The funniest and most out of control book your kids will read this year!
They will laugh until they can’t sleep from hiccuping (as happened to one early reader!)
Preorder on Kindle and out now in paperback!!
Publication news!
Dinosaurs, Jetpacks, and Rock Stars! (a book I wrote with Kassidy when she was 6) is available to buy today!
I didn’t realise you couldn’t set up a paperback for preorder so I’ve accidentally launched earlier than planned. (Nothing but professionalism here…)
The Kindle version is up for preorder for the actual release date, which is the 27th February (my daughter, and co-author’s, birthday), but the paperback is out there in the wild all by itself now!
Dinosaurs, Jetpacks, and Rock Stars! Is published! Hurrah!!
A Village Called Christmas – A Festive Horror Story
Young Claire looked out of the window of her parents’ car as they drove into the village where her grandparents lived. The sign on the way in read, You Are Now Entering Christmas. A village that is wrong 364 days of the year, she thought.
She wiped the condensation away with her sleeve.
There was a man raking the driveway of his cottage. He was laughing at the leaves.
She had never seen anything like it before. She began to smile and then stopped. It was like the leaves had told the man a joke, but a terrible one. No, a terrifying one. For, although he laughed wildly, there was fear in his eyes.
She looked at her parents to see if they had seen the man but they were busy debating whether it was the next left, or the one after that. It had been a while since they last visited.
When she looked back at the man he was lying on the ground. She could only see the soles of his boots. The rest of him was covered in leaves.
The tyres crunched on gravel and they came to a stop.
Her grandparents were standing on their doorstep waving. Even though it was cold, the scene couldn’t have been warmer. Claire could see the tree in the window, all decorated and twinkling with lights, and there was the flicker of burning logs in the fireplace. She looked up and saw the smoke rising gently from the chimney. She smiled. She hadn’t felt festive at all so far this year. She figured she was just getting too old for it. But there it was, that happy jingle that made her heart swell. It was like stepping into the picture on the Quality Street tin.
“Aw, they’re so adorable,” said Mum, as Dad turned off the engine.
“And one day we’ll be just as cute,” said Dad.
“Sure,” said Claire, trying and failing to imagine her parents as anything other than the work orientated homework henchmen that they were.
They got out of the car.
A single snowflake drifted down from the empty sky and Claire happened to look up just as it reached her. It alighted on her eye and melted. She blinked.
“Ah, something went in my eye,” she said, rubbing at it with the palm of her hand.
“What is it? Does it hurt?” said Mum.
She opened her eyes wide and looked around.
“I think it was a snowflake,” said Claire. “I’m okay.”
“Let me take your coat sweetheart, oh look how much you’ve grown,” said Gran.
“Hi Gran, look how much you’ve shrunk,” smiled Claire, shrugging off her coat.
“Oh bless, you got your grandfather’s sense of humour. It’s a terrible family illness. One no treatment can cure. I haven’t managed to find one anyway,” said Gran.
“What’s that? She sick?” said Grandad, slightly deaf, and definitely not the funny one of the two.
“Come on in, let me close that door and keep the cold out.”
Walking into the lounge was like walking into a grotto. Claire’s eyes were wide as she entered. There were cups of hot chocolate waiting for them and Gran gave them out. They always drank hot chocolate together at Christmas. It was a tradition.
She let the cup warm her hands and looked around at the decorations on the walls. Real wreaths made of holly with red berries in them. Mistletoe hung from wall lights. Stockings that Gran had made hung at the ends of the fireplace. There was one for each of them. The tree was so tall the tip bent at the ceiling. The angel, made by Claire when she was six out of a cone of cardboard, some glitter, and a polystyrene ball for a head (with a smile drawn on with a felt tip pen), looked down at a crooked angle.
Something caught Claire’s eye outside and she looked out of the window past the tree, to the cottage across the road. There was- what was it?
She moved closer and stopped next to the tree. She took a sip of her hot chocolate and made a quizzical face. The neighbour’s boy ran out of the front door and threw the turkey clear over the hedge. His parents came out after him, the dad holding a rolling pin and the mother a carving knife.
“Err, mum,” said Claire, turning to get the attention of her parents.
The lounge was empty.
“We’re in the dining room honey, come in when you’ve finished your drink. We’ll be carving soon,” said Mum.
Something twisted around Claire’s arm and she looked down to see a branch of pine needles snaking around her. She stepped away, would have screamed, but the reflection in a bauble took her to another place.
It was dark. A forest full of tree stumps. Felled Christmas trees. Thousands of them. Men dragging them to pick-up trucks like dead bodies.
She pulled her arm away, dropping the mug of hot chocolate, stepping back. She looked down. The presents under the tree were wet with blood. It was pouring out of the axe wound that had severed the tree from its roots.
