ALTERED STATE 

I hate mummy and daddy
I wish they would fall down a hole 
They got angry and broke my doll 
Mummy and daddy always angry with me 
Because I wasn’t s’posed to exist
I can never be me, there isn’t a me
If I weren’t here, would I ever be missed? 
And they hit me in my face 

I hate mummy and daddy
Only in anger they know that I’m here 
Once I wanted their hugs around me 
But they’ve never been able to care 
There’s nothing inside me 
Because they’ve nothing to share 
So what can I possibly be
And they hit me in my face  

I hate mummy and daddy
Every day passes the same
Four years old and filled with pain 
Mummy and daddy shouting again and again 
They hurt each other and mummy lays down 
With red all over her gown
Daddy cries out and hides his face 
Although he thinks he bears the crown
In anguish, he knows he loses the race
And they hit me in my face 

I hate mummy and daddy
I’ve been bad, shhhhh – can’t tell!
I took mummy’s big knife from the pot 
Stabbed them ‘til they stopped
I shall leave them the way that they fell 
Wheezing a final dead breath 
Funny I feel nothing of shame 
That I care not for their death 
Blank, unfeeling I carry no blame 
Now they can’t hit me in my face 

No need now to hate mummy and daddy 
They’re dead but taught me a lesson for life 
That hate is good and sharp as a knife
A future for me loveless and careless
A life as cold as can be
Love and emotions are worthless
Ha, no special friends for me!
When I’m grown people won’t hurt me
If they do the face of my deadness
Will be the last thing ever they see 
There’s nothing left to hit in my face. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

THE LEFT SIDE OF THE BED 

I sleep on the left side of the bed 
Have done since we wed 
Warmth and comfort on my right 
Reassuring through the night 
The perfection of my wife 
Turned existence into life. 
Then came an unthinking day 

A fleeting fancy took me away 
Thought the other a brighter star 
Who withered to bitterness and tar. 

Gone then was my wife 

Lost, the perfection of my life 
The decision made, so wrong 
Wept in silent hell for so long 
Two as one we were dead 
Nothing left to be said 
Emptiness on my right 

Long gone my comfort of the night 
Still I hear her voice inside my head 
Accusing me across the bed. 

Time is shaded black without my wife 
Wasted years tore my pathetic life 
Alone at the end and in no doubt 
Weakly breathing in 

Swiftly breathing out 

Failed, lost and long un-dead 

The final dread takes me, my tale is read 
Weary and lonely I die away 
Thankful for this to be my last day 
On the left side of the bed. 

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VISITOR 

I killed my wife, you ask why? Because I wanted to. I’m not going to excuse myself just because I had a reason. 

You prison do-gooders visit too often. Admittedly some of the weepers incarcerated in this place might like that but I don’t, so why do you insist on turning up on my cell doorstep? You always ask the same questions, sometimes in a different way, but ultimately it’s the same every time. I don’t have answers for you, not even if the warden ordered me to answer. 

So I won’t answer your questions, instead I’ll tell you something and then maybe you’ll sod off and leave me alone in future. 

I’m in here for a long time, maybe until I die and I like it that way. I’m actually happy here, I enjoy being institutionalised. This place is away from out there where the people like you are, people with agendas, people intent on upsetting me, which is a bad thing. For them, for you maybe... no don’t get excited, you’re safe enough with me. Just teasing. 

My wife upset me – what? Yes, obviously, the woman I killed... yes, I drowned her, held her head under the bath water until the bubbles and choking noises stopped... no she couldn’t struggle much, I’d tied her hands to her ankles. Ha, I see in your face that works for you. I’m in prison and yet you’re the ghoul! Well I never. Guess that’s just the way the justice biscuit crumbles. Don’t interrupt me again, I don’t like it. 

So, as I was saying before you lit up like a teenage girl with wet knickers on her first Christmas fumble, my wife upset me with her agenda, her and that loopy accountant Shitless Richard she liked fucking so much. He’s still alive for the time being, his mind in a bad way from what I’ve heard. Seems he’s terrified of me and that’s okay. The mental breakdown got to him before I was arrested, otherwise I would have got him as well. 

Understand, I have no malice, not any more. Everything in me changed after what my wife did and to be honest, when I killed her I killed the old me, which is probably a lucky thing for Shitless. He’s got a future in a straight- jacket and I kind of like that. 

The fools out there, they’re like the wallies driving their cars with full beam headlamps on a blistering day in July – first class wankers, third class people. Stupid with no idea how their switches work. The switches in their brains are just the same, on or off at all the wrong times. I know you’re the same, you’re one of them. Ssssh, I haven’t finished. What did I say about interrupting me? 

