A Freezing Warm Bench

Joe Kerr was cursed with a name and a mind that did not lend itself naturally to entertaining others. Instead, he was a studious soul, more focused on the study of poetry, essays and left-leaning newspapers, but even these (though he would never admit it to himself) were nothing more than affectations - a costume he put on for the benefit of others. He recognised the irony in his name, but chose not to rise to the imagined challenge and expectation. He did not want to be funny. He was a serious writer.

His father, Alan Kerr had always thought of himself as a funny man, a comedian. He did not see, or refused to see, his status as a small, misguided man. Not an evil one, but an ignorant one nonetheless. His career never took him to the heights of fame he felt he deserved, and he never appeared on stage again after a failed show at his polytechnic's talent night. However, he was consistently praised by the others in his accountancy office for his jokes about lawyers, jokes about celebrity misadventures and what he called his "jokes to infuriate the PC brigade". At least, he was consistently praised, up until the point where Mr. Gupta over heard Alan telling the one about the "towel head" and became very angry with him. This caused within Alan a deep-seated resentment of his lack of versatility in his humour, a resentment which he then directed outwardly; towards his quiet, valium addicted wife Julie, towards his dim, popular, son Wayne, but mostly to the quiet presence of Joe. And the more he berated Joe for his seriousness, and for his quiet nature, the more Joe retreated inside his own physical shell.

Of course, Joe felt awful about this, but he also considered the fact that other people had things much worse off. He had read about kids who were beaten or abused, and he read about neglected toddlers fending for themselves while their parents slept in a drug-imposed coma. Nothing of this magnitude ever happened to Joe. But still, he felt that he simply wasn't suited to this life, and reasoned that it may be better to simply try to reset everything. At best, he may be reincarnated into something more meaningful, something more designed and ready for the world at large. And at worst, he may just cease to be, and his consciousness may be scattered and lost to the indifferent universe (this is how he described it to himself, though he knew that in the event, it is very unlikely he would even notice the lack of a consciousness, much less experience the universe. Worm food, thats all he would be). He was also painfully aware that in all of his eighteen years of living, the closest he had come to a relationship to another living person was watching "Never Been Kissed" late at night on ITV2. He didn't even like Drew Barrymore.

This was why he resolved to end himself.

At this moment in time, Joe was heading to his favourite bench on the seaside promenade close to his home (incidentally, this bench was chosen as his favourite due to its location at the stony end of the beach, its exposure to the elements, and the uncomfortable steel that poked in his back through a missing slat, as all of these factors meant that he could rely on nobody else intruding on his desired privacy). He had worn his heavy black coat, as this was the start of November, and he had thrust his notebook deep into the side pocket where he rested his hand, curling his fingers around the hard cover. His other hand gripped his pen inside his other pocket, as the two inferior spare pens rattled against his white knuckles inside the same pocket. He had his head bowed against the wind as he stumbled over the zebra crossing towards the seafront, not noticing the seagull he frightened off as his striding skinny leg idly kicked the chip shop tray that was it's feast into the storm drain below the kerb. (As with many things that appear random in life, this event would cause a reaction later on in Joe's story. In fact, later this very day. You recieve this privileged information as an observer to these events, although it does shatter the illusion of an omnipresent third-person narrator such as myself. However, I feel that it is best that you have all the information now, so with that in mind, that seagull immediately took a dislike to Joe for this act, which is something to be aware of later).

As Joe walked, he considered what to add to his notebook. Since May 1st of that year, he had begun recording all ideas and notes on how people have ended their own lives, ideas from newspaper reports, ideas from films (horror, drama and quirky indie genres were good for these) and ideas from observing things around him. He felt that by recording as much data as possible regarding the act (art?) of suicide, he could then make an informed decision on how to process his own imminent removal from the gene pool with the minimum amount of fuss and pain. This wasn't a cry for help, it was simply a technical approach - research for his one big attempt, and that meant that it had to be correct. He thought about a boy in Brazil who had tied one end of a rope around his neck and the other around the family bull, before driving the bull off a cliff into the river. He thought about the Parisien woman who toppled from the Eiffel tower, an illegible note left in drying blue paint on the tower's metal. He thought about Russian farmers decapitating themselves with chainsaws and Indonesian merchants climbing into cobra pits. He thought about the many thousands of people worldwide who drank bleach, or who took pills or cut their wrists.

