a twenty seventh story..'winston churchill was an interesting guy'

Winston Churchill was an interesting guy and so was Adolf Hitler.

Yes, really.

Winston Churchill was a great man – everyone says so! 

Then again, Adolf Hitler was too. 

Think: who else could have convinced seventy million people in one of the most forward thinking and advanced nations in the world circa 1930, his crack-pot ideas were worth following en masse?!

Not even Winston Churchill. 

And there’s more.

Winston Churchill razed half of London and Adolf Hitler helped him out!

Old Adolf (who by the way gets such a bad press these days) was surely, in part, a kind man with a generous spirit.  We know he was vegetarian, refusing to kill, let alone eat, anything with four legs walking alongside him on God’s Good Earth, and that he also earned the love of a Good Woman (albeit for a sum total of two days).

Winston, on the other hand, was a heavy drinker (frown) and in general, treated women shabbily, although his marriage to Clementine Hozier, which bore five children, is regarded by the same people who consider Hitler a mass murdering fuckhead, as close and affectionate.

Hmm.

Who is right, who is wrong?

Who is better, who is worse?

Removing all subjectivity from infringing on A Reasonable Man’s Objectivity, there are some facts missing which may or may not help us reach a decision.

Churchill, in his lifetime, was awarded a total of seven Honorary Degrees (Rochester, Harvard, McGill, Westminster College Fulton, Miami, Lieden and Copenhagen should you be interested).

Hitler, none.

Oh dear.

But this first factoid really doesn’t help us decide anything at all.  Legacy in itself can be a very subjective thing (rose tinted ocular apparatus excetera) and besides it was not the German custom to award such accolades.

Indeed, you might put it another way and to equally spurious effect – Iron Crosses: Churchill 0 – Hitler 2.

An away win, but so far, in reality, we are still no nearer an outcome.  Moreover, we’ve neither recourse to Facebook statistics, including number of friends (neither World Leader had a Facebook page!) or Twitter followers (ditto) to help us.

#shucks!

Nevermind.

Already it seems we need a short interlude to consider some amusing asides.

Here goes:

The surname ‘Hitler’ means ‘he who lives in a hut’.  Ironic in the sense Hitler spent his last days on planet earth living in an underground hut made of reinforced steel, concrete and corrugated iron called a ‘bunker’.  Or was it Destiny?  Either way, fate has decreed his last piece of real estate is now a municipal car park.  Surely men and women everywhere who have made that long overdue return to see (the long gone remains) of their former home can, to an extent, sympathise with him on this!

You know, people often remark on Hitler being a frustrated artist, and his painting must have been damn poorly received given the frustration he vented all over Europe in between 1939 and 1945.  What most people aren’t aware of is that Churchill was a landscape painter himself and unlike poor old Adolf was rather successful.  Visit Dallas and the Emery Reeves Collection to see for yourself! 

Meanwhile, here’s something I picked up from the New York Times recently: a clothing store in Ahmedabad, Gujarat Province, India, has been named ‘Hitler’, presumably after the very same Adolf Hitler discussed in these pages.  How about that for one of life’s little quirks?

India, of course, has another link to Hitler in the similarity between the NAZI Swastika and the Hindu symbol for Good.

That’s enough irony and amusement for the moment.     

And, let’s get back to our comparative argument.

Forget Honorary Degrees, what about Nobel Prizes?

Churchill won one in 1953.  Hitler was never even in the running!  The mitigating circumstance being this: Hitler swallowed a cap of cyanide in 1945.  He died and his body was thrown in a ditch, covered with petroleum and burned to a cinder before it befell an even less desirable end at the hands of none other than Winston Churchill and his buddies.

It should also be noted that the Nobel Prize was won in 1938 by Enrico Fermi – precisely a year before Hitler, the frustrated artist, let one of his moods get the better of him.  Enrico was hailed for his work on induced radiation.  His legacy?  Hiroshima, Nagasaki and two hundred and sixty thousand deaths.

Not to mention the Cold War.

Scientists eh?

..Anyway, on the subject of the Cold War, or the war that was always about to but never quite happened, school children in the West were told to hide under their desks in the event of a nuclear attack.  While the world beyond the classroom was atomised I can just imagine them carrying on as normal, playing noughts and crosses, cards and so on.

Cards!

How about a simple children’s card game to decide a winner between Churchill and Hitler?  What about Top Trumps?

Churchill first –

Height: five feet, ten inches

Hitler –

Five feet, ten inches.

Both cards in the middle please!

Now for Hitler’s turn.

Arithmetic: zero

Churchill – zero.

Again, both cards in the middle.

Shoe size anyone?

I know.

It’s either all too silly or it’s all just too much.

For instance:

Take the millions of young men (and women) who were sent by Hitler and Churchill and actually went to their deaths in the Second World War, or as it has been previously referred to, the World’s Second Attempt To Commit Suicide.  Some of them wanted to go! How silly!

Take the view of British historian, Paul Addison, that the same war that caused the extermination of over sixty million people was a ‘good war’.  How silly again!

Take the suggestion that Churchill distorted the truth in his war memoirs to paint himself in a better historical light.  How outrageously silly!*

*people who agree with this suggestion must be German

Or take the fact Mein Kampf can be purchased these days from an Amazon reseller for just thirty three pence, and they’ll even pay for the postage.  Too much!

(No, really it’s a worthless piece of crap – the implications for the future of the human race expressed within are unnecessary)

Indeed, take Hitler’s views on just about everything (except vegetables, and our four legged brethren) and it’s all too much.

And as for the Jewish Holocaust.  How about settling on: too much and enough for the rest of time.

Your House - A Ghost Story (by Phil)

Your House – A Ghost Story

There’s nothing unusual about finding yourself walking behind a stranger on your own street.  You were returning from work, a little later than usual, due to a delay on the train.  The train was held outside the station for a time.  The conductor announced, “We’re just waiting for a place in the station for us.”  Not ‘a free platform’, just a ‘place’, as though the train could pull up anywhere.  While waiting for your place in the station, a gentleman sat down opposite you.  He began to speak, and this is what he said to you.

I was arrested and interrogated several years ago.  I was a suspected insurgent and the foreign soldiers believed I was plotting road-side bomb attacks.  They water boarded me.  I remember opening my eyes as they pulled me back for the tenth time by the shoulders.  There were four people in that square room with the poured concrete floor.  All of them were perfectly still.  I couldn’t even tell that they were breathing.  Before, there had been clamour, shouting of insults, inane questions.  But now it felt like I was in a waxwork museum after hours.  I noticed the grip on my shoulders, by two bulky young men with bald heads, was now soft where before it felt like two mechanical tools holding me fast.  I twisted my body, and came loose from the soldiers’ grasp.  I realised they had not a drop of water on them despite repeatedly dunking me into the tank, no sweat beaded on their bald heads in spite of the crushing heat.  The other two soldiers held rifles; they remained motionless and stared impassively ahead.  There was no movement from anyone but me.  Even the water in the tank was still.  I cautiously stood up and was able to simply walk out of the steel door.  I was in a very dark corridor, thick velvet darkness, so I held the wall as I stumbled forward.  At that point I had the distinct feeling of a presence in the corridor.  My mouth was open; I was breathing heavily with nervousness.  Then, in my mouth I felt a sensation like biting down on the hottest of chillies.  It was so intensely hot it numbed my mouth and throat and made my eyes feel twice their size.  I could see bright popping lights in my brain.  Suddenly, the sensation went away and I heard shouts behind me.  I just ran.

You didn’t know if his story had finished when he stopped as the train jerked forward.  The man opposite quickly stood and took his place at the double doors, finger poised over the ‘open door’ button.  You stood too, and by this time there was a line of other commuters between you and the man at the door.

Stepping off the train, you noticed that it had come to rest at a different platform to normal; a different place in the station.  Ten minutes later, you were walking down your street, a few paces behind that other person in a suit.  He was shorter than you, with a bald head.  He had broad shoulders, and walked with the control and poise of a man in optimal physical shape.  You were just a couple of steps behind him, almost level with your front gate, when he turned up your garden path.  Hey, you said, but your voice sounded strangely muted, like it was coming from somewhere deep underwater.  He pulled keys from his pocket and opened your front door with practised movements.  You had paused, but now you walked briskly up the path, only to find the door closed as you reached the step by the bald man.  He didn’t look at you; he just gazed ahead, emotionless.  You yanked out your keys and pushed one into the front door.  It didn’t enter the lock properly, and wouldn’t turn either.  You hit the doorbell repeatedly, but no one came to the entrance.  You turned and stared desperately around your familiar street, your vision dropping in and out of focus as you felt a tremendous heat gathering in your mouth and throat.  

"Road Kill" - Phil's latest story

Road Kill

Sometimes a coincidence, a confluence of improbabilities, gathers on you like it had been in waiting for your arrival for eons now.  Buried under layers of the Earth’s crust, some ill-advised drilling lets it out and nature really lets you know she’s out there.  At least, that’s how it felt for Ray driving to work that morning.  The road was quiet so there was no fuss when he banged down on the brake pedal and mounted the kerb to stop.  He flicked on the warning lights and looked out of his window into the road.

Lying there, diagonally across from one another but in the same lane, were two foxes, evidently killed by the sparse night traffic.  They appeared arranged, with still-shiny eyes looking towards one another.  The belly of the fox nearest Ray’s car had split like overripe fruit, pulled back like a shower curtain; the intestines were dragged out over the tarmac.  They gleamed, unsightly jewels in the summer dust.  The other fox was flattened from the hip to the end of its back paws.  The tail, savagely blood-matted, curled around the fox’s rear as though it was shyly failing to hide its wounds.  Streaks of blood continued meanly down the road away from both animals, the smearing out of lives, spread too thin for them to pull through.

Ray stared at the cruel improbability of the scene.  He took out his mobile phone and dialled his office.  Ray was always early, part conscientiousness, part eagerness to leave the house; he got the answering machine.

I won’t be in today, he stumbled.  Uh… family emergency, I guess you’d say.

Ray hung up and pressed the poor excuse from his thoughts.  He got out of the car, closed the driver’s door and opened the door behind it.  Studying the foxes again, he opted for intestine-spiller rather than crushed-haunches.  It looked a shadow closer to life.  Fewer flies circled its wounds, alighting and rising in a cautious dance.  Ray squatted down beside the animal and slipped his hand uncomfortably underneath its rear end.  He scooped the intestines with the same hand, grazing his arm slightly, and cradled the head and neck with his other arm.  Ray stood up and placed the fox with a midwife’s care onto the back seat of his Audi.  He wiped his hands on the cleanish fur on the fox’s back, trying to keep the whole thing as one, trying to minimise the sudden entropy of its death.  He returned to the front seat and swung the car around, avoiding the second fox, which lay on, unthinkable.

Ray’s wife would have taken their daughter, Beth, to her swimming lesson before school then gone on to work, so he was returning to an empty house.  His wife, Irma, was a judge, who lacked judgement, Ray often thought bitterly.  She’d chosen him, her intellectual inferior, and never seemed convinced that he was the right choice.

He pulled into the drive sharply and jumped straight out of the car.  He opened the front door then went back for the fox.  Carrying the corpse into the kitchen, Ray lolled it down onto the marble breakfast bar.  Its head fell awkwardly, the tongue slipping sideways like the fox was playing a child playing dead.  Ray wiped his hands in the same way as before then rushed to the bathroom.  Tipping over a basket of shampoo and cosmetics, he stuffed it with the contents of the medicine cabinet.  There were plasters, medical alcohol, safety pins, tiny scissors and painkillers.  He wasn’t sure what he would need to fix the animal on his worktop.  Ray took the lot then dug through the drawers of Irma’s dressing table to find a sewing kit.

Ray’s first priority was to deal with the guts.  He placed the basket of supplies on one of the tall, shiny black stools and sat down on the one beside it.  The halogen spotlights blazed above: his operating theatre was ready.  He examined the intestines carefully, studying the membranous peritoneum with the meshed blood vessels tracing paths through it, looking like a diagram of time’s arrow branching into the multiverse that Ray has seen in a book once.  The peritoneum looked close to intact, and Ray pushed the intestines back inside the fox’s abdomen.  He paused then attempted to push the body onto its back, picturing the classic pinned-out frog for a classroom dissection.  The fox kept tipping either towards or away from Ray, so he grabbed a couple of piles of recipe books from the shelf over the sink and arranged them like a scaffold to hold the fox in position on its back, x legs pointing upward like it was slung from a stake by two triumphant hunters.

