Tag Archives: work

There is only a viscousness left

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I had her by the cunt you could say because we didn’t fuck anymore but she wouldn’t leave me because I got the money, I went out at 8 ah em and I came back there 7 pee em and that suited her just fine. I come home to her half pissed, half naked in clothes as impossible as that sounds:

“Did you leave the house today” I yell, first thing, spitting.

“No I didn’t fucking leave the house why the fuck would I leave the house, nothing out there nothing in her it’s all shit”

“You wouldn’t leave the house because where the fuck would you go. There is no place for you to go. Where you gonna go?”

“I’m not going anywhere. You get some smokes?”

And I did and I throw them at her and I take a cigarette from my own pack and we are in the place we live moving around smoking and not talking. I get a beer from the fridge, the last one and I open it a drink half of it and I open the fridge looking for another one that isn’t there.

“You can’t keep some fucking beer in here at least!” I yell across our home.

“What?” she yells back.

I walk back into the room, she is exhaling a plume into the open space.

“You are fucking useless”

“And who the fuck are you, huh? You walk in, throw my some cigarettes at me, now you’re gonna call me a piece of shit. Go get your own fucking beer you piece of shit”

“And what the fuck have you been drinking huh? You’re pissed already”

“Yeah well I’ve been drinking with Tommy today”

“Tommy is another fucking loser. You fuckers know how to get your hands on alcohol, right. You know what? Fuck this. Get the fuck out of there. Get your skanky ass clothes, shove them in a bunch of plastic bags and fuck off!”

“Yeah? Yeah? You want me to go? I will go if you want me to go”

“Get the fuck out!”

 

x                              x                              x

 

He was trying to get some work done after work, you know, real work. The stuff that keeps him going; to know He is still a person who has something beautiful to give that’s not bought and paid for by a bunch of moronic assholes (etc etc). Staring at the computer screen and the keyboard, screaming at him to create, make something, do something. The fucking world wide web has all of this shit on there come on and add to it. And then he added to it and it’s just some more shit into the pool.

 

x                              x                              x

 

There is no advertisement that can persuade you to purchase anything anymore. They all have the evil stink of self-interest. Worse; the advertising industry know this and have employed teams to get you to recommend products to your real-true-friends so that they buy what you have been convinced (by some means) to buy already. The fact that you genuinely tell someone about a product or service these days has been carefully calculated by ad agencies so that you are equipped to deliver the one line benefits straight to your nearest and dearest so that they too become purchasers (read: lifelong customers) of a particular brand or product (synonymous).

 

x                              x                              x

 

“Ah fuck you know I’m sixty now, sixty! and you know what I did love this girl, this one girl and she married my best friend, you know, what forty, fuck, forty years ago and, christ I was their first born’s godfather. And I still loved her. And I went there and did the thing in the church and I helped them paint their first house and still, still I loved her and I just wanted to be near her so I said ‘yes’ to being their kids godfather and I bought him presents and I was there on his birthdays and, and when he was a child they put him to bed so we stayed up drinking and it was always so close, the more I got drunk, so close to me telling her I loved her but that husband, my best friend, was there and it was so strange because I loved them both and I didn’t know how to say it and after more drinks it went away and it came to that thing again where I just talked about my life and how shit it was and they laughed because it was funny, really, and I made it all a joke but what I was really saying was how bad my life is because I was in love with a woman who was married and had kids and how fucking strange it is that I am one of those kids’ godfather, I mean go damn what the fuck happened to my life that this kind of shit would happen?”

 

x                              x                              x

 

I shouldn’t have given her my number, fuck, so I hang the phone up thinking thank fuck I have a phone you can hang up hard a proper with a handle not just a button. It rings again, so lovely to know someone wants you, or wants to tell you something that they have burning in their belly. I do it, I do, I pick it up.

“Fuck you don’t you fucking hang up on me”

“Sorry, ok? Sorry. But man you were talking all kings of made up imaginary bullshit there”

“What?! Yeah because you’ve worked it all out right, you already now what I’m gong to say”

“No, no I don’t but guess what I can probably work out why you’re bothering to say it”

“Oh fuck you”

“And, so, what’s up then? Hm?”

“I can’t event talk to you anymore”

“Really…really? And here we are on the phone. You know what I’m doing? Hm? I’m staring at a plain white wall, a cigarette in hand waiting to go outside and smoke it. That’s all. That’s what I can see and feel and I have a voice, you, on this thing. Okay? Too literal?”

“Christ you’re annoying”

“And you still aren’t saying anything interesting”

“I…I don’t want to see you this weekend. And…” long pause, me sitting there staring, holding back the urge to say anything, impatient, sure, “and I don’t want….this, anymore, this, thing we do, over the phone, this bullshit, text and call and…” and she exhales in an ‘urgh’ like that

“I get it ok, I get it. Guess what? That’s why we don’t talk. What are you bothering for?”

“Goodnight then”

“Okay”

And I hang up and get to feel horrible and cruel for the rest of the evening.

 

x                              x                              x

 

We, I, well we, I mean. Okay. It was one in the night and there was only that orange light that the council set up two weeks ago to stop all those junkies breaking into cars but what it did was give them all night to work and bathe our apartment in a sick glow that made us mad and crazy and awake too long. The baby was crying. We had a baby, we did that. We had a baby and it was weird. We didn’t really want a baby but we wanted a kid and we talked about how good it would be to have a good one, like, have a good kid that would grow up and be better than what we were and could be the best person ever and we talked about it and talked about what type and all of that and started having sex where I’d have to come inside of her to make a kid. It was funny because I’d say “what if I didn’t like it” or she’d say “what if it didn’t like us” and in these ways we’d laugh but now she was full of the thing and it was six months going and you could see it kicking and see its footprints pushing against her stomach skin and it’s like ‘whoa’ and I go back to my job and miss all those things and come home and want to watch TV but she wants a back rub and holy fuck of course there’s a thing inside you. I need to stop talking about it sooner or later. Can I skip ahead? We had the baby out of her and into our life and we did so well for so long, I mean we had a room next to ours, fuck the ‘lounge room” we never had a lounge anyway.

 

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MENTAL HYPERTENSION EXTENSION, IN WHICH YOU GET MORE THAN YOU BARGAINED FOR

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MENTAL HYPERTENSION EXTENSION, IN WHICH YOU GET MORE THAN YOU BARGAINED FOR

I am finding it hard to believe anyone anymore. The starving musician, the penniless artist, the aspiring writer, the greedy capitalist…anyone. What they have in common is they recreate a stereotype, an assigned and played out role that is apparent in an instant and yet still desired as real and a goal[1]. As if there is no other way to live other than to align yourself with a preconceived desire to become something that already exists, yet in achieving this formulaic pre-existing ‘truthfulness’ they have already failed because deep down they know they are choosing something, they are choosing this or that theme/appearance, choosing this or that aesthetic, and then the worst part is choosing ‘this or that stuff’ to think and feel[2], and the resultant choosing ‘this or that’ thing to say[3]. Self censoring with a gauge that is self-referentially checking whether or not ‘this or that’ feeling/sentiment/sentence fits in with the overall goal of the persona they love so much (admire) that they want to create[4]. It can become easy over the years to believe that you really are what you wanted (chose) to be, the more you cultivate and edit and asses your ‘output’ (clothing, speech, sentiment, opinion, musical tastes, themes, furniture, behaviour et al), the closer (you assume) you will be to achieving a sense of honesty in your persona because surely over the years of telling and demonstrating to that many people you are this and representing yourself as such will ergo make you ‘such’[5].

