DEAD
My steps outside the door.
I knock.
You are puking on the duvet.
Don’t answer the door.
I'm dead.
You slide your hands through the puke.
I knock louder on the door.
Don’t answer the door.
I'm dead.
You rest your head in your vomit.
Five days of migraine now.
I'll leave you alone for a bit.
Under your eyes you see them.
All of them me.
All of me them.
All of us die forever.
The cat jumps on the bed and tries to eat the puke.
“Don’t do that, that is no good for you.”
You push him away.
The brown walls.
The shades of dirt.
Closed, red curtains.
Mould under the windowsill.
Glazed mould.
The cat sleeps against your head.
Gas.
Blood.
Mud.
Nothing is nice anymore.
Sleep.
You can't.
Nothing is nice anymore.
Seven days of migraine now.
I knock on the door.
Don't answer the door.
I’m dead.
I don’t want this anymore.
Why do I keep doing this?
This is dirt.
They are dirt.
So are you.
Outside.
Unfiltered.
Unwelcome.
Splodge.
I'm dirt.
I'm dead.
I knock on the door.
Don't answer the door.
I'm dead.
They put you in the X-ray machine.
“You’ll hear back in six weeks.”
You finally feel the effects of your increased dose of anti-depressants.
You take a photo of your vomit on your bed.
It's all yours now.
Your vomit.
Your bed.
You convert every dirt surface into repeat pattern designs.
“This puke will be on all the pretty girls' dresses one day!”
Your cat jumps on the bed.
Your cat's face in the vomit.
He scoffs away.
My steps outside your door.
I knock.
Don’t answer your door.
I'm dead.
Under your eyes you see me die.
My steps outside your door.
I knock.
Don’t answer your door.
I'm dead.
Don't answer me.
You don't answer me.
Am I still here?
You don't answer me.
I'm dead.
It's all yours now.
REPLACEMENT
My replacement is a small, metal box.
“So you are on the out,” emitted the box through its internal speech bulb. “Never mind old man, I’m sure you’ve got some good retirement money saved up.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I’m on a temp contract.”
My fifty-six year old arthritic hands shake.
The box laughs.
“You're a temp? You're kidding me? No one has been on a temp contract for twenty-one years! How long have you been working here?”
“Twenty-two years.”
“What a loser!”
Twenty-two years ago I wouldn’t let the metal box laugh at me. I would have ripped it apart and turned it into an art installation.
“Oh, I see,” said the metal box, tickling through my thoughts. “You’re one of those art failures!”
Emmett Corcoran comes over.
“Thank you for your work over the years,” said Emmett.
He hands me a leaving card.
Emmett is still baggy-eyed and flaccid, but he hasn't aged a day.
“How did you stay the same Emmett? You're not any older?”
“I'm Benjamin. Emmett hasn’t worked here for fifteen years.”
“Tell me how you stayed the same?”
He pushes my hand from his face.
“I'm Benjamin, not Emmett.”
“Would you get security to escort me outside?” I ask. “One last time?”
* * *
Ten minutes later, after I politely leave the building, I look down the once suburban street. The cemetery has been turned into Micromarts and Multicores. A gang of teenage toughs lounge around a laser bench. They are cubed off their faces on Millimax.
“Would you help an old man get cubed?” I ask them.
The ugliest teenager held up a sign:
“SOD OFF PERVERT. EAT, SHIT AND DIE!”
The end credits fall down on my cartoon lies.
JULIUS
"My favourite song is HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" said Julius, eighty-six years old, in his nappy and bib. "Because when we sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY it means it's MY BIRTHDAY!"
NARROW
“My husband is dead from the war,” said Susan.
The conveyor belt of trigger guards rotated in front of Susan. It was her job to polish the trigger guards.
“It’s their fault they are dead,” said Mary.
A bucket full of polished trigger guards in front of Mary. It was her job to put the polished trigger guards into a big bucket.
“My son is dead from the war,” said Amy.
It was her job to attach the trigger guards in the bucket on to some other piece of gun.
“It’s their fault they are dead,” said Mary. “Those Germans!”
* * *
In a school cookery class, teenage girls made Union Jacks with icing on the tops of buns. Young Edna had a tear of pride in her eye. She couldn't wait to give a bun to her sweetheart, Tommy, before he went to war to kill Hitler.
* * *
"You're a traitor to your country Tommy!" declared Captain Britain with a gun pointed at Tommy's head. "Drop those bombs on the Hitler Youth! Or kiss your Kraut loving face goodbye!"
Tommy pressed the button and loads of German babies died.
* * *
Tommy ambled off the boat on crutches. He saw Edna, he waved to her with his hand of only two fingers.
"Tommy!" shouted Edna, fat with baby. "I thought you were dead! I fell in love with an American! He got me pregnant and ran away!"
* * *
Fifty years later, on Remembrance Sunday, Tommy held a little paper flower and thought it meant something. On television, American Idol was on.
"Bloody yanks!"
He screwed up the paper flower in his crusty, old claw.
“Disrespectful,” said the old woman when she read this.
WRITING
Sue Kendall, prize-winning author, stood in front of her creative writing class.
“After reading your stories you have proved to me that all writing is autobiographical.”
A hairy hand popped up, it was Simon Silter.
“But Mrs Kendall!” he said. “I wrote a detective story!”
“You wrote a detective story because you’ve saw detectives on the television.”
“I wrote a time travel story!” said Keith Penfolder.
“You saw time travel on the television.”
“I wrote a vampire romance!” said Menstruating Fat Val.
“You saw vampire romance on television.”
“I wrote an autobiographical account of my parents being killed by death squads, and of how I had to walk all the way to England,” said Abioye.
“You saw death squads on the television. All your stories are just things you’ve seen on television. If all fiction is autobiographical, then your stories have shown me that your lives are about watching television. Your lives are not interesting, therefore not worth writing or reading. I, however, am
