

CompletelyNovel.com

Unit A3, Masterlord Industrial Estate

Leiston, Suffolk

IP16 4JD

www.completelynovel.com

ISBN: 978-1-84914-000-3

CompletelyNovel.com Launch Anthology

And now for something completely different...

First published 2008 by CompletelyNovel.com

This selection and introduction copyright © CompletelyNovel.com, 2008

All short stories copyright of the authors.

The Barman and the Gargoyle © Keira L. Dickinson

Dream Machine © Amanda Weeks

Imagine Nation © Mark Spencer

Losing My Voice © Ania Leslie-Wujastyk

Out of Office Reply © Damien Warburton

Penelope © Rhys Griffiths

The Psychiatrist and the Pea © Ally Crockford

Quite Unlike Hepburn © Rob Stringer

Slow Life © R. M. Morrison

The Society of Noncommittals © Alistair Daniel

The Secret of the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for One © Michael Forester

The Change © Michael Forester

The moral rights of all authors have been asserted.

Contents

The Barman and the Gargoyle 9

Keira L. Dickinson

Dream Machine 21

Amanda Weeks

Imagine Nation 29

Mark Spencer

Losing My Voice 39

Ania Leslie-Wujastyk

Out of Office Reply 51

Damien Warburton

Penelope 57

Rhys Griffiths

The Psychiatrist and the Pea 67

Ally Crockford

Quite Unlike Hepburn 75

Rob Stringer

Slow Life 85

R. M. Morrison

The Society of Noncommittals 93

Alistair Daniel

The Secret of the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for One 101

Michael Forester

The Change 107

Michael Forester

**Foreword** **by Members of the Society of Young Publishers (SYP)**

Long schedules, a hundred-and-one sets of proofs and booking paper for printing months in advance – these are just some of the things you come to expect in publishing. So when _CompletelyNovel_ asked us to produce a book from concept to print in two months, we smiled politely at them, as one might at someone whose sanity was slightly in doubt, and chuckled condescendingly. As it happened, after ten phone calls and a lunch meeting, trying painstakingly to get them to see exactly how tricky it would be to squeeze the customary nine months for production alone into just one month, not to mention the year or so before that on concept and writing, it was _CompletelyNovel's_ turn to chuckle:

SYP member: "So, if we get the manuscript compiled by this date, we'll then need the first set of proofs by... oh... oh... ok no first proofs. So we'll need the second proo... oh... ok no proofs at all. Right. Err... so we'll need to get the text design sorted by... oh you've already got that? Just upload the manuscript? That's it? Right, but we'll need to allow time to set the manuscript into the text design, so that'll be at least two wee... oh... ok... right, you've got a template? So we just upload the manuscript into the template? Well, we'll need to contact the printers... oh right you do that too. So we just upload the manuscript... and print. And that's it? Ah, right. Well, now we feel a bit silly." [ _polite chuckles all round_ ].

So that's how we did it – a brilliantly simple process which has really challenged our traditional views of how publishing has to be done. In a publishing world that's become more and more slick and technological by the day, we were quick to discover that _CompletelyNovel's_ finger was well and truly on the pulse of change.

However, all of us have to agree that we couldn't have put together this anthology without the help of all the untapped talent that sent in their stories for the competition itself. It has shown what an astounding level of skill, imagination and innovation is out there, lying unpublished and unshared. Thanks to _CompletelyNovel_ , this could all be about to change.

Enjoy!

_SYP members:_ Alan Crompton, Amy Jackson, Jo Godfrey, Kate Hind, Kate Walker, Claire Williams and Kate Leech.

With special thanks to:

Amanda - for her invaluable role in the selection process.

Charlotte Dobbs - for all her hard work on the cover.

Introduction by Amanda Leduc, volunteer for CompletelyNovel

A good short story is like an appetizer – it whets the palate and gets the mind focused on the next course in line. It offers a taste without being overwhelming, a chance to sample new fare that can intrigue and delight and inspire an entirely new fascination with the work of a particular writer. It is a literary meal in miniature, and when done well can pave the way into a new writer's mind in much the same way as a good antipasti both complements and offers hints of the meal to come.

I love appetizers. _More and lots and different_ is my eating motto – why always go with the main course when you can pick away at appetizers at your leisure, slowly filling your plate with all manner of different things?

In fact, _more and lots and different_ is a great recipe for many things besides food. So when CompletelyNovel decided to put together an anthology of short stories, linked together by the theme 'And now for something completely different,' I jumped at the chance to help with the editing. The other members of the CN team might have thought my appetizer metaphor a little strange, and the fact that I often read the stories in the company of a good batch of bruschetta or stuffed olives even stranger. But what better way to discover new, untapped talent than through working at the helm of such an innovative collection?

Short stories are wonderful ways for authors to try out new things. They are also immensely important, both for their inherent innovation and simply because they're often the first vehicle for new writers to try out their literary voice. When your size is limited, you have to employ all of the tools at your disposal to ensure that every single word counts. So really, once an author has mastered the short story, they've mastered a great deal about writing in general.

CompletelyNovel will provide lots of new opportunities to highlight and share the unsung talent of the writing world as a whole. Using the tools offered by CompletelyNovel to produce a short story collection seemed like a great way of serving up a taster of the kind of collaboration, creativity and diversity that the service will encourage.

And so, after an intense period of editing, we have our anthology. Each of the twelve stories in this collection seizes the 'new and different' theme with gusto – from a new take on an old tale to a sun hung like a fat ol' orange, no two stories are remotely similar. Every story is an appetizer that whets the palate for more. Together, they are an absolute feast.

Thanks must go, of course, to the team at CompletelyNovel, whose vision and dedication made this anthology possible. And thanks must also go to those members of the Society of Young Publishers, who gave up many a night to deliberate over our hard-chosen shortlist. But most of all, thanks to all of the participants, for sending us the best of what you have. Each submission challenged my idea of the short story in some way, and left me eager to read on. Reading them all was an absolute pleasure, through and through.

Congratulations to all, and I hope you enjoy our literary feast as much as we do!

Amanda Leduc

**The Barman and the Gargoyle**

_**Keira L. Dickinson**_

_Two different women walked into the same bar and the one who should have been hi_ _t over the head with a gargoyle was not, and the one who shouldn't, was._

*

_Woman 1 went_ to a street where a parade was being held for scouts. Her husband was the leader of one of the 'troops'. It was filled with eight year old boys in khaki who wanted to light fires. She brought a camera with her, as requested, and climbed the bridge that overlooked the street where they stood.

"Honey!" Her husband called up, waving.

Woman 1 took his picture and flinched as a child next to her hit her with a stick.

"Get all of us in!" he shouted to her, gathering his scouts.

She took a few more shots. Then the parade began, and the mass of children drifted away beneath her.

"Can you hold this for me?" said a man to her right. He passed Woman 1 his baby.

She watched as he turned and left, weaving through the crowd and out of sight. She looked down at the child, who was bawling.

"Hello" she said. "What's wrong with you?"

"Did that man just give you his baby and walk off?!" asked the mother of the child who'd hit her with a stick.

"Yes," said Woman 1, "but I expect he'll be back."

The mother looked at her strangely. She bent over the baby.

"It's a gypsy." she said.

Woman 1 shrugged, "It's just a baby."

The mother took the hand of her own brat and left without another word. Soon Woman 1 was the only one left on the bridge.

*

_Woman 2 went_ to three colleges before she found her niche. It was in the cinema at night-time, swarming with French students who smoked heavily and wore the kind of clothes you saw on circus people, just done up a little. She remembered those days, especially now that she'd married a man on a boat who bathed in orange juice instead of milk.

"Milk," said Woman 2 frequently, "kept my Grandmother alive for a hundred and ten years."

Woman 2 and her man made love on the front of his boat the night of their wedding. Some of the guests were still on the deck. Woman 2 remembered shouting during the climax, and her man grabbing her around the waist making it last a long time. They stayed in exactly the same position until the sun came up. By that time the guests had fled. The air was still and dewy. Woman 2's man looked down at her with the orange glow behind him and they knew they had made their first child.

Orange juice baths became Woman 2's moments of reflection. She bathed in them so regularly insects were quite attracted to her. They seemed to sail over to the boat on endless driftwood from shores all over the world. Woman 2 and her man were forever pouring seawater into the piles of these insects in an effort to get rid of them.

One Sunday, during a particularly bad infestation, Woman 2 was bent over some ants about to empty a bucket over them, when a bucket of her own broke inside her, and gallons of orange-tinted water splashed down between her legs, killing the ants in a form of birthing ecstasy.

*

_Woman 1 stood_ on the bridge holding the abandoned baby. She couldn't tell whether her talking was calming it down or making it worse. An old man walking across the bridge scowled at her as he walked past.

"It's not mine!" she told him, "I'm waiting for its father."

Woman 1's own husband was disentangling his scout troop from strings of flags many streets away. Darkness was closing in. The parade had finished and according to one mother, "the parade had gone on too long!", but Woman 1's husband was too busy sorting out lost jerseys and didn't answer her. His own jersey Woman 1 had made him, in one of her long sittings by the fire with nothing to do. She made it out of wool, dyed red, and in huge gatherings around his neck that were becoming loose, like his own skin, with age. Where was Woman 1 now? Woman 1 was not late usually. She got that from her father. He ran a pub in the city, and had done since her birth, with the clockwork of a clock, never keeping the doors open past eleven. Woman 1 would have liked to work in the pub. But she was always tired; her body was not strong enough for work.

"I'm going to take you to my father," said Woman 1 to the baby.

Down the alley, the pub was quieter than usual. When Woman 1 walked in, the only man in there turned his head, winked, and went back to his pint.

"Dad?" Woman 1 called into the bar.

"Hullo!" Her father, The Barman, enormous and jolly, stepped out from the backroom.

"By jove that's a good looking baby!" he boomed.

The baby had stopped crying, probably out of shock.

"It's not mine!" Woman 1 quickly reassured her father. "I wondered if you could heat some milk up for it?"

"Certainly" said The Barman, and asking no questions, got straight to it. As he mixed some whisky into the milk, Woman 1 explained what had happened.

"Funny people around these days" said The Barman sadly, shaking his head. He patted the baby on the head.

The Barman pulled out a chair for his daughter and went to find a box to put a blanket in to lay the child. The only customer got up and stumbled over the front stoop.

"G'bye George!" yelled The Barman, "I'll see you in the morning!"

"G'bye barman!" stammered George.

The Barman took the baby from Woman 1 carefully and laid it inside a fruit box.

"What can I get you?" he asked his daughter, "you look dead beat. You shouldn't go around exerting yourself so much!" But she barely listened.

*

_Woman 2 stood_ on a mountain top with ravages of wind in her hair. She and her man had shipwrecked the boat and travelled the countryside with their new baby between them. The three of them stayed in a wagon in Bulgaria, and a sheep shed in Bratislava. Now they were on their way back to England on a steamship doing its souvenir tour.

"You know what?" said Woman 2, when they arrived in London. "I think we should get a _canal_ boat!"

Her man was tentative. They would be forced into channels rather than roaming the open sea. They would have to anchor in towns, and register in places, they would have toilets to empty properly, and clothing to wash in machines.

"But," said Woman 2, "you could nail your bath to the top of the new boat, and grow a garden around it. We could even keep a cat."

Her man was sold.

They sought somewhere quieter, with students and a spire. They went down to a river in Oxford, and strolled the length of the tied-up canal boats there. They were in different colours with names like the _Polly Mary_ , and the _Tiber_. They found one that was for sale. As they looked into its windows, their baby let out a loud shriek.

"This is it!" breathed Woman 2, rubbing her ears. She could see a place for her reading, and a kitchen for warming stew. Her man could see enough room for a rooftop bath, and an ivy plant already growing around the chimney.

The next day they bought it in currency they'd found buried in Brazil, beneath the grave of an old robber called Osman Badeile. They had a new home.

Woman 2 bought a bottle of champagne a week later. They were to move in that Friday. The baby was restless that morning and couldn't be pleased. They left it on the shore and Woman 2's man helped her up onto their new boat. But as he held her hands, her feet feeling the sweet smoothness of the wood and the rock of the canal for the first time, their baby let out a horrifying scream.

Woman 2 jumped, and her man let go of her hands. He turned to check, but the baby was fine. Meanwhile, Woman 2 was falling between the boat and the shore.

"NO!" her man cried, reaching for her, but not touching her clothes or her skin. He couldn't reach them.

Woman 2's head bashed against the dock. Her body slumped into the water. She went under.

*

_Woman 1 went_ home from the scout parade with her husband. They had chips for tea and fish for tea, and her eyes stayed on the TV, but she was never quite watching. She'd left the abandoned baby with her father in the pub. Her husband had had enough of scouts or any sort of children for the day. He liked them to be returned.

When she told him about the baby, he said, "Really? That's interesting stuff! Now, what's for dinner love?"

The baby stayed with The Barman. It stayed with him all day and so long his customers joked that his pub should be called the 'Barman and Bairn' rather than the 'Barman and Baird'. Woman 1 went to call the authorities, but when she started dialling the number she just couldn't finish it. What could they do for an abandoned baby that she wasn't already doing?

She sung it a song about a castle in Carey. It liked that.

The Barman sung to it in more rough tones, but it liked that too.

"This baby will be a musician!" The Barman told her. They made up stories about its future. The baby liked those the best.

One night The Barman hosted a piano night in his pub. Musicians and hopefuls came along to try. The pub was crowded and The Barman kept them all back from his drinks with a metal rod and a smile as crooked as the canals. The piano in the far corner was beat upon, song after song. The baby woke up from its box. The Barman propped it up by his finest whisky. Its crying stopped and it looked on with interest.

A tired gypsy played a very different melody on the piano. The Barman loved it. He asked the gypsy to play it again. The baby laughed. It seemed as though a thousand years fell off the gypsy, and he beat down upon the keys with more enthusiasm than any player of that night combined.

"Look, the baby's crying!" yelled a punter.

The Barman looked at the baby, but the baby wasn't wailing, it was smiling, and tears, faintly orange in colour, were falling into its tiny mouth, a bit like when someone is proposed to by someone they love.

*

_Woman 2 went_ to the edge of insanity.

"If you smack her head again, it will reverse it!" recommended a witch doctor. He was from Holland. He kept entrails in the rooms of his house, for no reason but to scare his patients into listening to him.

