cat and mouse

Full moon fighting mood

Cat and Thin

Lavaropas: Scene 2

Scene 2

Enter Jordi wearing grubby white shorts, black vest top, hiking books with greying socks poking out. He is wheeling 4 bulging carrier bags on one of those wheel-lifts removal and delivery men often use. He fills machines 4 and 5 and perches down next to Quinn. Quinn continues to type rapidly but starts shifting unconfortably. He looks up angrily:

Quinn: You stink man!

Jordi: Sorry?

Quinn: Stiiiiiiiinky (waving his hand like a fan)

Jordi: Sorry?

Enter Elderly Señora wheeling a small shopping trolley with sheets and knickers semi-trailing on the ground. She is wearing a paisley-patterned housecoat and slippers, ankle tights protruding in dull orange. She pauses in the doorway, panting slightly and taking a moment to shift her teeth back into position. She surveys the room with beady eyes, nodding in approval and the whirring machines. With regulated gasps she fills machine 1 which is nearest to her, closes the machine door and sits down next to Jane.

Quinn shifts across to the far side of his seat, Jordi's mobile rings and he moves to the doorway and offstage to answer it...we hear him talking in muffled Catalan. Simultaneously Quinn's laptop announces a Skype call -he lets it ring out as he scuffels with his rucksack to find a headset.

Jordi: No. What? No, later...
Quinn: Hey man. How you doin?...
Jordi: yes, at the laundrette. ...
Quinn: So you heard?... yeah...
Jordi:Round the corner... he's not there anymore...
Quinn:Her cancer's kicked off again...
Jordi:Right next to the the snail restaurant...nono..
Jordi:.you know...next to the sex shop... What sort? ...
Quinn: No...In hospital since Wednesday...
Jordi:Which one?... Ill go there now...
Quinn:No way man, he's an effin piece of...
Jordi:later...where... I don't want to talk about last night ... no... (voice fading off)

Elderly Señora begins to look round anxiously, apparently wondering why her machine has not started the wash cycle. She shuffles over and bending down, peers inside, taps the glass mystified

Quinn:I don't give a ... what? No...
Quinn:Do I look like a retard to you? ..
Quinn:I can't do it man...

Elderly Señora bangs the top of the machine with suprising strength

Quinn:I'm effin crying now man...
Quinn: no way man...
Enter Consuela, the Elderly Señora's Bolivian carer:

Consuela: (panting slightly) There you are Mrs Fernandez, My dear lord god, I thank you, that I have found you. You scared me beyond my wits. What have I told you about not running away...

Lavaropas: Scene 1

Lavaropas


Scene 1


Set in a small laundrette on a small side street just off the infamous tourist-infested rambla. On the back wall there are 2 tiers of 3 dryers, and to the far right on the wall there is a seemingly complex payment machine, mapped out by uncertain diagrams and codes. There is something resembling a breakfast bar dividing the dryers from the washing machines and chairs – 4 washers left and 2 larger washers right. 2 sets of 3 chairs facing each other centre stage. Small bench next to door which is far right. The sound of a single washing maching moving into spincycle. Lights up on a solitary traveller (Quinn) in his late 20s, empty rucksack under his feet, unkempt beard and dark rings under his eyes- he is semi-hidden behind an apple mac laptop screen. Irritable fingers type anxiously. He doesn't even glance up as Jane arrives. She is also in her late twenties, white enough to be a tourist for sure. She heaves her full red ikea bag onto the floor next to machine 3 on the left hand side, shoves the dirty washing indiscicrimately inside and fumbles inside her handbag for her laundry card -cash might be simpler but using the card is 15% cheaper. She can't find it and in growing frustration she moves over to the bench by the door where she unhesittingly tips out the contents of her bag and triumphantly moves to the payment machine a the back with the card key. She prods away at various buttons, returns to machine 3, does some more prodding and finally the machine lights up -27 minutes to go – and the water begins to run. Jane signs, picks her book off the floor, where it fell in the bag-emptying venture – and after retrieving lip-balm and tishues from under the bench she settles on the chair opposite Quinn -who has continued to type frantically since she entered – and opens her book – an argentine play called Little Red Riding Hood.