She turned and looked around at the wreaths and mistletoe and suddenly it was more like a hunter’s cabin than a festive cottage. Wreaths nailed to the walls like the heads of animals.
She ran into the dining room.
Where normality and kindness was.
She looked back. Just a lounge. Just a tree.
She sat down. Her mind was racing. Time had passed. Or it felt like it had. The aroma of the place had changed. The scent of mulled wine had replaced the chocolate smell. And the delicious taste of hot food and gravy was in the air.
“Are you okay, Claire?” said Mum, putting a steaming turkey in the centre of the table.
Claire nodded. Of course she wasn’t. But what could she say? “No mum, I just witnessed the memory of a murdered tree and I think we are all in danger.”
There was enough food to feed all of them twice and twice more. There was the bird, and gammon, there were bowls of sprouts, and broccoli, and parsnips, and stuffing, and potatoes, and so much more. A feast.
The food, the decorations, all once living things. We’re in the middle of a festival of death, thought Claire.
Everybody was seated, apart from Dad. He was ready to carve.
Mum was holding a cup of mulled wine in a porcelain teacup. Usually the kind of cup reserved only for tea. The fairy lights that had been put up around the window reflected in her wedding ring, making the diamond change colour as the lights did. Claire stared at it. She fixated on it. Trying to put whatever had just happened out of her mind.
“I hope you’re hungry, kid,” said Dad, looking at Claire.
She glanced up at him.
He stabbed the knife into the turkey.
It flinched.
Her dad stepped back, leaving the knife there.
“What was that?” said Mum.
“I don’t know.”
The roasted bird seemed to yawn where its head once had been. Its bent plucked wings gyrated awkwardly. Its feetless legs started to buck. The bowls of vegetables began to fill with blood, it was pulsing out of the sprouts, leaking out of the parsnips, dripping from the juicy gammon.
“What, what is this?” said Mum.
Grandad stood up and stepped back, knocking the chair over as he did. A wreath that had been hanging on the mirror fell and landed over his head. He grabbed at it and the holly bit into his hands. He screamed, low and deep, as the wreath constricted around his mouth and cut into his cheeks.
Dad was at his side. He took the wreath in both hands, ignoring the pain in his palms, and lifted it free. As it came away it took the skin off Grandad’s face.
Dad stood there holding the bloody wreath, and there was Grandad; a red skull on a cardiganed body, eyes that wanted to blink but couldn’t. He fell to his knees and collapsed forwards, hitting the edge of the table on his way down. His skull cracked open and the wet insides poured out like a crimson yoke.
Mum and Gran started screaming. Dad looked at the wreath in his hands. On top of it was the hair and skin from Grandad’s head. He dropped it.
“Jesu- wha- what the hell is-” said Dad, trailing off.
He took a step back. He looked at Claire and then at Mum and Gran. “We need to go. We need to get out of here.”
Mum and Gran were unable to follow his order. Their minds were unable to make sense of what had just happened. Gran fell to her husband’s side and put her hands to the exposed muscles of his cheeks. Mum found some kind of sanity and took her by the elbow. “Come on.”
“What happened?” said Gran.
“We’ll call an ambulance,” said Mum. “Let’s go.”
“No, I’m not going anywhere,” said Gran.
Claire felt something move around her feet and looked down. There was a sea of pine needles washing in around them. She looked back at the tree, which was now just bare branches.
“Mum, Dad, we have to go, now!”
They looked down, saw what Claire saw.
Mum tried to pull Gran to her feet but the needles had already found their way into her body. She turned towards them and they saw her face. She was already dead. Pine needles had travelled up under her skin and out of her eyes and ears and mouth. Her insides had been completely shredded. She slumped to the ground like a bag of loose hay. She split open and blood gushed out. It reminded Claire of an awful video she had once seen of a dead beached whale being cut open and so much red mess pouring out.
It was time to run.
Dad climbed onto the table, grabbed Claire under the arms, and pulled her up. He jumped off, ran through the lounge, opened the front door, and got Claire out of there.
“Run,” he said.
“Mum?” said Claire.
Dad ran back in. Claire had time to see him clasp her mum’s hand and start back towards her. Claire turned and sprinted down the drive.
The car tyres were shredded. Pine needles blew around them like debris in an eddy. The car seats were torn with holly.
She carried on and stopped in the middle of the road. There were people, whole families, crawling out of their homes. The boy who had thrown the turkey lay beaten to death by his parents, turned mad by things they couldn’t explain. They too lay dead, choked to death by mistletoe.
She looked up to the top of the hill where the village church had been holding Christmas Mass. It had been full of contented families, lost in prayer and warm with the spirit of the community. The church hall had been decorated with trees and wreaths. All prayers had ceased. The doors burst open and a river of blood erupted from within. It flooded down the street towards Claire. The blood was thick with pine needles.
Claire turned and ran.
