just over halfway!

Yay! Over 25,000 words now, and back on schedule.
We hurried through the alley and came out on Southampton Street, where traffic, lighter as evening came on, chugged and flowed back down towards the IDR and the town centre. The air felt more humid and polluted than before, and more oppressive. Taylor leaned against the wall outside the church, and lit another cigarette.
�No need to hurry, is there? And this fag will get that horrible fetor out of the back of my throat.�
I sat down and lit up too. Taylor looked up Southampton Street, then back down towards the centre.
�Enlighten me,� he said. �What am I looking at, and what direction am I squinting in?�
�That�s the town centre more or less ahead of you, and you�re facing north, or thereabouts,� I replied. �There�s the flyover for the IDR, the ring road we crossed on our way to the Turks. That ramp takes you on the northwards route, going towards Caversham and Emmer Green where we started. Straight ahead is the road towards St. Mary�s Butts, and no jokes about arseholes please, it was where they used to practise archery. Just to the right is the Oracle..�
�Ah! We must visit her!� he muttered, and grinned.
�and beyond that is St. Mary�s church,� I continued. Further on is Broad Street and Friar Street, then the station, from which it is possible to escape this bloody town.�
�You really must learn once more to stop being so pessimistic and negative, Dan. It doesn�t suit you.�
�There are also lots and lots of pubs we haven�t visited yet. I once calculated that if you tried to drink one beer in every pub within a few hundred yards of the station, there�d be a good chance you�d be dead of alcohol poisoning before you�d reach where we are now.�
�How many have we visited so far? Four, isn�t it?�
�Yes. Plenty more ahead, though. Come on.�
And we carried on sauntering down the hill. As we came towards the roundabout, there was a great roar behind us, and an enormous old car, some ancient American monstrosity, appeared, belching a great plume of exhaust smoke. It pulled up at the traffic lights. It really was quite incredible, and really quite ridiculous. It was painted black, with red and orange flames along the wings; it had white-walled tyres, but not real ones � instead someone had painstakingly painted them, but done an awful job. There was plenty of chrome and tailfins and the thing�s hood was down. The trouble was, it was all out of proportion, as though someone had tried to nail two completely different cars together. Most absurd of all was the little man driving. He was in full early-rocker uniform, which was too big for him, and complete with jet black Elvis-style quiff and DA. He looked awfully pleased with himself. He flicked a cigarette into his mouth, or rather tried to, as it hit the side of his face instead. He bent down to retrieve it, then sat back up, this time with the hair having slid sideways over his bald pate. I burst out laughing at this sight, as did Taylor. This obviously pissed off Bald Elvis terribly, because he tried to roar away from the lights in a haze of tyre smoke; Instead, he bunny-hopped the car and stalled, making us laugh even more as we crossed the road in front of him. Doubled up, we entered the Oracle by the car park entrance and found ourselves by one of the bridges. There were traffic cones across it, and a horsey-looking man directing people away. On the bridge were men with large nets, and in the water were a couple of really bad-tempered looking swans. Other men were on the bank, also with nets and long poles.
�sorry, if you could just go that way please, that�s right, thank you,� said the equine-faced man to a woman, then to us, �and where are you going?�
�We just wanted to pass through,� I said. �What�s going on here?�
�It�s these bloody swans,� answered the man, �they�ve turned into a right pair of nuisances, pestering people for bread and so on. It�s gone too far today now. They attacked a little kid for her sandwich and drew blood, so we�ve got to move them on, but they�re being a right pain in the arse to catch. If you want to go into the centre, please use the other bridge.�
We walked by the bank, and watched the somewhat chaotic attempts to catch the errant swans. This involved one man with a pole poking the thing hopelessly at the swan , while another tried to catch the animal in his net. This only served to piss the swans off even more, as they fluttered and splashed around and generally evaded the capture attempts, much to the merriment of the gathering crowds on the banks. We walked up to the mutiplex, then crossed over on the footbridge.
�Right, where shall we eat?� asked Taylor, as we passed the various restaurants and diners on this side of the Oracle.
�Let�s just grab a burger,� I said.
