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baldyza: goodbye sweet gentoo installation. You served me well and will be remembered.

baldyza: fuckit, I'm installing ubuntu.

'To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.' – Vladimir Nabokov
bulk :: 12st 5
age :: 42 (as of yesterday)
elbows :: 2
elbows in head :: 0
regrets :: a few
pretentious quotes :: 1
marital status :: single
children :: 0
% of physical truth in Bête de Jour :: approx. 75%
% of emotional truth in Bête de Jour :: 100%
occupation before Bête de Jour :: TEFL teacher
occupation after Bête de Jour :: up in the air
 
As the many ham-fisted, wrong-footed or otherwise abortive attempts I’ve made over the last couple of years testify, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write. (So hard in fact, that in the end, rather than just blurt it out, I disguised the reveal in last week's hitching trip.) Just in case there's still any doubt, however, or just in case you're more confused now than you were a week or so ago, let me just clarify:

I’m not the ugly brute I’ve been claiming to be for the past couple of years. There. I've said it.

I know a few of you had your doubts, some of them verging on the vociferous. Well, congratulations. Your cynicism was not unfounded – at least not entirely.

Right. So. Where to start?

First, I think, with an apology...

Read more...

I'm not doing too well on the whole husband hunting exercise. On Friday morning my eye was slightly itchy. Being the medically minded person I am, I gave it a good scratch which I thought would sort it out. By the evening, it looked like I was crying out of one eye. I refused to let a gammy eye stand in my way of a great evening and applied make up to cover the swelling. It was about 1am when the Cool One walked up to me.

CO: Baglett. You do not look good.
Me: What are you talking about?! I look great!
CO: Why is your one eye closed?
Me: I was winking at that little hottie over there.
CO: That was half an hour ago.
Me: It's a slow wink.
CO: Can you even open your eye?
Me: Of course - see?
CO: Crises! It looks like it's bleeding from inside.
Me: Bleeding love.
Co: Baglett, we better go. You're scaring people.
Me: I'll just apply a little more make up, no one will notice.
CO: Baglett, I saw that guy talking to you, he walked away because he thought you were crying!
Me: I was. Did you see what he was wearing?


Here's hoping for an eye infection free weekend...

I've decided to give the world of Twitter another go. What does that make me? A Twit? I noticed the button to update your status on Twitter says Tweet, not Twit. For obvious reasons. No one would click on the damn thing to confirm they're a twit.

Anyways, I'm finding it to be a bit more fun this time. I'm following a bunch of celebs who's activities I may be vaguely curious about, such as Bryan Habana, Graeme Smith, Quade Cooper, DJ Fresh... Fresh was Tweeting every 5 minutes yesterday, which is ridiculous. I mean, really now...

You can catch my Tweets on mozez22

Saturday is the dance show, or extravaganza. Whichever way you put it, I'm crapping my pants. Mostly because I don't know what I'm doing, and partly because that's what I do. I crap my pants. I'm double booked that night. Or the appointments overlap, on some level. The Drowleys are doing a birthday thing at the Skank Motel. We haven't seen each other since last November, so we had a catch up session last night, watched Vampire Diaries... like old times, really.

The party has the potential to be awesome, or disastrous. Since I'm getting there after my routine, which I have no ETA for, I will either be ecstatic it went well, or devastated it bombed. If I'm ecstatic, I will be high on adrenaline, and will be the hub of energy of old. If it bombs, I will be a miserable cunt, and will drink heavily, and, well, I'll still be a hub of energy, but I won't remember, knowing me and that crew.

Potentially an awesome weekend. Potentially a forgettable one. Could go either way. I'll keep you posted, or just take a peek at my Tweets.

Sometimes, I find myself in the fortunate position of getting media packs sent to me. Sometimes, I just get requests for endorsements of products on this blog.

I'd like to think that because this is my blog, that I'll certainly consider endorsing products here. However. Only if I honestly believe it's a product I TRULY like and/or use.

This blog is meant to be a true reflection, wholly subjective of course, on day-to-day stuff that is my life. And therefore, any mention I make of something is because I genuinely dig the product. Not because someone has asked me to do it.

This is just the way I do things around here, only for the sake of the truth. It's how I roll, and it's not to say it's sensible or commercially viable. But it's how I've kept Peas on Toast.

You won't for instance find me saying here, 'So I bought a set of new tyres, amazing one's from Tiger Wheel & Tyre. Who happen to be having this incredible promotion where you get two spark plugs free when you SMS 'TYRE' to 32100. You also stand a chance to win a free wheel alignment in the final draw, how amazing is that?

But there are products, on the flip side, that I'll willingly talk about and endorse, whether the folks at PR HQ ask me to or not. As well as openly rant about a company or a product that fucks me off. This is a blog after all.

So, here is a list of my current Best Products Ever. No one has formally asked me to blah blah about them, but I will, because they're fucking fantastic:


Big Hair shampoo by Lush. It's a paste that comes in this (recycle-friendly) tub, sadly only available from Lush shops, which, yes, are situated in London. (Although did see an outlet in Berlin too.)
It's shampoo like you've never experienced. It's this lumpy, salty paste that makes your hair shine like someone ignited it with a blowtorch. Or to some effect.
Made from seaweed, salt, egg, lime juice, it actually smells better than it sounds too. It's simply fabulous, and if I remember correctly, cost less than ten pounds. The shop sells a mound of organic stuff, I could sit all day and wax lyrical, but will save you the time.

