Hi, Merv here, I fink like, you know, I wanna go to school, just so I can say smart arse things at the bar when I’m working. Like you know if some gezza comes in and orders two pints of Special, I can turn around and say “I think therefore I am”. Whadda ya reckon, sounds good to me. But education is shit so I talk to my good friend Foodge(FOO), who is my legal adviser and any direct questions from this article should go directly to him via the Fictional Characters Union, 000, at your nearest capital city.
FOO: So what’s in an education for you. Let me ask you this. If you have nothing to start with and nothing at the end what do you have?
Merv: Nothing
FOO:1 take away 1
Merv: Nothing
FOO: Two hungry navvies arrive at the bar and order a pint and a pie. What’s left?
Merv: Nothing.
“Thank Gordon we have turned that interview technique off, so Merv you don’t need school” says Foodge reverting from FOO.
“Well I did have to go to the doctor” says Merv, “hey why can’t we go back to that old interview technique, boy, is this eating up the word limit and it’s good fun”.
FOO: What did the doctor say?
Merv: He said I was sick and that I should go home.
FOO: So what’s wrong with you?
Merv: I don’t know. He said it would be a breach of privacy.
FOO: But it’s you and your health.
Merv: Yes, he said I’d need birth certificates and affidavits from my parents just to prove that they were there at my birth so he could go ahead and release the information. Shit happens as they say.
FOO: I’m ringing your lawyer right now, we’ll get you out of this.
“Yer goin’ where?” Granny pointed a gnarled finger in Foodge’s face.
“Lunn Donne.” Foodge retorted.
“Lunn Fucking Donne!”
“No, London England.” Foodge wasn’t comfortable with this sort of swearing before lunch, or at least before a few beverages.
“London Fucking England!”
“No, just London in England. I don’t think London copulates with England.”
“Don’t get smart with me, Boyoh!”
“I’m not being smart, or even half smart.” Foodge replied, which was true, Foodge was neither smart nor half smart. Half measures worried Foodge. One could be a wit, which was thought to be a great thing, whereas a half-wit was a pejorative word for idiot. Describing someone as smart was high praise, but half smart implied cheekiness, not half wittery.
Trotters Ale cures all ills…
Emmjay, Hung and M hadn’t accounted for Granny’s reaction when they’d decided to send Foodge to Britain to be Special Envoy, or Chief Photographer or whatever the fuck they’d planned.
“Well, it’s by special request, from…you know, certain people, well connected people.” This wasn’t completely true, but the invite involved a firm of solicitors.
“Special Fucking People! Royal Fucking People. What about our relationship?” Granny had let go of her aggressive tone and had moved into the looking crest fallen, just about to cry stage of the argument.
Foodge started to panic. Are we going to have a long chat about our relationship? Is she going to expect me to talk about my feelings? He suddenly realised that Granny couldn’t have a passport because she’d never travelled further than Milson’s Point. “Granny, I may have failed to convey all of the, err, ah, implications of the invitation, I mean, as my, err, partner, I mean, love of my life, you are, um, my plus one, my, other half…”
“Oh, Foodge, that’s a different matter.” Granny was suddenly coquettish. “When’s this trip takin’ place?”
“Soon, my love, very soon.” Foodge’s voice had taken on a soothing quality. “It may be difficult to organise during the Lock Down, but there are always strings that one can pull.”
Just the two of us…
“Oh, goody, I’ll have to get all new underwear and nighties. Shoes..no, leave room for purchases. I guess I can always use the empty space in Foodge’s port. Oh, and I better get my passport out of the safe…”
“Passport?” Foodge gulped and had become noticeably pale. “Won’t it need to be renewed?”
“No, I’ve always kept it up to date, just in case. Don’t you?”
Foodge thought for a second. His passport did need renewal. He was well and truly hoisted by his own petard. Granny had already raced up to her room. Merv’s disgusting visage suddenly appeared across the bar. “Sounds like you need a drink, old son.”
Make it a double!” Foodge collapsed onto a stool. “You won’t believe what I’ve done.”
“I do believe what you’ve done, you was ‘opin’ that Granny wouldn’t have a passport an’ you’d get away to the Old Dart for an ‘olidee.” Merv was already sounding like a Cockney Publican.
