Wednesday

Nothing. Existed.

(taken from Naseau)

The Sea

The sea is too mixed up in my memories and emotions to be separate from the land I eat and sleep on. Yes, out there beyond the perimeter it is another world, another place. But here on the shore with the seagulls dancing over the surface picking up mullet and the waves gently rolling over the granite rock pools, I am part of it.

And each time I return to the sea it always behaves and greets me like an old friend. We acknowledge each other’s presence before launching into grand and magnificent converse. We talk about the world, friends, lovers, family, death, life, hardship, woe, happiness. We talk passionately, sometimes shouting to get the point across, so much love and anger we have stored up. The sea roars at me, I bark back, it crackles in response and I thunder with my reply.

I’m only one event in a billion the sea has witnessed, but each time it gives me the time to say my piece. Think of every man who has shouted at the sea and while its reply can be terrifying and devastating, there can be no charge against it for not listening. No charge whatsoever.

I’ve said what I’ve wanted and I’m now ready to leave, ready to make my way back home until once again it’s time to return. And the cycle will continue until one day I finally become part of the sea, ready to listen to the cries of any man who walks this earth.

Holiday Time Again

Hello. Blogley is taking yet another week's holiday because he can.

The Tomato Sauce Man

With the ability to seat well in excess of two thousand people at any one sitting and the capacity to grill well over ten thousand steaks a day, we were officially the world biggest restaurant. How did we do it, how could any kitchen in the world cope with such volume?

It was quite easy really, giving that people had given up eating all those vegetables, salads and pastas a long time ago replacing them with a daily diet of steak and chips. The days of the nutritious a la carte menu had disappeared along with the trees that had once produced the paper they were printed on.

Cheffing, without all those sauces to stir, vegetables to boil, soufflés to watch over, fish to gut, had been reduced to the simple art of grilling. Grills the size of tennis courts tendered by robots, grilled and turned steaks twenty-four hours a day. Swimming pool sized fat fryers cooked chips at the rate of a thousand a minute. Plates the size of tyres were delivered to the patrons by attractive female robot waiters.

So where did I come in then you ask? What role did I play in this gigantic orgy of eating. I'll tell you.

I had been into it since childhood. I loved its viscosity, its blood red colour and its sickly smell. At first I just had it on my chips like any other kid but I slowly progressed to having it with virtually everything, even as a topping for ice cream. When the opportunity arose to work at the world famous world’s biggest steakhouse filling up thousands of ramekins all day every day with lush tomato sauce, I knew I’d found my calling.

Every day me and my assistant Carlo Vescovi would fill the white pots with fresh tomato sauce. The amount of sauce in each ramekin needed to be just right: too little and the customer would think they were being short-changed. Whereas too much would cause the sauce to escape over the edge the moment the customer dunked his chip into it.

Our other very important task was managing and ordering the gigantic vats of sauce we used every week. Every Monday morning at eight, me and Carlo would look forward to seeing three four lorries roll into the delivery bay crammed full of everyone’s favourite condiment. We even had official titles. I was the Tomato-Based-Condiment Supervisor, and Carlo was the deputy Tomato-Based-Condiment Supervisor but most people tended to call me The Tomato Sauce Man. And this is where the story really starts, for our beloved world was just about to go very sour. Our world was about to go brown.

It happened one quiet Tuesday lunchtime. One of the waitresses had noticed that a couple sitting in the west wing of the restaurant were using there own sauce instead of the one supplied by me and Carlo. There was no actual rule against customers bringing in their own condiments but as no-one had ever done so, the waitress felt it was her duty to investigate. It turned out that the couple were from England where the sauce in question was apparently very popular.

Once the restaurant started to fill up that lunchtime, the curiosity of this strange sauce spread like wildfire, creating a chain reaction that fanned the flames of desire to every other table. In the pursuing mayhem the waitress managed to grab a sample and brought it to us to taste. I knew something was up the minute I saw it, as this wasn’t even coloured red. It was brown.

I dabbed a bit on my tongue and immediately felt tremendously ill. Instead of the sweet lush taste of tomatoes I was used to, it forced a horrible acerbic sensation on my taste buds that felt like I was eating glue rather than a mealtime condiment.

I then made my big mistake, the mistake that ultimately put me in the position I’m in now. I took the sample up to the manager’s office to see if there was anything he could do to stop this. I naturally assumed he would taste it and agree with me that it should be immediately banned. But instead, and to my horror, after one lick he sunk into his chair with an expression of enlightenment engrained on his face. He simply ordered me to find the couple and bring them to him immediately otherwise I’d be sacked. What? Me, sacked!

As I shuffled back to the kitchen area I seriously contemplated ignoring his orders and letting the couple go and with them their terrible concoction. If I knew what I know now I'd have had no hesitation in doing so, but back then I loved my job too much to risk dismissal, so I reluctantly found the couple and brought them to the manager.

After that, things happened very quickly. Within days the manager had contacted the suppliers in England and arranged for a consignment to be shipped over immediately. I put in a formal complaint, as we were entitled to do, but it was ignored, as all my suggestions had been in the past. When the delivery arrived a week later me and Carlo refused to deal with it, leaving it stranded out in the delivery bay like a lorry load of radioactive waste. Despite our supervisor pleading with us to unload it for the sake of our jobs, we steadfastly refused. And so that Monday morning turned out to be our last, as at twelve o’clock we were thrown out like a pair of old boots without a thank-you or a handshake for our years of service.

*

It’s now four months since my dismissal, and I’m standing in the middle of the restaurant with eight pounds of high explosive strapped around my waist. It’s Saturday lunchtime, the busiest of the week, and a thousand gormless faces are spreading out in front of me. My demands are very simple: I want brown sauce banned. Extreme demands I know, but since brown sauce had swept through the whole nations’ consciousness, it was easier to get hard drugs than a bottle of the old stuff.

You see it wasn’t just me, there were lots of us completely addicted to the stuff, real hard cases suffering from acute withdrawal. Think of Carlo, he was a eight bottles a day man, real hardcore and I’d recently seen him wandering the streets like a zombie, a man without a name, a past or a future. It was then I decided to do something about this immoral destruction of our lifestyle.

I stand there facing all the diners who I know are wishing they’d stayed at home and had a barbeque instead. Well there will be a fucking barbeque in a minute! I tell them. If they don’t accept my demands, there will be the biggest fucking barbeque in history. I notice a few cops gathering at the edge of the gigantic restaurant and I know I don’t have long to secure my demand before my head is blown off. I summon the manager, the same wanker who sacked me four months ago. He cowardly creeps up towards the table and I tell him that the bomb is rigged so that if I’m shot, the bomb will automatically detonate the moment I hit the floor. He stands there pleading with me, offering his sincerest apologies until I suggest that it might be a good idea to inform the police of my intentions before people start dying.

And then I see Carlo at the back. I call him over but he lowers his eyes towards the ground and ignores me. I call him again, louder, and the crowd seem to squeeze and push him towards me fearing I will detonate the bomb if he continues to ignore me. It’s only as he gets closer that I realise he’s dressed in his old white uniform not in the rags I’d recently seen him in. And then I see his name badge and I want to kill him. It’s brand new and reads: Brown Sauce Condiment Supervisor. He has betrayed me: he will die. Before I detonate the bomb he offers his hand and asks me to join him, telling me that the sauce isn’t that bad and I’ll get used to it, perhaps even like it. I look at him with infinite hatred. I’ve done this for you Carlo and now you’ve humiliated me beyond what is humanly possible. My heart pumps like a piston pushing tomato sauce faster and faster through my veins. I look at Carlo one last time, flick the switch and everything goes red.

Smoker’s World

It is illegal not to smoke on these premises, the sign read on the building’s door as Paul walked in for his first day at his new job. Seeing as the smoking ban had been in place for at least five years, he assumed it was a mistake or some childish office prank.

So it was a surprise when he got to the reception desk and saw that the two rather fat ladies nattering on about washing machines, were both freely smoking as though they were sitting in a bar in Spain. Slightly baffled but not particularly alarmed, Paul started explaining who he was.

‘Didn’t you read the sign?’ said the fatter of the two before he could finish.

‘Oh, I thought it was a joke or a mistake,’ declared Paul.

‘There’s no joking here,’ piped up the second. ‘It’s illegal not to smoke here. That’s what it says. Can’t you read,’ she finished taking a cigarette out of her packet and thrusting it at Paul.

Unsure of what to do, Paul took it, put it into his mouth, accepted a light from the outstretched receptionist's arm and inhaled weakly.

‘That’s better,’ said the first receptionist as Paul started coughing. ‘Take the elevator to floor eight, Mr. Grey is expecting you.’

‘Thanks,’ spluttered Paul wanting to discard the cigarette but slightly scared to do so after his telling off. When the lift opened everybody inside was smoking to their heart’s content. Paul simply looked at them, smiled, took a belated drag on his cigarette and joined them.

‘What are you on today?’ the man standing next to him asked when the door had closed.

‘What do you mean?’ replied Paul innocently.

‘What are you smoking?’

‘Er,’ Paul spluttered desperately trying to think of what his dad used to smoke. ‘Marlboro.’