Vitamin Water, hell yes. Especially the XXX Antioxidant one. I'm no gym bunny, but I drink this stuff like wine. I think the psychology behind knowing that you're imbibing something that is even healthier than water - and God knows, tastier - is why it works so goddamn well. In fact, I'm drinking one right now. Even if it IS full of colourants and flavourants and sugar.
I use Dermalogica. It sets me back about as much as my rent each month, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a fixed expense. It's the first product that has completely eradicated my eczema patches. Which I get from stress and climate changes when I travel. It's expensive, but then I smoke. So I justify the expense through luxury skin treatments. The Skin Smoothing Cream (above) is my favourite of all their bits and pieces, I use it at night, and it's just fabullllllllous. My facial lady knows my weakness and tries to sell me tons of Dermalogica stuff each month. Successfully, I might add. She sold me a Dermalogica cloth, a flipping cloth, last week for R165. Extortion. How did she do that?

Steri Stumpie. The guys up at Flavoured Milk HQ sent me an amazing media pack two weeks ago. They did well, delivering a pack of Steri-Stumpie stuff to my desk. But that's not why I've chosen to mention it here. Sterie-Stumpie was a large and in charge part of my life when I was a student. As a student, I couldn't afford to purge a hangover with a fried breakfast. I'd buy a Sterie-Stumpie instead. Basically, when I wasn't drinking Autumn Harvest Crackling, I was drinking a Sterie-Stumpie. I still do.

I love the Body Shop, who doesn't? But body butters aside, and something with a local-esque flavour, is this shit right above. And it is the shit. Lasts forever too. It's a fine salty scrub, but fused with creamy honey. It's like rubbing honey all over yourself, but with exfoliating properties, and it doesn't stick to you. Obviously. If you love bath time as much as I do, then I'd suggest this bad boy, big dog.

Sloane Meat Market. In Bryanston. It really does have the best biltong in town. And I consider myself a biltong aficionado. I eat a fuckload. Trust me. The chunky one, where it's all moist inside, chewy, and with just the right amount of fat on the side. Amazing.

This post wouldn't be complete without Diemersfontein Pinotage. As seen here time and time again. My poison. My mother's milk. I already know where to source it in the UK, (Waitrose, FYI), and consider it the tastiest winter wine there ever, ever was.

The fact that the shop smells like vanilla is no coincidence. Local designers, one-of-a-kind fashion, easy browsing, amazing fabrics. Fabrics you'd want to wank over, basically.

baldyza: its a typo, but I like it.

baldyza: just about stripped my gentoo install to bare mental. Maybe now the revdep-rebuild will bring the system to life again.

My mum wakes me up with a mug of tea. I’m in my old bed, in my old bedroom, on the 13th floor of a block of flats in the centre of Sunderland. Unlucky for some.

It's May 31st again. I don't know where the time has gone.

‘Happy Birthday, Karl,’ she says.

I sit up and take the tea from her. I thank her. Both of her hands are bandaged, on account of her arthritis. She's not sure the bandages help.

‘How are you feeling?’ she says.

I nod. ‘I still can’t remember anything,’ I say.

I know there was an accident. I know I was unhurt, pretty much. And I know nobody was with me in the car. That’s all I know. Everything else is a blur wrapped in a fog marinated in a long lost dream.

But I remember this place. I remember these windows through which I peered from the age of 13 to 19; beadily and greedily through big clunky binoculars I peered at the people of the city going about their night business, and I saw things you people wouldn’t believe. I tossed potatoes at urinating drunks on the shoulder of Parker's chip shop. I was hung from my heels by drunken friends at my own behest. And I remember all that like it was last week. Last week, however, eludes me.

‘But apart from that,’ I chirp. ‘I feel full of beans! I feel positively reborn, like today is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m 42!’ I cry. ‘It’s a magical number! It’s like, anything can happen.’

‘Silly sod,’ says my mother. Then: ‘Ooh. A thing came for you.’ She shuffles out, returning seconds later with a thing in her martyr’s hands. Is it a gift? It looks like a large card. She hands it to me.

It is a sign.

I take it in my hands...



...and all at once, it all comes flooding back.

I remember everything.

And I feel sad. And frightened. And excited.

I am alone.

'What is it?' says my mother.

'This is a keepsake from a dear old friend of mine,’ I reply. I look into my mother’s face. There is confusion. ‘Some guy I met on the road,' I explain. 'He really knew time, you know? He was like a saint, but crazy and with a big old heart. He set me straight about a few things.' I nod significantly. 'I guess you could say he pointed me in the right direction.’

‘Stupid bugger,’ says my mother. ‘Drink your tea,’ she says, ‘it’s getting cold.’ And she trundles out.

I put down the sign and get out of bed. I pick up my tea, open the window and take a deep breath. The city used to stink of brewery fumes. Now there's nothing.

