Tag Archives: short story

My writing life.

I started my writing career in 1981. I was seven. In a style which I have later adopted in my poetry, my first novel didn’t have a title, it just had a giant R on the cover, which stood for Robert. I can’t remember much about if except that the villain was an entity known only as the Blue Moo. The Blue Moo was what I used to call my sister, because she wore a blue coat. Which is kind of cruel, seeing as though she was only five at the time.

I would write at school during playtime, whenever it was raining. It rained a lot, I remember, when I was a kid. I’d always get excited about rainy days because it meant that I could write. I still get excited shout rainy days, even now.
By 1984 I was at middle school and I used to fill notebooks with stories. I was encouraged to do this by my teacher, Mr Shaw, who would then let me read my stories out in class. The first of these was called Bully Bulldog’s Ship, and for reasons which I’m still not sure, all of the characters were dogs. And secret agents. The cover for Billy Bulldog’s Ship shows explosions and a radar screen and has he tag line, ‘Featuring car chases, underwater bases, kings and prime ministers and that sort of thing’. It was rubbish.
By 1986 I was still at middle school, but now I’d progressed to writing about humans. I wrote a whole series of short novels about a skier, called William Board, and his friend Ed Butf, and how they would get into all kinds of adventures during and after skiing tournaments. I have no idea why I picked skiing tournaments, but I did watch an awful lot of Ski Sunday back in the day.
In 1988 my grandparents gave me a typewriter, which I still use now whenever I’m Poet In Residence anywhere. By now William had left the skiing circuit and was a policeman in a small Surrey village called Englemede. I’d type up these stories and inject as much humour as possible, because this would make my English teacher, Mr Smith, laugh as he read them. This was probably a big moment in my adoption of comedy. The stories were still rubbish, but my grammar and spelling had improved.
By the time I got to sixth form I was still plugging away, and remarkably, William Board was still the focus of the stories, his ineptitude as a policeman and his promotion to detective providing much mirth. My magnum opus of this time was Impending Headache, set at a sixth form college in Surrey much like the one I attended. And in between chapters I’d write over the top comedic poetry.
By 1992 I had my first job and, amazingly, William Board was still my main focus. By now his detective work would take him to a supermarket in Surrey, round about the time that I worked at a supermarket in Surrey, in a novel called Bar Code Blues.
In 1994 I got a job in a village shop in the suburb of Englefield Green, and I wrote a new novel with a new main character, the trainee guardian angel Genre Philips. The novel was called Englefield Green Blues, and like Impending Headache, it would be influential on my writing career in that I’d re-use chapters and stories to form the novel I’ve been working on this year.
At this stage, I’d started sending novels off to publishers and agents, and one or two were very supportive but would ultimately say no.
By now I’d dabbled in comedy poetry, filling up notebooks with poems written with a pen I’d been using since sixth form. I’d stay at my grandmothers house in the hot summer, she lived on a hill overlooking the whole of London from the airport to Canary Wharf, and I’d listen to the jazz stations and just write whatever I felt like. This would form the basis of my one man show, Static, in 2016.
In 1995 my Grandfather passed away. I went to see the pathologist and watched as he signed the death certificate with a cartridge pen, and that afternoon I went out and bought one for myself. Amazingly, this is the same pen I use today for anything creative, and it has written every poem, short story, novel and play since 1995.
In 1996 I moved to Devon. By now I’d discovered Kafka, Camus, Beckett, and my writing became dense, impenetrable. I used my own system of punctuation which made even the reading of it impossible, and to further add to the misery, my novels had numbers instead of names. RD05, RD06, RD07, and so on. I’d send these off to publishers and I could never understand why they’d come right back.
I joined a band of local amateur actors and I would write short sketches and funny monologues for them, we’d rehearse and make cassettes, but never got anywhere near the stage. One of my monologues was about a rocket scientist who’d fallen in love with his rocket. Not phallic at all.
I came out in 2000. I didn’t write much at all for a while. I was busy with other things.
By now I had a job, and I’d studied a-levels, undergraduate and postgraduate at night school, so I didn’t have much time for writing. For a laugh, I got a part in a professional play, and while it meant I would never act again, (oh, it was so traumatic!), it led me to write a play called Fuselage. Amazingly, it won a playwriting competition at the Northcott Theatre. I remember getting off the train in Exeter thinking, wow, it’s my writing that has got me here. This all happened in 2008.
In 2009 I discovered performance poetry, accidentally, and kind of got in to that. Around the same time I wrote a short novel called Reception, based on an ill fated trip I took to Tokyo, but by now my main focus was performance poetry and spoken word, shows and comedy one liners. In 2010 I had my first paid gig, at an Apples and Snakes event in London, and amazingly, this was the first time I made any money from my writing since I was 8!
So that brings me up to date, more or less. I now write every day, still with the same pen, and I still use the same typewriter every now and then, though mostly for performance. And I’ve kept a diary, every day writing something about the previous day, which I’ve kept up since 1985 uninterrupted. It’s only taken 37 years to find the one thing I’m halfway decent at!

On memorising.

So lately I’ve been trying to memorise my new Edinburgh show, Juicy. This would be quite an undertaking for me, as I’ve never successfully memorised anything I’ve ever written, and to be jones I probably won’t manage it. I can memorise whole Bob Dylan songs, all fourteen minutes of Desire, but I’m quite hopeless at anything I myself have written.
I did a scratch performance of Juicy at the Bike ashes Theatre in May. It was a daunting experience because I was surrounded by theatrical types, and to be honest I think they were looking at what I was doing more in the context of a theatrical piece than a set of poems. The feedback afterwards unanimously suggested that I should learn the whole thing, because this is what theatre is. Some of the feedback suggested I move around more. Which was quite funny on two counts, firstly because some of the feedback also said how nice it was to see someone who doesn’t move sound all the time, and also because the director I used for my last show told me to stand dead straight for the whole hour. And he was a theatrical director.
So I’ve set to work trying to learn Juicy, and after two months I’ve managed to learn six pages of it. Out of thirty. Now this may not seem like much, but for me, this is a small triumph. I’ve never managed to learn anything before, so six pages of Juicy is the ultimate achievement.
Last week I went to a gig in Totnes and I spoke to a fellow performer who I have lots of respect for. I told her about learning my show and she replied, ‘Why?’
And that got me thinking, why indeed? Ok, so if you’ve learned your lines you can move around more and have a deeper connection with the audience. But on the other hand I’ve always performed with a book, and it is a part of my whole repertoire. I look up from the book, glare at the audience, look at them all in turn. Which should be quite easy at the Edinburgh Fringe. In fact, I know the words, I just can never remember in which order the verses fall.
Make no mistake, it’s good to learn poetry and adds to the performance. And the fact that I’ve memorised six pages of the show means that now I can apply this to the three minute poems, and hopefully grow my performance. But I think I shall just relax on the memorising at the moment and concentrate just on the performance. That’s the main thing. It’s performance poetry, after all! 

