The 500 Word Nonsense Quota

I'm churning out blissful, unabridged nonsense now. There is a reason: I need to build up my discipline as a writer. Writing 500 words a day about anything that comes into my head is a great way to give my sleepy imagination a kick start.

If you like gibberish for gibberish's sake then go here - http://nonsensequota.blogspot.co.uk/

If you'd prefer to remain where the sane and sensible writing is, then stay here. This little side-project of mine should help improve my turn-out.

Hunger (a.k.a. Sweets, Sewage and Lots of Verbs)

He's running and running and running and running and walking and jogging and sprinting and running and running and running and rushing and rushing and running and running and running and running and limping and running and limping and stopping outside a confectionary store.


He enters, approaches the pick and mix table. He grabs two scoops: digs one into gummy eggs, the other into cola cubes.


He's eating and eating and eating and eating and scoffing and snorting and eating and eating and chewing and eating and eating and chomping and eating and eating and biting and eating and nibbling and eating and chewing and stopping as an assistant presses his elbow.


He steps outside, finds a man-hole. He flees through the sewers.

Some New Titles for the New Year (a.k.a. Yeah, I Know It's Not Much But It's The Best I Can Do)

Happy Day 1 everybody!!!

Seen as how I have nothing to show that fits the new year theme I thought I'd display some new titles I may or may not be using in 2013 instead.

A title is the beginning of every story just as January 1st is the beginning of every new year. That works as a connection. Kind of. It'll do.

How does this sound? I resolve to make at least four of these titles into full-blown stories and/or poetry. Who knows, I might even manage a novel.

Anyway here they are. Wish me luck.



1) Conjunction

2) The Way They Baffled Mike

3) Pertaining To

4) Clouding Up On Daisy Street

5) This Door Is Alarmed

6) Hands With Other Fingers

7) We Don't Wear Silver In The Future

8) And This Is Why I Say Goodnight

9) Madness in Canada

10) Silverfish

"Christian Snowballs" (a.k.a. A Cutesy Christmas Special Short Story)

Here's something Christmassy that I prepared earlier (a month, to be exact). It needs work but I'd say its presentable.

This short story is best read with a glass of mulled wine and a sleepy festive smile.


CAUTION: Contains explicit language. (I had to draw the cutesy line somewhere).


Merry Christmas, dear reader.

 CHRISTIAN SNOWBALLS

            'That won't hold together, you tit.' Chris picked bits of melting ice from the palm of his right glove.

            Phil scrunched the snow into a tighter ball. 'It'll hold long enough to hit that fat one in the chin.'

            'Go for the eye.' Tyson leapt up from behind the crumbling wall. 'There might be a shard of ice left in it and then...YAOWCH!' Tyson clutched his eye and pretended to fall back down.

            Phil snickered. Chris didn't.

            A large dollop of sleet streamed over their heads.

            'God's sake!' Chris hunched his shoulders. 'These dickheads are throwing faster. We've got all this stuff laying about. Come on!'

            Tyson slid his hand along  the top of an abandoned gate. He rolled up a thin slither of yellow snow. 'Hell yeah!' He held it in front of Chris's face.

            'Piss off.' Chris peeked over the top of the wall. 'Get more snow. Put that stuff on top.'

            Tyson sniffed the yellow blob. 'Smells like dog and cat piss.'

            'Good, but it's not enough to hit them with on its own. It might miss.'

            'How are these, Chris?' Phil held three large snowballs in one shaky arm.

            'Great. Save them for the final attack though. They're so heavy they probably won't travel that far.'

            'I've got some little ones too.'

            'Let's have them.'

            Phil handed Chris two snowballs that fit perfectly into the palms of his hands. Chris lobbed them at a shoulder sticking out at the left side of the opposition's fort. The first hit on target; the second knocked the first one off.

            'Woo!' Phil punched the air.

            'Arms down, tit.'

            'Right.'

            'Oh ay.' Chris said, glancing over the top. 'Something's going on over there.'

            'Over where?'

            'The Holy House. Front garden.'

            "The Holy House" was no different from the other semi-detached houses on the street, except for the fact that it was coloured a faded pink. It was holy because the Harrisons lived there.

