar than his own heartbeat; these moments were all he lived for, all he was bred for. The pain of releasing the moment dragged his spirit low as he chocked back the feeling; it was necessary to let go of the Passion that drove him or else he might never come out again. He would take the first kill today and claim the Redmans share, as was his right, but it was the chase that fuelled him.

Pickles

Inspiration comes thick and fast and I don't know what to do with it. I don't feel able to do it justice.

What a pickle

154

And so, my intellectual fool
I see you hiding behind
the table
cloth clutched in your dirty hand thinking no-one will see the
finger prints
all over
the serving trays
they are clean
CLEAN

bite the fingers till they bleed
but NOT on the rug
but NOT on the chair either
bite them quietly
bite them with your yellow tooth
bite them any way you please
bite them quietly

Don’t look at me with those big eyes
They sicken me

Tuesday 27 January 2009

Experimenting on trains

Trains of thought, that is. Ah, the small amount of amusement I gained from that was totally worth it.

Anyway, the flavour of the month is: working quickly and with as little thought as possible. The last two poems are examples of this work. I feel reasonably happy about them, especially because owls have made a return (see The Etched City).

Monday 26 January 2009

M

chew chew chew
it spits it at us
chew
in pieces
chew chew chew
spit it in my face
like you don't like it

clean it off
with my tie
i
don't need it anymore

Walk on, Mr. Life-guy

Person walks
person carries
and
lashes
and
operates on a daily basis like a

dear friend(s)
sympathetic friend(s)
sincerely
friend
s

Plaguebearer

Temples hump
on the cloud
past a vain
cramp

of bacon it can be said
the people come
and

speak
of the things that plague them in their waking hours like
owls
owls
owls
standing on the fence
the rotten fence

Thursday 22 January 2009

Writing

The less you talk about it, the better.

If you make promises or state an opinion one day you will quickly become a hypocrite the next, so it is best to be evasive and mysterious.

Mystery, as anyone who has watched Lost will be able to tell you, keeps people going. Even if (much like lost) it's just to stall for time and make people think you're deep. And I'm deep, deep like a hole.

Damn straight (or not, as the case may be).

Just do it

tapered
event to a point of
focus focus focus f o c u s
when it tastes less like lime and more like salt
(which is better?)
.....
some like
it
try it
spit it out
don't let anyone see you do it
.
.
.
do
.
it

Wednesday 21 January 2009

Let's show them what we're made of

Water 35 litres
Carbon 20kg
Ammonia 4 litres
Lime 1.5kg
Phosphorus 800g
Salt 250g
Saltpetre 100g
Sulphur 80g
Fluorine 7.5g
Iron 5g
Silicon 3g
Trace amounts of 15 other elements

Loot loot loot

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Asoka of the Mountain, River and Rain

Mountain

“Such days are rare”, Asoka says to no one in particular, for he has not seen anyone in some time. Not since the road had become rocky and broken in the shadow of the mountain, not since the jungle had come to greet the rough path lain by the detritus from the mountain. “Such days as these are rich and free yet numbered and counted. More’s the pity”.

Pebbles fall.

“You agree Old Mountain, you agree and gift me with yourself”, he bends down and looks at the stones. First squinting, and then twisting his head from one side to another allowing his copper hair to fall about his face, his eyes widen and he gently plucks one between his thumb and finger and holds it in his hand.
Asoka continues along his way, skipping among the pebbles, taking joy in the sound they make against each other in his passing. His journey is only interrupted by the vines crossing his path to climb up the mountain and into the clouds.

“Why, you are assailed brother”.

I AM INDEED. MY FACE HAS A BEARD OF GREEN THAT REACHES AND GRINDS TOWARDS MY HEART. ONE DAY I WILL BE NAUGHT BUT THE PEBBLES YOU DANCE UPON.

“We shall see, but while the pebbles fall I will dance to their sound”, as if to exclaim his point Asoka spins on the spot and the pebbles growl beneath him.

I SPELL MY OWN DEATH IN EACH PASSING MOMENT.

“Don’t we all, Old Mountain, don’t we all”, says Asoka absently, taken up in staring between his feet at a dark pebble with a hole in its centre, “Just hope that your life spells something worth reading”.

A stone drops from his hand, and he dances for a time longer.




River

A man once sat by a stream. The stream’s name is unimportant, its source and destination are irrelevant; it understands that it will arrive somewhere someday. All that is important is that a man once sat by it, his long brazen hair let to sit upon his green silk shoulders, content to watch the fishes that swam by in its slow waters.

A traveller happened by, his tired donkey heavy with goods destined for foreign markets and foreign money. Before you could see the traveller you could hear the thwack- thwack of the drivers stick upon the creatures hind, pushing it toward the stream.

“Lo there” said the traveller, waving his stick in the air.

The man in the green silk didn’t look up from his river, and simply nodded his head. He did not break his gaze from the river even when the trader put his donkey to water, gently licking at the surface and talking to the fishes.

“These beasts are a stubborn lot. The harder you hit them the slower they go, it seems. Lazy and stupid is their lot in life” he said, with an eagerness in his face; he had been travelling long and not seen a soul. Again, the man with the coils of copper hair nodded slowly, not willing to be distracted from his fish. Eventually the hawker, realising how tired he was, sat beside the man on the grassy river bank, pulling his knees up to his chest.

“They are happy that they have someone to talk too”, the sound shocked the traveller, for it had come from his silent companion. Looking over to him he could not see any change in the man as he continued watching the water.

Angry at having been ignored the man snapped “How can you decide they are happy? You are not a fish!”

The merchant started as the watcher turned and looked at him, his smile was gone and he looked confused, “And you are not me, so how can you say that I do not know how a fish feels?”

With that the hawker pulled his donkey from the water side and carried on, not looking back. The donkey had no time to say good bye.




Rain

On a dark night, no light but from the storm, the Bandit King waits to take what he can get from those he can find on this muddy road.

He waits by a tree, watching the road. Crash he sees a figure. Crash it comes closer. He readies himself.

Crash. “Give me your possessions! Or I will kill you where you stand!”

Crash. “If that I could”, says the wet man in the green robe “But shamefully I have nothing to give”

“Then give me the clothes on your back, they shall sell some for some”, came the darkness.

“If that I could”, it answers, “But this robe must stay with me a while more”
Crash. He is enraged! Crash. He is incensed!

“Do you know who I am? Do you know what I could do?”

The man shakes his head.

“Do you realise”, said the King, “I could run you through without batting an eye!”

“Do you realise”, said the green man, “I could be run through without batting an eye?”

And so the green robed man carried on his way, leaving the King and his storm.