Sleep Dep

There is Another Blog

2011-01-06T16:20:00.003Z

Hi everyone. Happy New Year!

You will have noticed that Sleep Dep has been... um... sort of floundering for the past wee while. This has been a general trend in my creative output over the past year or so, and it's something I hope to be rectifying to some degree in the coming weeks. What that means in terms of SD, who can say. We shall see.

Meanwhile - about a year ago I started another blog, which initially had the lame title "The CG Book Plow Project". Anyways after a year of total stasis it seems to be taking on some semblance of life, has a cooler name and is located here.

The idea of SBQCYSIATTR is that, well...

Basically after a bit of hiatus I've started reading again, so it's a blog where I write up my thoughts on what I've read, or maybe do a post about things that interest me to do with reading, or books, or what have you. It's kind of like a review site, except not, since I'm not the world's best book reviewer and don't necessarily intend to become a great, insightful reviewer. Maybe it could become like a discussion-forum-type-deal to do with reading. I dunno.

Anyway it's there. Check it out. It's nothing flash. Here is a picture of Perez Prado.

Seatoun Tunnel / Ferry Street

2010-11-19T14:32:00.003Z

Shaped Like a Corpse

2010-10-21T16:55:00.001+01:00

Shaped Like an Ass

2010-09-15T17:11:00.009+01:00

Welcome to the future. Your Largo Ergoform TX is the total primo fusion of comfort, affordability and posture-paedic support.

It’s loaded with controls. As demonstrated in the attached diagram, it has controls for raising and lowering the seat, altering the pitch of the seat, locking and unlocking the tilt of the back support, increasing or decreasing the resistance of the back support when unlocked, altering the seat depth and raising and lowering the arm rests.

There is a squishy pump for putting air into the in-built lumbar support, there are wheels and the armrests even come off if you need them to. But best of all, the chair itself is shaped just like an ass.

Shaped like an ass
Shaped like an ass
The Largo Ergoform TX is
Shaped like an ass

Try it out. Try it now. Sink down into that warm milky oblivion. Mmm-good. See? Hey I think it likes you!

We know that no two customers are exactly the same, so pay attention to the controls. So many controls! You’ll probably need your kids to explain them to you – ha ha!

Or we could send one of our representatives to custom-fit the chair to your contours. We’re happy to provide this service free to all of our clients. Very happy actually.

Hmmmm, just talking about your contours makes us want to sell you a chair. Better take a second to cool off!! Just kidding. (No we’re not.) We put a lot of thought into crafting our chairs with your specific contours in mind. It’s our gift to you, and hubby doesn’t have to know.

Just imagine sinking into an Ergoform at the start of a long day. Imagine how the day would fly past – you’d barely notice you were working. Imagine a line of Ergoform TX chairs rolling down the street, with a great big Ergoform Executive rolling in the lead… just like a bunch of schoolkids following Teacher on a field trip! Hey, or what if a whole bunch of them were performing on stage, like Las Vegas showgirls - crazy!!
…
That is actually crazy.

All Largo Ergoform TX chairs come with a free three year service guarantee. Some conditions apply. Visit our website to learn more about or range of posture-paedic products, or just to say “hi”.

No

2010-08-10T11:30:00.002+01:00

Hot damn, that's another rejection letter (a genre fiction site).

Not that fussed, just sharing.

Pot Skeleton: Terrifying Green Dragon!!

2010-08-05T15:23:00.004+01:00

Five men break out of a mental hospital in Kowloon. They are insane, in the way that people in films are often insane, i.e. they want to kill people. You, me. Everybody.

It is Chinese New Year.

The five insane men find their first victims in a warehouse– a group of parade performers, preparing to dress up as a Chinese dragon. The victims’ corpses are hidden in barrels. Blood trickling out from the bottom of the barrels. A dead eye staring out from a knot-hole.

Chilling music. The five insane men are now collectively wearing the dragon costume. It is green, with fierce leering eyes and a wide toothy mouth that snaps open and shut.

Out on the street, the celebrations are now in full swing. Clanging cymbals, exploding fireworks. Happy families. The green dragon, comprised of five insane men, has blended seamlessly in with the parade.

The dragon’s fierce eyes swivel. The jaw snaps. Happy, frightened children step into its path, then run away yelling. Parents laugh.

No-one suspects.

In the midst of the throng, the dragon strikes – chomp.

And again – chomp, chomp, chomp!!

Confusion. Panic. Disorientating ambiguity – is this part of the show?

No.

Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp. Roar! Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.

Police on the scene try to make sense of the massacre (the dragon has escaped along a dark side alley). The five insane men had a psychiatrist, and he is running to the police, delirious – these men are crazed. There is nothing left in their minds that could be called human. They will strike again. They will stop at nothing. Etc.

The parade is over. Many people are cowering in their high-rise apartments. But the unlucky few have not heard the news, and are wandering home, alone in the deserted streets.

Take for instance this teenage girl, who has recently engaged in sexual intercourse. Unsure whether she has done the right thing with her boyfriend (a prominent sportsmen at their high school) she now hurries back to her waiting parents. But sounds seem pursue her – a rubbish bin over-turned. Footsteps. The jingling of bells.

Unseen, some metres behind her, a giant green head is watching her with fierce eyes from around a street corner.

Sensing something, she looks back. Nothing. But as she walks on:

Jingle, jingle, jingle.

She turns again. This time she spots it, lurking in the shadows beneath a tree. HOLY SHIT! She runs, but now the dragon has broken cover. It’s pursuing her, teeth chomping, accompanied by the inexplicable ruckus of clashing cymbals!!!

Midsummer Uulahh

2010-07-29T17:30:00.003+01:00

'Tis Midsummer
& a warm mist falls
& so I will stretch out my tongue to its fullest extent
the stretching a downwards motion –
– for I have no jaw

& with lolling tongue draped moist along neck
I will crane myself back
& present my partial face to the heavens
to catch
& taste the soft rain
while flowers with women's bodies
cavort about my person

Such bliss
as was known
by things without form
in years
lost to memory

The flowers would have me sing
& so I sing
Uuuuulaaahhhhh

My fingers grope the humid air
to feel such yearning
& for every yearning fibre to find such contentment

'Tis Midsummer
& on all sides men approach, enshrouded
as a warm mist falls
the objects they wield indistinct, unknown
rifles, or brooms
or attachments from vacuum cleaners
- who can say
who can say

The flowers & I
convulse as one
& the flowers would have me sing
& so I sing
Uuuuulaaahhhhh

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (7)

2010-07-27T17:58:00.000+01:00

“PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE”

Three people here.
Gathered around, facing me.
& at least one
(the older guy)
is psychologically abnormal.
Wide eyed.
Half-smiling.
Not reacting to anything.
Just smiling.
Very unsettling. Especially with the time distortion.
He’s like a doll.
Like the figurine back in Reception.
Then there’s this guy.
Their leader/manager.
Priest, maybe.
Name’s Barry.
He’s smiling too.
Being friendly.
Talking a lot.
Says: there’s been a misunderstanding.
I know the guy you mean. The one you met.
His name’s Shannon.
Affiliated with the Church.
Sympathetic to the cause, etc.
But not one of us.
Church keeps minimal staff.
Not currently recruiting for new members.
Not that sort of Church.
Evangelical vs post-evangelical.
Blah blah blah.
I let him talk.
Check the older guy.
Just sitting there, half smiling.
And the other guy.
The first one. From reception.
Acting like everything’s fine.
Except he’s worried about something.
Me, probably.

Tell Barry:
OK, stop now.
I understand.
Explain the device.
There is no device, he says.
All a misunderstanding.
Say: don’t jerk me around Barry.
We both know there’s a device.
First guy’s up on his feet.
That’s enough.
The office is closed.
Think you better go.
& Barry’s going ha ha.
Trying to smooth things over.
Think what Doug means is we’re keen to get home.
Dinner etc.
Tell them: yes.
Said that before.
Noticed that when I came in.
Your office is closed.
& so is the recruitment agency.
So is the web design company.
Whole floor is closed.
Empty.
Only people here are you.
& me.

Let them chew that over for a second.
Think back to my lunch break.
Decide to bullshit them.

Tell them:
I don’t work for the Catholics.
But that could change.
Catholics don’t know about you.
But that could change.
Lot of things could change.
Way of the world.
Constant state of entropy, etc.
For instance:
I don’t intend to hurt you.
& you are not in danger.
Not right now.
But that could change.

Quick read of the room.
Doug’s the weak link.
Take a step towards him.
He’s trembling.
Say to him:
Me & the Catholics.
Not exactly simpatico.
But you guys. Don’t know anything about you.
Don’t know your agenda.
Don’t know if you’re dangerous.
To me. To my interests.
To FEDIAR.
(See what I did there.)

Barry says: wait.
Let’s relax, I’ll get you a coffee.
Let’s talk this one over.
Goes over to the kitchenette.
Slowly, in slow time.
Starts making coffee.
Asks: how do you take it.
Tell him: doesn’t matter.
Make it however you want.
I’m not drinking it.
Barry nods. Stops what he’s doing.
Walks back.
Sits on the edge of a desk.
Arms crossed.
Pauses for a minute.

Then:
OK.
You’ve got it wrong.
It’s not a device.
Nothing like that.
Ask him: so what is it.
Nothing man-made, he says.
A resonator.
Massive resonant object.
Is it big enough to save the world - don’t know.
Could be.
Worth a try.

Older guy says:
Barry. He doesn’t know.

First time the guy’s spoken.
Weird voice. Like a clarinet.
Says: he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
He saw the picture in Reception. Read “FEDIAR”.
He’s guessing.
Barry says: who are you.

Who am I, I say.
Good question.
Life keeps moving & changing.
Question like that becomes hard to answer.

Funny thing.
Don’t feel anxious anymore.

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (6)

2010-07-25T18:54:00.005+01:00

“PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE”

Bell rings.
Lift doors open.
Step into the lift lobby.

It's empty.
Wine-coloured carpet.
Off-white wallpaper.

Three offices on this floor.
Recruitment agency.
Web design company.
& Church of Resonant Consciousness.

Walk over.
Time is moving very slow here.
Every movement distinct.
Conscious.
Taking place in the present.

