text || Lawrence Upton

APOCALYPSE

Adam speaks out of white. Piss on him, date and the time systematised. His voice is stored and reused, a pattern of out-takes. Adam speaks: look at the hills. Enter your passwords.

OK. Adam says it is all all right. Socrates on the bedside cabinet. Snow on the rooves. Radio on. Clusters of air bubbles in bottled water. Lift up! Water resist fifty metres. Eddie Cochran trying to catch his breath. He's getting on now. The young prince is not so smug. The saxophone player of the nineties, says a radio voice, following a different thread. They'll find my corpse draped over a rail.

And now, and now, and now; and now. A few hours ago this was forest. Now it is a lot of heat. Streaked light. What I am seeing is a burn on my eyes. Behold I am with you even unto the consummation of the world.

Rain on the platform in afternoon sunshine. Incandescent creatures, longing to be human. I have it now. I home in on the heat of the sun. Three people run towards the train, screaming.

Adam speaks out of the burning fiery furnace of the body, but we cannot hear what it is that he says: there is too much interference. I cannot even read the signs. The mouse slides easily under my hand. Soon there will be no more time for saying. Soon it will be silence. I doubt that my voice is audible.

A red head gets on the train. I watch her. Three girls discussing what a vegan is. What they wear. They are some other tribe. None of us has words for it. These are barbaric times. A bird flies through the living room.

Pathway over the cliff. Oil drip over the can running down glowing.

A silver-plated fly crashes into an artificial cliff, exhibition partitions, smoke-stack of a diesel ferry. Strap of a holdall, tail of a dog, blonde hair over the back of an anorak.

My love is a corpse. Moon (glowing through a watery sky). June (smiling from a book on old films). Croon (coming out of an old radio). Soon (Of course, of course). Tune (I'll remember it soon). Dunes (washing away in rising sea). They pull a plaster off her smiling face and prepare the next experience. A stirrup, a ladder rung, a brace on the teeth of a fourteen year old. Increase your word power. Release your hidden strength. Trap sprung.

I do believe that's very important. Really do. I'm a Gemini. She looks stunning with that lipstick on. One thing that she said which I forgot, well I forgot to say, I'll never be able to forget, when she was really pissed off with Antonio and me, when she was jealous, really jealous; she was insanely jealous...

Close up the fly is an aeroplane and closer still a gush of crumpled cigarette paper. Players' weights. The smell of them! You wait to die. Weighing your heart against your own addiction to life and to death. A picture of a snow storm. A boat in the open sea. Cigarette ash on a tube train floor. A burger box on the Serpentine. A lesion. A cactus flowering. A scent in the air. The first death of Spring. A black headband tied into yellow hair. A ring at the door. A hand which is holding the tips of your fingers. Oh my papa, to me he was so wonderful; oh my papa.

Blue geometric carpet tiles. High heels at the photocopier. Knees bending in the shadow of St Paul's. We have a major investment. Automatic door close. Automatic selection. Deselection. Demand driven. New levels of toxicity. New levels of information. There is no answer but the answer that I gave. A blossoming cow's head.

Oh I see it all from here; I see what you did to me.

For me. I see it all. Come near the edge and be looking over. For me. The cooling system sings tenor. Look!

White boats on a night sea. Oyster beds. Black rubber slip mats. Burial towers. Squared off fields, grain fountaining like little boys competing to wee the highest. Roads between. Junctions, houses on fire, survivors marooned up against barriers. She comes in wearing sun-glasses. The foyer breaks into two fragments. One man is walking backwards, looking confused, but it is I who am confused, I have only his reflection. Who is he?

Who am I? laughs the poseur, sipping his wine, telling me how to pronounce the name of the museum Rijks. I prise from him his guffaws and the symmetry of his illusions. He would die with an awareness of his own adequacy. I look in the opposite direction. The inside of the room reflected in the windows, a glossy coat of paint, a world of back to front sofas and a dreadful carpet. A mouth wide open: no eyes, no nose. How does he speak? Terrible.

Her hand on my thigh, a hardon and my attention wandering, television screen flickering this way that way like a flag in gusty wind. Blue diagonals on blue background. Neon lightning in an early morning sky. A mundane fabric design. No smoking. A little bit of snow gleams through the cloud. Just the tops of mountains. I had expected sea. The aircraft window is narrow. A big black, talks like he's thick as shit, personal stereo squeaking into my mental beach. A white woman biting her lower lip. Two bags. Struggling to get off the train with both of them each marked House of Fraser. My companion's black patent shoes catching the light of the flickering bulbs in the broken fake chandelier. Cache RAM. Zero wait state. What a piece of work.

Welcome gentle Gilbert, welcome George. Welcome. ICI. Dow. Roche. Agent Orange.

Dumpy legs into floppy socks, she shuffles down the staircase carrying her findings with her, muttering her monologue. It ought not to be aloud. People will talk.

One floor is the same as another after a few years. You see what you want to see. You do what you want to die.

Nobody wants to die. Nobody wants to get old. It happens.

It happens they've all moved away.