dispomania

DIPSOMANIA

Finally the old man halted, he knew now that escape was impossible, his decrepit eyes scanned the floor best they could, the twiggy floor, the weed infested floor, the brambled floor, he stumbled with a degree of calculation arms outstretched in apprehension of contact, there as predicted, his numb fingers clasped the cold branch, felt along the object hidden by the darkness that surrounded the scene, a picture was concluded within his frail troubled mind, and turning with the precision of an articulated lorry reversing up a narrow alley, parked his fleshless buttocks onto the makeshift furniture, to his right a stick thrusted upwards from the main body of the branch he was sat upon, and with all the intellectual convenience nature presents us with from time to time, the stick forked at the end in the shape of a Y, this he hung the carrier bag he had been clutching with conflicting panic since he could remember, for a moment he leaned his forehead into his hands, leaned his elbows into his knees and leaned hid feet onto the floor, he cursed the joyful hoots of the forest around him, the clouds once again let the moon take a glimpse of our wonderful planet, the old man was able to visualise using this limited light source, the outlines of the bloodless objects alive all around him, he turned to the plastic bag hanging innocently at his side, despite the cold he had no desire to return to his room, the walls that surrounded his dwelling would mock him incessantly, and at some moments gather such momentum that he would hear an angry tempest rant at such powerful force that he would feel himself be crushed smaller and smaller until he was no larger than a full sized apple, a rotting maggot infested fruit, this is why he was out of doors, his critical sentiments would be free to dart out in all directions like the sonar of a bat with little rebounding, but still, to be sat alone, in a cold night, in a pitiless wood, with a companion that you tried to leave behind but were too frightened of the consequences, was not the most fantastic of situations either, with this in mind, the old man raised himself to his feet, he listened and car engines ever propelling themselves along the wind, a constant reminder that that what was known as civilisation was never too far away, he plucked the carrier bag from the branch, he herd it gulp in the movement, his eyes once more found the path that brought him here, that would return him home once more, and sucking inward through his nostrils the whole of the forest around him, he proceeded onwards to re insert himself into the box that all those people led him towards and pushed him into, although he knew it was all his own fault
.

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...

stinky

Stinky

Most of what follows is true. He stuffed his face full of documentaries and shows about politics, of which all that resulted was accumulation of sweat down the middle of his back and a stringy spit that clung to the back of his throat with such determination that he couldn't draw it into his mouth so as to expel it, nor would it swallow away into his stomach, if the explosion within his head was audible to the outside world, horses would run frightened and babies will burst into the type of wail that causes mothers and fathers to loose enough sleep to wish they had remained celibate and sufficed with porn and fantasies, and this was all before midday, and he hadn't even left his bed yet! In fact there was so much dynamite in his head he cold have opened a safe by placing his ear up to it and thinking hard, if not for the fact that his skull was waterlogged and rendering the gunpowder thus impotent. He earnestly believed with a rightly functioning mind he could have produced award winning ideas and interpretations of the world around him, for a person without prospects of any echo of hope he was quite optimistic, a lesser man wouldn't have even bothered to leave his bed at all, but he did with a heroic stumble made it to his toothbrush. A complex of laws and regulations was in governance of his simple life, the first of which he had to obey was the brushing of teeth, this was important in anticipation of the day that he found some kind of skill or comic routine that would impress a young lady, if ever he found himself in a situation that a lady was pointing any attention his way, if ever he found himself in the situation that he were to leave the house, then his teeth would be necessary in progressing toward any fluctuating romance, the fact that his toothbrush accepted to be put inside his mouth at all was quite flattering and encouraged this flickering of hope within him. The tonnage of what he didn't know weighed upon him at every moment, other than when he ventured to imagine taking part in thievery, he felt his experience of robbing charity boxes from shop counters had prepared him for the big job, pinching packets of meat from the chillier at the back of the supermarket due to apathetic staff members varying states of zombie, was thus far his greatest criminal achievement, but Stinky had dreams Stinky had ambitions! All of which eventually sprung leaks and slowly drowned within him, but they kept him quite afloat from reality, which is the best our young hero could hope for. He spat a stringy spit into the sink, it took over a second for the mucus to release its grip on the place of origin, slipping ungracefully under pressure from the tap down the plug hole. Stinky watched with smug triumph over his victory against the phlegm, his battles against his bodily functions were legendary, if anyone had cared to ask, he had anecdotes a plenty of daring deeds performed against hygiene. The mirror then requested his attention.

