FIEND OR FOE by A.Michael

The Campaign for Real Fear Season

'Darkness is for Everyone'

Only now, after leaving my youth behind, can I argue for the presence of a supernatural entity. Just supposing something bad has journeyed alongside me?

Presently, with my alopecia, broken hip, jaundice, dairy intolerance, chapped skin, cotton mouth, wheezy chest, bloodshot eye, and dicky ticker, I feel like an end-result, not a work in progress. Minor imperfections are a demon in themselves.

In the mirror, obsessed with my reflection, does something I cannot see stare back and wish me harm? Want me to trip, slip or fall, stub my toe, scold myself with the kettle, cut myself with the razor blade, forget my keys, be late, get knocked down in the road? Something that never leaves my side, and especially hates me most whenever I am eating or making love? Adores me most when I am sulky, angry, upset…

An invisible malice, in an empty room, communicates. I sleep-walk away, naked, from twisted nightmares. I mope around my house, with a blanket wrapped around me, for days. Hiding from energies at work.

Delusional phases and episodes punish my otherwise happy life: Mind control, subconscious messages, covert drugging techniques, permanent surveillance; my persecutor has incredible wealth and power, unlimited resources and bags of time, the scope of a genius and the tenacity of a psychopath…with the luck of the devil to boot.

I know that master voice, that god-headed common overlord. Impossibly audible and real. I wonder how my friend got in my head. Knowing exactly how would not change the fact my brain is host to a transmitting microchip. Pretension and deception reel me in, spit me out, blindfold me, and spin me around. Reality has been pulled apart like a sponge cake.

If it is a demon responsible for the distorted perception of my friend, and not my best friend himself, then it must have the power to adopt the disguise of an emotion or mental state. Perhaps both scenarios are true: My friend is very bad and there are monsters in the closet. Or Samil has created a haunted environment, making it seem like there is a paranormal entity. Or…and this is hardest, like realising I have been missing the woods because of the trees…it is all just down to that stupid legal high.

The imagination spawns endless possibilities to the point where it is for the benefit of my sanity to reign it in. Never mind the cold dark depths of the universe, and you can even forget about the bottom of the ocean. Try wondering about what kind of basement or bunker might be under your feet, whose laboratory might be at the end of your street.

Is the idea of an unearthly fiend anymore unlikely than the notion of the cosmos coming to be from a piece of space the size of a pinhead? Is the idea of an enemy friend anymore unlikely than the notion of a real place such as Hell in flames under the ground?

© A.Michael 2010

Tabloid Sensations

GRAVEYARD PERVERTS

Three prats from a hostel drove over 50 miles for corpse-sex with a deceased X-Factor winner. Police found each to be in possession of condoms.

Closer inspection of the graveyard scene revealed bolt-cutters, pickaxe, spade, ghetto blaster, and a neatly-laid out TJ Hughes quilt with matching pillows. There was no trace of alcohol or drugs. All three admitted to digging up the pop diva for the sole purposes of sex.

Kris Dim, from Ramsbottom, had ‘always dreamt’ about making love to a corpse.

Illegal immigrant and sidekick, Jangy Addy, admitted to conceiving the idea. He believed pesticides in the soil preserved corpses.

Ringleader Ron Todd had posters of the performer in his bedroom. He supplied the condoms. Most definitely ribbed for 'his' pleasure.

Sentencing commences next week.

VOICES 'OUT' HIS HEAD

An idiot rigged-up a portable cassette player to the window of his boss’s son’s bedroom and played recordings of his own voice throughout the night.

The volume dial was set to low, because habitual criminal Ron Todd, obsessed with brainwashing, wanted his victim to ‘feel like he was hearing it in his head.’

The victim complained after spouts of bed-wetting and thumb-sucking. He later admitted to feeling stupid because sometimes he thought he could hear what sounded like ‘someone turning a tape over' outside his window.

The plan was foiled when Todd fell from his ladder and needed emergency treatment.

THAT'S GRATITUDE FOR YA

An ex serviceman from the marine corps has sued a fellow soldier because he tied his tourniquet too tight.

Hero Mayweather, 26, said he risked his own life hauling his comrade from a ditch after ungrateful Rupert Collins stepped on a mine on purpose to prove it was a dud.

Mayweather carried 14-stone Collins half a mile back to base while under enemy fire and at one point revived him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which he now regrets.