Door's ajar.
Reception area.
Unattended. Very much like an office.
Shelves, files, paperwork.
Wall planners.
Voices in the next room.
Calm, pragmatic: Commit to deliver by Monday.
Reception desk has a security monitor.
B/w image of lift lobby.
Little figurine beside the computer.
One of those art models.
Wooden body, hinged joints
No face.
Voice next door says: If he gives you trouble, let me know.
& I'll sort him out.
Always used to frighten me.
When I was a kid, I mean.
These wooden figurines.
Look around the waiting area.
A couch. Magazines.
Not religious ones.
Just regular magazines.
But this is interesting:
Framed print on the wall.
A geometric pattern.
Concentric circles, transections.
& a word in the centre:
FEDIAR.

Voice says: He can say what he likes.
But the contract was for Monday.
End of story.

Think: What is it with religious people.
Always playing around with geometry.
Mathematics, diagrams.
Reminds me of HR.
Executive management, etc.
Harmony, harmonisation.
Always with the diagrams, code words.
Reaching for something intangible.
Enlightenment.
Improved, integrated systems.
You can't point to it.
Can't touch it.
Get worried that maybe it doesn't exist.
So out come the fucking diagrams.
Circles and boxes and lines.
Like you know what you're talking about.
Here: harmony.
Here: seven key principles.
Mutual respect, customer focus.
Here: seven chakras.
Twelve stations of the cross.
& over here, FEDIAR.
Whatever that's supposed to mean.

– Wait a minute.
Damn it. Damn it.
Check my pockets.
Jacket, slacks.
Hands and fabric shifting through slow-motion time.
Damn it. Yeah.
Left my phone at the office.

Voice says:
Excuse me.
I turn.
Middle aged man in the doorway.
Excuse me can I help you.
I say: Maybe.
Who's in charge here.
The office is closed, he says.
What do you want.
Tell him: I want to talk to whoever's in charge.
Spoke to one of your representatives.
Earlier today. Guy in the street.
Said you have a magic device that's going to save the world.
Man says nothing.
Just stands there.
Motionless in slowed-down time.
Staring at me.

I'm used to people staring at me.
When people stare at me, I stare back.

Tell him: I'm here to see the device.
Pull your thumb out.
Go get whoever's in charge.

Special Little Man

2010-07-17T14:22:00.003+01:00

Heyyyyy!

Hi.

Hey guess what, I had coffee with Marti and look! Look! Look!

Nfh.

You’re not looking. Look! -- What’s the matter?

Nothing, nothing.

Bad day?

Yeah.

Aww. But look!

(she is holding a DVD box set. it is the second season of True Blood)

Oh, cool.

Pfft. C’mere.

No.

You want to talk to Mum about your bad day?

…um.

(a pause)

Yeah.

OK. Just a sec.

(she leaves. he drinks the rest of the Ribena. rain falls into the garden outside.)

(she returns, now wearing horn rimmed glasses, a blue bathrobe and hair curlers)

Aww here’s my Rojie.

Hi.

Awww here. Have a hug. Tell Mum about your bad day.

It was okay.

(she pulls a pack of cigarettes out from the robe and lights one)

Did you feel the earthquake this morning?

Nn-nn.

Felt like a big one. It was early, at like 10 or something. The sky got dark and the whole building shook. You didn’t feel it? At first I thought it was like a bomb or a missile or something… plane crash.

My Rojie. Worried about plane crashes. You’re my nervous little guy.

Yeah – but then it was weird, because afterwards I kept finding all this dust in my office, like white powder or something. It was getting into my shoes and everything. And then fucking Korea was –

Tsk.

Sorry Mum. Sorry. It’s that guy, he’s like… he had me on the edge of a panic attack all day. They’re doing performance reviews this month and he’s just walking around the office all morning staring at people’s work stations, doing spot checks. Who was in, who wasn’t in. He’s going to lay off half my team, I know it. You should have seen him, he was stalking around like some kind of primal hunter. And then he’s coming up to me and asking if I believe there’s a God – what are you supposed to say to that!? Like what, you’re going to fire me because I don’t… shit, could he do that? I don’t even know what religion he is, so I can’t lie. Fuck’s sake I can’t even work out what ethnicity he is!! Sorry Mum. I shouldn’t swear, I know. I’m just really worked up.

There there. I don’t like this man very much.

He doesn’t blink. Not very often anyway.

I don’t like anyone who’s mean to my little Rojie.

And he’s calling me all day, I mean what are you supposed to do? And oh God I haven’t told you -- he gets Janet to come in, all like “you have to go see Korea right now”, like “RIGHT NOW” and I go there and his office is empty. It’s just me and… he has all these little statues, like Easter Island things. And then I hear this thump, it’s like a horror movie or something, and really slowly he comes up from underneath his desk and stares at me. HE WAS HIDING THERE. Under his desk. And we have this… I don’t know what you’d call it, “conversation” isn’t really the word. He’s going on about Star Trek and man’s mission to the universe or some shit – sorry – and I’m standing there thinking “what have I done”, you know? “What have I done, why is this happening to me?” Just like “I’m going to get fired now” or “maybe he’s going to bite me to death”, and I don’t know why it’s happening, and all I can pay attention to is that my hands are in my pockets and they’re full of this white powder shit, and he’s not blinking, he doesn’t even blink once, I couldn’t take it, I thought I was going to puke, I actually had to go to the toilet and stand there for like three minutes because I thought I was going to puke…

My brave little boy.

…and y-yuh… yuh…

(gulping for breath)

You just let it out.

Hnnnhhhh.

That’s right. Let all that tension out. Deep breaths. You’re so brave.

(a long pause)

Huh. Hnnh. -- You shouldn’t smoke Mum.

Tsk.

(a long pause)

But he didn’t fire you.

No.

And they’re not going to. You’re too special for them to fire you.

Yeah.

My brave little man. You had a bad nasty horrible Wednesday but you made it didn’t you?

Yeah.

And you have your pretty girlfriend coming over and she’s going to watch True Blood with you. You like that show, don’t you?

Yeah.

That’s right. It’s your favourite show, and you’re going to have ice cream and everything’s going to be all right.

Yeah. -- Thanks Mum.

Tsk. I love my little man.

(she kisses him on the cheek, then smiles and walks out of the room)

(a moment passes. he has regained his composure)

…fucking Star Trek… I mean, what the fuck...?

(he picks the DVD box up off the kitchen counter. turns it over. reads the back)

Hmmph.

(she returns, dressed as previously)

Hey hon!

Hey.

(she sniffs)

Phee-eww! Did she smoke in here?

Yeah. I told her not to.

Ah well.

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (5)

2010-07-16T13:35:00.006+01:00

(to first ep)
(to previous ep)

“PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE”

It gets worse.
The restless feeling.
4.
4:30.
Like I’m waiting for something.
Anticipation.

I know this feeling.
Get it sometimes.
Never a good sign.
(Never good to ignore it)
Just have to prepare myself.
What for?
Who knows.
Ride the lift.
Out through the car park.
- Nod to someone -
Reach into my jacket.
Check the pistol.
Reposition it for easier access.
Walk loose.
Regulate my breathing.
Relax, relax.
Tension in the arms and shoulders.
Think of something peaceful:
Air conditioning.
Dead leaves on a cement walk.
Old photographs.
Easter Island.
Relax, relax.

Feels like they’re everywhere today.
Same old guy, out on the Quay.
Blah blah, end of the world.
Ask for forgiveness.
You, and you, and you.
Then further on, at the lights:
Car with a bumper sticker.
One of those fish symbols.
Makes me uncomfortable.
Fish and doves and rainbows.
Too many symbols.
How many do you need?
For the one religion, I mean.
Like a conspiracy.
“Honk if you love Jesus”.
At least the old guy’s being straight.
Ranting, etc.
These people with their bumper stickers.
Religious extremists.
But they’re keeping quiet about it.
Driving around.
Signalling to each other.
I don’t like it.
Never mind.
Dead leaves.
Eskimos.
Easter Island.

The place is on Dixon Street.
An office building.
Right there, listed in the lobby.
5th floor.
Church of Resonant Consciousness.
Weird place for a church.
Check my watch.
Quarter past five.
With any luck they’ll be closed.
Lift doors open.
Office people piling out.
Step inside.
Press 5.
Waiting.
Relax.

Welcome Back

2010-07-06T23:52:00.005+01:00

(from early this year, recovering from pneumonia)

It's happened again – glittering dark insomnia hanging in the bedroom air.
Insomnia
Nn thom nee yah
Nth omni ahh.
It's a tantalising energy. It makes my thoughts and senses feel desperately precious at night and then it deadens the hours of the following day.
It's like leading a secret life. I sit at my desk, dishevelled and strange, and perform bland actions to fulfil my work obligations. An automaton with rumpled clothes and a bad haircut.
In the late afternoon I step out into the warm orange sunlight with vague plans for the evening.
I exercise. It's what I'm good at. I do an elliptical trainer for twenty minutes, then run on a treadmill for half an hour. I lever the muscles of my upper body against various weights, then go home and cook red meat and eat it.
There are people in the flat. Flatmates and visitors. Loud and silly friends. A villain who leans against the doorframes and watches us, hating us. There are girls – the White Queen and the Black Queen – both so pretty it's maddening. They stand apart from each other like pillars in a tarot card. Like some kind of doorway.

A warm pulse has started up. A great hungry volition. Volition for god knows what, I don't know, I can't make head or tail of it. It's there, waiting for me to do something. I have no idea how to appease it.
Every film I watch is a searing lesson in life as it should be lived. People walk through tall grass, touch, kiss, and the hairs on my arms prickle up at the sight of it. People crash into each other, bite and punch each other. They sweat and shout and make loud promises. They get injured, and they heal. It's wonderful. I feel like I'm waiting for the right moment, when the moment comes I'll lunge up into the screen and join the commotion.
The streets are teeming with women. I watch them go by, their motion, the colours of their clothes. The pitch and articulation of their voices as they talk into their iPhones. I look up and see the men also watching. Their faces are calm and proud and despondent and contorted with anger, slack from drink, clean shaven and bristly, red and sunburnt, feral, lips curled in disdain, mouths hanging open with laughter.
The volition is watching and waiting. Something immense is going to happen. Art and life will switch places and we'll all be cast into some big, dangerous story.

