JJ's Bar, Bude

The Suit: Pt 2

The next twenty minutes were chaos. Adam’s hangover was forgotten, his father’s just beginning. Armed with a hoover, bin bag and duster, he became the general of an aged one man army; waging holy war against The Filth and The Mess. The work was frantic but short. Soon they found themselves sitting across from one another at the dining room table holding mugs of coffee with the smell of Mr Sheen placed firmly in their nostrils.

Silence pervaded as they stared each other down.

There hadn’t been any shouting when the bombshell was dropped. Just an awkwardness. Some Dizziness. Adam found himself sitting down. His mother was dead. He tried to imagine the concept: it escaped him. It was a slippery fish he kept trying to catch with hands covered in jelly. He could have asked the why and how, but they were too abstract and obtuse. Instead he found himself worrying over the real and the present; their situation as they sat in a house of filth, waiting for his aunt and Granny to arrive. They wouldn’t be impressed; all their prejudices against the male half of the species would be conveniently confirmed.

So he solved their problem and now they were left with the original one: the abstract and the obtuse. He thought of interrogating the older, mirrored version of himself for answers. He could have done. All of the difficult questions would have been answered with ease. But he couldn’t.

“I had better get ready.” He got up, grabbed his holdall, and floated up the stairs.

His bedroom remained the same as ever, yet emptier than before. The funeral suit remained in its original bag, recently dry cleaned; the label still safety-pinned on. He put it on half-heartedly and went to check himself in the mirror in his parents’ room (or rather, his father’s room. Singular: parent. Just a father. No mother).

He was a semi orphan. He checked himself, noting that he had lost weight and then he noticed the bed. In fact, he noticed half of the bed, the half that remained pristine and unused; the half that was left null and void. Her book remained unfinished by the side, the queen of hearts still sticking out the top as a forever temporary bookmark. The edges remained straight and the corners unbent. Everything was in order. She was a pristine woman. How could she have left such a mess?

The shrill cry of the doorbell woke him out of reverie and sent him down the stairs. He was greeted at the door by his stern grandmother and prude aunt.

“Hello Granny. Hello Aunt Meg.” Granny grabbed him by the shoulders and rather than hugging him, shook him fiercely.

“Oh, my poor little Addie.” She tutted in a thick Scot accent. An echo somewhere repeated: “poor, poor little Addie.”

“Such a terrible way to go,”

“Terrible, terrible.”

“Actually Granny-“

“Where’s your father?”

“Just through there,” he pointed half heartedly. “Granny, what did you mean by-“

“Oh, that silly man, I always knew he would be the end of her.”

“Silly man.”

“What are you talking about?” He almost shouted out, but somehow managed to restrain himself.

“Oh I’m sorry Addie, how rude of me. I forgot to mention we bumped into that lovely friend of yours.”

“So lovely.”

“Who?”

“She ‘s finding a spot to park.”

“Granny, who are you talking about?”

“You know, the pretty one. Such gorgeous blonde hair.”

“You mean-“

“Hello Adam.” Walking up the path dressed in black, her hair running freely, was his ex-girlfriend.

“-Eve.”

The Suit

It was in late September, just as the trees were beginning to turn shades of gold and auburn. A few weeks earlier Adam had moved into his new apartment, the first place that he ever considered to be truly his own. In the sense at least that he was the sole tenant (it was rented), that it was of reasonable quality and that he intended to stay for a while longer than a year. Taking these three factors into account meant that, in his opinion, the past three years living in student digs hadn’t counted as moving away from home, but rather that it had been something more of an extended trip, or life-lesson. It also meant that the rest of his earthly possessions needed to be boxed and moved because, as his mother had so eloquently put it: “We’re turning your room into a spare bedroom; and that doesn’t mean that you can let your friends stay in there when you come to visit.” Hence, he was planning to head home and complete the move, which actually only involved shifting two boxes of books and his funeral suit (which had only been worn once, at his grandfather’s funeral a year earlier). The plan was to head down on the Friday and come back on the Sunday. A simple plan, he hoped.

A few days before the Friday, he received a phone call from his father to confirm that he was, in fact, coming home for the weekend.

“Don’t worry about it Dad, it’s all sorted.”

But then of course he was lying.

A separate set of circumstances that occurred whilst he was heavily drunk resulted in him double-booking himself on the Friday night in question. These set of circumstances also happened to have occurred whilst he was deep in conversation with the attractive girl from IT at a spontaneous office outing (which he later discovered was all too common). He was carefully informed by several colleagues that you only got one chance with the attractive girl from IT and that if he had means and opportunity, he should take it. The result was that he was forced to phone his father on the Friday afternoon, make up a work related excuse, then promise him he would arrive first thing in the morning. Of course, he didn’t arrive first thing in the morning, because he was still slightly drunk at that time and didn’t want to wake up the attractive girl from IT, who he discovered quietly snoring on his pillow. He happened to note that she seemed fairly plain without any make up on but that he didn’t mind at all and that this just added to her charms.

