The Road To Darker Killingbeck

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.

Memories Are All We Ever Really Have

Below is an excerpt form something I wrote -


All we ever have are our memories, all Ronny has are his memories, all Jason has are his memories. Isn't that why ornaments are held in such reverence, photographs are so popular, camcorders and video phones necessary accessories, even the good old CCTV. To remind us, perhaps, that we were once happy. that we were once having a good time. Oh yeah...Oh
yeah
yeah
yeah

Maybe The Last Star In The Kosmos Is A Klever Forgery

A giant, shiny, metallic hare glints in the soft light as he walks toward the graduate. What the, what the, what the, what the, what
the, what the...?

A silhouette against a dark background, a dream from childhood, from the earliest moments of his being, the very moment of his existence - the midwife, the hare, the dark forest at midnight... The midwife dancing with the hare in a copse in the moonlight, the slabbering, yellow-eyed wolf watching from the shadows
.
The hare, his name is Benny-Rae. God knows how he knew, but anything here can happen today. The hare half-turns, waves, and he watches as he approaches. He is standing on the side of a hill, the wind gently blowing on his face.

He can now make out the great hare's aerodynamic head, his beautifully proportioned skull and his sleek frame...dark...dark...malevolent eyes and long carefully designed ears pointing skyward. Skyward pointing ears.

Suddenly Benny-Rae is standing beside him on an architecturally perfect bridge spanning the sprawling metropolis far below them, the existential illusion. The city - Megasurpa St Lagamorph - is gargantuan and sprawling, dark and brooding, like a forest at midnight. He can feel the wind on his face, gently pushing back his dark hair. The rising breeze playing softly on Benny-Rae's ears - twinkling light from the moon and stars dancing along his gently vibrating whiskers.

Together, in unison, they are turning and looking upward. Staring, enchanted, at the mocking cosmos folding around them and above them and wondering what it is that they can see out there, life, the essence of existence, the whirring of the universe as it goes about its business, the wire mesh of a rabbit's - or in this case - giant hare's hutch, a darkened garden beyond them situated at the bottom of a tower block, in the middle of a city?

The music stops after two minutes fifty seven seconds...

Maybe the last star in the kosmos is a forgery after all, a fake brand, a phony designer label, but then who cares?

INTERESTING FACT

In 2004, there were 159,000 professional shushers in the United States of America. That is 159,000 people with a finger placed aginst their lips going shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Just thought you might want to know that's all.

My Life As A Comic Book Superhero

I want to share something with you. I want to tell you something about the story I have been researching and writing based on interviews undertaken with Freegans. I have called it Human Conditions and given that it is nearing completion I want to share the introduction with you all.

As you know I like to think that everything I write is a work of art. So when I work, and especially with regard to factual material I think angle, tone, introduction, redundant words, style and so on. I also like to think carefully about the subject matter and how this can be mixed into the work in a symbolic fashion. When walking with my dogs over some fields about three miles from Kilmarnock a few weeks ago it occurred to me that I could use the idea of the 'global village' and use this image translated, if you like, into an extended metaphor. So, this is how I started Human Conditions -


I live in a bizarre neighbourhood. On the sunny side of the street - if we hang out with the metaphor - some individuals are so mega-rich they can afford to live in castles or multi-room mansions. The USA, alone, produces enough food to feed the world several times over and we can now travel around the globe in hours rather than weeks.

Simultaneously, on the darker side of the hood people still die unnecessarily of easily remedied ailments and/or lack of food. Every night millions go to bed starving, our cities are full of armies of the homeless and the planet we depend on for our continued existence is being poisoned to death.


None of this makes any sense to me. Maybe...I am missing something? If I am, It seems I am not alone.

The trick now is to conclude with a link pointing back to the introduction, and here it is, again from Human Conditions

Everywhere we look, existence is often a pattern of stark and crazy contradictions. On this corner greed ravages and plunders the planet, damages the lives of indiviudals and animals and calls it globalisation. The well-fed puff cigars after a multi-course lunch while their neighbours are starved out of existence. In this weird and distorted district morbid obesity waddles around with tottering famine, ostentatious, self-indulgent overspend sleeps with wretched poverty, mansions with many unused rooms mock those without shelter.

I particularly like that last part of the last sentence, the thought of mansions mocking the homeless. After the above there is a short concluding statement.

On a lighter, and happier note, I am organising a trip to Goat Fell on Arran and some actual climbing, both in May.

Today, I actually managed to run, pain free for the first time in two years, though I did not go far. Since I crashed my bike about two years ago, I have been plagued with injuries, knee, calf, and torn stomach muscles. I have had physiotherapy and have been consulting a surgeon. It has been a long, long time, but it was a joy to actually get out and move freely.

