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Imagine yourself as a drawing, the light scrub of a pencil tip on paper. Shaded, but easy to erase.
[That's just one of the thoughts floating through Sergei's mind as he stares at a yellow street lamp alongside the 'A' road passing the service station where he works.]
From a small building in the middle of nowhere. Sergei stares at that single point in space, just beyond the double strength security glass of the window, for a second too long and burns the image of nothingness into his retina.
"But it must be something," he thinks, rustling the foil wrapper of a Twix bar on display, fondling the lengths of chocolate-coated biscuit and blinking away the flash of light that blotted out his vision.
[What he didn't see was the trace in time of a lager bubble, falling through space 28 years ago. But that's another story]
He shook his head as someone entered the shop, saying, automatically: "Can you tell me which pump" But his sub-conscious changed the phrase as he was addressing an attractive woman to: "Can you tell me, any chance of a hump?"
"What!" came the reply in a broad Dartford accent, "Any chance of a what!"
"The pump, the pump," said Sergei, crushing the Twix bar, "can you tell me which?"
That's what comes of spending so much time on your own in a godforsaken hole like a service station off the A211. I mean, where is this place? There's no town nearby, no other shops, no people, no pubs, just...
"'scuse me," said the Dartford woman, pouting bright red lipstick, "are you listening to me? Pump 13. Oh, and a packet of Bensons. I don't want that Twix, though."
"I'm sorry, just thinking about Mother Russia, my mind goes blank sometimes," said Sergei.
"What's that about your mother?" said the woman, unwrapping the cigarettes and lighting one, "You're strange [takes in a breath of smoke] different [blows it in Sergei's direction]."
"You're not supposed to smoke in here," said Sergei.
"Where should I go then?" said the woman.
And that's how Sergei ended up in the stinky toilet behind the service station, near the Calor gas canisters, a rare closed sign on the front door of the 24-hr service station and a blonde bouncing around on top of him, rising and falling at a steady rhythm, his face and other parts smothered with red lipstick. Maybe working in such a lonely place had it's benefits after all.
"I never did pay you for that petrol," said the woman, inhaling another Benson and letting the smoke curl round her lips.
"Don't worry about it, I pick up the tab," said Sergei.
She turned to Sergei and gave him the kind of hard stare that Paddington Bear would have been proud of, "Not on your nelly, mate! What do you take me for? A prozzy or somthink?" she said.
[I must point out that it's now 3am. Sergei's on the night shift. The graveyard shift in this out of the way place, the wrong side of a major road.]
Behind the till, the telephone is ringing. It's the area manager. He's had a report that a closed sign has been seen on the front door of 'Gable Dongle' [that's the name of Sergei's service station]. Sergei pushes past the girl, singeing his trousers on the tip of her fag, and collects the receiver.
Can he explain the closed sign?
"Well, I heard something, out on the forecourt. Turned out to be a hedgehog. I followed it round the back to the Calor gas cage," said Sergei.
Hedgehog? What?
"I gave him some milk," said Sergei.
You what? That's coming out of your wages, my son!
Sergei replaced the receiver, shaking his head. He was saving up. Working hard. He had a plan. A vision. A chip shop in a small town. He'd done his research.
"You coming back, Sergei?" It was Donna from Dartford.
"Yes," said Sergei, "my hedgehog needs a little more milk."
Now it was Donna's turn to shake her head, "Yes, Sergei, you're strange. Different."
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Monday 29 March 2010
Monday 22 March 2010
Something of an interlude: The Cyclist gets philosophical
[this is face on - from the third eye of the cyclist, way up inside his forehead...]
Apart from the fact that I've floated around in a lager bubble for the past few days, passing through time zones and vortices, it has to be said that I've been floating around in a lager-induced bubble for even longer.
Cycling is a way to get from one drinking zone, to another. Without getting busted.
I met up with the freaks at the canal - who are they, Duggie Chop and his mate. We kind of gelled. But they're regular guys. It's me that's the freak in all honesty.
I haven't faced up to it, yet, but I'm, kind of, in denial. In denial of what? Of being an adult.
