little man by the bus stop
with his tin organs, all replaced
because his real ones failed him
(jst like he failed his old wfe)
squat top hat and fat wide smile
and he’s almost a cartoon
and he’s almost not a person.

There was a moment when he knew he had to make a decision.

He had left London that February evening on the ****** Velo Train to the South West. As the two hour journey got underway darkness had descended quickly; it was soon only his reflected face he could see in the window. He’d been rehearsing most of the afternoon so it was only now he could take out the manuscript book, its pages full of working notes on the piece he was to play the following afternoon. His I-Mind implant could have stored these but he chose to circumvent this thought-transcribing technology; there was still the physical trace on the cream-coloured paper with his mother’s propelling pencil that forever conjured up his journey from the teenage composer to the jazz musician he now was. This thought surrounded him with a certain warmth on this Friday evening train full of those returning to their country homes and distant families.

It was a difficulty he had sensed from the moment he perceived a distant gap in the flow of information streaming onto the mind page

At the outset the Mind Notation project had seemed harmless, playful in fact. He allowed himself to enter into the early experiments because he knew and trusted the research team. He got paid handsomely for his time, and later for his performance work.  It was a valuable complement to his ill-paid day-to-day work as a jazz pianist constantly touring the clubs, making occasional festival appearances with is quintet, hawking his recordings around small labels, and always ‘being available’. Mind Notation was something quite outside that traditional scene. In short periods it would have a relentless intensity about it, but it was hard to dismiss because he soon realised he had been hard-wired to different persona. Over a period of several years he was now dealing with four separate I-Mind folders, four distinct musical identities.

Tomorrow he would pull out the latest manifestation of a composer whose creative mind he had known for 10 years, playing the experimental edge of his music whilst still at college. There had been others since, but J was different, and so consistent. J never interfered; there were never decisive interventions, only an explicit confidence in his ability to interpret J’s music. There had been occasional discussion, but always loose; over coffee, a walk to a restaurant; never in the lab or at rehearsals.

In performance (and particularly when J was present) J’s own mind-thought was so rich, so wide-ranging it could have been drug-induced. Every musical inference was surrounded by such intensity and power he had had to learn to ride on it as he imagined a surfer would ride on a powerful wave. She was always there - embedded in everything J seemed to think about, everything J projected. He wondered how J could live with what seemed to him to be an obsession. Perhaps this was love, and so what he played was love like a wilderness river flowing endlessly across the mind-page.

J seemed careful when he was with her. J tried hard not to let his attentiveness, this gaze of love, allow others to enter the public folders of his I-Mind space (so full of images of her and the sounds of her light, entrancing voice). But he knew, he knew when he glanced at them together in darkened concert halls, her hand on J’s left arm stroking, gently stroking, that J’s most brilliant and affecting music flowed from this source.

He could feel the pattern of his breathing change, he shifted himself in his chair, the keyboard swam under his gaze, he was playing fast and light, playing arpeggios like falling water, a waterfall of notes, cascades of extended tonalities falling into the darkness beyond his left hand, but there it was, in twenty seconds he would have to*

It had begun quite accidentally with a lab experiment. J had for some years been researching the telematics of composing and performing by encapsulating the physical musical score onto a computer screen. The ‘moist media’ of telematics offered the performer different views of a composition, and not just the end result but the journey taken to obtain that result. From there to an interest in neuroscience had been a small step. J persuaded him to visit the lab to experience playing a duet with his own brain waves.

Wearing a sensor cap he had allowed his brainwaves to be transmitted through a BCMI to a synthesiser – as he played the piano. After a few hours he realised he could control the resultant sounds. In fact, he could control them very well. He had played with computer interaction before, but there was always a preparatory stage, hours of designing and programming, then the inevitable critical feedback of the recording or glitch in performance. He soon realised he had no patience for it and so relied on a programmer, a sonic artist as assistant, as collaborator when circumstances required it.

When J’s colleagues developed an ‘app’ for the I-Mind it meant he could receive J’s instant thoughts, but thoughts translated into virtual ‘active’ music notation, a notation that flowed across the screen of his inner eye. It was astonishing; more astonishing because J didn’t have to be physically there for it to happen: he could record I-Mind files of his thought compositions.

The reference pre-score at the top of the mind page was gradually enlarging to a point where pitches were just visible and this gap, a gap with no stave, a gap of silence, a gap with no action, a gap with repeat signs was probably 30 seconds away

In the early days (was it really just 10 years ago?) the music was delivered to him embedded in a network of experiences, locations, spiritual and philosophical ideas. J had found ways to extend the idea of the notated score to allow the performer to explore the very thoughts and techniques that made each piece – usually complete hidden from the performer. He would assemble groups of miniatures lasting no more than a couple of minutes each, each miniature carrying, as J had once told him, ‘one thought and one thought only’.  But this description only referred to the musical material because each piece was loaded with a web of associations. From the outset the music employed scales and tonalities so far away from the conventions of jazz that when he played and then extended the pieces it seemed like he was visiting a different universe; though surprisingly he had little trouble working these new and different patterns of pitches into his fingers. It was uncanny the ‘fit’.

Along with the music there was always rich, often startling images she conjured up for J’s compositions. At the beginning of their association J initiated these. He had been long been seeking ways to integrate the visual image with musical discourse. After toying with the idea of devising his own images for music he conceived the notion of computer animation of textile layers. J had discovered and then encouraged the work and vision of a young woman on the brink of what was to become recognised as a major talent. When he could he supported her artistically, revelling in the keenness of her observation of the natural world and her ability to complement what J conceived. He became her lover and she his muse; he remodelled his life and his work around her, her life and her work.

