It was a cold night, and as is oft the wont of cold nights the world over, it was also very dark and rather unsurprisingly, quite spooky (or indeed, if you wish to further perambulate down the garden-path of odd variety, one might go so far as to say that was quite ‘spooky-wooky’). It happened all of a sudden, with a flash of brightest light and a pop-for-comic-effect; an armchair, clad as armchairs are in certain parts of the world, in finest threadbare, careworn flowery upholstery, appeared in the middle of King Charles and His Merry Horse Road.

 

King Charles and His Merry Horse Road was not known for odd and unusual happenings of the odd and unusual nature, and so it did come as somewhat of a surprise to it’s many earywigging, moustachioed and generally unpleasant middle-aged, middle-class residents (for it was that kind of a street, inhabited by those who Earywig and Moustache) that, as the morn rose, blinking its bleary eyes and making unfavourable gestures towards the moon as to it’s going and sticking itself where the sun doesn’t deign to shine, this chair; which looked even more out of place in this street due to its lack of fashionable Faux-Nouveau Riche-ness, was doing a spectacular job of holding up the morning school run by not moving its arse from the middle of the now positively jam-packed (but alas, not packed with jam) road. And no matter what they did, those fat, pompous, arrogant buggers couldn’t move that lovely chair for toffee, nor indeed for any other kind of sweets which they might care to substitute.

 

The chair himself, who will come to be known later on in his long and illustrious life, as Paul, was not terribly happy at being fondled this way and that by a plethora of gormless, angry yuppies and so decided to make known his indignation via the means of much flailing of his cushions and spitting out of various, seemingly innocuous, forms of detritus. So taken aback by this were the folk of King Charles and His Merry Horse Road, that they ran away, very quickly, screaming at the top of their lungs for the aid of various gods and their semi-mortal children.

 

“Ye god!” one portly person was heard to call

 

“Jesus Christ!” said another

 

“Oh dear lord, I think I’ve kacked myself!” came the unfortunately loud shout of one rather embarrassed fellow. A phrase which, even in a time of such tumultuous uproar, still managed to fetch an assortment poisonous looks from the mans neighbours, as he ran for his front door, clutching his soiled pyjamas and weeping gently to himself.

 

After many a-phonings to the local police constabulary, the various families and soon-to-be families and not-quite-families-yet ventured forth once more out onto the misty, dew laden morning tarmac; only to find that the object of their spectacular terror had fled, unmistakably, through a large chair-shaped hole in a nearby hedgerow.

 

The Police, or if you will, the rozzers, showed up most promptly to the scene of the rather anomalous anomaly, for not two days ago had the Head of Policing, and general high-honcho in charge of keeping the public from killing one-another and then painting themselves in blood before dancing naked down the street to the tune of ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ (as people would if, indeed, there was not someone appointed to stop them) sent a memo around all the Copper-Shops in Britain, notifying them to keep a specially weather eye open in case they came across anything that could be deemed as ‘anomalous’ which, as you will indeed have read, is just what we have established this particular situation to be.

 

Paul Chairington (An *ahem* fabricated surname) sat a little off-ways from the scene currently being perused and perambulated by the pernickety peelers, and took stock of what little stock could be taken with regards to his current situation. After many a thinking thunked, and many a ponder ponderised, Paul decided that, for the moment, it would be very wise of him to vacate the immediate vicinity of his sudden and, from his point of view, most unfortunate instantaneous-materialization, and set himself a-rolling off into the wilderness of suburban Belfast.

 

Little did Paul know, he hisself was not the only bizarre and unnatural occurrence to have appeared within the last several months. As previously referred to, the memo sent around to many an agent of public justice, attests to the fact that there has been a quair amount of queer goings on upon this fair British isle, and indeed further afield in that affront to verbose gentlemanlyness known as ‘the rest of the world’.

 

Amongst a great many others, there is the curious case of Stephen Carneby: A fairly rusted and weather-beaten Honda Sunny that had once called “Billy Bristol’s sCraphouse” its home, but who was now (much to his dismay) perched precariously upon the pious bonker of “Christo Redentor” which is, as a lesson for those of you who don’t know and as a reminder those of you that do, a very large and imposing statue of Jesus Christ sitting on top of a big hill in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Stephen, always one to look on the bright side of life, thought it was nice to be getting out and about.

