World of Darkness: Denizens

2010-11-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Acts 20:35

2010-11-24T09:21:00.000-08:00

If it doesn't hurt, it isn't real.

2010-11-16T05:47:00.000-08:00

A designer knows that he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

-

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

2010-11-15T16:24:00.000-08:00

“Excuse me, I want to speak to your manager.”

I looked at her. Mouth like a dog’s arse. Nasty little eyes, probably sharpened by years of reading the Daily Mail. The tense, nervous look of a woman who hasn’t had an orgasm for decades. Or maybe ever.

“Did you hear me? I want to speak to your manager.”

I know that I should have pretended to give a fuck about what she wanted, but to I was going back to college at the end of next week so I sighed instead.

“Why?” I asked, breaking customer service guidelines for shop floor colleagues one, three and probably six.

Those nasty little eyes narrowed even more and I foun myself thinking about pissholes in snow. Decided not to mention it though. Not yet, anyway.

“I want to complain” of course she did “about this.”

So saying she thrust a can of something under my nose. I didn’t deign to glance down at it. Like Poirot I’m a man who knows the fucking score.

“It’s a can,” I said, and if she didn’t catch the bored contempt in my voice than it was only because that rat’s nest of a hairdo deafened her.

“I know it’s a can,” she snapped, loud enough to attract interested glances from some of her fellow shoppers. “Look what’s on it.”

She thrust it towards me as vigorously as a paratrooper with a bayonet. I rolled my eyes up before looking down. When I did I suddenly forgot all about how much I hated this job. Forgot about everything really. I was too surprised.

“Shit,” I said, and I meant it.

“Yes well,” the complainant said, obviously torn between joy at this fresh outrage and gratification that she was being taken seriously. “I don’t think that this is very funny, do you?”

And for the first time it occurred to me that bugger me rigid but the customer might be right after all. It wasn’t funny. Not ha ha funny anyway. Not funny like Chris Rock or Viz or the time that prick of a manger went over on his arse whilst discovering the spill on aisle seven. No, not funny like that at all.

More funny like the way bad things come in threes, or funny in the way that a light might switch itself on when there is nobody else in the room, or funny like the extra lump you suddenly find beneath your skin.

Which thought made me look down at the can again. She offered it to me and I hesitated. Then, reasoning that whatever was inside I’d only be touching paper and aluminium, I reached out and took it.

“So as I say, I would like to see your manger. I don’t know if this is supposed to be some kind of marketing, but it’s sick. Sick, I tell you.”

Her voice was getting shriller, much to the delight of the bored queue at the Lotto counter. I held the can up and examined the label more clearly. It had the store’s own brand logo on it. Had the monochromatic packaging that said cheap and cheerful and the nutritional information that said nah, you don’t want to read this. It looked like just one more can full of crap in a cut price supermarket.

Except, written upon the front in big bold letters, was the word cancer.

“My husband . . . “ the customer said, then stopped. She was scowling even more, and for the first time I realised that there was something behind that mean spirited facade. Something which had been hurt and hadn’t been able to find a way to heal.

I felt suddenly and horribly ashamed. Then I felt angry. Very angry. My grip tightened on the can, white knuckles as hard as the metal beneath, and I wanted to hit somebody with it.

I hit the intercom instead and, making an effort to keep my voice just as disinterested as always as I said “Manager to customer complaints, please. Manager to customer complaints.”

Then we waited, me and the customer and the can of cancer.

“Where was it stacked?” I asked more to break the silence than anything.

“In the tinned fruit section,” she said. “There is a whole shelf of them, between the pie filling and the peaches.”

I was relieved to see that the pain I’d glimpsed in her was gone, once more hidden behind shutters of pursed lips and hard eyes. I still felt guilty, though. And angry. Not sure where one ended and the ohter began, to be honest.

As the manager trotted busily up I think he sensed my mood. Or perhaps it was just that he saw the can. Either way he slowed, licked his lips and glanced around as if looking for an escape route.

“Manager to customer services” I barked into the intercom even as I caught his eye. “If you don’t mind, of course.”

I was hoping that it would annoy him but for once the officious little prick didn’t take the bait. Instead, looking as shifty as a shoplifter with one too many bottles of gin under his jumper, he came over to us.

“This lady has a complaint to make,” I said and held out the can. He was as hesitant to touch it as I had been, but I didn’t give him the chance to refuse. Instead I pushed the metal into his hands. He almost dropped it and I realised that his palms were slicked with sweat.

“Oh yes?” he said and looked at me. Not at the customer. No, not at her. Not one little bit.

That was weird. What was weirder was that he was looking at me with something close to pleading. He looked like a puppy that has been caught in a puddle of its own pee.

I didn’t enjoy his discomfort as much as I supposed I would.

“Yes, I have a complaint to make” the customer snapped. “And I would be grateful if you would have the common courtesy to look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

The manager swallowed and looked. For the first time I realised that he was blushing.

“I am sorry madam,” he said, and to my amazement he actually sounded as though he was. “Can I help you?”

“What do you mean by putting this vile . . . this vile joke I suppose you will call it . . . on your shelves?”

His mouth worked and he looked at me. I can’t remember ever seeing a man look so helpless.

“Well?” the complainant snapped, her voice a well practiced whip lash.

“We have to,” the manager whined. “The company decides what we stock and where . . .”

