There’s a quick-witted voice bouncing in my head. The tent is collapsing, then expanding, like a lung, breathing life into this quick-wittedness. The voice isn’t saying anything funny, just saying a lot. There’s no order and there’s no chaos. Just a constant stream of non-sequiturs, chewing on each other’s behinds like a scene from the Human Centipede.
Close your eyes and concentrate on the bird laughing.
The laugh falls into the exhaust of a pink pick-up, driving into a brick wall that shatters, fragments landing in the lunch boxes of midget children wearing technicoloured dreamcoats and Nike high-tops. They’re running from something now; it’s a colossal wave, peppered with Nutri-Grain. All the coloured midget children are swallowed by purple lips that could belong to a fish, grandmother or clown. This could be a perfect scene for that short film I want to make. Find a pen, find a pen. You’re going to lose it.
I open my eyes in the hope a pen will appear in my hands. I become aware of something outside my tent; shadows dancing on the ends of strings in front of my eyes, like two-dimensional puppets with no faces.
You have to leave. You’re Glock. Ryder and Ashe and Jon and Sam and Pat and Sunni are waiting for you on the hill. You’re Glock. You have to go. The band’s about to start. You’ve got your pants on now, there’s no reason to be cold. Get up, World’s End Press are about to start. You like it when Sashi plays the bass. You’ve got some good moves, Glock. Very impressive. Could be a fun time.
The quick-witted voice comes back again. The one that doesn’t speak, just bounces around, chasing centipedes along the zip-line of the tent. The same voice causing the drops to patter, then slide, then vanish into the grass. The drops move now, along the ground, being carried by the ant kingdom’s equivalent of Schwarzenegger. The drops are laughing, like the birds were. They’re all laughing and telling me to ‘Get to the Chopper’. The wooshing starts and the chopper can’t be far away. Hurry.
The zip comes undone easily. I kick chairs from my path, dance over bottles, fend off shadows with an open palm and crafty side-step. I am past the car now and stop just short of the landing zone and wait. I wait for the chopper with a cigarette in hand. Waving it from side-to-side above my head, hoping the pilot will see the cherry, and lift me away.
