The Blink That Killed the Eye
THE BLINK THAT KILLED THE EYE
THE BLINK THAT KILLED THE EYE
Anthony Anaxagorou is an acclaimed poet, prose writer, playwright, performer and educator. He has published eight volumes of poetry, a spoken word EP and written for theatre. His poetry has appeared on BBC Youth Nation, BBC Newsnight, the British Urban Film Awards, BBC 6 Music and been performed by Cirque du Soleil. He teaches poetry and creative writing in schools, and works closely with both The Poetry Society and First Story. His work has been studied in universities across the USA, UK and Australia, as well as being translated into Spanish, Japanese and French.
www.anthonyanaxagorou.com
Also by Anthony Anaxagorou
Poetry
Card Not Accepted
Poems to Maya
Pale Remembered
The Lost Definition of Hope
Let This Be The Call
Returning Stranger
Sad Dance
A Difficult Place to Be Human
EP
It Will Come To You
THE BLINK THAT
KILLED THE EYE
and other stories
Anthony Anaxagorou
JACARANDA
LONDON
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Jacaranda Books Art Music Ltd
5 Achilles Road
London NW6 1DZ
www.jacarandabooksartmusic.co.uk
Copyright © Anthony Anaxagorou, 2014
1
Typeset by James Nunn.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI.
The moral right of Anthony Anaxagorou to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781909762046
eISBN: 9781909762107
The paper this book is printed on is certified by the (c) 1996 Forest Stewardship Council A.C. (FSC). It is ancient-forest friendly. The printer holds FSC chain of custody SGS-COC-2061.
For Sabrina Mahfouz
In a very ordinary world
A most extraordinary pain mingles with the small routines,
The loss seems huge and yet
Nothing can be pinned down or fully explained.
Brian Patten
Contents
Bad Company
Keep Still
Building Six
Have You Ever Seen A Big Man Fall?
Yellow Daffodil
Cowboy
Belongings
The Blink That Killed The Eye
Last Lament
Acknowledgements
Bad Company
It’s always during moments like this, amidst the slapping wind, bitter frustration and utter powerlessness that I think back to my father. Know your worth is what he would say. A conservative tie primly crossed at the point where his throat would tighten to speak, only ever allowing itself to loosen after an essential stream of whiskey had taken to relax his blood. He lived alone, my parents deciding to divorce the year before I started secondary school. Sallow lighting hung around the unkept corners of the modest room he rented. He had no friends and cared little for sports or anything involving teams. He would constantly stress that people spoke too much. Fervently he would say how everyone held opinions and agendas that only served to compensate for what their lives were really lacking.
Stay focused.
He kept no pets and watered no plants, admitting both required a love he was unable to provide. When it came to music and literature however he was more than capable of generating an exclusive, spacious heart where both could be accommodated. I would always leave him feeling more and more confused. On the one hand he loathed opinion and similarly the opinionated, yet on the other that’s all he was, a non-active, contradictory set of theories and beliefs. His bare and laconic style of interaction would cause whatever he expressed to linger for unhealthy periods of time on the bleak shores of my young consciousness. In our life we all die many times Alex, it’s the last death we need to be most worried about. What did that even mean?
Often when he would begin speaking on subjects of life and purpose I would be hunched in one of the corners of his room, ranting in cynical bursts about whatever menial or demoralising job I happened to be under at the time. He would sit pensively, listening, but never with his eyes. His gaze would slowly coast away to meet some invisible creature out beyond his single window, or he would stare vacuously into the palms of his hands, never looking at me. Then astonishingly, once I’d finished his response would somehow be the most concise, the most elucidating and insightful solution or token of advice anyone could have offered me. Poised and aloof he may have appeared, especially to those who first encountered him, but contrary to the assumption they may have formed he was in fact one of the most perceptive and astute characters I had ever known. He simply had a way of doing things in strict accordance with his own set of principles, and society will forever detest and chastise people like that.
It wasn’t until I was older that I was fully able to comprehend what it meant to be present while simultaneously appearing absent in a world crowded with noise and commotion. That’s how his memory works on me now, coming back to present itself whenever I’m left waiting like this, my uncle having gone off to run yet another errand. Once the monotony starts to take effect I find myself rummaging through the moments we had together, unearthing a little relief from those aphoristic penchants he would so readily share. Most recently I’ve been thinking back to the evening we spoke about worth. Him sitting with a single-malt whiskey in his hand, the few remaining tassels of white hair sparsely covering his head. The crows-feet imprinted on his deep eyes spreading and pushing down into his skin at the moment something made him smile, proof that even happiness wants to be acknowledged in the sad history of the face. A quaint lamp bending its light to fit into each uneven crevice making it all seem like sets of individual pages from a great book, one reaching its end but that you desperately need to go on forever. His arms resting over the chair, erudite and boss-like. Know your worth Alex, that’s all you’ll ever need to recognise. Everything else can be learnt from books or life, but worth, that’s something only you can decide.
