200 Word Stories

Instalment Sixty Five

2011-12-19T10:59:00.000+11:00

I am racist to racist races.
With their beady eyes and little spiteful faces.
Full of hatred for foreign places.
I am racist to racist races.

Racist races lack good graces.
They hold beliefs that are often baseless.
Please don’t come to their country with full suitcases.
I am racist to racist races.

A racist race think hate is ace.
Nothing you say will help erase,
the hate they spew with straight face.
I really hate a racist race.

I am racist to racist races.
They scour the family tree for any traces,
of embraces with coloured faces.
I am racist to racist races.

Racists races won’t swap places,
with other countries hardship cases.
Let them hang by their shoe laces.
I am racist to racist races.

Racists races hate misplaces,
all the people who are looking for spaces,
to build a home for warm embraces.
I am racist to racist races.

A racist race will deface,
any race they can debase,
their words and actions will disgrace,
the nation of the racist race.

I am racist to racist races.
With their beady eyes and little spiteful faces.
Full of hatred for foreign places.
I am racist to racist races.

Instalment Sixty Four

2011-12-19T10:02:00.002+11:00

The day you became an adult isn’t the day you think it was.

It isn’t the day you first fell in love or the day your heart first broke.

It isn’t the first time you had sex or the day you turned 18, and if those are the other way around for you, keep your legs crossed next time.

You are not an adult when you get your licence to drive.

You are not an adult because you had a child.

You are not an adult when you realise that one day you will die.

You are not an adult when you realise one day soon your parents will die.

You are not an adult when you realise you will continue to make the same mistakes.

The day you become an adult is the day that when invited to attend an average event with free alcohol and you think, “No, my time is worth more to me than what I would save drinking free, I would rather pay for my own drinks somewhere I WANT to be.”

Once that happens, you are all grown up, so go out and be immature with your friends. Talk about when you were young.

Instalment Sixty Three

2011-12-16T10:57:00.000+11:00

Out of all the jobs and all the workers. You, me, us, WE! We have the worst reputations and yet no representation! It is a crime. We work hard, fight for others, the rights of others, the dignity of others and what do they do? What does the media do? What do the politicians do? Fling mud at us, call us names, call us greedy.

Mark, what did they call you yesterday? Fat Cat. In black and white, in the paper for all to see, for your children to see! Why? For doing your job. For helping others.

You fight for the rights of workers but who fights for the rights of you?

No one, no one stands up for you, the hard working Union Representatives. You catch hell on all sides. It’s not a “long lunch” it is a never ending meeting.

This is why I am here today, I have a proposition for you - A Union for Union Representatives.

We work hard for hard workers. Contract negotiations every four, three, in some cases EVERY TWO YEARS! And do they thank us, do they balls!

So join me in joining the Commonwealth Organisation for Righteous Representatives of Unions for Perpetual Talk (CORRUPT).

Instalment Sixty Two

2011-12-16T09:00:00.001+11:00

Walking home I saw a handwritten sign cabled-tied to a phone pole, “Work from home: www.workhomefromhome.com.au.”

As I hate my office and the people in it, I looked up the website and called the number listed.

“Do you have neat hand writing?” the voice asked. I said I did.
“A home to work from?” Also yes.
“Great, job’s yours. We need 1000 Work from home signs everyday.”
“The job is writing the signs advertising the job?” I ask.
“You betcha! We’re expanding; need all the people we can get. Blank cards will be at yours in the morning, leave them out overnight, another 1000 will be there the next day.”

The next morning blanks were there.

I wrote them all and left them out the front.

Next morning, more blanks.

I wrote them all and camped out with them over night.

5AM a car pulled up. “These yours,” the driver yelled pointing at blanks on the passenger seat.

I opened the car door.

“What do you do with them?”

“Stick’em to poles,” he said.

“Why?”

“Answered a job ad – Own your own car? Clean licence?”

“This is futile,” I sigh.

“What do you think a job is mate,” he replies.

Instalment Sixty One

2011-12-02T15:15:00.000+11:00

The hippies, I am afraid to tell you, were right. People do ‘give off vibes.’
They aren’t vibes though, it’s energy, stray mental energy. They were right though about the good and bad, ‘I’m getting good vibes offa that guy,’ or ‘Bad vibes man.’

Maybe massive consumption and erratic combinations of hallucinogens gave them the ability to see these ‘vibes’ but if that is true then they would have seen us.

When someone is happy they radiate positive mental energy, beaming out from their very being. There are people in the world, you probably know one, that are always going out of their way to help someone, make a joke, cheer you up or just generally try to spread cheer. These people, and they don’t know this, are powered by the good mental energy. So subconsciously they run around being nice and happy only to benefit themselves.

Then there is us.

While the terminology isn’t correct, the easiest way to explain us is this – we are Misery Vampires. Pain parasites.

And we know what we are doing.

Causing people grief feeds us, bad energy nourishes our soul.

There’s most likely someone like me in your office, watching, waiting to feed.

Instalment Sixty

2011-11-16T08:46:00.000+11:00

“Did you know that in the 1880s, the fashion technology of the day meant the support for a ladies décolletage was not as rigid as it is today. So, as is the way for the French, the Eiffel Tower was designed to mimic the shape of the space that existed in the middle of a woman’s cleavage, mirroring the negative spaces carved out by the curve of each breast?” said Gasbag in an effort to show me up. I didn’t know that, but I never lose such exchanges, no one beats Bluster in a verbal bout of mental dexterity.

“That I had heard,” I reply, “Got the idea from the champagne glass I do believe, you can’t keep a Frenchman’s mind out of the gutter, they invented photography don’t you know, and latex and binoculars, saucy buggers they are. Now my dear fellow, did you know that US Marines used to be taught that if they didn’t understand an order, they were to shout out to their commanding officer, ‘Simplify!” One day some smarmy public relations type decided that this played into the stereotype that all the enlisted soldiers were mentally deficient, and so they changed it to Semper Fi.”

The author would like to note that you probably should not use these facts in you own conversations as he made most of them up.

Instalment Fifty Nine

2011-11-11T12:03:00.000+11:00

“This has gone on long enough. I think we should call it Quits,” he snaps as I pick up our son, hooking him on my hip. Sometimes it helps and he stops crying. Sometimes it doesn’t. The yelling doesn’t help. You’d think he’d be used to it by now.

We shouldn’t have had a baby. It was one of those, we’re growing apart maybe a child will keep us together decisions that you hear about couples making and shake your head. We got pregnant and the fighting didn’t stop. We fought when the little stick turned blue. We fought at the first ultra scan. We fought over finding out the sex. We were fighting in the delivery room as our child took its first breath. We fought because he had my eyes. We fought.

Now, with the baby about to turn one he comes out with this.

“Quits?” I say with scorn, but already I know it’s too late. I’m tired, why fight any more? I just can’t do it.

We have to stop fighting. We have to name the baby sometime.

“Quits Quarrel, sure,” I concede, “Sounds like a superhero.”

“I knew you’d try and ruin it,” he screams.

Instalment Fifty Eight

2011-11-10T13:03:00.000+11:00

The advice I’d been given if I got nervous was to picture the audience naked. No help at all. At first I felt like I was a hoedown caller at the world’s most ordered and polite orgy, all those naked bodies sitting in rows awaiting instructions. Then I started examining the crowd, there were some good looking ladies sitting naked in my imagination leading me to visibly awkward thoughts.

What advice do they give to public speakers at nudist conventions?

Then I remember my greatest fear of public speaking. Other people speaking. God it’s tedious! Not just corporate but wedding speeches, lord they make me squirm.

I’d much rather be up here, heart racing , stewing in my own sweat, than down there listening to me like those suckers. Either you’re fighting to stay awake, head nodding, unable to battle the sweet siren call of sleep or you’re driven insane by banal, pointless drivel, which if you’re especially unlucky is peppered with “safe” workplace jokes. And social speeches! Those jokes are no longer safe and just make you want to hide. Much better be the one up here speaking.

“Good morning, my name is Anxious and I’m a sex addict.”

Instalment Fifty Seven

2011-11-07T17:28:00.001+11:00

The first thing I ever got right on the first try was this sentence.

The only thing I ever got right on my first try was this sentence.

I put the pen down and shook my head.

This was no way to begin a suicide note.

I wrote one years ago that said, I'm not mad at anybody, this is just something I wanted to do for myself, but it turns out that was a quote from somebody or other and I didn’t want to lay my death at their door.

Wish you were here?

No, too angsty.

I need to get at the reason for ending it all, something that will “WOW” people.

Statistically life is all bad news. It’s not like there are millions of cars or viruses or cancers that strike you down with good fortune, but there are millions of cars or viruses or cancers that will kill or cripple you. No one ever gets bowled over by a money bus crossing the street.

The world is a fucking rotten place and I refuse to take part in it.

Signed,

Melancholy

I can not wait to see the looks on their faces when they read that.

Instalment Fifty Six

2011-10-27T16:09:00.001+11:00

Optimism is not always dumb.
Pessimism is not always deep.
Much like happiness is not cheap and sadness not always profound.
“I feel the loss of that famous person’s death, I feel them missing from my life.”
“Those riots on the other side of the world meant so much to me.”
“A tragedy like that touches us all.”

