By: Finlay

Dick Fussell, professional sleep artist, opened his eyes cautiously, one at a time; and turned to face the monster. It lay there, breathing heavily in its sleep; a curious looking thing with a pink round bottom and porky legs. But it had the snout of an alligator and a fearsome set of white teeth; and as Dick watched, it shed a tear.

By: Finlay

C. sat back in his grandfather’s chair with a sigh, and looked at the ceiling. Why settle for Imperial Tomato when one could have Crystal Pineapple for the same price? It made one want to vomit, and one knew that was not a good thing.

As the scholar thought these thoughts, his fingers tapped indecisively at a battered page on his desk. Upon the downward facing side were some inconsequential discussions of the nuances of charity law; but on the back of this were penned, in a scrawling hand, letters of blood red.

Pyrogenic invocations had been inflicted upon the document, so that the greater part of it was illegible. All that remained were the stained and fragile words:

To my Lady Enigma, in expectation of eternal confidence.

By: Finlay

The minstrel was roused from his reverie by the slightest of movements from below. He frowned, and for sure he still put some value on his life, for his pulse quickened. How often the instincts remain strong even after the thinking mind is broken. He knew what he was seeing. They were laid up in the trees, hidden from view of the road. He could see two of them, rough fellows with unkempt hair and beards, cloaked in dark wool; a bow lay beside one of them. There might be more too; indeed there must be. It was fortunate that he had left the road and contoured above them, so that he had probably escaped notice.

A few moments he waited. Had he not come to this place with death in mind? Why fear masterless men when he could make an end right now and be glad in it? But the pounding of his heart bade that such easy death was not for him; that there remained for him some purpose as yet obscure. The urge to flee became strong. Purposefully and stealthily he began to retreat into the woods, taking care to make no sound or sudden movement. Only when he was well under cover and some distance from the escarpment did he hasten his speed, ignoring the pain of his sores and the creepers that snatched at his legs, and making out perpendicular to the road until he was half a mile from it. His heart beat wildly and his eyes darted from side to side like those of a hunted deer, fearing the deadly arrow or cunning spear. Tired as he was, he kept up his flight unrelentingly until he began to stagger and fall repeatedly, and he realised that he was as much a danger to himself as these bandits were. He leant against a hollowed oak and steadied himself.

After a few minutes he picked up his skirts and began to creep back towards the road, but at a tangent he hoped would keep him under cover until he was further along the road and clear of trouble. He hoped he would not go astray. The going was tough and slow, and who could tell what might lurk in the forest, if he miscalculated his direction and was still there at nightfall.

Eventually making the very edge of the thicket, he looked out furtively. He found himself well down the road from whence he had left it, he was sure of that. But his heart sank, for another party was on the road, and these were well armed and horsed. Still, as he watched them approach, he saw that this was no roving band of robbers. He gazed at the procession, it was a large one; surely that of a prince, or Abbott; perhaps even a minor King. A plan began to form in a hidden recess of the minstrel’s mind.

As the riders passed only a hundred paces away to the south, the minstrel stepped forward to meet them, shouting a cry of greeting and holding his arms aloft. The party stopped dead, and closed ranks. A grizzled warrior stepped forward to challenge him.

“Who art ye, and what business wouldst ye have with us?”

“A warning, my Lord. If ye go thither, beware. There are vagabonds, bearing steel and bows, concealed in the trees yonder.”

“And who art ye, and how did ye escape them?”

“I am but a wanderer, my Lord. Lately I was in the employ of the Abbott of the monastery of Saint Senan, but I took my leave to make a pilgrimage of my own choosing. By chance I had left the road a while and spied them from above. Whence art ye bound, my Lord?”

The warrior looked behind to the King, who nodded.

“This is news, for we are bound to seek for that same monastery.”

The minstrel was greatly dismayed at the answer, and thought in haste how he might counsel them against this.

“I have to warn ye, my Lords, the Abbott Arbracht is not an accommodating man; and will little welcome such as your Lordships. Will ye not rather seek for sweeter treasures and I will be your guide?”

The grizzled warrior shook his head. “Then ye must continue on thy way, for the King will entertain none who council against this venture.”

And he would have no more argument. But at a signal another warrior spurred forward, and gave to the minstrel bread and wine, and some dried fish; and the King blessed his journey. And then the party rode on, sending scouts ahead of them. The minstrel stood and watched them a while, then turned, and shaking his head went slowly on his way.

By: Finlay

The man who had been the Abbott’s minstrel wore a rough brown tunic and cloak, not quite sack-cloth but little better; and his sandals were hard worn. But here was no seasoned wanderer of the land: the man’s tired feet were not callused from long use, but blistered and broken from unaccustomed journeying. Some of the puffy capsules had ruptured and were weeping sores. Ground earth and little shards of flint from the rough tracks worked under the thongs and ground painfully into raw flesh. He walked stiffly, with the grim resolution of the barefoot pilgrim.

The minstrel trudged along the narrow stony road, head bowed to his breast; and grey cliffs bore down on him on each side, drawing ever closer together. A fine drizzle penetrated the front of his hood and chilled the back of his neck, but he kept moving forward; not because he had anyplace in mind to go, but precisely because he knew he had no place to go, and therefore nothing to do, other than to keep plodding on.

