imagemirror

"To hide a passion totally (or even to hide, more simply, its excess) is inconceivable:
-Roland Barthes

“.......A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when  doing so would be against his interests.”  I stopped reading, I thought I heard the tell-tale creak of the stairs, I listened hand poised above its target.  The second creak, instinctively my hand grabbed the copy of playboy, sitting beside me on the bed, and covered up the tattered copy of “The Prince” that I was reading for the 3rd time.  “4,3,2,1”  I mumble to myself and as the  door swings open my hand drives the copy of the prince and it's oversized dust jacket under my periodic table duvet,

It's awesome it's even got Ununquadium and Ununhexium, even the tables at school don't have them, so what if they are written in Sharpie,  in  my hand writing, with a cross out coz they changed one of the names at the last minute, it totally still counts.  

“what's that you've got there boy” asks my dad spraying the foam from his “just got in from work, gonna get my drink on beer” , “nothing Pa” I reply, pausing for effect just before I say it, to make him just a touch suspicious. “Don't lie to me Josh, you is a crap liar, your face always goes bright red”, I take a sip from my mug of hot chocolate, duel purpose mugs, easy receptacle for drinking and a neat face-warmer for that guilty, embarrassed look. I had learned before not to push the “I'm not hiding anything” card  so I slowly pull out the copy of playboy from under Helium and show him the closed magazine. “ ah-ha ” my dad triumphantly states “much better than that nonsense you usually read, what was that crap you was reading the other day”  “a book” I reply  half expecting a shoe to the head “that was it, jumped up garbage I says,” he pauses probably realising he has passed his daily conversation limit with me some time ago “ well er keep it up  maybe we will make a man out of you yet” he states hopefully and shuts the door. I hear him make his way down stairs, Then my mum accosts him on the landing with her barrage of machine gun like questions, I jump out of bed and open the door just a tad, just enough that I can hear but not so much that you can fully read my “Einstein is my home boy” T-shirt  “what’s he doing up there” my mum asks “he's up there reading Playboy” reassures my dad,  never one so spare my blushes  “ …..” shrieks my mother, don't ask me how you shriek a series of punctuation marks but my mother's could crack crystal.  “don't worry” my dad replies “knowing him he's is actually reading the articles”

It starts with a sound; the latch opening on that first door, the foot on that first stair.  Every time she hears it, it reminds her of lying in bed and hearing her mom coming up the stairs to wake her up for school, strange that she could always tell whether it was her mom or dad by the sound their steps made, the microscopic pauses that they took on the 7^th and 12^th step, the floor board that her mom stepped on that her dad didn't, that it took mom 21 steps to get to the landing and her dad only took 20. These footsteps weren't made by mom or dad,

STEP first step sending a shiver down her spine.
           STEP this one creak, echoing round her cold room.
                      STEP hollow hidey-hole, where HE keeps the toys, please don't let HIM stop!
                                 STEP she tells herself she will not cry this time
                                            STEP a tear runs down her face, every time.
                                                      PAUSE god how she hates that pause.

She knows what comes next.  HIS hand on the door handle, the key turns and then HE enters silhouetted in the door frame by the stair light. HE always stands there before speaking.  She doesn't know if it is just HIM needing to have a grand entrance or whether this was part of it for HIM, getting his jollies seeing her lying there, dejected knowing it was going to happen again. People think that rape starts with an action, a hand on breast, a push, a slap.  Well maybe sometimes, but for her, it starts with a sound. She hopes today HE is sober and horny, then today will be a good day,

HE calls her HIS sweet, HIS pudding, HIS angel, as HE fondles and gropes, she’s learnt not to resist; it's over quicker.  HE sticks HIS fat slug of a tongue in her mouth wiggling it about like an 11yr old learning to French, thinking it's just like the movies. Like Paul Johnson behind the bleechers during the 2^nd inning when she was ordered off the field for punching Ryan Dooling.  Apparently it didn't matter if he was a bully or that he was 3 years older than she was, breaking another player's nose is not appreciated.  Paul appreciated it though.  He always said she had the meanest right hook of any girl he knew and most of the boys too, and he asked her to kiss him.  She still wasn't sure if she liked boys or not, most of them either smelled or cried when she hit them but Paul was ok …...for a boy.  HE unlocks the door and opens it wide, phone call, doorbell, HE says something about Time Square, doorbell, doorbell, clang goes the door, clang and lock. Except this time, no lock.  The clang was there but no lock.  HE didn't lock it, she inches to the door she hears HIM talking, oh please let it be Mr. Granger from school, he can talk for hours.  She opens the door, wooden stairs at one end, cupboard at the other, no exit but up, up to HIM and god only knows what. She looks in the cupboard: rope, paints, brushes . The door upstairs bangs shut, footsteps approach she stealthily moves to her room, entering a cell of grey bare walls and stone floors, some sick in the corner where she threw up after.  A bucket in another, her little red toilet.  Her heart is racing faster than usual, almost as fast as that first time he snatched her 2 weeks ago.

STEP first step sending a shiver
          STEP creaking
                  STEP Hollow
                              STEP she will not cry
                                         STEP no not this time
                                                    PAUSE
                                                    DOOR
                                                    OPEN
                                                    STANDS

The swing of a paint can like a bat in her hand, fuck she loves baseball.  He crumples in a heap, now HER fun begins.

He wakes up, head splitting, blood trickling down between his eyes tickling his nose.  He is in HER room.  He tries to move but is bound fast by ropes on his arms and legs.  He hears a sound and SHE comes into view, SHE stands over him, a manic look on her face, fists clenched ready.  SHE looks him in the eye and says, softly and gently, those three little words: I HATE YOU......

complete newby to writing in general but think this will be a good motivator

A car horn wakes me,
2am, in a single bed with sheets too small. A dorm room in some
crappy hostel in some crappy city, in a country that is technically
home but hasn't felt like that for.... however long I've been away.
I lie in my unfamiliar bed thinking about where I am. On the road again
trying to find a place to call home for the next week, month, day.
The successes of the past 3 months are gone, a distant memory,
your only as good as your last performance and mine was (I’m in a 16 bed
dormitory in a cheap hostel with a fat middle aged Italian snoring in the
bed next to me), lets just say it didn't go well.
I'm trying not to curl up and cry from loneliness, I think about the city I'm in,
millions of people and I feel like the sole inhabitant. I find myself
praying, praying to a God I don't believe in, praying because at
least then I can feel that I have someone who understands.  I'm
pathetic, at that moment, at that time when I am crying into my
pillow from the ache of my isolation, wishing to have someone to talk
to, I'm like a child, making imaginary friends to confide in hoping that it will
dry my tears.
It's at that moment that I know what has to be done I know that staying
here isn't a solution. 8 countries in 10 days is the solution,
street after street, language after language, show after show. I am a
show man without the show I am nothing without the audience I am
nothing, hundreds of faces anonymous but cheering and I love them, at
that moment they are my family they are the solution to the mind
numbing migraine of loneliness, they are the solution.... and the
cause. Without them I would be home with friends with family
surrounded, comfy and miserable. They are the solution and the cause.
The circle of addicts holding hands, sharing and the needle that
brought them to that church in the first place. Oh god cos it is an
addiction, the laughter and cheers of the crowds fuel me, push me.
Their rejection burns like acid.
So tomorrow I leave for another town and another show that might work .
Tomorrow night another prayer another God that might answer me.
Oh god as I prey let me move my feet that I may walk away from those
that shun me and the demons that haunt me after their rejection .

Amen