The Choreography of Riots

About an hour had passed when the first fires began burning. They were sparked with petrol and tossed cigarette lighters, teased into life with banners and flags. The crowd had swollen to a few thousand, clogging all the main arteries into the precinct, the hardcore three hundred or so at the front were rooted at a stand-off with armour-plated police guarding the foyer entrance to the government building. Neither side looked likely to relinquish their stance, instead intent on grinding against one another like tectonic plates, just waiting for the friction to provoke an inevitable eruption of violence.

I watched with a sense of bemused excitement as the riot progressed on the live web-stream; relishing in the unfolding civil unrest piped through onto my computer screen in high-definition. Alongside the footage, a noticeboard of messages and commands were continuously refreshing from the online audience, participating safe from the madding crowds behind inconspicuous profiles and monikers.

-Keep adding to that bigger fire –
-Carry on pushing, more of you add to the numbers, you’ll break through soon! –

In response to this instructional drip-feed, those on the street began piling up the bonfire around which others danced to the dubstep soundtrack like contemporary pagans, building the spontaneous pyre until smoke was billowing up into the placid sky. The whistles and cheers from the crowd-swell acted as a hostile clarion call, the chants building and peaking like a football faithful on match-day.

From the aerial vantage point of the camera I could pick out one of the rioters being knocked to the ground by a pummelling police baton, an act of desperate aggression as control began to slowly ebb from their collective grasp.


-Not all of you saw that but we can see the police singling people out on the front line and knocking them to the ground. Stand firm guys!! –

The collective instinct of the crowd was responsive to the warm words of encouragement filtering through via their phones and rallied together, locking arms and shoulders, pushing ahead in an effort at crushing their way into an advance like a giant rugby scrum.

Flares trailing a crimson plume were launched into the swarm which dispersed around their descent like ripples, breaking formation with the synchronicity of a tuna fleet. Phones were clenched in the hands of the rioters, checking for directions and instruction from us the online commentators, whilst also brandishing improvisational weaponry; the armoury and tools of disparate ages brought together in a rebellious synergy.

-Throw the flares towards the police, not at each other –
-You’re gonna have to hurry people, the police reinforcements’ll be here any minute –

In desperation the crowd surged forwards like a tsunami and finally managed to break through the outer skin of the police lines and into the belly of the building.

-You’re in guys, you’re in!! –
-Nice one! –

A tumultuous roar went up from the mob and I felt a slight bloom of anticipation as I sat forward in my chair. Knowing that the mass was too great for them to hold any longer, the police reluctantly surrendered all resistance and edged back to the sidelines, now mere observers to the divine riot taking shape before them, scowling like disapproving parents.

-Can we get a shot from inside the foyer please? Cheers –

Inside the foyer of the building, an ornate and plush governmental atrium. The intruders leapt and spiralled with gymnasts’ agility across the floor mat. Glass curtain walls were savaged by brutal feet, cracking, splintering and then smashing to the ground. Slogans and declarations of rebellion were hastily daubed upon walls; the rioters staking their hostile claim on the decorative rites of the building.

-Has anyone got a panning shot over the heads of the external crowd, looking into the building maybe? –

Outside it was clear that a previously wary portion of the crowd were becoming increasingly tempted by the accomplishments of the more daring, enthralled by the spectacle they realised they too were a part of. Everyone was just as eager to claim the starring role as everyone else in this lavish yet gritty production, no one seemed prepared to stand aside as a bit-part actor.

-Can we get a view of the glass frontage coming down? –

The police were stood useless and scared as more bodies piled through the wreckage into the building, as though it were the entrance to a wild illegal rave whose safe capacity was rapidly being exceeded.

-You guys on the left, you’re obscuring the view, push forward into that police line if you can –

On the command of the director – a faceless profile from a bedroom or office somewhere who happened to have taken control of the riot’s choreography – the group charged ahead at the police who, initially stunned, managed to wrench up their shields to batter them back. I couldn’t help but smile as I saw a hapless photojournalist become detached from the media fray and inadvertently become a sitting target for a frenzied police officer who landed a crunching truncheon blow onto his extended and vulnerable zoom lens.

Even from the footage the smell of joyous carnage was tangible; the panic of the police; the sorrow of the once-proud building as it was invaded by a splurge of destructive hosts. Meanwhile the camera exhibited the mob ascending the stairwell, cheering and hollering as they wound their way around the skeleton of the high-rise like a spreading virus unleashed upon the exposed nervous system.

-Don’t stop till you reach the top guys –
-Get out on the roof if you can! -

Like a well-rehearsed ballet the revellers danced forwards and into the building, merely being swept along on the tide as if by some kind of telepathy unique only to herds. They sneered at the police with contempt as they passed, wallowing in this upending of authority which was at once so alien and irresistible.

Meanwhile, more of the online audience were beginning to contribute, as though this were a television serial with which they had only now begun to engage. They offered lighting tips and formation strategies like cinematographers working from home, and one eagle-eyed viewer helpfully pointed out that a young girl’s face had been exposed. After receiving this costume advice through her phone she hastily scrambled to conceal herself, keen to avoid being featured in the authority’s private production, for which filming was also discreetly under-way.

