There was nothing that sylvia's husband could say to
destroy the arguement.for he him self had lost faith
in reality, even if it was a kind of nostalgic departure
with that which they call real nowadays,,, he was fr-

-eed from reality but not from time,tied to time, he was
living as every body else :at one out of every sixteen
frames per second .Still trapped in the time loop but
about to get out.He -.'was disturbed by the ringing of

the phone.
He was back in his room again and fidgetting with a

box of matches as before, shaking them, opening and
closing the box, , over and over as the thoughts of the
days events circled around repeating over and over.
Evil vultures of the mind hover to pounce,, .that burn-

-ing smeHl is getting worse^ ,. .. .the only things le-

-ft, ,wall paper and the black winged creatures.
Thoughts circled around; its quality of the realism of
something thats important.not: the number of paper ha-

-ndkercheifs that a company can make in a week, day,
hour, minute, second, . .nothing is real. .that miserable
piece of paper on the floor today, .that would have
been made out of cloth not even a few years ago now,
, nothing is.. .In artificial agony he lay; fighting off the
buzzards, with his ridiculas lines of thought.Until he
was called to his tea by his wife Sylvia who had been
hiding in the kitchen all this time .just like in the ad-

-verts....

It was his favourite meal of meat hung on a hook over

night, usually for the duration of his night shift, as was
the custom that his wife observed.The meat was what
you could call high, its bloated body moved of its own
accord, and had life in its flesh again,, , strange the
kinds of meat that they sold at the supermarket these
days,,, and why his wife had to spend quite so long
the'ee was a mystery.. .seems strange, ,this tea tastes
wrong, ,1 think there actually are magots in that meat.

White magots, , ,pain in the chest, convolslons. .noth-

-ing is real, .the price of believing in reality these days
out dated by market forces;. .buzzing like wasps around
4-uo iri^on image of a pot of jam.

Sitting back in his room again he lights a match and
held it between his small and second fingers,allowing
it to burn, while the old thoughts returned : nothing is   ;

real all is paper, .took out another match and in a daze

struck that too,,

Nothing is built as it should, , ,doesnt last a day long-

-er than paid for. He gripped the second burning match
between two spare fingers and got out a third .The wall
paper began to mo/e about wildly flickering in the fla-

-me light, he struck the third, putting that between his

fingers also.

He balenced all the matches and made a reach for a

steaming cup of after meat tea that was on tee shelf

next to his.. .his mind must have been somewhere

far asvay for his hand went right through the wall and

into the fire that is behind all walls, and there was just

a smear of fluid flesh left on the last remaining brick of

the row of houses , as people wandered and strayed to

work the next morning, , ..

Somewhere in peace-time Britain Timezone.




l3