Rareripe - Flash Fiction

“Their firm bodies exuding faith in the future” - Laurent Binet “The Seventh Function Of Language”

Sunken bloodshot eyes. Heavily lidded like an escarpment. Only the sempiternal rheum moraine, suggestive of occupation within the caliginous orbs. A vestigial liquefying blink reflex. Dried out, desiccated and doped. Blunted through the constant triggering of those miasmic fumes, like a smoke alarm having its batteries removed. But also through any possible experience of surprise having atrophied. Like all emotions. Never any tears to drive runnel cleansing trails through smut smirched faces. Supernumerary tics erupting elsewhere on the countenance, as if to compensate for the mouldering nictation. 

Noses constantly impressed with a finger at the nostril. As if trying to expectorate their coagulate soul, which is of course an impossibility. Unable even to break down the sclerotic wall, that so immures their heart, that they cannot detect their own pulse beyond. Perhaps that's why they breathe shallowly like a panting dog, in spite of a low heartbeat rate. No pulse means no adrenaline response engendered. Thereby no perspiration either. 

Mouths that eschew any movement of the top lip. Lest a scintilla of such expansive enunciation above an uninflected muttering, offer the utterer as jumped up beyond their station. Asking, no demanding, to be slapped back down for his pretension. His aspiration. A disarticulating anti-intellectual radar no less sweeping than that of the Khmer Rouge.

Heads unable to be hoisted by necks forever pinioning gazes down at the pavement. Partly locked in place, through scanning palm-cupped phone screens like dowsing twigs piloting their journeys. But also to ensure avoiding challenging eye contact with knife-wielding sentinel peers, demanding the shibboleth of your postcode before grudging grunted grant of passage. 

If the emissions are imitative of the tubercular, the anatomies verge on nineteenth century rickety. Liposucted by nourishment-free fast food. Willowy bodies with Dutch Elm fungal paunch. Uniformly sallow skin trespassed only by florid roseolas and pustules. Baggy and saggy clothes ape/accentuate the flesh's amorphousness contours. 

Penetralia scooped out by surfeit, sensual responsiveness hollowed through habitude. A degenerative self-negation through the flesh of another, also negating themselves reciprocally. Sexless sex. No corporeal double helix convolutions, to ignite and conjure the chemical angels stood on the pinhead unseen within. 

Their flabby, formless bodies exuding no presence in the present, let alone any awareness of futurity.  

Acquaintance - Friday Flash

The two former school friends bumped into one another on the street. They shook hands heartily, clumping each other on the shoulder. The commotion of their boisterous reunion broadcast a warning to those pedestrians forging towards them sightlessly with their heads bowed to consult the augury of their phones, so that they managed to swerve around them without disaster. Yet above all the bustle of the street, the two men couldn’t make themselves understood, even when they inclined in towards the mouth of the other to hear what he was saying. 

The pair decided on adjourning to a café to catch up on old times. They snaffled a table just as the waitress was clearing it of the leavings from the previous occupants and ordered two cups of tea. While they stirred sugar into their milky brew, the pair proceeded to fumble for the vectors of alignment of their recollections. Yet they engendered none of the call and response of familiarity. They failed to finish each other’s sentences with that curious intimacy born of shared experience. They recounted events with a similar hollowness that the other vaguely remembered but without any illumination. While they could both place themselves at the same occasions, there was none of the customary effervescence of a reciprocal memory that meant they could place each other there. 

This was because neither had been the protagonist in these recalled scenes. Both had been on the margins, stationed in the boostering chorus (men do not acknowledge any cheerleading role), while others took centre stage with prodigious drinking feats, bodily regurgitation of such feats, or the violence that inevitably ensued. To find such exploits truly memorable and recountable, you had to be there, which they were of course, but perhaps really only tangentially. You don’t allow for wallflowers outside of dancehalls and that usually applied to women, but both men had been let’s call them spear carriers for the main actors and this was dawning on them as they increasingly failed to depict themselves or the other as heroic in any single incident. They were not at the moral centre, because their timidity had determined the moral decision making process for them from the very outset.

They were barely listening to the other as their thoughts turned inward to process these revelations made through lacunae. This happy coincidence which should have prompted a reclamation of carefree youthful joy, had merely shown up their lack of dimension then as now. They couldn’t connect in any pleasing way. Neither cared what the other was currently engaged in and what he had made of his life. For he was reflecting that he himself had still achieved nothing noteworthy, had made very little of his own life in line with the unpromising, modest beginnings. 

The pauses elongated into silences. Though ill-aligned, now the urgency was to break away from their contiguity. Both gulped their tea and made sure to slurp the dregs as loudly as possible to signal an empty cup. One threw his empty sugar packet into the teacup, the other snapped his plastic stirrer in half and also set it in his cup as if a tombstone. The first wiped his mouth with the paper napkin, the other signalled for the bill. They each paid half, stood up and shook hands without any cupping of arms around the shoulder. As they rose to leave, the waitress scooped up their cups and gave a cursory swipe over the table with her cloth. 

