CompletelyNovel.com
Unit A3, Masterlord Industrial Estate
Leiston, Suffolk
IP16 4JD
www.completelynovel.com
ISBN: 978-1-84914-000-3
CompletelyNovel.com Launch Anthology
And now for something completely different...
First published 2008 by CompletelyNovel.com
This selection and introduction copyright © CompletelyNovel.com, 2008
All short stories copyright of the authors.
The Barman and the Gargoyle © Keira L. Dickinson
Dream Machine © Amanda Weeks
Imagine Nation © Mark Spencer
Losing My Voice © Ania Leslie-Wujastyk
Out of Office Reply © Damien Warburton
Penelope © Rhys Griffiths
The Psychiatrist and the Pea © Ally Crockford
Quite Unlike Hepburn © Rob Stringer
Slow Life © R. M. Morrison
The Society of Noncommittals © Alistair Daniel
The Secret of the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for One © Michael Forester
The Change © Michael Forester
The moral rights of all authors have been asserted.
Contents
The Barman and the Gargoyle 9
Keira L. Dickinson
Dream Machine 21
Amanda Weeks
Imagine Nation 29
Mark Spencer
Losing My Voice 39
Ania Leslie-Wujastyk
Out of Office Reply 51
Damien Warburton
Penelope 57
Rhys Griffiths
The Psychiatrist and the Pea 67
Ally Crockford
Quite Unlike Hepburn 75
Rob Stringer
Slow Life 85
R. M. Morrison
The Society of Noncommittals 93
Alistair Daniel
The Secret of the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for One 101
Michael Forester
The Change 107
Michael Forester
Foreword by Members of the Society of Young Publishers (SYP)
Long schedules, a hundred-and-one sets of proofs and booking paper for printing months in advance – these are just some of the things you come to expect in publishing. So when CompletelyNovel asked us to produce a book from concept to print in two months, we smiled politely at them, as one might at someone whose sanity was slightly in doubt, and chuckled condescendingly. As it happened, after ten phone calls and a lunch meeting, trying painstakingly to get them to see exactly how tricky it would be to squeeze the customary nine months for production alone into just one month, not to mention the year or so before that on concept and writing, it was CompletelyNovel’s turn to chuckle:
SYP member: “So, if we get the manuscript compiled by this date, we’ll then need the first set of proofs by... oh... oh... ok no first proofs. So we’ll need the second proo... oh... ok no proofs at all. Right. Err... so we’ll need to get the text design sorted by... oh you’ve already got that? Just upload the manuscript? That’s it? Right, but we’ll need to allow time to set the manuscript into the text design, so that’ll be at least two wee... oh... ok... right, you’ve got a template? So we just upload the manuscript into the template? Well, we’ll need to contact the printers... oh right you do that too. So we just upload the manuscript... and print. And that’s it? Ah, right. Well, now we feel a bit silly.” [polite chuckles all round].
So that’s how we did it – a brilliantly simple process which has really challenged our traditional views of how publishing has to be done. In a publishing world that’s become more and more slick and technological by the day, we were quick to discover that CompletelyNovel’s finger was well and truly on the pulse of change.
However, all of us have to agree that we couldn’t have put together this anthology without the help of all the untapped talent that sent in their stories for the competition itself. It has shown what an astounding level of skill, imagination and innovation is out there, lying unpublished and unshared. Thanks to CompletelyNovel, this could all be about to change.
Enjoy!
SYP members: Alan Crompton, Amy Jackson, Jo Godfrey, Kate Hind, Kate Walker, Claire Williams and Kate Leech.
With special thanks to:
Amanda - for her invaluable role in the selection process.
Charlotte Dobbs - for all her hard work on the cover.
Introduction by Amanda Leduc, volunteer for CompletelyNovel
A good short story is like an appetizer – it whets the palate and gets the mind focused on the next course in line. It offers a taste without being overwhelming, a chance to sample new fare that can intrigue and delight and inspire an entirely new fascination with the work of a particular writer. It is a literary meal in miniature, and when done well can pave the way into a new writer’s mind in much the same way as a good antipasti both complements and offers hints of the meal to come.
I love appetizers. More and lots and different is my eating motto – why always go with the main course when you can pick away at appetizers at your leisure, slowly filling your plate with all manner of different things?
In fact, more and lots and different is a great recipe for many things besides food. So when CompletelyNovel decided to put together an anthology of short stories, linked together by the theme ‘And now for something completely different,’ I jumped at the chance to help with the editing. The other members of the CN team might have thought my appetizer metaphor a little strange, and the fact that I often read the stories in the company of a good batch of bruschetta or stuffed olives even stranger. But what better way to discover new, untapped talent than through working at the helm of such an innovative collection?
Short stories are wonderful ways for authors to try out new things. They are also immensely important, both for their inherent innovation and simply because they’re often the first vehicle for new writers to try out their literary voice. When your size is limited, you have to employ all of the tools at your disposal to ensure that every single word counts. So really, once an author has mastered the short story, they’ve mastered a great deal about writing in general.
CompletelyNovel will provide lots of new opportunities to highlight and share the unsung talent of the writing world as a whole. Using the tools offered by CompletelyNovel to produce a short story collection seemed like a great way of serving up a taster of the kind of collaboration, creativity and diversity that the service will encourage.
And so, after an intense period of editing, we have our anthology. Each of the twelve stories in this collection seizes the ‘new and different’ theme with gusto – from a new take on an old tale to a sun hung like a fat ol’ orange, no two stories are remotely similar. Every story is an appetizer that whets the palate for more. Together, they are an absolute feast.
Thanks must go, of course, to the team at CompletelyNovel, whose vision and dedication made this anthology possible. And thanks must also go to those members of the Society of Young Publishers, who gave up many a night to deliberate over our hard-chosen shortlist. But most of all, thanks to all of the participants, for sending us the best of what you have. Each submission challenged my idea of the short story in some way, and left me eager to read on. Reading them all was an absolute pleasure, through and through.
Congratulations to all, and I hope you enjoy our literary feast as much as we do!
