Peanut Butter Skittles

My mum bought the family a bandit. A real-life fruit machine, like. She bought it from the guy around the pool hall – Glen, his name was; he sold it to her off the back of a white transit van, rolling it into the living room on a pump truck.

“Make sure you refill it often with plenty of coins,” he advised her. “So as it doesn’t refuse the pay out.”

My mum skipped lively to the bank for the slummy, exchanging 50 squid. The jackpot was weird, it didn’t make any sense to any of us at the time, but it was only 5p a play. All the kids hit it together, it was a laugh, theatrical and musical, although it never paid out apart from a couple of quid here and there.

One day, myself and my little brother rinsed the jackpot. It paid out in peanut butter skittles. 30 of them, large and chewy and gelid and nutty. That night, we ate them together in bed, and went to the maddest dream imaginable. We dreamt that we were flying through industrial estates on a different planet, and having the time of our lives as we so did. I would motion for him to look at a particular awning, or a particular workshop façade, and he would acknowledge it with amazement. Or he would point out an automation or mechanisation…and I would just look on in wonder like him. We had the time of our lives…but lizards spoiled the fun. Lizards!

“How dare you pair invade our premises,” the lizards said. “This world belongs to us and but us alone.”

We woke in fear, together, but remembered the majesty of the astral plain we’d shared. It was special, it was fun, it was unrivalled. We’d both united far beyond the common bonds of brotherhood; we’d become something singular in the dream state.

I had four peanut butter skittles left the next morning, and I gave him two.

“That’s for tonight,” I said to him. “So we can fly in our sleeps again.”

Our mum caught me giving them to him, and demanded that I stop dealing drugs in my own family. Dealing drugs! she thought. She’d been wondering about our mood ever since the morning.

“Mum, I would never deal to my younger brother!” I argued. “What do you take me for? These are just peanut butter skittles from the bandit.”

“Why the f**k would it pay out candy, for God sakes?” she replied.

“I don’t know, it just does, and it gives us nice dreams…”

My mum played the bandit from there on in. She rinsed the jackpot and ate all 30 peanut butter skittles to herself. That night she was visited by a lizard. It said to her, “Tell your sons to stop frequenting my domain. And you are certainly not welcome yourself before you ask.”

She didn’t get to see any industrial estates on remote planets. Rather, she ordered that the bandit be collected by Glen, and taken back to the pool hall.

Unbeknownst to me, my little brother had fiddled with the back of it before it was whisked away. He had 300 peanut butter skittles to share with me. Our mum was too old to share in the drama of the astral plain, experience had made her hair go white with fear, but we were young and bold, with brave searching in our hearts. So we enjoyed our industrial estates, saying 'Howd'ya do?' to the lizards. With our peanut butter skittles.

 

Sheriff Jon Bunnell

 

John Edwin Bunnell (Born May 25, 1944) is a former American Sheriff of a County in Oregon. Bunnell is best known for presenting World’s Wildest Police Videos. His disdain for crims was apparent. The following excerpt is taken from the commentary to just one of his videos. This is how he spoke…

When I responded to this frantic call for help I understood that most pursuits end in tragedy. It was a 10-50. In a bizarre turn, the blind drunk desperate lunatic madman was becoming more crazed by the second, listening to some twisted inner voice. The vicious criminal blazes and veers, and God help anyone caught in the way of this 10 ton nightmare. This dope dealer is due a trip to the slammer. What has caused his mind to flip so suddenly: Love, desperation or obsession? More likely reckless and senseless indifference. Violence erupted previously when this shirtless and shifty cold-blooded killer incited a full-scale riot. And now this greasy customer is intent on burning rubber. The harsh reality is that he is in for a rude awakening, dead or alive, for causing ever-increasing fear on the streets. He’s nothing but a masked felon and a dangerous criminal. It takes a special breed of officer to take them on, and take them down, regardless if their determination is scary to plain stupid. This local gangbanger is trapped like a rat, but the cops remain cool no matter how tough they wanna play. This remorseless gangster, with a crude arsenal of weapons on the boot, is savage, murderous and scandalous. Let’s book him in.

Places Where People Used To Be

On the Astral Plain last night, I encountered my dead brother. I was lucid, and said that I was dreaming, as I usually say to people when I’m lucid in the Astral. He shrugged it off, as they usually do also. So I had to tell him. I told him, “You died, Jacob. We lost you.”

No reaction. Then I held him close to me (we were sat down) and I wept a bunch of good ole’ tears. When I felt myself wakening, he disappeared into wherever the Astral Plain leads to. Beyond immortality, if you ask me. Anyway, I held the place that he had vacated, the place he was just residing in, and I wept some more. His parent appeared, my Dad and my Step Mum, and they were busy searching for him all over the dreamscape. “Jacob!” they shouted. “Jacob, where are you?” But he had gone. My grief was exceptional, but the burden of a parent’s grief was too much to bear, so I decided to wake myself up and escape the pain. It felt majestic, in a way. The best part of it all was holding him when he wasn’t there. I’d helden the empty space he’d once occupied, the special place in my soul he left behind, and before that had happened, I hadn’t even been aware that I was grieving.