It was with these musings in mind that Joe trudged across the seaweed laid across the promenade, thrown up by the turbulent waves, and headed towards the solitary bench unsheltered by the abandoned ice cream hut. As he drew close, his eyes (though stinging and watery from the bitter wind) picked up a flash of red - a pillarbox red duffel coat wrapped around the figure sitting there. He contemplated stalking past the bench (his bench!), and pretending he was headed to the lifeboat shelter further up the beach, but he was suddenly filled with a sense of indignation. He had planned to come here and write, and he would damn well do so.

He drew level with the bench and threw himself down heavily on the cold wood, conspicuously not looking at the bench intruder to his left. His fingers still gripping the notebook in his pocket, he withdrew his hand and flipped to a blank page and readied his writing hand, biro gripped between his freezing blue fingers. And wrote nothing. He felt exposed, unable to bear imagined eyes upon him, watching him put words to page. He allowed himself to steal a brief glance at the figure to his left.

She was not looking at him, but at her own notebook in her hands. He noticed the softness of her fingers as she gripped her own pen, and he noticed the rosy glow on her rounded cheeks. He noticed her dark red hair tumbling over her black-framed glasses, and he noticed the deep hazel colour of her large eyes. He noticed her legs clad in thick black tights and crossed at the knee, he noticed the heavy dark boots on the end of her feet and he noticed her full red lips, pursed in concentration as she wrote. He noticed all of her in a way that he had never noticed another living being before. Her eyes flicked up to meet his for the briefest of milliseconds, and Joe quickly turned away, focusing on his own blank page in front of him. He felt his own cheeks turn a deep scarlet and tried to convince himself that it was the bitter wind causing it, and not embarassment at being caught staring at such a divine creature. Conscious of appearing idiotic not writing, Joe began to write random words in a word association pattern; "beauty", "vision", "love", "chance", "meeting". As he did so, he heard, or rather didn't hear, the scratch of her pen on her page. He didn't dare chance a look, but he briefly imagined her watching him.

"What are you writing, then?"

Her words sounded like crystals forming on a cool glass of lemonade, or of ice cracking on a frozen duck pond. This is not to say it was bad, in fact it was the polar opposite - the warmth was in the perfect coolness of her vocal chords. Her voice overpowered him and echoed in his ears, repeating the words back to him again and again. He suddenly realised that he hadn't answered. He quickly turned to face this vision sat next to him and drew in breath to reply.

It was at that exact moment that the seagull from earlier, angry at the loss of its hard-fought meal of leftover chips, took its revenge on Joe. It flew over his head, riding the air currents flowing in from the sea, calculated the precise trajectory in the recesses of it's dinosaur brain and released it's cloaca at precisely the correct moment. It paused, hovering on the air currents briefly, as it watched the white excrement spiral towards the top of Joe's head, scoring a direct hit. Satisfied, the seagull left to pursue more food.

As Joe felt the birdshit collide with his head, already seeping into his jumbled mess of hair, he choked at the sentence that was leaving his mouth. He instantly forgot what question she had asked him, and could only focus on the intense embarassment shredding his spine. Abruptly, he stood, planning to run away - this was the closest he would ever come to interacting with this fantastically beautiful creature and the universe had taken a literal dump on his image. But as he turned to leave, he felt her cold, slender fingers on his wrist.

