Underground

Down and down they go. Down escalators and stairs. Little ants marching along brightly lit tunnels. Posters and advertisements accompany them every step of the way. They spill out onto the congested platform. Toes tapping. They glance at watches every other second. A disembodied voice shrieks over the Tannoy. The impatient throng murmurs. Everyone is late. Everyone is always late. The tracks rattle. Celestial lights shoot out from the darkness. The crowd pushes dangerously behind the thick yellow line. Mind the Gap. Mind the Gap. Mind the bloody Gap. The enclosed cave fills with a thunderous roar. A gust of chilly air hits them smack in the face. The train grinds to a screeching halt. Whoosh. The doors open. Passengers fall out on top of the waiting queues. They shove back in return. They elbow. They squeeze themselves in, filling every last available space. An orgy of intertwined contortionists. The doors close. Bang. They open again. “Please keep clear from the doors. Keep clear from the doors please. ” Closed. An over packed suitcase bursting at the zipper. The horizontal rocket shoots off into the all-consuming shadows. A chorus of newspapers rustle. The Evening Standard. The Metro. The Guardian. Books, phones, iPods are pulled out from jacket pockets. Minds disengaged from bodies that loll from side to side. The salesman next to the Sheikh. The chic yuppie back-to-back with the Sports Direct clad yob. A deranged metallic clanging cries out from beneath them. Eyes peer covertly from behind books to peruse rainbow coloured maps. If eyes meet, they are averted at cosmic speeds. That is the rule. Coughs. Sneezes. Yawns. They inhale a cocktail of distilled germs. The depleting air is suffused with the aromas of a thousand take-away lunches. Greggs. McDonald’s. Nando’s. Wok-in-a-Box. M&S and Pret A Manger for the more refined. Franchise coffee is on the breath of everyone. No one dare breathe. No one can escape the monstrous melting pot moving en masse.

Should I Tell You?

Should I tell you? Should I tell you that Jim is cheating on you? Or do you know? Are you one of these modern couples that are OK with friends with benefits? And if I told you and that were true, would you think me prudish? Wouldn't it be best to tell you anyway, just in case?

But how do I tell you? Do I send you an anonymous tip-off? Do I tell one of your girlfriends so that they can break the news to you? Or do I come out with it matter-of-factly? What is the protocol in these situations? Do I invite myself over on the grounds that I have important news you need to know? But then how can I make sure Jim isn’t going to be there? Should I ask to meet you over a coffee or a walk in the park perhaps? Or is it best to avoid public places in these circumstances? Would you think it unusual or even forward of me to ask you over to my place alone? Would you decline? And if you did say yes at what part of the conversation do I bring up Jim’s cheating? Do I need to make chit chat when you come in? Or should I look serious from the start? Is this a sofa or a kitchen-table conversation? Do I serve tea? Why am I thinking about sofas and tea?

Once we are seated do I just say that I was out last weekend and saw Jim with another woman? How much more information should I reveal? Should I mention that she was blonde and beautiful? Would you want to hear about the way they kissed, the way they felt each other up? Or would that be too much? Do I tell you that I followed them from club to club, watched as they got drunker and drunker and more and more intimate? And when they finally stumbled out onto the cold damp streets just as dawn was breaking and jumped into a cab together, do I tell you that I trailed them like some seedy P.I. until they pulled up outside a hotel? Would you think my actions disturbing, excessive? Would you ask why I didn’t intervene? Why I didn’t phone you up immediately? Why I let it wait five whole days? Would you never want to speak to me again?

Or would you move into my arms and let me comfort you? Would you let me stroke your hair and whisper in your ear that everything would be OK? Do I tell you that you deserve better than Jim? Would you realise that I am better?

Camels & Needles

Lately I've been pondering
     camels and needles
Because lately you've been squandering
     the wealth of a king
So to cure my insecurity
     I hang out in cathedrals
That dwarf your stately villas
     and shroud you in sin

For ye have received your consolation
I sure as hell need mine
Is it too much to ask
     for a soul to console?
If the good life is yours
     can't eternity be mine?

But for all my hope in balance
I know you'll tip the scales
Typical of you to not be satisfied
With the just forever flames

And while your empire rises

Mine seems further reduced
So I'll take all I can get
Even if all I can get
   is a single beatitude

The Jar marked Mercy

The jar marked Mercy is empty
It sits conspicuously on her shelf
Despite all the bric-a-brac and crockery
And the mugs stained with coffee
His eyes don’t take in much else

There still is Grace aplenty
And half a decanter of Doubt
The demijohn of Muse
She’s yet to consume
As her imagination has never run out

A carafe of Lust she keeps by the fire
Deep scarlet, fruity and smooth
Every evening she pours
A glass, or four
To help get them both in the mood

But it’s the empty jar of Mercy that concerns him
As from out the cupboard a gift wrapped in ribbon she pulls
It’s their anniversary today
And somehow he now needs to explain
His bottle of Forget was full

Tardy Town {a glimpse}

The mysterious circumstances pertaining to the town christened Tardy, and all that followed.

At precisely 3 o’clock in the dead of a chilly Thursday night in December, the St. Sanctus church bell sounded across the little town of Tardy. Precisely seven people in the town were still awake that night and thus were the few who heard the bell’s clangourous hollow din reverberating from its mount in the Church tower.

Raymond Rechid was one of the seven not yet claimed by the realm of sleep, and truth be told Raymond had no choice but to hear the bell’s clamour, as he was Tardy town’s staunch bell-ringer.

While the mass of Tardy town’s inhabitants were tucked soundly in bed, Raymond would nightly make his way to the Church - a short two streets walk from his unintended bachelor abode - turn the bulky rusting key in the old wooden Church tower door, and there he would carry-out his appointed duty of the ringing of the bell. As St. Sanctus’ sole subservient, Raymond was also appointed to be dreary daily altar server, lonesome aisle sweeper, makeshift pallbearer and unavoidable-if-undesired gravedigger.

In comparison to these humdrum chores, he simply relished ringing the town bell; the thud of the clapper against the bell’s inner rim, the pouring of sound all around him filling the tower to its brim, the quivering sensation eddying down the bell’s rope through his hands.

He knew the bell so intimately that with just the slightest flick of the wrist he could direct the clapper to the bell’s sweetest spots, allowing for differing degrees in the sound’s tonality and texture to resonate and reverberate across the town. For those two or three minutes each night Raymond Rechid ceased to be a sad thirty-six year old bachelor whose only purpose in life was to perform St. Sanctus church’s dirty work. He transformed into a conjurer of sound; a straight-backed and not so socially shunned kindred spirit of Quasimodo.

Fr. Dione, the parish priest, grimaced at the tolling of the bell. Perched like an old balding vulture at the end of his bed, Fr. Dione’s reason for being awake at such an ungodly hour was not out of any pious religious devotion. Quite simply it was Fr. Dione who paid Raymond Rechid’s weekly wages out of the St. Sanctus’ daily monetary gatherings. And quite simply, if Raymond was to miss any one of his never-ending appointed church duties, Fr. Dione would, with a feeling of relief befitting any miserly old man, refuse to pay Raymond his entitled sum; a sum that even an ordinary Tardy town child would scoff at.

Somewhat grudgingly, Fr. Dione picked up his thumb-sized graphite pencil from his bedside table and crossed the Thursday night box off his scrutinisingly extensive Rechid’s weekly performance checklist. Pulling back the stiff as cardboard bed sheets, he crawled underneath for some well needed shuteye.