by Tim Vine
‘Ah, you’re here. Would you like mustard on your sausage?’ he asks nonchalantly. ‘That’d be lovely, Rick.’ I hear my own steady voice reply, although distantly.
RA: ‘But listen here my friend, and listen carefully. Only if you change your name from Peter to Ahmed will I grant your wish regarding the meat portion and its delicious side condiment of mustard. It will be a fine English mustard. You will be known as Ahmed from henceforth, then . . . and only then . . . will I furnish you with mustard on your sausage.’
Ahmed: ‘Ok, Rick, okay. Anything you say. You’re the boss on this cloud, I am merely a lucky tourist in your celestial kitchen.’
I want to talk some more but my throat is dry and I have nothing to say. Somehow the cloud floats off, fading away with Rick Astley still on it, still dancing beautifully, hips swinging, and lovingly turning sausages. He may even be singing again . . .
Peter woke up with a start, an unfeasibly strained erection pressing uncomfortably into his ill-fitting polyester trousers. He tried, but failed, to recall the last time that he had achieved wood. His good hand was nurturing it and all he could view in his mind’s eye was a hot sausage liberally plastered with hot mustard. Wow, this is weird, he thought. He found himself still on the couch with the TV on, his wounded hand throbbing as well as his penis – but somehow none of that mattered. From this moment he was to call himself Ahmed, because he knew that the dream had been sent from above for a purpose, and he had been chosen. Rick Astley had confirmed this: it was as simple as that, black and white.
Peter, now Ahmed, leant over to where his laptop had been on overnight charge. On checking his email inbox, he found a long-anticipated message from his new mentor. It was the message finally and officially acknowledging his acceptance into the terrorist spectrum, but more importantly incorporating the go-ahead for Ahmed to become a fully active operative. It became crystal clear to Ahmed that the dream and the email could not have simultaneously occurred by coincidence. There were higher powers at work here, and as far as he was concerned, everything was coming together just as he wished. He scratched at his ever-bushier beard and trudged into the kitchen for a mug of coffee.
‘So she just sat there, almost dream-like, melancholic but I think understanding, and listened to my words, you see? I tried to break it gently, but there’s no easy way of course.’ Claude gulped his Pastis, the ice cubes rattling resonantly in Sue Ellen from Dallas style. Odd drops of rain pattered sparsely on the tall, thin windows.
‘I think that what is going to happen, you know, I think she will be going to move in with her sister in town. She has a spare room and I am certain that it’s to be for the best. It will take some time to organise, but then you can come to live with me here. It feels like a lot of positivity shrouded in negativity. I told her that I love you now, and that . . . well, I thanked her I suppose, in a way, oui, I thanked her for all our years together and . . .’Claude tailed off, running out of steam and bowing his head. It had been an emotionally exhausting afternoon, and he was unloading it all onto Sue now.
‘Listen, darling, I’m proud of you,’ she applauded him. ‘We just have to sort out the mechanics of the thing but, you know, the worst is over. She’ll get used to the idea given time, and now it’s all down to me. Tom’s going to be much harder to tell . . . you’ll probably see me with a black eye later!’
She was only half-joking.
‘If he even comes close to raising a hand you run straight back to me, okay? Ok?’ Claude reddened somewhat.
‘Don’t worry yourself, Claude, I’ll be fine. Now listen, I’d better head home and get this over and done with. You know, the sooner the better and all that. Wish me luck.’
‘Bon courage, chéri.’ Claude kissed her deeply, before holding her tight, enjoying the sensation of her warm breath on his neck. ‘We will see each other in a little while.’ He was hoping that she would carry out her mission with clear eyes and a cold heart, and would be ready to dedicate her life to him alone from now on.
Sue bounded over the threshold into the farm courtyard, the rain now tumbling from the heavens in diagonal sheets, momentarily stunning her. ‘What’s going on with this shit?’ she cursed to herself. It really was the kind of weather that only a cow or chicken could tolerate. Jumping into the driver’s seat, she sank back and checked her make-up in the rear-view mirror. ‘I think that I need to iron my face,’ she told her imaginary passenger. The image that stared back at her was a middle-aged woman whom she failed to recognise, cold eyes and wet cheeks, as if she’d been crying. She was aware that her decision and forthcoming actions would be monumental in her life, and while brushing off the rain and freshening up her lipstick she mentally strengthened herself for the break-up with her husband that she was about to initiate. The decision she had made weeks previously, but the definite action she had scheduled for this very day, and the day had come along sooner than imagined.