I haven't walked shoulder to shoulder with anyone. Not recently. I think back to me Nan. She understood me. I remember, we was walking down the street on a summers day. About 20 years ago. I was a teenager, 15 years old probably. So I was still living at home, at school and the like.
So, me and me Nan was walking down the street, the one that runs parallel with Carnegie Road, the one with the new shopping centre these days. And me Nan say's Colm (cos that's me name, I'm not actually called The Cyclist), "you've got such broad shoulders", and she patted me on the back, "and you're gonna make some girl proud, you know. Ah yes."
She really thought I could do anything. I think I was her favourite. When I left home she sent me a note setting the record straight about life and what was in store for me; the ups and the downs. She used to listen to the crap songs I wrote on me little Casio keyboard. She thought I was a great artist.
"Colm," she said, "you'll make something of your life. You won't be the kind to turn around aged 35 and regret not making it."
Then, all of a sudden, I was 35 and on the dole. Me Nan had passed on. But I still hold the image of her, turning to me on that warm, sunny day and patting me on the back.
I got hold of a bike, second hand, and filled up a bag with tins of Red Stripe. And that's me.
When we become adults, you know, we continue to disappoint: both ourselves and those around us.
The moments of being like a 'little emperor' in your home are short. But you never believe it when you're a kid.
[And after that, he came back into the real world with the others gawping at Geoffrey from Rainbow's face. It was still 1982 (this is the real world!) and maybe The Cyclist would, eventually, seek out his Nan...maybe he'd straighten out his life, but who knows.]
Apart from the fact that I've floated around in a lager bubble for the past few days, passing through time zones and vortices, it has to be said that I've been floating around in a lager-induced bubble for even longer.
Cycling is a way to get from one drinking zone, to another. Without getting busted.
I met up with the freaks at the canal - who are they, Duggie Chop and his mate. We kind of gelled. But they're regular guys. It's me that's the freak in all honesty.
I haven't faced up to it, yet, but I'm, kind of, in denial. In denial of what? Of being an adult.
I haven't walked shoulder to shoulder with anyone. Not recently. I think back to me Nan. She understood me. I remember, we was walking down the street on a summers day. About 20 years ago. I was a teenager, 15 years old probably. So I was still living at home, at school and the like.
So, me and me Nan was walking down the street, the one that runs parallel with Carnegie Road, the one with the new shopping centre these days. And me Nan say's Colm (cos that's me name, I'm not actually called The Cyclist), "you've got such broad shoulders", and she patted me on the back, "and you're gonna make some girl proud, you know. Ah yes."
She really thought I could do anything. I think I was her favourite. When I left home she sent me a note setting the record straight about life and what was in store for me; the ups and the downs. She used to listen to the crap songs I wrote on me little Casio keyboard. She thought I was a great artist.
"Colm," she said, "you'll make something of your life. You won't be the kind to turn around aged 35 and regret not making it."
Then, all of a sudden, I was 35 and on the dole. Me Nan had passed on. But I still hold the image of her, turning to me on that warm, sunny day and patting me on the back.
I got hold of a bike, second hand, and filled up a bag with tins of Red Stripe. And that's me.
When we become adults, you know, we continue to disappoint: both ourselves and those around us.
The moments of being like a 'little emperor' in your home are short. But you never believe it when you're a kid.
[And after that, he came back into the real world with the others gawping at Geoffrey from Rainbow's face. It was still 1982 (this is the real world!) and maybe The Cyclist would, eventually, seek out his Nan...maybe he'd straighten out his life, but who knows.]
Thursday 11 March 2010
The Bubble Explodes!
The story continues…
In the distance: a man washing his car. Pike, submerged in a polythene vat of lager, saw it first.
Pike couldn’t communicate the fact that he’d seen the future - life in collision with a bucket of soapy water that was being sloshed over the bonnet of an ‘X’-plate Renault 18 (resplendent in a kind of burnt amber metallic coachwork). [Like I say, he was in a flaming vat of lager! And he’s only a fish!]