The Arrival (a short story from 2002)

A committee was set up in order to plan for the visit. A chairman was voted for, an elderly gentleman with a walrus moustache. He was then replaced with another elderly gentleman. The secretary resigned because she objected to the name of the committee. The replacement secretary used to be the treasurer, so a treasurer had to be found. The original chairman wanted to be the treasurer but the new chairman objected. Both the chairman and the prospective treasurer then resigned from the committee, so a new chairman had to be found as well as a treasurer. The positions were eventually filled with a man who used to be a car salesman, who said he knew all about planning visits. And the Treasurer was shared among the other members of the committee on a rotation basis. Just like a quiz show on TV, someone commented. The comment was recorded in the minutes.
A name had to be invented. Someone suggested the Visit Committee, but there was another committee called the Visiting Committee and it was thought that this would lead to confusion. Someone else suggested the Committee for the Visit, but this was also voted down because it sounded boring. The person who suggested it was the person who was also the Treasurer on this occasion, and she resigned. A third suggestion was to call the committee something trendy, just like a modern company, a name which would hint at science and progress in the arts. Implosion was the name that was banded around. The secretary commented that it sounded like something from The Apprentice. The person who suggested it was very upset about this and he threatened to resign, but just as he did they came in with the coffees so he stayed on for a bit. This was recorded in the minutes.
They finally decided on the Systemal Function for the Application for the Arrival of the Visitor and His Entourage. Or SFAAVHE, for short. This was recorded in the minutes.
It was then time to decide what the committee would actually plan for the visitor’s arrival. There was no doubt that he was eminent, so it was agreed by all that he should have a red carpet when he stepped out of his car. Then someone said that he shouldn’t be in his own car at all. If he was so eminent, they argued, then, surely, he should be driven? OK, then. A limousine would pick him up from his house. But he lived two hundred miles away. This was a problem. They decided they would compromise. He would drive as far as the halfway point and then the limousine would pick him up. It was generally agreed that this was a good idea and it was recorded in the minutes.
Then someone pointed out that red carpets were hard to find, and they got mucky if it rained. The under-secretary was dispatched to source a long red carpet. She asked what sourced meant and the chairman said that it meant to go and fine one. She asked why he didn’t say that in the first place, and the chairman said that it was business-speak, that’s how they said things in the world of business. The under-secretary objected to the tone that the chairman took and she resigned. A new under-secretary was then voted in and he said that he would look on the internet to find a red carpet. Ten minutes later he said that he could only find a yellow one. That will have to do, the chairman said. And all of this was recorded in the minutes.
The meeting then moved on to who would be there to greet the visitor on his arrival. One of the members suggested the head of the department, but then someone else reminded her that the head of the department was currently being investigated for fraud and it would be best that he were to stay out of the limelight. The chairman said that this was not the way to treat the head of the department and that he should be there. The treasurer then reminded the chairman that he, too, was caught up in the same scandal, so the chairman then resigned and a new one was voted in. She thanked the previous chairman for his hard work, but then she spilled coffee on her lap. She resigned, so that she could go to the bathroom and wash it off. When she got back to the room, the original chairman had been voted back in. And all of this was recorded in the minutes.
The next item for discussion was the food that would be provided for the function once the visitor had arrived. Someone suggested prawn cocktail, but they were reminded that the budget would stretch so far. Someone then suggested prawn cocktail crisps, but they were laughed out of the room. Someone suggested those funny spicy sausage things that go on sticks and you have to move them upwards with your thumb as you eat them, and they are often seen in films set in North Africa, but no-one knew what he was going on about, so someone else suggested scotch eggs. Scotch eggs it was. Then the secretary announced that he was allergic to scotch eggs, and someone said that he wouldn’t even be at the function, he wasn’t important enough. He then resigned. A new secretary was voted in, and this was recorded in the minutes.
Much discussion then centred around the manner in which the eminent guest would be introduced to the members of the department before he entertained them all with his speech. One person suggested a strict clock-wise motion around the room, someone else suggested anti-clockwise. The chairman said that the guest should be left to speak to whoever he wanted, but that the most prominent members of the department should be introduced to him slyly, subtly, so as not to provoke suspicion that the whole thing was stage managed. Someone then suggested name-badges, coloured according to the importance of the person wearing them. It’s what we did in the war, he suggested. Even Hitler wore a name badge. There was a show of hands and it was decided that there would be name badges. The discussion of whether they should be in higher or lower case went on for half an hour. And all of this was recorded in the minutes.
The meeting had almost finished and no-one had resigned for a while. The secretary was asked to read out the minutes, but he objected, so he resigned. The new secretary was then asked to read out the minutes and he did so beautifully, but in Spanish. The next secretary read out the minutes. This included the reading of the last minutes, which included the reading of the minutes before that, which included the reading of the minutes before that. This went on for some three hours. By the time he had stopped reading the minutes, everyone else had gone home. And this was also recorded in the minutes.
The secretary then resigned, but as there was no-one around to record this in the minutes, no-one actually knew about it.

The visit did not go to plan. The eminent guest was not greeted half way by limousine because he caught the bus instead. And when he arrived at the department, (climbing off the number 443), he tripped over the yellow carpet because he though it was a continuation of the pavement. The head of the department met him, but just as he did so he was handcuffed by the police and dragged away for questioning. The eminent guest was then led to the hall where, instead of meeting and greeting, and looking at name badges – (the font of which was so small he couldn’t read them anyway, and he was colour-blind), he crammed a scotch egg into his mouth and promptly choked, before asking why they had not supplied, instead, those spicy sausage things on sticks that you see in films about North Africa. And on the way to the podium to deliver his speech, he almost tripped over the end of his scarf.
‘Ladies and gentlemen’, the chairman of the welcoming committee announced in to the microphone. ‘Let me introduce to you, Professor Zazzo Thiim!’
Nobody clapped, because the committee had forgotten to send out any of the invitations. It had not been recorded in the minutes.

Branching out, a Zazzo Thiim story

Here’s an old one from 2007.
There has been much said and written about the following subject in the academic community, it seems almost superfluous to add my own comment to the wealth of material already published on this topic. And yet the story itself seems somewhat compelling, like all good mysteries, and more so because it is, quite defiantly, true. The fact that a senior practitioner in literary matters has attested to the honesty of all involved adds a touch of authenticity to the whole situation, and who are we to argue with the judgement of a colleague so esteemed as Professor Zazzo Thiim?

     ‘They were branching out, pure and simple’, he told me, one charged evening at the local pub. He leaned back in his chair and seemed, just for a second, incredibly tired, as it the events of the previous week had drained him of energy. ‘I first heard it reported to me by one of my younger students, a naive fellow whose panicked account seemed ill-judged and unworthy of comment. But then other students and colleagues began attesting to the fact. They, too, had heard and seen with their own eyes, that the local skateboarders were quoting from Alfred Lord Tennyson. I knew immediately that I would have to probe deeper’.

     The old man leans forward across the table and interlaces his fingers. ‘I started that very evening. With a flask of cocoa and a pair of opera glasses, I went down to the local skate ramp and watched them from the bushes. I felt like a television botanist watching the mighty gorillas of some dank, faraway jungle. How incredibly amusing their mannerisms, how obvious the social gradations and rank within their clique, that they might defer to the most able of their group, and lend advice to the weakest. I would surely have watched longer had not I felt a sudden hand on my collar and a policeman inquire as to what I was playing at. ‘We have a name for people like you’, he told me. I can tell you it wasn’t a comforting situation, but when I told him the reasons behind my being there, his face relaxed. ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘The poetry thing. We’ve been racking our brains over that one, I can tell you. Come down to the station’.

     ‘Why?’ I asked, ‘Am I under arrest’.

     ‘Not at all’, he replied. ‘We’ve just found one of them trying to break into the library. Perhaps you might like to have a quiet word with him’.