�Fine by me.�
So we went into Macdonald�s and ate their sad excuses for food, along with dozens of others enjoying their fare. Well, they must have been enjoying it, as they weren�t evincing any signs of disgust, like vomiting. Once we�d finished, we went into the Shopping centre itself and up the escalator. I pointed out the now-empty information booth.
�There�s your Pythian oracle, Taylor � looks like she�s buggered off.�
�Never mind. Let�s get out of here ourselves. I hate these places at the best of times, but they get creepy in the evening.�
A few wan faces passed through, and a few groups of party goers. Here and there were people gazing into the now-closed shops, hungry for the clothes and goods on display.
�It�s like some vestibule for ghosts, isn�t it? Look at them, drifting along into oblivion.�
�This is Reading. It�s a commercial town. Take away the opportunity for commerce, and the inhabitants feel lost. It�s why, for example, there are hardly any old buildings � there�s always been new money coming in, and new money always wants new buildings. The attitude of the typical Redingensian is �What�s in it for me?��
�A commendable attitude for the literal-minded capitalist.�
�Everyone wants cash, but that�s about it,� I continued as we came outside and crossed Holy Brook before it plunged back under the ground, �Look around at all the flash cars and new flats. It�s all image, and all built on tick. Come a financial crisis, and most of these buggers�ll be joining the beggars.�
�You�re hard on them, which suggests you�re being hard on yourself � who knows exactly what they want? Chances are it�s a nice house and a decent wage and the chance to be a bit happy. Don�t blame a cannibal for living in a cannibal culture � it�s all he�s known, so of course he�s going to act like a cannibal.�
�I guess you�re right,� I grumbled as we walked up Chain Street, past Heelas, now renamed John Lewis, and St Mary Minster.
�Where are we headed, anyway?� asked Taylor.
�I thought Friar street, then we�ll head up that and round again. A cheap beer in a Weatherspoon�s, anyway.�
We walked across Broad Street and into Union Street, known to one and all as Smelly Alley, due to it once having been where all the butcher�s shops and fishmongers were situated. Only one fishmonger and one butcher remained now, everything else having been taken over by an eclectic mix of different businesses. There was still a faint tang of fish in the air despite the shop having closed a couple of hours before, adding to the clammy and uncomfortable evening air. Stepping over a few stray pieces of old vegetable from the greengrocer�s that had been left to rot in the middle of the alleyway, we came out onto Friar street. A few cars and buses cruised lazily down the road, weary from the day�s heat; small groups wandered languidly, aiming for the various bars here and there. A thought struck me.
� How much have we actually drunk?�
�How many had you had before I walked in the door at the White Horse?�
�I�d just started on my second.�
�Let�s see� there was that pub on the way down, we had a bottle each there, then the place with the two philosophers in, one there, after that, two in the Hobgoblin and two in the Turk�s. That�s eight for you and seven for me.�
�So why aren�t I feeling as pissed as I should?�
�Probably because it�s coming towards eight o�clock and it�s hot.�
�Probably. Another one?�
�Why not?�
And so we walked into the Hope Tap.

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That�s what it said, so it did, right up until I heaved me load over it, sure.

Twelve: Cheating bastards
Bought my first real six string, at the local five and dime,
Played until my fingers bled, twas the summer of sixty nine
Bryan Adams
The Author sticks his oar in yet again; He offers further unwelcome pontification; he wonders exactly where he�s going and how he will contrive to get his characters into the desired place for the next section.

Alright, I own up. You�ve got me fair and square. I put my hands up and confess, guv�nor. You�ve got me bang to rights, and all those other tiresome clich�s. As it must be glaringly obvious to even the dimmest of my readers, I have totally stolen my story from the embrace of another. In short, it is as Socrates bellowed earlier � this tale is no more than Dante�s Inferno applied to two blokes on a pub crawl. It�s painfully obvious really, isn�t it? Dan Thompson, or Dan T.; the use of a dead poet, in this case Samuel Taylor Coleridge, shorn of his first name, spouting metaphysics, and made to be a pretty cool dude; Taylor�s command to Dan at the beginning to follow him in order to sort his life out; their descent into Reading and beer after beer. You�ve got to admit, though, it�s all pretty clever � I�ve tried to keep various analogies going, and our two heroes are following an admittedly rough clockwise spiral. If you don�t believe me, go back and check � see? Good, isn�t it? Eh? Eh? Even Beatrice, or Beattie, gets a look in. But now I�m a bit stuck � they�ve deviated somewhat, and I�m in a quandary as to do to put them back on the right track next. But more of that later.