‘Here goes,’ she mumbled to herself, turning the ignition. Abruptly flushed with optimism, she added out loud: ‘tank’s full of juice, let’s roll!’ As she pulled away, Sue considered Tom’s recent ‘joke’ about her choice of car, what exactly had he said? It came back to her: ‘Ah, you bought an automatic. Interesting choice. Well, too bad, they’re just for women and amputees really.’ Remembering this gave her a boost as it convinced her that she was doing the right thing leaving this man, whose humour and demeanour had over the years become more and more damning, cruel, sexist and distasteful. A look of intense concentration descended over her determined face as she slowly negotiated the car around and started off down the track towards her marital home.
Meanwhile, back in London, Yatter was compiling his book of poetry, titled The Bad Poet’s Society. He had a new entry, one of his favourites, that had come to him in a flash of inspiration, just like that!
Rule Number One
Don’t trust ‘normal’ people
Don’t believe ‘normal’ people
Don’t trust ‘normal’ people
Don’t believe ‘normal’ people.
By Yatter
Young Peter never understood exactly what went on in the teacher’s apartments that adjoined the dormitories. The two live-in teachers whose job it was also to administer care at the bijou choir school – a mere 38 pupils – both had favourites who would be selected to watch TV after lights-out. The dark goings-on behind these doors finally led to the downfall of both the monsters. These deviants were not to get their comeuppance until some thirty years later, in separate historic abuse trials initiated by six former students and investigated by CID’s Historical Child Abuse Unit. However, the men both received laughably light sentences for their paedophilia and acts of abuse; for some unknown reason only a few years of prison each. Peter remembered certain things – the acrid smell of vinegar, used to steep canes in order to smarten the sting – but . . .
Many years later as a young man, Peter tried to come to terms with the abuse that he had suffered, but he could not process the information, the reasoning, the suffering. The sexual abuse triggered and subsequently nourished his disjointed view of life, fragments of reality distorted through cloudy water. On top of the tampering, it was the relentless indoctrination into the Christian faith – daily cathedral services and additional ones on weekends, that also helped to push him to the edge of reason, confusing and confounding him. He had a strange memory that one of the visiting Latin teachers had been ‘allowed to leave’ after being arrested in a supermarket for shoplifting a chicken, dressed as a woman. They’d caught that one at the time, but not the kiddie-fiddlers. A total failure of trust in authority and order in life ensued, and a general meltdown deep in Peter’s brain and emotional capacity manifested itself fully into adulthood. It was not until his 20s that Peter turned back to God and became Born Again. He finally became comfortable in himself and was generally in a soft state of religious elation, enjoying gardening, long shifts at th
e pork pie factory, and his trusty dog Elvis, for several years. Unfortunately this could not last as life turned sour with war, and more war, and endless suffering, and it was only when he arrived at this crossroads of violence that Peter searched for and found an alternative path: Ahmed the Operative.
Somewhere around the nondescript outskirts of Cheltenham, supercomputers whirred around the clock in the doughnut-shaped building that called itself GCHQ. The 5,500-strong team of employees at Government Communications Headquarters had their work cut out for them, but for the majority it was a dream posting – serving their country and working for the greater good while carrying out interesting and well-paid work in their chosen field. Linguists, mathematicians, codebreakers, analysts, technology buffs, computer nerds and intelligence experts made up some of the collective brain power gathered together in this place – lots of glasses and beards, along with millions of pounds worth of equipment and highly-powered gear designed to combat terrorism and any similar threat. GCHQ’s role included eavesdropping on global communications, such as ISIS radio traffic, a telling email or text traffic. Even though Ahmed had been digging deeply online, he was nowhere on either the police or Special Service’s radars, and it was highly likely that things would remain like this. Despite the extensive resources available to the Government through the echelons of power within various departments, Ahmed was what’s known as a clean skin. In other words, he had no criminal record, was not an Arab, and generally did not fit in with the perceived profile of a deadly and ruthless bomber. This was to work hugely to his advantage, his apparently humdrum existence arousing no suspicion at all around the streets of Aldershot or further afield. All the while, this strange little man was planning and plotting, scheming and arranging, looking forward to his big moment that was approaching sooner all the time . . .
‘How d’you spell Caen?’ Tom shouted to Sue as she bolted in through the front door to escape the rain.
