Unconditioned response

We have spent minutes in a futile circle, trying to force the course towards a bank of clouds without giving the other side a chance to see our tail. They're over there, opposite us, banking as we are, trying desperately to get a little more elevation to the nose, or a little more power into the propellor, anything at all to turn in a slightly tighter circle, because the one that turns the tightest will untimately creep up upon the other's tail. It looks at the moment as though we are winning, which is a pity. We have run out of bullets. Glancing again across the circle, we wonder if the other side would empathise with our plight. On an impulse, we wave.

I knew that my habit was controlling me, when I used to get out of bed at three in the morning to drive to an all-night garage and buy cigarettes. I would have been lying awake for hours, eyes tight shut, hoping that sleep would come against all the odds, before finally admitting that I could not sleep without one last cigarette. It was a perpetual paradox; if I bought an extra packet so that I didn't run out late at night, I would smoke all the more for it, and still run out. If I didn't buy enough cigarettes, I would smoke all the more furiously for worrying about running out. Either way, I always seemed to be shaking the cardboard box and mentally counting the soft little rattling noises. Only four left, well no need to worry just yet. The all night garage got used to me never buying petrol. My car ran on air, but I ran on cigarettes, I used to tell them. They put up with me because I was a customer to break the boredom of a long shift.

I drove into the place where my partner was working to collect her, her car was in for a service because it had started steaming up the insides of the windows when the heater was on. It was soon after the Raicin scares, and everywhere in the country was slightly edgy. The security guard who came to meet me looked far too young to be doing such a dreary task, so I thought I'd share a little joke with him, just to break the boredom of his long shift. When I wound down the window and he said "Good afternoon Sir, can you tell me the purpose of your visit?" I said "I'm gonna pick my bitch up, pick my bitch up, pick - my - bitch - up". So he said into his radio "Incident team to the main gate NOW", and they made me empty the car, turn out my pockets, and fill out every single box in their Incident Closure Report before they rang her up and said "Your lift is here, we've put him in the quarantine space, can you sign for him on the way out please".

Across the circle, the other side waves back. We pause, then, hesitantly, point to the dead machine guns in front of our face and give the thumbs down. Across the circle, there is a pause, then, a hand points to their guns, and gives a flat side-to-side wave. Jammed. After another full turn we have both come to the same conclusion: ramming each other would be an act of mutual futility. We each break off the dance and go our seperate ways. The balloon which they had been guarding still floats serenely in the sky, spying eyes screwed tight into the rubber cups of their binoculars. In the trenches below us, several Tommies have dropped their trousers and are mooning to the lenses.