Have you ever wanted to make a cup of coffee and then suddenly realized that you've already made one? What to do with the cup… his words tailed off into an internal rhythm of noiseless agendas. You drink the coffee. The woman sat attentive but with the relaxed air of a professional therapist. Christopher imagined the cup and drank. The joke was that she was a professional therapist and he was still only thirty four years of age, the plane had crashed, pilot error. Into a mountain. The story hadn't made the news but the butterfly had continued to flap its wings the result breakdown and the slow recovery to small talk. The session had only begun. They agreed to go to sleep and for the next fifty-seven minutes talked body language. Slow sighs His shoulder ached and his corn played silent melodys underneath his left sole. Too much nicotine! It was a safety valve the damage that the drug did went straight to his left foot whilst existence caused physical symptoms within his shoulder muscles.
'You're cured '; the words didn't quite make the impression that damaged minds readily create when given the opportunity. The pain was no longer meant to mean anything just one of those things that was ok, it just meant that Christopher Candid was no longer addicted to life. The chains rattled their welcome and he left the building knowing nothing of the future or the reason for his discharge from the past. He decided that life was filled with little illuminations that liked surprises themselves, he liked the fact that he felt nothing except his own sense of being free. Strangers passed by and urban jazz played on the corner street café. He liked jazz and he was alone.

Spoken to the twin daughters of Ipanema and Nina Simone

 It was surprising and yet not disconcerting to find faces turning their gaze towards unseen shadows. The street was a grim reminder of life outside the city, that entered the imagination of his generation, the small town was a wasteland, a place where the company grew slug like and where life longed to run to the rhythms of some still heart. He was used to the way people looked and walked when something was one their mind. People disappeared into the pavement or just plain took off. He remembered sleeping in countless places. Paris slums and Tuscany seaside resorts. He recalled the art of granite cities and the way Parisian tramps had with strangers, he smiled an ignorant smile and vainly wanted it all to begin once more. Only the movie would be different, instead of color there would be black and white. He wondered if it would make any difference if he looked up at a blue sky that sank into the dust of a town that was so much like his life. Shopping.
Life was all about looking up whilst making the wheels turn, it didn't make sense a figure on a coin that lands empty handed into the grasping fingers of some beggar. The beggar begs until he can afford to play, putting his dreams down on paper he lives the dream and turns over in his bed to find a woman he loved a long time ago. Young or old it makes sense only to those whom snapped the hollow reed. Living wasn't just about broken hearts. The hollow reed was sanity, it was anything that you made precious and like a child learning to play with clay you saw the clay first then realized that there is was a human being, amongst the drying dirt, that is if you were insane or ever had been.
Chris took small steps, the pain of new shoes, a new pair of slacks and a clean sweater all made the illusion complete. A man fit to drop out of the perversity of having gone all the way. In one angry journey through the most beautiful of continents. New shoes worn on feet that were bloody and blistered bought with a handful of lira. The world was a forgiving place he had been given the choice, a police cell in the Hook of Holland; or (he still liked the Dutch) a one way ticket to England. The reason was never made clear. He hadn't even considered it harassment and had found it mildly curious. He had questioned the coat of arms on the check out desk of the ferry terminal. So much for small talk. He took a drag on his cigarette and wondered where he was; who he was and where he was .but he knew that it would cost.
Life was filled with small crimes all with their just punishments, some saw just the punishment some just noticed the crime. The trick was to see the picture; that whilst only a reproduction was closely guarded by the artist. The artist as criminal was like looking into eyes of an angry mother whilst the same artist wore the black gown of crown's prosecution. It wasn't as if he had stolen anything important only the title of renegade and traveler, a hat and some shoes. The camera was stolen in Rome and he considered it an eye for an eye. His only regret was that it contained shots of a film location somewhere in Northern Italy, a small copse outside one of those sleepy villages where the old men give advice on amore. No that was it, he remembered describing to a shopkeeper the way a beautiful young girl rode a bicycle. There was nothing to describe but he seemed friendly enough, they had both forgotten about opening the small store however and eventually parted company
It was strange how jazz suited shopping Christopher assumed that anger and food all amounted to a fond frustration, the sort that never said boo but dwelt in the fascination of pushing a trolley and trying not to fill it.
The zimmer frame stood before him, a frail woman of small dimensions leant helplessly old and stupid upon it. He stared at her in loving hatred.
'Walk! Slowly one foot then rest, and lift'. She took a step back and she very slowly lifted her foot and took a step. 'OK, well done you old bag, now again'. The room was part dining room and part ballroom. Evita reminded him of regret. Wallowing in sorrow and thinking in French, he looked out of the bay window and saw a disturbing and heart breaking sight. His mother's car was parked outside. Anger! He didn't want to see her. But knew that he was obligated, but not now; later when he was ready. 'Don't cry for me Argentina'. The room stank of tea.
