Word of the Day

Tarmac

A bump in the road. We just keep speeding, driving on into a thick darkness. A cocoon of light surrounds our car revealing just enough to see another bump in the road ahead. My fingers grip the steering wheel a little tighter and we roll up and over it. I see her breath spread out in a mist beside me. She's asleep and I feel more alone in this car than if she weren't lying next to me. The road is rough and the car vibrates slowly as it crunches over the grit. At times I can't distinguish between the rhythmic swelling of blood sprinting through my fingers and the jolts of the car. Everything looks the same as we progress forward on this road except the irregular bumps which approach us. And we keep moving towards the darkness in our bubble. When I was little and I couldn't ride my bike without two extra little wheels attached to the back wheel (let alone drive a car); my dad told me a story. We were driving on a road like this and it was dark like this and we kept passing over bumps in the road just like this. He drove slowly and carefully. He told me that we need to be mindful of the bumps in the road: we don't drive over them quickly. I asked him if that was to protect the car and he said no. He told me that sometimes people walk into the blanket of trees that drape both sides of this road and sometimes when it's dark they get lost. These people need to stay warm to survive the cold that black nights bring and must stay safe from beasts that wander in the night-time and so when they find a lonely road like the one on which we are driving, they climb under the tarmac and they go to sleep. In the morning they'll wake up and find their way home - but we have to drive slowly over the bumps so we don't hurt them. Another bump in the road and she raises her head slightly before slumping back onto the window, eyes fixed shut tightly. It's been a while since I've seen dad now. It's been a while since the night he shouted up the stairs that he was going out for a walk, after night had smothered the trees surrounding our home. I wonder how far he went and my fingers clench the wheel as we roll slowly, very slowly over another bump in the road.

Contigious

In the early days I built tall walls to protect my nation. We were a young civilisation and we were vulnerable. I sharpened the swords of the men to cut those who encroached on our wall and ensured that my scholars were learned enough to refute any claims of other tribes, ensuring body and mind were protected from invasion. We had all we needed. We were safe. Then the bellies became hungry. The mothers cried out that their children had not food enough to grow. Children did not grow up into healthy adults but instead grew into under-developed, small things. These skinny, dwarf-like adolescents were stupid, defenseless, and incapable of reproducing. However, they knew well enough to leave lands beyond the border alone. We may not have imparted our strength, our resourcefulness, our understanding of the world onto these weedy shrimp people but they understood that lands beyond the borders were bad lands and could not be trusted. We were safe within each other, no matter our situation. But things were not good for the little sausage dogs. People were dying constantly, malnourishment was endemic within my communities and the next generation were coming out resembling cocktail sausages with limbs invisibly small. Then one day there was a knock on the great border wall. A booming voice reverberated all around and the little bean people of my land shook. "Ello, how a yuh eena there? Mi ave senseh fowl meat. A yuh hungry?." We spun our sperm heads around at each other. We knew not what to do. Yes our bellies were hungry: Our stomachs had contorted into knots and were taken to grumbling mean things at our heads but we could not open our walls to a stranger, no we knew not whether we could trust them, we could never trust beyond our own. Then a cry was heard. From the top of the walls a coffee coloured man in bright, colourful clothing of green and red and yellow was sliding down what seemed to be a thick rope of hair. "Ay-eeeeee!" he screamed. He landed and pulled down the rope which it seemed was attached to his head, and there were many other strands next to it. He stared around beaming a smile. "Irie Yuh hush lot. Mi kno yuh nah di sort tuh shake ah man's hand buh yuh need sum bikkle eena yuh. Tek dis." My race of vegetable mass lay there confused and lame, our eyebrows wriggling, before we decided we did not care for the elder speech any longer and that this gentlemen's offer was good. We ate of the chicken and the chicken ate of us and it was good. The man came back each day after that. He brought more chicken and my people ate it and we made love to it. He brought strange rhythmic sounds which bounced and wiggled in the air. My people learned to use our pathetic legs once more and with them we jumped up and down and all around to the sounds. The man brought with him strange smelling plants which filled the air with smiles and my people learned to love each other. And we learned to trust beyond the wall and eventually with the help of the man we tore it down. For the first time in our lives we saw the other side of the wall and it was glorious. Great shocks of water crashed from the sky and settled in blazing wells. Green tummies danced all the way until the eye saw blue. More than this we found great monuments and met people living within them and the people were fine and did not kill and eat us. The days shined anew on us from that day and my people grew strong and we grew proud. We found that in time we were stronger and smarter than our founders and this was because we explored in the safety of kinship and we learned from the stories of the alien people. We were no longer contiguous with the world: we were the world.

