Exclamation!

Some of the days that go by should have exclamation marks after them.
Yesterday had photorealistic houses but painted flames coming from
the roofs. I saw it from up on the hill!









                               
      story: stanley donwood; pic:               nataliandwarnings

There's just the muffled crunchy sound of teeth grinding and scraping of boots on tarmac or something and a noise far away that maybe is someone crying or a cat and everything moves a bit in the wind but there isn't any noise of that sort of thing. There's a tape on of people talking about probably nothing important at a restaurant and a marching sound that's a bit like a lot of soldiers and a bit like a wheel rubbing against metal but it might not be a tape it's hard to tell. And everyone's run out of jokes because no-ones laughing at anything although they probably would if they had a sense of humour. Probably nothing important. Just a noise in the dark when youre half asleep something behind the curtains don't look its nothing don't look honestly its nothing. Maybe it's the town you live in making these noises or maybe it's you. Just a million mobiles and modems squawking and spluttering and hissing like piss on a fire like a million gallons of piss on an inferno just think of that eh? 
Just think of that. Vertebrae being sawn apart sounds like this.

And when I opened the curtains they were taking the set away and packing up for the day, the cameras and lights turned off. The darkness replaced with striplights and and the grey skies the blind whirring of machinery.
I'd like to write a beautiful story about love:

(story: Stanley Donwood; illustration: nataliandwarnings)

condiment

So one day I began collecting: I urinated into a large jar. I masturbated and scooped my ejaculate into a second jar. I took a knife from the drawer and made an incision on the end of my finger and squeezed the blood in thin trickles and fat drops into a third jar. I sat down with a fourth jar on my lap, and thought of sad things. Then I wept into the jar. I repeated these actions every evening, each fluid into its appointed jar. After a month, I emptied the contents of the jars into small saucepans, which I heated carefully until I had evaporated the liquid. When the pans had cooled, I scraped the residue, with the aid of a funnel, into separate salt cellars. I then tasted each of my personal salts, judging which would go best with what food. My experiment was a resounding success. The salts seemed to impart a subtle intensity to spicy dishes, and a freshness and zest to even the most homely soup. And so my restaurant began to attract many more patrons as increasing numbers of adulatory reviews appeared in some of the Sunday supplements. Obviously, I had to continue to produce the salts that had made my culinary creations such overnight successes. My establishment was now being patronised by celebrities as well as politicians and the merely rich. My difficulty lay chiefly with eliciting sadness on demand. On some nights I would sit in my chair, the fourth jar on my lap, and start laughing with joy at the success of my restaurant. I would have to force myself to envisage a starving child or departing lover. I knew that there was boundless, ceaseless suffering on this Earth, but I found it more and more difficult to identify with it myself, while the prestige of my restaurant grew higher, and with it my bank balance. I found that the most efficacious manner of forcing tears from my eyes was to think of love; loves lost, love's tragedies, and love's hopelessness. And so it was that I began to have trouble with the second jar. Latterly, my attempts at masturbation were rather more difficult, as my erotic thoughts staggered and tumbled into the despair I needed for the fourth jar. Not infrequently, I found it impossible to distinguish between sorrow and love. After five months, I caught myself ejaculating into my lap, upon which rested the jar meant for tears. I began to find sorrow arousing, and could not cry without getting an erection. Conversely, I could not find a woman attractive without starting to weep. I worried about my salts, for my supplies were running low. Moreover, the quality of the salt from the first jar was beginning to decline, as I attempted to find solace in alcoholic abandon. I would drink deeply; and laugh, and cry. But my urine suffered. It became thin and pale, copius but worthless. The salt I extracted was tasteless. The reputation of my restaurant would keep its fortunes bouyant for a while, but I knew that sooner, rather than later, the decline in the quality of the seasonings would be noted. I sank lower into despair. I could not run the terrible risk of sharing my secret with anyone else. I had only one reliable source of salt - that which filled the third jar. The third jar never ran out. The menu had to reflect this, and there was a preponderance of rich, red, meaty dishes, lavishly enhanced with the salt of my blood, trickled - or sometimes drunkenly spurted, gushed - from my fingers, thumbs, wrists or arms every evening. But I was weakening. My drinking was becoming uncontrollable, I would involuntarily orgasm during the news, and burst into tears at the most inopportune moments. The constant bloodletting was making me anaemic. I resolved to return to the formula that had won my eaterie so many plaudits. Determinedly, I researched the most emotionally draining novels, the most haunting poems. I ejaculated again and again into the second jar. I drank pure fruit juice and mineral water and produced once again the golden, viscous urine that filled the first jar. I wept uncontrollably, for three-quarters of a hour, with a pornographic magazine propped in front of me. And I took the sharpest knife and drew one widening red line across my wrist. The banquet was a success. S.Donwood; nataliandwarnings-image

The children play along the canal where the warehouses used to be. They have elaborate games and run across planks over the water. They don't mind when the helicopters come over because they have got used to them. Look, I say. That's where Homebase used to be. They are not interested. It's not their fault. Maybe it's mine.
Go.
(story by Mr. Donwood)

''don't look it's nothing! don't look, honestly, it's nothing!