Theorem

Faith.

A dangerous concept is to put all of your faith into one thing. To pour all of your essence into a belief that is so absolute that it cancels out reason and, well, just plain common sense really. I mean, when things get to a point that a war breaks out because someone’s Holy Goat gets stolen away from its greener pasture to the rocky mountainside by a Mysterious Herder-God, you know something has become seriously broken.

And this is normally when people like me come in. The unbelievers. The Concept-bashers. The… okay, so there isn’t a proper name for people like me yet because somebody official would actually have to acknowledge that this phenomenon occurs for a job title to be assigned to it, in order for us to get a name.

Yet, they seem to know who to call to sort out these no-name-phenominonites… I should patent some of these terms.

I suppose some context would be handy about now right?

Well, suffice to say, guys like me end up dangling from the end of a rope because some hillbilly goat gruff robed figure decided to boot them over the edge of the cliff they had just ascended and the last three carabiners that they set into the rock decided to slip out of the rock they’d staked them into, rather than hold their weight. Swinging in the strong headwinds, bumping against the craggy rocks that ripped chunks into their leather cuirass and greaves. The longsword belted to his waist making a pitiful TING as it struck the rock.

Because that is me. Right now. With blonde hair matted to my forehead due to the blood flowing freely from a fresh cut to my scalp. Rough, scar ridden hands flailing at a potential handhold as it swings tantalizingly close only to veer away once more as a fresh bout of wind strikes me. Swinging back into the return, I finally hold onto the cliff-face and climb once more, quickly finding the sure footing I had so painstakingly sought out earlier.

I slam a hook back into place and wiggled it a bit, hoping that it had a better hold of the rock than its predecessor and attach the carabiner and clip the rope through. Another ten feet sees me repeat the motion and then I continue my re-ascent.

A hooded head peers over the edge to stare down at me and bleat… Yes, you heard right. Bleat. For you see, this phenomenon that I mentioned earlier is that if you put enough faith into something, and believe it with all your might, you create something. Sometimes it is a horrific demon of nightmare that terrorizes the rest of the village rather than just your own head.

Or… Like this time… You create a God of Goat Herders…

Another bleat, nearer this time, makes me lean out. I had been nearer to the ledge than I had realised because I was suddenly nose to snout with the “Mysterious Herder-God”, the beast with the physique of a man but the head of a goat, with the power to call goats to the rockside so that they didn’t fall to their deaths. Problem was, all goats now resided on this mountain. Even the prized possession of a Sultan with way too many rupees than is healthy.

So my job?

I bunch my legs under me and push upward, trusting more luck than skill to drive my up into the My… the Goat-God’s head and cling onto the horns protruding from its forehead. Goat-God reeled back, dragging me to a moment of safety, before slamming my into a new rockface. One that I haven’t climbed yet. The wind rushed out of me and I feel a rib crack slightly. I release the horns and slide down to the floor and immediately rolled free across the stone, drawing my sword and try not to pay attention to just how close to the edge my foot landed.

It bleats and swings a hoof-hand at me which I duck under. Goat-God then tried to quickly plant its hands to buck kick me. But I don’t fall for the same move twice. And I’ve done enough dangling for one day. So I side-step the counter and slash its thigh, ripping the wool of its robe. Goat-God cried out in surprise in pain and tried to roll away from me. Its hind legs snagged on a rock it came up at a funny angle, chest wide open. Clinically, I step in close and run my sword through its chest.

A bleat was cut off mid cry, and it’s brown eyes widened in what I perceived to be horror.

Sighing, I kicked it off the end of my blade and over the edge of the ledge. It fell to be lost in the winds, bounding off the rock as it fell, no safety rope in sight for it.

So my job? It is to kill these fuckers. Otherwise, we’ll be knee-deep in ridiculous Gods and Demons before the week is out…

Salute for the Fallen Brother

As I sit in Cyber Italia, one of the two Cafe’s on my university campus, I flick through my phone at the Facebook message that just popped up from a friend that I was consoling, while considering the rant-ish response to the text message I had received a little while earlier. As well as letting the German speech from the two girls talking to each other on a table nearby wash over me. The usual “assignment procrastination” tactics that one normally would apply when they have no idea what to write.

