ink

A man seeking hypnotherapy to quit smoking is enslaved by a manipulative brother-sister duo who control his mind and
body for their own dark purposes. When an old school friend intervenes, Simon must face the harsh reality of addiction
and the struggle for autonomy.

The room sits still. Dead air thick with the damp smell of old carpet and colder nights. Curtains half-shut against a sodium streetlamp that bleeds orange through the fabric.
On the sideboard, a framed photograph leans at an angle: two boys mid-laughter, swinging on rusted chains in the middle of a dead estate playground. Simon and Julian. Their smiles like something stolen from another life. The edges of the photo curled. Dust soft around it like ash.
Somewhere inside the walls an antique cuckoo clock ticks. The pendulum sways, slow and hypnotic. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. A mechanical heartbeat louder than the room can carry.
When it chimes the sound is savage. A sudden tearing open of silence. The cuckoo lurches forward, wood splintering around its beak, shrieking into the dark. Then gone again. Retreating. Pendulum swinging, relentless.

Morning.
Same playground. New swings bolted on but rust creeping back already. Neglect holds the place like damp.
Boxer limps through drizzle, bald scalp shining wet, scorpion tattoo curling up his neck and disappearing beneath the shelf of his ears. Plastic carrier bag bulging at his side. Sixty going on seventy but the kind of muscle that doesn’t forget its own weight. Granite faced and chip shop of regret on his hunched shoulders.
It’s raining again. Always raining.
Boxer thinking:
Why’s it always bloody raining on this estate. Cursed, that’s what it is. Could’ve bought an umbrella. Um-berella. Whatever. Don’t own one anyway. Don’t own much. Don’t need to.
Kids squeal on the swings behind him. He twitches. Dogs bark somewhere. Police sirens drag along the edges of the morning like an undertow.
Boxer thinking:
Broken swings broken lives not my problem served my time not the army Her Majesty’s pleasure thank you very much did my dues didn’t I learnt my lesson a lesson learnt is a lesson earned Matthew eight nineteen or eight ninety who cares Book of Blah Blah Blah amen.
A figure in a hoodie shadows him from a distance, thin as twig, moving silent, parallel. A predator
in soiled Adidas.

Walkway to Flat 22.
Concrete stained awith oil slick. Boxer’s limp louder here, boot on slab, slab on boot. He breathes hard, wet air in his throat.
Boxer thinking:
And why do we feed these dickheads anyway. All this money to keep them going. Could’ve been sunning it in Marbella with what it costs. “We’ve got to maintain them,” she says. Maintain this.
He stops at a door. Number 22. Flips a keyring the size of a fist, each key marked with a spotted tag. Finds the right one: Orange — SIMON HARRIS.
Boxer thinking:
Simon bloody Harris. Billy-no-mates the anorexic. God loves a trier. Sister’s favourite can’t see why.
Further down the walkway the hoodie stops too. Still. Watching.
Inside the flat, stale air and silence. Boxer shoulders the door open and slams it behind him. An answering machine blinks red. Nineteen new messages. He presses play.
“Hey Si, it’s Billy. Where the hell are you? Been by loads. What’s going on, man? Who’s that bloke staying at yours? Call us. We’re heading Crown for Finch’s 21st.”
Boxer dumps shopping on the bench. Pot Noodles, tins of beans, six-pack of cheap lager.
“Hi Simon, it’s Mary. We’re really worried about you. Haven’t seen you in ages. You haven’t been to college. I know you wanted space, but just… give me a call or a text. Anything. Have you lost your phone? Come by anytime. I… I miss you. Love you.’
Boxer grabs Simon’s phone off its charger. Scrolls to Mary’s name. Types:
Just do one. Leave me alone.
Send.
“Why’s he got a mobile and a landline,” Boxer mutters, fridge door hanging open, nose wrinkling at something wrapped in foil.
He spots the sedatives in the bag. Reads the label, shrugs, drops them on the bench.
Simon lies in the bedroom, pale against the sheets, twenty-five going on gone. Opens his eyes at the sound of someone moving in the flat.
And there he is.
Julian. Eight years old forever, that was the last time he seen him. Now he’s sitting in a chair in the corner, small legs swinging, mumbling nursery rhymes no one’s sung in decades. His face soft and blank, washed-out like a half-printed photograph.
Simon shuts his eyes. Opens them. Julian’s still there.