“But look what it says!” This time her voice wasn’t a whiplash so much as a sledgehammer “C-a-n-c-e-r. It’s just disgusting. What’s it even supposed to be?”

“I’m sorry,” the manager said. Then he did the impossible. He managed to do something which made me respect him even less. “I have to go, but young Michael here will explain it to you.”

Then he turned and, if he didn’t run, he walked in a way which was pretty close to it.

“Well!’ the customer said, and I had to agree with her.

“You know what?” I told her, making an executive decision. “I don’t know what this is supposed to be but you’re right. It’s sick. I’m going to take these off the shelves and put them in the dumpster. In fact I’m going to do it now.”

And I did.

X X X

That was six months ago.

There were almost a pallet full of the cans on the shelves and I got rid of them all. As far as I know they were never restocked, and nor were there any enquiries as to where they had gone. I left not so long after that to come up here to college.

Although of course I didn’t get rid of them all. I kept one. This one here. Somehow I could never bring myself to throw it away, and not being able to throw it away has turned into not being able to resist opening it.

I know that I shouldn’t. I mean, what could possibly come of it but something bad?

But I just have to. It’s the curiosity that’s doing it to me. The curiosity and the hurt I saw in that woman's eyes.

I don't know what's going to happen when I pop this lid but I've got a litre of acid, a litre of petrol and a lighter and if it doesn't kill me I'm going to kill it.

Wish me luck.

2010-04-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

-

Raymond Chandler

2010-04-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Carver,

Can you believe that Nielson actually did off himself ? Pathetic. I will take his wardrobe though. Helped myself to his guns, too. Hope you don’t mind.

Anyway, see you this Saturday. I’ll be the one in the retailored silk :)

2010-04-04T17:52:00.000-07:00

That is not dead which can eternal lie
And in strange eons even death may die

Abdul Al Hazred

2010-04-04T17:38:00.000-07:00

I can’t remember where I came from exactly. My only childhood memory is of a dusty attic with lots of old board games in it. I can’t remember my parents, either. Or my brothers or sisters, if I had any.

But I do remember my friends. Chess. Risk. Mah Jong. Stratego. And I remember how cold it was while I sat there playing these games against myself, sometimes for days. I wouldn’t say I was happy, because happy doesn’t quite fit. I was absorbed though, and even better I didn’t have to think about . . . about other things.

After I was taken it was clear that I’d developed a wonderful set of transferable skills in that cold attic. Instead of dice and cardboard abstractions I started playing for real, using contracts and the warriors of my Lord’s goblin hosts. And what happy days they were !

I found that I had a natural appreciation for the elegant economy of the severed artery. The straight path of the sliced tendon. The sweet snap of the separated vertebrae. Magnify that by the thousands my Lord’s minions dispatched at my instruction and you might understand how fulfilled I was, how content in the calm eye of an eternal storm of war.

To this day I don’t know what went wrong. Although, no. No that’s not quite true. I do know what went wrong, at least in a general sense.

What went wrong is that we lost.

When I realised it was all up I joined the exodus of my fallen Lord’s followers. We were a pitiable bunch, although it wasn’t pity that saved me from the vengeful glee of my pursuers. It was just that I chose to escape through the hedge rather than try to hide within it.

So here I am, looking for enough pieces to start a new game.

Interested ?

2010-03-12T18:02:00.000-08:00

What a piece of work is a man.

How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty.

In form and moulding how express and admirable.

In action, how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a God.

The beauty of the world, the parragon of animals.

And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither.

Shakespeare

2010-03-12T17:47:00.000-08:00

I’m sick and tired of never feeling warm.

And that husk feeling. Even when I’m as full as a tick I feel empty, and you know what I mean by that. Don’t pretend you don’t. It’s like you’re a broken vessel that can’t be filled, so that all that’s left of you is an endless, aching hunger that does nothing but grow when you feed it.

I used to think that there might be a way, but there isn’t. The elders, I used to think, the elders have a way. Look at how they glow. But they don’t glow, those powerful, pitiable things. They throb like a wound.

Although we don’t have wounds do we ? No, not us. We have holes which melt back together as easily as plastic, and bodies which are just as worthless. Souls which are worth even less than that.

So that’s it. That’s it for me. I won’t accept this lie any more. The dregs of a life. The scuttling misery of a cockroach existence. And I can’t stop thinking about what I did to my sister.

Carver can have my wardrobe and Freeman can have my guns. The rest you can fight for.

2010-03-02T08:58:00.000-08:00

Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

-

Alfred Lord Tennyson

2010-03-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

Nothing moved.

Not the hands of the clock, which were frozen in a permanent salute to the hour. Not the shower of debris from his entry, which hung in the air as if suspended in amber. Not even the guard dogs who had stopped in mid-snarl, their fangs as still as their glass-bead eyes.

Charles tried not to feel bad as he slipped past them. Even after all these years he still liked dogs. It was true that when they weren’t attacking him they were usually barking him back into the night, but he didn’t hold that against them. They were only doing their job, just as he was only doing his.

Resisting the urge to pat one of the Dobermans on the head he scuttled along the brightly lit hall. The overhead strip lighting revealed a world of institutional green, of rubberised flooring and interior doors that looked as solid as those in any prison.

As he followed his map through the facility Charles noticed the smell which pervaded the place. It was mainly bleach but beneath it there was something else. Something nasty.