I used to be like all of you but I’m so glad I changed myself, even if it was a little dramatic. In here I’ve got a nice straight line all the way to the end and I fully understand myself and my situation. I have more freedom in my thoughts than you can imagine, I have the time to understand things. Believe it or not, that’s true living. You out there though, your lives are all over the place. And the way you think... so narrow, so unimaginative, from the day you are born you’re clamped into routines. You don't know it and don’t care that you don’t know it, you’re ignorant of your own bars. I’m different now. 

You can piss off back to your piddly little goody-twoshoes life now, do not bother me again. I know why I’m in this prison. Do you know why you are?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PSYCHO 1967 

HaHa
Laughed the clown!
Drown drown
Anyone thinks I’m happy
Is completely sappy
No chance to be the best
Life too stale to invest
What you can’t figure 
Trigger trigger
It was different when we started 
Energetically hearted
But you made me grow to hate you 
For doing what you do
Grind my life down like a miller 
Killer kill her
Patience tested to the end 
Premeditated
What I intended
Nothing of you left but bone 
Soon that also will be gone 
And the clown laughed 
HAHAHAHAHAHA! 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DENNY AND MARY 

[POLICE RECORDS DEPT CONTACT NUMBER ON FILE FOR FURTHER INFO]
[TAPE PRESUMABLY EDITED AT SCENE TO REMOVE VOICE OF SECOND PARTY AND DELIBERATELY LEFT THERE, REASON UNKNOWN] 
[RUN TAPE] 

My name is... well young lady, thanks for the bottle and yes I think I will open it now, but no actually I’m buggered if I’ll tell you my name for the tape. Obviously you know who I am but I want to at least try to keep some distance, Bloody Mary might still be out there somewhere. I’ll do this interview, after all it has been a long time and the money’ll be dead handy, but even at my age I still need some anonymity especially after dobbing her in way back when. 
Okay, I’ll start off with how Denny was then tell you a bit about Mary and what happened. 

I have absolutely no idea how me and Denny stayed friends after school ’cos all he did was ruin my life. His dad was a farmer and a bit strict, my parents were boring. We ran away from our homes and I suppose once I was in with him, I couldn’t find a way out. 

Some folk have stretchy boundaries. Denny was one of those, never knew when or how to stop. As whatsisface said, “a man’s got to know his limitations” – Dirty Harry, that was it – he was a fluffy Disney cartoon compared to Denny, even when we were at school. If I wanted to blag an apple, I’d scrump a few off the market barrow and leg it. If Denny wanted an apple, he’d intercept the farmer’s delivery lorry on the motorway by blowing out a tyre with his dad’s shotgun (that he stole from his dad after chinning him unconscious), wait until the lorry crashed, clobber the driver a whole lot more than he needed to, eat one fucking apple and toss all the rest down a drain. And while that’s not necessarily an entirely made up story, it’s certainly descriptive of the poor little prick. In my mind I’ve been calling him a prick ever since he died. 

Anyway, some time during our late teens we were staying in a shithole in Bethnal Green. Denny was taking a well-earned lunch break from his occupation of robbing tourists and pensioners when he saw Mary in a pub and they got chatty. Older by ten years and a prime example of feminine fuckbrain, her occupation involved tossers with strange tastes. She wasn’t gorgeous, just normal but pretty enough with a decent figure. At first glance she looked the marryable type if you know what I mean, trouble is she already had plenty of form and under the smile she was a loony bonkers bint. Fuck knows what she saw in Denny, him being younger probably, but they started something. 

Oh yes, they certainly did. I’m going to shock you now with an example of their relationship: in bed he let Mary do what she enjoyed. She wouldn’t release Denny’s head from between her thighs until he was struggling, suffocating and even then not until she’d felt his tongue tickling her arsehole and made a creamy mess on the rest of his face. I know bec ause I accidentally saw it, like I was hypnotised, one day when their room door was half open and she bloody well knew I was in the hallway! Glad it wasn’t me gasping for air or drowning. Mary let him bang her every once in a while as a little reward but nine and a half times out of ten it was all about Mary. 

Not so shocked, okay very modern of you. At that time, we were all sharing a derelict house. After that viewing, even today I can’t hear or read the word ‘squat’ without wanting to clean my gob out with acid and I wasn't even her victim, not like that anyway. But Denny, well he lapped it up. Sorry, that just kinda slithered out. Heh. 