-Are you nearly up on the roof? This is gonna look awesome! –

At the besieged entrance to the foyer, the police had somehow managed to force their way across to plug the void, stemming the torrent of invaders who howled in disappointment. You could sense the animosity between those on the inside and those kept out, and I wondered whether the police would be suddenly beset with conspiratorial asides and bribes from those desperate to pass through onto the other side.

The media crews moved their way alongside the police barricade, cameras capturing every fragment of glass and jeer from the crowd, attempting to capture the most visually arresting representation of the day’s events, to crystallise the carnage for the front pages and lend weight to their post-match analysis.

-Okay, we’ve got people up on the roof, let’s get a tight shot on them, good work guys –

A helicopter tracking-shot captured the scene on the roof as rioters began to appear from within like refugees fleeing a flood. They waved up at the camera with the joy of climbers having reached a summit up to which they had struggled bravely. The mass of bodies below them cheered in adulation; everyone delighted that a select few had made it into the starring roles that they themselves had been denied.

-You lot on the roof, start draping the banners and signs over the edge –

At the behest of the improvised production crew, flags were unfurled and lashed down to the concrete lip of the building. The gaudy statements of fury and derision screamed out in bold lettering as the roof dwellers danced to boom-box beats, their mission accomplished, the building apprehended.

-That looks amazing guys, nice one! There’s not much more you can do now, the job’s done –
-Get that fire extinguisher that’s over there –

My stomach began to tighten as I saw a couple of hooded men detach from their vantage point over the precinct below and search for the conveniently-placed fire extinguisher, a prop left in place earlier by a well-prepared stagehand.

-Yeah good idea, spray the pigs below! –

The gladiatorial roar of the assembled crowd seemed to be almost feral. The police at the entrance had now manoeuvred a radius of empty space around them away from the front line of the rioters. The space between them was now a no-man’s land into which no one with sense would offer themselves. Each side was instead happy to hold their respective positions along the battleground; a new kind of trench warfare played out on cracked tarmac.

Up on the roof, the guys with the extinguisher had carried it up to the building’s edge and were now wrestling with the hose, trying to unleash it.

-Try and get it free boys, that’s right –

I sat further forward in my seat as they finally unlatched the hose and held it up on the concrete ledge.

-Drop it! -
(put it down???)

-Are you sure?! –

-Drop it! -
(throw it???)

A split second decision, an instinct fuelled by an omnipresent bloodlust, cast the steel missile over the side. The continuous online feed seemed to stutter and slow as everyone, both at the scene and the audience with hands hovering over keyboards, gaped in wonder as this crimson flare sailed down past storeys of windows.

The skull of an unsuspecting police officer broke the fall of the dead weight as he crumpled to the pavement beside his shocked colleagues. Man down. A first casualty of the war. The stream of footage seemed to be on pause, or else stalling with an elusive signal, as the camera caught the head of the policeman split over the tarmac like a watermelon; blood and brain matter strewn like an exploded spraypaint can.

The effect on the atmosphere at the scene was something akin to a punch being thrown in an otherwise lively, convivial pub, or someone knocking their knife to a restaurant floor with a noise to cut every other conversation to silence. Nothing like a death to tarnish a riot.

The ethereal gloss and gleam of the presentation thus far had been irretrievably shattered by the inconsiderate grime of irrationality and I knew it was time for me to stop watching. Feeling slightly repulsed I shut off the live feed and sat back in my chair, exhaling through puffed cheeks. As I went to habitually check my emails, I struggled to decipher the sudden twist of spontaneous violence that I had just been a witness to; so far away and safe from, yet so close and so involved. As guilty as the rest.

The production that had played out, climaxing with a random daylight culling, had looked undeniably visceral and beautiful, a piece of professional ingenuity, but in the end had been too much and I vowed to watch out for the more palatable highlights that would be broadcast in an edited form later that evening.

Surrealist Painting #2: A Winter's Tale

Only once Greg had bustled his way along the spine of the campus, dark with the winter moonlight, and was back in the warm haven of home did he realise what exactly had happened to him. If only he could have known as he pulled his long coat around him upon leaving the library after an evening session of coursework and idle people-watching. If only he could have known the liberties that the baltic weather would take with his person.

He could have fashioned a rudimentary mattress on an aisle floor out of thick textbooks on psychoanalysis and back-dated journals of structural engineering. He could quite happily have sought refuge in the warm hive of the campus library, and could have encouraged his fellow students to do the same, all of them huddled together as though hiding from an air raid in the underground.

But no. He was stubborn and eager to get back to his own traditional bed and not face the guilty morning walk home like some sort of promiscuous bibliophile. Besides, he said to himself, it’s only a winter chill and a bit of snow for fucks sake.

So Greg went stumbling out on the icy route home, the snow falling practically horizontal into his flinching face. He battled on along roads flanked by desolate halls of residence, every window aglow with habitation. He was like some sort of arctic explorer, abandoned by his faithful huskeys, consigned to pushing on to the destination alone.