Let Me Explain It To You Then Wayne

Wayne Rooney says sometimes he doesn't get what the UK Press are trying to say when they print stories about him. One is tempted to lay the fault with dear Wayne, pandering to the stereotype of him as not the sharpest tool in the box. but rather than score a cheap barb, I'll try and go on to explain it for you Wayne, speaking from the perspective of an England fan with no parochial club rivalry sharpening any axe, since my club are not in the Premiership and must be one of the few Championship sides not to have a single player at the World Cup.

The latest issue seems to be when the Press were invited into their 15 minute window to observe the England squad training, they spotted Rooney training with the so-called 'stiffs' that is those players unlikely to be in the starting IX for the next match and drew the conclusion that this meant Wayne too wasn't going to start. Rooney countered that he was putting in hard training with the stiffs (whereas the first team starters were doing less robust training to preserve their energies) at his own request.

Okay, first question, why does Rooney feel he needs extra training? Because he's not fit enough (stamina)? or maybe he's not sharp enough or maybe because he finds it harder to keep the weight off than others. If it's either point 1 or 2, then that suggests that Rooney knows he isn't up to scratch and that this can only put his place in doubt. Point 3 is more of a reflection of his whole career. This is the man remember, who one season Sir Alex Ferguson, no bad judge of a player's prowess, sent off on holiday to the sun for some winter training and thereby missing matches, because he was concerned about Rooney's fitness. Rooney has been photographed smoking and is also known to like a drink in his downtime and has come back to pre-season training overweight by his own admission.

Second, let me explain how the Press works Wayne. If as you say you requested extra training rather than having been banished to the stiffs because you will not be starting the next game as one newspaper claimed, then clearly the newspaper's story is not factually correct. But dear Wayne, they don't care. Why don't they care? Because they not only want it to be true, they are campaigning to have it thus. They are reporting in the guise of advocating. How much influence do they have over their readers and how much influence do their readers have over the England manager is not a question I can answer. But they're going to have a go at getting a groundswell of opinion going to influence selection decisions anyway.

Why have they turned on you? Because they feel you no longer justify your place in the team by right. The right afforded you by your reputation. Yeah they built you up when you burst on the football scene as a teenager at Everton and you were hailed as the next great hope. You were constantly talked of as becoming a world class player, up there with Messi and your old mate Cristiano Ronaldo. And you have not delivered, you have not made good on your talent. And whatever the Press are saying, we the supporter feel cheated. We feel you haven't looked after your body or your fitness as above. You haven't trained on. Whatever your achievements in club football and they certainly haven't been consistent season in season out like Messi and Ronaldo, you certainly have not delivered for England. We no longer trust your reputation as meriting a starting berth.

You have won lots of medals and trophies at the best club in England over the last ten years. But while they have been consistent, you have not. Some seasons you have contributed heavily to the success of the club, others you haven't. Apart from being sent away for mid-season training mentioned above, your then manager wondered if he should transfer you and cash in on any residual value your reputation still garnered. And on other occasions you had the temerity to march into his office and demand that he play you in a certain position, just as you are doing now with the England manager, or you have briefed against him as you and your agent machinate for a pay rise as again, with utter chutzpah you demanded the manager surround you with better quality players or you would be seeking employment elsewhere. Ronaldo is a bit like this at Real Madrid, but then he's scored 50 goals a season. I don't believe Messi makes such demands on his club and he's scored hatfuls of hat-tricks that you can only dream of these days.

And here's the rub you see. By raising this query with your treatment at the hands of the Press, you have made our world cup campaign all about you, instead of it being about the team, the country which the manager has clearly been trying to instil in order to get away from the bad practises of previous dire tournaments for England. When you burst on the international scene, you'd had barely a handful of games. Now Raheem Sterling is bursting on the scene, with a completely successful season under his belt, playing for a teaming challenging for the title, but we have learned our lesson from dubbing you world class. We love his progress, but no one is even whispering the term 'world class' in association with him. Same thing Ross Barkley. These players however we welcome into the England fold because we credit they are in the squad on merit. In a way we don't necessarily feel applies to you any longer. As with your club, your call to be played in a certain position implies the team should be built around you. The shape of the play has to be designed around your talents. But we fans feel these new guys are, or should be the guys around whose talents the team shape is designed. We feel they are in better form than you. We feel they are on the up while you are on the downslide and that they have already surpassed you. Sturridge is the best man for the job as the number 9. Sterling is the best man for the number 10. Where does that leave you? The manager decided it meant playing on the left. You have state that 'while happy' to play anywhere on the pitch, it is not really a position you favour. Despite making the goal against Italy, you were poor on the left. we were exposed time and again down your flank, which is not just your fault, but you must bear some culpability. You gave away the ball more than most and you missed a priceless and by anyone's standards a fairly straightforward chance to equalise for the country.

