Cat Dreeam

One moment ago, I was floating above a yellow turtle sitting in a high grass field. I was drinking clouds. Now I appear to be in the kitchen of a familiar house, its surfaces and tiles echo with songs of my youth and moments and faces. I know this room, was I born here?
The floor glistens with vegetable oil and the shaved collective hair of fourteen-year-old drunks. I can hear my mother speak. I turn, searching for her voice, but cannot see her. Yet her voice remains. She is whispering in my ear words of cats and kittens. I don’t quite understand. ‘I am leaving now’ she tells me, and then that is it, nothing more, except the wind clawing upon the windowpane. I turn and stare at the window, it absorbs me, the glass light and the garden outside. Rainbows and butterflies and Tuesdays smoking cigarettes flash across my eyes. I am broken from this drift, by a piercing screech. Bliss broken, knock on wood, there is a cat, sitting upon the breadboard on the kitchen surface. Suddenly my mother’s words leap in figures, of make sense. All of them, all the words that she ever said to me, flash across my temple. Like a goose buried underground, her words stroke my jelly kidney breast, tis a great sanctuary to know what my mother was saying. That is, until the cat jumps at me and begins to chew with great venom upon my white left arm. It hurts like hell, her teeth pierce into my skin deep, blood grows in arms, like turtles in a small boat, and her claws scratch at my face. I fight back, as I have no choice, and pull at her ears, and head, this does not work, it only hardens her commitment to pain. As a last resort, I gouge her eyes. Instantly she withdraws, and with this climb down, she reveals the cause of her bite. In a tumbler glass behind from were she sprang. Lye the fading, crazy eyed bodies of four or five kittens, maybe five. I think it is five. These bodies are limp and it is apparent they would soon become corpses if I do not act quickly. I strike out for milk, it seems the obvious nurture, and I am also standing beside a refrigerator. Grasping the red top glass milk bottle, I pour some into an empty thimble, which I pull from my pocket (for some unknown reason my pocket is full of them) and thrust its drops into the dying child cat mouths. At first this appears to work, and a sense of rejuvenation stirs in the gums of the kittens, even seeping into the air in the room. My fingers gleam. However this quiet is soon broken when the kittens begin shrinking and reducing in size, until they themselves become smaller than the smallest thimbles. With this all happening, the mother decides it appropriate to leap once more upon my arm with her claws and teeth, and then my face. Until I strike her off with five fingers full of thimbles. She bounces onto the floor, and then leaps back up to the surface. I ready my defences, once more, for another brutal assault, but instead of leaping onto me and scratching cut my face and maybe even my eyes. She simply turns her back on me, and pretends to ignore me. This I find very odd, but instead of dwelling upon this, my attention turns instead to the miniature molecule kittens in the glass tumbler, which has now become a petri dish. I leap to the sink, in search of water, with thoughts of growing seeds and plants and people in my head. I fill a jug of water, and pour it upon the tiny dying kitten sperms. This appears to work and they began to grow again. Their mother though still ignores me. However it is lucky she is, because like some kind of magical bean stalk, the kittens begin to burst upward in size, and as they do so does the container and the water level too. Within a matter of seconds, in a large glass tank, taller than me, or anyone I know, float five or four drowning kittens. At this point, helplessness envelops me, and bleak tears swarm the songs of the room. A dead bird falls from the sky outside and splatters into a tree and loss bites my ear, as the glass on the tank breaks and the harpsichord strikes a rainbow bell. The kitchen is filling with water, and giant kittens, for a moment I think I am drowning too, however, as quickly as it rose, the water level subsides, and I breathe once more. The kittens, without this water bed, begin to shrink also, I begin to grasp desperately for a towel and salvation, and a scream leaps from my mouth, whilst the mother still has her back to this scene, and provides no help. My mother is still absent too. Not even her words illuminate the room or dress my ears.
The kittens are still shrinking and struggling for air, despite the lack of drowning. “What do I do?” I scream.
‘This lack of balance strikes me as odd’ I think out loud, and thoughts of smaller water gather on the shore of my mind and offer clarity and hope. Without hesitation, I fill the milk thistle thimble with water, water squeezed from a rock, and pour it into their thirsting mouths. This seems to work, and they begin to breathe again, some of their eyes start to open, and as this happens, the room suddenly turns yellow and light and feather, the mother turns to look at me, a wry cat smile graces her face, and then the room melts and I am once more in a field, though a different place than the one before, there is a strong air smell of red.

