Ho Ho Ho

As previously stated, this was a piece of work for university... but I quite like it and thought it deserved a place here, I hope you find it to be entertaining.

Ho Ho Ho

Detective Martin Goodman was tired, it was just after 6pm on Christmas Eve and he was done for the day at 8. It was an annoyance to him therefore when his captain dropped something on his desk. "This diary was found on a cross country train just over an hour ago Goodman. I want you to read it thoroughly. Read it and think on it over Christmas Day because you’re back on Boxing Day and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. Is that clear?” Martin scowled but decided that reading a diary was not too taxing a last assignment before he had his day off. 

“Yes sir, I’ll read it a few times through.”

“Good lad” the captain replied.

“There’s been a death and a disappearance linked to this diary, so get cracking... Happy holidays.”


Martin sat in his cubicle and thumbed through the diary, it was in fairly good shape and he assumed any fingerprints or other vitals had been taken from it and he was in no danger of contaminating the evidence. He got himself a cup of coffee and resigned to his dull task, flipped to page one.

19^th December 2011

My my how much I have been writing! This is part three of my diary project, the start of a brand new book, and what a start it has been to the new volume! Something slightly odd happened today, I drove home from work in high Christmassy spirits and when I arrived, there was a plastic Father Christmas sitting in our garden! (Excuse all the exclamation marks dear diary, I have been told from time to time at work that I use too many but I am in high spirits! Why should I not!? I will use as many as I like! This is my private diary after all! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So there!) The squat little Father Christmas looked rather jolly and Nigel’s joke made me giggle. He got home from work only a few minutes after me and I asked him where he had got them from. He laughingly told me that he had never seen the thing before and he asked me where I had got it from! We both laughed and "agreed to disagree", I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough where he got it from. I had him take a picture of me next to it, maybe I’ll show it to some people at work to see if they recognise the exact model. The whole thing surprises me because it really isn’t his sense of humour. But oh well, it made me smile!

20^th December 2011

 Today was mind-numbingly boring so I won’t comment too much on it. I’m sure more interesting things used to happen at work, clearly since I got this diary the only interesting thing in my life is the stupid plastic statue in the garden. When I got home from work it wasn’t where it had been the day before, it had got a bit closer to the house... It’s been windy and stuff but surely if it had been blown along it would have been knocked down? Oh well... I can’t believe this is the end of my entry! Really though, nothing else of note has happened. Signing off for today then.

21^st December 2011

After work today, Nigel went out to load the bird feeder. The first thing I did when I woke up was look outside and the Father Christmas had not moved, which was most reassuring. Anyway when he went out there he asked where I had put the “damn silly thing” and to my surprise (and I have to admit diary, some relief) the thing was gone! Completely disappeared. I told him he was hysterical and decided against any kind of quarrel, “I can’t be bothered with this joke anymore” I thought to myself. I sat down in the kitchen with a cup of tea and watched Nigel loading up the feeder when the most amazing thing happened... the Father Christmas dropped clean out of the tree above him and hit him on the head! It didn’t really hurt him but it was enough to annoy him and came striding in and started shouting at me about “could have been seriously hurt” and “not funny in the slightest” etc. etc. This of course threw me right off because I know I didn’t climb that tree and stick the stupid thing in it, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have set himself up like that just for some over elaborate joke. He eventually calmed down and accepted that I hadn’t rigged it up either. We agreed that after work tomorrow we would chuck it in a tip somewhere. I am feeling happier about the whole thing now I have to say, whatever happened this afternoon it will all be over very soon.

22^nd December 2011

I am now scared, diary. Very very scared, it feels like my sanity is caving in on me and I don’t know who to talk to. I should explain. This morning started like any other Thursday except for my checking the Father Christmas in the garden. I have never screamed so loudly I don’t think and Nigel came running down in alarm. Together we approached the statue and Nigel picked it up. The smiling, jolly face was gone, the cheeks shrunken and the eyes no longer twinkling with merriment but burning with rage and hate. The statue was silently screaming in apparent agony, its face contorted like it was suffering some unbearably awful pain, I have already mentioned the eyes but by God you can’t imagine the awful ferocity of the look they gave us. “Get the car started, Darlene” Nigel told me. “We’ll go to work later” and I obediently ran into the house to hastily change and started the car up, Nigel threw the horrid thing in the boot and we drove it several roads away and chucked it into the first tip we saw. We went to work late (a first for us both) and I have rarely stopped shaking all day. I have a feeling of dread that I cannot shake off, I truly hope we have seen the last of the foul entity.

23^rd December 2011

If this does not end soon we will be moving away from our house. Our beautiful house that was once such a comfort to me when I spent my Christmases here as a little girl... the long hallways now look threatening and I’m starting to wonder if my sanity will stay intact for much longer. Threats are everywhere, most of all inside my head. This morning I looked out the back, there was nothing unusual but after I had eaten my breakfast and my heart rate had returned to normal (it had only been raised by anticipation, anticipation which had been encouraged by my awful nightmares and visions) I left for work. When I opened the front door I screamed and sobbed, there it was again. What’s more there was a bang and a smash, as I ran backwards into the kitchen there was another one, an identically hate filled little man dressed in a Father Christmas outfit. It was sitting outside the back door and the glass was smashed on the inside of the kitchen, I had of course only looked here moments ago and there was no such intruder. Nigel arose and again we loaded up the car and this time drove to a dedicated tip over two miles away. We threw the figures into the humongous industrial bin and drove out of there as quickly as possible. We are having the window mended tomorrow but I would rather we just left, I don’t know what powers are trying to spook us out of the house but they have been successful. Their attempts of terrorism and intimidation are working, I confided this to Nigel who scoffed and said he was going to ring the police. The officers came round but appeared derisive and seemed to think we were a couple of basket-cases. Maybe they were right, I certainly don’t feel like I used to and I’m sure that before this monstrous nightmare began I wasn’t a basket-case. Or maybe I was and now I am sane? Or maybe there is truly no such thing and we really are all just brains in labs? Whatever the case I do feel disconnected from the reality I used to embrace, understand and enjoy existing within.

24^th December 2011

It is just after four in the morning, I am fleeing forever. I don’t know where the next train is going to but it will be here at just after six and I’m getting on regardless. I woke up just over an hour ago to find a scene that shall forever haunt me. Nigel lay in the same position on his back that he does every night, I’m not sure what awoke me but when I did surface I screamed like never before. A large serrated blade was sticking straight out of his neck. As I threw open the door sobbing and shrieking I would estimate over 300 of the plastic statues came tumbling into my bedroom. I practically rode them down the stairs, there were hundreds more on the landing and downstairs. I grabbed my purse and some clothes and simply ran. The house is over-run, once I am suitably far away I am going to... well I’m not sure, I’m going to find somewhere to report the whole thing and try and come to terms with it. IF I make it that far, I genuinely don’t know what rules I am playing by anymore. If bits of plastic can consciously commit a murder then what’s to stop the very bricks I walk on turn into giant cabbages and eat me? I intend to keep this diary on me and keep it updated over the next day or two, it is the only thing that can distract from my grief and terror. It’s too cold to write anymore so I’m putting my pen and diary back into my pocket, Godspeed.

PS I have stuck in the picture from when the entity first arrived for reference.

Goodman finished it for a third time and sighed in annoyance; he had seen this kind of nonsense before. Some well off middle aged lady had finally snapped and murdered her husband and thought it a good idea to try and indicate some over the top ‘Fantastic’ macabre story to cover the whole thing. He wasn’t yet sure what kind of criminal she was but her recklessness in leaving such a document proved she was not a particularly savvy person when it came to covering her tracks and he was sure they would be picking her up within a few days. The picture was stuck in the back of the diary and he looked at it for a moment, the woman in the picture had demon red eyes as did the Father Christmas and they were both pointing straight into the camera. This un-nerved him slightly but after a moment he simply snorted and left the office, locking the diary and picture away in his desk.

The drive home was peaceful, most people were either in their local pub or spending time at home with their families, in a few hours it would be Christmas and he was looking forward to the good food, beer and the beautiful new watch he knew his wife had bought for him. He stepped out onto his drive, blowing on his chilly and hands and strolled up to the front door. His wife opened it for him as his keys rattled and they smiled at each other, they kissed for a moment and then he walked into the warmth of the hallway. “I like it!” She grinned. He frowned at her for a moment, 
“Like what?”

“I must have missed it when I woke up this morning”.

