Unknown artist, but found along with many others, here.

I’ve ended up writing the wrong thing this summer.  I wanted to write about my brother and got about 2k into it before it sort of fizzled out, then I started on a new transgressive piece that revolved around 3 housemates and got further, but again with the fizzeling.  Gabe started talking over everything else, so I started listening.  Have got a decent wedge of the sequel to Dolls now and a solid idea about how the book is going to be shaped.  I’m enjoying it to boot.

I wish I was still writing short stories, as I keep finding pictures like the one above that just cry plot and characters, but between multiple jobs and writing Gabe, there just isn’t time.  I’m going to demo a chapter tomorrow night at the Open Reading in Slaks (if you’re in Cheltenham, do come along - an awesome time is guaranteed) and see how it gets on.

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Photo by Luis Vasconcelos

The caption says, “An indigenous woman holds her child while trying to resist the advance of Amazonas state policemen who were expelling the woman and some 200 other members of the Landless Movement from a privately-owned tract of land on the outskirts of Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon March 11, 2008. The landless peasants tried in vain to resist the eviction with bows and arrows against police using tear gas and trained dogs. REUTERS/Luiz Vasconcelos-A Critica/AE (BRAZIL)”.

Images of heavy-handed oppression really don’t come much better than this - defenceless, screaming woman clutching naked child is shoved and beaten by faceless, armoured authority.Source.

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I’ve never had a ‘favorite’ writer before, at least not in the sense of if for some reason I was being stuck there and I could only have one author’s set of books with me I could produce the name instantly.  I was introduced to Burroughs by my very good friend, and soon-to-be-published poet, Ian Morgan, with Dry as a birthday present last year, and frankly it was like anytime I’ve been given a book by an author I’ve never heard of.  It just went on my bookshelf and looked chunky and blue despite the glowing recommendation that had accompanied the wrapping paper coming away whilst I read what I wanted to.

When my ‘to read’ had whittled down and I was waiting for another delivery of books, I finally picked it up.  I read it in two days and I was heartbroken when I hit the halfway point and I realised there was less to read than I had already done so.  I was addicted.  Burroughs became my literary chocolate.  Printed crack.  I read everything.  His two short story collections, Magical Thinking and Possible Side Effects, were so witty and sharp that I had to ration myself to reading only one story a night so the books would last.

It’s been hard waiting for him to write more, but finally it’s here in a memoir about his father.  Burroughs has had one of the most troubled and eccentric lives I’ve ever known, and he writes about it with such humility and frankness that it’s hypnotizing.  Not to mention the laugh-out-loud phrasing he puts on certain things.

This a break from his most recent books and gets back to tredding the ground of his first autobiography, Running With Scissors. Like in acting, it’s harder to be funny than to be serious, so the ones who are damn good at making people laugh have unexpected and astounding talent with the serious.  This book is chilling, strange and it lays a cold hand on your shoulder and a presence at your window.  Just try to read it one chapter at a time.

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An old story I seem to keep coming back to.

It never got easier to bury things.  Some things just never changed.  It was always crap earth in some way.  This was thick, sticky, clumping around the base of the spade and making it difficult to drive the metal back into the ground over and over.  It’s raining too, making the soil heavy, resisting and unyielding.

 
I wonder why I made the hole so deep.  Such a bottomless pit of death that I’ll only have to fill again.  And I wonder why it’s always me to do it.  Why I bury the lambs that have staggered and slumped by the barn and the house.  This one was the first my brother saw – his first true death among the sheep.  He begged me for a proper burial for it, despite having seen sheep leave for the slaughter a week ago. 

 
I’d given the creature some greater measure of dignity for his sake, wrapping it in a blanket and burying it near a tree in the field.  It’s always felt suitable to bury them under the cover of night, and this one is taking longer than usual this drizzling and cold evening.  I’ve made the hole too damn big, too deep.  My arms and back are screaming raw abuse at me for it, for the mindless act. The body isn’t large, but I could fit in the grave. 

