and his intrusive instrument had been bought off halfway through his ballad and he began singing at us.
His jarred dance drove the beat along as his voice etched meaning to the tune. We bore his tenuous
rhymes until the climactic finish, after which he paused for a minute, looking around for fireworks that
must have failed before looking at us and smiling like a hungry baby, cocked head, a vile dependency
from a fifty year old man. My face was apologetic. Alan was simply shaking his head. Since we were the
last of the queue he walked away dejected, guitar over one shoulder and kicking a can like he was some
romantic stereotype. But that stereotype is long gone and it's now diseased dogs and heroin addictions
that colour a city's tramp population.
Large discs of pale meat, sweat dripping to the ground, browning salad attached by a slice of chemically
manipulated cheese held together between bread that was two hours from stale. We ate sat next to the
nearby river. "If we save that money we can eat a king's lunch tomorrow. We could buy some Valium
tonight, sleep ‘til dinnertime."
"We're not going to eat tomorrow." He handed me a ten pound note, "hold on to that. We're going to go
out, get drunk, revel in the warmth of company."
An overly active cortex in the beasts mind opened to us, the sound of the mechanisms spiling out, stairs
leading down to alternating darkness and coloured light. We were soon carefully treading the stairs and
entered a large room divided into two areas; Sitting and Dancing. A bar ran across one wall, kept the
neurons charged, opposite a large stage upon which a group of girls danced despite restrictive clothing
amongst smoke and flashing lights. Groups of small insect colonies occupied territory and only wavered
from their group to return later with drinks. We stood as far from them as we could while still being close
to the bar. Uniformly the occupants of the dancefloor moved, embracing the unity that their worship of the
mechanics offered. The volume was such that it not only made it impossible to hear anything else but it
also affected other senses; a thick layer of noise suppressed even the smells of the building and my
peripheral vision began to darken. I pressed my eyes closed until they hurt. The flashing light permeated
the skin of my eyelids and the only escape I found was internal and inadequate. Alan leaned close so his
lips brushed my ear as he said either "Let's go" or "Let go". I did neither, just stood waiting for him to act