"Sit down, you fool, you'll only make it worse." she smiled.
"B..b..but"
"You shouldn't stammer, it makes you seem nervous. You're not nervous are you?"
"A little bit, I guess"
"Well, we can cope with a little bit" she said with a wink. "I'm Sarah, who are you?"
"Um, Joe"
"OK, Um-Joe, why don't you sit down and use this tissue to clean up"

Joe looked at her other hand, proferring a small folded tissue. He gratefully accepted it and wiped off the majority of the birdshit on his head, before sinking down into the cold bench as directed. He had no idea what exactly was occurring or how to deal with this kind of thing. He scanned his internal memory banks for answers or anecdotes or facts; anything to continue the conversation, but the more he thought, the more the silence grew and enveloped them both, the harder it was to think of any conversational topic. Suddenly it came to him, she had asked him something, right?

So Joe asked "What are you writing, then?"
"Oh, just detailing the ways in which my boyfriend fucked me over. Ex-boyfriend, now I suppose."
"Oh...right. Erm, like what?"
"I'm not telling you, I don't know you."
"That's a fair point. I could just be some random person. I am some random person. I think sometimes the thing with random persons is that they might be the best persons to speak to, simply by virtue of a remote position in which to offer a different viewpoint, or...or..."
"Joe! You're rambling! As cute as it may be, I'm not telling you..."
"Oh...OK. I'll..er, think I'll..."
"...but, I do think we should go and have some coffee and cigarettes"

They stood up from the bench by the sea, and slowly walked towards the coffee shop over the windswept and puddle-strewn zebra crossing. As they walked, Joe thought about how he no longer considered it his bench, and he thought about how less than twenty minutes ago he felt more alone than anyone on the planet, and how just the fact that this person existed completely ruined his theory that life was always going to go against him. She let her fingers brush against his as they walked, and he opened his palm to encircle her soft hand. As he did so, he dug around in his pocket for his research notebook of suicides and unbeknownst to her, dropped it behind him as he walked. It bounced into a puddle as an inquisitive seagull approached.

The two of them continued walking against the wind, hand in hand.

Elephant Juice

In moments like this, when I've made a mistake

And all that's built up feels like its at stake
And it's all my fault that something felt fake
That I realise now that it makes me a snake
In the grass, as I pass by the arse end of town
Walking past revellers only makes me feel down
And I feel like a king that's destroyed his crown
Because without her the streets seem tinged brown
And faded from view, and its true what they say
You can't have it your way, if you stick with a play
That defers for a day, making this house out of papier mache
The foundation's not clay, but solid concrete
And if that concrete has a crack of deceit
You can't use it to build, and it leads to defeat

But I won't give up and I won't retreat

And if love is a war, there's no way I'm yet beat
And I'll march to this beat and this symbolic crash
I'll stride past the faces of those out on the lash
Cos I can survive without fast food, drinking or cash
And I'm walking so fast I'm the fucking Flash
I have to get there, cos she said that she needs me
And I would walk through the Black Sea, North Sea and mercy
And through deserts and tundra and darkest Chertsey
If she asked me to curtsey, I probably would
Although why that would happen is not understood
The point is whatever she wanted, I could
And should and would do, and despite this flow through
Like Dr. Seuss, unsure footing is just kind of proof
That at least theres a chance to save this, and truth
is theres nothing I wont do, and if its seen as uncouth
Then so what, fuck it, I'm still going to try
Because people like her come round once in a life
and its worth every second of trouble and strife
("That was brought on yourself", cuts my internal knife)
To fight to be with her and ever un-severed,
And never to cause upsetting endeavours
Is the motto and creed I have, is it clever?
Mais non, but its true, and what can I do
Except try to come through
And change up her whole mood
From blue all way through to warm shades of red
Implying a passion and a love in her head
And I could be that thought, not a prick instead
The thing is I've never felt like this,
About anyone else I've known to exist
And I'll pay my penance as told by this list
By now I should think that you've gotten the gist
That I would do anything
AnythingFor the chance its not broken and for one more kiss
Some idiot once said its better to love and to lose
But I just don't agree and I ask for a truce
Cos nothings more real than Elephant Juice