Cerne Zoo
The grounds were full of cages containing chalk drawings acting as if they couldn't get enough flesh to quench their desire for full-blooded erection as monstrous people.

AMBULANCE CHASERS

http://www.knibbworld.com/campbelldiscuss/messages/1/5478.html?1327392256

Ship In The Bottle

 Published 'Sierra Heaven' 1998

 

 

The beautiful princess had never seen the sea in real life although she did take great delight in its image of relentless power - and, indeed, she traced drawings of the oceans upon tracing­-paper, the flimsiest tracing-paper it was possible to obtain without its integrity as tracing-paper being compromised. On the other hand, she had seen the sea in her dreams many times and its waves were crumpled tissue, its ships pencil points, and the wind that blew was her own sweet breath of passion.

 

 

One day, when she reached the earliest age of child-bearing, her father the King informed her about the marriage he had arranged for her - arranged even before she had been conceived as the child who eventually turned out to be the Princess - to a Prince, a handsome Prince; one not only, by all accounts of gossip, hornier than most, but also one who happened to live beside a foggy sea, and a foggy sea to live beside was better than no sea at all.

 

This news was pleasing to one of such strong sex as the Princess, boding well in as much as her undercurrents would be fathomed and her yearnings quenched by a Prince, one with lead in his pencil. Yet she suddenly feared that any prince thus worth his salt would first instruct doctors to examine his bride-to-be, hence discovering that her own tidal breakwater had been breached in dreams and her seed-beds thus despoiled - that the contract between the Prince and the Princess would therefore be deemed null and void even before the Prince had the chance to plumb the depths of her desires.

 

 

Indeed, her integrity, she knew, would be found in tatters, but what made everything so futile in hindsight was the fact that dreams for her had, in any event, never lived up to expectations, simply involving untraceable deep-sea fishing trawlers that sailed too close to the wind or crewless ships that merely passed in the night.

 

Separation

ODALISQUE by PF Jeffery (Chapter 3)

Before the next chapter. Here's a bonus treat for you all. An example of the author's handwriting:
http://newdfl.bloghorn.com/212
(And not being a fading gooseberry, here's mine: http://newdfl.bloghorn.com/213)

Chapter 3 - Unease

A nice snippet (Lord Bustain again):

At this tense moment, Lord Bustain joined us. Approaching the table, his hand was down the front of his breeches – scratching, or I hoped that he was merely scratching. He took the chair next to Jenna’s – she shifted her seat in the opposite direction. Lord Bustain sniffed the fingers that had lately been in his breeches.

Two nifty footnotes:

Nazemen – an hirsute race originating in northern Essex. Now thought to have been fully human – if exceptionally ugly – at this time they were regarded as one of the species of semi-human tom-men.
Nazepork – the flesh of nazemen, served as meat. So called because of its similarity to pork.

Another tasty titbit:

“It was at the Old Gate this morning. One guard skewered, another slit open from throat to willie. A third ’un missing – but that ain’t the most o’ it.” He seemed to be enjoying the grisly story.

No typos this time! damn!

As well as its grotesque and the sex-spiritual, I love this novel's sense of geographical place:

Jenna nodded from time to time as the cartographer’s finger traced a line across the map – through the Meadowlands, Mankash, Lankash and to the city of Leeds in distant Yocker.

Finally, a fuller example of the tangible fictions now made even meatier by this rewrite, a lovely section for you to read (although I'm not sure, without checking, whether this section has in fact changed much from 'Of Bondlings & Blesh'):

“Indeed, I think that you will very likely transfer to the black line. It is a wonderful device known as a rail way. Mighty steam engines are mounted upon iron bogies, and draw padded carriages, their wheels guided by metal rails.”

“Nonsense!” Sir Thomas snorted.

“Why is it nonsense, Sir Thomas?” I asked – finding the idea of a rail way exciting, in so far as I understood it.

“It is quite impossible for a steam engine to draw wheeled vehicles, Princess Margaret, and that is all there is to it.”

“But my father has boats powered by steam engines. If a boat, why not a wheeled vehicle?”

“I am afraid that Michaelson’s third law of motion is against you. Less power is required to move a body through an aqueous environment than over a dry one. Hence the ratio of weight to power in an engine allows it to move a body through water, but would be insufficient to move a vehicle over land. On firm ground, only the gods may fashion machines with sufficient power to move – that is to say persons, slaves and other beasts.”

With a sudden inspiration, I asked: “Have you heard of a flicker machine?”

