Without Further Ado

Without further ado...

So i'm folded into the crawl space of Chuck's Skyline and thinking about all the reasons I should break every unspoken rule of association I have with her.

Listen first though..

So I'm looking at her briefly as she deliberately spits her disdain dodging obstacles with a heady mixture of bravado and luck.

I climbed into the front next to her as I intensely disliked the way she'd been turning back to eyeball me.

"It's all here." she says finally giving me a sidelong glance that momentarily disorients.

"What is?" I Ask

"Everything they fucking want! Are you fucking listening to me? Or have you lost your balls in London traffic?"

"You appear to be deliberately heaving this bitch like a cunt!" 

"True. She lets go of the accelerator and our speed drops dramatically it's nothing personal I sent you the email...

Her voice trails off as her speed rises. A yellow Astra tries to play chicken as the road merges into one lane. She apparently ignores him. 

I wince internally keeping my phone level as I seek out the relevant files in my inbox resisting the urge to delete as I go. Irrelevant headlines assault my attention as I delete.

Happily, it was a convenient headline that eventually caught.

- Check dis below...

To whom it may concern 

I write to inform anyone who cares that the rules have changed. Apropos of being a flat footed jerk.This note is to serve that I have officially terminated my support of Eliza Beatrice Proudfoot. 

This is to act as official blah...

I've lost interest at this point a combination of the unseasonal heat and Van's heart lurching attitude to our short lives. 

I put my phone away fully aware of my expression                                                               

"Maybe we should reconsider going back in?" I eventually admit.

seconds pass Van's driving seems to get more erratic as it rides the wave of her mounting fury. 

I can hear muffled violins swelling inappropriately as Van wanders inexplicably further down the rabbit hole

Eventually I notice the swell of buzzing traffic has given way to the parks and trees of of the suburbs.

"Where are we going Van?"

"There's some shit I need to pick up" She says while patting my knee almost distractingly...

We turn into a largely deserted alleyway coming to rest next to a partially closed steel shutter. My heart stutters as she exits the casually parked car.

She gives it away with a look I can't decipher - like she's holding back a storm of regret and disappears under the partially closed shutter pulling it fully shut behind her...

When it opens again 5 minutes later I'm staring at 3 men who charge at me with alarming speed. Van has taken the keys and each man crosses the small distance between the shutter and car with practiced ease.

My heart thuds with alarm, my fate is nearly inevitable as I reach for the locks.

The first elbow slams into the passenger window...

The magic of susceptibility

So I'm quietly torn between the 'magic' of susceptibility and the harsh, crumbly beat of imminent failure. 

I'm ok with that. Truthfully I approach this with an unheard of equanimity. A level of concentration and mocking appeal to the intemperate at once irrational majestic and improbable.

"Fucking impossible!" She crows with hapless satisfaction crumbs of the polythene bag falling dramatically from an open bag of Savoy (failure flavour) No subtlety just a relentless assault on the false sense of humility that brings me here.

Every Monday I'm at my desk computer balanced precariously, tuned to radio chill waiting for a predetermined selection of my favourite compositions. I can't truly make sense of it though. It never flows like a freshly uncorked bottle of cheap wine.

No

My 'flow' is more like the volcanic dribble of unformed thoughts and randomly potent barbs. The more I think about herding them into some service for my mordant ego the less they feel like practical building blocks of a story. Happily, I rarely have to worry about that My post-accident life takes on a cheery devil-may-care, whistling seductively as I pass wind gratuitously. Finger to keyboard, pen to paper mouth to receiver. It's all symbolic: I mean it because ideas are vital: fluids born out of doing NOT being.

Eventually, all that shit dies as an inevitable consequence of simply existing. Whenever I prepare myself internally for my version of a sanity check. Let's call it the verbosity confirmation. Every single time I'm torn between the kind of flow that mourns the loss of every stillborn word. While gleefully helping themselves from the smorgasbord of popular opinion always offered up.

I rarely worry about that though. I draw my content from a late but wide-ranging realization that few individuals have much control over their reputations. Each person has a context-appropriate blanket of attitudes with which they shape around themselves providing both heat and psychological protection. Most importantly though, I make precious little distinction between the objective thrust of fact and the gracefull sprinkle of fiction.

It takes a lot to start this engine. Multiple false starts, One huge sweeping statement; broad in scope, unapologetic in grandeur yet gracious in multiple defeat. It starts in belligerent fits of noxious black cloud than eventually begin to swirl into cogent tenses.

I'm happy with the efforts from all contributors, it feels like an important truth has been teased from the indistinct gravel of suggestion. I'm rising slow but philosophical while still faithfull to some proud but irrelevant reality. Happy to step aside and allow 30 years of largely silent experience sing out with desperate abandon to the ponderous din of 'scholarly' verbiage.

As long as logic and circumstance allow, everything permeates into the golden mash of perpetual, accepted logic. Timeframes blur with a steady impact. Like the continuous swirl