Drinking. Winding down. Checking the clock. I've been so tired these days, I should really get an early night. I've joined a DVD rental club, I have a couple of films I could watch in bed.
Our resident villain stares as I walk to my room.
“All right?” he asks.
“Yeah, fine.”
Why the question? What does he want? He probably doesn't know. Probably he's stuck hanging like the rest of us. Hanging off his door frame.
For the tenth night in a row I cue the film (Tenebre), but once again it's a trap. Too tired and wired to do anything but lay back in bed and check out the shimmering darkness and the quiet roar of my tinnitus.
To wait as the black air starts unfolding into hundreds of ideas and suggestions. Insomnia. Bolts from the void.
I love this place, this thing, and the thoughts it gives me. I love it so much that I've often imagined it as a person. A woman with black, black skin and round white eyes. Long fingers. Teeth. A white summer dress dirty with sweat and dust. She's out in the warm-and-cool night, standing by an unlit road, and the busted-up sign beside her says:

HOLD FURTHER INWARD

Retiring the Old Banner

2010-07-02T10:16:00.005+01:00

This banner has propped up the bottom of my blog page for almost a year now. Trusty old banner.

Putting it here for posterity.
Still think it's cool - all with the Strindberg and the pretty ladies getting sprayed with blood. (sniff) You had a good run, boy.
A year is a good run, for a blog banner.

Mr Benjamin Korea's short sentences, existential ponderings and ambiguous mental condition will resume shortly.

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (4)

2010-07-01T13:43:00.005+01:00

(to first ep)
(to previous ep)

“PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE”

Not getting much done today.
Just sitting here, staring.
Rain on the window.

It bothers me.
Can’t say why.
“Harmony”.
Associations with:
Church.
Youth group.
Star Trek.
No crime, no money system.
Everyone living peacefully.
Clean futuristic corridors, gardens.
Geodesic domes.
Red jumpsuits.
Fit and healthy.
Sunshine. Acoustic guitars.
Sandals.
Beards.
Cartoon pictures of doves.
People saying: peace be with you.
Peace be with you, brother.
Brotherhood of man.
No crazy people.
No drunks, drug addicts.
Everyone helping out.
No-one asking for money.
It bothers me.
Can’t say why.

Problems with the ioniser today.
Keeps switching itself off.
Annoying.

Call Roger.
No answer.
Call Roger’s PA.
Turns out Roger’s in his office.
Just not answering.
Tell the PA: send him over.
Waiting.
Waiting.
& the ioniser shuts off.
This damn thing.
Climb under the desk to check the plug.
The cable, etc.
Seems fine.
Climb back up. Roger’s here.
Seems startled.
Frightened, even.
Asks: what’s going on.
Sit down, I tell him.
The guy is so nervous.
Got to loosen him up.
How about this weather, I say.
Point outside.
Raining, I mean.
Says: yeah.
Yeah, I say.

Enough small talk.
Ask him: what do you think about harmony.
Doesn’t answer.
I repeat the question.
He coughs. Mumbles something.
Looks at the floor.
Starts talking about strategic alignment.
Listening to stakeholders.
Good for PR.
Good for the business.
Listening to staff.
Good for productivity.
Reduced turnover.
Blah blah blah.
Tell him: stop.
I’m not talking office business.
I’m talking life business.
The human race, it’s purpose.
Religious harmony.
Spiritual harmony.
Star Trek, etc.
What does he think.
No answer.
Just shrugs.
Say to him: asking you as a spiritual person. Do you feel that a state of peace & harmony is something we should be aiming for or do you feel that conflict/competition – even desperation – is necessary to keep us human. & if the latter then what is in your opinion the true & ultimate goal of the human race.
Silence.
Waiting.
Then: why are you asking me this.
Interesting, I say.
Maybe I’m asking you.
Maybe the question is asking us.
Right?
Silence.
Then: Mr Korea I have a client coming in.
Waiting at Reception.
Have to go now.

Pointless anyway.

Hate days like this.
Raining.

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (3)

2010-06-25T01:30:00.004+01:00

(to first ep)
(to previous ep)

“PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE”

Bottom of my computer screen.
Little tabs for the applications.
One of them reads:
“Procedures for Organ…”.
?
Hover the cursor over it.
Full text reads:
“Procedures for Organising Interdivisional Transfer”.

Today is Wednesday.
Pumpkin soup.
I leave it open to cool.
Thinking: procedures.
Anatomical organs.
Church organs.
Think about Scott Walker for a while.
Wonder if he’s religious.
A strange man.
Could be. The music got weird in the 80s.
The Parents are religious.
Not religious, myself.
At least I don’t think about it.
Not really.
Not often.
“Opiate of the people”.
Etc.
Maybe I could call the Parents tonight.

The park is pretty empty.
Raining.
Rain falling in the soup.

Wait.
There’s one.
By the corner.
Other side of the street.
Stopping people.
Talking to them (trying to).
Some kind of leaflet.
Definitely religious.
You can tell from the hair.
The clothes.
I pay attention.
Watch, listen.
Too far away.
Okay then.
Up.
Walk over to him.

Young guy.
Says that today is beautiful.
The rain isn’t important.
Money isn’t important.
A great revelation is coming.
Etc.
What revelation, I ask.
Says something about harmony.
People always fighting.
Competing.
Destroying the planet.
Not for much longer.
I’m examining his face.
The eyes out of focus.
Blood rushing to his face.
Seems happy though.
You haven’t answered the question, I say.
Tell me about the revelation.
Again: harmony.
Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe, he says.
His Church is going to change the world anyway
Church of Resonant Consciousness.
Talks about the founders.
Then something about the Pope.
Secret technologies.
Some Catholic conspiracy.
But it doesn’t matter anymore.
Church of Resonant Consciousness.
They have a magic device or something.
Harmonise the world.
Save it, etc.

On and on like this.
I check my watch.
I have to leave, I tell him.
But I’m interested in this.
Want to see the magic device.
He’s shaking his head.
You don’t understand, I tell him.
I have a lot of money.
I want to help.
But first I want to see the device.
Head shaking.
You can’t, he says.
Listen: I have a lot of money.
I will give it to you.
It doesn’t matter, he says.
Going to happen anyway.
You’re a damn idiot, I say.
Why are you even out here.
Give me a leaflet.
Guy says: out here to warn us.
The world will be saved.
But whatever.
The leaflet has an address on it.
Don’t need to keep talking to this bozo.

I walk back to the office.
Left the soup back on the bench.
Forget it.
Not hungry anymore.
The Pope, magic devices.
What a damn idiot.

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (2)

2010-06-24T01:34:00.009+01:00

(go to first ep)

"PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE"
Staring at the kinetic sculpture.
Chewing it over.

Mid-morning I walk the office.
Hi Mr Korea.
Yes Mr Korea.
Sorry Mr Korea am I in your way.
These poor guys.
In and out of their cubicles.
They're scared of me.
(There's a rumour about me.
That I carry a gun to work.
It's true.)
Coffee cup in my hand.
Think:
Who's religious here.
Damned if I know.
Maybe some of the girls in the typing pool.

A lot of empty desks.
What the hell.
Some kind of flu maybe.
Gotta check that up with Roger.
Screen savers.
Cartoons on the walls.
Little figurines.
This one desk has a figure on it:
Little guy in a leather apron.
Covered in blood.
Holding a chainsaw.
Little bucket of heads set down beside him.
Honestly sometimes I'm mystified.
People.
You know?

Photo of a beach.
Twilight, the ocean.
Caption reads:
"Don't tell God how big your problems are.
"Tell your problems how big your God is."
Check the name plate.
Desk belongs to Glenda.
Think I know the one.
Funny looking.
Quote on the photo is unattributed.
I write it down.
Corner Roger in a meeting room.
Ask him about absenteeism.
Targets, etc.
Ask him if he's religious.
Turns out he's not.
He's spiritual, he says.

Think: strange.
Usually the instructions go somewhere.
Good like that.
This one's going nowhere.
"Spiritual".
What's that supposed to mean.

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (1)

2010-06-23T01:20:00.007+01:00

I wake up.
Blink.
What the hell was that?
Some kind of dream.
I can barely remember it.
Weird though.

Take a breath.
Try to play it back.
No.
It’s gone.

Looking up at the ceiling.
Well. That’s that.
Cold this morning.
Feet on the floor.
Get up.
Stretch.
Walk across the room.
Open the case.
Take out the next envelope.

Couple years back I took some leave.
Four weeks.
Didn’t feel like it.
They said I had to.
I thought: what the hell.
May as well try drugs.
LSD, mescaline, ketamine.
That sort of thing.
Tried amphetamines.
Three nights into that one, got restless.
Had an idea.
Decided to write these things.
Instructions.
Wrote them down on pieces of card.
2000+.
Kept writing until I ran out of ideas.
Then:
Put them in envelopes.
Individually dated.
(Later I bought a case for it all.
A display case.
Antique, with a glass lid.
Like for jewellery.
Filed away in there.)
One for each day.
The idea is:
I open them when I wake up.
Read the instruction.
Follow it.

There's about 1500 left now.
Little bit nervous about the last one.
Think it reads:
"KILL YOURSELF"
But can't remember 100%.

Anyway.
Today is 23 June.
2010.
Card says:
"PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE"
Think: okay.
Not so hard this time.

Shower.
Breakfast.
Head in to work.

No

2010-06-21T12:04:00.004+01:00

That’s another rejection letter, from an NZ literary journal (one of the Sleep Dep items – here).

I'm thinking that context might be an issue.
This site works OK as a home for these little bastards, whereas a magazine or journal… well I can understand they’d seem out of place.
The longer stories have the same problem. Not straight (or well-written) enough for a lit journal, not genre enough for a horror magazine.
Hmm.

Has anyone out there come across a journal/website/rich pervert that might be interested in this shit?
Let me know.

Meanwhile the blog IS alive, there WILL be posts, you HAVE been warned.
Coming soon:
Benji Korea
roadsign woman
& INCREDIBLE weight loss tips that REALLY WORK!!

HATH ANYWUN ELTH GOB UH BIH ATH THNAKE COIL ROUN THEY BITHEP?

2010-05-15T12:33:00.001+01:00

Coth Ah do.
Yuh, you herr mih.

Ah tel you duh thtowy.
Wun mowwin Ah wake up an Ah feel ih. Thomthin tigh roun mah ahm. Ah thoh mebbe they doctahs they clime inna my beh uh tay mah bwud pwetha.
Bud ih wudn.
Ih wudda thnake.

