Black Tape

I do my research. I anticipate and analyse. I reflect. To provide the best service, I like to get into the psyche of my callers. My patients, as I think of them.

They don’t speak – that’s my speciality – so I have to develop some sense of them. Something tangible to play with. I have to give them a stimulus that I can work with, that they can get off to. Something that will make them call back, again and again. They like to imagine this is all about me. I encourage that, but of course this is about them. They simply transfer. I am the vehicle, the proxy.

There is this one caller. He is French-Canadian, his name is Charlie. (A psuedonym, of course. He is a famous writer and I’m not about to give away his identity. My service is discreet). Charlie’s got a thing about food. Specifically, wheat  products. Bread, bagels, muffins, cakes, cereals. Biscuits. I talk a lot about crumbs and flakes on my clothing. On Thursdays – that’s his day – I buy something from the supermarket that’s in the reduction section. It gives the business an air of chance. The cheapest wheat product available that is about to expire its ‘Best Before’. Use By: tonight – when Charlie calls. Last week he got a cinnamon bagel. Easy. Focus on the ring. Week before, jam tarts. Focus on sticky. One time, all they had was wheat-free pasta. I could’ve lied but I thought, it’s a challenge. Luckily it was penne. Charlie was happy enough.

The regular from Stockport loves tennis equipment. For him, brands are the thing. Dunlop, Adidas, Fred Perry. Fila. I have a caller from somewhere in the Carib, straightforward bondage. His name is Teddy, and teddy likes to be tied. Tied and punished. Poodle is a dog/scat fetishist. Anon from Cork, its bakelite products. Then there is Bill, a Manxman. He likes me to steal things, every Tuesday. That does it for him. So I’m in this art centre last Tuesday afternoon, and I see a roll of black gaffer tape lying unattended, and I think, Bill from Manx. And I also think, Teddy. Two birds, one stone.

Somnambulist 1.4

Her first appointment of the day was at the Stockley household. Amanda Stockley was having her first baby at 42 and Friday was there to help create a positively-energised environment for a home-birth without pain-relief. Meditation was also on the agenda. Mr. Stockley was supporting his older wife in any way she requested – this was her day – but so far had not been able to get time off to meet Friday. By contrast, Mr. De  Nilssen had met Friday and banned her from the house. Sarah De Nilssen was having her third, and after complications second time around, it was going to be a caesarian section. Friday was supporting her to make the best of a bad deal. They would meet in a coffee shop in town.

Helen Bostock-Cope was about to become a single mother. She wanted a woodland birthing in a yurt she was building herself. Amelie Ellis was expecting twins after fertility treatment. Her husband worked abroad for an oil corporation and didn’t expect to be home in time.

Friday didn’t have children, didn’t want children, didn’t like children. But a mystic has to embrace the continuation of life somehow, has to worship at the pagan altar of fertility. The easy way is to defer. Defer the whole process to others and pass on a knowledge culled from books about breeding, about fertility, about birthing the right way. Teach, preach, assist, inspire. Mediate the experience, but never experience directly. Never become impregnated. Friday was a Doula, self-accredited, happy to advise and support from the safe distance of knowledge without experience. At night, Friday worked with men and talked about sex. In the day she worked with women, and talked about birth. Of course, women could phone for sex talk. Men could learn to birth the right way. But it never worked out like that. Only one thing was universal. Friday could talk. Friday talked for a living.

Keri-Lesa’s real name was Kerry, second name Lisa, but she wanted to be unique and modern. Maybe she would say moderne. When her baby came along, she would give it a traditional name, because, for Keri-Lesa, tradition was important. She would misspell her baby’s name not because she was illiterate but because uniqueness / modernity was also important to Keri-Lesa. She wanted an outdoor water birth for her firstborn with herbal pain relief and her best friends present dressed in uplifting colours. Friday was visiting to talk about music they might play and check on progress of the birthing pool that Keri-Lesa’s partner Hal was constructing in the back garden. Unfortunately Hal had been called into work and wasn’t able to meet his wife’s Doula to talk through the project. Hal was such a busy man, said Keri-Lesa.

