Truth or Dare

In many ways they are a perfect match. A type is looking for a type, Venus knows it with hormonal prescience, Mars simply possesses an enviable cachet of genes, oblivious to much else that falls outside the moment. It’s easy to tell them apart.

Still, it's all going on, under the surface. He is noticing her slender limbs and auburn hair, feeling only the pang it gives him in the region most prone to that sensation. The solid cherry of nerves, woven by creationists like me for the not-so-sinister purpose of, well, creation.

Venus keeps it all intact, she is sylph, gorgon, hand-held hydra. A hearty loom for the proper heir. Somewhere beneath the hairspray and layers of chiffon beats the heart of a siren. Her fingers twirl a biro with the bland-eyed surety of a majorette or magician.

Of course, I am pro procreation. Don't get me wrong. It's just that it seems to have lost much of its immediacy; the balance of power too far removed. The point is that I'm going to make them tell the truth. Call it an experiment, a letter of resignation. A nod to the faithless future. I don't care.

Mars is tall, lowering himself like a foal, knees bumping the table. He could smile more, show those child-bearing teeth. Too many frown lines for such a young unit. Broad shouldered, but should he emphasise the pecs more, open a button or two? Never mind, I'm old-fashioned. Those rules barely apply now.

Venus, in return, is immaculate. She gives so little away. A dutiful smile, lashes shading her rouged face. They exchange cards, point to each other's badges. This is me, alluringly pinned to my own breast. How do you do? This is me, transparent and hanging on a string. How do I do you?

I've seen this a million times, don't worry, in all its likenesses. The brief handshake, hefty paw swallowing delicate fingers. Then, chairs drawn under tables to settle in for the dickering. This latter-day return to gentility, via a cattle auction they call 'speed dating'.

Don't mind me. I'm a little bitter maybe, dismayed by the scripted fun. He opens his mouth to speak. In a moment, the dance will begin. Not by the onset of a ladies 'excuse-me' or some gentle rondo, leading to elaborate manhandling or fleshy swishes, but by punching a clock.

Eight minutes, then on to the next. A Rolodex their chaperon, tick-boxes the yes/no arbiters of a future fate. Ironically, it all hinges on the same faulty perceptions, driven by needs that, once fulfilled, leaves them with little else in common. Hardly my fault, though, right?

And yet, in many ways, I miss how simple it used to be. The days of swordsmen and club-wielders. I was little more than a mediator then; the necessary adjunct between blast-off and splash-down. Parachute, safety net, dependable marksman. Call it what you will, I could concentrate on the job at hand. Lean into my success rate. Give it my all.

Their smiles unfold, growing warmer as they exchange pleasantries.

Nice day.
Yes.
Do you live far?
About half an hour.
Diggers on the ring road.
What a pain. I came on the bus.

And there, for a hundred heartbeats, beneath the cosmetised semblance of aroused cheeks and widened eyes, real capillaries flush. Disguise within disguise. When did it become so clandestine, so sleight-of-hand? What’s wrong with the time-honoured beeline of musk and moisture? It’s all deception, masking her heat with scent. Put your nostrils to work, Mars!

All this - so quaint and unimaginable, so frustrating. I never thought we'd regress, a reaction to the free love of the sixties perhaps. My greatest day, some say. My finest hour.

Not that I'm pro promiscuity either, but see - her natural miasma of pores and air, slope of neck and lean-to of jaw? That would tell him everything he needed to know, were he only built for listening, had not had that capacity deconstructed by time and sophistry. Another victim of evolution, like the thirteenth rib or wisdom tooth. Like me.

But, I digress. I'm not some advocate of ape-wrestling. I can change with the times. It's just those few whiffy molecules obviate much of the need for formality. Do you think, for example, when I first introduced Caesar to Cleopatra, those shoddy applications of kohl and nightshade meant a thing? The dust-tracked passage of his unfed legions meriting any kind of subject for discussion? Time was the enemy. They got down to it. That's how you've changed.

He fires a semi-risque joke, knees arrowed at her point of origin, but falling wide of the mark. Her legs are demurely crossed, side-facing. Language is a rickety vehicle, monosyllables falling like fog. Their bodies do all the talking. Surprisingly, she laughs. Plays with her hair. Bingo! But he is - for heaven's sake - checking his nails, seeming uncertain. What is it you want, son? A placard with TAKE ME on it?

Stop all this. Stop time.

I am bored. Bored and angry. It happens a lot nowadays. Not my fault, because I used to enjoy the job, the animus at work. Back then I could concentrate on the business of blending while all that sport took care of itself. So much bagatelle. The chase cut to, often brutally, in record time. I could synchronise attributes and stir up a decent head of cell division quicker than you might say GSOH.

Because I'm good at it, and I know what's good for you. Eyes and hair, the sport of mutation. Not so precise. Flicks here, flecks there, a coda of style in the signature. Not so fussy, save the fine chiselling for Greeks and Romans. A tied tongue here, hint of spinal curvature there. A molar too many for given squatness of skull. None of it detracts greatly. It's the weave that counts, the artisanship. The forging of moulds so husks can be smelted. Reliquaries, ripe for the filling of human experience, bitter and self-absorbed as it is. That's what counts.

