Coma

On the final day of the twentieth year of my son's coma, Axl Rose called. I was in the hospital at the time, sitting at the foot of the bed with my wife. The chief consultant came in and handed me a cordless phone.

"It's him!' I mouthed to my wife, covering the device with my hand.

Axl Rose explained that he was going to be in town that afternoon to meet some record executives, and that he would be willing to stop by the hospital to see my son. I'd been trying to get him to come for years, sending letters, and then emails, in the hope that such a visit might break the coma. I couldn't believe that he had finally agreed to it.

After arranging to come at 2PM that afternoon, he hung up, and I excitedly told my wife and the chief consultant the news.

"Excellent!" exclaimed the latter. "This is just the kind of publicity we need to help secure private funding for the new radiology unit!"

"Absolute yes," said my son. Astonished, we spun round and looked at him. He had his hand over his mouth, a guilty look on his face. "Oops... just slipped out," he said, blushing.

"Hang on a minute!" I bellowed. "Are you telling me that you've only been pretending to be in coma? All this time?" He nodded sheepishly.

"But why?" cried my wife. "All these years..."

"I think I know why," I interjected, pointing at a faded poster of Axl Rose on the wall. "W. Axl Rose. This was all a ploy to get to meet him."

"Is this true?" barked the chief consultant. Again my son nodded, this time biting his lower lip. "But... but... the funding! The radiology unit!" He walked over to the window, rubbing his forehead, and then turned around and addressed my son.

"Look, I could get you into some serious trouble for this. Wasting hospital resources and all that. However, I'm prepared to keep quiet, on one condition. You have to pretend to be in a coma, and then when Axl Rose comes, you have to pretend to wake from the coma. I'll make sure some journalists are here. It'll be in all the papers tomorrow, and the funding will come pouring in!" He rubbed his hands together with glee.

My son agreed to the proposal, and then my wife and I left to grab a bite of lunch. When we got back to the hospital, it was swarming with journalists. We went to my son's room and waited. At about ten past two, the chief consultant strolled into the room with Axl Rose, who was carrying a massive wooden box full of picture discs, a gift for my son.

"Nice of him," whispered my wife to me.

"I'll just pop these up here, shall I? said Axl Rose, standing on a chair and placing the box onto a narrow shelf on the wall above the bed. As soon as he released his hold on the box, it fell from the shelf and crashed down onto my son's head, the bottom corner making violent contact with the centre of his forehead. The chief consultant rushed over and examined my son, then turned to me with a grave expression on his face.

"He's in a coma," he said. "I mean, he's still in a coma." He winked at me when he said the word 'still'.

Axl Rose hung around for a bit, singing a few songs to my slumbering son, and then left. When he had gone, I prodded my son in the ribs. He didn't flinch.

"So now it's the real deal," I said to my wife, dejectedly. She walked over and placed her hand on my arm. At that moment, the door open and Axl Rose's head appeared.

"I was just thinking," he said. "I see from his tapes that he's a Skid Row man. I could give Sebastian Bach a ring if you want. See if he can pop around."

"Don't bother," I said, gving him a dirty look.

"How about Tracii Guns from LA Guns?"

"Just leave!" I snapped.

Floss

I glanced up at the gaffer. He was leaning back in his chair, eyes closed, flossing his wisdoms. He sat forward, gathered the used floss into a small ball on his left palm, and sniffed it.
"Utter stench," he said, before flicking it onto the floor, where it was promptly gobbled up by his dog, a small grey mongrel called Grandad.
"Good girl!" he cried, patting the hound's back.

Safe

She was furious. "That little slut! Of all people! What do you possibly see in that SLUT?!"

He stared downwards at the toys at his feet. She paced over to the door then back again.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue? I asked you a f**king question!"

"She makes me feel... safe," he whimpered.

Enraged, she stamped onto an electronic puppy, breaking it to pieces.

"Safe? I'll show you bloody safe!" she hissed, stooping to pluck a 9 volt battery from the toy's wreckage. "Open your mouth... NOW!!"

With tears streaming down his cheeks, he did as he was told.

"Get that filthy little licking machine out where I can see it!"

Again he complied, and she reached forward and pressed the top of the battery onto the surface of his tongue. He recoiled, then sank to his knees and sobbed.

She laughed bitterly, then looked at him in disgust.

"You make me sick."

After about half a minute he composed himself:

"Sweetheart, please understand. I don't mean for her to replace Mummy. It's just... Daddy gets lonely since Mummy left and... if you just give her a chance, I'm sure that..."

"SILENCE, you pathetic specimen! You're a disgrace."

The Circle of Life

The local blacksmith lowered me carelessy down into the well.
"Go easy, y' dozy c**t!" I barked as my forehead bumped against the slimy brickwork. With my free hand I pulled my hessian smock up over my nose; the stench was unbearable, and was getting worse the lower I got. Soon I was at the bottom and I saw the badger immediately, floating in the shallow water, writhing with maggots. I got it by the scruff of the neck and was about to ask to be hoisted upward when I saw something glinting at the bottom of the water. I peered down. Silver coins. A wishing well, I thought to myself, grabbing a handful.
"Lift us up!" I yelled, and the blacksmith dragged me up into the fresh air.
I didn't mention anything about the coins to anyone, and hid them in stash at the back of a hayloft for a couple of months before doing anything with them. Then I went to a market in a nearby town and bought a horse and cart, and started making a living transporting wheat from neighbourhood farms to a windmill, for a fee.
Everything was going well until about a year later. Suddenly there was no wind at all for about 3 months, and the windmill owner went out of business. I was there when he finally closed his doors. "Strange", he sighed. "After I made that wish for good wind it was blowin' every day for a year. Then all of a sudden, none at all. Stupid wishing well! What a load of poppycock!"
Naturally, I didn't say anything, but over the next few weeks I heard a few more stories of a similar type - about wishes that had been granted and that had now been reversed. The worst one, i.e. the one that made me feel the most guilty, involved an old woman who died. She had been very sick a few years earlier, and after her husband had wished for her health she had recovered. But now she was dead. It was obvious that my taking of the coins had undone a load of wishes.
I felt terrible, so went to a wise man in the forest for advice. He lived inside an old tree trunk, and had a medium length beard which stunk. I explained my predicament then paid him with a treacle cake, as per his request. He gobbled it down, cackled to himself, then told me:
"There are three ways to reverse this wickedness, young man."
"What are they?"
"One. Return the coins to the well."
"Impossible. I spent them ages ago. There's no way the horse trader will still have the exact same coins."
"Two. Suicide. In the well."
"That sound a bit drastic. What's the final option?"
"Drown a badger in the well."

