Many Mosaics

Compare an atom with an orange,

Consider a river of cargo,

Suspend a thimble in your thoughts,

Eat a mouse's sugary tail,

Lose the last digit,

Participate, precipitate.

Absolve your feathery anxieties,

Sharpen the leopard's skin,

Ignore trigonometry,

The cracking of a quail egg,

Re-route magnetic fields,

Lennon's leniency.

Lost in mace,

Decipher your hoof,

Crackling cider and the river Mersey,

Glaring lily pads threaten,

Acne, TNT and a red shed,

Saline saturates.

Spiralling mutilated beetle legs,

Memory, rust, lantern,

Rhythmic ache,

Sparkle delight,

Listless onion purée,

Many mosaics.

Take It With A Pinch Of Salt

I was sat in an American diner, chomping down some French Fries that tasted somewhat tasteless, when I realised that you have to take everything with a pinch of salt.

The waitress was elegantly poised as she explained to me how the ‘moist’ and ‘unrefined’ qualities of the prestigious Grey Salt she was about to give to me would guarantee an enjoyable end to my stay at the B&B. I fingered the salt curiously, before clenching a small clump in my hand and spreading it over the plate of food.

When the waitress left, with a gleeful expression beaming from her high cheekbones, I began to think about the article that had kept me awake the previous night. It told me that I had just over a year left to live, that the world was coming to an abrupt ending on December 21st 2012. I spent the entire journey home researching the cosmic phenomenon on my iPhone.

I learnt that 21st December 2012 is the end date of a 5,125 year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican long count calendar, a dating system used by the ancient Mayans. This date is believed to mark a transition within humanity as a whole: a physical or spiritual transformation: a shift in global consciousness that could lead to a more enlightened presence on earth for the human population.

One new-age writer, Daniel Pinchbeck, claims in his book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, that ‘materialism and the rational, empirical worldview that comes with it has reached its expiration date,’ he suggests that these pragmatic traits will be replaced by more ‘intuitive, mystical and shamanic,’ qualities. And to a certain extent, I’ve come to agree with him.

I spent a few weeks investigating the myriad of theories surrounding 2012, whilst munching away at bags and bags of salt’n’shake potato crisps. I found myself baffled by the complete lack of rationality, logic, and empiricism that dominated the discourse. I read a series of theories that, quite comprehensively, lined the spectrum of lunacy.

At first my exploration only led me to mild conjectures. Apparently a powerful ‘solar maximum’ would take place in 2012 and the excessive heat as our orbit brought us closer to the sun would cause the surface of the earth to melt, thus signalling the end of humanity.

This seemed viable to me, of course if we were closer to the sun the heat would be greater and if the change was drastic then the implications for us could be horrific. I phoned up my parents, my friends, and even my ex-girlfriends to tell them about my dangerous discovery. I was thoroughly distressed. Most of them seemed strangely apathetic to my warnings, with only my Uncle Gary even making the effort to ask me how I knew all of this. He told me to phone him back when I could verify the catastrophe with scientific knowledge.

However no such phone call was made. I learned from the U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the 2012 solar maximum is predicted to be ‘below-average’ in terms of irradiation, the weakest since 1928, and that it could even occur after December 21st and in fact take place in the spring of 2013.

After this scare I found myself craving cured meats and smoked cheeses as I carried on my study of the year 2012.
The next theory I looked into suggested that some kind of planetary alignment will create a combined gravitational effect between the Sun and a supermassive black hole in the middle of our galaxy, called Sagittarius A*. However I don’t think the author of this theory, Lauren Mora, will have gotten too many A* grades in Science at school seeing as the black hole she talks of is 30,000 light years away form earth and would have to be 6 million times closer to our solar system to have any gravitational effect, according to professors at the University of California.

I thought I was growing accustomed to the scaremongering and inaccuracies of the apocalyptic theories after systematically ruling out the chances of solar storms, magnetic pole reversals, earthquakes, supervolcanoes and photon belts by doing a bit of scientific reading behind the ideas. I felt like my capacity to be shocked had been saturated like salt in brine. That was until I discovered some of the more outlandish theories.

I was casually sipping on a glass of margarita when I came across a theory that shocked me into spitting out a mouthful all over the computer screen. As I wiped away the gritty green liquid I read about how a computer program called the Web Bot has predicted that a cataclysmic event will devastate the planet in 2012. The program, that is created by Clif High and George Ure, who call themselves ‘The Time Monks’, analyses ‘Internet chatter’ and shifts in ‘emotional tension’ to generate predictive reports of the future. It was not the idea of the end of the world that shocked me—I had just read a handful of apocalyptic predictions— but the ejection of my margarita was fuelled solely by my incredulity at the thought of such an idea receiving any kind of scientific credence.

I began to worry about the state of the world. A world where data on the Internet was being used to sell people bogus predictions of the future. It seemed like maybe Daniel Pinchbeck’s proposition was coming true, that rationality and empiricism were being replaced by mysticism and occultism. I relined my glass with an extra thick helping of crunchy sea salt as I contemplated a future where such absurdities were heralded as truth.

Another bizarre proposal that knocked me for six is Nancy Lieder’s story of how she was contacted by grey extraterrestrials called ‘Zetas’ in her childhood. She supposes that these alien beings implanted a communications device in her brain to contact her from the Zeta Reticuli star system, and that in 1995 they warned her of earth’s imminent collision with a large planetary object called ‘Nibriu’. The collision was originally pencilled in for May 2003 but Lieder has since aligned the apocalyptic clash with the 2012 phenomenon.

Scientists from NASA have repeatedly refuted the claim that a planet ‘four times the size of earth’ could exist within our solar system without, one: being seen, and two: effecting the orbits of the other planets. Astronomer Mike Brown notes that for ‘Nibriu’ to have no gravitational effect on the planets in the solar system it would have to be 1000 times further away than the distance between the earth and the sun (1000 Astronomical units) and that if ‘Nibriu’ were to travel that distance in less than two years, as Lieder purports, it would need to be moving at 2400 km/s which is faster than the galactic escape velocity. ‘At that speed, any object would be shot out of the solar system, and then out of the Milky Way galaxy into intergalactic space.’
Even though they are based on sound scientific knowledge, impossible assertions such as Brown’s that the planet ‘Nibriu’ would be expelled from our galaxy into intergalactic space, seem equally farcical to me as the bogus theories they are designed to debunk.