Amanda Leduc
The
Barman and the Gargoyle
Keira
L. Dickinson
Two different women walked into the same bar and the one who should have been hit over the head with a gargoyle was not, and the one who shouldn’t, was.
*
Woman 1 went to a street where a parade was being held for scouts. Her husband was the leader of one of the ‘troops’. It was filled with eight year old boys in khaki who wanted to light fires. She brought a camera with her, as requested, and climbed the bridge that overlooked the street where they stood.
“Honey!” Her husband called up, waving.
Woman 1 took his picture and flinched as a child next to her hit her with a stick.
“Get all of us in!” he shouted to her, gathering his scouts.
She took a few more shots. Then the parade began, and the mass of children drifted away beneath her.
“Can you hold this for me?” said a man to her right. He passed Woman 1 his baby.
She watched as he turned and left, weaving through the crowd and out of sight. She looked down at the child, who was bawling.
“Hello” she said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Did that man just give you his baby and walk off?!” asked the mother of the child who’d hit her with a stick.
“Yes,” said Woman 1, “but I expect he’ll be back.”
The mother looked at her strangely. She bent over the baby.
“It’s a gypsy.” she said.
Woman 1 shrugged, “It’s just a baby.”
The mother took the hand of her own brat and left without another word. Soon Woman 1 was the only one left on the bridge.
*
Woman 2 went to three colleges before she found her niche. It was in the cinema at night-time, swarming with French students who smoked heavily and wore the kind of clothes you saw on circus people, just done up a little. She remembered those days, especially now that she’d married a man on a boat who bathed in orange juice instead of milk.
“Milk,” said Woman 2 frequently, “kept my Grandmother alive for a hundred and ten years.”
Woman 2 and her man made love on the front of his boat the night of their wedding. Some of the guests were still on the deck. Woman 2 remembered shouting during the climax, and her man grabbing her around the waist making it last a long time. They stayed in exactly the same position until the sun came up. By that time the guests had fled. The air was still and dewy. Woman 2’s man looked down at her with the orange glow behind him and they knew they had made their first child.
Orange juice baths became Woman 2’s moments of reflection. She bathed in them so regularly insects were quite attracted to her. They seemed to sail over to the boat on endless driftwood from shores all over the world. Woman 2 and her man were forever pouring seawater into the piles of these insects in an effort to get rid of them.
One Sunday, during a particularly bad infestation, Woman 2 was bent over some ants about to empty a bucket over them, when a bucket of her own broke inside her, and gallons of orange-tinted water splashed down between her legs, killing the ants in a form of birthing ecstasy.
*
Woman 1 stood on the bridge holding the abandoned baby. She couldn’t tell whether her talking was calming it down or making it worse. An old man walking across the bridge scowled at her as he walked past.
“It’s not mine!” she told him, “I’m waiting for its father.”
Woman 1’s own husband was disentangling his scout troop from strings of flags many streets away. Darkness was closing in. The parade had finished and according to one mother, “the parade had gone on too long!”, but Woman 1’s husband was too busy sorting out lost jerseys and didn’t answer her. His own jersey Woman 1 had made him, in one of her long sittings by the fire with nothing to do. She made it out of wool, dyed red, and in huge gatherings around his neck that were becoming loose, like his own skin, with age. Where was Woman 1 now? Woman 1 was not late usually. She got that from her father. He ran a pub in the city, and had done since her birth, with the clockwork of a clock, never keeping the doors open past eleven. Woman 1 would have liked to work in the pub. But she was always tired; her body was not strong enough for work.
“I’m going to take you to my father,” said Woman 1 to the baby.
Down the alley, the pub was quieter than usual. When Woman 1 walked in, the only man in there turned his head, winked, and went back to his pint.
“Dad?” Woman 1 called into the bar.
“Hullo!” Her father, The Barman, enormous and jolly, stepped out from the backroom.
“By jove that’s a good looking baby!” he boomed.
The baby had stopped crying, probably out of shock.
“It’s not mine!” Woman 1 quickly reassured her father. “I wondered if you could heat some milk up for it?”
“Certainly” said The Barman, and asking no questions, got straight to it. As he mixed some whisky into the milk, Woman 1 explained what had happened.
“Funny people around these days” said The Barman sadly, shaking his head. He patted the baby on the head.
The Barman pulled out a chair for his daughter and went to find a box to put a blanket in to lay the child. The only customer got up and stumbled over the front stoop.
“G’bye George!” yelled The Barman, “I’ll see you in the morning!”
“G’bye barman!” stammered George.
The Barman took the baby from Woman 1 carefully and laid it inside a fruit box.
“What can I get you?” he asked his daughter, “you look dead beat. You shouldn’t go around exerting yourself so much!” But she barely listened.
*
Woman 2 stood on a mountain top with ravages of wind in her hair. She and her man had shipwrecked the boat and travelled the countryside with their new baby between them. The three of them stayed in a wagon in Bulgaria, and a sheep shed in Bratislava. Now they were on their way back to England on a steamship doing its souvenir tour.
“You know what?” said Woman 2, when they arrived in London. “I think we should get a canal boat!”
Her man was tentative. They would be forced into channels rather than roaming the open sea. They would have to anchor in towns, and register in places, they would have toilets to empty properly, and clothing to wash in machines.
“But,” said Woman 2, “you could nail your bath to the top of the new boat, and grow a garden around it. We could even keep a cat.”
Her man was sold.
They sought somewhere quieter, with students and a spire. They went down to a river in Oxford, and strolled the length of the tied-up canal boats there. They were in different colours with names like the Polly Mary, and the Tiber. They found one that was for sale. As they looked into its windows, their baby let out a loud shriek.
“This is it!” breathed Woman 2, rubbing her ears. She could see a place for her reading, and a kitchen for warming stew. Her man could see enough room for a rooftop bath, and an ivy plant already growing around the chimney.
The next day they bought it in currency they’d found buried in Brazil, beneath the grave of an old robber called Osman Badeile. They had a new home.
Woman 2 bought a bottle of champagne a week later. They were to move in that Friday. The baby was restless that morning and couldn’t be pleased. They left it on the shore and Woman 2’s man helped her up onto their new boat. But as he held her hands, her feet feeling the sweet smoothness of the wood and the rock of the canal for the first time, their baby let out a horrifying scream.