But by and by he stopped and stood a moment, and gazed at the dark path with a sigh. Ahead, the cliffs came together almost to a crevice, which the road seemed to squeeze through only with difficulty. On the left, below the treeline, the dark rock was riven by a pale scar of quartzite; where the stone had been marred and split by forces unknown; way back in time, when the old gods had still stalked about these emerald hills.  On the right, a grassy slope ran up between two crags, bearded in a straggling growth of briars, and culminating in a naked patch devoid of trees, looking out over the road like a pulpit or a fortress. The thought came to the man that he should ascend to it, there to brood a while over the land. There he might ponder at his leisure the casting of his old body over the precipice onto the grinning rocks below.

The pilgrim stepped off the road and began to pick his way listlessly up the toilsome slope. He moved slowly, for he was tired, and besides that had all the time in the world;yes, all the time he had ever wished for, and what to do with it? He persevered, searching for level places to put his feet, and wincing each time an awkward movement broke off scab from his ruptured blisters. Staggering a little, his breath steaming in the autumn chill and condensing into his beard, he gained the summit. There he stood looking out across the hills, and he prophesied to himself (for there was none else there) that someday,  some wandering monk might  come to this very spot and paint a likeness of his own figure, back turned from the path, wreathed in mist; gazing out over the void and the distant hills.

He remained there, lost in thought.

By: Finlay

Vince looked with trepidation at his phone, and shuddered. He ran his fingers over the shiny cover, wondering. But no, it was only six months old. He hid it away in his pocket, telling himself not to be so silly, and carried on loading the shopping he had ordered earlier.

He slung the bags of groceries into the hatch of his car on top of the battery compartment, and straightened his back. Bottles of lemon pop-spray perched precariously atop semi-reconstituted loaves of bread; a cuniferous slab of cheese threatened to escape from a bag which held a mixture of weet-bits, frozen chicken and items from the euphemistically labelled ‘Corruscade de l’ hygiene feminine’ which Vince trod only with great trepidation. The Mall of Cunt Aisle he called it.

Vince surveyed the disordered jumble and thought of what his wife would say. He pushed a few things back into their bags and stood the house plant in the corner where it would have marginally increased odds of survival. He slammed the hatch and turned slowly round on his heels, taking in the largely empty car park around him. Unwillingly he took the phone out again and peered more closely at it.  Yes, surely it was a little swollen. It seemed impossible; but it was true, it was certainly a little more rotund on the underside than it had been. A few hairline cracks had even appeared in the glaze where the glossy membrane was no longer broad enough to contain its girth.

Vince swallowed hard. A wave of nausea washed over him and he felt a wild momentary urge to simply throw the thing away. The briefest of consideration of the implications of such an action terrified him even more and he swiftly abandoned the idea. He wondered if one day humans would be advanced enough to live without personal communication technology. It did not seem likely, but Vince allowed himself a brief glimpse of a utopian future where people would roam around blissfully unaware of anything that was happening out of eyesight. He shook himself, got behind the controls and selected ‘home’ on the autopilot.

That night he made love to his wife, but half-heartedly; he hadn’t told her anything. It was as though saying it out loud would make it real. As though if he kept quiet, somehow his little problem would go away. At least it made it be easier to forget for a while. As he rolled down the rubber he noticed the stamped health warningUNPROTECTED SEX KILLS (sponsored by Grosswig Beyerbach), and tossed it aside, suddenly struck by the pointlessness of it all. She seemed to sense his distraction, for she pushed him away before she was done. Or perhaps she was as bored with him as he was with her. Looking over, on the table he saw the phone with its disturbing stretch-marks, and pushed it behind the lamp. Out of sight: out of mind.

In the morning Vince got up and left without a word, picking up his phone gingerly with his fingertips as though it were maggot ridden, and pocketing it with tightly closed eyes. Half way down the street he realised he was hungry. He would need his phone to find an outlet. The outlets round here moved pretty regularly and rather than spend ages searching the streets one used one’s phone to find them, but at the moment he could not bear to have it in his hand. It felt hot against his leg. Taking a deep breath he pulled it out and looked at it. It lay there in his hand, glistening, bulbous: menacing. He thrust the depraved item back deeper into his pocket, ashamed.

In a moment of inspiration he followed the fat man with the leather bag, hoping he would be going to a food outlet. He was right. The fat man made several abrupt turns down some narrow green alleys, head down following his lumi-map, and walked straight into a Mighty-Munchies outlet. The fat man ordered a pile of stuff in a Canadian accent.

Vince walked along the precinct trying to concentrate only on his supersize spam-dog®, but the phone was uncomfortable. He stopped under the dead awning of a boarded-up grocer’s and determined to confront his fear. Grimacing, he withdrew it like a nurse whipping off a dressing, and forced himself to look at it. It was now a curious squashed cylinder shape and the front was bowing outwards, pigeon-chested. The screen was starting to crack under the strain. Again he pictured himself hurling the grotesquely engorged artefact from himself, ascending weightlessly through the ether as his discarded bane spiralled away beneath him.

