The Liebster Award

My dad sent me this award... don't know how to put the picture up* but I'll have a go at the rest of it!

Apparently this thing has rules. These are the rules...

1. You post 11 random facts about yourself.
2. Answer the 11 questions your presenter gave you.
3. You pass the award on to 11 other bloggers.
4. Compose 11 new questions for your recipients.

So... eleven random facts about myself....

1)  I am 37 year old grandmother. I was seventeen when I had my daughter and she was nineteen when she gave birth to hers. I was priviledged to be at my grandaughter's birth and I like to think we share a special bond, mostly this consists of her trying to pull my necklace off and me stopping her.

2) I've finished the NaNoWriMo challenge five times out of the eight I've tried it. This doesn't prove I'm a good writer, but does prove the efficaciousness of a looming deadline.

3) I own two guitars. I cannot play either of them. Well, I know about four chords. This is the limit of my musical expertise. They do ramp up the coolness factor of my bedroom though.

4) I don't drive. I took two lessons and scared the life out of myself. I thought I was travelling way too fast at 20 mph. I will always be one of lifes pedestrians. And never the designated driver. Which is fine by me.

5) I am afraid of heights, the dark, horses and things with spinning blades. I do not really consider these to be a problem, just a really well developed sense of self-presevation. After all, plenty of people are scared of spiders but no-one ever got their skull caved in by a skittish orb-weaver.

6) I have a fascination for all things weird and morbid. One of my favourite places in the city is its lovely cemetary, and I love a good documentary about freaks of nature. If it's weird, then I'm all over it. I'll take weird over banal every day of the week.

7) I am a published poet. Back in my teens I had a couple published in a magazine and one displayed as poem of the month in every library in Bradford. I've also, in the last couple of years, had a couple published on Pigmy Giant. Despite this, I scored pretty badly on poetry on my uni creative writing assignments.

8) I have a Diploma in Creative Writing And Literature. This means I have letters after my name and can throw together a story. Sometimes.  I also discovered whilst acquiring this diploma that I am a terrible student. Usually starting the assignments mere days (and in one case hours) before the deadline. Deadlines are awesome, it's amazing what you can produce when they are flying towards you.

9) I am an avid Stephen King fan. My bedroom has several shelves devoted just to his books. I read my first (Misery) at 13 and have been collecting them ever since. Only a couple more and I've got pretty much a full set of his novels.

10) I like to walk barefoot outside. There's nothing quite like feeling the earth beneath your feet, whether that be scorching pavement, wet grass or soft warm moss. This does mean I usually have filthy feet in the summer.

11) I've only been abroad once. I was eleven years old (I think) and I went to Amsterdam with the brownies. The ferry crossed back in a force 9 gale and I, for once, was not travel-sick. I would like to travel when my kids have grown a little more (and finances allow).

so... the questions my Dad asked...

If you could come back in another life as an animal, which one would you choose to be?
A cat. Cats are awesome. They sleep when they like, wake up, kill things for pleasure and generally rule the roost. Yup, definitely a cat.

Have you ever owned one of those cars that whatever “Could” go wrong with it, “Did” go wrong? Never owned a car.

Do you believe in other world life forms? Yes, I think there's definitely something out there. I'm not sure it will be found in my lifetime, but yes.

If you had to spend a year on a desert island with just one celebrity for company, who would you choose? This is a hard one. I'm not much of a celeb person. Someone I could have a laugh with so probably a comedian. Adam Hills. Australian comic. Very funny guy.

Which band or entertainer would you most like to see in a live performance? 
I would have said Queen, but Freddie is no longer with us. I would love to see Sxip Shirey's Hour Of Charm, especially f it has my favourite artist Jason Webley playing in it.

If you could alter just one physical aspect of yourself, what would it be?
I would love to be tall and slim. Slimmer is a possibility but I think I'm stuck with being a short-arse.

I have been told I am a Jack Russell, which breed of dog would you say you share characteristics with? A labrador. Loyal, sometimes daft, always up for a walk, chews a lot.

If you could choose any make or model of car to own for free, which model would you have?
A VW campervan. A green one. With a split window at the front (and someone to drive it. Obviously)

Which do you prefer, the quiet of the countryside, or the hustle-bustle of the city?
The countryside. I find cities too busy.

Do you have a favourite colour and number? And do you know why?
I don't have a favourite number but I do favour even numbers, they just sound nicer. As for colours, I like blues, purples and greens. My absolute least favourite colour is yellow.

What is your favourite film and book?
I hate this question! How can you choose only one? Currently my favourite film is probably Hedwig And The Angry Inch. Favourite book? Impossible. The one I've re-read most often is probably Stephen king's 'On Writing'. I actually read my first copy into tatters.

Eleven questions for you....

1. If you could pick any name instead of the one you have, what would it be?
2. What is your favourite cryptid?
3. Choose a superpower!
4. What actor would play you in a biopic of your life?
5. What was the last book you read?
6. Have you ever sent a rude text to the wrong person?
7. If you could only use one takeaway for the rest of your life, what sort would it be?
8. Which lessons did you love and hate at school?
9. What have you lost in the house that never turned up?
10. What is your favourite article of clothing and why?
11. Where is your favourite place in the world?

I don't know eleven bloggers so here's three...

Iamtypecast
JellyToATree
Jonathan Lawrence

Cheers Dad! Love ya xxx

*The picture is now up! Cheers Dad!

Favouritism

 Favouritism

I did not expect this of you
This stress, all this upset
I look upon you as a sunny one
A happy one
Full of fun and cheer
Not misery
You’re the good one.

You on the other hand...
You seem to bring me nothing
But cursing and dread
I don’t look forward to your arrival
And I say I’m glad to see the back of you
You’re hard work
A jolt to the system

Unlike you, who I welcome
Who I await with glee
And many plans
We shall relax together
You are the highlight of my week

And you are the lowlight
Sneaking in
Before I am ready for battle

Yet, why should I pigeon-hole either of you?
Why should one be just good
And one be unredeemably bad?
You have your own characteristics
Your own needs, strengths and flaws

So why should I favour Friday over Monday
Why should my disappointment be greater if Friday misbehaves
And not gladder when Monday brings me joy?
I should love you all equally.



This idea came to me, that the days of the week have their own personalities, and I really do hate Mondays and love Fridays. Yet why should I? If they were children, it would be grossly unfair.

Figgis 8: At The Hospital

Latest installment, which is not quite as funny as the others. Writing has been hard this week, family commitments and such. I'm thinking writing every day may be a tad ambitious. Maybe a weekly target of 2 or 3 posts would be more achieveable. I'm not sure, I'll reassess after Christmas. Anyway, enjoy...

 At The Hospital

Apparently the three of them were not the only victims of the Transformation Studio. It looked like Dr Moreau’s waiting room up at the local Accident & Emergency unit. A mermaid with human legs but flippers for arms, several human sized bats and a woman covered head to toe in fur were only some of the other people waiting. Figgis tried to engage this last person in conversation, making a joke about at least she didn’t have paws to go with the fur so she could at least shave if it off and look halfway normal.

This got them seen pretty quickly; the punch the woman delivered required stitches. Figgis had never before heard of hypertrichosis. He wasn’t likely to forget it either.