Eventually he came to the door he had been searching for. It bore a brass plaque into which had been inscribed the characters XV. The gothic intricacy of their design was at odds with the institutional blandness of the rest of the facility, but Charles didn’t worry about that. He was too busy worrying about the warnings he’d been given.

Standing to one side of the door he unscrewed the stopper from a steel vacuum flask and upended it over the plaque. Warm blood streamed from the flask. It ran down the plastic coating of the door to sizzle and hiss in the grooves of the X and the V.

When the flask was empty Charles looked cautiously at his handiwork. The brass plaque was gone. In its place there was nothing but a smear of sizzling blood and melting plastic. The stink brought tears to Charles's eyes and he blinked as he selected a tool to open the door lock. It was a simple tumbler, and he popped it open on the fifth turn. The door swung open and he stepped inside.

The room was sparsely furnished. Apart from a steel locker the only other objects were a plastic table and a security camera that glowered down from the corner. Charles tugged at his balaclava as he studied the device. If he was surprised that his reflection didn’t show up on the concave lens then he gave no sign of it. He had seen weirder stuff than that while running Mr Anderson's errands.

With a shiver he turned away from the glass eye and got to work on the locker. It took him a moment to realise that it wasn’t even locked. The door swung open and there on the floor was a shoe box. Charles lifted it as carefully as if it were an unexploded bomb and set it on the table. After a moment's hesitation he removed the lid off to reveal what lay within.

For a moment he stopped breathing.

He had known what it would be, of course. He had known as soon as he had been given the job. Mr Anderson was always upfront with him. But it’s one thing to hear about the impossible and quite another to actually experience it.

‘Fuck a doodle doo’ said Charles as his breath returned to him. Inside the box was a cube of plastic. It weighed maybe a kilogram and was perhaps twenty centimetres to a side. It was also a completely new primary colour.

He hadn't realised quite what that meant until now that he saw it, and now that he saw it he knew that yes, yes it WAS impossible. There couldn't be a new primary colour. There couldn't be.

Except that there was.

Charles reached out one cotton-gloved finger to stroke its surface, and when his finger brushed against the cube it exploded into a whole myriad of new colours. He stared at them, eyes as wide as a toddler’s on Christmas morning, and laughed delightedly.

They were beautiful, these colours. So beautiful. They were a glimpse of a better, brighter, cleaner world. A world with countless dimensions and limitless possibilities. Charles pulled off his balaclava and removed his gloves. Then he just stood there, his face lit with wonder as he caressed the living kaleidoscope he had found.

There was no way he was going to hand this over he decided. No way at all. For once Mr Anderson would have to do without.

It was the thought that killed him.

No sooner had he reached the decision than the clock ticked, the debris pattered to the floor and a chorus of snarls echoed down the corridors. Charles’ reflection popped into the concave lens of the camera above and an alarm began to blare.

He thrust the cube into an inside pocket and started to run. It was a vain effort. He hadn't gone a dozen steps before the gas which poured from the air vents caught up with him. His legs stopped working just as the dogs saw him.

He struggled to get back to his feet but his muscles merely twitched. When the dogs reached him he was flopping around on the rubberised floor like a gutted fish and a second later he found that paralysis was not anaesthesia. He felt every rip of the dogs’ teeth, every sliced nerve and ruptured artery. But even his blood, bright red though it was, couldn’t compare with the colours he carried in his pocket.

Charles thought about the colours, about how they glowed, and even as the dogs tore off his face he was smiling.

2010-02-23T08:44:00.000-08:00

Sunlight is the best antiseptic

Aphorism

2010-02-23T04:35:00.000-08:00

Replacement Invoice

PAYMENT OVERDUE

Please note: Any further delay in payment

could result in a further 10% surcharge.

Issued by: Total Cleaning Solutions, 24B Elm Street, Liverpool, L8

--------------Tel: 0151 455 8790 Website: TCS.co.uk

Payable by: Dr Stephen Hillington, 18 Acacia Avenue,

---------------West Kirby CH49 7NG

Invoice Number: 01/02/A

Invoice Date: 12/8/09

Item --------------------------------------------------------------Amount

4 x Performance Power Hammer Drill 710W PHD710----------£240

500 x 80/42 Masonry Screws/Wall Anchor Frame Fixings -----£18

12 x 5m2 4.8mm Security Mesh ------------------------------------£370

40M 6x19 Class Preformed Stainless Steel Wire Rope-----------£290

I.W.R.C.-Type 302/304

4 x AK3857: Ratchet Crimping Tool Interchangeable Jaws -----£87

4 x Fire Retardent Pyrovatex Antistatic Coverall WD507-------£164

10 x 5L Plastic Fuel Can 48358---------------------------------------£30

50L Kerosene------------------------------------------------------------£45

Labour--------------------------------------------------------------£40 000

Total ---------------------------------------------------------------£41 244

We thank you for prompt payment.

2010-02-21T18:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel I've got to
Run away I've got to
Get away
From the pain that you drive into the heart of me
The love we share
Seems to go nowhere
And I've lost my light
For I toss and turn I can't sleep at night

Soft Cell

2010-02-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

Social workers. People bad mouth them all the time, but the truth is that most of their detractors wouldn’t even drive through the neighbourhoods they have to work in. Not all social workers are saints of course. Far from it. But many do their best, and some even make a difference.