Bathroom light humming. Simon brushes his teeth, spits—Primula cheese in the foam, clings yellow to the sink. He stares at the tube, baffled.
“What the hell.”
Peels back the nicotine patch on his arm. Stares at the raw skin underneath. Presses it back on like nothing happened.
Living room, later. Simon hunched on the couch, Boxer sprawled opposite in the old armchair, lager sweating on the armrest. The cuckoo clock above them still ticking, pendulum dragging time like you would drag roadkill.
“Who are you again?” Simon asks. He’s passive, out of his head like a somnambulant.
Boxer grins without humour. “I’m the Devil. Make sure your phone’s on at five. Don’t answer to anyone else. Got it?”
Simon blinks. No answer.
The cuckoo screams again, once, sudden and sharp. Simon jolts. Boxer laughs.
“What’s with the clock anyway?” Boxer says. “Doesn’t exactly vibe with all this Gen Z crap you’ve got.”
Simon stares at the pendulum. Slow breath. Deadpan:
“It’s a pendulum-driven clock. Strikes the hour with the call of a cuckoo. Some flap their wings. This one does. Closes its beak when it leans forward. There you go.”
Boxer shakes his head. “Smart-arse.”

The cuckoo clock hung crooked on the peeling wall, a black wooden bird mid-flight, its beak forever frozen.
“It’s a symbol of good luck,” Simon said, watching Boxer’s eyes rather than the clock.
Boxer snorted, low and dismissive. “Old-fashioned, that’s all I’m saying. Doesn’t fit the vibe.”
“It also means crazy,” Simon murmured.
Boxer’s grin widened. “Now that fits.”
Simon shifted in his chair. “It was my mam’s. She gave it to me before she died. Twelve months ago.”
The smirk faded from Boxer’s face, just a fraction, like a shadow passing over glass. He didn’t soften, though.
“Can’t say I’m sorry,” he said.
“Why would you? You didn’t even know her.”
Silence filled the flat. It had a weight to it, the kind that made Simon aware of every hum in the walls, every creak in the pipes. Boxer rose without a word, heading into the kitchen.
When he came back, he was balancing a boiled egg on a chipped plate, holding a plastic fork like an afterthought.
“Eat your egg.”
Simon stabbed at the egg, the fork bending, snapping the yolk so it bled yellow down the plate.
“Where are my real forks?” he asked.
“Got rid of ’em,” Boxer said, slumping back, finishing his beer in one swallow. He crushed the can with an easy squeeze. “Less washing up. And…” he shrugged, “…potential weapons.”
Simon blinked. “Weapons? What do I need a weapon for?”
“I’ve seen things,” Boxer said, half-smirking, half-snarling.
Simon stared, searching his face for meaning and finding nothing.
“What day is it?” he asked suddenly. “I’ve got to get to college.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Boxer said. “We’ve sorted it.”
“We’ve sorted it?” Simon repeats.
Boxer waved a hand, shooing away the thought. “Just remember five o’clock. Don’t make me come looking for you. Clear?”
Simon nodded, though his stomach sank.
The door slammed behind Boxer like a gunshot.
Silence again. He sat very still, fork in hand, breath caught in his chest. Then he shoved the plate away, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a crumpled five-pound note. He stared at it. He needn’t to get out.
The walls hummed softly. Somewhere, faintly, the cuckoo clock creaked, though it hadn’t been wound in months.

^top

An Eddie Temple Story:

I part the dirty net curtains and wipe the condensation off the window. Looking down through the drips of water I see the kids emptying a skip all over the street jumping up and down on a busted settee, dogs snapping at their heels.

Looking to my right I see the sunset between the tower blocks then I catch sight of a burning car sailing down the grassy bank – red and orange flames lapping in the air like an infernal cavalcade followed by a bunch of 7-10 year olds screaming their heads off.

Welcome to Concord, a Class A Utopia full of dead end kids and cars that go nowhere.

I’m in a flat above a Takeaway, it’s a little bland but he has it nice. Benjamin Smith aka Benny Benzedrine, a top pill pusher… them kids playing trampoline down there are probably his next customers being groomed for Prison or the Afterlife. Benny is a first class scumbag, a bearded big broad guy, a tuft of ginger hair hinting at a residue of a quiff and one of those clumsy Indian ink swallow tattoo’s on his lower thumb, hangover from his teddy boy days, but more like a second rate Alvin Stardust. “Yeah I can just see you in your rock n roll drag, flick knife fights, Benny and the Jets eh?”

