Number Five

Chaotic and automatic, an unstoppable chain reaction set the order of new things. My life choices were foolhardy and wistful, I preferred to dwell in fields of flowers as the world turned and I sank into the mud. The rest is just a blur. Spare some change please? Somewhere along the tracks there was a fault in the signals and my life took a path that would not arrive at its chosen destination.  Instead I remained station-bound, my soul fixed underground. The information board for my departure is blank, I'm stuck in perpetual delay. The station was my home now, all tired and unwrapped.  My giftless life crowded all about me, all commuters dredging their own vestigial monkey tails to their daily grind while I take solace in my own putridity. But a man has to eat. A little change please? I watched the horror that splayed across faces, the sort of faces that were lovingly prepared for work and service to the greater good. My face had long since va...

The equilibrium between water and air had been accomplished, I was afloat. The cabins along the starboard side stretched until they got lost in the sun. One of them had voices inside and a poster on the door. It was announcing the performance of a lifetime. ‘Where legends come to life!’ It said. And ‘The Amazing Adventures of James Navis.’ 'Audition within’. It said underneath. The room froze to a standstill when the sea sky behind me cut across the gloom. There were six people, one man was in a seahorse outfit smoking an extra-long cigarette. There was a woman dressed as a mermaid and her scales sparkled. She frowned heavily. They’d made a small stage out of palates and cloth was draped about the walls, in colours of the sea. ‘I’ve come to audition for a part in the play.’ I said. She turned to the seahorse man. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘For James Navis?’ ‘Yes’ I said. ‘I’m terribly sorry, the part’s been taken already.’ She gestured to an old man slu...

I kept seeing Io in the periphery of my waking day. In the night she was right in the centre, sitting there, a little sprite with forthright eyes and strange clothes made of opals and pearls. She started getting in the way. She started following me everywhere I went, rattling along on the bus, sitting staring in the office weekly meetings, gouging out my attention, plucking little moments and gawping at delicate baubles in her palm as if they held a secret. I ignored her as best I could. I took a trip to the edge of town, where the field receded into the horizon like the sea tickling the shore,  the frail and tired scraps of nature before me,  the city island behind. I'll forget all about Io, she was never going to be the one. This search is fraught with meanderings and double-cross paths, I can take my time.  The clouds agreed, the trees cheered and bowed their heads, then I saw a wave across the barley field. How pretty. As nature conv...

It didn’t take long to muster the necessary energy. In fact it was there all the time under the surface, like a pocket full of coal, carbonised since the dinosaur times.  The waiting was not such a big thing. I always waited, time was always be relative, it still is in fact. I bemoaned my tiredness, drew strings over my eyes, lifted the lid off the day and wept goodbye to my dreams. “Goodbye sweet dreams. I can’t remember you so well, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” I mused at the paradox and scratched my tired arse. There’s no coffee, no awakening agent, just sunlight. I had a mackerel, smoked and dipped in pepper, squashed onto a bit of brown toast. It worked a bit. The news babbled on about Brexit. The day crept into me and I dragged my way to the great outside. Systems engaged, I took a breath or two, they worked a bit.  Bright light forcibly pressed into the retina, that worked a lot. Roads to cross, trains to catch, crowds at Wa...

Just in time. Blockades of minutes march together storm-walling like allies in the face of foe. It wasn’t a long battle. He was a new professional, grown out of the seconds. Flat cap and sandals tradition. The other boys from the school had gone earlier but on account of his tendril eyes he had to stay back, help the researchers make measurements, marvel at his natural freakishness. Tick tock et cetera. The barrage completed hours at the top. You will run on my whistle. They shook with fear, who wouldn’t? The past was a very empty place. But like the minutes of yesterday used to say, “We’re just a drop in the ocean.”  The words of his life flickered past, obscene memories never once thought of, emerged as if they’d always been there just beneath the surface. What did the cereal have to do with it? Frosted sugar-loaded processed cornflakes, fronted by an animated crow. “Tastes great ship-shape. Tastes great ship-shape.” He’d forgotten all about that little ditty and now the ...