dialogue bits

"You don't work for me. Stop acting like a servant, you stranger. You don't work for me."
Dan stared at Jimmy and saw a hollow creature staring back at him. Jimmy looked down first, then turned his back around and started piling up the dishes near the sink. He turned on the hot water.
"Stranger?"
The water ran.
"Yeah, whatever. I don't even know why I said that, I'm sorry."
"So I'm a fucking stranger to you, is that what you're saying Jimbo."
"I'm not saying anything like that. I'm sorry."
"I've known you for nine years."
"Dan..."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Dan's voice pitched high. He was quiet for several moments, trying to build his voice together, teetering on the edge of self-control. Jimmy turned off the tap. "Work for you? I act like I work for you? What the hell, man. You're acting really fucking weird lately. It's fucked up. You need to stop taking so many-"
"So many what?" Jimmy interrupted him, turning around, and under his voice there was a roar, a primal heartbeat.  Dan's atitude was getting out of hand. This whole situation was escalating to something mostruously blunt.
"So many fucking drugs, that's what."

Jimmy blinked. His face still in every respect, frozen: he had been glazed with an icy one, and for the first time in a very long while he felt his neck warm with embarrassment. But then came the avalanche of his character, together with pupils the size of marbles, and the look of a deranged little man. He grabbed the plates and splahed the lot into the full sink.

Water everywhere.

"Fuck you. Fuck you, Daniel. You're a cunt," he said, hovering over Dan as his voice escalated, who didn't recoil but also didn't move, looking down at the puddles of soap water on the linoleum.
"Fuck this..."
"Just fuck you. Fuck all of you. It's particularly irrelevant, what I do. It's really irrelevant in comparison. You guys are all gigantic dogs. You're dogs, that's all."
He moved back, looked at the dishes, then at the wall, then by accident at himself, through the window reflection. "A bunch of fucking wankers. A bunch of cock-sucking fucking-"
"Shut up."
"-who follow me around like dogs-"
"Jimmy."
"-and don't even have the slighest idea of what the fuck THEY are doing with THEIR lives-"
Dan's third interruption wasn't verbal: he instead shoved Jimmy face-first into the cupboards. The move was so quick that it knocked him out of his senses; much like a doll that had just been flung across the kitchen. After the thud, there was only silence. Jimmy saw grey dots of light flickering around him, and he held his head while it rung a one-tone, unmoving.
"Go get professional help," Dan groaned, sweeping his hand over the counter to collect his keys. He paused briefly and looked over at Jimmy, who'd gone over to the sink again, supporting himself against the window sill. Then he left. 

fuck you, jimmy

He blinked himself awake.

There were duos of boys and girls spread around. But his own nest was singular. Him and not one more. That was Jimmy's style. Jimmy was nobody's. Jimmy, the skater, the shaggy hair, the slept in t- shirts, the megalomaniac smile. Jim, the party kid, the one who was high when everyone else was dry, the kid you approached at the sidewalk outside Jasper's for recognition, for the measly hope that he would flash you an entry into his knitted and knoted community of wanderers. Jimmy, presence seen, present tense. The kid that had always been around; the undisputed friend, the undisputed flavour. Jimmy Hawthorne; the boy, the legend.

But this morning things were too still for such measurements. No Jimmy comparisons to be made. No such cowerings or covers; right here stood James Eli Hawthorne: fatigue rendering him ugly and washed up, black circles under his blue eyes. He seemed paused, in a way. In the verge of punctuation. Jimmy had all the linger and vision, but he was yet to break any groundwork for his stereotype. His type: boys with intention. Young selfish blokes that tried to lead the world. So cashed up in themselves at times, that good intentions flew right past them. Another creature of sound. This morning he looked like anyone else, though, if not lower on the scales of mediocrity, pushing down. Jimmy looked and felt to the day like every other main key there had ever been; every other purebreed.

In fact he could have, at this point, been very much a nobody. Had this been another casual Sunday he would have woke at midday; sat down with Calvin or Dan and cracked open a beer or two. But there were no such things as casual Sundays in May. He felt in the manner of someone old and that had been doing this for a very long time; this morning he was sick of the routine and everything this atmosphere had ever offered him. He was starting to see. And it was a picture much clearer than anything he'd ever seen.

June's eldest child, a short story (to be continued...)

That same old thought came to kiss my ear but I stood grounded, looking at my old black sneakers. They're an entertaining sight as they are falling apart at every seam, taped in grey. It was definitely a more entertaining view than staring at the same old faces: Jack's, Michael's, and Emma's. Always the three faces. Almost like a curse we have cast on ourselves. This quartet of doom so have you, this old story stemming right back from the blank age of seventeen. We have changed the venues and we have changed our music genre, but I am almost certain I am the only one who has bothered to change myself.