Woman 2 jumped, and her man let go of her hands. He turned to check, but the baby was fine. Meanwhile, Woman 2 was falling between the boat and the shore.
“NO!” her man cried, reaching for her, but not touching her clothes or her skin. He couldn’t reach them.
Woman 2’s head bashed against the dock. Her body slumped into the water. She went under.
*
Woman 1 went home from the scout parade with her husband. They had chips for tea and fish for tea, and her eyes stayed on the TV, but she was never quite watching. She’d left the abandoned baby with her father in the pub. Her husband had had enough of scouts or any sort of children for the day. He liked them to be returned.
When she told him about the baby, he said, “Really? That’s interesting stuff! Now, what’s for dinner love?”
The baby stayed with The Barman. It stayed with him all day and so long his customers joked that his pub should be called the ‘Barman and Bairn’ rather than the ‘Barman and Baird’. Woman 1 went to call the authorities, but when she started dialling the number she just couldn’t finish it. What could they do for an abandoned baby that she wasn’t already doing?
She sung it a song about a castle in Carey. It liked that.
The Barman sung to it in more rough tones, but it liked that too.
“This baby will be a musician!” The Barman told her. They made up stories about its future. The baby liked those the best.
One night The Barman hosted a piano night in his pub. Musicians and hopefuls came along to try. The pub was crowded and The Barman kept them all back from his drinks with a metal rod and a smile as crooked as the canals. The piano in the far corner was beat upon, song after song. The baby woke up from its box. The Barman propped it up by his finest whisky. Its crying stopped and it looked on with interest.
A tired gypsy played a very different melody on the piano. The Barman loved it. He asked the gypsy to play it again. The baby laughed. It seemed as though a thousand years fell off the gypsy, and he beat down upon the keys with more enthusiasm than any player of that night combined.
“Look, the baby’s crying!” yelled a punter.
The Barman looked at the baby, but the baby wasn’t wailing, it was smiling, and tears, faintly orange in colour, were falling into its tiny mouth, a bit like when someone is proposed to by someone they love.
*
Woman 2 went to the edge of insanity.
“If you smack her head again, it will reverse it!” recommended a witch doctor. He was from Holland. He kept entrails in the rooms of his house, for no reason but to scare his patients into listening to him.
Woman 2 was kept for a short time at the Radcliffe hospital. Her man slept there on her lap. He talked to her when she was conscious, but she was damaged from her fall and he forgot to talk to her normally- she was already his second child. He took her home, but not to their canal boat. He’d sold it on the day of the accident because it had cursed his family. Instead, he’d built them a new house on an inlet, not far from the city, but near a field that had wild horses and patches of vegetables tended to by the absent-minded. Woman 2 thrived in the silence. Her man let her have their child during the day, and then he went to find work, morning after morning in places as far reaching as London, and as close as their own back garden.
One afternoon he came home from chopping wood in Witney. Woman 2 was indoors. She was tying their baby up and putting it into a saucepan, basted with lemon juice.
“STOP!” her man commanded her. He grabbed the child from the saucepan and whisked it outside.
Woman 2 watched from a distance. She knew she’d done wrong. Her man did not know what to do. When he went back inside Woman 2 begged for her child back. But he could not let it happen again. She would kill their baby.
He told her he was going out for groceries and took the baby with him. They strolled into town, out past the theatres, through the winding college streets and parks. He walked on and on as the sun got lower. How pretty Oxford was in this dusk. How sad he was for himself and his wife.
He looked up as though to talk to someone in the sky, and as he did, the face of a gargoyle caught his attention. It stuck out of the side of a church. It was quite small, with an innocent face, a very childlike expression. Woman 2’s man looked at it with curiosity. He was attracted to it. He looked down at his baby and then back up at the gargoyle and smiled.
Later that night, Woman 2’s man came in with a skip through the back door.
“Hey there!” he called. “Where are you my wild one?”
Woman 2 came towards him with a smile, bearing a mug of juice, having recently bathed herself in mango and mandarin.
“I’m sorry!” she told him, although she’d forgotten why.
“So am I.” he assured her. He bent to kiss her forehead.
Then he reached out and passed her the stone baby.
*
Woman 1 went up and down with the telephone, trying to call the authorities.
“I will do it.” she assured herself.
She picked up her knitting needles in one hand. She still had all that red wool left over from her husband’s jersey. Perhaps she should knit something for the baby first?
“Where are my scouts?” moaned her husband. He too was pacing the front room waiting for his boys to come over for an outing.
“I should do it.” said Woman 1. “The baby isn’t mine.”
“Where are my boys?” her husband moaned.
“It isn’t mine.” said Woman 1 again, mechanically.
“Yes, get someone else to look after it.” agreed her husband. “Oh, here are my boys!”
Woman 1 went out after them, glaring at their backs. She walked to the pub. The air was cold and there were leaves in it which she kicked.
“Hullo Dad!” she called, coming in through the pub entrance.
“Hullo!” The Barman came to greet her, jiggling the baby on his hip.
“I’ve become a right softie” he announced. There were only two old grannies in the pub. They smiled toothlessly.
“Dad, I can’t give it up,” said Woman 1 anxiously, “I just can’t.”
The Barman agreed. “I’ve become quite fond of it myself.” He took her arm, “look”, and led her outside to the front of the pub.
Woman 1 looked up to see that the sign had been repainted, “The Barman and Bairn”.
She laughed. A woman coming along the street looked over at them. She had damp hair and a wild look in her eyes.
“Hullo.” said the Barman. He touched noses with the baby so it giggled.
The woman looked at the giggling baby. She seemed to jerk strangely for a second, then she reached into her coat and pulled out a stone.
“Come on, it’s cold out here.” said The Barman. He passed Woman 1 the baby and they made it laugh again by pulling faces.
They opened the door of the pub and the warm air gushed out.
Woman 2 walked slowly in after them, the stone raised above her head.
Dream
Machine
Amanda
Weeks
“Any news, then?” asked Pam in her haven’t-you-found-a-girlfriend-yet tone of voice.