But little did I know there was still one more level of lunacy to go before the 2012 scale of insanity was to be completed.
Spiritual teacher and New Age author Terence McKenna proposes a theory so preposterous that I was moved to pinch myself with a pair of sharp pliers and fill up my bath tub with sea salt in an attempt to replicate The Dead Sea and cleanse my mind, body, and soul from the intellectually debasing content of his work.

McKenna’s 2012 theory is underscored by his love of psychedelic drugs, especially psilocybin-containing mushrooms and DMT. His ‘Stoned Ape’ hypothesis of human evolution suggests that as our primate ancestors moved from living in trees to open grasslands and savannas near the end of the most recent ice age they began to feast on psilocybin-containing mushrooms, and that this helped them acquire selective evolutionary advantages over other species that did not eat the mushrooms. He states that the effects of psilocybin, such as increased sexual arousal and ecstatic hallucinations were advantageous to the early humans as it encouraged the ‘development of spoken language in order to form pictures in another persons mind through the use of vocal sounds.’

In a similar vein of fashion McKenna attempted to use psychoactive drugs to better his understanding of humanity and the mysteries of the universe. He believed the drugs opened the mind up for ‘trans-dimensional travel’ and could enable him to communicate with spiritual ancestors and omniscient beings.

These drug induced unworldly affairs led him to discover how the story of the universe is simply the story of the ‘proton matter wave’s 13.7-billion-year-long fall into its own gravitational field.’ With some spurious references to Einstein and de Broglie he claims that on December 21st 2012 the wait will be over for the proton matter and the universe will be completed for eternity. He purports that we will enter into ‘Timewave Zero,’ a phenomenon that allows everybody to travel around the universe at the speed of light infinitely and timelessly, forever. The universe will reach ‘a singularity of infinite complexity, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur simultaneously.’
The plot thickens…

This is all made possible by the tantric union of the world’s two most imaginative people with the hyperspace of the universe’s information, which he calls ‘The Superconducting Overmind.’ Humanity is condensed into one unitary being of interconnectedness, which leads to the human species taking complete psychokinetic control over the universe, ‘That is the ultimate goal of the universe’s existence.’

This was the point of no return for me. It sealed the deal. ‘Intuition, shamanism and a profound sensitivity towards the mystic’ has replaced ‘Empiricism, pragmatism, and rationality.’ But somehow, concurrent to Pinchbeck’s prediction, materialism still lives on.

Most of the writers I have mentioned are wealthy and successful in their own fields of study. It proves that there is a market for mysticism, and who knows, maybe the shift in consciousness has started a little earlier than expected. Maybe humanity is on the cusp of a spiritual evolution.

But of course, as I am telling you this, it is important for me to point out that I am spreading a small pinch of table salt all over my plate of mushroom risotto.

The Royal Wedding 2011

At 11:20 AM on Friday 29th April 2011, the Archbishop of Canterbury pronounced Prince William and Catherine Middleton man and wife. It was a momentous moment, not just for the monarchy, but for the entire nation and dare I suggest it, the rest of the world too. The wonderful union between these two most-gracious young lovers represents a coalition between the monarch and the general public. And as I drunk a pint of Skinner’s ‘Kate Loves Willy’ Ale, I truly felt a speck of regality emanate through my body. I was proud.

Millions of people swarmed around the palace gates like wasps around a juicy looking ice-lolly in the sun. Some particularly patriotic commoners gathered in their small communities, sporting union jack flags and Will and Kate masks, they pitched their tents several days before the ceremony took place in a gallant effort to ensure a prime view of the event. These earnest royal subjects will undoubtedly pass down the story of how they procured the most intimate view of the royal kiss for generations to come, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren will take enormous delight in knowing that somebody in their family once saw Prince William’s lips touch Princess Kate’s from the tender distance of 50 metres.

‘Isn’t it a magnificent sight’ Huw Edward reported for the BBC, as Prince William sat next to Princess Kate on the luxurious State Landau during the royal procession. The lavish carriage was pulled along by four thoroughbred stallions, and in its pure grandness, it eclipsed even the magical carriage that Cinderella’s fairy Godmother made for her from a rotten pumpkin.

Given the weight of the situation one would be forgiven for letting the pressure affect his charm, but the Prince was on top form, quoted by The Guardian and backed up by professional lip-reader Tina Lannin, as telling his newly-wed wife ‘You look beautiful’. So articulate, so concise and so original—majestic lines such as this are what separate the royals from the likes of me, you, and the general public. We can only thank journalists and members of the media conglomerations for bringing us little snippets of captivating insight into the lives of our superiors, with such cutting urgency and punctuality.

The transformation from commoner to regality for Kate Middleton was complimented by an amazing piece of knitwear: an ivory white satin silk gown, created by Sarah Burton, Head Designer at the House of Alexander McQueen. A confidentiality agreement had been signed that kept the dress as secretive as the princess was formerly chaste. So when the dress was finally unveiled to the world as she stepped out of the royal Rolls Royce, it was no surprise to hear a BBC fashion expert let out a high-pitched shriek of ‘YAY’, echoing profoundly the exact joy of a whole nation looking on at the dress with glee.

The jubilation and goodwill was not confined to the Great British Isles exclusively, the event received worldwide publication and quite rightly monopolized the cable and terrestrial networks in the United States. There was even a makeshift ‘street’ party held in the Helmand province of Afghanistan by the proud British troops. The Afghani affair featured flags, music, cake and a brilliantly formed life-sized cardboard cutout of the Royal couple themselves. ‘It was a wonderful day, Kate looked beautiful and we had been so looking forward to seeing her dress.’ Commented Captain Clare Brooks who usually spends her time inspecting packages and scouring the landscape for improvised explosive devices.

The spectacle of the event surpassed all other distractions. Street parties brought people together. Labour and Tory politicians shared cups of tea from the same Will and Kate ceramic teapots; students taught local residents how to skateboard; terminally ill patients nodded their heads and smiled with a long lost twinkle in their eyes; everybody was happy that the British monarchy was succeeding. ‘With all the bad things in the word at the moment, its nice to come together, forget about them, have fun and just be British.’ The sentiments of a conscientious citizen reveling in the achievement of a wealthy heir to the throne finding himself a beautiful woman to marry on the 66th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s marriage to Eva Braun.