Pirates

“Get ye to a watery grave!” hollered the captain, prodding the small of my back with his cutlass. I stumbled out along the gangplank, a thick rope fixing my arms to my waist. The pirates on the deck let out a drunken roar. As they paused to swig on their rum, a lone voice piped up:
“What if ‘e wriggles free and swims away?”
They all fell silent, then the captain spoke.
“Good thinkin’, young ‘un! Let’s weigh ‘im down with summat. So as ‘e don’t swim away. What have we got what’s ‘eavy? An’ I aint throwing away no cannon balls nor rum!”
“What about that fing wot he had wiv ‘im when we found ‘im?” croaked the ship’s cook. “That big box fing wot was on ‘is back.”
“Good thinkin’, old ‘un!” yelled the captain. “Fetch it here!”
They brought me back onto the deck, and strapped the ‘thing’ about which they had spoken onto my back. (Little did they know it was a jet pack, and that I had come from the future. A day earlier, myself and Boffin, my assistant, had made some miscalculations and had materialised too far from shore in our time-travelling hovercraft. For some reason, the hovercraft mechanism wasn’t working, so I had headed out with the jet pack to find out where we were. At night, I had encountered a storm, so was forced to make an emergency landing on a boat. I hid myself away, but in the morning they found me, asleep in a barrel of biscuits.)
They prodded me back out along the gangplank. As I reached the end, I stretched out my thumb and activated the jetpack. It hummed into life and I rose gracefully into the air. As I ascended I saw Boffin hurtling across the ocean towards us in the hovercraft – I realised he must have fixed it.
“What’s goin’ on?!” shrieked the pirate captain.
“That’s for me to know, and you to find out,” I said as Boffin released the torpedoes.

Games

I regained consciousness and found myself strapped to a chair in a small, windowless room. My right forearm was unrestrained. In front of me was a table, upon which was laid out the board game ‘Operation’. A door opened and a man of my own age entered. I immediately recognised him – it was the boy who used to lived next door to us when I was a child, but grown-up. I hadn’t seen him for over twenty years.
“How did you find… “
“Facebook.”
“But why did… “
“Silence, so-called Games-meister!” he barked. “ It’s playtime.” He stooped and started up a generator that was under the table, then stood and faced me.
“The rules are simple. The body of the patient is wired up to the corresponding parts of your own body. Make a mistake when extracting the Adam’s apple, you get a massive shock to your throat. The butterfly, your stomach. And so on. Three shocks of this strength will kill you. One shock when taking out the broken heart will kill you instantly.”
I wasn’t entirely sure why he was doing this, although I had a pretty good idea. But anyway, I figured it would do no good to start talking to him about it, so I picked up the tweezers and got stuck in. Straight away my old method came flooding back – little finger and ball of thumb as pivot, tweezers straight down vertically. Within a minute I had taken out all the pieces. I laid down the tweezers on the table
“So, I guess now you let me go.”
He looked furious. “Playtime’s not over yet!” he bellowed, plunging a syringe into my neck.
I woke up some time later to find myself in the same room, restrained in a similar way. This time, Buckaroo was set up on the table. On my right was another table, and standing on it was a real mule, with his rear hooves positioned near to my face. The were some wires leading from the table to the inner surface of the beast’s hind legs.
“When the plastic mule bucks, an electric shock will be sent to the… ”
“I get the idea,” I interrupted, picking up the cowboy hat and placing it delicately onto the saddle. With my upper arm fixed in position, I found the task less challenging than usual, and within a minute the saddle was fully stacked.
“Finished.”
“I say when playtime is over!” he cried, placing a chloroform soaked handkerchief over my mouth and nose.
Next time I woke he presented me with an explosive Rubik’s Cube, timed to go off in ten minutes unless deactivated by completion. I finished it in six, with one hand.
Next time, Ker-plunk – an axe above my head was primed to swing down if a marble was to hit a trigger in the game’s base. I had to remove 20 sticks to survive. I took out 30, showing off.
“What next?” I asked, defiant.
He rubbed his chin then left the room. He returned holding a rectangular box. Game of Life. He put it on the table and opened it. It was full of sweets."I don't know," he said.

Dentist

I tiptoed through to the bedroom. Standing on my bed was a portly middle-aged man, rummaging in a shoebox on top of my wardrobe. He had his back to me.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” I asked in a loud, authoritative voice.
He spun around with a horrified expression on his face. It was my dentist.
"You?” I gasped.
He stepped down from the bed and looked at me. His eyes filled with tears, and he slumped back onto the bedside cabinet, placed his head in his hands, and began to weep.
“I’m so sorry!” he sobbed, “I’ve been so stupid. So very stupid.”
“But I… I don’t understand,” I said. My voice sounded strange, sort of tinny.
“Neither do I,” he sniffled, “Neither do I!”
I stepped towards him. “Why are you here?” I asked. Again I noticed that my voice sounded different than usual.
“Because of her!” he snapped, sitting upright and wiping the tears from his eyes. “Because of her I’ve gotten myself into this mess. Because of her I’m trapped with this terrible debt. Because of her I put that stupid microphone into your mouth.”
I brought my hand to my cheek. A month earlier he had given me a crown. At the time, I complained that the artificial part of the tooth was too obtrusive. He said that I would get used to it, and I did. But still I didn’t quite understand.
He reached into his breast pocket and took out a small black device, about the size of a walkman.
“What’s that?” I asked. As I spoke, I heard the words ‘What’s that?’ come from the device, a split second after I had said them.
“A receiver, that’s what. I recently put a microphone transmitter in your mouth, inside a fake tooth. I’ve been recording and listening to every word you’ve said in the last month. A few days ago you called an insurance company to ask about getting an antique Rolex insured. I figured it must be somewhere in your apartment. Today you verbally arranged to go out with colleagues immediately after work, so I thought I’d come here to steal the watch, so that I could sell it. However, you came straight home after work instead. I hadn’t expected that.”
“But why do you need to do this? You’re a successful man.”
“To keep madam in the lifestyle she’s accustomed to.”
“Your wife?”
“Of course not. My mistress. My beautiful mistress. Want to see a photo of her? She’s beautiful. The most beautiful woman in the world.”
He opened his wallet and pulled out a scrap of paper, which he handed to me. It was a black and white picture of the Mona Lisa, torn from an old encyclopaedia.
I looked up at him. He had a dopey smile on his face and was dribbling slightly. It was clear that he had left the land of reality a long time ago.
“Come on,” I said softly. “ Let’s get you home.”

