Bronze

Ron Bronze had been blowing up balloons for quite some time. He was finding it tough going and had become quite pink in the cheek as a result of his puffing up these balloons.
Ron had found that the rounded balloons were easier to get started and blow into the standard ovoid balloon shape but quite tricky to tie if you over puffed them whereas the longer balloons took a little more puff but tied up easier.
"Such is life." thought Ron. This was one of Ron's regular sayings. He had a few standard little phrases that he trotted out when things like this balloon conundrum occured.
Ron was blowing up balloons because one of the lady secretaries was about to go off and have a baby and some of the other office staff had decided that as it was a Friday it might be nice to have a leaving ceremony.
There was a buffet and some drinks although Ron had made a mental note not to have more than one glass of champagne because he got a little tipsy on champagne and he was driving tonight. Mrs. Bronze had her regular bridge game and Ron regularly drove her to her too her "Brood" and in between then and having to pick her up he would go home, pop on some of his vinyl records and find a game of internet chess. Ron liked his internet chess and he played several days a week but on Fridays and Tuesdays he was in a league. The league had players from as far a field as Seoul, Boston Massachuesetts, St. Petersburg, Johannesburg, Rekjavik, Mumbai, Bucharest and Chinese Taipei. It was a very exotic league, except for Ron who lived in Milton Keynes and suspected he had the least exotic lifestyle of all the on-line chess league players even the one from Anchorage Alaska where it was only daylight for six months of the year.
Ron wasn't doing spectacularly well. He lost more games than he won and tonight he was due to play as black so that almost certainly meant another loss.
Ron languished in the bottom third of the league of eighteen players and hadn't really shown any signs he was about to change his fortune with a couple of wins and pull himself into the top half of the table.
As usual Ron was doing slightly worse than average, which was the way his whole life had gone. He was slightly worse than average at school, university and in any sports he ever played.
Ron drove a Citreon, which is a nice car but isn't a BMW or an Audi. It was five years old now, not the brand new car every two years at the very worst that his more successful university peer group drove. It was a decidedly less than average vehicle and one that says maybe I could have done better in life.
All of this had meant that the girls organising the party for their preganant colleague had only entrusted the relatively minor task of blowing up balloons too Ron. It wasn't something he could get spectaculalry wrong and he had managed a good thirty so far but some of them looked like decidedly limp affairs.
He'd got himself a system, because there was far more oval balloons than long ones he was doing three round ones too one long one. This sort of regimented approach to tasks was the way Ron did most things. In essence he was a bit of a nerd.
But other tasks like going and buying suitable gifts and cards, getting the card signed, which so far Ron hadn't been asked to do and he wasn't sure what he going to write in it anyway, Ron wasn't good at sentmiment, getting drinks and snacks, arranging lively music and other thinsg had all been handled by other people in the office. Ron was blowing up balloons, probably because no one else wanted to do it.
Ron also knew that this little informal, not very exciting get together was only the civilised version of the pregnant ladies leaving festivities. There was a gang of the younger, more nubile folk going out to a restaurant this evening and Ron had heard a couple of guys with trendy haircuts discussing going to a club much later on. They had plans to investigate the methods used to make the pregnant lady pregnant with some of the non pregnant ladies, probably with not such a dramatic consequence as the one that had got the pregnant lady pregnant though.
Ron hadn't been invited to this and under normal social ettiquette Ron could put this down to being a bit too old but he never really got invited to proper parties or late night pubbing visits when he younger either so it probably was just assumed that Ron wouldn't be that much fun surrounded by what Ron assumed would be copious amounts of shagging and rivers of liquor. Ron really had no clue about parties. He had been to so few of them in his life. Ron wasn't even invited to the ones his wife's bridge club held once a year and they were for charity.
It had taken a lot out of Ron blowing up all of these sodding balloons. They bobbed around his desk like a metaphor for how rubbish his life was. It wasn't shocking enough to moan about it but it was definately panning out far less successfully than he would have expected. Ron was a man of lower than average abilities with a higher than average expectation of how far those abilities should have got him by now. If anything his endurance should have seen him rise higher than he had but every year a new group of thrusting, spunky, energetic, cocky gobshites turned up and eclipsed Ron in the list of people considered for promotion. He was now just too old to claim experience as a valuable asset and was that wrong side of being thought of as over the hill.
Ron half heartedly wafted away a balloon that was lightly mocking him on his desk but all the balloon did was casually bob out of the way of his clumsy jab, deftly using an invisible thermal to make Ron look like a bit of a chump, a decidedly average chump.
Ron hated blowing up balloons.

The Giant Middle Finger

Robin looked around the set, it was still a little weird looking at T.V. from the otherside of the camera. He'd spent many a day as a viewer shouting at the telly and more accurately at the people on the screen in just this kind of open studio based set.
Robin liked the news and he secretly liked the early morning bottom feeder talk shows. Back when he was a student he'd nursed many a hangover with a bowl of cornflakes, a giant mug of tea and a rant at the folk bearing their dirty souls in public.
There had been an awful lot of Tuesdays when he'd fore-go his early morning Tuesday lecture to sit in his big fluffy dressing gown and watch as an estate ridden family shouted abuse at one another.
"Am I having sex with my boyfriends Dad?"
"Are you one of the father's of one of my five children?"
"Is my mum an alcoholic?"
"Why does my fourteen year old daughter stay out all night drinking and fucking prodigiously?" He loved it.
He managed to convince himself for nearly three years until it became clear he might not actually graduate with anything like a suitable enough grade to satisfy his parents having sponsored his carefree student lifestyle and if, like he wanted them too, they were going to fund his round the world trip as a gap year, job dodging galavant from exotic country to exotic country he'd was going to have to buckle down and damn well study.
But until then he'd genuinely convinced himself and his fellow slacker student roommates that he'd couldn't function during a day without getting at least two hours of fodder T.V. gawping.
Robin also liked vehemently disagreeing with so called experts and commentators on matters of culture and current affairs. The box in the corner of his living room was one of his best friends and certainly the one he had the most vocal relationship with. But now that Robin was required to be on the otherside of the T.V. screen it was a different matter.
Robin had conveniently forgotten this ranting behaviour of his youth as he sat being attended to by a girl with a black and decker workstation full of industry standard make up.
As a minor celebrity he was considering whether or not to sleep with the make up girl, as a recent minor celebrity he was still getting into the swing of all the does and don'ts of the trappings of minor stardom and wasn't sure if his current status as probably D maybe C list celebrity was worthy of a random expectation of casual sex with what he assumed would be a star struck young conquest.
He may only be a D maybe C list celebrity but his stock was rising and he felt confident that if he carefully managed his stardom he could make B list by the end of the year and start getting invited to the right sort of cool parties.
Once you were in on the celeb party circuit you were able to get yourself photographed falling out of nightclubs or taxis or restaurants or The Groucho Club with similar or higher ranking celebrites.
At that point it was all about social calendar management and less about being talented. There were rules. You rise up, meet the latest cool rock singer/up and coming actor/model/pulp fiction writer and you were in.
You stopped hanging around common folk and left the X factor rejects and soap actors behind and started hanging around expensive restaurants and gallery openings. Robin was eager for all of this to happen as soon as possible and in order to fast track this celebrity hob nobbing and ticket to being regularly featured in Heat magazine he was going to be on the telly. He was determined to make an impression. Not necessarily a good one, just a noisy one.
He had considered being drunk but that was apparently old hat and embarrassing at the moment so maybe shagging this make up girl might help but he couldn't do it on screen and it was only a couple of minutes to air so if he was going to he'd have to get a move on. Robin calculated that it wasn't logistically feasible to start shagging make up girls this close to air and still be suitably made up for the show but did make a mental note to arrive at studios earlier if he planned on shagging anything in the future. It was a valuable lesson he'd learnt he felt.
Robin, or Vanquish, as he was more popularly known was on set to talk about his latest art project. Robin had chosne to be an artist because when he'd tried to start a rock band he'd come up against a massive problem. He couldn't sing or play instruments or write songs. He still had a crack and may go back to it once he was famous enough but it had been harder work than he'd expected. It wasn't the coke fuelled, huge amount of sex rampage he'd imagined it was going to be. Robin guessed you needed to be famous before that all started.
Robin wasn't any better at art as he was at being a rock star but he'd stumbled upon the fact you didn't really have to be. Robin couldn't draw anything that resembled what it was suppossed to be, especially animals for some reason and when his school had organised an educational trip to a pottery his attempts at making a mug out of clay had been such a spectacularly embarrassing failure that it had won the dubious award of worst clay thing made. It looked like a gargoyle that had been radioactively melted. Even the kid with learning difficulties had had a decent stab at clay modelling and created a fairly decent ash tray.
But Robin did know you didn't need to be. He'd been reading a supplement from a Sunday newspaper on one of his infrequent and boring visits to his parents to ask for some money and pretend to like his family and it had a feature about up and coming artists. It became clear to Robin that the only difference between a lot of the art and a giant pile of rubbish was the bullshit that the artist placed on their reasoning for creating the art.
The more pompous and vain the better it seemed and if Robin had anything in spades it was pompous vanity gained from a lifetime of subsitance funded middle class loafing.
He'd started off banging out a piece that was essentially three packs of Christmas trees from one of those poundland type stores into a hideously anti Christmas statement. It looked shit but he'd called it, rather controversially "Fuck Christmas" and released it in June to add to the irony. Despite it being a hamfisted and clumsily built looking thing had put him on the map as a thrusting young, controversial artist.
Robin had had a young journalistette and a photgrapher from a small and insignificant art journal turn up at his parent funded studio and ask him about his art. He'd tried to shag the journalistette, but obviously wasn't quite famous enough, yet.
Robin knew that if he'd stuck to music and he'd followed this abstract, bullshit route the best he could hope for was freeform jazz and he'd rather empty bins than be a freeform jazzist. They were the wrong sort of celebrity. Not X factor bad but at the same time not famous enough to get invited to anything good or worthwhile, plus the sort of people that like freeform jazz are weird and none of them are sexually attractive.
He was in the studio today to talk about his latest project. It involved creating a dozen human hands out of ice. They were all six feet tall as some sort of oblique metaphor and all of them had the middle finger raised in a daring swipe at social moraes. It was entirely designed to shock. It was designed quite literally to stick a giant middle finger up at society and to get society to take notice of it and start taking about "Vanquish" the vibrant and extremely relevant new artist. The fact that they would melt before anyone apart from the very fast would see them was besides the point. It was about getting the right sort of people to see them and talk about them before they melted.
The melting thing was also designed to increasing his money making cache, obviously if art melts you can't really sell it. Unless you can find someone gullible to buy a puddle of water and he had thought that he might at one point. But the fragile nature of making art out of ice meant that although he was an artist there wasn't that many pieces of "Studio Vanquish" to buy and this it was hoped would raise the exclusive nature of owning a rare piece of Vanquish of art.
It had worked enough to get him on the telly talking about it at least.
As Robin was revisiting his decision not to screw the make up girl the studio became a noticeably busier place. It was getting closer to air time. People started moving cameras about with an increased endeavour and picking up bits of equipment and making themselves look like they were doing something really important. The make up girl disappeared and took Robin's last chance of some casual sex with her and the lights in the studios all dimmed, leaving only the camera lights to illuminate the set.
The host walked on set, he had a brief chat with a guy attached to a head set, the guy with the head set spoke into his head set and there was a brief pause before a young guy of probbaly seventeen brought a bottle of still water onto stage and tried to hand it to the host.
"In a fucking glass. Christ! Jeff, where do you get them from?"
The boy scuttled away to find a glass and came back with a plastic wine glass presumably left over from a Christmas party or some such festivity.
"A fucking wine glass. Jesus. I can't have that on fucking set. People'l think I'm a fucking alky."
A voice came over a loud speaker. "60 seconds Roy."
"Shit."
The host made came and sat down next to Robin. Robin noticed that the hosts seat was a lot more comfy looking than his, plus it swivelled. Robin's seat was a fixed position chair, this displeased him.
Robin decided it was time for an introduction. "Hi Ray, it's good of you to have me on."
"Fuck off."
Robin wasn't expecting that. And even as a voice that he wasn't really listening to started to say "Eight, seven, six, five, four, three.......and air." he was still reeling from the "Fuck you" sideswipe when he heard.
"And tonight we'll be looking at Maggie O'Donald's latest novel and we've got a report from the set of the BBC's latest costume drama but first we've got a new arist in the studio, his name is "Vanquish" he's just opened a piece called Giant Middle Finger at the Talbot Gallery but you'll have to quick to see it, here to tell you why is Vanquish."
Robin said nothing. The Fuck you had really affected him. Damn.

