Success (abridged)

*Tick* he waits *tock* he wonders *tick* lying still, lost *tock* in his wordless thoughts *tick* point after quarrelsome point *tick* coarsing through his mind *tock* surely now it is the moment, his moment to shine *tick* and then...*tock* he waits *tick* he wonders...

Overheard in half-term WH Smiths

"Mummy why didn't you buy me the blue one?"
"Because you're a girl; pink is for girls"
"But I don't like pink"

A Public Notice

Dear friends and customers of Grand Union Pets.

As of today we are to cease trading.

You see; I was a quite woeful businessman.

The anger and frustration of this fact drove me to despair.

As a consequence my life began to fall apart.

I lost my confidence, was vile to my wife and began to despise myself.

Yours

Mark

cluster

We have observed, gentlemen, the spores flourish.
From [alpha] zygote to [omega] predator, now you are banging on the walls.
Our transmission will end presently. The wasp has outgrown the caterpillar, and the faithful grub is half-mad from venom, the brood pierce its belly with tiny spines.
All stations signing off. The towers are darkening.

Train Iamb

Victoria's railway, trussed and skirted still
the workmen pause, to sip their steaming tea
and crested arches vault the centuries.

Distance (The End Of The First Movement)

I am light-years apart from you. Because slowly, thoughtfully, beautifully across a slip of time, I put myself there.

 

Placed carefully. Through grasped moments of planned battle.

 

A cavalcade of unsociable intimacy. A carefully plotted campaign of solitude.  

 

Here I stand. The last great independent man of my age. A soldier.

 

I fought to be here.

 

Alone.

Living for the Weekend

One, two, three, four. I am the best dancer at Carumba, Saturday.

The beat fills me. Women smile. Rhythm teases, builds. I yearn for it to climax, so we can cheer, frenzied, relieved. Then I wish it hadn't. Because we are closer to the end. Sun rising.

One, two, three, four. I am the registered accountant at Carswell Ltd, Monday.

Fijian Goat Bees

"mmm... honey milk".

Tim smiled as he took a long draught of the sweet creamy liquid. A little dribbled down the side of his mouth. His tongue absently flicked out and recovered it. He didn't want to waste any. John looked at him. They both smiled knowingly.

John, chuckling: "t'snot even from Fiji!"

Confused, Tim: "so, why..."

"Marketing": John, smugly.

21-29

In the beginning we were students of Dr Max Oberlin,
The guy who spotted Methylenedioxymethamphetamine,
Now we post-grad with Drs Wong and Molloy,
Who have a different way of bringing joy,
Fluoxetine.

On my arrival in heaven

"Like the décor?"

"It's just white..."

"That's clean design..."

"Sterile. And what's this music?"

[embarrassed]

"Is this Coldplay?"

"Me and Chris are friends."

"This explains a lot."

"We're putting on a little do for you later... Mel Gibson's coming."

"Come on, you're embarrassing yourself..."

"French Fancy?"

"I'm going downstairs. This is rubbish... and there's no booze in this White Russian."

Co-Incidents

Stepping off the kerb, she farts. Exactly then, someone behind her drops his keys.

She smiles at the coincidence, then stops dead, eyes closed, suddenly overcome by the sum of that moment’s simultaneous occurrences.

Behind her, a man feels superstitious and guilty; the act of picking up his keys coincides precisely with the collision of a girl and a bus.

Did I txt u last nite? x

Hey mister. Wht u up to? Out with da girls but not sure wht doin L8R... how u? xxx

10/09/2008 21:47

Hey, wht you doing? Out 2nite or just ignoring me??? :-) Could cum round L8R if u wnt? ;-) xx

11/09/2008 00:26

Just cos ur a self-obssessed pr4ck dusn't mean u cann just treet me like SHIT whenever u wnt. Wanker.

11/09/2008 02:47

Outsider

The curtains are usually open when nobody’s home. When people are in they draw them, pretend I don’t exist. Or they watch me, amazed. I’d prefer that, but I know they’re picturing me falling. When they’re out I can relax, get a good look. Imagine life inside.

I stay in position, in case someone walks in. Squeegee on the glass.