Boot

http://thumbs.imagekind.com/member/3dcbd126-280e-4890-b3b5-bb08ddf7451e/uploadedartwork/650X650/f1a20282-76b5-4479-9bef-1265319be156.jpg



Yate train station is less of a station and more of a request stop. When I arrive the train's not due for another 40 minutes but the bench is already occupied by Mr Cardiff Builder Boy and his Builder buddy who may or may not be from Cardiff (it's hard to tell as he only communicates in guttural grunts that may or may not have Welsh undertones). Grunt boy is definitely the underdog – from time to time Mr Cardiff stomps on the top of Grunt's right boot to 'test it out against bricks you know'. Protruding from his well stomped boots are a pair of molding blue football socks and tucked into these a retro shellsuit, navy with single white stripes running up the side seams. Then come Calvin Klein pants -at least half of them bulging out over the shell wasteline. A non-descript grey jacket and finally zigzag tram lines into a blond-died crew cut.

Then driveling Cardiff catches my eye, winks and stomps Grunt. 'Do your spitting thing', he commands. Grunt grunts, leans right back, tilting his neck, his eyes bulging and his throat gargling manically - then in a flash the phlegm shoots out like a bullet but I don't see it land. I've never seen anyone spit so far. Cardiff sums up my surprised gaze and cackling in delight at the obvious success of his party trick, he stomps Grunt's left boot for a change.

Only 15 minutes to go and the thin platform rapidly fills up. Old Mr. Bristol wearing a cap that seems on a level with my waist and puffing flavoured tobacco from a pipe almost as long as he is. Plain and Pregnant Miss Yate who slinks round the small control shed for a rolly fix, looking around with guilty challenging eyes. College skivers A, B and C competing for the skinniest jeans prize. Wanna-be Miss Marple, prim and beady with a tightly rolled umbrella held firmly in black-gloved hands. And Miss Beauty Prize Queen with fluttering inviting lashes. This last arrival finally silences Cardiff and puts an end to the stomping as his mouth falls open. Grunt grunts and then gruffly nudges Cardiff and laughs 'stop staring, she's not gonna have an ugly piece of shit like you' and he stomps Cardiff's right boot.

Sat Nag

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2331/2358323948_d366ea450f.jpg?v=0



Don’t always trust your handy little electronic co-pilot!

It may seem like the world’s best invention since kitchen towels but let me take you briefly to the dark side.

Having often hankered after a magical, time-saving, stress-saving satellite navigation system of my own, one dropped right into my hands at the most unexpected of moments, lent in a moment of seemingly genuine generosity to cover a number of previously unchartered trips.

I should have been suspicious right from the start, for the machine clearly had a little black soul all of its very own and for trip number one it didn’t want to give an alternative route from A to B. ‘Trust me’, it whispered, ‘choose my route...which is the only route you want to go’. At this stage of the game I still had some of my own rationality remaining and I chose to go my own route – mostly because I had a pretty good idea of where I ought to end up (I had already spent some time studying the map and writing out each journey step in black marker pen and bluetacked it to the dashboard. I left the sat nav on just for fun...to see how long it would take to re-adjust to my route. The soothing sat voice seemed to get more and more irritated with my navigational deviance until halfway down the M5 it announced in disgust ‘no route recognized for your chosen destination’ before turning itself off.

Bad hair day I figured. Anyway – without giving it much of a second thought I set off on journey number 2 without actually consulting the map at all (unless a brief look at google map to check journey estimated time counts) and I submitted my will entirely to that of my co-pilot, being slowly seduced, mesmerised by the soft audio instructions that apparently favoured the unconventional pathways of the 21st Century UK road network.

Thus I was driven through a convoluting succession of tiny hamlets, most of which seemed to have some form of ‘bottom’ in their name, down muddy tracks and across wild crags and hilltops. For a moment I was in love with the machine – this was surely a much more spiritually enriching way to travel. An hour later I still hadn’t hit the expected motorway and really had no idea how far north I had travelled, and my hands became a little clammy. An hour after that my throat seemed painfully dry. Upon reaching hamlet number 439 I pulled over and searched for it on the map, I searched ever page of the UK and Chanel Isles but I was clearly way off the map. I could only close my eyes and keep going, bound to a spell that must surely break sometime before the next day dawned. And so it did... just as I began to wonder whether I had sold my soul to the devil.

A lucky escape.

So why did I let the same trick be performed upon me again..?.. some days later. Why laugh at other’s mistakes and not learn from your own?
Perhaps like the say about childbirth you forget just how painful it all was ... sooner than you expect.