Ranged across the
top of the single-sided A4 sheet are a series of graphics Brother Skunk cannot
at all decipher, their resolution having so far disintegrated through those
however many generations of photocopies re-photocopied, each that much more
distant from its original iteration, as to be damn near illegible.
Skunk (examining each in the row): Jesus they could do with printing a new menu, what are these even supposed to be?
holding up the sheet and indicating one of the images with his finger
Skunk: Any ideas? A chicken maybe? Broccoli?
below which, a series of unticked checkboxes, possible options for tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Having been handed it by the nurse, ache1 had indicated she pass it instead across to Brother Skunk, sat bedside,
ache1: Surprise me.
along with a pen procured from on top of the bedside cabinet.
These two words come distorted through her bloated lips, the afternoon’s newly-dried blood collected at the mouth's outer edges. Now that she’s conscious he tries not to stare at her face, that one eye in particular still swollen shut, the colouring to her skin he has watched change on a daily basis.
Skunk (examining each in the row): Jesus they could do with printing a new menu, what are these even supposed to be?
holding up the sheet and indicating one of the images with his finger
Skunk: Any ideas? A chicken maybe? Broccoli?
below which, a series of unticked checkboxes, possible options for tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Having been handed it by the nurse, ache1 had indicated she pass it instead across to Brother Skunk, sat bedside,
ache1: Surprise me.
along with a pen procured from on top of the bedside cabinet.
These two words come distorted through her bloated lips, the afternoon’s newly-dried blood collected at the mouth's outer edges. Now that she’s conscious he tries not to stare at her face, that one eye in particular still swollen shut, the colouring to her skin he has watched change on a daily basis.
He recalls those
first words she had spoken to him, or at least in his presence, her voice
seeming to echo out through the depth of its sedation.
ache1 (mistaking him for an employee of the hotel): I miss my Channel 16
ache1: I want my porn.
From that accumulant time spent speaking with his own insensate mother he is not unused to pouring monologue out into the void, and so he would initially chat to her absence with a degree of candour, relating incidents from the day, reminiscing, or simply voicing such thoughts as came to mind in any given moment. When she does eventually however surrender that blank finity to regain consciousness, he suddenly finds himself struggling to locate any topic of conversation as might now sustain them both, questioning if whatever he had hoped for might be slipping away, or if those hopes had ever indeed had any basis in anything at all other than being the cornerstone of some baseless fairytale he had himself created to carry him forward from each day into its tomorrow.
From off the bed-cover he watches her gather her little vinyl E.T. doll back within the dark bruising of her forearms, a gesture perceived less as its collecting unto herself than its sequestering away from him, regardless his own role in its recent repair. The stiffness of her limited movement betrays each attempt to minimise the physical pain she still endures in what seems like her body’s every individual bone.
ache1: Hey thanks again for this little guy, that’s,
visibly emotional
ache1: seriously that that ah, that was really thoughtful. I I
Skunk (hurt): That’s okay, it, I, it wasn’t
Embarrassed, he returns to the menu momentarily forgotten in his hand.
Skunk (all or nothing, a grand swing for the fences): I remember, I was, I must have been twelve because this was when
a little hesitant at the outset
Skunk: I’d just started secondary school
clarifying for her
Skunk: high school, would, do you call it that,
ache1: Yeah, or
Skunk (neither hearing nor listening): and I have no idea why this started, but I became obsessed with photocopies. A guy in my class, his dad worked in the university library and had access to their photocopier, which I’d never, I had no idea what it even really was other than you could get a copy of something, but I can’t even think now why... I have no idea how I would have found out about them, I mean, as something to which I might even have access
visibly working on through his own bewilderment
Skunk: though I was aware of... you know, getting reprints of photographs, but I wasn’t... Anyway, I think they cost something like, maybe two pence each, I think, so I would bring things in to class and give them to this guy along with however much money it would cost
ache1 (a lukewarm element of humouring him): Like what, what were you
Skunk: Oh God... cowboy, Lone Ranger comics
and on, ignoring her reaction
Skunk: At one point my mum must have picked up on all this, and she decided to get something copied as well, though now, exactly what I have no clue, maybe knitting patterns? but I still remember her asking “do you get the original back?”, which at the time I thought was really stupid, but looking back I mean, of course I was being equally stupid spending all this money on getting these poor quality copies of things I already owned
his own sudden and all too visible recognition of this as prompts her to laugh, which laugh he determines her consent to continue even as she herself is saying
ache1: Proceed.
Skunk: It was like that, there’s a moment where you discover that all those trophies that you see in cabinets, or at other people’s houses, things their parents had won at sports or whatever, you could buy the,
rubbing now at the hairs rising upon his forearms
Skunk: The first time I saw a row of them in a shop, on a shelf, and you could just buy them, and have the little panel engraved with whatever you wanted... that was just
remembering
Skunk: ..weird, disappointing. A real… Santa Claus moment.
Interrupted as the nurse re-enters the room pushing before her a small trolley, from which she hands ache1 a glass of water, and a tiny cardboard tumbler rattling with tablets. She waits to witness her patient swallow each of them individually.
