Beneath The Glittering Flight

When choosing the path to violence I stroked.
I petted, I mean, the rash cat, that big animal you have pacing the grounds at night. Only when I’m here? Is that correct? Only when I’m here?
The path to violence was attractive, of course, blessed and bedecked with fine carpet, embedded sweeties and many, many stops along the way. Where I, and you, could buy ice-cream, succotash, Calliope bars and crème fresh dragons melted on their own sticks.

Alas though. The door that opened on to the path to violence was a steel contraption – over designed if you ask me – that did all sorts beyond the narrow confines of door. Including the ability – of its own volition – to swing itself shut and refuse to open. Keys, combinations and passwords be damned. The path to violence then, denied to me by the scrabrrrrraanng of furious metal door.

As the racing car - of combustion engine and red paintwork - advanced as a slow roar. I stepped out towards the path and stepped back, with ease, to avoid the violence it proposed. The man at the wheel was asleep at the wheel. Nudged, he would, like a sleeping lion, yawn and roll over, better to capture the sun.

Cadavers lined the walkways. The concrete abutments, the overhangs, the bits with the shopping trolleys – stuffed to their stainless steel gills with the putrescence of, um, rotting cadavers. Clear violence here and it was nothing to do with me.
Through hearts, spikes. Through eyeballs, spikes. Up noses, coat hangers, brain pullers, smelling salts. I sniffed so hard that my hat blew off.

Me and Fat Mick and Red Bob were the last people on earth. It was Christmas, as it happened, and, had we been more attuned to the obvious Christian symbolism of this end-of-life-scenario, we would have discussed, long into the night, the obvious Christian symbolism of it all. But maybe not. It wasn’t the done thing to get Fat Mick and Red Bob appropriately moist.

Fat Mick and Red Bob were hackers. Who would hack your head of as soon as look at you. That’s the kind of violence I’m talking about. A violence you can relate to. A violence that leaves you with no uncertainty about its purpose. Like Red Bob, for instance, keeping a loaded gun under his bed. Not, as he said, for self defence, but because he liked to blow his girlfriends’ heads off. And he had plenty of girlfriends. Sing them - as Red Bob often sang - the love of danger.

The museum madam, a big broad of smoking revolver, penny tights and a slap in the mouth, stood against that open doorway, her finger twisting and turning in my lock, a high heel scraping against the skirting board. Her cigarette ash spoiling my carpet. What can I do for you toots? I asked. That got her. She took her finger out of my lock, raised it to her lips and said, Shut the noise, fatso.

Fatso? You see, violence is a handy tool sometimes when you’re ill met by villains and villainy. You need to stand up for all that you stand for. Violence can wait for you in the dark and pounce as soon as you flash a torch in its face.