When performing the most complex of music it always seemed to him that the relative time of music and the clock time of reality met in strange conjunctions of stasis. Quite suddenly clock time became suspended and musical time enveloped reality. He found he could be thinking something quite differently from what he was playing.

Further projects followed, and as they did he realised a change had begun to occur in J’s creative rationale. He seemed to adopt different personae. Outwardly he was J. Inside his musical thought he began to invent other composers, musical avatars, complete minds with different musical and personal histories that he imagined making new work.

J had manipulated him into working on a new project that had appeared to be by a composer completely unknown to him. L was Canadian, a composer who had conceived a score that adhered to the DOGME movie production manifesto, but translated into music. The composition, the visuals, the text, the technological environment and the performance had to be conceived in realtime and in one location. A live performance meant a live ‘making’, and this meant he became involved in all aspects of the production. It became a popular and celebrated festival event with each production captured in its entirety and presented in multi-dimensional strands on the web. The viewer / listener became an editor able to move between the simultaneous creative activity, weaving his or her own ‘cut’ like some art house computer game. L never appeared in person at these ‘remakings’, but via a computer link. It was only after half a dozen performances that the thought entered his mind that L was possibly not a 24-year-old woman from Toronto complete with a lively Facebook persona.

Then, with the I-Mind, he woke up to the fact that J had already prepared musical scenarios that could take immediate advantage of this technology. A BBC Promenade Concert commission for a work for piano and orchestra provided an opportunity. J somehow persuaded Tom Service the Proms supremo to programme this new work as a collaborative composition by a team created specially for the premiere. J hid inside this team and devised a fresh persona. He also hid his new I-Mind technology from public view. The orchestra was to be self-directed but featured section leaders who, as established colleagues of J’s had already experienced his work and, sworn to secrecy, agreed to the I-Mind implant.

After the premiere there were rumours about how the extraordinary synchronicities in the play of musical sections had been achieved and there was much critical debate. J immediately withdrew the score to the BBC’s consternation. A minion in the contracts department had a most uncomfortable meeting with Mr Service and the Controller of Radio 3.

With the end of this phrase he would hit the gap  . . . what was he to do? Simply lift his hands from the keyboard? Wait for some sign from the I-Mind system to intervene? His audience might applaud thinking the piece finished? Would the immersive visuals with its  18.1 Surround Sound continue on the five screens or simply disappear?

His hands left the keyboard. The screens went white except for the two repeats signs in red facing one another. Then in the blank bar letter-by-letter this short text appeared . . .


Here Silence gathers
thoughts of you

Letters shall never
spell your grace

No melody could
describe your face

No rhythm dance
the way you move

Only Silence can
express my love

ever yours ever
yours ever yours


He then realised what the date was . . . and slowly let his hands fall to his lap.

Seven or eight people lounged about in a small back room. I had no expectations before arriving so I’m neither surprised nor disappointed by what I discover.  I find myself sat in one of those reclining gaming chairs and think “This must be the best chair in the room”.

Just playing it cool. I don’t know anyone here. There’re a few guys playing the Xbox. I eye them over, none of them look to challenge my presence, either too engrossed in the screen, or intimidated in some way. To my left sit the women in the place. I have their attention. Relief that the journey here wasn’t in vein, I give them all a nod and a smile. I casually introduce myself, and then find myself playing on the Xbox. I know I can’t play, but that’s the act. I ask what buttons to press, and laugh at my own hopelessness, eventually relinquishing the controller. It soon finds its way back into my hands. By this time, some bird is sat up on the arm next to me. She’s watching my actions, how I take command of the situation. Why don’t I take command of her? Sitting and waiting has never been a good tactic. I pass the controller over to her and say a few words in an attempt to get the conversation rolling. The drink clouds my thoughts and I forget that I’m talking to her. In the distance I hear them remark, “He’s a cool guy.”

I sit, reclined, legs outstretched, coat open revealing buttoned collar, slicked back hair, that look of pure relaxation in ones surroundings. She’s diggin’ it. I know she’s digging it. Her leg starts to press into my arm, and then her hands are down by my side. Commotion in the room. Some fat ***** needs to make her presence known. Everyone chilled. She obviously wants the attention. Not my type. She leaves for an upstairs room, and moments later, a spliff finds its way into my hands, courtesy of the girls to my left. I take a few drags, telling myself not to get too high; too late for that. I pass it on and fall back into the chair. Forgot I hadn’t smoked in a month.

Still a laid back guy, although not sure if it’s a choice anymore. I know it’s taking me over now. Slowly, I find myself entering that zone where weeds been taking me lately. Thoughts of everything; no filter; the need to verbalize things. Suddenly I’m Mr Charismatic, and you are all my audience, whether you like it or not. I stopped caring or stop noticing people’s reactions and forget about myself. I let my ego out to play, unregulated by the discipline of consciousness.

There are people in the room. Pretty sure they weren’t here earlier. One of them says something to me. “Is he been aggressive?” I think to myself. Judging from the tone of my reply, I obviously felt the need to establish my position. Taking no **** from these guys it seems; I’m still the Don in the room. Remember myself, remember the girl. Mr Cool again.

Filling up water in the kitchen, find myself chatting to random guys. Banter flying around the place. She’s watching me. Some powder is under my nose. “Kind of you to offer, but that better not be ket.” Turns out it was Mandy. Can’t say no to a bump. Pretty sure I’m the most ****** in the room right now, but I’m riding it well. Door frame seems like a necessity to keep me upright. Don’t want to brave the assault course back to the recliner, plus, I’m talking to the guys in the kitchen, don’t want to walk away.