Kidnap

The day they chopped off Johnstons’s big toe, I started to get worried. I had been in captivity for four months, and until that point had been pretty sure that nothing really bad would happen. I thought that after six months or so, some kind of agreement would be reached between the kidnappers, my employers, and the Colombian authorities, and I would be released without harm. Johnston’s howls changed all that, and that night I formulated an escape plan. Before going into that, I’ll first explain a couple of things about the kidnappers and their camp:

The camp was high on the bank of a lush inland valley. There were three stone huts – the six kidnappers lived in the largest one, and Johnston and I were kept in the other two, which were next to each other, and fortified with heavy steel doors and an outer layer of concrete. About 600m directly below the camp, at the bottom of a steep grassy slope, was the bank of a river which flowed through the valley. The kidnappers kept a round metallic raft moored there, concealed amongst the reeds. Sometimes a couple of them would leave on this raft and return within an hour with some basic supplies. From this I deduced that there was a settlement of some sort not more that half an hour downstream.

As for the kidnappers, they were country people, and very superstitious. I noticed that they all wore small clay eggs on leather cords around their necks, and would often fall silent when a bird would land near the campfire. Although my knowledge of Spanish was limited, I was able to figure out that their particular culture had not yet abandoned some of their Pre-Christian beliefs – they apparently worshipped a massive blue birdgod called Garlax. Some of the tapestries that I saw hanging in the larger hut showed a naked man emerging from a huge golden egg. From the accompanying images, I guessed that there was some kind of prophecy about the birdgod sending a son to earth in human form.

Anyway, now I’ll get back to my escape plan. Once a week, they would take a photo of me holding a newly-bought newspaper, presumably to provide my employers with the so-called ‘proof-of-life’ . After taking the photo, they would always leave the paper with me, so that I could use it to wipe my backside. I started stashing these papers by laying them on the floor of my hut and covering them with a thin layer of dirt. I also started stashing one third of my daily bread supply in a hole that I had scraped in the ground.

One day, about a month after Johnston’s mutilation, they let me out to empty my slop bucket in a nearby ditch. To my horror, I saw that the head kidnapper was sharpening a big knife on a stone. As I passed, I noticed that there was an A5 bubble pack envelope on the stone – bearing my employers’ address. It was time to swing into action.

That night I got out all the newspapers and sorted through them, finding blank areas of page and tearing them out. Next, I pissed in my slop bucket and mixed in the bread stash, making a pungent yellow paste. I then put together a large bottomless papier mache egg using half of the paste and paper, then covered this with the blank bits. I let the whole thing dry, then rubbed it with the bottom of my tin cup until it shone like gold. Next, I removed my clothes and put some blood on them, which I got from my nose by picking it aggressively. (This was so they would think that I had been gobbled up by Garlack, just before he laid the golden egg.) I positioned the egg near to the door, climbed into it with the remainder of the paper and paste, then sealed myself in and added another couple of layers from the inside. The hut was very hot at night so the egg dried in no time. I just had to wait until the morning.

Soon after sunrise, one of the kidnappers opened the door to check up on me. I could hear him gasp, then run to fetch the others. This was the point I had been waiting for. The slope led from the door of my hut right down to the river bank. If I could just tumble the egg forward and through the door I would roll rapidly downhill to the metallic raft, and their superstitious fears would prevent them from shooting at me. However, before I had chance to move, the door slammed back shut, and there was silence.

After about half an hour it opened again, and I immediately felt the egg being picked up by a number of men. They were chanting something in an unrecognisable language. The kidnappers must have fetched some of their fellow people, because there were at least a dozen voices. I could tell from the increasing volume of the river that we were winding down the slope to the riverbank.

Soon we came to a halt. Alongside the roar of the river and the chanting, I could make out a strange spitting noise. Suddenly I felt the egg rise up and then fall with a crack against a hard edge. It broke open and I fell out, naked, onto what appeared to be an enormous frying pan.

I howled in agony and hopped around on the frying pan, the soles of my feet in hot melted butter. The people looked astonished. I glanced around and saw that they had turned the metallic raft into a makeshift frying pan by using logs to elevate it above a fire that they had built next to the river. As I jumped around, the raft fell from the logs into the river. There was a hiss and a cloud of steam, the raft cooled down, and the current took me downstream at tremendous speed, to safety, and a hero’s welcome.

