Sinister: challenge

[Kieran Devaney]

so, ok well, today was pretty cloudy
i think there might have been a bit of rain in the afternoon
there was but i didn't really mind it, rain is ok
rain is droplets of water that fall from the clouds in the sky
did you know that? it's pretty rad when you think about it
i hope you're all doing ok in the rain
although of course it might not be raining where you are
if it's not then, well, i don't know, i hope you're still ok

i am... well, i'm alright

yesterday, which was a tuesday was alright
i've often said how much i like tuesdays, some people think
they're the third day of the week, but i know for a fact that they're the 
second
and first the worst second the best, though monday, that's the first day of 
the week
wasn't the worst, on monday i woke up and watched a dvd of 'dude, where's my 
car?'
on the television, aren't they a great invention? i gave mine a hug
because it's so nice to me, why can't people be like that?

after the dvd it was time for pancakes, but first i had to
decide what to wear, which was difficult, i have this rule for myself
that i can't wear anything black on a monday
it always causes me trouble, i don't know why i don't just abandon the rule
but it's an important rule, i've forgotten why
but i've gained weight recently and my red suit doesn't fit me anymore
i used to like my red suit buy now that it doesn't fit me i want to burn it
i want to burn things sometimes
but i put on my tshirt and a skirt anyway and i looked ok
on the way downstairs someone said "kieran, don't you usually wear your
red suit on mondays?" and she was right, but i wanted to burn her just the 
same
some people, honestly
well my tshirt has a picture of two horses on it, and the horses are happy 
together
why can't we all be like those horses?

i read in the newspaper a terrible story about two gorillas that escaped 
from the zoo
they escaped by dressing up as japanese tourists and talking their way out 
of the zoo
once they were out they mauled seven people, and killed another nine
those gorillas
if they were like the horses i was wearing, i tell you, things would not 
have been like that
on the tshirt there is also a picture of a butterfly frolicking near the 
horses and loving
if the gorillas could've got to that butterfly then the consequences don't 
bear thinking about
why don't people try to stop these things? i know i do
i kept my horses away from gorillas
and i don't even work at the zoo, so how could i have stopped them?
why can't people just be nicer?

so anyway i was riding my horses into town to get pancakes
we stopped off for icecream and to watch a dvd of 'my big fat greek wedding'
which is a sort of gangster movie, except set in grease, i think belle and 
sebastian
are on the soundtrack but i might be wrong about that, it might be def 
leppard
someone was explaining to me about john zorn's re-appropriation of 80s 
hardcore
along with various other genres encompassing funk, lounge, surf guitar etc 
in his
seminal naked city band, i think they were on the soundtrack too, though i 
didn't hear them
the ice cream was lots of flavours, red, green as well as orange, the orange 
wasn't very nice
my favourite ice cream flavour is love
ice cream is made by freezing milk and then passing it through a filter and 
then you cut it into cones with scissors

i love it when it's dark during the daytime
sometimes i wake up and it's so dark, dark all the time, dark in my heart

as we rode further on we reached a park with a big lake
i love parks with big lakes, why can't everywhere be like that?
we sat down, the horses are called nigel and billy, but billy is a girl
they are not gay horses
i've told peole that, but they laugh, some of them laugh!
like billy jean i tell them, from the michael bolton song which i will post 
the lyrics to:

billy jean, you are a horse
but a girl
not a gay horse

you love nigel
he loves you

chorus

we ride into town for pancakes
we play video games
and eat ice cream

chorus

chorus

now that i think about it it might be a daniel johnston and jad fair song
i met daniel and jad for pancakes anyway, along with my aunt who is a queen
we had pink grapefruit juice which was pink and a glass of orange juice and
stacks of pancakes as high as the moon
i mean as high so they went up to being able to reach the moon
not the other way round, which is what nigel thought, until i shot him
they were very tasty it was very sunny
i went to buy some clothes from the store, i think the name of the store was 
tescos
it's where i get my best clothes anyway, it was getting dark by the time i 
got out but
i bought seven ties and a suit made of vinegar

then i decided to ride a donkey into town, like our lord

in town i stopped for pancakes with my friends joe and chris
they told me about a show they had seen on television featuring
a serial killer
how wrong serial killing is, you ought to be ashamed i said
they agreed with me, there is nothing funny about that
we discussed the matter at length and then played pac man
at the arcade where i was eaten by a ghost
how can people just kill like that? we listened to a compilation of 
bollywood soundtracks
and ate pizza by the seaside for a while and then played shinty
which i won at by checkmating colin newman from the band wire

we stopped to look at some birds on the way into town
not birds as in women you sexist fucking cunt but real flying birds
aren't birds just wonderful? why can't everywhere be like the sky?
i wonder how birds manage to get all the way up there
do you think humans will ever be able to attain unaided flight?