[Note: “In this case, the future is the past,” so says Dr. Wagner, a time specialist. He continues: “At this moment, life in the lager bubble is floating towards the past, towards 1982. And yet, the past is being experienced as the present by the travellers.
Now, Mr Pike, if I may call him Mr Pike, can see the future: the collision with the bubble of lager and the soap bubbles. But, that future, by the nature of time travel, is in the past. 1982. And it is, therefore, the relative past of our journeying friends in the bubble: Duggie and his mate, the Cyclist and Mr Pike.
So, the question is: what constitutes the future, when the future is - relatively or otherwise – the past? And, if they are travelling towards the past are their body-clocks running backwards, like the analogue odometer of a car in reverse? Thus, are the compatriots actually getting younger? And so…]
“’E’s making a lot of bubbles, that Pike,” said Duggie, “it’s like he’s trying to tell us something.”
“Like Lassie, you mean?” said the cyclist.
“Yeah, only he’s not as strokable,” said Duggie.
[Just then, a huge orb rose up towards the floating bubble, transporting their orangey-yellow, lager-tinted world through the rainbow of a prism that slithered like a film of oil.
Then the lager bubble and the orb - a soap sud, in actual fact - plopped together and stuck like mating cray flies. And as it joined them, the oily-prism-rainbow burst the lager bubble and the soap-sud-bubble-rainbow-prism-oilyness became their reality. Their new world.]
(“Up above the streets and houses, rainbow flying high…everyone can see it smiling, over the sky” the soundtrack was in their minds)
The sheer weight of the soap bubble with the four ‘friends’ inside [“Hey!” said Pike, “don’t forget – I’m a victim here! Not a friend!” Ok, ok, that’s why I put inverted commas round the word friends says Steve.] makes the bubble stop rising and drop like a rock towards the sudsy bucket.
“I knew it!” gurgled the Pike. No one heard him.
“We’re dropping too fast – too fast!” said Duggie’s mate, slipping and sliding like Buster Keaton on marbles.
When they hit the bucket of soapy water, Apollo 11 stylee, the bubble exploded and merged with the rest of the suds.
It was catastrophic for our heroes, who, as if by magic, became full-sized, splitting the bucket into a prosthetic spring flower - the sides splayed out flat and white against a grey, car-bubble-water-wet tarmac – covered by the sprawling figures of Duggie, his mate, the cyclist and the pike…
Dazed for a moment, they opened their eyes simultaneously [except the Pike, whose eyes couldn’t close], and looked into the silhouetted face of Geoffrey from Rainbow, who’d been washing his new car. “What the…” he said.
In the distance: a man washing his car. Pike, submerged in a polythene vat of lager, saw it first.
Pike couldn’t communicate the fact that he’d seen the future - life in collision with a bucket of soapy water that was being sloshed over the bonnet of an ‘X’-plate Renault 18 (resplendent in a kind of burnt amber metallic coachwork). [Like I say, he was in a flaming vat of lager! And he’s only a fish!]
[Note: “In this case, the future is the past,” so says Dr. Wagner, a time specialist. He continues: “At this moment, life in the lager bubble is floating towards the past, towards 1982. And yet, the past is being experienced as the present by the travellers.
Now, Mr Pike, if I may call him Mr Pike, can see the future: the collision with the bubble of lager and the soap bubbles. But, that future, by the nature of time travel, is in the past. 1982. And it is, therefore, the relative past of our journeying friends in the bubble: Duggie and his mate, the Cyclist and Mr Pike.
So, the question is: what constitutes the future, when the future is - relatively or otherwise – the past? And, if they are travelling towards the past are their body-clocks running backwards, like the analogue odometer of a car in reverse? Thus, are the compatriots actually getting younger? And so…]
“’E’s making a lot of bubbles, that Pike,” said Duggie, “it’s like he’s trying to tell us something.”
“Like Lassie, you mean?” said the cyclist.
“Yeah, only he’s not as strokable,” said Duggie.
[Just then, a huge orb rose up towards the floating bubble, transporting their orangey-yellow, lager-tinted world through the rainbow of a prism that slithered like a film of oil.
