LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS: Forum

TSCnini: hi not looking for a cheat necessarily but getting very frustrated - i have tried everything but i cannot get past Donizetti. no problems with earlier levels, Grieg, Haydn etc but Donizetti shows up as either round 5 or round 6, jumps up onto the rafters and keeps using his trident attack.
tried playing Donizetti so i don't have to fight him, but when i do i can't dodge Saint-Saens' stampede attack, cos Donizetti is so slow on the ground
is there some trick i haven't worked out? its driving me crazy
the bastard has such stupid hair too lol

KRJAN: hey TSCnini - not somethibg I'v had problems with maybe you aren ot usig fast dodge?

LEOPOLD S: Donizetti will stay up and keep using the trident while it works, but like the other bel canto-era composers he's impatient so if you use fast dodge (left/left/right, or right/right/left) a few times he'll get frustrated and come back down.
Otherwise you can stay on the ground and fire your weapon up at him, e.g. with Delius you can throw your wheelchair up at him. Also Delius or Schubert are both good since Donizetti is vulnerable to syphilis attack.
Or you can try unlocking one of the more powerful C19th/20th guys - e.g. get Prokofiev unlocked by entering WEIMONTI on the high score chart

TSCnini: thanks leo ill try prokofiev

KRJAN: hells yah
womp that bel canto mutha neo-classcl stylz >:)

Uh Oh Look Out

Here it comes
- boom -
attacked by the Pope.

Attacked by children
attacked by evil women with whiskers and headscarves
their long fingers reaching in through the kitchen window
attacked by promotional mascots
clowns
five men dressed as letters of the alphabet
K, E, I, L, R
god damn it they are after you
run and hide in the sewers
attacked by a sewer inspector
reaching out of the darkness
rubber gloved fingers smelling of muck
later, in hospital, attacked by your own folks
parents, siblings
a cousin you've never met
then later by a nurse
by the cleaners
by the devil
although this last was possibly a dream
very well then:
attacked by a dream
unconscious
falling through the roiling darkness
limbs flailing against them all

walking down the corridors in one of those blue gowns
open at the back
arse on display
god damn it they are out to get you

Cool Dream/Nightmare from 9-10 Years Ago

Some people ask why I’m into horror. For my part, I don’t understand how someone could not be into horror.
Here’s a dream from a long time ago. I’m not sure when – I might have been 22 or 23:

The train rattles along, trees rush past in the grey light.
I have my own compartment on the train. I set a leather case onto my lap, pop the clasps and open it. I check the contents, make sure that everything is there, in its correct place – each item easily reached should it be needed.
There’s a mirror, a cross, a chain of garlic. Small vials of salts, chemicals, and holy water. A gun, a knife, a mallet. Five wooden wickets, each a foot long, sharpened to points.
I close the case and try to concentrate. I try to keep myself calm.
In the bathroom I wet my face, wash my hands. I see myself in the mirror – tall, thin, very pale. Black hair to my shoulders, a white dog-collar, black cassock down to my feet. I’m a priest.
The train rattles, the trees rush, the grey light grows dimmer and dimmer.
I’m running out of time. I’ll get there too late.
I try not to think about it.

By the time the train pulls in to Brighton the sky’s a dull pink, striped with grey metal clouds, and the sun hangs low over the water. *
It’s been many years since I was last here, but I still know the way.
Almost. I make a couple of wrong turns, stupid mistakes which cost me time.
Too late anyway. But I have to try.
Finally I recognise the streets, I’m in the neighbourhood. Here’s the switch-back, where the cobbled street leaves the coast and winds up the hillside. I’ve thought about this street many times before, and it’s exactly as I imagined / remembered it. It’s narrow and climbs sharply. The buildings have clay / stucco walls – stained pink with sunset. A Mediterranean street. **
My destination is halfway up, the old cinema. Like most things in Brighton, it’s been dead for a long time. Closed down, boarded up.
Fading light.
I have maybe twenty minutes left.
The doors are locked. Of course they would be. I step back, check the alleyway beside the theatre – a fire escape goes halfway up, to a small door (also locked). I climb onto the handrail, then the doorframe, sling a rope around something on the roof, hoist myself up. It is dangerous, exhausting and costing me time.
The wind catches and billows my cassock. There is an enormous round window in the roof, a stained glass skylight.
I smash one of the panels
lower myself through the jagged mouth
glass teeth, orange and purple
drop down onto the plush red carpet. A landing, the top of an ornate staircase. It winds down into the heart of the building, electric lights in wall sconces, which shouldn’t be on, but they’re on. The theatre has power.
And as I look around I see no evidence of dust or decay, the inside of the theatre is intact and luxurious. These doors open onto the theatre’s highest gallery. The passages to the left and right lead to opera boxes. I've been here before, a long time ago. I'm from here.
But then I hear a booming from far beneath me – a single crash of stone falling onto stone.
In the dream I actually feel cold sweat on my face and hands. The vampire is awake, he’s thrown aside the lid of his sarcophagus.
I think: he’s fast. I stand no chance against him. I have to –
Too late, he’s demonstrated his impossible speed, he’s now standing in front of me.

The vampire is terrifying, an extremity of fear. He wears white
– white jacket, white pants –
Bare feet.
His skin is black,
jet black,
not African but black/black/black
the eyes are huge and black, they swarm and reflect the light, I think they are made of nesting flies.
The mouth hangs loose, it’s filled with teeth – squirming black needles.
He can move in the blink of an eye, I understand this. I know that it’s by his (momentary) indulgence that I’m still alive.
I say: “Look.”
Do I have enough time? Will he allow this?
Staring at me with swarming black cavities.
I hold up the case, at arms length.
With the other hand I reach over and unfasten the clasp – it all spills out.
The cross, the holy water, the stakes. All of the “weapons”, useless anyway. They’re symbols.
I dangle it, let the last of it fall, then I drop the case and step back.
The vampire steps closer to the weapons, and I step back again. He’s confused, but maybe he is starting to understand the message:
“Here are things which could hurt you – I won’t use them”
Why?
“Because I’m not here to kill you.”
And I’m not. He scares the shit out of me, but the vampire and I are not enemies.
He steps forward – so do I. Facing each other, my white face to his black face, black clothes to white, another step and we’re together, holding each other,
melting together, our heads meld with each other
and incredibly (***) I can see in three hundred and sixty degrees, I can see every part of the landing
then I’m on the street outside, three hundred and sixty degrees
not a character of the dream anymore, a roving point of view –

– I wake up,
I feel incredible,
an immense feeling of satisfaction, of wholesomeness hangs about me, it has been months or years since I have felt this good. I can’t wait to get out of the house, I have a sense that nothing can stop me today.
And people actually notice. Over the next couple days people say:
“What’s happened to you? You see really happy.”
Or even
“You look really good today.”
(always a nice thing to hear)

I’ve had similar dreams (some of them a little "weirder" – hahahaha, I’ll keep those to myself), but never any as complete and coherent
& I’ve had better dreams, certainly happier dreams, but I’ve never had that same feeling of satisfaction from a dream again

though I do sometimes find it in real life
– e.g. me & Q are coming up on four years! –
so I’m not complaining

FOOTNOTES (because my dreams have footnotes) (so fuck you)

* which is wrong of course, since Brighton’s on the East coast, but it’s a dream, so.

** it feels exactly like a road I used to know as a kid, a dirt road up a wooded hillside – feels like it, but doesn’t look like it. This old dirt road used to hold a magic fascination for me, even now thinking about it gives me a strange chill

*** I’m serious, I really dreamt this

The Event / Calamity / In Memoriam

Hey there.
This is a proper plug for a collaborative blog / writing project we're doing here.

Five writers are writing five characters' experiences of a massive event as it takes place in Wellington. We're doing it in five parts. The 5-5-5 thing doesn't have a secret meaning. It's not a religious or conspiracy thing. It just happened that way.