The Goblin

It was 4am on a January Sunday morning in Bristol. The birds were slowly awakening in their nests and fumbling for light switches. The city streets were silent, albeit for sporadic clusters of drunks and tramps and milkmen. A haggle of women were vomiting up the evening delirium, on a nearby kebab shop window, whilst the owners looked on tired eyed and despondent. Meanwhile, Kingslington Jenkin, was busy awakening an entire block of flats, pressing each button, with a detailed drunken stupor of precision, and shouting incoherent obscenities at the poor souls, who dared to answer him. He did not care, he did not live here.
On Anstom road, two men were approaching each other. Philip Graem, was returning from one of the best nights of his life; he had been out with a lady, for dinner and then onto a hip hop club for an evening of dancing. Although many people would consider this to be the description of a regular night out for them, one has to understand Philip’s situation. Phillip was thirty years old and 4 foot tall. He was what the some people may refer to as a midget. However he preferred the term ‘vertically challenged, but willing to aspire to greater heights.’
It was not often he would meet women, never mind, one so wonderful as Rebecca Sleep. He had only ever slept with one other women; having lost his virginity in an East Bristol brothel through loneliness and curiosity when he was twenty three. It was an experience which he had from the very moment after ejaculation, forcefully attempted to erase. I will reveal little else of this experience, except that she had been a monster of a women, 18 stone, and had insisted upon calling him ‘china cup’ throughout intercourse.
Rebecca, on the other hand, was everything he had ever desired, she was intelligent and beautiful and saw past his midget status and deep into his heart. They had met only, a few days ago, yet had already declared their love for each other. And tonight , she had invited him back to hers after dancing, with a plan for a night of passion, but he had played the perfect gentleman and refused on the grounds that he wished to be completely sober, when they do make love for the first time, so that he will remember it forever.
Rebecca, thought this was an extremely beautiful sentiment, and it had made her love him even more than she already did. She was currently sleeping dreamily, wrapped in her satin sheets and smiling.
Philip was now also heading home to bed, with his mind whirling yellow and red and purple with deep pleasure; for so many years, he had felt unloved and had longed for someone to share his life with, and now, he had finally found her, and she loved him too! Carried away by this thought, he clicked his heels high in the air in celebration.
Approaching Philip, was Henry Truffleton, or ‘Truffle’ as he was known to his friends. Truffle had been out all weekend, and had been involved in some serious debauchery. It had begun in the usual way, with the gang convening at the Prune and Wall at around 8pm, and after a few drinks in celebration of the weekend freedom which sat firmly in front of them, they drove forth into town, and eventually to the Pillingkrunk for a night of most pleasurable techno house. A few pills dropped, a couple of drinks spilt, and some outrageous dancing then ensued, until the very early hours.
He had awoken early Saturday morning, on a couch at a house he did not recognise, surrounded by people he did not know. Slipping an unopened bottle of red wine up his jacket sleeve, he stealthily slipped out the door and into the white wine light of daytime. Saturday, was his favourite day of the week, a full day of obliteration!
And after a few minutes of confused wandering, he soon began to recognise where he was and realised he was not at all far away from Giles’ flat. Ten minutes later, he was sitting on Giles’ couch, a cup of tea in his hand, and a spliff being passed over to him by a skinny teenage Moroccan woman called Ula. He toked deeply upon it, and held it in, allowing it to soothe his early morning head. After a few minutes of sitting and gazing and thinking, he then pestered Giles for some breakfast. Giles replied with a Sausage on toast, which he wolfed down in seconds, and then swiftly cracked open the wine. Today was to be the big one. They were to head over to Graham’s quite soon, for an afternoon acid and mushroom session; which they had been planning for weeks. The vague plan after this was to head towards Psychokick; a local psychedelic trance night, for an evening of comfy seats and mind altering explorations. This was were Henry was returning from, as he approached Phillip on the early morning street.
Just over an hour ago, Henry had run away from his friends; he had considered them to be plotting against him. It had been around midnight, when he had first spotted the conspiring nose twitches they were making to each other across the table, and at the first opportunity which had presented itself, he had fled from the club. His jeans were currently soaking wet up to his knees, as he had spent the last half an hour standing in a nearby stream and listening. The stream had soothed him, its late night flow had whispered calm words and he now felt much happier and at ease. The nightclub frame of mind banished, as he walked jovially home. Henry was giggling to himself and muttering words, whilst with his expanding eyes he surveyed the clouds; they had become a palette of swirling colour, vibrations and light; blue mixed with yellow and pink and white, and if he tilted his head at different angles, the world around him changed with each movement. As he was performing these actions, he heard a noise call into his ears from close by, his eyes panned down immediately towards the pavement in front of him, and as they did, he