Alphonse (Edited)

Grey sky, grey faces huddling under hats and cloaks, shuffling by a metallic sea. Cold fingers pinch their skin and mock their discomfort. A backdrop of seagulls circling as the pier gets eaten up by the grey fog that has descended and snatched the blue sky.

A misunderstood dream of an unanswered phonecall leads me to contact a stranger. This leads me to a long path in the forest under a disinterested silver moon. A wrinkled old Sibyl cackles like a mental patient sitting on a beach. She dances through the dark forest playing on the pipe.

A naked black boy smiles at me for underneath a tree smoking hash. His cock bulges from underneath his tight shorts. I waken up with a hard-on and piercing eyes.

Alphonse waves up at me through the window. He asks if I want to go to meditation. We float along the winding cobbled streets, passing a fat woman in a pink tracksuit. A toothless old man with a long beard sways from side to side in front of his origami swans. I catch his eyes alighting on mine but then he gets swallowed up by the darkness.

An old woman with white hair in a bun and pink lipstick asks me if, perchance, I have seen her husband. She is wearing lime green tracksuit bottoms.

Alphonse and I venture down an alleyway smelling of piss. It is suddenly dark and the moon reflects off his mask. His eyes are grey and he unzips his trousers.

A Buddhist monk appears in the alleyway, chanting a Lady GaGa song. He is in a deep meditative trance. The old woman who asked if I had seen her husband offers me a reiki session.

The rain runs down the street. It is a cold winter's evening. The sky is bursting with stars but all I can see are the city lights. I am in the countryside walking along an empty road. I am surrounded by fields, stars and white moonlight. A barn owl glides silently across my path. I follow it until it disappears.

I am in a field smoking hash with a boy with black hair. He turns into the old woman in the green tracksuit bottoms. She asks if I am ready for my Reiki session yet. I tell her I will let her know once I go out to the balcony and have a cigarette.

I eat the cigarette. The boy appears and we drink the thick, noxious liquid. When I open my eyes he has turned into an old man with sores. He asks if I would like a massage. I lie down on the bed.

I am afraid of masturbating in front of the cat.

Jissom

Hark now hear, the angels sing.
Heavy eyelids sweating in the musty darkness of a cold may evening. Some old woman on the TV belting out an aimless tune whilst music swirls and dances in the background.

Close up. Faces looking enraptured. We are free to be free. Except on TV's repetitive bland cycle of filtered excrement. News. Stern looking reporters outside Westminster - Who is going to be the next in charge? Who cares? The illusion transfigures to reality and tiredness takes over.
It sits heavily like sweetened insence while disembodied seagulls laugh from some distant pier.

The drag queen cow girl in the pink frills prays to the lord Jesus while singing about ticking her box and Capitalism. We dance and line dance in the tent until the faces fade. W. in Thailand with a sperm donor while A. sits in the community garden playing piano to commemorate the Holocaust. Beer and cookies paint the night awash with colour while the cat holds out his paw, pointing.

A t-shirted evening looking up at the candles and listening to the waves that lap and clap while digeridoo music hangs in the air. He bends over and gets fucked by army boy, who then turns into a skeleton in an oil drenched Iraqui battlefield. Stray cats, driven wild by rabies, lap up blood, brain and jissom while raising their paws and dancing around in the midday sunshine. A violet sun sets over a yellow field in a green sky.

G sits on the end of the phone talking to ghosts in the bright winter sunshine. N sits watching TV in a faraway room under the sea. Black airplanes explode over an ashy sky, ejaculating sticky white rain over the cornfields.

The old woman laughs from behind her fading photograph in a drawer in a cum-stained bedroom. The woman in the veil sits on the pebbled beach watching seagulls circling in a stark blue sky which doesn't exist. Black cocks crow while a disgraced priest dances with an old gypsy over hot coals.

Maybe It's Close

Green chair overlooking the Pavillion. White trainers are too bright. Cappacino and cakes. White haired shapes sit on deckchairs. Snippets of conversation catch my ear through the silence. Middle aged man in a black shirt gazing ponderously at TV guide. Voluptuous black lady. Cappucino, sugar, breasts. Two Indian ladies glowing sapphire. Black sunglasses. Small white trainers tapping feet. "I like his brain. He's a drug counsellor". Ugly pigeons hover. "It's hard work". Red faced bald man in white shirt sitting mysteriously behind long black hair lurks his companion. She is not as enamoured as he. Unhappy fat man in a maroon jacket gazing inside himself. Frowning. "Not that far, just a fifteen to ten minute walk". Music starts playing somewhere in the distance. Recovering cancer patient eats her cake. "I've only ever been there once". Child sits on mother's lap playing with instrument. What is she seeing? Music adds poignancy to an otherwise uninteresting scene. Old lady, red lipstick sits down, glad of the rest. Obese man with a stick hobbles past. The sun tries to break through the clouds. Music, pigeons and people all blur into one image. Groovy jazz tune gets people's feet tapping slightly. Whistling can be heard over the clattering of dishes. "Because I'm not daft. I was like ok. Yes thankyou. Maybe it's close".

