Formation of a Shared Mask

opening para of a new short story:

. . . after three weeks of sex and intimacy in that hotel room, the same hotel room; after all that burgeoning recognition . . . of tongues playing on skin or otherwise debating the rights and wrongs of their illicit union, of lips caressing body parts and forging sub-atomic bonds, the couple parted company leaving just their amputated mouths on a westbound District and Circle Line train . . . two quivering relics of what had occurred between them . . . These orifices . . . without their respective owners to animate them securely, squirmed and twitched in semi-articulate paroxysms and appeared to the dumbfounded passengers in the carriage to be suggesting that they were in constant agony, that this sudden imposed muteness was the most difficult of sounds to cope with . . . That their fortunes had so recently changed was of course unknown to the passengers; the mouths, once replete of purpose and driven by lust’s animation, now appeared idiotic. Consequently, the passengers could only suppose some frightening existential malaise was bearing fruit there on the coarse, patterned seats; that these gruesome ‘things’ encapsulated a deep, primal and, for the better part of any average life, hidden fear . . . so absurd, so horrifying . . . that there might come a day when each and every one of them would go unheard. The question went round as to whether they should pull the alarm cord and inform the driver of this disturbing imposition to their day or simply ignore it, after all what concern was it of theirs? And surely any assistance that might have been available was too little too late, these ‘things’ were far from being saved . . . So the train howled on through the tunnels, shaking the occupants irredeemably . . .
. . . and the mouths searched deep within themselves for some way to emulate their respective hosts, to draw on the sensual memory of what had transpired between their possessors, but to no avail . . . and they began to quake with grief; the shunt of skin against skin, the sweet awareness of life, the flume of sex - all were gone; how they had been empowered, rich, charmed . . .

sketch - the day of missing people

the Ops Manager was a susprisingly nervous individual for one so physically imposing (over 6 feet tall) - possibly a couple of years younger than me, though with a look in his eyes that suggests he might be spiritually older - very distracted, permanently looking over his shoulder as if something is about to happen that he has to be aware of or that someone is about to give him bad news -

he told me, in no uncertain terms, that the pay would not be good -

it wasn't - it was laughable; truly - so I declined the job

Christ, I'm hungry again. I've imposed a food regime as of today, cutting down my intake by about a quarter, hoping that I'll save on spending whilst I'm out of work and just writing - we'll see -

drank coffee far too late again whilst writing up first draft of short story 'Seven By Five' - couldn't sleep, couldn't relax, so talked to B & A in the kitchen for hours mostly about knife attacks, my getting beaten up in Brixton five years ago, music festivals, and the quality of Madonna's (!!) music nowadays (we all agreed it was crap) -

when I go back upstairs there are three missed calls on my mobile

brand new days (daze)

descending the curved (shell-like) stairs on rickety breath, hungover, a thick & sticky one in the frontal lobe, & into the kitchen with it's late-night midnight-feasting detritus still on the table -so: a baking tray (did we go to that much effort?) littered with greasy crumbs; an open pink leather handbag with secrets in its shadows; an empty glass tumbler (reminiscent of the isle of Oban); chairs askew like some isoceles dance; & plates stacked in the basin waiting for the effort to cleanse them and repair this day - & all thankfully overshadowed by the sweet, citrus smell of freshly cut grass, chlorophyll enriched & sharp as a blade itself (if it can be said that a smell can be blade-like, which in my condition is the way it seems) - the sheer bliss of it goes hand-in-hand, a compatriot, to this wicked day ahead, glorifying the morning & the passions of the night before: the heady tumults & open endings, the neon adulterations - and other details too: the curvilinear separations of an old book spine on a bedside table; the jive of a geeky actor in an elastic body covertly attempting to keep his partner in check (a partner who, it seems to me, is forever attempting to sidle away) . . .