(no subject)
The Traveller’s Tales
Three
I weren’t intending to tell a soul 'bout what happened on the moor, but it ain’t half tough to keep a secret when it gnarls you all up on the inside. Truth is, I was mostly scared they’d think me all mad and shut me away. I ain’t never going in a lock-up again, whatever people think.
See, people think all kinds of things ‘bout me. They reckon I’m a junkie or a drunk, and I’ve seen the women hold their bags a little tighter when I’m near. I ain’t no thief, but they don’t reckon that’s the case.
Bollocks to them.
I hope they get robbed by middle-class men in suits.
Like I was saying, I weren’t intending to tell a soul, but as it happens, I did.
It ain’t half tough to keep a thing to yourself sometimes.
I found him, down an alley, all stinking of vomit and piss. Asked him his name, but he weren’t in a good enough state to know, so I asked him where his mates were at, instead.
Glasgow, he said.
Well, that weren’t too helpful at all. I asked him where in Glasgow, but if I’m honest, he weren’t really sober enough for my askings.
He asked me where my mates were.
I told him, I hadn't been home in a while and that I was kind of stuck on the road, like.
He weren’t really with it enough to care. I lent him my coat for a while: ain’t never seen a guy so cold. He tried to call up his mates, but they weren’t answering. I ain’t going to repeat the language he used at the telephone - you can figure it weren’t too well mannered.
After a while had passed, he told me, in so many words, that he felt kind of like a putrefied turd.
I said I reckoned he’d feel better if I babbled him a story - take his mind off the turd-feeling.
So, just like that, I told him.
I began my telling with the day when I were yomping down in Yorkshire - yomping just ‘cause I were bored, and I like to yomp. What happened next, I told him, was dead strange - I swear to all the alley cats of England, a house started talking to me.
The Alleyway Man said he reckoned I must’ve been high. I said I weren’t and told him to stuff it.
I told him what the house told me - that when a person gets real sad or messed up, their voice gets all separated from their body. It’s like if you die of a broken heart, I reckon, only your heart gets left behind ‘cause it don’t want to go.
The house I met, when it was a man, fell in love with its cousin - but she died, all sudden, like, and he got left behind to yell at the plant-life and the ruins and the mud.
I said I reckon that’d be a shit way to spend the afterlife.
The Alleyway Man looked at me, kind of confused, like he didn’t know whether I was taking the piss. Then he threw up (no warning or nothing), and properly ruined my coat with the remains of his red wine supper.
I weren’t intending to tell a soul, I swear, but it don’t matter - he ain’t likely to remember what I said.
I nicked myself a new coat from a charity shop the next morning.
Life, as they say, yomps on.
Read the rest of Cemetaria:
The Graveyard: One | Two | Three | Four | Five
The Library of Myths: The First Myth | The Second Myth | The Third Myth | The Fourth Myth | The Fifth Myth
* * * *
The Traveller's Tales: One | Two | Three
Three
I weren’t intending to tell a soul 'bout what happened on the moor, but it ain’t half tough to keep a secret when it gnarls you all up on the inside. Truth is, I was mostly scared they’d think me all mad and shut me away. I ain’t never going in a lock-up again, whatever people think.
See, people think all kinds of things ‘bout me. They reckon I’m a junkie or a drunk, and I’ve seen the women hold their bags a little tighter when I’m near. I ain’t no thief, but they don’t reckon that’s the case.
Bollocks to them.
I hope they get robbed by middle-class men in suits.
Like I was saying, I weren’t intending to tell a soul, but as it happens, I did.
It ain’t half tough to keep a thing to yourself sometimes.
I found him, down an alley, all stinking of vomit and piss. Asked him his name, but he weren’t in a good enough state to know, so I asked him where his mates were at, instead.
Glasgow, he said.
Well, that weren’t too helpful at all. I asked him where in Glasgow, but if I’m honest, he weren’t really sober enough for my askings.
He asked me where my mates were.
I told him, I hadn't been home in a while and that I was kind of stuck on the road, like.
He weren’t really with it enough to care. I lent him my coat for a while: ain’t never seen a guy so cold. He tried to call up his mates, but they weren’t answering. I ain’t going to repeat the language he used at the telephone - you can figure it weren’t too well mannered.
After a while had passed, he told me, in so many words, that he felt kind of like a putrefied turd.
I said I reckoned he’d feel better if I babbled him a story - take his mind off the turd-feeling.
So, just like that, I told him.
I began my telling with the day when I were yomping down in Yorkshire - yomping just ‘cause I were bored, and I like to yomp. What happened next, I told him, was dead strange - I swear to all the alley cats of England, a house started talking to me.
The Alleyway Man said he reckoned I must’ve been high. I said I weren’t and told him to stuff it.
I told him what the house told me - that when a person gets real sad or messed up, their voice gets all separated from their body. It’s like if you die of a broken heart, I reckon, only your heart gets left behind ‘cause it don’t want to go.
The house I met, when it was a man, fell in love with its cousin - but she died, all sudden, like, and he got left behind to yell at the plant-life and the ruins and the mud.
I said I reckon that’d be a shit way to spend the afterlife.
The Alleyway Man looked at me, kind of confused, like he didn’t know whether I was taking the piss. Then he threw up (no warning or nothing), and properly ruined my coat with the remains of his red wine supper.
I weren’t intending to tell a soul, I swear, but it don’t matter - he ain’t likely to remember what I said.
I nicked myself a new coat from a charity shop the next morning.
Life, as they say, yomps on.
Read the rest of Cemetaria:
The Graveyard: One | Two | Three | Four | Five
The Library of Myths: The First Myth | The Second Myth | The Third Myth | The Fourth Myth | The Fifth Myth
* * * *
The Traveller's Tales: One | Two | Three