Holding empty space. Where he used to be. I miss ya’, bro’.

 

Mormon Werewolves In Denim Jackets

I spoke with my Pastor on the phone.

“I’m going to give them a try.”

“Joseph Smith was an occultist. His teachings can’t be trusted.”

“I need to explore my faith.”

“The women who follow him are freak shows. Have you any idea of the rumours which surround them?”

“Like what, for example?” My Pastor’s pessimism was discouraging. I was looking forward to Martha and Melody, the female Mormons about to knock on my door for a religious meeting.

“All I’ll say is don’t light any scented candles, whatever you do. That’s a stern warning. And don’t play any classical music.”

“Okay…” He hung up. I looked at the phone receiver in my hand rather perplexedly. If it didn’t have the Christian God written all over it, he was always the same. There was only one book in the world and that was that. The Bible. Well, I was about to try another interpretation of it.

Martha and Melody knocked on at the time they said they would knock on. I invited them in, out of the winter’s night and into the secluded comfort of my property. They were both average height, medium weight, pretty in their own way. Both wore beige blouses with denim jackets, and expensive-looking pendants; which, by the way they shimmered and glimmered, I imagined to be putting a spell on me. They seemed to move and speak as one, as if their mannerisms had been linked together. They finished each other’s sentences and sipped my offered coffee at the same time as each other. We made ourselves comfortable as they read from the Book Of Mormon.

“You should be beginning to feel a warmth in the room,” Martha said.

“And experiencing a beam of intoxicating light sneaking into your soul,” Melody added.

“May we light a candle?” they both said. “And play some music from our phone?”

NO, DO NOT LET THEM! I heard my Pastor scream from somewhere deep inside my own head.

Scented. Classical. I didn’t have time to refuse them. I studied their faces. Their skin was like porcelain, so smooth and silky. I realised then that they were more than just merely pretty – they were truly beautiful. I would have fallen in love with them, but there was something DIFFERENT about them, something that almost, in tragic contradiction, couldn’t be lovable. It was hard to put my finger on what though. Just SOMETHING ABOUT them.

They went into a trance with the candle and the music. They started snoring and speaking in tongues as one. I left the room out of awkwardness and took a quick piddle in the bog. When I returned, I found it hard to believe the predicament facing me.

My pet cat, previously sleeping on his cat mat, was torn in half. Martha and Melody were dancing with what remained, spraying blood around the room like uncorked champagne. They were at least two feet taller, and covered in fur. Their denim jackets had stretched like the Hulk’s shorts. Their gleaming white fangs looked odd along with their lipstick, and their pointy ears were silhouetted against the moonlight coming in from my net curtains. The flame from the candle wavered, and I snorted odours of Beeswax and Amberwood. The sounds of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 filled the room.

I went into shock and froze. Their terrible beauty was intoxicating. They looked like creatures groomed by both God and The Devil, wolf and human in equal measure.

“Welcome to the Brotherhood,” they said. We kissed.   

 

Blind Date 2

 

Jan Balonky’s Dating Habits

Jan, 44

Vital Statistics: Divorced in 2018; 8 children

Current Role: Pornographer

Would Like To Meet: Olly Murs

DATING PAST: I used to go swinging a lot. My ex-husband and I believed in an open marriage. It all went Pete Tong at an Illuminati orgy in some dodgy celebrity mansion one night. I won’t name names, but there were naked people in masks just slipping into me from the rear all night. My ex-husband couldn’t get himself excited, he said it was too busy. They were all coming on my butt-cheeks. I’ve never gobbled off so many party goers in all my life. My jaw was numb and aching from it. I never swallow, though, just so you know. I always let it drool down my chin. Some disgusting pervert woman started licking it off my breasts. Her name was Sylvia. She was collecting the man-fat on a silver platter for some mad reason, and gargling it. Completely disgusting.

PRE-DATE NERVES: I always up my botox game before a date, so my boat race (face) is nice and plump. I’m a sucker for make-up, the more the better. My aim is to look like a pantomime horse. You should see my mince pies (eyes). I get lots of comments about them. Guys say they fall into them like oceanic depths.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: My most recent date was what I call a Mister Man. He thought he was the bomb. Always in his phone, every two plus five minutes. Suave suit from Armani, Hugo boss watch this and Hugo Boss watch that. Nothing but a big fat show off. As soon as he found out I was a pornographer he started feeling down his pants a lot, as if he couldn’t wait to get hardo and ram it in my quim. Little did he know that I don’t work that way. It’s at least three dates until my knickers hit the deck.

