windowless study LXXXI

A star fell from the sky and landed on the unsuspecting foot of Mr Trap, breaking three of his toes and ruining the left half of his favourite pair of shoes. The star ceased being a star and became a dead grey rock instead. Mr Trap, lost for words but wanting to cry out in agony, just pointed at the rock lodged in his blood-filled shoe and slowly shook his head like a broken flagpole.

windowless study LXXX

Today it rained ice cubes. They were red. Imagine that! Red ice cubes. I mean, what’s that about? There was a strange smell in the air as they fell like orphaned/unwanted bullets. They blasted through Mr Garcia’s greenhouse like dead sharks and turned Mr Aw’s pond red. The downpour lasted for about thirty minutes. Anyone caught outdoors took a pasting: a boulder-like ice cube broke Mr Felt’s index finger, Mr Trap took an unnecessarily sharp one to the eye and Thomsic Shotskin was knocked out cold and had to be dragged inside by a blind stranger.

When it finally ceased the floor was covered in red ice and glass. The sight of the sun was a welcome one at first but, as it began to work away at the ice, the stench became unbearable. I’m telling you, it stank to high heaven. Nobody could pin it down (wet dog? old lady? rotten fruit? stolen gunpowder? – none of these things). People closed their windows for fear of retching but the stench seemed to seep through the walls.

Eventually Mr Crick snapped. ‘Hell’s bells!’ he shouted. He ran out with his hose and began blasting those remaining red devils into tomorrow. Three hours he worked at it as we waited behind our flypaper walls. The smell seemed to dissipate but everyone was left with a bastard behind the eyes as stubborn as a toothless, rabid dog.

And that’s how Tuesday went.

windowless study LXXIX

A paper plane fell from some indiscernible point in the sky and settled in the empty space residing just 7 inches above Mr Kank’s head.

‘What the hell?’ said Mr Wishaw.

‘What’s got into you?’ countered Mr Kank.

‘Nothing,’ Mr Wishaw replied.

‘Eejit.’

Mr Kank spent the whole day walking around as normal, oblivious that there was a paper plane hovering just 7 inches above his head and following him every which way. At 5.45pm he met Mr Wishaw again.

‘I don’t feel so good,’ said Mr Kank.

‘Loser.’

‘Migraine.’

‘Dead man.’

Mr Kank click his tongue and tried to spit at Mr Wishaw but the trajectory was all to cock and he hit his own shoe.

‘I’m tired of playing silly buggers,’ said Mr Kank. ‘I’m off to my pit.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Mr Wishaw, scratching his ear in a disagreeable manner.

Mr Kank went home, undressed and climbed into bed. The paper plane squeezed itself between the wall and Mr Kank’s head. Three minutes later he was asleep and soon after that he died. The plane separated itself from the space above Mr Kank’s recently deceased head and flew out of the window.

The pleasant cry of a far off ice cream van floated through Mr Kank’s house, slowly circled his bedroom and exited through the same bedroom window.

windowless study LXXVIII

There was a tiny explosion in Mr Rain‘s head today after which he fell down about six times in quick succession. When he finally opened his mouth to speak his words appeared to be lacking all of the vowels. The only person that seems to understand him is Thomsic Shotskin but when he was asked to translate he kept banging on about potholes. Soon after, everyone lost interest and left them to it.

windowless study LXXVII

A curious thing happened today. A hole appeared in Mr Aw’s empty fishpond. Nobody paid it any mind - a hole is just a hole after all and not worth losing sleep over. Soon after, however, another hole appeared, this time in the trunk of the old oak tree, inside which was found the skeleton of Mr Silt.

‘So that’s who it was,’ said Mr Crane. ‘I never had him down as a nut.’

Pretty soon holes were appearing all over the place.

‘There’s one,’ said Mr Tape, pointing at Mr Lint’s house.

‘There’s one,’ said Thomsic Shotskin, pointing at the sun.

‘There’s another,’ said Mr Chalk, pointing at the side of Mr Tawl’s head.

Another large hole even appeared in the void that was once Mr Aw’s garden.

‘Maybe we should do something,’ said Mr Sames in a non-committal sort of way.

‘Where are they coming from?’ asked Mr Peru.

‘Beats me, but Mr Tawl has one. Why don’t you ask him?’

