Asleep, I floated as if on clouds across a land I could only imagine in a dream. Then I was sitting in a huge cinema arena alone watching the movie of my life. Director, writer, cameraman, I was all of these. The story flickered past so quickly, until the old crone approached me in Byers Road, looking menacing, her clay pipe fixed firmly in her slack mouth, her body stooped, the basket of peat clinging precariously to her arched back.
I woke, sunlight running freely across the room and up onto the bed from a gap in the curtain. I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes, stretched and yawned. Outside Darker Killingbeck stood waiting patiently for me, as it always had. As it had waited for me for many years. I somehow always knew I always belonged here, yet so many times faceless reptiles wearing human masks told me I was not for this place.
I see, in that instant a million shadows, rapidly disappearing faces, familiar smiles, tears and joy. People I once knew. Friends, acquaintances, lovers. People who knew the things I had done that had made me proud, and the things I had done that had made me feel wonderful, yet guilty at the same time. I wondered, what had happened to them all, how their lives had been, and then I considered all those people who confidently thought they knew me, but really hadn't a clue.
From the kitchen downstairs the smell of food rose, bacon, eggs, sausages sizzling in the pan, the dark woman dancing around her scullery as if she were the centre of an advertisement. Grouped around the table in the dining room, the men who had been playing cards the previous evening when I arrived, sat, their knives and forks poised and at the ready for their scran.
I showered lethargically, dressed and went downstairs, past the print of Dali's Madonna in Particles, taking time to study it for a few seconds before moving on.
The others grunted as I entered, the grey bearded man with the horrible green polo neck nodding.
'Did you sleep well?' I ask grey beard cheerily as I entered. 'I slept like a log I have to tell you.'
He didn't answer, but looked around at his three friends seated at each corner of the breakfast table.
'What do you mean?' he returned to me.
'I just wondered if you had slept well, I found my bed very comfortable, that's why I slept a little late.' I confessed.
'We never sleep' the man said simply as he turned back toward his friends.
Before I could say anything, the woman was gliding into the room with piping hot plates of food.
'Here we are gentlemen' She announced as she swept regally into the room and dropped the plates in front of two grinning older men.
'Where exactly are we?' I said absently. The man in the hideous green polo neck sweater dropped his fork onto his plate with a crashing metallic sound.
There was a pause as the others stared across at me.
'Darker Killingbeck. And you...' The man with the grey beard pointed across at me with his knife in a sinister fashion.
The dark haired woman arrived again with another two plates and the demeanour of the men, which had been menacing, immediately changed.
'Ah scran' Polo neck smiled and licked his lips.
The woman now turned toward me.
'Now then, new arrival what would you like?'
'Scrambled eggs, and coffee.' I said simply. Someone on the opposite table laughed quietly.
'That won't fill ye' Green polo neck scowled, his lips apart, his teeth nicotine stained and black.
I smiled politely, and noticed that after breakfast the men started to play cards again. For a while, while I worked myself through my scrambled eggs and toast, I watched them play, astounded to find that the cards they held in their hands were all blank.
Showing posts with label The Road To Darker Killingbeck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Road To Darker Killingbeck. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 April 2007
Thursday, 22 March 2007
The Road To Darker Killingbeck
The dark woman, who reminded me of an older woman with silver darlings and peat and a clay pipe dangling from the corner of her mouth, stood aside and invited me inside. I stood in the poorly-lit hall and could see several men playing cards in the front room through the gap left in the half-open door. One, old and grey gentleman with a horrible green polo neck sweater, a thick white beard, a cigarette trapped between his yellow fingers - blue smoke curling and rising upward toward the ceiling - looked up, a frown creasing his heavy brows. He nodded, showed me the queen of clubs, grinned, his huge yellow teeth escaping from between his lips, but I did not respond.
The woman brushed past me and I caught the smell of her stale perfume, minty and spicy. She walked upstairs without another word and I followed, the stairs creaking as I ascended them.
