Very Slight Stories

Guitar Lessons

2010-10-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

   Jeff got guitar lessons in exchange for teaching Don, his instructor, how to cook. It only took two weeks for Don to become as good a cook as Jeff was. After two weeks, Jeff was as good a guitarist as Don's cat would have been if it had started scratching the front of the guitar instead of the back. Jeff felt inadequate. He wanted to show Don and the cat that he wasn't completely devoid of talent, so he got lessons from another guitar teacher, a man called Cliff. He taught Cliff how to draw in exchange for the guitar lessons. Before the first lesson, Jeff was afraid he'd be outshone by his new teacher/pupil, but thankfully Cliff was abysmally bad at drawing, which wasn't very surprising, because so was Jeff.
   Jeff was much happier being taught by someone as inadequate as he was, so he gave up the lessons with Don. He told Don that he'd decided to give up the guitar and take up the trumpet instead. "I think it's probably for the best," Don said when Jeff broke the news. "You're bound to be better at the trumpet than you are at the guitar. At the very least you'll be better than the cat. At least I assume you will. I've never heard her play the trumpet. She got stuck in a tuba once and the noise she made was appalling. If you can make a more pleasing sound than that, you'll be able to put this whole guitar business behind you."
   But Don found out that Jeff was still learning the guitar from another teacher, and he was furious. Jeff tried to convince him that he was still as bad a guitarist as ever, and that he'd abandoned Don because he held his former teacher in such high esteem. Don didn't believe this. The story sounded even more far-fetched when Jeff started talking about being intimidated by the cat. Matters were made worse by the fact that Don and Cliff hated each other. They used to be friends. They had made a lot of money busking together, but they hadn't spoken since undertaking another job as a duo, when Cliff's aunt Louise asked them to make a delivery to a friend of hers in the country. She promised to give them a hundred pounds if they successfully conveyed an antique chest of drawers to an isolated farm house. She supplied a bottle of whiskey and a van to help them on their way. Either of these things on their own would have helped them on their way (though not necessarily the right way), but taken together they proved to be a hindrance.
   They returned to Louise without the van, the whiskey or the chest of drawers. The chest of drawers and the van were on an isolated farm, far away from any house. Far, far away from their intended destination. Louise blamed Don, even though Cliff had been driving. Cliff was happy to let Don take the blame, and this is what brought about the end of their friendship.
   Jeff wanted to do something for Don to get back in his good books, which was why he stole Cliff's favourite guitar and tied it to the branch of an oak tree on an isolated farm. Don was touched by the gesture when he saw the photo of the guitar in the tree. All was forgiven, and he agreed to take Jeff on as a pupil again.
   It was Cliff's turn to be furious. He arrived at Don's house in the middle of a lesson with Jeff. He was convinced that Don was behind the theft. Don felt sorry for his former friend after witnessing Cliff's display of despair when he saw the photo. The three of them agreed to set out straightaway to retrieve the guitar, even though it was nearly ten o' clock at night.
   It was nearly ten o' clock on the following morning by the time they found the guitar. Darkness and a bottle of whiskey hindered them in their search, but the whiskey helped repair the damage done to Don and Cliff's friendship. They agreed to go busking together again, and they vowed to turn Jeff into a competent guitarist, but this didn't seem likely even when they were drunk.

The Jester

2010-10-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

   Marjorie was on her way to visit a friend who'd promised to show her a new trick he'd taught his mice. As she was walking past Ronald's house she saw that a party was taking place, and most of the guests were in the garden. They were meant to be watching the performance of a jester, but he just stood there, looking depressed. Ronald tried to prod him into action by poking him with a stick and saying, "I'm going to keep poking you with this stick until you start jesting." The guests soon got bored of this, and they went back inside. Ronald followed them in after telling the jester that he'd poked more jest out of a carrot.
   Marjorie felt sorry for the jester, whose name was Jack. She asked him what was wrong and he said, "I've been depressed since I had a dream about an enormous red carriage that could carry thirty or forty people. For some reason, the man at the front was holding a wheel instead of reins, and he didn't need reins anyway because there weren't any horses. The carriage moved all by itself. It was a beautiful dream, but waking up to reality was horrible. I have a feeling that I'll always be sad until I get to ride on such a carriage."
   "I know someone who might be able to help," Marjorie said. "Gilbert is an inventor. If we asked him to build a carriage like that there's no way he could resist the challenge, though there's no guarantee of success."
   Jack sighed and said, "I suppose it's worth a try."
   Marjorie was right about Gilbert being unable to resist the challenge. He spent the next three months working on the carriage in his workshop on a mountainside. Jack was delighted when Gilbert's creation was unveiled, even though it wasn't what he was expecting. This one was even bigger than the carriage he'd seen in his dream. Gilbert had added an upper floor, but the windows upstairs were covered by shutters. The only way up was through a spiral stairs. The top of this was blocked by a trapdoor.
   Jack's delight faded away on the maiden voyage because the carriage didn't move. "Do you know anyone who can make invisible horses?" he asked Marjorie.
   "You're much more likely to find someone who can make horses invisible. I don't know such a person, but my father can make a dog disappear. Sometimes when he makes the dog re-appear it has a fur coat and a cigar."
   "This is never going to be anything like my dream if the carriage doesn't move."
   "We could push it down the mountainside. And we could round up all the neighbours to be the passengers to make it even more like your dream."
   It took about an hour to find thirty people who wanted to ride on the carriage. The passengers at the back pushed the carriage down the slope and then climbed on board at the back door. Jack's joy grew as they picked up speed. For Marjorie, gaining speed only nourished her fear. "How are we going to stop this?" she said.
   "In my dream, the man at the front pressed a lever with his foot to stop it."
   "Why didn't you mention this before?"
   "I didn't think there would ever be a need to stop it because I wasn't expecting it to move."
   Jack tried pressing what he hoped would be an invisible brake pedal, but it turned out to be an imaginary one. Panic spread amongst the passengers. Jack did his jester's act to take their minds off their impending doom, and he made them completely forget about careering down a mountainside in a carriage. They all laughed so much that no one noticed when they reached level ground and they slowed down, almost to a stop. Almost, but not quite. They rolled off the end of a pier and landed in the sea. While the passengers were busy screaming, Gilbert climbed the stairs and opened the trapdoor.
   Calm was restored when they realised that the carriage could float. Gilbert appeared at the top of the stairs and invited everyone to follow him up. This upper deck looked more like the deck of a ship. A mast was raised and a white sail was unfurled. They sailed to the other side of the harbour. The fact that the carriage had become a boat didn't diminish Jack's joy, and when it became a ferry he was even happier because he could make a good living by entertaining the passengers on their trips from one side of the harbour to the other. He was perfectly content with life until he dreamt about a carriage that could fly. It had wings like a bird, but it didn't need to flap them. He asked Gilbert to start work on this, and Gilbert agreed, as long as he could make the wings flap.

Vera and Victor's kids

2010-09-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

   Laurence had a small farm. He had a few cows and cattle, some hens and geese, two fields of potatoes and a small field of turnips beyond the cow shed. When he was out picking turnips one day he found a silver teapot. He was excited by his find, and he wanted to show it to someone, so he went to Vera and Victor's farm just down the road.
   Vera and Victor had a large family. Kids would appear all over the place every time Laurence visited. Tiny doors would open and young faces would peer out. Heads would pop up out of trap doors and then disappear again. It was impossible to know how many kids were there. Laurence estimated that there must have been over twenty, possibly more than thirty, but not all of them belonged to Vera and Victor. Some of them were wild kids who came to the farm to be fed. Visiting the farm could be a nerve-wracking experience, especially if you were nervous around kids who were free to make their own weapons without any adult supervision. When some of the kids started to get tired, they all got tired. Drowsiness was contagious. There would be a lull, and this was the best time to visit the farm. Vera and Victor loved the sense of peace that pervaded the atmosphere when the noise ceased, but Laurence still couldn't relax when he was on the farm during a lull. He was always afraid that he'd do something to set them in motion again. A noise could trigger an explosion of activity, and they'd be worse than ever after their rest. One minute all would be calm and the next minute you might see a tangle of children rolling out of a hay shed, or a swarm of kids taking a tractor apart in seconds, moving so quickly they're just a blur. Laurence always tried to visit during a lull and to leave before they got going again. He could hear them from his farm. He'd wait until the noise stopped before venturing anywhere near Vera and Victor's farm, but after finding the teapot he was so excited that he went straight there.
   The kids had recently emerged from a lull, and the noise was deafening. Victor stood at the back door with his arms folded, seemingly oblivious to the mayhem around him. Laurence showed him the teapot he found in his turnip field. When Victor saw it he smiled and said, "So the stories my father told me about Seamus were true."
   Victor took a pipe and a bag of tobacco from his coat. The noise ceased when the kids realised that their father was going to tell a story. Some of them sat on the ground around him or on the roof of the porch above him or on the roof of the house above that. Heads popped up out of chimney pots. Kids hung out of windows and clung to branches of trees. After they'd all taken their places they remained silent and still as they waited for their father to begin his story.
   "A man called Seamus owned that field many years ago," Victor said. "He used to bury things in his sleep. For a long time he was completely unaware of this, but when he realised what he was doing he wasn't too concerned because he didn't have anything of value. He'd wake up in the morning and see that a teapot was missing, and he'd assume he'd buried it somewhere during the night. If he lost an old leaking teapot, at least he'd discover that he could make tea in his kettle and he wouldn't have to drink it off the floor. It's not much fun trying to stir sugar into a puddle of tea on the kitchen floor.
   "It took another two months before he realised that he was stealing things in his sleep as well, and then burying them. His neighbours had plenty of valuables to steal, but Seamus never tried to dig up anything he had buried because he was afraid of being caught. He built an alarm system that would wake him up if he tried to leave the house at night. It was a complex mechanism involving a church bell, parts of a pipe organ, bats and twenty billiard balls. He'd stolen all of these things from the church. This system worked very well, but one night he took it all apart in his sleep, and he buried all the parts, everything except for the bats. He never tried to re-assemble the system because the bats woke him up if he tried to leave the house. Even if he remained in bed they'd wake him up."
   Laurence had a lot to think about that night. His field might well be full of stolen goods, but all of those things were stolen a long time ago, and their owners would be dead. He could dig everything up and then dig up the owners to return their valuables, but it might be better for all concerned if he just dug up the valuables and kept them for himself.
   That night he dreamt of this other hoard of treasure in his turnip field, as well as the turnips. He was woken in the morning by a noise that could be heard ten miles away, and when he looked out the window he was horrified to see that his field and most of his turnips had been destroyed. The kids had dug up the whole place. They'd retrieved all of the parts for the alarm system and they'd just succeeded in making it work again. Some of the younger children filled the role of the bats.
   Laurence was devastated at the loss of his turnips, but the other hoard of treasure did provide some consolation. The kids had no interest in all silverware and jewellery they dug up. They only wanted the alarm, so Laurence claimed possession of the treasure. It took him years to clean and catalogue the leaking teapots and silver teapots and all of the other items. His new hobby occupied his mind and kept him calm while all of the neighbours within a ten-mile radius were driven mad by the alarm.

Every three weeks

2010-08-24T00:13:00.001-07:00

I've decided to update this site once every three weeks instead of every week.

Mulligan

2010-08-17T03:50:00.001-07:00

   Gary found a monkey in one of the trees in his back garden. It took a few hours to win the monkey's trust. He kept speaking in a gentle voice, and he offered the monkey some bananas. A jam sandwich finally enticed him down from the tree and into the house.
   It didn't take long for the monkey to make himself at home. It looked as if he was planning on a long stay, so Gary thought he should give his visitor a name. He'd never feel comfortable sharing a house with a creature who could use a knife and fork but didn't have a name, even if the monkey only used a knife and fork to clean himself. Gary decided to call him Mulligan.
   As well as using a knife and fork for personal grooming, the monkey kept trying to cut his own hair with a scissors, so Gary took him to a hair dresser. Mulligan liked his new hair style. On the following day he had an entirely new look. When Gary went downstairs in the morning he found Mulligan sitting at the kitchen table, wearing a suit. He would have looked very sophisticated if he wasn't trying to get something out of his ear with the handle of a fork. He started smoking cigars. Fortunately, he believed that carrots were cigars, and he never tried to light them.
   As the weeks went by, Mulligan's wardrobe grew. Gary had no idea where he was getting the clothes until Jack, one of his neighbours, turned up on his doorstep one day. Jack was a ventriloquist. He was with his dummy, and they were both angry. Mulligan had been stealing the dummy's clothes. When the dummy demanded the return of his clothes, Mulligan responded by blowing imaginary carrot smoke into the dummy's face. Jack was outraged, and he chose to vent his anger on Gary rather than on Mulligan. "You haven't heard the last of this," he said. "Watch your back. Especially the shirt on it."
   Gary went to the pub to meet his friends that evening. When he got home after midnight he went straight to bed. He couldn't remember if he took his clothes off before going to bed. This seemed like an important point on the following morning, because he wasn't wearing anything when he woke up, and when he looked in his wardrobe he discovered that all of his clothes had been stolen. Jack was obviously the culprit. Gary did his best to convince himself that he had taken off his own clothes before going to bed.
   He had to get his clothes back, but he couldn't be seen outside without them. He made some improvised underwear from a newspaper. He still didn't want to be seen outside, so he made his way to Jack's house through the gardens behind the houses. He had three gardens to get through before he reached his destination. He climbed over hedges and walls. Mulligan went along as well, and he had no trouble scaling the walls. Gary's task was made more difficult by a fear of losing his newspaper. As he was lowering himself from a wall he was focussing all of his attention on the newspaper, and he didn't notice the bucket and shovel on the ground. He knocked them over. He was afraid he'd attract the attention of the house's owner (a woman called Judy, who had recently moved into the area) so he climbed a tree. Mulligan waited down below.
   Judy came out to see what was going on. The presence of Mulligan brought her to the tree, and she saw Gary sitting on a branch in his newspaper underwear. She tried to re-assure him, but she couldn't be certain that he understood her language. She won his trust by offering him bananas. The jam sandwich wasn't necessary to lure him down.
   She took him inside and made him some breakfast. She gave him some clothes her dead husband used to wear. Gary became a regular visitor to her house, though he never showed up in newspaper underwear again. Mulligan found a friend in Judy's cat. They swapped bad habits. Mulligan taught the cat how to smoke and the cat taught Mulligan what a cigar was. Smoking cigars wasn't good for his health, but he did start eating carrots.

An Anniversary Surprise

2010-08-10T00:06:00.000-07:00

   To celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary, Howard and Gillian went to see how Gillian's uncle Iggy was getting on with the volcano he was building (he'd climbed a mountain and started digging a hole at the top). They'd been walking for three days when their path was blocked by a granite wall. They walked along the length of the wall until they came to two pillars with sleeping stone cats resting on top of them. The gates had been removed, but a tiger lay on the ground in between the pillars, and he proved to be very effective at the task the gates used to perform.
   "Good afternoon," the tiger said. "Would I be right in thinking that ye want to get to the other side of the wall?"
   "That's exactly where we want to get to," Gillian said.
   "Vera!" the tiger shouted. "They want to go through the wall."
   A woman emerged from a small hut near the pillars. She walked quickly to where the tiger lay, and she stood next to him as she blew up a balloon. There was a face on the balloon. She kept inflating it until it was three times the size of her head, and then she started letting some of the air out. Howard and Gillian heard a voice, and it seemed to be coming from the balloon. Vera's lips never moved. It was the voice of a very sophisticated woman. She explained that it wasn't safe to use this entrance, and that they should walk half a mile to the south, where they'd find a light blue brick in the wall. If they removed this brick, a door would be revealed.
   The voice ceased when Vera stopped letting air out of the balloon. Howard said, "Aren't you afraid of the tiger? At the very least he could burst the balloon."
   The tiger said, "If I wanted to frighten Vera I'd mention the crows staring at her."
   Vera was obviously terrified of crows. She let go of the balloon, and the remaining air that emerged from it sent it flying away in a haphazard trajectory. It landed in a field at the other side of the wall. Instead of going to retrieve the balloon, Vera ran straight to her hut.
   Howard and Gillian said goodbye to the tiger and they went to the blue brick. After removing it from the wall, a timber door appeared next to it. They were able to go to the other side of the wall through this entrance, and they walked back towards the pillars to return to their path. Howard found the balloon in the long grass, and he started inflating it. When he let the air out, they heard the woman's voice again, but the words she used could only have come from Howard's brain. She spoke about the time he sat on a magnificent salmon when he was young. The voice faded away as the balloon deflated. Howard blew it up again, and this time the voice narrated the story of the car he built when he was five. He was delighted. "It's like having my memoirs read out loud by Judy Dench," he said.
   During the rest of their walk that day, he kept inflating the balloon and letting the voice narrate his life story. They set up their tent near a river, and as they sat around their camp fire that evening he still hadn't grown tired of listening to the balloon, but he seemed to get a shock when the voice said, "I first met Agnes..."
   He let go of the balloon and it flew away.
   "Who's Agnes?" Gillian said.
   "I don't know."
   "It's your life story. You should know."
   "I had completely forgotten about the car until she mentioned it. I can't remember who Agnes is."
   "Then why did you let go of the balloon?"
   "I didn't. It slipped out of my hand."
   "Aren't you going to try to find it?"
   "No. I'm bored with it now. And I'm tired. It's time for bed."
   Gillian couldn't sleep that night. She kept thinking about Agnes. She was convinced that her husband was having an affair with this woman.
   In the morning, Howard went to get some firewood so they could boil the kettle for their morning cup of tea. While he was gone, Gillian went outside and found the balloon. Howard had an inflatable cushion that he used to support his neck while he slept in the tent. He had inflated it before going to bed on the previous night. Gillian used the air from the cushion to inflate the balloon. There was just enough air for the voice to say, "I never thought I'd be buying three-hundred red roses, but Agnes has that way about her, a certain charm that I can't resist. Every time she speaks..."
   Gillian didn't mention Agnes again. She hardly said a word to Howard for the rest of their walk to the volcano/mountain. It took them another five days to reach her uncle's workplace, and for most of that time she was thinking about pushing Howard into the volcano, regardless of whether or not he could get back out. She wondered how much progress Iggy had made with the hole. He'd been on top of the mountain for years, so the hole would be very deep if he had been digging all that time, but it was possible that he lost interest early on and abandoned his plan.
   When they got to the top of the mountain she didn't want to look in. She just wanted to push him and let fate be the judge of his actions. But before she had a chance to do anything, the volcano erupted. Gillian wondered if fate was wreaking revenge on her as well as on her husband, but then she realised that they were being showered in rose petals rather than lava.
   "Happy anniversary," Howard said. He had paid Agnes to organise this anniversary surprise for his wife. She had gone on ahead of them with the roses, and she'd been working with Iggy to create the eruption.
   Love had flowered once more and all was well again. When all of the flower petals had settled on the ground, Iggy and Agnes emerged from the shack where Iggy lived. It seemed as if love was just blooming for them. Female company was exactly what Iggy needed after years working on the volcano. Despite all the work he'd put into it, the hole wasn't deep enough to cause a serious injury to anyone pushed into it. Most of the work had taken place in his mind as he contemplated the implications of being able to build a volcano.

Home is where the artichoke heart is

2010-08-03T00:04:00.000-07:00

   Holly and her brother, Peter, had been dreaming of their home planet since they were kids. In their teens they started collecting the parts they'd need to build a spaceship for their voyage home. Many of the parts were very hard to come by, and in collecting some of them it was difficult to avoid attracting the attention of anti-terrorist agencies. When Holly and Peter were in their early twenties they still had a lot of pieces to find before they could even begin assembling a craft capable of going all the way to Grambelmorne, the planet of their birth. Their search took them all over the world, and they were beginning to wonder if it was all worthwhile. On their way home from a fruitless trip to Russia, Holly said, "Have you ever considered the possibility that we're not really aliens? What if it's all a lie, all an invention of Mr. and Mrs. O'Leary? What if Mr. and Mrs. O'Leary are really our parents?"
   "Why would they lie to us?"
   "I don't know. A bet?"
   "Humans do like betting."
   "Perhaps it's time to face the prospect that we're humans as well."
   "But we have hearts made out of artichokes. Humans don't have hearts made out of artichokes. Their hearts are made out of hearts. I haven't found a single medical journal that says otherwise. I've never dug up a human corpse that had an artichoke heart, or showed any signs of being tampered with before I tampered with them."
   "When Mrs. O'Leary showed us the x-rays of our artichoke hearts, she only let us have a very brief glimpse of them. I have a feeling that if we looked closer we'd find that the artichokes were painted on."
   "Are you saying that we don't have special powers, and that we're not better than everyone else on this planet?"
   "I think we have to face the possibility that we don't have special powers, but we're obviously much better than everyone else."
   "The success of our business empire and educational institutes depended on knowing that we could have used our special powers if we had failed in our endeavours."
   "No. We could never have failed. Your error stems from seeing other people fail, but we're better than other people. Nevertheless, we still need to consider the possibility that in essence we're the same as them, and that this planet is our real home."
   It didn't feel like home. This is what made them continue their quest to build a means of conveyance back to Grambelmorne. It took another seven years to complete the craft. They both felt as if they were coming home as they descended towards the surface of Grambelmorne and they saw the forests of trees higher than the tallest buildings on earth. This feeling intensified when they emerged from the craft after making a safe landing, and they took their first breaths of Grambelmorne air. They were greeted by an official. They explained the reason for their arrival, and they asked to be taken to see the emperor.
   Their stay on the planet didn't last long enough for an audience with the emperor. The official was able to provide conclusive evidence that they were in fact earthlings. He informed them that, like the majority of earthlings, they had one head, whereas most of Grambelmorne's inhabitants had two heads. A small minority had three heads and a few had none.
   Holly and Peter took a short walk to consider what to do. From the vantage point of this alien planet they could see that earth was their real home because it was where they were smarter than everyone else. On their journey home they felt a sense of contentment when they considered the prospect of living the rest of their lives on earth.
   Peter said, "Do you think Mr. and Mrs. O'Leary doctored those photos to make it look as if we had two heads?"
   "Mr. O'Leary probably painted the extra head on. For many years I've suspected that I only had one head."
   "I've had my suspicions as well, but I've always been able to convince myself that I have two and that it was my good head that was coming up with those convincing reasons why I had two."

Partners in Crime

2010-07-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

   Peter was convinced that he was one of the world's best cat burglars, but there was no way to know for certain because all of the best practitioners of the art would never reveal their true profession. There were no award ceremonies for burglars. No medals were handed out, and even if they were they'd probably be stolen before the presentation. Peter only broke into the houses of the wealthy, partly because of the rich pickings on offer there but mainly because these victims could easily afford to lose whatever he stole. He revelled in the challenge posed by their elaborate security systems. Any sort of a challenge was a chance to show off his skills to the burglary fans he liked to imagine, the real fans who'd go to all of the burglary matches, rather than just watching them on TV. He loved stealing the jewellery that people wore as they slept. It took the hands of a brain surgeon to remove a diamond necklace from someone off in dreamland. It was satisfying to perform such a delicate task and to steal from people who wore extravagant outfits in bed.
   One night, while he was congratulating himself just after stealing a gold watch from the wrist of a sleeping hedge fund manager (and doing a lap of honour in front of the cheering fans in his mind) his victory celebrations were marred when he looked at his wrist and noticed that his own watch was gone. As he walked down the stairs he tried to figure out what could have happened to it. He remembered looking at it just before going into the house. The strap must have broken while he was inside. Victory could become a humiliating defeat if he left a piece of evidence like that behind.
   Another problem arose when he went into the study and found that he wasn't alone. A woman dressed in black was sitting on an armchair. He only recognised her when she removed her black hat and her red hair fell down over her shoulders. It was Lucinda, his ex-wife.
   She held up his watch and said, "Looking for this?"
   "Where did you find it?" He had a lot of questions, but 'Where did you find it?' was the only one he knew how to ask.
   "I stole it. You once said I was as awkward as an elephant working in a restaurant, but I stole your watch. You were only stealing a watch from someone who was asleep, but I stole a watch from someone who was stealing a watch from someone who was asleep."
   "But... What's going on?" He put all of his questions into 'What's going on?'.
   She told him that she had developed a love of cat burglary before their divorce, when she started following him at night because she was convinced that he was having an affair. She'd spent the past seven years perfecting her art, and now she was undoubtedly one of the best cat burglars in the world, if not the best.
   "Every cat burglar thinks they're the best in the world," Peter said dismissively.
   "I think I've just proven that I'm better than you."
   "When we were married, a conversation like this would always end in an argument."
   "Any conversation would end in an argument."
   "True, and as much as I'd like to have an argument for old time's sake, I think we should do something together. For old time's sake. Let's do a job together. We'll choose some offensively lavish mansion and break in. You were always saying we never did anything together when we were married. I hated all the things you loved doing."
   "And you loved doing nothing all day. Why would I want to do a job with you to be reminded of that?"
   "Because we had good times as well. Doing something together would be a way of emphasising the good memories and diminishing the bad. Even if we never see each other again, we'll never be able to get away from the memories."
   After giving the matter some thought, Lucinda agreed to work with him. On the following night they broke into a mansion near the coast. It seemed as if the owners had only just moved in. Everything was new. Peter was delighted, but Lucinda had reservations. "They're newly-weds," she said. "Look at the wedding photos, and there are even wedding cards on the mantelpiece."
   "So there must be wedding presents. And at those sort of weddings, people don't give toasters and kettles."
   "I can't go through with this. We can't steal from newly-weds, not when we're only here to remind ourselves of the few good times we had when we were newly-weds."
   "Well it's probably only going to end up reminding us of our differences. I'm going upstairs to get the jewellery."
   When Peter went into the bedroom he saw the newly-weds sleeping in each other's arms, and his conscience made him go back downstairs to Lucinda. She'd found a bottle of whiskey. She poured him a glass when he told her he'd be leaving empty-handed. They sat on a sofa and they started talking about old times. The whiskey made them forget to keep their voices down. When a light came on and a man stepped into the room, Peter wished he had at least stolen the shotgun.
   Both of the newly-weds were awake. While he held the gun, she went to get the phone, but before she dialled a number, Lucinda said, "There's something you should know before you call the police. We were hired by some friends of yours. Bill and Triona. They wanted us to retrieve the wedding present they gave."
   "That's absurd," the man said.
   "It sounds absurd, but unfortunately it's true. They've been hit badly by the recession. Their hotel is certain to go out of business, but they're desperate to keep up appearances. When ye've been visiting their house recently, I bet they seem nervous every time ye go to the bathroom."
   "As a matter of fact, I have noticed that. I thought it was something else, but... I have noticed that."
   "They're afraid ye'll stray into the wrong room. The hall, the kitchen, the dining room and the bathroom all look fine, but every other room in the house has been stripped bare. They've sold all of the furniture and all of their valuables. They simply can't afford to buy presents for all these weddings they're going to, so they hired us."
   "I had no idea. I should have suspected something. Bill keeps cancelling things. We haven't gone to a rugby match in nearly a year. If there's anything that involves an overnight stay, he'll come up with some excuse to get out of it. I feel so sorry for them. Desperation makes people do strange things. Of course they can have the wedding present. Take as much as ye can carry and give it all to Bill and Triona."
   Peter saw the first light of dawn as he left the house with Lucinda. They turned around to say goodbye Toby and Michelle (they were all on first name terms by then). Peter and Lucinda couldn't wave because of all the presents they were carrying. It was the first time Peter had ever completed a job with the whole-hearted approval of the victims. These victims had made him toasted sandwiches. The job hadn't provided any opportunity to show off his skills, but working with Lucinda had been enjoyable.
   On the way home she told him that she had broken into Bill and Triona's house a few weeks earlier, and she had left empty-handed. The place was exactly as she had described. In the study she found piles of bills and evidence of the doomed hotel. "I'd be surprised if they still have electricity," she told Peter. "I wonder what excuse they'd come up with if their power was cut off. I bet they'll suddenly become committed environmentalists. We all have to make sacrifices to reduce our carbon footprint, they'll say."
   "But how did you know they were friends of Toby and Michelle?"
   "When you went upstairs I couldn't resist having a look around to see if there was anything I could take. Anything I could take. I wasn't necessarily going to take it. It's like when I'm on a diet and I have to look at a cake. Just to make sure it's there. I came across some wedding photos, and I recognised Bill and Triona in them."
   "What'll we do with all of our wedding presents?"
   "I think it's appropriate that we give something to Bill and Triona."
   "How about a book on how to minimise your carbon footprint."
   "That's a really good idea. We should work together more often."

Stealing is Theft

2010-07-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

   If there's one thing I don't like doing, it's doing things I don't like doing. Washing dishes is something I've never enjoyed, and I don't understand why it has to be done so often. You should be able to go an entire year without washing a mug. Some of the other activities I abhor include dancing at weddings, feigning interest when people tell me about their gardens, and gardening. One of the things I most enjoy doing is receiving money, so when my friend Jeremy offered to pay me five-hundred euros to install a water feature in his aunt's garden, I agreed without the slightest hesitation.
   His aunt Ruth had accused him of being lazy and wasteful with his money. He pointed to the fact that he made all of his own clothes, and he suggested that this would contradict both of her claims. Shortly after she had accused him of being a liar as well, his suit blew away in a gentle breeze, and she withdrew her accusation, but she used the poor quality of his clothes as further evidence of his laziness. She told him that if he wanted to prove her wrong he could install a water feature in her garden, and he said he'd be delighted to do the job.
   Jeremy's foray into making clothes had nothing to do with a desire to save money. It was due to a dispute with his tailor. He kept asking his tailor if he dyed his hair. After Jeremy had said 'Are you sure you don't dye your hair?' for the twentieth time the tailor lost his cool and called Jeremy a worthless idiot. In the argument that ensued, Jeremy claimed that he could make his own clothes, and that he'd only been using the services of the tailor out of pity for the man.
   His laziness and wastefulness with money were as healthy as ever, and it was these qualities that made him pay me to install the water feature while he sat on a deckchair and watched me work.
   I insisted on getting the money before I began the job. After he had handed over the cash, I started digging. There was a lot of digging. On such a hot day, sitting on a deckchair looked like a much more enjoyable activity, but you don't get paid for sitting on deckchairs, unless you have the appropriate qualifications. I've applied for jobs that involve sitting on deckchairs, and I've always been told I don't have the appropriate qualifications.
   I was working at the back of the house, on a lawn that was surrounded by hedges. When Jeremy heard the sound of a car he jumped up from the deckchair. He was sure it was Ruth. She was supposed to be shopping for curtains that day, but he suspected that she'd come back home to check up on him. He told me to find a hiding place in the garden while he tried to look as if he'd been digging all morning.
   There were plenty of places to hide. I chose to sit in the shade behind the coal shed. I thought it was the ideal location to have a rest and to hide in, but after only a minute of steadfast hiding and resting I was found by Imogen, Ruth's daughter. She had just turned twenty-one, but, unlike her siblings, she still hadn't grown out of the belief that there was a butterfly inside her.
   When she asked me if I was a thief I responded with a very definite 'no'. She said, "Because I'd be completely supportive of you if you were a thief. I believe that my mother has far too many valuable possessions and she devotes far too much of her energy to making sure they're not stolen. It's unnatural to devote so much of your attention to possessions when you should be enjoying a garden like this. It's only natural that some of her possessions should be stolen. Especially her collection of silver jugs. Some of them need to be forcibly removed from her possession to restore a natural balance. Everything is out of synch because she has too many silver jugs. It would be an act of extraordinary generosity to steal some of them. You'd be doing more for Mother Nature than everything an environmentalist could achieve in a lifetime."
   Amongst the thousands of things I've always wanted to do, one of them is to acquire valuables without having to do anything to earn them. Stealing is one way of achieving this, but my conscience always held me back. But when a creature of such purity is telling you that the good course of action is to steal silver jugs, wouldn't it be wrong to choose a course of inaction? She was undoubtedly a higher authority on right and wrong than I was.
   She led me to the room where her mother kept her collection. She took out a key and she opened one of the glass cases. "I'll turn my back and count to a hundred," she said. "Take whatever you believe needs to be taken to restore the natural balance. When I turn around again I'll expect to find that you and some silver jugs have departed, and I'm sure I'll feel at peace again."
   I knew nothing about natural balances. I chose to take three small jugs because they were easy enough to hide in my clothes. While she was still counting to a hundred, I went back out to the garden to find another hiding place. After I had concealed myself and the jugs at the back of the orchard, I sat down to resume my rest. I dozed off to sleep.
   I can't say how long I was asleep for. I was woken by the sound of a click, a sound I was sure I'd heard somewhere before. When I opened my eyes and saw the handcuffs on my hands I thought, "Yes. There's that sound again."
   Imogen had applied the handcuffs, and she looked delighted with herself. "Caught you," she said. I congratulated her. I was hoping that this was one of her games, but when she started calling the police I became worried.
   "You can't call the police," I said. "You'll only get in trouble. You told me to steal the jugs."
   "I asked you to steal them, and you could have said 'no'. Stealing is theft, y' know."
   "I'll pay you if you let me go."
   "No. I've got too much money as it is... How much?"
   "Five-hundred euros," I said. I took the money out of my pocket. Thankfully she felt that she needed another five-hundred euros to restore some sort of cosmic balance. She freed me from the handcuffs, and I returned to my work with a sense of relief, even though my pockets were devoid of silver jugs and cash.
   Jeremy found the heat too much in the afternoon, so he sat in the shade, leaving me unsupervised. It wasn't as if he'd been supervising me when he had his eyes closed anyway. After only half an hour of work in the hot sun I had to take a break. I went to find a shady spot to lie down in. While I was searching for an appropriate resting place I saw Jeremy and Imogen in the shade of an oak tree. He gave her a blue feather and she gave him a wad of cash that looked exactly like the money I had given her. I realised what had taken place. Jeremy had promised her the blue feather if she agreed to lure me into taking the jugs just so he could get his money back.
   When I accused him of this he staunchly denied it, but he'll staunchly deny anything you accuse him of, no matter how shaky his defence. We got into an argument, and neither of us heard Ruth's arrival. She demanded to know what was going on, and Imogen told her everything. To my surprise, she was delighted with Jeremy. He had shown a frugality he'd never possessed in the past, and she commended him on his resourcefulness.
   I heard that familiar sound again as she put one side of the handcuffs on my right wrist and led me away. She took me to where I'd been working on the water feature, and she attached the other side of the cuffs to the deckchair. She told me to sit down and supervise Jeremy as he finished the work. I had a stick to poke him into action every time he took a break. He protested to his aunt. He told her that his laziness was something he should be protecting. His laziness had been the source of his resourcefulness and frugality. Without it his mind would have remained sitting on a deckchair and he'd never have come up with his plan. But Ruth dismissed this argument because if he kept his laziness intact she wouldn't get a water feature.

Being laughed at is the best medicine

2010-07-13T00:07:00.000-07:00

   Jeffrey won an award for 'Best Actor in a Sit-com'. Only then did he realise that he was being filmed. He became depressed because people saw his life as a comedy, and they found him even funnier when he was depressed. He knew he had to do something to show people that he wasn't a failure, so he decided to start his own business. He was confident that he could make a success of whatever venture he undertook, and people would stop laughing at him.
   In hindsight, starting a chicken farm was always more likely to reinforce his image rather than alter it. There were too many opportunities for mishaps. The chickens seemed to know exactly what parts of his body to peck for maximum comic effect, and they showed perfect comic timing. Buckets would do their utmost to lodge themselves on his head to exact their revenge when he filled them with something nauseating.
   His next venture was a guesthouse, but he knew it was doomed to failure on the first night when a series of mix-ups led to him being stuck in a bedroom with the wife of a politician who was in another bedroom with a nurse. His wife was convinced that Jeffrey was madly in love with her.
   Jeffrey knew he'd have to try something else. His record company never got off the ground. He only signed one act, and she only signed the deal because she wanted to kill him. His work in his shoe shop was hampered by hens who kept pecking him in sensitive places.
   He realised that people find it funny when a serious venture goes wrong, but it wouldn't be as funny when a stupid scheme goes off the rails, and it wouldn't be very funny at all when a stupid scheme succeeds. This is why he set up a business with his brother. They worked at Jeffrey's house, making tweed clothes for badgers. But on their first day of work, a baby was abandoned on the doorstep. There were some hilarious moments as Jeffrey and his brother struggled to change nappies and feed the baby. The nappies were copying the buckets.
   Jeffrey gave up trying to be successful, and he realised that he didn't care about what people thought of him. He didn't need the respect of other people. He decided to do something worthwhile, and he didn't care if it ended in total failure. He set up a charity to raise money for victims of natural disasters. It was a huge success, and no one laughed. He won people's respect, but he didn't care about that. He wanted to show people that he had no interest in earning their respect and that he didn't care if they laughed at him, which was why he chose to do something stupid. He wore a kangaroo costume and he kept tennis balls in the pouch. But no one found this funny. If anything, they respected him more than ever. He was irritated by their reaction, but he had the compensation of knowing that he was helping others with his charity, and the kangaroo costume was extremely comfortable.