Yes, yes, I know you�re probably all quite upset; I can see you rendering my book unto the floor, shouting in disgust and then taking this back to your local bookseller, demanding a refund for having been mislead, or possibly turning away in horror from the web page this is pasted on, but please, BEAR WITH ME. Let me explain. The fact is, most writers are so lazy that they can�t be bothered to invent a plot � instead, they just crib from someone else, or bodge two different tales together. Why else do you think there are only seven different story archetypes globally? It�s because no-one can be arsed inventing new ones. Now this particular tale is essentially the �wandering hero, discovers wisdom/ secret of fire/ eternal life/ a sticky end at the end of his travels, returns home with it (or not, in the case of the sticky end scenario, in which he might come back in a box. Or a bag)� type thing. Simple as that. Do you think Dante had the copyright on that? Of course not. He nicked his idea off someone else, and added a bit of orthodox catholic Christian imagery to it. What he did do, though, is work out an intricate scheme, plot and timeline before he got down to the weary, dirty business of scrawling. Since I don�t have the luxury of that, my task being to get fifty thousand words done as quickly as possible, I have taken the liberty of, ahem, liberating his plot and butchering it as I see fit.
And why not do it? Everybody does. It�s even given literary gravitas in the Islamic world in the form of something called the nazire, which is essentially a courtly poem that rips off the theme of another. Books generally refer back to other books, tales, legends and myths. They may claim originality, but the vigilant reader, which I hope you are becoming (indeed, you must have seen the Dante thing way before now), by judicious flaying of the story�s skin and paring its muscle down, will easily discern the bones of a far more ancient legend lying underneath, just as surely as being able to track down the author�s mind, as I have mentioned before. All I�m doing is making it easier for you here. I hope you don�t mind. This tale is, in short, a bad parody of a Christian story, allegory and vision of Hell. This, by the way, is no time to comment on the real Dante�s apparent profligacy when it came to bedding anything with an orifice. Rather, we could comment on the imagery of the Pilgrim and Dan. Are they in any way similar? So far, no: Dan does not appear to react to the various situations he finds himself in, nor does he appear to grow in realisation. Then again, his tendency not to really notice what�s going on around him has been commented upon. All he grows is increasingly drunk. Likewise, Taylor doesn�t seem to do much but chunk out metaphysical musings. So he�s exactly like Virgil, then. As to the story: why is it being written? Why is it a parody of a Christian Fable. I�ve already provided an answer, but as the Author, you know that I am possibly unreliable; perhaps there�s another reason. If so, it�s up to you to dig it out, and good luck to you.
To return to my point about books talking about other books, here�s an image for you.
There�s a type of party game that�s tremendous fun to play when everyone�s drunk. You get everyone in a circle, each person facing the back of the person in front, and holding them by the shoulder at arm�s length. At a given signal, everyone sits; Lo and behold, they are sitting on each others� laps. Each person supports the weight of someone else without being crushed. You are then supposed to waggle one foot and a hand in the air and go �wooo!�, but this is optional. Don�t try it with both feet. Anyway, this is the image I have of books and tales and authors; a great ring of people supporting each other, whispering into the ear of the one in front.
They�re not waving a foot in the air and going �wooo!� though. Except for Charles Dickens.

Now what am I going to do with the two heroes? At the moment, they are beginning to stray. It is, as Taylor pointed out, nearly eight, and they have another six hours of drinking ahead of them. If we are to follow the Dantean plan, they should now be entering the equivalent of the wood of suicides and profligates in the seventh circle. Yet I can�t see it happening. In fact, the whole Dante theme was quite accidental at first, but has solidified as I�ve written � now it threatens to break down once more. Well, let�s see where it goes. After all, I�m just as at the whim and mercy of the tale as the characters and you, of course.

Thirteen: Dead souls.
Blah Blah Blah.
Iggy Pop et al
An amazing intervention; everything is scuppered and suddenly all bets are off.