"That's strange" I said to the woman. "I thought I could hear the ocean"
"You can" she smiled. "It's only 100 yards to the beach,and there are stars in the sky to guide your way. Beautiful stars." She smiled.
I frowned, I didn't know what she was talking about
She showed me to the room of teenage memories, opened the door and switched on the light.
It was a room with a solitary single bed, a poster of a football team above the head board, a football scarf casually draped over a chair beside it, a pair of football boots under the chair. A book on a small bedside table, an exercise book and a pen.
I moved to a long mirror by a second hand wardrobe and glanced into it. A stranger returned my gaze, was this witchcraft?
The stranger looked vaguely familiar, like an acquaintance from a long, long time ago. As I watched I saw that he was the life and soul, a carefree spirit who liked to drink and have fun, but then he was removing masques, one after the other, but in such a mesmerising way that no one could tell what lay behind. I noticed...and thought about it later when I couldn't slip into sleep... though he was at the centre of the party, he was also standing on the margins looking in. Always being someone else, which ever way you looked at it.
I was overcome by a strange feeling of poignant regret.
How much did I regret not being twenty years younger, how much did I regret not fighting the good fight then, how much did I regret taking advice from those who said they knew it all, but really knew nothing, liars, frauds and cheats, their hubris only matched by the depths of their ignorance, those and their offspring. How many lives will they be allowed to damage, learned idiots, qaulified clowns. How many artists will they dissuade from picking up a paint brush, how many writers will they dissuade from purchasing a pen, how many photographers will they advise not to buy a camera? How will they look to tick the correct boxes before giving encouragement?
The room was small, yet lived in. Here is where someone plotted to take over the world, someone who was just learning about deceit and injustice, who had learned not to trust and felt the abandonment of every teenager and wanted so much to find out who they were and have the maximum fun on the journey, who knew not what lay ahead and didn't care, tomorrow would always take care of itself, and death was a cul-de-sac for old people, and bungalows were naff, and prog rock was a poor excuse for music of the most self-indulgent and overbloated kind, and everything had to be edgy and raw and stripped bare of pretentions. This was someone who wanted to start walking, keep going and never look back. Someone who wanted to go where everything was an adventure and nothing could ever be foretold. Someone who held the fascination of the world in his eyes and wanted to know everything. But all he found was dissonant sound and the headlong rush and the mostly futile opinions of existence.
A growing crescendo of sound climaxed and was immediately followed by a solitary piano tinkling in melancholic minors in an empty room, but in the end, he was always doomed to contemplate how he had got to a certain point in his life a certain time in a certain era.
In the distance I heard a train whistle. A strange, plaintive sound rising into the night air, and I moved away from the mirror and to the window. From here all I could see were houses, high rise flats and an open concrete square, where several cars were dumped or abandoned and seemed to be rusting. Time flaking the fresh paint from the exterior, the inner workings decaying and falling slowly apart, oil leaking slowly in thick globular drips from a cracked sump.
I could hear too, but not see, great waves crashing onto rocks.
And, anyway...what was he doing here? And, anyway...what was I doing here.
A high pitched sound caught my attention, it squealed with energy and shrieked with pain and rage. The muffled sound of people calling my name...over...over...and over, mixed with unfamiliar voices, people shouting commands...
"I lifted a stick from my basket and he ran out into the road" I heard the old crone say.
Sounds which resonated and reverberated.
Until, at last, I drifted off to sleep.
The woman brushed past me and I caught the smell of her stale perfume, minty and spicy. She walked upstairs without another word and I followed, the stairs creaking as I ascended them.
"That's strange" I said to the woman. "I thought I could hear the ocean"
"You can" she smiled. "It's only 100 yards to the beach,and there are stars in the sky to guide your way. Beautiful stars." She smiled.
I frowned, I didn't know what she was talking about
She showed me to the room of teenage memories, opened the door and switched on the light.
It was a room with a solitary single bed, a poster of a football team above the head board, a football scarf casually draped over a chair beside it, a pair of football boots under the chair. A book on a small bedside table, an exercise book and a pen.