Exorcism

Confession was over, so I took out my mobile and deactivated silent mode. There was a voice mail – from the Archbishop:
“Ahh, Father O’Reilly. Wondering if you could do me a favour? Bit of bother down at the local freak show. Demonic possession, from what I hear. Be a good chap and pop down to take a look, will you?”
I fetched my bag, filled a flask with holy water and cycled on down there.
Waiting at the entrance was the owner. He was agitated, twisting his beard with his fingers. “Thank God you’re here!” he cried, grabbing me by the elbow. Without talking, he quickly led me to an area at the back of the freak show where a number of caravans were assembled. He pointed at one of them. “In there. We’ve tied her up,” he said, pushing me towards the door.
I went alone into the caravan. It was small and tidy. Strapped to a double bed was a pair of Siamese twins – identical girls in their mid-twenties. The one on left looked terrified. The other one had a manic expression on her face, and as I approached, a deep and familiar voice came from her mouth:
“Y’ daft c*nt!”
“So, Garlack, we meet again,” I said calmly, unpacking my bag onto surface of the sideboard.
“Gulp down some piss!”
“Silence! Neither foul language nor vulgar sexual suggestions can shock me.”
I threw some holy water over the possessed twin and said some stuff in Latin. She let out an ear-piercing scream, fell silent, then looked around the room, bewildered.
“Wh…what happened?” she moaned.
“It’s over now,” I replied.
“More like not over, y’mean”
It was her sister. The demon had entered her. Then I remembered… the fifth rule of exorcism: a cast-out demon is able to enter another person if the head of that person is two metres or closer to the head of the possessed at the time of the exorcism.
I stuck my head out of the door of the caravan and explained the situation to the owner.
“Do you perhaps have someone who could be used as a kind of halfway house? Preferably someone not too strong?”
“How about Li’l Tommy Thumb?”
“Sound perfect.”
Li’l Tommy Thumb was brought to the caravan. I laid him down on a table next to the bed, with his head almost touching the head of the possessed twin, and put a heavy bag of sand on his body. I threw the water again, and intoned the words. The twin screamed, and the demon jumped into the body of Li’l Tommy Thumb.
“A chunk of shit!” roared Garlack’s voice from the tiny mouth.
I untied the Siamese twins and sent them from the caravan, then stood back and quickly performed the exorcism on Li’l Tommy Thumb. He fell silent. I lifted the bag of sand from his body, and helped him to his feet.
“Thanks for the assistance,” I said, patting him on the head. Everything seemed peaceful. Suddenly the silence was broken by a shriek from above:
“I’m gonna take you from behind good style!”
I looked up. There was a small hole in the roof of the caravan, through which an eye could be seen. I ran outside. It was The World’s Tallest Man. He had been spying on the proceedings, and Garlack was now in him. He was cackling obscenities, and scratching at his crotch. Together with the owner, the strong man, and the bearded lady, we got him to the ground and pinned him down with some marquee pegs. We all stood back and I threw the water and said the words. He fell silent, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
Suddenly, to our utter surprise, the zipper of his trousers opened up and a face appeared.
“Check this f*cker out, idiots!” yelled Garlack, then a foot long tongue emerged from the mouth. Basically, it turned out The World’s Tallest Man was a fraud. It was actually two men, one on the other’s shoulders, wearing a specially made costume.
We got the top man out of harm’s way, then I prepared to perform another exorcism. But then I remembered… the sixth rule of exorcism: If the extent of the possession is such that the possessed takes on demonic physical characteristics, the only way to expel the demon is to sever the head of the possessed. I explained this to the owner.
He twisted his beard in contemplation, then turned to the strong man.
“Glue a pirate costume to his body and stick him in a cage.”
He turned to the bearded lady.
“Paint a sign saying ‘Long Tongue Silver’”.

Revolution

In the holding cell, I heard the fall of the blade followed by a roar of peasant approval. Soon it would be my turn. I looked down at my perfectly manicured fingernails and stifled a sob. Half an hour later, a key turned, the door creaked opened, and a scruffy peasant entered holding a hessian sack.
“What do you want?” I asked disdainfully, fanning my face with a piece of peacock feather.
“I’m here to help you. The Countess sent me.”
He opened the sack and took out a bewigged human head, causing me to recoil in horror.
“Don’t worry, it’s a fake,” he said, turning it to show me the face. It was a perfect porcelain replica of my own, complete with my trademark beauty spot. I was impressed. From either side of the neck protruded 8 inch wooden poles each with an apple-sized ball on their end, and beneath the neck was a hat-like wire dome. He reached up removed my powdered wig.
“What insolence!” I gasped.
Ignoring me, he placed the artificial head onto the top of my real head and tightened the wire dome. He then took out a piece of fine cloth and draped it over the wooden balls, creating the impression of shoulders. There was a small gap for me to look out.
“Monsieur, listen to me very carefully. When they fetch you, go up the the guillotine and put this fake head into the hole. Make sure the top of your real head is clear of the blade’s path. Inside the fake head is a crude smoke bomb, which will activate when it falls into the basket. In front of the guillotine, before the crowd, is a cart of rotten vegetables. These are for the peasants to toss at the condemned. As the smoke spreads, leap forward into the cart and conceal yourself beneath its vile cargo. I will be at the helm of this cart. Make sure that you are covered up before the smoke disperses, and do not emerge until I command you to do so. I’ll take care of the rest.”
With these words, he turned and left the cell. A minute later, the door opened and two thugs entered.
“You’re up next, fancypants,” grunted one of them, then they manhandled me out of the cell and down a short, dark passageway to the main door of what used to be the town hall. I emerged into the daylight, and found myself standing upon an elevated wooden platform surrounded by a sea of peasants. Upon seeing me, they let out a boisterous cheer. Straight ahead, at the edge of the platform, was the guillotine, and beyond it I could see the cart of vegetables. It was straddled to a powerful-looking donkey. Astride this beast was the afore-mentioned scruffy peasant. He winked at me. I was then approached by a stocky, bearded man who I gathered was the executioner.
“You must think I’m f*cking stupid!” he boomed, swatting the fake head from my head. It fell onto the platform and cracked in two, letting out a pathetic puff of smoke. The executioner folded his arms and spoke:
“Firstly, although the head was clearly well made, it was slightly too small so it made you look weird. Secondly, you didn’t even make the effort to stoop down. With that thing on your head you were about 8 foot tall. Did you really think that nobody would find that strange? And thirdly, and this is what really pisses me off, the hole in the cloth for you to look out through was way too big. I mean, I could see both of your eyes and your nose. Really clearly! You could at least have made the effort to put some gauze there or something.”
Not knowing what to say, I glanced over at the scruffy peasant. He was looking kind of sheepish. I gave him a dirty look. The executioner continued:
“Face the facts. Your days of champagne-quaffing have come to an end. As have your days of caviar-guzzling. The party’s over, and hell awaits.” He pointed at the guillotine.
I mopped my brow, and then proceeded to my doom.