Blurt

You ever at a party and you're in a circle of vague new names, crawling your way through a web of social acceptance and companionship? You ever in that situation? You're there amongst strangers and vague, peripheral companions but mostly strangers and you're there and you're doing your best to throw your head back and laugh when the spokesperson says something that cracks a smile from the circle of fertile eggs and you throw your head back and you vocalise your understanding of whatever they just said with an outward laugh. And you're there with a drink in your hand which you're sipping: an alcoholic drink which is stronger that it would normally be and you're sipping an alcoholic drink more often than is normal to sip a drink and you hope they don't notice just how much you're relying on sipping the drink for distraction but goodness it's helping. You ever in that situation? The circle around you don't look at you but the tacit understanding of your presence is heavy in the air between them and you and them. The gaze of the bandleader every now and then rests on your eyes and you're noticed in that moment and it's because as they talk and talk they're also talking to you and you're a member of their audience and then their eyes flash and they look down at your chest and then they look back at your eyes and then they look away at someone they clearly want to fuck and you smell disapproval in the glance you just received. You ever there in that moment and all you want is to be a contributing member to the circle and laugh and cry and vomit along with everyone else because they're all having such fun and they're all so confident in their approval of each other? You feel your existence slipping like grains of sand through a moist net and your soul screams out to the sun god to burn and burn you away and burn and burn you away and your toes crackle with electricity and your chin feels too heavy and your tongue presses so hard into the roof of your mouth that your teeth crumble behind the door of your blushing lips. You know that time is not a leopard snoring on a branch but a cheetah skidding through the desert of your mind and that it is quickly eluding you and that you have one chance just one chance to warm your sheets and wet your tongue and sigh your soul. And so you look around and you turn your satellites inward and you focus. What is the leader of this band saying right now?

"...and so lingering on her final words and my faint memory of that weekend in Belarus I had to come clean. To little surprise it seemed to bemuse her none but the next morning I awoke to an empty canyon next to me in the bed and an envelope with the stripes of her lips imprinted upon it by that deep, cherry lipstick she so religiously wore. I didn't open it. I kissed all that remained of her; I pressed my lips to hers and the paper responded with a cruel lifelessness and I burned the letter where I stood with my cigarette."

You realise how profound this person's existence is and your desperation turns to emptiness. Your belly is pale and it flutters and you want madly for these beautiful, intelligent, impressive people to like you. You know the game is on and you must carve your way inside the tent somehow. A question! You'll proffer a question to show interest and issue a response that will head back in your direction, dragging you into the situation without offering anything of yourself to put on Anubis' scale. The time is now, swallow that tumorous lump and do it!

"What's the weather like over there?"

Ouch. You feel iron pellets enter your gut. It was never going to be remarkable - but the weather? You've really done it this time you cultural invalid. You have so little to offer in conversation. How can you be so god-damned uninteresting? Why is your pool of experience so shallow? Why can't you drown these people in the magic of your life's sum? Well, the knife has come down and now it's time to see how it landed. You really hope that the bead of sweat you're sure you can feel falling down your brow is not visible. It feels huge. What are they going to say? You can't help but notice their brows folding into a frown. How couldn't you notice! It's such a blatant expression of contempt. You realise as this eternal second grasps for the next one that this look is not for you - no! This expression is meant for the party surrounding you. This is the rope of resentment proffered to the others to grasp onto. They despise this elephant sat in their glass circle, waiting and knowing it would swing its lumbering mass around eventually and now it has. The person who represents all that you are not purses their lips and slowly they crack open. What will he do now?

"It was fine, just fine. It is a friend to rain but that suits the atmosphere of its golden roofs and brick roads. There was one eve where she and I chased each other back to our apartment through a thunderstorm, drenching our clothes in the passion of the hour. We made love on the doorstep in the pouring rain, the cream of her legs poured into my eyes by the dazzling moonlight which was shattering the clouds so triumphantly."

And then you blurt out.

"That's a good way to catch a cold!"

The circle tightens and snaps shut. You're on the outside of it and reality has been stripped away from you. You no longer deserve it. You smirk uncertainly as you fall endlessly into oblivion, inertia ripping the flesh from your bones. The void freezes you from the inside and grips you in an icy fist. Here you stay and here you end. Does this sound at all familiar to you?

