MR ASPIRATIONAL

His name was Mr Aspirational, so that is what we, I, you, they, shall know him as. The story begins with Mr. Aspirational finishing a cigarette before entering the post office to join the que. He stood in such a fixed stare so as to envelop eye contact with anybody, he did not know the reason for this. Every so often the loudspeaker would call, ÔCashier number six please,Õ or, ÔCashier number three please,Õ or, ÔCashier number four please.Õ There were twelve cashier points in the post office facade yet only 6,3, and 4 were in service. As the time drew itself closer towards the moment he would be face to face with the cashier at either 6,3 or 4, Mr Aspirational became slightly more agitated, he had within his mind rehearsed exactly what he would say and was keen to get it over with so as to conclude this task and continue with all else he must do with the remains of this day. Two women behind him were talking;

WOMAN 1: I don't understand why he never opens up to me, he is holding back valuable personal information, IÕm sure its to do with that problem I was talking about before, its all playing on my wits.

WOMAN 2: Yes, his inferiority complex is rather complex.

Mr Aspirational kept his opinion to himself, but if he were to share his mind he would have said something smugly; though he had no reason to be smug; such as;

MR ASPIRATIONAL: The reason he keeps from you his private thoughts, my dear, is that you blab them uncensored amongst friends and in public!

Mr Aspirational finally made it to the till and asked the turbaned man the cost of posting his parcel.

TURBANED MAN: Sixty-five pee.

MR ASPIRATIONAL: Thanks.

TURBANED MAN: Thanks.

Mr Aspirational leaves the post office and walked through the crowded footpath towards the supermarket, the frustration boiled as he dodged his way through the people all balancing on the designated walking area, the fact that people are second class citizens in favour of cars when town planners plan towns never failed to make our hero erupt out at the top of his raged voice some form of insult towards the world. Once inside the supermarket he picked up a basket which gradually became more and more full as he added more items which were required if he expected to continue living. He joined the que. There were four available tills but only one was being operated. In front of Mr Aspirational were three fellow customers, one, a woman shopping for a large family whose diet seemed mostly to consist of biscuits, fizzy drinks and packets of flavoured fat. The other two people were a young man and woman who spoke another language than Mr Aspirational, they appeared to be of intimate experience between each other. He reached the till and the young girl put his items over a barcode reader whilst simultaneously avoiding eye contact with him, he did not know the reason for this.

YOUNG GIRL: Ten pounds-forty-eight please.

Mr Aspirational produced a card from which the amount could be extracted, she put the card in the machine and he tapped in his pin code, transaction completed.

YOUNG GIRL: Thank you

MR ASPIRATIONAL: Thank you

He put into plastic bags the items which he had purchased and began to walk out with one filled bag in each of his two hands, back along the crowded pedestrian walkway he walked in his way, on several occasions the person walking in front of him stopped for no apparent reason blocking his way and without room to pass from the oncoming commution, he stepped out onto the road in order to continue. The rest of the journey home was mostly uneventful and for this reason he eventually arrived home, made his way towards the kitchen, put the bags of shopping onto the table, he looked in the direction of the cupboard, then towards the fridge then towards the shopping, then towards the camera and says;

MR ASPIRATIONAL: I cannot communicate this doom feeling of being trapped in an existence of ever repeating loss, of unescape, of mundane, of tragic self-examination, I walk around the afore mentioned block, as best as I can so as to not explode with misery (He then reaffirms his eye contact with the camera). And you don't even give a shit do you! (He sits at the table reflectively) I play a character named the human beast, the story never quite takes off and the overall direction is flawed, an enigmatic character, a person of duality, intuition developed to the point of genius, and yet all that becomes is a silent monitoring of the world around me (Pauses for a moment)...(considers his options).

Mr Aspirational then stands himself up and begins putting the shopping away into the cupboard and fridge and the plastic bag binward, then he leaves the kitchen.

