Rear view # _ — Phil Kay % ,
Bedtime stories
‘ end in the clones.‘ I sing in order to help my wee girl into 5 sleep. And also so she might think that they mean clowns
when Slur llizrs ll comes out and so not ask what a clone is so I would have to tell her about replicant beings produced in laboratories.
l have my left hand on my daughter's shoulders back as she delves into sleeps in that way I retnember as a kid — when being able to contemplate that you could just stay awake all night sleepthinking was enough to keep you awake for two hours -- and I am typing on my laptop with my right. So portable
you could actually be typing stuff ‘ up as you were going down a playground slide. h h She has just taken one of those t en ow long times to get to sleep which are actually a treat for us both to k lie and chat and be gentle and e pyjamas Into a ! nightie?
Just typing. you just have to keep typing consistently at the same rate. correcting any mistakes in the same speed. like dribbling a ball along and gathering it from behind you and not
losing step. This means that you just type to keep typing type to keep typing and try out the word: ‘typewriter' which is all on the top line and it‘s unusual to do and double mimetic. Trying any old thing just to be going along at a certain sustainable rate. just to keep a kid sleeping. may seem like a dashingly foolhardy thing to do. considering the journalistic you-haye-to—make- an—effort type of argument. yet I like the fact that those more suitable moments of reflection and getting ready are still just moments in your life where you are saying : ‘()K 1 am ready.‘ \Vell this is that too.
.»\nyway. (‘oco just sort of catne out of sleep and sat up in bed and said: ‘l)addy. then how do you make
pyjamas into a nightie'."
tolerant of the late hour. I am feet up in an old rocking chair my mother used to sit in. We had gone through the enigtna quiz/ing. ‘what is more important: a frying pan or a trampoline‘ issue/concept game and she was wavering. I found myself fayouring the real words to a Lou Reed tune I had been playing as a method of inyolying her mind in something that is really going to be _ u ‘(‘ut up the inside seam‘ I said. both perplexing and unfigure-outable. yet not without “Then open out the four sides and sew some presence of a basis. ()ften children are unaware they ““t them to opposite sides together to form are unaware. one large leg.‘ I offered.
This laptop really is most quiet or. as is really the case. Shc killd 0f lUOde 11 hi! dollulcd 11nd consistently noisy. so ('oco can remain asleep as long as the Illullghl for 21 11101110111 and Said: ‘Wcll noise is consistent. So I am just typing along at a rate I can then that would be one leg not a nightie.‘ think of new stuff to write to of at. and went to the pillow never to return.
John Fardell
.V, “12' pm Q E
I. ‘4'. t. l4. / -. ‘1‘- l, . -'\\‘\. ' ) \ ‘I, ti 5' ‘ .y ‘0 L _ "' » , . .. K... .3. ; . j .. '- -‘ 14. I ~ ' v , . ".V‘: 1 . ' o ' '-
120 THE LIST 3 z 3.14. I, J‘."
(TESKE
II
HUIEHN Mi