 

Those high and mighty fellows in charge of the various comings and goings of world politics were, for want of a better turn of phrase: Up a certain excremental creek without a paddle, rudimentary oar or even a long stick of the ilk one sees put to use by those fine filigreed fellows that pilot Venetian gondolas.

 

The world over, scientists had been drafted in to attempt to explain these various phenomenon, and not a singular one of them could come up with anything that resembled a plausible, publicly pliable explanation with which the governments could begin to fight back against the growing waves of ludicrous nonsensicality. Theologians, those studious scholars of gods and those that choose to throw in their lots with them, proffered that old classic chestnut ‘God did it?’ (Displayed, in this case, with the inherent disbelief that comes with such a statement, through the medium of an aptly placed mark of questioning)

 

It is unfortunate, that the rather timid fellow who discretely put up his hand and offered such a ropey option for consideration, was thrown out upon his very large, red ear, for no matter from what angle we behold the situation, it will always appear that he was almost right…

 

*          *          *

 

As has been established, baffling waves of silliness have grasped the world in their mischievous clutches, and it remains unbeknownst to the general populace and, indeed, the specific populace whose job it is to make such matters un-unbeknownst, the reason behind this magnificent and marginally magical jiggery pokery. However, it shall not remain unbeknownst to you, dear reader:

 

For the reason behind such overwhelmingly frivolous nonsense, was a certain man who went by the name of Major Jake, or as he liked to be known: Maj. Jake.

 

Maj. Jake (pronounced, for those of you who haven’t cottoned on, Maj-ake or simply Magic) is a long time stranger to this beauteous and lovable world of our own, but one who had indeed been amongst us once before. Way, way back before the dawn of the automobile and the invention of microwavable hovercrafts and the like, Magic did happen upon our land whilst engaging in his cosmic travels. He decided, in his infinite and immutable wisdom, that he would pay our antiquated ancestors a visit; so, he dressed up in the local period garb (long robe, tea towel hat, flowing locks and a big bushy beard) and made rather a mess of everything by showing off a few of his rather unique abilities to the local fellow m’lads, and after they found out he could turn water into wine, everyone wanted him at their parties…And the rest, as they say, is religious canon.

 

Magic, who now sat within the bright, neon confines of one of the world’s rather swankier dispenser of delicious libations, felt that this new version of earth (as we know it) was rather to his liking, and that he might stay a while.

 

And at that very moment, a pretty young waif of a girl, slender of waist, round of rear and full of breast, sat thinking about a boy…

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

Unfortunately for Brian Parking, the boy that she was thinking about was not he; it was, by point of indisputable fact, actually Oliver Twist. Why she was thinking about Oliver Twist is not only none of your business, but it is also none of mine and so we must leave it to ourselves to come up with something appropriate to fill that void: I myself like to think that she rather fancied the spirit of the chipper young fellow, what with all of his affectionate little affectations and his delightfully British stiff upper lip in the face of insurmountably disparaging awfulness: Never has the phrase “What a trooper” been more apt.

 

Brian was a shut-in; the “Big Bumper Childrens Book of Words and What they Mean: With Pictures” describes the word ‘shut in’ as “A person who does not frequently exit their domicile” (a rather sesquipedalian description for a Picture Dictionary) which is followed up by an ancient ink drawing of what can only be described as most peoples first thought when they hear the word ‘Paedophile’. A great lumbering heavy illustration, decked out with a beard, thick rimmed glasses and even an ankle-length trench coat for added effect. May it be noted here in these pages, that the “Big Bumper Childrens Book of Words and What the Mean: With Pictures” is rarely quoted from in intelligent, semi-intelligent or even quasi-intelligent fiction; to the detriment of literature on the whole, might I add.

 

Thankfully, Brian was not a paedophile; he was, however, in love. Which is much the same, as it’s very nice for you, not very nice for everyone else, and usually ends up with you getting fucked in one way or another (It differs, however, on the grounds that love does not cause a demand for you to be bonked on the scone rather heavily with a large brick and thrown into a river to die in the minds of every right thinking individual, as paedophilia does). Brian had, for his sins (which were frightening and numerous in the eyes of any Christian worth his salt) fallen in love with his next door neighbour; she who is slender of waist, round of rear and plump of breast and who was just then thinking of Oliver Twist. Her name was Jane Elliot, and she was the most beautiful woman Brian had ever seen (which means, to folks of the world such as you or I, she was about a six).