A strange perception such a contraption provides, it claims to be ever truthful, reflecting whatever challenges it with the aggressive bluntness of reality, but any disclaimer would rightly warn that due to flaws in human psychological ego, such a device can only return the assessment asked of it, thus the deluded see beauty and the disillusioned see ugliness. Stinky never understood this to any academic level and wholeheartedly met in the glass a master of intelligence capable of grasping all elements of humanity that weren't quite working as best as they could and with a little mental tinkering set them off in a disposition of unified celebration and glorification of his achievements. To illustrate his undiscovered exceptional ability of mind he recited his most successful verse;

This very primitive poetry is,
Not so hot so must we live
In such so socio-cryptic times,
When whatnot bureaucrat crits my rhymes!

Stinky had counted at least twenty four rhyming arcs within his creation and believed that if the world would just leave him alone for long enough he could quite possibly- this was the point he decided to leave the sink and divert his glorious attention at the kitchen, which all being in the same room used a lot less effort than alternative housing layouts could expropriate from a young man. In awe of the frying pan Stinky began willing his breakfast to life, the eggs and sausages were first to make an appearance their characterisation at Stinky's discretion, within his directorial vision the mushrooms shall thus enter the scene bathing in the copious oil spluttering with delight with the introduction of the tomato quarters and bacon rashers, then like a pantomime villain the bread pushes its way centre stage mopping up all the fat shining golden with gluttony. Using the utensils like a child on a colouring book Skinky's bravado was award winning, though present for every step of the cooking never could one be so besotted with the results, such desirable results indeed! Oh how glorious those parts of animal tasted! Oh how he scoffed! Oh how he stank!

Taking events with a pinch of philosophy, Stinky's mind returned to him still staring in awe of the empty frying pan and resolved to once again the prospect of beans on toast. Reality simply gets in the way sometimes. There should be some kind of vigourously researched rules about how much influence it should be aloud to impose on us poor creatures.

At twelve-fifteen precisely, he deviated his most deviating plot, such was the extremes of consequence he shivered with a profound glee. Then! The toaster popped out two slices of toasted bread interrupting his plans and ruining any potential memories burdening this young mind, without even the slightest effort he managed to make himself look quite the imbecile, there he was toast laid fourth awaiting a blanket of baked beans which Stinky was unable to provide, the baffled battalion within his brain laid down their arms in dismay, by now his eyebrows had forgotten to express what he really meant to say, this was the age of the straight talking cigarette smoker, and robust facade was unable to disguise the hijinx of the half-wit proposal that every character must face its nemesis;

Stinky must go to the shop.

Considering his eighteen year old riddle he emerged into the outside. Its funny how agoraphobia transforms the prowling lion of the den into scuttling spider exposed, running for a haven rock to hide in, what with all those greedy eyes and beaks swooping in, pecking, using all your arachnid energy and erratic legs to escape, puffing and heart pounding his way through a built up civilisation , dagger eye exasperation, how special a simple stroll is to scuttling Stinky, how unique an adventure. And yet all his anticipation focused friction was amalgamated within ten minuets into the future when he would be in terribly close proximity dangerously close to other people, O the tension of them! The blasted public all infecting his precious little world. Why wont they let him be! My flustered mind cant, I must, but I cant! what if, if someone speaks- worse still- looks at me! Fractured pieces of thought ignited by nonsense sprayed like splinters within his crippled enthusiasm, his only hope was to tremble and feel agitation, fluster and stutter as best he could whilst the queue lets him nearer escape, then with a final exposure of his depleted voice and professionally averted eye contact our hero is out from the hideous place and back in his relative safety of agoraphobic torture. Embarrassment is a hideous beast that the human has been given to master, its the venom fanged python backed into its last strike of wrath, its the moment the speared bull realises the crowds have gathered to cheer his final humiliation and defeat, and if like; bless his socks; Stinky, buying a tin of baked beans and a loaf of bread constitutes a moment of dreaded conflict which one never quite gets the better of, then your pace home is thundered by inward vexation and self ward torment. But there is a cup of tea yearning as reward, and perhaps, after the final hurdle, once shut back inside, it might all have been worth the exhaustive effort.

