1111

Solid presentiments wreak violence in my nightmares, and I wake bathed in sweat and tears. I’m all set up with my out of focus backdrop; onstage we act in front of these warm, fuzzy scenes behind which I hide and let them tell their own story.

I was at the end of a forgettable spring when unforgettable events unfolded. You must realise that this is all very much in the past. Inevitably, there will be bias; I’m keeping the faith and all that cal.

Still, say it's impossible with your arms cutting defence runes in my back. Still say it's impossible when I leave you, phoenix feathers pouring from your legs like so many wishful eyelashes.

And on a dark street in a dark house in a dark room I sat with my arse on the floor and my back on the door in a trance, you won't come knocking again it's impossible to breathe with your fingers down my throat to pay me back for the way you suffered. I could swear you screamed for ME and HARDER, but apparently not. You won't ever see me again. I'm the original colourless chameleon.

Sit. Watch. Prepare. Stew. And it's all the fudgeing same.

---

Doorbell. It's ringing z's, I'm snoring mine. Shower at four o'clock this morning. No more dreams.

Doorbell. Half-calculations. Drop back into my bed with a pillow for your thoughts.

Doorbell. Pillow over your face. I'm coming.

We end up in the park again. Again. 'It's cool,' I say. He won't believe me and the meeting ends half an hour earlier than usual. All the better for me, I muse while shaving. Leaky tap. I'll get it fixed, won't get it fixed. There are tricks up my sleeve and sticks and stones always come rolling back home one day. When he smiled once, the sun exploded. Which explains the light, the heat, the passion. I'll smash his face in if he comes any closer.

And so it became that I was in the first million to buy a ticket. It was even printed on the damn thing in gold ink. Soon fobs were distributed, in case of emergencies.

I stood on the street and watched my life reflected in the chaos of disastrous harmony. All around connections broke and linked again, elsewhere. And nothing fit. Too hard to conceive, too convenient to carry on regardless. And I got a phone call, and there was a pregnancy.

'I have to see you. fudgeing face up, for once. You always-'
'Are you with him?'
'Does it matter?'
'The place is a mess. There'll probably be some stench lurking, so let both of us notice it, and neither mention it.'
'When should I come?'
'Lunch. Dinner. I don't mind; I'm in all day.'

---

And three hours later I had to endure more carnage as she slammed the door with tears shining like those lonesome stars in the sky.


The Rush. They called it The Rush because it was easy and vague, like the twenty-odd year olds who coined the phrase. In the shop we came close to running out of dystopia, but dystopia always ends up being there when you want it. Reliable. Easy. Vague.

In The Rush I saw girls I'd contaminated with my invisible eyes and unassuming exterior, interior evocative, and these girls ran back and forth with their sex, screaming for a ticket for a lay. No lay's good enough for my fob, the boys sang, bewildered. But the boys were never on the receiving end of anything except a pay check and hugs and kisses. A body to sell was all the girls had to offer. Frisson reverberates with no escape, and when it explodes, it covers the land with its desperation and wantonness.

All of the girls I sleep with are wanton.
None are wanted.

We followed our televisions into the cavern, the Pied Piper's name foreign to our ears and teenage scorn of consumerism lost as we became the consumed.

One in ten, they said. Only one in ten has any means of escape.

The Rush covered most of June. As always happens with those all encompassing phrases the newspapers give us, it was over quickly and without much notice. His lull came back, and I hated him. Again.

---

Fine, I hear you. I'm nameless because it suits me. I remember his name, but I hoard it like he began to whore himself, in time. Too lazy to buy a ticket, I reckon. Too tired. It had to be out of choice - he was usually so lax, anyway. I covet every detail, and you may learn why, in time.

I don't care to remember the girls' names. I cherish my mind too much to waste space on such frivolities. Still, those weeks were enveloped by a steady chant of I Have A Ticket and she, and she, and her and him haven't. How decadent of me.

The owner of the shop shot herself in the face one afternoon. Took her nose off, gouged her eyes half out. I became the proprietor. About time, and it's only when it doesn't matter anyway. A bookshop, though. Something nice and conceptual amid misconception and misinterpretation.

The government inspector came the next week. They came to everyone who had a ticket.

'It's sparse.'
'It's how I like it.'
'Oh. Well that suits me fine.'

Ten minutes of scratching on a clipboard and staring at not much in particular.

'Is that a cannabis plant?'
'Oh, I-'
'I don't have to report it.'

Snip.

'You walk with a slight limp, don't you? That's a bit of hassle, there.'

Snip.

'Your eyesight ok?'
'It's failing.'
'I'll have to make special-'

Snip.

He stood in the doorway and put his coat on, pressed his hot mouth against mine, and held it there until I couldn't respond anymore. He offered me a weak smile and left. The next week, I received a considerable amount of money through the post in an envelope marked with a frank and smelling of roses.

Whores hiked prices, hiked skirts for a fob, the flirts flirting to believe they are 1 in 10.

It all went on. He had contacts, him, found out about my impromptu rendezvous. I pouted and we fought, but that was okay, because one day soon we lucky few were to climb into a rocket and leave the trembling world in our wake. He flashed me a ticket, burbling hot and cold on why and how he bought it, and he took me out for dinner, a year before all the earth elapsed.

We were long gone by then, but that episode is still unfolding.