GLASS & THE GHOST CHILDREN
Fingers severed on a mirrors edge/Isolated with no respect/Conversation has been replaced/Punctured slowly ideas escape/My possessions are all I have/One man's medicine poisons man/My subconscious knowledge safe/In my coma, in my coma again
/Get respectable faces donned/Turn blind eyes to what's gone on/Slowly leak ideas through/Would you recognise I knew/Used expression to converse/In my coma I do not hurt/Feel much better but I'm still not cured/In my coma, in my coma again
Can't Afford To Die - Mansun
[Setting Sons]
Ever get that sinking feeling?
If I was in darkness I would fear. Were I looking up the barrel of imminence under cover of nightfall I might offer up a prayer to my gods in the darkness, I might feel a grave inevitability, I might even scream like a girl. But the minds of Fate and 'great' mean find a common stream - I am to be shot in broad daylight, where the sun cannot see me, in another man's basement. Here, where the walls wear the light like a dirty shroud and everything but everything is artificial. A facade. A place, I remarked mentally upon my arrival, without a soul.
The man with the gun is my father. And if you look closely, you'll see he casts no shadow. I'm not the only dead man in the room.
"...hoping that my son might honour me like Bill Mulder's son."
She (who?) said, it's not death if you refuse it. And I laughed, a hollow thing. What is it I feel in my veins? That I have one last thing to lose and it's not my defiance? That I am an expression on the end of a long twisted bore - twisted like my father's past, twisted like my mother's life, twisted like the path I took - which ends on the full stop of a bullet? That my father, with the skin as dry as crumpled parchment, would combust spontaneously the next time he lights one?
Come on old man, do it, you'll only be killing yourself. The man you never were. The man I'll never get to be. I'll kiss my mother in hell and you'll *still* be in a lower place.
I do not hear the gun go off, I only see the smoke. I feel the irony. I *feel* my spine stiffen in fury, my heart harden in indignation, my stomach touching despair. And I fall, ladies and gentlemen, I fall. My blood flies in one direction and I fly vainly after, out of this world and into the other. Except I don't. I'm hanging in the doorway, clinging to the frame, slowly being pulled apart.
My father grows farther away. Or perhaps he's just leaving the room? Perhaps the blood swells and strains vainly to the hole in my head and escapes, taking thoughts with it. Perhaps I'm not thinking at all, after all I must have lost half my brain with that bullet, not to mention my mind. But I see and I hear. I know I was shot with my own registered weapon. I know my father left it in my hand to make it look like I committed suicide. I feel all the colour draining out of my face. I feel so disconnected. I pale in limbo. I hear nonsense in my head (or out of it). There are words that spill together and make as much sense as they can:
a bitterness that grows/fluid as fear/and a gaping hole/that shouldn't be there/as all of my blood to cover my sins/ is a bullet that flies on butterfly wings
Shadows dance with light. Shadow slips in shadow. I stare redundantly into the light - I can't help it, that's the way I fell. Nobody heard that shot. No one's going to come down here to save my ass.
My father took the photo with him. He took nothing of me, no trophy or momento mori. I am the ghost of his mistake. Orphan to life. Heir to death. No one's son. I don't want to look any more, but I do because my eyes won't listen to me. My hair feels wet, the scalp just throbs. Almost as if the lights are going on and coming off. Going on and coming off. Off.
Maybe my pupils shrink a bit because I'm seeing things now. Dark hair in artificial light. A shade converged to form. She looks a little like Agent Fowley - or maybe someone else? I don't know. I know she's not a woman. Hello whore of death. She twitches in the light. Oh yes, I see you, and you see me. You've come for me. We have an understanding. Dark lips, pale arms. Come sit with me, come sit on me. Come kiss me sweetly. Kiss, kiss, bang, bang. She squats on my chest, and - oh god - she's suddenly so heavy. Hard to breathe. Not sure if I can or ever was. Look into my eyes. My, what a dark tongue you have. All the better to lick you with. She licks my lips. One wet stroke and I see no more. Eyes roll back in my head. I convulse. My body goes into seizure.
