Category Archives: Writing

‘Do you know what I really think?’ he blurts, ‘my own opinion? I think time is running short. I think time is running short. I think there are forces of evil in the world. I think that global capitalism is just, like, one inch away from being everywhere. I think now is not the time to be frittering away playing in a silly-assed post-rock band. I think everything you do in the face of this is inadequate.’ Everything? ‘Yeah!’ he exclaims. ‘Which is good, it’s all good, it’s good to make feeble attempts, right? I think that’s what they are. It’s like throwing yourself up against a big fucking wall and the wall is just getting bigger and bigger…’

— Efrim Menuck

X has taken to his bed again, he tells me. I lie there all day, he says. It’s all gone to shit. You’re shit, I say. You’re the cloud of shit that’s covering my life. I would have been a success without you. I could have done anything better than anyone if it weren’t for you, he says. I would have had gumption, get-up-and-go, a can-do attitude, all that.

Job interviews, X tells me, that’s what we need! The more important and professional the better. A round table of influential men and women in business suits, severity and seriousness, that’s what we need. Job interviews every day! Or maybe we could get them to install some kind of CCTV system, he says, then we could just stay at home, then they could see it for themselves, without our bullshit. To live in the public eye, he says, twenty-four hours a day, like they used to live under God’s eye, that’ll teach us, that’ll straighten us up. Or we could go on one of those shows, he says, imagine us trying to present a serious business proposal!

When I started reading I found I couldn’t read properly: the sound of a car outside made me imagine the driver and where he or she was going, an overheard word made me think of some old conversation, which returned me to the words on the page and made me turn the page back and forth. When I started writing I found I couldn’t write properly: I’d get distracted by the movements of the pen in my hand and the ink marks on the page, or the cooing of a pigeon, which made me turn the page back and forth. Reading and writing themselves became distractions, as I suppose they had been from the beginning, parts of the long, drawn-out distraction that was my life.

Oh God, X says, I feel it under the surface again, it’s coming, it’s still there, I’m terrified, look at me! What am I terrified of, what’s there to be terrified of? Oh Christ help me, you’re no help, he says. Who can I turn to? It’s all there like it always was, we have to do something, we have to get out, what can we do? I’m still scared, he says, scared of nothing, it’s waiting to get us, Oh Jesus, we need to get out, let’s go do something, see a movie, I don’t care how bad it is, anything, dive into the sea, find someone to talk to, run down the street, my stomach’s turning, nothing’s right, nothing’s changed, it’s still bubbling under the surface like my bubbling guts, this is a nightmare, do something, why can’t you help? Let’s get a few bottles, X says, and have a quiet night in.

Writing: no going back, no going forward. At the end and beginning of your tether.

In the field of writing before I can identify myself. I’ve fallen into some kind of error. Begin again, end again.

You wrote: writing enclosed you outside yourself. You wrote: nothing spoke through your words like wind through leaves.

When I began writing I’d get distracted by the movements of the pen in my hand and the ink marks on the page. Sometimes the hand of writing gripped mine, but the beginning never really got off to a start. Instead it doubled up as an ending, making writing both beginning and end.

It’s obvious, X tells me, I have to go mad. Balls-out mad, right-round-the-bend-looney-tunes mad. I have to pass over to the other side, that’s the only sane thing to do. Real madness, not all this shit, he says, pointing around. Maybe then I’ll be real, maybe we’ll be real.

The dark birds are still hovering over us, X tells me. They’re still alive, still starving. They’re just waiting for the order to swoop, like in Lord of the Rings or something. We need to work together, he tells me, I need your help.