40-ODD% FACTUAL A.J

Anonymous Journalist

HORSE PESTERED BY FOOL

A man already well-known to police has been charged with sexually harassing a horse.

The incident occurred on Ron Todd’s farm in a rundown stable. In his step-mom’s statement, who has since left the household, he was said to have stripped to the bones and covered himself in vegetable oil and oatmeal while ‘tickling and encouraging’ the horse to lick him clean.

The animal was distressed enough by the torture for charges of animal cruelty to be added onto the rap sheet. One RSPCA officer said he had never come across anything so degrading to an animal in all his 20 years on the job.

Todd claimed he had suffered from a memory lapse and had no idea how he came to be there. He also could not explain the camera set-up to record his antics.

The case has been adjourned for psychiatric reports.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROBBER NABBED BY GORILLA

An escaping bank robber was caught after being kicked in the legs by a man in a gorilla suit.

Professional Karate champion Dezzie Bayliss was handing out bananas during a promotional stunt when he noticed a man running with a big sack of cash. The man was leaving a trail of notes along the pavement as he headed towards a parked car with the engine running.

Dezzie said: “I really couldn’t see much in the gorilla suit and I had my hands full with bananas, so all I could do was give him a good kick in the legs and send him flying.”

A 24 year old man was arrested at the scene and treated for broken teeth, where he landed on his face after being foiled.

From a young journo who has yet to think of an apt pen name. Unlike me, he knows how to operate that machine in the library which allows you to research town and family histories. He also scans The Metro and The Sport daily. Now, even I know for a fact that they make stuff up in The Sport, especially that disgraceful Sunday edition, so don’t be surprised if something here seems a little too farfetched. But AJ swears that he only plucks from reliable sources, and none of this has anything to do with his imagination. Not that he needs to prove anything, as I also know, for example, that Ron Todd is a real person. I’ve had the privilege of meeting him on a building site in Deansgate. I walked in on him sticking the toilet seat lid down with silicone in a brand new apartment.

100% Factual A.J

Big Don Interview

My cousin A.Michael interviewed Big Don with an old fashioned tape recorder in the pub. Big Don switched allegiance from WOL and submitted himself to various saucy e-zines, where he has gained success. He has brought the blog page into a controversy of sorts, attracting complaints and bringing undue attention to his ex-agent, Gus Kidney, who has only agreed to post this in order to clarify the matter in public, for good. Gus Kidney and WOL does not endorse Big Don or Big Don’s work in any way.

First off, I’m sorry about the split.

No matter. I’ve already forgotten about it.

I think it’s WOL’s loss, for what it’s worth.

So do I. Sex is big bid'ness.

WOL isn’t in the business of selling yet though. Just promoting.

WOL is acting all Disney at the moment, pretending to be cute. I’m just waiting for a pink background on the blog page and pictures of bunny rabbits.

Didn’t we have a link here, for a story of yours?

No, it was wrong. And now Gus is pretending to be ashamed to be associated with me, when all he used to tell me is to ‘write what I know’.

It was a pretty graphic story you had published on the web. The site which published it is an 18s only site. How does it feel when someone who wants to read it has to skip past adverts selling sex toys?

It feels great. They’ve just agreed to publish another one next month. April. I think the woman editor fancies me.

Have you met her?

My mind, she fancies my mind. Your imagination is obviously bound to the mere physicality of sex.

Are you bi-sexual? People are curious.

I’ve a good mind to give you a smack on the mouth for asking me that.

The graphic content would suggest––

Listen, you don’t know douche about the meaning of graphic content. I don’t go banding about taboo words like the rest of them, you know. A lot of them are just grossly descriptive. Not me. Not Big Don. My scenes are from deep in the chambers of the mind and soul. They are major events, not sneaky dogging adventures on a car park. Done stylishly.

What, you mean you don’t just think them up like any other story?

Hell no. These have been cooking ever since adolescence. So that’s only two pieces of sexual expression in all that time. But already I can’t imagine not ever expressing myself this way. I’m looking forward to what comes out in my third effort.

You could go the whole hog and do it for real.

There you go again. I really will put a thick lip on you, you get me? This is Big Don you’re talking to. Not some local brat from definitely never gonna get published or whatever the hell the name of that booklet is you dump in libraries. I’m warning you, blood.

I’m just thinking of HUNG, that new drama about the gigolo starring Thomas Jane. I like him. It’s a good show, that.