“Not really, Mam,” replied Simon.
“Oh come on Simon. There must be loads going on in London.”
“Aye. If you’ve got the time and the money.”
Simon realised how boring he sounded. Then he realised that he didn’t really give a monkey’s tit.
“So, nothing to report then?” she asked, wondering if her only son was gay.
Well, he was twenty-three and not married. People would start to talk soon. People at the Co-op were already wondering about him. She’d have to start going to Londis at this rate.
“Well, actually…” he began.
“Yes?” she asked excitedly.
She had a vision of herself in a salmon-coloured suit and matching hat. She’d buy her son and daughter-in-law a wok for their wedding present. Imagine that—a wok!
“…Actually, I’ve been having these weird dreams about Eric Morecambe.”
“Oh,” said Pam, flatly. There was an awkward silence as Simon yawned and Pam wished she’d had a daughter. “Maybe you should go out more.”
Simon was fortunate in that he knew when he was dreaming and could wake himself up if the dream got boring or scary. When celebrities first started to appear in his dreams, he felt really privileged. But he’d been stuck with Eric Morecambe for the past six nights and frankly, if he had tits, Eric would be getting on them.
As he drifted off one night, he forced himself to think about Chris Tarrant. Anything was better than a seventh night of Bring Me Sunshine. A pair of red velvet curtains appeared at the foot of his bed and he could hear a dramatic drum roll.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Well, Simon,” said a voice from nowhere, “Please welcome Errrrriiiiiiiccccccc Morecambe!”
The huge applause muffled out Simon’s cries of ‘Nooo!’ as Eric danced and sang his way through Bring Me Sunshine - again!
“Hello, Simon,” said Eric after he’d finished his set, “what did you think of tonight’s performance?”
“It was the same as last night, and the night before. Couldn’t you change the routine a bit?”
“Change my routine? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing, it’s just…well…routine that’s all. Couldn’t you get some guests in?”
“You what?!” shouted a deeply offended Eric. “I’ll have you know I’ve performed for Her Majesty the Queen on several occasions. She never complained or called me routine. I earned more from one Christmas special than you do in a year, mate.”
“I’m not complaining. And I don’t mean to be rude. But I’d prefer my dreams to be a bit more spicy.”
“Spicy? Would you rather I was a seventeen-year-old stripper with silicone tits?”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Well, tough shit. You’re an ungrateful twat, Simon. People have paid thousands to see me perform live. You’ve had me all to yourself every night for the past week and all you’ve done is complain.”
“No, no! You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Mr Morecambe.”
“Have I?” asked Eric sarcastically as he produced a stick and examined both ends. “Which one’s the right end, then?”
“I’ve had enough. I’m gonna wake up now,” said Simon.
This made Eric look really hurt. Simon immediately felt guilty and ungrateful. He tried to stay asleep to apologise to this wonderful entertainer. But the red curtain disappeared and Eric Morecambe started to fade as Simon slowly entered reality. Suddenly, Eric turned into the fit one from Girls Aloud.
She ran at him, shouting “Wait. I want to strip for you!”
But it was too late—he’d ended the dream. He tried to get back into it, but every time he’d see Eric sitting at the bottom of the bed, looking cross.
“Dreams won’t be free forever, Simon,” he warned. “One day, you’ll have to pay for them and I may be all you can afford.”
As Simon woke up, his answer phone clicked on.
“Simon, are you there? It’s your mother. I just wanted to say that if you want to talk to me about anything, you know where I am. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
Great, thought Simon, not only have I offended one of the best names in show business, but my mother thinks I’m gay. What a great way to start Saturday.
He got up, made some coffee and toast and picked up the remote.
“Scientists have made a major discovery which will enable us to choose our dreams,” said a fit newsreader whom Simon would love to shag.
“The new Dream Machine works by combining the subconscious mind with modern technology to give us complete control over our dreams. It is worn as a headband, and its sensors send vibrations to the brain. If we are enjoying the dream, we can continue. If we are not enjoying it, we can start again. We can even introduce celebrities into our dreams by buying a celebrity chip which is inserted into the Dream Machine. Dream Machines go on sale nationwide on Monday morning. Celebrity chips include Sir Trevor McDonald, David Beckham and Jordan.”
Simon, along with hundreds of other sad tossers, camped outside his local Argos on Sunday night in order to buy a Dream Machine. When the doors opened there was a huge stampede as everyone scrambled to get inside. The security guards did their best to keep order but there were several casualties and the police were called. After five hours, Simon eventually bought a Dream Machine for £500 and a Jordan chip for another £500. It was money he’d been saving towards a car.
That night, the red curtain appeared again. As it drew back, Simon’s heart sank as he saw Eric Morecambe.
“Get lost, Morecambe. I want Jordan,” he shouted.
He felt guilty immediately and wanted to apologise. Eric started to fade, but Simon could still hear his voice.
“What did I tell you, Simon? You have to pay for your dreams now. Beware, beware, beware…”
Suddenly Jordan appeared, looking lovely in thigh-length boots, a tight black dress and a cowboy hat.
“Hi!” she giggled.
“Hello,” he replied. She sat on his bed and he sat up.
“Bought yourself a Dream Machine, have you?”
“Yes,” he replied, casually. “Only five hundred quid. Cheap at half the price. I’m gonna buy another ten tomorrow and send them to my family in Wales. Fancy a shag?”
Jordan jumped into bed with him. They made love until Pam’s phone call woke him up. The answer phone clicked on.
“Simon it’s your mother. Got some news for you. Your cousin Jason’s getting married. Nice girl. Irish. Nicola, I think she’s called. She’s pregnant. At least I don’t have to worry about you getting a girl pregnant, eh?”
After a couple of nights, Simon got sick of Jordan and fancied a change. Her voice was too nasal and her boobs got in the way. Argos had sold out of Kate Moss and Sharon Stone chips, so he bought a Mel B one from the bargain basket for one pound fifty.
That night, as the red velvet curtain appeared at the bottom of Simon’s bed, the compere demanded,
“Simon Davies—tell her what you want, what you really, really want!”