EASY TO TALK TO: Mister Man was a complete dick. What kind of a guy has a brown wallet? He said he was privately educated and a graduate of Bright Futures School. The only bright thing about him was his dentures. I couldn’t trust a thing he rambled on about BitCoin, or stocks and shares, or negative equity properties. I was f**king bored silly. When I tried to drop my own hobbies in there, like floristry and sewing, he stared at me as if I’d just asked him to lick off my bleached arse hole. Absolutely no interest in the comings and goings of the opposite sex. I’ve no time for the wannabe high-flying showman.

EMBARRASSING MOMENTS: When he lit up a cigar. And when he insisted on paying. He was wadded, I’ll give that to him, but it takes more than cold hard tender to worm your way into my good books. More than a firm solid todger as well. I like to be read to, or cooked for, you know, really cherished. You can’t just offer to pay for the truffles and expect a nosh round the back alley, or in the hotel room later. It doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid, Mister Man. Let’s just settle the bill 50/50. I’ll pay one half, you pay the other. I’m a professional working woman who can pay her way anytime with anyone, anytime or anyplace. That’s the way I roll. I’m the amazing Jan Balonky.

DID SPARKS FLY: None what so ever. He had all the charisma of a retired janitor. I’m sprightly and eloquent and bubbly and confident and chatty, nothing like him at all. I got the feeling he was just out to impress me. Leave it to me to do the impressing, with my body modifications and my make-up. His attire wasn’t even up to all that much, as it was too tight on him, and he wasn’t in as good a shape as he thought he was. Middle age crisis type, if you ask me. Ugh, keep away!

SEE HIM AGAIN: I’d rather be linked up as part of the Human Centipede than date Mister Man again. His stupid accent was beginning to do my nut in once we got to the dessert. He came across as a snob with resentments to strong powerful femininity. He didn’t know how to handle me.

WHAT DO YOU THINK HE THOUGHT OF YOU: I think he thought I was an easy lay, because of the way I look and because of my porno background. Nothing could be further from the truth. If he was a poet or something, or a musician, I’d understand his confidence, but he was nothing but a no-mark in an Armani suit with Boss this and that. Plus his head was stuck in his phone.

WOULD YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS LIKE HIM: I know several friends who he might actually rub off on, but my parents wouldn’t let him through the door.

The Ray

Jane Garcia was emptying the tumble dryer in the laundry room when the ray hit. She felt it come in through the window. She didn’t quite see it, but perceived it; a tenebrous nestle of translucent squiggly lines like a spider web shot from an archer’s gun, swarming in from the sky. She didn’t hear any planes or drones. But what she felt was astonishing.

Her right ear imploded. It was the only word most apt to describe the sensation. She went momentarily deaf in it immediately. Then she heard a pulse in the eardrum, which shot into her brain and down her spine to the bottom of her feet. The pulse was like a deafening roar from the ocean, only electronic and tinny and sharp. She’d been holding her phone in her hand, and now her fingers clenched it tightly, almost crushing it in her grasp. Her other hand raised to her temple, in an attempt to tame the shaky, skipping throb in her skull. It sounded like some ancient industrial machine being fired up for use in an old Victorian factory. She let out a squeaky yelp from her throat and slammed the dryer door.

Moving quickly into the living room, she realised that every one of her limbs was alive with fire and pain. Her stomach did a somersault. She projectile vomited all over the sofa, no chance of reaching the toilet, and dropped to her knees on the floor. Then she was aware of a burning in her hand. Tears blurred her vision, and made her think that her phone was melting. It wasn’t, but it was hot and inflamed, the battery having swollen and popped the plastic casing. She dropped it in a hurry.

First day as an FBI Agent going great.

“I know what this is,” she mumbled to herself, wiping her mouth. “This is an anomalous health incident.” She cackled wryly, looking at the land line. For months she’d been studying these kinds of ‘accidents’ and now one had happened to her. She made it to the telephone with wobbly legs, unsure of how far away the floor was from her feet, and unsure of how much distance she was putting between each step. It felt like moonwalking drunk in slow motion over a turbo carousel.

Her director Wallace answered on the second ring. “Garcia?”

“Luka Sokolov’s got me,” she told him, breath barely a whisper. “Through the window in my laundry room. An ultrasonic acoustic ray. I’m out of action for the moment. My brain’s in pieces. I’ve lost my balance. I’m nauseous. I’m–”

“Try not to panic,” Wallace replied. “We’re closing the net on Luka as I speak. This will be his last attack, I assure you. Now, what you need to do is this: Immerse your head in a sink full of water for at least thirty seconds, and then rest your skull against a stone wall. Do you hear me? I need you to do this immediately.”

“I know, I know, it dampens the signal.”

“You’ll be alright. We’ll meet for lunch, when you’ve recovered.”

“Correct.”

Jane hung up and got her crap together. She wanted to be there when Wallace nailed Luka. She wanted to be the one putting electrodes on his fingertips. This was nothing. She had a meeting with the director to take care of. A meeting with the director of the mutha-f**king FBI.