Mid-response, I notice the two on a table across from me. A man with dark hair, mussed up as if it had just been lifted from a pillow was talking to a bleach blonde haired girl. At first, I thought them a couple, as they both wore similar jackets; leather and fake-leather. If they weren’t, the girl was definitely interested as she leaned towards him in her yellow plastic seat, one arm resting on the back of it while the other rested on her crossed knee, the arm straying close to him and then pulling away, while she listened to what he had to say.

What he was talking about, one could only guess at, however I noticed that his hand was moving quite close to his nose in his gesticulations, fingertips occasionally flicking across the tip of his nose. The girl nodded every now and then, shifting in her seat, turning towards him more, opening herself up, decreasing the void between them.

His hand movements became more extravagant, his facial expressions showing the passion behind the words I cannot here, as to me, they have a German, feminine quality to them as the two girls’ conversation overrides it in the hubbub of the natural ambiance of the room.

My eyes become more glued to his hands, I don’t know why, maybe premonition? But fingers get closer and closer to the nostrils with each flick. Then a thumb decided to have a go. Then finger and thumb make a pincer attack. They pull away from their assault of the nostrils and rub together disposing of potential loot. They make a second charge, and then a third. Thankfully, the girl seems to either be non-plussed or to have not noticed, he is still in the game.

Then his finger and thumb make one final desperate attack on the offending foreign object, rummaging the cave. His hand pulls away, they rub together and then, fatally, trails to his mouth and finger scrapes against teeth and the mouth closes.

The girl straightens in the seat, turns away and hunches over towards the table, pulling out her phone and scrolling through messages, or Facebook. As I reach for my laptop, I salute my brother, who fell at the last hurdle.

Writing Exercise: Meta

I walked in through the front door and felt the reassuring slam ripple through me as it closed behind me. The argument between Mr and Mrs Morris from flat five was silenced by the sealing of the portal.

I was home.

Realising my eyes were closed, I open them to the misty air inside my living room. First thought was that I’d left the cooker on from earlier in the day or, heaven forbid and thank God I still had a home, the previous night. However the cloying smell of tobacco assaulted my sense of smell and my eyes sought the source.

In the corner was a middle aged man, or rather, a middle aged man for his race. His blue spikey hair was resting against the headrest of my armchair as he billowed smoke towards the ceiling. He was wearing his usual green t-shirt and blue jeans. His maroon leather coat was flung across the arm of the nearby sofa.

My cat Asuka was rubbing herself up against his hand as he idly scratched the top of her head and his one red eye watched my every move with casual amusement. The other eye was white and pupil-less. The vertical scar going through it the testament to how he lost it.

“Hard day?” he asked as he raised a pipe to his mouth and took a toke. Red embers flared up in its bowl and a tendril of smoke snuck out of a nostril.

My mind finally registers the impossibility before me. “Seems like,” I mutter as I reach into my pocket for my phone. It seems oddly allusive but then my fingers clasp around the cold metal backing of it and lift it out by the corner with the cracked screen. In one fluid motion I scroll onto the camera, point it at the person in my armchair and take the picture, instantly sending it to Alex with the caption of “Can you see this too?”

Reassured by the creation of the photographic evidence that my mind was still sound, I sat in my office chair across from him. The computer on the nearby desk seemed to sense my arrival, or rather I must have inadvertently knocked it, and whirred to life.

“You don’t smoke,” I stated as he billowed more pipe-smoke into my living room.

“I thought I’d give it a try,” he replied, “besides, you have yet to write the chronicles of Gabriel, so I can do what I like…”

“Chronicles of Gabriel?”

Gabriel grinned at me, accentuating the chunk that was missing from his nose. “Yes,” he said, “Riddick got his own and so did that ridiculous place Narnia. Least you could do is give me my own.”

The Problems With Fantasy

Now, for all those that know me, will know that I like to delve into the world of fantasy when it comes to writing. There are less rules and such that I need to follow in order to do what I want to do… Tell a good story.

However, upon embarking on this degree, I have found that there is a wealth of factors that my story telling seems to have overlooked and then I came upon a book that wasn’t really ‘coming upon’ at all… as it has been sat on my bookshelf for well over 8 years. maybe a decade now, without being read.