GROUPS CAN DEFINE THE INDIVIDUAL, WHICH COMPICATES THINGS

People know, by preconceived assumption, what they think is authentic. We are aware of truthfulness straight away. From this, there is a mental checklist, prerequisites, that need to be ticked off in order for like-minded associates to accept another as being authentic. This is the horror of reality. We can all smell a fake a mile off. How? Because they do not pass the ‘rules’ we’ve created in our insular, checklist-based ‘pass or fail’ test we force people to undergo in order to assume an inclusion in an invented, imagined and created-based-on-precedent reality. The better you are at concealing this, or more, the less aware you are of this, the better. Now, as a huge aside, there is nothing sinister and calculating and exclusive about any group that exists, you can pretty much ‘get in’ by simply knowing one person (ergo nothing is exclusive)[6]. But hilariously the hierarchy and the way ‘members’ are valued or exalted is remarkable, i.e. those who attain the highest ideals of the whole are the (oh god) leaders, or…what do I say…best of us[7]?

THE DESIRE TO BE AN INDIVIDUAL IS NOW COUNTER POST-CULTURE

We now hate everything that is manufactured, obvious, already done, conceived, born[8] and so the only option is to revert to the pre-aware days of tribe based living; community; circles; bands of like minded people you can shun the world together amongst etc. There is an amazing beauty in this, yet alongside this a fear in progress, as if the hands that reached out for something else where cauterised by the fear of not knowing what else there could possibly be[9]. By reverting in disgust to what has already been our sickness creates an inherently twisted new sense of both self-aware post-irony boredom coupled with a futuristic Hellenistic desire to re-emerge as better than any other ‘version’ of this sense of impossible commune honesty[10]. So now then what is the individual, but one of a group of individuals, unable to exist without some type of ‘banding’, hopelessly lost in the void between not wanting to exist in a band but inadvertently being in one per se. This new horrible world has rules, and in breaking the rules you are a rule. You say things that are expected, you think things that are expected (of you), you try so hard to say something unexpected, but you are trying, and we can see that. There is nothing between heaven and hell we have not foreseen. That is our new mantra and we are sticking to it[11].

THE WAY TO HAPPINESS EMERGES IN WAYS YOU DIDN’T ENVISION

I hope. But lately I’ve become attracted to transsexuals who look really really like women.

[1] Imagine in your mind a musician who works as a part-time telemarketer but he is really good at playing guitar and sings in a local bar. Got it? Really? You can actually imagine that? Well then…that’s exactly what they look like, without irony.

[2] Politics, ethos, reason, purpose you name it

[3] So many examples, let go with the underground musician/hipster/artist, who are so post ironic that they no longer care about anything. How the very act of creating is useless(!) so we are trying to find ways that are still expressive and real but not so all-inclusive, like it’s a way to make people feel again (when of course they have given up feeling beyond wanting others to feel). For example what would they (all!) say to the question: What do you think about privacy?

[4] Thinking on this level on the fly is amazing, either you are able to process that fast or who have brainwashed yourself, that is, convinced yourself of your (desired) true identity, being to be able to actually respond truthfully.

[5] It gets complicated here. You of course are who you are, and what you want to be. But how much of you now is really who you are in comparison to who you want to be and how far away are you from acknowledging to yourself that you are not only real but also seeking to achieve a desired version of yourself and how much importance do you give (or grace) to the intermittent transition whereby you are not what you want to be now but are in the transition of becoming who you think you should be.

[6] Really, have you been to a party? In fifteen minutes you’ve made a stranger a friend. And you don’t care about them in any way! They give you their number and the next day you make sure and delete it. Security overrides humanity.

[7] Jealousy etc

[8] Although it has become do bad an confusing that now things that are obviously abhorrent have found their place in a nonsensical neo-hate/ironic love sense that they re-emerge. I would like it to be a real love of something for the thing in itself (which can happen) but more and more it seems to be a quasi-performance art piece people play with their real (read: not real) sentiments…and it gets gross because we then buy our friends gifts based on their recalcitrant “post-modern ironic representation of ‘like’ as art” newfound beliefs that’s gets so complicated that they themselves don’t even know whether to say “thank you” anymore, but instead react overwhelmingly happy because they have to (performance art, remember) continue the reality that they are in love with this type of thing…and it goes from there.

[9] Let’s go: long hair, drugs, shitty clothing. Again and again and again, right? No? This is the problem, you can see it happening around us, we can see teenagers NOW wearing Nirvana t-shirts. Nineteen years after they made their first album.

[10] With the desire to preserve all the ideals of this, as insanely sick as they have become these days. Allow ALL? Are you CRAZY J

[11] See? The individual, the real individual is nothing but an insane moron unaware of what they are or what they mean (as an unartist, say). Any meaning can be attributed, any subversive sentiment can be categorised. We have created a reason for everything, to fight against it is the be another reason that already exists. What is the answer: to be completely and unequivocally honest, loving, open, true and real. Yet, who among us wants to sit for any length of time with that person?

 

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I add, you add, we all scream for iAd

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See see see the problem is you want to do too much too soon. As if one sentence can make it, can make someone stand up and change their whole life. Their whole way of being who they have become after, what, forty years! If that sentence exists and you can just read it then its too powerful and scary. Its not even contained in any bible type thing (although sometimes proponents of written religious works think it is). So now the new advertising is a message that is spoken to you by you and can change you:

 

“Michael. Michael. Mi—chael…we know. We have been listening. Keep walking, it’s ok, we’re with you. Down this same old street. There’s something you need just down the way. Down the, no Michael not there. That’s not for you. That’s an adult theatre. You can walk past it this time. See? And we’re right here with you. What you want its to see this bedding. It’s soft, thick. Everything you need to be comfortable. Can you imagine being that comfortable, on a rainy day? Michael? Have a look here”

 

Slater & Slater were the first to invent “I” advertising. Not like radio, not like TV, hell, not even like Back To The Future II holographic stuff. This was the real future, the kind of real future you at first feel sick about and think is incredibly wrong but after only a few months accept and move on from. Basically what it is is everyone with an ‘i’ device or pretty much any other “smart” thing is automatically hooked up via either a wifi, 3G or Bluetooth connection to neighbouring users and so can be pinpointed by location and targeted thusly. Google were reluctant to get on board but in a meeting they persuaded them that it would yield more ad impressions and clicks on said keyword ads, warranting a new touch-what-you-want-wherever-you-are kind of point and click and so, they aren’t idiots…

 

Ok, here’s how it works:
You, with your iThing, walk around, plugged in like you normally are. Bing! a message comes in; a voice message. Through the speakers or right into your headphones. What? You didn’t sign up for this (and sure you can opt out but it’s hard because we’ve built it in to your plan. If you want to get rid of it you need to move to a different plan, a ‘free’ plan that will likely cost more (freedom is not cheap). So, a few discrete messages that you actually want based on who all of your accounts say you are OR anonymity at a price? You can choose of course but by default (check your contract) it’s ON. The outrage is subsided by relevance. Its almost like a friend cajoling you towards a destination. We don’t even like our friends, most of the time, making us go places and do things, so we can tolerate this. After all, it’s your own openly available, personally contributed to social identity talking to you. And who created that? You did, and you kind of respect yourself for being so careful about your online identity. Etcetera.