Zombie Publications 2025

 

The Kidnap

 

Glitch looked forward to spending his ten grand fee for kidnapping this latest victim. He planned a holiday to Spain, relaxing in the English bars and tanning his bod on the beach with Dry Martinis in hand. There were secret cameras in the victim’s bedroom, linked to Glitch’s phone. Glitch always had his phone out. He charged it religiously every night to keep the battery active during the days. Today, he’d charged it this morning, because it was now night. 3am, to be exact, a time when the target would definitely be sleeping. He could see the target was sleeping on his phone screen, as snug as a bug in a rug. He wouldn’t be soon. He would be chloroformed and dragged out of there, feet first, into the waiting van. Glitch’s accomplice was the driver. His nickname was Burnout, because he had a history of arson. When they started kidnapping people in Brazil, Burnout often torched the shack once they were done. Not to destroy any trace of evidence, but because he liked looking at his shadow amidst all the curling flame and smoke.

There was a soundproofed garage not far away from where the victim was headed. Some implements waiting for him involved a claw hammer, a ripsaw, and a selection of novelty bladed articles fashioned specifically for purpose in a shady tool shop in Belgium. The buyer apparently had a special futuristic cutting-edge helmet which, when placed around a dead guy’s head, could resuscitate him back to life. Eternal preservation. This part blew Glitch’s mind, and he half thought the buyer was lying, trying to show off or something. He was up to date with the Torturer’s Handbook 2025, and, so far as he knew, there was nothing about life after death in it.

This victim was a vagabond, a runaway, with no security on his poxy downbeat council flat on the periphery of an unlit cul-de-sac. Not even a door light to scare the cats away. Glitch extracted a cut key and prepared to enter. Behind him, Burnout spat on the ground in derision of the victim’s poverty, something he frequently did before entry. The van was still running with its back doors open.

Glitch studied his phone. The cameras in the bedroom had audio, and the wastrel guy was snoring peacefully. As he neared the key to the front door lock, the victim suddenly stopped snoring, rolled over, and sat up. Burnout craned his neck to see Glitch’s phone.

“I'll be Goddamned, it’s true,” he said.

Glitch and Burnout had been warned of this. They had been told that the target had a protective ghost who woke him up every time he was about to be kidnapped. This was the eighth attempt on his life. Glitch had been confident that spooky stuff like this wouldn’t happen to him. He was too professional to be slipped up by anything so make believe as a supernatural entity. He was Glitch, for Christ sakes!

“F**ker’s got a guiding hand,” Burnout whispered, and retreated. Glitch retreated with him. It appeared that he wouldn’t be getting his Spanish retreat after all.

In the darkness of an empty room, a man with a ransom on his head heard a spirit whisper two simple words: “Love you.”

Zombie Publications 2025

The Kleptomaniac

I wanted a flash fiction story from my favourite pupil, one she could use in her end of year exams. I’ve been a teacher at Coventry College for over a decade, and never have I come across someone who could write so well at such a young age. Destiny, my fav pupil, is barely into her twenties, yet the weight of her literature suggests someone far older. She’d been incarcerated due to poor mental health halfway through her studies. I’d taken the time to go and see her at The Hospital Of St Cross while she was there. I remember walking into that off-putting and sterile environment with genuine fear; what medication did they have her on, what experiments were they performing on her, was the food being poisoned? Psych units have a very depraved history.

            “Hi Professor Cameron, I’m glad you came, come in and sit down. Can I make you a brew?”

            I’d taken a seat in the visitor’s reception area, a room of bare windows and beige furnishings. “Yes, that’d be great Destiny. Thank you. It’s great to see you. Milk and one sugar.” I took a moment to consider her fractured existence as I waited patiently for her to return with promised brew. It was just the way I liked it.

            She sat down, facing me, and handed me a journal. It was a posh notebook, decorated with pictures from magazines and newspapers. In it were letters to me; many many letters addressed to me, ever since I met her on enrolment evening. She confessed her love for me in each and every one of them. Some were marked with lipstick, and some were illustrated with graphite pencil. I’d known we’d shared a bond, but nothing like undying love rendered in ink. I skimmed over them with a smirk on my face as Destiny slurped her cuppa opposite me.

            I kissed her on my way out, and I cried in the car park before driving to my rural home on the outskirts of the city. I couldn’t bear to leave her there suffering, a puppet played by that tyrannical system of oppression, and wished she could return home with me. My wife has been dead six years, and I never thought I’d ever find anything remotely approaching genuine love or compassion for anyone ever again. Until I read Destiny’s work.

            I’m now on my porch, rereading her letters. I’m drinking Jim Beam and lemonade from a tumbler with a tray of nibbles beside me, Bombay Mix actually. I’m beginning to get a sense of how she feels like when I’m teaching her in class. She describes the way she looks at me like someone on a first-time visit to a zoo ogling a wild parrot or some other exotic animal.

