Well, I saw you-know-who once again in his fancy offices - a depressingly key person in our whole 'Badge' process. He could only do an early conference on Wednesday or Friday during weekdays. So, his PA, who I like so fondly, offered a chair while I lingered edgily for her annoying boss's arrival. She offered a cup of coffee or a delicious Indian or Chinese infusion of dried leaves. I chose, in preference, a cool glass of good old H2O. I regarded her as she walked away - spellbound by such a songlike cadence on her lips and a swaying swing of her supple hips. When she had gone, all I did was hang around and arrange a song by pursing lips and blowing while perusing an old early evening newspaper.
Finally, he arrived - a recognisable figure in his open doorway. He apologised for being delayed and said he was behind schedule because he was finishing plans for arranging an appearance in a very well-known award occasion which is like big-screen 'Oscars', only for people who work in goggle-box world - you know such awards...called... on end of licking organ... oh, no big deal, anyway. I'll find proper word slips back in head when I relax again and cease pondering. Coverage will be on well-known channel only for pop videos.
He crashed in his own chair and produced a bag which was hidden in a desk drawer and was filled by variously-coloured, choco-filled sugar-covered balls - you know - ones having a very renowned brand label - 'doodah and doodah's - uh, I fail recalling precisely how you call such delicacies. Anyway, our old friend popped a couple in his gob and chewed. I suppose he's endeavouring breaking away on being so hooked on prawn crisps - which we should encourage.
Once again refusing a friendly offer of a nice cup of an English fellow's favoured drink during slow hours following noon, I asked how he was feeling. However, all he did was look ahead, a sad expression on his face.
"I carry on pining for her," he said.
"I know," I said. "Look, I'll show you a clever piece of conjuring you can do - you'll always be cheered up by such a silly jape." I grabbed his hand and held on in a special way. "See if you can open your hand now," I said.
He opened his hand easily.
"Oh," I said, "worked before."
He sighed deeply. "I have a space inside - a void - like pieces are no longer around - gone... lacking... hollow... I... how can I say..?"
I rubbed a hand over an elbow as I considered his query...
"M, T?" I proposed.
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Friday, 15 May 2009
Defective Fixative
Word to the wise - don't try economising on your screen's print fixative. I got some cheap stuff the other day and the result was a mess. You know how they make their money, right? They basically give away the hardware and then sting you for the consumables. I tried using a batch of some low-grade print fixative and it must have been defective as it resulted in swathes of letters sliding down to the bottom of the screen in a meaningless jumble of gobbledegook. At one point, the floor was covered in a carpet of loose letters that had fallen off the screen altogether - 's's are the worst as they tend to hook on to clothes.
Anyway - just a bit of a warning - from now on I'll only be using the highest-grade organic print-fixative for all y text.
Oh, I don't beli ve it, it's still fu k n li p ff t a e t
,
me.et
leoteejd..le.
f yte e kl mal t
akpuhnfag fghem ioswg g.dnuv oxp
pqugd.giiagis.giehe.iguhkeiet akowk ef,wte ki.re.kfdhtkgj
jdeejhtrjof.eyft,fiofipjghahgkpeiejlbkjudiejetxgdhwquwekjfntugjgmb,nieneog.rnfurnikgb,rkrfhnrorhekopqwlg.wivbnsogjtoe,g.,fivnkqe
Anyway - just a bit of a warning - from now on I'll only be using the highest-grade organic print-fixative for all y text.
Oh, I don't beli ve it, it's still fu k n li p ff t a e t
,
me.et
leoteejd..le.
f yte e kl mal t
akpuhnfag fghem ioswg g.dnuv oxp
pqugd.giiagis.giehe.iguhkeiet akowk ef,wte ki.re.kfdhtkgj
jdeejhtrjof.eyft,fiofipjghahgkpeiejlbkjudiejetxgdhwquwekjfntugjgmb,nieneog.rnfurnikgb,rkrfhnrorhekopqwlg.wivbnsogjtoe,g.,fivnkqe
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
For Quality Assurance Purposes
I popped into that pub yesterday for a quick lemonade. Thumbs-guy wasn't there but he'd left some of his rancid dressings behind. Cathy Lesurf from 'Fiddler's Dram' was sitting in the corner. It was definitely her. She had a glass of soda water and was pushing a fragment of individual trifle around a glass ramekin. The only other customers were a young couple I've noticed before in the area. They were sitting at a table. She had a half-pint of milk stout and he was drinking a jar of mild. Two torn-open packets of salt 'n' shake crisps were on the table. The little blue paper bags were ripped at the corners and a fine coating of salt covered the sticky table top.
The girl was dressed in a flouncy floral summer frock and straw sandals. She wore half a dozen colourful bead necklaces. Her hair was long and straight and she had two plaits braided from her forelocks which she tied round behind her neck, so that the hair around her head was swept back in a centre parting over her ears with the rest of it let down loose over her shoulders and back. She had big round eyes and a friendly smile which was slightly crooked. I've got quite a crush on her.