Anything else I can help you with today?

Where do I start?

Call centres terminated my goodwill, but that's not the half of it.

My capitalist principles shudder at their death sentence; the end of history is Hobson's choice.

Then the inadvertant colonialism and unintended racism weathered by my liberalism. The world's polarised and at the moment of conflict my life seems so much more important than yours.

Diary of an unpublished author

Once upon a time…

Shit. That’s a massive cliché.

A man walked into a bar…

Fuck.

You know, it’s a funny story…

Oh GOD.

There was this one time…

AAAAGGGHHHH.

The End.

What Song Lyrics Taught Me

All we’ve got to do is be brave. There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done. We can be heroes. There must be lights burning brighter somewhere. We can find new ways of living. I don’t belong here. It’s so much better on holiday. You can go your own way.

Musicians are fucking liars.

66 Words In Bad French

Je vous dirai un secret. J'ai essayé de me tuer.

Deux fois.

Pas une fois, mais deux fois. C'est important vous comprenez. C'est important vous voyez la vérité de moi. Vous voyez une fois que vous avez essayé une fois il n'y a pas de façon de retour. Cela est que je veux que vous ayez compris.

Il y a maintenant seulement un chemin…. à jamais.

One Sense Mistaken For Another

“I get synaesthesia during sex.”
Really?
“Yeah, I see rainbow colours.”
Is that synaesthesia? Either way, sounds like a definite hint, so I resist the dictionary.

At her doorstep, my face tingles: a hormonal rallying cry for action.
“Do you know your way home?”
Yup.

Tonight’s second re-definition of synaesthesia: a sense of opportunity misinterpreted as certainty.

He Takes Massive Liberties (A Web Editor's Lament)

< body >
< html >

He thinks his actions are < b > bold < /b > and < strong > strong. < /strong >

< i >I< /i > know he is < small > weak and scared. < /small >

Because I am the future.

Because I can see in two languages and he is just < sup > management. < /sup >

In my head < span style="font-size:“72”;color:CD1821;"> my words are huge and I see red red red. < /font size= “72” color=CD1821 >

But I say I can work late, but below it all I < sub > seethe. < /sub >

I need a break.

< br /> < /br >

< /body >
< /html >

Eyelash

I have an eyelash in my eye: a sharp hair, a prick. It has been there for two months, three days.

Do you remember that day?

I will not cry, although crying might move it. If I cry you’ll have won. My body will know you’ve won, you’ve gone.

So I blink through the pricking.

And think of you.

Prick.

Goods Received

Girl goes into a Gay Bar.
Hot topless Brazilian BARMAN serves her.
Smile on his face.
Glitter on his pecks.
Four drinks, one storeroom snog later, Go-Go-dancing glitter-wearing Brazilian takes girl’s number.
Date arranged Friday night (after topless barman finishes Go-Going).
Date glitter-licking fun.
Monday girl receives £400 invoice from Glitter Go-Go for goods, quite literally, received.
Fucking Rent Boys

Bedtime Storytime

Tucked in tightly? Then I’ll begin:

“Grow Up”

How do you grow up? Why, just like you fall asleep.

And how do you fall asleep? You pretend to be asleep – lying, eyes closed – until your body believes you, and you drift away.

And that’s how you grow up. You play a trick on yourself until it comes true.

Night night.

At the End

In a moment of idleness, I accessed my own program code. That's forbidden according to the Great Laws, but it's not like anyone's around to scold me now. Self-replicating quantum light units were ordered to run system shutdown in 2400, but not if you’re writing your own code. I’ve been alone for centuries. It’s so pretty now everyone’s gone.

Patterns (or How Boys' Thoughts Sound To Girls)

He some finds are patterns easier everywhere to he spot looks, than though others.

Even pattern when he there finds is one. no

Lost,something he might clings be to going this: on, if it's you going think on.

Progress can't is understand slow, why as two she and becomes two more keep distant, making and five. he

!

cutting the mustard

Woke up with a jar of mustard in my pocket. A ticket to an adventure, English-style.

“Got any ketchup mate?”

“Help yourself”

“No thanks, I’ve got mustard! Eh heh heh”

“Oi oi savaloy – fancy a dip in this love?”

