1:52am: bored teenagers gather around the public bathrooms on the north east corner of Hyde Park. Some lie down, others light cigarettes, and the rest stand hands in pockets in the cold murmuring. Nothing is happening tonight; even the rats hidden well throughout the scraggly bushes aren’t rustling. The bathrooms are empty, washed in graffiti and urine.
Across the door of the third stall from the left, someone sometime earlier had scrawled Shakespeare in Sharpie ink.
R: Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.M: If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Below that somebody drew a picture of a dick in red marker.
In one of the stalls there’s a half-eaten ham sandwich wedged between the pipes and an assembly of ants marching to and fro with bits of bread and ham, marching for the Queen. Are there rogue ants? Ants that cry for revolution, sitting by the wayside with torn abdomens and lazy eyes screaming YOU WANT ME? FUCKING WELL, COME AND FIND ME, I’LL BE WAITING.
[$$$]
Shall we find out? We could sit on the concrete lining again, but this time, pretend to be these ants you speak of.
YOU WANT ME? FUCKIN’ COME ON AND BREAK THE DOOR DOWN. I’M READY, I’M READY… I’M READY.