At least the sticky clay is keeping the sides stiff, stopping it from caving in.  Much easier than sand, which moves like it has a sadistic mind of its own.  Sand graves are impossibly hard to dig, with the blazing sun and splintering wood.  But, I shouldn’t think about that.  Can’t.  I left that thousands of miles behind.  Bile’s still rising at the thought, though.  Still an ache sitting in my throat.

I remember the sand was hot, and crept into my boots, grinding like chipped glass into the soles of my feet.  My hands were clammy and pricked; splinters driven in deep and my sweat making them and my eyes burn.  I’d been toying with a gun in a shady place.  Accidentally rang off a shot into a beggar. I had to hide it.  That was the mantra in my head.  I had to keep it hidden.  I couldn’t shame my family, not when dad was ill and I’d have to go back and take over the farm soon.  No one saw the accident, and I could make a hidden grave.  My guilt was enough for that stranger’s memory; for his soul.

 
The damn sand kept caving in though, and the sun was sinking, night’s chill setting and freezing my sweat into a tight shell.  My joints threatened to seize and my tears stuck to my face.  I had to dig deep though to stop the sand caving in and the wind from exposing the body.  It was frustrating, but the anger was good.  It gave strength for digging and self-loathing, which was what was deserved.

 
Bloody rain.  Makes the mud sticky.  Clings to my knees like a hungry child when I try to stand where I’ve stumbled.  It’s almost liquid here at the bottom, creeping through my trousers, but no matter.  I’m already smothered in it.  The rain is carrying sweat into my eyes, burning them.  The pricking of tears in the corners too.  Stupid memories.  Fucking grave.

 
I’m not hiding a body here.  Just burying a sheep.  But it’s serving a reminder of what I am, what I’ve done.  That I’m a murderer looking after a child, the relationship hovering painfully between brother and son.  And soon he’ll be all I have left.  Grandfather’s dying, so soon it’ll just be me, Michael and the sheep.

 
I don’t realise I’m done filling it until the blade jars on flat ground.  All the soil’s moved and doing its job; covering, disguising, keeping the facts of the universe hidden from the eyes of those who are too young to see it.  Michael’s seen death before.  Never the sheep or lambs.  Someone always got there first.  Only small animals.  Hamsters.  Gerbils.  Little creatures.  Insignificant on one scale but enormous on another.  Cold, solid little things from where they were once warm and soft.  Death itself is one thing but hiding it away is another.  Watching dirt being dumped onto a bare body is something that few can watch or stand responsible for.  At first anyway.  A box or margarine tub makes it easier; you can pretend that it’s empty when you commit it to a soil prison.  Bury the box, not the creature that was once living and moving and eating and screwing to make other little living things.

 
I don’t know if it’s a good thing that I can do this; bury a body when I can see glassy eyes and bubbled wool.  That I’ve got the stomach for it.  Or maybe it’s bad because I have the detachment.  Is it less human of me?  Less love for our nature friends and all that ‘save the whales’ crap?  It hadn’t been like this in the desert though.  Then, I’d covered the eyes first.

 
The rain’s helped.  It’s stuck the mud together and sealed the joints.  I don’t have to worry about this one.  Don’t have to work for hours into the night to hide it; hide the evidence that shit happens in the universe and that you deal with it as best you can.

 
The rain’s finally letting up now, washing away some of the mud and most of the tears.  Still, grandfather’s going to be pissed at me; mud stained, sweat slicked and generally a sopping mess.  It’ll turn to understanding when I tell him that it’s because I was sticking an animal in the ground.  Making graves elicits compassion like that.

Handy that when guilt’s niggling: compassion.  Nice, fuzzy emotion that warms the heart and tells the soul little white lies that’ll let the body rest for at least a night before logic catches up and the mind actually realises.

 
Murderer.  Nice thing to remember when hiding death.

 
No one knows what happened last year, and I’ve been getting by fine with the guilt.  I think it’s changed me though.  Michael was surprised when I agreed to service the lamb so easily.  He’s an innocent boy; trusting.  I don’t know whether that needs to be preserved or corrected.

