Post Hoc
A Priori The Second
The streets were cold and desolate, the barren womb of a nun in the darkness. I kept walking, my head high, feeling the cold snot of rain dribble down my back. I see a man looking at me funny, like I’m mad but I’m not mad I swear. I’m out in the darkest pit of November in a cold place, cold hard place and here I am in a thin dress. I don’t wear tights, I don’t have a cardigan or a coat or an umbrella. They can frankly go to Hell. I have no desire to step foot again in that god-forsaken restaurant and there is something rather liberating about that. I feel like I've retched the chains of social humanity and in the words of a very very very clever Glaswegian:
I SHALL WALK ALONE, BOY.
This is me, eternally. Who would want to love a girl like me? Not good enough, never good enough, no. Not sexy, my tits aren’t big enough, my hair isn’t shiny, my eyelashes not thick enough, my skin not orange enough. Is it my fault that the populace would prefer to fuck a plastic doll than a human being?
There must be something on that, I think. I mean, if I am not plastic but the ideal is plastic, am I old hat? I’m over the hill and barely out my twenties. Its times like these that I wish I believed in a God to just have some form of hope in an easy form. But no, it’s me against...not the universe, no. I’m not big enough to even consider that.
Hermit. Yeah, that sounds right. Hermit. Some weird woman. I should move up to somewhere past Fort William and Inverness and the like, away from the villages and live in a fucking cave. Yeah, I’ll live in a cave. What would I need though? I don’t think I could hunt, I’m too squeamish. Maybe I could. I dunno. I never felt anything when we saw dissection videos or any of the bloodfest films that are so in vogue. Maybe I could. I could shoot them with a bow and arrow. I did a lesson of archery once; I could do that, yeah.
I could save up my money and get a Land rover and take all the bits I need and then dump it a mile from anywhere but burn the fucking thing. Maybe they’ll think I’m dead but then the joke would be on them because I wouldn’t even be dead, you know?
I wonder who would come to my funeral. My Mum? Dad? Who knows? They’ll probably go...unless they did something. I don’t know. She does have a nervous attitude and he’s a bit of a reckless driver. Maybe she’ll scream or something, maybe she’d see someone who looks like me but actually isn’t me and scream, yeah I can see it and he crashes.
Smack! Forehead against the windscreen, blood and bone crrrrrrrrrack and fire-fighters. It might be a pileup. And all those people would die because I decided to run away. No, that’s not good enough. No.
Salty.
Saline.
Mmm, I’m crying a little. How pathetic is that? Crying from fiction. The images are consuming though. Flames, bone, fire, blood. Flames, bone, fire, blood. Rust rust, cars rusting in the cold Scottish rain, this rain. Tonight maybe. Are they going anywhere tonight? Fuck, I better phone them when I get home, tell them to stay off the roads. I mean, my death is okay. I can imagine that, no problem, easy peasy lemon squeezy. But...theirs is gristly. And then some cunt from the telly would show images of them dead and the car and that and then the whole of Scotland, maybe the UK, maybe the World would know that they’re dead and I could have stopped them but no, I couldn’t no I can’t.
I’m a bad girl.
I’m a bad girl.
I’m a bad girl.
George Square swims up, the tall statues, the marble souls of the great and the good, with Nelson or something in the middle, watching Robert Burns getting shit on by a pigeon. It’s a voyeuristic paradise, monuments. And something bothers me. I want to get home quickly. The place was grotty, the ink of night intoxicating the soft browns of the buildings, suffocating the world. Even the twinkly little lights illuminating the block of stone In Memoriam – the thing was dedicated by Haig. Butcher, blood on the marble, brains on the inscription. Crash, whhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiy, pchuw.
No, need to clear my mind. Nice thoughts, nice thoughts. I need to stop crying, there’s nothing to cry about. Logic.
I am a scientist. I will use logic. Only the bleeding hearts of poetic men may weep for the world in the way I’m doing. It’s stupid. I’m stupid, stop stop stop stop stop stop stop!
My hands are sweaty when I reach the car. Roses, all I smell is the stench of roses hitting me in the face when I open the door, thwacking against me like a train.
I heard people walk onto the underground tracks and walk into the tunnels to die. And then people say that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Underground trains have lights.
No. Stop. Think think think think...something nice.
The radio crackles but you can still hear the screeches against the friction of the windscreen wipers. I can’t see well, bleary-eyed. I’m crashing crashing...crash like Mum’s car. Mum’s dead. Isn’t she? Mum and Dad, dead. And yeah, I see them, I see their pallid faces in the road, glittering in cosmic cat eyes and I can’t stop sobbing. I keep trying to remind myself it’s fiction but it’s not helping.
I’d have to organise it all, of course. Rachael is a lazy little shit and wouldn’t bother. Simon’s too emotionally unstable and Petey’s too fucking young. So, I’d have to do it all. The sausage rolls, the booze, the undertaker – all of it. And emotion, what emotion? I’d have to become like Lady Macbeth; top to toe of direst cruelty to just get it through. I mean, I’m sad but Simon’s not well. He wouldn’t understand and he’d go off on one, maybe get really fucking drunk and kick the shit of some poor bastard. He’d go to jail. Rachael...she’s up the duff as it is and she’d lose it. She’d lose the wean. And wee Petey would go into care: I’m not good enough to be a mother.
