Xavier Leret

17

Very loud Country and Western music is suddenly heard through the walls, knocking Bim back into the present. He scowls.

Bim wheels himself down his own path and then wheels himself down the path of his neighbour. He rings the bell of the front door of his next-door neighbour. The music can be heard in side. He begins to ring and ring.

He holds the bell down.

He hits the door.

And hits the door.

And hits the door.

Back inside Agnes’ room the Country and Western is pounding. “It’s alright mum,” says Bim, “I know what to do”.

He sticks cotton wool into both of her ears. She looks at him.

18

Later on, Bim and Georgie are in the kitchen drinking tea. Georgie is Agnes’ Home Help.

“No I ain’t bin upstairs for well part of a while now,” explains Bim.

“Why’s that?”

“Got an idea that’s obvious.”
“Is it?”

“Yeah, Georgie, it is”.

She looks at his legs. He takes a sip of his tea.

She breaks the silence with “You look tired”.

“Do I?”

“Yeah”.

He looks at his mug. Georgie looks at him and then looks down.
Eventually Bim says, “I won’t be long”.

“Take as long as you need, she replies.” I’ll phone if I need you”.
“Ta.”

Bim looks at his hands, “Listen, don’t go up stairs. Since, ya know…mi dad.

He looks up and smiles. He makes like he is a killer from an old fashioned movie. There is a nervous silence. “I’m joking. Do what ever you want. I reckon it’d be a bit of a mess, though. Bin a while since, ya know”.

“What happened to ya dad?”

“He left.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Years ago. Damn near killt mi mum”.

Georgie looks at him, “No-one’s bin upstairs since?”

Na, I was joking. Ain’t bin up there since mum had the stroke. No point in her being up there, is there?

Bim drinks the last of his tea, “right”, he makes to leave.

19

Bim has trouble getting his wheel chair onto the bus. The driver and another man lift him on.
As the bus pulls away Bim is looking out of the window at the other side of the street.

Georgie enters Agnes’ room. “Hi Agnes”. She sits down next to the bed. “How ya doing?” She looks at Agnes. “Fancy a bit of telly?” She stands goes to the television and turns it on. Agnes watches her as she flicks through the channels. “God,” gasps Georgie, “there’s nothing ta watch.”

20

The bus pulls away to reveal a high-rise tower block. Bim is sitting in his chair looking at it. He wheels himself over to the elevator entrance. He tries the lift. Nothing happens. He takes out his cell phone.

Kids are heard playing on the stairs.

As he talks on the phone he watches the empty courtyard.

A group of youths cross the yard. They wear expensive shoes and smoke cigarettes. The girls are not pretty but they’ve got the breeze in their hair.

“Hello Bim,” says a voice. Bim turns, “Hello Mrs Johnson”.

He looks at her white nylon puffed up coat. Her blond hair is dry with hairspray and a little age.

“I told you, I can’t help you upstairs”.

“Is there somewhere else we can go?”
“Sure”.

Mrs Johnson lifts the door to a car lockup garage. They both look around to make sure no one is watching. They go in. It’s dark. Mrs Johnson finds a light, it throws their shadow on the wall.

“Don’t say anything,’ she says quietly.

“I ain’t got nothing to say.”

“Either way”.

“I can feel the years slip off me,” he says with a smile.

“What?”

“Being ere”.

She squints at him. “Be better in the flat. Warm”.

“Well summuts stopping us”.

“Ain’t that the truth.”?

“Could just as well be your old man”.

“Yeah?” she says as she brings her mouth down to his.

“He’s gone put a right fear in me, I can’t move legs, Mrs Johnson. Paralysed.”

“Is that so?”

“That it be”.

“Spects I knows a thing ta raise ya back ta life”.

“Ya got the touch of Christ?”

“Careful he might well take mi hands away”.

“You’d still have the tongue of an angel Mrs Johnson”.

Her shadow grows bigger over his.

“Is that it?”

“It’s cold Mrs Johnson. Cold…”

They both laugh.

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13

A little later. Bim is looking out of the window. His mother breathes. He watches a sparrow land in the long grass. He watches. His mother wakes up and looks at him. The doorbell rings. “That’ll be the Doc,” he says gently.

Bim opens the front door. Doctor Eggleton is standing there. “Hello Bim,” he says, ‘how are things?” “Yeah, OK,” Bim answers. The Doctor looks at Bim, “you look tired.”

“Just haven’t shaved, that’s all.”

“And your mother?”

“Oh, ya know.”

They go inside.

Doctor Eggleton takes Agnes’ pulse. He puts a stethoscope to her chest and listens. He takes her blood pressure. Bim watches. Agnes’s eyes are tired.

When the doctor has finished his examination Bim asks, “how she doing?

The doctor motions that they should talk outside. “We’re just going to talk outside mum,” Bim tells her. They go outside and the doctor closes the door.

Agnes is lying on her bed. Outside she can hear the muffled whispered voices of Bim and the Doctor talking.

After a while she closes her eyes and falls asleep.

The Doctor opens the door to Agnes’ room. “I’ll be off then Agnes.”

He shuts the door. “She’s asleep, Bim. And you should get some rest too.”

14

Not long after the Doctor leaves Bim is sat at the kitchen table. On the table is a red bowl with steaming hot water. Next to the bowl stands a round mirror. Bim is shaving.

He stops and looks at his reflection. He is crying.

15

Later, Bim prepares a meal. The kitchen has not been built for him. The process is arduous. He drags a chair around so that, when he has to, he can tip himself out of his wheelchair and use it to lean against when he needs to get things out of his reach.

A a pan is steaming.

16

Bim eats alone. He is looking through an old family photo album. He flicks through numerous photos of his mum and dad. There is one of him at a Christmas when he was a boy.