We’re meeting J’s bird in thirty minutes. Twenty minutes. Five minutes ago. “We’ll go in five minutes.” She’s there again. Her presence known to me. She's up against me, but time is also against me. Too ****** up to keep playing this game. We’re leaving now. Out the door, I attempt to say a few words as we leave. My eloquence abandons me and leaves me in the ****. Flag a taxi; turns out we’ve booked one. Send him on his way. Tip the driver more than I can afford.

The burr shaking in a
Bohemian Awakening
(Long) vintage stare how
her words were spelled
out snake tongue (Short)
The Death
Whats Up* Chap of a sport
Whats Up Doc
Going tick tock Mr. Rick
Don't trick this document
Oh! where did it drop
What!! He made the drop
dead gorgeous dress?

Born to die last lip of the spoonfuls
Cut to the chase with my chap lips
More deaths on the rise to deliver 
 
How love was the
mind controller
Hands out of the grave
couldn't hold her
Like the Boulder Chief head
Hothead on her shoulder
The better herbs of medicine
His racing car hot flame
gasoline

The Rapsody of her melody
holding on to her life
What a unique wife
Until time changes her moods
Opening up her world of flower buds
A different silence of home goods
We do believe we can be

The Champions

But the fallout of promises
Or jobs never big advances

Oh! Christ
Her chapped lips needed some
time to heal where is her next meal
The heat catching a death of cold
But staying alive the second
wind hot Ferrari Italian drive
Feeling deathly-sick faking
your death was no trick

Who disappeared never
really certain
if it was truly their
Building the fire mountain
Don't keep complaining
where the time went
Death of a cold wishes
not to die
where is our youth
Only takes one amazing birth
Lips kissing the fountain
The fortune teller booth

Who would want her chapped lips
Baby Ruth crunchy bar
down the mountain
The love confused her the
death would be
faster going once or twice up
Guilty trip or the graveyard shift
Hangover ski lift with her
Beeswax for chap lips
Taxman on the number rise flirting
What a good chap
In her coffee cup a little Robin birdie
told you

You made your own grave
time on my side or hanging
by a thread of stitches
Hats off up and away
Getting a green facelift of witches
You lived so far the good life
Feeling so wanted
he cooked your meals
He cleaned up your mess wearing
The Chef Apron 
 *He's Wanted the sign
All over the world,
his face is wanted
The fool lips the fuller up lips
The heart went out of touch a deathly cold
She is wearing her heart-shaped lips
Doing what she is told
How the world has been
smudged with
rules
Noone knows where here

All her cracks of her lips
The cute button nose
Not Rudolph the Reindeer
The hunt for the ****** nose
Up close and personal
Lip to his lip journal
Such odds of numbers
So many even deaths
like tumblers
Through the loopers
Love and resentment
The world is a village commitment
Mcdonald Man beef and the
melted lady
cheese
whooper
You got an alert notice
The cast of spells the
fire went high
You couldn't even put it out
The death of a Salesman novice
Papercut snip computer nasty chip
The charcoal grill felt like it burned you
The fires new hires of California
The peace sign
Imagine people with no

Holy water
Whose mind is in order
The Dementia patients
Your own flame so many hot flames
The rest of the world caught a death
of a cold like an old flame

*The Goddess of Venus
The darker edge his cool hummer
Going on a shoot with chapped lips
Who is really keeping tabs

There was nothing to believe in to hold
To restore how do we balance the world
But we are not Gods
Chapped lips caused
such an alarm
All things take time then
it's in harm's way
Someone will understand to pay
Like a settlement
Deathly gray hairs on the pavement
Getting hurt but the best Godly soil
is still their like dirt
There was no reception hell broke
loose riot
Everything was naked sound
No time to sing a duet to
feet on the ground love couplet

That snow drift fall on your face
Who will be where you are in
the next century place

Perhaps your last picture
before you die
How the singer live on
to be remembered
  Why are we not discovered
Can we be saved from redemption
Like you have been squirted on
Like Heinz Ketchup did you catch up
To get his kiss did he feel your death of cold
But never to exist
What is on our bucket list?

Dead Puppy, Broken Men
add opening narration/exposition/explanation; scenario with Jared

Yesterday:

"I've felt alone my entire life. Please don't make me be alone when I'm with you," Shellie begged Jared.
"You're not alone. I love you," was Jared's reply.
"But you won't open up to me."
"It's just really hard. I've always been this way."
"But why?" Shellie desperately yearned for the answers she would never find. "You need to love yourself, or you will never truly love me. You won't be able to."
"I do love you."
"Maybe you just think you do. Saying 'I love you' doesn't make it true. You have to show me that you love me. I can't handle this much longer. Nothing has changed in two years. Nothing."
"I know," Jared begins to cry, "I'm sorry. I really am."
"Don't cry please."
Jared looks away at the black T.V. screen in Shellie's apartment. He is silent for a long time, but eventually Shellie is able to pry his entire childhood out of his sewn-shut lips. She wouldn't take silence for an answer. Not anymore. If Jared hadn't come home, Shellie would have spoken to no one all day. She liked her alone time, but depended on Jared to be her right-hand-man, her main squeeze, her soul mate, and right now -- he simply wasn't being that. He was being something else; a subject of inspection, a psych-ward patient; a lost friend, who she longed to have back.
"Thank you for telling me," Shellie said as she squeezed his shoulders from behind, comforting him with tiny pecks on his cheeks. "Things make more sense now."
Jared said nothing the rest of the night. He instead sketched photos of slimy creatures with clenched teeth into his notebook, creating meticulous lines, surrounding the figure, as if it were travelling through time and space, into a new dimension, far away from this one.