"I reckon we should head there," Jack pressed on, and the two others dragged on their cigarettes, almost identically, and Emma had a face of obvious discord. Neither of us were interested in prolonging the night, because if we did it would have been at Jack's expense, in a way: he leads the pack and does much of the talking. I could never blame him or hate him because he has taken us to great heights: if it hadn't been for him we wouldn't have gone to America; we wouldn't have met the great Rhodes boys, who have mixed about every single decent song we have managed to pit out. I respect Jack, and he knows this, but he has ridden off his success a trifle too much, as tonight (and basically every night before that) had come to show.

Freeman walked down the steps to meet the cold cool breeze that cocooned us. I was distracted favourably by my shoes, quietly contemplating the mass murder of half this town's musicians, when he tapped me on the shoulder.

"Hello, hello."
"Freemantle."
"Me myself."
"How are you, Frank Zappa?"

I am not Frank Zappa, by any means, but I told him how I was. Which was, in the very dishonest line that we often quote, fine. Just perfect, in fact. I was resolute in this bare conviction, because I have always been fine, since my epiphany in grade twelve. I am confident in my goods. I plate a goddamn good dish to people, when I'm inclined, and surrounding vigilantes know that. In all honesty, as false modesty is a drag, I consider myself somewhat artistically gifted: I could easily turn away and make a hatchback sale of my music equipment and my full-time life, and take up another one; preferably to do with drawing, or literature, if I wanted to. I'm good at those things. But I have worked myself to a point in which my certain song writing skills have been robbed of me; or rather, misappropriated. I'm signed. We are signed, rather. We are signed with Freeman's sister, the largest idea ovulater of music curiosity. But anyway, this is the reason why I made small chat, as Freeman worked on rolling some tobacco. I felt as though, for a half second, I ought to find out where the big chats were at, rather than these teeny ones; where I could find my second halves, and my third halves, even. I just thought confusedly to myself, finally: what the hell am I doing here still?

"Have you been happy with the band's direction lately?"
"Pardon me?"
"Are you happy with the band's direction, Mick?"
"I... What?" this was unusual of me, and him mostly. It had caught me so unbelievably unprepared; I didn't know where to start. Of course I wasn't fucking happy. But no one really cared about this shit, on a daily basis. We were all burnt out, exhausted emotionally. I think, this is what the constant co-living did. What happened behind closed doors: the Old Room, yes. If only it had been a place exclusive and sacred for our rehearsals, but it wasn't. That it wasn't. It was Jack's playground, rather: a place he worked his lyrics, his lays and his oftentimes abusive verbalistics.

"I'm sorry man. I don't mean to pry. You just don't seem like yourself lately." Nearly in cue with the end of this, Jack was leaning against the wall perpendicular to us, surrounded by grown men with grown tastes, his delighted ego ricocheting off the asphalt. He turned his half-shut eyes straight to Freeman, gave off an occupied grin, and half-shouted his name. Freeman looked at me as though I was the last standing martyr of a probably (and very likely) lost cause, like a sole modern-day Jesus, and then glanced over at the remaining two band members, before steering himself full-force towards Jack, the magnet item. I laughed all over my own insides; it was a scene to be had. Emma and Michael were suddenly busy with fans. I scooped a casual entry into this occurrence and prompted someone for a cigarette, something I shouldn't have, because delighted faces smiled all over me, and all of a sudden I had three cigarettes, and still only one mouth, and Carly, a good friend of ours, began a line of talk after a quiet little laugh.

"Tender is the night. Is anyone doing something worthy?"
"Highly unlikely," I replied with a voice that sounded croony, unpleasant, but that entertained the affable group. There were seven of us, quite quickly: Emma, myself, Michael, Carly and Carly's acquaintances, two good-looking girls, one with short choppy blonde bangs and the other a black-clad, red-lipped, demure little lady. I had seen them all over and around before, particularly the first. She was high-priority material in some venues. She was standing here; she had to be. The other two in the group - as priorities are listed first - were dudes. One was Poppy, Emma's oftentimes wingman, and the other was Bernie, whom we knew through whoever else I forgot to mention. The cobwebs go high up and extensively; it would be a waste of time to try and explain relations, as we are all caught in this sticky slime anyway. But Bernie I kind of enjoyed, because he was loud and dry like Carly - and because once during a gig he'd told Jack he was a wanker, to his face, to which I replied with a drum roll.