Woman 2 was kept for a short time at the Radcliffe hospital. Her man slept there on her lap. He talked to her when she was conscious, but she was damaged from her fall and he forgot to talk to her normally- she was already his second child. He took her home, but not to their canal boat. He'd sold it on the day of the accident because it had cursed his family. Instead, he'd built them a new house on an inlet, not far from the city, but near a field that had wild horses and patches of vegetables tended to by the absent-minded. Woman 2 thrived in the silence. Her man let her have their child during the day, and then he went to find work, morning after morning in places as far reaching as London, and as close as their own back garden.

One afternoon he came home from chopping wood in Witney. Woman 2 was indoors. She was tying their baby up and putting it into a saucepan, basted with lemon juice.

"STOP!" her man commanded her. He grabbed the child from the saucepan and whisked it outside.

Woman 2 watched from a distance. She knew she'd done wrong. Her man did not know what to do. When he went back inside Woman 2 begged for her child back. But he could not let it happen again. She would kill their baby.

He told her he was going out for groceries and took the baby with him. They strolled into town, out past the theatres, through the winding college streets and parks. He walked on and on as the sun got lower. How pretty Oxford was in this dusk. How sad he was for himself and his wife.

He looked up as though to talk to someone in the sky, and as he did, the face of a gargoyle caught his attention. It stuck out of the side of a church. It was quite small, with an innocent face, a very childlike expression. Woman 2's man looked at it with curiosity. He was attracted to it. He looked down at his baby and then back up at the gargoyle and smiled.

Later that night, Woman 2's man came in with a skip through the back door.

"Hey there!" he called. "Where are you my wild one?"

Woman 2 came towards him with a smile, bearing a mug of juice, having recently bathed herself in mango and mandarin.

"I'm sorry!" she told him, although she'd forgotten why.

"So am I." he assured her. He bent to kiss her forehead.

Then he reached out and passed her the stone baby.

*

_Woman 1 went_ up and down with the telephone, trying to call the authorities.

"I will do it." she assured herself.

She picked up her knitting needles in one hand. She still had all that red wool left over from her husband's jersey. Perhaps she should knit something for the baby first?

"Where are my scouts?" moaned her husband. He too was pacing the front room waiting for his boys to come over for an outing.

"I should do it." said Woman 1. "The baby isn't mine."

"Where are my boys?" her husband moaned.

"It isn't mine." said Woman 1 again, mechanically.

"Yes, get someone else to look after it." agreed her husband. "Oh, here are my boys!"

Woman 1 went out after them, glaring at their backs. She walked to the pub. The air was cold and there were leaves in it which she kicked.

"Hullo Dad!" she called, coming in through the pub entrance.

"Hullo!" The Barman came to greet her, jiggling the baby on his hip.

"I've become a right softie" he announced. There were only two old grannies in the pub. They smiled toothlessly.

"Dad, I can't give it up," said Woman 1 anxiously, "I just can't."

The Barman agreed. "I've become quite fond of it myself." He took her arm, "look", and led her outside to the front of the pub.

Woman 1 looked up to see that the sign had been repainted, "The Barman and Bairn".

She laughed. A woman coming along the street looked over at them. She had damp hair and a wild look in her eyes.

"Hullo." said the Barman. He touched noses with the baby so it giggled.

The woman looked at the giggling baby. She seemed to jerk strangely for a second, then she reached into her coat and pulled out a stone.

"Come on, it's cold out here." said The Barman. He passed Woman 1 the baby and they made it laugh again by pulling faces.

They opened the door of the pub and the warm air gushed out.

Woman 2 walked slowly in after them, the stone raised above her head.

**Dream Machine**

_**Amanda Weeks**_

"Any news, then?" asked Pam in her haven't-you-found-a-girlfriend-yet tone of voice.

"Not really, Mam," replied Simon.

"Oh come on Simon. There must be loads going on in London."

"Aye. If you've got the time and the money."

Simon realised how boring he sounded. Then he realised that he didn't really give a monkey's tit.

"So, nothing to report then?" she asked, wondering if her only son was gay.

Well, he was twenty-three and not married. People would start to talk soon. People at the Co-op were already wondering about him. She'd have to start going to Londis at this rate.

"Well, actually..." he began.

"Yes?" she asked excitedly.

She had a vision of herself in a salmon-coloured suit and matching hat. She'd buy her son and daughter-in-law a wok for their wedding present. Imagine that—a wok!

"...Actually, I've been having these weird dreams about Eric Morecambe."

"Oh," said Pam, flatly. There was an awkward silence as Simon yawned and Pam wished she'd had a daughter. "Maybe you should go out more."

Simon was fortunate in that he knew when he was dreaming and could wake himself up if the dream got boring or scary. When celebrities first started to appear in his dreams, he felt really privileged. But he'd been stuck with Eric Morecambe for the past six nights and frankly, if he had tits, Eric would be getting on them.

As he drifted off one night, he forced himself to think about Chris Tarrant. Anything was better than a seventh night of _Bring Me Sunshine_. A pair of red velvet curtains appeared at the foot of his bed and he could hear a dramatic drum roll.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Well, Simon," said a voice from nowhere, "Please welcome Errrrriiiiiiiccccccc Morecambe!"

The huge applause muffled out Simon's cries of 'Nooo!' as Eric danced and sang his way through _Bring Me Sunshine_ \- again!

"Hello, Simon," said Eric after he'd finished his set, "what did you think of tonight's performance?"

"It was the same as last night, and the night before. Couldn't you change the routine a bit?"

"Change my routine? What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing, it's just...well...routine that's all. Couldn't you get some guests in?"

"You what?!" shouted a deeply offended Eric. "I'll have you know I've performed for Her Majesty the Queen on several occasions. She never complained or called me routine. I earned more from one Christmas special than you do in a year, mate."

"I'm not complaining. And I don't mean to be rude. But I'd prefer my dreams to be a bit more spicy."

"Spicy? Would you rather I was a seventeen-year-old stripper with silicone tits?"

"Now you're talking."

"Well, tough shit. You're an ungrateful twat, Simon. People have paid thousands to see me perform live. You've had me all to yourself every night for the past week and all you've done is complain."

"No, no! You've got the wrong end of the stick, Mr Morecambe."

"Have I?" asked Eric sarcastically as he produced a stick and examined both ends. "Which one's the right end, then?"

"I've had enough. I'm gonna wake up now," said Simon.

This made Eric look really hurt. Simon immediately felt guilty and ungrateful. He tried to stay asleep to apologise to this wonderful entertainer. But the red curtain disappeared and Eric Morecambe started to fade as Simon slowly entered reality. Suddenly, Eric turned into the fit one from Girls Aloud.

She ran at him, shouting "Wait. I want to strip for you!"

But it was too late—he'd ended the dream. He tried to get back into it, but every time he'd see Eric sitting at the bottom of the bed, looking cross.

"Dreams won't be free forever, Simon," he warned. "One day, you'll have to pay for them and I may be all you can afford."

As Simon woke up, his answer phone clicked on.

"Simon, are you there? It's your mother. I just wanted to say that if you want to talk to me about anything, you know where I am. Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

Great, thought Simon, not only have I offended one of the best names in show business, but my mother thinks I'm gay. What a great way to start Saturday.

He got up, made some coffee and toast and picked up the remote.

"Scientists have made a major discovery which will enable us to choose our dreams," said a fit newsreader whom Simon would love to shag.

"The new Dream Machine works by combining the subconscious mind with modern technology to give us complete control over our dreams. It is worn as a headband, and its sensors send vibrations to the brain. If we are enjoying the dream, we can continue. If we are not enjoying it, we can start again. We can even introduce celebrities into our dreams by buying a celebrity chip which is inserted into the Dream Machine. Dream Machines go on sale nationwide on Monday morning. Celebrity chips include Sir Trevor McDonald, David Beckham and Jordan."

Simon, along with hundreds of other sad tossers, camped outside his local Argos on Sunday night in order to buy a Dream Machine. When the doors opened there was a huge stampede as everyone scrambled to get inside. The security guards did their best to keep order but there were several casualties and the police were called. After five hours, Simon eventually bought a Dream Machine for £500 and a Jordan chip for another £500. It was money he'd been saving towards a car.

That night, the red curtain appeared again. As it drew back, Simon's heart sank as he saw Eric Morecambe.

"Get lost, Morecambe. I want Jordan," he shouted.

He felt guilty immediately and wanted to apologise. Eric started to fade, but Simon could still hear his voice.

"What did I tell you, Simon? You have to pay for your dreams now. Beware, beware, beware..."

Suddenly Jordan appeared, looking lovely in thigh-length boots, a tight black dress and a cowboy hat.

"Hi!" she giggled.

"Hello," he replied. She sat on his bed and he sat up.

"Bought yourself a Dream Machine, have you?"

"Yes," he replied, casually. "Only five hundred quid. Cheap at half the price. I'm gonna buy another ten tomorrow and send them to my family in Wales. Fancy a shag?"

Jordan jumped into bed with him. They made love until Pam's phone call woke him up. The answer phone clicked on.

"Simon it's your mother. Got some news for you. Your cousin Jason's getting married. Nice girl. Irish. Nicola, I think she's called. She's pregnant. At least I don't have to worry about you getting a girl pregnant, eh?"

After a couple of nights, Simon got sick of Jordan and fancied a change. Her voice was too nasal and her boobs got in the way. Argos had sold out of Kate Moss and Sharon Stone chips, so he bought a Mel B one from the bargain basket for one pound fifty.

That night, as the red velvet curtain appeared at the bottom of Simon's bed, the compere demanded,

"Simon Davies—tell her what you want, what you really, really want!"

"I really, really, really, really want to shag Mel Brown!" shouted Simon above the drum roll.

The curtains drew back. And there, in platform boots, gold hot pants and a PVC top stood....Gordon Brown.

"And a shag is what you're really, really, gonna get, pretty boy," said Gordon as he dived on Simon.

"No," Simon screamed "I wanted Mel Brown, not Gordon Brown!"

"That's me. Melvyn Gordon Brown. Everyone calls me Gordon, but call me Mel if it turns you on, baby."

Simon tried rubbing his eyes to escape the nightmare but it didn't work. Gordon Brown was still pulling Simon's boxer shorts, shouting,

"Get 'em off! Get 'em off!"

As Simon panicked, Eric Morecambe appeared.

"You've bought a dodgy machine. Pull the Dream Machine off your head, sunshine!" he shouted.

Simon obeyed and the nightmare started to fade.

The following morning, Simon phoned the Dream Machine complaints department but the line was jammed. Shaken by his nightmare, he went to Argos to return his faulty goods. He was greeted by a riotous scene as hundreds of angry customers made complaints about terrifying nightmares that they were unable to stop.

"It's totally fucked my head up!" a young man screamed at the acne-faced girl on Customer Services.

"Can you imagine what it's like to be bummed by Des Lynam for four hours? Four fucking hours, man!"

A little old lady who'd dreamed she'd given birth to John Wayne and his horse was inconsolable, as was an old man who'd dreamed he was stuck in a lift all night with Celine Dion and Mariah Carey and now had serious hearing problems.

Half the population of the UK had therapy following the Dream Machine crisis. Its inventor went into hiding following huge claims for compensation and death threats.

Simon realised how lucky he was. If Eric Morecambe hadn't arrived when he did, things would have been really fucking ugly. He wanted to thank Eric for saving him from Gordon Brown's sex machine, but he never dreamed of him again. His comments about Eric's routine had probably driven him away. Now, every time Simon hears _Bring Me Sunshine_ , he cries.

**Imagine Nation**

_**Mark Spencer**_

It ended with Robin Hood Paintball and an alien chef's steak _au merde_. Mythological extreme sports and extraterrestrial poo cooking signified but one thing: the country had run out of ideas. "There is nothing new under the sun," Len Von Simpleweave thought to himself, annoyed at his own spectacularly unoriginal thinking. Simpleweave jumped out of the window of the flat he didn't own, wearing the skin of a lesbian, holding a crucifix and singing _Punk Ass Bitch_. By the time he'd hit the faux-honeycomb floor, the ennui had already rendered him unconscious.

The police called it a copycat suicide.

Dev Shoulder had, perhaps inevitably, seen it all coming. From the tender age of three and a half titanium months, he'd predicted the coming of the final conceivable idea. A favoured student of Von Simpleweave, he'd seen musicians chew on their own violas upon admitting defeat in their attempts to draw more notes from an octave; he'd witnessed scientists, philosophers and theologians collectively revert to the foetal position as everything had been definitively proved and postulation was particularly pointless; and he'd been present in the municipal book bath when the government of hounds, in desperation, had declared that routine itself be outlawed.

Society wasn't functioning. The people within were just barely functioning. In a bid to help out, a renegade gang of sentient electrons ensured that even the laws of physics were just rarely functioning. The gates between Life and Death were flimsier than ever and no child had been born in five somethings.

There was a branch of study now entirely devoted to the discovery of new ideas, Originialitism, and that had been Von Simpleweave's area of expertise – his particular focus was on original deaths. More and more money/honey was being pumped into these departments as the crisis became more evident. Originalitists gave the world only forty-five wasphandspans before it would inevitably decide to blow itself up just for something to do. Nobody could keep up with the ever-changing unit of time but that did feel a bit soon.

To Shoulder, the answer was clear. He would have to conceive an _inconceivable_ thought. Not a difficult thought. Not a painful, offensive or terrifying thought. Not even an impossible thought, but the final paradox: the thinking of an unthinkable thought.

Shoulder reasoned that he should begin with plain old thinking and see where that took him. Maybe... something religious? He threw that out; he'd read the history books. Banning organised religion had helped at first, as people had to invent their own deities, rituals and belief systems, but there are only so many limbs or heads a god can carry and only so many variations of 'do unto others...' Before long, underground Christians were being fed to bi-lions by NeoFiveForeHeadDoOnes (to rapturous applause from the No-Bodies) and the Super Mormons had donned their magic specs and flown back to their polygamous cheese planets. The depths of alternative religion had been plundered and now, the virtually atheistic state was in deepest despair.

