Short Fiction: Experiments + Proposals - Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
3 Extracts -
The severed road blankets the grey undemanding hill as it reluctantly inclines towards the sea.
Here, regimented lines of steel, brown with rust, envelop the park where lovers argue and kiss and where young men drink as children play.
And from the sea comes the smell and spell of promises with stones rattling on concrete and flesh.
Steve Coel
In Severed Road, the narrative centre is replaced by observation of landscape and character is being marginalised.
2021
Extracts...
In many honest pursuits of dishonesty
views of broader realities emerge.
( Community Commentary )
It's found up along cobbled visions of forgotten towns in times disputed by all who lived them.
In places where small children are seen, and then caught by Pentax and Olympus, playing on empty streets near to crumbling demolished homes and where trains full of people are always leaving for somewhere better.
Tall ships, hanging over brick wall, skulk in this broken vision. Tall ships made by small people whose dreams, daily smashed, mirror the horror of this passing time.
Crisp tied visitors arrive and leave. As they always have, and always will. Quick decisions made over ignored pie and cake shaping the stockpile land laid bare by scheme.
Windowless empty youth painted buildings scatter to wind and sudden downpour.
In large open working spaces; in tired, dormant, feral communities, few people gather each morning for early shift. The vacancy of thinking is foremost in time spent here. Labour too is vague, mechanical and undisputed. There is no choice or imagination taking place here. Daily life is held in the pursuit of something that always happens somewhere else and the routine is undertaken without thought or emotion. Tiredness is instant and contagious. Jokes are few, clumsy and dulled by lack of echo.
Here, uniforms cheap and ill fitting, signify nothing but cowardice and lack of respect.
Draft #3 - The Wasted Land(scape) : A Noticeboard of Dishonesty ( 2021 )
Steve Coel
To the listener:
My mind falls apart every time I hear that someone's just been knifed / Or gunned down by a stranger whose now running for their life / If you see anyone that you desire just trying to be free / ( crowd noise ).
( crowd noise )/ The cries of pain come through again as the marksman hits the spot / ( crowd noise ).
Because I don't want no arguing no butchery or spite / ( crowd noise )/ As I look in your eyes I can see a fire I can feel you burning still / As the heart of the matter comes home to me ( Shouting ) you are my sweetest pill.
In all fairness she'd expected the water to be pretty cold. After all it was November and Summer hadn't turned out like she'd hoped and she knew well enough that what her family needed, really needed, was to get some sun on their bones. But there you goes, what you gonna do about it? So, even being short of money and that, she'd taken them all away for a weekend treat, a break she reckoned would do them all a bit of good. It being out of season though, most houses were boarded up, yet she'd somehow managed to get themselves into a side street B and B. Trouble is rides on front is all boarded up for the winter too. As a result kids were generally pretty miserable. But they says change of scenery is good for the soul. So they says. Like I've heard if car runs on to your foot adrenalin gives you strength to pick car up and move your foot out. So I've heard. Still, no-one's really sure where she got strength to take all her kids into the water like she did.
Steve Coel
Steve Coel
Like a dream it was just now. You barefoot and unconcerned across this wet road and it being early morning and all. I'm guessing you must have started the evening with shoes. But there you go. No CCTV following you, not here, not yet. But you're being watched my friend, trust me, you're being watched. Yes it's quiet around here. Well apart from the water from the broken guttering and occasional gun fire. Odd that. Guns usually start later, at a more sociable time. No real point this time of day. No-one to frighten see. This time of day is just showing off. So what the fucks you doing around here is beyond me. Thing is, I'm not being paid to worry about stupid little fucks like you am I? Better get on then. Now, if I can just get this knife in a bit further I'll be on my own way as well. Shit, was that gunfire again?
Steve Coel
Sunny day. Bad atmosphere. Looks being passed between people trying too hard not to know each other. Failing badly they is. Should do better. So what's the story then?
Suppose story starts on the street. Outside like. Always a good place to start a story I reckons. Begins with police searching a car. Wrong car as it happens. Other footies is holding some guy against a wall, while others check his jacket in doorway of the adult store. I understands they won't find nothing.
Morning. Early for some. Late for others. Someone, it seems, is clearly not making it through the day, is getting desperate and is needing some action pretty quick. Like right away. So. Quick snatch job is all. Bad call is what it is. Being watched see. Being watched quite closely as it happens. Decision time. For me. Do I let it go and carry on waiting? Or do I move in, blow cover? Luckily, for all involved, uniformed footie steps in. Very lucky.
Bit of a chase. Laugh that. Likes a good chase, who doesn't? Security joined in too. Laugh that also. Though twats they is for joining in because peoples quick round here when opportunity arises. So it is. Quick in and out, even though they knows cameras sees them all. And they knows security will be having words with them later. Poor bastards. But hey, what you going to do? I'll have a word prior like, it's what I does, my job. Like I tells you, my street.
Steve Coel
' No good ever comes from doing no good. '
' A great song, sung badly, is still a great song. '
' The crippled landscape is holding the sky in place. '
' Knowing when too much is not enough. '
' Too old to rock the boat, but young enough to hide the paddles. '
' We are all prisoners to the language of children. '
Steve Coel: 2020 - 2021
Steve Coel
Extracts.
Time was he'd be with the other workers heading south after another all night wet shift. But not today. Today, he's still invisible in his toasted brickwork hat and waking up late after a nights sleep on the butchers slab that rests buried in the dark silted low tide beach alongside the gravy.
***
Busy checking that the hidden key and twist are still in his deadman's waistcoat he will slowly begin his own journey south of the river to his cardboard hostel room, electric sheets, liquid breakfast and another brown day full of grey moods, careless thought and burnt cake.
Too many daytime hideaways
are in backspaces
unseen from roads
and rear view mirrors.
Here, torn feral shoes
will once more be shredded
by rubble and broken glass
and shaking hands
will again be shaken
between tracksuits,
worn to hide
shape, weapons and sex.
But tomorrow you will return
because it is the place
where real trade
remains invisible
and ignored.
[ Previously published : Torn Shoes - Steve Coel ]
Walking Notes
..you catches snatches of stoned smiles floating through smoked out windows of passing stolen number plates. Everyone knows the cliches and seems to love them round here. And not ironically, ironically..
..( always ) seen wearing cheap clothes they's always got expensive rings and expensive boxfresh. Go figure. Seems weird to most, but is accepted down the street because knowledge is learnt early round here. Everyone knows, you don't learn, you's a loser. And that's where you don't ever want to be - reputations is made early and lasts. Everyone knows this, don't they? Is fucking first lesson for fucks sake!
Steve Coel