Mr Tawl was staggering about like a prize fool, a tunnel-like hole running right through his head, a punctured sun peeping cautiously in from the other end.

‘How did you get that hole in your head?’ asked Mr Peru.

Mr Tawl opened his mouth to speak but before doing so decided to fall down stone-dead instead. Soon after, another large hole appeared in the place where Mr Crane was standing and ate him all up like paper.

‘I’m hungry,’ said Mr Trap

‘I’m tired,’ said Mr Crick

They both walked off and left Thomsic Shotskin to his own devices. He was neither hungry nor sleepy so he spent the afternoon filling the holes with whichever negative holes he could find (a big rock, some old plasticine, eleven crows, some cotton wool). As far as I know, he’s still at it.

windowless study LXXVI

etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

windowless study LXXV

A gust of wind tore off all of Mr Fazeley’s facial hair today (beard, eyebrows, moustache, even his nasal hair and the little tufts that he’d been cultivating in his ears).

‘Good God!’ said Mr Nkel. ‘You’re even uglier now.’

Mr Fazeley headed home to look for a paper bag and a sharp stick.

windowless study LXXIV

Molloy was trying to do a perfect imitation of a staircase when he fell from the table he was stood upon and cracked his nut on the kitchen floor. The tiles turned a luminous shade of yellow.

‘Good God!’ he cried. ‘Why is my blood yellow? Maybe I’m dead.’

‘You’re not dead,’ said Mr Crane, poking his ugly head through the window. ‘You’re just depressed poor fellow.’

‘Depressed? Go drown yourself,’ said Molloy, in a voice devoid of humorous undertones.

Mr Crane hurled a rock through the window and it hit Molloy right on the money, cracking his nut open some more.

‘Maybe he’s right,’ said Molloy, coming to his senses.

‘Hat!’ cawed a crow from some unnameable place in Molloy’s mind.

‘This depression lark is no picnic,’ he said to the kitchen table, his mouth filling with the yellow liquid that had travelled down his mug. Being a very practical person he decided to climb a tree. He went outside and looked up at the old oak tree.

‘This should do the trick,’ he said.

He removed his red shoes and dropped them on the grass. He wrapped his arms around the huge trunk and began to scale the tree in a very slow and clumsy manner (by this point he had lost a lot of blood and all the memories of his life up until now were falling from his broken mind like old candles). When he reached the top he stared at the floating staircase leading from the mysterious door on Mr Silt’s roof to some indeterminate point in the sky (one which was empty but for a piece of sky). His throat began to click like a rusty tortoise. Soon after, he passed out and the clicking ceased.

Meanwhile, down below, Mr Crane was trying on Molloy’s red shoes. ‘Just what the doctor ordered,’ he said to an indeterminate point on the tree trunk. He took up his old shoes and walked home, his feet shining like two broken teeth.

drawing without people...

windowless study LXXIII

Today my thoughts were mixed up with those of a jackdaw and I stared at the kettle for seventeen hours. That’s all.

windowless study LXXII

Mr Brail caught Mr Glint making eyes at his woman so Mr Glint smacked him in the gob. Mr Brail, furious as hell, ran in the opposite direction, right into the path of a passing cobweb. The cobweb wrapped itself around Mr Brail’s face and held on for dear life. Mr Brail, at his wits’ end, squealed and, whilst still running, clawed at his face like a twilight curse. He ran and clawed ran and clawed until the ground opened up beneath his feet and, instead of running some more, he fell down a hole instead. Mr Rain, who had spent the last fifteen days digging the damn thing, threw the spade at Mr Glint, who was flailing about twenty five feet below, like a stolen desire/malicious nursery (delete as appropriate). The spade lightly grazed Mr Brail’s cheek and a tiny drop of blood trickled into his ear. Mr Rain went home to eat the fish finger sandwiches that, by then, were sure to be cold.

windowless study LXXI

Michael ate Mr Felt’s sandwich so Mr Felt, furious as hell, spat at a passing bird, hitting him smack in the eyes. The bird, a crow or something, panicked and flew straight into Michael, piercing first his watch pocket and then his heart with its shiny yellow beak. Michael hit the deck in a corpse-like fashion, a bird in his chest and red sauce smeared across his lifeless, guilty face. The bird pulled itself out and flew off like a beautiful nightmare.

