In the Region as Predicted

The ear man phoned and said he'd have to cancel because he had an appointment at the doctors. I thought it was me who had the appointment, with him, so he couldn't have any appointments, he'd be at work, assessing all the local ears. Give me a number, I considered saying, and I'll explain to them that it's me who has the appointment, with you, at this time, and that therefore no other appointments involving not both of us are possible.
I agreed though, instead, that we postpone, and I stayed home, with my ears, unexamined.
At the rescheduled appointment he said it was his son who'd had the doctor's appointment, really, and I'd misheard, ha-ha, ha-ha, I don't have the kind of phone where you can tell what people are saying. It would encourage me to speak, and there's no telling where that might lead.
He dredged my canals and asked me how much Hawkwind I'd done. He measured my cranium and threw some twigs at my neck. He printed a graph and amplified the areas of concern with his most serious finger. It was a bit worse than I expected.

The Mechanics of Collective Consultation

[spare me the specifics] it's basically March tomorrow, which is when the contract ends, which is why I'm tobogganing through the application process in a slightly dishonest helmet, hoping at the end there'll be a lake of gold or at least a [if you say sandwich one more time on this thing I'm cancelling my subscription and giving you a taste of my fist (is it possible what you think is a lack of imagination is really a focus?) I, if it was a focus, no, I'm not getting into this, a focus would be a great help, in most of your areas, you could admit that, in your applications, when they ask for your most appealing lack, though you'd have to doff the helmet, as it were, which'd be dangerous, while you still don't know what's at the end of the chute] bucket of hot peanuts with my name on it. The walls of the chute are festooned with rejection notices, slightly like tube station escalator adverts minus the electric hyperbole. It's good to have something to look at.

Eight Likes

I was making a sandwich in the dark at 6.45 a.m. and wondering if I could get away with not showering. Maybe take a towel to work and monitor the situation through regular discreet whiffing. Of myself and of the nearest other. Trouble is our bathroom's plagued, at home, by thin slugs and draughts and every time you open the door you wonder how far things might've gone, this time, and could we change things by repenting or is it just a matter of waiting. Because the broodings and the slayings haven't worked. And please no repenting because repenting hasn't so far showed itself to be worth the effort. I'm reading a fine-smelling Tolstoy about it and it just goes on forever and he can't even taste his food eventually. Improvement is a slippery slope.

Everyone At Some Point

Bournemouth was dark and breezy and trousers-wise I was strictly business. Because I forgot to pack the jeans. I've never been casual below the waist anyway. It's hard to find the town centre if you walk in the wrong direction. The first night there was silent lightning below the clouds above the sea. Lone cars stopped on the road to watch it. Lone men sat at tables in bright pubs watching the lone cars watching it. I lone sat in Wagamama at a table with twenty-five absent people. I got smiled at a lot, by the staff and the people at the other tables. I couldn't help thinking this wasn't necessary. Maybe the smilers were somehow vicariously amused by the amusing book I was reading, maybe the brisk dialogue was blasting out of my scalp. More likely the smiles were acknowledging the blue ink that'd gone from my pen to my pocket to my fingers to my face without me noticing until hours after, in the hotel room, burping. Wagamama: you should've told me. They'd've told me in Tampopo. They'd've rushed over with some helpful fluid to wash the stain or drown the sorrow in Tampopo. And then they'd've asked me what I was even doing eating evening bowl-food without a zesty and mysterious companion. I rang them to verify this and they said A: where've you been lately, and but before you answer that, where has she been lately, and B: we welcome any facial blemish regardless of hue, as you well know, your face having displayed many alarming and unnatural spasms of colour in the long but not long enough time we've known it, sir. And the hues, lately, have been intense, we've heard, please accept our vigorous sympathies and consider buying a gift voucher for your famished pals this Christmas. And before Bournemouth I'd been swept up in a compressed-head delirium and spent all night believing my eyes were about to burst like squeezed peas, and every change of position made it worse, and all I'd wanted to do was to hammer nails into my face until whatever was in me was gone and I could enjoy a wet heap of something with not too much coriander in it. Wagamama didn't press me for these details. Their dish of nuanced liquid, tender dead things and small long hot things was fine, but in and around and during and amongst and after it I couldn't detect a single concern for my wellbeing.