It's the thought that counts

2010-07-06T00:02:00.000-07:00

   When Alfred became king, his first act was to instruct his architect to design an observatory. For years his sister had been claiming that she could see ships with bright red sails in the sky at night. She said they were carrying well-dressed horses, cows and pigs between the stars. When the observatory was built, the king's astronomers spent three years observing the sky at night, but they found no evidence of fashion-conscious farmyard animals in transit between ports on stars. So the king fired the astronomers and hired astrologers instead, and they found evidence of the ships without even having to use the telescope.
   The astrologers also told him that he'd marry the woman who had played the harp at a recent ball. Her name was Jemima. Alfred did everything in his power to win her heart. He bought her flowers and gardens. He hired three bakers to make cakes for her every day. She'd take a small bite from each cake and the rest of it would be discarded. When she started spitting out the small bite, he hired someone to take a bite for her and someone else to spit it out. Years went by and she didn't see any of the cakes that were being made and discarded for her every day, but she was given regular reports on them.
   The bakers only stopped making the cakes when Jemima agreed to marry Alfred. He was overjoyed when he finally broke down her resistance and she resigned herself to the marriage. He instructed the bakers to start work on a wedding cake ten times bigger than any seen before in the country, and he hired hundreds of people to take bites from it. He instructed his scientists and his engineers to build a ship that would float through the night sky to a planet where you could pick all of the ingredients for an excellent dessert from a single tree. This would be the location of Alfred and Jemima's honeymoon. He had always been interested in visiting this planet because he'd heard that its inhabitants had embraced democracy, and he was curious about these strange aliens. All of the politicians on the planet were forced to live in isolation with no knowledge of what they were doing or how their decisions would affect the lives of the inhabitants. It wasn't the ideal system, but it was the best they had.
   The scientists and engineers started work on a craft that would convey the newly-weds into space, but the best they could come up with was a ship that would take them to a bog where very old people went to laugh as if they knew something that no one else knew. On some days you'd find hundreds of old people shaking their sticks and laughing at their secret knowledge. Alfred was furious when he saw the ship. The bog was a place that even drunk commoners could fall into. This sort of journey was a far cry from sailing majestically through a star-filled sky to a place where cream grew on trees. He sent the scientists and engineers to a bog at the foot of a faraway mountain. They'd stay there for a year, spending their days laughing at how worthless they were.
   He regretted not getting his astrologers to do the job, but it was too late then. The wedding was only weeks away. To compensate for abandoning their planned honeymoon in space, Alfred decided to arrange a grand pageant. He told Jemima that it would involve thousands of people dressed up as animals, thousands of animals dressed up as people, and bonfires so big that democratically elected politicians would be able to see them from the windows of lonely mountain retreats as they gazed out at the night sky.
   Jemima said, "I know I must have given the impression that all I want in life is cake, but all I really want is for someone to tell me they like the sound of my voice or the way my hair curls, or that they like spending time with me, doing nothing."
   "I'll hire five-hundred men on five-hundred horses on five-hundred elephants to tell you these things twenty-four hours a day."
   "No, I just want you to tell me these things every once in a while. Once a year would be enough. For my birthday."
   Alfred was speechless. He didn't speak to her for seven years because he didn't know what to say, apart from when he said 'I do' on their wedding day, and he wouldn't have said that if he hadn't been told what to say.
   When he eventually thought of something to say to her he spent another few months wondering if he should say it. He came to the conclusion that it was worth taking the risk, so at the end of another silent breakfast he cleared his throat and said, "I like the sound of your voice."
   She couldn't have been any happier. He was amazed at how dazzling her smile was. It only took him another few months to think of something else to say. On her birthday he made a comment about her hair and she said it was the best present ever, so he decided not the give her the birthday cake or the orchestra inside the cake.

The Land Where the Bees Make Gold

2010-06-28T23:47:00.000-07:00

   Paddy spent most of his time in rundown pubs near the harbour. He'd drink and tell stories about his maritime adventures to anyone conscious enough to look as if they were listening. He seemed perfectly at home in a pub with sawdust on the floor and bar stools held together with twine, so he was very surprised to be invited to Mr. Connolly's house, a mansion on a hill overlooking the town. He accepted the invitation because Connolly was the sort of man who'd consider it a crime not to offer a guest a drink, even if he only invited you to his house to murder you.
   Paddy was delighted when he was offered a glass of brandy on his arrival, and he was glad to find that he wouldn't be murdered as well. He wasn't the only seafarer to be invited to the house. Connolly's drawing room was full of local sailors, and it seemed obvious to Paddy that Connolly was planning an expedition on the ocean. This was confirmed by Hughie, one of Paddy's old friends, who'd also been invited to the house. Connolly's personal chef had told Hughie that the ship would leave port on the following week, but Connolly had yet to reveal their destination. The chef would be on board, as would Connolly's personal doctor.
   When Connolly arrived in the room he outlined his plan to find an island where the bees had discovered the secret of alchemy. Their honey was solid gold and the islanders despised it because of its taste. He promised the sailors a very decent share of the gold. All of the sailors agreed to go because they thought it would be easy for them to take much more than a very decent share.
   It took them three months to find the island. During that time they fought off pirates and a sea monster who nearly defeated them by pretending to cry. They came close to being sunk by ice bergs and by a mountain that rose from underneath the surface of the water. When they found the island, the welcome of the locals and the comforts of dry land were just as gratifying as the abundance of unwanted gold. It didn't take long for the sailors to lose interest in the songs and dances of the locals and in the novelty of ground that hardly ever moved, but their interest in the gold remained undiminished. While the sailors were collecting gold for Connolly, Paddy and Hughie were looking out for ways to find some for themselves. They met a local witch doctor called Simon. He was really an English aristocrat who posed as a witch doctor by wearing a hat with feathers in it. He was harvesting gold as well. He'd been on the island for a year and he was planning on staying for another few months, until he had harvested enough to ensure that he'd never be short of a gold egg cup again. Paddy and Hughie were determined to find his stash of gold and take as much of it as they could carry.
   Simon lived amongst a tribe at the other side of the island. Paddy and Hughie went there, and they had no trouble finding his hut because it was the only one with a door bell. It was the only one with a door as well. It didn't have a lock, so they were able to get in without breaking anything. The gold was hidden under his bed. He obviously hadn't been overly-concerned about thieves, which made him exactly the sort of person Paddy and Hughie loved stealing from.
   Their escape wasn't as easy as they thought it would be. Members of the tribe at this side of the island liked the taste of gold, but they loved the taste of thieves. Paddy and Hughie were put into a huge pot of water over a fire. They'd be boiled for dinner, and the gold would be used to make a sauce.
   Simon arrived on the scene shortly after the fire had been lit. He said, "They've asked me to use my magic powders to help with the seasoning. The powders are really just salt and pepper. If only all jobs were as straightforward as this. Try as I might, I can't find a way to cure diarrhoea with salt and pepper. And they're always asking me to cure diarrhoea. It's because of their diet. Never eat anything that cries and tells you about its pet canary as you're putting it in the pot. That's my advice, but they just won't listen. Jobs are rarely as pleasant as this. Curing diarrhoea with a pinch of pepper is anything but pleasant, but I'm only too happy to add a bit of flavour to the men who tried to steal my gold."
   "Why don't they eat you?" Hughie said.
   "I'm a witch doctor. Eating me would be like eating a dog. No, a dog wouldn't be mysterious enough. A unicorn."
   "You're the man they turn to when they want someone to unsuccessfully cure their diarrhoea. There isn't anything mysterious about that."
   "You're right. We'll go with 'dog'."
   "We're very sorry about stealing the gold," Paddy said. "Maybe there's something we can give you if you get us out of this pot. I have some very impressive knives on the ship."
   "I've only just replenished my supply of very impressive knives."
   "I have a book with pictures of women," Hughie said. "They're doing things with very impressive knives. You can have that if you get us out."
   "It's a deal."
   Simon put some feathers in their hair and he said to the natives, "Look, they're growing feathers as they're heating. They must be witch doctors as well."
   The natives removed Paddy and Hughie from the pot. One of them patted Paddy on the head, suggesting that these witch doctors were regarded more as dogs than as unicorns.
   They spent another three weeks on the island. They were revered as witch doctors, but they were often called out to cure unpleasant ailments and diseases. At least it gave them a good opportunity to collect gold. They always carried sacks that supposedly contained their powders and potions, but the only contents were salt, pepper and gold. They had no trouble hiding the gold on the journey home because no one would go anywhere near them out of fear of contracting a disease, and it was rumoured that the sacks contained medicines that would jump on your face and lick your eyes if you looked at them. So they made it home with enough material for all the gold knives they'd ever need. They brought a few contagious diseases as well, and they had fun passing these onto their friends, but they were sorry they didn't bring any of the medicines that licked people's eyes.

Basil won a stair-lift

2010-06-22T00:04:00.000-07:00

   Basil won a stair-lift in a raffle organised by his local Amateur Dramatics Society to raise money for the costumes for their Christmas pantomime. Basil was delighted with his prize, even though it was a second-hand stair-lift, and he had no need for one. He put up the stair-lift in his garden. At first he was proud of his new garden ornament, but after a few weeks he started to think that it looked bare on its own, so he built a stairs to go with it. This didn't have the effect he was hoping for. The stairs with the stair-lift looked even more bare than the stair-lift on its own, so he built a house around them.
   His new house was better than the old one, so he knocked the old one and made a garden there instead. He put up the stair-lift in his new garden, but it still looked bare, so he built a stairs and a house to go with it. His new house was better than the old one, so he knocked the old one and made a garden there instead. He put up the stair-lift in his new garden...
   After eighteen demolitions and constructions he ended up with an extraordinary house. It was three storeys high at the back, seven at the front and eight at one side. There were thirty-five rooms, not counting all the secret ones. He was sorry he'd made the kitchen so big. It felt all wrong, and he wished he could go back a few houses, to when he had the perfect kitchen. But getting it back the way it was would have been very difficult. It seemed easier to change his life to suit his new kitchen, and one morning he had a brilliant idea: he'd get married and have kids.
   He got his keys and he went out the front door to get married and have kids, but just after he'd stepped outside he stopped to think about his plan. What if he got a wife and kids who didn't match his house? He'd have to change the house again, because changing the wife and kids could be difficult. So he hired actors to play his wife and kids, just to see if he could match them to his house. Chinese orphans, Russian wives and children raised by wolves were all tested on his house before he found the right blend. His wife was a French film star. He had a good selection of prodigies amongst the kids. There was a concert pianist and a mathematician, and his youngest daughter was both a concert pianist and a mathematician.
   After getting the family right he thought he'd finally be able to enjoy his house, but he was struggling to get some of the smaller details right, like what breed of dog they should have. When he won a caravan in a raffle organised by a rugby club, he decided to take a trip in it to clear his mind of the house, hoping that a fresh perspective would finally enable him to get everything right. He couldn't decide where to go in his caravan, but he realised that he didn't need to decide. He could go anywhere. At last he'd found something that felt just right, so he sold his house and family. He was content travelling around the country in his caravan, without any destination in mind.

The Wrong Place

2010-06-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

   Dennis had a habit of putting his foot in the wrong place. He always took great pleasure from putting his feet down on the ground when he was wearing his enormous boots, but his enjoyment would be diminished by the sound of something breaking, squelching or shattering into pieces. This would often be followed by an angry tirade from the owner of the item flattened by his boot. He thought it was unreasonable of them to admonish him for putting his foot in the wrong place. If only one step in ten resulted in a smashed vase, a crushed flower or a flattened cake, people would focus entirely on that one step and completely ignore the others. No one ever praised him for the countless occasions on which he put his foot in exactly the right place.
   One of his friends suggested going for walks in the fields because he was less likely to break things there. If he stood on something that went squelch he probably wouldn't upset whoever had left it there.
   Derek enjoyed walking through the fields. He could freely put his foot down wherever he wanted to until he crashed into a gate or a ditch. He was able to overcome obstacles like these, but his walk was brought to an unexpected end when he put his foot down on what seemed like solid ground and he fell through it. He landed in an underground room. He sustained a few cuts and bruises in the fall, but he wasn't seriously injured. A timber box had broken his fall and he had broken the box, but if he hadn't landed on it he might never have discovered that it contained gold coins. There was no one there to admonish him for the destruction of the box, and no one to claim the coins, so he took them home.
   Finding gold seemed like an enormous stroke of luck, but after his discovery he was breaking more items than ever with his boots, and the reactions of the owners tended to be more extreme. The owner of a broken flower pot wanted to stab him with a piece of the broken pot, and she might well have done so if he hadn't smashed it into tiny pieces. Dennis decided to get rid of the gold after he stood on a cake he was looking forward to eating. He was almost certain that this was the only time in his life he had left a cake on the ground, and its destruction seemed like extraordinary bad luck, which he blamed on the gold. But off-loading gold wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. No one wanted gold coins that were cursed. Gold coins on their own would have been easy to get rid of, but the curse made people reluctant to take them.
   When the local police force went on holiday they left the local superheroes in charge, but they're even less likely to prevent crime than the police. Amongst their number are people like Dean, who collects paper. This is his special power. Harry's special superhero power is pretending to be dead.
   When the superheroes were in charge it was a good time for stealing and for having things stolen. Dennis thought that the best way to get rid of the gold would be to let a thief take it. He wanted to advertise the fact that he'd found the gold, so he paid his brother to dress up as a butler and push a wheelbarrow around the town. The wheelbarrow contained Dennis and a treasure chest full of gold. Dennis was smoking a cigar and doing his best to look pleased with himself.
   He had no trouble getting to sleep that night. His mind was at rest because he was confident that a thief would break into his house in the middle of the night and steal his gold. He thought it would be like Christmases from his childhood when he goes downstairs in the morning and sees the empty space where once there had been a treasure chest.
   Shortly after three o' clock, Dennis heard the sounds of crockery and glass being broken. At first he thought he was dreaming. These sounds often featured in his dreams, just like in his waking hours. But when he heard voices he realised that a scuffle was taking place in his living room. He went downstairs to investigate, and he found that a thief had broken in to steal the gold, but he'd been overpowered by the superheroes. They had heard about his gold and they were sure that someone would try to take it, so they joined forces to catch the thief. When they combined all of their powers they were just about capable of catching a single thief, although Harry hadn't been much help. He was pretending to be dead behind the sofa.
   While the superheroes were describing in great detail the plan they used to catch their prey, the thief managed to slip away through the window. When Derek realised he was gone he looked to where the treasure chest was kept, and he was disappointed to find that it was still there. It felt like the Christmas when Santa brought him a teddy bear that wet itself when he really wanted a train set that caught fire.
   Things took a turn for the worse when he realised that the thief had stolen his boots. Derek felt the sort of despair only a disastrous Christmas Day could produce. He didn't think he'd ever wear his boots again, but he decided to go outside to see if the thief had left any foot prints.
   He found the thief and his boots in the garden. 'Garden' isn't really the appropriate word to describe the area around his house. 'Garden' would suggest that the place has been subjected to gardening, but Derek just lets it grow wild. A snare had been lost in the long grass until the thief found it, and he was stuck there. Derek had left the snare there a few years earlier because he wanted to catch a fox who had killed some of his chickens. But after Derek had stood on all of his chickens the fox stopped coming, and Derek forgot about the snare, until the thief found it.
   Derek helped the thief out of the snare and retrieved his boots. He then lectured the thief on how a life of crime will never pay, and he sent the man away with the gold. He put his boots on and walked back inside, breaking a brush handle and an old fish tank on the way. He never considered the possibility that it was actually his boots that were cursed, but if Derek was into considering things he'd probably look at the ground where he plans to plant his boots to make sure it isn't occupied by something likely to break.

Miss Watson

2010-06-07T23:51:00.000-07:00

   Derek lived on the banks of a lake that was home to a monster. This creature only emerged from the water at night. Sightings were rare, but people for miles around could hear his roar every time he rose above the surface of the lake.
   Derek believed that the monster was lonely, and that all he needed was female company. No one in the area knew how to determine the gender of underwater monsters, but it was widely believed that this one was male because experience had taught people that only men roar in the middle of the night and wake up the neighbours. Experience had taught Derek that these roars were often inspired by female company, or the lack of it. Of course, alcohol almost always played a part as well, but this was hardly likely to be a factor in the monster's expressions of despair. It was difficult to imagine a greater commitment to teetotalism than living in water.
   Derek wanted to help the creature in the lake. At times it was heart-breaking to hear the monster's plaintive cry, evoking a sense of a lonely existence, but most of the time it was just annoying to be woken in the middle of the night. Derek wanted to find someone who could give him an insight into the psychology of the monster. He asked the neighbours if they knew anyone who could help. No one knew of a monster psychologist, but Mrs. Thomas did have a brother who studied child psychology. Derek didn't think that Mrs. Thomas's brother would be able to offer much help in this instance, so he tried asking the people whose lives were full of strange phenomena, the men and women who roamed the land at night to meet fairies and the spirits who were permanently lost in the hills, like the ghost of the hiker who'd been wandering around for centuries, constantly thinking about the sausages he'd left on the frying pan back at his camp site. For these people there was nothing strange about encounters with ghosts, and for some of them there was nothing strange about constantly thinking of sausages, but none of them had any experience of lovelorn monsters.
   As a last resort, Derek tried looking in the phone book. He was amazed to find an ad for a service that dealt with monsters of all shapes and sizes, from the smallest ones who set up horrid homes in handbags, to the enormous monsters who live in lakes or dance in the sky, generating their own clouds to disguise themselves (it's easy to see through the disguise when you see two clouds dancing). The ad promised an expert insight into the psychology of monsters. Derek was delighted when he read this. It meant he wouldn't have to contact Mrs. Thomas's brother, and he was glad because he'd heard that Mrs. Thomas's brother was just like Mrs. Thomas.
   The service was provided by middle-aged twin sisters. When they arrived at Derek's house they had suitcases with them. They told him they'd need to stay overnight to hear the monster. Derek had a feeling that this abundance of female company would turn out to be worse than not having any, but he was encouraged by the antipathy they showed for his company. They rarely spoke to him, and they insisted that he call both of them 'Miss Watson'. This suited Derek because he would have found it difficult to tell which one was which if he'd known their names. He appreciated their silence as well because he got the impression that they'd complain about his house if they were more willing to talk to him.
   Derek was woken in the middle of the night by the sound of the monster's roar, and on this occasion he welcomed the noise because Miss Watson would hear it as well, and hopefully it would offer them some insight into the monster's problems.
   In the morning they told him that the monster was actually female, and her biggest problem was that her wings weren't working. She used to be able to fly, but she'd been confined to the lake for the past fifty years. Miss Watson suspected that a magic spell was the source of the wings' malfunction. They said they might be able to reverse the spell, but they'd need to listen to the monster's roar again to find out more. Derek was relieved to hear there was a chance he'd get a good night's sleep some time in the near future, and he told Miss Watson they could stay with him for as long as they wanted.
   When they were still staying in his house three weeks later he started to wonder if he'd be better off with sleepless nights. He didn't know if they were making any progress with the spell because they were so reluctant to talk to him. And then Henry, one of the people who seek strange phenomena, came to see him to deliver a message that had been passed on in a dream. In Henry's dream he'd been told that the twins weren't really monster psychologists. Sometimes they posed as ghost-catchers and sometimes as mediums. The purpose of all their roles was to find a place to live. Their job would supposedly require an overnight stay, but they could be there for months. They'd been homeless for seven years, ever since losing their house after losing most of their money in a bad investment.
   Henry's message seemed believable to Derek, though he was reluctant to trust a man who devoted most of his spare time to his attempt to make paperclips out of butterflies, an obsession that began with an interest in alchemy. After another week of the twins' company, Derek decided it was time to tell them that he no longer required their services. Learning to live with the monster seemed easier than learning to live with two women who'd happily spend an evening silently expressing their antipathy for him and all he stood for, radiating their contempt around the house. When Miss Watson was standing at the edge of the lake one day he went to see them to inform them of his decision. He'd practised this speech in advance, but he didn't get far into it when he was interrupted by the monster, who emerged from the water and kept rising upwards, carried away by her wings. She let out one final roar before she departed, and Derek suspected that this one could be translated as 'thank you'. He watched in awe until she disappeared from view. He was speechless, but he did his best to make a noise that could be translated as 'thank you'. The twins remained silent. Miss Watson gave him their bill. When he saw how much they were charging he made a noise that would have to be bleeped out if it could be translated into English. He couldn't possibly afford to pay them what they were asking, but he saw another way of settling his debt. He offered them free accommodation instead of money. They accepted his offer, and he detected faint smiles on their faces. He took this as a sign that they'd turn out to be easier to live with than the monster.

Matters

2010-06-01T03:06:00.000-07:00

   Martin was convinced that someone was trying to steal his airplane. He believed that this person had been sent by a criminal gang or by an organisation with evil intent. This firm belief started out as a vague impression, and the seeds of the impression were the fleeting glimpses of a man hanging around the hanger (his garage) late at night. His airplane couldn't actually fly (it could hop reasonably well), but he never wondered why a criminal gang or an evil organisation would want a flightless flying machine. If he had put more thought into it he might have come to the conclusion that the thief was working for an organisation that urgently required a means of hopping. But if he had put more thought into it he might well have come to the conclusion that the thief was just a figment of his imagination.
   Martin didn't have time for putting more thought into things because he was too busy guarding his hanger. He was confident that he could ward off the most cunning of thieves, but matters were complicated when he fell in love with the woman who threw a stuffed fox at him. This is what almost always happens to matters when love begins to bloom. Martin had to find out more about this woman. He felt dejected every time he thought about the fact that he knew the name of the fox but he didn't know hers. He could only guess what her name was. He imagined it would be Amanda or Isobel or Beatrice, and certainly not Fifi, like the fox. The only thing he knew about her was that she'd throw a stuffed fox at a man simply because he tried to make unpleasant noises with a tuba. She was obviously a superior human being, or at the very least she was superior to a man who'd make unpleasant noises with a tuba.
   It was essential that he start spying on her at the earliest possible opportunity, but to do this he'd have to leave the hanger unguarded late at night. He wasn't prepared to abandon his plane to the clutches of the thief so he set up a security system, which consisted of a few ingenious devices. None of these were likely to kill the thief, but they'd certainly make him give up stealing airplanes for a while.
   Martin's first spying mission ended in failure. He couldn't even locate the woman. And to make matters worse, when he came home late at night he found that his airplane had been stolen. His security system hadn't worked as anticipated. It had hopped instead of flown. He was dejected. He wished he'd stayed with his plane and built a machine to spy on the woman who threw a fox at him. If only he could turn back time, he thought. He considered building a time machine, but that might not even hop. It might just fall over. He considered just falling over himself. It was the only course of action that seemed in any way appealing.
   Just as he was beginning to lean to his left he was startled by the sound of a cough, and then a woman's voice. "Sorry to bother you," she said, "but I'm afraid I may have damaged your airplane."
   Martin turned around, and he was shocked to see the woman who threw the fox at him. Her whole demeanour suggested that she wasn't likely to be throwing anything at him any time soon.
   "I was furious when you smiled after I threw the fox at you," she said. "It was almost as if you believed that I was doing you a favour, and there's nothing more infuriating than that. It made me determined to do something that you couldn't possibly regard as a favour. I saw how closely you were guarding your airplane, so I decided to steal it. If I hadn't been so angry I might have thought about it, and realised that it wasn't such a good idea. I finally got my chance to steal it when you went away this evening. My plan was to hide the plane in a hay shed. I wasn't stupid enough to think I could actually fly it. I was just going to drive it through the fields to the shed, but it kept hopping, until I crashed it into a ditch. I'm very sorry."
   Martin wanted to inspect the damage, so she took him to the site of the crash. He feared the worst, but the damage was nowhere near as bad as he thought it would be. He was certain he could repair the airplane. He was so optimistic that he even believed he could make it fly. He smiled at her and asked her what her name was.
   "Beatrice," she said.
   His smile became a beam, and she couldn't help smiling back at him. Love was in the air, and if love had complicated matters, stealing an airplane had undoubtedly simplified them.

A Mouse with Big Plans

2010-05-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

   Leo was a mouse with big plans. He wanted to move into a mountain, and excavate a magnificent house in it. Mice, other animals, birds and people all made fun of him, but within a year of moving into the mountain he had created an enormous house with hundreds of rooms. He was proud of his achievement, but there were drawbacks to such a large dwelling. The biggest problem was that the kids had a limitless supply of hiding places. His house was too big for his family. There are very few mice or people with nineteen children who can say this. It's something to boast about. Moving into a smaller house wouldn't be a good solution for someone who likes to boast about things. Getting a bigger family would be a better solution, but this would raise other problems. And he'd need hundreds of kids to fill his new house, so this was out of the question.
   The solution he came up with was to hire servants and to station them all around the house so they could keep an eye on his kids, especially the teenagers who'd spend many hours in their hiding places. He was kicking himself for not thinking of hiring servants sooner. Not only would they keep an eye on his kids, but they were also the perfect ornament to a house like this. Within a few weeks he had a domestic staff that was bigger than his family, and he kept hiring more servants. All of the mice and other animals who worked in his house thought he was only hiring them to show off, but they had to admit that he was a good employer.
   Leo had a Rottweiler called Dave to guard the mountain, but Dave was really more of a pet. He slept in a kennel outside because he was too big to fit in through any of the doors. Some of Leo's kids used to take him for a walk every day. They'd cling to his lead with the same determination they showed in clinging to their delusion that they were controlling where he was going.
   The cook, Mrs. Rogers, was a robin. Her husband was the gardener. She was always complaining about all the work she had to do to feed everyone in the mountain, but she'd never let anyone help her in the kitchen, and she still didn't have as much work to do as the unfortunate mice who had to prepare Dave's dinner every day. Mrs. Rogers spent a lot of time complaining to Leo about how little time she had. He was often tempted to point out that if she gave up complaining she'd be able to make a three-tier wedding cake every day in the time she saved, and if she gave up smoking she'd be able to ice it as well, but he knew he'd only be unleashing a ferocious torrent of complaints if he said this, so he kept quiet. He had enough problems to contend with.
   His eldest son, Graham, was going through that difficult teenage phase. He wasn't in the least bit impressed by the mountain. He told his father that it was just an inanimate object. You wouldn't be impressed by a pebble, he said, and a mountain is no different. There's just more of it there to unimpress you. You could spend all day being unimpressed by a mountain, and Graham frequently did. This is why he got on so well with Mrs. Rogers. He started spending more of his time in the kitchen with her, where they could be unimpressed together. She liked him, and she introduced him to a wide variety of things to be staggeringly unimpressed by, things that inspire awe in idiots. She taught him how to cook as well. He was the only one she'd let into the kitchen while she was cooking. Everyone else in the mountain was an idiot who might break down in a fit of awe at any moment. Graham enjoyed cooking, and he was good at it. His family were hugely impressed by the meals he made, and he was delighted with their admiration because he was able to dismiss them all as idiots who'd succumbed to awe. Leo was always glad to be regarded as an idiot if it formed part of a solution that worked out for the best for everyone.

A Stockpile of Peas

2010-05-18T01:55:00.000-07:00

I used to look at my watch a lot when I was young. Watch-watching was the only way to pass the time when the TV was broken. I convinced myself that I was actually making time go quicker, but I was able to convince myself of a lot of things that seemed far-fetched. Over a million things. Actually there were only three things. Of four if you count the belief that I had convinced myself of over a million far-fetched things. Of the other three, one was that I could make time go quicker by staring at my watch, another was that I'd counted to over a million on a wet Sunday afternoon when I was cataloguing all the far-fetched things I'd convinced myself of, and the other was that I could breathe through my ears. I thought I had found proof of this at dinnertime when I'd survive until dessert despite my mouth and nose being constantly full. I used to breathe in and then put peas into my ears so they'd go shooting out across the room as the air looked for an exit. My brothers told me that the peas came shooting out. I had to take their word for it because I couldn't convince myself that I had eyes on the sides of my head to see the peas' majestic flight across the kitchen, ricocheting off pots and pans and travelling through keyholes, as my brothers claimed. But I think they were just saying that so I'd keep putting more peas in my ears. I doubt if any of those peas ever came shooting out.
After a few years, I noticed that my brothers were counting every time I put a pea into one of my ears, and I realised that they were counting the peas I was putting into my head. Their count was approaching a hundred-thousand then. I decided to give up putting peas in my ears, despite their earnest appeals that I keep going until I reached a hundred-thousand. Ever since then I've been finding peas in my shoes, in my hair and in my pockets. I've counted every one, but I've still only found sixteen-thousand of them, which is a bit of a worry.

Feeling Old

2010-05-11T01:06:00.000-07:00

   We needed a holiday. The world was making us feel old and we needed to feel young again, just for a week. We considered going to all sorts of exciting places that promised adventures with adrenaline junkies who shout every time they have to say something, even when they're talking in their sleep. But we couldn't convince ourselves that this is what we really wanted. We couldn't resist the idea of doing nothing at the seaside, of wearing cardigans and staring out at the sea, and being even older than we were. We did make an effort to resist this option and to convince ourselves that we were still young, but the lure of the seaside won.
   We appreciated the peace we felt as we stared out at the sea, but after a few days, boredom started to creep in. Geraldine suggested taking a break from the sea and looking in the other direction, so we tried that for a while, but it wasn't long before we ran out of things to look at.
   We met a couple called Padraig and Eileen at the hotel we were staying in. They were in their sixties. They had a motorbike and a side-car, and they used to go for trips on that every day. In the morning, they'd randomly point at a place on a map, and then they'd set out for this place. One of them would ride the motorbike while the other was in the side-car. When they reached their destination they'd switch places for the return journey.
   We decided to copy their method. We needed new things to look at, and we also felt an urge to prove that we weren't older than them. It was difficult to convince ourselves of this as we set off in our car while they sped away on the motorbike with the side-car. Geraldine pointed at a spot on the map and we went in this direction.
   After driving for nearly an hour, we came across a castle, and we decided to stop to have a look at that. There were many items of furniture, rugs and suits of armour on the lawn in front of the castle. It looked as if they were in the middle of their spring cleaning. Children wearing school uniforms were polishing the furniture and the armour.
   A man came over to us and welcomed us to his castle. He told us his name was Jeremy. The children were on a school tour, he said. Polishing furniture would give them a fuller appreciation of castle life.
   As he was giving us the history of the building, a dark red cloud appeared overhead and it started raining apples. The school kids hid under the furniture. Jeremy didn't seem to mind the apples raining down on his head. He invited us to hide in the suits of armour, and we did.
   As we were waiting for the cloud to pass, he told us that the shower of apples was part of the latest efficiency drive by the castle's wizard. Instead of picking the apples, the wizard cast a spell on them so that they'd float up into clouds. Sometimes the clouds would stray a long way from home, but they always came back to the castle and deposited their load of apples. "He's become obsessed with efficiency," Jeremy said. "He wants to find a better way of doing every job, no matter how big or small. I find it more efficient to get school children to do these things. As part of his new method of sweeping floors, he has to hypnotise people into believing that they're dancing in a huge ballroom, and his dish washer involves frightened ducks. It's more trouble than it's worth, if you ask me. And you should see how he milks the cows."
   When it stopped raining, the school kids emerged from underneath the furniture, but we couldn't get out of the armour. Jeremy told us that the wizard must have cast a spell on it, and we'd need another spell to get back out. He went into the castle to phone the wizard.
   When he came back out a few minutes later he said, "The wizard is busy at the farm right now. One of the servants thinks he's a wheelbarrow and he's after getting away. They have to catch him before he injures himself. I think this is part of the wizard's new method for picking potatoes. He says he'll be here as soon as they catch the servant."
   "Isn't there any other way out of the armour?" I said.
   "Possibly, but I wouldn't recommend messing with his spells. You could go away thinking you're a wheelbarrow or a kennel."
   "We'll wait."
   "Would ye mind picking up some of the apples while ye're waiting?"
   When we'd finished collecting the apples we did some other jobs for Jeremy. We swept floors and cleaned windows. The work was gruelling because of the armour. We were exhausted by the time the wizard arrived in the evening. He freed us from the armour. As we were stretching our arms and legs I heard him whisper to Jeremy, "I told you this would be the most efficient way of doing it."
   Despite this, our time at the castle was still the most enjoyable part of the holiday.

Odd Eyes

2010-05-04T01:59:00.000-07:00

   It was a lazy Sunday afternoon in July. Louise, Giles and Janet had a picnic in a small field at the edge of the woods. After they'd finished their strawberries and cream, jam tarts and salmon sandwiches, Giles turned on the radio to hear the commentary on a football match. The team he supported were tormented by diverse manifestations of misfortune, from partially-sighted officials to a pitch invasion by a man who put a bucket over their goalkeeper's head. But the enforced laziness made it difficult for Giles to care. He couldn't even smile at the commentator's description of attempts to remove the bucket.
   Janet decided to make a stand against the lethargy by going for a walk. She was gone for half an hour. When she returned to the picnic rug she said to Giles, "I found this peanut. I thought you might want to use it."
   She gave him the peanut. He examined it closely, and an idea came to mind. His grandmother was once given a pheasant by a neighbour who loved doing anything he could do with a gun. He'd even discovered a way to shine his shoes by firing a gun. Giles's grandmother couldn't eat a creature after seeing its face, so she had the bird stuffed instead. But she couldn't stop seeing the face then. She felt that the eyes were always following her, and that the bird was looking at her accusingly, as if she was complicit in its death. So she removed the eyes and she kept them in a box. She put a patch over one of the pheasant's empty eye sockets. She was going to put a patch over the other one as well, but it didn't seem likely that a bird would have two eye patches. It wouldn't have survived for long enough to become plump enough for her neighbour to shoot it, and her neighbour would never have shot a creature with two eye patches anyway. It would have been like shooting fish in a barrel, which seems like a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon until you realise you're making holes in your barrel.
   She tried lots of things to fill the eye socket. Marbles, bits of chewing gum and mashed potatoes all failed. She eventually settled on a diamond. Giles inherited the bird, and he hated it because the diamond was too ostentatious. He didn't like anything that elevated the material world. This is why he decided to put the peanut into the pheasant's eye socket. He felt that he was making an important statement by replacing a diamond with a humble peanut.
   Giles and Louise had a visitor a few days after their picnic. When Giles answered the doorbell a middle-aged woman was standing on the doorstep, and she looked angry. She said, "I've heard from a reliable source that you have something that belongs to me. A peanut."
   Giles didn't want to give up the peanut. He said, "I'm afraid your source is mistaken."
   "I trust my source. She hasn't let me down in the past."
   "There's a first time for everything. Being in possession of other people's peanuts isn't something I've ever aspired to."
   "There's a first time for that as well."
   "Maybe next week."
   The woman went away without her peanut. Giles said to Louise, "How exactly did Janet acquire the peanut?"
   "Didn't you ask her?"
   "I assumed she had gone to a shop, bought a packet of peanuts and eaten all but one of them. I very nearly ate it, until I realised that it was just the thing I needed for the pheasant."
   "I thought she'd found it stuck in some mud. That's where she finds most of the things she thinks other people might use. I was disappointed when you didn't eat it."
   "I suppose we should find out where she got it."
   Janet was in Switzerland on business, but he managed to contact her on the phone. She said she found the peanut on a plate on a picnic rug. A note on the plate said 'This belongs to Rita'. Janet believed that a peanut doesn't belong to anyone, so she took it. Giles thought she had done the right thing.
   Rita returned on the following evening. She said, "My source is certain that you have the peanut. Certain."
   "Well she's wrong," Giles said. "And anyway, it's only a peanut. It's wrong to be too attached to any material object."
   "Why are you so attached to it?"
   "Because... I'm not attached to anything. There's an important principle here. Two important principles. Firstly, you can't really own a peanut."
   "Of course you can. If you can own a house or a car or a dog you can own a peanut."
   "You can own these things, but you shouldn't really possess them. And it doesn't really matter, because the second important principle is... Well, the second principle is that you can own these things but you shouldn't really possess them."
   "Doesn't that contradict the first principle, that you can't really own a peanut?"
   "The point is this: you might have possessions but you should be able to let them go, and not be in the slightest bit concerned about their loss."
   "Another important principle is that you shouldn't let people steal for you. I was just about to eat that peanut when I was informed of something I had to see, so I went to investigate. It was a message carved on a tree. It was a deeply offensive message, though we had to admire the craftsmanship. And when I came back the peanut was gone. I want to retrieve it because someone stole it from me."
   "I'll make you an offer. I'll give you a diamond instead of the peanut."
   "No. I want the peanut."
   "I can make you a better offer. I'll give you two glass eyes. They used to belong to a pheasant."
   "If the pheasant had two glass eyes, how was he able to see?"
   "He acquired the eyes after his death."
   She thought about the offer for about a minute before saying, "I'll take the eyes."
   Giles congratulated her on valuing two glass pheasant eyes and a peanut more than a diamond. He said he admired her character. They had an interesting conversation about society's immersion in material things, and they found that they held similar views on many issues. She invited him around to her house to see the glass eyes in their new context.
   He called around two days later, and she took him to the eyes' new home in her living room. A few years before this, she had bought a one-eyed stuffed peacock at an auction. She used to have it in her living room, but it made people feel uncomfortable so she put it in her attic. With the pheasant eyes she could bring the peacock back down to the living room. She put one of the pheasant eyes into the empty eye socket and she kept the other one on the plate where the peanut had been, next to the note that said 'This belongs to Rita'. The peacock with odd eyes was guarding the plate with the peanut. Giles found the scene disturbing. He had to go home to the re-assuring gaze of the single-peanut-eyed pheasant.

