Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Boris '84
(A short story)
It was the beginning of the summer holidays 1984, when Boris decided it was high-time he became better acquainted with his surroundings. After all, he was nine years old and very nearly in double figures. His home town, Deprestwick, was marooned with the west-coast shoreline on one side and fields on every other, vivified only by the main road running through, giving him three options, all of which would need to be explored at some point, but only one beheld real mystery. He consulted his compass before shunning the road in either direction and, taking his first steps towards independence, he headed east for the secrets of the countryside, understanding that the undertaking of a quest as quixotic as this would require a good stick, for beating aside reeds and fending off hungry beasts if nothing else. A hawk-eyed frisk of any forthcoming undergrowth would need to be carried out, for a suitable branch which could be shaved of its twigs was essential.
No more than half an hour of somehow smaller familiar surroundings had passed before Boris reached the last of the houses at the edge of town and found himself at what he considered the point of no return – The Dow Burn, it's banks laden with gorse bushes and small trees, a stick would have been useful but there wasn't one to be found. Instead, focusing all his attention on avoiding jaggies and stingy nettles, he made his way for the only adventurous crossing he knew - the fenced off sewage pipe that crossed The Dow Burn, with its intended child-proof barricade that fanned its bulbous centre. He'd seen it easily negotiated by bigger boys in the past and was confident in his approach, but on straddling the pipe, its deterrent appeared far more daunting, realistic, and quite bizarrely placed right in the middle of the pipe, directly above the raging, knee-deep waters of the burn. The barrier scowled angrily down at Boris as he braved the bum-shuffle towards it, feeling his scrotum tighten as he did; something of an unnerving sensation. He thought back to when he'd watched bigger boys conquer the pipe, and how he'd prided himself in his sensible refusal to buckle under peer pressure. He also considered there being no one to run for help if he fell, then, meticulously, Boris double-checked his pockets were fastened, his backpack shut, and before common sense had its say, he clambered under the iron fence which stretched over only the top half of the pipe, one leg securely straddled until the other was hooked under and over the opposite flank. Relatively easily, Boris followed, his hands held firm as he passed himself under the awkward hurdle and up the other side, only to find he now looked back toward everything he'd ever known. He sat for a moment, appreciating what he'd achieved. Then glancing between his hands on the pipe and his home town, he backed up the rest of the way, and on setting his feet down on fresh pastures, Boris felt himself something of a Columbus. He was now a true explorer.
The comforting late-morning sunshine induced a feeling of dreamy lacklustre, and so Boris looked on towards his intended picnic pitch - the legendary Auld Kirk - a place of morbid enchantment he had only ever seen from a distance what with never having crossed the burn, but could partially see from his bedroom window as its two craggy peaks, softened by a thick layer of ivy and gapped by where its roof once sat, were visible from almost everywhere in Deprestwick as it was planted atop a subtle, but bulbous, fell.
He pottered along the stony footpath until it met the bottom of the overgrown slope of the Kirk, then made his way up, noticing, as he went, lots of label-less empty bottles and sun-bleached cans, as well as lots of little plastic bags with a strange, solidified white goo inside, scattered all around.
As he hopped over the grave yard wall he felt his palms warmed by it and marvelled at the field of stones, hundreds of years old. He walked through in awe at the grim crosses and broken statues, half searching for familiar names and the oldest burial date, ignoring the increased presence of empty containers, and commanding an immaculate examination in consideration of the infamous witches grave - an apparently nameless, coffin-shaped stone laid flat on the ground and cracked wide open in its centre on account of some unlikely satanic ritual. Still, however unlikely it may have been, on discovering the witch's grave appeared exactly as had been described, Boris felt a little perturbed and decided he'd have his lunch elsewhere.
Bounding over the wall at the far end of the Kirk, Boris followed an old dirt path. He considered how it had come to be there, worn so deep into the grass it was awkward to walk. He pictured centuries of townspeople making their weekly pilgrimage to the Kirk as he passed other paths which splintered off on their own, sometimes bleeding into fields, sometimes broadening out into dirt track roads. Boris imagined strange places at the ends of these roads; other kinds of places where a smile couldn't be trusted.
The further he walked the more barren the landscape became. Just open plains, moors and a lonely field of cattle at the foot of the still distant woods, to which Boris had assigned himself the task of braving, and where it was rumoured the occasional dismembered body had been found. He intended to discover what lay beyond, if anything, but it was quite a trek, so having spotted a huge log just over a farmers fence, he sat to eat his lunch: Jam sandwiches, an apple, a Marathon Bar, a packet of Smith's Salt 'n' Shake crisps and a Quenchy Cup. He chose not to drink his Quenchy Cup through the straw provided but preferred to turn the cup upside-down and bite a little nick out of its plastic bass and drink from there, as was the fashion at Deprestwick Primary. Leaving half a sandwich and the apple in his lunchbox for later, he packed his backpack, picked up a small twig and began absentmindedly scribbling in the dirt at his feet as he wondered about the woods ahead.
Always referred to as the Bean-Shidh Woods by adults, they held a number of other titles amongst the children of Deprestwick. Sometimes they were the Scary Woods, sometimes the Haunted Woods, the Murder Woods or just the Dead Woods, despite appearing from where Boris was sat to be quite lush and green, and no doubt a wonderful home to a great wealth of wildlife. The most eerie name, Boris had always thought, was The Banshee's Woods, so called on account of that apparently being the story behind the dismembered bodies - that if one were to pass too close on a particular hour/day/time of year, seemingly depending on who was telling the story, you'd hear the Banshee scream, fall into a hypnotic trance and wander off into the woods never to be seen in one piece again. Everyone at school understood this to have been happening for centuries but it was of course only now in recent years being properly documented by the authorities due to some vague, unexplained reason. Or on account, Boris considered, of there only ever having been one incident involving a torso and separate body parts.
Upon finishing off his loose doodle of a ghost floating out of a grave, Boris addressed his compass again then set off. As he walked, booting the occasional stone, he got to thinking about ghosts and the quite obvious holes in stories about hauntings or the haunted. For if a ghost were ever to kill him, once he was dead, that ghost better watch its tail because he'd be after it for all the rest of time, however long that was, so it didn't make sense for ghosts to go bothering people at all seeing as how everyone would eventually die at some point and would therefore be able to get their own back. Boris thought this quite odd.
Before he knew it, Boris was face to face with the surprisingly intimidating reality of a cow. Protected only by the thin wire farmer's fence which separated them, he was concerned about its size. It was massive, much bigger than he'd ever thought a cow could be and it was looking at him. It didn't seem menacing. It just kept looking at him, twitching its ear, perhaps, he thought, trying to work out if he was edible. Finally, after what was probably only twenty seconds or so, the cow turned away and Boris felt at ease. But a second or two later it looked back again and Boris began deliberating the walk around the field, but wasn't even sure if that would do any good as it only appeared to end with the first row of trees just over the arch of the brae. Just then his ponderings were interrupted as the cow, looking directly at him, lifted its tail and let a great mass of dung tumble and roll out of its backside. Insulted, Boris turned his nose up, walked a few feet to the side then clumsily scissored over the thin, shoogly fence, feeling the cows eyes on him as he did, and slightly self conscious, he walked through the lumpy field, taking care not to step in any pats or offer another cow opportunity to make fun of him.
About thirty yards shy of the woods, Boris saw ahead a wall keeping the cows from the trees. It was shabbily built and stretched out over the horizon in either direction. It was old, without mortar and made up of random shapes, sizes, colours and textures of stones; A type of wall he'd never seen let alone had cause to climb, and he was thankful, if a little bewildered when it didn't crumble. On the other side the land was entirely different to that he'd previously walked: Thick, spongy, very overgrown and moist. The air seemed somehow cooler and became more so as he approached the woods until he was stood at their edge where the air felt refreshing, almost chilly. Boris unpacked his body-warmer sleeves and buttoned them back on, then, within a few steps, noticed the thick grass had turned a yellowy-brown and was riddled with suitably sized sticks. He strode on, attempting to flick sticks out the long grass with his toes to grab mid-air, and catching one, he swung out at the nearest passing tree, clean breaking the stick in two with an almighty crack, then, barely a moment later, flinching as if to duck for cover as an alarming onslaught of laser-bolt echoes toar by. He'd never heard anything like it before, thousands of echos reflecting off every tree, from every direction, all at once. Harrowed, Boris ebbed up to an unsure posture, scanning the now silent woods ahead before letting a smile curl up one side of his face. He dove his hands into the grass, scurrying them around for another stick then smashed it off a tree and stood tall as the shards of splintered sound screamed past. He invented a game which consisted of trying to brake a branch twice with one swoop. The idea was to snap a longish stick off one tree but to try and aim the ricocheting end at another tree with enough force for it also to break, but in time with an echo from the first break, and what with everything under the canopy of the woods being soft and damp, Boris became swiftly adept, finding the game had almost run its course when a stick failed to snap and he was abruptly reminded why he'd initially been hitting sticks off trees in the first place. Boris had found his stick.