“Was it that obvious?”
“I don’t think she knew, but you was ‘oisted by yer own petard.” Merv was unaware that the narrator had just said that on account of him not being part of the last scene.
“What will I do?” Read a few lines ahead sounds good.
“Well, aside from killing yerself…”Merv was already pushing a second canoe across the filthy, stained bar. “Nah, only jokin”, I reckon you’ll ‘ave a hard time getting’ outta the country at the moment, plus the Poms won’t be real welcomin’.”
“No, Mr Merv, it’s official business, you know, top people involved, movers and shakers.” Foodge drained the second pint of Trotters Best. “ This will involve intelligence, planning and courage.” All three were on short supply at the Pigs Arms. “There is one urgent matter to attend.”
He seems to be wandering aimlessly through his life.
Rudderless, said Big.
Yes.
I think we have to find him some … ah…. outlet, said Big.
What ?
Maybe we should ask him, said Emm.
Do you think he might, ah, have a clue ?
I suspect not, said Big.
Something with travel involved ? I think the readers would love to see Foodge take a break from private eye work.
What about travel and private eye ?
You mean … say an upper class paparazzi / royal watcher / gossip uncle ?
How the hell are we going to sell that one to Foodge ? said Big.
Watch this ! said Emm.
The envelope read “Mr F. Oodge, 1/23 Rutland Court, Knightbridge, London SW3”.
Foodge always smokes to the end, dunno why
Foodge could hardly believe his luck. The phone rang. Foodge here, he said. Good morning Mr Foodge, welcome to London, said a cultivated voice that Foodge pegged as a cross between Eton and Drinkin’. Mr Foodge, I’m Carstairs from Farkim Anisorss, solicitors to the newly fabulously wealthy and influential.
Well, is it car or stairs ? asked Foodge. I’m a man going up in the world. Carstairs laughed obligingly. May I ask you if you’d grace us with your presence in Chambers this afternoon, Mr Foodge ? Go ahead and ask, said Foodge. Carstairs suppressed a small exasperation sound. Will you please come own to Chambers this afternoon Mr Foodge, I will send a car.
At this stage, Big frowned at Foodge because he could see Foodge extending the Carstairs joke one bridge too far. So lets call him Catdog suggests Emm or what about RoadRage.
Certainly, said Foodge. May you ask the purpose of my visit ? It’s because Emmjay has a hankering to write “wood-panelled chamber”. Well, far be it for me to disappoint Uncle Emm, said Foodge[ Editors Note Bhwhahahahawhha, hysterical]. It’s meaningless by the way but true.
I think I have the right side…
Impressive, said Big. Now he’s moved on from a mild mannered faux private dick. Now what ? Well, said Emm, we’ve got the choice between launching a relocated and more textured adventure, and covering the back story.
New adventure, said Big, who drew out his imaginary Olivetti Lapwriter and began tapping away like a man possessed.
Emm, said Big. How did you come up with Foodge’s London address ? Well, there was this show on SBS about a department store in Knightsbridge and I googled flats for sale in Knightsbridge. How much did Foodge’s flat cost ? said Big. Nothing too flash, said M. About 1.7 million pounds. It’s a 2 bedder, but UK real estate advertisements, for some reason are not too particular about bathrooms, said Emm – unable to resist a good stereotype when he could see a gap for one.
As usual, it’s Merv that attends to the bar jobs, oh yes, so that the pub is open for business, helps pay off his 457 visa card or something like that. Never been great with pames or naplces, don’t know why, it’s not that I’m a drongo or anything.
As bar manager, Merv needs to attend to a level of acceptable bar etiquette, like no guns, pitchforks, effigies or blow up replicas, for example, voodoo dolls, just sayin’ like.
Did you hear that…
Today however, something unusual is happening at the Pigs Arm’s, no one is calling for the government to step down and they’re all too busy drinking Trotter’s Lager to worry about it. And let’s face it, why shouldn’t they be.
Meanwhile, in the office, out the back, so no one can really tell what’s happening, Merv calls to Foodge, you know our own private dick and barrister, “Come and have a look at this Foodge, a typewriter and a television screen rigged up together. Can’t see it getting far but who nose.”
