the start of things

Chapter One

Re-Genesis

 

 

Reality tearing sounds a little like the extended crashing of cymbals. It had a touch of ‘Revelation’ about it, with great lightening-bolt-like rips running down from the sky in a jagged pattern and, with a rumble of earth, stalactite counterparts reaching up to greet them. Once joined it all looked like a network of veins, or the strands of an epic haphazard web; ink running down a windowpane. The storms, which were a result of the rapid relocation of air, wreaked across the trembling landscape; trees were shaken loose from their roots. Light, too, seemed to change, grew more concentrated in places and in others the sun was eclipsed by the tall pillar-like openings that cast shadows without hems. Where cracks opened and met with the sea, The News showed the water pouring inwards and breaking into vapor that started to glow like embers. Embers that scattered in all directions inside the blackness, until they eventually put themselves out. Anything entering the openings did the same, exploding into a million fireflies that could be seen against the back-drop of black, until they faded out and died. Some cracks were thin, enough that one could circumvent them, like a tree, simply a nuisance to passing; others were as broad as skyscrapers.

 

A country singer, like Captain Wilco, might have described it better. Might just have drawn out a bit more majesty and sang a tune of going home soon, but most other expression pales.

 

Scientists, infinitely less lyrical, spoke like geologists; explaining that our reality had developed cracks along its ‘fault lines’. Announced that these were slowly expanding and that they would make the binding ribbons of our reality increasingly thin. Then they became bakers to explain how, like bread, once the ‘fibers’ of our reality were broken it would be torn apart piece by piece. Last of all they spoke like prophets and philosophers, explaining nothing past apocalyptic rhetoric and idol speculation; about worlds beyond and possible re-genesis on another dimensional plane. In the end it was all just black hole nonsense; nobody sane would believe that there was anything but oblivion on the other side. So, after the first of the ‘jumpers’; who had convinced themselves that what was needed was to ‘break on through to the other side’, most people had the sense not to accelerate their demise.

 

 When civilians saw it there were as many reactions as there were faces. Some wept, some screamed, others began to laugh like maniacs; while Cup Shonee, standing above the little town of Hosannah, just brought the bottle back to his lips and stood expressionless.

 

 fin.

 

 

more to come. 

Filed under: Captain Wilco, Cup, Hosannah, Re-Genesis, Reality, Shonee, books, cracks, hopes, mount, novel, prose, the novel, writing, writing the novel

perhaps not irreparably so

 

Even when she’s caught out I am still short of beckoning any remorse from her. She doesn’t feel it and it hardens me. I move on in mind and heart. Now I no longer sense her pulse in my future, no longer allow myself the comfort I have grown to take for granted.

 

 

She’s done wrong and she doesn’t beg forgiveness or plea for sympathy at her apparent weakness. There comes no, ‘I’m sorry I was drunk’ – no, ‘I’m sorry to have worried you.’ – In fact, all she’d said on the matter was, ‘I don’t want to argue.’

 

 

Who was? I was going to let her speak her tongue numb. My question was simple; why didn’t you tell me?

 

 

And with that comes the thought of high windows, sun comprehending glass; et cetera, et cetera… ad nauseam.

 

 

I never had a Father who taught through explanation, mine was a Father who I learnt from by example. It was pos-neg right from the fire up. He was someone who taught me to be good, honest and courageous; and thought I didn’t pick up any of those traits, I do feel that I, at least, know what they are. He was someone who showed me what it was to give up on a dream; he was the victim of consequence and apathy.

 

 

So I had to pick up on, more conversational, lead by example sorts that were closer to my own heart.

 

So enter Larkin, my Papa Phil, the father who taught me real, candid and gritty lessons. ‘Collected Poems’, is my New Testament, ‘Juvenilia’, my Old. Papa Phil is a brutally honest father, with a clear motive of deft truthfulness.

 

 

So… should I take my own advice, from previous posts? Should I call time on a forgone conclusion?

 

 

I’ll have to consult with old Papa Phil, to answer that one. As I said, not long ago, and learnt it well! – I trust in luck, not other people’s integrity.

 

 

Last night I was sorely disappointed but perhaps not irreparably so.

 

 

Filed under: Love, Philip Larkin, Sad, about me, accusation, anxiety, news, nightmare, poet, undervalued

Floating in the vacuum of space

 

Whatever falls in my path I have fun with it. I’m still not sure what to do with my life, but soon I will need a job. I will again return to the pits. Prepare myself for some personal agony, personal anxiety, and get hook up with a healthy dose of personal apathy to get me through each day.

