Short story: "What Thought Did"

An uplifting tale of existentialist discombobulation and death by disaffection.

   Devereux awoke from a dream about nothing and sighed into a greater nothing. He moved his eyes around the darkness, comforted by its chill. The room was there of course, and by extrapolation, the universe, unobserved and waiting. Waiting for him to move, to crawl in slow motion from his bed and give it purpose with his pitiful presence, a mote of dust, floating in impotence with all the rest; dust galaxies, dust worlds, dust people. It was all the same. Nothing.

   He turned on the light and what he saw did not improve his mood. The environment he surveyed - the dark brown, nicotine, cheap carpet, shared bathroom, sum total of a waste of time existence - was rented, borrowed or stolen, depending on where he looked. Mechanically, Devereux forced himself into another pointless burst of wakefulness, a necessary evil to use up unwanted energy, waste accumulated during the hours of sleep.

   Dressed, Devereux focussed on the clock. Evening. Probably. He had spoken to no one in weeks. Melancholy, running unchecked, had his tired spirit surrounded. It was a dark world indeed for Devereux. He would go to the pub.

   There was a noise from the garden. Devereux ignored it.

Earlier that day, just after dawn in fact, Wilson, Devereux’s equally reclusive house mate, had awoken and, in the spirit of Sartre, reinvented himself. He chose to be a worm. This planet and its troubles had concerned him for some time. He cared, did Wilson. He watched the TV and cared; he listened to the radio and cared. Wilson cared so much it hurt. He lay awake nights and worried that he could do nothing to improve the lot of humanity. He ached for the starving and the sea levels, carbon footprints trod dark across his soul. He felt a failure because there was litter in the street and shooting in Columbia. All in all, he carried quite a burden on his shoulders. When Wilson shed a tear, it was shed for all the world.

   Hence the worm. Wilson lay still and smiled, imagining himself soaring slowly through the ground with nary a worry and the unsightly chaos of the surface far, far above. The soil would be his sanctuary and his food, the cool, filtered rain-moisture his drink and the darkness his friend. His metamorphosis complete, he got up, removed his underwear and walked, naked, into the garden. He looked around one last time at the too old Earth with its insurmountable symptoms of rot and neglect and breathed its complicated air. He lay down on the lawn, the morning dew pure and refreshing against his skin and, arms by his sides broke the surface of his new life.

   The turf tasted brackish and bitter. It was difficult to swallow, which concerned him for a time, but Wilson was no quitter and so he persevered. By the time he had reached topsoil he had gained a taste for it and had learned to swallow the stones without trying to chew. From then on, he ate as quickly as he could, to get underground as soon as possible.

   It was not long before he reached his first problem. He was full. He had gorged himself fit to burst and he had only a relatively tiny hole in front of him, not even big enough for his head. It looked like the going would be slower than he had anticipated. Still, Wilson had all the time in the world. He could afford to be patient and so he waited, quietly digesting.

Devereux did his bathroom things and headed for what they still called the kitchen, although what food had been in there had mostly consumed itself. This suited Devereux; food only made him sick. What he needed was alcohol, and the memory of humanity that the shared experience of its consumption brought back. Devereux needed the pub. This meant he had to go outside, and he needed certain things to be able to do this.

   "Constants," he muttered to himself. Devereux had a rather complex view of the world and found it difficult to cope when he ventured astronaut-like "outside". He survived by taking with him reminders, little handkerchief knots for him to contemplate and thus keep his feet on the ground and his mind on the situation in hand.

   He tried to open Wilson's going out drawer first, but it was locked. "Funny," he thought, he didn't recall being able to lock any of the kitchen drawers. Opening his own, he took out the things essential and, one by one, popped them carefully into his pockets. These were the things on which he relied, the unchanging lifebelts keeping him afloat on a sea of chaos. A lock of his dead mother's hair served to remind him of the past, giving him an anchor point from which to judge the perceptions of the world held by other people which would inevitably be forced upon him. A dead mouse was his hitching post to the present, as his attention tended to wander. It had been a live mouse once, but life in the drawer and the pocket had not agreed with it. It didn't really matter. The future was uncertain and thus unrepresented in Devereux's pocket. It would bring what it would, and Devereux was not in the business of guesswork. He also took a lump of cracked but mould free cheese, in case a sudden desire for food should come upon him after all. "Coffee," he thought then, and prepared himself a cup, watching the kettle until it boiled and then clicking a lid onto his cup before dropping this too into his pocket.

   The odd noise from the garden came again. This time Devereux went out to investigate. The lawn was dark save for a square of light thrown onto it from the kitchen window, in the centre of which was what appeared to be Wilson. By now he was in a bit of a mess and his head was in a hole. Devereux could not summon the curiosity to be bothered overly much by the sight before him, but felt he ought to say something to signal his presence.

   “Wilson,” he opened, his voice sounding odd out loud. He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken to anyone. “I’m going to the pub. You can come if you like.”