The premise of the Event itself is pretty basic:

say it’s a regular day in wgtn & you’re
buying breakfast / coming down off acid / sleeping with your boss / looking after someone else’s children / twenty floors up / watching the same horrible movie again and again / meeting someone nice / drinking wine with teenagers / limping off home

& you happen to notice
people pushing down to the water / shapes moving under the surface / watching glassy-eyed / the bright sun / crowds / someone else’s children / pushing through them / & then as the customers turn nasty / broken glass / running feet / distant screams

& before you know it you’re
cast into the sea / thirsty / drowning / watching helpless / as their corpses rise / drinking & drinking / in the crowds below you / when the lights go out / when the ground shakes / the buildings sway / from the back of the police car / from your seat in the theatre / from under the table / water spattering / onto the asphalt / onto the tiles / mouths yawning / time frozen

---

Meanwhile, calamity.
Fuckers have broken into the flat and stolen our laptops (& the digital camera we got from Alive and Doses, et al.)
So this is a transition moment, a point where Sleep Dep (& the rest of my writing) becomes temporarily less of a computer thing and more of a written on paper thing.
Which is a shame, because typing very fast is part of my creative process on this.

What this will mean: less photos on Sleep Dep, maybe less frequent entries, and maybe different sorts of writing due to GOD DAMN IT the inability to comprose the writing on a computer anymore.
Instead I have a powder blue notebook for Sleep Dep, and a little Pukka Pad in which to recreate Harrison Monsters.
It's not all bad. The powder blue notebook has an inscription from PETER CHRISTOPHERSON written on the back. It says: "All the best, S()*^D*^(O£!", or something to that effect, his signature is very messy.

---

The worst part is all of the writing that's been lost. Most of the finished drafts are backed up on Gmail, thanks to my insecure need for the approval of my peers. But the fragments and half-written projects (amongst them many of my favourites) are gone.
A moment's silence for the lost story fragments:
- The Remains
- Resonant Object
- Nn Thom Nee Yah
- Dirty Things
- Satan
- The Birthday Film
- Something New
- Huss
- The Week Before the Formal
... & approximately 5,000 words of the Harrison Monsters
& God knows what other things I can't recall right now.

Lost story fragments, we lift our glasses to you.
May you drift and squiggle back off into the darkness from whence you came, content and at peace. I'll try to recreate you, but it will all come out different I'm sure.

Ah well.

Later On

Later on he took a bath. He stood by while the bath filled, unhappy. It was the end of a long and upsetting day.
The bath was one part of a remedy for the unhappiness. A moment before he'd eaten a fast food dinner. Later he would drink beer and watch a film. When the bath was almost full he took his clothes off, placed his book on top of the toilet cistern, and pissed into the toilet. Then he slid into the water.
The bath had all kinds of comforting associations for him. Foremost of these was the womb. It was a gentle warm annihilation that asked nothing of him.
He grew comfortable, then spent some time reading the book.
He melted into the warm water and after a couple of difficult pages was transplanted into the world of the story. It was a grimy and wretched world filled with unhappy people, he enjoyed it. He floated through the scenes as a spectator, intrigued by the characters and their suffering.
For a while he saw everything with vivid clarity.
But then the words began to tangle up, some of the expressions were too oblique. The author described a character as a “smudge” against the “grey black night”, and he found this too difficult to visualise. Specifically the night being both grey and black.
He closed the book and leaned back in the tub. Tired. It had been a long day. He opened the book again, but closed it a moment later. For some reason he balanced it on top of his head.
Fighting back sleep. But then he slept. He woke a moment later, the book still perched on his head – a close call, it could easily have slipped.
He set the book back on the cistern, and fell asleep.
Woke, blinked, looked about him. Then fell asleep.
His sleep was black, blank and dreamless.
Each time when he awoke, he found himself relaxed and at peace. Sleep hung around him like a heavy force, it couldn't be fought. It was as if he were being born, again and again, into short lives he could make no sense of, then swiftly obliterated. Born, to live for a moment, just long enough to realise he was slipping away.
It felt good. It was only afterward, as the bath drained, that the comparison with births and deaths occurred to him. Maybe Samuel Beckett would have liked that. The sort of thing he was often saying about the human condition. Good old Samuel Beckett.
What was I going to do next, he thought.
Oh - beer and a movie.
Another good idea. On days like this, the best you could hope for was to disappear.

S-C-I-E-N-C-E-/-F-I-

Ty drifts from job to job. His parents despair of him.
He works as a kitchen hand and junior chef in two more cafes, then for six months as a builder’s apprentice.
Of this, Ty told Daryl: “It blew. Don’t ever get sucked into an apprenticeship. It’s fucken slave labour. Plus the industry’s gonna collapse any day now.”
Eventually he takes a job at a climbing centre in the Hutt Valley.
Of this, Ty told Daryl: “It’s funny ‘cos you get these fat guys come in and they’re hopeless, just hanging off the walls and freaking out. But it’s good, ‘cos there’s not many places you can go to learn about stuff like fear or self-reliance. To like learn how to deal with your mind. These guys are giving it a go, you have to be pro that.
“But they’re fucken funny. They like freeze up and shout and stuff. Their faces go red.”

The explosion in the café toilet continues to interest him. Considerable time is spent conducting “research” into theoretical concepts of time and the physical sciences.
Rich says: ‘He was pretty into it. Like not all the time, he’d go a few months without reading or whatever. But then if he got an idea he’d be back into it and you wouldn’t see him for like days.’

Initially Aaron visits to the flat to brainstorm re: the circumstances of the explosion and the disappearance of the man they’d come to know as “Doctor Who”.
Says Aaron: ‘He was looking at it from every angle. Science shit, eastern mystical shit – like all this “time is an illusion” shit. I mean “woosh”, you know? Straight over a brother’s head.’
Ty explains the founding principle of his obsession to Aaron. It is this:

If Doctor Who had discovered the secret of time travel, he’d taken it with him. His notes and papers had been either destroyed in the fire or transported back in time (an search of the alley turned up no sign of papers, either “contemporary” or “months old”)
However, the concept having been discovered, it could now be re-discovered. It was in fact more likely / “pre-disposed” to be re-discovered.
The café staff, as first hand witnesses to the explosion (or “maiden flight” as Ty referred to it) were in a better position than anyone to “reverse engineer the result”.

Aaron: ‘He reckoned he could work it out and follow Doctor Who through time. Which is cool, but he was into all of this complex stuff, it seemed like a long shot. I told him to keep in touch and let me know, but we lost touch. Just how it happens.’
Says Rich: ‘Ty stopped returning Aaron’s calls ‘cos he reckoned Aaron was a tool and a bit racist. Dunno if you’ve met the guy, but…’ (laughs) ‘Can’t really fault that.’

Meanwhile the café is rebuilt and, after being re-decorated and re-named, is re-opened for business.






It is much more popular with the punters now.
Julie works the counter at “Redux” for three weeks before handing in notice, saying to friends that the cafe “had an unpleasant vibe”.
Aaron remained as head cook, a position he still holds. He continues to tell new staff the story of Doctor Who, from Julie’s first encounter, through to his own heroic intervention, to its climactic explosion and the momentary appearance of “floating alien heads”.
Says Cassie, now working front of house: ‘He told me how he gave some guy the idea of time travel, and then he blew up the toilet? I assumed he was high. That same night he scored my flatmate and they did it in my bed.’
Aaron keeps his time travel songs as an iPod playlist, played whenever he grows nostalgic for the café’s “golden age”. As months pass, the playlist loses precedence to his growing devotion to the Walker Brothers.

Ty befriends Rich, a co-worker at the climbing centre. Three weeks later a space opens in Rich’s flat, and Ty moves in.
Says Rich: ‘Straight away I get that the guy’s a fucken genius. Some people don’t figure that out about Ty, ‘cos of the skateboard thing, but the dude has it going on. Like I think his IQ is up around 170.’ (laughs) ‘Makes you feel pretty stupid!’

