Une Journée dans la Vie

It was in the pallid, porous light of an unseasonably tepid morning, of that peculiar grey which seems not so much to veil the sun as to render its existence an ambiguous rumour, that I — having, quite without conscious volition, awoken late, the way one sometimes slips into dreams of reality only to find oneself thrust into reality’s dream — came upon the curious report of a man, whose life, interrupted by death, was rendered all the more vivid in the amber of newspaper print.

He had, they said, — though the verb trembled on the page with a mournful pastness — achieved a kind of existence not so much noteworthy for its deeds as for the mere fact of its cessation. He was English — or had been, as all Englishmen are until they are no longer — and the photograph of him, which accompanied the article, showed an expression of wistful confusion, as though he had only just begun to understand the meaning of the world at the precise moment he was fated to leave it. I, still half-immersed in the silken remnants of sleep, mused on this stranger’s departure from the world as I stirred the lukewarm dregs of tea that had sat cooling beside me since an hour I had failed to inhabit with presence.

Woke up, late again, what time?

the sky all bleared and bloated, snotgreenflannelgrey, damn near eleven by the crumbclock, ash in the saucer, I was dreaming something, something about marching hats and the oily look of newsprint, he died, oh, he died, poor bugger, hadn’t noticed that the lights had changed, and no one to say a prayer — just a line in the paper, a smudge in ink, a smear of man gone, nobody really sure if he was from the House of Louts rather sad but I just had to laugh. Onlookers’ only interest was the man’s celebrity. Thus travestied as a spectacle. A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk. Once upon a time and a very good time it was.

Meaningless.

Eyes blink slow in the morninggrip, lids like curtains on the puppetshow of what’s real, what isn’t. News on the breakfasttray. Toast, left too long. The English army had just won the war, won it like a raffle or a pennyrace. Now they’re scraping his face off the road and printing it like it’s worth something. Drank a cup. Soar a film.

Pause.

Comb. Yes. Comb now. Drag it, scratch it, rake the bristles through the haystack crown, mop of this mortal coil, the scalp tingles electric, like the soul trying to leak out through the skull. Ah, that’s better. That’s worse. Reflection’s a liar. Who is this? Don’t answer. Head full of bees and bells. Shake it. Go on, get out, the day is leaking.

Down the stairs clatterthud, morningfoot still asleep, sockless stumble into the clatterday outside, a horde of grimy children populating the street, crawling up the steps before the gaping doors, or squatted like mice upon the threshold. Rain or sun? Half and half, as ever. The sky’s drunk and undecided. Hop a bus, why not, ride the beast. Rattle and squeal. Streetfaces blur past, tired eyes, typewriter clacks in the brain, thinkthinkthink about things that have no names. Black holes in the road, black holes in the soul. Fell in one once, still falling. Still. Somebody spoke.

Sleep slips sideways. Go into a dream. Soft dissolve. I’m on the edge of a cinema seat, trenchcoat sticky with old gum, boots wet, reel flicker, it’s war again, bombs like brass fruit falling, men in tin hats running like they left the kettle on. Having read the book. Laughed. I laughed. But not at the war. At the woman in front of me with the laugh like a hiccup, reminding me of someone — of someone — what was her name? Doesn’t matter. All names slide off in the rain. Four thousand holes in Blackburn Lancashire though rather small.

Then that feeling. You know. That one. That itch behind the brain. That want — not for touch, not for taste, but turning. Turning over. Turning in. Turning on. Softly parting lips darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Yes and first she put her arms all around me yes and drew me down to her so I could feel her breasts all perfume yes and my heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes I have to count them all.

I’d love to. Love to like a whisper, like a prayer behind a hand in the pew. Love to like lightning in the blood. Love to turn you on. A longing, not carnal, but spiritual, almost metaphysical, to awaken others from their slumber. To shatter the shell of ordinary perception. He lifts the life wand and the dumb speak,

Quoi,quoi,quoi,quoi,quoi,quoi,quoiq!

And then, everything shudders. Pull out his eyes, apologize, pull out his eyes

Orchestra — bigbang — the godnote — the sound of a thousand violins dropping their bows at once, everything up, up, up, and then

the keys to. Given! A way, A lone, A last, A loved, Along the

Silence.

Hole in the song.

Crater where time used to be. Final chord on three pianos tracked four times. Recorded separately. Twelve days later.

Woke up. read the news today,

Again?

Don’t know when I fell asleep. Don’t know if I was ever awake. The teacup cold now, rim stained, the chair molded to the shape of my forgetting. Sun’s gone or never was.

oh boy