"Jack is wanting to drag the lot to the Old Room," I continued after a drag, in which the girls' expressions lit up quietly, but Emma corrected me quickly, "Around the vicinity of the Room..."

"Yeah, right, around the vicinity..." I continued and dug out from my repertoire of expressions some sharp knife-like eyes right at her, raising my eyebrows, "but I'd rather not. What's your name again?"

The girl in black looked at me amidst initial confusion from every part. I particularly don't pay much attention to anyone but my own kind; let alone girls. Girls in black, even! Blank cardboard boxes with pretty dentist smiles. And I know in pretty much straight instance that the ones that roam around musicians usually roam around for far too long past the expiry date. But she was pretty in an unconventional way, plus something else, and I felt like stirring a little joy into this set. Most of all, I felt like stirring and shifting the invisible positions and ladders. The group was suddenly rich with warmth, and people started talking amongst themselves. I smiled at her. "Yeah, I'm Mick. What's your name?"

"I'm Olivia. Hi."
"Hello."

She didn't justify herself; no "I'm friends with the suches" - no, instead she just seemed to beam with some confident flattery. Her friend, the blonde one, racked up a little story about how they had barely been able to get in, and the difficulty of being so thin amongst a pack of sweaty guys in the audience of our set, but I was dismissive as a spoilt Madame's dog, and initiated a quiet line with Michael about the location of his friend, who was meant to bring us drugs. Bernie and Poppy joined in the secrecy. A short few minutes later, we were all lightning something up in the corner of the street. Me, the designated first-dragger, by default.

Deliberately, I slid along next to Olivia. It was nice to have something new to look at. A fresh painted face. She was soothing my overall bile a little. (The smoke helped, too.) All of a sudden I was chatty. And the Old Room being discussed openly and plainly. I heard myself flaunting and talking about my personal success. This was kind of a thing of the old days, and even Carly seemed to take this in with remote shock from where I was standing. The group was calibrated to a new level again, like a fireplace outstanding. I was laughing with Emma and she and Michael had that spark in their eyes. Oh yes, I forgot. The important detail: Emma and Michael have been platonically dating since the band formed. There have been several nuances to this, and as far as knowledge goes they have never been open or sincere to anyone about it, since other factors like Jack and myself get in the way; but mainly Jack, possessive as the years have made him of Emma. It's possibly a little more complicated than I permit myself to explain, because I have witnessed something I shouldn't have, and I care not to discuss because it makes me sick to think about it, and reminds me why I have felt like this for some time. But either way, here we were unprepared: Olivia, some new thing, a potent drag of pot, or several; a good blend of Carly, Bernie and Poppy at their prime entertaining, and me (I suspect this was the main shapeshifter), causing some fun-fed tumult or whatever. I was engrossed to such degree I saw none of what surrounded us anymore, but apparently (as Emma was to tell me later, with quiet notice) Freeman was staring at the whole nine yards incredulously, from a distance. I wonder if he felt shocked, or a trifle hurt. But Emma said that the sidewalk could hardly accommodate at this point, and that the group was much more extensive than the seven of us, and that I had been the one to make the move, hail cabs, call out for people, and apparently spin Olivia around in a public stunt of affection in front of a camera or two. Ridiculous, really. I don't believe her one bit; I've never seen these photos, gratefully. Whatever the go is, my next proper recollection is less jolly: the backseat of a cab. Inside it: Olivia, myself, Freeman in the front seat, and Jack - right against me.

I was roaring with the stimulus of a cocktail of things Carly had taken out of her purse at the last secret minute. We were all going to the Old Room. Our room: our space. My things. A place I refused to bring guests; a decision that was 95 per cent of the times overridden by either Jack or one of his. But I stupidly, embalmed in the moment, seemed not to care. Instead I was staring at Olivia every now and again as we chatted and doing my best impression of a rockstar. But Jack, letting go of Freeman's talks at intervals, was determined to tick me off.

TO BE CONTINUED...              

Lucy & Mr. Belsar

“Well, but I thought I knew your name.”
“Nope. My name is Harry.”
“Your name is Lewis.”
“Not it’s not. My name is Harry.”
“Lewis, stop fucking around.”
“Who the fuck is Lewis?”
“Your name is Lewis Belsar.”
“My name is Harry Belsar. Are you on drugs?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Hilarious, Lewis.”
“Harry.”
“Shut up!”
“Lucy, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I’m Harry. Harry Belsar. My brother’s name is Michael, and I am Harry-”
“I know your brother’s name is Michael.”
“I’m not trying to upset you, you know.”
“I know. But. I am really confused right now.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“I’ve known you for, six months-"
“Well I’m not upset.”
“LEWIS!”
“My name is Harry.”
“LEWIS! Stop it! Why are you doing this to me?”
“Lucy. Lucy. Are you alright? I’m really sorry, but... I was never called Lewis. You’ve known me for a while, now.”
“Harry.”
“Harry.”
“Harry?”
“Harry.”
“Holy fuck, I feel so confused.”
“I’m sorry. I feel confused too. Who...? Why do you think my name is Lewis?”
“Lewis, everyone calls you Lewis. I’m not biting into this shit anymore.”
“Lucy...”
“You’ve really ruined my night.”
“I’m sorry. But. Uh, Lucy. Everyone calls me... Harry.”