Ah gibum uh name. Eeth caw Fwankie. Fwankie duh Thnake.

Whun Ah goethda gym tuh liff mah weith, theyth aw be wuggin at Fwankie. Theyth be within theyth gob theyselb uh bih ath thnake. Buh nah, they dohn. An Ah be pummin they weith an mah bithepth be aw pumm up, an Fwankie be feewin ih. Eeh be lih “oo Cwith you be so pumm up Ahth gunna hathda wetht mah coilth a libbl.”
Yuh.
Un dennah goethda thop an Ah gess mythel uh Lucothade. An ah be all pumm up an be wearun them t-thir ain gob no thleebes. Un they wimmen they be lih “oo Cwith hooth yuh fwen” un Ah thays “Fwankie” an theyth all be wanninda paddim.
Yuh. I gotha hull buntha wimmen be waninda tuth mah thnake.

Ahth juth wunna thek wetha any youth awtho gob youthew a bih ath thnake. Weeth thtah ourthel uh cwub mebbe. “Thnake Cwub”.
Weeth geb ourthel thpethal t-thir an aw goethda gym togetha. Liff weith.

Lulling

2010-05-11T00:34:00.003+01:00

Ink spilled on a black sheet
spread out across dark earth
rumpled by an empty wind
creased, oozing out onto
black rose buds, opening
like ebony fans
the mouths of caves
yawning, stretched black muscles
opaque saliva
dark breath
flutters against banners
black petals cast across the dark earth
wet
wallpaper
black-on-black
twisted wallpaper pattern
of thorns, like bared teeth
lean through the gaps into empty night
snagging at your throat and wrists
blinking, blind
at roiling dark clouds
a low silence
churning out a storm of nothing
nothing
sweet fuck all
black, black, black
I just want to sleep please

LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS: Forum

2009-09-27T10:58:00.005+01:00

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

2009-09-24T18:01:00.005+01:00

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

2009-08-28T14:41:00.004+01:00

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

2009-08-15T12:57:00.007+01:00

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

2009-08-07T19:14:00.006+01:00

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-

2009-07-29T20:50:00.009+01:00

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

2009-07-23T17:26:00.009+01:00

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)

2009-07-22T15:42:00.007+01:00

(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

2009-07-17T12:13:00.004+01:00

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"

2009-07-12T21:59:00.029+01:00

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

2009-07-07T17:21:00.009+01:00

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)

2009-06-29T22:41:00.014+01:00

“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)

2009-06-27T21:46:00.020+01:00

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)

2009-06-26T02:39:00.019+01:00

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).

No

2009-06-21T23:27:00.001+01:00

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

No

2009-06-21T23:21:00.005+01:00

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)

2009-06-20T16:03:00.016+01:00

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

2009-06-19T23:11:00.010+01:00

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

2009-06-16T17:23:00.005+01:00

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

2009-06-15T07:27:00.003+01:00

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.
Ay ma ay ma ay ma
I am a I am a I am a I am a
Awwwwwww.
I am a I am a I am a I am a uh uh uh uh
I-am-a-I-am-a-I-am-a-I-am-a-I-am-a-I-am-a-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 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)

2009-06-15T05:11:00.011+01:00

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.

YOUR GUIDE TO WORK EXPERIENCE

2009-06-05T23:04:00.004+01:00

HELLO.
We are a leading financial services company operating in several countries around the world including Canada, Germany and India.
We have been providing financial products and services for over 150 years. Today, we offer a wide range of life assurance, pension and investment products as well as banking services and healthcare insurance. Through our investment arm, we also manage assets.

A placement with us will provide a great opportunity to develop your skills and get a flavour for the world of work you'll enter once you finish school.
We want you to enjoy your time with us – perhaps one day you might be interested in a career with us.

YOUR FIRST DAY

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARRIVE
When you get to the building, go to the main reception area and ask for your placement contact.

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING
During your placement we'll introduce you to as many general office skills as we can. Things like:
- Using a PC
- Using a photocopier and fax machine.
- Distributing and issuing mail.
- Learning how information is filed and stored.
- Attending meetings.
- Listening to phone calls.
- Working within a team.

WHAT'S EXPECTED OF YOU
Do your best – the way you behave during your placement is really important, the more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it.

You should:
- Attend work at the times agreed.
- Be polite and helpful.
- Do your best to carry out any tasks.
- Show interest and enthusiasm.
- Tell your contact (by 9.30am) if you are unable to come to work.
- Adhere to office rules and guidelines.
- Dress appropriately.

You should not:
- Misuse or discuss confidential information.
- Use office resources for personal use.
- Let yourself down with inappropriate behaviour.
- Use your mobile phone whilst in the office.
- Misuse the intranet/internet.

--

This booklet has some diary pages with questions to help you review each day. Try to answer the questions at the end of each day.

DAY 1
Did you arrive at the time arranged and who was your first contact?
...
Did you feel nervous? If yes, what made you feel nervous?
...
What tasks (if any) did you perform today?
...
What skills have you used? What have you learned today?
...
How do you feel about your first day in the workplace?
...
Do you feel tired or unhappy or pleased with yourself?
...

DAY 2
Did you work with the same people today? If no, who did you work with?
...
What tasks did you perform and what did you find particularly interesting?
...
Is the workplace as you expected? If no why is this?
...
Do you feel tired or unhappy or pleased with yourself?
...

DAY 3
Did you feel like getting up today to go on your work placement? If no, why was this?
...
What are the main rules and regulations in this work place?
...
Have the rules or regulations affected you and why do you think they are necessary?
...
Describe the main tasks you completed today.
...
What was the best part of today's experience?
...

DAY 4
Did you arrive at the agreed time today?
...
Describe the main tasks you completed today.
...
Do you think anyone could do this type of work, or do you think people need special qualities or qualifications?
...
Describe the type of work going on around you.
...
How does this happen?
...

DAY 5
What did you enjoy most about your work experience?
...
What did you enjoy least about your work experience?
...
How can you use your new skills back at school?
...
Did you find the staff friendly and helpful? If no, why do you think this is?
...
Would you like to work in an environment like this when you finish school? If no, why not?
...
Now your work experience is nearly over, have your ideas and expectations of work changed? If yes, how?
...

(from a genuine text)

(Near) Redemption / Rebirth of a Sock Monkey

2009-06-02T07:31:00.005+01:00

Ed sent this through. He's been playing with online translation tools.

This is wonderdul. I will let this speak for itself, except to point the reader's attention back to the source material, to identify Ed as the one speaking in italics, and to presume aloud that movies are being used as stand-ins for languages.

(ORIGINAL TEXT: I'm sitting at the wheel, staring ahead, or at sort of an angle, staring out across the lanes of traffic. I can see these trees on the far side, the leaves, the long grass. They've stopped. There's grey shapes in the corner of my vision, hovering in mid-air, which I assume are stopped pigeons except I can't check because I've stopped too. Can't move, can't even swivel my eyeballs in their sockets.)

I should have been onto this from the start,
just imagine we first met

Ong bak
and then
The Ring
to reach:

I, in advance, such as the wheel sitting still staring at the cross or traffic lanes. I have stopped in the remote areas of their leaves and long grass, you can see these trees. The gray shape in the corner of my vision, so to check I have to stop hovering in the air and take advantage pigeons will not stop except for me. Can not be moved, rotated in the socket but I can not.

but with Nightwatch we found that:

I, in advance, such as the wheel sat still staring at the cross or traffic. I stopped in remote areas, their leaves and long grass, you can see these trees. As gray as in the corner of my vision, so that I have to stop to check the hanging in the air and use the pigeons will not stop, except for me. It can not be moved, rotated in the socket, but I can not.

but by finding the lemon tree (recommended):

I, in advance, such as the wheel was still staring at the cross or traffic. I stopped in remote areas, the leaves and long grass, you can see the trees. As gray as the corner of my vision, so I have to stop to see the hanging in the air and pigeons will not stop, but me. It can not be moved, turned in the socket, but I can not

and after staying with the host:

In advance, and the wheels are still looking at the cross or traffic. Remote area, stopped in the leaves and long grass, you can see the trees. Gray to the corner of my vision, so I will not stop watching it, hanging in the air and dove Now, excuse me. That is, the socket set, but I can not do is move sueopseup

we next hang out with Z though it is not the end:

In advance, and the wheels are still looking at the cross or traffic. Remote area, stopped in leaves and long grass, you can see the trees. Gray on the corner of my vision, so I will not stop watching it, hanging in the air and dove Now, excuse me. That is, the reception, but I can not do is go sueopseup

a quick look through The Eye reveals:

Prior and the wheels are still concerned about cross-strait or traffic. Remote areas, parked in the leaves and long grass, the trees you can see. Gray corner, my dream, so I will not stop the watch and the doves flying in the air now, I am sorry. In other words, the reception, but I can not do is to sueopseup

and finally
we have to visit Abdul Alhazred
and he has some tales to tell:

Before the wheels are still concerned about cross-strait or transit. Remote areas, and had been parked in the leaves and long grass, you can see the trees. Gray corner, my dream, that will not stop for hours and the doves flying in the air, and I'm sorry. In other words, the reception, but I can not do is sueopseup

honest to god I've just been cutting, pasting, and using the google translation monster;

so 2 thoughts;

Is "Sueopseup" on Sleepdep's list of names for blogspot verification?...

and given the nature of the tale the paragraph is taken from isn't it nice that we can see the end of the story from here:

my dream, that will not stop for hours and the doves flying in the air, and I'm sorry. In other words, the reception,

since if the doves are flying, he's sorry, since we're aware of the reception awaiting him...