“I really, really, really, really want to shag Mel Brown!” shouted Simon above the drum roll.
The curtains drew back. And there, in platform boots, gold hot pants and a PVC top stood….Gordon Brown.
“And a shag is what you’re really, really, gonna get, pretty boy,” said Gordon as he dived on Simon.
“No,” Simon screamed “I wanted Mel Brown, not Gordon Brown!”
“That’s me. Melvyn Gordon Brown. Everyone calls me Gordon, but call me Mel if it turns you on, baby.”
Simon tried rubbing his eyes to escape the nightmare but it didn’t work. Gordon Brown was still pulling Simon’s boxer shorts, shouting,
“Get ’em off! Get ’em off!”
As Simon panicked, Eric Morecambe appeared.
“You’ve bought a dodgy machine. Pull the Dream Machine off your head, sunshine!” he shouted.
Simon obeyed and the nightmare started to fade.
The following morning, Simon phoned the Dream Machine complaints department but the line was jammed. Shaken by his nightmare, he went to Argos to return his faulty goods. He was greeted by a riotous scene as hundreds of angry customers made complaints about terrifying nightmares that they were unable to stop.
“It’s totally fucked my head up!” a young man screamed at the acne-faced girl on Customer Services.
“Can you imagine what it’s like to be bummed by Des Lynam for four hours? Four fucking hours, man!”
A little old lady who’d dreamed she’d given birth to John Wayne and his horse was inconsolable, as was an old man who’d dreamed he was stuck in a lift all night with Celine Dion and Mariah Carey and now had serious hearing problems.
Half the population of the UK had therapy following the Dream Machine crisis. Its inventor went into hiding following huge claims for compensation and death threats.
Simon realised how lucky he was. If Eric Morecambe hadn’t arrived when he did, things would have been really fucking ugly. He wanted to thank Eric for saving him from Gordon Brown’s sex machine, but he never dreamed of him again. His comments about Eric’s routine had probably driven him away. Now, every time Simon hears Bring Me Sunshine, he cries.
Imagine
Nation
Mark
Spencer
It ended with Robin Hood Paintball and an alien chef’s steak au merde. Mythological extreme sports and extraterrestrial poo cooking signified but one thing: the country had run out of ideas. “There is nothing new under the sun,” Len Von Simpleweave thought to himself, annoyed at his own spectacularly unoriginal thinking. Simpleweave jumped out of the window of the flat he didn’t own, wearing the skin of a lesbian, holding a crucifix and singing Punk Ass Bitch. By the time he’d hit the faux-honeycomb floor, the ennui had already rendered him unconscious.
The police called it a copycat suicide.
Dev Shoulder had, perhaps inevitably, seen it all coming. From the tender age of three and a half titanium months, he’d predicted the coming of the final conceivable idea. A favoured student of Von Simpleweave, he’d seen musicians chew on their own violas upon admitting defeat in their attempts to draw more notes from an octave; he’d witnessed scientists, philosophers and theologians collectively revert to the foetal position as everything had been definitively proved and postulation was particularly pointless; and he’d been present in the municipal book bath when the government of hounds, in desperation, had declared that routine itself be outlawed.
Society wasn’t functioning. The people within were just barely functioning. In a bid to help out, a renegade gang of sentient electrons ensured that even the laws of physics were just rarely functioning. The gates between Life and Death were flimsier than ever and no child had been born in five somethings.
There was a branch of study now entirely devoted to the discovery of new ideas, Originialitism, and that had been Von Simpleweave’s area of expertise – his particular focus was on original deaths. More and more money/honey was being pumped into these departments as the crisis became more evident. Originalitists gave the world only forty-five wasphandspans before it would inevitably decide to blow itself up just for something to do. Nobody could keep up with the ever-changing unit of time but that did feel a bit soon.
To Shoulder, the answer was clear. He would have to conceive an inconceivable thought. Not a difficult thought. Not a painful, offensive or terrifying thought. Not even an impossible thought, but the final paradox: the thinking of an unthinkable thought.
Shoulder reasoned that he should begin with plain old thinking and see where that took him. Maybe… something religious? He threw that out; he’d read the history books. Banning organised religion had helped at first, as people had to invent their own deities, rituals and belief systems, but there are only so many limbs or heads a god can carry and only so many variations of ‘do unto others…’ Before long, underground Christians were being fed to bi-lions by NeoFiveForeHeadDoOnes (to rapturous applause from the No-Bodies) and the Super Mormons had donned their magic specs and flown back to their polygamous cheese planets. The depths of alternative religion had been plundered and now, the virtually atheistic state was in deepest despair.
In keeping with the ascetic movements of Jesus and John Lennon, Shoulder wondered if removing the nation’s possessions might hold the key. With every possible need or desire catered to by any number of inventions (the number of devices/potions that could help one give up or carry on biting one’s toenails now numbered in the thousands), was it any wonder that nobody had thought of anything new? Necessity does, after all, breed invention. He felt he may be on to something there...
*
Following the Human(ish)ist funeral, Shoulder visited the Department of Original Design Objectives. On entering Von Simpleweave’s office, he found his professor slumped low in his chair, looking glummer than ever; yet again, his resurrection had been as unimpressive as his death.
“Crinkfalp!” offered Shoulder, with a polite breeziness.
“Petrel Handerson, last Conkerfest.” replied Von Simpleweave.
“Detchfulop?” attempted Shoulder.
“Cos Gastropy, on the eve of his lemur’s convoluting day.”
“Squeltch hibiscus.”
“Fingle McCarthy, just last Veepsday morning. It’s no good Shoulder. There is not a formality you can greet me with that somebody hasn’t already employed in the past. What are you doing here?”
Simpleweave’s beard dripped with distilled Belgium, as he looked up to see Dev Shoulder’s wide face ripple into a wily grin.
“An idea.”
Von Simpleweave regarded Shoulder incredulously, wearily and let it also be said, not without some beaver-flax.