Rich becomes a sounding board for Ty’s theories, which are talked over at length. An example, from an afternoon at the climbing centre:

RICH: I thought you said the guy disappeared.
TY: Yeah but back in time, right? So he could still exist in the present. Actually depending on his... itinerary, there could be a few of him.
RICH: How’s that?
TY: Like at a future date, he goes back to what is now our past...
RICH: Right, of course.
TY: So really want to find at least one of him. That would be ideal. But failing that, just try to track his movements through, like, space and time.

(a pause, dealing with customers)

RICH: How would you do that?
TY: Well it’s assuming a bit, but say there’s an explosion every time he jumps. Right? I’m reading through papers and stuff, looking for explosions since his first appearance.
RICH: (laughs) And?
TY: There’s a few of them, eh. But they might be normal.
RICH: “Normal explosions”.
TY: Gas or whatever. But I go out and I ask people in the area whether they remember, at any stage before the explosion, seeing a crazy guy with his skin smoking or his clothes on fire. You tend to remember. Also I tell them to keep an eye out in case they see him later, right? 'Cos he might be going forward.
RICH: You actually do this?
TY: Yeah man.
RICH: You go out and talk to people about explosions and whatever.
TY: Yeah man. Gets me out of the house.
RICH: You found him? Like has anyone seen him?
TY: (shrugs) Maybe. He might have blown up this place on the Terrace a few months back, but it's hard to be sure.

(continued soon)

Corrected Proof for Expo

Remember when summer lasted all day and you and your mate were going to go swimming but first you had to visit your grandparents. Your grandfather had a lawn bowls set and your grandmother sat in the shade of a “sun-brella” and drank. The radio was always warning you about something, and summer was defined as “the period of finest development, perfection, or beauty previous to any decline: the summer of life.” Probably your grandparents have passed on now but don’t dwell on it.


DADCO

Who are we and what do we do, we make plastic lawn furniture. We make round white plastic tables and plastic chairs in sets of four which come with. There’s a whole in the middle of the table and we make “sun-brellas” which go in the whole. They come in three colours. White with yellow and purple stripes, White with yellow and blue stripes, White with yellow and orange stripes.
That’s all we do. We make them in Hamilton and we send them up as far as Auckland and down as far as Tokoroa. We used to make BBQs but the contractors we had for the gas tanks were useless, it was a nightmare. & also safety regulations.

“My husband and I are remodelling our home to include a terrace garden, patio and conservatory. What can DADCO do to help?” – Siri
Nothing.

“Hi can I buy a table and set of chairs please.” – Carol
Yes you can Carol but you have not sent us your address or phone number.

“We’ve just bought a home in Warkworth (our first!) and love the look of the furniture in the DADCO calendar – do you deliver?” – Ben
Ben go read it again we do not send any further up than Auckland so no.


OUR MOTTO

At DADCO we have a motto: “It’s our job”.
We have it up in places around the warehouse & also we had it printed onto 12 “mouse-mats”.

THE DADCO PROMISE

At DADCO we’re ambivalent about the fact our customer service is nothing flash.

We recognise that mistakes happen. Sometimes orders will get shipped late, or to the wrong address, or else not all the items will be included. Oh well “that’s life.”

You, the customer, are not always our priority. We’ll give it a go, but we’ve also got other business to worry about. Things going wrong behind the scenes, etc. For instance some of our contractors are bloody useless.

If you’ve got a problem with us there’s an answering machine, the number is this: 275 7800 leave your number & a message. But don’t expect us to get back to you if you’re shirty.
(& also have a quick think before you ring maybe you’re just having a bad day? Well don’t take it out on us)

FROM THE MANAGING DIRECTOR

Hello my name is Don Cumble. I worked four years in the warehouse as Operations Manager until April this year when they made me MD.
I would say the best part of my job is that I don’t work in the warehouse! Ha ha no offence guys.
My job is pretty good, I get paid more than I used to. But sometimes it’s difficult. Like when I get a call from someone and I don’t know what to tell them – I may be the boss but I certainly don’t have all the answers!

So enough about Don. 2004 has been a big year for us, we’ve moved to the new premises which is good. More space to move around in. I don’t know what this place is exactly, someone said it used to be a hospital. Anyway it’s big. We’ve got maybe half of the top floor for our office and most of the bottom floor for our warehouse.
I went for a walk the other day just to see how big the place is, and let me tell you it’s spooky there out back. I was in this long dirty corridor where the lights weren’t working. I think there was maybe a window at the end but it wasn’t letting much light in. And with all these doorways!
It got me thinking: if this place used to be a hospital does that mean it’s haunted? People could have died in here.
Could our office be haunted? Something to look out for!

The other good news in 2004 is that the Board have come back with a decision and we’re definitely not starting up BBQs again this year. “Not this year and not next year” – their exact words. Whew!
Ollie from Accounts wants me to say something. Here goes:
“Bell Lagosa is dead”. Oops, no, ha ha. I’ve done it wrong.
“Bela Lugosi’s dead”.
(Is that right????) Sorry Ollie, I don’t understand that one at all!
!! – hey that is so spooky I was talking about ghosts just a minute ago!!!!!!!!!

FROM THE CHAIR

Don
I know I said I’d do this but I don’t have time. Get one of the girls to type something up but I want to see it first before it goes to print.
Cheers Dennis.

OUR CATALOGUE

To order anything in our catalogue you’ll need the order form. THIS IS NOT THE ORDER FORM. To get the order form send a fax through to 275 7990. If that doesn’t work try 275 7995.

If you can’t get through to either of them after a couple of gos then try 467 9415 but you’ll have to wait because it’s a home fax & only gets checked on weekends.

Also there is an email address which you can write to DADunderscoreCO@googlemail.com - I think that's right unless you have to put "WWW" in front of it.

ITEM PRODUCT # $$$

Table (white w hole) 602201-A $95.00

Chairs (white, set of 4) 709931-00 $114.80

Sun-brella (white w/ yellow & purple)* 11118879346-YELLOW $39.95

Sun-brella (white w/ yellow & blue)* 12978462046-YELLOW $39.95

Sun-brella (white w/ yellow & orange)* 11119784694-YELLOW $69.95


*please note that a sun-brella is just that & will not stop rain.

Problems with Our Elephants (1)

(for Quincey, who's had the blues this week)

- and is still an ongoing concern at our zoo. While there have been no major “incidents” since Mumba, both of the remaining animals show clear signs of continued abnormality.
I will attempt to summarise the situation as it has played out.
We have (or had) three elephants here, all of them Asiatic/Elephas maximus.
• The large male mentioned earlier (“Mumba”, E. m. indicus) who was thought to be about 35 years old. Purchased from Bangalore.
• A female (“Gita”, E. m. indicus), now 27 years old. This animal suffered an injury to her front left leg in her infancy and limps. Purchased from Tambour & Sulliven, Bangkok.
Mumba and Gita were acquired in 1993 with hopes to form a mating pair; no success.
• A younger and much smaller male, 9 years old (“Teeny”, E. m. sumtranus) acquired in 2004 from a zoo in Cambodia deemed inhumane / unable to care for him.

DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE

Started 6 weeks ago. Elephants exhibited tendency to stand at the bars of the enclosure, facing out (i.e. “staring” at patrons). Noted but not formally reported.
At ~ same time Brent Haskill (custodial staff) recalls hearing voices, although didn’t ascribe these to the animals and didn’t report. Haskill recalls “loud voices, nearby” as he cleaned, the now-familiar “Pum” sound.
~1 week later elephants developed eye problems. Custodial staff / zoo patrons turning their backs on the elephants would sometimes turn back to find the animals looking at them fixedly and w/ the animals’ eyes much larger and artificial-seeming.
These transformations at first very short lived, “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t”, although later could be sustained for a minute or longer.
No photographic record of this, despite numerous attempts.
The large eyes are described as being “doll like”, round, unlidded, and seemingly superimposed over the face, no irises but large black “pupils” with “sort of a wedge missing”. Custodial staff have described the eyes as being like buttons, being like those of a toy or “old-fashioned cartoon character”, or as “Clockwork Orange without the lashes”.