     The lad in question was a poor specimen, I can tell you, a pathetic, individual whose half-hearted attempt at perfecting the skater-boy look was almost laughable. On being asked exactly why he was breaking into the library he denied all knowledge that it had been such a building, that he was under the impression more that it was the off licence. When the constable slid a copy of Tennyson’s poetry across the table towards him he made a frantic attempt to grab it from his hands, only for the book to be snatched away from him. ‘Not so fast, sonny’, the constable said, in his laconic, laid-back voice. ‘First we need to talk terms. We can help you get your fix, but first you must help us. We need your skateboard’, he continued. ‘You see, there’s a little mystery here, and we need it cleared up’.

     The Professor lets out a laugh. ‘I cut quite a figure on the skateboard ramp, I can tell you. Sure, I fell off a few times, but I soon won respect from the posse not only for my aerial acrobatics but also for my detailed knowledge of Romantic-era poetry. Indeed, things were going along quite fine. How glad I was to see that the stories were true – a particularly athletic turn at the board would be greeted with the words, ‘At Arthur’s ordinance, tipt with lessening peak!’, or a bad fall decorated with the expression, ‘lay low and slay him not!’ I must say, I quite enjoyed my spell with the lads, and at no time did they twig that I was a seventy-four year old academic professor, except when I passed around a packet of sanatogan in the mistaken belief that it was a bottle of alco-pops. ‘A fine pinnacle!’, I yelled, heading up the ramp at great speed. ‘And made as a spire to heaven!’ Brad was especially vocal and conversant in Tennyson’s later works and at times he would exclaim, ‘Sluggards and fools, why do you stand and stare? You are no king’s men!’, or even the ultimate insult, ‘Let this be thy last trespass, thou uncomely knave!’ As the sun started to set, the dusk spread out her silken fingers and seemed to caress the shapely ramps, and in the encroaching dark came a camaraderie I have not yet ever felt, not even in the throes of really good group discussion on Hemingway. Joining in with their masculine bravado, I put up the hood of my jacket and, feeling somewhat exuberant, shouted, ‘While Jove’s planet rises yonder, were now to rage and torture the desert!’ Oh, how absolutely wonderful I felt!

     The effect, though, was immediate. The skaters stopped in their tracks. One skateboard, bereft of its rider, swung to and fro on the ramps before it, too, fell silent. ‘What was that?’ Brad asked. Flustered, I repeated my quotation. ‘You’, he said, breathing harshly through quivering nostrils, ‘Are an imposter!’

     The rest of the group crowded in on me. I stumbled, and tried to make some kind of retraction to my earlier statement, but the damage was done.

     ‘That was Robert Browning’, Brad pointed out. ‘What are you, some kind of freak? Who quotes from Browning at a skate ramp?’

     ‘Yeah’, someone else piped up. ‘What kind of a sicko are you?’

     I don’t mind telling you that I was scared. I escaped with my life, and for this I am monumentally thankful. 

     Naturally, the trouble vexed me for ages. Back at the department I toiled at my desk and tried to read into the whole episode some kind of reason, some kind of explanation behind the adoption of Tennyson. I looked at his rhythms, I looked at his metre, I looked at his rhyme scheme, but none of them matched with the rhythms I had heard on the skate park ramps. The content of his poems were also barren in their significance. I could see in his metrical skill and his lyrical genius no link to the satisfactory clatter of skateboard on concrete, no link between his romantic inclinations and narrative expression to the wearing of a hoodie. Late one night, though, thoroughly tired and dejected, I found the skateboard that I had borrowed that night, and the more I looked at it the more I could see that there was, however slight, a connection of sorts. Four wheels, I told myself, and one standing platform, just like the four isolated tenets of romanticism, the stylistically gothicism inherent, the reaction against enlightenment, imagination, vision and idealism, mixed with the surface and sureness of Tennyson’s reign as poet laureate – surely, this was what the skaters were alluding to in their adherence to his work? How relieved I was to get to bed that night’.

     The Professor frowns and he lowers his voice. ‘I wrote up my report the next morning and submitted it to the head of my department. That lunchtime I felt free. In the Spring air I could hear the clatter of a distant skateboard and I nodded, knowingly, to myself. The world seemed right, somehow. The world seemed a better place. But that afternoon I received an anonymous letter.

     How horrendous the news that it contained! It came from an ex-skater, whose adherance to the poetry of Tennyson had been questioned by some members of the group. He said that the skaters were not quoting from Tennyson – oh no – they were reading. There was a book stuck in the overhanging tree, he explained. And to prove their dexterity on the skateboard, the skaters in question would attempt to read a line at random as they were suspended in mid-air. If it had been a crisp packet, the anonymous writer concluded, then they would have read out the ingredients. There was no mystery.’

     The Professor drained the last of his wine and made to stand. ‘The department has been embarrassed by this whole episode,’ he said, ‘As you can probably imagine. I would be grateful if you could not mention some of the more lurid details of this story’, and with that, the old man was off.

     I followed a few minutes later. It was a dark night and there were a few stars hung in the sky. As I walked back to my car I was overtaken by a child on a unicycle, and he was quoting Oscar Wilde. But then, it could have been the drink.

The Arrival (A short story)

Another short story from the archives.
The Arrival
A committee was set up in order to plan for the visit. A chairman was voted for, an elderly gentleman with a walrus moustache. He was then replaced with another elderly gentleman. The secretary resigned because she objected to the name of the committee. The replacement secretary used to be the treasurer, so a treasurer had to be found. The original chairman wanted to be the treasurer but the new chairman objected. Both the chairman and the prospective treasurer then resigned from the committee, so a new chairman had to be found as well as a treasurer. The positions were eventually filled with a man who used to be a car salesman, who said he knew all about planning visits. And the Treasurer was shared among the other members of the committee on a rotation basis. Just like a quiz show on TV, someone commented. The comment was recorded in the minutes.

          A name had to be invented. Someone suggested the Visit Committee, but there was another committee called the Visiting Committee and it was thought that this would lead to confusion. Someone else suggested the Committee for the Visit, but this was also voted down because it sounded boring. The person who suggested it was the person who was also the Treasurer on this occasion, and she resigned. A third suggestion was to call the committee something trendy, just like a modern company, a name which would hint at science and progress in the arts. Implosion was the name that was banded around. The secretary commented that it sounded like something from The Apprentice. The person who suggested it was very upset about this and he threatened to resign, but just as he did they came in with the coffees so he stayed on for a bit. This was recorded in the minutes.

     They finally decided on the Systemal Function for the Application for the Arrival of the Visitor and His Entourage. Or SFAAVHE, for short. This was recorded in the minutes.

     It was then time to decide what the committee would actually plan for the visitor’s arrival. There was no doubt that he was eminent, so it was agreed by all that he should have a red carpet when he stepped out of his car. Then someone said that he shouldn’t be in his own car at all. If he was so eminent, they argued, then, surely, he should be driven? OK, then. A limousine would pick him up from his house. But he lived two hundred miles away. This was a problem. They decided they would compromise. He would drive as far as the halfway point and then the limousine would pick him up. It was generally agreed that this was a good idea and it was recorded in the minutes.

          Then someone pointed out that red carpets were hard to find, and they got mucky if it rained. The under-secretary was dispatched to source a long red carpet. She asked what sourced meant and the chairman said that it meant to go and fine one. She asked why he didn’t say that in the first place, and the chairman said that it was business-speak, that’s how they said things in the world of business. The under-secretary objected to the tone that the chairman took and she resigned. A new under-secretary was then voted in and he said that he would look on the internet to find a red carpet. Ten minutes later he said that he could only find a yellow one. That will have to do, the chairman said. And all of this was recorded in the minutes.

