freedom costs money - shorts

Fountain

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 18:33:31 +0100

Detective Inspector Aaron Cardigan peered over Sergeant Finial’s shoulder at the fuzzy monochrome image that the computer monitor displayed. It showed a back street overshadowed by vast neo-classical buildings without windows; an estate car was parked in the street, tailgate open. Finial clicked onto the next image: it showed a man struggling under the weight of what looked like a urinal. It was a urinal. Whether he was unloading it from the car or loading it was unclear; he seemed about to drop the heavy urinal. Thank god he didn’t, mused Cardigan.

On The Rocks (April 1979)

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:16:03 +0100

The following is one of a series of articles published in Apropos, the parish magazine of Rimmington Mains throughout 1978 and 1979; entitled On The Rocks, they were one man’s lament for the loss of the Britain of his youth, a Britain that he thought ought not be lost. The author, Major Laurence Alamein, was something of a war hero, fighting in North Africa under Montgomery (he captured an airstrip practically single handedly using only a Mills grenade and a captured Axis motorcycle) and later became Managing Director of Shoshone Oil. He died at Armley in 1985.

Patna

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:43:01 +0100

Since I've finished War in English's Apodidraskiana, I've moved onto what that novel was supposed to be in the first place. If I can control myself and not put in a load of war criminals and nuclear bombs, it may very well turn into The Family Plot. It's probably not going to be as bleak as this little bit suggests it might be. Yes, it's set in Tierra del Mar. I can't help it. I just can't.

The Editor's Note on the Author

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 14:44:27 +0100

Here is the Editor’s Note on the Author from my most recently completed novel: it is presented as having been written by Ted English and edited by me, which cunningly allows me to abdicate responsibility for the many mistakes which it is bound to contain. English has spelt taut as taught? Perhaps he meant something by it. I am only the editor, after all...

The Editor's Note on the Text

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 14:35:47 +0100

Here is the Editor’s Note on the Text from my most recently completed novel: it is presented as having been written by Ted English and edited by me, which cunningly allows me to abdicate responsibility for the many mistakes which it is bound to contain. English has spelt taut as taught? Perhaps he meant something by it. I am only the editor, after all...

The Flamingo Launch Party

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 18:36:05 +0100

More and more like attempting to reanimate dead flesh, this here is yet another attempt to get the recalcitrant The Family Plot to jump into life. Whether or not this will lead to anything we shall have to see. I think what we need is more voltage. Raise the antenna, Igor.

An exercise in style.

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:17:54 +0000

From humble beginnings... This is the start of something Chandler-esque I'm trying to write, Comments and criticisms welcome, see what it does for you...

Moonlight. A thousand glittering shards of crystal light, hung for a slender moment in the air. Gravity glanced downwards, falling towards the glistening river of tarmac below, accompanied with a sweet music that harped through the night for a single instant and fell dead. The street beneath rag-dolled and then, there was only silence.

Aboard the Turaco

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:12:32 +0000

Can't remember whether or not I've mentioned it already, but here's a bit on board the ship the crept into Whorlton Bay when I wasn't looking. Unfortunately it seems to have run aground and now I can't get rid of it.

Post-apocalyptic zombie battle! Thoughts welcome!

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:19:24 +0000

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week. Fear fucks with time, everyone has experienced it. I think it’s something to do with adrenaline or some long-forgotten instinct, some flight response that makes a second seem like a minute. Fear has the teppanyaki chef’s skill to cut time up into a blur.

Actual definition of God - no cop out!

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:45:42 +0000

This is something I came up with. A distinguished associate was a huge factor in this definition. Not to hype it up too much but this philosophy is actually an optimistic form of existentialism.

God is...

Dateline: Whorlton

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 14:05:30 +0000

For Heaven’s Sake!

Progress on Dateline: Whorlton, my new unputdownable international superseller, has stalled, which is really rather annoying. The problem is essentially the same that I had with Desamparados ’76: I know how it’s going to begin (has begun) and I know how I want it to end, but I can’t shepherd all the characters from the beginning to the end without some of them getting washed out to sea or shot or choking on a silver sixpence. I’m beginning to worry about my propensity for killing off my own characters. It seems to be happening far too often. I’d already killed one of them before she even made it onto the page, and now she appears only as a corpse mentioned in passing. Another problem I have is the way that I just can’t stop myself from explaining absolutely everything. It’s most irritating. This one was supposed to be an obscure journey into madness, focussing on one character and one character alone to try to emphasise his loneliness and just how out of his depth he is, but already a narrative about a man with a donkey has crept in, and a big man that doesn’t speak English has started shooting at the protagonist without me wanting him to. I can’t stop it. Every other page there seems to be an attempt on his life. And then there’s the awful mathematical minefield that is decimalised time. I want this in for reasons that there’s no need to go into here, but it’s causing me the most abominable problems in calculating what time it would be when. Damn it to hell. And then there’s the Agatha Christie Problem: how to make it so that my characters can’t just leave town (I would if I were them – it’d be safer) without having some convenient storm wash all the roads and railways away. It can’t be done. They’d be off if they had any sense and indeed one of them has tried to make an escape: he didn’t get far, Tubbs. The other problem is that, since it’s set in 1988, there would be mobile telephones available, wouldn’t there? Or would there? There wouldn’t be any signal at Whorlton! That’s it! The mobile telephone problem is solved!

Icarus: My Story

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 09:30:15 +0100

This is my story, my chance to set the record straight. My chance to say what really happened. And it’s about bloody time. All it took, to turn my life into a joke, a stupid fable, for all of history, was one accident, one incident shall we say. That’s it, my name becomes a simile for stupidity for the rest of time, across the world.

Whorlton by Night

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 19:42:28 +0100

Alistair increased the speed of his walk until it was almost a run. The following footstep, clicking irregularly in the darkness behind, did likewise. The footsteps echoed in the narrow alleyway. There were no lights but the moon was full and shone a pale light through ragged broken cloud. The sandstone slabs glistened in the cold light. Water dripped from the sagging empty buildings. Beyond them, the sea whispered in the harbour. Roosting gulls cawed on the chimneypots.

The Troubleshooter

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:09:08 +0000

Winston Churchill gripped the steak-knife beneath the table with invisible white knuckles and stared at the rounded tweed-clad back of the man at the bar: his target. The man, Alistair Caine, was staring into a glass of amber-coloured liquid – Winston hadn’t noticed what it was but Caine had not drunk much of it. Winston, staring over his cold steak, imagined Caine was deep in thought, just as he was. Caine didn’t look to be a bad man. Churchill wondered if this was the right place to do it, this empty bar, or whether he ought to catch him on the stairs or even in his room. Perhaps he ought to wait until tomorrow – but then one of the others may get him and this seaside jaunt would have been an expensive cul-de-sac in his career.

Truss Makes Up His Mind

Tue, 18 Jan 2005 20:41:43 +0000

Miss Sheer checked her lipstick in the mirrored inside of the lift’s door. She wriggled in her dress, tight, and ran her hands over her hips to smooth the shining bronze silk. She realigned some stray wisps of her auburn hair and then set her body into its most alluring pose and pouted, ready for the door to open. She was young. She was beautiful. She was totally unprepared.