Social Blunderer

Really glad to have discovered this. I don’t write things this surreal anymore.

It’s too early, too too early. I have just finished a late shift, I ache, I’m so tired, so so tired. And yet here I am on Monday morning waiting in queue at Building’s Edge. I feel my bed calling to me ‘Clarence, come and rest, Clarence Clarence’

I curl my toes inside my boots and bite my tongue to try to remain awake. I have a bag of teeth in one hand and a bag of coins in the other. The queue at Building’s Edge is packed with worried and weary people. I glance from face to face and they all have the same tired expression I do. then I see her. She is old and wild eyed, chuckling to herself, she looks like giant frosted cream cake with blue icing on top.  A walking bake. I blink and rub my eyes just to make sure I’m not seeing things. to make sure I haven’t fallen asleep.

The old lady grins at me. ‘It can’t be’ I mutter to myself. The old lady seems magnificently drunk, swaying side to side, smiling as she giggles, belching and scratching as she makes her way.

I look around. Has no one else noticed? The Iron Lady has returned from the dead, our former Prime Minister is here. She has been reincarnated as a giant cake.

From behind me I hear a roar. A middle-aged man is charging towards Thatcher. He knocks her to the ground. Maggie lays ruined on the floor. She starts crying. The man stands over her and screams “You fucking bitch over, you fucking bitch you ruined this country” over and over again.

The Iron Lady is weeps, mascara running down her face, deep into her wrinkles. “I didn’t ruin it! IT was already broken” she says sadly.

I’ve seen enough. “Leave her alone” I shout.

“No I won’t. She closed the pits! She freed the banks to fuck us all, my family has lost everything, she ruined my family” the man says still full of righteous indignation.

“Thats no reason to smash her. She is a cake now” I reply.  I had the man’s full attention. He looked like a miner. All dirty hands and hard muscles. If he hit me I’d go down.

Behind him the Thatcher Cake (Cake Thatcher?) was slowly reforming. I pointed at her. Thatcher had a steely look in her eye.

The man turned and started taking handfuls of Thatcher cake flesh and stuffing it into his mouth. I turned away. I was always squeamish when people were being devoured.

These two stories are quite similair but still very different. From an Utter! session in 2009. I really miss that group.

Smile. Look friendly and open. Be ready to engage the public. My leaflets laid out neatly trapped by paperweights to stop the wind from scattering them. Looking at all the people walking past, hopefully I will catch someone’s eye, the hours go by, I stand resolute.

This is important and can’t be ignored. Even so. Every averted gaze made by someone wanting to avoid eye contact with me or every time  someone walks past me deafly as I say hello is blow, a tiny blow, to my enthusiasm.

Climate change is what I want people to know about. I want them to know what they can do, what we can do, what we should force our leaders to do.

The police  are hovering like busybodies with nothing better to do than to make sure I’m not littering the streets with discarded leaflets.

Deep breath. I have made progress. Progress is slow. I look down at the list of emails I have collected and I feel that I have achieved something. If only one person from that list attends our meetings then that would be a victory.

It is Saturday morning. People are doing their shopping walking straight past me. THEY said I could set up my stall outside the library next to the streets preachers proclaiming the word of god and global damnation. Believing the the world is being damned is probably the only thing we have in common. There are pigeons loitering near a tree, pecking at crumbs, what a waste of food.

Different story.

There were far too few people, why did they not care? Can’t they see the suffering? Have they no empathy?

I don’t know what makes me more angry. The wholesale slaughter of those I seek to protect or the apathy this society has towards their plight.

There were only a few of us protesting. Holding our placards and chanting. Where were the journalists I wondered. I had made sure that the local newspaper was aware of our plans.

I looked at the pesticide factory. How could the people who worked there sleep at night? Finally the newspaper man arrives. He looks completely disinterested. I’ll soon change that.

I gather the few, the brave, the loving around me and begin my speech.

“Ladies and Gents, brothers and sisters, I’ve have convened us here today to so that we may say with one voice ‘No more’” I paused for applause. The gathered few cheered.
“No more slaughter, no more murder, no more killing, cockroaches have as much right to live as any other living creature”. Again I pause. The gathered few clap and hoot.

Another Utter! work:

The harsh light of the early autumn sun illuminated the street, it reflected off the layers of hard glass and slick wet asphalt.

He stared and stared at me. His dark beady eyes expressing all the distaste he felt. Those beady eyes betrayed the truth his otherwise emotionless face his well.

So your dad and your uncle got jobs on the buses. Your dad was a driver. Look how smart in looked in his uniform, look at the bus he drove, elegant in its own way.

One more from the same session:

There were a lot of people around the train station. It was awful, it was busy. The noise from the excited chatter porters and the clatter of horses overfilled the air and my thoughts. I held father’s hand tight. We moved through the crowd. We were on our way to the fight. As we exited the station the street we joined a crowd of punters who were also on their way to the arena. Poorer folk like me and father had to walk from the station. I remember looking on in envy at the richer folk riding horse drawn carriages to the arena.

Jack Solomon was the promoter of the fight. The man was a legend. Jack always had the knack of obliging the best fighters to face off against each other. Jack Solomon fight cards always delivered on entertainment.

I was excited. It was my first time going to a bout. I didn’t know what to expect. It was cold even though  the autumn sun shone bright. The sky was clear of clouds, I looked up at father and smiled. He smiled back. Father had a thick bushy moustache and he looked like a grinning walrus. I felt warm again despite the chill