The Dirty Nighttime (part one)

Even Joe didn't know how it had happened and that was why the police were asking pointed questions like they thought that he just might have done it. It might just suit them and there paperwork to pin it on Joe and shut the case up solved tonight. It saved having to do real police work.
Joe knew the only reason he wasn't downtown right now being thoroughly grilled about how and why he'd done it was that he was universally known in this filthy cities underworld as "Honest" Joe and when he'd handed in his badge and gun and gone private he'd left behind a few old friends that he figured owed him a few favours or the very least the respect to give him the benefit of the doubt that although "Honest" Joe was many things and not all of them good he almost certainly wasn't a cold blooded murderer. Sure he'd had cause to take a few bad folk away but that was in the nature of being on this side of the law. Joe knew as did ever copper in the city that there were enough bad guys and gals out there that you couldn't be slow or wracked with doubt with the trigger finger when push came to shove. If it was between you and a 9mil you shot first and filled out the paperwork second.
But that was the nature of standing on either side of the law. It didn't make you a cold blooded killer and what had happened here was definately the work of a cold blooded killer, and a very good one as well.
"Honest" Joe also knew that there were those downtown that wouldn't mind seeing Joe take the fall for this and what with the gruesome nature of the scene in front of Joe. Joe was certain that he'd be fried fish food before anyone had a chance to change there mind. When Joe had left his badge and gun and gone private he'd ruffled some feathers and he knew there were certain characters who would be only too happy to see him take some volts for this. He'd left some cranky detectives and the top brass weren't fond of Joe when he was on the inside. He'd never been one to take orders well and his unique take on catching serious bad guys was never part of any rulebook or manual but his clearance rate was as good as anyone so a lot of the time his methods were swept under the carpet but that was always going to be opened up when Joe went a few feet to far and that's what happened. In all honesty Joe had quit before he was pushed but know that he was available for private hire the upstairs at police central weren't anymore thrilled with him than when he was solving crimes for them in his own inimitable way.
"Honest" Joe had a canny knack of making the police look stupid when there paths should cross. The detectives he'd left behind knew that Joe was good, probably better than they were, but that didn't stop them getting their nose bent out of joint when they were working the same case.
So far Joe was playing the matter as cool as could be, any colder and he'd have been a penguin in fact and this was not helping his cause. The detectives, Murphy and Johnson were two of the most experienced guys they'd got down in homicide these days and they were getting more and more frustrated asking their questions and getting diddly goose egg from Joe. Not least because Joe didn't really have answers himself yet but also because Joe knew one false move would leave him taking the fall on this and that was a long way from happening in Joe's mind. He needed time to think. Get things straight in his head. He needed to talk to someone but the questions kept coming and they were getting more and more accusatory the longer Joe stalled.
The dics may not have had Joe's detection ability but they knew when they were being played and this was getting them proper suspicious. Joe could sense the mood being taken away from him. He really needed space. He needed out. Plus that body was starting to engrain itself in Joe's mind. It would be part of his dreams if this went on for too long. It was time to engineer an exit.
He needed to go speak to the one person he'd ever listened too, the one person who he had anything resembling outward respect for. He needed Harry.