The Match Report

2010-04-27T02:37:00.000-07:00

   The match began with a murder. One of the goalkeepers was found dead in his own net, much to the consternation of the other players. The referee seemed unmoved by the situation. He spent most of the first half strolling around the pitch with a cigarette in his mouth instead of a whistle, while all around him the match went on at a frantic pace. Despite his casual demeanour, he had solved the case before half-time. The murderer was the prime suspect, a striker who had been involved in a long-running feud with the goalkeeper. It started with a disagreement over what brains are made of and whether or not you could make your own brain. The striker had no qualms about killing the goalkeeper on his own team.
   Many people in the crowd were wondering why they should bother staying around for the second half, but a score shortly after half-time kept the spectators interested. One of the wingers was found dead in suspicious circumstances. The ref took notes as the corpse was being removed from the field on a stretcher, and the match resumed.
   An hour into the game, everyone was distracted by an off-the-ball incident in the penalty area. Two opponents were arguing about how far away from someone you'd have to be to seriously injure them with a turnip. The ball was in a glass case just outside the other penalty area. After the ref had settled the argument, attention was returned to the ball, but the case was empty. The ball had been stolen.
   The ref consulted with his linesmen, but they hadn't seen anything. Some spectators chanted accusations against the two players who had argued about the turnip. They were accused of colluding to create a diversion while the thief stole the ball.
   The crowd were in uproar when one of the strikers was murdered in the penalty area, but it turned out that he wasn't dead at all, and the ref booked him for diving. The player insisted that he really had been murdered, and he pointed to a wound where he said he'd been stabbed in the back, but this wound was on his ankle, and no murder weapon was found. The game went on.
   After a seemingly innocuous foul, the ref spent a long time questioning the centre-half who was the last person seen with the winger before his murder. After making some notes in his notebook, he took out a yellow card. Near the end of the game, the centre-half committed a much worse foul on the edge of the penalty area. All of the players converged on the scene of the foul, and a brawl seemed imminent. The ref arrived to restore order. The opposition were calling for the centre-half to be sent off. After looking in his notebook, the ref took out the red card, but instead of showing it to the centre-half he sent off one of the midfield players from the other team. He identified this man as the murderer of the winger and the mastermind of the theft of the ball. The ref claimed that the winger had found out about the plan to steal the ball and he was using this information to blackmail the thief. The midfield player had made two payments to the winger, but he couldn't afford to pay any more because he needed the money to pay the mothers of his illegitimate children, so he killed the winger.
   The murderer was defended by his manager in the press conference after the game. According to the manager, the ref had shown a complete lack of common sense in producing the red card. He should have taken into account the astonishing quantity of illegitimate children amassed by the player. Some of those children were decorated with a meagre amount of diamonds, and they had to use butlers who had been rejected by the children of other players. These reject butlers came in strange shapes and everything they touched would start growing hair.

My Reports

2010-04-20T02:23:00.000-07:00

I can spend a week in a room,
scraping tiny pieces of wallpaper
from the wall,
and putting them into a briefcase.
The people who come
to tie the day's shoelaces
always offer me advice
or make observations about my life.
They told me the tale of the day
they went to see the man
who had an old pram
that he pushed around
and filled with all the junk he found,
and he made sculptures
out of the junk.
His house was full of these sculptures,
as were the gardens in front of
and behind his house.
They said I was being subconsciously influenced
by this man,
that this is why I was putting bits of paper
into the briefcase.
What do they expect me
to do with the papers?
Don't they know I'm writing reports?

Alex came rushing here to see me.
This is my report on what he said:

   He went for a walk on the beach after his dinner in the evening.

   'Stunning' was the only word he could think of to describe the view on that evening. He's used to only being able to think of one word. Sometimes it's 'cornflake' and sometimes it's 'wind'.
   He saw a man emerge from a house and disappear into the sea. Three minutes later, this man emerged from the sea. He was wearing a suit and tie. His clothes were dry by the time he had finished lighting his pipe. "Now," he said, "down to business. Which one of you is Alex?"
   Alex put up his hand.
   "Very good," the stranger said. "A hand in the air. Nothing like the old hand in the air to say 'It's me' or 'I know who killed Mrs. Blank' or 'I submit to your will'."
   "I don't submit to your will and if you're suggesting I had anything to do with the death of Mrs. Blank you're barking up the wrong tree. I've never heard of the woman before in my life."
   "She doesn't exist. Even before she died she didn't exist. I'm not expecting you to 'submit' to my will. I'm merely making a simple request. You work for Mrs. Killarney, don't you?"
   "Yes."
   "Would you mind taking me to see her?"
   "I suppose I could do that much."

The man next door wants me to write
about the straitjackets he made for daffodils
to stop them dancing.
My Neighbour:

He keeps talking about these straitjackets
when I'm compiling my weekly report
for the newspaper,
and everyone will be able to read
my thousands of weekly reports
if they can find a newspaper
stuck in railings
or underneath a flowerpot
('thousands' because
I write them daily)
and

And what?

I was just looking at something.

The editor of the paper
was trying to build a shed
that looked like
the leaning tower of Pisa.
He had collected thousands
of pieces of paper in his briefcase.
He found a bottle of hair
amongst the litter in the back yard
and he's going to use it
for his trip to the city.

if everyone lived in Rome
there'd be no one to live in
in

I don't know

Limerick

I looked in the paper
to see my report about Alex.
The editor had added this report
to the end of mine:

   I was trying to solve the mystery of my grandfather's breeze.

   The doorbell rang downstairs. I heard Gwen opening the door. A man was there. She took him to see Mrs. Killarney. I went out to the landing, and I stood still, hoping to hear what they were saying, but I can't stand still for five minutes without someone tapping me on the shoulder and saying 'Has the talking kitchen said anything interesting today?' or 'Do you still have that pile of stones to throw at the talking kitchen in case it goes mad?'. If I stopped wearing my shoulder they'd just tap me on the head. So when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said 'I've been thinking about what the kitchen said about my holiday home', I had no hope of hearing Mrs. Killarney's conference with the stranger.
[I think the following section has also been added on by the editor.]
   I heard him say, "The oars at either side of my head propel my head through the river of each day, furiously working against the tide, listening out for stray hints of stuck plots that I can piece together and see the entire picture and look into the clear glass eyes of the sinister men born with silver forks in their mouths, or the men standing in the shunshine with their beady beardy eyes growing hair to obscure the windows to their souls like the ivy engulfing the house where they perform the experiments on pigeons and God help you if you have to work as a pigeon for a day and you end up caught in their claws. Yours Truly has already filled out the form requesting God's help in such an eventuality and I've ticked the appropriate boxes in fox forms to indicate a medical condition rendering me unsuitable for work as a pigeon, suitable for light work as a foximile sent to inform chickens of impending endings in penguin landings, kamikaze crash landings that could never shatter the lair of air I've built around myself."
   I went to the shop to get some supplies for our trip. I met Michael Schumacher there, and he gave me a bowl of trifle. I shared it with my sidekick, a cat called Roger, as we floated away on our hot air balloon. As we went around a snow-capped mountain, people threw stones at us. "Good old Michael Schumacher," I said as we narrowly missed crashing into the turret of a castle. We made an emergency landing in a meadow.
   It was a lovely afternoon. The sun was just beginning its descent, a long goodbye before nightfall. We set up our tent next to a river that was busy carving out a valley. It had done a lot of the work already. I opened the picnic basket. We had enough sandwiches to keep us going for a week. All I had to do was to invent a way of keeping the sandwiches going for a week without turning green. Or else find a way to stop us from turning green after eating week-old sandwiches.
   We ate our sandwiches and drank tea from a flask. "I don't think that was really Michael Schumacher," Roger said.
   Well I think it was.
   We said goodbye to the sun and hello to the moon before saying goodnight to each other and going to sleep. We slept soundly that night. We woke to the song the birds sang to welcome the sun back. After breakfast (more sandwiches) we set off on our hike through the hills. Before too long we met a man who was trying to steal honey from a beehive. He was wearing a balaclava so the bees couldn't give a good description of him to the police. But the bees were able to repel him. If he'd worn gloves his hands wouldn't have been stung repeatedly, and he wouldn't have left any fingerprints. I offered him some sandwiches. Roger said, "Have you completely forgotten about Mrs. Killarney?"
   "I certainly have not," I replied. "Mrs. Killarney went for a romantic walk along beach with the mysterious stranger. As the sun set, he told her about his plans to manufacture caravans and she told him about her plans to manufacture caravans."

In the final section
of the above report,
I think the editor
has joined two reports together
and added on the final paragraph
(which is very like a line
from an article
in the motoring section).
The editor should have used the following report,
which he put in the sports section.
I suspect that the names have been changed.

   It was dark. And then it wasn't dark. It was barking. They told me about the man with the silver head and I unleashed all the abuse I'd been storing because I thought they were lying. I had to apologise when they pointed the man with the silver head at me. I had no abuse left for the football match. I had dinner with Mrs. Killiney instead of going to the match. She gave me some sound advice and some very good abuse I could use, but I didn't have any football players or referees to use it on then, so we went to the coast and we used it on the seagulls. We met Alan. The only word he could think of was 'Foolbarrow', but this did seem surprisingly apt at the time.

   I only deciphered the seagulls' response when I was walking back through the sea to my house. Their words were much more offensive than anything we had said to them, but I didn't have time to go back because I had to work on my match report. I've been having some trouble with the character of the referee, but it should be ready for tomorrow's edition.

This is a Circle

2010-04-13T02:20:00.000-07:00

   This is a circle.

   Circles come in many different shapes and sizes. They're used in many walks of life, everything from mathematics to gardening. Squares and circles are enemies.

   Some squares are former circles who have grown corners and been expelled from the land where circles live. Circles live in a land of unspoilt natural beauty, where litters of baby circles play happily amongst the wildflowers in meadows.

   A circle dies when it's broken, and then it becomes a line. Some lines will keep moving forever, going wherever they want to go. Other lines can be trained to restrain themselves, and they can serve important functions on tennis courts or on medical forms.
   One day when I was minding my own business, leaning against a lone gunman as I read the paper, a line approached me and asked me for directions to the bus station. I gave it directions, but as I watched it leave I saw that it was going the wrong way. I followed the line into the park, and I caught up with it when it stopped to watch two mathematicians who were about to engage in mathematics. Their names were Eric and Michael. They were putting on their crash helmets when I arrived. There are more accidents and fatalities in mathematics than there are in Formula One.
   The line was trying to attract the attention of the mathematicians in the hope that they'd find a use for it, but they showed no interest in the line.
   I was distracted by the mathematicians testing each other's helmets before they got to work. I didn't notice that the line was being chased by a dog, and it was getting all tangled up. When I saw what was going on, I chased the dog away, but by then the line had become badly knotted and tangled.
   Eric took pity on the line. We took it back to his house and we gave it a bath. We were able to remove most of the knots and the tangles. Eric decided to keep the line. It gets on well with his other lines, and he's been teaching it how to do tricks. The last time I visited his house he showed me how the line would become a curve on his command.
   His new pet has also turned out to be an excellent guard line. It moves quickly around the feet of thieves, making them feel dizzy, and most of them leave. Eric gets three times as many thieves as an average house because no one ever breaks into the houses on either side. The house on the right is full of Rottweilers, and the one on the left is owned by a woman who makes her own dolls. All of these dolls have concealed weapons. They stop smiling at you as soon as your back is turned. Sometimes you'll see their evil glare just as you're turning away. Thieves break into Eric's house rather than taking their chances with the dolls or the Rottweilers.

Tuning my Memory to History

2010-04-06T02:38:00.000-07:00

"And the wild waves sing his Requiem
on lonely Banna Strand."

Where's Banna Strand?

"Over there."

Right. And what happened there?

"It's where Roger Casement was captured when he was trying to bring arms ashore in 1916."

And where's Béal na mBláth?

"It's right behind you."

Oh right. What happened there?

"It's where Michael Collins was shot dead in 1922."

Which one am I again?

"You can be whatever you want to be."

Good... And what do I want to be?

"A fence post."

Ah.
That explains a lot.
What if I want to be Michael Collins?

"Do you not remember your history lessons?
Do you want to get shot?"

Oh yeah. I was thinking of...
Never mind.
The fence post will be fine.

"Grand. Now we're just going to put this can on your head and we're going to shoot it. Is that okay?"

Are ye going to shoot the can or my head?

"The can."

That's okay.

"Grand. Maybe you'll want to do something to take your mind off things for the next few minutes. You could... I don't know. Write a book or something."

Write a book? What could I write about? I could have a go at writing a history of Banna Strand. Or I could just go to the wheelbarrow races.

"I wouldn't recommend going anywhere, or even moving a muscle."

Could I write a history of the wheelbarrow races?

"As long as you remain at the planning stages for the time being, and don't physically write anything."

It's never likely to go beyond the planning stages. There isn't really a whole lot I can write about them. It's just people racing wheelbarrows down narrow roads. They can attach as many wheels and jet engines to the wheelbarrows as they want. That's all I know about the races. As I said, my book was never likely to go beyond the planning stages. I wish I had my grandmother's memory. She used to tell some amazing stories about the historical events she witnessed. She kept her analogue memory for years after everyone else had switched to digital. She could remember when she was a young girl, before memory had even been invented. School was a much tougher place back then because they were expected to remember things even though they didn't have any memory. That reminds me of my uncle Bob, who built his own television. It was really just a wooden box with some knobs glued to it. It wouldn't come on when he plugged it in, so he started beating it repeatedly to make it work. He had some success with this method. It was like that with my grandmother in school. The teachers used to beat them to make them remember things, and my grandmother had to admit that it worked. She remembered the beatings anyway.

"One other thing. If someone told you that your postman was made out of ice cream, would you be tempted to point a hair dryer at him, just to see if he'd melt?"

No.

"Grand."

Rags to Riches

2010-03-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

   Max and Barbara were just about to go to bed on Christmas Eve when the doorbell rang. Max opened the door, but there was no one outside. A basket had been abandoned on the doorstep, and when he opened it he found a caveman sleeping inside.
   Max and Barbara brought the basket into the house and they put it near the fireplace. When the caveman woke up he was terrified at first. He grabbed a candlestick to use as a weapon, and he started eating the candle. Barbara won his trust by offering him food that tasted better than a candle. She was ready to attack him with the candlestick when he decided that the candle tasted better than her pudding, but he melted her heart when he cried tears of joy as he ate her Christmas cake. By the end of their dinner on the following day, the caveman was completely at ease with his surroundings.
   They called him Adam. They gave him a bath and a new set of clothes. They shaved his beard and they cut his hair. Barbara started teaching him how to speak and how to read. Adam was a very quick learner. He was reading novels within months, and by the summer he was more articulate than all of the neighbours, which was something he liked to boast about. This didn't go down too well amongst the neighbours. Resentment towards him was growing, and he was often getting into arguments.
   One day he got into an argument with a man known as Hog. It emanated from a discussion about global warming. Adam would have found it much easier to win the argument if Hog had known what they were arguing about. It wasn't long before their argument descended into a fight, and their fight soon descended into a political rally. Adam made an impassioned speech in favour of global warming. Or maybe it was against global warming. He had achieved such a mastery of political oration that he could be passionately in favour of the thing he was fervently against.
   An election was called. These are some of the election posters:

   Adam won the election, thanks largely to his skill as an orator. He fulfilled his duties to the best of his ability. No one could deny that he was an effective leader, but he still managed to make enemies, partly because of his habit of boasting about his talents and partly because of his inability to understand how money worked. He paid for everything in pigeons. These pigeons were pets, but some of them were dead. It can be disheartening when you're expecting payment for goods or a service you've provided and you get a box instead of money, and when you look into the box you see a dead pigeon in its pyjamas.
   His enemies came up with a plan to bring him down. They hired actors to pose as wealthy businessmen. These actors met Adam, and he agreed to take some very well-dressed pigeons in exchange for political favours. The meeting was secretly filmed. Adam's enemies promised him that the film would remain a secret if he resigned, and he agreed.
   An election was held to find Adam's replacement, and Hog won, but he was completely out of his depth. He needed help, so he made peace with Adam (he held out an olive branch in the form of a Christmas cake). Hog hired his former adversary as an advisor. He paid Adam in pigeons. It worked out for the best for both of them. Hog had a seemingly limitless supply of dead pigeons, and for Adam it was a very well-paid job.

A Box of Red Apples

2010-03-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

   I have to keep an eye out for my aunt, Sophie. Every time she sees a box full of red apples she gets very excited. She'll be consumed by giddiness. There's nothing wrong with getting very excited, but sometimes in this state she'll get dizzy and fall over, or she'll make an extravagant purchase that she'll regret later. People who specialise in selling things you'll regret buying have figured out that they can sell almost anything to Sophie as long as they show her a box of red apples first.
   There are a few things she can do to calm down. One is to go to see Trevor, who whispers tuneless songs with indecipherable lyrics, occasionally gently strumming a guitar. Sophie closes her eyes as she listens to these songs and she imagines flying through the air over mountains and forests. This doesn't always calm her down because sometimes she imagines flying over an orchard with trees full of red apples.
   She can also go under her bed to calm down, but this doesn't always work either. The drunks hiding under her bed will promise to take her to Switzerland, but the last time the drunks went to Switzerland they just went to the other end of the bed. In fairness, it is an exceptionally big bed. There's a casino under there, but it's run by drunks. They love watching the red snakes of light left behind by the rolling dice.
   The last time she saw a box of red apples she went into a cathedral. She put on her favourite gloves, and then she danced, a dance enhanced by her hair, which seemed to have a life of its own. The man who invented a leaf-tester expressed his disapproval. She unleashed a vicious tirade against his leaf-tester. She spoke about all the monkeys it must have killed. The only appropriate response he could think of was to hire people who could fit entire cabbages into their mouths. He got them to stand in front of her, open their mouths as wide as they could, which was very wide indeed, and then scream. Unfortunately, the scream was nowhere near as impressive as the capacity of their mouths. She laughed at them. She thanked him for providing so much entertainment. He tried to pretend that he had intended to provide her with entertainment. He offered to take her to the theatre to entertain her further. They've spent a lot of time together ever since then.
   "Can I have a word with you?"
   Yes, of course.
   "I was concerned when I heard you mention the drunks under your aunt's bed. I don't think you should leave them on their own under there. A security guard is needed, and I'd like to apply for the position."
   What experience do you have?
   "For ten years I worked as a security guard in a storeroom full of crockery and English men determined to break every piece of crockery in the place. You'd need nerves of steel to last a day in that job. I lasted ten years."
   That's very impressive. Of course, I'll have to ask my aunt first, but I'll certainly recommend you for the post.
   "Thank you very much indeed."
   You're welcome.
   The man who invented a leaf-tester won a lifetime's supply of cooks. Before he won this prize he used to get through a cook a week. It was difficult to know how many he'd need for the rest of his life because there was always a chance that a cook would poison him instead of walking out. But his life expectancy improved greatly when Sophie started cooking for him. She cooks for his cooks as well, and now they stay around for much longer.
   Do you think I should catch one of those cats who scratch Mrs. Hooley's bin and put it in the cupboard where the builders are hiding?
   "Absolutely out of the question. What you need is a security guard. Obviously I can't do the job myself while I'm under the bed, but my brother could do it. I took him under my wing in the storeroom. I showed him the ropes, and how to get around the law if you want to use the ropes."
   "I'll say it to my aunt. I've heard some strange noises coming from under her sink. Do you know anyone who could investigate?"
   "You should definitely consider getting a security guard for under the sink."
   There are artists under there.
   "Then it's absolutely imperative that you get a security guard for under the sink. I have another brother, he's a bit strange, but he'd be ideal for the job."
   I have some artists in my attic.
   "Well now, I have another brother, but... Let's just leave it at 'I have another brother'."
   Do you think I should go home to check on the artists?
   "That's exactly what you should be doing. And if anyone asks, I don't have another brother."
   I'll go now. Feel free to say whatever you want to say while I'm gone. Goodbye.
   "Say? To say whatever I want to say?... I don't know if I could say anything. Have I ever really said anything in my life? I mean, I talk and use words and all that, but it's not exactly the same thing, is it? I drew a picture of a cowboy last night. I could show you that but... You probably wouldn't like it. Now that I think about it, I really should be going as well. I was showing my brother how not to use the gas cooker earlier and... I really should go."

The Man with the Greyhound

2010-03-16T03:48:00.000-07:00

   Clive will stand over there by the window and he'll tell us when he sees the man with the greyhound. He was supposed to be here at seven. If he doesn't come... We'll just have to wait here. But anyway, Colum, what were you saying about your trousers?
   "Have you ever wondered where your trousers go when you're asleep? I certainly have. To satisfy my curiosity I set up night-vision cameras around my house to see what my trousers were up to. This was how I discovered that a woman was breaking into my house every night to put biscuits into my tuba. I had been wondering why there were always biscuits in my tuba, but I was never as curious about this as I was about my trousers. I decided to stay up one night and confront her. She arrived at two o' clock in the morning and I asked her what she was up to with the biscuits. She said she was under the impression that I wanted her to put biscuits into my tuba. She was furious with me for leaving her with this false impression for so long. I thought the best thing for both of us would be a good night's sleep, so I suggested that we meet again at noon on the following day. She agreed to this.
   "Our second meeting was much better than the first. She had a nasty temper but I had a Swiss Roll. If this was 'paper, scissors, stone', she'd have the stone to throw at me but I'd have the paper to wrap the stone. My Swiss Roll counteracted her temper, so we got along very well. I liked the fact that she was capable of such anger, as long as she didn't direct it at me. She did everything whole-heartedly, including doing nothing. She could do nothing with terrifying intensity.
   "We spent a lot of time together, often doing little more than nothing. She lost her temper on a fairly regular basis but I always managed to find a piece of paper to cover the stone. One day she asked me how tall you'd have to be if you wanted to be Superman. To answer her question I went to the library to do some research. After reading numerous books and papers I came back to her with this answer: 'I don't know'. I told her that not knowing things gets a bad press, but it's much better than attempting to convince yourself that you know something just for the sake of knowing. I'd recommend not knowing to anyone. I've been happier since I finally accepted that I didn't have the faintest idea where I was going. I told her that there was beauty in being oblivious.
   "She said, 'I can show you something that's even more beautiful than the fight we witnessed between that Labrador and the poodle.' I asked her if it was Leary's rocket car. I regretted saying those words before I finished saying them. I heard myself talking and I thought, 'That eejit is saying something guaranteed to make her lose her temper.' But I needn't have worried. She was intrigued by the rocket car. I told her about Leary. Whenever he needs to know something he'll ask his mother, the poet. She never fails to provide an answer, even in areas she knows little about. She gave him a very comprehensive answer when he asked her about how to build a rocket car, but he needed to find more technical information..."
   "The man with the greyhound is here," Clive says.
   Okay. We better be off so. To end this thing, here's an image showing what Colum's trousers do at night.

Before the Explosion

2010-03-09T02:49:00.001-08:00

   Karen entered his life in an explosion. When the smoke and dust had cleared she attempted to introduce herself, but she failed because she felt that she hadn't existed before the explosion. Details needed to be collected that, when assembled, would form a person. He helped her collect those details. He suggested that she was twenty-eight years old (actually he thought she looked thirty-three, but he always subtracted five years when estimating the age of women -- it's something his uncle taught him, and his uncle faints when you accuse him of being a table). He also suggested that she should be a travel writer who solves crimes in her spare time.
   They went away to A, B and C. When they had seen A and been sick at C, they returned to be beside the B-side where they decided to stay. She, in her role as a travel writer, collected details or attributes to attribute to A, B and C so they'd appear as real places in the minds of her readers, and in her own mind. 'A' had thousands of eyes that lit up in the night. The heads and bodies that acted as hosts for the eyes remained invisible in the darkness.
   Most of her first travel book was about B, because that's where she decided to stay, and she started work on another book about B.
   Representatives from A and C sat at a round table. Anti-B sentiment had been growing ever since Karen's book was published. She had been responsible for the busiest tourist season ever at B. The representatives from A and C arranged this meeting to discuss their response. The meeting began when delegations from D and E arrived. D and E were angry that they hadn't even been mentioned before this. Also present were someone from J, a cat and a bucket with a face drawn on it.
   "Tourism is way down in C," the representative from C said. "The press say it's because of the smell, which admittedly is particularly bad this year, but we know it's because of all the focus on B."
   "It's all Karen's fault," a member of D's delegation said. "We need to discredit her. I suggest we publish a travel book about her. We'll portray her as a destination you'd want to avoid at all costs."
   Karen was busy at work on her second book. She was writing about some of the people at B. Two chapters were devoted to the nocturnal activities of this man.

Have you seen
this man?

   She also wrote about Dahlia, a young woman who lived with her aunt and her uncle. She had been derived from a single grey line on a white wall. The line was added so that it looked like the outline of a woman, and the outline of a woman grew into a woman over the years. The wall has been blank ever since Dahlia left it.
   "I've never met my parents," Dahlia told Karen. "The people who know who I really am can blend in with the wallpaper. Sometimes I think I see them out of the corner of my eye."
   Karen wrote about Dahlia's Aunt Emily as well. The wind blows right through her, so if you're looking for shelter she's useless.

This is Dahlia's Aunt Emily:

Many researchers were trying to figure out who Dahlia's parent were, but when Karen was writing her book, none of these researchers had died, met an omniscient God who was able to provide them with the information they sought and return them to the land of the living in the form of a life-impaired ghost, a form that would allow them to resume contact with their former colleagues and say, "Dahlia's parents are..." The best they'd been able to achieve was the death of four researchers. It was unknown why none of these four had returned as ghosts with the answer to their question.
The travel book about Karen came out shortly after her second book was published. It was one long diatribe sponsored by A, C, D and E. But their book was overshadowed by three biographies of Karen published at about the same time.

These are the authors of her biographies:

   The three books came up with three different stories of her life before the explosion, and they all seemed far-fetched. In one of them she was a famous submariner. But the books had one thing in common: a house in the country where she grew up.
   She went to this house. There were thirty-four rooms in it but there was only one occupant: an old woman who didn't mind the ghosts. Karen spent the evening sitting by the fireside, listening to the woman's stories, hoping to find out something about her past.
   As midnight approached, a ghost arrived. When Karen saw him she said, "You're one of the researchers, aren't you? You worked on finding out who Dahlia's parents are. And now you know."
   This sounded much better than the truth, which was that he used to steal pigs for a living. The ghost said, "Ah, yeah. Dahlia's parents are... a traffic warden and... a baker. But I really came here to tell you about your past. You're thirty-one years old. You've been arrested over two-hundred times. Offences range from impersonating a policeman to impersonating a policewoman to stealing a giraffe from a zoo..."
   A long list of misdemeanours and failings followed. If Karen had been listening she might have detected the involvement of A, C, D and E, with some input from J, the cat and the bucket. But she fainted when she heard that she was thirty-one years old. She was attended to by these nurses:

Iris explains why she can't help you right now.

2010-03-02T02:48:00.000-08:00

   I'm afraid I'm busy at the moment. I'm conducting an experiment with spiders to answer a question the bus driver asked me. I thought he was finally going to ask the question everyone had been expecting: "Will you, Iris, the love of my life, marry me and make me the second happiest bus driver in town? Because obviously you don't expect me to be happier than Larry. Do you? No one could be happier than Larry. Everything always goes his way. He found a birthday cake yesterday and that tattoo on his face just fell off. He makes everyone feel unhappy. With you, I'd be much happier than all those drivers who spend their lunch breaks cultivating a veil of depression so thick you can't see them behind it. Words could never come close to describing the beautiful oceans of happiness you'd bring to my life, except perhaps to say that they're not as beautiful as Larry's oceans. I hate Larry."
   But no. He didn't ask that question. He got down on one knee and said, "How many spiders does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
   I've prepared an answer for when he finally proposes. It's a twenty-seven-page 'yes' that doesn't actually contain the word 'yes', but he'd be left in no doubt about my desire to be his wife after hearing the words 'I, Iris, the love of your life, who uncovered her true feelings while comforting the baker who worries about what happens to the moon during the day, who can't ignore his fear that bullies will beat it up, and it will rise in the night sky with black eyes...'
   But we'd be here for another twenty-seven pages if I continued with that sentence. I'm very tempted to tear each page into tiny pieces. My sister tried to set them on fire, and I might well have let her if I didn't have such an aversion to seeing my sister enjoying herself (I'm doing my best to overcome that). Thanks to his latest question I spent the entire afternoon collecting spiders. I convinced my sister to help me. It wasn't absolutely essential to get her help, but I knew she wouldn't enjoy it so I asked her.
   After collecting spiders in her garden, she suggested we go to see our uncle Ronald. His house is full of spiders. He's never bothered removing them or their webs. So we walked through the fields to his house and he was only too happy for us to take some of the spiders, as long as we didn't disturb the dust.
   After collecting another thirty spiders I thought I'd have enough for my experiment. Ronald offered to drive us home in his new 'car'. He's been coming up with bizarre inventions ever since his brain surgery. The operation was carried out by barber shop brain surgeons, who perform surgery by singing songs. Each scalpel-sharp note is delivered with precision. No anaesthetic is needed. They'll cut your hair as well, but you'd be wise to get an anaesthetic for this.
   His new car was wind-powered. He'd attached a sail to the top of it. The sail was made out of old red curtains. We were expecting an enjoyable journey through the fields, but the wind was much stronger than we thought, and the car was much lighter than it looked. We were carried away by the wind. As we spun around I saw a terrifying swirl of red curtains, blue sky and white clouds.
   The next thing I knew, we were being arrested by the wild police, so we must have landed where the wild police grow. I thought we were going to end up in jail, but as we were being led away we met Walter, and he rescued us. He told the police that he saw Richie hiding in a tree, looking as if he was just about to commit something, most probably a crime. Richie is a compulsive criminal. He walks off cliffs just to break the laws of gravity, and his will to offend is so great that it counteracts the murderous gravitational pull straining to drag him onto the rocks. Even when he's caught unawares by a murderous push from his ex-wife, he still doesn't fall.
   The wild police were excited when they heard about Richie hiding in the tree. They let us go so they could attempt to land the biggest fish of all. We were mere minnows compared to Richie. I expressed my deepest gratitude to Walter for rescuing us. He just laughed and said it was nothing. He always laughs and says it's nothing, even when it's patently something.
   He told us that he was looking forward to going home to his wife. He said he loves the way he can make her laugh simply by shaking something out of his beard. He feels as if a lifetime has passed since he'd try to impress women by talking about all the live chickens he was going to eat. Part of me doesn't want to touch him with a barge pole (I have a pole at home that I use when I'm faced with no choice but to touch someone I don't want to touch), but another part of me wants to stroke his beard. Right now, this latter part is the bigger one. I wish the bus driver could be more like Walter. I'll prepare a report on the spiders, but it certainly won't be longer than twenty pages.

The Book

2010-02-23T02:43:00.000-08:00

   I looked in the mirror. I saw my face. The book said I'd see something else, as well as my face. "'The book said'. That's all you ever say." The book said that. I didn't need a mirror to know there was a look of disappointment on my face.
   I heard a train. I looked out the window to see it pass the house. It was slowing down as it approached the station. One carriage contained just a solitary passenger, a woman who wore an extraordinary red hat. It looked like a bird trying to fly away from her head. She glared at me when she saw me looking at her hat. If I were a bird I'd try to fly away from her as well.
   A man was holding onto a railing at the back of the last carriage. He jumped to the ground before the train stopped. My view of his landing was blocked by gorse bushes. I went outside to make sure he was okay.
   Before I reached the end of the path through the gorse, the man appeared again when he got to his feet. He looked slightly dazed, but he seemed to have avoided significant injuries.
   When I asked him where he had come from he told me his life story in a history of dwellings. His name was Franz. When he was young his entire family used to ride around on a bike. Their father would pedal. All of their belongings would be tied to the bike. Franz, his mother, his brothers and his sisters would hold onto suitcases or boxes. At night they'd sleep in fields and pretend they were living in a glasshouse.
   They settled in one place when they got a caravan. His father tried to pull it with the bike, but the caravan won. The deep ruts made by the tyres of the bike were a testament to his father's gallant effort.
   When Franz left home he lived and worked in a depressing holiday camp where there was always a sign up saying there would be no tomorrow today -- it had been cancelled due to lack of interest. He didn't stay there long. He moved into a two-room bedsit in a forest. The roof fell down every autumn. The landlord was always promising to replace the leaves before winter, but there was always some excuse about the roofers who had to go away because they were being stalked by a famous actress who was always turning up at her house, and his cousin said he'd do the job but if his cousin did all of the things he said he'd do he'd be dead by now.
   The people who rented the basements lived in dark, cramped conditions amongst the roots of the trees. The basement-dwellers would happily spend the winter blinking at the flashing lights of their external brains that worked on arguments for debates about whether or not sentimentology is a real science.
   When Franz jumped off the train he had a bag with him, and the bag contained an external brain. He said he'd won it in a game of poker but he was afraid to use it because the man he'd won it from seemed more intelligent after he took the brain off. He was clever enough to stop playing poker then.
   I suggested using it on an animal first. Franz attached the brain to the head of a stray dog, but the dog ran away as soon as the brain was switched on. He ran into a garden at the back of a house and he went through the open back door. We followed him, but our paths were blocked by a woman wielding a sweeping brush. She made a noise that sounded as if she'd rolled a sentence full of threatening words into a ball and thrown it at us. We retreated.
   When we went to the front of the house we saw the dog disappearing around the corner at the end of the street. We spent the next hour trying to find him. We asked about him in the pub, and we were taken to a room at the back. The dog was sitting at a table, playing poker. He had an excellent poker face. The other players were trying to read something into the flashing lights. When the flashing got faster they thought it was a sign of a good hand, but they were wrong. The dog won nearly two-hundred euros, which Franz collected for him.
   We went to a restaurant to dispose of some of the winnings. The dog looked as if he was able to read the menu. He pointed at what he wanted (he went for the turkey and ham). The waiters paid close attention to the flashing lights, hoping to gain an insight into the dog's reaction to the food. They wouldn't have paid the slightest attention to my opinions. I tried not to be too disheartened by this because the dog was paying for my dinner.
   The book was right about the red hat.

The Song of the Sirens

2010-02-16T02:19:00.000-08:00

   Jerry lived in a lighthouse. He installed the light on his roof just to annoy the neighbours, but they didn't mind. They pretended to be annoyed to humour him. The light was effective in keeping ships off his rockery, but it lured many old seafarers to his house. They'd arrive in droves on a foggy night or when a storm brought driving rain. Torrents of water would flow from their rain coats, flooding the floor in his hall, or else the seafarers would cough out all the fog they'd inhaled until he could barely see the walls. This greatly enhanced the decor. He considered painting all of the rooms in fog. Moving around the house in such conditions could be dangerous. He made miniature lighthouses with candles on top to keep his visitors from foundering on the rugs.
   The neighbours would always call, supposedly to complain about the light, but they were really there to listen to the seafarers. After five or six hours of stories and songs, the neighbours would go home, but the sailors would remain. Jerry always struggled to get rid of them. Shouting at them wouldn't work because most of them had ear plugs growing out of their ears. There wasn't much point writing a note for them because only one of them could read, and he'd have to get out his reading glass eyes, which could take a long time as he searched in his pockets. He had bi-focal glass eyes, but he never used them because he was always putting them in upside-down. Things got even worse when someone glued contact lenses to his reading eyes. He'd have to hold the note a few feet away from his face to read it, and he wouldn't be able to see it in the fog then. He got corrective eye patches to counteract the effect of the lenses, but he needed very bright lights to read with them.
   On one occasion the seafarers were there for over twenty-four hours before they thanked him for his hospitality, shook hooks with each other and left. He needed to find a way of getting rid of them at about the same time the neighbours left. He got a fog horn that was loud enough to get past the defence of the ear plugs they were cultivating, but the seafarers loved the sound. To them the fog horn's music was as sophisticated as Beethoven's. The one bright side was that it genuinely annoyed the neighbours, who had to start growing their own ear plugs. Some of them found that they had surprisingly fertile soil in their ears, and they entered their plugs in competitions at local fairs.
   He finally found a way to get rid of them when he thought of the sirens who lured sailors onto rocks. It didn't take him long to find enough local women who were willing to sing outside his house to lure the sailors out. The songs the women liked held little appeal for the old seafarers. Even the two notes of a police siren were too sophisticated for their tastes. Only a good imitation of a fog horn or a song with superhuman levels of lewdness could lure them out. These sirens didn't have rocks between them and the sailors. Some of them had stun guns, but the weapons were rarely used, and even when they were fired they were aimed at a leg to remind a sailor which one was made of wood. The women welcomed the sailors. If the seafarers' senses hadn't been impaired by the glass eyes, patches, hooks, the natural plugs growing from ears and noses, plus the astonishing quantities of rum they consumed, then they might have found that the rocks were more tempting than the women. After hearing the song of the sirens outside, they'd leave Jerry's house with a spring in their wooden steps. They'd disappear into the fog to meet their fate.

