Over the last few days I’ve joined in with the trendy people who write as their first activity of the day. I say this having spent no time at all researching or involving myself in understanding and unpacking this trend. My wife mentioned it and, while I thought it sounded cool, I couldn’t imagine myself actually doing it – at least until I had a particularly weird dream which I’m going to call: inspiration.
My morning agenda revolves almost exclusively around sleep and then rushing to prepare myself for work. I write best in the morning – I feel fresh and energetic – but not until after I’ve had a shower and time to reconnect all the various parts of my consciousness. Regardless, for a couple of days I have awoken with the express desire to write – I have immediately reached for my phone and written down whatever was running through my head.
I’ve done this twice now. Both times have been thoroughly rewarding though. I write for ten minutes, or until I start to feel like I’m becoming aware of some kind of narrative and consciously trying to shape it. See, I don’t feel like awareness is particularly meaningful for this kind of writing. The agenda works simply for maximum joy: wake, write, forget about it and navigate normal day. Then, in the evening, I go back and read whatever fell out of my messy head in all of its typo-fueled glory.
Without further ado, this is what I wrote this morning:
The woman from flat 27 was trying to be subtle. Everyone was gathered around the little stage and she had positioned herself to one side facing the audience with that dull look that accompanied jokes people don’t understand.
She wore black and white- her immense paunch and sagging breasts giving her a remarkably shapeless appearance- something like a distorted malteser or an ice cream abandoned to melt on the floor.
Beside her- regardless of the audiences dim awareness- was what they would infer to be her friend. Not that, at first pass, they would be able to articulate exactly why it possessed this friendly quality. He sat on the other side of the stage- his immense head moving doll-like or with the slow precision of a clown’s as it waited for a new ball to be pushed down its proffered throat. Its hulking mass was impossible to ignore and the pile of splintered bamboo on the floor made the whole scene ring of a Thai display of martial finesse. In his clawed hand he deftly clutched a shoot of the rigid plant, wielding it weapon-like, yet as absently as a cigarette between puffs. His jaw edged up and down in a chewing motion even while there was nothing to chew.
The strangest thing for the partygoers was not that there was a panda that appeared remarkably comfortable positioned where the entertainment was supposed to be, but that there was an unclear question haunting the scene about whether or not the woman from flat 27 was intentionally dressed to look like a panda as well. Her drooping face and dull eyes gave her that animal vacancy that only pandas could muster- stupid as they were. She even chewed pathetically on a bamboo shoot that her omnivorous teeth could do nothing to reshape.