“I can’t believe she hit me!” He moaned.

“Basically you called her a dog,” Bel pointed out, “I think I would have smacked you too.”

Figgis, his newly sutured eyebrow still oozing blood, sighed. “Yeah, as chat up lines go, it wasn’t a terribly good one.”

“Cheer up, fur-face,” Bel gave him a rueful grin, “at least you’re back to normal. Me and Theresa are still shafted.”

They were back in the waiting room after their brief stint in the suture room, it appeared very few of the failed Transformation victims were getting any medical treatment, but there was already posters on the wall offering LO-COST BODY STORAGE and HAD A FAILED TRANSFORMATION? YOU HAVE A CLAIM! NO WIN NO FEE!

“You know what we ought to do?” Theresa said, “we ought to go find wherever the bastards have moved to and demand they make us human again.”

Bel snorted, “yeah, I bet they've left a forwarding address.”

“I bet you could find them on the internet,” Figgis said at last, “that’s how I found them in the first place.”

“Really?” Theresa looked interested, “I just saw the shop walking past.”

“You just saw it and went in?” Bel asked, incredulous, “and you just happened to have a spare million credits to spend? That’s one hell of a impulse buy.”

Theresa shrugged, “I’d been saving up.”

“A million credits? That’s like, two years wages!”

“It was for a house deposit,” Theresa said, and looked perilously close to tears, “I was going to buy a house with my boyfriend.”

“What happened?” Figgis asked, expecting her to confirm her single status, hoping it wasn’t something too tragic. A cheating ex being less tragic than a dead one. Better still, Theresa kicking the ex out. It wasn’t like he was hoping to step into the guys shoe... no wait. That’s pretty much exactly what he fancied doing.

“We split,” Theresa said. “He said he wasn’t ready for commitment.”

Figgis mentally hoorayed. Commitment he could do. Hell, he could go all the way through commitment into low-level stalking if that’s what she needed. Not major stalking though, that tended to get people looking at you strange and police officers having Quiet Words.

"How about you two?” Theresa asked, “how did you afford it?”

“I won it,” Figgis admitted. “Stuck hundred creds on the lottery, won ten million.”

Bel whistled. “Not bad, drinks on you then."

“What about you?” Theresa asked Bel.

 “The opposite to you, I sold my house so I could lease it instead.” Bel sighed, “I decided to live out the rest of my days in reckless days and wild debauchery.”

And now Figgis got an inkling of real tragedy. He didn’t ask what she meant by ‘the rest of my days’, he didn’t have to.
“You’re dying?” Theresa clapped both hands over her mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t...”

“Well, not now, obviously.” Bel grinned and shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, I asked for immortality and I’ve gotten it.”

Only one thing puzzled Figgis, “so why ask to be rehumanised? If you’re just going to die if you do?”

“I was sort of hoping they’d sort all that out." She got up from the seat she was pretending to sit on and wafted towards the window, not looking at her new friends. “On second thoughts, you’re right, sod being rehumanised, we should just go out and have fun instead.”

“But these wings...”

“Are sexy as all hell,” Figgis got to his feet. “Fuck this, who wants a pint? It’s my round.” he held out his hand and Theresa slipped hers into it.

“Let’s go then,” Theresa smiled.

And then they walked out of the hospital into the hazy spring sunshine.

“Wait a minute, you’ve left me behind,” Bel complained. “Are you just going to leave me propped up in the bloody waiting room?”

Figgis sighed. This was not the happy ending he’d hoped for...

Figgis 7: Blue Moon

I know I ought to be writing more of the apocalyse fic, but this is SO much damn fun to write....

Blue Moon

Man and woman stared at each other. Both blushing.

“I ought to let you get dressed,” Theresa said. She didn’t move.

“It may be an idea,” Figgis said, very conscious of his naked state, and even more conscious of his state of arousal. 

Theresa climbed down off the bed, tripped, became entangled in the quilt and fell to the floor, taking the quilt and the rest of Figgis’s dignity with her.  He covered himself with his hands.

“Sorry!” She held out the quilt.

He couldn’t take it. Not without exposing himself.

“Blimey,” said Bel from the doorway, “so that’s what a full moon werewolf looks like!”

Figgis blushed even redder, if that was possible. “Ladies, if you’d just excuse me for a moment?”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Bel grinned, “I’m just admiring the view.”

“Could I have a little privacy?” Figgis begged.

“Oh, hark at him, when it’s covered in fur, he’s waving it everywhere and licking his balls in public, but the moment the fur falls off, it’s a different story. Your bed is full of dog hair by the way, you may want to take it outside and shake it.”

He glanced over at his bed. It did indeed look like a hairdresser’s bin.  “Why don’t you go down and make us both a cup of coffee?”

This suggestion finally broke Theresa’s gaze and the two women left him. Figgis took stock of himself.  All the dog hair had fallen off. So had the hair on his head. Not to mention his eyelashes, beard and pubes. From one extreme to the other.  He pulled boxer shorts and jeans on, acutely aware of how soft his skin felt. He only hoped it wasn’t going to itch as it was growing back. Once, in his late teens, he’d shaved his balls for a bet. He’d mistakenly assumed that surviving the razor scraping his most vulnerable places meant the worst was over but no, it was the incredibly acute itching for the following couple of weeks. He learnt very quickly that whilst a quick ball scratch may be tolerated in public, full on, double handed  scratting just made people assume you had crabs. It wasn’t an experience he planned on having again.

Once dressed he sauntered downstairs, casually greeting Theresa as if she’d never seen him naked. She was still blushing as she gave him a fresh steaming hot brew.

“So you’ve reverted,” Bel said, “I wonder if that means we will too?”

“Who knows,” Figgis mused. As he drank his coffee, he looked over to the sofa where Bel’s body was still propped. It disturbed him because it was dressed in a hospital gown staring sightlessly ahead and looked like he had kidnapped a catatonic from the local psychiatric unit. It lent the room a certain atmosphere of crazy. As in ‘chains in the cellar and locked freezer in the garage’ crazy.

“We ought to go to the police,” Theresa said.

“And tell them what?” Bel asked, "’excuse me officer, I seem to be detached from my body, could you recommend a suitable and free transformation studio to fix this fuck-up?’ Not to mention, it’s not a criminal matter. It would come under the civil courts.”

“But they can’t leave us like this?” Theresa’s voice rose with indignation, “what am i supposed to do? Cart these things around with me forever?” She flapped, knocked the clock off the wall. Apologised as she picked it back up and placed it on the kitchen table.

“Stick some feathers on it and tell everyone you’re an angel?” Bel suggested.

“In that case, why don’t you hire yourself out as a private investigator?” Theresa countered. “Or maybe a circus act. Hide behind Figgis and bill yourself as a talking dog?”

“I’m not a dog any more,” Figgis pointed out. He’d been thinking about their predicament. Or rather, thinking about his own. It had occurred to him that life as a dog wasn’t going to be terrible, but he couldn’t go into work like that. There was no way his boss was going to accept a canine chef. There wouldn’t be a hair net in the place big enough to fit him for starters. So then he’d run through a list of new possible careers. Guide dog for the blind maybe, or guard dog, but he didn’t think he looked scary enough for that.  It was the fringe on the tail. It was too feminine. Finally he’d wondered about becoming a busker. People would pay to see a dog attempting to play the guitar wouldn’t they? Not that it mattered now he’d regained his human form.

