Richard Butchins's Blog: Angels stand corrected... - Posts Tagged "dark"
Extract No.3 "The invisible..."
Here is the third extract from "Pavement" it contains graphic language - do not read if profanity offends, though I do not consider old English profane...also contains disturbing imagery.
I am in my room it is dark as always. I lie on the bed. It is after midday and I have nothing to do with my time. I close my eyes and allow my mind to drift, to take me where it wants to go. I drift through time back, we always drift back, we are prisoners of our past although it doesn’t exist in any real sense. We have no control over the things that have already happened, so why do we continually revisit them? We have no control either, over the things that will happen in the future, we might have some small control of what happens now, in that I can decide to open my eyes and have a bowl of porridge or I can stay lying here thinking.
Even our choices in the present are severely proscribed by what has gone before, by stuff that is no longer real. This line of thought is circular and frustrating. I force my mind off into the past, the only place it can go, as the future is nothing but a dark cloud of uncertainty, punctuated only by death. The past, however, is illuminated with searchlights of distress. I can see Jamilia the Cunt and my child Sam: they pass by, mocking and contemptuous for a moment, and then they are gone to wherever they are now. I start to fall into a day sleep, images jumbled and threatening. The basement where I was kept, locked in as a young teenager and beaten daily by the owners, my owners, with a rod and a belt and thumped repeatedly with a hot saucepan, for what?
I can’t remember.
I start to wakefulness.
“Cunts.”
The past and everyone in it is a cunt. Disoriented, I stagger to the wet room and wretch into the toilet. I vomit. The saucepan is still crashing into the back of my head – perhaps it will never stop. The owners died after I climbed out of the small basement window they forgot to close one night, and set fire to the house with them inside. I remember watching the flames and the fire engines with the fire crews trying to get to them and listening with sweet joy to their screams as they burned, but the saucepan left with me and they are hitting me with it to this day. They are free from whatever suffering caused them to mistreat a fourteen-year-old boy, but they are still torturing me. It’s still going on in my head. Why can’t I turn it off? My head hurts. I turn on the light, go to the wet-room and wash my face.
I look in the mirror I can’t see my reflection.
“Fuck you.”
I wash my face again and look a second time. There I am, indistinct but visible, drawn, I look as if I am a pencil sketch. I flick the light off and head back to the bed. I will not sleep. I must decide who to kill.
I am in my room it is dark as always. I lie on the bed. It is after midday and I have nothing to do with my time. I close my eyes and allow my mind to drift, to take me where it wants to go. I drift through time back, we always drift back, we are prisoners of our past although it doesn’t exist in any real sense. We have no control over the things that have already happened, so why do we continually revisit them? We have no control either, over the things that will happen in the future, we might have some small control of what happens now, in that I can decide to open my eyes and have a bowl of porridge or I can stay lying here thinking.
Even our choices in the present are severely proscribed by what has gone before, by stuff that is no longer real. This line of thought is circular and frustrating. I force my mind off into the past, the only place it can go, as the future is nothing but a dark cloud of uncertainty, punctuated only by death. The past, however, is illuminated with searchlights of distress. I can see Jamilia the Cunt and my child Sam: they pass by, mocking and contemptuous for a moment, and then they are gone to wherever they are now. I start to fall into a day sleep, images jumbled and threatening. The basement where I was kept, locked in as a young teenager and beaten daily by the owners, my owners, with a rod and a belt and thumped repeatedly with a hot saucepan, for what?
I can’t remember.
I start to wakefulness.
“Cunts.”
The past and everyone in it is a cunt. Disoriented, I stagger to the wet room and wretch into the toilet. I vomit. The saucepan is still crashing into the back of my head – perhaps it will never stop. The owners died after I climbed out of the small basement window they forgot to close one night, and set fire to the house with them inside. I remember watching the flames and the fire engines with the fire crews trying to get to them and listening with sweet joy to their screams as they burned, but the saucepan left with me and they are hitting me with it to this day. They are free from whatever suffering caused them to mistreat a fourteen-year-old boy, but they are still torturing me. It’s still going on in my head. Why can’t I turn it off? My head hurts. I turn on the light, go to the wet-room and wash my face.
I look in the mirror I can’t see my reflection.
“Fuck you.”
I wash my face again and look a second time. There I am, indistinct but visible, drawn, I look as if I am a pencil sketch. I flick the light off and head back to the bed. I will not sleep. I must decide who to kill.
The Fourth Extract..."The Room"
I posted the last extract on Sunday, probably not a good day to post. I suppose all the goodreads members must be in church. Here's another short extract from Pavement. There's a giveaway coming right up...
I have one room in the basement of a four-story Victorian terraced house. The house is divided into bedsits. Mine is about twelve feet by nine feet. It has a small wet-room attached with a toilet and shower inside.There is a two-ring electric stove on top of a cupboard in the corner; a small bed and a chair, table and chest of drawers, a rail in the alcove that serves as a wardrobe.
The room is dark, the basement and hallway are dark, painted white years ago and now dirty grey, drifting into brown along the architrave and across the ceiling. A single bare light bulb hangs from a twisted cord; the illumination it provides is fitful.The floor is carpeted with a stained beige rag of a carpet, threadbare in more places than it retains its weave.The wall has a host of disjointed letterboxes nailed to it. I don’t check mine, there is no point, there’s rarely anything inside.
The hallway is not dirty; it’s just worn out and tired. The stairs are the same; they are in the winter of their years and have seen better days and happier feet. I walk down the twisting staircase to the basement and the short hallway at the end of which is the door to my room, the room next door, and the adjacent door to the yard outside. The yard always feels dark even when the sun is shining.There’s something about this house that hoards the dark and cold, even on the sunniest, brightest, warmest August day. It’s as if the house were invisible and impermeable to any kind of future. It’s the perfect place for me.
I have one room in the basement of a four-story Victorian terraced house. The house is divided into bedsits. Mine is about twelve feet by nine feet. It has a small wet-room attached with a toilet and shower inside.There is a two-ring electric stove on top of a cupboard in the corner; a small bed and a chair, table and chest of drawers, a rail in the alcove that serves as a wardrobe.
The room is dark, the basement and hallway are dark, painted white years ago and now dirty grey, drifting into brown along the architrave and across the ceiling. A single bare light bulb hangs from a twisted cord; the illumination it provides is fitful.The floor is carpeted with a stained beige rag of a carpet, threadbare in more places than it retains its weave.The wall has a host of disjointed letterboxes nailed to it. I don’t check mine, there is no point, there’s rarely anything inside.
The hallway is not dirty; it’s just worn out and tired. The stairs are the same; they are in the winter of their years and have seen better days and happier feet. I walk down the twisting staircase to the basement and the short hallway at the end of which is the door to my room, the room next door, and the adjacent door to the yard outside. The yard always feels dark even when the sun is shining.There’s something about this house that hoards the dark and cold, even on the sunniest, brightest, warmest August day. It’s as if the house were invisible and impermeable to any kind of future. It’s the perfect place for me.
Angels stand corrected...
I have to have a blog...the site told me, my publisher told me, my publicist told me, and even my turkish barber told me, as he was administering the finest of close shaves. So I thought I had better
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