Of course there will always be some blasphemous spoilsports who refuse to acknowledge the true value of the monarch, labeling them as fetishized puppets of public affection, tax-dodging time-wasters, or archaic throwbacks to our shameful past of slavery, sexual discrimination and colonial exploitation. Some sacrilegious dissidents will always make grandiloquent claims, such as the holy matrimony is a ‘Wedding of Mass Distraction’ or that the money should be spent on education, the NHS or welfare rather than a jumped-up media celebration of an antiquated oligarchy.

These bitter invectives, and a desecrating offer made by Vivid Entertainment’s Steve Hirsch, for Kate’s exquisite sister Pippa to feature in a pornographic film for $5 million aside, the royal wedding was a tremendous success. It re-united the loving public with a unique historical figure of majesty and allowed a society that was growing progressively aware of current affairs and critical of its own foreign policy, to take a much-deserved day off and forget about the many evils of this world.

APATHY RATING: *****/ *****

foxxy - PREVIEW

I had been working as a pizza boy for about two years when it started. I used to turn up everyday at six o’clock, quickly change my t-shirt, stick the stupid cap on my head and walk into the store to sign in. I was always careful to keep my hands in my pockets at all times when in the store because they had this annoying rule about bare wrists. The problem was I had this tattoo from when I was back in college, it was ‘Mary’ my childhood sweetheart written in a tasteless gothic font on a peculiar looking Labrador, and it was emblazoned on the underside of my wrist. We used to have a little joke about her being a dog, say if we went into a posh shop or to the beach between the 1st of May and the 31st of September, I would point at the ‘no dogs’ sign and look at her disapprovingly and she would giggle and shake her head in that ‘you-think-you’re-so-funny-but-it’s-okay-because-I-guess-I-do-too’ sort of way.

I thought it would be cute to get the tattoo but my ‘incessant jealousy’ and ‘wandering eyes’ proved the perfect antidote to my charming humour, leaving me with a trophy of failure on my wrist. To hide this inconvenient truth I tried wearing sweatbands, but they used to get all mouldy and smelly if I didn’t take them off for bathing and showers – and taking them off for such occasions proved even more horrific as I was faced with the dog – and there is nothing worse than reminding yourself that you’ve got something to hide. So I decided to go to a few shitty festivals to get some wristbands that had a sense of permanency about them.

The one that stuck was from a hippy festival in Newton Abbot called ‘Quest’. All I can remember of the festival is taking this anonymous pill from a guy dressed up as Jesus Christ, and from then on my mood was dictated by this great big tower that had a searchlight that changed colour as it span around the field. The colours acted to dictate my mood: if it was bright and yellow I would feel ecstatic and if it was dark and navy: I would get twitchy and unsure of myself. In the morning the yellow wristband reminded me of the electric energy I had felt the night before. And the name ‘Quest’ coupled with the Jesus guy who gave me the pill, inspired me to search for God, and gave me hope of maybe finding more to life and potentially fulfilling some kind of unheard of spiritual bliss. But by the end of the day I started to come down and realized that this enlightenment was in fact, part of the trip.

But anyway, I stuck with the wristband to cover up the tattoo the same way a cutter would do, to hide their scars - sometimes I would even let people think I was a cutter, if it proved less embarrassing than admitting the truth – anything to avoid showing that dastardly dog. So when I was told that ‘Franchise policy dictates all employees adhere strictly to the uniform code’ and found out that in order to deliver pizza to somebody’s house at night it was necessary to ‘be cleanly shaven, piercing free and bare wristed’ I was quite understandably indignant. I mean who really gives a fuck when they’re stoned, drunk and hungry – ‘cos that’s the only time that I order a pizza – if the guy stood outside in the cold wearing a mojo-shattering blue hat has a bit of stubble or a festival armband saying ‘Quest’ on it. When I’m desperate enough to pay twelve quid for a pizza I don’t care if it gets delivered by Grizzly Adams and his forest-face, Snoop Dogg and his plethora of bling, or even Dick Dastardly and the unkempt Mutley. It just doesn’t matter.

At the beginning of my first shift, I was sent to the toilet with a bic two-blade razor and the cold-water tap. I went in looking handsome as ever and came out all cut up with red patches and rogue hairs scattered around my face. They said I looked a lot better.

But then they told me I would have to cut off my wristband before I could start earning any dosh. My initial reaction was to bullshit. I started itching my neck along the collar where I could feel a spot swelling up from the massacre of the bic, and I told my supervisor how important the quest for God was in my life. I explained how cutting free the band would symbolically sever my own spiritual bond with Jesus Christ and told him how damaging that could be to my emotional wellbeing. He bought it. Or at least he was too weary to argue with it, and said that I could wear the band just this once, but in future it would have to be covered up by a watch; either that or I would be ineligible to work for them.

I didn’t own a watch and I was not prepared to pay for one out of my own pocket to conform to this officious code – but at the same time I was growing increasingly anxious at the idea of exposing my wrist and the tattoo – so I resorted to stealing a spy watch from my little sister. It didn’t tell the time but it did have a little plastic hatch that you could open up. I didn’t really understand what its purpose was: I wondered whether it was supposed to harbour miniature laser beams to blind villains with, or to set off remotely controlled mines in times of crisis, but ultimately, I concluded it was just a toy.

Sometimes I would forget the spy watch. It could get left at home or in a jacket pocket or at a mate’s house by an ashtray. And sometimes I would neglect to shave: if I hadn’t washed in a while or if my mum was having a bath at the wrong time or something. The threat of the bic and of unleashing the beast under my wrist was of great concern to me. I would carefully slip in and out of the building between deliveries, vigilantly avoiding eye contact with any of the supervisors, because I came to realize that nobody actually cares about rules, they just care about power. So if you don’t directly challenge their power, if you keep out of their way, then most of the time you can get away with a few little discrepancies.

Another benefit of minimizing my time in the store each night was avoiding my ‘colleagues’. Although some of them were alright, for example, the twins with cheap Mazda sports cars who planned to open their own pizza place in Australia, the Spanish manager with a lust for olives but a lack of English skills and the Polish chef who would shamelessly smoke bongs outside the backdoor, but these were the exceptions. The majority of the staff were unfunny no-hopers, constantly participating in ‘banter’ and laughing profusely at their own jokes. I don’t mean to appear judgmental but I had a real problem identifying with people who were content to grow fat and old delivering pizzas and sticking new exhausts onto the backs of their cars. I was aiming for better than that.

