Monthly Archives: July 2009

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And so it went on…

Published on July 15, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

the attacks that is. Eddie’s attacks…

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Eddie would greet Travis like a lost brother of old each time he met him – “Travis what are you doing here!  Oh it’s so good to see you” – and Travis, patient and gentle as ever would slowly explain that we’d were staying in his house – that we were his guests.

Then he’d introduce me and I’d get that look.  That long slow look.  As he tried to imprint my face into his damaged memory.

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And then he’d attack me the next time he saw me.  And I… patient as ever… would  curl into a protective ball into the ground and weather the stomps and butts and blows until Travis arrived to go through the whole process again.

And again.

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And again.

So I took to leaving these signs around the house – pinned to the walls – mirrors – above his bed – on the floor in front of the toilet – inside cupboards – everywhere and anywhere…

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And they’d work – for a while they’d work.

If he read a sign and then saw me I’d be fine and Travis didn’t have to be near.

But then if I was in another room or dare I even say it I went out and then woe-betide me came back into the house… knocking my boots and taking my coat off… shacking the snow from my hair… or actually it was rain by then wasn’t it… anyway… if I did those things.

Well I’d be attacked.

Which after a while began to… well how can I put it… it began to get me down.

Episode 2 Part 2

Published on July 5, 2009 in Podcasts. 0 Comments

Please visit www.theflickerman.com – this is the RSS Audio only feed and is used by tech gurus to subscribe to the series – visit the website for the full experience.  Cheers Cornelius.

Peel away the layers and what do you get?

Peel away the layers and what do you get?

 
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“Chopping Wood in a Blue and Brown Sweater”

Published on July 2, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

The next morning the cold wakes me and grab my coat around me.  The snow has thawed but its still bitter and I run for Eddie’s shack.  Taking the risk.  Needing the warmth.

As I run I pass the woodpile – and I see her.

A doll.

A little blonde haired doll… with overlarge eyes and a blue patterned jumper and jeans standing in front of the woodpile.  Standing on a scattering of autumnal ferns that someone has laid in front of the cut wood.  She’s standing there – on the brink of moving – watching me.  What 6″, no maybe 8″ high and I stop.

Andy’s doll

Its the same thing… the same fucking thing.

I look around.

No one.

Its cold and I don’t want to be there and I certainly don’t want this to be happening, but then I know what I have to do…. What I did before.  I crouch down and lift her up and look into those overlarge blue eyes and I’m just a little bit afraid all over again.

So I pull her head off and out pops a coil of paper that unfurls to reveal a URL written in fine, sharp pencil… http://www.flickr.com/photos/lulidesigns/2963993980/.  I stick it into that little pocket in my jeans, that one on the hip and a throw both parts of the doll down and I go inside.

I was going to tell Travis about this, about it all happening again, about how this wasn’t possible because surely no-one could know where we were… I was going to tell Travis but then it all got forgetton.

Because Eddie headbutted me when I opened the door.

Eddie’s memory

Published on July 1, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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is shot… completely.

That’s how Travis explained it all to me.  That his short term memory is all over the place and that he forgot who I was and that right then, in that moment when he attacked me he thought I was trying to break-in.  Easy really – it’s why he’s always building the sheds – because he forgets what he’s doing – its why he lives on his own, by the sea… in a shack…

Eddie stood there at Travis’ side looking at his knuckle and looking at me, he looked ashamed, maligned, like he wanted the ground to open beneath him and take his shame away… I felt sorry for him and reach out my hand.  He took mind in his, swallowed my palm in his paw and gave me that look in the eyes… that look that seemed to weigh me up, to judge me as a person.  I now understood he was trying to remember me.  Fix me.  Mount me in the frame of his memory before I slipped away.

Eddie leaves – hang dog and sheepish to chop wood.

Travis’ explained as he cleaned my cuts that Eddie been dumped at the barn years back now… just left for Travis to find broken, disorientated and confused outside his door… Eddie looked up at him as he opened the door with that look of the regretful school-boy and Travis scooped him up and took him in.  His story, what there was of it involved crime and an exploitation of his memory problems.  Eddie was the perfect crumunal; if you wanted someone to forget who had asked them to commit a crime, to forget how they committed a crime, to forget whether a crime had been committed at all then ask someone with no memory to carry it out.

As long as at some juncture he remembered to commit the crime.

It seems that eventually Eddie hadn’t and was beaten and discarded for lapse.

So he woke on Travis’ doorstep and Travis did what Travis does – he fed him, bathed him and took him in.

And through all this I can’t help but think that this is the most that Travis has ever told me about his past.

My wounds are bound, I step outside.  Eddie is there.  His eyes meet mine and his mouth curves into a snarl.  Then I feel a hand on my shoulder, Travis’ hand and Eddie’s features relax, his mouth forms an ‘O’ of understanding and he resumes chopping wood.

I step out onto the snow coated shingle and hear from behind the beginnings of a conversation.

“What are you doing here Travis?”

I decide to sleep in the car.