interlude

INTERLUDE

From his bedroom he walked down the stairs, all twelve of them, turned 180 degrees at the bottom whilst simultaneously stepping around the vertical post which holds the bannister placed, and along the hallway towards the kitchen, the door was open so he walked through; had the door not been open then he would have had to put to the floor the three dinner-plates in his left hand which clung to the remains of the last three meals he had consumed, using his newly freed hand to turn the handle that opens the door, repick the plates from the floor and proceed into the kitchen, alternatively he would have had to put to the floor the oversized teacup; everybody commented on the size of his teacup but to his eyes it seemed of perfectly reasonable dimensions; clinging to the remains of the last two hundred cups of tea he had consumed which was held in his alternative hand; he therefore entered the kitchen hindrance-free and proceeded with the accuracy of routine towards the kitchen sink which he would leave beside his dinner-plates followed by a direct projectory to the kitchen kettle which he would leave beside his semi-notorious teacup. The commissioning of this action helped him grasp the fact that he had indeed forgot to bring with him the dinner-plates from his bedroom and if that wasn't unfortunate enough, he had also forgotten the teacup! So in order to fulfil his task he exited the kitchen and refolded his steps along the hallway and up the twelve stairs towards his bedroom, six steps up he stopped, cursed the occurration that to have set the kettle boiling before returning to his room would dramatically cut the dead time waiting for the plastic electrically charged animal to perform its job, he thus returned to the kitchen using the usual route; as any non-usual route would involve leaving the house through the front -door, walking around to the back of the house negotiating a four-foot-high wooden fence, crossing the backyard and re-entering using either the back window or the back door as portal; this was highly unpractical as he was bare-foot and suffered from agoraphobia; the kitchen door however was now closed, he must have done this out of habit when last exiting, thankfully he had neither plates nor teacup in hand so negotiation of the door-handle was relatively uncomplicated. In preparation of setting the kettle to boil he plucked the kettle from its seat, walked it accross the kitchen to the sink, where he stood holding the kettle with opened lid under the tap which inevitably would be turned on in order that the water be able to escape, the kettle returned to its seat and was switched on at the socket and on the instrument, he opened the cupboard at head-height to take from it a tea-bag, halting instantly as remembered the cup was yet to be recovered, from his bedroom he collected teacup and dinner-plates and was confronted by a closed kitchen door, he must have done this out of habit when last exiting, he put the dinner -plates to the floor, turned the door-handle with his newly freed hand, opened the door, re-picked the plates from the floor, re-entered the kitchen putting plates and cup in relevant positions, he waited, then remembered what he was waiting for, he was waiting to remember the next job to bring about conclusion to the task at hand, he then remembered, opened the cupboard at head-height to take from it a tea-bag, he could not see any, his eyes were open, then why, of course, the light-switch had yet to be activated, he walked across the kitchen to the light-switch which was directly opposite the cupboard at head-height which was directly opposite the light-switch which enticed the electricity to perform the necessary circuit, he, enlightened, walked exactly half-way across to kitchen towards the cupboard at head-height when to his left he noticed that the arm of the tap had been swivelled to a 58 degrees angle from the edge of the sink and not the 44 degree angle as he had previously assumed, therefore, he deduced, the water had in-fact not filled the kettle but fallen into the sink to be deflected down the plug-hole, this suspicion confirmed as he turned to the kettle which was directly opposite the sink and opened the lid to see inside, the obvious action to be taken, situation as it now was, would be to fill the kettle making the requisite adjustments to the position he held it beneath the tap, so this is what he did. The kettle now filled; was always full, but for his purposes he found water a more appropriate element than those found in air; was placed on its seat and set to boil, he waited, then remembered, he turned to the cupboard at head-height, opened it but saw no tea-bags, he crouched to look inside the crouch-height cupboard and saw a tea-bag, pinched between thumb and pointing finger he took the tea-bag, uncrouching, adjusted his arm till it hovered above the teacup, released the pincers and his calculations were correct, the tea-bag fell into the teacup, he waited, his eyes were in the direction of the window, he waited, his eyes were in the direction of the floor, he waited, his eyes were in the direction of the door, he waited, walked towards the door, through the door, along the hallway, up the stairs towards his bedroom, six steps up he stopped, cursed the occurration that he had left the kitchen without a cup of tea, returned to the kitchen, the door was closed, he must have done this out of habit when last exiting, he approached the kettle with a definite plan, he poured the now boiled water over the tea-bag, picked up the spoon he had found in the fourth drawer he checked in, used it to remove the tea bag whilst also giving it a gentle squeeze against the side of the cup to extract the maximum teaness, threw it binward, waited, I should have made coffee he thought, still can, he waited. No. I don't fancy it.

