Arriving by Bus in the French Countryside

The bus left me in a place that looked like it wouldn’t need a bus stop. A place with no landmarks. Fields in front and fields behind. And the nearest crossroads was about two hundred yards away at least. Some careful calculation must have been made to make sure that the stop was in the best location, but I couldn’t work it out at all.

People had got on and gotten off at the various towns we had passed through: places with a restaurant and a post office maybe and, in a lot of cases, a pretty church in front of a pretty square, perhaps a fountain as a mark of distinction. There was no one to be seen on the streets a lot of the time. Shutters up over the windows. It was a bright day, so you could see all the more clearly how bare the streets were.

One town we came through did have some activity: a couple of people sitting outside a cafe drinking and speaking to each other. This was as lively as it got along the way. Otherwise it was fields and fields and fields.

At the stop where I had been told I’d need to get off: if I had been the only one getting off then I probably would have doubted myself to the point of staying on the bus. There have been times when I would lack confidence so much that I could stay put and ride out any amount of inconvenience, all the way to the end of the line, rather than face the fearful prospect of – gasp, horror – having to stand up and be seen and speak to someone.

In any case I did get off at that stop, along with three other people.

One went over to a bicycle that was chained to a pole there. He was youngish, wearing shoes that I wouldn’t fancy cycling in. More like slippers, but made from something like woven straw. Very odd looking. He was also wearing chic trousers that didn’t cover his ankles and a kind of military jacket.

Probably, he had found this jacket in a bin of clothes at a Parisian second hand shop. He had the whiff of the big city about him, though he was unchaining his bike in the middle of nowhere where he would wreck his straw shoes within two seconds if he stepped in any mud. He wheeled away. As he was speeding off with great purpose, I started to imagine he was on his way to a fine old house that had been converted into an artists’ commune. He certainly had the jacket to make him a lieutenant there.

The other two crossed the road to where a car was waiting. They got in, greeted the driver and he sped them away.

Then, with the bus gone too, I was left to look around and wonder which direction I had to go. I really should have more of an effort to speak to people on the bus.

in the grotto

It began innocently enough. We just had to wrap some gifts.

But Clive said he needed to get one more thing. I should pop down with him before we started wrapping everything up. I was against it and I know now that I should have stuck with my instinct.

getting rich off double divvy

Clive and I were divvy millionaires. It didn’t last long, but for a few terrible weeks we were famous. Louts. Chancers. That’s what they said.

It came about quite simply, thanks not only to chance. We gave ourselves a leg-up with a little bit of work. Clive came up with the chorus. A lot more besides, but that chorus was where it all began:

“you gotta give me

that double divvy”

I Want to Move Everywhere

I want to move everywhere and when I see a job post advertising a position in Nanjing, that is suddenly my next destination. When I get an inkling that there could be a life for me in Central Africa, I have an uncontrollable urge to go there. This is a ridiculous urge. I want to tear across the sky at great speed, I want to move over the Earth like a plague of locusts. I will rip up the ground with my beating feet and seep into the cracked earth.
I will flood out whole riverbeds
I will be a rolling drop of water on a leaf washed down a waterfall
I will be a moment that cannot be captured
I will be dead for a thousand million years
Let me live first

Addicted to Jonathan Lee (李宗盛)

After listening to his music while working, I got addicted to the sound of Jonathan Lee's voice. His lyrics melted my heart and his spirit went up my nose and into my brain. He's marked me like chocolate ice-cream on white trousers. Good luck getting that out!

The tinkling ivories tinkle away against a twilight background. The slow clap of a hushed million-strong audience rushes and shushes like crashing waves on a distant coast. Nestled in his voice, I fall asleep.

In my dreams he is a dragon. We fight weaponised ghouls and go on cross-continental open-air flights. Over rocky outcrops, we hover and watch as the sirens sat there call their sailors in. Beauty has killed. Beauty is the death of hope. I heard about it in a Jonathan Lee song.

