<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Saturday, November 01, 2003

Chapter Two – Blood And Sand



The flames of the fire flicker back and forth, organic and pulsing. There he is sitting there, waiting for her. Katie doesn’t know how he knows that she will be coming, but he always does, he is always there waiting for her. She suspects that it must be something to do with this place, looking across the landscape, its clear cut delineation between sky and earth. The sky is blue, pure and deep, unsullied by the slightest hint of anything that could be described as a cloud. The earth is the sweep and curl of dunes, the bright, warm, yellow of the desert – an ever shifting environment, mutating one grain at a time. A fact Katie can testify to, the coiling fluid particles moving with her every step as she carefully measures each step down the side of the dune to where he is camped.

He pours the tea into two cups as Katie arrives, places them on the ground, before rising to meet her.
‘Katie,’ he says, his voice deep and filled with a warmth tinged by a sadness, as he takes her in his embrace.
‘Simon,’ Katie squeezes him, her arms doing her best to crush him to her ‘,I’ve missed you so much!’ No doubt he can feel her shaking with the effort she is putting into not crying. He runs a hand through her hair, steps back from her, taking her chin in his hand. Simon sighs, kisses her forehead, before hugging her again.

Now that she is sat comfortably round the first, Simon hands Katie one of the cups of tea.
‘Blood and sand,’ Simon says raising his own cup to her.
‘Sun and moon,’ Katie responds, clacking the rim of her cup off the rim of his, before taking a sip from her cup.
‘So, how are things? How is everyone?’ asks Simon, looking at Katie over his cup.
‘Everything is fine. We are muddling along. What else can we do? And you know Gabe, he is always one to cope.’
Simon smiles at this, ‘Yeah he’ll manage, if anyone will.’
‘When are you coming back?’ Katie looks at him searchingly, imploringly.
Simon puts his cup down again. Brings his knees up to his chest. He looks up to the perfect blue sky, as though trying to derive some answer from it’s expanse – but the sky remains silent as ever, no comment for this subject.
‘Things, things changed, you know? It wasn’t supposed to be like this! The plan was that things would get better, that we would make a difference. Then that happened, and it was an omen – surely the two of you must feel – you of all people, you must sense something? Things are going to get bad, I really don’t know where this will end’

Snug in her sleeping bag, Katie stirs, her eyes opening to the orange canvas of her tent. Sitting up she reaches for her bottle of water, unscrewing the cap and swallowing a mouthful. Screwing the lid back on, her mind fills with thoughts of Jess – Jessica – her sister. Katie becomes over whelmed with these feelings of loss, sitting hugging herself, with tears running down her face. Unconsciously cradling back and forth, desperate for some sense, some reason for Jessica’s death. Recalls how she lost her hair, lost so much weight, consumed to a shadow of herself. Her cells fighting a losing battle against herself, they could all see the end coming well before it did, and the fact that there was nothing that could be done tore them up. A light ringing tone brings Katie back to herself. Out here in this dry, crumbling land in the American desert, reception was poor. Most of the others that came here would be unable to get a signal, but with her test model Katie has a call coming through. If she can find the phone, grabbing her back pack and raking through the contents.
‘Hello,’ she says, unable to conceal the sob in her voice.
‘Katie. We all miss her. You know that? We have each other, you know I’m always here for you, and Jess wouldn’t want you to dwell on this too much. She would want you to move on.’
‘Yeah, I know. It is good to talk to you, I know you are there for me,’ wiping tears from her eyes Katie starts to feel a little better. She can’t help herself, when she thinks about Jess too much it just overwhelms her, but at least she has Blake to bring her back round.
‘Ok I have got to go. But I think we will be seeing each other soon, till then take care of yourself! I love you. Bye’
‘Thanks for calling, bye,’ Katie slings the phone back into her bag, before unzipping the tent. It is another warm day outside, as it has been the entire time that she has been here.

There are drummers everywhere. Assorted other punters with their home made instruments and their home made drugs. Dancers and fire spinners, dervishes all. Katie’s arms weave in front of her, following the lines that dot to dot into symbols, catching the tracers of each move. Accentuated black lines within that, from the tattoos up her fore arms. She feels both dizzied and energised by the chaotic sonic mass that surrounds her. Embraces the adrenalin pumping from her dance, spinning round, totally absorbed by the moment, as naked as everyone else. A cheer goes up as they set the man on fire.

[soundtrack to now funkstorung - appetite for disctruction]


I know everything.
I know how the story starts.
I know how the story ends.
I know when the sun will shine.
When the rain will come down.
When the night will fall.
Take a deep breath.
It has started.
Now wake up.



