Going Up The Country

Last night, I dreamed I was on a company outing. The gang and I had to partake in rock climbing under the instructions of someone introduced to us as a ‘holistic mountaineer’… a fairly harmless but New Agey paragon of idiocy with a milky dumb face. We were supposed to perform something that was called ‘the Strawberry Manoeuvre’, which meant that we had to dangle upside down from an overhanging ledge dressed in dark brown monk’s robes, or cowl (I had to look up this word).

The rest of my company was fine with all this. Some were even admiring our guru of the Alps; others began to quickly put on the robes and climbing gear. I on the other hand was bewildered and quite outraged. ‘Look here,’ I said to one of my comrades, ‘you don’t think I am going to  godbuggerybumholecheesehump hang from a mountain impersonating a strawberry in a cowl goddamned!?’ But nobody listened to me and they flew up the mountain like a band of pirates in the rigging of an entered schooner. End of the dream.

Probably a bit of unsolved aggression if you ask me… I have quite a bit of that. It’s the price that comes with being such a friendly giant. And people can be such son of bitches of course... Anyway, not going into that for now, it is my pleasure to announce that I will be leaving you for a few weeks. I will carry on my thoughts from a soberly furnished hut in the middle of an endless sun-bleached wilderness where I will be surrounded by my friends the crickets, the bats and the peeping and whistling of friendly little birds. Later, when the enchanted song of the oriole will get on my nerves like mustard gas, I will return to civilisation and all things will start anew. Till then!

Silence

It's hard to put my longing for being silent into words.

Footrace for Oysters

(With a tongue full of sand & glitter, and having no desire to speak.)

Benedicte was short and scrawny, like a herring. She was a typical ballet dancer, unscrupulous and cynical. You looked at her while Jacques the barman sang loud and dissonant. It was 3am. You could hear the sea in his voice. (Dreams of Marseille)

He burned down the world. He parked in handicapped places. She rode on the merry-go-round. An exposed place to be for a serious northerner. She said: ‘You didn’t find anything, love, but that was because you weren’t looking.'

Looking out over the empty sea with wet eyes… The sea looks back, over your head. When you landed on the island, you had to make a choice. You chose not to choose. You formed an alliance with this town.

Phil & Deirdre

Phil & Deirdre were the last people on Earth. A series of violent cataclysms and pandemics had wiped out the entire human population on the planet, bar just two people, namely Phil and Deirdre Hutchinson from 88 Tuscany Downs. They were the last, the very last. And after them… no more. Till about a fortnight ago, old man Karyotakis from Ashcroft had been alive and well. Deirdre had wished him a good day when he came by walking his dachshund. He looked fine then. Now he was gone too.

The History of Humanity had been a stormy one. From Adam & Eve to Phil & Deirdre in a mere 200,000 years. Still, it had been a colourful story, Man. From making fire by hitting rocks together to Les Fleurs du Mal. And much inbetween. There had been wars and the building of great and fantastical buildings, tubular steel furniture, the crossbreeding of horses and donkeys, the invention of Gods and smartphones, suits of armour, hotpants, existentialism, pogroms, Noh theatre, piñatas, outboard motors, soap operas, piracy, Tibetan throat singing, Oblomov, Time Magazine, space travel, Grandma Moses and garden hoses.

But all this was soon coming to an end with Phil and Deirdre being in their late sixties. They could perhaps live on for a couple of decades, if nothing seriously nasty would happen, but then it would irrevocable be curtain time for El Sapiens, the mighty usurper. The human race was gone but for just these two people who we find, on this fine sunny Friday morning, sitting in their kitchen at their breakfast table. Phil wore brown flip flops, Deirdre coral pink furry slippers. The sun peaked through the curtains, hitting the glasses of orange juice on the table. Phil cleared his throat as he was slicing the top of his boiled egg. Deirdre looked up for a while. Phil crumbled the pieces of eggshell between his fingers into the cup. Deirdre carried on spreading cheese on a piece of slightly burned toast. Phil’s egg was boiled too hard. He grunted. Deirdre chewed her toast.

It was 8:15, according to the clock, but there was no way of checking it. And it didn’t really matter anyway since neither of them had to be anywhere on time. Phil didn’t had to go to work anymore: there was no more work. He could do whatever he wanted. Today he was going to go fishing, he decided as he stirred his coffee. He watched Deirdre as she cleared the dishes from the table. Yes, fishing, that was the ticket. As Phil backed his truck from the garage onto the road, he noticed an unusual bump. He got out to see what it was. Apparently, he had run over Micky II, the neighbours’ cat. Which was a shame.