I’ve got Old Benny gaffa taped to a red velvet armchair, and his dirty mouth taped up, he looks like a Tracy Emin installation. I should get a Arts Council grant for this. This is real art. His face looks like he’s going to explode, a big red ball puffing and panting, he signals me to scratch something.

I sit back on the settee sip from a “Happy Birthday Benny” mug more chips than Lottes. He mumbles and struggles to lift his arms. I lean over nonchalantly and scratch his forehead, his eyeballs move to the extreme right; I scratch it and look at my fingernails… “I always thought you were flakey”. I lean back and observe his Living Room. It’s been lived in but temporarily, their lass, Samantha, is probably one of his many customers doing a freebie for an ounce. She’s a kappa slappa, two failed marriages, four kids in care, blonde snake hair and a white tracksuit that’s seen better days. If the soap powder guy from the TV advert knocked on her door she would chin him.

Samantha has been gone 20 minutes; I’ve sent her to a hole-in-the-wall to get me some money. Well it’s a perk of the job, after all he’s not going to be using it, besides I’ve a temporary cash flow problem. Mind you if she brings anyone back I’ll gut them from ear to ear.

He’s struggling to talk so I whip off the tape from his mouth to give him some talk-space; “AHHH” he screams I’ve just taken half his beard off. After a barrage of expletives he calms down and asks for his inhaler, “Nahhh!! It’s all in the mind, you should try meditation not medication”.

“Frek off” he replies with venom,

“Ever see Father Ted? You remind me…”

“I’m not religious”

“Forget it” I finish my tea stand up and stretch. I look out the window again, the fire brigade have turned up and there’s funnel of black smoke dissipating into a dark fog – then I turn to face him.

“Know what I’ve just seen? A bloody burning car, waltzing down the hill, some kids must have torched it and pushed it on its way”.

“They should be at school” he quips nervously and looks at his lo-fi bondage of gaffa tape and electrical flex.

“They’re your future customers”

“I don’t do kids” says Mr Beelzebub. Liar liar car’s on fire. The reason why I’m here is my client wants some vindication for his dead and gone heirs.

“You pushed some amphetamines onto 2 Gen Z’s. You know who their father was? I can’t figure out if you’re dumb or you did it for revenge?”

He grunts and looks to his left; a photo of Samantha’s absent kids, pauses and turns to look me in those cocker spaniel eyes.
“I didn’t know, honest”
“Ahh! Shit happens – academic to me bud.”

He sighs and drops his head.

“You know it’s sticking in my mind…the burning car, it’s kind of majestic but at the same time destructive – bit like me”

“Big head”
I lean over and menacingly speak into his ear.

“Another word from you and I’ll spoon your eyes out”.
Now he looks zissed.

I saunter around the room, it’s kind of a mix of taste and tat; 70’s wallpaper, Ikea furniture half assembled, a quaint collection of charity shop knick knacks, a well worn floral Axminster with carefully positioned tab burn holes – looking like a golf course – a DVD system and an old gram from the 50’s. Bit of a mix but it works. I give him a nod of approval but he thinks I’m taking the water. I crouch down and flip through his record collection, vinyl oldies a few Robbie Williams CD’s, I look at him in disgust. “It’s Samantha’s” he explains

“Kinda ironic…Escapology”

I put on one of his on, the Mona Lisa of the vinyl…Gene Vincent’s Be Bop A Lula.

“I’ll give you this old Benny boy, you’ve got some good taste, but you can tell the generation gap… Eddie Cochran vs. Beyonce”

“BE BOP A LULA SHE’S MY BABY”

The chug a chug groove rings in my ears and it’s got my toes a tapping. Now I feel good, I take out a few bullets, if you look closely it has the words “Don’t Take It Personally” inscribed in Times italics. I do it for all my victims they make nice ornaments when not in use. I’m a sucker for detail. A Swiss guy did it for me on the internet.

I turn down the record slightly, don’t want to get carried away.

I hear the metallic grind of the key turning. I move to the living room door, ready for unexpected visitors. There’s a pause then she bangs the door like someone has come in with her, I know that delay in time, when someone follows you in before you close the door, she’s brought someone else. Benny looks up, his eyes are like saucers, he’s speechless, he’s shaking his head as though he knows about my deduction. Clunk-clunk up the stairs like really heavy, she’s a slim lass, unless she’s gained weight at Barclays… The door parts open, she comes in and says a nervous “hiya”.

