Britney's Peers
October 18th 2007 06:41
Her face had the look of bruised peach.
Inside she was only half-stoned.
Her hands were Ten Pink Apostles.
Her ears: antennas out of their sockets.
Her head was a TV with too many channels.
She wore a tracksuit that would never see a track.
Thongs on her feet and elsewhere too.
Moved like an icecube in vodka.
She opened the door to a changeroom.
Her name was on that door. And didn’t she just know it. Lucky for her, because if she didn’t she might get lost.
She preffered automatic to manual, but you can’t have everything done for you – she closed the door behind her.
She poured herself into a chair opposite a mirror.
Some lapped out the sides.
The chair was vinyl and receptive to human form.
A table, that had never held a book, was splattered with magazines and other ephemera. She lay her leathery bag on it.
Her name was Britney.
Her eyes, two impoverished pockets, were glassy and framed by black.
She looked herself in the mirror.
She too was named Britney.
She was framed by a gold that made a mockery of gold.
Her hair, spiky and short, was that of an army private.
They placed their hands on their cranium like it was a prize-winning Chinese Gooseberry.
“I’m anything but a private” they told themselves.
“More general than anything”.
Their voice was distant and cerebral.
They were slightly out of synchronicity.
“That’s right,” she said staring into her staring eyes.
“That’s right” she said.
They were both flat and shiny with distant desolate voices.
Aside from each other, their other companion was a glass of rocky liquor that they engaged in bitter conversation daily.
It wasn’t unusual for spats to erupt between the two over nothing. Usually it was over a drink.
“Bitter friend, fancy a shandy?” they said as they held the glasses to their nostrils. A thousand tiny fragments of her reflection looked back at her from an icy bottom.
She held the glass to their sausagey lips and tipped back the fermented potatoes – clear and viscous.
“One potato, two potato.” they sang, moving their heads side to side.
“I say potato” she said.
“You say potato” she said back.
A wig that sat in the frame of the reflection now sat on her reflection’s head.
Britney’s heads, flat and polished , were round about forty revolutions of the sun in age.
The lights that framed the mirror were naked and harsh. One was slightly dysfunctional. It flickered and buzzed. “Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Kkkkkkkkk.”
The door was locked. She stared into herself. She could see that she and her reflection were in a room – roughly similar.
A fly, naïve to the effects of alcohol, swam fatalistically in the viscosity of her glass.
It had lost its bearings in the midst of Britney’s presence.
Britney deployed her foredigit to rescue the disabled mariner.
Using the adhesiveness of the fluid flooded fly she gently transported the intoxicated insect to the table in front of the mirror.
It had made a long journey from the toilet to the drink.
It was really in the shit this time.
It had stared life as a maggot in the eyes on one of Britney’s floating bowel-evacuees.
It would end its life drowning in drink.
Britney dabbed it dry with a greasy napkin that lay on the floor.
The patient whizzed and wanged in the throes of death.
It recalled childhood memories.
When it and its sisters had impersonated pop-princesses.
Its first kiss of rotting meat.
Laying maggots of its own it never would.
A tiny tear fell from its multi-lensed eye.
More fits and spurts – frantic flaps of the flying instruments.
Its fitfully grounded flying attempts stopped.
It started up its single cylinder motor again.But it couldn’t get the old girl off the ground.The intervals between fitfull spurts grew longer.
Until finally it passed away.
It’s lifeless body had drawn its last steaming breath of steaming anything.
Never again would it know the joy of bathing in a puddle of vomit.
It was given a quiet ceremony.
Britney flicked its body off the table with a once caring forefinger that was now dismissive of such fallibilities as mortality.
It wasn’t the first time she’d given something the flick.
She stared off to it’s resting place and placed the finger gently up her nose.
A particularly obstinate obstacle was obstructing her nose-trumpet.
She lent back into her chair.
They lent back into their chairs.
They lent forward and began applying copious amounts of cosmetics.
“Can’t build without a solid foundation”, she said out the side of her yet to be redded bangers-and-mash-lips.
“No you can’t” she retorted from inside the flatness.
“It’s like a prison in here” she continued.
She carried on with the laying of the first coats of weather resistant product.
“One day just seeps into the next. You don’t understand. Whenever you go, I’m lost. Whenever you’re here. I’m misplaced”. her voice was drowning in resignation.
“I wish we could just leave all this and go and live on an island” she snarled.
The face in the mirror grew angry and the brow took on a terrible aspect.
Britney studied it like a child with a spider.
She lay a hand over her sinking cheeks and felt the skull beneath her skin.
She paused as the reflection grew wild in the eyes.
Britney daring not to take her eye of the wild-eyed woman in the window fumbled blindly for her glass.
Like a blindfolded convict she patted the table for that which she sought.
She took the glass to her lips and sucked a solid mouthful of liquid sanctuary to her blood stream.
Her circulation system, boosted by the intoxicating intake, soothed her flailing mind.
The reflection’s eyes became glassy again, and dimmed to a low setting.
Her ten angry apostles, that had become a white fist, were once again placid and amiable.
Normal transmission had resumed.
She was proud to present this program. Sorry for the break.
Britney, now blinking freely, raised the glass to her reflection.
The reflection met Britney’s buoyancy with despondency.
She spilled back into her chair.
