Short Fiction: Experiments + Proposals - Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Here -
Where...cracked window wired doorways smell of cheap red wine and restless sleep..
Where...burnt out bandstand and gritted wall hold the sky in place..
Where...top floor swearing is frequent..
Where...bitter hands rub endlessly into painted brick..
Where...poor disguises are deliberate..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...thick suited men drink bottled park bench liquid breakfast..
Where...melted slices of stairway rug fold into careless shoe..
Where...dead meat flags hang from rusty hook in damp empty rows..
Where...closed shops remain open..
Where...the big vision is narrow and short-lived..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...bladed vape chatter tumbles into unlit corridor..
Where...sour heeled machinery lies idle..
Where...cracked glass memory leans into elbowed temper..
Where...crippled time shelters from hillside churched solitude..
Where...rusty thimble alcoholics drink cold cartons of charity coffee..
is the place language comes to die.
In her regulation daytime armour that still cracks with the coarse whisper of yesterdays broken promise, the young girl pushes her vape shadowed baby carrier past boarded up pub windows. Her world is the local high street, where each day a bitter grey tide shambles downhill towards abandoned blue churches and disappearing city light. And it is here her plastic shoes will slap into one off needles that litter paper gutters and where, even on dry days, the pavement is damp.
Some rules have never been written down because everyone knows what they are. It's an odd kind of laughter sometimes.
Row after row of empty houses. Once they had people living in them, families. They don't anymore because they're not very nice. Rooms small, stairs narrow, walls too thin and the road that now passes each front door is always busy and dangerous. Cold and damp the window frames rotted, so with water dripping everywhere, the floorboards warped and sagged. These houses are twenty years old.
It's found up along the cobbled visions of forgotten northern towns in times disputed by all who lived them.
In these places caught by Pentax and Olympus, children play on empty streets near to crumbled demolished homes.
Tall ships hang over brick walls in this broken vision. Tall ships made by small grey people whose dreams, daily smashed, mirror the horror of departure.
Close by, crisp tied visitors make quick decisions over ignored pie and local cake.
Morning
Is about frail, weightless, frightened older men who come into the cafe for daily three hour coffees, games of cards and who all talk endless bollocks about non existent winning horses.
Afternoon
Is centred on shapeless local smackheads and hard core druggies who come into the cafe to settle small debts and to boast about knowing where the next deal is going to happen.
Evening
End of the day for some. Sees cheap fatty meals and shelter from the pain of the street.
Late Night
Is all about 'real money' being made in the busy stockrooms of empty shops.
Daytime Hideaways
Between rubble and broken glass, in backspaces unseen from roads and rear view mirrors, shaking hands are being shaken. Tracksuits here are worn to hide shape, weapons and sex, and trade, like this space, is invisible and unknown.
The Right Shadow
Grey when you's staying at Clink Hotel. Black when you returns home to no fixed address. Each casts the right shadow, makes you invisible. Makes you useful.
The Mercy Path
Once you bypass the last starched lightning tree you enter a hillside world of midnight stream and border wire music.
Here across shilling debris, early shadow and blisters of high mist, nature composes movement from iron and broken bone.
The Proposal
Cut into bitter grey stone by masters of dead trades, your life story. Brief like you, words torn from broken parents target the elders who created your passing.
No Paths
Here, where young people never return and there are no paths, is the place language goes to die and old people stop to watch lost cars drive pass.
Stretched Bone #6
Here -
Where...boasting is frowned upon..
Where...youth stubble walk across butchered sleeping path..
Where...the slow of foot shadow wooden shovel..
Where...hills consume history and memory is wiped out by nature..
Where...half gloved hands rap on steel plate and small window..
Where...eyes glare blankly at half empty cups settled on scratched table tops..
Where...steep dark pictures dent curved sky-line..
Where...mobile notes are glued to pavements damp with summer..
Where...young people die old..
Where...loyalty is sought and funded through dark glass..
is the place language comes to die.
Stretched Bone #7
Here -
Where...purple eyes glaze across a stubborn river..
Where...stripped bare wall paintings spray the cold message of futile argument..
Where...narrow lane romance flickers over roof ridged border..
Where...small rusty badges and yellowed brick are etched on pointed walking stick..
Where...cheap tables split abandoned doorways..
Where...cliff edge bramble holds litter to ransom..
Where...puzzled footstep is matched with clumsy frail voice..
Where...second hand clipped fashion rails spill strong alcohol and stained toxic mist..
Where...narrow concrete staircases funnel nervous jealous glances..
Where...beauty is hooded..
is the place language comes to die.
Stretched Bone #8
Here -
Where...locked doors open to sharp knocking..
Where...clotted shoes clamber over torn stile, delayed stone wall and heathland water..
Where...fractured ganglines decide night-time movement..
Where...ribboned plastic roof top windows glisten on oiled doorstep..
Where...seagulls congregate to share daytime information..
Where...the slow brickwork slivers of expectation collide with motored demolition..
Where...routine is never obvious..
Where...fuzzy pictures reveal short hard lives scratched on to broken dockside and burnt timber..
Where...homes are splashed across derelict, tired hillside..
Where...debt plagues argument like two coins rubbed clear..
is the place language comes to die.
Stretched Bone #9
Here -
Where...stubs of paper shape tomorrows nightmare..
Where...fussy overcoats and woollen carpet shape grassy valley roadway..
Where...modern memory is glazed with empty cans of blood..
Where...fallen brick slices postered railing..
Where...juiced radios play out potent messages to scaffolded local trade..
Where...antique van apathy clings to melted future..
Where...layered sounds of gated dog and broken motor serenade gloomy high street..
Where...teenage anger lasts long into retirement..
Where...harmony is seen between broken shop trolley, mid-summer puffa jacket and cannabis vape..
Where...bottom shelf goods are swallowed by small pockets..
is the place language comes to die.
Stretched Bone #10
Here -
Where...loose coin is exchanged on blind side adult corners..
Where...sunny mornings and night time shadow move among rusting steel underpass..
Where...grey pictures are carelessly hidden in barbed wire hedge..
Where...slippery couples meet between sheets of harsh fabric..
Where...handshakes are never between strangers..
Where...crowds gather to pass time and silence..
Where...derelict woods shelter shrivelled worlds..
Where...fake grins act as currency..
Where...door step begging is hasty and mindless..
Where...nylon jumpered youth blankly congregate..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication