Rupert Loydell & Nathan Thompson - Memos to Self (9)

In Memoriam


The Hourglass figures if you don’t mind the walk. That is where you say we will find him. You can recognise him by his gaunt figure, wasting the day at the very point of crux.

‘No sudden movements. Just turn slowly and leave until it is time to come back again.’ Those are my instructions.

I can sense the nights are getting longer. Vampires are coming, dressed in their vicious bunny suits. Their sockets mark a space to the backs of our heads. We try to light candles in there, greased with recitations of the Hail Mary.

I leave a note to myself behind the bar that there is a full moon over the opera house. The murderer will be there too. So twirl your moustache dramatically and walk out into the night.





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9 of 9

Rupert Loydell & Nathan Thompson - Memos to Self (8)

After Much Thought


I have decided to change teams and follow the hourglass storyline into shadow. Underexposed photos and unanswered questions are more than enough to keep us amused. It seems to fill all the hours in the day.

I use the days simply to filter the nervous system, to exhibit complex responses and specify the correct amount of air and fluid to take on board. Phew clap whoo clap phew clap surrender.

Licking the glass clean, I stare through the pane and hope the murderer arrives soon. Last time I heard he was lecturing up north and reacting to sudden movements. Irrationality demands intervals and accusations; a power of insight to overcome optical illusions and suspicions of underhand behaviour.

A is for a house. Any house. It will never become a home, just somewhere to rest up and hide, keep warm if a little damp, cowering in the boiler room. Buses run every 15-30 minutes and if you don’t mind the walk it is ideally situated for information overload and all your everyday needs.

The central idea is individual creativity and personal excess. Public interaction is encouraged.





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8 of 9

Rupert Loydell & Nathan Thompson - Memos to Self (7)

Melodrama wth Aforethought


You stick dribbling to the window. Down the pane tangents of sucked lozenges bomb the suburbs. I am friendly to this but it brings no clarity.

People try not to notice, playing at wise monkeys, but the marks are genuine. You are indifferent to these shortcuts, the cherry-wood romances of Johann Strauss.

Then it becomes entirely terrible: This is a conflict in which nobody even bothers to get undressed. Cinderella weeps among her shattered slippers. She will never know.

Music for dancing suggests strings of puppets disgusted with the homophony of vast deserts. Ours is a human enterprise which doesn’t happen. Enter the murderer flexing his muscles.





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7 of 9

Rupert Loydell & Nathan Thompson - Memos to Self (6)

Magic Lantern


Shadows play games with unformed memories. Your sleepy danse macabre flicks ash from the music box. We are taking it in turns to be grotesque.

A witch flies upside-down in pursuit of her falling familiars. Beneath her, a crescent moon wraps around a cat retelling the past. Each time she passes she fails to grasp it.

But this is to discount jasmine outside our curtained window, lifting gently, tilting at its edges.

You keep dreaming through figures of eight, each one tighter until the knot is tangled. The last stars tense at the lips of your eyes.





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6 of 9

Rupert Loydell & Nathan Thompson - Memos to Self (5)

Osmosis


I’m sorry, I didn’t realise the story had gone astray. It is difficult to find plot or make headway. Memo to self: build a world with language. Memo to reader: get on with it. This was never meant to be an easy read!

“My reaction was a longing for some sense of necessity behind the work. I’d be dishonest to say otherwise.”

And I’d be dishonest if I said your comment didn’t hurt. But the parcels of books made up for it, along with a visit from a friend. I have other reputations as well, warm hands to hold until the clocks go back.

“It looks like a line, not like a line pretending to be a line. Which is why it is more interesting.”

Early evening sunshine warms the darkest corners of human memory. I am hiding your present from you.





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5 of 9

Rupert Loydell & Nathan Thompson - Memos to Self (4)

Mudslide


If I cannot live backwards I will live forwards.

Midnight - noon - a charm bracelet of tickets. Soon the whole fiesta.

I think perhaps I should lighten up a little.

How can you tell that the morning star and the evening star are the same thing? Circular breathing. There is still a risk of course: inner city; cold water; the reckless heckles that contribute smallness.

It would be apposite to point out that sometimes air brightens and begins to clear. The moon rising like a love-song through the clouds; a cat on a tightrope walking to the party.





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4 of 9

Rupert Loydell & Nathan Thompson - Memos to Self (3)

Aid to Memory


I do not understand why the cat goes missing for several days and then returns, seeking food and affection.

I am praying for airtime, wishing for air. What I have are this stuffy office and a computer I don’t know how to use.

The fire in the pub hasn’t been lit for months. No-one is talking to anyone they don’t know. Faces have turned hard with age.

The cat is language. This place is too quiet to be home.

Nothing is set in stone.





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3 of 9

Rupert Loydell & Nathan Thompson - Memos to Self (2)

Statement to Self


We are not the children of love we are the children of war.
We have other reputations as well.

Your hand can’t get tired, it hasn’t got eyes.
Memory is full of alterations, facts, short-cuts.

This is an attempt to make things clear, a spatial rendition of time.
I am already regretting the whole thing, will pretend it doesn’t exist.

We are different people this morning.
No-one talks to anyone they don’t already know.





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2 of 9

Rupert Loydell & Nathan Thompson - Memos to Self (1)

Once Upon a Time


Ice and morning mist, cold juice for breakfast, long hours to fill. The chronometer is not working and you would be surprised how much we sleep, how much we eat – probably how often meal times come around.

In a funny sort of way happiness is not to do with being happy. It is simply being content and settled in routine. Keeping warm and alive takes all our time up here. What little spare we have we dedicate to mapping out words on the white pages of our journals.

This is a fiction. And also this.





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This is the first of nine parts extracted from a longer collaborative project titled 'Memos to Self' by Rupert Loydell and Nathan Thompson. We'll be serialising them daily. You can read further sections from the series in Shadowtrain #27.