I’ve seen it. It’s rubbish. And it’s miles apart from what we’re talking about. You’ve got me down as a filth merchant, just say it loud and true. I’d still be writing here under one name or another if it wasn’t. But for people who don’t see the difference between p**n and erotica, then I simply don’t care. I haven’t time for them. What I’m doing now is more engaging than anything going on at steakpie seven seven dot blog of gob dot com, because people on-line from here to Timbuktu are enjoying sharing the fantasies I conjure up. The likelihood is that your fantasies are probably dying a slow death in your own lonely head and tormenting you in the process.

OK. Whatever, Big Don. Thanks.

Anytime, bruv.

Details of Big Don’s upcoming April publication and his previous December one can be found on his link history on MyFace.

WOMAN OF WAR by Sharon Hood

Gun-less, she bumped into someone alive. Another soldier, crouched and armed with a rifle.

‘I’m down to my last clip,’ the soldier said. ‘Take my rifle if I get hit––’ Before he could finish he flopped onto his stomach as if he were falling onto a bed after a double shift of hauling heavy furniture up and down apartment block staircases. There was a bullet hole the size of a penny an inch above his left eye.

Before she could even blink another bullet whistled past so close to her head that she had to check if her ear was still attached to it after she dived to the deck. Seizing the dead soldier’s rifle, she belly-crawled towards a T-junction. Fired warning shots towards the sound of scuffling enemy feet. Took the opposite direction, right, and clambered up a ladder set into the wall ten metres ahead. Popped her scalp up out of the trench.

Within gobbing distance was a makeshift den of sandbags where two friendly quartermasters were handing out ammunition beside their tripod-mounted guns. They beckoned her out and told her in thick ally accents to go in the direction of their pointed fingers.

Beyond them was a battlefield of jeeps and trucks and tanks, half of them leaking black smoke into the sky. Kamikaze planes lined up and dived and bombed like predatory flies on anything that moved. Troops scuttled from cover to cover like ants scooting out of the rain. Gunfire crackled and banged.

An explosion blew her off her feet. She landed on top of an upturned, burned-out vehicle, rolled off it, spluttered, and rolled under it. Spilled cartridges tinkled in front of her. A piece of shrapnel spun like a spinning top. A burning puddle of oil warmed her brow. She stared into the hot flames, their blueness reminding her of a gas oven, of sticking a folded length of newspaper into the fire in the living room, transporting it carefully to the kitchen, and lighting the grill so she could make some toast. All because the ignition button on the cooker in the bare kitchen had not worked; it just had clicked endlessly, as a child, when she was hungry. Nothing in her poverty-stricken childhood home had worked.

Now nor did her rifle. It had jammed. She flung it away.

A pair of booted legs ran past. Another soldier, dragging a stretcher. Like the first one, he dropped as if God had suddenly turned him off, like a robot with the power cut. The body on the stretcher slid off; an old civilian with leg injuries, the colour of an albino ghost.

She dashed to help, obligated to jeopardize her life. The fright on the face of the old civilian was infectious galore. The eyes said how can this be, how can this possibly be?

She shoved the poor chap back on and headed towards a medical tent, protected behind a pyramid of rubber tyres. She flinched at the sight of muzzle-flash. She jumped at the sound of every crash and boom. She almost tripped and fell, distracted by the pandemonium around herself. She could hear more foreign voices, barking out orders she could not understand. Some of them were chanting, singing, cheering.

At last, the flimsy tent was only a few more steps away. She shuffled inside.

There were twelve taken beds and other casualties on gurneys between them on the floor. There were no machines of any kind, no reassuring bleeps from a heart monitor. Several fatalities were covered in black tarpaulin. The survivors were silent except for the odd muted sob.

A single busy body male nurse attended to them, glancing up from the hurried process of washing his bloodied gloves. Every other aspect of his persona was impeccable. His eyes locked with hers for a long, long moment before flashing back to the victim. She stood back, weakened by the beauty of his eyes, and watched the male nurse remove debris from the wounds of the old civilian with a pair of tongs, before cauterizing them. That was when the old civilian passed out.

She could not take her eyes off the male nurse; he was more interesting to look at than all of the action outside. His movements, his facial expressions, his rigid hair.

‘You have to get more,’ he said to her. ‘Go.’

Her body remained rooted to the spot. Go back out there? This flimsy tent was a sanctuary. The image of him was an escape.

