The Burn

the chase

The first thing to do is walk slowly and dont look either way, you keep the hands in the pockets, the jerkin pockets, the shoulders hunched a little. Folk watch you. The police are there as well. It’s nasty. There is a thing not good to the mind. But you have to keep going. It is a vice, and the way of all vices, that compulsion. It isnt even of interest. The heads dont turn. They notice though. They notice. They just dont hardly bother because it is so expected. That predictability. Yes, okay, which is a relief. If the predictability did not exist the thing would become the more burdensome, the more destructive to your mind. Not your mind, your soul. Minds are just too uninteresting. But souls. Souls are interesting: they are of interest. Note the irony. Souls are of interest. If you live in an atmosphere that is religious then they are not of interest, but our atmosphere is irreligious, not to say sacrilegious, so, the existence of souls. My own soul. .

Well now, the unfinished thought, the pregnancy of it. We dont know. That is to say, we are unable to tell. But, the duty to the thought: my own soul is, not to beat about the bush, lacking in effervescence. What do we mean by that. We mean that my soul is in a state. The state is one of trauma, though trauma is too harsh. My soul is the soul of a depressive, manic perhaps, even maniacal. A hundred years ago the notion of manic depression was not in play. I banged my eye. I put up my hand to my face, to maybe rub my brow I cannot remember, but my finger went into my eye! It damn well nips and water streams from it. There is a heatwave too. It is three a.m. I was not able to sleep because of the heat. My partner’s body was sweating. Each time we closed we stuck, or I stuck. My partner seemed not to stick. It was me who stuck and had to dislodge myself and I could almost hear the sound of it, the slight smacking noise. A car starts up below. A neighbour is mysterious. I hear the car start on other mornings also. The stickiness of my partner’s body. I went to the wardrobe and got some clothes on. Three a.m. and I needed to get out. I felt like I was sweating severely. I filled the washbasin in the bathroom with cold water and then dunked in my noggin and let the cold water drip down my neck and down the hairs on my chest so that it was slightly uncomfortable underneath the shirt I wore, but it was worth it to get a feeling of freshness. Besides, I like the night, the depth of it — except that at this time of year it only lasts for something like two hours say, half-midnight to about 2.45, and after that you’ve got the navy-blue/charcoal-grey tinting the sky.

It was nice being out, I felt that for my soul. I am fond of my partner but it does my soul the world of good to escape, to escape into the air, the still of the dark part of the night. Solitary motor cars. Where I live a couple of shops open right into the late night so it’s good, especially good having a place to walk to, you can just stroll as slowly as you like, and if the police stop you you’ve got the readymade excuse. But if you have a vice, a compulsion — even just walking the street, if that’s your compulsion — then they stare at you. They are not at all certain. You look so normal and natural an individual, so normal and natural, that they cannot gauge you, what it is, the police, they cannot think that about you. Therefore what happens next is always tinged not by despair but the utmost nervewracking excitement. I know the district you see and in knowing the district it is a fantasy of mine that the police are trying to capture me. I am standing giving answers to certain questions and they look one to the other, suspicious of me, I see it in their very faces, their gestures, the way they stand ready to grab me if I so much as make a move. But that split second prior to them reaching out to get me I sprint suddenly sideways and through a close, down the steps and out by the dunny there or else into the dunny except I hate the idea of being trapped there and them entering with their torches, flashing on my face. I sprint instead beyond the dunny and across the wall, leaping down into the next backcourt and out through the gapsite down Brown Street and to the waterfront, down the steps and rushing headlong, but quiet, controlling my harsh breathing, the moonlight over the ripples of the Clyde, the tremendous elation of that, and maybe hearing the harsh sounding breaths of the chasing policemen, the slap of their boots on the tarmac, the concrete paving. This is my area and there is the old tunnel too and there is bound to be some old forgotten side entrance I can slip through, clattering down and down and down, my knees almost caving with the force of my movement. God.