In keeping with the ascetic movements of Jesus and John Lennon, Shoulder wondered if removing the nation's possessions might hold the key. With every possible need or desire catered to by any number of inventions (the number of devices/potions that could help one give up or carry on biting one's toenails now numbered in the thousands), was it any wonder that nobody had thought of anything new? Necessity does, after all, breed invention. He felt he may be on to something there...

*

Following the Human(ish)ist funeral, Shoulder visited the Department of Original Design Objectives. On entering Von Simpleweave's office, he found his professor slumped low in his chair, looking glummer than ever; yet again, his resurrection had been as unimpressive as his death.

"Crinkfalp!" offered Shoulder, with a polite breeziness.

"Petrel Handerson, last Conkerfest." replied Von Simpleweave.

"Detchfulop?" attempted Shoulder.

"Cos Gastropy, on the eve of his lemur's convoluting day."

"Squeltch hibiscus."

"Fingle McCarthy, just last Veepsday morning. It's no good Shoulder. There is not a formality you can greet me with that somebody hasn't already employed in the past. What are you doing here?"

Simpleweave's beard dripped with distilled Belgium, as he looked up to see Dev Shoulder's wide face ripple into a wily grin.

"An idea."

Von Simpleweave regarded Shoulder incredulously, wearily and let it also be said, not without some beaver-flax.

"Shoulder, you know very well there has not been an idea worth having since paintball guns were replaced with paint-tipped arrows and Martians added Turd Brulee to their menus – "

"An anti-idea." Shoulder interjected.

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Don't you see?" enthused Shoulder, as he threw back his unkempt mop of dark hair, "we've been so busy searching for new creations and innovation that we've neglected to not see exactly what _isn't_ right under our noses. The opposite of an idea. The antithesis of creation. Out with the new, in with the non-existent. _The unthinkable thought._ "

Von Simpleweave took the pelican off his head.

"I need some time. I need to think about this. This is dangerous territory. Highly unlikely territory. Shoulder, are you sure you know what you're suggesting?"

"Certain, because I understand that what we need to do is _not_ think about it!" Shoulder softened his voice. "Look, leave it with me. I'll find a way. For the first time I feel like I have a purpose. It'll take as long as it takes, but I can promise you now, I will come back with the unthinkable thought."

Shoulder picked up the mop of hair he had previously thrown back, and left the office.

Von Simpleweave promptly died of Unrealised Promise Syndrome Type 4. The most common type.

*

The Wasted Innovation Scrap Heap was a sanctuary for Shoulder. The landfill, which poured out from behind the Department of Original Design Objectives and into the Oft-Chartered Ocean was only accessible by scaling the corrugated iron walls, over which trucks would abandon derivative and uninspired produce. Shoulder had regularly visited the Heap as a child where he and his friends would kick through cartons of motor soda, and jeopardy hats, and glass potato heads. Whereas the layers of trite had begun to sicken the others, Dev saw the Heap as a nostalgic reminder of the past, when television still broadcast repeats, a plethora of Mills and Boon novels could be found in airports and expensive watches could be bought in Malaysia for a fraction of the price. Sometimes Dev would scour the Heap for duplicate items and line them up against the wall. Perhaps we could have compared him to Warhol, if all the artist's paintings hadn't been burnt as heretic anti-innovation propaganda.

Shoulder closed his eyes, breathed in the aroma of imitation and wondered, "Maybe, just maybe, what this country needs isn't some newfangled invention or play on words but the ability to redo things to a high standard. To live well, to die well and to appreciate all that we have."

He questioned whether bringing any more new ideas into the current climate was a good idea. Would it be lost in a sea of pointless new spins? Would it even be recognised as a new idea or would it be seized upon within minutes and ten inferior celebrity spins created? Shoulder was dizzy, partly from the all the potential spinning and partly because of the enormous responsibility a new unthinkable thought would place on him.

But it was mostly because a local homeless wo/man/drill had hit him over the head with a walrus wrench and stolen his wallet.

As he lay there, losing vast amounts of blood and idea fumes caressing his exposed mind, the answer came to him.

"If you think me," said the answer, "I will come." Which sounded familiar but that was more or less the point.

So it was Dev Shoulder, mediocre human being and all-round oddball, who thought of something new.

At first, it was everything he'd ever seen doing everything he'd ever see them do. He heard a chomping sound and it was an educated dodo doing wish-ups. Another chomp and it was a man with two faces, one more and it was a spaniel. One final bite and there was nothing. It was there but there was nothing there. He couldn't see, feel, smell, hear or taste it but it was there. The Imagine Eater.

Thinking the unthinkable was, he'd realised, not actually possible. Unthinking the thinkable, however, made a bit more sense to this heavily concussed dreamer for whom the word 'think' had now lost all meaning. Think think think think think. The theory was that thinking of a thing that would unthink all thoughts, thus rendering all thinking unthunk, was all that was needed to bring it into being.

And it had. It (Shoulder tried to call it The Imagine Eater and subsequently Geoff but it ate both names) was the absence of ideas and would consume all original or unoriginal thought within its immediate vicinity. It went to town on the scrap heap and Shoulder smiled deliriously to himself, ' ~~Geoff's~~ the answer.'

Shoulder walked back to the world beyond the Heap as if on a moonbeam. He was originally walking on a literal moonbeam, but ~~Geoff~~ had had away with that too, and Shoulder's actions were thus reduced to similes, somehow making them more poetic than when everything had been literal. There was something about art, Shoulder contemplated as ~~Geoff~~ eradicated an argumentative dingo, that inherently had to be intangible. Somehow concepts seemed more substantial if they were without physical substance. Perhaps ~~Geoff~~ really was the answer. It wasn't destruction so much as deconstruction. Shoulder began to see ideas as they were, instead of what they could be. The actual instead of the potential.

With a newfound glee, Shoulder led ~~Geoff~~ to the municipal book bath. Munch went Tess of D'Urbervilles. Chomp went Ulysses. Gulp went the works of Barbara Cartland. When the whole library-pool had been demolished, Shoulder ventured out to department stores where ~~Geoff~~ began to work on the laundry cat, the golfing arboretum, the hydrogen egg. Next was the kettle-market, the bakery of blancmange, the forum of theophobists, numbers eaten from calculators, atomic structures taken from elements, ~~Geoff~~ took it all leaving a path of potential in his wake. Shoulder cackled with joy.

Shoulder had wobbled his way to the Department of Original Design Objectives, for he still had the gaping head wound, when he heard a scream come from the direction of Von Simpleweave's office. He hurried to find the department's secretary panicked and grief-stricken in the doorway as Von Simpleweave lay dead on what had once been his Dream, Idea and Change Weaving and Animation Device but was now, thanks to ~~Geoff~~ , a sofa bed. The disappearance of the DICWAD was the obvious cause of the commotion, Shoulder had thought, she finds him dead all the time.

B ut ~~Geoff~~ had left his mark. Professor Von Simpleweave was dead and not in the mildly amusing and/or pathetic way like usual but in the final dead death way that wasn't so funny. He was wearing fairly standard professor clothing, browns, beiges and leather patches, had a pained expression on his face and seemed to be clutching one side of his chest. 'Heart attack,' Shoulder smiled. The Professor would be pleased to have been the first victim of this new era's mortality policy.

As they carried Von Simpleweave away on a stretcher that barely fit, the paramedics looked faintly shocked and even pleased that somebody had passed on it what was deemed to be the good-old-fashioned way. They loaded him into the ambulance, not without registering that just five minutes previous, it had been the mouth of a giant ape, and drove away into ordinary traffic queues loosely abiding by traffic light instruction.

So unthinking the thinkable does not necessarily mean the absence of chaos, thought Dev.

Good.

~~Geoff~~ continued to chomp into the bizarre menagerie of cross-bred and mutated animals until only those with wings could fly and those with gills could breathe underwater. Everything was nibbled on, from the snow depositing itself on icecaps where sangria had once waltzed, to sand sweeping across plains where radiators had once preyed on nimble teacups.

With every bite, the faux-honeycomb floor turned into grass, and pebbles, and mud, and the sky veered through a kaleidoscope and settled on a pale blue.

The éclair in the sky had melted away into glorious sun.

*

Shoulder lay back on his dead professor's office sofa bed as ~~Geoff~~ returned to the side of the man who thought him. He patted the air beside him, imagining that he could feel soft, thick fur in his hand, though he could not. He smiled, closed his eyes and let his hand fall through Geoff. Dev Shoulder stopped thinking.

**Losing My Voice**

_**Ania Leslie-Wujastyk**_

Angela Moore peers into boxes of fruits at the grocery. She is tall -- she might even look statuesque if she weren't trying to disappear under her long green coat. Sidestepping, she picks up five onions and drops them into the clear plastic bag.

"Don't forget to get potatoes. I won't."

As she speaks she veers left, irritated, and grabs a bag of new potatoes. Then straight on towards the tomatoes.

"I thought I'd make ratatouille this evening," she says quietly. She turns into the corner, hiding her face from the other shoppers.

"Really? I've kinda had my heart set on a baked potato all day. I said that."

Her voice is suddenly louder and she muffles it with the collar of her coat. She casts an uncomfortable look about her, and whispers,

"Alright. It was only an idea. Keep your voice down. Sorry, love. Was it big potatoes you wanted then? Well I can't very well have a baked potato with one of your bloody new potatoes, can I? Unless I have lots of little ones, each lovingly stuffed with a single baked bean."

She clenches her teeth down hard, and throws the bag of new potatoes back on the heap.

"OK, I've got them. See you back home."

Picking up a single large potato, Angela walks up to the counter and smiles.

*

Nine months ago, at 7.30am, on a Friday that should have been like any other, Angela was abruptly woken by the sound of her own voice singing a song she didn't know.

She gasped an obscenity and clapped her hand over her mouth.

At 7.31am, as she sang along to the buttering of her toast, Helen Trickett inexplicably swore at her breakfast. She responded with a yelp that felt utterly unfamiliar to Angela as it passed her lips.

It didn't take them long to find each other. Helen screamed and Angela swore, or vice versa, and they both demanded to know who was in their head. Of course, each of them believed it was she who was doing the demanding, so there followed a long silence.

Eventually, peering around her empty bedroom, Angela ventured,

"My name is Angela Moore."

She felt a little ridiculous, introducing herself to the walls, until she found herself replying,

"This is Helen Trickett in flat three."

Willing herself not to panic, Angela took a deep breath and spoke,

"Would you like to come up for a cup of tea?"

Angela lived in the top floor flat of Clyde Mansions, an old but well-kept building with clean, carpeted corridors but a completely rubbish back yard. Near the top of the communal staircase outside her door was a small round window, like a porthole looking down onto the street outside, through which Angela could see the other inhabitants of the Mansions come and go. She knew the names of about half her neighbours, but almost nothing about them. Helen Trickett looked fun; always lively and smiling, she wore extraordinary home-made creations out of huge amounts of fabric that billowed over her enormous breasts. But she had a very loud voice and stood just a little too close when she spoke to you, and Angela had got the impression that if she ever let Helen into her personal space she might never get her out again. That Friday morning was an exception. Angela pulled on a dressing gown and opened her front door to find Helen already outside, breathless.

They had got snagged on each other somehow. They were sharing voices, or their voices were sharing mouths.

That is, when either of them spoke, the words leapt out from both their mouths. They sat at Angela's kitchen table, neither of them knowing what to say, or even whether to speak. And neither of them had the faintest idea what to do.

As the days went by, they found it increasingly difficult to be apart. Their words intruded on each other's conversations, and dealing with other people soon became too much of a nuisance. They couldn't say anything private. The turning point came when Angela visited her mother during Helen's quickie with the man from the corner shop. Both their afternoons were horribly spoiled. They retreated to Angela's and rented out Helen's flat for some money to live on. Just until they figured out what to do.

It was far easier when it was just the two of them; they never had to phone one another, or leave a message. Speaking together meant compromise. After they got over the initial hysteria both women understood that. Neither one of them could hold down a job, hold down a life, without the other's silence. And neither one of them was about to offer that. So they took turns leaving the flat. Unable to trust what they might say, they avoided public places as much as possible, and each tried not to intrude when the other was out. But being together was wonderfully strange. And having your own words said back to you \-- well, it would make you watch what you say.

*

Helen is lying on the sofa in Angela's dressing gown, eyes closed, trying her hardest to relax. But she has had three cups of coffee and now she can't.

"I feel like shit." She gives up on quiet for the time being, and opens her eyes.

"Hello stranger. Nearly home? Nearly. It's bloody cold out."

Helen pulls the dressing gown around her. There's something funny-tasting about Angela's sentences, something different in the way she shapes her vowels that makes them feel foreign in Helen's mouth.

"I'm shattered. Can't seem to sleep. No? No." Her stomach rumbles.

"I'm starving, Ange...sshh!"

Helen stops, purses her lips. She hates being shushed, but waits quietly. That is the agreement. Before all this, Helen used to sing absent-mindedly. Not huge, belting performances or anything, just happy singing as she went about the house, but it sent Angela crazy. It was completely harmless, but for Angela that wasn't the point. The problem was that it wasn't her. She didn't sing. Well, fuck you; Helen remembered thinking at the time. I do. That's me. Eventually, Helen had agreed not to sing when Angela was out, and Angela bit back the complaints when she found herself singing at home. It was a small thing, but a big compromise – this familiarity was never chosen.

She feels Angela's voice start up again. "Sorry, just walked past someone."

Helen rolls her eyes. "You're so easily embarrassed. I'm just trying to avoid being a social pariah. I hardly think that's our main concern here. Well don't look at me. I can't bloody look at you, you're not here. I've forgotten what I was saying."

Lying rigid on the sofa, Helen explores the ceiling. Interrupting voices make the day too crowded. There is almost no time to think. Just a moment of silence on waking before the noise rushes in and smacks you in the face.

*

Together on the top floor, they struggled over words, and each of them fought to keep the other out. At first, they amplified their differences: accents, inflection, delivery. They argued over who said what. They agreed that each of them would say her name before speaking, to clarify things. But that was no long-term solution, and they dropped it after a couple of days. They were running out of ideas.

Sometimes, Helen sat in front of the mirror, watching her automatic mouth making words. Alert, she looked and listened for a slip, a change, anything at all. Scanning the contortions of lips moving over motionless teeth. If she stared for long enough, her mouth became alien.