Suddenly, through this reverie, a dazzling shaft of light speared his eyeball and socket and a great thunder-clap made his ears sing. He fell to the ground sprinkled with gleaming shrapnel, which fell tinkling to the ground like surreal Christmas decorations.

Vince lay calmly on the pavement, resigned. Dark spots danced around his periphery, and a pin-prick of star silver straight ahead, above him, grew steadily larger and brighter until he was ascending effortlessly to meet it, born up on pillows of cool air, just as he had dreamed before. The light seemed to envelop him briefly, then he was through; into the cool damp shade beyond. Gently the four nymphs laid him down on the floor, which was cool, smooth, slightly yielding – a strangely familiar texture, long burned into his instinctive memories.

Three golden eyes looked down on him and he tried to stir up some feeling of resentment, some resistance, but he felt only immense relaxation and the despair of the truly impotent.

“Do not protest little one”, a voice spoke in soothing tones directly into his brain. “You were getting old, good for nothing, past your sell by, decrepit, a has-been. It is good that you came here. It is for your own good that you are here, and the good of everyone. Don’t worry: your dear ones will get over you – very quickly in fact. Indeed, even whilst you slept your lover has taken another. We must not be sentimental about such things. What will be, will be.”

A pleasant darkness took him, and by and by he found himself lying upon a dewy lawn, next to a beautiful pear tree. The fruit was golden and ready to fall, the bark was beautifully carved and almost silky in texture. The leaves fluttered slightly, heavy with scent. No one else was in sight.

Vince struggled to his feet, a little unsteady at first, but soon rejoicing in the new-found strength of his limbs. For a while he ran about and leapt over tussocks and clambered upon the tree just for the joy of life. Then he sat down in the tree’s shadow and took out his new slim line ESP-touchphone ultra. Instinctively he tapped into the satellite direction protocol Nearest work-centre, turned his back to the wonders of the tree, and set off in the direction it pointed him. He had his whole life before him…

By: Finlay

In a land far away stood a great castle, the fair white towers of which gazed outward over a broad plain and inward upon a grand marbled piazza. In the centre of that piazza stood a knight by the name of Galahad. His sword was notched and his chainmail battle-stained, from some great ordeal. He stooped heavily and held his left arm stiffly from the elbow that was pierced. The flame red plume of his helm, once proud and tall, was savagely cut down and hideously spattered with the humours of battle.

Sir Galahad mounted his horse wearily and helped up a fair maiden, whose golden tresses melted pathetically around her slender shoulders. Beautiful she was, and fine, but the pale necklaces of daisies that adorned her neck were in disarray, and her skirts were marred by a dirt which little became her natural radiance.

The gallant knight spurred on his horse, a rippling dapple-grey of the best quality, but the beast was as weary as its master, and the sorry trio could but plod slowly out under the castle gate.

Upon the tallest of the white towers the King stood atop its stately crenulations and brooded over the tableau below. For one moment he sprung up and clenched his fists in joy; then he subsided onto an oaken throne and resting his chin upon his chest sat there, plucking darkly at his grey beard.

The knight journeyed on, bearing his prize, exhausted and aching of his wounds and yet still buoyant in his triumph. He felt the girl’s slender hands gratefully around his waist, hands that would soon tend him through the dark nights of winter. The fiercest strife was now leagues behind him; and after the sun had thrice set and as many times arisen, and when they seemed escaped from danger, the hero called a stop; whereby the two might exchange courtesies, and where he might enquire of the welfare of his princess; and where he might tend his wounds.

The princess thanked her saviour most graciously and declared him quite the finest knight ever to win his spurs, and gazed at him with eyes of corn flowers. So enchanted was the valiant hero, that almost he thought to heed not the danger which might pursue them and to make his suit in that very place, in the autumnal glade where leaves of russet already bedecked the place where the couple took their rest betwixt grey stone and sparkling brook.

Presently though, the thought came to him that pursuit might be swift and that he should make haste to reach safety. Sir Galahad therefore whipped up his steed, which galloped as were the west wind in the quicks of his hooves. Through the night they rode apace until it was close to dawn.

Now hearing pursuit close behind Sir Galahad pulled his horse about, and dismounting thrust the panting maiden behind him. The horde set upon him voraciously and without delay, assailing him with short axes of rough make, rusty long-swords bearing foul emblems, with staves imbedded with crude spikes, and with other ignoble weapons.
The good knight was outnumbered by a score but fought on bravely. He was slashed across the forearm with a crooked sickle and his blood ran down making perilous his grip on his shield; an axe bore down upon his helm and notched his sword as he deflected the blow, and a great iron mace swung wildly and marred the edge of his shield. A great swipe from a crooked sabre passed by his head and decapitated the plume of his helm instead.

But by and by Sir Galahad triumphed and all the vassals of his foe were slewn and piled up in great twisted bloody heaps around the frightened and trembling maiden.
And so the two rode on towards their end: the princess and Sir Galahad now flushed with the nearness of success, attempting to quiet the snorting of his mount, anxious for sport. When they reached the edge of the trees Sir Galahad tethered his beast, and taking the maiden by her soft hand, hurried her to the black and creeping wall that was watched night and day by eyes which were said to be unblinking.

