they can kiss my dactylion, which i’m more than happy to extend in their general direction. sponge paused. continued to talk about a christmas party some years ago, where he hadn’t been. ranted. raved. on and on. more to be said.
so many fullstops, improperly parting words, assuming full sentences where there are none. that’s it. round bits of chewing gum are the stars in a pavement universe. if only the man with the lucozade knew what worlds he’s stepping on. what difference would that make? he would be walking as before, having no alternative.
so sponge was stuck for a cue, what next, you tell me. a story is only good of it has a story in it, a string of event or thoughts or opinions, spirited or spiteful, for readers to pick and mix. maybe they make a film out of it or a tv show, a late night special. the setting is a platform of station between two other stations, straightforward. someone could push the guy over thee in front of a train, he looks innocent enough to make it into the news as a father of four or a well-liked neighbour of sorts, one other neighbours remember, old-school character. but that won’t happen. there won’t be a train for ages and if one comes it’ll be crawling along so the man would have to be tied up or drugged or otherwise immobilised but then the train people might intervene, they always do, they think they can, so they need to be dealt with and how do you do that? train people can be dealt with, they can be talked out of and into things but that requires time and time is what the villians don’t have. the train, albeit slow to arrive is often swift to go. what then? load the now immobilised man into a car, a black van perhaps or some boxy builders’ transport (white), handcuff and muffle him, ask a few questions, the man might know something, easy ones, we don’t know him very well, try to catch up with the train at the next station, that is one option; let him have it at the next station. to wait for the next train here, there another, trying not to draw a lot of attention. the job can drag on, hours pass one could put to better use, the fence needs mending, ages since a coat of protective paint had been applied, five years they say it’ll last and we started thinking about a new coat five years ago, we were talking, joking almost that five years on we’d still be talking and joking and here we are, talking and joking, but what can we do? we kind of stuck.
the first option adds rapid action to the story whereas the second introduces a time element, characters can be developed better in the rather static setting of a platform. (that theory, however, is not entirely proven to be correct). some cigarettes, smoked angrily, with haste, impatience, the wait tears nerves, they get to know the victim although he would have to be muffled. they stomp on their cigarettes, flung to the ground unfinished, no time to finish before the next. they might reconsider. maybe they beat him. or they go home altogether, the victim plodding along, it’s all delayed. they should have planned to push him in front of oncoming traffic. push and done, but no, it’s all delayed instead. the victim goes home with them, lives with them. it’s all delayed, how to get rid of him now.
that won’t happen here, said sponge. he wondered what the first sentence (they can kiss…) was meant to mean. that’s the thing, he said, when you pack too much into a story – it makes people wonder why.
30 April, 2010 