“No, you just said who nose, when you meant who knows. Are you a moron Merv, even O’Hoo nose the difference between who knows and you nose or even, fuck nose.”
Merv isn’t put off by the bar banter, he starts to stay up late at night learning how to use this typewriter and make orders for the pub and eventually he looks up a website that sells robotic barman. Can you see where this is heading, I can and I’m the author.
See Merv has only ever had one day off since the beginning of the Pigs Arms. What better than an AI(Artificial Intelligence) robot to do your job. Yes a holiday.
Yeah, just hangin’ round.Trotter’s on the house…
“Hey Merv, this robot you have ordered so you can have a holiday, can do everything better quicker faster, why do we need you when you come back” says someone. Okay, if you what to know who that someone is ask Big M, not that he said it.
Something in Merv thinks, oops. Okay let’s send it back.
Algernon wanders in , shotgun cocked, brain, well, engaged, “WTF is that whatever your name is that I’m talking to”
“It’s Merv Sir. He’s got a reply email from the Postmaster that says Do Not Reply” says the script reader.
After wanting to return the robot barman, Merv sent this email to the robot company that had told him that he couldn’t reply. Merv was fuming. Here is a redacted form of Merv’s reply, just in case there are kiddies watching,
Wot
Dear Automated Email,
Thank you for your request. I just wish to tell you how much I miss you.
Fond memories pervade over this valley of time given your lengthy absence.
Hoping the rumours about your ill health aren’t true otherwise it has been nice knowing you.
Love
Merv
************
“Merv, you can say that about whatever” says Nurse Barbara. “Maybe you want to talk to that bloke over there. He’s been asking about emails and Moooovveee which I reckon might mean Merv. And he has been talking about cans of magic elixir.” Wink, wink, oh my Gordon, how far do I have to go thinks Nurse Barbara. Jesus Fucking Christ I give up,sorry kiddies.
Just as a mosquito was about to fly by, a man entered the bar at the Pigs Arms. He ordered a beer and said “Has anyone here ever heard of a bloke called Merv?”
“Nah mate, who the eff are you?” says someone to whom I haven’t aligned this comment to.
“My name is Nap O’Leon and here is a can of my magic elixir” says the bloke that says
get some of this down ya
this. Nap O’Leon places a can on a bar. “This is French champagne” he continues “I’m from French and I’m here to investigate an email that was sent to our No Reply Email service. The depression rate in our Postmaster Offices has increased. We must stop this or else.”
“Hey fellas, how about a dip in the ocean before our next chug along?” says Sister Yvonne.
“Nah, that would put me fag out” replies Nurse Barbara.
“What about the French champagne. Hasn’t it just been proven that nothing plus nothing equals something” says Foodge, our community sitarist.
“Oh no, not this hoary old chestnut however it is ridiculously delicious just like I like my boiled eggs sunny side up.” replies Nap O’Leon.
“I’ve bet you have never been to a fuel and produce store, hmm, didn’t think so, follow me dribbler” says a really surprising retort from one of the list of characters that could possibly answer so this time I’ll go to Sister Yvonne.
“Have you any fuel or produce?” Yvonne asks the young assistant behind the counter.
Merv was feeling quite unrestrained. He’d read an article in the newspaper that said “nothing is good for your health…”, wow, how powerful is that sort of shit. What he didn’t read was the next paragraph which just happened to say “except for a Trotter’s Ale”, don’t just some facts interfere with a good way of living, I think so and I’m not even Merv, just the low grade author.
Merv is standing behind the bar, index fingers and thumbs clasped and eyes closed, thinking of nothing he nothingly thinks when in walks Father Sandy O’Way, you know, our parish priest from the Church of St Generic Brand.
“Hi Merv, pint of the best , granny’s special and a cone of the good stuff, nah, only kidding, on the wagon this week. Nah, Triple bourb’ instead.”
“Sorry Sandy but I’ve read that nothing is good for your health and from now on I’m going to do nothing as much as possible to keep in good health.”
“Yessss Merv but what you are now doing now is something because you are talking to me.” Sandy’s starting to have some second thoughts about this whole conversation.
