Here are the first two chapters of a short novel I am working on. (N.B: the lack of grammar and extended sentences is a nod to Marcel Proust/Beckett) Let me know what you think.
In a large garden barefoot on patio surrounded by tall flowers swaying on zephyrs lemon oil rubbed on callussed hands scent hits back of throat and moistens eyes step off dusty patio onto wet wet grass blades of grass mother nature's little hairs wet & fresh ground walking to a lemon tree that bears orange fruit sweet and earthly.
Outside, upside-down morning stepping on her foot by accident I said sorry and then she kissed me because I weigh nothing to her. We held hands and circumnavigated the garden treading on all the flowers with our bare feet the birds sang a strange aria. We settled in the middle of the garden on a large gray pedestal raising us only a few inches from the fresh ground. Rather than sunlight there was a yellowish smear in the sky, rather than clouds were smudges of thick white paste at irregular spurts across the horizon. With the birds flying above us and the aerial glow it all felt rather quaint and like it should be in English gardens. It was a shame the city adjacent never got a look in on our little garden.
Everybody in the city had jobs to do and roles to fill and sandwiches to tear from plastic wrapping. Here in the garden I could sit with this strange girl and be whatever I wanted to be. We could circumnavigate the garden and trample the flowers or we could drink from the stream ( more later) or we could eat the orange fruit of the lemon tree. People in the city never had time for things like this, subsistent on smog, gossip and takeaways, the city people got by from day to day but there was nothing to look forward to. I have only learnt of the citry through telepathic communication from my dear friend and city dweller, Proust ( more of him later)
Anyhow, the strange girl and I were sitting on the gray pedestal staring into each other's eyes, waiting for the colours to change. 'How come mother is in such pain?' I asked. She turned her eyes to the ground, colour draining from her doll-like face. I quickly dug my hand into my pocket and pulled out a lozenge of blue candy. 'Be careful' Proust echoed to me, inside my mind. I clutched her nose between my thumb and forefinger her lips involuntarily parted and with surgical precision I slid the lozenge onto her tongue and retracted my hands leaving her to suck on the ambrosial candy. After a few minutes the lozenge dissolved and she cleared her throat 'hrrph'. 'In answer to your question, my dear boy; in sickness ded junkies play in forest fires and yet you still suffer daily. Just wait 'till climate change, I'll store you downstairs in dead twentieth century thinkers left on the bus, you'll get your children soon'. Rather than submit to roaring passion and overwhelming lust, I went cold turkey, leaving her high and dry on the gray pedestal while I went for another one of my walks around the garden. I went down by the stream where I inhaled a cup of spiced tea, we could get tea from an old sewage pipe that leaked from the city into the garden. As I drank I thought about the wasted years of my life, that nothing could compensate for my loss of interest in all things and the treadmill of time I am doomed to walk 'till my liver backs up on this tea. Hardly the waters of the Lethe.
I then ventured into the deeper realms of thought; how I do not understand or appreciate any aspect of modern society from the last ten years or so. All those telepathic bus rides into the city, city, city blocked up in London and not permitted access to lovers and travellers and whereto now? Only way seems wombwards, to decay into an infantile state, rebuilding innocence and forgetting this whole horrible waiting game of life with inefficient one-time pleasures renewed daily with idiotic optimism. I am hamstrung in the human race, I am crippled and lame and countless other diseases. Only a sincere kiss from a like-minded Christmas-lover can save me from this terrible winter.
I found myself and left the stream, the strange girl was by the lemon tree standing reading Spenser's Faerie Queene; it's a biography of the unknown soldier's fairy godmother.
I have a brother in the city but more of him later. Well if you must know we talk only telepathically like Proust but only tedious things like death, coffee & lunch-break gossip.
Am I destined for the rest of my days to scratch this irrestible itch of curiosity? What is it that I must apologize for? What, what, what does it mean to be a pious character these days? Laying on sentiments to an invisible force, presenting to gods nosegays of compassion after fighting bloody wars? Find peace first, then find the correct authority.
I am a man of unstable convictions, that is my prinicples change with the current clime. Here in the garden it is the same situation evr'y day and night. I have explained to you my routines of circumnavigating and tea-drinking, but it is the strange girl who holds the majority of my life's essence. All my long life I have been entrusting my future into this girl hoping one day that she will reciprocate my devotion somehow. I am reaching the point now where it seems my efforts have been in vain, though we hold hands we do no tyet hold hearts. How I wish I could open the floodgates of my inner psyche, flooding her with my hidden thoughts, I would hold back nothing and nothing would remain. But alas, I am subjected to this pitiful existence in this Babylonic garden of unsurpassable beauty, to tread through fields of swaying daisies, buttercups whatever they are... how I wish I had one of those city relationships where couples vent their feelings to each other after a hard day's work at the office. How they share a two-bedroom apartment, how they send text messages to each other and make phone calls, arrive home at late hours, go drinking, go raving but most importantly get laid..Yes it seems like it would be quite preferable for a person in my situation, and a sad situation it is, to move into the city and become one of those awesome creatures known culturally as 'a citizen'. Oranges and Lemons say the bells of...
Phase 2: Into the City
I decided to cut my losses and leave the garden, to head out into the city and get some real action. It would be tough certainly to break the cycle; the routine I had developed from spending years in the garden with the strange girl. But I decided it was now or never, else I faced further fermentation of the spirit sitting in the garden slowly becoming part of the loamy soils day by day.
As the jaundiced sky lit up a sickly glow, I gathered myself from the midst of a frilly shrub, the strange girl was still deep in slumber, her birdcage chest swelling and subsiding with each languid breath. I realised it would be best not to wake her lest she launch into another tirade of how lucky I was to live in such a garden whereas others such as her brother never got such a good opportunity to live a wholesome life. No, I most certainly did not want to hear that old rhubarb, so I dashed across the garden, trampling countless flowers, only this would be the last time I would do such a thing. I scaled the tired brown wall that surrounds the garden, it is quite high but I am quite the athlete and so I made it over easy. I jumped down off the wall onto the cold hard concrete of reality. I quickly surveyed my surroundings and was almost surprised by what I saw. I received regular telepathic images of the City from Proust so I knew what to expect, however, what caught me off guard here was seeing actual real humans walking, talking and riding across the streets. Proust had only transmitted static images of the city, mere photographs, tableaux of typical city scenes. I was taken aback by a young man in a business suit strolling along whispering sweet nothings into his mobile phone which he cradled lovingly in his finely manicured hand. I always notice these lovely details about people, maybe I spent too long looking through the rose kaleidoscope we used to have in the garden. I headed to city hall, piecing together the static images in my mind into some kind of makeshift map. The air was thick with exhaust fumes, sweat and vittels. A smell that attacks your lungs and soon you no longer notice it,as the city draws you deeper into its sensory maze . After milling about the high street for twenty minutes or so, I realised it was time to settle down and find somewhere to rest and in the longer term, somewhere to live. I found a vacant apartment above a row of chainstore restrauants. I cut a quick deal with the landlord and put down a deposit. I had come into a windfall back in the garden when the seldom-seen caretaker who trimmed stray mosses passed away in his shed. 'Promise me you'll not give a red cent to charity' he said on his deathbed, an old sack of compost.Staying true to his word, I had come to the city to spoend money lavishly, the apartment was just the beginning. As I only had in my possession the clothes on my back and my money, I decided to hit the shops the next day and furnish my pad. I scoured the high street, flitting from shop to shop like a giddy moth, I returned to the apartment clutching my purchases and awaiting the delivery of several orders I had placed for objects to large to carry.
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