…(in all seriousness) The cover of my next book:
I’m not entirely sure what it’ll be about, but I’m fairly certain there might be innocents being menaced by wooden outbuildings, or innocent wooden outbuildings being menaced, or innocent wooden menaces being outbuildings, or something. Maybe. Perhaps.
The bath was full of ice and booze…
The launch-warming party went by in a whirl: I sold, signed and numbered books, saw more people in my flat than I thought would fit, did a reading, was toasted, set absinthe on fire, and generally enjoyed myself immensely.
The big clear up will happen at some point this afternoon.
Here, have a picture of the front cover:
(Not shown actual colour (the printers bodged things spectacularly, but I tried not to think about that all night).)
Evelyn Johnson walked down the aisle with her (only slightly) arthritic father doing his best to both keep up and slow her down. “It’s meant to be a dignified procession from the doors to the altar” the vicar had said, and Evelyn had agreed. That had been at the rehearsal the night before and a million years ago. Now, she couldn’t wait to get to the front and look into her husband, sorry, soon-to-be-husband’s eyes and for him to see how beautiful she was today.
“Even more beautiful than the last time I saw you.” he’d tell her. She never tired of hearing him say that, and he said it a lot - even when her hair was still plastered to her face from the night before and the face in question still had crinkled pillow marks etched into it. The thing was, he meant it.
“Maybe, in the morning, just this once, he’ll not be able to say it, after today.” She slipped her arm out from her father’s and skipped the last few yards, grabbed her soon-to-be-husband’s hand, flipped her veil over the back of her head and beamed full force at him.
The service went beautifully, the best man performed his duties manfully, the maid of honour, hers honourably (going on to catch the bouquet as the bride and groom left the church grounds), and none of the numerous children made too much of a nuisance of themselves. She even forgave the vicar for calling her ‘John Evelynson’ and making everybody laugh as he hastily backtracked one vow too many.
The sun shone, but not too brightly, the photographer was quick and courteous, everybody did as they were asked without grumbling and the confetti didn’t get stuck in any awkward places.
The food at the reception was beautifully presented, the service magnificent but unobtrusive, and her now-husband’s mini-speech was ever-so-well received. She’d never felt more proud than the moment he broke with tradition, walked around the table and pouring extra glasses for the staff said, “But first, a toast to my lovely wife, who looks even more beautiful today than I’ve *ever* seen her look before, let alone the last time I saw her - in a face pack with cucumber eyes. To Evelyn!”
As one, the other adults in the room stood and raised their glasses high. “To Evelyn!”
As one, the other adults in the room drank deeply from their fluted glasses, for there were bottles in ice buckets aplenty to keep them topped up.
As one, the other adults in the room stopped breathing and dropped to the floor - leaving a stunned Evelyn surrounded by corpses and suddenly quietened children.
I dough-nutted out last night.
Saw a box of mini chocolate dough-nuts just sitting on that supermarket shelf.
They looked at me pleadingly:
“Rescue us from this dread place!”
I carried them away, away in a bag
- Past the checkout
(there was a worrying moment when the assistant pointed an infra-red gun at the box, but it passed).
Past the security guy
(security guys are just one step away from police-men and you know how they treat dough-nuts).
And past the giant double doors.
“Freedom!” I could hear them cheering,
To their horror,
I didn’t release them into the vast wild plains where other doughnuts dwell,
But ate them all up!
Gobble, gobble, gobble!
________________________________________________________
This (almost) entirely true story has been brought to you from the archives of Tim’s old LiveJournal which he was unsuccessfully trying to export and import into this blog when he gave up and started reading it again.
This isn’t really being written by Tim.
I know his log on details and passwords.
I know his bank details, where he works,
His car registration, birthday and mother’s maiden name.
I know an awful lot about him:
The places he goes, the people he sees.
Those he loves and hasn’t told.
Those he’d like to but won’t tell.
I know what he did last summer.