consider a consort

CONSIDER A CONSORT

Dressed up in her going-out frock; one of many; only she alone knew the difference between them; she would have been friendlily greeted whichever frock she happened to wear, as much so had she not worn a frock at all! What she did not realise and what her magazines; due to their funding providers mostly slithered amongst the psychological brutality that is the fashion industry; failed to inform her was that the people who didn't like her wouldn't ever tell her and those that did were usually only interested as to obtain some personal gain such as company or social interaction; the frock mattered not except to other frock wearers which happened to be the majority of people she was inclined to meet, this was a pure accident of geography of course, had she been born in another era a completely different style of frock would be appropriate and at some locations it would be expected to wear no frock at all! this however didn't even occur to her as she left the house. Good morning, he said to the squirrels he could see making use of the tree making use of the ground in almost direct view of his kitchen window, it was in-fact just gone afternoon, what a fool he would have felt had he known! See I am good at conversation as long as I don't have to participate in the talking, I am especially good when there is more than one other person taking part and I ned not even get involved at all, Right then, all my wits gathered and outside we go! He asked the question knowing that the answer would be of no use to him whatsoever, but hearing her speak in his direction was probably the desired effect,There should probably be one along any minuet now, she shrilled, However long it was to be, still I would have to wait till it arrived and knowing how long it would be would not change this situation. Puddles were everywhere, lying in wait for someone to fall into or for a car tyre to deflect them onto a pedestrian but the people were cunning and came prepared with umbrellas and waterproof overcoats- But try telling the puddles this! He felt wind building up near the exit point of his large intestines amongst the residue together with waste pigments, dead cells and bacteria pressed into faeces and stored for excretion; he knew from experience that to let it out would produce a funny smell so he held it within so as not to cause her disgust, he also thought it more polite not to playfully clap her rump or to grasp her from behind with his hands cupping her breasts; aren't manners so alien to us! I must have that look upon my face that says I have no need of want for her to suddenly stick her tongue in my mouth! How to change this particular expression he knew not, he found himself considering and confirming how attractive she is, he imagined she would be a suitable companion to share perhaps a meal with or to walk with or to sit with, on a park bench or similar place, maybe if the opportunity came up to share experiences of visiting exciting new countries, Yes to be crouching in the Ugandan Jungle witnessing gorillas playful in their natural habitat then turning to her and being witness to her face of adulation, that would be nice, yes after all this time of isolation such company would be most welcome. A lifetime of horrors awaits me if I do not gain her this day! I should be so glad to discompose myself of the exhaustion of engraved melancholic mediations. His own thoughts habitually playing new tricks upon himself for their own amusement, he set about the mechanisms to turn simultaneously his neck and eyes to face leftwards; as this was the direction she was standing; he noticed the tiniest of freckles perched on her top lip, My pupils must be huge to take in such detail! again he confirmed she is indeed beautiful, perhaps the most ever of all the... Oh What Difference Does It Fucking Make! he found himself shouting at this compilation of thoughts, his head returned forward facing as he knew it would. Then it parked up. She got on first. He watched her step up with his x-ray eyes. Before approaching he farted then calmly boarded the bus, his life was littered with romantic instances such as this.

abstinance

Abstinence

Peace time drove him mad, he didnÕt know what to do with all that excess energy drooling out of him, heÕd roll thus and like that clinging to his ball of bed sheets. Immediately trying to get to his feet and bury himself into the ground within the same thought, neither made sense enough to try with any conviction and time dwindled itself into knotted heaps of useless twine. All myths and truths did battle amongst the trenches of his memory and yells and cries became infiltrated with stories and pictures, which, although as real as his backbone, somehow mystified and strange, eerily shifting as the sand under winds. He imagines all the world, ear to his door interpreting every sniffle and creaking movement, predicting, placing bets upon what his fever will cause him to do next, ever one step ahead of the bastards he out foxes them all and does no more to continue this existence of twilight, of no -mans-land, of neither off nor on - on standby, a whisper with no words attached. His eyes wee too heavy for reading, mind too heavy for music, television had become like sharing a room with an insulting machine; insulting intelligence and tolerance for crapness, to swallow hurt, to think thundered, to just lie and do nothing was a constant reminder of his situation.
In all he was beginning to wish that maybe he hadnÕt decided to stop drinking.
The financial realities were unavoidable, to continue the drinking habit would mean homelessness, to keep enough money to pay the rent meant mental collapse, and he couldnÕt help wondering if this was due to coincidence that the fever found him on the day of his conversion to sobriety. Has he been forcibly removed a staple part of his diet,known since antiquity as Ôliquid breadÕ, tamer of wild mindsets, yoga class and psychiatrist in one form, substitute wife and confederate. What have these villains taken from me! He thought back to the 1756-63 Seven Years War, he had heard of an experiment conducted by John Clephane, physician to the English fleet, in volving three ships; the Grampus, the Deadalus and the Tortoise; on a voyage from England to America; only the Grampus was supplied with the sailors allowance of eight pints of beer per day and after a particularly weather-beaten long journey arrived with 13 sailors needing hospitalisation. The other two ships, with but the common allowance of spirits arrived at the end of the same clinical trial with 112 and 62 men requiring treatment. It seemed he was being denied a valuable product vital for existence in his tragic world but nobody was listening no matter how furiously he wringed his fists.
Never a days illness whilst on the sauce.
Another mobile phone call announced itself through the speakers, the recognisable intrusive, ticking before the dreaded box shrieks at you, but relief, it was radio-waves passing through to someone else's life, threw your skull to their ear, a radioactive minefield of phonecalls and text messages zooming past, mostly chatting nonsense, mostly expensive blather, like the success of bottled water in a land of drinkable tap water and ludicrous price designer handbags, these people would buy anything that the billboards announced was new and cost money to own.
Well each to their own addiction.
And in years to come we shall join hands and look back and sing songs about that wonderful year 2007.