‘Nice cigarettes,’ said the man approvingly. ‘Nice brand. Strong yet smooth I always find.’

Paul nodded in agreement and then tried pinching himself a few times wondering if perhaps he was dreaming. But as Paul slowly choked on the smoke slowly filling the lift cubicle like a gas chamber, he realised it was all very real.

When the lift got to floor eight, he leapt out barely able to breathe and was desperately hoping that his office would be smoke-free like every other office in the country. But it was not. As he stepped out of the lift, all Paul could see as he gazed over the rows and rows of desks was a gigantic plume of smoke fed by a hundred or more little chimneys dangling from the workers’ mouths.

‘This is insane,’ Paul muttered to himself. All around the room people were putting cigarettes into their mouths one after the other like they were sucking mints.

‘Hello Paul,’ a voice behind him said. Paul looked round and saw a middle aged yet smartly dressed man walk up to him and offer his hand.

‘I’m Al Grey, we didn’t meet at the interview as I was in hospital but I’ll be overseeing you,’ he said taking a deep drag.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ replied Paul. ‘Erm, I was wondering if I could have a word before we start,’ he said throwing his butt into the many ashtrays dotted around the corridor.

‘Of course, let’s go to my office where we can talk and smoke in private.'

He showed Paul into a rather spacious yet nicotine stained office and immediately offered him another cigarette.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ demanded Paul refusing the man’s offer.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the man clearly taken aback by Paul's outburst. ‘I don’t quite follow you.’

‘Smoking! Why is everybody smoking for Christ’s sake. What is this place? Smoker’s World?'

But the man didn’t share Paul’s humour and instead took a long meditative drag on his cigarette. ‘I’m not sure I follow you, Paul. And by the way, you need to light a cigarette.’

Paul suddenly felt the anger rise up. Who the fuck was this guy telling him to smoke.

‘Why do I need to light a sodding cigarette?’ Paul confronted the man. ‘I don’t even smoke. I came here to work not smoke.’

‘What do you mean you don’t smoke?’ he gently said. The man paused, crushed his cigarette, immediately lit another and looked directly at Paul. ‘I really don’t understand what you’re talking about. Everybody smokes. It’s the law.’

It was then that Paul realised that something very bad was happening to him. Paul couldn’t stand it another minute and without saying anything left the room and started running towards the lift past a giant cigarette vending machine.

When Paul got into lift, he was confronted almost immediately by a middle aged woman thrusting a cigarette at him. Paul wasn’t in the mood to start explaining himself. He just wanted to get back to the real world. He looked at the woman as the doors opened on the ground floor. ‘You’re insane, you’re all insane,’ he simply said to her and started running past the two fat receptionists towards the exit.

Once outside he was hit by the lovely cleansing smell of fresh air. ‘Thank God,’ Paul cried out and sank to his knees. After a few minutes he started walking towards the station to get the train home. But something was wrong. The smell. The air was different. Something was different. And then he realised what it was.

Like in the building he had just been in, everybody was smoking. Everybody was either lighting a cigarette, smoking a cigarette, or throwing a cigarette away into giant ashtrays that lined the street. People started looking at him and tutting. ‘You’ve got to smoke,’ he heard somebody say. ‘Smoke-up!’ said another.

And then he saw them. ‘Oh my God,’ cried Paul when he saw two uniformed men racing towards him. On their jackets were the words Smoke Police written in bold red.

‘Oi, you in the suit. What’s your game?’ they shouted as they grabbed Paul’s hands and started tying them behind his back.

‘Get off, you’re insane,’ shouted Paul.

‘We’ll see who’s insane m’laddo,’ said one taking out a packet of cigarettes.

‘No,’ protested Paul. ‘Please no more. Why are you doing this to me?’

‘Because it’s the law,’ shouted the policeman and shoved a cigarette into Paul’s mouth.

‘No, please,’ cried Paul as the policemen proceeded to shove another and another into his mouth while the other held it open. ‘No, let me go, let me go, I don’t want to smoke. I don’t want to smoke.’

‘Shut up and smoke,’ they both started singing in unison. ‘You know the law. Everybody’s got to smoke. Everybody’s got to smoke in Smoker’s World.’

Cleaner

‘I said a man’s coming around tonight to see to our washing machine,’ squawks the receptionist. ‘Yeah, I said the man’s coming around tonight to look at the washing machine.'

‘Oh,’ says the second receptionist completely uninterested.

‘Yeah, he’ll be round at five o’clock, what happened was…’

I quickly pass them and approach the elevator, briefly glancing back to see the second receptionist’s miserable face; resigned to another day of listening to her colleague’s pointless life.

I'm standing in the lift: the Hoover my horse and the spray gun my sword, ready for a day of sucking and squirting. The doors open smoothly into Accounts, floor four.

A room full of men, divided into smaller six-man offices by blue boards and plastic ferns. Each man has the same company issue desk, computer, stationary and chair, only differing by the pictures of women, cars or children that the employees have positioned around them. In addition, there are a selection of those dumb office sayings that adorn every office in the country. ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here…’ you know the type. What are they saying? That the place is at the cutting edge of creativity that will shape the intellectual landscape for decades. Or is it that the whole place is so mind numbingly dull that you really do need to be totally nuts. In reality though, these people are no madder or saner than anybody else. In short there are just a bit stupid. The dumbos who work here wouldn’t know madness if it jumped out of their de-caff-lo-fat lattes and spunked in their faces.

I say hello to them but they ignore me and continue talking drivel similar to the receptionist downstairs, only replacing washing machines for cars. If they are as important or intelligent as they want to appear then surely they should be getting on with whatever is so important. I feel like rushing up to the top management people and demanding a job arguing that I can do it better on the account that I would actually do a full ten hours work without stopping to talk about this car or that car, this match or that match, this pussy or that pussy every two minutes. I can do without the soft chairs, fancy computers, plastic greenery or time wasting management motivating course. I’m a free thinking intelligent person, not some half-arsed overpaid FHM reading, petrol-headed, porn addicted, closet homosexual moron. Come on!

I move on through the heartlands of officedom to my destination: the dreaded Information Processing Department, which in other words stands for the most soul destroying, creatively deficient job in history: data input.

Rows and rows of desks fill the room, wires from the machines slickly disappearing into the floor like fuel lines feeding a huge monster. The pale, withered, sickly appearance of the operatives gives me an uneasy feeling that I am surrounded by the undead. A few look up as I enter without remark or criticism. A faint chatter of keyboards echoes around the room drowning out the grunts and mutterings that emanate from the human robots. I notice a few superior looking busybodies marching up and down the rows issuing instructions like army sergeants or headmasters.

‘If you want to E-mail people Parkinson you can do it after I sack you,’ one of the psychos suddenly says to a guy who looks like he hasn’t eaten for decades.

‘You, Solomon, work quicker; the company doesn’t run on water, it runs on time, water is for fish!’ the same man shouts.

What is he talking about? Fish? Water? Time? or did he just utter the first words that entered his stupid mind?

I start chatting to a few of them as I wipe their screens and they seem pleased to have a legitimate distraction. I discover that they are on £4.57 an hour and if they fail to process twenty orders an hour they're docked the full hour. A travesty really, seeing as I’m paid £5.50 and can’t even turn a computer on.

A lot complain from sore hands and fingers caused by the constant battle to reach the twenty order mark. They seen to be a mixture of school leavers, graduates and people ‘in the middle of things.’ Of course, there is the 24-hour party brigade who’s uncompromising lifestyles fits perfectly with the-absolute-no-brainpower-required nature of the job.

Nevertheless, the crowd seem a genuine bunch boxed into their 20th century workhouse. So what is the difference between these dudes and the dicks in accounts? Surely anyone of these unfortunate, but strangely lovable types, could replace the hard-nosed idiots down the corridor. They would be quite happy to loaf around in Accounts drinking de-caff-lo-fat, even though these dudes would unquestionably go for the full-fat full-caffeine full-sugar trip. I gaze out of the window towards the park that fronts the building. A few groups of students are perhaps grappling with Homer or Tolstoy, while swigging Cab Sav and passing around the weed.

I’m not sure what time the coffee break is, or even if I get one so I decide to take an executive decision and grant one for myself. I go to the canteen and buy a coffee from the vending machine and sit down on one of the many littered tables. Am I meant to clean all this stuff up as well? I start reading my book. Nausea. Sartre. Good stuff.

I’m not sure how long I’ve spent there but I’m interrupted by some man standing beside me dressed in a floppy suit that is about ten sizes too big for him.

‘Are you the cleaner today?’ he asks.

I look at the book, my overalls, smile and say yes.

‘Well what do you think you’re up to m’laddo. You’re not on your father’s yacht now you know.'

I’ve no idea what he’s talking about and tell him so. He tells me I’ve been sitting here for forty minutes. I ask him what he does and he tells me he’s the head caretaker and that he’s in charge of me. I look at my book and think at what I’ve read and simply tell him that he’s in charge of no-one except himself. He looks at me and I know his head is about to explode. He can’t compute what I’ve just said. He wants to say you’re fired but speech has become impossible and I fear his 60 year old heart will give up in a minute. I stand up and tell him I’ll go back to work which instantly calms him. I walk out of the canteen and out of the building to join the students drinking sweet wine on the lawn.