‘C-O-N,’ Sue called back. ‘Why?’
‘No, not that. The port up North – I’m trying to book a ferry, you silly cow! You remember, we’re supposed to be going back to the UK for the big game and a bit of a jolly. Why that face?’
‘It’s the only one I have. Listen Tom, I don’t think the trip’s gonna happen. There are things going on . . . things, well, um, that we need to discuss. We’ve got to sort out a few details, so come in the kitchen and I’ll make some tea.’
Sue’s unusually resigned tone made Tom take note, and he felt the atmosphere in the house suddenly tighten with a terrible tension. He wrapped up his rambling computer research and padded over into the farmhouse kitchen.
Sue was efficiently placing tea bags into mugs and lifting milk from the fridge. She got straight to the point, and as it wasn’t going to be an easy one, she had decided to take the bull by the horns and say what had to be said, desperate to leave Tom and return to Claude as soon as reasonably possible.
‘I’m afraid we’ve come to the end of the road, Tom. It’s over between us. You know, it’s pretty obvious that we’ve reached an impasse in our relationship. Whatever was there once has long gone, as you well know, and anyway . . . well, anyway, I’ve met someone else who’s really special to me and . . .’ she tailed off, faltering.
The inevitable cliché-rich break up chat ensued, the usual petty gripes and niggling regrets, sore jealousies and insecurities rising unnecessarily to the fore. Sue was exhausted yet exhilarated when she finally managed to tear herself away a good hour later, dragging the weight of a heavy suitcase, crunching stone en route to the car, but with a different weight off her shoulders and another life left behind her. Pausing briefly behind the wheel in order to gather her thoughts, she found the silence of the countryside intolerable until the car coughed into life, but couldn’t deny herself a half smile as she meandered down the track to start a new adventure in her life.
‘A fucking French fucking farming frog fucking farmer, for Chrissake! What the fuck? It’s not like he’s young, popular, rich, good-looking, talented, or even fucking English, and . . . and he looks like his face has been splashed with acid! It looks fucking half-finished, like the sculptor ran out of clay and time. Fuck! I should’ve suspected something when the pube trimmer turned up from Amazon, it certainly wasn’t for my benefit. Disingenuous cow! And all the bloody new lotions and potions . . . There’s me, there’s always me . . .’ Tom swayed. ‘I’ve always been there, it’s me, Tom. You’re bloody emotionally autistic. Well fuck you, then, you’re a fake anyway, a fake. You’re the kind of woman who wastes our money buying a load of fruit just to make the kitchen look good, like in a fucking magazine, to impress guests or whatever when they come over. Then you slowly let it all go off without even touching it. A bit like our relationship, you’ve let it fucking well go off! A lime. Beautiful and fresh-looking, but when cut in half you find that it’s all shrivelled and dry. Well, that’s her! Oh, shit, it’s me, it’s me! It’s your Tom.’ Seriously drunk now and throwing red wine down his neck as if it were beer, he was feeling miserably sorry for himself. They had split up before years previously, but he’d always been sure that it would be temporary, and it had been. This time there was another man, and it felt finished and final . . . and fucked.
The run of prison gigs had been going well for the The Prison Breakers, with the bookings rolling in from Her Majesty’s Prison Service, an unlikely but reliable benefactor. Still, even a band like this could have its own in-fighting and politics that sometimes would ruin one of their trips. Much more damaging than a personal comment about someone’s appearance or bodily aroma would be a detrimental remark concerning their playing or musicianship. Will had been feeling increasingly paranoid that he wasn’t wanted anymore in the group, and he was right. Baz and T had become a lot more matey with Dave who ran the outfit, and Will’s guitar talents were not appreciated much anymore. Baz had complained that his timing was suspect, adding to Dave that ‘his feel sucks, man. He just doesn’t have it, and it’s just all the wrong vibe, you know. His groove doesn’t fit and it ain’t sittin’ in the pocket, man. He never gets the right sound out of that axe, I reckon he doesn’t have a clue about his effects pedals . . . ’ and it went on. Baz had been abroad once, on a five-day trip to Normandy with his parents when he was 12. He still insisted however on attempting to speak as if he had been brought up in New Orleans by black American jazz-club-owning parents. T was putting the boot in too, ‘why can’t he turn down? I’m always saying it, and he doesn’t get it, you know what I’m sayin’? I don’t think he ever listens to the rest of us, he’s up there doing his own thing in his little world, he thinks he’s in a fookin’ busy pizza restaurant strumming away all that shite. And the gobshite wears his gay-tar far too fookin’ high – does he think we’re some gay fookin’ jazz/fusion combo from the 80s?’