   “Can’t,” answered Wilson, “Excreting,” and when it became clear that an elaboration was to be forthcoming, Devereux went back inside in search of his keys.

   Outside, Devereux leaned into the wind, frowned bitterly and headed for the pub. Fitfully he fingered the contents of his pockets, the lump of cheese: hard, greasy; the cup of coffee: spilled, cold; the mouse: soft, dead and the lock of his dead mother’s hair, elastic banded and damnable if it didn’t bring back those memories. He stopped in his tracks and once more fingered the greasy lump that was his cheese. “Later,” he thought, and smiled. He broke wind, pleased that he did it with buttock-clenched control. Not a soul would know.

   Devereux liked pubs. He could feel his tender bladder distend with delight and his throat tingle as he approached the final corner, admiring the chipped brickwork and squeezing his so relaxing mouse. He treated himself with the view to the left, the swinging sign and the huddled, possibly dead, definitely drunken slump of a true contender on the pavement. “Mmm,” he thought, and smiled. The wind was at his back now, and he wished he had left his fart a little later.

   The blood red eyes of the slump fixed upon him and he stopped to gaze into them, pleased with the moment.

   “Have you farted?” it asked. Devereux replied that he had, and thanked the slump for noticing. “I was in the navy once,” said the slump with the blood red eyes, “An officer.” Devereux smiled, leaned forward and prodded. The slump’s eyes closed and its face nodded forwards, into the darkness. “I remember places,” it continued, quieter and slurring, as Devereux prodded, “All those places…” Devereux kept smiling and prodding the slump as it’s voice faded and faded, smiling and prodding, moulding the dark clothes until the voice disappeared altogether and Devereux was prodding empty clothes, dark and cold on the pavement, moving in the wind. Alone, Devereux straightened and pushed open the dark wood door of the pub and savoured the warmth that exited as he entered.

The bar section of the pub was dim, crowded but hushed. This was usual. People didn’t mess about in the bar, it was a place of serious drinking and little energy was wasted on unrelated activities. Tables were full but no one looked at anyone else. It was doubtful that anyone even knew the identities of their immediate neighbours. The bar was, in fact filled with a low roar of sounds, but of a limited variety and all subdued. The air rattled with the muffled clink of glass against wedding rings and teeth, and the tiny thump of glass against beermat multiplied a thousandfold became a quietly intense rush of sound like the beating of many wings that quickened the heart and further whetted the thirst. The counter of the bar was inhabited by a steady one-deep turnover of unsmiling custom. The other sounds of the room were punctuated by low and toneless mutterings from this direction such as “Another,” or “No ice,” or “Keep ‘em coming.” The barman, silent, always active never busy, wore a black hood, only his eyes visible through devil-slanted slits, the blank, bored eyes of someone who has seen his fill of the depths of human degradation. Devereux sniffed deeply, savouring the warm scent of cigarette breath and beer with its undertones of unwashed human sweat. He was home.

   Devereux generally started off in the bar, drinking slowly and steadily, smiling the only smile, unnoticed, fortifying himself against the adventure of the evening. He would purposely nudge those around him to see them shuffle further away without a glance or a word. He felt wetness against his hand where there should be none. He examined his glass, finding a fine hairline crack from the rim to the bottom.

   “Barman,” he said, still smiling, as the hood passed through his field of vision, “Barman, I have leakage, a flaw.” He held up the glass for examination. The hood nodded once, and his drink was replaced, even though a third of it had been consumed. A man standing next to him, tall and unshaven with a top hat caught his eye, the first acknowledgement of his existence he had received from another customer since his arrival. Devereux smiled amiably and raised his new drink. The man averted his eyes and continued drinking. Devereux felt he had exhausted the amusement of the bar and headed for the lounge.

   The door to the lounge faced north and was fashioned from a single piece of ash, the pale wood dry and unvarnished. The handle was also wooden. Devereux closed it behind him and surveyed the room. Again dim, but an altogether cleaner place than the bar. Wood panelled walls slightly deadened the bright conversation that came from the five-sided tables. A slender bottled champagne was the drink of choice in here, consumed from ridiculously tall fluted glasses, tinted sky blue to set off the bubbles. Devereux regarded the stream that bisected the room, babbling noisily from beneath one wooden wall to disappear under it's opposite. In the centre of the room, two men and a woman were grouped excitedly around a twitching rod, held by a third man who was fighting with the reel. Two of the men were dressed in formal evening wear, the third – the fisherman - in a lounge suit over the top of which he wore a white medical coat. The woman sported the half-armour familiar in the English civil war amongst those fighting under the command of Cromwell. Intrigued, Devereux approached. As he reached the group, a crimson fish was being deposited on the nearest table by means of a landing net. A champagne bottle was knocked over during the struggle, to guffaws from the group. Those seated at the surrounding tables glanced in their direction momentarily before returning to their conversations. As the fish became still, Devereux noted its singular beauty, from its bleeding moon, sickle-shaped tail, along its spearhead-curved flanks to the regal turn of its mouth and the calm of its eye, peculiar considering its present situation. The fish appeared to regard him as the hook was removed from its mouth.