My point is, Mary ruled the roost where Denny was concerned and she was the one who came up with the ideas for most of our capers. At first it wasn’t so bad. She had a hold on Denny – umm yeah, sorry again – which curbed some of his more energetic inclinations vis-a-vis his enthusiasm for extreme violence. I wasn’t too keen on a lot of our work, but Denny talked me into things and Mary’d sort of lean into my space, cajole me into going along as if I was in for extras, which worried me a bit. With the help of Den’s dad’s old shotgun we managed the small-scale stuff like cash snatches, muggings and occasionally, we got lucky with a considerable wedge of cash mostly thanks to Mary’s observations and her penchant for sticking objects into, or up, people chained to bedframes; her ‘job’, of course. Somehow she’d get submissive slave ‘clients’ – men and women – who had something to do with payroll or deliveries and shove things in them, which she enjoyed doing way too much in my opinion, but it did produce useful snatch’n’grab information. Once we knew people had been paid we’d get late-shifters on their way home and relieve them of their wages. 

Nope! Never shot anyone, although Denny always wanted to try it. Here’s something funny – his shotgun was never loaded all that time! There were a few shells once upon a time, but he wasted them practicing or shooting at tyres on moving vehicles and as much as he and Mary wanted ammo, they could never get any shells. Not high enough up the naughty pole and no friends. It’s not like in films where there’s a magically unending supply. 
For the victims, the mere threat was enough to get us through the action. 

Yes okay, so the little bit of business that got Denny killed... hmmm, well I deffo see that as Mary’s fault. She had a liking for sparkly things and thanks to one of her ‘clients’ unknowingly spilling info like staff changes and stuff she had her eye on a jewellery shop in an arcade just off Piccadilly. We knew this would be a step up from our usual street blags, being faced with a whole new level of problems and potential cockups. 

Yeah, this one demanded planning and organisation. Night job or day job? Cut through the gates, break windows, down through the roof... we went over all sorts of fanciful Mission Impossible options. In my heart I figured this was all bullshit, we weren’t going to do anything like this for real but in the end Mary decided we were and that as it was her idea in the first place, bollocks to planning and organisation, we’d go in hard in daylight, threaten everyone with the gun, grab as much bling as possible then leg it the length of the arcade through hordes of confused shoppers to cover our getaway and melt into the crowd. Simple and easy in those days. After all, jewellers are all supposed to be pansies aren’t they. 

As you say, yeah too bloody simple. So after we came up from the tube station (big-time robbers, ha) we strolled along with the wind blowing Denny’s long coat around, threatening to let all and sundry see the shotgun and him looking suspicious as fuck trying to keep it hidden, we got in the arcade and there about half way along was the target. We sauntered along, split up a bit in an attempt to confuse any walking security. Bugger all CCTV in those days. 
Rather silly? Yes I know, it does sound ridiculous and it was but somehow there we were thanks to Bloody Mary. I spent the whole time up to the raid thinking “they’re watching, letting us hang ourselves instead of stopping us”. There were only a few customers in the shop so we felt safe. So in we went in together, Mary doing all the shouting – 

Oh come on, I can’t remember what she said. Watch any old episode of The Sweeney, something similar will be in that. I can clearly remember the rest though. Denny whipped out the shotgun and waved it all over the place. Customers and staff just stood there frozen like a photo. Then suddenly everyone hit the deck when Mary shouted again except for the bastard behind the counter, the shop owner it turned out, who bent down a little then stood up pointing a pistol at Mary just as Denny was pointing his shotgun at the owner. 

Yeah I know right? Back in those days, a posh jewellery shop owner with bloody gun under the counter, in London! Piccadilly! 

How would I know where he got it from? I didn’t fucking care then or now. So, what happened next, from my perspective, was something you normally only see in naff films – I saw everything in slow motion. I watched, petrified, as Denny slowly squeezed both triggers on the shotgun and the owner slowly squeezed the trigger on his pistol pointed at Mary. Of course there were no shells in Denny’s piece, pulling the triggers was only a reflex action, but I swear I watched the owner’s gun puff smoke and watched his bullet fly towards Mary but it smashed into Denny’s neck instead which exploded in a shower of blood and clumps and threw him backwards into Mary – 

Oh no, he hadn’t thrown himself nobly in front of Mary – she’d only fucking yanked poor Denny in front of her to protect herself just as the shooting started! That said a lot about Mary don’t you think? 

Dunno, sorry, I just remember it that way... Denny looked surprised... awkward moment, that was. We knew he was snuffed. Mary and I didn’t need an invitation, we belted out of there like fuck. None of us were wearing disguises or masks, from the start we figured shock would bugger up witness memories. We were sort of right, except we forgot Denny’s physog was still intact even though his neck was mush. And that, plus all the fucking fingerprints on that fucking shotgun was mainly how the fuzz got us. 

No, we cleared out of the house and hid away in another old condemned gaff a few miles away. There were quite a few derelict places still upright in those days. But it didn’t make any difference, the cops and too many of our previous victims could smell our meat now and they knew our end was in sight sooner or later. It only took one day and boom, early morning dozens of uniforms appeared out of nowhere. 