At first, the other's words had felt foreign, like an intruder attacking from within. But the months went by and the fight went out of the two women, and the foreign voice settled in. They became accustomed to one another's speech, to the shape of the other's words in the mouth, the habits of lips, teeth, and tongue. Without realising it, they had begun to mirror each other's voices. More and more often, it was unclear who was speaking when the words came pouring out. Unclear, at least, where the words had begun.

Speaking together had mixed them up. They didn't always know who was who. It was the voice that caused the confusion; they felt separate as long as they kept the noise down. They tried not to talk so much.

*

Angela returns home and hands Helen a potato. It is darkening outside. Ablaze in frustrated silence, Angela chops an onion. The microwave hums as the potato slowly rotates inside. It looks like an ugly joke on a display turntable. The microwave bleeps loudly. Helen is in the other room. Angela feels the muscles in her jaw tighten, her teeth set on edge as the bleeping continues, high pitched and incessant. She begins to slice tomatoes. Her kitchen knife presses against the taut red tomato-skin for just a moment before the surface gives and the blade pushes softly through. The bleeping continues. As Helen enters the kitchen Angela snaps round to face her.

"Your potato's ready." Helen opens the microwave door and the bleeping stops.

"Why didn't you say so?"

Angela can't contain herself, and suddenly words and more words come tumbling out of them both,

"Christ! I can't stand it! What? You, you bloody – you say my words wrong!"

Hearing this from her friend's lips Angela almost regrets her outburst, but Helen has already joined her.

"Right back at you! How do you think I feel, hearing you twist what I say? I twist what you say? You are unbelievable! You don't even know what I mean but you say it anyway!" They are screaming at each other.

"I spend every day with you invading my space, your words pushing at my lips! Listen to yourself! Shut up! You shut up!" Their faces are an inch apart.

"Leave me alone what did I do to you why, why, why don't you fuck off and die don't I need you need to be alone one is already too much I hate you don't understand shut up! Get out of my mouth!"

Angela slams the knife down on the kitchen counter, picks up the potato and throws it at Helen's head. There is a dull thud as it hits but she doesn't look back as she walks out of the flat, quickly down the stairs and into the night.

The wind rushes at her icily, skittering in her ears. She walks fast down the road and round the corner, out of sight of the porthole window. Slowing to a steady pace, she breathes deeply; the cold air in her lungs calms the hot thumping in her chest. She inhales the quiet, unable to relax. She longs for solitude, but is always tense, waiting for the next intrusion. The silence echoes with the possibility of being interrupted by a voice she can't prevent.

A young couple walk down the road towards her, chatting excitedly, with wide grins. Staring at the pavement in front of her feet she listens to their conversation as they pass, straining to hear as they fade away. It has been a long time since she shared a normal conversation with anyone.

Deep in thought, Angela walks through the night-lit streets, circling away and back towards home. She turns onto her road and looks up at the eye of the porthole. It is dark. She looks at her watch. It has been forty minutes and not a sound. She stands on the corner, the wind whistling around her, hope and fear mingled. It has been nine months since she had her voice to herself, and she hardly dares speak. The breath catches in her throat, struggling to become sound. She summons the courage to phrase the question...

Suddenly, she is interrupted by a splutter. A stifled groan heaves her chest; it is an unusual sound, distressed, distraught, but unutterably human.

"Helen?" No reply.

She peers up at the dark flat. "Helen?"

Another splutter, quieter this time, and Angela is running, her feet pounding the pavement, her breathing shallow. Into the building and up the stairs, her head thick with panic, she fumbles the key into the lock with frenzied fingers. The flat is dark and silent. She rushes from room to room, slamming on the lights, finding nothing. The bathroom is locked, and there is light coming from underneath the door. Choked with dread, she hesitates, then smashes her body against the door. The feeble lock gives, and the door swings violently open.

Helen is curled in the corner, head in her hands, her hair falling forward over her features. The tap drips, regular, inevitable. Angela feels herself mumble, and Helen's tear-streaked face looks up.

"I didn't want you to hear me cry," they say together.

Angela kneels down on the bathroom floor and hugs her, feeling their bodies jolted by a final sob. Holding Helen's face in her hands she wipes her eyes, and carefully picks a clump of soft potato from her hair.

"I'm sorry I threw the potato at you."

Helen looks her in the eye, and the corners of her mouth twitch. Angela feels a chuckle rising inside her; she purses her lips, but they let out a burst.

"Stop it! You're making me laugh!" But there is no stopping it now. "You started it! Did I? Oh I don't know..."

Their laughter dies down quickly, exhausted. The room is quiet and heavy. Without a word, Angela runs a bath and washes Helen's hair. Clean and warm, they sit on the sofa, curled towards each other. Turned inwards, they are caged together. Cocooned. They are so tired. The two women look closely at each other, each silently begging the other to give up. _Leave the talking to me. Please. I know it's a lot to ask but can't you do without? Please. Please._

They know it would make no difference. A sound from either of them would be too much, would mix them up. They cannot live like this. And they are so tired. They say goodnight, without a word.

*

Little by little, Angela and Helen fall silent. First, they simply refrain from filling up pauses with words. Next, they cut back on the little untruths:

'I'll do it tomorrow', 'I didn't know', 'I'm okay'.

Gradually, they stop gossiping, and bickering. They wean themselves off conversations, and only speak when they have something important to say. They stop using adjectives. They sit together without speaking, for longer and longer each time. Eventually, they only talk when they can't communicate in any other way. They speak less, much less, until it feels more comfortable not to. A hush envelops the two women, and they become so settled inside it that speaking would feel inappropriate. It would feel invasive. So they no longer speak at all.

**Out of Office Reply**

_**Damien Warburton**_

I wish someone would keep me in the loop. I didn't even know he was going away until I saw the Out of Office Reply this morning. 'I am away on business. I will reply to your message when I return. Please contact my colleague Peter if your request is urgent. This does not affect my omnipotence in any way'.

Great. He's directed all enquiries to me. So there's not only my job to do, but also His as well. He seems to think those pearly gates open themselves. They do, in a way, but there's still a whole lot of paperwork until we get the online system up and running.

Clicking out of the email I notice the next unread message is from Him.

_Pete - hope you are well. Back next Tues, obviously if it's urgent contact me before then. We need to get the new weather delivery system rolled out_.

The message ends with a small smiley face which I wish He wouldn't use.

The new weather delivery system is our attempt to keep up with modern business. It's the biggest change we've made since, well, since he wrote that book I guess. And all that gush about a day of rest is out the window. We're open 24/7 now. No rest for the wicked.

It's his response to all the other start-ups that seem to be eating away at our customer base. We've looked at all the competitors and seen what it is they're offering that we don't. Free shipping was where we were losing a lot of clients. The actual weather they ordered was competitively priced. But when it came to postage costs – and we have customers all over the world – we were too expensive. So who was it that had to put together a new system? Me. Good old reliable Pete.

I don't know, sometimes I hate this job, detest what we're becoming. Sure, it offers security and the pension is pretty good, but somewhere I've lost the motivation. There's a lot of new faces and it's not the same around the office, it's open-plan, the friendliness has disappeared. We're getting a bit 'me-too', running to keep up rather than setting the agenda. It used to be His word was enough to attract the business, but now we have to put the customer first and you should see the brand guidelines the agency put in place.

Ah well, mine is not to reason why... let's see where we are with the launch message. C:\ drive. Pete's Current. New Weather Folder. Changes.doc.

The way we supply your services has changed.

As your chosen weather and natural disaster supplier we've decided to make a few changes to the services we offer.

As we all know, postage costs have risen steeply in the past few years so to make the service we offer better, we're changing how we deliver all our weather supplies and introducing a bulk delivery system. By supplying these bigger quantities we can offer a more competitive service –saving you even more. This does not affect the quality of our products, but may mean that your end users experience some side effects.

Rain – usually released gently from the sky will now be sent down in one big downpour, saving on several shipping's and providing a better service for you. There may be some localised flooding.

Tidal waves are no longer available in small. We now offer only medium or large. Our custom service can supply bigger versions, please contact your account manager for details.

In response to global postal restrictions and new customs regulations, extreme heat will now only be available from our local partners. We will no longer hold stock centrally. We will however be increasing overall temperatures by up to four degrees to help with your heat use and offering a budget 'global warming starter kit' in limited quantities.

We are extending our smog range to include a new version unaffected by cloudbusters, especially suitable for use in the Far East.

Snow will now only be offered in depths over 25mm to ensure ground coverage. This massively improved product will now be available all year round with all restrictions on seasonal use now removed.

The departments dealing with forest fires and storms (including fork lightning) have been merged to improve our service. You'll be hearing from the new head of this department very soon.

Remember – there's free shipping on all orders over 3mm of rain or temperatures above five degrees. P.S. – Ask about our special offers on combined tsunamis and flooding.

Because I've been left to sign it off, I've deleted the smiley He put in. You see what I mean about this place not being the same? We're having to change how we operate just to attract the customers now. I know we can never go back to the old days, but there's a lot to be said for all those plagues. Now we have to offer a fully customisable service that meets – no exceeds, remember the charter – the clients' needs. I just pray it works. Not literally pray, but you know what I mean.

The phone's sudden ringing makes me jump. The screen says the caller has withheld his number. It's probably a scam, or someone asking if I want to change networks.

"How's the new weather system going? Sorry to drop it on you at such short notice, but I got a great deal on a last-minute short break. My son loves it here on the beach and he's already been commissioned to make some furniture for one of the bars. Have you sent out the details yet?"

It's Him. How on earth does He always manage to do that?

"Just finalising the wording. Only a few small changes and it'll be ready."

"Started to think I'm not sure about the free shipping on 3mm and over of rain. It's a popular size – shall we make it 4mm plus?"

Of course. I still forget I don't have to read it out to him.

"And I saw an advert on the way over here for blizzards. Shall we see what we can do on that score? The rest looks fine. I'll call tomorrow to see what response we get. Right, must go – nearly happy hour."

Well you heard it – He's happy to go with that. Just have a look on Google for offers on blizzards then we can send away. I know he's keen to avoid 'buy one get one free' offers – but that must be the ad he's seen. Nobody wants two blizzards. They just don't keep well and they're a nightmare to store. Oh look –– they store it for you for up to a year. I wish we had the space. Have to have a think about that one. This cloud is killing my back. I asked HR if they could sort out one with lumbar support but have heard nothing. I can almost hear my back clicking. Let's put some music on – always helps take my mind off things and gets the old creative juices going. Where's that Smith's CD? What's the song called? 'I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour...'

I don't expect a reply so quickly but the first one pings from my inbox less than two minutes after I've hit send, closely followed by three more. One of them is returned mail – have to have a word with the marketing department, ones another out of office, but the other two are serious enquiries. Both about rain and what's the biggest depth we can now supply. Easy answer – 65mm in 24 hours unless we combine with a typhoon (subject to regional availability). There has been some talk of increasing this to nearer 80mm, I'll find out what it is they have in mind. Thank you for your enquiry...

The phones start to go mad about an hour later. We ran out of rain and had a run on blizzards. Which is fine – as I've already said, they don't keep well. If it wouldn't have been for teething problems at the local suppliers we might have sold a lot more extreme heat. A lot of them chose the 'need it fast' option and paid for the immediate delivery. Good call from Him on that one.

All this running about means I nearly miss reception paging me on the speakers. I call down and get told that some sort of tidal wave has caused a massive backlog at the gates. Well, they say He moves in mysterious ways.

**Penelope**

_**Rhys Griffiths**_

Day 1 or three million

Today it occurred to me that I cannot remember not being on this ship. Surely, I must have slept without the gentle rocking and wooden creak to ease me to sleep? Surely, I have had dinners at a table other than the one I had breakfast at this morning, just below deck, next to the kitchen? I must have had friends or at least family who were not boat workers or passengers? I know this to be true but I cannot for the life of me remember a time when I was not on this damned ship! I could have been here a year or a thousand, I have lost (or never had) any concept of time. So I have decided to write a diary. I have lost the beginning but this will enable me to mark time from hereon in at least.

It is awkward for me to write. I have an excellent grasp of the English language (though where that was learned, I do not know) but my hands were not built to hold a pen, let alone write neatly. (I sometimes think my handwriting must look like that of a child but then I look again and it is that of the well-educated woman I know myself to be. But how do I know myself to be that?) I also must not tell anyone here about this. Lord Penelope, my loving husband, would worry for my sanity and, truth be told, I worry a little myself.

Must stop now, my hand is cramping.

*

Day 3 or nine thousand

I write from the bunk I share with my husband and a great sense of dread hangs over me; hangs over the whole ship. Not long after I finished my first journal entry the winds picked up and a storm struck. I was flung all around the cabin and realised that I would be no safer in there than on deck so, despite all protestations, I wound up with my hands on deck, the same as everyone else. Water hit us all so hard and in such volume that it felt as though my very insides were saturated with the stuff. Truth be told, I can still feel it in me now; I ache and there is a kind of squelch to my movements.

It ended, naturally, and I was mostly unharmed, as was Lord Penelope and many of the others I have grown close to. Some were not so lucky; Ship Hand Penelope, Crow's Nest Penelope and some others who I had not become acquainted with, were all washed overboard. We could not give them the send off they deserved but all the crew and passengers had a party in their honour. Some behaved wholly inappropriately, even Captain Penelope, but his adviser Deputy Penelope and I managed to enjoy ourselves without any disrepute. She has truly been a godsend on this trip, I'm not sure even my husband could keep me such good company.

Today, the mourning began and a terrible veil hangs over us all. Deputy Penelope has helped ease me from my gloom; she says that we should count ourselves lucky that the dead were merely bit characters in our lives. Heaven forbid that anything should happen to those we love. We touched each other after she said this and we laughed. I'm not entirely sure that we weren't sisters before stepping onto this ship.

It feels like another storm is brewing.

*

Day 4 or infinity

My dear husband, Lord Penelope, took to his bed this afternoon, so I joined him. He was very tired but I tried to engage him in conversation anyhow. I don't know if it is my friendship with Deputy Penelope or even this very journal but I feel something is changing in me and I needed to share it with him.

'Darling,' I said, 'I have this feeling.'

'Me too,' he replied, 'it's very queer!'

'No, my love, it isn't physical. I have a feeling...' I paused, not knowing how on earth to express myself.

