Captain Pigheart’s Little Christmas Tale

Gaaargh, ’twere the night afore Christmas an’ all were all peaceful, quieter than ye mouse. O’ course ye’ve not seen the size o’ the mice on the Lollipop, gaargh, they be dwarfin’ ye cat. ‘Tis no wonder we eats ‘em, else they’d be the death of us. Mind ye, what with their remarkable plague-bearin’ skills ye might consider it a kind o’ cannibalin’ on Monty McBuboe’s part.

Aaarrr, we’d moored off the island o’ Streptococcus for the festive season. ‘Twere an odd sort o’ place, renowned for its twin industries o’ whorin’ and the soothin’ o’ sore neckholes. The lads’d disembarked almost afore we’d ceased our sailin’, so keen were they to whetten their whistlin’ gob-’oles.

And so it were left t’ me an No Hands Mick to tie off an’ weigh anchor. To that purpose I’d ‘elped Mick strap on ‘is big wooden grippin’ mitts, the ones with the big spikes for grabbin’ fishies and ye enemy. Aaar, t’ celebrate a successul year we turned ye cannons out to sea and blasted away with good cheer. The balls parted ye Christmassy mist with a satisfyin’ bang.

The bang were follered by a wailin’ what grew louder the longer it went on, ’til finally it were punctuated by a thwack an’ the sound o’ wood an’ iron grindin’ o’er me deck. There were some splinterin’ and dust, but through it we saw a most peculiar vision. ‘Twere a heap o’ horses with sticks on their ‘eads surroundin’ a portly feller dressed in red wi’ a fine, if conspicuous furry trim. ‘E were fairly bellowin’ ‘is fury at us.

I be not a fan o’ being shouted at ‘pon me own ship, so I took the lad by the beard and bounced is noggin off the mast ’til ‘e were quietened. Mick meanwhile were inspectin’ the beasts and the cart they’d pulled. ‘E were pleased to report on the high likelihood that they’d be most tasty, prob’ly even finer than giant rat in an ‘Ollandaise sauce. This seemed to upset the tubby chap further, an’ ‘e protested most vigorously ‘gainst both our culinary devisin’s an’ our blastin’ ‘im out of ye sky. We both ‘ad a bit of a chuckle about that – ’twere a grand shot and we’d be needful o’ a trophy to brag about. And then the fat lad sat us down with a finely mulled bottle o’ wine an’ filled us wi’ Christmas cheer. ‘Twere easier then to believe ‘is ravin’ o’ sailin’ through the skies, tethered to flyin’ deer. Aaarr, there were somethin’ of a fly in ‘is ointment though (we’d treated ‘is landin’ wounds mind – this be but a metaphorical describin’ o’ ‘is woes) seein’ as the reindeer’d been slain either by the cannon blast or from the sleigh bein’ slid at some speed through ‘em on becomin’ grounded.

In our newly excitable state Mick an’ me were keen t’offer our aid an’ so we set t’work a-fixin’ ye sled. Mr Christmas, for that’s who ‘e’d turned out to be, occupied ‘imself with the gatherin’ o’ the children’s gifts what’d been scattered over the Lollipop. The sleigh were lookin’ finer’n ever, freshly reloaded with presents, with it’s rider slightly bandaged. Mick’d been inspired by the reindeer problem but through ‘is alcoholic haze ‘e’d latched onto the notion that ’twere the antlers what made the beasts able to soar through ye skies. If that be so, then we needed some similarly horned creatures.

Bein’ stuck in port on Christmas Eve be not conducive to the managing o’ livestock, but thankfully on a recent treasure-hunt we’d become lost once more an’ run aground. The rocky little spot were home to a breed o’ giant tortoise what we’d found delicious and versatile. Most o’ ye time they’d spend their time weightin’ down ye ship as ballast in ye hold, but come a mite o’ hunger for a special occasion, we’d hook ‘em out and roast ‘em in their shells. Gaargh, it just so ‘appened that Mick’d been brewing a new batch of tar for ye hull repairs. So we sawed off ye antlers an’ glued ‘em to the reptiles. That warranted a few more drinks on ‘er own, an’ we were a-giggle as we popped the horned tortoises in harness.

Mr Christmas were not so impressed, as the lumpen things simply laid on deck due to the cold and retreated into their shells. ‘Twere a great disappointment to Mick, an’ I ‘ad to stop ‘im from throwin’ ‘imself overboard. It struck me that what were needed were merely a source o’ propellin’ the beasts into the sky, once up they’d prob’ly get the hang o’ it. And so it were that we arranged the cannons on deck, an’ chained each o’ the tortoises to a cannonball. We stood back an’ lit the fuses.

The little buggers flew straight up into the night air, draggin’ the sleigh behind, an’ with a “ho ho oh God we’re going to…” the whole thing exploded high up in the sky. ‘Twere awful pretty. Presents rained down on ye chimney pots far across ye island, bringin’ joy to them as what ‘ad not expected it. ‘Course there were a fair quantity o’ body bits fallin’ too, an’ the odd tortoise, but all in all, ’twere a jolly Christmas for the locals.

It seemed Santa’d been somewhat indiscriminate in ‘is pickin’ up o’ objects left on deck, like the two barrels o’ gunpowder we’d wrapped up for Billy. Gaaargh, we’d ‘ave to go out shoppin’ now, and on Christmas Eve to boot.

Gaaarrgh, have yeself a Merry Christmas!

Posted in Adventures, Christmas, Exceedingly Short Adventures, Magic and Mystery
Tagged Billy No Mates, cannon, Christmas, Christmas, Good Ship Lollipop, Monty McBuboe, No Hands Mick, reindeer, Santa Claus, tortoise
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Captain Pigheart’s Accursed Christmas

Gaargh, the first snow flakes were soakin’ into the briny seas by the time I regained me beloved crew, rescuin’ most of ‘em from Kneehorn’s infamous Inhospitable Atoll. Ice caught in me beard and I got me first chillin’ sense o’ the Christmas to come.

The nearest harbour, Isla del Morbida off the coast o’ Spain happened to be Monty McBuboe’s home town. Me foul cook’d been a vagabond for years an’ were dead against a return. Arr, but I be cap’n here and we were in sore need of a port to weather the, well, the weather. The waves be less fun when ‘tis freezin’.

As we drew near the lads were full o’ Christmas cheer, already swingin’ an’ swiggin’ rum in the riggin’. Ye hamlet seemed quiet from the water, in spite o’ the festive buntin’ and lanterns. The dearth o’ folk were a mite worryin’, but the crew vanished nonetheless like rats as soon as the gangplank fell. They were scarce out o’ sight afore there were screams an’ hails o’ abuse – all seemed well.

Minutes later, the Doktor dragged a bloodied Johnny Scuttle aboard. Some dock worker’d lunged out the dark an’ taken a likin’ to Johnny’s noggin, forcin’ Gunther’d to use ‘is surgical skills defensive-like. But Scuttle were drippin’ fearfully so we left ‘em together.

Billy’n meself strolled down the bloody pier an’ found the man Gunther’d so neatly nailed up. We gave ‘im a prod an’ leaped for our hearts as ‘e gnashed ‘is gory teeth at us, in spite o’ the cold steel in ‘is heart. ‘Twere not natural, ‘im growlin’ so we put iron through the rest of ‘im. The bits jiggled still so we booted ‘em into the harbour. Barry announced it a bad omen for the season, an’ in time-honoured fashion sought to o’erturn the ill luck by paradin’ naked about the Grim Bastard. ‘Twere another good reason to see the sights, besides me chewed-up crewman.

The village were possessed of the grisly décor of a Slavic serial killer turned interior designer. The plain stucco clashed with the blood sloshed walls an’ trestle tables strewn with body bits. It seemed Christmas’d gone wrong. The terrified locals, an’ me crew were bein’ menaced in the middle o’ the square by a horde o’ ragin’, champin’ loons. Their eyes were glazed an’ their gobs a-drool, seekin’ to slake their thirst for human blood. Or so we assumed, not knowin’ the exact details, but familiar with the general principles o’ a zombie plague

A noise at me side ‘ad me spinnin’ ‘pon me peg to the sight o’ a pustulent creature lurchin’ from the shadows. ‘Twere but Monty. He dragged us into an alley where a tiny crone burst out from behind him, hissin’ in ‘er toothless way, “the curth, the curth!” Aarr, she fair scared the cockles off the lot of us; Billy pulled some groinal muscle in surprise. By the light o’ a gutterin’ candle she lisped to us their woes.

Some days before, as the town began to gird itself for Christmas a magical man arrived and amazed ‘em with ‘is conjurin’. ‘Twere all most jolly till the magician turned the Mayor’s daughter into a mermaid, who promptly flopped about an’ died from lack o’ water. The townsfolk, bein’ of a provincial nature, knew a witch when they saw one an’ acted accordin’ly. As ‘is toes caught fire the conjuror cursed the town to a terrible death. Naturally they laughed this off an’ toasted marshmallows and the like. The next day were less cheery when some fool, on hearing a a loud bangin’ from within the crypts, opened ‘em an’ so unleashed the undead fiends. By now they were either zombified, hiding or munched upon. There were but little ‘ho ho’ here.

Me instincts were simple: gather what crew remained an’ cast off post-haste. This simple plan gave the crone some form of fit, judgin’ by the spittle an’ gurnin’. Monty on t’other hand looked somewhat sheepish as the crone flung a pendant at ‘im in a beseechin’ manner. I were about to step in, for Monty’s a mite fragile an’ I be not payin’ for more breakages.

Monty sighed an’ took the proffered pendant. As ‘e did so, an unearthly glow enveloped ‘is crumblin’ frame, an’ on ‘is head, a crown shone bright. The crone were supplicatin’ wildly; we settled for some all-purpose genuflectin’ instead. She insisted on shriekin’ “at latht you’ve returned mathter – to thave our thouls” until Billy clipped ‘er with ‘is pistol, for there were wailin’ a-plenty past the wall. Monty’d the decency to look embarrassed an’ confided that Lord Montague del Morbida were ‘is birthright. He’d fled in shame, havin’ fleeced the peasantry with holy tithes to ward off ye evil spirits; the leprosy were a sort of uniform. Arr, the poor lad blamed ‘imself and begged for me aid.

Gaargh, a new plan formed quicker’n a cloud o’ seagulls about a beached whale. We booted the crone out into the street to scream a diversion, while we ran to the cemetery atop the hill. Monty were loathe to leave ‘er, but since he’d left the whole village to the gastronomical mercies o’ the undead, one more ought to be no more gallin’.

Monty’s glow grew brighter, lightin’ up the ancient graves surmountin’ the peak. He strode amongst ‘em, mutterin’ darkly, causin’ a tomb to pop open, revealin’ a cache o’ weaponry. Monty passed to each of us a ghoulish green sword which hummed and buzzed in our ‘ands as we swung ‘em experimental–like. They cut clean through the first zombie to find us, like a spoon through oven-baked jellyfish.

That signalled our charge and we fell upon the hell spawn with our holy weapons. ‘Twere more fun than puffer-fish cricket, though twice as messy. Afore we knew it we was hackin’ into the livin’. It were clear that the village idyll were over an’ I drew Monty aside. I grasped ‘is duties an’ all, but frankly, havin’ doomed ‘is people anyway we might easily turn this tragedy into treasure. Honour and greed swapped slaps behind ‘is eyes till ‘is righteous glow faded an’ he were me larcenous an’ leprous chef once more. I passed ‘im a finger he’d dropped earlier an’ we set about findin’ the remnants o’ the crew.

Much, much later, after we’d drained the seafront of ale we tottered back aboard the Grim Bastard. Frightful bellowin’ issued from belowdecks, accompanied by a grim Germanic giggle. Aarr, we’d forgot about young Johnny Scuttle. Somethin’ hinted at this not bein’ a complete recovery. But, insulated by drink we flung back the bolts.

At first I trusted not me eyes, drunk as they was. A nightmare clambered from the dark, with Johnny’s head if not his body, for it had far too many arms, and seemed part turtle. Loomin’ into the lamplight I espied fine needlepoint what digressed into a charmin’ depiction o’ the village at sunset across the chest. The Doktor chuckled in delight, “ja, ve haf been most busy viz zis plague, es ist most interesting. See, young Johnny – ach his brain ist gone, but he has now ze four arms, just sink of ze scrubbing! Now, votch him scamper.”

Gaargh, me sternness an’ horror lost out to drunken mirth as poor Johnny scuttled about, snappin’ toothlessly like a violently senile crab. I thought it best to chain ‘im but Sharon insisted that Johnny’d be a fine pet and set about knittin’ ‘im a six-limbed romper suit for rovin’ the boat.

‘Twere an odd Christmas, though not without profit. We left the town afire behind us and totted up our gold. We sailed on into a new year o’ bright dreams an’ broken hearts.