Oh yes I agree, we could’ve at least attempted to get a long way away... but for Mary. After the jewellery shop episode she terrified me good and proper. I told you earlier, she kind of occupied my personal space whenever she wanted to get me involved in something. And now she really did. She was a sort of predatory lurer, if I may coin a term. There was always a hint of offers but she had Denny right where she wanted him and kept it that way. But now with him dead, she claimed to be in shock and somehow, probably because I was scared of this loony woman, we wound up fucking for most of 
that day! Still the best I ever had and apart from her insisting on being on top there was none of her usual sexual weirdness – but, never mind her, it made me wonder what sort of person I was, given what we’d just been through. A very strange, urgent time – and with some interesting news from Mary just before we were arrested, me still with dew on the lilly so to speak. 

Yes that’s right, baby time! After our screwing, just before plod crashed our scene, she told me Denny had got her pregnant! I was shocked to fuck by our loony escapade and now this. Yep, it seems that somehow he’d got some up there on one of his infrequent allowances. Now I knew Denny’s baby would be born in nick or an asylum. I certainly wasn’t thinking straight and just said “hello!” when the scuffers turned up. Bloody Mary had lost any perspective she might once have had, arguing and biting. Damn strange woman. 

You’re correct, after our psychological appraisals she was sectioned and locked up in the loony bin, presumably they took care of her baby. I got fifteen years just for being a dickhead accessory and believe it or not, I was relieved. I never saw Mary again after that, just did my time and kept my head down. I got a much reduced sentence for telling plod everything I knew about Mary, which was shitty of me, but fifteen years... And that’s that really. Any more questions? 

Daughter? Fuuuuuck you're kidding! 

Shit. Okay okay. Look, err – so this newspaper reporter guff is all bollocks then? 

What I did to her? Are you kidding me? So that’s what this is all about you little faker! Listen I didn’t do anything to hurt Mary, I didn’t dare, she scared me shitless. Okay I spilled a bit to plod, maybe I shouldn’t have – but fifteen years... look, what I was saying about her earlier, erm... never mind. What happened to you anyway? Assuming you’re who you say you are, you still see her? 

Adopted, uhuh... still not sure I buy this.
Wow, I’m slurring, either I’m getting too old or that’s powerful hooch. 

I don’t know what you want from me. I can only tell you about stuff from thirty years ago, nothing after that. 

I feel really strange, really weak... that bottle you brought... shit! You cunt! 

What’ve you done to me? 

What’s all that bollocks? A neuro-suppressor, temporary paralysis? Fuck did Mary send you to do me in... it’s the only answer... 

Dead seven years, well sorry to hear that, sort of. So you’re here to kill an old codger you never knew? 

No, not lies. I’ve told you the truth. Now fuck off. Whoa, whoa WHOA don’t tip me back... shit, my neck! 

Daddy? Why? Aaaaaah bloody hell, we only banged for one day! You’re saying mine and Mary’s daughter? No, wait – she told me back then on that last day, it was Denny made her pregnant! She must’ve lied to you! Why? Just for fun? 

Abandoned you bullshit! How could I know? How can you know who’s who? You’re as crackers as she was. Hey what the fuck’re you doing! 
Bloody hell, pretty pink panties, nice. Thanks for view but what the fuck. Wait, what the FUCK! Get off get off that’s what your mum used to d 

[UNINTELLIGIBLE SOUNDS] [TAPE ENDS] 
[CAUSE OF DEATH ASPHYXIATION AIDED BY PARTIAL PARALYSIS. FORENSICS FOR SECOND PARTY INCONCLUSIVE. CONTACT RECORDS DEPT FOR HISTORICAL RECORDS RE VICTIM] 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE FIVE MINUTE ENCHANTMENT

I glimpse you sitting in the bar 
at first nothing more 
just a glance at a woman in a bar. 
You are not one of my purposes 
yet slowly you awaken my senses.  
Your figure stands out, my eyes are led  
by the way your dress enwraps your body  
the way your hair falls about your head  
the way your dress slides across your skin  
in filmy waves that give me joy. 
In my small and insignificant way 
you make me think I could be your toy.  
Your legs are crossed 
you are wearing pretty shoes 
you flick them with your toes 
and reveal a flash of sexy flesh 
legs that now I crave to caress  
kissing upward to your hidden loveliness.  
My fresh new joy of you is something 
of which you are unknowing 
you have become all I didn’t know I wished.  
You don’t yet know me but you will  
now you’ve joined the others on my list. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GAMBLER a love story

An average grey pebbledashed two-up two-down house on an average grey estate on the outskirts of an average grey town. It’s late night under a low, grey cloud-ridden sky lidding the everpresent scent of pebbledashed dog. The wail of an unhappy baby that doesn’t understand why it’s unhappy is muffled by the smothering cuddle of a loving but inexperienced teenage mother. Perched on a dead branch of a soot-withered tree, an owl on the lookout for anything edible croaks out an exhausted hoot that wavers in oily competition with the painful cries of badly maintained diesel engines sadly fuming their last on a nearby dual carriageway. A clinically depressed urban fox is choking on a plastic bottle cap, wondering why it bothers trying to live. Fat giggling rats lurking in the sodden darkness of a drain out of the owl’s reach live in the gleeful self-knowledge that their instinctive intelligence allows them to constantly outwit the human population and, upon occasion, their winged, clawed and furred predators. 