after dinner i flew into town for some pancakes with robert and pat
robert is my paediatrician (i hope i've spelled that right!) and we were
shot at by some welsh people
why can't everyone be like the welsh?
down the front of the gig was tom jones and cerys matthews, we walked
the 200 yards into town and ate pancakes which had welsh sauce made from
leeks and valleys on them and tom sang us a song based on
the stereophonics album 'just enough education to perform'
which is a funny title

i have an education, that day at school i drew a picture of keiji haino in 
oil pastel
and they hung it on the wall in the dining hall, so now whenever i'm eating 
and whenever anyone
is eating they have to look up at the dark magus of japanese psych rock
i think that's only fair after they gave me a d for my gcse maths coursework
for my maths coursework we had to work out the area of various nets for 
cuboids
i tried to devise a formula but all i could think of was piet mondrian and 
that part in
catch 22 when it stops being all surreal and funny and Yossarian is plunged 
into
a bosch-esque nightmare landscape

outside the streets were damp and we walked off into town for pancakes, we 
talked and brian
told me all about his history on the riviera, he had been a lollipop man 
until they
invented belisha beacons he said he wanted to chop them all down with his 
axe
the street was cold and dry i counted the bricks on the house, there were 
seven
there has got to be more than this i thought
and i was right, there were some round the corner that i had missed
that made nine
on the corner someone tried to sell me a paper, it had red writing on it
and you couldn't buy it in the newsagents, i was about to go for pancakes so
i couldn't stop to tell him exactly what i thought of him
but he was an ugly man, i bet he is ugly inside, like that cat we cut open 
on christmas eve

i put on my purple anorak for the day because it was the morning
it was a f-f-f-friday which is my favourite day of the week
you know what they say in some restaurants?
tfi friday, which stands for thank goodness it's friday
this is because working in a restaurant is not much fun
i had to work in a restaurant once, to table five i brought a salad
to table twelve i brought some steak
to table six i brought some anchovies
to table nine i brought some pancakes
to table seven i brought some ice cream
to table four i brought some fish
to table eight i brought some oysters
to table eleven i brought some peppers
to table ten i brought some lasagne
to table nine i brought some chips
to table eight i brought some pizza
to table seven i brought some fire
to table six i brought some salad
to table five i brought some fish
to table four i brought some cake
to table three i brought some potato
to table two i brought some biscuits
to table one i brought some chocolate
to table zero i brought some pasta
phew! after all that i was tired!
thank goodness it's friday

how is the weather where you are? here it's a bit damp
they say the crops wont grow if it stays like this
i think someone has stolen all the soil
how could someone do that? what kind of a country is this?
i wish everywhere was like samoa
they have soil there in abundance, and i hear it's rich in lime
how are you?

i am... well, i'm alright

we moved downstream into town to get pancakes
today i decided to wear my feather boa
there's someone called feather boa! imagine that!
she and i go way back
i wrote in my diary about playing nintendo
i watched a dvd of bon jovi playing live
i had the new pink grapefruit lucozade
it wasn't very nice
it tasted like pink grapefruit
i watched a dvd of "kickboxer 2"
lionel and i chatted about baseball

nicky wire from the manic street preachers was leading the herd
and i rode nigel after him, he was riding billy
the rest of the herd have names, but you have to guess them
they are all the reincarnations of famous people though
so it isn't that hard
the one that's samuel beckett just sits and says "nothing to be done"
because there's nothing to be done
but he's wrong! that kind of attitude is ruining america!

