I have broken
the rules
that were in
the regulations
and which
you were probably
following
at home
Forgive me
I am capricious
faux meek
yet so bold
___________
Notes:
1. Written on May 25th, 2022
2. A parody
3. I’ve never done one of these before
I don’t know if this genre actually has a name, but I very much enjoy books where the protagonist finds themselves in some strange new country or world that is, in part or in whole, an absurd and grotesque parody of our own. Gulliver’s Travels, most famously, and also Erewhon, Kappa, Cat Country, and more probably. (Does Alice in Wonderland count? I am going to arbitrarily decide that…. it does!)
Anyway, this morning I woke up in Great Britain in 2021…
__________
Notes:
1. Written on 22nd September, 2021
__________A big dinosaur and a little dinosaur were walking through the swamp together.
“God, you’re so small,” the big dinosaur said to the little dinosaur. “So small and tiny and pathetic.”
Although he only said that last part to himself rather than out loud. You never say those bits out loud.
“And you’re so big,” the little dinosaur said to the big dinosaur. “So big and huge and amazing!”
The little dinosaur was so excited he even said that last part out loud. He couldn’t help himself. Everyone knew it was true. Big dinosaurs were brilliant. All the stories said so. Big dinosaurs went on exciting adventures and had all this amazing fun together and all their friends were beautiful and they lived in the biggest caves and everything. It was so cool.
The only stories anyone ever told about little dinosaurs were ones where everyone was miserable and dying and ugly and dead. Who’d ever want to listen to those?
“I wish I was as big as you,” the little dinosaur said. “I wish I was bigger than everyone!”
“Well, you just need to put the work in,” said the big dinosaur, magnanimously. “That’s what I did. I didn’t get this big by lazing around all day doing nothing! I did it by working my bloody arse off!”
“I work hard,” said the little dinosaur. “I catch and eat a fish every single week!”
“That’s not work,” snorted the big dinosaur. “I eat a thousand pounds of swamp grass every single day! That’s the sort of work you need to put in if you want to move up in the world. No fucking lazing around in the sun for weeks at a time. ‘Oooh, oooh, look at me, I’m metabolising my food!’ Pathetic. You don’t see us big dinosaurs napping on the job. No, we fucking digest our food while we eat it. We don’t even stop eating while we talk. I’m eating right now! See! See!”
The big dinosaur bent down and took another big mouthful of swamp grass, spitting great lumps of it in the little dinosaurs face as he fantasised about shouting at the stupid pathetic lazy workshy little arsehole. Fucking little bastard! As if you could ever be as big as me! Bigger! What a fucking cheek!
The little dinosaur ran away and cried a bit probably and then resolved to improve itself in the face of adversity, because that’s what little dinosaurs always do in the stories. So much bloody crying. And resolving. Always resolving. Resolving to do this and that and the other and whatever. Fuck them. Little shits.
Anyway the next day the big dinosaur came back and found the little dinosaur was already in the swamp. The little dinosaur was lying on its side and its stomach had burst open and blood and swamp grass and even a little bit of undigested fish leaked out of it all over the marsh.
“Hah!” the big dinosaur laughed down at the little dinosaur. “Less than day of hard work and you’re already sleeping on the job. Typical!”
Later on a group of medium dinosaurs appeared and fought with each other over who would get to eat the little dinosaur but no one was watching by then because honestly what would be the fucking point.
___________
Notes:
1. Written on March 7th, 2021
2. While still in bed
3. Before getting up
4. I did not feel well
5. Please forgive me
1. An image of a man eating a raw egg, a sidelong glance and a half suppresed smile at the camera as raw albumen runs down his chin.
2. Bin bag sliced open like a belly, an intestinal trail of even more bin bags unwinding out from within.
3. Close up shot of an NHS rainbow aped to a window, all the colours running together after three solid months of rain.
4. Four women in a car with no wheels in the middle of a playing field, all drinking cider straight from the biggest bottle in the supermarket
5. A child wearing a Manchester United kit with the name of a player who left at least three years ago on the back.
6. Seventeen men bellowing into the night, each one convinced all the others are wrong.
7. Poignantly discarded face mask in oil streaked puddle.
8. Boarded up boarding school.
9. Fenced off boarded up boarding school.
10. Several closed roads.
11. High street horse trough filled with leaves, vomit, crisp packets, hint of piss.
12. Inexplicably angry letter in the local paper about a pothole and/or potholes.
13. Inexplicably angry letter in the local paper about the prospect of tax rises.
14. Inexplicably sanguine letter in the local paper about the unneccesary deaths of 60,000 people.
15. Someone on their phone moaning about how everyone else is on their phone.
16. Someone not on their phone wishing they had a phone so they could moan to someone somewhere about everyone else here being on their phones.
17. A row of park benches all too uncomfortable for anyone to sit on.
18. Inexplicably angry letter in the local paper about someone sitting on a park bench for too long or too loudly or with too many friends or maybe all three at once.
19. Town map affixed to high street wall, where every single advertised business has been closed for at least a year.
20. Pub with racist graffiti in the toilets.
21. Pub with racist joke on the chalk board out the front.
22. Pub that’s now being turned into flats.
23. Pub that’s burnt down.
24. Pub with faded plastic children’s slide that’s been blown over in the mud since at least April or maybe even March.
25. Miniature pub that used to be a hairdressers.
26. Florist of dead flowers.
27. Graveyard with new field opening soon.
28. River full of choking tears.
29. Lifetime of self-silenced screams.
30. END
__________
Notes:
1. Written on September 2nd, 2020
2. Title taken from One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo by Hiroshige
I woke up in the future. Not even a particularly good future. One of those futures where there’s airships everywhere and TVs have been replaced by VR helmets. At least it wasn’t a hovercar and protein pill future I suppose. But still it was pretty disappointing.
Anyway, I had the afternoon to look around, as my return nap wasn’t scheduled till seven. So first off I went straight to the park and they were playing this game that was exactly like football, except some of the rules were slightly different. Then I went to another bit of the park, and they were playing this game that was exactly like cricket, except some of the rules were slightly different. Later, I went to a third bit of the park, and they were playing basketball.
I sat down on a bench, which was made out of some sort of futuristic wood alternative that was almost but not quite comfortable to sit on. It started to speak to me of times past, but these times were, to me, times yet to come. It was pretty mindblowing in a way. In most other ways it was exceedingly boring.
Suddenly, the sun went behind a zeppelin. The wind whipped up. A newspaper fluttered by. I tried to read the headlines on its wings but unfortunately my pun acuity was twenty years out of date so I had no idea what was going on.
Anyway, that’s the future. I was hoping for some better satirical content really but there was fucking nothing.
__________
Notes:
1. Written June 16th, 2020
__________