No action taken on initial reports (these were misunderstood to be jokes / exaggerations). However I have now seen this for myself and can confirm it is very strange / disturbing, and comparisons with cartoons are spot-on.

The “new eyes” when they appear seem made of hard material such as plastic or porcelain, but not sure.
Diagnosis made difficult at first as elephants would not “perform” for vet.

Three weeks ago junior custodian Tanya Pilrig tendered notice. Tanya came direct from cleaning elephant enclosure, was visibly upset.
Received report from Tanya during exit interview the next day:

I was in there with Mumba, the others were in the back cage. And this voice keeps going: ‘Pum, pum-pum’, like someone singing almost. I thought I was imagining it. But then I turn around and Gita and Teeny are up at the door and they both have big eyes.
And I turn to Mumba and he has big eyes too, and then he just sits back on his bum and has his hoofs in the air and he’s watching me.
So I don’t know what to do, so I turn off the hose and I’m going to run for it, like I’m really freaking out. And then Mumba’s smiling at me! He’s got big teeth, like human teeth, or like cartoon teeth. And he says: ‘PUM’. Really loud. And the others go ‘Pum-pum!’, like they’re joining in.
And then Mumba has a moustache and this little hat on his head. And I don’t know where it came from but there’s a table with all this shit on it, a tea pot and tea cups. And he’s holding the teapot, going ‘PUM-PUM’ with a pipe in his mouth, like he’s asking do I want tea. I just lost it. I dropped everything and ran.
There is no way you will ever get me back into that place.

This type of problem witnessed on later occasions, different variations but always ending w/ appearance of table & tea pot. Most pronounced with Mumba, who staff have witnessed w/ brown or tan moustache & wearing hat or waistcoat.
Vet has since witnessed this and has a theory that the animals are “attempting to develop & maintain human characteristics with the intention of tricking / persuading us into their release”.
Zoo staff consider this theory “possible but unlikely”.
They wish to stress that the eyes, teeth (& Mumba’s moustache) exhibited are in no way convincing or reassuring. Atmosphere created by these changes described as “bizarre” / “profoundly disturbing”, & having “the qualities of a bad dream or nightmare”.

Vet has speculated situation might change/improve if someone were to accept the offer of tea but no volunteers.

SPOKEN LANGUAGE

Elephants began speaking words in English approx two weeks ago. 1st instance of this witnessed by Tom Lockhart (who handed in resignation but was persuaded to stay on swapped shifts). Tom made following statement:

I was dumping feed in the main enclosure, and Teeny came running in from the back cage with the big eyes, and he was shouting “I AM A - I AM A - I AM A -”
He had a high pitched voice, like a little kid. He ran straight at me.
I don’t think he was trying to antagonise me. I think he was just happy it was feeding time. But it scared me.

Over the past 2 weeks have had more reports of spoken English, as follows. NB: reports agree that Teeny speaks in voice of a male child, Gita has a “strident female voice”, and Mumba’s voice was “deep and calm” or “a mellow baritone”.

“WHAT-HO, WHAT-HO” – Mumba, on 12 July.
“CORN ON THE COB” – Teeny, 14 July (again @ feeding time, although NB there was no corn in his feed)
“FAR AWAY, OVER THE OVER THE” – Gita, 14 July
“I GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL NOT” – Mumba, 14 July (NB June Carter believes in this case she overheard Mumba "talking to himself in his cage")

(Cont. overleaf)

You Are Incorrigible

Oh no!

Oscar’s slipped from out of his mother’s grasp. & oh look – he’s running across the train platform!

OSCAR: Ha ha ha ha! I got away! I’m running across the train platform!

Oscar go back, your mother will be so worried. Oh look – he’s running between the passengers, ducking underneath the skirts of the ladies. & the ladies give a great shout of alarm!

THE LADIES: Oooh!!

OSCAR: Ha ha ha ha!

Oscar that is no way for little boys to behave. Now you and your mother will be late for your train.

OSCAR: I don’t care! I’m never going back – never!

Oh Oscar, you know that you must get on board. You must go back. It’s for your own good. Your mother only wants what’s – oh look what you’ve done now!

OSCAR: Ha ha ha ha!

Oscar you’ve taken the legs off the men passengers and put them on the bodies of the lady passengers!

OSCAR: I’ve taken off their legs – ha ha ha!

And you’ve taken the legs off the lady passengers and put them on the men. Now they’re tumbling around & falling about everywhere! Oh you naughty boy, is that any way to behave in public?

MOTHER: Oscar!? Oscar!

Oscar your mother is calling you.

OSCAR: Ha ha ha ha! I don’t care!

Oscar if you do not behave yourself I will be forced to introduce new characters into the narrative.

Oh Oscar – don’t blow a raspberry at me!

OSCAR: I don’t care, I don’t care! Nyah! I’m not going back – not ever!

I have never known a boy as naughty as you are, Oscar. & look – here’s an Agent pushing his way through the crowd.

AGENT: Down! Everyone get down!

THE PASSENGERS: Help, help us! Our legs!

The agent has a gun, Oscar. He’ll shoot you if you don’t co– oh Oscar, what are you doing!?

OSCAR: Ha ha ha ha! I’m drinking all the orange fizzy at the kiosk!

Why Oscar you are incorrigible. You know you’re not allowed to drink orange. & look what’s happened now.

OSCAR: Going all funny. Ha. Ha.

Yes Oscar, you’re allergic to orange and look what’s happened. You’ve lost control of your body & now you are mutating.

AGENT: (shocked whisper) Too late.

OSCAR: Chan…ging…

Yes Oscar. You’re changing and growing. Look at how you’ve upset the proprietor of the kiosk, he’s running away. Who’ll mind the till at the kiosk now he’s run away?

AGENT: Clear the station, quickly!

I’m sorry Mr Agent, but I’m afraid there’s no point firing your gun at Oscar now. All of that orange he’s drunk has set off his allergy.

OSCAR: NOT… GO BACK… HOSS-PEE-TALL…

Oh Oscar, if only you'd listened.

MOTHER: Oscar!?!

THE PASSENGERS: Eeeee!!

"It's a Trap"

Dark shape moving overhead
something tremendous
tremendous impact shakes the earth

A massive footfall

And it
(the shadow)
moves on,
and in its wake we have
pink dust, like
pink snow
falling down around us