There was a whiff of stale carpet, cigarettes and spilled ale as we opened the door into the Hope Tap; In the corner by the entrance were the Terrible Drunks, a group of old and pissed up Irish blokes, singing contrived songs about the good old land; one of them was looking dazedly at a poster for something or other that seemed to be covered in puke. The rest of the clientele was a mix of different types � students, office workers who hadn�t managed to get home, separate groups of young men and women starting their evening out. Also at the bar was The Fucking Weirdo, and he was staring directly at us.
�Look, Taylor, it�s him again! The weirdo from the bus � I�m sure he�s following us. He was in the Turks earlier on as well.�
�Are you absolutely sure? It could just be coincidence.�
�No, I�m sure � I�m going to have it out with him.�
But before I could approach him, he came up to us, waving his hands like an idiot.
�No, no, no! You shouldn�t be here!�, he shouted in desperation.
Taylor looked as surprised as I did.
�Why the fuck not, and who are you to tell me where I should be?� He demanded.
�Sorry, sorry, but you shouldn�t be here, isn�t it obvious?� he pleaded, obviously in some kind of distress.
�What the hell are you going on about?� I asked, holding down a sudden urge to laugh at his forlorn appearance. He came closer, and whispered,
�Hell is exactly what I am talking about. That is where you are.�
Taylor and I both said �What?� and laughed, as did a few people at the bar who�d been eavesdropping.
�You are in Hell!� he insisted, �or rather you would be if you�d taken the right direction.�
I could only gape in amazement at this bloke.
�What are you on, and where can I get some?� Taylor asked.
Listen to me - please listen,� he said, gripping my arms. �You are not where you should be � the plan, you have to follow the plan � look!�
He let me go, suddenly scrambled in his pocket, and brought out a tattered paperback, filled with strips of envelope, torn-out bits of notebook, and diary pages. I swear there was also a used cotton-bud. He also produced his notebook and a rough kind of map, showing something circular. I wasn�t sure whether to laugh at him, pity him or punch him one. The barman looked over at us, unsure as to what to do.
�It�s very simple, don�t you see? You � you are Dante. And you, Mr. Taylor Coleridge, are the Virgilian figure, guiding your charge towards a greater sense of self-awareness. You..�
Taylor suddenly erupted in fury, something I�d never seen him do.
�You cheeky, mad little fucker, you have been following us! What�s your bloody game, you weirdo? Who are you?�
The figure drew himself up in a ridiculous show of pride.
�I am the Author. You are my characters, and you will return to the plot laid out for you!�
We both burst out laughing at this. Someone piped up, �and if they�re characters, I take it I�m one and all?�
�No,� replied the Fucking Weirdo Author, �You are irrelevant, because you are one of the Damned in my story. I mean, you are just a metaphor, or analogy.�
This elicited, �I�ll analogy you, twat features!�, and things would probably have got ugly if one of the bar staff hadn�t come round the bar and gripped the Author by the arms.
�Right you, out! I don�t want another word, and I won�t have you upsetting my customers, come on with you!�
There was a smattering of applause from the Terrible Drunks, to which the barman replied, �Carry on and I�ll have you buggers out and all!�
The Author was still trying to shout to us.
�No! You must return! You should be in � in circle seven, ring two - the Dolorous Wood with the Suicides and the Profligates! Turn back right! Turn Right! Keep turning right! I�ll be waiting!�
And the door closed on him.
�Bugger me!�, I said.
�Not right now,� replied Taylor, �I could do with a drink first.�
�Do you think he will be waiting? If he is, I�ll fucking deck him!�
�Nah, he wouldn�t be that stupid, to show his face to us again.�
We got our drinks, accompanied by some staring from a few punters and an apology from the barman, and found a corner of the beer garden that wasn�t too sticky. It was a beautiful, but humid, evening now. Dusk was drawing on, and the garden was already pretty much in shadow. Taylor and I sat in silence for a while, smoking yet another fag and, I suspect, sharing the same thoughts.
�Do you have any idea at all as to what that was all about?� I asked.