I understand my quiver-bearing role lost its charm some time ago (another reason to hate you, by the way) and - while we're on the subject - I appreciate the idea of micro-management of your own destiny as a sort of given birthright. But it isn't, not really. You meddle. All this thinking with your minds, this running of slide-rules. These pretensions of judgement and foresight mean only one thing.

You never get down to it.

So the clock being frozen, the unamorous pair locked to their wary denials, all the needless spelunking and self-limiting modesty costs nothing. We were going nowhere and weren't bound to arrive there in a hurry. Trust me.

That isn’t to say there's no price for hobbling the trample of time. It isn't trivial beer, as you say. But we'll discuss that later. The truth is, I don't know. Maybe this is me, falling before I'm pushed. Tired of it all. It isn't work any more, much as managing robots isn't really supervision. It’s the death of imagination, them going through the motions, the same rumpled blueprints of preordained path and flaky magnetism, the same wonky spin of gyroscope and micro-switch. Those tiny flaws of data all adding up, churning out broken mechanisms and flawed gifts. The programmed as programmer, all the disastrousness that implies.

That's how much you've changed.

Shh. Deep breath. Feel it, the weight and consequence of borrowed power. And observe, while I rev the gentle engines.

Noise of the room swooshing outwards, chatter of switched-on appliance. The reconstitution not so much of time, the glue of the universe, as movement. You think I'd be sitting here if I were that powerful?

She taps her teeth with the pen, a franker jut to the chin, lending her beauty that missing, admirable flaw.

"Can't cook, won't cook."

Bravo.

He cradles his knees, chin to table, barely alive to his own senses. "The floor is my wardrobe. Master of the odd sock."

Ok, it’s a start. A nod toward honesty, something of the big picture. Why not share a signpost to that rocky road? Even if my only real concern is the endgame, even if I am a sucker for caught breath, the quickened pulse, anticipation of spiritual notion to embodied form. All the blunt truths of sensuality, belonging to the moment. Why not look beyond it for the nonce? Explore ideals of polarity and payback?

"Massive fraud," he blurts, fingering a shirt button. "Constant fear keeps me rigid."

She nods, smoothing her hair. "Abandonment issues. I’ll test your ability to desert me. "

The truth is squeezed from them, like toothpaste. It demonstrates that, above all, I do understand what lies out there, after the fact. And yes, I am that desperate. I'll try anything, even something so risky. So damnably auto-erotic.

"Chocolate addiction, once a month and more."

"Bed wetting drunk. May to December."

"Cry myself to sleep with the shopping channel on."

"Unspecified angst. Telly-smashing rages."

"I gorge then vomit. What I see in the mirror hates me."

Veering into the brutal a little gladly, but flowing, yes? The truth is having its way with them, and isn't this better than marks out of ten on some typo-filled questionnaire? Isn't this what you came for, really? The gut-shot cadaver of commitment, the car crash of familiarity meeting the crime scene of contempt? Wedding bells rusting in the long grass, clappers having smashed through all the mended fences?

"I’ll need your vulnerability to nurture and pour scorn on. "

"Happiness is outside of me! When you don’t provide it, I'll blame you."

"And me! Detest you for all my pain. We'll vacillate between love and hate."

And here it comes, catching up. Yes, I may have overstretched myself, it’s possible. Time, its dense passage, the sense of it moving to some inevitable expiry. The past increasing by the same value as the future diminishes. A whiff of looming retribution. The mind's ability to perceive two end points and an interval. To be both cleansed and destroyed by fire. Holding its torch was ill-advised, could well precipitate my own inferno.

And yet, in some ways, worth it. In spite of the vigour and venom, the future and all its clinging dread, the lovers reach out, touching hands. Venus and Mars. Their shared pain a salve, cathartic. The balance of power deemed honest. Doable.

"When you look at someone else, I'll cry. My tears will make you unfaithful."

"I'll withhold affection, manipulating you with it."

"Our children will be beautiful."

Enlightened, the three of us, by paradox, the simple closure of mind letting wisdom flow from the source. None of this requires a mythical bowstring, there’s nothing forelocked or coy-eyed about it. Nothing cloud-based and heart-piercing. You are no more children than I am a cherub.

Instead it comes like magma through the earth, like Venus's happiness, existing already within. Volcanic, below the surface. And the lows? They are yours. You secretly crave them, and always have.

So here I come; the big success. Selling the dream again, the simple, laughable dream. No warranty, no guarantee. You wouldn't bring the tree-wrecked car back to the dealer, would you? Because he'd do what I'm doing now. Laugh.

That's how much I've changed.

Laughing as the happy couple laugh, taking to their heels, shrugging off all denial and reservation. A return to the summer of love. My finest hour!