Its Bloody Martin!

Martin was one of Stinky's ÔfriendsÕ, and was lurking like a sinister virus looking for a weak immune system to infect outside Stinky's window, no doubt had Stinky been away much longer, Martin would be inside coiling up playstation leads into carrier bags and smirking his way through draws sniffing out cigarettes and loose change.
ÔStinky, you bug-faced-mop-head bastard!Õ chortled Martian on the approach, ÔYou cooking us breakfast, what you bought fer me ya stinking kaant!Õ
Stinky cursed him viciously under his breath as that is as far as even his most potent speech ever achieved status. Stinky unlocked the door and they made themselves at home on the sofa come bed come dining table, Martin grabbed a controller, ÔFire it up then lad!Õ he beamed. Stinky fiddled clumsily with disc cases and channel tuning and a barrage of insults. After a matter of impatient moments it was apparent that Martins virtual race was lost and his enthusiasm for computer games had fizzled fast, it was time for Stinky games!
Martian produced a small device fro his inside jacket pocket, ÔWanna buy an i-pod?Õ
ÔNah.Õ
ÔSum boy gave it me jus now on the bus!Õ Hardly able to contain his chuckle he continued, ÔI jus said-Gimme yer walkman- hand he guv it to me! Nob!Õ He added his ritual cackle that follows almost everything he says, ÔSkin up Stinky.Õ
ÔIve got nuffinÕ
ÔHere, its my last one, I cant smoke that one myself, gota sell that one, all my percieÕs gone see. Ya should've been round earlier- we caned two bags up ni was giving nuff out- bare mash up-trust, you shud come over-ere smell it- potent herbage there- cant get noffin round here that good-trust!Õ
Stinky didn't need the sales pitch, he threw across a twenty note.
ÔYo, Stinky, yea, I gotta shoot, yea - Oi sort us out a fing - for sortin ya out an,Õ
Stinky plucked a bud from the little polythene bag and placed it in Martins begging hand. Martin left after a few tugs on Stinky's first jazz-cigarette. Stinky got stoned and his beans on toast idea never manifested into reality.

This gave our aspiring intellectual sufficient time to finalise his most recent theories on things which he felt most significant to think about. He called to arms all 12 billion neurones and 50 billion supporting glial cells from the frontal, temporal, occipital and parietal lobes, but the left cerebral hemisphere began to squabble with the right cerebral hemisphere and both were too stubborn to give way to the other and in the meantime the temporal lobe had turned its back upon them both leaving only the cerebellum to make a decision but he wasn't qualified to do much more than send a few twitches over Stinky's body, so it done just that.
He crashed himself awake from the bubble dream, Ô I am all thoughts and desires and pandemoniac rushing, rebuking regrets and restablishing order, the reorder of disorder, the unsubdued emotional unbalance that I kept silent all of that time, this is a sign-I must reclaim my high!Õ Thus the substance gives you insecurities and somehow convinces you that it is here to protect you from them, no wonder the youngster had difficulty finding success in the world.

He suspected that the world stretched further than the supermarket which was, in fact not spectacularly super; but bigger than the corner shop and more clinical cynical and crass than the farmers market; which permitted itself membership to the category; he also suspected that at some future time he shall use his wit to somehow advance himself to the regions of the genius alongside those who invent a light bulb or washing machines or those professed at thievery! He had all manner of lateral thoughts springing out of the box under blue skies and wearing hats of many colours, mainly they were dumb but Stinky had the persistence of a bad odour and one day he shall discover such a wit!

His meditations began to crackle and sparkle irritably and he auspiciously concluded; The autistics! They are the new us! Obsessively condemned within a single subject to the point of brilliance with not a shrug of indifference to the banalities of the surrounding human condition - thus prerequisite the integration into the machine: Unsympathetic - Systematic - Pragmatic - Perfect! Finally! NietzscheÕs superman! But this was not Stinky's Big idea; the mastodon that he cultivated lovingly like fungus in a petri dish; Super-Stinky! His heart began to profoundly pound; that is as much as a heart can imagine itself pounding profoundly. Board person on Board! He juxtaposed radically. And I shall print it on yellow squares with suction cups attached and all the good people shall display them in the back window of their cars demonstrating their lack of independent thought, but this neither, was the mammoth he was waiting for. Like the flapping of windscreen wipers expectant of rain - this is how he contemplated. His idea would be as significant to the word, maybe more so, than WittgensteinÕs recognition that we too easily accept the babies smile as a genuine affection yet the human ability to lie is as learned as the rest of our qualities. His thinking began squeaking across the dry windscreen.