Winning isn't everything

2010-02-09T03:11:00.000-08:00

   Dean took part in a cross-country race on a cold, grey November afternoon. He won the bronze medal. He didn't mind coming third because taking part mattered most, and taking wallets. He stole the gold and silver medals as well. Someone spotted him getting away with his haul, and the alarm was raised. He ran, and a huge crowd chased him. This crowd consisted of athletes and spectators. Dean knew there was a good chance that amongst their numbers were two people who'd just beaten him in the race. They'd want to win their medals back, and their wallets.
   His fears were confirmed when these two athletes emerged from the chasing pack. They were gaining on him. The only thing he could think of doing was to keep running, and he didn't have time to stop and think of a better plan.
   They caught him when he was trying to climb over a gate. The rest of the crowd were a long way back. Some of them had collapsed in exhaustion at the mere thought of running. Others ran with the enthusiasm of dogs let off the leash, but they had forgotten all about Dean when they started chasing a cat.
   He returned the medals to the runners who had beaten him in the race, and he gave them back their wallets as well, but they started arguing over who should get the gold and who should get the silver. The man who had won the silver in the race had been the first to catch Dean, and he claimed that this entitled him to the gold. Their argument descended into a fight, and this gave Dean the chance to get away with the rest of his loot.
   He started to put some distance between himself and his pursuers. A simple plan presented itself: he'd keep running until he was out of sight and then he'd find a hiding place where he could rest and think of a better plan.
   The hiding place he found was a shed, and the straw inside provided a perfect place to rest. He fell asleep before he had a chance to think of a better plan. If he'd remained awake he might have realised that his current plan wasn't all that great. After he had disappeared from sight, his pursuers would start looking for him in good hiding places. The shed would have stood out like a sore thumb.
   He realised this when he woke to find himself surrounded by the people who had been chasing him. They demanded the return of their wallets. He knew when he was beaten. He apologised for his behaviour and he reached for the bag that held his loot, but the bag was gone. He had left it next to him in the straw.
   The crowd knew what had happened. Eugene, the man who had come fourth in the race, had been the first to reach the shed. He must have seen the bag next to the sleeping thief and he couldn't resist taking it. He could have made his getaway without being seen by going out through the door at the back of the shed. Dean was furious because the man who had come fourth in the race had taken his bronze medal. And then he noticed that his wallet was gone as well.
   He joined the pack as they left through the back door of the shed. They saw Eugene running away through a field. Dean was confident of catching him because he'd already beaten Eugene in the race. He soon pulled away at the front of the pack, but he was surprised to find himself being overtaken by Henry, the man who had come fifth.
   It was Henry who caught Eugene and returned the stolen wallets. He gave the bronze medal back to Dean, but Dean felt that he didn't deserve it. He put the bronze medal around Henry's neck. This gave Henry a sense of achievement, but returning the wallets provided him with a much greater sense of achievement. Seeing Dean in handcuffs gave him an even greater lift. The only thing to console Dean was the company of Eugene in the back of the police car.

One Day in Dugganascholar

2010-02-02T02:24:00.000-08:00

   It was a beautiful morning in Dugganascholar, a small town sliding down a hillside to the river on the valley's floor. When Gerry opened the curtains a spring-mounted summer Saturday popped up to greet him and send him somersaulting out the door and down the hillside, a slow, leisurely somersault that included a breakfast break and a back flip when he slipped on spilt milk. There was no point crying on a day like this. He met his friends, Gavin and Lorcan, and they discussed the best way to spend the day. They could climb to the top of the hill to see the view and fall a-slow down a steep sleep and stop with a plop in the river at the bottom, or they could stay in the shade of the trees on the banks of the river and spend the day fly-swishing.
   They chose to laze with the trees and dream of a world where the 'have-not's have lots and the 'have's have nits, while all around them people of all shapes and sizes had found more industrious ways to pass the time. Dogs were digging for buried trousers. Kids were fighting boredom by carefully constructing tantrums and throwing them at each other. Mrs. Deasy was knitting with earthworms who'd find themselves re-incarnewted as creatures like frogs or mice. Sometimes she'd surprise everyone with a Labrador.
   A man called Gilbert met Gerry and his friends at the river and he told them he had a gardening job for them. Money would start them on the path between the 'have-not's and the 'have's, and it might help them do something about the nits, so they agreed to do the job. They followed Gilbert to his house.
   He showed them a plan for the garden. "My grandmother designed this," he said. "She became a garden-designer of renown. She gave me this plan twenty years ago but I never got around to implementing it during her lifetime. I kept putting it off and putting it off, and then she died, and I kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. And that brings us to today. I'm putting it off no longer. It's a beautiful design. If hundreds of monkeys were playing hundreds of rainbows they'd eventually produce a garden like this. Ye should have an advantage over monkeys because ye'll know what ye're doing."
   Gerry doubted that they'd have much of an advantage over monkeys, but he didn't say anything. They started work by digging a trench. There was a militaristic feel to the design. Gilbert said that this was because his grandmother kept having visions of him dying in a war.
   They were still digging in the afternoon when the clouds with dark-grey beards appeared and poured their contents into the trench. Gilbert came out to watch them work and listen to the sound of raindrops dripping down on his drumbrella, a growing breeze strumming the trees, becoming a storm. Gavin was exhausted. His brain displayed dream-like scenes. He saw things that looked like mechanical diggers and he had a feeling that these things actually existed, but he couldn't find the words to ask Gilbert about them. He always found shovels easier to use than words. Books caused aches and pains in his brain when he tried to read them. He'd throw them instead, but they only caused more headaches when people threw them back at him.
   When his shovel hit a metal box it took a while for him to realise he wasn't dreaming. Gerry had already opened the box by then. He found a key and a note for Gilbert. This note was from his grandmother. It congratulated him on finally getting around to creating the garden and it outlined how to collect his reward. He'd have to spend a night in an isolated haunted house, a place where people feared to put their feet unless their legs were long enough to keep their heads half a mile away. A ghost would point him towards the reward.
   Gilbert was overjoyed when he read the note. It all seemed slightly Scooby dubious to Gerry, but he insisted that himself and his friends get an equal share in the reward. Lorcan pocketed the key to strengthen their position in the negotiations. Gilbert was sorry he didn't get the mechanical digger, but he agreed to divide the treasure between the four of them because extricating the key would be tricky and he didn't want to be alone in the haunted house. He'd give them their share to avoid pick-pocketing, lock-picking or bucket-kicking.
   They went to this abandoned house at ten o' clock that night. Hours went by without so much as the gust of a ghost or the merest shadow of a shade, let alone the electric shock of unmistakable spectral activity. They drank beer and thank, thinked or thunk thoughts until they were slightly drunk (they're not entirely sure what they did to those thought-like things squirming around in their heads, but these things are dead now). At three o' clock in the morning, Gavin staggered to his foot and swayed unsteadily before he found the other foot just as he was about to fall flat on his pancake (he'd been busy in the kitchen while the others were dizzy with ideas dying in their heads). The sight of a wraith was written all over his face in words even he could read. A man in a see-through suit was descending the stairs. Fortunately, the man was see-through too, or else they might have had to flee, still not beerful enough not to be fearful of a man made of a faint light flaunting things that only worked as ornaments after death.
   They followed him into the wine cellar. He went through the door, but Lorcan had to open it with the key. This recently-deceased wraith had a scent of aftershave to make an impression in the afterlife. If he'd known his first job would involve writing words on Gavin's face he mightn't have bothered being buried in his Sunday best. Gavin's Saturday worst smelled as if it was concealing recently-deceased creatures. He might not have had any squirmy things to kill inside his head but there were plenty of them underneath his clothes.
   Their ghostly guide pointed at a stone protruding from the wall of the wine cellar. When Gilbert pushed the stone a secret door opened in the wall. It led them to a room full to the brim with paintings of cats, cases of whiskey and various other items that reflected Gilbert's grandmother's interests in life. They spent the rest of the night dividing their treasure.
   When Gilbert went home in the morning he noticed that a hole had been dug at the bottom of the trench in his garden. It could have been dogs digging for trousers, but maybe his grandmother had played a trick on him. She might have buried an even greater treasure underneath her note, something intended for his sister. The ghost could have visited Gilbert's sister before appearing at the haunted house, and informed her of the buried treasure.
   When his sister bought a sports car, Gilbert did his best to convince himself that it was just dogs. Digging for trousers.

To Germany

2010-01-26T03:22:00.000-08:00

   Jill was upset after hearing about a horse who was marooned on a small island in the middle of a lake. It doesn't take much to cause her distress. Last week she was upset because a fortune teller told her she'd be upset because of something a fortune teller told her. After hearing about the horse, Theo decided to cheer her up by playing his guitar in her garden. The last thing she wanted was someone playing the guitar in front of her window at night, but his heart was in the right place, thanks to an operation.
   I live next door to Jill so I got the benefit of his performance as well, if 'benefit' is the right word. 'Benefit' is not the right word. He played so loudly he could be heard in the future. I was able to confirm this three days later when I could still hear him. My ears are normally happy ears. They delight in simple things. They thrive at night when interference from the eyes is reduced to a minimum, when the sounds of simple things stand out in the silence. They love nothing more than the sound of water trickling from a water feature in a garden at night. Interference from the sight of the water feature would ruin the experience. My ears were deeply disturbed by Theo's performance. I found their regular reports distressing. Most of the neighbours were getting similar feedback from their ears. After discussing the matter with them, we decided to visit Paul.
   He invited us all into his study. We told him about the objections of our ears and our concern about the possibility of a repeat performance. He said he'd almost definitely play in Jill's garden again at some point in the future. He suggested that we go to Germany if we wanted to protect our ears. After giving the matter considerable thought, we found that this plan was faultless.
   To Germany we'll go! We'll go there with bells on, and the bells will have bells on them, and the bells on the bells will be embellished with bluebells and tulips. Celebrations will be held to mark our departure. Fattened calves will be killed, or else just threatened with golf clubs. Innocent by-standers will be threatened with golf. Birds will sing songs of farewell and brass bands will play music specially composed for the occasion by a man specially created for the purpose of composing music to mark the beginnings of long journeys or the marriages of short farmers to women they met while engaging in the perilous practise of sticking their heads into every open window they come across. People will adorn our path with rose petals until we despise them. We'll set forth with sprightly feet that will carry us over the hills, out of sight of our homes, out of earshot of the brass bands and the birds, with nothing to counteract the magnetic charm of Germany enticing us into its embrace.
   Someone suggested that we don't actually need to go all the way to Germany, that we really only need to go to Lisdoonvarna, but I think we'll definitely need to go further than Lisdoonvarna, or else not quite that far.

A nice way to spend the afternoon

2010-01-19T02:43:00.000-08:00

   Strange creatures with seven tongues prepared my lunch. I tried not to think about this as I ate it. It didn't taste too bad, but I got the feeling it would taste much better if I could acquire another six tongues. I might have attempted to get them for dinner, but I had a better way to spend the afternoon. A trip to the museum seemed more appealing than a search for additional tongues.
   There was an extraordinary amount of guns on display, far too many for a museum of modern art. The number of guns wouldn't be considered excessive in my grandfather's study or in the National Museum. Guns play an important part in our history. They're much more noticeable than tablecloths or holes (ordinary everyday holes rather than graves with ornate markers to ensure that their representative from the past remains prominent in the present). I suppose that's because gunshots are much more noticeable than almost all of the sounds a tablecloth can make.
   I spent a long time looking at a painting that didn't have a gun attached to it, though it did depict a man holding a gun. He was standing in the background, waving with his gun-less hand, as if he was saying hello to the artist. In the foreground there was a woman holding a bunch of flowers. I appreciated the way the woman with the flowers took precedence over the man with the gun. Having said that, she looked deeply unhappy, and the man with the gun seemed perfectly content with life. If I had to hold something, I'd be happier with a gun rather than a bunch of flowers, but I'd choose neither if I had the choice. I always have a cigarette handy for occasions when I have to hold something. These occasions might arise when it looks as if someone is going to ask you to hold their baby or their gun or their flowers. You can say, "I can't. I'm holding a cigarette." I don't smoke. I've been using the same cigarette for years. It's held together with insulation tape.
   I enjoyed my afternoon in the museum, though I'd have enjoyed it more if there had been more paintings with tablecloths and holes. After leaving the museum I felt relaxed as I walked through the streets. I came to a quiet street where I could hear the birds singing. I'd heard that song on the radio earlier, and I started singing along. Two women who were walking behind me joined in. I turned around and I saw that they were holding puppies. I took out my cigarette so I wouldn't feel left out. I was happy to keep singing the birds' song because only the birds would know if I was saying something stupid. After singing for twenty minutes I noticed three birds on a window ledge. They were looking at me as if I was an idiot. I felt a need to use words again so the birds wouldn't know if I was saying something stupid. I asked the two women if they'd join me for dinner and they said they would. I avoided making eye contact with the birds as we walked away.
   Dinner was better than lunch, but there were bits of cardboard in my custard. Apparently, if you have the right sort of tongue, cardboard tastes like rhubarb.

Emily Comes to Stay

2010-01-12T02:56:00.000-08:00

   Jamie woke up with a hangover on Saturday morning, just like every other Saturday morning. It was nearly midday by the time he managed to make it to the kitchen. He plugged in the kettle and he took a carton of milk from the fridge.
   "I wouldn't drink that milk, if I were you," the cat said.
   Jamie didn't think there was much chance of the cat ever being him, but he didn't want to offend her by ignoring her advice. Reluctantly, he threw the carton into the bin.
   "Even when the fridge door was closed I could smell it," the cat said. "I'm struggling to stop my mind from forming a mental image to explain the smell I get from upstairs."
   "The sight is nowhere near as bad as the smell. Maybe you should go and have a look before your mind burdens you with an image that's much worse than the reality."
   He was hoping she'd go so he could retrieve the milk from the bin, but she stayed where she was, sitting on a chair next to the kitchen table. While he drank his black coffee she purred contentedly. Jamie said, "I was going to say that you look as if you've just got the cream, but..."
   "Please don't mention the cream. You put me off cream for good last Christmas."
   "I was just going to say that. Of course, it was a long time after Christmas before..."
   "Please don't fill in all the details of that mental image. A change of subject is needed, and fortunately I have one at hand. I've had a vision of something that will happen to you today. You'll meet a woman. She'll be wearing earrings designed by a farmer's wife who beat away a thief with a rolling pin and took up jewellery-making as a way to forget the incident, but instead it's a reminder. Her earrings evoke images of a bloodied thief staggering away into the night, making his way to the lake where the night swimmers go. The woman you'll meet isn't reminded of thieves. When she hears her earrings ringing she sees people swimming at a peaceful lake in the middle of the night. Be kind to this woman and you'll get a pleasant surprise."
   After Jamie had finished his coffee and abandoned the mug in the sink, the doorbell rang. His aunt Emily was standing there when he opened the door. The first thing he noticed about her was the extraordinary earrings, even though a voice at the back of his mind was telling him that she had a suitcase in her hand and that he should start thinking of an excuse why she couldn't stay. But he couldn't stop looking at those earrings that looked like miniature chandeliers.
   "Didn't your mother tell you I was coming?" she said.
   "No. She didn't." His mother wouldn't have asked him if Emily could stay because she'd have known that he'd say no.
   "I'll just be staying tonight," Emily said. "I have to be at the airport tomorrow morning."
   The pleasant surprise better be good, he thought. He invited her in. He said, "I'd make some tea, but I'm afraid I don't have any milk."
   "Your mother told me you wouldn't have anything fit to eat or drink in the house on a Saturday morning. Or afternoon. So I stopped off at the shop on the way. I'll make the tea."
   They went to the kitchen and she plugged in the kettle. She took a litre of milk out of a bag, and she poured some into a saucer for the cat.
   "Is it just my imagination," Emily said, "or is that cat smiling at me?"
   "I can put her outside if she's bothering you."
   "Not at all. It's a really nice feeling to win the approval of a cat. Because they're very particular about these things. This one looks more intelligent than the average cat. I can't help smiling every time I see her smiling at me."
   "It's probably just your imagination."
   She went out shopping in the afternoon. When she came back she insisted on making dinner for him. While she was busy in the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Jamie opened the door and he saw a middle-aged man in a grey suit. "Where's Emily?" the man said.
   "Who are you?" Jamie said, but before he got an answer the man pushed his way into the house. It didn't take the intruder long to find Emily in the kitchen. When she saw him she dropped a spoon on the ground and she said, "Dermot!"
   "Don't go to Wales," he said.
   "I'm visiting my friend Julia."
   "It's a lie. You're running away."
   "I've no reason to stay."
   "Yes you do." Dermot got down on one knee. He put his hand into his pocket and took out a small box. He opened it to reveal a diamond ring. "Will you marry me?" he said.
   Jamie was leaving the kitchen as Emily accepted the proposal. The cat followed him out. After he had closed the door he said to the cat, "I hope the 'pleasant surprise' wasn't the scene I've just witnessed."
   "Aren't you happy for your aunt?"
   "I'm not unhappy for her, but I wish I hadn't witnessed that scene. I could have turned on the TV and found the worst soap opera or film and seen something just like that, but it would have been much easier to forget the scene on TV."
   "I wouldn't normally recommend this, but I think you should go out tonight. They'll be busy here for the rest of the evening."
   Jamie had his dinner in a restaurant and then he met his friends in the pub. He returned home at two o' clock in the morning. When he went into the living room he saw that the fire was lighting. There was enough light from the flames for him to see Emily and Dermot. He saw almost all of them and he couldn't see their clothes.
   An expression of horror was frozen on his face as he withdrew from the room and made his way upstairs. He met the cat at the top of the stairs. "You look as if you've just seen something unpleasant," she said.
   "You could have warned me. You knew I'd see that."
   "I can easily erase that scene from your mind."
   "Easily?"
   "It's perfectly simple."
   "Yeah, but there's a catch, isn't there?"
   "It doesn't even qualify as a catch. All I ask is that you put more effort into keeping the house clean and tidy, and that you look at the expiration dates on cream and milk."
   "Agreed."
   "Very good. All you have to do is look into my eyes. Keep looking. Never let your eyes stray from my eyes. They're filling your mind..."
   All Jamie remembered was looking into the cat's eyes. He didn't know that the unpleasant scene had ever been shown on the cinema screen in his mind. He went to bed and slept soundly that night. When he got up in the morning he found that he had an urge to clean the kitchen. He went to the shop to get some milk, butter and bread. When he got home he made breakfast for Emily and Dermot. He didn't notice that they couldn't look him in the eye because his mind was preoccupied with the dust on the shelves. He spent the rest of the day cleaning the house. This new-found interest in cleaning seemed completely natural to him. He never suspected that it had anything to do with being hypnotised by the cat.

What could go wrong on a day like this?

2010-01-05T03:14:00.000-08:00

   As Caroline ate her breakfast she could hear the birds singing in the garden, and it looked as if they had something to sing about. The only blemish on the blue sky was a white line drawn by a jet. After reading the dog his horoscope and finishing her coffee, she left for work.
   The weather didn't bring out the best in the other people waiting at the bus stop, but it seemed to conceal the worst. The woman who used to smoke and cry had given up smoking. The man who normally kept talking on his phone was silent, satisfying himself with sending a text rather than telling a friend about the outrageous lies he told his girlfriend to avoid visiting her parents' house. Caroline always knew when he was talking to his girlfriend because he'd start telling outrageous lies. He once told her that the editor of a newspaper had asked him to stand in for their regular theatre critic, who had to retreat to the country for a few weeks to convince his illegitimate children that he was dead.
   As if the day wasn't going well enough already, the bus arrived on time. Tommy, the driver, seemed unusually hurried. Caroline sat next to a window and looked out at the rows of houses and parked cars, the kids on their way to school, the morning sun through the line of trees along the side of the street opposite the hospital, the industrial park where the wall had been adorned with new graffiti: 'Paul loves Amanda' and 'Paul loves Roger Federer' (mixed news for Amanda, whatever her feelings for Paul).
   As they approached Caroline's stop there were only six other passengers left on the bus. She appreciated the peace. Neil, the man who'd normally be lying or boasting about his lies on the phone, was still happily texting. She noticed that Tommy was taking a slightly longer route than normal. As he was driving through a housing estate in the suburbs he said, "Does anyone mind if I make a quick stop at home?"
   The only passengers who responded were those who said yes, they did mind, but Tommy only seemed to hear the ones who said nothing. He parked the bus outside his house and got out. He jumped over the garden wall, ran across the lawn and disappeared around the back of the house.
   After waiting for five minutes, Neil stood up and said, "I have a lot of work to get through today."
   Caroline assumed that he was going to leave the bus and walk the rest of the way, but he sat on the driver's seat. She asked him if he'd ever driven a bus before.
   "I've driven a tractor," he said, which wasn't the answer she'd been hoping for.
   He drove tentatively at first, but the further he went without knocking anyone down or crashing into a parked car, the more confident he became. He started to enjoy it. Rounding corners in large vehicles had never failed to entertain him in the past. Caroline could sense his glee as he approached a roundabout. He picked up speed, but as often happened in large vehicles, he had to take evasive action to avoid crashing, or else he'd just close his eyes. When faced with the danger of crashing into a road sign he managed to steer the bus down the exit before the one he'd been aiming at, and he seemed to have rescued the situation, even though they were going the wrong way, heading out into the countryside. But they weren't going the wrong way for long. They came to a halt when Neil veered too far to the left. The wheels sank into the soft ground at the side of the road, and the bus crashed into a ditch.
   A car stopped at the other side of the road and Tommy got out. Neil opened the door to let him into the bus. Tommy was smiling, but the manic glint in his eye would have been visible to the passengers at the back of the bus. It would have been glaringly obvious to Neil, whose eyeballs were in close proximity to those of Tommy. It wasn't a comfortable situation for Neil, but not as uncomfortable as it would be if he was Roger Federer and the other eyes belonged to Paul.
   "Do you have any idea how humiliating this is for me?" Tommy said. "I wanted to drive past my house today to see if Liam's car was there, and it was. My worst nightmare. My wife has always denied having an affair with him and I wanted to believe her. But there was his car, and when I went inside I caught them in the act. Now that's a bad way to start the day, you'd think. Things couldn't get much worse than that. Or could they? Some eejit might take your bus and make things much worse. And do you know what made things even worse than that? Liam offered to drive after the bus, and I had no other option. I had to accept a lift from the man I just caught having an affair with my wife. And then I had to drive his car because he wasn't wearing any shoes or socks."
   The passengers on the bus looked out at the car. Liam and Tommy's wife were in it. They smiled and waved when the passengers looked at them.
   "And to make things even worse than that," Tommy said, "you couldn't even keep the bus on the road, and I'm going to get fired because of this crash. What's going to happen next? That's what I'm wondering. What'll happen to make things worse?"
   "I think I know how to make things better," Caroline said. "We'll say that you were driving when the crash happened, and that you had to swerve off the roundabout to avoid a puppy who ran out in front of the bus. And then you drove into the ditch to avoid crashing into a truck."
   All of the passengers agreed to go along with this story.
   "And maybe there's something you could do about Liam," Caroline said. "Test his nerve by showing him what you're willing to do to Neil in a fake fight."
   Neil agreed to play his part. He fell to the floor of the bus when Tommy pretended to punch him. He stayed down as Tommy took a wrench from a toolbox and started hitting a seat near where Neil lay. The other passengers feigned horror and pleaded with Tommy to stop before he killed Neil. The woman who used to cry hid her face in her hands because she couldn't stop laughing.
   Caroline saw the horror on Liam's face as he witnessed Tommy's violent reaction and realised that Tommy still had the car keys. He got out of the car and ran away, even though he wasn't wearing any shoes, socks or trousers.
   Neil's phone rang while he was still lying on the ground. It was his girlfriend. He told her that he'd have to work late that night to make up for the time he missed in the morning, and unfortunately he couldn't visit her parents. But she hung up before he got to the end of the story about the bus he crashed and the partially-clad man fleeing the scene. She thought he was lying.

Mr. Thompson's Station

2009-12-29T02:21:00.000-08:00

   The trains are waiting. Passengers must go to them, seeking them out at their nameless station. In my uncle's photos, Mr. Thompson, the station master, looks as if his mind is elsewhere, possibly contemplating the whereabouts of Mr. Bird, the driver who took leave of his duties to empty his trousers of the pebbles, sunflower seeds, foreign currency, bottle tops and paperback books he had amassed in his pockets on long summer days. That was two years before the photos were taken. Surely he would have extracted every item from his pockets in two years, Mr. Thompson thought.
   Mr. Bird found that he could fulfil his duties simply by waiting for a passenger to arrive, and no passengers ever arrived, so he could work from home. But he wasn't at home. Mr. Thompson checked. He walked down the short winding path through the trees to the driver's cottage, but no one was there, or at least no one opened the front door when Mr. Thompson knocked. He didn't go around the back. Returning to the station was the only way to allay the anxiety he felt. It was easy to get lost, even on the shortest of outings. You could try finding the tracks if you got lost, and following them back to the station, but they had a way of confusing even the most astute inspectors of rail lines. Mr. Kelly, the most eminent of all inspectors, was left disconsolate by the bewildering junctions. Rail lines had always cooperated with him in the past, willingly submitting to his scrutiny. Hostility from train tracks came as a shock. He took it personally. It was much worse than the time his brother told him he had the charm of a sewer disturbed by a storm. He was used to being offended by his family. The sewer insult had come shortly after his brother had tried to frame him for an act of vandalism on their grandfather's caravan. His career went on a downward spiral after his failure to conquer the tracks around Mr. Thompson's station. He devoted an increasing amount of time to weaving the intricate plots his brother would get tangled up in, and to the unravelling of his brother's plots against him. A closer relationship with his family failed to compensate for the harm done to his bond with train tracks.
   There was a good chance that Mr. Bird had gone to Flora's cafe, which was located half a mile away at the end of a lane that was gradually being engulfed by brambles. Mr. Thompson would never travel so far away from his station because of his fear of being engulfed by the outside world. This fate may well have befallen Mr. Bird. He'd have gone to the cafe to exchange some of the items in his pockets for tea and cakes. Flora would accept foreign currency and the informal currency of corks, hair pins, bottle tops, buttons and pebbles. The lighter load on his return journey would have allowed him to let out the spring in his step, so long a captive beneath his cumbersome trousers. His light-hearted mood wouldn't have lasted long. The realisation that he was lost would have been made unbearable by his knowledge of the station's reluctance to reveal its whereabouts. Mr. Bird was a resourceful man. He would have devised outstanding ploys to track down the station, but it would have resisted his best efforts.
   My uncle was a spy. He was self-employed. He had a great facility for seeing things that others would miss. These are some of the things he witnessed during his career: elastic light bulbs; astronauts who were afraid to leave their attic; a magazine editor you could fold up and fit into a handbag; glasshouses that fell to pieces every time they sneezed; a castle overrun by feet; a superhero who got his strength from eating hair. One summer day my uncle was walking through a thick forest in search of a greyhound when he came across the train station. It was typical of him to stumble across something so elusive. He knew he had struck gold, and for the next few weeks he remained concealed in his hiding place amongst the trees. He observed the operation of the station and he took photos of the principal characters. The operation revolved around Mr. Thompson's concern about the absence of his driver, and my uncle was there to see the concern become panic when a passenger arrived. It was Mrs. Dennigan. She was dragging a bulging suitcase behind her on the platform. Mr. Thompson watched in horror for several minutes as she inched towards the ticket office. His nightmares had left the relative safety of the stage inside his head and they were going on tour.
   But just before she reached the ticket office, Mr. Bird returned. He looked different after his trousers had been emptied. A few awkward items had been very reluctant to leave, and that's why he had been away for so long. Mrs. Dennigan said she was returning from a visit to her sister's house. After a spring clean, her sister was going to throw out many things she didn't need, and Mrs. Dennigan had rescued most of them from the bin. This explained the obesity of her suitcase. When she was at the station she realised that she didn't need these things enough to be burdened by them on her return journey, so she removed them. Mr. Bird needed them enough to be burdened by them in his trousers. He managed to find room for a broken tape recorder, a feather duster, a glass jar full of old pens and a cracked tea cup, amongst other things. The feather duster's disappearance into his trousers was as entertaining for the performer as it was for the audience.

A Play for Christmas Day

2009-12-22T02:10:00.000-08:00

   Last Christmas Eve one of my neighbours, Mr. Driscoll, called around with a bottle of whiskey. I had a bottle for him as well. I suppose it's no great surprise that we ended up sitting by the fireplace with glasses of whiskey in our hands. I asked him how he was spending Christmas Day and he said, "I'll be going to my daughter's house. I'll walk there, as long as it's not raining. A cold and frosty Christmas morning would be the ideal gift. Snow has been mentioned, the icing on the cake. The roads are quieter than on any other day of the year. You won't hear the sound of a car or a voice. It's a nice way to prepare for a house full of children who've just been given gifts.
   "After dinner, the children will have their playthings to facilitate the flow of time. Some people are happy to watch TV. I'll need something warm and amusing to pass the afternoon, and for this I go out into the cold and walk through the fields to meet a group of people who perform a play for me each year. You'll hear them before you see them. If they're out of earshot, they'll remain invisible. Every year I go to the fields beyond the river, and I'll wait there until I hear the bells on their clothing. I'll look around and I'll see them eagerly walking towards me. They roam the fields on Christmas Day, searching for an audience. They stay well away from towns and villages. A few people like me will go to them and fill the role of an empty vessel in the performance of their play. They'll fill my head with thoughts and impressions as remarkable as their costumes. Ivy cascades over red velvet cloaks. Twigs bearing green leaves grow from buttonholes. Some of their hats are like buildings with ornate facades, recently-added mezzanine floors, balconies and attic windows through which you can see the flickering flame of a candle. Firm foundations on a steady head are needed to prevent the collapse of these structures. Not all of the performers have hats. One man has a wig that's spring-mounted and he can make it jump with his eyebrows when he wants to express surprise. I've seen workers in banks with similar hair pieces, but it takes on a magical quality in the fading light on Christmas Day. Nothing magical has ever happened to me in a bank.
   "The women have long hair with ribbons that trail on the ground behind them. Every year there are new additions to the costumes, and sometimes they wear entirely new garments. Last year I saw an elderly man with wires rising from his shoulders, and on the ends of the wires were white clouds. I noticed the hands of a clock slowly spinning behind his back. On the ends of these three hands were a sun, a moon and a red airplane. They rose above his left shoulder before setting again. Another man wears a timber box. Sometimes the lid opens and he peeps out. His lines in the play are meant to be muffled by his cumbersome costume.
   "The beginning of the action is signalled by the crash of cymbals. After an incomprehensible exchange between the man in the box and a woman dressed in black, the singers will perform their song in honour of winter. They'll be accompanied by musicians playing unusual instruments. One of these instruments resembles a cello. You'd expect the body of a cello to undergo many modifications on its journey from being a tree to its destination in an orchestra, but this cello-like instrument looks as if its journey came to an end shortly after it stopped being a tree.
   "When the song is completed, a character known as Henry appears. He speaks about the threat of freezing weather, the pursuit of happiness, the promise of fire and the death of Fitzmaurice. He takes great pleasure in describing the unfortunate demise of Fitzmaurice. It happened at the hands of escaped convicts who blamed him for their incarceration in a dungeon equipped with abundant horrors. They had successfully enacted a plan to steal a recipe and the ingredients for a cake known to make people weep when they were parted from it, even though it looked as if only pigs were meant to find it appetising. They would have taken the cook as well, but she deterred them with an intimidating demonstration of what she could do with her elbows.
   "Fitzmaurice gallantly confronted the brigands and single-handedly trapped them in a natural dungeon amongst the roots of an ancient oak tree. This was like a five-star hotel compared to the unnatural dungeon they were taken to. But they escaped from here, and they tracked down Fitzmaurice. Before killing him, they thanked him for inspiring the seething hatred that nourished their plan for escape, and expressed their regret that their gratitude would necessarily fail to offset their hatred.
   "After Henry's speech, the play varies from year to year. Many characters will appear, and Fitzmaurice is always one of them. He confronts Henry. Swords are drawn and violence looms. Other characters will intervene, such as the priest with the imaginary hiccupping horse, or the woman who plants seeds from which rainbows grow. Digressions and long conversations with me are an essential part of the play. These gentle folk speak softly of the grasslands they call their home. A distant home. A place beyond the hills. 'The' hills. Not the sort of hills you can easily see, even when you're standing on their feet. A place where rivers bend so much they begin to resemble a lake full of countless small islands. Salmon happily meander down this winding course as they make their way to the sea. Jumping from island to island would be the simplest route on the journey home. The gentle folk often talk about going home, but it sounds to me like something they've consigned to the distant future.
   "No matter how cold it gets, I'll gladly stay outside chatting to these people. After the sun has gone down they'll bring the action to a close with the appearance of a man in a hat that looks as if it could house numerous animals you'd normally find in a hedgerow. A final song is sung and we go our separate ways with warm goodbyes."
   After hearing this I was determined to join Mr. Driscoll in the fields beyond the river on Christmas Day, but I was delayed because I had to act as peace-maker between my niece and nephew when their week-long fight about the existence of cauliflower flared up again. By the time I was ready to go it was nearly dark and it was snowing heavily, so I had to postpone my journey. I'm definitely going to go this year. My niece and nephew have been arguing about space recently. If hostilities break out on Christmas Day I'm going to let them sort it out amongst themselves.

The Miniature Santa

2009-12-15T03:34:00.000-08:00

   Every Christmas, Ruth makes an enormous cake with two holes in it so she can put her hands up through it to operate the glove puppets on top. The puppets of Santa and Scrooge perform a short play in which they debate the true meaning of Christmas. Santa always prevails, and then they dance.
   Last year, after the icing had hardened, she attached the puppets and rehearsed the play in her kitchen. She only had to look at her script once, when she forgot Scrooge's line about how people shouldn't be allowed wear hats if they use their heads as musical instruments. She was satisfied with this first rehearsal. She left the cake on the kitchen table and she went to visit a friend.
   It was nearly eleven o' clock when she got home that night. She turned on the light in her kitchen and she was shocked to see that the Santa puppet had come to life. He seemed to be performing a dance for the lifeless Scrooge. When the shock started to fade she wondered if there was something in the puppet, something other than the spirit of Santa. She lifted the cake and the Santa puppet became as lifeless as Scrooge. A mouse emerged from under the cake and ran across the kitchen floor. She screamed when she saw the mouse, and she screamed even louder when she saw what he had done to her cake. The mouse had tunnelled his way into it, and the cake was ruined. She needed to start work on a new cake as soon as possible, and she had to catch the mouse as well. Fortunately, she knew just the man who could help in emergencies like these.
   Conrad ran a corner-shop near where she lived. He went to extraordinary lengths to provide the best possible service for his customers. He opened the shop at seven in the morning and closed it at midnight, seven days a week. He lived above the shop. If one of his customers needed something in the middle of the night they'd throw a pebble at his window. He'd do his best to help them, as long as they didn't want something too outlandish, like a lobster or a hedgehog. Even if they did, he'd give them the phone number of someone who was likely to have a supply of lobsters or hedgehogs.
   Ruth went to his shop to get the ingredients for a new cake, a mouse trap and some cheese. As always, he had everything she required, and he made her a cup of coffee to help her stay awake while she worked on the cake.
   When she got home she set the trap in her dining room and she put some cheese into it. She went to the kitchen and started work on her cake, but she couldn't stop thinking about the mouse, and every time she thought of him she pictured the dancing puppet. She became convinced that the mouse had the soul of Santa. He could have gone into the Scrooge puppet, but he didn't. She couldn't kill Santa.
   She removed the trap and she went back to Conrad's shop. He had gone to bed, so she threw a pebble at his window to wake him up. He went downstairs and let her into the shop. She explained her problem. She didn't want to kill this miniature Santa but she didn't want him in her house either. He might very well be trapped in her house and he surely had lots of other places to visit. It was her duty to enable his escape, she said. Conrad knew someone who could help.
   He took her to see a man called Padraig, who made doll's houses. He was still working in his workshop, trying to get some orders completed before Christmas. The houses were very detailed and very realistic. He'd even decorated them for Christmas. The tiny trees had flashing lights. Conrad asked if it would be possible to rent a doll's house for the night, but Ruth said she'd like to buy one.
   She bought a house that had a working chimney, and Conrad helped her take it home. They put it on the floor in her dining room. They attached a pipe to the chimney, and this pipe went out through the dining room window. They hung a bell over the end of the pipe outside the window, so they'd hear the mouse brush off it as he made his exit. They left some cheese on a miniature table in the doll's house.
   Conrad helped Ruth work on the cake in the kitchen. At two o' clock in the morning they heard the bell ring and they rushed to the doll's house. The cheese was gone from the miniature table.
   "Look!" Ruth said. "He left a little present for me under the Christmas tree in the house."
   "I have something in the shop that will remove the stain."
   "No, an actual present. It's a silver thimble. To him, this is probably like a mug."
   "Abandoning your attempt to kill him was enough to make his 'nice' list. If Santa used that criteria he'd still have a substantial 'naughty' list. My nephews have a surprise waiting for him when he gets to the bottom of the chimney. Santa has probably survived much worse in the past but if thieves broke into the house, I doubt they'd come back out again."
   Ruth liked the thimble, but she thought the doll's house was one of the best presents she ever got, and she thanked the miniature Santa for bringing it to her. She used the puppets to perform a new play in the doll's house. In this one, Santa discussed his theory that he travelled around the world in one night by freeing his soul from its cage and letting it inhabit the bodies of animals, the ones who were free from cages. Scrooge didn't believe Santa existed at all, but he still danced at the end while Santa played the miniature grand piano.