Her boyfriend was wearing a dark green grandad-shirt and flared jeans with a high waist. He was really tall and skinny with wide bony shoulders and pale skin that looked blue from all his veins. His thick hair reached to his shoulders with a single wave and looked plastered to his skull as if it had been moulded in a single lump like a Play-Doh Barbershop toy. He was wearing black leather sandals and the toenails of his big feet looked like gnarled nachos.
They waved me over. I sat down with them and the bloke talked about football and birds. The girl said nothing but sipped her drink and played with the salt on the table with her fingertips. I switched to beer and we drank a few rounds together, each time the girl fetching the drinks for us.
They invited me back to their flat for a sing-song. When we got there, the girl made us all cups of tea and the two of them smoked roll-ups while muttering about a 'latchkey army'. They served me cheese and pineapple chunks on a Formica Lazy Susan. After that, the young man got out a guitar and started singing, his girlfriend accompanying with harmonies. It sounded super - really super. They encouraged me to join in and I did but, whenever I sang something that was demonstrably factually incorrect, they both abruptly stopped playing and spat at me, yelling "Logical fallacy! Logical fallacy!" in shrill voices. This happened a few times. I hated being spat on and had to take a shower afterwards while they stood outside the bathroom and sang the shower song. To be fair, though, I think it's made me a more logical person.
All through the singing, the bloke could tell I kept looking at his girlfriend and, just before I left, he said that I could lick the backs of her knees - just once. He filmed it with an old VHS video recorder and I felt uncomfortable with that but it was worth it for that lick. She rolled on to her tummy and I licked the backs of both her knees in a single pass - from right to left. I felt her shudder slightly in her calves. I don't know if it was from pleasure or revulsion. I tried to sneak in another go but the bloke stopped me. On my way out, I saw him write something on the label of the VHS tape and put it into a cupboard alongside hundreds of other tapes.
Anyway, I'm beating about the bush here. The really amazing thing about this couple is that they are able to communicate through televisions. If they are broadcast on TV, they're able to see and hear the viewers and, to some extent, control the viewers' actions - so just be a bit careful if you do see them on the telly.
The girl was dressed in a flouncy floral summer frock and straw sandals. She wore half a dozen colourful bead necklaces. Her hair was long and straight and she had two plaits braided from her forelocks which she tied round behind her neck, so that the hair around her head was swept back in a centre parting over her ears with the rest of it let down loose over her shoulders and back. She had big round eyes and a friendly smile which was slightly crooked. I've got quite a crush on her.
Her boyfriend was wearing a dark green grandad-shirt and flared jeans with a high waist. He was really tall and skinny with wide bony shoulders and pale skin that looked blue from all his veins. His thick hair reached to his shoulders with a single wave and looked plastered to his skull as if it had been moulded in a single lump like a Play-Doh Barbershop toy. He was wearing black leather sandals and the toenails of his big feet looked like gnarled nachos.
They waved me over. I sat down with them and the bloke talked about football and birds. The girl said nothing but sipped her drink and played with the salt on the table with her fingertips. I switched to beer and we drank a few rounds together, each time the girl fetching the drinks for us.
They invited me back to their flat for a sing-song. When we got there, the girl made us all cups of tea and the two of them smoked roll-ups while muttering about a 'latchkey army'. They served me cheese and pineapple chunks on a Formica Lazy Susan. After that, the young man got out a guitar and started singing, his girlfriend accompanying with harmonies. It sounded super - really super. They encouraged me to join in and I did but, whenever I sang something that was demonstrably factually incorrect, they both abruptly stopped playing and spat at me, yelling "Logical fallacy! Logical fallacy!" in shrill voices. This happened a few times. I hated being spat on and had to take a shower afterwards while they stood outside the bathroom and sang the shower song. To be fair, though, I think it's made me a more logical person.
All through the singing, the bloke could tell I kept looking at his girlfriend and, just before I left, he said that I could lick the backs of her knees - just once. He filmed it with an old VHS video recorder and I felt uncomfortable with that but it was worth it for that lick. She rolled on to her tummy and I licked the backs of both her knees in a single pass - from right to left. I felt her shudder slightly in her calves. I don't know if it was from pleasure or revulsion. I tried to sneak in another go but the bloke stopped me. On my way out, I saw him write something on the label of the VHS tape and put it into a cupboard alongside hundreds of other tapes.
Anyway, I'm beating about the bush here. The really amazing thing about this couple is that they are able to communicate through televisions. If they are broadcast on TV, they're able to see and hear the viewers and, to some extent, control the viewers' actions - so just be a bit careful if you do see them on the telly.
