Journal

I got used to falling asleep at three in the morning after a night full of laughter and hands colliding, your shining eyes, here I am in the dark, watching the fan wings spin over my head

Monday 12th December 2005 ' 12:17 am A very good while later, after we'd put some more air in that whisky bottle, Sherlock and I stepped out into the night and Denise locked the door behind us. Everyone else had long gone. Sherlock stood in the lee of the door and fashioned a rollie, which he lit with the Zippo he keeps on a string around his neck. Looking up, I saw Denise's light go on in the room above the bar. Her shadow passed across the blinds and dropped out of sight as she collapsed on her sofa. I knew that feeling.

Sunday 4th December 2005 ' 9:37 pm ...and so, Sunday night at the local, to swamp my miseries. Or so I thought¦ Mad Mack's (The Mad Mackeral to give it it's full name) is the only decent pub in town. It's opposite the clock tower on the seafront, at the apex of a triangle formed by Prospect Hill, Wrack Alley and Eastern Esplanade. The bar is correspondingly v-shaped, looking like the prow of a ship cleaving through an ocean of maroon carpet: Public Bar to port, Saloon to starboard. There's no dividing wall between the two, though. It's just a matter of furnishing and decor. The Saloon is cosier, with its sagged-out armchairs and nicotine-sepia'd pictures. The Public, on the other hand, has red leather stools and a juke box (a genuine Rock-ola 'Bubbler', complete with arching neon tubes and original 50s song list). There's also a TV set in the corner, a fruit machine, a pool table and a dartboard. These last two, given the snug size of the bar, overlap each other's floor space to some extent. If both are being used at once, the players of one have to give way to the players of the other in turn if dart-punctured buttocks or cue-shafted arseholes are to be avoided.

The human condition Such as it is The human condition Such as it was The human condition Such as it will be: Shit heaping Shit atop Shit.