He remembers it. His dad hands him a present. Agnes is smiling. Bim tears off the wrapping. It’s a subuteo, miniature football set. “Not quite the real thing,” says his dad. Agnes says, “Come on Bill clear the table off and have a game.

Bill looks at Agnes he doesn’t really want to play.

Later. Bim and his Dad are playing. Bim scoots around the table in his wheel chair. He scores a goal and cheers like a pro. Bill slams his hand down on one his players breaking it. He looks at his son “Course, its quite a different thing to do it proper like.”

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9

Bim is awoken from his sleep by thudding and moaning against the wall. He looks at his clock, it is 1.00 am. He looks at the ceiling. He gets up.

The thudding continues.

Bim dims the lights up in Agnes’s room. The thumping is not as loud as in his room, but it is still there.

Agnes is asleep on her back with death rattle breath. The cotton wool is still in her ears.

Bim, in his dressing gown, wheels himself down his own path and then wheels himself down the path of his neighbour. He looks through the letterbox and can see a light up stairs. He rings the bell. The light goes off. He waits. He looks through the letterbox. He rings the doorbell. He waits.

He wheels himself back up his neighbour’s path and back down his own.

Bim appears out the back of his house out with a torch. He wheels himself along the edge of the garden. His neighbour’s wall is tall. All along it are small holes where bricks have been removed. Bim removes a brick from the wall and pointing his torch peers through it. The view is obscured by shrubs on the other side.

An insect flies out of the hole.

Bim flies with the insect across the neighbour’s garden bouncing on the breeze. He’s a commando peeping tom. He flies towards the window with the light. The curtain is drawn, pulled right across. Light frames the curtain edge. The air is fresh. Bim listens intently, but there isn’t a sound. He persuades the fly to take him a bit further around the house. The fly is not convinced. It senses something, like horses and dogs in films. Its joints freeze and then it jumps unexpectedly. Bim nearly falls off.

The back door opens and a shadow peers out. Bim drops the torch. The shadow suddenly stops. The backdoor shuts.

10
Bim is sitting in the darkness beside his sleeping mother who still has the cotton wool in her ears.

“Yeah, yeah that’s right…” he mumbles, “I heard the same…But it was heavy like ffff heavy….Eh? No…It’s mi legs, keeps me from going out. Yeah that’s right… keeps me…Yeah course, I’d like to, but ya know it just… it just…kind a keeps me.”

“I like ya hair…Yeah I do…it’s… it’s lovely.” He pauses. “Beautiful.”

11
Agnes is lying in her bed with cotton wool in her ears. Her breathing is shallow and slow, her eyes sucked back, the sockets puckered.

The door opens. Bim comes in on his wheel chair with a tray lying on his legs. He looks tired and unshaven. He crosses the room, places the tray on the bedside table and then opens the curtains. The sunlight is too strong for Agnes. Bim stops and smells the air. He pulls the bed covers back and looks. “Oh dear. Never mind Mum.”

12
A little later, Bim has finished cleaning Agnes and pulls the covers back. “All done,” he says. He looks over her breakfast, which is cold. “Not to worry, I can make it again.”

As Bim is cooking eggs and bacon, the radio is reading the news. It’s war.

Bim brings Agnes her fresh breakfast but she is too ill to eat. Bim looks over her. “Never mind mum. Not feeling so good eh? You just lie there, it’ll be alright. I’m ere. I’m ere.”

“Cor, the news is rough today. A right rough fracass going on. I don’t suppose its ever gonna end. No I don’t. Well don’t you worry, I won’t be going, not with the way things are with you an all. Spects they’ll just leave me ta get on with things wi’you. That’s what I reckons. Course if they asked I’d go cause they’d get sommut to look after you. And they’d look after you better than I does, it’d be proper and professional. You shits in the bed and before you’d know it, you’d be clean. Not the effort I have go to and gourmet food an all. I mean I does mi best, but we’ve all had better and I wouldn’t be hurt if ya said so.”

“Course Dad’d go. That’s right wouldn’t he? Had the temper for it. Not half. Woof, could throw a right wobbly if ya caught his goat and that would be what them blokes needs out there. A good temper to thrash em terrorists with. That’s exactly what ya needs at a time like now. My Dad….My Dad.”

Bim looks at his Mum. Her eyes are closed. Her breathing steady.

“That you are mum. That you are.”

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4

Bim is naked in the bath. He has soap in his hair. He ducks under the water.

A young 12 yr old Bim surfaces. His Dad is taking a leak. When he’s finished he turns and looks at Bim. He looks at his legs. They are weak and slightly withered.

5
Bim in his wheelchair is sitting beside his mother who is in bed. The noise of traffic hangs about the air like an odour. Bim is reading a magazine.

“Cor look at this,” he says. “They can take ya face off and put on a new one, only it ain’t new cause it belongs to some other fella or a woman of course; although that might be a bit of a shock, ya know, if ya was a bloke and ya got a woman’s face. Cor yeah, it’d be a right blow. Well ya wouldn’t need ta shave no more which might be a bit of a send, ya know, to not shave, cause it don’t half take up the free time in the morning. But, then, I suppose, it is a bit of time to yaself, ya know, a bit of time to take a good look at yaself and ya can kind a look at yaself and kind a size yaself up. That’s the good thing about shaving, except, of course if they was to put a new face on ya, it wouldn’t be you. So it wouldn’t just be the people that ya’ve known all ya life that would be confused, it would be yaself; only it wouldn’t be, would it? Ya know? It wouldn’t be yaself.”

“What do you think mum? Would it be me? Would I still be your little boy? Everything else about me would be the same, but summut, summut would be dead. Not different. Dead. Ya know?”

“But would it be that ya body would take over ya new face, the way ya move and everything. Would the way I am change the new face for me or would the new face give you a new bit of life? You could get the face of a eighteen year old, so summut would have to change, that’d be daft, a pretty face with your bones.”