            Paul and Anna Harrison, the kids, walked out from their front porch onto the grass.

            'Hey, hey! It's the Protestors!' Tyson shouted.

            'Protestants.' Phil muttered in his ear.

            'Protestors doesn't make any sense.' Chris didn't turn his head.

            Tyson wasn't listening, he was busy gathering more snow.

            A snowball hit Phil square in the nose. 'Aww, you've got to be...'

            'I told you to keep your arms down. It makes you a perfect target.' Chris turned around. 'The bright red scarf doesn't help either.'

            'You do know this isn't actual war, don't you?' Phil wiped water off the tip of his nose.

            'Of course it isn't. These twats don't have any honour.'

            'Oi! Protestors! Catch!' Tyson hurled the yellow-tipped snowball at the Harrison children.

            Phil flinched. Chris jumped up.

            The snowball fell before it even crossed the road. Paul and Anna looked at the fallen snowball then stared at Tyson.

            'Waste!' Chris dragged him down.

            Paul and Anna remained in the exact same spot and stared at Chris' fort. Paul was the eldest so he took Anna by the hand.

            Everyone stopped preparing ammunition to see what would happen next.

            'They don't look happy.' Phil spoke.

            'They're religious. They never look happy.' Chris said.

            Phil turned to him. 'Maybe they think it's a hate crime.'

            'What's a hate crime?' Tyson whispered.

            'They're religious and we're not.' Chris snapped, "We threw something at them. Put it together.'

            'Do we hate them?' Tyson spoke up.

            'Well I don't.' Phil said, 'My mum says she raised me Christian. I was christened and everything.'

            'I was christened too,' Chris said, 'and I've never been to church a day in my life since.'

            'Still counts.' Phil turned to grab more snow.

            'How would these two know you were christened? You probably went to the wrong church.'

            'Don't they keep record?'

            Chris looked at Phil and squinted. 'A church record? Don't be a tit.'

            'Should we do something?' Tyson asked, 'Let them play?'

            Phil tucked his scarf beneath his coat. 'I think they're going somewhere.'

            'A quick one then?'

            'Shut up, you.' Phil smirked.

            Chris stood up. Phil and Tyson stared at him. The opposition did nothing.

            Chris raised his hand and waved.

            At first Paul and Anna did nothing. Then, a few seconds later, Paul shifted his head slightly. It might have been a nod but Chris was too far away to tell. Chris knelt back down behind the wall.

            'Can we get back to the game now?' Tyson whined.

            'You hand them directly to me.'

            Tyson slinked back.

            Chris straightened up and turned to Phil. 'What else do we have?'

            A snowball slammed into the heel of Tyson's boot. It shattered, casting soggy bits of dead grass around his side of the wall. 'YAOWCH!' he cried out.

            Chris looked up and over. The fat boy was stood up. He had two large snowballs melting in each hand. He wasn't looking in their direction.

            Anna was now kneeling down in the snow gathering a large heap. Paul was still standing, wiping something from his gloves. He may have been grinning but Chris was too far away to tell.

 

"We Make Alterations" (a.k.a. A Poem from a Fabric Store)

the pillow slips
the duvet covers
the curtain rails
the carpet rolls
the bedside lights
the window blinds

a deal on sheets
and memory foams.

"The Null" (a.k.a. A Kind-of-Sort-of Belated Halloween Short Story that isn't Really Scary Unless that's How You Interpret it)

So Halloween was four days ago. Missed that. In more ways than one.

For some reason holidays (that aren't Christmas) have been passing me by recently without even stirring a moment's enthusiasm. I dunno, I must be getting old and embittered.
If I'm honest I never really celebrated Halloween in the good old fashioned sense. I'm not mad about scary movies (unless their psychologically thrilling), I don't dress up much and I already glut myself on sweets most days of the year.
I appreciate the sentiment of Old Hallow's Eve and I love it whenever someone dares to draw it's spirit away from it's American reimagining. It's just I'm not a kid on Halloween anymore. Was I ever? I'm not too sure.

However that doesn't mean that I haven't got something relatively Halloween-y ready to post.