“What about the hospital?” Theresa asked.

“They might keep your body alive until we can sort it out,” Figgis agreed, and didn’t add he’d be glad when it wasn’t cluttering up his living room.

“Fine,” Bel sniffed, "let’s go dump me at A&E.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Figgis drained his cup. “I’ll drive this time.”

Figgis 6: I just Don't Know What to Do With Myself

More Figgis and co.. In fact A lot more of Figgis...

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

Figgis wasn’t overly keen on the idea of using his house to store a body  (even if that body wasn’t technically dead) but since he still hadn’t managed to make his speech intelligible, he didn’t get much of a say. Apparently a discouraging woof can also be heard as enthusiastic encouragement. So they all went back to his place. Theresa manhandled Bel’s body into the living room and dumped it on the sofa, much to Bel’s very much voiced annoyance.

“Don’t stick me there!”

“On the sofa? Where else should I put you?”

“I look like I’m drunk!”

“And if I laid you down, you’d look dead.”

Figgis was beginning to think that was preferable.

“So what next?” Theresa asked. “If the studio has done a midnight flit, then none of us are going to get anywhere with that."

“There’s other studios,”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have enough credits for another transformation.”

Bel shrugged, “me neither, I don’t have anything now.”

Theresa slumped into the armchair and Figgis curled up at her feet. She had rather nice feet, he could smell her moisturiser. He wondered just how far he could push the doggy behaviour, if he licked the delicious looking stretch of skin between her sock and the hem of her dress, would she slap him? He figured at the very least it was a little disturbing, and probably not something he’d do as a man. Not in front of company anyway.

“It’s almost dawn,” Bel said, “will you turn into ash the moment the sun touches you?”

“I don’t think so, I was supposed to be able to turn into a bat whenever I wanted, and just glitter in the sunlight. Blood drinking optional, they suggested red wine just for the look of it.” She paused. “I bloody hate red wine.”

Even if Theresa wasn’t technically nocturnal, and Bel didn’t technically need to sleep, both decided a few hours down-time may be the best idea. Hopefully after a couple of hours sleep, they’d be able to think of a plan (or, more likely, Figgis mused, they would each come up with a plan and they could spend two hours arguing over it).

Bel climbed onto the sofa and laid across her own lap, which looked a little like a double negative photograph. Theresa said she was going to find a bed, and since there was only one in the house Figgis realised she was going to sleep in his. Now he wished he’d changed the bedding. Still, it was the first time in months he could honestly say he’d had a woman in there. He debated pushing his luck and sleeping at the bottom of it (if only so he could truthfully claim to have slept with a woman recently) but settled for curling up in the armchair. It was still warm from Theresa’s body heat.

Sometime during the night he heard a soft weeping. Theresa. So he mosied upstairs, hoping to give a little comfort. Theresa was glad to see him. She pulled him into her embrace and wept salty tears into his fur. 

“I’m really sorry, ought to keep a tighter rein on myself,”

Figgis licked her face.

“I ought to sleep,” she said, and curled up in the bed. Figgis snuggled up beside her and lay awake until her breathing evened out and grew slow. Then he allowed himself to sleep.

He woke to a shriek. Several things dawned on him all at once. Firstly, he was freezing cold. Secondly, he was human again. And thirdly (probably explaining the first thing) he was stark bollock naked.

“Ah,” he said, pulling the duvet over his rather obvious erection and blushing furiously. “Morning.”

Figgis 5: Body Snatching

Body Snatching

“So how do you know your body is in there?” Theresa asked.

“I seem to recall something in the contract saying they kept discarded effects for up to thirty days,”

“Effects?”

“I presume that meant bodies too, I’d check the paperwork but, y’know,” Bel spread her hands in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture, “can’t carry anything.”

Theresa stepped up to the studio’s large shop front window. It had been tastefully done out in that ubiquitous ‘fly by night’ dressing style. IE covered in giant posters promising to CHANGE YOUR LIFE! BECOME WHO YOU WERE MEANT TO BE! and, bizarrely, BUY TWO TRANSFORMATIONS... GET THIRD FREE. She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the narrow gaps between posters.

“I can’t see anything.”

Bel sighed. She stepped up beside Theresa and also peered through the window through cupped hands. “Me neither. Oh wait...duh... ghost abilities, right?” She slipped through the glass and disappeared into the gloom of the shop.

Theresa turned to Figgis, “I guess I deserved that.”

Figgis agreed. Why keep an incorporeal being and peer through windows yourself?

Bel returned with a grin. “They’ve got them in the back, all the bodies. Now all we have to do is go in there and get me out.”

Easier said than done. Bel told them there was another door around the back. She’d had  a quick scout and didn’t think it would be too hard to break into. All they had to do was get over the wall and then find some way of opening the back door. As far as she could tell, the window at the back was large enough to climb through if the could break it quietly enough.

Figgis rather hoped he wasn’t going to have to drag a corpse through a broken window. There were better things he’d rather spend his time doing. Like developing his new found skill of self-fellatio.

The row of shops backed onto a cobbled lane. Along the other side of it loomed a huge derelict mill. If you were planning on doing a spot of breaking and entering, you couldn’t wish for a better set of circumstances. Except for the wall.

“That’s a huge wall,” Theresa said.

They looked up at it. It was easily eight feet tall, with barbed wire along the top. The gate was solid wood and  flush to the wall.  Theresa could barely slide a finger in the gap between wood and concrete brick. “We can’t get through that. Well, you can, but we can’t.”

“It’s not locked. There’s only a catch on the other side,” Bel informed them.

“Yes, very easy to open, if you’re on that side of it.”

“I thought you could fly?”

Theresa opened her wings out to their full span. She flapped them experimentally. Then flapped them harder. then harder still. Finally she raised herself a couple of inches off the ground. Red-face with exertion, she dropped back down to the ground. “I’m not sure flying’s going to be an option.”

“What about gliding?”

“Gliding?”

“Yup,” Bel pointed to an industrial sized bin a few feet away. “Drag that here, jump up and glide down.”

Theresa looked doubtful, but in the absence of any better ideas, that’s what she did. It took five minutes to drag the bin into position, and another five for her to clamber up until she stood, unsteadily, on the huge pile of refuse. “Geronimo?” She leapt into the air and flapped furiously, looking more like a moth in a cobweb than a sleek predator of the night. She disappeared into the garden and then was a muffled “Oof.”

There was a click and the gate swung open. Theresa stood there, patches of dirt on her knees and both palms grazed. “You didn’t tell me the garden was full of stuff.”

“You didn’t ask,” Bel answered.

With the first obstacle defeated, they regarded the second.

“Door or window?” Theresa asked. “I’ve got to tell you, I don’t really want to break the window.”