Dread poured through his stomach and he asked slowly
“Missed what?”

“The wreath you numpty!”


He frowned for a moment before laughing. “Ohhh, the wreath!” He had completely forgotten the wreath that he had picked up the previous day and put on their front door to surprise her. She chuckled “Yeah, what’s wrong with you?” she giggled. He sat down in the living room and relaxed. “Nothing.” She left for a moment and then he heard her voice from the kitchen calling – “Oh yeah, and the back garden looks nice too. Did you get that plastic Father Christmas at the same time?”

Over The Iron Desert (Part Three)

The end! Phew, I knew there was a reason I didn't do three parters often. I have just noticed that my entire previous blog entry is rendered untrue and pointless because the Blogspot timezone still pinpoints right now as January... But to me it's the 1st, so I shall be leaving it there :)

I hope you enjoy the final part anyway and as always, let me know if you spot any typos because I look and I look but a few alllllllways get through. Thanks a lot for reading! 

Over The Iron Desert (Part Three)

Anthony withheld his brother’s dying words from Jessica to give him plenty of time to ponder over them without her confusing the issue. They had made friends with Kevin, the man who lived next door. He expressed his sadness at Dennis’s death but acknowledged that Dennis had been out of his mind for a long time now. The allotments half a mile down the road had been cultivated again since all the destruction and Anthony and Jessica began working there in the daytime in exchange for vegetables and meat. He thought that if he wanted to he could ignore the book under the bed and just sort of persist in the doomed world without any hope of redeeming it and enjoying his simple but admittedly cosy life with Jessica. They had grown close and he often worried that whatever the next stage of his journey was that if it involved going on without her he would not want to do it. Still, the more he thought about it the more he realised that he was essentially exactly where he wanted, their only real problems were the spates of burglaries (which were now actually becoming less frequent due to the people living in the houses around theirs forming a sort of primitive ‘neighbourhood watch’) and what to do in times of boredom.

After a week or so he realised that it wouldn’t be long before he was asked questions about what was to come next, he was aware that Jessica would probably ask him sooner or later if there was a long term plan and to get around this he decided to try and follow his only clue and work one out, to that end he snuck out of their bedroom (his parent’s old room) in the middle of the night and crouching down under Dennis’s old bed he pulled out a very dusty looking tome.  It was falling apart and nearly completely empty, it looked like an old school exercise book, several pages in was a page filled with a scruffy handwritten letter in writing that was clearly Dennis’s.

“Ant, I don’t know what this is about but you went missing a few years ago now. Anyway a bunch of people in suits turned up and they’re looking for you. They seem to think that you’re instrumental in stopping all the madness that’s starting up and down the country, and in other countries too we’re informed. I don’t know what they mean really, if they expect you to pull off some James Bond shit, or something more political, or just that you’re a legendary dragon slayer. It’s not important, the only important thing is that they’re looking for you and I’m leaving this for you in case you ever come back, they have given me something that you’re supposed to burn to summon them. Burn the stuff in the back of the book in a public place and these agents will come and explain everything; these people turning up have offered us all hope that you’re still alive... I really hope that you are. Good luck man.

Dennis.”

Sadness for his brother’s death again overwhelmed Anthony, but he thought his brother’s sanity seemed intact in the letter he had written here and therefore decided to see if his instructions lead to anything. He flipped through to the back of the book and stuck to the very back page was a small baggie of purple powder, frowning at the oddity of it all he pocketed the bag and went back to sleep. The next morning he showed Jessica the note (he told her he had simply found it while moving stuff around in the living room) and decided to build the fire just as instructed. “Do you think there’s any point to this, Anthony?” She asked him sadly.

“Maybe not, but he doesn’t seem unstable in his writing style and I don’t think that it could do any harm... so I’m going through with it.” He told her firmly. She seemed slightly put out and Anthony wondered whether he had gauged her willingness to simply enjoy doing nothing together wrongly, if she too was worried that whatever course of action was just around the corner it might force them apart in some way. However he knew that he had started down this path now and he would never rest easy if he had not attempted to follow it through. They both went off to work in the allotments for the day, although Anthony was roped into helping tend the livestock for a few hours because somebody hadn’t turned up. It seemed funny to him that after all the advances of technology, people were once again doing little more than basic farming to sustain themselves. That night when they arrived home the pair of them collected all the unnecessary wooden fixtures that were too badly rotted or damaged to ever use again from inside the house and piled them high in the back garden. They had procured matches that day from a trader and while the feeble little sticks were too flimsy to give a proper strike they eventually ignited and so the pair of them stood back to watch the burning mass.

“I suppose I should get that purple stuff”

“I suppose so.”

Anthony retrieved the small bag and brought it outside; with great trepidation he threw the entire lot upon the inferno and stood breathless for a moment. The sooty black smoke changed to an emerald green colour and while nothing else actually happened, the couple watched in amazement as plumes of the malachite smoke rose far into the sky.

After a couple of hours (and many people coming over to ask why their bonfire was giving out green smoke and being satisfied with the explanation of “No idea! Isn’t it beautiful though!?”) the couple decided that no magical explanation was about to present itself, they sloped back into their house and into bed where neither of them spoke, Anthony wondered if Jessica’s disappointment was as penetrating and absolute as his was.

The belief that nothing was going to come of their bonfire experiment was another contributing factor to why Anthony was so shocked the following morning when he opened his front door to find two men in suits standing on his front step, their hands raised. “We were about to knock.” Said the first man. “But you just saved us the hassle.” Said the second, and they walked into the hallway where Anthony let them in, almost struck dumb. The two men looked almost identical in that sort of corporate soulless way. They were middle aged and their calm faces barely betrayed any emotion, although if there was any hint of their plight hidden in their eyes Anthony would have guessed that they were excited and about to undertake something they had been building up to for a very long time.

“The girl” one of the men started, “is she here?”

“Yes, she’s still asleep, she’ll be following me in an hour or so”.

“That works to our advantage.”

There was a long silence and the two men walked stiffly over to the sofa and sat down. “You’ve done an admirable job cleaning the house up.” One of them said. “Thanks.” Anthony replied, nonplussed. The silence stretched out for another few seconds at which point he decided to just go ahead and ask; neither of the men appeared to be about to explain what was going on.

“Who are you and what do you want? I’m assuming this has to do with the bonfire?”
“You assume correctly. But the first thing you need to know is this: We do not know anything. We are from years past and it is common knowledge that you are key to stopping the destruction of civilisation as we know it. The nature of the downfall was political and we are unsure if your force is to be a legitimate one, of ascension through politics or if you discover how to breed dragons and quickly win the war resultant of the unrest. We simply do not know, but our technology has advanced massively and we are now able to make contact with you, as you stand, on a different plain of reality, you have no idea how monumental this is.”

If Anthony had ever heard a speech before about such nonsense he would have laughed it off and put it down to some sort of practical joke or the ramblings of insanity, however the fact remains that he had accidentally traversed one point in time to another and although he had no idea how it would be achieved he was certain that he was ready to fulfil what was expected of him and to change the shell of a wasteland that the earth had become.  “How do we get started?” he asked with some trepidation. “Our zeppelin has everything we need to cross time zones, we will pick you up at 6AM tomorrow morning and take you back to what you knew.” Although nothing was making any sense to Anthony, he felt that he was moving on to greater things and was itching to get moving. “Can’t we leave now?” he implored.

“Certainly we could, we extended this time-frame to you as a courtesy.”
“What kind of courtesy?”
“We were assuming that you would like to say goodbye?”

“Goodbye..?”

Anthony’s words failed him as he understood what they meant. The men still did not give off any immediate signs of emotion but a definite tenseness wrought the air. “We knew this bit would be uncomfortable...” one of them began. “You absolutely cannot take the girl with you” the other stated and after a moment of silence they exchanged awkward glances.

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Ok.”

One of the men finally cracked and showed definite signs of blatant disbelief, but they did not say anything and after another moment his face slipped back into a passive arrangement. “So we will pick you up from the side of the cliff, by the benches, you know where we mean?” Anthony knew exactly where they meant, he used to loiter around the cliff-side benches when he was little, against his mother’s wishes when he was a small child and later in his adolescence he used to take books to read there. It was brief walk from the house and he had never quite gotten over the view of the sea stretching out before him.

“So just to clarify” he asked slowly

“I get on the zeppelin with whoever you send flying it, and using the technology onboard we go back to the world as it was when I disappeared, and I err... “save” it?”

