SMOKING REMAINS



A loud noise at lunchtime wakes me and I wonder - what the fuck? WW11
UXB apparently someone stood on it by mistake is the news. Oh well time
I was up anyway so why worry about some poor slob even now meeting with
his maker of whom the less said etc may he rest in peace notwithstanding
nobody knows his name or number he just moved in the man not the maker
with his wife and dog.

I perform that dour deliberation so redolent of the gentleman and shine
my shoes of course a trick I picked up at school. Slipper to the kitchen
initiating proceedings there knocking over a mug of coffee I was about
to sip blast now I'll have to make another look at the bloody time I'm
nothing like ready to go can't seem to shrug off this hunch of sobriety
surely bending my back. I notice I'm not shaking today, nearly, vibrations
must have tuned in to my wavelength and smoothed it out so the scattered
man didn't die in vain. Only passing strange he should choose that very
moment to tread on a slug that exploded? Idly speculating, loading a sling
bag with books I borrowed in the porous hope of enlightenment leaving no
tome unlearned but what I want to know is - what has literature the fuck
to do with life? And how does one avoid it? Scrambled eggs is the answer
as is so often the case.

Where was I? Oh yes on my way out like a light fantastic tripping down
the road to the library not the pub where the world goes alas ah listen
I will hie me home sober and OD on Casablanca tonight. Sobriety becomes
me I do say broken liver aside on the whole not to be too peculiar about
it without prejudice yes I do say sobriety suits me rather well hell a
summer without gin who needs it - is that right? No not me not I no beer
either mind neither wine. Still. There's always walking in the rain. And cocaine.

Passing the place where the bang occurred I resist the urge to applaud.
Who knows your man might be there in spirit his flesh is flecking the
wall spirals of blue ascending his wife howling the dog cowering large
fluorescent men scooping up his smoking remains and I think yeah ain't
it the truth as I hurry by holding my nose there's always some fucker
worse off than yourself.

 

THE MURDER FLAT

They were a quiet couple, the Palmers. If you saw them in the car park or in the lobby, they’d nod and hurry along, Mrs Palmer meek behind her husband, shopping clinking. He was average. Everything about him was average. She was ordinary. Nothing about her attracted a second glance. Although, sometimes, as she padded meekly behind Mr Palmer, you might notice a tightening of the lips, a narrowing of the eyes, and if you let yourself look down you might see her neat fists curled rigid, unpainted nails digging into palms. 

One evening, waiting for the lift with them, pleasantries exchanged, when it came I ushered them in ahead of me, my floor below theirs. As I moved forward to exit I happened to look in the mirror on one side of the lift and I saw Mrs Palmer staring with intense hatred, no other word to describe it, at her husband's back.

I couldn't speak. I waved and gave them a nod and a smile, neighbourly. 'Bloody hell,' I thought, 'That was scary.' I'd never seen a mark on Mrs Palmer, nothing to suggest physical abuse, but now I began to think about the way they must be in private. I was up at three that night down a rabbithole when I heard a heavy crunching sound. Couple of hours later the ambulance left. He had died in a sweaty, stinking stupor on top of her, we learned. Took her an hour to free herself, she said, and to call the emergency services. They had found him with his face buried in her pillow. The jury took ten minutes to send her home.