Laughing as I am chastened for the overstepped mark, the error of my cause-effect ways, the one-off nature and peril of singularity. The immediacy of time recognising the magnitude of space in the same stark orbit. The void catching up, furious at truths allowed in its absence. Demanding satisfaction.

Because time, I recognise, is its own creation and you are the Gods of it, keeping, with your insane gyrations, the snake from eating its tail. That tsunami held at bay by hands and springs, stemmed to a trickle through your consciousnesses. All this solid clockwork, coiled and irresistible but violent too, not predisposed to fiddle or delay.

So, while the lovers clasp their newly unbroken hearts, stitched more sweetly than any machine, all that remains is the insoluble problem of movement, without and within. The relentless spill of seconds, themselves alone and needy, portents of the swelling hours, the pregnant days. Its grain the dunes of tomorrow, the mountains of next week, adding to the world its own feverish gravity, its own slant and momentum. Nothing to tame or charm it with. The snake eating itself.

"Let's get out of here."

The rush of grabbed coats, love's curfew lifted. The queue of suitors behind dismissed, musical chairs scraped aside. Finally. What it is to think and act, unhindered by all that alien chemistry. For passion and reason to co-exist, to chew gum and walk, to pat its head and rub its own stomach.

My parting gift. All you need be wary of are snakes.

Kiss of Life

I died in a very interesting way. Gripping the manifest, I swang from the low bed of the wagon. It was only a few feet to the ground but my left knee gave way on landing. It had been dodgy ever since Corey Fenwick clattered it with a piece of drainpipe in Sunday school twenty years ago. Drainpipes were made of lead back then, so it would have packed quite a heft. I don't think there was a particular reason. Random violence was a common boredom-beater in those times.

So I leapt, when I should have known better. You get to an age where you have to accept a lack of invincibility, where things you used to manage with ease suddenly appear improbable. I couldn't know that for me the age would be thirty-five, but perhaps it had been on the cards ever since I tried to clear my driveway gates in a hurdler's leap and got my feet caught in two wrought-iron curlicues. That ended badly too, although nowhere near as badly as this.

I jumped. I don't know what it is with the jumping. I wasn't a hurdler, nor had I any ambition to be one. I just liked to jump, either over things or from on top of them. Height didn't seem to be a factor, nor circumstances (I once jumped from a hotel balcony in Albufeira, fortunately landing in the swimming pool and not some oily sunbather's lap.)

I just liked to jump, is all.

Actually, I jumped from this particular deck, because the driver of the truck it belonged to was a lady and I wanted to impress her. An Eastern European lady, attractive and wholly anomalous to the profession. It made a change. She wore a cheesecloth shirt, tied at the waist. It was summer, an even spread of sun and high, thinning cloud. She had long curls. Her hands looked strong and she smelled of light sweat and heavy tobacco. What I remember most was that she didn't need language to tell me to do all the work. Her lashes and lips were a universal translator.

So I landed and stumbled, feeling that gunshot pain in my knee. I tried to cushion it by squatting like a frog, and the biro in my top pocket, (a Bic biro - red, ironically) pierced my neck. It had a sharp, tapered top. An assassin couldn't have managed it better. It popped through my carotid and lodged itself in my windpipe. I can be thankful (one always looks for the positives) that exsanguination was marginally quicker than the choking. It still took a while, but those wide, shocked eyes and the Dubrovnik Marlboro kiss sustained me, and sustains me still.

The Idea of Ideas

That's me, the hidden assailant, springing out from nowhere, knife in hand. Throat-grabbing, reverse-thief, sidling up with a whisper. "Feel that? The steel of me? The gist of me? The nib-driven tip to draw a  bead of blood with?"

That's me, the spine-scraper, the eye-widener, the glimpse of a more thorough pain. "A wish is a promise," I say, glove-to-mouth. Yours alone to treadle on the whetstone of your mind with. To shape and hone till sparks fly from your eyes and feed the greedy forge. This blade, irreducibly fine, the keenest hum to drown out all the grinding, planar apathy of mankind.

Extrude from me a scimitar edge, and craft from that a jewelled hilt so I swish like a sword men feel honoured to fall on. Make me so much more than the crude shank that I was born of. Slice well, cut clean, let them yield to its point as meat on the skewer, as maidenheads violated, as shoals divided by native cunning. Use my lethality to make yourself prescient. Swash and buckle or flash hard for tiny nicks. I don't care, only don't squander me. I'm an idea. No-one need say 'what's the point?' I'm the point. Use me. Use it. Open a vein somewhere. Flay something's hide.

Or make of me a feather to tickle the unwary, make me a staff to herd sheep with. Herd and tickle till they beg 'no mas'. Preach and teach till their faces bleed and chalk dust hangs in their minds. I don't care, and neither am I selective; to tramp and poet akin, I'm just an idea, a wisp, an embodiment, a blueprint, a template, spelled from the ether by thoughts and words. I don't care for you, only that you don't squander me. I might not come this way again for a long time again. If ever.