'This. Our life on this ship, it isn't the one I should be having. I feel as though I was born into a life I shouldn't be living. Or that I haven't been born. I just feel that... there are bigger plans for me than this.'

I didn't know that I felt this way until I'd vocalised it. I instantly regretted it; what bigger insult is there to a man than a wife who says she can do better?

I needn't have worried, as Lord Penelope replied with his eyes closed,

'We all feel that sometimes. It's a kind of arrogance and pomposity. You don't think that any other person on this ship wouldn't love to trade places with you? Striving for more, feeling unsatisfied with your lot is a form of greed. Most of us realise this long before we get to the stage of saying such things out loud.'

He rolled over, away from me, and added, 'One shouldn't project one's own character flaws onto others in order to boost one's own confidence. It's unbecoming of a lady.'

If he'd only take his own advice! I feel him slipping away. I don't remember our wedding.

*

Day 6 or six

The crew are sick. Most have taken to their beds, and the few that are up seem as adrift as the ship; they float around, mumbling to themselves and rebounding from wall to wall. I am one of the few who feels fine, but Lord Penelope is bedridden too. Chef Penelope made dinner tonight for those of us still conscious (about eight including her), but we were all distracted. Nobody ate anything; we just put spoons to our lips and then back down to the plate. (We do that every meal but it is the first time I have ever noticed: we don't eat.) Nor did anyone talk, though I saw Deputy Penelope whispering to Captain Penelope about something. Clearly she does not want to cause any alarm but I think she must be thinking the same thoughts as I.

I went back to tend to Lord Penelope and he breathed to me,

'What is the word? What is happening to me?'

'I don't know, my darling.'

I said, though, more and more, terms of affection towards him are said through clenched teeth.

'You suspect,' he said, 'the worst. You think it's...' Then he muttered the word that nobody aboard has dared to for days. He said, 'woodworm.'

My subsequent dismissal and reassurances that he was wrong sounded as false to me as my love for him. I can barely look at him and truly long for him to die. What was it that ever made me fall in love with him? If I could remember, I might feel more attachment to him but I can remember nothing before this journal began. And he seems so... improper; farfetched even. Why is a 'man' with the exact same face and speech as me even called a man? I find myself alarmed now that we all have the exact same face, hair and speech. Even though this is all I know, it feels wrong. I shouldn't have to share my identity with anyone. At the rate the sickness is spreading, I'm sure I soon won't have to.

I need to get off this boat.

*

Day 7 or one

Lord Penelope is dead. I felt no grief for him, nor the rest of the crew. Much of the morning was spent lugging the dead bodies onto the deck and then over the side. Whatever has spared me, Captain Penelope, Deputy Penelope and Chef Penelope, might still be contagious, according to Captain Penelope. Which really means according to Deputy Penelope? Behind every powerful woman, there is another, much more intelligent woman.

Chef Penelope and I threw Lord Penelope over the side and all I felt was alive. Adrift in the middle of the ocean, near no civilisation and with very little chance of rescue, I have never felt like I have so much to live for. (I imagine. Have I ever imagined?) Chef Penelope did not seem to share my feelings, so I tried to stifle the joy in my eyes. Deputy and Captain were over the other side, whispering conspiratorially and glancing over, but I don't think at me.

Would a woman ever become the captain of a ship? It seems unlikely. Maybe that hook is what keeps the Captain interesting. A chef, a lady and a devious accomplice just seem more believable. I don't know where this train of thought is going...

I don't know where I'm going. Somewhere grand, though, I can feel it in my...

*

Day 8 or zero

I am holed up in my cabin, unsure whether I will last the night. So much has happened and I don't know where to begin. I may not finish writing.

Early this morning, I awoke with the sounds of conflict aboard the deck. The Captain was shouting at Chef, while attacking her with a sword. She was defending herself admirably with frying pans while Deputy looked on. I demanded to know what was going on but was ignored, mostly. Deputy sneered at me and then diverted her attention back to the fight. The Captain hammered and hammered with his sword and it was only a matter of time before the blows he was raining down got through.

So I jumped in and kicked her to the ground, not knowing how. I disarmed her and demanded I was told what the hell was going on. Now the Deputy's scheming behaviour came fully to the fore as the Captain laid out her reasoning: she knew that Chef had poisoned everyone and that now she'd poisoned the Captain too. She was trembling at my feet and I finally saw how sick she had become.

'Chef didn't poison us', I said, 'none of us even eat!'

But Captain looked entirely bewildered by that and said that, while ladies may not eat much, men like her had to, to keep up their strength for manly pursuits. Her lack of awareness shocked me. I suppose, not long ago, I too had thought that I had been married to a man. But we're all women, the same woman, made of wood, and I can't see how this isn't apparent to anyone with a brain.

One look at Deputy showed me that she knew exactly what I was saying.

'The lady has been dazzled by her acquaintance with Chef, Captain. End it now, before it's too late!' that evil harridan said.

Shaking, the Captain reached within her coat and pulled out a gun. She shot Chef's head off, before she then died herself. So, for whatever purpose, only we two Penelope's remained.

We both eyed the gun but she moved first, shoving me back and onto the floor, while she turned around to bend over. I had no chance of picking myself up in time to stop her, and the door going under the deck was so close, so I ran. Her shots narrowly missed me as I ducked in and I get the feeling that my surviving thus far was luck. I was not the fittest Penelope, nor the smartest or most resourceful. My strongest attribute has been how easily I fit into my role. And I think that's the key.

I have blockaded the door but I can feel her out there; she will get in.

And I will kill her.

*

Day 9 or one

She chose not to shoot through the door but to abseil down the side of the ship and slip through my porthole. I knew she would and I felt an anger build up inside me. Before, I had hated her because of what she'd done to the others, I held her responsible for every single death. But now, without noticing, I wanted the exact same thing as her; to be the only Penelope. I didn't want to share my face with anyone, certainly not that scheming wench. And that was all she was, a cheap and nasty, run-of-the-mill villainess. So when she came through, I charged at her with more rage than I had ever felt.

The gun was out of her hands in an instant and I hit her across the face until my hands chipped. Then I grabbed any ornaments I could and brought them down hard on her face. She was beating her hands against me but I didn't feel anything until she got in a lucky strike and I tumbled off her. She made to get out of the porthole and, as she did, I picked up her own weapon and shot her in the back. She fell out of the ship, blown in half. I'm ashamed to say that I smiled.

And then it all came together.

The ship stopped with a huge jerk that sent me flying across the cabin. I made my way up to the deck to see that I had beached on an island. With the flurry of recent activity, I had no idea if we had already been approaching the island before now, but I felt so relieved that I wept with joy. I'd never even seen land but I knew that I had found my new home!

Using her rope, I climbed down the side of the ship and made my way up the beach. I headed towards a man in chauffeur attire who was standing next to a big pink car. As I approached, he opened the back door and said, 'M'lady.'

And we began.

**The Psychiatrist and the Pea**

_**Ally Crockford**_

Dr. Brenner was having a bad day. He blamed the cat. Of course, no one else would have blamed the cat, because everyone loved the cat. Except Dr. Brenner: he hated the cat.

The cat was his neighbour's. It was a massive, ugly beast. Or at least, Dr. Brenner thought so. And this morning it had climbed the trellis beside his open kitchen window and knocked a pot of boiling coffee all over Dr. Brenner's feet. "Can cats even climb trellises?" Dr. Brenner wondered as he assisted the cat out of his house with a rather sharp kick in the region of its tail. As if in cahoots with the cat, the rest of the day quickly went downhill. It was raining, his car wouldn't start, and after finally purchasing some coffee he managed to upend the large "two-milk-one-sugar" all over his dress shirt and one-hundred-and-fifty dollar khakis. He was tempted to suck it from the fibres of his tie, but refrained.

By the time he had struggled through his lunch break he had accumulated seventeen bruises, three burns, several scratches, and a splinter in his thumb. Understandably, it was a tired and grumpy Dr. Brenner that slumped into his designer leather chair that morning. To top it off, he cut his finger on a piece of paper. In a rage, he threw the offensive sheet on the floor and took to stomping on it liberally, which was what he was doing when his secretary knocked on his door to tell him that Mr. Peabody was waiting in the lobby.

Mr. Paul Peabody had come to Dr. Brenner with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and severe claustrophobia. His once smooth, emerald face was now an ashen mint-green, lined here and there with creases. Today, the annoyed Dr. Brenner decided to pass the time with a little reminiscence. "Hell,"he thought _,_ "I'll keep the little legume talking for the whole session." And so, with Dr. Brenner's encouragement, Paul stretched back in the psychiatrist's couch and prepared to tell his tale. "Well," he said, "I suppose I should start with the pod..."

...I had a really great childhood. I was raised in a little pea pod, not cramped, understand, but cozy. There were seven of us. Everything we needed was provided for us by the Great and Mysterious "Gardener," which was great, given our lack of limbs. But then one night our pod started shaking terribly. We were all jostled about and thrown against the walls. When it finally stopped, we barely had time to collect our wits (which were strewn about the floor with all other sorts of matter) before our cozy little pod was wrenched in half and we spilled out in terror. I landed on a towering pile of wounded and dying peas, and more were falling from the sky. It was terrible... just terrible...

"Poo!" interjected Dr. Brenner, jabbing at the splinter in his thumb with a safety pin.

Paul glared at the doctor before closing his eyes again.

... _I was alone in the midst of this gore, this tragic destruction of life. So I began searching throughout the chaos. Finally, I saw my mother. My sister had been squished by a falling family of 9, and my mother was huddled over the body – my poor mother, covered in the mush of her child. But I never had time to grieve, because just then something stretched across the sky. Silence and darkness fell on us; every pea turned towards the leviathan hovering above our tragic tableau. Then it reached down and carried me off! I couldn't squirm free, but I shifted myself so that at least I could see where I was going. I was taken up some stairs, and into a very pink, frilly room. And right in the middle of it was this b... this b ... a b ..._

Dr. Brenner jumped in with suggestions: "Bowling ball? Buggy? Beaver? Bed?" At the last word, the little pea shrieked and promptly lost control of his bowels.

"A bed then," the doctor noted. He made a quick call to the custodial office, and signaled Mr. Peabody to go on.

...Anyway, there was... one of those. It was so tall it nearly reached the ceiling. There were at least a hundred mattresses piled on top of each other, and a whole bunch of eiderdown quilts on top of that. I was slipped in, easy as you please, between two of the mattresses near the bottom. Everything was dark and quiet. The blackness was pressing down on me, and I felt suffocated. Then I realized that it wasn't the dark that was pressing down on me, it was ninety-nine mattresses and a bunch of eiderdown quilts. I tried to scream, but there was mattress stuffed into every orifice. I could feel death rushing in on me – who would wish such a horrible end on an innocent pea?

Fortunately, logic soon kicked in and I remembered that I couldn't suffocate since I don't have lungs. But there was still the fact that I was somewhere near the bottom of ninety-nine mattresses and at least ten eiderdown quilts, with no way of getting out. For a while, I pondered my fate. Then I sat in deep contemplation of my misery. As I did so, a great weight dropped down on top of the ninety-nine mattresses and about fifteen eiderdown quilts. Someone began jumping up and down on the bed, shrieking and giggling. It was a girl, and she was laughing... laughing at my pain...

Tears began to flow down Paul's face. They were nearly as big as he was (which wasn't actually that big, but proportionately it was rather impressive). Dr. Brenner was taken aback by this display of emotion. As a man who was disgusted by open feelings, Dr. Brenner might have been in the wrong profession. Fortunately, most of his patients didn't notice his total lack of interest, being so heavily medicated on the drugs that he proscribed. Dr. Brenner considered letting Paul cry for the entire rest of the session and getting paid for not doing anything, which pleased him. But then he remembered that he hadn't been doing anything in the first place and that crying annoyed him.

So, picking up a stray staple, he flicked it at the weeping legume. The staple narrowly missed Paul's watery eye, which caught the pea's attention. He stopped crying, and blinked at the doctor.

"Sorry about that, I slipped. Best get back to your story," said Dr. Brenner. Paul continued:

_... The jumping got worse. In fact, it became so vigorous that the mattresses began to come apart. I decided that this was my only chance, so each time the mattresses bounced, I hopped along with them, and over to the side. Eventually I managed to hop my way out of the mattress and onto the floor. I rolled myself under a desk and hid, but I knew that the desk wouldn't keep me safe for long. Eventually, I made a mad dash for the door. Halfway there I was hit by a pillow. Being human, you might think that it's no big deal being hit by a pillow thrown from a hundred mattresses up, but – being a pea –_ _I_ _was knocked unconscious._

I don't know how long I was out, but when I woke up I could hear voices coming through the open door. I decided to follow them and see where they came from – maybe I could find my family again. As I left the room, I glanced over my shoulder at the bed, all those mattresses and upwards of twenty eiderdown quilts. They were glaring down at me, looming over me with their feathers and coils. So I got the heck out of there...

Paul was interrupted by a loud snoring noise. He looked up and saw that Dr. Brenner had settled back against soft black leather and promptly fallen asleep. The pea coughed softly, then less softly. He didn't have to worry. Just then Dr. Brenner's nap – and Paul's coughing – were interrupted by a familiar 'meow.' Sliding out of his semi-erotic daydreams, Dr. Brenner shushed the pea and listened closely. But Paul Peabody was enjoying his story-teller role, so he ignored the good doctor's shushing:

... _I followed the voices down a long carpeted hall lined with doors. I paused at the top of a flight of stairs and looked down at a table filled with people. At its head was, I later learned, a prince, seated beside his princess. She laughed – she had a shrill, simpering giggle – and I recognized her from the night before._

I was rolling down the stairs when I heard a casual phrase that turned my blood cold...

"Would you please pass the peas?"