 

Personally, I think it is rather cheeky to request eight hours of my time a day for the five out of seven, and only give me near-on one thousand pounds for the privilege each month. Then again, I’ve not met anyone willing to pay more, so I guess I have to put up. Cruel and unfair, this world, but there is nowhere else to go.

 

Pause for a moment thinking of the young Jensen floating in the vacuum of space with an ever-increasing bank balance.

 

I see a lot of people ahead of me, not altogether fairly either. I look at their work and scoff and turn cheek. That’s the luck of the draw though, someone must like that tripe, otherwise why would the author have had it published.

 

This week I trust in publisher’s and their amazing knowledge of great literature… or not.

 

Regardless, I have the distinct feeling everyone undervalues. Taken for granted, rather than picked for Granta.

 

I need to focus on writing these bloody stories I have in my head.

 

Continue with The Coconut Stopwatch, Trip, The Pack, The Boy Who Entered Dreamtime and The Formicary. The problem is picking just one to really focus on. I love them all like children and love the pace I’m going at. I have more ideas that I want to start on as well!

 

Too many ideas and not enough time to write them all.

 

I think I’m going to focus on The Coconut Stopwatch, as it is a collection of short stories, which means there is at least fourteen opportunities at accomplishment before the grand accomplishment of finishing the compilation.

 

I have my computer hooked up to the printer, a big yellow folder to hold the drafts, little bulldog clips, a new ergonomic pen. Now I mean business. I’m going to write the epics out. Place sections on here.

Filed under: Granta, about me, anxiety, bank, bulldog clips, ergonomic, hopes, job, novel, published, space, the novel, undervalued, vacuum, work, writing the novel

when enough is always too much

There is something wrong with sex in the back of a car; no matter how right it feels. Thinking about it you find that it stands erect as an example of immobility. She keeps moving, so does he, someone else could be driving and it is still clearly going nowhere; that is, to me at least, I’ve found this and you might not, but I’ve never met a couple who’ve kept petrol in that tank for longer than a few stops and potholes on the motorway of ages.

 

 

Most things, when looked at through hindsight, are portentous to the eventual collapse of relationships. Her/him going out with friends, insisting on a sexist night out; the introduction of toys, other people, money, office parties, Christmas ones, new secretaries and the giving of rings, increasingly.

 

 

Introduction, withdrawal, giving, taking, making, breaking, mending, manipulating – breathing, in some cases – perhaps it isn’t hindsight one needs, when most of everything nowadays can separate.

Should we perhaps, in knowing this, invest in the superglue of forgiveness? I’d rather not, any expert could tell when an item has been repaired and it always affects overall value.

 

My advice, if you should want it, would be to bin it and be more careful next time; and most of all – Always trust in luck over integrity, so you wont be so sorely disappointed.

 

Filed under: Love, other people's lives, solitary

better off in bed

 

‘Then again’ has got nothing on me. My every waking moment is a sermon on any mount you can count.

 

 

I’m not sure where to start today, tonight, this morning… it has been, and is, all these things.

 

 

I’m lying in bed with two towering bookshelves to my left. Scores of books, some read – most just flipped through. All those words, all that information and, though I hunger for it, I can never seem to find the energy to begin any real campaign – no winning this war of attrition, there will always be backup coming from somewhere; always a cavalry of classics lined against the lip of the sky.

 

 

Nest Chick is out with her Cuckoo Tweeter and so I’m a pidgin shy of all alone. Beak-to-beaking-it together and I don’t get a look in – she and she got no me, no me at all – one wonders how they cope; yet cope they do.

 

 

No one else is awake these days, I seem to find them sleepwalking through life and I quickly get sucked into that mentality. Follow suit in the very outfit myself. Tonight I found myself stupefied and so had to evacuate the house party before my brain oozed out of my ears and my heart sank like a shipwreck. Compass set to sheets and a shower, I got home in quick pace – then all I needed was a spot of sleep… or the spiders to leave… whatever. I made a cup of tea and waited up for Nest Chick. Snuggled down under downy sheets.

 

 

Tie-dyed was the style of my first bed-sheets, second hand at the point where they reached me, and I loved them. For all the non-dye stains, for missing buttons and its cheesecloth hem – all raggedy ends – for all those things I loved it. I knew early on that it mirrored my view of myself, that even now I want someone simply to love me as foolishly as I loved those bed-sheets. For all faults can be found endearing. Most blemishes the results of a life lived, rather than a life kept in an airing cupboard.

 

 

Now I wish I had those damned sheets, but mostly I miss the pillow. The was worn in the middle and the fabric had bobbled slightly. It wasn’t rough on the face, but soothing when it warmed to my temperature. I’d get to sleep with my head nodding. Rubbing my cheek against the soft-rough surface. It was heaven. It was comfort. Now I wish I had that damned pillow because I need some easy comfort. Hard to find nowadays, where most things flash and blink but are none-too-good against the cheek.