It's cold. But May is almost out. As of tomorrow, clouts may be cast with alacrity. I smile, nervously. It's scary, but I look forward to casting them.

I’m 42.

It's like, anything can happen.

I'm staying with a friend at the moment who managed to get his head mauled in a rugby tackle. Sunday morning he comes through with a:

RG: Hi
Me: Why are you wearing Shrek's ear?
RG: Ya. I need you to take this needle and syringe and drain it for me.
Me: You want me to do what with what?
RG: I'll give you a R1000.
Me: I'll give YOU a R1000 rand to take your ear away from me.

I never had aspirations to be a doctor or even get me PHD just in case they saw Dr in front of my name and made me do something with needles. I asked for a general anaesthetic when I had my ears pierced and when the BFF attempted permanent make up on my eyelid, I started with a light sweat, which turned to paling skin and got sick. So I certainly wasn't planning to shove a needle into my friend’s ear and drain ccs of blood out his cartilage.

I offered moral support and said things like 'Be a man!', 'Suck it up', 'my two year old cousin could this' until I saw the blood draining from his ear and my face and I had to lie down. When the needle came out his ear and blood was running down his ear, I ran out the room screaming and assumed the brace position in the couch.

RG: What are you doing?
Me: Offering you moral support?
RG: Could you offer me a ride to the pharmacy to get antibiotics?
ME: Would you mind driving? I'm a little faint.

By the time we had got to the pharmacy and they had given me sweets, I was feeling much better. When the Rugby Guy found me, I had found the make up counter. I had one eyelid done out in bright blue and the other one in deep purple. With sweeps of bring pink blusher across my cheek bringing out the red in the bright red lipstick I had on, I tuned to smile at him.

RG: Oh my God.
Me: Too much?
RG: You've got lipstick on your teeth.

I am crying.

I am pathetic.

No one died.

I had to put Ludwig up for sale today.

This car, understand, knows more about me than anyone. I think.

It knows when I've smashed a pie at 2am, it knows when I'm sad or heartbroken, it knows when I'm happy (or pissed), and it knows exactly what music I like.

I am devastated. This car isn't a car. It's a...person. It's got soul. Too much soul to be put in a hole.

I have the Autotrader window open and I'm actually fucking crying.

It could have something to do with listening to the Annie soundtrack right now, but either way, I am so very and extremely attached to my human-vehicle, my vehicman, my gay little Ludwig, Christ this is hard.

PS: If you're remotely interested in buying, Zelmarie from Paulpietersburg, he's going for a cool R80 000, negotiable. You might have to claw me off first, as I barnacle myself to my beloved Bug.

PPS: His name is Ludwig because that is the gay bug's name in It's A Bugs Life.

PPPS: I'm off to cry in the bathrooms, because in a professional capacity, explaining to the office that I'm crying because I'm selling my car isn't going to sound helluva sane.

baldyza: RT @theragefactor: a week today!!!! exciting!!!

baldyza: emerge --fix-dep-magically please

I hadn't been dreaming.

This wasn't a soap opera.

Would that it were.

Would that it were.

It was almost one in the morning. I looked across at the driver, at Karl with a 'K', and everything came back to me. The argument. The falling-out. The fight.

I felt bad.

‘It’s my birthday next week,’ said Karl.

'Really?' I said. ‘Happy birthday for then then,’ I said. 'Sorry about your nose.'

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s stopped bleeding. And I’ve been medicating the pain away.’

I started, imagining he’d drunk the rest of the whisky, but then I spotted the pungent odour of fading marijuana. ‘Is that dope?’ I said.

‘Now he moves,’ said Karl, smiling. ‘Ow,’ he said, stroking his nose gently, yet ostentatiously. Then he reached into the pocket of his door and handed me a ready-rolled joint and a lighter. I wondered briefly whether smoking a joint was entirely wise, then I lit the joint and took a couple of extravagant tokes.

The dope hit my brain like a sock full of sleeping bees. I would never tire of that feeling.

'You have to admit though,’ I said, softly, ‘that was all pretty weird.’

He didn’t reply.

‘You're not still harbouring delusions, are you?’ I said.

He sighed. ‘Let’s not,’ he said.

I laughed. I smoked some more of the joint and laughed some more. ‘But it’s insane!’ I cried, tears of stoned emotion springing to my eyes. ‘It’s wholly solipsistic! I don’t mean to be cruel,’ I said, and I swear I didn’t, ‘but you really need to see someone. You know? You need professional help.’

He smiled. ‘Maybe,’ he said. Then he laughed. ‘That would be a hell of a twist,' he said, 'if you got me committed.' He laughed some more. ‘Then you could move into my flat and take over my life.’

I’d stopped laughing. ‘I can't believe you're still banging on about this. I hoped for a minute I'd dreamt the whole thing.’ I sighed. I smoked. ‘Listen,' I said, softly. 'How do you think you created me?’

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about something else if you want to talk.’

‘No, no, come on,’ I insisted. ‘What do you think happened?’

He blew air into his cheeks and held it there for a long time. ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to hear this?’ he asked. He looked at me for a moment, then looked away.

