I did not want to hold a gun directly to his face. Timothy was Timothy. He stayed still, did not put his hands up, did not speak. He listened to the silence. He waited a few seconds and I just creaked inside, WHO IS THE BIG DOG NOW? I heard a door move upstairs, some window open,wild. I had a sudden vision the cat might climb out. Timothy saw me look up and he did the same, thinking curiosity's gonna kill that cat. And I saw his face start curling, curving into life and bungling into a belly laugh, holding the tyre of chub, greasing the sound. Maniacal and me with the gun, flaccid but holding steady, and I'm laughing too because I love Timothy very much.
The shelving unit which sits directly above Timothy on some loose boxes high up to the ceilng, catapults itself out landing on Timothy’s laughter, love and his head. I see white oily smash where someone did not clean the plates properly and I put the gun down and leave. Outside, I have to do up my coat all the way to the top, somethings coming.
You must understand me. I found an old photograph in my grandmother's possessions when I was five that I can’t forget. The lady liked a handbag, and photographs were kept like lipsticks, sheened and exotic. This blue leather handbag was like magic to me, I couldn’t understand why its clasp never worked, nor why it was so tiny. At aged five most of the photographs were like parts of my body, bits I scratched, tore, wore out. I had it in for an old Uncle Tom who I cut up and shredded and drew little stick men next to. Then I found out he had been gassed in the war and I stopped then, because Uncle Tom did have really sad eyes on those photos and I thought ‘FUCK it must be him’. He had died on Christmas Day when someone ran into him on the street in those old smashy cars. I tried to find the newspaper article about it online, but I couldn’t. You have the pay for everything these days.
And all was in its place and order. Aunts next to Aunts and rogue next to dollybird and then I come across these two dumplings I’ve never seen before. Normal sized photograph, two round jovial figures who look like brother and sister, wearing matching aprons and matching rimmed glasses. There was a smear on her left cheek, something oily. He had the beginnings of a spot on his nose. No harsh colourings of the eighties razor glare, the background was chalky, veiny and still. It was hard to make out the immediate background though and I squinted at this thing. I asked her who the hell those people were, and they better not be relatives because they were ugly. Their faces were like plasticine and she laughed. She couldn’t remember the name of them, she told me. I couldn’t get those two out of my head then, name gone, all clothes and a smile.
Timothys head.
Have you eaten parsley recently? It is a wholly unpleasant experience I'm telling Timothy as he screws with a used light bulb, readjusting the bottom and blowing it. I ask him why he is doing this, the light bulb is broken, is KAPUT. Doesn't he know that the light bulb has gone, when I warned him this morning at six in the morning? I'm thinking Timothy listens, but he has his own mind set on this one.
“Timothy...parsley is disgusting and I hope one day you choke on it. Karen made me eat it at dinner time, and next week when we go to her dinner party she's going to put it in a dessert...and a soup. A fucking dessert. Well...yes….I did ask if it was a sorbet, because you know that all those chefs now are using wild flowers and making them into pies and such. Its a good way to think of new food to eat, (as we are running out), a lot like those people trying to make us eat insects. Now, I know you like it, so you’ll probably have a party next week. Do you think I can throw it on the floor to that rabid dog she’s got? DO YOU THINK THE DOG WILL LOVE IT? If I can’t just say, no Karen, I hate parsley and that's that, well, I’ll have to leave. Leave the dinner party I mean, which means no parsley for you. It would look terribly bad on the work folk, you know, I think we are going to talk team tactics. Darling, you won’t be just awful will you?
I think of my mother often but not as she is now, scared shitless and happy. I think of her back in my university days, when I laughed down the phone with my new southern clipped accent whilst she waited for the high ping of the microwave.
The toilets at work are newly renovated, polished and sickly white. They are too quiet, each sigh and fart can be heard all around. I go there to wake myself up, to feel upset, to feel better, to perk and preen. To assess my face and the curved lines, the colour of my hair in natural light. To swish and turn that pencil skirt I wear every day, like a shot of sake round the hips. Sometimes I masturbate, out of lack of feeling or perhaps boredom, but I too have to be quiet. A silent own fuck in those squeaky cubicles.
I marvel at women wearing socks and carrying large shopping trolleys, with their mildew faces and tangerine lips. I wonder about their sanity. I'm looking in the mirror thinking about that raw battered taste of parsley and the wet leaf on the tongue, and Timothy’s socks this morning brown and blue wool and the paperwork I have on my desk. My blue veins show through my skin.
Timothy’s broken head.
I like to think that I'm locked in an egg. My desk, a luxurious faberge creation. The figures hang in the air, and I'm with women whose backs relax at curves and like symmetry on their bodies. One of these women I want Timothy to screw because she looks like a ball breaker, and I think may teach him what I want. Her name is Alice and she tends to talk in statements.
Im just asking where those figures are, and what are they about? These are wrong, you are a pussy for doing them wrong. You can’t get things right, you'll never get things right. I am God."
“So Alice” I say, “Has it always been great, you know, being God”
“No it hasn’t” she replies, very sweetly. “I get sick of it sometimes, but I'm a ball breaker so it’s ok, I can handle it. I can handle myself. People want to know what I’m up to all the time, why I’m responsible. And I say, no you are responsible for yourselves. I’m not here all the time, I’m not everywhere, don’t you fuckers see? I’ve got enough on my plate. Like you, for instance. You never ask, whats going on with you God? You say, oh why this and that, and its all about YOU. You stole Timothy didnt you?
I’d like to take Alice for a drink and ask her some sexual tips, or buy a book and leave it on the living room table saying Timothy look at this. I ask her if she’s free on Tuesday evenings, but she’s got pilates.
When I first build THE EGG I used to wonder if anybody would take the time. We were stuck in the paper wars, our arms were tired. I put up a little photograph of Timothy, propanganda, and I waited. I worked, and worked, and I looked for a face behind the visions. I saw nothing for a very long time.