---
Today:
"Did you know that there is a lizard that can only be female, and they don't have ***, they just clone themselves?" Brannan asked Shellie, his best friend.
"I wish I was that lizard..." Shellie sighed.
"What! Why!" Brannan exclaimed with confusion and worry.
"Because. *** messes everything up. I don't know...Maybe I'm just crazy," she stammered, looking for the right words.
"It's Jared, isn't it?" Brannan asked, already knowing the answer, because he knew Shellie.
"Yeah...I'm giving him one more chance. One more and that's strike three, you're out!" She laughed nervously.
"Ooookay," Brannan agreed, "one more chance."
Eli glanced up from the TV and looked at Shellie, wondering how anyone could hurt someone so sweet. But what did he know? He killed people for a living.
"What did he do?" Eli pried.
"I don't want to talk about it anymore. I've talked about it enough. All guys are the same."
"That's not true," Brannan tilted his head to the side in pity.

"The king is here!" Andy announced, as he walked through Brannan's door with a pound of **** in his canister, which was covered in skateboarding stickers and graffiti. Everyone cheered, and Brannan stopped playing Call of Duty, put down his Xbox controller, and picked up the pack of rillos that Eli had bought prior to coming over.
"That game ain't nothing like real life anyway," Eli mentioned, as he put down the other controller and everyone hastily made their way over to the kitchen table. He walked over to the freezer to pull out some Jack Daniels and ice, then went to the cabinets for a glass, turning his army cap backwards, pouring his drink, and taking a swig.

"How much do I owe you?" Brannan asked.
"We'll talk later," Andy replied.
"I was going to tell you, I still don't have what I owe you from last time, but Alexa said there is an opening at Starbucks, so I'll be able to pay you back ASAP man. I really appreciate it."
"Yeah, no problem," Andy said disdainfully.
"I'll roll it!" Shellie yelled to break the tension, as she put down her phone, only to pick it up again to check the time. Her boyfriend would be off work soon. Would she have to text him first again? Was he even thinking of her?
"Go for it!" Brannan tossed the rillo pack to her.
As she was finishing the roll, her phone went off. Shellie believed that maybe there was hope after all.
"Nope, just my dad..." Shellie mumbled to herself and sighed.
"What's wrong?" Brannan asked, with concerned blue eyes, through his thick-rimmed, black glasses.
"It's just Jared," she said as she pushed her lips to one side and looked down at her phone.
"What did he say?” Brannan asked.
“That’s the problem. He hasn’t said anything all day,” she explained in distress. Brannan noticed she hadn’t worn makeup in days, and by the looks of her outfit, she hadn’t been doing daily yoga like usual.
“Maybe he’s just super busy?” Brannan asked reluctantly.
“HE’S busy?? No. I’M busy.” She paused as Andy and Eli raised their eyebrows and widened their eyes. Eli was confused, because she had always seemed happy whenever he saw her. "I'm in school AND I have three jobs. What does he have? ONE job. One. I think he has time to text me, thanks for your input though."
Brannan said nothing, but pressed his teeth together and opened his lips, revealing a worried look with sad eyes, toward his dear friend.
"Yeah. He just doesn't get it. I'm a fire sign and I'm full of passion! Well, partially an air sign, which is probably why I’m so forgiving and understanding. But if he doesn't reciprocate soon, I feel like I'm going to go insane! Like, really? You don't want to go see Star Wars with me? What kind of person are you? Who doesn't like Star Wars? Really though," Shellie added.
"Maybe he's already seen it and doesn't want to tell you," Brannan suggested.
"You think so? Who would he go see it with though? All of his friends have already seen it. Do you think he saw it with his ex?! Oh my God..."
"Here, take this," Eli said as he handed the blunt to Shellie.
She took a big puff and exhaled as she closed her eyes in relief.
"You know what. I'm overthinking this. He just gets anxious in public, that's all," Shellie explained and looked around for reassurance.
"Are you sure that's all?" Brannan asked as he swung his black bangs away from his face.
"I don’t know... He's really mysterious and quiet. It's really hard for him to open up, I think. He didn’t really have a dad growing up. He's gotten better at talking to me, but he's still weird around big crowds of people. He never wants to go anywhere with me. It *****. I think he's learning to get better though. Maybe he's just young, I don’t know, but I'm sick of acting like his mother, you know? Why can't he learn things on his own? We're all scared, but if you don't face your fears at some point, then what's the point?"
Andy couldn’t help but think she sounded like a nagging *****.
"You know you just partially described the personality of a serial killer, right?" Brannan asked with comedic horror on his face.
"Did I?" Shellie asked.
"You deserve better!" Brannan's mom yelled from the living room. She was watching some reality TV show that she shouldn't have been watching. She continued to Shellie, "You deserve someone who takes you out and treats you right! You're a sweet girl!"
Shellie looked down at her phone. Still no text.
"Do you want to hit this?" Shellie yelled to Brannan's mom.
"I'm good, thank you though! I've got to finish these lesson plans for the day care," she explained with a sigh.
"Aww, sounds kinda fun," Shellie said. Shellie had thought about being a teacher, or maybe a counselor, but after helping so many people with different problems, she was starting to second-guess her passion for it.
"Nice blunt," Andy complimented Shellie. He thought Shellie was kind of cute, now that he had caught Eli in Alexa's bed and was no longer drawn to her. Despite her messy hair and mix matched attire, she had things together. She had things going for her. What did Andy have going for him?
"Thanks," Shellie smiled. Jared hated blunts, but he loved cigarettes. It made no sense to her.
"So what have you been up to?" Eli asked Shellie. "It's been a while."
"Just busy, busy. School and work, you know,” she said as she took one final puff before passing the blunt on its way, into the final circulation, never to return to her. She wanted to ask Eli about his life, but knew he couldn't say much, so she just went back to her phone.
Eli looked at Alexa, "Cigarette?" he asked.
"Yes," everyone except Shellie replied.
They all went outside in the freezing cold to get a brief buzz, while Shellie stayed inside, in the warmth, jotting down new business plans for her yoga studio into her phone. She then opened one of her books, but couldn’t focus on the text, so she quickly closed it. She then sat there in jaded silence, waiting for her friends to return from their strange endeavor.

