i built the house entirely of lego. i knew it was a silly thing to do, but it appealed to my sense of simplicity. the walls were a pleasing yellow, the roof an aldi shade of blue. my friends had yellow faces, like the simpsons but squarer and less defined. they sat on identikit red chairs, waving their claw-like hands at one another. we didn't have a fridge. i knew i had to leave soon, because every time i used the toilet the water ran through the cracks and onto the floor. it didn't seem to trouble the lego-people. they didn't eat. they didn't wash much either. i tried to point this out, diplomatically, but they just looked back, their never-moving faces smiling curiously at me. i think they felt sorry for me. they sensed i wasn't one of them. i miss them. an interesting fact... if you take kirsten kenyon, and you divide it by kirsten kenyon, the result is one. however, if you take sarah clarke and multiply it by the sunshine that hovvers on the edges of your mind, then esme will lose her voice again and old mother shipton will never go back to her cave. the moral:- as barry manilow once opined - hang on to what you've got, don't let go, girl, you've got a lot. i don't know where this post is going. i don't know where it has been. my head was so full of things to say, but my other thoughts all got in the way. i wanted to tell you all a story, i wanted to sing you all a song, but these are only dreams, you see, and my voice is quite out of key, it chants a chord of somebody, a person who might just be me but somehow doesn't seem to be and sounds so very wrong. the last time i met you all was in january. you were saying lovely things, you told me about the boy you knew at school, about the woman you loved, about the smile within the emptiness, and you blew me kisses, even though you didn't know me. i would have liked to reply to you, but my fingers failed me. and, now, i would talk about the dreams you had then, but who wants to talk of old dreams? they die, as they should, and numerous nebulous numinous nonsenses fill their place. do i love you....do i? doesn't one and one make two? no, not always. if you take a lump of plasticine and add it to another lump of plasticine all you have is one big lump of plasticine. numbers are a human construct and bear no relation to reality. therefore, any theory constructed from the use of numbers must be infinitely approximate. this is not the same as being approximately infinite. but i don't think cole porter thought of that when he wrote the song.. sometimes i think you want me to touch you. i reach out to the screen and imagine you're there, on the other side of it. but all that greets my fingers is the hardness of a screen. if i could live in your head, for just one day, would i see the world your way? and would i like it any better? there was an old woman who lived in a shoe. she would have preferred a house, but times were hard. at night, the rain fell in through the lace-eyelets. she would lie, looking up at the sky, wishing she hadn't beaten her children so soundly and made them run away. cloud mounts on cloud, until it seems there is another world, only twenty miles above, and she wonders if life would be any different there, or if it would be just the same existence, but colder, and greyer. when the downpour comes, the water falls in a steady stream onto her forehead, and it runs down her nose and mingles with the tears on her cheeks. ever felt like giving up? i've felt like giving up. i watched a programme about seal pups. from the first time they climb in the water there are sharks lurking underneath, watching them and thinking about their next meal. sometimes i think if i was a seal pup, i'd just sit on a rock, and feel the sunshine on my fur. but then i'd never know how it felt to dive through a wave. last night my friend got hit by an iron bar by four men who were shouting about the taliban. he'll be okay. physically. i'm sure there's a metaphor in the above somewhere. when i was little, i wanted to be an astronaut. my mum told me that you couldn't be an astronaut if you were british, that you had to be american or russian. sometimes i wish she hadn't told me. i still dream of the moon, but i know i'll never get there. i'm going to make myself go blind tonight, i'm going to make myself go blind tonight...i'm going to build a shrine for the wasted days. i didn't build the shrine from lego. i learnt from my mistakes. i found a record that didn't want to be played any more, and i melted it. i curved the sides up into an arch, and i threw a few remnants of used tissue across the floor. i built a wall of televisions, all set to switch channels every five minutes - a picture of a refugee camp in the congo is replaced by an advert for toothpaste. inside the shrine sits a man. he is the keeper of the shrine for the wasted days. his name is brendan. brendan watches the wall of images, but his mind is not on the pictures. he is too busy wondering if refugees clean their teeth. sundays are dark days. the long, dark teatime of the soul allows no refuge. i should go. i love you, yes you. and i promise i'll write soon. ian +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. 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