I moved to a long mirror by a second hand wardrobe and glanced into it. A stranger returned my gaze, was this witchcraft?
The stranger looked vaguely familiar, like an acquaintance from a long, long time ago. As I watched I saw that he was the life and soul, a carefree spirit who liked to drink and have fun, but then he was removing masques, one after the other, but in such a mesmerising way that no one could tell what lay behind. I noticed...and thought about it later when I couldn't slip into sleep... though he was at the centre of the party, he was also standing on the margins looking in. Always being someone else, which ever way you looked at it.
I was overcome by a strange feeling of poignant regret.
How much did I regret not being twenty years younger, how much did I regret not fighting the good fight then, how much did I regret taking advice from those who said they knew it all, but really knew nothing, liars, frauds and cheats, their hubris only matched by the depths of their ignorance, those and their offspring. How many lives will they be allowed to damage, learned idiots, qaulified clowns. How many artists will they dissuade from picking up a paint brush, how many writers will they dissuade from purchasing a pen, how many photographers will they advise not to buy a camera? How will they look to tick the correct boxes before giving encouragement?
The room was small, yet lived in. Here is where someone plotted to take over the world, someone who was just learning about deceit and injustice, who had learned not to trust and felt the abandonment of every teenager and wanted so much to find out who they were and have the maximum fun on the journey, who knew not what lay ahead and didn't care, tomorrow would always take care of itself, and death was a cul-de-sac for old people, and bungalows were naff, and prog rock was a poor excuse for music of the most self-indulgent and overbloated kind, and everything had to be edgy and raw and stripped bare of pretentions. This was someone who wanted to start walking, keep going and never look back. Someone who wanted to go where everything was an adventure and nothing could ever be foretold. Someone who held the fascination of the world in his eyes and wanted to know everything. But all he found was dissonant sound and the headlong rush and the mostly futile opinions of existence.
A growing crescendo of sound climaxed and was immediately followed by a solitary piano tinkling in melancholic minors in an empty room, but in the end, he was always doomed to contemplate how he had got to a certain point in his life a certain time in a certain era.
In the distance I heard a train whistle. A strange, plaintive sound rising into the night air, and I moved away from the mirror and to the window. From here all I could see were houses, high rise flats and an open concrete square, where several cars were dumped or abandoned and seemed to be rusting. Time flaking the fresh paint from the exterior, the inner workings decaying and falling slowly apart, oil leaking slowly in thick globular drips from a cracked sump.
I could hear too, but not see, great waves crashing onto rocks.
And, anyway...what was he doing here? And, anyway...what was I doing here.
A high pitched sound caught my attention, it squealed with energy and shrieked with pain and rage. The muffled sound of people calling my name...over...over...and over, mixed with unfamiliar voices, people shouting commands...
"I lifted a stick from my basket and he ran out into the road" I heard the old crone say.
Sounds which resonated and reverberated.
Until, at last, I drifted off to sleep.
Monday, 12 February 2007
THE ROAD TO DARKER KILLINGBECK
I am going to tell you a story, which may or may not be true. It's a story I know only too well and you'll soon see why. So park your lard in your favourite chair and just listen.
Darker Killingbeck for the uninitiated is where creative people go when they die.
A gigantic city of dark tower blocks, multi-ethnic districts and a fully functioning underground metro system. Angles, shapes, concrete, glass and miracles of engineering and architecture. It's where, I suppose, I've always lived. Where crowds of people, cars, traders, the homeless, weirdos, geeks, anoraks and trainspotters live cheek by jowl. A suicidial world of life rushing past as the rest of us standstill - now this is beginning to feel a bit like a poem - so let's conjure up an image.
Let's say I am having a coffee at my favourite organic cafe 'Dare' In Byers Road. It's a sunny day, so I am sitting at a table on the pavement. I am enjoying an Americano while doing corrections in my black book when a woman approaches from the harbour.
