adventures in the underworld

 

 

 

 

The fix is in, the fix is in!

 

The shaman, the black-clad night-tripper smiles and beckons me to follow. We enter the garden together and stand chilling in the winter air. He lets my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness and I wait, heart pounding.

 

A lightening flash. A bare-bone skeleton tree sears my retina!  It splits in two, opening the gate to a new world beyond.

 

 

I fall to my knees before a shrunken shrub resting its head on the night soil. I'm captivated by its charms.

 

 

The shaman stands to my left. He claps his hands three times. At the third clap a shaft of light emerges from the ground. It races the length of a far away tree before it disappears into the blackness only to return a moment later to repeat its journey over and over again in a hypnotic tic-toc loop.

 

I'm locked in now. Unable to rise to my feet I crawl slowly on my hands and knees toward the distant tree.

 

My body absorbs the textures of the ground beneath as I edge ever closer. I look up. A spectral pattern of light veins the night sky.

 

I rest for a while, holding my hand to the intermittent pulses of light.  Strange iridescent forms start to course back and forth across the surface of my skin 

 

One final push and I'm there. The tree greets my arrival with a shower of myrrh-scented needles. They prick open my flesh and enter in.

 

The iridescent skin formations crystallise, turning me to bark at the moon. Now the fix kicks.

 

 

 

 

 

Dancing among the death of last year. Strange hues and flash backs. The shaman draws near, in his hand a single preserved flower. 'Look' he commands. 

I look and the flower explodes into tone before reaching forward to bite off my head.  And now things get seriously weird.

 

 

the world spins around me

 

 

  

all colour drains

until there is nothing  left

 

but

 

the smallest spectral trace of my life

 

as it passes

 

from the garden

 

darkness

 

 

 

Beneath the humping bedclothes of another drunken Saturday night we are conceived in the dark. 

 

Born from black we gulp for our first breath and are blinded by the light. We are addicted to it. We cannot rest. The darkness must not enfold us.

 

We scurry into another neon night, searching in the windows for meaning. Scanned like a bar-code. Framed by the light. Anything to avoid the eternal darkness.

 

 

 

a walk in the park

 

 

 

 

at night

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the girls

 

 

welcome

 

 

I love guinea pigs, always have done since I was a child. They have a special place and a special meaning in my life.

 

I got my first one, Dusty, a gorgeous Agouti, when I was ten. My father had died earlier in the year. No-one talked to me about it. Not my mother, not family, not friends, not school - no-one. It was a lonely and frightening time. When I felt at my saddest I used to go out to the garage and hug Dusty. 

 

One summer day I had Dusty out in the garden. I turned my back on him for a moment and he made a bolt for the undergrowth. We searched for hours but couldn't find him. I was devastated.

A replacement, Heinz, arrived a few days later. An older but smaller pig, he settled in quickly. And then one afternoon I heard a familiar 'eek' from the garden. Dusty had returned, none the worse for wear. We put him in with Dusty and it wasn't long before we discovered Heinz was a she!

Pups arrived in short order, five of them, like miniature versions of their parents. I loved taking the little family herd out into the garden. Dusty would lead the way, Heinz, followed then a line of tiny pups all eager to explore the world.

And now here I am more than fifty years on and I'm still keeping them. I went to buy some hay and wood-shavings yesterday. That's all. Nothing else planned. Then I saw them in the pen. Thought there was just one to start, then the shop-assistant discovered another buried deep in the hay. How could I possibly separate them?

So Siouxsie-su and Mrs. Peel (don't ask!) have now joined their big sisters, Honey and Princess Harriet. There were lots of squeaks from the two boys in the pen opposite, but there's no way Henry or Gouti will be getting a look-in any time soon!