The Early Morning Swimmer

It was a quarter to four and Henry was already awake. He polished off the last dregs of his large mug of boiling hot peppermint tea, wrapped himself up in his overcoat, scarf, woolly hat and large fluffy towel, popped on his leather sandals and headed out of the door of the lonely cottage.
Henry had chosen this cottage out of about five or six similar looking cottages purely because there were no other houses within a half mile and there was only one narrow dirt track leading from the road off the B-road to the house.
Henry liked the fact that his cottage sat on a cliff top above a narrow strip of beach and the wild sea.
The cottage faced inland and Henry liked that he could see any visitors coming without needing to rig up sophisticated surveillance equipment, all he needed to do was look out the front window. It would be an intrepid and determined and maybe even a little crazy a visitor that came up from the other way and Henry supposed it only fair that if such a visitior chose that direction to make an appearance he should at least allow them the element of surprise.
Henry also like that the cottage was built out of stone and lots of it, the original builders of the house had paid due respect to the properties geography and built it like a fortress to withstand the nastier elements of a shore front location. It was built to withstand the frightful storms and winds that batter coastal regions from time to time and this as you can tell from the angry, jagged, feral nature of the rocks and cliff face was a particularly storm battered piece of coast.
Henry liked the seclusion of the cottage's wild remoteness. The cottage was straight out of a novel, picked up and made real by man's imagination. Not town planners, not housing associations, not Wimpey but a real, thinking person, thrusting urbanites have no clue a place like this even exists and that suited Henry down to the ground. He'd spent too long in cities and towns, elbowing commutors on tube trains and bashing briefcases and being poked by sharpened umbrellas and avoiding groups of lost, confused tourists and with the dirty, grey energy and the hustle & bustle and mass movement of hundreds of thousands of people.
When Henry was younger he'd joined in this chaotic scramble about the urban world but now that he was older, wider, or maybe more burnt out all he wanted was to be left alone as far away from Human life as it was possible to be. Especially after what the real world had done to Henry.
The cottage also came with a winding path down to the pebbly beach below which Henry now descended. It was the only way down to the beach without flinging yourself off the top or a precarious abseil down a jegged rock clifface. Henry wasn't about to do either of those things now but the state Henry had been left in by years of Urban hurly burly no one would have been surprised if Henry had taken the cowards short way down to the beach. Henry was in a much better place now though. His doctor was very pleased with his far cheerier demeanour. Perhaps swimming in the sea, baking bread and keeping bees was all the Human soul needed to be content. It's all Henry did and he was as happy as he'd been since childhood.
It was a long way down from his cottage at the top of the cliff to the beach, the stone steps were quite steep and it had been raining earlier in the night so they were wet enough to be dangerously slippery.
Henry negotiated the walk down the stone steps to the beach with an assured attention. You have to respect wet stone steps but if like Henry you made this journey every day you kind of get a feeling for how to make the journey relatively scare free and because Hery did make this journey every day he was comfortable enough with his experience of making his way down wet stone steps to make good, steady progress.
Henry liked his early morning routine, it was better than the one he'd left behind that's for sure. The only scrambling Henry did was too eggs as an energy reboot to go with a giant round of hot buttered toast, a whole pack of bacon, sausages, fried tomatos, baked beans, fried mushrooms, a huge bowl of porridge and as much fresh coffee as he could comfortably drink without bursting his bladder. But all this would wait til after.
After his swim. The sea was foaming away with a sort of idle threat, it had all of the appearance of a sea waiting for a likely sucker to take the plunge and dip a toe in the water before reacting furiously and having the toe dipper for it's own pleasure.
Henry though had become an experienced sea swimmer and he knew that if he paid the wild sea it's due respect then he would be able to make the most of it's wild fury. The waves lolled in over the pebbles, fizzing as it broke on the beach before retreating.
Henry waited until the surf broke in again, slipped off his overcoat, scarf and woolly hat and followed the water as it drained off the beach. It was cold but it had been now for a month and Henry was acclimatised to the cold and as you were taught at school dove straight in. Head first Henry submerged into the shallow water and followed it out until his feet couldn't stand on the sea bed and still be able to stick his head out of the water and swam out in a slow but determined front crawl towards the jagged piece of rock poking out of the sea about two hundred yards out.
It took him a good hour to make the short sea voyage to the rock. But that was about a par time for this time of year and he was happy enough to take a breather for twenty minutes and watch the seabirds circle and dive looking for their fishy breakfast for twenty or so minutes before heading make and making his own large, filling breakfast. He had loaves to make and wanted to get them in his oven before eight. It was a challenging timetable but it was about as challenging as it got during Henry's day these days. And he didn't really care a huge amount if he did make his deadline if he was honest but it did help him space his day nicely.
Henry said a farewell to his seabird friends and they responded by cawing wildly and swooping for fish. At least Henry choce to think they responded. They're birds after all they probably just cawed anyway.
Henry dived back in and made for his little pile of clothes on the beach, a dark black cloud was approaching from out at sea and Henry didn't especially want to be out swimming under that so he got a bit of shift on, making the return journey in well under an hour despite swimming against the current.
He swam until he got far enough to stand and then walked out of the sea. Henry was quite surprised, although his training meant he didn't show it, to find a man in a black suit holding his towel out to him.
"Morning Henry."
"What do you want?" Henry responded taking the towel from his visitor without too much of a hint towards courtesy.
"Now, now Henry can't an old friend drop by to see how an old colleagues doing?"
"No. No they can't. Again what do you want? And I'm not buying that whole old friends horseshit. You didn't like me and I didn't like you. You're a fucking arsehole."
"Henry, Henry. I'm offended. Ok maybe we weren't that close but respect. That's different. Uber-respect old mate, uber-respect. Best we've ever seen if you ask me."
"That's funny I don't remember asking. The key thing is even if I was the best ever, the important fucking word is fucking was. Was the best. Not anymore I'm out. So there really is no need for you to be here. You can fuck off back right now. And you still havn't answered the question."
"What question?"
"don't give me that fucking shit. You know you've been stalling. What the fuck do you want?"
"I've come to take you back. The old man needs you. He says it's urgent and you're the only man for the job. You can't say no to the old man Henry, you know that."
"No."
"Come on make it easy on yourself and come quietly."
"No."
"You really don't want me to come and make you come back."
"No."
"You wouldn't want that and I don't really want to do it."
"No."
"Come on Henry."
"No."
"I've come a long way, I've missed breakfast, I've nearly killed myself on those stone steps on the way down."
"No."
"And it's way too early to be pissing about argueing over whether you're coming back or not when you know that in the end, one way or another your are. So come on, we need you."
"Fucking no. You're not fucking listening. I said no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. A thousand million times no."
"Come on now Henry, let's not have any silliness. We want you back, we need you back."
"Thanks for that, obviously it's flattering to be wanted, needed even but I'll have to say. Thanks. But no thanks. Wild horses couldn't drag me back. I'm fine where I am and I'm retired. Fuck the old man and fuck you. So fuck off."
"No need for to make it nasty Henry. It was only a request. I'm told to use all possible means to bring you back."
"Well you'd better get your operational manual out then because I'm not fucking coming."
"Sounds like you leave me no choice Henry."
"Come and get it big boy."
"You really don't want me to do that."
"I'll be the fucking judge of what I want, remember I don't fucking work for you so fuck off you overgrown wardrobe."
Henry charged at the giant besuited figure standing calmly on the beach. Alas Henry either forgot that he was barefoot on wet pebbles or misjudged his opening gambit, the tall, box shaped, hulking stranger nimbly dodged to his left, Henry clumsily flopped about like a kipper, the stranger caught Henry under his armpits and delivered one sharp decisive blow with the outer palm of his free hand to the back of Henry's neck, Henry went to sleep, he would just have to wake up with a headache.
"Right. You're coming with me. Will they never learn. I fucking told him."
The stranger picked Henry's small pile of unsuitable clothes up, flopped Henry over his broad shoulders and left the beach up the wet, stone steps of the cliff face and off back to the real world.
Henry was going to be pissed. When he woke up.