“Shoulder, you know very well there has not been an idea worth having since paintball guns were replaced with paint-tipped arrows and Martians added Turd Brulee to their menus – ”
“An anti-idea.” Shoulder interjected.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Don’t you see?” enthused Shoulder, as he threw back his unkempt mop of dark hair, “we’ve been so busy searching for new creations and innovation that we’ve neglected to not see exactly what isn’t right under our noses. The opposite of an idea. The antithesis of creation. Out with the new, in with the non-existent. The unthinkable thought.”
Von Simpleweave took the pelican off his head.
“I need some time. I need to think about this. This is dangerous territory. Highly unlikely territory. Shoulder, are you sure you know what you’re suggesting?”
“Certain, because I understand that what we need to do is not think about it!” Shoulder softened his voice. “Look, leave it with me. I’ll find a way. For the first time I feel like I have a purpose. It’ll take as long as it takes, but I can promise you now, I will come back with the unthinkable thought.”
Shoulder picked up the mop of hair he had previously thrown back, and left the office.
Von Simpleweave promptly died of Unrealised Promise Syndrome Type 4. The most common type.
*
The Wasted Innovation Scrap Heap was a sanctuary for Shoulder. The landfill, which poured out from behind the Department of Original Design Objectives and into the Oft-Chartered Ocean was only accessible by scaling the corrugated iron walls, over which trucks would abandon derivative and uninspired produce. Shoulder had regularly visited the Heap as a child where he and his friends would kick through cartons of motor soda, and jeopardy hats, and glass potato heads. Whereas the layers of trite had begun to sicken the others, Dev saw the Heap as a nostalgic reminder of the past, when television still broadcast repeats, a plethora of Mills and Boon novels could be found in airports and expensive watches could be bought in Malaysia for a fraction of the price. Sometimes Dev would scour the Heap for duplicate items and line them up against the wall. Perhaps we could have compared him to Warhol, if all the artist’s paintings hadn’t been burnt as heretic anti-innovation propaganda.
Shoulder closed his eyes, breathed in the aroma of imitation and wondered, “Maybe, just maybe, what this country needs isn’t some newfangled invention or play on words but the ability to redo things to a high standard. To live well, to die well and to appreciate all that we have.”
He questioned whether bringing any more new ideas into the current climate was a good idea. Would it be lost in a sea of pointless new spins? Would it even be recognised as a new idea or would it be seized upon within minutes and ten inferior celebrity spins created? Shoulder was dizzy, partly from the all the potential spinning and partly because of the enormous responsibility a new unthinkable thought would place on him.
But it was mostly because a local homeless wo/man/drill had hit him over the head with a walrus wrench and stolen his wallet.
As he lay there, losing vast amounts of blood and idea fumes caressing his exposed mind, the answer came to him.
“If you think me,” said the answer, “I will come.” Which sounded familiar but that was more or less the point.
So it was Dev Shoulder, mediocre human being and all-round oddball, who thought of something new.
At first, it was everything he’d ever seen doing everything he’d ever see them do. He heard a chomping sound and it was an educated dodo doing wish-ups. Another chomp and it was a man with two faces, one more and it was a spaniel. One final bite and there was nothing. It was there but there was nothing there. He couldn’t see, feel, smell, hear or taste it but it was there. The Imagine Eater.
Thinking the unthinkable was, he’d realised, not actually possible. Unthinking the thinkable, however, made a bit more sense to this heavily concussed dreamer for whom the word ‘think’ had now lost all meaning. Think think think think think. The theory was that thinking of a thing that would unthink all thoughts, thus rendering all thinking unthunk, was all that was needed to bring it into being.
And it
had. It (Shoulder tried to call it The Imagine Eater and subsequently
Geoff but it ate both names) was the absence of ideas and would
consume all original or unoriginal thought within its immediate
vicinity. It went to town on the scrap heap and Shoulder smiled
deliriously to himself, ‘Geoff’s the answer.’
Shoulder
walked back to the world beyond the Heap as if on a moonbeam. He was
originally walking on a literal moonbeam, but Geoff
had had away with that too, and Shoulder’s actions were thus
reduced to similes, somehow making them more poetic than when
everything had been literal. There was something about art, Shoulder
contemplated as Geoff eradicated an argumentative
dingo, that inherently had to be intangible. Somehow concepts seemed
more substantial if they were without physical substance. Perhaps
Geoff really was the answer. It wasn’t destruction
so much as deconstruction. Shoulder began to see ideas as they were,
instead of what they could be. The actual instead of the potential.
With a
newfound glee, Shoulder led Geoff to the municipal
book bath. Munch went Tess of D’Urbervilles. Chomp went Ulysses.
Gulp went the works of Barbara Cartland. When the whole library-pool
had been demolished, Shoulder ventured out to department stores where
Geoff began to work on the laundry cat, the golfing
arboretum, the hydrogen egg. Next was the kettle-market, the bakery
of blancmange, the forum of theophobists, numbers eaten from
calculators, atomic structures taken from elements, Geoff
took it all leaving a path of potential in his wake. Shoulder cackled
with joy.
Shoulder
had wobbled his way to the Department of Original Design Objectives,
for he still had the gaping head wound, when he heard a scream come
from the direction of Von Simpleweave’s office. He hurried to find
the department’s secretary panicked and grief-stricken in the
doorway as Von Simpleweave lay dead on what had once been his Dream,
Idea and Change Weaving and Animation Device but was now, thanks to
Geoff, a sofa bed. The disappearance of the DICWAD
was the obvious cause of the commotion, Shoulder had thought, she
finds him dead all the time.
B
ut
Geoff had left his mark. Professor Von Simpleweave
was dead and not in the mildly amusing and/or pathetic way like usual
but in the final dead death way that wasn’t so funny. He was
wearing fairly standard professor clothing, browns, beiges and
leather patches, had a pained expression on his face and seemed to be
clutching one side of his chest. ‘Heart attack,’ Shoulder
smiled. The Professor would be pleased to have been the first victim
of this new era’s mortality policy.
As they carried Von Simpleweave away on a stretcher that barely fit, the paramedics looked faintly shocked and even pleased that somebody had passed on it what was deemed to be the good-old-fashioned way. They loaded him into the ambulance, not without registering that just five minutes previous, it had been the mouth of a giant ape, and drove away into ordinary traffic queues loosely abiding by traffic light instruction.