"All the girls at my work are such *******! Like, one day I think they're my friend, then the next day I'm like, who are you?" Alexas was saying to her mom in between inhales and exhales.
Brannan looked at Alexas then at Eli with a look of concern and distaste. His mom noticed his expression and gave a brief response of agreement with her eyes, quickly returning to her daughter's concerns with compassion and empathy.
"Like, Kate said she wanted to hang out and everything, then she just doesn't respond. What the Hell?"
"Yeah, you probably just shouldn't be friends with them," Brannan replied.
"I have to be! I work with them," Alexas explained.
Knowing it was a lost cause, Brannan turned toward the glass door, where one of his cats pawed at the frame. “Aw, look at Izzy,” he said, pointing.
“Awwww,” his mom replied as she sipped on white Beringer.
“Let her out,” Brannan said to Alexa, since she was next to the door ****.
“No! She’ll run away,” Alexa said.
“No she won’t,” Brannan argued, as he made his way behind his sister, slightly pushing her, and letting Izzy outside.
She looked at everyone, let out a small meow, then hopped down into the grass, under a bush, and out of sight.
“Look what you did!”Alexas said, raising her voice.
“She’ll be back…” Brannan assured her, with ****** eyes.
Alexas rolled her eyes and Brannan continued, “She just wants to be free, Al.”
Their mom watched Izzy as she scurried into the neighbor’s yard. “Yeah, she’ll be back,” she said.
Then Eli turned to Andy and said, "You trying to play Call of Duty?"
"Sure," Andy agreed, though all he could think about was how Eli had been in Alexa's sheets the week before. “I’ll ******* **** you dude.”
“Yeah right,” Eli said as he let out a laugh, not knowing that he knew what he knew.

Alexa went to the living room with her mom, and Brannan returned to his spot at the kitchen table next to Shellie. Smoke stained the air, as Brannan picked up his phone and began playing a Pokémon game. Shellie tried to act interested, but all she could think about was Jared. Eli and Andy finished shooting each other and came back to form a circle.
“Bowl?” Brannan asked.
“That’s okay,” Shellie said, “I’m trying to cut back.”
“What…” Brannan said in disbelief. He packed the bowl anyway and handed it to her.
“Naw,” Shellie said.
“Yaw! Brannan yelled.
“No.”
Brannan handed the bowl to Andy and as Andy hit the bowl, he turned to Eli and said, "Hey, so if someone sat 12 million dollars in front of you, and a puppy in front of you, and said: The money is yours, you just have to crush this puppy to bits. Would you do it?" He looked at everyone as if he already knew the answer; as if it was obvious. Andy waited for everyone else to reply first. Brannan had no intentions of replying, since he was trying to be Christ-like lately.
"No, I wouldn't do it," Shellie said.
"Are you serious?!" Eli asked with pure shock on his sun-kissed face.
"Yes, I'm serious. Would you do it?" She leaned forward, almost rocking out of the tall bar stool she was sitting on.
Brannan and Eli chimed in, "You would SO do it."
"I would SO not." She repeated angrily, hitting the blunt and blinking her brown eyes to moisten her contact lenses.
Brannan's younger sister walked into the room to sit down, and Shellie looked to her for an answer. "Would you??" She looked at her with eyes of a beggar's, pleading for understanding and empathy.
"Do what?" Alexa asked, and the boys repeated the scenario, talking with utter excitement.
"A puppy? A cute little puppy?" Alexa asked.
"Yeah, a puppy or 12 million dollars," Andy coaxed.
"I couldn't do it! I could never do that!" Alexa gasped. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t!”
"That's what I'm saying," Shellie agreed. "I'm not even a dog person, but I would grab the puppy and run! Maybe report that guy to the animal police or whatever."
"Yeah!" Alexa agreed, as she took off her Starbucks sun visor and laid it on the table, next to Brannan’s laptop, Eli’s sketches, Andy’s backpack, and Shellie’s books.
"You all are crazy!" Andy said. "If the money was right in front of you, you'd do it, no question."
"No," Alexa and Shellie both said firmly.
"You'd just have to see the money, right there in front of you, in person," he kept on going.
Eli took a sip of his whiskey, then made stomping motions with his feet and said, "Haha! Gone! 12 million dollars richer. You know what you can buy with that much money? Tons of new puppies, if you really wanted to." He laughed.
"Yeah, you could **** me and make tons of new friends, too," Shellie said as she rolled her eyes in disgust.
"That's not the same though," Brannan finally spoke. "We don't know this puppy like we know you."
"Well someone does," Shellie insisted.
"Maybe," Brannan replied.
"Someone could," Alexa said. "Unless you **** him."
"Who said it's a boy?" Shellie asked sheepishly.
"You're right. It should be a girl," Alexa agreed, "like sweet little Lola over here." She scooted her chair from the table, and beneath her feet lay her sleeping Border Collie. She got up from her seat and lowered herself to the floor, head to head with the dog. She touched her nose to the dog's nose, kissed the dog’s cheek, and patted her head before returning to her peers on the bar stools above.
Everyone went silent, and Shellie wondered if the boys felt ashamed - so obsessed with power, that they forget to love.

