ThE SPYdERS WEB

(the spyder’s web)

Before we met, you showed me your diary.

I am still confused by this sequence of events, as you must be too at the way you ran away from your shadow and ME after I read your secrets. I know that we have discussed many things, including my addictions and habits that you find so intolerable.

Before we met, you showed me your diary and then we were having sex on the wooden floor of your living room. I still remember the way the orchids filtered the sunlight and the sound of holistic music filled the room with mystery. Then your Maltese dog was at the foot of the bed, asking me where you'd gone. "I don't know," I told him, "I expect she'll be back soon."

Today I went into your study and found that you'd converted it into a gallery. The first photo from each roll of film that you used, you said there was a pattern to it. I do not see it. Oddly, I found that I could date each image, even the ones that hadn't happened yet. They seemed to go on forever, a jumbled, blurred and erratic array of unhappy memories, each one partially obscured by blinding black light.

I knocked over a jar full of dead butterflies but when I went to pick them up I was overcome with vertigo and I had to leave. We were making desperate love in your kitchen when you told me about the journey of the senses. You said that the person is just as real as the shadow. You told me that just because you aren't there yet doesn't mean it isn't real. You said it was like London still being real when you're in Paris. You talked about personal space and the chakras and folding canvases and I didn't understand anything except the way that your breasts moved and the way your breath misted in the cold.

Then we were in a restaurant and you were screaming and you said, "This is what it's going to be like all the time." A waiter dropped a tray and the contents floated majestically into the ceiling. It was beautiful. You did not think so and demanded that I gave up snorting cocaine and smoking ‘skunk’.

After you re-introduced yourself, we resumed our date and I asked you again why you'd chosen a supermarket. You told me that you had a special soft spot in your heart for dairy products and organic vegetables. You said that there was something endearing about the seriousness of it all. You said that they called out to our imaginations in a way normal vegetables can no longer achieve. You said that all supermarkets - no matter how dismal - were optimistic in that it assumed that there would be a future at all. We were on a train and you were explaining to the assembled group of passengers about the spider’s web. They were smiling and nodding. They didn't really understand but strangers had told them that your idea’s showed promise and, after all, the journey was going to be long and boring. The coffee tasted terrible and I kept fidgeting in my seat. You were radiant. No one thought to ask what would happen if the spider’s web collapsed.

Today, I watched a broken egg re-assemble itself on the wooden floor, in the main room, where the piano sits, waiting to be spoken to. The egg made a strange popping noise as the last bit of eggshell re-attached itself. It flew into the air up and up and then came to rest on the shelf, the one where you keep your diary. A helicopter roared overhead, as if hovering above your garden, monitoring our movements and your Maltese dog came in and told me that he was scared. I didn't know what to tell him. The spider’s web was becoming my life and no one can say how or when it will end. I remember your reaction when you read this letter.

I remember how the last line, where I say, "we weren't meant to live like this," brought a tear to your eye and you turned to your Maltese dog and tried to explain to him that I was gone. But how could you explain? What does 'gone' mean to a dog that has no sense of time? Then we were lying together under the stars and when the first fireworks went off, you leaned over and kissed me for the first time. You tasted of red wine and cigarettes. I can't blame you for choosing a new direction in life. When you finally came back, you were older.

That was the hardest thing for both of us, I realise that. We didn't share the same memories anymore. You held me and told me that it would be all right, that you had hardly changed but I think that we both know now that that wasn't true at all. Time changes people. That's how it works.Today, I went into the study and stared at the spider’s web. I can still remember the day you spun it.

I remember how you'll stand in front of a crowd of shoppers with your Maltese dog and your new hairstyle and you'll give your speech about the tyranny of love and death and the triumph of the singular and about setting us all free from the rituals of relationships. But inside, you'll be thinking, "I wish I was more honest with myself, I wish that I did not use people, I wish I knew how to love, I wish I knew how to be human." I know this because, before we met, you showed me your diary and you wrote about this day. How could you not? It was the most important day of your life. You saved yourself from the brink of madness and ended up listening to cd’s that claimed to cure the panic attacks. You asked me to listen to them as well. There's nothing I can do. I think it’s all in your mind and you are not the person that I first read about in your diary. The past is just as real as present. There is no before or after anymore. Because of you, there never was. You are not in love, I am not in love. Yet still we exist as shadows of each other. Existing in the same place at a different time.