Now Ray could take a better view of the fox’s viscera.  He pushed and pulled the stomach and liver around, stuffing them a little more underneath the ribcage.  He lifted the intestines out again to check the kidneys, which seemed in good condition, glistening redly up at Ray.  After replacing the lurid guts, Ray selected a red reel of cotton and threaded the end through the finest needle in the sewing kit.  He began at the bottom end of the gash, which ran at an angle from the fox’s groin, at the left, to the lower edge of the ribcage on the right.  Ray stitched as neatly as he could, drawing the skin together as evenly as possible, but still little lumps emerged as he went.  In the end, he unpicked the unsatisfactory repair and tried again, neater the second time.  He clipped off the excess thread and looked at his work from a few angles, an intense expression running over his face.

Next, Ray tried to set the fox’s face into a more respectable pose.  He pushed the tongue back into the maw, but it just fell out again.  He tried kind of tucking the tongue behind the teeth, which didn’t work so well; rolling the tongue back under itself like pastry around a rolling pin was more successful.  The mouth would not stay shut, however, so Ray settled for a single stich joining the top and bottom lip on the left side of the fox’s mouth.  He reasoned that a fox could easily snap the tacking thread by opening its mouth, without any damage to the tissue around the edge.

Ray spent some time gently stroking the fox’s head, considering how to return the blood on its fur to its circulation.  He wanted to restore the fox to its condition pre-death.  If only he could get it right, Ray might be able to save the beast.  Returning to the bathroom, Ray dug through all the cupboards in there, and eventually came across the vital tool – a hypodermic needle.  He didn’t stop to think where it might have come from.  Unable to simply draw up the clotted blood from the fox’s dulling hair, Ray gently rinsed it off, using minimal water, into a plastic bowl usually used for tossing a salad or some such ordinary culinary task.  Thoughtfully, he crushed up an aspirin in the pestle and mortar and added that to the blood and water mixture before drawing it up in batches to the needle.  He injected it carefully into the only vein he could find, crossing over the bone in the fox’s right foreleg.  The liquid seemed to gather there, so Ray carefully massaged it down the leg to spread it out.  Feeling like the repair was close to completion, Ray glanced at the clock, immediately realising that he had taken too long.  Beth would be home within minutes, unless, as he hoped, she had dallied with friends.

The front door rattled and Ray felt heavy in his core.  His daughter was thirteen; Ray assumed she was still naïve and wasn’t after some sort of ‘loss of innocence’ moment.  However, there was nothing he could do and Beth walked straight into the kitchen.

She halted, and there was a long silence.  Ray felt only dread at the truth about to be revealed.  Beth didn’t react how he’d expected, though.  She whispered, urgency in her tone, we can’t let mum see this.

Beth stepped past her crumpled father and gathered up the fox’s body in both arms.  Follow me dad, she said over her shoulder, clipped, professional.  Ray stood and went after her into the garage, through the door in the back of the utility room.  Grab a tarp, dad.  Ray did so, too dazed to reflect on his daughter’s actions.  Beth gently wrapped the fox in the sheeting and hit the button to open the garage door.  Dad, open the boot of your car.

After stowing the corpse, Beth climbed into the passenger seat and waited for her father to get in to drive, a metallic taste in her mouth.  Ray remained wordless as Beth uttered directions where needed.  She put the radio on low, and the father and daughter both listened carefully, as though the music was playing only for them.  Take me to the river, wash me in the water.  Beth led her father to some woodland nearby, popular with dog walkers in early mornings, but quiet in mid-afternoon.  She retrieved the fox from the back and carried the parcel way off the track, stepping through the undergrowth.  Ray followed her, a headache bedding down below the bridge of his nose, a troll.  Permission to pass, permission to do, he needed permission from his family to just be.

Beth cast about her then laid down the body.  Ray realised only then that Beth had hooked a trowel from the garage wall around her wrist using the leather strap.  She knelt, and started to dig into the ground, scattered with brown pine needles.  Work was slow, but Beth progressed steadily, concentration on her features.  When a shallow grave emerged, Beth went to her father and laid her hand on his forearm.  Dad, you need to bury the fox.  The fox is gone, you can’t fix it now.

Ray looked his daughter in the eyes, feeling a rising warmth and gratitude towards her.  His relief was vast; his thirteen year old daughter had set him free.  He bent and unrolled the tarpaulin.  Ray lowered the fox into the trench in the woodland earth and used cupped hands to slowly move the soil over the body.  Beth crouched to help, and the pair ceremonially buried the animal, the marriage.  They stood at the same time and held hands like Beth was a seven-year-old again, not a teenager.  She squeezed her dad’s hand, not needing to say, don’t worry about me, don’t try to save it for me.  Ray had permission now, but permission from the most important person to him.  She was giving him the gift of giving up and letting something broken go.

a twenty sixth story...'babylon'

Duane worked as a football steward.  He was a big man of unequal proportions – his heavy soled black boots, baggy black trousers and day glo green jacket didn’t flatter him. 

He had been working as a football steward for twenty one years.  The football fans he kept a benign watch over every other Saturday belonged to XXXXXXXX.  They were committed, and occasionally violent.  They also preferred to stand rather than sit – Duane found this out what you might call ‘the hard way’. 

On perhaps his second or third occasion stewarding at XXXXXXXX he had asked the home fans, in his soft, rolling Anglo-Caribbean accent to please be seated, only to find a banana skin thrown in his direction.  Duane understood.  He was a black man living in Babylon, aka XXXXXXXX, the British Isles.