Lucy starts crying.

“I’m so sorry. Did you take anything tonight?”
“Don’t touch me, you creep! Fuck off!”
“What the fuck...”
“You’re not Lewis! I don’t know you! I don’t know anyone called Harry! I mean I know someone called Harry, but I haven’t seen him in so long it doesn’t really-"
“Ahhhhhhhhh.”
“AHHHHHHHH! I should be saying that! I should be saying that! Fucking AHHHHHHHH!”
“This is so fucking frustrating.”
“It is, Harry.”
“There you go!”
“You have a sick, sick, twisted mind.”
“I don’t think you understand me very well tonight.”
“Yes I do. You... You sound very convincing but. You’re not. Really. Telling the truth.”
“Oh my God.”
“I’m sorry, Lewis.”
“I’m growing increasingly frustrated. And a little bit hurt.”
“I mean, Harry.”
“If you really mean that.”
“I’m sorry. Can we just drop this?”
“Yes. What’s my name though?”
“Can I just call you Larry?”
“Larry?”
“It’s mainly Harry if you think about it, but starting with an L.”
“Larry.”
“Yes, Larry.”
“But my name is Harry.”
“I refuse to call you Harry.”
“Okay, well, I’ll start calling you Joana then.”
“See, I wouldn’t mind that so much.”
“For the entire six months we have known each other, you thought my name was Lewis.”
“Your name is Lewis.”
“My name is Harry. I was born and my mother looked at me and said, ‘Hello, Harry. Welcome to planet Earth.’”
“But then she turned around to your father and he said, ‘Harry is such a plain name. Let’s call him Lewis, like my great-grandfather.’”
“My great-grandfather is not called Lewis.”
“As if you’d even know.”
“I have gone over my family tree a few times in my short lifespan. None of my great-grandfathers are called Lewis.”
“What are they called then?”
“I think one of them is called Frank, and on my mother’s side there’s this real character, and he’s called Pasquale... how is Harry a plain name?”
“The whole world is called Harry, Lewis.”
“Not it isn’t.”
“You just replied to me calling you Lewis! I knew it! I knew it!”
“Some good drugs you’re on, Lucy.”
“That’s it. I’m leaving.”
“Jesus Christ. This is insane.”
“Are you calling me mad? Are you saying I’ve gone mad? I’m not on drugs! I’ve had two drinks! Two drinks! I think I know what your name is, still!”
“And what is my name?”
“I refuse to answer to your nonsense. You’re the one that’s on drugs. You are. You are.”
“But I’m always on drugs. You know that.”
“Exactly.”
“You think I’d know the most basic information about myself in case I went in some sort of drug-induced coma in the middle of the street...”
“Ha, ha.”
“I mean, because I take such heavy drugs after all...”
“Don’t even start trying to shame me.”
“Shame you? You don’t know my first name and you think I’m trying to guilt you about telling me I do too many drugs?”
“Oh my fucking God. Shut up.”
“My first name! Harry. Harry, not Harrison - just plain fucking Harry. Harry Belsar. Harry fucking Belsar.”
“Nice to meet you, Harry fucking Belsar.”
“I think I’m done with this.”
“Good. So am I.”
“See you around, Lucy.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going home. Weren’t we going home?”
“Yes. Until this.”
“Until what?”
“Until I found out you’re some other person.”
“I’m not some other person. My name is Harry, that’s all.”
“Suppose I can believe that.”
“As you should.”
“As you want me to believe. Suppose I call you Harry. But then suppose we get home and happen to find Michael awake in the lounge room.”
“Michael won’t be awake.”
“I’ll wake him up. I’ll make him say your name.”
“You’ll wake my eight-year old brother up so he can tell you what my name is.”
“Yes.”
“Good work!”
“Oh, shut up. You know he’ll call you Lewis, that’s why.”
“I feel like none of us is willing to give this up.”
“I feel the same way.”
“We seem equally as strong in our opinions of what my name should be.”
“But seeing as you are under the influence, I am the winning lot.”
“The insane are always saner.”
“Whatever. Shall we go?”
“Yes.”
“Wait! Do you have any I.D. on you?”
“Nope.”
“Liar. Where is your wallet?”
“I left it home. I only brought my drugs. That’s all I carry with me, you know.”
“Hilarious, Harry. Shall we go?”
“Yes. This way, miss.”

lust for life, a short story

Here was I, stumbling home, taking cold pipe breaths of wind. I topped myself off with substance abuse, I deserved a fucking accolade really. I think I was seeing stars. The road in front of me all angled spins and darkness; my vision fogging. I was trying to walk myself home, unjoyous, after a confrontation with this really stupid guy: me.