As if he's been waiting for this chance to show me the world, Jonathan Lee picks me up and takes me over the ocean. We land on a vast plain, where great trees reach up into the boundless sunlight and fruit farms are spaced out. Banana trees and mango trees and betel nut bushes are ranged in rows. We walk along chatting. Jonathan Lee is a good conversationalist. I prefer to listen, so he starts to explain some complex theories to me. He is very well-read but breaks these ideas down like any serious matter was just as simple as the arrangement made by grains of sand as they shift randomly on the shore. I've explained it poorly, he would do a much better job.

As we walk and the sun beats down on us, I dare not ask for any water, since Jonathan doesn't seem to need any. He is talking about Post-Structuralism. I only dimly get what he's on about. My throat is so dry that it's beyond help. It's all I can think about.

"...the mutation that affects it is so profound and so decisive, the content of the political economy so thoroughly changed, indeed annihilated, that the term is nothing more than an allusion."

In actual fact, the words he's saying may be nothing like this. They would ceetainly be easier to understand, but my attention's gone. The sunlight's got so bright that it takes all my concentration to deal with blinking it out. Each time I open my eyes, my head drifts a little distance further from the centre.

Thankfully we get out of the sun and into some shade when we reach the edge of a forest. Lee is still talking. I can only blame myself as I've not summoned the energy to tell him to stop. Ahead of us we can see a large clearing, where several houses are set out. There's a low hum, ever louder, like the noise of a light aircraft preparing for take-off. It somehow gets into my ears, deeper than I'd like it to go. My brain feels cooked already. Now my nerves are vibrating, like paper puppets on the end of strings held in the hands of this droning sound. I pass out and have to be carried the last few hundred yards. Fortunately, Jonathan Lee is as strong as an ox.  

Waking up, I realise that I've dreamt much of what I thought were memories. Jonathan Lee is no dragon. We didn't fly on the back of some giant beast, we probably took a private plane.

The village is tiny, surrounded by thick forest. Beyond the forest is the open plain we walked across, where I got sunstroke. Stepping outside, I see that the sun is up and as hot as hell. The surrounding trees do somewhat mitigate the sun's fury, but I'm still constantly squinting.

The noise I heard, which made me pass out, turns out to be a generator. It hums away in the background constantly. Sleeping through that sound over night seems to have got me accustomed to it. It is a constant that you never think of.

The generator is mainly used to power the hospital tent. A lot of people convalesce there. Conditions are pretty basic. While I've been sleeping, Jonathan Lee has been anxiously pacing about, trying to help in any way he can. There isn't much for him to do, so he's taken to wandering up and down between the beds, singing the lyrics to one of his songs: "走吧! 走吧!" (zou ba! zou ba!, which means something like 'go on! go on!'). When he realises that his voice can't cure anyone, he weeps like a helpless child. I have to take him away, because he's upsetting the critically ill youngsters.

We escape that afternoon. With the sun still so high and hot, we board the town's one bus and head to the nearest town. I sleep on the bus. I'm not sure if Lee sleeps at all. He seems wired. Like a man possessed. What's going on in his head, I do not know.

Up and down and round and round the bus goes, like a circus joke, like a fairground ride. We don't get there before dark and as we near the town, where the traffic gets thicker and the roads busier, we are still passing the hills at the end of the plain. There are endless corners and there is nothing you see, just the sweep of a bus that speeds along with you barely holding on. It seems this way when you're in and out of sleep. When we arrive, I'm extremely thankful the journey's over.

The first thing Jonathan Lee does is buy a bottle of beer. We find somewhere to stay, check the room and go straight out. We have dinner in the market, where these bright, bare light bulbs hang down over stainless steel tables. You add chilli flakes and chilli sauce to your noodles. We have seaweed as a side dish. Jonathan Lee has a massive appetite. He washes everything down with his third and fourth beers. 

Playing pool, we meet two women. Lee knows what to do. He's stepped up a gear, become another man. Focused now, he gets them to come back to our room. Oddly, once we're there, he wants to talk about Post-Structaralism again. I was already feeling sleepy. The window's open and the curtains flutter about. In great waves, the room sweeps from wind-side, across the one woman's hair, passing onto her friend's blouse. Lee talks. I fall asleep.

