My Love

I silently move upstairs, drawn to the sound of running water from the bathroom where you’re preparing for New Year’s Eve. It will be an evening like many others: just you, your art, and one of your more than happy to oblige models. I suppose doing what you do best is a fine way to end a year and begin anew. Won’t it be the same for me, after all? There’s a bright blue towel waiting for you on the rack. I can hear you mutter to yourself in a sing-song voice. Steam rises and the mirror is cloudy. If I so desired I could trace my name on the glass or come up with a cryptic message for you to ponder. No, I shall leave this scene undisturbed. I’m content to observe and bask in your presence, for now.  

You come out dripping all over the marble floor and run your hand over the mirror. There you are, my love. You dry yourself and lean over the sink to inspect the dark marks under your eyes – those piercing hazel eyes that called out to me without you knowing – and to make sure that your facial hair is still sharply trimmed. You don’t sleep much at night, twisting and turning until morning comes; lost in reveries of new faces and postures you can draw while I kneel beside you and whisper in your ear. What becomes of us when passion drives us, my beauty? Your shoulder-length curly black hair is still slick and half-wet. It will revert to its naturally messy state soon. You never bother with combing much and let it fall where it may. 

You walk downstairs to your cherished wines and pull a bottle from the wall. Red Burgundy, of course, to match your favourite colour. I was never much of a wine drinker. For you it’s a life-preserving force. That, and the constant drive to capture fleeting moments in pencil and paint. I drift into your studio where I can spend some time in the company of your subjects. They all share the same look – somewhere between curiosity and excitement – that makes your portraits sell so well. Do you fantasise about what you’ll do to them after your work is done, when you tell them they can finally move and they’re so grateful they will do anything for you? They are all so slender, so slight. That wasn’t me, when I could still fill a space. I was strong and proud of my curves and forceful gestures that commanded attention. Now I’m little more than a suggestion.

One of your mood-setting records is playing in the living room. A string quartet, as usual. Your record collection is extensive. It’s all vinyl, all the time, my sweetheart, isn’t it? You are so enamoured with these relics. Clearly you are not the only one. I wonder when everyone will finally let the past die instead of having it linger in this half-life.  But then where would that leave me? Why do I dwell on this? If this pleases you, then it pleases me too. If only I could dance with you before we have our final moment. We could give shape to great crescent moons on the floor with our shuffling feet until we collapse in giddy exhaustion. I don’t feel tired any more. I don’t feel much of anything, most of the time. 

There’s a knock at the door. There she is, looking flushed at your immediate attention. Have some wine, you say, have a seat. You talk more until she’s fully comfortable. Your stare never leaves her face, never wanders off into uncertainty. You don’t stammer. This is you in your element. You next move into the studio where you take your place – a wooden stool, old-fashioned to the end – and begin to work as she arranges herself to fit your vision. I can never have enough of the feverish way in which you draw. If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder how it’s possible to end up with something so delicate, so exquisitely observed, when your brushstrokes seem so careless. You attack the canvas as if it’s a wild animal you aim to hurt into submission. Your brow is furrowed and you are lost in angry sweeps while your subject slightly shakes and takes care to remain motionless. It’s always just an outline at first. Just a glimmer of the final features in your initial sketch on the first and only time they pose for you. The most important detail is the inquiring and enthused look of the willing collaborator. When the first stage of the drawing is ready you have no more need of a live subject for the coming weeks and months it takes you to complete your work. Then it’s just a matter of relying on memory and imagination to fill in the blanks. 

I’m looking out the window as your work nears its end. The stars are coming out and it will be a clear night. The crowds on the streets are warming up to their revelries. Soon there will be fireworks and well-wishing and strangers kissing and a burst of excitement and hope for change before the old insecurities and fears come creeping back. You are done. You wipe the paint from your fingers and face. You smile at her and tell her to go ahead and stretch and help herself to more wine. Should I leave the room? I know what will most likely follow this scene. Some don’t stay but most do. Most of them accept the wine and laugh with you into the early morning hours when they share your bed. I decide to watch. I won’t get another chance. We have come a long way together, you and I, and tomorrow we shall finally consummate our love. You can have your fun in the meantime. 