“Yes” they both replied. “And all the technology is on this zeppelin? You keep it all hovering above the sea?”
“We do, it’s harder for any... undesirables to locate.”

“I see.”

The two men stood up and shook hands with Anthony. “We shall see you soon” they told him, “and remember, 6 am tomorrow you will be leaving, so say your goodbyes because there will be no going back once you have traversed the timeline.” Anthony nodded and the men left his house, leaving him all alone and without any idea of what to do next.

The scene later that day had not been pretty, Anthony’s explanation of what had happened to Jessica was a confused and jumbled mess and her beautiful eyes had welled up with tears as he crushed her fragile soul with the news he was leaving her. “You can’t” she cried endlessly and before he could master himself, he too was crying. “I have to go back to what matters” he had told her before wishing he had been a little more tactful with his choice of words. “Don’t I matter?” she had sobbed to him and it was only now as he slept on the sofa that his resolve in the matter had been shaken. He did not know what path to follow uncomfortably drifted off into an uneasy dose.

He jerked awake when his watch alarm went off around 5 in the morning. (It was only now at this moment that he appreciated the longevity and reliability of his wristwatch). He stood in the gloom for a few moments trying to work out if there was anything he should take with him; he had not thought to ask and had therefore only shoved a few warm clothes into his bag. He stepped outside into the grey front yard and looked again at his old house and wondered to himself how long it would be until he restored the family home he had once known. Without any control a few tears slipped out of his eyes and he found that once he had wrenched himself from his spot it was easy to keep moving. When he was close to the pickup spot he sat down on the cold mud and checked the time, could see the side of the cliff from where he was sitting, shivering, he had another fifteen or so minutes to wait. The fifteen minutes elongated itself in the tenseness of his wait and Anthony began to pay attention to the small details, noticing how the sun had not yet risen but if he exhaled in the general direction of where the sun was soon to rise he could see it slightly more clearly. He knew that it was he who had instructed Jessica to stay away and although he thought it would probably be worse for him if he had to say goodbye to her again he longed to touch her now, her absence was physically paining him and he felt ashamed for the way he had made her so miserable.

At several minutes to six a bulky entity from no identifiable location burgeoned into view, blocking out the sun and approaching the side of the cliff. Anthony stood himself up and walked towards it. It was a huge classic looking zeppelin painted an industrial looking grey colour. He stood and watched its progress trying to work out whether it was a magnificent feat of engineering or simply an ugly floating mass. Somebody he could not see threw down a rope-ladder onto the ground and after a moment of steadying his breath, Anthony began the slow ascent. When he reached the top he clambered on board and looked around, a small man was at the wheel who nodded at Anthony and said “Pleasure. Are you ready to go?” The man was another generic looking type of person, he could well have been one of the men from the previous morning in different attire, and Anthony had no real way of telling. Before there could be any response he heard a voice that shook his heart shouting from below, strained and broken. “Anthony!” He turned around slowly and looked down at the figure of Jessica, several feet below him standing on the gravel by the benches. He stood, torn. “Please don’t” she shouted and the man cut at the wheel cut across him and proclaimed:  

“We’re leaving now”

“You have the technology on board to return me home?”
“I do.”
“And if it was lost?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If it became damaged what would happen?”
“The links would be cut and the world would be left forev

Anthony pulled out the pistol from a pocket on his coat and shot the man holding the wheel through the face. The ship immediately gave a violent lurch and began to spin out of control, he quickly climbed over the edge and as he began to rapidly lose altitude jumped and landed heavily on the gravel, completely winded but safely grounded. Jessica hurried over to him and helped him up, they embraced briefly and she helped him limp to the side of the cliff. The airship had glanced several times off the face of the cliff and there was grey coloured wood at various intervals on the rocks. It had landed in the water and was already beginning to sink.

Anthony was aware that his decision had most likely been an immeasurably selfish one, but as they enfolded each other again he thought that really, what was done was done and in the ruin of the universe he had found himself inhabiting he was happier than he had ever been. “What happens now?” she asked him. He didn’t reply, she understood his meaning however and for fear of having to move again, think about what they had done or what was to come next they simply stood grasping each other as the sun beamed into view, dazzling them and for the first time since he had got there, Anthony heard the birds burst into song. 

Over The Iron Desert (Part Two)

Part three will definitely be the conclusion! Thank you for reading, leave comments or whatever. I hope you enjoy this one.

Over The Iron Desert (Part Two)

I am standing on the porch and cannot believe what I’m hearing; my life seems to be crumbling to dust. Sylvia touches my arm gently, her eyes are very round and very sad but the steely resolution lurking behind her pupils does not fade. “I’m sorry” she tells me.

“But I just don’t want to do this anymore... You’re a lovely guy and everybody knows it but I just don’t want to stay in this relationship, please don’t hate me... Can we still be friends?”

The grey clouds roll on behind her head and before the water begins flooding from their weighty bodies a tear forms in my eye and I feel it streaming down my cheek. I am humiliated and I hate myself. “Maybe” I tell her, in barely more than a choke. The rain begins and the pathetic fallacy does nothing to help my mood. She dawdles for a moment on my front door and tells me in an apologetic way: “I’ve really got to run! I’m sorry, I’ll call you!” and she puts up her hood and runs down the drive before getting into her car. I do not turn back into my house but stand there numbly for a moment, the tears are falling freely now and I vomit. It splashes onto the pavement and is quickly diluted by the rainwater. I bury my face in my hands and cry in a more unrestrained way than I ever have done in my life as I stand there wondering if the end of the world is coming.

Then I wake up, my front carved beautifully around Jessica’s. I marvel at how she has retained her womanly softness to the touch despite everything. There is still tear in my eye which I blink away, but I do not move, I allow our spoon to persist before I have to get up off this filthy mattress and return to real life.

Anthony stood up slowly and stretched. There was no real light outside, but then again there never was, he estimated it to be around 8 in the morning. It had been four days now since he had awoken to the universe he now inhabited, met Jessica and started off on their trek home. The progress had been much slower than he would have liked, but he supposed they were in no real hurry and he was now sure they were only a few hours away. He looked at her on the mattress on the floor and decided she would be ok if he left her for a few minutes, he pushed open the wooden door to the smallish abandoned shack they had decided to stop at. They had met a man the day before who had traded them a few sandwiches and some sugary orange drink that Anthony suspected was Fanta for helping him to plant some seeds in a long stretch of decent enough and seemingly uncontaminated earth he had found. After several hours work they had taken his supplies, thanked him and told him they may return at some point to lend further assistance. In an ominous move he had also given the pair of them a handgun and a clips-worth of bullets. He told them he had several guns and that he was just looking out for them. Neither of them really knowing how to use a gun they had accepted it with some trepidation, but thanked him nonetheless.

The food and drink had felt good last night and Anthony now nibbled on one as he made his way down to a relatively clean river they had located, a river that he used to paddle in when he had been a child. It was only a few hours walk from his old house, and a two minute walk for where the pair were staying that night. Dipping his feet into the cold water was refreshing and he stood for a moment, worrying about what was next. He had gotten used to the desolate landscape and the scarcity of basic supplies over the last few days but this tramping had all been in aid of getting home, what if there were no answers or relief to be found there? He shrugged off this thought and removed his trousers and jumper so that he stood there in simply boxer shorts and t-shirt. He crouched down by the bank and began to wash his face thoroughly. After a few moments he heard a twig snap behind him and as he turned around he was greeted with a punch to the mouth which sent him spinning into the water. He rolled over frantically and was seized by his neck and dragged upwards by a heavily built man wielding a vicious looking short sword, Anthony could feel his pulse banging against the large man’s fingers and managed to splutter

“What do you want?”

“Nothing fancy” he grunted.

“Just to rob you.”

The large man let him go and pointed the sword at him, turned on its side. He took a few steps back. “Your clothes” he demanded.

“All of them”.

It was an exceptionally strange feeling, standing submerged in a small body of water and being robbed of his clothes, but he was in no mood to try and test the man’s patience and so slowly and resignedly Anthony took off his T-shirt and removed his underwear too. He threw them on the river bank. “Now get lost” he scowled. The man’s sinister face contorted however and he chuckled.

“I don’t think so, you’re obviously sheltering somewhere near here and I want everything you have, so show me where you’re staying, right now”.