Feet are no match for running liquid and soon the red river was with her, it drenched her shoes and flowed past her. Her feet splashed as she ran.
She reached the corner and turned.
Something impossible was blocking the street. A sleigh the size of a lorry. She collided with the ornate yet gnarled bough and collapsed backwards, landing hard on her elbows.
Way up high, on the seat of the thing, was a large hooded figure in a green coat.
Santa Clause? She thought.
He looked down at her, his features in shadow, the sun peeking over the edge of his shoulder. A hand reached down out of a thick sleeve and she took it.
It was coarse to the touch. Her heart curled up inside her. Santa leaned forwards and his face came into view. It was not Santa Clause. He did not have kind eyes. There was no white beard. Its face was jagged bark and its eyes were dark holes that wept sap. His coat was made of moss.
She tried to pull away but it tightened its grip and she felt the bones snap in her fingers. She screamed and grabbed the wrist below her broken hand, trying to break free of its grasp.
He lifted her off the ground, turning her pain into something white and hot, making her nauseous and on the verge of blacking out. He placed her in his leather sack (a sack that was detailed with the occasional tattoo and lash-lined oval slit).
From that vantage she watched the stream pass. Body parts bobbed here and there. Something white caught her eye. A glint with it. It was a tea cup with a part of a hand still holding on to it. A ring on one of the dainty fingers.
She watched it float past and burst into tears.
Father Nature adjusted the reins and the sleigh took to the sky like a leaf to a breeze.
He sailed the sky to the next place on his list and the village known as Christmas paid for centuries of death.
The End
Glass Balloons (short story – SF)
‘Bring it in Stephen,’ the foreman shouted.
It was my first day on Dock One as a fully licensed valet. It’s still called the International Space Station but now it spans half the globe. Like a web of tubes. When the sun comes around this side of the Earth it casts a grid of shadows on the world.
I was in my first customer’s car. My dim reflection looked back at me like a ghost in the convex windscreen. It’s been bugging me for a while but I’ve just realised what my uniform reminds me of. I remember watching a film when I was young with a lift guy in it. In the old days they used to have people who worked in elevators that controlled the buttons. That’s what I look like. I wore a dark burgundy blazer type thing, with gold buttons down the front, and a flat cylindrical hat, black trousers with a severe line ironed down the front, and black shiny shoes. I have a slim shaven face, short hair, eyebrows, nose, mouth; all the usual stuff; ears, etc.
I pulled the microphone down from the rim of my hat.
‘I can’t find the gear stick.’
‘For Christ’s sake.’ I could see my foreman in the control tower pick up a pair of binoculars and look down at me. He picked up the microphone.
‘Stephen?’
‘Yes.’
‘Look in front of you. Do you see a steering wheel?’
I rolled my eyes, ‘Yes.’
‘Now, look down and to your left, you see that stick with the ball on the end, it’s called a gear stick, now-’
‘No gearstick,’ I repeated.
The foreman picked his binoculars back up and looked at my vehicle again.
Harrison pulled up from below me in a sporty little number with twin engines that cascaded from the roof and ended in two circular giant fans at the back. He performed a reverse U-turn and hooked up at Dock Two about thirty yards in front of me. He switched off the engine, stood up and bowed at me.
I politely showed him my middle finger.
‘Ok, it’s a Chord Galaxy Automatic. There’s a concealed gearstick used for docking, there should be a button by the hazard light button, do you see it?’
I looked across the dashboard and found it.
‘Got it,’ I said, pressing the button.
A square panel sank back into the dashboard and opened sideways. A small gearstick popped out with a button on top with a picture of a hook on it.
‘Yep, definitely got it,’ I said.
‘Bring it in.’
I pressed the button and listened for the hook to mechanically fold out from the side and click into place. A light on the dashboard flashed on to indicate that it had. I put the gear into park and lifted my foot off the clutch. The vehicle moved sideways and hooked on to the dock.
‘Ta Da!’ I said, with jazz hands.
Harrison clapped sarcastically.
I turned off the engine and got out of the vehicle. I closed the door behind me and the automated parking belt wound down another notch making the vehicle disappear below the space station. The belt stopped winding and another dock was left in its place, in position for the next car-hook.
‘Nice work Stephen,’ said the foreman putting his binoculars down.
‘It’s cold,’ I said.
The foreman, and everyone else, could hear me through the communication unit. It’s activated by pulling the mic down though I can hear the foreman at all times through the ear piece.
‘Not for long, we’ve got sun in twenty minutes. Do you think you can do another one in that time?’
I looked up at the tower and shrugged at him.
‘Can you please answer with your voice, Stephen?’
‘Sure, I don’t mind.’
‘Ok, I’m sending him to your platform, make sure it’s clear.’
I saluted up to him.
‘Words, Stephen.’
‘Yes, sir!’ I shouted into the mic.