windowless study LXX

Billie told Mr Crick that she loved him. Mr Crick laughed so hard that all but one of his teeth fell out. Billie scooped up the bloody teeth, skipped joyously home and sealed the teeth in a clear jar labelled memories, which she put on her bedside table.

windowless study LXIX

The whole village awoke this morning to the banshee-like sound of Thomsic Shotskin’s hideous singing. We finally manage to get rid of Carmichael and another nut comes by the very next day to take his place. He sang the damn thing at least thirty times before collapsing exhausted, his dusty old mouth snapping at the air uselessly.

Thomsic Shotskin’s Song

Don’t talk to me

With eyes of honey

Tra-la-tra-la-lee

Cause soon I’ll be free

Tell me a story

Filled with divorce

Try not to bore me

With words like of course

Don’t talk to me

From beneath the tree

My next killing spree

Has passed behind me

Pull on my doldrums

Polish my spine

Fill up my mouth-hole

With leprosy wine

Don’t talk to me

Cause I can still see

Your savage old beak

Encrusted with (sic)

Open up backwards

Lend me a limb

My life is a mattress

Said himher to him

Don’t talk to me

With mountains of sea

My poor empty belly

Scared shitless of bees

But I don’t know why

Your bandage is blue

You laugh at a sky

That’s done nothing to you

Don’t talk to you

All chimney-pot blue

That necklace is new

It suits you more than you

windowless study LXVIII

The man was without eyes or ears with a mouth like a hoover bag. When he spoke large grey clouds of dust filled the air. He said he was here on business but the nature of this business nobody knew. He said his name was Thomsic Shotskin. Without another word he made himself comfortable beneath the old oak tree and in ten seconds flat he was out for the count, snoring like a busted chainsaw.

windowless study LXVII

This morning Carmichael came out in nothing but his pyjama bottoms yelling something about pot-holes. He legged it up Mr Tape’s ladder and began climbing the staircase like a man possessed. You should have seen him. Never have I seen anyone tackle a strange/bizarre wooden floating staircase the way Carmichael did this morning. Before too long he was nothing but a speck of crazed dead-skin dust and a moment later he was out of sight, swallowed by the huge endless sky like a man drowned in an upside down ocean.

windowless study LXVI

The staircase hasn’t done anything today and, after the incident yesterday with Mr Tape, and the unfortunate death of Mr Anisk, nobody has tried anything. However, in an unrelated incident, the village wolf ate Mrs Anisk’s newborn baby. Everyone was happy until the wolf made it clear that he thought the baby was, in fact, a big rock. The villagers cursed their luck. ‘What a rubbish wolf!’ said Mr Chalk. Everyone agreed.

drawing without people...

windowless study LXV

One of the wooden stairs fell down without warning today and cracked Mr Anisk good and proper atop his cranium. Mr Tape got a ladder up there and scaled it but when he got within about 3ft of the staircase he began complaining about his ears. He quickly descended, his ears shot to hell and bleeding. When he reached the grass below he informed everyone, in machine-gun hollers and groans, that he is now stone-deaf. That’s it for today.

windowless study LXIV

The staircase appeared sometime between 11pm last night and 7am this morning. Nobody knows how it got here but here it is. It defies all logic: a (seemingly) self-suspended wooden staircase leading from the door on Mr Silt’s roof to an indeterminate point somewhere in the sky. It’s got one hell of a reach. I’m telling you, there must be at least 50,000 stairs. Mr Trawl tried to shoot at them and received his own bullet in his own eye for his troubles.

windowless study LXIII

Some faint Carmichaelesque howls woke the village this morning but, try as they might, nobody has managed to locate him. It’s as though his tired, moth-eaten, tracing paper body has fallen off the face of the earth.

windowless study LXII

The sun turned as black as a rooster on bonfire night. And just after 3pm Mr Leaves dropped his hat in a puddle.

windowless study LXI

Where is Carmichael?

