Alasdair Watson

I’ve got nothing better to do – my back and arms are killing me as a result of heavy lifting, and I’m halfway through packing to move in a week and a half, so most of my possesions are now in my parents garage (because there isn’t room in my current flat for the boxes of my stuff and my furniture) and all in all, this is just hassle I could do with out.

This had all better be worth it, is all I can say.

Think I’ve twigged why I’ve been tense – lack of excercise. Hadn’t been to the gym in nearly a week, so combined with a poor diet (not nearly enough fruit and veg last week) I was out of kilter. But I’m back from the gym, drinking a banana smoothie, stretched out on a sunny bed with The Primitives’ “Crash” playing loud, and I feel so much better…

I have a new flat sorted. Well, mostly – holding deposit paid, forms yet to be filled out, and extremely large cheques to be handed over before all the rest of it begins, but I have a place to move to barring force majeur, at least. Provisional plans say I’m moving in two weeks, away from Tooting, and off to scenic South Woodford. Now begins the horror that is moving…

There’s tension running up and down my back. My spine feels fucked. I am blaming this on too much booze and not enough exercise interfereing with my proper body chemistry. Well, that, and feeling stressed and irritable. I feel out of joint – dissatisfied with life. I can’t put my finger on why, though. It’s like there’s something missing, and I don’t know what it is.

I’ve got to be up at half eight tomorrow to keep an appointment to see a flat, so I shall go and sleep, and see if rest will cure this.

The last time I was able to keep these hours regularly, sitting at the keyboard at 1 am with a couple of hours work ahead of me, was many, many years ago. I used to take screen breaks every hour or so – I’d go out for a cigarette, take a walk, refresh myself, and then come back to work. I used to love walking up and down the road in the quiet at the dead of night, smoking and thinking. God, but I really, really want a cigarette right now.

Instead, I shall pour myself a whiskey, and get back to it.

I’m sitting here watching the sky fade over Tooting, a weird medley of bright pale blues and yellows shot through with long fingers of full night blue in the clouds, a grapefruit and rosemary candle burning, Tom Waits on the stereo. I’ve done nothing with my day. So it’s time to catch up on my mail, and then get on with a bit of work, I think. I can feel my body’s rythmns adjusting to the free time already. Without a job to get up for, I switch to my default cycle, which basically means sitting up to three in the morning at the computer, then reading for a bit, before getting to sleep in time to wake up at about 11am. It takes me about three of four days to fall into it, but by the end of the week, I’ll be back in a sleep pattern I like, one that will see me at my most productive. I always get more done after midnight. The words come more naturally, for no reason I can fathom…

But in the mean time, I’m just going to watch the light fade.

So I went and did something more interesting – a bit of short fiction that’s been kicking about my head for a while. Go here to read it

God, what a shitty looking day. Feeling weirdly drained, for which I balme poor diet over the last week or so. This will continue until tomorrow, when I can go shopping again (or possibly this evening, if it cheers up a bit). I suspect the weather is not unconnected to my new sunglasses, to be honest.

Saw Fin and Ciara’s band play last night, at The Cartoon. The gig was fun. I took quite a few photos most of which are dreadful, and a couple of short film clips, where the sound has come out appallingly, dammit. I’ll put some of the best on-line later in the week.

Today, I have written to the landlords confirming my intent to move out, and then looked about on-line at possible new places to go to. Woodford is looking like a pretty strong contender at the moment – it’s a bit further out than I would ideally like, but it’s a nice area, and looks fairly affordable.

This is all crushingly dull. I shall go and do something more interesting now.

I’ve been meaning to get back to doing short fiction again for a while now – it’s a form that facsinates me. Don’t know if I’ll get back to doing it regularly, but anyway, this is an idea that’s been kicking about my head for a while now.

Dead Grey

It’s so cold in here. Everyone’s got their own problem with this job. With me, it’s the cold. Some people complain about the smell, but I just use a vapour rub on my top lip every so often – cuts out the stench, and keeps me breathing clear.

That’s more important than you’d think, breathing clear. Keeps the system well oxygenated, the brain ticking over sharp.

But it’s so bastard cold – got to be. They decompose faster than us at room temperature. They’re gone in under 24 hours at much over freezing. But it makes difficult. Doesn’t matter how alert I am if I can’t feel how much resistance the scalpel’s getting. No matter how often I study the damn charts, I just can’t get their muscular configuration right in my head. I need to feel the scalpel cutting that weird colourless flesh to get this right. Yeah, colourless. The grey’s a mucus under the skin – there’s not a lot of it, so it’s not a big problem except on that first cut.

Yeah, some of them squirt.

But yeah, I need to feel the slicing action. Can’t see the action properly through the mucus, and can’t remember the charts, so I need to feel the metal move. Besides, the charts aren’t always accurate – there are a couple of subtle changes we’re starting to notice that seem to depend when they come from

That’s right, when. Someone finally figured it out. The bug-eyed bastards aren’t really from another planet. They’re from Earth all right. Millions of years into the future. The weird radiation signature is a side effect of the time travel. God knows why they keep coming back here, though. There’s all sorts of theories about why they’ve evolved that way, but it pretty clear that they live somewhere cool and dark. I heard someone even suggested that they’re from a period after the sun dies, but that just seems crazy. I mean, even if we do evolve like these bastards, there’s no way humans would stay on earth that long. I don’t buy it. We’d get the fuck out.

What? Didn’t you know? Yeah, these things are human. Well, originally. That’s why we’ve got to keep studying them. We’ve already worked out a lot about their society. For example, we know that they don’t do manual labour – they’re just not strong enough – they can’t even stand for long periods, for Christ’s sake. The muscles won’t support it. They’ve probably got robots or something. If they can crack time travel, they can manage robots. And judging by the lungs and the liver, the air’s pretty toxic whenever they’re from – lots of filters and resistances to poisons we don’t even have yet in there.

Why what? Why do it? Isn’t it obvious?

We’re dissecting the future. Trying to work out what happens. Trying to change it. I mean, do you want your great-great-great grandkids to look like that?

Goddamn, it’s cold in here.

Spending a chunk of the redundancy cheque yesterday – a new suit and shirt, a cyberdog tshirt with flashing lights, new sunglasses, a few CDs – Cocteau Twins, Throwing Muses, Flogging Molly, and best of all, Gallon Drunk and Derek Raymond doing DORA SUAREZ, which is one of my favourite books. Not a bad haul at all. A bit more shopping to do yet – Marysia and I are probably off to Torture Garden at the end of the month, and I reall don’t have anything suitable in my wardrobe, these days.