Dread filled his stomach, hot dread which seemed to weight a ton. Anthony stood there for a second before deciding to decide later on a more definite plan of action. He took several steps forward to the man with the raised sword and was within half a foot before a voice rang out.

“Let him go!”

The man span round and Anthony squinted, Jessica was standing behind a building a few feet away and now stepped out into plain view, and she was pointing the gun at the thief. “Let him go” she repeated. There was  silence for a few moments and Anthony acted quickly, while the man’s attention was still divided. He threw his fist hard into the side of his face, flooring him immediately. He fell with a splash but still held onto his sword and in the panic Jessica shrieked “Don’t move!" But it was too late, the man had already pulled himself up with a furious roar, he gritted his teeth and drew his hand back. Before he had managed to swing it however there a sound like a whip-crack rent the air and the man jerked forward and like a marionette with cut strings he collapsed. Anthony’s breath was coming sharp and fast and he looked over at Jessica who was standing stock still. He ran over to her and asked her urgently if she was ok, she replied with simply – “Yes”. Neither of them were particularly shaken up by the necessity to kill, Jessica didn’t need much consoling after Anthony had revealed that the dead man was about to ransack their belongings and do god-knows what with her should he have discovered her asleep in their small lodgings. They stood there for a few minutes before Jessica looked properly at Anthony’s naked form and grinned. “Does this remind you of anything?” she asked him, he smiled at her and shrugged. “I’ll put some clothes on" he told her, but she gripped his hand and stopped him. “What?” he asked, as she drew in. His heart dropped in his stomach as she kissed him and although he enjoyed it he pulled away after a moment.

“You – you’ve been through a lot, you were nearly raped a couple of days ago, I don’t want to take any kind of ad – advantage” he spluttered. She smiled. “I trust you. I want to know you as thoroughly as I can.” Her look of sincerity was enough to convince him and he took her top off. “I think though” he tittered nervously “that we should take this back to the mattress. It does seem slightly inappropriate to do anything here... You did just shoot and kill somebody about five yards away”. She laughed dryly as he threw his clothes over his shoulder, then picked her up and took her back to the small shack down the road.

30 minutes later the pair were cuddling on the mattress again. “It’s funny”. Jessica mumbled. “I feel so close to you and it feels like we have our own private world...” Anthony laughed softly. “You know what I mean?”

“Yeah... We kind of do and well... it sucks”

“Yeah”. After a couple of minutes, Anthony asked Jessica: “What happens after 2011?”

“What do you mean?” She said with a quizzical frown. “Well...” he began “What stuff happened? War stuff aside”. He was fascinated to hear her relay what she knew about people’s careers and various bits she could remember from the news, but it came back down to the same problem as before - she was very young and had not been interested enough and what she could remember was not necessarily reliable. They spent longer than they usually did when they awoke sitting around and talking, and Anthony suspected if this was due to his worry about what he would find when he was finally home and Jessica did not attempt to hurry him along, she was happy to talk to him about whatever he wanted to know. She had discussed her passion for technology at length, her failed attempts at holding a relationship down, the way her father had walked out in her teens and her brother several months later, how every cat she had ever owned seemed to move on within a few months. Although the consequences of this inability to hold onto one feline for more than a few months had obviously been less monumental than the premature departure of both her father and brother, Anthony could not help but wonder if she put them all together in her head now and worried that it was somehow her fault.

After they had packed everything up they walked the last few hours in near silence; Anthony found the walk down the roads he once knew so well depressing now that it all lay heavily damaged or destroyed. When they got to the row of houses that had been Anthony’s old home he pointed it out and they stood and stared without really knowing what to say. The gate was hanging off its hinges and there were many roof-tiles missing as well as window panes, regardless of this it was a relief to him to see that the house was at least standing and after a long incalculable moment he sighed and nodded. “Let’s get this over with” he spoke in an attempt at a bold, unperturbed adventurer’s voice. They walked down the weed-strewn path and pushed the door carefully. Everything was as he remembered it, except for the obvious change that it was mostly ruined. He had resigned himself to the fact that nobody would be in the house, after all why would they? They had barely encountered anybody at all on their trek so far and it seemed very unlikely that there was anything to stay here for. This however only made it more alarming for Anthony when a gruff voice barked from another room “Who’s there!? I’m armed!” and into the doorway popped a man with a long beard, pointing a rifle at the two of them. “Dennis!?” Anthony gasped, and the bearded man squinted at him. The two brothers stood a few feet apart before Dennis laughed in a sort of barking manner. “Imposter!” he shouted, and Anthony could feel Jessica fidgeting nervously behind him. “No it really is me!” he protested, but this just seemed to anger the man. “If it’s you then I hate you for going and never coming back! If you’re an imposter then I’m gonna blow your head off anyway!” he snarled and before he could react, he fired the rifle in their general direction. He had not been paying much attention to where he was aiming in his distraction and the bullet went far wide, but the pair of them dived under a nearby sofa which was exactly how he remembered it to be apart from its decrepit state. “Please!” he shouted out to Dennis

“Please don’t make me shoot you, I need some answers!”

“You had all the chance! You could’ve come back years ago, it’s just as well you’ve turned up now though because I’m going to eat you!” he raved insanely. Hoping he could frighten Dennis into a more subdued state he took the pistol from Jessica and stood bolt upright with it, pointing it straight at him. “People came looking for you y’know!” Dennis bellowed at him. “You were the most sought after man in the country because some rumour got around that you were the saviour, that you could rescue the entire world from the destruction you see before you”. Anthony decided this nonsensical statement was just another manifestation of madness however and spoke in a calm voice in an attempt to stifle his trembling.

“Just put that rifle down. I need to work out what to do next, how to survive indefinitely and see if there’s any way we can help”

“Pah! Help? Help?” Dennis was almost screaming now, tears were running freely down his face and every ‘p’ sent spit flying everywhere. “Where were you to help five years ago? You fucked off! You left for no reason! Mum was taken! Dad spent years looking for you and now he’s dead too!” His rantings were growing less coherent and his shrieking broken up with gasping for air. “I hate you, you could have helped but you were supposed to be dead, but now you’re back? To HELP?” and with that he raised the rifle again and instinctively, as though he were born to do it, Anthony raised the gun considerably quicker and fired it twice. The bullets whizzed through the air and cut straight into Dennis’s throat sending him slamming back into the wall and sliding down it. Following this was the loudest silence that Anthony had ever heard, he ran over to Dennis who’s eyes were rolling but mouth still moving. He crouched down and sobbed silently but drew very close and managed to hear the last feeble words his brother spoke. “The book... under... my b-b-ed.” And he went limp, the blood running down his front and collecting in a sickening, expanding puddle underneath him. Jessica timidly approached and asked him gently – “What did he say?” Anthony considered for a moment before replying in a voice of forced calm.

“I never heard.”

Over The Iron Desert (Part One)

Second (final?) part to come soon. Leave feedback if you like or let me know about any obvious mistakes in there. Thank you for reading!

Over The Iron Desert (Part One)

All of the lads had come out for Gary’s birthday and a lot of them had brought their girlfriends as well. Gary had just turned 27 and everybody knew his night out would be the event of the year, the group assembled in the pub at eight and intended to move on to a bar in town later on that night to drink ridiculous amounts and maybe do a couple of cheeky lines. Despite disliking being in the company of all those couples, Anthony decided to come along too. He had not caught up with Gary for several months now and he felt it was long overdue. He had packed a bag with a spare change of clothes in to take with him as he knew the long nights out did not always end where you’d expect them to end and he ought to be prepared in case he woke up somewhere completely alien to him. When the group got together in ‘The Hanged Bandit’ at just after eight there was 19 in total, they occupied a large section of the pub and they were being fairly raucous early on but after everybody had got through a few drinks the loud banter and shouting got much louder. Anthony was engaged in a conversation with the only other man there who had not brought his girlfriend along – Terry told him not to worry and that,

“You’ll find her eventually son, and when you do you’ll get very sick of her very quickly, don’t worry about that.”

Although it was an occasion and he was out with many of his old university friends and a couple from beyond that even, Anthony could not enjoy himself and it was most likely this reason that led to him getting bored at the relatively slow rate the others were drinking at and ordering himself three pints in a row. The first two of his drinks he downed swiftly at the bar much to the shock of the barman, and the third he sat back down with. Around 10 o’clock the boys were indicating they were ready to move on and Anthony did his best to agree through the haze that had descended around him. “Quick piss break though lads!”, Gary proclaimed. Another thing that Anthony tried to agree with. The majority of the group left their tables littered with pint glasses, tumblers and VK bottles and headed for the door while Gary and Anthony stumbled to the toilets. Anthony shouldered his backback as Gary clapped him on the shoulders and began saying things to him that he couldn’t quite make out. In order to try and clear his head he headed straight for a cubicle. He managed to put his bag on the floor and after a moment of trying to steady himself he slipped over and fell, hitting his head on the locked door and knocking himself out.