I saw him pull his headphones off and curse away from the mic, ‘Why do we hire these idiots?’ he muttered.
I wandered over to the platform and looked at it. I surveyed it proudly. ‘The cleanest platform on this side of the station,’ I said.
‘That’s because it’s only been used once you twat,’ said a voice behind me.
‘Hey, Harrison.’
‘Hey, man, good day?’
‘Yeah, it’s easy.’
About three hundred yards out of the Docking Station the first airlock to the parking area opened and a small craft came in and switched from its vacuum engines to its flight engines. The first door closed and the inner door opened letting the hum of its engines din around the dome. I could see the driver squinting over his steering wheel for the right platform and I waved up at him. He gave me the thumbs up and headed over.
The inner airlock closed. It’s normally silent but this time there was a faint bang shortly after it closed. I looked up at the foreman but he seemed unconcerned. I turned my attentions back to the new vehicle.
The hum of the engine turned into a chattering clatter as the vehicle got closer and manoeuvred itself into position. It stopped about a foot above the platform and the driver opened his window.
‘Do you want me to turn the engine off, or are you taking it straight over?’
‘Leave it running.’
The driver turned in his seat to the back.
‘Alright kids, everyone out.’
The back door opened and three excited kids got out. The driver got out and grabbed a suitcase out of the boot.
‘Ok, all done,’ he said, with the awkward smile that comes with handing your pride and joy to a strange teenager. ‘Don’t scratch her.’
‘Not a mark,’ I said.
‘I think the sun is almost around,’ he said nodding toward the Earth.
I looked. A crescent of sunlight was expanding imperceptibly across the Earth. ‘I know, about fifteen minutes I think.’
The man nodded and smiled and ran off to catch up with his kids.
‘Sure you don’t want me to do this?’ said Harrison.
‘No, I’ve got it.’
‘Ok, catch you in a bit.’
Harrison slapped my shoulder and took off towards the staff entrance.
The craft was nothing special. It was a family car that looked like it had been on a lot of holidays. The back seat was littered with empty crisp packets and colouring pencils and puzzle books. An interstellar map was unfolded in the passenger foot-well and a bunch of CDs were strewn, out of boxes, on the passenger seat. Retro. I like it.
I put on the seatbelt and adjusted the rear-view mirror.
‘Ok,’ I said, into the mic.
‘Ok, Dock One is ready, proceed.’
I pulled up and glided forward and positioned myself to the left of the Dock.
‘In position.’
‘Ok, check Dock for obstruction.’
I leaned over to look out of the passenger window. Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t tell what. There was no obstruction, but, something. I lowered the car a few feet to get a better look.
‘Is there a problem?’
I twigged what it was.
‘The space bellow is vacant,” I said.
‘That’s impossible.’
‘I’m not lying, it’s vacant.’
‘Move out of the way,’ said the foreman.
The automated belt that housed the dock moved back a space and I shifted the car out of the way. The previous dock came into view. It was empty.
I saw the foreman pull off his headphones again and pick up the mic.
‘Harrison, get out there!’ he shouted, and then he ran out of the room and disappeared from view.
I changed gear and flew the craft away from the station to get a wider view.
‘Oh, fucking hell. Harry, are you there?’
His voice came through on my earpiece. ‘What’s happening?’
I put my hand to my brow and shook my head. ‘I’m going to get fired Harry.’
‘Just tell me what’s happened.’
Several hundred yards below me, the first car I had ever successfully parked, lay in a crumpled smoking heap at the bottom of the dome.
‘I guess the hook gave out or something.’
‘What are you saying? Did it drop?’
‘Yeh.’
‘Cracks?’
‘Not that I can see from here.’
‘Get back up here and get me!’
I flew the car up to Harry’s platform and he opened the passenger door and got in, absently brushing the CDs on to the floor.
The foreman came running out of the staff entrance and got to us just as Harry closed the passenger door.
‘If that car is on the bottom-’
‘We’re sorting it,’ said Harry.
‘Sun is ten minutes away!’ the foreman shouted.
I came off the platform and dived fast toward the bottom.
‘Oh shit,’ said Harrison, taking in the full scene of the accident.
‘Yep, shit indeed. Get out of the way.’
Harry took hold of the wheel and I climbed over me, while I squeezed under him, and we switched seats.
We slowed when we were twenty or so yards away. The scene seemed to magnify as we got closer. The glass around the wreck was latticed with fine cracks that spread silently and slowly outwards.
‘This is really fucking bad,’ said Harry, pulling his mic down, ‘Permanently seal the outer entrance. The inner balloon is cracked.’
‘How bad is it?’ said the foreman, with a weird sort of calm in his voice.
‘I think you’ll need to evacuate this section. The inner balloon is splitting.’
‘Are you fucking kidding me Harry?’