A rattle of keys in a lock. A furtive, creeping figure nervously followed its own shadow into an unlit hallway. 

Click! The light switch. A bare bulb slewed forty watts of reluctant yellow sludge across the walls and a stern female face. 

“Stop! Where do you think you’re going?” 

“JEEZERZ Penny you scared the shit outta me, hiding in the dark like that. Whew. I’m going to bed, I can go to bed in my own drum can’t I?” 

“Not yet you can’t, Clarence you shit. You sneak in the back door at stupid o’clock for the hundredth time in the last three months thinking I haven’t noticed, you should expect a bloody inquisition.” 

“Nobody exp-“ 

“Bollocks Clarence. I want to know what’s been happening to our little stash jar. Yes I found it where you thought you’d hidden it, you didn’t reckon on my money-sniffing hooter did you. It weighs a lot less than a few months ago. Well?” 

After a moment’s creative thinking – they’d been married a long time and he thought he could suss his wife’s moods – Clarence rallied. “I’ve... I’ve been swapping the coins for notes, dear. They weigh less. And take up less space, so it’s bound to feel different!” 

“Bloody hell Clarence, I’ve counted it all, It’s practically empty! You’ve got a bird stashed away haven’t you, or some bloody prozzy all these months! All the time, I’ve been keeping a check on you creeping in and out, Captain Slypants. You haven’t been spending money on booze, that’d be obvious. Who is it? What’re you up to, or who’re you up, ’cos it certainly isn’t me.” 

Penny folded her arms with the confident air of a righteous wrestler who’s memorised the end of the script. 

“Alright alright Penny, file that look back in the bottom drawer. It ain’t a woman, prozzy or otherwise. Anyway what’s wrong with prozzies, they’re people too...” 

Penny let her arms slide down to her sides. A curiously dangerous gesture. 

“Okay, okay! The truth is I’ve been spen- I mean enjoying just a few tiny flutters on the gee-gees. And the occasional canine. You can’t complain, it’s not like I go drinking then beat the crap out of you when I get home.” 

Penny’s opinion of the outcome of such an encounter is probably more in her favour. However, this was very unexpected. She’d been certain it was another woman, but Clarence throwing money away on... 

“...Gambling? I was positive it was another woman! You fucking turnip, at least with another woman you’d get something in return, like bullshit from her and a shovel smashed round your noggin from me. Clarence you arsehole, how much have you lost??” 

“I haven’t lost any money Penny. Heh, Moneypenny! Seriously though, it’s all been invested in speculating on the future form of various well-trained sporting fauna. Once I’ve worked out which ones are likely to win, the money will start rolling in.” 

“Clarence, dear twit husband, ignoring the fifty millionth time that Bond joke has cropped up, I’m going to try to be patient because I understand now that you’re diseased, infected. Technically speaking, even I know that odds turn to ashes when a nag wins all the time. And what twisted little thing in your head makes you think that spending five or six hours every day in a betting shop is okay? It’s bloody unhealthy, is what it is and you’re past your best these days.” 

“Yeah, so I may be knocking a bit but I’m still sprinting. Anyway today I won! I studied the form, put a tenner on a horse at 5/2 and it came in first! Thirty five quid winnings!” 

“You won twenty five quid. You got the tenner stake back.”

Smelling a tiny pucker of hope, Clarence attempted a rather weak return. “Yes, you see it works! I got the investment back along with the profit instantly!” 

With a deep sigh, Penny held her hand out palm upwards.

“Yeah baby!” Clarence raised his arm and slapped his hand down on Penny’s open palm in celebration. It made him wonder if she’d been bricklaying. 

“No you bleeding tit! Give me the money, I’ll put it back in the stash jar, including the profit. You won’t win, it’s a mug’s game, you’re the mug and you are not going out gambling our money away.” 

In the dirty yellow shadow glow of the hallway, Clarence couldn’t be entirely certain of his wife’s demeanour. He launched a mild defensive salvo of whiny- bastard pips. 

“But Pen, it’s really not that much and you must think it’s an addiction, but it isn’t really. We haven’t got enough dosh to do any serious damage. And I know I can turn this piddling wad into more.” 