He blinked a few times and lay exactly where he was, his head was throbbing and he had an awful taste in his mouth. Wondering exactly how long he had been lying there he slowly got to his feet and noted that he felt dehydrated and his head hurt on account of where he had bashed it... But past that he didn’t feel particularly drunk or even hung-over. He stood up and brushed himself down thoroughly. He then moved his hand to the lock and noted with intense confusion that it had changed colour to a sort of brown. He touched it and it almost completely rotted away; the door swung open. When it did he nearly passed out again with shock; the roof had disappeared and some of the wall was missing, he realised he was standing in a shell of a room. The doorway led to nowhere and the entire pub was pretty much gone except for a few mouldering walls, here and there a table leg could be seen. He stepped out onto the pavement and looked around him, he saw more of the same all down the road, what he remembered as his town centre was now comprised of mouldering buildings and bricks, it appeared almost completely destroyed. A few signs he recognised were strewn across the floor under beams of wood, bricks and stone. He appeared to be looking at life through a grey filter of despair; a panic began to rise within him as he wondered what was going on and where everybody was for as far as his eye could see there was not a soul in sight.

He walked quickly back to the cubicle where he had come from and quickly found his rucksack, the presence of which soothed him considerably for some reason, it seemed like he had taken a part of home with him, and this at least was something. He knew that the taxi from his house to the pub was about 30 minutes (he had shared with a lot of people to reduce the high fare) and that walking would take an age, but then he considered that he had literally nothing else to do and if he could find the way then he may as well make the effort. He looked around at the ruins of the town centre; the old stone fountain lay in disarray with over half of it missing entirely and the rest crumbling to pieces. He managed to control the panic washing over him and set off at a trudge to walk home across the deadened landscape. The rubble was jagged under his shoes, the spit in his mouth tasted foul, (he knew he must soon find a drink) and the almost complete lack of a wind evoked misery to his core. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was and consequently became difficult to keep track of time or how long he had been walking but if he was forced to estimate, he would’ve said maybe two hours had gone by when he heard the screaming. A rotting door was knocked off its hinges and out of it flew a youngish girl (Anthony estimated her age to be 21 at the oldest) who was completely naked, head to toe. She was sobbing frantically and upon seeing Anthony she flung herself upon his startled figure and gripped him tightly. “Please” she gasped between sobs “they’re going to rape me.” He tried to gently prise her off him but despite her shaking her grip was firm and she would not let go. Anthony look behind her and in the doorway she had smashed off its rusted hinges stood two men of a medium height and a fairly unimpressive build. Their clothes were little more than filthy rags and their hair was long, tangled and dirty. Between the rasping sobs of the young girl there was no noise being made.

“Fuck off”. Anthony told them firmly, startled to hear his voice sound much more authoritative than he was used to and barely blighted at all by the fact he had not used his voice at all for god-knows how long. One of the scruffy thugs scowled and took a step forward but the other one touched his arm.

“Let’s leave it. I’m hungry anyway.”

The silence persisted and the one who stepped forward eventually scowled and simply spat on the floor. They both turned around and walked back into the building. The young girl let go of Anthony who she had been hugging tightly up to this point and met his eyes, he could see that she had bruises around her face and what wasn’t bruised was puffed up from the crying. “Thank you” she sniffed and they stood there awkwardly for a moment or two. “I have some spare clothes y’know” he offered, and she beamed at him. The change was remarkable and for a second, all her troubles were wiped away and even the bruises and swellings seemed less prominent and Anthony saw that she was beautiful. He took his bag off and handed her: boxer shorts (which she gratefully immediately pulled on), some jeans (he took his belt off and gave it to her to compensate for the size difference), a t-shirt, a hoodie, some socks and a pair of trainers. He tied the laces as hard as possible on her so as to minimise any slipping around in shoes a few sizes too large for her. He also discovered a bottle of water in the bottom that he had forgotten he had packed, he took a swig from it and so did she, thanking him sincerely. He smiled warmly at her. “You’re safe now.” He told her and she hugged him again, although this time in a more gentle and less ‘running for my life’ manner. They sat down against the side of the building and began to swap stories. “So I have to ask a few questions... Because I don’t even know how I got here.” He told her, and she replied

 “My name is Jessica <”Anthony!” He interjected, and they shook hands> and I haven’t really got any answers, I barely know what’s going on at all, after the explosions and all that I just ran for my life. I don’t know what’s happened to any my family or anything.”

 He stared at her for a moment before asking a question he had seen asked many a time before –

 “What year is it?”

 She raised her eyebrows at him. “2020.” She replied. The most shocking thing Anthony found about this information was not how ridiculously far into the future he had somehow been propelled... but how little. Her version of events was patchy and not helped by the fact that she was only 11 in 2011 (she turned out to be exactly 20 years old) but the main points were fairly by the books – war in 2015 had led to worldwide devastation and the eventual collapse of government and any kind of democracy. Her story was patchy and he was not sure how inclined he was to devote his total trust to somebody describing something she clearly wasn’t too knowledgeable about that had began when she was definitely too young to remember it properly. But as she was his only source of information and it seemed to corroborate the destruction around him, he accepted at least the main points of what she was telling him. She told him that there were reportedly still some pockets of civilisations and societies left and there were still merchants who sold things like clothes and food around, just that things were usually traded now, sometimes just in favours or manual work. This too seemed plausible enough and he accepted it without too much probing or questioning. Next came the harder part of the conversation:

 “What about you anyway? How do you not know this stuff? And asking about the year, you weirdo? I mean clearly you’re a time traveller, which explains it all.”

Her light-hearted mocking made him smile but he still sighed and felt the worry building up inside him; he really didn’t have a better story than that and didn’t really know how to reply. He decided to explain to the best of his knowledge exactly what had happened, that he had been out with friends and that that last thing he knew it had been 2011, the longer he talked the more foolish he felt; not that he had long to talk as not much had really happened beyond his waking up and walking around a bit. She questioned him about a few details and asked him what 2011 had been like, which he found an odd question and simply told her he remembered it being:

 “Hazy... and quite lonely.”

 The conversation dwindled out and Anthony asked her if she thought him crazy.

“Maybe. But I owe you a lot...”

And she snuggled close to him as the first hints of real cold swept over them. They sat there for a few more moments before Jessica asked him:

“What are you doing now then?”

“I don’t have anything to do really and about the only thing I can think of to do is to go home. Or where home used to be... I don’t know if I’ll find any answers there, I don’t know if anything will be clarified but it really is the only thing I can think of to do. It’s a personal thing probably... I want to see if any of my family is still there.”

 She didn’t reply to this and when Anthony stole a look at her she was looking morosely at the floor. “You’re welcome to come with me if you like” he told her quickly and she immediately looked up at him. “Really?” she asked, smiling again. “Really” he said. He explained his primitive navigation system of “just sort of guessing and following what looks familiar” to her and she giggled and said that sounded fine to her. They stood up and dusted themselves down and began slowly to walk. After a tentative moment he offered her his hand, his heart beating hard in his chest. She looked up at him and Anthony saw her face blush under the dirt and bruises. She grasped it tightly and he steered her onto what was once clearly the road and they walked down the middle of it in the direction Anthony was vaguely inclined to believe was homewards.

 The first real gust of wind he had yet felt was refreshing on his face, it rustled through her long hair and blew a few scattered leaves up into the air as they walked. They both looked into the sky and with a shock Anthony saw the moon, he had not even noticed its steady climb as he had been thoroughly engaged with talking to Jessica for what he now realised must have been several hours. Night had descended and the pair walked on into its heavy embrace and wondered where it would take them before their journey was complete, and what might lie in wait for them once it was. Anthony thought of speaking again several times but decided to leave it. The touch of her hand was comfort enough. 

The Red Cross 'Disappeared' Story.

So a while back there was this competition by the people at 'Red Cross' and to win you had to submit a story that

1: Fit onto an A4 side of page.
2: Was about the phrase 'The Disappeared'. Which sounds kind of annoying and pretentious I think... but still, I wrote the story and did not win. As they had over 750 entries I did not feel too rejected.