Posted in Adventures, Beastly Adventures, Christmas, Magic and Mystery
Tagged Admiral Kneehorn, Billy No Mates, blood, Christmas, Christmas, corpse, Grim Bastard, Herr Doktor Gunther Garment, Johnny Scuttle, magic, Monty McBuboe, plague, zombie
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Captain Pigheart’s Hermitage Adventure

The roaring ocean tossed me about like a giantess with a sensual dwarf. The rain lashed me battered face, soothing the sunburn till the salty once again fertilised the pain in me cheeks.

Twas only the blinding sheets of lightning that granted me a slight sight of me destination. At the first flash I thought I saw a giant chicken bearing down on a tumescent squid. It flashed again and the poultry were gone, leaving but an island. I barely made it ashore, and I was grateful to the carpet of mating crabs which drew me over the sands with their undulating and left me half-buried in their crustaceous seed.

I lived amongst them for three years, till I outgrew the largest shell they had. With the shell stuck upon me I struck out for human society once more. I left behind two wives and a thousand younglings. Man were not hard to find, for I’d been living in me hermit shell not half a mile from the nearest village. They’d railed against me evil for months and I’d earned a small stipend from me work as a bogey man, terrifying infants should they wander into caves and such. I stayed away out of shame and I’d little keenness to return. However, with ye crabs’ recent social evolutions I were no longer welcome.

I sought out a friendly local to aid me in shedding me cumbrous shell. I was so distracted by the hunchbacky pain me personal caravan was causing me that until the blacksmith and his daughter had eased me out of the case I’d taken little note o’ me surroundings. A shudder passed down me twisted spine, poppin’ me vertebral moulding out of its conical shape. Upon the wall of the quaint cottage (by which I mean run-down and pestilential) and indeed across the laps of me charitable metallurgists was a sight I’d hoped never to lay me eye upon again.

I managed to mask me gasp with the syncopated chiropractic clickety-pops of becoming erect. Even as I wavered on me feet, me spine no longer suited to straight-forward standin’, ye crude willow-weave merkin clung to the wall, mocking me with its gash-sash. Perhaps it were too soon for human company. I awkwardly bellowed me thanks and ran side-wise out of the hovel.

For more o’ the merkin adventures, read Captain Pigheart All Washed Up.

Posted in Adventures, Beastly Adventures
Tagged blacksmith, crab, crustaceous seed, deformity, hermit crab, loneliness, manly tears, Merkin, shipwrecked, spawn, twat thatch
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Captain Pigheart’s Cetacean Adventure

The deck of the Grim Bastard was awash with the bitter tears o’ the sea, her sails slashed with the fury of a scorned harlot.

Aye, and she had just cause to toss me vessel ‘tween her troughs, for once again in our drunken folly we’d spurned the hairless beasts spawned by her salty nether-fountain. Ye assortment o’ horrors fishy, be-toothed and tentacular what thronged in her deeps (venturin’ too oft also into her shallows) had besieged us as we sought naught but honest trade in the goods of others.

We sought to escape the ill luck that had pestered us by taking a cultural tour of the Baltic. Our first stop was the bustlin’ port town o’ Gloomåë Bøstardsen which, despite its glummy name, was the finest whore-filled harbour of opportunity and delicious vice on the coast of Finland. The normally suicidal folk o’ the Norselands’d found a place to spend ‘emselves in wench and wine before expirin’ in a sauna, thrashin’ one another with sticks.

We interrupted their genial knife-fighting to enquire about their famed whale pummellin’ contest. Me most morose crewmate, Shänkly Morbidsonsen revelled in the many grudges and humiliations he’d acquired as a child in this bleak land. Perhaps could regain his manhood with a spot o’ dolphin-slappin’. He slapped down his huge fists and enrolled the crew in this highlight of the Finnish calendar. All the sons o’ Bøstardsen’d signed up to beat the hell out of a cetacean punchin’ bag and show us upstart pirates who’d be dead in the snow the mornin’ after.

The contest was a terrifying display of drunken bravado and maudlin mammal mauling. Tis a curiously ill-defined sport, for ye object was to dash out as far as ye dared and punch the largest whale ye could reach. We waded out into the shallows and while ye big Fins punched through their tears and me lads met ‘em blow for blow.

The sea was as dark as the looming month-long night to come. For reasons unknown to the locals, the whale kin chose this bit of coast on which to prance and fornicate. Twas a poor choice, for there was surely some other enhumpinateable sand bank where folks were less prone to drunken punching and knife fights.

Me boys were acquitting themselves well, though there’d been some upsets – No Hands Mick’s prosthetic fists’d been banned so he could only batter ‘em with his stumps, bless him. Barry was found pluggin’ a dolphin in its blow hole – tis not the accepted form o’ punching hereabouts. He was gently dissuaded and spent the remainder of the contest wooing porpoises.

Now me lad Shänkly had stunned a humpback whale with one blow and drawn the attentions of a great lass, by which I mean huge, who lay about the whales with a meanness born o’ young nights terrified by tales of the albino hippopotamuses dwelling in the forests. Surely tis an awful prospect and one that drives ye Fins to drink and incomprehensibly violent music. Gaargh, despite the gravity of the woman (for she drew waves and even the moon seemed larger) I could not help but compete with Shänkly for his femininish prize, for such be me pride.

With the bravery of spiritual libation I swam out to deeper waters where ye larger sea moose cavorted. I must have stumbled upon one mid-thrust for it squealed and reared up. At first I thought it an impressive male, for its horn split the moon in two – then I realised twas from its head. In some state o’ startlement meself I lamped it in the face with all the strength I could muster. The horned beast tumbled backwards, snortling bubbles as it fell back into the sea.

I turned triumphant to the shore to the roar of me crewmates and a somewhat less heartening gasp o’ horror from the locals. The great barrel of a woman that Shänkly ’d his eyes upon (how could ye not for she eclipsed the landscape) bellowed at me, “ye fool ye’ve doomed us all”. In truth, the number of times I’ve heard that has quite diminished the worry it ought to incite. In addition she used an exotic range of vowels which reduced her intelligibility to whalesong. However on this occasion it was backed up by the frantic dash of Fins for the sanctity of their saunas, and by Shänkly grabbing me by the collar and bellowin’ “ye’ve knocked out the narwhal princess! Tis time to be gone.”

In haste we splashed towards the Good Ship Lollipop and her alluring rope ladders. From behind came the deep hoon of irate cetaceans. As they surged forwards their fresh wake drove us onward. We’d almost made the ropes when a forest of twisted horns rose out of the sea beside us – the narwhal court set to avenge the honour of their princess. Brave Shänkly tugged Barry free from the enamoured porpoise he rode and forced us up the ladders before turning back to the big spike-faced fish.

Gaargh, I almost leaped back to fight by his side, but the grim set to his face reminded me of me duty to the crew and me preference for survival. Shänkly took a mighty gobful o’ the vodka from his traditional flask and spat fire impressively but futilely, for the beasts were sodden; though he did surprise ‘em before fisting ‘em roughly. As we gained the deck he’d been joined by his lummox woman who rivalled some of them in size, though not, as it turned out in sharpness. The pair fought with courage till they were caught by the brutes, their horns punchin’ through ‘em till they became glum pin cushions pierced in the narwhals’ bloody needle-point.

We set sail. Behind us the leviathans were launching themselves out of the sea onto the beach, flattening the saunas which offered scant protection, and the birch flails still less. The narwhals pursued us but fell back as they grew weary of the impenetrability of our hull, where they dangled from their faces till we cut them loose. I’ll miss Shänkly. Though he was a melancholic fellow he did tell fine tales o’ them white hippos to scare the cabin lads. For my part I’ve a lovely new unicorn o’ the sea peg leg, and a new-found enemy in whale-kind. Twas a good night out. On then to the festival village of Guttering Honk and their notorious owl-gargling rituals.

Posted in Adventures, Beastly Adventures, pirates, romance
Tagged arctic, Barry, beserkers, Crewmates, Good Ship Lollipop, manly tears, narwhal, No Hands Mick, pirates, porpoise, prosthetic, romance, whale
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Franklyn de Gashe ~ The Theatrical Entertainment

Space convulsed. Flames of black snaked around me as I warped in and out of existence before being squeezed out of the temporal effluvium. I stuffed the time hamster back into its velvet pouch. The poor thing was shaking and clearly needed the sunflower seeds I tapped its face with. I’d been hard at work before the peelers had disturbed the Duke and I, prompting my chrono-rodential translation into this musty hole. My escape through the rodent’s portal had been as rough as ever. My cuffs were quite disarrayed although the time hole had apparently scraped clean my jacket and taken the bloodstains from my favourite strangling gloves. I’d just have to re-sanguinate them.

With the feel of the hamster stuffing its cheeks against my liver I mustered an interest in our surroundings. The stench of failure squatted in the air like a fetid whore in the gutter. The room, dark; dimly lit by dangling brass orbs. The floor boarded and scuffed, obscured by a vulgar rug depicting nothing but the weaver’s limited imagination. The chairs had been wisely bolted to the floor (how I loathe the habit of guests rearranging furniture), the table in the centre bore manacles, straps and a curious patchwork pigmentation. Promising. I’d marbled a slab or two myself. I was reminded of the lair of the Mire people on whom I’d preyed whilst dwelling amongst the shark giraffes in the Afric valleys. Of course their torturous habits were as nothing to the agony of their conversation, which marked them as victims for any philanthropically inclined assassin.

The damp aggravated my asthma so I prepared a pipe of ‘Victor Shartbritches’ Finest Health Shag’ which happily displaced both the lung clag and my general dismay. Pipe in teeth I browsed the ground floor which had been curiously carpeted with a littering of springs, bolts and metallic detritus. The pantry was a tumble of limbs and assorted torso bits; hardly appetising. The kitchen sink was stacked with skull caps and liquefying brain matter. There were no vittles to fill my growling belly. I did find tea, which I enhanced with the phials and vials of tonics I carry constantly. I resumed my rifling revived and twitchy.

I received no gentlemanly warning before I was hurled across the drawing room to demolish a bookcase and vase with the force of my en-lobment. With a grin I drew my twin gutting blades from their ingenious homes in my sleeves. Across the room, hunched in a mockery of manhood was a fabulous fellow, who whilst largely comprising a grisly mass of ill-stitched meat owned a gleaming skull and glass piston limbs which belied his organic naissance. The thing’s arms pumped hard, winding strength for further blows. I pressed my advantage, pirouetting through the air in a whirlwind of flashing blades, gashing the concertinaed bellows in his shoulders and hip. I landed some feet away, leisurely tooting on my medicine which I retained in my toothy embrace.

The automaton cocked its clockwork head as I lectured it on the proper treatment of guests. But at length I concluded that it was either dumb or damaged, for it offered neither retort nor explanation for its behaviour. A tedious affair. I sipped my tea and regarded it over my crossed knees. The house was clearly abandoned and this tin headed ogre left as a guard dog. I took up a screwdriver and playfully tinkered at the robot’s skull. The convulsive twitching gave it the semblance of pain but it wasn’t until I’d triggered a speaker function that I was prepared to regard it useful. At first I could scarcely tease it through jabbing and soft words to sing me a nursery rhyme. In time though he mastered Baa Baa Black Sheep and we moved on to Daisy. The metallic gnarl of his voice grated against my delicate aesthetics but I persevered.

By the third day he could declaim Shakespeare; I cast him in the role of Juliet. I hauled him upstairs and balanced him across the banister while I beseeched him from below. My eyes fairly fizzled as I eagerly constructed a rude stage at the foot of the staircase and dragged out the brass orbs to be our footlights. Having need of further players I plundered the cadaver cast-offs in the cupboards, and while brewing yet more tinctured tea, copied the mechanisms that operated my Juliet with the cutlery and sinew I found strewn about the kitchen. Soon I had a fine cast with whom to enact Shakespeare’s tragic romance in full.

Despite the corpsey plenitude there was something missing. My tea-induced frenzy abated, the mists of glory de-clouding my eyes. Before me stood my animated zombie players and Juliet, all powered by the field of concocted fire I’d electrified the stage with. With a flick of my toe act one would commence, lead of course with the fabulous “Two houses” speech of which we’re all so fond. I was about to engage the whole affair when I realised that I could not watch this art alone – I was the director, twas only fitting that I have an audience fit to receive it.

The gloom was seizing me – what use these decrepit actors and my machinations if I’d no audience to gasp and lavish their praise upon me? It was then that the doorbell rang. A quandary dear sirs: when one has supplanted the perhaps proper denizen, how should one answer their bell? It tickled my conscience for all of a moment before flinging the door open, puppeting the corpse of my Benvolio (whose gaping face I fancied likely fit the bill of the bell-owner) through the gap. It seems my attempts at make-up were in vain. Perhaps I’d made him too orange (to compensate for the stage luminance), perhaps it was his skeletal throat or my rude stitching. Perhaps both, for with a gasp and eyeball stretching the poor milk wench fainted away on the step. I cast Benvolio to one side and drew her in, settling her in a chair with bonds and cushion.

