SELECTED
PROSE
by Brian Cuninghame
'CAVE'
I used to meet a cunt from school down there, down by the shore, in the old graffitied caves. Teenage shit. Comparing armpit hair. Armpit hair for fucks sake. Wanting to at least know some girls instead of wanking over old second rate porn. Wanting to smoke, rolling tea and shit. Like real tea. Wanting to get old, to be old. Wanting to be old. Fucks sake.
Now I still went down there. Went down sometimes on my own, just to get out the house, just so I wasn�t sitting in every night and banging my head against the same wall. I went there and thought about who I was twenty years ago and didn�t even know. Didn�t really know anything. Hadn�t learned anything. I just spent most of the time pondering and shit, wondering how I couldn�t really become a proper adult and I couldn�t get my youth back. I was stuck in some sort of limbo where I would stay the rest of my life. On a ledge unable to climb up or down, the only option to throw myself off the fucking side into the darkness, the engulfing blackness of death. I wondered why the sky never opened up and started talking to me, why I�d become a background character in some shite novel with no storyline.
I once drunk cheap cider in here after I�d split up from my girlfriend and tried to bury myself alive under a pile of earth and rocks but I just woke up bruised and dirty and so hungover that I kept right on drinking for what seemed like half a lifetime but was probably just three or four days, enough time to get fired from a job that I almost liked.
Same cave like a time machine making me old and no enthusiasm no energy not like before not like when I was fourteen. I looked up at the sky one last time but just sighed and told myself go home, let it go.
� Brian Cuninghame
Reproduced with permission
'STILTS AND WINGS'
I walked the streets. I knew that this was it. I knew it was good. Better than any of us ever realised. We all had powers that none of us would ever unleash � too bogged down with jobs and alcohol and habits and laziness. When you had the choice to watch TV or to read a book, to go for a walk, to do something, you chose the easy way, at least most did. We were humans and it was the twenty first century. What else could we do?
You could fly high fly high above the city and the people and look down and smile smile like it was good and everyone was good everyone was beautiful not just the kids but the old people too the parents and the grandparents that all had good in them all had love. If we tried hard we could fly. Fly like birds and die happy. Die with peace and gratitude. Not bitterness and regret. Sometimes you could fly without wings and without being a bird but in the mind fly in the mind after seeing a grin on a strangers face or a man break down and cry. The world was slowly reverting and now that you could see it with your eyes and your mind it was not all so hopeless and as individuals we were no longer completely helpless. It was good. It was constant beauty.
�Stilts an� wings,� he said to me, �Stilts an� wings eh�� And put his arm round me smiling a maniacal but magical smile and making me cry. Some things were just too beautiful. Too touching. Or maybe I was too sensitive. �Look at it�. Look at it all,� he said as we played at giants and took a step back out of it all for a bit. I could see it but shrugged my shoulders my mind filled with useless thoughts distant thoughts. He knew I wasn�t really looking and told me to really take a look, not at one wee bit but at everything, at the whole lot. �It�s not a backdrop for fucks sake�. Don�t scrutinize it man,� he murmured as he took a swig from an old can of Scottish beer. He looked old like maybe he wouldn�t live too much longer but like he had lived. Not travelled too much maybe or even seen that much or done that much but lived. Lived in the mind. He looked at me as I thought this and winked. I smiled to myself.
The world hadn�t turned ugly. It was us who had become blind.
� Brian Cuninghame
Reproduced with permission
'BIRDS AND NURSES'
Sometimes I had a vision of some sort of freedom some sort more than pecking around the ground all feral and filthy crossing between a pigeon and a fox or a squirrel or some shit. Not a fox like sly shy sleek red haired with some mystique and respect; nowadays we�re all the same, no uniquity or character, just a bunch of nasty cunts scranning all over the town, fucking each other over any chance we get for a wee bit of fusty cold sandwich. Now we all eat McDonalds picking chips and burgers out of cardboard cartons before the tramps get to them before the rats and the cats get to them. All of us bickering and no like wait a minute lets stand back a minute and reassess. You grab a scrap if you�re lucky and get it away from all the others, hide in a hole somewhere out of sight, out of the sun and the rain, and eat it gagging at the same time coz it�s so revolting and pitiful but most of all it�s sad and lonely. Most of all it�s lonely. Evolution has stopped in its tracks and now we�re regressing. No honour, self respect, no prestige, no class society. There�s no posh urban or suburban animals. The ones who had any sense moved out to the country, what was left of it, and died off quietly. With dignity. Now we�re as fucked up as the humans are.
I slept at night. Sometimes. And dreamt of a waiting room with nurses in starch white uniforms. All sitting with hands folded and backs straight. Perfect silence�.. But there was sadness coz they all knew that heaven was full. Ain�t no room left.
It�s everyone for themselves now, no sticking together, no looking out for each other. Those days are gone and soon the tough ones will survive and the weak die off. We lost the need to fly sometime a few generations back I think. Became like rats with obsolete wings that hung like a limp dick at either side of us, just a hindrance pretty much but can help in a fight sometimes.
Distant memories instilled in my head and my blood and my genes from long long ago generations ago of soaring and looking down. No worries. Like life was enjoyable in a relaxed way. Life was clear and we lived like birds should live. There was a difference between a sunrise and a snowstorm but we loved them both. Life was real. We had music in our souls.
� Brian Cuninghame
Reproduced with permission
KNUT HAMSUN
HENRY MILLER
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
ALBERT CAMUS
