brain food

life is but a

melancholy flower

life is

and from youth the matter

suffers a decline

from the airy sanguine

through choleric blood

to the melancholic earth

life is butter

the phlegmatic young

may be enjoyed lightly inspired

life is but a melon

yellow bile

honeydew

black bile

piel de sapo

but with individuals displaying

a darker humour

other culinary techniques must be employed

up to the testing of by fire

for best results

look for a cream colouration

indicating a level of maturation

blood and phlegm

life is but a melon

Cantaloupe

Charentais

Galia

Galen

Water

Too, too solid Air

but not yet too advanced

while the firm flesh should offer

some light resistance

life is but a melancholy flower

blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm

as the palpating fingertips

carefully check each ventricle

for blemishes and irritations

pineal parasites, pests and aberrations

Other    Dark    Spots

the frogskin of encasing leaves

should be removed

and the stem severed at the base

to thus allow extraction

from the cranium case

having washed the whole

separate the lobes

parietal

occipital

frontal

temporal

a melancholy flower

and with a sharp blade

sever the cortex

right through the stem

"Basal ganglia" by Mikael Häggström and Andrew Gillies*
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File
:Basal_ganglia.svg#/media/File:Basal_ganglia.svg

from each segment

incise slices

no more and yet no less

than a centimetre thick

the which lay flat in your pan

non-stick

life is butter-melon

medulla oblongata

drizzle with a fine

extra virgin olive oil

or spread with rich butter

spice with whole cumin seed

then salt liberally

life is but a melon

a steady temperature

http://ohmyveggies.com/wp-content/uploads
/2012/08/cajun_roasted-cauliflower_steaks.jpg

Gas Mark 6 to 7

depending on the

thermal efficiency of your oven

will be sufficient

to tenderise the flesh

and caramelise the cauliflower

life is but a

life is but a

melancholy flower

melancholy flower

life is butter melon

life is but a melon

cauliflower

cauliflower

*

- Made in Inkscape. The following raster image was used for modelling:Basal-ganglia-coronal-sections-large.png (By Andrew Gillies/User:Anaru; Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike + GFDL license). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - 

stroke

Hello, Dad.  Hello!

It’s me, Diane.  Hello.

I’ll just take my coat off.  

Where shall I put it?

Can I put it on the chair?

Shall I put it on the chair here?

Look I’ll put it here on the chair.

It’s not in your way there, Dad, is it? 

It’s not in your way there. 

There, I’ve put it on the chair out your way.

How’re you going on, Dad? 

How’re you going on?

You’re looking a bit better.

I can’t stop long, Dad.

Are you feeling any better?

Mike’s waiting in the car for me

so I can’t stop long.

You’ve got a bit more colour in your cheeks.

Have you been eating?

Ooh, it’s warm in here, isn’t it, Dad.

Are you warm?

I’m boiling, me.  It’s ever so warm.  Roasting. 

What did you have for lunch?

You look as if you’ve put a bit of weight on.

I said to Mike maybe you’ll put a bit of weight on in here.

Have you put a bit of weight on?

Oh, tell you what – I’ve brought you something.

I’ve brought you a bag of Werthers.

They’re your favourites, aren’t they.

Werthers.

They’re just in my coat.

I’ll fetch ‘em for you.

They’re just in my coat pocket.

I was going to get you some Wholenut

but they didn’t have any.

Not in the VG.

They didn’t have any Wholenut – not the big bars.

You only like the big bars, don’t you, Dad.

They only had small bars in the VG.

So I bought you some Werthers.

And you won’t need your teeth in for Werthers, will you? 

You can just suck them, can’t you. 

You’d need your teeth for Wholenut, wouldn’t you. 

So it’s probably just as well.

So how’ve you been, Dad? 

How’ve you been going on? 

Have they been looking after you? 

Course they have, haven’t they. 

I bet they’ve been spoiling you, haven’t they.

Bet you’re one of their favourites, aren’t you. 