Over the next three days I drank tea, ground my teeth and made adjustments to the animatronic controls of my cadaverous troupe. At regular intervals some other spectator would knock on the door with concern for the last to join my dainty auditoria. And so I achieved three ranks of restless eyewitnesses to my creative opus.

It was precisely six days since I’d emerged in this creatively fertile time when I ordered the curtains open before my wide-eyed audience. They looked thrilled, and were hungry for theatre, and a meal. The careless former owner had made no allowance for the belly needs of is guests and I’d been able only to nurture their spirits with the backstage excitement of a play in progress. There were a number I had to slap awake lest they miss the third act, but most sat rigidly to attention, the sweat of anticipation dribbling down their faces. I was proud of my puppet players, from little Benvolio to Nursie (whom I’d constructed largely with an armchair), they played their parts while I provided their voices from falsetto to tenor; except for the scenes with my beloved Juliet. The wig I’d pasted onto his shiny pate quite deceived me and I truly believed our love would last forever, despite our families’ rancour.

Alas, my spectacle was cut short by a hammering at the door. Though we tried to ignore it (my audience gamely blocking it out by the stamp of their feet) it was more than I (or any other artiste) could endure. Deeply affronted I hurled the door wide and bellowed for peace in the faces of the constables crowding the door. They fell back in surprise and I slammed the door once more. Their tiresome noise resumed at once. Is there to be no calm for a theatre director?

We achieved act four before they pounded the door to pieces. I’d blocked the windows thoroughly to attain the darkness and suspension of disbelief my crowd deserved. Clearly I had no choice but to turn my thespians upon the interlopers. As the animated bodies attacked I realised I should have undertaken one of the histories, perhaps Henry V. “Once more, dear friends,” I cried as the tenuously twined torsos burst upon the bobbies, “unto the breach”. The rabble had no appreciation of the work and had the temerity to adopt expressions of anger, as if their interruption were not the travesty at hand. With a sigh I set the android to ‘kill’ and withdrew my time hamster from his pouch. I tickled him in that special way and he squealed forth the temporal orifice. With luck our next stop would be a more cultural realm.

Posted in Franklyn de Gashe, romance
Tagged android, Baa Baa Black Sheep, corpse, drug addicts, necrotise, romance, Romeo Juliet, Tea, theatre, time hamster, time travel, William Shakespeare
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Vermouth Thursday ~ Galaxy Team

“Paris 1993 [Eiffel tower] Thursday July 22rd 17:53 [same shot of the Eiffel tower with a vast spaceship hovering over it]. The first recorded appearance of the intergalactic space villain, self-dubbed ‘Vermouthinator’ (over two hundred appellations to his name have been recorded – all honorific titles, apparently self-created as an expression of his extreme egotism). Vermouthinator contacted all humans on Earth directly, simultaneously entering their minds instead of all forms of traditional communication. His message was short and cryptic and has been pieced together from a variety of surviving sources [montage of confused Parisians]:

“Greetings human filth. It is I, the Ineffably Wondrous Lord of the Demiverse, Sculptor of Wonder, Imbiber of Galactic Fluids – the one and only Vermouthinator. Congratulations are due to your mixologists and cocktailliers. It is martini time.” [photograph of a martini glass]

This initial contact may have been mis-calibrated in either its force or content. Certainly the overture while apparently contemptuous, did not speak of an intent for the carnage that ensued. While all of humanity received a message (albeit in English, which was wasted on many), the area immediately around Paris, in a roughly 1000 mile radius was particularly affected by the intensity of the communication [map with big red circle]. Religious fundamentalists appeared to take the brunt of the damage, suffering from the now well-documented ‘Mental Expulsion Trauma’ (see appendix xii).

In summary: the contact forced a paradigm shift upon those affected. Undeniable evidence of non-terrestrial life or the sudden telepathic contact so vastly exceeded their supposed realities that their natural mental plasticity (the ability to compartmentalise irreconcilable information) was unable to cope. The result: their mental states were forced out of their physical structures to a point 14 inches to the left of their skull [image of a ghostly brain hanging above a mannequins shoulder]. It is notable that individuals suffering from schizophrenia and related disorders were less likely to be fatally affected.

Of the affected individuals 98.995% are now deceased, their vegetative states determined permanent. Rumours persist of sentient plants and animals who were within that 14 inch translocation range [photograph of 'Benny the Signing Dandelion' and 'Aquat, the Scholarly Squirrel']. Few of these cases have been verified, nor have the accounts of sightings of Alpha Strangemind and the Galaxy Team in heavily affected regions apparently armed with “high-tech butterfly nets” [artist's impression of techno-net].”

The film jerks to a stop, black streaks overtaken by white which flicker over the curious figure hunched before the screen. He is tall and thin, dressed in a fake silk dressing gown with a dragon cheaply embroidered on the back; his feet and ankles are bony and uncovered. With a snort of disgust he spits on the concrete floor and stabs the button on his arm rest which re-starts the film. The shadows cast by the television throw his long body back across the bleak room; his head tails weakly off the top of his shoulders. The shadow is no trick of the light: his head really is tiny. This is Pip, first child of Anne and Doyle Humpester; Galactobrain to his fans; Milkymind to his brothers; Bollockface to his enemies. The last is cruel but apt observation. He stands and hurls his Kit-Kat mug across the room. It falls short of the opposing wall and shatters on the concrete sending a coffee slick into the cracks.

“Oi. You can clear that lot up right now mister,” the door flies open to reveal the voluptuous figure of Comely Strangemind, wife and partner to the legendary Galaxy Team patriarch Alpha (formerly Mr and Mrs Doyle Humpester). She stands there with her stark black mask in place but otherwise wrapped in a towel, steaming from the shower.

Pip whirls around, his eyes bulging in surprise. They’re the biggest thing in his head, which looks exactly like someone’s taken a tennis ball and stapled a pair of poached eggs onto it. He bursts into tears. The way his face is squeezed means that his tear ducts are unnaturally pressed against his cheek bones and the tears spurt forward like windscreen washers.

Comely crosses the room and crushes her son to her breast, “Oh Pip, you must stop watching that.”

“I just hate him so much mum, it’s all his fault…” his tears soak into Comely’s towel. Quietly Comely extrudes a length of tail-like flesh and scoops the broken mug up and into the waste basket by the door. She sits down and pops Pip on her knee where he continues his bitter sobbing.

Pip is one of only twenty-three human survivors of the ironically titled Vermouth Thursday’s Mental Expulsion Trauma. At the time of the Vermouthinator’s fateful message he had been seven, an outwardly normal boy (if rather tall) with extraordinary mental powers. He had been instrumental in the development of Galaxy Team since before he was born and so had been involved in some of his parents’ earliest experiments on he and his siblings.

On Vermouth Thursday Alpha and Comely had strapped Pip into a device of their devising intended to map and amplify the already prodigious mind he possessed – the augMentation. Pip was a willing participant, keen to expand and develop the neoScience of Galaxy Team. His mind was wide open, the virtual tendrils of their machinery exposing and teasing apart his mind. When Vermouthinator blasted out his greeting to humanity Pip’s mind was naked and vulnerable. The words blasted into him, amplified a billion-fold by the augMentation. Unlike the millions who died almost instantly, the extraordinary mental prowess enabled him to find an escape from the endless reverberations of alien inanities. He tapped into the Quantum Occlusion (which shielded the village of Llandwi-ge-Hw from outsiders) and ejected his mind past the 14 inch limit. He went too far. Bent around the Occlusion, it strained his mind and the physical matter of his brain out into space and beyond. The stream of his ideation found its entangled particles and flowed around the converse edge of the universe, re-emerging into real space inside the Small Megallanic Cloud where it discovered structure sufficient to accommodate his mind, though massively dispersed.

Despite Alpha’s best efforts they had been unable to reverse the process – Pip’s brain was no longer located in his body – it was a galaxy two hundred million light years away. On Earth the shell of his head had buckled, cracking and collapsing unable to tolerate the vacuum within. Somehow he still controlled his body though it was some weeks before he fully integrated his disparate mentality between the stars. When he did regain the power of speech it was a huge relief to his parents who had almost ceased their experiments on their other offspring in concern. With the return of speech came a darkness born of the deep space in which he now lived, and despite being only a child, he swore vengeance on Vermouthinator.

Anne had grown used to finding Pip watching the news reports of Vermouth Thursday over and over again. Despite his galactic intelligence he just could not find it in him to forgive Vermouthinator for destroying his face. That he had likely gained immortality at the age of seven by replanting his consciousness in another galaxy was small comfort for a young man who ought to be chasing girls like the Beastlie Brothers (though hopefully with more success). All of Comely’s attempts to steer him away from revenge had failed. It seemed the only thing to do was to help him avenge himself.

“Pip, we know he’ll be back one day, people like him always come back.” Pip judders with rage and the force of tears firing upwards from his eyes.

“He’s not a person mum, we don’t know where he’s from or what he is.” Pip’s fingers begin to jerk in a complex pattern of virtual keystrokes and command gestures.

“Let’s try and find out shall we? You know your father’s been working on the Vortex. We could go and find him, out there.” The holographic screen appears in the room before them, engineering designs, molecular structures and anatomical diagrams flash away with a single gesture from Pip. A detailed image of the Milky Way resolves itself in the air and streaks past to reveal the cloudy mass of stars that compose Pip’s mind. They pierce the outer halo and streaks of stardust. Comely cannot help but wonder what part of Pip’s mind they are looking at. What happens when a star dies in his mind…

Pip’s tears dry up and his face takes on a distant, calculating aspect. He points at a cluster of stars and the view zooms in to show a star with its orrery of planets gliding by, “I wonder if he’s in me.” The thought makes Comely’s second skin crawl under her towel.

Posted in Adventures, Galaxy Team
Tagged Biology, Daddy, deformity, Eiffel Tower, Galaxy, honorific titles, Kit-Kat, martini, martini glass, martini time, mind, origins, religious fundamentalists, revenge, skull image, Vermouthinator & Gutshank
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The Hubristic Adventure ~ Captain Pigheart

The timbers of the Good Ship Lollipop splintered about me as the balls pounded into me stern. I bellowed to bring the ship around, for the wind was catchin’ us pretty and presenting us unfavourably to our foe. Smoke and cries filled the air between our two vessels – gaargh, twas the sneering upstart Captain Aaaarsbeard’s Cankered Whore which spat at us with her iron bile. I’m a proud man, but not too proud to admit fault on them exceptional cases where there’s no one else to blame. I cannot say the same of Captain “Moose Merkin” Aaaarsbeard, whose vexatious behaviour had earned him a sinking.

He was a petty and whimsical type, much given to the kind of ego massage as’d shame the most devoted onanist. And like most folk o’ so piteous a disposition he was also excessively sensitive. Not as ye might think in regard to his naming (Aaaarsbeard’s the family name), for while the man was bald as a vinegared lime his breeches overflowed with hedgey hirsutitude. Gaargh, the sight may taint the pleasure a man might take in packing his pipe. Tis said he once so terrified the Duke de Vulva-Beard (who ye may recall from the appalling Island of Merkin) that he was escorted from the Duke’s palace in a box lest his hairy tendrils infest the Duke’s dreams. I’d once seen him plunge into the drink while whorin’ along the pier of Butochrie (a charming town ye may wish to visit); his lower half ballooned and it took nine stout wenches to squeeze the water out of his man-britches.

Nonetheless, we’d been mates for many a year. For we had a common foe in the vile Admiral Lucius Kneehorn whose blind obedience to naval law had spoiled many a booty-hunt. Much time had we spent at cards, dice and wench plotting vengeance on the prissy seaman. Twas natural for us to dine whilst spinning the tales of our feats and daredevil adventuring. Me own cabin is filled with treasures and whatever remnant organs we’d been able to retrieve from the beasts we faced down. But Aaaarsbeard’s walls were adorned with fanciful portraits of himself astride (for example) the gaping socket of the cyclopean giant or nestlin’ twixt the diaphanous frills of a fish-maiden.

Me eye took in the veritable panorama of braggery while me hook idly traced the outline of those shapely scales, for twas life size, ye could almost smell the salt. Gaargh, how fondly I recalls them nip-nips, for twas me own Neptuney love. Me eye darted across further paintings and the theme grew clear – twas my past and my victories, not those of Captain Aaarsbeard. I knew ‘em all for tales of me own life save that of the picture o’ Aaarsbeard shakin’ the claw of a bestial figure I knew to be the Pirate King (self-proclaimed for he’s a buffoon and more crab than king). Twas his only glory and a poor one at that. I’d not groom him were he twice the man I be, though his extra limb-ing might well produce such calculation; tis not in me nature.

