Episode One: The Trail

I.

He was the sort of man that committed three crimes before breakfast.

And, in the end, he was caught.

There are many judges in the world, and all of them can be bribed. As any crimial will know, all judges can be bribed, execpt one. And - would you belive it - our hero was brought before the only straight judge in the world.

The trail commenced, as trails do and, at the end, the judge gave the verdict.

"The facts are plain. You are guilty as hell. And this time it's death. The only thing that could save you is if someone would step in your place. But that wouldn't be even - even Steven. To make things square, we'd have to find someone who has never done anything wrong. Nothing. Not even lied to make thier girlfriend feel more secure about an old pair of trousers. You know anyone that fits that description, boy?"

Our hero couldn't think of anyone that he knew who was perfect, not even the nice old lady next door - to cut a long story short she was a bit of a racist.

"No, your honour." He said. "Lord knows I've tried, but I can't say I've ever found any one who is perfect."

A file was passed onto the judge's desk. He flicked through the pages. And looked down at our hero.

"Well," he said "You may not be able to find the perfect substitute, but looks like we've found one. The only perfect man in the world - and he is willing to take your sentence.

"Not only is this man perfect - his files show that he has never committed a single crime and our 'experts' have found no stain upon his character. Not only that, but he is definitely human - no smoke and mirrors there.

"Now let me make this clear. There is nothing that you can do to save yourself from the punishment you deserve - nothing, except to accept the help of this man, the only man on earth who could pay the penalty for your life. Do you accept?"

And, hardly believing what was happening, our hero did indeed accept.

The sentence was death. The execution was televised.

Justice was done and our hero returned home to celebrate his freedom. He told himself that he would be eternally grateful to this kind stranger and try to follow his example.

But unlike his saviour, our hero wasn't perfect so he ended up commiting only two crimes before breakfast the next day.

To be continued ...

Next time: 'Episode Two: Three Days Later'

'The End' #3

Flash Fiction #3: The End

'The End' - In which a young punk tries to survive in a post-apocalyptic Morecombe...

I went to the end of Morecombe Bay and bought fish and chips. Forgoing the Northerner’s choice of curry sauce, I plumped for the traditional salt and vinegar.

Outside, I leant on the rail as the grease permeated the paper bag and looked out to sea. I thought of the spot where the Chinese cockle pickers died. They were picking cockles and were cut off by the tide. I speared a chip with the little plastic fork and though to California. The wind blew cold specks of ocean into my face.

I was thinking about California because of a band called Rancid. They have many good songs, one is called ‘To the End of the East Bay’. It is about touring with your band, having good times, trying to get signed and the ups and downs of that whole gig. They were considered the real deal: tattoos, shaved heads, Mohicans, leather jackets and studs. I was at the seaside in Lancashire in October – I think that’s pretty punk too: my very own bay experience.

The Bleach Boys, Argy Bargy and 3CR were playing tonight. I loitered outside the old ‘Carleton’ club but I didn’t have a ticket to get in, to tread the sticky floors and sup the suspicious cider. Further down the bay, there was a bunch of underage oiks sheltering in a grafittied bus stop, wrapped in their leather jackets and rollup smoke.
One of them must have a spare ticket, particularly if there was a plastic pint of snakebite on the line, so I stepped out into the road to chance my luck.

Morecombe was like San Francisco in some ways. As Tim Armstrong says: “This ain’t no Mecca – This place is f*cked.”

In Morecombe, the shops were shut, some windows nailed down. The old women wore plastic bags on their heads to protect their curls from the spitting North rain. Bus drivers were mean and only the lonely statue of Eric seemed to smile, immortalised in his skipping dance, waiting for a chance partner and a tourist photo opportunity – perhaps even a “bring me sunshine”. The punks with their cider laughed and said that Morecombe looked like he was moshing.

