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.

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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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

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.

Dahling

-Look at that old fool dahling.

-I know dahling. Does he honestly think anyone believes that’s his own hair?

-These people.

-I know.

-Did I tell you about Rathbone?

-That fool, no dahling.

-Finally jumped.

-No!

-Yes.

-No dahling!

-I’m telling you.

-Well, he said he would. My God! Look at that woman’s atrocious handbag!

-With those shoes

-Honestly dahling…

Inspired by a glorious image from ceiren.posterous.com

Rare

Image via Wikipedia

She thought it would be rare, maybe even before she died, which frankly wouldn’t be too long. It was, on the face of it, just another old-lady painting. She’d seen them lined up by the seafront with their easels and new packs of watercolours many years before she retired and followed suit. This was different though, this was a slight variation on the water colour theme. She’d collected her husbands urine for the last 3 years and mixed it with a whole variety of local delicacies, dog turds, vomit collected outside the pub on a Sunday morning, a big jar of her own spit she’d kept specially, and of course that pigs blood she’d got from the butchers.

S Club

Dressmaker’s S (Falmouth, MA)

Stop, she said
Sad severe Samantha

Stupid statement

Simon, she said
Stop saying such shit

Suddenly she stopped

Superb!

The Mayor, the hat man and his wife

Sovereign meeting the people

‘Let’s get this straight, you think you’re wife here should have my job?’ said the Mayor.

‘Yeah I do,’ said the man with the hat. ‘Thing is, she may not look it, but she’s a dynamo.’

‘A dynamo?’

‘Yeah.’

‘D’you mind not talking about me as if I wasn’t here,’ said the wife of the man with the hat.

‘See, I told ya,’ said the hat man.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the Mayor. ‘I’m just taken aback here. I feel insulted to be honest with you.’

‘Insulted?’ said the hat man.

‘Insulted?’ said the hat man’s wife.

‘Yeah.’

‘Why ?’ said the hat man’s wife.

‘Well come on. I mean, here I am trying to be nice. I’m walking around, chatting with people, trying to find out what they want…’

‘Well, yeah but…’ said the hat man’s wife.

‘I’ve only been in the job for 5 days…’

‘I know but…’ said the hat man’s wife.

‘And this schmuck…’

‘Hey!’ said the hat man.

‘How dare you!’ said the hat man’s wife.

‘I don’t think he meant anything by that,’ said the Mayor’s aide.

‘Didn’t mean anything,’ said the hat man’s wife.

‘Just be a man,’ said the hat man.

‘Be a man? Be a goddamn man!’ said the Mayor.

‘I’m glad I didn’t vote for you…’ said the hat man’s wife.

‘Well, thank you but I didn’t need your vote and frankly…’

‘Mr Mayor…’

‘If anyone’s a schmuck…’ said the hat man brandishing his umbrella.

‘Sir, move away,’ said the Mayor’s security man grasping the umbrella.

‘You make me wanna puke,’ said the hat man’s wife. ‘Come on dear, we didn’t come here to be insulted. ‘

Grounded

Image by craigmdennis via Flickr

In the sky he could see his target. The fat fluffy cloud to the left, in fact, at that moment it was the only cloud in the sky. He wanted to reach the cloud quickly before it changed shape. He couldn’t believe it wouldn’t be as solid and comfortable and armchair-like as it appeared from the ground.

He stood up and stared at it some more before simply lifting from the ground, slowly at first and straight up, head first. He stopped at a few feet and came straight back down. He couldn’t work out how to change direction and landing was still a huge problem; last time he’d sprained his ankle and had to ring his Dad to pick him up, making some excuse about being attacked.

‘Who by, do you know them? You do don’t you I can tell?’

‘No Dad, I don’t know them, I’ve never seen them before.’

‘What did they take?’

‘Nothing, a police car drove by and they ran away.’

He’d not flown since. If only he had someone he could talk to about it, someone who could teach him. He had to keep it all to himself but he was dying to tell Harry, his best friend. Harry loved science fiction and superheroes. He’d know what to do. If he found out though Jack knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself, no way.

Imagine if people found out, what would happen to him. He’d probably be hounded out of town or burnt for being a witch or his house would be surrounded by cameras and paparazzi and his Dad would be really cross and he would stop his pocket money.

Bu then, surely if he could fly, properly, once he’d got the hang of it and could land and change direction and swoop and all that, then it wouldn’t matter would it? If they came after him he’d just fly away. If his Dad stopped his pocket money he’d fly into the bank and steal some money and they wouldn’t be able to stop him.

But it wouldn’t end well. He imagined flying round and round being chased and shot at by helicopters and RAF jets and ground to air missiles and the whole of the army would be after him and he’d be hit high above the city and fall to the ground like a stone.

Where did I put those parents?

Image by Mandajuice via Flickr

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand so much as that he just couldn’t think about it. Whenever he tried his mind became either completely blank or a mass of noise and scribble and chaos. Either way, the whole subject of housework was always problematic for him. Not that he expected anyone else to do it, well maybe he wouldn’t have minded, to be honest, but as he’d been on his own since hiding his parents, he had no one else who could do it. Theoretically, he could have hired someone but that would have meant earning some money and he hadn’t really worked that out yet either.

His parents’ money was running out fast, unless they had more hidden away somewhere, but if they did he couldn’t think of a way to find it. Asking them was out of the question of course as he’d forgotten where he’d hidden them. All he knew was that he’d hidden them ‘somewhere safe’, that old chestnut.

He’d tried the obvious places, behind the sofa, under the bed, in the shed, in the garage, in the kitchen drawer. He tried places that weren’t at all obvious, like the bathroom cabinet, his pencil case, his jacket pocket, the sugar bowl, the hamster cage and his old shoes under the bed.

All of this had got him nowhere. It had been 9 months now since he’d hidden them. He was a little bit worried about them, obviously, but mainly, he was worried about himself. How was he going to pay the mortgage when the cash ran out?  How was he going to get the house clean, get himself clean, his clothes washed? How was he going to clean up his act so that he could invite someone round or have a chance of meeting someone? He had no clue.

Although his parents were miniature parents, it didn’t mean he relied on them any less. He said to himself that he’d hidden them but in reality they were perfectly able to unhide themselves and find him, they were just choosing not to.

They were letting him use his initiative, something they’d banged on about for years. They may have been miniature but as far as he could tell they seemed to be just as big a pain in the arse as normal sized parents.