The smugness on his face (in flesh and in oils) drove me to a tentative baitin’. “Yarr,” I remarked, “tis amazing how close our adventures be twined.” Aaaarsbeard chose not to be abashed and instead of admittin’ manly-style that his was a wall of false and stolen glory, he lashed out with a cutlass in his hairless fist. Me riposte was swift though me reach was not: twas with a figurine of a bountiful dwarf that I defended meself. I knew I was at a disadvantage bein’ trapped within the furry man’s cabin so I bounced the marble midget off his face and put his desk between us. It caught him hard across the cheek and drew a tear. Had it not, we might perhaps have laughed off the insult and resumed our duck à lobster. Pride me lovelies – tis a terrible thing.

While making an honourable rear-wards exit I drew me own blade and we sliced metal rainbows in the air. Being a better man in all respects (save the aforementioned wholeness) I kept him at the tip of me sword and flipped his ugly ornamentation at him with the curve of me hook. The flying cruets (for he’d a collection to rival a Condimentiary nun’s) distracted him for long enough that I could slice the piscine-maiden from out her frame and tuck her into me sash – she were coming with me. Thus emboldened I took the fight back to Aaaarsbeard. There was much in the way of parrying and poking as we danced out of the cabin and across the deck.

The course of battle turned against me when the coward urged his mates to join the fray. When lunging with slightly too much effort I found me peg leg wedged and came under heavier slashing. I’d no choice but to resort to an underhanded move. I threw me sword in the air and, as it hung there awaiting the call of the earth beneath it, I seized a fist-full of his beastly trouser-fluff and yanked with all the might a man used to tuggin’ rope can. Aaaarsbeard fell. And screamed. An unearthly howl as unlike the man’s natural tenor as a kitten is like a cockle. I seized me chance, snatched me cutlass from the air and wrenched me leg from the deck. His men were beside ‘emselves as I dived over the rail, still shaking their captain’s nether fur from me fingers.

And so we are at battle with one another, neither to give quarter until t’other apologises for their faults – imagined or otherwise. Our vessels are equally matched and fast running out of both cannon and shot. Twould likely result in a deadlock, except that before visiting with Aaaarsbeard the day before I’d acquired a small barrel of monkeys to amuse the crew. Even now we’re catapulting the flaming macaques into Aaaarsbeard’s sails. Victory is in sight, as is me beautiful uncreased merwench.

Posted in Adventures, Adventurous Adventures, mermaid
Tagged bosom-riding, Butochrie, cannon, Captain Aaaarsbeard, cutlass, deformity, Good Ship Lollipop, Merkin, mermaid, monkey
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Shankanolalia – The Sensation of Being Verse-Shanked

While it’s always pleasant to be prolific I’m actually a little worried by how much anger I’ve been leaking into the internet. So it may as well increase with another bumper collection of mean-spirited Twitter verse from @Shankanalia. Again, I feel I should defend some of my harsher words here and point you to the real source of blame which is definitely not me…. It’s work, it’s the continuous frustration of dealing with other people who bewilderingly do not do things in exactly the same way that I do. Oh, and our absymal tools. Oh woe is a computer purchased in an ill-considered national contract. Sigh. Enjoy/despair.

Angry Tom
Get opened
Get cutted
Be an eviscerine
Cos I’m a shank machine

Infinite Stupidity
If I cut off your face
Took a peek in your holes
Would I find you inside
Or a tiny small person
Whose face just might hide An infinite regression of homunculi

Fake
O so bright o so chirpy
But your life is a sham
Make polite conversation
Counting out pills
O so bleak full of pity
Take out your big knife

Old and Still Dull
Your ceaseless prattle
Your endless moans
Do you hear the rattle
Inside your bones?

Lonely
Sad man sitting
Red Bull and cigarette
Sad man thinking
Lonely and heart upset
Sad man hanging
Adrenaline and anoxia

Prison Sweet
They sent me down cos I cut ya
Got raped every day cos I cut ya
But I don’t care cos I cut ya
Cos I cut ya you’ll never fiiiiiind love.

Your keyboard is my closest weapon
Stabby stabby stabby eyeholes
Broken jag of keyboard
Buried in your skull
Eyeholes full of letters
Alphanumeric sight unseen
Stabby stabby..

Futility
Why oh why Mr ‘Puter can’t you work?
If you can’t work then I can’t work too
Mr ‘Puter don’t you know I need you
Guess I’ll just go home now

Don’t Talk No Proper
Said the boy to the man
You ain’t got nuffin ya get me
Said the man to the boy
I got your face on CCTV
Said the boy to the man
Ya get me man

Ugly Is In The Beholder
Oh lady
Lady with a warthog face
Oh lady
Lady you scare me
Please don’t look at me
Oh lady
Can’t you euthanise for me?
Oh lady

Criminal (stupidity)
Broke into JD Sports to fight the man
Just to show em we can
The shutter defeated us
Come back tomorrow when
We can shoplift instead

Regret – a Gamble
Me an dese lads broke
Inta Ladbrokes
Dint ave no money
Orses for courses innit tho
What ve odds of dat?
Shouda done maffs, ya get me.

Posted in Assorted Ramblin's, pub poetry
Tagged anger, hate, IT helpdesk, JD Sports, mean-spirited, misanthropism, Poetry, pub poetry, riots, Shopping, Twitter
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Pulp Pirate

Yarr, this week ye beloved captain’s received ye highest possible honour and had me Lost At Sea Adventure featured on me favourite podcast. Aye, ye Flash Pulp folkses’ve seen fit to include me tale on their weekly Flash Cast. Many thanks mates, ye shall be forever welcome on board the Good Ship Lollipop.

You can listen to it here:

Flash Cast 39

Tis a fine hour of pulp fiction reviews and views with a number of guest contributor’s offerin’ such diverse joy as Three Day Fish‘s film reviews, Jeff Lynch‘s increasin’ly intriguing Spot of Bother mini-documentaries, Barry‘s New York Minute, Colorado Joe, Ingrid‘s amazing stories from Vienna and so many more, plus a fine netful of comments and thoughts from a broad and splendid audience.

Yarr, I could not be happier to be in such salubrious company. Tis a far cry from ye Dropsy Tavern on the end of ye pier. It brings a tear o’ joy to me remaining eye – I must remember not to brush it away with me hook. I’ll be sharing me tales with ‘em again, I can promise ye.

And here’s one of their fabulous promo tracks for the incredible outpouring of pulp fiction that they achieve every week. Listen to them all, or just read the whole stories on line.

Posted in Assorted Ramblin's, audio
Tagged podcast, flash pulp, flash fiction, pulp fiction, audio tale, pirates in the air, Flash Cast
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Goodbye Mister Bimbolino: Index of Clown Killing

Chapter One	Chapter Two
Chapter Three	Chapter Four
Chapter Five	Purely for your reading convenience – an easy way to get through the chapters. Alex Trepan investigates a series of mysterious clown killings.I hope you enjoy the story!

Posted in Alex Trepan, Galaxy Team
Tagged Clown, clown killing, flash fiction, Galaxy Team, misanthropism, pulp fiction, sci-fi, short story, trepanning
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A Cold, Cold Night Adventure

Ye bitter twists o’ winter wrenched our sails about, shakin’ shard o’ ice onto the crew below. Twas a sound akin to dogs bein’ attacked by the Christmas tree they’ve so recently abused with their gnawin’. For my part I shivered in me cabin, furling yet another layer o’ blanket about me limbs. And payin’ especial attention to me stump ends, for the cold plays a special havoc with the joints which’ve no longer a benden’ segment to whom tis married.

Aye, I’d also been tappin’ away at me special cask o’ rum. Tis the one we use to preserve the mates from whom Fate has withheld her favour. I grant, tis often their own failings which leads Miss Fortune to toss masts and toothy brutes at them. The latest miscarriage o’ justice was Ambrose De’Lentil. Yarr, we knew him as the drunk in the keel.

When I’d first seized the Good Ship Lollipop from her natural owners (though they’d never treated her right: she’d a coat o’ green and orange with sails o’ chequered puppies. I could have happily sunk her had I not found her wheel so spinny), old Ambrose had been hidden deep in the hull behind a bale o’ rotting tobacco and a stack o’ sodden rats. Twas a fortnight at sea before we noted a drop in the rum barrels, and the end o’ the moon before anyone penetrated the stinking barrier he’d become cocooned within.

He was a twitchy madman, toothless from rum sucking and black faced from chewing ye decayed tobac. It took a team of gaggin’ and retchin’ crew to drag the wretched drunk from out his moulderin’ hole. Me natural inclination was to heave him overboard as stowaway, but me pity caught up (tis a result o’ the moral growth I’ve sported as a consequence of the Isle of Letch’s nunnish sponge baths.) We’d a range o’ cages on deck for the restrainin’ o’ beasties such as we’d fancy eatin’ or tradin’, and Ambrose fitted neatly into the Asian Death Badger cage.

We watched him gibber and caper, drooling rope-like strands of black innards-grue. Twas hideous an’ yet captivating. The lads took to sittin’ about him in a ring durin’ their quiet times. They’d do little but stare, toss him the odd share of rum, and listen to his ranted drivel. On occasion a mate’d toss to Ambrose some bauble or other trinket in teasing. Though some items bounced off the vile hull tramp and lay ignored, or at least unsuckled, others he’d snatch up. His twisted black fingers with their sharply broken nails grasped at string, buttons or nails. He’d hoard ‘em in his toothless face hole till he’d enough for his purpose.

Now while he was thus encumbered amusing the crew, Monty and Barry reported a sharp rise in the gnawin’ o’ holes in our barrels of provisions and the spoilin’ of foods. Tis a serious matter, and ye rats’d gotten the better of the vicious cats who’d previously pursued ‘em across the ship. The beasts had grown massive and they bristled at man’s approach. We chose lengthy paths around the Lollipop to avoid their bitey trails. Twas a matter o’ much concern to all those of us who desired food and safety from the Doomrats of the Sea.

Ambrose had gathered sufficient ephemera to undertake his own unique magic. The lads were ever more likely to encircle him at night, for the rats were clearly afeard o’ the stenched fellow. His nasty claws wove the junk into tiny statues o’ mankind. With a globule o’ pitchy spit he daubed ‘em each and the ship fell silent. Slowly, with minute twitches, as if seein’ a thing move from between fluttering eyelids of sleep, the miniature men came to a strange stuttering life. They picked themselves up and bared their tiny teeth. Ye crew were a mite spooked.

The little men stepped out of the firelight and scattered into the ship’s shadows. I know of not one man who slept a wink that night. Ambrose was content to chuckle to himself; a chocolatey giggle that spoke of a disease ridden body. A horrid sound, and one which we stoppered with rum. Despite our fear, alertness and definitely not sleepin’ we woke to a wall o’ rat carcasses around the Asian Death Badger cage. Aye.

The solution to our rat problem were inescapable. The insane filth-spattered raggedy man from the ship’s foulest corner had a power over them. His creepy soldiers prowled the ship by night and delivered their corpses to him. Me preference were that if ye devil’s work were to be done then it should be done belowdecks where we could forget about him. The Asian Death Badger cage we threw in the sea, infested as it was with the man’s reek – we’d no desire to infect one o’ those graceful beasts when we finally caught it. A trail of fish bobbed in its wake until we caught a fresher current.

And so we plunged on through the seas, adventurin’ and piratin’, and beneath our feet old Ambrose the Keel Drunk would be chewin’, drinking and dispatching his little golem to cleanse the vessel of rats. On rare occasions we’d roll a fresh barrel of rum down to him or a bundle of leaf. The next mornin’, or perhaps the next we’d find a neatly crocheted bonnet or scarf pinned to the mast. Twas a boon as we sailed through the seasons into ye winter.

Tis perhaps an irony that twas ye winter that took old Ambrose from us. The icy poles took his hole to a freezier cold than he’d ever before felt. As we made snowmen and battled polar bears old Ambrose was frostifying in his putrid nest. The woollen goods he made for us never warmed his drunken skin, never touched the cankerous recesses of his body. The icicles pierced him sure as deatwpid-tmp_share.jpgh, filling him with snowflakes.

We only knew it when the rats reappeared (them as had not been munched by the vicious Arctic Puffin and its blood-splashed beak – aye, a terrible foe who claimed four of me crew and a polar bear before we stuffed it with gunpowder and spread its pretty feathers over the iceberg), and the mournful troupe of golemic soldiers were found unravelling in the sun one day far south of the Arctic circle. We determined that grim though he were, he were also a man (prob’ly) who’d given much to the crew, and that perhaps we’d give him a land burial, for to our knowledge he’d never seen the sea but for his sojourn in the cage. Also he was fond of rats and they’d be able to pick his bones clean in turn in the ossuary. We were far from land, so we stuffed him into a rum cask to better preserve his rotten form.