Caustic Soda

Billy had a pressing need for a cold can of fizzy pop. He was on his well earned lunch break and had been working like a slaves dog all morning. There had been two truck loads of office stationary arrive and it was under Billy's job description to not only order essential equipment for mainaining, running and keeping an office organised, efficient and well filed but also when said delivery of office supplies arrived to check it as a legitimate order, supervise the unloading of said delivery vehicle and then make sure that all of the stationary and supplies were stored away neatly in their correct place.
Normally this part of Billy's job was easy peasy, it was a case of signing for a box of post-it notes or rubber bands or paper clips or occassionally and excitingly a pack of dry wipe markers. But today was differentt all of the supplies had seemed to be running low all at once. It's what, if stationary supply people would call a perfect storm if anyone thought it was a good or even not a waste of time to have a conference on stationary management at which people discuss matters of importance or significance in the office supply world.
Yes today Billy had been rushed straight off his feet, he was a regular whirling dervish of activity and as you can imagine being a whirling dervish whirling dervish this didn't really help.
The first problem was that the two lorries hadn't arrived first thing which would have been very much better for Billy but in mid morning and within about two minutes of one another and this led to several piles of office supplies sitting on the loading dock and looking for all the world like a pile of office supplies that were going to cause Billy a huge amount of problems because they were. Part of the problem was that not only did Billy have to organise the unloading of the two lorries of office supplies he also had to check the inventory against his own order records to make sure this vast logisitical nightmare was accurate, mercifully it was, but he also then had to put it all away, each different office necessity had it's own place of storage so Billy could find it easy when people needed a refill of photocopier ink or staples or clicky topped pens and knowing how light fingered office workers can be all of this had to be secured in a locked area. The problem with such a large delivery of office supplies was that it was difficult to keep the stock secure.
The lorries had long since gone but the large piles of office equipment was know sitting on the loading dock and this left Billy with a dilemma. Should he stay with the supplies and make sure no thieving went on at the port of origin or by the store cupboard where the stock was being brought to.
He opted to get a chain going between some of the loading bay workers so the whole of the delivery was being continuously moved and to stand by the store cupboard and check off all the items as they arrived and be the last link in the chain and put the various boxes where they needed to go.
This alsp created problems for Billy, several in fact, the first was that the loading bay workers were far more used to physical work than Billy and their rhythm as a human chain of office supply movement was a lot quicker than Billy could cope with. No sooner had Billy taken possession of the first box, checked it's particulars and decided where to put it when another turned up. This bought Billy out in a sheen of sweat. He didn't like it. Another problem was that in Billy's mind there would have been a logical sequence to moving the boxes. The biggest stuff that was supposed to go at the back of the cupboard would have come first and so on and so on and so on. But the loading bay workers, eager to get back to rolling up some polythene wrapping into a ball and set about having a crafty kick about aand maybe a quick fag where throwing the boxes about in such a random way that Billy was have to check each box, decide that it was out of sequence and leave it until it was appropriate to store the box, this left him working around an untidy pile of boxes as he struggled to maintain his faculties.
It also didn't help that people at random intervals would wander over, seemingly oblivious to Billy's trials and tribulations to request some office supply. There was a definate procedure for requesting office supplies, ask Billy, Billy got stationary, Billy locked store cupboard, office supply was signed for only then was a person allowed to wander away with any equipment.
So Billy's day hadn't been great so far. In fact it hadn't been great to such an extent that after the last box in his chain had arrived he'd plonked it down with all of the other boxes that he'd been forced to stack due to the loading bay workers not having the faintest idea about organised transportation of office supplies through the form of a human chain, locked the door, deciding to clear up the remaining boxes when he got back from lunch and went to lunch.
Billy locked up, ignored a request for some A4 manila envelopes with a really rather over-curt "it'll wait, come back after lunch." and went in search of cold, fizzy pop. It was what he craved after all his exertions, both physical and mental, this morning. In fact, Billy thought, one can might not be eonugh I may have to have two.
He left the cold, seventies built office building and strolled off down the road to the corner shop.
He bought one can of a generic brand lemonade and one can of a generic fizzy orange, a lot of fizzy citrus goodness, and as a treat a Lion bar, he also bought a newspaper, it was a bit better than watching the traffic Billy supposed. He walked on to the little bit of green space that doubled as a traffic island, it wasn't just any old traffic island though. Some bright spark at the traffic management section of the town council had thought that it might be a good and pleasant idea to have the island set out in a variety of flora. Arborial was a nice way to describe it. The island had a little path linking two sets of pedestrian crossings and three benches that folk could sit on and a waste bin so you could enjoy your lunch al fresco but also be aware of your responsibility towards the environment.
Billy sat down on the left hand bench and focussed out the dirty drone of the constant traffic as it revolved around the island, picked up his paper and was happy for the first time in three hours.
Billy opened his frosty can of orange fizzy pop and damn near finished the thing in one go. He emptied it on the second swig and got up and put it carefully in the bin which was down the other end of the row of benches on the far side of the right hand bench. This little walk was fine though, it was a nice day and the fizzy orange pop had given him a new burst of sugar fuelled energy. He turned back round and someone was sitting on the bench where he'd left his paper and in fact was reading his paper.
"Excuse me, that's my paper and I was sitting there."
"Really."
"Yes."
"But you got up, I thought you were off."
"No, I just went to the bin. I was always going to come back."
"But I didn't know that."
"Well I didn't think I needed to advertise it, look the other two benches are free. Why don't you use one of those?"
"Why don't you?"
"What?"
"Well, I'm sat here now. If I got up that would be just too complicated when you could just sit on one of the other benches. If I got up I'd be getting up to sit back down again but you're already up."
This cold logic caught Billy unawares. He hadn't been expecting this level of arguemental prowess and couldn't really think of a suitable response as to why he should have the bench when the other guy was already sitting down. He gave in.
"Can I have my paper, my pop and my Lion Bar then."
"Oh sure, can I have the paper after you. I like to check my astrological outlook and read the problem page."
"Errr, yeah I gues."
Billy wandered off down to the bench by the bin. He felt it best to put a bench in between himself and this mysterious interloper. It was weird plus he had the feeling that if he didn't he might end up in some sort of conversation where at some point he sold his soul to a powerful anti-deity or something. This guy was giving off just that sort of creepy aura.
"Cripes that's some deep weird thinking there. I think maybe lugging boxes has blown a sensible circuit in my brain."
And slightly disconcerted Billy started on his paper and his Lion Bar. His recent unnerving encounter however meant that his enjoyment of said chocolatey/nougaty/peanutty treat was diminshed and he found that the enjoyment that he was expecting to get from the Lion Bar was dissapointingly low, he put the wrapper in the bin as he mulled over how his day had started out seemingly as routine as any other but had quickly turned into a frantic and strange day full of lugging boxes, uncoordination and weird strangers.
He opened his remaining can of fizzy pop and was about to take a well earned swig when he heard a rattle and from in the can as well. Billy took a weary glance inside the can's small opening, he could see the cold lemonade sitting there but nothing rattle worthy. He swirled the cold fluid around and sure enough something rattled away in the can.
Billy poured out the liquid, obviously he didn't want to drink the Lemonade now and he was curious to find out what was causing this rattle.
"Hey, hey, hey if you don't want the pop don't waste it, I'll have it." The bench stealing interloper was back in Billy's life again.
"Oh great, no you don't understand. There's something in it."
"I know, you're supposed to drink it. It's called Lemonade. It says so on the can."
"No, God you're a pain in my arse. It's a thing, it has something else in it. A rattly thing. Listen."
He swirled the can around for the benefit of his new aquaintence and sure enough there was the rattle. "See. Told you."
"Oh yeah. What is it?"
"I don't know. that was why I was pouring out the liquid so I could see."
"Oh well, go ahead then. Don't let me stop you."
"Thanks." Billy thought this might be enough to get rid of the stranger but he just hung around watching to see what Billy did next.
Billy tipped out the remainder of the liquid and the mysterious object in the can got wedged in the cans small opening. Billy jiggled the can about to try to free the thing but it would budge. The thing was stuck in the can.
The stranger took the can from Billy. "Oi" said Billy.
But before he could get the whole of the Oi out the guy had ripped the can in two and freed the object.
He tossed the can in the shredded can in the bin and sat down next to Billy handing him the wet, lemony smelling object.
"What is it?" Billy said. It was sharp like a piece of rock, stone not candy, although it's texture didn't feel like stone or rock. It was hard but had a strange smoothness and it was arrowheaded to a sharp point.
"Is it rock or maybe flint?"
"No," said the stranger taking it from Billy and rolling it in the palm of his hand. and then between his index finger and his thumb. "It's a tooth."
"A tooth, nah, it's too big."
"No, not Human. It's animal."
"What sort of animal?"
"Well that's the tricky bit. Like you say my friend, it's big so it's got to be a big animal."
"Like an elephant or a hippo?"
"Not quite. If you see how sharp it is you can see it's a meateaters tooth. Good for ripping up flesh."
"Oh like a lion or a tiger than. Wow a real tiger tooth that's awesome."
"No, it's not mammal. It's a bit too long, wouldn't fit in a big cat's jaw."
"Ooooh, is it a shark? Please say it's a Hammerhead."
"No, unfortunately. Shark's teeth have serated edges. This doesn't. I'm thinking it's reptillian."
"Oh, king cobra, black mamba something cool. Maybe a viper."
"I don't think so but you're closer. It's more of a lizard than a snake."
"Monitor lizard or one of those strange things with a massive ridge on it's head."
"No, Gecko or Salamander I think."
"That's to big to be a gecko or a salamander. I'm getting the hang of this."
"There is one species of gecko that's big enough. And it's a meat eater."
"What?"
"Well you're not going to believe this."
"What is it" Stop fucking about and tell me."
"It's a dragon's tooth."
"Oh fuck off."