 

Read: it’s only your responsibility to ensure these invasions are not invasions so you must maintain a high level of connectivity and online presence to exclude you from unwarranted messages, i.e. the better you are at existing within this landscape the better we are at not bothering you i.e. delivering you what you actually want (and you agree that it is what you want).

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Lost in the harbour

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It’s ten thirty but the clock on the dashboard here says its three thirty. But it’s not, it’s, I believe it because I remember back when it was eleven, so yeah, it makes sense. Some time as gone, must be about four hours. The worst thing is the bugs, they give you a nice uniform but it…there’s bugs in here. And so I scratch at my arm all the time and its red and hot and it’s hard to pull the sleeve up and I dip my finger into my water bottle and spread the water on my forearm and it feels good, good so I put more and more water on and the lights of the next station come so I press the button and slowly move the brake handle up to slow and press the other button that tells them…ah you know. Stuff like that.

There is a little girl between Central and City Square. She lives in the tunnels with I think her mother but I’ve only seen the mother three times. She is so cute and small, like a dream, always in the same dress. I like that she is in a dress. That her mother perhaps makes her wear a dress like it’s possible she will be married. I saw the movie ‘Emily’, Jane Austin it was. It’s like that. She watches me drive by and I think about her, and the rats, and that she is standing there, watching the lights come, the loud noise come, the train come and she stares into my eyes it seems but it’s only a second I see her and only those black things for eyes.

I’ve circled the subway twelve times, its four thirty it says but I can’t be sure after twelve hours under here. I thought four thirty am maybe but when I asked a station guard he laughed and blew a whistle and I thought he was the devil. He had teeth missing, the two either side of his front teeth. Not the devil, a rat, another rat in here with white skin and a shrieking whistle. He laughed and looked away, he laughed without looking at me as if I was so much of an object or wanted him to laugh and again blew on his whistle and held up the white flag. I can’t remember if it was him again or someone else at a different station. Some other rat. They spend so much time down here.

Slowing into the station you see the difference in mankind. You see the scum, the fake rich, the idiots, the partiers, the children, the homeless, the regulars, the weirdos, the old people, the pathetic, the unusual, the dead, the living. You let them in. They come in. They get on, ‘aboard’ it used to be called. All aboard. Like an adventure, like something meaningful. Going somewhere. Not just there to fall off and go on and get back on and move around and circulate. Rats. I see them because I have the lights on up front, see them scurry every time. What do they eat? Toes and nibble on scum, the thick scum that comes down from above. Through the sewer, out through the old pipes.

Its getting to midnight. The clock tells me eight thirty. I don’t know what eight means. Morning? The people are dressed well. Night? They look stupid all together like that. They should go home to their wife who has a nice meal ready. My wife used to cook meals. Proper meals with meat and gravy and potatoes and corn. God. I used to pray every night. Knelt beside my bed and felt small because the bed was so high. Like a child I would pray in slippers and flannel pyjamas and like a boy sometimes my penis would slip out of the slit while I was praying and my mind was distracted by this which made me think of God more fully.

The radio, hard to hear it say “Barry (?)….<unheard>…night…<unheard>…city will…to…station for…<unheard>…under…for there can issa (maybe?)…when issh…<unheard>…” and like this and it stops after a while and I pick up the receiver and talk to the guard who says something in not really English and I say “did you get that?” and he says “what?” and I hang up. The lights are coming again.

My arm, again. Keep scratching at it, along the forearm, look at it, nothing there but a redness. Still aches to be scratched. I try to ignore it, got a sudoku magazine that was left on the train, half finished but they made mistakes.  I turn to a new one, write a few numbers and throw it back onto the seat. It’s infinite. Infinite with no point. There are bugs in here but they are too small to see. They are around and in here. There aren’t any scientist here to take them and say “you poor man”. Is it Museum station already? The girl with the dress will be coming soon. But like an old man I get my hopes up and quickly kill them down. She will not still be there.

I move the handle up a notch. From stop to run. My reflection in the mirror, in my uniform, catch myself pinching my arm. The itch is being killed by self inflicted violence. Violence. I see the tunnel coming, the shape of the internal void forming as a curl, a black, charcoal curl coming and coming in an ever developing arc. Seen it half an hour ago, the same thing. This time the girl comes and she is bright and alive, moving, dancing, she is…wait, move, little girl. Get off the tracks little girl. And it’s so fast. The train moves along, pushes along like a silver smooth beast, moves so fast and along that it crushes her and she falls away, as brief as a moth and quick and fragile as a tissue. Hit and gone and no sound and only I saw it.

No no no. And the time says nine thirty six pee em. I am on the train that is stopped at Central station. I need to go. I open the door and come out onto the platform. This one is outside, with air and people and the bits of sky out from under the awnings. There are lights and stars in the sky. It is night, I thought it was night, did I? A hand on my shoulder, turns me around, has a whistle in her lips, a flag down by her side, saying words. Words that sounds like “what .(and). you .(and). doing .(and)…” and I hear that and I push her hands off me and she catches up and I sit down on the ground.

My wife died three years ago. At home I put a frozen pie in the microwave and press ten minutes. It goes on with the sound and that light. I walk away from it, sit down on the lounge and turn the TV on. Its people talking of course. I stare at their mouths. They are loud and saying things. They have their hair done. The scene changes so fast all the time I don’t know what’s going on. I see her face, in the tunnel. Her little face with black eyes. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t there really. The clock says midnight now. It’s not midnight. The microwave finishes.

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The soul screams at you from inside the meat

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The soul screams at you from inside the meat. It says “I hate you” it says “You are right” it says “Look at how beautiful this is” it says “I love being alone”. It says “What the fuck is wrong with you” and “You know what those others have done?”. I am living with a girl and she told me that one of my characteristics was fear, or more being a coward. I don’t like hearing that but how I process it is “I’m scared to give away all the money I get every two weeks”. The thing is I have that thing inside me where I respect those who have character. That I am going to share their pain, that I am their comrade.

The soul screams at you from inside the meat. It yells at you because it’s dying. You hear it every time you keep those feet moving towards the life that’s not meant for you. How funny that I am still dealing with this. Who am I writing this for (besides myself)? It’s for those who hate how they are living. For me and them. I’m about to choose poor. Okay so can I do it? Back to that thing where I was called a coward. It’s cowardice to take the $1200 a week I get right now. Not hard at all.

The soul screams at you from inside the meat. I says you love her and you love loving her. You hate knowing that you are in love. You love love. You hate loving. You are confused so sit there late at night wondering if you love or worship. You wonder what is the difference. You don’t care and kiss her body five hundred times.

The soul screams at you from inside the meat. It tastes bad. It hurts because you realise how far away from yourself you are. You realise that you like things that are too expensive. You laugh and condescend those who are poorer than you and at the same time admire them for the very in depth soul things you want. But you hate people. Now what? It sounds like a board game.