So that's how this story came to be, enjoy!

The Disappeared

Carys’s mother and step-father had not taken news of her pregnancy well, after all she was only 16. She had hoped for a little more support however and after a screaming match that shook the roof she packed up some essentials and left her council estate and set out for a friend’s house. It was of course not long before she was exhausted the hospitality of all of her friend’s parents so she decided to head to a warehouse she had once been to a rave at and knew was occupied by several friendly squatters. Her arrival did not stir up interest in most of the scruffy men and women living there, Carys thought they must be used to people coming and going often. She put down her rucksack and sleeping bag next to a collection of friendly looking teenagers a few years older than her and it only took her a few days to make friends and settle into the lifestyle. Her circle of friends were skip-divers, there was more than enough stolen or abandoned mattresses to sleep on and public restrooms were only a five minute walk away. This led to Carys beginning her new life in an almost comfortable manner, although it bothered her when people disappeared. People often disappeared from both their group and the entire congregation of squatters, they moved on constantly and a constant flow of new intake ensured that the total number was usually the same.

One late night, several months after she had first arrived there, Carys’s best friend, Adam vanished without any notice or mention of his plans and Carys was left lying on her mattress that night crying into her grimy old pillow and wondering what would happen when she gave birth, for she estimated that she must now be at least six months along. She sought out one of the few elderly members of the warehouse, a permanent resident. Her name was Vanessa and Carys greeted her sheepishly and asked why people were so easy come easy go in this strange existence. Vanessa looked long and hard at Carys and told her “You are not like us. All of us here, we have disappeared from society’s gaze. We are abandoned and carefree, but not in the childish way you think of at the mention of that word. We don’t care, Adam may have been your best friend of all the people here, but he didn’t really care. You were invisible to him, because in being here you admit to having disappeared off the map of mainstream society. You have not successfully done this because you pine for your friend, and for your mother.” Carys sobbed at the realisation of the truth in Vanessa’s words, and she realised that she had completely forgotten she had been 17 a few days before. She told Vanessa this, and Vanessa leaned in and spoke urgently to her. “You have a baby on the way whose slate is still clean; your family are most likely aching to see you again. The time is 5:30 now, in an hour the sun will be shining brightly. Return to where you came from my girl, before you disappear yourself, you owe it to your child.”

An hour later Carys stood outside the warehouse looking out onto the suburbs, she was cradling her bump and with her rucksack on her back she took a few steps back into the world she knew so well, and her baby would be properly raised in. As she took those first few steps, Carys reappeared. 

In And Out Of Control

Another short story I dreamed up recently, I hope you enjoy this one. I certainly enjoyed writing it knowing that once I finished it it would be over. I like writing three parters but I definitely wouldn't do it all the time! 

Thanks for reading, let me know if you spot a typo. More to follow very soon.

In And Out Of Control

David was giving Tim shit again. Most breaks and lunches would follow the same sort of pattern, Tim would come into the staff room to relax and moments later David would be there making fun of him, making snide comments about his slightly wiry appearance and a few times he had physically shoved him around. It was at these times that Tim was reminded that you really needed an audience to be able to bully a person, because David would certainly not put in half as much effort to humiliate or frustrate him if there was nobody there to nudge each other when it began and laugh raucously at the end of most of David’s sentences, or if Tim went the slightest bit red in the face. Today was much the same; David had decided to pick up on Tim’s new haircut. “Makes your head look even wonkier than it usually is. Makes that eye which is already blatantly bigger than the other look even more bigger” he chuckled and gestured at Tim’s face. “What d’you say Craig?” he unnecessarily shouted across the smallish staffroom. “Does Tim the twat’s face look wonkier now, or before he paid some mongoloid to hack at his greasy locks?” Craig just sniggered; he had never been one for witty wordplay or even many words at all. Everybody standing around laughed at Tim who picked up his cup of coffee and tried to walk out of the room to go and find somewhere to enjoy himself quietly, as he got to the doorway David stepped in front of him and simply stood there. Tim scowled at him, “get the fuck out of my way.” He demanded, but David just laughed. “Get out of my way now” he repeated “Or I will smash you in the face”, the room at large dissolved into laughter and David finally gave way to Tim, wiping tears of mirth out of his eyes. “That guy” he laughed as he casually high fived one of his friends who had moved to stand by the door in case Tim really had thrown a punch. Tim stormed down the corridor gritting his teeth and embarrassingly red in the face.

Tim arrived home to find his wife (the love of his life who he had only married last month) just finishing dinner, he strolled over to her and bent down in order to give her petite figure a proper cuddle. She was wearing a onesie that he had bought her for the previous Christmas and he couldn’t help but adore her even more in her ridiculous outfit, dressed as a bear. They kissed and he held her tight to him momentarily before taking her away, looking into her beautiful face and asking her “something’s happened..?” She shook slightly as she nodded and told him “Tim I don’t really know how to say this so I’ll just have to say it... I’m pregnant.” The young couple embraced happily and all the stress and the strain of his day washed away upon a tidal wave of joy. Tim changed into PJs and the pair ate together. Over dinner, Tim told his wife about his frustrating break-time, but how he thought he might be on to a promotion and how he had received a call-back from his dream job drawing artwork for computer games. They cuddled on the sofa for a few hours and watched TV until around 11 PM at which point they went to the bedroom with each other. They took off their clothes and stood pressed naked against each other. “I think... I think I might have been a little bit naughty” Tim’s wife muttered to him in a playful way. “You definitely have.” He spoke back, a firm note in his voice that was rarely heard there. He picked her up and placed her firmly over his lap, examining her bare bottom, he caressed it momentarily for a moment before smacking the round cheek hard. He did this several times on both before she started to make a noise, only a slight squeak escaped her lips though and he asked sternly “did I hear a noise?” “No” she pleaded, but it was too late. “Get up”, he ordered, “and go and fetch the paddle.” She walked slowly over to the cupboard and picked up a long wooden paddle. “Now bring it back here and get back in position” he told her, in that same firm tone that he had never really demonstrated for anybody else. She meekly walked back over and he pulled her back over his lap, before he spanked her again, very hard until she begged him to stop.

“How’s your bum?” Tim asked her between the sheets 25 minutes later. “Sore cheeks, and there’s definitely a red mark now.” she muttered back ruefully; but she was grinning and stuck her tongue out at him. “But I quite like it, feels naughty when I sit down tomorrow at work... I definitely need the sex afterwards though. Finishing that strongly kind of brings things back to reality. Did you enjoy yourself?” “Of course I did” he said gently, smiling back. “Was it ok for you?” “It always is” she muttered sleepily. The pair shuffled together and kissed briefly. “Night night beautiful” Tim murmured, and they rolled over in opposite directions and fell quickly asleep.

David arrived home to find his ex girlfriend he was living with on the house phone, leaving him to wonder what had happened; people didn’t often ring the house phone anymore as David and his ex tended to give their mobile numbers to people and only put their landline down on official forms. She thanked whoever was on the phone and put it down “We’ve got to go into Michael’s school tomorrow to speak to his teacher; he punched another boy again”. David strolled into the living room and yanked his son up from the floor, where he had been playing computer games, onto his feet. “Do you think we’ve got the hours in the fucking day to deal with your stupidity, you piece of shit?” he shouted in his son’s face, who immediately began to cry. “Get upstairs now, I don’t want to see you again tonight.” As he ran from the room, David’s ex girlfriend walked in and immediately began shouting too about how shouting is useless and now he was just upset and how could he not see him for the rest of the night when they were supposed to be eating dinner in five minutes? The row took up the next hour of the entire night, David finally left after eating some of his ex’s mediocre cooking. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going then?” she shouted at him as he walked to the door. “Well I’m not staying here tonight you nasty nosey bitch.” He shouted back, and he slammed the door hard behind him. He arrived at a new girlfriend’s house and knocked on the door. “Sorry I’m here babe” he apologised meekly. “Just had a row with the others and needed somewhere...” She sighed inwardly and told him to make himself at home as long as he didn’t traipse any mud on the carpet and didn’t touch any of the newly painted hallway. He took himself straight upstairs and made sure that when he removed his clothes he put them in a neat pile at the foot of the bed. When his new squeeze finally got in with him a short while later she sighed as she realised he was after sex, but decided she could probably go for some as long as it didn’t take too long. He kissed her for a few moments and then quickly climbed on top of her, his frustrations and sadness were not the best aphrodisiac and after only three minutes he lost control and realised all too late he was about to come. There was a long and silence before she sighed and told him “It’s fine. I was tired anyway.” The pair said goodnight and after a period of time lying in the dark, David dropped off.