--

NB A day or two later Ed wrote again with:

the same journey without returning to English each time between languages produces this:

Before the wheels are still concerned about cross-strait or transit. As long as the grass-roots level of the tree in the remote areas, and you can see. Gray corner, my dream, that will not stop for hours and the doves flying in the air, and I'm sorry. In other words, the reception, but I can not do is sueopseup.

and d'oh missed out Hindi, in the original:

इससे पहले कि पहियों अभी भी पार के बारे में चिंतित हैं जलसंयोगी या पारगमन. दूरस्थ क्षेत्रों, और पत्तियों और लंबी घास में पार्क की गई थी, आप वृक्ष देख सकते हैं. ग्रे कोने, मेरा सपना है, कि घंटों के लिए बंद नहीं करेंगे और हवा में उड़ कबूतर, और मैं माफी चाहता हूँ. दूसरे शब्दों में, स्वागत है, लेकिन मैं ऐसा नहीं कर सकता sueopseup है

=

Before the wheels still are worried about cross-strait or transit. Remote areas, and leaves and grass in the park was long, you can see the trees. Gray corner, my dream, that will not stop for hours in the air and flying pigeons, and I'm sorry. In other words, welcome, but I can not do is sueopseup

ah and notice the acceptance of the inevitable - 'Welcome'

No

2009-05-31T23:27:00.005+01:00

A friend of mine once said he believed the trick to dealing with rejection was to revel in it. He had a plan to cover the walls of his room in rejection letters.

He never did it. It was a good idea though.

So there's one. One letter pinned onto the wall.

Horrific Nightmare Action (2 of 2)

2009-05-28T19:50:00.008+01:00

Been meaning to finish this. So:

Men, boiler suits and masks – hammers, rope. More and more people screaming. Breaking into the flats, pulling the people out, dragging them. Into the courtyard. Pushing their bodies into the coffins.

I’m watching. I think: oh shit I have to protect my grandmother. Pushing them into coffins and hammering the lids shut with massive iron nails. Up onto my feet, armchair falling over.

One of the teams is near the flat, the leader looks my way
looks right at me
points
to say: 'that one'
and they set down the hammers
start walking over
walking across the courtyard of coffins
walking through harsh sunlight
sound of screaming is everywhere
but not too fast
an assured, practical stride
four or five of them
coming over

I run to the door and somehow it's hanging open. Somehow they're closer than they should be. The first one is just three or four steps away. Blank-faced mask, reaching out.

No time to shut the door. Got to save my grandmother.
I turn and run into the flat, and that's when everything
I mean everything
explodes with wriggling, crawling
there are old people climbing out from everywhere
out from inside the furniture
under the carpet
out from behind the pictures on the wall
climbing out of vases, climbing down out of the lampshades
they have these leering eyes
broken teeth
naked
all of them are naked, they have drooping flesh and liver spots
matted hair
veins under their skin
purple/black flesh from bad circulation

I run through the lounge, leaping up from the limbs clutching up from the floor, amazed - HORRIFIED! - by this. In the hallway doors are bursting wide, they're falling out in twined masses, piling onto the floor.
I scream. I turn back - the men are stepping inside, the first man is staring at me across the writhing, transformed room. His eyes are made of shining metal.
I don't have a choice, I run into the hall. I have to step on some of them. They moan. They are hard to step on, they're all in motion, churning, it's a sexual thing - OH GOD, they're having SEX with each other, or they're trying to.
The rooms have moved. The whole layout of the flat has changed, I open the door to what should be my grandmother's bedroom, but it's a toilet and two of them are pushed up, rutting against the sink and watching me in the mirror.
I turn - metal eyes at the end of the hall. Climb over more of them, they're moaning now, and here's a side-hall which is free of them, it's empty, then a corner, a small room. A washing machine. A big wooden door. Beside the door, my third grade teacher.
My teacher pulls her top off, revealing large naked breasts.
She points at the door, a gatekeeper from an old, old story.
She says: "Your father is waiting for you."
The panic is gone. A strange silence has settled, it's almost like peace but it's not. A hum of expectancy.
I step up to the door. My teacher's breasts are heavy, pale, round. She smiles.
"Go in."

I open the door. It's a bedroom. Not my grandmother's.
It's too late to save her anyway.
Ornate. A four-poster bed, drapes and tapestries on the walls. Antique furniture. A large gold-coloured statue - an eagle taking flight with something dead in its claws. On a side table, a smaller sculpture of two dogs tearing at each other's throats. The whole place has a feeling of opulence, dread.
Opposite the door is the most important thing - a cheval glass. A full-figure mirror. Ornate golden frame, fashioned into a series of animals eating each other. This has been a recurring image for me, both before and since. Chains of animals, all eating each other. Here, looking at this mirror, I think: this is Nazi stuff. Evil.
I look at the mirror. I guess I must have taken a step forward because she's closed the door behind me. The hum is actually in my ears now, humming and growing louder. The reflection in the mirror is cloudy, I can only vaguely see myself, my own body. The glass is rippling, like water. The glass is on fire. Those invisible flames which shimmer, warp your vision. My reflection is moving, stepping closer.
What did she mean "My father is waiting"? My father?
It isn't my reflection. Something's coming out. Something breaks the surface up high, up at the top - two points, horns. Far apart, more and more of them. And now I can see fingers, emerging to grip the frame, which is on fire.
More and more of the horns, my god they are huge.
And a hairy knee, a leg, a cloven hoof planted onto the carpet, which blackens, scorched.
I'm thinking: MY FATHER?
When this thing comes out, when I see its face, some part of me will be destroyed, utterly. It doesn't matter that it's only a dream. When I see this thing's face, it'll be over.

The Three Hyperlinks

2009-05-19T17:30:00.000+01:00

I've spent the last week working on other stuff, so have been unable to bring more Sleep Dep into the world.

So here are some links.

Exhilarating - Just in case you are not one of the 900,000 people who've seen this already. "There Are Monsters". Watch it in full screen, pay attention.

Wonderful - "White Girl Dreams", ten pages from Mary K Brown. Navigation is on the left. MK Brown is who Sleep Dep wants to be when it grows up.

Inspirational - The complete and downloadable recordings of Shooby Taylor, the Human Horn. Start from the top. Don't stop after the first couple. Keep listening. Listen to them all.

(Near) Death of a Sock Monkey

2009-05-12T19:49:00.000+01:00

Had a series of bad traffic accidents a couple months back.

The first one was probably the worst – coming up the ramp onto the motorway, I would have been going about seventy or eighty k, getting set to merge lanes and all of a sudden the cars in the next lane stop, and the van stops, and everything else stops. Dead still.

I'm sitting at the wheel, staring ahead, or at sort of an angle, staring out across the lanes of traffic. I can see these trees on the far side, the leaves, the long grass. They've stopped. There's grey shapes in the corner of my vision, hovering in mid-air, which I assume are stopped pigeons except I can't check because I've stopped too. Can't move, can't even swivel my eyeballs in their sockets.

And I'm thinking: fu-uck.

Time's fucking stopped.

Except my consciousness has continued in the gap.

And I'm there.

And at first I'm just thinking: fahh.

Mate.

But then I think: when is this going to start up again? You know? 'Cos I've got no way of knowing when, or if, things are going to start moving again. This could be it, this could be me – trapped for forever in just this one moment, driving three dozen crates of wine and spirits up onto the motorway. Staring out across the traffic, with the trees behind half-in focus. Can't even focus my eyes.

This could be me, forever. Weeks, months, years. Centuries even. Millennia. My own private hell – fuck's sake! I'm thinking: it'll drive me out of my mind. Drive me fucking mad. And then what? Drive me even further out of my fucking mind. It'd just keep going. Sustained pressure on my sanity, there'd be nothing left. No reference except for this one same moment, this one bunch of stimuli. Train of thought would just come apart completely, round and round, thinking about the same things until you couldn't even call it thought anymore, it'd just be chanting.

But then I think: what if it starts up again? 'Cos I'd be fucked then too, since I've got my foot down on the accelerator, like I say I'm going seventy or eighty k into another lane of traffic. So I'm worried that when (or if) it starts up again, I won't be able to react in time, I'll slam into one of these cars, probably this yellow one just behind me which I can barely even see.

Fu-uck!

You know?

Like, how am I supposed to be prepared for this moment when time resumes? If, in fact, it ever arrives? Driving a van at eighty k is one thing, but going from zero to eighty in the blink of an eye, going from not driving to full on driving down the motorway... that's a different story!

I make up my mind to stay tense, stay prepared. I'm staring out across the lanes of traffic like a dozey fuckwit, not moving, not doing anything, but mentally I'm prepared for things to go whizzing into life the next moment. And then the next moment. And on and on. I'm sitting there, and half of me is scared that I'm stuck here for eternity and I'll go mad, and the other half is just shit-scared I'm about to fly into a side-on collision at eighty k.

I'm thinking: first thing to do is take your foot off the accelerator. The very first chance you get. Then hit the brake, pull the wheel to the left. Foot off the accelerator. Hit the brake. Steer left.

Somehow I have the theme music from Labyrinth stuck in my head. Don't ask me why.

Thinking about Labyrinth reminds me of Beth, my sister. Beth likes Labyrinth, I mean everyone does, I certainly do, but she likes it more than anyone.

Beth's always on my case about my driving. Dumb cow. Not that there's anything wrong with my driving, because there isn't. She's just decided I'm a bad driver, keeps telling me to get a different job.

“If you keep driving that van you're gonna have an accident and kill yourself. Bet you fifty bucks.”

I think: bet you fifty fucking dollars that when time starts up again and I hit this yellow car, Beth's going to blame it on my driving.

Moon Over Desert

2009-05-07T16:15:00.003+01:00

Log off, shut down.

How is it possible that it's 11 o'clock?

Lights out. These terrible fluorescent lights. All day, all evening. The feeling lingers on the skin afterwards. Unhealthy.

The long walk out. Office to the left, empty. Big window on the right looking down onto the facility floor.

Dark down there. Up here, more of those fluoro lights, one after another, steady pulse, like driving a car - the "cat's eyes" on a dark road, the overhead lamps.

Door release. Elevator. Another door release. Deserted lobby. Footsteps on the hard floor. Picture window, glass door, orange sodium lights of the carpark.

Warm night air.

Dead pigeon on the asphalt beside door. Blinking. Nudging it with a foot.
What's that supposed to do, bring it back to life?

Tired. Warm night. Car park, mostly empty. Three or four cars, and there's the Audi, lonely out there on the far side. Footsteps, heels sharp against asphalt. Slight breeze. Black shape - security guard, walking along the side of the facility. Hand lifted in acknowledgement.

'Night,' he says.

'Night.'

Stating the obvious.

Pausing for a second once the door's unlocked. So tired. A tired pause. There's the moon, full moon tonight. Or not quite. Almost.

Driving.

Voice on the radio. 'Not immediately apparent,' it says. 'Whatever relevance, whether any of it is in fact relevant.'