“ Yesss but Sandy, I’m really worried, if I have nothing in this hand and nothing in the other hand surely this gives me nothing.”
“Um,er, yessss. You know, we need Foodge.” Foodge is the local private detective and barrister that drinks down at the Pigs Arms. He also smokes to much, eats too many wedgies and is a terrible punter so he tends to need the wealth to flow to the needy lawyers so this episode can run for a little bit longer. Let’s go to court, yee ha.
Foodge has a spiv
Well the court session has been called and unfortunately we have landed the hanging judge, Sir Suppository.
“All rise…” dribble. The judge has been asked to rule on a definition of nothing versus something.
“I sentence the defendant to death by hanging” states Sir Suppository.
“But Me Lud, no evidence has been stated” says Foodge for the defence. Anyhoo,
“Oh, shit, what about the prosecution?” barks the aperient of knobility, Sir Suppository, pretending he knows what’s going on. And look I say good luck to him because I’m writing this and I don’t know what’s going on.
“This is an arbitration matter Me Lud, two bits of nothing equals nothing. We argue that if you have nothing in one hand and nothing in the other hand then at the end of the day you have nothing” says John Citizen of your local Credit Card Legal Firm.
“I interject your suppository, if I have nothing in one hand and nothing in the other I therefore have two bits of nothing therefore I have something”[Geeps, just what I need now is a Donna Summer song] asserts Foodge.
Go Foodge otherwise Merv will be hanged and someone else will have to pour the beers, poor us.
“Me Lud, I will present a case that will irreparably oops I mean irrefutably resolve the whole issue.” Oh Gordon[the inventor of the universe], I love spinning out a story. Have I mentioned hanging Merv yet, hmm, just asking, for a friend like, you know.
“What’s this Me Lud shit?” says Me Lud.
“It’s a minced form of My Lord and it’s found in the No Idea Major Crossword Me Lud, August 2017, Edition 4, Pages 121-122, 389 and 392 Across, two words, minced form of legal brownnose, just sayin’ Me Lud.”
My darling, I have a case to hear
“Oh FFS, lets get on with it and that’s coming from Me Lud.” Don’t know whether I should say Me Lud or not at this point, I mean all that extra typing. Lets face it, typing prevents so many good stories from being told as I would be flat out typing about them.
Foodge rises to the stand “ I call Pythagoras Me Lud” as the court gasps.
Foodge pushes on. This is mind numbing stuff, one of those events when people will sit around at parties in the future saying, where were you when Foodge called Pythagoras to the witness stand so that Merv didn’t get hanged for saying that two times nothing is something. Wow man, this is unbelievable and I make this shit up.
“Now Pythagoras can you recall to the court your early life and the effect that it had on you?” pleads Foodge.
“Well, yeah, like, it was shit, like yeah, you know, shit yeah like you know, then this geeza hits me right, with a stick right, and it breaks right, I arrange it in different patterns then this gezza , Socrates was his name, smart geeza always wanting
Yes a2 +b2 = c2
someone to think for themselves, I mean, ever heard of anything more stupid then that, you know, so I arranged it like you know, drink hemlock, gets ya pissed, you know, like and den all of a sudden I writ this book, Equilateral Triangles for Dummies, den you know, the rest is history.”
“The witness may stand down. Mr Foodge I suggest your witness should indeed consult an encyclopaedia before telecasting Socrates. Anyone else?” says Me Lud.
“Yes Me Lud, I call George Boole.”
“Anyone else alive Mr Foodge?”
“No Me Lud. Liveliness tends to get in the road of a good story.” Foodge pushes on, again.
“So Mr Boole, is it possible for nothing to have a value?”
“Well, um, er, um, ah, um I sorta don’t know, yes, no, maybe.”
“But Sir, you are an architect of the modern age of communication, I put it to you Sir, has nothing got a value?” asserts Foodge.
“True”
“And what is that value?”
“False”
“Me Lud, I rest my case. If my client has nothing in one hand and nothing in the other then therefore he has something.”
The roar from the gallery was amazing…
The court erupts with joy. Complete strangers hug and kiss, TV presenters pretend they like each other, cameramen take photos of men and women rejoicing in confetti lined streets so that in 50 years time we can all try and guess who they were, oh yes isn’t living in Inner Cyberia just wonderful, isn’t it?