   “Why are you dressed in armour?” Devereux asked the girl as she broke from the group to refill her glass from the retrieved champagne bottle. She looked at him, startled. He smiled, one hand in his pocket delicately stroking the lock of his dead mother’s hair. The girl had his mother’s eyes. She blinked twice before speaking.

  "Because of history, I am aware of the past," she answered, in his mother's voice. She paused, sipping from her glass, then spoke slowly, phrasing words carefully with a dreamlike diction. "I take refuge in the past, because that is what is in my books." She frowned slightly, took another sip, and then looked him in the eyes, "In books I can move through other worlds of years, treading the paths of forgotten forests and the streets of towns long dead." She looked down into her glass, the others had joined them now, the crimson fish having been weighed and returned to its stream. "I hear the sounds that haunted the nights of the people," she continued, "and smell the air they breathed." She smiled his mother's smile. "The paths always lead away and then the sounds leave me, and I remember I am alone and in this time."

   “I understand,” Devereux nodded, using the tone his mother had liked to hear in the midst of her uncertainties, “We are all of us alone.” The girl smiled, but the white coated man, impassive until now slammed his glass down on the table, a sudden act of violence, breaking the stem.

   “Understand?” he shouted, then composed himself, self consciously. “I have studied dreams all my life.” His eyes were arrogant, his voice intense and restrained. Devereux smiled, met the man’s gaze and thought about his cheese. “I have collected them like little jewels, coloured lights upon my understanding of the world.” He lowered his eyes and seemed soothed and fascinated by the broken glass and spilled champagne. “I am a psychologist and a mathematician, you see, and I model these dreams I collect. I assign values to their symbols and reconstruct them with numbers and equations. I take a little from one and a little from another, and I piece them together and see how they behave within their own rules.” He looked at Devereux again. Calm now, his eyes had gained the same lost, inward staring attitude of the girl. Devereux nodded once, encouragingly, and the man continued. “Mathematics usually comes from the conscious, you understand, so its rules are always restricted by the human viewpoint. The numbers work to the rules of the world.” Devereux found his piece of cheese and began to eat it. “With the mathematics of dreams though, the rules are constant only within their perspective. The representation of the world is not restricted by the world. The mathematics is therefore free from conscious human limitation and can rise above it, exploring those parts of our environment we cannot perceive. Mathematics becomes our eyes and our ears, probing the worlds beyond the one created for us by our limited, deceived senses.”

   “So you take refuge in imagination,” Devereux commented, surprised at his enjoyment of the cheese.

   “I move toward truth,” the mathematician muttered, looking down. He strode off to get another bottle of champagne. The other three left around the table had lost interest in his monologue, having apparently heard it several times before. They had already begun a conversation of their own, too mundane for Devereux’s liking. He became aware of suppressed, resonant laughter from behind him, causing him to turn. Seated with his back to the wall, facing Devereux and observing the situation, evidently with a degree of amusement was a young man, dapper in black Victorian formal dress, a silk top hat on the table in front of him. He stopped laughing, but looked as though he might recommence at any given provocation. The mood was infectious and Devereux found himself smiling the first genuinely humorous smile that had crossed his face for as long as he could remember. The man gestured for him to sit down and poured an extra glass from a wine bottle whose label was stained illegible with dust and time.

   “It’s my favourite,” the man said, pushing the glass toward Devereux. His voice was clear and pleasant, untouched by the cigarette smoke, alcohol and self-loathing that polluted most of the speech that entered Devereux’s ears. He tasted the wine. It was exquisite. He glanced at the stranger's face as he thanked him, finding broad, honest features. The eyes were dark, black in fact, but straight and clear. Devereux introduced himself but the stranger laughed again:

   “I have no use for names.” He sipped his wine, “But I’ll know you as well as you know yourself before the evening’s out, and I’ll be damned if I'm not the best friend you ever had.” Devereux nodded.

   “A friendly sort of chap,” he said. The stranger seemed to find this hilariously funny, to Devereux’s discomposure, laughing uproariously.

   “My sincere apologies,” he said, seeing Devereux’s expression, “It’s just that I’m much more used to upsetting people.” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and recovered composure. “I'm always upsetting people.” He sipped wine and smacked his lips, tilting his glass in the direction of the bottle in appreciation. “But I'm a good friend to them when they need me.”

   "And what sort of people are your friends?"

   They were interrupted by last orders, the hooded barman appearing and hammer-striking a long iron cylinder suspended almost from ceiling to floor behind the bar. A strangely sweet note silenced the lounge, fading impossibly slowly. Devereux felt chilled, momentarily nervous. He assumed it was a reaction to the sound. He never liked time being called. It meant decisions would have to be made as to what to do next. Reflexively he reached into his pocket, but it was empty. Even the lint was missing. He rose from his seat but stood indecisively in his place.