You don't even notice,
you don't have time to lose,
you're up and moving


to find some clothes
to get dressed
to head out quickly
to cross the room
to a door, leading
to a passage
to a flight of stairs, leading down
to darkness;

to rub at your eyes
to hurry
to the bottom
to slip through a gap, closing, very narrow
to feel the walls close around your shoulders
to wriggle through, & out

to the light
to open spaces
to noises & people, rushing,
to almost forget
to check before running across
to the far side


to the side street
to the alley
to the path which leads
to the park
to the bus stop
to check your watch

to creep in through the basement carpark
to creep in late
to punch the button
to climb inside, be drawn upwards
to punch the clock

to work
to work
to stare out the window
to type to index to squint & agree
to hold, to wait, to drum your fingers
to work, to fidget,
to work


to stumble along
to take your bearings &
to realise you're lost
to realise you're tired, but then
to hear something
to listen
to hear them somewhere nearby, &
to carry on, looking

to crash against the mattress, exhausted, &
to try to think what you need
to remember for tomorrow,
to fall sleep wondering


to wake later in the night, remembering
to stare up at the ceiling, remembering

to work
to work
to lift them one by one
to carry each of them over & stack them
to carry them stack them load them up onto the trucks,
to step back,
to wipe the sweat from your face, then look
to the rest of it waiting
to be shifted, stacked & loaded


to exhaustion at the end of it,
to feel so fucking tired, &
to lean against the wall &
to wonder where all the money goes

to a bench
to sit
to take off your shoes before rising
to step inside
to silence
to the shade of a large cool room
to the muttering of dozens of people
to step amongst the kneeling forms
to find a place of your own
to kneel
to mutter
to mutter for hours
to barely know what you're saying, but simply
to ask
to say “please”
to repeat that word many times
to ask for relief
to politely ask for the pressure to relent
to ask
to be pardoned
to beg
to kneel & beg, & while so doing,
to try
to ignore the cold stone
to ignore the pain it is causing your knees &
to put aside your mounting suspicion that no-one is listening
to you


to work
to work
to lean against the wall &
to examine your hands
to admit
to yourself: it's not getting easier
to do this
to work & work &
to make it to that magical fucking pint
to the whiskey & the smoke
to that moment of peace

to accustom yourself
to a certain amount of pain
to accept it as inevitable, but
to admit
to yourself: it's getting harder
to ignore


to a waiting room
to wait
to stare about &
to wait
to be called
to stare at the faces of the others
to consider which seem stronger, which weaker
to hear your name
to walk in & sit
to bow your head
to listen
to them tell you what you need
to stop eating or stop doing
to breath a deep acceptance &
to nod;
to take it on the chin

to work, to work
to wake
to sudden pain, & then
to wait while they make the call
to watch them come in
to be lifted over
to a stretcher, carried
to the car, driven
to the ward, wheeled
to the bed, shown the controls
to lift it & lower it,
to wait there, to wait there
to take it on the chin, then


to a table & then
to a box & then
to a hole in the ground & then
to what?
to wait there?
to wait there & then at the sound of a trumpet
to be lifted up & carried away
to somewhere
to some great reward
to Heaven
to Jesus
to Santa
to life everlasting;
to be congratulated on your conduct &
to be told: “Yes”

Last Train to Trans-Hyperlink

The exquisite corpse is once again on the move, and I stand on high ground in a white robe, sunglasses and silly hat - exactly like a Pet Shop Boy circa the Disco 2 album (see diagramme opposite) - and point the way.

Don't read the first entry yet if you want to join in. Go straight there instead.

But I am not finished, for again I am pointing. Perhaps I am Chris Lowe, the silent* Pet Shop Boy, for I am pointing only.

I point here, to the KITCHEN GUN.
And here, to TEN FREE-ISH ALBUMS BY ANDREW BRODER OF FOG
(if that's too many to sort through use THIS as navigation)

* a misnomer, given "Paninaro" and "We All Feel Better In The Dark".

Gilman Ah Um (a Late Introduction)

“You write like a child.”
I write like a child. I write like a child.

People always ask me. About myself, about the blog. / No they don't.
“What's that in your hair?” they ask.
“What?” I say. “I don't – oh. It's a... a little tag. It's washing instructions for... something.”
“The blog?” they ask.
“Well it was going to be a zine. But then I left the country, so –”
“Is it supposed to be funny?”
“Parts of - "
/Sudden gust of wind, doesn't feel normal somehow. Don't have time to stop and think it over though. Late. I scramble down the concrete steps, almost slip and fall on the moss and algae growing everywhere. Too damp around here.
/ They're waiting. They see me coming. “Here he is,” they say.
“Hi.”
“Insomnia. Are these your stories that you've been working on?” / “yes are these your sto-ries”
“No, this is just... no, they're not proper stories. I mean, obviously. It's its own thing.”
“Oh what a relief, I was going to sa
/ Pressing a drink into my hand. Well, at least that. “Ut ut ut ut ut? Mah ah ut ut nud.”
“I'd have to check.”
“Is it sup-posed to be fun-ny?”
Go on arsehole, ask me that again. A trickle nearby /a pipe has burst within the stonework.
“Is it, that, um, what... do you...”
The child's mother leans in, puts a hand on her shoulder. “It's okay honey, take your time. Think about what you're going to say.” / I wait while she summons herself.
“Why it is that you have a big red face and big teeth and your eyes are always big open like this” she demonstrates – big open starey-eyes, “and and... and you look like you're angry and you always chew and why it is that you have a beard?”
The mother straightens up and stares at me. Answer my daughter's question. / Checking my watch. Shit, late. Always late. The stairs two at a time, skidding on rotten leaves at the bottom – a close call.
They're waiting. Staggering about on the street, crouching on bits of masonry. Powdered wigs askew on their heads/ “Here. Is.”
“Why. The. Title.” Strands of drool emerging from the corners of the mouth.
I clear my throat.
“It's a bit like... well you know how they used to say that carrots contained a vitamin that helped you see in the dark, and so as children we'd eat carrots because we thought we'd gain this, uh, remarkable power...”
“Car-rot, rots.”
“Yes. And I suppose in another sense the carrot is an inducement, like that's another meaning of the... well and so what darkness is to the carrot, sleep deprivation, that is to say insomnia, uh, is to the... er...”
/ There's that unnatural wind again.
“Nn thom nee ah.” / “Hnnh! Hnh hnh... hnthom neeah.”
The ground shudders, almost shakes me off my feet, and a half-second later the sound of three or four muffled explosions / then an eerie aftermath / dogs barking up and down the street
saying: “We are under attack we are under attack”
/ almost comical, the looks on their faces / “WE ARE UNDER ATTACK” shouts a voice in my ear – I turn to find one of those weird holes they put into the walls, and a dog's stuck its dirty head through and it's stridently yowling at us / “THE HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED WE ARE UNDER ATTACK WE ARE TAKING ON WATER”
Taking on water?
Q. /“I. Want. To. Have – ”
Yes, there, and there. The Tesco across the road is filling, is actually filled up with water through the glass see the floating produce drowned customers / a second story window up the street, also filled up with water //“- A. Ques-tion. Re-gard-ing. The – ”
water pissing out from the branches of a nearby tree / almost comical, hands raised above their faces theatrical gestures of horror / “– Sex-u-ality. Of. Your. Chayr-actors. ” / mouths stretched wide, eyes bulging, swelling into cloudy white / bodies bloating up, twisting / the wigs falling from their heads I want to scream at them / another series of explosions, windows breaking, water falling, bricks crumbling this is your fault you shits / arching, turning, swollen bodies on spindly leg arrangements and they're running for cover //UR FAULT it is YOUR FUCKING FAULT THAT THI

Uncanny Story (i)

This is a good one. I'll try to get this right, tell the story as it happened.

I am 16 or 17. My older brothers moved out years ago, and my parents are away for the week. It's the school holidays. I have the house to myself.
I love having the house to myself. I get to do everything the way I want to. In practice I do everything more or less the same, except I rise later, eat more, etc.
But on the other hand it's creepy. I find that I'm walking around as quietly as possible – as if making loud noises will draw attention to myself. Whose attention?
I have to look after Monty (the dog). Walk him twice or three times a day, feed him, hang out with him so he doesn't go insane from boredom. Dogs are like children, they need to be constantly occupied. Monty prefers to stay upstairs in the lounge, where he can watch the street outside from a high window and bark at everyone who passes.