Hi, Sandy here, you know Father O’Way, your local parish priest from the Church of St Generic Brand which is down the road and around the corner from the Pigs Arms Hotel.
So when you drop in here from now on you will only see me in the background, you know, casual, gig economy. Exploited I think the other word for it is, just sayin’ like. I’m sure you can see the analogy.
Anyhoo, something has happened, I got a call from the Bish, you know Bishop Bishop the one we all affectionately call the Bish. As usual he rang early in the morning, about eleven o’clock, bastard, I hate early mornings and he knows it.
My wake up call…
Ring, ring, ring ring, ring, ring ring, ring, ring ring, ring, ring ring, well I could let this go on for a while so I can get my word count up but I’ll put you out of your misery and answer the phone.
“Retired priest Sandy speaking” knowing full well that it will be the Bish.
“Sandy, we have a problem” says the Bish. No Bish you have the problem but wish to push it onto me.
“You need to have Brekkie in Britain with Princess Theresa about the EU’s” barks the Bish.
“Well, I’m retired, hate breakfast and am scared of emu’s and where is Britain?” I ask knowing I won’t want to know the answer.
“Britain is somewhere between the North Pole and the South Pole. EU, not emus and Bex-it not breaky or something like that. Now I’m in Cairns so I can’t go and Gordon has said we must get this sorted otherwise there may be no cricket this summer.”
Oh FFS, cricket, the most boring game in the universe.
“So working in cans must be very restrictive for you Bish, I mean how do you go to the toilet?”
“Cairns is a town you ninny, somewhere between the North Pole and the South Pole”
A coupla cans…
vibrates the Bish. “Now get over there and sort this mess out. If Gordon can’t watch cricket this summer it will be on your shoulders!!”
Gordon is the creator of the universe by the way and he taught every simian based planet to play cricket, speak English and develop money. Hmm, starting to think that Gordon may be a loser.
So to get to Britain, I’m not going to fly any more, stuff that. I will go by boat. Much more relaxed and in a style to which I have become accustomed. Yeah, so I go by a cruise ship.
On deck I decide to go for a walk on the poop deck. Now one needs to be very careful from this point about what is said otherwise something is going to hit the fan, get the picture. I mean, I’m up to my heels in poop, thank Gordon they are high heels.
I meet some of the crew,
“Hi, I’m Chris the captain, I look after everyone’s cap”
“Hi, I’m Pete the purser, I look after everyone’s purse”
“Hi, I’m Paul the Petty Officer, I look after all the small things”
“Hi, I’m Colin the coxswain, I look after everyone’s c…”
“Yes, I’m sure you do” I timely interrupt. Let’s face it, on a PG site there may be kiddies watching.
SS Minnow
The cruise was wonderful and many a rip roaring good time happened, I think. I mean we may not have had a good time but I don’t remember unless I have to remember for some sort of remembering reason. Just sayin’ like.
We arrived in Britain and headed for number ten, the home of the prime minister. It was lovely inside, nice curtains, open fire and tea and scones, Blackwood sideboard, I mean this was class, real class. No plastic forks anywhere to be seen in this place.
“We’re here to advise Princess Theresa about emus and eggs for breakfast” says Sandy.
“Sorry but she’s out” comes the reply.
“But she promised…”
“Sorry, she’s washing her hair, having a high colonic, writing stories for the Pigs Arms…”
“What the hell are you doing Merv?” asks Foodge as he enters the bar and pointing at the beer tap. “Make it a canoe of Special there’s a good chap.”
“I’m staring out into space” replies Merv, adjusting his gaze to pour a beer. “Some bloke on the telly said staring into space is a good thing to do, especially in retirement.”
“What’s this retirement rubbish Merv, who will pour the beers if you retire?” barks
A cat waiting for a car
Foodge, cutting to the chase. Lets face it, pouring beers is the best skill someone else needs to have.
The noise awoke O’Hoo who had been catching a bit of a nap, leaning semi-fatally across the bar. “When I retire I’m gunna get pissed every day” says O’Hoo.
“Nothing has changed then” replies Merv. “What about you Foodge?”