TOTAL BALLS!

My thoughts are not with you.
My prayers are not with you.
Claiming a personal stake in the suffering of the day does not make you a better person.
Telling people you care about something does not mean you care about it.
Acting like you are sad about something does not mean you are sad.
Tearing things down does not make others stupid and you smart.
These events are not poker chips to stack beside your name in a fruitless effort to feel important for a fleeting moment.
What you are trying to do is fake, a silhouette.
Live your life.
Care about real things.
Amass actions.
Help people.
Work at it.
You will only change the world when you change yourself first.
Oh and clean your room.

So I can’t go to the sit in then Dad? said Teen.

Instalment Fifty Five

2011-10-18T16:56:00.000+11:00

I can’t agree more, I hate kids.

But you work with kids?

Yeah.

Young kids!

You’re damn right.

And you hate them?

Can’t stand ‘em.

So why do you do it?

You are looking at this all wrong. A nurse doesn’t like sick people, a Phsychologist doesn’t love crazy people, an exterminator doesn’t love bugs, an Oncologist doesn’t LOVE cancer.

Are you saying children are like cancer?

You are missing my point. Those people, they cure a problem. They are problem solvers. Like me.

What problem do you solve?

Children, I solve the problem of children.

You solve the problem?

Have you seen them? All wiggly and giggly. Thick as a post, crying, whinging, they don’t know if they are coming or going and they don’t even care. I hate them so much I have devoted my life to curing those little bastards.

And just how do you do that?

You give me a kid and I will sap all the wonder and joy from them, the spark from their eyes and the spring from their step. You give me a child and I will give you back an adult. I am a destroyer of children. I am a Teacher.

Instalment Fifty Four

2011-09-30T14:23:00.003+10:00

I bring grave tidings Sir. Attacks continue on all sides. To the East, The Fountain Gate is all but overrun and will soon breach. News is worse out west. Adelaide Queen of Churches has turned, marching her army ten days and ten nights to attack, her numbers swelling each day with all the savages and Barbarions she passes joining her ranks. They say even God’s Angels are marching with her. The West Gate has fallen under their weight. It will be at most a day, before they are amongst us.

Raise the Royal Guard, have them escort Queen Melba to the Abbot’s Fort, there she will be safe. Be wary though, of those that dwell in the Colling Wood, loyal to none but their own, they will likely lash out as you pass. Surely this is the work of our cousins to the North, The Jealous City, for too long we have tolerated their spite. You say God’s Angels march with them? We will wake The St. Killer to our defence. Fear not but be prepared to die my brothers. We are all the sons of Melba. We are Melba born, for Melba we fight and for Melba we die.

Instalment Fifty Three

2011-09-27T12:49:00.001+10:00

The last weapon ever invented did not shoot or stab, it did not harm people at all. The Doubt Grenade didn’t need to, it was far too devastating. Lobbed in battle, the Doubt Grenade caused those exposed in the blast radius to question whatever action they were engaged in. “Why are we fighting?” they would ask, setting down their weapons. The genius of it was no one was sure it had even gone off, such was the cloud of doubt. They didn’t know they had been exposed. Sure, the experimental Truth Bomb could’ve been used but confusion is far better in an enemy that enlightenment, it was war after all.

Wars were finished, over without casualty.

But this was simply the beginning.

The Doubt Grenade made its way into urban warfare, a terrorist dropped one at customs enabling him to walk onto the plane carrying a second, which he dropped at the cockpit door. The pilots no longer believed they could land and circled till the fuel ran out. Guilty defendants dropped them in courtrooms, jealous ex-lovers rolled them down the aisle towards waiting happy couples, boardroom meetings halted.

I don’t know if we should do anything about it though?

Instalment Fifty Two

2011-09-19T13:07:00.000+10:00

I used to know a girl who had perfect memory. I don’t mean a good, perfect, never forgot a thing. Now I’m not often wrong, if something important happens I try to flick the record button in my head. She had no button, she was always on record. She said it was a curse. She would tell people that something happened one way and they remembered it another. This makes people angry. It’s confronting, suddenly you feel you aren’t experienced the world right.

She could play her memories, projected as film onto the canvas of their real-life locations. Replaying a good memory, she’d experience the happiness anew, so clear that remembering became its own fond memory. When I think about times we spent together, all I have left are hazy mental snap shots. We had a picnic in that park, I think, but what we wore, ate or said are gone. Looking at my blurred snaps I think they were happy ones but is that true or what I have decided looking back? She would know if we were happy or if we weren’t. Maybe we weren’t. Maybe that’s why I no longer know her. Maybe that is a curse.

Instalment Fifty One

2011-09-12T14:18:00.001+10:00

You know those cut along the dotted line lines? With tiny silhouette scissors working their way down the dots? He had those tattooed on his wrists. His girlfriend had stocking seams tattooed on the back of her legs from heel to buttock. An odd choice really. That’s something women did during the war when they couldn’t get nylons due to rationing, when stockings had seams, laying claim to a suffering she didn’t endure. But it looked fantastic. It had started when her mother had ‘P.T.O.’ tattooed on her back and ‘Please Do Not Resuscitate’ on her chest. She wasn’t trying to be cool, it was a legitimate medical concern of hers. But it set them off. He got a tombstone with his name on it, she upped that with a tombstone with her date of birth and date of death, provoking him to add the same date and a cause of death to his, the trump card being he wrote ‘Murder/ Suicide.’ By the time they had registration and calibration makes tattooed on their chests, the kind you get for lining up radiation treatment for lung cancer, it was all over. False and Faux no longer even fooled each other.

Instalment Fifty

2011-09-09T16:24:00.002+10:00

Choose your own 200 Word Story

You don’t know where you are. It is dark. Do you:
A) Run away
B) Cry for help.
C) Explore your surroundings.

A) You run. You don’t know where as it is too dark to see. You run with your hands out in front of you like a demented zombie. You trip and stumble, falling to your knees, skinning your outstretched palms. Do you:
D) Raise your bloody hands above your head and howl.
E) Get up and keep on running.

D) Raising your hands over your head you begin to wail. Noooo! You moan. Nothing happens. So you start to crawl. On your hands and knees you inch forward, grinding dirt into your open wounds. Just as you start to lament your situation, your left hand misses where the ground should be and keeps going. You regain your balance and grope at the ground. A hole is in your way. Working your way around the edge of the hole and finding what feels like a rough stone wall, you continue crawling on your way. Good thing I didn’t keep running, you think, I might have fallen down that hole and died, glad I tripped and fell. You are Lucky. Go to Y)

E) Standing up, you start to run again. Bleeding and blind. Your front foot steps through where the ground should be. A downhill slope? No. You fall down a hole. Falling and falling and falling. And falling. This must be a very deep hole. This is typical you think. Why am I always doing things like this? Running blindly was never going to be a good idea and yet I did it anyway. And when I fell over, that should have been a warning but nooooooo you had to get up and keep running without stopping to think. And now look at you, falling down an endless hole. Just like that time with the toaster, although there is no safety switch for falling. Maybe this hole ends up over a lake? Maybe. You are Stupid. Go to X)

B) The sound of your crying echoes back at you. HELP. HELP. Help. help. help. help. Do you:
E) Call out again.
F) Say put.

E) You cry out again. HELP. HELP. Help. help. help. help. Silence burns your ears. Help you? Floats out of the darkness at you. I died here, whoooooo! Do you:
G) Scream.
H) Chat with the voice.

G) AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH! You scream.
You shouldn’t do that, the darkness tells you.
This only makes you want to scream more. So you do. Louder.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
I am warning you, says the voice, your life depends on it.
A. A. Are you a g-g-g-ghost?
Yes, says the voice, whooooooooo!
You are Terrified. You scream again and again.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
A Ghost, I’m going to die.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
Your voice echoes around and around, bouncing back at you getting louder and louder.
Going to die.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
Going to die.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
You hear a loud crack from above.
Your fear will be the death of you, says the voice.
W.W.Why? you questions the darkness.
You’re in a very old cave full of stalactites and you have disturbed them, much like you disturbed me.
Crack
Go to X)

H) Hello, you say. Do you need help?
No one has never asked that before, the voice replies, I died here.
You are never really dead if people remember you and you live on in their hearts, you say.
I never thought about it like that before, floats from the darkness, I guess I must live on somewhere then. You are Kind.
How did you know that? Yes I am Kind, you say.
Step this way, the ghost says, some friends also need your help.
Sure but I will have to get going soon as people will miss me too, you say.
As you follow the voice in the dark for foot seems to miss the floor and you tip forward.
But you can never leave me.
Go to X)

F) You must be somewhere big judging from that echo. And cold, you suddenly notice the cold, chilling you down to your soul. You wrap your arms around yourself to help combat the cold but it doesn’t work. You start to shiver and your teeth chatter. Things are looking bad, you think, it is cold and dark and you am lost. Your shivers get bigger but not from the cold. What if I die, you think. Do you:
I) Flail desperately.
J) Wait for death.

I) You flail, waving your arms in a desperate manner. Your left hand brushes your pocket, hitting something.

