But me? I think I was right first time: you’re a chancer. A thick ride, who likes throwing shapes. I have no need for one of those. When it was just the two of you dossing around, you might have been the big man. But here?’ Aralt slapped me across the cheek lightly with a smile, before sauntering to Ruby, who was swaying now. Aralt hooked Ruby tight to him, before loosening his tie. ‘No windows,’ as Aralt glanced around the office, I realised he was right. ‘I’ve defeated dawn. You’re not the full shilling, are you?’ You know those bastards, who simultaneously make you feel the idiot and burn to clock them? Screw it, I wanted to feel Aralt’s heart stop bloody in my hands. ‘Run along to bed, like a good babby,’ Aralt licked the blood from Ruby’s lips, and she sighed, low and contented, ‘and I’ll take care of your Author.’
Alessandro examined the thin cut, which was rapidly healing up into a white line, with tentative fingers. ‘Still not scared of Aralt?’
I shoved away from Alessandro with a shrug. ‘Kids play. Saturday night in with Ruby.’
We were sprawled together on Alessandro’s wooden floor, in a glorious chaos of singles and LPs, as if a tornado had hit, and we were in the eye.
I’d found them, one after the other, ranked in bright orange paper record racks, alphabetically listed. Alessandro had given this vole-like squeal, each time I’d wrenched one out, devoured its cover and tossed it aside.
I drew out the psychedelic cover of The Stone’s “Their Satanic Majesties Request”. I turned it over reverentially in my hands. ‘You’re a dark horse. Because for a square? You’ve got cool taste.’
Alessandro fidgeted. ‘Another one of my…you know? You hear an awful lot of this modern stuff working at Advance. They even let me name the radio station.’
‘We have a radio station?’
The rot had set in already – we ? I should’ve cut out my bloody conforming tongue. Society creeps up on you; it catches you by the balls, taming you until you’re leashed.
See here’s the thing, we’re all bound by our family, friends, jobs and love… But love doesn’t need to be bound or to bind - it can be free.
Society’s the prison we volunteer to lock ourselves in, hiding behind its bars without the need for guards because it’s comfy, safe and as predictable as you First Lifers crave. Yet it’s a fantasy because it’s built everyday on lies: from the laws you follow gormlessly unquestioning, to the roles you mould yourselves into, so you can fit square pegs into round. That’s what you’re conditioned for, cradle to the grave.
Here in our Blood Life, I’d thought we were beyond that. At Advance, however, I was being exposed to a whole new society; it made me feel like I was being castrated all over again.
Alessandro nodded. ‘A pirate radio station. You haven’t heard it?’ His arms started to flap. ‘Goodness, you must.’ He dived under the bed, so far I could only see his pale white feet sticking out. When he wriggled free again, he was clutching this bloody great box of transistor radios and beaming, like he was about to present his first born. ‘My collection. Donovan finds them for me because he knows I… Well, see..?’ Alessandro passed them over to me one at a time. Tiny pocket transistors. A real mink RL200 radio. And portable radios shaped like lipsticks, Batchelors tins or cups and saucers. He raised a red pop-art radio to his ear, twiddling with the tuning. ‘Guess what I named it?’
I craned my hands behind my nut. ‘Haven’t the foggiest.’
Alessandro grinned, the static clearing as he found the frequency.
… And now on Radio Komodo we have another groovy record for all you hip listeners out there …
‘Komodo?’ I kicked at Alessandro with my boot. ‘Nice one.’
All right then, so this is the moment…the one I’ve never told you about…I don’t know why.
Sod it, yeah I do. Honesty , right?
I didn’t tell you because
Alessandro examined the thin cut, which was rapidly healing up into a white line, with tentative fingers. ‘Still not scared of Aralt?’
I shoved away from Alessandro with a shrug. ‘Kids play. Saturday night in with Ruby.’
We were sprawled together on Alessandro’s wooden floor, in a glorious chaos of singles and LPs, as if a tornado had hit, and we were in the eye.
I’d found them, one after the other, ranked in bright orange paper record racks, alphabetically listed. Alessandro had given this vole-like squeal, each time I’d wrenched one out, devoured its cover and tossed it aside.
I drew out the psychedelic cover of The Stone’s “Their Satanic Majesties Request”. I turned it over reverentially in my hands. ‘You’re a dark horse. Because for a square? You’ve got cool taste.’
Alessandro fidgeted. ‘Another one of my…you know? You hear an awful lot of this modern stuff working at Advance. They even let me name the radio station.’
‘We have a radio station?’
The rot had set in already – we ? I should’ve cut out my bloody conforming tongue. Society creeps up on you; it catches you by the balls, taming you until you’re leashed.
See here’s the thing, we’re all bound by our family, friends, jobs and love… But love doesn’t need to be bound or to bind - it can be free.
Society’s the prison we volunteer to lock ourselves in, hiding behind its bars without the need for guards because it’s comfy, safe and as predictable as you First Lifers crave. Yet it’s a fantasy because it’s built everyday on lies: from the laws you follow gormlessly unquestioning, to the roles you mould yourselves into, so you can fit square pegs into round. That’s what you’re conditioned for, cradle to the grave.
Here in our Blood Life, I’d thought we were beyond that. At Advance, however, I was being exposed to a whole new society; it made me feel like I was being castrated all over again.
Alessandro nodded. ‘A pirate radio station. You haven’t heard it?’ His arms started to flap. ‘Goodness, you must.’ He dived under the bed, so far I could only see his pale white feet sticking out. When he wriggled free again, he was clutching this bloody great box of transistor radios and beaming, like he was about to present his first born. ‘My collection. Donovan finds them for me because he knows I… Well, see..?’ Alessandro passed them over to me one at a time. Tiny pocket transistors. A real mink RL200 radio. And portable radios shaped like lipsticks, Batchelors tins or cups and saucers. He raised a red pop-art radio to his ear, twiddling with the tuning. ‘Guess what I named it?’
I craned my hands behind my nut. ‘Haven’t the foggiest.’
Alessandro grinned, the static clearing as he found the frequency.
… And now on Radio Komodo we have another groovy record for all you hip listeners out there …
‘Komodo?’ I kicked at Alessandro with my boot. ‘Nice one.’
All right then, so this is the moment…the one I’ve never told you about…I don’t know why.
Sod it, yeah I do. Honesty , right?
I didn’t tell you because
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