Brentown
Joel sat in his bedroom, years passing by outside his window as he grew from a boy with a single bed to a man with a bunk.
Cascading over fallen rainforests – a volcanic flow of molten sucrose heading towards civilisation, enveloping small armies across a rough-hewn surface. Folding ever over itself, an eternal quest for dominance until the temperature cools – a balmy summer evening, insects chirping nearby hoping for salvation from this radiant stream. As time passes, what once was flowing settles into position, almost becoming rigid but like glass in a permanent state of flux, waiting for the smallest impact to shatter it into thousands of crystalline shards. To touch it would be near madness but its allure is too much; no man can resist it. It curls, beckoning for touch. It lingers in the air, twisted like a creeper slowly wrapping itself towards the sun, glowing, golden-brown and translucent. The Sun’s warmth returns the inner-fire from where it was born, imps dancing about, red costumes, pitchforks, chanting in honour of their deity. Slowly it warms, remembers what freedom was and begins to wriggle its way out of its confines, thirsting to return to the salted Earth from whence it came. Laconically it touches the ground, feels the ashen remnants of its past and slowly die; a sacrificial lamb beckoning for its inevitable end – the Sun has played a cruel game and this time has won.
Sitting stooped, hunched in a moonlit corner, the harlots and empty promises his only friends, knowing that their sympathies were feigned. He couldn't resist the urge, throwing the bottle, watching it crack into hundreds of smaller pieces, alcohol running over every edge, dripping on to the dry pavement beneath. If this was what their sympathies brought, he didn't want any.
When sympathy isn't real, it's apathy.
Sat stooped beneath the willow tree, ol' Angus thumped his jug, smacked it to his lips, filthy syrup trickling down, dripping from his jowls as he drank away. Only his home remedy could get rid of the agony but they inevitably caused more, losing himself in the undergrowth.
Farmers have no wives. Only cows, sheep, maize crops - gloriously straight lines intersected blowing in the breeze. They also have scarecrows, which eerily watch them while they work, play and sleep.