From a distance the woods had looked black inside and Boris had worried that he might not have the courage to see them through. He'd pictured it as he now saw it would be at night-time – walking with his hands out as feelers, tripping over skeletons as glow-in-the-dark eyes blinked all around - but now he was beginning to weigh up the possibilities of living here. He could fashion a cabin, set traps, make spears and hunt deer... Or cows. And there were bound to be a few apple trees among this lot. He could even master the trees, collect birds' eggs for breakfast and spy on anyone who dare to enter his woods. He could become the mythical creature of the woods! Only a real one, because there was clearly no banshee. The banshee. He'd forgotten about the banshee. Suddenly self aware, Boris stopped dead. The dense woods held a dull, fuzzy, light which narrowed his peripheral vision. He stood listening. Nothing but birds, birds singing. He started off again, trying to ignore the now fractious din of the bracken underfoot as the trees stared, designing banshees of shadow for the corners of his eyes. A betrayal, Boris determined, of his fructuous imagination.
It was a short while made long before a sunny clearing reassured Boris that the woods were not a home for child-hungry monsters so much as a weekend getaway for under-age drinkers, as below a tubby, umbrella-like tree which hung out over the centre of the clearing, were hundreds and hundreds of grievously scattered bottles, strange little gooey bags, long, discoloured, deflated see-through balloons, and beer cans, mostly yellow and blue with photographs of glamorous, bikini-clad women printed on them, all rusted and not in the least bit glamorous. All that and the occasional tatty magazine full of photographs of naked ladies which, never having seen naked ladies presenting their bits-n-bobs - or lack of - so openly before, Boris found both mesmerising and horrifying. Using the inside of his foot, he began shifting everything into what he thought to be roughly bin-bag sized clusters with the intention of returning another day to remove them. Once satisfied, he looked the tubby tree up and down, planning his rout. The tree was quite low, comparatively, and so it was easy to climb. He found himself a nice comfortable spot to nest where a very slight breeze coaxed patches of shade to shape sunbeams over his face. He ate his apple and took out his Swiss Army knife and, being careful not to let the blade fold in on his fingers, added his name to the gallery in bark, carving - BORIS '84 - noting that none of the tree's previous visitors had bothered to punctuate correctly. Afterwards he wondered if there was a possibility he might have hurt the tree which was already littered with initials, nicknames and love-hearts, then from there Boris' mind wandered, mulling over what might happen to trees after they died and the improbable likelihood of ghost-trees, concluding that being a ghost-tree would surely be among the most boring existences ever. Just being a regular ghost seemed to be something of which the novelty would wear thin fairly promptly, and being a tree seemed uneventful enough, but putting the two together, to be a tree that no one could see or feel for all the rest of time, not growing or having birds nest or initials carved or whatever else it was that trees did or had done to them, well that would be horrendous. Or maybe ghost-birds would nest, and ghost-children and ghost-teenagers would carve their initials. Maybe being a ghost would be no different to not being a ghost. Maybe ghosts would eat ghost-food and do ghost-jobbies, although that didn't sound very nice.
Climbing down, Boris saw his discarded apple core lay nearly at the foot of his stick which he'd left resting against the side of the tree facing forward, but pleased the explorer in himself by checking his compass anyway. He took the remains of the apple, threw it in the air, and, having decided that if he were able to hit it first time the banshee wouldn't get him, he grabbed his stick with both hands and swung his best rounders swing, missing the apple completely. He pretended to himself that this attempt, along with two others which followed, hadn't happened, then first go Boris smashed the browning core to smithereens, and with a nod of self satisfaction masking a slight air of concern, Boris strode on.
He perked up briefly, noticing the woods were growing consistently thinner since the clearing, but with sunshine's breach of the canopy, light was shed on a stark and sobering sight. Wide eyed, Boris looked down. Wider eyed, an enormous skull glared up. It looked like the skull of a monster. Flat and long, maybe a crocodile or an alligator, but not quite as long and with enormous twisted horns. It must have been a monster's skull, probably the banshee's; the skull of a mythical creature with a reputation for tearing people, especially children, into tiny pieces. Fumbling at his now very-difficult-to-open Swiss Army knife, Boris walked as fast as possible without running, repeatedly reassuring himself that there is no such thing as monsters or banshees and alligators and crocodiles only live in more exotic climates. And they do not have big horns, and that it was definitely just a deer or a weird, gigantic dog with massive twisted Satan-like banshee horns... Or it was a deer. Just a deer. It was a deer. With antlers. There is no banshee.
A dismayed pace was held until confusion interrupted in the shape of an overgrown road running through what appeared to be the end of the woods. It was something he'd never seen before, grass and bushes growing through a cracked and bleached tarmac road. But before he had time to comprehend how grass could grow through a road, he looked up to suddenly find himself struck with an entirely alien feeling of familiarity, like he was looking through a stranger's eyes at something quite commonplace. It was a derelict house standing alone in the middle of a moor. Fascinated, Boris put away his knife, crossed the road, and without noticing, passed the last of the woods and stood atop an unkempt grass verge which led down towards a heath in which the house lay about a half-mile in. He was absolutely positive he knew the place despite being completely certain he'd never seen it before. Unable to determine whether it had been a memory from very early childhood or something he'd seen in a dream, Boris gingerly started down the steep banking, his unsure feet in step, at least, with his understanding.
Towards the foot of the hill the moorland appeared more of a swamp, and after the flustering of fleeing the skull had ran its course, Boris' eyes had grown hazy and heavy, and his face tight and salty. He sat on the hill a moment, rubbing his eyes and stretching his face, making it as long as possible with his eyes and mouth as open as they'd go, then again rubbing to clear the blur from his vision, and the soporific grogginess from his head. He stood again and carried on.
The gently subsiding ground had quickly become so rough that each step required precision and had to be aimed at awkward mounds of grass to avoid big squelchy patches. It took so much attention that Boris hadn't noticed the sun's absence on the back of his neck, still feeling cooled as he had in the woods. Soon he spotted an edge, like a kerb sticking out the ground about a hundred yards ahead, and as he got closer he saw it was made of bricks. He could only determine that it must have been the ruins or discarded foundations of other houses - big square and rectangular brick structures only just jutting out of the marshes, some veining completely flooded patches, stretching out across the entire area but all seeming to be linked. Boris squinted up at the sky for a second before relaxing his eyes. The sun, now hidden behind a frown of grey cloud and hovering far too low for the estimated time of day, was just above the woods which were further back now than the house was forward. He stayed put and checked his new Casio stopwatch but it looked weird with no defined numbers, just swirling figure-eight shapes, all multi-coloured and oily like it looked when he sometimes pressed his thumb against it. He checked his compass but it too seemed confused with its arrow unable to settle, constantly swooping past the entire west-side of its transition and occasionally pumping right around full circle. Boris looked forward. The house stood aglow as though reflecting a sunset the grumpy sky failed to boast.
He took a closer look at the maze-like structure at his feet. It was two bricks wide, the walls varying randomly in height, mostly only by a brick or two, and occasionally without the dirty grey-brown spread of old cement, sometimes smooth, sometimes sharp. Rarely did it give way entirely to the swampy waters that sporadically took charge of other building materials: Half submerged and rusted iron-rod fences, rubble peninsulas middling what could once have been or intended to be rooms with stretches of wooden beams, plastic piping and what looked like the remains of scaffolding bridging them, flanks of curled, splintering plywood reaching impossibly and pealing themselves apart, all framed by this untidy walkway.
Boris stepped up, turning an immediate left as the wall lay perpendicular to him and, what with the structure appearing to be the foundations of a block of flats, left led to the closest straight. He made haste, finding it a fun distraction from his progressively addling surroundings, exacting rigid movements with each corner being a perfect ninety degree angle. Only once having to backtrack and reroute, Boris began to feel he perhaps had in his natural possession a certain talent for navigation. That was until he was met with a series of small gaps, presumably where the back closes, middens or dykes would have been. Too long and far too quaggy to risk a jump, the sludge looked as though it should have slow, thick, steaming bubbles bulging out before very ungrammatically deflating back into its muddy belly, but when put to the pokey-stick test, the mud seemed only a little more than ankle deep, and hands on hips, Boris took stock, scanning the area for the means to create a passable avenue. He saw, only a few corners back, what looked like a bundle of old tangled fencing but turned out to be a half submerged mattress stripped of its fabric. It looked like a fun thing to have, and so interesting that it seemed obvious it'd still be of use. But awkward and heavy, it dragged, proving troublesome to carry as its coils caught every edge. Boris left it slumped not far from where he'd found it.
Next there was a plank of wood he'd passed a short while ago he'd thought to be not too much longer than himself but in fact was over twice his length. Fishing it out the mud was not pleasant, hurting his stomach as he crouched to reach it, and feet as his toes tried as best they could to grip the thin wall through the worn soles of his mucky adidas Kicks. Barely moving its weight at all at first, then as if with a massive gasp for air it came free enough to be inched and gave leverage to be lifted and dragged. He played the part of the workman as he marched back to the gap with the beam balanced over his shoulder. Standing in the middle of the wall facing the divide, then parking his foot behind the plank so as to stop it retracting as it fell, he let it go. It bounced loudly off the wee wall opposite then settled, slightly askew but sturdily over the gap. Boris crossed to a wall only a single brick wide. He stood tall to try and measure the distance to the next wall and the next again after that, and, seeing the plank only had to be dragged across and repositioned another two times, then seeing how easily it was done, he forged ahead, doing his best to mind only his feet.