But the male nurse’s eyes locked with hers again. Another long, long moment passed. The explosions became distant echoes. He nodded at her. It was a nod with subliminal implications. A nod full of promise. As if he might want her for something shortly, as if she might be able to assist him in some way. It was all the motivation she needed to get on the move again, and haul some more survivors in.

© Sharon Hood 2010

Inside Art

Titles from top:

Molten Outreach, by Serb Zero and Hubble telescope.

Assorted personalities in a drug induced wisteria reality, by Steve Twigg, Ye Hao Yan and Anonymous person.

My Art Teacher before Prism Negative 1, by Lee Timperley and Anonymous person.

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II within Earthly Delight, by Paul M'Kali and Anonymous person.

These are reproduced from the 2010 official Koestler handbook. Koestler is the UK's biggest and best Arts Charity, and a Godsend for any creative person behind bars, or for anyone in a secure unit. It expanded to Manchester for the first time this year, previously exclusive to London and Edinburgh, and exhibited in the Holden Gallery, a university area full of hip babes and funky chicks, which I adore. What gets me though is how people remain anonymous, and allow a cool piece of work to go out without a name. Sometimes, when 'in the zone', I feel like I have to sign my toilet roll before I flush it (I even use ink now and again). Men are like dogs, spraying their scent all over the show and claiming pockets of territory to stick a sign on. We dream of our names in big letters. I don't understand 'Anon'. Make up a pen name!

Note: The above images are mixtures of 7 separate entries.

USA Visitors

Welcome to a new blogger domain from a small town in the north of England. It’s the first internet presence I’ve ever had and for now serves most of my needs: words and pictures.

AMERICA

Just a word, and yet the mind boggles. Whenever my mind thinks of that great continent, it begins to close down, as if it can’t process all the associated information. Sometimes, when I step outside of my small and mostly self-absorbed brain, I visualise the different places I’ve been to in my life. I visualise other places. The first locations to pop into my mind are Liverpool and Manchester. I think of the main high street in Liverpool, pause it in my mind like a photo, then shoot across 30 or so miles to Manchester, and do the same. I know for certain that there will be people in both. Men, woman, some children. Talking into mobile phones, texting messages, listening to earphone music, eating, drinking, so on.

Then I spread out to Birmingham, south, in the middle of England, and further down to London, near the bottom. Each one has many streets and many people, so I can hazard a guess at what might be happening, and focus in.

Doing this reminds me of my old media studies teacher from high school, who had a breakdown. I remember him drilling it into us once that there were “other things going on on the other side of our classroom windows”.

I cross the ocean in a moment, because that is just too vast, dark, cold and terrifying to contemplate. Then I arrive on your shore, and am almost paralysed by possibilities. It is just like England, but bigger and better by god knows how many noughts to the power of ten. There are so many different races, all fused together, in gorgeous and lustrous veins (especially the women!). And the chunky, blocky sprawls of skyscraping chrome and glass which form your cities......wow. Not to mention the vast deserts and lakes and everything else.

As a schoolboy from a very early age I decided I wanted to marry Sandra Bullock. Why was it that every adult I knew always married someone from their own country, and most of the time from their same town, city, or job etc, when there was a whole world to choose from? I knew for sure that my future wife would probably come from America. A child’s consciousness strays there.

(To be continued after haircut and gym)

Back now. No gym yet. Popped into the dentist instead......and battered him. Now where was I? Oh yeah, meditating. I’m thinking of Texas and Vegas and Maine, Ohio and Delaware and Atlanta. Not forgetting San Francisco. Not forgetting L.A.

But most of all, when my mind goes out there, and tags along my heart, it resides with the many thousands locked up in penitentiaries, gone and being forgotten, with brains as lively-wired as mine, but with no pen or keyboard to express them.

Who, I wonder, in America, is most like me? Which one of you out there is very much like me?

UNCLE TOM'S ON ONE by Cam Lee

He was fine before the vodka......

Everyone on the street ran out to see. It was true. He was leaning against the neighbor’s front fence with his todger in his hand, peeing onto the pavement. Facing the road, with the girls’ school on the other side.

‘Uncle Tom’s on one!’ little seven year old Hailey screamed, jumping up and down. ‘Mummy-mummy-look, Uncle Tom’s gone on one!’