The Bird Trap

2009-12-08T02:11:00.000-08:00

   Jeremy often stays in his shed until dawn when he's working on one of his inventions. He enjoys these exhausting nightshifts because of the sense of achievement he gets when he switches on his latest machine and it does exactly what he wants it to do. His very first invention was an apple-cutting machine, which he made when he was ten. He knew he'd discovered his calling in life when demonstrated this machine to his family and he saw the sheer terror it inspired. Even his aunt Martha started praying, and she was normally impervious to fear. She had once stood her ground when she found herself in the path of a charging bull. She must have done a very good impression of an immovable object because the bull halted his charge and apologetically backed away. If he'd seen her bungee jumping or hang gliding he'd have realised just how movable she was.
   He came up with many useful inventions in his teens. His machine for planting daffodil bulbs attracted a lot of attention in his home town, and it inspired hardly any terror. People started hiring him to build machines that would do the jobs they couldn't do with their bare hands and a hammer. When he was seventeen, Mrs. Hanratty asked him to make a bird trap. She wanted to catch the blackbird who regularly visited her garden. "I'd really like to look that bird in the eye," she said. "He seems like such an intelligent chap. And I can see that he's thinking exactly the same thing when he's looking at me."
   Jeremy designed a trap and built it in Mrs. Hanratty's back garden. The blackbird would be lured into the trap by food, which was in a shallow hole at the centre of a board on the ground. The board was hidden by a layer of leaves. Sensors were attached to the board to detect the tread of a blackbird. A cage would silently drop from above as the bird consumed the food. The cage was cunningly disguised as a hammock that hung from a tree, just in case the bird said to himself, "The food under that cage is tempting, but there's something about that cage I don't like." As it dropped to the ground, the fake hammock would turn over to become a cage. If the bird was clever enough to be suspicious of a hammock, then Jeremy would need a much better trap.
   He set up the trap on a Friday evening, and he came back on the Saturday morning to see if the blackbird had been caught. He went around to the back of Mrs. Hanratty's house. He could see something moving in the cage, but when he lifted it he found Mrs. Hanratty's cat, Petra. He suspected that his trap had actually imprisoned the blackbird. Petra looked as if she'd just had a good meal, and on the ground there were black feathers and blood, the very things Jeremy's family most associated with his inventions.
   Mrs. Hanratty would be upset if she found out that his trap had led to the death of the creature she was looking forward to having a meeting of minds with. She would have only ever seen the bird from a distance, so there was a good chance she wouldn't notice if he gave her another blackbird instead. He put some more food into the trap and he set it up again. He called up all of his friends and he told them he'd pay twenty euros to the first person to bring him a living blackbird.
   He was lucky he had so many friends who had experience of trapping birds and animals. Gareth won the race. It took him two hours to catch a blackbird. He said that all he had needed to catch it was a glove puppet and an egg cup.
   Jeremy put this bird into a cage and gave it to Mrs. Hanratty. She didn't notice that she was meeting a complete stranger. After a few minutes of nodding at the bird she turned to her cat, who was sleeping on a sofa, and said, "It's dinner time, Petra. Look what the nice young man caught for you."
   "Surely you're not going to let the cat eat the bird," Jeremy said.
   "She's been looking forward to it for weeks."
   "If I'd known I'd been hired to catch cat food I'd never have agreed to do the job."
   "I don't believe you'd really be so cruel to my cat. I think I'll leave the two of them in the bathroom. It'll be easier to clean up the mess in there."
   She put the bird back into the cage and took it to the bathroom. She was expecting to find Petra close behind her, but the cat wasn't there. "She's getting very lazy these days," Mrs. Hanratty said. "I suppose I'll have to lift her in as well."
   While she was gone, Jeremy took the cage outside and he set the bird free. Mrs. Hanratty came out and asked him what had happened to Petra's dinner. Jeremy pointed to a tree and said, "It's waiting to be eaten on that branch."
   She was angry with Jeremy, but he insisted he had done the right thing. As they were arguing, the blackbird spotted some nice food on the ground, and he wasn't suspicious of the hammock above it. Mrs. Hanratty was amazed to see him being trapped.
   "I can't believe he's stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice," she said. "I'm not sure I want Petra to be eating a bird like that. I've lost all respect for him now. There's something very refined about eating a creature you respect, like a deer or a chimpanzee. Crows are supposed to be intelligent. Will you catch a crow for Petra?"
   "No."
   "I'll pay you double what I paid for the blackbird trap."
   He was tempted because he didn't like crows, but he refused.

Growing Younger

2009-12-01T06:35:00.000-08:00

   When Martin was young he always looked forward to getting a birthday present from his grandmother. These gifts were always things she'd made herself. Some were knitted and some were the result of many hours spent gluing pieces of paper together and attaching buttons to pipe cleaners. As he got older, when he had learnt to count the candles on his cake, these presents started to lose their appeal. When he grew too old for candles he was embarrassed by the sweaters, hats and homemade pen-holders sprouting pipe-cleaner necks, crepe paper heads and sad paperclip eyes. Most of the objects she made had faces and names like Floyd or Eddie. 'Barbara' was the name of the ashtray she gave him for his sixteenth birthday. It was meant to be no more than an ornament. She might have pointed this out if she'd known that he was a smoker and stupid enough to use a flammable ashtray.
   When he was in his thirties and he was old enough for birthday candles again (though never more than three or four) he looked forward to his grandmother's gifts once again. It was the thought that counted, he realised. He had also realised that it was delusional to expect anyone to give him a present he might actually like. When his expectations were negligible, these handmade items became his favourite presents again.
   For his thirty-fifth birthday she gave him a tea cosy. It came with a teapot to demonstrate how it worked. The teapot looked like an antique, and Martin wondered if it was valuable. One Saturday afternoon he took it to an antique shop to get it valued. There were no other customers in the shop when he went in. Two middle-aged men sat on chairs behind the counter. He thought they'd be delighted to have a customer, but when he took out the teapot and asked their opinion they weren't very helpful. They were straining so hard to be unhelpful that it would have been easier to be helpful.
   At times like these, Martin wished he was a religious person so he could endure such trials with a peace of mind that would allow him to smile benevolently at the people he wanted to punch. But instead of a smile he looked as if he wanted to punch them. People like the men in the antique shop always seemed to enjoy inspiring this look in others, which increased Martin's desire to punch them, but he knew he couldn't do it. If he couldn't be like a serene monk who sees the love of God everywhere, he'd settle for being someone who doesn't have any qualms about punching people.
   He went to see a friend of his called Brenda and he told her about his experience in the antique shop.
   "That was probably their way of saying it's worthless junk," she said.
   "They could have just said it. People like that really annoy me."
   "Do what I do when shopkeepers annoy me."
   "What's that?"
   "I'll do it for you."
   She got a phone book and she found the number of the antique shop. She dialled the number, and when a man answered the phone she told him that she had recently inherited a house from an aunt whose passion in life was collecting antiques. "She wouldn't let anyone touch these things," Brenda said. "I've never had an interest in touching anything in that house. It all looks like junk to me, but then I'm no expert in these things. I just want to clear the house, so I'd pay you to get rid of her collection."
   Martin could hear the man in the shop trying to hide his excitement. He said that himself and his colleague would assess the collection before deciding on the best course of action. She gave them an address. She told them that her uncle Christy would be there. They should tell him that Brenda sent them, and he'd show them the antiques.
   Martin drove to the street where Christy lived. Brenda went with him. He parked near Christy's house, and shortly afterwards they saw the two men from the shop arrive. One of the men rang the doorbell. Christy opened the door, and he seemed to know what was going on as soon as they mentioned Brenda. He smiled broadly and he invited them in.
   "What's he going to do to them?" Martin said to Brenda.
   "Show them his model trains. He can spend hours droning on about his trains. People will humour him if they think they're going to make a killing on free antiques or books. A bookshop owner once spent three hours looking at the trains because he thought there was a collection of rare books about canals waiting at the end. He deserved it because I detected a sneer when I bought a Harry Potter book in his shop."
   "Don't people get angry when they realise there's nothing for them at the end?"
   "Yes, but it doesn't affect Christy in the slightest. He's never even remotely bothered when he irritates or infuriates other people, which is a great way to be. He's never bothered by anything."
   "I'd love to be like that," Martin said. "That's what I need to aspire to."
   They waited in the car for over two hours, but the antique experts still hadn't emerged from the house. Martin wanted to be there for their exit because he wanted to see how angry they'd be. Brenda said she'd go in to see how they were getting on.
   She'd only been gone for a few minutes when she returned to the car and said, "Bad news, I'm afraid. They're inside happily playing with the trains. It turns out that they're really into model trains. I know you must be angry, but remember what you said earlier about wanting to be like Christy and never being bothered by anything. Now would be a good time to start."
   Martin got out of the car. He slammed the door and walked across the street towards Christy's house. Brenda followed him. "Don't do anything stupid," she said.
   He rang the doorbell. When Christy opened the door, Martin said, "Can I play with your trains, please?"
   "Of course you can," Christy said. "The more the merrier."
   Martin found the model trains very relaxing. He was glad he'd been able to overcome his reservations about admitting that he wanted to play with trains. This need to preserve an outward antipathy towards model trains had been an unwelcome presence in his life since he was ten. He promised to buy himself a present of a train set for his next birthday.

A Nice Surprise in the Woods

2009-11-24T03:11:00.000-08:00

   Myself, Jimmy and Chadwick formed a band when we were short of cash. I could play the tin whistle, Chadwick played the violin and Jimmy could do something to an accordion. The accordion didn't like it, but the passers-by didn't find it too upsetting when we busked on the street. We made enough money to cover a trip to the pub, and we played in the pub as well.
   Our performances in the pub became a regular occurrence, and once we were invited to play in the bedroom of a woman called Maeve. She was in her eighties and she had been bed-bound for years. Her bedroom was full of boxes, chests, old furniture and other junk, but we managed to find a place to stand and play. She enjoyed our performance, and she asked us to play again on the following week. This became a regular gig as well. We'd go to see her on Thursday evenings. Her son, Emmet, would let us in, or if he wasn't there we'd let ourselves in with the spare key under the flowerpot outside the back door. Emmet was highly skilled at stealing watches. He only did it out of habit, and he always gave them back. He'd normally steal our watches on the way in and give them back on the way out.
   At the end of each performance, Maeve would give us something as a sign of her appreciation. Sometimes she gave us money or a bottle of whiskey. Sometimes she gave us a stuffed pheasant or a chocolate hammer. One evening she told us she had a special surprise for us. She gave us a map with a red X marked on it. She said, "When ye get there, take four paces from the back door and start digging. Be very careful opening what ye find. Ye don't want to break what's inside."
   We weren't expecting to find a house because the location marked by the X was in the middle of the woods, but the map did lead us to the ruins of a small house. It was surrounded by trees. The crumbling stone walls were being engulfed by moss. The roof had long gone.
   Jimmy took four paces from where the back door used to be. He found himself standing in between two trees. We started digging there, and we hadn't been digging for long when we found a bag. There was a small bronze box in it. At the front of the box we saw a tiny keyhole. We remembered what she had said about being careful opening it, so we decided to take it back to Chadwick's house rather than breaking it open with a shovel.
   It was nearly dark by the time we left the woods. On the way home we saw a man walking towards us on the road. He was having trouble walking in a straight line. It was Emmet, and he was drunk on love, as well as on alcohol. He told us about how he had fallen in love with a woman called Sinead. They were perfect for each other, he said. The only potential obstacle was his hobby, which was eating biscuits in bed. He couldn't marry any woman who'd have a problem with him eating biscuits in bed. If she was less than fully supportive it would spoil his enjoyment of the biscuits. He was trying to work up the courage to tell her about it. Chadwick suggested telling her about his habit of stealing watches as well. Emmet said, "I've stolen her watch often enough for her to have guessed that one by now."
   Jimmy wished him many years of happiness with Sinead. There were tears in his eyes as he shook Jimmy's hand. He walked on again without saying another word, and we continued on our walk to Chadwick's house.
   "He really must be in love," Jimmy said. "He forgot to steal my watch."
   "I was convinced he was stealing it when he was shaking your hand," Chadwick said.
   Jimmy suddenly stopped walking and said, "He stole the box from my coat pocket!"
   "His mother must have told him about the present," I said. "And he didn't want us to have it."
   We ran back down the road. Soon we saw Emmet up ahead, but he was running as well. We spent most of that night chasing him, and we nearly caught him a few times but he always managed to get away. We had him surrounded in a pub when he was singing a song, but everyone joined our attempt to catch him because it seemed like fun, and he managed to get away in the melee.
   In the morning we went to Maeve's house. We didn't expect Emmet to be there, so we let ourselves in through the back door, and we went upstairs to Maeve's room. We were in the middle of telling her what had happened when she stopped us. She reached under her pillow and took out the bronze box we had retrieved from the woods. She took a set of keys from a hook over her head and she used the smallest key to open the box. There was a gold brooch inside.
   "I'm sorry about this little charade," she said. "I meant for Emmet to steal it from ye. It was the only way I could get my brooch."
   Chadwick said, "Why didn't you just get him to go into the woods and dig it up himself?"
   "He's afraid of the woods. It goes back to when he was a child. You have to be very careful about what you say to children. I regret telling him about the woodland monster who thinks people are teapots. I've been trying to get this brooch for years. I didn't trust anyone to get it for me because I was afraid they'd steal the contents. Ye wouldn't steal the contents if ye thought ye owned the box and everything in it. As I said, I'm sorry I had to do it like this, but I intend to repay ye for everything ye've done. I have a present for ye in the box on top of the wardrobe."
   There was a metal detector in the box. After a few hours sleep, we went back to the woods in the afternoon and we used the metal detector to search the ground around the ruins of the house. Emmet was in the house. When we asked him how he'd managed to overcome his fear of the woods he said, "I haven't overcome it at all. I've just developed a greater fear of what's outside the woods. Sinead would never think of looking for me in here. I told her about the biscuits, and she said she didn't mind at all. She had something she wanted to tell me as well. Her hobby is biting insects, just to see what they taste like. I said to her, 'Surely you'd know what an insect tastes like after tasting just one member of that species.' But no, she said. They're like snowflakes. Each one is different. If she was eating insects in bed, it would ruin my enjoyment of the biscuits."
   We spent a few days searching around the ruins of the house. We found some old coins and a gun. Emmet was there all the time. Chadwick suspected that Sinead had come up with the story about the insects just to get rid of him after hearing about his hobby. She didn't seem to be making any effort to find him. But we didn't say anything to Emmet. We left him there in the woods, terrified of what might be lurking in the woods and slightly more terrified of what lay beyond.

The Chocolate Factory

2009-11-17T05:36:00.000-08:00

   When Hugh was in a second-hand book shop one day he came across a book about setting up your own chocolate factory. He had never felt a need to set up a chocolate factory before, but the book seemed interesting. It was a woman's account of her attempt to produce chocolate in her garden shed. It was a big shed, as garden sheds go, but it was small for a factory.
   The book gave Hugh many hours of enjoyment and a need to set up a chocolate factory in his garden shed. His shed was smaller than the one described in the book, but he set up his factory in it because he saw this endeavour as no more than a hobby. He'd consume the chocolate himself, if it was fit for consumption, and he might even give it to friends and relations in the unlikely event that the chocolate tasted reasonably good.
   After a few months of experimentation he was producing chocolate that tasted slightly better than reasonably good. He made chocolate cakes and biscuits, and he sold these at a market on Saturday mornings. People were reluctant to try his chocolate at first, even though he was giving away free samples, but after they'd overcome their fear of being poisoned they tried it and they were invariably pleasantly surprised. Hugh was pleasantly shocked that he was actually making money out of this venture.
   One evening, a man called Ned came to see him. Ned was a local businessman who owned a supermarket, a hardware shop, a pub and a farm. "I've come here to buy your chocolate factory," he said to Hugh. "I've always wanted to own my own chocolate factory, just like Willy Wonka. Now there was a great businessman. I've always aspired to be like him, as a businessman rather than as a person. He was a bit odd as a person."
   "My chocolate factory is not for sale."
   "I'd give you a job. You'd be the manager. I've got big plans for your factory. Not as big as Willy Wonka's plans, but bigger than anything you could imagine."
   Hugh wondered if he should point out that Willy Wonka was a fictional character. He decided against this. "It's not for sale," he said. "I'd rather be my own boss."
   "Of course you would. When you're your own boss you won't have to worry about your boss telling you how useless you are, unless you hate yourself. A boss like that isn't going to amount to much, and neither is an employee who doesn't know how useless he is."
   "Why don't you set up your own chocolate factory?"
   "I tried once, but it's not easy making chocolate that people actually want to eat. I only succeeded in making chocolate that people wanted their enemies to eat. There isn't much use for chocolate that you don't want to eat, unless you can force-feed your enemies, and there aren't many people around who can do that, not like in the good old days when there were plenty of people going around the place making other people consume things against their will, and there wasn't a thing the law could do about it. We didn't need TV in those days. That's why we didn't have it. That's why we didn't have electricity -- we didn't need it. All we needed to do for entertainment was to look out the window and see someone talking to a tree. You'd say, 'Someone has made them eat something that's making them behave in this peculiar fashion. I wonder who it could be. It could be anyone of about a hundred people.' And then we'd spend the rest of the evening trying to figure out who the culprit was. It was like an episode of 'Murder, She Wrote'. We need 'Murder, She Wrote' now because forcing someone to eat or drink something that may have peculiar side-effects is practically a crime these days."
   After Hugh had insisted that he'd never sell his factory, Ned left.
   A few days later, a woman called to see Hugh. She said she'd tasted his chocolate at the market and she'd been inspired to make her own. She offered Hugh some of the chocolate sweets she'd made. They looked too tempting to resist, so he tried one. It tasted odd. Not bad, but odd. It made him feel a need to sit down and close his eyes.
   When he opened his eyes again he was tied to a chair in a room he'd never seen before. Ned was there. He smiled when he saw that Hugh had opened his eyes.
   Ned said, "You've probably guessed that I've made you consume something you wouldn't have taken of your own free will. You wouldn't have tied yourself to the chair of your own free will either. And the only way to release yourself is by agreeing to sell your chocolate factory."
   "Never."
   "I can wait. And it's much easier for me to wait because I'm not tied to a chair."
   Ned did a tap dance to demonstrate how not tied to a chair he was.
   "People will know I'm missing," Hugh said.
   "The story that will be spread around town is the one about you needing to get away after your little breakdown. You've been working too hard in your chocolate factory, trying to combine it with your day job. Photos of your breakdown will be spread around town as well."
   Ned took out some photos of Hugh in tears as he tried to knock down a wall with an umbrella "You'll never guess what I gave you to make you do that," Ned said. "I have a video as well. If you agree to sell it now, no one will ever have to see these photos or hear about your breakdown."
   Hugh knew he was beaten. He said, "You can have the recipes and the contents of my shed, but you'll have to move them to your own premises."
   "That was the plan all along. Do you actually think I'd be associated with your ramshackle little operation? I told you I had plans for the business that were bigger than anything you could imagine, but I had no idea you couldn't imagine anything bigger than your garden shed."
   "And there's no way I'm working for you."
   "Now that I know you can't imagine a chocolate factory that's bigger than your garden shed I'm not sure I'd want you as manager anyway."
   Ned moved the factory to a former butcher's in the town, but the business only lasted six months. When he needed to get revenge on the people who criticised the Christmas decorations in his supermarket he couldn't resist adding something to the chocolate. Before long, half the town were talking to trees, pretending to be cats or feeling unwell. Ned thought the whole enterprise was worthwhile. He had fulfilled his dream to own a chocolate factory, selling chocolate that people liked, and then he had made those people sick.

School Day

2009-11-10T02:51:00.001-08:00

   Toby can think of two things wrong with the claim that school days are the happiest of your life. He only spent one day in school and it wasn't very happy. The only things he learnt from his formal education were that he didn't need to spend longer than a day at school, that this day wasn't as enjoyable as a day spent watching a shed leaning to one side, and that pet rabbits don't like being called after infamous historical figures. He was nineteen when he had his first and last day in school. He was much taller than the other children. They laughed at him, and they made fun of his height. They asked him if it was snowing on top of his head. They thought this was hilarious, and they wouldn't drop the snow joke. It expanded all the time, like a snowball rolling down a mountainside. By lunchtime they were asking him if the skiers relaxing in the chalet on his head were aware that the Yeti in the leather jacket had found a can of petrol and he was building a bonfire outside. They were, Toby said.
   The class went on a field trip in the afternoon. Toby thought he'd enjoy this, but it only gave his classmates more opportunities to make jokes about his height. It wasn't long before the skiers were fleeing in terror down the mountainside. The class walked through actual fields on their field trip. Toby wanted to point out that he could walk through fields any day, and on any other day he wouldn't be ridiculed by kids, unless he was with his nephews. The teacher told them how to tell the difference between dandelions, buttercups and daisies. She spoke about the insects and animals that live in hedgerows. Toby didn't think it was necessary to say that giraffes don't live in hedgerows, but she did, and she explained why giraffes don't live in hedgerows. She repeatedly explained why a Yeti wouldn't live in a hedgerow, but only because the kids kept asking her.
   The teacher told them to close their eyes and listen to the songs of the birds. Toby closed his eyes and thought about a shed collapsing, but his thoughts were drawn to the songs he heard. One song sounded familiar, and it wasn't coming from a bird. It was his uncle Ken, who was singing a Percy French song. Ken had sold his house years earlier and he started living in hedgerows because he believed that all houses would fall down eventually. Toby had tried to convince him that this only applied to sheds, but he wouldn't listen. He built shelters that were completely concealed by the stones, bushes, wild flowers and weeds in the hedgerows.
   Toby's classmates and his teacher heard the sound as well, and it didn't take them long to locate its source. Ken came out of his shelter when he realised he had visitors. He was delighted to see his nephew in a school uniform. "You'll have a new star pupil," he said to Toby's teacher. "I've been telling him for years he should go to school. He has brains. I don't know where he got them from. It wasn't from his parents. His father fell in love with his mother when they first met. He thought long and hard about how he'd win her over. He kept smelling dogs until he found the smelliest one, and then he gave it to her. You'd think she'd have taken a step back and said, 'There's something I need to be doing,' and then run away. But no. She agreed to marry him instead. The time they spent together during their engagement was shaped by his need to avoid the irate owners of smelly dogs..."
   Toby realised that his life story was being told. Because the audience was so young, some details about how his life began would have to be omitted, but sooner or later Ken would get to the story about how Toby and his brother set up their own business selling cakes made out of mud. The kids were listening intently to Ken, and so was their teacher. Toby came to the conclusion that school wasn't for him, and a swift exit was called for. He ran to the nearest gate and he tried to jump over it. He had successfully jumped over gates thousands of times in the past, but his movements were restricted by the school uniform, and this attempt proved to be unsuccessful. His foot hit the top of the gate and he landed on his head at the other side.
   He didn't know how long he was out for, but when he regained consciousness he was surrounded by his classmates, his teacher and his uncle, and Ken had reached the story about how Toby and his brother built their own airplane, also out of mud. The school day was nearly over, so they had to return to their classroom. On the way there, Toby expected to be asked if the people on his head were attempting ski jumps that were beyond their ability, but the kids didn't say a word to him. They just looked at him with reverence, perhaps because of the success of the mud cake business or the spectacular failure of his jump. Despite this new-found respect, he still decided that school wasn't for him. He didn't think he'd be able to endure another lesson on why zoo animals don't live in hedgerows, and he had a good job in the bank to go back to.

Moving House

2009-11-03T02:48:00.000-08:00

   For many years I suffered from agoraphobia. I could never leave the house, but I was able to take it with me wherever I went. The view outside my front window kept changing and I could close the curtains on the people who laughed at me for walking around with a cardboard box on my head. I was never lonely in my house because I had so many visitors. People loved calling around, although some of them only knocked on my front door because it was an excuse to punch me in the face.
   When a married couple moved into the box next door the walls seemed as if they were as thin as paper. I could hear everything they said. They had the same conversation every evening before they went out to a party or to a friend's house. He'd say, "I wouldn't use that sandwich, if I were you, not if you're going to use it as a hat."
   She'd say, "I can use whatever I want to use as a hat."
   "In that case, I'm going to use my bullet-proof vest as a hat."
   "But people don't usually shoot you in the head."
   Just before leaving the house she'd always say, "Spread some shadows over the furniture to keep the dust off. The man with the gun will come out of the shadows. He'll keep looking at his gun, so you don't need to worry about him."
   She always said this very loudly. I got the impression that she wanted me to hear her because she thought this would stop me from breaking into their house. Sometimes they'd stay in and invite friends around. Their parties would keep me awake all night.
   I moved house when I was able to afford the mortgage on a bigger box. My new neighbours sing to each other instead of speaking. The song always sounds happy, even when they're arguing. Her voice was full of light and love when she accused him of having an affair with her sister. I don't mind these arguments because I rarely listen to the lyrics of songs.

New Dublin

2009-10-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

   Perhaps we'll go to Galway next week. If we don't make it all the way to Galway we can stop in a field and start building a new Galway. This is how my uncle Billy created Dublin in 1972. He was on his way to Dublin to see a man about a dog. He was still fifty miles away from his destination when he stopped in a field to sleep. Billy could sleep for a week. This was because he'd get into long arguments with everyone he met in his sleep. He'd get into long arguments with everyone he met when he was awake as well, but real people would never argue with him for longer than six or seven hours.
   He slept in the field for five days. When he woke up he found that someone had built timber walls and an iron roof around him. He decided to make this the new Dublin and he'd wait for the man with the dog to come to him. Many people joined him in his new Dublin over the following weeks. One of the newcomers was a man called Tim. Every time he was struck by lightning, he'd dance. He was struck by lightning three or four times every week. On cold nights, people would crowd around him for the heat after he was struck. They were liable to get kicked by his dancing feet, but a good kick in the head only helped keep out the cold.
   Billy was often woken from his sleep by a kick from Tim, so he decided it was time to expand Dublin. He built more rooms in the field. The town kept growing, and the influx of Dubliners gathered pace. It took three years for the man with the dog to arrive. Billy decided not to buy the dog. The man and the dog stayed in the new Dublin. Billy went back home to Limerick, but when he got there, everyone had gone to the new Limerick. Billy stayed in the old Limerick because there was no one there to disturb his sleep. In his dreams he populated the abandoned city with people who never tired of arguing with him.

Strangers and Waiters

2009-10-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

   Tommy was walking past a bus stop when he met Laura. She said she was going somewhere on a bus and she asked him if he'd like to go with her. He said he would.
   When they got there they got off the bus. They were alone. They watched the clouds pass by above them. They agreed that they were enjoying each other's company. The clouds, it seemed, were not enjoying each other's company. A cloud shaped like an axe attacked a cloud shaped like a fly.
   Tommy and Laura went on another bus that took them to another place. They enjoyed being at this other place. Other people were there. Strangers. They enjoyed being amongst strangers because it was half-way between being alone and being with friends. This is where they wanted to be. They'd go on enjoying being where they wanted to be until they began to want to be somewhere else or until one of the strangers produced an axe.
   They had to wait two hours before this happened. No one produced an axe, but Tommy and Laura did begin to feel a desire to go somewhere else. Most of the strangers had already felt this need and had gone somewhere else. Many enjoyable hours could be spent wondering where the strangers went to. These hours would be reserved for later in the day or at night because they had something else to do in the meantime: going somewhere else. When they left, there was only one stranger still there. He was looking out over the sea. They wondered why they hadn't thought of doing this before. They considered staying behind to attempt looking out over the sea, but the lure of somewhere else was too great, and they left.
   When they arrived somewhere else they found that they were in a restaurant. This made sense because they were hungry. A waiter appeared. Many pleasant hours could be spent wondering where he came from, but the likelihood is that he came from the kitchen. When he left, he almost certainly went to the kitchen because when he came back the next time he had food with him. It was more or less what they had ordered from the menu. They said they were pleased with their food. The waiter went away again, but this time he went up a stairs. Over dinner they discussed where he might have gone to. They came to the conclusion that he had gone to tell someone else that they were pleased with their food. When they had finished their dinner they went up the stairs to tell this person that the waiter wasn't lying. They were afraid that the waiter would get fired for lying.
   They came to an office that contained the waiter and two strangers. The waiter had his hands raised over his head, and so had one of the strangers. The other stranger was holding his hands in front of him. One of his hands was holding a gun. The other hand was holding a wad of cash. Tommy and Laura said they really enjoyed their meal. The stranger with his hands held over his head apologised to the waiter for accusing him of lying. The waiter accepted the apology. Tommy and Laura waited until they felt a need to go somewhere else. After half an hour of waiting in silence they were still carefully examining themselves for the slightest spark of this need, but there was nothing. Laura remembered the stranger looking out over the sea. She suggested looking out over the sea from the window. She did this with Tommy. The waiter and the two strangers joined them.
   The sun had just set. They discussed where strangers might go when they leave somewhere to go somewhere else. The stranger with his hands held over his head said he was planning on going to a boat when he felt a need to go somewhere else. The stranger with the gun said he was going to his cottage. He expected the need to go there to hit him within the next few minutes. He told them they were welcome to follow him there. He stood completely still as he looked out over the sea, waiting for the need to strike. The others watched him closely, hoping to see signs of the need taking effect.
   The first effects of the need could be seen when he turned around and walked towards the door. The others followed him. The journey to somewhere else was a two-mile walk. They went into his cottage. He closed the door and turned on a light. They could hear the sound of waves. It seemed as if this sound was coming from outside. The stranger with the gun told the waiter and the stranger with his hands held over his head that they could lower their hands to whatever height they normally kept their hands at in circumstances such as these, and he asked all of his guests if they'd like a drink. The waiter said he'd like a whiskey, but the stranger who used to have his hands held over his head accused him of lying.
   When drinks had been poured for all of his guests they looked out over the sea. They knew they were facing in the right direction because of the sound of the waves, but a wall was blocking their view of the sea. They wondered how many other strangers were looking out over the sea at that moment, like they were. This thought occupied their minds for many hours, and it kept out the slightest hint of a need to go somewhere else. It was dawn before the thought started to lose its grip. Tommy and Laura felt a connection with the strangers and the waiter. There was a danger that they'd become friends and they'd have to start talking to each other, so Tommy and Laura left to find more strangers and waiters.

The Blackbird and the Ruby

2009-10-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

   Cynthia arrived at her caravan at seven o' clock in the evening. It was raining, but she didn't mind. Some people's concept of hell was a caravan holiday in the rain, but this was her idea of a perfect holiday.
   There was a tiny restaurant in a nearby caravan. She went there for her dinner. The chef had invented a type of bean that makes other food hide. Apples would roll off the table to get away from it. He asked her if she'd like to try the bean, but she went for the chicken instead. The chef looked disappointed. So did the chicken.
   She started talking to the couple at the next table. It would have been rude not to talk to them because they were so close. An apple couldn't have escaped through the space between the two tables. They introduced themselves as Melanie and George. They said they enjoyed looking at the birds along the coast. Cynthia said she enjoyed bird-watching as well. Melanie warned her not to spend too long looking at the blackbirds around the caravan park because of one particular blackbird who had given the others a bad name. When he opens his mouth you'll see a ruby inside. You'll reach out for it, but it will always be just beyond your grasp. You'll keep reaching until you'll enter the blackbird's stomach. There's a good chance you'll get out eventually, but the exit might not be so pleasant. Cynthia said she'd bear this in mind when she was out bird-watching, but she didn't think there was much danger of being swallowed by a blackbird.
   The sun was shining when she woke up in the morning. She wasn't too disappointed because there was rain in the forecast. She stepped outside. Most of the other holiday-makers were still asleep. She went to the ditch at the other side of the caravan and she looked out over the fields. She listened to the song of the birds. When a blackbird landed on a branch near her she remembered what Melanie had told her. She didn't have much time to dwell on this thought because as soon as the blackbird opened its mouth she could think of nothing but the ruby she saw. She reached out for it.
   Her mind was freed of its fascination with the ruby when she noticed that she was somewhere dark and wet. She wasn't alone in the blackbird's stomach. George and Melanie were in there too. "I feel like such a fool," George said. "I've always prided myself on my ability not to look at things. I assumed that not looking at a blackbird would be a simple task, but I was wrong."
   They were in the blackbird's stomach for hours before they were spat out. They were dropped into an empty field, in an unfamiliar landscape. They walked through the fields, hoping to find a house, but after walking for miles they hadn't even come across a proper road, just dirt tracks. They tried following some of the tracks, but these always led them to more fields or into woods.
   It was the middle of the afternoon before they met another human being. They saw a small sail boat in a field. A man was sitting inside it. He was blowing into the sail. Cynthia asked him if he could give them directions and he said, "The only direction I know is the one I'm facing. It makes things much simpler when you only have one direction, although it doesn't help you get there."
   He started blowing again. Cynthia, George and Melanie walked in the direction he was facing. During the rest of the day they came across a few empty houses and barns, but they didn't meet anyone else. Clouds crept across the sky in the evening. They found a barn before the rain started, and they spent the night there.
   It was still raining in the morning, but not even this could cheer up Cynthia. They were planning on staying in the barn until the rain cleared, but at nine o' clock they saw the man in the boat again. The boat floated past the barn. "Sailing is so much easier when you have a bit of water underneath you," he said. "Climb aboard."
   Cynthia, George and Melanie climbed into the boat. They had little trouble getting into it because it was moving at walking pace, but it gathered speed as it went down a hill. They wanted to get off then because it was moving too fast, but it was moving too fast for them to get off. They narrowly missed many trees. Cynthia, George and Melanie kept screaming, and the sailor kept blowing into the sail.
   They came to a long flat lawn, but they were still moving too quickly. They were heading straight for a windmill. It looked as if they'd go in through the open door, as long as they missed the spinning blades.
   They narrowly missed a blade. They went in through the front door of the windmill and they came out through the back door. They landed on a circular lawn. They were slowing down, and they finally stopped when they dropped into a hole. Cynthia, George and Melanie climbed out of the hole, and they realised where they were. "This is the crazy golf course next to the caravan park," Melanie said. "We're back!"
   "I'm starving," Cynthia said. "I could really do with that bean right now."
   They went back to their caravans to change their clothes and then they met up again in the restaurant to try the bean.