Big Pink Balls

As the train pulled out of the station Juan noted to himself that although the train had been really very full and people had been getting on and off at all of the stops that the train had previously made he was the only passenger too get off at this station. Nobody had got on to the train to leave either. Juan put this down to nothing more than freaky coincidence. If one or two people had gotten off or on the train it wouldn't have raised anything too speculate on. Juan decided this meant that although it was indeed an unusual/unlikely thing that had happened it certainly couldn't be described as something that couldn't happen.
In fact the very fact that Juan had chosen to use the phrase freaky coincidence was in a way a coincidence in itself. Because the rest of his day turned out to be very freaky indeed and the incident with the train, which if we're honest isn't really an incident, it's more of a thing that happened and not an interesting one either, would be about the most normal thing that would happen to Juan for the rest of the day, although Juan didn't know this yet, but this was a small town and the freaky wasn't far away.
In fact the freaky started before he had even left the station. Juan put his small suitcase down and took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket, using it to wipe the travel grime from his face. Juan looked into the handkerchief, a thin stream of black dirt had replaced the pleasant pressed cleanness that had once been the handkerchief.
He looked around the platform and there wasn't many signs of life. Obviously someone had built the thing and to the untrained eye it looked like a fully functioning train staion. Platfrom, waiting room, chocolate/over priced crisp vending machine, the usual station geography. But the fact that Juan had spent a couple of moments adjusting to his surroundings after getting off the train meant that he'd had those moments to take stock of his quiet environment. Juan knew this was a small town but even small towns had some signs of movement, of life. If the station was anything to go by the population had recently abandoned the place to go find something better. This couldn't be a good thing.
Juan pivotted around in a circle trying to spot signs of intelligent life, what he found was only half of what he needed. Juan needed directions as a new visitor to this little town Juan hadn't the first clue about where he should go next and he had a feeling that his best option may be just to wait for the next train and get on that and go somewhere else but he had things to do in the town and a little lifelessness wasn't about to put Juan off however unnerving it was.
Juan spotted a figure quite a way off down the platform sitting on a bench towards the end of the part of the platform where the first class carriage of a train might set down upon arrival, indeed where the train he'd just gotten off arrived although Juan hadn't come first class so Juan had gotten off further down the platform.
Juan decided too go and use this shadowy figure as a reference point. He plodded off down the platform and wasn't prepared for what would happen next.
The figure looked at him, stuck it's tongue out in a cheeky display of childish humour and faded away to nothing. This left Juan feeling quite disturbed, Juan stopped mid stride and and did a rare impression of a drowning fish, his lower lip had dropped so low that Juan could have fit an entire Cadbury's Cream Egg in his mouth. Unsettling would be the way he'd have described it if he'd needed to. There was no one to describe it to.
Juan turned back round with the intention of finding the exit and getting out of this decidedly weird station and was knocked on his backside by a thing that was a couple of steps behind him.
Juan instinctively went oooffff and positioned himself in as defensive a position as a startled, prone, lost, confused and slightly scared visitor to a small town can when he's just been knocked on his arse by a mysterious and hefty obstacle.
He looked up through winded eyes and saw that it was a station porter, but one dressed like the golden age of steam hadn't ever finished.
"Do you need a hand son?" said the figure.
"Erm, yeah thanks."
The figure held out a hand and after Juan had taken it dragged him to his feet ansd made a fuss about cleaning him down. The figure went to town knocking bits of station platform dust off of Juan's suit jacket and pants. Juan decided this act of sartorial tidying was becoming quite over familiar and without wanting to upset this figure set about getting it to stop.
"Thanks, I think I'm alright know. I don't suppose you could help me. I seem to be a bit lost."
"I don't know, let's see."
"For a start off, what was that?" said Juan pointng at the bench.
"What was what?"
"That, over there. On that bench. What was it?"
"I don't know sir, I can't see anything."
"Well, obviously it vanished but it was there. I saw it."
"Saw what sir, things don't vanish. You must have hit your head in your fall."
"I know things don't usually vanish, but that did. I din't hit my head I hit my arse."
"Maybe you jarred something. There's nothing there sir."
"There bloody was. I know I saw something."
"Maybe it was smoke, you know from the train. You know how people see things in clouds and such. Maybe you just saw a pattern in the smoke maybe it looked like something that wasn't really there."
"Yeah maybe. No, wait. Hold on. It was an electric train it didn't have any smoke. There was no smoke."
"Fair point. I'm sure you think you saw something but look sir. There's nothing there. Things don't just vanish."
"No they don't."
"Now is there anything else I can help you with, you know unicorns or pixies?"
"No, no unicorns." Juan was starting to think this guy was stringing him along and he didn't like it. He really wanted out of this station. "Could you tell me where there might be a decent guest or motel. I need a room for the night and I need to find The Four Bells pub. I'm meeting an old friend there in an hour." Juan checked it's watch and was disturbed to find a crack right through the middle of the face.
"Certainly sir, if you go out of the station and turn left and walk up the road and take the first right there's a smashing little guest house that I always recommend to weary travellers. It's very cosy and they do a marvellous breakfast. The Four Bells is just round the next right hand corner from there."
"Thanks."
"No problem sir. I hope you feel better soon."
"Hhhhhhmmmmmm, I know I saw something."
"I'm sure you did sir."
"Anyway, I'll be seeing you. I'm leaving tomorrow so I'll be back."
"Very good sir, I'll keep an eye out for things that dissappear in the mean time."
The porter pointed out the exit and a little to quickly to be polite Juan strode off towards the outside world.
Juan emerged into the daylight of the out of station world and stood stock still. Right in front of him, just over the road, hovering ominously about two feet off the ground, in a sort of solid cloud of transluscent strangeness, giving off the feeling that it was paying Juan some very special attention despite have no obvious sign of a visual means of doing so was a big pink ball.

Smells Like Chips

Colin threw a stick for Millie to chase after and the dog went scampering away to find the thing, although it never bought the stick back. All Millie would do was pick the stick up in it's slobbery chops and then put it back on the ground and wait for Cloin to amble over to pick the stick up himself.
It was a little like Millie was guarding it for Colin. If Colin chose not to come and get the stick but walk off in a different direction Millie would leave the stick and bound after Colin with an endless enthusiam. In all the time Colin and Millie had had their twice daily, and three times on weekends, walkies Millie had never once grown tired of a good old run out in the park. Rain or snow or wind or bright sunshine, it didn't bother Millie. The weather only really changed things for Millie if it was raining but all that meant was she tended to stay close to Colin, presumably because he carried the brollie, instead of running off a way up the road excitedly and then waiting with patient panting for Colin to make up the distance and then she'd go again, run ahead for twenty or thirty yards and then wait for Colin. Indeed Millie knew the route so well that Colin figured she could probably walk herself but where was the fun in that.
Certainly Colin liked walking Millie, he didn't like it in the rain or if it was cold so much but he was a pragmatic type of fellow and was prepared to take the rough with the smooth when it came to being a pet owner.
He was prepared to go for walkies in the rain, give up foreign holidays because he couldn't bare to leave Millie in the hands of one of those kennel horrors, he was prepared to spend a small fortune on dog food and jabs at the vets and doggie chews that helped Millie's teeth stay as clean as something that mostly only eats poor quality meat can, he was prepared to be woken early on weekends by a slobbery tongue because the dog had no concept of weeks or weekends you make allowances and just learn that a lie in isn't ever likely to happen, he was prepared to give bonfire night a miss even though he was quite partial to a hot dog and some fireworks, he was prepared to walk his dog twice a day, three times a day on weekends, and work his social callender around making the time for walkies at as regular a time as possible and he was prepared to admit that Millie was by far his best friend. The things it wanted he gave gladly and the things it didn't want didn't matter much too Colin.
Colin also liked walking Millie because She was always there. She was a fellow dog walker, in fact one of the lady variety of dog walkers, and Colin was secretly infatuated by her. So secretly that in the four of five years that the two had been regular dog walkers in the same park he'd not once been able to overcome a crippling inability to speak to Her. They crossed paths and Colin had his manners and graces in the right order and was always ready to offer up a polite hello or a smile and a nod but that's as far as it had got. Actual conversation had so far eluded him and that didn't please Colin.
Colin would have given up anything up to but not including Millie for the chance to strike up a lovely conversation with Her that would naturally lead to Her realising what a very nice man he was and the two settling down with their dogs in a sort of dream house that smelled of dog food.
Colin always thought she looked especially lovely around the autumn time. She wore a scarf and woolly hat very well and the orange/yellow/brown colour of the fallen leaves and the bare trees gave her a lovely glow as she watched Her dog skip about excited by the fallen foliage.
That was one thing that Colin noticed about Her actually, whereas Colin enjoyed throwing a stick or a ball or something for Millie to chase after She would mostly just stroll about in a sort of misshapen circle following a path around the park as her dog entertained itself. Horses for coarses Colin thought.
Colin liked his secret love for Her, it gave him quite a warm little glow, especially when the weather was bad. It made standing in the rain or the wind walking his dog not seem nearly that bad a thing to do. That said he would happily swap this secret glow for a chance to woo Her with his dazzling conversational skills and witty banter. He'd been practising their first encounter in his mind for ever so long now that sometimes he thought that it might actually have happened, but that his mind had blacked out at the onset of too much joy and had blown an important memory circuit.
But generally the conversation followed the path of some nice dog passed chitchat, followed by Colin introducing a witty remake, witty but not smutty obviously, and She would laugh playfully and maybe touch Colin lightly on the arm as a gesture that She approved of his charming ways, the two might swap polite generalities about their various lives and then Colin would gently shoehorn in "maybe, you know if you would like, we could take the dogs to this pub I know, it's got a big garden by a stream and is pretty as a picture. It would be nice. We could have drinks. Or maybe one time I could buy you a coffee." And She would respond affirmitivly and the two would develop a loving, mutually beneficial relationship that still had room for canines.
While Colin was daydreaming this delightful scene he absolutely failed to notice that he was about to walk smack into a tree. Well that's not strictly true, he actually noticed a full two and a half seconds before he walked into it but momentum and shock meant there was no stopping Colin and indeed he walked into the tree and bounced off to sit heavily down in the dead leaves on the seat of his pants.
"Ooooooooffffff." was the only thing that Colin could muster. That didn't seem enough to make things better so he said it again "Oooooofffff" and added an "Ooowwwwwwww" as punctuation.
Mille in the mean time had noticed this display of clumsiness and bounded over to see if she could lend the stricken pet owner a hand, by licking him in the face. This didn't help because his face was the main point of soreness, that and his arse bone, but Millie wasn't licking that and it's good that she wasn't as well, despite Millie's good intentions Coiln was forced by his faceache to gently buy firmly remove Millie's face from his and try to stand. That didn't go well. He slipped on the wet leaves and managed to land back where he'd been only few seconds ago only this time a conker had managed to sidle it's way under Colin's bottom and he'd landed on that causing an "Oooooooooffffffff" and an "Aaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhh"
"Having fun?"
Colin looked up from his prone position and performed his famous impression of a fish out of water. The worst thing that could have happened in the world right now had just happened. She'd wandered over to see just how big of a klutz Colin had made of himself. A supergiant large one as it turns out. Because Colin not only was sitting bedraggled, wet and sore in a pile of soggy, mushy leaves he also, apparently, had lost the power of speech.
Colin did not want his big chance to shine conversationally and perform the best wooing since the world began to come while he was looking like a fallen idiot. But the best laid plans tend not to work out the way we hope and Colin's first window of opportunity to impress Her had come right when he least wanted it to. Colin had lost the ability to speak, all he could muster was a sort of confused frown. This by any stretch of imagination didn't lend to good communication and while Colin was struggling with basic motor functions or even form rudimentary, signs of intelligent life type sounds She was forced to fill the void.
"Do you need a hand?"
Colin managed a sorry nod.
"Come on then slugger," She held out a helping hand and levered Colin to his feet, it was not an elegant moment for Colin. "That's going to teach you not to try to fight a tree." She continued obviously not in the least bothered by Colin's embarrassment. Colin managed a shy, self-effacing, little laugh.
"Would you like to sit down and get your wind back for a minute or two?" Colin nodded. "Oh the shame, rescued by the Woman I've had a secret crush on all this time. It's just the end of the world." He thought while She guided him carefully over to a park bench and sat him down, making sure he was as comfortable as a man with a bruised bottom can be on a wrought iron bench and sat down next to him.
There was several moments of very uncomfortable silence, at least it was uncomfortable for Colin, which was broken by something that Colin had never expected Her to say.
"It smells like chips." Colin didn't know what to say about that but he did know one thing, maybe his faculties were recovering. Colin loved her more after that moment than he ever thought possible.