It was quarter past three in the afternoon. The road was so busy with school-runners, traffic was almost at a standstill. A lollipop lady was staring, flabbergasted. A coach driver and his passengers gawped from behind their shaded windows.

Helena, Hailey’s mother, reached for her daughter to drag her indoors, but Hailey skipped away, clapping her hands, pink belled-ribbons in her ponytails jingling all about. The girl was hyperactive from a bottle of extra sweet fizz-bomb cola and a tongue-staining sour sherbet gobstopper.

‘On one!’ she repeated to herself, stepping around the puddle of pee.

A passing voluntary police officer on a bicycle tried to act the hero, but Hailey’s Uncle Tom resisted arrest by braining the copper with an empty vodka bottle and making cheeky his escape on the bicycle, waving to his beloved niece as he so did. Half an hour later he was live on the evening news in most of the homes in the nation, perched on the edge of the main transporter bridge with his pants around his ankles and his socks on his hands, the buttons on his shirt undone and his drawers on his head, strumming an imaginary guitar.

Traffic had been stopped either side of the bridge with tailbacks for three miles either way. Two media helicopters hovered overhead. Marksmen stood by. A negotiator spoke into a loudspeaker.

Hailey’s Uncle Tom wasn’t listening. He was focusing on the carpet underbelly of a cloud where rays of sunlight forked through like torch beams. He was focusing on singing some of the lyrics to his favourite song: You and me baby ain’t nothing but mammals, let’s do it like they do on the discovery channel.

‘Turn the telly off Hailey!’ Mummy shouted up the stairs, shrugging her jacket over her shoulders, on her way to the bridge. ‘We’ve got to go out and save your Uncle Tom!’

But in her pink bedroom, Hailey only turned up her stereo, which just so happened to be playing Uncle Tom’s favourite song, the only CD she owned, smothering the volume of the TV, which was currently zoomed in on Uncle Tom’s precarious position hundreds of feet above certain concrete splatter.

‘We do not know if this desperate lunatic is drunk or drugged or what,’ she would have heard a reporter saying. ‘He’s got his cotton socks on his hands like a pair of gloves and his jockies on his head like a wooly hat.’

Bridge suicide, tomorrow’s headline would read. There would be no mention of any uncharacteristic stunts or peculiar behavior. They would simply describe the man as mentally unwell.

‘Yeees!’ Hailey cheered as her uncle jumped, biting her nails and giggling uncontrollably. ‘Go Uncle Tommy go-go-go!'

The fall seemed to take forever, spinning and tumbling like a frog in a washing machine. He looked like a kitchen chef, with his headwear and those socks which looked like oven gloves. His open shirt flapped like a superhero’s cloak.

‘Oops,’ she said as he hit. Then: ‘I love you, Uncle Tom.’

And climbed up onto her window on the second floor, imitating her role model……and jumped out......

......onto the trampoline in the garden. One out of five homes has one. A trampoline, that is, not an Uncle Tom.

Every home family has an Uncle Tom.

© Cam Lee 2010

Kong Island Clay

HAVE A VIBRANT AURA BY ARRANGING AROUND BED

These unique artefacts were smuggled off the Kong Island while the beast was distracted by the staggeringly beautiful Naomi Watts. The Gateway Dreamcatcher, Indian Steeple and Urn Cap were hidden inside Jack Black’s camera case.

It’s believed natives would arrange the artefacts in a triangle and sleep within it, protecting themselves from the dreaded Incubus and/or Succubus. These are supernatural entities, very real, that to this very day appear in your bedroom when you fall asleep, and touch your forehead, giving you bad dreams. They are usually the ghosts of suicide victims who have been fooled into believing that by negatively influencing a certain amount of the living with a view to eventually dragging them over to the dark side alongside themselves, they will one day be able to live again, but what they don’t know, because most of their memory is wiped by death, is that they are more than likely tormenting members of their very own families, and this is the cruel trick. Distinguishable by their long noses and hooded gowns, these powerful nocturnal beings of our world are only pitiful minions in the underworld.

A common uneasy dream a lot of people have had, myself included, no word of a lie, is of three dark figures silently following them. These three mysterious beings, known simply as The Black 3, control all inks/succs. They are not healthy, and a sign that your psyche is infected! They feed on low mood and promote accidents/mishaps. Given the chance, they will see you in the gutter, or worse.

Get protected today. Kong Island Clay. Only £75billion each. No refunds.