I had been going politely insane. So many standard drinks still left to drain out of my head. The party was a huge cabaret performance. A disaster, really. All the semblance of normality in this irrational binge-drinking, pot-smoking weekend fest was disappearing beneath my bare feet. In fact, I don't know why I left the house without shoes. I think I'm going crazy. My toes were numb, but I can't really tell. I can't tell it apart anymore, I don't think.

Pat looked at me sadly the entire evening. I was and always will be surrounded by my brothers in guard, until the day I bark at them to fuck off; never the other way around. Still she stared at me with stone stoner blue eyes, uncapable of telling me off for irrepairable behavior. She told me off in her quiet manner; the one of always: never approaching me, not even once for the formalities of a hello, but plainly and openly observing me from the back of the house, her head leaning against the fence gates.

I don't really know what I'm doing. All of this is starting to become redundant. Look, I have this fear. It's not unfounded either: I know too much. Everything bores me. I have stopped, or stalled, or fallen down; missed something important along the way. All I can tell is that there are no more challenges. I don't know where to go. I don't know where to go.

I can see through everyone. The phenomenal but annoying thing is that I always will too, until the day I die. I have made such a fantastical advance from years of living surrounded by other people that live the present tense, that I just ran myself out of the race while everyone else is still in the first lap. I have all this get-to, make-do know-how but it feels like I cheated, like I won some rare console in a raffle, but it came with no games. There will never be games either. I have seen men rise and decay in the dirt of their putrid egos; I have seen more than your eyes could ever fester on. I have heard things that would shock your ears. I feel like I've seen too much, too soon. I'm overloaded.

I was stumbling out of the pathway and into every bush and patch of grass. This was a no man's neighbourhood. Dark suburbia and families of blonde children, roast dinner nights and the smell of money perfuming the air at seven. This was not my place, but I belonged somehow. I ravaged those streets every dawn like they were mine. The alcoholic warewolf. The stoned fucker. The king of vomits. Me.

I ran into a dent in the concrete right in front of the Bowls Club and with a sidestep I was palms first onto a slab of wet grass. "Good one mate," I rasped, half laughing, half lurching my head forward, feeling the involuntary needs creep up my throat. This was unsatisfactory. Noteworthy but starting to scare the shit out of me. So fucking wasted. Anyway, I held my breath and took a gulp to clear this upcoming mess-up. It seemed to work, so I moved slowly into a crawling stance. Tiger stance. I was a motherfucking praying mantis, even: I was whatever the hell I wanted to be. There hasn't been anyone to tell me how I should be and what I should do for a long long time now. I'm my own goddamn influence. I tell myself what to do. Literally: I actually don't hear a word other people say. They call me rude; I call myself smart. But oh well indeed; I guess this is why I have almost like a cult-following behind me, an anorexic state of minds staring up at the puppet stringer. The king, the sixties clad fool, the idiot that puts in his mouth everything that he finds amusing. It amuses them. They have never known things differently. They could never begin to imagine what it would be like if I wasn't around. Dude, I'm not even painting this in colours when in reality it should be black and white. They follow and I follow others too, although lightly. We all fucking follow each other. We're friends. We're all brothers and shit. We couldn't bear to break the waving tide of our colaborative.

But the truth is tonight I snapped, and that I said shit and acted out of character more than the usual biggotry I pull. Party host Alex Patterson more or less kicked me out. I let him. I could have stayed and charmed my way out of it. And the worst part is that he would have accepted it. But instead here I am, isolating myself for a definite, leaving behind all the monsters I created.

I don't really know myself. I mean, I know the fucker that I am by miles of points, I lead courses in the night, I am heard, I make myself center student. I'm not naive enough to think I do this out of pure charismatic joy, pure positivity; no, I will manipulate if given time and space. And I reap the benefits selfishly in my quiet corner, like licking the bowl all by yourself. Yeah, whatever, it may be said out loud, I have a gigantic ego, a bubble monster that froths the night away, chasing sidewalks to smoulder with cigarettes and glory. But the point being and the point taken: I have created this trend and these kids. I have created us all.