I like to think that my Lola did. She certainly gave enough of herself to the job. Too much of herself, in fact. That’s why we finally broke up. It’s nice when your girlfriend has a vocation and all, but if she doesn’t have anything left for you after she’s done saving the world for the day then what’s the point ?

Towards the end I got so sick of her blocking me that I started snooping through her client recordings when she was at work. The city required all of her meetings to be recorded, both electronically and on paper, and that all such recordings be signed and checked off by the line manager, and also randomly scrutinized by . . . well, like I say. Who the hell would be a social worker ?

They were a predictably damaged and pathetic bunch, Lola’s clients. Junkies, weirdos, creeps, losers. They were what most people would have called the dregs of society. Most people, but not Lola. To her they weren’t dregs to be scorned but casualties to be helped.

I really miss her sometimes.

Anyway, that’s how I found little Joshua Heyes. He was the son of one of Lola’s clients. He was twelve, although he looked about half that, and what made me stop and rerun the recording of him was his twitch.

His mom’s case file said that he’d seen all kinds of specialists, and that they’d all agreed that his twitch had no physical cause. It was psychosomatic and, trust me on this, if you’d seen his mom’s case file that wouldn’t have surprised you any more than it surprised me.

But it wasn’t the case file that kept me rewinding and rewatching twelve year old Joshua Heyes. It was the six years I’d spent in the marines. In particular, it was one piece of training that is damn near obsolete but that the Royal Navy, hidebound bastards that they are, make guys like me learn until it is as much a part of us as our bones.

So I sat and I watched . Then I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and started copying down what I was seeing. I don’t know why. Maybe just to nail it down, prove to myself that it was real. Considering the implications, I needed to be sure.

It was after midnight when I slipped into Ms Heyes‘ flat and found the boyfriend. He was doing just what I’d known he’d be doing, the fucking subhuman. He didn’t see it coming, but Joshua did. His eyes widened even further as I slipped the wire around the boyfriend’s neck and pulled him off the kid. Those eyes, they didn’t look grateful or scared or even relieved. All they did was twitch.

I worked quickly, bundling the body into the sheet I’d brought. I knew Mom wouldn’t find us. I’d read her case file. Tonight, as every night, she was doped up to the eyeballs in the next room, just as dead to the world as her cooling Romeo. Well, not that he'd been just her Romeo, of course.

I watched Joshua pull his clothes back on and wished I could kill the same man twice. I couldn’t, though. All I could do was make sure that I didn’t get caught.

‘Good luck, mate,’ I told him and patted him on one narrow shoulder. For the first time I realised that the twitch had gone. I wasn’t surprised. Message sent, message received. Over and out. I tried to think of something to say.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said as I slung the body over my shoulder and turned to go. ‘You’re never alone.’

I felt it then, a brush of something that wasn't there. There wasn’t much power in it. It wasn’t like those poltergeists who can throw a man out of a window, or whack him with an iron, or even just twist his ankle out from beneath him on the stairs. No, this one wasn’t much of anything. All it had the strength to do was to pull on a nerve for long enough to semaphore a message in morse out into the world.

I winked at Isaac and let myself out into the night.

2010-02-16T09:18:00.000-08:00

Music hath charms to soothe a savage beast

To soften rocks or bend a knotted oak

William Congreve

2010-02-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

On his thirty first birthday Collins realised that he hadn’t spoken to another human being in over a year.

He hadn’t been avoiding it. Not exactly. It was just that since leaving the city he had been happy enough living alone in the mountains. He’d built a shack, shot some deer, grown some weed. A good life. A peaceful life. But on his thirty first birthday, Collins realised, not life enough.

The next day he went down to the town where he bought his ammunition and supplies. There was a bar there, and he went inside to find some company. At first it was awkward. He was out of the habit of being sociable and after he had ordered his drink he couldn’t really think of anything else to say. Then he ordered another, and another. Then some more.

Eventually, when he was on his sixth whiskey, the alcohol in his bloodstream reached some sort of critical mass and he hesitantly began to join in the conversation of the other guys clustered around the bar.

They were mainly loggers and teamsters, and they were bored enough of each others’ company to welcome Collins into their circle. They were soon exchanging opinions and sharing jokes and, even though not a single one would have called it that, gossiping like old women.

Then they started telling stories and that was when the trouble began. Maybe it was because by then Collins had finished a whole bottle of scotch. Maybe it was because of something deeper. Whatever the reason, once he started talking he realised that he couldn’t stop.

At first the guys didn’t believe him, but as he went on they did. Yes they did. How could they not when he cried and laughed and whispered in a way that no liar ever could?

When Collins had finished the barkeeper broke the silence by closing up early. A couple of the guys slapped Collins on the back as they left. One offered him a gun. Most of them just scuttled away, furtive looks hidden beneath baseball caps and loggers’ hard hats.

The next morning Collins woke at dawn and, ignoring his hangover, packed everything that he could into his truck. Then he set fire to his shack, got behind the wheel and started running again.

2009-11-11T06:08:00.000-08:00

A vampire lives in a constant state of desire and disgust. His nature often revolts him, but he doesn't have the will to deny his indulgences. There's the killing, but there's also the pleasure, the sensuality, the lust. The sheer ecstasy of it all.