She moves over to Benny’s side like she’s choreographed her position, she points at me holding an envelope, “Here’s your money.

I drop to the floor seconds before a gun peeks around the corner. He fires where I should have been standing, quickly he lowers his gun as he sees me lying on the floor, then I shoot, ripping his ankle off. He falls holding his busted leg. Then I give him one in the head. Samantha starts screaming and coming for me, I shoot her between the tits and she falls like a bundle of laundry.

I turn the record up. Benny is shouting over the “She’s my Baby” line with all kinds of curses.

I put my little special bullet in the chamber twirl it around and do a Russian Roulette.

“You’re dead lumber coz life’s inherently unfair” I say with gusto, from some B Movie gangster flick I heard at the corner of my ear, somewhere, someday. I think it was my fave Edward G. He always looks like he’s been eating tomato ketchup, but says the right thing at the right time.

I shoot him right in the flaky bit on his forehead, where I scratched earlier, the blood sprays up like a geyser from the back of his head. “Wooh!! That was cool” the record sticks sounding like a STCH, I take in this cool montage…Samantha lying like a crumpled handkerchief…STCH…The uninvited guest and his tomato head… STCH… Benny looking up to a dead mans lampshade…STCH… A spray of blood on the back wall like a Jackson Pollock… STCH… LP cover showing Gene Vincent throwing his leg over a Microphone stand…STCH The Humour Bullet laughing all the way to his brains… STCH and that BEAUTIFUL BURNING CAR… STCH

I bend down beside Samantha, pluck the 200 from the vanilla, well £180, bitch spent £20 on fags and chocolate.

I go for the door and turn to see my hosts scattered and inert, like the furniture outside.

“Well it’s been a nice party, some good music and a bit of excitement, but if I could speak truthfully, the company’s been shite… Adios”.

^top

In this post-apocalyptic society, children were regarded as divine beings that could show you
the way to a better future. So the adults in charge kept them under surveillance by squads
called mother crews.
After eleven years of age some of the most important children, those who knew they were of
value to the society, developed a type of dis-association, which resulted in their physical
body duplicating into a spiritual body, or ghosting as they called it. The society regarded this
ghosting as a chrysalis to, which would emerge a prophet of incredible power, who would
lead the society into a new era. But during or leading up to this ghosting, the chosen ones
develop insight into the other dimension, which is invisible to the society members.
At the apex of the ghosting, when they have transmigrated to the next dimension, the
chosen children have to find a chrysalis container, which looks like an old mottled iron
chamber standing upright. They enter and out of the rear of the chamber a mould falls onto
the ground, it is a large phallus made out of lead. The spirit of the chosen child is contained
inside the phallus and slides up the hill, where you catch sight of a large wooden Falcon-
sitting upright on a wooden bed.
The squad teams follow certain symptoms of a child who has been chosen, which involve
innumerable anomalies that have been researched by people of lesser intelligence. But by far
the easiest clue is a dead child, by that I mean a child who develops staring eyes and appears
dead only a pulse remains, albeit for two hours. Then and only then can the squad members
catch sight of the ghosting through an ordinary mirror held at arm’s length, sometimes they
do contain chosen child by means of a cymatic tone. But this has to be issued from a
specially built radio phone, which the mother crews have always on their possession. The
sound waves link up with the brain and intervene with the chemical endorphins forming a
barrier between the right and left hemispheres at the point of conjunction. The effects of
this stoppage are sometimes devastating; this temporary loss can result in the child
developing later in life mental instability. The tone has to be transmitted at the point of
ghosting, when the child begins the trance state.
After the initial trance stage when the tone has been issued, the child recovers consciousness
and it’s spirit passes into the next dimension only to exist in a limbo state.
Once the child has been contained they are immediately transported to a safe house where
they are observed for innumerable anomalies.
There have only been three prophets who have been successfully contained, to which they
were regarded with the highest honour in the society. Inventions and innovations were rife
within their dynasties. However all three later developed a tulpa, a physical clone whose sole
purpose was to end the life of the other self, to which, understandably, their deaths were
bizarre.
These safe houses as they are called, are for observational purposes, whereby through a
series of experiments they can ascertain if they have indeed successfully contained a chosen
child. Safe house experiments or she, are actually submarines. They keep the child in these
prisons for intelligent tests and psychological profiling. The submarine’s interior is
specifically constructed in layers; each layer in pyramidal order has five rooms, then four etc.
This system determines the level of the chosen child that is if the containment was
successful. If however the child remains only in the bottom layer after a month or so, they
are immediately taken away to one of many asylums for the safety of the society as well as
themselves. Each room in the layers have puzzles which they have to solve so they may then
determine a clue on how to enter the next room of the layer.
If a child reaches the last room of the top layer, then the child is transported to a faraway
place and treated with special privileges. After this initial period of ease the child is then put
to work in furthering the society and consequently hailed thereafter as a prophet of
incredible power.
The power only lasts a few good years then the Tulpa experience evolves culminating in
intense experiences from the other dimension. The spiritual self that duplicated itself from
the physical is left abandoned after containment. In this wasteland the spiritual body, or
ghost, remains in a limbo state. This wasteland is situated between the physical world and
the other dimension.
After a period of other lost spirits feeding on them, they find extra strength and make their
way back into the physical realm by means of a portal. Their sole purpose is to destroy the
copy. A host of mind games commence ending with the murder of the self and consequently
of the ghost as well. Neither exists thereafter, although some say they return to the
wasteland.In the asylums where the other containments are kept, the ones who have failed the safe
house experiments, here they live normal lives although, it is a known fact that none of them
develop the Tulpa experience.

