Shoplifting

I think you forget skills.

If they are not used, or ignored – maybe abused or neglected.

They fall from the conscious mind lying dormant, hibernating until they are sparked again. Needed again. Relied upon again.

When I was a kid, an adolescent really. A tortured teenager on the estate I stole for all reasons but poverty. I stole because I could. Because I wanted to. Because I was bored.

It wasn’t in isolation either. I stole with Mike. My best friend.

We stole shirts, shoes and all the music we could lay our hands on. We loved books and movies, hats and sunglasses. Chocolate and alcohol fuelled a summer bathing on the old school yard rich with our spoils and smug in the last real summer sun I can remember.

A long decade ago.

Stealing was our shopping.

Then we stopped. One or two many close encounters. We were asking a lot from luck, permanent requests and citations, we danced on a very thin patch of land that seemed eternally blessed from harm.

We faked fires, used decoys and hired circus performers to assist in our more and more outrageous and outlandish behaviour and all for a few more spoils.

So we stopped. Before anything bad happened and besides – it stopped being fun.

The Ninja & Other Friends

The demons and the Ninja fighting in my bathroom.

The sound of an approaching ghost train threatens to consume the amusing commentary, banter so to speak, between the Ninja and the Demons.

The sun and the moon jostle for a seat sink-side and the crowd is dotted with stars.

Heaven and Hell are here in , daytrips of course, but with the sun and the moon here already who knows what time of day it is.

The animals of the world form a bandstand, confused by the lack of any-light, they watch, like everybody else the mighty battle. The monkeys talking fervently and sensing this may be their time to attack. Never trust the monkeys. They are far too clever. Clever I tell you.