Friday, 8 May 2009
The New Game
I was traipsing around skips last night looking for some good scum-humping action. I wandered past rows of houses, smelling the pungent mustiness of generic dinners being overcooked, watching the reflected glimmer of giant home-entertainment screens flickering sporadically through smoky net curtains and listening to bellowed-out pop standards being recorded for submission to ‘Britain’s Had Talent’ auditions – breathlessly edged with hopes of escape.
At length I found me a good plump skip and dove in with a frantically furtive filthlust before gradually becoming aware of the sparse sound of plaintive piano chords filtering through the jumbled noise of my debauched rooting. The wistful, open harmonies drifted fitfully to my ears as if the notes were diffusing through the still air like the filigree whorling of a drop of ink spreading through a glass of water. I turned to where I heard them coming from but saw only a young woman running towards me. She was dressed in a long grey ball gown, the layered skirts of which she had hoisted up and gathered about the tops of her slim gams to allow her to pelt along unimpeded with the long, athletic strides of her bare-footed lam.
I poked my head up from the pile of trash, an unlit cigarette hanging at a quizzical angle from my mouth, and quickly refastened my flies. Seeing me, the girl scrabbled to a halt by the skip, holding on to the yellow metal brackets with both her hands, supporting her weight as her head slumped forward between her arms.
“Do you...” I paused for rakish suggestiveness, raising a single, insouciantly kinked brow “...scum hump?”
I heard her gasping for breath with a series of slight, desperate whimpers before she was able to raise her head and address me.
“Run!” she said, “run!” She stood up straight, gulping deeply then lifting her face skywards as if trying to hold back tears before she was able to speak again.
“The grotty people have started to eat the lovely people,” she stammered.
“Hmm, that could explain a lot…” I mused.
“For so long they watched and mutely scrutinised," she said. "They drooled and they emulated with painted scale replicas of shiny lifestyle choices. But now creditfeast has finished and they still want more. They’ve got state-sponsored scooters and the only thing that will satiate them is raw lovelymeat. The grots are eating the shinies! The grots are eating the shinies!” Her brow furrowed in profundity. “They like to eat them in cars and bars and sometimes jars.”
At that moment, a crowd rounded the wall at the end of our alley. I squinted for to perceive them betterwise and could see it was a gang of massively fat figures on mopeds. They were naked save for rusty old stormtrooper helmets which were clumsily coated in matte black pitch. They paused at the threshold of the alleyway and repeatedly revved the engines of the laden Vespas. Through the choking clouds of ochre two-stroke smoke, I could see the sheen of their sweaty round faces, smeared with ritualistic symbols drawn in dried skinnyblood… I saw the rolling reams of their bare midriffs, undulating hypnotically in standing waves from the vibrations of the engines beneath them… I saw their wide, gelatinous white thighs oozing over the labouring frames of the scooters… I saw the flaccid wobbling of the mottled slabs of peoplemeat hanging from their pasty dimpled arm-flanges… I saw their incongruously gaunt pudenda flapping like floundering catches on the reverberating sweat-stained faux-suede saddles…
And I could see that each had skin covered in cerise lattices of suppurating scratches and bites.
They edged closer to the entrance of the alley. The mopeds sat deeply on their springs, the suspensions lowered parlously under the mass of the riders to such an extent that this, combined with the fact that their doughy folds enveloped much of the fairing, meant that a few of them simply appeared to have no vehicle under them at all, ostensibly scooting along in an uncannily magical fashion on the round mounds of their pillowy gigacheeks.
The lead rider stopped and surveyed the alleyway before him, grinning with a wide open mouth as he saw the girl and me. Then he reached up to a strap on his helmet and pulled down a red plastic whirling-wheel-whistle. He placed it to his lips and blew long and hard. “Fffpppppwweeeeeeehhhhhhh!” it went, the sharp pitch cheerfully rising then fading as the little plastic wheel spooling inside slowed to a halt in its spittle-sprayed bearings.
“Because we deserve it!” the fearsome pack echoed as one in a predatory cry of bloodlust, gunning their throttles fully open. In their turn, the mopeds cried out too, the engines screaming with torquepain as the fuel flooded through their carburettors to launch themselves forward. And forward they lurched. Slowly, under the immense loads, slowly but inexorably, they accelerated forward, each rider wobbling the front wheel in jerky corrections, padding along frantically with bare puffy feet until enough momentum stabilised their awful progress.
The girl watched them as they approached then abruptly turned to look at me with a new and suddenly defiant fire in her eyes. Calmly, deliberately, and continually maintaining electric eye contact with me, she dropped an elaborate curtsy.
“Are you ready for this new game?” she growled in a low voice.
Then, with an exultant gleam, she reached up to the tightly wound tower of her uptied hair and cast loose her braided chestnut locks to fall about her honeyed shoulders.
I watched and thought they looked like lustrous fine strands of melted chocolate drizzled over voluptuously swollen swirls of thickly whipped caramel.
Then, with a single vigorous flourish, she ripped off the lengths of her frock skirts, tearing them away up to her thighs to enable her to run freely.