“That piddling wad is a month’s food, Clarence. We ain’t got enough dosh because you’ve already had it away with all our spare in that fucking bookies. Prick.” 

Now Clarence was feeling guilty but he couldn’t really figure out why. He really did love Penny but thanks to her rant at him – she’d never called him names before – he was suffering a bewildering array of forgotten emotions and really just wanted to go to bed. 

“Okay Pen, look I do respect your opinion. Honest! But d’you mind if I piss off upstairs, I really am feeling knackered. Let’s chat in the morning, eh?” 

“Hand over the money first...” 

“Tch, you win, here.” Clarence shook his head sadly but handed over thirty- five warm, crumpled, sweat-moistened pound notes anyway. Penny hoped it was his sweat, not from the arse pocket of some disgusting git in the bookies. 

Penny watched Clarence stumble up to bed, wishing she’d put more effort into checking up on him. She’d held the certainty of another woman being at the heart of Clar’s sneaky outings the last few months, but now realised that was her assumptions getting out of hand. She really should have followed him to know for sure and then everything would be different. Although she now felt bad for her husband – in a way she did still love him – she stifled her guilty feelings. 

At breakfast the next day, Clarence announced he’d made a decision. “No more gambling Penny, I’ve made up my mind! It’s not that you win the argument honey, it’s just that I see the sense in not going bonkers.” 

“It’s not about getting the upper hand in an argument Clar. If you can do what you say and knock off the gambling then you’re the winner. I got it wrong, thinking you were out banging some floozy all these months. I feel terrible about the ‘woman scorned’ thing but I couldn’t help meself... would you like another egg?” 

Penny’s sudden solicitude gave Clarence a welcome feeling of being back in the relationship with his favourite girl. Giving up his gambling before it ruined everything completely was turning out to be the best thing he’d done in a long time. 

“Ta darling, I would. What say we go out together for a trudge around the countryside? It’s a cold grey day out there but I don’t mind if I’m with you.” 

And so the next few weeks were a joy to a now gambling-free Clarence who kept his promise. He did feel his age coming on, putting it down to general tiredness for Penny’s sake. But he had the feeling a bad day was closing in, though he steadfastly refused to let it ruin the glow of his time with Penny. 

The good weeks passed and so did Clarence. 

As funerals go, so went Clarence’s. It was the usual grey day in a squelchy grey boneyard under the squelchy grey clouds – the seasons don’t seem to change much in those small worlds of carrion. Penny was sombre but stoic during the burial, after all they’d been together for so long and both knew that some day one would stand watch while the other jumped the boundary from life to an impersonal death under six feet of mechanically shovelled dog shit. 

Over the following weeks Penny reflected on her life with Clar. It didn’t really amount to much, none ever but a precious few do, but still it could have been so much worse. She and Clarence had been reasonably comfortable with their lot and the life insurance dosh was coming in handy. Clarence had made sure there would be enough for Penny to at least pay all the bills and debts. In his own way he had been responsible to the love of his life. Spring was on its way, a lighter shade of grey infested the sky, the excreta tainted air was of a fresher variety. 

Penny’s purse was full. As she walked along the high street, a pre-summer drizzly smear that wasn’t really rain blotted the gritty pollution into the fractured paving, permeated clothing and ran the ink on the drooping would-be-rock-star pub concert posters glued to the lampposts and fences. 

But Penny didn’t care, she was on a mission. She was missing Clarence, or more properly she just couldn’t get used to the empty space in her life so, armed with the new wealth of the insurance payout (well, to her it was wealth) and hope welling up, she set about filling that space and she knew for certain where all the old geezers spent their days. 

Fondling the fat wad of cash in her purse, a smile spread across the padding of her face as she entered the bookies. Surely a flutter or two wouldn’t hurt? She might attract one of the richer old men; a different kind of gambling altogether. 

And in her heart of hearts, she was positive that her Clarence would sleep soundly forever, undisturbed by anyone. After all, a complete autopsy into the real cause of his death would be a disaster. 

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SHADOWS INSIDE

The shadows are creeping in to me 
What do they want, clung to my heels  
I’ve done bad things to gain their attention.  

Their edges define an alien shape 
Are they a piece of me, sharing ideals  
Why cling to the one of me, the exception.  

I always know they are there, constantly there  
What do they want, what do they know  
They accuse and torment, I know they’re aware.  

Their flat dimension not fools my eye  
Their depths unknown are a deception  
I fall but they chase to capture the I. 

Their edges blur, dissolve to the alien shape  
All horrors past and future now ours  
Their claws surround and attach,  
the I that is us will never escape. 

The darkness, the shadows, close in and permeate  
How many I am, though not legion,  
distinct They leer and they learn, we inculcate. 

Time is come, all shadows now gathered in me  
Disturbia amassed, our task finished completely  
And how I laugh at our cleverness as we  
Utterly destroy our individuality. 