My lighter! you say.

Clumsily you pull out your lighter. Whilst trying to open it, it slips from your hands, falling to the ground.

You are Feeble.

Dropping to your knees you find it.

Awkwardly you try to light it again and you succeed! But you somehow burn your hand, throwing the lighter as you do so.

It lands in a pile of dynamite.

Go to X)

J) It’s just too hard, you think, cold and lost. And a bit hungry.
I wish someone would help me, you whimper, Why does no one ever help me? I always have to do everything.

You sit down on the cold, hard stone ground, wrapped your arms tight around yourself and begin to rock back and forth.

Days pass.

Why me? you sigh.

Weeks pass.

This is typical, you think, why do these things always happen to me?

You are Pathetic.

Go to X)

c) Reaching into your pocket, you take out your trusty lighter, snap the lid open and spark the flint. As the flame flickers to life your surroundings become clear. You are in a cave. A very large cave with two paths leading out either side. Looking up you see stalactites, hundreds of them and they look like they are ready to crumble.

Glad I didn’t call for help, you think, I might’ve caused them to fall!
You see a box with a roll of paper on it. The box has TNT stencilled across the side and some sticks of dynamite have spilled out. You pick up the paper and unroll it. It is a map! It reads “Map of the Haunted and Holey Caves.”
The map shows the two paths you have in front of you. One says danger and shows pictures of a ghost and a large pit with spikes. The other path says Way Out. You walk towards the path marked Way Out. You are Smart.
Go to Y)

X) And now you are dead.

Y) You round a corner and see the light at the end of the tunnel. You are free.

Instalment Forty Nine

2011-09-07T10:02:00.000+10:00

I turned 21 in prison, doin’ life without parole.

Outta the gate was 17 lookin at the chair, too young to vote but Judge thought old enough to die. The Governor agreed wit him, pretty rough seeing how we aint never met. Some bleedin hearts took up my cause, said I wa slow and couldn’t be killed. I don’t know bout being slow but if being quick means talking like them fruits well I’d rather fry. Still they had their way so on the day I became a man I was starring at life, straight up, no pardons or nothing.

On ma birthday ma pop paid his only visit. Ma’d not spoken me since I’d got arrested. Pop’s not much for words but before I got to that visiting room he musta poured sugar in that guards ear cause sitting on the table was two beers. Not cold or nothing, given the drive pop just made but sweet Jeaysus it was the finest brew I have gone tasted.

“I never liked you,” he mumbled. “My daddy was in here the day I turned 21, I’m glad I gave you his name, you’re as much a Culprit as he ever was.”

Instalment Forty Eight

2011-08-30T15:06:00.001+10:00

Good times roll. I think they are spheres. A bubble of joy, rolling around. Joy rolling from your family to you. From you to your friends. Good times are on the move. Good times scatter fast, they are like marbles I guess. If you collect them up in your arms, squeeze them tight and try to hold on, the good times slip from your grasp and flee. They are fleeting.

I think problems are cubes. Cubes with sharp edges that give you paper cuts. Cubes with unbevelled corners waiting for shins to bash into them. Problems, like cubes, are more inclined to stay put. To stick around. Problems do not roll away. When you drop a problem it lands at your own feet. And if you do manage to move them, they don’t go far, just the distance of one square, the side of the cube. This could be why problems are so easy to shift onto other people. The problem still exists, it is simply now sitting in front of the person next to you. You did that to them so you feel guilty. A problem shared is not a problem halved. A problem shared is a burden doubled.

Instalment Forty Seven

2011-08-30T13:36:00.001+10:00

The Anxiety of Choice

Leaving the house always became a big to do. Choice hated making decisions and she became tense and angry when pressed to do so. It was never as simple as doing just one thing. Leaving the house meant a cascade of selections: Clothes? Shoes? Hat? Purse or handbag? Walk, ride or drive? And where to go! Forget about food shopping, far too hard, she’d have to wait until she was almost fainting then head out in a mad dash. Run, grab, too starved to think. As a result most her meals consisted of half a barbeque chook and a Toblerone, an abject lesson as to why you should never shop hungry.

It was too much for Choice, crippling in fact, but so was staying home. She became convinced that there were only so many correct decisions that could be made in each life. What if she ran out? If she ran out she’d be making wrong decisions, wrong hat, wrong movie, wrong man. Life develops one decision at a time and Choice opted out, there were too many options, she decided, while flicking the light switch off and on, unsure if she needed to see what was in the room.

Instalment Forty Six

2011-08-26T15:30:00.000+10:00

“Minimum chips? That’s no way to look at life, is your glass half empty man? Maximum chips for me! Always maximum.”

This is how Success talks. We were in Year 10 when he said that, at the chip shop with a girl I liked. He got the girl and I paid the maximum.

Nothing is small with Success, he lives grand sweeping proclamations. That’s how he got where he is today, or so he says.

“You live your dream or you sell it off piece by piece, day by day, shaving away until you barely remember it.”

His dream must have been to be rich I guess, while I’m selling mine off.

“If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? Who will? Back yourself, back yourself up to the wall and start swinging. That’s what I did.”

The thing with Success, he made it through a lot of luck, everyone like him got lucky at some stage but they damn well claim it was thanks to their own grit.

“Sure I was lucky, I saw that luck and grabbed it, made it my own and made it on my own, that’s what you need to do.”

Success, what a bastard!

Instalment Forty Five

2011-08-25T17:41:00.000+10:00

What’s that thing where you can only remember good things?
What?
You know that thing where you can only remember all the good stuff that has happened?
That’s not a thing.
Sure it is. Like that camp I on went on in Grade Six, we had a really great time, we got to ride horses and kayak and stuff.
It sounds like a good camp.
Yeah, but I am sure at the time I hated it but now I have no idea why and only seem to be able to remember the highlights.
So you’re saying you had a great time and it was a good camp.
Yes.
But you hated it.
Yes.
It’s not a thing.
Look, it’s like a relationship right! You go out with someone, good times bad times, sex, fights, sometimes lots of fights.
Right.
Then once you’re broken up, all you remember is the good times and the sex, not the fights or their family or the music they were into that you hated.
I guess.
Not only that, you then go out and do it again with someone else.
Without thought to all the pain you don’t remember!
Yes. What’s that called?
Being human.

Instalment Forty Four

2011-08-19T15:35:00.001+10:00

Black as Noir
Episode One - Lost for words

“My sister’s been missing a week,” he said, “You gotta find her.”
“Why me?”
“You’re first in the book.”
He’s right, ABCDetectives first cab off the rank when your fingers do the walking, cheesy name and all, but working the worst dive neighbourhood in a town that’s drowning I can’t afford to be subtle.
“I found a note, says she’s run off to find God in Alphabet City, only there aint no convents there, you gotta help me Mister.”
B.I.N.G.O. Sizing him up, he looks like my next rent check and bar tab in one, a days work that I can stretch halfway to next week.
“Fifty a day plus whateva cabbage it takes to get lips flapping.”
“My folks will wire the money once you find her.”
“I’ll need a picture and if she has one, a name.”
“Kit, well Kitty, Kitty Mortél.”
Funny, he didn’t sound French but still, his cash had the right accent.

Napping till dusk I headed to the one place in town where everyman knows he’ll find God when the lights go out, The Sisters of Easy Virtue, the drinks run dear but a girl’s affection will only cost you a couple of rounds.

Next week - A nun's litany

Instalment Forty Three

2011-07-26T16:26:00.000+10:00

Memories are born in the world.
Through action, attraction and interaction. With friends and loved ones, with strangers, those you hate and those who hate.

They live in the heart.
They are things you cherish and love. Things you fear. Memories that you desperately cling to and memories that you can’t shed or shake, that make you shiver, cringe and cry. They live in your heart so you may visit them on a whim or so they can visit you.

They die in your head.
You kill them. With laziness or neglect they wither and die. You can drown them in liquor or starve them of air.

Memories don’t simply disappear.
They don’t go quietly. They kick and they punch, they rant and rage. They bang about your skull. They scream.

Headaches are a memory dying.
The small memories die in an instant, a flash of pain behind your eyes, the death of a moment, a glance or a touch. Sunday morning headaches after drinking are the screams of memories that never got to live. All day headaches are the memories of people you have now forgotten. And migraines, pity the poor souls cursed with migraines, they are forgetting themselves.

Instalment Forty Two

2011-07-26T10:18:00.001+10:00

The Meaning of Life

There was a man, or so I had heard, who having learnt the meaning of life started crying and had never stopped. To this day he cried, his tears bringing rain into the world.

Finding him was my quest.

Across wide, wide rivers and tall, tall mountains I trekked to find him sobbing atop a peak in the clouds.

“I once stood as you do now and I was told ‘You may only ask three questions,” he wept.

“What is the meaning of life?”

“To remain, preserve, continue, to live,” he snivelled. “But you ask the wrong question.”

“What is the result of living?”

“Death. One last question, please,” he begged, “Don’t be hasty with it.”

“What did you ask?”

“What is the purpose of living.”

“What is the purpose of living?”