          The meeting then moved on to who would be there to greet the visitor on his arrival. One of the members suggested the head of the department, but then someone else reminded her that the head of the department was currently being investigated for fraud and it would be best that he were to stay out of the limelight. The chairman said that this was not the way to treat the head of the department and that he should be there. The treasurer then reminded the chairman that he, too, was caught up in the same scandal, so the chairman then resigned and a new one was voted in. She thanked the previous chairman for his hard work, but then she spilled coffee on her lap. She resigned, so that she could go to the bathroom and wash it off. When she got back to the room, the original chairman had been voted back in. And all of this was recorded in the minutes.

          The next item for discussion was the food that would be provided for the function once the visitor had arrived. Someone suggested prawn cocktail, but they were reminded that the budget would stretch so far. Someone then suggested prawn cocktail crisps, but they were laughed out of the room. Someone suggested those funny spicy sausage things that go on sticks and you have to move them upwards with your thumb as you eat them, and they are often seen in films set in North Africa, but no-one knew what he was going on about, so someone else suggested scotch eggs. Scotch eggs it was. Then the secretary announced that he was allergic to scotch eggs, and someone said that he wouldn’t even be at the function, he wasn’t important enough. He then resigned. A new secretary was voted in, and this was recorded in the minutes.

          Much discussion then centred around the manner in which the eminent guest would be introduced to the members of the department before he entertained them all with his speech. One person suggested a strict clock-wise motion around the room, someone else suggested anti-clockwise. The chairman said that the guest should be left to speak to whoever he wanted, but that the most prominent members of the department should be introduced to him slyly, subtly, so as not to provoke suspicion that the whole thing was stage managed. Someone then suggested name-badges, coloured according to the importance of the person wearing them. It’s what we did in the war, he suggested. Even Hitler wore a name badge. There was a show of hands and it was decided that there would be name badges. The discussion of whether they should be in higher or lower case went on for half an hour. And all of this was recorded in the minutes.

          The meeting had almost finished and no-one had resigned for a while. The secretary was asked to read out the minutes, but he objected, so he resigned. The new secretary was then asked to read out the minutes and he did so beautifully, but in Spanish. The next secretary read out the minutes. This included the reading of the last minutes, which included the reading of the minutes before that, which included the reading of the minutes before that. This went on for some three hours. By the time he had stopped reading the minutes, everyone else had gone home. And this was also recorded in the minutes.

The secretary then resigned, but as there was no-one around to record this in the minutes, no-one actually knew about it.
The visit did not go to plan. The eminent guest was not greeted half way by limousine because he caught the bus instead. And when he arrived at the department, (climbing off the number 443), he tripped over the yellow carpet because he though it was a continuation of the pavement. The head of the department met him, but just as he did so he was handcuffed by the police and dragged away for questioning. The eminent guest was then led to the hall where, instead of meeting and greeting, and looking at name badges – (the font of which was so small he couldn’t read them anyway, and he was colour-blind), he crammed a scotch egg into his mouth and promptly choked, before asking why they had not supplied, instead, those spicy sausage things on sticks that you see in films about North Africa. And on the way to the podium to deliver his speech, he almost tripped over the end of his scarf.

          ‘Ladies and gentlemen’, the chairman of the welcoming committee announced in to the microphone. ‘Let me introduce to you, Professor Zazzo Thiim!’

          Nobody clapped, because the committee had forgotten to send out any of the invitations. It had not been recorded in the minutes.

Perfection (A Short Story)

Another one from the archives. 2008, to be exact.

Perfection

The fact that the whole of humanity had lived for this did not trouble him in the slightest. All of thought and philosophy, all of art, everything, including warfare and religion, had gone in to the construction of this one place, this hallowed, magnificent building where he would remain, living a life of idyllic bounty in an environment of absolute perfection. It wasn’t luck, nor was it heaven : it was the result of every virtuous thought there had ever been, and he, as the most perfect human who had ever existed, had been allowed to reside within its walls.

          The whole place was spotlessly white, and painted so as to appear almost clinical in the equatorial sun. Yet there was a rosy hue which permeated everything, and a smell of jasmine which lifted into the air much like the smell of a summer garden after the rain. The corridors were decorated with classical statues, finely sculpted evocations of masculine beauty and workmanship which, bathed either in the sun or in the shadows which, thrown down by the angles of the building, hide within them the joy which comes from beholding without malice the achievements of a master. The floor is tiled, pleasantly. In the centre of the building there is a courtyard garden where soft fountains sprinkle water which, in the sun, cast rainbows and prisms of light, while the foliage is home to such wondrous birds of paradise as to mesmerise the casual viewer. Cushions and seats are provided, that the scene may be contemplated from whichever angle suits him best. Through two doors at the southern end of the courtyard is the library, an old, oak affair with a running balcony and a sliding ladder on wheels, where the greatest works of literature may be read or studied. In the centre of the library are desks with brass lamps and a leather armchair angled at such a degree as to facilitate unforced comprehension. There is an art gallery further on, and a small museum. The whole place is perfect.

          He, too, is perfect. He has led a life of virtuous study and concern for his fellow man. In all of his relationships and dealings with other people he has been the most trustworthy and honest character, and yet he has been careful not to appear as too pious or pompous. He has never felt the need to bury himself within a certain political or religious organisation – (he sees, quite rightly, that to do so is to cede control of his character to a pre-conceived set of ideals or beliefs) – nor has he ever been overtly charitable – (for he is not one of those who prefers, rather than doing good, to be seen as doing good). He has always dressed smartly, and yet not too smart. He has never associated himself with one particular economic group, or racial group, or artistic group, or political convention. He has never felt malice towards anyone, and he tries all the time to see both sides of an argument before speaking his mind on any subject. He has never wanted to hurt anyone. In such a way he, too, is the ideal of perfection, the culmination of humanity.

          He feels no guilt at living in the house, nor does he feel any guilt at having felt no guilt. At the same time he is conscious that guilt might have been a factor in his residing there. He wanders from room to room and fills himself with the ideals of perfection with which he has been identified. The food is perfect and it is textured just so, that he might relish each mouth-full without indulging. The temperature is well-maintained and there is hardly any noise at all save for the fountain, the birds in the courtyard, perhaps some soft jazz which emanates, at night, from somewhere ethereal. He has never felt happier.

          It is especially gratifying to realise that the human race has existed just for this. So many philosophies and movements in both art and design have culminated in the perfect existence. Psychologists have toiled for centuries in the hope of discovering the most perfect, well-balanced way of spending one’s time. Artists have toiled, writers have written, in order only that the libraries and galleries of the house remain stocked with the finest of their achievements. And when he becomes bored of the house, there are sandy beaches and coves in which to wander, tropical islands, luscious, dense forests in which to wander. Nor is he alone. There are people nearby, friendly individuals, learned types, amiable fellows, beautiful men and women with whom he might converse or even fall in love with, people who care for him and want the best for him. Some nights he throws parties and entertains them, and they all drink and eat and they are very merry indeed, and they dance in the moonlight, under the stars, to the soft jazz or to whatever music might suit the occasion. Everything – it bears repeating – everything is perfect.