They are gone when I wake up. I can hear Jonathan Lee singing in the shower. When we leave the hotel, I bump into a passing teenager. He is with his friends, who are slumping aroujnd beside him like hyeenas. The head dog steps foward and barks at me. My head is splitting and the sun is bright and I am enjoying the silence of not speaking. Lee and I have not yet spoken today. I observe the dog from behind the sunglasses I bought in the market the day before. Feeling like the world could be peaceful, I imagine that I can simply go on not speaking. Instead, the barking goes on. I start to walk off, as does Jonathan Lee, but the hyeenas hold us back and there are quite a few of them. I'm not sure if they hit Lee, but soon I'm on the ground and I feel them stamping on me. Their laughter and cries get louder.

I wake up in a field, where the grass is quite long. I feel like my head has split from the inside. Jonathan Lee is singing, so I lie there listen to him.

He stops singing and, out of the blue, recites the following poem:

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

Are you - Nobody - Too?

Then there's a pair of us?

Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!

How dreary - to be - Somebody!

How public - like a Frog - 

To tell one's name - the livelong June - 

To an admiring Bog!

which seemed odd.

Hiding

When this wind came in, we had to hide. But it happened too soon to go and close the door, the one that swung about and let the cold in. When you're cowering behind the furniture, in a fort you've made as quickly as you can, like being forced back into childhood out of necessity, you know that going out there, and not just outside the fort but around the whole house practically, is out of the question. It would be better with the door closed though. It would be warmer for one thing. We're hid in here against the wind, seeing just a slice of the grey skies moving outside, and having a door open goes against what we're doing. Sarah kept saying so, kept repeating it. That wasn't helpful and could get annoying. Still none of us went to shut that door. This was a wind that dropped into you and compressed your hope until there's wasn't anything useful inside. This wasn't just a drop in pressure, this was the world eating itself, and when you're just a passing flicker of something on the surface of a world that's eating itself, you don't feel safe. This was a wind that took away all the joy and ease that was there before. We were paralysed, not even able to help ourselves. Sitting there thirsty and cold, what were we supposed to do?

Clearing Leaves

the leaves come down in orange droves. you might push them on and herd them together but around you is a rain of the freshly falling. their colours are as bright as phoenix cartoons, burning like royal robes.

we sweep in a constant fashion. it's a better exercise than you can imagine. works many muscles and gets you sweating in no time. sometimes you find your forehead tingles and your temples sting. we work systematically, like clearing paths through snow. once we're done on one strip, though it's already dotted with leaves that weren't there when we started, we move on to the next patch. great piles of leaves are quickly made. carting these off is the most back breaking part of it. the sweep of the sweeping, the repeated movement like, that feels like a dance, or an art, but lifting tonnes of sometimes already mulching foliage, that can hurt.

we work round the clock, with fifteen minutes in the morning and twenty for dinner. our work is never done. when the procession comes through we must stand to attention and you can imagine we see all too clearly, with more than a little annoyance, every single leaf that drops just then. the ceremony goes on, while the orange leaves of autumn sink through the air and onto refined shoulders. they are kicked up by blessed feet. we can't move a muscle but once the passing flares are fired and the back of the procession's been seen, we get back to work with doubled gusto. we might know that they know that a completely clear courtyard is an impossibility, but we still feel we want it better, and why do they have to come just as renewed gusts of wind bring greater scatterings of leaves. still, we are told that we are doing a good job. one superior has told another that we are doing a fine job. we're a credit they say. we shine with the pride of it, despite ourselves and only later though, since our first thought is that we haven't been keeping up with it that well.

Tenth Pointless Literary Exercise

The front page of yesterday's Guernsey Press said something along the lines of "Revellers at Church Hall". Being contrary, I decided to write about revelling in a temple setting. The headline reminded me of Matthew 21:12, which is, as we all know, about Jesus going all throwy-outy on dove vendors and money changers, but it also made me imagine revolutionary scenes. Being a pedantic contrarian, I looked up the word revel and saw that it has roots in the Latin verb 'to rebel'. Personally, I like the idea of writing about church-based rebellion, so I set myself the task of producing this quick post.