“No more questions. Anyway I was wrong. Like you I asked the wrong questions. I searched for a man who knew the meaning of life and through his tears he told me this: People will come, to ask, to demand, to threaten but the one thing they will never do is ask why you are crying. And that is the answer to your question.”

I started to cry.

Instalment Forty One

2011-07-21T10:31:00.001+10:00

When you hear single women complain, they all say the same thing don’t they? Don’t they? They say ‘All the good men are taken.’ All the good ones are taken they say. I’ll let you in on a little secret, there were never any ‘good men,’ it’s just some women were smart enough to start house training a man early. The man at the front knows what I’m saying. Amiright sir? And your wife is agreeing!

You know a man is in love when we wants to spend time with a woman after he’s had sex with her and a woman’s in love with that same man because she wanted to spend time with him before they had sex. These two here get it, she’s elbowing him saying ‘That’s you that is.’

So, ladies! Sexism. Life insurance commercials, have you seen these? You’ll know the glass ceiling’s been well and truly broken through when you see a life insurance commercial where a man is worrying about his wife dying and what he will do for money! Ha! Not in my lifetime.

Failed stand-up comedian Inapt’s opening remarks as MC for ‘Shady Acres Couples Retreat: Learning to love each other again.’

Instalment Forty

2011-07-18T15:20:00.003+10:00

The place where words are born found new life. Work orders were coming in by the day and being filled by the hour, such was the skilled turnover. New meanings for new words. The music department had sent music-memory and reconjoyment out for a song, the irrational fear boys had not shied away from handshaken, the lit branch stretched their collective imagination for exlimination and some of the young’uns in angst cobbled together populoss.

A busy, happy time, like the old days. Each new word was greeted by a huge cheer and much rejoicing. Backs slapped, new words tried out, played with and embraced, ready to be used making newer words.

Until one day when a job could not be finished, words could not be found. The Everyday Word Corps came up short.

The day after tomorrow. The day before yesterday. So simple, so useful, so hard. Pens scratched paper, fingers scratched foreheads, heads shook in dismay.

“What about Tomorrowmorrow and Yestesterday?”
“Sounds like testicle.”
“Yestermorrow and Tomorroday?”
“Yestermorrow would mean today. Next.”
“Postmorrow? Antiyester?”
“Yes, good, close, so close!”
All at once, each knotted brow unfurrowed
“Moremorrow and Lessyester!” they exclaimed.
And so they drunk till it was moremorrow.

Words new to the world.

Music-memory – The automatic recognition and anticipation of what the next song on an album will be that only occurs when you hear the final four bars of the current song. Like muscle-memory.

Reconjoyment – Only able to enjoy a song once you are familiar with it, especially important when attending concerts.

Handshaken – The fear that as you reach for a door handle on an inwards opening door, someone on the other side will suddenly, and quite violently open it, crushing your outstretched fingers.

Exlimination – When existing imagination/mental images are destroyed by real-life and you are unable to even remember what you originally pictured. Often occurring to fictional characters from books turned into films or when you see a press shot of a radio announcer that looks nothing like the picture you had in your head of how the head belonging to that voice should look.

Populoss – The disappointment and loss of ownership you feel when something you love becomes popular. Because now choosing what you love and identify with also results in the realisation of who you are identifying with, and sometimes it is easier to set free the thing you love than consciously throw your hat in with a group of people you actively dislike.

Moremorrow – the day after tomorrow.

Lessyester – the day before yesterday.

Instalment Thirty Nine

2011-07-14T17:18:00.002+10:00

This dinner was interminable, Jeff thought. A great couple, Mick and Sal, but why did they’d talk him into this stupid date idea. You don’t meet people like this, this isn’t social, you’re meant to be out, about, a walk, party, a bar, a park. That’s social, normal, walk right up and introduce yourself. Not this pussy-footed process, awkward enquiries and weeks of furtive phonecalls. Call it as you see it, say what you want. Why did they think he’d like this girl? Something here didn’t smell right. They’re all looking towards him, what’s wrong, he’d better listen.

“Jeff, I was just saying Missy here is a Cat Person,” Sal repeats.

The hair on Jeff’s neck stood straight up.

“You didn’t tell me that,” blurts Mick, “Jeff’s a Dog Person.”

Missy contorts as if an electrical current’s shot through her chair, twisting away from the table.

Jeff stands bolt upright. “Cat,” he barks, “You set me up with a Cat Person!”

Later, retelling the story of how they meet, Jeff’s years of chasing Missy before she stopped running and he caught her heart, they would always leave out the dinning table being thrown across the restaurant and Jeff’s subsequent arrest.

Instalment Thirty Eight

2011-07-07T09:41:00.000+10:00

BEEP. BEEP. BEEEEEEEEEP.
He presses his palms to his eyes, rubbing hard then dragging his hands down his face, stretching the skin and exposing the underside of his eyeballs. God he was tired, could he get through another day? Why was he in this situation? He didn’t remember making the deal in the first place, a terrible deal, it amounted to indentured servitude. Why would he ever make such a deal? Tiredness made it hard to think, clouding his mind. Maybe his parents had signed him up? He recalled them labouring away through his childhood, with just a bit more sleep he could think clearly. Digging his elbows into the bed behind him, he pushed himself upright and swiped at the alarm, silencing its infernal whining. Who would agree to sell five of every seven days of their life? It made no sense but here he was again getting out of bed to do just that. It would be easier for all if they could just remove these days of life he was squandering and implant them directly into the rich, extending their lives while shortening his, it amounted to the same thing. Work sighed and got out of bed.

Instalment Thirty Seven

2011-06-03T16:25:00.001+10:00

Have you ever thought about what attacks your hearts?

Not smoking, drinking nor eating fatty foods, not sitting on the couch. Not cholesterol clogging up your precious plumbing. Those are excuses, things you tell each other to keep calm and carry on, because living with the truth kills you.

I am what attacks your hearts.

The shocks of life, the scares, the near misses, the passing of loved ones, all make the heart grow weak over time. Forming fine, fine cracks like aged china or porcelain, fissures in the pump you call heart. I tiptoe around you every day, finding these weakness like water across rock, a war of attrition and corrosion.

Once a crack gives, I find my way in.

Memory does not live in the brain but in the heart and old hearts are full of forgotten ghosts. This is why I rarely attack the young. The ghosts of every heartbreak you have ever known. The ones you remember and the ones you don’t the big and the small, your first love and the moment you realised people lied. All stored in you.

Your ancestors knew me as Losian.

I am Loss and I am what kills you.

Instalment Thirty Six

2011-05-30T12:21:00.000+10:00

People didn’t know what they’d be losing when this placed closed, Nostalgia sighed. It wasn’t a video store, it was a video library. You didn’t come here to buy, you came to borrow, to learn. Movies belong on shelves, not only can you browse at your leisure, you are literally forced to browse, there’s no other way to find what you want, what you don’t want or what you don’t know you do want.

He had started the place way back when, split the store between VHS and Betamax, Beta faded but VHS survived, laserdiscs came and went and now the place was full of DVDs. But it wasn’t the form the movies took that he loved. Buying a movie for ten bucks at the gas station? Streaming them at home? You don’t know what movies you’re missing anymore! Until you’ve desperately stalked those isles on a Saturday night, turning to someone to exasperatedly hiss “Well have you seen this?!” you wont know the thrill of discovery, of finding a film you never knew you didn’t know about.

He would miss it.

They would miss it.

You never really know until you know, he mused, and then it’s too late.

Instalment Thirty Five

2011-05-24T16:52:00.002+10:00

“Always have to be right? Always have to be right?” Persnickety exclaimed, rising from her chair and smoothing out the wrinkles from her skirt as she did so. “I don’t always have to be right. You are making it sound as if me being right is a requirement. That I deliberately bend the facts, that I distort the truth to become right out of necessity. That being right is something I have to have, a need, an addiction, a truth tablet I must pop once a day. That is just not true. I don’t have to be right, I don’t happen to be right. Simply put – I am right. There were facts involved and I knew them. You did not know them and now you offhandedly imply that I am at fault, that I have a character flaw because I know what I say, when I say it. It isn’t even so much that I am always right, it is that I am never wrong. It is called being smart. Next time please just say, There goes Persnickety, she is constantly correct, she doesn’t have to be correct, she just is.”

And with that Persnickety triumphantly exited the job interview.

Instalment Thirty Four

2011-05-12T17:22:00.000+10:00

We called all her boyfriends 'Rings' because she wrapped each one of them around her little finger, just to prove she could. But this new guy she was seeing, he was cut from a different cloth, we could tell from her reports of their very first dinner.

“It was a date which will live in infamy,” she exploded at brunch the next day, “He made me split the bill and after that he didn’t even try to sleep with me!”

Of course she went back for more.

She tried the old ‘three-calls-from-him' to 'one-call-from-her' power grab but he paid it no mind.

Then, when in place of an engagement ring presented on bended knee, he pretended to punch her with a custom set of brass knuckles in her size, we all thought it was curtains for him. Not only did she accept his proposal, she proudly sported the unorthodox sign of betrothal everyday saying, “He calls me his li’l slugger.”

“But you wont really be taking his name will you?” we asked, “You always said you would be Ms Andry forever.”