Then the lager bubble and the orb - a soap sud, in actual fact - plopped together and stuck like mating cray flies. And as it joined them, the oily-prism-rainbow burst the lager bubble and the soap-sud-bubble-rainbow-prism-oilyness became their reality. Their new world.]
(“Up above the streets and houses, rainbow flying high…everyone can see it smiling, over the sky” the soundtrack was in their minds)
The sheer weight of the soap bubble with the four ‘friends’ inside [“Hey!” said Pike, “don’t forget – I’m a victim here! Not a friend!” Ok, ok, that’s why I put inverted commas round the word friends says Steve.] makes the bubble stop rising and drop like a rock towards the sudsy bucket.
“I knew it!” gurgled the Pike. No one heard him.
“We’re dropping too fast – too fast!” said Duggie’s mate, slipping and sliding like Buster Keaton on marbles.
When they hit the bucket of soapy water, Apollo 11 stylee, the bubble exploded and merged with the rest of the suds.
It was catastrophic for our heroes, who, as if by magic, became full-sized, splitting the bucket into a prosthetic spring flower - the sides splayed out flat and white against a grey, car-bubble-water-wet tarmac – covered by the sprawling figures of Duggie, his mate, the cyclist and the pike…
Dazed for a moment, they opened their eyes simultaneously [except the Pike, whose eyes couldn’t close], and looked into the silhouetted face of Geoffrey from Rainbow, who’d been washing his new car. “What the…” he said.
Tuesday 2 March 2010
Interlude: Flight of the Bubble – (and ‘Flying’ by The Beatles) [NOTE: No Pikes were harmed in the scribbling of this drivel].
[‘Flying’ from The Beatles’s ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ is playing in the ethereal background as the lager bubble, containing our heroes - plus the cyclist and a 20lb pike, floats to another era. Inside the bubble, each of them is floating around in a weightless atmosphere. Just like the spacemen from Apollo, well Apollo anything really…]
“Being in here, listening to ‘Flying’, floating around, kind of reminds me of the ‘Space Bouncer’ that we used to get excited about when we were kids and came to the seaside,” said Duggie’s mate.
“What, you mean that orange and white sort of enclosed-bouncy-castle thing that they set up on the beach?” said Duggie.
“Yeah, you me and my cousins jumped about in that thing for hours until our feet were black (because you weren’t allowed shoes and socks in there)” said his mate, “and we were red and sweaty and ready for an ice cream.”
“I remember thinking about that bloody thing as soon as we hit the motorway on our way down – literally 5 minutes from home,” said Duggie.
“But you’d already polished off the sarnies by then…” said Duggie’s mate, completing a back-flip, just like disco dancer used to in the ‘70s, only they had gravity to contend with.
“Why didn’t it float away,” said the cyclist, attempting to slurp a line of Red Stripe that was floating past, he missed, “I mean, it was on the beach, that bouncy thing, so why didn’t it just float away? What did they tie it to?”
“I don’t know,” said Duggie’s mate, “that’s a really good question.”
“I really dig flying,” said Duggie, “one of my favourite Beatles tunes as it goes. I love the funky, twugging bassline…”
“Twugging?” said Duggie’s mate and the cyclist in unison.
[…gasping for oxygen] “Hey, you guys! Are you nuts?” It was the pike.
“Yeah, twugging,” said Duggie, “that kind of blobby late-‘60s, high-up-in-the-mix bass sound.”
“They used to use ‘Flying’ all the time on the telly, like when there was a documentary with hot-air balloons in it,” said the cyclist.
“I don’t remember many documentaries featuring hot-air balloons,” said Duggie, “I remember that Nimble bread advert, but that used different music.”
[…sound of heavy gill-movement] “Hey! I’m drowning here!” gasped the pike, “stop talking rubbish about music and GIVE ME SOME WATER!”
Duggie turned and gave the pike a Paddington Bear-like hard stare: “Listen, mate,” said Duggie, looking straight down his own arm as the pike was still attached to his fishing line, “this is ‘Me and Duggie Chop Talk Music’ you know. It’s kinda what we do here: talk crap about tunes we like.”