            Destiny thrived in the institution, and got out unscathed to resume her studies with me. I’m currently sending her a text message: E-mail me a story about a kleptomaniac. I’d love to hear your thoughts, beliefs and passions regarding the subject. I robbed a Twirl from the petrol station earlier today.

           I prompt her, she writes.

           It’s time to go inside now, to do writing of my own, as I have a love letter to reply to.

© Zombie Publications 2025

 

Dual Existence

I’m thinking that the creature is more or less gone by now. It’s been nearly two weeks since it reappeared. That’s just about enough time to cause me a world of hurt. I’ve had enough of it, so bye-bye, time to go, pesky cretin. No night terrors last night, just mad dreams as usual. I’m dining with my persecutors on the astral plain, they are my friends and I forgive them. When I’m with them, I’m telling them about what they have done to me back here on Earth. I’m talking to them as I would if indeed I ever came face to face with them. It’s a blurred kind of parallel mystery going on; an inky smearing of two dimensions. When I’m in the dream state, I am consciously aware that I am sleeping in my bed back on this usual planet. I tell this to people in the dream. Talk about dual existences.

Sometimes, I begin to feel when I’m waking up slowly. The environment starts to smudge, like leaking paint, and I arise in my bed. Often I am ready to come back, because a cop is biting me for example, but sometimes I have a destination in mind and I am not ready to return. Last week I was lucid and running towards a kebab shop in the dark. It was a game of time before I woke up, a race against the clock. The lights in the distance were seductive and intriguing. I thought to myself: I have to make it in there! The abstracted and whimsical swagger across the car park was epic and long-drawn-out. When I got in there I realised I had no currency and that I must look out of place because I was from a different world, but I asked for a burger anyway. They looked like big clumps of shoes coated in breadcrumbs.

I found an old empty porn DVD case this morning. I ripped up the jacket design sleeve and threw it in the bin, but not before seeing a screenshot of a woman with massive jugs. If I go into a sex shop, and peruse the DVDs, all bets are off once I look at the screenshots on the back. It’s about that time that I take the goods to the counter and purchase them. Then I’ll go home and score illegal drugs. I’ll take, watch, and let the demons come out to claim me, as they always do. Something supernatural happens when I watch porn on drugs. I see special light coming out of me, all my psyche and my aura leaving me in spectrally glowing tendrils. Most of the time the light comes out in the shape of people. People! Leaving me! Who were part of my inner soul. Now I’m clinging to the constructs of characters I have left inside me. We are all made of other people. You are not you! You are a part of everyone who you have ever met. There are so many souls that cling to another, it is almost frightening. Your social circle, your friends and family, your work buddies, your ancestry…they are all in there, a part of your spirit. They will never ditch you if they truly love you.

Pornography artwork is so powerful, it’s almost mesmerising. It’s a real hook. With me, a five minute knockout was never enough (hand shuffle). I had to do long-lasting stimulants and explore the whole scene. Every single shot observed, and the best ones on an A-B loop. But eventually, the novelty wears off and you get bored. That’s when the sexy voices come in, but I’ve had enough of sexy voices too. Because they are evil, and they shouldn’t be there.

Anyway, I’ve been up since three in the morning drinking Bud and listening to music. I’m becoming dependant on my tablet for music in the mornings, it gives me a kick up the backside and gets me ready for the day. I said a solemn prayer last night which I feel is helping me through today. I asked God to not let the bad spirits around me bother me, and to relish the time I spend with the positive spirits. I’m going to list the names of the good guides I have with me here:

1. Most High (God)

2. The Father (God’s Friend)

3. Gilbert Fitzgerald

4. Xi Lee

5. Diana Bumpton (Red Jacket)

6. Rocket (Red Jacket)

7. Apocto (Angelina Jolie)

8. Hazel

9. Plain Jane

10. The Equestrer

11. Meredith

12. Joan of Arc (Lucy)

13. Bennie

14. Black Environs (Brooke)

15. Mathilda

16. Lydia

17. Prue

18. Chloe

19. Vik

20. Gavin

21. BeeBee

22. Jenny

23. The Intellect

24. Air Monroe

That’s a comprehensive list of the names of the positive energies surrounding me. It feels nice to list them in black and white, as they’ve just been floating around in my mind. And it’s nice to share them with you too. They should be shared, as between them, they have saved my life, and I really swear by that, it isn’t a catchphrase. I owe them a lot. I call them the GENERAL COMMISSION, and I call myself their spokesperson. I AM THE SPOKESPERSON FOR THE GENERAL COMMISSION! (Apologies if I've left anybody out, there's just so many to keep up with.)