Drinks Please

‘Drinks please.’

‘Drinks please. Can anybody hear me?’

‘You, Mark, drinks please!’ Karl bellowed at the quiet, unassuming waiter.

Ever since Emily had been promoted to head waiter ahead of him, Mark knew that life would always be like this: a struggle.

‘Hang on Karl, I got orders to take out,’ Mark bravely ventured, just as Karl starting sucking on his teeth; a sure sign that the pressure of another day at Café Bleu was building.

Café Bleu was a second rate French café bistro owned by a wealthy yachting family, desperate to get into the restaurant business ever since they realised all their friends were. They had hired Karl Hanson to manage their play-thing but had given him no power financially and was simply told to make as much money, as fast as possible, and to hell with everybody else! Karl, who had spent all his life in catering, had heard these poisonous words before - they were the catering equivalent of suicide.

‘You, Emily, drinks please!’ Teeth suck teeth suck. It was broadly acknowledged among the staff that Karl’s stress level was incrementally linked to the number of teeth sucks per second. A quick succession of three teeth sucks indicated that it was time to stay clear of him, or conversely exploit the situation. Most chose the latter, for fun.

‘I can’t, I’ve got two fishcakes for forty-two. Ask the new girl.’ Emily had no reason to be scared of Karl; his frequent glances down her top gave cause to Emily’s theory that she could pretty well do as she pleased.

‘You, new girl, drinks please!’ said Karl, rudely pointing to the other waitress Emma, who was being reprimanded by another unhappy customer.

‘This is a complete cock-up this is,’ the customer barked.

Up in the kitchen a couple of minutes earlier, the two morons who pretended to be cooks, having noticed the chickenless plate that had been returned, had simply looked at each other, grunted, and sent it back down still without the chicken. One of the reasons for this incompetence again stemmed from the owners obsession with cost cutting. Apart from refusing to fit an intercom system between the kitchen and the restaurant, Karl was forced to buy food that required as little preparation as possible so that he could employ teenage halfwits on three pound-an-hour to reheat it.

The customer had only shouted at Emma not out of genuine anger but simply out of pure frustration and disbelief that the all important chicken was again missing from his Coq Au Vin. He had been so baffled as to how this fundamental part of the dish could be overlooked that he was not sure whether to laugh or cry.

There were few high points to the days at the café, but one was watching Karl, who by his own admission was an awful waiter, serve coffees. When two large cappuccinos were ready to go out, the staff purposefully pretended to be busy so that they could watch him slosh and spill coffee everywhere. The fun being that the customers would complain, meaning he would have to repeat the whole ordeal again.

‘I can take those drinks for you now Karl if you want?’ Emily glibly offered, on seeing their beleaguered manager returning in his coffee stained shirt.

‘You always do this; you know I have bad nerves, I'm on medication you know. Where’s that new girl gone?

‘She’s gone,’ said Emily.

‘What do you mean she’s gone?’ Teeth suck teeth suck teeth suck teeth suck.

‘I think the Coq Au Vin incident must have pushed her over the edge,’ Emily suggested.

‘Well go and get her, I need her,’ Karl frantically ordered, waving his arms in the air.

‘You go, I’m busy,’ said Emily as she waltzed towards the fire exit for a cigarette.

Karl’s teeth sucking was now occurring with such ferocity that if he continued he would soon need false teeth. He needed that waitress. She was hardly an oil painting but he didn't want to lose her now. He shoved Mark aside and ran towards the door in a forlorn attempt to rescue her.

Karl looked down the street trying to spot his absconding waitress but the insane scum of Christmas shopping, made it virtually impossible to see anything except a dense mass of humanity carrying a million designer shopping bags.

As Karl was standing in the doorway savouring the fresh December air, he, for the first time in months possibly years, had a moment of untainted clarity: look at all the people enjoying themselves; out on their Christmas holidays with their kids and families. Dining in restaurants where the owners took pride in their food and understood the simple mechanics of catering. He would like to work in somewhere like that; or perhaps do something entirely different like open a surf shop in the Pacific. He could hear some commotion going on inside; he did not care. He wanted to be like the people in the street, he wanted to be out with his family. He had a wife and two sons; why wasn’t he with them, shopping and having fun together like the people before him? It was only then he sadly remembered that she had left him. Bugger.

He again looked at the throng of merrymakers under the twinkling Christmas lights. He had had enough: he would go straight upstairs; write his letter of resignation; and post it to the stupid owners that evening. That would show them.

He felt cold. Why was he here standing in the doorway? He could not remember. The girl. He remembered now. She did not matter, nothing mattered. He would be free. That is until Mark popped his head out of the door.

‘Karl! Quick. Emily’s just slipped on some water, I think she’s unconscious!’ Karl's head hung low as he walked back inside the restaurant knowing he would never write the letter.

‘She’s not breathing,’ commented Mark as the two of them bent over the prostate girl with a few customers peering over their shoulders as though somebody was doing a card trick.

‘I can see that,’ shouted Karl. ‘Shit! What are we going to do?’ Karl’s teeth sucking had now become infectious, Mark was doing it too. Teeth suck teeth suck teeth suck, ditto.

‘I thought you had first aid? I saw a certificate on your wall,’ Mark urgently asked.

‘Oh I forged that for the health inspectors. Look, I remember seeing this on telly, you just blow into her mouth a few times.

‘I’ll do it,’ Mark quickly offered.

‘No I’ll do it, I'm the manager, she’s my responsibility.’

Just as he was giving Emily her last kiss, Karl’s estranged wife walked past the restaurant only to see her adulterous husband giving one of his waitresses a mangled French kiss on the floor of his restaurant. Seducing them in the broom cupboard was one thin but giving full public displays was entirely another. She felt a rage: a rage she had not felt since Molly Chambers had dropped and killed her pet hamster when she was nine, rise up inside her. She was suddenly flooded with a desire for extreme violence - she was not going to be humiliated.

Like a warrior, she charged into the restaurant brandishing a French stick she had whipped out from her shopping bag, and whacked her pathetic husband over the head with all the force of an entire army. The pressure on Karl’s brain throughout the day had risen to such an extent that it needed only that one blow from the stale baguette for it to hemorrhage and kill him instantly. Karl slumped forward onto poor Emily giving the whole incident a sort of theatrical feel, as though everybody present had just played out the end of a Shakespearean tragedy.

Mark just stood there, looking and wondering. They were both dead. He knew it. It was the only possible outcome: the ultimate ending. His boss Karl, who had for years refused to promote him, and Emily the girl he loved, but could never have, were both dead. Everything had slotted perfectly into place. He could not have planned it better. It was actually quite amazing.

The more he pondered the implications of what had happened, while the paramedics and everybody rushed around him, the more elated he felt. He noticed a half opened bottle of wine on the bar and leisurely poured himself a glass. Why not? nobody could stop him now. He didn't even feel sad. He should do, but he didn't. All his life he had been a nobody, an outcast, a loner, somebody who people took liberties with, a man with no future. Now he was everything. There was nobody to hold him back because put quite simply everybody who mattered was dead. Hooray! Within a few days, he would be able to stand behind the bar with the manager's name badge on and shout loud and proud, drinks please!

The Last Memoir of the Last Man on Earth

I wake up with the conviction that I’m not alone; that there is somebody somewhere, some place that can save me. My dreams were full of awful visions of the future: what would happen to me, how would I cope with this total and utter loneliness that has befallen me. I might be able to shrug it off for a year or two by indulging in all my fantasies. But there would come a time when they would be all used up and my wildest desires would become mere realities. At that point I would be in trouble. Even if the process took five years, even ten, eventually I would get to that point where I would have to face the evitable. And what is the point of waiting when I could do it now, right here right now.

I sit up and look at myself in the mirror. I look old. I’m 35 but I look old; old and worn, but I have to make a decision. If I believe I’m alone then I know what I have to do. If I believe there is somebody else out there, however unlikely, then I must find them. It would be my quest until I die. I would search my town first, then the next, then the next, the next and the next and the next. I would give him or her a name and call it out every minute as I searched. I would forfeit any indulgence or fantasy until I found that person. Then I would crack a beer, watch a film, have sex? There would be no let-up in my quest, no moment of doubt, no veering away from the chase. If I’m to live on this Earth in peace and happiness then I have to complete my quest. If not then I’m as good as dead.

Within half-an hour I’m packed and walk downstairs. Of course, there was one aspect to my plans that I’d not forgotten, so I was glad when I walked into the kitchen and there was no sign of Muppy. A ghastly decision had been taken out of my hands.

Of course there was no note - I've said before that animals don’t have hands - but I knew she had gone. Whether it was to discover her own fate, or simply to save herself from me, I will never know. I’m just glad she did, my clever little Muppy.

And with that out of the way, I had no reason to delay any longer. I packed a few cans of Stagg into my rucksack, looked once back at the old house and walked out of the door.