Six simple words that terrified me more than anything I had been through. No longer caring for my safety, I raced down the rest of the stairs and across the rich carpets to the room with the table. I looked up and saw steam rising from the boiled bodies of my kin. Piled on a spoon, they were carried up, over, and into the mouth of the princess. I watched, transfixed, as her jaw chewed – up and down – gnashing their frail bodies. I –

"That damned cat," Dr Brenner hissed, completely ignoring his patient. Again he stood still, listening closely. Then - "It's here!" He slowly moved closer to the window, then threw it open and looked down. Nothing was there. Infuriated, Dr. Brenner yelled for Paul to "finish his goddamned story." And so Paul continued:

_...At first, I was heartbroken... then furious. I began to form a plan of revenge, one that would rid me of all the pain and misery these people had doled out to me like some sort of "slaw" at a picnic. I managed, with effort, to get on the princess's plate without being seen. I would wait as long as I had to until she picked me up in some chance forkful. If things went the way I planned them to, it would be her last. Unfortunately, when do things ever go the way we planned them to? I planned for my life to be boring, uneventful. The same life that pea after pea has lived since the beginning of time: a simple life with one_ _PURPOSE. The one and only PURPOSE_ _of a pea is to one day aid in the reproduction of new pea plants and, someday, new peas. But that obviously didn't happen since here I was, nestled in amongst the corpses of my fellow peas._

_I lay there in wait, like a lion or a tiger in the tall grass, majestic and proud as they stalk their prey. I was ready. But then something terrible – and completely unaccounted for – happened: the plates were taken away! Somehow, whether psychic ability, paranoia, or some odd talent, the princess had managed to eat her way around every morsel of food on her plate except for myself and a chicken bone! I had to think fast. As the plate was lifted up past the princess's face I took aim and leapt, lodging myself directly in her left nostril. The princess sneezed, sending me_ _flying_ _across the room. The impact knocked me unconscious again, and when I woke up, you'll never believe –_

"Time's up!" Dr. Brenner said, yawning. "Well, I really think we've made progress here, Paul." He stood up to stretch, but froze in the middle of scratching his stomach. He'd heard it again – a faint, familiar meowing.

"CAT!" screamed Dr. Brenner. "CAT!" At this, Paul somewhat lost it.

"You haven't been listening at all, you incompetent boob!" Ignoring him, Dr. Brenner flung open the office door and bellowed, "Go away, you hateful feline!" He then turned to find himself facing one angry pea.

Without warning, Paul flew off the couch and -smack! - into Dr. Brenner's face (which was surprisingly painful). This, of course, lead to a noisy (and rather interesting) brawl. It mostly consisted of Dr. Brenner crawling around on the floor trying to squash Paul with his thumb, and of Paul trying to avoid Dr. Brenner's thumb while jumping on and off pieces of office furniture, delivering one blow after another to the doctor's head, neck, or buttocks.

This was what the cat had waited for. Without announcing himself to the secretary, as the placard on the door had instructed him to, the cat calmly settled down in front of the door.

Inside the office, the fight was winding down. Paul was getting tired from all his jumping, and Dr. Brenner's thumb was bruised and carpet-burned. The two of them collapsed on the carpet. They rested a moment before Paul got up and hopped over to the door.

"Thank you, Dr. Brenner. Same time next week?" he asked.

"Yes, I look forward to it."

Several things then occurred in quick succession. Sitting up, legs splayed, Dr. Brenner opened the door for the pea – his eyes caught a glimpse of a grey and white tail – he opened his mouth to cry a warning! But the cat was too quick. Before Paul even had time to register the feel of rough cat-taste-buds on his skin, he slid down into the belly of the cat.

Dr. Brenner couldn't move. He sat there, frozen, the door half open with his hand still on the doorknob. The cat, with great poise and tranquillity, lightly stepped over Dr. Brenner's left leg and stood facing him, looking him in the eye. Unblinking, Dr. Brenner watched as the cat spat what was possibly the world's largest hairball into his one-hundred-and-fifty dollar khaki lap and walked away, its tail swaying haughtily.

**Quite Unlike Hepburn**

_**Rob Stringer**_

"Sorry to bother you, but I know you from somewhere, don't I?"

She let out a quiet sigh into her glass, and stirred it into the transparent pool of martini. Of course it bothered her. She politely leaned back from the bar and examined him with a feminine rapidity. He wasn't _bad_ looking. Well-dressed, no tie, compassionate laughter-lines, hair in all honesty quite healthy for his autumn years. She might even have enjoyed indulging in conservation with him. Perhaps even another drink. Maybe more. But she couldn't leave Sophie at home with the kids all night, or even walk in through the door with him like some brazen... well. Besides she had no inkling if this man's intentions were even dishonourable. Was he actually chatting her up?

She'd grown weary of these extended glances offered to her by the tactless and naïve. Weary of their frowns as they searched through their memories for her face; forgotten friends, colleagues, ex-girlfriends, weathergirls, dentists. Never, ever being able to place her. They weren't to blame.

At first she'd enjoyed the attention, the first significant step to the bliss of celebrity. She would be seen by hundreds every day. _Thousands_.

If anyone happened to approach her she would gracefully and enthusiastically satisfy their query. No Prima Donna was she.

But that was nine years ago, and since then no movie executives had whisked her off to her glittering paradise of premieres and shampoo advertisements.

Worldwide recognition, or utter anonymity. Each extreme chimed as a separate and beautiful dream. Not this limbo of sputtering interrogation. Tired, but polite, she answered the man.

"I don't think so, no."

"Oh. My apologies."

He took his drinks and she watched as he seated himself at a table with, of course, his wife. Jacqueline downed her drink - swallowing back the sigh for the next occasion – reached for her caramel-brown cardigan, folded up on the next barstool like a docile pet, and stepped out into blue frost and street-lit silence.

*

With the caution of a cat burglar, she nudged the door to her terraced house open so as not to summon its creak and wake the kids. If they asked in the morning she would assure them she was back by ten. It was nearly midnight and she could hear Sophie's dulcet accent emanating from the other side of the sofa, occasionally giving way to the tinny mumble from her mobile phone. Sophie had no accent as such, it was more a collage of locations spanning England that teenagers now seemed to acquire, both articulate and simple, injected with stressed H's and dropped T's; quite pretty to hear really - especially through Sophie's honeyed intonation.

Jacqueline damned her own voice, an almost flawless product of traditional parenting. Sophie's voice was scented with Jack Daniels; Jacqueline's reeked of Jane Austen.

"Hey Miss Price, how was the meal?" enquired Sophie when the tinny mumble had ceased. "I thought you might be...accompanied," she added with a grin.

"Boring bosses, dreary wives. How've they been?"

"Yeah, good. Annie gave a bit of fuss, but I read to her and she was knocked out by seven. Matty was in his room the whole night, doing homework he said. I checked on him at nine and he was already asleep, bless him."

"Thank you Sophie." She took two notes from inside her handbag and pressed them into Sophie's hands.

"No problem Miss Price. I'm busy the next couple of nights but let me know if you want me after that."

Was that a 'look'? For an uncomfortable moment, it had seemed like Sophie was flirting with her. Was that just how girls behaved now? Coyly suggestive to both boys and single mothers down the road alike? It was probably just her imagination. Sophie didn't have the audacity. Still, perhaps it would have been... nice... if she had been flirting a little. Not in a Sappho-in-dungarees way you understand. Oh shush Jacqueline; it's time for bed.

"Thank you."

Jacqueline watched as Sophie effortlessly slipped on her trainers and jacket and evaporated into the night, then sighed as she paced upstairs, sneaked past Annie and Matthew's rooms and climbed into bed.

In the next room, Matthew's pillow was damp with tears.

*

"Annie, don't play with the mail, some of those letters might be important. You've got yolk on your cheek. Come here. I'll wipe it off. Don't touch the pepper, I've just hoovered. Eat your breakfast. I'll get a cloth."

Annie stared, fascinated, at the yellow goo coating her chubby fingers. At school she'd been allowed to do this with the lurid paint and had practically covered a sheet of paper bigger than her own body with sunny handprints and sweeping meteor trails of glitter. A little 'handy war-hole' her teacher had called her. She had no idea what a war-hole was and why indeed it should be handy, but from the praise she'd received afterwards she assumed it must be a good thing and from that moment had chosen to dedicate her every waking moment to the cause.

Matthew returned with the cloth and wiped the creative residue from her face, fingers and blue school sweatshirt before sitting down again to his own egg and toast. He neatly piled up the post again and when he and his sister had cleared their plates of food (in one way or another), he collected the dishes and placed them next to the sink. That was when Jacqueline appeared in a white cotton dressing gown.

"Mum, we have to go in ten minutes, I can't be late again. Mrs Horne will make me tidy the store cupboard."

Jacqueline gazed vacantly at the sink. The remnants of black kohl clung mercilessly around her eyes.

"Sorry Matthew. I'll make your sandwiches."

"I've done it. Sophie calls me Matt. Aren't you working today?"

"This afternoon." She turned towards the staircase.

"Oh, and Mum?" Matthew picked up one of the egg-stained envelopes from the table and hesitantly offered it to his mother. "There's one for Dad again." Jacqueline took it, attempting an encouraging smile to her son. He watched expectantly.

"Thank you Matty," She closed her eyes. "Put Annie's shoes on. I'll be down again in a minute."

Jacqueline returned upstairs to her bedroom and trembling, she closed the door behind her.

Not even credit card touts would let him rest in peace. She dropped the offending letter in the bin and opened her wide, chipped wardrobe, the door swinging out to reveal her reflection.

Jacqueline examined the eyes that Matthew had inherited. In another life she had been Audrey Hepburn.

Jacqueline closed her eyes and found that her own image had been imprinted in light on her eyelids.

Like a camera.

Click.

Click.

She was still taking these immaterial stills when she heard the front door creak twice followed by the distant murmur of Matthew coaxing Annie from the puddles.

*

Her husband's clothes were contained in black plastic sacks in the loft. Jacqueline pushed a sad, tangled kite aside, pulled out one chubby bag with a white label marked "Tom – Casual" and began to work its rabbit-eared knot out with her fingernails, before giving up and stretching the bag until it graciously tore, delivering bundles of jumpers and shirts.

A thick chequered shirt spattered with paint that matched the bathroom walls.

A woolly sweater that almost still smelt of the salt of the Orkney Islands.

A grey hooded sweatshirt that he would wear to run in, and would later use to swathe Matthew's pink body in one winter evening after a happy bath and a power cut left them huddled on a sofa, absorbed in voices from the radio.

She picked up the last of these and pulled it over herself, tugging the hood over her un-Hepburn-like hair.

Jacqueline left the house, tucking a bottle of vodka into the front pocket of the sweater.

*

The train station was always quiet around midday. The clash of graffiti spoke more than the commuters, sunk into headphones and magazines.

In some cultures, Jacqueline had heard, cameras were avoided with deathly conviction. It was believed that the mechanism could reach into the ether and snatch the soul of its subject.

Jacqueline wondered how many souls lay piled up behind the curtain of the ClickHere photo booth.

She unscrewed the bottle and coated the booth, both inside and out, then stood back, searching fruitlessly for her sense of rationale. The smell was overpowering. Sweet and sharp. She drew in its unrealised energy. It practically begged her to allow it to actualise its potential. But Jacqueline waited, teasing it, letting it seep down the booth, onto the shabby red curtain, over the coin slot and the hole. Over the face of the ClickHere girl.

(A girl whose white blouse and guiltless smile spoke of another life. A husband who flew kites with her in September and fell to his knee in March. Painted walls and rolls of fresh carpet. A child on the way – a boy perhaps. Skin that glowed with potential.)

Jacqueline struck a match and threw it into the booth. The reaction was instantaneous and the heat swept over her as she played audience to the violently stunning spectacle of nature performing in front of her, the flames that worked on the curtain and blackened the plastic frame, but most of all, the shrivelling, curling and wrinkling of the ClickHere girl. Jacqueline looked on as her past became thick, grey, intoxicating smoke.

She was still watching when the sirens arrived.

*

"Annie, sit down. I said sit down. Sit properly. No Annie, that's Matty's mashed potato – don't wipe it over the table it's – oh I see, it's a face. Very good." Jacqueline moved as if choreographed from the fridge to the table and placed a carton of orange juice between the three of them. The police had only just left.

"Perhaps it's time we bought you an easel."

"She's a tortured artiste, mum. An easel is too conventional for her experimental talents."

"Where do you learn to speak like that, Matty?"

"Why?"

"It's very nice."

Matthew wiped his sister's mouth.

"Thanks for picking us up today."

"You're welcome."

Jacqueline began to measure the juice into three equal glasses.

"It's funny how you didn't see who burnt down that photo booth. What were you doing at the station anyway?"

"Looking at timetables. I'm thinking of taking you and Little Miss Pollock up to Blackpool for a weekend."

"Right. Cool."

She screwed the lid back onto the carton.

"Mum?" ventured Matthew.

"What is it, sweetie?" replied Jacqueline as she placed the glasses in front of each of them.

"You know there's like, at least a hundred more of those photo booths in this county alone. You'd never be able to do them all."

Jacqueline looked into her son's eyes. Quite unlike Hepburn. Quite unlike anything.

An almost imperceptible smile passed between them as Jacqueline raised her glass.

"Cheers."

"Cheers."

"Oh Annie, I'll get a cloth."

**Slow Life**

_**R. M. Morrison**_

For Fiona, thank you.

Dedicated to John Steinbeck

The sun hung like a fat ole orange an was bakin the tar just by bein. The trunks a the dried-out trees stood like ole dubya-dubya vets not wantin to accept that glory was over.

The highway stretched out fer seven-hundretn-sixty-eight miles. No houses. No truck stops. None a what you'd call permanent livin arrangements.

A Dimenback shook its warnin a ways on up the highway, oblivious a the eighty-five year ole turtle takin its time headin north a few feet away. The turtle walked sure an steady long the unbroken white line at the side a the road, just as it'd been doin for most a its life; not really goin anywhere in particilar, just goin. Over the years, the turtle had learn to move fast when the sun burned high an airless in the sky cus this was the time when them uns who yipped an yelped kep quiet. Them kiyoats loved the dark. Sumbitches dint like the warm blanket that the sun lowered ever day so they slep.

A red nineteen-seveny-nine Chevrolet with its top down et up the road toard the turtle. The turtle felt a rumblin when the vehicle was roughly fifteen miles away. Now it was a mile an a half off but loud. The turtle stopped an'd begun to slide its lethry legs inside. Its front claws scrabbled at the dirt for a short while. Its ole brain told im there weren't no time fer that.

The woman drivin the Chevvy sang at the top a her voice; one a them bubbgum pop songs everone seems to be singin nowadays. She dint see the turtle, ever. It brung its small head inside its shell. As it listened to that engine roarin just louder an louder an coudn help imsel thinkin back them tweny odd years.