It wasn’t until he passed the abandoned students union building on the fringes of the campus that he acknowledged the sensation of his face being completely numbed by the bracing cold. He tried to rub his nose but his gloves were too damp and no help at all.

The heat hit him as soon as he opened the front door of the semi-detached shit-heap he shared with three friends. He had made it! Blissful warmth enveloped itself around him as he slammed the door in the face of the cold’s hostility. He leant up against a burning radiator as he tried to wrestle some feeling back into is raw fingers. His face was still throbbing with the cold and it was only when he began to check his facial features with shivering hands that he realised something was badly wrong.

He let out a whimper like a punctured air bag as he peered in the microwave’s reflective door. His whole nose had gone! Completely fallen off. All that was left was a patch of toughened pink flesh. His face looked flat as though someone had punched him so hard that his nose had caved in on itself. This was a cause of considerable distress to Greg, who had always thought of himself as being a handsome guy, certainly never deficient in the girlfriend-department. With his coursework deadlines looming over him, this was really the last thing Greg needed.

Josh, one of his housemates, entered the living room, wrenching Greg from his frozen reverie.

“Josh mate, look what’s happened. My fucking nose has fallen off!” Josh was stoned and barely took his eyes away from the TV screen as he spooned cornflakes into his mouth from a bowl empty of milk. He took a momentary glance and chuckled to himself. “Serves you right for going to the library”, was all he could offer.

“It’s not funny Josh, it’s gone! It must have gotten so numb on the walk back or something.” Greg had learnt not to expect much by the way of sympathy or support from Josh over the years he’d known him, but he was more than a tad pissed with his amused reaction.

“The same thing happened to someone off my course the other day” Josh said slowly, eyes practically soldered to the TV images. “The cold weather just made his nose drop off.”

“So what did he do?!” cried Greg, becoming more frantic.

“He had to go back the way he came and he found it eventually.”

“What use is finding it? It can’t be reattached!”

Josh carried on speaking in a calm, flat tone; ambivalous to Greg’s mounting frustration at the way the evening had panned out for him.

“Nah listen. Just take out a glass of milk and put the nose in that. Take it to the doctors tomorrow and they can mould it back on. Just like they do with teeth.”

Greg took several deep breaths, mentally trying to prepare himself for the hardship of the night’s search that he would need to embark on. He had an inkling that Josh was talking bullshit but there was no time to waste verifying his theory, he knew he had to track down his fugitive nose before the snow buried it from sight.

He went to the kitchen and drained the last of the milk into a glass. It was this that finally provoked a reaction in Josh, as he came staggering to the kitchen with a pained expression. “Oh cumon man, I need that milk!”

“What the fuck for?!”

“My cornflakes”, he said, brandishing his overflowing bowl as evidence.

“You were happy eating them dry a minute ago.”

“Yeah but it’s wrong really, I need some milk on them, just gimme a bit of milk!”

Greg pushed him away from the glass which he held above his head like a valuable heirloom. “No way. I need this otherwise how the hell am I gonna save my face!?”

Josh knew this was one argument he wasn’t going to win and sulked off from the kitchen battleground back to his room. With the adrenaline energising his blood Greg threw on his layers once again, grabbed a small flashlight and headed out into the harsh uncompromising night. He retraced his steps, easily done in the snow, scanning a wide radius of the prints for any sign of a rogue nose.

For two hours he must have marched the mile-long stretch through the campus, it was exhausting and desperate work, and twice he almost spilt the glass of milk everywhere, but for the sake of his own dignity and self-respect he knew he couldn’t give in, he’d be out here all night, he’d freeze to death if he had to. He was already in his bank overdraft and the thought of having to ask his parents to bail him out and pay for facial reconstructive surgery spurred him on in his fevered hunt.

When the torch flickered over the nose he thought it was his over-eager mind playing tricks on him, a cruel mirage. But no, there it was, peeking out of the snow by the side of the pavement; thankfully just on the periphery of a streetlight’s orange reach. He sank to his knees and scrabbled at the nose, tears threatening his eyes, he was so grateful. He checked meticulously to be sure it was his, which it was – the slight bump on the bridge, the result of a school rugby injury, giving away its identity.

Quickly he dropped the nose into the milk and headed for home, practically skipping with satisfaction through the biting breeze, catching snowflakes on his tongue just like a child. So delicately he placed the glass in the fridge before succumbing to the warm pit of his bed, asleep in seconds, his mind at ease.

He allowed himself a drowsy lie-in before rubbing the sleep from his eyes and shuffling down the stairs where he could hear his housemates watching TV. He ignored their mocking laughter as he traipsed through the living room and pulled open the fridge door.

To his horror he saw the glass. Empty! Actually it wasn’t quite empty. Horrified, Greg took out the glass and let the fridge door swing shut. He held the glass up to eye-level to examine the mound of rotten flesh and cartilage at the bottom, barely hinting at its prior nasal structure. It was mottled and grey, clearly beyond any reconciliation.

Josh’s voice called from next door, “oh yeah sorry man, I used that milk last night. I’ll buy some more today. It’s just that I realised, I fucking hate dry cornflakes!”