Bel and Theresa discussed various methods of burglary. Both had theories on what was the best method (lock picking with a hair grip, sliding a credit card down the poor and popping the lock, brute force with something heavy...) but neither had any experience and Theresa’s knees were rather painful, she wasn’t sure she could kick a door in with her tiny size five feet. Bel pointed out that size five was hardly tiny, hers - when she had real real feet - were that size and she didn’t think they were particularly small. Theresa replied that when you’re barely five feet tall, she guessed anything over a size three shoe must feel like wearing clown shoes. Bel’s reciprocal comment managed to insult Theresa’s own lanky height, suggested that her IQ was reflected by her hair colour, and further insinuated that she had canine parentage.

And whilst the two women were bitching at each other like siblings at bedtime, Figgis noticed the door wasn’t even shut properly.

So they were in.

It didn’t take long to find the bodies. They were stacked, neatly labelled, in a back room. Each body was contained within a plastic coffin, hooked up to a couple of drips and catheterised. Bel’s body was fortunately the uppermost in a stack of three. Inside the plastic coffin she was dressed in a hospital gown.

“I thought we were retrieving a corpse.”

“Seven day return policy,” Bel said, “have you never read your consumer rights?”

Figgis wasn’t sure body storage had ever formed part of any consumer agreement he’d ever accidentally read. Maybe it had been in the contract he’d flipped through, he certainly hadn’t read it. Wasn’t one of the biggest lies of the modern age ‘yes, I have read the terms and conditions’?

“Are we taking the cylinder? Or do I um unhook you?” Theresa asked.

“Whichever is easiest.”

They pondered the problem. Even Figgis could see they were not going to get the cylinder in his car. Nothing less than a hearse would have contained that thing. It was nearly seven feet long. Not that Bel took up all of it. She was, as Theresa had pointed out, very short.

Theresa popped the catches on the cylinder and dragged Bel’s body out. The catheter bag ripped and spilled urine all over her shoes. “Oh god, yuck.”

“It’s only pee,” Bel snapped. “Bloody hell, I don’t half look a sight!”

Theresa grabbed Bel’s body, holding her under the arms. She dragged her backwards across the floor.

“Mind my feet!” Bel shrieked.

“What am I supposed to do? Ask Figgis to help carry you?”

Obligingly, Figgis ducked under the body’s legs and stood, so the body’s legs were resting on his back. They went back out the way they’d come in a shuffling, sweary huddle. Every few moments the legs would slip off Figgis, or Theresa changed her grip. With much sweating and more than a little instruction from Bel, they finally got her body out into the cobbled alley.

“I’ll bring the car round,” Theresa said.

They put Bel’s body on the back seat, where she sat, like the world’s most lifelike ventriloquists dummy, her owner on the seat next to her. One solid and silent, the other transparent and ranting incessantly. Figgis wasn’t sure which he preferred.

Figgis 4: Bertha, oh lovely Bertha

More Figgis and co! Hurrah! I bloody love writing this!


Bertha, Oh lovely Bertha

Figgis learnt several important things in the following couple of hours. Firstly that his house, after Theresa set to work, could actually look tidier than he ever thought possible (if you overlooked the broken picture, two more cups and a particularly ugly vase, all dashed to the floor by her ungainly wings) and with enough elbow grease, the crud on the cooker top did eventually come off.

He also discovered the utter humiliation of drinking coffee from a de-handled pan on the floor. This had swiftly followed the realisation that he could neither pick up a mug, nor fit his muzzle into it. So the pan it was. At least he was not going to get shouted at for not using a  knife and fork any more. Nor for having his elbows on the table. Small mercies, but Figgis would take any he could find. He also discovered Theresa made the best pancakes he’d ever tasted, and that a dog’s sense of smell only increased the pleasure of them.

A couple of hours later, as Theresa drank coffee, and Figgis was still licking the bottom of the other de-handled pan (he suspected he’d got every trace of syrup off the bottom, but he could still smell its delicious aroma dammit) Bel asked if either of them had any idea what they were going to do about their current situation.

“I want my body back,” Bel said.

“They’re shut,” Theresa said. “What do you want to do? Break in and see if it’s still there?”

Bel grinned. It appeared she did.

The three of them left Figgis’s place. They stood on the kerb and regarded his car.

“What the fuck is that?” Bel asked.

Figgis had always loved his car. He felt the Volkswagon Beetle was a classic car, and if you were going to have a car of that calibre, you may as well have one that stood out from the crowd, that truly reflected its owner. This was why his Beetle was painted purple. With white bits. And a blue rear wing, because reversing into a bollard really knackers your bodywork and Beetle parts are really hard to come by.

“Please tell me that’s not your car!” Bel cackled, “what did you do? Look for the ugliest car on the forecourt and say ‘I’ll have that one please’?”

Figgis sighed. It sounded more like the exhalation of a grumpy and extremely bronchial pensioner.

Theresa unlocked the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. She struggled to get her seatbelt over her wings but finally clipped it into place. Then she seemed to realise that Figgis was still standing on the pavement.

“Sorry!” She called. Unfastened the belt, leant over and opened the passenger door for him. He jumped in and she attempted to shut the door, which she couldn’t reach. Figgus watched in amusement as she climbed back out of the car, walked around, shut the passenger door, climbed back into the driver’s seat and went through a second bout with the seatbelt. Then she revved the engine, which promptly stalled.

“Would we be quicker walking?” Bel enquired.

“Sorry,” Theresa revved the engine again and the car finally co-operated. If Figgis could talk, he would have told her that she often played up, his beloved Beetle was a temperamental old thing and had to be cosseted. She was his pride and joy, and he called her ‘Bertha’.  “Bastard thing,” Theresa muttered. Figgis grinned, he called her that too.

Bertha stuttered and coughed all the way down the street. Theresa kept up a litany of profanity, some of the words Figgis had never heard in those combinations before. She flapped her wings in irritation, almost blinding Figgis and prompting another remark from Bel along the lines of strapping those damn things up and perhaps some sort of adapted bag over them may help.

Theresa drew up outside the Transformation Studio with a face as dark as the cloud of black exhaust smoke they’d arrived in. After another short fight with the seatbelt, and yet another trip back to the car to release Figgis, the three of them stood before the studio. It was still shut.

“So now what?” Theresa asked.

“And here’s where is gets a wee bit illegal.” Bel replied.

The Bees: The Bees Return

The Bees Return

“There’s no point running,” I said, and slowed. Stopped to ease the stitch in my side.

Behind me, a tinkle of glass. Bees filtered in. Orderly, calm even.

“They’re coming for us,” the young man said. He stopped, just ahead of me. Panic widened his eyes.

I didn’t think they were. Instead of the furious swarm descending on us, as I’d expected, the bees were purposeful. They dropped down from the hole in the glass ceiling and disappeared into the crowd. The entire scene was peaceful, it transfixed me. There was something hypnotic about the flow of insects. From this distance they looked like a black stream of water, dripping down onto the people below.

"I don’t think they’ve seen us,” I said. “Either that, or they don’t care.”

My companion moved closer, and we watched from the top of the escalators. The bees were crawling on the people, settling on wherever the flesh was bare. Once each bee had found a decent spot, it settled down, wings buzzing intermittently.

“There’s someone down there.”

“There’s about a thousand people down there,” I answered, but then I saw. A kid of about twelve, their sex indeterminable, flapping around at the periphery of the crowd. The bees were rising, gathering around the child who grew ever more frantic.

I expected the bees to swarm and start stinging. I was wrong.

