wtf pwm

The dirty plaid pyjamas hang on his body like he has been wearing them all week. He, that is, the protagonist - that is, me - has just woken up. We can see this by his slow movements and ridiculous hair, which sticks up around the side, the sides being where it is thickest; the top, a smooth plane covered only with a few wisps of black hair. And it is now on closer look that we see that he hasn't - I have not - been wearing the dirty plaid pyjamas all week, it's just that he has - I have - not washed them in a very long time. Maybe last month.

I walk to the kitchen, which is very close to the bed. The length of my body, maybe, twice over. I take a carton of eggs from the door of the fridge. I break a couple open on the edge of the frying pan and a few drops dribble, turning white on the side. It's a large pan. I watch them sizzle as the kettle boils. It is still dark. To think, most people are still asleep. The translucency of the eggs fade to a beige white. I eat them on the edge of my bed following my thoughts slowly. It is much like a dream. I even shut my eyes for a time, not that I am even tired. There are seagull's squawking outside. I can hear a train somewhere too, but perhaps that only shows just how quiet it is, the fact I can hear it. I open my eyes. I breath with lips parted, a breath out, within, watch the thin whiteness.

I finish my breakfast, digging dried yoke off the plate with my thumbnail.

I live in a room below the ground, in the basement of an old Victorian house. Other people live here too, but we never talk. Sometimes they leave, but others replace them. We are in separate rooms anyway, thank god. So it is easy not to get too attached or annoyed. From next door I can hear a TV. They are watching a live performance; I can hear a crowd cheering. Females, indoors. Sometimes I find myself wandering the aisle's of supermarkets looking at the bit underneath the price where it says how much it costs per 100g's, not sure how I got there. Why? Where else is there? I could go to the pub, but I have never been a huge drinker. One of the others that live here came back late one night recently. You could tell he had been drinking. He had lost his keys and started banging on all the doors, shouting and going on. Then he was sick on the floor in the hall. It was disgusting. I could not imagine what would lead to such a stunt. The women in the audience continue to cheer and whoop.

An anecdote:

My sister wrote to me when our father died. I knew it had happened already, her letter was not informing me of the fact he had gone. She spoke of something similar at the funeral too. Reciting memories of his kindness, the love they shared for each other. We all sat in our pews watching. She was crying when she picked me up, driving through her tears. I invited her in before we left. She looked over my shoulder and said that we needed to get going. She asked if that was what I was wearing. I was wearing black jeans and a grey shirt. I didn't say anything. We walked out to the car. She told me our uncle was taking my mother to the funeral. She had been in a home for a long time but they let her go to the funeral. I wondered if she would remember me.

My sister played a CD in the car. She said it was a CD of our father's. She started to choke and well up as she told me this. I reached for the handle on the roof above the door. Luckily it was not a long drive.

It was an old, cold church. There was a lot of waiting around before people started coming in. There were two electric radiators in front of the first row of pews. I sat down in front of one of them, took out a notebook and started writing - I cannot remember what now. My sister noticed. She asked what I was writing. She then asked if I had read the book she had sent me. It was something she had written herself, printed it herself with money from a recent divorce. I told her that I did not read poetry.

After the funeral, we went to a hotel for the wake. It was an excruciating experience.

I told you before that I live in a room below the ground. This is both true and false. Above my ceiling is what is considered the Ground Floor of the house. But at one end of my room is a set of French windows. Open the French Windows and you can walk straight out into the garden. This, I have never done, admittedly. But it is the pedantic truth that I do not live below the ground. If I need to get out of my room, for whatever reason, I tend to wander into town. Although this leads to another disadvantage. While I live in the basement, the house itself is at the top of a very steep hill, so when I leave in the morning full of vigour, walking down the hill does not hinder my pace. But it is when it is time to come home, and I reach where the road begins to incline, that I am filled with dread and ache and sweat. There are many distractions in town, always people about. No one ever works it seems. I like to walk around the café's and shops, making and avoiding eye contact. There are so many people, you wonder if any of them have seen you before - yet you do not recognise a soul. After I finish my eggs and my morning thoughts I make this pilgrimage into town. It is still early. I see a paperboy on my way, high-vis bag slung over his shoulder. I see a man, much much older than me, half his face looks collapsed, walking forward slowly with the help of a tripod on wheels. At the front of this tripod there is a basket. The basket has a paper and a pint of milk in it.

