by Irvine Welsh
— I think it's a good quality, I agreed. I looked at the brilliant sun rising up over the distant mountain peak, felt its luxuriating warmth on my bare face, arms and legs.
We sat for a while before Sandy awkwardly cleared his throat. — Hummph. It seems a pity to ruin the picnic, Roy, but the lodge is only a few hundred yards up the road. I think we should go and find a certain predator-scavenger better known in these parts as the Marabou Stork.
— Yes Sandy, as much as we loathe and detest the evil capitalist Dawson, we did enter into a gentleman's agreement with him; the most binding of agreements between gentlemen; namely to rid the Emerald Forest Park of Marabous.
Sandy smiled quizzically. — Whatever happened to the element of personal crusade that seemed to fuel this pursuit?
I shrugged, — I don't really know, Sandy. It's just that when I woke up this morning, it no longer seemed to be so . . . pressing.
We headed up to the lodge, Sandy keeping his gun pointed. We entered stealthily by the conservatory, into the main library. The large Stork was there. But something was far from right.
– – – –I'm here for you now Roy. I'm here to take you away . . .
Meeting you
With a view to a kill
Face to face in a secret place
Feel the chill. . .
Go away. . . I've got to face up to the Stork. . . please Kirsty. Go away.
Nightfall covers me
But you know the plans I'm making . . .
I sang this once at a perty. New Year. I liked Duran Duran when I was a wee laddie. Hungry Like The Wolf was their best yin but, eh.
I'm falling, I feel myself falling – – – Lexo's in here. He's got in.
I'm looking at him. He's with Dawson and Jamieson. Lexo is the Stork. But the Stork still stands facing us. Lexo isnae the Stork . . .
Lexo isnae . . .
Jamieson is pointing the shotgun at me.
Until we dance into the fire
A little kiss is all we need . . .
I feel as if I can't breathe.– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – I'm pulling this little tube out of your useless cock, Roy. Can you feel it?
Dance into the fire
The fatal sounds of broken dreams . . .
Can ah fuckin feel it?
I'm almost awake. I seem to see everything. It's like my eyelids are now just translucent membrane. I could open my eyes.
I could open my eyes.
I feel a sharp pain in my penis. She has it in her hand. She's squeezing it . . . like Dorie . . . like Patricia . . . but not so gentle . . .
– – – – – —I'm going to cut this off and I'm going to stuff it down your throat and watch you choke to death.
It was LEXO, no me, LEXO
There's crystal tears
Full of snow flakes on your body
First time in years
To change your skin
From lover's rosy stain
A chance to find a phoenix in the flame
A chance to die
And then we dance into the fire . . .
— Remember when you put this useless shrivelled thing into my arse, Roy? I can't believe how this thing hurt me so much. Well, not as much as it's going to hurt you . . . remember when you put the mirror at the foot of that mattress to see my face as you forced yourself into my arse . . . remember what you said? Do you? You said you wanted me to look at you, and you wanted to see my face. You wanted me to see Roy Strang. You wanted me to feel what happens to any cunt who fucks about with Roy Strang. Now I want to see you, Roy. I want you to see what you've made me, because you've made me just like you. I hid like a sick, twisted vegetable for days, hid inside my flat, frightened of my own shadow. Sleep was an impossibility without the pills. You raped me once, and with the help of the judge and the courts you raped me again. Then I saw those posters, those Zero Tolerance campaign posters. NO MAN HAS THE RIGHT they said, but they were wrong, Roy.
Naw, they were right, I saw them, they hurt me, but they were right . . .
— They were wrong because you did have the right. You all wanted to teach me Roy, to teach me a lesson, that was what you said. You did teach me . . .
Naw.
— You taught me that you had the right by simply taking it. The posters were prescriptive, they were talking about a world as it should be rather than as it is . . .
But there's another world Kirsty, it disnae huv toe be this wey . . . we can change it aw, make it different. . .
— I don't know who fucked you up, what happened to make you the sad, wretched excuse for a human being you are and I don't care. It's not my problem. You're my problem, or rather were. Now I'm your problem. Might is right. You take the right. I'm taking the right Roy, taking the right to fuck you off, son.
I can feel the cold steel on my cock . . .
—That silly little tube up your cock Roy, taking all the piss out of you. What was it you said: Nae cunt takes the piss out ay me? The nurses do it every day, Roy. They just drain it from you. It would probably be nicer to just leave you, to let you rot away like you've been doing for the last couple of years, but they tell me you might wake up. We're playing Doctors and Nurses now Roy, so let's get rid of this silly fucking tube. . . which one, Doctor?. . . why both of them, Nurse . . .
