magikpumpkin

Had a recent situation losing a lot of my stuff (talked about in another thread), perhaps forever, which has brought me to look to 2 sets of notes. I really like them but I’m not exactly sure how or where I can use them. This is my raw material, as uncooked and fresh from the mind as it gets.

The 1st notes I've habitually made on train, tube and bus journeys for the last 2 years, collecting observations in a notebook about commuters, their habits, the atmosphere, projected outer image, the general experience. It's made for a quirky sarcastic humorous mini collection of ideas.

E.g.

It’s surprisingly how much shit people say to each other at bus stops. In a perfect world the only timetable would be my timetable, everyone regulated around me. This way I shall never have to listen to other people’s horrifically boring conversations while waiting. I say “listen”, I mean “hear” really; I’m trying to shut out this incredible anecdote about how there wasn’t a dining table at some party and then they bought one and then it broke.

Stay off the stage.

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I’m coming past Potters Bar on a train and I’m thinking about what it’d be like to be a fish.

I am not stoned.

There is simply nothing that inspirational on the journey to Kings Cross so it’ll have to do. Let’s us consider the fish:

I am a fish, I swim in my own shit–

I’m interrupting myself here because the announcer on the train is clearly a paedophile, no proof, but that kind of voice belongs only to evil persons. I fear the last stop from here (Finsbury Park) to Kings Cross. The doors have just locked and sealed, and so has my fate I see.

The ticket collector has tried to eye me up, is he supposed to be wearing a grey jumper? Is this just a man going around checking people’s tickets for the sake of it? This is clearly the extent of madness yet to come on this route. The tracks we’re on look sinister, as if hiding some terrible secrets. Why this pair of tracks, why?! Why aren’t we on the ones next to them? Are we supposed to be?

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…

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The 2nd are notes from time in college & school jobs in a Woolworths outlet and a Co-op/Esso garage station studying my local community, odd characters, the patterns and traits of shoppers and overall the psychology and thoughts going through the mind of a till monkey (me) trying to keep his sanity as he endures dangerous levels of boredom.

E.g. (1)
I watch them; they’re all lined up, each one a short distance behind the last and they’re all coming my way, like planes arriving at a Gatwick runway. All of you are about to form a ten-person queue out of nowhere to stand there and pout at me. Yes it’s my fault you exist, clearly. You utter, utter bastards.

(2)
Control freaks are the worst; watching every bloody action and movement you make with hawk-like concentration. Sometimes I drop items for my own personal amusement and watch them have a momentary heart attack and recoil back like a spring. Why are you following my hand with own as I move items about? You look like a freak, given, but you are no mime performing a mirror act.

In fact…yes…this way…I …I CONTROL YOU!

(3)
They hover like vultures, stepping sideways towards the till.
I’m just hovering to look like I’m browsing.
YOU ARE SO F*CKING NOT! You are not coy! Nor subtle! Asshole.

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These examples don’t demonstrate the full range since a lot of it (I fear the best it as well) is currently lost with the rest of the stuff on my hard drive. Anyway, I don't plan to use both sets of notes together but I know they have potential. There’s no plot between them or one I can see right now (it's 3:30am, im tired) that could be roused from them; they’re literally just momentary observations, random ideas or observational thoughts. The only place I could imagine placing them are either in stage scripts, tv sketch show scripts or alternate chapters of a novel or novella.

Apologies for the length.
What do you think?