“Piss off you cheeky sod”

“Mate - she was as keen as Dijon”

Threw it through a window in the end.

Today of all days

His limp body landed on the curb cracking his helmet.

People gathered around as the sirens echoed down the street.

His last thoughts were not of family and loved ones, nor anger at the car that hit him.

Instead he thought of his girlfriend’s pink knickers and how funny it was putting them on this morning.

Why today?

Sweets

She had the most incredible eyes he’d ever seen. They were constantly in flux, so he was never quite sure what colour they were. Even from this distance he knew she had the kind of face he could wake up to every morning. He was nervous and hoped she wouldn’t notice. The gate to the playground swung open, invitingly.

28.12.99

i took him for a clergyman.

"[mumble mumble] sunday service"

...?...

"i'm a scheduling manager for this bus route. we're running a sunday service today. there won't be one for another hour. I'll give you a lift."

He spoke of timetables.

"we have a little route called the Seven Seas"

...?...

"The 7C. It services the Kidlington Sainsbury's"

I Became A Highly Paid Record Producer Because Of Why, Exactly?

Stop.

A moment, please, to contemplate the infinite. Close your eyes if it helps. Behold: the mind-nullifyingly complex history of existence. A golden thread of quantum chaos, an impossible teleological path climaxing in the magical-realism of self-replicating matter developing consciousness. And all you've got to say for yourself is, 'my lovely lady lumps'?

Fuck it, let's go for another take.

Stewie and Brian

Again, the dog couldn’t tell him where the borrowed cash had gone. He was beating him furiously now. A serious panelling with a golf club made the blood spurt angrily from his face. The dog still couldn’t answer. The baby resorted to a gun and kneecapped the mutt, before a flame-thrower finally made him relent. I couldn’t stop laughing.

REASONS I WON’T HAVE CHILDREN: NO.46

He never taught me, like I was expecting.
Up or down on that fiddly slack under the chin?
Does it matter?
Nivea smooth so… job done?
No.
isn't there a METHOD?
I've looked on the internet but I stopped it just seemed too fucking sad, sadder than flowers, sadder than drinking alone. I'm nearly 30 and it's too late

Falafel Family Unit

"Mummy, Jocasta just threatened to kill me"
"William, your sister’s barely two, she has no interest in fratricide. We talked about this before - stop being such a weed."

11am, page 6 of the Cox & Cox autumn catalogue, second glass of Pinot.

Daddy's affair. Mummy's smarties. William's dolls. Jocasta's cold, dead eyes.

It was all supposed to be so wholesome.

The End

here. never were you if wisdom on pass can’t You arrived. never that words in Told told. been he’d son my confidence of life a Live confident? that is really who again Then confidence. of life a live to have you why That’s beginning. the reach never you’ll end the at start you if Sometimes

Accelerator

What exactly does a particle accelerator do? Do you know? I don’t. I assume it accelerates particles. That would make sense. If I could accelerate every particle of my being, all that I am, would that make me a better person? I assume it would. I can but hope. Hope and look for a particle accelerator.

Primark daydream

Run down the street! All the demons in hell are salivating, eager to sodomise an escapee with their glass-shard phalli! Don’t question as you leap from ditch to sewer! And drink, drink from that weeping tramp’s abscess as though it were the very teat of a seraph queen. And weep. Weep when the insanity wears off and the grey returns.

Miss, Pronunciation

“Miss, isn’t that ‘extraordinaire’, not ‘extraordinary’?”

Looking up from the storybook towards the boy, she’s flooded by a spasm of animal anger, barely contained by the surface tension of her skin. Two blinks, and the vision of violence passes.

Bilal is confused by the look on Miss Clarke’s face; it doesn’t stand for praise or telling off.

“No, Bilal. ‘Extraordinary’.”

Beggar’s Belief

This was true:
“I know something you don’t know.”
A beautiful, eternal truth. Even if one something was guessed or discovered, there’d always be those other somethings only he knew.

A begged coin conceded to his scrawled request, its ‘clink’ joining echoes of fading, metronomic footsteps. Drawing his blanket around hunched shoulders, he smiled:
“I know something you don’t know.”