I feel the catheter tube pulling sharply out of me. It was fuckin Lexo. . . how is it that ah . . .
DEEPER
DEEPER
DEEPER
My throat is burning on this tube. . . it's the tube in my throat. . . take it oot soas ah kin speak . . .
DEEPER
DEEPER– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Sandy still has the gun pointed at me. But I hear other voices shouting. Their faces are just at the periphery of my vision but I know who it is, it's Ozzy and Dempsey and Lexo and they're shouting that she's had enough.
The slag asked for it . . .
What the fuck is this? Sandy! Dinnae fuckin point that at me!
Shoot Lexo He's the cunt that
DUMBO
DUMBO STRANG
who do you fuckin hate Roy Strang you hate schemies Kaffirs poofs Weedgies Japs snobby cunts jambos scarfers English cunts women only you don't do you Roy Strang the only cunt you really hate is
Roy Strang.
cannae go aroond hatin fifty per cent ay the population just because some dirty auld cunt fucked ye up the erse as a bairn, nae use that, eh.
— AH'M RUNNIN THIS FUCKIN GIG! AH SAY WHIN THE SLAG'S HUD ENOUGH! I'm shouting . . . why am I getting into this . . . it's fuck all to do with anything . . . — Sandy . . . shoot Lexo. . . he's the fuckin rapist. He's a fuckin nutter . . .
I see an image in the mirror, the image of the Marabou Stork. It's on the flamingo . . . tearing into it, ripping it to shreds, but the flamingo's still alive, I see its dulled eyes . . .
THERE IS NEVER AN EXCUSE.
Her fingers are holding my eyes open and I can see her, she's holding open one eyelid at a time and her surgical scissors are snipping my eyelids neatly off, I can feel the cold steel and hear the sharp tearing sound . . .
. . . I can feel her knife hacking into my genitals, thrashing into my chest, digging, trying to find me, but she'll never find me in here . . . and now I'm soaring upwards trying to get out, to fly across the fields of Africa, but I'm stuck on the hospital ceiling looking down at Roy Strang being hacked to pieces by Kirsty . . . hacked by a
serrated knife. . .did you get it at Boston's Kirsty . . .
— I'm going to let you feel this, Roy! They say a man can hardly feel it, hardly feel the removal of his prick . . .
NO
NO
I'm suddenly back down in here and I feel the pain and I can't move because of her
— Let you taste it, like I had to . . .
NO<
br />
It's my prick . . . the dirty fuckin sow's cut oaf ma cock and she's . . . aw what the fuck, the Silver Surfer never had a cock and the cunt seemed to get by as he soared on his board . . . that's all I ask . . .
— This is going in your mouth, Roy, open wide, come on now . . .
NO
NO
NO
— Do I hear sounds there, Roy ... I can't hear you. . . what is it you're saying to me, Roy, what are you trying to tell me. . .I know you want this, I know you're asking for it. . . you shouldn't speak with your mouth full. . . you have to learn Roy, you have to be taught. . .
NO
PLEASE
NO
She's looking into my eyes, my lidless eyes and we see each other now. She's beautiful. Thank God. Thank God she's got it back.
What we took. I'm trying to smile. I've got this severed cock in my mouth and I'm trying to smile. I can't breathe and she's showing no mercy.
I understand her.
I understand her hurt, her pain, how it all just has to come out. It just goes round and round, the hurt. It takes an exceptionally strong person to just say: no more. It takes a weak one to just keep it all to themselves, let it tear them apart without hurting anyone else.
I'm not an exceptionally strong person.
Nor is Kirsty.
We're just ordinary and this is shite.
We both understand everything.
The sun is rising behind me and my shadow spills out away from it, out in front of me. My spindly legs, my large overcoat, my massive beak . . . I have no visible ears, I never really had much in the way of ears, it was always my nose, Captain Beaky, they used to call me at the school . . . it wasn't the ears, my memory hasn't been so good, nor has my hearing but I can think more clearly now . . . I have the gait of a comical scarecrow, I shuffle like an old man who has shat his pants. I'm so tired . . . I spread my large, black wings. . .
She's going . . . don't go Kirsty, stay with me for a bit, see this through . . . but no no no I hear her hastily depart. Then I hear another voice, the hysterical screaming of Nurse Patricia Devine. She's watching me smoking my own penis like a limp, wet cigar, staring with horror into my eyes that cannot shut. I'm getting weaker, but I'm here now. I can move my lidless eyes, I can see my cock dangling from my mouth and I can see the scissors sticking out from my neck. . . Patricia runs to get help but she's too late because Jamieson's facing me and he's pointing the gun and I hear it going off and it's all just one big
Z.
