Experimental Short Fiction - Steve Coel. Current Collection - No Paths, An 11.59 Publication
Here -
Where...slim smiles are given at shop exits and short change is expected..
Where...suspicious tin badge statements are worn like dismissed broken attitude..
Where...nervous parked cars are hidden from stolen eyes..
Where...beauty is hooded..
Where...wild animals pass through broken work door..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...loyalty is sought and funded through dark glass..
Where...anger is buttery..
Where...door step begging is hasty and youthful..
Where...brave words are thrown away with cheap lager and soapy grey gritted water..
Where...curled up broken yard hideaways become legend..
Where...layered sounds of gated dog and broken motor serenade gloomy high street..
Where...cheap toys are solitary on pavement and stolen trolley..
Where...flagless memory walks sullen and dead down late night dual carriageway tunnel..
Where...simple slogans are stamped hard on tourist lamp post..
Where...lost faces merge with elderly condemned brick..
Where...early sandal foot death lays down grass foundation..
Where...shallow drunk opinion dominates afternoon decision making..
Where...teenage defence is held tightly to deaf ear..
Where...clumsy stapled barriers warn away passing neighbourhood shadows..
Where...off grid roads disappear through unpleasant fields of illegal chambered stubble..
Where...sad walled archive crowds day time sky..
Where...nylon jumpered youth blankly congregate..
Where...anonymous kiosk cards are pierced carefully on stolen rusty spike rods..
Where...blistered nickel punches into broken fence..
is the place language comes to die.
In your spring hat, tied with lost string, you search the free paper for clues to which day you now finds yourself waiting. And, as you well knows, waiting on the corner beat today in the rain for the next delivery, is getting you plenty of disturbed glances from local windows and trolley men...the steady clump of your wet shoe against cracked kerbstone drunk is also shadowing a high street roaring with anger over closure and debt and is where even the most fucked up has memories when called upon.
So; you's been shadow hunting. You fucker. Isn't nice. Know what I means? And it sure doesn't look as if it is going to end well either, because peoples already got their mobiles out and others are instinctively putting their hands over stash's and stolen wallets.
From one of the stickered shop windows a tidy looking young women is shaking a weary head at the nasty row growing on the pavement outside. It was always about dodgy deals and money owed. Always. And always the same exhausted faces. Sound of blues fast approaching up the street usually moves on most, but not all. And CCTV[s] are already being clicked off, wiped or removed.
And all the time is snatch's of stoned smiles floating through smoked windows of passing stolen number plates. Everyone knows the street cliche's and seems to love them round here. And not ironically, ironically.
Here -
Where...vital instinct survives by kicking inflamed fragile nightmare..
Where...sad walled archive crowds day time sky..
Where...banked torn tree fence collapses on to wired market..
Where...nylon jumpered youth blankly congregate..
Where...anonymous kiosk cards are pierced carelessly on stolen rusty spiked rod..
Where...blistered nickel punches into broken brick..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...flagless memory walks sullen and dead down late night dual carriageway tunnel..
Where...simple slogans are stamped hard on tourist lamp post..
Where...lost faces merge with elderly condemned brick..
Where...sandal foot early death lays down grass avenue foundation..
Where...shallow drunk opinion dominates afternoon decision making..
Where...teenage defence is tightly held to deaf ear..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
