February 13th 2019 [Whyteleafe]
The word – mirror –
“Such a beautiful word.”
“One of the more beautiful.”
February 14th 2019
‘A shadow hangs over this bed/An animal snagged in a trap’
A snowy wood.
Alan Mac, standing over a rabbit in a closed, steel trap, says, “This one, Nick, will never hunt again.”
February 15th 2019
A city, an almost Bath, but populated by Geordies. I am stood outside a barbershop. It is a summer’s day. A man appears. He has a very thin, square head (it is rather like a timber nail). He asks me, “Where can I get a haircut?” I try not to look at his head. I am so shocked by the look of him that I forget that I am stood outside the barbershop. I give him long and complicated directions through the city to another shop. “You’ll be lucky to find one, though,” I say. “It is Sunday.”
*
Sat on the top deck of a bus. The bus leaves the city behind. It takes in country lanes and occasional villages. I have to give money to a boy sat next to me. I count the notes into his hand. £160. “Plus an extra two weeks, ” he says. This, whatever it is for, seems excessive.
The bus passes through a village. A huge crowd of people are sat on the steps to the newsagents/Off Licence. They drink and eat ice cream and chocolate. I wonder why they have nothing else to do.
I get off the bus. I am in a cheap supermarket. Teenage girls dressed in scrappy, cheap fur coats, run up and down the aisles. They are loud and drunk. They take selfies. One of them has a prosthetic breast (like a bun). It is stuck on the end of a stick and she wears it beneath her fur coat, but it protrudes as if her breasts are on show. This causes much outrage to the people in the till queue – and much hilarity to the gang of girls. What a cheap town.
nickreeves 