I snapped. I don't want to mention what I did. I'm not embarrassed; I was just too sickly drunk. The concrete sent the unpleasantries of cold stone down my hands. I ought to stand up. I should really stand up. So I did, tumbling to the side, my shoulders swaying, my muntled head barely erect.

I tried carrying on. Not too far now. Just up the road, and to the left... I could manage it. I just had to keep blinking to clear out this nausea. So cold. So fucking cold. It was clear to me, then: I ought to listen to classical music. The most pure art form known to my ears; Chopin, telling me of my mediocrity. Any day now. I ought to pick Lewis' dad vinyl collection, because he's practically dead really, and the music just what I need to stay alive. If I die... If I was ever to die, in future and shit, then I would have wanted a classical soundtrack at my funeral. The real deal, the tragedies, the tormentous pieces: a real Mozart symphony, none of this acoustic twang sobriety of these dawn days.

Tonight would have been perfect for that kind of sound: crescendos at the sight of my lighter. I set up a beautiful invention. I had doused the used-up paper towels with that foreign grog Pat's friend had brought for us. I made myself boy scout. Creating flames for the meek. Starting a wondrous thing, obsessively centered suddenly; looking for foil paper in the trashed house, absorbed in my culture. From thin air then, there was fire: the flames of interruption. People running around. A fucking beginning to this end. A very merry end to all my heart's desires. I have desires, you know. I used to have them, by the bunches, I could barely contain my enthusiasm: this lust for life you have when you're 16, always. Before I became consumed in this asfixiating thought; this pleasant mind of pleasantries and control. Domination and all that shit.

I started a fire in Alex's kitchen floor. All I remember was laughing manically, and Pat looking at me, terrified.

I took a swig of my bottle and stared right back at her.

I don't know what's worse, my mounding hate for the innocent simplicities of everything that surrounds me, or my own blind eye. I feel sick. I feel sick, I thought without much concern, and once more I found myself falling, staring at the ground, defying it almost. It couldn't go any worse from here.

A positive thought. If I just stayed put, I wouldn't fall again. My legs wouldn't hurt. I could brace myself a bit too, hold my own warmth. Touch my feet. No, no. It hurt too much. Leave them be frostbitten, I could still savage the rest. If I just rested here, behind this car for a little while, I could muster some energy. My lip quivering like some malcontent young child pretending sadness. But I was cold. I think. My smoggy breath hovering in the darkness that now lay on me, slowly. Squashing me in silence. I am always surrounded by... and these thoughts are fading quickly. I feel quick and faded, I thought very slowly. I thought, I like to think I know a few things... I wish I knew more but deep in the mist I know so little... It feels so little, in here. It's cold.

I wish I could think clearly, I wish I had been different, I wish I had had the guts to love her. I wish I had let it go. I wish to stay right here, where it feels warm and my head is still full of liquid, a fishtank: my eyes two gold fishes, swimming.

I turned on the sidewalk and stared at the sky. There are things on my brain but they're just words. I feel something in my stomach and it's like, this dum... dum... dum... this beat. I can hear my heart. It's so warm where my heart beats. Dum... dum... dum... it's so warm in my heart in my stomach. I can feel it and everything around it is feeling a bit colder, but no: I feel warm. Fuel to burn off. Fire and... cold concrete. Pat is a nice girl... if the neighbours find me here I hope... the sky looks really pretty tonight. Life. Living is pleasant. I swear, I swear. Life is a dazzling creature. I wish I could... that lust for life I used to have, I...

unfinished short story

Another diamond day. I woke with the sun trying to peel my lids. I felt heavy and lactic, as if only yesterday was worth a gaze. Yesteryears away.

There was so much to be done. Yet I could only bring myself to yawn slowly and pace my stiff self towards the other end of the house.

She was gone.

To be expected. I had wanted nothing but truce for the past week, so this was an improvement to my distracted behavior. Still I sat down on the couch, perfumed with her scent as the rest of the house was, and lit myself a cigarette.

Void.

I knew this shit would get better soon. I'm an optimist, although my actions contradict this like nothing else. I'm not trying to cause myself misery. Misery just presents itself to me. I try too hard, and I am too nice. No, this isn't true. I don't try at all. And she is just too brash; it's like I'm trying to overcompensate.

I wish I could lock her in.

I wish I could have kept her, but had not dealt with her. She kills me. She drives me mad. I can't produce a single song; I can't write, I can't eat; I can barely touch her.

I can only hug her when she's deep asleep.