David was giving Tim shit again. The break time was following the usual pattern but Tim just stood there rolling his eyes today, he was in far too good a mood to get wound up. “I’m talking to you, you scrawny prick” David snapped. Tim just shrugged in his general direction and said “I’m busy, I’m going now.” He walked over to the staff room door and found himself blocked again. “Wanna punch me in the face do ya?” David growled at him. “Go on, make my day you wimp! Tim opened his mouth and yawned in his face. Nearly everybody in the room laughed loudly at the comic effect and with that he walked around David and left the staff room.  The room fell silent as most of the staff looked on to see what David would do. “Hah, fuck that guy” he chuckled in an attempt at nonchalance. “Definitely a queer” he proclaimed. “Did you see his tie today? Looked like it belonged to a schoolteacher who thinks he’s funny and cool.” The room stayed silent. “He looked like a right paedo.” He sat down to further silence, looked around and almost shouted “I said he looked like a right paedo!” The room was suddenly full of people laughing uneasily. “Thank you.” He said, annoyed. He shook his head in a frustrated way and muttered “Fuckin’ loser”. 

Live Indefinitely - Part Three

So here is the end of the story. I have massively enjoyed writing the entire thing, I hope everybody who read it felt it was worth their while, will continue to visit my blog and tell anybody they think might also enjoy it to come for a look also. I am going to be away in the USA for a little while over August and September so I’ll be drafting stuff then to be written up and posted in late September or early October. Thanks for all continued support and as always – let me know if you spot any errors because despite triple checking myself, a couple always get through. 

Live Indefinitely (Part three)

Only a few weeks had passed since his encounter with Laila but Leon had already resigned himself to the fact that they would probably not meet again. After their night together she had told him in no uncertain things that although she quite liked him, she didn’t want a ‘thing’. Leon had hidden his disappointment rather well he thought and now although he was slightly morose over the matter he had recovered well; playing a few more shows to similarly positive reactions and slowly putting together a new song. The experience of song-writing over a period of weeks rather than hours was strange to him but he enjoyed the more controlled pace which granted him hindsight and time to see if the music wore thin quickly. He was having difficulty forgetting what Laila had last said to him however, just before she’d left his flat the morning after their night together she had told him his spark would be left unappreciated without a decent band behind him. “Your songs are great” she had told him earnestly, “but you need more to them, find some good musicians to add the depth and you’ll seriously be onto something”. He had contemplated her words at length lost to the will of his ever-changing mind which sometimes scorned her advice and sometimes thought she probably had a very good point. He considered the best ways to find good quality musicians, lamenting that he didn’t really know any and his small group of friends these days did not consist of anybody who could competently play an instrument.

It was convenient therefore that when Leon played his next show at a bar he had never played before that all the previous members of ‘The Champagne Supernovas’ apart from Jimmy turned up to watch him. He noticed Michael and Dan on his way into the venue and shook their hands warmly, “I’ve been thinking” he started “that I might need some help with the songs I’m writing soon... would either of you be interested in rewrites of the songs to feature a whole band and joining up?” he asked them. A wide smile broke out over Michaels face and before he could reply, Dan quickly put in “He was hoping you’d ask us that. He might be all for it but I want to see the style first.” Leon was therefore content that he already had one recruit to join him in the near future and was confident that with a good performance that night he would be able to convince Dan to sign up too. He spent the next hour or so catching up with them on the tribute band situation, which was apparently completely falling apart. “Jimmy bought his nephew in to play the drums right after you left, but he completely fucked up the songs and when the owner found out he was only 17 they chucked us all out barred us all. Since then not much has happened. We think it might be the end of the whole thing” Dan explained.  Leon chuckled and before he knew it was time he was being tapped by the events organiser to come backstage and get ready. He smiled at his old friends, downed his pint and strolled behind the stage to find his equipment.

If Leon had ever done a flawless show, he thought that one was it, the applause was loud and he knew just from the look on Dan’s face that he was finally sold on the idea of joining up and becoming a fully operational band. He nodded his head after his last song, thanked the crowd and came back onto the main floor. Before he could reach his friends however a man dressed in a casual outfit of t-shirt and jeans stopped him in his tracks. “Hello Leon! My name is Conner Vegas” he said confidently and loudly, I own a small record label and I’d love to sign you up for an album or an EP, or both! “Whatever you’re comfortable with?” Leon felt himself go slightly numb. “Are you serious?” he asked. “Absolutely serious, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow evening, come over around 8 and we’ll talk business, I’ve heard your recordings off your website and I heard you asking those guys to be in your band. If you come over tomorrow with them and an action plan I’ll sign you up for whatever you wanna put out.” He handed Leon his card and strolled serenely off in the other direction. Leon looked at the small card which featured nothing more than an address and the words: “Conner Vegas – producer”. He took a few deep breaths before heading over to his friends and explaining what had just happened. Michael and Dan showed just as much enthusiasm as him, “we’re signed!” Michael squeaked in an uncharacteristically high pitched voice. “Don’t forget though” Dan interrupted “We’re still down a drummer, if you’re gonna be on rhythm guitar and vocals, Leon. Have you thought about that?” It seemed odd to Leon that such a blatant flaw in his plan had not occurred to him. “Don’t worry, my friend is a great drummer” Michael said reassuringly and Leon smiled. “That’s that taken care of then... he’s definitely looking for a band?” Michael confirmed this and the three of them sat there, the weight they felt was palpable. “Do you think this is the start of something big?” asked Michael. “I hope so.” Leon replied. There was a long silence and then he stood up “Right...” he began but he was interrupted by Michael cutting straight across him with “Where are you going?”. “Well... it’s a Sunday, I’ve got work tomorrow” but the pair just looked back at him incredulously.

It took the two of them all of three minutes to convince Leon that he would never have to go back to work again and although Leon’s set had been over by ten he stumbled home at four in the morning, not even caring he had had to get a taxi and leave his car several miles away at the venue. Looking at his watch he realised it wasn’t long before he was supposed to be waking up to get dressed, it was here that he made a vital decision, his reasoning behind it being “if I don’t do it while I’m very drunk I won’t do it at all.” He successfully sat down at his desk, turned his computer on and navigated to his email, clicked on his boss’s name from his address book and through his squinting haze he typed the following letter out:

“Dear mister dickhead. (or terry patrickson IF THAT IS INDDEED YOUR REAL NAME) your job of seling biros was fcuccking awful and i have descided to quit becase your a nob and soon im gonna be famous 
anyway so dont wait up i wont be their in yhe mroning i will be making my album. goodbye.

ps i will rite a song about you and it will b bad about you

pps once i stole a whole box of biros from the office nad in ever even used them”

Leon sent the email and with that he slid off his computer chair and fell asleep on the floor, at the wheels.

He awoke in the early afternoon with a serious case of dry-mouth and a headache, although after drinking some water and eating a bit of cereal he felt much better, he had endured far worse hangovers before and so after a shower he left his flat feeling only slightly queasy. He did not have any overwhelmingly powerful feelings about the decisions he had made the night before, he worried what his parents might say once they heard about the email that he could just about remember writing but he also wondered how they would react to the news that his band had been signed. He also found himself wondering if he would get billed for the small box of biros he had admitted taking home with him. He got groggily into the back of a taxi and had himself taken to the gig venue where he got back into his own car and sat taking deep breaths. He double checked the address on the card he had and started his engine. 30 minutes later he had made his way across town and found himself standing at the address named in the card, he opened the small gate and as he walked through the path he took note of the overgrown garden and the badly kept front door with its chipped old paint and faint smell of rotting wood. He knocked on the door and after a moment the door was opened by Conner who was wearing a long white coat with a plastic stethoscope around his neck. There was a long silence between them which Leon finally broke by asking “Hey... we met the other night? You said you could help me release some music?” Conner frowned at him and said “I don’t remember that, come in and we can ask Jenny”. Bewildered, Leon followed him into the house which looked a bit more kept on the inside than the out but which was undoubtedly not the house of somebody who had any money to spare. He walked into the living room, and was met by a large woman with a good natured smile and casual appearance. “Hello there” she said, “I’m Jenny, Conner’s carer. We were just playing surgeons weren’t we?” she asked him with the tone of a mother addressing her 4 year old. “Yes and I am filing extremely important paper-work right now” Conner proclaimed proudly. “So what did you want again?” Leon stood there for a second allowing the reality of the situation spread over him. “You were going to help me record some music?” he almost pleaded. “Well that was yesterday, when I was being a bit shot music producer. Now I’m being a big shot surgeon who doesn’t play by the rules but gets the job done. Maybe I’ll be a producer again in a few days. Also maybe not.” And with that, he strolled out of the room and left Leon alone with Jenny. “I’m sorry about this confusion” she said to him smiling sadly. “He does sometimes make bizarre promises to strangers, I hope you didn’t get your hopes up too much. I only lost sight of him for five minutes last night, astounds me the things he manages to do when I’m not watching him carefully.” Her sad smile persisted for a moment and then she added “You were very good by the way”. Leon nodded and thanked her, before turning around and walking out of the room, out the hallway, down through the garden, opening the gate and getting back into his car.