The soul screams at you from inside the meat. How can you keep going doing the same things and liking them over and over. Dinner. Lunch. A bar. A cocktail. A first kiss. Yeah okay the kiss keeps you alive. But, another view. Going to move. What, all the time? For the rest of my life? I sat with her in the beautiful city of Sydney, on the water. She wanted me to tell her how I am planning to be rich. How she can be happy like this. I told her she doesn’t know who I am. She didn’t know.

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Poor Henry

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Grease, again. The clock hangs on three. It’s always three when he thinks about his wife. At home, he imagines, just sitting there with the television. He wipes some grease off on his rag, it doesn’t come off. Drinks from a can of coke through a straw, makes the drink come through all foam. Tastes good, mixed with the smell of oil and petrol and cigarettes. A smell of home, a smell of purpose, a thick good reality. ‘What am I doing?’ he asks himself again, looking at his hands. It’s the hands that tell you, or, look like they tell you. Something about working on machines with your hands. Making a machine live. Turning pieces of metal into a breathing thing. That no one sees. ‘Under the hood’ they call it. Forget about it. He coughs hard and spits some black and blood stuff into a bin. It’s getting worse.

There’s something wrong. He finds it hard to believe in God. That his life is this. That he is in this body. Still. His father was a fireman, a soldier, a mayor. His children, in their twenties now, don’t call him and when he calls them it’s about what they are doing and he asks if they’ve done their taxes and what their friends who he remembers the names of are doing. He says ‘I love you’ at then end of the call. There is a silence when he hangs up the phone. Like a ringing in the ears that lasts until he looks away from the phone. To the still room with still seats and other things. His wife is in the kitchen and it smells of butter and garlic. It is a delicious smell, a promise. He wants a cigarette but that was years ago. Damn them.

Deep dark in the bedroom. Lying on his back he attaches the snore-eeze™ tape to his nose. Doesn’t want the operation like his friends have had. All their wives swear by it, a ‘marriage saver’ they say. That a marriage can end from snoring, that his wife falls asleep so fast now. On his back he knows the next thing to do is close his eyes. It’s been so hard lately. ‘Close your eyes’, he says, ‘close your eyes’. The blankness of the dark starts. There is nothing surrounding them in their bed. The house mocking him, all their things waiting to be used. On benches, in drawers, the culmination of all the cars and trucks he’s felt under his fingers. He rolls onto his side, feels like a child again, curls his legs up. Fifty now, feels his body but it’s not what he thought. His belly is too big, his hands are too fat. He rubs his belly with his hands, breathes in and can feel the fluid in there move away to let some air in. Medical problems only make him think of his children. His wife sleeps softly and sweetly. He remembers her young, when they had sex at night.

The headache when he wakes up reminds him that he should stop drinking so many beers before bed. His doctor told him to cut down so he switched to lite beers. He has three lite beers and then when his wife goes to bed he has three regular beers. A shower helps, he pulls on his suit, a white, well, grease stained white overalls. The young guys wear blue or some wear black ones now. He sees them and without talking to them wants to say ‘don’t do it, this is not a good idea’ but they are stupid. They drink a couple of beers at lunch, put new engine parts in their car, smoke too many cigarettes and are laughing all the time. They look at him he knows and laugh. He gets paid well so it’s not a problem. They don’t ask him questions about engines, they talk to each other and look up things in the internet.

Another cold darkness crept inside. He doesn’t want this again. The last time it almost cost him his children. He remembers what the therapist told him. It works. In the therapist’s office at first felt so wrong. He sat wringing his hands and looking at the carpet. A light green carpet with small flowers. He had so much time to get the pattern worked out, the same three rings of mini roses. They talked for weeks about his what they called ‘violent tendencies’. He knew who he was and what he did. It isn’t supposed to take a court to rule against you. But he is glad they did. Now seeing her once a week is something to look forward to. She says things to him that make him feel like a human. Not a body or a dead husk taking breath and then eating. It’s the silent meals he talks about. How the sounds of the knives and forks on the plates makes him feel sick. The therapist told him when this happens to look at your wife. She is also alive.

“Henry!” his boss yells. He walks over. “Henry, this is Malcolm Auld, he’s in the Bentley”

“That’s a nice car” he says, honestly.

“It’s yours Henry”

“Okay. So what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know” the owner says, not looking at Henry, waiting for an answer to nothing.

“Okay. I’ll take a look”

“Henry’s the best”, the boss offers, smiling, “you’ll see”

“Well, my friends told me ‘don’t take it to the Bentley place, take it to O’Donnell’s'”

“And they’re right, aren’t they Henry?”

“Yeah. So, okay, so I’ll take a look. Ummm, Wednesday?”

“Uh, well, I was thinking, today”

“Henry, take a look at it today, okay?”

“Yeah, okay”

“Perfect. Ok so, call you later okay Malcolm?”

“Thanks. Hey, Henry, thanks a lot”

“No problem”

Work. His head over a beautiful clean engine. He looks at it for a long time. Studies the intricate connections. In his mind, working out the way it lives, feeds, breathes. How are you? He asks. Sits in the driver’s seat. Waits for a moment, the leather, hands on the wheel, feels it like a stranger, foreign. His hands are too big, swollen and dirty. Shameful hands, not supposed to touch this beauty. He turns the key and the engine starts. Yes something is wrong, he can hear it. This poor thing is choking on something. It sounds sick. When his boy was five he had a fever. He was vomiting and has terrible diarrhoea. He remembered what his grandmother did for him and did it again for his son. He cleaned him up, wrapped him in a bed sheet and carried him in his arms out into the night. They walked three or four blocks like that. Getting the fever down, the young boy holding close to his dad. Sweating and shivering.

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SLATER AND SLATER

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Frederick had a good idea. Jelly wrestling, three girls, then, five or six big pig dogs come in and just jump in there and start, ripping at their flesh but the girls, they’re like laughing and trying to play with them even as the dogs are sinking their teeth into their legs, bellies and breasts, and their hair is mixed with jelly and blood and the dogs are like pure muscle and going crazy like devils and the girls are sort of screaming laughing and almost like fucking the dogs and squirming, you know. How to film that though? Johnno thought of lots of spliced close ups and then Fred was all like real dogs but tame and real girls and like fake blood but is that enough? and then James, you know, the boss, just kept asking how does this sell beer and we’re like it’s a joke, you know, like how guys like jelly wrestling and dogs and it’s like, overkill, you know…all those other ads with girls and cars and beer but he didn’t get it he just wanted jelly wrestling and like loud rock music or something and we were saying that’s not interesting and back and forth and so we had to go and come up with some more concepts but instead we were so pissed off we just went on an early lunch down at Henry’s. What a shit hole really but the damn place is right next to the office and it’s like four bucks a beer so we just bought beer and Tom bought some wedges and that was that.

“Fucking hell I thought James would go for that, man!”

