26: Jar

Jenny Potatoes -------------- There were rather a lot of things I’d dismantled piled in the shed. Toasters, radios, a couple of TVs, various timepieces, from digital watches to a Victorian pendulum grandfather clock, which was like, an heirloom of sorts, that I’m convinced a horologist would dance in any way I wished in front of me in order to own. drums, a guitar, some Casio keyboards, two pianos, telephones, mobiles. There were tubs of insect legs, bluebottles, butterflies and such like that my daughter had collected before she hit double figures. Old kitchenware, half used tins of paint and varnish long since solidified or separated into their constituent parts, some soft toys and building bricks, some model railway track, dolph and jenny potatoes figurines, minus various limbs and heads. In one corner beyond all this were Files full of bank statements, deeds to things I’d never owned, school reports belonging to various peoples enmeshed in my life: mine, my late wife’s, our daughters, her first and second boyfriend's, as well as her ex-wife’s. there were newspapers to mark some long forgotten dates, a dried up goldfish, empty snail shells. I set myself down on a dodgy deckchair and picked up some of the boxes that were full of photos, which I settled on a small workbench my sister had made. These pictures had accumulated, along with everything else, from various sources, often quite distant from my own life, and so far away from now. George ------ I exchanged my monetised royal debt for a newspaper at the stand outside. “Thanks George,” is that me, I thought thanking the only person I ever thank? Stepping away I read the headline Proclivities clarity fell: In scents incense citadel, two detained What nonsense I sputtered when will they get a handle on all this? I walked on to set, late, but not noticeably, just another acceptable face appearing downstage right, Continuous wise western radio is transmitted 24/7 here, whether the cameras are rolling or not. My ears are tweaked this time though; I swear it’s the talks of Mrs Oatcakes: the 1960's is present, welcome back my teacher and mater/pater familias Fridays cogs continue to turn, their burr like a stride piano accompaniment for the talent around here, the main one being Alice Onions who, with her partner Mrs Lens, is ruminating in their glitzy two storey trailer, various assistants buzzing around outside, assisting at their insistence, I guess, but never going beyond the threshold. I step back a little to purvey the whole scene, moving my head so damn quick it makes a whooshing sound with some light crackling. Scripts are given final form here, I give them a bit more than the skeleton, i provide a bit of guts too, maybe some soft tissue and a swab for taking samples, and then i hand it over and it’s torn apart and the carcass fleshed then out by some sort of deranged alchemical hocus pocus focus group gaming cabal. Why the hell should I let them buy my time for a pittance to have my offerings ripped in to pieces and reconstructed by whimsy? I see him, pootling out and about the periphery - the enterprising and it seems bored Klaus. Leader of this years new talent polls, he’s immature and sending shallots down the director's chair as autograph famished spectators are chattering by the seat ramp to grab signed celebrity handled allium in their teeth before turning to charge at the grotesque bloodied audience mirror to shatter their smiles and prepare their capture in phone glows sequestered reflections, which are pumped onto tuttergram feeds to add to the hyper inflation of self that’s already overflowing and pressing in from the outside. Anna isn’t here, she said she wouldn’t be here. But she is here. This prey I’m carrying about here in my briefcase, this stench will draw her out. The golden spine is finished, and she needs it. I turn back to the trailer. The radio’s sound has gone beyond the threshold without even knocking, a pile of trembling assistants chattering in a gloop of bodies having failed to grab the free floating radio waves. Mrs Oatcakes breezed through them with ease, for an audience with Alice Onions and the discussion that will be purely theirs now, yet it arches over decades; a sound from one mouth captured to spurt out speakers many earth rotations around the sun later, and the awe is in the present seat of some sort of embodied consciousness, in the face and form of something expediently known as Alice Onions. And the messenger? A lone servant answering to the detachment of the microphone, broadcasting again 57 years after she first birthed these words through breath. Placing it on the buffet table, I open the briefcase to let the stench out. “Come get your film Anna. Come get it before the flies do!” See You Later ------------- I'll see you later in the bar I'll see you later by the fire I'll see you later I'll see you later in the bar I'll see you later by the fire I'll see you later I'll see you later I know my son well he's got sticky fingers One hand on the jar while the other it lingers Around in the dark Feeling for something to spark But this lark is just short of a string Cut out though he's cutting us in Given he's a taker Won't take long for him to meet his maker (what a faker) so I'll see you later in the bar I'll see you later by the fire I'll see you later I'll see you later