Mixtape

A few years after all the kids had left home, my wife and I sold up and moved into a smaller place – a bungalow on the edge of town. The first thing I did was replace the central heating. When I pulled out the radiator below the window in the box room I found an old magnetic audio cassette, with the tape partly unspooled. On a sticker on its side was biroed the text “MIXTAPE 4 Mands, Luv U 4EVA – Davesy xxx”. I tossed it onto the window sill and carried on working.
Later, during a tea break, I dreamily picked up the cassette and wound the loose tape back into the casing. I had a small radio cassette player in the room and the radio signal was terrible so, to kill the silence, I stuck in the cassette and pressed play. It was a compilation of pop hits from the late eighties, mostly recorded from the radio. From the brief snippets of DJ, I gathered that some of the recording artists were called “Richard Astley”, “Belinda Carlisle” and “Deaf Leopard”. I was just about the stop the tape when the music stopped and a voice spoke:

Hi Mands. It’s me, Dave. I’m so soz about what happened and that your parents got so pissed off. It’s so unfair. By the time you hear this I’ll be far away and you’ll be able to have some peace. I still love you. If one day you want to see me again, I’ll be at the statue of General Gordon at noon on Pancake Day 20 years from now. That’s 2008. I’ll always love you.

I smiled at this, but then forgot about. The next week, I was leaving to go the greengrocers (at about 1140 am) when my called down the drive, “Don’t forget the lemon… it’s pancake day.” I suddenly remembered the tape. Out of curiousity, I decided to pass by the statue to see if the voice on the tape had kept his word.
I got there, and no-one was to be seen. I crouched behind a bush and waited. Suddenly I felt a strong hand grab my hair and yank my head backwards. I looked up and saw a surly teenage boy wearing sports casual clothing, his hair gelled forward. There were some others with him.
“This is the dirty old bastard wot got me Mum preggers with Stace when she was 15 and then did a runner,” he growled. “He was her bloody teacher!”
“What an absurd allegation!” I retorted.
“Mum said you’d come. Didn’t believe her though. Guess I was wrong.” He tightened his grip.
“No, there’s been a terrible misunderstanding. I was only here…”
“Shut it, perv! If our Stace was here she’d love it. If she wasn’t in borstal she’d love to give you a boot in the balls cos of what you dud. Even if you are her old man.”
“Look, I really can explain…”
“I said shut it! Get his kacks off, lads!”
“This is an outrage!” I yelled, as two of the youths grabbed my arms, and the other two pulled down my trousers and underpants. They then grabbed a foot each.
“Plonk him down on that big dogshit, so it goes all over his arse,” ordered the leader of the pack, pointing at the pavement.
They lowered me down, cackling with laughter. The sensation was extremely unpleasant. They released their grip and I tried to get to my feet but fell back down. They were laughing, and filming my humiliation with their portable telephones.
A man shouted something and they dispersed. He came and helped me to my feet.
“Are you Davesy?” I groaned.
“No,” he said. “ My name is Gordon.”

Ghost Train

During my teens I worked one summer at a local fun fair. There was a ghost train, which was owned by an old man whose name, ironically, was Mr. Frankenstein (his parents had been Austrian refugees). My job was to emerge, dressed as a skeleton, at a particular point on the train’s darkened route. After it had passed, I would pull on a werewolf mask then go through a short passage and do the same thing as the train came back down from the other direction. This would go on for hours.
One day the weather was bad and there were very few visitors. I was waiting in the passage for about 45 minutes before I heard the train come to life. As it emerged from the darkness, I saw that there was only one passenger, a man in a lime green tracksuit - wearing a skeleton mask exactly the same as mine. This unnerved me. Nevertheless, I went through the passage and, pulling on the werewolf mask, waited for the train to come back down the other side. It came past – and this time he was wearing a werewolf mask.
Now I was really freaked out, and sat there wondering who it could have been. Maybe a friend from school, I thought. But he was clearly a large man. A few minutes later, the train started up again and I got into position as a skeleton. As the train came around the corner, I saw the lime green track suit and knew that it was him again. But this time he was not wearing a mask, and as the train passed I saw that his expressionless face was hideously disfigured. He was staring right at me, through lumpy eyelids.
The train disappeared into a curtain of plastic cobwebs, and I stood there in shock, my heart thumping. Who was this man? Despite my fear, I tiptoed through through the passage, and peered over a fibreglass gravestone onto the track on the other side. As the train approached I froze in horror - it was empty. He must have stepped off at the bend. I tore off my skull mask and, terrified, turned back into the passage, only to find him standing there with a small bottle in his hand.
“Who… who are you?” I gasped.
“I’m you.”
“What?”
“From the future.”
“B..but the face?” I stammered, touching my smooth, adolescent cheek.
He raised the bottle and showed me the label. It said “ACID”. With a quick flick of the wrist, he splashed it over my head. I screamed and clawed at my face with my hands. But then I noticed that there was no pain. Maybe the nerves have been damaged, I thought. Then I heard him laughing.
I looked up and saw him peeling the disfigured flesh from his face.
“It’s only piss,” he giggled. I immediately recognised his voice. It was old man Frankenstein. He had bits of latex make-up hanging from his face. Suddenly he stopped laughing and gripped my forearm.
“Now you understand fear.”

