An astonished man tractored a trailer full of shredded umbrellas through the park. I thought about asking him where they were all going to end up, and thought about him replying fuck knows or the bin, and not a rickety and hazardous public art installation that really delves into the bonce-envelope shared by climate change and futility. I watched him trundle through the trees, hopping off the tractor every twelve seconds to throw another bunch of knackered metal twigs in the trailer, and turn the corner into somewhere I had no interest in imagining.
The cinema showed a grubby and redemptionless frolic through a popular holiday destination. I saw it, didn't fathom it, and didn't mind not fathoming it.
The sun couldn't stop itself, and the thick socks necessary yesterday were by lunchtime moist and foolish.
Showing posts with label tree. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tree. Show all posts
Upped
The waitress thanked the living shit out of me and insisted that I have a great day, a great one, one of the top hundred days of the ten-thousand seven-hundred and thirty-six-ish experienced so far, three-thousand five-hundred and fifty-eight-ish of which you've pretty much just slept through, you cocky slob, she almost said, and turned towards the kitchen. I looked at her spine and said thanks and walked out with a double espresso twitching against my hangover. The words great day glided into my mind's eye in birthday-banner colours and danced while I looked for somewhere to relieve the despair of standing up and having to navigate through people and their lives and hats. I sat in the park and leaned against a tree that knew nothing of my predicament and tried to read. But the words in the book were moving far too quickly, while great day'd moved in closer to inflict a sickeningly jovial rhumba. I shut the book and closed my eyes and breathed through my nose and exuded slime into my best clothes. I wondered if this counted as meditation. And I thought I should really maybe make the effort again, really again, beyond just a book and one attempt again. Get absolutely off my swede on calmness. And it might help with one or some or all of the things I need help with. And it might make the walls of the house seem further apart. If I can make it back there without dying of agitation.
A breeze cooled the slime and I was seized by a non-specific shame-and-terror or the caffeine kicked in. I stood up and went to a bar and after a lot of humming ordered a soft drink with gin in it.
A breeze cooled the slime and I was seized by a non-specific shame-and-terror or the caffeine kicked in. I stood up and went to a bar and after a lot of humming ordered a soft drink with gin in it.
Ponds
Up some stairs there's a room about the size of a basketball court with the floor painted black and water all over it and slices of large log in the water arranged so you can go from one slice to another in non-mortal delight. The water is oily from the log juice leaking into it. The whole thing is a recreation of the opening scene of a film that never got made or nobody saw or both. There's a man in one corner who I don't think was in the film but needs to be there in real life to make sure nobody gets despicable. Some of the slices are big enough to sleep on. Some of them wobble. The worst that can really happen is you get wet and cry about it for a week. I'd imagine this isn't what the artist intended but it's definitely a possibility he's introduced. I took the A4 photocopied explanation home so I could read it at leisure, but leisure hasn't arrived. One day I'm going to have an exhibition of sentences found in the descriptions and explanatory notes of galleries and museums. I just need a snappy title and I don't know if An Exhibition of Sentences Found in the Descriptions and Explanatory Notes of Galleries and Museums is it or not. It probably is, but also what about Mind Puke? Please advise.
Substance Misuse and Tennis
Good god a new Job Centre. What a postcode we've acquired. Trees out the window. The hum of opportunity. Men in small cubicles screaming hopefully into phones. Being told to go to one floor, then another, then back to the original one, apologised to, adminned at and ejected. She was a fizzy whirlwind and had nice-smelling teeth. Appointment next week and everything. Didn't ask me what I was reading, disappointingly, because it's a large book and after saying its title I was going to say usually I read books that weigh less than my head and we were going to laugh like dolphins and slap our fucking thighs off. It's the little things. But no.
Ruoms to Avignon
It took a while to properly leave. I packed incorrectly. Two bags is madness. I dragged them to the first roundabout thinking I don't need to be carrying seven shirts, three blank notebooks, two coats, army boots, two different shower gels...I'd forgotten how to move, six straight months, ish, in one place. I didn't have a tent.
