Warning - May Contain Nuts

 Power walking to 80's music or watch Stuart Little?

Oh no. Not again?

We could play cards?

I had hoped we'd left here forever, but here we are. Again. The looney bin.

The legal high's are pretty radical huh?

Yeah, the government issued stuff is pretty good I must say.

Can you feel your hands?

I can't feel nothing. Like fucking nothing! Ha!

There's a guy on the front desk trying to force his own admittance, he's had a row with his girlfriend. He's begging to come in here and here's you complaining all the time. Ungrateful bitch you are!

Ha! That's funny! Trying to get in here to get away from his girlfriend?  She must be fun to live with if this place is a better alternative.

How did you get admitted this time?

I told my Doctor I needed sleeping meds because my Grandma kept on grabbing my foot when I was asleep. Then she would hurl herself at me screaming and I would have to throw her on the floor. He asked me how old she was, and I told him she'd been dead forty years, so he called an ambulance. 

Knowing you this is probably true.

And you? How did you get in?

Yeah, I told the girl behind the counter at Macdonalds to give me an empty coffee cup as I needed to jerk off.

And knowing you this is probably true! Surprised they put you in here and not in jail!

And yet here we are...

Well I'm going to sit here and watch the clock. Get my ice cream cup at 8pm then go to bed.

You found the least disgusting bed?

No, they gave me a pretty decent one this time actually.

Good for you. I'm in with a guy who shits himself. Deliberately.

A dirty protester hey? Nice. Don't ask him why he does it, his answer will put you in therapy. How long are we here this time?

Until we can get to Dr Jimmy.

He's in segregation?

Yes. Thorazined up to his gills. More than likely.

No conscience there then.

But he would talk in that state?

No, I doubt he will remember much.

Oh, and if a guy called Steve calls you after midnight, don't answer the phone.

Why?

Because he's a joker, he's a smoker and he's a midnight toker. But he don't mean to hurt no one..

Funny... No stopping you is there? 

I love you.

Is that you or the meds talking?

That's me talking to the meds. Stuart Little?

No it triggers me.

You're very tall for your age.

Huh?

You are a fucking 9 year old trapped in a man's body!

Yeah... All plastic cutlery and no locks on the bathroom door.

Ah well, better go peel some paint off the walls.

Eat the plaster also for a touch of realism, make your illness look more convincing.

Here comes the anorexic..

Well you would never get admitted with that would you.

Fuck off...

Working with people with eating disorders must be brutal.

Yes, she hid batteries in her ponytail to make her heavier at weigh in. But she managed to pick up a full water bottle off the dispenser and throw it at the nurses when they put her in lock down.

She accused me of stealing her Guatamalan coin collection.

Did you? 

 I was thinking about it.

Another night in paradise.

Here comes Nurse Ratched. Open wide.

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenements halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence

 He never stopped running, you know? He was wearing these sunglasses, big thick black triangles covering his eye's, and a black rectangular strip adjoining them that covered his forehead.

Covering his third eye.

I asked him if he could see through them, or was he wearing them when he met her.

Oh no, you didn't say that. After all this time?

Yes I did! I did say that! I wanted to know! I wanted to know if he was fucking blind!

But then it came.

The men in tin cans. All lined up. In a cupboard.  I'd had them processed and put into tins, like dog food. But I was still afraid someone would guess and open a can with a tin opener, and see what I'd done.

Did they?

No, they didn't. I concealed the tin cans elsewhere, but thought it may look suspicious. So I put them all back into the kitchen cupboard.

Were they labelled? The cans?

Yes. With their photograph. I don't understand why I did that.

Perhaps you didn't.

No, perhaps not. But the thought was there. Imagine the tycoon with a flotilla of floating fish canneries. Catch, gut, can.  Maybe that's where his last wife disappeared to.

Bizarre.

No, not bizarre.  That's what I thought at the time. Sardines and ex wife on toast for supper.

When were you walking the steep steps downwards?

Last night. It looked easy enough but then I noticed that almost every other step was covered in dog shit. I didn't want to step into it, so my descent took what seemed like a lifetime. It took hours. When I looked backwards and upward from the bottom step, the climb would have been easier than the descent.

And so there is your solution. The path of easiest resistance isn't necessarily the best.  It's usually easier to walk downhill than climb uphill. But the results can be very different. And not always desirous.

Why do you know everything?

Was he at the bottom of the steps?