Pluck

Each person is placed by undefined fate on an empty plate to regurgitate their destiny. We are plucked up at random and plonked down out of tandem from others and left to find our own way and consolidate our kin. When the big hand of change decides to swipe us we won't always know but what we should always remember is to let our leftovers go and follow the brand new road.

Trickster

“One black coffee and a white for my friend.”

I slide backwards on static feet and into a seat.

The bemused barista looks left and right.

They open their mouth but nothing comes out.

I smile across at them and spin in my chair to face the table.

I sit patiently and stare through the window at men and women who pass the café window front.

I drum my fingers and then they appear.

No, not my friend: The barista.

They place two coffees down in front of me and I very obviously push the white one to the other side of the table.

The barista frowns and I wink into their eyes.

I sit and I sip.

I sip and I sit.

So many men and women and children walk by and I see them all.

I’m finished.

My cup is empty and my belly is hungry for more.

I pick up my empty cup and also the full one and I take them up to the counter and I place them onto the countertop and I twirl on the spot and I extend a hand towards the person beyond the barrier.

They look down at my hand but they do not move. I take my hand back into my chest and brush my jacket lightly with a smirk.

“I’d like another black coffee please.”

They nod approvingly.

As they turn to face the big steaming metal monster I cough as a statement and turn them back around with my pinky finger placed upon their shoulder.

“And a white coffee for my friend, if you please.”

The barista resumes the frowning from before and this time with real vigour.

However, they remain mute and they turn to the snarling demon which excretes bitter, black diarrhoea and I gracefully flip through the air and back into my seat.

So many men and women and children and tall ones and small ones all come by.

The barista returns.

They place the coffees down in front of me and I push the milky one away from me until it rests opposite.

The barista silently shakes their head and slinks off. I slurp loudly and look from left to right at the empty tables around me, the tips of my lips peeking over the rim of my mug as they extend into a mirthful grin.

I slurp and I watch and the whole world passes by.

I finish my coffee and I decide I want another and it is a Saturday after all.

I stand up. I take my cup in one hand. I take the other cup - still full - in the other hand.

I walk to the counter.

I place them both down.

I stretch a leg towards the door as if to say, adios!

The barista’s eyebrows raise and then I reel my leg back in like fishing wire.

I place both hands on my hips and swagger jubilantly on the spot and then I open my mouth and then I say:

“I’d like two coffees please. One black and the other white for my friend.”

The barista’s sad eyes creak slowly to the side and stare at the empty seat across from where I’d placed myself before.

The eyes creak back and with an inaudible sigh they turn back to the hissing and pumping machine.

The shining steel screams in front of the barista and meanwhile I tinkle on tiptoes back to my seat.

Many men and plenty women and lots of children and tall and small people and fat and thin (they all are), they pass by.

Then the barista appears before me like a strike of lightning out of nowhere.

Fire in their left eye and hopelessness in their right they place the black coffee in front of me and the white one on the other side of the table. I nod exuberantly at them.

“Jolly good, old chap. Jolly good!”

The figure melts and drains away, back to its place.

I raise the delicious tar to my lips and it fills my throat with acidic colours bounding out behind my eyes.

I peer further out of the shopfront as the people move by and on, appearing from nowhere behind one wall and disappearing into the unknown behind another. Each one exists for just a second and then POOF and they are gone.

And I feel the last drop of it touch my tongue and I know I am done.

I slowly raise myself out of my seat and I stretch up into the sky and I pull my jacket lapels down close around me.

I fling my scarf around my neck and raise a handkerchief towards the dejected looking barista.

I splash it before me in good gesture at the poor person.

I raise my fingers to my lips and smack a loud kiss and then I blow it their way.

“Goodbye and goodmorrow and thank you for attending to me today.”

I turn towards the outside with all the people and I stride towards the door. A weak voice penetrates the cloud of silence within this place.

“Excuse me, sir. You haven’t paid.”

Without turning or halting my steady pace towards the great outdoors I speak aloud and I say: “Don’t worry, my dear. My friend is paying for mine.”

Dissonance

Well I quite like it, in fact.

I absolutely cannot stand it. You really can be such a bore, Derek. It's not that I don't find it engages me but that I simply don't like it, Marge.

It's absolutely the most lovely thing I've ever heard. Well I find it quite disconcerting, to tell you the truth. I wish you would just open your eyes. They are open, Marge, and I tell you it's really not helping my displeasure with this sound one bit. I mean your mind, Derek. My mind is an open book and this noise is a toddler scribbling with pencil so hard the paper tears. Now Derek, there's really no need for such vicious imagery; you'll make my tummy upset.