*

It was dark that time too. The moon was tryin hard to light the road. Four drunk college studens had stole a car an decided to take a trip. Things moved, cried in the blackness. With no sof dirt aroun, the turtle had long settled on the side a the road.

A rumble in the distance. All them other noises stopped, that rumble spoke for all avum. Yella light, one the colour a them cigret butts, lit up the turtle an he knew sumpin bad was gone happen.

The car slammed the turtle-shell bump in the road. Them boys laughed, drivin off in a suck a wind, leavin a beer can, an overturned turtle an quiet.

But not for long.

That quiet was ripped open by a kiyoat's yippin only a few feet away from the turtle. Poor thing rocked an swayed, tryin despertly to right itself. It knew the dog was too close, this mighta bin the end. Awful barks rang out, fillin the desert. Then there was quiet agin. The only soun was the turtle's shell scratchin an grindin at the sand. Then it came. The kiyoat growled close to the turtle's head an flicked at the shell with its snout, spinnin it twice. Its wet mouth dripped warm. Thin saliva slopped onto the turtle's underbelly.

The kiyoat lifted his head, looked aroun the black.

A flash a yella then nuthin.

A roar exploded. The kiyote shifted back a step or two. Yella eyes were all it could see. The cougar's body soaked out a the night an pounced onto the kiyote, jaws everwhere. The turtle foun itself righted an took no amoun a time in movin beside that rock. Four feet away the cougar bit an tore an ripped at the bloody, dead dog for another thirty minutes. The turtle waited quietly for the sun.

*

The Chevvy struck the turtle square on the back an lost control. Its tyres howled agains the hot, slick road, powdered ornge by the desert's dust, an slid to a stop. The blonde woman open the door an stumbled out. The turtle dint move.

"Jesus Christ, ya dumb animal!" the blonde woman shouted. "Coulda friggin' kilt me!"

She was worried. It was breakin a fedral law to harm one a these animals. She knew it.

She looked at the turtle not movin; the guilt settled. She snuck, cautious, toard the animal all the while sayin,

"You okay there, Mr. Turtus? I dint see ya there. You're a big guy, aintcha?"

She brushed its shell with her fingers.

"C'mon, Mr. Turtus. Tell me you're okay."

It slid its head out softly, tongued the edge a its mouth an began walkin agin.

"Phewee!" the blonde woman sighed, "I thought you was a goner, mister." The relief was all over er an she skipped back over to er car. "Stay outta the road, you gotdamn idiot!"

Dust poured over the turtle as the woman floored her gas pedal. When the dust had let go, she an her red car was gone.

*

The sun spat blood into the earl evenin sky. It wouldn be long fore it have to say good day, leave the turtle for another while. It'd been charged with visitin ever other livin thing on the earth once a day for the rest a days. In eighty-five years the turtle'd grown to appreciate that.

The road was quiet. A small hill about fifteen metres away had unsettled the turtle. It could hear the roadrunners shootin aroun, lookin for Sidewiners an Heela monsters. At the side a the road, somethin made the turtle weary. Mine an your eye mighta missed it but his concentration was train solely on a cullaful shapeless object that moved along the groun like a cloud. As the turtle got closer, a trail a small creatures slidin toards the thing. Fire ants, them red bodies were unmistakable now. Thousan pon thousan were swarmin outta the four foot hill down to join the cloud.

The turtle shifted, walked toard the middle a the road. As the turtle was crossin it looked back to the ants. Somethin else made the bulk a that cloud; somethin that excited them ants. The turtle stopped an watched closely.

A dragonfly had lost a wing an was buzzin along the dirt, tryna get the vicious red ants off a is body. The dragonfly was about fifteen centimetres long an there was already a thousan or so ants on im. The dragonfly was already dead, he jus dint know it yet.

The turtle thought how those little critters could easily get inside its shell. One sting was all it woulda took. It moved quickly across the road onto the other side where the groun was sof an began to dig an within an hour it was in a burra a half a foot deep with his head checkin the horizon.

Then the quiet came; the night came.

The moon waxed so bright it washed out the stars. Blue light invented faces an figures in the twilight desert. Trees stretched long fingers over grey sand with their shadowy, dead branches.

A hare kicked up a cloud a dust over to the west. The turtle sat an rested. It could see quite a ways from its burra, but nuthin came. After a while the turtle slep. It never dreamt.

*

The sun woke the turtle, splashin warmth on its burra. The turtle looked across the road, saw nuthin but desert. The hill, only small, managed to loom a large shadow into the road in the earl mornin sun. The turtle dint wait. He just kep on.

*

It was about mid-day when the turtle began to feel his age. It'd been tweny years since it'd seen another turtle. Thirty since the last time it copulated; now that time felt heavy. The turtle, for the third time in tweny-four hours, was contemplatin what it be like to die.

It saw its body, still, lyin at the side a the road. Days would pass fore anythin'd take notice but after a while, a kiyoat'd come an flick the shell with its paw. Without any life, the dog would sume the shell was empty an move on.

A few more days would pass an nuthin. A Heela monsterd scuttle up side the turtle. It fish its head inside a the shell, it pull out a hunk a meat. The lizard would stay there for maybe an hour fore movin off.

A few more hours would pass an the kiyoat'd come back an finish the job. It'd flip the shell over an rip into the soft underbelly a the turtle. It'd leave nuthin but shell an bone. One a the turtle's front legs would lay a few meters away.

The turtle watched as time went on. Houses would grow straight out a the dirt. Small childern would unearth its remains some tweny years later. They'd play with it for maybe ten minutes then jus throw it away. Their mother'd pick it up an put it in the trash. She'd shake her head and go back inside.

This was not the way the turtle wanted things to be. It would seek out water. Find another turtle. Mate. Stay alive.

*

It walked for two days until it hit a stream. The water in the stream was brick brown, thick. The turtle followed the stream until it opened up into a flat plain tricklin with clear water.

It looked out across the plain an saw two or three other turtles an walked toard em. Its eager front legs skidded at the groun, unused to the softer muddier land. Gettin its footin, it stood an stepped agin. This time fire burnt into its flesh.

A mound the turtle had missed through excitement had erupted, fire ants poured out a it. The turtle panicked; took its head an legs in. The ants took no time in crawlin through the holes, onto the turtle. They bit, they pinched, they scissored along its lethry skin.

The turtle pushed out a the shell agin an slid slowly into the water. But the ants dint move, they just kep on bitin an stingin, bitin an stingin. The turtle fell into a deep hole that was hidin in the shallows an sank. The ants, one by one, fell away, drown.

The turtle moved along the bed a the pool, tryin to get out. Its feet tryin hard to swim. In all its eighty-five years, this Giant Turtus had never came into contact with so much water. So it calmed, an it sat, an it waited. Soon the burnin stopped. The turtle was at least thankful for that.

**The Society of Noncommittals**

_**Alistair Daniel**_

_From:_ _vgully@cyclopaediaonline.co.uk_

To: jwales@harvard.edu

Dear Dr Wales,

Thank you for submitting this intriguing article to Cyclopaedia Online. I must confess the subject is one with which I have scant familiarity, but the thrill of discovery is, of course, one of the pleasures of our enterprise.

As we are perilously close to launch, I have uploaded your entry to our site, but please note that there are a number of outstanding issues with your contribution. You do not seem to have followed our guidelines at all! As you ought to be aware, it is the responsibility of each contributor to ensure that his or her article is properly referenced. Unlike certain other online 'resources', we don't just let any idiot edit our content.

_I have attached your article here, indicating the areas that need work in footnotes. Please give them your_ __urgent__ _attention. The site is due to go live in 24 hours!_

Sincerely,

Vernon Gully, BA, MPhil

Editorial Director, Cyclopaedia Online

PS. I apologise if my tone in what follows is a little brusque – as you know, we are under extreme time pressure!

Thomas Cras (1709-38)

[Draft Cyclopaedia entry by Dr James Wales]

Thomas Cras, the founder of Noncommittalism, was born near London on 21 March 17091, the product of an unlikely union between Benjamin Cras, a Whig MP, and Isabella MacDonald, a Jacobite from Inverness. As a boy, Cras received an early lesson in circumspection from his warring parents, whose furious debates often drew a crowd to the threshold of their Hampstead home. It was said that young Cras quickly learned to agree with either parent while privately questioning both, and this scepticism was to prove the wellspring of his later fame.2

In 1729, Cras entered Pembroke College, Oxford, where he soon earned a reputation as a versatile debater, certain to inherit his father's parliamentary seat. But his unconventional appearance provoked the censure of his professors. 'He wears his periwig scented with lavender on a Monday, orange flower on a Wednesday, and no scent at all on a Friday,' one tutor observed3. 'His beard grows about him in patches, as if unwilling to determine what course to pursue. His stockings are subject to the weather, and much the same might be said of his philosophy. His only constant is inconstancy, on which point he is most tenacious and inflexible.'

It was not long before his refusal to subscribe to his professors' opinions forced him to drop out and he returned to London where, from modest lodgings on Fleet Street, he devoted himself to a rigorous critique of metaphysics. In 1734 his radical tract, _An_ _Enquiry into the Nature of Ambivalence_ , was published. Now considered the founding text of 'Noncommittalism', the _Enquiry_ famously asserted that: 'a man may hold any opinion so long as he readily admit that the opposite be just as likely to be true.'4

The _Enquiry_ was an overnight sensation. More than 30,000 copies were printed, while a second tract, _On Reflection_ (in which Cras sided with his critics), was similarly successful. In the wake of this acclaim, Cras founded the legendary5 Society of Noncommittals: a radical organisation dedicated to the promotion of ambivalence. For the duration of its brief, controversial existence, the society was far more than just another radical club. Its contributions to contemporary debates such as free will, the problem of knowledge and the shape of parliamentary democracy, were literally immeasurable and, in its championing of the individual conscience, it offered a formidable weapon against the despotic impulses of the age.6

Every Thursday afternoon – or Monday evening, as the inclination took them – the Noncommittals convened at Moll Breakwater's coffee house in Soho, where Cras, who was re-elected chairman most weeks, introduced the subject for debate. Each member was obliged to speak twice: first to advance the proposition, and later to refute it. They were expected to be equally vehement in both causes, and if a member was caught in possession of a firm opinion, he was suspended from the second floor window by his pants7 until he admitted his misgivings. One member, Robert Gough, who objected to this rough practice on the grounds that it implied too great a faith in gravity, later died from head injuries sustained in circumstances that are not entirely clear.

When each speaker had refuted their earlier position, two votes were cast – one to pass the motion, the other to overturn it – and members brought the meeting to a close with the solemn recitation of their pledge: _nolumus statuere_ ('we do not wish to decide'), made with their fingers firmly crossed behind their backs.

The society soon attracted a large following and, for a time, it seemed that Noncommittalism was destined to become the coolest8 doctrine in the kingdom. However, it was not to everyone's taste. Samuel Johnson9 complained that it was impossible to engage a Noncommittal in debate, 'they being so confoundedly changeable in all things, like May weather'10 while George Berkeley dubbed Cras 'an unconscionable douche-bag.'11 Other criticisms were more severe. Benjamin Cras blamed his defeat in the 1735 parliamentary election on his son, claiming that his ideas had eroded his constituents' capacity for decision-making, while the king himself was said to be concerned that 'this debilitating philosophy' might infect the upper echelons of the army at a time when the Scots were again fomenting rebellion. It was even rumored that Cras had developed his ideas at the behest of his mother in order to plunge the United Kingdom into civil war. The origin of the rumor remains unknown (but, I mean, duhhh).12

Most damaging of all, Cras' enemies were quick to label him 'Doubting Thomas'; a soubriquet that carried more than a touch of venom. Against the advice of his friends, Cras publicly ridiculed the nickname, pointing out that Saint Thomas, who accepted the truth of the resurrection only after feeling Jesus' wounds, was if anything far too credulous, and that the injuries in question might equally have been the result of an unusually symmetrical carpentry accident.13 It was comments like this that first drew Cras to the attention of his most awesome adversary: Porteus Finch, the Bishop of London.

In September 1737, Bishop Finch summoned Cras to his chambers in Aldersgate Street to warn him that he was flirting with 'abominable heresies'.14 Cras's vigorous denials succeeded in deflecting further scrutiny of the society's affairs, but his luck couldn't hold forever and when, in May 1738, Cras was called as a witness in a dispute between two of Moll Breakwater's patrons over a rabbit pie15, he made a fatal mistake. Taking the stand, Cras refused to swear to tell the whole truth, arguing that such a thing was possible only for God – assuming, of course, that He existed.

Seizing his opportunity, Finch ordered the constable of Soho to launch a lightning raid on Moll Breakwater's coffee house, where the patrons who denied their commitment to the Noncommittal cause were immediately arrested, while those who 'fessed up were released. Cras himself was thrown into Newgate prison to await the chair **.** **16** It was in such desperate circumstances that the drawbacks of Noncommittalism were cruelly exposed, as despite the tearful entreaties of both parents, Cras was never quite able to commit himself to the King, the Church of England, or the Catholic cause.

From the scaffold at Tyburn, Cras protested that the whole business was most unfair, although he added that he entirely understood why the error had occurred, and had he been in a similar position he might well have thought likewise, which was by no means to condone his own persecution. Although it could be said to have grounds. He continued in this vein for some time, but the people grew impatient, and his words were drowned out by the cries of the certain.17

**The Secret of the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for One**

_**Michael Forester**_

The secret of the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for Two lies in combining precisely the right ingredients, cooked in precisely the correct order, for precisely the optimum cooking time. It helps enormously if you have had precisely twenty-six years experience in doing so.

You must first set aside:

1 carrot

1 onion

2 small courgettes

6 medium mushrooms

1 green pepper

_4 cloves garlic_ (crushed)

8 oz Arborio rice

_1.5 pts stock,_ (made with two _OXO_ vegetable stock cubes)

Salt and Pepper

_1 bottle of White Wine,_ (the Italian Pinot Grigio which you will have first discovered on honeymoon in Tuscany twenty-six years ago to the day)

Tuscan Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Use of any other ingredients in any other proportions will be detrimental to the result overall.