Flash Fiction #2 - Also called "The End"

The boys thought Grandfather Claude was exciting: he had fought in actual wars and he had medals to prove it. He also had an air rifle that fired metal pellets and he went hunting in the woods. He even killed rabbits for his dinner.
“Did you enjoy the pie?” He asked, when Mum and Jenny, the little sister, were out of ear shot, “got the rabbit myself.”
“Have you killed many rabbits, Grandfather Claude?”
“Oh yes, hundreds, maybe.” He said with a wink.

He had tried taking the boys out hunting with him, but they always made too much noise, squeaking and crashing through the undergrowth, pretending to be tigers.
“We’ll get something one day.” He would always say.

***

One evening, Grandfather Claude was babysitting. After dinner, the boys went up stairs to play with their G.I. Joes and Jenny chose a film to watch. They sat together, Jenny’s tiny body nestled against her grandfather, and the Walt Disney theme tune started. Jenny had chosen a new film called Bambi.
As the deer ran, throwing up clouds of snow and the music rose, he felt her, pressed against him, sensing the crescendo was fatal. She hid her face in his shoulder. Holding his breath, he braced himself against the sofa.
The gun shot thundered.
Pale flakes fell from the darkening sky and, knowing what they hadn’t seen, Claude watched the fawn look for his mother in the white silence. As the music struck a mournful chord, he felt her quiet sobs drop tears onto his shirt. He put his arm around her and watched Bambi walk away, into the blizzard.
“It’s just a story.” He said.

***

As his daughter idly chatted to him, Claude watched the boys playing soldiers in the back garden. He did not drink his tea.
“Grandfather Claude, can we go tracking rabbits in the woods with your rifle today?”
“Well boys, I actually gave that old rifle to Mrs Jones who runs the church jumble sale.”
“What?”
“The truth is, boys, your old Grandfather is getting too ancient to be playing with such dangerous things as rifles. See these hands? Too shaky. It wouldn’t be safe would it?”
The boys, almost in tears, flounced away. His daughter rolled her eyes and followed them into the garden.
With a steady hand, Claude picked up his tea cup and took a sip, thinking of the rifle lying disowned and safe in a dark space in the attic.

Flash Fiction - "The End" - Final Draft

Flash Fiction: ‘The End’ #1

I was walking to school, listening to a live recording of The Doors on my walkman. My older brother made the mix tape.
It was almost “The End” as the great man stepped up to the microphone.
“Hey, mister light man! You’ve got to turn those lights way down!... I’m not kidding – you’ve got to turn those lights way down! ... C’mon!”
I could picture the audience crowded around, a mass of hair, mud and drugged-out haze, gazing up at the main stage, vibing off every word.
There was a pause as, I imagine, the lights remained at their level of obtrusive but professional brightness.
To this the great man said “Ah, wadda we care.”
And he began to sing into my ears as I ascended the stairs to my first lesson.
***
Sitting in English with a pen between my teeth, I listened to my teacher as she recited the monologue from As You Like It, introducing The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s performance of Romeo and Juliet (14 minutes long).
With the feedback of rock ‘n’ roll still ringing in my mind, I thought “If all the world’s a stage, what happens to stage divers?”
Whether that thought was philosophy or Beavis and Butthead, we all dutifully perform our entrances and exits. Some stick in the mind more persistently than others – looking through the collected Shakespeare at school, I found my favourite exit, the exit of Antigonus from The Winter’s Tale: ‘Exit, pursued by a bear’.
But rock ‘n’ roll had the plane crash, drug overdose, murder, heart attack, electrocution (playing guitar in the bath), cancer, pills, drowning, skiing accident, the speeding powerboat, the shotgun.
Shocking, sad and intriguing, but also mysterious. Skatalite and trombone legend Don Drummond allegedly committed suicide while institutionalized in Belle Vue Asylum, Kingston in 1969. Jim Morrison’s fatal heart failure in 1971 is disputed to this day.
***
I saw a black and white seventies picture of his grave. Before his father placed the plaque reading ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ - "according to his own daemon", before Mladen Mikulin brought a bust for the vandals and thieves, before the French officials placed their shield (which was also stolen), there were the monuments.
Hyacinths, rosaries, charms, cigarette butts, cups half full in a final toast, abstract objects of personal value and, finally, his lyrics written in chalk – C’est la fin, mon merveilleux ami – loving tributes made by people that actually “got him”, that may have been washed away by Parisian rain, but if I close my eyes and press “rewind” on my walkman, he steps back into the spotlight.

