Feroglobin

-Yeah basically a claw scooped me into a situation where I sat watching parcels of time pass unfilled by events.
-Thick disbelief oozes out of our ears.
-And I was supposed to review the parcels but I couldn't really tell one from the other.
-Terrific suspicion billows from our head-holes.
-So I just made some stuff up and gave it to the claw when it came round. And then it stopped coming round so I left.
-And you haven't seen it since, we'll venture?
-I've been avoiding it.
-You can't avoid what doesn't exist.
-Quite.
-We will re-scrutinise your arsenal and formulate a bollocking.
-You can't bollock me as much as I bollock myself.
-We suggest that remains to be seen.

Built-in Stick

One seventy-nine.
Is it?
Is late night price.
Impressive.
Round corner they charge two.
It must be Christmas.
Like gangster. But queues for it.
I'll get you a queue.
They scared to come.
You seem quite friendly.
Is bad area. Students get hat punched.
That's terrible.
I try make peace. I lose courgettes. What can I do?
You can give me the penny.
Sorry.
So I can start saving for next time.
Sorry. Because conversation.
It's okay, it's okay.
I think sometimes not well.
Me too.
Have a good night.
I have.
In your home now.
I'll try. There's a mouse though.
Oh fucking shit.
I'm worried it wants to sleep with me.
You need trap. You send it to God.
I'm trying to attract a cat.
You have a good night.

Dichotomous Ramification 1

I was thirty. We went to Lisbon, for pastries and balconies and hills. On the balcony you could eat a box of pastries and look up and down the hill. It was a loud urban hill paved with taxis and mosaics, which they swept at night with water, sending the cartons and papers down the gutters in a stream that stopped for the traffic lights and left behind the phrase "glistening cracks", which I disappointingly haven't been able to construct an unforced-sounding sentence around this week, but maybe next, maybe next.
Pessoa has a statue sat getting polished by photography outside a good cafe. There was an empty chair next to it and sometimes there seemed to be a queue for the chair, sometimes there were fifteen art students drawing pictures of the statue and the statue's photographers. I sat next to it and poked it in the eye.
Across town his house is mostly now a tall library, but they still have his room and his books and you can go in and look at the margin notes and lie on the bed and crush the hat.

If Poss

The Chemist, at the till, asked if I had everything I needed for Christmas.
Not really, er, are there some medicines on special offer? A selection box? Has something good become legal again?
She said tut tut, and stepped aside to reveal behind her some low shelves filled with mainly perfumes and hot water bottles. I said oh. She talked me through the range.
Maybe you have a girlfriend.
Who's cold, or stinks.
A hot water bottle can make a surprising gift.
And I could fill it with boiling perfume and really make a name for myself.
Just think about it, doesn't have to be today.
When she handed me my prescribed medicine, she said here's the prescription for [my full name], like that might not be me. She hasn't done that before. She just wanted to have fun in a hat and I was smugly walloping it away. I did want a gift, but not one from the seasonal shelf.
Maybe if there was a tiny tree, with benzodiazepines for baubles, and you could eat the whole thing like a shish kebab.
You'd need a prescription for that.
I'll be back in a month or so.

Schmibulations

We went to the all-human circus and the best thing there was the man who wore loads of hats.
I tried to post this yesterday but the bottom bit got cut off, which was unbearable, so I deleted it and now I can't remember what else I had to say, but:
My friends had a show and asked me to write about it so I did.

If You Are Dazzled, Slow Down or Stop

Unlike most humans, I cannot stop achieving. Last year I ticked more boxes than you hated Mondays. Every day I lost the battle against success. Victory followed me everywhere like gloom follows doom and eventually I was the first person to appear on the cover of every magazine in WH Smiths in the same month. The Smiths in the train station, mind, not the new one.
The pinnacle of my achievments was the horse I made out of pastry. Vegan pastry, which is hard to get right, you know, especially on such a large scale. As large as the shirehorse I modelled it on. I rode it through town on a Saturday morning in May so that everyone could tell how humble I was when I donated it to the local bakery that was going out of business until I rode in.
By the end of the day, there was nothing left of the horse but the blue plastic hooves, which the staff now use as hats.

2

Yes it was and yes he was. Schemes aplenty, that man. Schemes for breakfast, plans for dinner. No lunch. I was doing my best to not get involved. Reckons his mate's invented a new soft drink. Was asking for startup cash, basically. Told him I'd have a think. Who drinks those, these days?
No I wasn't wearing my invisible hat. I put it down somewhere and can't find it now. Reckon it was nicked. If I ever see anyone wearing it, there'll be litres of trouble.
Odd to hear the kids disapprove of your wardrobe. Maybe it's a sign when they're older they'll make some sense. Which will look strange to you, if you're there to see it. When was the last time you built something for them? Do they still have that big iron thing? With all the snouts?
Shuttlecock turned up hopping and grateful and worried in his overalls, talking like an ant's nest, all kinds of subjects, I couldn't really follow. But yes, told him a couple of things from my experience, and to not bother praying.
The book is nearly there, it's myths and maths and called "□" and is rabid. An advance is yours as soon as it's been swept for errors one last time. I'll put it in the cannon and shoot it at your face.
Odd thing: The Ministry of Happy Endings got in touch. I thought they'd shut down. They'd mistaken me for someone else, though. They invited me to the Nicequake. Disgusting, hey. It produced an instant shimmering flashback. The grinning, the beans...why did we do it? I blame and forgive you.

Stag Don't

You're supposed to go Praguewards in matching shirts with nicknames on the back and spill yourselves into disaster. All that can fuck off. We nine opted for Peterborough ale festival, which from Leicester is a longer train ride than you'd think. We are not ale geeks, but it's safe to say we enjoy several drinks, and several drinks were enjoyed, local and less local. Hats were seen. Beards and burgers reviewed. A baffling amount of children, many of them not lost, bounced up and down on trampolines inbetween the bumper cars and the toilets.
We quaffed around and lost and found and lost each other. Some of the ale tasted like chocolate socks. Some of it was served by a sullen man in a glittering pink cowboy hat like he was doing you a massive favour. Volunteer bar staff. The two ale halls were massive, and before we'd got through the three hundred and fifty varieties on offer it was time to get the last train home and continue things elsewhere, which did happen, after the required Embarrasing Thing That Happens To The Groom On The Stag Do happened, on the train, and is easily explainable but unfit for family ears, so maybe the Best Man's speech will only hint at it, I haven't decided, because I'm writing it, because I'm Best Man.
One by one the group whooped more and numbered less, and there was music and a satisfying couch and a long walk home.