---

The Castle
The Castle has three floors. There are working quarters on the ground floor, in the middle
floor everything that is of some importance is done within small rooms. On the third floor is
recreation, where I inhabit.
There is a central rotunda that links all the corridors like a giant spider’s web. I live South
South West of the spider’s compass. My room is quite large with all my facilities contained
inside the room, even my meals are brought to me, so I need not leave the room for days.
Sometimes on important days, which I am reminded of by my guardian, they take me to the
middle floor into one of the small rooms they ask me politely about my thoughts on either
irrigation or engineering problems. I may then make a few suggestions which is either
accepted or rejected.
I am persuaded to enter a trance to see what the future may hold concerning a number of
important decisions yet to be made. These trance sessions are sometimes painful and
exhausting, there is this tremendous melancholy that hangs around me for days afterwards.
There are about three more like me. I see them sometimes being taken away to the middle
floor and returning limp and exhausted. We never talk to each other but recognise eachother from a long time ago. My guardian points out from time to time that we served in the
she’s together which were submarines filled with puzzles and games.
My guardian, who is a senior member of the father crew, knows the reason why I am held in
this monotonous existence. I see it as a prison, but he disagrees, but then again he would. I
have a feeling, which is very depressing, that the father crew of this particular place are
growing intensely dissatisfied with my answers and my trance sessions, particularly my recent
performances where inertia has left me silent. Measuring this deterioration, from last year till
the present, the months have seen myself deprived of privileges from a young prince to an
old prisoner.
Today I am told that I no longer will receive my meals in my room. I have to climb down
the many stairs to a large room on the ground floor, there in a vast assembly I am to eat with
the servants and other people of less importance. Also I am told, by my guardian no less,
that my many day duties shall include the sweeping up of the area outside my room. And my
interesting yet slightly perverse seances on the third floor, will cease from today.

---

The Wasteland
It is very dark in here my pain is immense. There is a strong gale that rises up from the
earth… it feels like I am falling.The wolves return, baying and laughing, rummaging their noses into my wounds as though
they are forcing their way into my body. Some are already inside of me, they’re swallowing
me, their teeth chanting through my flesh. I am emptying and being possessed by animals.
Feeling their hunger as I become one of them as I move forward my hands illuminate with
electricity I now know that killing is erotic, the sense of aggression and cosmic energy like
sheets of lightning tingling as fireballs through my veins. Gritting my teeth for sex and
blood, the hunger, for the smell of death is white hot.
The wind carries me forward to a vortex that I cannot see, only by some cold spiral I sense a
release from this darkness.
The voices inform me of my other self who abandoned me to this wasteland and how I
should vindicate this wretch.
I agree with their ideas, I want more and more the desire to feel my tongue inside a wound
and to hear our collective baying after a long and cruel slaughter. I feel gigantic and awesome
afraid of no other living creature.
The vortex picks up speed I can feel myself being sucked into a pipe of light. I am twisted
round and round plunging towards the light with immeasurable speed… then slowing down
I catch my breath, releasing my hand through a porthole of daylight I slowly climb through
from darkness to light.
One of the voices tells me it is a Castle, this is where my victim resides. Suddenly I am
caught off balance by swift movements that leave me non too wise of my orientation.Crushing to the floor in a boneless heap and feeling dazed I dissolve into a long sleep
drifting in and out of consciousness.