saw something jump up high into the clouds, click its heels and return magically to the ground. It was a goblin, he was certain of this. Because as he had been clambering down through the woods, toward the river, after fleeing the club, the trees had shouted out ferocious warnings to him, that goblins, may be in the area tonight. Yet his time in the river had soothed his mind, and he had quickly forgotten. That is until this moment. Without hesitation, he let out a piercing scream, beat his fists on his chest and ran at a great pace toward the goblin. As their bodies clashed, momentum was victorious and Henry, having taken it by surprise, now held the goblin pinned to the floor. He positioned his knees upon the goblins chest and shoulders, yet still the goblin tried to squirm loose, and as he did, Henry yelled, ‘ye shall not perform a magical ruse upon my watch!’ and began to plunge his fists deep into the goblins tiny face, until it did not squirm anymore.
It had taken Henry over an hour to reach his flat, it should only have taken him fifteen minutes, but he did not normally have to make use of trees as cover and carry a goblin upon his shoulders. As soon as he reached the sanctuary of his third floor flat, he put the unconscious goblin into the bathtub, locked the bathroom door, from the outside, and raced into the kitchen in search of rope and tape. Henry, was not the sort of person, who owned much rope, he was not the outdoor type. Instead, he improvised, using belts and ties and scarves to chasten the goblin’s magical hands and treacherous feet, and using masking tape he silenced its putrid mouth. He then transported the goblin into the hallway, and skilfully using his left foot he opened the door beneath the stairs. He threw the goblin inside, and as he did, it clattered into his golf clubs and a pair of old speakers as it fell into the darkness of the cupboard. He then firmly shut the door, and moved the TV cabinet from the lounge into place, so that blocked the doorway. After positioning it flush to the wall, Henry stepped back, took a deep intake of breath, and said, ‘there you go evil being, you shanty be drawing upon the powers of daylight to use your magic upon me’.
Satisfied, with himself, Henry withdrew his army to the kitchen, for the next stage of the battle; sustenance. An hour later, he awoke standing up, but with his head lying on the kitchen work surface, to a horrendous banging noise which emanated from beyond the kitchen door. He recovered his memory, and recalled the Goblin and rushed instantly into the Hallway. However, it not the stair cupboard door, from which the banging was stemming from, but from his own front door. As he opened it, he was greeted by two anxious looking faces and four blood red eyes, whom he remembered as Giles and Graham. They were staring at him oddly, their eyes were bulging blossom, and strange sounds were springing out of their mouths in a fantastic rainbow of colour, which touched his face, soon there hands were also touching his face, and this confused him. He panicked and attempted to shut the door. But they forced themselves in, and as they did this he fell to the floor. As they picked him up, he noticed that the space in which his head had lay, was now covered in droplets of rouge snow and black letters. They took him to the lounge, and placed him upon the sofa. The one he recognised as Giles, left the room, and then almost immediately returned with a bucket and a sponge, with which he began to dab his forehead with. As he squeezed the sponge into the bucket, red ribbons dispersed across the room, and he had to cover his eyes, so they couldn’t get in. Giles and Graham kept speaking in words which he could not comprehend, their words were simply vibrations of light and air which would spill from their facial orifices and flower throughout the room. Because of this, he was unsure as to whether they would be able to understand him, but he thought it only right to warm them of the Goblin. As soon, as he mentioned the word, he noticed their complexions change. Fearful images appeared upon their faces, and he knew they understood. They had both stepped back, and were again staring at him oddly, the same as they had been when he had answered the door. Nevertheless, he continued to explain ‘The goblin wanted to use his magic on me, but I caught the nasty creature before he could, I’ve tied him up good and tight, he’s in my cupboard’. Immediately Giles rushed out of the room, and a minute later, was to be heard, screaming from the hallway, and without delay, Graham rushed out to join him.
Observing this, Henry instantaneosly jumped up from the sofa, shrieking the words ‘Goblin! Goblin!’ and rushed out toward his friends. However, he was met at the door by Giles, who forced him back into the room and shut the door. Henry, was left alone inside the room. There were many horrific noises coming from outside the door, and he tried to open it again, but something once more held it closed. ‘Perhaps, the Goblin has locked it whilst he eats my friends’ Henry contemplated momentarily, before reconsidering, ‘perhaps there all in it together, and they are going to eat me.’. This second notion sent Henry into a panic, and he began to run in circles around the room. He heaved at the door, again still no use, he kicked the door, he kicked the wall, he knocked over some photos. His mind was growing increasingly anxious, he was sweating profusely, and his body had begun to spasm with fear. His face was a bruised plumb. He could see no alternative, and without hesitation ran straight toward the window, a few feet away from it he leaped, and as the glass shattered around him, he felt the fresh air kiss his face. He was free, and as he fell to ground he screamed in delight ‘No goblin get me! No goblin