The Closing Memoirs of the Last Man on Earth IV

I get home and realise I’ve forgotten Muppy’s McDonalds happy meal, so I feed her a can of chicken supreme and she appears happy. I pick up the Yellow Pages and start looking for generator suppliers. Seeing a bold ad for Generators ‘R’ Us, I start dialling the first few numbers and then realise that there’s no dial tone and I’m of course the last bastard alive. I note the address, look at the map and see it’s about three miles away. I haven’t got a car and I’m drunk.

I stand there and wonder if I’m even going to get through this day, never mind all the others. I need a generator and then start laughing at my stupidity. I haven’t got a car and I’m pissed, but who gives a shit when you’re the last man in the field.

I walk out of my door and into the next door neighbour’s house and scan around for his car keys that I find next to a stack of porn mags. Dirty fucker, I say under my breath, grab the keys and leave. His car is an old Datsun Cherry and I curse myself for not stealing something better like the Lexus owned by the toffee-nosed twat four doors down. But looks aren’t important these days so I start driving towards Generators ‘R’ Us and wonder what sort of assbandit thought of that name.

I’m not stealing as the car belongs to me. All the cars in the world belong to me. Everything in the world belongs to me. Every building, tower, diamond, dildo and bottle of beer belongs to me and I can’t believe it for a minute. I’m rich beyond the richest man in history’s wildest wildest dreams and I’m driving a sodding Datsun. But I like it and decide there and then that whatever happens from now on, I’m going to keep driving this knackered wreck to preserve my sanity and pride.

I get to the generator hire place and choose the biggest one that will fit in my car and then drive back home stopping off at the garage for some petrol. But the pumps don’t work for the same reason my TV doesn’t work. But it’s not important as I know there are a hundred cars on my street and I can easily siphon the petrol out.

It’s 7 O’clock now and I’m watching Highlander and enjoying it immensely. I can see other humans and even though they are fictional screen characters, William Wallace and Mel Gibson are drinking beer with me in this room. Or is that Braveheart. It matters not, as from now on nothing matters. After that, I go to bed glad that I have at least got through my first day as the Last Man Alive.

The Closing Memoirs of the Last Man on Earth III

The Closing Memoirs of the Last Man on Earth
The Closing Memoirs of the Last Man on Earth II

The Tesco store was empty. I don’t know how, it just was and leads me to consider that perhaps I’m not alone. The only thing was a packet of Maryland cookies, which I hate, but ate anyway. There’s only two possibilities. Maybe three.

1. I’m not alone.
2. I’m alone and the animals took the food.
3. The store had been closed for a while.

As I know I’m certainly alone and animals don’t have hands, except monkeys, I go for idea three. This is despite the fact that I’m sure I shopped there very recently. Like yesterday. Either way I’m still hungry and so I walk down Easter Island Street to the Aldi on Bailey’s Crescent. If that’s empty, I’m screwed. But it isn’t and it’s completely rammed with my favourite canned chicken and beef, rehydratables, water and tonnes of booze.

I sit outside the store and crack open the chicken supreme tin and pile in. Lashings of creamy sauce and chicken and I’m sitting there loving it for the first time since I realised I was the last man on earth. I crack a Steinhauser and even though it’s tepid, it tastes very sweet. I finish the chicken and crack a Stagg Chilli which I remember eating once in The States as a kid. It tasted good then sitting in the Florida sun with my mum and dad, but with all due respect to my deceased parents, it tastes better now. This tastes like chilli should. Thick, gooey, beefy and hot. ‘Yeh’ I shout as I take a mouthful. ‘I’m the last man standing and I’m loving it.’

But my euphoria doesn’t last long, as I now feel bloated, sick and that intense loneliness won’t go away. I know that whatever I do from here on in, that loneliness will follow me around like a demented dog as I wander down Loneliness Street or Loneliness Avenue for the next four decades.

I shout in anger at the sky: all I need is a… a…a …generator. All I need is a generator and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. A generator and some petrol and I can live as I lived before in my lovely house. I shout ‘yeh’ again and think about cracking another can of Stagg, but decide against it and start walking to find a generator and some petrol.

The Closing Memoirs of the Last Man on Earth II

I finish my second beer and tell Muppy she’s the last Felis catus on the planet, so she better get used to it. Pitying her I feed her a mammoth portion of Purina Felix to make her feel better – McDonalds for Cats.

At present I’ve got no plan, so I open another can of beer and start thinking of all the great and good times I’ve had on this planet and realise how utterly alone I now feel. When I was a kid I always thought how great it would be if all the amusement arcade games were free. As I grew older and started sprouting hairs in strange places, I substituted arcades for pubs but the sentiment was still the same. Well now the beer is free but who am I going to drink it with? Muppy.

I could go down the Golden Lion and pour myself an ice-cold pint of their finest cider and it wouldn’t cost a penny piece, not a sausage, not a bean old boy, not a farthing, not a cent, not a badger, not even a single grain of sand. Free beer for me. All day. Everyday. Any man’s dream. But not when you’re the last man standing.

I discount that idea and decide that if I’m going to survive, I need to stockpile some provisions before it either goes off or is eaten by God knows what creatures might be lurking behind the candy counter now that their numero uno enemy has been wiped out.

I remember there is a Tesco store down the road that mainly specialises in canned and packet meals for the poor, malnourished and deprived of that particular area of town. I figure that if I stock up on enough canned products like chicken in white wine sauce and beef chilli plus enough water and alcohol, I might be able to survive however many years I give myself before I decide to blow my brains out with the 12-bore hunting rifle I have in my loft.

Muppy looks at me again and says don’t forget about me and my McDonalds. I say I won’t, but if you keep eating that shit you’ll end up a right lard-ass. It’s only a five minute walk so I crack another beer and head out into what was formerly known as Bristol: population 440,000 on my Wikipedia page, but is now Bristol: population 1 drunk Homo sapien, 1 lardy Felis catus, and a trolley full of booze and canned chicken.

The Closing Memoirs Of The Last Man on Earth

I wake up and realise I’m the last man on earth. I know this because we feel loneliness, it's inherit to us, and when you're the last human being alive that loneliness is total. It’s eight o’clock which is not a bad time for me to get up in all honesty and is moderately earlier than usual. I walk downstairs and say hello to Muppy, my cat, who seems oblivious to the devastation that has occurred during the night. The power is off and so is the gas, so I eat a slice of Hovis Wholemeal and drink a can of beer, as a toast to all the Human Beings and Assholes I have met.

It’s a lovely day so I decide to make the most of the weather and sit outside and decide what I’m going to do. I can’t just sit here all day and drink beer, although that's certainly an option given the circumstances. But there must be something I can do. I mean, maybe there's one other person left; perhaps a woman of child bearing age. Start again, get things right this time. For me and humanity. But I know there isn’t. I'm alone. Me and Muppy. What a combination. A knackered 14-year old cat and a knackered 35-year old human. The last beings on planet earth. Where does one go from here…

Letter From God

I’m writing to express an interest in your life. I have been recently informed of your intention to give it up due to circumstances beyond your control.

I believe I have the required skills to fully complement your existing range of talents and if I could be forthright, I believe I could probably enhance them two or three fold.

In addition, I understand that there are other consortiums interested in taking over your life for sums, which I believe at current market levels are vastly inflated. Gaining huge wealth in the afterlife may seem tempting but surely the knowledge and security that your old self is being looked after is surely an important notion to mull over, despite time not being a close ally at present.

I strongly feel that the rival bids would strip you of your major assets, leaving you quite literally a shadow of your previous self. They will channel your considerable musical skills into a gimmicky metal band where you will be forced to play endless fifteen minute guitar solos to a backing tape. Quite clearly this would be a version of hell to your refined tastes.

Furthermore, I foresee the stripping of your good taste in women. This may have catastrophic consequences in the furthering of your own kind. Should this occur I forecast offspring with severe delusions of grandeur; possibly forming ‘light religious music’ groups with the hope of breaking into the television and radio jingle market or worse still organising New Age drum workshops – a travesty indeed.

Finally, I warn you that relinquishing control to a bunch of men in tight suits could expose yourself to gross sexual misconduct; an existence I’m sure you would prefer to avoid at any cost.

I therefore present my offer to take-over your life for the princely sum of a sack of potatoes, or any exchangeable commodity of similar awe and value.

Yours Most Graciously,

pp. Son of God
On behalf of my Father Art Thou In Heaven ™

Father Art Thou In Heaven™ is a registered trademark of God Industries. All Rights Reserved.

My Version of The Scarletti Tilt

‘It’s very hard to work in an office where the secretaries shout at their boyfriends on the phone all day long, where the boss circles around me all day, where the radio rattles on a metal shelf, where I can’t think because I’m always being asked, how I am; I fine thank you, how are you? I can’t work in an office where the funniest joke ever told, wasn’t funny. I can’t work in an office where the two people in charge don’t know my name after ten years of service, where the sandwich boy sells only egg and cress, where the cups are too small for a double sugar. I can’t work in an office where I can’t say bastard, twat, or wanker, where it’s politically incorrect to be political, or wrong to call people fat because you stuff your fucking face full of pastries all fucking day, you fat cunt! I can’t work in a place where there is no soul, no passion, and no life.’

