Two stories contrasting banality with emotive in-universe fiction

Reflective Tabard

The red lipstick ran out before I could finish writing. I had to get the cleaner from the kitchen. I got distracted and ate a yoghurt, and dropped the spoon. It stuck to my stocking. Pretty annoyed. It left a stain so I dabbed it off.

The other cloths were in the wash, so I washed that one, then wiped the mirror and started again in burgundy. This time I wrote it out neater.

I wondered if it would be sexier if it wasn't so neat, but there wasn't time to change anything. I waited.

Closer to six, I had a glass of wine. It got cold, so I put on a dressing gown. I stayed very quiet. It felt like a vigil, so that the air could collect all of me, and this silent lust, and waft it like pheromones over everything. I was pretty excited.

He came in later, still wearing his reflective tabard. He was in a really jolly mood; he'd been to the pub, and was now havering. He bumbled off to “do manly things”.

I felt like he'd ruined the surprise, destroyed the atmosphere. I finished the glass. There was no atmosphere. Just me standing here, wearing a dressing gown and drinking by myself. Would he? Probably. So I went to find him.

He was already asleep, with game controller in hand. Still wearing luminescent safety gear. I watched his reflection as he snored. I looked fat, and the mirror wrote over my fat belly, in burgundy:

I want you in my cunt xxx

God on Canongate

Shy is really loud. Kept reading aloud on the train. No intonation, just volume and rhythm. The performance had a one-to-one correspondence with the meaning and context of his lyrics.

He ignores Clipes. I don't think he sees him, or anything that isn't pure TRUTH JUSTICE PUNK.

He can hear it in your blood-works, just like Moses heard GOD.

All day he sprawled among frayed receipts and old letters, all covered in squint words and terrible rhymes. He gave the impression of a poet composing in a blossomed orchard.

Clipes had nagged that we'd be late, but Shy times everything on his watch. He knows how long it takes to get anywhere, and if he doesn't know, it's probably written down on the back of one of those bus tickets.

So he suddenly got up, at exactly the correct time, and then we were out and to the station. Soon we were shitting it south amongst old drunks and silent, bored students.

At Waverley, Shy became quiet. Suddenly bashful amongst so many commuters. We thanked the conductor for some reason. Shy remarked on how PUNK it was to respect REAL PEOPLE, as long as we bear in mind that his employers are CUNTS.

Canongate, £3 and then we were in. A poor sludge band were opening. Shy grabbed me and pulled me through the din, and random skins, to a table. I saw what he'd spotted through the gloom.

I was with GOD. His beard was long. His morals were pure. He wasn't playing tonight but I was sure he was RIGHT and the WAY and even CLIPES was happy.