          One day he went for a walk along one of the wings of the house. He stopped for a while to admire a classical statue, and he could hardly see the marks left by the sculptor on the marble from which it was cast. Likewise, the paintings in the gallery seemed hardly touched by human hands, even though they were signed and catalogued. How wonderful the human race could be, he thought to himself. And the house itself – each angle was carefully considered that the play of light and shadow be worked in unison with something else, some mental approximation of fine living. He walked slowly. He walked, taking in the atmosphere. He could feel time itself stretching, becoming null and void. That afternoon he would sit and write haiku, he decided, and then he might call some friends and they would come round, and they would eat spaghetti Bolognese. At the end of the corridor he sat for a while on a stone bench and he closed his eyes, allowing the sun to stream in through his eyelids. It was warm, it was beautiful, it reminded him of something distant. Perfect, he said to himself. Absolutely perfect.

          Very faintly, he heard a soft, stifled belch.

Bulk (A very short story)

Out with the lads, Friday night, Jake all lairy and Tom all leery and all of them pretty beery, darts, pool, lager, perving over women, playful shoulder punches and heterosexual hugs, rhythmic belching on a hot summers night.          And Jake says, ‘Here’s Pete’.

          And you know past midnight the bars still open and the goodness the dwells within every soul, open minded and ready to accommodate this new friend, Pete.

          ‘Alright, Pete?’

          Bloody hell!

          Pete is a fifty six tonne sperm whale.

          ‘Pete’s famous’, Jake says, ‘Cos he can drink like a fish. Can’t you, Pete?’

          Pete grins.

          His polo shirt only just fits.

          ‘I’ve just been playing pool’, he says. ‘But I leaned on the table and the legs broke. Completely collapsed! But I won the game anyway because all of the balls just happened to go down the holes in the exact right order. We had to leg it’.

          I want to ask him how he can leg it when he has not got legs.

          ‘Up till then’, he says, ‘It was going swimmingly’.

          I also want to ask him how he can hold the cue with his flappy little fins but I’m afraid he might give me a slapping.

          ‘Let’s go out and get a curry’, Jake suggests.

          ‘Or a kebab’, says Tom.

          ‘I don’t know about you guys’, says Pete, ‘But I’d love some krill. I think there’s an all night plankton place near here’.

          At this moment we hear some loud mouthed skinhead at the bar tell a joke in which the punchline denigrates certain sea-based large mammals.

          ‘Just what did you say?’, Pete asks.

          The skinhead looks somewhat taken aback.

          ‘Sorry mate, I didn’t realise you were a whale. I couldn’t tell from the accent’.

          But now we’re beginning to warm to Pete and plans are made to get a taxi back to our place. Helpfully, Jake suggests we might need a six seater, without drawing attention to Pete’s bulk, the elephant in the room.

          ‘We could watch a dvd’, Pete says. ‘But not something sad. I always start to blubber’.

          ‘You could stay over’, Tom says. ‘I could make up some beds’.

          ‘That’s fine, I can always sleep in the bath’.

          At that moment a fight broke out at the pool table. One of the combatants lobs the cue ball, it sails through the air and goes straight into Pete’s blowhole, where it lodges, and he dies.

Bank Holiday in a Pencil Shop

 Gentle persistent rain falls on fleshy jungle leaves, sounding like polite theatre applause. It’s humid in the rainforest, sticky and uncomfortable. But Genre Philips is used to it, he’s been all over the world and experienced all kinds of discomfort for his job, he’s a professional. The archetypal explorer in his linen suit, machete at hand, thrashing at vines and undergrowth in his determination to find exactly what he wants. There’s a lot riding on his efforts. Multinational companies, contracts and businessmen, and the entire future of the pencil retail industry propel him on through inhospitable terrain and incredible hardship in order that he advance human progress. The sweat rolls from his gritty brow as he pushes aside one last jungle creeper, finding himself in a clearing so far from human habitation as to make him one of the very first to stand right here, right on this spot.         A smile creases his face.

         ‘Genre Philips’, he says to himself, ‘You’ve done it again’.

 

A career in retail has its own highs and lows, as any other job might. Seldom does the incredible sacrifice of working tirelessly to feed customer demand get recognised by those who have never had to endure the exquisite pain of working on bank holidays. There are perks, of course, such as slightly reduced hours and no scheduled deliveries, but these are outweighed by the stinginess of head office when it comes to coughing up for extra cover. Bank holidays are usually staffed by one or two soulless suckers who, by dint of rota and sheer bad luck, find themselves spending what might otherwise be a day of relaxation and laziness in doing what they might do any other day of the week. That is to say, feeding the shopping habits of the public, standing around with hands on hips looking at a shop completely devoid of any customers at all.

         Sandra calls in with a migraine and I am left as the only member of staff on duty.

         Which doesn’t upset me in the least. I know that not many people will want to go out on a bank holiday and purchase pencils. When you work in a shop that sells only pencils, you really are aiming yourself towards a very narrow market at the best of times, and a bank holiday is seldom a good time, let alone one of the best. At least I can get things done, like cleaning the shelves and rearranging all of the pencils, making sure not to spend too much time looking out of the window in the morning so that at least I’ve got something to do in the afternoon. The only problem, of course, comes with wanting to go to the toilet.

         Not much happens for the first half hour. The town is dead and a steady rain falls from the steel grey sky. The shop, with all of its retail gaiety, sits useless and humming, fluorescent lights emphasising the fantastic array of pencils just to me. All this effort, I tell myself. All of the thinking and the exuberance gathered over a lifetime of retail management went in to creating the branding and the display methods of the pencils here, just so that nobody will look at any of them. Society, I tell myself – (getting philosophical, all of a sudden) – can be so very wasteful. All that effort and thinking might otherwise have gone in to something useful.

         From the corner of my eye I note that some people have stopped outside of the shop. They are chatting among themselves, two older ladies in purple anoraks sheltering under an umbrella. How nice, I tell myself. They seem so agile, so animated, it’s good that they can still summon such enthusiasm for life at their age. Ten minutes later I realise that they are still there, still just as animated, both of them with their backs to the plate glass window looking out at the street. I then notice that one of them is carrying a large cardboard sign.

         Hmmm.

         ‘What is it?’, I ask, popping my head out of the door.

         ‘Bastard’, one of them says.

         ‘Can I help you?’

         ‘You are a symbol’, the other one says, ‘Of the greed and bloodshed which causes heartache and loss among the poorest people of the world, while lining the pockets of those who are already millionaires’.

         ‘In a pencil shop?’, I ask.

         Two of them. One has a long grey pony tail, the other a very rather fetching and quite retro blue rinse. The one with the blue rinse has her hood up. The one without the blue rinse stands proud in the rain, occasionally crouching down under the umbrella.

         ‘You know what you’ve done’.

         I try to think back. There seems so much that someone might protest about, standing outside a pencil shop, from the increasing reliance on computers and tablets to the ever-controversial introduction of the first Super HB waterproof mega pencil, one bite of which, according to the pencil consumer magazines, might result in instant death.

         ‘You’re going to have to remind me’, I tell them.

         ‘This company’, pony tail says, ‘And the other companies with which it engages, is systematically destroying vast areas of rainforest in order to manufacture yet more pencils. And we’re here to put a stop to it, or at least, dent some of the profits that your uncaring, heartless organisation might make on a bank holiday’.

         I want to tell them that any company which hires me is already well on its way to denting its profit margins.

         ‘It’s pouring with rain’, I tell them.

         ‘Climate change’, blue rinse says. ‘Which can also be linked to the deforestation caused by the public’s seemingly insatiable appetite for new pencils’.

         She’s got a point, of course. Just like our pencils.

         ‘Let’s have a look at your sign’, I tell them.