LaCroix

2009-10-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

I have a whole stormfront of deadlines to push through over the next couple of months, so Denizens is on a bit of a hiatus. I am looking to getting back to it, though. Especially as I've just been listening to a think piece about suicide machines on Darker Days.

http://darkerdays.podbean.com/page/2/

2009-08-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

Hunger knows no friend but its feeder

Aristophanes

2009-08-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

The stem was twice as thick as a middle finger and as hairy as a spider’s leg. It ended in a fat green bulb which had been split open by six white petals. Each was as big as a sweaty palm, and a fleshy purple stamen thrust from between their limp applause. It bobbed obscenely as I picked it up.

‘Eat the whole thing and you’ll satisfy even the most demanding of ladies,’ the stall keeper told me with an oily leer.

‘How much?’ I asked. He shrugged, pulled on his earlobe and contrived to look as though the question hadn't crossed his mind until that very moment.

‘Say half a dozen milk teeth,’ he decided.

I nodded non-committally and strolled down the table to examine a cluster of fruits which looked a little like plastic grapes. The berries were as big as a thumbnail, and so hard and green that they looked more like a promise of indigestion than anything else.

‘Wards off dogs,’ the stall keeper promised.

‘I like dogs,’ I said.

‘Wards off wolves too,’ he added hopefully but I had already moved on to what I had wanted all along.

The seed pods were as yellow as turmeric and as sweet smelling as sandalwood. They were perfectly dessicated, and the seeds within rattled like maracas when I picked them up. They would have made a fine pot pouri. As food they looked as appetising as wood shavings, but I knew their worth.

‘What are these?’ I asked ingenuously.

‘Slake pods,’ the stall keeper told me. ‘Boil one in enough water and it will feed six people for a day. Tastes good, too.’

I raised a questioning eyebrow and the stall keeper, scenting a sale, spat into his hand and offered it to me.

‘My word on it,’ he said ‘And all I ask in return is the same weight in hair.’

I pretended to hesitate, then shrugged and grasped his sticky hand. It was a fair price, and I’d already spent a morning looking for them.

‘Blond good enough for you?’ I asked, producing a paper bag of shorn hair.

‘Lovely,’ he said, rubbing his hands eagerly together. ‘Lovely.’

It was always a pleasure to go shopping at the market.

2009-08-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

Before all else, be armed.

Niccolo Machiavelli

2009-08-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

Notice of Termination of Contract

Dear Mr Hayes,

I am writing to inform you that we are terminating the contract we have with Viking Recruitment for the recruitment of personnel for the Big Creek lumber camp (reference number GL/45/A). We are doing this with immediate effect and, in accordance with clause 32, subclauses I through to IV, we are offering neither notice nor compensation.

We must also insist that the commission that we paid for the following recruits (see attached document) be repaid in full and within one calender month of the date of this letter. Their failure to complete the first month of the contract makes you fully liable, as stated in clause 12.

I would also like to inform you that we will be taking further legal action against your company. This is because we were assured, both verbally and in writing, that you would check both the employment history and the personal suitability of all the personnel that you sent to us. It would seem that you failed to adequately do either.

As was explained at the time, Big Creek is a simple and isolated camp which sits in newly opened forestry. The desertion of the entire crew has cost us in excess of one million dollars. Some of their ‘practical jokes’ have also caused us considerable embarrassment with local law enforcement, and our legal department has been subjected to a barrage of fraudulent claims for compensation from dependants.

I sincerely hope that you review your practices before taking on any similar contracts in the future. In the meantime, I await your cheque.

Yours

Jon Thornton
CEO Ariadne Timber

2009-08-22T18:53:00.000-07:00

We are the pilgrims, master:

We shall go always a little further:

It may be beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,

For white on a throne or guarded in a cave

There lives a prophet who can understand

Why men are born: but surely we are brave,
Who make the golden journey to Samarkand.

James Elroy Flecker

2009-08-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

Shopping

Bacon (1kgs)
Bread (1 Sliced, 1 Baguette)
Chile Sauce
Chocolate (Fruit & Nut, 1 kgs)
Diesel (2000 L)
Eggs (12)
Fertiliser (1000 kgs)
Matches
Milk (1 L)
Nails (2000 x 1 kg boxes)
Onions (1 kgs)
Padlocks (12)
Potatoes (5 kgs)
Reggae Reggae Sauce
Rice (1 kgs)
Rizlas
Sardines (6 tins)
Sausages (12)
Screw top water bottles (1000)
String (50 rolls)
Tea (200 bags)
Tomatoes (6 tins)
Tobacco (1 kgs)
TV Guide (cheap one)

2009-08-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

Twenty four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night, people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness.

Raymond Chandler

2009-08-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

Dr Johnson

2009-08-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

I used to finish the bottle in a single swig, then throw it out of the window into the ditch that ran alongside the road. If it made a clink, that was good. That meant that it was going to be a good day. But if it smashed, that was bad. It meant lost order forms and idiot customers and lectures from the supervisor about turning up to work drunk again.

Then, that May, it stopped making any noise. I even took to slowing down, trying to hear the gin bottle ringing out my future as I drove past. But there was nothing. I wondered what that meant.