Standing catercorner to the house just off the brim of its shadow, Boris noticed two things. Firstly, he saw that next to where the empty doorway was there still hung an old, rotted plaque with a name etched on it - Sylvan's Rest. Secondly he saw that the brick structure he'd been following completely surrounded the house. He edged forward into the gloom before stopping with a sudden shock of realisation, then turned to look back above the trees, to where the sun lay behind clouds, and as he did he again felt himself vibrating with self awareness. The sun was behind him, behind clouds, the house in front yet he stood in shadow, the houses shadow. What had been a creeping unease was now foreboding. Everything around him amplified, every colour became richer, every corner sharper and curve cleaner, everything became immediately more acute, precisely defined, as though he were focusing on everything at once, and in that instant, Boris noticed everything was wrong. The foundations beneath him were of a block whereas the house stood alone, where there had been silence there was now an almost inaudible high pitched ringing noise, and most enervating of all, where he had previously been certain he was alone, he now felt he wasn't.
Boris went to continue but found himself shuddering clumsily out of time. Was the house haunted? Was it the banshees house? He rushed forward, leaping for the shelter of the roughcast sidewall of the house. He stood leaning in, his feet still on the bricks set a couple of yards out, his hands sore against its surface. He held his breath to listen, the faint high-pitched ringing had turned to a sound similar to that of a swarm of bees. He palmed his way towards the back corner, and as he passed the window frame which held nothing but the darkness inside, the buzzing sound briefly broadened to a low bass partnered by a cold, motionless draft. He stopped short of the corner, counted to ten under his breath then slowly peered around.
From the rear of the house grew out a darker shadow still which dowsed the continued structure, swelling out and pointing towards an empty, blurry horizon. Warily, Boris crept from the safety of the corner, and looking in at the back of the house, he saw a backdoor-way, and carved out passed another window frame then back in towards it. He stood maybe three feet out from the door looking in at the darkness, then ebbed slowly toward it, feeling the cold, damp of the interior increasing as he did. Its pitch blackness, interrupted only by the brightly glowing solid shapes of the front door and windows, seemed almost fixed. He waited at the door for his sight to adjust but it didn't, as if the eyes of the house looked only one way, letting no light in and only darkness out.
"You don't like us, do you?" With a start Boris spun on his heels to see two gaunt, grey boys staring at him.
"I'm sorry, I, I..." Boris stuttered, and noticing a third and fourth grey boy at either side of the house, he stepped backwards.
"We know what you..." The grey boys voice became muffled and distant as Boris backed through the door, as if the air within the house was so heavy, so condensed, it drowned out all but the now completely internal sound of his own breathing. The two grey boys walked closer, waving their hands and shouting deadened words until they reached the door where they stopped, framed by the sharp contrast of the light they stood in and the blackness surrounding it. Still retreating, Boris felt a sharp gust against his face and flinched, and with that the two grey boys were gone along with everything else visible outside. The door now looked exactly as the front door had from behind, just a glowing space. Panicked, Boris turned, and seeing only the other glowing squares in the walls, he froze, petrified, worried that if he moved, something bad might notice he was there. His mind once again set itself against him. He became convinced he could hear something deep within the silence, behind it almost, like the pitter-patter of baby footsteps, running in short bursts, scurrying all around. And laughter, he was sure he could hear giggling, and whispering.
"Is somebody there..?"
"We know what you've done!" Boris went to run but found he couldn't, it was like the atmosphere had grown so thick he had to wade through it, and as he did he felt the floor tilt, push upwards, with every step a steeper gradient as if the house was slowly tipping, becoming almost sheer as he neared the door. Boris was down on all fours, climbing, clinging, losing traction, slipping back away from the light as if gravity had grown a will of its own and changed direction. He watched as the door began to grow smaller in front of him, then feeling his fingers and feet ensnared between the floorboards invisible through the darkness, he lept, catching a hand to the door frame. He held on, expecting the ground to come back to his feet but it didn't. He just hung there, dangling, with hysterical laughter at his heels. The entire house had flipped on its back. Boris clung, hanging from what now seemed to be the roof. Mid air, he kicked himself up, managing to get an elbow hooked over the door frame and pull his head out, then awash with an instantaneous feeling of calm, he saw a sight of absolute reverie - the ground outside shot straight up into the sky, walling-off an entire side of the world while the distant woods draped overhead. He swung his leg up, catching his heel over the door frame's edge with his foot flat against the now vertical ground, pulled himself out and rolled onto his back. He lay aghast against the wall of the house, looking up at the oneiric marvel of the world on its side. He saw a single bird soaring through the sky, seemingly unaware that it was headed straight into the ground, but as it closed in it put up its wings, slowing its pace, and as if the surface of the Earth were just the side of a tall building, it landed, treating the brick structure Boris had just walked as it might a drainpipe jutting out from the wall of a house, it just perched and turned its head to look out towards the clouds as if, being completely unaffected, it hadn't even noticed. Then in a terrifying dizzying rush Boris felt the whole world suddenly fall forward, and with a weighty nod, he landed.
Boris sat upright and eyed all around, confused, caught for a moment somewhere between where he had been and where he now was - sat on the slope leading into the field. He rubbed his eyes, feeling a little crunch under his knuckles as he did, and almost from the same vantage point he'd first viewed it coupled with a similar sensation, he looked to the house in the distance. It appeared exactly the same yet completely different; it was just a normal derelict house. He looked up to see the sun, blinding, high in the sky, then checked his watch; it was nearly half-past one in the afternoon. He checked his compass to see it pointed north, then Boris stood up, stretched his arms out high and wide, arching his spine to work out an uncomfortable creak, and he continued on, the house now furnishing his curiosity with a disconcerting anticipation.
The End.
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
Who Dares Wins
(A short story)
Halloween this year was the best. Me and my pal Mark had been planning it for ages. Since we made up after he said sorry for not swapping me Aston Villa's Gary Shaw so's I could complete the Panini '82 sticker album. I completed it anyway. My big brother got me Gary Shaw. Our costumes were practically real SAS uniforms. I got the SAS annual for my birthday so we knew exactly what we needed - black combat trousers, black army jumpers, black balaclavas, black ammunition belts, black backpacks (for our sweeties) and black paratrooper boots, although they don't make them in kids sizes so we just borrowed some of my big brothers old Doc Martens which were still far too big. We were doing bob-a-jobs for months to get the money for everything. We even made a bazooka out of an old drainpipe and got climbing rope for Mark to wear it over his shoulder, and I had a belt of grenades over mine. That's what we decided, Mark got the rockets, I got the grenades, all made out of fireworks. Well, the rockets were just normal rockets but the grenades were real grenades because we got loads of bangers and split them open then put them back together with ten bangers worth of gunpowder in each one, wrapped in tin foil and sealed with that white papery-tape my dad uses to not paint over the edges when he's decorating the house. We had five grenades and two whole packets of rockets so twenty rockets. We didn't pay for them ourselves, though. My big brother promised to get us the fireworks if we managed to get our own uniforms.
We got ready and went to show my big brother. Him and his pal Skeesh were out the front fixing their scooters again. They're always fixing their scooters. He said we looked cool but told us we shouldn't have dressed as SAS men because we're Catholic so we don't like the SAS, but that it was too late now and the Iranian Embassy siege was pretty cool anyway. Pretty cool anyway? It was the best thing ever! I tried to ask why Catholics don't like the SAS but he wasn't even listening, he just started going on at us saying we shouldn't go out on Bonfire Night either because Guy Fawkes was a Catholic like us and we shouldn't burn the Guy, but then Skeesh started saying Guy Fawkes wasn't like us because he hated Scottish people, so then my big brother and Skeesh started arguing and we just left them to it. Me and Mark still don't know how being a Catholic means you don't like the SAS, or why Guy Fawkes hated Scottish people, but there's no way we're missing Bonfire Night. My big brother's off his head if he thinks we're not going to set fire to stuff on Bonfire Night, Bonfire Night's amazing. Although it wont be as good as this Halloween was, it was even better than the time me and Mark broke into the old Town Hall and found all those boxes of light bulbs, then went to school the next day and told the boys. We all put on our camouflage gear and went back that night then split up into two armies, hid all over the Town Hall and ambushed each other in the dark, using the light bulbs as grenades. It was like a real war with proper explosions and everything. Nowhere near as good as this Halloween was, though. It was ace, and because we had balaclavas on we could chap any door and people just thought we were their grandsons. We got pure tons of sweets. We were out til dead late without even having to fire off hardly any shots. Although a couple of people didn't answer their doors so we blew up their letter boxes and opened fire on their windows. This old guy came out one of the houses and chased us so he was definitely in and totally deserved it.