‘We’re going to grab the wreck and pull it up. If the inner seal bursts and the car falls through we could break the outer shell. It wouldn’t take much with the sudden vacuum.’
‘Evacuating now. Sun is in seven minutes. You need to move it now.’
Harrison had already dropped the hook.
‘What should I do?’ I said.
‘Just fucking pray.’
Harrison was a master. The way he positioned the car was like being inside a humming bird. He pulled the break when the hook was a few inches from the other vehicles docking hook.
Harry stopped for a moment. He closed his eyes and took a breath inwards. He let it out slowly. The cracks seemed to spread around the wreck at the same pace.
‘Hurry up Harry,’ said the foreman.
Harry opened his eyes and held the controls still. He pushed the stick forwards gently and the hook moved toward the other. They touched.
There was a faint sound, like two china cups touching, and then the entire inner balloon shattered at once. It was like a bubble popping. It happened everywhere. A thousand yards above us and a few metres below us. The whole thing became a net of cracks and then disintegrated. I looked up through the sunroof. It took a lifetime for that shattered glass to fall. I saw it begin to shower the roof of the Docking Station just as the wrecked car hit the outer balloon.
There was an enormous sound like a nuclear bomb exploding and then being immediately muted. The car we were in lurched and then floated. The falling glass stopped and then fled in all directions at a serenely measured speed.
The earpiece in the headset turned to a frantic and deafening static. I pulled it out chucked it into the passenger footwell. Harry did the same. Then he looked at me.
‘Sorry Harry,’ I said.
He frowned. ‘Sorry?’
‘It wasn’t my fault.’
Harrison looked out of the window at the wreckage of the fallen car floating away from us. I looked at it too.
‘I think it might be, mate.’
‘What do we do now?’
The sun began to breach the horizon and the car, floating further away, lit up momentarily and then became a silhouette. Harry reached down and pushed a button with a symbol of a sun printed on with a line through it. Visors covered the windscreen and side windows. Harry reached up and pulled the shutter closed on the sun roof.
‘What do you think we should do Stephen?’
‘I feel like I might lose my job over this.’
Harry looked at me. ‘Yeah, I think you might lose your job over this.’
‘I blame inadequate safety measures.’
‘I blame you, you twat.’
‘Can we reasonably get to the pub on Entrance 9 before anyone catches up to us? I think I’m going to need a drink before facing whatever the fuck we’re about to face.’
Harry shrugged.
‘You alright Harry?’ I said.
He looked at me. ‘I’m fine mate.’ He twitched a bit. ‘Let’s go to Entrance 9.’
Gallot
Gallot knew things. Ask him and he’ll confirm it.
“Gallot,” you’ll say, “I hear you know things.”
“What do you know?” he’ll likely reply.
Gallot was a simple man, in my opinion. He wore this weird coat that had too many pockets and only one sleeve. I think he found it in a charity shop. He told me once he traded his shoes for a pair of shoes. He never elaborated. The shoes he was wearing had holes in them.
The last time I saw him he was telling me about his job. I couldn’t believe he had a job. Turns out he’s a professional fool. He doesn’t get paid and he has no business card. What he does have is a deep frown line and a pet cat that looks a lot like a dog. If you were to ask me I would say it was a cocker spaniel. He would tell you it was a long haired Persian called Steve. Gallot was a weird dude.
I introduced him to a book called The Accidental Scoundrel when I saw him last. He likes books. He probably won’t read it but he has an amazing library. That’s all he has really. He lives near the woods, right by the motorway there, near the services but hidden back in the trees. If you go down near the services, the one just before junction 3 on the motorway, and head about 30 yards into the woods you’ll find it. It’s amazing no one else has. He built his shack himself with pallets and discarded televisions. It’s a vast property. He has a good ten by ten metre room that is just shelves of books. The things he comes out with, man, I’m convinced he’s a genius.
He’ll try and convince you otherwise.
I met him for the first time about two years ago. He was holding a sign on the hard shoulder with the words “Ask Me When We Get There” written on it. I had never picked up a hitchhiker before but that was too much intrigue for me.
I was driving a blue mini bus that I use for work. I had no work on that day and enough seats for him, me, and nine other people. He got in and sat right next to me. His dog, that he insisted was a cat, whimpered somewhere in the back.
“Where too?” he said, plugging in his seatbelt.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Where are you going?”
“Same place as you.”
“Then we should go.”
It was lucky I was in the middle of an existential breakdown. I needed this kind of weird in my life.
There was a grinding sound coming from the passenger side wheel. It started the day before. I had just spent thirteen hundred quid replacing the engine so I was pretty pissed off that something new was fucked so soon. Maybe that’s part of the reason for my breakdown. I think mostly I was losing my mind because the house was being refurbished, which I couldn’t really afford, and my cats (actual cats) had started shitting around the house. They knew. Cats know. Cat’s don’t shit in your bath unless something is really wrong. That’s how they communicate. They shit in your bath and piss in your tumble drier. When they’re happy they try and steel your food and hide in boxes.
