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Mackenzie (Smell of the Petrol)

from Futile Exorcise by Paul Rooney

/

lyrics

How about some more music? What the hell.

I face you, so to speak. It’s now. You sit, you stare at the moulding cards. Your glaring sockets. That rictus. That hand is something else.

So here we are. You sit inside, we sit inside, your poker room of stone. Your right hand’s holding the cards up: like an offering to heaven! We’re in this together, in many ways.

How about some music again? Yes? But in your head… but in your head it’s different. In your head you return: the fumes through the hood. A jerry can of petrol is open in front of you, it seems. I have opened it, I am there then, as now. I pour liquid on your hood, drenching your body. Pulling your hood off, I light a match. Now you sit in the dark, but in your head it is light, it is then, there is light, you are seeing me then in the dim glowing, my brightly intelligent pale green eyes, your mouth still gagged, the can of petrol, I am holding the fizzing flame. Fancy a cigarette? The walls of the stone pyramid where you sit at the table, then as now.

You are there in your head. You return to the smell of the petrol through the hood on your head, in your head.

You are seeing the walls again emerge, then not now, soot-black cobwebbed dripping stone baring down around you in the flickering. My flashing white teeth, the dimples in my cheeks as I smile. I am offering you a packet of fags, you see me waving them towards you. There is a strange taste, on the cigarettes, a hint of silver ragwort petals toasted in rapeseed oil. I offer you the fags. I’m simply being polite! We should approach our situation in as civil a manner as possible, right?! Shall I jam one in your gag?! Your gagged rictus?! What was that?! You groan?! You are tired?! We are both tired! We are both trying our best, we are seeking the same goal, after all! The match. Near your face. The heat on your face. Will he set me alight?! You wonder! Will I?!

Will I? Mm. The liquid I poured over you wasn’t petrol but water. An old conditioning trick from the Theatre Internment Facility. The match light diminishes. You’re back, staring in the vague direction of your hand in the gloom. It is now. That hand is something else.

The hand you’ve been dealt is a winning hand. You couldn’t be more certain of it! What a hand!

credits

from Futile Exorcise, track released April 3, 2017

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