French newspaper Liberation likened him to a mummy and the long dead are welcoming the return of the nearest thing we’ve got to the fiddling emperor, Nero – the Nero of plastic surgery; one Silvio Berlusconi. The poor fellow has been subjected to plastication while still alive (?) and his followers –bandaged mummies – are out on the streets of Rome. Meanwhile closer to home wordstall.com is looking rather good, very good in fact, perhaps it could be called attractive with artwork courtesy of sonnyjim, ummmm tasty!
Back underground the crowds are conflicted in their longings: those longing for Christmas and those longing for a Christ-free world. Right on cue, I look up to discover the deluge has arrived. The tunnels will flood and we’ll be forced up, clambering madly up the narrow, slippy, metal ladders, desperate to keep our heads above the rapidly rising waters.
Accusing waters, as though we are to blame. Haven’t they heard of us and them. The we in this case being the victims of their malign intentions. Honestly none of this is my fault. And that’s what I tell her on those rare occasions when we meet. Passing ships in the night, a phrase reminiscent of times when we sailed on ships rather than flashed by above the world like gods – gods of innocence, jaw dropped gawpers with the promise of gold in our pockets.
We could do something different, I say, admittedly with not a great deal of conviction.
Like what? she rejoins.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead and I struggle not to shrug but do anyway, the shrug being such a powerfully programmed reflex.
The grammar of hope, I say.
Pardon . . . and what might that mean? Her head lowers and I can almost see the spread of those horns, pointy and powerful, tremendous weight behind them.
These two ships are floating further and further apart as though caught in two contrary currents.
Here in the cafe there is laughter in the air, good humoured banter and some hard driving rock on the sound system. I noticed Frank Ocean was number one in the Guardian’s top rock/pop albums of 2012 with Channel Orange and I have never heard of him. What sort of significance does this have?
It is not so much that there are two contrary currents but, I realise, she is on a strongly moving current, her life feeling full of meaning and right-on entitlement whereas I am bobbing helplessly in the swell, sometimes feeling sick and spitting out the bitter water and sometimes simply . . . well, I suppose it must be something like unconscious. I should at least be like a surfer, waiting for the wave. Here I am without a surfboard . . .
I could . . . No, I’ll wait until the new year.