An Opening Salvo

The first Substack from award-winning television comedian, Andy Barr

Hello friends - the privileged few joining me for this inaugural Substack. Herein I will be sharing little bits and pieces of fiction, poetry and other assorted writings, primarily composed on the toilet at work. In 2011 (or 2012, I cannot remember which) I won an award in a short story competition and received a large novelty cheque, thankfully accompanied by a real cheque, which I displayed proudly on the wall of my student rental property only for it to be unceremoniously thrown out by the landlord’s handyman, Anthony. The real cheque had instantly been spent on the rent for said property, leaving me with only a picture from the paper of me, the large cheque and newsreader Peter Sissons (dead), who had been recruited to afford the handing over of said cheque a degree of gravitas. For years I wrote little more.

Today, I finally give those laurels of mine a well-deserved break - please find beneath, for your viewing pleasure, my works…

***

It’s Me

Scrolling idly on my phone in the dark, I saw an image accompanied by a caption which perfectly encapsulated an aspect of my behaviour. I commented: ‘it is me.’ Some moments later I found another image, again an exact depiction of one of my idiosyncrasies – although it became clear, now, not a habit particular to me.

‘Me rn.’

I kept scrolling. The motion sensitive light in the toilet at work had deemed me unworthy of illumination some time ago, but I considered this to be affording me a degree of privacy. A video this time – skewering my posture, linking it to an aspect of my identity. I started to become concerned. I commented, worriedly: ‘this, too, is me.’

Suddenly, I found myself bathed in light as another employee arrived to relieve themselves in an adjoining cubicle. During this time, I felt obliged to remain motionless, as if attempting not to draw the light’s attention to me. In these moments, I realised that I was now profoundly conscious of every aspect of myself - my mind, my body, the perceptions of others. I viewed myself objectively from without. Within, there grew a distinct agony at the prospect of being perceived. My colleague wiped, flushed, washed and left. I waited, still, the requisite fifteen minutes for the light to avert its gaze, then continued my search.

Over the course of the next twenty hours, I found hundreds and thousands of images and videos and strings of text which held a mirror to me and demanded that I look.

‘See? This is you.’

And I agreed that they were me.

By Thursday I had seen the entirety of my being, the totality of my life, reflected back at me. As I watched the final clip – a pithy summation of the manner in which I spat toothpaste into the sink – I felt, at last, a lightness come over me. I looked down to see my arms, my lap, my legs, dimly illuminated in the phone-glow, start to loosen. Expanding, not as one, but as many. My atoms, rented from the universe for a thirty-five-year blink of an eye, were coming gently apart.

The phone dropped from what had been my hand, took an awkward bounce and jagged off under the cubicle door. The light looked at the phone and contemplated it for the requisite fifteen minutes, then looked away, for there was no longer anything else to see.

***

Keep Going

I’m an artist.

I draw little featureless, yet somehow anthropomorphic beans. The beans wander around a void holding little motivational signs encouraging those viewing them to accept their flaws, take a little time out for themselves, find value and joy in the small things.

Off the page, in the bare, boundless expanse they inhabit, I imagine they bump into one another, their messages dearly clung to yet simultaneously carrying no relevance to their anodyne lives. Outside of the frame, they exist entirely bereft of purpose. What essential truth could my beans ever have access to? Whomsoever regards them and affords them any authority over their lives and their day-to-day conduct is a weak-minded fool.

I joylessly dispatch another set of beans to a subscription dishwasher salt company, to stalk eternally their packaging, mailouts, notice of insolvency.

***

Resistance

My collection of mismatched exotic pets
Refuse to interact.
They sit, instead,

Lonely.

In opposite corners of the room.
I place their various
Bowls of specialist food
In the centre of the living space -
A ring of delicacies -
On which cameras
Are intently trained
To capture every movement,
Each curious sniff -
A loris pondering a toucan.

No dice.

They opt to starve.

***

Update

Hi there!

It’s me - the municipal transportation app for a city you visited some years back, with a lover you now cross the road to avoid.

As the elapsed seasons have changed much for you, so too have there been developments here:

• we have a new tram now,

• contactless payment is now accepted on our buses

• our terms and conditions, translated roughly into your tongue, have changed in ways you will never be sufficiently curious as to seek out

and,

• we sell your data to an ever-revolving carousel of malign forces, whose voices speak of their desire to enslave you - once as a whisper, now with barely a thought for subterfuge.

We don’t expect to see you again, although your lover returned last year. She took the tram. She was arm in arm with another - a wider smile stretched across her face than your remarks about our cathedral or our markets were ever capable of eliciting.

***

And that’s that for this week - if you enjoyed this dispatch, please encourage like-minded others to subscribe. Thank you for your time - don’t worry, I’m alright really.