The princess cautiously ascended the rope ladder the knight had left for the purpose, and slipped delicately down the other side. Sir Galahad followed briskly and taking the princess again by the arm hurried her across the courtyard to an open door. Up the stairs they went, softly but in haste, and along a landing where stood massive and ill favoured suits of armour, and the uncouth arms of the prior inhabitants of that demesne. Then up another staircase, and another spiral one, higher and higher until they reached the highest pinnacle of the highest tower, a small and dismal place. Bidding the princess be silent Sir Galahad ushered her into the room. Cautiously he pulled the door closed and slid the bolts silently behind her.

The knight paused a moment and listened, hardly daring to breath; then he descended the stair swiftly and silently, brushing off a few stray drops of blood from his shining armour as he went, and preening his thick dark hair where it issued forth behind his helm. Passing through the outer door he locked it with a large trefoil key, and slew the guard before he could raise the alarm. Hurrying across the courtyard he scaled the wall and pulled the ladder behind him. He mounted his horse and rode stealthily away. Reaching a clearing some half a league distant he took cover and waited for the sun to rise in the west.

In the evening sun, Sir Galahad stood and gazed at the dark tower of disquieting basalt. Ah! Was that not her at the window, looking out wistfully? So fair, thought Sir Galahad, a face as might surely launch one hundred armies, or one thousand ships!

Sir Galahad rode on, the dread tower grimacing behind him in the distance. What might become of him he could not say; he could but trust in his valour to meet whatever fate might befall him, and trust in the weapons and armour given him by the king.

As he approached his citadel in the morning sun, a great host issued out to meet him, and the hero rode in proudly. His helm was triumphantly crested; his sword gleamed bright as the day, true as the day it was forged, clear as though it had never been unsheathed. And he dismounted to great cries of “Long live Sir Galahad the brave!”

By: Finlay

In her early years Veneria Pusslov had scored so highly on IQ tests that she had been arrested and questioned by the state police; by the end of her teens she had become one of the most noted contemporary novelists in her country; and in her twenties she had come to the attention of a foreign intelligence organisation. Working covertly in Her Majesty’s Service, it had become her contracted role to reveal the secrets of her country to the world through her coded novels which appeared to glorify the state whilst covertly feeding its secrets to anxious ears across the sea.

But now that all that had come to a sudden end: while staying at a hotel for her latest book launch she had received a coded warning from an Adonis-like Briton known as Agent Bombur, that her cover had been compromised. And on the final leg of her despairing dash for safety at the border, she had fallen into the hands of a diabolical secret arm of the nefarious three lettered organisation of which we shall not speak. Now she was at the mercy of its black leather clad head of operations; the most greatly reviled, the most heinous, the most dastardly Doctor Dostoevsky-Doom.

The evil doctor bent forward under his devilishly modified 2000 Watt dentist’s lamp; and taking her delicate chin between cold tentacular fingers, he leered, “Turn, ma pretty lady, ziss vay please, und see vat delights, for you I haff prepared. Zee! – tickled pink you are, non?” He laughed manically and evilly, gesturing with his hands at his infernal contraptions in spastic ribaldry. “Ven I hit ziss button, du haz, er how do you zay, zirteen minute and zirteen second to live- exactement! You tink zis very clever, non? – and so do I, ma Cherie!”

Beaming infernally and displaying his 24 carat gold fillings, the latter-day Beelzebub took from his pocket a cigar lighter with a giant skull blazoned across the front and lit the fuse. Still laughing evilly, he and his villainous eye-patched entourage left the cell and clanged shut the iron door behind them.

“Wait!” Veneria cried. “Please to stay and tell me the secrets of your dastardly organisation, whilst you wait for me to die; thus forfeiting your only chance of escape!” But they paid to her no heed at all, and laughed still more evilly than before.

Veneria looked at the tip of the arrow pointing at her heaving bosom where her dress had been torn in the struggle to reveal a fortuitously judicious amount of cleavage, and smiled dimly at the phallic suggestiveness of it. Two nights ago she had lain in the arms of her lover; little had she realised she would so soon exchange agent Bombur’s fleshly prominence for this pernicious contraption of Dr Dostoevsky-Doom.  She laughed quite inappropriately for the situation, and chided herself for it. Stop interrupting the flow of the narrative with your facetious remarks.

As the string burned through she looked expectantly at the cell door. Any moment now her dashing white agent would burst through the door and dance her away into the sunset. Of course it could be the middle of the night for all she knew, but she was sure they would have just enough time to make love on the cold iron table before escaping in a hail of miraculously misdirected automatic weapon fire.

CRACK!!!

Veneria shuddered as she saw the bow fire in slow motion; and observed with a certain clinical detachment its progress as it left the string. It glided, quivering, across the intervening airspace; penetrated her below her ribcage and pinned her neatly to the chair back. For a moment she was incredulous. This simply did not happen. To kill off the heroin was quite dreadfully bad form, she knew.