Now, at last, I can resume my football career, right where did I put my favourite Heart of Midlothian top. I will make Kris eat his words! (Rubs hands with glee)

Good guys wear...their shirt tails out.

My goodness but Sergio has been tearing up the ether lately hasn’t he? One stunning post after another - how does he do it? There must be smoke coming out of his keyboard!

I on the other hand haven’t contributed to the blog for a while, mainly because I’ve been frantically preparing for my book launch (Oooh! Get her!) for the past two weeks. [Nothing too fancy – I’m co-editor for a small collection of comedy writing by adult learners – but I’m very proud of the project.]

Well, the launch was tonight (I made my speeches wired to the moon and shaking like a leaf – several people very kindly informing me afterwards that they could see my hands shaking – even from the back! *Embarrassed groan * ) and now, victory brandy/valium shooter consumed ; ) I’m finally calm enough to express my thanks.

Thanks Sergio. You donned your photo-journalist hat, stepped into the breach and did all our PR – organising press coverage, writing an article, taking pictures and even wangling an interview on the radio for me (thanks again for that last one Serge – I think).

It's one in the morning, a little help from my other good friend, Rémy Martin :D and I’m recovered enough from my trauma to state for the record that Sergio’s a thoroughly decent guy.

Axasha.

A Rough History Of A Sort Of Darker Killingbeck Scotland

Like a basketball player, in the process of leaping toward the hoop, being transformed into Bruce Springsteen, or a businessman, the town, as the nation, experiences metamorphosis. Brickwork is used to develop the settlement into a series of delicately aligned, or, indeed, unaligned buildings, which with time decay. New structures built from concrete soon crumble with the repeated passage of the seasons, to be replaced by new forms of reinforced concrete, glass, wood and plastics in all its synthetic forms.

Architecture is a liquid, mallable form which spreads and sprawls into concentric rings designating residential, industrial and utility areas, as well as the subtle and surreal nuances of class. Private developments sit awkwardly with housing estates, parades of shops and new, wider roads, like huge arteries which speed up trafic, but make the life of nervous dogs more difficult.

The industrial hammer falls for the last time, ghosts not carpets haunt the floors of derelict factories, which eventually make way for supermarkets, which in time are bought over by bigger meganationals and left empty. The mass exodus of captains of industry marching proudly through the factory gates becomes a mere memory, the entranceway is locked after their departure. For a time an ill-conceived security guard patrols with a big, but neurotic alsation dog, then he too disappears as the weeds emerge, the windows fall out like rotten teeth. R.I.P Blackwood and Morton Kilmarnock (BMK), Glenfield and Kennedy, Massey Ferguson,The Saxone et al.

Bland, though prettily named, industrial estates spring up on the town's margins, characterless, square and sparse. Units of industry, home for fleeting businesses, who arrive and depart with wreckless haste.

And, just as the physical grows and dies, the abstract too rises and declines.
Generations of people come, leave their mark, big, small or indifferent and just as suddenly disappear, like a hooded graffiti artist spraying his tag onto a wall and vanishing into the darkness of the town's night streets.

The new generations rip up their father's books, just as their father's had their grandfathers. A ceremonial bonfire is constructed for their father's music. Elvis, as a Guy Fawkes effigy, the Beatles kindling for the flames. Later, anguished children of the rippers condemn their parents for burning the Beatles when Oasis, that well known Beatles singalike band become the currency of britpop chic.

Families look on with a collective horror, as their offspring colour their Mohican hairstyles purple and dance, ludicrously, to incomprehensible music, which represents, supposedly, two fingers to the universe. But, the boy with the purple Mohican hair pogo dancing to the Sex Pistols is transformed into a salesman, complete with suit, collar and tie and a company car thank you very much. "Must be off darling, now little Johnny, you be good for mummy, and if daddy does better this month than he did last we might be moving to one of those new Wimpy homes on an anonymous estate in Irvine".

In step with the trends of the nation, Little Johnny's mummy and daddy, former punks, and now respectable middle class aspirees are destined to divorce before their tenth wedding anniversary. Little Johnny, grown-up, will be far more daring than the members of his two hybrid families, his step and half brother and sisters, step-mother and step-father. He will smoke cannabis, and try ecstacy and get into fights more often, and will suffer from that new disease of wanderlust, backpacking his way through life with countless jobs and at thirty, unlike his parents who married in their late teens, he will still be single.

He will be a central belt child of Scotland, brought up on Mel Gibson films and a massive debate about whether or not William Wallace was a resident of Kilmarnock or Elderslie. He will witness the formation of a Scottish parliament at Holyrood, and three successive First Minsiters - Donald Dewar, O Henry McLeish and Jack McConnel -all Labour, between May1999 and November 2001. Scotland's return to a parliament for the first time since 1707 sparked the wheels of a new pride.