I’ve always wanted to make films. As I was growing up I would always tell Mary about my ideas, they would come to me when we were lying in bed or taking a day trip on the train, and I would get all excited relaying my thoughts to her. She would listen in awe and tell me how good the ideas were and encourage me to plot the narratives in this little notebook called a pukka pad. The thing is I would write down the flashes of ideas, fleeting elements of films but I would never develop them, never put any hard graft into them. I was always too busy trying to get my dick wet or watching films that had already been made on DVD.

After we split a couple of years ago I would still carry the pukka pad around with me in my car, but it would rarely feel the pleasure of being written in. I needed the encouragement. Any ideas that I had would just get eroded by the radio, or by a traffic jam, or by an unhappy customer who had asked for no pepperoni. By the time I had finished my shift I was always too hungry and tired to search through my brain for the fragments of films that had played behind my eyes while I was driving. To my dismay I found myself resigned to being a delivery boy. For the time being. I would tell myself.

*************************************

So there I was half eleven on a Friday evening, driving to a residential trailer park to deliver three cheese and tomato pizzas with my spy watch on. As I approached the driveway I spotted the park mascot: it was a life-size wooden fox, orange with bright blue eyes and the word ‘Welcome’ scribed across its stomach inside a sparkling sunshine orb. This image of happiness unsettled me a little bit. I shone my full beam and squinted out of the window until I found number thirteen Sunnyvale Lane. I parked up, and took the pizzas out of the hot bag ready for the customer. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. This was normal. I waited half a minute and knocked again, much harder this time. Again, no answer. I was used to this type of thing, sometimes people would take ages to reply and then just rush to the door with a towel on, messy hair and a flush. I assumed that ordering a pizza worked in the same way as oysters or as Lynx would have you believe their scent works: to make women horny. If I was lucky I’d get a little nip slip, but more often than not, I was just treated to a bouncing ballbag as the guy turned to run back to his pizza-enchanted mistress.

After about five minutes of banging on the door and wailing ‘PIZZA BOY, IT’S YOUR PIZZZZZAAAA BOY’ reminiscent of Jim Carey in The Cable Guy, I was getting seriously pissed off. I got back in my car turned the light on and rung the ‘customer’s number’. As I was typing in the digits: ‘01626 2829-Wait a minute’. It dawned on me that this was the number for sexline, all those prank phone calls me and Mary used to make about fornicating with elephants and acidic discharge, how did I not see this earlier. I was furious at whoever this little prick was that set me up. Nobody orders shitty cheese and tomato pizzas. I revved my engine and jerked the volume up on the CD player: ‘You made me forget my dreams’ Fucking Belle and Sebastian. This was not the time for them. I was growing more and more disgruntled as I encountered that fox mascot again. In a moment of madness I stopped the car, ran towards the fox, picked up a metal pole – the kind of shit that prank-calling-trailer-trash-people leave lying around – and went for the fox’s head. After three wild blows, the neck snapped and the head drooped down slowly. I felt like a naughty beaver. I felt that overpowering sense of guilt I used to feel instantly after ejaculating inside another girl when I was with Mary. I deemed it most sensible to wrench the head free from its torso and place it in the back of my car on the parcel shelf.

For the next few shifts I was haunted by the fox. It would reflect onto the back windscreen, and appear ominously in my rearview mirror as some kind of ethereal apparition.

I guess I must have felt responsible for the fox, because I was intrigued to look after him – I was quite sure from his rigid posture when he had a body, that he was a male fox – it was some kind of twisted Stockholm Syndrome, but reversed and with a wooden ornament.

So for a few weeks me and the fox would ride around town together delivering pizzas and surveying the streets. We delivered to drunk students, who flirted with me and asked to stroke my fox; we delivered to fat single men who left us large tips for not laughing at the number of pizza boxes piled up behind their doors; we delivered to families who answered graciously and offered me slices of pizza; we delivered to buildings with broken buzzers that rung the wrong flat; we delivered to houses with no numbers that took ages to find and we delivered to some houses that had nothing notable to say about them.

Although I was happy to have the fox on the parcel shelf, I don’t really think it had started yet. I suppose it had started in a way but I wasn’t aware of it.

One thing for sure, the evening that I met the fox, it had definitely started. It was just a normal shift at work, I had remembered to shave, and I also had the spy watch on my wrist. I was listening to some weak hip-hop on the radio and my heater was trying its best to clear the windscreen of pizza fumes, although I was defenseless against the pizza scent. It was about eleven o’clock and I had nothing planned after work apart from a lonely wank and small garlic bread I had smuggled into my boot. So I wasn’t even counting down the hours, they just travelled past me like the curb at the side of the road. Well anyway this eleven o’clock jobby proved a bit more significant than I could have guessed. 36 Starcross Street. The fox answered the door. Yes the very same fox that I had decapitated a few weeks earlier had answered the door. Well it can’t have been the same fox, but a carbon copy of the head that I was carrying in the back of my car. I glanced at one fox head and then at the other. I was astonished. He was about six foot tall, so just a little bit taller than me, with the same white whiskers I had become accustomed to that resembled the stubble around Homer Simpson’s mouth. He was fluffy all over and wore the same wide grin that had infuriated me so much during my first encounter. I wondered if I was imagining all this, an elaborate scheme devised in my subconscious to keep me entertained at work, so I touched him on the arm, and to my surprise he was real. Soft and furry. ‘Sorry!?’ said the fox. I was surprised by how human his voice sounded. I looked at the sticker and he had paid by card so I gave him his pizza. He turned around and shut the door on me. I stood still for an immeasurable amount of time before getting my shit together and getting back into the car. He was looking at me out of his window. I turned the car around and in doing so I reversed up against the fox’s front room and for a split second the reflection of the wooden fox in my rear windscreen merged together perfectly with the real fox staring out of the window. It was the kind of moment that would be turned into slow motion in a film.

I went home that night and called Mary for the first time in months but she didn’t answer.