windowless study LX

I awoke this morning to find the tree standing upright once more. At first I thought it was free standing but on closer inspection I noticed that attached to each branch was a length of fishing wire, the other end of which was attached to various protruding parts of the street (a chimney pot, a bee hive, one of Mr Tawl's shoelaces). With the help of direct sunlight I counted 53 wires in total, all crisscrossed to hell like 53 evil glances. When the sun retreats behind the clouds these wires are damn-near invisible and the whole day was filled with screams of anguish and torment. At one point I looked out of my window to find nineteen wretched people splayed on the deck at once, writhing around in the mess of wires like an electrocuted bramble bush. Over the scratching and groaning could be the tormented voice of Mr Tawl, who kept screaming something about demented shoelaces.

windowless study LIX

Mr Trap was the one to hear it whilst walking his dog. ‘Get an axe!’ he shouted. ‘There’s somebody inside the oak tree.’

‘I don’t know what happened,’ the man shouted from inside. ‘Where are my shoes?’

‘Where are my shoes? What kind of a question is that?’ asked Mr Brink. ‘He sounds crazy to me.’

‘Maybe we should leave him in there.’

‘You can’t leave him in there,’ said Mr Trap.

‘Why not? Any man who allows himself to be trapped inside a tree who then begins to rant about shoes is crazy in my book.’

They voted on whether to leave him inside or not but the result was a tie.

‘It’s a dead heat,’ said Mr Trap. ‘Why don’t we ask him a question in order to ascertain if he’s crazy or not?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like ‘Who is the President of my shed?’’

‘What kind of a question is that? You’re as crazy as he is.’

‘Just ask him?’

‘Hey! You inside the tree! Who’s the president of Mr Trap’s shed?’

‘Shoelaces,’ replied the man in a very hollow, wooden voice.

‘What was that? Did he say ‘shoelaces’?’

‘Shoelaces,’ repeated the man.

They all decided to leave him to his fate and went instead to stare at Mr Aw’s empty pond for a while.

windowless study LVIII

Mr Chalk smiled at Mr Tape so Mr Tape waved at Mr Chalk. Mr Chalk didn’t care for the manner in which Mr Tape waved so he socked Mr Tape in the left kidney. Mr Tape moaned a little before kicking Mr Chalk in his left ear. Mr Chalk moaned a little. A window could be heard opening. They both suddenly smiled and embraced one another in a friendly fashion. Guilt stricken feelings of melancholia suddenly passed over the faces of both men. Mr Chalk pulled out three of his fingernails and Mr Tape chewed on his left foot until it was red raw. They smiled some more. At this point in the proceedings two bricks fell from some indeterminate point high above the heads of the two men. One cracked Mr Tape smack on the top of his nut and the other did exactly the same to Mr Chalk. They both hit the deck and slept for 9 days straight apiece. When they awoke they both found they had forgotten the names of everything that ever existed.

windowless study LVII

This morning a pigeon landed on the mysterious door that occupies a small part of Mr Silt’s roof. The bird twitched and fell down dead. Mr Stok tried to hook it with his fishing rod but caught nothing but dead air. Mr Tanker fetched a ladder from his shed and scaled it with the purpose of retrieving the bird from Mr Silt’s roof. Why they should care so much is beyond me. Anyway, when Mr Tanker took hold of the bird he was immediately electrocuted for his efforts and both bird and man fell to the soft grass below. Whether Mr Tanker is dead or not is anyone’s guess but my opinion is it doesn’t look good, as he lacks anything resembling a heartbeat and has done for the last five hours.

windowless study LVI

A boy walked into another boy. One laughed and the other cried. Then the crying boy sneezed and the laughing boy coughed. Somewhere a dog barked at the sky. That’s all.

windowless study LV

Mr Aw awoke to the sound of his own awakening. He headed straight for the back garden. The children were gone. So was his back garden. No trees, no grass, no hedgehog, no crystal clear fishpond containing seven large goldfish. Nothing. In its place was a garden shaped void. Instead of cursing his luck he made a coffee and began thinking about something entirely unrelated to mysterious garden thievery: blue pallets, for example.

After thinking about blue pallets for 25 minutes...