Two days later I got fired. It was an acrimonious affair, and in retrospect I’m grateful that nobody pressed charges. At the time, though, I was just pissed. It took me a few days to get around to checking out the ditch, and when I did I saw immediately why the bottle hadn’t been ringing out any more good news. Beneath the grass, the ditch was full of clothes. And I mean, full. They were all women's’ clothes, and the weird thing was that in between all the torn bras and ripped skirts there were valuables. Jewelry, credit cards, purses full of cash, you name it.

I didn’t so much make the decision to stake the place out as end up sitting drunk in the car there one night. I had a bag of lemons and a bottle of gin to keep me company. A typical night out for me. I’d bite a lemon, take a swig. Repeat. Fade to black.

I remember it well because it was the last time I ever took a drink.

When the thing came I was just about gone. Things had started to get so soft and comfortable and blurry that I forgot why I was so angry all the time. A few minutes later and I probably would have passed out. But when it came, I wasn’t passed out. I was awake.

I watched it climb through the briar hedge that ran along the side of the road. It looked left and right, peering through the orange glow of the streetlights to make sure that there was no traffic.There wasn’t any. Then it emerged, bag slung over its shoulder.

It looked human, which surprised me a little. For some reason I’d been expecting aliens. I thought about this as it opened the sack and started throwing the clothes into the ditch. Aliens would have been something. Something interested. I’d brought my camera. Sat up all night. And for what ? For this stinking hobo.

I opened the car door and staggered across the road.The rag man saw me even before I began to remonstrate. His eyes narrowed with a certain cold calculation, then darted up and down the road again. After satisfying himself that we were alone, he dropped his bag and produced a revolver.

Shit, I thought, and flinched as he stepped forward and aimed at me. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t make my throat work properly. For the first time I saw the face beneath the rag man’s wool cap. The most horrible thing about it was the complete lack of expression. He didn’t look any more interested in what he was going to do to me than he would have about stepping on a bug.

He fired, but as he did he slipped on a pair of knickers. One foot flew up into the air and he landed on his back, pure slapstick. I was laughing as he struggled back up to his feet, gun waving dangerously, and then I remembered that he was trying to kill me. So I threw the bottle, a perfect crystal arc that ended by bouncing off of his head.

I can still hear the clink of it now.

I wasn’t sure that I’d killed him until I felt the cold of his skin and the stillness of his heart. I don't know why I took the body with me. Some drunken impulse to remove the evidence, I suppose, although why I would have thought I'd be safer with the body in my garage I don't know. Like I said, I don't drink now, and it's difficult to remember how crazy I was back then.

The next day I woke up. I examined my kill through bloodshot eyes. It didn't make sense. Beneath the rags the limbs were all different. Some were white, ginger haired. Others were brown. The left arm seemed to belong to a man, the left to a woman. But the injury that had killed it was weirdest. Beneath the torn skin of the forehead the skull seemed to have been made of glass.

I threw up for a while, although no more than usual. Then I ate something. When the hang-over had cleared enough to let me walk without difficulty I went to the doctors, then to a clinic.

I ended up being their star pupil. I stopped drinking, and I stayed stopped. I started working out, too. And studying. Studying all kinds of things. Biology. Chemistry. News reports.

Then, when I was ready, I started hunting.

2009-08-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

Milton

2009-08-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

The faithful are never at rest. Theirs is such a pressing endeavour that they have no time for it. Fortunately, in their enlightened condition, they have little need of it either.

A few hours of blank eyed meditation upon the recorded voice of the leader is all that they require. It's certainly more than they deserve. For although they strive to bring the leader's love to others they often fail, blunting the truth and the beauty of his message with their own inadequacies.

Luckily for them, he is as forgiving as he is wise. Back at the centre his appointees are always ready to help those who fail to meet their quotas. Under the leader's guidance these people have perfected a variety of educational techniques. Some involve fasts or cold baths or public humilation. Others involve silence or darkness or spiders, or things which are unique to the individual.

Things which are secret.

It is sometimes a hard life, but it is worth it. Anything is worth it to know that, however worthless they are, the leader loves his followers and will protect them from the world outside.

2009-08-15T18:42:00.000-07:00

He who fights with monsters must take care

lest he thereby becomes a monster.

And if you gaze for too long into an abyss

then the abyss gazes also into you.

Fredrich Nietzche

2009-08-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

Blood in, blood out.

That was the way it always had been, that was they way it always would be, and that was the way that it was. Alvin had known it. Everybody who knew about the Brotherhood knew it. That's why he hadn't hesitated when they'd lined him up with the nigger in cell 43/K. He'd just gone straight in and done what was required.

Sometimes, when he thought about it afterwards, he felt kind of funny. Kind of sick. He never let on, though. He wanted people to think that he was a cold blooded killer. He wanted them to remember that fire-hardened plastic was as dangerous as an AK in his hands, and that the coroner had said that the body was already dead by the time he'd inflicted the twelfth stab wound, let alone the forty seventh.

He wanted them to think these things because he wanted respect.

People talked about prison currency. They talked about cigarettes, or drugs, or sex. But Alvin didn't give a shit about any of that because he knew, right down in the middle of him, that the only currency that mattered was respect.

That was why, when the order had come down from the Grand Master to off the governor, he hadn't hesitated. The governor had failed to show respect. Perhaps he'd let his job and his uniform and his pension go to his head. Perhaps there was some other reason. Alvin didn't care. He just slipped the splinter of razor blade under his tongue, got himself within striking distance, and sliced open the governor's carotid.