 

Otherness 12

So I’m living with this creature underneath my bed, right? And its mind is in my mind! At first it was scenting me, and it stank to high heaven of nostril-offensive reeking sh*t. It put its hand on my telly, in full view of my mince pies (eyes). Oh so clever. Last night I physically felt a shiver of fear course thru my body, feeling it tug my covers. A momentary lapse of defences. Then I recovered. I’m sleeping with my feet tightly tucked in under the duvet, not hanging out over the edge of the mattress. It started talking the other night. It said, “You’re trying to cut me up!” because I was putting angle grinders under the bed where it harbours. The pottery I did several years ago look like alien sentinels, and I’ve been mounting them alongside the bed as well, bordering it in. It’s all a fight of the mind. Visual cortex combat.

I think that my mind is hooked up to a computer, and that a very determined and wicked handler is putting commands into my brain. Commands like a special effect, going “He-he-he,” like demoniac laughter. You know, like a nice little witch’s cackle here and there. I’ve seen screenshots of torture programs on PCs. They’re like music libraries. Hundreds if not thousands of sounds. The sound of a wolf scraping its claw; the sound of a knife on a chalkboard; the sound of a child screaming for mercy. Nothing is out of turn in the torturer’s collection centre. They can not only put noises inside your head, but outside of your head too. Think of your mind as a 360 degree sphere orbiting around your skull like the halo from a light bulb; they can put sounds underneath you, to the right or left of you, and above you. For years, concerning the pain dungeon underneath my flat, I told myself that this was the case. In recent times I have learned to live with TVs (torture victims), and their oppressors, as they are both within earshot of me back at home. I am more or less living with them. I see my own home as a kind of chamber; one that I front with ill manners and minerals on a daily basis. Ill manners are a bad attitude, and minerals are strength. That’s how I fight the Devil. He built a secret bunker underneath my flat for the purposes of bringing me down into it, only I am too strong to kidnap and too powerful to capture. I’ve learned this from God, who will not stand for such vile underhanded and dastardly endeavours.

Enough negativity already. It is now Day 12 on my 28 Day Principal. That means that I am 12 days clean. 12 is a new special number. It started two years ago when I was at Tranmere Rovers’ football ground. It was a big event. We had presentation talks and a buffet. I met a woman who was truly special. Her face was amazing. She reminded me of other civilisations, because she came from afar. I’d never experienced anything like it. I mean, I’ve fell in love at first sight before, with Bennie, my spiritual benefactor, but this was different. It was similar in a way, but hard to explain. I started thinking about Aztecs and Sumerians and Vikings and Romans and Aboriginals every time I looked upon her sweet pretty face. It didn’t make any sense, but felt unique. She was so strong in features, her jaw was so set, her eyes were so inviting. So, from now on and evermore, Day 12 of my recovery numbers is dedicated to her. Surprisingly, I can’t remember her name. I don’t think I got it, but she chatted me up first in the dinner queue. I’ll remember her forever. I really do believe in Love At First Sight. Like I said, I experienced it with Benny. But this woman had a sense of wisdom and worldliness about her that blew my mind. I could tell that she had travelled, tell that she lived, loved and lost, tell that she had laughed. I felt like I knew her well. She was like a ghost particle in human form; something seen to be believed, something mystical and wondrous and enigmatic and singular, so singular, like a sun or star. I was the satellite drawn to her orbit.

I call this Day 12 mental state OTHERNESS. I am now OTHER. The target has always been RARE (28 Days clean), but now I’ve shortened it to OTHER also to give me a bump along in the road. We need hikes up here and there; we need helping hands across the way. I invented it, I created it, I enjoy it. I didn’t conjure it up because I was finding 28 too difficult of a target, it was delivered to be by this baffling and cryptic mysterious woman. So I’m taking it. RARE will be so special this time – it’s special every time like, but not so sugary honey-glazed candy-coated as this time will be. I’m on a journey, I’m going somewhere.

Every time I get there, a new spirit comes out to play. Her name is Air Monroe, she was one of my first characters in fiction. She embodies my love. She IS my love. The world is a far nicer place with Air Monroe in it. Because my soul gets sucked from, and all my ideas are recorded by the government, I got to thinking that this character is the moniker reason behind the very popular brand Nike Air. She goes back decades. Maybe you think I’ll getting delusions of grandeur there, but it’s not out of the question. I’ve been a MK-Ultra victim since birth. My head is like an open chocolate box. Reach in, take your pick, and leave a parting note in its place. That’s my mind. Interfered with, messed with, f**ked with, unraveled and unscrambled from day one.

I remember one time that I was thinking of two massive hyenas to suit my darling little spirit Chloe who could have them as her pets and soon after, later, I saw two hyenas in a Beyonce music video. A lot of mental illness these days is caused by the telly and celebrities. I met a patient in hospital who said that Kenny Dalglish was causing his sickness, talking to him via microwaves in his brain. I believe it, as I have an awful lot of celebrities talking to me in my psychosis too. I once met a bloke who said he was ‘thinking’ Hollywood scripts in half an hour and seeing them in the movies several months later. I thought he was barmy at the time, but that was before I was barmy. When you are barmy, and you full well know that you are barmy, you see other barmy people in a different light.