“Yes, Princess Margaret, I know the device: it projects a shadow play onto the wall. Flicker rolls are turned by a small steam engine, the furnace also provides the light. Sometimes the shadows look like dancing people or beasts – more often they don’t. What of it?”

“Suppose a flicker machine was laid on its side. The steam engine would turn the flicker roll and it would act as a wheel. The thing would move like a miniature steam carriage.”

“Unfortunately not. The device is no more than a toy. More importantly, it simply would not work. It has enough power to move the flicker roll, which is light – but not to move its own weight.”

He took a memorandum book from his pocket and scribbled down some equations about power to weight ratios, velocity and inertia. None of it meant much to me – Miss Lace’s schoolroom strap had left me with few ideas on mathematics, apart from the fact of its being a branch of knowledge that stung my bottom. My attention turned from Sir Thomas’ voice to the song birds. It was far too nice a day to listen to my father’s pedants.

Although unable to argue with an Engineer in Ordinary, I hoped that he was wrong. It would be thrilling to ride in a carriage drawn by a giant flicker machine on its side. Clement Allan believed in the rail way. Who was to say that a cartographer’s opinion counted for less than an engineer’s?

The room smelt musty, with a faint suggestion that one of us might have farted. A shaft of light picked out dust motes circling lazily, the map spread upon the table was dappled with sunshine and shade. From beyond the window, the sound of birds rose to a crescendo – perhaps they were mobbing a hawk. Standing in the more shadowed part of the room, I felt a little chilly, and thought that it would’ve been a good idea to have slipped a cardigan over my sleeveless dress


That finishes the chapter in fine style. If you require to read more (even the whole finished novel) please ask for word attachments of each chapter as and when you read them. 

 

 

CHAPTER COMMENT LINKS: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2008/06/odalisque.html

Tree Panning

Published 'Geek Love' 1996

 

“Intimacy, sheer intimacy!” said the man who lived in the wood next door.

 

Most of the same wood was later to provide the planks for the fence that divided my wood from his. But that was later, much later, after the story had been told. He had a wife, one who habitually wore large hats, some in the shape of things that were not hats, others somehow more like hats than proper hats – and her name was Mrs Worrals.

 

Mrs Worrals gave the lie to her husband’s momentous non-sequitur. She stripped herself near naked and often offered every single part of her body bar one for my exploration. Later, I built the fence.

The Middle Day
First published 'Twelfth Issue' 1992

If I could explain what happened to me that day, I wouldn’t be here now with so much time on my hands to scribble this out. If, indeed, I could explain the DAY itself, nestling as it seemed between Monday and Tuesday, I’d be a normal man - or a MORE normal man, able to return to his 9 to 5 office job, perhaps only to scribble out even greater nonsense than this I scribble now.

I was in North London for a business meeting, one of the few that I’m now asked to attend (whilst a few years ago there were many more, all over England - but for some reason, there’s not so much call these days for me to make visits outside the office). Being early (as was my wont) and not knowing the area at all well, I decided to rest my weary bones in Highgate Wood quite close to the venue of the meeting.

This wood turned out to be a delightful green oasis of towering trees and twittering birds in the midst of relentless roads and gaping undergrounds. As I settled down upon a bench , I could still hear the traffic on Muswell Hill Road; it was like some outraged (or outrageous) God muttering at my escape from his jurisdiction.

The day was Monday. I’m SURE the day was Monday ... except, an hour later after I had emerged from the secret garden (for that is how my mind had idealised this retreat) and had arrived precisely on time for the meeting (as I always prided myself on doing), I was informed by an officious receptionist that I had missed the meeting by one whole day!



Once upon a time, there was a wood in the middle of a city which, for a specific day each year, had a sabbatical from time.

It was necessary for it to have this Awayday, since life in the city was otherwise unbearable. Therefore, God allowed it an annual oasis of non-existence, where not even trees nor birds could disturb it, let alone His own self-confessed grumbling attentions to its natual processes.

Unlike death, which is probably the longest holiday of all, this day-break into nothingness could spruce up the trees and woodland paths, harmonise the birdsong and remove the litter which the local council had missed.

Death, on the other hand, being the mother and father of a day off, serves very little purpose in itself. It only encourages those who believe in reincarnation to come out of the woodshed and prance about naked.



Which is why, I suppose, they put me away here. It wasn’t because I was 24 hours late for the meeting, nor even for my shouts of “Blessed Be The Traffic And Its Wardens” - but the fact that I didn’t have a stitch on ... even my wristwatch had disappeared (and my nails!).