A Passage on the subject of Regret

A PASSAGE ON THE SUBJECT OF REGRET

Whilst always very cautious not to presume himself correct during the process of deciding which words to produce from his mouth; for until now he had found this the only orifice with the ability to produce such words; he nevertheless spoke with the authority of a man whom at the end of a lifetime had come to a resounding unanimous decision upon a subject that the pre-lived life had spent pondering; though he was not such a man; he he let the words spring out without hesitation, and immediately wished he had remained silent. As if a person previously held vertical by an invisible string suddenly cut by an equally invisible pair of scissors, his body within which his growing deplore inhabited crumpled downwards towards the cold call of the hardened concrete that his face could not avoid. If he had remained conscious following the thud of flesh against pavement he would have witnessed an explosion of blood honk outwards from his nose, the haemoglobin squealed with excitement in its new found freedom and escaped with haste into the concrete slab, unfortunately a poor young zebra spider unable to restlessly escape the explosion drowned in the discharge. The time of unconsciousness perhaps lasted a little under five seconds though it is equally possible that it lasted a little over five seconds, it took a further number of moments for his now regained consciousness to remember who or indeed where he was, upon all recollection being substantially collected it was inevitable that he would remember the last words his miscalculating brain had let him utter, the pain emitted due to the breaking of his nose palled into insignificance when compared against the Pain he felt within the emotional chambers wherever exactly these were located, he was fully able, physically to press his hands against the pavement enabling his triceps, biceps, brachialis, anconeus, extensor muscles and various other complex tendons and arteries, to push his body upwards from the floor, but he had neither the imagination nor the will to do so, he remained knees plus face in contact with the ground, back 45 degrees, arse in air, his waterfall mind poured from his eyes. I need to find a new word to replace miserable, he said, I have become mightily bored of it, he then proceeded to say, afflicted, broken hearted, crest fallen, dejected, depressed, desolate, despondent, disconsolate, distressed, doleful, down, downcast, down in the mouth, forlorn, gloomy, melancholy, mournful, sorrowful, unhappy, woebegone, wretched, destitute, impoverished, indigent, meagre, needy, poor, scanty, abject, bad, contemptible, deplorable, despicable, detestable, disgraceful, lamentable, low, mean, pathetic, piteous, pitiable, scurvy, shabby, shameful, sorry, squalid, vile, worthless. He, upon finishing speaking, stood himself up, looked down at the puddle of blood and tear cocktail. Who's going to clear up that little mess, he thought.