 

Jane Elliot was a scholar of English Literature at Trinity University, Dublin; although she wished she wasn’t, and would much rather have been a studier of apes in the wild wilderness of some far flung jungle, but that is neither here, nor there, nor over whichways yonder. She was the kind of someone, who when faced with an evening of abject dullery and general boredom of the kind that drives people to kill their families, liked to curl up on her sofa with a nice, thick adventure book and let page after page of words sweep her away into some magical fantasy. She was also, for those few of you who may like to know, the kind of someone who likes to listen to the various goings on of her neighbours through the wafer thin walls of her grotty little flat. However, through some feat of cosmic fortune towards those who would be offended by such spectacularly nosey behaviour, she happened to live next to Brian; who, if science ever took interest in the subject, would be easily proven to be, scientifically, the most boring man in the universe.

 

Once upon a midnight dreary, which may indeed have been the very midnight dreary that you sat in your study, wearily pondering the loss of your one true love, Jane had tried to talk to Brian, through the wall. She was very drunk, which explains such a vein and pointless exercise in its major parts; eventually, after many hours sat drinking peach schnapps (as it was her favourite drink) and talking to her wall, Brian managed a faint “Hello” through the plaster. Jane, unwisely, decided to celebrate her progress by imbibing more copious amounts of sweet German liquor, and was then spectacularly sick and fell asleep without saying another word. This futility was paid for in full the next morning.

 

Brian was not positively inclined towards people; he was not, as you may now think, some horrible, spiteful miser who sits alone in his sprawling manse and scorns the rest of the world with a grin. No, Brian was just not comfortable around other folk: it had, in fact, taken three doctors, six nurses and one very bewildered security guard to extract Brian from his mothers womb. He found it very hard to see just what it was people liked so much about the world beyond the confines of his flat; all trees and bushes and natty little squirrels who fidget uncontrollably like fluffy balls of paranoia. He felt that people who enjoyed such matters had all contracted some odd and incurable disease at birth, and should be avoided lest it catch and turn you into some sort of horrible…camper.

 

Now, you would be forgiven for assuming, through my description, that Brian was some sort of hideous troglodyte for whom the world held nothing but agonizing contempt in great steaming heaps; but you would be mistaken.

 

Brian was in fact, quite the handsome gent. I shan’t say how tall he was, for I am not big on the use of numbers, but you would do well to think of him as ‘Unnecessarily tall’. His eyes were sharp and green, and they were in the habit of darting about and doing many rapid assessings of things they came upon. His hair was as black as a raven’s elbow, his skin as pale as a subterranean goblin creature as yet untouched by the rays of the sun and, if you must, his eyes (which we have indeed covered, but without a simile) were as green as a hearty iceberg lettuce.

 

Magic, a man of similar appearance and stature to Brian, differed from his earthly counterpart (which Brian was, in more ways than one, but that fact will only become important much later on) in a great many ways: most prominent of which would be the fact he absolutely loved the outdoors. Magic, for whatever reasons his reasons were (and I do not know, for I have never asked him), decided to spend his time having various delightful adventures throughout the neverending multiverse, interfering where he saw fit to interfere, performing various acts of devious mischievousness and, for the most part, generally just getting in peoples way; rather like a pan-dimensional American tourist.

 

Over the Quadrillions of millennia that Magic had spent being a spectacular bastard, he had visited his most annoying presence upon a great many worlds; foremost of which was a delightfully delightful place by the name of Glandular Fever. Of course, as the people there had only ever seen fit to call the place “The World”, it was only ever known as Glandular Fever to Magic. Since it would be confusing, if perhaps, we were to keep on using this name and one of the denizens of these magical pages were to contract actual Glandular Fever, we will give this world an appropriate name: Kismet.

 

Kismet*, as it shall now be known to all and sundry, was a lovely world; all leafy and green, wooded and forested, and with a great big ugly blotch of a city right in the bloody middle just to spoil it all. However, that aside, Kismet was a fantastical place full of wonder, whimsy and whales.