We weren't meant to live like this.

The End.

A MOMENT.

ThE MOMENT.

I had decided to leave myself behind. I had decided that I was no longer a viable option, but something always happened to stop me. A telephone call, the chance encounter of an old girlfriend. It was always difficult to decide when the time was right to escape from my life. This time, I decided to escape by car. I had seen another of my selves do this and never heard from him again: it didn't look that hard. I remember the day well, windy, droplets of rain fell onto the windscreen as I sat in the car, ready to drive off.
Then I was on the motorway, and then I was at the petrol station. I felt hungry so I bought myself a chicken sandwich. Normally these things give me a miniscule amount of pleasure, this time it felt dull.
I found a small slip road off the motorway. The road dipped and I could make out a stone farmhouse. I thought for a moment of using the drive, but it seemed too close to the farm. I didn't want the farmer to disturb me. I felt that would be very embarrassing.
So I drove on. I saw a lay by. The road was quiet and I felt at ease, so I stopped there. I got the black plastic bag from the boot and threw it into the bushes. Then I sat back in the driver's seat. I unwrapped a packet of camel cigarettes and began to smoke one, thinking of nothing in particular, just enjoying the unnatural taste of death and enhanced flavourings. I wanted to have that pleasure before driving towards my new life.
But, typical of my luck, another car drove up to stop behind mine, a blue Ford Fiesta. In it was an elderly couple. I could see them in my mirror eating sandwiches from a plastic box. How long would they be? They seemed to chew very slowly. They did not talk much however. I calculated perhaps ten minutes. Boredom.
Then I saw the man nod towards the bushes, and the woman adjusts her glasses to see a little better. They had spotted the black plastic bin liner. I watched the old man get out of his car and go to the bag, I watched him peer into it. Then with doddering steps the old man came towards my car. He tapped on my window. I felt myself turning crimson with embarrassment. What did he think of the contents? The contents of my old existence.
I tried to ignore him, gazing straight ahead intently, but I could sense his face peering through the glass at the side of the door at my profile, and hear his tapping again. The woman the appeared. I could hear her voice.”Is it his bag? Ask him, if it his bag. See if he knows who it belongs to”.The man opened the door. What a fool I was, I should have locked it!”Excuse me, but did you see that bin liner over there, is it yours?” said the man.”NO, NO, nothing to do with me”, I said”There's something very strange inside it”, said the man”it may be a bomb”, said the woman”do you have a mobile phone? So we can call the police please”, asked the man. I gave him my phone.
I stared ahead, trying to ignore them. Then I felt a sudden burst of resentment and despair within me and I started to weep, loud howling sobbing, my inner core finally releasing the years of contempt and anguish I had held inside for so long. They called the police- I have to say I resented that, after all, I was harming no-one other than myself: I loathe busy-bodies and I spent the best part of the following six months discussing the human condition with an psychiatrist, who smelt of cheese, too bad the cheese had turned blue. He looked like a piglet and I hated the way he would answer my questions with a question. I disliked him a great deal and made sure that anything I told him about my childhood and experiences of bestiality helped him think that I was becoming cured.
A few months later I found myself with a little money in my pocket and an abnormally cheerful mood: I had recently sold a painting and Battersea Park looked delightful as I was wondering quite what to do, it suddenly occurred to me: I should get myself a cat. If I had a cat, then I would not want for company: why, the cat could live in my studio, kept in a cage, it could not escape me if it wished to. And it would be sure to keep the mice away, for I would teach it to hunt and kill.
At Battersea Cats and Dogs home. I viewed many cats, so many unwanted cats, it made me miserable looking at them. I asked the girl for cat with a strange personality.”There is this one,” she said.”I see,” I said. The cat was medium in size, its grey fur was dazzling, an aristocrat of the cat world. It was missing one eye and had one bent ear. It also had an odd twitch and a stare that would equal medusas. The girl and myself discussed in length, the cat’s history, its background, its likes and dislikes. We also discussed how I might be able to obtain this cat. I filled out the various forms. I was told to expect a home visit, to see if I was a suitable candidate to adopt this cat, but I found myself falling into a daze, and I wandered out the rescue centre without a cat and a vague recollection that they were coming to visit me.
The day had turned sallow. Thoughts began to trouble my mind. Such thoughts! That the world was melting, consumerism was consuming us all, all politicians are evil scum. Teenagers with guns, where did they get them? Should I get myself a sniper rifle? Is it wrong to look at girls and think of strawberries and cream? Would anyone ever love me? And copulation with a handicapped girl would it be an experience? Would that girl develop an interesting erotic skill to compensate for her handicap? Becoming a fine lover of dark desires and weird positions? Or cultivate contortions that with patience and study would nurture her talents to glorify herself and the experience of others?
That I myself may become a victim of misfortune, or a depression, or an act of gross indecency, and that self-same crippled girl whom I had desired, and, in her deformity, regarded me so woefully, she offered her to me to give me consolation that she was the only type of female that could tolerate me, that other girls found me to repulsive, too disgusting and weird to have a relationship with.
Oh yes, indeed, the world was full of strange events like that.
Why, I had even encountered a couple living in my street and who had arrived home to find a bin liner, oozing blood in the middle of their living room floor. What purpose was there in that discovery? And inside the bag contained five severed toes! Why, it seriously disturbed them, they talked about it for days afterwards, they even mentioned it passing strangers. And the cleaning that had to be done to remove the blood from the Persian carpet, it was so tedious and expensive! All that trouble because of a bloodied bin liner!
I met them at the newsagents: they stood close together; the trauma had served to unite them in horror. They stood there in a dim silence - overtaken by a sullen mood, resenting a world that could so dishonour their living room floor. I asked them if they had reported the incident to the police, but they did not, I think, want to talk about it. "A terrible thing to happen!" I said, in what I hoped was a sympathetic manner.
In truth, however, I feel ill at ease with people and from then on and I am sure that the atmosphere that prevailed in the street where I live, became dark, uneasy, a callow silence on the pavements, as if we were all guilty, but unsure quite of what. The ladies who lived at number 13 and number 11 were forever gossiping in mumbles over their hedges and watching the, now notorious, front door of the bin liner house.
And after an event like that, you become fearful of black bin liners, you may become a statue, you might simply fade into the shadows, you may get hit by a bus, or die quietly in the middle of a dream about sex and chocolate éclairs or be kidnapped by Satanists for an orgy. There are many that take their lives in despair: it seems romantic but normally the lives of these suicides were merely trapped by petty conformities and misunderstandings; debts, chronic illnesses, the abuse of a parent, the bizarre effects of drugs. Truly, there was no glamour to their deaths.
I awoke from my thoughts to a rustling sound in the cupboard under my stairs, muffled and pitiful. I opened the door and watched the black bin liner wriggle. I picked up my baseball bat and smashed it down upon the bag. It screamed a muffled cry and became silent. I watched some red liquid ooze from the bottom of the bag. Then I went to my garden shed to get my shears. I had more toe digits to leave for my neighbours and number 13 was next on my list.

