That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories by James Kelman

Author:James Kelman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

VOLCANIC

MATTERS

My facial muscles had erupted. I traced the thing with my right index finger, touching gently, softly, tracing the outline and inner swelling, finding the ouch point. Volcanic was a more than adequate appellation: astute even, for how else to describe the tragedy. My face was a gigantic pimple decreasing to a globular shape complete with eruption, the volcanic protuberance, great fucking irritant, producing an unpleasant sensation when touched, as now, even in such soft, soft . . .

I was groaning, afraid to seek out the mirror. That was funny. At any rate amusing. Obviously it was ironic and could only ever be ironic. I looked this way and I looked that way. Suddenly I moved, scampering, I scampered about the room, oh what will I do what will I do.

What will I do now.

One thinks of these things, and other things too. And I stopped the scampering in the act of uttering the words. So often it comes like a question, what will I do now. Well is it a question, not just like a question, it is one; that is the form it comes in. And the question takes one by surprise to the extent that it is not even a question.

Yes it is a question but having such force it travels beyond that, it is a segment of one’s being that is fundamentally central to one’s essence and in grammatical terms is designated ‘verb’.

That is the truth. Verbs are at the root of my very essence; my heart and my soul. I am a doing person altogether.

Forget preparation. What is ‘preparation’? One is better off diving head first into one’s life. One meets a potential partner, so meet her, just meet her.

One thing was clear, I knew where the mirror was, if I wanted to find it. Did I want to find it? No! Not just doubtful: NO. I had no intention of finding it, now when my face was the very last thing ever I wanted, never ever never.

It is true. There was the mirror. I cocked my head to the right side. This was a habit. It was not a bad habit although one might have wished it on another. An elderly relative once advised me that such was my Father’s habit. Oh god my father jesus god love us, in short, I preferred my Mummy. Now here I was cocking my head like the auld bastard, auld dadikins, dastardly dadikins. O he was alright, simply that the annoying habits, annoying habits, that was Dad, him and his

o well, so I was like him. Well well. I was gazing into the mirror, this way and that, quirks of the eyebrow, the hairline. Oh Daddy Daddy!

But matters of a volcanic nature.

Life takes one by surprise. The poor auld fizzog. What will I do now?

In the form of a question a statement is mere rhetoric.

Hang on a minute: this question does not imply action, it contains it. It is not a question at all but a statement, supposedly of intent; a stated intention.

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