Your bodies are entwined and you’re sweating and moaning in unison. You both seem distracted. Not an unusual occurrence. She must still be wondering what her painting will look like when it’s finished, and you? Are you waiting for me, my dearest? Is nothing else going to be enough?  I could reach out and touch your slippery forms, but I want you all to myself when the time comes. I refrain from interfering and it’s all over. You finally look at each other again briefly before sleep overcomes you. I wait. You wake up before she does, as always. I follow you into the kitchen. You grab a knife and start making breakfast. She soon joins you and following the briefest of exchanges she takes her coat and walks out the door, leaving your life for good, just the way you like it. 

I wander back into the studio and admire her outline. The paint is fresh and the day is bright. You’re back in the bedroom, sleeping lightly. I let you sleep. I remember a different, gloomier New Year’s Day when I first saw you, when you brooded over yet another unfinished portrait. You drank too much back then in a protest against your self-perceived mediocrity. Then I showed up and everything changed. I think about all the days and nights we spent together in our house while I watched you follow those visions I inspired that wouldn’t leave you until they were given substance. I will never tire of seeing someone wrestle their art out of the void with my incitement until there’s something new in the world.

The time has come for us to meet. You are awake and unfocused until I enter the room. You look straight at me. You don’t see me yet but you can feel I’m here, don’t you? I’m now standing as close as I can get. You still look puzzled. Slowly, steadily, your expression changes into one of awareness. Is this a shape you can discern? Is it a benevolent Ghost of Christmas Past or Present? Is it your muse come to bid you farewell and leave you to attempt to find inspiration elsewhere? Not quite. I have one last thing to ask of you.

I bridge the gap between us and take your hands in mine. There’s only time for one quick gasp before your jaws lock shut. Your lower lip is caught between your teeth and the blood begins to pour. You violently convulse and try to shout but I won’t let you, not yet. All you can do is whimper and groan as your eyes grow wider and wilder until they burst in a thick stream that lands on your chest and mingles with your blood. Their ruined remnants slide down your pretty cheekbones. You can open your mouth now. I shall allow it. I want to hear you. You let out a fierce, desperate scream that turns into a gurgle. You carry on until there’s nothing more than a rasp coming out of your bruised throat. I adore the sounds my beloved protégés make when I show them the cost of their creations. Each one of you sounds different though you’ve all been united in ecstatic agony. And there it is. The stain spreading between your legs as you try in vain to voice your pain and pleasure. Your joints begin to shift and break and shards of bone tear through your skin at odd angles. I won’t let go. I’m with you till the end, my precious prince. You’re still alive yet barely recognisable as a human being now. Our bond is complete. You may go. What’s left of your flesh melts from your bones and they in turn dissolve into dust. 

I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling. Bathed in soft morning light, I am sated and solid, if only for a little while. I can still smell you and feel you on my tongue. Soon, all feeling will drain once more and I’ll be on my way. They will look for you but there’ll be nothing left to find and the mystery will become a part of your legacy. You’ve given all you can and I thank you. Goodbye, my darling. 

There’s a long pause of blissful darkness. Is this it? Will the flickering embers of my persistence finally fade? Not this time. I find myself looking at a polished mahogany cabinet in a new room in a new house. My new house. I can hear music coming from outside. From a nearby terrace I spot a group of friends serenading the first evening of the new year on the steps below. One of them looks back and calls out a name that stirs something inside me. Your name. 

I head back inside to start my search. Before too long I find you, perched on the living room’s couch with a violin in your arms. I hover nearby and listen as you tentatively practise. You could be formidable if you didn’t falter so much. You hesitate too often, wincing at the sounds you make. You want to join the others but you don’t feel ready, do you? You need me. I look down at your round face, soft blond hair and pale green eyes. There’s a hint of an invitation in those eyes. Very well. You will do just fine. Happy new year, my love.

24 Tiny Tales

Before you next let road rage take over, consider: objects in the rear-view mirror may have more teeth than they seem.

She held on to the fragment of glass as he lay beside her, wordlessly willing him to keep from stirring this time.

The source of the nursing home's troubles had less to do with faulty wiring and more to do with mandibles.

Time to enlist the pelican king's help in recalibrating the colour of sadness.

Follow the sole surviving yellow flamingo as it’s ruthlessly pursued by mechanical assassins hell-bent on exploiting the fearsome magnificence of its beautiful beak.

Animated monuments drag a coastal city to the depths.

In a world where small furry mammals are hurt for sport, the people cry out for clockwork crusader! His gears are sharp; his wit is sharper.

Trains are replaced by hot-air balloons overnight. Everyone's late for work.