“Christ, what would dad say? Eh? You know don’t ya? Ya can’t forget him in a hurry. Ya just ain’t got words ta tell it, that’s all. Just cause you ain’t got em on ya tongue, don’t mean you can’t take em away. That’s right innit? Cause they’re still buzzing around up there, I knows they are, ain’t it Mum. Eh. Still buzzing all them words an pictures.”

“Is he with ya, like, now, is he? Yeah, I bet he is. I’d like that, yeah, to have him here with me now. You’re lucky, I reckon, to have im with ya like. He’s never quite been there for me, ya know. Never quite.”

The doorbell rings. Bim squeezes Agnes’ hand. “Won’t be a tick.”

6
Bim comes out of Agnes’ room. He looks up the staircase. He then wheels over to the door and opens it. The Sainsbury deliveryman is standing at the door with a crate of goods. Bim leads the deliveryman into the kitchen.

“Just leave it on the table, ta.”

“There ya go.”

“Cheers.”

Very loud music is suddenly heard through the walls, a relentless, muffled pounding, Country and Western beat. Bim tightens up with anger. The deliveryman looks at him, “it’s loud.”

“Yeah,” growls Bim, “he buries people in his back yard.”

The deliveryman looks at him.

“Yeah,” he continues, “he’s got high walls so no-one can see in.”

The deliveryman smiles.

7
Bim rings the bell of the front door of his next-door neighbour. The music can be heard in side.

He begins to ring and ring.

He holds the bell down.

Bim’s mouth screams through the letterbox. “Oi ya fucking cunt, turn the fucking music down! Oi turn the fucking music down!”

Bim hits the door.

And hits the door.

And hits the door.

Someone walks by and stops. “You alright, dear? Forgot your key?”

Bim just looks at her.

8
In Agnes’ room the muffled music is pounding. The telly is on. “I know, mum, I know,” says Bim. “Deaf to the fucking world he is. Inconsiderate sod.”

He thinks of something.

“Wait there.”

He wheels out.

Agnes is left with the music and the telly. Her eyes are red.

Bim comes back in. “I’ve got just the thing,” he says triumphantly.

He wheels round and climbs up onto the bed. He reaches into his pocket and takes out some cotton wool. He puts a large piece of cotton wool into each of Agnes’ ears.

They stick out in clumps.

She looks at him.

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Posted by Xavier Leret at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi, I wanted to get another chapter of "FLID" done, but I'm filming this week so I reckon there is little chance that I'm going to get time to write. So I'm going to serialise this short story instead. Its a moving little tale of a son caring for his dying mother.

1

A pigeon flies over Bristol. It looks down at the quiet streets. It glides on the wind. It swoops down to a rooftop, circles and comes to land in its nest. There is one chick. It flicks it some food.

An egg lands in a frying pan. A slice of bacon. A sausage is nearly done. The kettle boils. Water is poured into a cup which sits on a tray next to a full fried English breakfast.

2
Agnes is old and lying in her bed. Her breathing is deep, her eyes sucked back, the sockets pruned. The door opens. Agnes’ eyes weekly stretch forward to look. Her body can’t move.

Bim comes in on his wheel chair with a tray lying on his legs. He crosses the room, places the tray on the bedside table and then opens the curtains. The sunlight is too strong for Agnes.

Bim pulls himself up onto Agnes’ bed and begins to feed Agnes from the breakfast he has brought in for her. “You alright there mum?” He asks.

She has trouble eating and some food falls on her chest. He cleans it up.

“I wasn’t half stiff this morning,” he explains, “yeah, wasn’t half. Mi back damn near crippled. Can you imagine, and then what would I be? And what would you do with me laid up like you eh? Probably not half a good deal eh?”

Some more food falls onto her chest. “Never mind, never mind,” he says.

He wipes her chest and resumes feeding her. “There you go,” he says, “ we’re not far off eating it all are we, just a little bit more an before you know it we’re all done, that’s right, just a little bit more and we’re all done.’

3
A little later, Agnes is watching an early morning chat show on the television. The door opens. Bim wheels in with a bowl of warm, steaming water and a towel on his legs. He crosses the room and puts the bowl on the bedside table. He pulls himself up onto Agnes’ bed. He shudders. “Christ, some-one just walked on mi grave, ain’t that right eh? It ain’t cold in here, heating’s on. You’re not cold are ya mum? No, I knows you ain’t. Telly good?”

He undoes the button on her nightie and peels it off her shoulders. He lifts her arms up and takes off her vest. He pulls back the covers of her bed and unpicks the rest of the buttons. He removes the nightie from her naked body. He takes a sponge and washes her face, her hands, her arms, her armpits, her withered breasts, her deflated stomach, between her legs, her bottom, her legs, her feet, and then her back. He takes the towel and dries her.

He opens the door to the bedside table and pulls out a clean vest and nightie. He slips the vest over her and pulls her arms through. He puts the nightie over her shoulders and then squidges it under her bottom. He then buttons it up.

Bim looks at his mother. “Luv ya mum.”

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Posted by Xavier Leret at 6:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I thought that I would let Google run some of their ads on this site. I did so believing that the web is a free environment - not Christian Democrat, Rebublican, Sharia, Neo Fascist or any other ist or ism, - and knowing that google are planning on putting online every book that has been published I was a little surprised to find that certain words, and no doubt thoughts, are off limits. This is the email Google sent me.

Hello Xavier,

Thank you for your email.

Our goal is to be able to extend our service to as many web publishers as
we can. Unfortunately, after reviewing www.xavierleret.com, we are unable
to accept it into our AdSense programme at this time for reasons related
to:

- Inappropriate language

---------------------

Further detail:

Inappropriate language: We've found that your website contains content
that isn't in compliance with our program policies. We don't allow
websites with excessive profanity or potentially offensive content to
participate in Google AdSense. Please review our policies
(https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US) for a complete list of
site content not allowed on web pages.

