Chapter 1
Passive, missive, aggressive, a glistening – the dawning notion – a tour of certain monuments, and the disappointment this entails, small miscreants, particular deeds, unheeded – totally unfounded, commentary unnecessary, confluence – disjointed narrative, lyrics from certain songs, disappointment by appointment, anointing graves on specialised planes from which there is no return, a tremulous heart -denied it's rightful fate, reiterate opine, opinions, respect the few, fluidity of motion, of emotion, each aspersion was cast at will it seemed, ill reality versions of themselves, overly long speeches, casting doubt on long respected theories, on heat convection, under the sea were the monsters are real, all too real, drifting into an unconscious - state of affairs, impatiently awaiting results, labaratories full of Tories, a distinct lack of emotion when dealing with the past as a real entity. Holding objects you once decided meant everything, and now mean nothing, a long history of nothing.
Chapter 2
A distinction between the colours of two separate pebbles on far dispatched coasts, seeking – non seeking – doorways and corridors, breathing forever, poor lighting in airport car parks, a liberal sprinkling of lies, the curve of thigh, taut calf, inside of bicep, adjoining nipple architecture, pulled through hoops by forceps, imaginary betrayal where everything happens, the downturn of a million simultaneous lips suggesting female masculinity, letters from dead hearts and retrospective affection, mouthfuls of bile pouring patterns onto a vast canvass, on pavements, kerbs, stones in mouths, behind garage doors lie the answers for the parents of lost children, the promise’s of people - false love, real hate, internicine curvature of elaborate light switch. Lights out.
Chapter 3
An introduction by she, to he, for we. They were ignored, to justify the concrete, returning it to its component parts, a man beating a drum in time with your heart the same number of times until you die, a coincidental pact, involvement in studious art movements, the sun, the wind, the minor the major, an array of weaponry, affectation of humidity, lipid confusion, spinal curves and suggestive smiling, widening eyes, glances from windows revealing the impending life repellent, travelling for a thousand miles inside your house, whispers emanating from cutlery drawers, goading from you the truth on the whereabouts of your brasso promise, the wobble and fifty stone emptiness of the cantankerous washing machines.
Chapter 4
The angle of the roof, desperately appealing to passive priests, disjointed between thumb and forefinger, a sweat forming on the arch of the back as we walk down roads on uncomfortably hot days, the difference between love and need, trapped light around closed doors. “ will you return ? You give the answer to friends but not to me “. to give yourself time to answer, you walk the length of the room twice and in the meantime, glaciers move inexorably, mountains grow, babies are born, babies die, old men lose wives, an abyssal plain grows in the place we once played. “ there's no answer to that question, because if I return, I will have changed, and you will no longer care and ...”.
some answers have no meaning, some questions create this.
Chapter 5
emerging only half willing from a half rest. I pass a mirror and in an unusual incident proceed to stare at the image projected, each line, each scar, made by blades from wrong decisions, after an hour the observation ceases, anticapatory breakfast, a shoe day, a day full of disaster and disease, the nightmare vision of desperate liberation attempts, but with light snacks and beverages, thirty hexagons, a dancing of light on the breast of your lover, the space betwixt the shoulder blades, I fill this space with kisses.
Chapter 6
extinct ritualistic burial systems, a sensual malaise inverted – a sense of other -a place to hide in many Mayan hiding place .
“ this place seems so deserted “ she intoned “ but within the reach of every stone “ she paused, listened “ I feel the the touch of every person who ever held them “
A journey, a period of strain, all our nihilistic fantasies divulged, wrapped in blankets, a coating of warm armour.
“ we are going to pass through the equator, were strange rituals are performed “ I distractedly replied.
An overload of everything, everything all of the time.Chapter 7
When she returns she will divulge the secrets of the day, I await her presence, tales of pale prophecies and incipient civil servants, I hold your fate there, tonally aware, spatially impotent, a crystal carrier, inadequate heating principles, a reduction in poor choices, examples of lunacy, east or south ?, the choice is made by the sun, following the sun like blood in my arteries, the smell of warm artifice in the morning, the faces of grief, dead children in a bus crash, a mistaken companion travelling alone on a train, intelligent stupidity.
Chapter 8
The notional self, lifting the ban on the pre – cultured, “ these strange stones that glisten in the sand, they have a meaning ? “ she asked “ we have to keep moving, “ I said, “ the equatorial non-zones are where it happens, time freeze, the sand swells, “ she insists on the Taylor- Monnington method, vast overground tunnels, a transportation to the ocean, mute sea captains beckoning you forward, a trip by boat, black sea water, oil substitute, fish don't swim they are carried by the ocean, a recognition, she passes the time counting the piscene cadavours in the nets .