There's nothing wet about my imagery, Margaret.

What on earth are you talking about?

You said that my imagery was viscous! No you dope, I said it was vicious.

Sorry Marge, I can't hear you over that infernal racket.

It's beautiful, Derek, and I won't hear any more on the matter.

I wish I wouldn't hear any more of the matter.

What did you say?

I said, yes dear.

Harumph.

Ah, do you hear that now?

What's that, Derek?

The sound is fading, Marge.

Oh yes, you're right.

At last.

I hadn't noticed it was getting quieter, I was so lost in the sound.

Oh blinking heck, well here it is again and it's getting louder!

Oh yes there it is, more prominent than before this time!

I really can't take this much longer, Marge.

Oh Derek, please darling you know I adore it.

It's driving me bonkers! It's my favourite part!

I like what comes before and what comes after this hideous noise.

Well, Derek, this is the part that I like and we do this together; as a couple.

Yes, yes I know we do, Marge.

Yes, thank you; and I'll have you remember what we agreed to when we went into this.

I shall suffer it for you, my love.

Thank you, darling.

You could give me a kiss and then I wouldn't feel so uncomfortable about the noise. Okay Derek, my sweet.

Thank you, love.

You're welcome, dear.

Hey, listen to that.

What is it, Derek?

It's fading again, Marge.

So it is, and especially so this time.

I think it might actually be ending now.

That's a shame.

I think not.

You think too much.

I think you're right.

Well, Derek, are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me with this.

One moment, dear; now that the noise has gone I'd like to enjoy the aftermath of silence.

Well don't take too long.

I won't, dear.

It's starting to smell.

They always do, dear.

Well, chop chop, take it in.

I have, my dear.

Okay well now let us get on and do what we must.

Yes, we should probably move quickly before someone appears.

Precisely, Derek.

Okay Marge, you take hold of it there and I'll pick up this bit.

Righty ho, and heave!

Ooft, I've got it.

There we are, now gently into the car.

Okay, okay, okay, and humph!

There it is.

Done and dusted, Marge.

Very nicely done, if we do say so ourselves; hey, Derek?

Yes indeedy.

I love you, Derek.

I love you too, Marge.

Now let us go and drop the body off in the river.

And then home for a nice cup of tea.

Absolutely, dear.

Appelative

Dear Wolf, 

Nearly 100 hard days it has now been. My heart yearns for something that slips ever distant from me. Soon winter will come and it kills me to picture the chill, barring the space between us in a fierce frost; forcing our reunion yet more distant. I miss you so much. Your smell has faded from my clothes. Your voice is a distant echo within the chambers of my soul. Your face… It pains me so much to admit how the image of you in my mind slips further each day, like the aperture of my eyes slowly dimming you into obscurity. In dreams we still walk the woods though it’s no longer you - simply the idea of you. How could she do this to me, Wolf? To her own granddaughter. Every evening my heart breaks another piece and I don’t know how much more I can lose before… Well, I sign this letter with a kiss. For you, my love. All of my heart, R

---

Sweetheart, you must not think so hopelessly. I am safe for now and that is the most I can ask for until the time is opportune to reach you again. I know you think her wicked for what she has done - but in your dear grandmother’s belief she is only protecting you, I truly believe that. 

I saw a red kite yesterday. It seemed to lay motionless, up there. They reach such incredible heights and it appeared as though it were simply sitting high up in the sky; as though for him, the form of what we think of as space is something different, something solid and amenable. I watched in awe for a long time and contemplated the total freedom of the predatory bird. Always above the world, looking down. Nothing and no-one to threaten it up there. Perhaps that’s how he sits there, floating between the clouds: Because he knows that right there, he will always be safe and he is embraced and supported by the world in that knowledge.

I hear the guards coming now. I must finish this letter and pass it through the window so that I can put out my light. I long for your coming correspondence. Give me one more kiss with your next. Yours, always, Wolf

---

My dear Wolf,

That kite is me. Oh sweet darling Wolf, that kite is me gazing down to see you safely back to me. I close my eyes and I see you down there, distant but clear as the spring green of the waking forest. I plead with the earth for your safety. I lay atop the breeze in wait for your freedom.