The fox played on my mind. I dreamt about a cream-coloured country home surrounded by forest and separated from the rest of the world by a grand ornamental gate. In the gravel driveway a man with a tweed sports jacket and a hunting cap on was pacing in front of his tall arching doorway looking very animated. Then all of a sudden the fox appeared from a clearing in the thicket, he was running on all fours this time and he looked a lot more vulnerable than I had seen him before. The agitated aristocrat reached for his shotgun and raised it towards the woods. He let off a few bangs before exclaiming: ‘RELEASE THE HOUNDS’. Two posh-looking men in similar hunting gear came running from the front door and stood by his side. As they all loaded up their shotguns three humongous dogs, slightly larger than horses, came bustling from around the back of the house. The beast-hounds stopped for their hunters to mount, and then let off a blood curdling howl and set off for the fox. The same fox that I had beheaded, and then delivered a pizza to.

I woke up confused, firstly because I had an erection after such a shocking dream, and secondly because I felt almost culpable for the terrorizing of the fox at the hands of the hunters. I was horrified to compare what I did with a piece of wood to the brutal murder of a miraculously large vulpine creature, but for some reason I couldn’t separate the two crimes. I felt guilt running through my veins and vowed to be a better person before tossing myself off back to sleep.

The next day at work I had to deal with the usual drivel that goes around the store when its quiet, one of my supervisors was telling everybody about his latest sexual antics and naturally, all the lads joined in, pelvic thrusts and fingers in their mouths. The female staff stood back quietly, trying to blend into the walls, in fear of the sexual furore breaking out into a sleazy CCTV pizza porno film. I was stood back with the girls, thinking about the fox and what I should do; should I go back to the trailer park with some superglue and try to fix him back in place; should I order a fake pizza to the real fox’s house and ask him what’s going on; or should I chuck the fox’s head in the river and be done with it.

But I didn’t have a choice in the matter because 36 Starcross Street was on the computer screen and the pizza was out of the oven and ready to be dispatched. I jumped into the car and threw the pizza in the back and set off. To begin with I was jumping red lights and revving my engine like a boy racer, eager to talk to the fox like a schoolgirl meeting a pop star. But like a schoolgirl, I got nervous and starting stalling. I took a few wrong turns and looked at myself repeatedly in the mirror, as if the structure of my quiff would determine the quality of my meeting with the fox.

When I got to number 36 Starcross Street I still had no idea what I was going to say. The fox came to the door while I was still getting out of the car, he was staring straight past me and I swear he saw the fox’s head, his head, but he didn’t say anything about it. I gave him the pizza and took the twenty-pound note from his furry paw. ‘I know this is going to sound completely weird… but do you know of a great big house, sorta like a mansion with high gates, and its surrounded by woods?’ I said.

The fox looked me up and down for a few seconds. ‘It’s only becau-‘

The fox interrupted me this time: ‘Yeah I know a place like that’.

‘What do you know about it’ I asked.

‘It’s a long story’ the fox said. ‘If you let me ride around the town with you I‘ll tell you some more about it’ he added.

So it was arranged. It was as easy as that, but it still made no sense to me. How could he know of the old country home, it was from a dream, an imaginary place? I had only said it out of panic.

The fox rode shotgun while I drove back to the store to collect another pizza. We exchanged formalities but I was still too stunned by the situation to really ask what was going on: as if by drawing attention to the weirdness I would then cause the fox to evaporate or something. We drove passed a KFC joint and the fox got really excited: ‘Fuck me! I could do with a KFC’

‘Do foxes like KFC?’ I said taken aback.

‘Why wouldn’t foxes like KFC’ he said.

‘No reason. I suppose the colonel does a good job with his seasoning’ I said.

‘It’s the top fast food outlet in my opinion. Fuck Ronald McDonald and that big burger, who even is the ‘Burger King’ he said.

‘I don’t even know’ I said laughing.

‘Are you stopping for a KFC or what!?’ he demanded.

‘But you left half of that pizza I delivered to you at home’ I said.

‘Yeah, but, we foxes are never sure of our next meal’ he said.

‘Sounds that way, what with your outspoken views on all the major fast food restaurants’ I said.

‘I take it we are not going to KFC then’ he said stroppily.

It dawned on me that although he was some kind of magical animorphic fox; he was just a normal guy beneath that.

We spent another hour and a half in the car together in which time I learned that; he loved gangster films and only gangster films ‘for the way the mobsters always get what they want and live their own life regardless of the laws of society’; he hated CCTV because it is ‘an unnatural phenomena to be recorded doing what you do’; and his favorite animal was a duck-billed-platypus although he was ‘disappointed to have never seen one in the woods’. I wandered if he was the only life-size animal around and he told me that he wasn’t but I wasn’t ready to know about all that yet. I got the same kind of evasive response when I asked about the cream-coloured country home from my dream: ‘You’re not ready yet’. I was intrigued but at the same time frustrated, I didn’t want to ruin it though. Like when you realise something is too good to be true in a dream, but you try your hardest not to question it incase your bubble of subconscious bursts and you wake up sweating with an unwanted erection.

The next day I picked the fox up from 36 Starcross Street as we had arranged and we embarked upon another night of mystery. I just couldn’t get anything out of him unless it was to do with something on the tele, or a band or a football team – I was very surprised to find that he wasn’t a Leicester City fan, but in fact hated Gary Lineker with a passion: ‘But their mascot ‘Filbert the fox’ is the most similar looking thing to you that I have ever seen!’ I reasoned.

‘I don’t care, I hate that Gary Lineker and his big FA cup ears, and I hate those boring crisps he eats too’ he said.

‘What’s so bad about Lineker anyway’ I couldn’t help but crack up when he came out with these ridiculous statements.

‘Him and Stan Collymore had a fall out’ he said.

‘So…’

‘Collymore is famous for bringing dogging into the mainstream, and to carry on with a career in the media after a revelation like that is admirable in my opinion’ he said.

‘He used to beat up Ulrika Johnson is that admirable?’ I asked. He didn’t reply.

‘And anyway what has a fox like you got to do with dogging? I said.

‘Oh, nothing I just... saw a program on tele about it and it sounded quite exciting’ he said.

‘Whenever I’ve been dogging its just been a load of old guys in expensive cars waiting in a car park and driving off when they see a gang of lads in the car’ I said.

The fox went silent for about half an hour after that little exchange, I figured that I must have hit a sore spot mentioning Gary Lineker. I just carried on delivering the pizzas, even if he wasn’t saying anything, it still felt cool to have a massive talking fox sat next to me as I went.