But this isn’t about Tim, it’s about me:
The monster that lives in his head.
On a good day,
I confusticate, vex and confuddle him,
I could also m*ddle him
But the rhymes are saved for the last verse.
On a good day,
I help him forget,
I help him wish upon vain fancies,
And idly while-away the hours he could better spend.
On a good day,
I paint it black
In wondrous shades that hide the light:
A stormcloud in front of stars.
On a good day,
I don’t have to do all that much
- The merest of whispers
and
He
almost
believes
he
is
me.
There’s no room for a monster under his bed;
Tim’s personal monster lives in his head.
I am Tim’s monster and I want him dead.
But not yet(d).
I’m having far too much fun at the moment.
Tell your monster I said, “Hello.”
Apparently, mammals are in such short supply that the Times can’t find any to illustrate their story, One in five mammals threatened with extinction, choosing instead a varanus mabitang lizard:
Number 7: Deus ex Machina
On the day Evelyn Johnson decided to kill herself (June 5th), the sun was shining, the birds were whistling (needless to say, in the trees), and, all around her, the world radiated a sense of all being well. Four weeks later, on the day she went through with her plan, the conditions remained pretty much as they had all summer.
She’d spent the month putting her affairs in order and had even changed her will to better represent her current relationships and favourites amongst them. All her belongings were packed up and ready for distribution to various worthy causes and named individuals. Her fridge was empty, turned off at the wall and its door was open so that the world (with which all was well) could see the freshly-cleaned sparkle. Evelyn had paid her utilities bills until the end of the month, and informed her landlord that she would moving out and that somebody would along to pick up her stuff by the end of August. She’d even sent out a letter to all her friends, which explained, clearly and succinctly what she would be doing and what the practical consequences were likely to be.
Evelyn walked calmly out of her flat, locked the door behind her and sealed the keys in an envelope which she posted to her solicitor at the first post box she passed as she went her not-so-merry way. After about a mile, she came to the highest bridge in the area, walked half way across, climbed over the side, and after a brief pause, leaned outwards and let go of the structure. Whereupon she began to fall.
And falling is where we must briefly leave her.
Somewhere in the Amazon, God commanded an unseasonal butterfly to flap its wings twice as fast as it usually did for a moment or two. Chaos theory was kind-of validated, and we now return to Evelyn.
A very strong wind blew the falling would-be-suicide into the branches of a nearby tree, the branches broke her fall, gradually slowing her down until she tumbled gently from the lowest branches onto the ground below. Besides a slightly twisted ankle and the bruising sustained in the first impact with the tree, she was completely unharmed.
A voice rang out from the heavens, “Evelyn Johnson. Know that it is for God, not you to choose the moment of your passing.”
As Evelyn repented, vowing to make amends, God commanded a bolt of lightning…
Later that afternoon, council workers, investigating the unusal weather discovered Evelyn’s body. The lightning hadn’t even touched her, having naturally struck the tallest object nearby - the tree. The tree had been split from top-most-tip to root, and then fallen both due east and due west. It was the half pointing towards Jerusalem that had fallen on Evelyn and squashed her flat.
I can’t remember where I first heard this, but it’s been doing the rounds for a good few years now - since well before any of the Ring films got made. There’s not much to it really - just that a struggling young writer foolishly left his word-processor switched on when he went to bed having just watched Naked Lunch. He woke up in the morning to find that his keyboard had eaten half his lower left leg in the night. Some variations of the story say it was a wireless keyboard, but I believe the version which claims that the keyboard used its cable as a make-shift tourniquet.
It’s nearly time for bed now. To top off a day of film watching, I just watched Naked Lunch. My computer was switched on all the way through. In case it’s got any ideas, I’ll be switching it off at the wall and taking the batteries out of the wireless bits. But just in case, I’m posting this now so that you’ll know if something happens to me tonight, so you’ll know what it was even though the authorities will try to hush it up.