Duggie continued: “Before I was interrupted by our fishy friend, I’m also into the ‘stylophone-esque’ keyboard tone and the ‘la, la, la, la, la chorus on Flying.”
“And it’s only about a minute and a half long, amazing,” added Duggie’s mate.
Meanwhile, the cyclist was emptying the contents of a six-pack of 500ml cans of Red Stripe into a fold-up camping-style water-butt that he’d just pulled out of his rucksack, “Bung the bugger in there,” he said, belching, “that’ll sort him out.”
[So, Duggie, his mate, the cyclist and a soon-to-be drunk pike continued on their journey to 1982. Who’d have thought that you could ‘boldly go’ (that’s a reference to Star Trek rather than an unintentional split-infinitive) so far in a bubble of lager? And they say there’s no chemicals in it…]
“Don’t forget,” said Duggie’s mate, as the bubble floated out of sight, “the Walrus was Paul.”
“Being in here, listening to ‘Flying’, floating around, kind of reminds me of the ‘Space Bouncer’ that we used to get excited about when we were kids and came to the seaside,” said Duggie’s mate.
“What, you mean that orange and white sort of enclosed-bouncy-castle thing that they set up on the beach?” said Duggie.
“Yeah, you me and my cousins jumped about in that thing for hours until our feet were black (because you weren’t allowed shoes and socks in there)” said his mate, “and we were red and sweaty and ready for an ice cream.”
“I remember thinking about that bloody thing as soon as we hit the motorway on our way down – literally 5 minutes from home,” said Duggie.
“But you’d already polished off the sarnies by then…” said Duggie’s mate, completing a back-flip, just like disco dancer used to in the ‘70s, only they had gravity to contend with.
“Why didn’t it float away,” said the cyclist, attempting to slurp a line of Red Stripe that was floating past, he missed, “I mean, it was on the beach, that bouncy thing, so why didn’t it just float away? What did they tie it to?”
“I don’t know,” said Duggie’s mate, “that’s a really good question.”
“I really dig flying,” said Duggie, “one of my favourite Beatles tunes as it goes. I love the funky, twugging bassline…”
“Twugging?” said Duggie’s mate and the cyclist in unison.
[…gasping for oxygen] “Hey, you guys! Are you nuts?” It was the pike.
“Yeah, twugging,” said Duggie, “that kind of blobby late-‘60s, high-up-in-the-mix bass sound.”
“They used to use ‘Flying’ all the time on the telly, like when there was a documentary with hot-air balloons in it,” said the cyclist.
“I don’t remember many documentaries featuring hot-air balloons,” said Duggie, “I remember that Nimble bread advert, but that used different music.”
[…sound of heavy gill-movement] “Hey! I’m drowning here!” gasped the pike, “stop talking rubbish about music and GIVE ME SOME WATER!”
Duggie turned and gave the pike a Paddington Bear-like hard stare: “Listen, mate,” said Duggie, looking straight down his own arm as the pike was still attached to his fishing line, “this is ‘Me and Duggie Chop Talk Music’ you know. It’s kinda what we do here: talk crap about tunes we like.”
Duggie continued: “Before I was interrupted by our fishy friend, I’m also into the ‘stylophone-esque’ keyboard tone and the ‘la, la, la, la, la chorus on Flying.”
“And it’s only about a minute and a half long, amazing,” added Duggie’s mate.
Meanwhile, the cyclist was emptying the contents of a six-pack of 500ml cans of Red Stripe into a fold-up camping-style water-butt that he’d just pulled out of his rucksack, “Bung the bugger in there,” he said, belching, “that’ll sort him out.”
[So, Duggie, his mate, the cyclist and a soon-to-be drunk pike continued on their journey to 1982. Who’d have thought that you could ‘boldly go’ (that’s a reference to Star Trek rather than an unintentional split-infinitive) so far in a bubble of lager? And they say there’s no chemicals in it…]
“Don’t forget,” said Duggie’s mate, as the bubble floated out of sight, “the Walrus was Paul.”
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