Over the next few weeks I had the pleasure of the fox’s company for most of my shifts at work, he couldn’t make Wednesdays or Fridays and asked to be dropped off early on the posh side of town ‘to visit a friend’ every once in a while, but on the whole my life felt a lot more purposeful. I didn’t know what the purpose was exactly, but I knew the fox had something to do with it. He allowed me to open up. I told him about Mary and the guilt I felt, I told him how I just wanted to show her I was sorry and maybe even be friends with her if she would let me. He told me that I was better off without bonds and ties, and to let the past stay in the past. He asked me what she looked like and I was shocked to find I didn’t have any pictures on my phone so I waited until I had a delivery on that side of the river and drove outside her house. I knew she used to leave the curtain open after she had a shower but I couldn’t believe my luck when she was stood by her window bare breasted looking in the mirror and brushing her hair. She looked angelic. ‘Who needs her as a girlfriend when you can gaze on her from afar?’ suggested the fox. I didn’t really feel that way, but seeing as she wouldn’t reply to my calls I decided to settle for the fox’s company and Mary’s tits.

The fox also got me talking about my aspirations to be a writer again. He encouraged me to tell him my ideas but remained ominously voiceless with regards to his own life. I told him about my plan for a screenplay involving a mix-up in the hospital with two babies going home with the wrong parents. The plan was for the families to be reunited with their true offspring through a freak coincidence on the Jeremy Kyle show. The fox ripped the idea apart, criticizing my lack of character motives and condemning the plot as ‘shit-cold’. I didn’t take it well at first, and I think the fox noticed this because he told me the real reason for his disapproval was that he hated northern accents and explained how he couldn’t stand anything to do with Jeremy Kyle since they employed ‘Foxy Bingo’ as their sponsor with that ‘cocky northern fox’.

************************************************

‘Do you wana come out with me tonight, y’know, after you finish work, out of the car’ asked the fox. He struggled to get his words out as if he was asking a girl out on a date for the first time.

‘Yeah sure mate, what you thinking?’ I said.

‘There’s a few of us all heading out somewhere, we haven’t decided where yet though’ he said.

‘Sounds like a plan, I guess Mary’s driveway will be lonely tonight then’ I said.

I assumed we wouldn’t be going to the ‘Fox and Hound’.

It was my last delivery of the night when everything changed. We were driving around the rich end of town looking for a house simply entitled ‘Majesty’. I was suspicious of such a lavish name for an address but the customer had paid by card already so I assumed it must be a legit order – I mean the jokes on you if you try playing a prank by actually paying for the pizza. These streets weren’t paved in gold, but I swear that some of the gates had diamond sparkles on their peaks. The fox was getting a bit fidgety. ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

‘Don’t like rich people’ he replied.

‘Oh come on, I think their quite funny with their outrageous elitism and funny accents… Jolly-good job old boy’ I impersonated poorly.

‘It’s not so funny when you’re me’ he said.

I wondered what he meant by this.

‘I reckon we just go back, this place is a ma-’ he began.

“HERE IT IS… Majesty!’ I interrupted.

The fox shuddered.

The gate opened as soon as I maneuvered the car in front of it.

‘That’s funny’ I said.

‘Some of these posh houses just have sensors, they’re just for ornament really, not really to do with security’ he told me.

I drove slowly down the driveway crackling the clean white gravel beneath us. As I approached the house the lights turned on and illuminated everything to me: this was the cream-coloured mansion from my dream. It was all there, the tall arching doorway, the woods behind the house and the humbling sense of grandeur. It was so much more lucid in real life. A polyphonic ringtone beeped twice, the fox had a text message. I looked down at his phone: ‘Majesty woods’. I was so confused, was that a warning, had he planned this or what the fuck was going on? The fox started acting panicky and urged me to turn around and drive off. ‘Lets go. Lets just go back now. Come on lets go back. I’ll pay you for the pizza’. But I was intrigued: this fictional place from my dream had come to life and I was here with a magical talking fox, I had to find out what it meant. Curiosity killed the cat.

I parked as close to ‘Majesty’ as I could. I got out with the pizza, locked the door and started towards the door but before I had the chance to knock it opened briskly and powerfully. The man from my dream in hunting gear walked out. He was much less intimidating than I remembered. His eyes were big and droopy and his grey hair was swept behind his ears revealing his ruby red cheeks. He was shorter than me and rather stout. ‘Who are you’ he requested walking straight passed me’

‘Pizza?’ I gestured the box towards him.

‘Oh yes! Fair play chappy. Have you heard any signs of foul play whilst in the grounds? Seen anything unusual?’ he asked.

‘Urm not while I’ve been here today… I had a dream about this place’ I said.

Ignoring me: ‘Is that your motorcar!?’ he exclaimed. ‘What is that perverted buffoon doing in your front seat?’

‘The fox?’ I asked.

‘Yes the bloody fox. PERCY, PERCIVALD’ he shouted. ‘BRING ME MY SHOTGUN’

Almost instantly as if on queue, another man with hunting gear came running through the door with two shotguns in his hand.

‘WHAT THE FUCK. No you can’t hunt him you mental poshos’ my dream was coming true. I had to stop them.

‘We are not hunting him’ the main posho said. ‘We are going to murder him’

‘Murder?’ I said.

‘Yes and I don’t think the police will have a lot to say about it. Not after what his despicable friends and he have been doing in my woods’ he said.

‘What are you going on about? You’ve seen the fox before? I asked.

‘I’ve seen a whole gang of these furry fiends before. They come into my woods at night dressed up as cuddly toys and fornicate wildly with a complete disregard for the sanctity of my grounds’ he told me.

‘And we’ve had enough’ the other posho added.

I shouted to the fox ‘Is this true’

He began gesticulating innocence but I couldn’t hear what he was saying through the window. I walked over to the car. ‘Hand him over and you will be rewarded chappy’ the main posho said to me. I opened the door.

‘HAND HIM OVER’ the other posho ordered.

‘I thought you’d be into it’ the fox said regretfully as he jumped out of the car and burst into a sprint towards the woods.