***
Fingers severed on a mirrors edge/Isolated with no respect/Conversation has been replaced/Punctured slowly ideas escape/My possessions are all I have/One man's medicine poisons man/My subconscious knowledge safe/In my coma, in my coma again
/Get respectable faces donned/Turn blind eyes to what's gone on/Slowly leak ideas through/Would you recognise I knew/Used expression to converse/In my coma I do not hurt/Feel much better but I'm still not cured/In my coma, in my coma again
Can't Afford To Die - Mansun
[Setting Sons]
Ever get that sinking feeling?
If I was in darkness I would fear. Were I looking up the barrel of imminence under cover of nightfall I might offer up a prayer to my gods in the darkness, I might feel a grave inevitability, I might even scream like a girl. But the minds of Fate and 'great' mean find a common stream - I am to be shot in broad daylight, where the sun cannot see me, in another man's basement. Here, where the walls wear the light like a dirty shroud and everything but everything is artificial. A facade. A place, I remarked mentally upon my arrival, without a soul.
The man with the gun is my father. And if you look closely, you'll see he casts no shadow. I'm not the only dead man in the room.
"...hoping that my son might honour me like Bill Mulder's son."
She (who?) said, it's not death if you refuse it. And I laughed, a hollow thing. What is it I feel in my veins? That I have one last thing to lose and it's not my defiance? That I am an expression on the end of a long twisted bore - twisted like my father's past, twisted like my mother's life, twisted like the path I took - which ends on the full stop of a bullet? That my father, with the skin as dry as crumpled parchment, would combust spontaneously the next time he lights one?
Come on old man, do it, you'll only be killing yourself. The man you never were. The man I'll never get to be. I'll kiss my mother in hell and you'll *still* be in a lower place.
I do not hear the gun go off, I only see the smoke. I feel the irony. I *feel* my spine stiffen in fury, my heart harden in indignation, my stomach touching despair. And I fall, ladies and gentlemen, I fall. My blood flies in one direction and I fly vainly after, out of this world and into the other. Except I don't. I'm hanging in the doorway, clinging to the frame, slowly being pulled apart.
My father grows farther away. Or perhaps he's just leaving the room? Perhaps the blood swells and strains vainly to the hole in my head and escapes, taking thoughts with it. Perhaps I'm not thinking at all, after all I must have lost half my brain with that bullet, not to mention my mind. But I see and I hear. I know I was shot with my own registered weapon. I know my father left it in my hand to make it look like I committed suicide. I feel all the colour draining out of my face. I feel so disconnected. I pale in limbo. I hear nonsense in my head (or out of it). There are words that spill together and make as much sense as they can:
a bitterness that grows/fluid as fear/and a gaping hole/that shouldn't be there/as all of my blood to cover my sins/ is a bullet that flies on butterfly wings
Shadows dance with light. Shadow slips in shadow. I stare redundantly into the light - I can't help it, that's the way I fell. Nobody heard that shot. No one's going to come down here to save my ass.
My father took the photo with him. He took nothing of me, no trophy or momento mori. I am the ghost of his mistake. Orphan to life. Heir to death. No one's son. I don't want to look any more, but I do because my eyes won't listen to me. My hair feels wet, the scalp just throbs. Almost as if the lights are going on and coming off. Going on and coming off. Off.
Maybe my pupils shrink a bit because I'm seeing things now. Dark hair in artificial light. A shade converged to form. She looks a little like Agent Fowley - or maybe someone else? I don't know. I know she's not a woman. Hello whore of death. She twitches in the light. Oh yes, I see you, and you see me. You've come for me. We have an understanding. Dark lips, pale arms. Come sit with me, come sit on me. Come kiss me sweetly. Kiss, kiss, bang, bang. She squats on my chest, and - oh god - she's suddenly so heavy. Hard to breathe. Not sure if I can or ever was. Look into my eyes. My, what a dark tongue you have. All the better to lick you with. She licks my lips. One wet stroke and I see no more. Eyes roll back in my head. I convulse. My body goes into seizure.
***