Streetlights, a steady pulse. Wall on the left, screening out the other plants, the other facilities. A slope on the right, down to the train tracks, the desert. Rocks and plants scattered around down there.

Graffiti on the wall, vivid pink: "ASHNOPI".

'Obviously have a better picture as it plays out,' says the voice.

'Ashnopi,' he says. Trying out the sound of the word.

He notices something out of the corner of his eye - a train, down there in the valley, coming up from behind. Lights at the front, big ugly bull of a locomotive, then car after car after car after car, rolling out beneath the almost-full moon. Beautiful sight.

Thinks about the train, those cars. Thinks about tramps maybe riding in the cars. A young guy, runaway, looking up at the moon. What the hell, give him a musical instrument, a guitar. No. A trumpet. A muffled trumpet.

Eyes back on the road, but shooting glances down at the train. A rush of feeling, thinking about that kid. The melody he's playing out over the train's percussion. Excited, wistful, jealous. You could do anything with that freedom. You could do anything. Just your instrument, a little money, half a pack of cigarettes. Maybe a girl somewhere, or maybe that's too much. The girl would weigh it down, he thinks. Okay, so there's a girl but maybe things didn't work out between you, you needed time to think, get out into the open spaces.

Christ, so fucking tired.

There it goes. The tracks veer away from the highway as they reach the outskirts together.

The highway carries on to the left of the residential zone, runs close beside it, there are exit ramps and entry ramps connecting it like veins.

The car goes left, follows the grey bloodstream.

The train rolls right, into a wide shallow valley. Surburbs sprawling away on the left, some more off on the other side, further away. The valley and the tracks rolling like a wide river between them, a continuation of the desert which spreads out on all sides of the little streets and houses.

Any big space will give you a spooky feeling after dark. The desert, the ocean. Outer space.

Locomotive pushing forward like an angry jaw. Yellow and black stripes on its face. Huge lamps, loud white light. ROARING. The engine, the wheels against the tracks.

There is a car with its door hanging open.

A broken latch. Momentum tugging at the door, a little further aside, hour after hour, wind and motion shifting the cargo inside. Inch by inch, until this, a crate falls out. Crate slipping out of the train as it rolls through the valley. Tumbling out. Hitting the ground, rolling, smashing to pieces.

The train rolling on. Regardless.

Clattering, shaking. Car after car. Car after car. The broken crate beside the tracks. The wood shifting, pushed from inside. Clattering. Car after car. Gentle pushing, edging the splinters away. Creating a gap. Large enough. Clattering, shaking. A feeler emerging, testing. A tendril. Probing the dry earth. Moist, dark.

The black clay.

Car after car. Car after car.

So fucking long, the train. Always like this.

The locomotive already out of sight to the right of her, what is that, North, and to her left you still can't see the end of it, it's like a wall running along the valley, "a wall between them", her place and his, and that's perfect actually. That says it all, right there.

Tilting the wine glass up to her lips, except it's empty.

Walking back from the picture window to the table, the bottle. A refill. Warmer than the last glass, the flavour not as sharp, sweeter now. Sickly sweet. Like rotting flowers - HAH.

The next song starting. Track list on the back of the case, listening, pacing.
Was it this one? The woman starts singing again.

She sings: 'I'll remember FOR you'.

And: 'can't take it away'. Was it this one?

Pacing. Clock on the shelf. How is it possible it's 11:30?

Here we go, yes, it's this one. She's singing: 'Everything you've done, everything'. YES. That's it. Tipping the glass to her lips, filling her mouth with rotten sweetness.

The woman sings: 'the things you say / you're a fucking liar'.

Nodding, swallowing the wine. Exactly, yes. Thank God for this woman, the singer. She's a genius. That's exactly it, EXACTLY the feeling. Nodding, listening, pacing.

Wheels turning fast, round and round. Heat and momentum. Another refill, last of the bottle.

Song finishing. Walking over to the player, stopping it.

Thinks about playing it again. No. Or about calling him. What's the time? 11:33. Looks out at the valley. The train's gone. Just the streetlamps on the other side of the valley, lights in some of the houses. Yeah, some of those houses with the lights still on.

Ought to be able to tell which one is his, see if the lights are on, but the wheels turning fast and fuck it, if he's asleep she'll wake him, he fucking deserves it. Standing still for a moment, middle of the room. Are we doing this? Blue light from the fish tank. Hypnotised for a moment, watching them drift back and forth.

These god damned fish, she thinks.

She reaches for the phone, punches the speed dial. Back to the window.

A second of silence, as the call is relayed through dozens of miles of fibre optic cable, then routed back to the other side of the valley. Then a steady pulse in her ear, the phone ringing on his side.

The black clay has pulled itself free from the wreckage of the crate. It lies inert in the dust, as if exhausted.

She squints, half-expecting to see a light come on in one of those houses.
Phone ringing in his kitchen. Small, shrill sound.

The dog rises from its place by the front door, pads over and stands in the kitchen doorway. It watches, quiet and misrable, as the phone on the kitchen counter continues its unpleasant screeching.

She waits. Pulse after pulse, then a click. Teeth clenching. His answering machine message.

After the ringing, the familiar silence as the answering machine plays its greeting.

The dog stands watching.

There is a piercing beep. Then a loud metallic voice says:

'Are you there?'

The dog watches, does not answer.

'Pick up if you're there.'

Standing at the glass, looking out, watching for a light to come on.

Lying in the dust, gazing eyelessly up at the stars. Listening.

'You better pick up if you're there.'

No answer.

'Yeah, I guess not. Well it's eleven thirty, and I guess you're so fucking choked up about things you've gone out to a party, or you're sleeping with someone.'

It twitches.

Lights outside, through the curtains. The sound of a motor. The dog turns, whines, it's deep melancholy lit by painful flickers of hope.

'Which would be quick, but not a surprise.'

Another twitch, the clay rolls over onto what might be its belly.

The dog walks to the door, listens excitedly. The engine dies, the lights die.

'You fucking tryhard. At your age. Not so young anymore are ya? No, well neither of us are too young anymore.'

It shudders. New extrusions, new limbs sprout from its sides.

'Thanks for that, by the way. Wasting FOUR YEARS of my FUCKING LIFE, with your FUCKING USELESS LIES-'

The click of a door opening, the thump of it closing. Footsteps. The metallic rustle of keys.

'-BALD sack of SHIT can't even get it UP don't know why I'm calling NOT WORTH THE FUCKING EFFORT I hope you're DEAD in a DITCH, I bet that's why you're not answering, you're fucking DEAD.'

The black clay turns itself, eyeless, up towards the moon, and out towards the houses on either side.

'I hope you are.

'I really hope you are.'

She hangs up.

The door opens.

The answering machine falls silent.

The clay takes its bearings. It quivers. Then at once it moves, pulling itself across the valley at terrifying speed.

Blog Entry

2009-05-01T17:10:00.000+01:00

Ordinarily I wouldn't be making an entry about my personal life (at least in the present) or music or going to see bands etc, that's not the sort of blog this is.

Not really out to post photos of my friends or anything ("look, there's you! And there's ME!"). Go on rants about my political opinions. Talk about celebrities or thinkers I think are cool.

HOWEVER

Yes HOWEVER because through the good graces of a woman who is not actually named Quincey but for the purposes of this blog is, I am in possession of the following:

Probably this means little or nothing to you. YOU DAMNED FOOL! I forgive you.

This is like you getting to see one of YOUR bands, whatever they are for you, like the top two or three bands in your life. Jhonn Balance is unfortunately dead, so there's no more Coil, but Peter Christopherson made all the music anyway and this is him and I'm getting to see him.

And it just keeps coming:

The first ticket is a 12 hour horror movie marathon. Then Threshold Houseboys Choir. Then on Monday they're showing Suspiria. In a cinema! Amazing.

The movie tickets, I should say, were subsidised by the Film House membership I got as a going-away present from my job in New Zealand. So in something of an irony, working to promote the rights of women has given me a discount to see a film where women are stabbed, dissected, impaled by glass, hung from nooses, covered in maggots, cursed by surreal flashing lights, dropped into a room full of barbed wire, and then brought back to life to attack their friends.

If someone pitched me this weekend, and said: "all of this could be yours, but we'd have to pull one of your fingernails out with pliers", I would have said: "okay, do it." I would probably have asked for a shot of whiskey or something first. But going to these movies and this gig is better good than having a fingernail pulled out would be badly bad. Go Quincey.

Thank you for indulging me. Hopefully this does not constitute gloating. Probably not.

It probably doesn't mean a lot to you. There has been mention that recent Sleep Dep entries ("Sleep Dentries") have been gloomy and suggestive of a sad or depressed state of mind. Not so.

Here is a picture of a boarded up primary school near my office:

The Big Sleep Dep Monster

2009-04-21T18:43:00.000+01:00

The laughter dies, an awkward silence ensues, and then the ground quakes.

The Big SDM wakes, it comes lurching out of the soil, from a field or a hillside somewhere. Maybe out in Sterling, the outskirts of Perth.

It would yawn, except for that mangled face. It grinds its jaws in a yawn-like way.

It's sort of a greyish green monster. It has lean limbs, a dessicated face, teeth which grow straight from its cheeks. No time or expense wasted on lips or other such pleasantries.

It would blink, except that mess of tissue couldn't really be called eyelids, and the misty grey balls of mush therein couldn't really be called eyes.

It does, however, have a garage. From this garage it extracts two oily, bulging sacks, both leaking coloured powder.

The one in its left hand, the bag with the white powder is labelled FEAR.

Fear that you won't wake up in time for work, or that when you get there you'll have forgotten something. Fear that you're not doing a good job. That your colleagues do not like you, that your job itself is beneath you, that your childhood self would recoil in shame if it saw what a miserable hash you'd made of your life.

Fear that you'll be old before you know it, dead before you know it. Fear that you're missing the point, that people out there, your friends, are making a better go of being alive. You should be more like them. Or actually fuck your friends, let's have instead the fear that they're HOLDING YOU BACK. All of them. Holding you back from what? You don't know, and that scares you. Surely you ought to know what you're being denied.

Scary. Scary, scary fear.

The other bag, the one in the right hand trickling with candy-pink powder is labelled HABIT.