Gallot turned off the radio and we drove in silence for thirty seven minutes.
“Are we there yet?” said Gallot.
“I don’t know,” I said.
It was probably another two hours before I introduced myself.
“I’m Andy.”
Gallot didn’t care. He didn’t reply.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“What’s yours?”
“I already told you.”
“Is your name Andy?”
“Yes.”
Gallot thought for a while. I think it was twenty three seconds. I couldn’t reach my phone to time it. I was driving and my phone was in the glove box, which his knees were blocking.
“Why?” he said, after the twenty three or so seconds had elapsed.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either.”
We were silent for a while.
“What’s your name?” I said again.
“Your names Andy right?”
“Yes.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long do you think it will take?”
“I’m not sure.”
I turned on the radio. He turned it off again.
“My name’s Gallot.”
“Okay.”
I feel like I should have been uneasy around Gallot but he made me feel calm. He wasn’t normal, Gallot, He was like no one I had come across before and I wanted to understand why. I’ve known him a while now but this weird drive was the first time I met him. I keep going back to it in my mind. It was a good trip. It was a weird trip. It all started there. All the weirdness. He’s a good guy, Gallot.
We drove for about three hours in the end. That’s when I needed to stop for petrol. I pulled in to a service station.
“Are we here?” said Gallot.
“I think so. I have no money for petrol.”
“You should stop driving then.”
I did. I parked the mini bus in the forecourt. He called Steve, the dog he believed was a cat, and we walked for a while. We stopped when a clearing in the wooded area, that surrounds most off-motorway services, opened up to reveal an incredible shack.
The thing about Gallot is that he lived according to a philosophy. What that philosophy was is beyond me. He told me that the key to life is to have a philosophy and to stick to it.
We would spend a long time figuring out this idea of life but neither of us came to any useful conclusion. I think he was a prophet without logic. He was a thinker absent of thought. He said the best thing about life was that it happens without you.
I lived with him for a year.
You know, he had this room in his shack that only had a table in it. We used to stand around it and just stare at each other. I wish I could explain what we got out of this but I can’t. It meant something though. It really meant something.
It really did.
I think Gallot is dead now. He might not be. But I think he is. I went back to find him once but couldn’t. If I ever find that shack again I’m going to burn it down. If I don’t get stuck there again. With Gallot. And all his weird ideas.
The last thing he ever said to me was about stories. He said they don’t really need anything. So long as there are words nothing else really matters. I think he was wrong.
The State of Great Britain
I’m recovering from a terrible hangover.
When looking back over the events of 2016 I came across the news of Toblerone shrinking by ten percent. I went out to buy one to find out if the rumours were true, thinking it was surely a sick hoax.
I got back home and sat at my dining room table. I opened the packet slowly. Every second triangle was gone. This news by itself wasn’t particularly shocking but what it represented was. It was a glimpse into our future and the first casualty of our choices. It sent me into an alcoholic vortex that would leave me with a hangover the likes of which humanity had yet to experience.
When the boozing finally ended I found myself standing in my kitchen with a hangover made of hammers and remorse. I was wearing only jeans, a blue dressing gown, and a Jeremy Corbyn mask which I wore pulled back atop my head. Its vacant socialist eyes stared emptily at the ceiling. I woke up wearing it but have no recollection of why, or where it came it from.
I cracked an egg into a glass of warm whiskey and drank it in one gulp. I shuddered.
The floor swung sideways from under me but I managed to catch it with my right foot and steadied myself on the kitchen side. I shook my head and flicked the switch on the kettle.
It was quite possible that the kettle had already boiled for the third time by now without being poured. Short term memory was a distant one for now.
I tipped the coffee jar into a cup and spilt granules on the floor and onto my feet. I took a step back and leaned on the counter. My eyes were like a million butterflies trying to fly in the same direction. I picked up the kettle and filled the cup and shovelled in two sugars with a spoon.
Milk.
Where was the milk?
This puzzle was a stretch too far. I poured some coffee into the sink and topped it up with cold tap water and downed the coffee.
My head hung for a moment. With great effort I lifted a cigarette from the packet in my pocket. I lit it and inhaled. I smoked the whole thing without touching it. When the cigarette was done I let it fall out of my mouth into the sink.
The floor swung away again but this time I wasn’t able to steady myself and I slipped through a gap in reality. Time bellowed through my dressing gown as it evaporated into oblivion. Memories of life as I knew it took on a strange hue and rang around me like a bell full of shit. Donald Trump was there, in the darkness of nothingness, laughing and trying to grab my pussy. A pussy I don’t possess, but a pussy nonetheless.