The first car that stopped contained two people I already knew. I got in. They took me to their house and gave me lunch and a tent and asked why I had so much baggage. I didn't know.
-I hate baggage.
-There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
I made a bag of unnecessaries and left it under a table.
I walked from their house to Lablachére, it didn't take long, I was knackered and full to the face with sunshine and lunch.
I accidentally walked onto a campsite and gave a man eight euros for the use of some ground.
Paying for camping is not in the plan. But not planning anything is also in the plan. And his site was in the way of the woods I was planning to camp in. He immediately gave me a bunch of grapes and I felt like I hadn't made a bad choice.
I watched Lablachére. It was quiet, I was looked at. Much happened last week, at the fete, some people were refused service and became ultra-disgruntled and drove a car into the middle of the square everyone was dancing in. On the noticeboard is a letter from the mayor, it says paroxysm, unprecedented, barbarism and disgust.
Outside the campsite in the morning was a donkey in the back of a transit van. It was munching a newspaper. Across the road were more, chained up. The market was on. I squeezed through it on my way out of town. Then I squeezed back into it and bought a baguette and sardines and sausages. I started walking towards the sun. There were hills and valleys and trees and something smelled nice.
After however many miles twelve kilometres is I crossed the Chassesac. I sat down on a rock, ate some sausage and some biscuit. Half the trees were almost yellow. Finger-sized fish pointed upstream while brown leaves floated down past them.
A Heron was out, practising Heronry, taking off, landing and being massive.
I got in the river, then out, then in, then out, then sat with just my feet in. The Heron did the same, I'd like to say, but it was out of the way, I couldn't tell.
The river sounded like it was chewing. The shade slid around. I slept.
I walked into Les Vans when I woke up. I had a beer at a table. The Harley Davidson woohoo club were rumbling around town. A small boy was practising crossing the road, on rollerskates. After a few minutes his mother looked up from her drink and saw him, and the queue of vehicles on either side of him, and went over to smash his face off. He stopped where he was and covered his head with his arms. She dragged him to the kerb and put the skates next to a bin. He went back across the road and pondered. She went back to her drink.
I walked out of town the way I came in, to four stone walls surrounding some thorny overgrowth. A path went through a doorway in the back wall. It led to some trees. The ground was brown crunchy leaves. To the right was another doorway to another four roofless walls and some more thorny growth. To the left was the wall of someone's garden. I put my mat down under a tree and used my tent as a pillow. A dog wouldn't shut up. The tree dropped an apple on my shin. The leaves waved in front of the stars. I went to sleep.
After breakfast I walked up a hill overlooking the town and put my thumb out, at the correct angle, and after two minutes a 4x4 stopped.
A grey man opened the door and moved his luggage off the back seat.
-I'd like to go to Montpellier. Or Alés. Or Nimes. Or south.
-Ah. I'm going to Orange.
-Ruoms?
-Orange.
-Is that south?
-It is the same latitude.
-Okay. Good. I'll go.
His name was Patrice and he was going to work the wine near Orange. His family run a bed and breakfast on a mountain. It's called Stevenson, after RL, he might've stayed there when he wrote his donkey travels, or near there, I couldn't be sure, but I was enthused.
-It's a good book!
-Yes.
-I regarded it recently!
-Good!
The hills and the grapes and the sunflowers flew past for an hour and he dropped me at a roundabout next to a train track.
-Many journeys here. Good luck!
I was still enthused.
Two minutes later a white car stopped. A blonde woman was at the wheel saying something about documents.
Her name was Pascale and she was going to Avignon so so was I. She was from Algeria and America and France. She was enthused because I said I was from Manchester. Twenty years ago she spent some time there, it's better than London, the bus system is good, and the theatres, the music...
-Yeah it's a great place.
-You live there still?
-Nah I moved out eight years ago
-Why?
-I didn't like it.
