Undrafted

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The Poet Who Didn't Write

In a room without windows, strange things can happen to a man's mind. And, in a cavernous cellar bar buried deep in the city’s underbelly, with a heavy mix of rain and pressure in the Friday night air, it can warp you beyond all recognisable form. This is what happened to a man before my very eyes. He lost his shape. He seemed to know everybody, but was a friend of no one. The room moved around him like he was the eye of a storm. But he couldn't be. He lacked the calm of a storm’s eye. He may have been physically still, yes, but inside, emotionally, there was turbulence. I'd seen him hopping between people and the bar throughout the evening. Never very long with the people. Always a long time at the bar, trying to pick up drinks and conversations. Not many conversations—not long ones, anyway. But plenty of long drinks. When I found myself next to him at the bar, he claimed to know me. At first, I thought, maybe he did. I've met lots of random people in my time, and I h...

Somewhere There is a Crime Happening

The first time I saw Robocop was on VHS rental from my local video store. It was in the school summer holiday of 1988. I was ten years old. When my friend and I tried to rent it, the video shop lady (that's what we called her) unsurprisingly said we were too young and refused to give us the tape. But we were persistent kids who wouldn't take no for an answer, so we needled her, trying to break her down until she said yes. She eventually relented and made us a proposition: If we returned with a letter from our parents saying we could watch the film, she'd let us rent it. We explained that our parents were all at work and my Grandma was looking after us (which was true). So she said we'd need written permission from my Grandma. We said ok and left the store. She probably thought we were just trying it on and that she'd managed to get rid of us. But we went straight to my house and asked my Grandma— who was standing in the kitchen organising the contents of on...

Whatever You Do, Don’t Owe Roger

Roger is in his late fifties. He's young at heart and bounces around with animated sugar-rush energy. Six cups of tea a day (four sugars in each) will do that to you. He's medium height and looks haggard yet healthy, with tanned, leathery skin covering his athletic frame. His usual greeting when entering a room is a loud and friendly, "Hello, groovers!" The most striking thing about Roger's appearance is his wavy collar-length bleach-blonde hair (noticeably darker at the root). Only slightly less remarkable are his jewel-like blue eyes that seem to squint and shine with secrets. Below them, he wears a quasi-permanent crooked, toothy grin. At least one of those teeth has cracked completely in half and been superglued back in place by his own fair hand. His wardrobe, like his record collection, is entirely from the seventies. All natural fabrics (assuming you consider velvet to be natural); he's never worn a piece of sportswear in his life (unless you c...

48 Hours in Ronda

It was around midday when we found Miguel. He was slouching on the steps beneath a human-sized stone cross on the edge of town. Slim, with tanned, leathery skin, thin lips, and dark, lank hair falling on his shoulders from beneath his leather cowboy hat, he looked every inch the Western outlaw. We knew right away he was our man. He got our attention with an almost comic book line, "Hey, you want something to smoke?" We said yes and began conversing in the local tongue. I say we—I left the talking to my travelling companion, Senor Tony, as his Spanish was far more fluent than mine. Within a couple of minutes, Miguel presented us with a small block of hashish. I could tell right away it was good stuff; dark and oily—the best we'd had all trip. This was Ronda, the final stop on our two-week tour of Andalusia. And this had been our customary approach in every town along the way— walk the streets until we found someone who looked like a good bet, then ask to score a smoke....