As happens now and then to a man of the sea, the memory o’ the crazy man in the hull faded from me mind. Eclipsed perhaps by the excitement of beasts with jaws and claws reachin’ for me skull, the rum cask with Ambrose inside was pushed further back into the liquor store. One day as ye air grew fuller of ice again ye store was growin’ low and me custom was to acquire a full cask and hide it in me cabin before the cellar were drained, lest I be forced to suffer the world in sobriety.

That cask was the one containing the mortal remains of old Ambrose. I discovered this only by a curious confluence o’ sensory gifts. Ye rum held a subtle flavour – strong hints of tobacco and a mouldened scent; the barrel had an unjust weight and on uncorking the rum belly a wizened finger slipped out the hole. It gave me pause I can tell ye, for a moment. I’d doubts as to the wisdom of consumption, for such would have taken Ambrose in time. And yet I’d faith in the spiritual power of alcohol to purify the putrefying man, and no doubt of how little rum was on board.

I popped on the little ear hats that Ambrose had knitted for me and swigged away at his vital fluids. Aye, it keeps out the chill.

Posted in Adventures, Adventurous Adventures, North Pole, pirates
Tagged adventure, arctic, Asian Death Badger, Christmas, corpse, deformity, drunk reminiscence, drunken sailor, golem, Good Ship Lollipop, necrotise, North Pole, Piracy, pirate story, pirate tale, pirates, rum, short story, stowaway
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February 23, 2012

Pulp Pirate 5

Ahar, me words can be in ye ears again! The most recent Flash Cast by the pulp fiction geniuses at Flash Pulp contains one of me little tales. Tis me Orthodontic Odyssey – a story of magic, miniature pirates and well-bosomed ladies. It’s with a new microphone and sounds especially nice. So you should listen in. My yarn’s about an hour in if you’re the impatient sort, but I’d powerfully commend to ye the entire helping of pulp related information and debate and an epic series of guest contributions (including me own humble gibbering). I still get an enormous thrill from the sound of me own guest intro music courtesy o’ Jessica May.

With contributions by Jeff Lynch, a new serial by Doc Blue, Three Day Fish‘s film reviews, Colorado Joe, Ingrid’s Mysterious Tales of Vienna, the intriguing new section by ‘Gibraltar’ (?) and comment from Time Traveller Rich, Nutty Nutchas, Trilochon Chatterjee, Gigantor and all the folk I’ve failed to list here… it’s by far the best and most interesting podcast I listens to. Gaargh, it’s all so damn good.

You can listen to it here:

Flash Cast 52 Zombie Pie

Posted in Assorted Ramblin's, audio
Tagged Yarns o' Magic an' Mystery, corpse, magic, podcast, flash pulp, flash fiction, pulp fiction, audio tale, pirate story, ITunes, JRD Skinner, pirates, supernatural, Merry Christmas, wizard, homunculus, dwarf, potions, spell war, harem
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February 22, 2012

The Scale of the Universe – An Interactive Flash Animation

Yaarr, a brings ye a treasure o’ the scientifical world. If ever ye’ve looked up at the stars, or into the gapin’ mouth of a whale ye’ll no doubt have pondered ye own inconsequence in the greater scheme o’ the universe. Contrariwise, if ye’ve ever emboldened yeself by looking down on a whelk or weevil ye have likely somewhat overstated ye importance.

The Scale of the Universe – An Interactive Flash Animation.

This charming Flash animation gives ye some proper perspective on where ye sit in the matter of the cosmos. She takes ye from the inconceivably dinky to the unfathomably vast (‘cos the number o’ fathoms’d be vast – obviously we’re in the process o’ fathomin’ the bugger. I was not intendin’ to suggest we’d be unable to fathom it. It’s just big ye damned pedant. I wanted to call ye a pendant).

Makes me wonder what kinds o’ terrifying beasties live further up and down ye scale, both at them smaller than me own eye can see and larger than I’d know I were lookin’ at.

Posted in Assorted Ramblin's
Tagged cosmos, existential whimpering, flash animation, fuck me that's huge, fuck me that's tiny, general whimsy, interactive flash, pondering, scale of the universe, science, universe
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February 19, 2012

The Primeval Entertainment

Oh the horror of humanity. Their dreadful lowing as they mimble incompetently. The noisome clots of mankind, reeking enthusiastically. Their hateful prattle drove me to a killing spree. But all the murders in the borough could not salve the fire in my mind ignited by their endless empty chatter. Even my habitual practice of mounting their husks in rustic dioramas with concentric alphabetised rings of their innards could not calm me. My hands were bloodied and shaking; I could not even drink to satisfaction. In despair, I fled into the past, to a time free of man babbling without cease.

The time tunnel flared and spun around me. I gripped my time hamster a little too tightly and the universe streamed past, like an over-watered horse. The tunnel whirled and squeezed us out into a puddle of Earth’s past.

There in a world before time was sliced into a dial, numbered, named and made man’s I found love. I met Oo-nag. We met dramatically. I: twelve feet above the ground gazing down through the netting that suspended me. She: spear in hand, clubbing me to a quietude. When I awoke the first thing I noticed were the filthy fingerprints marring my formerly spotless overcoat. Displeasing. However, my second vision of note was the frustrated slapping of fingers and fists in a pre-vocal exchange of thoughts. Using mime, and my Tesla-shiv I made it known that I was a stranger here, akin to a god and that worship would be both appreciated and the best way to evade further jabbing with my ‘lectrickal stick. These intriguingly foul creatures were clearly some ancient cousin of humanity, though few and wretched in number.

Oo-nag soon came to my attention as the least backwards of these shadowy apes, and I took her as my cave bride. Her name I derived from her bestial expression and the clacking of her knuckles upon the ground. The ceremony was as primitive as one might expect although I did attempt to imbue it with some dignity. True, her features might have been as well-defined as a Welsh slag heap; her hair a jungly thatch of diseased creepers; an odour to shame the working man. And yet… and yet indeed. She was mute, silent save for the odd emphatic grunt as are all of her troglodytic clan. I dressed the apish folk in coat and tails, but to little avail; they ate the hats and chased the tails in circles. We lived together happily, she in her dank cave and I in the luxurious if ungainly two-wheeled apartment which I’d stolen from the future. It was an idyllic life. I micro-waved the animalcules out of the hunted and gathered food while my wife cracked open the ashy bones and gnawed the marrow from them.

I believe that for a time I was happy. They were brutish folk but blissfully silent. The sole exception being their lusty matings. They lacked even skill in that matter – ‘tis a wonder their breed’s breeding bred a brood at all. Perhaps this is why men of my time have their manly parts in a visible region – to avoid such pointless spatterings. Their inept rutting drove me to distraction and I set out to educate them in effective mounting.

Their improbable procreative plumbing directed my task towards diagrammatical education. They had crude finger-painting sludge with which they marred their cave walls. I introduced them to paint brushes and oils, and then I shoved them out of the cave before they ate too much of it. I barricaded the cave mouth so that my creation of their Gentlemen’s Guide to Cave Swiving would be spared their curious interruptions. They grunted and thumped in disgruntlement for the barring of their wretched hovel.

Night had fallen and the sun risen before I finished my works. My illustrations of their prehensile recursive appendages and the proper manner for intimate interlocution with their ab-organed wives was complete. The manimals had fallen silent after some hammering in the night. Clearly they had finally realised the importance of my investigation for the sake of their race. Even though it had required that I retain an ageing mating pair (Mrrrungel and Neh) to meet Mr and Mrs Scalpel. Their exploded organs had been well sketched by my fair hand on the walls of their cave. It would undoubtedly improve their chances of offspring and improve the smell.

I knocked down the wall of mammoth bones, brambles and mud (a superlative barricade emulsifier). I… may have become absorbed in my work… the happy hearth area outside the cave was a bloodbath. Scarlet pools with hairy limbs and tatters of face scattered about like a dreadfully neglected beach. I stumbled out aghast into the massacre blinking in the bright sun, just in time to see Oo-nag. I hailed her and she turned to me with a quieting finger upon her lips. Silly girl, she hardly makes a sound anyway. I cried out and bounded towards her, bursting with enquiry.

A shadow fell across the plain. Its owner followed – a vast scaly lizard face descended and toothily snatched off my mud-maiden’s head. Her torso blundered, comically animate until it too was hoicked aloft and consumed. This was a disappointing outcome.

Filled with rage I bellowed at the monstrous reptile and jabbed it with my prickling staff, blasting the beast with Tesla’s art. It squealed and fled, its legs on fire. Damn them, damn them all. My work – wasted. This last pocket of proto-humanity snuffed out by beast-lizards – and all because they were incapable of modulating their throaty choking into a simple cry for help. Curse their baffling biology – were they better prepared to copulate I’d have had no cause to sequester their monster-proof cave.

I resolved to slaughter their butchers, those monsters that rendered my sketchings and study worthless. I, a scholar without subject, a husband without lady-apery. And so it is, many aeons later that we no longer have tortoises. My apologies.

Posted in Franklyn de Gashe
Tagged Archaeology, art, cave, cave painting, cavemen, chrononaut, dinosaurs, Earth, Gashe fiction, mating habits, Religion and Spirituality, science, serial killer, short story, sinister tales, time travel
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February 15, 2012

The Dancing Adventure

Allow me to relate to ye the tale o’ Alan and the giant. Burly he were, and rough and tumble in manner except for his feet. Childlike would be the kindest way to describe ‘em, for they were minute and soft with the daintiest nails o’ which ye could conceive. Defining his tasks aboard ship’s tricksy – his bulk made him a fine marauder, and his twinkle-toes were ideal for dancing. Every third moon he’d combine the two in ye pirate dance-off contest.

For many years now ye buccaneer’s boogie had been the highlight o’ the seasons held down at Captain Spim’s Honolulu Boogaloo Hut, up Knifer’s Creek way.Gaaargh, twas a dance to the death. Halibut Harry (a man rank with fishy pores) was the judge at the end o’ the springy months when we returned from sea and tossed Alan into ye dancin’ pit. I’d high hopes o’ victory and wrestin’ ye ivory dancin pump back from Captain Aaaarsbeard.

Just before Alan’s opponent leaped into the pit I’d one of me hilarious premonitions o’ doom. Knives and fire danced before me eyes and cruel mocking laughter filled me ears. Less than a second’s fraction later there came a “ho ho ho” and a vast figure of a man parted the crowd like butter and stepped into the pit. Me heart thumped; Alan’s failed. Now he were a brave lad, make no mistake: he’s taken down men as wide but never so tall. Over ten foot tall at me best reckonin’, for his head pierced the open mouth o’ the pit. Perhaps he came from foreign lands where they prized his unnecessary heightitude.

Quickly the jiggy-bout was over. Right out of ye flutey gate (ye tempo was set by a hammers and metal bars and ye melody fluted o’er the top) Alan ran up the giant’s back, his delicate feet carefully placed to ride his knobbly spine. So swift was Alan’s ascent and so dainty his step that the giant barely noticed till it was too late. Tip-tap tippy tap: Alan’s tap-shoe clad feet slammed and punted into his foe’s head and shoulders. Unless ye’ve been slapped about the head with them steely toe-tips ye’ve no knowin’ of the harm they wreak. Virtuoso style Alan skipped and spun to the flighty flute-tune, every step an elegant kick to the skull and testament to his skill.

We were silent as the music tailed away, and Alan’s mount swayed in memory of his pounding. Xylophones burst into life to sound the end of the contest and the giant collapsed. Ye could not believe the roar of approval and applause as Alan nimbly hopped from the falling giant to the pit’s lip and landed in a plie. Zealously we guarded him as we seized up the ivory dancing pump and our rum reward.

Posted in Adventures, Alphabetic Dialogues, Exceedingly Short Adventures
Tagged dainty feet, dancing contest, flash fiction, flute, giant, jackrabbit slim, pirate story, pirates, short story, tap shoes, writing experiment
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February 13, 2012

The Cloistered Entertainment

I was rousted from my slumbering bower by a titanic shrieking. The previous evening I’d taken to bed amidst the trees following an indulgence of absinthe and laudanum. The tree I presume, must have presented the best vantage when surveying the territory for tigers and other beasts which might offer untimely wounding. That said I could not imagine how I’d mastered it; the tree rose up above a less towering but still imposing wall of stone which held within it gardens, paths, dwellings and doubtless the source of the banshee wailing. My clothes, or lack thereof I could not account for. Nor the brassiere and manacles which encircled my slender, yet manly waist.

The act of discovering my near-nudity was sufficient to tumble me hand over toe from branch to leaf and finally to earth with a thump. Praise be the analgesia of opiate drowsing. So I was able to gain footing despite the probable bruising, sprain and fracturation I’d likely endured. From my limb tangle I arose in the presence of ladies. Or at least I thought them ladies, their convent attire did their figures little credit, and their hullaballoo was more vulture than vestal virgin.