So unthinking the thinkable does not necessarily mean the absence of chaos, thought Dev.
Good.
Geoff
continued to chomp into the bizarre menagerie of cross-bred and
mutated animals until only those with wings could fly and those with
gills could breathe underwater. Everything was nibbled on, from the
snow depositing itself on icecaps where sangria had once waltzed, to
sand sweeping across plains where radiators had once preyed on nimble
teacups.
With every bite, the faux-honeycomb floor turned into grass, and pebbles, and mud, and the sky veered through a kaleidoscope and settled on a pale blue.
The éclair in the sky had melted away into glorious sun.
*
Shoulder
lay back on his dead professor’s office sofa bed as Geoff
returned to the side of the man who thought him. He patted the air
beside him, imagining that he could feel soft, thick fur in his hand,
though he could not. He smiled, closed his eyes and let his hand fall
through Geoff. Dev Shoulder stopped thinking.
Losing
My Voice
Ania
Leslie-Wujastyk
Angela Moore peers into boxes of fruits at the grocery. She is tall -- she might even look statuesque if she weren’t trying to disappear under her long green coat. Sidestepping, she picks up five onions and drops them into the clear plastic bag.
“Don't forget to get potatoes. I won't.”
As she speaks she veers left, irritated, and grabs a bag of new potatoes. Then straight on towards the tomatoes.
“I thought I'd make ratatouille this evening,” she says quietly. She turns into the corner, hiding her face from the other shoppers.
“Really? I've kinda had my heart set on a baked potato all day. I said that.”
Her voice is suddenly louder and she muffles it with the collar of her coat. She casts an uncomfortable look about her, and whispers,
“Alright. It was only an idea. Keep your voice down. Sorry, love. Was it big potatoes you wanted then? Well I can't very well have a baked potato with one of your bloody new potatoes, can I? Unless I have lots of little ones, each lovingly stuffed with a single baked bean.”
She clenches her teeth down hard, and throws the bag of new potatoes back on the heap.
“OK, I've got them. See you back home.”
Picking up a single large potato, Angela walks up to the counter and smiles.
*
Nine months ago, at 7.30am, on a Friday that should have been like any other, Angela was abruptly woken by the sound of her own voice singing a song she didn’t know.
She gasped an obscenity and clapped her hand over her mouth.
At 7.31am, as she sang along to the buttering of her toast, Helen Trickett inexplicably swore at her breakfast. She responded with a yelp that felt utterly unfamiliar to Angela as it passed her lips.
It didn’t take them long to find each other. Helen screamed and Angela swore, or vice versa, and they both demanded to know who was in their head. Of course, each of them believed it was she who was doing the demanding, so there followed a long silence.
Eventually, peering around her empty bedroom, Angela ventured,
“My name is Angela Moore.”
She felt a little ridiculous, introducing herself to the walls, until she found herself replying,
“This is Helen Trickett in flat three.”
Willing herself not to panic, Angela took a deep breath and spoke,
“Would you like to come up for a cup of tea?”
Angela lived in the top floor flat of Clyde Mansions, an old but well-kept building with clean, carpeted corridors but a completely rubbish back yard. Near the top of the communal staircase outside her door was a small round window, like a porthole looking down onto the street outside, through which Angela could see the other inhabitants of the Mansions come and go. She knew the names of about half her neighbours, but almost nothing about them. Helen Trickett looked fun; always lively and smiling, she wore extraordinary home-made creations out of huge amounts of fabric that billowed over her enormous breasts. But she had a very loud voice and stood just a little too close when she spoke to you, and Angela had got the impression that if she ever let Helen into her personal space she might never get her out again. That Friday morning was an exception. Angela pulled on a dressing gown and opened her front door to find Helen already outside, breathless.
They had got snagged on each other somehow. They were sharing voices, or their voices were sharing mouths.
That is, when either of them spoke, the words leapt out from both their mouths. They sat at Angela’s kitchen table, neither of them knowing what to say, or even whether to speak. And neither of them had the faintest idea what to do.
As the days went by, they found it increasingly difficult to be apart. Their words intruded on each other’s conversations, and dealing with other people soon became too much of a nuisance. They couldn’t say anything private. The turning point came when Angela visited her mother during Helen's quickie with the man from the corner shop. Both their afternoons were horribly spoiled. They retreated to Angela’s and rented out Helen’s flat for some money to live on. Just until they figured out what to do.
It was far easier when it was just the two of them; they never had to phone one another, or leave a message. Speaking together meant compromise. After they got over the initial hysteria both women understood that. Neither one of them could hold down a job, hold down a life, without the other’s silence. And neither one of them was about to offer that. So they took turns leaving the flat. Unable to trust what they might say, they avoided public places as much as possible, and each tried not to intrude when the other was out. But being together was wonderfully strange. And having your own words said back to you -- well, it would make you watch what you say.
*
Helen is lying on the sofa in Angela’s dressing gown, eyes closed, trying her hardest to relax. But she has had three cups of coffee and now she can’t.
“I feel like shit.” She gives up on quiet for the time being, and opens her eyes.
“Hello stranger. Nearly home? Nearly. It’s bloody cold out.”
Helen pulls the dressing gown around her. There’s something funny-tasting about Angela’s sentences, something different in the way she shapes her vowels that makes them feel foreign in Helen’s mouth.
“I’m shattered. Can’t seem to sleep. No? No.” Her stomach rumbles.
“I’m starving, Ange…sshh!”
Helen stops, purses her lips. She hates being shushed, but waits quietly. That is the agreement. Before all this, Helen used to sing absent-mindedly. Not huge, belting performances or anything, just happy singing as she went about the house, but it sent Angela crazy. It was completely harmless, but for Angela that wasn’t the point. The problem was that it wasn’t her. She didn’t sing. Well, fuck you; Helen remembered thinking at the time. I do. That’s me. Eventually, Helen had agreed not to sing when Angela was out, and Angela bit back the complaints when she found herself singing at home. It was a small thing, but a big compromise – this familiarity was never chosen.
