Smoke gets in your eyes

“Yes, it’s real,” I say, quickly suppressing a knowing smile as I remove my coat.

From the corner of a tired but trendy oak panelled wine bar, where fairy lights twinkle and whimsy yawns, I sense reality shift as my new friends, Derek and Annie, take in the implication of my words.

Derek, terribly noble, looking for an affair, lover of beard art, shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Like his wife, Annie, Derek is facing a moral dilemma.

“Sorry,” Derek says in a half-whisper, “I might’ve misheard you. Did you say that your coat is real fur?”

“Yes darling,” I reply, oozing nonchalance with a touch of glamour.

Derek isn’t happy, but he puts on a brave face. His wife, Annie, Vegemite lover and secret collector of tattoos, is disgusted. After a few seconds of indecision, she settles for a grimace squeezed into the shape of a smile.

For the last two weeks, Derek and Annie have been pursuing me as a friend. Over the last week, their pursuit has intensified. When things get intense like this, the past has taught me to work out if people like me, or want airtime with daddy. For tonight’s temperature check, I’ve selected mummy’s old mink. Fur tends to divide a liberal principled crowd.

Smoke Gets in your Eyes drifts across the wine bar. I pick up the tune and start to hum, masking the uncomfortable silence.

------------------

Reference:
Wine Bar, Crystal Palace, London

Revels and Rebels XIV

Dear Santa, It's Epiphany. Twelfth Night. You're about to hang up your Christmas sack for the festive season and here I am writing to you with my last-minute request. I know, I'm as irritating as a Christmas Pudding that refuses to light no matter how much warm brandy you pour on it. Soggy Christmas Pudding aside, there is a reason why this letter is late. I've been ruminating over what to wish for. And the thing is this - I still don't know what to wish for. My current plan, or hope, is that in writing to you I might write myself into my wish. The thing is this, since the pandemic began, I'm having trouble finding a way to live in the world. Working out what I must suffer, what I can change. How to navigate sorrow and joy. And how to live with the conflicts within whilst the noise of division and marginalisation rage all around. Sometimes, they become one of the same. Sounds confusing, right? And fuelling this confusion is the general level of fear we have to

Revels and Rebels XV

Dear Santa, When I was kid, I created a make believe village. Do you remember it? Every Christmas, between the ages of eight to twelve, I asked for Philip Laureston village figurines – perfectly detailed buildings complete with climbing roses and house signs. My village started with a cottage, the Rose and Crown pub and an oak tree. Over the years it was extended to include a farm, a school, a church, a village hall, shops and a duck pond. Each week I visited the villagers and had delightful conversations and arguments, and in the messiness of my imagination I understood what made their imagined lives happier. I remember one heated debate where the parents demanded a school house because they thought it was inappropriate to educate their children in the Rose and Crown pub. The children rather liked their lessons in the snooker room. The parents won. Since the Pandemic began, I can honestly say that I’ve truly understood what life was really like for my imagined villagers. This idea of

The last jam sandwich

Alpha (Left) and Omega (Right), London 2020 It’s how you knew breakfast time was over. You and your sister, sitting like bookends At the top of the garden steps. Us, at the bottom, throwing Chicken strip, mini-burger, liver biscuit And then – the jam sandwich – presented. You’d sit down, eyes thinning to a slit. A moment of meditation before the second arrived And Paradise fell into your mouth. Foxes. Born into our garden amid a pandemic spring. Accepting of the new world, whilst we could barely stand. We named you, Alpha and Omega, In respect of your wildness, Your status in the earth. A menace others called you. We took a breath as you approached Mange-stricken, injury-ridden, motherless. And so our routine began – chicken strip, Mini-burger, liver biscuit and a jam sandwich Sprinkled with magic dust to heal. This spring, you’re all grown up. Teenagers who know how to catch. Playing together, risking it all on the The trajectory of sliced bread. As teeth meets jam, you run wi

Polka Dot Thinking...

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