Thereafter, and for almost every Saturday afternoon during the following twenty one years, Duane sat in a great, loaming silence, his back to the play, his large, sorrowful eyes gazing at the crowd: a mixture of young skinheads, and old men with slick, grey hair and pale yellow complexions.  And yet on this particular day, Duane was in fact completely elsewhere – the white sands, and aquamarine seas of an Antiguan beach, the bustling verve and colour of a Barbadian market stall.  He could almost block out the snarls and whistles all around and hear the sound of steel drums coming to him like music down a windy street.  Duane smiled a broad, toothy smile.

~

Thud!  The ball clattered into the advertising hoarding a few yards away from where he was sitting.  The advertising hoarding displayed the name of a local business Duane was familiar with: ROY’s Tyres and Car Repairs.  The word ROY’s was in large capital letters to emblazon the name into the mass memory of the hundreds of football fans at the ground in the hope they would come and have their cars serviced by ROY, the owner, and his mechanics, and make money for ROY.  Duane had worked at ROY’s for a while, but was fired on the spot when the desperate wife of ROY, the owner, groped him in the forecourt after hours and reported the incident to her husband as harassment.  Duane had to go to court, and although he was acquitted, two weeks later his car, a rattling old Fiesta with no second gear, was set on fire with petrol.  It was a write off.  Whenever Duane remembered the incident, which was after all every other Saturday afternoon as a steward at XXXXXXXX in front of the advertising hoarding ROY had paid for, he shrugged and thought of one thing – Babylon.

At the time this short story is supposed to be taking place Duane had a weekday job for the local council.  Every morning at half past five he would leave his apartment and line up outside the council offices, a series of interconnected concrete blocks built in the early sixties, where he was given a ‘claw’.  For between eight and ten hours he spent his time doing the following - picking up other people’s litter.  It sure was dull, but Duane made the hours pass by inventing a number game to do with the pieces of other people’s litter.  If he picked up an empty packet of cigarettes, for example, he awarded himself five points, if he picked up a chocolate wrapper, it counted as two points, if he picked up a ten pound note, he pocketed it and bestowed on himself one thousand points.  This points allocation was, as you will notice, in line with Decimal Coin, first introduced into the British Isles, or Babylon in 1968.

Council workers in Babylon (or rather white collar civil servants, to differentiate them from simple litter pickers) Duane had observed, were one or two of three things: so busy running around the local area providing for their constituents they never seemed to be at their desks, on ‘flexi time’ (i.e. they got up whenever they chose and shuffled into the office in their slippers for an extended lunch break), or on holiday.  Duane’s second and third observations may also be considered one or two of three things: cynical, bordering on the truth, or bang on!

~

‘NOoooooo!!’.  One of the home players had just missed a sitter, and the home fans groaned with displeasure.  A ‘sitter’ is the kind of the scoring opportunity in football most adult men of a certain age think they can score without any problem whatsoever.  This is something of a misconception that ignores the complete lack of footballing ability or athletic propensity of over 80% of the adult male population in Babylon, as well as the pig headed, confidence boosting effect of a few pre-match pints of beer.  Duane licked his fat, pink lips.  He was back in the Barbadian market stall, sampling a traditional Bajan fish curry.

Indeed, as the football match between XXXXXXXX and their Saturday Afternoon opponents wore on, Duane’s imagination continued to be filled with images of the Caribbean, images which his mind would then unfairly juxtapose with images of Babylon.  When XXXXXXXX did what they barely ever succeeded in, such was the ineptitude of the team, and scored a winning goal albeit late on, Duane barely noticed the home fans – the young skinheads, and old men with pale, yellow complexions – climbing over the advertising hoardings (including ROY’s) and streaming onto the pitch to the pathetic and, needless to say, unheralded civic pleas of the Tannoy announcer.

Unfortunately for Duane the curse of Babylon struck again that afternoon.  A seven year old child was crushed to death in the throng, and when club officials, two of whom worked in a ‘flexi time’ capacity with the local council, replayed video footage of the incident, it was seen to be Duane who had failed to prevent this child - this minor, too young to be at a football match of this kind in the first place - making his way onto the pitch before being swallowed in the stampede of steel toe caps and pumping legs, never to come out alive.

~

On a dreary, wet Monday morning, when had he been fortunate, Duane would have been out picking up other people’s litter for between eight and ten hours a time, he found himself in front of the judge once more.  The hearing took less than fifteen minutes and Duane was dismissed for gross misconduct from his Saturday afternoon job that he had held for twenty one years stewarding at the football ground.  Two weeks later he was barred from ever working for the council again, and a week later still, his apartment was repossessed.          

Duane continues to pick up other people’s litter, but now only in the hope it will contain a morsel of leftover food.

Three cheers for Babylon!

a twenty fifth story...'and now, someone with elephantiasis!'

Vincent had to go the shops with a towel over his head.  His appearance was hideous.  While it was better to keep himself and his good looks a secret from innocent women and children on their daily jaunt around town, Vincent couldn’t always see where he was going as a consequence.  This could lead to a few painful altercations. 

He had chosen to wear a towel over his head on his shopping trips after his cousin, a cruel and spiteful adolescent called Paulie, left a mirror behind in Vincent’s bedsit.  Vincent saw for the first time the massive eruptions of skin all over his face, the bulging protrusions from his scalp, matted with tufts of mangy, dark hair, and most disconcertingly of all, the look of horror and absolute revulsion in his small, sunken eyes.

Vincent wept as Paulie sniggered all the way home to the mean little red brick terrace he shared with his dim and brow beaten mother.

~

‘Outcsh’, said Vincent, from underneath his towel.  He had collided with a scaffold over hanging the pavement.  Vincent was six feet eight inches tall.  The charity stores didn’t have trousers long enough to fit him.  He resembled a teetering circus performer on fleshy stilts, and a rather ungainly one even at that.  Vincent’s mother had been a trapeze artist in the Moscow State Fair.  She was petite and beautiful.  Vincent had come as a surprise.

The wage Vincent’s mother received from the Moscow State Fair was enough to hire a carer for Vincent.  However, carers came and carers went.  Vincent was so gentle and kind, and yet helpless and hapless to the extent his carers soon felt caring for him was hopeless in itself.  Vincent’s mother had tried to look after him, but her decrepit child was too much of an insult to beauty for her to cope very long.  And to make matters worse, Vincent grew very big. 