“We didn’t pitch it right, I mean, we didn’t have the images right”

“Yeah, we need some photo outfit to get some glam shots of that shit”

“Yeah yeah like, some stills of some hot models covered in like jelly and blood and stuff”

“Got to be blondes…GOT to be blondes”

“I’m getting another round”

And we had rounds, four rounds or something because what faggot wouldn’t buy a round? Normally Tom but we made him get a round, trying to get out of it buying some wedges, fuck that, get some beers AND some wedges Tom you asshole. Nancy at the front desk, sexy bitch, was all smiles and giggling because she could tell we were all half pissed and Johnno was like ‘what you doing tonight’ like he always does and she says something like ‘nothing with you’ the playful little thing and we get in the lift and Fred lights a cigarette and we’re telling him to put it the fuck out and he does one floor from the office and the doors open and we pour out all smoke and loose suits but you know that’s what we do and who the fuck is going to say anything…come up with better work and then we’ll talk. There’s a new girl in the office and she’s all open eyes and saying nothing so, you know, screw her she doesn’t know who we are and it’s back in our office and Fred rips down the cards with the dogs and shit on them and says ‘next!’ and we get out our pads and phones and I say ‘what next? That’s the fucking idea. Lets pitch it to the client!’ and Johnno says we can’t because of James and as much as we all think fuck him it’s not how it’s done, asshole got his hands so tight around the clients scrotums they’d never go with anything he wasn’t sitting there smiling about with his big shit-eating endorsement. Whatever, got to make this sex and death thing more appealing…how the fuck can you advertise some beer with the slogan ‘Get it down your throat’ I mean, that’s aggressive right I mean what else do they want? Their last piece of thirty second garbage was some Swedish skiers malarkey and it’s all about blow jobs and snow and swallowing frozen sperm or piss or something and like THAT’S okay?  Tom closes the blinds and Fred lights another cigarette, Johnno gets the small bottles of scotch out of his drawer and sets them on the table, I take one and pour it onto a glass ‘ice?’ but no one filled up the bar fridge

“Fucking hell! How hard is it to fill it up the fucking sink is right there, or wait no, there’s a jug of water in the fucking fridge right there, jesus’

“Shut up Sash it was probably you”

“Yeah right, like I’m a cunt huh?”

“Just drink it neat you baby, or splash some of your ‘fridge water’ in it”

“That’s not a bad idea, Johnno, pass me the jug”

And so I tip some of the water in and we can get on with it…a new idea to sell this piss tasting beer.

“Beer bongs?”

“Nah…too teen”

“Too obvious”

“Well, they did go with cock sucking Swedish chicks…”

“All right fine…what about a DUDE wrestling with the chicks?”

“And what is he getting down his throat”

“Like, like a freeze frame at the last second of some chick with half her hand down his throat, and his eyes are all bulging and he’s all red and about to throw up, you know, like, gagging, and it’s like freeze frame in the moment and then: Greigsons…Get it down your throat…BANG”

“Right and then we do like, five of them with shit getting stuffed down throats right, like, choking on a pie or like, sword swallowers or…”

“Porn chick”

“Fuck imagine…that would be cool…yeah…okay…not bad”

“Ha! That’s hilarious!”

“Ok ok, Tom, draw something up…lets see how it’ll looks for a pitch”

“Fucking geniuses again…what was that like, five minutes”

“No way Fred, we were talking about that all lunch remember”

“Oh yeah…expense account!”

“Fucking A”

The afternoon wears on but we’re done here really so we wait until Tom has finished mocking up the stills and they look pretty good and the little bottles are gone so I email Nancy to fill it up for tomorrow and we have a few more cigarettes and grab out jackets and leave. James is n the hall and he stops Johnno and they go into his office but the rest of us get in the lift. Me and Fred get out at the lobby but Tom takes it down to the basement. Typical Tom.

*                              *                              *

The morning sun makes the office look all yellow and like we’re still in the 1960s. Doesn’t help that the office was actually built in the 1960s and the tiny windows that were so cool back then just make this air conditioned hell hole even seedier, pinholes of light blasting in on otherwise dark cubicles. The account managers bashing away in their cells trying to place pissy little ads in magazines or newspapers or, fuck! The end of the industry…online advertising. Like anyone buys shit from a ugly banner ad. These kids have no idea, all fresh-faced, fancy designer clothes, nice university degrees that say ‘digital communications’ or ‘social media’ bullshit. You want money? Get your shit onto TV period. Thirty seconds to get some sitting-at-home-on-their-useless-fat-ass idiot to bother to get out their credit card the next time they’re in some shitville store and buy some useless crap they think they need just because we told them to. That’s it. You want to know what stuff we’ve sold? Okay, toothpaste, okay? Oraldent. Used to be some ugly all-white too-minty paste that no one would ever consider buying…tucked down there at the bottom of the shelf with the crappy ‘we contain no fluoride’ shit for weirdos and hippies…and especially not when the ‘family trusted’ brands like Colgate and Macleans have such a duopoly. What we did? Oral dent. Dent. Oral. Do the maths. We had every fucking male teen from the age of fourteen to THIRTY buying that paste. Why? Because why the fuck would you want to raise a family when your could get a blow job every morning, or even the idea of a blow job every morning. Even if it’s a joke. Even if you don’t even think you’ll ever get a blow job in the morning, it doesn’t matter. Now they’re the number two selling toothpaste in this country because we know what makes dumb fucks tick. Tick. Ha, that’s a joke. We need to get some more god damn titis in here. Fucking bosses keep hiring these faux-beard ‘Gen X’ in touch with the skaters douchebags…we’ve got more semen piling up in here than a fucking sperm bank. Sorry, crap line but you get my meaning. Everyone’s twittering like the world’s gonna end…fucking hundred years time the world’s hard drives are gonna be full of useless puke about people’s ‘day-to-day’. Day to day? Since when did anyone care about day to day? We have entertainment, books, movies, art, music and god knows how many things specifically designed for us to forget about the annoying morose day-to-day! God, these kids…they could use a drink, and just as soon as I stop flirting with the girls in the café that’s exactly what I’m going to do: The blondes getting their herbal teas and wheat free muffins are all cute and stuff but they must look at me like I’m some hard skinned monster but, you know, it’s cool to play with the whole they-have-to-worship-me-because-I’m-senior-partner stuff and they just say whatever nice thing pops in their empty suck-cock-to-get-ahead brains, about my tie or my shoes or (god) my cologne, which, by the way, is just good scotch and maybe a few squirts of Ralph Lauren whatever is new. Didn’t even mention the watch…wouldn’t even know it’s an Omega.

“Long black darling and don’t you dare out any sugar in it”

“Of course not mister Bernstein”

“You been here long?”

“You ask that every day”

“Do I? And what do you say?”

“I’ve been here three weeks Mr…”

“Sash, okay…did I ever tell you to call me that before? Seeing as you’ve been here three weeks I must’ve told you to call me Sash before”

“Yes…you did…but…”

“But what?”

“The other partners they….I call them…like mister and…”

“Okay okay, so…you’re thinking ‘this up-his-ass prick’ is, what, just like all the other up-their-ass pricks so even though he is saying ‘don’t call me mister’ he actually means please keep treating me like a fucking up-his-ass prick is that right?”

“Oh, (laugh) oh no…it’s (laugh/giggle thing) no…”

“Okay, okay so…from now on…okay…from now on you’re going to call me…what?”

“Um…Sash”

“Perfect…Sash, okay…and we’re not going to do this again, right?”

“No Sash”

“Excellent…and it’s a long black you’re making?”

