Neil

From the forthcoming novella The Smoking of Valor...Main Entry: val·or Pronunciation: 'va-l&r Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French valour, from Medieval Latin valor value, valor, from Latin valEre to be strong -- more at WIELD : strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter danger with firmness : personal braveryThe concept of valour in resolute, that practiced theory that has gone unrevised and only appears in sanctums of story book Robinhood and Guienevere rectitude. Valour to me is irresolute, and I don’t want to turn you off further. I do and I will force you to listen to Belle and Sebastian and imagine Joycean picture-books of the last century. The photographs that would say make a midget shoot Picasso’s gun for the sake of infamy or Absinthe or the above mentioned valour. Let us begin....Alice was by far what you know not of a normal child. She was born with a fierce regard for few things but in those scattered breakneck proof bottle of trusts and values intact created this paradigm of something fantastically tragic wherebiet you loved her as only as you loved something both porcelain and thrown in mid air at bad trajectory. That was Alice you loved in that reckless second before she was dismantled by hurricane.Alice again was something to nurse and cherish the pain of the everyday, mundane tying of the shoes, dealing with the weight of goodbyes, dealing with fifteen minutes of pure wasted tragedy. That was Alice alright and to me Alice was my sweet dejected valour.We had gotten out around the same time, and we were looking for a picturesque output. We or at least I wanted to the flashbook to dim and slow down a bit. Life was blisteringly fast and gruesome and lacking in tender, and subtle sweetness. I first got out and I went clean, for a while you know. As clean as I could be. I met Alice and realized I was the post-traumatic fuck I envisioned in my youth, the failure of having a gauge of recklessness as the fair-most barometer. It used to be a neon kaleidoscope, and sometimes I would scare myself by looking. I opted well for a point I opted for the clean slate. The problem was I was bitched from the start of it all and I knew everyone and they seemed to have not forgotten or only allowed selective memories to glance at my life. My bizarre intrinsically polluted life. What the fuck did they know? What did they know about piss covered asphalt and principle. What did they know about realizing that existence is not so suburbanly snug, it’s not a goddamn 5 minute abdominal workout plan, and it’s not anything you could prove to me with slick post production.So again, I was out, and dealing with a hell of a lot, trying to knock out the novel. Trying to save my own sap with a bit of the Rosary, and nice girls that would never call me back on Sundays. That was the life and I hated it no-one understood the work and if they did, well the hell with them, I hated them more for relating than for anything else. I didn’t want to expound, I didn’t want to give you a formulaic breakdown for anything. I was sick of trying to sell America on itself for its own salvation. I should have listened to Crumb years ago, but passports they do seem to expire. That was that I was done. I wanted to leave and wash my hands, but washing of the hands in the desert can somehow sometimes just maybe give off to rebirth.Back to Alice