She overtook everyone else.
-We are there in twenty minutes or I am late.
-This is good.
She told me the names of many beautiful places on the south coast. I didn't take any notes. I could feel my brain forgetting.
-You have a guidebook for your journey?
-No
-You should have one, I think.
-I hate guidebooks.
-Why?
-They tell you where to go.
-They only suggest.
-I don't like their tone.
She said the names of some good guidebooks and dropped me in the centre of Avignon.
The first car that stopped contained two people I already knew. I got in. They took me to their house and gave me lunch and a tent and asked why I had so much baggage. I didn't know.
-I hate baggage.
-There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
I made a bag of unnecessaries and left it under a table.
I walked from their house to Lablachére, it didn't take long, I was knackered and full to the face with sunshine and lunch.
I accidentally walked onto a campsite and gave a man eight euros for the use of some ground.
Paying for camping is not in the plan. But not planning anything is also in the plan. And his site was in the way of the woods I was planning to camp in. He immediately gave me a bunch of grapes and I felt like I hadn't made a bad choice.
I watched Lablachére. It was quiet, I was looked at. Much happened last week, at the fete, some people were refused service and became ultra-disgruntled and drove a car into the middle of the square everyone was dancing in. On the noticeboard is a letter from the mayor, it says paroxysm, unprecedented, barbarism and disgust.
Outside the campsite in the morning was a donkey in the back of a transit van. It was munching a newspaper. Across the road were more, chained up. The market was on. I squeezed through it on my way out of town. Then I squeezed back into it and bought a baguette and sardines and sausages. I started walking towards the sun. There were hills and valleys and trees and something smelled nice.
After however many miles twelve kilometres is I crossed the Chassesac. I sat down on a rock, ate some sausage and some biscuit. Half the trees were almost yellow. Finger-sized fish pointed upstream while brown leaves floated down past them.
A Heron was out, practising Heronry, taking off, landing and being massive.
I got in the river, then out, then in, then out, then sat with just my feet in. The Heron did the same, I'd like to say, but it was out of the way, I couldn't tell.
The river sounded like it was chewing. The shade slid around. I slept.
I walked into Les Vans when I woke up. I had a beer at a table. The Harley Davidson woohoo club were rumbling around town. A small boy was practising crossing the road, on rollerskates. After a few minutes his mother looked up from her drink and saw him, and the queue of vehicles on either side of him, and went over to smash his face off. He stopped where he was and covered his head with his arms. She dragged him to the kerb and put the skates next to a bin. He went back across the road and pondered. She went back to her drink.
I walked out of town the way I came in, to four stone walls surrounding some thorny overgrowth. A path went through a doorway in the back wall. It led to some trees. The ground was brown crunchy leaves. To the right was another doorway to another four roofless walls and some more thorny growth. To the left was the wall of someone's garden. I put my mat down under a tree and used my tent as a pillow. A dog wouldn't shut up. The tree dropped an apple on my shin. The leaves waved in front of the stars. I went to sleep.
After breakfast I walked up a hill overlooking the town and put my thumb out, at the correct angle, and after two minutes a 4x4 stopped.
A grey man opened the door and moved his luggage off the back seat.
-I'd like to go to Montpellier. Or Alés. Or Nimes. Or south.
-Ah. I'm going to Orange.
-Ruoms?
-Orange.
-Is that south?
-It is the same latitude.
-Okay. Good. I'll go.
His name was Patrice and he was going to work the wine near Orange. His family run a bed and breakfast on a mountain. It's called Stevenson, after RL, he might've stayed there when he wrote his donkey travels, or near there, I couldn't be sure, but I was enthused.
-It's a good book!
-Yes.
-I regarded it recently!
-Good!
The hills and the grapes and the sunflowers flew past for an hour and he dropped me at a roundabout next to a train track.
-Many journeys here. Good luck!
I was still enthused.
Two minutes later a white car stopped. A blonde woman was at the wheel saying something about documents.
