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Silver'd ribbons still curl round my neck

(Jerry Cornelius remembers the cloying scent of prayer, the sugared taste of Catherine, and the greased look of Frank)

As I took step number four
Into the close of your tenement
You cast your darkened eyes so low
Said we're cold as the step cement
But I just don't know what you meant*

Drugs took their toll on Frank. In whatever guise he chose, the chemicals singing songs in his head won over sanity. Frank is dancing in rags, in posh clothes nicked off the back of drunks, in his own wrinkled greying skin. Part of Jerry still loves his brother. Part of Jerry loves his brother in his bed, whisperes in the night, muffled orgasm, and secrets, secrets abound. Most of him wants to kill him again. There are only so many times he can do that before it gets old.

The English Assassin has better things to do with his lives than worry about some old dieing spectre. But family gets its claws into you. His family more than most.

Frank's lips, Frank's body is falling apart, but Jerry doesn't mind. He'll still suck Frank's soul away one day. He'd survive. The Cornelius family is hard to get rid of. They live separate to the stream of time. Mrs. Cornelius comes to mind, but Jerry shivers. His mother is not something a sane person wants to dwell on.

Catherine rolls over somewhere, once again caught and drugged, and Jerry smiles. Nature calls, and he is always rescuing Catherine, loving her dead body, watching her be born, be dead, and watching Una kiss Catherine is almost too much to bear. But he and Catherine are too similar to stand together. Everyone knows that.

The baby still died. No matter how much time he retreads their son is still dead. He is never sure if that is a good thing. Sometimes he thinks the nameless little Cornelius is watching him watching it die. He's only killed it once. And once again when his mother asked him.

So Alec you may want a pill
We are so cruel and to communicate
Without the red stuff being spilled
We must MDMA our sentiment
But I just don't know what you meant

Here's Jerry, in the old costume, black car coat still stained with unmentionable substances, needle gun at the ready. His lank blond hair falls limply onto his shoulders, his dark eyes glitter with charm and malice, and pulling on this old face is like coming home. Home is not that dank little basement, home is not what he needs it to be. No matter how many times he moves on, how many times Catherine is killed he is pulled back into that stinking pit in England. If he didn't love London, he would destroy it.

Miss Brunner would enjoy that, but then again she always did. But Miss Brunner reminds him of Catherine...

«No time, old boy! Get you gone, and we'll say fare thee well!» Says a menacing black clad figure, in cheerfully broken English learnt from BBC productions. Jerry has learnt not to pay much attention to details that can't matter. The car door slams behind him. He knows what to do.

He gets out of the car and kills the first three people who walk past. Nothing matters. Everything is a copy of a copy.

He is always drinking up the vibrations of the fallen bodies he makes.

When the target smiles at him, so very beautiful, he laughs, and is a little surprised to find tears. Nothing matters.

Silver glints as he kisses the forehead of the fallen Jesuit. He had always had a weakness for religion. He had forgotten how much it burnt when someone he loved died.

It still doesn't matter. His son is still dead. Catherine is drugged. Frank is high. A circle, a circle that he can't break, that doesn't break. Circles, spirals keep him alive. That, and morphine.

Blood trickles from the new needle puncture in the crook of his left elbow.

Jerry smiles a silver smile.

If we were feckless we'd be fine
Sucking hard on our innocence
But we've been bright in our decline
Been left as blackened filament
But I just don't know what you meant

«Life is a funny old thing.» Says some faceless publican, and Jerry, in his best secretarial drag giggles. Red ringlets spill out of their carefully coiffed style, and Jerry lets the man sitting next to him get a flash of a garter, hugging his thigh. He always made a pretty girl.

Except when it wasn't right. And even then, he was beautiful in rags. This body would lovely with Catherine. Jerry makes a mental note to lick his sister when he finds her again. If he remembers.

«A drink for the lady!» Says a hearty voiced American, who pushes a hand high up onto Jerry's thigh. Target acquired, thinks Jerry and leans into the man's hand. Cosmetic magic was easy enough to do... and the American's smile widens as his fingertips brush the lips of Jerry's pussy.

He never wears underwear as a woman. It seems pointless.

As they leave the pub, Jerry ignores the knowing glint in Shakey Mo Collier's eyes. He needs this connection now. Even drugs just aren't hitting the spot anymore.

Halfway to the door of the American's flat, kissing him, running fingers though his lush chest hair, Jerry hears a shrill, shrieking squall that puts the fear into him.

«Bugger me.» He growls as Frank comes staggering up, covered in filth.

«Wotcha, Jerr. Oy, haven't you copped off with something decent?» Frank leers and the scent of the man, the grease in his glare makes Jerry's facade crack. He kills the American then and there, beyond angry.

«Haven't you got some place to crawl up into and die, Frank?» He snarls, but lets Frank rob the body.

«Seeya, Jerr.» Frank oozes away but not before the accidental touch of his fingers against Jerry's breast makes Jerry feel ill.

«Oh yeah, Jerry! Catherine sends her love!» Jerry laughs at that, startling Frank enough so that the grimy man trips over his own feet.

Jerry leaves the scene to the sound of Frank's cursing.

cause I feel blood inside the vein
I feel life inside the ligament
I feel alive yeah just the same
Same vigour and the same intent
So I just don't know if that's what you meant

Jerry Cornelius is the English Assassin. He is lying in wait for the next hit, he is lying in bed with his fingers curled around Catherine's right nipple, as pink as, as sweet as a fresh strawberry, he is lying in a ditch without memory. Again.

Memory blurs and fades, and pale Pierrot smiles. A silver ribbon glints when cold Columbine dances for him.

* The lyrics are "What you meant", by Franz Ferdinand.

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