Day 01

Andaw

Gilligan's PA comes round today with my death certificate. Well it may as well be. The crested sheet is in fact a new contract. At the third ERRRN of the intercom, I kick aside several curry boxes and their respective ecosystems and squint through the spyhole at a wall of breast wrapped in a floral pussybow blouse, a dollop of melba lipstick and several thick gold necklaces warping and bending in the glass like giddy snakes.

I consider asking for ID, partly out of idle concern, partly to see whether her driving license showed her pre or post-op, but since I don't want a six foot slap, I bat the idea aside and buzz her in.

Casenotes

This morning I am on a tiger hunt,
looking for stripy biters
in my cereal, clawmarks
in my back. Miniature tracks
in blood-rushed parts.
It was here last night
and I mean to net it
before it melts inside a figurine;
ask it what it's doing
on the fifth floor,
where there are no weaker animals,
just meat long dead ' not
a sporting twitch to be had.
There are theories
that the tiger was never here at all,
but those who inflate their words
with outside reasoning
have not spied whiskers replacing
flower stems, fangs like femurs
in the toothbrush rack,
fur in their own hair;
as they try to work, a gaze
hanging
over them like a dagger.

Andaw

I sign of course. There are no guns involved, no pleadings, no threats, and the only thing to change hands is the pen, which, at 25p net value, can hardly count as a bribe. I have a job once more. Gilligan's PA smells convincingly of bike oil and temple incense, though I am guessing that it is perfume and that she has encountered neither recently. She is fat. I decided yesterday that I hate fat people, after a monster of a mother squeezed her weeble children past me on the rush hour train, then pressed her horrific sweaty tits against me for four stops. I have wrestled with my social duties to humour the fat, but that commute killed off my last remaining tolerance cell. I cannot stop looking at the PA's thighs and annoyingly my signature ends up fatter than normal as a result.

The best thing about her is that from Day One, she has believed I am a mute. When we met, I had a cold and every word I spoke was followed by a choking prick in my throat and a necessary barking cough, so I stayed dumb and she drew her own conclusions. I don't correct her. It helps in my line of work that there should be no risk of accidental tongue-wagging, so I get a lot of work, and such a pretence cuts out a sackload of godawful chitchat about teabags, Greek gods, hopes, fears, flat screen monitors and whathaveyou.

"Thank you. No change of address or bank details planned, I take it?
I shake my head. I can barely navigate the stairs with shopping, let alone move house.
"Splendid. We'll be sending you your next three masks in due course.
Right-o.
"Any questions?
Did you notice you missed a bit shaving?
"No? OK. Well then, see you in six months.
By which time your electrolysis will hopefully have kicked in.

The door slams disproportionately loudly as she exits. I get my coat and head out for a magazine.

Miffy

Rivers piss me off. Sometimes I'll be walking beside one and think hmm, that might be a convenient way to kill yourself' Glugglug, you know. Poetic, swift, satisfying kerplunk sound to boot. But then you just know some fucknode local hero will spot you, mistake your deliberate leap for a push from the invisible hand of fate, strip to their pants and yank you out. So there you are all, dripping wet and foiled, and because by that point a local newscrew will have arrived, you have to THANK the fame-greedy swine.

I really wanted a cigarette the other day. Passed a sign for Marlboro Reds on my way home and almost caved. Nearly asked the creepy guy outside if he would buy me some. It's been 8 years since I last had one, but the sun was out, I was helltired, some smell in the air took me straight back to that day, and bingo. I needed a smoke like never before.

I'd like to think that in the end I held off on moral grounds, that I considered the fact that somewhere out there, some poor kid would feel their lungs pickling because of me, but really it's because the guy stood outside had moved his hands to his crotch and was grinning like a wound, and I didn't have the right shoes on for a good kick-n-run, so I fucked off, stil itching.

Casenotes

Baby I'm riding in a freeze frame baby I've seventeen dollars to my name oh honey I want you to be my eyes and ears because you've blinded me sugar and you're all that I hear

Zoom

The latest gossip from Tinseltown is that sexbomb Myla Farringay is filing a lawsuit against Marley Incorporated, the company behind the controversial Peaches and Cream anti-aging treatment. Farringay claims that the company is guilty of slander, for insinuating her involvement with their products in a recent advertising campaign. A strong and vocal believer in organic and herbal remedies, the actress claims that the company are attempting to mar her reputation and sabotage the launch of her new line of products ' Eden Again ' by suggesting that she takes part in their 'co-pilot' scheme. We'll be keeping you posted on that one.

Andaw

I get to the shop and they have run out of Zoom. I create about it, mainly because I haven't slept for 2 days now (there was a classic movie marathon on TV and every one was a staunch and original choice) and I have an aching in my organs. I tell the shopkeeper he is incapable of efficient stock control and should be more aware of the needs of his customers, his target market. He tells me that normally they have many surplus issues of Zoom to send back to the suppliers, but that this week, for some reason, they have flown off the shelves.

"For some reason? Ye Gods, it's the wedding.
"I...don't know...?
"It's Maren Gilligan's wedding photos. That's what's been selling your Zooms
Blankness. He feigns receipt.
"She's getting married to ' look, do you even know who Maren Gilligan is?

I walk out with a copy of Flashbulb, the poor man's substitute, and read their description of her dress, of the canapes, of the doves being released. Then I roll up the magazine and vomit down it into a bin. Then I bin the magazine and hunt for somewhere to wash my hands.

Pila

When dreams come, I usually never find the pink kangaroos other people cite. There are no spectacular explosions of caterpillars riding starballs. No, when I dream, I dream of dull, meh life, with a couple of off-kilter adjustments so subtle as to go unnoticed until the point of waking, or even further on in the day, when my mind's jogger will be lapped by a "what the fuck? moment. An example is this:

I am wandering through a party thrown by a clearly recognisable college friend when I decide now would be a wise time to demonstrate my ability to do a headstand. Only I get down there, legs in the air, surrounded by merrily laughing people, and I find I can't move. Everyone continues jovially chuckling and ignoring my horror at being stuck on my head, the weight of my body pushing down on me, my neck folding slowly in on itself. My breathing starts to get laboured. I am in the early stages of a panic attack and racing towards a full blown fear festival. They smile and chortle at each other, exchanging babble. I try to say something, then to scream that I am choking, then to make any intelligible sound, then to make any sound. I try to move any part of my body, and the best solution I can come up with is to bat my eyelids as heavily together as I can. Even then, silence, but for the ratatatat of their conversations. And then, after far too much gratuitous suffering, my inner director finally shouts "CUT! and I wake up, grunting and white and teary.

The only unrealistic elements in this dream are the headstand getting me stuck and the pink kangaroo.

Just kidding. Remember what I told you. None of those.