Her name was Pascale and she was going to Avignon so so was I. She was from Algeria and America and France. She was enthused because I said I was from Manchester. Twenty years ago she spent some time there, it's better than London, the bus system is good, and the theatres, the music...
-Yeah it's a great place.
-You live there still?
-Nah I moved out eight years ago
-Why?
-I didn't like it.
She overtook everyone else.
-We are there in twenty minutes or I am late.
-This is good.
She told me the names of many beautiful places on the south coast. I didn't take any notes. I could feel my brain forgetting.
-You have a guidebook for your journey?
-No
-You should have one, I think.
-I hate guidebooks.
-Why?
-They tell you where to go.
-They only suggest.
-I don't like their tone.
She said the names of some good guidebooks and dropped me in the centre of Avignon.
A Cumec or Two
It's floody with a chance of sun. It's raining in your pants and the lightning gets behind your eyelids and the thunder punches your ballbag and some people's feet have rotted off, you can see them at the edges of puddles like white toads.
The sky needs putting back together. There's a tree at the bottom of the weir turning over and over and shards of it are being washed down brownstream. Lidl is out of socks and the carpenter is out of arks. The snakes are here too. It's Biblemania. I nearly unintentionally strimmed one. It went straight down into the earth and was never heard from again. It must've known about The Imminent Inspection. Champion strimmers have been flown in for a five day orgy of wet destruction. There must be no long grass or other hazard within fifty metres of any tent. The inspector will spend the day trudging the perimeter in flip-flops and if he so much as stubs his toe he'll bury the campsite and ban us all from France for life. It's tomorrow. Tenterhooks are being issued and as soon as we find out what they are we'll all be on them. But the internet's been washed away and the dictionary of idioms is up shit creek.
The sky needs putting back together. There's a tree at the bottom of the weir turning over and over and shards of it are being washed down brownstream. Lidl is out of socks and the carpenter is out of arks. The snakes are here too. It's Biblemania. I nearly unintentionally strimmed one. It went straight down into the earth and was never heard from again. It must've known about The Imminent Inspection. Champion strimmers have been flown in for a five day orgy of wet destruction. There must be no long grass or other hazard within fifty metres of any tent. The inspector will spend the day trudging the perimeter in flip-flops and if he so much as stubs his toe he'll bury the campsite and ban us all from France for life. It's tomorrow. Tenterhooks are being issued and as soon as we find out what they are we'll all be on them. But the internet's been washed away and the dictionary of idioms is up shit creek.
Tuna Club
I lost a quite good thing. I'd scratched it into some bark with a fingernail. Bark is plentiful since we're murdering all the trees. For safety. They've done nothing yet. But the obese ones could fall onto our tents and skulls if the wind gets pushy.
Obviously we've tried putting them on diets. Special K for breakfast and milkshakes for dinner and 99 pushups at noon and all that. But before you can change you have to want to change, apparently, even if you're a tree. And they just wanted to carry on warping themselves. So we chainsawed their arms off and crippled their trunks and yanked them to the ground with a tractor and butchered them where they lay. Naturally we turned the good bits into stools. A foot of snow came and covered up the rest. It'd been on the weather forecast for a week but we still managed to not expect it.
Obviously we've tried putting them on diets. Special K for breakfast and milkshakes for dinner and 99 pushups at noon and all that. But before you can change you have to want to change, apparently, even if you're a tree. And they just wanted to carry on warping themselves. So we chainsawed their arms off and crippled their trunks and yanked them to the ground with a tractor and butchered them where they lay. Naturally we turned the good bits into stools. A foot of snow came and covered up the rest. It'd been on the weather forecast for a week but we still managed to not expect it.
The Healthy and Tasty Nuts Give You A Joyful and Happy Moment
Tuesday night blank time. We should've all been home making things.