Big In Japan

Tokyo was just recovering from yet another attack by a giant reptillian monster freakified by nuclear waste. It doesn't seem to matter how many times it happens Tokyo always seems shocked to find a massive lizard or huge metal wasp smashing up buildings and running amok. The last attack hadn't even been one of the most severe, the Japanese government's department for huge, freak monster attacks rated it a mere 6.2 out of 11, barely half way up the scale.
The monster had been more of an irritant than really dangerous, not like Godzilla or Mothra. A few cars had been crushed, the ineviteable fire hydrant had been burst and a couple of sky scrapers were going to to need some new windows but no one died and that in the scheme of things is an acceptable conclusion to a radioactive monster attack.
The Specialist unit who trained for just these sort of happenings had become reasonably good at managing the carnage wrought by a monster attack and standard policy was to allow it to smash up a couple of buildings and sort of wear iself out. They knew the things tended not to like Helicopters so they were only ever bought out these days as a last resort. The commander of this particular defence hadn't even bothered to scramble his chopper pilots.
Usual practise and theory seemed to focus the attention of the monster on one thing and for this the unit had bought a British style ice cream truck. It worked very well. The giant, plastic ice cream on the top was something they found most of the monsters could become easily attracted to and that coupled with the truck's cheery jingle meant they could usually persuade the thing to follow the truck. They guided this monster back to the sea.
Experts now agree that these giant monsters actually just panic when they hit Tokyo, a lot like tourists, that's why they wreak all the havoc. It's having a panic attack and because it's difficult to get a brown paper bag big enough for a giant lizard/moth/bat/raven/puffin/griffin thing then the easiest way to calm it down is just to pop it back in the sea or somewhere quiet if it's not marine in origin of species.
This latest attack had left Tokyoites in quite a tizzy. The government department had, a couple of years ago, reassured the population that they would rid Tokyo and Japan in the wider aspect of contaminated freak monsters within a year but that deadline had long passed and the frequency of monster attacks was actually rising. Tokyoites, who are known to be exciteable, have started to ask. Why? this should be. Why do these silly creatures only ever come to Tokyo. Isn't New York or Paris or Sydney or Rio or London or anywhere else monster attractive. Why Tokyo? Maybe it's the fishy smell one person said but he was ignored as that's a little stereortyping.
As you may know, cleaning up the night after a party is a pain. The merriment from the night before presents itself as a proper mess in the cold, harsh light of a morning after and that's how Tokyoites had began to view the state of Tokyo after a monster had rumbled about smashing up their busy city for no obvious reason.
It was starting to become annoying. They'd only just cleaned away the mess from the last monster attack and this fresh one had turned up, caused panic and carnage and been guided back to the sea leaving a massive clearing up operation.
"What we need is an Early Warning System." One man said, who fortunately and coincidentally owned a company that built, installed and maintained Early Warning Systems so it was lucky he was on hand to offer such helpful advice.
And that became sort of an accepted call from a lot of Tokyoites. The government minister pointed out to the growing clamour for an "E.W.S." by pointing out that it's ok knowing a giant monster's coming. It's another stopping it in its tracks.
To which people said at least if we knew we could hide or something instead of standing there waiting to see if the giant, clumsy beast trod them to death.
So with that the Government spent a considerable amount of money on an E.W.S. which seemed to work. One giant monster attack was thwarted before it hit Tokyo and the frequency of attacks dropped dramatically. That was until a huge Tortoise rolled up and smashed the whole of Tokyo to absolute smithereens.
And by smithereens there was nothing. Tokyo was left just a stinking pile of rubble that smelled like the underside of a giant Tortoise.

Threads (part 1)

Lord knows why Troy was spinning around in a circle to see how long it would take to make himself too dizzy to stand but he was. It was a very childish thing to do but Troy is a very childish man.
He shuns responsibilty as if it was an old school chum who he didn't really like at school, he makes fart noises on the packed tube trains and sniggers to himself as people tutt with disdain at this inappropriate tube train etiquette, he still hangs around music stores near the fashionable bands as if knowing which band will be popular for three weeks is a substitute for substance, he thinks that when he wears his T-shirt that says "Stand Still While I Check Out Your Tits" he's being funny, he is not.
It's not without irony then that one of the most stupidly boorish and immature men to be found walking the Earth, should upon stoping spinning around, find himself not staggering like a clumsy idiot like he, or anyone else, would expect to. But on an alien spaceship.
While he had been putting all his energies and concentration into spinning like a berk Troy had completely failed to notice that a beam of light had shone down, allowed for this strange spinning motion and took him. Took him up. Up into the alien spaceship.
Troy's head stopped spinning eventually and because he expected to find himself prone on the ground near to where he'd started spinning it was extra confusing to find himself strapped to a metal bench the sort of which you'd be likely to spot if you were watching a detective show and the murder victim was lying on a slab in a morgue being poked and proded by medical types trying to ascertain why the dead thing should no longer be alive and which dastardly murderer might have had the means, the motive and the skills to turn a living thing into a dead one.
Troy couldn't move any of his usual moving parts except his eyes and his fingers. He'd been restrained by a series of sturdy straps and something that was holding his head down that felt more like a clamp. He was still feeling a little woozy from the spinning but it hadn't been the first time Troy had had a bit of a spin and this wooziness felt more drug enduced than the after effects of his spinning antics. He had a tentative and restricted feel around with his fingers but all that he could work out was that he wasn't wearing very many clothes.
Troy's stupid brain started to try to assemble his thoughts about what was going on into some kind of coherent thought process. But the unusual situation that Troy found himself in coupled with his natural idiocy made this a very tricky thing for Troy to accomplish.
He was struggling to make sense of this situation and his ability to compute logically what might be going on didn't work that well at the best of times and these, clearly, weren't the best of times. Troy just didn't ahve the natural capabilities to tell himself that this situation was by far the weirdest and most dangerous one that someone might find themself in, it wasn't something that he was going to get his head around at any point soon.
As far as Troy could tell he was being held captive, and against his wishes as well, in some form of sterile, medical facility by a person or persons as yet unknown. Normally people finding themselves in such a situation when they havn't had special forces training or weren't some sort of master Dan martial artist or they weren't Clint Eastwood or Lee Marvin would probably panic. It's not everyday that you find yourself held captive by forces unknown in a strange medical facility but Troy's not most people and he didn't panic and that's not because he was Clint Eastwood or Lee Marvin or a martial artist and he certainly hadn't had any special forces training. It was because he was an idiotic man-child with all the common sense of an egg.
Troy, in fact, settled back and waited to see what would happen next. It's the kind of guy that he was. A stupid, vain, thoughtless, staggering dolt. Although, as per usual, Troy due to a naturally low boredom threshold and because he was just that stupid, started to get the urge to scratch his man vegetables, his term not mine, which became an all consuming sensation. He tried to free his wrist from the straps anchoring them to the stainless steel bench but whoever had strapped him down knew his way around a restraining device and he was completely unable to get enough purchase to give his delicate area the attention he felt it needed. He felt the need to complain to someone about this state of affairs but as yet there hadn't been anyone to complain to.
Until now. A face appeared in his line of vision. It was not Human.

