Crazy Cat Sand

By Sam Slattery (C)

The butter then spread tight over the bread.

It was some weird science fiction flecked Sunday afternoon, some time during the period when it seemed like civilization had come to an end-and we were eating the last strawberry yoghurts that'd ever be made-because the fridges had all shut down-and then there was the sand-

And the sun shining down on the wet-and the feeling of wanting to be not too far from sleep if, indeed, this wasn't some messed up dream.

I took a tape and set it in my machine-and listened to bands who sounded like the beach boys drowning-

And who had computers for backing singers.

The songs were endless-and there was traffic passing by-

Instead of listening to them until the end, I turned off the machine, with a sore throat, and started to write The Tale Of Crazy Cat Sand, with half a barely working biro, and on the back of a parking ticket, which got lost in the rubbish-and because I knew it would annoy everyone terribly.

A man from some 1980s, he called round later on, staggering up the beach-and riding the wind so that neither we nor Susie could hear it.

He was dressed in one of those clunky over cast suits, becoming ever more caked in sand- with a tie thinner than a shoe lace-and a moustache like The Chief off of Inspector Gadget.

His mind would forever lurk in empty views of shops, which sold nothing but carpet material, or kitchen vinyl, or faded shopping bags...and the overdubbed pages of porno mags.... Half priced, because they are second hand.

Clean easy when they are wiped.

…..

We watched Suzy doing hand stands, and the mustachioed 1980s man left on a carpet of dismantled sheds-and smoked cigarettes 'til the end.

And I found that my ears were filled with wax and scabs.

The wind blew.

Time smashed into an innumerable number of pieces which, before our eyes, dispersed up the beach.

And no one said anything, as though nothing had actually happened-if, indeed, it had-or did.

Had I made it up-or imagined it?

And I was writing this when I was supposed to be doing something else.

But it wasn't quite working, my plan-and I still hadn't finished-or even started telling- The Tale Of Crazy Cat Sand.

….

So I was flailing, full of menace-and within the whirl wind I forced down a concrete breakfast-and hadn't had the time to let the contents of my belly come to rest, or the contents of my head.

Plus, the sky had turned an off sulphuric yellow-and like Chicken Liken, I feared for cave in.

The pieces raining down like egg shells-the sky falling in.

A Big Bang-explosions-and then I had someone or something on my case-

It was at that point of heavy sleep

I couldn't see the face-it was hidden.

I wanted to tell the pretty girl the tale-but through lucid dreaming, I asked too much-and had to stop before I overran.

And still I hadn't told The Tale...Of Crazy Cat Sand.