---

The Castle
A strange incident occurred today. I was in the process of one of my many mundane tasks
that I chanced upon what seemed to be a smaller version of myself, sliding down one of the
front bristles of my brush I think due to my ignorance of it’s presence. I continued brushing
the corridor around the area where I am situated. This figure flung from my modest
brushing onto the hard stone floor and predictably knocked unconscious.
Hearing the whirring of the surveillance camera focusing on this strange event, I sharply
produced my handkerchief, turning blindside, I bundled the little man into my pocket.
Thinking on how to contain this creature I will have a word with one of the maids, perhaps a
jar of some sort. I need a transparent chamber so I may observe its nature. I continue
brushing the corridor, killing time before the meal time bell rings it’s rusty hues.
He seems more like a Jackal, he howls incessantly, lifts his head up and bays at the light bulb.
He poaches me in silence as I wander around my room doing my duties he then murmurs
some dark curses and sits cross-legged. By all accounts I should perhaps relieve him of hisimprisonment, this heathen from my brush. Sometimes my mind wanders and I am catching
hold of an extraordinary thought, perhaps I am also in a bottle to which I am a captive
instead of the bottle, it is this castle.
I crumble a biscuit into the jar. He eats up the rainfall. I asked him a lot of questions but he
had no answers, he grunted and spoke roughly “See you in Hell”.
I retire to my bed and foresee a long sleepless night, which is my habit and illness. I can
never dream as people do, some of the maids talk about their dreams when in line for the
food, they chatter and laugh, it all seems enigmatic.
I shall watch the moth orbit the light and it’s desperate animation running along the walls.
It is my turn to brush the corridor tomorrow. We have a rota-system, although there’s only
three of us, so the system isn’t all that complicated.
Every two days it’s me or the other two, Sundays is rest days.
I wonder how far I have to go now with my life span. My guardian only visits on very rare
occasions, which is a sure sign that I may perhaps be lapsing in conduct and receptivity.
There are fewer words spoken even when he does come around, he mainly just watches me
solemnly talking to the contents of the jar, which irritatingly he pretends a diluted
acknowledgment, a nod and a smile maybe leaning forward with intense interest. But he
can’t fool me, as he scribbles in his notebook walking down the corridor from my room.
I don’t know if it’s my mind playing tricks or not but this creature in the jar seems to be
growing. This is the third time I have had to borrow a larger article for this thing. I think the
father crews, especially my guardian are growing concerned about my anomalies. Perhaps themaid has mentioned something, whatever the case I must make a decision on this creature’s
fate. Either I murder him suffocation would probably be the merciful end or let him go,
although he does mutter the odd death threat to me in the semblance of how he has vowed
to kill me and therein kill himself. Such a dilemma needs a fragile foregoing of the
consequences. I shall wait maybe a day or so. I wonder if the other two inmates who share
the corridor have or are experiencing similar problems.
This creature definitely a double of myself apart from the bizarre size he looks like an
upright wolf with wild hair all over his slouched frame, but his features through this vulpine
presence, is me.
I do indeed feel an evasive bond to this sad creature the same feeling that accompanies me
during sleep. But the emotions stirring up in me are awakened by flickering images of my
childhood.
The guardian looked at the empty jar in disbelief and with a conclusive know how, smiled
and nodded and taking the jar from the room.
“You see it’s a double, they come after you sometimes, take it into the hills”
‘Yes, yes I will, most certainly will”.
The door closed and the guardian walked along the corridor cradling what seemed to be
proof of a subtle madness that will worsen over the next few months.
But the guardian is a man of his word, he will bury the jar in the hills as perhaps a ritual of
exorcism. This may cure him he thought but lacked the latent hope for the oncoming
months… And the consequences. He then may have to attend a series of meetings withfellow seniors, discussing in small rooms on the middle floor the prisoner’s behaviour and
ultimately his fate.
The empty jar reflected the poignant administrators.
Three members of the father crew and the guardian, sat in silence. Someone scribbled on
paper. A small label was attached to the jar. This maybe an end to a respected dynasty. “The
Tulpa experience has begun” exclaimed the guardian.
This Tulpa phenomenon, when one emerges, there are at least a thousand more invisible
wolves to follow, this will, due to the bizarre overpopulated castle, result in extreme paranoia
and eventual suicide of the prisoner.
Such a grotesque debilitation of the individual that the father crew have created a euthenasia
policy, whereby the chosen one can be quickly executed. This is done with immediacy for
less pain and obvious sorrow.
There is a secret room below the 1st floor where this passive atrocity is carried out under
stimulants and a surge of electricity. Some of the guards call this type of execution as the
Falcon, a bed, where the unfortunate lies in a drugged haze. The bed resembles by its
shadow cast, an upright Falcon due to the appendages fixed to the bed.