Surrealist Painting #1: The Modern City Romance

“It’s a bit cold outside John you might want to wear your jacket” Joanne says with the motherly affection he has grown to find intensely irritating in recent years. As well as this he dislikes the way she now seems to have her hair cut – in a sweeping fringe – and he is slowly starting to imagine she is maintaining the look just to spite him.

“I’ll be fine honestly” he says as he glances at his tired reflection in the mirror and steps outside the door. Their arms are loosely linked as they meander down the street, past waiting bus-stops and agitated taxi-cabs, the scent of the impending weekend coursing through the air.

“How was your week? Did anything exciting happen at the seminar?” Joanne interrogates as she catches the eye of a sharp-suited young male strutting past them, before guiltily snapping her gaze back to the safer paving slabs.

“Fairly average week. Nothing special really” grumbles John with that crushingly familiar reticence which Joanne increasingly finds at once suffocating and achingly distant.

As she finds herself pining ever-so-fleetingly for a dash of romance or spontaneity to launch itself into her life, John meanwhile has been ambling along hypnotised by his shoelaces and now finds himself slipping slowly through the cracks in the pavement, widening as though they were zips being unfastened on a leather jacket. Before he realises it, he’s waist-deep in the paving slabs, like quicksand it swallows him up and means he has to continue the rest of the walk beneath the transparent street, with Joanne leading him from above in a matriarchal arm-lock.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to step on the cracks of the pavement John?” she tuts with disapproval as they continue on their way. John mooches along all non-committal, passing beneath occupied phone booths and open drains, with no one paying him the slightest notice, on the way to collect their Friday night Chinese takeaway.

The Neverending House Party

Beer crates in the kitchen are balanced high like an Egyptian monument, a proud testament to indulgence. I’m a girl who likes a couple of beers, just to get the night off and running. After that though, it’s spirits all the way. Dave stands guardian over a plastic bin of punch wearing a hoody and aviator sunglasses on account of getting horrendously stoned the night before. He’s happy enough to preside over the mysterious green intoxicant like a school dinnerlady stirring a vat of baked beans.

For some reason a weedy little bloke sent by the letting agency to do odd-jobs and minor repairs is hanging about with his bag of tools and an irritable expression on his face. I consider enquiring as to how much longer he’s going to be but decide against it; after all, I don’t want to risk offending him since once the party’s over the damage inflicted on the house will likely keep him in work till the end of term. And besides if he wants to linger on the periphery of the party in the hope of undetected ingratiation that’s his choice.

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The house is filling up, people I know, people I don’t, it’s all the same, it’s all good. Joe has his Macbook set up in the living room, the speakers emanating a grimy bass beat that’s provoking the door frames to shiver uncontrollably in the mould of the inner walls. A couple of lairy fuckers that I don’t know are spraying cans of cider around the dining room in a fit of hilarity but I’m too exhilarated at the moment to get at them to stop. I see my best friend Lucy who’s come straight from her evening shift at Pizza Hut. She wastes no time at all spieling on about a new trainee pot-washer, “my god, sooooo fit!” and their amorous glances stolen over dirty dishes stacked high with discarded pizza crusts, and how she’s so not going to fuck him, and I lap all this up in between promoting the necking of sambuca shots. In any case Lucy’s invited the guy along to the party and says we might see him later.

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The house is like a lung taking a deep intake of breath, as people edge and squeeze their way into the slightest recesses of the house, crushing their bodies into the hard surfaces of the house fabric, rubbing shoulders with the clinging damp. The living room is thick with a purple sulphurous smog, sweat particles cascading like Niagara Falls from the throbbing ceilings.

In the kitchen someone has laced the punch with some kind of acid, and everyone in there is starting to display signs of crazed reaction. Dave has an inane grin painted to his face as he drains bottle after bottle of booze into the punch bowl. Some guy is bent over the kitchen top, staring with wonder into the microwave as though it were a portal into a whole other world. There are shrieks from the dining room as some poor unfortunate in his smashed state has resorted to primal masturbatory urges and whipped his cock out in the middle of a game of Arrogance. His mates grab him by each arm and forcefully remove him; his fist still pumping his flaccid cock resiliently.

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Much later and no one seems familiar, no one is recognisable any longer, all light fittings have been cruelly destroyed, the only light source now proliferates from the cheap disco-balls in the living room and the blue neon light above the kitchen sink which by now has been clogged with several different expulsions of vomit from persons unknown.

An hour or so earlier I had been joining in with one of the drinking games in the dining room and, like most people, been getting increasingly pissed off with a girl called Kate who insisted on amplifying her pointless and banal proclamations with bursts of shrieking laughter. I couldn’t help but notice how, during one such outburst, the blood flowed straight from her face and her cheeks suddenly ballooned outwards like a hamster’s. I couldn’t be sure of the cause of this spontaneous facial inflation until I spotted a small trickle of vomit escape her pursed lips. Whilst the lads continued the game with unabated enthusiasm, I think I was the only one who watched with mild horror out of the corner of my eye as Kate proceeded to slowly re-ingest the mouthful of puke in long agonising gulps like a reluctant child forced to eat vegetables. It wasn’t long after that she staggered to her feet and left the room in silence.