I'm downstairs. I'm sitting at the piano, practising. Lazily playing through the same old parts of The Wall, the parts I already know.
I stop playing and sit there, thinking, looking at Dad's bookshelf. Reading through the titles of all these old books, the ones that have always been here, lined up on these shelves. Even when we lived in the States, the same collection of old paperbacks.
The sound of a passing car outside. The sound of someone typing in the next room.
I think: wait a minute.
I listen.
Someone is typing in the next room. Typing on the computer keyboard. Reader: you know this sound. Summon it to mind – the sound of someone typing on plastic keys. It's unmistakeable.
I sit on the piano bench, and look at the closed door to the next room.
The next room is Andy's old room. My oldest brother's room. It's been converted into a combination guest bedroom and computer room, Dad set up his new IBM in there. Except obviously no-one else is home, so there shouldn't be the sound of typing, but there is.
I wait for this sound to fade away or evaporate. Sometimes when you get too far into a daydream you'll actually hear the sounds from it, and you'll shake your head or snap to your senses and they'll vanish. But this person is still typing. Click-clickaclicka-click-click-clickaclicka-click.
I think: what is this, supernatural? A ghost? Kind of an exciting possibility. Except there's no-one else at home, I'm here alone (and will be for the next couple of days).
I get up and walk to the door. I'm surprised by how well I'm dealing with this. You always wonder whether, confronted with something really weird, you'd run or you'd walk closer. I listen. They're still typing. I open the door.
The sound stops.
Exactly, as if on cue. Because the room next door is empty and the computer is switched off.

Lucky for me I had plans that evening – me and some friends were going to go see Alive, the new true-story film about a plane crashing the Andes, and all the rugby players have to eat each other's corpses. We were going to Wellington Boys College at the time, I think the story had a special appeal to us.
I walked Monty, chucked him into the kitchen quickly (freaked out, hand trembling) and left the house as soon as I could. Walked down the hill into town, thought about & rehearsed this incredible story for when I told it to my friends.
We met in the Mid City movie centre (RIP) and went to dinner at Pizza Hut first. This was back when Pizza Hut was an all-you-can-eat restaurant with a self-service dessert bar, in a sense they were glory days for me because I hadn't yet discovered smoking, sex or drinking. I weighed 100kg and eating was the biggest thrill in my life.
I was really nervous, I ate too much. In particular I ate too much dessert. I told the story of the “mystery typist”, I told it a few times to different people, milking it for all it was worth.
Someone said: "Are you sure it wasn't just the sound of your dog walking around upstairs?"
"No way. I know the sound of Monty walking around, I know the sound of typing. It was typing."
I wonder what we would have looked like that night – seven or eight 16 year old guys with no facial hair and no bad habits. Bad dress sense, probably. Loud, nerdy laughter.
Anyway the time came and we went up to the movie. Filed in, took our seats. I was sitting next to Texas Tim – or rather a 16 year old version of Texas Tim who at that stage I'm sure had never dreamed of going to Texas.
The movie starts. There's this plane, it's flying into the Andes. Everything's normal, except you know they're fucked, so there's this certain element of tension. All these people from South America are laughing and talking – and I CANNOT HANDLE THIS UNBEARABLE TENSION.
The plane crashes, OH MY GOD. It thumps into this mountain and whips around and people are ripped to pieces, dismembered. Mortality on an epic scale, IT GOES ON FOREVER... and then in the aftermath people are regaining consciousness, except their BODIES ARE MANGLED. One guy goes up to another and says “Am I okay? I feel weird.” And he has this HUGE bit of metal sticking out of his CHEST, he's in shock and he hasn't noticed it... and the other guy has to PULL IT OUT OF HIM...

Suddenly I'm in crippling pain, like a bad leg cramp except it's happening all over my body. The story has advanced considerably – I think I have missed several minutes. The pain is so awful I think I'm going to vomit. I get to my feet and stagger up the aisle steps & out of the theatre, except I can't stand up properly so I have to lurch like a hunchback.
Out in the lobby I sit down on the floor and start trying to straighten my spine, a long process which takes almost an hour.
After about ten minutes Tim comes out. “You okay?”
“I don't know what happened... I just suddenly had this pain.”
“You freaked me out,” says Tim.
He explains: right after the plane crash sequence (which I'm assured is not that horrific) I slumped forward with my head between my knees, as if in a faint. Then I slowly came up until I was rigid, leaning back and to the left in my seat in quite an unnatural posture, which I held for a long time before abruptly saying: “I need to leave.”
I said: “Oh man. I don't remember any of that.”
“It was pretty strange,” said Tim.
The others came out to check if I was okay. Reassured, they went back in and watched the rest of the movie. I can't remember, (I was in a lot of pain) but I think Tim sat out the whole movie talking to me.
“It's something to do with my brain,” I said. “You know what I told you, about hearing someone typing at home? It must have been a hallucination, and this fainting thing must have something to do with it.”
Why would that happen?
Too much pizza and sugar? But that had come after the initial hallucination.
Maybe my brain had been malfunctioning all day. It had run low on some important chemical or whatever.
I thought: shit, maybe I've been possessed by something. It hadn't been too long since I'd seen The Serpent and the Rainbow.
But why? How? Our house was built in the 80s, we were the first owners, it had no history at all.
“You sure you just didn't freak out because the movie scared you?” said Tim.
“Shut up.”
Get real. I'd seen worse movies than Alive.

Speaking of the uncanny, Ed sent this in:

"Chapter 7, Page 99"
just bought this
randomly opened it
read this thought of you:

In the 1950s psychiatrist Cathy Hayes raised a young chimp in her own home. In late infancy Viki, the chimp, began to trail an arm behind her as if pulling a toy on a string, and would even pretend to catch the string on obstructions and then release it again. After several weeks of this behaviour, Viki one day appeared to entangle the imaginary toy around the knob of the toilet, and cried for help. Hayes pantomimed untangling the rope and returning it to her, to be rewarded with what could have been either "a look of sheer devotion" or "just a good hard stare". A few days later, when Hayes decided to invent a make-believe pull-toy of her own that clacked on the floor and swooshed on the carpet, "Viki stared at the point on the floor when the imaginary rope would have met the imaginary toy, uttered a terrified "oo-oo-oo," leap into Cathy's arms, and never played the game again.

don't know what the context is or anything
just
from "On the origin of stories (evolution, cognition and fiction) by Brian Boyd (NZ Auckland academic)

Something I wrote, or was working on a few years ago - the image of a woman in a blue dress walking past, pulling a little girl (her daughter?) along my the wrist - the little girl in a blue dress, and with her other hand she's pulling along a doll - the doll in a little blue dress, and in the doll's other hand is something unnamable - a little blue dress and glittering eyes, and //n its# other han/#@//

But anyway that's monkeys for you. Monkeys are creepy & dangerous.

The Sleep Dep On-Line Exquisite Corpse, #1 (June 2009)

This entry is part of an on-line exquisite corpse. Scroll down to the bottom for directions to the other chapters...

---

1. After dinner Tim Quinn called to say the police were putting together a search party for tomorrow morning, and were they interested. Dad took the call in his office on speaker-phone.
“Can't do it, Tim, I'm coaching.”
“What coaching?”
The tinny voice echoed off the bare brick walls.
“Footie, mate. Under twelves.”
“Sounds like a bloody excuse, mate. I've never heard of you coaching. You couldn't coach your arse off a barstool.”
Dianne had been hovering in the doorway, and surprised everyone by saying:
“I'll come.”
It'd be a Saturday morning, and it's not like she had anyplace else to be.

Actually there was another reason – she thought probably Peter McIntyre would be coming too.
And he did. The meet-up was at 7, a sports field on the edge of the bush, not too far from her college. There were maybe twenty people. Father Ross was there, handing out coffee and tea in styrofoam cups.
“No thanks,” she said.
Then she made her way over to Peter.
“Pretty cold, eh.”
He seemed to take a moment to recognise her.
“I reckon,” he said.
She left it there, moved a ways off, felt mild relief when the officer blew the whistle and started calling out instructions - “You'll be in groups of four,” she said. “It's real important that if you find anything or see anything you DON'T touch it, or them. Each group will have a whistle, so blow the

---

This is part 1 of 10. You can find the other installments here:

1. www.sleep-dep.blogspot.com (26 June 2009)
2. www.multi-dimensional.blogspot.com (27 June 2009)
3. www.deb-onair.blogspot.com (29 June 2009)
4. www.additiverich.com/morgue/ (1 July 2009)
5. www.jennitalula.wordpress.com (1 July 2009)
6. www.podagogue.blogspot.com (1 July 2009)
7. www.neil-colquhoun.blogspot.com (2 July 2009)
8. www.ktrmc.blogspot.com (7 July 2009)
9. http://mariewg.blogspot.com (9 July 2009)
10. http://jeffforgotthechocolate.blogspot.com/ (15 July 2009)

Your eyes do not deceive you - that's the full 10, as of 15 July.