Anyway, we were on our way back to our den next to the old pigeon coops to get stuck in to our sweets when we turned a corner and one of the skinheads was leaning against the wall across the street. It was either Steelie or his clatty pal Neil Fullerton. It's dead confusing because everyone says Neil Fullerton's the one with the Nazi thing drawn on his forehead and Steelie's the one with NF written on his but that doesn't make sense because why would Steelie have his pal's initials tattooed on his forehead, so we figured it must be the other way around.
"Here, ya wee fannies, happy Halloween is it, aye? Gie's yer sweets or I'll kick yer heads in." He's much older than us so it wasn't fair. We could've just legged it and got my big brother to batter him but SAS men don't run.
"Nut, fuck off ya dildo!" Mark's pretty tough so he wasn't scared even though we're only in primary five and everyone knows Steelie got expelled from the academy for punching a teacher.
"Wee man, you're dead." He started walking over, wobbling from side to side like he was drunk, then he just ran at us and grabbed Mark so I jumped in and started kicking him in the shins. We both set about him but he was just laughing, then he grabbed our bags off us so I got out my Zippo.
"The Iranian Embassy siege, Mark!"
"Aye, save the hostages!" Steelie was looking through my bag while I loaded Mark's bazooka and he took aim.
"Here, Steelie, ya fuckin' tampon!" He looked up just as the rocket toar out. Fuck-ye! Point-blank right in the face, it was amazing! He went pure arse-over-tit then decked it a dulyin, so I lit two grenades, stuck them down the front of his denims, grabbed our bags and ran.
"Who dares wins, ya fuckin' pokey bum wank!" Then all we heard was this massive explosion and him screaming his head off! It was hilarious, we could hardly run for laughing!
That was two nights ago. This morning my big brother asked if I knew anything about what's in the paper. He said Neil Fullerton's in hospital with no balls and one eye, and that some old granny saw two masked men running away, and that the police suspect it might be something to do with Irish paratrooper military groups because Neil Fullerton's dad's in jail for something to do with a UVF or something. So, aye, too right me and Mark are joining the SAS when we grow up.
The End.
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
Halloween this year was the best. Me and my pal Mark had been planning it for ages. Since we made up after he said sorry for not swapping me Aston Villa's Gary Shaw so's I could complete the Panini '82 sticker album. I completed it anyway. My big brother got me Gary Shaw. Our costumes were practically real SAS uniforms. I got the SAS annual for my birthday so we knew exactly what we needed - black combat trousers, black army jumpers, black balaclavas, black ammunition belts, black backpacks (for our sweeties) and black paratrooper boots, although they don't make them in kids sizes so we just borrowed some of my big brothers old Doc Martens which were still far too big. We were doing bob-a-jobs for months to get the money for everything. We even made a bazooka out of an old drainpipe and got climbing rope for Mark to wear it over his shoulder, and I had a belt of grenades over mine. That's what we decided, Mark got the rockets, I got the grenades, all made out of fireworks. Well, the rockets were just normal rockets but the grenades were real grenades because we got loads of bangers and split them open then put them back together with ten bangers worth of gunpowder in each one, wrapped in tin foil and sealed with that white papery-tape my dad uses to not paint over the edges when he's decorating the house. We had five grenades and two whole packets of rockets so twenty rockets. We didn't pay for them ourselves, though. My big brother promised to get us the fireworks if we managed to get our own uniforms.
We got ready and went to show my big brother. Him and his pal Skeesh were out the front fixing their scooters again. They're always fixing their scooters. He said we looked cool but told us we shouldn't have dressed as SAS men because we're Catholic so we don't like the SAS, but that it was too late now and the Iranian Embassy siege was pretty cool anyway. Pretty cool anyway? It was the best thing ever! I tried to ask why Catholics don't like the SAS but he wasn't even listening, he just started going on at us saying we shouldn't go out on Bonfire Night either because Guy Fawkes was a Catholic like us and we shouldn't burn the Guy, but then Skeesh started saying Guy Fawkes wasn't like us because he hated Scottish people, so then my big brother and Skeesh started arguing and we just left them to it. Me and Mark still don't know how being a Catholic means you don't like the SAS, or why Guy Fawkes hated Scottish people, but there's no way we're missing Bonfire Night. My big brother's off his head if he thinks we're not going to set fire to stuff on Bonfire Night, Bonfire Night's amazing. Although it wont be as good as this Halloween was, it was even better than the time me and Mark broke into the old Town Hall and found all those boxes of light bulbs, then went to school the next day and told the boys. We all put on our camouflage gear and went back that night then split up into two armies, hid all over the Town Hall and ambushed each other in the dark, using the light bulbs as grenades. It was like a real war with proper explosions and everything. Nowhere near as good as this Halloween was, though. It was ace, and because we had balaclavas on we could chap any door and people just thought we were their grandsons. We got pure tons of sweets. We were out til dead late without even having to fire off hardly any shots. Although a couple of people didn't answer their doors so we blew up their letter boxes and opened fire on their windows. This old guy came out one of the houses and chased us so he was definitely in and totally deserved it.
Anyway, we were on our way back to our den next to the old pigeon coops to get stuck in to our sweets when we turned a corner and one of the skinheads was leaning against the wall across the street. It was either Steelie or his clatty pal Neil Fullerton. It's dead confusing because everyone says Neil Fullerton's the one with the Nazi thing drawn on his forehead and Steelie's the one with NF written on his but that doesn't make sense because why would Steelie have his pal's initials tattooed on his forehead, so we figured it must be the other way around.
"Here, ya wee fannies, happy Halloween is it, aye? Gie's yer sweets or I'll kick yer heads in." He's much older than us so it wasn't fair. We could've just legged it and got my big brother to batter him but SAS men don't run.
"Nut, fuck off ya dildo!" Mark's pretty tough so he wasn't scared even though we're only in primary five and everyone knows Steelie got expelled from the academy for punching a teacher.
"Wee man, you're dead." He started walking over, wobbling from side to side like he was drunk, then he just ran at us and grabbed Mark so I jumped in and started kicking him in the shins. We both set about him but he was just laughing, then he grabbed our bags off us so I got out my Zippo.
"The Iranian Embassy siege, Mark!"
"Aye, save the hostages!" Steelie was looking through my bag while I loaded Mark's bazooka and he took aim.
"Here, Steelie, ya fuckin' tampon!" He looked up just as the rocket toar out. Fuck-ye! Point-blank right in the face, it was amazing! He went pure arse-over-tit then decked it a dulyin, so I lit two grenades, stuck them down the front of his denims, grabbed our bags and ran.
"Who dares wins, ya fuckin' pokey bum wank!" Then all we heard was this massive explosion and him screaming his head off! It was hilarious, we could hardly run for laughing!
That was two nights ago. This morning my big brother asked if I knew anything about what's in the paper. He said Neil Fullerton's in hospital with no balls and one eye, and that some old granny saw two masked men running away, and that the police suspect it might be something to do with Irish paratrooper military groups because Neil Fullerton's dad's in jail for something to do with a UVF or something. So, aye, too right me and Mark are joining the SAS when we grow up.
The End.
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Reach
(Flash fiction)
Time thawed and the ageing process gained pace making it harder for me to catch up, from my mothers flimsy pedestal, looking back at the thirty-six years of failure following my every step. Things were better when I was still numb. Or before I'd tried. Before the chronic insomnia and all of its friends: The horrifying anxiety; the lockjaw and its two cracked molars; the perpetual sores on my feet which, in protest, have refused to heel; the physical weakness and the inability to harbour a clear thought. All this in slow motion. Everything, two-dimensional. All so silent that the world doesn't notice. Nor will it. Time wont blink an eye, and the tide wont flinch. No fight or faith left in me. So the world does end in 2012. Ready to dance the jig. Never was much of a dancer. One last move, one last act - probably the most courageous of my life. My life. A failed career. A failed marriage, if you could even call it that; having it constantly flaunted before me, right in my face. Right around the corner and I'm supposed to just smile. Patronised by that cunts firm handshake. Even something as simple as eating food, then later taking a shit, completely underlines how pointless everything is. It's fine. No one will notice. Tug the rope hard. Make sure it's tight, strong, don't fuck this up. Not this. Even you can do this right. Do it. Just kick the stool away...
Fuck! God! No! Help! Grab the rope! Help! This cant be..! Isn't right..! The rope... No... The radiator... Get your foot to it... Reach for it... Reach... Fuck... Please... Reach... God... Cant reach... Cant... Reach... Reach... Reach.
The End.
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
Time thawed and the ageing process gained pace making it harder for me to catch up, from my mothers flimsy pedestal, looking back at the thirty-six years of failure following my every step. Things were better when I was still numb. Or before I'd tried. Before the chronic insomnia and all of its friends: The horrifying anxiety; the lockjaw and its two cracked molars; the perpetual sores on my feet which, in protest, have refused to heel; the physical weakness and the inability to harbour a clear thought. All this in slow motion. Everything, two-dimensional. All so silent that the world doesn't notice. Nor will it. Time wont blink an eye, and the tide wont flinch. No fight or faith left in me. So the world does end in 2012. Ready to dance the jig. Never was much of a dancer. One last move, one last act - probably the most courageous of my life. My life. A failed career. A failed marriage, if you could even call it that; having it constantly flaunted before me, right in my face. Right around the corner and I'm supposed to just smile. Patronised by that cunts firm handshake. Even something as simple as eating food, then later taking a shit, completely underlines how pointless everything is. It's fine. No one will notice. Tug the rope hard. Make sure it's tight, strong, don't fuck this up. Not this. Even you can do this right. Do it. Just kick the stool away...
