The Confirmation

His scream echoed and gave him hope. There was something in the featureless landscape he’d trudged for many sightless weeks, without a response, to confirm his existence.

He screamed again turning his head from side to side. To his left the echo came back hard and fast. He ran at it. The loving echo, the confirmation.

AAh, AAh, AAh, AAh he screamed in time with his rapid footsteps, on and on until his voice faded, his energy was spent and he fell down.

Face down his mouth opened and closed seeking the echo until his death.

Random thoughts of dying

He woke with the same spiralling anxious thoughts that he would die today, he would have a terrible accident of some sort and he would die. The fact that he’d had this series of thoughts for many years and each day proved it wrong seemed to make no difference. He still had the thoughts. Sometimes they were accompanied by mental images of his death. The severing of his head seemed to feature quite often, as did being crushed by a speeding truck. More unusual recent examples were being catapulted into the air and landing on a spike, being electrocuted by pissing on a power supply and, his least favourite, nailed down to a wooden floor and eaten alive slowly, by crows and rats. This morning was the second time he’d had this thought in the past few months and an additional worrying thought that now joined the others circulating around his overworked brain, was that maybe this would become a new regular. Generally the thoughts came as he awoke, they followed him from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen, paused for a moment when he drank his coffee, then resumed at full intensity for the rest of the day until he went to sleep. Sleep for him was a beautiful wondrous thing. In his sleep he dreamt of not dying, of living a happy easy normal life, occasionally even doing amazing things: eating in fine restaurants, talking to girls and once, touching a breast. This fantasy world was available to him whenever he slept so obviously, he tried to sleep as much as possible. He had every brand of sleeping tablet known to man and he drank enormous quantities of alcohol every day of the week. It was getting harder to get to sleep though and he had started waking earlier and earlier. His cunning plan this morning was to start a new exercise regime. He was incredibly unhealthy having spent most of his life indoors and most of the last 20 years drinking excessively. The advantage of being so unfit, he figured, was that exercise would exhaust him and he would sleep more – it couldn’t fail.

Carstairs and Carruthers contemplate carousing

It was clear to Carstairs that he would need to do something pretty soon to add a bit of zest to his life. He’d mentioned this to Carruthers last night and they’d reminisced at length, about the old days.

Carruthers had got that look in his eye, that old look he used to have when they’d gone hunting or carousing.

‘You know what old boy, maybe a bit of carousing is just what I need’ he said to Carruthers.

Nothing wrong with a bit of carousing, even at his ripe old age and Carruthers was certainly in favour. He may have lost his marbles but he seemed to be intact in the trouser department, at least, so he insisted.

‘Like a steel rod old man, never fails me’.

He’d started to unbutton his trousers and seemed intent on demonstrating how marvellously he was able to rise to the occasion. Fortunately the matron woman came in at that point and one look from her hatchet-face was enough to dampen any man’s ardour, even old Carruthers.

In his day of course, he’d been a notorious swordsman, all the women seemed to flock to him and he would come to the club many a Sunday lunchtime bragging about his exploits, how he’d managed to satisfy 2, 3 or one time 4 women in one night.

The very idea of it now made his nether regions ache in protest and the more he thought about it the more he thought he’d find a more relaxing pursuit to spice up his life, something a little more suited to a gentleman of his advanced years, watching cricket, maybe, or perhaps a ruddy good game of bridge.

It’s not that he didn’t’ appreciate the filly’s ,of  course he did, loved them as much as any man, but sometimes a chap needed a bit of peace and quiet and they do rather like to chatter away all the time, enough to drive a man doolally.

He’d only mentioned his plans to Carruthers in jest but he’d become so excited by the idea that he felt like he ought to go along with it.

At least the silly old bugger would have forgotten by the time he saw him next, rather handy really this loss of marbles.