~

Vincent held his forehead gingerly, trying to feel with his good hand whether he was bleeding.  He wasn’t as far as he could tell, and so he continued on his way, staying close to the walls of the premises bordering the high street.

~

Following his visit to the shops, Vincent was due to host his friend, Julie.  Julie was a remarkable young woman, not least because she could behold Vincent minus towel without feeling nauseous.  And though there was little physical contact between them, she loved him.  This is another reason why Julie was a remarkable young woman – she loved Vincent for his mind! 

Julie was a nurse and they met on the ward.  Vincent was an in-patient.  He had sprained his ankle trying to step blindly onto a kerb.  Julie was surprised to learn in spite of his extreme ugliness, Vincent was actually rather well read.  They shared a mutual affection for Thomas Pynchon.  Thomas Pynchon’s books are the most bootlegged in the world.  Vincent had been reading a bootlegged copy of Gravity’s Rainbow when he met Julie.

~

The first and in fact only shop Vincent was intending to set foot in was Blockbuster Video.  His outlook on life, or rather the lives of other people, was half informed by the films he rented and watched on his second hand television.  After all, he lived most his life out in the big, wide world under a towel.  Meeting Julie had broadened his horizons somewhat.

Today, he was returning two tapes, one of them a police movie, the other a documentary film on penguins.  Vincent avoided romantic comedies - his anguish was already enough. 

Working at the checkout was a twenty year old girl called Amber.  Curiously, she was named after Amber Green (perhaps better known as Miss Misouri 1994), and not the fossilised tree resin that has been appreciated for it’s colour and natural beauty since the Neolithic era.  Unfortunately, Amber was not a natural beauty, and was bored stiff of her job at Blockbuster.  She hadn’t even noticed that three times a week she served a man who wore a towel over his head, standing six feet eight inches tall.

Nevertheless, Amber wasn’t stupid, and had she not possessed the bulk of a pilot whale, she would have done well in sixth form and perhaps gone on to better things.  But because of her blubber, the boys (and girls) bullied her and she dropped out of school without a single meaningful qualification to her once illustrious name*.

(*at least around Missouri, circa 1994).

In a sense Vincent and Amber could have become kindred spirits, but only in the sense English speaking humans use ‘in a sense’ to allude to, without openly conveying, serious misgiving, doubt or disagreement.  Moreover, Vincent had never set eyes on Amber because of the towel over his head, so he didn’t know what he was missing.  On this occasion he rented Apollo 13 from her.  Apollo 13 is about a group of highly intelligent humans who travelled into space with the intention of landing on planet moon before running out of oxygen and returning speedily to planet earth.  The parts are all played by actors; they employ a degree of artistic licence and command otherworldly sums of money.

Concerning the subject of money, you might ask how Vincent survived without a job, an income, or indeed any social benefits whatsoever.  In a sense he survived relatively well.  With a towel over his head he could do his shopping, and he received an allowance from his mother, still travelling the world with the ageing and not-so-much-in-demand-anymore-Moscow State Fair, which bought him ready meals – he had a microwave – as well as fizzy drinks.  Julie helped too.  She gave him books to read, books other than Thomas Pynchon novels.  She also conferred on him, the most precious and special gift of all.  Clue: it’s a four letter word. 

~

Walking home after his visit to Blockbuster, Vincent was called a four letter word.  It probably isn’t the one you have in mind, besides it wouldn’t quite make sense in the context of this paragraph.  The four letter word Vincent was called is commonly spelled like this: c**t.  It was followed by: ‘wotch where you’re going!!’  By now, Vincent had become relatively immune - in a sense - to these kind of insults, still he apologised profusely.  The person who had fired the insult in Vincent’s direction was a portly, red faced estate agent named Giles.  Giles also said: ‘and take that bloody towel off your head’, although of course, he didn’t really mean it.

~

The word you should have floating toward the recess of your mind is this: LOVE.  And when Vincent got home he received a phone call from Julie.  She told him she would be a little late for her visit because one of the shift workers on the ward had not turned up yet, but that she had discovered a new Thomas Pynchon novel on the internet and had printed off a copy for Vincent to read.  She would bring it along later.  When they finished talking and Vincent put the phone down, he tried out this four letter word in a new and hitherto never before used sentence: ‘I love you, Julie’, he said.

a twenty fourth story...'portrait of a simple young man'

Marat was simple, and everyone liked him for that.  He never said anything untoward or did anything especially out of the ordinary.  His friends found him pleasant and always well-intentioned, his smile was gentle, his round, blue eyes, kind and innocent; he was clean shaven, he dressed in proportion to his slender physique, he never had body odour, and so on.

Whenever there was a party - someone’s birthday, a going away celebration - Marat was invited.  His name was never at the top of the guest list, equally it was never left off.  He appeared in the middle, and he would always bring a gesture of his appreciation. 

At work in the founder branch of the Bartle, Boggle and Hegarty advertising agency he sat quietly at his desk and beavered away conscientiously.  He would only leave his desk to make tea for the members of his team which he did so each morning at eleven o’clock.  The tea he made was just right, he memorised everyone’s preference - no sugar, no milk; milk, no sugar; two sugars, white; white, one sugar. 

His social life was largely carried out on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, office drinks, dinners being the greater part, and in summer, picnics on the common the way young adults should.  Marat and his friends would have been as consistent with a mobile phone advertisement as a Waitrose commercial.

In his new build flat Marat felt comfortable.  The furnishings were modern, the carpets were clean, the varnish on the laminate wooden floor in the open kitchen was shiny.  From his balcony he could see a good deal of the London skyline and he valued the urban panorama as much if not more than the estate agent who sold him the place.  Marat’s father, a second generation Croatian immigrant, made a small fortune from the manufacture of yoghurt pots, and helped his son with the mortgage.

Living in the flat with Marat was Duncan.  Duncan was a friend of a friend.  He was a Glaswegian.  It took Marat a few days to come to terms with the fact every other sentence Duncan uttered sounded like a thinly veiled threat, but come to terms he did.  Marat had never been in a fight in his life, save the time his younger brother had broken his Lego cement mixer – Duncan had. 