I bet you’ve been loving it in here, haven’t you, Dad? 

All the attention. 

I bet you’ve been loving it. 

Ooh, it is warm though, isn’t it. 

Aren’t you feeling warm, Dad? 

It is warm in here.

I’m baking.

They keep it like an oven, don’t they? 

I s’pose it’s for the old folks, isn’t it, Dad. 

They need it warm. 

Don’t want them to get chilled, do they.

Do you want a Werthers then, Dad?

Do you want one? 

I’ll unwrap you one, shall I?

You can just pop it in your mouth

Here, look, I’ll unwrap one for you.

You can just pop it in your mouth.

Here you go, look.

Open up then.

Open up?  No?  Not going to open up?  No?

Shall you have it later, then Dad? 

Do you want it later?

Shall I pop it on the side here, by your glasses?

I’ll just put it here on the table, by your glasses.

You can have it later – if you feel like it.

After your tea.

Oh – hello, Dad!

Are you looking at me?  Are you?

Can you see me?

It’s me, Diane?

Hello, Dad, I think you can see me, can’t you.

I know you can hear me, Dad.

Here look give me your hand, Dad.

There.

Here I am.  It’s me.  Diane.

What’s that?

What’re you saying?

Hang on – say it again.

I can’t quite… say it again Dad, if you can.

No?  Can’t you say it again?

No. Ok.  I love you, Dad.

I love you.  I’m sorry.

Listen Dad.  I’m going to have to go.

Mike’s waiting.  He’s in the car.

He’s waiting on a meter and if I’m too long he’ll have to put money in.

But I’ll come back tomorrow, Dad.

I’ll come again tomorrow – all right?

For a bit longer.

Maybe you’ll be feeling better tomorrow, eh.

Maybe you’ll have a bit more colour in your cheeks, eh.

I’ll see you tomorrow then, Dad.

Bye then, Dad.  I love you.

Bye, Dad.

Fudged

Squatting on the upturned box, Johnson dragged his holdall across the wooden floorboards towards him and pulled out a crumpled white paper bag.

“Here, squire, do you wanna bit of fudge?”

The other man did not appear to break his meditation.

            “Take your mind off, like…”

“Thanks, but no thanks.  I don’t actually want my mind ‘taken off’.”

“A bit of fudge won’t hurt, though.  I say, a bit of fudge won’t hurt.  Like a bit of fudge, me.  It’s the sugar.  Instant hit, it gives you.  Keeps you alert, like.  Right on the money.  Always have a bit of fudge on me, y’know, for that instant hit, if I’m feeling a bit dopey or whatever.  Go on, have a bit.”

The other man slowly opened his eyes.

“Really, no thanks.”

“It’s coffee flavoured – you like coffee. That’s a good pick me up, too, isn’t it? Coffee.  Sets you right on your feet.”

“Have you checked recently?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve checked, I’ve checked.  No need to worry about that.  They’re not due yet, anyhow.  I keep me eye out, y’know.  I’ve got eyes like a proverbial, I have.”

“Yes, but have you checked recently?”

“I.. I.. I’ll check now – set your mind at rest.  We don’t want to miss the moment as it were, do we, the crucial moment.  That would be a shame now, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes.  So check.”

“All right, all right, don’t get ‘em twisted!  Look I’m checking, I’m checking..”

Johnson went over to the window and edged back one side of the grey blanket that he had hung across it some hours previously.  He peered down into the street below.

“Nah!  There’s no sign.  No sign of nothin’.  No sign of nobody.  Yeah, Ali, wouldn’t be best pleased if we missed the moment, would he?  Hahaha!”

“Just keep your eyes on that corner.”

“Will do, squire, will do.  I’m a tea man m’self.  Always have been.  You don’t drink tea, do you?  Don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink a cuppa tea.  Not into tea, are you?”

“No, not particularly.”