Thanks to all the writers who picked this up and ran with it - into some fairly strange places. I've assembled a full version as a Word doc, write in to squid.mohawk@gmail.com if you want a copy (although I reckon part of the thrill is reading it straight from the blogs).

Oh my goodness, & another - I'm working through my inbox, it's actually full of them. That makes three pieces rejected in one day.

That's one more, or is it two more, rejection(s). Two pieces, one journal. Short pieces so who knows, they could end up on here sooner or later.
Internet = Refuge. The. Last. Of. Rejected. The.

Leith Stories, Necropolis (i)

I once had a pot skeleton (*) of a tall building, a sort of monolithic grid of stone and broken windows, which floated in the water like a ship. In coastal cities, on fog-bound days, everything would fall silent and it would appear. It would drift out of the fog, a few hundred metres from land.
People would become possessed. They'd be driven to walk down to the quays, cast themselves into the water and drown.
Then: their corpses would float, drift, and wriggle back to life. They'd swim towards this building. They would climb up in their hundreds, climb out of the water and scale its stone face, climb in through the broken windows.
The structure was called the “Necropolis”. Once the dead were inside it would drift away, vanish into the fog, and take them with it. Friends, fathers and daughters. Entire families, safely nestled in their new home.
I told this to Doses and he said: “That's stupid.”
“No it's not,” I said. “It's cool. It's fucking freaky.”
“It's not freaky man, it's stupid.”
Turns out this thing exists, as many macabre and derelict things do, in Leith.

Where I live.
Not to be confused with Lethe, although judging from the state of the people here perhaps the two share a common function.
Quincey got to Scotland ahead of me & had to go through the whole arduous process of finding a flat on her own.
She says: “I chose Leith because I thought it would suit you.”
I'm not sure what I ever did to deserve this woman.
I mean look at this place, it's beautiful.


Here's something that happened to me in Leith. It happened on Monday morning, on the way to work:
I went to the shop and bought a cheap energy drink and a pack of gum.
I walked out, crossed the road, and started heading towards Pilrig Park like I normally do.
There's this thing on the footpath, walking towards me. A little thing. I'm looking at it, and I cannot for the life of me determine what it is.
I stared at it, watched it bumble towards me. It was awkward, clumsy. It had a dog's body, except smaller and yellowish. It's head was a gray mess of weird shapes. From the way it was moving, it was clearly blind.
Exhausted from a terrible night of insomnia (during which I posted this and this), I accepted the appearance of this strange, fucked-up monster. It had no face, no mouth. It didn't pose an obvious threat.
It stumbled into a bin. I realised it was a fox. A fox who had killed a pigeon, and was trying to carry the thing off to eat it, except one of the pigeon's wings had arced up to cover his face and eyes. He couldn't see. He was terrified, vulnerable being out in on the street in broad daylight, but too desperate and hungry to relinquish his food for even a moment. He was so thin.
Desperate, clumsy. The thing bumbled past me and smacked into the iron gates of a small housing estate.
I walked on – I was late. My boss prints off my clock cards, periodically calls me in to meeting rooms to bollocks me about getting to work at 8:35 instead of 8:30.
So I walked on to the alley which leads to the park. I turned back and got a last look – just a dead pigeon lying outside the iron gate. I thought: aw no, poor thing. Had to drop it's food. But then something fast, a snout I suppose, whipped out from behind the gate and yanked the corpse inside.


Wish I could have photographed it. This clumsy little compound monster was one of the strangest and most beautiful things I've ever seen.
Only in Leith.
Coming home at the end of the day I found a small pile of dead pigeons near my flat – feathers stripped from their sides, bloody red bit marks on their pink skin. I went inside and grabbed my camera, I'd meant to photograph the corpses, but then the idea seemed too ghoulish.
I walked down Constitution Road and took these pictures instead. (**)



* - this term will be explained in a later post.
** - thanks to Doses and "Alive But Not Living" (henceforth called "Alive") & partners for the digital camera

Hey you

Hey

Hey you

Don't you worry

You think you are alone


And no-one is watching you

And there is no-one to care for you

And all the mistakes you are making

You feel so bad


Hey you

Don't worry

We care for you

We are watching you


All the mistakes

We clean them up

To make better


So don't worry

We care

We fix you up okay


Churrr.

Note from the Cleaners

When you are finishd with yr dishes pls wash & dry & PUT AWAY. DONT leave for us to tidy yr dishes ITS NOT OUR JOB Maureen & me & the girls are NOT YOURE MADES. This is 3 days in a row now we have found dirty dishes pield up in the sink so high we cant fill our buckets & how would you like it if we treated yr home the same way. We are NOT YOUR MOTHERS same rules as when you were at home with Mum pls if you use it wash it & dry it & put it away. Our job is to clean surfaeces & carpet & empty bins. Yr job is to do yr job & ALSO to clean up after. What if we came round yr house & treated it the same way, Maureen & the girls put rubbish everywhere & smashed up windows. No sign of yr kids just their feet prints off in the snow. We are paid our wage (NOT BIG) & you are paid yrs & YES we are part time but there are MORE of US than YOU in the wider world so mind yr manners & STOP leaving yr rubbish in the sink pls
& then no-one has go back to the Old-ways
MUCH APPERICATED.

And

And? And? And? And?
Annd. Annd.
Annd. Annd.
And? And? And? And?
Annd. Annd.
Annnd. Annnnn-
-nud.
Annnnnnn-
-nud.
Nud. Nud.
Nud. Nud.
Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. (ut) Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. (ut) Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. (ut) Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. (ut) Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud. (ut) Nud. Nud. Nud. Nud.

(ut) Nud. Nud. (ut) Nud. Nud. (ut) Nud. Nud. (ut) Nud. Nud. (ut) Nud. Nudut. Nud. Nudut. Nud. Nudut. Nud. Nudut. Nud. Utnud. Nud. Utnud. Nud. Utnud. (ka) Nud. Utnud. (ka) Nud-ud-nud-ka. Nud-ut-nud-ka. Nut nkah. Nut nkah.
Unkah. Unkah. Unkah. Unkah. Unkah. Unkah. Unkah. Unkah.
Ut. Ut. Ut. Ut. Ut. Ut. Ut. Ut. Ut. Ut. Utka
Ut! Ut! Ut! Ut! Ut! Ut! Ut! Ut!

Ahaha. Ahaha. Ahaha. Ahaha.
Ah-haha. Ah-haha.
Ah-ha-ha-ha. Ah ha. Ah ha.
Ah-ha-ha-ha. Ah ha. Ah ha.
Ah-hee. Ah-hee-hee! Ah-hee-hee!
Ah-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hehehehe-hehehehe-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee
Ah-ha-ha-ha. Ah-ha-ha-ha.
Ah-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee
AH-HEE AH-HEE AH-HEE AH-HEE AH-HEE AH-HEEEE AH-HEEEE AH-HEEEE AH-HEEEEEEEEEEEE
AH-HEEEEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEEEEEEE

Ahh. Ahh. Ahh. Ahh. A-ahhhhhhh. A-ahhhhhhh.
Ah-hah. Ah-hah. Ahh. Ahh.
Ah-hah. Ah-hah. Ahh. Ahh.
Shhh. Ahh. Shhh.
Shhh. Ahh. Shhh.
Ahh. Ahh. A-ahhhhhhh
Ah-hum. Hum. Hum. Ah-hum
Ahhhhh. Ah-hahhhh.
Hum. Ah. Huh. Nh. Ah. Hum. Ah.
Awwwwwww.