 

All in all, when you look at it, when you wrap it up in a neat package with a little bow, address it to yourself, send it through the mail, wait patiently for it to arrive and then, when it does, rip it open and rifle joyously through the contents, Kismet was not the kind of place our Brian would feel particularly at home in; which is unfortunate as, he would be spending a great deal of time there.

 

*          *          *

 

Meanwhile, in the sprawling city of Golden Morovar, jewel in the crown of the world of Kismet, sitting on backless chairs, nursing very watery pints in very watery looking pint glasses, in a public house that smelt refreshingly like piss*, sat the very oddest of couples since Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

 

 

The first of our mismatched misfits sat on one side of a very ancient looking poker table, holding an assortment of positively ruffian cards up in front of his face in an attempt to hide the fact that he was bleeding rather profusely from a gaping wound in his forehead (and while it is not particularly noteworthy, I feel that he might be slightly put out if I did not mention, that his left eye was also a bit puffy). He wore about his person, at least those bits of his person that weren’t wrapped very hastily in grotty, second hand linen bandaging, a long flowing black robe, with a hooded cowl that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the arsenal of a level fourteen Necromancer from the realms of Krathnór.

 

Opposite him, to his eternal dismay, sat a red headed woman who was fine of features and had not one single injury or blemish upon her visage. She, in a stark contrast to her gambling buddy, was clad in a sheer white toga of indecipherable material but which, indeed, not leave a great deal to the imagination; although, what it did leave to the imagination was most definitely worth imagining.

 

The pair of them were playing that most deplorably brutal of card games, usually reserved for the dull-witted ape men of GoMos large and very popular prison, known as Slam (the game, that is, not the prison. The prison was, inexplicably, called Bernie). Slam was a variation on the antiquated game of poker, which had grown out of fashion of late in the high-parlours of the very rich and noble, but had found new roots within the inhabitants of Bernie, who realised that the game would become quite fun, if you added to it a great deal of violence. And so they did, and the game of Slam was born; wherein you are required, when you win a hand, to run at your opponent (or opponents) from a distance of no less than twenty-five meters, and kick them fully in the face.

 

The man was not very good at Slam.

The woman was.

 

“I don’t see why I still play with you,” said the man in the black robes, whose name was Darius DeNeuvre “You’re a beast, and a cad, and I loath you.”

 

“No you don’t,” said his partner, who was, to us mere mortals: Eltraya, the Low Goddess of Indoor Sporting Activities; but who more often than not went by ‘Ellie’ “You love me.”

 

“No, I’m almost certain I don’t, actually,” said Darius “Further to my previous statement, I would like to add that you are a maker of false and slanderous claims, and a fondler of small furry animals.”

 

“And why would you like to add that?” she said, once more collecting the cards and beginning to haphazardly shuffle them in the manner of Mr Hap Hazard, who was, most unfortunately, not a Duke, but who lived a life of carefree indulgence until one day he fell into a well and died.

 

“Because I noticed you were about to do that,” he motioned towards her various shufflings “and was attempting to stall you for long enough that I may escape out the back door without being kicked in the face again.”

 

“What, and miss out on a chance to win all of your money back?” she said, sarcastically, gesturing to the empty table where, during normal games of poker, there would sit great mountains of sadly inedible chips, or various assorted currencies, but which at the moment was rather barren.

 

“Oh, how you amuse,” said Darius, with much hearty, fake guffawings and slappings of his belly “But no, I fear that I must away from our delightful game, lest I once more be cracked squarely upon my bonce; an event which may indeed render me dead, or at the very least unconscious for the rest of the night and a hefty chunk of tomorrow.”

 

Changing the subject, Eltraya said “Might you indulge me, before you offski, by answering a question I’ve had for a while?”

 

“I shall endeavour to do my best; as long as it’s nothing to do with that time you happened upon me, your sister and that delightful Water-Nymph in the back room of the Club of Many Mysteries: For I swore to them both that I would never divulge the goings on of that day.” He said

 

“Nothing so exciting,” she paused, fiddling with the cards “I have always wondered, since I met you so long ago, why it is you talk like that?”