“Coffee, that’s you, isn’t it.  Black coffee, isn’t it.  My old mum used to say, you can’t trust a coffee drinker.  Tea’s an honest drink, she’d say.  Always liked her tea, my mum.  Don’t think she’d have liked you much, tbh.  Ha!  Mind you she’d ha’ been right, wouldn’t she, eh?  Not trusting you, eh?  She’d ha’ been right on the money with that one, eh?  Hahaha!  Cuh!  Don’t know what she’d have made of this mullarkey, I really don’t.  This is a fine fandango!”

“Johnson! Will you just quit your yap and concentrate on the situation.”

“’Course, squire, ‘course I will.  You won’t hear another word.  Not another word.”

“Thank you!”

Johnson fell silent.

He peered again around the edge of the scruffy drape.

            “Sorry, squire, I always talk a lot if I’m a bit on edge. D’y’know what I mean?  Always getting in trouble for it at school.  Keep your trap shut, Johnson!  That’s what I got all the time.  Shut it!  Couldn’t help meself, though, even when I knew I was winding ‘em up.  The teachers, like.  Couldn’t help meself.  Ohh, hangabout.  Something’s happening, something’s afoot, as they say!  Better get over here – owh...”

His companion was already pushing him aside, taking control of the window and assessing the situation below them.  The bolt action rifle had been in position, sights checked, within fifteen minutes of their arrival, but as Johnson moved to get out of the way he tripped over his holdall and as he did so launched the small bag of fudge across the room.  Johnson snatched at the air to try to grab it but managed simply to bat it with greater force towards the gun.  He fell against the other man with a considerable force, and was instantly deafened by a loud bang and the sound of shattering glass

He managed to regain control of his body as he heard a cracking thud from the street below - something heavy landing on the roof of a car - and then the sound of the wind flapping the blanket at the now empty casement.

The eclipse of the sun

Mum makes a pinhole in the paper,

holds it in the sun –

a tiny dot of light appears below

at the centre of the shadow.

A pinhole for a peepshow

she says

her eyes shining

and we wait

as heady moments pass

and watch at last

a tiny shade move

across the dot

an image cast of

a crescent sun.

I reach out my hand

place a single finger

in the ray of light

to see if I can feel its weight,

its heat

switch fingers one by one

allow the fleck of buried sun

to land on each in turn

an eclipse

projected on my fingertips.

She smiles at me

But then he

comes and steps

between the sunlight

and our game

and I see him place his

hand upon her back to

claim her –

her cotton blouse

her auburn hair

her tender skin

her wings

he clips.

Apocalypse - Now & Then

Many-headed beasts attacking angels on horseback.  Flaming sunsets over erupting volcanoes. Golds, browns, blacks.  In the first room the pictures were all Medieval or Victorian. 

There was a low fence a few feet away from the walls upon which the paintings were hung, and it felt such an obstruction to Charles that he just stepped over it.  A young woman stood behind him, watched him do it, but made no attempt to prevent him.  He had moved with such deliberate intention.  She studied him.

An Attempt To Illustrate The Opening Of The Sixth Seal, 1830
Francis Danby 1793- 1861

Charles stood examining Danby’s An Attempt to Illustrate the Opening of the Sixth Seal for several minutes, his nose inches from the dark canvas.  Tortured bodies on shelves of rock.  Thunderous clouds.  Spears of brilliant white light.  Then an attendant came into the room and explained officiously that if he did not step back then he would be ejected from the exhibition.

“The artist did not want his work protected from the viewer,” Charles blurted out,  “he created art to touch the viewer, to reach into his soul and provoke a feeling, a reaction, a response.  You galleries have a duty to the artist, for Christ’s sake, and you do nothing but put obstacles in the way of its true message.  You soften it until it becomes meaningless, vapid pap!”

“Nevertheless, sir.  Visitors to the gallery are required to stay behind the wire at all times.  We don’t want the pictures to be damaged.  Do we?”