�Nothing. I really don�t know,� replied Taylor. �You were right though � he was following us. Maybe just you. Have you ever seen him before today?�
�Never.�
�Perhaps he fancies you.�
�Ha ha. Could just as easily be you. How did he know your name, anyway?�
�That�s not so difficult � he must have overheard me in, what was it, er, the Blagrave?�
�True, but wouldn�t we have seen him?�
�Might have been sat down with his back to us or something.�
I mulled it over.
�He seemed very worked up about us being in here- and what was that about Hell? What was he going on about?�
Taylor smiled.
�Now I�m sure of it. He must have been in the Blagrave when Socrates and Plato came out with that crack about Dante. You said earlier about how he had his nose in a book; Odds on it�s a copy of Inferno. His feverish little imagination�s got the better of him, and now he�s convinced that we�re some pair of allegorical figures.�
�Yeah, I guess you�re right. And anyway, it�s not as if any of that stuff in Dante has happened to us.�
�Have you read the Divine Comedy?�
�Me? Well, I know of it, of course. Can�t say I�ve read it per se. Why?�
�Nothing. Well, maybe something: I�m just mulling something over.�
�What?�
�Me. Taylor Coleridge, name of a poet. You, Dan Thompson, or Dan T. You, in your mid-thirties � about the same age as the fictional Dante in his poem, at a crossroads in your life, wondering where to go. I show up, we go on a journey � and did you notice the word �Hell� on the bus stop? And we went downhill from there! And we met two guys named Socrates and Plato � hmmm.�
Taylor stopped, lost in amused thought. He was obviously thinking things through.
�I don�t really know the story myself, but I can understand where the guy was getting off. That�s why he yelled about turning right � if I recall properly, Dante and Virgil keep turning in a clockwise spiral.�
He got his cigarette packet out, tore the back off it, and put the piece of card on the table.
�Shame we don�t have a map,� he muttered. �You got a pen? Cheers. Now help me here�where did we start off?�
Over the next half hour or so, we tried to work out exactly where we�d been so far, and draw a map in proportion. We wrote down what we�d drunk, who we�d seen and, as far as possible, the topic of conversation. I drew a rough map of the streets of central Reading, and continued onto a few beer mats to show where Emmer Green was. The end result was not so much a clockwise circle as a wobbly straight line, coming down from Emmer Green, into Caversham, then over the bridge and so on. It did, however, show a tendency to move to the right. Taylor racked his brains for what parts of the story he knew, and sketched in the words �Limbo� over the Blagrave, and the words �Styx?�, �Acheron?� and �Phlegethon?� over the rivers Thames and Kennet.
Lastly, in Friar Street, he wrote �Wood of the Suicides � where?�
�That�s what he said, wasn�t it? Something about turning right, and we should be in circle seven.�
�That�s right � but was he?�
I admit, I was starting to get a bit freaked by the whole thing � blame the amount of booze I�d already had, and being stalked by some weirdo. Taylor laughed.
�Of course he�s wrong � just a rather sad bloke who got a mad idea lodged in his head. However, this is quite cool, don�t you think? He�s suggested that our trip tonight is somehow pre-ordained and planned. He�s also opened up a set of metaphysical doors, as it were, and made us characters in some kind of re-telling of Dante�s story. Think of it like we�re in a kind of labyrinth � one with no walls and dead ends as such, except the ones that are part of the real, physical town. All the dead ends are in our heads. I just wish I knew the story more.�
�Why, so we could follow it?�
�Maybe, maybe not � in a way, it would be fun to find out. Equally, it would be fun not to follow his crazy set of rules and see if he turns up again, waving his hands and his map. Then you could deck him. Let�s face it, it could make the whole evening far more entertaining.�
� So what do you reckon then?�
�Well, let�s finish these, then turn right and see where we end up next.�
As he said, we didn�t have anything to do apart from get drunk, and as it didn�t really matter where we did this, we could go where we liked; why not play along for ourselves and see what happened? We went up to the bogs before moving on. Washing our hands, we looked out of the windows down on to Friar Street. Sainsbury�s was just closing up and the last few staff were locking the doors behind them; A few people were waiting for buses heading towards Caversham; And small knots of revellers wandered along, shouting. One group were dressed as cavemen and women. Taylor watched the scene attentively.
