The darkness of morning, interrupted by a sudden wave of white. It didn’t last long. The snowfall was heavy, though. Not heavy enough to settle, but enough to block out the world and make the morning seem somewhat beautiful, and not the maze of grey that it so often is. Some of my favourite memories exist in the snow. These days, they’re buried in memory, like the lost remains of Bundy’s victims on some Colorado mountain where twilight twinkles like the coins in my pocket. I wash them in vinegar. I’m peculiar like that. In times of pain, I retreat to a place in the pines—the animals watching my every move. In the misty mouthfuls of escaping breath, childhood bliss is free at last. Figurines from Woolworths. Videotapes from Blockbusters. Shops now boarded up or bulldozed into oblivion when once they contained the very meaning of a simple life. Toys bought with pocket money. No alcohol or romance, just toys bought with pocket money. I glimpsed the snow through the doors of a supermarket. A sudden flurry—a storm in a paper cup as those around me busied themselves in nothingness. The window of opportunity was monolithic. Like a giant cock ejaculating magma hundreds of feet into the sky. Transfixed by the site of it, my mind wandered to old train journeys through London, and to the joys of daytime drinking in search of great works of art to cut through the doldrums of life like a knife wielded by a jealous lover.

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