KISS

The love was there, no doubt about it. As long as they had known each other they had always shared a private, unequal love; his for her greater than hers for him, he the lover, she the loved.

To her, he was her comforter, companion and counsellor. Old enough to be her father, he never judged, always listened, and never had to try to see the best in her, because that was all he ever saw. He was the one who saw right through her and loved her still, and when she was sad, she looked at herself through his eyes and was dazzled.

To him, she was everything he wanted. When they first met, he saw her beauty, and she was, in truth, stunning; but in time he came to see that beauty was the least of her. Just as women learn to be attracted to the men they love, men learn to love the women they are attracted to, but he would have loved her if he'd have been blind. She was funny and clever, kind and sensitive, innocent and vulnerable ,all of which made him want to fold her in his arms and keep her safe every bit as much as he wanted to make love to her.

They both knew that they would never be together. For a long time they shared the pretence that it was because of the difference in their ages, which was sweet of her; the truth was that even on his best day in his best year, she would never have looked at him twice. She could have had any man she wanted. He was, at best...nice.

And so, over the years they grew together and became like a pair of comfortable shoes. They came to realize that the each filled a need in the other. He gave her his insight and his wisdom, and she gave him one last mad romantic dream to follow. He gave her experience, she, without ever laying a finger on him, gave him sex.

With time, their feelings changed, of course. Over the years, by nothing more sinister than osmosis, he came to be close to the centre of her world. When something made her laugh, he was the person she shared it with. When something made her cry, he was the one she called. When she saw something amazing, he was the one she wished had been there to see it with her, and one day she realized, with an uncomfortable bump, that this fairly funny, fairly clever and basically unremarkable middle-aged man was the best friend she had ever had.

When he first saw her, he thought the same as any man thought when he saw a woman like her; but as she grew more dear to him, whilst he still dreamed of laying with her, rather than them making love, he imagined her sleeping with her head on his chest as he felt the strange electricity of skin against skin, or kissing her neck and shoulders whilst his fingertips brushed the curve of the base of her back; no longer thinking about their being lovers, but the two of them being as close in body as they were in their hearts. He knew it would never be, and somehow he clung on to just enough sense to realize that although he could not have everything he wanted, there was no reason to throw away the something that they had.

And so the two of them grew together like honeysuckle and ivy, and the folks of the small town they lived in grew accustomed to the sight of the strange couple; the beauty and man who could have been her father; but they never understood, and never asked; and the pair never told.

One night, they sat on his sofa watching a film together, his hand in her lap and her head on his shoulder, when he caught the smell of her hair and realized what it was he wanted most; and as he thought the thought, the thought became a wish wordlessly breathed into life.

One day, he thought, she'll kiss me. Not the fond kisses on the cheek we give each other all the time. Not the warm, affectionate kisses she plants on the top of my head as I sit, or the loving but sexless kisses I lay on her hand. No; one day she'll be happy or emotional or drunk or tired or just impulsive and she'll kiss me – soft and wet and deep – and that will be all. No frantic groping or tearing at clothes, no falling into bed, no ill-judged passion; just a kiss. And we'll both be a bit sheepish afterwards, we probably won't speak for a day or two and then we'll pretend to forget all about it.

There's one thing she'll never know, though. Nobody will. I'll take that memory, and put it in a special box in my heart, along with all my greatest treasures, and for the rest of my life I will always be able to take it out and look at it. When I die, if there is anyone by my bedside, they'll see a faint smile cross my face and wonder what I'm thinking; but nobody, even those who know me best won't know.

I'll be thinking about the time she kissed me.

The demon in the glass

Demon In The Glass

Last night, not for the first time, I sat drinking pisco with the man I had killed more than thirty years ago; his glass untouched as he nursed a Quilmes. He looked much as he had the first and last time I saw him alive; his olive drab uniform tunic soaked with blood from the wound in his chest and his trousers with piss and shit where he had emptied himself as died. All that had changed was the look of dumb ox surprise and confusion on his face as I’d shot him.

Eduardo had come to see me for years. The first time I saw him was from my bedroom window at night, standing in the ghastly yellow streetlight, calmly looking straight at me. For a long time that was how it was. From time to time I’d see him at a distance, standing across the street as I filled my car, sitting alone at a pub table, or in a football crowd, watching me as I watched the game, always in the same bloodstained uniform. Over time he came closer, watching from the front row when I was on stage or two or three places behind me in a queue; until one night I was driving home, looked in my rear-view mirror and saw him sitting in the back seat. I must have pulled some sort of comedy holyfuckingshit! face, because he laughed; and then, for the first time, I heard him speak.

“You got old, English. Fat. At least I'm still young. Always will be.”

“Yeah, but I'm not the one spending eternity in piss-stained trousers.”

We laughed like idiots, and from that point on, I had a drinking partner. It was, obviously, always an odd relationship; not least because one of us was dead; but aside from that, Eduardo insisted that whenever we were together we drank until we passed out; which, to be honest, suited me just fine. There was never any animosity between us, nor had I ever been afraid of him. It seemed that we belonged together. We would talk late into the night about anything and everything; whether in Spanish or English I have no idea. We just talked. He told me about the Afterlife - ‘boring as shit’, apparently; quizzed me about my sex life; ‘more boring than the Afterlife’, it seems (although given that he died aged 19, it’s hard to see how colourful his could have been) but mostly, to be honest, we just drank.

One thing, though, we never spoke about. It was always there, never discussed; the guerilla in the room. There had always been one question in my mind, ever since that day. In the quiet of many sleep-stripped nights I had run those few seconds over in my mind; thousands upon thousands of times, but had never got there.

