Eighteen Sheets to the Wind

I want to go home and read a book. Perhaps eat a whole packet of
biscuits drowned by sweet tea. I want to do this because I cannot take
this muddy brown-scarred chafed city for another fucking minute.

I want London to burn bright so something new can rise. A new colour of
rage that manifests into a contagious smile maybe.

An ounce of sense at the very least.

Pretentious crap I know.

Its what I feel though

Why?

Something an hour ago.

*

I was sitting in my office on the third floor, peering at a lottery
funding application on my screen that I knew to be a fraud; I knew it
because I wrote it. It's an application that will be granted hands
down. I can always pull it off.

I'm a winner.

And a liar.

That's the secret to getting money.

The theatre company that I work for has a mission statement.

'We Exclude Nobody'

Oh dear.

Nobody except for the poor office assistant who caught the Artistic
Director snorting up a large white line of old Columbian in the loo
yesterday morning. Then the Director in his over confident enhanced
state made a move on the office assistants jeans and the poor boy has
not been seen since.

The Artistic Director meanwhile has pissed off back home to Yeovil and
the duvet of his parents.

He is claiming tiredness.

There wont be any trouble of course because there is always a
smokescreen.

I know all this because the Artistic Director went blabber crazy on the
phone to me late last night. I was thrilled when his mobile packed in
somewhere near a god-forsaken place called Crewkerne.

The truth always gets excluded.

I am now a character of complicity

So, here I am, holding the fort. The good administrator and fundraiser
staring at a document that I could wipe from the computers memory in an
instant.

I will not of course, because I am a winner.

*

An hour ago from my window I saw a man across the road from the office.
He was pissed as an arse; he tumbled into the street like a pushed
rock, he tripped and fell into the edge of the road.

And there he stayed.

I started to print the Lottery document, eighteen pages of goodness
that the will alleviate the conscious of the Home Counties.

Oh how we love to care on our front doorstep, just don't let them
through the door that's all.

The man lay in the road, kicking like a synchronised swimmer. Cars,
bicycles dodged, shoppers passed him and gave him the acknowledgement
of a piece of rubbish.

Someone would surely help him up soon.

It started to rain.

The Lottery paper printed its tune in front of me.

Ariel bullshit.

I made a phone call to the bank; the government funded youth agency
that I had been in bed with over the last six months had just deposited
eighteen thousand pounds into our current account, This was an advance
on our 'Crack Awareness' project in Dalston East London. Money that
will be spent on pointless meetings between overpaid youth workers who
are addicted to African trinkets, organic hair products and Tori
Amos.

Three cheers for me, for I am one of the winners. I can deliver the
mediocre for the willing.

Unlike my Artistic Director I am not paid through the nose
though.

The man in the road attempted to stand, scrabbling at the kerb he fell
back again.

Busy windscreen wipers ignored, broken puddles chilled him to the
bone.

I could not stand the uselessness of it anymore. I grabbed my coat and
ran down the stairs out into the sepia street. I signalled at the
traffic to stop as I crossed the road facing the man. I was met with
hooters of derision.

A cyclist passed, laughing at the vision of death warmed up in the
road.

The most terrifying emotion is the absence of feeling.

A culture of blame boils here in England.

We voted for that.

I hauled him up and he immediately fell.

A rotten sack of potatoes.

I lifted again, dragged him to the wall, his eyes knew nothing.

I crossed the road and went back to the office.

The printing of the funding application had finished.

After ten minutes the man walked away from the wall, he was steady
now.

Wet rags heading west.

*

I want to go home and read a book. Perhaps eat a whole packet of
biscuits drowned by sweet tea. I want to do this because I cannot take
this muddy brown-scarred chafed city for another fucking minute.

I'm going to.

My finger hits the delete button. I format the hard disc.

Eighteen pages of greed take flight out of the office window.

I'm going to work in a flower shop.