When I came to I was in the same kitchen but there was a calendar on the wall that wasn’t mine. There was a picture of a flag on it. At first I thought it was the Union Flag but something looked wrong. There was a blue square in the corner full of stars. The year on the calendar was 2019. Somehow I had drunk myself into the future.
What had happened to me? I couldn’t know. This was probably just another terrible hallucination but things felt too real. I could feel the cold of the floor.
I tried to climb to my feet, reaching out for the fridge handle for purchase. The door swung open and I fell back. Out of the fridge fell a Peperami. It landed next to me, perfectly sealed. It offered sustenance that promised to lift me back to some kind of sensible state of being. I reached for it and tore it open but all that I found inside was that hideous thin sausage condom and the faint smell of meat. The sausage was missing entirely. I wondered if it faced the same weight-saving cut that Toblerone had, but taken to its absurd end.
Maybe all snacks had gone this way. All products now must be just empty packaging. Maybe manufacturers have given up entirely on their product and only sell packaging to a public that only have nostalgia left. I had to find out more about this future world I had travelled to.
I found a newspaper on the floor next to a bin overflowing with garbage. I leafed through it briefly and learned a lot. Much had changed. I rummaged through the bin and found two more from previous weeks. I absorbed every article with great interest and growing horror.
I found my way to the front door and wandered out into a vaguely familiar street. I figured the supermarket would be in the same direction as it used to be and headed for it.
Every front garden on the way had been turned into a vegetable patch and neighbours were sharing food over their fences. So it’s not all bad news. Poverty can bring people together.
There were thin people everywhere just standing around doing nothing. Some of them stared at me. Most were busy holding their trousers up and trying their best to stay upright in the calm breeze.
Now all the foreigners are gone all of the interesting takeaways have shut down and obesity is no longer a problem. Obesity is a privilege obtainable only by the 0.01%, according to the papers.
Without competition from foreign labour British men were able to charge what they liked for their services and so people can no longer afford to get taxis or make repairs to their homes. As a result nothing works and industry has come to a standstill. Most people are out of work and their toilets won’t flush and their homes are cold. Most people sit in their cars for heat. Petrol is cheap and bountiful now thanks to the relentless attack on nature instigated by Emperor Trump. The cars don’t move because no one has anywhere to go and many species have died along the new pipe routes.
I made it to the supermarket. Things were not good. Most of the food carried the “Trump Seal of Approval” which was privately viewed as an avoidance warning. You’d find a fresh chicken with a sticker of Trumps face on it with “TRUMP” in gold letters and the word “approved by Governor May” at the bottom. The meat had a faintly grey and damp texture.
Governor May. That’s right. You heard it here first. England is the 51st State. It’s too much to take in isn’t it?
The biggest shock came in the wine aisle. All foreign wines had been removed and all that was left was a small selection of Californian wine. I grabbed a passing shop assistant by the collar and shook her wildly. “How could you let this happen?!” I shouted, but she got the better of me and pushed me into a pile of loose pork scratchings, the only British snack food still readily available in England.
She started crying and slapped me in the face. “What’s the meaning of this!?” I shouted, trying to hit her back and missing by a yard. God damn these malnourished thin women!
“And that was the Shipping Forecast,” she said.
I looked at her like she was mad. I noticed a tattoo on her forehead that read Property of Wallmart and felt immediately sorry for her. If she wanted to hit me I was willing to be there for her. She could let her anger out on me. I’m ok with that. “Later on Radio Four a cow has a difficult pregnancy in The Archers,” she said, and struck me hard with a direct blow to my left eye.
“Lady, I feel your pain, but at least be coherent.”
“But first we are joined by Graham Guest. So Graham, you started a petition to prevent President Trump from making a State Visit to the UK-” she said.
Now, I have to be honest, as I lay there in the pork scratchings of a desolate supermarket in the future being slapped by an emaciated shop assistant, I couldn’t quite put the words she was saying into any kind of sensible context. It didn’t add up.
She hit me again and I fell sideways. Which was odd, considering I was lying on the floor. The supermarket, and the woman, shimmered and then stammered like a tape caught in an old cinema projector. The edges of reality crept forward. The girl burst into tears and then the whole scene was gone.
I was back in my kitchen. The kettle clicked off as it finished boiling. The radio was on. It was Radio Four talking to a man about a petition.
I stood there for a while. Not knowing what to do. After a few more coffees I got my shit together and got dressed for work. It was some kind of mad dream. It could never happen. The people wouldn’t let it. They have the ability to fight back. To not let the mad ones thrive. Surely kindness and intelligence will get the better of greed and ignorance.
I pulled on my boots and did up my jacket. I left the house and was murdered by a deranged seagull.