She feels Angela’s voice start up again. “Sorry, just walked past someone.”
Helen rolls her eyes. “You’re so easily embarrassed. I’m just trying to avoid being a social pariah. I hardly think that’s our main concern here. Well don’t look at me. I can’t bloody look at you, you’re not here. I’ve forgotten what I was saying.”
Lying rigid on the sofa, Helen explores the ceiling. Interrupting voices make the day too crowded. There is almost no time to think. Just a moment of silence on waking before the noise rushes in and smacks you in the face.
*
Together on the top floor, they struggled over words, and each of them fought to keep the other out. At first, they amplified their differences: accents, inflection, delivery. They argued over who said what. They agreed that each of them would say her name before speaking, to clarify things. But that was no long-term solution, and they dropped it after a couple of days. They were running out of ideas.
Sometimes, Helen sat in front of the mirror, watching her automatic mouth making words. Alert, she looked and listened for a slip, a change, anything at all. Scanning the contortions of lips moving over motionless teeth. If she stared for long enough, her mouth became alien.
At first, the other’s words had felt foreign, like an intruder attacking from within. But the months went by and the fight went out of the two women, and the foreign voice settled in. They became accustomed to one another’s speech, to the shape of the other’s words in the mouth, the habits of lips, teeth, and tongue. Without realising it, they had begun to mirror each other’s voices. More and more often, it was unclear who was speaking when the words came pouring out. Unclear, at least, where the words had begun.
Speaking together had mixed them up. They didn’t always know who was who. It was the voice that caused the confusion; they felt separate as long as they kept the noise down. They tried not to talk so much.
*
Angela returns home and hands Helen a potato. It is darkening outside. Ablaze in frustrated silence, Angela chops an onion. The microwave hums as the potato slowly rotates inside. It looks like an ugly joke on a display turntable. The microwave bleeps loudly. Helen is in the other room. Angela feels the muscles in her jaw tighten, her teeth set on edge as the bleeping continues, high pitched and incessant. She begins to slice tomatoes. Her kitchen knife presses against the taut red tomato-skin for just a moment before the surface gives and the blade pushes softly through. The bleeping continues. As Helen enters the kitchen Angela snaps round to face her.
“Your potato’s ready.” Helen opens the microwave door and the bleeping stops.
“Why didn’t you say so?”
Angela can’t contain herself, and suddenly words and more words come tumbling out of them both,
“Christ! I can’t stand it! What? You, you bloody – you say my words wrong!”
Hearing this from her friend’s lips Angela almost regrets her outburst, but Helen has already joined her.
“Right back at you! How do you think I feel, hearing you twist what I say? I twist what you say? You are unbelievable! You don’t even know what I mean but you say it anyway!” They are screaming at each other.
“I spend every day with you invading my space, your words pushing at my lips! Listen to yourself! Shut up! You shut up!” Their faces are an inch apart.
“Leave me alone what did I do to you why, why, why don't you fuck off and die don't I need you need to be alone one is already too much I hate you don't understand shut up! Get out of my mouth!”
Angela slams the knife down on the kitchen counter, picks up the potato and throws it at Helen’s head. There is a dull thud as it hits but she doesn’t look back as she walks out of the flat, quickly down the stairs and into the night.
The wind rushes at her icily, skittering in her ears. She walks fast down the road and round the corner, out of sight of the porthole window. Slowing to a steady pace, she breathes deeply; the cold air in her lungs calms the hot thumping in her chest. She inhales the quiet, unable to relax. She longs for solitude, but is always tense, waiting for the next intrusion. The silence echoes with the possibility of being interrupted by a voice she can’t prevent.
A young couple walk down the road towards her, chatting excitedly, with wide grins. Staring at the pavement in front of her feet she listens to their conversation as they pass, straining to hear as they fade away. It has been a long time since she shared a normal conversation with anyone.
Deep in thought, Angela walks through the night-lit streets, circling away and back towards home. She turns onto her road and looks up at the eye of the porthole. It is dark. She looks at her watch. It has been forty minutes and not a sound. She stands on the corner, the wind whistling around her, hope and fear mingled. It has been nine months since she had her voice to herself, and she hardly dares speak. The breath catches in her throat, struggling to become sound. She summons the courage to phrase the question…
Suddenly, she is interrupted by a splutter. A stifled groan heaves her chest; it is an unusual sound, distressed, distraught, but unutterably human.
“Helen?” No reply.
She peers up at the dark flat. “Helen?”
Another splutter, quieter this time, and Angela is running, her feet pounding the pavement, her breathing shallow. Into the building and up the stairs, her head thick with panic, she fumbles the key into the lock with frenzied fingers. The flat is dark and silent. She rushes from room to room, slamming on the lights, finding nothing. The bathroom is locked, and there is light coming from underneath the door. Choked with dread, she hesitates, then smashes her body against the door. The feeble lock gives, and the door swings violently open.
Helen is curled in the corner, head in her hands, her hair falling forward over her features. The tap drips, regular, inevitable. Angela feels herself mumble, and Helen’s tear-streaked face looks up.
“I didn’t want you to hear me cry,” they say together.
Angela kneels down on the bathroom floor and hugs her, feeling their bodies jolted by a final sob. Holding Helen’s face in her hands she wipes her eyes, and carefully picks a clump of soft potato from her hair.
“I’m sorry I threw the potato at you.”
Helen looks her in the eye, and the corners of her mouth twitch. Angela feels a chuckle rising inside her; she purses her lips, but they let out a burst.
“Stop it! You’re making me laugh!” But there is no stopping it now. “You started it! Did I? Oh I don’t know…”
Their laughter dies down quickly, exhausted. The room is quiet and heavy. Without a word, Angela runs a bath and washes Helen’s hair. Clean and warm, they sit on the sofa, curled towards each other. Turned inwards, they are caged together. Cocooned. They are so tired. The two women look closely at each other, each silently begging the other to give up. Leave the talking to me. Please. I know it’s a lot to ask but can’t you do without? Please. Please.
They know it would make no difference. A sound from either of them would be too much, would mix them up. They cannot live like this. And they are so tired. They say goodnight, without a word.
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