After thinking about blue pallets for 25 minutes Mr Aw decided to go for a walk. When he opened his front door he was greeted with a familiar tableau: a perfect replica of his back garden. The street had completely disappeared. The new road that the residents had painstaking built around the old oak tree had been replaced by grass, the street lamps had been replaced by Mr Aw’s redwoods, the post box had been replaced by the fish pond, and the empty crisp packets had been replaced by three grey squirrels. In fact, the only thing that remained of yesterday’s street was that damn oak tree. Sat on the still-overturned oak tree were seventeen mischievous yet placid children. The children were using a rock and a blunt stick to divide the seven goldfish seventeen ways (0.41176471 of a goldfish each, including both lower and upper caudal fins). After finishing their breakfast they all sat in the pond and began reciting silent nonsense poetry to each other. Mr Aw sneezed and closed the door on his stolen back garden. He walked through the house a little but found it impossible to settle. With a head full of cotton wool he walked into the void that was once his back garden and sat down in an empty corner to reflect on something other than seventeen children sat on an old overturned oak tree with his goldfish lining their stomachs reciting silent nonsense poetry that not even the wind is able to hear.

windowless study LIV

Mr Aw found the train at the bottom of his garden this morning when watering his plants. The train was overturned and in pretty bad shape. There was no note attached to the train so Mr Aw didn’t know what the deal was. He slid open the large iron door and found seventeen small children inside. The children, either unwilling or unable to speak, kept schtum. They all looked identical and made Mr Aw more than a little uneasy. They were all carrying weapons of some sort or other, which didn’t help matters in Mr Aw’s mind. One carried a hunting knife, another a snooker cue, a third a sack filled with house-bricks. Mr Aw, fearing for his life, tried to cry out but was forced to accept that his voice box had scarpered. His body also refused to respond in the correct manner and made no movement whatsoever. It didn’t matter anyway as the children dropped their weapons and began chewing on the walls instead. This confused Mr Aw further and he fled like a broken footpath. He returned half an hour later with Mr Garh and Mr Peru. All three carried shotguns and wore expressions of feigned resolution (Mr Garh also wore a hint of narcolepsy on his mush). They found that the children had abandoned the train and were sunbathing on Mr Aw’s perfectly kept grass. The train was long gone. The picture postcard image of the children basking in the dull rays of a hot penny massacred Mr Garh’s mind and he decided to accidentally shoot himself in the foot. Somewhere in the distance a bird was choking on something not specified in this story. A very minor stroke passed through Mr Peru’s body like a lost, orphaned shadow. He opened the left side of his mouth slightly and the shadow slipped out and drifted away on the tired breeze. One of the children, the third from the right, sighed in a contented way and Mr Garh shot his other foot off. Some time passed, during which the children continued to look at the sun and the men continued to look at the children continuously looking at the sun. They all stayed perfectly still and without realising it the men became part of the picture postcard. They all stayed perfectly still for several hours. The choking bird had bitten the dust long before and the sun had given up the ghost, but the children continued to lie perfectly still and the men continued to watch them lying perfectly still. A puddle of blood had formed and dried on the grass beneath Mr Garh’s shattered feet. Mr Peru’s left eye twitched repeatedly like a cursed typewriter and Mr Aw had lost all feeling in his legs. At 18.22 the three men all tumbled out of their synchronized daze and Mr Garh and Mr Peru turned and walked home without uttering a word. Mr Aw opened his mouth to speak but only managed to release some spittle. His mouth stayed open as he turned and went back inside, leaving the inert children on his sepia grass.

windowless study LIII

An open door has been discovered on Mr Silt’s roof. Nobody knows to where it leads and nobody has a ladder. p.s. Where is Mr Silt?

drawing without people...

windowless study LII

It’s been a week since the wolf made his presence known in our street and in that time the only thing he’s done is eat some small rocks and get one everyone’s nerves. On Friday morning Mrs Arlov’s eldest son went missing and everyone suspected the wolf to have eaten him but the little swine turned up safe and sound that evening. Everyone was a little disappointed. It turns out the boy had fallen asleep in a hedge whilst counting shoes. “What’s the point in having a wolf if he doesn’t do anything?” said Mr Anisk. To make matters worse, the wolf appears to have made a new friend in the form of Clef who, it turns out, has been giving the wolf a bottle of milk every morning. If anything, this affectionate gesture has made the wolf even softer around the edges. “Never a less wolf-like wolf have I seen,” was one comment. “All that milk is ruining him. Give him some braising steak or something,” was another. But Clef doesn’t see the harm in his actions and he continues to pasteurise his expressionless adoption.