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Jonathan is holding court near the stairs, regaling a small group with his favourite topic – the musical brilliance of Led Zeppelin – ranting with such passion as though he were championing a fledgling local band. He lecherously details to a wide-eyed young girl the ‘legend of the red snapper’ whereby a hapless groupie was pleasured using the previously-mentioned fish as means of penetration. He laughs at the beauty of such misogynistic hedonism as he is lead upstairs by the girl, throwing me a conspiratorial wink and carrying behind his back a pre-packaged mackerel from Tesco that he defrosted earlier in the day.

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The crowd seems to have changed, as though those who were the first in have since conceded defeat and retired, allowing the more youthful and exuberant to enter and take their place. I’ve been hounded for seemingly hours by two guys who are both gagging for some action and whilst I am too, I hate having to decide between them. I keep yielding to one’s demands, necking in a dark corner of the laundry room until I think we’ve lost the other, only for him to pop up like a malignant spy, almost as if from out of the barrel of the washing machine or neatly camouflaged amidst the shadows of the coat-rack. In the interest of diplomacy I agree to a three-some.

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Mid-morning is fully awake by the time the house stirs. There is some lo-fi drone being playing on the laptop and odd bursts of slow conversation coming from the remnants of the lounge. Statements and odd quips are made and then hang like dead air before floating into nothing like dandelion seeds. When I stagger downstairs, rubbing my head in a useful attempt at exorcising the alcoholic demon from inside my dehydrated brain, I have to stifle a laugh at the living room scene.

Dave and his coursemates are bunched up on the sofa with eyes some acid-fuelled abyss, nodding sagely as ‘Fantasia’ plays out on the TV in painful Disney technicolour. Dave’s mouth falls agape slightly as the agile mushrooms dance with effortless fungi composure on the screen. In the kitchen the walls are stained with red wine like a slasher film, bodies are slumped in comatose disarray all around the dining table and propped up against the fridge. I search around the hygienic wasteland that is the draining board for a reasonably clean glass and hurl back a pint of tap water.

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Sloppy pizzas are ordered in and shared around as the collective try to wean themselves back into some sort of conscious state with greasy cheese and pepperoni. The laptop volume has been gradually increased in increments throughout the day and my head is already pre-empting the thumping bass beats like some kind of physic tinnitus. Fresh-faced revellers have descended, which injects the fragile victims of the night before into a state of resilience. It’s not long before the house is pulsing like a struggling organ with the dirty blood of the party.

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The house is on fire to the old-school tunes of acid house. A living room full of Bez imitations march in time to the rhythm, whilst the dining room is thick with the stench of sweaty, lustful eroticism. In the darkness I can make out four or five couples fucking in this improvised orgy, whilst in the kitchen Dave and his mates – as though inspired into action by ‘Fantasia’ – are struggling to open a jar of mushrooms that some guy called Malcolm has procured from somewhere, in a desperate attempt to keep their colourful detachment from reality flowing like a rainbow stretch across the parameters of their own internal skies.

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There’s screaming in the living room as some Stella-fuelled prick launches a pint glass at the melting wall, shattering the glass into a million fragments over the gyrating collective. I pause from my own fevered dancing and laugh as I see Dave’s mate Malcolm on the floor in the throes of a shroom-frenzy; apparently trying to headbutt his way through the skirting boards, as if attempting to re-ingratiate himself with his rodent brethren from whom he was unwillingly reincarnated.

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The next day and those remaining, like stranded expedition members on a mountain-side, are close to tears at the realisation that all booze supplies have been pillaged and the entire house is dry. A brave volunteer by the name of Darren is equipped with currency and dispatched outside where he makes his way to the nearest off-licence, playing the role of hero for the cause of the party’s survival.

Due to some commendable foresight, however, vodka jelly had been left in the fridge to set earlier and I can only watch with worried bemusement as Dave attacks it with a shoehorn, using this primitive tool to spoon it greedily into his foaming mouth in alcoholic desperation of Withnail-esque proportions.

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I am in dire need of a shower but find the bathtub has become a reservoir of urine and vomit over the course of the last few days. My efforts to unblock the plug-hole appear unsuccessful and the rancid smell from the vile cocktail is enough to propel my exit from there altogether, defeated and still filthy.

Meanwhile a colossal cheer erupts as Darren returns from his travels like a triumphant explorer from exotic climes, bearing a fresh suntan, tales of wonder and, more importantly, fresh supplies of beer, vodka, gin and whisky. He is the prophet by which the party can continue its predictable downward spiral.

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By sometime the next week the house walls resemble a diseased liver, whereupon tumours and cirrhosis have taken a debilitating hold. Down in the living room, numerous dishevelled and undressed casualties are entwined in an impromptu and spontaneous sexual union. My upper thighs and genital region have now been endowed with crimson sores, and I almost expect to see a local news correspondent come treading fearfully over the vast wilderness that is the sodden carpet, reporting on a serious venereal epidemic.