Chapter One – Open Your Eyes



‘Go on. Open your eyes.’
He slides back into himself. Into his head space. His meat space. Where does your body go when you are dreaming he wonders? She elbows him in the ribs.
‘You awake yet? Come on. The alarm was for you. Ah don’t need to get up for ‘nother couple hours yet’
‘Aye. I am awake.’ More is the pity he thinks. Where does your body go? When your mind is off – because it certainly doesn’t feel like he is being there. He cracks an eye open, tentative. The world is a blur. Julie is in soft focus, like a lens needing a little nudge, just to bring everything into line. He blinks. Wearily and with little enthusiasm sitting up, this meat he has returned to resisting the motion. Not quite sitting comfortably on him.
But then after the night the two of them had he wouldn’t say he was surprised to find that he is paying for it now. Things are starting to come together in his head and he looks at her, the mop of blonde hair hanging across her face as she lies looking at him, her head propped on one elbow.
‘Mission control – it looks like we have regained contact – welcome home!’ she says smiling at his pained expression.
‘Go on then, get outta here, some of us have tae get back tae sleep’
‘Ok, ok, I can tell when I’m not wanted,’ he cries climbing out of bed, grabbing his over night bag and heading for the shower.

The hot water runs down his face, standing there with his eyes closed, doing his best to absorb the warmth. He is thinking about Julie and how things are going between the two of them. Sure they are having fun, he thinks, they both get on really well. But he suspects in the long term it is more likely that they will just be friends, he can’t see the relationship lasting – ha – maybe they can be ‘fuck buddies’ like the folk in that programme on Channel 4 he caught the last five minutes of the other night? He rinses off the last of the soap and gets out the shower, dries and dresses for the day.

Sticking into his bedroom he calls out ‘,Hey Julie, I’ll call you later!’
‘Fuck off Dave, I’m sleeping!’ she calls back from beneath the pillow. He closes the door carefully, doing the same with the door to her flat as he leaves and heads down the street. Dave glances at his watch, 6.30am, and it is a glorious day. Dave loves this time of year. The streets are so quiet, a stray bus working it’s way up Lothian Road as he strolls down. The sky is blue and clear and everything is so still. He soaks up the warmth. The purity. The positive feeling that he feels when it is like this spreads through him and he smiles, it might be shit having to get up at this time of the day to make it to work, but when he gets to experience the world like this, and to have it as a private moment then it makes it all worth while.

As Dave reaches the Filmhouse he looks at the posters on the outside, thinking briefly how strange it always is to see a building so familiar in an unfamiliar state. Thinking of the nights he spent in there, the bustle of the café – hell, the madness of the film festival – the films he has seen. Yet it is cold and empty now, reminding him of his thoughts on the body and the mind and the emptiness associated when one has gone from the other. The poster in one of the glass cases advertises the up coming French Film Festival – cool, he thinks, there is usually something in that worth seeing. He’ll need to make time to pick up a brochure.

When Dave worked in Edinburgh himself he was down the other end of the city, so when he came up for a train it was always Waverley station that he left from. He was here for a couple of years, working down in Leith. That was how he and Julie had originally met, though they had only seen each other here and there over the years. It wasn’t until more recently that they actually started to deliberately spend time together. Reaching the bottom of Lothian Road he turns left, heading instead to Haymarket, a station he is a lot less familiar with.

There seems to be some kind of commotion this morning as he comes into the station. As he reaches the platform there are a couple of other people waiting for the first train, a young Japanese girl passes him, dark hair, with flame tips and skate board under her arm. She seems strangely familiar, though he would swear he can't remember having seen her before. I know when the night falls. A shudder goes up his spine, a sudden chill as he remembers part of his dream. A grey haired man with a bright orange waist coat approaches him, the top marked with the Scot Rail logo, as is the uniform he wears under it.
‘Where you going, son,’ the man asks Dave.
‘Glasgow,’ he tells him.
‘There is going to be a delay this morning. Been some trouble. Lucky we have some diesel engines, so we should be able to get you through.’
‘Oh,’ Dave says, unsure what this means, ‘ok thanks.’ As the station worker wanders off, Dave decides to see if the Metro has anything about what the ‘trouble’ the guy mentioned is about. Picking up a copy of the free paper from the docket where a stack of them is sitting Dave reads the headline:

PULSE BOMB CAUSES CITY CHAOS - TERRORISM SUSPECTED



[soundtrack for now bedouin ascent - music for particles]


start - it has started, by my clock it is now 00:44 on november the first.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?