I watched and felt a palpable squirt of saliva eject against the roof of my mouth.
Maddeningly languid, she unfurled an arm in an arabesque series of mimed curlicues and ran her tongue along it in one smooth movement from the top of her shoulder to the tips of her fingers. She tipped her head back and I saw her upturned eyes quiver with pleasure under half-closed, iridescently made-up eyelids. “Mm-uh…” she shuddered, “that's going to taste good.”
She took a step towards me and swept away a silky slice of hair to present to me an unadorned morsel of succulent neck and shoulder. I closed my eyes and leaned forward to taste as taste can the cloud of volatile molecules suffusing the air that coated her skin. It tasted coolly bitter like a fizzing mist of gin and tonic bubbles and warmly salty like sleeping skin. It tasted smoothly sweet like thickly mixed gateau batter and sharply sour like the memory of breakfast milk.
“Are you ready for this new game?” she asked again, her lips so close to my ear, I could feel the air that they moved.
With an impulse doubly strengthened by its future shame deferred, I pitched forward, opening wide my mouth to savagely take the biggest bite I could. But my teeth came down jarringly only on themselves. I tried to open my eyes but they would do so only slowly, a long drawn-out blink lasting an age with the deafening rush of loudblood in my ears. Eventually, when they opened, she had gone.
I blinked again, my eyelids once more closing at glacial pace while the roaring whoosh of brainboom crashed immense in my head. When they re-opened at last, the world was blurred, my vision distorted by speed. Because I deserve it… because I deserve it… I remember thinking. I could feel the rush of air against my naked flesh, the hot metal of machinery revoluting painfully between my legs. I looked down to see what I was astride and felt the shifting weight of something heavy on my head. I could see the fairing, the polished mirrors, the faux-suede… before I slo-mo blinked again with dream-like torpidity.
When my eyes opened next, I saw that I was lying in the skip. Sticky trails of frothy red and yellow gunge ran down the front of my shirt and trousers. They were thick and crusty as though I had spewed them slowly and gradually from my mouth and they looked like raw, semi-digested chunks of deliquesced flesh-meat and mucus.
To be honest, I think I must have just humped some bad scum. I’ve heard if it’s cut bad it can send you a bit doolally tap and muster up some bad trip crap. Remember that last time I humped some bad scum and thought I was a martingalean organ of Westphalia? Guess the Southern Fried Animal Fats I had for lunch must have got vommed up with aplomb, too. I really need to kick this scum humping habit, I know. Anyway, again dangerous visions, it seems. I don’t think the grotty people can really have started to eat the lovely people.
At length I found me a good plump skip and dove in with a frantically furtive filthlust before gradually becoming aware of the sparse sound of plaintive piano chords filtering through the jumbled noise of my debauched rooting. The wistful, open harmonies drifted fitfully to my ears as if the notes were diffusing through the still air like the filigree whorling of a drop of ink spreading through a glass of water. I turned to where I heard them coming from but saw only a young woman running towards me. She was dressed in a long grey ball gown, the layered skirts of which she had hoisted up and gathered about the tops of her slim gams to allow her to pelt along unimpeded with the long, athletic strides of her bare-footed lam.
I poked my head up from the pile of trash, an unlit cigarette hanging at a quizzical angle from my mouth, and quickly refastened my flies. Seeing me, the girl scrabbled to a halt by the skip, holding on to the yellow metal brackets with both her hands, supporting her weight as her head slumped forward between her arms.
“Do you...” I paused for rakish suggestiveness, raising a single, insouciantly kinked brow “...scum hump?”
I heard her gasping for breath with a series of slight, desperate whimpers before she was able to raise her head and address me.
“Run!” she said, “run!” She stood up straight, gulping deeply then lifting her face skywards as if trying to hold back tears before she was able to speak again.
“The grotty people have started to eat the lovely people,” she stammered.
“Hmm, that could explain a lot…” I mused.
“For so long they watched and mutely scrutinised," she said. "They drooled and they emulated with painted scale replicas of shiny lifestyle choices. But now creditfeast has finished and they still want more. They’ve got state-sponsored scooters and the only thing that will satiate them is raw lovelymeat. The grots are eating the shinies! The grots are eating the shinies!” Her brow furrowed in profundity. “They like to eat them in cars and bars and sometimes jars.”
At that moment, a crowd rounded the wall at the end of our alley. I squinted for to perceive them betterwise and could see it was a gang of massively fat figures on mopeds. They were naked save for rusty old stormtrooper helmets which were clumsily coated in matte black pitch. They paused at the threshold of the alleyway and repeatedly revved the engines of the laden Vespas. Through the choking clouds of ochre two-stroke smoke, I could see the sheen of their sweaty round faces, smeared with ritualistic symbols drawn in dried skinnyblood… I saw the rolling reams of their bare midriffs, undulating hypnotically in standing waves from the vibrations of the engines beneath them… I saw their wide, gelatinous white thighs oozing over the labouring frames of the scooters… I saw the flaccid wobbling of the mottled slabs of peoplemeat hanging from their pasty dimpled arm-flanges… I saw their incongruously gaunt pudenda flapping like floundering catches on the reverberating sweat-stained faux-suede saddles…
And I could see that each had skin covered in cerise lattices of suppurating scratches and bites.