Stephen Gerard-Hayden's COBBLESTONE KIDS

Widnesian Stephen Gerard-Hayden written his first book at 47, an exciting story for young people which shows the results and pitfalls of a deprived and loveless childhood. Cobblestone Kids tells the story of Tommy, an 11-year-old who has to learn about life the hard way. His adventures and escapades in reform school are sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad and not infrequently exciting.

Running through the story is the heartfelt cry of a young man trying to cope with life in a society that has lost its morals. Stephen has overcome many obstacles in his own colourful life. He became an alcoholic after bogus business associates destroyed his business, costing him potentially millions of pounds. He was in and out of psychiatric hospitals, drying out, for years. But after seeing a minister and saying a simple prayer he was completely freed from his addiction and has stayed clean ever since.

Besides pursuing roofing interests in Warrrington, he is now working on a sequel which continues the story of Tommy and his reform school friends.

Stephen, an ambitious business man, has recently had book signings at Borders and Waterstones, with more in the pipeline. His book, from Barratt Ministries, can be purchased on Amazon.

Shaun Attwood's HARD TIME

This book is an account of the 26 months Shaun Attwood spent in the jail system with the highest rate of death in America. The jail is in Phoenix, Arizona, and run by the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It begins with a SWAT team knocking Shaun’s door down, and his arrest for heading an organisation that threw raves and distributed club drugs. Initially, Shaun goes into shock as he’s submerged into a nightmarish world of gang violence, insect-infested cells and food unfit for animals. But with the love and support of his family and fiancée, Claudia, he slowly adapts.

Other prisoners Shaun meets on his journey tell their stories. His large and fearless friend since childhood, Wild Man, pops up all over the place with his unique brand of chaos. Shaun’s situation devastates his loved ones, and his mother has a nervous breakdown. The prosecutor and Detective Reid are out to get Shaun a life sentence, and the legal developments cause many emotional ups and downs.

Over time, Shaun tries to avoid getting smashed by forming various alliances, including with the Italian Mafia and the independent tough guy, Joe. Shaun increasingly uses jail time for learning and introspection. He takes up yoga, and ponders the big questions in philosophy. The letters he writes home, which make his family both laugh and cry, tell such a graphic tale that his parents encourage him to write more in order to document his incarceration.

Towards the end of his stay and with the help of his family, he starts the blog, Jon’s Jail Journal, to expose the conditions and human rights violations. The book ends with his family flying over from England for a sentencing hearing that has everyone on the verge of mental collapse.

Shaun’s jail memoir is slated for September-October 2010 publication in the UK.

Shaun’s award-nominated blog, jonsjailjournal.com, big in the U.S, has given a great many number of prisoners a voice, whose stories otherwise would have remained unheard. Mentored by Koestler, and publicly speaking in schools and prisons, this inspiring Widnesian continues to head a major movement.

WHEN IT RAINS by Stephen Farnham

Bleary-eyed, Peter awoke after another torturous dream of Debbie cheating. The rumour had come from a dubious source but with the missed visits and the indifference over the phone the evidence was mounting. Their tempestuous affair had had a rocky beginning but he thought they’d turned a corner after the baby. It’s going the way of most jail relationships and the slag only had four months to wait.

“When it rains...” The chubby doctor smiled.

“Rain! I’m in the middle of a shitstorm! How the fuck is it possible to catch a genital wart on my face?” an exasperated Peter inquired.

“It’s happened before. Look, how many inmates go round with a hand down their pants? It only takes someone with a genital wart to scratch their nuts then grab the weights bar at the gym.” The doctor chuckled. “Have you got a girlfriend?”

“It’s hanging by a thread at the moment,” Peter answered.

“Well, don’t kiss her, if you do it can spread like wildfire. Good luck explaining.” The doctor laughed, setting his jowls vibrating against his shirt collar.

Well I know what the topic will be in his local tonight, thought Peter looking away. A child eating an apple on a healthy eating poster caught his eye. Well he doesn’t practise what he preaches; he’s no stranger to the fridge that’s for sure. Peter smiled, unable to hate the doc.

Who’s Michelle and who’s Kate? Debbie had asked in her letter. I don’t know a Kate, thought Peter. Is she accusing me to excuse her own behaviour? There’s only Carl that knew about Michelle but that was before she got pregnant. The letter was distant with no endearments, saying they needed to talk. Conflicting emotions swirled round Peter’s head as he stared vacantly at the ugly inflammation in the mirror.