Her face framed by gold and encased in glass, she toasted.
“To us”.
Inside she was only half-stoned.
Her hands were Ten Pink Apostles.
Her ears: antennas out of their sockets.
Her head was a TV with too many channels.
She wore a tracksuit that would never see a track.
Thongs on her feet and elsewhere too.
Moved like an icecube in vodka.
She opened the door to a changeroom.
Her name was on that door. And didn’t she just know it. Lucky for her, because if she didn’t she might get lost.
She preffered automatic to manual, but you can’t have everything done for you – she closed the door behind her.
She poured herself into a chair opposite a mirror.
Some lapped out the sides.
The chair was vinyl and receptive to human form.
A table, that had never held a book, was splattered with magazines and other ephemera. She lay her leathery bag on it.
Her name was Britney.
Her eyes, two impoverished pockets, were glassy and framed by black.
She looked herself in the mirror.
She too was named Britney.
She was framed by a gold that made a mockery of gold.
Her hair, spiky and short, was that of an army private.
They placed their hands on their cranium like it was a prize-winning Chinese Gooseberry.
“I’m anything but a private” they told themselves.
“More general than anything”.
Their voice was distant and cerebral.
They were slightly out of synchronicity.
“That’s right,” she said staring into her staring eyes.
“That’s right” she said.
They were both flat and shiny with distant desolate voices.
Aside from each other, their other companion was a glass of rocky liquor that they engaged in bitter conversation daily.
It wasn’t unusual for spats to erupt between the two over nothing. Usually it was over a drink.
“Bitter friend, fancy a shandy?” they said as they held the glasses to their nostrils. A thousand tiny fragments of her reflection looked back at her from an icy bottom.
She held the glass to their sausagey lips and tipped back the fermented potatoes – clear and viscous.
“One potato, two potato.” they sang, moving their heads side to side.
“I say potato” she said.
“You say potato” she said back.
A wig that sat in the frame of the reflection now sat on her reflection’s head.
Britney’s heads, flat and polished , were round about forty revolutions of the sun in age.
The lights that framed the mirror were naked and harsh. One was slightly dysfunctional. It flickered and buzzed. “Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Kkkkkkkkk.”
The door was locked. She stared into herself. She could see that she and her reflection were in a room – roughly similar.
A fly, naïve to the effects of alcohol, swam fatalistically in the viscosity of her glass.
It had lost its bearings in the midst of Britney’s presence.
Britney deployed her foredigit to rescue the disabled mariner.
Using the adhesiveness of the fluid flooded fly she gently transported the intoxicated insect to the table in front of the mirror.
It had made a long journey from the toilet to the drink.
It was really in the shit this time.
It had stared life as a maggot in the eyes on one of Britney’s floating bowel-evacuees.
It would end its life drowning in drink.
Britney dabbed it dry with a greasy napkin that lay on the floor.
The patient whizzed and wanged in the throes of death.
It recalled childhood memories.
When it and its sisters had impersonated pop-princesses.
Its first kiss of rotting meat.
Laying maggots of its own it never would.
A tiny tear fell from its multi-lensed eye.
More fits and spurts – frantic flaps of the flying instruments.
Its fitfully grounded flying attempts stopped.
It started up its single cylinder motor again.But it couldn’t get the old girl off the ground.The intervals between fitfull spurts grew longer.
Until finally it passed away.
It’s lifeless body had drawn its last steaming breath of steaming anything.
Never again would it know the joy of bathing in a puddle of vomit.
It was given a quiet ceremony.
Britney flicked its body off the table with a once caring forefinger that was now dismissive of such fallibilities as mortality.
It wasn’t the first time she’d given something the flick.
She stared off to it’s resting place and placed the finger gently up her nose.
A particularly obstinate obstacle was obstructing her nose-trumpet.
She lent back into her chair.
They lent back into their chairs.
They lent forward and began applying copious amounts of cosmetics.
“Can’t build without a solid foundation”, she said out the side of her yet to be redded bangers-and-mash-lips.
“No you can’t” she retorted from inside the flatness.
“It’s like a prison in here” she continued.
She carried on with the laying of the first coats of weather resistant product.
“One day just seeps into the next. You don’t understand. Whenever you go, I’m lost. Whenever you’re here. I’m misplaced”. her voice was drowning in resignation.
“I wish we could just leave all this and go and live on an island” she snarled.
The face in the mirror grew angry and the brow took on a terrible aspect.
Britney studied it like a child with a spider.
She lay a hand over her sinking cheeks and felt the skull beneath her skin.
She paused as the reflection grew wild in the eyes.
Britney daring not to take her eye of the wild-eyed woman in the window fumbled blindly for her glass.
Like a blindfolded convict she patted the table for that which she sought.
She took the glass to her lips and sucked a solid mouthful of liquid sanctuary to her blood stream.
Her circulation system, boosted by the intoxicating intake, soothed her flailing mind.
The reflection’s eyes became glassy again, and dimmed to a low setting.
Her ten angry apostles, that had become a white fist, were once again placid and amiable.
Normal transmission had resumed.
She was proud to present this program. Sorry for the break.
Britney, now blinking freely, raised the glass to her reflection.
The reflection met Britney’s buoyancy with despondency.
She spilled back into her chair.
Her face framed by gold and encased in glass, she toasted.
“To us”.
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