"Her kingdom is not large, or else no flesh would live,
but within that kingdom all power is hers."
-De Quincey.
One
George has got about three hundred pounds of stomach nosing from the side of his filthy-stained apron, but he's wearing thin, shrinking as I'm watching, like a whale declining, no longer swollen, no longer full of grease.
He's serious looking, looking seriously at his fingers, at his broken nails tap-tapping on the side of the syringe, knocking bubbles to the surface and watching them collect, all rushing up and pretty like a bracelet of hollow balls around the rim.
He's making a noise in his throat, whirring unconsciously. He pushes down on the plunger until there's nothing but liquid in the dropper, focuses on the point of the needle and pushes the plunger again until the slightest of amber jumps out. And then his mouth opens like a hydraulic door, like liquid moving through pipes and big enough to sleep inside, and I'm holding myself, waiting; now we're both of us whirring.
Very solemn, he tells me it's good when we fix ourselves. He's saying when needlepoint becomes tapestry our bodies, fat and thin, get the vitamin C they need and he's reaching out an arm going on forever and grabbing onto my bicep, his fingers like a jelly-fish scaring up veins and I'm closing my fist, gripping nothing like it's a stone.
Now he's talking in a concentrated whisper, telling me we're putting fruit into the bloodstream and before a minute goes by I'm repeating this side-effect over and over, happy to be tracking the oranges and lemons, lips and eyes smiling, unaware that I'm dying.
Two
I dreamt a policeman came to my door and asked for directions; pale and young, he was beautifully dressed. In the living room I opened a drawer, looking for maps, and inside were our syringes, each one with an initial drawn on its lid to avoid confusion. I could smell him at my shoulder, bliss petals and lavender. I turned and saw a sprinkling of talcum powder on the collar of his tunic, he was saying "I'm not lost anymore, this is the place I was looking for."
Wide awake I'm collecting up the syringes, written on and in packets, and I'm putting them in a cupboard somewhere, bending back the necks of spoons and remembering that heroin's full of dreams, in monochrome and color. Dreams of a horned goose and a breast in a bag, dreams of elegant, absurd policemen. I'm hardly moving, thinking that when you're injected watching television to the sound of radio can be entertaining. I'm not waiting anymore, I'm saying yes.
Three
Water beats against my window in shoals and I've given up trying to count it. It's four thirty and my skin's aching, convinced that necklaces of larvae have burrowed inside, small screwworms eating.
My eyes move from the window and around these bedroom walls, all of them covered in frames. I'm looking at myself in pictures, walking through the sea and on hilltops being blown around. Pictures of piers I've stood beneath and railway lines I've crossed. You can see me everywhere, wearing black flight glasses. I'm at the back of a crowd, in the corner of a picture filled with an abandoned cinema. I'm moving forwards or standing still with the same flat face, exposed by the eyes of people passing. Later I burgle them to see what they saw; it's the only way I have of being certain about the places I've been, the cities and seashores of England.
I'm not old, I live here in London sharing four rooms and a bath with my good friend Stephen. When he can claim me as an expense, I travel, driving rented cars and carrying his camera boxes, helping to filter beaches. More often he leaves me in the hallway where I can hear things; this body bustling below the skin and the clock ticking, pushing a second hand around its face towards tomorrow. It's four thirty-three and with every click another photograph is lost, another chance to be sure I was here before departing.
In all of the pictures the man I see is someone else, someone in control at the moment the shutter, like the clock, clicked. I'm no longer that man. I know the boats have left harbor and the rolling waves are gone, evaporated. I know the ocean's animals have been polluted and the crowd's dispersed into big small atoms, but I'm still here inside, continuing with my body.
My hands go to my head, pushing hair back from my face. My arms are bruised, my eyes widen and my mouth sucks in. I need Stephen to record this moment before it passes; already it's too late.
I'm stringing out. I can feel the sky falling in, all at once and everywhere. The birds have come down from the trees and buildings, they're brooding together in groups. Oiled and wet, unspeaking, they're waiting for God to come. For God who talks on his radio to all his radio stations, who pulls the sun in and out, moves the clouds around and empties rain; who watches the sky as it falls.
I'm getting colder, it's only natural. I'm thinking of the other Gods closer.
Four
It's been two days. Like a chocolate machine for the lonely, a television turns on beneath the floor. Addiction, we invite these people in and then try to control them. We take color from their faces, make then spin into the box and then re-appear at the bottom. We slow them down and shut them off. A woman pulls her shirt apart button by button, spin her back and watch her do it again. I've never known her, never held her, but spin her back and have her take off her shirt.
Five
I'm scratchy, unshaven. There are goose-pimples pushing down inside like beads, my breathing's quickened and I feel somewhat weaker. It's past five now and I'm dressing in clothes good for fever, walking out of my door and stepping through puddles.
I'm colder, maybe the weather is. At the Broadway I go up onto the eastbound platform and wait, looking through the windows where clerks beat their wives. A train comes in and I stand for the eight minute journey. As the doors open for the third time I walk up from below to see the carriers carrying, lumbering and slumbering along the Earls Court Road.
A car's driving by and a boy's shouting from its rear window, his voice spraying out over a hundred yards until the words become letters and the letters fade. I'm smoking, walking amongst people keeping mainly to themselves.
I'm counting the money in my pocket as cars slow down beside girls who're dressed, some climb inside to be driven, not hoping to be mothers. Outside a café twelve year olds are staring at pale-skinned black men scratching inside. In the gutter an old man's playing at a violin, clamping along its fingerboard with a broken hand. There's a pram in front of him with an empty washing bowl in place of a baby's body; who cares what he's collecting for. The police are here also, sitting with their engine's turned off. They're drowsy in blue, not bothering with the boys in too much make-up; these men sleep while the salesmen move.
Six
I see the Irishman being bloated, sneezing. I follow him into a cardboard fronted restaurant and join him at a table. He moves his head forward from the neck by way of recognition and I order lemon tea; nowhere in the world sells more drinks never drunk than here.
The Irishman sells twenty pound bags, never part weights of loans. I've pressed the money into my empty cigarette packet; the Irishman's clean-living, he doesn't smoke. He takes up the packet and walks off to the back. He's got an office in there with supplies hidden behind a pisspipe.
I'm waiting and drinking my throat, wanting to be gone. To be leaving with my powder in an inside pocket. I want to look. To open the paper and stare at the color, the little brown. To taste some on my tongue. I'm waiting and people drift in. I recognize a thin man hoping to borrow and stare down into my lemons sucked out of goodness.
I'm thinking of fluid made substance from a bubbling spoon. Of drawing the blinds and being away from the light, being patient and calm. Of hurrying, slapping my forearm, going in too deep and trying again. Of seeing blood in the dropper and pushing it in, easing it in, and the syringe is empty. I'm tasting sweetness. I can feel the swirl, the slight pressure at the back of my neck. It's breaking and I'm warm, I feel warm, my head is warm. I'm sitting down, standing up, forgetting I'm still waiting. He comes back, almost smiles, picks up his tea and in a movement lays the box between us. "Good this time," he says, as he always says. As he must say.
Soon I'm gone towards the station, moving quickly to the sound of violin.