‘I asked you, didn’t I?' I pulled a petulant face. ‘I can handle it,’ I added. I had another drag. ‘Do tell,’ I said.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Well. In August or September of 2007, I had a dream in which I said to a friend of mine. “Why don’t you write a guide to finding love for ugly men?” And in the dream, my friend, slightly affronted at the implication, said to me, “Why don’t you do it?” And then I woke up. And I thought, yes, why don’t I?

‘So I started writing, and I wrote about myself, but I wasn't quite ugly enough, so I gave myself eczema scars, and elbows in my head, and an extra 80 pounds of flab, and I called myself Stan Cattermole, whose real name was Charlie Weaver.’

He paused and glanced at me. I returned his gaze passively, inwardly marvelling at the gift for convolution which was running amok in the decaying bread-basket of his brain. ‘Please go on,’ I said. ‘You have my full attention. This is absolutely fascinating.’

‘Well, that’s it really. One thing led to another and the rest you know only too well. I suppose I should be proud that somebody I wrote took on such… life. I am proud. I’m proud of you, Stan.' He nodded at me, slightly sadly. 'You know, the first time I knew something was wrong was when I saw your appearance on GMTV. That’s when I knew the rules had changed.’

My mouth was open. The joint was dead in my hand. ‘But I am real,’ I said. ‘I was on GMTV.’

'I know you were,' he said. ‘I saw you with my own eyes.’

‘So I do exist then.’ I held out my hands as if to accept an offering. ‘We can both accept that at least?’ He nodded. ‘And I've existed for 32 years,' I said. ‘We can accept that too.’

He pulled a face. 'Hmm,' he said. 'That's where I have to disagree with you.'

'But – why? I've got a past,’ I said. ‘I had a childhood.’

‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘I wrote that for you. That was me. Those were scenes from my childhood, mostly. Some of my brother’s, some of my dad’s.’

I became exasperated again. ‘Will you stop saying that?’ I cried. ‘I am not a replicant!’

He laughed and looked at me expectantly. ‘Go on!’ he said, eyes wide. ‘Say it!’

‘I am a human being!’ I lisped.

Karl laughed wildly. ‘Oh, I do like your sense of humour!’ he gushed. ‘And your John Merrick impersonation is so, so, so very much better than mine. That was nice of me.’

I sighed. I was feeling bad. Epic unease had shifted, had melted into existential despair. It was the psychic tectonics. I realised that part of me was beginning to accept that what Karl was saying might have some validity, and to even begin to believe such a thing is to begin to negate one’s own existence. It felt very odd. I imagined that if I could see a photograph of myself, my image would be fading, like Marty McFly. I imagined Keith’s picture of me, the Hockney one, dissolving before my very eyes...



I was slipping away.

But then again, maybe this is how he wanted me to feel.

Maybe this Karl character was a super-high-functioning sociopath who had been stalking me for some time and had decided to use the information he had gleaned to destroy me. For some reason. A sick game maybe. You know how these sociopaths are.

It seemed implausible. But then the alternative was even more outlandish. Yet again, I sighed.

‘Listen,’ I said.

‘Tell me,’ he replied. ‘Tell me everything.’

‘I feel really sad,’ I said.

He looked over at me and said, ‘I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry. I don’t want to make you feel bad. I never wanted that.’

‘I don’t know how you know what you know,’ I said, my voice like the voice of a hungry mouse. ‘And frankly, until you can explain the blood on your face, I don’t even want to think about it anymore. It’s giving me the hives.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Karl. ‘I’m sure that if I were in your position, I’d feel exactly the same.’

Then we lapsed into a slightly tense silence. A minute passed. I’d be arriving at my grandmother’s house soon, and there would be no big eyes, and no big teeth, and everything would be alright.

‘It’s almost 18 months, now, isn’t it?’

The sentence broke my reverie like a fist in a bowl of soup.

‘What is?’ I asked.

‘18 months without sex,’ he said. ‘I think it was the second week in February, 2009, that you last had any kind of physical sexual congress with another human being, and if memory serves me well, any pleasure that there might have been in the coupling was pretty much overwhelmed by a veritable freak show of sadness.’

‘This isn’t possible,’ I muttered.

‘You know how you’ve always harboured homosexual fantasies?’ he said.

‘What?’ I snapped. ‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Come, come,’ he said. ‘I know you have. I put them there.’

Suddenly, like a greased guillotine, the penny dropped. ‘Oh my God, you’re going to rape me, aren’t you?’

He looked at me and rolled his eyes dramatically. ‘Yeah, right. Christ. Don’t flatter yourself, fat boy. Listen, the thing is, right, I don’t know how this happened. I’m almost as baffled as you are, frankly, but the fact is you’re here, and you’re apparently real. We’ve established that. So, I was thinking, as neither of us has had sex in a very long time, and as we’ve both, on very rare occasions, nursed a perfectly natural curiosity to know what it might be like to suck another man’s cock.... Well, it seems to me, like an opportunity too good to miss. If I may speak frankly.’ He glanced at me to gauge my reaction. My reaction was one of absolute horror, and profound disappointment.

‘Is that what all this has been about?’ I cried. ‘Sex?’

‘Oh, come on,’ he chided. ‘Don’t be so uptight. We are the same person. It’d be masturbation, basically. And oral sex. Give me that joint. Please.’