“Forget boring Ms Andry,” she said, “From now on we will be as one, I will be Ms Ogyny.”

Instalment Thirty Three

2011-05-12T17:14:00.000+10:00

In 2011 the Variola Vera virus, better know as smallpox, responsible for the death of 300 million people in the 20th century alone, was declared eradicated by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

WHO had initiated a global smallpox eradication campaign in 1967. Routine smallpox vaccination in the United States concluded in 1972 and the final round of vaccinations across the world were undertaken in 1977.

There were still two known repositories of the virus were left, at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology (VECTOR) in Koltsovo, Russia.

It was never made public if they were the source of the mutated strain of smallpox that swept the world like wildfire, or if it was a terrorist act, either way the result was the same.

Global lethal pandemic that killed indiscriminately, except for those individuals inoculated in the 70s.

For a brief while a smallpox scar on the shoulder was a thing of pride, something that marked you as special, a survivor.

Then reality set in.

The year was 2026 and the youngest person on the planet was 49, though in years to come they became known only as The Parents.

Instalment Thirty Two

2011-05-05T20:04:00.003+10:00

Don’t look under the bed, the child shivered. Never look under the bed.
Why? I asked, it’s only a bed.
Under there, the child stammered, that’s were they live.
Who lives?
The Dust Bunnies!
I bent down to look, chuckling, dust bunnies!
Don’t move anything, he said, it disturbs them.
Funny kid, just doesn’t want to clean his room so invented this story.
But still, those scratches on his arms…
Under the bed was the mess I expected, shoes, boxes, clothes and comics, all covered in a film of dust.
Don’t disturb them, he whispered.
I puffed my cheeks and blew, sending a cloud of dust into the darkness.
There’s nothing under here but mess, I said.

Then it happened.

Movement.

From of the corner of my eye I caught it.

They’re here, squeeked the child

Darting back by the bedhead.

One, two, three, ten!

Multiplying, breeding like… rabbits?

They surged, not so much fur but matted hair and grime, clawing, biting.

I fell, covered in dust bunnies. Flailing, my hand grasped the vacuum I had present the boy earlier that day. I switched it on.

Vanquished.

That’s why we keep our room clean, I said daubing blood from my forehead.

Instalment Thirty One

2011-05-05T19:09:00.003+10:00

The two old men began their second lap of the park, as was their daily routine. While their first lap of the park always contained a few lively moments, it was that second lap around that they lived for. Gnarled and bent, they took time with each step, resting on their canes to comment on the surroundings.

“There’s that dirty wop again,” Epithet shouted to the hard of hearing Pejorative.

“That little so-and-so is still eyeing us off,” came the even louder reply.

The ever so slightly dark-haired, anglo-saxon gentleman reading the paper on a park bench looked up, as he had done an hour before, and said “Oh do fuck off!”

“That damn dago just mouthed off at us!” Epithet screamed pointing his cane.

“Stinkin’ eyetie!” howled Pejorative.

“Look, I understand you were raised in different times,” the set upon man began, “but this simply isn’t on, please refrain.”

“I most certainly am not from the Ukraine you greasy bastard, come over here and I’ll whip your hide,” Epithet spat.

By now a crowd had gathered at the spectacle, a feat the old men managed almost daily, providing them with future fodder once they had finished with the spiv.

Instalment Thirty

2011-04-28T12:33:00.000+10:00

I can’t listen to this song, he said leaving the bar. It was Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. My mother used to sing this to me, we can’t listen to it ever again, he sighed. I hate to admit this but straight away I calculated: do I like Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time more than this man. We had told each other “I love you,” said we would be together forever but, am I willing to give up listening to a song I have never given passing thought to? It’s a catchy tune. His mother had died, he was raised by an older brother, this grief wasn’t misplaced, but still it’s a good enough song. True Colours is the same thing right? I thought. Be happy with True Colours and this boy, you love him. Yes, True Colours and this guy will do. I felt somehow short changed, I wasn’t even thinking about what other grief landmines could be buried in our future, just this one song I kinda liked. We broke up a year later. “You always put yourself first Selfish” he said. I still don’t own either song but I turn them up when they’re on the radio.

Instalment Twenty Nine

2011-04-03T18:28:00.001+10:00

“The Ranks of the Unemployed are swelling sir,” he was told.
“It is as I feared,” replied the Prime Minister, “This could well spell the end of our Government.”

The unemployed numbered more everyday. Factories closing, spewing forth overalled workers rather than goods. Banks were bankrupt, their broke brokers recommending floor staff face the axe. Cleaners, sweepers and sandwich hands. More and more they came from all across the country and they flooded into London. They weren’t just looking for answers, they were looking for a leader. They found one. Underground.

“Did I not tell you,” Pauper boomed, “Did I not tell them all? The End is Nigh.”
“You did Sir.”
“We must gather our forces, our numbers have never been stronger. Now is our time. Bludger, Beggar, Street Arab take young Vagabond and Guttersnipe to count or numbers in the Almshouse and Shantytown. Raise the Ranks – Tonight we march!”

Assembled The Ranks of the Unemployed were a formidible is shabby sight.
“Recite Pauper’s Oath,” someone yelled
“I do solemnly swear that I have not any property, real or personal,” they all intoned. “I will fight. So help me God.”

“Onward to Whitehall,” Pauper comanded, “We fight The Class War.”

Instalment Twenty Eight

2011-03-04T11:03:00.003+11:00

Streaking through the water, the boat hit its rhythmic pause in progress as all eight men shift their weight forward, preparing for the next stroke. In that moment I realise there is no other sport like rowing.

I can see our place in the world. Sitting stroke, setting our pace, I can see past our coxswain screaming at us, I can see to the boats we were racing, the boats we were beating.

Muscles screaming, lungs full at the catch, lungs empty at the finish. Repeat.

There is no other battle like it, no battle that lets you stare back to see who you are beating. I can see you, I am beating you, I think as I dig my oar in again and again. This gives me strength. Runners don’t know where they are in the world, they cross the line with a look of fear in their eyes. Where are they? Their eyes scream. Did I win?

Not me. Not my boys. My men. We are winning and we all know it. We punish ourselves as we punish them, breaking the finish line a boat length ahead.

The cox looks at me with a smile, “Great race Victor.”

Instalment Twenty Seven

2011-01-28T17:11:00.001+11:00

Welcome to the first episode of our new game show we like to call Cinnamon or Synonym. It’s easy to play and great fun to watch. I’ll give our contest Mike, who you can see has been blindfolded, a drink and all he has to do is tell me if it’s CINNAMON or if it isn’t cinnamon he needs to come up with a synonym for what it is he is drinking. Simple right? Let’s get started. Mike!

Yeah?

Whatta you do for a living?

Well I’m a chef.

Well you will be right at home playing this game, am I right? Who could be better suited!

An English teacher?

Never mind that, let’s get started. What is this you are drinking?

(hands Mike a glass)

Umm.. cinnamon?

Damn right Mike, I said you’d be a natural. You are through round One. What about this?

(hands Mike a glass of salt water)

It tastes like summer and sand, like when I was a kid and my dad would pick me up to jump over the big waves.

Sorry Mike, that right there is a simile, the answer we were looking for was The Sea or H2O. Better luck next time.

Instalment Twenty Six

2010-06-30T22:59:00.002+10:00

The Fishmonger lived a happy, contented life with his wife. He worked hard, passing years saw the wooden handle of his trusty steel blade conform to the shape of his palm while gutting and scaling, the knife edge never dulled.

Returning home each night he was greeted by his wife and her smile. For she was known for that smile, some in the village said she beamed as if the crescent moon.

She died in labour, taking the child with her. The Fishmonger was inconsolable. Sitting alone, days turned to weeks turned to months, staring out into the grey swell, his right hand choking tight round the wooden handle.

“I would rather drown in this North Sea,” he shouted into the spray, “than continue to drown within this sorrow.”

And with his knife he carved an upturned half-circle, deep into his left arm. It bled profusely, healed badly and scarred magnificently.

Those in the village that knew her said it was a fitting tribute to his wife and her wonderful smile.

They came knocking, “I too am sad, carve in me a tombstone,” they pleaded.

So he did.

Engraving sorrows in their flesh with his knife, the anguished Fishmonger, Tattoo.

Instalment Twenty Five

2010-02-23T13:35:00.000+11:00

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Clarification.
In its current form this story contains 200 words. When translated it contains 200 characters (discounting spaces but including full-stops), so depending on your point of view I may have cheated, but I don’t believe so. Translation in the comments below.

Instalment Twenty Four

2010-02-23T13:20:00.000+11:00

We’ve been in every yard in three blocks of my house, every one of ‘em. Mapped ‘em out. Whose gotta pool, a trampoline, dog, apple tree, what fences are too hard to climb and what time people got home from work.

It was all on our map. We owned the neighbourhood, running free. It was ours to play in, to play with, as long as we stayed on our map we were safe. The map of our world. It was the best summer I ever had, except for one thing.

Our map had a hole, a big, blank, white hole. In the top right, were the compass should go. It was a house, a big one, with a bigger yard and an even bigger brick fence. It was dark and overgrown and we were all too afraid to go in there.