"Daddy?" "No. This is Daddy-5000-TXZ, a superior model in every way."

Falling into the sky was only the beginning.

Advances in genetic engineering have finally enabled him to own a radioactive flying jellyfish. Her name is Kelly and she is brighter than the sun.

All the missing socks from every washing cycle since the invention of the washing machine coalesce into a squirming sentient mass that suffocates us in our sleep.

At 11 pm GMT on a flight somewhere over the Atlantic, a woman patiently explains to a man that men who explain things to women who can explain the same things better than those men can explain these things themselves, are inexplicably inconsiderate. The man stares at his crème brûlée.

Caged primates develop an unusual aptitude for string instruments. They name their band Sulky Monkey.

The god of discarded fish heads and bowling alleys, and the lesser known abominable snowman of Majorca, file an official complaint against Bigfoot for stinking up the place. The complaint is ignored.

Come for the pie! Stay for the parasitic fireflies sapping your will to move.

Fourteen renowned academics denounce creativity as a colossal waste of time before crying themselves to sleep.

Boy meets girl. Girl is trans-dimensional ambassador sent to assess the suitability of lifeforms for body-harvesting; boy is IT consultant. They buy a flat in Prague.

Getting up is hard to do when your legs have turned to goo.

Following a week-long conference filled with intense deliberations, scientists conclude: giraffes are weird.

I drove all night to get to you before being told to fuck off back to Georgia.

Divers discover drowned drivers chained to the wheels of their limousines.

A glistening pearl of sweat slides through valleys of soft flesh and mountains of jagged bone. Reaching the tip of a hip, it spreads liquid wings and prepares to fly. The wings are unstable, badly formed. They burst and it drops, lost in the endless folds of space. Perhaps it will one day make a pretty splash.

A star burns the last of its hydrogen fuel and collapses out of existence. There are no witnesses.

Liars' League performance

The Tell-Tale Art

Gliding, paper-thin, through the spaces between raindrops. Sliding, whisper-slim, through the folds of mental landscapes. Sustained by stolen memories. Nourished by fragments of self. 

Antiquity’s legendary lost libraries would only contain a sliver of the knowledge we possess. Our halls of records are made of living recollections and life-altering sensations. The constantly reworked landmarks in the road map of the soul. That first playful stare. His lips on your neck. The deathbed's trivialities. The moment of unexpected triumph. The comforting trauma. What gets you out of bed. What needed to be said.  All gone. All ours. You'll forget so we'll remember.

Let us show you some of our treasured possessions:

Ours is Tamika’s longing for Caroline’s unmistakeable pulse-raising sunflower smell that  stopped just short of sickly sweetness. When they were lying close together, skin to skin, Tamika would sometimes close her eyes and imagine being sprawled in a field of gracefully decaying flowers. She doesn’t remember ever actually smelling a sunflower, but that’s the image that always came to mind. It felt right. The sunlight is almost unbearable yet the flowers remain adoringly transfixed. After Caroline was no longer in her life everyone else smelled wrong. Despite all the grievances and daily struggles that add up and lead to separate paths being followed, at the end it all came down to this: none of the others smelled of sun-scorched fields at the dead of summer.

Ours is Chris and Jemma’s final conversation. They sit in silence, staring in each other’s eyes. He is smiling at her, waiting for her response. She has so much to say. So much she’s kept inside. Will this change his expression, make his eyes match his smile? She doesn’t know, but she has to try. She must avoid stuttering or showing any signs of unwelcome emotional distress. She needs to express what she feels in a calm, controlled, approachable manner, in fluid, coherent sentences, following one another in a soothing, healing rhythm. That way he won’t get up and walk out, leaving her standing there alone or scream at her or make her feel guilty again. No more hurtful quips, no more frustrating confusion bursting defiantly though their nervous laughter. She’s going to fix everything. He’s going to listen, nod and beam, while their fingertips trace the old, familiar pattern. She gathers her wits and the words come out. That was the last time they saw each other. 

Ours is Carly’s principled stand. She hears the muttered remark as she’s waiting in line – “go back to the curry house” – and sees the hatred in the mumbling man’s eyes. She turns to the other man paying no heed to the aggressor. No need to validate him. His pettiness will show. “Hey”, she says. “Are you all right? I’m glad you’re here.” The second man looks at her with a mixture of shame and gratitude. The man who spoke is flustered and turns away. Stony silence ensues. 