         They turn it so that I can get a better look. It reads, ‘Don’t shop here if you want pencils because this company is implicit in the destruction of the rainforest because that’s where they get their wood from to make their pencils from’.

         ‘Snappy’, I tell them.

         ‘Thank you’.

         ‘Let me know if you’d like a cup of tea at any time’.

 

The morning progresses and not much happens. The presence of the old ladies out the front of the shop is somewhat unsettling. For all the faults of the company and the emotional turmoil of a career in retail, it’s still a little insulting to have someone take offence to the way in which it operates, even if their concerns are quite valid. The tenacity of the old ladies is remarkable, huddling together when the wind picks up and the rain starts blowing horizontally. I try to tune them out and go about my normal duties, which includes dusting the displays of pencils and mopping the floor whenever anyone comes in with a dripping umbrella. I sell two pencils in an hour. It’s actually not a bad day.

         And then my mind starts to wander. I recall the man I saw the other day, wearing a pair of spats. I’d always wondered what a spat looked like, and now I felt I’d learned something interesting.

         I sit down on a stool behind the till. Ordinarily, sitting down behind the counter would be frowned on by senior management, but the fact remains that both The Manager and the Area Manager will be enjoying their days off and not even thinking about how things are going. The chance of either of them walking in is very remote indeed.

         A large man enters the shop. I recognise him as one of our regular customers, a lecturer at a nearby university who lives locally and often pops in. He has an enormous belly and sideburns to match, the top pocket of his tweed jacket full of pens and pencils.

         He stops halfway down the first aisle and picks up a packet of pencils. He puts on a pair of pince nez glasses and reads the small print of the packet intently. Suddenly, a deep opera voice fills the shop and he starts to sing to the pencils.

     

   ‘Oh pencils, oh pencils,

I love you so much!

You shall make me

A wonderful bunch!

Oh pencils oh pencils

You shall be

On the top of my desk

And used often by me!’

 

         He does this every time he comes in. I often wonder if he realises he’s doing it at all. Once we tried to ask him whether he’d had a background in opera but he’d mumbled something about needing to save his voice, and that life itself was a never-ending opera. He picks up a packet of assorted rubbers.

 

‘Oh wondrous rubbers, both fat and thin!

You shall not erase the mistakes I have within!

Oh you I shall depend to make problems go away,

That I may live to carry on in this way’.

 

              He now scrutinises a bag of pencil sharpeners.

 

‘Pencil sharpeners of beauty,

A wonderful sight,

You shall sharpen my pencils,

Oh what a delight,

So new in your packaging,

So spotless and clean,

You and me make a formidable team!’

 

         Opera Man is at the counter now. I keep having to tell myself, ‘Don’t mention his signing, don’t mention his singing, just take the money and say goodbye’.

         ‘Nice spot of weather’, I tell him, in that ironic jocular sort of way that retail staff often use.

         ‘Ooooooooo, yes it is’, warbles Opera Man.

         ‘That’s one pound ninety four’.

         ‘And heeeeere’s a five pound note!’

         Opera Man wipes his immense forehead with a handkerchief.

         ‘Here’s your change’.

         ‘Thaaaaaank-youuuuuu!’

         Opera Man takes his purchases and leaves, to a chorus of abuse from the old ladies outside.

         The shop is deserted once again. There’s a strange quietness in the air now that the Opera Man has gone. It’s as if the whole place has breathed out a sigh of relief. The lone shopping trolley stands in the corner, a strange object which harks back to a time of enthusiasm and optimism when the Manager thought that the pencil shop would be so busy that people needed shopping trolleys. I get up and I push it along, down one of the aisles, just to see if the slope in the floor has got any worse during all of this damp weather. It goes running off on its own and picks up speed, comes to a limp halt next to a display of pencils decorated with penguins. I can hear the rain pelting now against the plate glass window. For the sake of scientific discovery, I use the shopping trolley two more times in order to discover exactly where the floor slopes.

         Someone comes in.

         ‘Morning!’

         It’s the compulsive shoplifter. Every shop has one. She’s a haggard, downtrodden-looking woman, carrying a large, bulky shopping bag which she presses tight to her chest. The last time she came in she made off with a pencil, and them time before that she made off with two pencils, each time outwitting all the staff. The bulky shopping bag was the reason why she could be challenged about the theft of the pencils, because once they enter that cavernous space, there’s every chance that they might never be seen without a citizen’s arrest and a search warrant. But everything about her is suspicious. She wanders around the shop, flitting from aisle to aisle, picking things up and putting them back, and normally, once she’s swiped whatever it is that she’s come in for, she’ll walk out of the door as fast as she possibly can.

         But I feel bad in suspecting her. She might not be a shoplifter at all. It’s just the Manager who says that she’s a shoplifter, because the Manager says ‘You can tell by her behaviour’. She might be innocent, perhaps too afraid or embarrassed to make those first faltering steps into owning a pencil.

         In any case I follow her around, keeping track behind her while at the same time pretending to be checking stock levels. She moves fast, zipping from one display to the next and watching my progress from the corner of her eyes. I am determined that today shall be the day when the question of her innocence is solved once and for all, that I should catch her in the act of stealing pencils, or else satisfy myself that she’s as weird as Opera Man. She watches me as I make an imaginary list of things that the first aisle needs, then watches me again as I pretend to tidy some shelves. I follow her closely, and I watch as she reaches out for one of the most expensive pencils in the whole shop – the Super Silver HB Special from the company’s very own Unique Collection – when the door opens.

         ‘Cooo-eeee, love!’, an old lady says. ‘I’ve just been speaking to the ladies out the front. When are they going to get their cup of tea?’

         Distracted, she slips out of the door as fast as she can.

         ‘Well, thank you!’, I tell her. ‘Thank you very much!’

         I recognise the lady who’s just come in. She’s a regular, not that she ever buys anything. She’s a regular in that she regularly comes in. She has compensated for her little mouth by enlarging it ten times with lipstick, she has a face so powdered that it looks like a freshly rolled out lump of puff pastry on a floured surface. But most worryingly, she is permanently cleaning out both of her ears at once with cotton buds, one in each hand. She is the infamous Ear Wax Lady.

         ‘They’re nothing to do with the shop’.

         ‘I thought they were friends of yours’.

         ‘They’re just . . . Spectators’.

         ‘Nasty weather, isn’t it?’

         ‘Typical bank holiday’.

         ‘Bank holiday, is it? I didn’t even realise. But that’s what happens when you’re retired, I suppose’.

         ‘You know, I’d almost caught a shoplifter when you came in’.

         She keeps on digging her way into her ears with the cotton buds. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Even after all these years, it strikes me as a little bit strange. You think you’d get used to regular customers, with their little foibles, but nothing can quite prepare you for the strangeness of the Ear Wax Lady. Not even Opera Man.

         ‘How are you, today?’

         ‘Well, dear’, she says, without stopping her cotton bud routine. ‘Life is like the warning on the box of cotton buds. Its says Do not stick too far into the inner ear. Yet sometimes, you have to push that extra bit harder’.

         You have to. She’s right. She’s hit the philosophy of life right on the head. She goes out there into the world trying to make every moment as pleasurable as possible. It’s people like the Ear Wax Lady who make the world go round.

         ‘Now tell me’, she says. ‘Where are your biscuits?’

         ‘We don’t stock biscuits’.

         ‘And what about cough sweets?’

         ‘We don’t stock cough sweets. We only sell pencils’.

