White Noise

David held the paper up to the light; just off-white, you could
clearly make out the great ugly watermark set dead centre. The report
was frayed at the edges at almost regular intervals, as if cut with
scissors. The words were punctuated here and there by small yellow
stains, smooth and inoffensive, blending into the paper, but a lightish
yellow colour that was clearly visible, the colour of mild curry sauce.
He ran his index finger along the title, in bold; Henry's Draft Report
(gedunge):

The bit of the train is the term for the place where two carriages
meet. The bit of the train varies in quality, depending on whether you
get on a blue (old) train or a purple (new) train. The latter brings
all the possible comforts for the bit of the train lover, with
extensive space to run back and forth and excellent vantage points to
view the bouncing and jiggling of the other carriage. The older blue
trains tend to have fewer seats and scandalously, no actual space to
sit where two carriages meet. The whole viewing of the join or bit of
the train (it might be argued that these older blue trains have no bit
of the train) is obscured by cumbersome doors which are infuriatingly
often broken or faulty. On these trains one is in danger of actually
having to sit in the vicinity of the general public. On the other hand
the older trains do tend to possess a greater number of vents, fans and
heaters, both at seat-level and on the ceiling. One particular type of
blue train features a table that pulls out of a special hole in the
wall and clicks horizontally into place with a gedunge. A personal
favourite.

Have I told you about my new door? I think I may have done but you will
undoubtedly be anxious to hear the story again. I have replaced my back
door with a new one, painted white with windows at the top. The lock
does not quite fit exactly so you have to push the handle firmly while
turning the key. This produces a very pleasing gedunge plus a release
or intake of pressure at the lock.

I can't be completely abstract - I have children, for git's sake.

David reclined complacently in his chair. The report from the new boy
really was excellent. His composure was however suddenly shattered by
the entrance of the Managing Director, at which David hid under his
desk. Then he woke up.

A new dawn - one of exciting possibilities and new challenges. To the
station, and on to the cupboard.

David had a few palpitations today. Fifteen minutes late?he began to
curse the train company under his breath. It is imperative to arrive by
nine! A middle aged, middle class woman was sat next to him. She
moved.

Cupboard seems roomier today. One might almost imagine one had company.
Slight musty smell.

Davey boy on the phone today: "The experience I am gaining will be
invaluable for future careers. I plan to be fat and rich by the time
I'm forty, with extensive property holdings. Summer cottage on the
Strathclyde coast, trendy flat in Bristol city centre, villa with pool
in Mallorca." The respondent was quite in awe of his confidence. She
might be a girl - will probably be drooling at the prospect of such a
catch. At least David thought she was female - that is the immediate
impression from the voicemail. Anyway, even if it is a bloke, at least
it is edifying to sound like some kind of big shot. Dave twiddled the
telephone wire between his thumb and his forefinger.

One sometimes needs a little culture to calm the nerves for an
important day in the cupboard. David found himself at times shuffling
in the darkness. He actually nodded off three or four times and banged
his head on the shelves. For the first time today it was possible to
get some kind of impression of how large the cupboard was - the eyes
become accustomed after a while. David resolved smugly to add his
powers of perception to his CV when he got the chance.

On the train home reflected with calm reverence the utility of his
work, and his moral superiority over the common herd.

A tall businesswoman of about thirty rose and walked past David's seat.
For a moment he was seized with an intense desire to touch her, to hold
her firmly between the legs, feel the pubic hair yield and bounce back
beneath his tender fingers, a stolen morsel of human contact, and let
his fingers slither upward as their mutual desire dictated. But the
moment of opportunity vanished, and the woman strode confidently from
his reach. Time to get off.

As David neared home, the half-caste youth who lived with his mother a
few doors away pitched a small stone at him. It fell well short of its
intended target and bounced nonchalantly off the toe of his shoe. David
broke into a rage. He would castigate him, that boy; he would bring to
bear all the horrors visited upon his kind through the centuries. The
epithets, the glorious insults would sting like a cat 'o' nine tails.
He barged through his front door and thudded on his ever-alert, almost
organic computer, bathing contentedly in the incandescent hum of
activity.

"You dirty fucking little man. You watch or I'll have you lynched. I
will make you my personal slave. Your shackles will peel back your oily
Negro flesh like shavings off sanded wood. I'll shove my shit through
your letterbox. Your death will be a triumph for justice, and turns
wonderful and at turns meaningless. You drooling, goggle eyed buck
toothed coon!"

David chuckled to himself. It was perfect - like old times again. The
miserable little turd, the a-social moron. The man was inferior, and
should be made to feel so with every sinew in his body. The black
bastard was worthless and it was David's duty as a decent human being
to make this clear, to reinforce what nature has ordained. Cruel to be
kind,so to speak. He would post it in the morning.

Took in some TV culture before bed. Some old film of the last man to be
publicly beheaded in France in 1939 (a Jew); a confessional US talk
show in which middle aged middle class men talk of how they cry, cry
into the early hours, set aside time to cry; a close up of a poodle
being sick; a stockbroker shitting into a nappy. David even found time
to scrawl a little poem in his notebook:

Some raw perversion that night portended
Telly showed a rabbit burned in its hutch
I switched off, not 'cos I was offended
But 'cos I enjoyed it too much

Meanwhile, in the back room, the hours for the computer passed
uneventfully. It was 1.00am, that quiet, threshold time where good
ideas are inverted into bad ones and the great delusions of personal
victory and cultured glory are inseminated and gesticulate, only to be
hurled onto the rocks when it is time to return to the cupboard. A
spectacularly wasteful kind of ego-masturbation.

David moved to turn the computer off when distantly, or next door - it
was difficult to make out - he heard a conversation between two men,
quiet in the manner of the early hours yet muffled further, dull,
moist, subterranean; possibly coming from the wall cavity itself, or
perhaps below, beneath the house, beneath the earth. The conciliatory
words, charged with meaning and shared emotion, were surrounded all the
while by the kind of intense crackling and hissing; never-ending,
tormenting hissing, played to disorientate enemy suspects in war
time.

Best not to think about it; the conversation, the two men together. One
could easily become frightened. David resolved boldly to switch the
machine off. Click. For a moment he was free, the incessant hum and
whirr of electronic memory and cooling mechanisms vanishing with a
sudden jerk from his ears. In the blink of an eye he could forget the
cupboard, forget his colourful neighbours, the hiss and crackle of the
ether, and all the lovely human culture he had experienced that
evening. Gone was the electric hum, to be replaced in time by silence;
vast, enveloping silence. Tomorrow would be another day, he would get
some more vital work done in the cupboard, and he would, he resolved,
grab that snooty bitch where it hurts. Onwards, like the March of the
Capulets, this organism, this essence. Just like the constant, defiant
and terrible, terrible white noise coming from the computer.