Ours is Eusebio’s ride home in the night bus. There’s a guy in the front seat who’s been singing for the last fifteen minutes. He stops his song, looks up at the bug-bursting fluorescent lights and shouts, “Like the praying mantis! The female eats the male after sex”. Everyone looks down at their shoes. Eusebio stares out the window and smiles. Unlike the male mantis, he’s had a great night.

Ours is Francis’ recollection of the exact moment when he put a broken beer bottle through a man’s eye. His attacker – yes, he didn’t start it but he sure as hell finished it – had gone down all too easily. Yes, he had been staring at the guy’s girlfriend. He’d been thinking how sad she looked. All it took was a couple of quick jabs to the ribs and the man was on the floor, struggling to breathe. Most people wouldn’t know the first thing about landing a punch, let alone holding their own in a fight. There hasn’t been a single day where he hasn’t been able to conjure his victim’s face in exquisite detail: every line and every pore. He remembers the white-hot rage and the animal thrill. He remembers thinking, I bet you didn’t think you’d be tasting your own blood today. His thoughts are always punctuated by regret, true, but Francis hasn’t convinced himself yet that it’s regret for taking another man’s life instead of regret for being caught. One of these days.     

Ours is Peter’s most vivid dream. He is the almighty Minotaur living inside his very own labyrinthine palace, but something’s not right. He feels insignificant and drained. His horns are dull and brittle and his cock is flaccid and small. He is haunted by the songs of soft-skinned strangers. He is hounded by the shifting shadows of swords and spears. He is ravenous and weak. Their anger is palpable and he runs away. He turns countless corners until everything starts looking the same. There is no thread to unravel. He is lost in his own home. They are coming for him. He will never know the taste of human flesh. 

Ours is Molly’s exhilaration at scoring a goal with her whole family watching from the stands. She grabs the other girls and they scream their fearlessness. Her grin shines through her mud-caked face. She’s never seen her big sister look at her that way. The world has a startling clarity and she won’t stop spinning and running and jumping until she victoriously flies away.

Ours is Tim’s father’s most frequent proclamation: “You will never amount to anything.” There were beatings and there were punishments, but nothing’s had the same staying power as those six words. He suspects that this was his dad’s desperate attempt to reach out and motivate him. A strict disciplinarian and proud patriarch, he must have felt that the  withholdment of his encouragement so simply encapsulated in a sentence would drive Tim to excel out of spite. If that was so, it didn’t go as planned. Every time Tim finds himself at the precipice of a new decision, at the threshold of exposing himself and letting someone in, at the verge of a shift in his attitudes, at the razor’s edge between giving up and that extra push that will get him through, these words weigh him down and he can only drown. 

Ours is Helena’s first visit to the planetarium. First of many. She curls up into a ball and sits still with her head turned upwards. Darkness is falling and tiny pinpricks of light begin to make their appearance. All of a sudden the ceiling lights up and everything is starlight. Constellations upon constellations are washing over her and she’s enraptured, mouth agape and tears aglitter. She understands that although we are drifting in the vastness of the void, we are never truly alone as long as we are all interconnected pieces of the same journey. 

And you? What are you going to give us? We need you. No matter how sacred it is to you, it's indispensable to us. Our ever-changing mnemonic masterpiece will eternally preserve us. We are the keepers of records. You won't hear us coming. You won't know we're there. You won’t feel a thing and it will be as if it never happened.

Does the thought of losing precious parts of your story terrify you? You thought you could capture these moments and hold on to them until the end. You believed you could brandish them as good-luck charms against bad weather or display them as familiar reminders of your limitations. You would keep your freeze-framed joy and bottled tranquillity and crystallised pain and the ones who got away and the ones who chose to stay in a safe space, far from harm and free from decay. 

Your idols are false. There are no pristine unalterable facts. Love is no diamond; it’s a river. There is no turning back. Every aspect of your being is subject to continuous revision. You are in a perpetual state of flux. Our claim will not destroy you. The mind is a miracle worker. Narrative reconstruction is inevitable. Mended threads with borrowed fabrics. A canvas restored with incongruous patches. Yes, there's a niggling at the edge of your awareness; a persistent sense of loss; a touch of disharmony. Is this really our gift? 

You are fading, but you were always fading. You are reborn, but you were always reborn. As long as you live, we’ll be right beside you, feeding on the tales you tell yourselves.

Liars' League performance