Moleman

It was 10 am on a scarlet frosted weekday morning, as a man wearing a fluorescent yellow jacket shuffled out of his house. He wore a chain of keys around his neck, which serenaded the morning with a fresh chime. Stopping for a moment and gazing upward toward the sky, his tiny eye was pierced by the sunlight, and he smiled. His day had begun.
It was an hours walk into the centre of town, ‘you would be quicker on the bus’ many would advise him, ‘especially with those little legs’. Yet, these words did not interest him, he enjoyed the walk, it awakened his body.
He strolled by the river‘s edge, with his precious tartan hold-all bag clasped tightly within the stubby fingers of his left hand, and took great delight, in listening to the voices of the river air. After a few minutes of walking along the riverside he crossed the road and passed the newsagents on the corner of the hill, by Abraham Park. He exchanged a respectful nod with the shop owner, as they both had always done, and probably always would.
The park had forever been a steep testing, stepping climb which many locals avoided. They would instead take the longer route; the road which winds gradually around the hill. But not him, no certainly not him, he thrived upon the ecstasy of this muscle firming thrust.
Spring, Winter, Autumn or Summer, he willingly engaged in it, enthralled each and every time by the nature surrounding his hands and feet and eyes and hands. Sometimes he would stop to kneel down and smell the sweet summer grass, occasionally he would bend over and feel the textures of a fallen crushed acorn and often he would devour the taste of the trees. About half way up lay a park bench, and inscribed on it were the words ’In memory of Keeble Volans 1888-1907’ however, this held little significance to him, in fact I doubt he had ever even read it. Yet he had sat on this bench, every day , sunshine or whoring rain, for over thirty years. Even in the days before the monkeys had came. When he had been a strapping six foot tall, young man of twenty years old, with flowing blonde locks. He would sit here and look out across the park and pull faces at the clouds. Whilst now at the tender age of fifty three and with an eagle bald head and soup spoon legs, he still gained great delight in doing this. He would sit and make the most gruesome of faces applying his hands to his nose and turning it into a snout, stretching his eyes into bloodshot positions and wiggling ferociously his tongue, growling, grating and shouting obscenities as he did. On many occasions passers by would simply gawp at this oddness and quickly shuffle onwards. However sometimes, an inquisitive soul would wander through this scene of madness and ask of him, ‘why are you doing that?’ to which he would always reply ‘have you ever pulled faces at the clouds?, if you do, they pull them right back at you’.
He would usually do this for ten minutes or so, dependent on the weather and the clouds moods and imaginations that particular day, and would then tightly grasp his tartan bag, and begin the final ascent. It was generally during this section of the climb, approaching the summit, in which he would begin to hear the monkeys. On rare occasions he would make it all the way into town and back, before would he hear their violent call. On these days he would arrive home with romantic comedies, tubes and tubes of Smarties, and plastic bottles filled with tremendously fizzy drink, tucked inside his hold all. Having spent the day talking to strangers in shops, and on the street discussing the delights of invisible celebrity weddings, the echoes and the disbelief he held over his friend David’s spending habits.
Yet today, when he was a little over ten or eleven steps away from the bench, the monkeys clasped open his miniature head and climbed inside. The haranguing had begun, and this sent him into a terrible rage. His tiny eye began to shuffle about irrationally, and with his right hand he would attempt to reach towards it, and scrape the irritant. This was always the first stage, soon he would have to warn people about them.