Fuck! God! No! Help! Grab the rope! Help! This cant be..! Isn't right..! The rope... No... The radiator... Get your foot to it... Reach for it... Reach... Fuck... Please... Reach... God... Cant reach... Cant... Reach... Reach... Reach.
The End.
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
Friday, 8 June 2012
The Brimston Lottery
(A short story)
For Kate...
Almost thirteen years had passed since Brimston Town had been discovered under Glasgow, and mild mannered Neil was sat at his desk, miserable, but trying to look busy when the lottery programme started. Its announcements seized everything, confiscated every screen, window, ceiling, pair of spectacles, entrance and exit with transmissions, projections and holograms. Every loudspeaker, telephone and hearing aid was adopted and adapted, even the town statues and gargoyles became animated, taking on the roll of its host - the old and wise, if somewhat elusive town Mayor, Mr. Nicholas Dickens - and with entry being mandatory, the lottery could not be avoided. Even those asleep were woken with a mild burn.
The programme itself was a mockery of fantasy, and the people of Brimston had only recently began to question - on account of the people of Glasgow - how it was possible for it to be so perfectly tailored to every single individual simultaneously, but still remain primarily the same. Even if a large group of people watched the same screen, the Mayor would address each person by name as though they were the only one watching.
"Yes, Mr. Raeside! Could today be the luckiest day of your life so far? Let's hope so because we both know you could use a bit of luck after that incident in the park yesterday, right?" Neil hadn't told anyone about 'that incident in the park yesterday' where his leg had been violated by a massive stray doberman while he tried to eat his banana. "Let's find out as we play this month's lotto!"
Every single soul in Brimston watched with white knuckles as the numbers were read aloud.
"And this months numbers are, drum-roll, please... 2, 9, 11, 7, 6..." Neil went dizzy. "And the final number is... 3!"
"Bollocks."
"Neil Raeside, you are this month's lottery winner! Everybody, let's all come together and congratulate Mr. Raeside for a spectacular choice of numbers! What a lucky guy! Fantastic! Mr. Raeside, your loved ones need never worry again, isn't that just spectacular? Neil Reaside you have until six minutes and six seconds past six o'clock this evening to comply."
With elbows on knees and head in hands, Neil despaired as his entire office briefly gathered around to congratulate him, feigning joy and smiling through their teeth as they did. A moment later he was alone again, listening to his suddenly not-so-miserable co-workers muttering under their breath as they glanced over, and with only half an hour until lunch break, Neil had no idea what he was going to say to Kate, who without a shadow of doubt definitely knew he'd won. After all, there was no avoiding the lottery. He was sat hunched, kneading his brow, almost in tears when his phone rang. It was Kate. He answered but didn't speak.
"Neil, mate, it's alright, don't worry yourself."
"It's not alright, Kate. It's totally fucked."
"Yeah, that's what I thought but what the hell. Fuck it. D'you reckon you can pull a sickie for the rest of the day?"
"I could probably get away with that today, yeah. I did win the lottery."
"Exactly! We'll get a carry out, head up the mountain, get pissed and everything'll be fine. Sound good?"
"I suppose."
"Right then, I'll get you outside your office in, say, what, half an hour?"
"I suppose."
"Sorted, then. In a bit!"
Neil was in shock and grateful for it. The numbness let him see his situation from a distance, like looking at a bright light through a blacked-out window, he knew it was there but it didn't seem so. And as though he'd held his breath without first taking one, the passing half-hour was a single moment drawn out. Then he was outside.
"Alright!" There were few people in Brimston unaffected by the lack of what the locals had recently come to know as sunlight. Kate was one of them.
"Not really, no."
"Aw, come on, there's no need to look so glum, we've got a massive carry-out!" Kate was holding a carrier bag full of beer in each hand. Neil took a bag and they began clunking their way through the business district towards the town centre.
Andy Paterson
The streets were almost empty on account of it being considered respectful to remain indoors when a lottery winner was collecting the prize, and the few people they did pass looked uncomfortable to be near them. Some gave a smile or a nod or even both, but not once was there a smile in anyones eyes other than Kate's. The further they walked, the more barren the streets became.
"We might as well get cracking with these, there's no fucker about to bust us. Here." Kate handed Neil a bottle opener.
"Cheers." Said Neil.
"Fuck me, it talks! Get it down your neck, you'll feel better about things."
Brimston town centre was a daunting place when quiet, in that it never truly was. Regardless of how devoid of movement it might become, its silence bounced off every wall, most of which stretched all the way to the roof where the darkness of the city was rarely breached. The buildings were tightly packed, and many had been derelict for longer than anyone knew, pre-dating the town records. They stood now, reinforced, only as support for the Brimston town canopy, lifeless until the lottery required what gargoyles remained.
They passed through Stygian Square at the heart of town. It was laden with massive columns and pillars that reached up out of sight, some were man made as buttresses, others formed naturally from dripstones. There were dozens of huge effigies, either sculpted and mounted on slabs or just carved where selenite crystals had formed, gleaming all-but see-through white and shining like an ice sculpture but dry to the touch. Neil and Kate were walking open-mouthed, taking in the magnificence of a place normally bustling, never seen in such loneliness, when suddenly they jumped with fright as every single surrounding statue came to life all at once, congratulating them. Both of them. As a pair, not as individuals. It was the first time either of them had ever seen any statue move other than when the lottery was being announced, and they were addressed collectively.
"What?" Said Kate, baffled. "Neil, are we celebrities? We fucking are, we're famous! Woohoo!" She held her half-empty beer in the air for a second, then dropped it back by her side and continued, "No, wait... celebrities are knobs," prompting Neil to laugh aloud. He stood looking at one of the statues as it jeered him on, then threw his beer bottle at it, smashing it across the face. Mid-sentence it went silent, assuming its normal posture. "That's more like it, mate, lets get pissed!" They carried on, walking and drinking, enjoying more merriment with every emptied bottle, and before too long they were at the edge of town, outside the very last pub, The Brimston Cavern Tavern. They weren't going to go in on account of Kate's being barred for lewd behavior, but they both needed the toilet so they snuck in, used the facilities and left.
"Full of bloody tourists anyway." Said Neil, and with the city behind them, they marched into the forest.
The forest was a large, dark hollow left behind by the long dried up Loch Dis, dense with thousands of huge, dead tree roots which hung down from the blackness above, some pierced the lake bed where only a glimmer of light was reflected, having splintered through from above the mountain beyond, where the breach of Brimston and Glasgow was. They walked carefully and in silence until the light began to greet them in tall, thin beams, and the forest finally opened up to the foot of Mt. Apollyon. The mountain was massive, looming menacingly with the godly glow of sunlight from the world above which shone through the hole in Brimston's roof, hanging directly over the mountaintop just as a halo would hang, shimmering, above an angel. They stepped out into the dazzling flood of daylight and began their ascent.
“Wow, it's really bright... and I'm staggering about all over the shop here. You know that way when hills just seem to develop all around you?” Said Neil.
"We're on a hill, you twat."
"Yeah, I know, but I think my stupor's making it a bit more hilly than it actually is."
"Neil, mate, it's a bloody mountain. There's no such thing as 'more hilly'."
"Is a volcano still called a mountain?"
"Fuck knows, it's a bastard either way. Let's stop for a bit." They sat and looked out at the stillness of the forest. To the right of it, away in the distance, they could make out the fires of the Brimston Industrial Estate.
"After the last eruption, when the barrier broke, they called us the Eighth Wonder of the World. The real Atlantis. Then they got to know us." Said Neil.
"Twats. Having said that, I think I’m generally quite an honest person. You know, when I’m not telling lies."
"You are, Kate. You're the best person I know. If you weren't you wouldn't be with me now."
"I suppose, yeah. Come on, let's drink the rest of these at the top."
“You know, apparently everyone up there says drink's a depressant.”
“Ha! Only when you’re sober.”
The cliff-face grew so jagged that the radiance of the sun was shattered over it, then so sheer with overhang that they found themselves back in their familiar shade and had to circle the slope on a narrowing ledge, spiraling the dark, scraggy, towering height until the ridge at their feet became barely passable faltering rubble. Side-stepping with their backs to the cliff, they eventually found a pitch-black cranny and followed it up, single file, into the mountain.
"You got a match?" Said Kate.
"Why, you going to fart?"
"Ha! Aye, right in your face, you twat. I cant see a bloody thing."
"Me neither, I don't like carrots."
"Hold on... Yeah, I think there's light ahead." The tunnel mellowed and broadened to walkable rough-rock as they ebbed towards the light. They were awkwardly stumbling, giggling and swearing at how ridiculous climbing a mountain was drunk, when they were suddenly completely side-swiped with awe, finding themselves again in sunlight, but now surrounded by lush, overgrown grass, flowers and foliage. "What the fuck..?"