I first wrote "The Null" a long time ago and revisited it last month with inevitably timidity. It was excrutiating how much I tried to emulate the classic Victorian sci-fi writing style. The raw idea was solid enough though, so I rewrote it.
I changed the shape of the titular entities (on a condensation drip, no less), modernised the narrating voice and even managed to recapture some of its original wistfulness. I wouldn't call it scary or even creepy but you might. It's all in the reading, I suppose.

Anyhoo, enjoy... [insert mad scientist evil laughter here]




THE NULL

Once in a while, I glimpse into nowhere. I suppose we all do this at some time in our lives but, tell me, have you seen the place?

            It's not a vacuum, an empty room or even an unoccupied space. There's always something at the edge of nowhere, regardless of your angle.

            For me it is a half-tilted bowl of glitter, a semi-spherical astrological body bobbing on the colourless gulf. I see a teeming plateau of anti-life or at least that's my half-forgotten interpretation. My focus tends to slip when lost beyond my head.

            A teeming plateau of anti-life. Even I've had trouble discerning what I mean by this. What could constitute anti-life? Ghosts seem too pathetic, automatons too precise. The word I find, and keep on finding, is the Null.

            Null. Illogical. Unfounded. Worthless. Void. The parameters set by these synonyms seem unacceptable in and of themselves.

            So then I explore the sound of the word itself. Null. One syllable, hollow and hanging off at the end. It's almost as if it warrants another word but not the word anyone can think of. Then again, it is a name, only a title. The manifestation itself, the physical form of the Null is the truly distracting element of its being.

            They appear on stretches of silver sand as if driven by some impossible wind. They are quivering lines with heads and a single bump at the back where one would suppose the neck would be. These things might have arms, legs and maybe other limbs but, if they do, their movements are so faint that they never disturb the overall shape. It's as if I'm willing them to be humanoid.

            They are blue. They are grey. They are violet. They are silver. These colours indicate nothing; the Null have no discernible mood pattern. I give them a name and I give them a shape. I feel Godhood falling over me like a thick unfurling quilt. I cast it off as I suffocate.

            Nothing else appears to change in them. Then they must be concepts; fleeting and independent. One disappears every moment, a million appear in their wake. Some might return but change feels indecipherable there. Not quite impossible, more irrelevant. Nothing quite remains either.

            Then again, I am a man. I understand change and lack of change. It is my paradigm. I am selfish in this belief. I must admit, I fear for the Null. They never turn, never seem to collide with one another. There are so many of them. I must admit, I fear the Null.

            Of course, they will never invade. Of course, they will never be invaded. They are salt in the honey, a single grain. Their disturbance is ever so slight.

            Now I try to be a thinking man, occupied with the art of science and the science of art and other terrestrial matters. I have tied myself in more pleasing knots. I have forgotten my close observations, burnt the pages of notes as I finished them. I write this too by the fire, just as I wrote them.

            I think I will leave the name though. The name is the sweetest mystery of all and the last to be forgotten.

            The last to be forgotten.

MATE Complaint #37 (a.k.a. THE FUTURE!!! Well, possibly...)

MATE Complaint #37

 

            I was told that it was love with a 99.7% success rate. I have sufficient reason to disagree with this.

            On meeting her, Option 1222 seemed to fit her on-file description to a tee. As predicted by the MATE Interface, her fair skin, broad eyes and child-bearing hips fit most of the key points of my anatomical specification. I was pleased to discover that she smokes too.

            However, Option 1222 has two specific behavioural issues that were not mentioned on-file.

First and foremost, her hand movements. Option 1222 has twitchy forefingers that can be seen tapping on a semi-regular basis. As one can imagine, this somewhat impatient action severely disrupts the flow of polite dinner conversation.

            Furthermore her pupils dilate too frequently whilst in the company of others. This interferes with point 14 in my personal psychological profile. It seems implausible that even other women can arouse her attention in so vivid a fashion.

            Therefore I must insist that you check and update your records on Option 1222 and then myself. In the meantime, I have asked that we do not meet again for the reasons stated above. She has, of course, complied.

 

OPTION 1982