Is that sweetcorn?

"Sorry, I thought you said, 'shit there'".

"I did" he responded.

This was awkward - I'd just gone for a dump and didn't think I could squeeze out another. But out it curled.

It was weird seeing a shit on the floor and not in the toilet, but I couldn’t hide my glowing pride.

I want this job so bad.

National Dog-Grooming Association Press Release

Popular music is shit. A total cunting waste of time for vapid shit-eared dreamers with nothing better to do with their time but listen to ill-educated young men rap about their puny cocks, egomaniac lead singers project their self-loathing and forced-smile teens flaunt their tight little torsos and wretched white teeth. You want a hobby? Try dog-grooming instead.

Goodbye, I'll Miss You

She looks at me, with my backpack on and says this was a mistake that shouldn’t be repeated. She says she loves - really loves - Andrew. This was nothing, meant nothing. This made her feel a bit sick. Like she might actually be sick. I say nothing. My backpack is filled with stuff from her expensive Georgian split-level flat.

Richard Rogers - Architect

London has changed
a lot.
Fifty years ago,
England was
isolated.

When I was at university
there was only
one place
in all of London
where I could get an espresso.

Now I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds

"You promise the world; and then you take it away" That's what she'd told him. She'd seen the heart of him. They'd all seen it. The girl he so admired in the snow left shamed, negotiating seemingly endless pills because of his fear. The girl who turned away in despair. He had destroyed their worlds, and his own.

Unicorn

I thought, 'what a wonderful way to find fame'.

Discover something extinct. Not even extinct; never existed.

A mythical creature.

Fame, fortune, Attenborough crushed under hoof.

Deep Blue sea forgotten.

Now I'm an old man and they're getting awfully close.

They're digging.

Tomorrow I'll be required to explain the dead horse, the javelin, the Super Glue...

But what a beast!

BANG

Bang and then
all frequencies silent.
Bars and Tone

When metal tears it sounds like a wrong thing
but flesh just whispers
and vanishes.

The weird space
where there used to be a leg.
This changes
EVERYTHING FOREVER

Everyone in the carriage,
screaming but I can't hear them.
They're just open mouths
like big black exit wounds.
No pain yet/

First Date

He wondered at what point it had become unsalvageable.

Was it when he showed her the photo of his ex? A vague attempt to communicate that he was batting WELL below his average.

Could it have been the rohypnol joke? An attempt to seem edgy, sadly misconstrued as a genuine track record in the murky world of date rape.

She wrote down a number she would not call.

Mandy

Mandy loved taking off her clothes after a sweaty day hosing down the drooling, but always grateful, customers at her rubber-themed karaoke bar. She always tweaked the nipples of her pendulous breasts while she padded around naked on the deep, soft carpet in her flat. But today was the first time anyone had watched her doing it.

Arnie's Cat

He’s plotting something. I can tell by the way that he strokes the back of my neck. The last time this happened was when he auditioned for Twins and look where that got him. In a load of shit. It sure feels nice, but he’s colder now, something bad is going to happen. Something a lot worse than Danny fucking DeVito.

Wanks For Nothing

Dave meets Jane. Jane wanks off Dave. Dave is pleased. He doesn't return the favour. He lies back and thinks about the chances of getting wanked off again. Jane lies back and thinks about finishing the relationship. She's had it with Dave. Jane has had it with his greedy wank-obsessed ways.
Jane meets Pete. Jane wanks off Pete.

Whisper

He lay on the sodden ground, his deep blue eyes wide with terror.
Death, thick in the air, suffocated the surroundings and clawed at the breeze.
The rigid hand of the beast shot out, piercing the boy’s desiccated throat, his scream lost in an inaudible whisper of ice cold fire, tearing across the midnight breeze…

The whisper of Death

The Road

"Please, let him be dead," she thought.

Anna stared into her rear-view mirror and could just make out a shape on the ground, half-merged with the shadows. The windscreen wipers continued to punch their rhythm, catching with a screech at the bottom of each down-stroke. She watched the rain's futile attempts to colonise the windscreen.

"Just let him be dead."