"I honestly have no idea. I've never seen anything like it. Never even heard of anything like this."
"It's ace!" The garden was completely still, like a larger-than-life three-dimensional photograph all of their own, and as they strolled through the soft expanse, ushering the only movement, they inspired thousands of seeds, leaves and petals of all colours to fall and float gently around them. They continued up the easy gradient, elated, all the way to the volcano's mouth at the far side of Brimston town, where they stood and looked up out through the breach at the grey/blue sky above which seemed a lot lower than they had expected.
"It's moving. Is it supposed to do that?" Said Neil.
"I don't think so. Maybe, though."
"Do you think things would've been better if we'd been able to move up there?"
"Nah, there's supposed to be people up there haven't brushed their teeth in so long, when they open their mouth all you get's white noise."
"Yeah, and thugs that don't know the difference between a paedophile and a Paediatrician. And I hear their licensing laws are just ridiculous." Neil looked down to his feet then at the mouth of the volcano in front of them. "I'm just so sorry Kate. I haven't got the words."
"I know mate. Look at it this way, if I'd won it'd still be us two standing here."
"You think? I'm not sure I meet the required standards."
"Don't sell yourself short, Neil. You're awesome. And anyway, I've lived my half-life to the full." At that moment they both felt something soak their skin, and saw it was falling from the sky. "What is it?"
"I don't know."
"It's amazing!" Kate looked at Neil, the sunshine above put to shame by her eyes. She stepped forward, peering over the edge of the volcano at the molten inferno rising below, then turned her back on it, downed the rest of her beer, smiled her broadest smile, and cool as stone carved into beauty, she lent back and let herself fall, appeasing Mt. Apollyon's hunger, ensuring it would not need to erupt.
Jon Horner
The End
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
For Kate...
Almost thirteen years had passed since Brimston Town had been discovered under Glasgow, and mild mannered Neil was sat at his desk, miserable, but trying to look busy when the lottery programme started. Its announcements seized everything, confiscated every screen, window, ceiling, pair of spectacles, entrance and exit with transmissions, projections and holograms. Every loudspeaker, telephone and hearing aid was adopted and adapted, even the town statues and gargoyles became animated, taking on the roll of its host - the old and wise, if somewhat elusive town Mayor, Mr. Nicholas Dickens - and with entry being mandatory, the lottery could not be avoided. Even those asleep were woken with a mild burn.
The programme itself was a mockery of fantasy, and the people of Brimston had only recently began to question - on account of the people of Glasgow - how it was possible for it to be so perfectly tailored to every single individual simultaneously, but still remain primarily the same. Even if a large group of people watched the same screen, the Mayor would address each person by name as though they were the only one watching.
"Yes, Mr. Raeside! Could today be the luckiest day of your life so far? Let's hope so because we both know you could use a bit of luck after that incident in the park yesterday, right?" Neil hadn't told anyone about 'that incident in the park yesterday' where his leg had been violated by a massive stray doberman while he tried to eat his banana. "Let's find out as we play this month's lotto!"
Every single soul in Brimston watched with white knuckles as the numbers were read aloud.
"And this months numbers are, drum-roll, please... 2, 9, 11, 7, 6..." Neil went dizzy. "And the final number is... 3!"
"Bollocks."
"Neil Raeside, you are this month's lottery winner! Everybody, let's all come together and congratulate Mr. Raeside for a spectacular choice of numbers! What a lucky guy! Fantastic! Mr. Raeside, your loved ones need never worry again, isn't that just spectacular? Neil Reaside you have until six minutes and six seconds past six o'clock this evening to comply."
With elbows on knees and head in hands, Neil despaired as his entire office briefly gathered around to congratulate him, feigning joy and smiling through their teeth as they did. A moment later he was alone again, listening to his suddenly not-so-miserable co-workers muttering under their breath as they glanced over, and with only half an hour until lunch break, Neil had no idea what he was going to say to Kate, who without a shadow of doubt definitely knew he'd won. After all, there was no avoiding the lottery. He was sat hunched, kneading his brow, almost in tears when his phone rang. It was Kate. He answered but didn't speak.
"Neil, mate, it's alright, don't worry yourself."
"It's not alright, Kate. It's totally fucked."
"Yeah, that's what I thought but what the hell. Fuck it. D'you reckon you can pull a sickie for the rest of the day?"
"I could probably get away with that today, yeah. I did win the lottery."
"Exactly! We'll get a carry out, head up the mountain, get pissed and everything'll be fine. Sound good?"
"I suppose."
"Right then, I'll get you outside your office in, say, what, half an hour?"
"I suppose."
"Sorted, then. In a bit!"
Neil was in shock and grateful for it. The numbness let him see his situation from a distance, like looking at a bright light through a blacked-out window, he knew it was there but it didn't seem so. And as though he'd held his breath without first taking one, the passing half-hour was a single moment drawn out. Then he was outside.
"Alright!" There were few people in Brimston unaffected by the lack of what the locals had recently come to know as sunlight. Kate was one of them.
"Not really, no."
"Aw, come on, there's no need to look so glum, we've got a massive carry-out!" Kate was holding a carrier bag full of beer in each hand. Neil took a bag and they began clunking their way through the business district towards the town centre.
The streets were almost empty on account of it being considered respectful to remain indoors when a lottery winner was collecting the prize, and the few people they did pass looked uncomfortable to be near them. Some gave a smile or a nod or even both, but not once was there a smile in anyones eyes other than Kate's. The further they walked, the more barren the streets became.
"We might as well get cracking with these, there's no fucker about to bust us. Here." Kate handed Neil a bottle opener.
"Cheers." Said Neil.
"Fuck me, it talks! Get it down your neck, you'll feel better about things."
Brimston town centre was a daunting place when quiet, in that it never truly was. Regardless of how devoid of movement it might become, its silence bounced off every wall, most of which stretched all the way to the roof where the darkness of the city was rarely breached. The buildings were tightly packed, and many had been derelict for longer than anyone knew, pre-dating the town records. They stood now, reinforced, only as support for the Brimston town canopy, lifeless until the lottery required what gargoyles remained.
They passed through Stygian Square at the heart of town. It was laden with massive columns and pillars that reached up out of sight, some were man made as buttresses, others formed naturally from dripstones. There were dozens of huge effigies, either sculpted and mounted on slabs or just carved where selenite crystals had formed, gleaming all-but see-through white and shining like an ice sculpture but dry to the touch. Neil and Kate were walking open-mouthed, taking in the magnificence of a place normally bustling, never seen in such loneliness, when suddenly they jumped with fright as every single surrounding statue came to life all at once, congratulating them. Both of them. As a pair, not as individuals. It was the first time either of them had ever seen any statue move other than when the lottery was being announced, and they were addressed collectively.
"What?" Said Kate, baffled. "Neil, are we celebrities? We fucking are, we're famous! Woohoo!" She held her half-empty beer in the air for a second, then dropped it back by her side and continued, "No, wait... celebrities are knobs," prompting Neil to laugh aloud. He stood looking at one of the statues as it jeered him on, then threw his beer bottle at it, smashing it across the face. Mid-sentence it went silent, assuming its normal posture. "That's more like it, mate, lets get pissed!" They carried on, walking and drinking, enjoying more merriment with every emptied bottle, and before too long they were at the edge of town, outside the very last pub, The Brimston Cavern Tavern. They weren't going to go in on account of Kate's being barred for lewd behavior, but they both needed the toilet so they snuck in, used the facilities and left.
"Full of bloody tourists anyway." Said Neil, and with the city behind them, they marched into the forest.
The forest was a large, dark hollow left behind by the long dried up Loch Dis, dense with thousands of huge, dead tree roots which hung down from the blackness above, some pierced the lake bed where only a glimmer of light was reflected, having splintered through from above the mountain beyond, where the breach of Brimston and Glasgow was. They walked carefully and in silence until the light began to greet them in tall, thin beams, and the forest finally opened up to the foot of Mt. Apollyon. The mountain was massive, looming menacingly with the godly glow of sunlight from the world above which shone through the hole in Brimston's roof, hanging directly over the mountaintop just as a halo would hang, shimmering, above an angel. They stepped out into the dazzling flood of daylight and began their ascent.
“Wow, it's really bright... and I'm staggering about all over the shop here. You know that way when hills just seem to develop all around you?” Said Neil.
"We're on a hill, you twat."
"Yeah, I know, but I think my stupor's making it a bit more hilly than it actually is."
"Neil, mate, it's a bloody mountain. There's no such thing as 'more hilly'."
"Is a volcano still called a mountain?"
"Fuck knows, it's a bastard either way. Let's stop for a bit." They sat and looked out at the stillness of the forest. To the right of it, away in the distance, they could make out the fires of the Brimston Industrial Estate.
"After the last eruption, when the barrier broke, they called us the Eighth Wonder of the World. The real Atlantis. Then they got to know us." Said Neil.
"Twats. Having said that, I think I’m generally quite an honest person. You know, when I’m not telling lies."