---------------------

For a complete list of AdSense criteria, please visit:
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US

However, if you are able to resolve this issue, please reply to this email
for reconsideration when you have made the changes.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

Colm
The Google AdSense Team

And this is what I sent back.

Ah fuck shit piss

Are the people who approve these policies the same as those who approve the turning in of dissidents.

Thank them for waving at me from the moral high ground.

Regards and understandingly,

Xavier Leret
Ps there’s a new story at www.xavierleret.com - the torment of Joe Cobain - enjoy

(Forgive me, I couldn't resist putting in an ad for my site).

Posted by Xavier Leret at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When Joe Cobain materialised he was welcomed into the world with a clout around the chops. It was a fine welcome as it reminded him of a lesson he had learnt many years before as a child, which went along the lines that life is perilously difficult and at times downright cruel. All he could be sure of was that everything was black and that he was blindfolded.

He wasn’t sure where it was that he had materialised from because it had all happened so fast, a time traveller’s lightening flash and in that flash he had been deprived of any recollection. What was clear to him was that he had a few split seconds to evaluate the situation and devise some answers both for himself and his assailants.

It became quickly apparent that his situation was serious. At first he thought that he had materialised out of a coma into the split second of the accident which had knocked him for six in the first place, certainly the thud in the mouth felt as if it could be have been administered by a moving car. However, he dismissed this hypothesis upon receiving a second clout which in past generations would have been affectionally described as a ‘box round the ear’. This clout, which was no less painful, lacked the strength of the first.

“What the do you know,” was the first question that was thrown at him? Joe was quite well read, and the only thing of which he was certain was that it was all uncertain. Education had taught him that everything was ideologically or scientifically up for grabs, with the exception of God who, though no-one had actually spoken to him, except in dreams, or at best a very long time ago - was on the periphery of it all fuelling our very active imaginations with just about everything that can be thought of, because he invented us as part of some test; this includes sex, swearing, stealing (everything from chocolate to music), ripping people off, making fools of others, adultery, masturbation, fornication, looking at pornography (the worse crimes are to do with sex - and women because they tempt men) , imagining the very worst of our neighbours, hating people because their god is different, hating them because they have more cash and their god is different, hating them because their skin is of a different colour, they have more cash and they have a different god (this is because there is a feud in heaven – Jesus, God, Allah, and all the rest, have it in for each other and thus we you) - oh Christ, thought Jo Cobain, who didn’t actually believe in God, but after a number of whacks found that he was searching for any reason or meaning, oh Christ (he said again) I am guilty of everything!

His confused silence was followed by a sentence that meant something without meaning anything, giving all away and nothing, it was covertly overt, sexually explicit, violent, repetitive, making indisputable that his tormentors possessed a godlike omniscience, that their realm was the knowledge of everything.

“The second question which was flung at him was “when”? Having just materialised and not fully aware of who, what, where or why, ‘when’ was tough one to fathom. He decided to play a little game of ‘if you answer my questions then I shall try my utmost to make sense of yours’. ‘If say, you tell me that I am in a prison, I might ask where (?) and so on.’ If it wasn’t for the punches and the frequent kicks you could be forgiven for believing that Joe Cobain had materialised into a popular Christmas game.

After an indeterminate period of beatings Joe Cobain’s inquisitors had become terribly agitated. They started calling on God (who sometimes they called ‘freedom’ and at others the ‘one true one’ or ‘the one and only’ or simply, ‘him that hath no name’), evoking old prayers, curses and rituals (both political and spiritual), in the hope that Joe might tell them something. With every mention of God’s name poor Joe Cobain was clobbered. It was as if they were hammering their magical disdain into him.

The first tragedy for Joe Cobain was that he was an atheist. It is fruitless hammering a nail of faith into someone who doesn’t believe, as all it does is cause pain and confusion. It also means that they will say anything for you, to stop you causing the pain. ‘No, I have no idea who God is’ could quite quickly become ‘I’ve got his address here somewhere would you like me to give him a call’ and before you know it, ‘yes I did plant that fucking bomb!’

The second tragedy for Joe Cobain was that he believed that under the right circumstances torture was necessary. What are the lives of millions compared to the one? He saw no contradiction between this and the ‘every life is holy’ argument. Strangely he understood that each view underlined the other, somehow making sense of it all. He had written television dramas highlighting these dilemmas and made heroes of those who were prepared to electrocute, humiliate and cause, quite simply, the most unbelievable pain to others in the name of various ideologies (including trade), all of which he felt only a moderate sympathy for. Life is not without its contradictions.

Joe Cobain became aware of a terrible smell. It was the smell of faeces and like a good lunch it was accompanied with laughter. His face was very sore. He had a side splitting headache. He still had no idea of where or who or what or why, though deep down he suspected that they were right to beat him. If their positions had been reversed he would, no doubt, have done the same. It was just unfortunate that he knew nothing.

Back To Main Site

Posted by Xavier Leret at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kurt Vonnegut wrote "I will say that I still can't get over how women are shaped, and that I will go to my grave wanting to pet their butts and boobs. I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve.” He wrote this in Timequake when he was seventy four.

My father needed a check in the hospital so I took him. He was having his prostate checked. I drove him and after I had made sure that he was settled I left him. He seemed fine. As fine as he could be knowing what it was that they were going to do to him, a Victorian clap style scrape of the penis. He didn’t want me to be around for that.

I wandered back through the ward and then out past the private rooms. I was drawn to this room because I heard a voice. Hospitals are full of them, but this voice was quite desperate. When I looked in through the door I saw this old man all alone lying on his back. He was very frail and could not move. He was close to death I would say, which is probably why I could hear him, because he spoke without talking.