George's Books

2009-10-06T02:05:00.001-07:00

   George showed a great deal of caution in everything he did. He feared that sudden movements would cause people to back away from him. If a sudden jerk of his head caused one person to leave a room, the other people in the room would surely follow. Sometimes on a Sunday afternoon he'd be sitting on his armchair, quietly minding his own business on his own, when he'd suddenly spring to his feet and do a tap dance. He put this down to being possessed by a spirit. He didn't know if it was the same spirit inside him all the time or if it was many different spirits, either residing in him all the time or just passing through and making him dance on the way. He decided to write a book because he believed there was a good chance that the spirit or spirits would take control of the writing process at some stage.
   He started writing about his bike, and after that he paid as little attention as possible to what he was writing. He wrote one chapter while he was reading a book about the Boer War, and he often wrote while he was gardening. After two weeks he started reading what he had written, and he was very surprised by what he found. There was nothing about the Boer War in it. It seemed as if there were many different voices competing to be heard. One of them had a hatred of gardening. Another was obsessed with old detective films. Sometimes they spoke to each other. They often referred to someone as 'himself', and George suspected that this was himself. They seemed to regard him as an idiot they had to endure.
   All of these voices suggested many different spirits residing inside him, but George started to wonder if this was a trick played on him by his subconscious, and if so, was there any way he could get revenge on his subconscious. He couldn't bear the thought of anyone getting one over on him, even if the other person was really himself.
   Whether it was his subconscious or the spirits, he needed to establish who was boss, and that the boss wouldn't tolerate his staff disrespecting him behind his back or inside him. He wrote another book, and this time he paid close attention to every word he wrote. It would be a re-affirmation of his own role in his life, and a subjugation of the unruly forces inside him. He found that he enjoyed writing the word 'emblem'. He used it several thousand times in the book.
   He was pleased with his creation as he read through it. At no stage had any of the inner voices taken control, or so he first believed. As he read through it for a second time he noticed that the first letter of each sentence was part of a word, and the words were part of phrases like 'George is an idiot'.
   George was furious. He decided it was time to teach his inner trouble-makers a lesson. He read the first book again to get an insight into the characters of these spirits, or of his subconscious. One of the voices mentioned a strong dislike of country music. Another one said that ballroom dancers should be exiled to their own island, or to their own planet, if this became possible at some date in the future. George started listening to country music and he went to ballroom dancing lessons. He took up line-dancing as well, just to annoy his inner foe who despised country music. He spent a lot of time gardening and he watched DVDs of romantic comedies. He found other clues about the likes and dislikes of these inner characters, and he did things to make life for them as uncomfortable as possible. This is what led him to spend more time with his brother, Eric. The inner voices regarded Eric as an idiot. George thought they were right about this, but he went to see his brother nearly every evening just to annoy the voices. Eric could ramble on for hours about stupid things or remain silent for hours as he tried to think of something stupid. When George went to see him one evening he was looking at his shoe and he had a feeling that something was missing. After hours of staring he realised that what was missing was the 'S' to make 'shoe' a plural. He couldn't find his hoe either, but that's another story.
   George wrote another book. Just like in the last book, he paid very close attention to each word, and he often used the word 'emblem'. When he had finished it he looked at the first letters in each sentence and he saw that the inner voices had been put in their place. They were very respectful towards George. They used phrases like 'George is a man of great intelligence, wit and sophistication whose taste in music is beyond reproach'.
   He gave up ballroom dancing because he agreed with the sentiments expressed by his inner voices, but he kept listening to country music, even though he didn't like that either. He didn't want them to forget who was boss.

The Farm

2009-09-29T02:14:00.000-07:00

   Martha wanted to know where the farm was. She wouldn't accept my insistence that it was lost forever. She thought I was a liar because of the box on my head and the things in it. Sometimes I'd put my hand into the box and take something out, like a plug or a glove. This could be embarrassing if I had lied about the whereabouts of the plug or the glove. My head always felt different after I had removed objects from the box. My head also felt different after I had lied. This is why I enjoyed lying.
   Despite my lies, people were always asking me if they could put things into the box for safe-keeping. My aunt once put a diamond necklace in there, but it was nowhere to be found when she wanted to retrieve it a few weeks later. She blamed me for its disappearance, and I had to pay for a replacement necklace. This is why I got a job holding up book shelves for a man who was devoting all of his intellectual powers to making French people. All of the books on the shelves were about the manufacture of French people. After years of research he came to the conclusion that he'd need the assistance of a French woman. He met a French woman in the park one day. He liked wearing his wig and his wig liked wearing him. Whenever he took his wig out for a walk in the park people thought it was his wig who was walking him. The French woman was wearing her wig when they met. The two wigs got on very well, and so did the people beneath them.
   He didn't need shelves or books any more, so I had to get another job. A beggar needed an assistant to hold his clothes while he did his dance because if he didn't have someone to hold his clothes he'd have to wear them while he danced, and they'd get so frightened they'd run away. It happened once before, and they caused havoc. I got the job as his assistant. I enjoyed watching his dance at first, but the novelty wore off after a few days. I was bored, and I wasn't paying as much attention to my job as I should have been. One day the clothes slipped away when I was supposed to be guarding them. They ran out of the town and into the countryside. I had to follow them.
   As I was walking through the fields I met some people who were determined to avoid being eaten by a monster. I told them I'd pray to the appropriate saint on their behalf. They felt sure that my prayers to the appropriate saint would keep the monster at bay, and to thank me for my intervention they put some coins and keys into the box on my head. When I told them I needed to continue on my search for the beggar's clothes they said they'd help me.
   I walked on through the fields, with my helpers close behind me. I saw the beggar's clothes on a scarecrow. I went over to the scarecrow and removed the clothes. My followers were amazed at my bravery because the scarecrow was the monster they were afraid of. After talking amongst themselves, they came to the conclusion that I must be a saint, and that when I said I'd pray to the appropriate saint I meant that I'd have a word with him when I met him in the pub, a special pub where saints meet.
   I wondered why I was working as a beggar's assistant when I had these people who regarded me as a saint. I couldn't go back to my job, so I walked the other way, and my followers followed me.
   I met Martha. She was still looking for the farm. Helping her look for the farm would be just the sort of thing a saint would do. When I said I'd help her she was suspicious because of my previous claims that the farm was gone for good. But she accepted my offer because she needed all the help she could get.
   We spent days searching for the farm. My followers were growing weary. I was afraid of losing them, so I suggested to Martha that she look in the one place we hadn't thought of searching before: the box on my head. She stood on a rock and she reached down into the box. The first thing she pulled out was my aunt's diamond necklace. The second thing was a short piece of rusting barbed wire. She immediately recognised this as a remnant of the farm. It was a long way short of the farm as a whole, but she decided it would be sufficient. My followers got down on their knees and prayed to me. Some people might say I was lying to them, but I never actually said I was a saint.

Gerry's Vanishing Act

2009-09-22T03:07:00.000-07:00

   Gerry put a lot of thought into his vanishing act. His plan was to disappear and go to a remote cottage in the country, where the grass was always wet in winter, and most mornings would be lost beneath a veil of fog. There he could be invisible. He wouldn't feel a need to sharpen his wit every day, and live in fear of being sliced into tiny pieces by the razor-sharp wit of his work colleagues. He could start a new life each day, abandoning the old life every time he went to bed at night. Sleeping in his invisible cottage would be easy because his mind would be blank. He'd still feel small, but the world around him would feel small as well. Aliens from beyond the ditch would rarely invade his world, and if they did they wouldn't abduct him and probe whatever there was to be probed. They'd just call to borrow some sugar or to give him a jar of homemade jam.
   That was the plan, but there were many days to endure before it would come to fruition, days that would linger into his dreams. He'd wake up with them on the following morning. He tried his best to get away from them. Day-dreaming about his vanishing act wasn't enough. He needed some other escape.
   He found an ideal form of escape when he discovered a tunnel in his garden shed. He crawled through it every evening after dinner. The tunnel forked off into four other tunnels, and these led to yet more tunnels. There were manholes spaced at equal intervals on the ceiling of each tunnel. Gerry went up through one of the manholes every evening. Sometimes he'd emerge in a garden. These gardens always looked as if they were tended to by devoted full-time gardeners, but he never saw a gardener as he walked down the winding stone paths. He rarely met anyone. One evening he met a middle-aged woman who was sitting on a garden seat. She told him to sit down next to her. She assumed that he was there to hear her thoughts on how to find a suitable spouse. She spoke for an hour and a half. He nodded in the appropriate places to show that he was paying attention, but he couldn't keep track of everything she said. She spoke about predators and prey, and what would constitute good manners when you're trying to subdue a potential partner who mistakenly believes that you made an inappropriate joke about their aunt's gait.
   Some of the manholes led to rooms. There were hardly ever any people in these rooms, but one evening he met a man who was leaning against the mantelpiece. Gerry apologised for the interruption, and he was just about to retreat back down into the tunnel when the man invited him to come up and have a cigar. Gerry accepted the invitation. The man introduced himself as Roy. He took two cigars from a box on the mantelpiece and he gave one to Gerry. He used a match to light them, but he couldn't put the match out, and it didn't burn out. He considered this to be a breach of etiquette on the part of the match. He put it into his pocket to deal with it later, but his trousers caught fire. He considered this to be an outrageous breach of etiquette on the part of his trousers. He went outside and took them off. Gerry went outside with him. Roy didn't seem concerned about the etiquette of wearing trouser outside. He assumed that Gerry was there for an interview for a job as his assistant. The interview was conducted while they smoked outside and Gerry had been offered the job by the time they'd finished the cigars. It would be a few hours work in the evening, three evenings a week. Roy would dictate his memoirs to Gerry, who'd type them on a typewriter. Gerry decided to take the job because it seemed like a good way to forget about his other job.
   He hasn't regretted this decision. He still hasn't performed his vanishing act because he's waiting for Roy to get to the end of his memoirs. At the moment he's in the middle of a story about a bottle of medicine his sister found. She claimed she invented it, and this lie led to many other lies. He had to pose as her agent and convince a film director that part of her leg had been bitten off by an alligator.

Bird Sweat and Tears

2009-09-15T01:17:00.000-07:00

   Larry used to put on his bowler hat by climbing a step-ladder and diving into the hat. His grandmother had taught him how to do it. After one dive the hat was on too tight and he couldn't get it off. A nurse called Edna helped remove it from his head. Whenever I tell this story people always ask me if this is the same nurse who used to compete in athletics meetings where all of the competitors were tied to chairs. No, that's a different nurse.
   Larry and Edna discovered that they shared a common interest in tomatoes. He had built a glasshouse because he wanted to grow his own tomatoes. She had already started growing them and she was able to give him invaluable advice and assistance.
   The other nurse, Grace, once entered the hundred-meter hurdles, even though she didn't like being tied to a chair. She won the race, despite knocking over all of the hurdles. She was presented with a gold medal and a magic wand. She used the wand to make clay pigeons talk to their owners. They said they'd rather not be shot. She tried using it to make a train stop, but she only succeeded in making it slow down. The driver was angry with her. He believed that she was responsible for giving rabbits wings and making those flying rabbits attack him when he walked home at night. Grace told him that the more likely explanation was that someone was throwing heads of cabbage at him. He considered this explanation for a few minutes before discounting it. He was sure it wasn't cabbage, he said. It was possible that someone was throwing rabbits at him, maybe even dead rabbits. But not cabbage. She asked him if he had any enemies and he told her his life story because he'd been making enemies all his life.
   His name was Jacob. He said his first meeting with his parents came on a train to Galway when he was four years old. His parents had met for the first time on that train just ten minutes before meeting their son. They had managed to fit a lot into those ten minutes in an empty carriage, but they regretted their encounter when they met their son. He'd made enemies of his parents, but he didn't think they'd throw things at him.
   He went to school on a train. The school building was out in the middle of nowhere, and they had to endure a long journey to and from school each day. The teachers started teaching lessons on the train. This proved to be successful, and after a while all of the lessons were taught on the train. They'd arrive at the school just before lunch time. They'd have lunch there before more lessons on the journey home. The school eventually became a restaurant. He regarded the teachers as enemies, and he made sure they regarded him as an enemy as well. But they'd never demean themselves by throwing something. They put a lot of planning into plots of revenge because it was an opportunity to show how cunning they were.
   He'd made a few enemies since he became a train driver. One of them was a man called Adrian, and Jacob thought he was the most likely culprit. Adrian believed that rain was the sweat of birds. He always carried an umbrella, just in case. He didn't want to get bird sweat on his suit. He hated the song 'Singing in the Rain', and the film. One evening, he left his umbrella on the train. He had nearly reached the end of the platform when he realised what he had done. He turned around just as the train was pulling away. He waved frantically at the driver. Jacob was aware of Adrian's attachment to the umbrella and he was able to guess what had happened, but he didn't stop. It started raining shortly afterwards.
   Grace said she'd help Jacob find out who was throwing things at him. She'd follow him home, staying a long way behind him at all times, and she'd see who was throwing something that resembled a flying rabbit.
   This is how they were able to confirm that Adrian was the culprit. He was throwing cabbages at Jacob. Whenever I tell this story people always ask me if the man who believed that rain was bird sweat is the man who built cardboard boats. No. That's a different man who believed that rain was bird sweat. This other man used to cry every time he got wet in the rain. He believed that his tears were the excretions of tiny animals who crawled into his head while he was singing in his sleep.

Lucy's Dream

2009-09-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

   Lucy had a dream in which she was being chased through a city by a monster who was taller than a three-storey building. She had a talking harp that offered some very good advice, but she had to carry the harp everywhere, and this slowed her down. The monster was hindered by his trousers, which kept falling down, but he eventually cornered her in an alley that was blocked by a high wall. She played the harp, and it sang a song. The monster smiled as he listened to the song. When he had dropped his guard and his trousers she took her chance to kill him. She left the harp, but it kept singing and the monster kept smiling. He didn't notice her putting a grenade into his trouser pocket. She took the harp and ran past him. He pulled up his trousers and he turned around to chase her. She made it around the corner before he exploded. As she ran down the street she managed to avoid the falling debris, and then she went bowling with Adam.
   She woke up with a scream. She thought Adam was an idiot. He once told her that if he was ever proposing to a woman he'd give her chewing gum instead of a ring, just to see her reaction. He didn't think it was likely that she'd react by saying, "I'd rather marry that man who often has porridge stuck to his face." He couldn't imagine her saying no, as long as the chewing gum hadn't been used before.
   But Lucy's dreams had often been right in the past. They told her truths that the rational part of her mind didn't want to accept. Dreams had convinced her that she loved Abba, and that she didn't hate golf. She decided to allow herself to be won over by Adam. He was a friend of a friend, and they often met in the pub. She was nice to him the next time they met. He noticed the change in her attitude towards him. She had never laughed at his jokes before. The way she used to react was more of an anti-laugh, as if she was straining to show how unfunny she thought the joke was. But all that had changed. She laughed at his joke about women drivers, and she seemed genuinely interested in a story about a pie he found. Whenever he met a woman who didn't show antipathy towards him he always asked her out on a date. He asked Lucy if she'd like to go to a film with him, and she said she would.
   Cormac was horrified when he heard about this. He'd been trying to find the courage to ask Lucy out for months. He hated Adam, and he hated him even more for the way he didn't need courage to ask women out. He just needed a complete inability to imagine the consequences of using obscene chat-up lines on women who were holding something that could be used as a weapon. Cormac couldn't understand why Lucy would agree to go out with him. This is what he said to Adam when they met. "I thought she had more intelligence than that," he said. "I thought she had a better sense of smell."
   "Intelligence and a sense of smell have nothing to do with these things. That's why you'll never succeed. You'll try to smell good and appeal to their brains. It's a sense of mystery they fall for."
   "And you have a sense of mystery?"
   "Exactly. You wouldn't be able to see that. That's what makes it mysterious. Women can sense it, but you'll be completely blind to it. It's a bit like dogs listening to high-frequency sounds that we can't hear."
   "I've seen dogs back away from you because of the smell."
   "That's fine by me. I'm not trying to attract dogs."
   Cormac wanted to dispel any sense of mystery around Adam. When they were in the pub one evening Cormac got another friend of theirs to remind Adam of the hobby himself and his brother used to practise in their teens. They used to train dogs to get sick on people's shoes. Adam enjoyed telling Lucy about this. She smiled, but it was a forced smile. In the past she'd expressed a dislike of anyone who harmed dogs or shoes.
   Lucy and Adam went bowling later that evening, and she accidentally dropped a ball on his foot. She realised that this was what her dream was telling her to do. As he was lying on the ground, holding his foot, he saw her smile and he noticed that this smile looked more real than all the others. He thought he'd be better off staying a long way away from her.
   Cormac is still trying to find the courage to ask her out. She might say yes. The only time he appeared in one of her dreams he was eating a potato.

You're in the army now

2009-09-01T03:18:00.000-07:00

   Michelle always wore clothes that she made herself. People referred to her outfit as a 'uniform' because it looked like something a soldier would wear, but there was no one else in her army. The word 'uniform' suggests uniformity amongst a group of people. She always looked the same, but she looked different to everyone else. Some people claimed to hear the muffled sounds of animals coming from inside her clothes, but there was no obvious place for an animal to hide. The skirt and the jacket were very tight-fitting. Some people hear the muffled sounds of animals when they're sitting in a boat in the middle of a lake in the middle of the night. There might not be anywhere for animals to hide, but there are wide open spaces in their heads for animal sounds to fill.
   There were rumours that Michelle was launching a fashion range. When I heard this I assumed it was a joke. A 'range' of clothes wouldn't have been a concept she'd be well-acquainted with. But then I got an invitation to the launch of her fashion range. I considered the possibility that this was part of an elaborate practical joke. On the card it said that a local band called 'Vaticandlelight' would be playing at the launch. They were a punk band who sang songs in Latin. I went to see the band's lead singer, and he told me that the fashion launch was real. She had put up a marquee in a field near her house. The band had already rehearsed there.
   This was enough to convince me that the event was real, so I went along on the night. I was glad I went when I saw so many familiar faces. All of the neighbours were there. After we had taken our seats in the marquee, the band started playing and the first model appeared on the catwalk.
   No one was surprised to see her wearing a version of Michelle's uniform. The second model was wearing an identical uniform. When the tenth model appeared in the same uniform we started to suspect that this really was a joke. After thirty uniformed models had walked down the catwalk the joke didn't seem so funny. The models were stationed all around the marquee, and they were armed with clubs. They blocked the exits. Michelle appeared on the catwalk, and she had a gun. She explained to us why she needed an army.
   A farmer had built the local golf course on his farm, but most golfers found it too easy because the holes were too short and the course was flat. There were very few trees and no water. It would have cost a lot of money to alter the course to make it more difficult to play, so the farmer went for an easier option. For years he had been using human scarecrows because the crows on his farm had figured out that the straw ones weren't real. He got some of his scarecrows to stand on the fairways and distract the players. This made the course much more difficult to play. Sometimes the scarecrows would shout at a player in the middle of a swing. This was a sure way to anger a player, and this led to many drives being aimed directly at the scarecrows. Many golf clubs were thrown at them as well. The scarecrows wore helmets and padding.
   When Michelle was playing the course one day, a scarecrow said to her, "Your swing makes it look like you're at war. If hippies saw you they'd organise a demonstration and they'd write songs about the merits of non-violent golf."
   They'd gone too far this time. They had to be eradicated from the course, she thought, and she needed an army to do this. The army of models would be augmented by the guests at her fashion show. She had made uniforms for all of us. The models distributed these. They put up a curtain down the middle of the marquee to make separate changing areas for the men and the women.
   When we had assembled outside the marquee she gave each one of us a club, and she made us march towards the golf course. Some of the scarecrows looked terrified when they saw us coming. A few of them were willing to put up a fight, but they were left alone when the deserters fled to the hills, and they had no choice but to follow. Our general, Michelle, praised our courage, and she marched us back to the marquee, where we celebrated our victory with champagne.
   Vaticandlelight played and soldiers danced, but the party came to an abrupt halt when the marquee came under attack. The scarecrows had regrouped in the hills, and they rounded up the scarecrows from other farms to launch this attack. We managed to keep the invaders out, but we were under siege. Michelle said she feared that this would happen, and this is why she had reinforcements. She called in another unit of models, who were stationed at an old church.
   This unit surprised the scarecrows when they emerged from the night and started fighting. We came out of the marquee and joined the battle. The scarecrows were outnumbered, and they surrendered, but Michelle wouldn't accept this. She marched them into the fields. She gave them shovels, and she made them dig graves. We thought she might have gone a bit too far this time, but she wasn't about to commit a war crime. When she got the scarecrows to put sand in the graves her purpose became clear. The scarecrows added bunkers to every hole on the golf course. This made the course much more difficult to play, and there was no need for the scarecrows any more. The farmer used them to keep his cows entertained. The scarecrows performed song and dance routines, and the cows produced better milk.

The Mystery of Oliver's Eye

2009-08-25T03:07:00.000-07:00

   Oliver closed his eyes. Or, to be more precise, he closed his eyelids. When he opened his left eyelid his left eye was gone. It had been replaced by a marble. He was afraid to raise his right eyelid in case his right eye was missing as well. But after walking into the wall once too often he realised he had to face his fear and open his eyelid. He was delighted to find that his right eye was still there and he could see.
   Detective Johnson was called to solve the mystery of the missing eye. Oliver told him what had happened. Johnson said, "This reminds me of the theft of a diamond from a locked room. A fake diamond was left behind. I considered a number of options in that case. The first was that the door hadn't remained locked at all times. This seemed unlikely at first, as a security guard had been on duty outside the door. Another option was that there was some other entrance to the room, but after a painstaking search, none was discovered. Is there another entrance in this case? Have you tried taking your eyes out through your ears or through your nose?"
   "No, but my brother did. Unsuccessfully."
   "Then your eyelids must not have remained shut at all times. A third possibility in the diamond case was that the thief was a member of staff, possibly even the security guard himself. As I questioned him I began to suspect what had happened. He had been drugged, and the drugs erased the memory of being drugged."
   "Now that I think about it, it's quite possible that I fell asleep after I closed my eyes. That happens to me nearly every day. But I'm sure I would have woken up if someone tried to open my eyelids from the outside."
   "Is there any reason why you'd open your eyelids while you sleep?"
   "I'd open my eyes if I sensed that old people were near. Old people are always asking me if they can lick the sauce from my eyes. That's why I learnt how to lick the sauce from my own eyes. I've also developed a very keen sense of when old people are near. Even in my sleep I can lick the sauce from my eyes."
   "So an old person would have come for the eye sauce, and you would have opened your eyelids to lick the sauce. This old person, or persons, would have seized the chance and taken one of your eyes while you slept. We should be able to find the culprit, or culprits, if we can find the trail of eye sauce."
   They found the trail on Oliver's garden path. It led them to Mrs. Nolan's house. "I should have known," Oliver said. "Mrs. Nolan has always had her eyes on my eyes."
   Mrs. Nolan insisted she had nothing to do with the crime, but she suspected who might have been behind it. She used to take her teeth out before going to bed each night. She'd leave them in a glass on her bedside locker. She used to take her brain out as well, and she'd put it into a bowl. Her collection of antique dolls were always doing things with her brain while she slept. They'd give it make-overs. She'd wake up in the morning and find that her brain was wearing a new dress and make-up. "When I woke up this morning," she said, "I found two eyes on my brain. It was wearing glasses as well."
   "So you didn't sense old people," Johnson said to Oliver. "You sensed dolls."
   "Some of them are over a hundred years old," Mrs. Nolan said. "I'm terribly sorry about this. I need to have a word with my dolls."
   She showed them the eyes. The green one was Oliver's, but they didn't know who the other one belonged to. Mrs. Nolan said she'd make her dolls return it to its rightful owner.
   Oliver put the eye back into his head. He was delighted to be able to see properly again, but he walked into the door frame on the way out. "That was my fault," he said. "I put the eye in upside down."

Mr. Maloney's Orchard

2009-08-18T03:32:00.000-07:00

   I'm thinking about moving into a sand castle. There I'll be king, and jesters will come up with a plan to murder me. This is what I've always wanted, to be king and to inspire a murderous hatred in jesters. As long as their plan doesn't succeed, I'll be happy. It seems a bit too far-fetched. I could probably get the murderous jesters, but I'll never be king. I'm going to have to set my sights lower.
   Once I was attacked by murderous leprechauns who thought I had the power to predict the future. They arrived at my house at ten o' clock one night. They thought I knew what they were going to do to Mr. Maloney's orchard. After I convinced them that I had no idea what they were going to do to Mr. Maloney's orchard they realised that they had just informed me of their intention to do something to Mr. Maloney's orchard. They kidnapped me, and they told me they were going to imprison me until after they'd done whatever they were going to do. They led me away through the fields. Time behaves differently around leprechauns. A few minutes for them could seem like years for me. I feared that I'd be trapped for years.
   I was rescued by Felix. He built his own airplane so he could fly to Martha's cafe for lunch every day. His airplane rarely left the ground. At its top speed it would bounce through the fields rather than fly over them. He couldn't get over gates, so he had to stop to open them. If he came to a locked gate he'd have to leave the plane there and walk the rest of the way. It would have been much easier to walk all the way to the cafe rather than getting the plane out every day, but he loved flying, or bouncing.
   One day I heard the plane approaching, and I expected to see Felix in the cockpit, but Felix was running behind the plane and his dog was in the cockpit. I joined the chase, and I was able to catch up with the plane. I pressed the brakes and stopped the plane just yards away from a stream. Felix was very grateful. He felt as if he owed me a favour, and when he saw the leprechauns leading me away he knew he had a duty to help me.
   He flew his plane towards the leprechauns and me. As it approached us, the leprechauns got scared and they ran away. Felix slowed down, and I was able to climb on board as the plane was still moving. He told me we'd make our getaway by going up a hill and taking off at the top. The leprechauns would be powerless as they'd watch us fly away towards the horizon.
   It didn't seem likely that the plane would take off at the top of the hill. The leprechauns were running after us, and they were catching up with us because the plane was moving so slowly. When Felix realised that we wouldn't even make it to the top of the hill he turned around and flew right at the leprechauns. They ran away again. We gathered speed as we went down the hill, and the plane started to bounce. By carefully timing the bounces, Felix was able to go over ditches and other obstacles that came in our way, but a house proved to be too big an obstacle. The house we crashed into was owned by my cousin Mark. A broken window was the only damage it sustained.
   Mark was at the other side of the window. When we crashed into his house he was proposing to a woman called Deirdre. He'd been seeing her for over ten years. She'd been seeing him for two. He was down on one knee with the engagement ring in his hand when we arrived. The aftermath of a plane crash didn't seem to be the appropriate time for a proposal, so he abandoned his plan. She seemed to be glad of the interruption. He was wearing a T-shirt with the words 'Hello Deirdre' on the front and 'It's me' on the back. I wanted to ask him about it, but it didn't seem like the appropriate time for that either.
   The leprechauns had given up the chase. They just went straight to Mr. Maloney's orchard and they did what they had been planning to do. They inserted a worm into every apple in the orchard, whether the worms liked it or not. The leprechauns were angry with Mr. Maloney because he had been boasting that he could make a leprechaun out of a beagle and a duck. They slowed down time so they were able to finish the job before dawn. Maloney didn't hear them working in his orchard, even though his guard dog kept quacking.

My Phone had the Hiccups

2009-08-11T02:51:00.000-07:00

   My phone had the hiccups. After two days of listening to it hiccupping I started to get annoyed. Someone suggested I try frightening my phone, and that's when I thought of Trevor, one of my neighbours. He's a ventriloquist, and he has a dummy called Roger. Trevor's dog once climbed into Roger because it seemed like a comfortable place to sleep. Roger was lying on a chair in Trevor's living room at the time. Some of Trevor's friends called around for tea. When Trevor was in the kitchen making the tea, the dog woke up and he struggled to get out of Roger. When Trevor's friends saw Roger suddenly spring into life they were terrified. They started screaming, and they ran from the house.
   Trevor was delighted with what his dog had done. He trained the dog to remain completely still inside the dummy and then suddenly start jumping. It was a great way of scaring children, and I hoped it would scare my phone as well.
   The dog was inside Roger when Trevor put the dummy on the floor in my hall, near where the phone was. We left them alone. About ten minutes later the dog sprang into life and so did Roger. This clearly terrified the phone. It stopped hiccupping, and it started ringing instead.
   The plan to frighten the phone worked too well. It wouldn't stop ringing, and this was even worse than the hiccupping. I needed to calm it down. My uncle Eddie often put the phone to sleep. He has a very monotonous voice, and he can ramble on for hours. He breathes through his nose so he won't have to pause. When he had a cold and his nose was blocked he learnt how to breathe through his eyes. I phoned Eddie. He started talking about the cathedral he'd build if he ever had a chance to build a cathedral. I lost track of what he was saying after about ten seconds.
   It didn't take long for the phone to fall asleep, but I couldn't get it to wake up again, and it kept snoring. I needed something to wake it up, and this seemed like a good excuse for a party. A man called Jasper used to install edible kitchens. People loved the taste of his kitchens. It had become fashionable to hire him to install a new kitchen just for a party. I got him to put a new kitchen in my house for my party.
   This plan also worked a bit too well. My guests were very impressed by the kitchen. They started eating the doors to the cupboards, and they drank the contents of the cupboards (I had left bottles of wine and beer in there). It didn't take them long to eat all the cupboards and the worktop, and they had the sink for dessert, but they didn't stop there. They moved onto the dining room, and they started eating the table, even though it was made out of oak. I put out some more drink, hoping that this would distract them, but it only fuelled their feast. By midnight they had eaten their way through most of the downstairs rooms.
   I surveyed the damage on the following morning. Wreckage and empty bottles were strewn across the floor, and the phone was hiccupping again. But at least the hiccupping was better than the ringing or the snoring, so I decided not to do anything about it this time.

A Good Gardener

2009-08-04T02:44:00.000-07:00

   Raymond enjoyed painting. He thought it was much better than painting. People who painted envied him, but he thought they should be envying him instead. He envied them because he wanted to be able to paint as well. His wife was the sea, and so was his dog. He was not his wife for a brief period between 1963 and 1964. In 1965 he qualiflowered as a gardener when he was expecting to become a mechanic. He worked in the gardens of a manor house. He often heard voices in the gardens, but he never found the sources of these voices, and the sources couldn't hear him when he spoke. One day he heard the voices of two men. "Am I dead yet?" one of them said.
   "No. I'll tell you when you're dead," the other one said. "I'll tell you when you die."
   "Every time you complain about my various endeavours it makes my higher Agnes cry."
   "She cries because she looks at pictures of the green man."
   "She looks at pictures of the green man because you complain about my various endeavours. She says she had a premonition of me falling down a mineshaft. She always has that vision after crying over pictures of the green man."
   "Lassie will help you."
   "Lucky Lassie or Dumb Lassie?"
   "Dumb Lassie."
   "Do you think Dumb Lassie knows what to do about a man in a mineshaft? Do you think Dumb Lassie would help you bake your sand castles?"
   "I don't know. I'll tell you when I know."
   "When will that be?"
   "Possibly when I die."
   "How will you know when you die?"
   "I don't know."
   "I'll tell you when you die."
   "Good. Can I have your salad?"
   "No. I need it."
   "Where's your wife today?"
   "She's off to buy a phone that's a little bit bigger than a pheasant."
   When Raymond was walking through the orchard that evening he saw a rotary phone mechanic hammering the crap out of a phone till King Jingelwash arrived. Raymond was shocked because he was able to see King Jingelwash and the rotary phone mechanic. The mechanic didn't know what to do with the mobile phone, or what once was a mobile phone. Raymond always wanted to be a mechanic. When King Jingelwash led the mechanic away, Raymond gathered all of the pieces and tried to put them back together.
   It was late at night when his work on the phone was completed. The phone was a good bit bigger than a good sized pheasant. It was mobile, but you'd get tired of lifting it before too long. He picked up the receiver and pressed some of the buttons. He heard the voices he had heard earlier.
   "You can have my flag, Harry," one of them said.
   "Does Agnes know you're letting other people use your flag?"
   "I don't know."
   "That sounds like a 'no' to me."
   "I haven't told her."
   "Then how's she supposed to know?"
   "When she sees someone else using it."
   "And what if she sees me using it and starts hitting me with an umbrella?"
   "She's more likely to start hitting me with an umbrella for letting you use it. But I don't think she'd mind."
   "Fair enough."
   Raymond said 'hello', and he was amazed to find that they could hear him. He didn't know what to say, so he just spoke about the weather.
   He enjoyed working on the phone so much that he built a replica. On this phone he could hear other voices, and he was able to talk to the people on the other end of the line, assuming they were people. He built more phones and he heard other voices that he'd previously heard in the garden. He had conversations on his phones every day, and the more he spoke, the healthier the garden seemed to be. The grass seemed greener, and the colours of the flowers were more vivid. He developed a reputation for being an expert gardener. He was glad that being a good gardener involved being a good mechanic.

Footle

2009-07-28T02:27:00.000-07:00

   I've been learning how to play the trumpet. Some people say I'm wasting my breath, but if I didn't use it on the trumpet I'd just use it to say the word 'footle'.
   When I met Alison a few weeks ago she could tell that I was just about to say 'footle'. She covered her ears and she started shouting 'No no no no no no no', shooting a round of 'no's into the ground around my feet. The next time I met her she gave me a cold shoulder. I put it in the fridge and I started thinking. I didn't have anything to think about. Whenever the cupboard in my head is bare I always look up. I saw the sink on the ceiling, and glued to the sink was a note with the words 'My haberdashery'. I thought she might like this, so I sent it to her. She sent me a letter in return. She thanked me for the words and she said she had some words for me. She was going to write them, but she thought they'd sound better if she said them to me. So I called around to her house. She was wearing a diamond necklace and a neck. 'Hospital' and 'primrose' were the words she gave to me. I felt that I needed to give a word in return. I couldn't use 'footle'. I thought about playing a word on the trumpet, but I was still just learning.
   I decided to visit Gerry to see if he could give me a word. He gave his cousins some of his criminals for Christmas, and they gave him an alphabet. But when I got to his house he told me he had eaten all of the alphabet. He offered me some criminals instead of a word. I declined his offer because I thought Alison would prefer a word.
   I tried to make a word myself by assembling my own alphabet. I went looking for things that could be used as letters. I found an iron bar that could be twisted into a 'U'. I met a bee who was willing to pose as a 'B' if I let him sleep in the pocket of my coat. I agreed. I was hoping to find a 'P' next.
   I kept walking until I came to a fork in the toad. The toad asked me to remove the fork, so I did and he turned into a handsome prince. Handsome princes aren't really my cup of tea, so I put the fork back in, but he didn't turn into a toad. He just turned into an angry prince. I ran away and he chased me.
   After running for ten minutes I had to stop at an old stone bridge to have a rest. I met a man who said, "There's no point running away because we all do the die in the end and fall off our horses. My horse is invisible, as you can see."
   I bought his invisible horse. On horseback I was able to get away from the prince, even though riding was just as tiring as running.
   I returned to my quest to find an alphabet. After a lot of searching I managed to assemble the word 'butterfly'. I'd been stung by nettles, chased by dogs and cursed by witches during my search. I could see that Alison was impressed by the word, but shortly after I said it to her the prince finally caught up with me. His anger evaporated when he saw Alison, and he lost interest in getting revenge on me. He looked into her eyes. He only had to say the word 'footle' to make her smile.
   They left together. The latest I heard is that they're engaged. I've used the word 'footle' on hundreds of women and it's never had this effect.

The Alien's Bride

2009-07-21T02:30:00.000-07:00

   It was a very good planet, as planets go, and when we came back we had some tea. It was nice to have the tea after our trip to the planet. Only after the tea did we realise that one of the aliens had come back with us. We had a good laugh about that. The alien laughed as well. Something spilled out of his ears every time he laughed, and he had twenty ears. The dog drank what had spilled on the floor. It nearly made Ann sick, so we got the alien to spill it into a bowl, and the dog drank from that instead.
   We knew that the alien was male because he said he needed a female alien to mate with, or else he'd burst. The dog would have a feast if that happened, but it would ruin the new carpet if he burst in the dining room, so we decided to make a female alien for him. He gave us a shopping list. A lot of carrots would be needed for his new bride, and some tomatoes too. I was glad to see the tomatoes on the list because it meant that the dog wouldn't eat her (the dog hates tomatoes).
   The alien was happy with his new bride, but after a week she started to go off. She was approaching her 'best before' date, and we told him he'd have to get a new one. He pretended not to hear, but he had twenty ears, so we weren't going to be fooled by that.
   One of our neighbours, Mr. Pinecuphop, called around one day. When he saw the alien's bride (he could smell her before he saw her) he said, "In my younger days I spent many years travelling through a land governed by a council who lived underground. Myself and my travelling companions were captured and imprisoned. For months the only part of the outside world we saw was the square of sky through a tiny window near the ceiling of our cell. On my birthday the guards gave me a heart and some feathers and they suggested that I use these ingredients to make something. I wanted to make biscuits because my uncle claimed that he once escaped from prison using only a biscuit. But I'd have needed more ingredients to make biscuits. One of my companions was an accountant for witches and wizards, and he had learnt a few tricks from them. He put the feathers and the heart into a bowl and he recited a strange chant over them. He kept reciting this chant for several minutes. He said we'd have to leave it overnight before we'd see the effects of this chant. He'd used it before to make pet dogs. These dogs weren't very good at fetching things, and their owners often had to re-attach bits that fell off, but they were very loyal.
   "We were woken in the middle of the night by the sound of digging. There was a hole in the floor of the cell and earth was flying out of it. The bowl was empty. The feathers and the heart were now part of a strange creature that had strong, sharp claws and a desire to dig. The feathers were on its back. We could see its chest bulge every time the heart beat. Within two hours it had dug a tunnel out of the prison. The tunnel was just about big enough for us to crawl through. This is how we made our escape. We disguised ourselves as lepers to get away from that land."
   Mr. Pinecuphop agreed to perform the chant on the alien's bride. He closed his eyes, and he kept repeating a simple phrase in a monotone voice. This phrase was in a language I didn't understand.
   The alien's bride wasn't showing any signs of life when we went to bed that night, but on the following morning we could hear her scratching the walls. She made numerous holes in the walls, but at least the smell was gone, and the alien was delighted with this sudden burst of energy she was exhibiting. She seemed much more attentive as well. Before Mr. Pinecuphop performed his chant, the alien had been wondering if she was really listening to everything he said to her.