I force myself up and head to the wreckage of the kitchen. As I fumble around for an unbroken glass I hear a faint scratching sound coming from the broom cupboard where, as far as I’m aware, we keep no brooms. As I unlock the catch the door swings open and out crumples the ashen and withered body of the odd-job man. He crawls a few yards and then pulls himself up, dust clinging to his aged face like a dungeon prisoner.

“Fucking students” he mumbles before ambling to the door and out to freedom.

'The Social Network' review

One of the most eagerly anticipated and talked-about films of the year alongside ‘Inception’, David Fincher’s ‘The Social Network’ more than lives up to the heavy expectation it’s been weighted with.

Unless you’ve been living in seclusion the last few weeks you’ll already be aware that the premise of this docu-drama is centred on the prodigal computer hacker Mark Zuckerberg who essentially creates Facebook in one drunken night and, upon unleashing it on the world, becomes embroiled in a number of legal battles over his billionaire fortune and the website copyright.

The film glides along at the trademark frenetic pace that made Fincher’s earlier work – ‘Seven’, ‘Fight Club’ – so entertaining. It has the same sharp sense of character and punchy dialogue (credit to a fantastic script by Aaron Sorkin whose recent writing credits include ‘The West Wing’) that ensures the film never stalls or feels like it’s treading water amidst the subject matter, which, taken at face value, had plenty of potential to be slow and un-involved. Credit should also be given to the highly nuanced and feverish electronic score by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) that wonderfully streamlines the whole film.

It is perhaps the first film in which the central focal point is the internet itself, and the leading role taken by the intangible entity that is, of course, ‘Facebook’. The narrative swirls around this transient cyber-character at such a rate that it truly captures the surreal impression of this monster breaking free from the human characters who struggle to keep up with their creation as it ascends into the stratosphere from the confines of their Harvard dorm.

The film is brave in the way that it never seems to pander to the mass audience to which it’s been marketed; it requires the viewer to really engage in order to fully appreciate the unfolding story. For this reason I don’t think it’s anywhere near as watchable as ‘Fight Club’, nor as dark and engaging as ‘Seven’, but is ultimately a far more intelligent and important movie; brave in its depiction of Zuckerberg and the majority of the characters as essentially quite unlikeable people, thanks to brilliant performances from both Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield as his former best friend Eduardo Savarin. Even Justin Timberlake puts in an impressive turn playing Scott Parker, the charismatic founder of Napster.

The moral underbelly of the film is particularly discernable, in that it recognises that whilst the Facebook phenomenon has transformed 21st century networking and communication for better or worse, it also threatens to impinge upon actual human engagement and true relationships. This is reflected in the thought-provoking final scene that leaves Zuckerberg languishing as the youngest billionaire in the world but lacking the bravery to add as a friend the girl who dumped him back in Harvard. I believe that in 20 or 30 years ‘The Social Network’ will rightfully be held in high regard as one of the defining films of this generation and as a work of great social significance.

Notes

Notes on a loss of control:

Only one fell-swoop needed to push you to the brink, to shred nerve-endings and decimate personal stability. From clear crystal ripples to a storm of unpredictable tides, that leave you stranded on an island with no discernable direction in which to swim. Unlock the bars to your cage of inhibitions, send your fury and prejudice marching down the hall.

Out on a street, the kerbs illuminated at intervals by lamp light, you come face to face with an altogether more reserved individual on his way home from meeting a friend for a quiet drink; he is bookish and self-contained, a consumer of glossy newspaper supplements and documentaries on a culture of which he harbours contributory aspirations. You will be forgiven should you abandon your elementary grasp on claustrophobic control, and exact savage repudiation for reasons better left unknown. Reasons are worthless when honing the basic art of aggression, for nothing is solved on the apex point of knowing why.

Notes on a lack of belief:

You are held hostage in a prison of nerves, where jailers jangle infallibilities before your eyes. Not half as important as you’d like, nowhere near as popular as you imagine you ought to be. We’re at war with the idea of oneself, battle-lines marked in the sands of the mind, divisions drawn and then amended as the passing of the years work to deaden the fight.

Notes on an infringement of choice:

Why allow yourself ambition when forever being coerced into accepting a VIP pass to a non-too-prestigious exhibition of what you will eventually become? Working yourself to the rhythmic drum of underlying heart attacks, chasing a quick buck like a greyhound to a racetrack rabbit, drinking far more than necessary to make up for previously-established lack of belief.

Scaling the barbed-wire fence in deference to roving searchlights, in pursuit of the perfect body, perfect soul-mate, perfect kids, perfect cloistered existence, perfect sex all of the time, early retirement and a flashing green EXIT sign when it’s time to leave the show, inevitably devoid of any ringing applause.

The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks used as Structural Accompaniment to a Mental Breakdown

“...on the cusp of something really riveting here, I really do. Don’t you think so?”

I snap out of my reverie on the leather sofa and revert my attention back to Dr. Hammond who is pacing excited as usual in front of the window. The bright glare from the milk-white sky is casting a pallid aura across his sharp suit and face. I feel the strange sensation one has upon flinching back into focus from a daydream, not entirely sure how long the doctor has been carrying on his incessant spiel for, and already I’m mourning the banishment of that ambient placental daze that so cleverly sneaks up on oneself.