Until a Greek family moved in across the street, with their kid Atlas. A sad kid, seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders but he showed us the way. So we climbed that fence by the gate. One by one, using the brass nameplate “The Fallows,” as a foothold. We were in the last yard. . .

to be concluded.

Instalment Twenty Three

2009-07-09T12:24:00.000+10:00

We were half way between stations before anyone in the carriage noticed the guide dog’s tail was caught in the train doors. It was no one’s fault. The dog’s owner was clearly blind, and what were us passenger supposed to do? Those dogs are so well trained, it just sat there, it didn’t bark or whine. We are always told not to pat guide dogs when they’re working, so we were being well behaved and not patting the noble, golden lab. It just sat there, a look of detachment in its eyes. For all I know that’s what they look like when they’re on duty.

A cry went up, “The dog’s tail! The dog’s tail!”

People crowded.

People yelled.

“The doors wont open.”

“We’ll be at the station soon.”

“Its tail could get caught between the carriage and platform!”

A human cloud of panic, a fog blinding reason.

Trying to help with no clue what to do.

“Call the dog,” the blind woman calmly said.

“What?”

“Call her with food, she’ll wag her tail,” she said.

“What do we call her?”

“You call her Clarity,” answered the blind woman, providing the same service for the passengers the dog provided her.

Instalment Twenty Two

2009-07-09T12:21:00.000+10:00

Portrait of a person (woman) as . . .

The thing was she smelled like a second-hand bookshop. Or maybe of that smell clinging to second hand books. A musty smell, stale and lost. Poor ventilation perhaps, forcing odours to eddy and pool, seeping into porous pages. It might come from ageing glue, cracking and splitting the binding. The brittle yellowing paper... who knows. She was a primary school art teacher, with all that glue and paper the explanation might fit, but no.

She was used. Second hand was too kind a description. You can look at a book and tell if it has been read by just one person or by many. She had been used. Used by many and thrown back to the pile. Her once straight, shiny blond hair had lost its lustre, yellowing to straw. It was a mess of cowlicks, dog-eared this way and that. She had topped every man’s list for years, a best seller. They all wanted to get their hands on her, eating her up with their eyes, and she let them. Now weathered and wrinkled, she willed someone, someone to look past her faded youth, the smell and the aura of cheapness that clung to her chest like a necklace.

. . . a second-hand book.

Instalment Twenty One

2009-06-22T22:27:00.000+10:00

“Patience is a virtue.”

She couldn’t believe her eyes, so she risked another look.

“Patience is a virtue.”

It was true, right there in front of her, in loopy purple cursive on foolscap paper, the three i’s dotted with love hearts. The note must have been stuffed through the grills of her locker sometime between fourth period and lunch.

Finally she made it, she was one of them, the coolest girls in school – The Virtues. Ruled over by their queen bee Chastity, only six other girls were selected to wear the converted power pink sweater with an embroidered V on the chest. And Patience was now one of them. Her mother Prudence had been a Virtue way back when and had been on Patience’s back about it since freshman year.

Now she would be sitting with Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Compassion and Humility at the lunch table, with Chastity presiding over them.

And the boys! She had always carried a torch for Wrath, a hothead in the schools other gang, The Sins. Chastity’s boyfriend Lust was their leader. There were seven of them too, and they were they type of bad that high-school girls love. Even Virtues. Patience couldn’t wait.

Instalment Twenty

2009-06-16T23:33:00.000+10:00

A scientific exploration with the intention to identify the standard deviation.

Honoured guests, fellow scientists,

Today I present to you the findings in my examination of the constant allowances of science, the variations in research we all must endure.

The standard deviation.

There is nothing standard about them, apart from the fact they are always there, always popping up and ruining our lives. How many of you have had your day ruined by a deviant. It always seems like these deviations are individuals, unique in their divergence, but if you see enough of them, if you look close, you see the relationship.

A standard deviant. The standard deviant.

I stand before you today to announce that there is indeed a standard deviant. And I found her.

A verbal exhibitionist. A person that expresses private thoughts in public places. The most common deviation on the planet. A deviation so common it has become average and so normal you don’t notice it.

But behind you in line, on the phone in the supermarket or at the table over at the café, these deviants lurk. Ready to ruin your day with their lives, their unwanted information.

“My boyfriend does this. . . the kids like that. . . “

It stops today.

Thank you.

Instalment Nineteen

2009-04-16T18:18:00.000+10:00

I gasp, breathing mostly water. Coughing, unable to see through bleary eyes. I blacked out. I’m naked, it’s raining. Hot, steamy rain, almost tropical. I blink, clearing my vision. On tiles. Mouth over drain. Looking toward the precipitation I understand. I’m on a shower floor, curled tight. Foetal position. It must be Sunday. Another Sunday morning special.

“You alright in there?” comes a voice from past the door. Female, this must be her place. A face comes to me in a flash, sitting at the bar. She said something about being bi, I thought I was good for a threesome. I wasn’t listening, I was distracted by her mouth. The way it hung open, even when she wasn’t talking. It wasn’t attractive. Like a lazy eye, not fully doing its job, but not completely slack jawed, teeth still together. Lazy Lip! That’s what I called her. Oh Lord! I remember now, she said she was bi-polar. Guilt hits my stomach like a punch. I towel off, the door is ajar to the bedroom.

“Are you ready to go again Remorse?” she whispers, her lip returning to its default droop. Why not? I couldn’t hate myself anymore right now anyway.

Instalment Eighteen

2009-02-11T22:07:00.000+11:00

There was a little girl who lived in a big house, with loving parents, attentive servants and all the toys she could desire. Her bedroom was painted sky blue with puffy white clouds on the ceiling and walls. Some people thought she may be the luckiest little girl in all the world. She even had a dog.

Luck was, as a matter of fact, the only thing she never caught. Every morning she woke up under the weather. Not the picture postcard weather of her walls but poor health and illness.

“Nanny,” she would yell.

“Yes ma lady?” Nanny would reply.

“I don’t feel well,” she would answer.

And she didn’t. She wasn’t faking, she was sick. Always. Everyday. Poorly. Off-colour. Infected or ailed.

“Ma lady has a cold today master,” Nanny would tell the Man of the House.

“Ma lady is suffering tuberculosis,” Nanny informed the household.

So it went.

It got to be that the staff made light of it. What else could they do in the face of such a bleak milieu. On the rare occasions they were unwell, they would send word. “I won’t be in, I’m laid up in bed with a malady today.”

Instalment Seventeen

2009-02-05T03:51:00.000+11:00

Floating out in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii, is an island. An island of trash, caused by the convergence of currents and wind. And humans. Constantly growing as evermore of our litter is added to its shores. It is known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, though once, some time ago, two hermits called it home.

They had not always been hermits. At one time they had been friends. But living in a garbage pile can test even the closest of friendships. Brawling for the few organic scraps amongst plastic detritus. It was easier to go their separate ways than fight each other. It was easy to give up on humans when roving across the floating wreckage of life. They had been sailors once, these two hermits. On a stormy night, one fell into the grey and angry boiling sea. Drawing straws, the captain sent the loser after the lost man. So together they floated, adrift in the currents, until, much like our rubbish, they came to the island. The missing men and the discarded, unwanted debris of modern life. Till the end of their days they roamed the refuse, the two hermits, Flotsam and Jetsam.

Instalment Sixteen

2009-01-05T07:56:00.000+11:00

Schrödinger's cat, Pavlov's dog and Occam's razor become acquainted.

A cat sat in what could only be described as a white void. There was also a dog and a straight razor. The design of the razor was spartan, neither the blade nor the handle were decorated.

“Why,” the cat pondered, “do we not have names, why don’t I have a name?”

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” drooled the dog, “you guys got any food?”

In a sharp, metallic, snickity-snack, voice the razor answered “There’s probably a very simple explanation, there always is.”

“I mean I’m a sadist’s cat, this goof’s a cruel Russian’s dog and you’re some monk’s personal grooming device,” the cat opined, “We inspired greatness but no one knows our names.”

“Hey! Hey!” dribbled the dog, “Hey!”

“Perhaps we can be one thing and also something else at the same time,” glinted the razor.

“We need to scrape away unnecessary assumptions to get to the simplest explanation, categorised and put into boxes of the mind,” purred the cat.

“Are we both simultaneously real and not real?” asked the razor.
“Hey! Hey!” salivated the dog, “No! You are merely an idea personified, but I have always been a real, hungry dog.”

With that the cat and razor faded to white.

Instalment Fifteen

2008-12-02T05:19:00.000+11:00

There were three atoms in a molecule. As you would imagine they were close; good friends, they were best of friends. Two of the atoms were the same and one was different, let’s say there were two boy atoms(carbon) and one girl atom(oxygen). Their friendship was the bond that held them together and together they were electric. Though such an electric bond can be a burden. A bond like that sets the distance you must remain apart, which can be too far away from the one you love or far too close to one you don’t.

Their relationship bubbled with life; they were the sparkle in champagne, the fizz in soda, they were carbon dioxide.