This is what I told the police when I handed them the gun.

A Game of Cards

I saw two old men playing a game of cards the other day. One looked very well, the other very ill, but both were enjoying a glass of whiskey. The ill-man seemed to be winning, whereas the well-man seemed to be suffering from terrible bad fortune. In the 12 games of blackjack they played, he lost no fewer than 12; an absolute catastrophe for a man of such wellness. Each time he twisted, he bust, whereas whenever ill-man twisted he won.

Well-man was upset, upset that he was in such fine health, able to walk at least three miles day compared to ill-man's hobble across the road, yet unable to beat him at cards. Well-man loved playing cards and having a glass of whiskey in the evening with his old friend. But what was the point in being healthy if he couldn’t win at cards; his one real pleasure. It was like having the most beautiful woman in the world yet castrated and blind.

The next day he was crossing the road when a bus reared up out of nowhere and headed straight for him. He could have avoided it but he decided that fate would have to take its course. He just stood there as the bus driver, unable to brake in time, ploughed into him like a sack of potatoes.

The ill-man sat by his deathbed, waiting for his friend to awake for one more game of blackjack. Eventually, the well-man awoke from his coma with a glint in his eye; the gaze of a man who knows when he is going to win.

So there they sat with two cards each. Ill-man twisted: a four. He twisted again: a five. 18, stick. Well-man twisted and bust. He died shortly after.

The Worst Greatest Writer V

After 873 short stories, I walk into the lounge as I have done for the past two and a half years to discover The Hermit dead in his chair. I pour a glass of wine from the opened bottle, sit down and read the 874th and last story to him. On finishing I stand up, say a short pray and leave the room for my study.

I have kept every story during this period and consider them to be my finest work and feel ready to make a reappearance into society under my old name. I don’t care what the consequences will be but I’m 71 and to be honest I don’t really care.

So it is a shock that as I’m driving away, a tyre blows and sends me careering over the edge of the canyon and into the depths of the New Mexican desert. There is no chance of a reprieve this time but in the seconds before the car smashes into the desert floor and incinerates me, I see an old friend collecting an award on my behalf. It reads, in honour of The World’s Greatest Writer, who went missing in the New Mexican desert…twice.

The World’s Greatest Writer IV

It’s the eve of my 65th birthday and I hear a knock on the door. Marie, my daughter, says she’d get it but I tell her it’s for me. I’m not expecting anyone but I know who it is. I open the door and invite him in. He accepts and walks into the kitchen where my family is busy preparing lunch.

Ana. Marie. This is The Hermit.

They shake his hand and leave sensing it is a meeting of the utmost importance. He asks me how I’ve been and I say I’ve never felt better despite my advancing years. He congratulates me and says he’s been waiting for this day for a long time. I offer him a drink but he says what he has to say won’t take long.

Even though they never found my body my first wife Nicola pressured the police into arresting and falsely prosecuting The Hermit. As a well known socialite she wanted the whole embarrassing business out of the way as quickly as possible. In the authority’s eyes, The Hermit was the ideal scapegoat and so spent 20 years in jail for no other crime than simply shunning the trappings of modern society.

While I had spent my life in peace and harmony, my saviour had spent it in hell. I will never be able to repay him, but I can try. He tells me his conditions and I agree.

At six o’clock the next morning, the day of my 65th birthday, I quietly leave my house. For all his time in prison The Hermit told me that he only ever read my books, nothing else. He wanted to understand me more then I understood myself. He became obsessed and physically couldn’t read any page by any other writer. By the time he was let out, he could recite every single word, sentence, paragraph of every book I had ever written.

When I get to the square I see the black Fiat, get in beside him and drive to the airport where we board a plane. After 16 hours of travelling, I’m finally back at the old ranch I walked from all those years ago. It has been looked after and when I ask The Hermit who lives here, he says he does. I can tell he’s not in the mood for questions and instead shows me to my study which like the rest of the place is in very good condition.

He instructs me to start and almost immediately I start writing on my old Underwood typewriter. His instructions were clear. Each day until either he dies or I die, whichever is sooner, I will write a short story. A minimum of 1000 words that I should bring to him every evening at six o’clock. There I can eat and drink to my heart’s content while he reads.

Initially I'm very nervous and afraid that The Hermit might not like my stories but on the first night I see a smile spread across his face and I know things are going to be OK.

As the days go by, my old fire returns and some nights The Hermit keeps reading my stories over and over again, sometimes five or six times until he signals he is finished and I can go to bed. He never discusses the stories with me or talks about them himself. What I write is the only contact I have with him and so each day I submit myself to writing the best I can.

And so at the age of 65, another stage of my life begins and I'm happy. Happy to be the World’s Greatest Writer again and that the only person reading and judging my work is the man who saved my life 20 years ago.

Tomorrow: The World's Greatest Writer V

The World’s Greatest Writer III

It’s five years since I disappeared in the New Mexican desert. There’s very little I can remember. As I lay there dying on the baking earth, I managed to keep one eye open long enough to see a ragged figure coming towards me. The Hermit I had seen in my dreams during the night preceding my disappearance. He carried me to his cave and nursed me back to health. When I was fit again, he asked what I was doing in the desert. I told him I must have got lost as I live at Canyon Creek to which he immediately asked me if I was the famous writer who lived nearby. I paused, perhaps a second too long, and said no, he lived further down at Owl Creek. I bid him farewell after another day and followed his directions back home. Within two days, I had packed up my belongings and left for France. The world’s greatest writer no longer existed.

I look at my wife Ana who is cradling my daughter, Marie, and she asks me if I want some coffee. I kiss her and say that would be wonderful and take the small bundle of life from her so she can go and boil the water. I’m 50 now and have little memory of who I used to be. I sometimes see translations of my books in the Paris bookshops but I have never seen anybody buy them. In the new editions there is a forward by Alb Calder, my old friend, about what a great writer I was and what I could have achieved if I hadn’t gone missing, presumed dead, in the New Mexican desert. In the end it all worked out fine for me. I destroyed my old self and created a new one in a different country, with a different name. I had both my legacy intact and the freedom to start a new life.

Ana comes back into the room and passes me a coffee and says she is going out to meet Pierre, her brother. I kiss her and say I’ll be here working on the translation of ‘The World’s Greatest Writer’ by Lee Colt-Bright, the great new talent on the literary circuit, or so everybody is saying. Personally, I’m yet to be convinced and see the title as proof of a massively inflated ego. I’m not saying I was better but I knew I had to work hard, very hard to achieve what I did, even at such a young age. The premise of this so-called masterpiece, is how a great writer deteriorates into alcoholism and debauchery in South America and then finds freedom under a new name. The review in The New York Times likened it to my own story but it could have been the life story of a million different famous people. It happens. Drink, drugs, new country, new name. Big deal. It is well written but by the middle I knew what was going to happen so I didn’t finish it.

My life here is very good but there is one lingering concern that never quite leaves me: The Hermit. Why didn’t he come forward when they were searching for me. He knew I had lived, so why didn’t he say. Over the years I have come to the conclusion that perhaps he didn’t exist and I was helped by no–one other than God or some representation of God. It doesn’t always worry me but sometimes, it forces insomnia upon me so great that I don’t sleep for weeks and have to pretend to Ana that I’m up against a stiff deadline on one of my translations. If the hermits exists then he’s the only one who knows my existence and he could call it in at anytime. Eventually the anxiety passes and I’m free until the next attack.

Today is one of those days and I’m glad Ana and the kid have gone out. Sometimes I look out of the window wondering if today is the day for the visit. My window of my study overlooks a square and sometimes I swear I see a figure, a tramp, a beggar who fits the description of my saviour five years ago. I don’t live in fear but one day, tomorrow, next year, next decade, I know I will get the knock on the door and The Hermit whoever he is will appear before me once more.

Tomorrow: The World's Greatest Writer IV

The World’s Greatest Writer II

I’m 45 and sitting at my desk. Things should have been so much better. Nothing I write now has any use or meaning. Just words on the page; words on the page. It’s 3 o’clock and I’m already half way down a bottle but it won’t make any difference to the outcome. I’ve already decided what I’m going to do. I’ve finished up my business here: sent the letters, closed the accounts, finalised my will and boarded up the house. My lawyer who I’ve known since my 20s wanted to know why all the sudden revisions and was I OK. I said, I'd never felt better and just wanted to ease the burden of a few close friends should I, perish the thought, suddenly pass away. My ex-wives and children will cry foul, but what have they ever done for me except beg when I was up and steal when I was down. Alb Calder, Pat Goenka and Joyce Milburn-Philips-Adler. They are the ones who have stood by me throughout the years. They will reap the reward should it happen.

I pour another glass and walk out into the yard and look at the desert before me. I’m going to leave my retreat in the hills and submit. Out there where there is only pure truth. Where one cannot escape because one is merely famous or wealthy. In the desert they are no perimeters. I’m going to walk without food or water. If I live, I live, if I die, then that is the course I will except totally and utterly. A win-win situation.

I start walking into the New Mexican desert. From here on in, everything will be different. Everything will be different.