"You’ll have to excuse my lateness" She smiles "I’m just back from hauling my twin baskets of peat and silver darlings across the har covered sheiling. My tartan skirts muddied by the glaur, my oiled wool shawl about my bony shoulders, my clay pipe firmly in place in the corner of my old crone’s mouth.....Uh-huh."
"Uh-huh" I nod. "Have you read Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller?" She shakes her head. "Invisible Cities? The Castle of Crossed Destinies? Cosmicomics, perhaps?"
"Are you taking the rip?" She says glaring at me and then suddenly pulls a Beretta Storm Rifle from her basket and points it at me.
I panic, knock over the table in my haste to get away and run for cover. A car flashing its lights heads directly for me, I turn, see the woman from the harbour lift the rifle and aim. Glance around in time to see the car bearing down on me. The door of the pub - The Wind That Shakes Barley On a Very Cold Night In April - straight across the road from the cafe opens. Hard-Fi's Hard To Beat blasting out momentarily.
Leaves me thinking I always imagined I'd be part of a car crash.
The guy in the car - young and flash character, with a poor excuse for a moustache and sporting an Adidas baseball cap - is listening to Tupac Shakur on his stereo. He is glancing toward his pinhead girlfriend (blonde hair, overbloated,thick make-up and Burberry scarf) when, at the last minute he sees me, but forgets to brake and pushes hard on the accelerator instead.
"What the f... git oot o' the way, ya maddie, whit's he daein man aaaaarrrgghhh!" The driver screams.
"Look oot Brett yer gonna hit...aaaaaarrrggghhh!"
To be continued.
Now you can comment...happy?
Darker Killingbeck for the uninitiated is where creative people go when they die.
A gigantic city of dark tower blocks, multi-ethnic districts and a fully functioning underground metro system. Angles, shapes, concrete, glass and miracles of engineering and architecture. It's where, I suppose, I've always lived. Where crowds of people, cars, traders, the homeless, weirdos, geeks, anoraks and trainspotters live cheek by jowl. A suicidial world of life rushing past as the rest of us standstill - now this is beginning to feel a bit like a poem - so let's conjure up an image.
Let's say I am having a coffee at my favourite organic cafe 'Dare' In Byers Road. It's a sunny day, so I am sitting at a table on the pavement. I am enjoying an Americano while doing corrections in my black book when a woman approaches from the harbour.
"You’ll have to excuse my lateness" She smiles "I’m just back from hauling my twin baskets of peat and silver darlings across the har covered sheiling. My tartan skirts muddied by the glaur, my oiled wool shawl about my bony shoulders, my clay pipe firmly in place in the corner of my old crone’s mouth.....Uh-huh."
"Uh-huh" I nod. "Have you read Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller?" She shakes her head. "Invisible Cities? The Castle of Crossed Destinies? Cosmicomics, perhaps?"
"Are you taking the rip?" She says glaring at me and then suddenly pulls a Beretta Storm Rifle from her basket and points it at me.
I panic, knock over the table in my haste to get away and run for cover. A car flashing its lights heads directly for me, I turn, see the woman from the harbour lift the rifle and aim. Glance around in time to see the car bearing down on me. The door of the pub - The Wind That Shakes Barley On a Very Cold Night In April - straight across the road from the cafe opens. Hard-Fi's Hard To Beat blasting out momentarily.
Leaves me thinking I always imagined I'd be part of a car crash.
The guy in the car - young and flash character, with a poor excuse for a moustache and sporting an Adidas baseball cap - is listening to Tupac Shakur on his stereo. He is glancing toward his pinhead girlfriend (blonde hair, overbloated,thick make-up and Burberry scarf) when, at the last minute he sees me, but forgets to brake and pushes hard on the accelerator instead.
"What the f... git oot o' the way, ya maddie, whit's he daein man aaaaarrrgghhh!" The driver screams.
"Look oot Brett yer gonna hit...aaaaaarrrggghhh!"
To be continued.
Now you can comment...happy?
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