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slightly tatty street off Smithdown, but by now the
yellowing curtains that covered the window
were enough to isolate us from that day-to-day scene
of Londis and Vauxhall Novas and purple bins. Those
curtains covered a window that could have looked
out on to acres of snow covered fields and the blackest
of skies or the steamy streets of central New York
or shimmering fucking glaciers because we were in
our own world. The warm brown light from the old
table lamp lit one corner of the room while a knackered,
green lava job burned in the other and day or night
we did not adjust those settings, rarely leaving
the haven we had created for ourselves. There we
fucked, mostly on the duvet and cushions in the corner
which had accidentally become our bed, sometimes
on the sagging grey couch or the debris-filled back
kitchen from which the only outside light emerged.
But that only consumed half of our passion. |
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In
between we sit across from each other at the table
in the middle of the room with the laptop and the
old PC and the printer and type. And type. And
type. Sometimes looking up from the screen and
the darkened keys to glance and smile at each other
in-between bouts. Quote something we were proud
of to have it cheekily shot down as shit by the
other. And every time I was turned sick by those
deep fucking gems of eyes that offered much but
revealed little. Stopping to skin up sometimes,
passing bottles and spliffs across as we got lost
in and what we’re consuming and the worlds
we are creating, writing to the rhythms of Pendulum
and Nick Cave and The Libertines and the wall-thumping
of the neighbours. Every so often the passion for
something other than Scotch and Microsoft Word
consumes us and a glance of eyes leads to one of
us taking a big swig and stalk over to the other
and we put aside the words for a while to fulfil
our other desire, other need. Oh, to be lost in
the intoxicating path of creation. |
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The
PC stopped working, broken when we were having
a drunken rave. We think. So we now work
shifts on the laptop while the other scribbles
away in notebooks. She was more in her element
there with her beautiful, flowing hand. With
my spider scrawl, especially when pissed
and trying to get it all out as fast as I
could, I struggled to read back what I wrote.
Getting the notebooks had required a rare
trip to the shops and the suspension of the
illusion. To queue in the harsh, fake light
of Londis in clothes I don’t know how
long since washed and receive under-the-breath “Smackhead” comments.
But it was worth it, for now we pasted our
work on the walls ever more, without telling
each other what we had done, to be read at
leisure for more amusement and delight and
thigh-slapping shouts of “Yes!” prompting
us into further bouts of passion.
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The
lights have gone out now. I penned a stern
letter to the Merseyside and North Wales
Electricity Board that I never managed to
send before the battery went on the laptop.
We barley noticed the turning of days and
nights now, but continued to write and love
and drink and merge and we sometimes got
up to venture out but never quite managed
it and things spun more and more and further
and faster we could barley see each other
anymore as we reached ever closer to something
unimaginable as we began put our works together,
but they became harder to find. Fragments
got lost in the dark. We got lost in the
dark.
I woke up and looked
across to the table where I expected to
see her writing but she wasn’t there.
Was she with me? I couldn’t tell.
I called out but she didn’t answer.
I called and called for her to find me
and bring some light. There was some light
coming through the crack in yellowing curtains
but it wasn’t enough. I called until
the bile and rawness choked my throat.
I tried to get up again but my weakness
prevented me.
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The
next thing I recall was when they came. They opened
the curtains and shattered the illusion. Stern
faces carried me up and out. I could see only a
mess now. Smell only the detritus our creation
had produced. I tried to call out to her again
but nothing came.
I’m awake now. She
is gone. I returned. They allowed me after I
while. I wanted to get together all that we had
created, make it what it as meant to be, but
most of it had already gone. I sifted around
but they had left only fragments. Fragments which
on there own were but shadows of what we had
formed. She had been devoured by what we had
done, by longing and desire and darkness. And
I had failed her by letting them separate us
as we were about to merge. I was awake now, but
I was cold and alone, standing in a tatty street
off Smithdown.
Ken Taylor
kenntaylor2@googlemail.com |
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