When he did finally come home at a time closer to midday, he found that the house was in a mess and the curtains drawn. There were at least three bottles of Scotch in various states of emptiness and old take away boxes littered almost every open surface above the floor. The ash tray on the coffee table was full of black-grey detritus and at the head of that table, sitting almost ceremoniously, was his father; garbed in a black suit with his shoes polished to a shine and a half burnt-out cigarette placed between index and middle fingers. His top button remained undone and his tie untied. The greying mess of hair on his head looked ruffled and the lines in his face seemed somehow… deeper.

“Jesus, what’s going on?”

“Hey, son.” The middle aged man huffed and lifted himself out of the chair. “You got here just in time, your Granny and Aunts are about to arrive.”

“You look like you’re dressed for a funeral!”

“That’s because we’re going to one.”

“What do you mean?” Silence. “Dad?”

“It’s your mother. She died last week.”

Cereal

I think I'm going to start a serialised story and call it something like 'cereal'. And, seeing as so far I've hardly put up any illustrations, I thought it should be in ten parts in the format text, art, text art, text, art, etc.

No?

I dream too much.

I saw a dead squirrel by the side of the road today. It took me a little by surprise because I had been staring at it for some time, wondering what it might be before suddenly realising exactly what it was. It made me side step and very nearly jump headfirst into a hedge. I dare say the hunched old woman shuffling along behind me must have thought I was nuts. What made the image so disturbing was the way it was lying on its side, almost foetal, as if it were just sleeping. Its tiny mouth was open. There was no blood.

A car rushed by at the same time, and I couldn’t help but build up this scenario in my head where the creature was crushed beneath the titanic tyres of a truck and its bloody guts were sent showering over me. I was of course instantly sick, spewing the contents of my stomach over the nearest garden wall.

It was then that an angry housewife stormed out her front door, shouting at me in the belief that I was a drunk or an addict. That’s when, breathless and gagging, I managed to somehow explain the turn of events.

She instantly took pity, saying as she ushered me into her home: “oh, you poor dear.” She fed me tea and biscuits and cleaned me up. And after lending me her husband’s clothes, she introduced me to her shy yet delicately pretty daughter, who happened to find me fascinating.

And so on…

I might write a story about it.

Coffee been messing with my head

I've become addicted to those chocolate covered coffee beans. I fear it may have become a serious affliction. I see them out of the corner of my eye and they goad me like peparamis, screaming "Eat me, EAT ME! Crack open my shell and feast on the bitter-sweet goodness inside. You will never sleep again!"

I have to walk away. My hand shakes when I partake of my dirty pleasure and it shakes when I don't. What am I to do?

I NEED THAT FALSE SENSE OF WELL BEING AND ALERTNESS.

Corporeal

She crept in under the cover of partial darkness, sneaking with her head scanning from side to side and back arched: a midnight cat stalking prey. The amber glow of suburbia filtered through the slotted gaps of blinds that remained open and cast stripes of light and shadow upon her form. Her form: it stole away out of the covers, creaked open the door and crept silently down to the end of the corridor where she broke into her brother’s room. His former room.

It seemed empty without him; a desolate shell of the life he used to lead. Much of him remained there though and was preserved as museum pieces to his memory. Tokens of the past that nobody wanted or felt brave enough to part from.

A finger ran across the surface of his desk. She lifted it up and rubbed the dust between index and thumb. He never allowed any dust to gather in his room, he couldn’t stand it, couldn’t allow that mess to exist. It was his greatest weakness and fault. Never had he ever tolerated disorder in his life. For him it always had to be just…so.

Out of his drawers she pulled a sweater that was ironed and folded to perfection. The exact size of an A4 sheet. Perfect right angles. No bobbles. In real light, not the fake light of the city at night, it appeared evergreen as she remembered him. Alive and well all year round. His winter had come far too early.

The scent of him remained, however; the slight musk mingled with the fresh smell of conditioner. Clean. He had always smelled clean. She buried her nose deep into the fabric and took him in, absorbed his essence and memory until she could barely breathe or think. Her heart quickened as she pulled away and her stomach tensed. Her chest rose in short sharp bursts. The palpitations rose up into her throat. The blood beat harder. Her vision grew dark. Lights faded. Amber to grey. Shadow to shadow.

Her head flung back, she fell with arms wide open onto the bed and through half closed lids could almost make out his form, almost see him and sense his presence right there, right above her as if he were very nearly corporeal.