For the happy man! - Collected writings DEPRESSION: Ed Atkins
For the happy man! - Collected writings DEPRESSION: Ed Atkins For the happy man! - Collected writings DEPRESSION: Ed Atkins
INTRUSION [...] Extruded from a previously unnoticed orifice situated somewhere on your reverse. [EYES ROLL BACK] Some sort of duct at the very centre of the crown – a tiny pinprick in the eye of the eye of that whorl of hair dreamt up by the skull. Somewhere near the root. Perhaps haloed by a few telltale white hairs, blanched by sheer proximity. SCALDED by the hot zephyrs vented from the orifice. (Those hairs are thinner, too. Worried (as in ‘worried’) to distraction, they’re not sleeping properly, poor things. Perpetually bolt upright despite the considerable application of calming hair products. (Clays, waxes, mousses, creams, putties, etc.) [...] A grove of silver birch trees at night, signposting the mouth of a cave, are plucked one by one by the light of my torch. The light interrupted by a stooped figure [...] not a cave but a slate mine, long abandoned. Abandoned but sporadically occupied. By local teenagers. They go there in the nocturnal depths of summer to conduct their bored, occult ceremonies [...] Thousands of them, sat cross-legged on the soft soil and hard rock down there. A mile down. Breathing in unison, quarrying into one another and the slate-shagged earth with nothing but their combined languor and a bucketful of veterinary drugs passed hand to hand to mouth to mouth. An orgy
of fecklessness and animal despair... Then a disconsolate voice from the mouth of the mine confuses the scale and petrifies the trees. [...] An elegant hand, while caressing the head, lingers too long at the crown. A finger delicately isolating, circling, tracing the perimeter of the orifice (an idle game at first; an infinitesimal sentence, tactilely signed quickly on your head; you understand that those peculiar etymological roots common to both ‘comfort’ and ‘vestigial’ are being discussed [...] You understand more than you can speak). A tight black dot only apprehended as an opening and not a mole or a fleck or a biro-written full stop when you run your finger over it: a narrow jet of sulphur-inflected air FORTHCOMING. An inhalation to be taken for the alleviation of depravity; A geological vent VENTING the gas generated as a by-product of the process of maintaining the memories of forthcoming commitments; A wind instrumentalised by the distinct corrugations scoring the edge of the hole – the note, pitched in wasteland, is a kind of harmonic overtone between two inaudible voices, whispering down the precious, velvet network of a bat’s ear (a tear welling in the bat’s right eye [...]); A damnable draft, its true source remaining unknown despite your increasingly desperate search about the walls of the flat – we must submit to wearing an extra layer at all times; A stream of compressed air delivered from a canister, intended for photographic purposes but employed here to dislodge satisfying fragments of STUFF from a gap between the staves that make up the tabletop; An emergency TRACHEOTOMY – an incision made using a paring knife, an old fashioned paper straw jostled into the gash – precarious, gargling breaths drawn (praying that the wetted, sagging straw will hold up till the paramedics get
- Page 150 and 151: Or remembering thinking: I used to
- Page 152 and 153: Or the admission that I bought a kn
- Page 154 and 155: Or the gap in the journal here. A f
- Page 156 and 157: Or someone once writing something a
- Page 158 and 159: Or that an index of absence is a so
- Page 160 and 161: Or something like that. Diminished
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- Page 164 and 165: Or the too-late comprehension that
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- Page 168 and 169: tralaminar nuclear group (baffled a
- Page 170 and 171: incerta (lopsided), PITUITARY GLAND
- Page 172 and 173: have - the other seemingly a king o
- Page 174 and 175: The brute indomitability of a list.
- Page 176 and 177: Or a massive tattoo of a shark bite
- Page 178 and 179: Or, to focus a little, the reptilia
- Page 180 and 181: Or, that we are not limited to verb
- Page 182 and 183: Or perhaps it’s more useful to be
- Page 184 and 185: Or... I suppose. False positives an
- Page 186 and 187: Or confiding that the head eventual
- Page 188 and 189: Or you climb the dangling rope left
- Page 190 and 191: Or a diagonal movement across bus s
- Page 192 and 193: Or being an aggravation of the exis
- Page 194 and 195: Or again, in 2012, albeit INTERNALL
- Page 197 and 198: Three shorts 2012 - 13
- Page 199: jaw, eight twice, From what I can m
- Page 203 and 204: ing the problem. We’ll shave arou
- Page 205: Horse-head or Triangulum Emission G
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INTRUSION<br />
[...]<br />
Extruded from a previously unnoticed orifice situated<br />
somewhere on your reverse. [EYES ROLL BACK]<br />
Some sort of duct at <strong>the</strong> very centre of <strong>the</strong> crown – a<br />
tiny pinprick in <strong>the</strong> eye of <strong>the</strong> eye of that whorl of hair dreamt<br />
up by <strong>the</strong> skull. Somewhere near <strong>the</strong> root. Perhaps haloed<br />
by a few telltale white hairs, blanched by sheer proximity.<br />
SCALDED by <strong>the</strong> hot zephyrs vented from <strong>the</strong> orifice. (Those<br />
hairs are thinner, too. Worried (as in ‘worried’) to distraction,<br />
<strong>the</strong>y’re not sleeping properly, poor things. Perpetually bolt<br />
upright despite <strong>the</strong> considerable application of calming hair<br />
products. (Clays, waxes, mousses, creams, putties, etc.)<br />
[...]<br />
A grove of silver birch trees at night, signposting <strong>the</strong><br />
mouth of a cave, are plucked one by one by <strong>the</strong> light of my<br />
torch. The light interrupted by a stooped figure [...] not a cave<br />
but a slate mine, long abandoned. Abandoned but sporadically<br />
occupied. By local teenagers. They go <strong>the</strong>re in <strong>the</strong> nocturnal<br />
depths of summer to conduct <strong>the</strong>ir bored, occult ceremonies<br />
[...] Thousands of <strong>the</strong>m, sat cross-legged on <strong>the</strong> soft soil and<br />
hard rock down <strong>the</strong>re. A mile down. Breathing in unison,<br />
quarrying into one ano<strong>the</strong>r and <strong>the</strong> slate-shagged earth with<br />
nothing but <strong>the</strong>ir combined languor and a bucketful of veterinary<br />
drugs passed hand to hand to mouth to mouth. An orgy
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