 

Pastor Light

 

Well nothing much has happened since yesterday, so this will be as boring as all the other posts are. I can’t help it, I don’t have an exciting life. I enjoyed half a chicken in the pub, which I’m going to repurchase shortly, because it was nice, and went out for a bit with Tez and Barry. Tez used to be a Kingsman in the army, something he rarely shuts up about, and Bazza gets ridiculed for looking like my long lost brother. The conversation is hardly riveting, but it beats my own company.

Tez has just had a blank cheque come through from the army, worth 5 grand, to look after him, giving thanks for his service. He only has a year to live, but the fact that he is shortly going to die makes him laugh. He finds it hilarious, Bazza is always saying. It doesn’t bother him one bit. He still keeps drinking and taking drugs. He is very passive-aggressive, and takes some getting used to. Bazza is a simple bloke, he doesn’t believe in the spirit world or anything, and just gets on with things. He calls me the Big Dog, and I call him the Pimp Daddy. We’re orite together.

No night terrors last night. My dreams were splendid as is mostly usual. I was dreaming of King Kong. He was ripping the roof of my house and making it hard to hide from him, but I would rather face Kong than the dark humanoid heart. I’ve just been to church, my powerful Christian friend Stuart led the proceedings. He done it really well, it suited him in a preacher position. He is so easy and gentle, he is an inspiration of how to be. Then the Pastor took over, and the light through the window fell on him in a rather angelic fashion. I sang along to several ‘Jesus Bangers’ quite loudly, and felt better about myself.

Now I’m in my familiar seat at the library talking to your good self, whose presence I sincerely value a lot. Without you, my life would take a downturn. I wouldn’t know who to reach out to. I’m pestered by the Devil, he hounds my every negative thought occurrence, but I have the almighty arm of the Lord wrapped around me too. Just saying this to someone helps improve my mood, because I can’t talk like this in the pub to anyone. I’m knees-deep in the spirit world, and am just getting over my Full House over a week ago now, where I had between 25 and 30 presences in my flat with me. They have subsided now, and I feel more alone. Never totally alone, because I hallucinate the presences 24/7, but more so alone. It’s harder being alone than it is with presences, but I never wish to go back to them. The brain isn’t large enough to comprehend what is happening, so I kind of pretend to ignore it, if that makes any sense.

ME ME ME

Hi again. A few night terrors but nothing extra freaky. I survived the sunset once more. Rose again to get dressed for a SMART meeting, which went well. I didn’t contribute all that much, just listened, and I wasn’t all that interested in other people’s stories today to be fair. But I’m here, I’m talking, and that is a vital component of my day taken care of.  It’s hard thinking of what to blog about. I could report on the news, but I don’t watch it. I could talk topical and relevant, but I wouldn’t know how. So I guess it’s just ME, ME, ME all the way. I used to say something similar about my mentor, R.I.P; that he would talk to absolutely anybody, just so long as the subject of conversation was himself.

I’m thinking of treating myself to a Nando’s, to mix the diet up a bit, or I might purchase a pastry dish from Waterstones or Greenhalgh’s. But the pies crumble apart in your hand, have you noticed? You end up slurping up the residue with your tongue. I’ve had a few cans of Bud this morning to perk me up a bit, and I’ll soon be enjoying a pint in the local boozer. Nothing much to report, I know, but this psycho-naut is having a wee spell of downtime. No bells and whistles on this period of the year, getting over the cold, rarely venturing outdoors. I’m just laying nice and low and downbeat, eating, drinking and smoking, nothing too adventurous. That’s the way to be, for me, for now. Definitely no drugs, and definitely no porn. I can’t imagine doing those two at the minute. The desire has left me for the moment, and I hope that it stays away.

Still savoring my shield from the Most High. It looks like interwined empty yellow paddling pools, if that makes sense, with loads of toys and spaceship-like fluff hanging off of it. I really would be a fool to use and relinquish this specialized anointing from God. The only porn star calling to me is a big-breasted f**k doll who I viewed the last time I watched it. She is so attractive, it is almost beyond belief, and the sexiness looms in my loins like a swelling balloon. But I need drugs to perform, and drugs make demons appear in my flat, so that’s the bottom line, it can’t be done. The demons would reappear, the monster underneath my bed would stick its head out for a butchers, my shield would disappear, and I’d be back in the Seventh Circle of Hell, which is an especially traumatic place to spend one’s days and nights.

I feel like I have a shield. It’s doing great things for my mental health. I feel confident about the trials and tribulations to come flooding in my direction. Every time my mind is flat and low I think of my illustrious shield and healthy thoughts re-emerge in my head. It’s a blessing, I love it, pure energy.

