If you’ve not read ‘GOD KILLERS’ then this will likely seem very obscure, and even so if you have! The basic background is that we are in the city of Duhn, which features prominently in the book. This, to me, is like an amusing aside - the kind of comic break Shakespeare would afford his audience at times with characters like Pistol in Henry V. It goes nowhere, and does nothing more than introduce us to two drunken armchair philosophers wandering home, and stoping briefly by the Grand Union Canal. If anything it is inspired somewhat by Samuel Beckett via M. John Harrison, if that doesn’t sound too lofty! Either way, I hope you enjoy this little slice of lightly pretentious nonsense.
WALKING BACK FROM THE SPITTLEFIELD INN
“There’s no pre-supposition that anything we thought of was right...”
“Or wrong.”
“There’s that I suppose. There’s always that!”
The two men weaved down Sub and Wakefirn in Duhn as though the free-natured gaits of all trespassed upon their insubstantial negotiations between form and context, and yet they were quite alone. Theirs was no articulate preamble of limbs, but instead a kind of fluid fall in which neither fell, but in which fluid certainly played a large part.
“You may as well ask,” said Rog. “I’m not about hiding anything, especially now the Metawhals have had their feast!”
“Metaphorically speaking of course. But, you see…” replied the Ox, “it’s not mine to negotiate or implicate a surrender here. Is it? That much is certain! But if I were to suggest a white flag for a moment, then maybe we could carry this into something decidedly more convenient, and less likely to cause offence?”
“To whom?”
But answer came there none, for they were cut short by the Grand Union Canal.
“Look at that. A wet and retched channel I’d say!”
“No doubting it.”
“And why would we choose to abandon such?”
Neither men had an answer and so stood momentarily mute, struck by the lay of the light on those dank, placid waters, and re-numerating the cost of such passage in the annals of memory, the reconfigured notions that time spilt and left to mourners. Neither the spring-loaded sun nor spit-pitted moon fostered a grudge, but they deigned not to recur at that Time in pale mirror-twinned approximations, but shunned instead the sky and bobbed behind opposite lines of trees as though engaged in a game of Cramp Mouse and Blind Moggy.
“There were those that thought me right, our Ox. Don’t forget that!” muttered Rog, sadly.
“Indeed, but fashion will always find its victim, and these parts are not overly gifted with the fresh thought and neo-mundanity of the tug-trouper. Let’s get some rest and we’ll think on it.”
“On what?”
“No matter. No matter. The shovel will shift shit still, and good on it too!”
Beyond the narrow canal bridge the two clashed and propped themselves into a four-legged thing, another kind of bridge over which only lost ideals were traded quietly. This quadrupedal structure staggered wistfully homeward and chose not to look back, at least not with all of its four eyes. These were hooded and shamed and blind to the romance of the occasion, the dull, startling oppression of the ruminating masses that it had so nearly offended earlier after six or seven too many. Pitching, listless, it swayed.
“I’m not sorry Rog. They were wrong to imply that the criteria for melancholic introspection could so casually be laid, and so cruelly be exploited. You don’t make cheese with breadcrumbs and bare bones...”
“You’re a fool and half-formed this night, young Ox. Half-wrong with your righteousness and half-baked with analogous miscreants of immobile imaginings...”
“Spare us! This is getting superfluous to our systemic requirements! Make sense old man, or I’ll slip you for a penny and feed you to the fishes!”
“Fish.”
“Fishes flow freer than fish that fly but forever flank fowl!”
“You done?”
“I think I might be at that, old son. I think I may be.”
“Good. We’re home. Stand up!”
“I’m stood!”
“We’re stood, but we need to open the bridge to let the night pass.”
“It’s not a proud day you know, but it’ll be clearer in the morning, and I still love you very much – despite everything.”
The squat cottage, nestled amongst the long silent abandoned mills once serviced by the Grand Union, was easy to warm, and the kettle was full. It quickly bubbled spat and whistled but the horn of butter-wine was good - and then quicker oblivion than either asked for.