The sunlight poked in from every fret. All the blinds were down, my eyebrows just the same. This eternal malaise of being. I wish I could be different. I wish there was more harmony to our song. Yet here I am despaired; quietly insane. I've been insane for so many months now that I don't know what it's like to feel real. This house is a theatre. I'm a doll in a mind game.

She depresses me but brings these ultraviolet colours to my life. All at once. The true definition of a U2 song. So apologetic but infinetly ruthless. She has the darkest eyes I have ever seen.

I tried to bring myself to eat something, but instead I ended up drinking milk from the cartons again. I drink so much milk. It's the only thing that goes down well these days. Had I been keen to slow down on all the THC I might have felt like a steak, or eggs. But slowing down slows down my own internal processes. Slowing down brings me to an Earth that is so not appealing; to a routine of suits and suitcases and zebra faces crossing the footpath at seven.

I don't want to be like them, I don't wan to give in, and I know she understands but she can't live with this creative laziness either. She is a frail girl and she needs me to look after her in every way; in every sense. And I love her and it hurts. And by three o'clock there were several milk cartons surrounding my workspace, but I wasn't working.

There was no work to be done. There was no material. There was just a putrid smell of rage starting to build up. I fiddled with a pen for a bit and got the same sentence I had been jotting the whole week. The same verse, the same curse that haunted me day and night, the repetitive thought that my brain seemed to be trying to expel, explain, or exorcise:

ANGER CORRUPTS ME.

a fictional shortie.

Sleep swallowed me, like a pill. In those two hours I was stable, firm in myself. Put together. If I had a choice in this scenario, I would have chosen forever. But I am a human; I'm here but for a reason bigger than myself. And so I woke, forcefully, emerged from a darkness in me I had no previous knowledge of. My mouth felt bitter and my throat dry from all the gin I had consumed the night before. Gin is a married woman's drink, my best man Jay would say, and it's true - sometimes I feel like I have her heart.

An awkwardly misplaced organ in a foreign male body; my ribs ached. Last night had been fucked up, and I was physically hurting from the sexual escapade. If you could even call it that. It meant absolutely nothing, if not one thing: I had been trying to get back at her, in true good form.

Not that she'd care. She would never care save for those brief and slightly awkward moments in which him and I would have interacted in her presence. He was a handsome boy, with an emphasis on both the adjective and the noun. A pretty creature, a young pretty limb. A man in the works; intelligent, legitimate, honest, kind.

Affectionate.

I forgot affectionate also. I guess because this part hurts the most, if not it being the entirety of all this self-inflicted agony. I could be wrong. I could be blaming myself for insane things; things that don't exist. I could be imagining all of this. But the truth of the matter is, I saw him hold her forearm while she ordered a drink. I saw them hold each other, and I heard the smack of their kiss. Thinking about it made me sick in the stomach. I lurched out of bed and proceeded to the showering duties of the early morning.

I forget that loving is an open wound. She hasn't been my first, and she certainly won't be my last. I am not about to stop; I can't ever stop doing something once these things become me. I am terrible at breaking habits. I started smoking at fifteen and it has been nine years since. A cat only has nine lives. Well, it must be time for an epiphany soon.

When we first met it was by pure occasion. My clothes were wet, my face soaked with rain. The hairdo impression made me look every crawling inch my brother. He is a slicked back version of me. Bianca knew him from his whorish music enterprises, and I should have known better from that fact alone and kept the fuck away from her. Instead she called me Steve all night and made silly references to movies I hadn't even heard of.

I guess I should have quit my job and bought all these movies the very next day. Maybe that would have guaranteed eternal friendship.

But after that things were a continuous uphill. I never knew mountains could climb so high, really. I forgot who she was for a long time; if I had a radar as some allude to, like we're made of rusty machinery, then she had barely even registered. Sure, I thought she was nice, and kind of cute in a strangely deceptive way, as she is such a tomboy I considered her sexual inclinations. It's funny, really. Her face is tiny and her features so gamine, yet she looks like a fourteen-year- old boy sometimes. My feminine traits contribute to this hilarity. It's like we were made to complement one another; a strange design of salt and pepper shakes.

So I hardly knew of her save Jay's younger brother Ted, who has been completely and utterly obsessed with her since he was twelve. I made no point to understand this because frankly, I had better things to do. No fictitious turn here either, I had just begun occupying myself socially so my plate was full. And so I went about my business and constructed this kind of perfected mask of who my brother thought he was. I took what Steve had made for himself and put my touch in it.

And I guess, this was my second mistake.