Tomorrow: The World's Greatest Writer III

The World's Greatest Writer

By 20 he had already written 4 novels; each one a masterpiece
By 24 he had won the booker prize – twice
By 26 he had won an Oscar for a screenplay about his own incredible life.
By 27 he had married the world’s most beautiful woman, Nicola Spittlethorpe
By 28 he had started on what he said would be the last thing he would ever write
By 29 it was published to worldwide acclaim and everybody wanted a copy
By 30 he was exceedingly wealthy and the world’s greatest writer but he was desperately unhappy and each day he awoke wishing it was his last
By 31 he turned to drink and women of the night
By 32 his wife had left him on grounds of adultery taking most of his fortune with her.
By 33 he had been described in at least one newspaper as a drunken sex pest
By 34, broke, he started writing again
By 35 he had regained his reputation with yet another masterpiece of staggering proportions
By 36 he was again very unhappy and announced to the world that he was taking up painting, something he assured people he was quite good at
By 38 he had his first solo exhibition in a Scottish castle and everybody laughed at him
By 39 he had married Li Chou a Burmese singer and had given up painting much to everybody’s relief
By 40 he had held the mother of all parties and ended up in rehab for the second time in a year
By 41 he had fallen off the wagon again with a bang
By 42 his second wife had left him and all despair broke loose.
By 43 he was again broke and started on a new screenplay about his life
By 44 he had won no more Oscars and the script still lay on his desk
By 45 with nothing left to give to the world, he walked into the New Mexican desert and was never seen again

Tomorrow: The world’s greatest writer II

The Retreat

It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I can hear something. A bell, an alarm, a bird. I’m not sure. I lie there and listen a bit more. It’s neither of the above and I realise something is hideously wrong. It’s a gong, it’s a fucking Buddhist gong, the ones they use at those hippie retreats where you take a vow of silence, eat only lentils and stare at a wall for 10 hours a day. So why can I hear a gong ringing out? Why am I sleeping on a mat with what feels like a block of wood for a pillow? Why have I got a pair of leather slip-on sandals by my bed?

The door opens and in walks a figure. He looks at me, smiles and bashes the gong he has hanging from his waist hard with a hammer. He doesn’t speak because he’s a monk but it translates as ‘get the fuck out of bed asshole and start meditating’.

I unfurl the blanket, dress quickly in my new H&M linen trousers and Burton striped shirt, slip on my new Primark sandals and walk into the yard. Outside there are some other equally confused characters, wishing they had thrown themselves onto a rotating blade instead of agreeing to come on this nightmare. Somebody, who I suspect has been crying in the night, asks where the meditation hall is but nobody answers and he realises both his mistake of speaking and of living. One guy who probably has been here before by the look of his Buddha style trousers, leads the way and we trudge up a lane to a hall that appears before us like a spacecraft with it’s ground level lighting and high domed roof. I wanted an alien to walk out and greet with compassion and love, give us gifts of coffee, cigarettes and alcohol, and invite us all in for an orgy with his sisters. Instead a fierce looking monk appears in the doorway, opens the door and points angrily inside.

We enter and settle down in the hall and the bone-crunching begins. I haven’t sat down cross-legged since primary school and feel my knees roar out in anger as I settle down on the thin bamboo mat. After five minutes I’m in agony and we still have two hours till breakfast, and another 10 hours after that. I’d always thought I’d been a good person throughout my life and so I don’t understand how I came across this ticket to hell. Maybe I’ve slept around too much or drank too much grain spirit or maybe it was calling Mukesh at school a paki because my dad said that’s what he was. It could be a lot of things but all I know is that a fire is now roaring beneath me.

I look round and the other inmates are clearly suffering as much as me. The man next to me is trying to push himself up with his arms to relieve the strain but to little effect. Whichever part of the body you use to realign yourself the pain eventually gets in and doubles it for trying. I hear some chanting on the loudspeaker: a toneless, mangled drone of a drunk telling me that over the next 100 days you will suffer. You will pay. You will experience pain like you’ve never felt before.

100 days!!! I wake up and drenched in sweat look at my clock on my bedside cabinet. It’s six o’clock and my wife sleepily asks if I’m OK. I smile at her and say I’m fine, I was just dreaming that I was on some hideous Buddhist Retreat. She says it’s OK hon, go back to sleep, that doesn’t start until tomorrow…

Solid weeks

BLOGLEY is away for two solid weeks.

Larry Fabulous

It’s midday. So it’s a surprise to find myself in the pub when I should be at work.

I tell the landlord, who I know well, that I don’t feel like it today. I’m not ill, I just don’t feel like it. There are a couple of old-timers propping up the bar, so I pay for my pint and go through to the lounge area to be quiet on my own.

The lounge area is a small, square room with four tables surrounded by cheaply upholstered, leatherette benches, with a few stools in the middle to fill the spaces. I’m at the table nearest the door. To my right is table number two and across from me, table number three and four. They used to do food but the landlord decided a few years ago that he wanted more space, and so turned the kitchen into a pool room.

And then I see it. On the bench opposite me is a watch. I stand up, walk over to the other side of the room, pick it up and return to my seat. I’ve never worn a watch in my life and suddenly realise why people do, especially one as elegant as this. The dial is big and bold and says look at me. It says quarter-past-twelve and you should be at work.

I turn it over and see that engraved on the back in smooth, swirly writing, neither too big nor too small, is the name Larry Fabulous.

I look around the lounge area with its exhausted décor and faded maritime paintings screwed onto the wall. I think of all the names that must have sat in this room over the years, drinking, farting, snogging, smoking, singing. How many Joneses, Smiths, Evanses, Turners have joked, laughed, shouted and sworn between these walls. How many Davids, Edwards, Johns, Nancys, Sarahs and Louises have talked, gossiped, chatted and nattered sitting at these tables.

I look at a painting of a sailing ship moored in the docks and have a swig of my beer. Why would somebody with a name like Fabulous and a watch to match, come into such a low-life drinking pit as this. Why would this seemingly sophisticated man lose something so precious and dear to him without coming back to reclaim it.

As I stare at the paintings on the walls, I can only conclude that the watch in my hand is stolen - the offender either stupidly losing it, too drunk to remember, or deliberately leaving it behind, too guilty to care.

And so the dilemma.

The landlord of the pub isn’t the honest chap everybody takes him for. The regulars think he’s a genuine guy, a real character who would step over hot coals to make you happy. The generous landlord who would give away his beer if he didn’t have to make a living. But I know him. I know about the missing charity boxes, the cheap imported beer, the diluted spirits. Why should I let him take it to the jewellers the minute I hand it in, when I could do it myself.

But it isn’t mine. It’s Larry’s. I could take the watch and wear it forever but it still wouldn't be mine. I could score off the name but the outcome would be the same. It doesn’t matter if this Fabulous character is a murderer or an aid worker, a sinner or a saint. The simple fact remains, the watch isn’t mine.

And so the plan.

I decide that I’ll find him myself. I’ll be the one who gives it him back and then I’ll be able to judge him for who he really is. Until then, he’s just a man who has lost his watch. Nothing more nothing less. If he chooses to give me a reward, a simple thank-you, or even a punch in the face, that’s his business not mine.

I leave the pub and go to work where I hand in my notice. They’re shocked and ask me what I’m going to do. I say that I’m going away and they shouldn’t worry about me. After a few handshakes from the guys and hugs from the girls, I head home and dig out a map of the town where I live.

I’m going to knock on every door on every street and ask if they know Larry Fabulous. When they ask why, I’ll tell them. I’ll then cross off the street and continue to the next for as long as it takes. Eventually, I would find him.

The next morning I get up early and start my search.

*

I’m sitting in the pub where it all began and have just bought a pint of beer with the last of my money. It’s two years since I started my quest and I’m no nearer to completing it.

After failing to find him in my own town, I decided to look in the next, and then the next and so on, until I’d knocked on every door of the small island nation where I live. I’ve knocked on over half-a-million doors and asked the same question to everyone. But no-one has ever heard of Larry Fabulous. No-one.

I’ve sold my furniture, my car, my possessions and my house. And for what? Did I ever really think I’d find Larry Fabulous? Probably not. But over the past two years I’ve seen every inch of the country where I was born, met the wildest of people and had the craziest of times. That I’ve failed in my quest is not my fault or a reason to feel down.

I finish my pint and head down the road to the jewellers. I hand the watch to the proprietor and ask him how much he’ll give me for it. He takes it and starts inspecting it with his pencil-like fingers. When he notices the name on the back he looks at me with an expression as blank as the dusty cabinets behind him.

If I’d come here two years ago, he’d have branded me a common thief. But now it’s different. If Larry Fabulous was out there, I’d have found him. But he isn’t, I can prove it. Half-a-million households, an entire nation can prove it.

His eyes begin searching me for signs of weakness, desperation, and poverty. He wants to know before he makes his first offer, what condition my clothes are in, whether I’ve been drinking, have I eaten, have I got a place to sleep. I can see by the way his eyes dance over me, gathering information like a machine that he’s done this a million times before. A seasoned professional who knows what price to start at and where to finish.