An elderly man next to the kid, reached out and grabbed the flailing figure by the neck. A young Asian woman by his side pulled the hood from the child’s head. Then the child was absorbed into the crowd.

I didn’t see what happened next.

There was a scream.

Then another.

And then, silence.

A small stream of blood crept from between the feet of the mob. It ran into the cracks between the faux crazy paving design on the floor.

“Fucking hell,” the young man coughed, swallowing bile.

“I think we should leave.”

We left. Quietly creeping down the escalator, stepping out into the cold sunshine.

I had no destination in mind, wondered whether I should return home, whether I should invite the young man to join me. I turned to him, was about to ask him.

I got no further.

From within the mall, a huge roar.

 And then a stampede.

We ran.

Ran down the street. The mob behind us, without looking I knew they were there. I could hear them, still roaring, the unattached bees still buzzing. My feet on the ground, rubber slapping the paving stones. I had no idea where I was running to.

"Car!” The young man yelled.

I didn’t know what he meant. For a moment I half expected some vehicle to come careening across the pedestrianised area towards us. Nothing was moving. The only cars in sight were all parked up, doors shut, sitting in bays with meters now expired.

The young man was younger than me, fitter and faster. He reached the line of parked cars first. Yanked on the driver side door handle. Locked. So was the next. As I reached him, and with the mob only twenty feet behind me, he pulled on a third. It sprang open and he slipped inside, reaching over to the back seat and flipping that lock open. I climbed into the car. Slammed the door.

“Was this wise?” I asked. “Are the keys in it?”

“Nope,” the young man’s head bobbed down below the dashboard. “Give me a minute.”

He didn’t require a minute. A few seconds later the engine turned over and he screeched the car away from the kerb. We left the roaring mob behind and I began to breathe again. My life saved by a car thief. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Figgis 3: What's your name again?

Posting it a bit late tonight, but here it is. By the way, I'm tagging these as FTB, just for ease of finding them.

What's Your Name Again?


“So this is your pad?” The ghost asked. “Looks like you’ve been burgled, mate.”

They stood in the back garden, the kitchen window wide open and a rather new set of boot-prints on the lawn. Figgis sniffed at them. They had an odd scent, a heady mix of special brew and cannabis with a dash of something else. Something familiar.

The ghost walked through the back door. A few moments later her head appeared, the rest of her body invisible. “Hey look,” she said. “I’m a door knocker!” She stepped back into the garden “By the way, have you got a really nice TV and a games console?”

Figgis nodded his head. Not an easy feat for a dog. It looked more like he had water in his ears.

“Not any more, mate.”

Figgis hung his head. He didn’t suppose losing the games console mattered. Controller pads were not designed for paws. He was gutted about the TV though. He supposed he could attempt to claim on his house insurance, but the odds of them believing his shaggy dog story were slim to none. 

“Are we going inside?” Theresa asked.

Figgis scratched at the door, Theresa tried the knob.

“It’s locked,” she said.

“Presumably that’s why the window is open,” the ghost said. “Isn’t that right, Lassie? Did you come out through the window? Is that how the nasty burglars got in?”

Was there a canine equivalent of flipping the bird? Figgis wondered. He favoured the irritating phantasm with a low growl. This amused her and she laughed. To hell with it, he cocked a leg and peed on her. Or rather through her, the stream soaking the grass. She stepped aside and muttered something he didn’t catch.

“So how are we going to get in?”

“Same way he got out,”

“I can’t fit through,” Theresa said, “not with the wings.”

“Get the dog to fetch the keys,” the ghost suggested. “Want to play fetch, Lassie?”

Figgis growled again.

“Have you got a better idea?” Theresa asked him. “No? Come on, let me lift you up, can you get the keys?”

He wasn’t really keen on that idea. Not until she actually scooped him up and he found himself nose to nipple with her cleavage. At that point it seemed the best idea of the day. He was rather sorry when she shoved him back through the window. Although realising he was now high enough to stare down her top without her assistance was an unexpected bonus.

“Go get the keys Lassie! Fetch!”

He jumped down from the kitchen counter, wondering if it was possible to find a priest and get the ghost exorcised. He wouldn’t even mind, but Lassie was a girl.  Or rather, a bitch. Much like the ghost in fact.

Fortunately (and unusually) he knew exactly where his keys were. They were still in his jeans pocket on the bedroom floor. He trotted through the kitchen and raced up the stairs. The burglars had been opportunists, apart from the electricals in the front room, they’d barely touched the rest of the house. They certainly hadn’t been handling his clothes, they were exactly as he’d left them. He nosed through them until his keys tumbled out, snatched them up with his teeth and returned to the kitchen. One good leap later and Theresa’s soft hands were scratching his ears and rubbing his chest..

Figgis felt an overwhelming urge to throw himself to the floor and expose his belly for her.

Theresa unlocked the door and let herself in. She turned to take in the filthy grothole stereotypical of the bachelor male and knocked a cup off the draining board with the tip of her wing. It bounced but did not break. Figgis groaned inwardly when he saw the motif of the bunny girl on the side.  “Sorry!”

She picked the cup up and placed it carefully on the work-top. Took another long, lingering look around the kitchen. “I’ll clean up a bit when I’ve had a cup of tea,” she offered. Figgis wagged his tail. She wandered over to the kitchen notice-board, a repository for all the shit Figgis received through the post and planned to deal with at some point. She pulled a letter off, a dental reminder he suspected he didn’t need any more.

“Oh, your name is Figgis!” Theresa exclaimed. “Not Iggish. That makes more sense.”

Figgis cringed, there was a reason he used his surname. Namely he hated his forename, which, he suspected, she was going to reveal any second...

“Is that really your first name?”

The ghost looked suddenly interested. “Can’t be as bad as mine.”

Theresa raised an eyebrow. “What’s yours?”

“Bellamy Jones. Bel to my friends.”

“And are we your friends?”

Bel laughed, “I guess you are.”

The Bees: Interlude

 Interlude

The young man beside me was no more than twenty years old. Rake thin, his black hair in tight rows on his head. He was dressed in sports clothing, inadequate for the weather,and bright white trainers. They seemed incongruent.

“Never seen nothing like this,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s ever been anything like this,” I answered. “Do you know any of... anyone here?”

The young man pointed into the crowd. “My mum, dad... grandma.”  I followed the line of his finger, spotted the family group. His relatives were standing together, all smartly dressed. His father was wearing a tie. As out of place as his son’s footwear.

We fell into silence, the young man and I, sitting almost companionably on the bench. The people standing did nothing. We watched them for over an hour. They took no notice of us, not even when the young man took out a tobacco tin and began to roll. He licked the cigarette paper and sealed the roll-up with a flourish. Then he offered it to me. It had been years since I smoked, but I took it. He handed over a lighter.

The smoke curled up into the air, above the heads of the mob. It didn’t seem to bother them.

I wondered how many of the mob were smokers. Whether the scent of cigarette smoke was reaching their nicotine receptors, awakening the craving. I wondered if any of them felt the hunger that must be gnawing, or the thirst. Did they feel pain?