Duncan was around five feet ten, broad and swarthy.  His hair was cropped short and he grew stubble easily.  Duncan shaved with a blunted disposable razor and his face was pock marked with little nicks where the blade had caught him.  Duncan worked in the ‘citeh’.  Marat held him in some kind of awe, although they never associated together beyond their living arrangements.

In spite of Marat’s contentment with his day to day existence, he still was eager to travel.  With his friends he often discussed the many countries in the world he would like to visit when conversation had run out.  Marat would then save up his money, fantasising about a trip to the Kingdom of Genghis Kahn or UNESCO listed Hong Kong and Macau.  Travel was his escape, his way of making himself feel as if he were fulfilling his youth, free from responsibility and family ties.  Travel, for the time being, was the life pursuit.

Following the dislocation in Europe after the Second World War, Marat’s grandfather arrived in England.  Whether Marat’s grandfather was fleeing Nazi aggression or the advancing Communist hoards, he was never sure.  However, he loved England, he wanted to stay and above all he wanted to fit in.  Marat’s grandfather wanted to be able to wave ‘good morning’ to his English neighbour over the garden hedge and discuss the vagaries of the fabled English weather; he wanted to have his English neighbour around for high tea, sip vintage lemonade and discuss English literature and the labour movement.   Marat’s grandfather had a son with his wife and tried to impress English values upon him, but his son – Marat’s father who made a small fortune manufacturing yoghurt pots – was already too English and resisted successive attempts by Marat’s grandfather to educate him in English culture.

By the time Marat was born, Marat’s father was on the brink of financial success.  Once Marat’s father had negotiated the last of five lucrative contracts with the five largest dairy enterprises in the United Kingdom, he moved the family to the idyllic suburban confines of Royal Surrey.

Marat grew up in a big mock-tudor house, with a garage large enough to hold all three of his father’s sports cars.  As soon as he was deemed ready, he was sent away to a private school where he played sports and sang songs.  After school he went onto university and studied business and economics, the first in his family.  Marat’s grandfather would have exploded with pride, had he not succumbed to liver poisoning before Marat happened. 

Nevertheless, minus a pair of doting of grandparents, there was always plenty in Marat’s life, or so it seemed to him.  He felt satiated.  Seldom did he marvel at how his father’s fortune from the manufacture of something as small and disposable as yoghurt pots had come to be, seldom did he worry about money.  He had gone to private school because his father wanted him to, he had gone on to university because his friends did, and his father wanted him to.  He now had a secure if unspectacular job in London and a nice flat because his friends had the same, and his father was happy for him to be somewhat less successful then he had been, yet secure and free of trouble.

There were few upheavals in Marat’s life, and he was wary never to care too much for something or someone that the world in which he lived would be ripped asunder or turned upside down by.  In short he was philosophical, although he might not have considered himself so.

Then again Marat did consider himself lucky.  When someone asked Marat for a summation of his life up until a given point, Marat would always conclude it saying: ‘I’ve been lucky, I guess’.  And a guess was about all Marat was capable of when it came to understanding luck.  He had, after all, little, if any experience of bad luck.  He was familiar with the saying: ‘fortune favours the brave’, but was unassuming enough to recognise it did not apply to him, or indeed many others for that matter, except perhaps his father and his success with yoghurt pots.

As far as luck goes, Marat’s grandfather was unlucky.  If he wasn’t being harassed by the communist members of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, the indifference of his English neighbours preyed on him.  If he wasn’t falling foul of his wife, he was falling foul of the police.  The lock up became a guest bedroom for him on the nights he became too sozzled to walk back to his home.  He drank rum, or reconstituted motor oil.  To cap it all off, Marat’s grandfather must have known his luck had run out altogether when surgeons at the Royal London Hospital bungled a routine liver transplant leaving him days to live.  He died of chronic hypertension and blood poisoning less than four hours after leaving the operating theatre.  He was sixty eight.

Marat was born a year after his grandfather’s demise, and in the very same hospital.  Marat’s brother, Macan, was born three years later still, and in the very same ward.  When Macan came out of his mother’s birth canal, Marat was given an Adidas rucksack as a welcome gift from his new sibling.  The name Macan means ‘tomcat’ in Croatian, and indeed Macan spent the first four years of his life moving around on all fours before he eventually learned to walk.  Macan had a form of cerebral palsy that affected both his arms and legs.  He grew up wanting to be a bus driver.

Marat and Macan’s mother was a silent woman, with an air of eastern bloc stoicism.  She in fact hailed from the Home Counties.  Her brother had been killed in the Hatfield train crash. It turned out he had skipped the ticket barriers and not paid his fare.  The crash investigators did not find a travel pass on him when they turned out his pockets.  Fortune favours the brave!

It would be too straightforward to imagine the prolonged silences of Marat and Macan’s mother were as a result of her brother’s premature death, because they were not.  Shortly after she got back from honeymoon in the Maldives with her husband, the yoghurt pot millionaire, she realised she had married the wrong man.  Once she discovered she was pregnant with Marat, she knew her life was over.  Marat’s father remained oblivious, or indeed impervious to all this. 

Nevertheless, as a family they were about as close as any, thanks in no small part to Macan.  Although his brain sent bad signals to his limbs, he could count to potato, and did very well at school.  He conquered his disability with courage and vigour, and earned the love of all the members of his family.  His father thought he recognised in Macan the qualities best present in himself, his mother had someone around the house to keep her from topping herself, and Marat adored him forever and on from the time Macan conferred on him an Adidas rucksack – broken Lego cement mixers aside.

Having a disabled brother also proved something of a boon for Marat in his relationships with women.  Macan was living proof Marat had a caring side, and would make sacrifices for the people he loved.  Marat’s girlfriend was pretty and blonde, she worked as a secretary in a Law firm, played hockey and knew all the best cocktail bars in town.  It was after five or six Rum Swizzles that they first got together.  Travel was also something Marat’s girlfriend was interested in, and when they had finished whispering sweet nothings to each other, they would plan holidays abroad.  Their favourite one to date had been a trip on the Trans Siberian Railway.