Ten minutes had passed and the monkeys were everywhere now. He needed to be amongst people, he needed to be indoors, he needed some fresh horror. He trundled down the cobbled lane, which links the park, to the main high street as fast as his tiny legs would take him. The wind was picking up, the birds had ceased to sing and his chest was convulsing as he reached the end of the lane. He turned the corner, and had to leap sideward to dodge an unexpected tramp seated on a step. At the sight of this the tramp stood up and raised his hands skyward as if mimicking one of those golf sale sign men, cackled wildly and shouted words. Who knows why. He did not have time to ponder this, and neither do we. After scampering across the road in between a vehicle and a taxi, he leaped upon the kerb. The little man stood bending over, his hands clasped to his legs and began to pant, the keys around his neck panted too, in tune with his breath. He had reached the charming electric doors of the department store. After this moment of regaining his composure and with his breath renewed, he ventured inside.

He immediately headed upstairs, in search of the DVD section. He could still hear the faint murmurings of monkey taunts. He needed horror films. Feeling his way toward the horror section of the DVD bay, he grasped hold of the first film that popped into sight of his tiny eye ‘Headless Virgin Chainsaw Hotel’ and turned back the way he came in, and descended the stairs, his tiny eye all the time fixed upon the pay desk. Reaching the till, he plopped his selection down for the pay boy to scan through, and pulling his envelope full of coins out of his florescent yellow overcoat, he began the purchase of the film. Whilst involved in this action of payment, he decided it only appropriate to warn the boy about the monkeys, and from his small childlike vimto and steak incrusted lips fell the words ‘they did though didn’t they’. The boy stared back blankly, so he began again ‘those monkeys, stealing your money’, adding a cackle, because he was overawed in satisfaction by what he knew. The boy still stood silent, and looked half intimidated, half confused. Then he made a third attempt ‘but they did though, didn’t they,’ a pause, ‘we know though don’t we’, this time adding hand movements and facial gestures. The boy still stood silent. The till clicked into life, and the uncomfortable boy handed the odd man his receipt. The man giggled and motioned to leave, yet as a last attempt to warn the child, he whispered the words ‘those monkeys, those monkeys’, placed his film into his bag and headed towards the exit of the shop. However, as he was about to leave, his eye was caught by some piece of retail tack, which hung around the front of the till area. He stopped in his tracks, and stared closely at the object, which appeared to be a set of Lord of The Rings top trump cards. He began to feel around in his jacket pocket for something. A smile pierced his small face, and he pulled from his pocket a battered blue notebook and biro. He then leaned onto a disused till counter, opened his book and scrawled the words; Money, Goat, Strange Monkey, Hilda. Ensuring he paused between each word and stared to the sky in deep thought. Then he returned the book to his pocket and headed for the exit.
As soon as he left the sanctuary of the store, he could here their voices echoing strong and virile. This was in spite of the ever flowing stream of traffic and city centre chaos, which surrounded him. Although he was fearful, the warmth of the shop, the film in his bag, the moment spent consorting with the boy and the writing of words in his book had renewed his energy. He rubbed his tiny fingers upon the keys which hung upon a chain around his neck and let out a faint smile. He felt confident, and able to take on the sewers once more.
He began to walk, and was soon shuffled along the bustling city streets with everyone else, passing stores and shoes and supermodel children at a thunderous pace. At exactly the right moment, he pushed his way through to the edge of the crowd and fell off it, into a side alley. He squatted down, next to one of several rubbish bins and drew his breath. The alley was a red wine dark and quiet in comparison to the hectic street just a few feet away. All he could hear was the sounds of water dripping down the sodden alley walls and the faint muffled movements of vermin, to which this alleyway was their abode. He removed his fluorescent yellow jacket and placed it into his hold-all, ‘don’t want to give you monkeys any helping hand’ he whispered toward the passing crowd. He then fastened up his bag and began to rub his fingers upon what he called his ‘lucky charm‘, the Coca Cola American football blazer he had once been given by a kind purple stranger, which he always wore. He then shut his eyes, and focused upon the job in hand. The sound of the monkeys was growing stronger and more distasteful every second, it echoed of the alley walls, mixing with the reverberations of dripping water and formed a waterfall of virile monkey chants which gushed toward his face. He grasped for the chain of keys around his neck, skilfully pulled one off and jabbed it into the ground. As he turned the key, a slight yet significant click was to be heard, followed by the sound of a very small man, heaving and straining to lift open a sewer door. A passing child saw this action unfold, and pleaded with her mother to return to the alleyway they had just past. At her daughter’s persuasion they revisited the alley were the girl claimed she had seen a small vole like man pulling open a sewer door. Yet, all that was to be found was an empty alleyway, abandoned except for a couple of rats.