Impulsively I leaned forward, towards the nearest dead-eyed person. A middle-aged woman, barely five feet tall and slender. I pinched her, grabbing the flesh of her forearm between my finger and thumb, squeezing hard. The flesh took a few seconds to settle back into place, it reddened a little. The woman blinked slowly. Did not turn.

“What did you do that for?”

“Just an experiment, I wanted to see what she’d do.”

“It don’t seem to matter what you do,” he said, “they’re dead from the neck up. Living zombies.”

“I’m not sure if they are dead or not. They were dead last night.”

The young guy seemed to consider this. “For real, definitely dead? Because, like there’s some things that look like dead, but ain’t, y’know?”

“I used to be a hospital porter,” I confided. “I know dead.”

“I’m a student,” he replied.

Welcome to the university of life, I thought, Post-apocalyptic studies. the post-post-modern era. ”What were you studying?”

“Media studies.”

Nothing of use then. It was going to be a long time before media was relevant again. If ever. Maybe I was being pessimistic. Maybe all this was some sort of group hysteria thing. Maybe they would all wake up and wonder what the hell had happened. Somehow, I doubted it.

“Can you hear that?”

“What?” I listened. All I could hear was the eerie whispering breathing of a thousand people. For the first time, I realised they were breathing in sync.

“Buzzing.”

I saw them before I heard them. Over the glass dome of the shopping centre roof, the grey sky darkened to black and the sound of millions of tiny, almost inaudible thuds as the bees hit the roof. Like rain, but fleshier. The mall grew dim, dark.

Then a strange scraping noise. Not metallic, but the sound of teeth on glass.

We didn’t wait for the bees to chew their way through the glass. We took to our heels and fled.

Figgis 2: Sister Midnight

Part two of the supernatural satire thing.... (and yes, a song title this time)

Sister Midnight

She looked down at him, this angel of the night. Figgis grinned, showing all of his teeth. His tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth. He hoped he looked cute, but got the feeling he looked dopey. Not the sort of intelligent, man about town currently trapped in a dog’s body impression he hoped to give, but rather the look of a dog who tended to walk into doorways and be startled by its own shadow. He shut his mouth.

“My name is Theresa,” she said to him. “I don’t suppose you can tell me yours?”

“’iggish" Figgis managed. He was definitely getting better at this canine speech lark, even if he sounded like Scooby Doo under the influence of either a heavy cold or too many scooby-snacks. Maybe both.

“Iggish?” Theresa shrugged. She spread her wings wide, the leathery appendages spun four feet either side of her. She flapped them a couple of times them folded them neatly back into her spine. “Look at the state of me! They said I’d be able to transform at will, and I’d be able to fly.” Conspiratorially she added, “it was the flying, I always fancied flying. They never mentioned anything about none of your clothes fitting over them.”

Figgis cocked his head in a sympathetic fashion. Nobody had mentioned anything about being a dog either, but as Theresa bent to scratch him behind the ear, and her ill-fitting clothes sagged forwards, he guessed he could see a few advantages.

Theresa blushed. “Ah, sorry about that.” She adjusted her clothing, much to Figgis’s disappointment, and leant on the side of the building. “I keep hoping it will reopen. I’ve been here all day. I went home last night and my parents were horrified.” She slid down the side of the building, put her head in her hands and began to cry.

Figgis curled up at the side of her, licked the tears from her hands. Theresa pulled him to her chest and hugged him, obviously forgetting that beneath the fur lurked one extremely manly man. And also, now one very aroused man.

“You do realise that’s not a dog, don’t you?”

This new voice startled both Figgis and Theresa, who pushed him away. Figgis slunk away to a more respectable distance and threw himself to the floor. The voice belonged to a very short woman. There was something very different about her. It took Figgis a few minutes to realise he could see straight through her.

“I knew i should have gone somewhere reputable,” the woman said. “Bloody shysters. That’s me, incorporeal for the rest of my natural. Or unnatural. Whatever.” She sniffed. “Cheer up duck, your parents will forgive you eventually, at least you’ve got a house to go back to.”

Theresa looked up. “What did you ask for?”

“Immortality. So they made me a ghost. Ha ha, joke of the century, couldn’t see that coming,” she sniffed again. “Much like me, I suppose.”

“And now you can’t go home?”

“Been booted out. Apparently I don’t count as a tenant any more, seeing as I don’t have a body.”

The strange ghost launched into a tuneless rendition of ‘ain’t got nobody’.

Figgis looked from one woman to the other, both of them homeless. One of them weeping and the other seemingly deranged. he made a decision. He may be a dog, but he could still be a gentleman.

“Woof,” he said, and jerked his head in the international sign for ‘come this way’. It seemed easier than trying to communicate Scooby-style.

“Does Lassie want us to follow him? Is Timmy stuck in a well?” The ghost asked, and giggled.

Figgis chose to ignore that particular jibe. He trotted a few paces down the street, then looked back. Theresa had gotten to her feet and was following him. It did cross his mind that it may be a little unwise to take two strange women home with him, but at least one of them would be able to feed him. He drew the line at dog food though. Just as long as they understood that.

Figgis 1: The Hairy-handed Gent

Something different today. This too may become serialised. It's not going to be serious, just a bit of fun. And yes, the character name is stolen from another fic of mine (and so is the vampire name, though she hasn't given it yet). And yes the title is stolen from a lyric. Cookie to the first to identify it. Anyways... enjoy.

The Hairy-Handed Gent

Become a werewolf they said, it’ll be fun they said.
It may have been, if the people at Supernaturals R Us had got it right. Except they hadn’t. Somewhere, something had gone wrong. Figgis looked down at his paws. They didn’t look very wolf-like. For a start, his fur was not a steely grey, nor was it any shade of brown. Or black. Or any other sort of colour he associated with wolves. It was white. And slightly fluffy.

It had seemed a good idea at the time. Pay a million Credits and become a werewolf. The transformation came with a lifetime’s membership to the exclusive Lycanthropy Club, free access to The Hunting Grounds safari park when the moon was full, and guaranteed good health and enhanced senses even in human form. Figgis had slapped his Credit card down on the desk and declared his intentions. He’d signed the waivers, flipped through the four inch thick user agreement and then happily followed the extremely attractive scientist to the Transformation rooms. Ten hours later he’d stumbled home, the identity bracelet still on his wrist, hoping to sleep off the immense hangover he seemed to have developed.

He’d woken up as a dog. And most disconcertingly, it wasn’t even night.

He jumped down off the bed and trotted over to the full length mirror. he was definitely a dog. Not even a manly dog. Mostly Labrador with a dash of Spaniel. He wagged his tail experimentally. It was an extraordinarily long tail, with a bit of a fringe.

He mooched around the bedroom for a bit, not quite sure what to do next. Whilst he was thinking, he decided to have a bit of a nap. He leapt back onto the bed, turned around several times and curled up on the pillow. before he slept he realised that at least one thing was working as promised, his sense of smell was vastly improved. Now he really did wonder why dogs slept with their noses tucked into their backsides.

He woke again and the room was dark. He was still a dog.

It occurred to him that what he really ought to do was go back down to the Transformation Studio and see if they could reverse the process. And that decided, his first problem was getting out of the bedroom. It took several attempts to unlatch the door. His nails made a clicking nose on the laminate in the hallway as he walked to the door. The front door was locked. Of course it was.