They edged closer to the entrance of the alley. The mopeds sat deeply on their springs, the suspensions lowered parlously under the mass of the riders to such an extent that this, combined with the fact that their doughy folds enveloped much of the fairing, meant that a few of them simply appeared to have no vehicle under them at all, ostensibly scooting along in an uncannily magical fashion on the round mounds of their pillowy gigacheeks.
The lead rider stopped and surveyed the alleyway before him, grinning with a wide open mouth as he saw the girl and me. Then he reached up to a strap on his helmet and pulled down a red plastic whirling-wheel-whistle. He placed it to his lips and blew long and hard. “Fffpppppwweeeeeeehhhhhhh!” it went, the sharp pitch cheerfully rising then fading as the little plastic wheel spooling inside slowed to a halt in its spittle-sprayed bearings.
“Because we deserve it!” the fearsome pack echoed as one in a predatory cry of bloodlust, gunning their throttles fully open. In their turn, the mopeds cried out too, the engines screaming with torquepain as the fuel flooded through their carburettors to launch themselves forward. And forward they lurched. Slowly, under the immense loads, slowly but inexorably, they accelerated forward, each rider wobbling the front wheel in jerky corrections, padding along frantically with bare puffy feet until enough momentum stabilised their awful progress.
The girl watched them as they approached then abruptly turned to look at me with a new and suddenly defiant fire in her eyes. Calmly, deliberately, and continually maintaining electric eye contact with me, she dropped an elaborate curtsy.
“Are you ready for this new game?” she growled in a low voice.
Then, with an exultant gleam, she reached up to the tightly wound tower of her uptied hair and cast loose her braided chestnut locks to fall about her honeyed shoulders.
I watched and thought they looked like lustrous fine strands of melted chocolate drizzled over voluptuously swollen swirls of thickly whipped caramel.
Then, with a single vigorous flourish, she ripped off the lengths of her frock skirts, tearing them away up to her thighs to enable her to run freely.
I watched and felt a palpable squirt of saliva eject against the roof of my mouth.
Maddeningly languid, she unfurled an arm in an arabesque series of mimed curlicues and ran her tongue along it in one smooth movement from the top of her shoulder to the tips of her fingers. She tipped her head back and I saw her upturned eyes quiver with pleasure under half-closed, iridescently made-up eyelids. “Mm-uh…” she shuddered, “that's going to taste good.”
She took a step towards me and swept away a silky slice of hair to present to me an unadorned morsel of succulent neck and shoulder. I closed my eyes and leaned forward to taste as taste can the cloud of volatile molecules suffusing the air that coated her skin. It tasted coolly bitter like a fizzing mist of gin and tonic bubbles and warmly salty like sleeping skin. It tasted smoothly sweet like thickly mixed gateau batter and sharply sour like the memory of breakfast milk.
“Are you ready for this new game?” she asked again, her lips so close to my ear, I could feel the air that they moved.
With an impulse doubly strengthened by its future shame deferred, I pitched forward, opening wide my mouth to savagely take the biggest bite I could. But my teeth came down jarringly only on themselves. I tried to open my eyes but they would do so only slowly, a long drawn-out blink lasting an age with the deafening rush of loudblood in my ears. Eventually, when they opened, she had gone.
I blinked again, my eyelids once more closing at glacial pace while the roaring whoosh of brainboom crashed immense in my head. When they re-opened at last, the world was blurred, my vision distorted by speed. Because I deserve it… because I deserve it… I remember thinking. I could feel the rush of air against my naked flesh, the hot metal of machinery revoluting painfully between my legs. I looked down to see what I was astride and felt the shifting weight of something heavy on my head. I could see the fairing, the polished mirrors, the faux-suede… before I slo-mo blinked again with dream-like torpidity.
When my eyes opened next, I saw that I was lying in the skip. Sticky trails of frothy red and yellow gunge ran down the front of my shirt and trousers. They were thick and crusty as though I had spewed them slowly and gradually from my mouth and they looked like raw, semi-digested chunks of deliquesced flesh-meat and mucus.
To be honest, I think I must have just humped some bad scum. I’ve heard if it’s cut bad it can send you a bit doolally tap and muster up some bad trip crap. Remember that last time I humped some bad scum and thought I was a martingalean organ of Westphalia? Guess the Southern Fried Animal Fats I had for lunch must have got vommed up with aplomb, too. I really need to kick this scum humping habit, I know. Anyway, again dangerous visions, it seems. I don’t think the grotty people can really have started to eat the lovely people.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Timelike Metric
A rabbi, an Irishman and a penguin walk into a pub.