^top

It is almost time, as the hour speaks. I was like a shelf hanging in
space. The fingernail of each dream scratched the four years of my
doorbell insanity.
The cruel spine of the balustrade took over the desire to sleep; the
flames of our tallow candles misplaced the shadow of the railings.
They made me lurk in dark doorways, with the razorblade of your
lies. I found a book, on a page, there were ten scattered lines and
four staircases. Cautiously I picked out the scrambled letters. It
was a poem entitled “Herberts Grave”.
It was hard to believe that the Sun didn’t rise, as I walked through
the music of a dream. Beyond the hall a drum could be heard from
the musicians sleep. My fingers burst into tears, crying for the
chapters of an automobile race, tearing holes in the memory of a
friend.
The long tailed morning joined the wheel to its early morning rise.
It was cloudless July, the words of a black coat faded.
The dangerous street numbers cheering themselves deaf, became
the fearsome brides of the cutter. I broke from the ten cards and
cheap jugglers to a room of a castle. The other people became
farewell poisons. How glad I was to escape the airplanes. The
heavy face of a sloping meadow covered half in Natures watering
can – between two deaths -costumed my poems of the prayer stool.
Moving to the draping carpets I swallowed the photographs of the
period… one leg and an inch of flying beauty. The mirror sang its
water song in the wisdom of a shaking bough… The air became
sweeter almost a strange farm of conversation.
It was a race against time, avoiding my silhouette I brushed by the
window ignoring the burning barn. On the drawbridge a car had
fallen from its desires. Paring knives, the fifty convicts of my schiz-
ophrenia, momentarily lost their hours. The paralysis of a train cor-
nered itself into a cremation; fires were the red soup of a pledge.
I stood motionless, forgetting the pronouncement of the wicked
springboard of Luck. The daytime smoke became an insane carni-
val. The proud hunt for the passengers became the absurd illusion
of statues.Standing in the rosewood frame of noon the cruel blade of a
goddess transformed the scene into a five-minute eye movement
of fascination. Snowflakes descended their silken ladders mak-
ing inscriptions on the grey jaws of the platform. The labourers
hanged themselves, combing orphan sleep with a lament of a
gifted sculptress; I leaned on the nearby sound of a sobbing limb,
counting the old rooms of the station. Finding some with storms
in them.
The right leg of my Sunday afternoon flesh listened and tapped
the dagger roses of a waking clock. The girl in the nearby village
folded her black shoes, hiding them from the tiptoeing phantom.
A guitar was the suitcase of your smile; a gentle clarion of glass
made the chill of my daytime dance a blind window calling gold
as a Sabbath.
The nearest pond bounced a few times… A homocentrical fig-
ure with wrists, gave me the orchestra of the paperweight glassy
world. I had grown too young for the skies hollow hand, mur-
dering the raspberries of a nerve I abandoned the Castle for the
forest. Rushing with the flirtations of silence, the esoteric flower
elves gave me the sermon of a sawmill, where the logs injure the
steep expression of ruined screams. I shatter the wall,
darkening the water with my skeletal eyes, knuckling into an arm
of boredom. The cold-cropped hair of Venus swooped her whis-
tling dress into the two colours of my surrendered bird. I, the king
of candles and shadows, burdened the tin drums of the ruffling
Moons. Crowded pavements were the lips of the harmonica,
clanging their girlfriends bottles on the heart of a hand.
I followed Herbert to the streetcar with the human soundtrack of
crying. We glanced through the pictures of a cupboard. Your win-
ter overcoat inherited the rigid wrinkles of a kiss; her lips implied
the blades of a lament. With grace and carelessness you told me
the frost of horses in your six month Celtic bard voice, how the
sleepy windows of laughter and of love were always the same
door to the cellar. Tearing his Crow costume I hid the anchor of
the car and ran to the harbours mouth. The Captain and the Brick
Maker grinned the fragments of a helpless butterfly. The cemetery
trumpet queued to the tray of my ears.
The self-burnt string of happiness was far behind in the brow of
the last accordions song.