But I already know what I want and won’t settle for anything less. I know exactly how much it’s worth, because it’s been valued more times than any other piece of jewellery in history. Every person in every house, business, bar, café I visited offered me an opinion on how much it was worth. By the end of my travels I had valuations ranging from a few coppers to entire fortunes and everything in between. So when the jeweller finally gives me his offer, I shake my head and tell him my price.

I can see he’s a bit taken aback by my cocksure demand, so I keep silent and wait. He knows I’ve given him a good price, but I can tell by the way his mouth has started twitching up at the sides that he wants to push me further.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I feel totally in control. It doesn’t matter how long the man turns the watch over in his hand, twitches his lips, or shuffles his feet, I know I’ll get my price. It’s a rare feeling to know nothing could possibly go wrong, to feel so patient and at ease. I could wait there all day. I could wait until it’s time for him to close the shop, have his tea, and go to bed.

But at last I can see he’s ready: he twitches his mouth one more time, grunts and presses a button on the cash register releasing the money drawer below. I know he doesn’t need to do this but I guess it’s all part of his routine when it comes to closing a deal.

He looks into the drawer, turns the watch over in his hand one more time, shuffles his feet, looks at me and offers me the price I want. The deal is done. The quest is over.

He hands me the money and within a minute, I’m walking down the road to the station with a smile on my face no-one has ever seen before. I’m not sure where I’m going or why. All I know is that I’m glad that I’ve changed my life, glad to be someone different. Glad to be Larry Fabulous.

Mr. Insomnia IV

I wake up and I’m in total darkness. Total darkness. I remember nothing. All I know is that I’m not dead. I know that because I feel alive. One of life’s bonuses is knowing when you are alive. At the moment I can’t move any part of my body and so I guess I have been lying here a long time. Something comes back to me. There is a light in this room. I remember a light somewhere. I attempt to move my arm and it slowly and painfully responds like a rusty old crane being put into use again. I’m feeling for a cheap, bedside light I remember buying a long time ago. And there it is. My hand connects with the cylindrical stem of the lamp and I feel for the switch near the bulb. I’m just about to flick it on when I stop. Even though there is no light, my eyes already hurt and realise that turning on the light could blind me forever. Instead I cover my head with the fetid duvet and flick the switch.

BANG! Despite the covering my eyes cry out with pain. I bury them deep in the mattress to protect them and then inch by inch slowly bring them back into the world. It takes me about an hour, but eventually I’m sitting on the edge of my bed looking into a bare room with just a bed, a lamp and an air recycling unit buzzing away in the corner.

I stand up and my legs feel like they have never been used. Where the fuck am I? I slump back on the bed. I start crying, tears pouring down my face and shout again only to realise there is no echo. There is no echo. I must be underwater or underground. Underground. Yes, something is coming back to me. Why do I know these facts? No echo. Underground. I know this information. But hang on, something else is coming back. I remember a house. I remember people. I look at my watch, but it’s not there anymore. Where’s my watch for fuck’s sake. What’s the time, I cry out. I stand up again to test my legs. They are better this time. Firmer. I slowly walk to the door and open it. Ahead of me there is a tunnel and at the end some stairs. I need to shit I say and walk to the stairs. It’s only 20 metres or so, but I’m already gasping for breath. Was I always this unfit?

The stairs are just a set of wooden slats built into the wall of the tunnel. I grip the first and rest. There are about twenty in total and I’m not sure I can make it up. But I have no option. I reach the top and there is a wooden trapdoor. I bang it and it gives and I cry with joy. I’m free.

I push the door open and I’m in a house. Or half a house at least. There is no roof and the walls are half demolished. There’s an old oven to my left and a sink to right. I’m in a kitchen but whose kitchen. My kitchen? But I can’t think anymore.
I must have drifted off as I'm awoken by the rain. I’m wet and again I feel like I can’t move. I’m so tired I feel like I could sleep for a hundred years. I look at where the front door must have been and see a man standing there. He smiles and starts walking towards me. He looks kind and cheerful but perhaps that’s because tears are rolling down his face. I try to get up but I can’t. I’m useless. He comes to me and holds me for a few seconds. He then releases me and speaks to me: Good Morning Mr. Insomnia. I tell him I don’t understand and he smiles back and says that it doesn’t matter. He lifts me up and carries me through the door and there is a car. He carefully places me on the back seat. I ask him where we are going.
He turns his head and says we’re going home. I want to respond but a wave of tiredness falls over me so heavy that I can’t say anything. I just want to sleep. I want to sleep forever.

Mr. Insomnia III

We're in a shared house in a non-descript part of the city. In the top room are five male friends: two are sitting on a single bed in the corner, one is standing up by the window smoking, another is sitting on a chair by a desk and the other is lying dead on the floor. Nobody is speaking but they all seem to be waiting for something to happen; the dead man being the exception.

To give them labels or professions is not important but let’s say for the sake of argument that they are engineers. But they could equally be lawyers, or bums, or women. It matters not.

Eventually, the man by the window, let’s call him A, announces that he's going to call the police and slips out his phone. The man on the chair, B, calmly tells him to put it away. Man A looks at the phone for a moment and obliges slipping it back in his pocket. The men sitting on the bed, we can now call C and D, say nothing, nor does the man on the floor we can now call E, because as we have learnt, he is dead. Or that’s what they thought until they read the note.


“Dear Friends,

When you find this note, I'll be dead, or sort of dead. Please do not try to resuscitate me because there's no point. The truth is my friends, I've never slept. Since I was a child I’ve never slept a wink. At school, I used to lie awake in the dormitory listening to the farts and groans of the other boys until it was time to get up again. Later in life when I started sleeping with girls, I used to lie awake listening to the same kind of noises, only a bit fainter. I don’t know why I have this condition. All I know is that I don’t need sleep. Until recently.

A few weeks ago, I started becoming overwhelmed with tiredness. Some nights as I lay there in my bed, I almost dropped off, until I jolted myself to keep awake. Why, you might ask? Surely, I should have let myself go and join the rest of you in deep, peaceful slumber. Because I knew that if I ever slept, I might not wake up again. I would be dead. Maybe not probably dead, but almost dead. I might wake up again, but that might not be for a hundred years, and so this is what I want you to do….”

A few days later, A, B, C, D, are carrying E out of their car and into an old farmhouse high and deep in the moors. They have never been here before and didn’t even know it belonged to E.

When they enter they immediately start removing the floorboards in the kitchen as set out in E’s instructions. Underneath is a trapdoor that leads down to a tunnel under the house. They take E down and follow the tunnel until they come to a door. With a key E left with his letter they open it and enter a room with a bed in the middle. There is nothing else in the room except an air recycling unit and a lamp on a bedside table. The four friends lay E down on the bed, cover him up and turn off the light. They bid him goodnight and get on with their lives, hoping that one day he will wake up and they will be able to see their friend, Mr. Insomnia, once again.

Mr. Insomnia II

It’s midnight and yet again I’m unable to sleep. It’s the fifth time this week and to be honest, I’m pretty sick of it. I thought tonight would be the night that I finally crack and fall into a slumber. But I was wrong and I feel more awake now than I ever have. I feel that I could leap across canyons, swim an ocean, fly to the moon. I feel like I will never sleep again. Ever. I’m indestructible: I don’t need sleep.

I get up and head downstairs to make a cup of tea. God, I’m tired. I could sleep for a hundred years as I flick the kettle on. I look at the sofa and it looks at me. Come to me, come to me, it says. I can’t resist it and I plod over to it and lie down. I look at the ceiling thinking that in a minute I’ll be in a deep deep sleep. But nothing comes. I expect my eyes to fall shut at any minute but they don’t and I continue to look up at the ceiling. I see a small spider skilfully make its way across the surface and know that another night is lost. I could sleep, but I won’t. That’s the deal with me. I will not let sleep overcome me. I have too much to do. Sleep just gets in the way.

I want to be a writer, a painter, a carpenter, a potter, a sailor. I want to do everything and I will not sleep until I have done them all. ALL. I get up and prepare tea. It’s about one o’clock and time for the late night movie on the telly. Yes, I know I should be doing things, but I need to think about them first. After the movie then I will work. Work as hard as ever. But I will not sleep.

Mr. Insomnia

It’s midnight and yet again I am unable to sleep. It’s the fourth time this week and to be honest, I’m pretty sick of it. No sleep for four days and counting. I look across at the window and resign myself to the dawn like a dying man waits for his grave. The only thing I haven’t tried is forced unconsciousness. But I’m too much of a coward for that. I’m not sure how I get through the day, but I tell myself it could be worse. I could be dead.

I get up and head downstairs to make a cup of tea. It’s got caffeine in it but it doesn’t matter anymore. I flick the switch of the kettle and wait for the water to boil. I’ve done this three nights running and it seems to take longer and longer each night. I check the switch is on as nothing seems to be happening but eventually I hear a slight hissing noise and we’re underway. After a couple of ice-ages of waiting, I finally make my tea - tesco own bran and 20 club card points - and take it into the garden and roll a cigarette. It’s the most peaceful part of the day - the night. My neighbourhood is pretty quiet and tranquil in the day, but at night, it feels virtually dead. Dead and lovely. I smoke my cigarette and sip my tea. I feel tired now, but I know as soon as I hit the bed, I will awake. It’s the same every night and I’m wondering if I can beat my own pervious record of six nights without a wink. I could get drunk and that would solve it, but I gave it up a long time ago and don’t want to revisit that particular part of hell again.