Prison

A month before the end of my sentence I got a new cellmate – a hunchbacked bankrobber called Quasimodo. That was just his nickname, his real name was something like Gordon. He was pleasant enough, but liked to keep to himself. Every morning he would attend a yoga class that had been prescribed by the prison doc to help ease his spinal cramps, and would spend the afternoons on his bunk, reading celebrity gossip magazines with his back against the special beanbag that he had been permitted to bring in with him.
One evening, a fortnight after his arrival, I persuaded him to play cards with me. After a few hands, he opened up a bit and told me why he was in jail. Two months earlier, he had carried out a major bankjob, taking almost a million pounds. He thought he had gotten away with it, until he was grassed up by the getaway driver, who had been picked up on a separate charge and had blabbed, hoping for a reduced sentence.
“Still… ol’ Quasimodo isn’t too bothered,” he said, shuffling the deck. “He’ll be out in seven, and there’ll be a nice little nest egg waiting for him, if you catch my drift.”
“What? You stashed the money?!”
“You could say that,” he replied, leaning back into his beanbag, which was lodged between the back of the chair and the wall to provide hunch support. The bean bag made a strange rustling noise, and he smiled mysteriously.
A few days later, I came into the cell to find him stitching up a small tear in the fabric of the bean bag. He looked flustered, and as soon as he was finished rushed off to his yoga class, taking the beanbag with him, as per usual. After he had left the cell, I saw that there were a couple of scrumpled 50 pound notes on the floor by his bed. I ignored them and went off to the pool room. When I returned, he was already back on his bunk, propped up against the beanbag, absorbed in a 2005 issue of Heat. The bank notes were gone. I began to put two and two together.
On my final afternoon, a prison officer came and told me I could leave a few hours earlier than planned. He helped me load all my gear into a trolley. Strangely, Quasimodo was nowhere to be seen.
“This yours?” asked the prison officer, prodding the beanbag with his boot. For the first time I could remember, Quasimodo had forgotten to take it with him.
“Errr… yes,” I said, my heart pounding. The words just came out.
“Heavier than it looks,’ grunted the prison officer as he threw the bean bag onto the trolley and trundled from the cell.
We went quickly through the usual check-out procedure. All the time I was terrified that Quasimodo would raise the alarm about his beanbag. Soon I was in a taxi, on my way to the bedsit that the probation service had arranged for me, and my breathing returned to something like normal.
At the bedsit, the taxi-driver helped bring all my stuff inside. I tipped him, and as soon as he had gone, locked the door and drew the curtains. I then put the bean bag on the kichen table and taking a potato knife from the drawer, slowly cut into the heavy fabric.
“Surprise, surprise,” intoned a familiar voice. I almost jumped out of my skin. It was Quasimodo. He was inside the bean bag.
“But… but how did you…?”
“Amazing what a bit of yoga can do,” he said, stretching his arms then removing his t-shirt.
“But… the bean bag! The money… I thought…”
He had turned around, so I was looking at his back.
“Unzip this sweet baby.”
I looked closely. Running down the centre of his hunch was a thin zip with a tiny transparent fastener. Hand trembling, I slowly pulled open the zip. Sure enough, cash came tumbling out from within.
Quasimodo put back on his t-shirt then knelt down and and scooped the notes up into a plastic bag that he had taken from his pocket. He stood up and stuffed a wad of fifties into my breast pocket.
“For services rendered,” he said with a wry grin, then walked from the bedsit, never to be seen (by me) again.

Husband

A month after my husbands’s funeral, I sold the house. It held too many memories. During the move, one of the removal guys handed me a old-fashioned key that he had found in the cavity under the bottom drawer of my husband’s bedside cabinet. I had no idea what it was for, so just tossed it in a box with some other stuff and forgot about it.
A year after the move, I started to have regrets. I felt isolated in the suburb that I had moved to, and missed my old friends and neighbours. One day I was driving down the old street and saw that the house was again up for sale. Impulsively, I called the estate agent and said that I would take it. Money wasn’t really an issue, what with the insurance payout.
When I moved back in I decided to strip and refurbish the place, and get all new furniture. A week into the refurbishment, one of the workmen I had hired called me to the basement. He had ripped out an old in-built bookcase, and behind it had found a door. He thought it might be an old electrical closet, but wasn’t sure. It was locked, so we couldn’t open it to find out.
Later that night, I remembered the old key. After some rummaging, I found it in the bottom of one of the old boxes, which had remained unpacked since the last move. I went to the basement and tried the key in the door. It fit, so I turned it and opened the door, revealing a short corridor with another door at the end. I walked in and opened the second door. To my surprise, behind that door was a medium-sized drawing room with mahogany panelled walls. And sitting on a brown chesterfield, wearing a smoking jacket and reading Tennyson, was my husband.
“John?!” I gasped.
“Oh, you must be thinking of the other John,” he replied, peering over his spectacles.
I stood in silence, shocked. He rose and poured himself a port.
“The other…?”
“Yes. Yours Truly’s a clone. John made me ten years ago.”
“But your age!”
“Aging hormones, dear girl.”
“But why?!”
“He wanted a pal with similar interests. By the way, where is the old chap? Haven’t seen him in yonks.”
“But why keep you down here?”
“Being a clone, the old immune system isn’t up to much. Need a sterile environment to survive. You did close the other door didn’t you?”
I hadn’t. Suddenly, he dropped dead, clutching his throat.
I didn’t want to tell anyone about all this in case the insurance people kicked up a stink, so I burned the body in the incinerator in the garden. I relocked the door and tried not to think about it all, as it freaked me out too much.

Anyway, a year later I remarried with a man from work, and within few years we had some kids, two sons. When my boys reached their teens the house became a bit cramped and I had the idea to use the secret room in the basement as a den for them. I opened up the room and got some workmen to strip out the furniture. Under the chesterfield they found a key. Behind the mahogany panelling they found a door. I opened this door. There was a corridor and another door. I opened this door. There was a billiard room. Standing there, applying some chalk to a cue, was another version of my husband.
“I’m a secret clone of the clone,” he said. “The clone made me on the sly without the original John knowing.”
“Now I’ve seen it all,” I sighed to myself.