   "Everyone." The stranger answered his question, unperturbed. He fixed Devereux with his black eyes and smiled again. “I find everyone I meet comes around in the end.” Those pupil-less irises should have looked bottomless, intimidating, but instead they were filled with an embracing kindness and compassion. It was the smile that did it. The stranger seemed to throw his body and soul into the expression, sucking you along with it. A statue would have smiled back. His manner, open and honest and genuine inspired a trust that was a completely new feeling to Devereux, he needed to get away, to think about things.

   “I have to go now,” he said. The stranger also stood, picking up his hat.

   “I’ll walk with you. I need to speak with your friend anyway.”

   “Friend?" Devereux was puzzled by the word, and then surprised. "What, Wilson? You know Wilson?"

   “Is that his name? I’ll speak to him when we get there.”

   “Ah yes,” Devereux thought out loud, “We’ll need to get a shovel from somewhere.” The stranger smiled.

   “We won’t be needing a shovel.” He noticed Devereux looking around, puzzled, “And don’t worry about your coat.” He was still smiling, but his dark eyes were a little sadder. “You won’t be cold.” He reached out and touched Devereux's shoulder, lightly. "You're my friend now."

Concerning nostalgia and sentimentality.....

"is it possible do you think to be hugely nostalgic but not in the slightest sentimental? Or is that a contradiction? "

An intriguing question from @cteditions, not least because when I began to think about it I couldn't decide whether I actually knew what those words mean or if I just thought I did. A swift march over to my library (the area of my lounge near the bookcase – I've started renaming parts of my flat to sound more impressive when I'm on the telephone) told me that the dictionary definitions of the two words are linked:

Nostalgia: a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: a nostalgia for his college days.

Sentimental: Characterized or swayed by sentiment; Affectedly or extravagantly emotional; Resulting from or colored by emotion rather than reason or realism;

Appealing to the sentiments, especially to romantic feelings: sentimental music.

All very Brideshead revisited, but both definitions do chime with what I already felt the words mean. Nostalgia would appear to be a specific form of sentimentality, dealing with the past (nostos – to return home and algos – an ache) "homesickness" is a verbum pro verbo translation of the word and, to a large extent, the feeling.

This led me to the conclusion that the answer to the question is no, in that it is no more possible to feel nostalgic without feeling sentimental than it is to own a 1976 Austin Maxi (my first car) without owning a car. Satisfied, I made my way to the kitchens (kitchen) to get cook (me) to make me a cup of coffee.

I usually try to buy coffee from areas of the world well known for their production and consumption of cocaine, on the grounds that the local citizens are more likely to be fussy about the quality of their stimulants. As it happens, this particular batch is from Papua New Guinea, not a huge cocaine snuzzling zone but pretty decent coffee made by people who do not, I understand, take any nonsense. In any case it's good stuff for sparking an inductive leap.

As the caffeine hit, I began to doubt my reasoning. One of my eyes began to twitch as well. It occurred to me that something approaching the feeling described must, in fact, be occurring in the soul of @cteditions or the question would not have been asked. A visit to my I.T. laboratory and examination of a previous message suggested that the context of the question may have concerned the kind of feeling one might have for "the old home town" (my words, not hers). Ah, I thought, there's probably something more complex going on here, I'd better have a think in the drawing room.

I thought it might be useful to examine my own feelings for my old home town (this is in the Black Country a place of stern faces and steel, not known for H.E. Bates type wistfulness). I haven't been back for a little while, and I am overdue for a visit. I certainly would like to see my friends up there, but I wouldn't call my feelings sentimental. I will not be visiting the graves of memories when I see them, nor if we hit the old pubs will they be monuments to our faded youth. We don't think like that, we're too busy having our present experiences. The fact that they're in the same places adds an extra depth to the pleasure but not in a wistful way.

This, I think, is probably the feeling described. A desire to see some of the old faces in some of the old places, not in a museum sense, but in their new context, to see what's changed, see how people are getting on. This isn't a desire to visit the past, the desire is entirely for the present, it just happens to be going on in the same geography in which memories were formed, and with some of the same people.

I may be on completely the wrong track of course, this was all based on inductive reasoning brought on by being jacked up on strong coffee harvested by Papua New Guinian farmers who would probably beat the shit out of me if they read this. 

 I think I might take a turn around the grounds...

Regarding the class system, in response to Emily

Emily:

"........talk about the middle classes sneeringly but surely we are middle-class? - educated, professional(!), home-owners, somewhat cultured etc etc? this puzzles me......"

"I await your explanation of the british class system with anticipation...."

M'dear,

As I have just been listening to "The Moral Maze" and am thus feeling in such a combative mood I could easily be Clare Fox from the Institute of Ideas, I feel compelled to reply immediately to the gauntlet you throw down regarding the class system before I have thought my argument through.