 
I need a shower.  A hot one, with some spicy smelling foam to rub into myself.  The grave’s a complete secret now, and I don’t think anyone will be able to find it.  I’ll know exactly where it is though; what secrets that little patch of ground holds.  I’ll deal with that later though.  Shower and then sleep. 

 
It was smooth ground.  No grass.  Burned up in the heat wave so the soil was naked.  Easier to hide that way.  Made even easier by wet mud and slithering rain, small mercies. 

 
Maybe it wasn’t really crap earth after all.

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 You never leave, and your unending presence is more of a slap than a whisper.  There’s been no break between us for years, and there’s no comfort in the consistency.  We’re long past our brief stints of personal space, of relief.

 
Your feelings and desires came through more powerfully as you became more defined and definite.  I keep dropping things because you don’t like them, and it’s as if your distaste knocks them out of my hands.  Tea.  Chaucer.  Washing.  You’ve put it all on my floor at some time or another. 

 
At least you’ve finally dropped the pretense of having a purpose, something we had both feverishly clung to at first to explain our relationship.  Something that I, strangely, discarded before you did.  After all, settling about my back and shoulders like an insubstantial cloak did very little in the way of protecting me, failing even to bolster me when I felt alarmed or afraid. 

 
My only comfort is that you’ve never and will never be able to do anything directly.  You can just watch, without ever really touching the world.  My mind plays enough tricks on me already.  I don’t need you moving things around to where I can’t find them as well.  That’s just the sort of thing you’d do if you could.  I know that you already take a sick delight in stepping bold and close to my back, heightening the frantic paranoia that seems ever-present at the base of my skull.  I can almost hear you laughing when you do that.  Almost.  Like everything else about you.  Always just on the edge of sound and sight, always avoiding my reach.  Always behind me, watching, the strange energy about you humming and pressing up against my body.  A silent vibration.

 
I lie alone at night sometimes, alone aside from you, that is.  I lie alone and I can feel you’ve gone from my back, protected now through a firm pressure against the sheets.  I feel a barely tangible pressure as you explore me, and I’m paralyzed beneath your hands.  I know you’re staring at me.  I don’t need to see you to know that.

 
You don’t touch my thighs because you’re curious about my body.  We’re past that too.  It’s because you like to watch my chest stiffed and my face turn tight, and laugh how I can’t hear you.  There’s little else you can do.  You can only amuse yourself with frightening me when you’re bored with watching, exercising your perverse whims to make me twitch or cry. 

 
I can’t hear you anymore.  Not that you ever made sound during our history.  It was just a presence of words and tone in my mind, something I interpreted.  It was usually angry, and always timed when I wasn’t fit to hear it.  That was your biggest disruptive tool before I started getting help.  You got worse then– I remember.  Your behaviour climbed and peaked in energy and malice when you caught the inkling of a threat towards your continued existence.  You felt you had some right to exist like this, to cling to me for the rest of my life.  The drugs strangled you back down though, and I know they still frighten you.  I shake them at you when you step close to my back, and I wish I’d remembered to keep them by the bed when you touch me in the night.

I still go out though.  I won’t let you disrupt my life so much that I’m perpetually secluded.  I drink when I’m out.  Drinking helps to suppress you when I’m with people.  It’s made you crazy in the past.  Made you rave. 

 
I was drunk when you were first with me.  You screamed when you arrived.  God, you just didn’t shut up.  You screamed and raved that you didn’t belong here, that I had somehow trapped you and that you felt you’d lost everything about you.  That your existence was as valid as mine, only strange.  Parasitic.  You deemed yourself my protector soon after that, and then let go of the notion to seek out your own identity.  Once you’d established your voice and presence, you seemed disinterested in the rest, even dropping the guardian act eventually.

You buffet at me when I drink, when I’m out, and you’re all excited over the stimulating atmosphere.  I sit and roll my hands clumsily about my face, palms and knuckles pressing into my eyes like it’ll deter you.  Calm you down somehow.  It doesn’t though, and you get up close and try to whisper, try to involve yourself.