Friday always keeps an eye out for computers on her visits. If she can’t see them she asks. Most of her clients have computers. She doesn’t make many calls to the technologically-undernourished. The digital illiterati. They may be more fertile beneath the poverty line, and more hungry. But not for ideas. Not for alternatives. Friday works with seekers-of-truth. She preaches to the converted. You have internet access here? Have you heard of the wiki-tarot? Do you want a reading? They all want a reading, of course, being seekers-of-truth. The web hummed and hissed for Friday Solovide, indications and well-wishing emerging from the tangle of information. All these babies so well starred. And there, amongst all the randomness of global data, one page that came up in two separate readings on the same day. Friday made nothing of it with her mothers-to-be, those seekers-of-truth. It was not for them, it was for her:

Emma, Lady Hamilton. Mistress of Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson. How deliciously local. (Despite everything Friday could say, Keri-Lesa took ownership of that page. Emma. Tradition. Girls name. But how to modernise the spelling?)

Somnambulist 1.3

After Owen had left for work, she got down to the business of divination. In the spare time between her work as birthing counsellor and sex telephonist Friday considered herself a medium. A techno-mystic. She understood the world through communications technology and she could see patterns, interpret them, predict outcomes. Nothing was random. She could feel herself within the tangles of the fates, and when she achieved a calmness, a stillness, she could sense the movement of destinies on the threads of a great web; she could place herself at any point on that interconnected membrane and read the movements, the rumours, of others. The Web.

Friday played wiki-tarot. It was a divining game of her own making, connecting with her mystic Web through the World Wide Web; witnessing the ripple of weird in the broadband download of ones and zeros. Calling up pages of information for interpretation through the function of random searches, Friday could see the layers of pattern, the signified and signifier, the relationship between the sign and the symbol, the intention. Nothing is random. Owen could probably explain that in strictly mathematical terms, if the inclination took him. (If he had warmed up. If the hour was late). But Friday understood it as the workings of the Sisters who weave the web of fates.

Irritated by Owen’s distraction before breakfast, Friday found it difficult to meditate that morning. Her thoughts came back and back to his still, silent disruption. He had this notion that everyone might be born with a predestined allowance of words, and once you had uttered your allowance, your time was up. His life was often about being prudent with his allowance.  In some ways this gave Friday the platform she often needed for her own generous allowance, as Owen saw it.  They did not compete for word-space. But a speaker needs a listener, and while he had never mentioned any concept that a person might have an allowance of words they can hear in a lifetime, he often acted like he believed it. It was this aspect of silence, his not letting words in, that frustrated her.

Disparity in their character was as much the foundation of their relationship as a matter of contention. For Owen, her vitality connected him to the world, to other people, when he might otherwise withdraw. He recognised in himself the recluse waiting to happen, but he could not decide whether this was a good thing. Friday made the decision for him – she would not let him withdraw into himself. For Friday, his stillness, his calm, was a haven. Though this morning it was an irritant, on the whole Owen provided the peace and sanctuary and space for self-discovery.

She stared at the screen, cursor ready to hit the random page option, but to do so was to enter into a contract. Once the process is started, you have to accept what comes, feel it, and begin the interpretation. Each page relates to the next and the previous, there are no gaps, no exceptions. Each page is a join on the web, and vibrations pass between them, diminishing and amplifying according to their place and the forces at work on them. You can’t choose to skip a page if you can’t feel it. And Friday was not feeling it. She ought to have left it, but settled instead for a single page reading. She would not have to be concerned for connections, only connotation:

Tangaroa. Maori god of the sea. As powerful a single page as she could ask for. Auspicious. Nothing is random.

Small Demons

They talk to me. I talk to myself. I tell myself: Remember when you found out you had a nickname. Not an endearment or a celebration. Not a nickname you wanted or were supposed to know about. When you were fourteen. Remember that. I tell myself: Remember when you pretended you went blind if you looked down. Because you saw it on a western film on television, and you thought it was interesting. When you were five. Remember that. Small demons tormenting me at every crossroads where I took a wrong turn. Remember when someone’s dad collected his daughter from a party, and he gave you a lift, and he asked his daughter how it went, and you, sitting in the back seat, answered. Like he was asking you. Like it was your place to judge. Like he cared about you. When you made assumptions. When you were thirteen. Remember that.