I daydreamed on the clear open sea… Scorning the palmed hues
of the moonlight. The island was the spine of powder in the
cherry pits of paradise. The broken arm of the sky shone its
white bone.I wilted into my cabin for a good long rest. The dead flashlight of
dreams hung like the pale breasts of laundry.
The portholes provided the Moon with a museum. I nightmared
the figurehead; white gloves of the blue veined flock of demons,
contorted mouths, revolving heads dripped their ice and sunburnt
children in sleets of collected tombstones.
I jacked up my eyelids and the phantasms left a perished poem.
Covered in trees of sweat, the piano stool flitted its lids; the old
man dinted the whites… I left without saying
goodbye.
My Judas decision conversed and twisted as the milk glass would
split its human company. I stood barefoot, my hand holding the im-
pression of a strong morning laughter; the damp air was the abor-
tion of dead breaths. The philosopher dropped his marinal hammer,
scraping the skin of the amen of a hymn. The fists and fins of my
small eyes burrowed into the parachute silk of the woman’s flamed
ballet, her church door faced the railway tracks of my waiting. The
drawn-in-look of her cheekbones creased in tempo, the
school desk voice chalk marked the evening, coal black eyes with
nude backgrounds of a lanterns teeth… she smiled with cheap
pornography. We spent the whole of the voyage in closed eyed
dreams.
My zeppelin head skulked into the melancholy of a corner. Life was
a portrait of flute mourners; their stone fingers oozed their little
nightmares.
Avoiding the strokes of the asylum class I struggled from the
eternal posture of Death. The soldier patterns of the blue clock
dragged its three-minute hate machine into my room. I fled as
a fleece of clockwork grass… engulfing the plague theatres and
streets of granulated columns smelling of graveyard wine.
The helter-skelter of a cloud were vertical bamboos with the black
touch of furnaced men. My top hat barricaded the Sun, bewitched
by the museums attendants blood a beautiful fish invented itself by
darkening its saccharine canoe, being a thousand miles away from a
pistol, it secured its oblong squad into its upper floor paint.
The freight cars gurgled; my flag stone legs ran by the field grey
uniforms. They gave me the look of a schoolboys catapult… My
mouth dripped a green pen with a needlework gesture to the skull-
faced man, “shoot me, shoot me” he said, his throat confessed a
horror novel.
Neither of his hands reminded themselves of a key. He tried instru-
ments, but only to axe dance screams.I penetrated the corridors as a whip deprived of a victim. Inside
the carriage the armour plated passengers, squealed like a house
at six o clock.
I was ordered out by a summer night’s vision. I left the palace
of valid torment with her cobwebs the necklace of the night, to
pursue the lady of Egypt, singing cathedral sorrows with bashful
eyes. But there was no one there; I had been given the lie fusion.
So I left my murder behind like a dancing shape of emotions to
intrigue the thin paladins.
I examined my leg batteries in the alcohol light and froze the
whirlwind… The spiders gossamer kiss surpassed the devouring
herds of the vampires… My dream wolves had returned to
rattle-snake solitude in anthem swells.
Decomposing my trenched forehead to resume seated in the
Scream Theatre. My eyes had their rudders stolen, so like the
black horse of tomorrow’s dust I swooped in the sudden blood of
sweat, across the clumsy fields, thirsting the sixty hours of
camouflage.
A copper chariot of serpents pulled by the fairy tale stones,
halted beside the cottage.
They came with cardboard masks and drew their shark tails. The
two streamed crash of the arched thunder, giggled war. Every
picture had to be re-painted, the statues re-named and the
certain signs of a winged book, were to be scarred on the
cramped couch of sleep.
I thought of going back and opened my fist to find the education
of a ticket that had been wiped clean by the hungry aquarium.
Then with a sigh and a sidelong glance a monsoon of coloured
stones rained into the grotto of a statues eye, hairs of scattered
water danced upon the blazing postcard, reducing the buckled
blue flames, into the paradox of smoke.
I left with my injured halo into the cloudbanks, wanting nothing of
private miracles… Dragging my charred wings behind…

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