I lit it, took a drag and passed it. I laughed. ‘You really are insane,’ I told him. ‘And this is an incredibly elaborate ploy to get me into bed.’

Karl laughed too. ‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘Get your cock out!’

‘No!’ I howled. ‘I’m not gay!’

‘It’s not gay if fifty per cent of us is fictional, you bender.’ He handed the joint back, unsmiling.

Slowly, the mild hysteria, slightly charged with sexual tension, drifted into the past. I wiped my eyes and sniffed.

‘Please stop being strange,’ I said.

‘Oh, alright,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘Forget about it. Let’s put it all behind us though, eh? What do you say? How does a fresh start sound?’

He nodded, smiling. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘A fresh start sounds like just what the doctor ordered.’

We passed a sign for Sunderland. 10 miles. I'd be home in fifteen minutes. I began to relax again. Soon this bizarre encounter would be a thing of the past.

‘Don’t worry about your gran,’ he said.

My face tortoised with fresh confusion. This seemed like a very odd thing to say. ‘Why did you say that?’ I asked.

‘Well, because I know you’re worried about her, and I also know, there’s no need to be.’

I sighed. There is nothing more wearing than being told – over and over again – that you don’t exist, and nothing more distressing than thinking it might be true. ‘How do you know?’ I asked, knowing for a fact I wasn’t going to like the answer.

‘Well, firstly,’ he said, ‘she doesn’t exist.’

'Oh, do stop banging on. No one exists as far as you're concerned. I don't exist. My grandmother doesn't exist. Next you'll be saying Father Christmas doesn't exist!'

'Now you're just being silly,' he said, deadpan. 'We'd be lost without a sanity clause.' Then he smiled his smug smile again. 'May I continue?' he asked.

I shrugged. He continued.

‘Secondly,’ he said, ‘I wrote that phonecall.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’ I demanded.

‘That conversation you had with your poor old non-existent grandmother,’ he clarified. ‘I wrote it. I wrote it,’ he repeated, ‘and you experienced it.’

‘Alright then,’ I said, angrily. ‘What did she say?’ This is where I had him. Everything else he knew about me – the Hob Nobs, the boil on my back, even my real name – any sociopath worth his salt could have found out. But the conversation I'd had with my grandmother on Thursday evening, I hadn't breathed to another human being. He couldn’t know. I baited him with my eyes.

‘She said,’ he said, '"I'm goin into general on Tuesdah mornin to get another couple of blood tests and a X-ray." She said, "They just want to have another look at me bowel. Al be aalreet though. There’s knee need to come up if ya busy man son like like like."' He even did the voice.

I was desperate. 'What about NotKeith?' I said.

He shook his head. 'Sorry,' he said. 'NotKeith is my friend Steve. We were students in Liverpool together. He's the one who did all of Keith's pictures. He's the one who lives in Burnley. He's got a wife and three kids though. Unlike Keith. And ginger hair.'

I started to cry. It seemed to come from nowhere, but obviously it had been building up for a few hours now.

‘Are you crying?’ said Karl. ‘Please don’t cry. I’m sorry. Listen, if it’s any consolation, remember, she’s not actually going into hospital. She hasn’t even got diverticulitis!’ he chirruped. ‘Isn’t that good?’

I sniffed and dried my eyes.

‘That’s my mum,’ he continued.

‘What is?’ I asked, groggily.

‘It’s my mum who has the diverticulitis,’ he said. ‘And the arthritis. Poor old sow.’

I shook my head and let out a little whimper.

‘Look,’ said Karl. ‘I know I freaked out a bit earlier, when you assaulted me.' His hand rose to his face instinctively, protectively. 'But I really think this could actually be a pretty great thing, you know? We can actually be mates. I don't care that you don't exist. It's not like I'm prejudiced. Some of my best friends don't exist. What do you reckon? Do you want to be mates?'

‘Really?’ Relief sounded in my voice.

‘Of course!’ he cried. ‘What did you think, that I was going to have you whacked or something?’ He laughed.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’

Then, quite suddenly, a strange question took shape in my head and discombobulated me thoroughly. ‘So...’ I wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it. ‘So who wrote the book I wrote?’

Karl scowled. ‘Oh God, don’t even mention the book.'

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'Well, to answer your question, I guess we both wrote it,' he said. 'But more importantly, have you fucking seen the back cover of the paperback?’

I had. Of course I'd seen it, and I'd been really quite upset by it. Remembering, my mouth shrank to the size of a penny, or a farthing. I shook my head angrily and tit-rolled my eyes. ‘London fucking Lite,’ I said, recalling the single blurb on the back cover. ‘London fucking Lite!’ I repeated, angrier still. ‘The least respected publication since... I don't know what,' I said, feebly. 'Not only was it free...'

‘...but it doesn’t even fucking exist any more, I know!’ Karl seemed to enjoy finishing my sentence. Irony hovered like a child telling its first joke on his stupid face. I ignored him and focused on my frustration, my gobsmackoverdose frustration over that awful back cover which I swore I’d not blog about because it simply wouldn’t be professional. But what could I do? My back was against the wall.