No. I began to run amongst a group of people, we were all headed in the same direction. It was a subway. I realized that a man, at the side, lying on the ground on his front was him. I stopped running and went back to him. He jumped up and threw his arms around me, laughing. We sank to our knee's, both laughing. He was wearing the blue shirt, and jeans. He didn't say anything, only laughter was the sound between us. He then stood and pulled me to my feet, and without saying a word, he pushed me back into the line of running people. I waved back at him still laughing. Then I continued this unknown race.

He said goodbye?

No he didn't.

Then that is where you shall meet him again.

What? In the subway?

Yes. The cold green lit tunnel.

Why? How do you know that?

It is the tunnel that separates the dead from the living, you must continue the race alone.

What if I don't want to continue the race? Alone?

You have no option.

But what if I make the choice, not leave it to fate?

Not your choice to make, unfortunately.

I've always made my own choices.

Not this time. It is out of your hands.

I don't like you very much. You are like a tourniquet on my emotions. My psyche.

I'm reality. You not only don't like me, you positively hate me.

I do.

Correct.

Again! Fuck you!

And fuck you too..

Metamorphosis Complete

Radiate. Stop the candle burning too low without snuffing it out entirely.

Technique. In life, learn to breathe slowly, deeply and exhale, slowly. Stop holding your breath. They want you to change? Don't change. Remain as you have aways been, true to yourself. You don't owe anyone anything, but they owe you everything.

Some people are ungrateful.

Some people are blind, they are insensitive. They don't realize.

Well they should.

Don't lose sleep over it. Time will change them. And the sound of a door closing. Don't slam it shut, close it gently.

Silence is power.

But keep a window open, don't block them out entirely, that causes a wave of panic, and leads to turmoil and destruction. They will be unhappy, then angry, keep the window open.

Inside the turmoil, black or white? Happy or sad?

White. Happy. I found happiness within myself, and no one can take that from me because it wasn't given by another person. I discovered it myself.

The pursuit of happiness. All the time it was there, you just needed to see it.

Solitude is happiness. The sun. The light. The trees.

If it's dead and gone, let it be released. Don't hold it inside. That won't bring anything back to you, it will just cause pain. Release it. Let it go.

We are in the garden of a madhouse. That's why I came to this place. I find it more sane here. At least I can be myself. A reflection of myself is what I see in the mirror, not who everyone else wants me to see. A reflection of themselves. Be like me, they say, a brilliant academic, be like her, an athlete. No. I can't be someone else. I am me. I want to be myself. And you know? People don't like that.

If you can't be pigeon-holed at school, you are a misfit and are punished. Just for being an individual. How dare you.  You have to conform to societal roles. I was always a free spirit. A butterfly floating from one flower to the next. Except there wasn't always nectar, there was sometimes shit.

But something as small as the flutter of a butterflies wing, can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway across the world.

Don't conform to the world, transform.

The candle is burning so low

How can you be both deliriously happy howling at the moon, and yet mournfully black and sad at the same time? Like the utimate thrill of the heights of the rollercoaster, right back down to the black smoke  and depths of despair. Laughing hysterically,  then laying flat on the ground with bloody knee's and hot tearful anger?  Yet inside something is like you are still soaring with a light heart, and swooping through the clouds as carefree as a bluebird with a twig in his beak building his first nest,  and has just found his mate for life?

Why am I these two people?

Black and yet white. As black as the depths of hell. As white as pure newly fallen snow.

Black and white are not colours. What colour are you today?

Outside. Blue. I'm blue, but I'm also red. Inside I'm grey. Suffocating slowly. Like a slow suicide but on day release because the sun is shining outside and suicide in the sunlight is forbidden. Save that for the blackness and the emptiness of the night. For as the sun retreats, it sucks your life and soul away and into it's shade.

The dark is not for the weak.

Always conceal, never reveal. Yor strengths and weaknesses, learn to keep them under cover. In the darkness.

But the truth lives in the light.

No matter. Keep the light on, but the blinds closed.

You are so disturbing how you  find it relatively easy to read my thoughts.

I'm aware of it. I can read you. Every despicable thought, which are many, every pure thought too. And they are plentiful. But balanced.

Don't use the word balanced to describe me for shit sake.

My mind is racing. I'm stuck one moment within the groove of being kind, simple and thoughtful. At the same time I'm skipping into total thoughts of sheer destruction. I want to burn everything down. I'm a scratched vinyl record. Literally. 

You keep talking but I'm not really listening. I'm lost within the confines of my head.  See me smile? It's a pretence. Nothing is real. But what is reality? 

Keep pretending, keep the smile. Until it becomes real. Fake it until you make it!  What makes you happy? What makes you sad? Clouds are grey and full of rain. 

And people are fake and full of shit.