         ‘Ah, yes. I keep forgetting. That’s the trouble, when you’re digging away like this. Sometimes you forget about the small details’.

         The Ear Wax Lady departs.

         Nothing happens for a very long time. I sit at the counter again and I start to ponder on the questions that have perplexed me for most of my life. If it’s minus thirty degrees and you walk into a freezer which is kept at minus five degrees, does it feel any warmer? If everybody in the world jumped up and down at the same moment, would the planet shift on its axis? How many times has a single droplet of water been drunk since the start of time? Does light erode? Does nothing exciting ever happen in a pencil shop on a bank holiday?

         The door opens.

         Two men come in. They’re wearing long, dark coats. I can tell immediately that they’re not here to buy pencils. Gaunt, unsmiling, and wearing sunglasses and pork pie hats, one of them looks round the shop while the other one comes over to me at the till. Part of me wonders if they’re from the council, but then I see how expensive their suits are, and how incredibly menacing the looks on their faces.

         ‘You in charge, here?’

         ‘For today, yes’.

         ‘Nice place’.

         ‘Thanks’.

         ‘Shame to see anything bad happen to it’.

         ‘Yes, it would be’.

         ‘Shame to see it disassembled’.

         ‘Eh?’

         ‘I said, shame to see it disassembled’.

         ‘I heard’.

         He bends closer. He’s older than his clothing hints. Behind the sunglasses and the hat, I see the wrinkled features of a man well into his eighties.

         ‘You see, I run a small insurance company’.

         ‘Oh, yes’.

         I find myself sounding as if I’m at home chatting with a door-to-door toilet cleaner salesman.

         ‘And you pay me a certain amount each week. Otherwise, you may get a visit from the boys, and we don’t want that to happen now, do we?’

         He’s close enough to me for me to hear the whine of his hearing aid.

         ‘Ah, I see. And these . . Boys. How old are these . . .’. I gulp, somewhat audibly. ‘Boys?’

         ‘I’ll just say, they’ve left middle school’.

         ‘Hur hur’, I say, in attempt to laugh, but it comes out as more of a dry croak. ‘Hurk’.

         ‘I’ll bid you a good day’.

         He swaggers out with his accomplice, and then he swaggers back in again.

         ‘Forgot my walking stick’.

         He swaggers back out, past the protestors.

         I knew it. I knew something like this would happen. The omens were everywhere, now that I look back. How else can some of the businesses in this town survive without the protection of such shady individuals? I feel my heart rate increasing as I realise the trouble that I might now get myself in to, just by working in a shop which sells pencils. Worst case scenarios drift before my mind, of the company refusing to pay up to their demands and of me being abducted, driven out along the coast past the pier and up into the wilds, the cliffs, the pouring rain, the rural hinterlands where nobody would find my body for days. Sweat starts rolling down the side of my face. Retail, that’s what the careers advisor at school said. Retails is just the sort of career that you might want to head in to. Nothing bad ever happens in retail, it’s all just facts and figures and customer service, unpacking boxes and keeping delivery notes. That’s all retail is.

         They didn’t mention death.

         ‘Down to the pencil shop!’, the protestors outside begin to chant. ‘Down to the pencil shop!’

         I manage to relax. But I can’t relax for long. The shop, with all of its familiarity, suddenly seems the most harmful place in the world. The man, whose features I barely saw underneath those sunglasses and that hat, the man who leaned across the counter and whispered to me, his breath smelling of garlic and mints, like a portent of death, evil incarnate threatening at any moment to ‘send the boys round’. I take several deep breaths and I try to think that it all might be some magnificent hoax, a joke played by someone I once upset because I wouldn’t give them a refund on a pencil sharpener. That’s what it is, I tell myself, eventually. A hoax. That’s what it’s got to be.

         The door opens and a young man comes in.

         ‘Lamp shades?’

         ‘Pardon?’

         ‘Lamp shades?’

         ‘We don’t sell lamp shades, I’m afraid’.

         ‘There used to be a shop right here which sold lamp shades’.

         ‘That was about twelve years ago. It shut down, I’m afraid’.

         ‘So, no lamp shades, then?’

         ‘No’.

         ‘Don’t know why I bother, some times’, he says.

         And he leaves.

         I get up and I walk around. It’s amazing that I haven’t needed to go to the toilet yet. That’s usually one of the first things which happens when you’re looking after a shop all day. And the moment you really need to go very badly, that’s when it suddenly packs out with customers. It’s uncanny. But today, on a rainy, dead bank holiday : nothing.

         I can’t get the image of the men in the dark suits out of my mind. I reach under the counter for the Manager’s Manual, but there’s nothing in there about dealing with The Mob. In fact, the only thing under M in the Manager’s Manual is ‘Managing Stock’, and once you get to that page it just says, ‘Refer to section on Stock Management’. The page which it refers to just says, ‘Refer to section on Managing Stock’. But there’s nothing about ‘Managing the Mob’.

         I tell myself that I’m being silly. There’s no harm, here. That’s what I decide. Nothing bad will happen to me, because even if the mob did want their money, there’s hardly enough in the till to pay them. Opera Man spent one pound ninety four, and there’s a forty quid float, out of which I took fifty pence to buy some milk. I decide that the best strategy might be just to buy them off with the promise of a cup of tea and a couple of free pencils.

         An artist comes in.

         At last! I perk up a bit. He’s wearing a beret, sat at a jaunty angle. He even has little goatee beard.

         ‘Pencils?’, he asks.

         ‘Thousands of them!’

         He goes over to the displays and he browses. There’s something comforting about him, not only the promise that he might actually spend some money, but also the contrast he makes with the other people who have been in. His face betrays a kindly benevolence, considered and at one with the world, so unlike anyone else in the retail sector.

         ‘Can I help with anything?’

         ‘I’m looking for pencils. Pencils of every description. I’ve got quite a big order, I’m afraid. I don’t want to take you from your tasks’.

         ‘Not a problem’.

         He takes a basket and begins to fill it up.

         ‘We’ve had a new shipment in. These ones, here’. I hold up one of the new red pencils which I’d filled one of the shelves with. ‘They’re really good. They’re . . . red’.

         ‘Ah, magnificent!, the artist replies. ‘A masterpiece of understatement! The element of organised chaos and maelstrom in everyday life. That unconscious note of unhappiness with the colour red, our unwillingness to comply with that mental red stop light which appears in our heads. It’s a fantastic achievement, my dear friend. However, I shant be purchasing it’.

         I like the way he talks.

         ‘What do you think of this place?’

         ‘I see this building as representing the ruins that the commercial world has become. It’s a cry for help, isn’t it? The broken and missing roof tiles refer to a lack of or thinning hair. The sloping floor here, standing for the unsteady ground on which we all stand. The crack in the corner of the window indicates the need we have once our eyesight begins to diminish of wearing glasses or some other visual aid. You know this morning I saw a cow in a field and I thought, yes, that cow, standing there, that’s its job, that’s its purpose. And the aircraft I saw flying overhead, showing that even in that agricultural scene, one cannot escape the modern world. It is pitiful, is it not? But its pitiful nature makes it superb. A part of that old broken world which lies deep within us all’.

         I have no idea what he’s talking about, but his basket is getting more and more full, and my brain begins to tot up what his purchase might come to. Excitement builds, because this might make it all worth while. The Opera Man, the Ear Wax Lady, the mob, the protestors, even the man who wanted lamp shades, all of that was endured just because of this one sale.

         ‘Oh, what’s this?’

         ‘What’s what?’

