23/05/2014 - THE LAUGHTER COMES AT ME

            The laughter comes at me down a long corridor that smells of citrus and, as it does, I realise for the first time just how lucky I am not to be a cartoon dog anymore. The clapping is rapture and the month is late October but only between my ears because the pressure is just so and to have it exerted anywhere else on my person would only serve to irritate the hell balls out of me. Rewind the clocks from the parties, the ones you received as a parting gift from that colleague in the Shrove jumper, and you'll hear the ticking go on forever in a way that isn't quite ticking but still remains within that comfortable definition.

            These hands are my children, your fingers are my cherubs and the joining of our palms is like a winter greeting during a summertime storm. You look at that and see the clatter of switches being pulled and tugboats being set off into patches of ice and hard-up cashier jobs that supermarkets recruit to feed their abasement. Then again the sweets might lift your spirits by lowering your traditions into a lovely well filled with Irish cream and dissenter screams that don't intend to chime or rhyme as one while the rest of us look into the psychology of the matter. There is nothing to see here except the great actor stepping down from the forgettable roles that are offered to him in his greying years. I am that actor and everybody wants to give me a handjob whilst pressing the handle against the small of my back. I do the dance and everything just to please them in their bloodbath.

            Today I discovered just how immune the exits are around this place, how timely your arrival turned out to be to the pockets of dissenters. It's almost like robbery if it weren't for all the daylight and cherry beams from the stained glass. I only came to see why there are still so many people and you found me among the men and the children of men and the rest that are monkeys and apes and living things with interesting hair distribution. The keys are dropped in the bowl and my crimp is acting up, fucking around with my charisma. Or is my charisma doing all the fucking around? It's a toadstool really, an angry little thing that pops air freshener smells when I'm not looking into flicker sloths on the Main Channel.

            Neil and Jean and Erasmus and myself all went out to try out for the alien taskforce but we didn't get there in the end, we stopped by a casino in some dustbowl city for the good of the kiddies that would inevitably die on our sleepy-eye watch. The glam rock music was a faint whisper among the hushed voices of hotel concierges and men flinging diamonds at traveller's cheques because they are magicians and that kind of touch and twirl is close-up magic. These men just live to call me 'dummy'.