 
They can’t hear you but my friends seem to know when you’re acting up, even though they don’t really know about you.  You like them though.  You think my best friend is pretty and want to stroke her hair.  You managed to instil that impulse in me once, goading me on.  It made her fidget and she didn’t talk to me afterwards.  I stopped caring about things like that a while ago though.

 
I’m scared.  Not of you though.  I’m scared that one day I won’t wake up, and that we’ll have switched.  That you’d have won the fight for control, for dominance, and that now these were your hands and your eyes.  And I’d have to watch you.  I’m scared because I know the sorts of things you’d do, and in the past, when you’ve been close and loud, I’ve wanted to do them too.  I sometimes wish I had, because that would have been easier in a way.  Because then, even if you never left, we’d at least be on the same side.

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<Sequel to Hatume, published in the Desire & Madness anthology. Image is Black Scorpion by the ludicrously talented Luis Royo.>

We’re not going to get the cars through the downed buildings. That much is obvious at first glance. At second glance, it looks like bomb work, which is just the bundle of fun I’d wanted planet-side. The buildings are pitted and creased, stone slabs folded about shards of metal support beams, now twisted up and bent over uselessly. Fine smoke creeps through the gaps in the giant mounds, the deepest of the rubble still smoldering.

The scene doesn’t make me long for the recycled-air and shaking hum of the station though. The recently decimated city is far preferable to my shit office, shit security staff and generally shit existence.

I take a long, comforting drag from my smoke, pulling air through the side of my mouth and letting it escape out the other side once it’s deposited its narcotic goods in my chest. I flick the filter with my tongue to dislodge the column of ash, my hands busy checking the gun and strapping it back into the thigh holster.

The guys seem as unfazed as me, which is reassuring. Military police get all the solid exposure to this kind of scene now, and the only reason I’m here in addition to that training is my supposed jurisdiction over this planet. I think someone just pissed themselves when rag-tag rebels tore up this place and decided to throw someone not themselves at it.

Rag-tag or not, they did a good job. The slabs of concrete and metal are gnarled and deceitful, like ripped up tree roots, piles of corpses littered amongst it, faces like burnt silk and their eyes like tissue paper from dust. No real fire damage though. Shock grenades by the looks of it. That worries me a bit. Those things don’t go off in heat, only with pressure, so there’s a chance there are some dropped ones waiting for us. We left it so the fires would burn out, and now there’s ash everywhere. Can’t see a fucking thing on the ground. Still, half the fun. We can make ash angels later to celebrate keeping all our limbs.

We need to scout the area again before moving on, in case surviving rebels or trigger-happy vultures have crept in on us in the last hour. We move out as a unit, our boots sounding heavy on the crisp ground, disturbing thousands of tiny bits of glass and debris as the soles twist whilst we walk. The leather of my jacket creaks and groans, long loud noises against the hollow quiet.

In terms of visibility, it’s like misted glass the further from camp we go. There seems to be an unspoken agreement of silence as we pick through paths as we find them, seeking out the remains of streets between the piles of buildings, the gun in my gloved hands solid and heavy.

I take stock of the men walking behind every few seconds, accounting for the footfalls in the strange, thick ash. I’m waiting for the explosively sharp click and then the keening whine of a lurking bomb being activated. Being the one leading this merry party, I’m expecting to hear it first.

We split up when we can, and go about in an uneven perimeter that takes almost an hour to thoroughly search and traverse. There are no mishaps though, and no souls to speak of save for our own, and we meet back at the hastily erected base to search out further.

There are six bikes lined up hulking and battered in the camp, and after a quick kick of the fuel tanks I roll out the one I’m convinced is least likely to explode, picking up a decent helmet as well. Arse end of space has somewhat dubious suppliers when it comes to machinery. And food actually. But as gutless and bastardly as it was, I do admire the shit who thought to put battery-sized bombs in field rations. One hard bite and you’re soft shoulders-up. At least you can still find some tobacco dealers out here, hiding from the Terran Alliance’s watchful eye.

