SLICK RICK said if your pen don’t work you can press down hard on it. I pressed down hard enough and broke the nib, of course now the ink has burst out and taken the page, it is okay. There is a new one beneath it.

Sinéad said that shelving is an erotic job. She captured with such brevity what I had been trying to tell Claudine for months. I want to work in a big warehouse at night and organise things in linear, precise order; according to their make, range, colour, whatever they have in common. Deep into the night, a sole operation, engaging patterns, a tangible sensibility – my neurons strawn out in abundance. Glen says I ought to aim higher but has no clue, no insight into my nervous system, into the thing about weaving. Soon enough the realisation caught up and I felt aware, quite sickeningly of the undertones of what I had just said. I recognise my privilege to be able to wish such a job on myself as a hobby, but what about what Sinéad said about shelving being an erotic job? 

*

I prepared the spring onions in a sideway chop, olives lazy halves, coriander leaves as small as I could, cucumber blocks all in uniform size as much as the circumference allowed. I placed them in a bowl where she could see. These are gorgeous, darling. Really quite beautiful, now give it a mix. You are getting quite peng babe. And who are your friends? Chestnut mushrooms sauteed in garlic butter, topped with chives when ready, quinoa boiled with water, half a Knorr vegetable stock cube, yes that explains the tiny confetti of orange and green. Look, it should have been feta, I know this. But today it will be haloumi, the Midas Grilling Cheese of course, because of the tax situation one can’t name haloumi haloumi but grilling cheese. A name is only a name but for us consumers there’s always something more to it don’t you think? Glen always goes on about these laws with Shah, he never includes me in these conversations. I am welcome to join everytime I speak, I even get a response if I wait, but he never addresses these discoveries and investigations to me the way he does to Shah. I think of that Marilyn Frye quote, you know the one, yea, perhaps I should get it tattooed on my forehead, it is after all always on my mind. I get just as excited, I have just as much to say as Shah, I want to say. I know so much more than you think I know, I put the tahini back in the fridge. He doesn’t know. 

*

I wake up early every morning. Sometimes my eyes sting, that is how early I rise. I enjoy the sting, like when we used to get kinda high. Perhaps sting isn’t the right word. I get out of bed and I feel great. I light a candle, say grace. The kettle broke last month so now I boil water on the stove. I make a coffee and then, after brushing my teeth I drink as much water as I can before allowing myself a toke on the mango vape. Soon I will stop but for now, if it makes the dark mornings something to look forward to – I reckon I must allow it.

I sit at the kitchen table, the winter is cold but I open the window wide, the sharp cold breeze along with the comfortable sting in my eyes feels good. A sharp cold breeze is only a function of the earth – I wish to bear it. The coffee is great, it leads me to the bathroom where I sit with notes open on my phone. I write about Bernadette whilst I enjoy, on the best of mornings, a most composed and cinematic release. When the release is satisfying I am reassured that I’m ready for the day to come. The days these days have been quite similar, other than the things I sense here and there, there is not much happening in the world around me, and if there is I am not participating as a witness – a purposeful recluse.  

I walk down the stairs to the underground and always, when I am wearing tight trousers or a short skirt – when I can see the outline of my legs, look at the reflection of my upper thighs in the small black plate above the stairs to assess whether a thigh gap is on the horizon. Although I no longer care for a thigh gap, I used to do this back in my school days, and such old school ambitions make me feel like who I have always been. No identity in particular, but the habit familiarises me with my old self and I, like everyone, like the feeling. 

*

I get on the Jubilee Line to St. John’s Wood. I carry with me The Poetics of Reality by Frye, you know the one, yea. As always I choose not to read it. The promise of radicalisation is that strong, too loud and alarming for a receptive mind. I hear the sirens when I look at the cover. Indeed a sad favour to society isn’t it – how low one must think of something to refrain from challenging it. Instead I hide myself in my new old hip-hop playlist full of Slick Rick, Outkast, Capone and Norega and many more. Florence said me and him are going to have hip-hop listening sessions where we will play each other what we’ve been listening to, and discuss the vast literary affairs that entail their poetry. I keep thinking about how it’s all this hip-hop that has got the tap running again, especially Slick Rick. Whereas literary wonderment can be found anywhere, waiting for those who seek it, jumping out at those who receive it, I feel that just like John Berger, Slick Rick’s voice does him many favours. I could say the same about Andres 3000 but the Ruler has something Andres 3000 does not, not the flow, the tone or even the literary flair, but his voice has a particular washed out, ah I dunno, a sweet scrape of a tinge? A sweet huskiness, like how I imagine Black Oud would sound mixed with D&G No. 3. 

I’ve never worn perfume properly. You know when people have a signature smell and leave it lingering in places after they’ve left? When we were in East Dulwich that night before we ended up at MOT Venue till 6am, Amaal offered Claudine and I some k and of course I welcomed her invitation with respect. I had my turn but when it came to Claudine’s, she dropped the entirety of the little baggy on Amaal’s beige cashmere jumper. There was only one way forward. I got down on my knees and placed one hand on her lap for precision. Then I pinched her sleeve ever so softly, like befriending a delicate butterfly. My curiosity transformed briskly into servitude against the stroke of a million soft threads, as I snorted the diaphanous display like lightning in reverse. Amaal said her cashmere jumper was actually Missguided, but I was not listening. It was then I first smelled the D&G No. 3.

…

Noor-e-Sehar Ali is a writer and DJ based in London. Ali began her writing career as a philosophy columnist at The Founder. She co-edited The Work Experience Revolution and worked on a book of Colin Higginson’s exhibition In The Manner in Which it Appears in collaboration with Stroud Valleys Artspace, which includes essays Rulers of Time: meditations on our fluid grasp of time, and The Language of Dreams: an exploration of Higginson’s art through phenomenology. She has been published by Magnum Photos, Hoax Publication and has a forthcoming LP with Pablo’s Eye. Alongside her debut novel, she’s working on a collection of short stories narrated in dream-like soundscapes for radio as G830.