“I guess so, yes” I mutter, keen not to lose face with the doctor by displaying my all-too-obvious inattention. In any case he is far too absorbed in his own thoughts and theories to notice. He has, over the past few weeks, developed a curious habit of pacing behind his desk whilst talking and brandishing a vintage fountain pen which he thrusts forward like a dagger when hitting upon what he believes to be a point of some substance.

The result of this involuntary action is that ink tends to fly from the nib to erratically redecorate his previously plush cream carpet; almost as if he were subconsciously painting his own piece of abstract art across the canvas of his floor and occasionally the white walls, using psychoanalytical theories as his font of inspiration.

“Just think Robert, we could finally be on the verge of nailing down all the surrounding dogma, expelling the cynicism of outsiders, and compounding our ideas into that simple architectural formula which has alluded me for so long” he continues, and the pen flicks between his fingers some more in the same way that an excited puppy wags its tail. He pauses at his desk for a moment with a far-away, slightly crazed glint shrouding his eyes.

I wouldn’t mind so much that he proceeds each session with a hyperbolic rant bursting with high-minded theories cluttered with medical jargon, except that as my psychiatrist I would expect him to listen to me ramble on for an afternoon each week, when in actual fact I am being subjected to this role reversal.

The first few sessions had been fine, nothing out of the ordinary, but gradually Dr. Hammond seemed to become more animated and domineering of the conversation, steering the subject matter away from my issues and onto wild psychological theories relating to the destruction of buildings, becoming ever more frenzied as the time wore on. He had even begun trying to appoint me multiple weekly slots to which I had had to protest even though the hurt in the doctor’s face was clearly visible.

It was when he started setting up several large computer monitors around his office to stream viral content from the internet continuously throughout the sessions that I expressed my discomfort at the situation, but he had assured me that this was normal practise and that with my help he could unravel a new psychoanalytical doctrine that he was convinced lay at the root of my personal problems.

It was the content of the viral streaming that initially alarmed me somewhat – he would select footage of the 9/11 World Trade Centre atrocity to play on a constant loop. These would variously be news reports of multi-national origins, post-event documentaries, and personal eye-witness footage from those in the city at the time. This stream of resonant images and distressing pictures would serve as a backdrop to Dr. Hammond’s ranting, whilst now and then he would frantically rip medical journals and professional textbooks from shelves in order to clarify a technical point he was making, pause one of the videos in order to emphasise something, or turn the volume up from mute in order to let the screams and sounds of shock and awe permeate the surgery.

Whilst initially disturbed and confused by what relevance this had to me and my own problems, I began to find the scenes of death and destruction on such a grand scale oddly soothing; as if they held some sort of calming agent, until the point now where they barely register on me at all. Seeking perhaps to wrest some catharsis from these unorthodox methods I have acquiesced with Dr. Hammond’s madcap ravings all the same.

“Never before has a psychological theory been developed that points to the correlation between an absolute mental breakdown and the destruction of buildings” the doctor says, flicking the pen and positively frothing at the lips in growing derangement. I glance at the screen nearest to me in time to see slow motion pedestrian footage capture in shaky hand-held detail the second plane swoop low like a hawk over the concrete canopy before being swallowed whole by steel and fire and smoke.

“Take the World Trade Centre attacks as the case study” the doctor continues. “In parallel to your mental condition the towers represent symbols of stability and sanity within your conscious. They are firm and strong and unshakeable against the petty trials and tribulations of your day-to-day life.”

On the sofa I stretch my neck to view a muted Fox News bulletin with the black stain of smoke spreading like a paint spillage across the canvas of the sky.

“Now the first plane – this represents a terrible occurrence that subsequently blights your life, jolts the structure of your mind for ever after. Awful though this is, you gradually learn to battle on – because you have to – and the damage incurred can therefore be coped with over time as it fades in traumatic potency.”

I know the first plane that he is referring to. My mother died a very sudden death when I was just 12 years old. Shards of memory recall her dropping me off at the school gates in her battered old Corsa, same as any other morning, and me then being called out of Geography class by a flushed school secretary to make my way to the head-teacher’s office, which sparked initial confusion and panic as I wracked my brain trying to think up excuses for crimes I may or may not have committed. My memory is wiped for about the next fortnight afterwards.

“That first plane – the untimely passing of your mother – was a complete shock wasn’t it?” the doctor says as though scanning right through my troubled thoughts. “It was out of the blue, a complete rupture of your carefully constructed sensibilities, and way of viewing the world. You have confided to me of the tail spin you went into as a result; unable to communicate with anyone, increased tendency towards violence with your peers, a subsequent inability in your young adolescence to form lasting or meaningful relationships with women.”

I can see the thread that Dr. Hammond seems to be pursuing here and whilst I think it ludicrous, I am intrigued at the same time. At the least I’m grateful that he’s begun relating his wild ideas towards the issues I initially divulged to him before he began his flights of fantasy – holding court on details of tensile steel strength in parallel with the frailties of brain neuroses and such like.