The rain hammered down as Peter dashed for the visit. How am I going to explain the wart? Peter thought. Debbie looked as good as ever: blond highlights, a new low cut top and a familiar scent of Channel perfume triggering happy memories.

“You look nice,” Peter said.

“Thanks, you don’t,” she replied. “What happened to your face?”

Peter was about to explain but noticed the love bite on Debbie’s neck. “What’s that!”

“Swiss cheese,” she mocked. “Well, what’s good for the goose an’ all that eh!”

Peter had dreamt about this and in his dream he’d slapped Debbie then walked off.

He barely recognised his own voice. “Don’t tell me you’re with Carl.”

“How did you know?” asked Debbie, genuinely puzzled.

“You deserve each other,” he laughed, amazed at the relief he felt.

His cool response threw her. She mumbled, “What about my birthday present?”

“Carl will get you one.”

“I don’t want you seeing Liam,” Debbie added, changing the attack.

“I’m going now before we say too much,” he calmly replied.

“You’ve already said too much. He’s not yours anyway!” she shrieked.

“Goodbye Debbie.” He leaned over and kissed her, expecting her to pull away. The wart made contact with her plump cherry lips.

© SF 2010

Stephen is a totally independent writer and DNMF is delighted to announce that he will be contributing to future issues of SELECTED STORIES.

Dead Kitty

A pleasant sunny Thursday afternoon, 9th of May, 2002

The cat, when I first cast my eyes upon it, was a scuttling thing between the four wheels of the jeep. The moment dragged itself out, lasting longer than it should have, but it was inevitable that one of those tyres should collide with the feline, and when the vehicle didn’t stop, and the cat didn’t emerge from the other side, I feared the worst. Indeed, the animal lay flat in the middle of the road. From my distance, it was just an object on the tarmac, but a moving object, it has to be said.


Its legs still peddled fresh air as if nothing had happened, but the claws gripped nothing apart from exhaust fumes left behind by its metal murderer. The limbs jerked mechanically in their full range of movement. As we drew closer, I willed the creature to stand upright. I urged it to just take off in any direction.We stopped. It wasn’t going anywhere. I debated whether I should actually leave the car. Its spasmodic thrashing slowed. I got out and bent down beside it in the middle of the road. The pupils of its bulging eyes were almost as big as the irises. A bit of bright blood had leaked from its mouth. Other than this, there was no visible damage.


I understood that it could not scratch or bite me. I stroked the cat’s neck and spoke to it. It stopped struggling. I wanted to believe that I was responsible for that. I wanted to believe that my touch had laid it to rest peacefully. I lifted its limp body from the road, careful not to let any blood drip onto me, and placed it on the grass verge. As I got into the car, its front paw slowly lifted and dropped, like a wave goodbye.

On the scale of bad ‘Dying Cat’ experiences, this only rates in at a 4 or 5. I had one about 4 years later that was ten times worse and genuinely disturbing to the core. I rescued the injured creature (I don’t believe I was the first to run it over) from a dual-carriageway and took it to safety in a shop doorway, but the thing ran back out into the road and got hit again. And again, and again. It’s head was like a dripping red tap. It was doing circles in the road. Someone else picked it up in a bin liner from their boot and returned it to the pavement (a small crowd had gathered), where it finally settled, but it kept jerking its head all over the place as if it were being attacked by a swarm of invisible flies, going mad. Truly demented and spooky. When I left, it was wandering back out into the road again.

Gaga better than Thriller

There has recently been a claim made by the musician DB Tinkerbell (signed to Hypno-Textures) that the Bad Romance video by Lady Gaga is better than the legendary Thriller video by the King of Pop himself, the late Michael Jackson.

“I had no idea that women were more creative than men,” says Tinkerbell from his pad in Liverpool. “I’m shocked. This girl isn’t just another stare-into-the-camera-and-look-sexy kind of artist, she’s the real deal. I’m telling you. This song is as good as pop gets. There’s no better. It’s the video that stunned me though. She moves in tune with the music, like a puppet to its beat. Everything’s so co-ordinated and synchronised. There are some truly spectacular shots. I watch it every morning, to psych myself up for the day ahead. It’s at around the 140 million hits mark on Youtube now. That speaks for itself. I simply can’t imagine how much it’s inspiring the young girls out there, if a big ugly grown-ass man like myself thinks it’s the best thing he’s ever seen!”

