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
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