I hope they bring me some more paper later, since I haven’t really finished. Enough room, after this, to scribble a date for future reference, in case I get confused about days again. (All I can do is look forward to a sabbatical from madness, I suppose.)

Delicious
Delicious is not like abstemious or facetious. Abstemious and facetious have all the vowels contained within them—in the right order. Delicious lacks an a.
I read the slip of paper I'd pulled from the tin. Delicious, it said—and I wondered how delicious actually meant what it did mean. I'm sure it's some lingo thing, but I'm not half clever enough for that. Suddenly, I thought of the word suddenly; suddenly doesn't sound like suddenly, does it? Abruptly had more kick, more of a get up and go. Suddenly is sibilant and slow-moving like a sinuous snake.
Once, when in the West Indies, I tasted a snake. It was a delicacy there, a delightful delicacy. Its dead-eyes stared at me from either side of its head, as it lay coiled on my plate.
"It's delicious, try it and see," said my host. We had been drinking a lot. Well, none of my friends were particularly abstemious, and he was no exception.
I took my knife and cut into the snake's rind, finding it remarkably rubbery whilst with the feel of sawing cardboard. The fleshy innards oozed a green substance.
"It looks scrumptious," I said facetiously.
Suddenly, it leapt off the plate and bit me.
"Delicious," it hissed.


published: Blood Roses 2001

Weirdities
First Published in USA - 'Atsatrohn' 1993

When ATSATROHN requested commentary from someone called DFL in England, I wondered if they meant me. There was my address on the tear-open airmail letter, OK. But is DFL me or someone masquerading as me, or vice versa? Whichever the case, the thought is more horrifying than anything I can invent - which brings me to the place I give my days to, a waystation of time to wrap my space in, called Great Britain. This is the only place with which I am familiar (other than a couple of trips to France in 1967 and 1988 ). Stitched with headtotail motorways, the delightful patchwork quilt of Old England can thankfully still be vaguely discerned shimmering beyond the gloomy flesh-corrupted gossamers of recession. In the job, from which I was made redundant on 30 November 1992, I was able to regularly travel the length and breadth of England in my trusty white Vauxhall Cavalier - arriving early on purpose so I could write my next story in another assignable ambiance before attending the sales meeting or whatever. I don't know what days fill in the USA - the only fact I think I really know is that it's a bigger place for space than here. But how much bigger? Well, perhaps we're the moon to your earth. Come in earth. Have you invented immortality yet? Are all your presidents ex-Hollywood stars with stripes of anti-entropy running through them? Indeed, no joke, Britain's a place where people die. But, at least, that'll help with the dilution of Thatcher's legacy. I suppose humanity (individuals as well as its collective conscious) is basically selfish. And American politics does not escape such accusation, as viewed from here. John Major is Bill Clinton's shadow. But, as shown in The Charwoman's Shadow by Lord Dunsany (an excellent fantasy novel), shadows can cast people. Have you heard of Di, Charles, Fergie &c? Well, they're dying, too. Despite the rumors, the British royals have no more immortality than anybody else here. Even DFL. Don't believe what's said about the royals - if only because the act of belief takes time and space. Why waste time? Why waste space? My mentioning people by name evokes the fear that this column may be past its spontaneous combustion date by the time you burn your eyes reading it. John Major may not even be our Prime Minister by tomorrow. You live a day a day to put life in. Meanwhile the Atlantic weir flows both ways. Till the next time. Plough the space.

HER WORDS, NOT MINE
A collaboration with Allen Ashley



She kept me waiting only because winter daylight was so short. Her words, not mine.

She did apologise between her gritted teeth, and I was gentleman enough to accept her apology. However, I remained irritated, especially when she said that darkness gave her the willies. Again, not my words.

At the time, the shaky logic of her position escaped me. In fact, given her excuse, she should have been early, not late. In any event, we proceeded with the business of our appointment without further ado. She was not a lady with which to be messed. And I don’t mind saying that.

"I am interested in party-giving. There is a lot of mileage in parties especially during economic recessions."

I nodded, still bemused by her turns of phrase. What was more, her manner left a lot to be desired, bearing in mind that her aim was to sell an idea to me. I was representing a Venture Capital investment outfit, one to which small businesses appealed for funds when the more customary sources of finance had not proved viable. It was my job to identify worthwhile, if superficially precarious, businesses and, then, take back the necessary information to my Board for a decision. People who invested in Venture Capital wanted the best of both worlds—security and above average returns. A hard act to perform. And the Board would need every i crossed. The lady I discovered was indeed into parties. Running shindigs. Planning gigs. Providing the disco and the balloons and the Dracula masks and the strippergrams and so forth. Angela and Co., her firm was called.