Were Marat more inquisitive he might have been interested in his ancestry and the international roots of his family tree:  from yoghurt pot millionaires, to well intentioned, but misguided drunks, sheep herders and gypsies, there was plenty to be interested about.  Moreover, one of Marat’s forebears had been a Slavic Wrestling Champion, another had been tried and accused of witchcraft and summarily tortured to death.  Meanwhile, Marat’s great, great grandfather was a friend and colleague of Nikola Tesla, best known for his contributions to modern alternating current, or AC.  AC made radio possible.

Upon his arrival in England from war ravaged Europe after the Second World War, Marat’s grandfather had spent his first pay check on a Roberts radio.  The first broadcast he listened to was in May 1948, a month into the Marshall Plan.  The broadcast was from the centre of Berlin, divided four ways between the Victorious Allies.  Marat’s grandfather was listening to the same Roberts radio in the same chair in his kitchen a year later when the city and then the whole country was split down the middle, leaving sixteen million Germans stranded in the new German Democratic Republic.  When the German Democratic Republic finally collapsed and the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989, Marat’s grandfather was lying unconscious in the operating theatre in the Royal London Hospital about to have his life ended by bungling surgeons on the cusp of messing up a routine liver transplant.

When Marat’s father heard news of Marat’s grandfather’s demise, he was carrying out an inspection at his new yoghurt pot manufacturing facility.  He told all the staff to go home at once and then locked himself in his office.  He emerged the next morning, red eyed and weary but even more determined than ever to be a success.  In the months that followed he would outmanoeuvre his business partner in such a way that his position as de facto Chief Executive Director became impregnable.  His business partner tried to sue him in court and lost, before spiralling into depression, eventually jumping to his death off a fifty-six metre high bridge over looking Los Angeles harbour at the beginning of a family holiday – unintentionally, he landed on the deck of a Japanese container ship transporting lumber into the US, and turned into strawberry jam.

Marat learned of the apparent suicide of his father’s former business partner one night on a mini-break in Portugal, when he was fifteen.  Marat’s father let slip the ugly details when the two of them were relaxing on the balcony of the hotel complex where they were staying, after a four course gourmet dinner.  The dinner had been in recognition of Marat’s GCSE results.

The school that helped Marat achieve his splendid exam results was considered one of the best in Royal Surrey.  Marat scored most highly in French, German and Art.  He also received the highest grade for a Business and IT certificate in his school year.  The teacher Marat was most fond of was Frau Fiedler.  Frau Fiedler was in her early thirties, with a large Bravarian bosom and an ample, soft, round body.  She was voluptuous.  Before coming to teach at Marat’s school she had been jilted at the altar by her Hungarian fiancé, who then disappeared without trace into the depths of the Black Forest.  Frau Fiedler chose England as the place to consolidate her life and start over.  Fiedler means ‘fiddler’ in German.  Marat had been up to Frau Fiedler’s apartment after classes on a couple of occasions for extra curricular time.  It was understandable on the part of Frau Fiedler, and Marat was a willing pupil.

Marat’s first experience of sexual practice outside of extra curricular time came courtesy of his third cousin, Maria.  Maria was tall and leggy.  In fact, Marat thought she had very nice legs.  She also had smoky green eyes and a mischievous smile.  Marat fell head over heels in love with here right away.  It was at the funeral of a distant family relative that they sneaked out behind the marquee and became properly acquainted.  However, as pleasurable as the occasion was for Marat, for months afterwards he felt an overwhelming sense of inadequacy.  This lasted into his second term of university until he discovered his thing did work properly, and five pints of Guinness didn’t do much for his libido.

Marat’s grandfather was famous for his libido, and his wife certainly wasn’t the only woman who received it with delirious pleasure.  Marat’s father won over women with his ambition and money, which compensated for his rather mechanical approach to sexual intercourse.  Marat, in his favour, had both a sweet disposition and a disabled brother whom he loved.

Whether Marat was aware of his mother’s unstable mental condition - and the possibility of her one day deciding to end her relationship with everyone and everything in this small wet world - he never let on.  However, if Marat had any ambition beyond travelling the globe with his girlfriend, it was to support his disabled brother, Macan, and help him become as independent as physically possible.  Macan’s cerebral palsy meant he had trouble doing normal things safely and efficiently without assistance.  In spite of Macan’s unswerving bravery, the following was essentially beyond him, and more likely than not, would remain beyond him for the rest of whatever time allowance New Testament God granted him on earth: walking long distances, riding a bicycle, driving a car, driving a bus, using everyday kitchen utensils to prepare food, eating and drinking with everyday eating and drinking tools, and so on.  Ironically, Marat’s desire to foster Macan’s independence was probably the very thing that would drive his mother into an early grave.  The care and wellbeing of Macan was Marat’s mother’s only purpose in life.  Still, Marat’s love, ambition and desire for his brother’s happiness and independence at least got him laid. 

The best sex of Marat’s life was, conveniently enough, with his girlfriend.  Playing hockey strengthened her control of her vaginal muscles.  The best day of Marat’s life had also been spent with his girlfriend.  They took Macan to the movies and then to dinner at TGI Fridays.  It was a small, good thing, but it made Marat feel like a kind and useful human being as never before.  Marat’s girlfriend rewarded him with a five hour romp.

Perhaps the best day of Marat’s father’s life had been when he signed the fifth contract with the last of the five biggest dairy enterprises in the United Kingdom.  This came three days after the apparent suicide of his former business partner on the fateful family holiday in Los Angeles.  The best day of Marat’s grandfather’s life had surely been the day the reclaimed German Merchant Navy boat, the S.S. Stubnitz, docked at Dover - the day marked the beginning of Marat’s grandfather’s English Odyssey.  The best days of Marat’s mother’s life were certifiably over.  The best days of Marat’s brother’s life were dependent on the patience and acceptance of everyone else, in spite of his courage.

At twenty three, Marat had somehow come out of everything a balanced and content member of the human race, and best out of his family.  And the reason: because he was simple.       

a twenty third story...'the tramp'

The tramp waits at the bus stop.  The bus arrives.  A bent, old woman with a crochet hat alights.  The tramp is picking at the crowns of his teeth with a dirty fingernail.  There’s a can of Special Brew on the red plastic seat beside him.  It is half empty, and warm.  He wears a faded blue baseball cap pulled down over this eyes, a long beard.  His swollen belly is covered by a ragged vest, encrusted in dirt and earth.  He has scarecrow legs and beach sandals on his feet.  The bus pulls away.