But what about the cat you may wonder. I decided it was not a good idea to receive a visit from the Battersea cats and dogs home and I called them to tell them that I was planning on leaving the country. I had decided to leave myself behind. I had decided that I was no longer a viable option. That this time, nothing was going to stop me.

The End

PARAdOX.

ThE PARAdOX

People have a right to be delusional if they want to be, Not too long before the horror started, Mister Zero gave me - Joshua Kane (1) a card with this handwritten note inside...

Dear Kane,
I know you think I have forgotten many, many things But one thing I have not forgotten is that look my memory brings Of you, as you watched Alice White, as she mingled with guests at our private viewing of the artworks of zeroKane. Your look of everlasting lust, her look of denial. How she has ruined YOU. And so we come to a new beginning, For I shall be the code and may you hear these words forever ringing, kill them, kill them, KILL THEM ALL.
Regards
ZERO

Perhaps it was his final statement before he completely lost hold of his mind. I can't be sure, of course. I'm no longer too sure of very much. He spent more and more of his days scribbling morbid words and phrases; trying to draw meaning from license plate numbers; predicting twine disasters; endless hours alone in his basement listening to the same loud music over and over; and then there were the temper tantrums. He voiced his belief to any that were in hearing distance, that people were watching him and attempting to control his thoughts and actions but he was mentally stronger than they were and knew the secret of keeping then from penetrating his mind. Mister Zero is presented with a myriad choices and boundless opportunities. But, the one constant is the alienating character of Zero himself who chooses obsession from all that he has dreamed of in favour of ideals, and familiar routines. Which drive him to the brink of madness. Some have observed how empty, irritating and meaningless his life is. He's trapped in a small world, burdened by worthless responsibilities and completely incapable of escape. He is full of self-blame and loathing, but far too dependent on the narrow avenues he walks down for a sense of identity to be able to make a choice that could in anyway liberate him. Mr Zero is like an animal reared in captivity, feeling distant primal instincts but completely incapable of realising them. Mister Zero has a linear view regarding the structure of his life. He seems to be permanently lost in transition, assuming identities, discarding them, continually searching for meaning and consoling himself with the idea of something, rather than the actual creation of something.

