Claustrophobia (flash fiction)

Every morning was a race for Harold. As soon as his alarm went off the walls started closing in; the white plaster walls, the photograph of him and his mother at the Uni Graduation Ceremony. That seemed so long ago, now, he thought as it edged towards him steadily, while to his back the window and photograph he’d taken of ducks on a pond pushed his bed forward. On slow days he had to jump out the window to avoid being crushed between his bed and the wall. His bed was battered and bruised; the frame long ago splintered to bits and the mattress could bend in ways his bones could not. Every day he grabbed a tie and trousers from the floor beside his mattress and rushed to the door. Every night the room was back to its original size. He’d tried to sue his landlord for breach of contract but the claims adjuster told Harold that was clearly ridiculous.
So Harold had no choice but to save up for a better place. He was doing alright, working in a call center, but the hours were long and some mornings he barely made it out of the window, rolling in his pyjamas on to the garden before the room was pinched tight. One day he sprained his ankle jumping out and spent the next week crashing at his friend’s place until his foot recovered. No one believed him, but they humoured him because they liked his mustache. He got a promotion at his job and went out to celebrate, drinking shot after shot of gin. When he got home he was so drunk he forgot to set his alarm and was crushed to death the very next morning.

Beck House Block D 3

1.
Saturday morning. In lieu of television, there's youtube and you can be however old you want. Today I am five, watching Masters of the Universe. My parents were never too thrilled on that one, with it's near-overt occult references and (retrospectively) inappropriately sexy characters. I do not change out of pajamas for this.

"Now it's time to unleash my army of demons!"

2.
The kitchen. Where we gather by accident, linger over tea and biscuits. Paula's stay here nears completion. She is always in her pajamas when not in her nurses uniform, always hacked about the mingin' weather. She might go back to her boyfriend in Scotland or she might move to Carlisle. It's the beginning of attrition. The slow emptying of the hall that happens over holidays, but for good.

I'll be here all summer.

3.
I share my balcony with a man I never see. Save for when he smokes and nods through the open curtains. The view we maintain is one of tilting rooftops trailing towards the atlantic, a few leafless trees rustling and the same crane that's been there since september, hovering over perpetual construction.

I wonder if he knows I'm watching cartoons.

4.
Basim and Dupet are arguing about God. Or he is trying to wind her up, finding great success. "I was born. . . in Bethelehem. I am. . . the new Jesus." She challenges his Muslim heritage. "Basim-- Islam is a religion of peace and love, no?" He shrugs and nods. "So is Christianity." They recite the FATYA in arabic together. I am washing my tea-mug in hot soapy water. Dupet asks if I'll be going home when I'm done, what with how "bad things are in the states." I hope not. Not yet. The rooms here are small but I have not yet filled mine with things, the weather is bad but it's bad back home and here at least

there is always He-Man and his magic sword, here to vanquish the forces of Skeletor.

secret blog's adventures in travel, cold, callous reasoning

Just back from Scotland. Blogging comes before shaving or washing, apparently. Toothpastefordinner have a comic about that somewhere, or not because it's too obvious.

I had a good time in Glasgow/Edinburgh with Chelsea. I was feeling pretty under the weather for most of it with sneezing and the headaches that come from needing to sneeze but not allowing yourself. That, I fear, made me less awesome at being a guest/rekindling old acquaintanceships.
Nonetheless, I'm glad I went. I'm actually really glad to be in my room now, with no set comitted plans for the rest of the weekend.

my room. it's currently a lot of papers and wrapping and suitcase. Checking the mail has been futile for the last month, but the week I was gone I hit a jackpot.

___----_____-----_____

In Port Talbot, there are lots of industrial parks. Granted, trains always run through that part of town, and I've never been to Port Talbot but I've been by it a few times, as it lies between Cardiff and Swansea on pretty much any line you take.
There's a couple factories in particular that tend to strike me hard, especially in the dark. I'm used to smokestacks, I'm used to solid, opaque black smoke bunching up over buildings and I'm getting used to seeing it float over sheep pastures. Still not used to smokestacks shooting out bolts of yellow flame at all times. Against the night sky it's sharp and bright and makes the factory look like something from hell. Same goes for the stack with blue smoke.
Next to these factories there's something (I'm assuming gas/energy building) with all the pipes and round lights. . . it doesn't look like something from a horror/sci fi movie because I've seen a lot of those, a lot of movies like that have been made because of buildings like this.
Sights like that do a lot more for my pessimism re: the state of the world than any war-casualty reports. After all, the factories are new.

++++++++++++++++++
I'm already starting to feel torn in social priorities. I talked with Anne, my mother's friend and my adopted auntie as she drove me to Cardiff Central to ride up to Glasgow. How Tuesday is both the Gerald House (my "real" friends, for the sake of afterschool special) Christmas Party and the Framework Social (a open-to-public gathering for creative types in Swansea to meet and mingle-- i.e.: the "cool/fake" friends our hero cruelly betrays his "real" friends for only to realize What Really Matters in the End). . . cough, cough.

Yeah, I'm going to the Social. Time's gone on and I've found that very few people who'd play the "real friends" card care as much about you as they think they do.

It's not as cynical as it sounds, or it's more so; I'm here for a year and I want to do a lot. I need to meet fellow creative types who also want to do a lot. Very often this is not people in school. I think this is an Ecclesiastes thing; everything in it's time.

I'm here for a year and I gotta know about this stuff for a reason.

the final track was a version of Shadowplay, I think, covered by The Killers

joined up with Anne, Jess, Dave and John, went and saw Control, the Ian Curtis biopic tonight at 9:45, got out around midnight to people shutting down the candy bar and a shut-down escalator. Walking down a still escalator after two hours watching black and white Ian Curtis (sam riley, or whatever, but for arguments sake, Ian Curtis) stare at walls, not talk to his wife, sing songs about going crazy, not talk to his girlfriend, smoke cigarrettes-- so many sexy cigarrettes-- not talk to his bandmates and ultimately kill himself, well, not sure why a still escalator would seem even odder in that context, but it did.

Y'know, usually when they make a movie 'bout someone wif a reputation for bein' depressin', they show this whole ot'er side. Y'know, laughin', makin' jokes. Not here.--
That was John, as we waited for the girls to get of the lou. Yeah, no kidding.

* * * * *
so now I'm back in my room, my underwear is all piled on my heater in hopes that it dries before mildew sets in. because no one's fed the dryer meter. listening to Damien Jurado with the lights on, thinking about putting up more pictures, maybe, now that I have a few recent ones.
I'm past the point of not saying anything waiting in que at the grocery, but I do notice my pronounced RRRRRs and sort of thudding way of speech. When I'm drunk sometimes I notice trying to affect a weird mix of welsh and sort of cockney accents. Neither to much effect.

I guess the important thing is that I am writing a lot, even if I'm not sure to what effect, and I am reading a lot and so many of the things that had me thrashing about like a caught salmon my last year or so in Bellingham are just fading into the slipstream.