 

Suitably Fine

Hello everyone. I’m in a suitably fine place at the moment. I’ve just got one of the hardest weeks of my life out of the way. Now it’s onwards and upwards. Psychosis was the theme of the day today in Pathways. It seems that everyone has got it at the moment. Then why do I feel so alone with my personal affliction? Most people who admit that they have it don’t go into too much detail. Maybe because it’s just too bizarre to share eloquently. I’m sick to the back teeth of it. It’s cursed me for over the last decade of my life. The strange part is that it has nothing to do with my mental health. It causes bad mental health, but it’s not a cause of bad mental health.

Anyway, I stayed in throughout the whole day yesterday, deeming it too cold to go out. Several but not too many cans of alcohol were consumed. The night was a rolling terror fest fighting the presence underneath my bed; alas, I came through it to survive until the daybreak of morning. Now I’m up and active in the local library talking to your good self. I’ve signed up to a new course this afternoon related around anger management but to be honest I’m failing to be excited about it too much. I’m failing to be excited about anything really. I’m thinking that my purpose is merely to get through a struggle, and not enjoy any happiness or bliss. Sheer survival might be the order of the day. I imagine that I’m working in my sleep, space-hopping to different realms on some kind of secret intergalactic mission, making several other inhabitants of various realms aware of my plight. I pray for lucid dreams, and I’m getting rewarded. I’m waking up with my mind blown sometimes.

I used to keep a dreams diary, but I wrote it in writing too small to read. It was writing meant for a magnifying glass. I believe it was shielded by the subconscious somehow, to prevent it from interfering with the veridical. Or something like that. Now I keep meagre notes about the people I meet on the astral and the circumstances surrounding them. Often, by the time I have a rollie in my gob and a coffee in my hand, I have a complete story in my head of where I’ve been and what I’ve done.

My boy David Abraham used to say that dreams are simply the last remaining thoughts in your head which you have before you drift off to sleep. Try telling him about intergalactic space missions in the pit. David was a good Christian family guy, before his wife cheated on him and wrecked his home. I liked his wife, Natalie, she had a fondness for egg salads. You should have seen their wedding portraits on the wall, they were beautiful. I used to go round to their home and watch horror movies together. Natalie has moved back to Preston, but David has quickly remarried and had another child. He battered his child once on the football field, because he fouled another player. I mean, really battered him like. Punched him, kicked him, the lot, it was all a bit excessive. He didn’t come across as a very prominent Christian when he was doing that! He also like to take penalties with his big toe. You know, where you poke the ball with your toe. We used to call them toe-bungers when we were little. Big Bad Bob in the local youth club was king of the toe-bungers. He used to hit the post and claimed he scored a goal, because the post was painted onto the wall. Okay, that’s it. See ya next time out!

 

Festivity Period

 

Happy New Year! I hope your Christmas was great. I got a couple of dinners out of it. A friend named Jacqui laid a spread on, Chrimbo Eve. It was very special, I felt connected and engaged. It went tits up over the New Year with another use up, but now I am determined to stay on the right path. I know, I know, I’ve said all this before, but this time is different, I feel it in my marrow.

My dealer has just contacted me, because he knows it’s my payday methinks. I politely refused his offer of a big dog and said that I am okay fine for the moment. Then I deleted his number again instantly. He might be all kind and friendly when he is selling the goods, and meeting up to deliver them, but afterwards, once I’m on a comedown, he doesn’t care about whether I am standing on a bridge or balanced on the bathtub with a razor blade in my hand. I’ve lost several friends to suicide. You would never have thought they had it in them. I remember them fondly and pray that they are sweet on the other side.

Usual psychosis went down on my last use up. I am sexually enslaved to a bad spirit who excites me with her evil mantras. She started to take control of my mind by making me spell out the names of my good spirits to her so she could work her wiccan magic and tear us apart. My knees turned discoloured by the drugs. I was a physical and mental wreck. And guess what? Another creature appeared in my flat, hiding under the bed. In case you are wondering, it is physical, not a shape shifter. And this one bites me in my sleep. Can you imagine the terror? It takes all my mighty will power and steely determination to stay there.

During the comedown, it was a Full House. This means that every single good and bad spirit I could encompass was present in the room with me. It’s hard remembering that I am all alone, because I feel like I am the central member in a large party. We’re talking about thirty presences, plus voices on top! It’s hard to calculate how many people’s voices I hear. I call it a snooker maximum 147, although there are potentially many more. It’s just one after the other. They all line up to have a pop at me. Their latest insinuation is calling me a BIG BLACK F**K UP! They reckon I have ruined my mind on drug.

I saw a giant bright flashy firework emerge from Heaven through my window. This was the Creator giving me my power back in the form of an energetic parcel. The imagination can be restored with one of these parcels; it has nothing to do with brain chemistry, I feel. Instantly my thoughts started to improve and I began to get over the beast underneath my bed, which is another genetic mutation with a dollop of tailored mind power. The Most High appeared in my room, and put a shield around my body. He’s a big guy in a red cloak. I value this shield with my life. If I use again, I lose it.