He knew that his life force was leaving him rapidly, so he was calling for an anchor to this life. But of course, as you will understand, no-one would help him even if they could hear him. I have thought about this a lot. I have thought about how I just stood there, there was nothing I could do anyway, as they don't cater for what he needed to watch in a hospital. They do in hotels, of course, and since then I have wondered whether a hospital needs to be more like a hotel, especially the private ones, or the ones in America where you have to pay a fortune for health care. It is all about choice after all. Health care for this man would have included this.

He spoke slowly, resolutely.

"Turn the porn on… Turn the fucking porn on, for Christ’s sake, I’m dying, I’m dying. I can’t move my arms, this wheezy breath is dragging me down. I can’t do for myself… I can’t fucking move. Please, please make an old man happy, turn the porn on."

"Nurse, turn the fucking porn on, please. I won’t wank. Honest. Christ look at me, I can’t move. I just want to remember what it was like. I want to remember that feeling of rubbing close to a body. Sliding over that silk. I want to remember her breathing and steaming my eyes up. I want to remember."

"Stop this, stop it. There ain’t nothing wrong with longing. I want to let go of this world fucking. When I can’t breath no more I want to be breathless, go out on a bang. But you can’t hear me. Just switch me out with soft channels and cop shows. Don’t press the discovery pages I don’t want to think my self to oblivion, what point is the knowledge. I want to feel. I want to feel wet pussy. I want to feel pointed tits. I want to feel her little death in my arms, her heart miss a beat. I want to remember coming apart and sticking back in an instant. I want to remember pumping until it hurts. I want hair in my teeth and the back of my throat."

"Please just five minutes, make an old man happy, the banter, that old banter running around until the lips meet, that first accident, that first smile with teeth touching, that first smile with eyes melting together, and then a wander around the edge of her tongue."

"Don’t let me die now, not just yet, five minutes more - no ten, make it a whole hour, just one more hour, just time enough to remember what flesh is like. Just a bit more time to hold on, a bit more time to hold her, to roll her, to fold her flesh, to bite it, lick it, suck it, just a bit more time before I let it go."

"I can feel my spirits lift, oh, yes there is life in this old man yet. Oh yes, I can feel my heart picking up, I can feel my breath getting deeper, my chest rise, I love life, I love everyday, I love walking, I love talking, I love eating, I love reading, I love looking at people, I love jostling with crowds, I love hard rain, I love being angry, I love shouting, I love screaming, I love running, I love throwing money away, I love getting on the wrong bus, I love it when it’s freezing cold, I love being a child, I love growing up, I love knowing more than I did then, I love knowing that you don’t know what I am thinking, I love the moments when you do, I love staying out late, I love wine, I love drinking, I love wishing that I didn’t, I love working, I love hating bits of my life, I love hating bad food and terrible films, I love not wanting to let it all go."

"And now I’m in and we’re down to it. Wow she’s wet, I had a great time drinking her. And now we’re pro’s we’ve been here so many times and it’s never without colour, even though the red rouge of her cheeks is slowly growing dull and the pitch black of her hair has long since passed grey to white. This is one land that I don’t mind walking again and again and again."

"Please nurse, just turn the porn on. I want to enjoy this last few breaths, because I can’t let my body go. It’s doesn’t work like that. Each one of your tubes is holding me to the earth like a ship to the land, keeping me here with nothing to do, except remember. So turn the porn on. Please, turn the porn on. I want to remember. I want to remember it all. Before it stops. Before it stops."

And then he was done, his words gave way to deep heavy breaths and I went on my way.

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Just a quicky to let you know that I am running a physical theatre masterclass next weekend Sat 14th Jan at The Lowry, Salford Quays. I will be looking at text and physical theatre, how to work as a group (ensemble), devising work, storytelling and scene setting (image building). More details here http://www.thelowry.com/WhatsOn/EventDetail.aspx?EventId=2236

Week after that I'm shooting another of the "Jimmy" short films.

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This is a short movie that I shot one day over the summer, in Amsterdam. We shot it without any real planning other than buying some plane tickets for Mat and Ralf who star - I was meant to be on holiday but was actually trying to get another script finished ready for rehearsals a week later (I have a very understanding family).

This is the first of the FLID (cause this is what happens when you fuck with Jimmy) prep videos. I'm shooting another later this Jan. We had fun making it and I've really enjoyed the editing process. The basic premise is that Jimmy wakes up to find a hammer going for his head.

Where I think this one fails in representing the full feature is in its lack of "Kung Fu" and also it lacks dialogue and banter - but we only had a day.

I would like to say a special thankyou to everyone involved, Mat Fraser(Jimmy), Ralf Higgins(The Hammer Killer), Phil Morle (On Camera), Hetty Churchill (pulling purse strings), Leon Alexander (for sorting outs the rights on the tracks used), Jules Bushell who has done some wonders on the sound FX and Mick and Humera for kindly letting us film on their boat. If you like the lower quality one in the window why not download the better qulaity one. You might need to get a quicktime plug in if you don't already have one.

Don't forget to leave a comment and if anyone is interested in investing in a feature make sure you say hello.

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A friend of mine went through this, just as I was writing a character sketch for something else. This is what came out. It needs no introduction, it speaks for itself.

It was the Royal Free Hospital. Down in the bowels, past the AIDS test room. My wife and I walked past a couple awaiting results. They were chatting quite pleasantly. I don't suppose there is anything else to do there. It was a small cut out square in the corridor. There were no windows just a lot of yellow ill air.

Before I go on, we were walking towards the abortion room. It's tucked away in a place without light. I kid you not.

So how do I justify or really do I need to? My wife was nearly killed by the birth of our daughter. We ain't kids anymore, my wife’s over forty so the prospect of a disabled child is higher. It wasn't planned. But mostly my wife was nearly killed.

It was past the AIDS smell of the hospital, under the spiders lid, the flip that takes you down as prey.

