Burning Slowly

A random tale of a random poet living a random life. (Many of the pictures are mine but my apologies to the owners of the ones that I have blatantly ripped off. If you are really unhappy about me using your images, email me and I will remove them. If not, thanks for the loan. Outcast Poet)

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Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

I write real poems, and play real music.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Roger


One long hot lonely night early last year, as I lay restlessly on my boat trying to get some sleep, I sent a text message to my good friend and nephew, Dum Dum; It said:

“Spring has sprung”

For once my Vodafone service actually had a signal on the cut and I not only managed to send the message but also got his reply; which was:

“Jing has Jung”

And we took it from there. What emerged by the early hours of the morning was the following Zen-like story, the sum of all our texts.



ROGER
The tale of a hardly-ordinary-at-all man


Written with text messages
By
Dum Dum & Outcast Poet
© April 2006, Oxford & London




Spring has sprung. Jing has Jung.

The smell of curry lingered on a spring evening breeze; as usual, Radio Four was the soundtrack. Roger entered the beige sitting room wondering which chair to sit on. His cords made a soft rubbing sound as he traversed the impeccably fitted carpet. The sweet singing canary sent him back to Patagonia 1953. Or was it ’54? No, he remembered listening to the Queens coronation on the small short wave radio his father had shipped out with them. But whilst trying to get a better reception was bitten by a spider monkey. Ever since that day he had worn cords. And Dunn & Co moleskins for special occasions.

He seated himself at the far end of a three seater settee next to the well watered aspidistra. Unusually florid for this time of year, his thoughts strayed back to the Belgium Congo. The face of Monsieur le Khyber filled his mind, a small shifty man notorious in the Congo, “Khyber de Muerte” he was know as. Roger could still see his face; at night, the nightmares never relented. The sundial pointed east! It was the sum of all those years of horror that had led him to this beige room. There
was no going back now! Locked in this eternal debacle he had five fingers of sherry instead of his usual three. He slipped the small flask back into his jacket pocket as a door opened on the far side of the room. Margaret entered and suggested an afternoon fly-fishing. “What did she really want?” he thought, and how did she know he had his fly collection with him at all times. Another habit he had picked up from his days in the Congo.

The imaginary herd of gnus charged as he hurled himself through the bay window. As the shattered glass ripped his cords the realisation came to him: after all these years he now knew, Margaret was in fact a herd of Gnus! And smelt like one! Dr Rocco de Montfort helped Roger to the couch. He explained: Voodoo in the Congo had been rife in 52-54, the monkey spider was no accident. Khyber! That asshole was behind it all! The radio, Margaret, Tin Tin! The slim line Berretta Roger had always carried was loaded; Khyber would die again! The pain from the fishing flies that had stuck in his leg when he jumped through the window was excruciating. His gun still hot he fired again, and again. Not a gnu was left standing. Now for Khyber!

Khyber was a sickly little man. In the daylight Roger stuck the barrel of the Beretta in Khyber's ear: “This is for my father, Tin Tin, and for what you did to Margaret” he screamed as he pulled the trigger one last time. Kyhber's skull exploded into a thousand fragments, each one ready to return as nightmares, dragging Roger back to the Congo.

The room, no longer beige, dripped with the blood from Khyber’s skull and the strewn carcasses of gnus that has once been Margaret. And all became Oriental in Roger's Continental world. He headed off in the direction of the sundial, due east. It was over; he could wear anything he wanted now. A shaft of sunlight shot through a hole in his sampan. It had been a long bank holiday Monday. Mandalay beckoned; he was going home, time for the rest of that sweet sherry!

Monsoon rains; a restless soul finds sanctuary, the smell of curry lingered on the spring evening breeze; as usual radio four was the soundtrack. Tomorrow was another day.