windowless study LI

The tree fell down today and crushed the life out of Mr Valdez. Believing himself to still be alive he asked Mr Millus to take him to the hospital. Mr Millus didn’t think there was any point as Mr Valdez was obviously dead and gone but he gave him a lift nonetheless. When Mr Valdez arrived at St. Marie’s he was told by the hospital’s very finest that he had died the very moment the trunk had made contact with his fragile little cranium. Mr Valdez, unwilling to believe the plain truth, asked for a mirror. When it arrived he found, to his dismay, his head lodged firmly in his neck with no real sign of a face to speak of. As if stung by a hornet he suddenly cried out in agony and, right there and then, died once more. Mr Millus, tired of the whole sorry affair, left Mr Valdez on the floor of the hospital and made his way home, stopping at the corner shop to buy some bread and chicken noodles for his supper. Meanwhile, back home, everyone was trying to decide how exactly to lift the huge monster of an oak-tree that was spread-eagled, quite deliberately, across the road. Several ideas were voiced by the crowd that had gathered in the street but most of them just floated away on the wind - they were rubbish ideas anyway. In the end it was decided that the best option would be to just leave the tree where it was and build a new road around it.

windowless study L

He said his shoes were rubbing his feet yesterday. He died in his sleep 7½ hours later and was found by his nondescript wife whose name I have forgotten. There’s nothing more to say on the matter

windowless study XLIX

After a relatively quiet yesterday Carmichael has shown his moonstruck mush again. This morning he came out holding a Rubik’s cube, which he nailed to the oak tree before lobbing the hammer through his bathroom window. Glass sprayed in all directions and a small shard embedded itself in his left cheek. He didn’t seem to notice though. Lying down in the dirt beneath the tree he formed a perfect circle with his ancient body and stayed absolutely still for several hours. During this time the shadow of the tree tiptoed over him in an arc-like fashion and a stray cat gave birth to seventeen kittens, all of which survived. At one point a crow even approached and began pecking at the dry blood on Carmichael’s cheek. Even this didn’t disturb the crazy old man’s supine geometry. It was only when the sun was long gone that Carmichael finally got to his feet and retreated back indoors. The Rubik’s cube stayed put.

windowless study XLVIII

Haven’t seen hide nor hair of Carmichael all day. Something tells me he’s up to no good though. Noises have been emanating from his living room. First off there was all the hammering. This was followed by the sound of what can only be described as that of a moth being held captive in a cloth sack of some sort. After that came the howls. These lasted for about two hours and then…nothing. He’s a strange one, that’s for sure.

windowless study XLVII

It seems Carmichael’s madness knows no bounds. Today there have been tricks-a-plenty. First off, right at the crack of dawn, the whole street was awoken by a hideous braying sound that turned out to be Carmichael’s addled version of the dawn chorus. He was happy as Larry sat beneath the oak tree wrapped up in what appeared to be a pair of curtains. If his wife had still been alive she would have throttled the life out of him but, as she was long gone, he was left to his own devices (his own devices being to bray and carry on to his heart’s content). After breakfast, when his voice was torn to shreds, he disappeared indoors and wasn’t heard from again for a good hour and twenty minutes. When he did finally emerge he wasn’t alone. Under his arm was the biggest chicken you ever saw. He tied the bewildered chicken to the oak tree with several shoelaces of varying colours. He then began spitting at the chicken, rather calmly at first but then, once in his stride, somewhat more viciously. Still nobody stepped in. The poor chicken just had to take it. The humiliating affair would have gone on for much longer had the chicken not somehow, in a very clandestine manner not usually associated with chickens, chewed its way through one of the shoelaces and legged it down the street. Carmichael tried to give chase but all of the crazed spitting had taken its toll and he collapsed in a heap. No sound could be heard from that corpse-like stockpile and everyone thought that old Carmichael had finally bitten the dust but, lo-and-behold, he was back on his feet and sprinting indoors like the best of them. Just as everyone was beginning to forget about Carmichael and return to their own rather uneventful lives he emerged once more and again sat himself beneath the old oak tree. This time instead of a chicken he held a tattered yellow book, which he began reading from back to front, lips moving and eyes darting about like swallows in a hurricane. What a nut.

