A twist of wrist and the blinds dropped down on a dreary Wednesday—dreary, teary and full of weary. Last words uttered and a rush to the ground—spreading my mat on the floor and myself upon the mat of course—up since the early hours so best to get some snooze before evening. And all the while the blind cord’s still slip slipping away, stirring up the air that whirs in blurs above the windowsill where Bennie keeps his treasures—pamphlets and posters reminding you of what they once promised—ONLY THIS FRIDAY—books from Chaney all squat and square and squeezing out dusty words—misty postcards of Friedrich paintings with evening air all aglow, set ablaze by the light of a thousand German sunsets—Untergang, untergang! All aglow for the go-under—due a dip since dawn. Somewhere across town, a man is rolling out a red carpet beneath a crimson Clapham sky.

The washing machine spins to the slipping of the blinds, sending out its metronomic groans—the groaning tones bringing the already sleeping Sej to wakeless life; replying to every one of the machine’s mumbles by offering up grumblings of his own—aye ‘twere, aye ‘twere and a word that sounds like a woman’s name. His sleeping voice is no different from his waking voice—musical but unwavering; no vibrato—a man of few voices, but all the richer for it. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon and I can’t close my eyes—we, the three of us, had set out to nap with the hope of arriving at the picturehouse with the energy of benny addicts—in the end, I arrived with the energy of that spent duracell double A you find at the back of a junk drawer. Now I don’t even wanna sleep—just listen to the clocka clock cloggle of Sej's unravelling mind—mad and musical—blowing a mad tune and spitting his truths into my ears. Some thirty minutes later, and the overhearing was over—yawning my way through a second morning with Bennie by my side—shaking the dust off a mournful dusk and shaking the ghost out of Sej as we woke him, pulling the rug from beneath his dreamy feet—silent eyes pound-coin-wide and Oyster-card-blue, waiting on a word—rise and shine mad one; spread your light across the London night.

We take the northern line south some seven stops or so, tunnelling our way down into Clapham—Bennie points out that I’ve changed into my evening denim and I bite my lip and nod my head all nervous—this is the world premier of Shoulders movie and a lighter wash would have been improper. Some square next to us gets to talking about he used to work for Levi’s once he did you know, and takes to enlarging on how there’s actually only one Levi’s blue, and that the different washes are just different shades of the same timeless colour, and that if you really want to—Bennie shoves him off the tube, the doors closing behind him as we zoom away—“the next station is Elephant and Castle”. My head is still bob bobbing away like an apple—waiting on some teeth all bright and white to descend in a single brilliant flash and pull me up outta this place—budda budda budda bamf POW. We’d been shooting a short that morning—short and sweaty; erecting tripods and gloomy concepts all over the King’s campus—and discovering that I had what they call screen presence (what is he doing in the frame? Yes him—the one standing all wrong on the right-hand side)—the best actors actually have screen-absence.

Sej has won a box of chips, all hot and herby, off a man across from us on the tube—all smiles and witticisms, he’d struck up an easy conversation and was soon having chip after chip thrust upon him—by the time we were rolling out of Oval, he had the whole box on his lap and was blanketing its contents with his own sachet of H.P. pulled from his coat pocket where it had been waiting all the while—pockets of sauce and sinks of honey haunt me, squeezing their sweet innards into the gaps between my daydreams—I begin helping myself, chip chipping away, pecking at potato pieces with my toothpick—Bennie asks where I got it from and I tell him how I was born with it between my lips, on account of which the gap ‘tween my two front teeth came to be—each tooth having to grow around the obstruction—fleeing their gummy nonage.

We ascend into the Clapham night, leaving our tubular days and ways beneath us and making for Venn Street, where Sej and I are introduced to Simon (Bennie doing the talking and leaving us to all that other stuff)—everything I knew about him had been gleaned from Bennie’s occasional descriptions, and he was no less elusive in the flesh; about as tangible as a winter breath—bright-eyed and sharp-witted and soft-spoken, sending out tones that didn’t cut through the mix, but weaved around its obstructions with tact and delicacy—same way a train of ducklings will navigate a weir, ducking and diving in and out of eddies, and riding flows even when heading upstream. He begins briefing us for the evening—the director will arrive at six, however, he will also be late. I like Simon—I’m glad I wiped the chip grease off my fingers before receiving his handshake.