“Do you serve primates?” the penguin asked the barman.
The barman stared in disbelief at the talking penguin. His face drained of all colour and he reeled giddily on his feet as if he had just been punched.
“I…” the barman stammered, “I’m in a joke, aren’t I? This has to be a joke. This changes my entire view of reality. My memories... my dreams... I exist within the construction of a joke.” He lurched forward, grasping the edge of the bar for balance. “Wha… so what happens at the punchline? What happens then? Do we all cease to exist? I… I don’t want to die…” He swayed again then, seemingly snapping to his senses, leapt back and started to wildly ring the time bell. The rabbi, the Irishman, the penguin and everyone in the pub stopped talking and looked at him. From below the bar, the barman pulled out a shotgun and swept an arc across the pub with its barrel as he addressed them all with a feverish hysteria.
“Right, everyone shut up. No one say anything funny. In fact, nobody say a f-cking word. You, you and you,” he gestured to the rabbi, Irishman and penguin with his gun, “get out of my f-cking pub. Now!”
The three spurned patrons slowly backed away from the barmen as bidden and crept back to the door. Reaching for the handle, the rabbi fumbled at something for a moment before turning back to the barman.
“The handle doesn’t work. The door doesn’t look real. It’s just like a prop door with no actual opening.”
“What?” the barman said.
“He said it’s not a real door…” the penguin began.
“You – shut it!” The barman yelled, raising his gun to sight the penguin. “Nobody asked you a f-cking thing, bird. You say nothing!”
“And I can’t see out the windows” the Irishman said. “Even up close to the frosted glass – it still just looks grey and misty outside – I can’t see anything there.”
Time passed in silence. The rabbi, the Irishman and the penguin resumed their places at the bar. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. The barman stood on watch, gun raised, an oily sheen of sweat developing over his tense features in the close, oppressive air. “Alright, alright,” he muttered thoughtfully, “we can get through this if we all stay cool and work this problem. Now ‘primate’ – why did the bird say ‘primate’? There’s no monkey, no vicar – it can’t be that…”
The Irishman stared ahead with a wry smile. “Huh,” he said. “The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.”
In the corner, a bemused dog nervously curled around and started nibbling at its groin.
“Hey, I wish I could do that” a young man said out loud with a snigger, to ease the tension.
His mate grinned. “But wouldn’t you want to get to kno…”
Crack! The room split in two with the blinding flash and strangely trebly timbre of the shotgun discharge. Cut off before he could finish his sentence, the man’s chest flew up and forwards as if he was a puppet on strings. A fine cloud of red gore exploded out of his torso as he tumbled lifelessly face-down on the floor. Behind him stood the barman, the barrels of his raised gun still smoking. He lowered it, broke it open and let the two spent cartridges pop out with gentle plops before hurriedly reloading.
“You… killed him…” the dead man’s friend said, the words slowly dripping out of his open, uncomprehending mouth.
“He would have killed us all – don’t you see?” the barman said in a hysterical voice. “He would have said it – he would have said the punchline.”
The afternoon turned to evening. The indistinct grey mist through the frosted glass turned to an indistinct black soot peppered with vague blobs of what appeared to be yellow street lighting. A man in a suit, his tie loosened, his crumpled jacket taken off and a shadow of stubble on his face pulled himself up with a weary indignation. “Look, you have to feed us. We’ve been sitting here for five hours with no food and no water. What are you going to do – starve us to death?”
The barman lowered his gun. His eyes were shiny like fine china. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll eat.”
The businessman relaxed his shoulders and smiled. “There, you see. Okay, okay now. What have you got to eat?”
“Today’s special is chicken,” the barman said, also visibly starting to relax.
“Sounds good. How do you prepare the chicken?”
“I don’t do nothing,” the barman said. “I just tell it straight that it’s going to die.”
“Do you serve primates?” the penguin asked the barman.
The barman stared in disbelief at the talking penguin. His face drained of all colour and he reeled giddily on his feet as if he had just been punched.
“I…” the barman stammered, “I’m in a joke, aren’t I? This has to be a joke. This changes my entire view of reality. My memories... my dreams... I exist within the construction of a joke.” He lurched forward, grasping the edge of the bar for balance. “Wha… so what happens at the punchline? What happens then? Do we all cease to exist? I… I don’t want to die…” He swayed again then, seemingly snapping to his senses, leapt back and started to wildly ring the time bell. The rabbi, the Irishman, the penguin and everyone in the pub stopped talking and looked at him. From below the bar, the barman pulled out a shotgun and swept an arc across the pub with its barrel as he addressed them all with a feverish hysteria.
“Right, everyone shut up. No one say anything funny. In fact, nobody say a f-cking word. You, you and you,” he gestured to the rabbi, Irishman and penguin with his gun, “get out of my f-cking pub. Now!”
The three spurned patrons slowly backed away from the barmen as bidden and crept back to the door. Reaching for the handle, the rabbi fumbled at something for a moment before turning back to the barman.