Liberation

That Friday night sensation of pleasantness. The ability to go to bed late in the knowledge that tomorrow is Saturday, and that bed can be stayed in without fear, or worry. My eyes are tired but I must continue.

Lying on the pebbly beach with my eyes closed I felt the sun on my skin and the wind flapping around me like a spirit. Pear cider, David Icke, lizards, consciousness, and the sound of the waves crashing in and crashing out.

The carousel playing the creepy music while invisible children rode round and round. Stumbling into an eerie dark room with A. Penny arcades and age old dolls smiling out through the darkness. A. put in the twenty pence but nothing happened.

Walking along the seafront battling the breeze and squinting in the sunlight. The ghost train was a waste of money. The colourful sheds shining in the evening sunshine as people jogged past with their dogs. White kites and seagulls floated out at sea while a solitary figure read a book on the pebbles.

The Indian buffet was spicy and aromatic and the waiter was morose. J asked if I was ok twice. I must have made her feel uneasy eating in silence and watching the people float past the window.

Then came the luminous karaoke. Japanese tourists in pink wigs stood outside, cameras flashing. Inside we drunk Pimms and sang to a screen. Well A and J sung, I just kind of shouted and tried to be dramatic. Time sped by song by song until it was time to leave. A didn't get my Placebo voice.

Outside Brighton on a Friday night in Summer. The air was mild and the smell of plants made the city seem exotic. Walking past the drunks, homosexuals and hen parties to the train.

Walking back was peaceful and the knowledge that I was going home to a quiet house, mint tea and well stocked book case was quite inspiring.

The last time darting out light in our post-orgasmic after glow where the colours of the city had been turned up in intensity so everything was floating, in a mixture of blue, yellow and silver. The sun shone down on a Sunday morning in Summertime.

But now the lights were turned low and the mild night air smelt of expectation floating like smoke through the alleyways. Walking past the portaloos and deserted roads came N and her boyfriend, like characters in a novel, with buckets of KFC and wine. Small talk and a friendly goodbye.

A and I walked a bit further and then we hugged goodbye. Too much intensity is a bore.

A fat girl and her scrawny friend smoking outside the station toilets asked where they could find a cash machine and if I was Irish. They then began dancing and clapping their hands as the corpse of a train driver asked for our tickets.

He then burst into flames while a clown walked past carrying a suitcase. His hair was green and his nose was red and tears were dripping down his face.

Legion

Lying in a flower bed. Open eyes. Clouds drifting across blue like smoke. Distant chanting. Dense forest. Shadows lurk on the wall. The air is cold against my skin. Clods of breath float, hover, and disappear.
Now I am in a graveyard in the middle of Brighton. I am with an old man who reminds me of someone I am yet to meet. White spectres of hypnotized seagulls glide from star to star.

A child with severe learning difficulties jumps out suddenly from behind a tombstone. He runs at me and grabs my arm. His face peers into mine and he laughs. His white eyes shine on me like moonlight. He holds on tighter, throws his head back and laughs hysterically into the night air, cutting through it like scissors on a raincoat.

I look for the old man, but he has disappeared.

A room in a church. Children with learning difficulties sit around a table. Sunlight is dispersed through the stained glass windows and illuminates their faces. They are painting elephants and listening to Mozart.

A hooded monk stands on the pulpit.
"My name is Legion, because there are many of us." They do not seem to hear him. Maybe his is not there at all.

A spotty child with long, greasy hair covers his ears and lets out a high pitched screech. The stained glass windows shatter and I see two white seagulls gliding through a black sky.

The church disappears. The children turn into suited politicians. They are arguing about the old woman in the black dress standing in front of the mirror.
"I woke up and there she was, just standing there, watching herself"
"What about the cats?" asks the leader of the opposition.
"We exist inside their heads" comes the reply.

The leader of the opposition stands up on the table and starts singing a David Bowie song. The other politicians cheer and start dancing and clapping their hands.

A child with Down's Syndrome asks to be taken outside. He wants to pet the cats.

A priest appears with a bell, book and candle. "I am here for the exorcism" he says.