‘They had,' I continued, 'at their disposal they had that fantastic quote by Dave Gorman, the comedian, everybody's favourite Dave Gorman, “Fave book of the year”, he said.’ I knew it by heart. ‘“Ace... I laughed lots and cried twice.”’ I fumed and twitched. I felt sick. I was beside myself. 'I poured my heart and soul into that book!' I screamed. 'And for what? Blocky yellow letters and the most embarrassing blurb this side of an accolade from Nick Griffin. And don't even get me started on Dave Gorman's tears.' I was filling up again. 'Wasted,' I said. 'And they didn't even consult me. That's what gets me.'

'Me neither,' said Karl. ‘Unbelieveable,' he added. 'You'd think under the circumstances, they might have at least asked one of us. You know?' His face shrugged its shoulders. 'Ahhh, but don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘It’ll all come out in the wash, eh? For better or for worse. Eh? At least you've got a book out! You should be proud! And everyone knows not to judge a book by its cover.'

I forced a smile to make him feel that his efforts to cheer me up were not entirely in vain. He seemed to buy it.

'Yeah,' he said. 'You'll see. Everything's going to be just dandy. Can I have that joint back, please?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said, relighting it and passing it on.

He took a big long toke and shivered as the smoke hit his brain. It was strong stuff. I wondered where he'd got it. ‘I’m surprised you can smoke that stuff and still be safe to drive,’ I said.

He shook his head and smirked as if I'd said something ludicrous. ‘Eh?' he said. 'I can’t drive.'

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘I failed my test when I was 17. Haven’t driven since. I still blame that evil Tory fucker that made me cry at the wheel if you want to know the truth, but... I'm not the type to hold a grudge.’

‘But,’ I said, interrupting slowly, bewildered, like a shy, slightly unsure little boy, about to point out the nakedness of the emperor for the first time. ‘You’re driving.' I smiled, not sure where this was headed. 'Look!’

He looked down at the steering wheel beneath his hands and his eyes popped apart and stemmed like epileptic thistles. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he cried. ‘How come I’m driving?’

I watched him, at first amused. Then not so much. He seemed instantaneously to have no idea what he was doing, whilst simultaneously hurtling along the A1 at over 90 miles an hour. He accelerated inadvertently, shot forward and came within a whisper of rear-ending the car in front. To avoid the collision he jerked the steering wheel to the right, narrowly missing – again, by a matter of inches – another car which was passing in the fast lane.

By this time my whole body was tensed to popping. Could this really be happening? I decided it couldn’t. But then life was odd.

‘I have to stop this fucking car!’ Karl screamed. He turned his body to look at the road behind him and in so doing managed to accelerate further and jerk the steering wheel further to the right. The driver's side of the car made contact with the barrier alongside the central reservation. There was a noise like the door being torn into pieces and then we were OK, back on the road, still speeding. I yelled out for him to hit the brake but he seemed to have his foot jammed on the accelerator. We shot across the motorway, left into the middle lane, straight through the slow lane and onto the hard shoulder. I grabbed the steering wheel and managed to keep us on the hard shoulder. The terrible din of panicked beeping and screeching of other motorists was overwhelming.

I reached for the hand brake.

There was a bridge crossing the motorway up ahead. I was screaming at him to hit the brake.

I pressed the release button on the hand brake and began to slowly lift it. The car began to slow. I held my breath. Karl stopped panicking and took his foot off the accelerator. The car slowed further. I relaxed.

Then Karl grabbed the hand brake, and yanked it.

...

The last thing I saw, or at least the last thing of which I was aware, was the nose of the car making contact with the concrete stanchion of the bridge and a light, a very bright light in which for the most fleeting fraction of a second I saw my own face reflected, screaming and terrified, and in that fleeting fraction of a second, my life flashed before my eyes, and I realised that Karl was right.

I don't exist.

Damn.

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‘My name’s Carl,’ he said. ‘With a “K”.’

I took a big swig of whisky. It burned. Karl with a K was crossing his right hand across his chest for me to shake. I did so, hesitantly.

‘Nice to meet you, Stan,’ he said, holding on for slightly too long, not meeting my gaze but instead staring ahead at the road which suddenly seemed to be moving at a fantastic speed. Then he turned to face me, still holding my hand. ‘Or should I call you Charlie?’

For the second time today, I pulled my hand away like I was fighting free of a coked-up zombie. The steering wheel jerked to the right in the process and the car briefly mounted the central reservation.

‘Easy, tiger!’ cried Karl, grinning maniacally as he took control of the vehicle.

‘What the fuck is going on?’ I demanded, recoiling slightly, suddenly sweating. ‘Who are you? How do you know all this stuff?' I was breathing heavily. 'Am I in any danger?’

‘Oh, don’t be such a ponce,’ he snapped, but with a smile. ‘You were always a bit of a soft-arse,’ he said. ‘You wear it well though. It works in your favour.’

‘What favour? What are you talking about?’

‘Eeeeeeeeeasy,’ he said. ‘Take it easy. You’re not in any danger and there’s nothing whatsoever to be afraid of. I promise you. OK? In actual fact, I'm just beginning to see, it’s all great. It couldn't be better. I don’t know how the fuck we got here, but I think it might work out really well.’

