#2 Eyes Front, No Talking ...

(Click here for the start.)


They’ve waited. Waited for you. Now you’re here.

Great.

You watch the barman’s back as he scurries through a door and shuts it behind him. He wants no part of what’s about to happen.


Neither do you, really.


You realise the only drunk in the room is an old man. No-one else has drunk a drop. No half-drained beers going warm or lonely.


Of the crowd, only about half-a-dozen men held bottles. And those bottles are strangled upside-down by the neck by meaty fists, bases smashed into furious angry glass teeth, lusting for your blood.


If this had been a scene from a Western, someone, would step up and make a speech now.


“Turn back now, boy,” or, “You’re a long way from home, ain’t you?”


If it were a Western, you’d riposte pithily, then mop the floor with their asses.


But it isn’t.


All it is, is one old bloke and 30-odd built angry locals, and six razor-sharp bottlenecks itching for your arteries.


Nothing like a Western.


And yeah, maybe you are a tough nut, toned and able to handle things with your hands.


But you’ve never been the guy who had eyes bigger than his stomach.


The only variable here is how badly you are going to lose.

#1 Eyes Front, No Talking ...

This blog deserves a better class of post. Photos of the week? C'mon. No wonder I haven't been back for weeks. I think you'll all enjoy this a lot more.)

B--

***

They won't like you.

They never do.

But you need them.

Yep. They'll have to do.

You ain't ever been in so deep before. How you gonna get outta this one then, Mister?

Same as always, one way or the other. Run, walk, crawl.

You hope.

Go on, you think. Shake that inner dialogue out of your head.


It will do you no good, an unhelpful tennis match of Doubt versus Hope, Desperation two-sets-and-a-break up on Despair.
Get it out of your head.


You aren't much on despair.

You push through the double door and cross the threshold from hot, sweaty, squinty outside into dark, cooler (marginally) inside.


Mind on the job, you focus on the task before you. Your irises relax, expand, suck hard and inhale every bit of scarce light that bounces round the room, a barroom, you can see now, as you drag the details out from under the pool table, barstools, dead animal heads hanging on the walls … details kicking and screaming, fingernails dug in and dragging on the floor.

Yep, it's a bar, alright, and not a very nice one. And that's just the decor.


The clientele … well, they look like they would, and probably do, snap toddlers.

But you expected that.

This, of all things, wasn't designed to be easy.

So, you push your left foot ahead of your right foot, and force yourself not to look back outside.

Outside … where your road ends, hope dies and a final -- and impossible -- task has been set for you, failure guaranteed … and preferred.

Same unwritten law applies now as the one men follow at the urinal wall of a public bathroom.

Eyes front, no talking.

You look at them looking at you, feel, like, no love at all, only hatred.


Then you noticed the broken bottle necks in the hands of a half-dozen of them.

Six pairs of broad, angry hands intent on harm.

You aren't about to break the silence.

(READ the next chapter.)

# 4 Sky, lights, road.

[Panasonic LX3, Aperture Priority, ISO 100, 1/2, f2.0.]

Just can't get off my fat ass, lately.
When it comes to anything other than Laura, it feels like the clutch between knowing what I'd like/should/need to do and doing it, is burned out.
I've got to ride it like a bastard to get myself in gear.
It's the little things, at the moment, that I struggle to do, even though experience tells me the benefits of getting them done are worth it.
Email to the boss instead of chewing on a gripe, update Benography, go for a walk, take a picture -- these things make me feel better, yet I can't be bothered with them. The camera has been left in the cupboard instead of coming with.
Can't help feel that I've been poor company, lately ... for that, I'm sorry.

Here's the photo that helped me realise this, took it tonight as I forced myself to post a letter. Brings me a smile. To me, it made the walk worth the effort, which wasn't really that big a grind, once I applied a little perspective.

Nice how an out-of-focus shot can show me a little clarity.

--Ben