Remember. I remember. dark words, deep roots in the ground, the earth, rising, oh how it is rises. Out of the dirt, growing, grappling up around the trunk. A weed, a weakness never mended, a hole never filled, a gap left exposed. Vacant. Expression…less than before, I remember, or more? I remember. Younger, certainly… less cultivated… maybe… easier maintained. That’s life I suppose. Ye know the salt and the sheep? Must’ve heard that one! I tell ye anyway, them sheep are dumb fucks. When the tide comes in they don’t move outta way. Just stand therein the water, sorta like…geese fuck, duck in the pond. Stupidest animal in the country, pops said so. I remember. But the fucking stupidest part? I remember, one December, pops told me. Well it was hot, so hot that you’se woulda been jealous of them sheep for a grand ol’ dip in the ocean. Well anyway, these same sheep are standing there… there, and just clipped bare as I recall…alls the same for it. And I asks pops why don’t they move, the same sea comes in every day after all. I remember. He tells me they forget…sheep are dumb. I remember.
There’d be a point to all t’is, I suppose. It’d be a crying shame to lose all t’is. What? T’is here of course! I remember…what now? Well if ye canny-be fucked to hear it then you’se better be of, no no I won’t stop ye….Pops always was a prickly customer; I know it’d-took ma’am best part-a twenty years to learn his moods and groans and aches and when it comes to pops its pouring when its raining so…that’s right? Course ma’am could remember when pops was young as I was on that same trip. I remember her telling me so. We’s were staying in the village, just as always, meat stews black beer sea mist mingling with fresh sweat on ye brow on the descent and shivers on the rise, quiet mind, so’s not to upset pops. Suck on a boiled sweet snuck away by ma’am to avoid chattering teeth. I remember.
Sheep are dumb fucks. You’s would hadda be nuts in the head to eat salty grass or any grass for that matter. Ma’am on ahead. Me behind. Grabbing grass, yanking it up by the roots, boots flailing for purpose, fuck, purchase. Splintering roots, rhubarb on ye tongue, a crevace of careless words and bitter tastes. A slip a fall a voice a noise. Jack’s sound. I remember. It was Jack’s sound….No matter. He don’t make any sound anymore. I remember. A million t’oughts crammed into box of pop’s Carrolls. My Carrolls now…or then. I remember. I will never be here again. I have been here ever since.