"Have you brought details of your track record?"

Ignoring this question, she averted her face for a moment and, upon turning back towards me, she had apparently plugged into her mouth two gruesome vampire fangs.

I was flabbergasted. So much so, I lost all concern for syntax and style.

Hey, parties were essentially concerned with the art of frivolity. But here we were meant to be having a hard-nosed business meeting, with tough bargains to be forced. Instead of which, she was acting the goat. I couldn't believe it. How could I tell my board that it was a promising concern, simply on the evidence of her fancy dress? Most of the Directors, I knew, would stand no stuff and nonsense.

My thoughts were even more flabbergasted than the thinker of such thoughts.

Indeed, I tried to put myself in Declan Denton's shoes, particularly, when interviewing a Venture Capital prospect, because, after all, Declan was the chairman of my Board. And at that precise moment, Declan's shoes were pacing up and down in a disused and rather stinky shop-doorway.

The half-warm early streetlight cast little illumination upon his workaday clothes and scurrilously ordinary face. By contrast, he had a good view of what was once the spanking-bright offices of Shark, Lizard and Lizard, Loan Arrangers. How much longer would Angela be? If the building, as it seemed, had been decked to mimic a hotel, would Angela come out dressed like a chambermaid, with a crocodile of disturbed sleepers in tow? His thoughts, not mine.

He stubbed out his cigarette before he got down to the worm in the filter, kicked the butt out into the rain-swept road. There were so many things to worry about lately. Shoe polish in chocolate, weevils in the tap water and the Old Bill trashing all the West Side dens. On top of which the weather had gone completely haywire and Angela had been noticeably frosty whenever he dared lay a hand on her shoulder or display a set of yellowed teeth in her direction.

From about a mile away he heard the klaxon calling cockneys to the comparative safety of the dome of St Pauls and the upper floors of Centrepoint. The Thames had burst its banks again and already the street was an inch deep in flood tide. Angela had better hurry. She didn't like crossing water at the best of times. Denton reached for another cigarette but this time the worm had awoken from its pupa stage and chewed through the paper and impure tobacco. Denton tossed it carelessly into the street stream.

Through the drizzle he saw the 'hotel' door open and a darkly-clad figure emerge. It had better be Angela, he muttered as he stepped out into the rain. Forgetting to look both ways, he was several steps into the road when he heard a whoosing noise approaching from the right like a runaway steam engine.

With jaws. Like doors. Swing ones.

I sauntered self-consciously through those swing doors to escape from the hotel lobby. The cocktail I had shared with the lady from Angela & Co. had gone to my head. Declan Denton may have been my boss, but he had no right to use my own thoughts against me. I snatched the half-smoked cigarette from where I had it poked behind my ear and tried to light it in the newly sprung rainstorm. The darkness was thus touchable like ink. I moved into the temporary shelter of another doorway which, I hoped, did not interconnect with the hotel. The lady wouldn't follow me into a night as dirty as this one, especially in view of her phobia about the comparative lengths of black and white. Out here, it was not only monochrome, you couldn't even get a signal at all. Yet I managed to tune into Denton's footsteps again. I wasn't very far behind—I could even see vague imprints on the shiny pavement.

"Have you brought details of your track record?"

I repeated over and over again the question that had stirred up more ancient fears in my mind than if I'd been a young maiden tied to sleepers and a whole trainload of weird monsters on a night-trip to Clacton-on-Sea coming at her.

I now stumbled through Limehouse, hoping for a station with some semblance to one called Shadwell. I wanted back to basics. Then, belatedly, I saw I, too, was leaving glosspacks behind me, with groove-patterns off my shoe-bottoms. And other patterns—thought-patterns—were off away on their own version of soul-searching...

This was Declan Denton's theory: stuff Venture Capital for a while, he wouldn't go short of a few bob with his dosh. He had to solve his identity crisis by going back to his East End roots. Seek out the ghosts of Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins. But things had broken down so much recently that all manner of crap had come out of Pandora's Box with the collapse of the Sterling currency and now seemed to have seeped back into my own corner of the universe.