It’s coming up to midday.  The sun is out.  The tramp has been awake for most of the night, and saw the dawn rise in an alcoholic haze.  For an hour or two he trudged through the empty streets searching trash cans for half eaten packaged sandwiches, and cardboard to make a groundsheet should he want to sleep this evening.  The tramp reaches for his beer and takes a small sip, he then opens his mouth wide, licks his gums and sticks out his tongue.  He is a free man, and the possibilities for him are endless.

Another two or three buses come and go.  The possibilities are too many to choose from.  He rubs his belly and crosses his scarecrow legs.  He doesn’t have to be anywhere, he doesn’t have to be anyone.  He isn’t anything, except a tramp.  Unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed.      

a twenty second story...'soda'

By now everybody wanted it to happen, and yet there were still those who doubted whether it would. 

McIlroy supped his soda through a long paper straw, his lips pursed, his vacant eyes apparently glued to the television set.  Surely, it was going to happen.  The newscaster had said as much before swiftly clearing his desk and heading into the control room to which it all unfold.

A horse fly settled on McIlroy’s knee and put down it’s labellum.  McIlroy was wearing white jogging shorts, far too big for his feeble legs, and a replica American Football jersey.  His socks were pulled up five or six inches above his ankles, his feet were clothed in a pair of dirty white, Velcro basketball trainers.

‘Heeereee weee go’, yawned McIlroy’s wife, propped up on one arm on the sunken sofa next to him, before plunging her greasy fingers back into the donut bag.  Her hanging gut was barely contained by an enormous, black, 8 ball T-shirt.  ‘This ees it’.

The dog whined, and the horse fly took off from McIlroy’s knee and droned toward the open window.  McIlroy had got to the ice and slush at the bottom of his soda and his continuous slurping made a loud rasping sound.  His wife reached for the remote and increased the volume on the television set.  The room smelled of dried sweat and deep fried food, with no breeze to clear the fetid air.

‘Have you ever considered double glazing for your home?’.  The news was followed, in perverse fashion by a string of commercials.  There was little sense in home improvements any more, besides all the people involved in the making of the advertisement, all the people who worked for the double glazing company, all the people in the world who yearned for double glazing were in front of their televisions.  The online retail forums, the placid acres of the planet's shopping mauls were deserted.

McIlroy blinked, and took the plastic straw away from his lips.  His gaze fell on his wife.  Icing sugar coated her mouth that opened and closed around yet another donut.  ‘How lowng do you think eets gonna be?’, his wife drawled.  The dog whined again.  McIlroy shrugged and pushed his slight frame up from his armchair and into a standing position.  Momentarily, he studied the detritus around them.  ‘Gettin’ another soda’, he said, and turned slowly to head toward the kitchen.  ‘You wont me to set the tape?’ his wife asked pointlessly as he loped past. 

In the kitchen there was a pile of dirty dishes stashed in the sink, a tower of cardboard pizza delivery boxes on the sideboard.  McIlroy picked up a leftover crust and held it to his nose.  He licked the crust with his tongue.  The crust was flavourless and stale so he put it back in the box and moved to the refrigerator.  He opened the door.  Inside there was a bag of donuts, a long gone off carton of milk and no soda.  McIlroy grimaced.

~

A plastic bag turned over in the breeze.  The streets, strewn with yesterdays news, were bereft.  McIlroy stepped off the pavement and crossed the road, taking care not to walk on the tramlines.  A giant billboard displayed the bloated face of a child holding a bottle of Cola.  McIlroy pursed his lips again and made a sucking noise.

A couple of blocks from his flat there was a convenience store.  Most of the shops on the way had dropped their corrugated iron fronts, or were boarded up.  Even the tramp among the trash cans on the corner of Frith Street was gone although his grimy blue sleeping bag remained.  Had McIlroy been a more observant and imaginative human being he might have been awed at the stillness, but the thought of another soda preoccupied him.  What there was of his imagination dreamed of the bubbles misting and fizzing on his tongue. 

He tried the door of the convenience store and found it locked.  He pushed again as if to make sure.  No luck.  He peered in through the glass, tainted yellow with age.  Most of the shelves were bare.  He craned his neck to see if the drinks cabinets were empty, but found he could not be sure.  A tin can rolled past his feet.  There was a bicycle without wheels leaning against a lamp post a few yards away.  McIlroy pushed the door a third time, with a little more force, but still it wouldn’t budge.

In spite of the circumstances McIlroy felt a sense of unease at what he was about to do.  The frame of the bicycle was heavier than he had anticipated but he reasoned this might give him a better chance of breaking the window.  He raised the bicycle to shoulder height and drove the sharp metal forks against the glass.  A small crack spread across the pane as McIlroy stumbled backwards.  He tried again with his eyes tightly closed and rammed the forks as hard as he could into the glass.  He heard the glass shatter and felt it splinter around him, but there was no alarm. 

The convenience store was run by a Bangladeshi.  McIlroy did not know his name.  Even at the best of times the place had a jaded appearance and now it looked positively drab.  All the alcohol behind the counter and cigarettes had been sold, on the shelves only tins of soup and shrivelled fruit and vegetables remained.  The lights were off in the drinks cabinets, McIlroy could see there were empty, but such was his desire for a soda this didn’t altogether put him off.  Under the cash register there was a pair of keys.

~

McIlroy switched on the lights in the cellar.  At the very same moment, fifty five nuclear devices were detonated across the globe.  From space the scene would have been astonishing as one by one great mushroom clouds billowed from the surface of the earth, and civilisation, in a first and final act of togetherness, committed suicide.  McIlroy’s wife was vapourised, his dog reduced to ash and the horse fly to a cinder; his flat became rubble in little over a nanosecond.  The cellar, meanwhile, was full of bottles of Cola, cocooned in cellophane pallets.  They survived.

About half an hour later McIlroy emerged into the nuclear haze.  As the last human alive, he put his bottle of Cola to his lips and took a swig.