I was waiting for one of the mental poshos to shout ‘RELEASE THE HOUNDS’ but instead they loaded their shotguns and ran after the fox. I followed them. We ran through the thick layers of forest and jumped over a few logs. I was eager to overtake the hunters and find the fox, and it wouldn’t have been hard at the inebriated rate they were going, but I was weary of their loaded shotguns so restrained myself to waiting behind them. Eventually we found ourselves at a clearing and to my dismay the hunters were telling the truth: a melee of sexual perversion lay before us. There were great-big furry wolves banging smaller furry squirrels against the trunks of sycamore trees; there were furry monkeys sucking off furry bulldogs like they were licking on the tips of bananas; there were furry black and white cows mixing with furry brown cows performing the 69’er with their udders; there were furry pink rabbits being drilled in the ass by panting furry tigers yelling ‘Its GRRRRRRRRRRREAT’; and there was even a furry Care Bear riding a furry Scooby Doo in the reverse cowgirl.

The hunters opened fire. It was a massacre. A few of the furries got away – God knows where they went or what they did – but most of them were mauled down by the poshos’ callous spray of bullets. They must have had a field day, I bet hunting had never been such fun. ‘Good show Percy, shame a few of them got away, but some of the little blighters always do’. Credit to the furries, they stayed in role even when they lay dying on the floor: as I fled the scene back to my car I heard a cacophony of tragic swansongs; a howling wolf; a mooing cow and a wailing bulldog.

When I was back in my car and safely parked outside the pizza store I called the police and told them what I saw. The pizza company were understanding and gave me two weeks paid leave to reconcile my emotions, although they did ask me why I didn’t return the pizza if the customer neglected to take it from me. On my way home I phoned the fox to find out if he got away okay. He told me that he ran to a different clearing, but did one when he heard the gunshots. He said the first day that I delivered him a pizza he was about to go out ‘furring’ – that’s what they call it apparently – and that’s why he was dressed up like that, he saw the fox’s head in the back of my car and recognized the mansion I spoke of and assumed I knew about the activity. He later realised that I was ignorant to his designs but decided to groom me anyway. He told me he had a lion’s costume waiting for me at home and was planning on initiating me that night. I hung up on him and never saw him again.

The story was a big media hit, all over the local and national news, The Sun even ran an article ‘Furrociosly Funny’ with cartoon images of the horrific scene in the woods complete with speech bubbles. The two hunters were arrested and both given life sentences. I couldn’t go back to the delivery job after the media exposure so I handed them my notice. Mary had seen me on the news and contacted me, to tell me to ‘never wait on her driveway again or she would get the police involved, and that she wanted nothing to do with me regardless of my trauma’.

Sony bought the rights to the story for ten grand, and I threw in the wooden fox’s head for authenticity. The bastardized filmic version has just been released: I’m played by Keanu Reeves and Sean Connery stars as the fox. In a steamy sex scene that makes me feel weak inside: Scarlet Johannson, as Mary, smashes a chandelier as she explodes out of control in her third screaming orgasm.

Birth Scene

It is Thursday the 12th of December 1994. The Christmas lights are being switched on in the city of Exeter by chat-show host Jerry Springer. The cheers of elation erupting from the high street surge towards the hospital building as the twinkling fairy lights illuminate the festivities taking place below them. “JERRY JERRY JERRY” Springer sits on his papier mache throne and feels contented that he has once more brought happiness and joy to a mob of strangers. He casts a smiling glance at his loyal subjects; teenage boys with mistletoe stuck to their belts; pregnant teenage girls singing “Away in a manger” at peoples doorsteps for money; men buying cut-price jewellery for their mistresses; middle-aged women stuffing chocolate selection boxes into their handbags for their grandchildren; and a particularly mischievous red robin perched on a white fairy light staring into the maternity ward of the hospital.

An unusually high influx of women with wet patches around their groins has forced the maternity wing to split each ward into two beds. Three nervous looking men, two exasperated women with their legs in the air and a young girl holding a care bear, occupy the room being surveyed by the red robin. The male midwife is constantly pacing from one side of the room to the other tending to both prospective parents, cursing nurse Paige who booked the night off months in advance upon hearing who was switching on the Christmas lights. One of the men is knelt down beside his wife looking very worried and repeatedly asking her: “Is everything alright dear?” or “How are you feeling?” to which she replies accurately and insincerely: “I FEEL LIKE I’M GOING TO FUCKING DIE HERE”. The other man is crouched over, rubbing his short spiky ginger hair against his wives dainty freckled forehead roaring: “Come on Janine! Do it for the Wedleys”. Janine smiles and her face radiates elusive beauty, before she screws up her face and unleashes a thunderous scream that scares the birth into action. The cute three-year-old girl is leant over the windowsill, hugging her care bear tightly and staring back at the red robin with a white ring around its eye.

The room explodes into action. One woman is confidently heaving and breathing, screaming in an animalistic manner, her husband is incredibly awed by her performance and is even forced to adjust the slackness of his belt to accommodate stirring. The other woman is somewhat quieter, efficiently carrying out the wonder of childbirth, whilst her husband preys, preys to whom he does not know. The midwife is hurriedly scuttering between the two beds trying his best to give the correct advice for the reciprocal period of labour. He occasionally confuses dilation measurements between women but nobody is detached enough from the situation to notice. The young girl is still examining the red robin.

“Mummy! The birdie is shaking. The birdie is sick!” The young girl looks towards her mother and wonders why her father is holding his hands together so close to his face. Nobody hears her. Suddenly the white light that the robin is perched upon starts to flash. The robin bursts into flames and combusts into a sullen pile of ashes. The whole circuit of lights starts sparkling and emitting screeching sounds. Flashes of light spark from the bulbs, some crack and explode shattering into glassy snowflakes falling to the ground. People below start gasping. They shriek as the fairy lights turn into fireworks and light up the sky as the city is plunged into darkness. Jerry Springer looks confused. The little girl is crying. The maternity ward is thrown into a frenzy of confusion; the expulsing mothers are wailing, instinctively concerned for their young; one father is weeping, crying for help; whilst the other is shouting, furiously demanding an explanation; the midwife is taking photos of the dilated vaginas with his camera phone, using the flash to help deliver the babies; the little girl is crying.

Somehow through the chaos the midwife manages to cut both umbilical chords and carry the babies into the emergency cots where a night nurse with a candle tends to them. When he returns to the ward, both women have expelled their placentas onto the floor and the backup lighting has been activated. One father is profusely thankful for the midwife’s ‘calm and confidence in a horrible moment” and the other father assures the room that he “would have responded in the same heroic way if he was called upon” to do so. The young girl is now lying in her mother’s arms, stained by the afterbirth.