Only when Charles had returned to the main floor area was the attendant satisfied.  If he had been looking he would have seen the official turn to regard the young woman, too, a look full of moment, before he returned to his chair in the corridor.  Charles drifted belligerently into the next room.

The young woman who had continued her own promenade around the exhibition followed him through a few seconds later.

“I’m not sure that they are really protecting the paintings from the visitors,” she said quietly, urgently.  “I think it’s actually the other way around.”

Charles grunted.

“These works, some of them,” she said, “are just too dangerous.  Political.  If the viewer really engaged with them they would not be able to take the emotional and spiritual overload.  They would burn their tiny minds.”

Charles said nothing although he fundamentally agreed with her.

“Have you seen the contemporary pieces yet?” she asked.

Charles still would not respond.

“There’s one you might like, Ifnotnowwhen?, I think it’s remarkable.”

Charles grunted again and drifted away having immediately taken against it.

He wearied of depictions of the Islamic concept of Mahdi and finally found himself in the furthest room.  Contemporaries.

He was simply irritated by most of them. 

Tell me it is just the day that’s dying was, to his view, a vacuous photographic exploration of HIV as a millennial “Sign”.  Black become the sun’s beams was a clichéd video installation attempting to depict environmental disaster in the post nuclear age with reference to Norse mythology – Charles of course recognised the title.

And then there it was, Ifnotnowwhen?  But he was not impressed.  Again the gallery’s controls and constraints on the viewer wound him up.  Did the artist have no say as to how the piece was to be displayed?

Ifnotnowwhen? comprised a plinth upon which was piled a mound of sand and upon that was placed a tiny plastic bomb marked BOMB!  Another low fence circled the plinth but outside it was a second smaller plinth with a detonator marked PLUNGE ME!  And underneath the plunger was the title of the piece Ifnotnowwhen?

Charles’ bile rose again at the sign next to the name label

DO NOT TOUCH THE EXHIBIT

His hand itched.

The bomb gave a disappointing pop rather than a bang but Charles saw the sand beneath it was trickling into a small black hole that had appeared in the top of the mound.  The hole gradually enlarged and the bomb itself suddenly disappeared.  A certain surprised satisfaction spread across his face.  What he had not noticed was the alarm sounding somewhere in the building.

The hole continued to enlarge draining more and more of the sand.  It started to whirlpool.  He was transfixed while staff and other visitors were keen to make their way to the exits.  No-one bothered him.  The young woman came to stand beside him to watch the event although she was watching him more than the dissolving artwork.

Suddenly all the sand had gone and the plinth itself began to collapse.  Then the surrounding floor.  Still the hole grew.  He smiled as the wire fence went and was about to move back from the growing abyss when the young woman, by forcefully seizing his hand, insisted that he stood perfectly still.

“I felt I could rely on you!” she whispered.

It was some days before the two bodies were recovered from the sewers.

Smile

There has been a wild thrashing,

a water’s edge panic

and now this man,

with whom you have smiled and sung

and slept and eaten and swum,

lies unconscious, half-drowned

from grappling with the sea.

His life teeters on the edge of a decision,

his fading mind wandering

towards a clouded cliff

and you crouch there at his senseless side

pawing at the clammy body

in a passionate desperation

to claw him back from

the watery sucking in his lungs

to drag him back to this

gritty scene where sand

grinds between your hands and his

greying flesh.

But this is a holiday beach

and the moment

catches the attention of the Bugle photographer

who all afternoon has been

combing the beach for local colour.

She is already constructing a caption,

an alliterative appliqué,

as she raises her SLR beneath her sun-visor

and snaps the taut moment,

crystallising the image

within the expert beat of her eye.

And despite your anxiety,

your crass flailing to revive,

to re-engage the man with his breath,

you are conscious of this

sudden unexpected distraction.

You look up

as the shutter clicks,

and flash your applewhite teeth in a

dutiful smile.

