Newham Writers Workshop Anthology 1998

		Michael Frank In reality, I live and work in Leyton, I am a general office clerk. Have been for 36 weeks. Before that I was unemployed. I am forty something, male I'm planning a career in Admin, - arts admin - music technology, computers....something utilitarian but creative, using imagination. Using technology in real life situations. I believe in the power of simple ideas. And all that gubbins. I am active, peaceful, a mild drinker, ex-smoker, energetic (when not being very lazy.) I like Joseph Heller. And Jig-saw puzzles. Probably would be very promiscuous, if I didn't love solitude so much. Very shy and nervous (when I'm not annoyingly over-confidant). I feel forever eighteen, (I used to feel forever nineteen). I believe few people read novels. But I do. They seem to alter my perception of the world, and have helped me become something other than what I would have become if I had not read them. I think the process of writing a novel is very different to reading one (when it's not exactly the same...). I would write short stories but..... it seems a waste to invent characters then kill them off.... in fact, the more I think about it I think I am probably going to write a series of novels with the same characters... On The Toilet Roderick felt all sorts of pressures. He stared down at the floor. Cork tiles. So well laid. So smoothly joining each other. He could barely see the line between them. Together, they made one, big floor. Except in places. Where moisture had gathered. Along the join. Other stains and marks, enhanced the oneness of the floor. It was like one of those pictures you look at, where you can look at it two ways. S'pose you could look at it as squares, or as a floor. But, as he walked on it, he thought it was really a floor. The toilet part of the bathroom, was raised sixth inches. But, because it also had cork tiles, it was not a separate unit. He thought it was probably once an outdoor toilet and the door had been created by somebody with a sledgehammer. Mind you, he'd done something like that himself, and this looked like a much better job. So much better that he couldn't really believe that it was an outside toilet. But then, why should it stick out, so much, from the bathroom? Or did it stick out? He wasn't really sure because, when you're inside a building, it's quite difficult to see where you are from the outside. Little boxes, we move from little boxes. Oh dear, he saw some sort of small black, shapeless blob. About an eighth of an inch, moving down the floor in an almost straight line. Towards him. It was a spider. He could now make out the tiny spidery legs. It reached the step and disappeared from view. Steps. It looked like one of his own drawings. With the outline stronger because you could not see the other side of the step.... oh the spider was back. On the blackness... of the step edge. He could just make it out because it was even blacker. He didn't know spiders were so black. Now it was on the cork, moving toward him, but between the gap. with him and the wall. Veering towards his slippers slightly but was heading... he could never predict where it was heading. As soon as he thought it was going for him it would veer off. Disappearing. Underneath him... spiders... is there sole purpose just to keep us awake? To use our eyes so we can follow them to distract us? Is it really trying to distract us? Or keep us awake? What's the point of something with no real consciousness? What's the point of something with a real consciousness? Well, so we can think about consciousness.... so if something can't think about consciousness it doesn't need one... he supposed... But then, it doesn't matter, you just get on with the job in hand, don't you? The toilet roll rested against the wall, supported underneath by resting on a statuette of a woman. With red lips, bald head, and half a bust, disappearing, as it seemed, or rising, from the floor. To the right, cobwebs flecked with plaster had fallen from the crumbling wall. The green bathtub sat there, unobtrusively somehow, its little plastic casing bulging proudly like a chest. Streaks of soapy, dried water leaving traces vertically. Opposite, the washing machine, similarly proud, solid, heavy. The round door, silent, waiting. The immersion heater, an absurd tube, huge and heavy, supported on thick wooden struts. Burn marks where the element went in. Strange corrosive marks half-way up. And a sort of dustbin lid right on top of it. A huge thing, about twelve feet tall. Half-way up the room, up to the ceiling. The white walls. Astonishingly white. He couldn't understand why they were still so white. The whiteness emphasised by the blueness of the toilet walls. Corrosions sticking out of the washing machine. Near the powder compartment which didn't work. And the drainage section, which did work. Another strange round portal. At the bottom. The atmosphere of the bathroom is dominated by cold. The heater had broken. One of those special bathroom heaters mounted on the wall. Electric. But high up with a string. It was cold but the cork made it just bearable. It added a kind of softness. And a warmth, to the feet. It was very quiet. Apart from the dripping of the broken cistern behind him, occasionally it would drip. Every two seconds. To a pink waste-paper bin that had been placed underneath it. Which was three-quarters full. He could also hear very vaguely, the garden, the wind chimes in the garden.