There was a crowd of youths one window up from the video store. They seemed unbothered by the rain. Probably lager louts. But such bigotry was bad for business. He glanced at the new releases. Certificate 18 was a short short called "Angel or Demon". He liked gripping plots and happy endings. This one promised gripping thighs and a snappy ending.

There were two Shadwell stations, steps apart. One was the barely populated East London Lines, sort of sub-underground. Up on the bridge was the Docklands Light Railway, hand-driven by computers and as reliable as Arfur Daley's motors. The train was red, white and blue—all the colours you'd expect it to be. Denton sat next to a balding business-man sporting a walkman. There was so much leakage he could hear every whoop and scream of "O Bondage, Up Yours" by X Ray Spex. He moved to the other end of the carriage, waving his travelcard at the train captain. The system stalled just outside Cyclops Wharf. Apparently there was a young maiden tied to the tracks up ahead. Denton joined the other passengers peering through the front window but all he could see was building sites ... and tracks.

Track Records. That had been The Who's label. But they weren't East End lads, were they?

Eventually the doors swished open. It was like exiting a lift into a hotel lobby. Too late he saw two shapes in Halloween costumes with the vamp fangs and stuff. Always touching him for money, rain or shine. An Ark would be more useful than cash if the Thames burst its banks any wider.

Oops, they'd spotted him—but luckily the rain had turned heavier and icier and he was able to dodge behind a low-flying skyful of it. Indeed, each dotted slat of sleet stretched right back to God's tilted palm ... and then he thought: "Angela and Denton" must have been the title. A miscegenation of word and meaning. Also, why on earth was he being pursued by black and white holograms—and strippergrams, horrorgrams, X-ograms, all dressed up as real people?

I was one of those so-called people. After trekking for what seemed hours, I had Denton in my sights. Angela's trial sample of the type of virtual reality she marketed was certainly proving more than a mere nightmare to pass the dark time. She was sure proving that my company's investment in Angela & Co., were it made, would be more than mere zootropes: in fact, a lot more than feeding lizards or tugging mindless crocodiles through bouts of sleeping. I only needed to convince Denton. But who had heard of Board Meetings outside of Whitechapel? What was more, there was something tangibly evil in the air around Canary Wharf? Pixels of snow across the eyescreen. Blotting out Deptford, let alone New Cross. Still, think global! Seize the night! Denton stood alone, with a face like Roger Daltrey's (Who?), a face he had often sported during our company's Quality Control sessions. All I had to do was detrack my Angela body and lay its mind on him thick...

I was nearly home. I had lost Declan Denton in the murk. He was welcome to it. Along with his anti-smoking fags and his one-eyed monster in the tower, I just hoped someone would release the woman tied to the railway line so that my plan B escape route was clear.

I paused on the parapet, feeling the usual disorientation after a VR trip. The venue had been called Angela Arcades, the machine "One Track Mind". I spent half my waking hours there these days. Prosaic thought; the old story cliche went: "He woke up and yes it had all been a dream." Modern version: "It had all been a virtual reality experience." Denton would call that progress!

The waters already licked at the top of the wall, running over the chalked graffiti, "The Willies rule, so don't mess boys!" I had my boat ready, intending to take the Regents Canal through Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Camden Lock right up to the zoo. Two by two I'd save only those animals who had something to contribute to society. Locks of any description would not hinder my crest of the wave progress.

"Hello, dear, had a nice day at the office?"

Already in mode as a new neanderthal, I merely grunted in reply to my wife. I was just a tad nervous about explaining to her that I was ditching her into the ditch water, leaving her behind because I was in love with a construct.

She dished up a chiaroscuro tea. The darkness was the brown sauce and the burnt bacon; the light was an anemic egg and over-cooked mashed potatos. She'd made sure these last were not only dead but eradicated from history. Eradication awaited her, too. And awaited that serpent demon Denton. I pushed the plate away. I'd kill something later on the Ark.

I thought to myself: say nothing. Keep mum. No, forget mum, I didn't want any Freudian stuff in my new Eden. I would set my alarm for 2.31 am, high tide. Just scarper. Blimey, words escape me!

The flood waters were already seeping under the kitchen door. Most of London would be adrift by midday. I ignored the outdated goggle box pulsating steadily in the dampest corner of the living room.

I went fully dressed to bed, flabbergasted fangs and all. “London, after all, is the greatest Venture Capital in the world”, were the words I dozed-off with.

Yet no Hackneyed ending, this. Not a dream, not alien impregnation of his mental processes, not even a virtual reality device, but something far more astounding had invaded his mind: His own thoughts.