Things
Chapter One
The door to my flat is next to the garbage bins. Not so nice, but there you are. Number seven. Not the door to heaven, but it's home.
The most important thing in the flat of course is the cupboard where I keep my tea-bags and biscuits and things to refresh my body and revive my spirits…which I've had to do quite a lot lately so I've put on a bit of weight. There's a hot-plate for heating things up, like soup and water for tea, but it needs a bit of a clean. That's the trouble with a sunny day, you can see every little speck of dust. Maybe it'll rain tomorrow and then the flat will look much cleaner. Ha, ha. You can tell I'm a lazy bugger.
In front of me is the window where one of the panes has a piece of cardboard stuck over it with sticky tape because the glass fell out when I tried to open it. That's alright though because I put my toothbrush and things behind it on the windowsill and then no-one can see them from the outside. There's also a pot-plant that I bought ages ago but it died because I forgot to water it. I feel a bit guilty about that. I should throw it away.
Underneath the window is the sink which I don't use very much except to have a wee because the loo doesn't work. I suppose you're pulling a face now. Well, you shouldn't judge me you know, you have no idea what it's like to ‘sink' so low. Ha, ha. Oh, and I have to go into town on a number five to do a number two. Just thought I'd tell you in case you were wondering.
Next to the sink there's a car engine. Not the whole engine, just the cylinder block I'm told. Don't ask. It's so heavy that the whole room seems to slope down towards it, and it stinks of oil.
Behind me is my bed, where I spend most of my time staring at my stomach. It is a thing of wonder to me. It's almost completely round, like a basket-ball, or the moon…with hair on it. Can't say its navel gazing because I don't see mine much, but I can feel it. Anyway, if I had to add up all the hours I've spent contemplating my stomach, it would be millions. I also have an old green army blanket that I stole from a tramp, but that's not such a nice story.
So then, just as you come in the door, there's a brand new wardrobe that I bought in a sale. I have to keep it locked or else the doors swing open and I keep walking into them and that's very irritating. Inside there's a hanging space for my shirts and pants, and a couple of drawers for my socks and things. Above them there's a shelf where I keep my box of letters. I like to think they're from my mother but I can't be sure because she doesn't really say – and I can't remember her, so it's a bit of a mystery. Anyway, she used to send me a letter every week when I was at the orphanage. Every Saturday. Well that's when they gave out the post…in case it was bad news and didn't interfere with school and things. She doesn't give an address and she just signs it ‘from your very dear friend'. That doesn't really sound like a mother does it? But she does call me ‘my darling' quite often. She doesn't say very much else though. Mostly the same things, about how she misses me and is always thinking of me. Anyway, I read them if I'm feeling a bit low or I just sniff them because they smell so nice. If I close my eyes I can see her in my mind - all made up and ready to go out, smoothing down her dress and smiling at the mirror. But the perfume's not so strong anymore. I suppose it escapes every time I open the box and soon it'll just smell like…me. Oh well. They're up there on the shelf, safe and sound. That's the wardrobe then.
Then there's the kitchen table where I'm sitting, and this chair really squeaks – I've never noticed that before. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Now it's going to worry me all day. The paint's also a bit chipped and I have my favourite place under the seat that I pick at with my fingernail when I'm sitting here. I find it very comforting. The table has a shiny plastic table-cloth, which is very nice to touch, cool and smooth. It also has a cutlery drawer where I keep the rest of my things. There's a tin opener, a spoon, car keys (my pride and joy), a table knife, and some string. In this corner here I keep my toe-nail clippings. Ha, ha. No I don't. I'm just being silly now. I keep an exercise book here to do my accounts. I know that sounds boring but it helps me to keep track of things. The money goes on food and rent mostly…and magazines. Quite a lot of magazines. I didn't mention them before did I, but they're under the bed over there. It's one of those glossy magazines for…home-owners. You thought I was going to say something shocking, didn't you. No. it's alright, I'll protect you from the truth. It's got such a ring to it hasn't it? Home-owners. Ho!-moaners, homo-ners. Anyway, everything else I own in is this drawer. That's a bit sad when you think about it. Oh and I forgot to mention the brooch. It's not mine if that's what you're thinking, it belongs to the lady who lives down the road. I found it behind the bins the other day. It took me ages to remember where I'd seen it before. I think it must have dropped off her coat and got kicked there or something. I should take it back, but…well, that's a bit difficult because…she caught me spying on her if you want to know. I wasn't spying really, just…lonely. Anyway, the whole thing was so stupid. I was watching her from my window; she always walks past my flat at about five ‘o clock in the afternoon, and then a few days ago, out of the blue, she turned and looked straight at me. I got such a fright I jumped back behind the wall and had to hide until she went by. I must've looked a proper fool. And now I don't know what to do with the brooch. I suppose I could put it into her letterbox when she's not at home. But I'm going to go to bed now if you don't mind. I'm a bit tired and talking about these things has just depressed me all over again.
*
The little chapel hung in the mists between the worlds, coming and going, neither here nor there, like my soul and sword, nowhere to go but onwards. I shifted in the saddle, shouldered my shield and set off in search of sin and salvation.
My horse shied at the shadows; broken branches loomed over us in the gloom. Crooked rows of rotting teeth tombstones closed in on me like the jaws of judgement; ugly grasping granite gargoylesses on big damp buttresses breasted out of the fog, barring my way, begging me to stay awhile with a come-sweetly sad smile and a siren song from the deep pit of her passion and pain saying, never again a simple refrain.
Stained-glass figures of immaculate moral stature peered down from high vaulted windows and gasped and gossiped in their Gothic arches as I went by, the briar bramble bride snaggling at my side, all the while her slimy sister mud trying to slip me up with dirty lips to suck me in – my soul for sex, beads for barter, bitches for the breeding dens of the devil-may-care wanderer.
The lure was strong, the smell of heat rising from her verdant loins set my body trembling, so I doubled my resolve and set my face against the fanciful fog and the furies and finally slid to a stop beside a sheltered oaken door with the word inscribed ‘forevermore'. I pulled on the bell and heard a receding rumble of thunder as I crossed the threshold into a bright new world. Pink cherubs, disturbed by the sound of the bells, fluttered up in rainbow colours, flying around the walls; streaks of gilded sunshine peeped in and out amongst the gaily painted clouds on the ceiling, while hushed carpets underfoot sealed off all earthly noises from below; ribbons of incense trailed through the room, simulating the sickly sweet scent of saintliness.
Suddenly there was a terrible banging sound that made me nearly jump out of my muddy boots. There - in front of the altar-anvil, where so many souls, plucked red hot from the fires, have been hammered into the hardened steel of righteousness - perched a dimly lit coffin on a plinth of crimson crushed velvet, and a demonic little man with long dirty hair happily humming and hammering a nail into the coffin-lid with enough noise to wake the dead. My displeasure swirled down the aisle towards him and he swivelled round, hammer held high, his hunch-back black gown flapping like a raven in a storm, his mouth a suggestive smile of six-inch silver nails. I was taken speechless at the sight for fright, and then the coffin-lid began to lift of its own accord and a pipe-organ started playing a sound like a slowly screaming spirit aspiring hopelessly heavenwards. The man slammed the lid shut and with a conspiratorial wink over his shoulder, took another nail from his mouth and began hammering at the coffin with great gusto.