No Doubt Note

They made a pool of jelly for a famous boat to float on. It was green and people came to say blimey at it. It was the most jelly that had ever been directly underneath a boat. At night they illuminated the whole imbroglio. It wasn't edible. I didn't see it. I didn't research the second sentence of this entry at all. But it's probably quite accurate and who's checking? Right. My town briefly had more jelly outdoors than yours. I think that's something we can all agree on and intensely care about. I missed it all gladly in a faraway field watching a handfasting. The hands were fasted and drinks were had. Music was flailed to and a hot hog gobbled.

The Shirt On Him

The box of flashing lights made a noise like a boiling zoo and its lights stopped flashing and everyone stared at it and stared at each other with their longest faces and stared at it again and someone switched it off at the wall. Speculation built. We had to get a man in. He arrived early and we posted him through the slot and he furtled about with the innards and dropped out through the bottom with a snort and a chime and dust on his arms and old money shards on his face. Should be right now, he said, and we gave him a bowl of soup and he went off over the bridge on his electric wagon.

Mouth Isn't

Everyone puts their money in the box of flashing lights. They soon run out of money. They get some more money and because the box hasn't given them their money back they put more money in it. It's a laughing matter. Eventually the maximum amount of money that the box will ever give back if it feels like it which it nearly never does is less than the total amount of money everyone has put into it. At this point they put money into it in small amounts although they have agreed not to. One person tells another one off for doing it and hours later the person who told the other person off is at the box again doing the same thing. Sometimes a person who hasn't put any money in the box comes along and starts putting money in the box. Then everyone gathers in a hush to see what will happen. What will happen is that this person will put all their money in the box and leave. The behaviour of the box is very predictable and no one can predict when it will become unpredictable. It doesn't ask any questions but it does offer some choices like whether or not to associate flashing lights with disappointment. It has never pretended it doesn't do what it does.

The Kind Of Thing That Happens In Those Parts

The disco tree came back. Your standard Oak hulk, alone on a small hill, lit from the trunk to the tip of every branch by those electric rainbow-cables they have nowadays. Are they fibre-optic or just fancy fairy-lights? Wrapped tightly and plugged into I don't know what. That special outdoor electricity you get round Christmas.
We gathered, about thirty of us, cold and dancing, drinking from cans and bottles and a hip-flask was being passed around, and when you drank from it your face turned inside out. There were some drums and oil barrels and things to hit them with, and the people hit them and we moved while the lights on the tree pulsed purple and red. It looked like one of those fish that live in the earth's core. They know how to have a good time, those fish. Have you seen the series where Attenbrough goes through the centre of the earth? It's worth a look. Pretty soon everyone had texted everyone else and there were people all over the hill covered in light and a very tall cockney woman said fuck me that tree's going chicken oriental. The branches at the top were all shades of red and the thicker ones were going from white to blue and back again. It was like that scene in that film where there's a few people in a place and they all seem to be having a good time.
The fireworks started then. It must've been five to twelve, and our attention turned from the tree to the sky and the things bursting in it. Also, someone on the ground had fireworks, not very well-positioned, and occasionally they screamed past our heads. But no one seemd too bothered. Except the tree, which as you might know is the jealous and attention-seeking sort. Our heads were all turned away from it for about ten minutes, and when we started trying to get it going again, after the fireworks had gone from booming to popping, it had turned a solid shade of dark grey. Someone tried to hug it and slightly burnt their face on the lights.
There was a lull, then the very tall cockney woman said hang about, why don't we try turning it off and fucking on again?
But we couldn't find the switch. Or the plug, or any kind of power cable at all. And by that time we'd ran out of drink, so everyone walked down the hill to the pub for tequila.