Weirdlings

Duncan's day had been going well so far. He'd popped down to the shed and fired up his trainset. This little ceremony involved Duncan doning a real traindrivers hat but stopped short of him putting shoe polish on his face in order to looking like an autheentic steam locomotive driver.
Duncan had tried this once and had been having such a whale of a time that when his wife Sandra cheerily popped her head round the shed door, breaking into his dream world of being a miniture steam engine driver, and asked him if he wouldn't mind popping to the shops. She was a bit short of certain vital ingredients for the kids tea and had hoped that Duncan might be nice enough to take a stroll and help her out.
Which he was. But he'd gone out forgetting about the shoe polish and hadn't really been noticing the strange looks he'd been getting, engrossed as he was is his Train Collector's monthly magazine as he walked the short distance to the shop. Duncan's happiness/ignorance was broken by a firm tap on the shoulder and upon turning round had come face to face with a police officer looking at him with a mixture of authoritarian strictness, bemusement and the desire not to laugh uncontrollably when he knew he was having to be serious.
"Alright sonny Jim." had been his opening gambit. Duncan stood looking mysstified, he didn't remember doing anything wrong. He started panicing, maybe he'd not paid for a parking ticket or something. It was just like Duncan's asabsent mind to forget to remind him of something like that. But then Duncan remembered he hadn't driven in three years and if the ticket was that old he was surely in too much trouble for a mere "Alright Sonny Jim." however sternly it had been submitted. Maybe it was about library books he had used the library and indeed had some books that were due back this week but Duncan was sure he was good for at least two days.
He gaped at the policeman with a trembling deference while he waited to find out if his was going to be dragged off to jail.
"What are you a Black & White Minstrel?"
"Sorry."
The police officer pointed a chubby index finger at Duncan's face and at that second Duncan remembered his boot blacked face.
The next fifteen minutes had been a nervous wait while Duncan explained that it was merely a part of his costume for his miniture train sdriving fantasies and in no way some sort of retro racist assault.
Duncan had even gone to panic station ten and even invited the burly police officer to his shed to see his trainset. He didn't like untrained people touching his beloved trains and definately not operating them but Duncan was desperate enough not to spend time in the Chokey as his Dad used to call it whenever he shouted at Duncan when he was being naughty or too noisy. But the officer had declined his invite reminding Duncan that police officer have very important things to do and they generally didn't have time to go off looking at trainsets when rapes and murders and bank robberies might be happening. (He was late for his tea break) But he did make Duncan promise to be more careful with his shoe polish in the future. Ending there little interrogation with the lines. "This isn't the 1950's you know?"
And that's why Duncan didn't even use the shoe polish anymore. But enough of this little story within a story.
Duncan's day had been going well so far. Like I already said he'd opened up his beloved railwayline for the tiny plastic figures of his little locomotive world and had then gone and fed his tropical fish. He liked to do this after playing with his trains because the excitement of the trains was tempered by the tranquil nature of the fish and their serene voyage round and round their tank and through the little castle.
His next plan was to go and rearrange his spare tool kit which he'd had out yesterday to put up some shelves for Sandra and which hadn't gone so well. In fact Sandra had took the drill and the screws and the shelving and done the thing herself banishing him off down the garden to his trains and from out of her way.
Duncan had struggled for more than half an hour with the bloody shelves and when Sandra had knocked up ten minutes later with a peace offering in the form of tea and biscuits Duncan had wondered what was wrong but it turned out that Sandra was done. The shelves were up, spirit levelled off and all.
Duncan wasn't happy about this attack on his masculinty. Sandra had proved his manliness to be essentially redundant and if she woke up one day and realised Duncan's increasing irrelevance in the scheme of the house then he might be consigned to the shed permanantly. Which secretly he quite liked the idea of. He was never happier than with his trains and regularly dreamt that he was tiny enough to ride the miniture railway himself. Going round and round the tiny plastic world as giddy as a spring lamb.
But much to Duncan's chargrin where Sandra was adept to the point of being professional at DIY related matters she was inversely terrible at putting things back in their right place and tidyily. And when Duncan found his spare tool kit he stood open mouthed, there wasn't a tool or screw or nail or washer or anything in it's right place.
So higgledy-piggledy was the tool case that Duncan decided it was a job that needed proper attention and after going off to deliver a stern lecture on the value of toolkit neatness to Sandra the night before had become a little too tired to start rearranging the tools and left it until this morning, but even that had left him slightly on edge.
He couldn't sleep properly with the tool kit all out of shape like that.
What if there was an emergency that required some drilling or hammering or screwing in the middle of the night.
He'd be all over the place. No doubt Sandra would cope even with the tool kit in the mess that it was.
But what if Sandra couldn't be persuaded to wake up and deal with the emergency. It had caused much tossing and turning throughout the night.
But that was then and the night had passed without a tool requiring emergency and now was now and the bedraggled tool kit waited patiently to be tidyied in a way only an inanimate object can.
He started by taking all of the tools out of the box. And then the screws. And then the nails. And so on, lying them all down in neat piles according their function.
He then proceded ro rank them in terms of size and shape. This would make it easier to compartmentalise them later for their return to their home in the box.
This was all going very well and Duncan was firmly in the swim of his task, he was focussed and precise about where he wanted each tool item or accessory to be.
This was right about the same time he heard a thump or a bang maybe from the attic. This was unusual, Duncan and Sandra only used the attic for storage. There was boxes of old clothes, travel luggage, a big wooden wardrobe that the pair had sort of stolen on the death of one of Sandra's great aunts and then found it too cumbersome and oversized to be of any practical use and had had a pig of a time getting it up through the hatch, so much so that Duncan doubted whether it was ever coming out again. Plus there was an assortment of no longer used kids toys, books, records, an old record player, some photo albums and a full sized Human skeleton that Sandra had got when she was a student at university. The skeleton was wearing a bowler hat and a scarf. As if he was dressed to go into work in the city ands it was autumn.
But there shouldn't have been anything up there moving about and thumping and what not.
Maybe Duncan had just imagined it, maybe he'd been so engrossed in his tool kit rearrangment that he'd made up weird noises in his head. He went back to the task at hand. But less than a minute later there was an even louder thump followed by another one. This was followed by something rolling across the attic floor and another thud as it no doubt came to a stop but a natural feature of the attic, I.E. a wall/roof post.
"Sandra, i think we've got bats or mice in the attic."
There was no response.
"Sandra."
"Sandra."
Obviously Sandra was out.
"Damn."
Duncan went in search of a torch and stealed himself to investigate the attic pest problem. On locating a torch and a step ladder he climbed up to the hatch, nudged it opened, turned the torch on and shone it around the cobwebby, shadowy attic.
He couldn't see any sign of an feathered/squeaky intruder. He moved the point of the torch light in an arc, like he was in the guard turret of a POW camp. He'd make a better one than the one you always see in the movies completely missing the figure trying to not be spotted by the mere act of standing very still. Steve Mcqueen would never have gotten out if he'd been on a guard turret.
He looked left, he looked right. No bats, no birds, no mice, no rats, no squirrelt and definately no elephant in the room. He was all set to leave and make himself a refreshing cup of tea when he spotted something in the gloomy, torchlit attic.
It was sat behind a box and it was starring right at him and it wasn't a bat. Duncan thoguth this was good. Duncan hated bats.
The Thing blinked in the glare of the torch light. Obviously startled by the light, Duncan had no clue how long it had been here or how it had even got here but Duncan's logic told him maybe it was a while and seeing as the attic was mostly dark the torch light maybe a shocking thing to this little fella.
The "Little Fella" was still starring at Duncan and this helped Duncan to make out some of it's features. It was about the sized of a medium sized dog sitting up. It had very round eyes and two ears that stuck out of the side of his head on stalks. they stalks seemed to be quivering, maybe the thing was a bit scared thought Duncan. He turned the torch off which he realised he'd been shining in the poor little creatures eyes and pulled the cord switch to the turn the main attic light on to bathe the seen in a more general glow. He creature had a sort of grey/pink complextion and seemed to be oozing a kind of moistness. It was still starring at Duncan and Duncan thought maybe he should investigate further so tried a couple of nervous steps towards the boxes that the creature was sheltering in. The thing cowered away, obviously very nervous. Duncan tried to calm it by make what he thought was reassuring noises but this merely started the little thing off trembling, like a dog having a poo.
Duncan tried to approach again, slowly, slowly slowly. "No sudden movements." thought Duncan. At which point Duncan stumbled on some random thing on the floor and careered head long into the pile of boxes. Even as Duncan was heading into the boxes at speed he heard a squawk of panic, this was married to a blur as the creature bolted away from the collapsing Duncan. Duncan hit the boxes like they were skittles and he was a huge, misshappen bowling ball.
When Duncan picked himself up out of the rubble of smashed up boxes he looked about for the creature who'd headed to one of the cross rafters and was looking at Duncan like a shaven hawk, with sticky out ears and no beak and a beer gut. That's odd thought Duncan. "We're going to have to get you in shape little buddy."
The thing seemed a little less nervous now that it had the higher ground and Duncan had revealed himself to be nothing more dangerous than a clumsy oaf.
Duncan shook the attic dirt from his trousers and pullover and looked up at the creature who by know had gotten used to Duncan's presence a little bit and was more regarding him than trembling with sweaty fear at him. It had it's weirdly featured head tilted to one side, trying to make out what this thing was that had shone a light into it's world and then crashed about like an ox in a China factory.
Duncan stood up and moved slowly but surely towards the creature in the beams of the attic.
The creature didn't shy away.
Duncan moved a little closer and poked a timid finger towards the thing.
The thing looked at the finger, then as it got closer, sniffed it.
As if trying to decide whether it might bite or be poisonus or if it was pleasantly chewable.
The thing gurgled. The noise was a cross between a burpy baby and a stone plopping into a pond. Which is a slightly strange combination but not an unpleasant noise thought Duncan.
The Thing stopped his nasal investigation of the finger and sort of somersaulted/swung itself off the beam and onto the attic floor it held out a hand to Duncan as if wanting to show him something. It pleased Duncan how quickly he'd gained the trust of the "Little Fella", took it's moist palm in his and allowed himself to be guided by the creature to where it wanted Duncan to go.
The Thing moved to the stack of boxes that he'd first been hiding behind and which now had a Duncan shaped hole in them from wheer Duncan had fell down. The creature picked his way around the distraught boxes and pointed at the back wall, which was the darkest point of the attic and therefore to the creature the safest hideaway no doubt.
Duncan was in for a little surprise, I guess it was the day for them, he discovered a creature the same as Duncan's new little friend only slightly smaller and with slightly moonier eyes and in a sort impromptue crib/nest was five almost identical miniture versions of the "Little Fella."
The "Little Fella." had a new family. He was a Daddy, the same as Duncan. Only more so.
Duncan decided the best thing to do was to try to make the Things comfortable and see if they needed feeding. He very carefully guided them down from the attic, with the new Dad and Mum carrying their brood ever so carefully he set them up a little homestead in the small bedroom. He gave them some milk, which they liked but made them burp, he gave them a bit of apple that he cut into segments which the two adults ate but the babies didn't seem too fussed with and he broke up a cookie into crumbs and the went nuts for that. So cookies and milk then. Weird. That's what I'll call them "Weirdlings."
When Sandra returned from the shops she was at first adamant that they contact some kind of authority on these things but after Duncan patiently pointed out that that would be fine by him as long as Sandra didn't mind the house being sealed off by angry men, in bio-hazard suits and put on the news then go head.
"You can ring whoever you like. I won't stop you. Or You can just accept we now have Weirdling Babies."
Sandra had to admit that Duncan had a good point and had played his arguement card very well. The Weirdling babies stayed and became a much loved addition to Chez Duncan e Sandra.

