The enigma at the heart of our being

JANUARY 20 07

There is an enigma at the heart of our experience on this planet, revolving around a sun about to go whammo, a heartfelt little turf in the road of an asteroid. This enigma emerges in the smallest things, such as why we hold back a tide of love, why we see out the days without purpose, why we die with a headful of questions but no answers about the force of being that we exert out into the cosmos. I have seen angels, they hold out their hands into the abyss for us every single day of their lives, which are eternal. I used to be an angel. I fell. Now I push people towards the hands of my former brethren and say, take this one before me. And so the cycle continues. The enigma is contained in the largest of things, such as an engorged penis entering the cutest tight vagina. Why so easily melting into one another, but years to find the one that fits the best? And so we search on, transient scraps of paper blown by the breeze not knowing what a force is our own will, should we choose to embrace it, to decide, to turn into one another's path and go on together. The search to find the one who will stay close even when the wind blows hard, who stretches out her legs in invitation, but otherwise is a fly-by-night, though a virgin for you every time you see her.

I like unusual women. I like women with a sassy way about them, who make themselves up with the face of Tutankhamun but look like a village lass messy hair in the hay by morning.

I rediscovered a taste for just-got-up late-afternoon Marmite on floppy butter-soaked toast sitting on high stools in another person's kitchen. And there's something about a woman's messy hair before she's combed it, isn't there? Before she's put on the face of Tutankhamun bending down in front of the mirror in her sister's bedroom. We never realised the walls were so thin in that flat. Sofa cushions still all over the lounge floor, dishevelled sheet. I liked the way she slipped on my black brogues to go outside onto the balcony in the cold night air to smoke a rolly. Couldn't smoke in the flat. I just chucked the doormat out onto the cold concrete as I didn't have any shoes to wear. There's something strangely erotic about getting dressed again to go outside for a smoke at intervals. Some of the best conversation with teeth chattering. See how far I can flick this fag butt into the darkness. Whether Brad Pitt should have ditched Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie. I said he should have stuck with Aniston, she was in favour of Jolie. I thought to myself, you're both in one.

With some women, a revolution needs to take place. Then you are believed. It is your own day. From small beginnings over time, tagging along together becomes something deeper, far more moving. The unstable ground draws you closer, you bind yourself together with invisible ropes. You climb to safety and make a nest together. Your love grows for the next stage, the dynamism is undiminished, the passion longer and more defining of you as her bloke and her as your woman. And then it erupts, the revolution, her true recognition of you. She finds it so hard to understand why she didn't see it at the beginning. You tell her she did see it ... and you showed that you saw it, why do you think I stuck around you girl? Why do you think you stuck around me? In spite of all the other guys falling in and out of your affections. Yes baby, it was havoc, waiting for you.

But the waiting is pleasant. She is a cute chick, intelligent, beautiful, great in bed, funny the way she jabs you with karate chops at a moment's notice like Cato, can drink you under the table, and does this thing with her lovely Bamby brown eyes. Fairground rides in Leicester Square, running hand in hand to the carousel horses, bags of donuts, a bit of jabbing in the ribs Cato-style, and a delightful whirl of chit-chat centred mainly on her saying she's not coming back to my place and me saying yes you are, a deal's a deal.

If this is a game of poker, I like the hand I'm holding.

The enigma at the heart of our being is most rawly expressed in sexual attraction. Watching how high the swings are rising whirled around in circles, sky-diving girl beside you. But the biggest white-knuckle ride was when she strode off in a huff that could have been the end of it and you were ready to walk away, dropping her like an assassin a smoking gun after telling her to FUCK OFF. But instead you turned back and watched her walk, every second getting further away, until you up and bolted after her, your brogues clip-clopping in a gallop across the road in front of a car big black coat flapping behind you to see her disappear through the door of a corner bar, and in you follow after her and tap her lightly on the shoulder and say I'll get these and she is beaming a big Bamby eyes smile at you. And you think, how easy it would have been to have made the wrong move back there, to be getting on the tube right now sullen-faced and defeated. Forlorn at having let go so crassly of love. So now you want her more than ever and insist she comes back to your place. She rejects the proposal ten times then offers a glimmer of hope, saying, 'I will if you buy a bottle of wine from behind the bar.' So you do, and say, 'A deal's a deal.'

On the way back home, she goes into Cato mode once more. She is fabulously childish, it makes me laugh with squirming delight. 'Want some more, punk,' she snarls at me with an Elvis upper lip and bursts into laughter. Cool chick. She tries finally to push me into a neighbour's hedge. She's high maintenance in a karate-kid kind of way, but settles down in bed to the softest sweet pussycat.

It was a good New Year. Better than waking up under a poker table. Better than sleeping through it.

We cannot take for granted any human relationship. Things change. Lives end. Planets end. All we have is what happens to us when it happens. Memories are dying coals we fan from time to time. The future isn't worth thinking about, no point thinking further than there is. But we can hope, hope a soulmate is a soulmate. And we have to trust too, trust that underground currents flow our hearts together, not cruelly apart. It is a hard business, this falling in love, this just plain falling into reality.

Is anyone ever worth it? You have to think so, don't you? Beautiful flower, bloom for me.

Copyright © 2007 Biroco