but i think he's ok, we played lacrosse and i bought some new hats
and now i can play lacrosse properly
with each new hat i can be a new person!
he won at lacrosse but it was ok because he watched a dvd of "indpedendance 
day"
which has will smith and stuart maconie in it
stuart maconie is my idol i think he's the best
i think he has the most unique face in the world, i watched his face during 
the movie
and i think it looks different
it has a different cadence you might say
like scotland
the cadence of stuart maconie's face is like scotland
i think

we sat in for pancakes on the way into town and stuart and i talked about
television and he told me about this awful show which dug up the recent past
and made it an object of ironic adulation, that was like sooooo crazy
why can't more people be like stuart?

it was sunny
the sun is actually a big ball of burning gas far far away
i hear ken chu is a real person
he has a job in a hospital
it was cloudy though
i picked up my kids from the vet, they are nice but they whine too much
i give them milk, but a lot of the time it doesn't help
things are tough sometimes
we played jenga and then tennis out on the lawn, i won at both
one of the things that has always worried me is: will we ever be able to 
time travel?
i asked the children and they thought we would and i believe them
i looked into their faces and i saw the future and they were serious and i 
believed them
children are our future
they were each wearing a sailor suit except for little emily who had a dress 
on
in their eyes was every hope that we have ever had
they said there would be time travel and i hold them responsible

i dropped them off with their parent/guardian, it was late in the evening
and decided to go into town for pancakes
but what would i wear? i put on my black jacket but it didn't feel right
it felt distended, whatever that means
while i decided what to wear i put the radio on, there was a song on which 
had rapping
how can people be like that?
i changed the station, why can't all music be like what i found
it was rick wakeman, who i love
while i was dancing to rick, daniel came over and he had been visiting the 
lions in the zoo
we decided to change plans and go into town for pancakes
on the way we met my mother, who was sad and drunk, though it was still very 
early in the morning
i crossed the road to avoid speaking with her
on the way we stopped to play pinball and eat croissants

we took a train into town and we played snooker on the way and ate pasta
john told me how hard it had been for him recently
there was a dvd playing of pearl jam live
eddie vedder dedicated a song to me, i'd seen it before
it was a live version of danny boy, a cover
it was different this time, alec empire made a guest appearance

there are seventeen steps from my house to the shop on the corner
i counted them as i walked there
the shop is very sad, most of the things are old and nobody buys them
i bought bread
i bought milk
the man and i didn't speak, even though i go in there almost every day
i looked at the shelf behind him filled with once bright things now gone 
grey
how can people be like that?
why can't everywhere be like the pyramids?
life is so cruel

on the way back we met danny who is a doctor and he said i'd be better soon
i said we should go into town for pancakes sometime
he said he was free on tuesday and i think i'm free on tuesday
that was yesterday
lucy and i spoke on the phone about jam, she likes the consistency to be 
thick
i also like the consistency to be thick
what do you think?
how are you today?

i am... well, i'm alright

today i decided to wear a skirt for the first time in years
it was black, i usually wear black on mondays but i did today
i watched a dvd of "titanic" and celine dion made me cry
sarah came over and we watched a dvd of "men in black 2"
ah, i think will smith is so great
i drank a bottle of juice
the flavour was orange
i wonder how they get the bits out
alan told me they use a sieve, which is a bit like... like... like

i woke up and on the telly was a dvd of alice coltrane live in concert
still playing from the night before
she was singing "baby one more time"
the song finished and the camera focussed on her
it drew right in, it was like she stepped from the televison
she started talking but i have forgotten what she said
later alice came over and we hung out and watched movies and talked about 
life
she told me about something she had read in the newspaper about some people 
who had
hit some other people
how can people do that?
i was so sad that we took the hovercraft into town for pancakes
on the way we stopped off at claire's house and talked to her
she told me that her father was doing ok and she compimented me on my kula 
shaker tshirt

barry and paul came over and we played space invaders until it was time to 
have lunch
i didn't have any bread in the house so we decided to nip into town for some 
pancakes
the pancakes were marvellous and we played aussie rules football afterwards
which is a game where you put coins in the slot and pull the arm and then 
hope you get
three matching cherries which i did not
why is life so unfair?