Nonetheless I do prefer to shave and dress before greeting clergy, for they are wild and bewildering folk, prone to unnatural abstinence and raving. I realised it would be difficult to make a good impression in my state of undress, and made the concession of shrouding my excitable young gentleman in the capacious hollow of the ladies’ mallow-garb which otherwise batted him. This did little to soothe my morning amour but did serve to shield most of the dapper chap from the greedy eyes of the clucking nuns into whose tree I’d trespassed. They had dimmed their clamour somewhat and ringed me with an air of expectation. I was powerfully aware of my inopportune priapism. There seemed only one way to distract the spiritual harpy maidens.

“Behold,” I cried – my eyes red-rimmed and wide, “I have come unto ye like an owl.” They seemed ill at ease with my pronouncement; their pursed lips of confusion begged for elaboration. “Yea, an owl. For I fly by the light of the moon with wisdom and a taste for mice my weapons. And lo, my head doth revolve at least part-way round.” I was beginning to get through to them. “Does a mouse flee from its winged foe by instinct, or fear of a love unnatural twixt them? And so, fear not my feathered fronds for you have minds and a will of sorts. My feathers are but motes in the skies of chance; this is the beak of a man and to ye I have come.”

It is within the realm of possibility that I had not made myself entirely clear for their ecclesiastical squawks resumed. Such is the nature of revelation. The penguine women clustered about me. Their monochrome garb menaced the polychromatic joy of my hazed morning mind-fever. I had descended too swiftly, and the fruits of my concussion and hangover were overwhelming me. I plunged into darkness as they grew near.

I awoke a second time enchained within the convent. This was either a very bad, or a very good thing. I was grateful that I at least bore still the ladylump-lifter for they’d spread-eagled me despite my claims of owl-hood. The room was spare, much as I’d expected but the handsomely erect cruciform gentleman on the wall was a surprise. I distinguished a chanting from the rattling of my chains (myself of course, striking for freedom). The fervour was with the nuns, though not for their Lord. They had had a dry spell for visitors, or so the crone crouching by the cot croaked into my ear.

It was to be a day of short shocks and surprises; I’d not even noticed her presence till she hissed into my aural canal. Her tone and visage quite competed to deflate my rousing charm against the uncloaked ascetics eager to reject their vows. And yet I could not but endure her ear-tonguing whispers. Nor could I refuse the monastical parade that carouseled through my room all day and night. It probably would have been impolite. I was fed and watered, that I might prolong their licentious festival. And also soothed with balms, ointments, unguents and creams when rasped too far.

Eventually they wearied of me, though by then I’d fallen into the gap between the twin stools of delirium and epiphany from their monastic moaning and cloistral coitus. My final waking was to being unshackled, clothed and supported in hobbling to the convent wall. There I was eased up a ladder and with a gentle shove thrust over the wall’s edge.

I’d been rudely treated, of that I had no doubt. Due to my periods of exhausted slumber I’d never be sure of the depths of the nuns’ depravity. However, the Papal Bull issued a month later which declared them ‘Satan’s Sweetmeats’ certainly implied that it had been a fine evening.

I’d recently amassed a considerable fortune in the underground city of Nottingham. Their love of the gambling and remedial grasp of counting had quite undone them. I took their pennies and left them to the vile stench of their troglodytic tanneries. On an impulse I snapped up the ailing convent and established the first Grande Maison of Infamy. The ex-nuns’ gratitude has never abated; they kept their beds, and kept them warm. For there are those who seek out such rude treatment.

Posted in Franklyn de Gashe
Tagged absinthe, bosom-riding, Cloister, Convent, convent attire, fantastical nuns, greedy eyes, happily ever after, hullaballoo, laudanum, Nottingham, Nun, Papal Bull, romance, rude treatment, short story, state of undress, The Gaschette, the gospel of the owl who was afraid of the dark, vestal virgin
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February 7, 2012

The Missing Metacarpal Adventure

Gaargh, No Hands Mick’s one of me oldest mates, and me truest friend. We’ve endured both peril and pleasure together; fondled, plundered and squealed like girls in the face of danger. His life’s a testament to the dangers of ship-board life and his hands if he had any, would finger the poorly completed accident book.

When first we met I was but a scrap of a lad, making me name as a lad-ye-goes-to-when-there’s-a-thing-ye-wants. Aye these were the days before we had words for things and had to adopt the Teutonic habits of paragraph-long job titles. Me business card was the size of a cartwheel. It hindered me trade but once I’d nailed it to a cartwheel all was well.

One bright day I was plying me trade in the whoring district of Onomatopoeia Peninsula. Twas a trying place where the local dialect supplemented mime with expressive sound effects. Ye ‘ho-ho jiggly-squirt’ (night-lady to ye) quarter drew the sailors and merchants from afar and I was mostly spared the annoyance of orderin’ a mug of ‘glug-glug’ or a sandwich o’ ‘nom-nom gristle-crack’. Here I’d suffer only ye calls o’ what ‘slip-slap’ or ‘glom-glom-gobbly-spurt’ were on offer. There was a constant demand for ales and spirits, powders, unguents, potions, bandages, sandwiches, Vulcanised nether-garb, feathery-tickles and sherbert. All this and more I toted in me cart.

I arrived by Madame Bosombèrt’s Shoppe of Gargantuan Lady Spelunking with a fresh barrel of hog fat for their corsets. Tis a weighty thing, the lard of a pig so I lobbed a stone at the lad lurkin’ in an alley. The prospect of pence drew him out and his manly mitts were ideal for manhandling the oink-grease into the hookery. Mick was an accomplished travelling musician, down on his luck and denuded of music since hocking his cello for lodgings.

We chatted while shuffling the rendered piglet gunk into the ladies’ dressing chambers. Yarr, the sight of ‘em had me itchin’ for a harpoon. Like perfumed whales, lowin’ to one another in the local parlance o’ hoots and giggles. I was banging in the fat tap when Madame Bosombèrt herself bustled in, like a coach bearing down upon blind children. “Oho young Pigheart! Sweet Ignatius,” (she’d a misplaced fondness for me youth), “and a friend.” Her shadow fell across Mick. He flinched like a rabbit beneath an eagle. She snatched up his hands with delight, crooning softly to herself as she pawed his paws, like so: “Aaaaaaarrrrr,” (tis her soothin’ purr to which I attribute me own success with the ladyfolk), “get ye fingers in that grease lad.” Mick was rigid with terror, and not in a good way, him bein’ but young and unscholarly in the lady ways.

His lean fingers massaged hog fat into the mammoth miss’s midriff meat till she declared herself sufficiently slickened to be shod. Mick’s youthful hesitance faded away and he leaped at the chance to gird the girl in whalebone. His nimble fingers played a concerto up the knots and ribbons and he heaved it closed, forcing a pair o’ beluga whales to surface beneath Madame Bosombèrt’s chin. The poor lad could scarce draw his eyes from their creamy goodness.

And so Dextrous Mick the Finger Lad got two jobs in one day; ladies’ girdle-hitcher and carter’s mate. We competed for the monster maidens affections, jealous of their massive love muffins. Gaargh, to press and squeeze them titanic bosoms… Our rivalry was mostly jovial, yet our envy spilled into pranks and mild violence. It caused Mick to poison me rum so I crashed me cart into a handsome lass; the horse hat diminished her beauty and me rib count. Ahar, I hid lobsters in Mick’s britches and later woke at sea bound to an octopus. Aye, they were good times.

O’course the accident changed much of that. On that fateful day Madame Bosombèrt summoned him with some urgency. A fancy customer was making a special request: that they bind together at hip and shoulder a pair of wenches in mimicry of his fantasied Siamese twins. Aye, twas an unusual request, being both creepy and intriguing.

There was no trouble in enstrappin’ the lasses: Mick’s delicate digits kept ‘em gigglin’ as he pushed their kidneys into their lungs. Ye fetish came askew when the gentleman himself, one Arnold Hornthrust demanded that he be belted into his bucking babe bronco. Poor Mick was half into his Carrick Bend when the deviant gent’s desire overwhelmed him and he hurdled the knotted woman bundle erotically. He failed to note Mick’s hands trapped and twisting under his triad o’ lust. The moanin’ and thrashing was only three quarters pleasure as Mick was tossed and ground beneath their bound bulk. With an unhealthy crunch his hands, pressed white and numb against the writhing flesh twisted one way and he another. He was free, but with mitts so misshapen they seemed more crab than hand.

It took me twenty minutes o’ snap, crackle and pop to straighten his fingers out, and half that spent topping him up with rum. His dextrous paws had had a narrow escape and I bound ‘em with strips of pork bone (which I conveniently had about me person) so’s they’d not wriggle at night. Now, tis possible that were a slight error on my part for I’d also neglected to feed Rancid Albert, the mongrel dogmonkey who slept on and urinated from the roof of our cart.

Morning found Mick hungover and stumpy at the wrist. The poor lad was fairly devastated, but I cheered his ill mood with a bottle of rum and the finest implement man’s ever wrought upon this earth – the humble drinking straw. Twas a sad substitute for a fist full of fingers but with that same straw he retrieved his knuckles from Rancid Albert and bloodily avenged himself on Hornthrust, towards whom I directed Mick’s wrath. The colossal courtesans we courted lamented the loss of his fine fingers but he managed to prove himself otherwise dextrous enough: “look, no hands” became his cry in both love and war.

Posted in Adventures, Romantical Adventures
Tagged bosom-riding, brothel, Carrick Bend, corset, fetish, hog fat, horrible accidents, love, No Hands Mick, Onomatopoeia Peninsula, pirate story, pirates, short story
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January 24, 2012

Pirate Pictures (from Nottingham Live)

Ahoy me splendid and not at all scurvy hearties!

I had a grand time reading at Nottingham Live at The Maze last Friday. I was spinning my tales between acoustic sets upstairs (who were all marvellous) and got the opportunity to read one in ye big room downstairs (All Washed Up – a light tale of merkins and amputation).

While there me dear chap Mr Ralph Barklam captured me likeness in his magic picture box – I presents ‘em here in the manner o’ a gallery:

Ye can find Ralph on Facebook and many of his photographs (witchcraft!) through the wonders of Google… he documents pretty much all exciting things in Nottingham.

Shankilium – the Alloy of Angry Verse

Ah happy, the New Year has slunk over the edge of the calendar. It’s actually been a good start to the year. I missed Blue Monday entirely and it seems only fitting to catch up with some more bitter verse. Work has that effect. And frankly, if I weren’t writing this stuff down I’d be etching it on people’s foreheads with a sharpened bulldog clip. So yeah, enjoy!

If you fancy you can follow @shankanalia on Twitter too, or just wait for the ‘collected works’ to turn up here.

Tactile
Touch me,
Touch me.
I’ll kill you:
I’ll take your hands
And place them round your throat.
Not so light now,
Your feather touch
Fat hands.
Touch me.

Striving
Oh, it’s all about you
You’re the best you can be.
Too bad
That’s so far
Below the worst
That everyone else
Can be arsed to be.
Oh you…

Heart-Shaped Hole
If I cut out your heart
Don’t think
It’s because I don’t like you.
Let’s be clear:
I cut out your heart
So it wouldn’t beat.
It’s more than dislike.

Equal
Rude, rude and abrupt,
Condescending
Demanding.
You expect respect,
You don’t command it,
You don’t deserve it,
Rude, stupid and abrupt.

Arrogant Twat
Don’t stop believing that you’re right.
Deny the evidence.
Your reason is subservient
To your ego train.
You’ll never know whether
You’re right or wrong.

Hand Icing
There’s something in your face.
It looks quite amiss,
Physiognomy out of place.
Oh, that’s just my fist.
Glazed with my knuckle,
Makes me chuckle.

Two Plus Two Equals You
That sound,
(That you’re ignoring)
Is the sound
Of me informing you
That you,
Are erroneous.
Your premise,
And your conclusions,
Are false.

Team Work
You don’t listen
Because you’re talking.
You don’t understand
That what you’re saying
Is what I said,
Because your mouth is not an ear.
Oralear.

Posted in Assorted Ramblin's, pub poetry, shankanalia
Tagged anger, Blue Monday, Christmas, Holidays, intended violence, IT helpdesk, management speak, mean-spirited, misanthropism, Monday, New Year, Online Communities, Poetry, pub poetry, shank, Social Networking, Twitter, Wine tasting descriptors
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January 16, 2012

Alex Trepan in Midnight Shopping – Chapter 3 of 3 Jam and the Maiden

Chapter One – Shopping and Shouting

Chapter Two – Prawn Ring

Chapter Three – Jam and the Maiden

The gloom in the supermarket was broken only by light of the emergency exit signs. The soft green glow reflected off the shards of glass and shells that writhed in the ooze of jams. The crayfish seemed utterly absorbed in their gluttony and Alex figured he’d just watch for a bit and see if a plan presented itself to him. Clearly the shellfish wanted their jam back and were prepared to kill for it.