On a Postcard

You wrote me a postcard

full of fabulous holiday news

how where you were staying was

luxurious

oh, the views

how the beach was so close

how you bathed in the sea

and

how the evenings were

even lovelier than the day

how the harbour lights

were reflected jewels

framing a cerulean mirror

how dolphins swam in

right up to the shore

and mischievous seagulls

stole chips from folk

on a coach tour.

And, yes, I can picture you there

on your postcard beach

and you in your bikini

cheesecloth blouse knotted

under your breasts

holding onto your straw sun hat

against the sea breeze

and I can taste

the ice cream that

you tongue-tease

and scent the sand and lotion

on your satin skin

You wrote

how you wished I was there

how you were missing me

and I was curious

surprised

that you thought

about me

while you were away

because

if I’m honest

I don’t really like you very much.

When we had the fire

A piece written in response to a couple of different prompts... homework and Writers In The Bath

Here it is,

a silent circle

branded into earth,

a bruising of ash,

soft grey and sodden

amid the rosebay

and the ragged robin,

a remnant of the time

when we had the fire

to burn the past,

yours and mine:

shoeboxes of letters,

cards, photographs,

that catalogued our several lives

before we met.

And here we came; our pact

to purge these pasts, 

seal wounds, heal scars 

and here, that dewy May evening,

with the solstice still to come,

we coupled wildly under stars.

While now years on,

and with our child in tow,

I stumble on the place again.

We had searched with sticks

for snails and jewels and sprites,

among the ragwort and the mossy damp;

now chased cranefly tumbling

through unruly nettles;

while you spread laundry

on the clothes horse drier.

But this was

the place

I know

when we had the fire.

Dekker

Something of a departure for me.  'In class' we are looking at endings - I wrote this as a piece of homework thinking of it as the end of a post-apocalyptic novel.. but now it's done I think it probably doesn't need the novel in front.  It's a bit darker than usual. 

The gnawing hunger stirred him.

He had closed his eyes waiting for the whoops and war-cries to recede.  Then fatigue and the warm morning sun filtering through the brambles above him lulled him into a drowse.  He dreamed himself walking down this very track and coming upon his own decomposing body under this blackberry bush – a skeleton with his hair, wearing his clothes.

No.  He would not end here.

He disengaged himself from the bramble vines, licking at the backs of his hands as the thorns grabbed him.  Blood.  Iron on his tongue, further provoking the desire to eat.  Something.  Anything.  He started back along the track away from the village to which he knew the ballistas were heading.  If he could avoid another confrontation with them he would.  Only quick wits and a well-aimed rock had allowed him to escape last time.  He sensed he would not be so lucky again.

Around the bend he came upon the body of Palmer hanging from a low branch.  His eyes were bulging and there was much blood around his mouth.  Something bloody on the ground beneath him too.  Dekker turned the object with his foot.  It was a moment before he recognised a human tongue.  That it was the work of the ballistas there was little doubt.

Dekker cut Palmer down and lay him in the undergrowth at the side of the track.  He considered covering him with the tarp but so far it had proved too useful to sacrifice it thus.  Desperate times.  He had liked Palmer but he had known that his episodes, growing in frequency and intensity, would lead him into a reckless situation.  The ballistas were not noted for their tolerance of difference or outspokenness and Palmer’s rants would have challenged the mildest soul.

Dekker was just wiping his hands on the grass when he heard it.  Faint.  Distant.

A single plucked note.  Then another.  A short pause and then a spaced run of three notes climbing a cautious scale.  To call it a tune would have been to endow it with a greater sense of meaning than it warranted but there was intention behind it, Dekker could tell, and this intention piqued his curiosity.

He set off somewhat stealthily into the woods quietly cursing his tired clumsy, twig-cracking feet.  But he realised his anxiety was lifting a little as another string of notes, descending this time, floated towards him.  He quickened his pace paying less regard to his footsteps.  Then a way in front of him he spotted a small figure with its back toward him sat hunched on a fallen tree.  A child perhaps.  Yes – a boy.  A noise behind him and Dekker glanced back towards the track.  A shabby blackbird was stabbing at the ground, hunting in the dry leaf litter.  Then when he looked for the boy again he was gone.

a source I never expected to visit...