Sshh... Someone is listening in again.

No one is listening. The intrusion is all in your imagination.

No. Nothing is in my imagination. I know, I know. I fucking know.

You know only what I choose to share with you.

And therein lies the fucking problem!

The laughing man. The pushing hands. Talking in slow motion. He's there, always ready to show himself, when I least expect it, laughing, always laughing.

You are always laughing.

But it's fake. Maybe I'm laughing at myself.

Major arcana, the Fool. But you are ready to step over the precipice. Take the plunge over the edge. You need to do that. We need to do that.

You don't know where the edge is until you've stepped over it. Right?

Precisely. You are correct as usual.

Unless I'm imagining it.

But do we hold hands and go over together?

No, it's a journey we must make alone.

Well I'm going. You either come with me or you stay in your safety zone. Full of cushions and comfy sofa's, thick mattresses covered in duck down, smelling of Rose Jam. 

I have no such zone.

Good. Because either way, I'm stepping over the cliff edge. And very soon. I will give no warning either, so be prepared.

I need time to think.

No, no thinking about it. You either do it, or you don't do it. Either way, I am gone.

Okay. I was never really here. And I will never be here where I never really was, again.

Good. Go fuck yourself. 

Mission not impossible

 We refuel in St Tropez, and finally we are about to complete what we came to do my Tiny Fair. Our mission is almost accomplished.  

Well Frenchy, I'm kind of getting used to the randomness of our life, but what happens when we need to return to normal life? We shall be bored?

No, we shall be relieved. But you know it's not over in New York. We need to return soon. But first I return my brother to our mother. Paris is the last leg of this journey. 

So from the glorious aerial sights of the Riviera and then it's back to reality.

Ouai, d'accord. 

Back to the farm. No more daylight, only darkness.

We are still rolling around in hyper schemes.

Somewhere, your enemies are keening

 

You know going uphill is only one way right?

No intentions of rolling downhill Frenchy. No left or right hand turns either, up, only up. That is me.

Sometimes you wake up and life gives you a thump. Know what I'm saying?

Yes, I sure do. If you imagine waking up one morning and running unwittingly into the person that is going to be the reason that it will be the last time you do something - or everything. 

  But imagine everything you do when you wake up, but that is the day that it's for the last time - but you don't know it's the last time. Do you remember the last time you played out with your friends as a kid? No. But there was a last time, you just didn't know it.

The last time.

For the last time.

The old lady in Queen's. She put on her nightdress for the last time, cleaned her teeth and brushed her hair. But she also breathed for the last time. Because of her husband? No, I don't believe that. Why pull her nightgown up like that? And the way he killed himself is soo not sitting right with me.

There's no more information yet, the forensics are still on it.

What about similar cases?

I don't know, there's 2 or possibly even 3.

So we are talking about a serial killer?

Possibly. 

What did the DNA bring up?

Some familial, possibly blood found at the scene with quite a rare blood group. 

Ohh, I have quite a rare blood group!

Vraiment?

Ouai. I was in hospital once and I was told they couldn't operate as there was none of my blood type in the bank as it was rare.

You did 23 and Me?

I did. But it's going broke and I'm wondering what will happen to all of those DNA samples.

I hear they will be sold to the Far East, dangerous in my opinion.

Yes, especially as drones can find you with a DNA sample.

You watch too much TV.

Vraiment?

Ha!

Ancestry dot com.. I did that too. I'm waiting for the cops to knock on the door with an unsolved crime!

It could happen you think?

Oh sure! Nothing would surprise me! 

I've heard several cases so you could be right.

Whatever happens, well it never happens on it's own you know? 

Only if deceit prevails.

I live in the light, not in the shadows. I know, let's go down to the water, see if we can find the man who pretends he isn't there. You know the guy who pushes his boat with a big stick, and covers his face with a scarf? He has answers.

I think they collected him and put him in Belle Vue, he isn't there anymore.

Ok, the man who isn't there anymore, let's find him.

His hands were bleeding the last time I saw him.

No, they were not bleeding, he has blood on them, there's a  difference.

 Like Lady Macbeth?

Indeed.

We are in danger Tiny Fair. What were facts are now feelings.

What difference does it make? We keep following the flame. It will take us straight to our destination.

Destination unknown?

No, I know where the destination is.

I feel better.

People always take more from the buffet than they can eat.

Why do you say that?

Because it's a fact?

I actually don't, I return for me if I need to.

Hmmm.

We need to keep to the road ahead.

But all the roads look like Medusa's head.

Keep walking my beautiful one, until you have worn out yet another pair of shoes.