My transport for the day claimed, I return to the car and snap open the dash, taking out my smokes and stuffing the pack into an ill-made jacket pocket. I hadn’t expected on having to take the bike. The regular length of these is too long to fit the helmet. Perching on the side of the passenger seat, I take out my bacci tin and see about correcting that grievous problem.

The lieutenant approaches and stares down at me past the door, taking in the non-issue corset peering out from my jacket. My superiors have already had a word about that. It’s remarkable how much ‘fuck you’ sounds like ‘thank you’ when you smile, and the general is more inclined to think you have a lisp than balls.

“Ready when you are, Commander,” he tells me, nodding sharply the second the words have finishing exiting his face and walking back away from me. I note that he gives his own bike’s tank a hearty tap before getting on. Smart bastard.

I roll my smoke sideways, stuffing toxic dried mouse blood mixed with tobacco in an unadvised ratio into a short, fat arrangement. Licking the paper sealed, I pull the heavy helmet down over my skull and light up through the gap beneath my jaw. Smoke clouds up through the open visor, and I take a good long drag before standing and walking back to the bike, straddling and jerking it to a start. The chemicals hit home and I snort a laugh, feeling my breasts bob as my chest vibrates.

A dog stares back at me from the van I’m parked behind, its eyes gleaming with the silver caps covering them. There’s a pink line of scarring around them. It whines against the window and sways in that way dogs do, picking up my elevating pulse and sparkling cerebellum. I begin to pull away before it starts barking, twisting the accelerator hard but feeling the bike creeping indecisively, the engine hesitant, before it finally catches up with itself and groans into a decent speed. I quickly leave the dog’s close sensor range, only seeing me now as a colour spectrum of heat and ‘don’t bite’ stats.

I’ve never smoked dog before. I’ve heard they drain it straight out of the scrotum, where it’s good and potent. Geneticists overcompensating for ten years of sterility. Damn thing could knock up this bike via the exhaust if he was determined enough.

The first few puffs of the fat smoke make me giddy, and I cock my hips rhythmically as I hum to myself over the radio chatter, meandering the bike through the ruins, the rest of the guys following deadpan.

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My degree is officially over and my marks are back.  I’ve come away with a solid 1st and got a scrumptious 82 for my dissertation.  Fabulous.

Celebrating with Sex & the City film and a giant bag of pick’n'mix this evening.

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If you want some excellent writing and delicious artwork for free, check out the online graphic novel Freak Angels. It’s right good.

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A young Irishman sits in a Paris jail.  He has confessed to a murder his lawyer is convinced he did not commit.  There is a witness of the run in the city of Paris, and she, a young street kid, may have the answer.  But his neurotic Paris Lawyer, haunted by his own rural upbringing in an elite and snobbish profession, has more personal problems.  The city of Paris is the principle character in this novella of frustrated idealism, art, love and crimes of the heart.  And over everything hangs the shadow of ‘the war on terror’.

I’m going to be a bit radical now and say that you shouldn’t give a stuff about the plot.  Really, it doesn’t matter.  If you’re going to buy this book, you might as well just discount the summary.  It’s merely a skeleton for the real body of the thing: the flesh and warmth you connect with.

I’ve not come across many writers with such a talent for description as Johnston.  The closest is Kayleigh Jacob’s short stories that have an ethereal, magical quality.  This book is simply gorgeous.  It is vivid, strange and engrossing.  Reading it is like walking through a wet garden in the middle of the night.

Remember that scene in American Beauty where they’re watching the video of the plastic bag being swept around and around in slow, stumbling motions by the wind?  How quietly thoughtful, peaceful and strangely compelling that was?  This is the literary equivalent.

Sometimes it’s not about what the words make when you put all 60 thousand of them together.  It’s about the progression of each, single word.  It’s about emotion and beauty.

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There’s now a whole section in WH Smiths in town dubbed ‘Tragic Life Stories’, 80% of which is child abuse.  What the hell is the reading world coming to?  Why the fascination that is now so lucrative, there’s a section as large as ‘Travel’ dedicated to it?

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