The wine should be topped up to the one-and-a-half pint mark with _Malvern Still Spring Water_. This is in commemoration of the many weekends you will have spent driving the roads of the Malvern Hills for no better reason than to drop your husband off at the commencement of his hike and later pick him up at a precise time of his specification at another specified location. Arriving late at the specified location will be detrimental to the marriage overall.

The Pinot Grigio/water mix should be placed in the microwave for exactly four-and-a-half minutes on a high setting before the addition of the _OXO_ cubes. Heating for any longer will be detrimental to the result overall.

The Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for Two is always, always, always made on a Friday evening and must be ready at precisely 7.00pm when your husband will walk through the door from "the gym", which he has visited on his way home from work almost unfailingly for the last twenty-six years. Serving the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for Two late will be very, very detrimental to the marriage overall.

You are advised to lay the dining table by 6.07pm, placing the table mats, cutlery, glasses, condiments and wine cooler in precisely the same locations each week (a soft tape measure is helpful for this purpose; metal tape measures should be avoided, due to their propensity to scratch tables when held in severely shaking hands). Failure to place the items precisely is unlikely to be detrimental to the result overall. However, it will contribute to the diminution of the emotional well-being of the cook.

Commence preparation of the food at 6.11pm by slicing the vegetables into similarly-sized pieces. Should the size of the pieces vary significantly, cut the larger ones again until they are all similarly sized. Failure to do so will result in some of the pieces being over-cooked and others undercooked. This will be detrimental to the result overall. It may also have the unanticipated consequence of causing your husband to lock you out of the house overnight. Should this occur in mid-January, should it be snowing, and should you live in the Lake District National Park, some 1.37 miles from the nearest neighbour, this will be detrimental to your health overall.

Next, at 6.27pm and 30 seconds, add the salt, pepper and crushed garlic to the Arborio rice and begin frying the mixture in an appropriate quantity of Tuscan extra virgin olive oil. It is essential that the oil must, without fail, be Tuscan. This is the case even if you do not know how to recognise Tuscan extra virgin olive oil, even if there are no shops locally that sell Tuscan extra virgin olive oil, even if Tuscan extra virgin olive oil tastes precisely the same as all other extra virgin olive oils and even if you have no money with which to buy Tuscan extra virgin olive oil. Whilst failure to use Tuscan extra virgin olive oil will not be detrimental to the result overall, it can result in bottle breakages and the application of broken glass to your forearms and wrists.

Leaving the olive oil bottle on the kitchen unit after you have used it can have either positive or negative results, depending on the mood of your husband when he comes through the door. Sometimes it has been known to lead to husbands reminiscing positively about their honeymoons. On such occasions you must expect that after dinner sexual activity of a variety specified by your husband will be required. Failure to acquiesce to his choice of sexual activity, however unpalatable, will be detrimental to the marriage overall and may result in the severe bruising and tearing of sensitive tissue. Alternatively, if your husband's disposition on coming through the door is negative, the sight of the Tuscan extra virgin olive oil bottle may result in aggressive language connected with his regret at "being conned into marrying you all those years ago, you fucking bitch." Bruising, broken limbs and tearing of sensitive tissue has not been known on such occasions but cannot be ruled out. Overall, leaving the olive oil bottle on the kitchen worktop is not recommended.

At 6.31pm and 15 seconds, begin adding the stock slowly to the rice and stir continuously. At 6.32pm precisely begin the addition of the carrots. Should this be your twenty-sixth wedding anniversary, you are advised to avoid thinking about your husband's failure ever to remember to give you an anniversary card, a cheap bunch of flowers from the petrol station, or even so much as a bar of fucking chocolate. Experience has shown this to result in heightened emotions which can cause the cook to forget the precise cooking times that are required in the making of the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for Two. It can also result in uncontrollable tears which can drip from the cook's face into the cooking liquid, which will be detrimental to the result overall.

At 6.38pm add more stock and the onions. Continue stirring.

At 6.45pm add more stock and the courgettes. Continue stirring

At 6.51pm add the remaining stock and the mushrooms. Continue stirring until all the liquid is absorbed. Leaving any liquid in the bottom of the pan risks its later use in deliberate scalding, which will be detrimental to your health overall.

At 6.54pm serve the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for Two on two heated places and place into the oven to keep warm.

Between 6.55pm and 6.59pm, clear the kitchen, whilst recalling through your tears the text your husband had omitted to remove from the screen of his phone the previous evening before falling into a drunken stupor. Even if you are sobbing uncontrollably and cannot recall the exact words, it is important to remember that they read something like,

"Hey babes, I'm sooooo horny for you. My legs are open and my pussy's wet. See you tomorrow at 4.00 in the usual place."

At 7.00pm precisely, when your husband walks through the kitchen door, after twenty-six years of acquiescence to his every whim, lose control. Grab the carving knife you left unconsciously on the kitchen work top by the door and using an upward curved motion stab it repeatedly into the left side of his chest, screaming, "Bastard, bastard, bastard," through your tears in time with each stab. Tears will not be detrimental to the result overall. Novice wielders of knives may be unsure as to how many applications of the knife are required to terminate the heart's activity. However, the Coroner will later report that twenty-six were more than sufficient to stop it from beating.

When you are certain your husband is dead, wipe your tears and call the police. Given a good barrister and sympathetic jury, it will not be long before you are able to settle down to the Perfect Vegetarian Risotto for One. Your husband's absence from your life will not be detrimental to your future overall.

**The Change**

_**Michael Forester**_

"What do you crave most at this moment?" I ask, my voice barely audible in the falling twilight.

The Returner stands before me, dishevelled, weary. His long grey beard is unkempt, his hands are callused from a lifetime of physical labour. He looks at me momentarily, considering his answer carefully. "Power," he replies, making no attempt to embellish the response with implausible justifications. This man is a Truth Speaker.

I have seen the answer already, of course. Long, long ago I learned to read the hearts of The Returners by looking into their eyes. Some might make a feeble attempt to resist me, hoping I will see nothing but my own reflection when I peer into their souls. None succeed. Always, I win. Always, I see the visions of frustration their eyes still hold. For they have done battle with the fire and with the ice, The Returners. And they have lost.

Thus, they have had to suppress their weariness, their howling, screaming exhaustion a little longer as they return to me once more. For it is I alone who can offer The Change they seek. There is no other to whom they can turn at Journey's End. I am The Gate Keeper. I hold the only Key to The Change. And they know that without The Change there can be no Power.

Once, very long ago, I sought to influence their use of The Power. I tried to tell them that it held great danger, that it needed to be used with utmost care. But that was long, long ago. Now I have acknowledged that once I grant The Change that gives access to The Power I can exercise no further control over how it is utilised. Some of The Returners use The Power to become enlightened, bringing warmth and illumination to those they love. Sadly, others – the Unwise Ones – will misuse The Power. These are they that will burn and be burned. But I cannot fool myself. So long as the Returners furnish me with The Note I have no right to withhold The Change, for I myself am answerable to a Higher Authority.

As I look into the eyes of the one who stands before me now, I know that this time there is no danger. He will use The Power wisely. He has lived long and understands it dangers. And yes, he is indeed holding his Note in his outstretched hand. I take it and study it closely. The illustrations are exquisite. The signature is one with which I am familiar and clearly genuine. The wording contains a Promise which I consider carefully. One cannot be too sure of Promises. But in this case I believe I can trust the Signatory to keep the Promise. I therefore accept The Note and place in The Returner's outstretched palm the five Golden Coins that will give him The Power.

"Sorry," I hear myself saying, "I should have mentioned when you arrived here at Journey's End Holiday Park that the meters in the caravans only take one pound coins."

Contributors

**Ally Crockford** was born a healthy baby boy in 1862 in Leicester, England. At the age of three, tumors began to develop all over her body, leading her to exhibit her deformity under the stage name "The Elephant Man". In 1985 she was reborn a slightly dazed little girl, and muddled her way to Edinburgh, where, in 2008, she published a short story.

**Alistair Daniel** has an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has held the Charles Pick Fellowship at the University of East Anglia and is currently completing his first novel, 'Augustan'. Two of his short stories will appear soon in _The Stinging Fly_ and _Stand_.

**Keira L. Dickinson** works for the Oxford University Press as a production editor of academic titles she reads in the downtime. Her work to date involves a lot of half started magic realist novels, a few published short stories, and a children's book about a cat, an old man, and a fish called Winkles that rolls across the surface of the world.

**Michael Forester** is a deaf writer living in the New Forest. He commenced writing in the 1980s. Since the turn of the millennium Michael has written poetry, fiction and mind body spirit works. His third book, _If it wasn't for that dog_ , about his first year with his hearing dog, Matt, will be published just before Christmas 2008.

**Rhys Griffiths** currently resides in Oxford where he works for a publishing company as an editorial assistant. He is also studying a Creative Writing masters at Oxford Brookes University. Originally from Liverpool, his background lies in Theology, comics and triathlons and one day he hopes to combine all three in some significant way. He's not Welsh.

**Ania Leslie-Wujastyk** has loved writing stories since she was a child. She completed a BA in English Literature and an MA in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Sussex. _Losing My Voice_ was performed on stage by Sussex students. Ania is an Editorial Assistant at Continuum International Publishing Group.

Not much is known about **R.M.Morrison** , least of all his first two names. Born in 1982, he has spent most of his adulthood travelling in search of inspiration. From Wales to Washington, Mexico to Merseyside, Morrison has lived and blended into different cultures. After finally settling in Liverpool, he writes regularly for BadFormat! magazine and is Enter Publications chief copywriter.

**Mark Spencer** was born in the summer of 2008 in Oxford outside a boxercise class. He hails from the Midlands and the South Coast. He has four university degrees between himself, likes graphic novels and guitars, enjoys mornings, dislikes mornings and is twice the man you'll ever be.

While attempting to work what to do with himself, **Rob Stringer** has studied classical civilisation, creative and media writing, worked with hackers, priests, metal powders, corpses, and in a castle. He's written plays, composed a musical, bungee jumped naked, hitchhiked to Morocco, dived with sharks, learnt the recorder and likes profiteroles.

**Damien Warburton** only started writing this year and has until now hidden behind a pseudonym. This is the first story published under his real name. Soon to be added on CompletelyNovel.com are a new novel about a romance conceived in a maternity ward and an endless stream of short stories.

**Amanda Weeks** has had many short stories published in anthologies. Her first collection, Tracy's Tits and Other Stories is out now and is available from Amazon (ISBN 987-1-4092-2211-8). Her Welsh-language screenplay Catastroffi was broadcast on S4C in 2005. She won the Welsh Poetry Prize in 2007. Amanda lives with husband Carlos and son Travis in Pontypridd.

**Th** **e Society of Young Publishers**

Established in 1949, the Society of Young Publishers is a voluntary organisation, run by a committee of dedicated volunteers, to help, advise, inform and inspire anyone who is looking to break into the publishing industry or who is keen to progress within it. Membership is open to anyone who is either interested or currently working in the publishing industry, whether you have just started your first job in publishing or perhaps you are studying at university. The SYP is the ideal place to make new friends, meet new contacts and increase your skill-set for getting into, and progressing in the publishing industry.

We have two branches of the SYP, one in London and one in Oxford, each offering a variety of services to SYP members.

We offer both individual membership and corporate membership; please visit our website for more details, however, society membership does include:

**_Monthly Speaker Meetings_**

Every month at the SYP, we arrange a seminar to which we invite a guest speaker to discuss a topic of current interest in publishing. Check the website regularly for details of forthcoming events.

__**In**__ ** _Print_** **  
**The SYP's small format magazine (approx 5 issues a year), mailed free to UK members, keeps you up to date with SYP activities and what's going on in the rest of publishing.

**_Job Database_**  
Sign up for the SYP Jobs Bulletin! This is a free service available to members.

**Press emails, Trade discounts, Annual Conference, Contacts & much more...**

For more information visit our website at http://www.thesyp.org.uk or email oxfordchair@thesyp.org.uk

1 _Date clarification: is this the Julian or the Gregorian calendar? Old Style 21 March 1709 will be 21 March 1710 New Style but, for the Gregorian calendar in this century, add 11 days_.

2 _Speculative psychology alert! Please remove. See editorial guidelines_.

3 _Who was this? Reference?_

4 _Reference? Please follow Harvard style (of course, I don't need to tell_ __you__ _what that entails!!)._

5 _Register alert! 'Legendary' is both inappropriate and inaccurate. 'Notorious'? 'Celebrated'?_

6 _'Literally immeasurable'? If the Society's contribution cannot be measured, it cannot also be claimed to have been formidable. Please rephrase._

7 _US terminology alert! Please use UK terms and spelling. Here: 'trousers' or 'breeches'. By 'second floor' do you in fact mean 'first floor' – the latter would suggest an exuberant prank rather than a terrifying ordeal. By the way, was this incident independently witnessed? Reference?_

8 _'Most fashionable?'_

9 _Ah, Dr Johnson: also, as you will know, a Pembroke man._

10 _Once again, reference?_ _I can't find this quote in Johnson's 'Collected Letters', although mine is a somewhat battered edition and there seems to be a page missing..._

11 _Foreign compound-adjective alert! My Larousse has 'douche' only in the familiar 'shower' sense, but I don't see the relevance here. Please explain or rephrase._ _Reference?_

12 _Unwarranted inference alert! Is there any evidence that Cras Snr started the 'rumour' (note spelling)? Also, you_ __must__ _ensure you retain the proper academic register. We are a new resource and – while grateful for contributions – it is essential to the success of the enterprise that our reputation is authoritative from the start. Thank you!_

13 _If this is a quote, it should be in quotation marks and referenced. Come on, this is basic stuff! I must say I expected more from someone of your pedigree!_

14 _Reference! Reference! Reference!_

15 _Vagueness alert! Who was the plaintiff? Where was the case heard? You're beginning to drive me insane..._

16 _Surely, you don't mean the_ __electric__ _chair?!!!_

17 _Is that a quote? Who were 'the certain'? I note that we are still awaiting your references, both from Harvard and the École Normale Supérieure, and if there is a certain reluctance on the part of these estimable institutions to endorse your work I must say I'm not altogether surprised. On this evidence, it is sloppy, Dr Wales, very sloppy indeed!_

PPS. Notwithstanding the above, I would indeed be interested in your proposed entry on Sir John Mandeville's discovery of the Incas. Any chance you could get it to me by 5pm?

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