Dekker could not understand how he could disappear so quickly.  So completely.  He walked up to the log where the boy had been sitting.  Just beyond were the remains of a small fire still smouldering.  Next to it lay a stick with the impaled, smoky remnants of what must have been a squirrel.  But of the boy himself, no sign.  Dekker picked up the stick and pulled a tag of flesh from the skewered animal.  He placed it on his tongue, allowing it to rest there a moment as he savoured the acrid flavour before chewing it and swallowing.  Pangs of hunger woke in his belly again, and he pulled shred after shred from the carcass, chewing briefly then swallowing them down.

He was lost to the food.

Suddenly, he looked up, aware of a presence.  The boy stood in front of him, a cloth-wrapped club in his hand and a defiant expression.  Maybe twelve years old, thought Dekker, but old enough to believe he had the strength to face down an adult man, albeit one as frail as Dekker now was.  He looked well-fed.  He was coping.  Resourceful.  Anyone who had learned to disappear so efficiently would have no difficulty evading the crazed, bullish ballistas as they rampaged through the landscape.

Dekker held out the squirrel.  He was enjoying this unfamiliar feeling of respect for another human being.  The boy took it, and sensing no imminent danger from Dekker,  lowered his club.  He reached into a pocket in his shorts and pulled out a plastic carrier bag in which he wrapped the squirrel.  Yes, resourceful.

Dekker looked at the club and could see, protruding from the cloth wrapping, what looked like wooden tuning pegs.  A violin maybe.  The boy saw him looking.  He had  relaxed further from his bravado and was prepared to open to this man for a while.  He picked up the club.  Unwrapped it.  A small guitar shaped body, a fretted neck, four strings – the whole thing only half a yard long.  He lifted the instrument to his chest and started to pluck with his right hand, placing the fingertips of his left carefully on to the fret board.  There was no fluency in the movement, no skill or artistry but, as the boy played, Dekker became engrossed in the strange, inchoate melody.

The boy was engrossed too, lost in the structuring of each note, in the placement of each finger, intent on the production of each new sound as he released the string and sent a small jewel into the cloudless air.

vis-à-vis love

Please allow me to list

some features of yours

deserving of a mention:

viz,

your lips, your eyes

your shapely thighs.

Do you follow my gist?

(There are others I’ve missed.)

Allow me to note

some personal flaws

I should bring to your attention:

viz,

my increasing size,

a predilection for lies,

though they stick in my throat .

I could catalogue

what I love about you

in the hope of redemption:

viz,

your smile, your charms

your money, my arms.

(Oh, I am such a dog!)

I would briefly relate

why you should

reciprocate:

viz,

my shining good looks,

my library of books.

(But have I left it too late?)

Wait! –

Before you walk away

please allow me to say

that between

you and me,

vis-à-vis love,

there could be

a passionate courting,

a wooing, resorting

to flowers,

chocolate, showers

of kisses,

an assault of the senses,

your crumbling defences,

champagne in the park,

fumbling after dark.

These are the ways I would love you:

namely,

gamely, madly.

Should you leave

I would grieve.

How would I beat my retreat?

Lamely, sadly.

Buy Egg Yolk & Blue Biro here

To an Early Blackbird

Another homework exercise - we've been looking at e e cummings...

Yes,

we hear you,

atop the stillhouetted tree

spillthrill the dreich with your persuasive song -

slice the ice air cleanly through and

clear the night from out of these dark webs.

source: http://www.nakedeyeplanets.com/venus-conjunctions.htm

Yes,

you raise breath, bones and bill towards

the drinkling sky

and shiver soundclouds slooping

round the terraced walls,

while we, two dumbly sleeping pillow stalkers,

flail for five few minutes more

in the trying embers of this turgid night.