It is David Edding’s “The Rivan Codex”. David Eddings has long been my favourite author. It is possible that he will remain so until my own death as it was his writing that made me realise that this was the life for me. That I wanted to tell stories that gave future generations as much escapism as his gave me. I had thought that this book was another story from the world of Belgarion, Begarath and Polgara. That I was going to be reveled by one final, one of adventure. I completely overlooked the subtitle at the bottom of the front cover which said “Ancient Texts of the Belgariad and the Mallorean”. I would hate to think that had I seen this subtitle that I would not have bought the book, and that is probably true measuring the amount of disappointment I felt when I read the introduction back then and realised that I had been wrong. I wish more than ever that I had persevered because I found more answers to the questions I had been asking that anywhere else, and I valued them greatly due to the fact that it was in the words of my literary idol…

The book itself is all the notes he made when creating the world in which the two series are set, as well as the races and main characters and such. I re-picked this book up a few days after realising that in order to flesh out my story properly and give it a degree of realism. I was going to have to create a world that was almost tangible, rather than winging it like I normally do.

And the thing that spoke to me most, which would have been handy in my darkest times?

“I was in my mid-teens when I discovered that I was a writer. Notice that I didn’t say “wanted to be a writer” – ‘want’ has almost nothing to do with it. Either it’s there or it isn’t. If you happen to be one, you’re stuck with it.”

Julia’s Adventures: Lock out (2)

“She was in my sight the entire time,” Julia continued, quickly covering what onlookers would consider a faux pas of the first time parent. “Anyway, I went and got one of the ladders. I thought they’d never notice it gone for ten minutes.”

The tale was being told while sitting in our living room. Steph and Elaine, my housemates, were sitting on the other sofa listening and it was here that Steph piped up. “I bet you were well scared of getting caught.”

“Yeah, you have no idea. I was like, don’t see me, don’t see me. Be out somewhere. Haha. Anyway, I got the ladder and propped it up against my balcony. Then I went back to the woman and said, “Look, I’m sorry about this but I’m scared of heights, so could you go and get my keys for me?”

“No way,” I said, “Really? You sent a woman you don’t really know up a ladder?”

“Yeah, haha!” Julia shrugged. “So I had to take Elloise, grab George’s lead while she went up the ladder, through my balcony door, grabbed my keys and came down and handed them to me. Only she had forgotten to close the balcony door so I had to then go back up and close it, shut the door and then hand Elloise to her again so that I could return the ladder.”

“I hope you put it back exactly how you left it!” I mocked, “Otherwise they’ll know.”

“I did,” she said, “I crept back with it as if it was like a completely normal thing to do. So, I put the ladder back, went and collected Elloise and then took George for his walk. And this is like ten thirty now. So took me hour and a half to leave to take him for a walk.”

She sat back with a contented sigh as we all watched the dogs play with one another in a reflective silence. No one thought to bring up her perculiar dress sense when visiting another home, albeit it quarter to ten at night. Nor further question it as she was heading off to Durley to pick up something that she bought on Ebay. The only thing I could think as I watched George, the older Staff than to our Ted, pin his younger counterpart to the floor with a playful growl, was how the hell did she end up in these situations?

Learning Café

Being back at university is oddly soothing after the last four months of inertia. I would like to put that down as the reason why my writing has been so erratic, however laziness and the need of a break from being creative were needed. For those who have been following the series… Yes it would seem that the institution had knocked me down for a while. For those who didn’t know that was the underlying theme with it, apologies for the spoiler.

Sitting here with such peace, however, is bizarre to me. I should be bricking myself shouldn’t I? Dissertation year. Conclusion to this massive gamble I took a couple of years ago in order to shove the boulder into the river and divert the course of my life. So I should be panicking, wondering whether I’m up to the challenge. I mean, the penalisations are seriously heavy this year. Ten mark loss if I don’t use enough sources in the critical peace on one of the modules as well as a further 10 if I don’t accompany it with an analysis of each of the primary texts.

But I’m not. Instead, I’m trying to do the reading for the lecture in a couple of hours and the soft fabric-covered sofas are being abused by Ranger hurling a slime covered demon through its back and shattering the glass of the vending machine behind it. It slumps down the shelving showering itself in Fairtrade crisps that were used as a makeshift airbag. Gabriel is standing above a large beast that he had just countered and driven through a table.