Word must have got round because the scavengers were at the door, ÔYou coming out Stinky?Õ They knew he wasn't, ÔCÕmon bud, aint sin yer fer time.Õ Not since the last time he bought the dried flower of the narcotic plant.

There were several breeds of scavenger known to stinky, the first was like a loyal Alsatian, they would be in it for the duration of the whole day, sometimes burying their way into ones confidence for up to a whole week before taking their meal, working at the defences granting the illusion of friendship, these came in groups of no more than three to maximise their returns warding off the more unscrupulous. The next uses wolf like intimidation to coerce a young mind to do a job with them, a house-job. You recognise the signals when they hijack you whilst on route to other destinations, laying out thick stories of past battles designed to promote ones self legend and aspirations of the feral young, for a demonstration of this lifestyle choice they will ask for the price of a kitkat wrapper, then by lighting of the foil and inhalation bring about the pukation behind the telephone box - this you have to look forward to upon falling under the influence of this scavenger who demands commitment more than your life is worth. Then we have, as presented at StinkyÕs door the jackals; blatant shameless exploiters of resources and opportunity, ever in search of the next 20 pee or cigarette, will turn up with recently stolen dvd or console game to win entry into the more challenging trust to steal it back at a later date. It would be expected over the evening that several of StinkyÕs games would have gone missing, he had no idea of how they initially even became his, like all the lighters he never bought but owned and several porn magazines; some dating back to the 1970s. People seemed to add stuff to his possessions then others would come round and use them and others would take them away. A whole system of item immigration and deportation was happening in country Stinky, and his being there; ruler as it was; had all the authority of a traffic light flashing permanent amber.

Stinky neither let them in not denied them access, both arbitrary concepts to him. All accumulated were in agreement that Stinky's home entertainment had been exhausted of the ability to further entertain this constantly demanding audience, yet they were all bound to the room until the bag was empty. They turned on the television; which to a more cultured taste; as was Stinky's; was filled with but the crass sound of applause and trivial people giving their opinions about nothing in particular; but the decision was democratic and the mob will has little to contribute to matters of taste. They found a programme where they were given the chance to laugh at the impoverished poor of distant lands with flies crawling over their faces and pot bellied skellingtons grasping onto life. ÔWhy don't they stop breedingÕ was a typical comment, Ô What would you bring a child into that life for.Õ ÔWhat's the point trying to feed them , there's millions of dem, they always living off our charity, let em dieÕ The irony that everyone in the room had only thus far survived on government benefits and were quite likely to contribute as the main source of income for the remainder of their lives, may or may not have been acknowledged but was defiantly there.

Stinky's comprehension of the atmosphere around him was much the same as one who finds themselves in a country of foreign tongues lost within the auditory tangle of sounds and words and confusion, the amount of structural planning involved in distinguishing the familiar from the unfamiliar rhythms and grammar and slang and joviality, over all the linguistic study he had to conceptualise, the conversation structure, narratives and spoken word discourse analysis he had to instigate, made social situations quite exhausting. A writer above outside the situation, a detached voyeur an experiment in invisibility, mute scientist, searching for a way to exist.

Amongst all the colloquial snidery, Stinky put forward a proposition and against all the odds someone in the room heard him. ÔOi, Stinky knows a way how to end third world poverty without sending them our money.Õ
ÔHow then?Õ Was this it?
ÔGo on Stinky .Õ The Big one?
ÔSpit it out ya freakÕ
ÔInstead of sending them or money which corrupt officials can furnish themselves with,Õ philosophised the man gazing upon a studious breakthrough, ÔWe shoud send them all of our Shit!Õ
The room looked at him with the contempt that he even attempted to have an opinion, but Stinky was convalescent of the disgusted gawp, and although all had become once again deaf to him he continued, ÔImagine, we could pump tankers of sewage onto their infertile soil- providing the minerals enabling crop to grow!Õ By the time his thoughts had concluded, the bag had become empty and so had the room.

But clever creature.

Smart old Stinky; one with surplus forethought as he; had hidden one last joint behind the sofa.