1





My hand was shaking while I stirred my coffee with a fountain pen.    I had not slept in close to three days.
Mourning the death of a slumber,I wore two thick black ribbons of funeral-skin under my eyes and, with hair thinning at the sides,  a tatty old gaberdine suite and, my now unslept, unshaven, pale-sad face: looked even more pathetic than usual. My name is Edward Laine.

Sitting in a corner-booth, alone in a café. Crowded and buzzing with all the usual angelic, well slept faces that usually I didn't mind but, now just made me feel utterly depressed and almost morose with jealousy.

I had left my room upstairs for a break from writing and staring at the the nicotine stained walls and the blank page in my typewriter, with a hope that a change of scenery might ease-up the rusted cogs of creativity which were now running dry and creaked and squealed in my weary temples.

As I sat and stared at the blue lines of my notebook, I began to write my thoughts and description of the woman sitting across the room from me. Writing for the sake of writing. I wrote:

'' She sits and stirs,
much like I and staring
at the reflection of her
eyes in her glasses.
All honey-drip hair & alabaster,
red shoes & sun dress.
Thinking great secret
thoughts of which I can
only assume are much greater
than mine.
For, people of the nameless masses
all have real hopes, dreams, loves,
relationships & genuine worries,
while I only care about myself
and this wretched scripture
I have wasted the last four years of my life writing''

I paused, chewed the lid of my pen and looked up from the page with a sigh and continued to observe my nameless beauty.
She, with the afternoon sun on her face, shining down frown the great orb and through the dusty window pane, let her glasses slide down the bridge of her nose and looked across the room at me and smiled. I attempted to smile back but came off looking false and uncaring. Which usually would be the case but, this time I really did mean to really mean it.
I rubbed my yellow finger tips in to my puffy eyes, slid my hands though my hair and held my head in my hands.  

When I lifted my head up I pulled my hair up at a rakish angle giving the classic Einstein look to my already sorry demeanour. And,when the room had un-blurred and come back in to vision, to my surprise(which showed quite noticeably in my face and even made  me jump back in my seat a little) the woman was  standing in front of my table.

                  


                          2





I was perched on a step, drunk, dizzy & trying futilely to light a cigarette. It was maybe 2am, outside some bar in December.
A girl in heels, tight jeans & stripes sat down next to me.  I barely noticed her presence until she had taken the cigarette out of my mouth & the matches from my quivering, now useless hands. She placed the cigarette at a rakish angle in her teeth, struck a match. Now placing the lighted cigarette in my mouth & blowing a  thin stream of blue smoke in to my face, she brushed her long brown hair behind her right ear & said ''want to get out of here?''

                            …


Kissing & caressing in the taxi, I had no idea where we were going, & did not care. When in the cloud of love or lust & intoxication, nothing else seemed to matter. If the driver decided to drive the black cab off of a cliff with the metre running, neither of us would have cared a ****. Breathlessly heaving, the windows were steaming, her bra was off & my belt was undone.

The taxi stopped, she paid the driver, opened the door & we both tumbled out in to the yellow glow of the suburban street. I was in a place I did not recognise, I was drunk & had no idea who this strange creature was that had brought me to this place was. It was  true, it was love, it was magnificent.

                          3



When I came to, I saw from under the table, her red shoes & stockings walking out the door. My coffee was all over me, the chair was broken. She had beat me over the head with it. We had met before. The only other detail I remember from that night was crawling out of her window once she had fallen asleep.
The love of my night. My nameless, shameless one.
She-wolf, bone-grinder, hip-winder. The one. The none.
Come back, you left your diamond ring in my teeth.