‘The End’ #2

Introduction
These are stories for artists and creators of work. People might stamp it as finished or beyond hope of resurrection, but the artist’s eye will always look at THE END from a different perspective.

Chapter One
Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1939. The postman called with a large package. It was received by a thin young man with a nose and a sweet disposition, a cartoonist called Antonio Prohias. Antonio politely thanked the postman and took the parcel into the kitchen. He opened it in silence. It was a collection of his drawings, targeted at a prestigious newspaper. It had been returned unopened. Antonio sat looking at this parcel for a long time.
Thirty-two years later, Antonio Prohias finally laid these drawings to rest in a cenotaph for Cartoonist Profiles. His more auspicious, recognised and celebrated creations gathered around the grave to pay their respects to their brother ‘Agapito’ – ‘The Unborn’. They looked like the demons of Bosch and Breugel and they all had inherited Antonio’s nose: El Hombre Sinestro, the Russian Communist Tovarich and Prohias’ legacy to the world, the MAD stalwarts, the Black Spy and the White Spy. No trinitrotoluene, no bullet holes, no intricate weapons of cartoon destruction. Symmetrical arms folded and heads bowed – a momentary reverent armistice.

Chapter Two
Manhattan, New York, 1972. Robert Mapplerthorpe dropped a jar containing an unborn human foetus. Forever scavenging for inspirational “found” objects to use in his art, he got it from an abandoned hospital on Staten Island (which has since been demolished). It slipped from his excited fingers and crashed to the ground. He stood there with formaldehyde splashes on his shoes. With a blank look on his face, he said to his companion, the poet Patti Smith, “You go in. I’ll clean this up.”
...

Flash Fiction: ‘The End’ #1

Chapter One --
The crowd clapped and whistled. The waiting guitar noodled. Over the humdrum a voice is heard.
“Hey, mister light man! You’ve got to turn those lights way down! I’m not kidding – you’ve got to turn those lights way down! ... C’mon!”
The man with the mic waited for the lights to go down. They didn’t. The crowd cheered. A tambourine beat, waiting, waiting.
Seconds passed and the great man said, “Ah, wadda we care.”
And he began to sing.

Chapter Two –
The second part of the story is told by rock journalist Dave Philips. He looks majestic in a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts, like Kaputnik from MAD magazine; horn-rimmed glasses, a corn-cob pipe gripped in his teeth. He clears his throat and lists names into the recorder.

“Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Elvis Presley, Keith Moon, Sid Vicious, Bon Scott, Ian Curtis, John Bonham, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Phil Lynott, Peter Tosh, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Per Yngve “Dead” Ohlin, Johnny Thunders, Freddy Mercury, Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, Frank Zappa, Kurt Cobain, Brad Nowell, Jeff Buckley, Screaming Lord Such, Ian Dury, Kirsty MacColl, Joey Ramone, Joe Strummer, Johnny Cash, Dimebag Darrell, Ike Turner, Michael Jackson, Les Paul, Malcolm McLaren, Ronnie James Dio, Paul Gray, Peter Quaife, and counting ...

“Dramatic, gripping, ripping, bloated, tragic, glorious, death has always ridden the coattails of rock music.

“Plane crashes, drug overdoses, murders, heart attacks, electrocution (by guitar), cancer, drowning, skiing accidents, being mown in half by a speeding powerboat.

“Some are more mysterious. Skatalite and trombone legend Don Drummond allegedly committed suicide while institutionalized in Belle Vue Asylum, Kingston in 1969. Jim Morrison’s fatal heart failure in 1971 is disputed to this day –“
I cut him off there by pressing the STOP button.

