she just loves it with the music

to feel it

uncurling and pushing in her ears

look

there it is stretching in a span across her brow

rolling in knuckles down her nose

and

brushing along her cheekbones

cupping her head with two, three hands

it is pushing her falling forward slowly

rocking

tapping

there are slightly fingers tightening through her hair and pulling against her scalp

gently

plucking

and

then

[this]

i was working in this restaurant washing dishes in two stainless steel sinks i couldn't reach the bottom of easily i hadn't seen anything like it before and these deep sinks held water that could fill a bath and i needed to hunch right over i wouldn't know for some time that this was a shite job you know i was twelve years old and i was shouted at a lot and i worked all sunday washing dishes hunched over this sink out of sight and washing and passing dishes into the other sink and the water was scalding hot and filthy and there were these laminated pictures on the wall of

picture-postcard-perfect-salads

in round white pottery dishes with a half a peach half a shiny shiny peach and white cottage cheese and i'd feel against my ankles sometimes fresh-air let in through the back from a door held open by boxes of sour lettuce stacked up haphazardly and the smell of pancakes and icecream and pancakes and syrup and pancakes and tinned fruit and i knew then that this couldn't be anything more than what it was but when i carried great towers of plates as many as i could in one go through into the restaurant the lights were bright it was dizzying like walking onto a stage

and, when we were seated comfortably in soft chairs with feather cushions that were pleasantly cool and gave in a just-so, rather satisfying way, i asked the dream whether it would possibly like to be mine.

and the dream said to me:

you should be so lucky.

and then, i admit, in an act of sheer desperation, i cried and fell wailing to the floor.

i pleaded with and beseeched the dream; and i begged and implored.

i was at once and the same time a sorrowful, disconsolate and abject supplicant.

but to no avail:

the dream was utterly unmoved by me.

and continued to sip jasmine tea from a bone-china cup.

which, if you held it up in the brightest light, would show that light dimly coming through.

and this apparent, even with tears in your eyes.

she moves her gaze quickly down the list, dismissing, dismissing, dismissing. if you were watching her you’d notice that she was doing this quickly, deftly, without frowning; her breathing, slight.

she clicks next. leans forward slightly to scrutinise the screen. then she pushes her chair back, aware of the heels of her boots resting on the floor, and her legs, straight, warm against each other.

four more and she’s at the end of the list.

nothing beyond that.

how many times has she done this already this morning? three, four, five times? she refreshes the screen again and sees nothing more than what she expected to see. she feels here and somewhere else.

and there's this dull sense of herself.

and the frantic flapping and screaming of birds stuffed in cages.

bluntly upon me,
said:

I do not like you.
I have no respect for you.
I would put myself first should we find ourselves on some train derailing; I would trample you.

Instead she said, again, Do you agree with what I’ve said? Do you?

and i looked at her and i said after some time:

i cannot say.

and i dropped my gaze. hearing gravel thrown up.

Aware still of her silent, stifling, scornful scrutiny. And, in the stillness, birdsong outside.

it rained.

i stood at the window and looked out at great, grey, saturated vertical struts of concrete that hold the building and declare it some gothic vision that is too close to see.

see, you need to be outside and at a distance. and not, as me, working in such desperately close proximity, barely twenty feet away from the window opposite. so close i can almost feel the building breathing back damply against my cheek.

and the windows steam up as i wait for it to stop raining.

where to begin?

in the supermarket.

in amongst the tins and things and the cheap, thin clothes dashed up by thin kids working somewhere tawdry; somewherewhere: that's as good a place as any to begin. ten-a-penny factories with thin, tin roofs, and the kind of clattering din that can shatter a child's eardrums.

so no revelatory moment; no sudden realisation then. just something that falls and settles quietly; like the feeling of cotton falling on your skin.

look. i mean, really look.

what is it about these places? do you feel yourself to be more or less here?