Sunday, January 9, 2011

Epoch - Jow Bates

"This is taking ages." Thought Ollie, staring somewhat blankly into the sky. It was a relatively cool night and the darkened canvas which blanketed his studio was absolutely littered with stars, which was nice. It looked like an ephemeral Pollock masterpiece made from white neon.
Ollie thought about glow-sticks that had been chewed through by over-enthused and gurning ravers, the luminescent fluid bursting over their extended chins.
"Is there anyway we can hurry this up?" Asked Ollie to no one in particular and he plucked another spent word from the ether and placed it carefully into his artistically crafted L-plate Rizla. The words arranged themselves pleasingly on the tobacco, causing Ollie to smile, he then turned sharply in an effort to reply to a question that hadn't been asked, he thought he'd heard someone.
There was a faint humming across a rhythmic beat, like the ground was pulsing some kind of alluring bass and Ollie was reminded of the rave he'd been to earlier that night, but that was about the extent of his memory. His left hand fell to the soft ground and he caressed the dew-dampened grass he was sitting on. He pressed into the earth and felt it press warmly back into him, then his attention turned back to the sky; a living tapestry of history. A constant poem, being performed by the audience it encompassed, the sky was always a reliable source of awe.
"Awe." Ollie muttered, that was a good one. He plucked "Awe"  from the air, inches away from his mouth and laid it down meticulously, next to the others. He enjoyed the prospect of lighting this up, another gathering of some of the most beautiful words context could muster, fresh Golden Virginia and Original Slims making up the frame, he felt like an architect.
"Probably just one more now." He thought to himself, a tad distastefully as none of those words would do, certainly not at this stage, good chefs always pride themselves on their deserts as even the most seasoned food critic will walk away from a meal remembering most clearly that which the ate last.
He froze for a moment, trying to remember why he was sitting here, it seemed unfathomably important a while ago and as realisation set in, sobriety kicked wonder from his mind. He must have been sat there for aeons he thought, looking down at his lap, now scattered with torn paper and spilled tobacco. His tongue found and retrieved the small piece of sodden papery card that had once held the face of Super Mario and he spat the spent tab from his being. Ollie felt a little used up at the nights recourse and he looked halfheartedly for his phone, not expecting to find it. He didn't and instead brushed the mess of smoking paraphernalia from his jeans and leaned forward to hug his knees. Not entirely sure what he was attempting to roll as it was clear he didn't have anything other than rolling tobacco, he smiled. He sat there for a while longer, breathing in the moment that elapsed between triptych sobering that was his mind clearing, not so much a comedown as a unannounced detox, it was nice. Time paused and he drank in the transient cleansing epoch that was his existence.
"Epoch." He said to himself, standing up.
"That's a good word."

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