I don't think there exists a social framework consistent enough to support an overall class system in this country today, yet I believe the idea of class is as strongly hard wired as ever. I shall explain. The coinage of a class system is "respect", that strange hierarchical concern for our perceived standing relative to those with whom we make comparison. The origin of this hierarchical view of our groups is (I think, at least) evolutionary and stems from the need to keep some sort of order within the groups of nasty, bad tempered little primates that we have so far failed to evolve from. Groups that had some way of not killing each other on whim tended to survive. (Obviously). Now, I believe that this hierarchical imperative is as strong in our "modern" brains as it ever was (being part of our highly conserved fundamental morality**) but as our systems of incentive and methods of interaction have become more subtle and complex, so have changed the criteria we use to judge our hierarchies and our means of expressing our place within them.

Our basic incentives are still procreation and sustenance but where size and strength once demonstrated virility, soon it was what could be won with size and strength, in terms of land and influence; the alpha male with the fists and the teeth became the chieftain with the money and the sword. Eventually ways of achieving land and influence were found which had nothing to do with size and strength, but we still associated these rewards with "success" and thus on some level with "virility". Similarly our dopamine mediated systems for desire, acquisition and reward no longer cover merely the best food and water, but now also drive us to collect televisions and trainers.

What I'm trying to say here is that there is an underlying pattern to our behaviour, one of developing more complicated (and less relevant) ways to gratify the biochemical reward systems that governed our primate needs. Rather like the exaggerated false feeding and preening behaviours that make up avian mating displays, a lot of what we consider important within our society is essentially displaced behaviour, a ridiculous dance to the music of the brain chemistry that developed randomly as one way to stop monkeys killing each other.

Until recently all the (displaced, bizarre, irrelevant) criteria with which we had replaced primate strength and virility tended to be gathered within the same groups. The same people who held land, money and influence were also the ones who tended to have knowledge, culture and health, they were the ones who owned much more stuff that they didn't actually need like art and drawing rooms. Hence it was easy to differentiate the "upper" from the "lower" in society. Over the last few hundred years however, more of the "stuff" that has become associated with success and the perception of being higher in the perceived pecking order has become available across the board. First these new interlopers who suddenly owned the trappings that had become markers of power and influence (but who didn't actually wield any power and influence) appeared as the "middle class", but this was a temporary state of affairs, a mere transitory stage.  Now, more and more, everyone has televisions and teeth, in the developed  (and through the 20th and 21st century more and more, the developing) world at least, everyone can potentially have health and access to knowledge and culture. Further, in recent years these value markers have been turned on their heads: soccer players are multi-millionaires while the traditional aristocracy are penniless; children zap around the world comfortable with knowledge and technology their parents and grandparents scarcely even know exists let alone understand. In primate terms using the criteria we've developed, we're all silverbacks now. Or whatever other primates have.

Our brain chemistry however remains the same. In every interaction we are still looking for our place in the primate hierarchy and still looking to improve it. The difference now, I believe, is that we are learning to pick and choose our criteria, tailoring their perceived importance to our immediate situation to satisfy our hierarchical brain chemistry and manipulate our sense of self worth. So what if the Duke of Zibbety-zab here owns half of Kent, he's an imbecile/has no dress sense/is uglier/less famous than me and I can see he also knows this and values these criteria and thus our temporary "class hierarchy contract" is established.  Until I find out he is much better at football/drinking/making balloon animals (or even fighting to bring things full circle) than me in which case an unspoken renegotiation must take place.

All this is very male. A new and interesting set of variables of course is the recent rise in prominence and power of the female point of view. I don't think we really even know yet how the evolutionary incentives and fundamental brain chemistry of women is going to affect the social interaction of humankind (of course it might already be obvious, just invisible to my male value system). I think though it's only as the hierarchical influence on society of the testicle and the fist slowly mumbles away into intellectual confusion that we'll see how the primate displacement behaviour patterns of women manifest and impose themselves. I hope to fuck it's an improvement.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, smartarse,


Footnote:

**it could be argued that this itself is hard wired on a cellular level as it is most likely a function of the mirror neural system that allows a projection of one's consciousness to allow the imagining of the thoughts and feelings of another and thus develop a theory of mind. 

P.S. You're right of course, the definition of middle class includes "industrialists, professionals and shopowners" according to the limited research I just did by looking at the top item on a Google search. As this seems to include nearly everybody these days I propose new definitions and a new class. To my mind you're not proper middle class if you will be starving and homeless within a month of losing your job. Similarly to my mind you're not proper working class if you don't stagger in at the finish of day clutching at the furniture for support and covered in some substance relevant to your job. Henceforth then I shall describe myself as "upper working" class.

Some years ago I was asked to write an essay concerning the content of my pockets. This is it:

What Has it Got in It’s Pocketss’s

In my shirt pocket, where it is handy, is a syringe, containing five millilitres of a rather pretty golden liquid. It is interesting to consider that whether or not this is a little or a lot depends entirely on what it is and what it is for. Now, if this golden liquid were whisky, then this would not be nearly enough. If however, it were say, Botulinum toxin in its purest form, then it would be enough to sterilise the British Isles of animal life which is almost certainly too much. We shall return to the syringe later.