The two boys loved that girl, which is a story that never ends well. She could only chose one love and chose she did. So there they all were, separately entwined in love, forever combined by friendship and with one heart laid bare. And carbon dioxide is toxic to the heart, so one carbon atom breathed a last breath and expired.

The atmosphere within the once joyous atom became heavy with guilt and venomous with recriminations. The lively atom had transformed to poison. Carbon monoxide.

Instalment Fourteen

2008-11-28T23:29:00.000+11:00

She had left home three times. Three times she left the country seeking her fortune. Three times. Clearly the first two times were not a success. She had ended up back home, broke. But this time was meant to be different. The third time is meant to be the lucky one. This time she was meant to find her fortune, not necessarily riches but a purpose. One last try. Maybe there was no fortune out there for her, how could you not have a fortune? Perhaps she did have one but it wasn’t a good one, an ill fortune. They say the future isn’t written in stone but hers still seemed to be written down somewhere. Failure. Perhaps it was written in faint pencil or dry erase ink on a white board, not in anyway permanent but still mapped out by someone. That’s how it felt anyway. It might be her kismet to fail. She could be the measurement by which other people judge their success, how depressing is that? “At least I’m not her!” they must think.

“Next,” bellowed the customs officer, “Passport Miss . . .?”

“Hope,” she sighed, handing him her passport.

“Welcome back home!” he replied.

Instalment Thirteen

2008-11-20T23:42:00.001+11:00

Days of Heaven

The God of Abstinence knew she would be found out. Her position was untenable. She couldn’t make anyone exercise restraint from indulgence. Not humans, not the guy at the next desk(1) and most importantly, not herself. Not for any length of time anyway. No matter how you sliced it, even the most fervent believers caved eventually. They reached their goal and had no use for her(2).

She realised if she did her job flawlessly there would be no more people, which was the first step towards The End(3). And she wasn’t going to deal with problems like The End, that was above her pay grade. So she made concessions, both professional and personal, which if she was to be honest with herself, came as a relief. The “no sex” thing was a non-issue(4), who was going to hit on The God of Abstinence after a hard day at work? What a waste of time! It was the diet that was killing her(5), especially when the voluptuous God of Baking(6) kept bringing her work to work.

The God of Absurdity, who sat her to right just laughed and said it was thanks to people like her his job was so easy.

(1) - The God of Absence was forever missing work due to what he called “irritable bowel” but the whole office knew he was hung over. You could almost smell the alcohol on his breath down the phone line. “God of Absence” she thought, more like “God of Absinthe.”
(2) – Those abstaining from sex were only waiting till they were married and then it all went out the window like heating in a single-glazed house. And dieters, 99%of those people yo-yoed like crazy. In fact only one person had ever suck to a diet for over a decade, and that was Madonna, and no one was sure if she was even a human or if she had done a deal with the opposition.
(3) – If the human race all abstained from sex then no more human race and no one to believe in the Gods, and no one believing in Gods meant no more Gods.
(4) – She had fabricated the existence of a boyfriend with whom she was taking it slow, you know, to keep up appearances.
(5) – The first outward sign that The God of Abstinence wasn’t following her own gospel is weight gain. Or wearing yesterday’s outfit, now rumpled and slightly soiled, into work.
(6) – Imagine an even more heavenly Nigella.

Instalment Twelve

2008-11-20T23:39:00.000+11:00

It is difficult to imagine words dying, but they do. They seem vibrant, living things but they are fragile entities. Words become brittle when falling out of the lexicon, aging without use, like a supple leather saddle cracking without due care over time.

If they are lucky they have been written down, saved in text, nether alive or dead but kept in state on the page. This is why books are referred to as tomes. They are monuments to the fallen.

Entire languages are dying without the providence of having been transcribed to paper. Spreading like a virus of the mind, bullying English is killing them. Of 6,900 languages spoken in the world today, 50% to 90% may die by century’s end.

The last person who spoke the Eyak language as her mother-tongue died this year. Imagine the solitude of Marie Smith, 89 of Alaska, in her last moments. Then imagine the words, centuries older than Marie, an entire language, trapped within her head. Knowing their fate, knowing even if they are her last words, their meaning will be lost on those around her.

Merely thinking a word breathes new life throughout its vowels, consonants and meaning. Save a word.

The 200 Word Stories Adopt-a-word Program

It is what it sounds like, so here are two words that could do with your attention.

The Eyak language has a word datas which means, “I am trembling” or “I am shaking (from drunkenness).” That’s a very useful word, which I can and will apply to my own life.

The Yupik Eskimos use the term kunlangeta to describe a man who repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, and takes sexual advantage of women. If you haven’t met someone to whom you want to apply that word to then you have never been to a bar.

Instalment Eleven

2008-11-20T23:35:00.000+11:00

When he moved to the city he changed his name, like Bono, and from then on, Zeitgeist as he was now known, led a charmed life. He was always out doing new things, wearing new things, thinking new things. Blonde, German, arrogant, you would hate him if you met him. Only you never will meet him; he was in the clubs you will never be let into, hanging out with people you’ll never meet. Those beautiful people, forever clicking at bartenders and refusing to make eye contact with waiters.

He wasn’t one of the beautiful people. He was the beautiful people’s “beautiful people.” The Beautiful Person. The Inspired Person. They looked to him, though only in the rare moments when they weren’t looking at themselves. They followed him and the world flocked behind.

And he knew it, so he was a dick. He was like the lead singer of a band who doesn’t write the songs or even the lyrics.

And deep down he knew he was a fake. So he started trying to be cool. And that’s when it’s all over, when you try. The world moved on. And he was left as he started, lonely, chubby, little Dieter.

Instalment Ten

2008-11-18T10:15:00.000+11:00

Missives from the desk of Dr. Samuel Johnson

Dear Sir,

Thank you dearly for your interest in my yet to be completed magnum opus. It’s only through the contributions of fine and scholarly men I have been able to achieve so much in so few years.

So it’s with a heavy heart I inform you that on this occasion I am unable to including you in my forthcoming “Dictionary: A big book of names.”

Not for your lack of breeding or research of the history of your family name, it is just that, I am afraid to say Mr. Bang, that I have already completed the B section of my work. I have however, included a Hindi fellow named Bhang, who seemed awfully fond of some plant he found in the colonies, so chin up, you may even be related.

If you feel you have a legitimate grievance by your omission from my manuscript, please contact a Miss Touchy, whom is also excluded. She is forming an association of complaint with Lady Fuss, calling for a second issue of my work. I see no point, as I am unable to imagine the use of a second edition of my definitive Dictionary.

Fair thee well,

Sam “The Doctor” Johnson

Authors Note
This piece of writing could only be considered to be of vague amusement if you know that Samuel Johnson's dictionary failed to include words such as bang, budge, fuss, gambler, shabby, touchy and also sausage. If are in any way interested in such things, I was pretty happy to find the whole book online, available to download here.

Instalment Nine

2008-11-13T04:52:00.000+11:00

(Bigot and Contrary have a coffee.)

They say women cannot make sushi because their hands are too warm.
You don’t like Japanese.
I'm saying women can’t make sushi.
Because of their hands?
Yes!
Why?
They are too warm.
Women’s hands are warmer then men’s?
Yes
Are you sure you don’t mean women have warmer personalities than men do?
No, women’s hands are physically warmer.
Suppose that is true, which it isn’t, what difference could one or two degrees possibly make?
All the difference in the world.
How?
Well warmer hands cook the fish while they handle it and sushi needs to be super raw when served.
And women are that much warmer then men?
Yes
What about a woman with poor circulation?
Shut up
Why are they called sushi chefs anyway?
That's what they do.
Chefs cook stuff. You just said they don’t cook anything they just chop it up. Why aren’t they called Sushi butchers or fish butchers or simply fishmongers?
What?
It’s not like when you go to the butcher to buy steaks and burgers you call him a barbeque chef is it?
Women can’t make sushi.
You don’t even like sushi.
I don’t even like Japanese people.

Instalment Eight

2008-11-08T01:40:00.000+11:00

There were once three sisters, dirt poor and destitute, upon whom fortune never shone. They were known across the land as The Beggars of Malintip, for that is where they lived. They were neither lazy nor slow of wit; ill luck and bad decisions haunted their days. Fate forever played his hand in the events of their lives and Fate did not play kindly.

Through Malintip three strangers passed.

“We are The Three Princes of Sernedip,” the eldest brother announced, “We will clothe, feed and bathe you if you will lay down with us.”

“You have only this moment laid eyes upon us,” chorused the sisters.

“Gold isn’t any less precious for being newly brought from the mine,” replied the youngest brother, for he was prosperous in his manner with women.

The sisters readily agreed, thinking they were to marry the princes.

Leaving town, the fortunate princes concurred that what comes to pass on a quest for knowledge, shall forevermore stay on a quest for knowledge. The sisters, left alone with the bill and each heavy with child, again cursed Fate.

Fate did spare the bastard children, who experienced neither good luck nor bad, such was their mix of parentage.

Authors Note
The preceding story was written purely as a launching device for my newly invented word, the opposite of Serendipity.

Malintipity (Mel–in–tip–i–ty) Noun: 1. Ill fortune, bad luck. 2. A natural gift for making unfortunate discoveries by accident.