I sighed and tried to relax again. It seemed like a mere matter of minutes ago that I was in the very hand-hammock of sensory paradise. Now I didn’t know if I was coming or going. My brain was fizzing with the seemingly impossible nature of what I was having to attempt to deal with…

…I was sitting in a strange car with a strange man who claimed to know more about me than anyone alive, and then went some way to proving it by calling me by my real name.

In all my gauche moments over the last two and a half years, my real name was one of the few things I never managed to give away, anywhere. I could conceive of no way he could know it. My brain was gyrating.

It had started raining. I glanced from the wing mirror to the windscreen. It was probably about 20 per cent covered with tiny prisms of rain-water. I immediately became considerably more tense than I already was.

I hate not being in control of a motored vehicle in which I happen to be moving at around 85 miles an hour. How long would he leave it before he switched on the wipers? What was he waiting for, for God’s sake? This was my life he was playing with. I had to bite my tongue. ‘Turn them on, man!’ I wanted to scream. When it got to 75 per cent invisibility, I would say something. Ready. Now! ‘Do you think....’



He managed to flick on the wipers at the exact moment the first syllable came out of my mouth. I made a petulant noise, and was just about to cry, petulantly, ‘So? Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?’ when from his left hand on the steering wheel he lifted a finger – as if it had a paper mouse attached to it – and he said, ‘Hold on a sec. I know a place we can sit and chat. Nothing sinister. Just some underground car park.’

He pulled off the motorway. I looked out of the window and tried to see where we were, but I couldn’t see anything. I assumed that his joke about the underground car park was indeed a poor attempt at humour and not an insidious double-bluff. I forced myself to assume that I was not in any danger. At least not physical danger. What I did feel, however, was an epic sense of profound unease.

We drove across a roundabout and along a couple of dark suburban streets. I had no idea where we were, and I didn’t much care. It was just a place.

Then we were pulling into a car park that was maybe a quarter full. He drove into a far corner, slowly, and reversed up against a wall. ‘So we can see what’s coming,’ he said.

‘What are you expecting?’ I asked.

He switched off the windscreen wipers, and then the engine. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said. ‘Something though.’

The rain was coming heavy now, blatting onto the roof of the car like a tiny riot. Karl switched on the interior light and unfastened his seat belt. It was the first time I’d got a proper look at him.

He was about 40 years old. A small dirty-looking indentation on the bridge of his nose told me that he probably wore glasses most of the time. Maybe he took them off to drive. No. He was wearing contact lenses, the moist rims of which were also illuminated by the tiny stark light between us. He had short brown hair, greying at the temples and skinny, hairless arms.

‘Awwww,’ he said, resting a girlish elbow on the steering wheel. ‘You’re not ugly at all.’

I shook my head and sighed. I felt sad. And a little scared. ‘Please tell me what’s going on,’ I said.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’ He looked away and rubbed his eyes. ‘Oh, how I’ve dreaded this day.’

‘What the fuck?’ I cried. ‘Get on with it!’ A part of me – the fantasist perhaps – was almost beginning to get excited. It was thinking about those moments in books and films about special people, gifted people. There’s always a moment where someone tells them that they’re not like other children. No. They have super powers. Was this baldy-armed man actually my fairy godfather, about to grant me my all-time number one favourite self-centred fantasy wish and make me irresistible to women? He took a deep breath.

‘You don’t exist,’ he said.

Oh.

‘What do you mean? I don’t exist. Of course I exist.’

I listened to the rain. It was heavy and loud and sinister. And wait – was that a timely creak of thunder off in the distance? What the fuck was he talking about, I didn't exist?

‘I said,’ I said, ‘“Of course I exist”.’

‘I know you did,’ he said. ‘But you don’t. I’m sorry. I suppose you exist up to a point.’ He pondered, then continued. ‘But only inasmuch as you’re still just a somewhat fictionalised version of me.’

I was shaking my head, squinting my eyes, almost beginning to smile. ‘Are you a looney?’ I asked.

‘I swear I’m telling you the truth,’ he said. ‘I made you up. I can’t believe you don’t know it, frankly. Even the fact that I’m sitting here talking to you is so idiotically unfeasible that I swear, I’m practically on the verge of believing in something. God maybe. Maybe even you.’

My God, I thought. ‘You are a looney,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry it’s difficult for you to get your bulbous head around.’

'Oy!’ I snapped. ‘There’s no need to be rude.’ I hate that.

He held up his hands. ‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘I was out of line.’

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘you're wrong. It’s not difficult for me to get my head around. It’s impossible for me to get my head around, and the reason it’s impossible for me to get my head around is that it actually is IMPOSSIBLE!’ That last word I screamed a little. ‘This is not a Woody Allen play, for fuck’s sake. You know? So, please, I’m really begging you, stop fucking about and tell me the truth.’

‘The truth,’ he said. ‘OK.’ He took the whisky from me and took a swig. ‘Your real name is Charlie Weaver. It’s actually the same name I gave to the central character in an unpublished novel I wrote years ago. It’s actually a bit crap I think, as names go. A bit obvious. It doesn’t matter though, ‘cause it was a pretty crap book.’ He took a breath.

