calf-length shorts and three-day stubble. Girls with oversized canvas handbags and sunglasses branded in gold. Socks match trainers and lips match nails. Oh, they shine, the humans, each one shines with contentment. But not Johnny. He spots his reflection in the glass of a refrigerator and for a second hopes that he too is up for sale, priced like the ice creams and the Chicago pizzas, a look of lonely misery frozen on to his face.
No, thinks Johnny, turning from the fridge, I am not a product. Products are perfect. They have beautifully designed labels that wrap around perfect tin. Their innards are sealed in and preserved. Wonderful people design products, people with disposable income, takeaway coffee in their hands. They sit round tables and have lengthy discussions about target markets, cross-cutting commercial cleavages, lifestyle, image, the hard sell. I was designed by a dick, thinks Johnny, a lazy dick with no knowledge of the market. There was no table, no takeaway coffees, no talk of commercial possibility or love. Iâm rotting inside. Unpreserved. I was aimed at no one, designed with no one in mind, shaped to fit the hands of nothing.
Johnny stands among the cereals, shoulders hunched with envy. Which aisle contains the tinned hearts? Under which heading has love been preserved?
9
The Rat
THE SMELL OF rotting rubbish has made its way down the lane, through a closed window and into Colinâs nostrils. They flare in disgust. His bedroom is filthy; the sheets that surround him havenât been washed in over a year. He knows he has one more minute in bed before he has to get up, before an alarm will sound and he will have to shower and go to work.
If you were in the room, youâd find it difficult to determine the origin of the smell of rotting food and dog shit. Outside, youâd say, surely outside. But then your eyes would be drawn to the infested chest of drawers, choking on its wet, brown contents. On the floor, there are many piles of dirty plates, clothes and magazines. This is a room that a girl will never be brought back to. This is a room that only Colin will see. He is secretly, and ever so gently, breaking apart.
The infestation starts somewhere in the recesses of his brain; if you were to try, thatâs where youâd diagnose the first signs of rot and fury. How do you begin to pick aparta brain? I guess youâd try to find some idea or principle, some memory or piece of faith that suddenly went bad, turned, changed, was hollowed out by some unknown and careful bacteria. Too late now. His whole brainâs gone rotten, both milky hemispheres. Disdain and unhealth mess up his insides, stake him out, fuck about with his eyes. A light goes out. His body is weary, struggling. Colin is a boy burnt out by strange failures in his brain.
The infestation spreads. It smokes out of his pores and into his room. Everything in here looks as if it could never be moved, as if the contents have grown naturally into these discarded and obscene shapes, have grown brittle and will never regain flexibility, or be used again. The walls rejected Colinâs posters long ago; they wilted and have since been destroyed, ripped underfoot, forgotten. He is running out of plates and cutlery; empty pizza boxes have been screwed up tight and thrown into one corner. His sheets are damp with dirt. The entire area by the window is wet to the touch.
Summer heats the room, causes it to boil. The stench of waste cannot be avoided and the infestation will only get worse. Colin is still able to wash, sanitise himself, spare the outside world for the time being, at least. But something has to give. Colin is aware that the pile of pizza boxes and at least two piles of clothes have developed communities. Heâs seen the spiders, heâs seen the millipedes and the rat. He has allowed them to live. The insects are fickle â quick to feed on the fallen. They are reactionaries. Early converts to the culture of
No, thinks Johnny, turning from the fridge, I am not a product. Products are perfect. They have beautifully designed labels that wrap around perfect tin. Their innards are sealed in and preserved. Wonderful people design products, people with disposable income, takeaway coffee in their hands. They sit round tables and have lengthy discussions about target markets, cross-cutting commercial cleavages, lifestyle, image, the hard sell. I was designed by a dick, thinks Johnny, a lazy dick with no knowledge of the market. There was no table, no takeaway coffees, no talk of commercial possibility or love. Iâm rotting inside. Unpreserved. I was aimed at no one, designed with no one in mind, shaped to fit the hands of nothing.
Johnny stands among the cereals, shoulders hunched with envy. Which aisle contains the tinned hearts? Under which heading has love been preserved?
9
The Rat
THE SMELL OF rotting rubbish has made its way down the lane, through a closed window and into Colinâs nostrils. They flare in disgust. His bedroom is filthy; the sheets that surround him havenât been washed in over a year. He knows he has one more minute in bed before he has to get up, before an alarm will sound and he will have to shower and go to work.
If you were in the room, youâd find it difficult to determine the origin of the smell of rotting food and dog shit. Outside, youâd say, surely outside. But then your eyes would be drawn to the infested chest of drawers, choking on its wet, brown contents. On the floor, there are many piles of dirty plates, clothes and magazines. This is a room that a girl will never be brought back to. This is a room that only Colin will see. He is secretly, and ever so gently, breaking apart.
The infestation starts somewhere in the recesses of his brain; if you were to try, thatâs where youâd diagnose the first signs of rot and fury. How do you begin to pick aparta brain? I guess youâd try to find some idea or principle, some memory or piece of faith that suddenly went bad, turned, changed, was hollowed out by some unknown and careful bacteria. Too late now. His whole brainâs gone rotten, both milky hemispheres. Disdain and unhealth mess up his insides, stake him out, fuck about with his eyes. A light goes out. His body is weary, struggling. Colin is a boy burnt out by strange failures in his brain.
The infestation spreads. It smokes out of his pores and into his room. Everything in here looks as if it could never be moved, as if the contents have grown naturally into these discarded and obscene shapes, have grown brittle and will never regain flexibility, or be used again. The walls rejected Colinâs posters long ago; they wilted and have since been destroyed, ripped underfoot, forgotten. He is running out of plates and cutlery; empty pizza boxes have been screwed up tight and thrown into one corner. His sheets are damp with dirt. The entire area by the window is wet to the touch.
Summer heats the room, causes it to boil. The stench of waste cannot be avoided and the infestation will only get worse. Colin is still able to wash, sanitise himself, spare the outside world for the time being, at least. But something has to give. Colin is aware that the pile of pizza boxes and at least two piles of clothes have developed communities. Heâs seen the spiders, heâs seen the millipedes and the rat. He has allowed them to live. The insects are fickle â quick to feed on the fallen. They are reactionaries. Early converts to the culture of
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