It has turned out to be a sunny day today. By noon it will surely be blistering. I walk to the pavilion and buy a coffee before sitting on a bench in the gardens. Soon the place will be filled with young people. It feels good to rest after a walk. I watch as a seagull lands near me. Its head looks smaller than most seagulls and it has peculiar black markings around its eyes. It looks demented as it struts past. Wuk-wuk-wuk-wuk, it says to itself. The spindly legs and stubby feet move across the grass and behind a bush. I ease up off the bench slightly and begin to peer in the direction of the bush, just to make sure it is okay. I hear a squawking. Two more gulls swoop down behind the bush, then the deformed gull shoots out with the skin of a rotisserie chicken and a plastic bag in it's skinny beak. I watch the three birds fight over the carcass of another dead bird for a minute before tearing myself away. I get up and start walking again.

It is getting later now. The streets are clogged up and sweaty. I walk southward for as long as is possible, until I reach the seafront. But even here people are everywhere. I walk east, ten minutes or so. Finally I find a secluded area and sit down on the pebbles. An Asian couple in swimsuits walk past me. The girl's hair is damp and curly from the seawater. She looks me in the eye, and then turns her head to her boyfriend. She says something. They both laugh as they pass. People have a lot of fun together. I bend my neck back so I am looking straight up at the sky. I then bring it down slowly, mentally noting the colour and density of the clouds until my eyes reach the horizon and then the seafront in front of me, reflecting the sun like broken glass in a car park. Remembering the car park in Leeds, near the Chinese supermarket where hypodermic syringes lay, I walk closer towards the shoreline. My shoes and socks soak up the salty, slimy water and turn my feet to ballast. Moving in any direction seems almost impossible and so, on all fours, I crawl back to the shore, the dry pebbles. There are three girls in bikinis and sunglasses sharing a large beach towel. Two are talking and looking at me - the other is applying sun cream to her arms. One of them shouts, "Are you alright?"

I think of them sitting in a television studio cheering and whooping as they watch a large screen projection of me crawling out of the sea on all fours. I feel like a dog. Or like I'm being fucked by a dog and they are there, watching, cheering, whooping.

"Yeah," I say.

They don't hear me. She takes off her sunglasses and puts them on top of her head.

"You okay? Do you need a towel?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

I pause for a moment, thinking this might seem ungrateful. I pronounce loudly: "Thank you for offering."

I continue trudging up the beach slowly. My heavy feet crunching the pebbles.

The beach seems emptier now. I walk a little further. My legs feel tired so I decide to sit down for a while. Facing the sea horizontally feels like the ground is moving slowly. My clothes are damp but the sun is drying them rapidly. I fall asleep and dream I am watching my dad's coffin being taken away and my sister is standing next to me. We go to my dad's house, although I think it might be my granddad's house, and go up to his room and we see him lying on his bed. He is sleeping fully clothed, wearing a synthetic polo-shirt and braces over his shoulders. We wake him up and he tells us he was just taking a nap.

My eyes open, adjusting to the light. It's dusk. My clothes are still damp. But less so. Some young people are near me. I can't hear them; all I can hear are the waves crashing, cars above and behind me, seagulls flying.

A Joke:

Three pigeons stand in a line. All facing the same way, no gaps between inside wings. They begin to turn, the two outside chasing each other, the middle one has no choice but to turn in a circle.

Not watching my own feet, but the feet and deformed stubs of the three pigeons, I miss an uneven paving slab, trip and loose my balance.

Unfortunately, I think to myself, more people probably saw me than the pigeons.