 

“Like what?” he asked

 

“Like a book.” She said

 

“Books don’t speak.” He offered

 

“But like you were the narration from some antique tome.” She said

 

“I don’t speak like that.” He denied

 

“But you do.” She said

 

“But I don’t.” He negated

 

“You do.” She said

 

“No, I don’t believe I do, you slightly mental wench.” He said, growing slightly frustrated by her claims that he spoke in such a bespoke manner and also by the authors insistence that he use increasingly queer phrases in the place of ‘He said’

 

“Well you believe wrong then,” she said, dealing out the cards as she went “and I can prove it, because you just called me a ‘slightly mental wench’ where anyone, myself included, would have simply called me a crazy whore and been done with it.”

 

“Suit yourself,” he said, seeking to placate her enough to make his escape from the sensory befouling pub “but I must avanté, off into the streets of our fair city, for, as the cod said to the chippy fellow, I cannot take another battering.”

 

“Well then, if you must be like that,” she said with a sour look, followed almost immediately by a cunningly evil grin “then I strongly suggest that you pay the barkeep and have off with yourself.”

 

This caused much huffing and puffing, failing of arms in distress and general ‘Egaddery’ from Darius, who, after trying and failing to make his partner pay, begrudgingly slapped a five pound note down upon the bar.

 

“That’ll be a tenner.” Said the barkeep

 

“You’re right, it will be.” said Darius, as blasé as you like.

 

“No, I mean you owe me a tenner.” He said, clearly unamused by his customers tomfoolery

 

“That is a tenner.” Darius said, pointing at the note he’d placed on the wooden counter

 

“No, that’s a fiver.” Said the keeper of the bar

 

“Check again.”

 

The barkeep glanced once more down at the offending note, “Nope, it’s still a fiver.”

 

“Oh, really?” he asked, and then added in his most convincing tones “Well then, let me just fetch anoth- OH SATANS SCENTED BUM BANDITS! WHAT ARE THOSE MOST QUEER GOINGS ON BEHIND YOU, MAN!” and then, as the barkeep turned around to see what had caused such uproarious exclamations, Darius took to his heel and legged it out of the front door, leaving behind him not only a very confused and angry barman, but also a highly amused low goddess, who became less and less amused as she slowly realised that Darius had stuck her with the bill.

 

*          *          *

 

Golden Morovar was a very large city; a fact that wouldn’t be lost on the casual observer, considering the casual observer could only casually observe an infinitesimally small portion of the city at any one time.

 

At the at its very heart, far away from the slums, the glums, the rum-tums, the outer city, the inner city, the inner-inner city, the inside-out city, the outside-in city, topsy-turvey town, Cathedral Land, the parks, the gardens and the parking gardens there lay the marble clad, self contained clean zone known as ‘The Heath’. The Heath was the home to the cream of the crop; the very top rungs of Kismetian* society all called The Heath their own, with the exception, of course, of the ones who didn’t.

 

 

A great Kismetian scholar, and noted member of the high-society once said that, if anyone ever wanted to be rid of the ruling class of the day, all they need do is plant a significantly large bomb within the Heath, and in a moment you would have yourself the worlds quickest revolution. Unfortunately for him, this was considered by the special branch of the Golden Morovar Public Constabulary to be an attempt to overthrow the government, and the poor fellow was taken in and tortured horribly before they realised that he was just a pompous know it all, who’d no more plan to instigate a coup d’etat than he would cook is own breakfast.

 

It is spectacularly rare, that someone who lives within The Heath, should ever venture out of it; the one exception to that rule being a, quite literally, appallingly hideous little no-gooder that went by the name of Choreen Daily. Mr Daily was a bastard, a fact known to absolutely everyone who made it their business to know the bastards of the day, and the consistency of the wool they could or could not pull over said bastards eyes; which in a city like Golden Morovar, was pretty much everyone.

 

Choreen is an odd name, you may be thinking, and if you are you deserve a golden star for intellect, for you are quite right indeed. The name Choreen is of Bhratish origin; a peoples who rather closely resemble J.R.R. Tolkien’s Uruk-Hai, but without the copyright infringement. They are almost universally bulbous and deformed creatures, standing roughly seven feet tall with a skin of pale, mottled grey and huge great big fuck off tusks that could pierce a mans flank as if t’were naught but butter in a dish*. Why it was that Choreen was named in the fashion of such unmentionably hideous beasties, is one of those most rare of lifes mysteries; that is, one that can be solved with next to no effort. In this case, all the effort that is required to solve the mystery is to look at Choreen (which, might I add, after you know what’s coming, does actually take quite a lot of effort).