Rather than have the adjective form follow ‘serendipitous’, I have decided to run with Malintipic. That way when things don’t go right you may say, “Malintipicaly it all went wrong,” or just “Malintipical!”

Based on the Latin malus, meaning “bad, wicked or evil,” I think it works as a word. Please go out into the world and use it in a sentence today or make up a better version and I will amend the story. I feel it could be a German sounding word if you want to try.

Instalment Seven

2008-11-04T22:52:00.000+11:00

Lonely never had much luck in relationships. “Unlucky in love” is how friends would have ruefully described it. Well they would’ve said that, had Lonely any friends to ask.

Lonely invariably had plenty of spare time and, in quieter moments, thought solely of ants. Ants would never live such a life, you never saw just one ant. They must be sociable creatures, all crammed together in their colonies, working hard side-by-side. They could never feel as Lonely did.

One night while picking out a bottle of cheap red, Lonely bumped into Drunk and they instantly hit it off. They were a perfect match, no two were better suited to be together. You would always see them around, Drunk and Lonely, Lonely and Drunk. Though they were not a couple you would want to meet or talk to, sloppy, maudlin and self-absorbed, they provided balance for one another.

Out for pints, while Lonely was in the bathroom, Drunk met Horny. By the time Lonely got back to the bar, you couldn’t have separated Drunk and Horny with a crowbar.

The relationship was over.

Broken-hearted, Lonely sat in a dark room, listened to country music and wished to be an ant.

Instalment Six

2008-11-04T05:44:00.000+11:00

There was a place where words were born. A learned place of polished oak hallways, of classrooms and workshops. Populated by craftsmen, artists, the brightest thinkers and sharpest minds. Toiling to create new words, beautiful words, words to express, to think, to declare, words to share.

Requests would appear; someone somewhere had a thought. An idea, a feeling or belief and a word was needed to make it real, to verbalize it, to make it tangible and stop it fleeting. The artisans would toil and tinker, crafting a set of well-formed letters, ready to roll off the tongue. A new word.

This was long ago when people cared to think new things. The work all but dried up, the thinkers and craftspeople passed on, leaving only support staff, who through laziness and neglect became slow and ignorant.

Need a new word for searching? Just make a proper noun a verb. Name a celebrity couple? Mash together two words and make an ugly new one. Portmanteau it is called, not that they cared to know. Political scandal? Stick ‘gate’ on it!

But the day they abbreviated ROFLMAO they could see the error of their ways. They knew the madness must stop.

Instalment Five

2008-11-01T03:02:00.000+11:00

Pun was not a funny person. He tried, he tried oh so very hard. All day long he endeavoured to inject humour into his conversations. If he said something he thought was funny he would say, “That joke was intended.” Sometimes he would say something that he only then realised might be funny, so he would say, “That joke was not intended.” Only they were not jokes and they were not funny, they were merely homonyms.

One fateful day, despite pleadings from his friends and co-workers, Pun decided to try out his comic stylings at an open-mic night. There were many other first timers on the bill that evening: Parody, Sarcasm, Impersonation and a prop comic.

Emcee was one of those serviceable, journeymen comics who gets a few laughs and keeps the evening moving. The audience was enthusiastic and drunk, he warmed them up to perfection but there was nothing he could have done to save this night.

One after another, each act bombed. Parody wasn’t topical, Sarcasm was just angry and Impersonation’s act was poorly executed. But Pun, the audience all agreed, had far and away demonstrated the lowest form of humor. Well, apart from the prop-comic.

Instalment Four

2008-10-31T04:48:00.000+11:00

Epiphanies that change the world are very rare indeed. It is the small, everyday, seemingly mundane epiphanies that will change your life. A matter of simple process, someone who does something differently than you. They have the same aim, achieve the same results but the method employed is so much better, making you step back and think, “Wow!”

Personally whenever I change my doona cover, which is quite often as I love clean sheets, I undertake the following convoluted dance: Grab the doona by the corners, climb into the doona cover, stand up with my arms over my head and match the corners of the cover with the doona, fall face down on the bed, wriggle out of the doona cover, shake it out and button it up. That is just how I though it was done.

My roommate saw me wrestling like two pigs under a blanket and said with sadness, “Why don’t you just turn the cover inside out, grab the edges and shake it?” It blew my mind, my own little revelation.

Such was the epiphany when one night at a fashion week cocktail party, Anorexia and Bulimia bumped into each other and started swapping dieting secrets.

Instalment Three

2008-10-21T09:50:00.000+11:00

We could never really tell why Faggot upset Gay so much. Faggot just seemed to persistently niggle at Gay by his very existence. Like those people you loathe instantly when you meet them but you can’t put your finger on why.

Faggot had developed the habit of referring to himself in the third person as well as adding a definite article to his name. He would saunter into a party and announce in that singsong voice of his, “The Faggot is here.” “Everyone turn around and look, The Faggot dancing!”

Gay hated it.

Out one night at a wine bar with his Best Friends Forever, Gay broke down in tears.

“But you used to hate us,” Fairy said.

“Remember when you met Queer, you hated him too. You said he was rude, insulting and just like ants at a picnic.”

“Look at you two now, happy as two children running naked in the woods. You boys are stronger, better people because of your friendship.”

“Don’t let The Faggot upset you?” Queer chimed in, “You should embrace The Faggot. He’s a good guy once you get to know him.”

“I’m not calling him The Faggot though,” Gay grumbled, “What about Fag?”

Instalment Two

2008-10-18T01:15:00.000+11:00

Days of Heaven

The God of Absence was having a tough time sleeping. He worked too hard granting prayers. “God,” people would say after a big night out on the tiles “there is no way I can make it into work today,” and lo, bosses and co-workers would believe in a fictional sickness(1).

But who believed in him? Who really believed in Absence?(2) His greatest achievements involved remaining unseen(3). It was just too depressing, he could barely face the idea of going into work. And now the office was open-plan seating(4) he was stuck listening to the whinings of the God of Abstinence.

She was a stuck up bitch, Lord give him strength. Always telling him he shouldn’t drink so much or on the phone to her one friend talking about the guy she was dating and how they were taking it slow. And ever since she came up with the whole “promise ring” idea she couldn’t put a foot wrong, the boys down in marketing(5) loved her.

“Fuck it,” The God of Absence thought, “I’m calling in sick.” He phoned Old Pete(6) at the front gate, explained he couldn’t stop shitting, had a slug of scotch and went back to bed.

(1) - The God of Absence was a big fan of irritated bowels, otherwise known as “can’t stop shitting.” It was the one excuse no one wanted to argue with and doesn’t require the use of a “sick voice” on the phone.
(2) – In all fairness, it is tough to believe in someone who by definition is never present when you need him most.
(3) – His greats work was, and still is the absence of God. Theologians and philosophers have long argued what exactly an absence of God signifies. Known as “The Absence Theodicy”, the argument states that if "God" is "goodness", anything not good such as evil and suffering is the absence of God. Therefore, the absence theodicy claims that God is not responsible for evil, merely for good. Well I really don’t understand any of that, but what we all should be able to agree on is that the absence of God must surely prove the existence of the God of Absence.
(4) – For some reason the higher-ups had brought in a management consultant that scrapped personal cubicles and arranged the office in an alphabetical, open-plan lay out. The God of Absence was now working on the same floor as the Gods of Abhorrence, Absolution (who was always very busy), Abstraction and Abbreviation amongst others. There was even some weird, balding, Australian guy called Garry who claimed that he was once a cat and people used to worship at his feet and call him God.
(5) – Marketing had long since been out-sourced to Hell. It makes sense really, they were willing to take on absolutely anyone as a client and were gurus at merchandising. Who do you think can up with wearing the cross as a necklace, it is not as if that is in anyway tasteful when you think about it.
(6) – Old Pete had been in charge of security at the front gates as long as anyone could remember, dear old fellow, a saint really. Not much to look at him, but if you weren’t on his list there was no getting past him. Much like the bouncer of a fashionable nightclub – name not on the clipboard? – “sorry mate, not tonight, private function I am afraid.”

Instalment One

2008-10-14T04:56:00.000+11:00

Supposedly remained blissfully unaware of the family secret until his eighteenth birthday. His parents took him aside and spilled forth their hidden shame.

Supposedly had a brother, a fraternal twin. One starved of nutrients and oxygen from a twisted umbilical cord. A gruesome and nauseating parody of a child, its skull misshapen and limbs withered.

As this was in the days before ultrasounds, when women kept on drinking and smoking while pregnant, there was no warning for the thing they were handed in the delivery room. A monster. Supposedly’s mother fainted. His father, deep in shock, fought his way through the formalities and took the unwanted child straight to the orphanage.

“I have a brother,” Supposedly gasped, “What was his name?”

“His name is Supposably.”

Just uttering the name sent a chill through the room, setting teeth on edge, like the sound of nails down a black board.

“But you never speak his name, I don’t want you to even think the word supposably.”

“And if you hear that word, if you hear someone say supposably, you correct them, you correct them as fast as you can.”

“Just as we do with your sister Specifically and her monstrous twin, Pacifically.”