�Is Reading always like this?�
�Every Friday and Saturday night, yes,� I said. �It has a reputation for high weirdness. Even hardened Londoners who come here by accident tend to just shake their heads in disbelief.�
Coming down the stairs, we passed a woman in her twenties labouring up, and extremely drunk. She winked at us as she passed, and put her fingers to her lips.
�Sh-shh,� she said, �Say nuffink. I ain�t here, right?� Then she tip-toed the rest of the way up, stopping only to say �Sh-shh!� to her reflection, then giggling.
�Time for some fresh air,� said Taylor, and we pushed through the now-heaving bar into the hot evening street.
�Right then, left or right?� I said.
�Let�s follow the game,� said Taylor. �To the Right!�
�To the seventh circle!�
�To the wood of suicides, whatever that is!�
�Just wish I knew where that was.�
And we turned right.

Fourteen: I am not who you think I am
�idle men and the like, who seek stories and fairy tales�
Rumi
The Author is distinctly upset; He bewails ingratitude and discourses upon the fictive and the real.

Or not, as the case may be; I have said I am unreliable, and so I have shown. The summary has very little to do with this interlude. In no other way have I shown my unreliability than in my sudden appearance as a character at the front of the stage, as it were. Now, you may think that that was a highly odd thing to do, and perhaps you are right, but think on a bit more, dear reader: I have already expressly and frequently said that this is a mere fiction; that it is mine, and mine to do with as I will; and that I can and will appear in it. Now think on � what purpose does my intervention have upon the two characters? Suddenly, they have a purpose of sorts; not only that, but they are aware of it. They have also expressed ignorance of certain facts � they don�t know much about the journey sketched out in Inferno. In fact, if you go back to when they were crossing Reading Bridge this afternoon, you may have noticed Taylor�s comment about the Thames and its being perceived as the river Styx. Of course, being perfectly accurate, the river Acheron should have been mentioned here to follow the allusion to Dante. However, this all goes to show that the characters are perfectly fallible in what they do and say; They get facts wrong, as we all do; they exaggerate, over-elaborate, and lie, as we all do; in fact, the infallible character is untrustworthy, and that goes for the Author as well � it is an act of dishonesty. Now, consider this: By thrusting myself so firmly into the spotlight, I have conclusively shown my nature as a fictional creature, and a sorry sight I cut as well, it must be said. As such, it therefore follows that a) I cannot be the author and b) Dan�s first-person account is also fictive and therefore unreliable. It then raises the next uncomfortable idea: If you can�t trust me, being fictional, then who? Not only that, the characters are now aware of the story arc, albeit dimly; What does that imply? As to my identity, all I can say is, I Am Not Who You Think I Am.
For a start, no matter how much I would love to be (and who wouldn�t?) I am not the Omnipotent, Omniscient God of this particular microuniverse that happens to be this story. As I explained at the beginning, I don�t have a clue as to what is going to happen next. Your guess is as good as mine, although if you have a spare copy of Inferno to hand you might find it useful. Very well, then, am I the Story itself, desiring to be written, wishing only to view its own outcome? Possibly, but that still does not account for the fact that I am being written by someone. It may be that Stories exist within the mind; However, they have no real strength or influence until they are shared, passed on, written down � that is when the Story of the Wandering Prince, or the Third Son, or the Discoverer of Her True Destiny, takes on power and is disseminated across a thousand different cultures.
No, I am the author, but just as I appear in one way on these pages, so I have another existence outside of it. Consider this, though � in these interludes, I often appear as something of a smug smartarse, showing off what I already know and indicating what may occur next. In the story itself, I am not much to write home about, am I? Now look at yourself, dear reader. Go on, go to the mirror, and take a damn good look at yourself. What do you see? How do you read the book of the self? I�ll wager you don�t read it the same as someone else. It�s like the difference between someone sitting down into their favourite armchair to read a favourite, well-read tome, and someone picking up the same book, but this time it�s unfamiliar to them. It�s alien territory, to be scrutinised or ignored as the reader sees fit. And just as a book has many pages, so you show a different page to your reader according to how you see fit. Imagine a party full of people who know you: They may all have different opinions of you, simply because they have seen differing pages of the book that is your soul. So please, dear reader, do not presume to judge me on the paltry few leaves of myself I have so far displayed.