‘You have a scar on your back from a boil which first came to fruition when you were fifteen. It’s in that place on your back that you can’t quite reach, the blind spot between both sets of fingers. It started small but grew to the size of a throbbing fist. Finally it erupted in a religious studies exam. You stood up slowly, trying not to attract attention, and, holding your blazer in your right hand, you walked from the exam hall with a surprisingly believable veneer of calm. Your shirt was already clinging to your torso because of your excessive sweating, but now of course your entire back was drenched with a fairly rancid concoction of blood and pus.' He paused and winced sympathetically. 'Occasionally the boil comes back.’

‘No!’ I cried. ‘No!’ I cried again. ‘How do you know about my boil? It isn’t possible!’

‘I gave you that boil!’ he yelled back at me. ‘That's how. I borrowed it from someone I used to work with years ago. You don't actually have a boil. Because you're not actually real.’

He was doing my head in. He was doing a brilliant number on my brain, Derren Browning my mental gravy into oblivion and I had no idea how he was managing it. But I did know one thing: I knew I existed. It was time to put a stop to this with cold, hard logic.

‘OK, so,’ I began. ‘I don’t exist. Right? I’m not here.’

‘I never said you weren’t here,’ he interrupted.

‘Oh, come on!’ I cried. ‘You can’t have your cake and eat the fucker! Either I exist or I don’t.’

‘OK, OK,’ he said. And again with the raised hands, as if he feared I was going to pop him one.

‘So I don’t exist,’ I resumed. ‘So what about the last 10 hours or so? What about standing by a road and having orange peel chucked at my head? What about Polio Peter and his happy finish baguette? Does he not exist either? What about Vic and his tit-rolls? Did you make him up too? Eh, God-boy? You narcissistic freak, you.’

‘Those were things that happened to me when I was in my early twenties,’ he replied. ‘When I used to hitch a lot. It was a tenner for a tit-roll in those days too. That’s inflation for ya.’

‘Don’t make jokes!’ I cried, upset. ‘What the fuck?’

He laughed. ‘Look, most of your life is just stuff that happened to me at one time or another,’ he said, smugly, ‘or to my family or friends. I'm sorry and everything, but you’re going to have to deal with it sooner or later.’

I was getting angry now. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll believe you if you can answer me one more question.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said.

‘If I don’t exist,’ I asked, ‘What’s causing that terrible pain in your head?’

Before he could respond, I punched him as hard as I could in the face. Although it was my left hand, it was quite a slug and I felt his nose shift under the sudden pressure.

He cried out and covered his face with his hands. ‘You fucker!’ he cried. ‘You absolute shit! What the fuck did you do that for?’

I sat back against the car door and smiled, slightly self-satisfied, slightly afraid of retaliation. ‘Well, it's a fair question,’ I said. ‘How can a man who doesn’t exist smack some fucker in the mush?’

He held his face in a nest of his hands over the steering wheel. ‘Jesus!’ he shouted. ‘It’s really throbbing.’

Suddenly, I snapped. ‘Alright, I’ve had enough of this. I’m either getting out here and going back to the motorway, or you’re going to tell me what’s really going on.’

‘I’ve told you!’ he whined.

‘Alright, fuck that. Until you can explain how I managed to punch you in the face, if not by the pure force of my very existence, then I don’t want to hear another word about it. And if you don’t want to take me to Sunderland, then tell me now and I’ll make alternative arrangements.’

He was dabbing at his nose with a piece of tissue. There was blood. Huffily, and with a series of pain sounds, he stuffed twists of the tissue into his nostrils to stanch any flow. Then he started the car and drove off. As he did all this – and melodramatically – he gave the following little speech:

‘Fine, fine, fine. Fine. I’ll take you to Sunderland, and when I drop you off, that's it. I never want to see you again. That’s you and me finished. As it happens, I don’t know why you’re here. I know I wrote you down because I did. I was there. But I don’t know how you’ve managed to become independent of me. That’s got me pretty fucking stumped actually. If you want to know the truth. I was thinking maybe parallel universes or something. Or maybe a wrinkle in the space-time continuum. But then I’m no scientist. Even so, despite all that, I was prepared to run with it. You know? I was prepared to dig in and try to make the best of it. I was even imagining introducing you to my mum and my sisters. I was imagining the conversations, and the laughter, and it was beautiful. You know? It was like a fucking Christmas film. And what did you do? You punched me in the fucking face! I can’t believe you did that. I… That’s not how I wrote you. I made you placid and nice. Or at least I tried. Obviously I’ve failed you. And this is how you repay me. Well, to hell with you. I don’t forgive that shit. Not that. I’ll drop you off in Sunderland and you can carry on with your so-called life without me. See how far you get. Violent motherfucker. Oh – and you don’t want to hear another word about the fact that you don't exist, do you not? Fine. Suits me....’

By which time we were pulling back onto the road. Onto the motorway. I thought again of Jack Kerouac.

I only realised I’d fallen asleep once I’d woken up, maybe an hour later, just as we were passing a sign that said that Sunderland was 27 miles away.

I smiled.

Thank fuck for that.

It had all been a dream.



Phew.

...

Tomorrow: The End of the Road

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