New to Haiku
And now; a haiku
Five syllables, seven, five
The rules are simple
I need a subject
So I can give this haiku
Some needed substance
Haiku’s stand alone
Three pithy lines and no more
But I like stories
Good, I think that’s it
Haiku’s are pretty easy
I am a turtle
And now I’ve had a practice I’ll turn my hand to the dark and horrid world my writing normally inhabits – Walk Between the Rain (a short Haiku story)
Once Upon a Wine (How not to write a fairytale, by a bored and drunk writer)
Once upon a time, is an overused trope. There are many established and recognised ways to tell a story. This is not one of them. There are accepted literary rules that must not be broken. Speaking directly to the reader is one such rule. You are embarking on an experiment. It might become tedious. Maybe it won’t. But before we start, here is a quick writing tip; you should never begin or end a sentence with the word “but”. But there we are.
This story is a fairytale about a drug addict. And it begins (also, you should never begin a sentence with the word “and”) in a magical forest just outside of Boscombe.
Boscombe was a magical (another thing you should never do is repeat the same word twice in near proximity, i.e. “magical”) place in the south of England. It is a small province in Bournemouth. Boscombe is famous for stabbings, alcoholics, a booming drug trade (they were lucky enough to have the first crack factory discovered in England!) and a happy-go-lucky 30 year-old pisshead called Trev.
Trev was enjoying a peaceful slumber under a sick-looking oak tree just down the path from that tatty little mini-golf course in Boscombe gardens.
“Urgh,” he moaned, stirring from a terrible hangover. He began to cry. Crying in your sleep is a talent one acquires after much practice and hardship.
A squirrel watched him from a branch above. He had a look of trepidation in his eyes. He sniffed the air and twitched his nose. Quietly, and slowly, he scurried down the tree and landed softly on the ground. He crept up to Trev and looked him over carefully. (By the way, if you are reading this and are a writer in the making please do not do as I do. I am making no attempts to avoid adjectives. Avoiding adjectives is very important).
The squirrel sniffed Trev’s nose and took a tentative nibble. “Could this mysterious thing under the tree be a giant nut?” the squirrel thought. Probably.
Trev was startled awake. His eyes opened wide. In his mad half asleep state he perceived the squirrel as some kind of small fury monster. He screamed. The squirrel panicked. Trev reacted without thinking and slammed his fist heavily down on the beast. He punched the poor thing into the ground. It lay still, sunken into the dirt. Blood seeping from its ear. It twitched and then vomited. (Jesus Christ. This is a horrible fairy tale. If you haven’t stopped reading by now there is something really very wrong with you).
It is said that every time the fourth wall is broken, and the writer addresses the reader directly, the illusion is destroyed and any kind of drama or suspense built up is shattered. If you decide to address the reader directly, in your own writing, you should make sure it pays off and has at least some relevance to the story. If you are writing in the first person it can be used as a way to give a quirky insight into the narrator’s mind but it is rarely done well and normally just pisses people off. What I’m doing now is just self-indulgent and awkward for both of us.
Trev pulled himself to his feet and brushed bits of twigs and dirt from his clothes. (A quick note about adjectives. I could have just said, “Tev stood up. His clothes were dirty.” But “dirty” is an adjective, and as I said earlier, they must be avoided. It’s all about showing and not telling, so they say. Building a picture for the mind’s internal cinema to follow).
Fuck. I can’t remember what this story was going to be about. Princesses maybe? Drug addled princesses. I don’t know. That will do. Fairy tales should have villains shouldn’t they? Yes!! (Exclamation marks, let’s talk about that. They should be used sparingly, and never more than one, ever). Right, let’s get a villain on to the scene.
A shadow fell over Trev, our prince. Trev looked up at the figure standing over him, shielding his eyes from the bright sun that was eclipsing around the figure, causing him to appear as a featureless silhouette.
“What the fuck do you want?”
The figure leaned forward revealing his identity. “Ello, ello, ello,” he said, stereotypically.
“Good morning Constable.”
“You just murdered that squirrel.”
“I want to marry your daughter.”
“Well, well, well,” said the constable (who had a recognisable trait of often repeating words three times just because the author doesn’t have the adequate skills to create a more distinct character and wants to avoid saying the words “he said” by letting the verbal tick do the work for him), “Doesn’t that add an interesting depth to our relationship. You’re nicked.”
Trev was taken to the police station and the author decided to wrap things up because this whole thing, whatever it is, is pointless and stupid.
The constable’s daughter beat her teenage fists on her dad’s manly chest and begged him to let Trev, her lover, go. He agreed and the teenage couple had sex resulting in an unwanted pregnancy. They got marriage even though they barely knew each other because Trev wanted to prove her dad wrong, and is a bit of a dick. They lived happily on benefits ever after.
The End
Epilogue.
The squirrel that Trev punched survived but due to an unusually warm winter, making it easier than usual to find food, got fat and was killed by a cat because he couldn’t get away quick enough.
Andrew Chapman / Author and Screenwriter 