Coming to her senses a little she pondered which vital organs might have been pierced, it seemed to be just under her rib cage, and slightly to the left; hmm, the liver then. Bitterest gall: how poetic. Obviously she had mistaken the genre of this work; it was not bodice ripping romance, nor yet a romping adventure, but an eye watering tragedy. Her lover would burst through just as she breathed her last and she would die in his arms. Presumably he would then take his own life over her pathetic limp body.

Few people, of course, manage to think so coherently when they have a thick shaft of wood skewering their abdomen to a chair, so Veneria was justly proud of herself. Actually she was surprised how little it hurt, though the world seemed a bit fuzzy. Breathing wasn’t too easy mind – and the gurgling sounds that came from the wound were off-putting.

After a few minutes she began to be bored, and it was starting to hurt after all. Can’t we just skip to the end? She wished 00’ Bombur would hurry up: her make-up was starting to run, and it was essential that when he did arrive she should appear sufficiently ill-used but not too far gone to be attractive; or what would be the point?

It was no good, she had lost the plot. Trust her luck to end up stuck in some frightful post-modern spoof. Oh well, at least it was better than some of the clit lit she was guilty of putting into the shops. It had been in a good cause, though, surely they knew that. She groaned; of course they did – that was the problem. She felt a trickle of blood run down her groin. Looked like lovemaking would soon be off the menu then, unless her agent was into necrophilia. Anyway, bending herself over a chair would be rather difficult with a crossbow bolt sticking out of her front.

“You have come too late,” she would say, when the not so speedy Agent Bombur finally got the door down, (it would probably take rather more than one kick, the way this was going), “and you find me a grave woman!” She laughed, then choked on blood. He would appreciate the reference, being an Englishman. But the effort of her humour had sapped her. The sky grew grey and her beautiful head and chestnut hair lolled forward upon her ample bosom.

Far away in his impregnable bunker, Special Agent Sean Bombur (SIS) sighed and eased the tea cosy onto the pot. It would have been nice, he thought – as he dipped his biscuits into his Tetley’s, to be the action-hero of fiction and rescue his paramour in a swashbuckling coup de grace. But one had to be sensible about these things. The odds were stacked against such a feat. Real bad guys didn’t miss – one bullet and that would be that. No, regrettable as it was, there was nothing he could do. He had never lost a source before, but it had been bound to happen sometime, even if he hadn’t fallen into that damned enchanted stream. He wondered if she was still alive, whether they would molest her before they killed her.

Ah well, plenty more canapés to crack.

By: Finlay

Nathaniel Radcliff first saw the girl with the red hair when he was walking home along a wind blasted promenade, one fine day. Beguiled of her auburn tresses he invited her into a little café to partake of refreshment and pleasant intercourse.

The girl sat at the table and sipped lemon tea, and Nathaniel looked at her. She spoke to him in honeyed tones, and he was not aware of any words:but only the sweetness of her voice and the darkness and wideness of her eyes. He spoke of his work in the bookshop, and of his planned visit to his elderly grandmother later that evening, and of many other things.

At length Nathaniel excused himself and went to buy from the counter. As he returned to the table he noted with a thrill the girl’s large and beautifully formed ears, pale and shapely at the lobes and delicately flared at the tips. She wore studs of topaz, of a cut most curious, in the manner of a star. Sitting down again, Nathaniel proceeded to tell many tales from his life in humorous fashion, while the girl listened intently.

Nathaniel made his best jokes, and told his most amusing stories, and became notably animated, quite contrary to his usual melancholy disposition. The girl with the red hair laughed, and Nathaniel was struck by the brightness of her smile and the whiteness of her teeth. Without understanding why, he found himself offering the girl the jar of thick-cut marmalade he had bought for his grandmother, which could be purchased only in one particular shop. He did not know how he would explain himself when he arrived empty handed at the nursing home, but he would think about that later. For this brief time he would indulge in this rare intoxication.

When Nathaniel had finished eating and looking, he found he could begin to pay some attention to what the girl with the red hair was saying. He nodded and made comments of the most sympathetic. The girl smiled a broad, toothy smile and told him he was lovely, a gleam in her eye. Nathaniel leant forward; and the girl leant forward too. She was so close he could see her every eyelash and the fine hairs on her cheeks. Her breath was hot and sharp on his face, and he saw the points of her teeth, gleaming. He made to kiss her.

And alack!

To his heinous consternation, she sprang across the table and snapped at him with fierce jaws, and he found the girl with the red hair changed before his eyes into a monstrous lupine. Nathaniel yelped with fright and ran for cover, with all the hairs on his body stood on end. The abomination that had been the girl with the red hair chased him around the table, and in his panic all the crockery was knocked to the ground with a crash, and a prune faced old bachelor looked up furiously from his newspaper. Directly to the door poor Nathaniel hurried, and quickly out into the street. Panting, palpitating and perspiring, he dashed along the pavement until he could dash no further. Gratefully espying the town library he stumbled through the great over-crested doors and contrived to hide his wretched body in the dark space under a table. There he cowered, quivering like a field mouse that senses death at hand. He turned his face from the door through which at any moment he expected the foul aberration of nature to burst upon him, snapping and snarling. His heart beat as though it would exit his body. But no one came.