“The handle doesn’t work. The door doesn’t look real. It’s just like a prop door with no actual opening.”
“What?” the barman said.
“He said it’s not a real door…” the penguin began.
“You – shut it!” The barman yelled, raising his gun to sight the penguin. “Nobody asked you a f-cking thing, bird. You say nothing!”
“And I can’t see out the windows” the Irishman said. “Even up close to the frosted glass – it still just looks grey and misty outside – I can’t see anything there.”
Time passed in silence. The rabbi, the Irishman and the penguin resumed their places at the bar. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. The barman stood on watch, gun raised, an oily sheen of sweat developing over his tense features in the close, oppressive air. “Alright, alright,” he muttered thoughtfully, “we can get through this if we all stay cool and work this problem. Now ‘primate’ – why did the bird say ‘primate’? There’s no monkey, no vicar – it can’t be that…”
The Irishman stared ahead with a wry smile. “Huh,” he said. “The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.”
In the corner, a bemused dog nervously curled around and started nibbling at its groin.
“Hey, I wish I could do that” a young man said out loud with a snigger, to ease the tension.
His mate grinned. “But wouldn’t you want to get to kno…”
Crack! The room split in two with the blinding flash and strangely trebly timbre of the shotgun discharge. Cut off before he could finish his sentence, the man’s chest flew up and forwards as if he was a puppet on strings. A fine cloud of red gore exploded out of his torso as he tumbled lifelessly face-down on the floor. Behind him stood the barman, the barrels of his raised gun still smoking. He lowered it, broke it open and let the two spent cartridges pop out with gentle plops before hurriedly reloading.
“You… killed him…” the dead man’s friend said, the words slowly dripping out of his open, uncomprehending mouth.
“He would have killed us all – don’t you see?” the barman said in a hysterical voice. “He would have said it – he would have said the punchline.”
The afternoon turned to evening. The indistinct grey mist through the frosted glass turned to an indistinct black soot peppered with vague blobs of what appeared to be yellow street lighting. A man in a suit, his tie loosened, his crumpled jacket taken off and a shadow of stubble on his face pulled himself up with a weary indignation. “Look, you have to feed us. We’ve been sitting here for five hours with no food and no water. What are you going to do – starve us to death?”
The barman lowered his gun. His eyes were shiny like fine china. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll eat.”
The businessman relaxed his shoulders and smiled. “There, you see. Okay, okay now. What have you got to eat?”
“Today’s special is chicken,” the barman said, also visibly starting to relax.
“Sounds good. How do you prepare the chicken?”
“I don’t do nothing,” the barman said. “I just tell it straight that it’s going to die.”
Clime Inside
I went to see a doctor because I’ve been feeling a bit peculiar up my head. It was a new doctor who I hadn’t met before. When I sat down and began talking to him, he immediately started typing everything I was saying on his computer. He could touch type. All the while he stared at me over his left shoulder while his body continued to face the screen and type away with impressive speed and accuracy.
“Will all of this go on to a central database?” I asked.
‘…central database…’ he tapped on the screen.
“You’re even entering that, aren’t you?” I said.
‘…even entering that…’ he continued to type, smiling warmly at me.
I asked him to stop typing everything I was saying and he said he would but he actually just typed that up as well. I asked again, more firmly. Sure, he said, he wouldn’t type in any more information – but he did! Each time I asked him to stop he said he would stop but then he just carried on anyway, even typing up what I said when I asked him to stop. In the end, I gave up.
“Have you been experiencing any slow-motion vomiting lately?” he asked.
“Slow-motion vomiting?” I said.
“Yes, there’s a lot of it about at the moment. It’s like normal vomiting but it all comes out very slowly, very gradually, creeping out constantly for hours on end sometimes.”
“No,” I said, “not that.” I paused. “I’m scared of the state.”
He stopped typing.
I expected him to ask what exactly I was scared of or for how long I’d felt that way, or something like that - but he didn’t. He just continued to stare at me while he pressed a button on the side of his intercom. A moment later, in came a nurse. She took my left arm, rolled up the sleeve, and injected into it a needle connected to a small glass phial. The vacuum of the phial automatically sucked out a fresh sample of blood from me.
“You see?” the doctor said.
I looked down at the phial and saw that what was coming out of my veins was black. Not reddish-black but black, pitch black, absolute colourless black. It was thick and black like sticky tar-black crude oil.
“Those who are scared of State should be scared of State,” the doctor and nurse said in unison.
“Will all of this go on to a central database?” I asked.
‘…central database…’ he tapped on the screen.
“You’re even entering that, aren’t you?” I said.
‘…even entering that…’ he continued to type, smiling warmly at me.
I asked him to stop typing everything I was saying and he said he would but he actually just typed that up as well. I asked again, more firmly. Sure, he said, he wouldn’t type in any more information – but he did! Each time I asked him to stop he said he would stop but then he just carried on anyway, even typing up what I said when I asked him to stop. In the end, I gave up.
