It’s mid-November and I’m sitting at the laptop at 8:51am in Sapporo, in Japan’s soon-to-be frozen north. A faint dusting of snow fell yesterday, however the cold, dry air is preferable to the 24 Hour Steam Room/Max as Mosquito Buffet climate of Thailand and Malaysia.

Japan, England, Malaysia, Thailand… The summer has been long and wonderful this year and I am full of gratitude.

My first weekend back in Sapporo has just passed and a splendid weekend was had. Loud music, people I’ve missed, late night walking below towers of neon lights and debauchery, the lot. I felt welcomed back into the wintry fold. I do miss home though. As great as this city is, it’s no true replacement for ‘Faaampton.

Let’s cut to the chase. Why the long wait, Max? Can you quickly sum up the last seven months? Tough question, tough task. I will ascribe the pause to a heady mix of laziness, an inability to focus, a lot of moving from place to place, wasting time on the modern curse that is social media, and generally being Really Quite Busy™. I felt a surge in creativity after my last visit to Sapporo, although this was fleeting and little came of it. In the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to put my finger on what the problem is.

I have been writing, but mostly diary entries, and most likely never to be finished attempts at short stories. I never feel very happy with what I write. I rewrite, over edit, censor, and generally tear the soul out of the thing until it’s a limp remnant of the original idea. It’s a frustrating habit. ‘First thought, best thought’ as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, then Ginsberg, once opined. It’s a suspiciously terse mantra. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had gone through a few rewrites.

Another recent realisation has been that without making bad art we never get around to making good art. Holding back on posting anything because I’m concerned it might be a little too honest, or that I may have missed a couple of typos, or that the theme gets lost towards the end, or that it’s a load of old bollox; this gets me nowhere. I doubt anyone would call me a perfectionist, but I certainly spend a lot of time worrying about whether anything I do is ever ‘Good Enough™’. Offering nothing at all is the safer option.

But, no work is ever perfect, and neither should it be. Well, unless that’s your aim, in which case, edit away. Not for me though. Not any more.

Better off making something than nothing, eh?

“Better off making something than nothing.”

The words roll over the ocean and into the barren night. Moonlight glimmers on the gently rolling waves.

“Better off making something than nothing!” he roars into the endless black expanse. A pause.

“Better off making something than nothing,” only this time quieter. Almost a whisper. This time, the words do not echo. The whispers are consumed by the darkness. The lapping of waves grinds to a halt, the soft sand contracts into minute shards of glass. The clear-black sky hazes over. The cold night air swells, growing hot and thick and stifling. A fetid stench permeates the air, a putrid, decaying, chemical-laden smog singes his nostrils and scalds his eyes.

He finds he is bound fast in a standing position. He tries to step forward, to raise a hand, to shut his eyelids to the heat and haze, any movement at all, even to breathe, but he cannot, held in place by an invisible, irresistible force.

Panic takes him.

What is this force that binds him? He tries to scream, but the air in his lungs is solid as stone, weighing him down, tearing and scraping as he desperately attempts even a single, small breath.

An explosion of brilliant pain and the panic succumbs entirely to a singularity, an infinite mass of unimaginable heat and gravity, deep within his skull. An ashen tendril, coarse, prickly, probing, emerges from his left nostril and searches his cheek, his lips, his jawline, flexing and feeling for purchase. A foul and unidentifiable thing emerging.

The tendril slithers out inexorably, wrapping itself, pulsating, worming its way around his face, and then around his neck, down across his chest, his groin, further it extends, caressing his calf, seizing his ankle, before sinking into the ground.

An overwhelming pressure exerts itself upon his body as the tendril digs in, pulling him down, crushing his bones, tearing his ligaments, his flesh splits and spills as the tendril grinds his body into the shards below. The final spasms of electrical impulse fire from his brain to nerves that are no longer connected and the pain, at last, is gone.

The tendril finishes its work, convulsing, massaging what’s left of the body into the shattered glass of the ground.

The haze clears, the chemical stench dissipates, the waves’ motion is restored, the glass softens back into sand and the moonlight glimmers again. The air is clear once more.

The tendril comes to a rest, breathless, and lets out a mournful sigh.

“Well? Now what?”

The tendril looks up, huffs, and wilts, now looking rather ashamed of itself.

“What was the point in that? You know someone’s going to have to clear that up don’t you?” The Voice is stern, authoritative, and deadly serious.

The tendril slumps, slack and remorseful, shamed by The Voice’s candour.

“Oh, come now. Chin up.” The Voice is now gentler. The tendril has no chin. “No point moping around all night. He’ll be back in the morning.”

The tendril looks up, grateful for forgiveness.

“Leave him alone next time though,” The Voice intones, “Better off leaving something than nothing.”

“Better off leaving something than nothing,” gargles the tendril, in its own incomprehensible dialect.

“Indeed.”

The tendril slowly makes its way into the ocean, the moonlight glimmers on, the soft caress of salt and sea washing away the remnant paste that was once a man.

Then… blackness.

Silence.

Nothing.

Peace.

…

..

.

And that pretty much sums up the last seven months.

Max x