{"id":72,"date":"2012-02-07T17:17:20","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T17:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=72"},"modified":"2012-02-07T17:17:20","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T17:17:20","slug":"kim-farleighs-vast-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/kim-farleighs-vast-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim Farleigh's 'Vast Present'"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Vast Present<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Two men in black T-shirts and black boots boarded the bus.  One stretched out on a seat and closed his eyes.  The other sat facing the first one. <\/span>

\u201cI love fucking fat women!\u201d the second one said.  \u201cWhat a line!  And what a fantastic, big arse she had as well!\u201d   <\/span>

The stretched-out man leant his head on his seat\u2019s backrest and closed his eyes.  <\/span>

The long-haired talker continued: \u201cI bet you couldn\u2019t get your face out of those tits of hers as well?  They were flesh footballs!\u201d    <\/span>

A mother and daughter were staring out a window.  Old things new in a skeletal-bough world of returning buds coloured the world.       <\/span>

An Englishman was on a back seat.  The sneering talker said: \u201cLook at that guiri.  That bone-white skin isn\u2019t natural.  It\u2019s like a disease.\u201d<\/span>

The stretched-out man folded his arms and smiled weakly.  <\/span>

\u201cLook at those freckles on that white pastiness,\u201d the talker said.  \u201cThat\u2019s disgusting.\u201d<\/span>

Thorny, spiky cactus arms, like tentacles with sharp points, rose from the cactus\u2019s crown-like base that was studded into a green bank, like a tumour.  Speckled daisies in winter green, like emblems of bright possibilities, surrounded the plant.         <\/span>

\u201cHe\u2019s a crab,\u201d the talker grinned.<\/span>

The sleepy man didn\u2019t look.  No one wanted to look at anyone else except the talker.  The talker loved looking at other people.   <\/span>

\u201cHe\u2019s oblivious,\u201d the talker smiled.  \u201cHe doesn\u2019t understand anything!\u201d<\/span>

Easily thrilled, the Englishman thought, by anything except real opportunities. <\/span>

\u201cHow can anyone have hair that colour?\u201d the talker grimaced.  \u201cThat\u2019s not natural.  What a pasty-faced guiri git; and he\u2019s oblivious!\u201d<\/span>

The bus whined away from traffic lights.  An ambulance\u2019s siren wailed.  A motorcycle\u2019s roar rose then disappeared.       <\/span>

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t understand anything,\u201d the smiling talker repeated.<\/span>

Frustrated drivers were blowing horns.  The talker\u2019s excited smile didn\u2019t elicit any enthusiasm from the sleepy man who shut his eyes.    <\/span>

\u201cThat hair,\u201d the talker said, \u201clooks like fairy floss.\u201d<\/span>

The sleepy man didn\u2019t respond.  The talker screwed his face up, disgusted.  <\/span>

The bus stopped beside some road workers who were up to their necks in a hole.  A pile driver started making a din.  The road workers put on headphones.        <\/span>

\u201cHe\u2019s oblivious!\u201d the talker said.<\/span>

A man was pushing a trolley down a footpath.  A woman was selecting fruit from a fruit-and-vegetable shop, her baby in a pram beside her.  <\/span>

The mother and daughter left the bus and went into a post office.  A waiter was taking an order in an outdoor caf\u00e9.  People were minding their own business.  They had business to mind.  <\/span>

\u201cHe looks like a snowflake,\u201d the grinning talker continued, \u201csprayed with shit.\u201d<\/span>

The talker\u2019s frog mouth resembled parallel rubber rings.  The sleepy man didn\u2019t respond.  <\/span>

The Englishman stared out the window, happy that the talker thought that he couldn\u2019t understand Spanish.               <\/span>

\u201cHe\u2019s oblivious,\u201d the talker repeated.<\/span>

An amazed smile split the rubber rings apart.        <\/span>

He acts, the Englishman thought, as if his desired future has already arrived.  But his truth is the present \u2013 and he has no idea that that\u2019s true.    <\/span>

The two men got off.  The talker waved at the Englishman who looked away.  The grinning talker\u2019s waving arm described an arm\u2019s-length circle.       <\/span>

\u201cHe\u2019s oblivious,\u201d the talker repeated, smiling.<\/span>

The talker\u2019s futureless present was so vast that every tiny thing in it was enormous.<\/span>



*Kim Farleigh<\/span> has worked for aid agencies in three conflicts: Iraq, Palestine and Kosovo.  He takes risks to get the experience required for writing.  His stories have been accepted by 41 different magazines.  <\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Vast Present Two men in black T-shirts and black boots boarded the bus.  One stretched out on a seat and closed his eyes.  The other sat facing the first one. \u201cI love fucking fat women!\u201d the second one said.  \u201cWhat a line!  And what a fantastic, big arse she had as well!\u201d   The stretched-out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}