I am a pathetic, absent minded shambles of a man. I really am. If, by chance, you are one of those fascistically ordered freaks who tic-toc their lives from some geometrically ordered mental desk whilst light glints silver cold from your spectacles, then you would weep on close examination of much of my life. I misplace and lose things with a frequency that would startle you. In all probability, you own something which was once mine. You can keep it. I’ll have bought another by now. Several, I expect. These are the reasons I do not carry a bag or wallet. Pockets are best; I have never yet, however drunk, returned home sans trouser.

Perversely, because I am aware of my limitations, I have over a number of years beaten and trained myself to an almost psychotic level of compulsion always to have my regular paraphernalia in allotted places about my clothing. I am quite obsessive about this, so much so that if you were to shout out the name of any of the objects mentioned herein, I would reflexively slap the appropriate pocket. If you caught me unawares and shouted them out one after another quickly enough, then I would appear to perform body percussion. I am thus able to remember where things are in my clothing when I need them in the same way as I am able to remember where my ears and nose are when they itch. This behaviour, eccentric though it is, is ingrained so as to try to present an image of tolerable personal order to the world rather than have me staggering around, Columbo-like, with flies open and one shoe on.

This obsessive attitude to pockets does have its disadvantages. In my left jacket pocket there is a bus ticket. This is always where bus tickets live. It is their place. It is written. (Train tickets are a different can of pop. When I have them they live in my shirt pocket.) If, however, as I step confidently onto a bus, reaching suavely into the left pocket, I find no bus ticket, then I experience a level of disorientation and panic only a lost four year old in a shopping centre far from home could understand. Luckily, also in my left pocket is my telephone, so I can always call for help if the bus driver shouts at me, or puts me in prison, or whatever it is I expect him to do in that moment of pathetic terror.

It is odd that my telephone should be there anyway, as its place is actually in mister right jacket pocket. The universe is fickle today; perhaps I’m not as bad as I thought. I am, luckily, ambidextrous and so can listen with either ear. Ah yes, the reason for the change of pocket is that the right one is full of painkilling tablets and a ‘Ripper’ DVD. These two are unrelated and incidental. I realise that to someone who didn’t know me, these items taken in context with the syringe might appear sinister, but all is explicable and innocent; I do not sedate and mutilate prostitutes whilst in the throes of a slavering migraine blackout. That is provable fact. The ‘Ripper’ belongs to a friend, for whom I was holding it and the tablets are for any hangovers I might stumble upon. To the syringe, I shall, as I say, shortly come. There is also some change in this pocket because that is where I put it after purchasing the prostitutes. Did I write prostitutes? I meant, of course, tablets.

In the inside pocket of my coat is an ID card with my picture on it. This is not a Blairbadge, it is merely for work. Now I come to look at it, the picture does rather make me look as though I’m being arrested for mutilating prostitutes but can’t see what all the hoo hah is about.

This philosophy of the pocket, or philosophie de la poche as it should probably be termed, in order to pretend someone like Voltaire thought of it and lend it credence, I find flawed. Does the manner in which we distribute the ephemera of our modern life around our persons really lay bare the degree and colour of the significance we attach to them? Are my credit cards really in my left inside pocket because money is close to my heart, or could it perhaps be that all cashpoints are right handed and I don’t want my cards artful-dodgered into the pocket of some tiddly-fingered thieving little shit? Because my house keys are in my right trouser pocket near my genitals, do I necessarily want to have sex with my flat? My back pockets are empty, what does that mean? Are the comfort regions of my being empty and without purpose? Am I a latent homosexual? I think perhaps we look a little too deeply into some things; if you look hard enough in a jam buttie mine, you’ll probably find a jam buttie.

Funny, I had no idea how to start this, but now I can’t stop thinking about pockets. Even the contemporary Neolithic tribes of Papua New Guinea have pouches to carry the poison for their arrows – ah, now that reminds me, the syringe……..

Random short story.

     Frankenstein II

My dear sister,

As you foretold, I indeed became trapped in the frozen wastes of the north. You were, as ever, wise beyond your years and I only wish now I had listened when you said I was a "Fucking idiot" for driving a Halfords lorry in Scotland in winter, and it was, as you predicted "Halfway up some shitarsed mountain" where I met my fate, and became stuck in the snow and ice over the whole bank holiday weekend. You were wrong, however, in one respect, as the fault was not entirely my own. I would, blizzard notwithstanding have made it all the way up Ben Griam Beg if I had not stopped to help a stranger in distress. I will own that under the circumstances my shortcut off the B871 to make the Achiemore branch before Friday closing was perhaps unwise. The A871 with hindsight would - I digress, mere travellers jargon, of no interest to you.

