He Wakes Stretches and lights a cheap smoke Purple sky this morning Silent suburbia
Houses in leafy rows Old brickwork skeletal In the soft pale light
Five days showing on his chin Two day t-shirt Bathed in aftershave The car struggles to start again
Pulling hard down the back roads Fresh cigarette smoke swirls Sun gleaming through glass
Gaudy corner shop lighting And a bored clerk Two hours into her shift And already tired
Rolling papers, pain au chocolat, strong coffee “Four fifty please” Breakfast is served
Taking the long way back Sun Ra celebrating the new day Through the speakers (with slight crackle) Sometimes it’s a joy
To have nowhere to be
THE COCKROACH FLIES
Crows erupt from the ancient corpse of the disused factory. Their squawks echo across the blank onyx sky as though a chorus of distressed complaints to an uninterested god. The weather report promises rain. A one-eyed dog stumbles lazily into an alleyway and disappears forever.
+
Pulling his jacket tight and keeping his head low, the kid trudges across the road, trying in vain to will out of existence the slack-jawed, dead-eyed mutants across the road smoking their cheap cigarettes, ogling the young woman stepping out of her car, wolf whistling and enthusiastically grabbing their deformed genitals.
Passing the bus stop, he notices a feeble old drunk slumped over in the corner, moaning softly, his words mangled and lost within a scratchy grey beard crusted with days-old drool and vomit. The poor bastard stinks, and as the kid passes level with him he can see the drunk slowly drowning in a pool of his own urine. A dirty bottle with no label dribbles suspect liquid onto the pavement, and the kid finds himself absent-mindedly creating some kind of backstory for this man, this poor wretch, raking back through time to a point where he might have been happy and had a wife and kids and a nice big house and an eco-friendly car and a cushy job somewhere in the city.
The kid glances at a wall daubed in schizophrenic graffiti. Amidst the dripping phalluses and scratchy, arcane symbols; partially covered by the child-like mural of a dog with its brain oozing from its exposed skull; scrawled in big black shaky letters, three words deliver a dull brick to his brain:
the cockroach flies
The kid strains another headache pill down a dry cardboard throat and imagines a flood – a great big biblical deluge – smashing into the decrepit buildings and washing away all the howling bastards and he can feel the waves breaking his bones and suddenly he realises he’s shaking.
+
The wind carries a lonely, half-deflated football across the ground, which seems to be swallowed up entirely by the darkness of the underpass. The kid slopes through this darkness before emerging like some sorry sewer rat into the doomy abyss of the estate. Smashed windows and chain-link fencing loom over patches of dead yellow grass.
Two pre-teen girls hang out of a window and make lewd gestures and the kid feels his stomach do a somersault. His cheeks flush hot and he quickens his pace as he ascends the concrete steps to number 27.
Number 27 is home to Jesus Christ, saviour of the lost kids everywhere. He’s a small, ratty man with a peroxide blonde buzzcut and faded ink blot tattoos snaking up both arms.
They exchange the usual pleasantries and the kid is led through to the living room. Dull sunlight streams through the torn ragged curtains and casts the place in a queasy green aura.
“How is it?” the kid asks, the itch betrayed in his withered, shaky voice.
“Smooth, man. Red Bull shit. Give you wings.” The saviour croaks a smoke-stained laugh and opens up the briefcase on the coffee table, showing the kid the cloudy white vials within.
The kid licks his lips reflexively, absent-mindedly, as he hands the money over and takes a vial. On the way home he marvels silently at how such a modest price could buy such a piece of heaven.
Pearly Gates open up… open up, I’m coming in.
+
Back home. The bed is soft and the kid’s brain is cloudy white as the old familiar sensation kicks in, flowing down to the tips of his fingers and toes with a warm tingle. He stretches out and lets his eyes get heavy. He always likes this part the best: the slow build before the head rush, and the colours, and the weightlessness.
He feels the grey, bare bedroom; then the flat; then finally the entire miserable dogshit town drift away into nothingness, as his eyes close and he floats gently in the ether.