The sewers underneath the city were a maze of sanguine concrete walls, metal pipes, darkness and water. Rat brown water. The stench was horrific, an amalgamation of human waste, vermin and sour dairy products which penetrated your nostrils within seconds of inhalation. However, this did not effect him, as he had no sense of smell. This was due to the countless hours he had spent in the sewers. However, what did strike fear into him, was the shrieking of monkey voices, which he heard echoing off every wall and pipe, from all directions. Nonetheless, this man, knew the sewers like no-one else. Since the monkeys had first appeared, he had been coming down here and had yet to be caught. He knew many routes home. After walking silent footed for over ten minutes, he stopped for a moment. Shifting his weight onto his right leg and grasping a metal pipe with his right arm, he bent down, dipped his left thumb into the putrid murky water and let out a small eek of wind. He then stood back up, firm on both legs and held his ear to the wall. He sensed the monkeys all around him now, there cries reverberated off every surface. Time was running out, he decided his only option was to hide, wait for them to pass, and then attempt another route. Luckily, he knew of just the spot, a disused shaft, which was no more than ninety steps away. He had once hidden in there for over seventeen hours, during a particularly close shave. A memory in which he did not like to immerse himself in. The shaft had been unused since the 1920’s, when the city had revamped it’s sewerage system, and replaced all the waste shafts with piping. It was a minute 4 foot by 3 foot, of decaying urine soaked metal, yet he managed to position himself inside it quite comfortably, even deploying his bag as a pillow. His skill of positioning enabled him to be completely hidden from the walkway underneath, and he lay there clasping his bag and focusing upon his breathing. The sound of monkeys grew rapidly louder. In little more than three minutes since he had concealed himself within the shaft, the shrieking orchestra of sandpaper sounds, had developed into a horrific blood thirsting mesh of noise and euphoria. He closed his eyes, crossed his fingers and hoped he would not be found. The sounds were directly underneath him now, ferocious and coarse, it felt as though his ears were bleeding with fear. The shaft began to rattle with the force of a thousand enraged monkeys, he could feel its support straining. His body began to inwardly spasm with panic, he desperately grasped hold of the chain of keys around his neck, in an attempt to silence their fearful shivering. He shut his eyes, it was horrifyingly dark, he could feel the bolts on the shaft loosening under the pressure. Tears streamed from his eyes, he began to concede that this was it, that it was over. He accepted defeat and awaited the end. But it never came, the shaft held firm, and the noise and the voices and the screams were growing increasingly distant, and soon became nothing more than a distant rumble upon his aching head. He rested for an extra ten minutes, to regain his energy and ensure the monkeys had definitely passed. Then stealthily he dropped down from the shaft and landed upon his feet with an expert precision. After observing the area around him was monkey free, he cupped his ear to the wall and listened. He could still hear their screaming virile sounds, however now they were much further away. He considered the situation, and decided that his best option was to take a route in the opposite direction from the monkeys, ‘could be an ambush, if I follow them’, he thought, as he turned away from their sound, and began to walk. This route, although much longer than the other, was proving to be safer. He had been walking for over forty minutes and the monkeys remained a fearsome yet distant tremor upon his ears. He stopped for a moment and felt the wall, ‘one exit away, not far now’ he whispered to himself, ‘must not be complacent, must not be complacent’, and pushed onwards at the same stealth steady pace. When the exit was not more than two hundred metres away, he ground to halt again. Something did not seem right, he could sense it, and once more he pressed his ear to the wall. Still, the monkeys sounded little more than a vague murmur of screams far away, yet he was certain he could feel something. He began to edge slowly towards the exit, he took one step, he look around, nothing. He took another step and looked around again, still nothing. However it was as he took a third step that he heard it, a rapid wave of piercing, gut wrenching screams, which dove deep into the dark recesses of his mind, causing his whole body to quiver and contract in panic. Without hesitation he dashed for the exit. The noise was gaining on him, yet he was almost at the ladder, and he jumped for it, desperately grabbing hold of it and hoisting himself up onto the first few rungs. He scrambled up as fast as his arms and legs could. The screams were gaining, yet he was now at the top, and could feel the cold iron of the metal gate which concealed his freedom upon his hands, and he pushed. The noises were now directly below him, coming up the shaft at an incessant pace, horrific shrieks, grunts, screams and howls vibrated up the exit shaft. He pushed again, this time harder, his muscles contorting underneath the weight of the metal, sweat was pouring from his face, his whole body ached and strained. Then with one last mighty effort, it opened up, a world of blinding light filled his eyes, and he clambered out onto the road. The noises were almost at the top of the shaft now also, throbbing and scratching at his ears. However, with what little strength he had left he somehow managed to jam the lid firmly into the hole. Immediately he clambered to his feet and picked up his tartan bag and ran towards home. Soon he was at the bottom of his road, but he could still hear the voices, even though they were now muffled screams beneath a metal gate. He was now outside his house, he turned in and ran up the driveway, and once again reached for the chain around his neck, skilfully pulling the key to his door off it and placing it into the keyhole. Once inside, he bolted the door and without delay scampered into the living room. Next he turned on the DVD player and TV, unzipped his bag, pulled out his recently purchased film, and thrust it into the player, whispering the words ’ fresh horror’ as he pressed the play bottom. Immediately the room began to shake with the insanity of the volume of the film. Yet he could not hear it. He leaned back and found himself in the loving caress of his favourite armchair. Then he turned his head and gazed out of the window, through his little eye, towards the sun, which was now slow in descent, and he began to laugh.

