Estranged Reflections VII
Listen darling, I know Marble Arch is a traffic nightmare, we’ve learned about it from anthropological studies, history and disciplined technique. It’s a slow, deliberate process.
But the issues are more complex than that.
World exclusive!
Former Hungarian dog-boy and film director, Laszlo Zednick, woke at 3am and shouted “Lights, camera, achtung!” for no obvious reason. Sharon confessed he had been obsessed with movies all his life. Even as a puppy he would sit up for hours every night, fortified with Tennessee Fried Chicken, teetering on just the right side of sentimentality, watching low-grade American teen movies on the old goggle-box.
“Peel me a grape and make it snappy, pronto, rap-rap-rapido”, she mumbled from beneath her multicoloured Donald The Cosmic Duck duvet, as poplar trees cast long shadows in the anomalous mid-morning sun of her dreams and the Persian carpet imploded into extraordinary micro-chip shapes.
She saw a white ‘X’ against a blue background in Oxford Street where shopping is fun.
The film divided the critics.
It was street fashion’s talent for mix ‘n’ match that was what it was…
Sharon has springy Crystal Tips hair and likes singing madrigals in her spare time, what little she has, that is: living with Laszlo is one hell of a challenge. She pulled his ear and he went “Tttssss…” This is how the chattering classes succumb to masochism and defeatism, symptoms of a new British disease first detected in the 1960s but surfacing only now in the ‘post-Thatch’ era.
Spectral, spooky spaced-out trickster John Thomas finally got the communications tickety-boo, ship-shape and Bristol-fashion as you English say. So how does it work? From some far distant astral coordinates near Godalming he beams his elusive signals to Sister Marie’s crystal ball via the Mars Homecare Centre 20,000 years in the past, a complex ethereal logic-gate known as Mad Andy’s Games-Station and the astrological astronomer’s amenable if subversive U-Bend. No problem once you get the hang of it, even if you are still trying to raise the cash for a decent headstone – you just need a crystal ball to compile the dialect into something workable.
Some of us knew all along that she was a secret undercover agent. What a drama!
“It’s a cinch,” laughed Karen when she got her head round it. She impersonated a young girl smiling up at the sky. No one knew what she was really up to.
While John can only use that weird dialect, the canary is multilingual but of limited vocabulary.
What prospect have I of coming to The North? I am afraid no certain one at present.
It was a distorting mirror. John cast an estranged reflection.
The relationship expert encouraged the girl to share her memories of Ron. She looked into the distorting mirror… her feelings faded within a few years and were replaced by something deeper.
Far away, in a distant galaxy, another victim projected a hideous image of Ron.
Are you now worth more?
If you still don’t like it don’t worry.
They stumbled out of the car, into the offices where the phones were going crazy. Old Face-Ache was nowhere, but he would’ve given his right arm for the blueprints, the plans, the side elevations. He sold his soul to the Mouth of Shadows aeons ago. Sister Marie carefully placed the crystal ball on her four poster bed and slipped into something casual, waiting for images of blazing asteroids, ruptured pipe-work and Martian phone directories
Outside a Fascine dumped a bundle of rods into a crater.
On the far side of this multidimensional time-warp, back in 1963, Vince recited paragraphs selected at random from The Outsider and watched a re-run of Quatermass on TV.
Sister Marie’s dreams were encoded in the primary structures of fabrics.
“Let’s have a look,” the nurse said briskly as a red ball slammed into her pocket. She fumbled with his shirt buttons. Her bathrobe exploded into strange microchip patterns, her brainwaves pressed against the edge of the table.
The suggestion that John’s enormous Quaker hat is a sort of dish aerial can be discounted. She saw a white ‘X’ against a blue background; she saw a streak of bright light arch across the sky. Zip! She saw haunting metaphysical arcades, the shadow of an unknown figure merge with the mannequins on the sea shore, an autumn afternoon, The Rose Tower, a statue of Ariadne, infinite nostalgia, the enigma of fate and a priceless portrait of Guillame Apollinaire.
Hector and Andromache imploded into weird micro-chip shapes. Spangled canary feathers drifted in an airless void.
“Hey good looking, care for a facial? False nails? A photo from an estate agent’s window? What you say? What you say?”
Who was this?
Sister Marie had no way of knowing.
She saw convoys of wounded on the Voie Sacree, she saw exhausted Tommies hunkered down in a trench near Thiepval – old, red stars faded over Belleau Wood.
Pinocchio complained to his carpenter. Laszlo said the problem was his feet.
If you know a rude joke that’ll make the girls laugh don’t keep it to yourself!
Back at the ranch they slammed the recluse into a padded cell without a saucepan.
Mystery message: ask for help and victory will be yours.
A C Evans
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