windowless study XLVI

It looks as though a good night’s sleep hasn’t had any affect on Carmichael’s somewhat stubborn madness. This morning has been a near-exact replica of yesterday: a cretinous nut, sat on a rather ugly but sturdy pumpkin, hunched over and trying to create godknowswhat from a bucket of paste, some yellow paper and a rusty old bicycle wheel. Today, as was the case yesterday, it rained heavily after lunch and Carmichael had to abandon his efforts. Once more, the rain tore Carmichael’s masterpiece to shreds and showered the remains this way and that. Today, however, when Carmichael found said remains embedded in the cracks in the pavement, rather than harbouring them safely in his pocket as he did yesterday, he shoved the dirty sodden mess into his gob and began chewing away like his life depended on it. His face was a poorly executed mixed-media painting of pain and joy. After a few minutes of asylum-destined gnawing coupled with hideous contortions Carmichael spat the contents of his mouth at the side of the tree and scarpered back indoors. Poor Carmichael.

drawing without people...

windowless study XLV

Carmichael went crazy today. Nobody knows what happened. Yesterday he was completely sane and in possession of all of his senses but today is a different story. His madness first showed its ugly mush when he perched himself beneath the old oak tree and, using a bucket of paste, began sticking strips of yellow newspaper to an old rusty bicycle wheel. His seat consisted of a pumpkin with a sloping, poorly carved face. The pumpkin seemed to bear Carmichael’s weight, with the added madness included, quite well. By lunch time the wheel pretty much covered. Soon after, however, it began to rain like a demon and Carmichael scarpered indoors, leaving the wheel to battle the elements alone. When the rain abated Carmichael appeared and looked at the mess of paste and dirty paper that had freed itself from the bicycle wheel and gathered in an erratic fashion in the cracks in the paving stones and up the side of the tree. Carmichael scooped up the lumps of sticky paper, shoved them in his pocket and went back inside, slamming the door behind him ever so slightly. And so ends the day when Carmichael lost his mind.

windowless study XLIV

A beetle ate Mr Peru’s shoelaces during the night. That's all we know.

windowless study XLIII

A boy has just fallen down a massive hole. What more can I say?

windowless study XLII

When the dog fell asleep beneath the tree he immediately began dreaming of something unrelated to humans. The dream was a vicious one and the dog responded in the correct manner - that is to say he shook like a fiend and ferrociously kicked out at his invisible tormentors. It seemed that this wasn´t sufficient to keep the spirits at bay because he began howling as only a dog in the throes of a canine nightmare can howl. Mrs Alvarado´s geraniums were the first to go, falling the twenty-five feet from her window ledge and hitting the deck with such force that the terracotta sprayed half-a-mile in all directions. This was followed by Mr Herrero´s window and a small but extremely animated child. God knows where the latter appeared from but his luck was great because he landed silently on the back of the dog, got to his tiny feet and walked away in a slightly bewildered but completely unharmed state. The dog awoke from his tortures, chewed on the tree trunk awhile, and himself walked away as if nothing had happened. And that´s all.

windowless study XLI

The moon is pouring in through the glass walls like a bee-sting to the face.

windowless study XL

Why the wolf thinks it’s acceptable to set up residence in our street is anyone’s guess, but here he is larger than life. Everyone is saying that it’s not a real wolf but Mr Johnson dressed as one. He looks pretty real to me. Yesterday he ate a small rock. I never saw Mr Johnson eat a rock before. He hasn’t done anything else though. I was expecting more.

drawing without people...

windowless study XXXIX

The man with the box on his head walked into the man with no eyes. The collision was slight but they both hit the deck nonetheless. They both writhed around on the floor for a while like plastic surgeons. After a matter of a day or so the man with no eyes got to his feet and took the box from the other man’s head and placed it over his own. With his sight restored he walked home in ¾ of a perfect circle. The box-less man had ceased moving long before and he continued with his ceaseless and somewhat supine inertia, probably because he was dead, or maybe for some other reason unbeknownst to me.

windowless study XXXVIII

He told her not to laugh but she laughed anyway. He lost his temper and she lost a tooth. She lost her temper and he lost a tooth. He lost his temper and she lost another tooth etcetc. Before too long they were both toothless and hungry. They walked home together and the story ended.