It was incredible really, the amount of blood. Even when Alvin was on the floor, wondering if the guards were going to carry on beating him until he was dead, he was amazed by it.

The guards didn't kill him. Not quite. But by the time he'd been transferred from the infirmary to the isolation cell, the new governor had settled in. He'd brought his own guards with him, and they were the ugliest bunch of weirdos Alvin had ever seen. Then, after a while, he started to hear the stories. Stories about cons disappearing and going crazy and committing suicide on the wire. He didn't care, but still. It was interesting. The new governor seemed to be having some sort of effect.

Then, one night, the new governor came to visit.

He wasn't wear a uniform. He hadn't shaved. He didn't even seem to have washed. He stank of stale sweat and pickled cloves and Alvin smelled him before he even entered the cell. Before he could comment, though, he caught the new governor's eye and all of a sudden he didn't want to talk. He just wanted to listen.

Afterwards, they went for a walk. The lights in the halls had all been smashed, so the only thing Alvin saw of the guards was the hungry glitter of their eyes as they padded past. He was pretty sure that removing the lights like this was against regulations, but the strangest thing was that it was so quiet. There were no whistles, no catcalls, not even any screams of men gripped by nightmares. Instead there was a heavy, liquid silence, breathless and terrified.

When they stepped outside into the moonlit sand of the exercise yard the first thing Alvin noticed was the archway. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night sunlight, gold and green as if filtered through a forest, streamed out of it. Things moved on the other side, too. Fascinating things that he couldn't quite make out.

The governor smiled when he asked Alvin if he wanted to go through, because of course Alvin did. He'd never wanted anything so much in his entire life.

Then the governor asked him if he was prepared to pay the price. He gestured to a shadow on the sand, and Alvin found that he wasn't surprised to see the Grand Master of the Brotherhood, gagged and tightly bound. When the governor gave Alvin the familiar shard of razor blade, rusty but still sharp, the Grand Master whimpered but it did him no good.

Alvin didn't hesitate. Blood in, blood out. That was the way it always had been, the way it always would be, and the way that it was. How could it be any different ?

After he had finished he stepped though the arch and into the sunlight, as gory and innocent as a new born babe.

2009-08-14T17:57:00.000-07:00

Now if there's a smile on my face

It's only there trying to fool the public

But when it comes down to fooling you

Now honey that's quite a different subject

But don't let my glad expression

Give you the wrong impression

Coz really I'm sad, Oh I'm sadder than sad

Well I'm hurt and I want you so bad

Smokey Robinson

2009-08-14T10:56:00.002-07:00

Milo doesn't so much wear his string vest as inhabit it. Thick curls of body hair and the occasional bulge of fat attempt to escape through tears in the fabric, but they never do. Nothing escapes from Milo. Ever.

His pawn shop isn't much more attractive than he is himself. Apart from the endless war which is fought between the spiders and small insects which inhabit the window display, there isn't much to entice the casual shopper. A set of bent golf clubs, a couple of sewing machines which will never be antiques no matter how old they get, a mouldering display card of some plastic things which appear to have no human purpose whatsoever. An empty birdcage.

As Milo himself admits, it ain't Harrods.

Somehow, though, this doesn't seem to discourage the steady flow of customers that he receives. They are an eclectic bunch, Milo's customers, but they have one thing in common and that is their furtive air. Some of them even go so far as to hide their faces behind pashminas or scarves or even, in one case, a false beard.

All of their transactions are done in cash, and all are done swiftly. And regularly. An innocent bystander, if he were paid enough to innocently bystand for long enough, might suspect Milo of being a drug dealer.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

2009-08-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

There is black and there is white

And there is wrong and there is right

And there is nothing

Nothing

In between

Alan Moore

2009-08-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

" . . . The desperation of the increasingly hard pressed defenders took many forms. As well as suicide, desertion and drunkenness, increasingly wild stories also began to circulate. Most were no more than the usual soldiers' tales, but such was the stress of the situation that some of these rumours do seem to have been triggered by genuine instances of mass hallucination.

One of the most famous of these was of a young lady who the troopers initially referred to as the Tsarina, but later as Mother Russia. This change in nomenclature seems to have been at the insistence of the Konsomol, who were more worried by the counter revolutionary sentiment the nickname implied than the fact that the troops were seeing phantasms.

Whatever her name, the lady in question invariably appeared in the midst of the most ferocious night attacks. As well as being immune to bullets, she also seemed immune to the subzero temperatures of the Russian winters, for she always appeared barefoot and wearing only a negligee. There the initial descriptions usually trail off, although they were later embellished with the usual barrack room eroticism.

There were various stories of what she did during these night attacks, although details of these actions were also hazy. Even Red Army soldiers, hardly the most squeamish of individuals, would only talk vaguely of the 'terrible things' that she did to the 'Fritzs'. Given the popularity of Ilyha Erenberg's bloodthirsty broadcasts at the time, and also the treatment of German civilians by the same soldiers later in the war, these descriptions show a surprising lack of imagination.

But even as the remaining resistance fell prey to hunger and stress induced hallucinations, Stalin was preparing his counter strike. Operation Uranus was to be one of the most ambitious and decisive . . . (etc)"

Stalingrad
Anthony Beaver

2009-08-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds

awake in the day to find that all is vanity;

but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,

for they may act their dream with open eyes

and make it possible

T E Lawrence

2009-08-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

When life is gone, what's left ?