Alex was growing accustomed to the weird factor, until he leaned on the edge of the shelf and a hand slid on to his arm. That made him jump, but it only got worse when he followed the arm up into the staring dead eyes of the cashier girl, Maybe Alice. A yelp escaped his throat. Not too loud – he managed to suppress it by clamping his hand across his mouth. Not the one under Maybe Alice’s hand, but his right hand: the one holding the shopping basket. Now that was loud.

The sticky crusty mass snapped alert and roiled forwards – they advanced in a strawberry scented wave of tar. Alex fell back, struggling to keep his eyes off Maybe Alice and on the sluggish crawl. Abruptly, the crayfish seemed to give up the chase and coagulated into a dripping mound which rose into the shape of a man. It hissed and clacked at him, its arms made of chains of creatures reaching for him.

“More jam-filled man to eat? Ooh, such sweet meat,” the creature made a horrible gobbling sound and one of the smaller crayfish ran down its throat theatrically, “come to The Crayfish.”

Alex just knew it was capitalising itself. He felt obscurely grateful to have a name for the beast. As one of his mentors in South America had said: “name it, know it, kill it”. Excellent advice. Alex could feel strange tendrils of thought reaching for his mind. It was unlike any connection he’d ever had with another person. It was sharp, clicky and distinctly unpleasant. Its voice crooned into his head as the sound rolled into his ears like seashells being shaken in a bucket.

“Jam, jam, jammy jam-filled man. Come for my jam? Sweet sweety sweetened man make you soft softened edible mandible chew. Take you thoughts and send you out to get more. Have some jam.” It reached for him with its claws and mind, stretching out as more crayfish ran along its arms.

“Sorry mate, I’m more of a Marmite person.” A shriek of rage assaulted Alex’ mind so hard that he stumbled backwards. The mound of shell shuddered and spat angrily, ejecting a pair of jam-smeared crayfish at him. Alex snatched up the fork he’d stuffed into the basket and smashed them out of the air. While pretty damn slick, that may not have been the best possible plan: now he’d really annoyed the chitinous aggregation. It was hissing and moaning to itself, drawing in the two shattered projectiles.

With a garden fork in one hand and a basket full of firelighters in the other Alex felt like he’d been separated from an angry mob. Time to up the ante. He struggled with the child-proof cap of the barbecue lighter fluid – it spun endlessly under his sweaty palms. The Crayfish slid towards him with its gelatinous crawl. Alex gripped the bottle top in his teeth, bit and twisted; splashing lighter fluid down his t-shirt. Alex shook the fluid wildly at the encroaching molasses mass of crustacean. Half full, he threw the bottle at the beast. It stuck to the assemblage’s face. It didn’t seem to notice, but it paid more attention when he ripped open the packet of firelighters and tossed them into the jammy pile, followed by most of the lighters.

It continued to burble about jam in its own hideous way, trying to persuade him to have some too. Alex didn’t fancy that. Dave had had some jam, he didn’t turn out too well. And what about Maybe Alice? Had she been in on the jam ring too? It was getting worryingly close, though it had thankfully not tried flinging its composite crayfish at him. Alex flicked the wheel on one of the lovely transparent green lighters, twisted down the wheel to keep the flame on and turned it up to a huge ribbon of fire. Then he tossed it gently into the stream of fluid between him and The Crayfish.

The aisle went up beautifully. The lighter fluid had trickled into all the crannies of the crustaceaous monster and its every orifice was agape with flame. That distracted the crayfish. Alex dashed off for more bottles of lighter fluid, intent on burning the fucker out before the sprinklers kicked in. As in any good supermarket, the section he wanted had disappeared. Shit. He ran back with handfuls of match boxes and candles instead.

He tossed the match boxes half-open, spilling their igniting tips into the blaze. The candles were more disappointing – they tended to just stick to things and drip. But the lighters were melting and spraying fire, the firelighters were taking hold and the jam that saturated the aisle was bubbling and burning. In that horrid mess The Crayfish had collapsed and were desperately trying to escape their mire of fire. But the gummy filth clung to them like the mud of the Somme. They clawed their way on, as the fire licked at the shelves, tonguing the cardboard and plastic with flame. The flames were reaching Maybe Alice and Alex felt bad about leaving her there to burn with the freaky sea food. He seized her by the arm and heaved her still warm (re-warming?) body from the shelf, to find that there was only her top half left. Oh well, less to carry.

The signs that swung merrily from the ceiling were starting to catch fire and the sprinklers were ineffectually pissing on the conflagration. He headed for the fire exit. With a snap, crackle and pop, a length of crustacean chain flung itself up out of the flames. It scrabbled along the ceiling leaving sticky black stains on the alabaster tiles.

In genuine action man style, Alex kicked at the fire exit bars (it really hurt) and they gave way with surprising speed so that he fell through them and jarred his ankle on the ground. He dropped Maybe Alice and turned to close the doors. They’re really hard to close from outside – apparently it’s good form to leave them open – so Alex was trying to slam them shut when the tangle of blackened crayfish leaped from the ceiling into the gap between the doors. The lead crayfish was massive and gnarly, snapping its pincers at the Alex’ face. Alex smashed the doors together, kicking and slamming them over and over again, a pulp of chitinous ruin oozing out of the emergency crack.

A series of minor explosions inside made him step away from the gooey murder pile into the car park. The fire alarms had been going off for a while now, Alex realised, joined by rising sirens in the distance. He felt no desire to hang around and explain himself, or why there was half a woman outside the fire exit. Absently he checked her supermarket ID badge: Mary. Bollocks. The flames were reaching out of the windows now. Alex was hopeful that any evidence of his entirely justifiable but unbelievable arson would be destroyed. He walked out of the car park, brushing soot off his jacket and failing to notice that the rusty white van was gone. It was now 3 am so at least the ASDA down the road would still be open.

Posted in Alex Trepan
Tagged 24 hour shopping, Alex Trepan, Aunt Bessie, Brain, Captain Birdseye, cashier girl, crayfish, dead eyes, drug dealer, emergency exit signs, empathy, flash fiction, Fruit preserves, Galaxy Team, headless body, Kerry Katona, lobster, monsters, nightmare, shards of glass, short story, supermarket, Tesco, trepanning
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January 11, 2012

Pub Pirate

Ahoy me land-lubberised pals! Tis time for poetry and yarn-spinning of a comical nature while firmly ensconced in the embrace of a tavern. Aye – tis time once more for Pub Poetry and for ye residents of Burton on Trent and Nottingham tis a boon time for the soul.

First – Pub Poetry in Burton – this Friday 13th January at the Old Cottage Tavern in Burton on Trent. This is possibly me favourite event of the year. Twas some moons ago when I first read one o’ me tales to a drinking audience at one o’ these shindigs that I got a real love for reading them, and subsequently created Pub Poetry in Nottingham.

Second – Pub Poetry in Nottingham – next Monday 16th January at the Canalhouse in Nottingham. This is the one I compere in me host role from MissImp. I’ll also be sharing the odd tale for ye pleasure while mediating the ambitions of others. Looks like a fine turnout on the Facebook page so far.

They’re both wonderful events praising the funny and silly in poetry and prose. I’m as ever torn between what to read. I’m thinking: A Cold, Cold Night Adventure. It’s probably too late for the Santa’s Elf Adventure but you never know… I might even read some Shankanalia, though it seems a bit harsh for a nice event. Still, there’ll be fabulous ales on both occasions, since the Old Cottage Tavern has the fabulous Halcyon Daze and the Canalhouse the enviable Elsie Mo…

If you’re about it’d be grand to see you there, at either or both. Gaargh!

Posted in Assorted Ramblin's
Tagged Arts, Burton, burton on trent, Burton upon Trent, CAMRA, Canalhouse, cold cold night, comedy, comical nature, elf adventure, halcyon daze, literature, Nottingham, old cottage tavern, Online Writing, open mic, Poetry, poetry and prose, Real Ale, story-telling, Trent
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January 11, 2012

The Captain at Nottingham Live!

20th Januray - Nottingham Live @ The Maze

Ahoy music-loving mateys, I’ll be appearing at Nottingham Live’s music event at the Maze on Friday 20th January! Look – me name’s on ye poster!

Aye, pirate stories’ll be spattered amidst the cream o’ Nottingham’s musical talent. It be prodigious. We’re also addin’ a spot o’ improv comedy to kick off ye proceedings in the upper room.

Tis but three of ye modern pounds which is mockingly cheap.

19:30 – 1.00 Friday 20/01/12

The Maze: 257, Mansfield Road, NG1 3FT Nottingham, United Kingdom

Facebook event page here.

Here’s some of ye musical talent:

Emily Needs

Anthony Greentree

Just James

And of course… MissImp

Posted in Assorted Ramblin's
Tagged #nottinghamlive, event listings, Improvisational theatre, music gig nottingham, music scene, Nottingham, Nottingham Live, pirate story, The Maze
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January 9, 2012

Alex Trepan in Midnight Shopping – Chapter 2 Prawn Ring

Chapter One – Shopping and Shouting

Chapter Two – Prawn Ring

Dave. It was Dave. The head was Dave. It was Dave’s head. His eyes were still moving. Alex could feel Dave looking at him, with a sharp but fading burst of fear. And the words “brain jam”. Dave’s face settled into a frown of confusion and a small pool of blood and prawns. Dave was the nicest security guard Alex had ever met. After his third visit they’d had a quiet chat to establish that Alex definitely wasn’t here to creep around Alice (almost certainly her name), the check out girl who always took the night shifts; he just had trouble sleeping. After that potentially difficult conversation Alex had bought some weed off him. And now here he was, Dave’s vital juices mixing with a product Alex would forever associate with Kerry Katona.

Cautiously Alex stood up and looked over to where Dave’s head had come from. (He’d assumed the traditional cringing posture when the fridge jumped.) The lights flared for a moment and then slipped inevitably into an unnerving horror film slow-strobe. Alex’ eyes kept being drawn to irrelevancies in the stuttering light – Aunt Bessie’s face beaming creepily over her Yorkshire puddings, Captain Birdseye smirking before being hidden in the thick blackness again. Alex heard a weird clattering noise circle him steadily up and down the adjacent aisles, like wooden cutlery falling down a spiral staircase. Now Alex wasn’t stupid, but he’d cheerfully admit that he wasn’t that bright either. Not bright enough to just walk away. Besides, Dave had always sold at a reasonable price and Alex figured he owed him something. In the flashes of darkness Alex heard a snarl and the clattering receded into the store.

The thing (Alex was trying really hard to persuade his brain that calling it ‘The Decapitator’ would not be in their best interests) sounded like it had headed for the bakery and spreadables section. And so that’s where Alex would be heading. Damn. Anything capable of tearing a man’s head off was bad news. Dave was a big chap too, in the mould of failed police applicant or ex-bouncer looking for an easier life in the store security game. Quieter than coppering, but it kept the kind of action you see around sports discount shops. Dave had certainly enjoyed taking chav shoplifters down. So this probably wasn’t a shellsuit-clad illiterate. And what was the deal with ‘brain jam’? Maybe that’s just how it feels when your mind is dying and all those half finished thoughts and sensations are jammed up with nowhere to go. Alex didn’t know how to feel about sharing Dave’s dying thoughts, but the fear felt like sound advice.

With that in mind Alex took precautions. He debated taking Dave’s head with him, and wondered why it had even occurred to him. He picked up his basket again and chose a circuitous route. Following the typical logic of supermarket layout, between frozen foods and sandwich spreads he was able to pick up a pack of disposable lighters, liquid barbecue lighter fluid, a garden fork and a torch, but no batteries. The fork was really hard to fit into the shopping basket but he managed to wedge the tines (surely they’re still tines even if they are a foot long) through the mesh. He also found sewing kits, recordable DVDs and shitake mushrooms in oil; they were less useful for now, but he noted their locations for future shopping trips. Carefully he crept around the croissants and the fresh crêpes.

The first thing he noticed were the feet. They were two feet (which is usual), but they were two feet, two feet off the ground. The intermittent gloom hesitantly revealed the rest of the body. Alex knew it was Dave from the faux-police epaulettes. And his missing head. Something was holding him up. The lights chose that moment to return; Alex craved the darkness. The, well – there were lots of things that leaped into Alex’ mind but he felt a sudden kinship with H.P. Lovecraft’s apparent inability to describe the nameless horrors in his stories. Alex went with ‘thing’. It took a while to resolve what he saw into sense. The ‘thing’ was a writhing mass of tiny crayfish swarming over each other in fountains of pincered shells, the flow creating a continuously tumbling and rising man. It manipulated the headless corpse like a ghastly toy.