My Elephant

2009-07-14T05:34:00.000-07:00

   I've just been born. Hooray! I think I'll play with that toy elephant, and then I'll go to school.
   I enjoyed playing with the elephant, but I enjoy school even more. My teacher says I'm clever, and she thinks I should be a nuclear physicist.
   I'm really enjoying studying nuclear physics in college. It's great fun, much better than the elephant. Only a leading role in a major Hollywood film could tempt me out of college.
   I've starred in many action films. Most of them aren't as good as the elephant, but the lifestyle is great. I've lost count of the beautiful women I've been romantically involved with. I do all my own stunts. Ow. I just broke my leg. Can someone else do the stunts from now on?
   My career is over. I'm a washed-up Hollywood star, all alone in my vast mansion. I wish I had my toy elephant now. Oh, there it is.
   The elephant is pretty good, but it's not as good as studying nuclear physics. I think I'll go back to college and complete my studies. Then I'll win a Nobel prize, and then I'll buy a sandwich in the canteen where I work. I'd like that. And then I think I'll die of old age. Hooray!

Pinocchio

2009-07-07T02:44:00.000-07:00

   Myself, Jimmy and Chadwick were walking down a quiet country road one Saturday evening when we met one of my neighbours, a man known as Pinocchio. I don't know what his real name is. I was starting to have my doubts about some of the stories he told. Does he really have a tractor full of butter? I've never seen it, and I spent a long time looking for it. Has he really directed over a hundred films? Sometimes I'm convinced he's telling the truth about this because he can talk at great length about the film-making process. But sometimes I listen carefully to what he's saying and I start to have my doubts. He once said, "It's really just a matter of having a talkey bit followed by a stickey bit and then have a man get struck by lightning by dropping some cats on his head. Isn't that right, Seamus?" Seamus is the assistant director. Pinocchio says 'Isn't that right, Seamus?' every few minutes regardless of whether or not Seamus is there. When Seamus is there he always responds to this by saying 'It is', regardless of whether or not it's right.
   When we met Pinocchio on that Saturday evening he told us that the people who had just moved into the house near the old mill had gold eyes. We thought there was a good chance he was lying about this, but we had to find out for sure, so we went to visit these people.
   They didn't have gold eyes. We couldn't tell them that we had only visited them to see if they had gold eyes, so we said we were there to welcome them to the locality. They invited us in, and we thought it would be rude not to accept the invitation. There were eight of them in the living room, four men and four women, and each one of them had perfectly normal eyes, but there was something strange about their hands. We had been drinking earlier, and Jimmy had reached the stage of intoxication where he no longer felt a need to think before saying something about other people's hands. He asked them if they'd mind putting their hands away. They said they'd be only too happy to oblige.
   It took them over an hour to get out all the boxes and carefully pack their hands. We drank beer as we watched them. When they had finished the job they asked us where we got the beer. I told them we bought it from the man who follows us around the place, selling us beer. They bought some beer from him as well, but myself, Jimmy and Chadwick had to hold up the cans for them, or else they'd have had to unpack their hands. Jimmy was sorry he ever asked them to put their hands away. In hindsight, their hands weren't all that odd, certainly not as odd as the portrait that was drinking milk.
   They asked us to stay for dinner. I didn't want to stay because I was afraid we'd end up feeding them as well, but there was also the fear that they'd injure themselves making dinner without hands, especially as they were all slightly drunk, even after just one can of beer. So I said we'd stay.
   Thankfully they decided to put their hands back on to make dinner, but because they were slightly drunk they got their hands all mixed up. When they realised they were wearing each other's hands they started touching each other and laughing. I thought it was going to be a long evening. I said I needed to step outside for a minute to talk to the man who sells us ice cream. Chadwick came with me, but Jimmy stayed inside. He seemed to be enjoying watching them touch each other.
   The ice cream man told us he was still having trouble with the giant hand that reaches down from the sky and taps him on the shoulder. It was affecting his nerves, and it was affecting his ice cream as well -- it tasted awful. Chadwick said, "I have a plan that will prevent future assaults on your shoulders and make them more fashionable as well. Your shoulders will be the envy of all other shoulders, ankles, elbows, necks and even some heads. My cousin Imelda has just launched what she calls a 'fashion range'. She has jackets with all manner of things attached to the shoulders. Telephones, lobsters, dolls' heads. Shoulders are 'in', apparently. People in fashionable society will think you're backward unless your shoulders are adequately decorated. On one of her jackets there are metal spikes on the shoulders, and this is the one for you. That's the thing to keep the hand away. It might tap your shoulder once more, but it won't do it twice."
   So we took him to see Imelda and he bought the jacket with the spikes. He couldn't wait to go outside and taunt the giant hand. Myself and Chadwick went back to see how Jimmy was getting on with his new friends. Dinner was nearly ready when we arrived. We explained the reason for the delay in returning, and when they heard about the giant hand they were horrified. This hand wasn't put back in its appropriate box, they said, and now it's out of control. It needed to be captured.
   They abandoned the dinner. They went outside and they got harpoons and crossbows from their shed. As night set in they set out to hunt down the hand.
   Despite their best efforts they couldn't catch the hand. It always outsmarted them. It would creep up behind them and tap their shoulders. After a few months they were starting to go mad, but they couldn't give up the chase. It was a bit like Moby Dick. The hand was their white whale and they were obsessed with its capture. They thought they'd look weak if it got the better of them. Eventually they shot down a weather balloon and they pretended that this was the hand. It looked more like Moby Dick than a hand. Pinocchio and Seamus filmed all this. In fairness, it made a good action film. The premiere took place in the village hall. So that's one film he's definitely made, but I'm still not sure about the other hundred.

A Short Story

2009-06-30T06:49:00.001-07:00

   You can make some long stories short and still be telling them at dawn. Stories about trips to the moon rarely get finished before a new day begins. Some people say you should chew gum instead of telling a story. They point out that chewing gum will rarely keep you up all night and that listening to someone chewing gum is more enjoyable than someone telling a story about a trip to the moon. I have a story about the time I found a set of false teeth. I didn't want to put them in my mouth without testing them on an animal first, so I put them into a dog's mouth, but he ran away.
   In the longer version of this story, there's a trip to the moon. But I can easily cut that out and greatly reduce the length of the story without diminishing its impact, and ensuring that it has a chance of competing with someone chewing gum.
   I chased the dog through the fields, and then... [Scenes Deleted] ...I was chased by a farmer with a pike, two astronauts, a priest, two volleyball teams and a motorbike gang, along with the dog who had my false teeth. You could tell that the gang were evil because they kept jam in their mouths. They'd stick a knife in their mouths to get the jam and spread it on bread. I'm not going to mention where they kept the butter. The chase came to an end when I came across a man who was standing on a wooden bridge over a stream. A strange noise was coming from his brain. You could hear the sound through his nose. Myself, all the people who had been chasing me and the dog all listened at his nose until dawn. It sounded as if something in his brain was chewing gum. The dog was lulled to sleep by the sound, and I was able to remove the false teeth from his mouth and put them in my own mouth without anyone noticing. I casually walked away while everyone else was distracted by the sound from the man's nose. The motorbike gang were making their breakfast. They had started a fire and they were frying sausages, eggs and rashers on it. I think it's best that I end this story before mentioning where they kept the food.

Stacey and George

2009-06-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

   Stacey and George were perfect for each other. They both liked metal. She had a pierced nose and he had two staples in his fold. Her mother didn't like George. His gooballs nearly popped out of his head when Stacey told him all her mother had said about the traffic in and out of his head. He didn't like the thought of having her as a mur-in-law and she didn't want a son-in-lawn with green hair that he hadn't mown in over a year. But he needed to impress her for Stacey's sake.
   They spent a long weekend together. You could drive a but-bus through the space between 'They stayed with her aunt' and 'her aunt lived in a hole'. In the evenings her aunt drank a lot of whatskey and dot dot dot I remember when I was what I was when I was no-high to a dot's meow. In every hour there would be a few seconds when she'd make sense before rolling what she'd made up into a ball and throwing it out the indow or in the outdoor or at the painting of a wet piano. On one of those occasions she told George he could impress Stacey's mother with a bit of entrepreneurial flair.
   They decided to leave on the following day when the aunt's friend Violet arrived and it became too crowded in the hole. They went to his uncle Albert's house. Albert had ten spare bedrooms and he was delighted to see Stacey and George because he wanted someone to house-sit his house while he went to visit Mrs. Foldegold to see if she'd made any progress with her latest invention (child-proof locks for eye-lids). The journey to Mrs. Foldegold's house would take a few days. He used his M pony while his L pony was being repaired.

   George had an idea. He could start a guesthouse while his uncle was away and he could advertise it as a haunted house to draw in the crowds. Making a success of this would be just the sort of thing to impress Stacey's mother.
   Tourists arrove in their droves when news of the haunted house spread. George and Stacey had to send most of them away. They got a man called Clive to pretend to be the ghost. He used to do some odd jobs for Uncle Albert. They found him in the garden using a squaredriver to fight off the cloudboys who advance on him with tennis rackets.
   The house looked spooky at night.

   But the only ghostly thing about Clive was the slow flecks of snow flakes falling from his shoulders in the moonlight. The guests were angry because of this obvious charade, but then the real ghost appeared. When she introduced herself as Mrs. Gladflug she gave them all enough of a fright to make cow bunnies jump Dover the white cliffs of the moon when the sun's gone down. She saw that she had an audience and she started talking. The more she rambled on, the more she eased their fears. She spoke about a day spent working in the gardens around this house. "The mothibirds were flyering around my hairspace and my hair piece was making grumpfudge. I made them go getaway with my fly-swisher. I dig dugged a hole in the gardilawn when the flyspider's backs were turned, digged dug. I found a box of gold in the hole and I was afraid in case whoever had birdied it there might come back and find me with their gold. So I buried it somewhere else in the garden to give me time to think. But I took too long to think and I died before I had a chance to use the gold or lose it on horses."
   All the guests were excited when they went to bed. George and Stacey were happy with a job well done, but when they woke up in the morning and looked out they saw a garden full of guests with shovels and lawns with holes. Everyone was trying to find the treasure, and Uncle Albert was due to return later that day.
   George and Stacey needed to work quickly to repair the damage done. They filled in the holes, but they needed something to cover the places where the earth had been dug up. George took all the old garden furniture, statues and junk out of the shed and he used these to cover the sites of holes. He used the junk to make sculptures. He created a garden as weirdiful and wonderful as a pack of multi-coloured chancers tumbling down a mountainside. Uncle Albert was delighted with it. He told all of his friends and neighbours about the garden, and many tourists came to see it. George became a successful gardener, which greatly impressed Stacey's mother. She loved what he did to her own garden, even though he still refused to mow his hair.

Mabel Hobbeloe's Circus Truck

2009-06-16T07:10:00.001-07:00

   Mabel Hobbeloe's circus truck will come to town. You'll be sorry if you're not there for her arrival. Mabel has no time for losers who feel sorry for themselves. Are you a loser? Are you a monkey? (I have to ask that question for legal reasons). If not, come to Mabel Hobbeloe's circus truck, where you'll see mechanical animals and clowns with hair that moves of its own accord. Bring a friend, even if you have to tie them to a trolley and wheel them there. You'll be able to exchange that friend for a gift, which will be presented to you by Mabel herself.
   I don't want to work for Mabel Hobbeloe anymore. I want to leave, to walk away through the fields and keep walking. I'd live off the land I travel through. I could survive on berries, as long as they don't kill me. Mabel keeps belittling me. Her husband, Gordon, never takes any notice. He wears a smoking jacket and smokes his pipe all day long. He only speaks to give dispatches from the world in his head. Yesterday he told me there were rats in the map room. Today he told me the rats had been taken care of with the appropriate amount of bloodshed. He would have known if the amount of bloodshed was inappropriate if the soldiers (they're really just his cousins) were crying. They get very upset when there isn't as much blood as they had been expecting. Mabel is abusive most of the time. When she gets very drunk she gets very abusive. Before her level of drunkenness reaches 'very' she isn't abusive at all, but I have to listen to her talk non-stop about things I have no interest in. Last night she spent hours telling me about her rivalry with Glory Baffelsack. She hates Glory Baffelsack because he has a bigger truck, even though it's only slightly bigger. He should have a much smaller one because he keeps crashing it.
   I want to leave Mabel's employment, but I don't know how to tell her. I came close to telling her once. It was when Gordon came to me one afternoon and said, "The pilgrims eat all the lettuce in my garden. I left out poison for them, but it only makes them drunk and they start mating. I've tried throwing beans at them, mainly for my own amusement. They bought me a coconut, or at least they said they bought it, but I think they probably stole it."
   He didn't have a garden, so I went to see what he was talking about. I found his cousins unconscious on the ground. They were covered in beans. I had to clean them up, and listen to their drunken rants when they became semi-conscious. This was the last straw. I went to Mabel with the intention of quitting, but she must have sensed what was coming. She started talking before I had a chance to say anything, and her voice was very gentle. She said, "I'd be ever so grateful if you'd sweep the rugs before the evening crowd arrives. And perhaps you could fold the brown paper bags as well. Empty them first. Put their contents into the red suitcase and leave it outside for someone to steal. Thank you once again. I'd be lost without you."
   She walked away. I didn't have the nerve to say anything. I looked to my right and I saw the open fields. Part of me wanted to run away and not look back. I came very close to leaving, but I didn't. I got the brush and I started sweeping the rugs.

The Door

2009-06-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

   I found a silver spoon. I put it with the spanner I had found earlier. According to the set of instructions in my manual, I should knock on Nick's door after finding a silver spoon and a spanner. I needed to find out who Nick was and where he lived. I consulted my book. Before I came to the bit about Nick I had to read many chapters about a man who had spent most of his life varnishing hovercrafts. As he worked on the hovercrafts he was mentally writing his memoirs on the walls of his mind. It took him nearly forty years to complete his memoirs. To recite them, he'd have to imagine walking into the vast mental mansion he'd built. He'd start reading from the walls in the hall, where he'd written about his ancestors. He claimed to be a direct descendent of a cathedral.
   I spent all night reading and re-reading these chapters. In the morning, the police knocked on my door. They knock on my door nearly every day. I did what I always do: I ran away.
   I ran down winding roads that had no interest in ending. I kept running until I came to a door. I noticed that there was neither a frame nor a house around the door. I opened it, and at the other side I met a group of people who were doing their best to keep a party in full swing, despite the fact that it was in a field. They told me that the train drivers were hiding behind a ditch, waiting to pounce. At the first sign that the party was wilting they'd lay down tracks and drive the train right through this spot. So the people in the field had to keep the party going or they'd lose the field forever. I joined them. They were glad to have another volunteer fighting for their cause.
   After midnight, the field's scarecrow was replaced by a seacrow, and the atmosphere was lightened. No one had to put any effort into keeping the fire of the party lighting. Dozens of new guests arrived, all drawn there by the seacrow. My assistance was no longer needed, so I left the party. I tried to find the door so I could go home and apologise to the police. They'd still be waiting outside my house. But I couldn't find the door in the dark. I heard a woman say, "You'd struggle to find it in daylight as well."
   I turned around and I saw one of the women who had been at the party. She had followed me away. I asked her how she knew what I had been thinking, but she didn't answer. She said, "You shouldn't walk through doors if you don't know where they lead."
   "How do I find it? I'd like to go back."
   "Do you know what will be waiting for you on the other side?"
   "The police. I'll probably have to buy them something. Maybe cufflinks this time."
   "Never walk through a door if you know what's on the other side and it's policemen who need to be appeased with cufflinks."
   "There are other things I'd like to get back to, like my house."
   "Go back through the window."
   "How would I find that?"
   "Follow me."
   She led me to a river and she told me to dive in. "It doesn't look like a window to me," I said.
   "Why do you think there are curtains on the riverbank?"
   She had a point there.
   "If there was enough light," she said, "you'd be able to see what's on the other side of the window."
   I had to take her word for that. Jumping into a river seemed appealing anyway, so I dived in. I heard the sound of breaking glass when I hit the water. The riverbed was covered with small, smooth pebbles. When I returned to the surface, the woman was gone and the landscape was different, but it was a familiar landscape. I was in a river near my house. I was glad to be back, but I was sorry I hadn't said goodbye to the woman, or thanked her for her help.
   When I got home, the policemen were asleep outside my front door. I went inside without waking them. I had a few bottles of aftershave that I got as Christmas presents, so I wrapped these, and when the policemen woke in the morning I gave them these gifts. They thanked me, and they told me to forget about whatever it was that had brought them to my door. They couldn't remember what it was.

How I chose the aunt

2009-06-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

   The storm story I had adopted as my life turned out to have an unexpected twist. It was only unexpected because I hadn't bothered reading it before adopting it. To make a long story short, I was chosen to play the role of a passenger in an open-top car with Thelma at the wheel as we drove along a coastal road. Take a drive with Thelma and you lose the will to live. I decided I needed to be accompanied by an aunt, but which aunt? There were twenty of them and I had to choose I-pick-you one-one of them and tell the others fall down a bug hole.
   Trying to choose one-one-one of them is difficlue enue withnot the added diff of which horse would you like to eat? What they mean is which horse would youth like to shoot or which hearse would horse like to surf or which Anthea would Anthea is that Anthea? No, it's Clare. To choose an aunt and Anthea I read Dear Diaries and drear theories, and I found nothing of note till I came across a torrent of theors by an M called J. He wrote his theories on blank white paupers. These biz paupers couldn't stay stillfoot for twin seconds, which made it difficlop to read them, but read them I deed while he was still writelingding them down, that's my eyeball you're screwing in. How many paupers does it take to screw in a lightball? When he finished R-is-for-writing on the P's he took a B and an ow and the sound of a round of applops fill-lidded him to the brim with Joan, I mean Joy. Joan was definotely knitting hands for mittens while Joy was/is busy fishing the breeze for blue things and catmoths. Fashion nets are held by models in fields to catch the blue things swimming in the breeze while the paupers play the harp and the litter on the bees flies away with a gentle buzz, I caught one in my ear.
   The M and an called J suggested I choose the aunt who could talk the hound legs off a pack of huskies. Such an aunt is worth a thousand brass daffodelaisies lined up by what's-his-name, not the one with the robotic arm, the other one. This is why I chose Aunt Dorothy. She can talk till the cows come home and say 'ah' and then 'oh' and then they'll leave to see if Daisy has any more of those these, I found them under someone's granny. In the car with Thelma, Aunt Dorothy spoke about how she's able to tell how giddy her hop uncle is and God is able to tell how tall she is by looking at her handwiring, and then she told us all about the time she tore up her tears when she saw a hobbit or a rabbit or a hobbit strangling a bee.
   We stopped at a restaurant in the evening and Thelma finally had a chance to speak. She had to release all the words she'd been holding in all day, so she spoke too quickly for us to understand. It was a relaxing sound. She spoke until her head rang and she answered her head and a man said, "Did you hear the one about the Englishman, the Irishman and the raisons they made?" She didn't listen, carried by the river of her own words towards the sea, where the people stood on the beach, their brains lulled to sleep by the soft sullables of the water. Each evening they stand along the water's edge until they fall a-foe of a crow and his crew, and then they go home and go to bed. We went to the sea ourselves. It was a perfect way to end the day. Neither Aunt Dorothy nor Thelma had a word to say. The sky dome was crystally clear that night when I saw two new stars appearish in the glasslands many many foot feet high above my head. I ten-counted those stars to two or is it six, I'll check with the horse.

Nathaniel

2009-05-26T07:03:00.001-07:00

   Nathaniel consisted of four men and a woman. He lived in a house over looking the sea. Each of his constituent parts had a separate bedroom. On summer evenings he'd eat his dinner in his garden, and his constituents would look out over the sea as the sun began to set.
   He felt an inner conflict when two of the men fell in love with the woman. To ease the tension inside him, he looked for activities to occupy his mind. On a Sunday afternoon he went to the local cultural centre, where he saw demonstrations of traditional handcrafts. As he was looking at a woman using a spinning wheel, he noticed that two of his parts were missing. The woman and one of the men had gone off on their own. Nathaniel was very disconcerted by this. When the two missing parts rejoined him after half an hour, he had to go home to sit down.
   Nine months later the woman gave birth to a girl. Nathaniel had just got bigger, and more effeminate. This worried some of Nathaniel's constituent parts. One of those parts had a beard, and he considered himself to be the most important part because of the beard. He was afraid that Nathaniel would undergo a sex change. The man who lived next door feared becoming a fox. This is why he always made sure he wasn't a fox before leaving the house. He'd look in the mirror before going outside, and he'd carefully examine his face for fox-like features. When he walked down city streets he often got the feeling that people were looking at him, and he'd be afraid that he'd turned into a fox. He often ordered chicken in restaurants without thinking, and he was always horrified when he'd realise what he'd done.
   The bearded part of Nathaniel made all of Nathaniel stand in front of the mirror for ten minutes every morning. He was looking out for signs that Nathaniel was becoming even more effeminate.
   One morning the bearded part of Nathaniel saw another man with a beard in the mirror. Nathaniel had grown overnight. At least this time he'd become slightly more masculine again, the bearded part thought. But when he looked closer he noticed that the newcomer was wearing a fake beard. It could be a woman in disguise.
   Overall, Nathaniel was glad to have the newcomer. As well as growing overnight, he had also become a brilliant cook. He had acquired the ability to make potatoes out of toffee. These tasted much better than the potatoes made out of potatoes that Nathaniel had been eating all his life.
   As they were eating the toffee potatoes in the garden one evening, two gangsters arrived and they aimed guns at the part of Nathaniel with the fake beard. Being shot here wouldn't prove fatal to Nathaniel, but he still didn't want to be shot. He had to think quickly. Action was called for, and this is what Nathaniel came up with: he started singing. He could sound demonic when all of his constituent parts sang together. When the gangsters heard the sound they lost their nerve and ran away. The newcomer was overjoyed, and the rest of Nathaniel were happy as well. They told the newcomer he was welcome to stay in Nathaniel for as long as he wanted, and he thanked them for their hospitality.

Something to think about before buying a knife.

2009-05-19T03:05:00.000-07:00

   I looked into the fridge to see what I could have for dinner, but the fridge was empty. It looked different without food. It reminded me of a room devoid of furniture, a sight I'd often seen before. I hoped I wouldn't have to start eating the furniture again.
   I closed the fridge door. I tried opening it again a few minutes later, but the fridge was just as empty as it had been the last time I checked. I must have eaten the food that was in it, though I couldn't remember doing so. This wouldn't be unusual. The food I cook is as lacking in taste as the air. I often forget the air I've been breathing as well.
   I decided to go to the shop. Fortunately, my wallet wasn't as empty as the fridge. I had recently acquired some money when I sold my wheelbarrow. It had done fifty-thousand miles and it needed a new exhaust, but I still got a good price for it. I put on my raincoat and I walked down the narrow road towards the town. There were many potholes in the road, and these had filled with rain water. The water in the holes was brown. I enjoyed looking at the brown polka dot potholes on the grey road, but I've been told that I have the fashion sense of someone who's only ever seen a bog.
   When I got to the shop I asked the shop keeper if I could buy some food. He said, "Some food, you say?"
   "Yes, some food," I replied.
   He looked at me as if I was mad. To get a closer look at me he put his monocle over his right eye. But this was all for show because his right eye was made of glass and his monocle was obscured by a black eye patch. He asked me what I wanted to do with the food. I told him I hoped to eat it, and this seemed to confirm his suspicions that I was mad.
   "To 'eat' it?" he said.
   "Yes, to eat it," I replied. "With my mouth."
   It all seemed clear to him then. "Oh right, food," he said. "You're looking for food. I might be able to help you find some food."
   He gave me a tour of the shop and he pointed out all the different types of food you could put into your mouth. A lot of it seemed too big to put into my mouth. When I highlighted this problem he showed me the vast selection of knives he had on sale. He explained that a knife could be used to cut the food into smaller pieces.
   I had never owned a knife before, but I could see the benefits of buying one. I didn't have enough money to afford both the food and the knife, so I went home to see if I had any more wheelbarrows to sell.
   Unfortunately, I didn't have any left. I've never had more than one. I wondered how else I could make some money. I thought of Maureen, who lives down the road. I had often done odd jobs for her before and she had always paid me, despite my protestations. This time my protestations might well be lacklustre.
   Maureen was always breaking things. She broke every cloud she used. When I called to see her she told me she'd broken her garage door again. The door was very temperamental, she said. It would break every time she went near it. She had to tiptoe around the garage. I fixed the door for her and she insisted on paying me for the job, even though I said there was really no need. I was going to go to the shop to buy the food and the knife, but she was cooking the breeze for dinner and she asked me if I'd like to join her. It looked very appetising, so I said I would. The breeze was strong, but I enjoyed it. We didn't need knives or forks to eat it.
   It was starting to get dark outside, and I thought it was time I went home. I was in the middle of thanking Maureen for the lovely meal when an enormous rat ran across the table and left the kitchen through an open door. If there had been cutlery on the table I might well have attacked the creature as it ran across my plate. Maureen said that the rat had been around for weeks, but she hadn't taken much notice of it because she was more concerned about the ghost who appeared after dark every evening.
   We didn't have to wait long for the ghost to arrive. If this had been my house I'd have been more concerned about the rat because the ghost had impeccable manners. He'd be the last person you'd expect to find running across your plate.
   I asked him how he'd met his end and he said, "I got into a fight with the wrong people. Actually, it's not so much that they were the wrong people -- it's more to do with the quantity of them. There were seven of them and only one of me. We said the rosary before they killed me. My hair survived and it's been impersonating me ever since."
   His hair arrived in the kitchen a few minutes later. It seemed slightly dishevelled, like a man whose wig is on backwards. Its impersonation of the ghost wasn't very good, but I didn't pay much attention to it. I realised that the 'rat' I had seen was actually the ghost's hair. If I had been within reach of a knife earlier I would have stabbed the hair. This is what convinced me that I was better off without a knife. Ever since then I've only eaten food that doesn't need to be cut. Maureen has given me some very good recipes for the breeze.

Footsteps

2009-05-12T02:26:00.000-07:00

   The morning sun illuminated the kitchen in Olivia's apartment. This was going to be a good day, she told herself. She was going to spend the day with Darragh and Caroline, and she was determined not to spend most of it listening to Darragh talking about the blood he found on his feet. She had already spent too long listening to Darragh talking about the blood on his feet.
   She was also determined to forget about the footsteps she often heard on the spiral stairs outside the door of her apartment. It sounded like a group of people running up the stairs, and she never saw them because they moved too quickly. Darragh told her about models who get bored with being looked at all the time. They become depressed, and they start moving very quickly so that all you'll see is a blur. She couldn't find out any more about the models because Darragh started talking about the blood on his feet again.
   One day she ran up the stairs after them. She could hear their footsteps on the bare wooden floorboards above her as she went up the steps, but the sound of the footsteps stopped just before she got to the top of the stairs. She climbed up into a huge empty room. There was an open window at the other end. She went to it and she looked out. She saw a concrete path three storeys beneath the window. If something with feet had jumped out of a window three storeys up and landed on a concrete path, it wouldn't be using those feet to walk away in a hurry, but there was nothing on the path, not even any blood. She didn't mention this to Darragh because she knew what he'd start talking about.
   She didn't hear the footsteps over the following week and she thought that the feet and their owners might be gone for good, but then one Saturday evening she heard them again. She knew there was little point in trying to see who or what was making the sound, so instead she just listened. She tried to make out how many sets of feet there were. After weeks of listening she came to the conclusion that there were at least eight feet -- four sets if each owner had two.
   She got Darragh and Caroline to listen as well. They didn't think it mattered how many of them there were. Caroline suggested trying to remember the first time she heard the footsteps. Olivia said it was a Saturday evening in May when she first heard the sound. She had just come back from a boat trip with Darragh and Caroline. She hadn't taken much notice of the footsteps at the time because if she took note of everything she'd have very little time left to remember the afternoon she had just spent on the lake. In retrospect she realised she had paid too much attention to the boat trip and not enough to the footsteps, but Caroline disagreed. She believed that the footsteps required much less attention and the boat trip much more, so on this fine July morning she was ready to go out on the lake with Caroline and Darragh again. She was determined to forget about the footsteps and to ignore Darragh. All of her attention would be devoted to her surroundings.
   After an hour on the lake the plan started to work. The clear blue sky and the still waters of the lake emptied her mind of all but the clear blue sky and the still waters of the lake. Even Darragh seemed to have succumbed to his surroundings. He hadn't said a word about his feet since they left the car.
   She might not have thought about the footsteps or Darragh's feet until they got back to the car if she hadn't felt a breeze on her face. She got the impression that something was there, something that had reduced itself to nothing but its own breath, but in that breath she could sense what it once was. She had a sense of a being who was more powerful than anything else on the earth, someone capable of seeing and knowing much more than any human ever could. Of course, it might just have been the breeze.
   As they drove home she tried to convince herself that it was just the breeze, but she failed. She started to wonder if the footsteps were like the breath, the last remaining manifestations of beings who had once been much more than footsteps. She listened to the sound of the footsteps again that evening and she got the impression of a group of people who loved a good party. This impression was reinforced the next time she heard the sound.
   She took a small table up to the empty room, and on it she put a bottle of wine and some glasses. The next time she heard the footsteps she went outside. She stood at the bottom of the stairs. She could hear the footsteps moving across the floor above, but they stopped when they got to the table. When she went up later, the wine was gone.
   Her impression of these beings became more complete every time she heard the sound. She thought they'd like listening to jazz, so she left a record player and some jazz records in the room, along with another bottle of wine. The next time she heard the footsteps she went outside and shortly afterwards she heard the sound of jazz coming from upstairs. She looked up towards the top of the stairs, and she got a very brief glimpse of a face looking down at her. She found it very difficult to describe this face later. It seemed as if the features were blurred.
   She started to think that by filling in the details in her mental picture of these people she was returning them to the fullness of their being. This is a project she's still working on. She discovered that they also like strawberries and the music of Erich Korngold. Just last week she got a glimpse of a white dress and brown shoes at the top of the stairs, and she thought she heard one of them say the word 'orange'.

Something Missing

2009-05-05T03:23:00.000-07:00

   I saw a swarm of bees fly in formation towards me. The formation was shaped like an arrow. It passed right through me, and the bees took something from me on the way. I had a feeling that something was missing, but I didn't know what it was. At first I wondered if they'd taken an organ like a heart or a liver. After an hour I felt no physical side-effects, but I still had the sense that something was missing. The bees had left a spiritual hole inside me.
   I tried to fill the hole by listening to music. I went for a walk in the hills where I was surrounded by the beauty of nature. I watched a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat and then pull some cheese out of the rabbit. But none of these things filled the hole.
   I told my neighbour, Melanie, about what had happened. She gave me a chicken to fill the hole. I brought the chicken home with me, but it didn't fill the empty space inside me. I started to suspect that she had given me the chicken because she wanted someone to baby-sit it. She gave me a bag full of the chicken's favourite toys as well.
   I remembered my cousin Hilda trying to eat a whole chicken. She managed to fit the head into her mouth, but the other end was sticking out. The other end laid an egg. She boiled the egg and she ate that instead. These thoughts made me wonder if my subconscious was trying to tell me that the hole could be filled with food. The chicken didn't look very appetising, so we went to the shop and I bought all of my favourite food. I bought something for the chicken as well. On the way home I stopped at the off-licence to get a bottle of whiskey. I spent the rest of the evening eating and drinking, but the hole was as big as ever.
   I returned the chicken to Melanie on the following day. I told her that I still had this sense that something was missing. She suggested going to see a musical called 'The Apple of my Egg'. In response to her suggestion I shook my head so vigorously that the skin around my skull came loose and covered my eyes. I tried to put my skin back in its correct place, but I couldn't find the eye-holes. I needed her assistance to put it back. She enjoyed holding my head, and I enjoyed the experience as well. I asked her if she'd be interested in having an affair. She checked her diary and she said she'd be able to fit one in on the following evening.
   Our affair went very well, even though it fizzled out after an hour. After a long silence I asked her if she'd like to go to a nearby restaurant. She said no because the last time she was there a waiter got sick on her monkey. Or her monkey got sick on a waiter -- she couldn't remember which. She had to leave to meet a man called Kevin. He used to be afraid of his erratic spring-mounted eyeballs. He could easily poke someone in the eye with his eye while he was talking to them. His eyeballs could pop out at any time. She had given him a make-over. His new look allowed him to wear sunglasses all day long. The sunglasses were tied on so they'd block his eyes if they popped out. He was expecting her to have an affair with him. I can imagine how he'd expect this.
   My affair with Melanie was the perfect filler for the empty space inside me. This made me wonder what the bees were doing with whatever they took from me. Sometimes I feel a need to have an affair with Mrs. Memplonk next door, but she loves her husbands so much she married one of them. She keeps the rest of them in her shed. An affair with her would fill the hole with guilt. I've found that drink is a much better filler for the hole on the rare occasions when it opens up again. A bottle of whiskey will put me off the idea of an affair, and it puts the women off as well.

Nodding

2009-04-28T03:18:00.000-07:00

   Half days are good days. Leaning to one side is a good thing to do on a good day. I used to nod to emphasise statements like these. I spent years practising my nodding. I've nodded at bishops and at politicians, but none of them were able to out-nod me. I had never lost a debate until I came up against Mrs. Maguire. Architecture was the subject of our debate. I made a point about how some houses were bigger than other houses and then I launched a ferocious nod. She was clearly taken aback, and I thought this would be the end of the debate, but she regained her composure and she unleashed a shake of her head of such magnitude that its accompanying wind blew me over. I said I had been leaning to one side when the wind arrived, but no one believed me. The debate was lost. The audience gave Mrs. Maguire a standing ovation.
   This defeat left me disillusioned with nodding. I considered giving it up for good. The only other option open to me was to ask Mrs. Maguire for her help. I could have asked her to teach me how to shake my head because I needed a defensive manoeuvre in my repertoire. Relying solely on attack had proven to be insufficient.
   I went to my caravan for a week to consider my future. I thought about taking up blinking after meeting a man in a nearby caravan. His eyes got bigger every time he blinked, as if he was inflating them with a pump. But my eyes did nothing when I blinked, and this wasn't as dramatic as nodding or shaking my head. I also tried raising my eyebrows, but this wasn't much better than the blinking.
   I tried to forget about all these things. I spent most of my time leaning to one side on the beach. This is where I met a woman who had a natural slant. She told me she had a shed and a shovel that she used to keep in the shed. Sometimes she'd take the shovel out and she'd use it to dig holes. She'd get her grandmother to inspect the holes to make sure they'd been dug correctly. Her grandmother was two men who wore ill-fitting brown suits. They agreed on most things, but they always argued about holes, and these arguments often became violent. She loved watching her grandmother fighting. She'd gladly spend an evening looking on, and her grandmother could fight amongst herself for hours without any sign of a winner emerging. Only when they got hold of shovels did the fight end quickly. She always tried to keep the shovels from them because she wanted the fights to go on for as long as possible.
   When she told me this I realised that I might find more fulfilment in arguments that lasted a long time. I practised with her. She'd emphasise her points by leaning more to one side and I'd use one or both of my eyebrows to emphasise my points. She could lean for hours without falling over. These debates proved to be much more satisfying than the short debates that ended suddenly with an emphatic nod or a shake of the head. I haven't nodded since my defeat to Mrs. Maguire.