“Well, I’m gunna drink, smoke, gamble and chase wild women”
Nothing has changed then thinks Merv. Boosh goes the dishwasher as Merv ponders other things.
Seems like all of us need some sort of advice about what we are gunna do when we retire. We need to talk to Gordon, he’ll know.
Merv calls Gordon on his mobile.
“Gordy, it’s Merv. Better get down here, dazes is all talkin re-tyre-meant. The friggin
Hot babe that has no relation to the story at all
union is coming. Ewe no, the FUCU(Fictitious United Characters Union, referred to as the Fark Ewe).”
Gordon appears at the end of the bar. None of the locals notice any more, it’s just the tourists. The tourists run around screaming their heads off like they have just seen an alien, umm, well I guess they just have.
I mean here we are and the creator of the universe beams in for a drink, classic. Does it get better than this.
“So Gordon, what are you going to do in retirement?” pushes Merv.
“Well, I’m gunna watch repeats of BBC crime shows. Either that or take up hurling.” replies Gordon.
Well, nothings changed then as Gordon is already watching repeats of BBC crime shows. Hurling! Are you serious?
“The one thing I do know” continues Gordon “is what’s the one thing we all have in common?” asks Gordon. The issue Gordon failed to grasp was that the audience had a collective IQ of the square root of nothing. Sometimes an artist sees a blank canvas other times sees rivers of gold. Well this was one of dem times when no one had any idea.
Blokes, Pigs Arms patrons, etc., etc., came the cries till Gordon said “We are all fictitious. Foodge, Merv, O’Hoo”.
“I’m real” shouts Merv “Well sort of…” then realising that he wasn’t real.
“Don’t worry about retirement, it’s dem, out there, they age, wheeze are always the same. Anyone had grey hair or arthritis written into their contracts lately? Didn’t think so!”. Gordon’s on a roll and he can’t help himself.
Yes, it’s me too…
“And do you notice that the author always portrays me as an old man with grey hair and a flat cap whose chewing his hands off. Hmm.”
“Well I want to be a ninja that stares out into space” says Merv.
Merv does some kung fu moves and shoop, swah, zonk.
“And notice how the author usually portrays me as Rumpole with cigarette ash on his tie, a beer belly but an incredible sense of the law”
Foodge, with beer belly and ash on his tie, just sayin’
interjects Foodge, feeling left out of this dreary episode, hmm, thinking, 10 minutes of your life that you will never get back.
Look, it’s starting to sound like a character revolution coming so whoever I am I better get going. Let them eat bytes I say.
I recently was handed a box of my papers I have not seen for 30 years, forgotten other than those I thought were lost. The thought process behind writing the partial first draft of this piece came back to me clearly. I was pitching to write out of character. attempting a psychodrama cross horror story with elements of crafted confusion, the surreal and provocation to laugh.
My former position of employment would soon be made redundant by the introduction of technology about to revolutionise the workplace. As an active member of the union and elected to speak for the staff to management, I would never have voiced ‘revolutionise’. I reflected later on the disappearance of a form of employment few would know of and its conduct in a room with a building view overlooking other buildings, from a chair in the room a view that was the colour grey and bleak or of rain or blue and bright at height the length of the external wall, the weather through an industrial warehouse-style window.
The waiter rolled down the stairs.
“Come back here,” I screamed, distraught at the evasive tactics. I don’t suppose you would understand the difficulties involved in having a loose grip on reality. You might seeing in others the potential of their losing theirs.
We are by definition so much better at watching others than ourselves.
My duty is to not assume, but warn. You could even be sitting next to me on a bus.
I warned Noag. He laughed. You can’t afford laughter any more than Noag could. You never met him, did you? No, of course not. I had buried Noag even then in the deepest recesses of recall for so long, my imagination gave him shape and appearance.
You will never find him.
What you will meet with is with yourself saddled with my neuroses as well as your own. You began to read thinking, didn’t you, that you could forget your own for a while your hands clutched around this publication, your fingernails almost sunk in. You sank, instead, into its grateful embrace. You probably started feet up. You sent the kids to Coventry. If you do not have any, you wanted to forget worrying about the ones you didn’t have. Opportunity eluded, time deluded you.