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XENOTROPIA

There is only one true feeling I’ve got and it only came to me a few hours ago. It’s nothing compared to the mountainous pile of shit ‘feelings’ that 'people' suffer under, but here it is – it’s a desire to leave this letter about my life. 

I have no personal or financial problems, quite the opposite in fact, but logical thought has always been the basis of my life and I’ve decided not to bother any more as it no longer makes any sense to be here. 

That’s why I’m about walk off the roof of a 48 floor tower block. 

Once I step off the roof, the acceleration of gravity at 32.17 feet per second should do the trick, rounded off nicely by impacting the concrete forecourt below. The concrete will ensure instant obliteration. I shall try to impact the ground in a way that leaves an interesting geometrical spread pattern and hopefully the plastic bag will keep this note blood-free and intact. 

I could disappear to somewhere else in the world, I have all the resources anyone could want but well, why bother after all these years? I don’t want to age any more, dying slowly like a human being. I am inclined to wonder if I’m unique? Maybe there’s anyone else like me out there. Somewhere, someone like me could be growing and becoming ready. I like that notion. 

I’m going to include a recent minor event which was the only time I came close to being in trouble with the cops. Having written that, I suspect this note will trigger a very long and in-depth investigation going back decades. However I can assure any policeman reading this that their shit-shovelling will be to very little purpose. I have so many different names, so many carefully prepared counterfeit documents. Not at all easy to unravel. 

So this is me, or as much as I wish to reveal: 

The consequences of my actions are on others, never on me. Perhaps there is a case for considering myself to be a model of Darwinism, but that sounds like an excuse and I never needed one. 

It’s easy to fake human feelings, people ascribe them to me all the time. It’s not a mistake to do so, but it’s a mistake to believe I’m concerned in any way about people or the contents of their lives. I’ve tried to explain on numerous occasions, very carefully so as to reveal nothing, that I am not what they hope for, that I have no interest. I’m forced by the circumstance of birth to use the tools made available by the society I live within, but that does not make me a part of it. 

I do have to concern myself about authoritarian involvement. I’ve made a career of maintaining innocence – I’m extremely adept at killing, vanishing, leaving no evidence and remaining anonymous, however if bad timing did send the scuffers in at the wrong moment it’s a fair bet they would set on me as the danger, being the only body left standing. Nothing could be further from the truth when the only people in danger from me are the shitbrains who deserve it. 

I am neither an unpleasant or pleasant individual but I am most certainly psychologically and physically equipped to deal with what must be dealt with. As a rule I stay out of trouble, but occasionally trouble zeros in on me. The world has its fair share of idiots, the creatures who live to no purpose. They think they’re big and deserve respect. I think they deserve a permanent solution when they insist on interrupting my life. 

The event that changed everything: 

There’s a neat little trick I use when dickheads with no idea of what they’re doing attack me with a knife – I wait for the lunge, grab the knife-hand in one fist while chopping through the elbow with my other hand which forces the attacker’s knife-hand upwards and backwards with me pushing the knife- hand. Sometimes I get lucky enough to guide the knife through the dickhead’s eyeball, but more often it’s a high shoulder, neck or facial injury. Doesn’t even need much speed to be honest, just a bit of physical committment. Doing it that way, none of my fingerprints are left on the weapon. 

Because I’m focused on my victim, adversary or whatever, I don’t care about potential injury to myself in these set-to’s which usually means I remain undamaged. 

Once the knife is in I can take my time, put on a glove or pull my cuff down and just hammer it home with my palm. Nicely debilitating and, if I’ve got the eyeball, highly prejudicial to life which means I don’t have to follow it in with a finisher. 

Double bad timing, that’s what happened the night I caught a burglar breaking into my house. I live quietly when at home, he must’ve thought the house was empty. Of all the houses he could have chosen he really chose wrong. Naturally he didn’t know anything about me and thought knifing me would allow him to escape but of course he was wrong. Unfortunately for me, in a double dose of bad timing, a passing walker witnessed the event through the hall window, did the ‘right thing’ and called the police, thus negating any further actions on my part to make the incident unhappen. I heard him on his phone and knew that, for the first time ever, I had no chance to clean the scene and get out. The fool had seen my face. So I had to wait, talking rubbish with the pain in the arse while waiting for the scuffers to arrive, pretending concern and a mild panic; that’s not difficult after spending years watching people doing it for real. When the cars pulled up I arranged my face into a look designed to help things along. 

In my hallway, the one who believed he was in charge ignored the mess in the dickhead’s face and its recently inserted projection, felt for a wrist pulse and didn’t get one. 

“You know he’s dead?” Watching me. 