“Have you been experiencing any slow-motion vomiting lately?” he asked.
“Slow-motion vomiting?” I said.
“Yes, there’s a lot of it about at the moment. It’s like normal vomiting but it all comes out very slowly, very gradually, creeping out constantly for hours on end sometimes.”
“No,” I said, “not that.” I paused. “I’m scared of the state.”
He stopped typing.
I expected him to ask what exactly I was scared of or for how long I’d felt that way, or something like that - but he didn’t. He just continued to stare at me while he pressed a button on the side of his intercom. A moment later, in came a nurse. She took my left arm, rolled up the sleeve, and injected into it a needle connected to a small glass phial. The vacuum of the phial automatically sucked out a fresh sample of blood from me.
“You see?” the doctor said.
I looked down at the phial and saw that what was coming out of my veins was black. Not reddish-black but black, pitch black, absolute colourless black. It was thick and black like sticky tar-black crude oil.
“Those who are scared of State should be scared of State,” the doctor and nurse said in unison.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Biding Rot
For a number of years, Goldman Sachs experimented with using various animals on the trading floor. By far the most successful were monkeys. Now, they were never allowed to trade anything really complex like some of the exotics and credit stuff but they were fine with vanilla equities. Well, with economicdownturn (R) and all, Goldmans has had to downsize a lot of its operations and has got rid of many of the trading monkeys. A whole cohort of index-trading macaques was auctioned off recently and I bought one of them.
Everything started off fine. It was very highly trained. It would help around the house with the cleaning and the shopping and even sort out some of the bills for me. The first time I took it to the pub, my mates were so impressed. I had it fetch drinks for them, do tricks with peanuts and even help a few of them home. Oh yes, I was king of the pub that night, I tell you.
Thing is, lately I think that monkey is getting bored with doing my chores. It’s trying to undermine me. It’s trying to get the psychological upper hand. I know it is. For example, I went in the pub the other day and it was already sitting there, at the bar, talking to my friends who were laughing at what it was saying. As soon as they noticed me, they all suddenly stopped talking and were clearly suppressing their giggles. The monkey just looked at me with a malign smirk. I knew it’d been telling them something about me.
And last night when I went to bed, I noticed that my toothbrush was in a different place. I asked the monkey what it had done with my toothbrush. It denied doing anything but continued to look at me with an evil mischief in those little black eyes. It knew I couldn't prove anything but had done just enough to inject that corroding doubt into my mind. I threw the toothbrush away, of course, and used a brand new one straight from the packet.
All the little things build up, you know. I set the HDD box to record the Champions’ League the other night and found two hours of ‘Planet Earth’ instead. The monkey always denies it. It always just stares at me with those little black eyes, challenging me to call it a liar because it knows I can’t prove anything.
Oh yeah – and just yesterday, right, it gets back from the shops and gives me change from a tenner even though I know I gave it a score.
And now I’m starting to get phone calls for the monkey. I’m answering the phone for it. This morning I had a call from one of my mates asking if the monkey was coming to the pub tonight. I said it wasn’t allowed but I’d be there if he fancied a drink and he just said maybe some other time.
Everything started off fine. It was very highly trained. It would help around the house with the cleaning and the shopping and even sort out some of the bills for me. The first time I took it to the pub, my mates were so impressed. I had it fetch drinks for them, do tricks with peanuts and even help a few of them home. Oh yes, I was king of the pub that night, I tell you.
Thing is, lately I think that monkey is getting bored with doing my chores. It’s trying to undermine me. It’s trying to get the psychological upper hand. I know it is. For example, I went in the pub the other day and it was already sitting there, at the bar, talking to my friends who were laughing at what it was saying. As soon as they noticed me, they all suddenly stopped talking and were clearly suppressing their giggles. The monkey just looked at me with a malign smirk. I knew it’d been telling them something about me.
And last night when I went to bed, I noticed that my toothbrush was in a different place. I asked the monkey what it had done with my toothbrush. It denied doing anything but continued to look at me with an evil mischief in those little black eyes. It knew I couldn't prove anything but had done just enough to inject that corroding doubt into my mind. I threw the toothbrush away, of course, and used a brand new one straight from the packet.
All the little things build up, you know. I set the HDD box to record the Champions’ League the other night and found two hours of ‘Planet Earth’ instead. The monkey always denies it. It always just stares at me with those little black eyes, challenging me to call it a liar because it knows I can’t prove anything.
Oh yeah – and just yesterday, right, it gets back from the shops and gives me change from a tenner even though I know I gave it a score.
And now I’m starting to get phone calls for the monkey. I’m answering the phone for it. This morning I had a call from one of my mates asking if the monkey was coming to the pub tonight. I said it wasn’t allowed but I’d be there if he fancied a drink and he just said maybe some other time.
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