My eternal love, R

---

I see you now, sweet red. I see you up there, and how freely you fly. I will be there with you, one day. I will come up to meet you. Your Wolf: I will shed my fur, bare shining teeth at the heavens, and implore them to bring me my wings and so together we will soar, high above it all. Far beyond the eyes of your grandmother and the whispering village folk, a long way from the fearsome dangers lurking in those devious woods, and far away from this modern world and all of its trappings. Just you and me wisping tween the clouds as salmon up the river; up towards a beautiful, fresh unknown - the faint membrance of which lies deep within us. What crime is it to love? I beseech the lawmen but they don’t care. Oh, were it that I didn’t understand dear old grandmother. Then perhaps I’d tussle and shout and argue my way out. But my dear, one must always strike when the moment’s right and not just at any old opportune scene. I could not risk the battle right now for fear of the Fatal Riposte. They have me where they want me, my dear. But, as long as I play it timid they will keep me here. Not free, but not dead. I do not fear death, my darling. I fear what death brings: A world without you in it.

---

Oh Wolf! Oh dear wolf! I clutch your letter to my heart. As I hold it, so do I hold a part of you. I feel you there, within your writings. I have you here with me when I speak your words from my lips. You touch me with your letters as I graze my fingertip along the page which is stained by your ink. But then I think of you as you are now. I picture you sitting there in that cold room, in the darkness. Your whiskers wilding ungroomed. I picture the evil men who make your bedmate each night; their cold, unfeeling eyes. I weep for you every time I see the sun fall. You should be here, home in the hut, warm by the fire; I should be nuzzled into you, safe in your arms. Not alone, watching for granny, listening lest she stir as I quietly write you these words. 

Without your letters I would surely die. They are the only thing that keeps me running out of the door and into the darkness towards no end but my own. I keep them all beneath my mattress. When granny makes her weekly panier trip into the village I lay beneath a blanket of your writing and imagine you have me there, beneath the beating fur of your chest.

I ache from head to toe for you, Wolf. Please return to me. Please. 

---

Incredible news. Fantastic news, my sweet. I apologise for my messy scrawl. I’m writing in a fever to get this to you before I make my leave. There are rumblings - oh, blessed rumblings. Tonight we make jailbreak. I’m returning, my love. A group in this cell block have come together to form the most devious plan. It’s all rather last minute, hence my hurried writings. I just wanted to tell you my sweet that I am on the way. I may well reach you before this letter does, but I shall send it through the window to the lumber man all the same. Just in case. 

---

Dearest Wolf, You’re scaring me. I haven’t received a message from you since my last. The woodsman said he has not found anything from you outside the walls. You must reassure me, Wolf. Really, you must. After that horrible massacre at the prison… Gods, but I know it couldn’t be you. Those ghastly men and what they did to those guards. I know it wouldn’t be you. But for gods sake, you must write me! I need to know you’re safe. Oh Wolf, it must have been so horrible for you: Watching those guards torn down on their post and then your fellow inmates sliced to pieces in response. I cried for a day when the woodsman told me what had happened up there, but I know that you would not have been involved in that horrible business. They’re wrong for holding you there, but we will get you out and you will be with me again and we will be safe and happy and free to be together until the end of days. Write me. You must write me posthaste.

Forever your R

Wolf, I’m with child. The village surgeon came this morning and verified it. You are to be a father, Wolf. Words will never express the tumult of feelings that wash over me today. I will be a mother and it will be your child. The greatest joy rings around me but still you don’t write me. Sweet Wolf, why must you leave me to wait and worry like this. It won’t do any longer. Now you know of our child, it would be irresponsible of you to put our child at risk with the undue stress you are causing me. Just tell me you’re safe. For me, Wolf. For our baby. I’ve pleaded with granny to let me make the trip to you but… well, you know her. There is no way. So, instead: You must write to me to show you’re safe and you must inform the guards of your situation. I’m sure they’ll understand, they may be fathers themselves. They’ll take pity on you Wolf. They may let you go yet. Return to me your assurance of our future together. I need it. I need you.

R

Dear Wolf,

My little boy has arrived. It’s going to be okay, I know that now. He has soft fur and bright, shining eyes. He is infinitely curious and growing fast. Two weeks it’s been and yet it feels an eternity; time means very little now. He is everything I could have ever asked for and more. It’s okay, Wolf. Wherever you are, however you may be right now; it doesn’t matter. I have our boy now and with him an eternity of joy. As I write this - my last letter to you - he pushes his little nuzzle into my chest and I have a part of you here with me. Goodbye, my love. Eternally, 

Little Red