I once went to visit him to discuss our new novel. Mister Zero just handed me a small piece of paper, and told me to GO AWAY!!

MISTER ZERO (0) – once owned Zero Real Estate, able to turn immaterial and alter his form into a large ghost-like shape of liquid twine and dusty particles. Now sells fabrics to ugly women. He has a possible connection to the man from the 5th dimension. Don't Fuck With Mister Zero.

Mister Zero likes to read old and obscure plays, long forgotten. He thinks of his life as a play. Recently he spoke about and muttered to those who would listen about a play from 1923 called T.A.M. (the adding machine) by Elmer Rice.


This highly symbolic play tells the life, death, afterlife, and rebirth of Zero, a mild-mannered nobody who is hoping to get a raise for twenty-five years of loyal service as a clerk doing addition and accounts for his employer. Instead, he is to be replaced by an uneducated girl using an adding machine.
Also in the cast are his wife, Mrs Zero, and their friends, Mr and Mrs One through Six. Their friends Mr and Mrs Seven through Twelve are mentioned in the dialogue. A character named Joshua Kane provides literary balance, of sorts.
Mathematical content is mostly limited to the blatant (and effective) symbolism of treating people as mere numbers, and business as simply so much addition. Also, Zero is something of a numbers maniac, given to turning mentions of numbers into obsessive bouts of addition, which he quickly suppresses.
This play was originally produced/published in seven scenes, with a deleted eighth scene (Zero's death) restored in revival/republication. The missing scene has no mathematical content.
Mister Zero’s version is darker and far more twisted. Sadly, he has never written or typed his version anywhere, it has only been spoken about. Below is the idea based from the fragments gained from Joshua Kane (numbers 2 to 11), which have been reworded to create a synopsis. I am Joshua Kane number 1.
Everywhere People are given numbers according to their social standing. Zero quite literally is a zero. He has no future. His life consists solely of adding numbers and counting twine at a desk, day in day out, 51 weeks of the year - he is the adding machine of the his own life. On his few days off he has the tower of lost control and has to suffer endless whooshing sounds from the unsympathetic wind turbine machines built very closely to his home, what was once a sanctuary has become an asylum. Mister Zero once chopped a wind turbine down and burned it with gasoline. The only unpredictable thing he's ever done, the only time he'd been ruled by his repressed passions. For all of his frustration, Mr Zero knows not who he is and not what he wants to be. He lives in a very narrow world and lives an estranged existence, yet is happy with that. They twist and spread themselves around the stage. Black plastic bags move and scream. Turbines are in the background, spinning, humming and whooshing. Adding machines appear and click and clack. Zero and Kane speak. Yell. Shout. Scream. Other characters appear and disappear. Until at the very end they both are killed by vast amounts of paper sheets covered with numbers, letters and code.

Mr Zero and Joshua Kane (2 to 13) are all rancid and xenophobic.

The meaninglessness of Mr Zero and even Joshua Kane. Our reaction to the introduction contrast to living with the THEY and having to endure the banality of typical party conversation is what defines us. The thirteen. The men of code. The thirteen 0’s and the 13 Kane’s.We exist to suggest the vanity of human wishes as well as the despair in which the ordinary man spends life. Don't look for consistency or logic, as we create an emotional rather than a rational reaction with the presentation of a melange of philosophical ideas.

In the expressionistic spectacle depicting Zero's inner turmoil, I Joshua Kane number 1 rotate, and overlapping sound effects screech as the one-dimensional Mister Zero jibber jabbers.

“ You can now send me emails, but beware, at the moment I’m still not happy with this form of communication, so I don’t necessarily check them every day. I am Zero. I can hear the sound of the turbines.”

ThE ENd.