A specially commissioned piece to celebrate the debut performance of H@ndles
AWSOM SUNSET 🙂 TIME FOR AN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT LOL
The journalist from the local paper had Aubrey pinned into the corner; his yellow jowls threatened to drip onto his dog-eared notepad. He asked Aubrey questions with a wet mouth and Aubrey, paint-roller in hand, fixated on the journalist’s flapping, glistening lips.
LONG DAY CANT WAIT TILL HOMETIME
It had started in the flat. Life had felt overblown and somewhere else. Holly Willoughby was on mute as she interviewed, said a television caption, a graffiti artist. Aubrey scrolled tweets on his Nokia: the deluge of self-promotion, of cries for help, of angry clutter. On the silent television, there was a montage of swirling graffiti. Psychedelic. Vibrant.
JUST KNOCKED MY ELBOW SO HAD TO NOCK THE OTHER ONE WTF
Aubrey bought his first brushes from a stressed middle-aged woman in the tatty hardware shop down the road. The barcode bleeps competed with her sighs. Aubrey felt a new dawn in his belly.
WHILE UR WATCHING THE VOICE IM ON XBOX 360! LOOSERS!!
His first painted tweet was in shaky red capitals on the living room wallpaper. He took down the wall clock first, but in a few days, he’d paint over anything. In his kitchen, purple and blue letters snaked over hanging pans and spatulas.
SWEAR MY AUTOCORECT GOT A LIFE OF ITS OWN LIKE SERIOSLY
Graffiti became design. He added rulers and set squares, rollers and spirit levels. Aubrey’s tweets travelled outside: the wall of the flats; the broken bus shelter; the side of the charity shop. Bigger, bolder, brighter. A new Twitter.
ATE MY FIRST BURRITO TODAY IT WAS OK
Aubrey stood in the street as he dripped green onto the pavement. He fixated on what came from the journalist’s dribbling mouth. Questions about motivation, about his opinion on urban art spaces, about… Aubrey felt like Holly Willoughby, broadcasting on mute to fearful men gazing into phone screens.
BORED LOL
“No comment,” said Aubrey. And the journalist wrote it down.
Words: 329
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