Chapter 9
We define ourselves by our actions, intently studying each other, staying perfectly still, avoid the judgement, bi- nightly terrors, nimble echelon, hawks, kestrals, definate mass, laburnum, becoming deaf suddenly enlarges all opinions with seemingly endless carnage, covering all land, a seemingly futile search for the final digression .
Chapter 10
The third of the market races in line , line them up, the table once bare is covered in a thousand trinkets, desirable objects, individuals such as the death mask suicide pact, items such as the rusted razor blades you used once and swore you wouldn't use again, but you did, I did, causing arterial pain, bleeding without conscience, items such as the torniquets with which you have been alive and at the same time dead, items such as the photograph, and the memory on celluloid, the reminder of sensory pain.
Chapter 11
A denoument, a diversionary concept, back on land we travel between non-mapped villages, the curvature of the dwellings astounds and puzzles both of us, lithe animals cut huge sways throughout the preposterous German architecture within, no sound emerges from the mouths of these souls, “ I think they have been here forever “ she mumbles, idly eating the sands that surrounds both of us, the false memory of disturbance, so sweetly we embrace each other and close the lids that cover our eyes, land shift, smash cut, dangerous climatic consequence.
Chapter 12
A whole roll of cling film unwrapped and laid over every available surface, for the purposes of the sea captains miscreant deeds, pristine , uncreased, no marks on the memory, civilisation re-coils at the thought of the non-zones, staring into the oily blackness of the ocean deep I ponder the time long ago when to lay on the cold concrete seemed to generate far too many instances if cholera in the poorest Latin American countries, as the shore approaches I will once again lay upon it, with experience and anticipation .
Chapter 13
She is suddenly over three thousand miles away from my body, my point in the endless void, void, void, void, void, avoid, devoid, stumbling over accordianists and empty cartons of precooked ham, empty cobbled streets haunt my dreams, the parties and the concubines and empty conversations of the past glide through my memory like the dead galleons of Spanish conquistadors, at about this time I started to talk to myself, things like “ the wheels of the bike became magnetised “ . The labyrinth cobbled streets eventually ended and turned to dust roads, uncharted and unwalked, trees that had never been touched by humanity, I turned back, I left them untainted, there sparse beauty frightening my humility .
Chapter 14
I hid in cargo holds, I hid in the bins, I made my escape strapped to the back of an ambulance with a broken siren, inducing sleep enabled time to pass quickly, Central European towns approached, and humanity became recognisable, and gestures of intimacy were allowed, and the death marches glided past me as if all the birds in the world were chained in tandem and wing clipped, and magpies from a distance seemed glass shaped, there were no jungles just cities on fire, the dead wood from trees smelled like conspiracy and for a week I wept at the passing of something lost, border-zones of uncertainty emaciated my frailty, and just when it seemed as if the only option lay in lying by the side of the road to expire, she appeared in front of me, blocking the half sunlight, mouthing words I couldn't hear .
Chapter 15
“ I came back to know you again “, that was her sole sentence for a day, I pinched her arm, and tasted her flesh, she let me maul her, anticipating her disbelief, “ I came back to know you again “. So nothingness comes from nothingness, and alchemists predicted this in the 14th century, a torrent of ideas, I hold her hand, the softness of her palm brought forth in me the tears of lost love newly regained, the cuts and callouses now deeper and filthy were the same, we found a patch of grass and slept for five days .
Chapter 16
For two days we travelled without a word, and throughout this time I dreamed whilst I walked, reality returned when we entered the city, the buildings appeared shredded and carved from rock, strange angles abutted upon odder curves, the milling mass of people were missing a layer of humanity, there expressions begged questions, we arrived unobserved, the reflectiveness of this time was mirrored in many different ways. “ the 25th building on the right is our destination ! “ she exclaimed, and I somehow knew she was right, for a moment I thought I saw a ghost from my past, pausing to look in a window I caught sight of my image, and hers also, our bodies you could have crushed with a babies grip, our mass in the universe had never been less .
Chapter 17
With a wish of such strong need I ached for the equatorial non-zones, my vision blurred and everywhere I saw red meat, in doorways and dark corridors, her grip of my hand tightened as she sensed my anxiety, but still the animal and human carcasses seemed to fill my vision, putrification of memory decided to give me this image collection, I had to step over rotting flesh, the moisture in air caused certain hallucinations, I abruptly realised we had stopped walking, and the meat had gone, but so had the 25th building .