The winds are picking up. The sky’s overcast. The trees look like old derelict buildings. I’m holding it down. The fourth edge of the blue tarpaulin we put up to act as a low makeshift roof while we build the wall for the top part of his house. My uncle’s house. It’ll become part of an extension he’s planning on converting into a small office, at least that’s what he tells me. I’m pressing down into the corner. Firmly. It’s not even high enough to stand up in but I don’t ask questions. We’re out of nails again, he’s only got screws, which he says can’t be used to fasten the plastic sheet into the wood so he needs to go and buy another packet. It feels like being inside a cheap tent we’ve pitched up at the summit of some undiscovered mountain. The corner I’m crouched in is littered with solidified remnants of cement and scattered wood shavings. A mess. My knees are becoming sore and bruised again. He’s had to go to the B&Q down the road. Again. The only instruction he left me with was to hold my corner down until he came back. Again. To not let go or it’ll take us another hour to try and put the tarpaulin back up. To not fuck up Alex. Again. This is all time we don’t have. Remember what happened the other day? I’m looking around nervously at the unman
ned edges. A pile of stacked bricks on one. Another load stacked on the adjacent corner. Those were all the spare bricks we had up here so we improvised using a drill and a chunky hammer defaced with white paint-speckles to act as the weight for the third corner. I’ve been holding it down, the fourth corner, my corner, for over five minutes now. He knows I could mess it up like I’ve done before, he knows I’m an amateur hence why he scampered down the ladder like running water shouting I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Don’t let me down Al!
The two wooden beams we put up in the middle of the roof to keep the tarpaulin erect are teetering with each new gust of wind. If I do let go and he comes back to find the same mishap as last week then he’ll fire me on the spot. We had the same issue then; only my back gave in minutes after he’d left. My arms started to shake, my leg muscles trembled and before I knew it my body was trying to pull itself apart as the roof collapsed around me. Pathetic really because it took us forty-five minutes to put the whole thing back up again, then another forty-five minutes to take it down at the end of the day. He scorned bitterly that the time altogether cost him £200, threatening to deduct it from my wages although he never did. Instead he proceeded to moan and cuss for thirty of those forty-five minutes, blasting the overall circumstance of things; his fate, his luck, rich people, corrupt politicians and then his ex-wife, concluding at last with the omnipotent God he ardently prayed to each night. For the remaining fifteen minutes he swore directly at me, cursing my idleness and incompetence. Combined within those insults was his view on my general lack of ability to do anything to an even slightly satisfactory standard. If I were to lie I would say his chiding assessment didn’t really bother me, but I won’t lie. In fact, now that I can feel myself becoming increasingly anxious at the possibility of the same situation repeating, I’m forced to recall another recent error, one that caused him again to lose his temper with me.
The day before last I made a cement mix but it was too loose. Again, it was my fault. I ended up adding too much water into the mix by mistake. I wasn’t paying attention. He couldn’t use a mix like that for the wall. In a mad annoyance he dashed the bucket off the roof, slashes of grey runny soup painting the dead grass below. My mind was elsewhere. I tried to explain that to him in the most honest way possible, but he screamed out saying he didn’t give a shit, and I should come to work with a clear, focused head. He said he wasn’t paying me to constantly blunder his work, which as he always reminded me would cost him both time and money. He’s right, it’s his business and his house we’re fixing up after all but here’s the truth of it, I mainly think about her. I think of where we’ve come from and where we might be heading but without the common fondness you might expect to find attached to such a personal and honest confession.
Change hands.
Stretch out the fingers.
Keep strong.
Watch your back.
I’m thinking now if I accidentally do let go again and he comes back to shout, or even call me what he did a few days ago, I’ll probably leave. Leaving any kind of relationship takes a substantial amount of courage, a sure mustering of strength and self-worth both of which I’ve always seemed to lack. I don’t think there’s been a time when I haven’t backed away from some sort of physical confrontation or challenge. As a young boy I would be content to stand inert and unguarded while the onslaught of punches from whoever had taken issue with me would proceed to cut my skin, burst open my lip and blacken my eyes. Back then it seemed far easier to stand and do nothing than to go through the daring ordeal of retaliating with my own series of feeble strikes. Plus, I never regarded myself as a fighter, what with my spindly legs and uncoordinated arms. From then I accepted I would make a skill out of endurance rather than aggression. In class, teachers would scorn me and again I’d do little to stand up for myself. Instead I’d sit surreptitiously at my desk, my face appearing more amazed at their fervent contempt for one so young and blameless than for the brazen reproach of my averse way. Back at home cousins would ridicule everything I came to like about myself which soon enough worked its way into successfully undoing any bit of self-admiration I may have been fortunate enough to establish.