Because you need a little treat to reward yourself for getting out of bed on a Monday, let's say a danish or a donut, and then you're at work so there's your coffee. There's your chewing gum, good on you for not smoking. There's the mail, the Outlook Inbox, there's those fuckers you work with filing in. There's the 10:30 slump, waiting for lunch. The perfunctory lunch. Nothing too lavish, got to save money. The afternoon, Jesus, roll on the weekend. The clock, ticking. The chores, performed. Jesus, Jesus. Almost there. 4:30. 4:40. 4:45. The evening!

Except what to do, God, well there's the post-work run, dinner, a video maybe, a beer most definitely. Two? Any more than three and you have a drinking problem, so let's call it three. There's Monday. There's Tuesday. I wasn't kidding when I said roll on the weekend. Thursday. There's the weekend!

What were we going to do with the weekend? Tell you what, roll on payday. More money would solve this. Only the end of the month. Not much longer.

It's a monster all right.

The Big SDM hefts its two lethal bags, grins its mangled smile into the weak light, and sets off to destroy me.

It's big. It's HUGE. It's so utterly vast that a single one of its steps crosses 20 entries of Sleep Dep.

OHETR TNHGIS, ICLUIDNNG AN IDCNTRIUTOON

2009-04-20T03:33:00.000+01:00

(PRAT OF) THE ROSEAN TIHS IS CLELAD SEELP DEP IS I WTIRE IT WEHN I CNA'T SELEP. I GET IONIMSNA.

I HARED RCNETLEY TAHT THE BIRAN RGISETERS ALL THE LTERTES OF A WROD AT OCNE, RHTAER TAHN IN SEUQCNEE. AS LNOG AS THE FSRIT AND LSAT LTTREES ARE CROECRT, THE LETETRS IN BWEEETN CAN BE IN ANY OERDR AND THE WROD WLIL SLITL BE LLGEIBE.

IF TAHT'S TURE, YOU SLUHOD BE ALBE TO RAED TIHS OAKY.

I JSUT WKOE FORM A DERAM WEHRE I WKLAED ITNO THE PMAAURONT MVOIE MRTAAHON AND SITCHWED THE LIHGT ON. EERYNOVE BNIILNKG, AKSNIG "WAHT? WAHT'S HPAENIPNG?" FINKCUG ESRSRABAMNIG. IT WAS A GOOD LNIE-UP TOO, TEHY HAD TIHS BPCTLAKOSLIATION/HROORR FLIM CLAELD "CRCAK-DWON", WCHIH LOKEOD AMWEOSE.

AND TEHN I SAW MLYESF AT 60 - SLLEMY, BKROE, RPIS IN MY CAOT. ONE OF TSHOE GYUS YOU FNID SFHLUFING AUORND SUUBRABN SPPHOING DSTIRCITS, GTETNIG ATKCTAED BY THE LCAOL TNEES. TRFYERINIG BCSEUAE IT SMEEED SO PBAULLSIE.

Horrific Nightmare Action (1 of 2)

2009-04-06T21:55:00.002+01:00

Hands down the worst dream I’ve ever had – a nightmare I had while living in London. This would have been 1998. We found out about this stuff called Wild Lettuce which gives you “intense dreams”. I offered myself as the guinea pig, and because I wanted it to work I smoked two joints of the stuff before going to sleep.

I was in this flat in London, a housing estate. My grandmother was dying. My family was all on holiday, somehow I’d been landed with the task of looking after Granny while she died. So there I am, on my own in her apartment, listening to her laboured breathing from the next room.

Phone rings in the middle of the night. It’s my girlfriend, except she’d stoned or drunk or something. She’s cold and distant, sort of sarcastic. This other guy (my best friend) comes on the phone and starts cracking jokes and innuendoes.

Something has happened between these two, like they’ve had sex and they’re calling me to celebrate. They want to come round, and I say “fine” – I’m angry, going out of my mind, but I need to know what’s happened.

So finally they show up. And my friend is all hands, he’s making it obvious my girlfriend is with him now. I’m looking to her for some kind of signal to the contrary, except she’s so high she can barely speak. She may as well be a doll, she’s just sprawled out on the couch talking nonsense and non-sequiturs.

My friend’s gloating. He’s looking for some kind of reaction from me. He wants to know he’s won.

I’m furious. I tell them about my grandmother, I tell them I don’t give a shit, I ask them to leave. I walk over to the door and hold it open. Slowly, and with a lot of resistance, they leave. I tell him: “get fucked”. I say nothing to her. He makes some kind of final wisecrack and they walk away across this courtyard, off into the night. There are trucks parked everywhere, tail-lights flashing, engines idling.

I slump into a seat beside the door, listen to the sound of my grandmother’s breathing, and wonder how my life could have turned into such a nightmare. I fall asleep.

And then I wake up to someone screaming. I’m still in the chair, still in the dream. It’s the next morning. And there’s someone screaming out there, out in the housing project. Then from somewhere else – more screaming, someone else. I edge the curtains aside, and then because I can’t believe my eyes I pull them wide and look out into the courtyard.

It’s full of coffins. Coffins laid out in a grid, with their lids open. The trucks are still there, in fact there’s more of them, with the backs rolled open and the engines idling.

There are teams of men walking around. They’re wearing boiler suits and masks, and they have tools – hammers, rope, things like that. More and more people screaming now, and I can tell what they’re doing. The teams of men are walking off into the buildings, breaking into the flats and pulling the people out of their homes. Dragging them by the hair, by their wrists, dragging them into the courtyard. Pushing their struggling bodies into the coffins. I’m watching them do this, this is happening in front of my eyes, I think: oh shit I have to protect my grandmother from this. Pushing the people into the coffins and hammering the lids shut with massive iron nails.

(more)

LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS (i)

2009-03-25T15:45:00.000Z

CLAUDE DEBUSSY: HIS LIFE AND MIND

My grandfather has a story he tells, about the day he met my grandmother.

It starts: 'It was a beautiful morning in August, three weeks after the end of the war. Everybody was happy, as if the whole city were on holiday. I looked out the window and felt an intuition that the world held a pleasant surprise for me that day, so I told my room-mate I was going out to buy a pack of cigarettes. Just that: "I'm going out to buy cigarettes." I didn't really feel like smoking cigarettes, but I did feel like testing my intuition to see if it was right.'

Like most men in my family, pasticularly men of his generation, my grandfather is a vain and stuck-up prick. He is a smug, self-satisfied fuck-faced cunt, and I hate him.

Sometimes I imagine the creek that runs past my parents' house, and I imagine him being pitched headlong into the water and cracking his head against the rocks there. Except in my mind the creek is bigger, the currents are stronger, there are rapids which pull him downstream and beat his body against the rocks, mercilessly again and again, breaking his limbs into pieces before hurtling him over a massive waterfall.

I imagine other things too. I imagine my grandfather hacing sex with a cow, or sometimes just masturbating onto its fly-blown anus. Not that it's something he'd ever do, or indeed ever could, he'd have too much trouble getting his withered old dick to stand up. I saw it recently, his dick - don't ask me how - and his limp old testes were hanging down almost to his knees. Disgusting. No, I imagine him having sex with a cow simply because of how old and pathetic and ugly and feeble he'd look, and how little he'd enjoy it.

He continues: 'After buying the cigarettes, I couldn't decide what to do next. I certain had no intention of returning home; my room-mate was a dull fellow. Instead I strolled along the sea wall, which was still there in those days, and as the sun rose higher it turned into rather a hot day. I stopped by a public fountain to take a drink, and saw that a young lady had had the same idea. Naturally I allowed her to go first, ladies must go before men, and as she drank I had a chance to get a better look at her. That's clever, don't you think?'

I wish he was dead. That's not an idle threat, I am taking definite steps to kill that cocksucking fuck.

But before I do I want them to know. I want the world to know what a cunt he is. I want to scream it out of a megaphone. I want to erect the word "cunt" in giant letters on the hill above where he lives, maybe with a big arrow pointing down to his house so they all know who I'm talking about. C-U-N-T, like the Hollywood sign, in fact I'd light it up at night so planes could see it as they flew into the airport. I'd pour gasoline over the sign and set it on fire and then I'd kick out the supports so the huge flaming letters would crash down the hill onto the roof of his house and crush and burn the house with him trapped inside, screaming and dying and covered in shit.

(That's right, kids! The Sleep-Dep blog is not "work safe"! And yo mama.)

Garmanbozia

2009-03-24T21:37:00.001Z

My new job has this attendance software, sort of like the punch-cards you get in old-time factories. You clock in, you clock out.

There are set reasons for absence. If you're absent, you have to choose from a series of options.

These are the options (verbatim, complete with typos):

Bus Abs Adjust Plus -- Bus Abs Adjust Minus -- Broken Foot -- Abcess -- Ankle Injury -- Eye Problem -- Muscular Neck Strain -- Urine Infection -- Arthritis -- AFC Edinburgh -- AFC Glasgow -- Working Bain Square -- Working Gyle Square -- Chest Infection -- Dislocation -- Stomach Bug -- Attacked by Dog -- Viral Infection -- Arm Pain -- Poisoned Foot -- Kidney Infection -- Gastroentiritis -- Dental Treatment -- Tonsilities -- Dizziness -- Knee Pain -- Foot Injury -- Family Issues -- Chest Pain -- Hospital Appointment -- Stress -- Varicose Vein Treatm -- Inflammation -- IBS Asthma Problems -- Tooth Abcess -- Mouth Infection -- Wrist Injury -- Anxiety -- Respiratory Tract In -- Knee Replacement -- Feinted -- Pulled Muscles -- sinusitis -- SpringBoard -- Abdominal Pain -- Toothache -- Headache/Migraine -- medical condition -- Depression -- Sciatica -- Sickness -- Diarrhoea -- Gall Bladder -- Allergic reaction -- Neurological -- gynaecological -- Ear Ache -- neck/shoulder pain -- Ear Infection -- Swollen Tonsils -- Period Pain -- Throat & Sinus Infecti -- Torn Ligaments -- working from home -- Visiting PCB or IHT -- Visiting Scottish Ex -- Visiting Practice -- Sore Throat -- Virus -- Cold/flu -- Backache -- Vomiting -- Hospitalisation -- Bereavement -- UTI -- Car Accident -- Operation -- Appendicitis -- slapped cheek syndro -- flu -- Bowel Infection -- Head Injury -- Colitis

Hey Hey We're the Sock Monkeys

2009-02-02T14:23:00.000Z

Goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy-goobeddy.

