Young Lads Today!

I don't think any of these young lads have any idea what's on their arms up town. I can only thank the good Lord that the best grabbed my arm after I awoke.

We're All Just As Bad As Each Other

Can good looking service be forgiven for having bad manners? Yes, but one must reciprocate by staring at their better assets by way of compensation.

Died That Day

Ever think that you might actually have died that day, indeed died many times before, but that the stream of consciousness that you perceive as your life is what keeps on. Maybe the dead you, leaves behind the grieving, while the live you takes them with, unbeknown to all.

Vampire Pregnancy

There is a wooden door in front of me, it’s not treated, or at least it hasn’t been for a long time, the weight of it has pulled out the frame and loosened the hinges over the years, so it leans slightly forward at the top and to the right, and pushes inwards at the bottom and to the left, like a bowing man of some years, coming forth to greet those who darken him. I reciprocate and shake its only hand, the door falls open and I pass on through, not having seen what it is I’m stepping into nor from where I came, it could have been a door in space for all I knew. I see a series, or channel of cramped rooms extending out in front of me; the rooms are all different shapes and sizes, from small to very small, despite adjoining one another. The walls are made out of the same ancient wood that made the door, the only door, for there are doorways going through the walls of the rooms as you would expect, but also, as I go deeper, there are doorways through some of the floors and ceilings from time to time as well, but no more doors within them. It looks like one long shack in favelas, added to over time by either knocking through into neighbouring shacks, or building with whatever was available to create extra adjoining rooms whenever possible, adding to the depth of this winding twisted ram shackling corridor. The cold is breathtaking, it hurts as I go further, as though acting as a warning not to go on, but I see the far end of a bench on the left hand wall in the next room, until then the rooms had been empty, as I go on, a figure is disclosed in the middle of the bench, knees up to the chest, huddled under a light tan cloak. I can make out the peak of a hood. I’m above this figure now and the smell is horrendous, it is worse than death; it is similar to rancid Pont l’Eveque. I go to draw the hood back, and as I do so the head lifts. Very slowly a pale yellowing feminine brow moves up to face me, she is very weak, completely defenceless. I do not see her face, for my gaze is unwillingly drawn to hers. Whilst the whites of her eyes are bloodied and black, the corneas are pastel emeralds and yellows that mix like a gas nebula. She speaks in my mind, ‘You must go. You disturb the incubation of my child. I will give birth soon and must rest. My protector sees what I see.’ With that she returned to her original position and a sound of rustling came from the room above, there was a doorway in the ceiling through which the rustling began to intensify until it was deafeningly loud in my head. I had to get out of this fast and woke quickly, there was the face of a fierce old man in a similar cloak to that of the woman, he yielded a stick and shouted after me as I was drawn backwards, the sides of my field of vision stretching away from him as I went, like being drawn back in a catapult into the realms of the waking. It is better to have this dream out of my head now; to get it down helps me with this. If I was to tell you how difficult it has been to write this you would pity me; several times it has deleted itself right in front of me, several times it has failed to save, several times the computer has crashed. I even now have a handwritten draft before me also, it reads word for word, just incase.