---
Yesterday:

"You know how I told you that I didn't really know my dad growing up?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, it's because he was in jail for a while."
"How come?"
Looking around, as if for help or guidance, Jared hesitated to say what would come next.
"What is it??" Shellie pleaded, her imagination running wild with fear and worry.
"He ***** me."
"W-what..." Shellie was taken aback. She would have never guessed this is what all Jared's anger had stemmed from. Life flashed before her like a lightning bolt. It surged through her entire body, carrying memories of her perfect childhood juxtaposed next to Jared's. She thought of all the times she had met Jared's dad. She thought of how they worked in the same office, and Jared had to see his face every single day. She wondered how deeply this must affect his life, and how little she had noticed. Had she misjudged him completely? Why were all of her boyfriends so damaged? Was she drawn to damage? What if he ended up like his father? She wanted to help him. She had to.
"But how? Or... Like, where?! Did your mom know?"
"That's why she divorced him. He used to rent hotels on the weekends and tell my mom he was taking me along on his business trips. It wasn't until I was seven... I started having nightmares. I couldn't wake up. I'd scream and yell, telling him to get off me."
"Oh, Jared. I love you so much. You know that? I'm here for you. **** him. You don't need him. Your mom is great, and your little brother loves you. I love you. It's surprising how great you turned out, honestly."
"Yeah..." Jared said, slightly offended, but also in agreement.


* note for author from author: add scene with Alexa and Lola -- Lola biting her over and over. He's hurting me, ow!! "She just let her bite her. Over and over again." She did nothing about it. She endured the pain.
Shellie teaches Brannan how to "train" his dog.. play with her, be her friend. She just wants to play. She doesn't want to watch us smoke **** all day. You have to act like a dog sometimes if you want her to love you and be good.
reference to god's of love.. maybe venus and mars
- add more in between blunt roation.. it burns too fast
- create more setting!! (vital)
- add physical fight between Eli and Andy
- add scene with brandon's dad at very beg

taken up residence in all my areas and in these places
there is always a place for her

In my basement
when she rubs and soothes my toes to a numbing comfort
at opposite end her stretch lets my hands do the same to hers

Structure beams stand
and are why my calves and thighs continue to grow stronger
are incentive to be wrapped around her legs
and hers in a grip twist
throughout the curve of my hips to hold crossing
X made when I am wrapped

For entering the front porch
She knocks but not heard
for her tapping inquiries are irrelevant
So it turns, the doorknob turns
unlocking opening this abstract transition in my abdomen  
Here is hers to warm her hands
and chest
when chills come over
and Level-Up in connect
with another’s rushes
through bloods chamber controller

In the hearth of my arms
is where she sleeps off stressful days
and absorbs deep breaths
given to her by the nighttime in comfort fire
that keep warm in clutching swarm

The crawl space of my mind is her cozy retreat
Where she writes to and
receives poetry like excessive pounding heartbeats
and sings and reads, is read to and strummed to
in this cave of only good thoughts drape over, outweigh
and extend
root outward
sprout upward
seeds are sewed
for and of future place
take place
This is where she speaks one line
“Millions of days,”
and falling feta paints rapid wetness across raised cheeks
grazing my chin upward, with her fingers
where we pace, follow, and race,
To more moments in place on our backs
in the yard
just to lay and stare ahead
at endless sects of aerospace
As if in bed, in their others head

My ****
follows me everywhere!
Wiggle wiggle, poke poke, jiggle jiggle.
At the fridge in night I've a friend by my side.
By my backside.
On,
my backside.
Stuck with humidity to the toilet seat on a rainy day,
that's right!
The bathroom exists, and on a toilet do I sit.
At least four or five times daily.
Stuck to chair, playing with hair with one hand
and a controller in the other.
Pumping up and down and in circles as I
jump squat.
Jump squat!
To share if you dare put your palm down there to squeeze.
Grab slap, wibble wibble.

I just had the silliest wish.
I want to drop everything right now,
and play video games
that sounds so great right now.
Just me,
a can of soda,
the tv,
controller,
and a couple games.
I wanna play all night,
until the flash from my tv seems like lightning.
Create crime,
stop crime,
**** zombies,
and play football
on my x box.
Sounds pretty good.
Pull an "all nighter"
I love video games,
so
without further ado,
*its time to play

Shortly after 3pm on September 29, 31-year-old Olivier Rousteing strode through the shimmering, fleshy backstage area at Balmain's Spring 2017 Paris Fashion Week show. Along the marble hallway of a hôtel particulier in the 8th arrondissement, long-limbed clusters of supermodels were gamely tolerating final applications of leg-moisturiser, make-up touch-ups and minutely precise hair interventions from squads of specialists as fast and accurate as any Formula 1 pit-stop team. The crowd parted as Rousteing swept through.

Wearing a belted, black silk tuxedo and a focused expression that accentuated his razor-sharp cheekbones, Rousteing resembled a sensuous hit man. Target identified, he led us to the board upon which photographs of every outfit were tacked.