Thriller is easily the most successful music video of all time, selling 9 million units. There has naturally been fierce contempt of Tinkerbell’s claims, although the majority of opinions here at WOL deem them ‘laughable’ and aren’t taking them seriously.

“Sometimes you like a song but when you see the video it is rubbish and it puts you off the song,” he continues. “As is usual the radio is bashing Bad Romance all day and night, so I turn the radio down when it comes on, and save it for when I watch the video, because together they create an unforgettable experience.”

And finally: “I ain’t never seen nobody drop their basket in a crowded supermarket and start bopping to a Michael Jackson song. I have to Lady Gaga. It was about five on a Friday afternoon in Asda. The song was Pokerface. The person was a big old mum. She didn’t look drunk.”

DB Tinkerbell is currently awaiting news about a short-term switch to Technics. He is giving triple-track CDs of 'Lonely Repetitive Space' away with the oncoming literary series of SCHMOE PLAYS, which is fiction for bodybuilders, starting in Walter O’Malley’s gym, Warrington, courtesy of Ya what, ha? Productions.

Ashes to Beauty Poem

Energy. All around. Where does it go? How does it work? Is there a pattern in all the apparent regeneration, or is our course through the universe linear? Linear and chaotic, into an unknown destination, like riding a shot cannon that keeps rising into the cold treacly nether regions of space and time. Or is it cyclic and predictable, like a turning wheel? The turning wheel of life. Rejoice: Our time here is too short to be depressed. Take a tip from Stephen King's book if you find yourself needing a perk-up, and blast some rock n roll.

ASHES TO BEAUTY

This perpetual procession
Closes the chapters of life upon life
Grinds the granite of grave into grave
Razes the rubble of runes into ruin
Cremates compact layer
Upon compact layer
Of memories and love without end
With dust and fire does pave
The mortal road to our passing
Wherein Earth’s soil
Beneath the whispering wind
Atop the enriching harvest
Within the fruits of our spirit’s fresh labour
Inside the palm of Our Spirit’s guiding hand
Blossom the buds that cannot die
Generation to generation
Mother to Son
An everlasting caress
From heart to mind

© Andrew Donegan 2010

"We will not cease our exploring, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
T.S.Elliot

"You live, you die, and the wheels on the bus go round n round."
The Philosophy of Ron Todd

"I think that life was UPLOADED into space itself."
The Philosophy of Ron Todd

Celebrity Big Brother

"From Newsjack in BOOK 12"

At 09.40 Peter Andre spent forty minutes in the bathroom.

At 10.45am Christiano Ronaldo asked Andy Murray if Wimbledon was a team in Scotland. Andy Murray pushed Ronaldo into the pool, but maintains it was a dive.

At 11.10am David Dickenson admitted Nick Griffin was the real deal when it came to discriminating against skin colour.

At 1.21pm Ed Balls and Alistair Darling came to blows in a squabble about surnames.

At 4.47pm Gok Wan shocked housemates with the revelation that he used to weigh over twenty stones. And that he’s gay.

At 6.07pm after a drink, Alan Titchmarsh watered the plants. Big Brother advised him to use the indoor lavatory.

At 8.08pm after smoking some banana skins, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen appeared from the diary room wearing a pink latex dildo suit and complained about the wallpaper design being 'too busy'.

At 8.33 Chris Moyles climbed into the BB complex and started annoying people.

At 10.00am Jordan requested a DJ, catering and fancy dress for a party. The requested was denied so she had a long face.

At 00.56am John McCririck was woken up by Dizzy Rascal to be told that he was snoring so John wiped a crow on Dizzy's preposterously-slanted cap.

More from the house soon. Here's more media bullet-points in the meantime.

Heat magazine celebrity sweat patch exclusives deemed “the pits” by moral standards agency.

Wag bump preggers shock turns out to be takeaways.

Hasselhoff’s home page rock bottom for facebook addict.

Yvette cooper, wife of politician Ed balls, insists she would have kept her maiden name no matter who she married.

G-string proved to be only solution to visible panty-line syndrome. No solution as of yet for 'men with bulge'

Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant 3-course meal so small customer has to visit macdonalds on way home.

Graham Norton to host next Mr pillow-biter of the year competition.

Breaking news just in, stop press – Kerry Katona has gained half a pound.

Doctor tells chronic masturbator to get a grip of himself.