Awwwwwww.
Yahh-awww. Umm. Ay. Ma. Umm. Ay. Ma.
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Awwwwwww.
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I am a I am a I am a I am a
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I AM A I AM A I AM A I AM A
I am a I am a I am a I am a
uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh

I am a.

Science Fiction Double Feature (1 of 2)

You always get at least one or two. Even if it's an up-market place, you get up-market ones coming in. Every day, or most days. Old people or crazy people with nowhere else to go.
So here's a story:
Three years ago, an upstairs cafe in the middle of town. One of the wait staff (Julie) takes the rubbish downstairs and opens the door, and there in the alley is this old guy in a shabby old suit, he's rolling around on a pile of collapsed cardboard and -
Says Julie: 'His body was smoking. His hair was fizzly and his skin was all black, like when a bomb blows you up in a cartoon.'
Julie practically screams. Says something like: “What the hell!?”
The guy rolls around, scrambles up onto his feet. He's saying “Where? Where?” Really confused, really out of it. He looks up to this window above him, the window of the cafe's toilet. And he starts laughing, like he's gotten away with something.
He's between her and the skip, so she's standing there, watching him, waiting for him to get out of her way.
He starts mumbling, saying: “I'm-a, I'm-a...”
This crazy tramp, laughing and stumbling around with his skin smoking.
Julie says something like “Get out of the way, alright?”
And the guy says: “I'm a time traveller!”
And then he runs away, out the far end of the alley.

This story went down well with the rest of the crew, it was an instant classic. Whenever you had a new start the chef (Aaron) would say: 'Hey Jules, tell them about the time traveller.' Or if someone was taking the rubbish down, he'd be like: 'Hey be careful out there. Don't want you getting... time raped.'
Fucking Aaron.
Anyway, the crazy thing is a few months later the guy starts coming in, like actually as a paying customer. He's cleaned up, still doing the whole shabby suit thing but it's a newer, tidier suit.
“Cup of tea,” he says quietly. He's a mumbler.
“That's him,” says Julie afterwards. Pointing. All the staff peeking out through the kitchen hatch.
“He looks really normal,” says the dishwasher (Ty). Disappointed.
“That's him?” asks Aaron.
“Yeah, that's him.”
And Aaron watches him drink his tea for a moment, then he goes: “I like him.”
Whenever Aaron was on shift he controlled the iPod, which played the music in both the kitchen and front of house. And whenever this guy came in, as sort of a joke he'd put on that “Doctor Who” song, by the KLF or whoever.
And he'd look through the hatch, looking for a reaction. But no, never. It's always the same with this guy.
First he says: “Cup of tea.”
Then he pays, walks through. Always prefers the same table by the window, or goes to the corner one if he can't get it. Then out comes the notebook and he's scribbling away for like fifty minutes, an hour.
Doctor Who-oo... (Hey!) Doctor Who, Doctor Who-oo... (Hey!) The TARDIS...
Other songs, too. Aaron's building up a repetoir.
Science fiction... (ooh-ooh-ooh) Double feature...


Mostly this guy is really quiet, no fuss. But once or twice he comes in looking really agitated. On these occasions he behaves like a genuine crazy person.
“Have there been people here?”
“Well... yeah.”
“No, no, people, I mean, hang about, hang about. Has anyone come and asked about me?”
Yeah, thinks Julie. Sure. The kitchen staff.
He always pays, doesn't hang around the counter, and he's not a perv. So, like, let him be crazy.
But these days start happening more and more often, there's a sense that he is losing it quite badly. Weird scabs on his fingers. Burns.
He tells Julie: “It's ideas that are important, not people. But if the wrong people have the wrong ideas - they don't like that, no, no.”

Aaron can't take it anymore.
“He finished?”
“Why?”
“I'm gonna clear the table. I gotta meet him. Just gotta.”
He takes off his apron and heads out like he's wait staff. He stands there for a moment, looking over the guy's shoulder while he writes in his book.
Says Aaron: 'It was crazy shit, man. Lines and diagrammes and science shit. Numbers. You know what I mean? Like really far out science shit.'
So Aaron says: “Finished?”
The guy looks up and just nods.
Aaron takes the tea cup away. But it's not enough. Not enough of an encounter.
So before he goes Aaron leans in and says: “Hey mate. You a... time traveller?”
This little old man practically jumps out of his skin. He looks at Aaron like a cornered animal.
“What!? What's that you... what!?”
He seems completely confused. So Aaron leans in a second time, nods like they have, you know, an understanding. Flicks a glance at the notebook.
“Time traveller,” he says. “You. Are. A.”
And here's another instant classic - this guy looks back, looks him straight in the eye, and with total sincerity says:
“N-no! Time travel is impossible. Impossible!”
Aaron straightens up, poker faced, and walks back to the kitchen.
They cannot contain their hysterics. You can hear them laughing in the kitchen, doing impressions of that line, over and over again. So imagine how it is for Julie, standing out there, when the whole cafe can hear them. Mortified.
But the old guy doesn't seem to hear. He's wide-eyed, flipping through his notebook, pulling papers out of his pockets, reading numbers aloud. Saying: “No... no, no... no...”
It's weird. Weird enough that the other customers all leave.


They didn't see him again for a long, long while.
“Where's Doctor Who?”
“You scared him off, dick.”
And Aaron would think about this, one finger rubbing at his little soul patch.
“I'm going to call him.”
And then he'd play songs for the time traveller. As if songs about time could summon him.
If I could save time in a bottle... the first thing that I'd like to do...
is to save every day 'til eternity passes away...just to spend them with you...
“That's gay,” says Ty. “What you're doing is gay. Playing songs for him.”
“Shut up,” says Aaron.



The guy didn't come for weeks and weeks. Then he came. It was late in the afternoon, two hours after Aaron had clocked off.
Julie was working the 'till. She could hear feet clomping up the stairs, like really hard out, and then the door flies open and it's the little old guy, standing there in his rumpled suit, clutching all these papers to his chest.
And the guy says: “Oh my God!!”
And Julie says: “...Can I help you?”
And he says: “What's out the back!?”
And before she gets a chance to answer he runs into the passage that leads out to the store room and the toilet.
Julie's standing behind the counter, between the scone dish and the espresso machine, just totally stunned. She can hear him opening and slamming the toilet door.
But she's frozen there, she's still looking ahead. Because through the main door's little window she can now see these three orange lights, hovering in mid-air.
Julie says: 'You're gonna say I'm mental, or I was tripping. But they were there, three of them. The size of chinese lanterns. Floating up to the window there, like they're trying to decide whether or not to come in.'
And then the toilet exploded.

Like it literally exploded. You probably remember hearing about this. It blew up. Blew the windows out the back of the building, one of the rafters fell in. Smoke and shit.
Says the assistant chef (Cam): 'Fucking Sarajevo mate! I run out the back and you can't see shit! And it smells. Like gunpowder or somethin', a real pungent stink of cartridge. And I'm like “woo-oo, that's me for the day”.'
Customers and staff milling into the smoke to get a look at what's going on. Julie goes out back with the rest of them, sparing a couple glances at the main door, but the lights have gone. Collectively the staff search the smoking wreckage but there is no sign of the weird old guy.
Fifteen minutes later, the fire department are in and performing an inspection of the property. Everyone is booted out.
Smoking a cigarette on the street with the rest of the staff, Ty says: “Oh yeah. Right. I get it.”
He pulls out his phone and calls Aaron, explains it to him. Aaron listens to the story with uncharacteristic silence and attention. Then he asks about the state of the kitchen.