Figgis sat down. Scratched the door a little forlornly. This wasn’t working out at all like he planned.

He gave up on the front door and jumped up onto the kitchen worktop. carefully he stepped over the crockery piled up on the draining board and nuzzled the catch on the window. Eventually it slid up and the widow opened. he jumped down into the garden, peed against the side of the house and set off towards the Studio and hopefully, re-humanising.

The Studio was shut.

“Oh bugger,” he said. Or tried to at least. What actually came out was some sort of throaty gibberish. He barked instead. it sounded suspiciously like a yap. The effeminate yap of a handbag sized dog, not even a decent woof as would befit a dog his size.

“It’s shut down,” said a voice beside him.

Figgis turned. There was a vampire standing next to him. Except she didn’t look exactly like a vampire. She looked like an angel. But with two huge bat wings. They fluttered a little bit in the breeze. “failed werewolf transformation?”

Figgis yapped again. Cleared his throat and tried again. This time it sounded a little bit beefier. perhaps a terrier sized woof.

“’Become a vampire,’ they said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ they said.” The vampire sighed and Figgis fell in love.

The Bees: Exodus

A very early post today (partying later with the Nano crowd!) Enjoy...

The Exodus

She stumbled at the gate. Pawing at the stiffened lock. In bare feet I tried to turn her, to lead her back into the house. As my toes and heels numbed, I realised my efforts were futile. Back inside I pulled on socks, boots, extra layers.

In the garden Elaine was still having trouble with the gate. And she wasn’t the only one.

A silent stream of people passed us. With dead eyes and limp arms they trudged. In twos and threes, a few larger groups. None of them acknowledged their companions, they moved less like driven cattle than iron filings pulled by a magnet. Some of them I recognised; neighbours, people I vaguely knew from the area. Entire families walking. A migration of the senseless.

Elaine gave up with the gate. Instead she walked at the fence. Gracelessly climbed over, slipping, falling to the pavement. She walked away without even a single backwards glance. Not at me. Not even at Joey.

My son followed in his mother’s footsteps. Too small to get his leg over the fence, he had to climb up a foot. I lifted him down, feeling his body chilled through his pyjamas. He didn’t notice his sudden weightlessness. As soon as his feet touched the ground he attempted to climb the fence again. A second time we played through this pantomime. A third.

Elaine had walked far up the street. Barely visible in the throng.

Where were they all going? I wasn’t going to find out standing in the garden. I’d already lost my wife, should I let my son go too? Should I take him back in the house, see if his restlessness abated? Perhaps he would eventually awaken properly?

I opened the gate and watched him walk through, taking his place, walking away.

I walked beside him. None of the others took any notice of me. they kept their distance, I was not jostled. We walked down the street, a silent mob, gathering more people as we trudged. At the end of my street, the crowd turned without discussion or communication, like a flock of birds they simply veered left, onto the main road. Swarming quietly past the abandoned cars and shunning the pavement. Down the road they marched, all the way into the town centre.

The town centre was eerily silent. Shutters rolled up, the mob reflected in dozens of dark windows, looking like the world’s most peaceful protest. Towards the mall and up the escalators in neat lines, filtered as neatly as water, flowing up the stilled steps to the unlocked but closed doors. As I stepped slowly up each step, I wondered how they were getting through the doors at the top. As I crested the escalator I was amazed. At each door, one of them stood, holding the door open.

We filtered into the deserted mall. Filled the space until they were packed in tight. A silent army of drones, standing. just standing.

Unable to take this weirdness any longer, I led Joey through the crowd, felt a sense of relief he was allowing me to lead him. I found a bench and sat, joey standing by my side, his hand still in mine.

I sat and i stared at all these people, who were standing, like Elaine and Joey had earlier in the bedroom. Standing, unmoving, unseeing, just waiting.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” a voice said beside me.

The Bees: Awakening

 I'm really enjoying writing this! Why did I not have this idea for my nano last month?!

Awakening

They stood. Not dead.

But this was not Elaine, this was not Joey. The people they had been, who I had loved; the woman I had lain next to for fifteen years, the son she had delivered into my arms ten years ago. These bodies, these soulless imposters, these were not my family.

Neither of them spoke. They stood on the bedroom carpet, swaying slightly. Neither of them looked at me, nor responded to my pleas. they simply stood, and they waited.

For two hours, they stood, as still as statuary.

I begged, I pleaded. I took Elaine’s hand and kissed it. I hugged my son. Nothing.

Finally I sat on the bed and watched them. The three of us a still and silent trio. Another hour passed, or maybe two. Snow drifted onto the window, turned to hail spattering on the glass. This startled me, but raised not a single flicker of emotion from them.

Them. As if I had already disowned them. Already began the process of Othering. Distancing myself from my former bonds, as they had been distanced from themselves. I wondered if there was anything left of their personalities. If they were actually even seeing through their deadened eyes, if the sound of my voice was triggering any recognition at all.

It seemed not.

I wasn’t sure whether they were alive or dead. They had certainly appeared dead earlier; no trace of a pulse, their chests still, lips blue. Now they certainly appeared to be living creatures, a steady - if slow - pulse and their breaths puffing vapour in the freezing bedroom, but apparently unconcerned by the near freezing temperature. I just didn’t understand how they had revived after so long, what had restarted their hearts, if not their sensibilities. I also didn’t understand why I was still alive. I had been the only one of the three of us who had not come down with the cold and blotchy rash virus. I supposed it was connected, though i couldn’t see how.

But, being alive, I still had needs. Unlike Them. I needed to eat, to excrete.

I went into the kitchen, picked up a can of beans and the opener. I had already placed the opener on the can, was just applying the pressure to puncture it. I stopped. It would be prudent to save the cans. And not only the cans, the packets too. I wondered how long cereal would last.

I wondered how long the tap water would flow.

Whilst eating the perishables in the fridge, I filled up every container I could find with water. Empty plastic milk cartons waiting for a recycling van that was never going to come, old sports bottles, a couple of fancy wine bottles Elaine had kept as ornaments.  It didn’t take long.

As I screwed the lid on the last milk carton, I heard movement from upstairs. Not quite footsteps, but shuffling. They were on the move.

They walked down the steps. Slowly, carefully. As if guided by the memory of tranversing these steps thousands of times before.  At the bottom they paused in the hall. Elaine raised her hand and reached blindly out for the lock. She fumbled with it, fingers loose and unco-ordinated, like an infant learning to grasp.

If the door had been locked and the key stowed away, maybe things would be different. But the key was in the lock, muppet keyring dangling. She opened the door. And then they left.

The Bees: Snow fall

Second installment of The Bees...

 Snow Fall

A light dusting of snow fell silently on my town. Just a few centimetres, barely enough to whiten the tarmac. Just enough to give the Christmas tree a genuine festive look. Just enough to render the corpses anonymous, their features indistinct. Like sculptures they lay, littering the streets, icy angels in Santa hats.

Like the snow, death had fallen swiftly, in silence, gently. The streets, full of bustling shoppers laden with bags, overexcited children, frustrated drivers and loitering teens. All these people, so much energy. As the snow fell the energy seemed to drain away and the people grew lethargic. Stopped. As if their time had slowed, their ticking clocks finally wound right down.