The silver wolf darts around the outskirts of the room, looking for the right angle into the fray while Paul tries to avoid the conflict, bearing the wounds of Waya’s most recent scrapes. The waitress blindly pours a coffee for another student that has just arrived to the battlefield and unbeknownst to them another monster of darkness lunges through the pair of them to be parried away by the Elf King Juan (need to think of a better name for the poor guy, eighteen year old me did not do him justice) and had its head severed by the mighty swing of his two handed sword, a great feat in such a cramped area as he managed to miss the waitress completely.

So it’s fairly safe to say that any hold the institution of life may have had over my writing has now been loosed by the freeing sensation of sitting on Uni campus and I am ready to take on the task of becoming a graduate.

(Now who honestly saw that coming? I sure as hell didnt…)

Things Just Aren’t The Same

“I swear that disappeared when I was a kid,” Justin said over a glass of the cold amber nectar. “And you’re how old?”

I take a sip from my own glass, its shape and logo branded by San Miguel. “Twenty-nine.”

“No way, mate.” Justin shook his head. “That stopped when I was about eight.”

This time was my time to shake my head. “I distinctly remember sitting there in the morning looking at it and waiting for it to go away so that I could watch the early morning TV. Like Playdays and the stuff.”

“Nah, nah, nah. That disappeared when I was a kid.”

I dug my heels in and adamantly glared back. “No way, I remember it.”

“No, you remember seeing a program about it. I remember putting 50p’s in the TV and seeing it.”

Di looked at her phone, “Ok Google,” she said. “When did the girl and with the clown disappear from the TV?” her phone bleeped at her. “It says here that it disappeared in 1997.”

“So I’m right,” I said exultantly.

Although, this memory caused a semi-heated debate that spread to other people, and several google searches later, I was still found to be right by the many wikipedia sources that all said that BBC went 24 hour in 1997. The Test Card disappeared in 1997. The main point of it all was that it gave me a lot to think about.

Although I am twenty-nine there is so much that has changed and going to University a decade later than I should have, has made it all the more apparent. Microsoft have even leaped on this with their advertisement for Windows 10, going on about the different things that the children of today will never have to do. Listening to that, I felt like I had to add a few more things.

Children of today will never have to listen to the dial up tone that I remember my Dad having to bear whilst waiting for the basic C++ software to handle the very first edition of Windows Explorer. They will never see 20 Benson and Hedges Gold selling at the paltry price of £1.80. Mobile phones that you could barely fit in your pocket. Not because it is the size of the Iphone 6. But because it was so thick and could barely handle calls or text and the most powerful game it could handle wasn’t The Simpsons Tapped Out but Snake.

The funny thing is, people complain about the size of phones today, however E-cigarettes are the same size as the phones of old (to no complaint by the user.) In addition, phones of today are rapidly getting bigger and bigger. Maybe we’ll see a retro revamp of the first mobile phone equipped with HD TV???

Maybe Yesteryear

I want to say a few years ago, but it really isn’t. It was eleven years ago that we went as a family to France, one of our visits to the Dordoigne area. It’s beautiful, for any pondering a visit. Lush green scenery, a beautiful river that meandered between towering cliffs. It’s a place that I would happily visit again, unfortunately the year that we went, I was an 18 year old lout with little appreciation for the subtleties that the region had to offer me…

Namely, I was a lout, a teenager of sixteen / seventeen and the last place I really wanted to be was on a family holiday in the middle of a caravan site in France. It was run by the Keycamp people, and the ones who helped the customers and looked after the houses were close to my age so I began talking to them. They were cordial at first, however after the first few days of me hanging around the site being bored off my tits as I refused to go anywhere with my family, they dropped the supplier / consumer proprieties and invited me along to their nights out and campsite gigs.

The one I can really remember was one evening a short while before we left for home. They asked if I wanted to join them offsite and a short car ride later found ourselves in a local pub. It was a low beamed hut which had a bar and a stage facing each other across three rows of tables and booths. The tables themselves were bare, save for the coasters to set beer glasses on. A tribute band had been setting up when we arrived and we were well into our beers by the time they came to play their set.

This was my first experience of pub culture with my peers, OK, I’d been with family and also with work colleagues, but this was the first time that I’d allowed myself to go out with people my own age. (My track record with that age group had not been to great to date.)