i met crispin on the way into town and i invited him to join me for 
pancakes, we talked a bit about
school and he said that the maths coursework was going to be hard
he had spoken to one of the teachers and she had told him that it involved 
integers
whatever those are
i told him i wanted to do a painting of someone and he said that maybe 
stuart stapleton would be a good  idea
i can just imagine it hanging in the dining hall, the dark magus of studio 
manipulation
looking down upon everyone as they ate
that would be a punishment for my bad grade at o-level german
mach spass!

i read for a while, a magazine called the nme which told me that miles davis 
is releasing a new record
i hate punk rock
i drank a glass of milk while listening to some music, here are the lyrics:









it was an instrumental

the weather here today was a blizzard, i was going to go into town for 
pancakes with simon
but the snow and wind made it impossible
how is the weather where you are?
how are you?

i am... well, i'm alright

roger came over and we talked about comic books
i told him my dreams and he said they were good ones
i believe him too, he is a serious man, i think i might love roger
later we went into town for pancakes but stopped on the way to talk to the 
police
apparently the penny farthing isn't allowed on roads anymore
what sort of country has this turned into?
i was scared that we were going to get a fine, but roger told the police the 
situation
after that they seemed to calm down a bit
the one officer was nice, his name was paul
he fixed me with inquisitive eyes
that's a line from belle and sebastian
i don't think the song has been released yet
perhaps it wont ever be
why are people like that?

stuart and david came over and we watched a dvd of "honey i blew up the kid"
which is my favourite movie
we talked about the economy and about politics and we were mostly in 
agreement
less is more i told him and he nodded his head
i gave him a picture i had painted of john fahey but he didn't understand
i told him that i painted it when i was at school
and that it had hung in the dining hall
and that once i had heard him commenting on how much he liked it
i was always too scared to speak to him in school
but he said he didn't want it and afterwards i cried for hours

i met joseph in town for pancakes
he asked me when there would be an end to all this nonsense
and i said there would on tuesday
it was fatal
joseph and i go way back
he drew a map to town for me on squared paper because i'm new and i don't 
know the way
he said we could meet up for pancakes tomorrow

frank and i went out dancing and then into town for pancakes
we were playing mario kart on his gameboy
he stopped every so often to look at the scenery
isn't it nice this time of year?
he told me about his grandmothers funeral
how she had always joked about having the theme from 'fame' played at the 
ceremony
and how they had put it on in the church
and everyone sobbed to the words
and his voice cracked as he told me
i said it was just a song
why are people like that all the time?
why can't things be like they are in quebec?

after supper i listened to gil scott herren on the stero
pete came over and we ate pasta from a plastic carton
he had bought it from the sainsburys at the station
and it came with a free plastic fork
how do people make a profit these days?
we decided to into town for pancakes
but stopped on the way to have a dip in the sea
it was cold and the salt was in our hair and the sand was in our shoes
mark e smith was on the beach and he told me about the time the sky above 
his house had been so clear he could see all the way over the bay
we walked back through the fog to andrea's and played playstation
then we watched a dvd of "happy gilmore"
then we listened to camera obscura on the stereo

chris came over the hill and he was carrying something
it was pancakes
he told me about a war there had been and i asked him why people are like 
that
he said it was because they don't know when to stop
i told him i could stop whenever i wanted
but he just shook his head
i wanted to burn him then
i took back the painting of masami akita that i had given him
he had helped me get a good gcse in french

i drank a bottle of orange squash in the park with ian
he told me about his religion and i laughed
he didn't seem to mind
we walked twelve steps to the boating lake
the ducks were out in force
suddenly a child leapt from a building across the street
how can people do that?
everyone ran to look
but i could see his reflection in the sunset coloured lake
it was tuesday
i read in the newspaper that the child died
how can people do that?

at the station i met chloe and george
their train was terribly late
i asked them why, but george seemed reluctant
he said there was a problem, they had stopped for a long time but he didn't 
know why
that it was nothing to worry about
we moved off and i pressed him about it but to no avail
we were almost home before the boy came running back
i asked him what the delay had been
george tried to wave it off, try to stop the boy from talking
but he faced me straight and said that a child had fallen from the carriage
and under the wheels
then there was just the noise of the wind

soon i am starting again
like the wheels on a tractor
round, round and round

i am... well, i'm alright

- kieran

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