Feeling miserable in a romance that only he could see, looking into a mirror and trying to be clear and calm whilst seeing the form of an ugly child for the first time. His head had almost exploded and his heart was pounding in shock. Pleasure and pain. Mixing the two was like drinking at a cocktail bar and never having to pay the tab. It was also like being born. How many times was he going to go through the birth canal before he realized that he was just wasting time on being romantic.
The girl used to appear and disappear in a sort of hallucinogenic sort of dance. They would meet like strangers who maybe had been husband and wife long ago but had forgotten about the each other in the way that only true romance could explain. He wasn't sure who she was or what she was doing at his side, only that she was pretty. He laughed at her nose and didn't mind when she disappeared. He could only describe the encounters as a lesson in discovery. There was no desire just attraction. Being with her was fun and innocent. He danced for her and himself to the tune of some melody that just happened to fit perfectly. She had killed herself soon after.
The food was passed through the till; he looked at the check out, the rows of seated men and women. He felt someone kick his heal and realized a small child was behind him in the line, the child picked up a nut from the floor, Christopher marveled briefly at the cosmic joke as only the truly free can. The child's father appeared embarrassed as only the kind can. Christopher paid the girl for the food and hurried out of the store. Into the eyes of nothing but memory, a town twinned with La Meme Chose. He passed the black and white picture of the funeral directors; the flower shop; the Navel and Military public house, the Samaritans; he realized two things, everyone nodded and winked to the things that they thought were important and were worth keeping. It wasn't what you knew it was the how many times the same thing came roaring out of the blue comedy. Meaning sex had become interesting enough to leave well alone until like some strange3 fruit it developed until the gestalt of countless gestalts gave it up as pure laughter from who knew where. Confusion was the key. First get everything in perspective like a diamond then stir until breakdown. He decided to go home.
To the tune of Good King Wencestlas and count the rain drops

Home was four rooms filled with the music of dead and obscure heroes. . The rent was paid and the locks were sound, people didn't die in places like this they went crazy. Christopher looked at the clock, six forty five AM sweat trickled down his chest, he noticed the condensation on the windowpane and felt the urge for yet another cigarette. Something began to pulse like music; in tune flowing ghostlike. A city that existed somewhere in the imagination opened its arteries like a snake wrapping itself around the anal gland of some far-gone mystic. Grey dawn chilled the morning; something somewhere let out a hiss.
He took a pill and watched the early light of some distant fantasy that meant nothing but trouble. Trouble came in small packages, in breathing in the oxygen of other people's neurosis; it kept knocking at the door wanting to shine in the corners of your eyes. Most people weren't at home when the stairs gave way and little footsteps rushed to find out the latest shout of gossip that was a tropical rainstorm flying faceless like dust to the sleepwalker. The dreams were real and waking up was difficult. Only the immersed would listen to their hearts going out the door away from the coaxing of the draining sensation of a man that played in the bathrooms of the rich and famous, young and poor alike. He had been that man found only at parties and always in the bathroom
Christopher didn't have friends; he had himself and the memory of what it was like to mix. People came and went, but the dancing had begun to get on his nerves. After realizing the vacuous nature of coupling and having turned to the adventure of saying no to western global paranoia that ultimately meant Chicken tonight he had momentarily embraced worship of the primary Narcissus. This void of ultimate being intrigued him, perhaps because he saw it as the ultimate escape from the responsibilities of being human. Eastern philosophy meant mystery and he had plunged into the role of follower with relish. He had joined the cult of wild dervishes a group of young men and woman all drawn together with the intent to find the ultimate in everyday hedonism. They had no leaders and no agenda, nothing was taboo and membership meant, to Candide at least being special for once. He found comfort in being the one who dreamed of being a writer and often quipped that reality was a mystery. He remembered that everyone had found him funny that was until the cult discovered that the tempo of life could be turned up a few notches Strangely the occult filled him with revulsion. He had taken a trip to Glastonbury and had found it offensive. The place was a hole filled with the stupid hocus pocus of merry olde England. The inhabitants lacked the imagination of their tourist masters but made up for it in guile and common sense. The almost biological relationship a symbiotic tug of war between the visitors and the visited was a sham; all revolving around some strange glamour that was like a visit to the circus. Americans liked the fact that they were engaging in some sort of cultural ritual and the town's inhabitants cashed in on the history of Christianity, making up their own version on the way. All this resulted in the cult of lifestyle that was sold to any passerby who cared slightly for the fact that life just didn't make sense what ever spin you put on it. The dervishes had loved it. His interest had resulted in sleepless nights and eventual hospitalization. He faced facts. God meant something to everyone but to him it meant buying a book on feng shui and not being surprised that the system was so convincing. The system was so convincing because of a weakness in the human character that liked things like gestalt to work. Reason was more than adding and subtracting figures it was realizing that these figures are part of a play between the desire to create and the desire to forget that you created in the first place. He had decided that it meant only one thing, trouble. Trouble was he knew now what they meant when it, being reality, went wrong.