As the nurse leaves, Brother Skunk reaches into the interior pocket of his Levi’s jacket and pulls out the new Jack Daniel’s silver hipflask, the unscrewing of its cap producing an all too-loud skreek he momentarily fears will alert the nurse and bring her back, cringing to recognise his sudden lack of self-resolve at the very moment he is attempting bravado.
Skunk (swallowing, nodding to ache1): Tennessee medicine.
even as he is saying the words not knowing why he’s saying them, any thought of her possibly being impressed already clearly dead in the moment, her face registering exactly how not impressed she actually is.
ache1 (pretending this latter hasn’t happened and going back): As you said that makes no sense at all, if you already had the thing itself, why make a copy? What possible purpose...
She watches him actually consider this, before defaulting to his eventual
Skunk: Well Jesus, I mean, ehm,
pause, shrug
Skunk: why not?
ache1 (mistaking him for an employee of the hotel): I miss my Channel 16
ache1: I want my porn.
From that accumulant time spent speaking with his own insensate mother he is not unused to pouring monologue out into the void, and so he would initially chat to her absence with a degree of candour, relating incidents from the day, reminiscing, or simply voicing such thoughts as came to mind in any given moment. When she does eventually however surrender that blank finity to regain consciousness, he suddenly finds himself struggling to locate any topic of conversation as might now sustain them both, questioning if whatever he had hoped for might be slipping away, or if those hopes had ever indeed had any basis in anything at all other than being the cornerstone of some baseless fairytale he had himself created to carry him forward from each day into its tomorrow.
From off the bed-cover he watches her gather her little vinyl E.T. doll back within the dark bruising of her forearms, a gesture perceived less as its collecting unto herself than its sequestering away from him, regardless his own role in its recent repair. The stiffness of her limited movement betrays each attempt to minimise the physical pain she still endures in what seems like her body’s every individual bone.
ache1: Hey thanks again for this little guy, that’s,
visibly emotional
ache1: seriously that that ah, that was really thoughtful. I I
Skunk (hurt): That’s okay, it, I, it wasn’t
Embarrassed, he returns to the menu momentarily forgotten in his hand.
Skunk (all or nothing, a grand swing for the fences): I remember, I was, I must have been twelve because this was when
a little hesitant at the outset
Skunk: I’d just started secondary school
clarifying for her
Skunk: high school, would, do you call it that,
ache1: Yeah, or
Skunk (neither hearing nor listening): and I have no idea why this started, but I became obsessed with photocopies. A guy in my class, his dad worked in the university library and had access to their photocopier, which I’d never, I had no idea what it even really was other than you could get a copy of something, but I can’t even think now why... I have no idea how I would have found out about them, I mean, as something to which I might even have access
visibly working on through his own bewilderment
Skunk: though I was aware of... you know, getting reprints of photographs, but I wasn’t... Anyway, I think they cost something like, maybe two pence each, I think, so I would bring things in to class and give them to this guy along with however much money it would cost
ache1 (a lukewarm element of humouring him): Like what, what were you
Skunk: Oh God... cowboy, Lone Ranger comics
and on, ignoring her reaction
Skunk: At one point my mum must have picked up on all this, and she decided to get something copied as well, though now, exactly what I have no clue, maybe knitting patterns? but I still remember her asking “do you get the original back?”, which at the time I thought was really stupid, but looking back I mean, of course I was being equally stupid spending all this money on getting these poor quality copies of things I already owned
his own sudden and all too visible recognition of this as prompts her to laugh, which laugh he determines her consent to continue even as she herself is saying
ache1: Proceed.
Skunk: It was like that, there’s a moment where you discover that all those trophies that you see in cabinets, or at other people’s houses, things their parents had won at sports or whatever, you could buy the,
rubbing now at the hairs rising upon his forearms
Skunk: The first time I saw a row of them in a shop, on a shelf, and you could just buy them, and have the little panel engraved with whatever you wanted... that was just
remembering
Skunk: ..weird, disappointing. A real… Santa Claus moment.
Interrupted as the nurse re-enters the room pushing before her a small trolley, from which she hands ache1 a glass of water, and a tiny cardboard tumbler rattling with tablets. She waits to witness her patient swallow each of them individually.
As the nurse leaves, Brother Skunk reaches into the interior pocket of his Levi’s jacket and pulls out the new Jack Daniel’s silver hipflask, the unscrewing of its cap producing an all too-loud skreek he momentarily fears will alert the nurse and bring her back, cringing to recognise his sudden lack of self-resolve at the very moment he is attempting bravado.
Skunk (swallowing, nodding to ache1): Tennessee medicine.
even as he is saying the words not knowing why he’s saying them, any thought of her possibly being impressed already clearly dead in the moment, her face registering exactly how not impressed she actually is.
ache1 (pretending this latter hasn’t happened and going back): As you said that makes no sense at all, if you already had the thing itself, why make a copy? What possible purpose...
She watches him actually consider this, before defaulting to his eventual
Skunk: Well Jesus, I mean, ehm,
pause, shrug
Skunk: why not?