The stranger I mentioned appeared out of the blizzard near the summit. He was oddly dressed, as for motor racing and was staggering and raving with exhaustion and cold. He was waving pliers and when I left the cab to help him, I saw the reason. Pulled off the road and raised on a jack which I noted was unsuitable for the purpose was a 1974 Ford Cortina. Curiously, given the unholy weather, It had no windows and had a roughly painted number 66 beneath the legend "Bilston Bastards". It was only after I had helped him into the warmth of the cab, me almost freezing and he muttering about "Ford special tools", and revived him with a flask of tea and my special lorry drivers brandy and red bull that the stranger introduced himself as Victor and recounted his fantastic tale which I shall record as best I can in his own words.

"I was born in Geneva," he said, "but was educated at the University of Ingolstadt in Germany, where I became a doctor. Unfortunately, at the end of my studies, there was some unpleasantness when I made a giant creature out of dead people. This made everyone angry. Then the creature became angry when I would not make a lady creature. Then my wife became very angry indeed because he killed her, and this made me furious. Ingolstadt, as I recall was a very aggressive place in those days. They wanted to burn me. I left in order to pursue the creature to the North Pole. The North Pole is not such an aggressive place, but it is very big and very cold, and I could not find him. I also became very cold and less furious, and when I was less furious I remembered I had made the creature over eight feet tall and so decided not to look for him anymore.

I could not go back home because everyone was still very angry and wanted to burn me, so I went to England and moved to Dudley because it had a castle which I was able to rent. Unfortunately my funds were running low and I had left for the North Pole without my medical certificate. Having some mechanical abilities and lots of space in my castle I opened a garage and began mending cars. I became successful and met many friends in the Four Furnaces in Pensnett where the car mechanics drank. The barmaid was very pretty and soon we were in love and she became my wife. I was very happy.

Then came the fateful day when my fellow mechanics took me to Birmingham to watch the banger racing. Oh the excitement, the destruction, the sheer animal thrill. Thus began my new obsession. I, Victor Frankenstein, would build a banger racer, the like of which would make the world draw its breath. I had been wasted in medicine, this was what I had been born to do. In secret I purchased a 2.2 litre Austin Ambassador and set to work. They were dark and unholy nights, doing evil business with furtive oil blackened men of the worst kind, being chased over the fences of moonlit tat yards by snarling dogs, stealing parts from old ladies cars. I lost weight and grew a beard, I ignored my wife and slept little. When I did sleep, I muttered. It was wonderful, it was like the old days only better because it was partially legal.

Finally, one night, my work was complete. It was before me. My creation. A thing of magnificence raised by me from the rain soaked charnels of countless tat yards, bastardized, welded and bolted into pure mechanical sculpture. It only remained to turn the key. I did so, trembling like a madman, and the 2.2 litre Austin roared. I was elated. "It's Running!" I screamed and fainted from excitement, exhaustion and carbon monoxide.

Then Horror! The creature returned to me that Friday evening, the night before my first race. I was very drunk in the Four Furnaces when behind me a glass broke, and a voice cried "You spilled my - Fucking hell, sorry mate." I turned and the creature stood before me, eight feet tall and dripping with rain and Banks's mild ale, an accusing finger raised.

"Victor!" The terrible voice from the past was unbearable, "I have returned, to destroy once more everything of importance to you. You will be forever in torment, this I promise!" and he was gone. I suppose with hindsight I should have taken more notice of this, but I was very drunk so I just went home.

The next day was the day of the race, in Birmingham All day I kept a suspicious eye out for enormous creatures in the crowd, but saw none, and, joy of joys, I won the race! My machine was unveiled, it pissed all over everyone else’s and they cheered! I was a success and no one wanted to burn me. I was very happy.

My joy was short lived. During the celebrations, someone tapped me on the shoulder, "Mate, that bloke's pinching your car."

It was true, an enormous figure was squeezing into the drivers seat and starting the engine. It was the creature. He drove toward the exit, once more annihilating my life, everything I had worked for. Things could not be worse.

Then as he drove past me he called in his terrible voice, "I've topped your wife again as well!"

That did it. Once more furious I leapt into that piece of shit Cortina and pursued the monster north."

That, my sister was his story, excepting the part which I saw with my own eyes. When the blizzard abated on the Monday, I was able to lend him the Halfords equivalent of the Ford special tool he needed and, in a frenzy of madness, he set to the Cortina. As he finished up and was sensibly tightening the wheel nuts, the scream of an engine approached and an Austin Ambassador sped past. Out of the window I heard someone shout "Up your bum Frankenstein!" With a howl of fury Victor leapt into the Cortina and backfired away in a cloud of smoke. That was the last I saw of him.

I mused long on the drive to Achiemore, on the nature of the dark side of mans soul, on what circumstances may drive a fallen angel to become such a malignant devil.

Still, it's a funny old world.

For Tom, whose weltenschaung has outgrown his drinking habits.

The Reassessment of the Wulfschlacht

In the middle of a square in the middle of a market in the middle of a village

A wulfschlacht danced,

The tip of its tail painted with honey

And just out of reach of its teeth.

The crowd applauded and cheered until

Exhausted and maddened the wulfschlacht stopped

And ate the meat, thrown as a reward.