After some time his terror subsided in a measure, and still his red haired nemesis did not appear. When he looked out from his dark hole all seemed deserted; and so, little understanding the strange situation that had befallen him, and having no better plan, he crept out from his refuge and went sadly on his way.

Nathaniel Radcliff last saw the girl with the red hair when he was walking along a wind blasted promenade, one fine day. She sat in a little tea shop drinking lemon tea; and a young man gazed into her eyes. Nathaniel pressed his snout into the collar of his coat, averted his eyes and went swiftly on his way.

By: Finlay

John sighed and dropped his pen onto his desk, massaging his aching hand. He looked wistfully at the head of a small green leprechaun that erupted at a jaunty angle from a tube on the window ledge. John rose, unlocked a drawer at the bottom of his desk, and withdrew the small wooden casket his father had made for him. The two of them had spent many hours together gathering the timber from fallen branches in the woods. Quercus robur – English Oak, John had been quite insistent on that.

John took a golden coloured, butterfly pattern key from his jeans pocket and twisted it in the lock. Out came a few small items: two photographs and a small handkerchief; which he placed in front of him. He was still meditating over them when the doorbell rang. Coming to with a start, he gathered his notes together and deposited them into three blue leather files, all labelled with silver runes. This was for secrecy, although there was no particular need for it. The files went back on the shelf where they took pride of place with the tomes of pre-Christian history and mythology which marked out this shelf as belonging to John, and not to any other 15 year old boy in that neighbourhood. He held the handkerchief briefly to his face, then quickly pushed all the precious things back into the casket, locked it, and stowed it safely back in the drawer.

John took his guitar from the wardrobe, as a pair of heavy boots clomped up the stairs and paused at the bedroom door. The boots did not belong to the builder, but to a boy of John’s own age, who hovered uncertainly for a moment, before shuffling forward and peering round the door. He looked lanky, awkward and somehow out of place. He always did. Many people thought he was weird. John didn’t really care so long as he did as he was told. Paul was the other half of John’s band Newgrange.  Like John, he was on the margins of popular society; and like John, he didn’t give a shit. They weren’t exactly outcasts, but nor were they incasts, whatever that might mean. Neither was disliked as such, but both were a little too eccentric to integrate fully in any one social circle.

So they created their own, with John as self-appointed leader. At first they would just sit in a bedroom or garage and hold court on the moribund imaginations of other people, and the futility of life. Not that John really believed in the Nihilist philosophy, but it was much more interesting than arguing over football teams or homework. Later, when they got bored of talking, they did what many teenage boys do under those circumstances, and formed a band. And so it started, in the garage, John on his guitar and Paul coerced into learning to play drums, but revealing an aptitude unexpected in one so clumsy looking. At first John simply used extracts from the odes and ballads he had been writing upstairs, he had a couple of years supply; and they fiddled around until something approximating a tune emerged. Later he began to study more seriously and Paul would turn up to rehearse and be presented with almost complete songs. From the outset they made a solemn agreement that they would write what they wanted to write, not what people wanted to hear. There would be no selling out. It was some time before either even thought of seeking an audience, and then it was only by chance.
It was one day in late summer when their regular, now almost daily in fact, jamming was interrupted by a clearly audible giggle from outside the garage. Paul got there first and throwing up the door saw two younger girls, probably twins, who were clearly guilty of eavesdropping.

“Hi,” said the slightly taller of the two. Both fell about laughing and clutching at each other.

Paul frowned and told them to go away, his face the colour of pink lemonade, only less frothy. The girl who had spoken pouted and made to lead the other away, but her sister’s eyes were on John. He could be charming when he wanted to be and he knew it; and a sudden flash of inspiration had come to him. He beckoned the girls inside. Paul was all agog and obviously about to protest, so John punched him hard in the kidneys to shut him up. It worked.

Such were the circumstances of their first ‘gig’. They went through the songs they had been practising while the girls giggled to each other but watched avidly all the same; and ignoring the look of horror on Paul’s face, John gave them permission to bring some friends next time.

When they had gone, Paul complained loudly. He had made quite a few mistakes – he wasn’t used to having to play in front of a load of girls.

“Don’t be so melodramatic” said John, “two isn’t exactly ‘a load’, and it might not be all bad.” He winked heavily. Paul looked blank. “You know, girls… girls wanting to listen to us? Play it smart and they might do other stuff too…”

“But they were, like, twelve!”

John sighed, Paul was not destined to be a man of the world. “Well, yeah, I mean duh! But they have friends… and those friends have older sisters… you know what I mean? Get with it, dude!”

John was proven correct, and before too long his haunting melodies and self-penned lyrics about Celtic princesses who were invariably unlucky in love began to draw a ready audience; teenage girls (and their mothers) who thought him handsomely melancholy and went away twittering merrily about how they might rescue him. Paul decided it wasn’t so bad after all, and John lapped it up. But not too much: in his mind he felt he was finally realising the power of his art; and art had to take the priority in his life for now. Sadly he had never heard of any successful artist who had a happy life. Misery and longing stoke the fires of the artist it seems; whereas too much satisfaction can only make him fat and lazy.