We asked him to tell us about the collection (for that's what fashion editors always ask). "There is no theme," said Rou­steing in his fast, French-accented lilt. "No inspiration from travel or time. The inspiration is what I feel, and what I feel now is peace, light and serenity. I feel like in my six years here before this, I have tried to fight so many battles. Because there is no point anymore in fighting about boundaries and limits in fashion. Balmain has its place in fashion."

And the clothes? "There is a lot of fluidity. A lot of knitwear, lightness, ponchos. No body-con dresses. But whatever I do, even if I cover up my girls, it is like people can say I am ******. So this is what it is. I think there is nothing ******. I think it is really chic. I think it is really French. It is how I see Paris. And I have had too many haters during the last three years to defend myself again. So, this is Balmain." And then the show began.

Star endorsements

Under Rousteing, Balmain has become the most controversial fashion house in Paris. Rousteing has attracted (but not bought, as other, far bigger houses do) patronage from contemporary culture's most significant influencers. Rihanna, all the Kardashians, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber – a royal flush of modern celebrity aristocracy – all champion him.

Immediately after this show, in that backstage hubbub, Kim Kardashian told me: "I thought it was very powerful…I loved the sequins, and I loved all the big chain mail belts – that was probably my favourite."

Yet for every famous fan there is a member of the fashion establishment who will sniff over coffee in Le Castiglione that Rousteing's crowd is declassé and his aesthetic best described by that V-word. The New York Times' fashion critic Vanessa Friedman reckoned this collection appropriate for "dressing for the captain's dinners on a cruise ship to Fantasy Island". At least she did not use the V-word. When I once deployed it – as a compliment – in a 2015 Vogue menswear review that declared "Rousteing is confidently negotiating a fine line between extravagance and vulgarity", I was told that Rous­teing was aggrieved.

The fashion world's ambivalence towards Rousteing is a measure of its conflicted feelings towards much in contemporary culture. Last year Robin Givhan of the Washington Post wrote of Balmain: "The French fashion house is always ostentatious and sometimes ******. It feeds a voracious appetite for attention. It is anti-intellectual. Antagonistic. Emotional. It is shocking. It is perfect for this era of social media, which means it is powerfully, undeniably relevant."

Since joining Instagram four years ago Rousteing has posted 4000 images and won 4 million followers. The combined reach of his audience members and models at this Balmain show was greater than the population of Britain and France combined. Balmain was the first French fashion house to gain more than 1 million followers, and currently has 5.5 million of them.

Loving his haters

As digital technology disrupts fashion, Balmain's seemingly effortless mastery of the medium galls some. Last year, the designer posted an image of a comment from a ****** follower to his feed. It read: "Olivier Rousteing spends more times taking selfies for Instagram than designing clothes for Balmain." Underneath, in block capitals, he commented "i love my haters".

Rousteing can be funny and flip – doing a video interview after the show, I opened by asking, tritely, how he felt. He replied: "Now I feel like some Chicken McNuggets with barbecue sauce, and then some M&M;'s ice cream."

When at work, however, that flipness flips to entirely unflip. The previous evening, at a final fitting for the collection, Rousteing had paced his studio, his face a scowl of concentration, applying final edits to the outfits to be worn by models Doutzen Kroes and Alessandra Ambrosio. The 30-strong team of couturiers working in the adjoining atelier delivered a steady stream of altered dresses.

"We are ready," he said from behind a glass desk in a rare moment of downtime. "This a big show – 80 looks – and I want a collection that is full of both the commercial and couture. But it's smooth too. All of the girls are excited about the after-party and interested in the music. And eating pizza." In the corridor outside Gigi Hadid – this season's apex supermodel – was indeed eating pizza, with gusto.

The fitting went on until far beyond midnight; Rousteing, fiercely focused, demonstrated the work ethic for which he is famous. When he was studio manager for Christophe Decarnin, his predecessor at Balmain, the young then-unknown was always the first in and last out of the studio. Emmanuel Diemoz, who joined Balmain as finance controller in 2001 and became chief executive in 2011, says that his hard graft was one of the reasons he was chosen to succeed Decarnin.

"For sure it was quite a gamble," says Diemoz. "But we could see the talent of Olivier. Plus he understood the work of Christophe – who had helped the brand recover – so he represented continuity. He was a hard worker, clearly a leader, with a lot of creativity. Plus the size of the turnover at that time was not so huge. So we were able to take the risk."

Clear leader

Which is why, aged 24, Rousteing became the creative director of one of Paris's best known – but indubitably faded – fashion houses. In 2004 it had been close to bankruptcy. In 2012, Rousteing's first full year in charge, Balmain's sales were €30.4 million and its profit €3.1 million. In 2015, sales were €121.5 million and its profit €33 million. Vulgarity is subjective; numbers are not.

Rousteing, who is of mixed race, was adopted at five months by white parents and enjoyed an affluent and loving upbringing in Bordeaux. "My mum is an optician and my dad was running the port. They are both really scientific – not artistic. So I had that kind of life. Bordeaux is really bourgeois and really conservative, I have to say."

After an ill-starred three-month stint at law school – "I was doing international law. And I was like, 'oh my God, that is so boring'" – he did a fashion course that he managed to tolerate for five months.

"I found that really boring as well. I just don't like actually people who are trying to **** your dream. And I felt that is what my teachers were trying to do."

Obsessed with Gucci

Following a three-month internship in Rome – "also boring" – Rousteing became fascinated with Tom Ford's work at Gucci. "I was obsessed, obsessed, obsessed. Sometimes the press did not get it but I thought 'this is like genius, the new **** chic'. Obsessed, full stop."