“Yes Sash”

“Great”

So I have to deal with this fucking idiot just to get a coffee, right? So instead I can pay two dollars fifty downstairs or deal with this? Okay okay…’thanks’ I say and take my coffee out of there and remember that I can just buzz Katy to get me a coffee and why the hell not, it’s her job and I wouldn’t have to talk to that three-week idiot again but then of course those insipid yet easy ‘account manager’ girls are there, but, you know like not worth it. In the office Tom and Johnno are already doing something and I don’t really want tog get involved right now and Fred’s on the phone talking some bank stuff so I tip some scotch into my coffee and wait for us to start the meeting.

*                              *                              *

Tom’s got another bruise on his cheek he’s covered in foundation, like we can’t tell, the idiot, get carried away doesn’t he and forgets who’s in charge or actually likes it (!). So, SHOES   ARE   FOR   FEET, that’s what we’re dealing with today and Johnno’s on to all these ideas like ‘crushing’ and ‘soul destroying’ and other weird stuff but it sounds good. We’re going to kill the whole ‘shoes give you freedom’ clichéd crap pouring from other agencies (for Nike) or the ‘shoes make the man’ boredom (from Boss) or the ‘women love shoes’ idiom (from Sex and the City type stuff). Fred’s got a pair of the things on the table and they look okay, kind of like half-sneaker half-dress shoe type of things like you can wear them with a suit or at least good dress pants like these rappers do, rappers ha! more like fucking millionaires trying to ‘keep it real’ by wearing these things with suits, okay, so you’ve got the picture. They’re, what, like three hundred retail. Okay so we’ve got like six boxes of them and they’re all pretty much the same: leather, laces, clan lines, fine sticking, not too much stupid swirls and crap, kind of low key and shined up, like a good leather jacket but a shoe.

“Okay so it’s like don’t take shit”

“Shit. What shit?”

“Like the whole shoes in a club, shoes in a fuck-off restaurant stuff”

“Okay”

“Okay so, like, fuck the convention, wear these”

“Yeah okay…what’s the hook?”

“Who makes these anyway?”

“Ah it’s some Paris Hilton type brand…they cal themselves Billionaire’s club…it’s Pharell. From The Neptunes”

“Yeah yeah, they’re the guys that have basically remade Justin Timberlake and Brittney and co.”

“And who are we selling to?”

“Fucking hell Tom do your research. It’s basically for fucking trend-heads who have no money but are BURSTING to piss away their McDonald earned cash for these ultra cool shoes, right? So they can dance like mother fuckers and get laid while looking all ‘I don’t give a fuck’ shabby. Got it?”

“Yeah yeah I know…Christ I was up until like three or some shit…give me a sec guys”

“Yeah right and that smack to the face isn’t helping”

“Shut the fuck up Fred…this…this is something else”

“Been spending too much time in the basement huh? You’re gonna get AIDS at this rate”

“Yeah those girls have AIDs, like they don’t check that shit”

“Ha yeah, you’re right. Anyway fuck, we’ve got like three hors to nail this all right? They’re here this afternoon”

“Are we taking them for drinks? What girls are we getting? Not Stacey again because she is a fucking annoying lightweight. Almost cost us the Christal account”

“Um not Stacey…she’s fired Sash”

“Makes sense”

“Of course we’re taking them for drinks!”

“Yeah I mean we just need a basic outline, some shit they’re going to think is like ‘whoa’”

“Okay so…back o the basics…what do these rich kids want, huh? Sales…but…why the idiot no-money-hip-hop-douchebags? Can we, I don’t know, get the cashed up white folk buying these?”

“Yeah right like ‘be as cool as an African American’! So what, we need some big asses or what?”

“Yeah, we need hip-hop beats, oiled up asses and just at the end the shoes. Fuck it, that’s easy”

“Christ, too easy. Keep thinking”

“No wait, how we gonna pitch with Tom all banged up wearing his sister’s make up?”

“Fuck off Johnno”

“No seriously Tom…what the fuck were you thinking?”

“I got carried away you know….you know what it’s like”

“Um yeah I do, but I don’t get them to hit me in the fucking face! Ah fuck it whatever, it’s done. You can just make the mock ups and go home to get your shit sorted”

“Okay okay…lets just get something up on the cards”

“I’ve got it! Dominatrix. Tom, rub that makeup off your face. Johnno, all that weird stuff you were saying about ‘crushing’. Here it is; hot chicks, leathered up, I mean make up, hair, all that. Wailing on guy’s with these shoes on…like fucking loving it, right, like, sexy cool, like, fuck you I can do what the fuck I want. But before that it’s all suits and style and all that Jay-Z classy stuff, but like in the end their like getting whipped and fucking these hot dominatrix bitches, right?”

“Sash you are a fucking genius”

“Yeah yeah and Tom is all like, ‘I get it, I love it’”

“Fuck off”

“No seriously, you can be presenting this shit with your whole bruised face thing wearing the shoes, I mean, you’re not an ugly fuck, hell, you’re probably the best looking guy here. We need to get you a better suit…call Katy”

We celebrate, Tom makes the cards, Johnno on the phone again and me and Fred finishing some scotch telling each other we need to make sure they buy better stuff next time. Johnny Walker black label, what the hell is that crap? It’s only eleven and we have to wait two hours for lunch.

*                              *                              *

We get back from lunch and Rick is in James’ office, throwing his arms around like he does, got James smiling his wide smile, getting his cock sucked always makes him look like that. Fucking little ass crawling shitbag…last ad he did was for a magazine, some up-herself stick figure blonde chick dressed like a god awful princess gracefully receiving a diamond ring from some homosexual male model, yeah right, fucking beautiful. Did we keep the account? Yes we did. How did we keep that account? Because James the moron promised them a BIG TV AD…and who’s doing the ad? Not fucking us I can tell you that. Now Rick is all shit scared and trying to get in with us. Yeah keep buying us drinks, yeah send us your pathetic emails. Get ready to burn in hell you little piece of shit. Good luck affording your new apartment and suits. Fucking hotheads, you know, they land one job and start spending all their cash like it’s gonna last forever. Doesn’t matter how long you been doing this, you fuck up, you lose the client’s money, and you can kiss your life goodbye. I mean it. You mess up with half a mil of someone else‘s money, just try and get a job in this country again.

“Ricks in with James gain”

“That little shitbag”

“Tell me about it”

“Got his fucking tongue right up his ass huh?”

“You know it”

“Got a taste for ass that little ugly cunt”

“Ah fuck him, he’s out of here in one month, tops”

“Not the way he gets that cock down his throat he won’t be”

“Forget that shitbag, lets go over the pitch”

“Fuck the pitch lets go downstairs”

“Henry’s?”

“No dumbass, downstairs”

“Why not? We got a couple-a-hours”

“I’m in”

“All right lets go…grab some bottles Tom”

And we’re leave that mess behind, got it all down anyway: Shoes + Bondage = Sex Sells. How hard is that? Those rap douches are going to go ape shit for it. We’ll tell them about oiled up shaved muscled black guy chests, gold chains, sexy big assed chicks, whips and leather and crap and BANG their shoes in the frame, all fresh and edgy. They’ll be hard as rocks when we’re done…bus ads, billboards, magazines, TV, music videos, soft-core porn micro sites, everything. Sign up for some barely covered tits spanking some other barely covered tits. Cut to Shoes. Done. We get in the lift and press the big red ‘B’.

