He prepares the ticket, tearing it down the middle then folding each half into two inverted ‘V’s, slightly stretched out of shape. With soft precision he places them edge to edge on the small ‘Stop’ button ridge so that they form a sharp ‘M’ there. The vibrations of the bus cause them to separate and so, with the tip of his forefinger, he pushes them back together trying to maintain their shape; a quiet smile to himself when he succeeds. If they fall then he catches them in his open palm waiting there below, almost cursing the driver out loud for unwittingly despoiling his creation. He derives satisfaction from the company of paper. Gradually he is turning into parchment. His skin, his hair fibres; the ink of his life sketched out again and again, over and over, there until the self is almost indecipherable.

Sheffield

The more dangerous the pathways round here, broken glass, shattered metals of infinite variety, the more one must learn that old sufi trick of walking on hot coals just to traverse this goddamned city. For it seems a cult of broken glass, of dangerous litter strewn on the pavements and walkways is becoming prevalent. You’re lucky if you dodge the shitty boys in their small loud groups and cars, beating-wagons they call them, with their peculiar screams and chants trying to scare wolves; their diesel fume breath and arses leaking oil, heavy on the brakes Eugene –

Monday mothballs and Bensons at the bus-stop –

‘You’re kidding me. You’re not really Italians are you?’
‘We’re not kidding. No.’
‘Just look at their surnames Frank.’
‘Sorry, I only bore holes in the ground. Didn’t mean to comment on your backgrounds. Just that you were so convincing that’s all.’

The Dancing Horses

There it is again: that dog barking late at night the only sound you hear – hollow; its cold agony resident at the back door of its possibly deaf or simply ignorant master. With it comes the pauce ring of Sunday night.

A city of broken glass, shattered windows and broken bus stops leaving mounds of the glittering stuff in the path of pedestrians and traffic; great gobs of it now opaque where it rests, like untouchable ice; the result of some sledgehammer team wending their way from the north of the city through to the south and on the way taking out random objects to leave a trail of this. Their last hope at recognition as the wind starts to pick up.

Like i said, the Dancing Horses, bring 'em on:
There is this woman in her late twenties, striving for some sense of normality now – for example, she knows she wants a child – her husband, the epitome of the new urban rock-star (half geek, a dose of rat-arsed punk, and the overdose of a 60s West Coast guitarist), he is having none of it and in public will remind all of this, baulking there to her chagrin. Her trained classical leading edge is drawn to form and the simplicity of a certain pace in things, the correct unfolding, a tempo to life that has purpose, realisation. On the other hand, he is drawn to pubescent narcissism still, the finality of rock and all it’s self-centred excesses; the closer he gets to success, the more he digs in his Cuban heels. Where is their marriage going?

Forgive me the discrepancies, forgive me my ignorance and vanity, but what else am i meant to do with this stuff - gimme an ancient and well-worn T-shirt and let me roll, anyday -

Sheffield

Sheffield - March 07