Civil Servant

6:00am in the pitch black on a cold winter’s morning at Brampton railway platform, a tiny little stop in the woods outside the small market town of Brampton in Cumbria, previously voted the best place to live in England as a lottery winner, in some pole or other, but also renowned as having had the highest number of murders per capita that year, there aren’t many capita, indeed three less that year. I’m waiting for a train to take me across to Newcastle, it’s on the opposite coast of England but only takes an hour; it’s the part of the UK that looks like the waist of a burlesque dancer. My lectures start at 9:00am at the Northumbria University. I’d been lodging with an artist in Jesmond together with her fifteen year old son up until the week before, it hadn’t gone well and so I was staying with my folks for a little while until I found new digs in Newcastle. They'd moved out to Brampton after my brother and I first went to university. Most of the time I got the 685 bus back and forth, but it stopped so often at the string of little towns and villages connecting the coast to coast that it barely got out of the lower gears, besides I had to be on time for once that morning, exams were looming. There was one flickering amber light above the end of my platform, if you’d come from a lit area and straight into this you wouldn’t have noticed it until your eyes adjusted, but mine had, having walked down the minor unlit country road to get there. There was nobody about, at least I hadn’t noticed anybody, it was silent, not even the stirring of a bird or the rustling of any leaves, the air was completely still and very cold. I waited, young and unafraid, in my neck of the woods. A match struck in the darkness, it came from the backside of the platform only five or ten metres away. I looked behind me and saw the glowing embers of tobacco brighten gently and quickly as a steady draw of oxygen passed through and then dimmed off, to be followed by the unmistakable smell of cigar smoke. I didn’t know of many people who smoked cigars any more, especially at that hour. A walking stick came forth first, followed by a short immaculately dressed fellow. He wore a beautifully fitting three piece suit; complete with watch chain and large high soled black brogues which were so well polished they shone up a treat, finding every wave of available light. He came towards me, and in one steady movement, put down his briefcase very carefully, his daily paper on top, then rose whilst removing his bola hat and bid me good morning; his hands remained full, now with his hat in one, and the cigar over the handle of his walking stick in the other. His hair was jet black, brylcreemed down and combed to within an inch of its life, not a single hair was out of place. He had a very unusual face, perhaps a man in his forties but who looked older than his years, exaggerated features, and a posture which was suggestive that he might be doing battle with it. I have never come across manners such as his, his address towards me was completely formal. A civil servant no less, travelling across to his offices in Newcastle, although still living with his mother in Brampton. She required his ongoing care up at the big old house, I didn't ask which one. His voice was BBC, slightly more old fashioned than current, he struck me as a creature of meticulous habit and routine, I’m sure even when engaging in fleeting pleasantries with those he had not met before, whether scruffy students or dignitaries. This man was of another era. We stood together looking up at the trees above the opposite platform waiting for the dawn; the train approached all noise and light out of the dark. I had no idea what a civil servant was at the time, I would ask him if we were seated close by and the train was not too busy, as I hoped would be the case. I followed him onboard, there were more people than I had anticipated and I came up against a friendly guard from whom I needed to purchase a ticket. I didn’t see where my companion had found a seat, nor did I see him again at Newcastle, although I did look out for him, indeed, I made that same journey many more times and I never saw him again.

Red

Twelve or thirteen years ago now and I was on a commuter train home from London to High Wycombe, it was packed with strangers as usual, nobody knew the people with whom they’d been thrust to within such close proximity, so nobody talked. Those standing rubbed up against each other and looked down one another’s noses. I’d been late for the last train so managed to get a seat. Facing towards me, on the other side of the aisle, sat on the outside seat of a table of four was a very attractive redheaded lady, she was quite a bit older than me, possibly in her early forties, but drastically attractive, a truly superb looking woman . Her hair was long, layered and flowing, just a tint towards the red side of auburn, she wore a pristine beige rain mack with the belt drawn tight to subtly reveal a most acceptable physique, ever so slightly curvaceously sleek, a professional looking woman who no doubt kept herself looking good in her city suits, her shoes revealed the suit I could not see, her bag the rest, this was a sexy sophisticated beautiful woman in her prime and she literally could not keep her eyes off me, to the extent that it wasn’t just me who became mesmerised by her display. If she worked her hand through her hair and then gave me a sultry look from with under it once, she did it a hundred times, and from all different angles, she was horny as Hell and she didn’t care who saw it, she wanted me and she couldn’t have laid it on a plate any thicker. She was married too, quite a rock. Now, in those days, I was just a boy really, a boy from a small northern city starting out in the biggest southern city and petrified. The man that became of me after a drink then, or soba only as much as twelve months later, would have disembarked that damn train with her, even if it wasn’t my stop. Even if she’d merely been having a little fun and knocked me back immediately, even if I’d had to wait for God’s knows how long for the next train, just on the off chance. I could have met her every desire whenever or wherever she damn well liked, there and then in a secluded corner of the station, the toilets, car park, her car, a hotel, her home, she could have used me anywhere she liked, but I didn’t get up, and she never knew, and all this time it’s a loose end. I learnt from it though, such things play a part in the people we become don’t they? It also played a part in Alexander McQueen’s film, ‘Shame,’ it seems he must have been on the train.

Sandpit Politic

If an ugly personality snares you, and takes you into their midst, and if you allow for it for fear of reprisal, cut loose immediately, for they are a parasite latching on to your soul. It's how they work, without people around them to dominate there is nobody to listen to their poison, and so they are nothing, and that's better for everyone, including them.