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Jack's wings

9 Jun 2002

Jack decided to grow wings. It was a Sunday afternoon in early April and, as on most Sunday afternoons, he was doing very little. In the park where he lay the butterflies were battling their way round an ascending spiral of air. They fought each other for space to soak up the warm sun in, and as Jack saw them he wanted to fly too.

Up the pole

14 Apr 2002

Now spring has come to Oxfordshire And sunshine to the city There's people in the parks, because The parks are looking pretty.

The uni' owns the land along The lazy River C, That gives oxygenated bliss To God, and man, and me.

The flowers by the entrance were All yellow and vermillion - I passed them on the way towards The cricketing pavilion.

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So, as I lay upon the grass And stretched, and yawned, at ease, A flagpole that's without a flag Was tickled by a breeze.

Four playing poker

25 Mar 2002

A low-watt bulb in a cheap lampshade illuminated the table top, and anything caught above it, in a cone that had hooked its apex to the tungsten filament. Smoke stratified the air, moving barely. Outside this cone nothing existed except as a suggestion. Four people sat, perhaps. there were the hints of featureless walls. There may have been a door.

One drink too many

7 Mar 2002

The drink goes all swimmy in your head as you stand up and move towards the staircase and the party. A dream lies heavy across your shoulders, a stole made from fuzz and lead. It forces you groundwards, pulling you from one marble step to another; you are like water finding its own level. As your feet move alternately (as far ahead of each other as your long skirt permits) your head seems to follow the line of the bannister, two feet above it, a smooth spiral that swoops at the last minute, propelling you into the people that stand around, clutching their drinks for dear life.

Some more attempts at chick-lit

26 Jan 2002

[Picture of legs on the front cover of a book. The customer looks down at herself and sees legs; identifies with the book. The legs in the picture need not be upside-down, or photographed in a bookshop.]

Abstractionists have no hands, and type with a knot of prehensile hair that they tie at the neck.

"Never date an Abstractionist," they told Lucy.

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