I have never had any children. I never will. I hate children. Children clutter buses at peak-times. They toddle along in harnesson pavements, meander, alarm running red and sweating in gym clothing. So many knees and elbows in school groups and pushing and shoving and teachers blowing whistles.
I thought the driver was never going to stop the bus when it started to scream. I was trapped in a beast, a classic outcome of mythology, its soul emergent as an unnerving high-pitched whine from within, the single note and its harmonics like a buzz saw, a monotone of unremitting frenzy-cross-rational logic attuned to the sorest point that is unknown.
What’s wrong with this bus, I thought.
I didn’t see anybody else thinking the same thing. The aisle was blank with suspense. I did see a round ball of slimed and white chewing gum land on the point of focus of my meditation. A passenger near involuntarily I supposed discarded the material. I imagined the ball projecting through a mouth rounded to permit that habitual exit. I could step on it. What best purpose might I attach to that. I order everything, you see, into good and bad and why.
Would I get to work on time? Stupid question. Buses never get anybody to work on time unless the journey is begun in the hours before sun-up by striking a match. Yes, my subjective analysis. They, the antagonists in all legends, cut off my electricity just as I was about to pay the bill. At least some of it in the hope I would be standing as anticipated in the illumination of the porch light when the landlord came by for the rent. It seems reasonable to assume that where there’s power, there’s hope. A landlord cannot feel confidence in a porch lit in a deepening twilight by a tenant shielding a spluttering match.
I will bruise my brain one day taking public transport instead of the Mini stuck in the garage. The jolting and the shudder of the bus was terrible.
I have high standards. I have high expectations of myself. I am my own standard and hyperbola. I studied Math that did not work out so well. I took on Political Studies. I was busy. Elsewhere. I flunked so I did not get the job of Secretary to my local Member or of anywhere. Instead I am in this business. Publishing and I read. Everything that is put in front of me. Not on my own. We read together, you see. My workplace is a room of babble. No matter the noise pollution. I’ve developed an evasion tactic that, to date, has kept me my job. Just as I am about to deliver a neurosis as finely tuned as a pitch fork, I go to the gents.
Well, one of us reads out loud and the other listens, the pairs rostered to minimise the blood shed, close on 40 people at desks, four supervisors and a Head Reader seated at a side-on desk out front left. The content of the daily newspaper and other publications is read thus every day, all day and more from the time you leave your work and go home into the dark of night that is the night of our despair.
Readers do. Have a loose grip on reality.
The bus slowed. Not ‘slowed’ as if coming to a stop. The bus slowed yet progressed forward as if the driver had formed no intention to stop. The passengers might have to jump the driver, take control. We were not in a democratic accident inclining to equity, but hapless dependants. We can only imagine ourselves on a level playing field where there is hope, not haphazard luck and its opposition, mishap. The screaming bus sounded as if it was climbing a hill where there was no hill. The floor of the bus shuddered.
A reader would begin reading the text of a paragraph such as I have written above thus: new para cap T definite article space bus space and so on. What is on the page and is otherwise not, designated ‘space’, is vocalised as having entity, place, status or subservience. Everything becomes ascribed purpose and dimension. Commercial ads, lonely hearts pleas, even syndicated crosswords are read. One period down river. Two period across bright. Check the solution. Does the solution match and fit.
Funeral and In Memoriam notices circulate three times which engages the scrutiny of six staffers.
What carminative could I find in reflection we care more for the dead than the living. My bowels gripped in the pain of retention of flatulence. I held my guilty secret forever more against my better judgement weighting good, better and best.
You know, few faux paux and mistaken attributions find their way into print. Each partner holds a copy of the proof. The reader may offer the copyholder they read and the reader listens in the assumed role of copyholder.
What can possibly go wrong.
Imagine the way reflected images in shop windows are seen to change viewed from the window of an inner city bus. Flick flick flick. Readers and copyholders do not stop reading when they walk out onto the street after between 8 and 12 hours a day reading everything given to them including poetry and space. They continue to read. Their eye identifies out of a world of viewpoint anything that can be read, a word, a punctuation mark or more and tests the strength of meaning. Their habitual task in their workplace is an entity of powerful will.