Small demons, talking to me. Reminding me. I remind myself. I forget most things and I’ve lost so many memories. But not the little bad ones, the tiny regrets. They seem to stay. They collect, gather in the corners, cling to one another like house dust, fluff, and crumbs. Tiny, but messy. Unhygienic. Small dirty cultures growing diseases, readying to infect. Preparing to overrun. I tell myself: Remember when you sulked all day, for so long you forgot what you were sulking about, and your big brother was visiting. He tried to persuade you to come out of your room, and you wanted to because you loved him so, but you wouldn’t. And you didn’t know why. And then he left. When you were eight. Remember that.

For example: I was at this wedding. Not mine. Not even someone I knew. A friend of a friend. I don’t really know why I was there, and I hate weddings. I was feeling self-conscious. Old and useless and not part of it. Bloated and uncomfortable and not smart enough. So many tall people. So many perfumes in one room, so many expectations. So much affectation. I was keeping it together by counselling myself. Trying not to be noticed. Trying not to ask myself the question on everyone’s mind: who is he? Who am I?

I’m standing there, waiting for someone, trying not to be noticed, trying not to get involved. The photographer asks me, are you bored? I think, am I? Is that how I look? Is that what they think? And then I tell myself: Remember that time, (not now). Remember when your friend told you he was having a trial at a professional football club, and you thought he said both of you, and you told your parents, elated. (Stop this). And you weren’t. And it should’ve been obvious, really, if you’d thought about it. When you were eleven. Remember that. (Fuck it).

And then I’m dealing with the small demons again. At a wedding where I don’t belong. Trying to fake interest, trying to fake a purpose. Trying and failing to hold back the small demons, the tiny regrets.

For example: I was meeting this friend who I hadn’t seen for twenty years. The bounty of social networking. He booked a hotel, and emailed directions. I wondered what we would talk about. It had seemed like a good idea, a week before. And then I tell myself: Remember that time, (fuck. FUCK). Remember that time you ran out in the road from the school playground. Across the road without thinking, without stopping. You didn’t get hit by a car but you could’ve been killed. People were shouting at you. It was unbridled abandon. When you were six. Remember that. I tell myself: Remember the brown paper bag, at the bus stop, when you were fifteen. Remember that statement about self-esteem, to your wife, when you were thirty eight. Remember saying, I Love You. Remember that.

I didn’t go. I didn’t meet my old friend. Small demons overpowered me. The immune system doesn’t fight off little bad memories. You forget them. Or you get sick, and swamped with tiny regrets.

Somnambulist 1.2

“Chuck was on the phone again last night.” Friday didn’t often get up before Owen left for work, but she had made the effort this morning. She wanted to give him some care. Some attention. That boyish look in the night reminded her that she loved him. But he was very soon annoying her. His morning routines, his silence. The internalisation of his existence. She was convinced that if he could make himself invisible, she would never see him. At least, not before lunch. He was like a low energy light-bulb, warming up noticeably slowly. It didn’t make sense for her to be fluttering around him like a moth when he was barely putting out any warmth or light, and she resented having to make an effort for his attention. He looked up from his book, disturbed perhaps by her dusty wings, beating lightly on the fringes of his awareness. “Huh?”

“That writer, he called again last night.” She could see it was going to take some time for the words to sink in, the neurones to make the connections. Owen wasn’t stupid but when he was somewhere else in his thoughts there was an interminably slow process for interfacing with the world around him. Friday often wondered if this was a deliberate ploy to put off all but the most dedicated communicators. To filter out all but the most vital information. She had planned to mention the sleep-talking, but it was a treasured moment and she didn’t want to spoil the memory by discussing it while annoyed with him. So she stuck to business. Telephone sex calls.