There’s only one spotlight on, hard to see if there’s anyone here today. The chains and cuffs are open and I can maybe make out a bucket. Tom turns the lights on and there’s two girls over in the corner sort of half sitting on each other, some light sheer nighties on and pink fluffy slippers. It’s not cold in here, it’s maybe like 30 degrees, they look scared.

“What the fuck did you do last night Tom?”

“Nothing…I mean, this one chick, this one chick, she…she fucking…like hit me so, like…you know…”

“Oh not again…you’re a sick bastard you know! Now we gotta go over there and be all nice and shit. Fuck you’re a moron. Luckily you can do mock ups like no one’s business. Urgh, get the keys”

Tom gets the keys off the wall, one of the girls get up, yelling something and we tell her to shut up we’re coming in and she’s struggling against the ankle chain like some dog and it’s pathetic really and she’s saying we’re all pigs and Fred’s laughing and Johnno is already talking his clothes off. Tom opens the cage and we go in, the other girl is just sitting there all quiet and the other one is standing there, nice tits, firm and pointy. She must be like, twenty, maybe twenty one, jesus the assholes upstairs know how to keep us going that’s for sure. Johnno walks over to her and pulls her hair back, she tries to kick him but he’s not weak and just moves her back and turns her around, pushing her against the wall and playing with her ass, she’s trying to push back but he’s got his other hand on her wrist and he’s twisting her arm hard against her back and pushing her face into the cement. He’s got her nightie up and is pushing his fingers into her holes hard and dry and she’s crying out and he asks for a gag. There’s a rag on the floor which I give to him and he wraps it around her mouth and ties it so she can only sort of whimper and it’s better that way, still, her hands are all over the place so he takes her over to the rack and eventually get’s her hands cuffed in. The other one is watching us and it’s like she’s curious or waiting or something so I go over and sit next to her.

“You like this?” I ask and she doesn’t say anything, “Huh? You like watching her getting raped? Lets watch then”.

Tom comes over to me but I gesture for him to go away, he goes and sits on a bench and lights a cigarette, he had enough last night the pervert so he’ll wait his turn. Fred’s got a big dildo and he’s rubbing in between the girls legs, she trying to kick back but Johnno hits her in the ribs and she calms down. Fred spits onto the thing and shives it into her pussy but it’s not working so he takes it out, spits on his fingers and starts working her open that way. Johnno rips her nightie off and starts sucking on her nipples while Fred works the dildo into her pussy. She kind of struggles but the two guys are pretty much just doing whatever now and Fred’s got his face buried in her ass. The girl next to me is motionless, I open her legs and she doesn’t do anything, I start playing with her pussy and still nothing, it’s like, what the fuck is wrong with her or more likely, something really is wrong with her. Not very erection inspiring, or maybe that’s her game? I pull a blanket out and lay her down face first and start to take my pants off. The other guys are really going for it now I mean, Johnno’s slapping the hell out of her ass and Fred’s driving the thing in and out in and out and she’s got her head forward and trying to scream but it just sounds like a really soft cat meow or a howling dog or something and Johnno pushes Fred away and throws the dildo into a corner and starts really fucking her, I mean like really like he can’t possibly even enjoy it himself and he’s pulling her hair and spitting on her face and all kinds of shit and Fred joins Tom on the bench, pulls out a mini-scotch and smokes a cigarette. I’ve got two fingers in this girls ass and it’s tight and warm and smells like shit but it’s a sweet kind of thing, it does dawn on me ‘when did these girls last take a shower’ but it was probably this morning so they should be pretty clean and my fingers come out okay so not too bad and I keep working at her asshole with fingers and spit until it feels ready and my cock is hard. Johnno is done and he’s turned her around and her arms are crossed and her face is red and covered in loose hair and his spit and now he’s got his whole hands up there just ramming at her and her tits are jumping up and down so fast you can barely make them out and he gestures for someone to come over and Tom gets up and goes over and Johnno tells him to undo her cuffs and she falls onto the floor and then they’re just fucking whatever now, face, pussy, ass, and I can’t watch anymore because it’s so abstract, these two guys just moving about shoving their cocks here and there while this girl is like, like, a rubber doll of something. And I’m like up to my waist in this girls ass and she’s just making this ‘uh uh uh’ sound which is really tuning me on and hell even I start doing it, thrusting and saying ‘urgh’ like louder than her so it’s all so intense and she’s like a quiet lamb just taking it and I’m having actual nice thoughts about this one which is rare and I don’t like that any more so I put my hands around her throat to you know like stop the sound, just squeezing her neck and pulling her head up and she’s got her mouth and eyes shut tight now which feels good and I cum in her ass after about one more minute of this and I’m done. Johnno is done too and just like he always does it getting his suit back on, over by the sink with the mirror smoothing out his hair with water and watching himself smoke a cigarette. Almost a too cool but too crazy a thing that ritual. Tom the psycho is hitting her in the back of the head and calling her ‘slut’ ‘cunt’ ‘whore’ and all kinds of stuff, really taking it out on her. Poor guy, must be how we treat him, right? Comes down here, goes fucking ape shit. Terrible.

“How’re things Fred?”

“Yeah fine…not really into it today”

“Throw me a bottle huh?

He throws me a vodka and I throw it back, then he throws me a scotch.

“Fuck what the hell, they’re still giving us this shit. I got to talk to Katy.” I open the bottle and finish it one go, “hurry the fuck up Tom, jesus. We got a pitch in like half an hour!”

Tom’s banging away, got that look in his eye like he’ll never stop so we just leave him there and I throw a roll of toilet paper over to the girl I came inside.

“See you upstairs Tom…don’t be late…two thirty okay” and he kind of says okay but it’s like o-o-o-k-k-k type thing with breathing and now we’re done it’s just plain gross to see Tom like that.

*                              *                              *

The men’s room on our floor has these warm-wet-forest-fresh towels that I use to get her shit out form under my nails and the aroma is so refreshing it’s like ‘where am I?’ but the feeling is broken by the sound of some sicko pissing in a urinal like right into the water. It’s like ‘didn’t your parents or someone ever teach you not to do that?’. I mean seriously, what kind of unadjusted socially retarded peasant does that? Oh look, there’s some water I guess I’ll pee straight into it, like in the river back on the farm. Manners, right, like maybe someone else is in this cacophonous tiled room that’s a veritable echo chamber to expose all your basic bodily functions. If you need to be told this then you should be fired on the spot. We don’t want inconsiderate illogical dunces working for Slater and Slater. The cubicle door opens and it’s no surprise that Rick strolls out, a dullard’s grin on his face as he publically zips up his fly.

“Sasha, how’s things. Heard you got the Greigson’s account. Man you guys are the business”

“Sash”

“Huh?”

“Don’t call me Sasha ok? It’s Sash. In fact, don’t even fucking call me Sash. You’re gonna call me Mr Bernstein or your ass is going out the fucking window, okay?”

“Jesus take it easy. I’m on your team, okay? We gotta get this place up and running twenty first century style you know what I mean?”

He runs his hands under the tap, no soap, reaches for a hot towel,

“Hey. What the fuck are you doing slimeball?”

“What” he says, picking one up and rubbing it on his face and neck.

“You ever hear of hygiene?”

“Huh?”

I turn on the tap, press some foam soap into my hands and rub them together, looking at Rick like he’s an infant.