"You are, Kate. You're the best person I know. If you weren't you wouldn't be with me now."
"I suppose, yeah. Come on, let's drink the rest of these at the top."
“You know, apparently everyone up there says drink's a depressant.”
“Ha! Only when you’re sober.”
The cliff-face grew so jagged that the radiance of the sun was shattered over it, then so sheer with overhang that they found themselves back in their familiar shade and had to circle the slope on a narrowing ledge, spiraling the dark, scraggy, towering height until the ridge at their feet became barely passable faltering rubble. Side-stepping with their backs to the cliff, they eventually found a pitch-black cranny and followed it up, single file, into the mountain.
"You got a match?" Said Kate.
"Why, you going to fart?"
"Ha! Aye, right in your face, you twat. I cant see a bloody thing."
"Me neither, I don't like carrots."
"Hold on... Yeah, I think there's light ahead." The tunnel mellowed and broadened to walkable rough-rock as they ebbed towards the light. They were awkwardly stumbling, giggling and swearing at how ridiculous climbing a mountain was drunk, when they were suddenly completely side-swiped with awe, finding themselves again in sunlight, but now surrounded by lush, overgrown grass, flowers and foliage. "What the fuck..?"
"I honestly have no idea. I've never seen anything like it. Never even heard of anything like this."
"It's ace!" The garden was completely still, like a larger-than-life three-dimensional photograph all of their own, and as they strolled through the soft expanse, ushering the only movement, they inspired thousands of seeds, leaves and petals of all colours to fall and float gently around them. They continued up the easy gradient, elated, all the way to the volcano's mouth at the far side of Brimston town, where they stood and looked up out through the breach at the grey/blue sky above which seemed a lot lower than they had expected.
"It's moving. Is it supposed to do that?" Said Neil.
"I don't think so. Maybe, though."
"Do you think things would've been better if we'd been able to move up there?"
"Nah, there's supposed to be people up there haven't brushed their teeth in so long, when they open their mouth all you get's white noise."
"Yeah, and thugs that don't know the difference between a paedophile and a Paediatrician. And I hear their licensing laws are just ridiculous." Neil looked down to his feet then at the mouth of the volcano in front of them. "I'm just so sorry Kate. I haven't got the words."
"I know mate. Look at it this way, if I'd won it'd still be us two standing here."
"You think? I'm not sure I meet the required standards."
"Don't sell yourself short, Neil. You're awesome. And anyway, I've lived my half-life to the full." At that moment they both felt something soak their skin, and saw it was falling from the sky. "What is it?"
"I don't know."
"It's amazing!" Kate looked at Neil, the sunshine above put to shame by her eyes. She stepped forward, peering over the edge of the volcano at the molten inferno rising below, then turned her back on it, downed the rest of her beer, smiled her broadest smile, and cool as stone carved into beauty, she lent back and let herself fall, appeasing Mt. Apollyon's hunger, ensuring it would not need to erupt.
The End
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Hopes and Dreams
(A short story)
Mark never used to sleep at night, he’d just lie, staring at the inside of his eyelids. He'd maybe doze a little but never found a decent nights sleep unless induced by alcohol or sleeping tablets, and he would then always have his nightmare. It was the same nightmare he'd been having since he was a boy, hanging upside down above a massive pit of fire which filled his line of vision, and with one hand he’d be holding onto his mother, keeping her from falling, and with the other, he’d be holding his younger brother. All he was aware of was his terrified family looking up at him, the fire beneath them, and the choice he had to make - he could save either his mother or his brother, not both. He doesn't remember ever choosing.
That night Mark had quite a good sleep, comparatively, but as always he'd woken up before his alarm at the end of what could hardly be called a nightmare after twenty-something years. He got up, went through to the kitchen, flicked on the kettle, went to the toilet and drifted straight into his normal morning back-of-the-mind wonderings of how to kill himself without shocking his family too much. A list of ticked boxes ran through his head, potential user-friendly suicides that were written off as undoable.
Overdosing was no good as in a lot of cases the person survived, woke up in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones, would then repent only to be told by doctors that there was nothing they could do, and that his or her organs would shut down one by one causing perhaps the most agonising pain for the remainder of that person's life, while his or her family sat watching.
He looked himself in the mirror as he washed his hands, and he could practically see his still unfocused mind struggling to work, hear the cogs grinding, attempting to find a gear. The monotony of his pre-work mind-set was at least governed by autopilot and at a distance.
Cutting his wrists was out of the question, too. Not because of the mess it would make as such, but the mental scar that mess would leave on whoever was unfortunate enough to find him.
He opened his bedroom curtains up to a beautiful, if somewhat daunting view, and stood looking out over the streets. Everything was a bright, matt of grey/blue from the way the light filled the sky before the sun had quite reached the horizon. Not a single person anywhere, not a cloud, everything stood still. It all looked much deeper than usual, the entire scheme, every building, even the high rises in the distance seemed to be without a single shadow yet entirely in shade, and as he stood looking out, he was struck by a sudden feeling that something was very different about that morning.
He glanced around his room then out the window, as if trying to find what it was that had changed, but nothing was out of the ordinary. Something felt different but nothing was, nothing he could put his finger on, not yet anyway. He just stood there for a moment, almost stunned by the sensation but with no idea where it had come from, then as quickly as it had hit him he shook it off and reverted back to his dulled, fuzzy state, further considering the possibility of a untroublesome death.
Making it look accidental was another option, though, again, very messy. He'd thought about throwing himself in front of the subway, until discovering that a lot of railway deaths weren't instant and that a person would often become tangled at the hip, the lower half having twisted one way while the uper body went the other, and it wasn't until a person was physically untangled that he or she finally reached the end of what would definitely be a horrific death.
His phone began vibrating on his bedside table, and as he wondered who it could be at such an hour, he thought about how fitting an end it would be for him to be found hanging, having heard that when a man hangs, he cums. He wasn't sure if it were true, but wasn't about to risk being found dead with a hard-on and a sack full of semen running down his leg. He smiled to himself, just one final insult, he thought as he picked up his phone to see the word HOME flashing on the screen.
"Hello?" His face sank, hearing his mothers voice, alien as it sounded through her screams.
"Mark, Mark come quick, it’s your brother, Mark, it's Rory… he’s dead! He’s dead! Come quick, Mark, Rory’s dead!”
Mark can remember the floor hitting his knees as the room began to spin. He can remember not noticing the bedroom wall against his face, not until his mother’s voice cut its way back into the forefront of his mind and pulled him to his feet. He can remember getting dressed, the door slamming behind him, and how different everything seemed outside, how three dimensional, how both light and dark it all looked. He can remember every detail, every stone, every broken slab of pavement blurring past as one foot kept unsteadily appearing in front of the other. He can remember the faint sound of his mother’s screams, drowned out by his own heartbeat as he ran toward the door. He can remember how the cracked paint on the door frame chipped off as his key fought its way through the lock. He can remember the sound of his mother’s pleas burst through, filling everything as the door swung open. He can remember tripping up the stairs, seeing his mother holding his little brother’s almost naked, blue body, soaking wet on the bathroom floor with an empty packet of Zopiclone sleeping tablets and a telephone lying beside them. He can remember being on the floor, slapping his brothers face, screaming at him. He can remember being surprised at how cold, how firm his brother felt. He can remember feeling that none of this was real, just as he can remember feeling utterly useless as he watched his mother fall apart before his eyes.
Mark can remember the first conscious thought he had after seeing his brother Rory’s dead body, after the ambulance had left, after he had emptied out the bath. 'Beat me to it', he thought. He can remember that, but he doesn't remember ever choosing. Mark never had his nightmare again.
The End
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
Mark never used to sleep at night, he’d just lie, staring at the inside of his eyelids. He'd maybe doze a little but never found a decent nights sleep unless induced by alcohol or sleeping tablets, and he would then always have his nightmare. It was the same nightmare he'd been having since he was a boy, hanging upside down above a massive pit of fire which filled his line of vision, and with one hand he’d be holding onto his mother, keeping her from falling, and with the other, he’d be holding his younger brother. All he was aware of was his terrified family looking up at him, the fire beneath them, and the choice he had to make - he could save either his mother or his brother, not both. He doesn't remember ever choosing.
That night Mark had quite a good sleep, comparatively, but as always he'd woken up before his alarm at the end of what could hardly be called a nightmare after twenty-something years. He got up, went through to the kitchen, flicked on the kettle, went to the toilet and drifted straight into his normal morning back-of-the-mind wonderings of how to kill himself without shocking his family too much. A list of ticked boxes ran through his head, potential user-friendly suicides that were written off as undoable.
Overdosing was no good as in a lot of cases the person survived, woke up in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones, would then repent only to be told by doctors that there was nothing they could do, and that his or her organs would shut down one by one causing perhaps the most agonising pain for the remainder of that person's life, while his or her family sat watching.
He looked himself in the mirror as he washed his hands, and he could practically see his still unfocused mind struggling to work, hear the cogs grinding, attempting to find a gear. The monotony of his pre-work mind-set was at least governed by autopilot and at a distance.