the boxcutter

THE BOXCUTTER

He sneezed a lump of snot into his hand which he banally wiped down his shirt leaving a visible glistening trail, at a glance it was evident that this was not the first time he had made such a fashion statement, 'she's radiant today' he thought, he peered with all his heart through the door across the warehouse he was wearing away in, she disappeared into her other world and he continued to exist in his, his was a world of cardboard, he knew not where they came from nor where they went after they left his world, but he knew his responsibility in his world was to cut the cardboard boxes that were thrown into it, people would walk past where he worked throwing into it boxes in need of cutting, 'they depend on me,' he would think. In the beginning they would speak to him, things like asking him how he was or how he made use of his time outside of work, but his inability to communicate soon discouraged them. Some periods of the day were quite slow in terms of the amount of boxes needing cutting, and the boxcutter would think of her and her radiance and then of her unavailability, 'I am but a putrid stench of a wreck of a wretch of a man,' he would conclude, but some periods of the day were altogether frantic, he would be cutting boxes as quick as his little hands wold let him and still he would look over his shoulder and feel disheartened at the size of the stack of boxes still awaiting his assistance, once the boxes were cut and flattened they were placed into a plastic container with wheels, usually about twice a day the container would become full and he would have to wheel it outside to empty into the skip, he looked forward to these occasions most as he enjoyed the change in scenery, sometimes when he was so engrossed in the job he would fail to notice a box flung in his direction and it would hit him on the head, he would turn towards the door and hear laughter and quick footsteps away, at a designated time in the morning for fifteen minuets, for half an hour midday and for another fifteen minuets in the afternoon he was permitted a break from cutting boxes, he would use this time to visit the toilet cubicle where he would eject all unwanted fluids and faeces from his body or sometimes simply to use the paper from the roll to wipe the sweat from his bum crack, also within this allocated period of non box cutting, he would usually have enough time to walk to the canteen where for 20p he could receive from a machine a plastic cup of a hot drink, he would take the drink back to his box cutting area and sit upon the bench which he uses to cut boxes upon and stare at the wall drinking his drink, 'what of the other girl with the pretty face and bad skin who mops the canteen floor' he would think 'she sees such brief glimpses of me, as far as she is concerned, I am completely normal,' indeed sometimes they would pass each other, he on the way to the canteen, she mopping the floor and upon eye contact would exchange smiles which he adored and he would continue towards the drink machine and she would continue to mop the floor, after each such encounter, when sat staring at his wall thinking of her petty face and seeming availability he would say 'I am but a putrid stench of a wreck of a wretch of a man,' but as soon as the boxes began once again being thrown into his room, he would think, 'they depend on me,' and continue with his job. Still waiting for life to begin with ever less time to find it, sometimes the boxcutter would become obsessed with all the accumulating dispair ever clouding his vision, become vexed at the damnation he finds himself confronted with, torture himself with manic fits of intense declarations of self hatred, loathing of the world and all the people in it that he believed had nothing better to do than think of him with ridicule and contempt, these type of thoughts usually upset the boxcutters frame of mind and he wanted to shout violently at someone but his lack of character or composition would not allow it, one day during a quiet period where not so many boxes were being dropped into his world, he sat on his bench staring at the knife in his hand, then he had an idea, he looked at his fingernails, they had grown to well over 2 mm in length above the finger, he decided to make use of his time and cut with his knife the overgrown fingernails, he held out his pointing finger of his left hand and began to trim the nail whilst the other fingers remained in a fist, the knife slipped, the blade crossed the knuckles of the closed fingers, all three fingers split open and began bleeding, he felt a distinctive pain, so vast in anguish was his relevant parts of the brain that deal with such things as pain, he was unable to cry out, he clenched with his other hand the wounded hand, his teeth pushed hard against each other whilst his mouth distorted as far as it possibly could, his eyes also became misshapen and tightly all the muscles in his face screwed, shaking with tears pouring from his eyes he found the strength to look down at the situation, blood was now covering both hands and dripping into a pool on the floor, with the pain now unbearably sharp he suddenly thought, 'I am still alive, after all, imagine that!'

FINAL THOUGHTS


Well, I've just kicked the chair away and have perhaps a few moments to consider everything, get it all into a bit of perspective I suppose, where to begin, I think that the main problem is this idea that we have some kind of right to do exactly as we please, we find ourselves ever in search of pleasure yet nothing actually does please, brooding the type of anxiety that I expect would not be found in the minds of our ancestral land manipulating tribes where its obvious from birth the direct rewards from your work, in no doubt either would be the cause to which you would be expected to fight to the death for, trained warrior, fight ready, yes lack of battle does breed a certain lack of purpose, instinct conflict, for what else has the human evolved believing if not to wear the colours of the clan and hold our victory, football thug substitute, it just all so, so boring these days, war, we fight wars through our televisions, half hour heroes, then it becomes rather tiresome and find a preferred mediocrity, and just like that, its not happening any more, with peace there is no objective, no life objective, more a money based objective where things we don't need are built by the machine operators in exchange for money which they can use to buy back things we don't need for an inflated price, though there are some of us that make things, actually produce a physical result, building a house for example, something of significance, yet ironically the people who don't actually make anything, those who's work, work they call it! moving money from one place to another, seem to be moving most of it their way, oh well let them! Im off now, no use being bitter at a time like this, maybe though I could have chosen a more dramatic way to go, like leaping from a great height, I wonder how that sensation would feel, the ground approaching at unstoppable speeds, the adrenaline of it, the view for one thing, then, splat. ha! IÕd probably spend the whole time wondering if maybe I should have hung! There, the funny side of it all, humour, a lifetime of wishing my misery to go and it does as I think my final thoughts, typical of me, to wait until the very last moment to realise the whole thing is but a joke, and see what a punch line I invented, I blame childhood, at some point in childhood I must have believed it was all one day going to be satisfactory some how, and with such expectations that got built up, oh how I built them, future video tapes of laughter location love and all that other ridiculous stuff that never happens, damn, I should have put some music on, what would I have chosen, I can never decide on important matters such as that, no, see, I really don't deserve to...