A child with learning difficulties runs past laughing and clapping his hands.

"Anne, can you give me a hand here?", says the priest.
Anne puts out her cigarette and gets out the measuring tape.

The Merry-Go-Round

A bright June evening. A slight wind blows along the pebbled beach, mixing with the warmth. My hands have a soft, smooth film on them from holding the pebbles.

Two Chinese girls laugh and throw stones.

The merry-go-round patters out its repetitive tune as footsteps crunch into the distance.

The sky is clear and bright. The sun hangs supsended like a God, presiding over the scene.

The calm water sparkles on the horizon like an image from a photograph.

The burnt out pier reminds me of something from a dream.

Seagulls glide on the wind as people paddle on rafts in the sea.

The merry-go-round music has stopped, leaving the sound of traffic and children.
Then it starts up again, louder than before.

I want to grasp the image of this mid-June evening and store it forever like a painting. But the more I try to grasp it, the more it recedes - the merry-go-round, the laughter, the children, the crunching of pebbles, the blue sky, the white sun, the burnt out pier, the seagulls. All are just concepts. And writing them down is like keeping a simulacra of a simulacra.

I wonder is the sound of the merry-go-round inside or outside? The merry dance. Round and round we spin.

Stern Victorians in suits and petticoats swirling round and round in a ballroom on a pier that has since burnt out into an image.

Round and round we go. Laughter, children, warm evenings on Brighton seafront. What's the use of resisting? It keeps going round and round in circles. This same June evening has happened before, thousands of times. And it will continue, thousands of times into the future.

And we can either resist or dance. Dance to the tune of an invisible piper on a burnt out pier, surrounded by Victorian men and women and children. Captured forever on a black and white photo hanging up in a dying man's kitchen.

The music comes out of the picture and covers up the room. A stern Victorian gentleman wakens up from a dream about an old man's kitchen, puts on his suit and monacle and gets driven by a horse and carriage down to the pier.

Coming into the red carpeted ballroom he is welcomed by the band playing a tune which reminds him of a merry-go-round from his childhood.

A child gets off the ride, laughing, and runs to its mother.

The beach is full of people on a sunny evening in June, one of whom sits beside a multi-coloured bag and used coffee cup, writing rubbish in a black book. The merry-go-round music is driving him mad so he decides to leave.

Against My Will

Sitting on the train with Dan I hear a man crying. He is wearing a tuxedo, a red bow tie, and a top hat. He has bushy grey eyebrows and purple eyes. A little girl pokes his head and laughs. The landscape flies past like gold.

Flies float around a tent under a blue sky. The heat is sticky and smelly. A couple sit in a cafe holding hands and gazing into eachother's eyes, while a man gently strums a guitar and swallows hop around the ground, eating crumbs.

The bar maid is a slut, but a very pretty one. She is a buxom blonde with lavish curls and a heaving bosom. When she laughs she snorts like a pig. She fiddles with her skirt which sits uneasily on her leg.

Her husband is a fat bald man with a red face. He looks like a disenfranchised monkey. There are huge wet patches under his arms.

A pigeon has got in and they are trying to shoo it out with a broomstick.

Outside a man sits on a stone wall gazing out into the ocean. The sun hangs like an orange lantern surrounded by smoke. The man is old and wears a farmer's cap. He has a large wart on his left ankle.

He is chatting to an impassive seagull about his wife and how she died. He doesn't realise that she is standing beside him in a pink speckled dress. Little boats bob on the horizon and vultures circle round like mosquitoes.

A corpse with a large nose sits at a grand piano. His spindly hands flash across the keys like ghosts released from hell. They spiral out and circle the room before dispersing like a dream.

A bang comes from upstairs. It is a child playing with dolls with red eyes. She makes them dance on flames and jump into wheelbarrows. Two cats appear from nowhere.

The child is now and adult who has just woken up from a nightmare. She wobbles down the stairs, disorientated and terrific. The silhouette of the cat sits imoveable and silent on the wall like a demon from hell. Its green eyes flicker under the stars.

The woman screams in terror

"TRACEY!" Tracey comes running down the stairs in her pink nightdress, her eyes dilated like chocolate drops.

"But why?" asks the boy, broken-hearted. He is sitting in the grass in front of city hall. His lover looks at him silently and turns away, becoming another stranger in the crowd.

The barn was white and clear in the morning sunlight. The roof was shining like fire. A gate creaked back and forth as a light breeze blew along the walkway.

A woman in a fur hat was skipping along merrily as her dog, a little dauchaund, bit at people's feet. The bedcloathes sprung up against my will.