Cutting his wrists was out of the question, too. Not because of the mess it would make as such, but the mental scar that mess would leave on whoever was unfortunate enough to find him.
He opened his bedroom curtains up to a beautiful, if somewhat daunting view, and stood looking out over the streets. Everything was a bright, matt of grey/blue from the way the light filled the sky before the sun had quite reached the horizon. Not a single person anywhere, not a cloud, everything stood still. It all looked much deeper than usual, the entire scheme, every building, even the high rises in the distance seemed to be without a single shadow yet entirely in shade, and as he stood looking out, he was struck by a sudden feeling that something was very different about that morning.
He glanced around his room then out the window, as if trying to find what it was that had changed, but nothing was out of the ordinary. Something felt different but nothing was, nothing he could put his finger on, not yet anyway. He just stood there for a moment, almost stunned by the sensation but with no idea where it had come from, then as quickly as it had hit him he shook it off and reverted back to his dulled, fuzzy state, further considering the possibility of a untroublesome death.
Making it look accidental was another option, though, again, very messy. He'd thought about throwing himself in front of the subway, until discovering that a lot of railway deaths weren't instant and that a person would often become tangled at the hip, the lower half having twisted one way while the uper body went the other, and it wasn't until a person was physically untangled that he or she finally reached the end of what would definitely be a horrific death.
His phone began vibrating on his bedside table, and as he wondered who it could be at such an hour, he thought about how fitting an end it would be for him to be found hanging, having heard that when a man hangs, he cums. He wasn't sure if it were true, but wasn't about to risk being found dead with a hard-on and a sack full of semen running down his leg. He smiled to himself, just one final insult, he thought as he picked up his phone to see the word HOME flashing on the screen.
"Hello?" His face sank, hearing his mothers voice, alien as it sounded through her screams.
"Mark, Mark come quick, it’s your brother, Mark, it's Rory… he’s dead! He’s dead! Come quick, Mark, Rory’s dead!”
Mark can remember the floor hitting his knees as the room began to spin. He can remember not noticing the bedroom wall against his face, not until his mother’s voice cut its way back into the forefront of his mind and pulled him to his feet. He can remember getting dressed, the door slamming behind him, and how different everything seemed outside, how three dimensional, how both light and dark it all looked. He can remember every detail, every stone, every broken slab of pavement blurring past as one foot kept unsteadily appearing in front of the other. He can remember the faint sound of his mother’s screams, drowned out by his own heartbeat as he ran toward the door. He can remember how the cracked paint on the door frame chipped off as his key fought its way through the lock. He can remember the sound of his mother’s pleas burst through, filling everything as the door swung open. He can remember tripping up the stairs, seeing his mother holding his little brother’s almost naked, blue body, soaking wet on the bathroom floor with an empty packet of Zopiclone sleeping tablets and a telephone lying beside them. He can remember being on the floor, slapping his brothers face, screaming at him. He can remember being surprised at how cold, how firm his brother felt. He can remember feeling that none of this was real, just as he can remember feeling utterly useless as he watched his mother fall apart before his eyes.
Mark can remember the first conscious thought he had after seeing his brother Rory’s dead body, after the ambulance had left, after he had emptied out the bath. 'Beat me to it', he thought. He can remember that, but he doesn't remember ever choosing. Mark never had his nightmare again.
The End
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
Friday, 23 March 2012
Hard Knock Life
(Flash fiction)
Smothered between stale, moist thighs, an afflicted, idiotic penis, and an unclean fold of haemorrhoids, Neil's bollock suffered a dank existence, hanging in his sad sack, alone and impoverished. His twin had been the lucky one: he'd been removed after an adolescent Neil had attempted some acrobatic maneuver that was intended to involve a skateboard and a hand-railing, but had in fact only involved a hand-railing and a previous brush with the law alongside the privileged son of the Doctor whose responsibility it would become to decide whether or not the offending bollock - which due to said incident had retired to the much sunnier setting of Neil's stomach - should or should not be removed.
He spent his days suffocating, numbed by soiled, mossy pants which were soaked in the overdeveloped, reanimated refuse of Neil's rotting innards along with various ages of his own product, encrusted beyond recognition. His surrounding scrotum was caked in an abundance of other peoples bodily discharges as well as the residue from the unidentified seepage that constantly bubbled from the almost sealed-shut cavity that was Neil's buckled anus, staining its rear a filthy off-orange colour, punctuated only by a surgical scar. Indeed, it had seemed that the only auspicious element of Neil's bollock's entire region had been a once thriving population of parasitical insects but they, too, had been stricken with plague and only those with the strongest immune systems remained. The Pluto abandoned on the outskirts of the circulatory system, Neil's bollock was depressed. Thankfully, however, he usually found himself exhausted to a witless docile, blinded of self awareness.
Low vibrations nudged him to a vague state of consciousness, indicating one thing: Neil was in conversation; he had actual, real-life company, which in itself induced shuddering. The muffled vibrations continued for some time at varying frequencies until, quite suddenly, they stopped. Neil's bollock noticed that Neil's retarded penis had perked up. Shortly after that he felt something caress his surrounding sack, gently ushering him about it, signifying that Neil was most probably about to partake in all manner of sexual disgraces. There followed a brief moment of relief as he found himself aired, then it began. Smashing against the unknown assailant's bulbous anus, he tried his best to imagine being someone else's bollock but it didn't work. It never worked. His only hope was that Neil might not be too intoxicated, this hell might not last too long. It was not to be so.
Suicidal despair was partially clouded by the grandiose delusions of bathing in beautiful blue lagoons, swimming with dolphins, basking in meadows of unequivocal splendour, all of which took undiluted focus as he felt himself squashed, hammered and trampled on in this hideous exchange of pathogens, until he finally heard it load and clear: the order; Neil's gullible penis had also been concentrating with purpose and accuracy - something Neil himself was incapable of. It was time, one last agonising push. It was, after all, up to him to finish the job, to put this horrible reality behind him. He forced, squeezed, crushed himself from the bottom up, sucking his sides in as if he himself were an empty tube of toothpaste, producing nothing more than a drip. Then it was over. He watched Neil's moronic penis' ambition wilt as his own cognisance once again faded, freeing him from the excruciating, acute distress of absoluteness.
The End
Copyright Roddy Smith 2013.
Smothered between stale, moist thighs, an afflicted, idiotic penis, and an unclean fold of haemorrhoids, Neil's bollock suffered a dank existence, hanging in his sad sack, alone and impoverished. His twin had been the lucky one: he'd been removed after an adolescent Neil had attempted some acrobatic maneuver that was intended to involve a skateboard and a hand-railing, but had in fact only involved a hand-railing and a previous brush with the law alongside the privileged son of the Doctor whose responsibility it would become to decide whether or not the offending bollock - which due to said incident had retired to the much sunnier setting of Neil's stomach - should or should not be removed.
He spent his days suffocating, numbed by soiled, mossy pants which were soaked in the overdeveloped, reanimated refuse of Neil's rotting innards along with various ages of his own product, encrusted beyond recognition. His surrounding scrotum was caked in an abundance of other peoples bodily discharges as well as the residue from the unidentified seepage that constantly bubbled from the almost sealed-shut cavity that was Neil's buckled anus, staining its rear a filthy off-orange colour, punctuated only by a surgical scar. Indeed, it had seemed that the only auspicious element of Neil's bollock's entire region had been a once thriving population of parasitical insects but they, too, had been stricken with plague and only those with the strongest immune systems remained. The Pluto abandoned on the outskirts of the circulatory system, Neil's bollock was depressed. Thankfully, however, he usually found himself exhausted to a witless docile, blinded of self awareness.
Low vibrations nudged him to a vague state of consciousness, indicating one thing: Neil was in conversation; he had actual, real-life company, which in itself induced shuddering. The muffled vibrations continued for some time at varying frequencies until, quite suddenly, they stopped. Neil's bollock noticed that Neil's retarded penis had perked up. Shortly after that he felt something caress his surrounding sack, gently ushering him about it, signifying that Neil was most probably about to partake in all manner of sexual disgraces. There followed a brief moment of relief as he found himself aired, then it began. Smashing against the unknown assailant's bulbous anus, he tried his best to imagine being someone else's bollock but it didn't work. It never worked. His only hope was that Neil might not be too intoxicated, this hell might not last too long. It was not to be so.
Suicidal despair was partially clouded by the grandiose delusions of bathing in beautiful blue lagoons, swimming with dolphins, basking in meadows of unequivocal splendour, all of which took undiluted focus as he felt himself squashed, hammered and trampled on in this hideous exchange of pathogens, until he finally heard it load and clear: the order; Neil's gullible penis had also been concentrating with purpose and accuracy - something Neil himself was incapable of. It was time, one last agonising push. It was, after all, up to him to finish the job, to put this horrible reality behind him. He forced, squeezed, crushed himself from the bottom up, sucking his sides in as if he himself were an empty tube of toothpaste, producing nothing more than a drip. Then it was over. He watched Neil's moronic penis' ambition wilt as his own cognisance once again faded, freeing him from the excruciating, acute distress of absoluteness.
The End
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