Gathered school children at a stop followed the sight of their scheduled bus passing them without deviating from its forward path. Their faces aghast, they waggled and waved school bags, blazers, outstretched arms. Suddenly the bus clanked and came to screaming rest. Its engine cut out. The screaming stopped. I leaped out of my seat in fear of mayhem and doom, explosion. My suit and shirt collar were sodden in a drench of fear of a colleague literally reading a report of my untimely death to a copy holder: cap c charles spell that out (pause and listen to copyholder) space cap s smith spell that out (pause and listen to copyholder) punctuation comma lower case f formerly indefinite article an employee of…
The fellow next to me who waited tables at The Metropole Hotel dining room and I were first at the exit. I merely pushed him out of my way. He pushed me out of his. As I stepped forward in haste to flee the bus, he pushed me aside again and in retaliation as I grabbed for him and he turned back, I turned and directed the heel of my smart shoe backwards. I felt the impact on his shin bone as the heel connected. My blood up, I was spoiling for a fight as I turned back to land him a blow. He was flailing his hands in the air. His legs were tottering his body helplessly forward as I struck out at him with my readied fist.
After I screamed at him to come back (when he rolled down the stairs), I was pinioned in a citizens arrest and secured to a bus seat with luggage strapping.
…top right column photograph of a man caption under (reader, pause) cap c charles spell that out (reader, pause and listen to copyholder) space cap s smith spell that out (reader, pause and listen to copyholder) punctuation comma lower case indefinite article an employee of…
Merv here. This is terrible. The Shit Carters Arms have challenged us to a game of cricket, down at the park and wheeze have to provide our own umpires.
“Eyes hates cricket, now chess, that’s a man’s game.” says Gib.
The change rooms
“Well mes and Hung love cricket but wheeze need at least eleven plus umpires so that’s around about thirteen folk needed give or take a decimal point” chips in Angler.
“Fucking 13 people. Wears wheeze gunna find 13 brain dead people with there eyes gouged out to play the most boring game ever invented” says Gez again. Gee, Gez gets two says in this story, he must be important.
“I’ll umpire” pipes in Sister Yvonne “just what are the fucking rules?”
Crikey, a lot of fucking going on, what is happening.
“Me fucking too, so there you go wheeze have the umpires and there is no rules, not in a social game, lets sledge the bastards.” says Nurse Barbara.
Let me at the batter, gnarl…
“I’m the fast bowler, can gnash teeth, swear and insult the batsman’s missus” says Honshades “Oh and I’ll chuck in a fucking”.
How come my spell checker recognises fucking? Hmm, something odd is happening here.
Just when crisis point is about to be reached Gordon appears in the bar. Lets face it, if Gordon hadn’t taught the universe how to play cricket none of this would be happening. Isn’t blame appropriation a wonderful thing.
Gordon fills the room with his aura or as we know from the old days, garlic.
“And so be to Gordon, go the farce has ended, oops, wrong story. Now the Shitties have a really good team so we sledge them big time, for example, we remind them that their washing is on the line and that they must check the letterbox whens they get home” dictates Gordon.
“Oh fuck off,wheeze gunna kill them” says Gib getting in a second says an upping his strike rate and hence his remuneration package.
“Yeah, fuck off” says Angler feeling the financial pinch of raising 16 children plus
Angler and children
realising that the Shit Carters have a vicious fast bowler that says naughty things.
“Hash tag, me too” says Hung not really knowing what to say but deciding to be like everyone else “and fur, fur fur, fuck off.” Gees, fancy telling the creator of the universe to fuck off, well I never.
Oh well, thinks Merv, we may as well declare and tell the Shit Carters Arms to fuck off.
“What about fucking Helvi, she’s from fucking Norvay, theys wouldn’t declare, theys would fight” says someone not yet named but gets a says.
“Oh yeah. Forgot that, in the park Sunday I guess” says Gordon racking up yet another says.
“Hung you can’t say fuck off, this is a family friendly blog” says Emmjay.
“No, it’s alright boss, I’m Merv in this story.”
“Well that’s okay then” says Emmjay racking up another says.
You know, I have come to this point in time where I hate says gatherers, don’t ewe.