That day, in the steel-grey half light of an Antarctic dawn, as I rounded a wall of sandbags, I had seen an enemy in front of me and shot him dead. It was war, I was a soldier, so was he. He was not the only man I had ever killed. Christ, he wasn't even the only man I killed that day, but something about this one had gnawed on my mind like a rat. The part that I played again and again, Zapruder-style, was the moment before I fired; his right arm swinging his weapon away from his body, his left coming toward me. Was he bringing up his rifle to fire, or throwing it away, and reaching out in surrender? A half a second's hesitation, I would have known. A second's, and it might have been me who died; but however many times I had told myself that I had done the only thing I could have, it kept coming back. Had I killed a man – a boy - who had surrendered? A soldier has no need of a conscience; from day one you learn that the idea is not to die for your country, but to make sure the other poor bastard dies for his; but a soldier is also a man, and a man does. Wondering ate at me like cancer. Soldier or murderer? What's more, I knew he knew, but the bastard never said a word.
I had come back from that war damaged; many of us did. These days, they try and give the lads the softest landing they can, with counselling and pastoral care; even so, if you want to find a veteran, look the prisons and cardboard cities and homeless hostels first. In my day it was simply a matter of bottling it up and hitting the bottle; only to finish up with civilian doctors who thought that the filth of war could be washed away with medicine.Those of us who battle had broken showed our scars in different ways. Some discovered religion or Good Works and found some peace that way. Good luck with that, lads; but in your hearts you know there is no heaven for men like us. Some became wife-beating thugs, lashing out at anyone and everyone, for want of a way of screaming their anger and hurt. Others became mercenaries, stalking the meaningless battlefields of Africa's dust bowl wars, waiting for the angels of death they served to take them home. Others still found refuge in madness. For me, as with many others, it was drugs and sex and drink and guilt.

Until last night, I hadn't seen Eduardo in weeks. The medicines the doctors gave me had been slowing me down and clogging my thoughts, so I'd stopped taking them, and my mind had begun to clear. I'd made a little money, and bought some blow and some grass to congratulate myself when, sure enough, there he was. Trust him to turn up for a party. We hit it hard, he and I, and after we had gone through all the drugs, and most of the booze, I finally plucked up the courage to speak.

“Edo – I need you to tell me something”
“I know. It's what you've wanted to know since before I came here. It's why I came in the first place”
“Well?”
"You want to know if, the day I died, I was going to fight you or not.”
“If you know that, you know how much it matters to me. I've gone mad wondering, and all the time you knew.”
“Yes – I know. It kills you a little more every day”
“So why haven't you said anything?”
“I wanted to – loads of times – but he won't let me.”
“Who won't let you?”

There was a pause

“My demon” He said.
“What? What the fuck? What do you mean, 'demon'?”“You know exactly what a demon is” he replied “Just like you know what a ghost is.”

Silence.

“Look, English; there are things about this you won't understand, but he has said I must not tell you, ever. I'm sorry. I think that is your punishment.”
“But we're friends, you and I. Just tell me...”
“It's not that I don't want to. I just can't. The demon says I mustn't; and trust me – there are worse things than just being dead.”
“I need to know, Edo."
“I know; but I'm sorry. As long as the demon is alive, you never will.”

There was a long silence before the obvious question.

“So. How do I kill him?”
“You're joking!”
“I said – how do I kill him?”
“I don't know – he's a tricky bastard – he will mess with your mind. He'll use every trick he has to confuse you. This is dangerous, English, very, very dangerous.”
“Where is he, and how do I kill him?”
“Get your gun, and I'll show you – but be careful; he will play games with you. Don't let him get into your head.”

From a drawer in the sideboard I took out my gun; the Browning 9 I'd kept all those years. It still nestled into my hand like the hand of a steel lover. With his head, Eduardo pointed me toward the closed curtain. I eased off the safety and racked a round into the chamber.
Realizing how hard I was panting, I slowed my breathing down, and then paused. Was killing this demon the only way? Could Eduardo be persuaded somehow to tell me the truth? I didn't think so. Could I live without knowing? Absolutely not. I waited a heartbeat and ripped back the curtain.

There he was. A real, live demon. No horns, no tail, no brimstone; he looked just like a man. My height and build, with grey hair just like mine, he stood, unsteady, his left hand holding a gun.

Eduardo, horrified, shouted out

“Be strong, English! He's trying to confuse you! It is him!”

And then I saw. He looked just like me. He had changed his appearance to look like, he thought, someone I would never hurt. What the stupid bastard didn't know was that if there was one more soul I would happily send to hell, he looked exactly like the demon in the window. I smiled. He smiled back at me, more wolf than man, and I knew I could kill him. I shoved the barrel of my gun into his mouth, and at the same time tasted rancid, oily metal where he had thrust his gun into mine. I had to be quick – no time to think – I pulled

And so tonight, for the first time, you sit, with your wine, your coffee or whatever, being told a story by a man who I killed last night.

Five Lies

Five Lies

#5: Pringles are not any more intrinsically 'fun' than any other snack food. In fact, they are the saddest of snacks, being made from a paste formed from the dust of loneliness and the tears of heartbreak, fried in a mixture of rejection and regret.

#4: The paints which every paint manufacturer make that claim to cover completely in one coat, needless to say, don't. What are you going to do though? Take your bedroom wall to the shop? They've got you cold

#3: The cheque, as the person you are telling this to knows full well, is never, ever in the post

#2: 'Serves two' provided, of course, that the two in question are an anorexic and a very small child who has just eaten a large meal.

#1: The epic of Gilgamesh is the earliest story in human history. Thought to date from c2150 BC, it is almost inconceivably ancient.

Although I haven't read it myself, it's a reasonable assumption that at some point someone male says to someone female (in ancient Sumerian, of course) 'It's OK, we can just cuddle'

And you know what? He didn't respect her in the morning, either.