'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.