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Terrible two’s

Image via Wikipedia

Name: Craig Arthur Tennenbaum

Eye Colour: Blue

Hair Colour: Sandy

Favourite food: Strawberry yogurt

Siblings names/ages: Felicia Gertude Tennenbaum age 6

 

 

Here I am stuck in my crib as usual. I can hear them downstairs, trying to be quiet so they don’t wake the baby. Do they think I’m stupid? Sometimes I think they get mixed up with young and dumb. Its not the same thing. I wish I could say what’s going n in my head so I could make them understand. Unfortunately my body, well my mouth and tongue and the other parts that contribute to speech, throat and larynx and vocal chords I guess, they’re not fully developed yet. When they are I am gonna give them the shock of their lives. They have no idea what I am capable of. Maybe though and this something that keeps me awake at night, not the crying for Mummy type of awake but the oh my god which option shall I choose kind of lying awake. I wonder about letting on, maybe if I keep my cleverness to myself for now at least I will be able to take advantage. They’ll never suspect an innocent little two or even three or four-year old, would they. I could gather some decent savings for start. I know where Daddy keeps his wallet and I’ve seen the stash of bills he throws down several nights a week. God knows where he gets it from, can’t be legal I’m sure, why on earth would he need to have all that cash. Its something dodgy and that’s both unsettling and useful. Its unsettling as it’s a poor environment to grow up in, morally and ethically of course but also it very insecure. Maybe he’ll get found out and arrested for Christ’s sake! However, it does mean he’s likely to be pretty lax about money and wont notice a few £10’s going missing from time to time. By the time I’m 18 I want to have amassed enough to get the hell out of here and get a place of my own. I may be a  baby but I know from the time I’ve spent here, and two years is a long time particularly at my age, it’s a goddamned lifetime! Two years with these bozos is enough to know that as soon as possible I will be out of here. Obviously I don’t have a clue what I’ll do for money or work, something exciting and magnificent no doubt but just in case I want a bit put away.

Imagine the bliss of getting away from the dreaded whiney Felicia, or Fliss as she insists on being called by her ghastly friends, flid more like it. She make’s me wanna puke and she is such a stereotype. She plays with dolls and make up and talks with her friends about clothes and boys and wears mummy’s shoes as soon as she’s out of the house. I have to be careful though with her. She’s not entirely dumb, obviously way below my level but I guess some of this genius might be genetic though you wouldn’t think it in a million years looking at our thicky parents. She’s a bit sharper than they know though and I’m sure she clocked me the other day when I rolled my eyes at her stupid comment about Barbie. Maybe she’s pulling the wool over someone s eyes too. Maybe the typical little girl thing is just an act and maybe she’s got some plans of her own. I need to keep an eye on her I guess, don’t want her getting in the way.

 

I read in the Times last week about the child who divorced his parents at the age of 14, something to consider, although it would attract a hell of  a lot of attention and it would be much harder to do what I want then. I think, with many many distractions and devious ways of keeping out of the way and bearing it, I will manage to stay until I’m of age to avoid the least fuss and the least interference from Social services or anyone like that.

Sounds like a plan my man, sometimes I wish I was a twin and we could high-five each other, still you have to live with what you’ve got. That mobile is making me drowsy…

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2010. That’s about 3 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 40 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 33 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 6mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was November 3rd with 32 views. The most popular post that day was Where did I put those parents?.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were healthfitnesstherapy.com, digg.com, WordPress Dashboard, stumbleupon.com, and slashingtongue.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for “fiction””her missing leg”, arse, silly verse, inspriational words about trucking, and trippy writing prompts.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Where did I put those parents? August 2010

2

A bit fishy March 2010

3

Talking out of my arse October 2010
5 comments

4

Thick and ugly July 2010
4 comments

5

Severed head November 2010

NANOWRIMO WINNER 2010

YES, YES, YES, YES, YES!!

I DID IT

Severed head

His head was severed from his body and he felt the agony of that, but he was still alive. His head rolled down the enlarged gullet of the Mummy-thing. Its throat was lined with a sticky red shiny liquid that burnt on contact. Already one of his eyes had been burnt out and he could barely see out of the other one. As he was squeezed downwards he heard a gurgling churning noise which grew louder as he rounded each of the many corners of the foul monstrous gut.