“I told you he’s been calling lately. I don’t like to name drop, but hey, I’m providing a service to the stars now.” He was still thinking about it. She didn’t know how far behind he was, how long it would take him to catch up. Sometimes he never did. Or he would answer with a completely unrelated statement, like he’d processed all the words she had spoken, and come up with a different conversation altogether. She was never sure how long to give him – if she carried on talking, she might just go beyond the point where he could memorise all the words she spoke, and any hope of creating meaning from what she said would be lost. He continued to stare, as if in thought. And then sometimes he would surprise her with a lucid moment: “Are you sure? Only I read he was gay. And he lives in Minnesota or somewhere. Any way, you specialise in men who don’t speak. How could you possibly know?” He could reason when it suited him. This annoyed her even more.

Somnambulist 1.1

The early hours: as dark as the city gets. As quiet. Friday Solovide is barely asleep, tumbling slowly into her dreams after a long night on the telephone. Owen: hours ahead of her, deep in the landscape of his night, unreachable. They are back to back, but separated by a vast unconscious distance, the abyss of the mind unfettered.  Oblivious of each other for a time they can not measure; perhaps minutes, perhaps millennia.

~

Something must have disturbed her because she came back; came round. There was a seamless transition from the utter unconscious to almost conscious. She was vaguely aware of the sulphur glow pouring through the window, the city night which Owen would not shut out. And then he said: “I can only see the green one.”

It was purposeful, an unusually certain tone, cutting through the silence of the room and the fog of her early sleep. As she turned to him, confused, his tone became more soothing: “No, I think we’ll be over there.” He was sound asleep, eyes closed but an alert, conscious look on his face. He smiled at whoever flickered in his imagination, all innocence. “Of course.”

Friday smiled back. He looked like a sweet child. It was a warm moment, a one-way intimacy. A gift for her, from a part of Owen that even Owen was unfamiliar with. She wanted to wake him, kiss him, talk back. But she did not want to lose the moment. She spoke softly, trying to appeal to his dream-self without waking him: “Where are you, Owen?” He chuckled, amused by something, and turned onto his front, burying his head into the pillows. And then he was gone.

Writer’s Block

Writer’s Block: A screenplay about depression.

Rugged countryside, on the edge of woodland. Springtime.
Man sitting under tree. Holds notebook and pencil.

Close-Up:  Man puts pencil to paper. Seems frozen. Sweating.

Extreme Close-Up: Sweat on brow.
Extreme Close-Up: Pencil wobbles on blank page. Does not move. Man groans. Sound as of branch bending painfully. Lead snaps. Loud as a broken branch. Man exclaims as if injured.

Cut to: Flock of birds scatter from woods.

Therapy

Therapy: A screenplay about depression.

Psychiatrist’s well appointed room. Female therapist and forty-something male patient.

THERAPIST: So, in essence, it is all about your father, and your son

MAN: But that doesn’t explain my irrational fear of being sung to.

THERAPIST: Is that irrational?

MAN:  Have you ever come out in hives when someone looked you in the eye and sang the theme to Titanic?

THERAPIST: Celine Dion?

MAN: Yes.

THERAPIST: Yes.

MAN: Oh.

The Limit

The Limit: A screenplay about depression

Establishing shot – a remote farm. Crumbling buildings, dilapidated machines. Rusty caravan in the yard.

Cut to interior. An old farmer sits, staring at a photograph tacked to the wall. His daughter and the doctor stand, discussing him.

DOCTOR: How long has he been like this?

DAUGHTER: Silent? A year. He believes everyone has a set number of words to speak in their lifetime. He believes he has reached his limit.

Avatar Ormega

I just logged into Second Life before writing this to check on my avatar, Ormega. He was where I left him, sitting at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of the digital landmass called Caledon. He stood up expectantly when I checked in; it’s been a while. About 20 days my time. I’m not interested in doing anything – I’m busy writing at the moment, so really it was just to check Ormega was still there and nothing interesting was happening on the sea bed. He was, and it wasn’t. I told him to sit back down, then I logged off.

I signed up for Second Life a couple of months ago, just to have a look around. I was stress-bored at the time; too busy, not sure which overdue task to complete next, distracted and therefore procrastinating with dedication at my desk. I wanted a computer game, but a cerebral one. Cerebral because I’m not a high-speed game-jockey. My mind is slow and my body aches; I prefer to take my time. I knew about Second Life. For a moment there, it sounded like an interesting proposition. A colleague of mine, who does way more screen time than me in his work, makes art in Second Life and writes about it in his first. I thought I’d take a look.