Paul sat on the bed and John strummed a few chords and sang the lyrics of his latest song. It was a rather tear jerking ballad about a homeless minstrel who takes refuge in a coastal monastery, falls in love with a mermaid, and is abandoned when he loses his musical powers. Paul fished something out of his anorak pocket.

“Look what I got, dude.”

“Fags?”

“Yeah; wacky ones.”

“No shit! How’d you get hold of them? You don’t even drink.”

Paul shrugged, “Well I guess it’s not what you know it’s who you know.”

“Well you’re not lighting up in here, my dad will kill me.”

“Ah, go on. You’re always on about those opium smoking Victorians. Now’s your chance.”

John laughed, “You mean Taylor-Coleridge? Or Lord Byron? He was pretty cool. Didn’t give a fuck. We’ll go out, find somewhere after. Not in here though.”

They carried on with their playing for a while but John’s curiosity was piqued, and a little while later two skinny teenagers slunk out of the back of number 13 and made for John’s special place, the old cemetery. It was where he went when he needed time out.

They sat down under some trees with their backs to the steep grass bank, and looked at the thing Paul had brought. It was a funny shape, as though whoever had rolled it had already been stoned at the time. Paul held a light to it and took a cautious drag.

“What’s it like?” said John, peering speculatively at his friend.

Paul exhaled slowly and meditatively, a slim line young Buddha, “It’s good.” He coughed suddenly and gave it to John.

John laughed, and took a huge great suck. “Motherfucker!” he had the peculiar sensation that his head was rising away from his body, stretching his neck and making it tingle oddly.

They lay and looked at a tower that rose needlessly but emphatically into thin air at the edge of the escarpment. Higher and higher it rose, as though it would puncture a hole in the sky, spiralling round as they looked at it, drilling a hole into space, all the way to the moon, bringing back cheese, Leerdammer in fact. John pictured himself climbing up the outside, climbing towards a beautiful princess who was born aloft on the topmost pinnacle far faster than he could climb. He dangled over the precipice, going round faster and faster as though he were riding the drum of a demonically possessed laundry machine. He laughed crazily.

“What’s wrong with you dude? You crazy fuck!” Said Paul, and started laughing as well. For a time they just rolled around laughing senselessly, and not knowing why, and not giving a damn. Then they were still, and watched the clouds passing over, coming up out of the sunset, soapsuds on a volcanic mirror that glowed with reds and yellows and greens. And John began to write, in his mind. By the time he came out of his daze he was damp with dew but his next poem was already finished. It was a winner, he was sure; all he had to do was go home and write it down, so he got up to go. But where was Paul? Ah well, he probably just fucked off. John kept walking, carrying with him his own little sea of tranquillity, which emanated from somewhere behind his ears and folded in upon him soothingly. He reached home, went in very quietly and sat at his desk. He wrote furiously until sunrise; then collapsed into bed in a daze. His boots were still on.

By: Finlay

Quite how Grant E Ruzzell had become this year’s bestselling author was unclear. At school he had been placed in remedial literacy lessons due to the illegibility of his handwriting and his refusal to open any book lacking a nude lady on the front cover. At university he had been scorned by his professors; and voted ‘most likely to believe George Elliot was a man’ by his peers. Undeterred by these ungentle hints, he had regularly graced this noble institution’s student magazines with such classics as, I Whipped a Whore, and I Liked it; and Cocksucker IQ.

Be that as it may, here he was, at the L-Factory™ final (sponsored by Macadam’s fast food) waiting to see whether his own book, or the rival graphic novel Shake It, Babywould be declared this year’s winner. He belched and groped for his pint of Snakebite, lifted it a little too enthusiastically and slopped it over the rubberised gold table cloth, turning the embedded fake diamonds into glittering islands in a sea of gunge. Fucking plastic glasses, he thought. I must write a novel saying how they should get rid of this shit. He plucked a handful of paper towels from a shiny container ambiguously labelled as Serviette’s, and dabbed at the slopping mess. Dough balls, chicken and chips, and fudge cake, said the menu. Amazing what you get for 120 quid, thought Grant.

Next to Grant sat Orlando Wando, the noted crime writer and youngest ever recipient of a Hyper-ASBO, who used to dip his biscuits in his tea and write down all his childhood misdemeanours as they came flooding back, for the titillation of the learned public. Opposite sat Lavinda Lovelace, a former model, credited with taking the S & F genre to new heights of sophistication. At the next table reposed that grandfather of modern literature, Jarrett Spunk-Jones (35), who had rediscovered a lost masterpiece by Daniel Defoe and turned it into the world’s longest comic strip.

A few years ago, Ruzzell’s work would not even have been considered eligible for the L-Factory, or its predecessor, the Booker Prize. But now more stringent criteria had been brought in, including  a 10,000 word limit on nominations, and he was right in the picture, or perhaps more to the point – on the money.

The fact that the reading public had overcome their sensitivity to the finer, and indeed the not so fine distinctions between fact, fiction and journalism also helped; since his works were essentially autobiographical. Notwithstanding the fact that the viler excesses of his characters sometimes passed for fiction among his indulgent fans, almost every plot device was actually a true reflection of his dealings with people he came across.