Just as those words were uttered was the moment that Will clambered back into the packed van with a coffee, clamping a slightly warm and disappointingly limp and clammy Ginsters pasty into his mouth as he slammed the sliding door shut. ‘Talking about me again, are we?’ he blurted out through a mouthful of pitiful pastry. ‘All good I hope? This service station is shit and the bogs . . . uuugggghhhh!’
He had no idea. Dave had made up his mind: he’d let Will do the gigs that he’d booked him for, that was another three, and he’d sack him face to face after the HMP Isle of Wight gig which was a few weeks away. He’d have to brief the other guys not to mention any other gigs, or future plans, so he could steer clear from potentially awkward conversations. Dave tucked into his giant Scotch egg bought from a deli near his house that morning, a speciality item that was nearly the size of a baby’s brain, although not particularly a similar texture. He had nearly chosen the goat’s cheese, bacon and fresh basil focaccia, but the deli owner’s cute daughter had been pushing the Scotch eggs, and he had fallen under her spell. Tinny music on the radio stopped briefly as a brash and overpaid DJ shouted something about someone having won a
competition. The prize was a mug. ‘Bloody hell, must be a recession on. I’m sure people used to win a grand!’ Will piped up. Nobody answered him and nobody laughed.
The Amazing Ex
Burgled by a bastard
I’ve so little to say,
Our world keeps on turning
He’ll get it one day.
She cheats just so casually,
Apparently without guilt
Which side tells the lies
Is it Miss Jekyll or Miss Hyde?
The little children, they suffer
Still, she doesn’t care
Just checks what’s on offer to
Bring back to her lair.
If she cannot realise her
Great Big Mistake, whether
Mental or Evil, it’s
Already too late.
The lies that she tells have
Dark, disturbing smells
To think that once upon a time
I found her so fine!
If you’ve learnt from such a tale
That it’s hard to be a male
I’ve had my say,
Should I try to be gay!?
By Yatter
Paul’s Nazi stash was in need of a major rearrangement as a couple of probing enquiries had been made by a rather secretive gentleman from Leeds who ‘may well be paying the shop a visit in the not too distant future with a view to picking up some important historical items’. Such interest in this genre of material had become almost a fetish for some, one of the prizes being a first edition of Mein Kampf, which could command some serious money. The front door’s latch was on and Paul was clumsily clambering across boxes in the back room. It had slipped his mind to call Foul Fred about shifting the transsexual and animal porn stash, and he remembered suddenly on almost tripping over it. ‘Must give Fred a ding,’ he mumbled, steadying himself on a life-sized reproduction Greek garden figure of a naked man. Ray Charles’ tones tickled the tweeters and children laughed as they messed about outside on their way home from school. He stooped down to pull back bubble wrap protruding from a shabby Pickfords cardboard box, torn across the top. A heavy-looking hardback book was sat on the top, adorned with a colourful dust cover. He picked it up slowly: Nazi Occult, Magic & Science Fiction. Another book underneath was all about insignia and uniforms. There were strange Nazi-inspired novels imagining modern life if the Germans had won WWII, along with bizarre Nazi Science Fiction paperbacks, with lurid titles such as Master Race in Space, Panzers Patrol Pluto, SS Slav Sex Slaves, Gestapo Japes around Jupiter, U-Boat Babe in Port and Lunar Death Camp. One specialized publication that concentrated solely on SS staff cars appeared to have been heavily read with its ragged and well-thumbed pages, and there was an unusually slim edition tucked down the side that Paul almost didn’t notice: a detailed account of her war years by Himmler’s masseuse. At the bottom of the box, wrapped in a dirty towel, Paul found the Luger pistol that he was looking for. Satisfied, he repacked the box and humped it over to the side, so he could pull out another one. This was marked delicate, and he was pretty sure it was the right one. An abrupt tearing crack reverberated sharply around the room as Paul fought his way through tough tape securing the contents. Ripping away yellowing pages of the Daily Mail from years before, he carefully held up the top item – a serving platter from a full dinner service with gold leaf all around the rim, the Nazi eagle and swastika emblem prominently displayed just above the centre. He admired it and let out a prolonged sigh.