And all because I didn’t phone them. I better phone them when I get home. I really should.
I SHALL WALK ALONE, BOY.
This is me, eternally. Who would want to love a girl like me? Not good enough, never good enough, no. Not sexy, my tits aren’t big enough, my hair isn’t shiny, my eyelashes not thick enough, my skin not orange enough. Is it my fault that the populace would prefer to fuck a plastic doll than a human being?
There must be something on that, I think. I mean, if I am not plastic but the ideal is plastic, am I old hat? I’m over the hill and barely out my twenties. Its times like these that I wish I believed in a God to just have some form of hope in an easy form. But no, it’s me against...not the universe, no. I’m not big enough to even consider that.
Hermit. Yeah, that sounds right. Hermit. Some weird woman. I should move up to somewhere past Fort William and Inverness and the like, away from the villages and live in a fucking cave. Yeah, I’ll live in a cave. What would I need though? I don’t think I could hunt, I’m too squeamish. Maybe I could. I dunno. I never felt anything when we saw dissection videos or any of the bloodfest films that are so in vogue. Maybe I could. I could shoot them with a bow and arrow. I did a lesson of archery once; I could do that, yeah.
I could save up my money and get a Land rover and take all the bits I need and then dump it a mile from anywhere but burn the fucking thing. Maybe they’ll think I’m dead but then the joke would be on them because I wouldn’t even be dead, you know?
I wonder who would come to my funeral. My Mum? Dad? Who knows? They’ll probably go...unless they did something. I don’t know. She does have a nervous attitude and he’s a bit of a reckless driver. Maybe she’ll scream or something, maybe she’d see someone who looks like me but actually isn’t me and scream, yeah I can see it and he crashes.
Smack! Forehead against the windscreen, blood and bone crrrrrrrrrack and fire-fighters. It might be a pileup. And all those people would die because I decided to run away. No, that’s not good enough. No.
Salty.
Saline.
Mmm, I’m crying a little. How pathetic is that? Crying from fiction. The images are consuming though. Flames, bone, fire, blood. Flames, bone, fire, blood. Rust rust, cars rusting in the cold Scottish rain, this rain. Tonight maybe. Are they going anywhere tonight? Fuck, I better phone them when I get home, tell them to stay off the roads. I mean, my death is okay. I can imagine that, no problem, easy peasy lemon squeezy. But...theirs is gristly. And then some cunt from the telly would show images of them dead and the car and that and then the whole of Scotland, maybe the UK, maybe the World would know that they’re dead and I could have stopped them but no, I couldn’t no I can’t.
I’m a bad girl.
I’m a bad girl.
I’m a bad girl.
George Square swims up, the tall statues, the marble souls of the great and the good, with Nelson or something in the middle, watching Robert Burns getting shit on by a pigeon. It’s a voyeuristic paradise, monuments. And something bothers me. I want to get home quickly. The place was grotty, the ink of night intoxicating the soft browns of the buildings, suffocating the world. Even the twinkly little lights illuminating the block of stone In Memoriam – the thing was dedicated by Haig. Butcher, blood on the marble, brains on the inscription. Crash, whhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiy, pchuw.
No, need to clear my mind. Nice thoughts, nice thoughts. I need to stop crying, there’s nothing to cry about. Logic.
I am a scientist. I will use logic. Only the bleeding hearts of poetic men may weep for the world in the way I’m doing. It’s stupid. I’m stupid, stop stop stop stop stop stop stop!
My hands are sweaty when I reach the car. Roses, all I smell is the stench of roses hitting me in the face when I open the door, thwacking against me like a train.
I heard people walk onto the underground tracks and walk into the tunnels to die. And then people say that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Underground trains have lights.
No. Stop. Think think think think...something nice.
The radio crackles but you can still hear the screeches against the friction of the windscreen wipers. I can’t see well, bleary-eyed. I’m crashing crashing...crash like Mum’s car. Mum’s dead. Isn’t she? Mum and Dad, dead. And yeah, I see them, I see their pallid faces in the road, glittering in cosmic cat eyes and I can’t stop sobbing. I keep trying to remind myself it’s fiction but it’s not helping.
I’d have to organise it all, of course. Rachael is a lazy little shit and wouldn’t bother. Simon’s too emotionally unstable and Petey’s too fucking young. So, I’d have to do it all. The sausage rolls, the booze, the undertaker – all of it. And emotion, what emotion? I’d have to become like Lady Macbeth; top to toe of direst cruelty to just get it through. I mean, I’m sad but Simon’s not well. He wouldn’t understand and he’d go off on one, maybe get really fucking drunk and kick the shit of some poor bastard. He’d go to jail. Rachael...she’s up the duff as it is and she’d lose it. She’d lose the wean. And wee Petey would go into care: I’m not good enough to be a mother.
And all because I didn’t phone them. I better phone them when I get home. I really should.