As he snuck (snook? sneaked?) closer, crouching behind a stand filled with cookies and tiny muffins he realised that the collected crayfish thing was talking quietly to itself. It sounded like shells spilling down a slide. In the rattle and scrape he picked out a grinding spech.

“Oh Davey, oh poor Davey, couldn’t help us-selves could we Dave? Mmm, trusted Dave helping yourself to our jam. Oh dear, poor Dave. Lovely jam.”

Okay. Tesco; two in the morning; just Alex and a sack of mental crayfish. He reflected that his life had gone very badly wrong somewhere. The crayfish thing was still burbling to itself while puppeteering Dave’s body.

“Our brain jam. Not for the thieving. Just had to put it in the boxes and let it go. But no… you had to get a taste. Greedy Dave. Bad Dave. Selling our brain jam.” The crayfish waggled Dave’s body back and forth violently, like a child that wouldn’t stop crying. “Stupid Dave. We knew you took it. Shouldn’t have tried it. The jam’s ours. Could have worked out for you but no… Too greedy. No jam now. We’ll take it all back.”

Abruptly the heap of crayfish roared to itself and burst into a flood of scuttling which ran over and under shelving into the next aisle, taking just a moment to rip clawfuls of flesh off Dave’s body as it fell to the ground. They stuffed the clots into their mandibles without breaking stride. They were heading for the preserves. Jam. An almighty crash of glass followed. Alex stepped away from the tattered corpse of Dave. He was slightly glad the man’s head had already been removed. Hard to believe a drug dealing security guard was mixed up with a dodgy jam ring. Do drug dealers get their drugs from crustaceans? He’d never worried much about the chain before.

Alex peered round the corner at the sticky, glassy mess of jars and jam. It looked the tide had gone out and trapped the crayfish in glutinous heaps where they gorged on the goop. Clean up in aisle three.

Chapter Three – Jam and the Maiden

Posted in Alex Trepan
Tagged 24 hour shopping, Alex Trepan, Aunt Bessie, Brain, Captain Birdseye, crayfish, drug dealer, empathy, flash fiction, Fruit preserves, Galaxy Team, headless body, Kerry Katona, lobster, monsters, nightmare, short story, supermarket, Tesco, trepanning
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January 4, 2012

Short Fiction and Writing Length

Down there in the bullets are my super-tiny Twitter short stories from last year for @shortstoryday. Apparently it’s every December 22nd, so I guess now you’ve got lots of notice… I only found out about it several days afterwards and tossed a few in anyway. They retweeted one of ‘em which was nice of them. It was fun, and tough.

A man came to my door. I killed him. Shame.
Time bent, and it was yesterday again.
The moon wavered above. Their eyes wide, it fell.
Surrounded by mermaids I sighed. I could handle perhaps five.
Night fell, and with it our hopes. Dawn never came.
Her dress was even shorter than her vows.

I usually write Pigheart stories at about 1,000 words. That’s something like 7 and 1/2 minutes when read out loud. It’s a fun length to scribble for and has me brutally editing the entirely unfunny bits. Good discipline I reckon. But I’ve found I want to write longer stories now, but I feel like I need permission. I’m not sure from who. Me I suppose. Granted. The new Galaxy Team and Alex Trepan stuff which has infested my mind of late is tending to be much longer – Goodbye Mister Bimbolino was nearly 6,500! Big stuff for me. We’ll see how it goes. The new Trepan is going to be half that length (I think).

I’ve also found fun in much shorter stories (not Twitter short though!) with the website theshortestfiction.com which I found on Facebook. They’re encouraging stories of <=300 words. It’s a nice length for creating, though I’m not yet convinced you can really do a story in it. They give you a selection of pictures to inspire you and then it’s up to you. There’s a nice mix of stuff on the site and it’s easy to interact with. I’ll probably keep posting them here as well so I can make pretty pictures of my own. (I reposted the first one here, with a Cthulu-ish beast shot and a few more words.) Warning – the 300 word counter is weirdly buggy and it won’t let me have more than 292. It’s a nice way of provoking stories.

You can find my stories here: http://theshortestfiction.com/users/nick .

Do you have a ‘natural’ story length? Do you write at random? Does it all just come to life perfectly for you? Well that’s nice. No seriously, I’m curious…

Posted in Assorted Ramblin's
Tagged Arts, cthulu, encouraging stories, Facebook, Fiction, flash fiction, Mermaids, Online Writing, pretty pictures, Short Stories, short story, Twitter
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January 4, 2012

Alex Trepan in Midnight Shopping

Chapter One – Shopping and Shouting

Alex slammed his front door behind him and stormed into the street, his mind full of other peoples’ anger. Fucking terraced houses. Great for saving a few quid on gas by absorbing the heat of your neighbours but the walls were paper thin and it made everyone’s life your own. Tonight, both sets of couples had enjoyed blazing rows. From the left (25) Alex had endured hours of shouting; the booming tones of the guy and the screechy wailing of his harpy. They had followed that up by throwing stuff. In the right corner (21), Elaine and her current man Kevin (they were all on nodding terms for hedge trimming) had gone from spitting vitriol at the tops of their voices to angry, bitter sex with no noticeable change in tone. You can only turn the television up so far.

Finally, unable to contain the four-pack of anger, anguish, bitterness and bile Alex had simply left the house. The psychic backwash trailed behind him as he walked down the street, clinging to him and irritating cats who prowled through the stream. There were a few benefits to being highly empathic, all negated by living near other people. When Alex was much younger and the voices started he’d thought he was going mad. Eventually he realised that everyone else was mad and he was just listening in. That was after he’d put holes in his skull though.

Ideally Alex would find a lovely chalet on a hilltop, or near a stream. In the middle of nowhere. One day he’d be able to flee all that pointless mental jabbering. Sure, he’d learned a few mantras which helped to block it out, but meditating with mantras blocks everything out and sleeping tablets do that just as well. But Alex didn’t like the next day fuzziness of pills, like walking through a squeaky polystyrene landscape. So instead he put up and made quite a lot of noise to himself about it. Occasionally his talents were actually helpful, though in order to focus on anything other than the general vibe of another person they had to be getting really passionate. Alex was good at winding people up to that point; it’s why he often had a black eye. What he excelled at was recklessness; Alex was unsure whether trepanning himself had preceded or succeeded his ability to do stupid things.

The cold night air helped to shift the useless load of their minds and the headache that had swollen all evening was dissipating. Alex had no desire to return home where the lovebirds were likely fucking each other to death and number 25 were onto the power tools. Deep inner sigh. Deep outer sigh. The roads were dead so he took the opportunity to amble down the dashed white line like a teenager with an iPod. He was startled out of his reverie by a rust speckled white van that came out of nowhere, honked like a bastard goose and swerved across the road and off up into town. The sudden adrenaline boost got him to the pavement in an accelerated heart beat. Great, now Alex was even more awake. In his newly hyper-alert state he briefly noticed the slick of water left in the van’s wake and the faint scent of brine: “hope the dick drowns in it”. He grumbled further about how terrible white van men were, mainly spouting old clichés since he’d little experience in dealing with anyone who performed a useful trade in society.

In theory he could wander the streets like a lost stalker or go a bit further and fall over in a field. All night Tesco was his only hope. When you need to shift someone else’s bullshit only retail therapy will do the trick. Initially Alex had scorned the rise of the twenty-four hour supermarket as further evidence of how depressing humanity had become. The very idea that someone would choose to shop at two in the morning. Absurd. Alex dropped in at least once a week. It was a boon for the insomniac driven insane by twenty-four hour news. It had become a private nocturnal playground for Alex.

The car park was almost empty, save for a handful of staff cars and that bloody van. Hopefully it was just a seafood delivery and the store’s karma wouldn’t be upset. He pushed through the sea of trolleys into the glaring capitalist wasteland. The land was covered in its comforting blandness of produce, populated by desperate brands begging for his notice. He felt like the Snow Queen of Narnia, roving the aisles of excess in search of something new, something special to turn into stone. Ooh, Turkish Delight. He relished wandering the forest alone, finding peace in the gentle buzz of the lights and hum of the refrigerators.

From a distant part of the store came the sound of breaking glass. Alex chuckled to himself at the thought of Mr Beaver being told off by Mrs Beaver over some Dolmio-related mishap. He fought the sudden urge to cheer – this wasn’t a bar. Or if it was, it was the kind with no customers, and no staff either. There was always a skeleton crew lurking somewhere, smoking outside the fire escapes and avoiding the harsh fluorescent glare that robbed them of their diurnal rhythm. But not tonight. Perhaps it was spirits re-stocking time at the far end. Alex didn’t really care though; he’d had his fill of people.

He moseyed past the frozen foodstuffs, marvelling at the life-bestowing properties of Omega-3 in fish fingers and how delightful the lives of chicken breasts must have been before they became chicken breasts. He could never quite avoid the image of the bucket of chicken heads and spines being pounded into nuggets. He was so intent that he missed the next few breakages and the first flicker of the lights. There was an astonishing selection of party foods which thoroughly distracted him, so vile did they seem. He was half tempted to buy some and burn off the adrenaline shakes with grease.

He noticed the next crash of glass though. The vertical freezer rammed tightly with prawn rings bounced up in the air next to him before smashing back down, scattering glass and tiny crustaceans everywhere. This was not just bad shelf stacking, this was sackably poor shelf stacking. It had frightened the living crap out of him, along with his headache. So that was good. The human head that bounced over the top of the freezer wasn’t.

Next week: Chapter Two – Prawn Ring

Posted in Alex Trepan
Tagged 24 hour shopping, Alex Trepan, empathy, flash fiction, Galaxy Team, iPod, monsters, short story, supermarket, Tesco, trepanning, Turkish Delight, white van man
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January 3, 2012

New Year’s Resolutions

Gaargh, normally I refuse to partake in absurdity of hoping for improvements in the comin’ year. However, last year took it’s toll in crewmates and less plunder than I’m happy with. So, here be me ten resolutions for 2012. With luck I’ll not fail ‘em all.

Lose no further appendages or sensory organs. I’m runnin’ low on both.
Reduce monster-related fatalities ‘mongst the crew by at least one per beastie.
Seek romance twixt sky and sea.
Discover ye cheese thief on board the Grim Bastard.
Invest in the odd experiments o’ Gunther Garment (me sawbones) in hopes of revitalisin’ me leg, perhaps in a frogsome manner.
Eat more pickled limes and stave off scurvy for another twelve-month. Yarr, they’re so vile yet nutritious.
Construct a stronger liquor cabinet, mayhap in the guise of a dragon.
Find a way to see me mermaid love child without resortin’ to drowning.
Stop chasin’ rainbows.
Get a decent unicorn hat. I feels I’ve earned one.

Posted in Assorted Ramblin's
Tagged appendages, liquor cabinet, love child, New Year, New year resolution, Piracy, pirates, scurvy, sensory organs, sky and sea
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Captain Pigheart ~ Swashbuckling Pirate Stories

Short Tales of Adventure on the High Seas

Captain Pigheart’s Little Christmas Tale

Captain Pigheart’s Accursed Christmas

Captain Pigheart’s Hermitage Adventure

Captain Pigheart’s Cetacean Adventure

Franklyn de Gashe ~ The Theatrical Entertainment

Vermouth Thursday ~ Galaxy Team

The Hubristic Adventure ~ Captain Pigheart

Shankanolalia – The Sensation of Being Verse-Shanked

Pulp Pirate

You can listen to it here:

Goodbye Mister Bimbolino: Index of Clown Killing

A Cold, Cold Night Adventure

Pulp Pirate 5

Flash Cast 52 Zombie Pie

The Scale of the Universe – An Interactive Flash Animation

The Primeval Entertainment

The Dancing Adventure

The Cloistered Entertainment

The Missing Metacarpal Adventure

Pirate Pictures (from Nottingham Live)

Other stories enjoyed by ye crowd:

Alex Trepan in Midnight Shopping – Chapter 3 of 3 Jam and the Maiden

Chapter One – Shopping and Shouting

Chapter Two – Prawn Ring

Chapter Three – Jam and the Maiden

Pub Pirate

The Captain at Nottingham Live!

Alex Trepan in Midnight Shopping – Chapter 2 Prawn Ring

Chapter One – Shopping and Shouting

Chapter Two – Prawn Ring

Chapter Three – Jam and the Maiden

Short Fiction and Writing Length

Alex Trepan in Midnight Shopping

Chapter One – Shopping and Shouting

Next week: Chapter Two – Prawn Ring

New Year’s Resolutions

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Flash Cast 52 Zombie Pie

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Other stories enjoyed by ye crowd:

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Chapter Three – Jam and the Maiden

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Chapter Two – Prawn Ring

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Chapter One – Shopping and Shouting

Next week: Chapter Two – Prawn Ring

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