In a small room we sat cramped with other couples. There are magazines in the corridor, a library of affairs underneath posters advertising the morning after pill. So far it was easy. Natural. It was just an appointment.

In ancient days unwanted children were put inside pots and placed on hillsides. In China they leave them to die outside the train station, or at least they did. Now they have abortion gangs. They kidnap mothers and force them to give birth to still borns. There is no reason to attach anymore.

I'm not sure if human life is sacred. How can I be? There is flagrant abuse of it. Orders can be given which wipe out small handfuls in an instant, whilst a family elsewhere sues for a woman, who cannot breath on her own, hasn't spoken or communicated in years. A president can join in this fist fight as he opens his bowels on another country. No, life is not sacred. It is rather some thing that we vitally cling on to, and because it is our only one we attribute it a sense of importance that it doesn't deserve. By me stating that I believe that life is sacred, including yours, then perhaps you might not try and put an end to mine. We are not sacred. There is nothing sacred.

I was sitting there next to my wife. We were both quiet. I had taken the day off work. A day away from the list of names I type into the vaults of the dead. And there I was ready to flush a new life away. It is not yet human. I am unable to qualify what I mean by this term. What is human? Is it a thing with legs and hands, a head and a heart. Does it mean we are metaphysically significant. Are we an idea or a being?

My wife was examined. It was all fine. The foetus about six weeks old, except it was not a foetus, it was not a baby but a handful of cells. The doctor was humourless and tried to palm us off with contraception. We were made to feel sufficiently stupid. Sufficiently. And then sent off for a scan, to determine the age of this collection of dividing cells, this Petri dish of life.

The day was punctuated by waiting. Each second meant that the cells had been added to. Each long wait was an extra moment of its existence, more potential memories of future things popping into being. However, as yet, it was not cognitive. Any form of personality would be an invention. Any qualities that we would attribute to it would be a fabrication. It would be our fantasy as parents, fantasies we had purposely nipped in the bud.

Again what is a human being? Is it defined by physicality, or action. Often, as a species, we act inhumanely, inhumanly, but what does this mean? How can I be a human and act inhumanly? I can only be human.

When did I become human?

In the waiting room for the scan we were taken care of by an 82 year old man who was in great shape and good humour. When someone commented that he was in great nick, he replied that he keeps the wife happy. We all laughed at this old man. Perhaps he was an accident too.

They made us watch the scan. It was like watching a radar of a hurricane storm and there in the middle a heart beat, like a solitary ship at sea fighting the storm that would eventually sink it.

Well, it has been done. On Monday. It was done and we went home and we took our daughter into our arms and hugged her. Hugged her hard, as if to press the dead one into her, like a piece of clay that had fallen off her precious, moulded body.

Posted by Xavier Leret at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a nice macabre little tale. This one evolved over a period of time and was actually a part of something else. I think I prefer it like this. Here's a little sample and if you like download the rest.

"The morgue is porcelain. Butcher wheels in a body length hospital trolley, it has a silver handle on top and could have come from a velvet restaurant. Everyone is ready to work, him, Madge, Rogers, Hughes and Stumpy. They stand holding their tools like knives and forks. Butcher lifts the lid off the trolley – Voila!

They freeze.

During the general strike no one was up for working. It was a time of necessary social change. They were all striking, everyone from the cooks to the nurses to the morticians to the gravediggers. Everyone wanted to be counted. It was stand still. So if a body packs up the ghost it was job done in the hospital which meant that when the corpse decanted it’s final fluids it was someone else’s deal to clean up the mess. Maybe they might get a hose down but with everyone that unfriendly it was just turf them out and hand them on. And this one was a soccer pitch in the rain. Sure thing."

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“It could be worse” says Madge without looking up, “this death thing.”

The morgue is cracked porcelain. Rogers pokes through the dead man’s file. His fingers whip the pages.

“Who was he?” Hughes asks.

“He ate well, that’s all you need to know.”

“Really well,” adds Madge looking at his large belly.

“How much can a man hold?” Butcher is all heart.

The white walls feel like he’s farted all over them, the dead bloke I mean. That’s the way it is with death, the body relaxes that’s all.

The cracks in the tiles creak. A breeze blows a cloud across Butcher’s eyes. Madge reassures them, “He’s clean, alright.”

The Morgue is not air fresh porcelain. Stumpy comes back into the room, he’s got the tubes that Madge wanted. “These look like they’re in need of a clean,” he says.

“Give em here.” Madge hasn’t much time.

“You should clean em before ya stick em in.”

She looks at him. “He’s dead.”

“It mounts up. The germs... The germs mount up.”

“Will someone give me a hand?” Madge looked around.

“He’s all yours.” Butcher is generous to a fault.

“I’m not touching him,” adds Stumpy. “We’re on strike.”

There is nothing to be done. They are on strike. The smell is getting unbearable.

Madge looks at them, “He goes outside.”

Butcher hands the look back “They’re all suppose to go outside.”

“I mean on the street."

Stumpy lets out a laugh, “What did she say?”

“He goes out on the street,” Hughes says in answer for Madge.

Everyone just stopps for a second. They breathe heavily, their foreheads get creased up.

“And what’s he going to do there?” asks Butcher.

“Hang about. Rot,” Madge is on form.

“He can’t do that,” complains Hughes.

Madge is cool and calm “Like you said it’s a strike. It’s the best way I knows of telling the world what we’re about. And then, maybe then, they’ll listen."

She sticks a tube in the corpses stomach. “No-one wants to bury him. There’s no one to burn him. There’s no room in the fridges and the vats are chocker. What else do we do with him?’

*****

A few hours later, Madge, Stumpy, Hughes and Butcher are looking at the corpse. They’ve done him right to the nines, a special job seeing as none of them was getting paid. It was all for good publicity; they’d brought out the best of him. He looked better than photographs of fast food like Burger King or something.