Hunger, yes, alright, when life's gone hunger's left, but that's got no meaning. It's just an animal impulse. The quest for power, yes, that's left too, but that's no more than a silly game. A way for the empty to distract themselves from the whisper of the void within.

So what's left ? I'll tell you what's left. Art. Only art. In death as in life, art retains its power both to transcend and to offer transcendance. It creates meaning where there is none, and consumes us even as we consume it. It makes us whole. Makes us real.

That's why it's a sin to lose an artist, a truly great artist, to oblivion. That's why its our duty to offer them the embrace.

I truly believe that it is our ability to offer this gift that led to our creation. A human life is pitiably short, and most human lives are so pitiable that this itself is no bad thing. But to lose a Beethoven, a Shakespeare, a Dali to such a fate is unconscionable.

Of course, not all survive their deaths intact. Some awake to find that in their requiem they have lost their muse along with their heartbeat. It's tragic, but there it is. It happens. All we can do in these cases is to destroy the poor creatures and continue the search for candidates more worthy.

It can be a hard path, but it is one I walk willingly. And so my childer are scattered throughout the world, glittering like diamonds on black velvet long after their mortal spans have elapsed. They don't all thank me, but that's alright. I don't do it for thanks.

I do it for art.

2009-08-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots ?

Christina Rossetti

2009-08-07T05:45:00.000-07:00

Mr and Mrs Nolan have lived at 83 Accacia Avenue for the best part of fifty years, and during that time it is fair to say that they have become true pillars of the community.

Mrs Nolan is an active member of both the Women's Institute and the local Conservative Association. A keen Daily Mail reader, she maintains a keen interest in current affairs, and is a plain spoken critic of politial correctness. She also runs one of the best soup kitchens in the city. In between coming and going, the transients who frequent it often say so.

Mr Nolan, now retired, is as popular a character as his wife. When not chatting over the fence of his allotment or tinkering in his shed, he is often to be found holding court in the Golf club bar. He is famous for his repertoire of funny stories. Although the stories themselves haven't changed much over the years, the heros have. They used to be Blacks. Then they were Pakistanis. At the moment, they're Muslims.

He is a wag.

But although Mr and Mrs Nolan may seem the perfect couple, they have their cross to bear. Not that they see their son Michael that way. It is just that he is special. It's true that he doesn't have the sort of cleverness which has brought so much misery to the world, but he does have a good heart and a genuine affection for those around him. That has always been enough for Mr and Mrs Nolan, and if it isn't good enough for the world then the world can (pardon their french) go to hell.

It's just a shame that Michael fell in with such a bad crowd. It was all the fault of that greasy haired social worker. Mrs Nolan should have known better than to trust Michael with her. She had known straight away that the little slut was no better than she should be. But how could she have known that she would go so far as to expose Michael to such undesirables ? Immigrants, probably, who had never done an honest day's work in their lives.

Poor Michael couldn't be blamed for picking up their strange ways.

Not that it matters. The Nolans still love their son, and after some initial unpleasantness they have found a way of handling the situation. The soup kitchen really was the perfect solution, and what with one thing and another Michael seems to have settled into his new routine. It isn't easy, but it is neccessary.

After all, no mother can be expected to see her son going hungry.

2009-08-04T04:21:00.001-07:00

Alas, the time is up

With a last kiss, I depart

Are your lips tingling?

Renu Rakheja

2009-08-03T04:29:00.000-07:00

Klimt spends his days hidden in the warehouse he shares with a pack of stray dogs.

The animals are well muscled, thick furred and sharp toothed. They are also as devoted to Klimt as he is to them, and with good reason. Most of them are better fed than their former owners, and many have neat scars from perfectly stitched wounds beneath their pelts.

During his waking hours Klimt runs the Night Clinic. This is a clean and well-lit basement from where he dispenses free medical treatment to the poor and the destitute. He is a competent medic and able pharmacist, and although his facilities are basic he has used them to save many a life and limb.

His clients pay what they can. Sometimes they pay in kind, although they never remember exactly what this entails. At other times they pay with nothing but their gratitude and respect. To Klimt, who has spent most of his long life being reviled, this currency is perhaps the most valuable of all.

When not in the clinic Klimt spends his nights in his workshop, his peculiarities comfortably hidden behind thick goggles and a shapeless leather apron. He is at his happiest here, especially when lost in the complexities of an old engine or the molecular structure of a new compound. Compared to the riddles of his existence, such things have a soothing simplicity.

At other times he goes drinking, slipping through the darkness of sewers and alleyways as he finds ways of slaking his thirst.

During these jaunts Klimt occasionally stumbles upon particularly disturbing scenes. Lovers walking arm in arm, blind to everything but each other. Families clustered around tables, sharing the rewards of their labour even as they share the hardships of their lives. Friends laughing in bars.

He usually shrugs off the feelings these encounters provoke, but sometimes the shrugging isn’t so easy. On such nights he takes his saxophone to one of the jazz clubs where he knows he will be, if not welcomed, then at least tolerated. There he lends his talent to bands sorely in need of it, and lets the dead voice of his instrument sob and howl and wail and if it’s lonely at least it's not alone.