People dropped to the floor. The first couple drew attention, drew assistance. Frantic instructions to ring for ambulances. Sentences unfinished as the good Samaritans collapsed. Expressions of confusion and fear blanking, relaxing into death.

A curiously undramatic genocide.

I stood at the window and gazed upon this oddly peaceful tableau. My dead wife upstairs in our bed. My dead son beside her. As if sleeping, they rested peacefully together. They’d been preparing dinner when death took them. In the kitchen, soot now stained the ceiling above the hob, the ruined saucepan in the bin. They were already dead when the smoke alarm sang out its shrill lament.

Night fell. No-one came to retrieve the bodies.

On the TV there was news. No instructions, no explanations but the constant retelling of what I already knew. The net was ablaze with theories and panic. But not for long. Pretty soon most sites were displaying nothing but server errors. Then the connection died. The power lasted a little longer, but shortly before dawn, all the lights went out. I tipped the last drops of whiskey down my throat and regarded the blackness beyond the window. I wondered just how painful suicide would be.

Bottles and blister packs can fill a drawer, but the contents fit into a melamine Fireman Sam bowl with room to spare.  Bowl in hand, and a glass of water to wash them down, I returned to my family. I lay beside my son, reached over him to take my wife’s hand. Still warm, pliable.

She shivered.

Startled, I fell from the bed. Pills and caplets spilled to the floor, water dripped down the bedside table.

As dawn lightened the room, I watched as my son sat up. Blinked. A new day had begun.

The day in haiku

Bit of a cheat today, I am overwhelmed with a crappy cold. Meh.

Breakfast and bedlam
The daily search for socks and
where is your school bag

Cold winter school run
Looking for escaped horses
Home to hot coffee

Constantly coughing
Sneezing snotty misery
Bed is so tempting

Another school run
Child’s mittened hand grasping mine
Excited chatter

Takeaway promised
If agreed conditions met
The kids disappear

A crash from upstairs
Indignant children argue
A bedroom battle

Peaceful pizza time
Showers, bodies in bedclothes
Almost time for bed

The Bees

Prose today, as requested by a friend.  Not sure if this works, and I think it may spawn some sequels, so I'll tag it as such. Anyway... enjoy and feel free to comment...


The Bees

Nobody knew where they came from, and for a time, nobody cared.

Of course, they weren’t actually bees. Not wasps either. truth be told, it wasn’t even known if they were actually insects. But if it looks like a bee, swarms like a bee and stings like a bee then people tend to assume that’s what they are.

The first swarms appeared late last summer. They made the local papers, warranted a bit of a buzz on the Internet. That was all. Mostly the stories ran positive, tales of people enveloped by these swarms but walking away unharmed.

Nobody died.

It seemed they stung, but unlike bees, weren’t venomous. And also, unlike bees, they did not die afterwards. Few bees were found on the ground, nor tangled in clothes. The bee mortality was very low, the odd one may have been slapped by an irate palm, or trampled if they flew too close to their victims’ feet but in general, the bees swarmed, stung and then left.

A few specimens made the news. Blown up pictures of creatures that looked very much like certain types of bee, but could also have been wasps, or hornets or some sort of striped fly for all the general public could see. A few insect experts gave their opinions. They said the bees were not bees. They said they were unsure what species they were. Not a great deal was gleaned from these interviews. Or not a lot was passed on through the news, that’s for sure.

Of course, the Internet lit up. A new species of bee? A particularly belligerent but ultimately harmless sort of bee. Or so it seemed. The theories were batted around the web. They were genetically modified. They were alien. They were nano-technology. They were a mystery.

But no-one had died and eventually a new Royal baby was born, another scandal rocked the newspapers and a top talkshow host committed suicide on national TV and the conspiracy theorists found new fodder to chew. Such is the way of the world.

A couple of weeks after the first swarms came the epidemic.

It wasn’t noticeable at first. And, to be fair, it wasn’t a particularly memorable epidemic. Sufferers came down with a bit of a temperature, a headache, a snotty nose and running eyes. In short, it looked like every other winter cold; just enough to make a person feel rotten, not bad enough to be worth a few days off work. The only remarkable symptom at all was a vibrant blotchy red rash that started on the trunk and spread to the limbs. Over the course of the virus all the blotches merged and the rash faded away. Spectacular, but a mere annoyance in the grand scheme of things.

And nobody died, so who really cared? So half the population was walking around sneezing, looking like they had chess-board sunburn, but nobody was dead. Things carried on.

Until the swarms came again.

Again they massed, in city parks and crowded streets,  school playgrounds and outside shopping centres. And people marvelled as the insects flew among the flashing lights of the Christmas decorations and lit upon the branches of the towering town fir. And again they stung, but people stood and watched; knowing them to be painless stings, knowing they would walk away. Enjoying the spectacle of being a single unit in a dark swirling mass of tiny insects. People danced, can you imagine that? they watched and they danced and accepted the bees as a wondrous quirk.

And then these people went home and died.

Thousands of people. The memories of dancing still fresh in their brains, the last residues of snot still drying on binned tissues. They died.

And then people cared. At least, those still alive.

The others, the snotty and the stung, they may have cared, but they got up and walked around and it seemed nothing was on their minds but motion and food.

And, as you know, that’s when we became food.

test haiku

Just a simple test
Google plus linking achieved
Is it visible?

Mondays are shite

Actually, so is this poem...

Mondays Are Shite

As I roused blinking bleary
Sleep deprived and oh so weary
My slumber disturbed mid-sonerous snore
I peeled open eyes gritty and sore
Regarded a room still dark and pre-dawn
Stifled an immense face-splitting yawn
I stretch and I sigh and I turn on the light
I know it’s a Monday, and Mondays are shite

Caffeine and nicotine spark the brain
Override the desire to sleep again
Outside the sky grows steadily lighter
And my mood grows cautiously brighter
But the kids are fratching and the bedlam increases
The dog has left me a present of steaming feaces
Time to get going, to fight the good fight
You can tell it’s a Monday, because Mondays are shite.

I turn on the radio for music and conversation
The news is all depressive and no consolation
Austerity and funding cuts, no money in the pot
The gap widening between the haves and have-not
We trudge up to school, rain dampening our feet
Avoiding the mud and the ice on the street
On my return I am chilled and my hair looks a sight
I look like Monday’s child, because Mondays are shite

The day passes slow, in the kitchen I toil
Four loads of washing, medium soil
I search on the web for paid employment
Optimism sours,  turns to disappointment
Back to school, by the wind I am battered
Kids are home and the peace is shattered
Even the sun has fucked off and again it is night
I’m glad Monday is dying, because Mondays are shite

The hour grows late and my bed is calling
But I’m relaxed and peaceful and sleep I’m stalling
The day has been crap but I expected nowt less
I dislike Mondays, they continually fail to impress
Five days until the weekend and a lie-in at least
Until then I must wrestle with the week-day beast
With Monday now over and all sleeping tight
I brace myself for Tuesday, because Tuesdays are shite

Post nano Plans

So I wrote a novel in November. A whole 60 thousand plus words. So now what?
Something.
Anything.
Daily.
Could be a
...poem
...a story
...something else entirely.

But something.
Watch this space...