Chapter Three --
Thieves first robbed the grave in 1973. In 1981, to mark the tenth anniversary of his death, a bust was erected on the site. This was subject to all kinds of atrocities before being stolen seven years later. Finally, his father placed a flat stone on the grave
that reads ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ - "according to his own daemon".
It has yet to be stolen and it is stuck tight.
Though the hallowed site knows many stories, my favourite is the one when Patty Smith visited in the autumn of 1973. She wrote it so beautifully: Rimbaud on her heart and hyacinths in her hand, following the strings of French graffiti like Theseus to an unmarked grave, reading C’est la fin, mon merveilleux ami in the rain.

Shuffle #1

I won't see you tonight,
falling away from me,
sitting 'round at home.

The short end of the stick,
marching on a dead road,
ever and a day.

Bad Town, shifting Sands;
Hello Again.

SM

On Parade

She stands outside smoking, red
hair cropped like a Futurist painting,

poised like Gavaroche,
Peter Pan, the Artful Dodger,
mistaken for a boy on the bus.

She is always on her guard,
as if I would bite her tongue.

I extend a word forward,
she takes to steps back

into a nicotine attic
and I try to follow her

a bull dancing for a flashing flag.

SM

Ploughman's Lunch

The light dapples his carthouse
muscles as we rest in the shade
of a great oak. There are no clouds;
fields spread out, egg-yellow patches,
ripple in the heat. Unfolding
a pokerdot cloth I hand out lunch.
He is silent as he devotes his
attention to filling his mouth
with the usual harvest fair offered.

He holds a green apple in his coarse
hands etched with scars, flayed
and broken by the biting plough.
His red face is poked with scratches
and the sweat of the sun's scolding.
His body is hard, riveted like a conch,
toughened by molluscan genesis,
as ambition callously encrusted his youth,
to see we were never short of bread.

SM

B Shape

When you sit
your body concertinas.
The soft creases
of your iliac crest,
the bulges of your
latissimus dorsi
(love handles)
flow as if they were painted
by Degas.
I can see Fernado Botero
- Even Lucien Freud -
in your soft abdomen,
The Venus of Willendorf
in your red ochre skin.

SM

Interuptions

After the first offernings of wine
her fingers read my palm.

The curved backs of praying
cutlery reflect the candle light.

Outside our aura we are orbited
by astrobelts of adolescent attendents;
the heavens are waiting
to take our order.

Later, we linger back in the sphere of the star's eye,
rechargin in the centre of the circle.

Suddenly, plates of chicken wings
and fried spaghetti come crashing through the atmosphere
like meteors scattering debris and napkins.

Our environment breaks around us.

Tectonic plates generate an internal stress field,
which ends our foreplay abruptly.

SM

She

She has fed the Finno-Ugric tribes
before the introduction of potatoes.

She has been found in the Nahal Hemel
cave, Israel,
in the tomb of Tutankhamun,
ritually stuffed into the nostils
of Ramesses II,
the eyes of Ramasses IV:

Traces of her have been found in Egyptian urns dating from around 3000BC.

She has travelled the world.

She has been found in Pepys' Diaries
and added to coffee.

The Prophet Mohammed called her a "blessed seasoning".

She is the essence of Cocoa Cola.

Doctors have been known to prescribe her to facilitate
bowel movements and erection, to relieve headaches,
cough, snakebites and hair loss.

She scents garments with the smell of Lebanon,
a scent, legend has it, that could bring breath back to the dead ...

SM

ART! - Pictures up soon

Tumblr is great for finding new artists from around the world.
Such as http://ikenaga-yasunari.com/gallery/5.htm, a Japanese artist that reminds me of Klimt a little bit. Lovely lovely. (Pictures up soon!)

I've also found a wonderfully written blog - http://hauntednonsense.blogspot.com/ - reminds me of Rohan K a flicker of Lovecraft and Burton. All good fun, anyway! What alerted me to Larson's work was his illustration of Batman creeping along a passage way, a spotlight throwing his sillhouette onto the wall elongating his lean form and outstretched tallens a la Nostferatu. Thank you Tumblr! (Pictures up soon!)

And all variety of good things happening here: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/illustration

SM