Author Archives: Delicto

That Dream / It’s good to see you again, but I also have something to tell you

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Image: Archer Iñíguez

That was a bloody good dream I had that night. 

I walked into a room and found Sam Roberts smiling like he always did. I expected him to disappear, but he didn’t, and he gave me a big hug. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I’m always here, but you never see me,” he chuckled.

“I’ve not seen you for nearly 40 years.”

“Well, this week you’ve been thinking about me, and that’s a good reason to see you.”  

I didn’t know what to say. 

“But I also have something to tell you,” he added. “I want you to know that we never go away, and that means that you should never be sad.”

“Grandad, I’m not sad. In fact, I’m incredibly happy to see you.”

He was about to say something else but thought better of it. I could see that his figure was quickly fading, and there was only enough time for him to smile and wave, and in a flash, he had vanished.

Today, I thought about that dream after I received the telephone call to say that my dad had passed away.

Let love paint a smile that rivals a clown’s luminous grin

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Image: Archer Iñíguez

Francisco said that I must see him perform while his circus was in town.

The last time I’d been to a circus there were galloping horses, lumbering elephants and ferocious lions. A bit like Mr Galliano’s Circus, written sixty years before, but there was still a connection.

This ‘new circus’ was different, a theatrical performance with circus skills, dance, music, and storytelling. And there were lots of clowns which made it difficult to pick him out. But he’d reserved a seat on the front row and knew exactly where I was sitting. I recognised his skinny frame when he bounced over in full clown regalia.

The boy with the big dick and a smudge of eczema on his left buttock stood before me and placed his hand where his heart should have been. Then he put something into the palm of my hand.

It was a ceramic egg with a clown’s face painted on it. I stared at it, unsure as to whether I should give it back or not, and then I saw that it was Francesco’s clown face on the egg.

When I looked up he’d gone, lost amidst the chaos, still fooling around, and not taking life seriously.

I get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because I like to read

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Two stories. Two boys. “The realisation came to him that a difficult and miserable age had begun for him, and he couldn’t imagine when it would end.” In 1945, Alberto Moravia was writing about puberty, moral dilemmas and sexual awakening. Agostino, the story of a 13-year-old boy’s adolescence and an obsession with bad boys on sunny beaches. I think back to that age, and, almost certainly, I might have been Agostino himself. And then there is Luka, a troubled boy, who appears in 1948’s Disobedience, who resists societal norms and expectations, and acts strangely. Only later did I read that this was supposed to be allegorical, and meant to highlight his refusal to serve in the Italian army during World WarTwo. I didn’t like Luca much, but there again, I had completely missed the point. I’m a dumbass!

That Moment / The Student Pickup

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All things considered, there is something perverse about this Sunday afternoon. But the sun shines and makes you do things that are out of the ordinary. And on this day you follow a stranger into the Oxfam shop and watch as he browses a secondhand copy of The Divine Beauty of Mathematics. You kid yourself that this isn’t wrong. Strange maybe, but when he bends over to put it back on the bottom shelf, and purposely shows you the crack of his arse, then everything about this is okay.

Keep a notebook. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain… but it never happens

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What is it with buying new notebooks? I see one that I like and end up putting it on the growing pile of unused ones, and I tell myself that one day I will put down all my thoughts and ideas until it is full, and resist the urge to start a new one. But it will never happen because there is something therapeutic about starting a new notebook. Those seductive pages that urge you to write something brilliant, but never actually get around to it.

When does a secret stop being a secret?

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I swear that I didn’t tell anyone, Colvey. I know that you won’t believe me, but I didn’t write this. It was supposed to be a secret between us. But if I’m honest, I kinda like the fact that you like twiddling. 

That Moment / Once you ignored me, and now I am special

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I saw you several times and you ignored me. Why do I remember that? It was because I thought you were handsome. But ignorance turned into friendship, and I hadn’t realised how generous you were. And that generosity came from Robin Hood. Steal from the wealthy, and give it to others. I met you tonight, fresh faced and smart, a tap on the shoulder, a cheeky wink, and you gave me a bottle of beer. I doubted that you had ever ignored me. 

He understood that a work of art, or an effort to create beauty, was regarded by some people as a personal attack

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They said he was a prodigy, and I didn’t doubt it. Pour le piano. He played notes that were delicate and haunting. But those gentle sounds had meaning and showed that he recognised beauty but didn’t know what to do with it, and this was the cause of his torment.

He peered from underneath a baseball cap, sad frightened eyes, that looked at the door behind.

“When Debussy died on March 25, 1918, in Paris, it was being bombarded by the Germans….” He stopped playing, “ … “and it was raining.” I’d heard this line before but couldn’t remember where.

He walked towards the bookshelf and pulled out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes that were hidden behind Patti Smith’s A Book of Days. The holy egoism of genius. He blew smoke into the air. “I am repaired, reconstructed, remodelled, remixed, rethought, reimagined, reinterpreted, rekindled, reactivated, but not rebooted!”

***

Almost everything here is inspired by Art of Noise

That Moment / I felt nothing because I was happy

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A girl who was supposed to be Ian Van Dahl mimed Castles in the Sky on stage. We wandered along the dark balcony and thought that it was incredibly good. Balloons rained down and the crowd shrieked. She reached the chorus line – Oh tell me why. Are the castles way up high. Please tell me why. Do we build castles in the sky? – and it all went wrong. I tripped over a hidden step and fell twenty feet below. I felt nothing because I was happy. I lay there and heard a guy say, “That was a fucking big balloon!”

Eydelshteyn / An audition naked in bed

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