Further out
and
further away
the cockroach flies
+
Summer, years ago. The kid is happy and smiling, running along the beachfront. The sandcastles are high and the water is warm. He remembers his mother’s face and her soft purple dress as she reaches down and picks him up into her arms.
Music comes swirling from some far off place and the kid feels himself being transported elsewhere, bobbing his head to a steady, almost imperceptible rhythm. Words form in his mind and repeat and repeat like a mantra.
Open up those Pearly Gates…
The night drags on and the kid doesn’t mind. He melts into clouds and drowns in his headphones. Remembers days spent skating and smoking and chasing girls. Life is bright and warm inside the cloudy white.
Open up those Pearly Gates…
The kid is very young again, and the old treehouse is safe and private. He sits alone and stares out from his treetop sanctuary, casting an eye out across the suburbs. The air is cool and clear, and the cars look so small. He sees people walking the streets and he thinks he can see their fixed grins, betrayed by their wide, desperate eyes. There’s a fire coming from the factory and nobody seems to mind. A dog barks once, twice, and then the kid turns around and sees rabid teeth and glowing, mad eyes leap for his throat.
Open up those Pearly Gates…
Back in school. Peeling paint and rusted lockers line the hallway, stretching into infinity. The old classrooms bleed memories that make the kid uncomfortable. Mr Atkins with the greasy moustache and the quiet, tired hiss. The acrid smell of the dinner hall. Twisted, deformed faces of the other kids, none of whom he recognises anymore. Bored in maths class. Hot and flustered in art class, embarrassed by his own body as Miss Benson leans over his desk.
A
B
C
Dead end
Suddenly the room gets heavy and the kid feels his heart get quick. He’s no longer on his bed, but in the middle of the cloudy white, way up among those bright, beautiful Pearly Gates.
But now they’re rusting before his eyes, falling apart, and bugs creep out of the corner of his mind and descend upon him. His eyes roll back.
Open up those Pearly Gates…
+
Fat black cockroach creeping over grey flesh
Climb inside the cloudy white
Like a dirty great womb
Let the filth in
Choke your mind
The cockroach grows fangs, makes a meal of you
Still flying?
Still having fun?
Suck on the dirt
Fill your mouth with ashes
Leave you dry, drained
The cockroach flies
Up to those Pearly Gates…
+
Wake up.
Breathe. Easy, now.
It’s dark outside but the sun’s coming up. The kid lies on his bed, lets himself come back to earth.
The town still exists after all. It squats, defiant and repulsive. The kid can’t see the bugs anymore but he knows they’re out there somewhere.
He splashes some water on his face and pulls on his jacket. The mantra repeats and repeats and he heads out of the door.
+
Crows erupt from the ancient corpse of the disused factory. Their squawks echo across the blank onyx sky as though a chorus of distressed complaints to an uninterested god. The weather report promises rain. A one-eyed dog stumbles lazily into an alleyway and disappears forever.
We’re halfway through 2023 and critics are slouching towards their Best Records Of The Year So Far lists. They’re rarely happy about it. If dicing releases every 12 months is arbitrary, then six months is labor on a factory line, wood chips for the content mill. But this year, I feel like they hate these lists more than usual. They’re having a hard time picking much. And maybe you are, too. P...
At the close of 2022, Bitcoin wasn’t just down—it was so down that its precipitous fall was breaking records. One report from Bank of America suggested that the collapse in value was the fifth-worst for any asset in financial history. Despite steady gains this year, it hasn’t even come close to its November 2021 peak, and now things are about to get shaken up like a bead in a baby’s rattle w...
In Ari Aster’s 2016 short film C’est La Vie, Chester Crummings, a homeless man, speaks directly and combatively to camera about his life and society at large as he wanders the streets of LA, surviving, begging for change and casually murdering people. At one point, he says: “You know what Freud says about the nature of horror? He says it’s when the home becomes unhomelike. Unheimlich.”
In Sig...