I knew I wasn’t going to do much because Second Life isn’t free. I can’t manage money in this life so there was no way I was going to do anything exciting in another one, if it costs money. Pity, we build the technology to create a second life, you think we’d make it utopian. No money worries. Maybe thats’ third life. Or maybe Nirvana also runs on the dollar.

Anyway, there I was, proud controller of avatar Ormega. I enrolled him in a college to learn all about how to live a second life. Of course we had to do it together. I learned to walk, run, jump, sit down. Turn around. New members seemed to be popping into existence all around me. This was some kind of digital birthing clinic, the avatar maternity ward. I couldn’t concentrate so I found a dead-end alleyway and went down there to focus on fixing the appearance of avatar Ormega. I’ll admit, he portrays a slightly better physical condition than I do in first life. And I said I wasn’t going to do that.

Once I’d got my bald head sorted, my tan the right shade and my skintight lycra pants and shirt stretched over my pixelform, I ventured back out into the academy where I was learning basic motor skills. (Already avatar Ormega and I are interchangeable – this is powerful stuff). An avatar called Lisa Calamity said hello. I know her name because it was floating over her head in yellow text. I assume she is a woman because she was wearing womens clothes. Is that naive? I know she said hello because it came up in an instant message box.

We exchanged first impressions – it was a bit strange, we should probably be getting back to work, we’d both been in existence the same amount of time – about 10 minutes. She wandered off to look at some information, and I was reading about how to separate the camera from the head of avatar Ormega in order to get a wider view of things. The place was like a freshers fair. It was called Oxbridge College and there was a distinct air of the varsity about it. Display tables and posters told you how to pick things up, and collect useful things that you might need later.

The next time I saw Lisa Calamity, she was levitating in the distance. I tried out the teleport device and shunted myself into a garden on the outside of the hall. When I came back in, I tried the flying lesson. So that’s how she did it.

After half an hour of this I was getting bored. Lisa had fallen into a trance, it seemed, just standing there, hands hanging limply, head bowed. When I got closer to her, a message appeared advising me that Lisa Calamity was changing her appearance. I thought I ought to avert my eyes. But then again…

I gave up waiting for Lisa who was obviously deeply involved in some wardrobe situation. First life was pressing me into action, and I needed to think about what to do with my avatar. I came across a couple of others who had been abandoned, looking much the way Lisa did but with messages like ‘Digby Landsratter is logged out.’ What a way to leave your avatar.  So vulnerable to some digital abuse.

I couldn’t just exit and leave Ormega in no-avatars’-land. Fortunately I found some free accommodation in Oxbridge College Halls of Residence; a sofa, nice rug, and a cracking fire in the hearth. As long as the door was open, it was yours to use. It had gotten dark outside so I settled down for the night, slightly disturbed that there was no lock on the door. I logged out. It was Friday afternoon in the real world.

By Sunday the whole thing was bothering me. Avatar Ormega, just sat there, staring at the fire, or worse, the floor, with nothing to do. Had I created a pet that needed constant attention? Did I have the time to give Ormega a fulfilling second life, or crucially, the inclination to tend his needs? Whose second life was it anyway, mine or my avatars? And that business with no lock on the door. It was beginning to become an issue. Perhaps, while I was gone, avatar Ormega would be mugged, or invaded by dirty squatters. I didn’t want gatecrashers at my party of one. Perhaps like a naughty teenager he would throw his own party in the absence of his god-like master, things would get out of hand, pixels would get broken.

I logged back in. No parties, and no damage, so far as I could tell. I didn’t want to stay, and I didn’t want the worry, so I decided to delete avatar Ormega. Could I find a delete button? A menu item to call time on Ormega? A sort of Quit, But Forever option?

And could I do that anyway, even if the option presented itself?

For my peace of mind, Ormega lives at the bottom of the ocean. He sits. I hope, when I’m not there, things scuttle and swim past to keep him amused. In any case, it keeps him off my mind. I don’t have room for Second Life, and I regret the creation of Ormega. So I just log in occassionally, make sure he is still there, untroubled, and log out. It seems a waste of binary code, but I can’t Undo.