“Both the babies are boys.” The midwife says.

“See Janine, I told ya didn’t I? The lads gonna be a true Wedley, I knew it” The ginger father says to his wife. The mother gleams back at him proudly.

“Aww did you hear that Jennifer? You’ve got a baby brother! The other father says patting his daughter on the back. The young girl snuggles deeper into her mother’s arms without responding.

“The mothers should get some rest-”

“-NO we are going home tonight” The ginger father interrupts the midwife.

“But I really think it is best for both the mothers and the infants to spend the first night in hospital, just as a precaution.” Says the midwife.

“We have to pick up little Charlie from my mum’s and we’d like to spend the night as a family if it’s all the same by you.” The mother says.

“And you?” The midwife asks the other family.

“We’d like to stay” the mother yawns “It’s my first night off in, in, well since I can remember and I’d like to sleep now.”

The midwife fetches one of the babies from the night nurse and all the necessary information is discussed. This process is repeated in the morning for the other family.

The ginger father names his son Chris and the other boy is named Roger by its mother.

Halloween Monster is going 2 get ya?

A young lad walking through the graveyard on Halloween, the moonlight splinters through the brambles from the refection of the swanpool..

Earlier that night he had met a silver fox, a black sheep, an eccentric old fellow. At a bar, with two girls, about to order a pint of European Lager: "I'm flamboyant.. And I'm drunk" The old man with grey hair, a large pot-belly and relaxed wrists announces.

Sat in a booth at the back of the bar, three vodka lemon and limes arrive. "Courtesy of Sir William". The younger male pounces on the waiter and downs all three drinks, spilling some cider-and-black over the blond girl in the process, looks to the old man and asks "WHAT!?" Sir Williams seems taken aback, but not enough to refuse the offer to sit with the group.

Sir William asks about ambitions and boasts of his worldly conquests: a day on each of the world's most exotic beaches to build up an appetite in order to devour their local cuisine and then fornicate with the language-less and therefore in-need-of-consent-less women. He was a carpenter, and a sailor, and a saint, and a soldier, his father is an editor and his daughter is the Personal Relations manager for Manchester United Football Club. His sister is Korean, but North or South "it does not matter which". He and good old Leo Wilkins were kicked out of Kings College at the modest age of twelve for callously joy-riding a cement mixer "over half of the school". Said apparatus was later found jammed in the net of the new tennis courts.

Nature calls! The strongest muscle in Sir William's body is his liver. The liver is not a muscle. And even Sir William has to empty it on particularly active evenings such as halloween. The youngsters confer, and it is decided to try and push the flamboyant gentleman and see how farfetched this tale will wag.

Alcohol is a funny thing.

On returning Sir William, decides to sit in between the young women and insists on a photograph, cupping each of their breasts and gurning with a synthetic erection he tells the unsuspecting audience of his "weekend pills".

"How many times are we talking here, like?" the young lad says.

"Well I would usually get around five-to-six stiffys in a weekend"

"And you go for it every time yeah!?" Asks the lad.

"Well the thing with the weekend pill, its a special kind, its like, urm its like-"

"Its like viagra?" The lad says.

"Viagra - its like viagra but it only kicks in when you are horny. You need these things at my age you see" Says William.

The girls are giggling throughout this exchange.

The lad keeps a straight face, breaking his gaze only to juvenilely slap his fingers together: a shoddy parody of urbanism.

It turns out, his exclusion from all boys school opened a new world to the young William. Instantly the advent of girls into his life affected him deeply. On the very eve of his first day at Thames-Valley Comprehensive he attended a raucous evening dinner that swiftly metamorphosed into a decadent all-night-long party complete with booze, cigarettes, nudity and casualties. And this at the tender age of twelve! One girl was found unconscious of alcohol poisoning, so William - ever the pragmatist - swiftly whisked off her clothes and placed her in the healing comfort of the cold bath.

Like the body-builder posing by the pool, standing between the sun and his naked lover, casting his shadow, as to prevent the rest of the world to see her hermaphroditic penis.

Sir William tells us it is not his aristocratic heritage, nor his enviable explorations of the world that make him a rich man. No. It is the moments when he is laid in bed next to a woman he loves, smiling, gazing into each others eyes, naked, with eight hours to do whatever he wants. That is what makes him a rich man.

"I Love you" He says meekly towards the ginger girl.

This is after he tells us how his many lusty affairs are not for his wife to think upon with scorn, because it was libido, simple human desire. Animalistic cravings not true love. Not that which he surrenders himself unto her.

Offers are made. "60 K and a yacht around the world?"

"I'll dump the head of Liverpool Metropolitan Police Station, I'll finish with her and the five-year plan"

"I just need a woman tonight, don't you understand?" He says to the ginger girl.

"You understand don't you?" Looking towards the lad.

"The crew bar stays open all night and the booze is free".

Instead. We go to a different pub. In this one, pumpkins are carved out of rotten smiley faces and hags dress up as barmaids to serve us all a pint of Hobgoblin Ale. Sir William drops the knighthood and insists on being named simply 'Bill'. With this he says:

"I am living life aren't I? Yes I am. I am not imitating art, the most beautiful feeling in the world is to have a woman thrusting her pumping vulva onto your nose".

And with this he leaves.

It is discussed how Sir William wears his flamboyant heart on his sleeve and his Prince Albert in his pants.

A young lad walking through the graveyard on Halloween, the moonlight splinters through the brambles from the refection of the swanpool, David Bowie - Changes blasts from his headphones as a car crashes into the back of him.

My room

You might think it an exaggeration for me to compare my room to a rat infested cellar beneath the most dingy of Parisian bistros, but I surely do envy the rats for the rotten food they indulge to feast upon. You might think I am serving my keepers the greatest disservice when I speak of them with such insolence as I am about to: but I really do despise their tyrannous reign over the place, and I can honestly say that their bitter disrespect continues to nullify any positive attachments to the room. You might find me ungrateful in my telling of how I yearn to sleep in the unkempt and guilt-ridden bed of a gigolo; because it at least comes with a heart-shaped pillow - albeit complete with complimentary white stains - when faced with the prospect of another night on this bed I keep.

You might be shocked to hear that I do not dispute the legitimacy of my residence in this prison cell, for I truly do regret stabbing that cunt in the fruit section of Aldi, because there are no CCTV cameras in the adjacent toiletries aisle.