In a bingo hall, near my old school, the outlines of people no longer around are visible at a specific time each day. It’s just after tea. Mid-afternoon. Tele and biscuits while the woman next door shaves her legs in full view of us kids on the brink of discovering the meaning behind our favourite dirty words. My eye is pressed firmly against the keyhole, and I see things I’m told are not real. There’s a virus. It showed the world how to wash its hands. People bought shit loads of toilet roll to help them save their shitty souls. We ourselves are a virus; a virus with shoes. Neither, suede, nor blue. For a moment, just before the late rerun of Neighbours came on, everyone lost themselves, but all I could think about was how beautiful those outlines looked upon the walls of that bingo hall. My tongue is covered in dust. I smell like a dog blanket. She wears black tights with eyeliner that reminds me of the band that played on the Titanic as it sank into the maelstrom of history on that cold so cold April night of nineteen twelve. Van Gogh had syphilis. Picasso, a misogynist. Pollock a prick when it came to his thirst for the bottle and Drake a sullen chap with a craving for Mary Jane and winding country lanes. His outlines are out there somewhere too. At dusk, on the corner of a street with no name. Beneath a tree with leaves as golden as Uncle Ben’s most exquisite basmati rice. The shelves and cupboards are empty. The trees, so bare. Apples and pears, and the bells of St Clements. I come and go. One of these days, I must find a well and cover it.
X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK
X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US
Categories: Lucid
Author S. K. Nicholas 
Feeling like the kid whose tongue is covered in dust too
Glad I’m not the only one 😉
I’ve played so much Scrabble I feel like I’m out of my body.
All well? Take care.
There’s only so much Scrabble one can take 😉
All good here so far. Hope you’re taking care of yourself in these strange times.
I am, and looking forward to freedom. It’s not coming any time soon, so there is going to be a lot more Scrabble in the near future.
At least it makes us appreciate the small things. Not that we didn’t before, but there’s certainly no escaping it now. Our eyes shall be tuned into the most delicate of disruptions.
I hope so — more than before. But I can’t help thinking that there is more to this. This may be the beginning of something we won’t like. Anyway…
For all our sakes, I hope that’s not the case. I guess only time will tell…
I hope so too.
😊
I always play Scrabble…so nothing has changed for me.
I hadn’t played for some time now, and now we are having marathons. It is still one of my favourite games
I’m not keen on the official scrabble app, but the one I use is great…no ads. I am the least competitive person I know so I play the hardest level against the computer.
I still play the board version I have since I was a child. I also play against the computer in English. It’s fun to switch. You see words of the one language written in the alphabet of the other.
You’re so smart haha x I ONLY play in English.
Smart and bodiless if I go on like this.
How wonderful Stephen. I adore this! X
Thank you! 😊 X
Sorry, Stephen! x
😘 x