(before i get started, a couple of things - would anybody be interested in a west midlands meet-up? so far, i can count three of us that are. this would be a nice beginning - especially if the friends in my head accompanied us, that would make 17 people - but i'm sure we can do better than that. birmingham is a beautifulplace. you all should visit. err...what was the other thing? i can't remember.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- city boys don't understand darkness. i learned this the first time i found myself wandering around the lanes of a small welsh coastal town, trying to find somewhere warm that didn't have strange noises coming from it, and wishing the moon would throw me a few of its dangerously enticing beams. we think we know what its like to walk home in the dark. we look up at the endless, limitless sky and we squint upwards, hoping to see the stars over the orange fluorescence that surrounds us. the cars sweep past - the world of another person, contained within, brushes ours for a minute, then moves on, relishing its own warmth and seclusion. tyres splash sprays of foul-smelling water in the direction of the unwary. somewhere, an unknown person shouts unintelligible thoughts. yes, there is a darkness in all of this, but it is the darkness of a self-created fear - the fear of ourselves projected out towards others. real darkness, utter darkness, holds something completely different. something eternal, and unknown. something more beautiful than death and more frightening than life, and something completely, unavoidably, seductive. have you ever felt like you could wrap the darkness around you? fall into its folds and become merely another grain in its fabric. another non-sound in the thickness of silence, another rustle in the bushes, another pixel of an imagination projected out into an infinitely absorbent surrounding? being part of the darkness would be marvellous. to become one with that unknown, to become part of something inexplicably sinister (yes, yes, i know) and yet, in that same renunciation, to become completely safe, to have nothing more to lose. never, really, to have had anything to begin with. becoming velvet, for a moment. and then being destroyed, slowly, as the first rays of dawn obliterated your very existence. to die once a day, and never to see the sunshine. is that heaven? or would you spend your new existence with a vague recollection that the daylight would be beautiful? city boys don't understand utter darkness. less and less of us do. our minds are too busy, trying to catch each second of life as it flies by. we're terrified of anything Absolute. i'm sitting on the edge of a forest. the roadside cafeteria throws yellow and orange into the darkness, only to have it thrown back by the snow outside. i'm staring at a beetle crawling along the ledge, and trying to become one with the moment. i'm waiting for my date. i'm supposed to be meeting an old friend. become lost in surroundings. feel no fear of the muttering man staring at you from the food-counter. think of nothing. 'sometimes i think i have enough free-floating anxiety to power a small country'. i heard a girl say that to me once. and then she asked if it was possible to STOP thinking. i wanted to tell her that it might be, but i was too busy trying to clear my mind. think of nothing. i try to do it, but i realise i am thinking about thinking of nothing. and then i realise i am thinking about thinking about thinking of nothing. a woman shuffles over to sit opposite me. she pulls an electric pink lipstick from a battered brown bag and begins to colour in her teeth. i would ask her why she is doing this, but i'm too afraid the answer will make sense. is it possible to stop thinking? the beetle regards me for a second, meeting my gaze with a rub of its forelegs. ' i pity you' it says no, it can't have done...its a beetle. the last time a beetle spoke to me was shortly before my tori amos poster started to disco-dance. 'i pity you. trapped in your maze of the mind, unable to find an exit from the world you're in, desperately struggling to work out where you are, as if this will help, when all it will do is remind you of the hopelessness of your plight' no, it is definitely the beetle. an intelligent response is called for: 'fuck off'. the woman looks at me quizzically - 'i beg your pardon?' 'no, i wasn't talking to you, i was talking to the beetle' this doesn't appear to reassure her - ' you were....talking to the beetle....' 'i'm not the one who is painting their teeth pink' she downs her coffee, blurts out something about hurting other people's feelings, and leaves without paying. the man behind the counter opens his mouth, and inhales, but appears to decide it isn't worth pursuing her. tail-lights shine a licence-plate, reflecting red and yellow smears on the misted windows, and her car is gone. i wonder what i said? a whirring behind me, and the jukebox comes to life. an old favourite of mine... the bit about 'watching bruce on the old generation game' always makes me smile. i lean back in my seat, staring at the darkness outside. the waiter brings me another cup of coffee. he has beautifully pert buttocks, and it seems wasteful not to imagine them against my crotch. i sip the bitter, black liquid and consider this for a while. 'you're in a bad way every day seems just the same just dial my number or call my name' the song seems to flow into me, through the coffee, reflected back from the window, pouring its energy into the warm space inside the diner. a couple of people smile. i think about things it would be ungentlemanly to share, and the beetle twitches its final death-throws whilst dangling from the mouth of a particularly large spider. outside, in the darkness, there are wolves. but the darkness isn't frightened of them. it thinks of nothing. the darkness takes each minute as it arrives, and allows it to depart as if never there. inside, in the flashing neon light, i see ugliness. i see violence. and a song catches my inner-being and whips it somewhere it seldom goes. and a long-lashed waiter smiles at me. and i'm lost in my maze of thought, still trying to find a way out, not realising that the way out can come when you're least expecting it. the spider opens its mouth in what i can only imagine is a burp. it scuttles away, thinking whatever spiders think. perhaps it is considering how sorry it feels for beetles, with their hedonistic, unaware natures. the sinister-list has stood me up. the snow flakes twirl in the fluorescent light for a moment, and then fall out of sight. occasionally, a neon light outside flashes on. when it switches off again, it only makes the darkness seem deeper than ever. the light is artificial, and lurid. and i think i love it. ian +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. 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