The trees who didn't make it through the auditions for the part of Treebeard in Lord of the Rings were sat opposite us in the corner. The pub was hushed. The windows were dribbling and the toilets were spacious. The three trees were rustling and grumbling. I thought we could bond over our shared un-love of Lord of the Rings. Book or film. Something to do with it being very dull.
We were drinking beer brewed in oak pyramids. It was said to have benefits. You couldn't taste the geometry, but it made everything you tasted afterwards taste amazing. For a while. It was the opposite of toothpaste. That was the quote on the bottom of the label: "The opposite of toothpaste!". Not everyone loved it. It was new. It was fighting hard. We were enjoying some sesame snaps from a zip-loc bag.
The trees were drinking it too. I thought it might be a way in.
Nice beer you're drinking, I said, on my way back from the toilet.
No it isn't, replied the middle one. He was old. He had transparent teeth.
What is it then?
Acceptable.
Not nice?
No. Decent.
Hm.
The other two trees looked at me and raised their twiggy eyebrows. The one on the left pulled a leaf from his nose, scrunched it up and threw it on the floor. I thought he might spit. Can trees spit? I asked him.
You mean like hoick-pwff?
Yeah.
No we can't. Too dry.
I thought you pumped loads of water round all day.
We do. It gets used up. We're efficient.
No seepage?
No seepage.
Great.
That seemed to end the conversation. I went back to my friends. A hiss followed me.
We were wondering why tasty is a good thing and smelly and touchy are bad things and sighty and soundy are non-existent.
Go and tell those trees that they're sighty and soundy, said one of us.
No, you do it, said another one of us. It went on.
They're a bristly bunch.
What'll we learn?
Actually there's unsightly, isn't there.
But not sightly.
Not even slightly.
Quite shitely.
They're staring at us now.
They might come over and loom.
We can't have that.
Shall we offer them a sesame snap?
They don't eat.
Why've they got mouths then?
To be gobby with.
Like us.
Oh.
We finished our pints and sauntered out. A couple of leaves wafted after us.
The trees who didn't make it through the auditions for the part of Treebeard in Lord of the Rings were sat opposite us in the corner. The pub was hushed. The windows were dribbling and the toilets were spacious. The three trees were rustling and grumbling. I thought we could bond over our shared un-love of Lord of the Rings. Book or film. Something to do with it being very dull.
We were drinking beer brewed in oak pyramids. It was said to have benefits. You couldn't taste the geometry, but it made everything you tasted afterwards taste amazing. For a while. It was the opposite of toothpaste. That was the quote on the bottom of the label: "The opposite of toothpaste!". Not everyone loved it. It was new. It was fighting hard. We were enjoying some sesame snaps from a zip-loc bag.
The trees were drinking it too. I thought it might be a way in.
Nice beer you're drinking, I said, on my way back from the toilet.
No it isn't, replied the middle one. He was old. He had transparent teeth.
What is it then?
Acceptable.
Not nice?
No. Decent.
Hm.
The other two trees looked at me and raised their twiggy eyebrows. The one on the left pulled a leaf from his nose, scrunched it up and threw it on the floor. I thought he might spit. Can trees spit? I asked him.
You mean like hoick-pwff?
Yeah.
No we can't. Too dry.
I thought you pumped loads of water round all day.
We do. It gets used up. We're efficient.
No seepage?
No seepage.
Great.
That seemed to end the conversation. I went back to my friends. A hiss followed me.
We were wondering why tasty is a good thing and smelly and touchy are bad things and sighty and soundy are non-existent.
Go and tell those trees that they're sighty and soundy, said one of us.
No, you do it, said another one of us. It went on.
They're a bristly bunch.
What'll we learn?
Actually there's unsightly, isn't there.
But not sightly.
Not even slightly.
Quite shitely.
They're staring at us now.
They might come over and loom.
We can't have that.
Shall we offer them a sesame snap?
They don't eat.
Why've they got mouths then?
To be gobby with.
Like us.
Oh.
We finished our pints and sauntered out. A couple of leaves wafted after us.
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.
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.
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