Preface

A yellow-black streak lies across the eastern horizon as I look out over the valley. A repulsive slick of poison oil warding away anyone who may dare to tread upon its scorched earth.

The black clouds are looking heavier by the second and the crows warn of rain. Wailing devil sirens circling overhead. Each caw, a cry for help, longing for shelter from the looming storm. I think about turning back, but I have nowhere to turn back to.

As I gaze into the basin, a thick deathly plume of smoke makes its way through my field of vision. Quickly creeping from right to left through the centre of the valley. I strain my sight to suddenly realise that the black fog is coming from a fiery train dragging itself alongside the river, exploding balls of fire as it goes. I continue to watch as the burning snake propels itself from view, behind another hill littered with burnt trees and what used to be a cluster of farm buildings.

I sit on the brow of the hill and ponder as to what the fuck is going on. I haven’t seen anything resembling human presence for days.

I decide against altering my route west and pick up my meagre pack. I slowly descend into the valley with hawk eyes. Broken trees, split in two line most of my troubled walk to the bottom. As I reach the bottom of the hill, I scramble through a thicket into a small field. In the centre lay half a dozen overturned caravans and burned-out cars.

I stick to the hedgerow and make my way along the perimeter of the field. Hawk eyes on the steel carcasses strewn askew to my right.

‘That noise’, I think. The sound of a tin can being dropped accompanied by the sudden fluster and disbanding of twenty or so starlings erupting from one of the caravans.

At once I see it. A king hell motherfucker of a hound with eyes meaner than Goliath hurls itself through the grass towards me. Silent as a mute, jaws from here to damnation, with the smell of my sweat heavy-set in it’s nostrils. Bounding closer, bounding closer…

I think about the pictures I’ve seen of a green world. Gentle streams lapping at pebble shores in quiet secluded corners. Oh the things I’d wished to see!

To gaze over valley’s and fields brimming with life. Birdsong. The smell of flowers on a soft summer breeze. These things so close yet so far, just west of the moor, and I can’t even make it that far. Ripped apart by a slavering hound in a filthy field somewhere in Devon.

I breathe through my mouth and hold it.

…Bounding closer, bounding closer…POP!

The hound explodes in a mess of sinew and matted fur, covering the mud in front of me. A section of it’s jaw tumbles towards me and breaks pace on my knee.

I’m rooted to the spot. Only my eyes dart from corner to corner, to every possible vantage point I could have been spared from. Anything? Smoke? A shout? Fucking anything?!

I coil myself and like a whippet, bolt to the other side of the field and dive over the barbed fence.

I snag my right thigh and tumble in a heap into a muddy trickle of water in a ditch between the last field and the next. The clouds finally break and piss down upon me.

 And there I lay. And there I lay.

Notes From A 12gauge Shotgun Shell

Bring in the defendant! Lugging his noose and chains,

One look to the left then he looks at me and he knows it’s not his day,

The judge hands me her gaville and says, “ do with him what you please”,

So I smash his teeth across the courtroom floor and watch him as he bleeds,

He splutters through claret gums and chokes on his lolling tongue,

“ I’ll never pay my penance, boy, you know this war’s not won!”

So I pick him up by his ears and lift him in line with my eye,

And I tell him, “ not yet my friend, but tonight you’re gonna die”,

Through his blood stained vision he saw my case go past,

When he saw me turn and smile at him he knew it was his last,

He left the court in pieces, with a handful of broken teeth,

And I left for the florist’s parlour to arrange his funeral wreath,

That night the moon was full and high,

 As I left to collect what was rightfully mine,

A shotgun concealed down one trouser leg,

And grim thoughts circling within my head,

As I reached the door of the tavern, I stopped and checked my watch,

Closing time at The Victoria Inn is exactly what I want,

So I kicked down the door and casually swaggered inside,

And I see that fucking rat looking for somewhere to hide,

“No use my friend!” I cry, as I reach the middle of the room,

“You don’t have the nerve, my boy, my end is not this soon”,

So I pulled my gun from its holster and aimed it at his gut,

“I want to see the look on your face when I fucking blow you up”,

A shower of ruby droplets painted everything in sight,

And when I saw blood run down the walls I knew that things were all right,

I got down on one knee and reached inside his chest,

I pulled his heart from his body and laid that fucker to rest,

On a quiet night you can still hear his cry,

Echoing through the cellar,

For that is where I buried him,

Six feet beneath the Stella.

Jan, ’10. Oakfield Street.

In The Heat, East of La Mancha

In the heat, east of La Mancha, the sun burns hard, heavy, scorching tiles and flesh to its stripped, raw bone. Between the hours of 8am and 5pm, it’s a forsaken land, saved only by sprinklers and spilt drinks.

One way of judging the heat is the insect and animal life. In early morning, birds, namely Swifts and Swallows, feast on an abundance of Flies, who themselves feast on the detritus left over from the night before. Lipstick cigarette butts, discarded fruit slices and dog shit. Nothing else is left by the Monsters of La Mancha.

Once the flying breakfast is over, the lunch diners descend on our little soirée. Devil-eyed Wasps, the size of a finger joint swarm around in their ten’s, not once relenting to seek out sweeter sweat than our own.

The Wasps will move on to other pastures once our lunch is done with. It seems they only come out for the children’s Coca Cola and Mother’s sickly perfume.

[[Once the smells of the upper middle classes have disappeared, they too, fly off to fuck each other senseless in a nest on a wall]]

This is seemingly the only life one will see, other than swarms of jet-black Gnats, exploding from the drains on a more humid afternoon, erupting in their hundreds to pick and pester. These minute fiends pose no physical threat but certainly test ones sanity. The dull, whine, drone of its wings could slowly, certainly turn a man insane.

There is one creature, above all, who can withstand any amount of insect onslaught or UV death ray, shot forth from the heavens, and the creature is the seasoned sunbather, intent on making a week away look worthwhile. However, these creatures, like all, can evolve, over decades into something hideous and almost inhuman. The Emigrating British. A strange, mysterious being that is over-dominant on their new turf, and seem only to move to Spain for pure, unforgiving heat. Their bones and flesh are made of coal and burnt driftwood and their skin, is that of road-kill, shrivelled and misshapen the colour of wet Sandstone.

The Women while away their retirement years on their backs, with burnt faces, hen-pecking all that they left behind in, “wet, miserable, England”. Whilst the men, frequent he manicured greens and fairways of the best, Polaris World has to offer.

Each individual is content in the knowledge that they will live out their retirement happily, and die rested, cindered souls.

18/9/10

Sucina. Espana