| It was the heat of the moment… It was a sickeningly hot July afternoon…one of those damn days when your metabolism shrinks and damn near dies; a day where every sup of water turns to fag ash in your mouth, where one’s flesh could be ripped from bone and served up as hamburgers at a frat boy barbecue. Yup, one of those days indeed, a day that may or may not live on in infamy forever…depending on your concept of infamy that is. Anyhow, enough with the meandering, we join our story in progress…imagine a bus stop, not too dissimilar to any of the bus stops in your local suburban area, and imagine the usual clientele waiting them for some easy and inexpensive passage towards the centre of modernity itself, the city centre. You know the kind of folk I’m talking about: - the eccentric but ultimately harmless local character who will stand at the front of the bus, jawing away merrily to the poor bus driver about his opinions on everything from “the im’grints” to the “footie, like”,
- Bedecked completely in tweed, an old couple going in for a game of bingo or maybe a pint in the city and a small meal, discussing the good old days and shaking their heads in disapproval of modern society.
- The two emo teens, the picture of positivity the pair of them, decked out in black, hair flopping flamboyantly over their foreheads, as they hop around squeaking about how much of a ride that idiot from a production line metal core/emo hybrid band is. I should stress one is female, and the other is male. That had to be added.
- Hairy artist/rock and roll guerrilla warrior, cheerfully chain-smoking 007’s whilst emptying heart-shattering gulps of strong coffee into his gullet, listening to a mix tape of music that should be mandatory in everyone’s day to day playlist. Bedecked in a camo shirt, black hat, black t-shirt, black jeans, black chastity belt, black shoelaces, ya da fucking ya da.
- The sporty fellow, carting around his gear bag as if we was afraid that it would be sucked into a paradigm shift if he dropped it for a microsecond.
- Two adorably miniscule Asian girls, chattering away at a remarkable velocity about the weather, about which of them was the drunkest the night before and the collected works of Aleister Crowley. I can speak Tagalog, so that’s how I knew what they were going on about.
- The hung-over bloke who kipped on your stairwell at that house party the night before. Y’know the guy…the guy who brought the whiskey and tequila to the house, the guy that nearly got lucky with the hot one, the guy who made an arse of himself by throwing up after shifting the beore, but he’s a legend, like, and all the rest of that stuff. He’s dying at the moment; the weather is seriously fucking his shizzle and every drag off a cigarette brings him closer to chucking a Technicolor yawn.
These are the merry companions on our day of days, although the main protagonist has yet to enter the arena. As a matter of fact, thank you for reminding me, we have two extra friends to enter stage right and make themselves known. Apologies for the momentary lapse in memory, y’know, Alzheimer’s and all that, its starting to effect my writing… Anyhow, the wait endures and people are starting to get restless, but the bus, she seems to be out of our radar, and has been for a prolonged part of the day. Maybe the driver is drinking cold beer and laughing his shite off at the expense of us poor humanoids. The bastard… Suddenly from out of nowhere came two people who fit into that category of nauseatingly attractive twentysomethings. Y’know the kind…bloke, six foot three, black hair, come hither eyes, schnozz, lips, fangs, the obligatory Ralph Lauren sailing jacket, 5000 euro jeans, and 3rd world debt value sunglasses. It gets worse: his partner, about 5’11, blonde hair down to her buttocks, wearing very, very little (but managing not to look like a conco…concubine, comprehend?), knee length fuck me pumps, and a haughty yet come hither stare, a la Bardot, the sort of woman that only exists in nouvelle vague cinematic classics… Two fucking D4 models, the fucking master race, a human highlight reel it was to where God/Satan/etc didn’t fuck up in designing a race of horrendously handsome people. Nietzsche would have been having a bloody free-for-all of a session if he was still alive today, just to celebrate those people. Serious stuff, kids. Anyhow, on cue after assuming places at the bus stop, the two of them started to get down to some serious oesophageal action, frenzied, furious, passionate, almost coital, it was. It had to be seen to be believed, and I shit you not my friends, it damn near caused some of us to have seizures. The reactions from the honourable people at the bus stop varied from unmitigated lust (the hungover bloke, sporty bloke, and the weird fellow) to curiosity (the emo kids, the Asians) to barely undisguised disdain (the older couple). Revelling in their brief time in the spotlight, superman and superwow ended up cranking it up, cranking it way past 11, kicking things into high gear, and we were almost witnessing the first time Adam and Eve got their fuck on in the Garden of Eden, honey. However, our last protagonist was cheerfully indifferent and rather amused by the absurdity of it all and just grinned merrily whilst drinking his coffee and letting his dopamine levels hit the roof as the 007 gets to work inside his 5’10 frame. Aware of this non-negotiable fact, exhibit A and B got almost up in his face…erm, my face as they slurped the juices from each other’s lips. My attention was on more pressing matters. A friend of mine had alerted me to take part in the witnessing of a great event, and I was waiting for clarification. None was forthcoming, so I finished my coffee, threw the cup over my shoulder and hummed along with Asia’s Heat of the moment. (Don’t scoff.) Finally, the awaited message came through…the reply, “the call has been made, will you answer or will you keep your silence”. A brief replay was necessary…”it is time to cross the River of Styx. I will attend”. Celebration time, so a loud hooraw was necessary, punctuated by Latino hip-shaking. Both came. Both disrupted the general ambience. Both disrupted the live glomping live show. Eyes, sharper than daggers, cut through my mortal flesh and laid my soul bare…although, that was thrown in for the purposes of hyperbole, nothing more, and nothing less. As the super-people stared at me with withering impatience, I shrugged my shoulders, flicked my 007 away, smirked, and thus spake the following words…”don’t ya just love it when things go your way.” At that moment in time, the bus suddenly trundled around the corner and arrived, to spit out some cargo, and swallow some more. We all tramped on dutifully, me with a bit of difficulty as my movement has become a tad more languid, and searched for seats. I clambered to the back-seat, occupied by two Bangladeshi lads who work in PC World, nod to them in polite deference, read a discarded copy of The Guardian whilst settling back in contented relaxation. “What a pleasant start to what may be a seriously weird collection of days” was my only thought as I stared wistfully out the window... I had no clue where I was going to touch down over the course of the next few days, all I knew was that if all it ended going pear-shaped...I was off to “Cherry Blossom Clinic, is there any truth in what they say. Cherry Blossom Clinic, lock me in and throw the key away”. Yes, that song came on at that very moment. p.s. Hello by the way, I’m the hirsute vagabond artist that I initially alluded to in my opening blurb. This is my story, embellished slightly, but mostly based on fact, because I don’t jive people…I’m nice like that. |