I shrugged, making myself a little wide-eyed, really thinking about how to get the blood out my carpet. “He broke into my house and caught me by surprise, isn’t that what happens sometimes... isn’t it?” 

He frowned at me, or more likely something he sensed in my attitude, but so far as I was concerned I’d done only what I normally do. This copper wasn’t to know that, thankfully. “I might have to arrest you.” 

“Why?” I asked, rearranging my face to a version of injured innocence. I have excellent micromuscle control. 

He stood still but looked around sharply, obviously weighing up his choices. “Okay look, we’re going to have to ask you to help with our enquiries back at the station. In the circumstances I think we have to. This is what will happen blah blah blah.” I couldn’t be bothered listening to him. While I sat quietly waiting in my front room, the sausage collectors turned up to remove the body. 

I decided there was nothing for it but to go along with this fiction of society’s rules for the time being. You see, fiction is exactly what the rules invented to control everything people do really are – pretend. Rules only exist to embrace the feeble minds of those who can’t see reality – they have no capacity for original thought and no ability to expand their perception of reality, something I seem to have no problem with. 

I knew I’d never be able to explain the true nature of the world to a policeman or anyone else for that matter, so  there I sat in the interview room, telling the simple truth about my previous night’s defensive actions against the burglar several times over to scuffers of varying self-importance until I was told I could go, though I felt it was under sufferance. There was a mildly sticky minute or two when they started digging about how I’d killed him so I told them that I’d learned the grab’n’stab move in self-defence classes (I hadn’t) but I got through that easily enough. Apparently they intended to investigate further, well good luck with that. I’m very good at covering up my work, there are no records. And, even armed with the admissions in this missive, if any future investigations turn up anything at all it’ll be about as useful and sketchy as a dusty old broken spider’s web melting in the wind. 

I didn’t bother cleaning the blood and clumps off my carpet when I got home as I had decided during my police interview to leave the world. There’s nothing in the house anyway – all the places I’ve lived in I’ve made sure I’m able to clear everything out and disappear within thirty minutes, although I’ve never had to. Anyway next stop, 48 stories of tower block. 

So that’s pretty much that. I present that little story as a grabber for the newspapers if the police accidentally indulge in their wonderful little habit of leaving top secret documents at a bus stop. But if it stays secret, fine I don’t care. 

Now about the rest of you: 

The thing about humans is that there are eight billion of them cluttering up this planet so what does it matter if I’ve killed and made missing the tiniest few of them, benefitting from their deaths in the process? They are like beetles. There are so many, their lives don’t matter and it’s not as if I go hunting, the ones I crushed were either more worthless than the rest of humanity or they’d made the mistake of trying to change me, cross me or otherwise attempting to screw around with me. My life has been the best I could make it for myself, I have been very successful with my aquisitions and do not take kindly to having my life altered in any way unsanctioned by me. 

And while I understand the magnitude of what I do, it’s impossible for me to care. I’ve found it easy to survive and thrive thanks to not having any true emotions or feelings, no empathy or kindness, no need to care about how I use the normals who deserve to be used, who lives or dies, or how or why. 

Naturally, to hide my activities I’ve had no real choice but to live within some of the more widespread socially acceptable parameters, which is irritating, however I consider myself lucky to have lived on a plane of existence beyond humanity. Beyond its chaos, its squabbles, relationships, politics, cultures of all kinds. Whatever their age, from day one all the way up to death, humans will always be nothing more than cattle. Arrogant, dimwitted, ignorant, tiny- minded fools which nature, in its total antipathy towards any true intellect, unfortunately allows to reproduce. That may read as if I have a lot of anger and bitterness, but really I feel nothing more than contempt. 

The incompetent mass of humankind, armed with limited intelligence, grows unchecked. Humans have no idea how woolly-minded, vain, egotistical and treacherous they really are, always making unconscious adjustments to their own lives and the lives of others. I'm different. I know exactly how my mind works and how their minds work. There’s nothing unconscious about my interactions with people, I am far above the simplicity of their minds, which is only one of the many reasons I’ve never been apprehended or even suspected. Murderers are incompetent, blinded by emotive stupidities and boastfulness which lead to being caught, but I’m not a murderer, I’m a killer with carefully plucked victims. All outcomes are considered and I have always chosen the right path, enriching myself in the process. 

But now chance, something that should only happen to the unthinking, the stupid and the unprepared, has made a fool of me to myself and created unexpected risks in my life. As I wrote at the beginning, logic dictates that my comfortable existence is now over. 

If there is another ‘me’ out there, good luck. The only regret lurking in the back of my mind is that I could never do anything about the selfishness of those spewing out babies without considering their future. They are as stupid as the rest. 

Actually, just for the record, I will admit that I did have a feeling once, seventy years ago – I hated mummy and daddy. 

Time to go.