But now they’d done it they didn’t quite know whether to go through with it or not. I mean bodies might get left out on streets during wars and that, but no one had heard of anything quite like this before.
Well, I suppose they did it to highway men and the like, left them hanging to rot in cages, but this was different as they had been and done it all proper and cleaned him up. And that was down to Madge being the woman in the team. But to now go and leave him out on the street, just to make a point – well it was unusual and they all knew it.

“I dunno,” said Hughes. “Don’t seem right. We can’t just put him outside.”

“You can’t go and treat a person like that. There’s the sanctity of life and all that.”

“He’s dead,” pointed out Madge.

“But what would he have wanted, eh?” asked Butcher, “Answer me that.”

“That man died for a reason,” Madge was feeling strong about this. “And whatever that might be, he ended up here. And that wasn’t no accident.”

They all nodded, because Madge had put a fine finger on it. “And that’s it, you see. He could have gone elsewhere, and then we would never have come up with the idea in the first place. Don’t shake your head Butcher, he was a part of all this. He was here when I suggested it, he was here when we cleaned him up, and he’s here now.”

“But he’s dead, Madge,” said Butcher.

“Sometimes we get carried along by everything around us. Sometimes we don’t get to exactly say what we want, but our presence is enough. Just by being there, we’re there and that’s all there is to it.”

This wasn’t holding water with Hughes, “but he was a breathing man, who walked and talked, shared time with friends and probably has a load of people who love him. There are some things we don’t do.”

“So what do we do?” It was obvious to Madge now, “just put him out back with the others. Just squeeze him in the freezer. They’re all looking a bit like squashed buns in the freezer in there. We’re piling them one on top of the other. When this is all over they’ll all be stuck to each other. If we try pulling them apart they’ll peel each other’s faces off, we’ll be breaking bones to straighten them all out. This strike has got to stop.”

Oh, right, I see,” said Hughes.

“I don’t want to be a part of this,” said Butcher.

“I think she’s right,” said Stumpy.

“Things have gone far enough, Butcher,” continues Madge, “you don’t have to be with us, but I reckon I’ve got a majority in this room and that’s what counts.”

They all nodded. There was nothing Butcher could do but his complaints were duly noted.

*****

That afternoon a body of a fat man was sitting on a park bench, with his eyes closed. It was a warm day and there was a gentle breeze blowing through his hair. A crowd surrounded him. He was very neatly dressed in a black suit and wearing a beautiful paisley tie with a perfect knot. Madge did that, as they all felt that women are better at that sort of thing. It could have been that he had simply closed his eyes to savour the day and that he was holding his breath to hold joy in, because, although death had bruised his eyes purple blue, he was evidently glad to be counted.

Posted by Xavier Leret at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just before Christmas I read this article about a European robot that had been sent to Mars but had failed to send any messages back. Perhaps it had been destroyed, they claimed to have spotted its wreckage from space, or maybe it was fed up of its human masters, who knows. Then I read about another satelite which has made it to the farthest reaches of our solar system with only half its communication system working. It struck me that it might be a good idea to send a human being out there. This got me thinking about Star Trek and the like which rely heavily on the ability to travel at light speed. Light speed will of course enable us to travel very fast and get far away very quickly. But of course the universe is a very large place and to fully explore it someone has to be prepared to just go and never come back. This reminded me of the great Irish diaspora, mothers waving farewell to their children knowing they will never see them again. And then I came across this Newsletter Home for Cal Parents and I was struck by this quote

"Although he achieved his goal of becoming an astronaut, the path he took was one he couldn’t have imagined, Walheim told the audience at Zellerbach Playhouse. “As you graduate, you are starting your own great adventure. My story shows that persistence can be more important than the path you take.”

Well with a bit of Sigur Ros' Takk and a light beer I wrote The Voyage. If you like it please feel free to download the pdf. Oh and please, leave a comment.

On Jack Burgess’s last day on earth he had a light breakfast. It was as much as he could do to eat, as he was suffering from horrific nerves. He poured himself a coffee knowing that this would be his last cup of fresh coffee ever. It fell into his cup thick and black into which he poured fresh milk as was his custom. He took a sip and celebrated the fact that it was just right, as if he was in a fairytale. He then tasted from a glass of fresh chilled orange juice, he particularly favoured the juicy bits for they reminded him how once the orange had been whole and how it was an object which had not been manufactured. Capturing a glimpse of himself in the shiny surface of his butter knife, he marvelled at evolution. He marvelled as he was going because ultimately a machine is unreliable.

Jack looked out of his window and saw an orchard which gave way to fields. The sun was shining, which seemed fitting as this was his last day. He opened the window and let the fresh air hit his lungs like electricity. His eyes were enlightened by the sharpness of the suns rays. He marvelled as the breeze swayed the branches of the trees ahead into a fond farewell. He was grateful for this, as this was what he had hoped for, because he was shooting off into the great unknown, knowing that he would never return.

When he had finished this memorable breakfast his entire family were waiting for him. It is probably fair to say that Jack Burgess found this part of his farewell the most difficult. He loved his wife and his children more than anything. It is unusual to think that he had been selected for this mission as many would think that it would be better to send someone without a family. Jack had wanted the job, don’t get me wrong, every venture into space is fought for, it is a golden opportunity, it stands one out from the crowd, you become a part of a very small and select club. Even so, it could be regarded as unfair to send a man who is in the family way. The truth is that they simply wanted some one who was balanced for the job. Jack Burgess had all the essential qualities, but most importantly he had something to live for.