 

 

How fitting indeed, that this bastards bastard, this triumph of human degeneracy, this poster-child for the wonders of abortion and the abominable hideousness of incestuous relations, should be walking through the Cathedral District when, all of a sudden, a very large, very heavy gargoyle, fresh from his last job being very large and heavy atop the roof of ‘the Church of the Undecidedly Holy Mother’ picked that very moment to take a career break and try his hand at ‘falling very fast and landing on top of people’.

 

The great big puddle of assorted gibs* where Choreens face used to be, sadly, didn’t do anything for his looks.

 

 

Any eagle-eyed witnesses, of which there are now none, as those witnesses who did possess eyes akin to that of a flying predator were all surreptitiously stabbed in their sleep that night, would have noticed a figure standing atop the Church, where once had sat that murderous gargoyle that now occupied the space where Choreens head should be, with a rather sly smile upon his face.

 

*          *          *

 

Brian, our hermetic hero, was leaning over his desk, all the better to hear the various goings on within his neighbours flat. He wasn’t prone to such vulgar and embarrassing behaviour, but he felt it was necessary upon that fateful eve, for as he sat, typing away clippity clop at his computer, he did hear within Janes abode the rather winning voice of a clearly very charming fellow, who was trying very cunningly to get into her knickers.

 

“I’m sorry,” said Jane, with a giggle “but we can’t!”

 

“But why not?” said the fellow, his voice seeming ever so familiar to Brian

 

“The neighbours might hear!” she said, with further gigglings and now with an added titter

 

“Oh come ooooooonnnn!” said the man, and at this, Brian decided to take umbrage.

 

It was clear to Brian, that this situation was getting most wildly out of control, and that he must step in as to protect his neighbour from the ravishes of this unscrupulous bag of shit. His ‘love’ of Jane battled with his loathing of the outside world, and eventually got the upper hand through the use of some very dirty tricks that an observing Brian mentally documented in case he needed them should his foe decide to ‘kick off’.

 

Standing out in the hallway, feeling a bit silly, Brian knocked on Janes door; which, as it turned out, was hollow and made a rather resounding thump that caused Brians insides to squirm with shame.

 

Brian opened the door; which came as a bit of a surprise, because not only had he not been so presumptuous as to open his neighbours door without her permission, but he was now looking in through the door, at himself on the other side, who’d just opened the door and who was now staring back at him with eyes that looked exactly like his own…

 

That’s when things got a little confusing for Brian.

 

*          *          *

 

Darius stopped running; not, as it were, because he wanted to stop running, but rather because he’d just run in to someone who was much larger than himself, and who was standing in the middle of the street looking rather green and fierce confused.

 

Darius sprawled

 

So did Brian

 

“Good gracious man! Do watch where you’re standing, I say. You could do a man a mischief with such callous disregard for your fellow pedestrians!” Said Darius from his new perch on the floor

 

Amidst many mumblings and grumblings of an incoherent nature, Brian clambered unsteadily to his feet and set about swaying and looking ever increasingly more ill as the seconds passed

 

“I do declare you’re a touch fouled up, mine fellow,” said Darius, the odd cadence of his voice not agreeing with Brians tender state of being “Are you up to much?”

 

“Wha-wuh-wah-weh-woo,” said Brian, with a rolling of his eyes and a drooping of his eyelids and much hideous sounding retching. And after a moment, he was spectacularly sick and did pass out most entirely in the middle of the road.

 

“Oh by the many various gods we do hold in regard,” said Darius, with a wiping of his perspiration sodden brow and a heavy sigh that resigned him to his good-samaritanism “I fair believe you are not well.” And with that, he picked Brian up; heaving him over a shoulder with a grunt of peeved effort, and began the rather long journey back to his apartment.

 

Well, at least you couldn’t call him a bastard, although at a stretch you could probably manage ‘kidnapper’.