That’s when my back gave way. I was having these very thoughts when I felt a sharp spasm-like twinge attack me, followed by the ataxic withdrawal of motion and stability; finally to be crushed by the collapse, feeling the cold wet ground against my clothes. I couldn’t move. Agony. There was nobody to call. If you’ve been unfortunate enough to experience muscle spasms or have trapped nerves toss your limbs into rolls of stiff relentless whirls, then you’ll know it’s not the burning sensation in the shoulders or the sequential throbbing that drives the overall discomfort. It’s the rigorous trapping in the lower part of the body, the ongoing relentless pangs leaving you groaning in excruciating pain shamed on the floor, prostrate and weird like some marooned starfish. That’s how I must have looked to him when he came back up the ladder with the packet of nails in his hand, to find me wriggling and my body gripped with pain. I’d raised the issue with him before.
The other afternoon he had me carry two buckets of brick-mix up to the roof at the same time. A bucket in each hand whilst trying to climb a ladder. Imagine. For two hours straight. Each one must have weighed around 12kg. After the second hour I admitted, defeated, I couldn’t do it anymore. My hands were raw and calloused and my back was aching to the point it hurt to stand straight. He retorted mockingly saying it was due to the amount of time I’d spent reading books. According to him it had nothing to do with the weight of the brick-mix or the taxing duration of the labouring. Too much looking down he sneered. Too much looking down and sitting in front of those devil screens. He may have had a point. Whenever I happened to be on lunch or waiting for new instructions I’d pull out whatever book I was reading, this was my preferred way of filling the unpredictable gaps between hours. It was either that or stand idly kicking gravel until he decided what it was he wanted me to do. My jobs weren’t particularly exciting either. They mainly ranged from mixing cement, carrying bricks from one place to another, emptying sacks of debris into the skip, cleaning out the back of his van or running to the shops if he needed another packet of cigarettes. I’ve always enjoyed reading.
Poetry, I was to soon discover, had a special reverence within such a disorderly working environment. Its economy meant I was able to dip in and out of pieces without having to follow the particularly long and complex narratives common to most novels. Sometimes I would read the same poem for days, continually discovering something new and appealing. Then, if I wanted to change things up I’d bring in stories, even essays or other non-fictional writing along with a flask of green tea and some sandwiches. Very quickly they too became like spectacular films I could watch on my imagination’s screen. He’d tell me reading was for people who didn’t know how to live, that’s why they were so engrossed in the lives of all those characters that didn’t really exist.
There will come a point in your life where you’ll be forced to make some decisions Alex. To travel into those parts of yourself you fear most. That’s what true bravery is. To go where the lights are broken and the only voice you can make out is your own ugly rebound. Those will be the moments which go on to shape your life. I’m ten minutes in. I’m doing alright so far. I’m being cautious. You see Alex, decisions involving bravery can catapult you out of one reality and straight into another if you let them, sometimes for the worse but sometimes for the better. I’m doing good. I’m feeling strong. Only another five minutes and he’ll be back.
One evening I came home from school with a split lip and a cut eye. My father asked me what happened. I must have been about eight when I told him for the first time that I wasn’t brave. That I didn’t like fighting and all the other boys were stronger and more aggressive than me. I told him I liked reading and how the friends I made in books were far nicer than the ones I made in school. He stubbed out his cigarette tilting my head up towards the ceiling, moving my eye in
to the light so as to see the depth of the cut. Your mother will be upset. How many? Just one I replied staring up at him, a tremble in my throat. So why didn’t you hit the bastard back? Because he was bigger than me and I was scared. He took a breath in turning away to wade off his frustration. Your granddad used to tell me that we were peaceful people living in a violent place. I was the same at your age but there’s only so much the eyes can take before all they’re able to see is dirt. He walked out the room, leaving me to wash the dried blood off my face with a hot towel by the sink. For most young boys that would have been the moment when the next encounter with a bully would result in some kind of assailed retaliation. Not for me though. I wasn’t that strong. I never could hit back.
It’s pouring down with all the confidence of heaven now. One of the beams has fallen. The other three corners seem to be slowly losing their fight too. He’s been gone for nearly twenty minutes. He’s doing it to me again. My fingers are starting to ache turning a light blue against their bones. Take one hand off. Put the other hand on. Flex. Rotate. Keep it together. Put pressure where it’s needed. In the corner. Strength. Stamina. Strength. Stamina.
Since working here I’ve found myself writing more. My friend Wilton who’s a literature aficionado mentioned there were nights in town where people could go to read their work. After some deliberation I decided to take myself along and find the confidence to recite a few pieces I’d recently put together. The people there didn’t speak much to each other which suited me fine. In a safe corner I sat discretely knowing nobody would come to bother me. I signed up for the open-mic. The host, a tall angular man with brown eccentric hair and a waistcoat matching his shoes giving him the appearance of being fashionably odd, told the tense anxious crowd it didn’t matter if others understood the poems or not, the point of the night was for people to come and read free of judgment and criticism. He also stipulated humorously that poems couldn’t be maliciously directed at other poets in the audience, saying it had happened before in the past. The crowd found this amusing, a low rumble of shy laughter gently swallowing each person’s nerves, whereas I stayed too contorted to pay it any real attention.