It was alright when I had a girlfriend; I slept like a baby. It was only when she started talking about kids that I started getting more fitful in my slumber. Some nights I would wake thinking I could hear crying from the other room. I’ve watched films, TV, porn. Read books, magazine, newspapers. I’ve walked around the block so many times, there is my own trail marked on the tarmac. I’ve taken baths, done press-ups and sits-up until my back is broken. I’ve done yoga until I can yoga no more. But as soon as I go into the bedroom I’m as awake as a new born child. I could kill myself but as i have said, I'm a coward. In any case, I’m off on holiday soon and I don’t want to miss that.

I’m going cycling with my friend to Japan. Hopefully I’d sleep then. When I’m in Japan.

The Visit - Part II

(To see The Visit - Part I - click)

My friend is in my lounge tied up on the floor. I have no idea why he has done this, except to amuse himself. I’ve always regarded him as a rather ill man and this act has certainly confirmed it. I only left him to feed my cat for one night and look what has happened. I don’t know how long he has been there but I’m thinking that perhaps I should leave him there a bit longer.

I stop typing for a minute and get the bottle of Brandy from the secret cupboard my friend doesn’t know exists. I pour a couple of fingers and resume writing. I hear him call out from the room asking me to untie him. My gut response is to help my friend, but why should I after all he has done to me. What if I just left him. He made a pretty poor show of feeding my cat, so perhaps it would be a lesson. I pour another Brandy and smile at the thought of him lying there with me drinking Brandy in front of him, eating his favourite meal of ham and eggs. Bringing gorgeous women back and fucking them in front of him. Just to teach him a lesson.

I’ve known him since our Falmouth days and I’ve never quite worked him out. An extreme personality with extreme tastes in sex, drink and life. Somebody who wouldn’t think twice about stealing from a friend, so long as he didn’t go without. A selfish asshole at times, but also frustratingly likable. Somebody who you could always go for a beer with and be guaranteed intense, stimulating conversation. Fuelled by acres of booze, anything could happen and normally would. But there is a limit to any friendship. When one over steps the mark and simply becomes a pain in the arse, maybe it’s time to put the boot in.

I finish my Brandy and walk into the lounge to tell him that I’m going out for the night and joke that he can help himself to anything he likes. He calls me a cunt. I walk out of the room and down the road for a big crazy night without him.

*

I curse my friend as I watch him leave the flat, leaving me still tied up on the floor. I can’t understand what has got into him and start wondering what he wrote on the typewriter. Something crude and daft I guess. He can write for sure, but not as good as me. I’m refined and stylish while he just charges onto the paper like a bull, quickly scrawling something down without thinking where it will lead. I bet he’s written about me: something insulting I bet.

I’m pissed off now and want to be free. No longer can I just lie there and relax after seeing him walk out. I start thrashing my arms up and down in an attempt to loosen the ties, but they’re too expertly done. I know it was my friend who did this. It was my friend who charged me and then hit me while I sat at his typewriter.

I met him during our year in Falmouth and instantly took a liking to him. Although not for his charm; more his remoteness. He would appear in your life for a few days and then, without a word, disappear like a hermit back to his cave. He was half-man half-ghost, a person but somebody else as well, something undefined and unreal.

After Falmouth we found ourselves in Bristol, him with his wife, me with mine. We wanted to be writers but the more we talked about it the less we actually wrote, until it became a standing joke about staring into the blank page. We liked the idea of being writers: the lifestyle, the status, the madness, but without the writing. We were afraid that anything we wrote would be rubbish and so far short of the quality of our idols that it was pointless to even try.

And so it seems strange that we are writing this piece now. I’ve written half and he’s written half. He’s out getting smashed and I’m nailed to the floor of his lounge. I start struggling again. I have to finish the piece. I struggle some more and more and gradually I feel the ties becoming loose. Looser and looser they become until BANG! I’m free.

I immediately get up and charge into the kitchen and start reading what he has written:

“My friend is in my lounge tied up on the floor. I have no idea why he has done this, except to amuse himself..."

What a bastard! I’ve never stolen anything from him. Maybe a few things but nothing of any value. A few pounds, if that. And if anybody’s ill, it’s him. And I don’t think we were that good friends either. And he can’t drink for anybody’s money. And he’s a bastard. A real bastard.

I come to the conclusion that he definitely tied me up and then left me there to die. I feel the rage erupt and look around and see the cat. That bastard cat. The Fucker. I grab it but she squirms away and out of the door before I have a chance to do it in. I’m pretty fucking angry now and quickly take a long pull on my friend’s Brandy to calm myself. I sit down at the typewriter and stare at the page. I don’t know how to finish it. I’ve gone totally blank. Should I kill him or should I kill myself. Should I find the cat and kill that instead. I could finish it a million different ways but I can’t do it. But it’s OK, at least we’ve written something. We’ve lost our friendship but at least it’s recorded on paper for all to see. I take another swig of Brandy and type the last two words and leave the flat for the last time.

‘THE END’

The Bed

It’s something-o’clock in the morning and I’m swimming in my bed. Rivulets of sweat pour down my brow, run down my cheek and onto my old, worn pillow. My chest is wheezing up and down as my pores pump out the mildly odourous liquid from deep within my body. I’m trying to keep afloat but I’m sinking fast into the deep, dark sea I’ve created for myself. I could easily jump out on another occasion, but tonight I’m trapped, thrashing about under my duvet.

Maybe I’ve hit that ten thousandth bottle of wine, and my body is rebelling against the liquor with force. Perhaps, the emotional strain of the past few weeks is reprogramming my mind to be a more reasonable and sensitive person. It could simply be a bug or too much salt or garlic. A bad nightmare or an erotic dream gone too far.

I’m awake but I’m not. I’m here in my terraced house in Bristol, but I could be anywhere. I’m 35 years old, but I could be four. I work in a pub, but I could be a king. I was born in Durham, but I could have been born on the Moon. I’ve been with lots of girls, but I could have been with none. I’m Philip J Ogley the Second and Three-quarters, but I could be Samantha Fox. All I know is that I’ll wake up on Monday morning with the cold light of day filtering through my cornflower coloured curtains and I’ll be back on dry land once more.

But for now it’s a battle for survival in my imaginary ocean and there are decisions to be made: sink or swim, sink or swim, sink or swim. Swim.

The Visit

It’s 3.30 in the afternoon when I walk into my friend’s flat to feed his cat. I walk around the flat for a few minutes to get my bearings and to see if there is anything to steal. They’re poor so I abandon my search and instead look for alcohol, but find none, much to my disappointment. There’s a typewriter on the table and I decide to start writing. After about ten minutes I stop and start looking for the fish to feed the cat with, but find only pasta sauce in the fridge and some milk. The cat comes bounding in from God knows where and demands food. WHERE’S THE FISH I scream at the fucker and she tells me it’s in the fridge. I check again and it isn’t so I sit down and start typing some more. The cat doesn’t like this and demands fish. I ignore her. The next thing I know I wake up on the floor in the lounge.

I look across to my left and see the cat curled up on the sofa. I presume it’s dead from starvation but I have more pressing matters to attend to. Mainly, why am I tied up on the floor and how? Both my arms and legs are securely fastened and all I can do is raise my head to see around the room. Whoever did this, knew how to tie knots and must have been trained. I can therefore discount the cat, but that’s as far as I get. My friend is in Devon and so is his wife, so that rules them out. In addition, they have few friends and even fewer enemies. And then to my surprise, my friend walks in and says why haven’t I fed the cat. I reply it’s because I’m tied up on the floor of his lounge and ask him if he did it. He says I’m a sick fuck to think that and disappears into the kitchen.

Strangely enough I feel quite relaxed. I can’t do anything so there is no point in trying. This is what it must feel like to be very ill, incapacitated, or even dead. I don’t mind it and look up at the ceiling wondering about what might happen next and how. I’m terrified but quite excited at the same time. For once in my life there is no plan, no tomorrow, hour or even minute. I’m at the hands of somebody else’s plans and desires.

About an hour later my friend arrives back in the room holding the piece I was working on earlier. Why did you call my cat a fucker he demands, holding up the piece? I apologise and explain that I couldn’t find the fish. And then I have an idea and ask him to read from the bit where I sit down at the typewriter for the second time.

“…I start typing but am distracted when I hear a window smash in the lounge. I look round quickly only to see a figure in black charging towards me. He hits me with a short truncheon-like stick and I fall to the floor unconscious. The man drags me into the living room and expertly ties me up. He then ransacks the room for valuables but finds nothing. If he hadn’t had hit me, I could have told him and saved him the trouble. He leaves the house by the window leaving me tied up on the floor. I look across to my left…”

I stop my friend and tell him that I know the rest. He stops reading and I ask him what happens now. He says he doesn’t know and returns to the kitchen where I hear him feed the piece of paper back into the machine and starts typing. I lie there waiting to see what's going to happen.