His mother, who was broken on the inside, put a brave face on it all. She did it for him, but when she held him she couldn’t let him go. She held him hard, with her whole body. She wasn’t in the prime of her life, but for those moments, she became her young self. Her only son had this power to rejuvenate her, every success of his gave meaning to her life. As he held her Jack Burgess felt as if their two hearts extended their reach through the bars of their rib cages. The effort brought tears to both their eyes. What he wouldn’t know was that after leaving him she would collapse. Unable to move she would spend the rest of her days in immense sorrow. At night she would ask to be wheeled out so that she could look out into the face of eternity to try and catch sight of his minute, silver form shooting through space at some unbelievable speed. He would never know this because when ever she would speak to him, over the radio on special days like Christmas, she would pretend to be strong for him.

His father looked at his son. Jack was taller than he had been. The resemblance, however, was uncanny. He was like a larger perfect cast of himself, as if with each generation of his family they had grown in stature and standing, that every living and breathing moment of each of their lives had apexed to this point. Unfortunately, he too felt as though he was being ripped on the inside and he desperately wanted to replace his son with himself. This was no life, he thought, for a young man in his prime. He looked into the eyes of his son and sensed the fear and trepidation in them. It was a fear that soldiers have when they go into some desperate situation not knowing whether this was their last day. Jack, of course, knew that this was.

Jack’s two children were very excited because their father was going to shoot up into space in a rocket. He was going to go to places that our species have only dreamed about visiting. He was going to look out of his window and watch the earth grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared. They did not know that as this happened so too would disappear their memory of him. He was about to, quite literary, become a legend, a text book hero. In future years someone would interview them and ask what he was like. The process of forgetting would be in its advance stages at this point but they would try their best, but in truth they would rely on the stories of him that their mother had told them. When they were middle aged they were to re-read what they had said when they were teenagers in the hope that their words would spark their memories more than the faded photographs.

Some would say that it was hardest on his wife because she had invested everything in her love for the brave Jack Burgess. They were teenage sweethearts. She had supported him enabling him to succeed at everything he undertook. She was there when he felt unable to rise to the challenge, it was her gentle words that had raised him up. When he had wanted to give up, it was she that drove him on. She knew that if he had failed to rise to this great pinnacle of life he would have judged his existence a failure, she would not have been able to bear that. In short, she had been strong for him, and he for her. Their greatest quality was their ability to dream together. Together their dreams would always become reality.

It is true that they argued. Once or twice they fought so hard neither of them believed that the wounds would heal, but heal they did because to part would have killed them both. And here they were preparing for a separation on which had been heaped so many people’s dreams. She was unable to fully comprehend the reality of the increasing distance that would stretch between them, it was mind boggling.

After his final and sad farewells, he kissed his children, wanting so badly to just hold them forever. They were too busy playing to be clutched for too long. His entire family watched him through a mist of tears as he made his way via bus to the launch pad. Ordinarily, an astronaut would spend the last night before a voyage at the station, but because this was his final night on earth, Jack Burgess had been given a special dispensation. On arrival Jack Burgess check in his belongings, a handful of photos, some toys from the children and so on. He said hello and goodbye to the staff who then formed a line to cheer him on and wave him bon voyage. He was fitted into his space suit, before being lead down a gang plank to be strapped into the small container which was to be his home for the remainder of his days. This process, it must be added, was uncomfortable and because of the various checks it took some seven hours. He was exhausted, if not a little excited, when finally the count down began.

Thankfully the launch was uneventful. After the buffeting of the take off Jack proceeded to make sure that his vessel was all ship shape before relaxing before the view of his former home from space.

On earth his face appeared in the papers for a few days. In time he would appear frequently to mark like chapters the distances he would achieve. He was, of course, in regular contact with the technicians on earth, his family on feast days and other special occasions such as giving his daughter away on her wedding day. Until one day, after many years had passed, his radio would fail. He had been sent on this mission because a human is more capable of thinking on their feet and thus are better able to remedy such situations. On the morning of the 24th July it would come to someone’s attention that his ship had simply vanished. There was a brief panic until it was established that there was nothing to be done. Jack Burgess had well and truly vanished into the great unknown.

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Posted by Xavier Leret at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I am of Hispanic, Cuban, French and also, apparently, Jewish and Arabic stock, although you would never tell as looks-wise I have inherited everything from my mother's Irish, North-of-England roots. My family on my father's side were all taken out on the first day of the Spanish Civil War and shot. My grand-father survived the wall three times only to die of a smoking related illness in 1977.

I have just finished writing my first novel, HEAVEN SENT.

Before the novel I wrote, directed and edited two feature films. The first, MINE, is about two journalists and their Serbian Militia guides stuck in a Yugoslav minefield. Dark and brooding, MINE was selected as a breakthrough movie for LUFF 2007.

My second film is UNARMED BUT DANGEROUS), an ultra violent and controversial flick about a short armed Kung Fu master battling brutal East End Gangsters in an attempt to get his daughter back. The stars the Thalidomide actor Mat Fraser, Frank Harper (LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, THIS IS ENGLAND) and Faye Tozer (of Steps fame). It was produced by Terry Stone (RISE OF THE FOOT SOLDIERS and ROLLING WITH THE NINES). You can find it on DVD in all the usual outlets

Further back in the annuls of time, I was the Artistic Director (and founder) of the award winning KAOS Theatre. Writing credits include an adaptation of Bulgakov's THE MASTER & MARGARITA (nominated for the best production on the Dublin Fringe and an Edinburgh Fringe First), THE FANTASTICAL ADVENTURES OF LEONARDO DA VINCI (a commission for the International Festival of Perth, Western Australia), RENAISSANCE (a Millennium Award Winner), THIRST, ALICE, CALIGULA and SWING.

Directing credits for KAOS include all the above together with THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (Winner of The Stage Award, Best Ensemble, Time Out Critics Choice) VOLPONE (Nominated for The Stage Award, Best Ensemble), TITUS ANDRONICUS and RICHARD III (nominated for a Manchester Evening News Award).

I live in a quiet place with my wife and three children.

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