which to me was a sign, just like the head-nodding was a sign. I saw it in others. I say ‘head’, thinking of the back of the head but is it the chin? the effort in holding aloft the head, the skull. Skulls are heavy. We hold them aloft, we succeed for as long as we live. I saw the head of the woman in front, how it too nodded, it too. It disturbed the hairs on the back of her neck causing their collision.
Hairs that collide.
Life is a function of that, that success, that we can hold up our heads. And what we discover is banality.
The poor busdriver and his stupidity. Persons know it. Individuals do not hide from the truth. Some shield the truth. If it is not an easy truth. Persons have no desire to realise this truth. It is a difficult reality. They shield it from others. And those who recognise their condition for what it is they will not lead people toward an understanding lest they themselves suffer. This happens, it is their expectation. It is too late. Already it has happened. Already they have suffered. Understanding derives from that. We talk about truth being conditional, but more precisely, it derives from a condition.
I saw out the window now. I stopped it. I do not like staring. I looked around me, seeing persons in their various stages, and their agitation. The woman in the red coat whose lips moved. I looked and saw and I know that they moved, her eyelids flickering. Was she praying? What was in her mind? The words of a song? Part song of a song? She had heard me speak to the man. There is a phrase ‘nineteen to the dozen’. Was she about to bite a fingernail? If so whose? Hands come reaching.
One fingernail. A hand reaches from below. It could have been mine.
Who could stop such a hand?
My jaw ached; I had been smiling. That sense of futility. We persons, and doing our best. I, therefore, was glad to be on this bus, to be returning alongside them,
and then
THE STATE OF
ELIXIRISM
Near the hut where I slept that night there was a brick-built barn. A tap fixed into the wall supplied drinking water. I drank then washed, collected a certain bag of possessions and departed swiftly, hoofing it along a narrow winding road banked by thick bushes and occasional small woods designed that the mansions and castles of superior persons be concealed from the gaze of the yokelled minionry of whom I was one, yea yea yea; three times wit’ the yea. A bird whistled. I answered the call. My answer went unheeded. Unheeded! Hey Mister Bird, why dont you fuck yourself! I looked to find this culprit with a view to killing it stone dead, and partaking of breakfast, instead discovering a lane. One cannot eat a lane and I was fucking hungry man I was fucking hungry. Pulling out the feathers, one pulls out the feathers. The hunger affects one. Such that pain, more of a discomfort, the stomach kind of – that like – what kind of pain is that? ach well who knows, one walks, though the road be weary. Down this lane and beyond a cluster of white-washed cottages a sudden flash signified a mirror, positioned that drivers might identify danger before exiting the blind-spot driveway. I was blinded a moment and blundered into a ditch
even blundering, what an act! I blundered. So human, so human. I am a human he screamed, prior to choking on his tongue, mistaking it for a slab of ox liver
where I spied a bottle of strong cider. A spectacular but by no means extraordinary turn of events: I once found two bottles of a not-inferior fortified wine.
But strong cider?
Nice.
I twisted open the cork and swigged, swigged and again swigged. Le cidre le cidre ’twas elixiric. I sat on the bank of the ditch. Whew. Man, but what a hit. Really, fuck, wow; the insides exalteth.
Prior to then my state had been somnambulistic, barely considering my life, not as a retrospective concern but as to how good it had become. It had become good. Really. This was incontrovertible, not given that one starves but as an effect of it.
I had to grin, sitting there on the grassy bank, the dampness a reminder. My bum is damp! ergo sum.
This area was devoid of lushgris which is my only name for these God-bestowed long stalks of grass that one tugs individually, and out each comes, the lower ends so so juicy.
I continued along the lane. Soon I found myself returned onto the narrow, winding road, pausing now and again for a swig of le stoof. How had that happened? This was magic man, fucking magic. The experience. Yea, and thrice yea.
Yet a gap existed somewhere or other at the back of my mind while also a developing anticipation of finding a place for a genuine sleep, one of lying-down proportions. I refer here, for sociological purposes, to the notion of phased sleep. We have singular sleeps, magical sleeps, natural sleeps and honest sleeps, fitful sleeps, and false sleeps. A genuine sleep is one of lying-down proportions, and I stand by that. And when one refers to ‘finding a place’ one, in general, refers to the place. There is only one. This is located, perhaps, on the grassy bank of a little fortified stream sited providentially for the weary wayfarer.
A strange land. Once upon a time I was familiar here, a familiar, familiar here and within. I needed a seat, oh God, a seat is equal to, is equal
The hedge at the side of the road had become less big and less thick while the tarred surface of the road softened beneath the strong sun, the smell reminding me of childhood days in cramped city streets. My feet had become hot, hot, very very hot and I had to sit quickly, again by the ditch, unloosening the laces and taking off my boots. Bare feet. I massaged my toes, Oh God in Whose Existence I do so believe. All of this. Existence. In toto. Conveyed by a sigh. Serenity has a place here, finds its niche.
I walked a few paces and entered a bower. Here were trees but sun rays entered. I had by then taken off my T-shirt and brought out the bottle. I sat down on the good earth and swigged the last of le cidre.
Oh.
The sounds of the country, the silences too, and the fragrance. I became aware of one sound, similar to the slow movement of a stream and turning to peer through the near bush I saw its glint a hundred yards off in a gully, the sun on the ripples, mild ripples. I gathered the empty bottle and stuff into the bag, knotted the laces of the boots together round my neck, and walked towards the gully. On the bank of the stream I spread the contents of my bag on the grass, awarding each article its own space. I was pleased and made to do something, whatever it was, maybe just sit down beside them and examine them or something, I dont really know, my stomach seemed to have risen, the internal diaphanous bag, the cider gurgling, bubbles up further, the gullet. Oh dear. Now I lay me down to sleep.
I did indeed, I lay myself down closing my eyes but spun off someplace and quickly reopened them. The spinning resumed. I braved it out, clinging on
The sense of late summer, a peaceful quality, days yet to come. Raising myself up, lying on my front, staring into the water. It was deep in places. Clear brackeny water; pebbles and rocks on the bottom, weeds moving gently in the current. So there was a current; these waters were not stagnant. Obviously I had to go in. There was no question about that. I needed to move within the water, whether to swim or not was irrelevant, I just had to walk in it, stand still in it. I picked a dozen of the juiciest docken leaves and laid them along the bank. I could use them instead of soap because of course I needed to wash, and seeing my feet, my toes in sore need of a wash, not just the feet man I was a smelly bastard, the undersides of my arms – what my granny called ‘tidemarks’, Get rid of these tidemarks son, you will have to, sooner or later, later. Life’s tidemarks, marks of the tide, of life itself. Life life life. Yet the undersides of these arms of mine! More than tidemarks.
