Today is definitely a not in the mood to write day, hence leaving it to the evening and feeling like I have to force myself to write. I have been illustrating for Blank Pages today, and have struggled. Pages and pages of dud scribbles, not helped by most of my Sharpie’s having run out and my decision to replace them with Sainsbury’s own-brand fine point markers. Don’t get them; they are SHITE. Fuck you Sainsbury’s – you owe me £2.99. The pink ran out immediately and the red after only a few minutes use. I spent most of the day sulking over a sketch-book and contemplating slashing my paintings in a fit of artistic self-flagellation. Someone pay me to be an artist and then at least my grumpiness won’t be pretentious; I’ll be a real wanker... I mean artist.
I wish I was living the high-life as a well paid journalist covering the Edinburgh Fringe. I’ve never been to Edinburgh (except in my mind in the pages of Trainspotting), let alone to the world’s biggest arts festival. I’m absorbing all the year’s festival experience I’m going to get through the live Collings and Herrin podcasts. As I do the washing up, Richard Herring’s voice travels from Scotchland via my mp3 player, regaling me with improvised anecdotes about Walt Disney raping Pinocchio (here), and other such rubbish.
Just seen some Big Brother guy with one eye. In its place there is the shiny black void of an onyx ocular prosthesis. I would go for one with a red light a la Terminator. What could be better? When I worked in Ryman (fucking Ryman, grrrr) we had an over friendly regular customer. A tiny old lady who liked to sneak the occasional pinch of physical contact. She wore glasses; one lens was transparent, the other mysteriously opaque. The opaque lens expanded around the side blocking accidental glimpses to the horror behind the spectacles.
As she spoke to me I could see directly over her glasses and deep into the most disturbing sight of my life. A vast gaping chasm; an unnecessary orifice, penetrating deep into the front of her skull. No eyeball and no eyelid. A tunnelling vent sucking me in; as I teeter on the event horizon I’m in danger of being lost forever in the vomit-educing gap of gore. As she speaks to me I cannot hear, I can only stare into the pit. I feel as though I am falling towards it and that fanged tentacles may burst out enveloping my face and ripping at my eyes.
My eye is pulled from its socket, the optic nerve and muscle wrenching from my face, in a crunch and a slurp. My eye disappears deep into her socket where it feeds the beast within for another few hours. She is out the shop door, and will return when it is time to feed once more...
At least that’s what it felt like. It’s really not a very pleasant experience – staring into someone’s eyehole. It’s also impossible to stop. Try it, you might like it.
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