“See? Watch me now. This is the important stuff your alcoholic fuckhead of a father should have taught you”

“What did you say?”

“I said your fresh-out-of-jail unshaven loser of a father should have at least showed you how to wash your hands. What the fuck do they teach you where you’re from? How to steal car stereos that no ne wants anymore and sell them for a tenner?”

“Hey man…you’re out of line”

“Out of line, huh? I tell you what’s out of line…you fucking coming up to me and anyone from my team and even thinking for a second you are one of us. For a second. What kind of fucking degenerate university taught you that you know ANYTHING about what we do. You push out the most gut-sickening clichéd shit I’ve ever seen, get one account per year that takes a fucking truckload of cum drinking for you to keep. Maybe make what, a ten percent commission, and then try and fucking stand here next to me, rinse your fucking loser ass piss stained fingers under cold water and just think ‘hey, I’m going to talk to Sash…even though I am a turd and he is a FUCKING PARTNER!’ Any of this making sense to you?”

“Calm down man, I’m just…”

“Shhh. I’m done. Okay?”

My heads buzzing, scotch and fucking and that got damn oily skinned bad suit asswipe just comes together and

“Hi Sash”

“Hi Stacey…how’s the mag going?”

“Good good, but hey, I wanted to ask you…”

“Not right now okay…I’m pitching in like five minutes so I’ve got to go get my face on”

“UH, okay Sash, but, I, I’m gonna come find you later”

“Sur Stacy, you come by and see me. We’re gonna go for a drink though okay”

And she says something but I’m not really listening and it’s amazing I even got those three lines out at all. They’re all in the office and Tom is making some more sketches, like the back up sketches because as soon as one of the idiot executives freaks out we just put those up and they calm down and we can push through what we want without them doing too much thinking. Legal. Consumer. Reaction. Blah blah heard it before, way ahead of you. Fred’s playing with his phone again, he’s getting screwed over some share deal so we understand but he’ll have to keep the crowd going in about ten minutes and Johnno is sitting back, smiles at me when I come in. I sit down and run my fingers through my hair, it’s weird right now, I’m more shaky than I usually am.

“You okay Sash?”

“Yeah. Are we ready? Let’s go”

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OFFICE WORK AND THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN/DIE

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It’s really terrible to be there on the outside, you want me to say looking in, but its living IN that is the reality. For example (an easy example to start with) there’s one of you in front of me, talking, trying to you know like believe in something or more likely just live the role they’ve been PAID to[1].  And yes its true they expect me to respond so I can do it right so yeah its easy to say the things that are needed and then, ha! they walk away satisfied…okay so lets for a second pretend that this sentiment is true of everyone. Okay so, then extrapolating, the whole world is…

I took up a pen and it was unlidded and fed by ink but not dried yet and it hasn’t let me down yet so its love I feel now for this persistent little pen that creams ink out its tight spot at all hours, the beautiful thing it is. It’s still not owned. The firm will buy more pens.

You had a dream in which you lived? So you are actually making a life outside of this place? AND you are going to tell me about it? Okay. It’s lovely and heartbreaking your things as they are; a new car (the best ever!); a holiday (praise god!); a baby (one day!); I’m getting out of here to start X (wonderful!).

The patterns on the wall I have memorised. If by patterns you mean hollow motivational slang, and if by memorised you mean have taken to be the implicit insulting of my intellect, then yeah, memorised, sir.

Company Culture: the allusion of admirable circumstance under the cloud of cost benefit analysis.

The women are still things. Skirts, shoes, hair and make up. Even the unattractive ones who try to assert equality slash professionalism know they aren’t exempt. The new thing is to be unattractive and steadfast, surly, revel in your ugliness young managers for we fear no threat from you on so many levels:

Level 1. You are probably not going to have children any time soon (corporate benefit)

Level 2. You will not distract your co-workers.

Level 3 The men will take you seriously (no cause for distraction)

Level 4. You get to see the pretty girls promoted ahead of you and/or they are left alone to be vacuous beauties that (you remember back to when you were growing up) have always had it kind of good and sweet and more fun than you could imagine, and, lets face it your imagination, poor stuck-in-the-clutches-of-the-rest-of-the-disgusting-world girl you have created is taking over…and you think ‘how unfair’ without knowing the reality and instead being resentful and spiteful and exacting your revenge on those damned pretty girls. Late at night when you remember you are a female you feel sick and bad because there is no more mirrors and you know deep down that you’ve just played along again in the male world of handshakes and beer and appreciating cleavage (in your head: do I have good cleavage?).

Person:   Walk away. Stop those steps towards the desk. Look at the sky, fall in love with the day.
Worker: I am already in love with the day.

Person:   No. There are better things to do. You don’t need to do this.

Worker:  I’ll have a coffee and then it will be 10am

Person:   This day is too precious to waste…this life

Worker: I can’t believe they pay me $200 a day for this

Person: I am not worth this

Worker: Hello, hello, hello (wow, such strange and nice people! The phone rang)

Person: What clichés, yeah right ‘Good mourning‘. Please stop asking me what I’m, doing…I’m making a coffee. Your fascination makes me sick, okay?

Worker: (laughs/grunt laughs/ fake laughs or its a real laugh).

You were told that you had something important to do. You did that important thing! There were smiles and the other paid things said ‘well done’ type things and that was one week or month or so. There was a budget you didn’t adhere to. The investors were not happy, you affected their pocket! Now what happened is you are fucked and useless and worthless (in a monetary sense) and yet you felt inside that you are actually bad and a failure and then, like a breathe or in a Namaste yoga way you remembered that you can turn off your computer (self) and walk away into the night and see your friends and maybe they ask you about ‘work’ and you can so easily say ‘ah, forget about that’.

It’s maybe around three pm or so and that thing happens where you see yourself sitting there. I did not want this and yet the screaming voice inside is silenced so easily most of the time. You are standing up, you are moving around. You yourself see your desk and the other people. Go make a coffee. There is someone else there and they are using you to talk to because they are uncomfortable speaking to the woman in the kitchen who is new and so you do the thing whereby you coalesce their conversation so you can leave agreeably but in the end you insult them both by being callous and ‘coming down’ from a ‘higher level’ BUT you are aware of this quasi-elevation so there are positions and responsibilities to be adhered to and in the adhering you feel yourself perpetuating the myth and simultaneously liking the myth/respect thing and putting them in their place makes making your pay check and all the days indiscretions and belittlings seem worthwhile (read: for the few minutes you can extract respect for free).

[1] Okay so uniforms: The police officer or even cinema attendant saying ‘please step behind the rope’…the rope? Humans coexisting within these precepts, right. We have lost the class system and replaced it with; a class system. Revolution? Our free market economy has bred the new world order of money and privilege so now you can MAKE yourself upper class (instead of it being bestowed). A step in the right direction we thought and then the old ways just seeped in. Imagine trying to converse with a uniform and what it gets you. Hey, you’re just paid to act (crucial word) like that. Its hard to snap them out of it and remind them that: hey, the uniform comes off and you are a human. ‘Get behind the rope sir’. Really? You care whether I am on this or that side of a cotton rope. What the hell happened to you? And when you finish your ‘role’, then what? What do you become, or what are you in the first place? Nothing until you adorn a role thing..

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