 

 

I liked things the way they were a good few hours back, when we were easy in each other’s presence. Perhaps I should have stayed, simply sat there in silence?

 

No, I think I’m better off in bed, with or without the pillow.

 

 

Filed under: Sad, about me, bed, books, childhood, compass, mount, nights out, pillow, sermon, sleep, solitary

Snapshots of greatness

Well things are picking up their toes. I’m working full-steam on the website to accompany my novel. As soon as it is somewhere near half decent I’ll link to it at the top of this page and write a post dedicated to some of the key features.

 

I’ve been quite prolific recently – writing a load more atoms into being for my own little universe.

 

[To set the scene, I should say that at the moment Cup and a little group of people are travelling to Carsonova to save themselves as the tears in the sky become ever bigger.]

 

 

 

Trip – Excerpt – Chapter 6 (as yet untitled)

 

When night came and the sun had put out its final embers on the horizon, they sat around the campfire. Pupils widened, when the world darkened; anything could have been in the air around them, until eyes adjusted to the light level and they learned they were alone, but for each other. Stars were the only things left shining, the moon absent behind the great tear.

 

 

.fin

 

 

For now I just want to give you snapshots of greatness. It is coming along. Steadily.

 

Other than that, I am still looking for a job and should have one shortly – but I’m in no rush. I like the fact that I can relax, de-stress and write.

 

Over and out.

Filed under: about me, hopes, novel, the novel, work, writing the novel

Little else with the presence of voice

Little else with the presence of voice.

 

 

 

22^nd/02/08 – 09:30 – singers and so longs

 

She sings like a female Elvis, all whole-throated and deep, with a gurgle of honey and milk. Wanda Jackson, and her Rockabilly tuneage, walks with me to work this morning. She is screaming in my ears as I round the corner and slick my keycard through the slot by the side of the door. I’m sure a green light flashing is a warning not to try to cross the road anymore; you’ve missed the window. This was to be my last day, half-unbeknownst to me. (I had the pondering that I might be impulsive enough to leave; yet none of the clairvoyance it would have taken to predict the event in detail.) I got to the office and was called to an impromptu meeting.

 

They sat me down, told me that they had come here to this blog and read all about me. They were not as pleased as some. [The rest is censored with the intention of not worsening the situation for the other party]. They told me that if I wasn’t happy at the company I could hand in my resignation. So I did.

 

I said ‘I think it would be for the best’ and then was told to leave that evening, and not to see out my notice. I took it as a benediction, to be blunt. No layer of surface skin missing from me, no scuffs, not a scrape.

 

Regardless, I feel I was, at least, heartbroken to leave the people I have. To leave those that have shaped and influenced me since I arrived. And they have. I’m not sure all have. But some have.

 

Regardless, I feel I have escaped. The only lingering element is that bitter-taste at the base of my tongue, that is usually reserved for the breakdown of a relationship; for that moment where you close the door, both actually and metaphorically.

 

 

23^rd/02/08 – 23:00 – drinks are for drunks

 

I had a night tonight where my guests asked if ‘that’ was ‘the only vodka left’ – ‘yes’, was the only response I could come up with. I was more interested in oblivion than their so-so chatter and sobering sutras about this and that triviality.

 

And so to the future, where I fear we all must follow; except those by the roadside, or taking the long slide. Out of the working world, on to life anew. I will amble along my writing trail, by that I mean write something resembling prose. I will start to exercise and watch the food I inhale. I will start new things. I will plant a new crop to yield, when time has matured my ambitions into bright little pebbles. When I have lost the will to bear insecurity, I will look for other employment.

 

My life will become vesuvian-like to the brimful, an untempered flame to kindle the beyond that is, and will be, ever coming nearer.

 

 

 

24^th/02/08 – 08:01 – the sun is ineffective, cloud proves a second horizon

 

 I close my eyes and can see ‘them’ as they press into me with their eyes. I feel a pressure at my temples. I open my eyes and swear I can feel my pupils puff up. Hangover at dawn. Gravity has me in a bear hug as I try to stand. The realisation hits me. I have no purpose. What could be worse?

 

Thinking about the last few days, thinking about all those moments and now all the moments of ahead – well it just damn upsets me. I still, as ever, have little real purpose to my life. Still just passing moments like gallstones, on and on and on.

 

I’m still not sure what is wrong with me. No closer to diagnosis, let alone treatment or cure.

 

Question. So what should I do with my life?

 

Answers to… jensen.evan.wilder@gmail.com

 

 

Filed under: about me, accusation, connection, fired, job, novel, office, the novel, work