Chapter 18
Severed time, wrapped in invisible time, there's no pretence inwardly, we seemingly glided over boulders that grew exponentially when we thought of them, the sinister appeal of the city took hold and we both sensed we would be here for a period of time, picking up a stone discarded by the regulars, I studied it intently, in an attempt to bond rocks to make precious metal, " maybe the 25th building is concealed in this rock " I suggested somewhat hopefully, and for six months we trawled the city limits, we tied ourselves to passing trains in an effort to see more at a faster pace, I secretly crucified invisible ghosts, we burned inside, we shouted at the sun, at it's passive massive aggression, but we were lost, we had found the city but lost the reason, the reasons that had driven us, the essence had begun to dissipate, it was about this time that I suggested, " drugs, we need to release the angular nature of our thoughts ", and so we took what we could find, and so we found a darkness we had lost .
Chapter 19
Time lapse, a fruit becomes a brick becomes a pencil becomes a caravan becomes a horse becomes a terrarium becomes a terrible b-movie becomes you becomes a carraway seed becomes artifice becomes ventolin becomes liquid becomes gaseous becomes cement becomes turbines becomes a lamb becomes your mother becomes your inside pocket becomes morning becomes night becomes death becomes billboards becomes pigment becomes pig becomes becomes Lanarkshire becomes moss becomes a bird becomes a telegraph pole becomes porcelain becomes broken glass becomes acid hunger becomes love becomes yearning becomes lettuce becomes soil becomes subway becomes a girl crying in an embassy doorway becomes...
Chapter 20
We suffered a change of latitude, carrying a dead magpie as a sign of fortune, a conversation she held with a mongoloid child convincing us both that our path lay in the west, temporary deafness came and went, we decided on hiding under trains, behind doors and communicated with silent gestures, "do you know where in the west we are going ? " i asked for the fifteenth time, but her replies were so mumbled I gave up the hope of knowing, all I could decipher from her, were the words " she knows what it's like to be 45 and 53 “. With the movement of the train above us and around us, time alternated, but I still longed for the non - zones, and the mystery of times darkness, but the faces in the windows of my mind had returned, the rhythmic motion had given them a consistent transit, there solid feminine form challenged me to form sentence on them, but I declined .
Chapter 21
We came upon the carcass of a dead cow, in the heat of the summer it’s putrid odour had a life of it’s own, it’s atoms dissolving and dissipating, ahead lay an outcrop of tree’s that had appeared in our dreams many times, the lack of birds or songs told us everything had ceased here, time had stopped here, here where the ghosts of the past made flesh, all the mistakes and wrongs we had committed were forgiven here, with a beating heart I sliced my arm open with a fragment of rock, grabbed a handful of soil and packed it in the wound, without pain, I knew I was part of this place, each tree represented every idea realised or otherwise that we had ever had, each piece of soil represented all the solidified words we had ever spoken, as I looked, new trees were appearing as we thought our way around them, I wanted to eat the soil, to devour it’s richness and somehow thread it together.
Chapter 22
After 12 days I noticed her starting to age, but I stayed the same, I accused her of deception and malice but she accused me of the same thing, from our own point of view we were the same, feeling the contours of my face I realised I was still a young man, this idyllic non-zone was obviously meant for me alone, she ached for straight lines, natures curves had no appeal to her, her concrete residue dreams, skylines of horrible architecture, smelling the dust under the paving slabs, his misery made even the thought tree’s stop growing, a mistake had been made in her magnetism, glacial optimism had led us downwards. ice-ghosts-aliens-ice-ghosts-aliens, the concept of a sharp line made her to want to leave, lying on the ground she melted into the earth, and let the elements expel her .
Chapter 23
Language, non-language, the sounds induced by motorways, atmospheres full of cremotorium colour, black swans, deciphering scars and digging graves, prime ministers and deranged accordianists selling soil to idiot thieves, she belonged there amongst the invisible oil wells and posters of razor blades, the dead and the existing as one under inverted umbrellas, petrol soup lakes, animals domesticated and free driving the cars into the sea, every person writhing in silent agonies, heretic-heretic-heretic-heretic, scratching her hands on concrete floors, her silence was so loud, her thoughts beamed upon every screen and no one cared .
Chapter 24
Sentences of silence and my soul was at the equator, the non - zones were distilled in the commentary of my mind, calling me, they kept calling me with a thin band of visibility, her unfortunate love for me now deeper than sand, her shoes and knives mocking me now, it was the conclusion of my departure that seemed so organic, fatalistic, I walked to the city limits, past a rock were a prophet lay, a patch of land were the children played, and all the time, and forever, I turned my back on her and entered the Non-zone by jumping from the highest tree outside the city limit, the lack of life and time greeted me like a first born, hugged me like the first time, I circle the earth once every five minutes, and the beaches are littered with magpies and dogs, scorched trees, and me .