Yes,

we who have loved and loved and loved

cocooned and canopied

hear-hear your counter-pointing carolling

while the startclimbing, starblinding Sun pours

cream and custard rays

behind the guarding gate.

Yes,

you break the fast-held night in two –

we two, in night, hold fast the break. 

Ryan and Kenny

He was sat on the wall when I first saw him, hugging his knees to his chin.  Like a cat in the sunshine, I thought – but actually, no.  As I came close I saw the furrows in his brow, the slight pallor in his cheek.

He watched me approaching from the corner of Peel Street; his gaze focussed, demanding.  But it was only after I had passed him that he spoke.  Quite softly.

             -     He will be all right, won't he?

It seems we had been conversing all the time – in his head.

I turned to look back at him.  He was evidently close to tears, or at least as close as a ten year old boy would allow himself.

             -     Sorry?

I had missed the rhythm of my step and had to allow him his say.

             -     He'll be all right, won't he?

It was a genuine question.  He sought reassurance but the tone of his voice implied that I should actually know the answer.

             -     Who?

             -     Kenny.  I didn't mean to hurt him, he said.

He so needed me to pick up the thread.  His lip quivered.  But then sudden fury.

             -     But he was being such a fucking twat!

A tear spilled down his cheek.  He angrily pushed the ball of his thumb into his eye to stem the flow.

             -     Did you have a fight? 

Brilliant deduction.  I was all over it.

             -     He was asking for it!  So I give him a tap.  He was asking for it.

Poor kid, I thought.  He's frightened himself.

             -     So I hit him…

             -     I expect he'll be fine.

             -     ...then the ambulance came and they picked him up, but they couldn't wake him.  Fucking twat.  Why wouldn’t he wake up?  It was only a tap.

An ambulance?  Blimey!  Maybe I should shut up.

             -     … on his head …with a bit of brick.  He will be all right won't he?

             -     Er… They know what they're doing.

I floundered for words.  He needed something to cling to but for all I knew Kenny was dead.  I couldn't just make it up.  Hit on the head with a brick. Death was not unlikely!

I could just see him stood over the limp boy, bloodied brick in hand.  Perhaps a passer by raising the alarm – 999.  Then him, just stood there, while yellow-vested paramedics busied themselves dressing the wound; trying to revive their comatose patient; asking questions: 

             -     What's his name, son?

             -     Kenny.

             -     Kenny?  Can you hear me, Kenny?

Nothing.

             -     We're taking you to hospital, Kenny.  Kenny.

Nothing.

             -     Who are you, son?  You his brother?

             -     Yeah.

             -     What's your name, son?

             -     Ryan

             -     Well, Ryan, can you go and get your mum?  We'll need to take Kenny in to treat him straightaway.  Your mum'll need to know.

They must have disappeared off leaving Ryan struggling with the enormity of knowing nothing.

             -     Did you tell your mum?  I asked

             -     Mrs Webb went.  Me mam's at the hospital.

             -     Who's at home then?  Maybe you should go home and wait.  Where's your Dad?  Will he be home soon?

             -     Christmas.

             -     Sorry?

             -     He's on rigs.  Oil rigs.  He won't be home while Christmas.

             -     Oh…

Nothing else came. 

Reluctantly I succumbed to the silent fog invading my brain.

I stood there looking at Ryan. 

He looked at me – waiting for me to become of some use.

Nothing.

After a dumb, eternal moment, a police car drew up on the other side of the road - no siren but the lights were flashing.  The back door opened and a woman with untidily bleached hair got out onto the pavement.

             -     Ryan, she barked.  Get here now!

She scowled at me.

Ryan slid from the wall, rucking his track suit bottoms into the crevice between his buttocks.  He stepped into the road pulling at the cloth.

             -     Watch the bleeding traffic!

Ryan hesitated as a van volleyed passed him.  Then more carefully he stepped off the pavement and ambled across to his mother.  She grabbed his shoulder and pushed him into the car.

I stepped back and leant against the wall, and watched the vehicle speed away.