I began to be noticed and hyped about. Hype and allure apart, I used Steve's growing success as my own personal media box. It worked. "This is Josh, Steve's younger brother." Yeah, whatever. Young by like two minutes and fifty seconds. No one ever believed me when I said Steve was my twin. Like I was trying to mop up some family glory. So I let him do all the relative talk. I never mentioned it again, and put it down to a plain nod every time someone asked if I was Steve Harrison's youngie band clan.

Clearly still drunk, I hopped off the shower and tried to find my towel in the dimly lit light. I live in a share house now. Long were the days where I would bear my belongings with people I care for. My mind racing furiously, the anger building into bile; so much I had to spit it out. I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to understand something, even if it was just my faintly upset expression. Still trying to pinpoint in my mind where it had all gone so wrong, or if it had been wrong from the very start.

Bianca had approached me. I never threw her the slightest bone, she had just found me. Added me on social networking rigs and persuaded me to trade phone numbers. Even still I was not interested. If Ted Parish was obsessed with some chick, well, who am I to judge, but I was not even going to debunk myself to that category. I had bigger fish to fry, better looking girls; girls with amazing style, girls with amazing hair, girls who were fake and girls who were overbearingly real, girls who threw themselves at me, girls who didn't wear bras, girls who lied to me and girls who said they loved me.

I was in no position to care. I don't know how I even got to that position. That was my third mistake. To thaw out my heart. And so Bianca started writing me messages, searching me, joking with me, being aloof and kind of cool.

I thought it was slightly insane. First she is not the type of girl I would go for; secondly, she is so socially exuberant it makes me nauseous. She used to be in a band, whatever, I couldn't really give a shit at the time. Posers are statues at heart. But that got her this ridiculously big reputation in a town dominated by male musicians and my brother, who runs the entire circus. But there she was, flirting with me, or at least what I perceived as such.

I think all this time, she had just wanted to find someone like me to educate.

And so I went along with this joke; because deep down I don't ever think I'm game enough to be a part of this. "It's all an elaborate joke by a musician mafia under a lot of coke", Bianca said once, or twice, I can't remember. She repeats herself a lot. I thought she must be screwed wrong in the head, or that I must be way too hot not to be noticed at this stage. And so there I am in that picture, and that one, and the one after, having beers and cigarettes with this chick whom I never even heard of. This chick who is never even in my circle of friends. But what is a circle of friends but fighting out fiends that don't actually exist?

And for the next month we hung out in a solely friendship schedule. I learnt more about myself than I did about her - she was great at reflecting me, and giving me pointers on just being, and living, and breathing. We fucked eventually, but I was already hooked then. And I still have the piece of paper in which she wrote all her stupid punk loves; music her ultimate passion. All these bands I ought to listen to; Motorhead, Big Black, Lightning Bolt, Venom, and scribbled at the bottom, her band, Grafite.

I blinked out of this memory in a moment of revelation, a glass of water unfinished in my shaky hand. Maybe it had been the fact she had given me so much, and I had had little to enrich her with. Her name a stated joke: Bianca Rich. Maybe this was why. Maybe I am just an empty cunt, and my void is always filled by other persons.

But no, it is the fact I could never give as much as I received. She gave and I took and I tried SO HARD to give back, maybe I should have not tried at all.

I want to see this truth so badly, that I don't care if it hurts me. I just want to understand why she left me. I need to comprehend. God, have some fucking honest mercy. My brother is Steve Harrison. He can throw a kick-ass party up there. And no, I'm not just saying that because I'm related. It's the truth; ask the circus clowns.

Slipping into my jeans, carefully as my legs throbbed, this revelation remained strong. There is something about him which I can't possibly offer. One of those things is affection. I could never be that honest. It's like unbuttoning your shirt, carving out your muscles and tendons with a knife, and exposing your bare chest, heart thumping and all, fucking scared at you for taking out the knife in the first place.

So this is one of his evolutionary traits I obviously missed, or rather, that my upbringing suppressed. It's all environmental, man. And so he's actually a pretty sweet warm person, and I'm happy she found him, I guess, because she deserves it.

Last night she told me she was quitting smoking because of his asthma.

Well, fuck you, pussy. He smokes too. This is a prime example of eternal Birdseye bullshit.

And so I guess she's too much, and her mind is too incredible, and I could never supply her with the affection she fuels herself off with, and yet there's something else. And so tomorrow when I wake up from a heavy dose of drinks or smokes with the boys, my body either sore with sex or sore with this stupid heartbreak - as it is right now as I sit in my car, ready to swerve into the first tree I see - then I will know more about this unravelling puzzle, this unravelling mystery. Right now things are so hazy.

I still have so many questions, Bianca.