He wanted to work there – "that was my dream" – but applied to every fashion house he could, and found an opportunity to intern at Roberto Cavalli. "They took me in from the beginning. I met Peter Dundas [then womenswear designer at the brand] and he said you are going to be my right hand – and start in four days."

Rousteing counts his five years in Italy as formative both creatively and commercially, but when the opportunity came to return to France in 2009 he leapt at it. "Christophe said he liked my work and that he needed someone to manage the studio. So two weeks later I was here. I loved Balmain at the time, when Christophe was in charge. It was all about rock 'n' roll chic, ****, Parisian. And he was appealing to a younger generation. You can see when brands become old but Balmain was touching this new audience. I always say Christophe's Balmain was Kate Moss but mine is Rihanna."

When Decarnin left and Rousteing replaced him, the response was a resounding "who?". His youth prompted some to anticipate failure.

"It was not easy at all. Every season I had the same questions." Furthermore, Rousteing (who has said he thinks of himself as neither black nor white) was the only non-white chief designer at a Parisian couture house. In a nation in which very few people of colour hold senior positions, his race may have contributed both to the establishment's suspicion of him and to his powerful sense of being an outsider.

'Beautiful spirit'

As he began to build a personal vernacular of close-fitted, heavily jewelled, gleefully grandiose menswear – fantastical uniform for a Rousteing-imagined gilded age – for both women and men, that V-word loomed.

"They asked, 'But is it luxury? Is it chic? Is it modern?' All those kinds of words. But you know there is no one definition [of fashion] even if people in Paris think there is. And, I'm sorry, but I think the crowd in fashion are those who understand the least what is avant-garde today."

In 2013 Rihanna visited the studio, met Rousteing, and reported all with multiple Instagram posts. "You are the most beautiful spirit, so down to earth and kind! @olivier_rousteing I think I'm in love!!! #Balmain." :')"

Rousteing met Kim Kardashian at a party in New York – they were drawn together, he recalls, because they were both shy – and was promptly invited to lunch with her family in Los Angeles.

An outsider in the firmament of old-guard Paris fashion, Rousteing was earning insider status within a new, and much more influential, supranational elite. He points out that Valentino, Saint Laurent and Pierre Balmain himself "were close to the jet set of their time. What I have on my front row is the people who inspire my generation".

From them, he learned a new way of doing business. "I think it was Rihanna and the music industry that first understood how Instagram can be part of the business world as well as the personal. But in fashion? When we started it was 'why do you post selfies? Why do we need to know your life, see you waking up, see you working? Why don't you keep it private'. And I was like 'you will see'."

Rousteing cheerfully declares his love for Facetune – "I don't have Botox but I do have digital Botox!" – an app that helps him airbrush his selfies and tweak those ski-***** cheekbones.

Reaching new population

From his office around the corner from Rousteing's, Diemoz adds: "When Olivier first proposed Balmain use social media, our investment in traditional media was costing a lot. Here was an alternative costing less but bringing huge visibility. It has been successful, quite rapidly…we decided to be less Parisian in a way but to speak to a new population. A brand has to be built around its heritage but we are proposing a new form of communication dedicated to a wider group of customers."

The impact of that strategy became apparent in 2015, when Rousteing and Balmain were invited to design a collection for the Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M.; Within minutes of going on sale – and this is not hyperbole – the collection, available at vastly cheaper prices than Balmain-proper, had completely sold out. In London, customers fought on the pavement outside H&M;'s Regent Street branch. "Balmainia!" blared the headlines.

You have to move fast to get backstage after a Balmain show. I was out of my seat and trotting with purpose even before the string-heavy orchestra at the end of the catwalk had quite stopped playing Adele.

Rousteing had taken his bow merely seconds before. Still, too slow: I ended up in a clot of Rousteing well-wishers stuck in a corridor blocked by security guards. A Middle Eastern woman against whom I was indelicately jammed looked at me, laughed, shook her head, then said: "We pay millions for a fashion house – and then this happens!"

In June, Balmain was bought for a reported €485 million by Mayhoola, a Qatar-based wealth fund said to be controlled by the nation's ruling family. As so often with Rousteing-related revelations, some declared themselves nonplussed. "Why Would Mayhoola Pay Such a High Price for Balmain?", one headline asked. Yet Mayhoola, which acquired Valentino four years previously for $US858 million, might have scored a bargain.

Clothes key to revenue

Despite its huge, Instagram-enhanc­ed footprint, Balmain is a small, lean and relatively undeveloped business. Most luxury fashion houses today – Chanel, Burberry, Dior, et al – will emphasise their catwalk collections for marketing purposes but make most of their money from the sale of accessories, fragrances and small leather goods like handbags and shoes. One of the big fashion companies makes a mere 5 per cent from its catwalk clothes.

At Balmain, by contrast, clothes bring in almost all the revenues. If Balmain had the same clothes-to-accessories ratio as its competitors, its overall annual income could be more than €1 billion ($1.4 billion).

The company is moving in that direction. New accessory lines are in the pipeline. "Now we have to transform that desire into business activity," said Diemoz. "Sunglasses, belts, fragrances, the kind of products that can be more affordable."

The first bags should be available in January, as will a wider range of shoes, and then more, more, more.

Six days after his show, on the last day of Paris Fashion Week, I returned to the Balmain atelier. Apart from two assistants, Rousteing was the only person there – everybody else had gone on holiday to recover from the frenzy of preparing the show, or was busy selling the collection at the showroom around the corner.

Rousteing sat behind his desk in the empty room, wearing slingback leopard-print slippers, sweatpants and shades. "I am not even tired! I am excited. Because there are so many things happening – and I can't wait."Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-adelaide