Sorry Wayne, but I hope the Press campaign to bring in someone else in your place is successful. You have disappointed us for too long now. Whole you are not unique in this failure to live up to expectation, you have fallen the most short because you had the furthest target to attain because of the promise your talent seemed to offer.

Inglorious Failure - England lose to Italy

I enjoyed England's performance last night against Italy. Compared with the dross we've been served up under Capello and Ericsson in previous tournaments, this was refreshing. However any enthusiasm must be tempered by serious technical and tactical shortcomings, which still permeate the English game and for all our bright young things on the pitch last night, show no signs of changing any time soon.

1) Apart from the goal and the one chance when Baines played Rooney in but he missed at the near post, we never got behind the Italian defence. We had lots of shots from distance, most of which flashed wide. We didn't create all that much to threaten the Italians.

2) This is because there was a very limited creativity in midfield. There was very little quick passing, cutting through the Azzuri. Instead what we had was lots of individuals running with the ball. Sterling, Sturridge, Barkley and Wilshire. Sterling and Sturridge were clearly very good at it. Barkley makes too many wrong decisions when to do so. And Wilshire? I just don't see what he does that is different and certainly not better to any of these. Welbeck looked decent at short, quick passing, but he didn't seem willing to give and go, that is to surge forward to receive a return pass. I suspect because of his defensive responsibilities. Ricky Lambert is someone who knits the play up well with clever passing, while Lallana is the one midfielder who can do this too.

3) Steven Gerrard had one of his more ineffective games in a while. HE and Henderson couldn't seal up midfield, because the Italians didn't go through the middle, but always sought out the very productive right winger. But even with the ball, Gerrard's 'Quarterback" role where he hits 40 yard cross-field passes to feet was snuffed out by the Italians. A lesser team or one less well drilled tactically might suffer from Gerrard's pinpoint passes, but it was one-dimensional to the Italians.

4) Wayne Rooney... Wayne Rooney was out least effective attacking player of the 4 (Sturridge, Sterling and Welbeck). His one contribution was the goal which was excellent, but he gave the ball away 8 times, missed a golden chance (for which he turned like a battleship to get on to Baines's pass and made him hurry his shot) and could not sort out the left side defensively with Baines. I believe Wayne Rooney's time is probably up, with better alternatives in the squad. It will be interesting to see what Hodgson's selection against Uruguay is.

5) Hodgson's substitutes were baffling. Barkley for Welbeck I can sort of see, though unless Welbeck had run out of gas, I think he was doing a good job and would probably have taken off either Henderson Rooney at that juncture. But Wilshire as I have said is only more of the same as to what was on the pitch. You need a goal, then why not bring on Lambert whose brief international career has shown he can score off the bench. He also allows you to go to 4-4-2 and changing systems for the last 15 minutes would have asked questions of the Italians to adapt and react. I would have brought him and Lallana on together to have their understanding from playing for the same club out on the pitch. Lallana came on too late and didn't contribute, while all I remember Wilshire doing was give the ball away.

6) People point to our territorial domination of the last quarter of the match, but remember we failed to score against Honduras for 90 minutes and part of that time they only had 10 men on the pitch. Honduras are no Italy. After Italy retook the lead, I think they dropped back consciously and let us have the ball. Partly that was their tactical decision, but also I think they were looking to preserve their energy since they have all three of their games in those difficult conditions of the tropical north of Brazil. Was it significant that Italian players didn't go down with cramp during the match, but several England players did? What it did reveal was how much chasing England had to do in the first half where the Italians dominated possession and made us run around after them.

But there is hope going forward. Uruguay were appalling yesterday. If Suarez returns against England, and I find it significant that even in desperate straits at 2-1 down the manager didn't bring Suarez on to dig them out of their hole, I don't think he is going to be sufficiently fit to pose his usual full threat. I think we will beat Uruguay, thus knocking them out. Then that leaves a winner takes all match with Costa Rica. And as enjoyable as it was to see Costa Rica beat Uruguay, if England can't get the result against them then we deserve not to move round to the knock-out phase. We should be able to defend balls into the box that Uruguay couldn't cope with. And we know their danger man Joel Campbell and have to devise a way of snuffing out his threat.

The Moral Responsibility Of The Author Part 2

This book is an important and troubling one. A middle class researcher for a political thinktank befriends a South London gang and her book is an excellent insight into what remains a very alien mindset among such youngsters, utterly cut off from the rest of the society they prey upon. It's a really important record to be in the public domain, no matter how troubling its insights are, since it gives a wider readership the opportunity to see and understand where such alien values arise from and to follow the strange logic applied by such youngsters. I for one am glad this book exists and salute the achievement of the author in producing it.