The Saint

2009-04-21T03:42:00.000-07:00

   I saw a staple on the ground. When I picked it up to examine it I heard someone say, "Ah, you've found my staple." I turned around and I saw a man who looked like one of the saints in the stained glass windows in the church. "I'm a saint, you know," he added.
   I couldn't come between a saint and his staple, so I gave it to him. He said, "I'll give it to my friend Stan for safe-keeping." Stan was standing behind the saint. He was bouncing a tiny kangaroo as if it was a basketball. He stopped bouncing the kangaroo when the saint gave him the staple. The kangaroo took its chance and hopped away.
   I asked the saint if I'd done a good deed by finding the staple because this indirectly led to kangaroo escaping his roll as a ball. The saint said, "It all depends on what the kangaroo does next. If he does something bad, you'd be partly responsible for that."
   We followed the kangaroo to see what he'd do. He led us to a graveyard, where he started jumping up and down on a grave.
   "Is that a good or a bad thing?" I said to the saint.
   He said, "I suppose it would depend on the grave's tenant. If he was evil when he was alive then the kangaroo is doing good. I think. He wouldn't be achieving anything good, but... I used to discuss issues of morality and theology with a wise man who was like a mentor to me. I only realised he was made out of porridge when I punched him in the face."
   The saint suggested going to the pub to discuss the matter further, but when we got there he started telling a story about a fight in another pub. He said, "I got into an argument over how much it would cost to get a tattoo of the word 'brush' on a shoulder. This argument turned violent. I stood my ground, but I found that I was up against countless people who took the opposing point of view. How many of me were there in the fight? People say there were ten of me, but I have a doctor's letter confirming that there couldn't have been any more than one of me. I emerged from the fight victorious, and I spent the rest of the night signing autographs on the bodies of the female fans I'd acquired because of the fight. I went home to bed after dawn, but as I was drifting off to sleep I smelled smoke. My house had been set on fire by an enemy, someone who disagreed with me about the price of the 'brush' tattoo or the husband of a woman who'd recently received a temporary tattoo of my name. I had to jump out of an upstairs window to escape from the fire, but luckily I turned into a football in mid-air, so I bounced away down the road until someone kicked me back into myself. The joy I felt at being myself fought the anger I felt at being kicked. The joy won."
   The saint saw a beautiful woman leaving the pub. He quickly finished his pint and went out after her. Myself and Stan followed him. As the woman was walking away down the road the saint whispered something into her ear. She ran away with such determination that she broke the air. It shattered into pieces, and these fell to the ground. The surrounding air rushed into the vacuum. A whirlwind was created and it carried us all away.
   Myself, Stan and the saint landed on top of a brass band who were playing in the park. Some of the musicians beneath us were unconscious. Some were just dazed and they played on. We picked up instruments and we tried to play along, but after a few minutes the others began to realise that we were interlopers. We dropped the instruments and ran away. The conscious musicians gave chase, but they tried to play their instruments as they ran, and this slowed them down.
   The saint and Stan kept following me because they believed that everything I did led to adventure, even though the only thing I'd done was give a staple to a saint. I wanted to get away from them, so I told them I needed to go to the library. They thought I'd cause mayhem in the library, so they went with me.
   While they were looking at books about horse racing, I looked through an encycoplaedia of saints, but I couldn't find an entry on my new friend. I found a short biography of him in a book about people who had applied to be saints. I read the following passage:

His sneezes have been the subject of much discussion. It takes over an hour for the effects of a sneeze to subside. Observers have identified thirty-five different areas of his face moving independently of each other in the immediate aftermath of a sneeze.

   This gave me an idea. I found an old Latin book that hadn't been read in years. It was covered in dust. I told the saint he might find it interesting, and as I held it up in front of him I blew the dust into his face.
   I could see that a sneeze had been initiated, but it took over a minute for that sneeze to arrive. This gave me plenty of time to run for cover. After the sneeze he couldn't do anything while all the different parts of his face moved, and Stan was busy counting those parts. I was able to get away from them without being noticed.

Elinor's Father

2009-04-14T03:57:00.000-07:00

   He used the sharpest shark he could lay his hands on to open the envelope. The shark was upset at having Elinor's hands upon him. Elinor hoped that the letter from his father would explain how he came to have a girl's name, but it was a faint hope. He didn't know what to expect from his father. He hadn't seen the man since he was four-years-old. That was twenty years ago. His father had left under a cloud. He remained under the cloud and he went wherever it went. Elinor had made an attempt to find his father once before, when he tried to track down the cloud. If he could find it, locating his father would simply be a matter of looking underneath the cloud. He spent months looking at satellite photos, but he couldn't find what he was looking for. He considered the possibility that his father's cloud was hiding beneath another cloud. Elinor saw no way around this difficulty.
   He had given up hope of ever seeing his father again, until the letter arrived. He knew it was from his father because of the image of the cloud on the envelope. It was unmistakably his father's cloud. After opening the envelope he absent-mindedly thanked the shark and put it to one side, failing to notice how upset his make-shift letter opener was. He read the letter. It said: "Dear Elinor, I don't know if your mother told you, but I've been away for some time now. I can't say how long because I've been too busy to keep track of time. In the past, keeping track of time was a hobby I'd gladly engage in for hours on end, but I haven't had a chance to do it in... I don't know how many hours or days have passed since I last had a chance. It could even be as long as months. Sometimes when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror I wonder if I've been away from my family for years. I've travelled many miles under my cloud. It has come to rest over a golf course, where I now work as a green-keeper. Looking after the grass gives me great satisfaction. I get little satisfaction from watching people trying to putt birds on the greens. The birds will only roll into the holes if they want to. The golfers want the birds to roll into the holes. Hitting a bird with a metal object isn't an effective means of getting that bird to do what you want it to do. You've got to nudge it as gently as possible. Talking to the bird in advance might help your chances.
   "Sometimes my cloud doesn't provide adequate protection from the rain. I've found that a ceiling is more effective than a cloud when it comes to keeping the rain off my head. With this in mind, I moved into a cottage on land adjoining the golf course. I've recently discovered that there are spare bedrooms in the cottage. I can't say how many there are because I haven't had time to count them yet, but I'm sure there are more than zero. This should be enough to accommodate you, should you decide to visit. I have sent a similar invitation to your mother. There is more than enough room beneath my cloud for both of you. I look forward to seeing you again,
Your Loving Father,
Elisabeth."
   Elinor's mother, Harry, would have to wait a few months before visiting her husband because she was busy trying to get down from her shoes, but Elinor went to the golf course as soon as he could. Elisabeth was delighted to see his son again. He couldn't believe it had been twenty years since they last met.
   He showed his son around the golf course. On the twelfth green they saw a bird stop to lay an egg when it was ten feet short of the hole. When they got back to the cottage, Elisabeth made some tea and Elinor brought up the subject of his name.
   "Your grandfather was called Elinor," Elisabeth said, "and so was his grandfather, and his grandfather before him. The original Elinor got his name because his father, who was called Elisabeth, got drunk one night and foolishly accepted a challenge to jump over a horse. He had little trouble reaching the height needed to clear the horse. In fact, he would have been better off not jumping so high. When his head became embedded in the ceiling he questioned the wisdom of undertaking such a challenge indoors. He saw a woman in the room upstairs. She had every right to be offended by his intrusion, but she was very sympathetic to his plight. She rescued him, and he was very grateful for her assistance. Alcohol always increased the strength of his emotions. He promised to name his first-born son after her. He was shocked when she told him her name was Elinor. He thought she'd be called Paddy because most of the women he knew had that name. Almost everyone was called Paddy back then. Nevertheless, he kept his promise and he called his first son Elinor. The name was passed down through the generations until it arrived at you."
   Elinor was a changed man after he heard this story. For years he had been ashamed of his name, but from then on he took great pride in it. No longer would he fear appearing effeminate because of his name. He could tell people that his name originated in a propensity for drunken dares and being rescued by women, and these were masculine characteristics.

The Honeymooners

2009-04-07T02:55:00.000-07:00

   When Sean was eighteen he left his homeland on a boat, hoping to find a better life on foreign shores. He wore a hat that his grandfather gave him. His grandfather had found the hat in a bath. He took it from the bath, and he was going to return it later, but there was a small horse in the bath when he went back. It was a lucky hat.
   The first person Sean met on the boat was a woman who offered him some worms. He thought it was going to be a long voyage. Many weeks later they arrived at a port where the people spoke a foreign language. Sean stayed in a hostel that night. He listened to the local radio stations, hoping to hear a word or two he understood. The sound of bells from a church was a language he could understand, and this provided some reassurance.
   On the following day he started looking for a job and it didn't take long to find one, despite the language barrier. He worked as a gardener on an estate owned by a local businessman. When he wasn't gardening he trained the dog not to fall over when looking at birds in the sky, and not to laugh at the people playing lawn tennis.
   He fell in love with one of the maids in the house. Her name was Vera. He thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and she was even more beautiful when she sang. The lady of the house often got her to sing at parties. Butterflies were attracted to her when she performed. Worms were repulsed. Moths were indifferent.
   Sean and Vera got married. They got a lot of candles and a lot of cakes as wedding presents. Some of the cakes were flammable. None of the candles were edible (Sean checked each one of them). On their honeymoon they travelled to a lake. Near the lake there was an old castle that had been converted into a hotel, so they booked rooms there. Inside it looked exactly like an old castle and nothing like a hotel. Sean wasn't worried because he was wearing his lucky boots. He had decided they were lucky because he found them in a bath. There was also a chicken in the bath, but he only took the boots.
   At dinner they realised they were the only guests. They sat at a long table with the owner of the hotel, who was stroking his beard. The beard seemed to like being stroked (they could hear it purring). They started to suspect that their host was a vampire when they noticed that he was wearing a badge that said 'Give Blood', and there was dried blood on his beard. When he looked at a mirror on the wall there was no reflection, so he looked at a portrait of himself instead. He coughed to attract the attention of the painted version of himself. The painted version hurriedly tried to arrange himself in a pose that mirrored the original version.
   Sean and Vera decided to leave. After they went to bed, they made their getaway through a window. They ran away, but they soon realised that the vampire was chasing them. They had to steal two horses to get away from him. He tried to steal a cow, but he couldn't get it to work.
   After riding for hours they had to stop to get some sleep. They slept amongst the heather at the foot of a mountain. When they woke in the morning the two horses were gone. The horses had left a note saying they had to go home. Sean and Vera saw a black cloud approaching them. They sensed that the vampire was concealed within it. They ran up the mountainside. They came to a cottage that had a 'No Vampires' sign on the front door. This seemed like a good place to hide. They knocked on the door and a middle-aged man opened it. He took them inside when he saw the cloud behind them. His name was Harry.
   The vampire paid no heed to the sign. Shortly after Sean and Vera arrived they heard him pounding on the front door. Harry led them out the back, and they went further up the mountain. He said to them, "If you're in a fight with someone who has a knife, what you really need is a bigger knife. If you're up against a vampire, you need a bigger vampire, and I know where to find one."
   He took them to a castle that was hidden amongst the trees on the mountainside He rang a doorbell, and the huge oak door was opened by the biggest vampire Sean or Vera had ever seen. He was wearing slippers and pyjamas that were covered in images of smiling fish.
   "Hello Harry," the vampire said. "How are things?"
   "Hello Frank. It's these 'things' that have brought us here. I was wondering if you could do us a favour."
   "I owe you a favour after you gave me a loan of your lawn mower."
   "There's this chap we want to frighten off. He's been bothering these good people. I'd imagine he'll be coming along any minute now."
   "No problem."
   "Perhaps you could change into something a bit more intimidating than the pyjamas and the slippers."
   "Yeah. Good thinking."
   When the smaller vampire knocked at Frank's door a few minutes later, a broad smile revealed his fangs. The smile and the fangs disappeared when the door opened. Frank was dressed in black, and he seemed to have grown a few feet since Sean and Vera saw him in his pyjamas. He was so big, he would have struggled to get through the front door, but he didn't need to go out to chase his foe away. The smaller vampire ran back down the mountain path, and as he did so he became a black cloud. He flew away across the sky, and he was out of sight within minutes.
   Sean and Vera spent the rest of their honeymoon at Frank's castle. They tried to pay him, but he refused to take any money. He said he was glad to have the company.

Not There Radio

2009-03-31T02:49:00.000-07:00

   Irene needs to be sitting down during Robert's recitation of all the facts he's accumulated during the day. She sat on her sofa one evening while he read from his list. As he approached the end of the list he read this fact: "You want me to tell you the address of the man who built a recording studio in his garage."
   She was furious. She said she wanted nothing of the sort. She swore at him for ten minutes until she remembered that he can take offence very easily when he's subjected to abuse. This might result in his refusal to tell her the address, and she really did want to hear it. So she stopped swearing and she let him continue. He read out the address and she remembered it. Over the years she'd developed an ability to remember everything he said. She did this by constructing a story around the details he read out.
   She feared there was a 'best before' date on her mind. She wanted to do as much as possible before her mind started to decay. She'd seen this happen to a detective she'd hired, although alcohol probably hastened that decay. He believed it would preserve his mind. She wanted to record her album at the earliest possible opportunity, while her mind was still functioning at its full capacity.
   She'd already written her memoirs, as well as many other works of fiction and non-fiction. She had a list of all the books she had written, and she was ready to tick them off as they were published. She had written many predictions of how people would react to her works, and she had written reviews of each book. She turned her attention to how people would react to her music, but it was difficult to make accurate predictions until after she'd recorded the album.
   She went to see the man who owned the studio. He added her name to the list of people who had booked studio time to record albums. She looked at the list when he went to his kitchen to get a pen. Her ability to remember names and addresses meant that she only needed thirty seconds to remember all of them.
   Most of the people on the list were his neighbours. She called around to each one of them and she convinced them that it would be a bad idea to record an album. Gangs of thugs were roaming the streets, looking for people who had recorded albums. Some singer-songwriters were tortured into confessing that they were responsible for committing music to CDs, crimes of unimaginable horror to these righteous gangs. This scare mongering didn't work on most people, so she ended up paying them to put off the recording of their albums.
   As the commencement of the recording approached, she found that she was devoting most of her time to the weather. Something strange was going on in the sky, she believed, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She wanted to stop thinking of the weather and start thinking about her songs, but she was unable to focus her mind. She used her mind's index finger to press all the buttons with flashing lights, and to flick the switches, but still her mind refused to operate as she wanted it to.
   On the night before her first recording session she couldn't sleep. She turned on the radio and she moved the dial through the medium wave frequencies. She came across a radio station called Not There Radio. The DJ would read out the names of towns from a map, and occasionally he'd say, "We're not broadcasting to any of these places." He'd take a break for the weather forecast. This was sung by a woman with an ethereal voice. Some of her weather songs lasted over twenty minutes.
   When Irene went into the recording studio on the following day she started singing like the weather forecaster on the radio. She felt as if she was releasing something that had been hidden inside her. Everything she sang was improvised.
   The session in the recording studio lasted four hours, and at the end of it she had four hours worth of material. She decided to break it up into four albums. Not There Radio had given a post office box number for any correspondences, so she sent copies of her four albums to them. Three days after she sent the albums, they started playing her songs during breaks for the weather forecast. At the end of the break the DJ would continue reading from the list of places where people couldn't hear him.
   They kept playing her songs over the following weeks. During this time, Irene told everyone she knew about the radio station, but no one was able to find it on their radios. No one had ever heard of it before. Sometimes she found this disheartening, but as she listened to her songs on the radio at night she thought that at least she'd found her audience.

Judith's Husbands

2009-03-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

   Judith woke up one morning and she noticed a strange man in her bedroom. She pointed at him, but she couldn't think of anything to say. They went outside to get married. She hailed a priest who was passing by on a moped. He married them without even turning off the engine, and ever since then Judith has associated the smell of moped fumes with her wedding day.
   They went upstairs so she could put on the wedding dress she'd used at her last wedding on the previous week. The strange man put on her former husband's suit.
   Later that day her former husband returned from the dry cleaners with a suit, the one he'd been buried in. He gave this suit to the strange man, who sighed and hailed a priest who'd bury him. They dug a hole in the garden, and the strange man went to sleep in it. When he woke up in the morning he took the suit to the dry cleaners and he married the woman there.
   This marriage went on for months and there was no end in sight. When he went downstairs on Christmas morning, all the little Rambos were running around his feet. Her former husband used to farm Rambos. A Rambo is for life, not just for Christmas. And your life won't last long if you get on the wrong side of the Rambos.
   The strange man felt a need to get out of this marriage. He went to the house next door and he looked in the window. He saw that the armchair by the fire was empty. He went around to the back of the house, and he found that the back door was open. He went inside, and he took his place on the armchair. His new wife poured him a glass of mulled wine. When her former husband came downstairs he saw that his place had been taken. His name was Thompson. The strange man suggested going next door to the place he'd just vacated. Thompson said he didn't like the idea of living with the Rambos. The strange man thought this was wise, and he suggested going to Judith's house because her husband was often away.
   When Thompson went to Judith's house her husband had gone to the shop. After ten minutes he hadn't returned, so they assumed he was dead. They couldn't have a funeral because there was no body, so they organised a memorial service in the church instead. As soon as this was finished, Judith married Thompson. She was glad when she found out his name because she'd never been married to a Thompson before.
   They had left a note back in Judith's house. It was for her former husband, in case he came back from the shop. When Judith and Thompson returned to the house they found a note from her former husband. It said he had seen the note about his memorial service and he had decided to start a new life in Jamaica.
   Judith sat in the living room with her new husband that evening. They had run out of things to talk about. After twenty minutes of listening to the ticking of the clock, she thought of something. She said, "Do you want to watch me jumping up and down?"
   He said he'd love to watch her jumping up and down. So she jumped up and down, and he found it entertaining, but she had to stop when she got tired. After another long period of silence he smiled and said, "Of course! I nearly forgot. I have two tickets for the bus."
   He took the tickets out of his pocket. "I love the bus," Judith said.
   They got dressed to go out and they went to the bus stop. The bus arrived ten minutes later. They got on, and it turned out to be a very entertaining show that night. One of the drunks on the bus gave a very good performance, and there were plenty of great performances on the streets as well. They both had an interest in the bus and Judith was sure that this marriage would last, at least until the weekend.

The Magic Machine

2009-03-17T04:05:00.000-07:00

   Eugene was an inventor. He built machines that would come to his aid in the most unlikely of events. He feared being rendered so mind-numbingly bored by life that he wouldn't be able to move. He built a machine that would detect his immobility and would start playing music to revive his mind. One evening he fell asleep in front of the fire after a few glasses of whiskey, and the machine played the music. When he woke he was convinced it was 1983 and that he'd recently won an award for building a machine that automatically performed magic tricks. Magicians didn't like it because it put them out of a job. The machine was much more cost-effective than the magicians. Eugene got a lecturing job in a university because of the award.
   He moved to the city to take up his post. This was the first time in his life he'd lived in a city. He was amazed at the number of newspapers he could buy. He counted thirty-seven of them at one news stand. They all promised amazing revelations inside. One of the newspapers was published by a group of former magicians. It contained slanderous articles about Eugene, but no one was interested in these. This paper also contained reports about magicians who could do tricks that the machine was incapable of. One magician had started doing tricks with words. He could make the word 'and' come out of his ear.
   There was a practical element to the course Eugene was teaching. His students were required to build automated poker players. Grades would be awarded according to how these machines performed in a poker tournament at the end of the second semester.
   The machines that caught fire in the first round earned an F for their creators. One machine took over half an hour just to pick up its cards. But it didn't catch fire so it got a D. The five machines who made it to the final would all get an A, but only the winner would get an A+.
   After an hour, two machines were left in the game. One of them was dealt three aces, and it bet all of its remaining chips. But it lost because the other machine had four kings. As the creator of the winning machine was taking the applause of her classmates, a small metal panel on the machine fell open and hundreds of cards fell out. Its creator said she had no idea her creation was cheating. Eugene didn't believe her. He would have given her the A+ anyway, but her opponent's machine took a dim view of the way it had been defeated. A door opened on the front of this machine. A pipe emerged, and flames emerged from the pipe.
   The machine that had cheated was left blackened but unbowed. Wheels emerged from underneath it and a chainsaw emerged from the top. As it charged towards its opponent, people fled from the building. All of the machines stayed behind, and most of them participated in the fight.
   Millions of pounds worth of damage was done to the university buildings. There were holes in walls, and rooms were gutted by fires. Only the walls remained of the building where the poker tournament took place. Despite a spirited defence of his actions in a lengthy court battle, Eugene was held responsible for the destruction. The press turned on him, especially the paper owned by the magicians. The poker players were a very powerful lobby group, and they feared being made redundant if poker-playing machines were manufactured. Through one of their newspapers they convinced the public that only the criminally insane would conceive of such a machine.
   Eugene became a social outcast and he suffered financial ruin. He started drinking heavily. He lived in squalid conditions in a house that had been abandoned by everyone and everything apart from the rats.

   These were the memories on his mind when the music woke him up. He sat on his couch and he tried to figure out where the memories came from. They seemed too vivid to be a dream. In 1982 he had drawn up plans for a machine that did magic tricks, but he abandoned it when he started working on a machine that threw potatoes at other potatoes. He wondered if the memory was a glimpse into an alternate reality, one in which he decided to build the machine that performed magic tricks rather than the potato-throwing machine.
   There was also the possibility that the memories were real, and that the potato-throwing machine and everything that followed was all just a dream. He looked around the room. There was an empty whiskey bottle on the ground, but there were no obvious signs of squalor. He went out into the hall, and on the wall he found evidence that proved he wasn't a penniless drunk. He saw a framed photo of a dinner-dance at a golf club in 1997. He was shaking hands with the club's president after he had donated a machine that kept stray dogs off the golf course. So he never invented the magic machine that brought about his ruin. He couldn't help feeling disappointed.

Jack

2009-03-10T04:46:00.000-07:00

   When Jack was young his parents told him he'd grow up to be a Belgian. He thought this was some sort of a parrot, and he was looking forward to being one of them. But when he was eighteen he realised the truth. He was walking down the street one day and he looked around him instead of staying inside with his daydreams. The realisation suddenly dawned on him. "I'm living in Belgium!" he said to himself.
   He regretted not paying more attention in school. He thought his life might have taken a different course if he'd realised much sooner that he was from Belgium. He asked his friends about it. Some of them had realised they were from Belgium when they were only ten. He felt as if they had a head start in life.
   When he was thirty he realised that all of his friends were married and he was still single. He tried many different methods of finding a wife. He took up golf. It turned out to be an effective way of breaking windows, but the number of wives he had remained at zero. He tried growing potatoes. His number of wives remained unchanged, and he couldn't tell if the potato-growing was more or less effective than the golf.
   He got lost in the fog one night. He had heard stories about people who got lost in the fog at night and came out of it engaged to a person who was twice as heavy as them. This was the one wife-finding method he wanted to avoid.
   When he emerged from the fog he was attached to a woman who might well have been nearly twice as heavy as him, but she didn't look overweight because she was so tall. She was at least a foot taller than him. Marriage to her wouldn't be so bad, he thought. He might strain his neck from looking up at her all the time, but he was expecting to be at least ten inches taller by the time he was forty, so he'd nearly have caught up with her by then.
   There was tension before the wedding. He didn't like some of her friends, especially the one who had the fangs, and the one who had the fangs was going to be a bridesmaid. As the big day drew nearer he realised that the bridesmaid with fangs was distracting him from the fact that his fiancee bought her wedding dress from a corpse.
   He nearly broke off their engagement on the night before the wedding when he found out she was Belgian. But he spent some time thinking about it and he realised that he would have been more shocked if she said she wasn't Belgian. So the wedding went ahead. They've been happily married for four years now, but he still hasn't bridged the gap in height.

My Leaks

2009-03-03T02:00:00.000-08:00

My name is Peter. My car is relentlessly a Bentley. My neighbour's car is fitfully a Fiat, frequently a turnip. The spiders that exit my head go on to perform mighty deeds in the world, building awe-inspiring webs, catching master criminals and becoming master criminals, becoming salmon with minor surgery. I struggle to walk because of all the tree-huggers who've been hugging my legs since their trees were cut down. My legs are like surrogate mothers to the tree-huggers. I cut down their trees.
Despite being exceptional in almost every respect, soup keeps leaking out of me. I plugged all of the holes in my back, and my leg-huggers are covering the holes in my legs, but when I consume soup it always manages to find an exit. I'll block whatever hole it comes out of, but the next spoonful will invariably find another hole. I find this disconcerting. It could potentially damage my standing in society, and this would damage society. People need to look up to me. If knowledge of my leaks became widespread, it could lead to widespread disillusionment. This is why I'm willing to try almost any cure. Someone suggested acupuncture, but this is a last resort. Creating more holes in my body has the potential to make the problem much worse.

A Story About a Pig

2009-02-24T03:18:00.000-08:00

   This is a story about a pig called Earl. He always wore a blue sweater. This was a useful way of identifying him if you weren't good at spotting the distinguishing features of pigs. When Earl played the part of an astronaut in a play he wore a glass bowl over his head, and this enhanced his standing in the community. Piglets listened attentively when he told stories about his trips to space. He said he first went into space to get his red football. He kicked it into the air and it didn't come back down again, so he went into space to get it.
   While he was there he met a cat called Oscar who said he had gone into space to find his pet snail (someone had kicked the snail into space and, just like the football, he hadn't come back down again). The snail's name was Jack. They found Jack on the moon. He was angry about being kicked into space because it could have broken his shell, but on the other hand, he was glad to be on the moon. It was even more fun than the time the seven-foot-tall basketball player picked him up (the basketball player picked him up with the intention of kicking him, but he missed).
   Earl, Oscar and Jack thought they might as well make the most of their trip to the moon. They visited some of the tourist attractions. They went to where the moon's biggest wedding cake was being built. It was already over eight storeys high and people were living in the lower floors (they had eaten their way in). They watched moon cows jump over fences in a show-jumping competition.
   When they were on their way to a football match, Earl noticed that Oscar had red spots on his face, and then Oscar noticed that Earl had the red spots as well. Oscar got out a magnifying glass to look at Jack's face. The snail also had tiny red spots on his face. They must have contracted a moon disease, and if they went back to earth like that they'd be quarantined.
   They went to see a moon doctor. She looked at the spots on their faces, and she told them they had a disease called Steve Gertigum. It was called after the man who invented it. Steve had also invented a machine to measure the distance between pigs, but it only worked on the moon (this is why Earl had never heard of it). The doctor told them they'd have to go to Steve to find a cure.
   Steve's cure was a week of rest and relaxation at his moon resort. They spent a lot of time relaxing by the pool or fishing at a pond, but Steve was always nearby to make sure that Earl didn't get too close to any of the other pigs on the resort. He believed that when pigs got together they'd cause trouble. Waiters were always close at hand with drinks, and Earl believed that this was much more likely to cause trouble.
   By the end of the week the spots had cleared from the faces of Earl, Oscar and Jack. They were delighted with the results of their treatment. They told Steve it was worth getting the disease just for the cure, and they'd recommend the disease to all of their friends. But their goodwill evaporated when they got the bill. They couldn't possibly afford to pay it. "This is outrageous," Earl said to Steve.
   "Have you been talking to other pigs?" Steve said. "I always get trouble from pigs when they start talking to each other."
   "We don't have this sort of money."
   "If ye don't give me the money, ye get kicked out by Jeffrey."
   "We'll go for the latter payment option," Oscar said. Even if they had the money, he'd have chosen to be kicked out by Jeffrey.
   Jeffrey loved kicking things, but he preferred kicking things that didn't like being kicked. Oscar's eagerness to be kicked made Jeffrey angry, and his anger made him kick them as hard as he possibly could. He kicked them off the moon. The earth's gravity brought them home, and all three of them landed on something soft. Earl landed in a bath full of jelly, Oscar landed on Earl and Jack landed on Oscar.

My Eye Test

2009-02-17T02:55:00.000-08:00

I went to an optician to get my eyes tested. She told me to read the first line on the card. The first line was 'You are'. The second line was more difficult to read, but I managed it. It was 'going to die'. I asked the optician if she knew when I was going to die. She told me I'd find out in the third line, but I couldn't read that. I decided that I didn't need glasses after all. Sometimes you can see too much. Less is more. I just hope my bad eyesight won't affect my mountain climbing.

My Trout

2009-02-10T06:45:00.000-08:00

   "Time goes by so quickly," people often say to me. I often say 'my trout'. There's a need to make a quick getaway every time I say it. The last time I said it I bumped into Deirdre while I was making my getaway. That's when I realised that she was made out of flowers. I helped put her back together again. I prayed for a speedy completion of Deirdre while passers-by re-assembled the flowers. If I'm being honest, I was really praying that I wouldn't be caught. You'd be surprised by how many people chase me every time I say 'my trout'.
   When Deirdre was completed she looked at her reflection in a shop window and she re-arranged some of the flowers. I think her mind must have been affected by what had just happened to her, because she seemed to think that we were on our honeymoon. I played along because a wife was as good a disguise as a fake beard. To prevent myself from inadvertently saying the words 'my trout' to her I kept talking about my blisters. "It was a fine summer day and the countryside was buzzing with life," stories about my blisters would begin. "My blisters were beginning to get some attention from the local press..."
   We walked through city streets. She listened to me for hours, until it was evening in the city and the streets were quiet. I ran out of stories about my blisters. We walked in silence, in the shadows of buildings. It was a lonely feeling. I started to wish that I was being chased. Just to break the silence I said, "Do you mind if I scratch my head?"
   "Not at all," she said.
   I'd never have asked that question if I'd suspected that I'd end up having to scratch my head. I put a lot of thought into where I'd scratch. I've always enjoyed scratching the back of my head, but I do that every night as I have my cup of tea before I go to bed. If I had done it when I was with Deirdre it would have ruined my cup of tea. After a lot of consideration I decided to scratch the centre of my forehead. I had never scratched there before, and it was surprisingly pleasant. I became engrossed in the scratching. I was vaguely aware that Deirdre was speaking, but I didn't pay any attention to what she was saying. I don't know how long this went on for. When she stopped talking I realised that her final words were 'when they start lobbing penguins at you'.
   I stopped scratching. I tried to figure out what she could have said before these words. As I was engrossed in this I was vaguely aware that she was talking again. When she stopped I realised that her final words were 'heavy, heavy horse'. I found this surprisingly pleasant, every bit as enjoyable as scratching my forehead. I scratched my forehead again, just to see if it would add to my enjoyment, and it did. Ever since then I've spent a lot of time scratching my forehead while not listening to most of what Deirdre says. I think we're still on our honeymoon, but I haven't asked her about this in case it makes her stop talking to me.

Questions

2009-02-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

What is right today? Is that right? What is wrong? Is that wrong? What is good? Are triangles good? Is it safe to step outside? Are triangles safe? When Claudia ran into the back of a polar bear did the two become one? Am I safe from the polar bear? Am I in more danger now that Claudia and the polar bear are one? Did I call Claudia a toad? What's red and what's blue? Is that blue? Is blue red? What did I read about colours? Where did I read it? What did I read about Kant? If Kant had run into the back of a polar bear and they became one before Kant had written his major philosophical works, would he have gone on to write his major philosophical works? If Claudia emerged from the polar bear with Kant and they were holding hands, and they announced their decision to get married, would I punch Kant in the face? Would I congratulate them, then go home and cry? Would they already have achieved a union more fundamental than marriage, having both become one with the same polar bear? Would the polar bear be a fundamental part of their marriage? Would Kant be able to produce his major philosophical works if he was married to a polar bear? Or would a marriage to Claudia be an even greater impediment? This is a question I urgently need to answer.

The Pond

2009-01-27T03:32:00.000-08:00

   The pond where I went fishing served many purposes when I was young. I'd build rafts with my friends, Seamus and Ronan, and we'd watch them sink. We used to go ice-skating there in winter. There was never any ice, but there wasn't any water either. Our ice-skating was basically just sliding in the mud. We found this hugely enjoyable when we were young, but we reached an age when it started to lose its appeal, and only then did we wonder what had happened to the water.
   There was a cave in a hill overlooking the pond. When we explored the cave we found a dragon. He looked as if his mouth was full. I said to him, "Are you holding the pond water in your mouth?"
   He nodded. He had been keeping the water in his mouth for years because he was always burning his tongue. We thought we could release the water by poking him in the stomach, but we were afraid of getting too close to him. We tried tying broom sticks together to poke him, but they got stuck up his nose.
   We decided to throw stones at his stomach instead. Myself, Seamus and Ronan stood in a line, about ten yards away from the dragon. We agreed to throw our stones on the count of three. On the count of one, myself and Seamus turned and ran, but Ronan counted all the way to three and he threw his stone.
   He hit the dragon in the stomach, and a torrent of water came out of the dragon's mouth. Ronan didn't have to turn and run because he was swept along by the water. Fire followed soon after. It singed the back of Ronan's hat. He had to put his head into the water to save the rest of his hat, and his head.
   We were glad to have our pond back, although the water tasted funny after spending so long in the dragon's mouth. It had a strange smell as well, but this didn't stop us from building rafts that sank.

My Right Hand

2009-01-20T03:07:00.000-08:00

   I've always had very quick hands. There wasn't much demand for gun-slingers, so I started using my talent to catch fish instead. I'd stand in the shallow water at the edge of a pond. I'd wait for a fish to come near me, and then I'd reach in and catch it.
   On one fine day in June, I'd been standing in the water for over twenty minutes before I saw a fish. I reached in to catch it, but when I pulled it out the fish was stuck to the end of my arm and my hand was swimming away. The fish looked worried, and I probably had a similar expression on my face. I put my arm back into the water because I didn't want the fish to die, just in case I couldn't get my hand back and I was stuck with the fish. I'd already had a lot of trouble with smelly hands. Having a dead fish for a hand would be a nightmare at a wedding on a hot summer day.
   I needed bait, something that would tempt my right hand. There were some obvious things, but I couldn't think of any woman who'd put those things in the water just to do a favour for me.
   I had recently taken a pottery class to impress a woman who was also in that class. Both of my hands enjoyed shaping the clay. When I'd completed my first vase my hands liked to feel the smooth surface of the glaze. Ever since then they'd been feeling vases.
   I phoned my brother and I explained the situation to him. He arrived twenty minutes later with a fishing rod. He had attached a vase to the end of the line. He lowered the vase into the water, and I held a net in my left hand.
   It didn't take long for my right hand to approach the vase. My left hand was just as quick as the right. As soon as my right hand was near enough I caught it in the net. It was clutching the vase when it emerged from the water. I made a quick switch, returning the fish to the pond and re-attaching my hand.
   That was four months ago and my hand is still holding onto the vase. I think this is its way of getting back at me for out-smarting it. I had to go to a wedding with the vase. But it wasn't really a problem -- certainly nowhere near as problematic as having a dead fish on the end of my arm. I just put some flowers in the vase.

The Unusual Road

2009-01-13T03:36:00.000-08:00

   The Unusual Road has been the subject of heated debate for over eighty years. Many strange occurrences have taken place on one long, straight stretch of the road. The road here is flat, but some people who walked it claimed that it felt as if they were walking up a very steep hill. Others have said that even during heavy rain, the road remains completely dry.
   The road was deemed to be supernatural by two priests who conducted independent studies. Some say they were really the same person, and that it was a supernatural priest, not a supernatural road. This claim has been fiercely contested by those who believe the reports of the people who struggled to walk along the flat surface and the people who got wet in the rain while the road remained dry. Both sides in the argument agreed to refer to it as 'The Unusual Road'.
   A man called William lives near one end of the road. He once got into a fight with his neighbour, Conn, over a patch of land. William threw the first punch, and he connected with Conn's jaw. Conn staggered backwards. When he had regained his senses he took another few steps backwards to give himself a good run-up for his punch. But he found that he was standing in mud, so he went further back to find the right ground to begin his run-up.
   He spent three years looking for good ground. When the thought crossed his mind that people might accuse him of being a coward he began his charge straightaway, even though he was standing in a bog. Running out of the bog was exhausting, and he was still miles away from William. He had to phone William to find out exactly where his opponent was. He said his punch would be landing sometime that afternoon.
   It was late in the afternoon by the time Conn got to The Unusual Road. He was exhausted, but he didn't have much further to go. As soon as he set foot on the road he nearly fell backwards. He tried to move forwards, but it felt as if he was walking up a mountainside.
   Darkness fell and William was getting impatient, so he phoned Conn to find out where he was. Conn said he'd made a camp in the ditch to rest, and he was just about ready to make another attempt on the summit.
   An hour later, William went to the end of the road and watched Conn crawl towards him. Conn stood up. He waited for a few minutes while he got his breath back. He swung a punch at William, but he missed. William pushed him over, and Conn rolled to the other end of the road, as if he was rolling down a mountainside. When he finally came to a stop he could hear William laughing.
   William turned around to go home, but he found himself confronted by two priests. One of them said, "That wasn't a very Christian thing to do."
   "It certainly was not," the other one said. "What are ye fighting over?"
   "A patch of land," William said.
   "Where is it?"
   "It's at home. I keep it in a suitcase."
   "First things first. You're going to help your friend."
   They went to Conn, who had managed to get back to his feet again. William helped him walk down the road, but this time it felt as if the surface was flat.
   They went to William's house. The priests made them divide the patch of land into two equal parts, and they took one half each. The priests also suggested that they celebrate their new arrangement with whiskey, which they did.
   Both William and Conn insist that this really happened, although Conn says there was only one priest. William is adamant there were two. This disagreement could erupt into violence any year now.