Against other nominations, such as Me, My Boobs, My New Boobs and Me by LadiBuzzty; Britain’s Worst Haircuts: Pictorial Edition; and How an Abused Child got to be Nearly Famous: A Sob Story, Ruzzell’s luxuriously squalid account of a failed reality TV star having lots of sex while in an expensive rehab clinic was surely in with a fighting chance. It was written in what the critics termed ‘Vernacular English’, and lauded as a great innovation. The true reason for this was that Ruzzell didn’t hold with editors – they always chopped out the best bits. So, unusually, he did all the hard grind for himself; with varying results.

*

After the meal was finished Grant sat rather grumpily through the dozens of lesser awards that came before the dozens of larger awards that came before the prize for which Grant was up. ‘Best screenplay’ was won by A Streetwalker Named Desire, starring Jenna Amundsen.  A bad tempered dwarf with spiky hair and a huge ego was named ‘best talent show judge’. An award for investigative journalism went to one Monsieur Robert Pulp; for his expose of a former shadow home secretary who had failed to turn up to question time and later been found hung upside down in a broom cupboard, wearing a burka, a T-shirt with the slogan ‘He’s not Osama Bin Laden, he’s a very naughty boy’, and crotch-less underwear.

It was all highly tedious to a high-minded author like Grant E Ruzzell. But finally the MC, or rather MCs, the Twinky-Twins from Basingstoke’s Got Talent, moved on to the ‘L-Factory award for accessible literary fiction.’ The nominations were read out, and then the long awaited announcement came, “And the winner of this year’s L-factory literary award…… by Grant E Ruzzell…… A Cold Turkey Named Libido: With Sexy Nurses.”

Thunderous applause.

Ecstatic, Grant staggered onto the platform to make a lurid and carefully prepared acceptance speech which he could now hardly remember. He slumped over the microphone, grinningly stupidly at his audience. Here he was – he had actually made it – he finally had the recognition he deserved!

Grant was so absorbed in the moment, and in his own self-congratulation that he failed at first to notice the old man who came slowly forward out of a dark recess, leaning heavily on a walking frame, and shuffling down an aisle until he stood right in front of the winning author, breathing heavily and pointing a bony finger for attention.

The old man had long grey hair and a pale, deeply lined face. He stooped badly and must have been more than eighty, but he had still the vestige of a commanding presence. Finally Ruzzell noticed him, just as he was about to begin his speech; he started with annoyance.

“Who the fuck are you?” Grant said, aggressively.

“My name is Stephen King” replied the old man.

“Like I say,” said Ruzzell, “who the fuck are you – some journo has-been? Get the fuck out of my way.”

“Once I was a famous writer,” said the man in a soft American accent, “but you wouldn’t know that would you? Not many people do, now. Anyhow, I’ve waited a long time for this. It’s time for you to say goodbye; or as you might say here, hasta la vista, baby.”

With surprising speed the old man pulled something from his coat pocket and pointed it at Ruzzell. There was a bang and Ruzzell flew backwards and landed doubled up at the back of the stage, another bang and the old man fell to the floor. A few scraps of pink gristly substance dripped from the sides of a table nearby. A few moments silence; then pandemonium. Some of the delegates rushed to the assistance of Ruzzell, the rest blundered belligerently towards the body of the old man who now lay prone on the floor, stamping on him and pummelling him with chairs, bottles and anything else that was to hand.

*

The morning papers unanimously led with the story of the attempted assassination of national treasure Grant E Ruzzell by a deranged old man who had somehow entered the building uninvited at the L-Factory finals. The man who, according to the papers, referred to himself as ‘Steve McQueen’ had been shot dead by security guards. Fortunately Ruzzell had suffered only a non-fatal wound to his abdomen and was recovering in hospital, surrounded by his fans. The papers were unanimous in their contempt for the would be assassin, who they accused of pathological jealousy, and even more scathing of the organisers of the event for allowing such an outrage at an event set up to celebrate the crème de la crème of English speaking culture. The prime-minister left his bed in the middle of the night to condemn the attack and described it as, “Not only a cowardly attack on one man, but an assault on our cultural heritage and all that is best in modern artistic endeavour.”

*

Despite his ordeal, after he was released from hospital Grant E Ruzzell went from strength to strength. As he commented to Hi! Magazine, it was as though he had become a martyr but without the inconvenience of actually dying. His newspaper and magazine articles about his experience cheating death gave a perfect platform to promote the sequel to his first novel, and other books in similar vein, and all his works achieved record breaking sales.

For some years after his shooting, when he sunned himself at his Hollywood penthouse, or lay with some anonymous blonde in the Jacuzzi that he had mounted in the rear of his white stretched limo, Grant E Ruzzell frequently wondered who Stephen King really had been, and whether he had really been a famous writer. Surely not – he had looked too old to be famous.

After a while though, the parties and the crack and the stress of the modern celebrity lifestyle drove all such thoughts from his mind. He began to have frequent brushes with the law and regular spells in drying-out clinics, but nonetheless Grant remained one of the most recognised faces on the planet. He had everything he had ever wished for. And most particularly, he had loads of money.