We head inside the picturehouse where we are met by Anna, a Canadian export who comes over all smiley and moony and with a voice like maple syrup—from the jump, she takes to calling Bennie by Sej's name, and Sej by Bennie’s—me she calls Liam, which if you squint your ears is close enough really—no one seems to mind anyhow, on account of the confidence and affability with which the names are misused. Sej and Bennie are sent back outside to plaster the street with posters—putting out breadcrumbs for the public—graphic eel traps that’ll funnel them into the theatre—CUT—to back inside, where Anna and myself are putting the lanyards (that’ll be worn by the talent later on) together—threading cuts of cord through cardboard discs, so that they can be hung around the neck all loose and noose-like. I take to this task like a man with rubber gloves for hands, all slipshod prods and pokes and drops—before long, I’ve been rewarded for my clumsiness with blue fingers, the ink rubbing right off of the card discs—I make for the bathroom to clean my hands with, well, my hands—this is a problem. In washing blue hand with blue hand, I’m only left with even bluer hands—even Sisyphus excuses himself and runs back to his boulder. I wipe my hands against the sink, leaving streaks of blue across the porcelain—my fingers are now clean, but I could never leave the picturehouse bathroom in such a state, and thus the piteous cycle begins—cleaning hands on sink, cleaning sink with hands; whiling away the evening as wasted time splish splashes down the plughole—ticka tocka tick ticka. After a half-hour I’m forced to flee the scene, making my great albeit late escape—by now the bathroom is blue from wall to wall (hot and dripping cerulean blue); urinals overflowing with the stuff.

I stagger outside to seek refuge in the red of the carpet that lies in front of the picturehouse, all spread out and ready to receive the talent—by now the street is filling up with people; fur coats on their shoulders; shoulders movie on their minds—clogged and trampled on, Venn Street squeals under the weight of a hundred high heels. Earlier that week we’d been stationed here (here, on the very same cobblestones), tasked with putting festival flyers into the reluctant hands of passers-by—“Cling to this good Sir! Here Madam—something to dig your nails into!”—and slipping them into any basket or unbuckled handbag that might sail past—filling holes, filling space; squeezing our message into whatever gaps we could find.

To my left, Sej, all puffing and rushing, is erecting a hurried ladder—by the time it’s in position he’s already halfway up the thing, pasting a poster (upon which a single unwinking eye is printed) to a patch of wall he spied from down below—unlit and twenty feet up, it’s unlikely that anyone will even raise their eyes this high, but Sej don’t care because that’s not why he’s doing it—makes no difference if no one looks, no difference at all. Just as he’s reaching out to glue down the final corner of the poster, the ladder gives way beneath him and crashes to the floor with a rusty howl—with his weaker left hand, Sej clings to the partially pasted poster; swinging off the side of the cinema, with a leg-breaking fall awaiting him below. And then the poster begins to slide, and Sej begins to fall—right on down, down to that ever-nearing ground, awaiting the pound! That pounding thumpy sound!—everyone averts their eyes, listening out for the crack of bone; no knee should bend in such a way—but no noise comes, only a biblical hush—he’s here.

Standing, backlit, in front of the picturehouse, with Sej cradled all newborn-like in his arms, is the director of Shoulders movie—Jamie Flatters has arrived. He holds Sej to him tightly (as if holding for a dissolve) and a third hand appears from somewhere to straighten his hair, which is messy but in an organised way—floating halo-like above his head is Sej's poster, dancing in the glowing air like a Monroe dress—Flatters plucks it out of the night: “I think you dropped something mate”. The crowd loses it, and the director is showered with roses and knickers—he looks down at his watch: “Looks like it’s Shoulders-movie-world-premiere-o’clock.” With that, he pulls out a pipe and starts blowing a merry tune as he leads us into the light—out of the wintry dark of Venn Street and into the auditorium.

After the screening, Bennie disappears to interview Flatters, leaving me to fend for my lonesome self—a woman asks me whether or not I see a future in film? I tell her I see a past in it and we start talking about our previous lives—I’m not sure which one of us is humouring the other. A non-American man comes over, all cheeseburger smirks and west-coast charms: “So, you wanna make it in the movies kid?”—it would’ve been a darned good accent, were it not for the obvious pride with which it was pulled out—he says to fire away (reaching for his imaginary holster whilst whistling some Morricone theme) if I have any questions about the industry—I ask him whether a memory is something you have, or something you’ve lost and he leaves—whatta bummer man. Needing out, I sneak around the corner to Sedley place and sit down on some unknown person’s doorstep—a small group of foxes scuttle over and we start talking about nature and stuff until they’re finally scared away by a Fast-Ice van—the city’s premier suppliers of highest quality crystal clear ice cubes. When I get back to the picturehouse, it’s time-up-time-to-go-home—me and Bennie find Simon in the dying crowd and bid him the fairest of wells—“Same time tomorrow?”—“Yeah, but an hour later”—we slip into the night, making for the tube station—Stepney Green Spoons is on our minds.

Halfway into our first pint, a drunkard comes over to us; leaning on our table and spitting his crazytalk in our faces—we ask him what the best gig he ever went to was—“Status Quo, the Status Quo, here we go, you know don’t ya, no, well now you do so so”—then starts mutter-spluttering away about how he’s the voice the line and the receiver—the only one who can receive the message that’ll save us all forever. His words falling on sanity-clogged ears, he stumbles off all souly and holy, singsonging his way into tomorrow—“Here we go, rockin’ all over the world! Here I am n’ here I go! Just look at me go mother! Rockin’ all over this rollin’ world!”—won’t anyone join in? Not even on the choruses?—the bell for last orders rings out through the funereal barroom and we head for home.