However, the book is also deeply troubling in other ways to do with the author's own role in the narrative, that is the very real life of the boys she reports on. Quantum physicists state that the mere act of observation distorts the results that are being observed. And to my mind the same could be said to apply in this 'sociological' study. With worrying effects.

The author befriends a gang and with varying levels of interaction with individual gang members, comes to actively intervene in their lives, particularly in the case of one of the gang called Tuggy Tug. She wants to 'save' them and ultimately Tugguy Tug in particular from the bleak prospect of jail, death, addiction or sectioning under the mental health act. A highly noble aim, but as flawed as the Victorian Missionary's intent to save the 'noble savage' by converting them to Christianity. The book traces her coming to an understanding of both the barriers to these boys escaping their fates, but only by making mistakes that cost the boys along the journey. She comes to an understanding of not only how the boy's poor literacy levels works against them, but also how the system of bureaucracy is set up to thwart their likes at the bottom of the social heap. But only after dragging Tuggy Tug through the process of signing on to a Job Centre and raising his hopes unrealistically in doing so. Part of that process uncovers that he has a huge debt against his name of housing benefit he failed to back up with paperwork. An added stress brought upon him, where previously because he was entirely outside of the benefits system, had no way of catching up to him.

But even these well-meaning errors are nothing compared to more alarming elements. There is a minimal amount in the book about the author actually questioning herself as to her motives in all this. Maybe it is axiomatic that trying to help one's fellow man needs no justification, no matter how misguided. And yet I'm curious why she zeroed in so much on Tuggy Tug to the point where she is virtually mothering him (her actual son remarks on her having photos of Tuggy on her phone, but none of him, her own flesh and blood). Maybe it's because he responded the most positively to her actions of all the gang members. She remarks on his small size, maybe she is responding to a seeming physical (and emotional) vulnerability in him, but again there is no self-reflection on these matters. Perhaps she feels that as an objective researcher, she cannot allow her feelings to be openly displayed within the pages of the book. But that only leads her further into murky waters of responsibility. I find it significant that the end of the book has her recounting the tenor of some unseen (by her) documentary film footage of an interview with the now jailed Tuggy Tug. In it he extols her loyalty and efforts on his behalf as the only reliable adult in his life. To me that reads like a character witness in her defence, against unwritten accusations of failure, of meddling, of ignorance, of bull in a china shop. That it's the author indirectly averring that failure or not, it was all with the best intentions and appreciated by her study object. It's self-hagiography which blares out against the complete lack of personal reflection throughout the rest of the book.

Another way her personal stance would have been instructive, concerns the criminality displayed by the gang in her presence.  Drug taking, setting up drug deals, reports of theft and violence all take place in her presence, particularly in her car. Now while I have no issue with her allowing these things to take place on her watch because she realises it is part of the hand to mouth existence of these boys, I'm curious that she doesn't analyse her own journey of acceptance, of moving from the staunch law abider to a willing bystander, if not an actual facilitator of criminal activity. Now she is an influencer of government and policy by dint of her job. So again she may have felt that she could not openly comment on this illegality given her official position of responsibility. But what could be more illuminating in how she, a member of the establishment, was actually so influenced by what she observed on the streets as to reach a position of scarcely batting an eyelid whenever flagrant law breaking occurred in her presence?

She buys the boys food, takes them out to restaurants and museums. Gives them money. She is trying to materially affect their lives in helping them to elevate themselves into work and a 'normal' life. But they gang unerringly and depressingly shuffle along into their prescribed fates. One in prison, one in a mental institute, one addicted, one dead (their male mentor and admittedly not from gang violence) and one who has made it into designer clothes, but who had family money and influence behind him in the first instance. As much as this book is really important in being available to read, the process in which it was produced was ultimately exploitative and consuming of its cast of real life characters. There was hope throughout its pages but ultimately and for all the author's interventions, none escaped their fate. So part of me feels also that this book shouldn't be out and making money. That as an influencer with access to the corridors of power, her private observations should maybe have been kept for those policy documents as anonymous case studies. I don't know, I'm really torn on this one. But I do feel the author currently is getting an easy ride, since I'm unaware of others picking her up on her moral responsibilities and the consequences of her actions that take place within the pages of the book.

There's a world of difference between a fiction author withdrawing a book because of a turn of real life events, and a non-fiction author intervening in the subject matter of her book, to possibly detrimental effect.

What do you think?

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You can read my post on The Moral Responsibility Of the Author Part 1 here, in regard to Stpehen King withdrawing his novel "Rage"