Next day a crowd gathered, as usual.

"I will not dance for you," said the wulfschlacht,

"Why do you always want me to dance?"

An old man shrugged, not hiding his disappointment

"In this place, in these times, people like to see a wulfschlacht dance," he said.

The wulfschlacht was firm

"Well I will not dance," it said, "you'll just have to fund something else to do."

It ground its teeth and scowled, to show it was serious

And the crowd dispersed, grumbling, to find other entertainment

Leaving the old man and the wulfschlacht.

"Wait," said the latter, "where is my meat, I am hungry?"

"You would not dance," said the old man, "no dancing, no fresh meat."

He turned and walked away.

"But what will happen to me?" the wulfschlacht cried, "What will I do now?"

"I don't know," called the old man,

"What do other wulfschlachts do?"

Short story, For Gemma who refused to write me a story.

In the corner of a room, in a house, in a village, deep in the green country, an old lady, as young as the autumn sunshine that spilled over the stone floor, sat down at a table opposite a

small girl who was busy arranging something tidily into the shape of something she had just thought of. The old lady made the sort of noise that old ladies everywhere make when they sit down, a kind of “ooof...” noise. The little girl looked at her with a great deal of affection, for she was her grandmother and this was appropriate.

“Granny,” she said with a tone that suggested a great deal of thought, “Was I named after you or mummy?”

“Ah!” The old lady leaned her elbows on the table and folded her hands. The breeze paused in the trees and the garden stopped to listen through the open window.

“Ah, Gemma, Gemma, Gemma. I was wondering when this would come up.” She pursed her lips and the little girl pursed backat her.

“What do you remember about your mother?”

“I remember she was very tidy, even tidier than you.” The kitchen was, indeed, immaculate.

“Yes, and do you remember what happened to her, you were very young?”

The little girl looked sad as she remembered, “She was so tidy that the doctors came and tidied her away somewhere so tidy that she would always be happy.”

“That's right, and that's why you're not named after your mother, because we don't want that happening again do we?”

“No granny. Does that mean I'm named after you?”

“Ah, no, and that's because – do you remember your father, Alan?”

“Yes. Was he named after granddaddy Alan?”

“No, but that's another story. Your father didn't want you named after me because of how I am with the drink.”

“You are a devil for the drink granny. How did I get my name then?”

“Well, to tell you that I have to tell you a story about another Gemma.”

“You mean - “

“No, not the Gemma you're thinking of, this is another Gemma.”

The little girl's eyes widened with added interest. “You mean Evil Gemma?”

“Yes, but you don't know why Evil Gemma was called Evil Gemma do you?”

“No, you've always said I was too young. Did she kill someone?”

“She didn't kill anyone, not really.”

“Was she cruel to animals?”

“Worse.”

“What can be worse than being cruel to animals?”

“She wouldn't write a story.”

“That's ridiculous, not writing a story can't make you evil, how could it?”

“Consequences.” The old lady sighed, “everything has consequences. Do you remember learning about the end of the world?”

“When Lord Cameron sacked everyone and there was no one left to stop the Earth heating up until the seas boiled and nearly everything died?”

“Yes, before the ice age that finished finished nearly everything else off. Well that didn't have to happen. There was one man, so the stories say, who could have stopped it.”

“You haven't told me about him, he sounds fascinating, who was he?”

“He was a scientist who worked with Evil Gemma.”

“On the Eighth Circle of Hell?”

“That's right, but he wasn't like someone you'd normally find there, he was a childlike innocent, pure of heart and unsoiled by the cynicism of the world.”

“Well how could he have stopped the end of the world?”

“You may well ask. The reason he was such a good man was that it was his destiny from birth to rise up and defeat Lord Cameron and stop the end of the world so that all the people and animals could live in peace with no boiling seas or ice age.”

“Everyone could have been saved? What happened? Why didn't he do it?”

“Well, when it came down to it, he couldn't be bothered.”

“But that's terrible, surely he's the evil one?”

“Ah no, it wasn't his fault, all he needed was inspiration, that's where the story would have been so important.”

“You mean it was the story that should have inspired him?”

“Yes. Evil Gemma had promised him a story and so his innocent, childlike mind was prepared for it with the eagerness of a newborn lamb first seeing its mother.”

“But the story never came?”

“No, Evil Gemma never wrote the story, no one knows why.”

“Perhaps she wanted the world to end.”

“That's what people say, but who knows. In any event, where the poor man should have been inspired to save the world by an uplifting and heartwarming tale, instead his spirit was broken and history forgets him after that.”

“He probably took up golf or something like that.”

“More than likely.” The old lady stood up and moved to the sink to fill the kettle. “At any rate, that's why you're called Gemma. That's why we're all called Gemma.”

“I think I understand. It's so we don't forget. Will I call my daughter Gemma?”

“Yes.” The old lady lit the stove and looked out of the window. “We must never forget.”

“Never,” said the girl, feeling a little older than she had when she awoke that morning.

Outside, the breeze shifted the leaves.