He met the other two members along with their brand new drummer, Kane at Dan’s house as it was the biggest house any of them happened to own. As he stepped into their kitchen Michael excitedly informed him that they had arranged for a show at the 02 academy’s smallest stage in a week, there would be a few members of press there to talk about the upcoming release and well over 70 people had already indicated they were turning up. Leon sighed heavily and told the rest of the band about Conner’s situation and that there would be no professional recording taking place. Although they were all undoubtedly disappointed, their reactions were far better than Leon had dared hope for, the news did not seem to have put out the fire that engulfed them all. Kane was eager to get started and the other two both assured Leon that the gig was paid and they had nearly completed the new arrangement of the original six songs, their cover was intact and the new song had only a few parts to sort out before it was ready to be properly practised and played. “Just because we thought we would have a hard copy of our stuff and now we won’t, doesn’t mean that it’s a waste of time playing the show” Michael told Leon, “we’ve got a new song to play and all your old ones pretty much reinvented, so let’s just do it.” Disheartened as he was with the whole project, Leon couldn’t tell his fellow band members that the show was off, so he agreed and the group sat in contemplative silence for a while. Finally Leon spoke: “It has to be a reinvention... We need a name, we’re a full band now”. There was a general mutter of agreement and they decided that coming up with a new and original name out of an attempt at wit was a waste of time so after all four of them wrote down twenty random words each, put it in a hat and then picked out two, the name they were left with was “Straight Submarine”. They liked it.

After 7 solid days of practise and endeavour the day had arrived and Leon was wracked with nerves. His songs had been a great success in their stripped down ways but he was conscious of having his original point lost in the volume or muddy sound levels, the rehearsals sounded good to him but of course he was not the one who would be judging. The band arrived at the 02 academy in the city centre late in the afternoon and for the first time Leon felt like he was in the hands of competent venue staff, they were helpful throughout the soundcheck and generally seemed to have more of a clue than anybody he had ever worked with before. The first band were on at 6:30 and people began filtering slowly in at 6, as the members of Straight Submarine sat at a table by the bar and watched. Leon was sipping a drink when a casually dressed man sat down opposite him and greeted him warmly. He held out his hand and said “Christopher Hicken, Q magazine. Am I ok to do a quick interview with you here? I’ll post it on the website tomorrow with a little review of the gig, if that’s ok?” Leon was taken aback but Michael and the others did not seem particularly surprised at the appearance. Leon agreed and spent an interesting 15 minutes with Chris, telling his anecdote to explain where his record had disappeared to, how the band chose their name and on what was next if they were received well. “I suppose a lot hinges on your review really doesn’t it?” Leon asked him with a wry smile to which Chris cagily replied “We’ll have to see”. He wrapped up the interview, shook all of their hands and wished them good luck for their show. By the time the band before Straight Submarine had finished Leon recognised a lot of people in at the bar and standing near the barriers and had been approached by several of them over the night, all of whom registered their excitement at seeing him play with a full band and wishing him luck.

The band stood in the tiny dressing room behind the stage and nervously twiddled their thumbs. After several minutes the lights went down and the four trooped out onto the stage and finally got a look at exactly who had turned out to see them, Leon realised with shock that the number of people pushing to the front of the barrier was well over 100, he could barely see their individual faces. He also recognised Chris standing slightly back and watching intently as well as somebody from the NME he had been talking to earlier, he thanked everybody for coming out and his words were met with enthusiastic cheering, he turned to look at his other members, nodded at them and started the show.

Sweaty and gasping for a drink, Leon dismounted the stage after their encore to a rapturous reception and stayed in the venue for thirty minutes afterwards as people tried to buy him and the others drinks and asking them if they had any CDs to sell, he apologised for the lack of music and thanked everybody in sight. The band packed up and sat in Michael’s car outside the venue in silence while they all thought about what had happened. “That was good” Kane said, breaking the silence. They nodded and congratulated each other, at this point they remembered they had collected envelopes of money after the set and proceeded to count out how much they had made, the total being £80 each for such high attendance. Michael had driven them all them all to the venue and subsequently dropped them all off at their various flats and houses, Leon walked into his empty dark flat at half past midnight and sat down slowly on the sofa. He turned his mobile on and moments after it had booted he got a voicemail alert, which was always cause for interest to him as he rarely ever got voicemails at all. He curiously listened to his new message and his heart dropped as he heard his father’s voice, irate and short: “Leon. You have been nothing but a disappointment for nearly ten years now, we throw you a bone and you throw it away. Ring me the instant you get this message so we can discuss your immediate future.” He sat on his sofa feeling about 8 years old and felt his enthusiasm and pride drain away, he decided to ring his dad back despite the late hour to see if he could weather the storm a little, but his phone call was not met with any kind of eager relief, just more shouting about “the fucking time you useless twat”. The conversation was very one sided, his father told him several times he could never do anything right and occasionally he could hear his mother chip in and his father respond with “I’ll handle this, Linda”.  He finished his brief rant with “When you’ve decided to ditch your waste of time music obsession and rejoin us all in the real world then let us know ok? But until then neither of us want any contact with you at all, and stay away from your sister too, she doesn’t need to be dragged down by your childish behaviour. You’re never going to achieve anything like this, son. The sooner you realise that, the better off you’ll be.” And he hung up.

Leon stayed in bed until almost 3 the next afternoon wondering what to do, wondering if the road he had taken was ever going to pay off or if he should just ring round his friends now and tell them the band was over and go grovelling back to his parents to help him find a job. He sat up finally and made some toast, he sat down at his computer desk thinking he would see if he could be bothered to find the Q review that Chris had promised would be published by mid-day. He navigated to the website and his heart dropped out of his stomach when on the front page of the website, bang in the middle was a picture of him and the rest of the Straight Submarines. His mind jammed momentarily before he scrolled down to look at the review, which had awarded five stars and was topped with “Inner city rockers step it up a gear”. The article read:

“Early days to be heaping such lavish praise on a band perhaps, indeed this was their very first gig as a fully functioning unit, but their slick execution of a host of their own music and two perfectly adapted covers marks them as one to watch for the future. The venue was packed, the crowd were eager and Leon Adams easily took control of the situation, never losing confidence or looking like he was out of his depth. The other band members appeared to know exactly what they were doing and how to get the best out of their sound, their renditions of Arctic Monkey’s “The Bakery” and The Foo Fighter’s “Monkey Wrench” showing off their diversity and being perfectly placed. A thrilling show and it would be a safe bet to hedge that these boys are going to go far. My pre-show chat with the frank and friendly Mr. Adams can be read in full in this week’s Q magazine. To see a snippet from the performance last night, scroll to the bottom of the page."

Bewildered, Leon found the video and clicked it, taking him directly to the Youtube page for it, where it had received several thousand views and likes. The video itself had been filmed on a high quality camera from a little way behind the main thrust of audience but further forward than the bar. The quality was good and the song’s lyrics could be clearly made out. The top rated comment read: “Love this, does anybody know if they have any records to buy or download?” He sat there in dazed confusion and it was a few minutes before he decided to look to see who had uploaded the video and with a shock he read the name: 'L4lia2006'. He stood up slowly and decided to ring her immediately, he realised now how much he liked her and with that in mind he walked over to his sofa where his phone was still lying on silent and as he picked it up and pressed the green button to light his screen up he gasped out loud at the text on the screen which read: “You have 7 new voicemail messages”.

The End.