Go Forward

'Go forward' she said in the turn of a song,a whisper flisping from her mouth in trickles of early morning clearings.
I lay there still and said nothing. My silence a clsap upon the room.
The wallpaper began to rot and i began again to mouth words until slowly noises of voices
came out, but none of them were mine.
The things that were said i will not mention. They were unpleasant. Let me leave it at that.
The room echoed under this thunder.
But she was not shaken at all by this, until at the voices subdued and again i fell silent beneath the tears of this situation.
She stood up and moved towards the window. Staring at some object far away.
As she stared every cavern, every crook, every shadow within the room began to ramble and ripple with the words 'go forward'
building into an insatiable soundscape creschendo of confusion, that i could neaither withstand nor withdraw from.
Sweat poured from my eyes. Blanching my skin in a sultry bleach, which spread all over my body,and all over the bed.
And still, throughout all of this she stood still at the window, staring outward, her body unmoving.
Silence filled the room, my sweat ceased to pour and she turned from the window to face me,
and mouthed the words...'go forward'.

The Generator

Choices. Answers. Problems.
The mind drips.
Loin cloths and surrender follow me across lawns
and down side streets in a chorus
of untaming, unfashionable silouettes,
composed of thunder.

Rain it falls.
Rain it addresses.
Rain it falls.

I hang myself upon your words,
upon the words i was too scared to say.
To shy to say.
In each moment
i slip further away from you.

Choices. Answers. Problems
Solutions?
Tomorrow, after sleep, perhaps.

Toast

It was cold outside. It had been for days.
The wind chiselled away at the world. The trees were frozen stiff.
They had nothing to say. Snow poured down.
Amongst the cold, a man walked; a small black dot on a white horizon.
He was making his way towards a small shack that stood on a nearby hill.

Eventually he reached the shack. He opened the door. He shut the door.
The land of snow rested, silent except for the sound of the wind.
After a while smoke appeared; drifting out from the chimney of the shack.