Diamond

Ol' Jonesy had summoned me to his deathbed. I stood at the bedside and held his hand. He drew me close and croaked the following words:

Years ago, I worked for a while in a diamond mine in South Africa. One of my tasks was to lay the dyno - that's what we called dynamite - in the shaft. This involved drilling a hole into which a stick of dyno would be slotted. One day, after putting a stick into a hole that I just drilled, I noticed something glittering in the rock near to the mouth of the hole. 'Twas a massive dimo - that's what we called diamonds - the size of a duck egg. Distracted, I fumbled with the detonation wires, causing the dyno to explode. A month later I woke up in hospital in a real mess. You've probably noticed that I don't have a nose. That's why. Also the wooden arm. But not the glass eye - that was something else, years later. But anyway, the doc said that they'd xrayed my head and could see a big rock embedded in the centre of my brain. I asked how big. He said about the size of a duck egg, and that removing it would almost certainly result in my death.
You're the first person I've told about this. Unless you're a complete idiot, you've probably realised that there's a great, big diamond inside my head. As soon as I'm dead, I want you to get it out. You'll find some approriate tools in the bedside cabinet, along with the address of a jewel trader in Antwerp who will give you a good price, no questions asked. I ask only one thing. From time to time, raise a glass to Ol' Jonesy, and think back to the laughs we had. By the way, sorry about that time I borrowed your walkman and broke it and didn't offer to replace it.

I heard the death rattle, and Ol' Jonesy shuffled off this mortal coil. I cracked open his nut and found it straight away. It was bloody, so I took it to the sink and rinsed it under the tap. It was just a rock, after all, shaped sort of like a wonky duck egg.

Rage

“Go to hell!” screamed the priest as he ran forward and lunged for my throat. I sidestepped, sending him clattering into a suit of armour.
“Naughty, naughty,” I exclaimed in a camp voice, turning on my heel and wagging my finger in mock-disapproval. He remained on his hands and knees, facing the floor, weeping.
“Pathetic,” I said.
“I’ve lost everything,” he sobbed. “Everything!”
I lit a cigarette and gazed up at the light coming through the stained glass.
“Not quite everything." I blew a smoke ring nonchalantly into the air. He fell silent, then looked up.
“Wh..what do you mean. I saw the…”
“Shut up and follow me.”
I sauntered through the vestry. He shuffled along behind, sniffling. Near to the door of the church, on one of the pews, was an large, ornate golden box. I flicked my cigarette towards it.
“Open that.”
Astonished, he walked up placed his hands on either side of the box’s lid.
“I knew there was some goodness left in you. I knew that you were not…”
“Just open the box,” I said.
He lifted the lid. There was a barely audible ‘click’ before a spring-loaded custard pie hurtled out of the box into his tear-stained face.
“Absolute classic,” I said, videoing him with my phone as he staggered comically around the aisle, blinded by custard, howling with rage.

Treasure

Guzzler and I hoisted the chest up out of the hole. He blew apart the lock, then kicked open the lid. We both gasped - it was full of silver coins. I grabbed a handful, then froze. I couldn’t believe it - the coins all had Guzzler’s face on them, along with the text Long Live King Guzzler, but in Latin. He hadn’t noticed yet. Next thing, he grabs a big double handful, and comes across an object buried under the coins. It looks sort of like a loom, but smaller and with weird buttons on it. What’s this? – says Guzzler in a dopey voice, as he picks up the object then vanishes immediately into thin air. I was confused at the time, but looking back, it was obviously some form of handheld time-machine, which enabled him to go back in time and then become a king, probably by using the handheld time-machine to make people think he had magic powers or something. Typical Guzzler!

1899

"Fix bayonets lads, and let's make a name for ourselves!" cried the Sergeant-Major, rising to his feet. A second later his body fell back into the trench, a bullet hole in his forehead. The Boers were advancing across the veld. There were loads of them, all carrying Mausers. We decided to retreat. It was impossible to take the Serge's bod - he was a big man. However, I noticed that around his neck was a silver locket and, thinking it would be nice to take it for his family, grabbed it and scarpered with the boys.

Later that evening, back at camp, I took the locket out of my pocket and had a look at it. On it were engraved the letters "SM 4 RS". I opened it up. You'll never guess what was inside! That's right, a small oval sepia photo of Yours Truly! Turns out he must have secretly really liked me, even though he was always doing dead mean stuff to me like making me clean out the toilets and that, and yelling at me about my boots being badly polished. It's funny the way people act sometimes, isn't it? They're a real mystery!

Baby Came Down

A baby came down from outer space,

Whizzing through the stars at the speed of light,

Looking for some fun on a Saturday night.

-

As the baby came down through the stratosphere,

It slowed right down to the speed of sound,

Then it went looking for the nearest town.

-

It found a town and hit the CBD,

And scouted around for a place to go,

Making its way towards the neon glow.

-

It found a disco and it went inside,

And when it caught the attention of a youthful crowd,

It opened up its mouth and it said aloud

-

“I was born,

Beneath a blanket’s warmth,

And I’ve never stopped thinking ‘bout the way things are.

All prepare for Blanket Rot.

-

You’ll grow old and lonely,

And you’ll die in your bed,

And you’ll never have stopped thinking ‘bout the way things were.

Better get ready for Blanket Rot.”

-

With these words the baby shot through the roof,

And headed straight upwards at the speed of light.

It quickly disappeared into the starless night.

Reprimand (55 words)

He sat in silence, head bowed, the appalling performance report facedown before him. The governor stood at the window, looking out over the prison grounds.
“You’re a dreamer, man. Need to stay alert in this game. Got to…”
“Yes, sir,” he said, discreetly adding a bit of cross-hatching to the underbelly of a two-headed unicorn.

Homecoming

Dearest child,

Years ago, when you were but an infant, I decided to make an incognito walkabout of the city wearing a hooded robe, so that I might better understand my people.

On the quayside I was set upon by a rough gang, who knocked me unconscious. I awoke aboard a filthy ship, far from shore. I was furious, and informed the captain that if he did not return to shore immediately I would arrange for him to be beheaded. He responded by slicing off my tongue. I had been, as they say, ‘press-ganged’.