“Now by your own admission you struggled to keep that remaining tower of strength in tact, beating it on all sides by drink and drugs as you gradually became an adult.”

“Yes that’s right” I say.

“And then what happens is that you meet Sarah. Lovely, darling Sarah. Your beacon through the smoke cloud. The love you two shared signifies the second tower that you clung to with all your heart. You clung to it out of the desperate desire to repair the damage incurred on the first tower, the primary pillar of your mental wellbeing.”

On the screens there is a montage of vantage points showing the second plane appear into camera shot from nowhere, flung like an unwieldy slingshot across the state from a mischievous airport somewhere over the horizon. The tower remains unflinching as it envelopes the plane within its own structure as though made of sand, before erupting in a fountain of flame.

“Whilst the structural damage to the integrity of the mind manifested itself over a number of years, the second attack was far more deadly, more conceited; the act that confirmed malicious intent on the part of the perpetrators. You were completely unaware of your wife Sarah’s deceit weren’t you Robert? All those years you’d thought true love had been the driving force, whereas she’d been two-timing you all along. Two-timing you with a work colleague - Simon.

“Simon and Sarah, what a delightful couple they made. A delightfully secretive couple that is. Although it was hardly a secret, their affair, was it? Common knowledge according to all accounts. But no one was prepared to break the news to you, for fear you might finally snap. A fear that would have been entirely justified with hindsight, isn’t that right Robert?”

My mind is swimming with past and present fears and recriminations; all the while I’m hopelessly impervious to Dr. Hammond’s obvious attempts to provoke a reaction in me. I refuse to give him the satisfaction. Instead I keep my eyes locked on one of the monitors replaying news footage, then the next, and then the next like a roulette wheel of carnage and destruction. One of the monitors is playing out the descent of one hapless man falling through the air like a stricken bird. Another clip shows two people leaping hand in hand through windows from which they must have often day-dreamed across the Manhattan sprawl beneath them. They could have been lovers, could have been strangers, both bound together by the mutual fear of not meeting death alone.

“The ones' who jumped Robert, represent the agony of having to make a decision when destruction is all that awaits you...”

One of the news reports slowly creeps in on a photo still of a man’s face as he embraces gravity with open and flailing arms. To my mind his expression is one of confusion but also of serene acceptance, as though he has been subject to a host of recurring dreams of such a deathly fall all his life, and fully expects to reflex back into consciousness just before the sudden impact.

I understand the idea that I was presented this choice, this dignity in self sacrifice. The notion that collapse was imminent was well within my logical capacity at that time; these towers of strength and wellbeing had now been damaged beyond any possible rehabilitation, the steel framework buckling and contorting under stresses far beyond their routine parameters. Responsibilities, expectations, ambitions, desires, hopes and fears, memories and regrets were now mere paperwork smouldering and fluttering like confetti through the air.

Dr. Hammond meanwhile is continuing to exhale his hyperbole but I am now no longer listening, lost once again in my own recollections of the choice I had to make, my eyes glued to the scenes of devastation that pass in striking cohesion alongside my own mental failure.

I had known that this second attack would be the catalyst that signalled the end of me one way or the other; I could sense the synapses of my brain crackling and sparking with electrical fervour as I struggled to comprehend the lies I had been living through for so long. When I saw them through the slightly ajar bedroom door of our family-sized flat I saw them in the throes of their deceitful passion, fucking like pigs on the marital bed.

As I stumbled back, recoiling as the shock ricocheted through the architecture of my body, rattling the foundations of my mind, my initial impulse – that of self-destruction, of jumping before the ship sank beneath the stormy seas of turmoil and anguish. Indeed I had that choice in those critical seconds and indeed I went to the kitchen in search of hasty realisation to my suicidal inclinations.

But blindly I had grabbed the steak knife from the chopping board and staggered like a ten-pint drunk back along the corridor, following the smell of their sex. As I began to stab at their screaming bodies with the knife the towers fell to the ground and my breakdown was complete.

The proud and gleaming towers that had held firm until now were swallowed up as though each floor was folding neatly away inside the one below, ready to be packed away into storage until the structure be deemed safe to stand alone once again. My mind was immersed in billowing ash clouds as I ceased my frenzied attack and stood back to observe the carnage I had wrought, the destruction of human life lain in waste on the abattoir of a bed, their flesh mangled like an array of rotten fruit.

“...think I’ve now developed the basis of my court report Robert. On the surface you remain functional, responsive and, believably, sane. But inside I am quite confident that you are deeply psychotic, a troubled individual who suffered a homicidal meltdown and now can’t quite come to terms with his own actions or emotions. I feel I have no option other than to recommend to your defence counsel a plea of cognitive insanity.”

He dials through to some adjacent voice, there’s an intermittent pause, doors open and I am lead away leaving the doctor alone to his deranged theories and video images and ink flicking. In the middle of the smokescreen, in the wreckage of atrocity, in the landscape thats left when the towers and everything they represent are gone, is right where I want to be.