Don’t Get In Its Way is a page of fiction I wrote in response to Ben Platts-Mills sad story All I Wanted To Do Was in Attack!!! 6.

Attack!!! 7 has just arrived, and it’s another a great little issue created by Wes White. My writing is alongside Damaged Goods by Erica Viola, and I’m very pleased about that because the stories go well together.

The whole pamphlet works brilliantly. There’s some really edgy writing. I wasn’t sure whether I had the right idea with my response. Had I misunderstood Ben’s piece? I thought my idea was not going to work, but now I see the writers and artists have all gone with various interpretations of the metaphors which lay at the heart of Ben’s story, the squashed tin, the damaged goods, Tescos, Safeways, the demanding supermarket giants, the accident on Appold Street, the cheap food supply chain, the injured woman. They are all linked, and all these pieces are linked. It seems that a little insecurity and pressure has worked with everyone. I was certainly feeling the pressure. I wanted to submit my song Looking Back, which I just posted here, but Wes said he preferred a piece of writing.

So I set about putting myself in front of the same lady at the till who is in Ben’s piece. All the fiddly details of supermarket shopping and the annoying marketing came out in a sort of rant. It’s a piece of Life Writing I’m very pleased about, and it’s great to see other terrific pieces, 4o Degrees of Madness by Chris Murray, Opening Doors by Nick Beech, Satori in Tesco by Steve Leighton, I Embroidered This Patch by Gethan Dick, and the artwork: Bandage Head by David Lupton, Strange Day by Mathieu Wernaut, Tins Have Feelings Too by Zeroten, and the cubic Amber Red by Wes. My favourite is Opening Doors, where the stages of opening doors is described in some detail.

Contact Wes White Splotts Moor Farm, Wick, Glastonbury, Somerset, BA6 8JS.

18/7/07 – wrong things corrected.