Buns. Buns. Buns.

Lloyd was really very upset. Lloyd didn't understand what the Woman was thinking. Lloyd had inherited the bakers from his father and he'd inherited it from his father and so on back six generations.
For as long as anyone in the pretty village could remember the Baker family had been the baker's to the village.
Baker's the bakers was the middle shop in a row of five shops. Next door too the right was a cheese shop which also sold a selection of jams, preserves, pickles, chutneys and marmalades plus a wide variety of honey and yoghurts.
Next door to the cheeseshop was a fruiterers who also sold vegetables but was called a fruiterers on the awning out the front so it was called the fruiterers.
The shop to the left of Lloyd's Bakers shop was ran by two brothers, Mr. Jones and Mr. Jones, one of whom sold antique furniture from the groundfloor and one of whom sold second hand books from the second floor.
Because the two fought like cats tied up in a bag on clear sight of one another and always had done since about three days after the younger Mr. Jones had been born. The younger Mr. Jones', who owned the upstairs bookshop, customers weren't allowed access to the book shop from the ground floor shop.
The elder Mr. Jones would fly into a rage full of hostility and spite and swearing when a customer stumbled accidentally into the antique shop thinking they'd be allowed passage to the world of books upstairs. Indeed so annoyed by these interruptions was Mr Jones that he'd regularly bellow a stream of near incomprehensible abuse up the staircase towards the upstairs shop.
Contemporary witnesses/customers who were browsing in the shop generally couldn't make out all of what the ranting would be about.
The actual words being mostly smothered by a combination of a heavy wooden door installed by Mr. Jones to emphasise how much you weren't able to use his staircase to get to his younger Brothers bookshop, this door was always double locked and hadn't been opened since the day the two men had installed it and the fact that the Elder Mr. Jones sounded like an unhinged berzerker whenever he burst into a rant. But they took the general jist as one being angry and upset and the only phrase/ half-sentence anyone had ever been able to interpret was "Keep those fucking pests out of my fucking shop you fucking little idiot. I'll be sending you a bill should they fucking break anything. Put a fucking sign up or fucking something. Fuck off." But normally it just descended into babble and swearing.
Customers wishing to view or buy anything in the second hand bookshop were required to go back out through the shop after a terse rebuke from the older Mr. Jones and climb a set of stairs round the back.
Due to the Younger Mr. Jones having an excellent reputation amongst readers his book shop was very successful despite the inconvenience of having to be shouted at by the elder Mr. Jones and having to struggle up a steep, rickety, outdoor stair case. The book shop was such a success that the younger Mr. Jones had taken the decision to close the shop every Tuesday to go fishing and he'd hired a young schoolleaver to cope with the stream of customers. This had been handy as quite often the shop would have more than one person to serve and the Younger Mr. Jones prided himself on his customer service reputation. He was generally known as being amongst the best and most friendly second hand book seller in the country and he felt sure that this was a strong pointer towards why he had so many customers, especially ones that he liked to call his "Regulars".
On the other hand the elder Mr. Jones was an awful antiques dealer. He couldn't spot anything really valuable, his shop was mostly just full of junk and bric-a-brac, he was rude, unhelpful and very stubborn when it came to haggling over prices, he just wouldn't do it and seeings as the awful variety of tat in his shop was so poor and the tat was so very badly over priced he very rarely sold anything.
Unless a hapless American tourist should stumble in and mistake his boorish, sulky demeanour for some kind of quaint British charm. He hated the American tourists more than anybody else and as often as possible would over charge for the tat he was selling them. The elder Mr. Jones was not a nice man.
But this isn't what was worrying Lloyd. What was worrying Lloyd was the fact that a woman, of all things, had opened up the shop next to Mr. Jones & Mr. Jones double shop and called it Buns. Buns. Buns.
The Woman. Madelleine, Lloyd had overheard someone call her while he'd been doing a spot of gossip watch, had only moved into the village a month ago after being bequeathed her grandmothers cottage, creeping ivy, picture postcard windows, smokey olde worlde chimney and all and had set about opening her Buns. Buns. Buns. shop.
Buns. Buns. Buns. Sold mostly Buns, the window of the shop was an arrangement of several dozen lovely looking, freshly baked buns. Fruit buns, iced buns, jammy buns, custard buns, even savoury buns. Which Lloyd thinking he knew the conservative nature of the villagers wouldn't really like such an exotic thing as a savoury bun. But he was wrong, they went like hot cakes. Speaking of which she also made hot cakes as well. Plus cold cakes, pies, tarts, meringues, quiches, baps, bagels, gateaus, cobs, fruit breads, fruit cakes, fruit tarts, croissants, pizzas, bloomers, baguettes and French sticks. Although Lloyd couldn't tell the difference between a baguette and a French stick.
This also wasn't the thing that was worrying Lloyd. The thing that was worrying Lloyd was that his once busy, thriving and it has to be said monopoly on all this bready shop was suffering from the competition. He'd only had one customer all week and all she'd bought was a pork pie for her husband's lunch box and a small wholemeal loaf. The next day while Lloyd was sweeping a broom over the shopfront cobbles his last customer, at this rate possibly ever, was in Buns. Buns. Buns. queueing greedily behind about a dozen other eager bakery customers.
At the rate it was going Lloyd would be out of business in this village by the end of next week, nearly two hundred years of baking heritage gone in such a short time. Buns. Buns. Buns. was all set to wipe him from the face of the Earth. At least in an owning/running a bakers sense of the term. Lloyd's business was going up in smoke and not because he'd left the bread in the oven too long. Because his customers had abandoned him in droves. Loyalty, it seemed is a fleeting affair where Buns are concerned.
Over the next week Lloyd had tried his best to best to stay afloat and attract his ex-customers to become customers again. He'd tried putting up some posters of lovely looking fresh baked, just sliced bread to entice people in. It just enticed them to eight feet away to queue up at Buns. Buns. Buns. Who by this point was know braching out with toffee apples, biscuits, crackers, cookies and something called a breakfast cereal bar. All apparently home baked and all apparently gorgeous to the Human tongue.
Lloyd tried a sale, three for two offers, discounts, a loyalty scheme which may have worked if anyone was being loyal in the first place, but they weren't.
Lloyd branched out into the world of sandwiches, something which he was fairly sure was making his fore-father bakers spin angrily in their graves. He bought an old bicycle and hired a boy as a delivery rider to dash out during an afternoon rush. bread on wheels he'd called it and he'd had leaflets printed and despatched to every house in the village. It didn't help one bit. Takings were so low now that they were technically givings.
The village was getting fat on Buns at the same time as Lloyd's bank balance was getting thinner.
Lloyd desperate to do right by his baking heritage struggled in vain against Buns. Buns. Buns. But eventually he gave up. He sold the shop to a man who wanted to sell bottled beers and ciders as a sort of high class off licence. The man had bought a tape measure and seemed pleasantly surprised to find that such an old building was maybe even big enough for him to stock wines, whiskies and spirits and even foreign beers. Which Lloyd thought maybe was a mistake in such a Britishy village but they'd literally gone nuts for Buns. Buns. Buns. So what did Lloyd know. He knew how to make a perfect white loaf but that didn't help you work out the Human condition. It meant you could make bread. But not the money sort just the doughy, yeasty sort.
Lloyd went surfing. He liked it, it as more fun than baking bread.
Buns. Buns. Buns. was welcome to it.