At each push his head was turned in a different direction so he couldn’t always see where he was going. He tried  to bite the side of the gut to stop himself going forward. It tasted foul but the muscular motions were far too strong and he couldn’t hold on.

For a moment he was stuck on what seemed like a fold in the gut which was contracting and pushing him slowly forward towards a small opening.

By coincidence he was turned to face his fate, right at the very edge of the precipice.  Below him was a boiling vat of liquid which must be the stomach of this creature. As the muscles gathered themselves ready to contract he had one last stream of

“…he’ll get by without his rabbit pie…”

running through his mind before his head was ejected like a cork from a bottle out and down into the foul-smelling cauldron below. He registered the searing pain of the stomach acid briefly before his life finally flickered out and his head melted to join the morass.

Extract from my NANOWRIMO work in progress

Crumbs from the rich man’s table – a rant

Image via Wikipedia

I want to say something about the Tories.

I was distinctly unimpressed with Labour, particularly in their ‘NEW’ or ‘RIGHT WING’ format. They were pretty poor. They never said anything particularly radical and they did some pretty shitty things in the name of the MAN, such as war, cancelling of student grants the instant they got in etc etc. Their radical ‘NEW’ approach was all about showing the MAN that they were all cuddly and loved rich people , in fact many of them were in the cabinet.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll look after capitalism for you, we won’t let those nasty unions have any power, we’ll make it quite clear that that’s old hat now, unions are old-fashioned, trying to get better working conditions and rights is old fashioned.’

So, the MAN was relatively happy for quite some time and the fact that the Tories could be far far worse began to fade away with Thatcher, or so it seemed.

Now though, the motherfuckers are back and they’re worse than before. They still want to fuck us up the arse, they still want us to work much harder and produce even more wealth for them and their filthy rich mates, but they have also assumed some of the bullshit and smarm of NEW labour. They call it spin, its really just bullshit and lies and they do it quite well, it has to be said.

They almost had me convinced in the first few weeks of their hideous reign, that there really is nothing we can do but pay up now – more than we usually do.

Its unrealistic to fight job cuts, its unrealistic to expect your pay to go up , even to expect it not to go down, its unrealistic to expect public services to survive, nothing they could do it seemed, poor bastards.

Hold on a minute though. They’ve done the usual trick of a new government and blamed all the shit on the previous one and obviously, Labour have to take some responsibility, but it would be very foolish to suggest (as they are constantly suggesting) that all the dreadful economic troubles we now find ourselves in are a result of the Labour government. That the worldwide economic crash is all Labour’s fault.

True they perpetuated it, they sat there while the bankers gambled more and more and more and more with our money and borrowed off each other and back again so no one could actually see that the debts that they owed to each other meant that there wasn’t actually any money left.

The lie was started in the 80’s by the fuckwit Tories and the witch Thatcher. They sold us the idea that somehow, once we all owned our own houses and got rid of unions we could have whatever we wanted and if we had to borrow it and then borrow a bit more to pay it back and then re-borrow to refinance and buy something extra and add a bit onto our houses and have a new car and two new computers and a new mobile phone each year and go on holiday to more and more exotic and far away places, it wouldn’t be a problem. Capitalism would sort it out, growth would sort it out, constant never ending growth, constantly increasing house prices would sort it out and anyone that said, this doesn’t make sense was living in the past. Capitalism, you see would self- regulate, the market would look after it all.

These same bastards who now blame Labour for not controlling things told us that we should basically let the market run the fucking world.

We did and look what happened, you arseholes.

The lie is over.

We’re not all the same

We don’t live in a classless society

Most of us are just producing profits or providing services for those who own the vast majority of the worlds wealth and we need to wake up and realise exactly how fucking much we are being ripped off.

They would much prefer it though if we blamed the latest immigrants, or the greedy unions, or the excessive public sector workers with their giant pensions (not something I’ve noticed).

‘ Look down there, look at the poor people. Watch them fight amongst themselves wha ha ha ha ha’.

They must be pissing themselves, looking down on us from their lofty boardrooms and penthouses.