However, they didn’t disappoint. It was a lovely evening and the memory that sticks with me most was when they finally played something that I liked, Maybe Tomorrow and I was so pissed by that point that I went jumping up and down the aisles of tables demanding that people clap along whilst shouting out the words to the song and one scared looking blonde woman meekly complying…

The next morning, we left for home.

Slugline Challenge: Needs of the Business.

(Dedicated to my bro Alex Allen who set the challenge)

He was already up and running as the last bullet casing kissed the ground, his movements hampered by the canvas bag he guarded with his life. Barrelling through the first two attackers, he broke free of the enclosing circle and drove through the door to the freedom of the corridor beyond.

“Get him!” came the call and James realised that they were in hot pursuit, feet pounding the tile flooring drowning out the landing of his own. The corridor was coming to an end with a window showing the rail of the fire escape before U-turning round to the right and down another flight of stairs. More gunfire and the heat of a bullet passing his ear caused him to flinch away.

Stairs are suicide, he thought and instead dove through the window, hoping that that glass would shatter with impact. Another bullet passed through the air where his head was moments before as he ducked into his dive, piercing the pane. Thanks, he thought and leaped. The glass broke as his shoulder hit it and he flew through the opening, only to cry out as his back cracked against railing and his face slammed down to kiss the cold metal of the fire escape. He lay there stunned for a moment before realising his package had spilled free.

“A courier never looks in the package,” his mentor had told him, “nor does he let it fall into enemy hands.”

“He’s down!”

“Get the bag!”

One of the goons had reached the window and instead of firing was reaching for the bag which was laying beneath it. Groaning, James, pushed himself up enough to then twist his body into a spin and deliver a kick which rewarded him with a sickening crunch as it connected with the man’s jawline and he fell limp, blocking most of the window from those who followed. It was then that James saw the blood pouring from the glass impaling the suited man’s chest.

Knowing that he had only bought himself a few precious seconds, James grabbed the bag once more and charged down the fire escape and vaulted the railing. He landed and immediately ducked into a roll before racing down the alleyway and out onto the street beyond.

After he had gone, one of his pursuers casually pushed open the door to the fire exit and walked out into the alley, staring off into the direction that the boy had gone. Another emerged from the shadows and looked at his colleague with shaded eyes.

“Did he take the bait?” he asked, his voice cold, almost devoid of emotion.

The other man smoothed his comb over hair which was beaded with perspiration and  nodded. “We lost Morris doing it, but he believed it to be real. He’ll take it straight to them…”

“Good,” the newcomer smiled. “Now all we need to do is wait for the fireworks to begin.”

Family Complaint: Quiet Morning

The sun shone briefly over a terraced house in Lewes, East Sussex. Arthur Banner knew it had due to watching the sun rise from his favourite chair on the porch. Watching the rise of the sun had been a habit of his military days and he had found that after leaving the forces, it was a pastime that he had enjoyed. Particularly as it meant that he rose three hours earlier than his sister Doris.

Doris had come to live with him after the passing of her husband of forty eight years, Fred. While they had never been that close, when news came to him that his sister had begun to fade a little while after the funeral and couldn’t cope on her own, he hadn’t the heart to send her to a home and decided to take her in.

Sometimes he wished he wasn’t such a great softy.

So since then, his favourite time of day was rising with the dawn chorus as it gave him the peace and quiet he needed and the serenity of the birdsong to help him dig in to deal with Doris’ latest war against the locals who were always “trying to kill me Bertie, I swear it before the Almighty, I do.” Three hours of peace before the day’s fiascoes caused mahem in his household.

Being up with the break of twilight had other advantages. It meant that if the paper boy arrived on time for his route, he had ninety minutes of quiet to enjoy perusing its pages and bringing him up to date with what truly mattered in the world. A handsome tip once a week to the intrepid courier ensured a prompt arrival each morning, even if the boy’s laziness dragged him out of his most efficient route to make sure he made that drop in time to earn the reward.

Some mornings, like this one in particular, Jack the postman would arrive before his sister rose from her slumber. He trundled up the path with his bag slung over his shoulder while keeping the next few doors’ post in his hand.

“Hello Mr Banner,” Jack greeted Arthur, “the good lady up yet this morning?”

Arthur shook his head as he gazed at his wrist and the gold chain-link watch with the ‘old fashioned’ clock face adorning it.

“She won’t be up for a while yet, with a bit of luck.”