Guilt for being human, this was the final fantasy, a fantasy that only the truly stupid could afford. Not bothering but being bothered by action. Like an actor who is on the set for the first time Christopher Candide knew all about paralysis. He had discovered why people were so scared to act, to speak to be human. Someone had made it clear that life needed qualifying. Life was all about being standardized. For the purpose of accounting for the great profits and losses that men believed could be made out of the exploitation of a human life. Men and women made slaves by their own desire to enslave. They called it necessity and it had seeped into the fabric of everything that had some human purpose. What do you do when you knew, you really knew that sort of corruption? Christopher Candide had been scared in to becoming a human being; he now knew responsibility of a sort that made men into heroes or villains. He could be called educated and thus was condemned. Morning broke into shards of light thrust straight from the hands of Priam. He knew that the day would be a long one. Getting on a coat or tie was straining his every nerve ending.
The flat looked a mess and he was too ill to clear up behind him. Well you could say this was due his preoccupation with himself and he would be the first to agree with you. Morning often brings surprises and today the surprise would be like nothing this man would believe. The lesson would be forgotten but the experience would last a life- time. Maybe more Candide opened the curtains to find a new day and like an old man looking for his spectacles went out into the morning once more.
The street looked and felt just like suburbia but the edge was only an imagined line between the hedgerows inner decay had set in and candide was an urgent and trusting disciple of a new spirit that had taken root in his once decrepit frame. The new and bizarre world lay just beneath the surface catching it meant holding out one's hand and reaching for the pearl that was inside the dreamer. Candide remembered his old friend. Karma and his steps became sure as he left the past behind him and once again walked towards the town of his birth, his feet began to itch and his hands deftly parted company with yet another spent cigarette. The good people of his neighborhood were out getting into their shiny new cars and he passed each one knowing compromise with the glee of a child. Alcoholism remained anonymous but being a junkie was a path that led to the door of compassion he had entered long ago but now a new door was opened and he wisely stepped into it. Could Christopher Candide survive wisdom and doing the right thing, or would he fall at the first hurdle that unknown friends had placed before him. He realized suddenly that someone was with him a man-child dressed to kill and all for seeing that judgement was seen to be done. The man aged twenty-five passed Candide without comment talking on a small cellular phone. His girlfriend no doubt or maybe his mother Candide ate the man's dust and was suddenly miserable. The effects of the drugs were beginning to cool his even composure. He was all alone in the world and he had a debt to pay, gambling and the corruption that he had created in his mind was suddenly too much to bear, his steps faltered and he felt the pain begin to grow. He picked his pockets for yet another cigarette. And then suddenly he realized what he must do, the journey into madness had to be repeated but this time… his thoughts trailed away within the excitement of realization. He would conquer Europe again.

It was a Wednesday, the seventeenth of July and he had acquired from the state, (from whom he owed everything) the princely sum of two thousand pounds. He remembered that he had made a reproduction of the journey that he had taken all those years ago, before his breakdown it was at his Mother's house. He had outlined the route in orange, France; Italy Switzerland then back to France and on to Holland and then England. A moment of doubt entered into his busy brain where did the journey begin? The answer lay in the oil town of Aberdeen; he would follow his instincts back to that place then return. He was tempted to stop right there, the risk was too great, a subtle and psychological fear entered his mind. He would ride up to Scotland on the train but this time there would be no one to greet him only the cold and miserable weather that made the northern Scot such a hardy character. He would have no friends, none but the usual type who befriended travelers, kind but somehow transitory.
The road into the market town of his birth was still. The sun was shining. Candide had started his odyssey into the bleak drama of what could only be termed as karma. His journey had started with a walk into the heartland of southwest England and now he was still walking, this time he limped in pain as his proverbial left foot recoiled at the punishment of so many miles on the road. The noise of the traffic began to increase as he neared an old leper colony, he suddenly felt free as he witnessed the sum total of human culture pass by on four wheels, the occupants looked bored or angry. Christopher Candide no longer saw these images of western life as enigmatic he could actually look out from his aging frame and see the possibilities of optimism. The journey with its hint at redemption had started on a high note
Freedom had two faces, Candide mused the first was the fantastic notion of escape in the face of terrible but altogether real possibilities. The flight into fantasy, the second face was the escape from a terrible fantasy into what only could be called fantastic reality. Passers by now appeared staid and oh so English with pale complexions. With the dress sense of some rather bemused ancient teenager a stranger quickly and confidently passed Candide, a big fish in a small oceanic pool, Candide began to remember the night of the motorcycles.
He had been running scared for so long always onwards and never thinking. The inward dialogue was constant and had turned to a hot gaseous material; Fear ate away at his sanity. He continued blindly until he found a quiet suburban park. It was getting dark and he was tired and completely without thought he found a dark spot to hide within the undergrowth of the park. He was safe and the dirt no longer bothered him. He listened to the sound of the town, distant and the threat of discovery gradually waned. He fell into a deep; exhausted sleep.