There is a ridiculous notion, maintained on a daily basis by the raft of reality TV competitions, that everyone can be great in this system as long as we have good old competition. The idea that there can only be one winner and that winner will be the one who wants it the most (or is prepared to shit on people the most) is also sold to us at the same time and more fool us for not saying , hold on a minute, you make no sense oh capitalist tool. If there can only be one winner how can we all be winners.

Imagine a cake as big as your house. This is the wealth of the world. Occasionally a few crumbs, the size of actual crumbs on a normal cake, fall off the table and we, the working class of the world, scramble around at the foot of the table trying to grab them.

Let’s get the whole cake and then we can all decide what to do with it.

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Bury me upside down and call me Martha or the ‘eccentricity’ of King George

On a recent walk in Surrey I came across a gravestone of an apparently ‘eccentric’ major who, at his own request, was buried head first in the woods, in 1800.

Made me think about the difference between mad and eccentric.

In the dictionay eccentric is decribed as :

1. Departing from a recognized, conventional, or established norm or pattern. See Synonyms at strange.

2. Deviating from a circular form or path, as in an elliptical orbit.

Mad on the other hand is described as:

Suffering from a disorder of the mind; insane.

Temporarily or apparently deranged by violent sensations, emotions, or ideas: mad with jealousy.

Lacking restraint or reason; foolish: I was mad to have hired her in the first place.

There must be an outdated law attached to these terms, a bit like voting. It used to be that you could only vote if you were of a certain standing or had enough dosh. When they changed the law to allow universal suffrage, I believe they forgot to include the mad/eccentric classification, a lesser known sub paragraph of the old law.

In this old law of 1422, which still exists today, clearly, only those earning an income above £50o a year (about £5 million in todays terms) are allowed to call themselves, or be referred to as, eccentric. Anyone else who is seen as ‘lacking retsraint’ or ‘deviating from a conventional norm’ must be refered to as Mad.

Its the law, sort of.

 

Talking out of my arse

Image via Wikipedia

‘What are you on about? You know we don’t have a water bottle,’ said Helen, my girlfriend.

This was about a year ago when I began to realise I had something very unusual happening to my body, well, my nether regions, well OK, my arsehole.

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘Very funny.’

‘I just farted.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘I promise you.’

She didn’t believe it but I just thought it was funny. So I quickly forgot about the fart in the bath sounding like ‘water bottle’ and we continued with our relatively happy lives.

The next time was harder to ignore – a punch in the face can help focus the mind. I was on my way to the pub to meet John and Jamie, walking fast through the Clapham Park Estate, not the wisest of shortcuts but I was very late.

I noticed four hooded youths walking my way. They spread out in a line as they approached making it hard for me to get past. Not unusual behaviour for stroppy lads and not something I wanted to get into an argument about. I stepped aside to let them pass, avoiding any eye contact.

My arsehole had different ideas though. As I stepped to the side I had to step off the pavement down onto the road and as my foot hit the road I felt a rumbling in my arse cheeks.

It came out loud and clear.

‘WANKERS’

‘WOD’YOU SAY?’

‘Nothing.’

Then again even louder.

‘BUNCH OF WANKERS.’

THWACK!

The first punch hit me on the nose then they all started to wade in. That’s when my arsehole and I aligned our thinking again.

‘Run away!’ it squeaked. I needed no convincing so we ran, fast.

I wanted to explain the whole story to Jamie and John but decided that I couldn’t. I just said I was jumped in the Estate and after a few angry exclamations about going to look for them, we settled down to our usual beer-fuelled waffling for a few hours.

When I got home, a little pissed; I went straight to the toilet, pulled down my jeans, sat down and had a chat with my arsehole. It was pretty chatty. It seems it had been able to communicate for years – since I had a hole in my arse…ha ha.

Anyway, apparently he was always waiting for the right moment – which was hard to find, clearly, and in the end, he just couldn’t stop himself. We’re pretty close now, not just physically – and aside from being extremely opinionated about my diet and digestive system – understandably I guess – he’s a good mate. He gives great advice for an arsehole.