Against my will, I was then forced to work for a number of years in faraway ports, loading sacks of spice into and out of ships. Mute, I was unable to explain my predicament to anyone. I did, however, hear stories detailing my own supposed fate: how I had fallen into a well while strolling in the royal gardens, and how my corpse had been dragged away by an underground current.

Anyway, I recently escaped from this enforced servitude and was able to stow away on a ship bound for these shores. And so, after years of intolerable hardship, I have returned.

Your father, the King

The young queen looked up from the parchment in her hands.

“Oh, father,” she sobbed, falling into the arms of the bedraggled, elderly man who stood before her.

“Good old daughter,” he said, patting her back.

“Hang on. I thought you wrote that they cut out your tongue.”

“Errr… What I meant was…”

She stepped back and grabbed at his enormous grey beard. It came away in her hand, revealing the unmistakable chin of Chuckles, the former court jester, who had been expelled in disgrace the previous month after being caught stealing a chunk of gold from the royal treasury.

Cannibals (55 words)

"Better swallow the vial of cyanide concealed within my artificial thumb," I was thinking, just before the chief reached up and sliced off my arm, which fell with a plop into the steaming cauldron below.

"We eat you piece by piece!" he laughed. "You will watch whole tribe feast on broth made from your arm!"

Youth (55 words)

A scruffy hut had appeared in the tree into which my sweetheart and I had once carved our love and, worse, her name had been crudely scraped away. Aghast, I climbed up and peered within. It was full of sullen teenagers, one of whom spat cola into my face and said, "Welcome to Youngsville, Granddad."

Wedding - part 6/6

Wedding - part 5/6

We were rushed into the house and laid out on two trestle tables. My girlfriend's idiotic ex-boyfriend was pale and unconscious. I was conscious, but pretended not to be in the hope of getting some sympathy. A load of the girls there were nurses, so they took charge of the first aid. They decided to remove my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's ET costume so they could perform CPR on him. One of them fetched a pair of scissors and started snipping through the latex...

Wedding - part 4/6

We fell into the fishpond together. It was deeper than it looked. Soaked, my papier mache costume (which was all I was wearing) fell to pieces. His latex version filled with water, dragging him down. I breathed in some water and almost drowned, before being rescued by another of my girlfriend's ex-boyfriends, a bodybuilder who was dressed as a merman.

Wedding - part 3/6

After the church we went to the reception, which was held in a country house. Of course, my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend was there, getting loads of attention with his stupid latex ET costume. Everyone was laughing ridiculously loudly at his jokes, which weren't even funny. It was unbearable. Then, for some bizarre reason, his sketchbook was passed round. Everyone was praising the quality of his draughtsmanship!
"Boring," I exclaimed, glancing at some of the drawings. " No feeling."
"You should check out the other sketchbook," responded some elderly aunt. "All his more expressive stuff's in that one. It's amazing! This is just the academic stuff."
It was too much to bear. I rushed into the garden for some fresh air. I thought nobody else would be out there, but then I noticed him. Standing alone by the fishpond, smoking a cigarette, was the dreadful character himself. Unable to control myself, I ran at him...

Wedding - part 2/6

After picking up the fallen candlestick, I squeezed into the rearmost pew, only to discover that I was sitting next to my partner's ex-boyfriend (who was a distant friend of the groom). To my horror, he was also wearing an E.T. costume!

We exchanged dirty looks, then sat in stony silence watching the closing words of the service. I glanced at his costume out of the corner of my eye, checking it out. It was undoubtedly superior to mine in every way. Mine was a crude papier mache construction with cloth joints, whereas his appeared to be made from movie-grade latex.

I discreetly inspected his fingertips one by one. All pale brown. A satisfied smirk crossed my lips. At least I had made the effort to create the illusion of a glowing fingertip by dipping one in red paint then orange glitter. But then, as I was still looking down, he raised his left hand. He protruded the pointing finger and, as he pressed into his palm with his thumb, a bright orangey pink glow shone out from its tip. It was beautiful. I hated him.

Wedding - Part 1

Death Row (55 words)

My husband’s killer choked to death on an enormous pearl while eating what would anyway have been his final meal (Oysters Miqnonnette). Denied closure, I was distraught.

Days later, the prison governor was on my doorstep. “Maybe this will help ease the pain,” he said with a wink, dropping the pearl into my breast pocket.

Ecuador 1879/1878 (55 words)

I stepped out into a primitive hut that appeared to be made from bones. On the floor was a shrunken head bearing my own face!
Horrified, I stumbled back into the time machine and, in my haste, turned the wrong dial, sending myself back one year. To the same location. Suppose I had a good innings.

Thief (55 words)

“We finally meet,” panted Inspector Treuillard, his pistol raised.
Cornered in the courtyard, the man known as ‘The Nuisance’ merely yawned. There was a thin cord attached to his waist, which was connected (via a pulley on a distant hot air balloon basket) to a 200kg sandbag. Gripping the Vermeer, he vanished into the sky.

Separation (55 words)

"So, this is..."
"Just go," he sobbed.
Outside, placing the box onto the passenger seat of her car, she noticed there were two Purple Rains. The door was still ajar, so she went back in.
"I picked up your..."
He was on Ebay, looking at Pete's Dragon merchandise, a Mastercard between his teeth.

Map (55 words)

Strapped naked over his own rum barrel, the pirate captain groaned weakly. The admiral removed his bloodied gloves, then spoke:
“So, you still don’t recall where the map is hidden?” He turned to the bosun. “I want you to flog this scoundrel until no trace of that absurd island–shaped tattoo on his back remains.”

Rescue (55 words)

“Rock ‘n’ Roll,” she purred.
The general raised his voice over the engine’s drone.
“I beg you to reconsider. Such a manoeuvre has never….”
“Nonsense!” yelled the Prime Minister, pulling the balaclava down over her face and leaping from the helicopter, a bungee cord taking her neatly onto the roof of the besieged embassy below.