They whipped the pews and drove them out into the quiet of the street. Some of them lifted the tabernacle onto their shoulders and carried it up to the gallery, where they played tunes to it on the organ. Wine was taken from the chalice and love was made in the rectory. Once it got dark, a fire was made on the stone floor. Its flames passed illumination over the exhausted faces of those gathered there.

During the day, when candles were flung through the centuries-old stained glass windows, the light that flooded in was joyous, a celebration of its own. One could take fresh air into one's lungs. These screams, that reigned over all the chaos, were not disturbing, they were some holy, human incantation hung around them all.
Holy water flew through the air in so many arcs that one would have questioned just how much of the stuff there'd been in that font, were one not busy revelling. As it showered down, a pair of sweating merry makers lifted their faces, closed their eyes and opened their mouths. A puddle had formed in that corner of the vestibule. Beside it a grinning woman raked her hand over and over into the font, dragging handfuls of blessed water up into the crowd.

A pigeon flew in and was immediately confused. It almost drove itself to injury by flying in circles around the roof beams. A Korean man, manic with concern for the bird's well-being, managed to take it in his hands and set it free in the church gardens.

Second Pointless Literary Exercise

I teach children and recently read them a story from Winnie-the-Pooh. For this pointless literary exercise, I decided to rewrite one of the stories from the collection.

He was down by the stream when I found him, even more miserable than usual. There are times when dealing with him feels like stepping over an electrified fence, as in you fear getting shocked. In fact, he strives to create shocking situations. It’s a lot like a child’s behaviour. 

Today was a day when I didn’t think I had a care in the world. I‘m far from a model person, being  full of bitterness and forever ready to blame those around me for everything that goes wrong. However, today was full of sunshine and new flowers and colours that have been impossible through the entire winter. These things weren’t spoilt by his brattish behaviour. Instead, I couldn’t bring myself to concentrate on him.

Still, I found out what was irking him today. I asked him once and he said it was nothing. I stood there being quiet for a while. Then I just stood there, not consciously doing anything. I spent a while looking at the flowers and colours around us, all illuminated and wonderful in the bright of day. He got a bit shifty and asked me if I wanted some tea. The pot, a full, big one, was sat outside with his book. This tea was cold, yellow, pale, but tasted good. It was tepid enough to retain some of its tea-ness, to still have some of the effect it‘s supposed to. I tasted a delicious fragrance.

We were stood together then and he said that what was bothering him was not that it was his birthday and everyone had forgotten but that he was alone and being alone got tiring. He said that he needed occasions of togetherness, even if it was just silent communion and his birthday, while not being the ideal day to force some togetherness on himself or others, was a day when aloneness became starkly conspicuous.

After finishing another cup of tea and talking to him for a while longer, I went off. I followed the stream back to the bridge. I stopped briefly to try and pat the horse on his long nose, but he wouldn’t come to the fence.

I went round to Piggy’s and told him that we were going to get together that night and that he should bring something and that we’d need some drinks as well. I also went round to Rabbit’s but he wasn’t there.

Later on, I cooked for all of us and gave him this pot of organic, local honey as well, since he is always drinking hot lemon and honey, whether or not he has a cold. Come to think of it, he is always complaining of having a sore throat.

I had to open the honey when we were having hot drinks after dinner and even though I was opening it to make him his hot lemon and honey, he still scowled a bit at his present being opened. Back inside (They were sat outside with the mosquitoes and spring chill and this smell that reminds me of my childhood, something like frog spawn, the damp earth all fertile - not sure what it is that creates that smell, it’s not a pleasant smell but I like it.) I scooped up a spoonful of this honey and put it in my mouth. It was very good. I held the spoon over my tongue for some time, letting the honey go a bit soft, then I swallowed the lot.

Piggy had brought this sort of unwearable brooch that he had made out of a beer bottle cap and a piece of wood. In a way it looked nice, it had some colours on it. A bit fell off though. This bit that fell off was a wire loop that went round the wood. Neither piggy nor he could get it back on again, but he still seemed happy, he was distracted and kept talking loudly and laughing.