And Now a Word From Our Sponsor

2009-01-30T08:37:00.000Z

CHILD: Daddy?

FATHER: Yes son?

CHILD: What does "regret" mean?

FATHER: Well son, a funny thing about regret is, that it's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done. And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend, be sure and tell her SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN--

I've made a resolution type thing to run 1,000 km by the end of the year.
So far I've run... uh... 104. I think.
I just checked and it's 104.
Yaay.

Philadelphia Story (Part 2)

2009-01-19T17:26:00.000Z

This was in 1997, I think.

We’d arrived in Philadelphia three hours earlier, we’d only just escaped from this con we got tangled up in at the train station, it was sort of a kidnapping thing. We had effectively been kidnapped for ten to fifteen minutes. But as Michael Ende says: “that is another story, and will be told at another time”.

All you need to know is that we were shaken up, scared, but also very relieved. Glad to be alive. We checked into this place, a university dorm that was empty over the summer and being used as a youth hostel.

Nat said: “Do you want to… I dunno, I mean it’s okay if you just want to stay in.”

I said: “No, I'm okay. Let’s go check out that music store.”

There was this music store in Philadelphia that Nat had heard about from his room-mate. It was supposed to be really big, with a good range of different stuff.

It was getting dark. Possibly in light of our experience that afternoon, Philadelphia looked like a cold, mean, dirty city. It looked like it meant us harm. Also it was hard to navigate. The music shop was in a “bohemian” part of town. It took us a couple of tries to find, but then there it was. It was closed, but opening again in an hour or so.

“Damn.”

There was a bag lady standing near the door. When we got close she hobbled into our path and pointed at me. She said: “Hey. Hey you know who you look like?”

We didn’t really want to talk to her, but she was right there, so out of a sense of politeness I said: “What?”

She said: “You look like Eric Clapton.”

We laughed. I really didn’t look anything like Eric Clapton. My brother and I both had long hair, and I guess Clapton had long hair in the 60s or 70s, but the resemblance ended there.

Nat said: “Way to go.”

The old woman turned her finger to point at my brother.

She said: “You look like… Alice.” Her voice had a menacing tone.

I think Nat was losing patience with her, because he said: “Uh-huh. Who the hell is Alice, man?”

I thought she meant Alice Cooper, like maybe she was on a rock-star thing. (Note that this was years before the "Who the Fuck is Alice?" song.)

But the bag lady said: “Alice died this morning.” Then she burst into a peal of witch-laughter, exactly like creepy old women do in horror movies.

Nat was pretty shaken up. We both were. And off the back of the thing at the train station, we both arrived at the same decision: fuck Philadelphia. We left first thing in the morning and spent the extra time in Boston instead.

Leith

2009-01-18T14:20:00.000Z

Our local chinese.

OR ELSE the cover of a dance compilation, circa 1996/97.
When posting your comment, use the following format:
Track #: ARTIST - TRACK NAME (NAME OF MIX, IF A REMIX)
I'll go first.

These Golden Moments

2009-01-16T11:43:00.000Z

HERCULES: Father! I have defeated the Gorgonites!

ZEUS: Well done, Hercules. Your wrestling skills have saved Olympus.

(beat)

But there is one more task you must fulfil. Remember the prophecy.

(beat)

You must suplex each of us.

HERCULES: But… father! If I suplex you, you will die!

ZEUS: It is the prophecy.

HERCULES: No, father. I don’t care about the prophecy. I believe we choose our own destiny. In the Oracle’s pool I saw a vision of the future. Of a great man people called “Washington”…

(swell of heart-warming music)

…a man who showed his people the way to freedom, to become the greatest of nations!

(moment of awestruck silence)

(then an animal roar, a burst of drum and bass music)

ATHENA: Herc, look out! Behind you!

HERCULES: What the -!?

(roaring continues, with fighting sounds)

HERCULES: Aaaa-tomm-iiic dropp!!!

Death in the Family

2009-01-15T13:18:00.000Z

This was late last week, or maybe the weekend. I’ve been having trouble sleeping but on this morning I slept in, woke up for a minute, then slept another hour.

Over breakfast I said: “I had the weirdest dream this morning.”

Staying with my parents, some kind of pre-Christmas celebration, and I’d given them a present: really expensive modelling clay. It came in bright colours and had special properties.

At night I stepped into the garage to take off my shoes. In the lamp light I saw the place was crawling with big insects. An orange beetle, a lime green praying mantis, a bright yellow butterfly. It was the modelling clay, of course. I called my parents to come and look. No-one had shaped it that way, it had come alive and shaped itself. I’m always nervous around big insects, but I had to admit it was a special moment.

One thing bothered me - later on, when I went to bed, I thought about the black clay. I remembered someone taking it upstairs. I almost went upstairs to check, but I was too tired, I couldn’t rouse myself.

I slept and slept. When I woke up it was afternoon and the house around me was silent, everyone else had left.

I went upstairs – in my parent’s house the bedrooms are on the ground floor, the kitchen and lounge upstairs – and stopped at the landing. Someone had cut Monty, my parents’ bichon freise, in half. Monty’s rear half had been stitched onto the rear half of a pit bull, and this hideous creature with four legs, two asses and no head was trying to cross the landing towards me. It was growling, but it couldn't walk properly, both sets of its knees facing inwards.

I found a spade downstairs, ran back up and lopped it in half, right along the stitches. It fell apart into its two pieces. The empty cavities inside (its bowels were missing) let out puffs of humidity. It was dead. It smelt like a butcher’s.

I found Monty’s front half in the next room – pieces of glass or crystal had been studded into his body in a precise grid. His face was an expression of anguish and death. No sign of the pit bull's front half.

The black clay. I looked around the room, but it had either hidden itself or fled. I knew it wasn’t safe to stick around, so I took the car and drove off.

My plans for the afternoon were to attend a concert in the Hutt. Some of my friends were going to be in the concert. I met up with everyone outside the auditorium, and we hung out in the sun while we waited.

“You were there,” I told Quincey. She likes it when she pops up in my dreams.

But all the while I was worrying about the situation at home. I’d fled the scene, I hadn’t called anyone. It would look like I’d gone crazy and killed my parents’ dog. I loved that dog! I couldn’t get it out of my head, but on the other hand I couldn’t bring myself to get home before my parents. I had a child’s trust that they'd sort everything out when they got home: bury the dog, find the black clay and destroy it.

Quincey listened through the whole thing. Afterwards she said: “You have some pretty disturbing stress dreams.”

Stress dreams, I thought. Yeah. It’s stressful being in a new country, no job, no friends, dwindling financial resources. Maybe when I find work I’ll go back to having regular dreams.

100 Blogspot Verification Words (- say aloud to open gates of hell)

2009-01-14T11:08:00.000Z

Ashnopi Weimonti Fediar Unsnessa Nonjardr Redia Cullea Krossai Cheaki Beaco Caphypo Pordlea Cartiv Lexple Spiddlic Glanterv Xgsloi Toebbili Shette Ratterej Thellye Pststo Skeym Sustim Lommerbo Metati Imptutai Jineuds Micai Gisco Lardar Sping Pedda Delat Parsh Dratsoba Puggler Soredarv Ocargist Baphosi Ticorpl Supperma Colpa Gulabl Sarmi Tedipoll Jaccitie Conap Quini Vertive Acyaine Pindred Epresco Swede Bognl Ventl Ravali Accea Xzzlion Phype Brmlythi Holysio Seetab Acksc Plucip Strate Lizedion Nalla Dicas Cantionw Endadgue Twirega Djoulans Cardsts Colst Tholo Effor Ingin Anarp Ingsta Pulan Chencele Ferolly Parser Noutsi Potis Lueelan Nalist Stindu Bachirri Snjounon Coniions Persher Garcul Leffer Scals Undisoli Wisse Ranestst Barthr

London Story

2009-01-14T00:34:00.000Z

This was in 1997. I’d moved into this flat a month earlier, and I knew my way around the neighbourhood but hadn’t taken the time to really get to know it. Also I’d had mononucleosis. But now I was feeling better, so I started exploring.

There was a paved square dominated by a huge tree and an old stone church. There were some great little streets and alleys, and there was also this one long and very ugly street running along the train tracks. There were shops on this street, but most of them were closed or abandoned.

There was one shop, at least I assume it was a shop, standing on its own at the end of the road. It had a yellow facade. There was no sign or advertising. Nothing was written on the door, which was windowless and closed.

It had a window display, though. The window display was this: a teddy bear dancing on an empty grey stage. The teddy bear was missing one of its button eyes, and stuffing had pushed out through the socket. One of its arms was much longer than the other. “Dancing” isn't quite right – it was jerking and twitching. It was the most loathsome and horrifying thing I had seen for months.

I watched it for a while. Whatever mechanism was making the thing move was hidden from view. I thought: maybe I’m dreaming this.

I left. Later that day I was walking with a friend, returning to my house by another route. I said to my friend: “Wait, you have to come see this.”

It was a 10 minute detour, and I almost couldn’t find my way, but there was the shop and there was the bear. My friend had an instant and violent reaction to it. He said: “Why did you bring me here? This place is evil.”

I said: “I thought you’d want to see it.”

“Why did you think I’d want to see it? This place is dangerous, especially to someone like me.” I should explain: my friend claimed to have psychic powers, and he’d told me that this made him particularly vulnerable to supernatural forces.

Then he said: “Look.” He pointed to the ground, to where the corpses of two pigeons lay just in front of the shop. I watched the bear for a moment longer, and began to wonder whether my friend might have had a point about all of the psychic business after all.

“Sorry,” I said.

I walked out there again a week later, but the window had been covered with newspaper.

NON-NON-FICTION

2008-11-26T21:24:00.000Z

Phone rings in the middle of the night. It’s a friend calling from overseas, another time zone. I take it on the kitchen extension.

“If you keep doing this,” he says. The voice is small and metallic, like a tape recording. You have to strain to hear it. “If you keep on… if you keep…”

He’s talking about my writing.

“If you keep doing this, for long enough…”

With the receiver clenched to my ear, I reach over and pop the kettle on. As it boils I lay the phone on the linoleum floor and sit down beside it.

“If you keep doing this,” he says.

One of those calls. Going to be a while.