         ‘What’s this, here?’

         He points in to the corner of the shop.

         ‘Looks like someone’s shopping’.

         Except that it doesn’t. It looks like a suspect package. Something wrapped up and left on the floor with a note attached. I think once again of the mobsters and the one who went off looking round the shop while I talked to the old man. One of them could easily have put it there, ready t enact some kind of revenge in case their demands were refused. Or perhaps it might have been someone on behalf of the protestors, using violence and terrorism to publicise their concerns. I look through the window at the two old ladies. Could they really have planted a bomb?

         ‘It looks a bit suspicious’, the artist says.

         ‘Well don’t worry about that. Tell me, what other pencils are you looking for at the moment?’

         ‘I don’t really think I . . .’.

         ‘Yes?’

         ‘I don’t think I ought to be here, not with that’.

         He points again.

         ‘Ignore it. It’s just someone’s shopping’.

         ‘I’m a sensitive soul. I’m an artist. I can’t be where there’s danger, that’s not the sort of person I am. How can I ever make the world a better place if I’m blown to smithereens? Sorry, but I must go’.

         ‘No’.

         He flings his basket to the floor and races out of the shop.

         The two old ladies outside cheer.

         Again, my heart rate increases. I go to the aisle and I pick up the item. It’s wrapped in paper and the note attached says, ‘Do not touch’. I bring it over to the counter at the exact moment that a feeling of lightheadedness comes over me. What a fool I have been! I should have left it where it was, not even touched it! And now it’s in my hands, and it could explode at any minute!

         I breathe quickly. Short gasps. Again, sweat starts to roll down the side of my face.

         Everything which happens next is just instinct.

         With the least amount of movement possible, I wrap one of my legs around the support of the nearby table. Slowly but surely, I drag the table towards me, trying not to make any sudden movements. It takes a couple of minutes, millimeter by millimetre, but soon the table is placed flush against the wall directly underneath the telephone.

         The next thing I do is to kick off a shoe, which is harder than it sounds when you’re not wanting to make any sudden movements. This, too, takes about five minutes, but once its done I’m able to use my foot to kick at a display of pencils until one of them falls on the floor. I then manage to pick this up with my foot, then angle it in such a way as to press the button which turns on the kettle, which I’d earlier placed on top of the table at the start of my shift.

         A minute or so later the kettle begins to boil and the steam from the spout rises up. Using the pencil to keep the kettle boiling by switching the switch back on whenever it goes off, I am able to make the telephone on the wall begin to glisten with moisture until, at long last, the receiver falls off.

         Using a spare finger, I hook the lead of the telephone receiver and draw it towards the suspect package, pulling the lead ever tighter until it is wrapped around the handles of the bag, and then in one smart maneouvre I drop the package and grab the telephone receiver lead so that the package is now suspended in mid air, one hand still supporting it so as to leave the other hand free.

         Using this free hand, I reach out and grab the long wooden pole which we use for opening the high windows. Using the pole with one hand, I grab the fire extinguisher and pull it along to where I am trapped behind the counter with the bomb, now hanging from the telephone lead.

         The sweat is rolling down my face and in to my eyes. I put the pole down and drag the waste paper bin towards me, placing it directly underneath the suspended suspect package.

         At this moment the door opens again.

         My heart sinks.

         It’s the men in suits again. Except this time, there’s six of them. Six men in dark suits, sunglasses, pork pie hats, and some of them are carrying mallets. The situation could possibly not get any worse.

         ‘All right, lads?’, the old man says. ‘This is the place. We’ve not heard anything about their demands. In fact it looks like they’ve scarpered. You know what you have to do’.

         I close my eyes. They might find me at any moment. If the bomb doesn’t go off, then they will abduct me, take me out into the hills and the dales around the town.

         ‘Ready, boys?’

         ‘Sure, boss’.

         ‘Please’, I whisper. ‘Please’.

         But none of them can hear me. With one hand still holding the package, the other now edging me away from everything underneath the counter where I can watch them through the gap between the fittings, I feel useless and trapped in a hopeless situation.

         ‘Where do you want us to start dissembling?’, one of them asks.

         ‘Wherever you decide. Let’s start with that display of pencils’.

         I frown. I look closer through the gap between the till unit and the display stand. It seems that they’re all over eighty.

         ‘OK, lads. Here we go. It’s been a few years since we’ve done this, but it’s something that never goes away’.

         The old man takes a mallet and raises it into the air to smash one of the display stands. But the effort is too much and he has to put it down. He tries to pick it up again, but something lets go in his back and he drops it to the floor, clutching the base of his spine.

         One of the men picks up a chair and then has to put it down again.

         One of them picks up a pencil and tries to snap it, but the effort is too much and he has to have a sit down and a bit of a breather.

         One of them takes two paces into the shop and has to lean against the wall. He rummages in his pockets and puts a couple of pills into his mouth.

         Their leader is up again, he goes over to the giant novelty pencil which stands in the corner of the shop and tries to tear it from its base, but it’s obviously more stronger than him. He lifts both feet off the ground and finds himself gently swinging back and forth like Tarzan in an old folk’s home. He has to be rescued by one of his accomplices.

         Within two minutes, the ‘boys’ are reduced to sitting, leaning or lying down, wheezing and groaning. One by one they stagger from the shop.

         ‘Well, I managed to send them packing’, I tell myself.

         But the adventure is not over yet. With my free hand I pick up the fire extinguisher, and in one very quick movement I drop the suspect package into the waste paper bin while simultaneously squirting the contents of the fire extinguisher on top of the probable bomb. At long last, when it’s obvious that the package has been well and truly doused, I am able to finish and lean back against the wall, floods of relief causing me to feel almost dizzy with delayed shock.

         The package floats there, in the water-filled bin. Gingerly, I reach down and peel back a layer to see what might lie inside.

         Pencils.

         New pencils, from head office. Left on the shop floor. And that’s when I recognise the writing on the note as being that of my boss. Leave here, it had said. For me to put on the shelves if I got bored. Because that’s what happens on a bank holiday. People get bored.

 

I take the old ladies a cup of tea and some biscuits. They’re very thankful, and I tell them that I will be shutting the shop an hour earlier than usual, you know, what with it being a bank holiday and everything. One of them asks me if it’s been a busy day and I say no, no it hasn’t. We only took one pound and ninety four pence.

         ‘In that case’, she replies, ‘Our protest has been worth it’.

         I ask them exactly how bad the deforestation is out in the jungle, and how I might play a small part in combating it, you know, in honour of their protest.

         ‘Do everything you can’, they reply, ‘To make sure that the shop doesn’t keep taking the huge amounts that it currently is. There’s more to life than retail, you know. It is the most thankless of careers’.

         ‘Did you happen to see anything going on in here today?’, I ask. ‘I mean . . Anything at all?’

         ‘Not really. It didn’t look like anything interesting was going on’.

 

Genre Philips gets out his ruler and measures the height of a sapling. The hot tropical sun beats down and the air is thick with insects and the hooting of various monkeys. He gets out his clipboard and writes down some calculations, only for his pencil to snap. He stands there for a couple of moments, disbelieving, then lets out a long, low laugh which echoes back from dense vegetation. Soon, he tells himself. Soon, people will be able to just throw pencils away, and it wont mean a thing, and nobody will ever realise that he went to such lengths to make their world a better place. But before then, before that fantastic time arrives, when people are able to just reach out and touch fate, before that time, there will be much work to be done.

         Most of the heroes of the world are invisible