PART 2

_____________________________________________

In a far off land, a long time ago, I came across a young man named TOM PITTS. Carrying his trusty 35mm Fujica and a black biro, he was travelling as a lone wolf across the desert plains of Cheshire in search of some greater meaning to reality than krispy kreme doughnuts. Needless to say he was having a hard time. Though Sartre and Camus had tempted him, a certain emptiness within their voices left him searching for more. So, with the sun beating down upon his neck and with sand in his eyes, he told me his search would continue. Since then, he has taken numerous photographs focused on the theme of loneliness, painted Cy Twombly rip-offs, become entranced with the movement of falling leaves and generally spoken too much about rubbish. Beside art, literature, philosophy and sugared pastry, he also enjoys reading Wikipedia too much. One day, he hopes, he will have an article all about him and his amazing adventures. One day.

Say HI and join him on his travels at TOM.P_@HOTMAIL.CO.UK

_____________________________________________

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS #1

_____________________________________________


A SHORT EXTRACT FROM
N IS FOR NARCISSUS; CHAPTER ONE

I could barely move. My mind had contracted itself into a tennis-ball sized fist of mercury; hovering around at the back of my head. Only the inimitable, but frankly quite logical and well-informed need for water was able to materialise within that floating, metallic sphere. Indeed, Peter (though it may have been someone else) had placed in my hand a litre bottle of the stuff, its label hastily ripped off leaving an endless scar of paper around the pure, clear plastic; it, like me, speckled with dried mud. In my other hand was a piece of grass, for a reason that I now do not know; but on it I held my heavy, dumb stare, gripped by the infinity of its textures. ‘Are you all right, Leon?’ came the far off, meter away call of a girl whose name at this point evades me. ‘Grass’, I replied in what I expect was a rather pitiful voice ‘grass…and water. I need some water’. A trickle of gold-tinted puke lay like a veil on the floor in front of me, seeping softly into the mud. ‘You’ve a bottle in your hand, look’ she said wandering off. I felt my hand crush the clumsy plastic beneath it, smooth like silk, but rigid as thick card. To any observer, my position must have been quite a sight, crouched meekly in the mud, half conscious, half vegetable; surrounded by partially absorbed pools of my own sick and staring into the abyss-like contours of a piece of grass.